The glossy satin sophas ornate in pitch-black hellhorse hide were torn into hundreds of shreds, with broad claw marks ripping through the tight fabric. The golden decorations of the colonnades were covered by a miscellaneous juice of yellow tint and unrecognizable smell.

Traces of Tuare’s new culinary breakthrough - the ‘pizza’ - were split into their respective components across the marble tiles, along with shattered pieces of various condiment jars.

There are some leftovers of what one might assume to have been a couch, yet no one could tell for sure.

This used to be one of the many lounges in the royal quarters of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

The Pleiades were standing mute in front of the scene - all but Yuri and CZ2128, who appeared to be missing.

“Who would dare do this? Defile a room of the Great Tomb of Nazarick? They ought to be slowly crushed feet first by the fangs of a giant walrus! We must report immediately to lord Ainz.”

Narberal was furious, especially as before her eyes laid the most disordered scene she had ever witnessed, which was like a stake in the heart for someone obsessed with order and elegance such as Narberal Gamma.

“Wait, what is that?”

Lupusregina’s [Keen Senses] picked up a whistled jingle coming from a couple rooms away.

The whistles, at times, turned into vocals “La, la laaaaa!”, sung by a baritone male voice, or, better said, a Tenor with a wide range.

Following the senseless song, Beta popped her head through a half opened door, leading to the open hallway where the sound was coming from.

This hallway was connecting to the artificery, as well as to the legendary room of Pandora’s Actor, where no one but Pandora himself had set foot before, to the knowledge of the Pleiades.

At the end of the hallway, the tone of the song progressively shifted upwards, until it reached Pandora’s natural voice.

He seemed to be swooping something with a mop. On a better glance, splatters of blood could be seen all over the floor.

It was far too much blood for the mop to keep up, so, he wasn’t actually cleaning, so much as scattering the stains all over. He was trying, though!

“PANDOR- (muffled noises)”

Just before Lupi could shout any further, Solution covered her mouth and reproached her with a “Shhh! Quiet!”.

“Wait a moment.” - whispered Solution - “If he is up to something suspicious, we wouldn’t want him knowing we are here. We should remain silent and follow him slowly.”

“Aaaaaah, I seeee! Of course-su! That’s what I was thinking as well!”

“Why are we whispering?” - interrupted a male voice from behind.

“PANDORA!!! Why are you here?” - scared Beta

“TO BEEEE, OR NOT TO BEEEE” - oh, that IS the question. How deep, Lupusregina-san-N!”

Recovering from the shock and analyzing the situation, Narmeral regained her focus and immediately proceeded to jump back, reaching for her spellbook.

“Stand back! Why was the lounge torn apart? Why were you cleaning up blood? Speak!”

Gasp!

“Mercy! Mercy! Have mercy! Oh, I’m sorry, papa! I never wished it to end this way! Why, cruel world?”

Pandora’ Actor, as his name suggests, was putting burning passion into his words and gestures, right now, swiping his ‘sweat’ off where his forehead should be behind his mask.

“Well, why the silence now? Didn’t you want to know about the demon?”

“D…demon?” - replied the Pleiades simultaneously

Even someone as sharp as Narberal couldn’t hope to understand the current situation.

“Well, come on, now! Follow!”

With a skilled leg dance, Pandora turned a full 180 and started marching in the opposite direction with straight knees, and muttering “Eins, zwei, drei! Eins, zwei, drei!”

He was walking right towards the pool of blood, which Lupusregina would recognise the scent of from a thousand. It was, by all means, human.

“This wayyy, uhum!”

He tried to speak like a gentleman, in a weird old-fashioned accent.

“Uhh, why is there blood all over?” - asked Lupi as her ears twitched under her cap.

Expecting a solid explanation, Beta was put off with a strongly gesticulated, open arms shrug:

“Oh, that! Ah, don’t worry about that! This was just an experiment from earlier today - it has nothing to do with our little monster. Funny coincidence, ey?”

And there goes that mystery.

Pandora climbed a short set of stairs, behind which laid something that made all of the Pleiades suddenly stop following. Zeta had a bit of a delayed reaction, since she wasn’t worried much like the others, only stopping due to a habit of following the group.

“What’s wrong? We’re almost there!”

No response. Nobody wanted to make a move.

