As Momonga was thinking about these things, the maid tilted her head as if to ask what's the matter. As long as someone was close to her for a certain period of time, the maid automatically adopted this position. Recollecting his memories, Momonga was amazed by Meromero's meticulous attention to detail. There should be a few other hidden positions programmed in as well. Although he wanted to see all her postures, there wasn't much time left.
Momonga's eyes turned to the semi-spherical holographic clock displayed on his left wrist and confirmed the current time.
Indeed, there was no time to idle around.
"Thank you for your hard work."
Momonga said this phrase of farewell filled with many sentiments and walked past the maid. Of course, the other side did not respond. Nevertheless, Momonga believed that a farewell was in order since it was the last day.
Leaving the maid behind, Momonga moved on.
Before long, a giant staircase with a luxurious red carpet covering the middle appeared before him. Momonga slowly walked down the flight of stairs and reached the tenth floor ─── the lowermost floor in the the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.
The place he arrived at was a wide, open lobby with a few servants waiting for him.
The first servant to catch his attention was an elderly butler dressed gracefully in his traditional uniform.
His hair was entirely white, just like his immaculate beard. But the old man's back was straight as an arrow and strong as a steel sword. He had visible wrinkles on his hollow face, which made him seen gentle in appearance, but his eyes were as sharp as an eagle after its prey.
Following behind the butler like shadows were six maids. However, their equipment was completely different than what the earlier maid had.
Their hands and feet were covered in gauntlets and greaves decorated with gold, silver and black metals. Donned in armours with a maid uniform motif, they wore white headdresses instead of helmets. Each maid was holding a different type of weapon, establishing the image of a maid warrior.
Their hairstyles were also quite different from each other: buns, ponytail, straight hair, braids, curls, French twist, etc. But something they all had in common was their transcendent beauty.
Additionally, the maids were divided into types such as flirty, sporty, traditional and other personalities.
Although they were NPCs and their designer had made them all playful and unique, their main purpose was to fight intruders.
In Yggdrasil, guilds in possession of a base equivalent to a castle or greater were given several special benefits.
One of these benefits were NPCs that guarded the base.
The undead monsters in the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick fell under this category. These so called 'spawn NPCs' had a level cap of 30 and respawned automatically at no cost after a fixed period of time, but since it wasn't possible to change their appearances and AI programming, they did not pose much of a threat against other intruding players.
On the other hand, another special benefit was the power to create an original NPC. When a guild takes over a base with a castle-level rank, they could create NPCs with a collective maximum level of 700. Since the highest level was 100, you could create a maximum of five Lvl. 100 and four Lvl. 50 NPCs as an example.
When creating an original NPC, in addition to their appearance and AI, it was even possible to change their armours and weapons. This allowed a guild to create far stronger NPCs and assign them to guard key locations.
There was no need to create these NPCs with combat in mind. Another guild who occupied a castle, the Great Cat Kingdom, turned all their NPCs into cats or other feline creatures. It could be said a guild was given the exclusive right to create the image and atmosphere of their castle.
"Hmm."
Looking at the butler and the maids bowed down before him, he brought his hand to his chin while. Since he had always used teleport to move from room to room, Momonga didn't come here very often, which caused him to look at them somewhat nostalgically.
Momonga's hand operated the console, opened a page that was only accessible to guild members and activated one of the options. As he did, the names of the servants appeared above their heads.
"Ah, so that's his name."
Momonga had forgotten this name. He made a bitter yet nostalgic smile as he recalled the disputes he had with his companions over deciding the name for this NPC.
Sebastian, the butler, also served as the house steward.
The six maids next to Sebastian were under his direct command; the combat maid unit called the 'Pleiades'. In addition to them, Sebastian had several manservants and assistant butlers under his supervision.
The text log had a more detailed setting, but Momonga wasn't in the mood to take a closer look. There was little time left until the server's shutdown, and he wanted to sit down somewhere else.
All NPCs (including the maids) contained intricate details since there had been plenty of guild members who were fond of elaborate settings. Thanks to the fact that there were many illustrators, graphic designers and programmers in Ainz Ooal Gown, they were able to obsess over the visuals and go all out.
Originally, Sebastian and the maids were the last line of defense against intruders. However, because they were unlikely able to stand against enemy players who managed to come this far, their only real purpose was to buy some time. But since no invaders were ever able to reach this point, they had never received orders and had been just waiting endlessly in this place.
Gripping his staff, Momonga felt pity towards these NPCs, even though that kind of thought was foolish. NPCs were simply data and the only reason to believe they had emotions was due to their excellently designed AI.
However—
"As the guild master, it's about time I started ordering NPCs around."
While ridiculing himself for his arrogant comment, Momonga issued an order:
"Follow me."
Sebastian and the maids respectfully bowed, showing they have accepted the command.
The act of moving them from this location meant disregarding what the guild members had in mind at the start. Ainz Ooal Gown was a guild that emphasized on majority vote. It was forbidden for one person to mess around with what everyone had created together out of stubbornness.
But today was the day everything would end. Momonga believed that everyone would forgive him if it was on such a day.
Pondering these kinds of things, Momonga led the sound of several footsteps following him.
Eventually they arrived at a massive, dome-shaped hall. A large four-colored crystal embedded in the ceiling was emitting rays of white light. There were seventy-two alcoves in the wall, most of them filled with statues.
Every statue imitated the appearance of a devil, and there were sixty-seven of them.
This room was called the 'Lesser Key of Solomon', also known as the Lemegeton. It was taken from the title of a famous grimoire.