TWatGToN C8
THE WHEEL AND THE GREAT TOMB OF NAZARICK
A FAN FICTION BY BUF_BUODA
CHAPTER 8
AN: Double Upload!
Momonga's Quarters, Nazarick...
The Overlord of the Great tomb of Nazarick partook in a secret ritual. The stability of the Tomb depended on his success.
He rolled around on his bed.
'Even to me, this feels weird. It still feels good though so...'
As mundane as that sounds, that was the compromise that the part of him that still thought like a human had reached with the reality that he was an Overlord that needed neither sleep nor rest. It normally calmed him, and made him feel rested – though he would be hard-pressed to describe what exactly he felt.
Today, it was not enough to soothe the turmoil of his thoughts.
'Even though we supposedly prided ourselves on staying in-character, we were still too naive about it, huh?' Ainz thought dejectedly as he considered the plight of the NPCs – his family.
In the end, their NPCs (besides the Floor and Area Guardians) had simply become avenues to play out their fantasies. That didn't bother Ainz as much as the realisation that seeing their fantasies in real life made them seems so shallow and inadequate. The longer he spent in the New World, interacting with the people there, the more it became something he could not ignore. His duel with the Warrior Captain made it more glaring – Gazef had a depth that most of his children did not. What kind of parent wouldn't want something like that for their children?
He had thought briefly about resurrecting Gazef – no matter what the man said. As quickly as he considered it, he dismissed it. Such a move would be pointless. In the end, all he had was his hunch that the NPCs could grow into their own people only when they experienced different things, and had the space to form their own opinions about the world from there.
'Now that we are becoming an official kingdom, there will be ample opportunity for the personality of the Floor and Area guardians to flesh out – but what about others like the homunculus maids?' thought Ainz.
He stopped rolling around, and lay down staring at the ceiling.
His thoughts turned to his own creation, as they always did every time he considered the NPCs now. He had created a doppelganger he had named Pandora's Actor, and placed him as the guardian of the treasury. When making him, he had him simply fit what he thought of as cool at the time. Now, the whole affair only embarrassed him unbearably. Lately though, another feeling had been creeping up with the embarrassment – guilt.
'It's not like he has a choice about those parts of him,' thought Ainz, guilt gnawing at him for the embarrassment he felt about Pandora's Actor. 'How can I be embarrassed about him for something I did by myself? Isn't that wrong?' thought the Overlord.
He came to a decision.
'It seems I've become more comfortable making these off-the-cuff decisions ever since I saw my character sheet. That Luck stat was insane though – how would 100/100 luck even work in this world?'
He got off the bed and got to his feet, activating [Message] as he did.
['Pandora's Actor?']
There was no pause as a breathless, infinitely passionate voice replied almost immediately
['Mein Va... My Father! I am here!']
Scolding himself mentally for sighing internally, Ainz continued.
['I'll be coming to the treasury to see you now, Pandora. I just wanted to give you a heads up.']
['Hai!'], replied the doppelganger before Ainz cut off the message.
He sighed again, mentally preparing himself. When he was ready, he used his ring and teleported to the passage leading into the treasury.
The Treasury, Nazarick
His creator materialised at his assigned post – just in front of the entrance to the treasury. Since he had informed Pandora's actor of his coming, the doppelganger had spent the time till the visit arranging the already impeccably organised treasury.
His love for treasure was legendary, but his curiosity and intellect got bored sitting in the treasury all the time. He might not be a Floor Guardian, but he was (in his mind), fully capable of taking on almost any of them.
'The Treasury almost counts as a floor, right?' thought the doppelganger almost absent-minded. He came to no conclusion about that - though it didn't bother him. Most of his intellect was directed at trying to figure out why his father was coming over.
'I've got to remember what He said about speaking German,' thought Pandora.
There was a flash of darkness as the room dimmed. He glanced at the entrance, and the magnificent form of his father was there.
"Welcome to the treasury, Ainz-sama. Which of Nazarick's treasures will you intend to take today?!" asked the doppelganger.
Though he had tried, he could not keep out the excitement from his voice at the end there.