Why is that? Why were one of Nazarick’s strongest battle forces, the Pleiades, stuck in fear?

That is because, behind Pandora’s Actor was a gigantic gate, usually held closed by a massive metallic lock, which was now unlocked and the door was held ajar by Pandora’s hand.

Pandora’s room.

Also known as Pandora’s Chamber, a name forged for it to sound more menacing; a place it was forbidden to set foot in, by all NPCs, including the Guardians, and even Albedo. To anyone’s knowledge, Ainz hadn’t entered the room ever since the making of Pandora’s Actor.

With a gulp, Beta was the first to be brave, and slowly raised one foot up the stairs.

Entering Pandora’s room, your eyes were stung by a bright neon pink. The central piece was a princess bed, tucked within a white bride’s voal, that looked to be made of many inflated cushions.

The fattest cat laid backwards in the middle of the bed on a pair of gigantic plasticky pillows tinted milky pink and magenta.

The bed cover dropped onto the two inch thick wormy carpet that let one’s foot sink in on the first step.

“Araaa, so soft!!” - Solution shouted while slapping her blushing cheeks.

It was impossible to keep focus under the larm of the purring cats.

“One, two, (…) five, seven…”

As Narberal was counting, a raging growl was heard from Beta to the left, and a shy squeak from Narberal behind.

“Cute…”

Next to the curtains ripped straight out of a fairy tale stood gigantic, silver make-up stations with brass mirrors and a dozen quirky brushes, hair undulators, and certain glowing tools that must have been some of Pandora’s proudest inventions.

Purple and crimson carpets laid upon the previous carpet, making a wormy mush of textile that would slip between your toes, on top of which a classy tea party table, with rococo armchairs all around, enough for seven. A special, pearl-shaped cat house occupied a large portion of the room, while the entire atmosphere stenched of the irritating smell of way too many flowers.

Pandora’s Actor sat on a tall, cream chair - the only thing not pink in the room - behind which bright pink lamps created the image of him being an idol lit by the spotlights of his concert.

“Welcome… to my humble abode…” - gloomed Pandora in a deep, breathy voice, in attempt to replicate a cliche mafia boss.

“Uhm, is your room always like this, Pandora-san?” - asked Solution in her usual bored, yet now, also, disturbed voice, while in the background, some growling and meowing made the atmosphere ever more disturbing.

“I don’t know what you might mean, miss!”

This time, Pandora was using a cowboy accent, slightly nasal and in the back of the throat, mimicking a general western movie ‘cool guy’, just before continuing in the same accent:

“Right then, where were we?”

A sudden interruption came from Entoma, who was nowhere to be seen all this time:

“This room lead where?”

Entoma was standing by an ominous dark burgundy door, that somehow slipped everyone’s notice until now, perhaps due to their vision being deteriorated by all the bright pink.

Pandora immediately jumped with a wide step and a comic-book-esque extension of his hand to block the passage.

“Oh, that is no place to go, Entoma-chan! Now, why don’t we come back and have a seat at the tea table.”

Of course, he was talking like an 80s British sitcom parent scolding their child, using a deep, articulated tone.

“Come on, everyone! Chop chop!”

The Pleiades sat, or, rather, sinked into the armchairs. Narberal let out a cute “Ummph!” due to the surprise she had when falling into the chair.

An obese cat immediately jumped onto her lap.

In fact, all the cats were obese.

“Oh, that’s not nice, Poodles! My apologies, this spoiled brat is used to sitting on people’s laps.”

Narberal was desperately trying to maintain a straight face and not succumb to the cuteness. Despite that, her soft voice still cracked:

“I…it’s fine, really…”

“Would you fancy some tea, Entoma-chan?”

He was now using his regular voice, but this was sort of the calm before the storm.

In any case, Zeta’s reply was a short, pitched “Mmmhm!”, immediately after which she dug her pincers into the scorching tea, spilling most of it over her chin and the table.

She had gotten better at pitching her new voice, so it would sound cute as it did before, but she still needed some practice.

“Biscuits, anyone? I got some good chocolate biscuits! Double chocolate, in fact. Friskies really likes chocolate, even though he knows that isn’t good for him, isn’t that so, Friskies?”

Falling into the roleplay, Beta raised her hand like a child waiting for the teacher’s approval.

