Upon returning to his office, Momonga decided that now would be the best time to start working on his own skills. Everything else had been either shelved away for later or taken care of.
As he sat down in his chair, he sent a quick message to Albedo. Even though he did not have a clear idea of where to start, he did not want to be disturbed by anyone.
{ Albedo. I will be working on Nazarick's skills for some time, but I cannot give an exact estimate for the time being. Regardless, can you please make sure I'm not disturbed? }
{ Of course, Lord Momonga. I'll make sure no one disturbs you, not even those two brats. } Albedo instantly replied to Momonga.
There was no doubt in his mind who she meant by the two brats. Albedo's dislike for Milim's and Ramiris' careless attitudes wasn't exactly hidden.
Still, there were more important things to worry about at the moment. As much as Momonga wanted to remedy their poor relations, it was not hanging in a precarious balance which would have required a great deal of attention.
Upon receiving confirmation from the succubus, Momonga leaned back in his chair and concentrated on the task at hand. The task in question was researching a certain skill that belonged to Ramiris, and that skill was none other than |Small World|. He needed to deal with a certain roadblock, though.
At first he was interested in finding out whether or not Ramiris' |Small World| was capable of generating monsters. From there on out, a plethora of options could open to him that would hopefully not require any reverse engineering on his end. Unfortunately, there was no relative indication that Ramiris' |Small World| could generate any sorts of monsters.
For a moment, Momonga considered consulting the skill's proprietor about it, naturally in a way that would not draw too much attention from the currently unsuspecting fairy.
He did at least have some leeway with Ramiris being indebted to Tempest and essentially Nazarick itself. After all, it would not be out of left field for him to take advantage of favors, especially from someone who lived in this world far longer than him.
Not wanting to delay things any longer, Momonga lifted up his bony fingers, ready to send a [Message] to the fairy.
At the last second, however, he rescinded himself from establishing communications.
'Perhaps… I could just take it upon myself to learn more about the fundamental nature of monster spawning. It would be interesting to dive into something completely new, and it kind of reminds me of my Yggdrasil dungeon diving days, in a sense.'
While he could already put some of his Yggdrasil knowledge to good use, he also felt more confident at tackling more complex issues that would have surely made him blow steam out of his ears before arriving in this world.
First things first, he thought about discerning the differences in monster spawning patterns inside and outside of Nazarick.
'The monsters spawning outside are essentially random while inside the tomb itself was already following a pattern. If I recall correctly, that pre-established pattern was set out way back when the whole thing was just a bunch of data in a game.'
Momonga laid back on his chair which made a slight creaking noise. He wondered if there was something missing that could shed light with this given information. It was frustrating when he started to feel like he was already coming to a dead end.
He decided to veer off from his current train of thought by looking into his skills. To his credit, there were already several instances where he self-inspected his skills and got off without inducing self-harm.
Some mental stress was to be expected during those times, and it was only that one time where a major incident had spawned out of the combined efforts between him and Veldora. The way that he would be doing this would not quickly lead to such a destructive conclusion.
'I'm just hoping that something helpful pops up somewhere as I do this.' He began navigating the massive maze that was the skill in hopes of finding the right core.
Only partly aware of his surroundings, he heard the office door open. The familiar steps of Albedo echoed, but it was clear that she was trying to not make any noise.
Already knowing that she was going to sit with him as usual, Momonga continued with his research.
For some time, the undead went through core after core searching for the mechanism that regulated the pop monster spawning. It was starting to look like there weren't any direct control mechanisms and that random spawning followed some arbitrary rules.
But eventually, an idea popped into his head.
'That's it! I need to find the list of pop monsters and their spawning locations.'
Using the already established search system, he looked for the list and to his relief found it in one of the cores that was responsible for some of the physical tomb's core mechanics.
His inner salaryman started to kick in as he lazily browsed through the list. It almost made him sick when this reminded him of looking through countless papers of annual budget changes back in his working days.
'I suppose that the list will be helpful for future referencing, but now that I think about it, this doesn't really do much other than that…''
The doors of his office opened once again, and two sets of feet made a subtle noise that was interrupted by a hard whisper from Albedo. He couldn't make out what she said, but the two newcomers continued their movement with barely audible steps.
'Shion and Shalltear are here already? Have I really worked for that long? No matter, I need to finish what I have started.'