"Thank you, Pandora. I didn't come for any of Nazarick's treasures. Rather, I want to talk with you." Suiting his words, his father strode to a sofa and sat. Pandora's actor sat opposite him, his long 'fingers' resting on his knees.
His father took a deep breath – one of those gestures he adopted to make the humans more comfortable with him. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts.
"First of all, I am sorry for not visiting you often, even though you are my own creation. I have resolved to try making amends," he began.
Pandora's Actor grew perfectly still. Not still the way humans are still, rather still like a statue.
The truth was, Pandora had always realised that he was exposed to more knowledge than perhaps any other resident of Nazarick. During the times when the other Supreme Beings stopped visiting the Tomb, his father began to spend a lot of time in the treasury. He remembered when they crafted the golems that now bore the Divine Class Items of the other Supreme ones. He was there as one by one, the golems began to be put to use. He bore silent witness to the sorrow his father felt with each golem that saw use – they were signs that the other Supreme beings would not come back.
There was another world they called 'REAL'. From the mutters of his father, he gathered that most of the Supreme Beings – except perhaps the Nine – saw Yggdrasil as a game. Wherever this REAL was, it was somewhere all the Supreme Beings had to go. Even his father disappeared at least once every day – though were only 2 or 3 days Pandora could recall his father not showing up.
Once, he had tried to follow his father, casting the spell the Supreme Ones used to switch worlds. The Mana drain nearly killed him – and he felt like it hadn't even been enough to activate it yet, much less run the spell. He had tried taking on the forms of the other Supreme Beings – the result was the same. Finally desperate, he tried using the form of his father – even at only 80% of his father's stats, his Mana still exceeded the mana limit. He still failed.
He still remembered the day his father appeared in the treasury room, distraught beyond belief. He had paced about stiffly, muttering to himself before finally shouting out loud, his temper flaring "I CAN'T BELIEVE THOSE SHITTY DEVS WANT TO SHUT IT DOWN!"
Pandora was shocked beyond belief. All the Supreme Beings complained about some creature(s) called SHITTY DEVS. He had initially thought that they were like laws of reality that even the Supreme Ones had to follow. He soon realized that they were the enforcers, not the laws themselves. They maintained the thing called GAYM ENGEEN via things divine events that the Supreme Beings called UPDATES and PATCHES. He did not know what these shitty devs wanted to shut down, but it had agitated his father like nothing else had. Then came the most terrible words that he had ever heard - "I can't believe they want to shut down Yggdrasil," said his father in a sad voice.
Pandora was stupefied.
Yet in that moment, he had a glimpse of why the other Supreme Beings must have gone – they must have moved on from this world that was ending anyway.
Yet his father did not. Instead, He began to spend more time in Nazarick. He barely ever went for quests anymore, just sitting in the treasury, or in the throne room, brooding.
It was in those moments that Pandora first saw what must be the limits of the power of the Supreme Beings. They could not take on the Shitty Devs – powers who could decide to end the world.
When the shift had happened, Pandora felt it. Perhaps the others did not because they had nothing to look for. It felt like a memory of a memory – like when he had tried to use the [Log Out] spell that failed.
Since then, his feelings for his father had changed. That was when he first started thinking about him as his father primarily, instead of as only his creator. Because he had seen the limits of the power of the Supreme Beings, he knew Demiurge was wrong about this one thing – His father was not all knowing. As often as his father tried to tell the other guardians, they just paid him no mind. It was ironic in a way, given their devotion to every other thing he said.
All these flashed through his mind as soon as his father began to apologise. He opened his mouth to object, but his father forestalled him, lifting a hand up for silence.
"Since Shalltear's run in with those who controlled her, I have been thinking about a lot of things. I came face to face with the fact that we can be destroyed – if our enemy is motivated enough," continued Ainz.
"I had forgotten one of the most basic things – my limits. I made you when I was much younger than I am now – maybe that is why your current mannerisms make me feel so weird. Anyway, I made you the way you are, and I must love my cr... er, son the way I made him."
