A blue flame spurted out of Narberal’s open palm, brightly illuminating her chin, and faintly allowing everyone to see each-other.

Lupi took the initiative in breaking the silence, and asked Pandora what would happen next.

A sharp claw gently grazed her fur, creating a tingling sensation.

A gloomy voice echoed from behind…

“Now, the gigantic Nctosa will crawl through the fabric of space, and clench your soul with her sludgy tendrils, dragging it to feed her father!”

Towards the end of the sentence, Solution couldn’t hold her poor attempt at a scary voice anymore, and covered her mouth elegantly to laugh in her fist.

“Fufu!”

“Very funny…”

Solution’s innocent giggle was abruptly cut by Pandora’s insertion:

“No, no, she’s right!”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s not an elder god, but it does have tentacles, and it doesn’t quite look like a beetle… more like a fly! Yes, that should do!”

With a concerned look and a faint tone, Beta asked a question that well deserved an explanation:

“What do you mean-su?”

While she wouldn’t do this all the time, unlike Shalltear, Beta had a verbal tic of sometimes adding “su” at the end of her sentence, but it was mostly when she felt uneasy.

“AH! Well, allow me to show you! Ho ho!”

Given the situation at hand, Pandora’s Actor surely seemed in a good mood - that’s what someone would think, without having dealt with the man before. However, knowing he was a perpetual obsessive actor, none of the Pleiades seemed offset by this.

Pandora pulled out a sketchbook and started scribbling with rapid and ample hand movements, directed from his entire arm, not just his wrist.

Who knows how long he kept that in his pockets, waiting for such an occasion.

“Aha, like zis! (…) Vith ein bisschen thick fur (…) Mhmm! Done!!!”

All of the Pleiades were crammed together, trying to pop their heads to the side or above to get a better view.

“Taaa-daaaah!”

On the surprisingly large sketchbook that somehow fit in Pandora’s pockets, there was a scribble that didn’t quite resemble anything in particular.

It was something very much akin to a child’s drawing, with a simple combination of straight and squiggly lines, with a cartoony expression which had the biggest eyes that would fit in the circle that was its head.

Nobody should understand what this was, that is, unless they saw through the eyes of their inner child, maybe? Even so, that is only a far fetched thought.

“…a behemoth fly?”

Along with even Pandora, five heads were now deeply staring to the back.

This made Narberal blush.

With her lips in the shape of the number 3 and her index fingers rotating around one-another, she abruptly muttered:

“Well, er… they have… 6 legs and…two slim arms, and… round, fluffy bottoms, with short wings placed near their menacing looking eyes, which… actually flap very fast since they are so fat and fluffy… and need to flap fast to fly, which makes them look totally not menacing, but… gyaaah, stop staring!”

As if Narberal’s wish was heard, a loud knock sounded from the exit to Pandora’s Chamber, immediately followed by a sound reminiscent of a coin slowly spinning on a table, right before it topples over.

Solution sharply turned her head, her long curls lagging behind, and commanded sharply:

“Entoma!”

She responded by raising her antlers.

“Do you have any message scrolls on you? Can you try to contact Ainz-sama?”

Entoma fiddled through her bag of holding, while humming.

“Yes! Calling now!”

As she raised the [message] scroll above her head, it dissolved into thin air, and a red circular pattern appeared next to her left ear.

The spell was dialing Ainz, who, on the other end, would respond by raising his hand to his ear.

A few seconds passed, after which Entoma lowered her arm in disappointment.

“Awww. Not working!”

“No way! Is someone using an interference barrier?”

But it was working…

The spell [message] had taken effect and ringed Ainz on the other side. The problem, however, was that there was no response.

Meantime, inside Nazarick’s Throne Room:

“As predicted, Entoma just tried to contact me.”

“As expected of my lord, Ainz-sama! To be able to so easily deduce the Pleiades’ movements!”

*But, it was you who saw this(…)* - is what Ainz wanted to say, but instead, he sighed, knowing it would lead to no result.

Demiurge raised his head and placed his hand upon his chest, as a sign of profound respect.

“Well then, I believe it is time to move to the next phase.”