The three women were whispering to each other in hushed tones, but it was easy to block it out.
Returning to the task at hand, Momonga decided to switch up strategies. He strongly felt like a control panel or something equivalent to it would simplify a great deal of internal management. Making it usable by others was a must as they may have been able to make more efficient use of it.
'If I could make it possible for Demiurge, Albedo, or Pandoras Actor to control the whole thing, they could adjust it as necessary without a need for me to do it. The problem is…''
The problem was that it was easier said than done. Momonga was of the opinion that setting up such a system was equivalent to developing a software app linked to hardware he barely knew anything about. His coding skills were laughable, but he did not blame himself for it as he was self-aware of how severely limited his education was back as a salaryman.
There were plenty of books on the topic in the library for him to peruse, but Nazarick's skill didn't function like a regular computer where the newly learned knowledge could be applied directly. Putting himself into a reading session could not be done as well; there was simply not enough time for him to absorb even a single book's worth of content regarding coding.
'It would be useless to dwell any further if I'm not going to come up with a satisfactory conclusion. Maybe getting a better grasp on how to utilize |Omniscience| would ease my troubles down this path.'
Momonga slowly exhaled and addressed the three women who were patiently waiting for him to finish. "This will take a while, do not wait for me today."
"Are you planning to use a lot of your energy, my beloved?" Albedo asked in a tone that was both worried and accusatory.
"No, I do not plan to use energy, but dealing with the pop monster problem will take a while and I can't delay it anymore." Momonga hastily replied.
Dealing with the trio was not the easiest task and the last thing he needed was for his consorts to worry about him overly exhausting himself.
"Then we'll stay with you." Shalltear offered.
Although neither of them would suffer any consequences from being awake for days, they still required some sleep. At this point though, Momonga could easily figure out how relentless they could be. Wanting to stay with him seemed to have easily trumped any desire to rest.
"Very well. At the very least, please get comfortable and find something to do in the meantime."
"Comfortable?" Shion perked up at Momonga's words.
She proceeded to pull out a board game that resembled checkers, making the undead wonder as to where she had even gotten that. Seeing a blaze igniting in Shalltear's eyes made the situation quite understandable, though.
'I suppose they have been playing that game for quite a while. Thankfully they seem to be preoccupied, so other than Albedo needing something on a whim, I won't be experiencing any further disturbances. Now, where was I?'
How exactly |Omniscience| worked was still a mystery. At times it seemed almost random, giving answers ranging from very vague to absolutely perfect.
'There must be some sort of catalyst. But what? Should I try to break |Nazarick| down to raw data? I'm pretty sure it won't overwhelm me like it did back when I only had |Dark Sage|.'
After a few words of reassurance to himself, Momonga set the task in motion. The visualization he was trying to come out with was murky, but it was clear that it looked more like a code than a spoken word. He was now receiving an absurd amount of data that appeared to be written in incomprehensive language.
'Wonderful, it all looks garbled to me. Reminds me of times when a co-worker of mine showed me the inner workings of a program he was working on which made absolutely no sense to me. Ugh…'
Now Momonga was really feeling like he was exerting more pressure on his non-existent brain than needed.
'Visualize, visualize…! Maybe… I just need to look at it as though they were just lines of code? I don't know a lot to begin with, but I know that programmers would use some sort of compiler. Not to mention an operating system, out of all things. I know that, at least. Let's see… how about I try to visualize it like a modern-day computer UI.'
Slowly but surely, the whole thing took shape as |Omniscience| drew from his memories and rearranged |Nazarick| into a workable data set. A blank floating screen appeared in his mind's eye.
At first, it was completely black but then it seemingly turned on, with a yellow, rotating version of Nazarick's crest on a grass-green background.
'Is it booting?' Momonga listlessly stared at the screen. Its growing luminosity started to reflect more light on his skeletal face.
After a moment, the screen changed to the wallpaper he had used on his computer on Earth, with the same crest in the lower right corner with a few icons on the screen.
'It worked?! I have no idea how I managed to even get here, but I won't question it at this point. What do we have here… Statistics, mercenary creation panel, list of connected people, and the Tomb's default control panel. That's it?' The only things available were pretty much the only things he or the others had used before.
'I need some sort of creation tool. And what's with Nazarick's crest in the corner?' The curiosity got the better of him.