Complex feelings burst alight in the chest of the doppelganger as he considered the kindness of his father. But before he could accept them, he had to know something.
"Father," he began. "Why did you stay?" he asked in a small voice.
The question startled Ainz. Then it scared him.
Once he started with his apology, Pandora had gone very still, and Ainz could read no emotion from the doppelganger at all. Yet he ploughed on, ignoring the slight unease he felt. He could never have anticipated the question his creation asked. He knew that all of Nazarick was overjoyed that he stayed. He also knew the corollary to that – which was that they were all terrified of doing something that would make him leave. He considered obfuscating, but decided against it.
Striking a thoughtful pose, he considered how to answer Pandora in a manner that the doppelganger could understand.
"Umu," he began, buying a few frantic moments as he gathered his thoughts.
"Well, the Shitty Devs had announced the end of Yggdrasil. In truth, I stayed because I wanted to spend as much time in Nazarick as I could before it ended. I had no idea how to save Nazarick; and until we were transported here, I had no idea 'here' even existed," said Ainz truthfully.
The doppelganger considered the answer for a couple of moments, before asking another question.
"So father, what is the major difference between this world, Yggdrasil, and the world the Supreme beings called 'Real'?"
'Eh... What's with all these questions?' thought Ainz. 'I guess I did want to have a discussion like this with the Floor guardians eventually. Who would have thought that it would be Pandora who would bring it up?'
"I think that the major difference to me is the level of interaction," replied Ainz. He noticed the confusion in the body language of his creation, and continued by way of explanation.
"In the world called REAL, we could not interact with you at all. We also had absolutely no access to our power and stats and items from Nazarick. Everyone was forced into the avatar of what you would now call 'Human'. Yet we could interact fully with the world – it had to be as a human though," Ainz said thoughtfully as he tried to articulate his answer. He forced down the brief stab of guilt at his obfuscation of his origins.
"In Yggdrasil, We could interact with you, but our interactions were heavily limited. We could definitely not converse as we are now. To us, in Yggdrasil, Nazarick was our home, but it was not as tangible as the world you know as REAL. Our interactions with the world were also heavily limited," Ainz continued, glancing at Pandora. The doppelganger was listening with rapt attention.
"For this world, it combines both. We can interact fully with the world and its inhabitants, and we have access to our power."
Another difference suddenly came to Ainz in the brief pause after his last statement.
"Another major difference was in the nature of the enforcers of reality. In Yggdrasil, we called them Shitty Devs. They were present and visible. In the world you call REAL, the enforcers were not like that. It had even gotten to a point where people argued that there could BE no enforcers. I for one never really cared about the question. The enforcers, if they existed, had an extreme 'hands off' policy as far as I was concerned, and it suited me just fine. I think that the enforcers here might be the same too – hands off."
There was silence for a bit as creator and creation sat opposite each other, lost in thought.
"Why did you ask though?" asked Ainz as he glanced at Pandora.
"Just curious," said the doppelganger. "Besides," he continued, "this is the first time we're having a discussion like this."
"Why did you ask though?" asked his father, curiosity evident in his voice.
"Just curious," replied Pandora truthfully. The time spent in the treasury afforded him time to think about a lot of esoteric things.
"Besides," he continued, "this is the first time we're having a discussion like this."
"That's good," replied his father. He could hear the smile in his voice.
Pandora cocked his head, curious about the pleasure he could detect from his father.
"Curiosity is good," said his father by way of explanation. "It is something I didn't particularly write into you – after all, it would be cruel to write that and then station you here in the treasury. But it means that you are developing on your own. I am very happy about that."
The comfortable silence settled again as Pandora considered his father.
It suddenly dawned on him that as the only one of his type – as a Supreme Being – his father must be very lonely.
'I understand the animosity Albedo feels towards them now,' he thought, remembering those times before the end of Yggdrasil again.
Albedo loved his father so much it was very nearly a form of madness. Her lust could be a palpable force sometimes. She had gotten much more settled since father announced he would be reciprocating her feelings, but Pandora was just happy that his father could have someone at least. He briefly wondered about how Shalltear would be taking the development, but the train of thought was cut off when his father cleared his throat again – another of those completely unnecessary but thoughtful gestures his father had.