“Hmm! - confirmed Ainz with an elevated voice - “let’s observe how this carries on(…)”

(…)

Outside Pandora’s Chamber, the hallway no longer opened leftwards, towards the artificery, but only forwards.

The blood smudges made by Pandora while trying to mop the stains with an already blood soiled mop were nowhere to be seen.

They hadn’t been cleaned. Beta would surely have sensed even the smallest particle of human blood.

The Great Tomb of Nazarick was designed in such way that it would survive being sieged by approximately 60 to 100 maximum level players.

This was, in part, due to the NPCs and members of Ainz Ooal Gown that inhabited Nazarick when Yggrdasil was still open, but it was also vastly due to the topology of the tomb.

The Great Tomb of Nazarick was an underground fortress, divided into 10 floors. The navigation between floors was done through multiple passages leading from one to another, creating a web of intersecting paths that acted as a maze.

In addition to the challenge of orientation, the tomb was filled to overflowing with traps, ranging from your standard booby traps, such as pitfalls and mechanical weapons triggered by a switch, up to high-tier NPCs that would spawn upon entering certain rooms, such as primal elementals of fire, earth, water and air, of levels starting at 40, and climbing up to 80.

If the peril wasn’t yet sufficient, the rooms and hallways had the ability to move around, in order to render the orientation within the maze nearly impossible. This could only be triggered from the Throne Room, by either Ainz or Albedo, who had access to Nazarick’s defences.

Navigation through the Great Tomb of Nazarick was, as such, so difficult, that the PC members of Ainz Ooal Gown all possessed a velvet ring on their left hand’s ring finger, allowing them to teleport to any place within Nazarick.

The NPCs were locked to a station, guarding from their position. There was no necessity for them to travel all the way from the first to the last floor.

When Ainz set to fortify Nazarick as the only remaining player, he gave every guardian a teleportation ring. The Pleiades, however, as battle maids, they only tended to the Royal Quarters and the Throne floor; the two largest floors in Nazarick, which would normally have the room defence systems offline.

However, these were now active outside Pandora’s room, inside the Throne floor. On top of that, the [message] spell did not connect. This could only mean one thing, which the Pleiades all knew very well, yet they could not believe this disastrous scenario:

Nazarick was overtaken, and lord Ainz was dethroned.

(…)

Paired in two, with Pandora leading at the front, the group was slowly advancing through the corridor.

While the rest were tightly packed together, Pandora’s Actor was far ahead into the darkness, almost far enough for a human to not be able to see him anymore.

In the meantime, Narberal, who was their source of light, was embracing her flame tightly into her arms and against her chest, with her half closed eyes not moving away from it.

With less air to burn, and Nabe’s rapid short breaths pressing above the flame, the blue fire sprout was flickering, close to being put out, if not for Narberal’s magic.

Despite this, Pandora didn’t have any difficulty moving forward.

There was, in fact, not much purpose to the light.

Narberal and Pandora’s Actor’ s species was nocturnal, as were Werewolves and Arachnoids, all possessing an enhanced vision that allowed them to see in the dark as if it were dimly lit, so long as there was the slightest trace of reflected light entering their pupils.

Even without that, Entoma had tremorsense, allowing her to feel the tiniest vibrations that each of her steps were making, and deduce the shape of the environment from the received wave, much like a form of echolocation.

Solution also possessed [true sight] - a skill that bestowed her with the ability to see through completely obscured, even magical darkness, so long as there were traces of mana in the environment.

The reason why Narberal was quick to summon a flare, was, hence, one other than to provide a mechanical advantage; a much simpler one, in fact:

She didn’t like the dark.

Trying to relieve the tension of the atmosphere, Beta bumped Narberal with her elbow, in a friendly manner, after which she laid her arm around her neck, slightly pulling her closer, such for a discrete gossip not to be heard all the way up to the front:

“Say, do you believe any of what Pandora said about some kind of… Demon!!?? Which looks like a giant fly??? Hahah, nonsense-su! He even admitted he made it up!”

Narberal’s eyes kept fixating on the flame.

After a long pause, she opened her lips just enough for her voice to come through:

“Mmm… Thing is, something he said did make sense…”

[end of chapter 3]