The moment he put his attention towards the crest, it became brighter.
{ |Nazarick's| virtual assistant activated. } A woman's voice called out from that crest, loudly and clearly sounding robotic in nature.
'I know this voice… the voiceover AI I used back on Earth. How did… ah, |Omniscience| used my memories to recreate it.'
The first thought coming into his mind of course was whether or not this thing was sentient. Switching back to the default view of the skill, he immediately noticed the freshly created core.
After looking through it, the worries went away.
It was nothing more than a base assist tool with a voice module. There was no awareness or sentience to speak of.
Relieved, Momonga switched back to the UI screen. By itself, it had not added much besides an easy-to-use overlay.
Resolved to make at least something of use before taking a rest, |Momonga| used all the software engineering knowledge he had recently picked up and combined it with Omniscience. Then he dove into the sea of data to make an easy-to-use tool.
A new panel appeared on the screen and quickly took shape, listing all the cores |Nazarick| had and their properties. Then it added all the UI options from a floating panel and voice-controlled assistance to a direct mind-skill interface.
In the end, it looked just like your average up-to-date developer tool.
Now was the time to tackle the pop monster problem. First, he added the monster spawn data which by itself didn't do much. The next, and likely most important, task was to get some understanding of how monster spawning worked in the world at large.
Momonga activated |Omniscience| and put up the question with a clear intent of knowing as much as possible. Since the question was clear enough and even abided by the world's rules, the answer came as detailed as it could be.
There were many factors but the main was the magicule density in the air. The higher the magicule count, the stronger the monsters that would spawn. The number of monsters spawning at the same time didn't differ much unless they were hive-type creatures like bees.
He isolated this information and added it to the mix.
'It means that the way Nazarick spawns the monsters has to do with the list of them and where they can spawn. It is safe to assume since the eighth floor does not have any pop monsters, the latent energies are used on other floors. Since the first three have the highest spawn rate set, they have been overcrowded with monsters ever since Veldora and the dragons started to spar on a regular basis.'
Knowing all this, the first solution was obvious: a battery that gathers the loose magicules. By copying the one |Nazarick's| reactor used for storage, Momonga created an energy base for the monster spawning.
The tricky part came in the sorting of monsters. All the monsters needed to be properly delegated and their respective energy requirements calculated.
Fortunately, |Omniscience| had seemed to get the better of Momonga's own thoughts.
No, it would be more appropriate to say that the skill was working with maximum efficiency. In a matter of a few seconds, Momonga got everything he needed with little to no difficulties.
'This makes me wonder if there's other people out there who have similar skills like |Omniscience|. No doubt they would be an extreme danger to me and Tempest, but I can't help but be curious.'
The UI part was the easiest thing for the newly developed creation tool as it managed to provide one automatically. Beyond that were some of its small additions Momonga found to be surprisingly nifty. There was a neat info panel that showed how full the battery was and how many of each monster could be spawned.
After taking a deeper look, Momonga found out that a lot of monster types, especially the stronger ones, that could spawn had never done so. A frost virgin was the strongest to show up but she was not the only one of her level that could. High-tier elementals, insectars, demons, and all kinds of undead could be spawned if there was enough energy available.
'Wait a minute, what is this?' He glanced over the options of the ninth and tenth floors. 'I can spawn overlords in the library? The energy requirement is through the roof, but their capabilities are more than enough to compensate.'
The next monster spawn on the list was even more bizarre. If all the cards were stacked just right, a new Pleiades maid could potentially show up. 'I better not touch it. I'm not sure how the rest of them would react to a new sister.'
With that, the job was done. All that remained was to create the control core and activate it.
The battery immediately filled up to its limit.
'I better add a few more of them.' Creating each didn't require much energy, but it seemed that with each added there were some diminishing returns and more and more energy was lost in the upkeep. 'I guess just one more will do and if it's not enough I'll just let an overlord spawn.'
The second battery filled up to about ninety percent and then stopped. The problem, for now, was solved. The last thing was to give permission to spawn monsters to all the guild members, Demiurge, Albedo, and Pandora's actor.
Momonga opened his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. "Looks like I managed to solve the problem."
"That is wonderful news." Albedo was the first to respond. She put away the plushie she was making. Shion and Shalltear, who were playing checkers, also turned their attention to him.
"Let's test it out. Albedo, can you access the monster spawning panel?"