'He must have picked it up as a human,' thought Pandora. Something niggled at the back of his mind about that word 'human,' but her forgot as his father began to speak.
"Pandora, I would like to redeploy you from the treasury primarily," said his father.
Shock and fear reverberated in Pandora's chest – although an almost unbearable curiosity warred with them as well.
His father had continued speaking.
"You are one of the most intelligent in Nazarick. I want you to join Albedo and Demiurge in the planning of Nazarick's projects and affairs. I also want you in charge of discovering treasure – though of a different sort."
The curiosity drowned out the shock and fear as his father stood.
"Come with me, I've asked Albedo and Demiurge to meet with me already in my office, and it should be about time now," said his father.
Pandora stood immediately and followed his father out of the treasury.
9th Floor, the Great Tomb of Nazarick
"So, I'd like to hear your thoughts about the whole thing," said her beloved.
He sat at his desk, chin in hand as he listened for their responses.
She glanced at Demiurge and Pandora's Actor, the only other ones in the room – her beloved had sent the assigned maid out of the office for this.
The two nodded at her almost imperceptibly, giving her the chance to speak first.
"My love," she began, enjoying the opportunity to try out the nickname for the first time. Now that Momonga had actually acknowledged her love, she had become shy about the whole thing, much to her embarrassment. It had taken her lots of cuddling with her Momonga body pillow before she could work up the courage to – she still could not work up the courage to move to her love's quarters yet.
'Who would have thought that lust and love could separate like this? I still want him, but it feels different now,' thought Albedo.
"We know nothing about Citrinitas," she continued. "Without any knowledge of her, wouldn't it be dangerous to hand over Nazarick's finance to her?"
Demiurge nodded his agreement with the sentiment, his tail lashing behind him nervously. Pandora's Actor said nothing, contenting himself with watching the exchange.
Her love nodded.
"Your unease is reasonable, Albedo. However, Citrinitas was made as a merchant type. She was the one that managed the items and resources of Dupeel-san, and he was the wealthiest of all of us simply by trading items, information, and the like. Not to mention, he actually built her as a manager type – she can manage a guild, if need arises."
Albedo considered her love's response.
"Then, why had she never been deployed?" asked Albedo.
"Dupeel-san made her to be an assistant type for me initially," replied her love. "But she has no fighting ability at all, compared with the rest of you – even though she's also a level 100 NPC. In terms of raw combat ability, she's around the level of the Pleiades – but the rest of her levels are invested in intellect, merchant and administrative job classes and stats. She CAN fulfil the job – but that is not the most important reason."
Her love glanced at all of them.
"There are other roles and duties I want you and Pandora to focus on. You are now my partner, and soon to be wife, if you wish it. The role is different from just being the Guardian Administrator, especially now we are a kingdom of our own. Pandora is to be in charge of discovering treasure – human treasures as well – and developing them for the good of Nazarick. This means he will have to concentrate more on his Momon persona."
Albedo flushed, and her breathing quickened.
'Huh... Seems I am not embarrassed at all. Momonga-sama, TAKE ME NOW!'
She managed to keep herself in check though. Demiurge glanced at her and shook his head slightly in exasperation. She didn't care; she would be too excited to think for a few moments, so the arch devil might as well have his say.
"Ainz-sama, forgive me but this will take some getting used to," Demiurge said.
"What will?" asked her love. His voice sent bicorns galloping through her stomach. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep it together.
"Talking back to you, and treating you like one of us in these 'planning sessions'," replied the arch devil.
Her love's threw his head back and laughed, and she came dangerously close to one of those episodes that Shalltear would have called 'an underwear crisis,' but barely managed to hold it off. She would NOT lose her cool now that she was representing her love in the most intimate way possible. A part of her prodigious mind actually congratulated herself for such a realisation.
"Demiurge," he said, mirth still evident in his voice, "I trust all of you. It is nothing to me for us to throw words back and forth about ideas we may or may not have to better Nazarick. It is for the best this way."