“Uhm, sorry, Pandora-sempai, but, uh, you were going to tell us about the demon(…)”

“Ah! So, so! Natürlich! Ahem.”

His back arched as he placed his elbows on the table, with his 8 fingers crossed, upon which he laid his chin, taking the pose of an evil mastermind.

Naturally, what came after, was the horror story voice.

“Long time ago(…)”

“Achyoo!”

Everyone’s gazes were shortly directed at Entoma.

“Sowwy! I think we are allergic to cat!”

Slurp.

Deciding to ignore the likely acidic mucus draining off from Entoma’s chin - because the table was sizzling on the spot where it landed - Pandora resumed his story:

“Long time ago, a group of brave adventurers set out to attain the glory of creating the most incredible guild Yggdrasil would ever see. They called themselves… The Nine’s Own Goal.

They would meet almost every day to embark on mighty adventures! On several occasions, they sat ‘round a table to forge their mysterious ultimate plan, that no one like us may hope to understand… every Thursday and Friday, after Bukubukuchagama’s ‘ballet lesson’.

On an usual day, their strongest sorcerer, with the appearance of a skeleton, my wonderful creator, Momonga-sama, would carry out one glorious mission after another, collecting data crystals, which he would later sell for gold or items for the guild. Oh! How noble!”

Pandora mimicked catching a tear from around where the eye sockets of his mask stood.

“However, on some very special days, things were slightly different… You see, my children, Yggdrasil used to have those things called ‘events.’”

In Pandora’s eyes, due to the sheer age gap between himself and the Pleiades, he saw it fit to use the term ‘children’.

He saw himself as their senpai; their mentor and guardian.

This was not valid just for the Pleiades. He also talked this way to the wolf spiders that would tend to cleaning his room.

You could say, he was a bit old-fashioned, and he was eager to boast his brilliance in front of a younger generation.

He was old.

Nevertheless, the Pleiades weren’t at all phased by this. They listened closely, with their mouths slightly open, as this was a story of their creators.

“These events - they would occur at specific times of the year. On ‘Krisp Moss’, or ‘Valet Tyne’s Day’.

That was when gods from other realms came to ours. The fiendish… fiends… they attempted to wreak havoc!

And so, adventurers came from all around the continent, seeking to claim the prize of victory!

Those who took the heads of the evil gods were rewarded by the sky! Golden armor, flaming swords and vials of mythril would shower on the victor!”

Normally, in Yggdrasil, killing a creature would reward you with data crystals, which were used as a currency to trade for items. This was because the game allowed players to create their own items, or use transmogrification to change the appearance of the items without changing their properties.

Because of this, any items dropped by an NPC would have to be unique, in order for the players to opt for those, rather than trading with a blacksmith or another player. This would mean that special rewards would only drop on events, unless they were obtained from a gacha machine.

“So, what about it, you ask? Well, this particular event occurred on a foggy night, called ‘Hollow Weeny’”

“Hollow Weeny(…)” - repeated a surprised whisper from Narberal.

“The evil ‘Amon’ had resurrected for a 5th time. A spectacular decorative pair of black evil wings would drop as an ultra-special prize. Perroroncino-sama deeply desired to add them to his inventory(…)”

Pandora took a deep breath, while extensively arching backwards. The Pleiades paid close attention, knowing something important was about to drop.

“And they SLASHED and DASHED and fired their bows! SWOOSH! WHOOSH! KABOOM! The magic casters were supporting from the rear, while Nishikienrai-sishou snuck behind the back of the demon, and (…)”

Narberal flinched at the name of her creator. She was clearly captivated.

This couldn’t be said about Lupusregina, whose eye was twitching, while her lips mimicked her disappointment.

“Uh, excuse me, Pandora sempai… How do you know about all of this?”

Pandora’s Actor slammed his immense hands against the table, and exclaimed with burning passion:

“I guessed!”

In the silence that settled, Lupusregina wanted to follow up on her question, but she wasn’t quick enough.

“Right, where were we? Ah, yes, when the demon was defeated and sent back to hell.

Now, there is one important detail I forgot to mention about this demon(…)”

Zing!

With a faint sizzle, the lights went out, and Pandora joyfully added:

“Remind me to continue later!”

[end of chapter 2]