She immediately executed the order, but unlike the previous one when the transparent floating panels appeared, this time it was the floating crest of Nazarick. "User 'Albedo' recognized. Designation: Guardian Overseer. Awaiting orders." The voice announced loudly and clearly.
Albedo tilted her head in confusion. But something seemed to go off in her head as her eyes briefly widened for a moment.
"Interesting… This reminds me of the menus I saw when I was on the Tenth Floor. But there seems to be something off."
'Off…? Wait, Albedo is able to see it, so that means… Shit! Did I make the UI change for everyone?'
"Show monster spawn panel," Momonga declared out loud.
After giving the order, the floating crest glowed even brighter than before. A panel then showed up in front of Momonga, making him hum with curiosity.
"All seems to be well. Everyone, try giving the same command."
All three women said the same order but the panel only appeared in front of Albedo as she was the only one with permission to access it.
"It didn't work for me!" Shalltear responded, agitated. "I didn't get one either." Shion chipped in.
"Then it works as intended," Momonga said.
"But how will I spawn kerai?" Shalltear asked.
"You make them with your own skill, not through Nazarick." Albedo reminded her and turned her attention to the panel.
"Lord Momonga, the energy reserves are at ninety-five percent, wouldn't it be beneficial to spawn at least some high-tier monsters?" She asked after figuring out all the new parameters she worked with.
"I will leave that to your discretion, but coordinate with Demiurge and Pandora for what we need at the moment."
"Of course, I…" Albedo stopped and started to check something on the panel with lightning speed. "That foul liza… Lord Veldora just spawned four dragonoids on the sixth floor."
Being on a similar level to the Pleiades they instantly took away a noticeable chunk of the stored energy.
{ How? } Momonga messaged the dragon, managing to sound more surprised than upset.
{ Neat tool you made there, Chief! I hope you don't mind, but I made some help for my buddies. }
{ How did you know it was there? }
{ My skill informed me about the changes. And you gave me permission to use it so I decided to give it a test run. }
{ Just don't overuse it. Or at least run your ideas by Albedo. }
{ Have at least some faith in me, Chief. I know what I'm doing. }
'I have to remember that he catches up on things way too fast for his own good. At least the problem is solved for now. Expansion should clear up the Tomb from all the excess summons soon enough.'
Overall, it was just a small step up the endless stairs that were the ascension toward a full understanding of the skill, but each step gave new insight.
X
Unlike Momonga, she couldn't just look at her skill and figure out details. Trial-and-error in the form of combat was considered to be the best approach for someone like her.
And although her motherly instincts sometimes protested it, a sparring match between her and her daughter was a perfect way not only to blow off some steam but for both to learn how to better use their ultimate skills.
Both were standing on the fighting grounds of the eighth floor with a group of the usual onlookers.
"Ready?" Buku asked, with a crack of her neck.
She had allowed Aura to use her bow while she was bare-handed to even the field. Even with a God skill, it did not change the fact that her original classes from Yggdrasil were specialized in support, so she was generally weaker when unable to use her pets.
"Yes!" Aura shouted back. Her divine tier bow was summoned in her hands with unceremonious fashion.
Without hesitation, she shot a volley of arrows, forcing Buku to block and avoid them all.
The multiple layers of shields were only partly effective, as two arrows successfully breached through, with one digging into her right leg and the other in the shoulder. The pain of it was negligible, so Buku charged her daughter aiming for the girl's unprotected stomach.
As she flew in motion, there was time to utilize her accelerated thinking and deal with the arrows digging into her flesh. Until they were removed, the regeneration couldn't kick in.
'Wait, what am I thinking? I should just try to drain them.'
Yet Buku was bewildered as soon as she decided on what to do. The arrows were somehow resisting her attempts to do so as Aura tried to shoot a few more.
As her plate-clad fist collided with Aura's chain-clad midsection, her daughter's concentration broke and the arrows stopped resisting her attempts to dissolve them.
The beast tamer was sent flying, but she didn't waste any more time staying in the air as fighting on the ground was more preferable for her.
Using teleportation in no time flat, along with gaining additional momentum, Aura tried to hit her mother's head with a roundhouse kick making Buku desperately block. The collision sent out a powerful shockwave throughout their surroundings.
In that moment of chaos, she went for a rather underhanded tactic and used one of the latest tricks she learned when sparring against Bahamut.