The arch devil frowned slightly as he considered the response.
"As you say, Ainz-sama," he said reluctantly.
Albedo finally had herself under control, more or less. She asked another question that was on her mind.
"My love, what about those strangers you mentioned?"
"Ah yes," replied her love. "I sent Yuri to get them and take them to little Nazarick to await our pleasure. I will send Sebas to feel them out first, before we make our appearance. You three will be in charge of the project to handle them, headed by Pandora."
Albedo liked the plan, so she nodded.
Having gotten the first two things in his agenda off the list, Ainz smiled to himself as he got to the last one – his favourite, it so happened.
He cleared his throat.
"Now, have any of you ever seen your stats?" He asked the three before him.
They looked around at each other, before shaking their heads in the negative.
'I hope this works...' he thought.
...Flashback,
He had been trying to call up his character sheet again after the first time. Frustration welled up in his mind as gesture after gesture failed.
'Don't tell me that after being able to before, now I can't? Could it be I can only access it once I gain EXP?' thought Ainz in frustration.
His limiter activated and washed the rising frustration away, and Ainz wracked his mind for a work around.
'The Master Console! The names of all the members of Nazarick are listed there. Something might have changed about it! Albedo opened it the last time; how do I do it though,' thought Ainz.
As soon as the thought flashed in his mind, the knowledge was suddenly there.
'Eh? I know how to open the master console. How do I know it? Hold on, Ainz, Let's try it first.'
"[Guild: Access Master Console]!"
The strange spell worked. His guild ring flashed, and a screen projected before him. His hunch was correct – the master console had changed.
Excitement flared, and was suppressed by his limiter.
The very first, obvious change was that it had a completely new arrangement.
The screen was organised into tabs: FLOORS, MEMBERS, DEFENCE, FINANCE, and GUILD OPTIONS. Under FLOORS, all the floors were present as tabs, and their areas as tabs under the respective floor. The structure, FOF mapping, traps, and teleportation access of all the floors were there under their respective floor tab, though only the traps and teleportation access could be toggled on or off – the rest was simply information. He noticed the icon of an eye at the top corner of the console with a number inside it, and tapped it. It opened up a list of those currently viewing the console – 1, just him.
Closing the list, he went back to examining the rest of the console.
The MEMBERS tab had all the members of Nazarick listed, and grouped according to their positions. But more importantly, he could access his character sheet from there. He opened it up, and noticed the now familiar outline. However, there was something he hadn't noticed before. There was one option in the top corner: ALLOW DIRECT ACCESS TO CHARACTER SHEET.
Ainz stared at those words for a full 3 seconds in rising shock before his limiter kicked in.
He ticked the box.
End flashback...
Preparing himself, he cast [Silent - Guild: Access Master Console]. He had discovered that the qualifier allowed him to think his spells (at least the Guild ones, and the ones below the 9th tier) without needing to say them out, simply focusing on shaping the mana. The console came up, and he navigated to the MEMBERS Tab, opening Albedo's character screen, then ticking ALLOW DIRECT ACCESS TO CHARACTER SHEET, watching the succubus carefully.
Her eyes widened as the same thing that happened to him happened to her.
'I see. Once I tick those boxes, the knowledge of how to access their character screens enters their mind – just the same as what happened to me,' thought Ainz as the succubus flung out her hand and said quietly
"[Guild: Access Character Console]"
She gasped as her console came up, though it would only be visible to her until she shared it.
Demiurge watched Albedo carefully, trying to understand what the spell she cast was.
'Guild spells?' he thought to himself, his mind racing. There were no spells like that in Yggdrasil to the best of his knowledge.
Albedo gasped, moving her hands before her as though she was touching something.
"Albedo," he called, drawing her eyes.
"Look at the top right corner and tap that pair of eyes," said Ainz-sama, addressing Albedo.
Her hands moved as though she was doing so, and to Demiurge's shock, a screen materialized in front of her.
Moving to her side swiftly just ahead of Pandora's Actor, he glanced at the screen. It was her character sheet.
The arch devil looked at his master, struggling to keep down the feeling of awe that was threatening to overwhelm him. His master had done something none of them had ever known was even possible.
'No matter what he says, he is still a Supreme Being. He shows it in all these little ways – the gulf between us and Him. Truly, I have the best master. I will always be thankful that he stayed with us!' thought Demiurge in a feeling of intense devotion and awe.
Ainz saw the awe in the eyes of Demiurge and Pandora as they looked at Albedo's character sheet, then at him. Albedo was mute, staring at him till it looked like her eyes were going to fall out. Sighing internally, he opened the character sheets of Demiurge and Pandora, and then enabled their access as well. He watched the same thing happen to the 2 guardians. He gave them a few minutes to look at their screens before clearing his throat to call their attention to himself.
They glanced up at him, excitement shining in their eyes.
"This way, you can actually see yourself developing. You have not seen this before so you cannot notice the differences, so let me tell you the biggest ones," said Ainz to the raptly attentive guardians. Their attention was an almost tangible entity pressing down on him.
He adopted the pose WISE KING 3 as he began to explain the biggest differences to them.
"The first you should notice is your level. It should be 100/100. Now, it is simply 100/(I). This means that the extent of your development depends solely on you. I am unsure what (I) stands for – I am going to refer to them as tiers – but there at least 2 of them. I am on the second,"
He called up his character screen and made it visible, beckoning the guardians over.
Pandora was floored completely. First, father had done something that allowed them do something only the Supreme Beings had been able to do – access their own character screens. They could appraise opponents as guardians, but could never really know the full breakdown of their power in stat form like this. In one moment, his father had changed that.
Now, looking at his father's screen, he saw for the first time the real gulf in power between their father and the rest of them.
"What I have noticed," began his father, "is that as you do things that relate to your status stats, they increase of their own accord irrespective of your race and job classes. In addition to this increase, this bar under the level here fills up. I do not yet know what will happen when a level increase occurs, but seeing as I am close to one, perhaps we will find out sooner rather than later."
Pandora looked at said bar on his father's screen. It was nearly full, as he said.
But a new status stat caught his attention.
"Ainz-sama," he said in an awed voice, "What does that 'Divinity' stat mean?"
As he asked, Demiurge's eyes lit up. His tail trashed about wildly, and the arch devil looked like he wanted to fly apart – such was his excitement.
"Honestly, I don't know," replied his father.
Demiurge could barely control himself. He had nearly thought his eyes were deceiving him until Pandora asked the most obvious thing to ask after seeing Ainz-sama's stats – the Divinity status stat.
Hearing Ainz-sama answer that he did not know, he could not contain himself anymore.
Falling to his knees, he addressed his master – no his god!
"Ainz-sama, I am sorry to interject, but I believe it simply confirms what we have always known – no matter how much you might deny. It confirms that you are a god!"
Intermission
"You seem really busy, eh?"
The question seemed to come from everywhere at once, but the hearer knew exactly who was speaking.
He just sighed.
The speaker laughed – a full, rich sound that did not escape the space where the discussion was taking place.
"You are like a child in the playground. It is so much fun watching you enter the field after so long just watching," the speaker said, mirth still colouring the voice.
"I feel the same way to be very honest," replied the hearer. His voice was more subdued than that of the speaker. It didn't seem to matter to either of them as there was silence for a while.
"You've seen what Lu..." began the speaker.
The hearer cut him off.
"I have," he replied simply.
"Will you intervene?" asked the speaker after a long pause.
"No I will not. They are sufficient to deal with whatever that grouch wants to do," replied the hearer.
"Besides," he continued "he's playing my game now – and I make the rules."
There was a sense of agreement and pride from the speaker as he listened to the hearer.
"You will do well," he said as he retreated back to the background.
AN: So, that's it for now. Please read and review, your reviews keep me encouraged, and help me work through the exhaustion of work to try and write. Hopefully, I will have another upload ready for next month soon.
PS: Pray for, and encourage medical personnel that you know.
The place fell silent.