While Aura was still in the air, she created a small circle on the ground of what she had dubbed the anti-energy field. Everyone stepping in it would instantly lose massive amounts of magicules and feed them back to her.
"That was a good one," Buku said with the pride of a parent. "But not good enough."
Aura looked down and widened her eyes at what she saw. She realized she had stepped into a trap. But instead of jumping back, she applied all her shields and smirked at her mother, pointing at her feet.
Against her best judgment, Buku looked down and saw thousands of tiny spiders trying to get inside her armor.
"GAHHHH! Son of a bitch-!" She shrieked in panic and unleashed a shockwave to get rid of the swarming little critters.
"Mom, it's not a good habit to use foul language in the middle of a battle," Aura said, theatrically shaking her finger. She would have liked to blow a raspberry tongue afterwards, but instead went with the classic victory pose by forming the shape of a V with her right hand.
"Huh? How about I teach you what happens to one's backside when they throw spiders at me! Come here!"
An explosion of murderous intent emerged from Buku, who began charging at her daughter without any signs of stopping.
"Eh? Wait, it was just a prank!"
The dramatic shift in tone that happened in a span of a second did nothing but instill primal fear into Aura. With reactionary movement, she started sprinting in the opposite direction.
Curious as to how far away she was from her mother, she turned around for a split second. She let out a shriek at the sight of her angered mother who was moving ridiculously fast.
Eventually though, Aura was starting to enjoy the thrill of the chase, running as fast as her legs let her. She ignored distant shouts from her mother who was saying things like "Come back here!" and other statements that she thought were too vulgar to repeat in her head.
Meanwhile, Buku was busy attempting to catch the nimble girl through the masses of skeletons that were everywhere on the eighth floor. She continued to grow even more frustrated when her daughter's use of short-range teleportation would always evade her hands at the last second.
The onlookers could only watch with mixed confusion and amusement as the pair ran through the entirety of the eighth floor.
As Buku was steadily closing the distance between herself and her daughter, a familiar voice rang in her head. It was the last person she wanted to hear from right now.
{ I've been getting reports of abnormal movement within the eighth floor from earlier, but now it seems to have reached even my detection levels to the point where I cannot ignore this. Is everything alright down there, Buku? }
{ Ah, well, um, right. Everything's fine, Momo! I'm still sparring with Aura and am just matching her current speed. Nothing to worry about. }
{ I see. You certainly did well to alarm some people. I wouldn't have bothered you in the middle of your sparring match if it weren't for the fact that Milim and Veldora are showing interest in the explosion of magicules, which according to my estimations, appear to be coming from you. Even the barriers we have recently implemented throughout Nazarick was sufficiently disturbed by your own spike in magicules. }
She winced at what sounded like a lecturing tone from Momonga.
{ I know, I know! I'll end this quickly, okay? And thanks for stopping those battle maniacs from intervening. }
It did not take terribly long, however, as Buku managed to catch Aura, who made a fatal decision by attempting to trick her mother at a corner. She hit something solid after making the sharp turn, and she realized that it was Buku's abdomen that she hit.
"Ack!" The beast tamer's long elven ears were grabbed at its tips, causing her to yelp in pain. "That hurts! It hurts! Mooom!" Aura whined, not being able to escape her grip anymore as Buku blocked teleportation.
"Why would you even use spiders?! That's just cheating!" Buku scolded her.
"B-because it's a good tactic to catch enemies off-guard!?" Aura shouted back, not sounding exactly sure of her own words. "Plus, I wasn't the one who cheated first, so it only made sense for me to return the favor. I was taught that, by the way."
"Argh!" She let go of her daughter's ears and stumbled back, unable to give a proper rebuttal. "W-well… That's not the point, though! I mean, who even taught you those things in the first place?"
"You did."
"Wait, really?"
They both stared at each other with blank expressions. Not long after, they burst into laughter, saying in unison, "Like mother, like daughter."
Edited by Zirmeister
Proofreading by I AM THE STRING CUTTER, Ethal07, Kazuma, Tophrel, Sad_Smiles, Miracle of Gods, and Alassandro.
AN: Thank you for reading the story, and if you have caught up to the latest chapter, you can check out my other work or join my discord server (Link is in my profile) where additional chapters are available or if you are interested in becoming a beta reader.