Test

After he snapped back to reality, Momonga realised that Mare was on his knees in front of Aura, who was hurling a torrent of abuse at him.

Momonga smiled, as the scene reminded him of the brother and sister who were his friends:

"Good grief, Mare was clearly not made by Peroroncino-san. Or is this because Bukubukuchagama-san believed that "Little brothers should listen to their big sisters"... Though come to think about it, Aura and Mare should have died once. How should I address that?"

The invasion of fifteen-hundred people had made it down to the Eighth Floor. Which was to say, Aura and Mare should have died then. Did they remember anything about it?

What meaning did the concept of "death" have for those two, anyway?

According to YGGDRASIL's rules, death would cost a character five levels and force him to drop one of his equipped items. In other words, characters below level five would immediately disappear. Players were specially exempt from this and would not vanish, but they would be reduced to the minimum level of one. Therefore, it must be an issue with the game rules.

Using spells like 「Resurrection」 or 「Raise Dead」 would mitigate this level loss. In addition, with the use of cash items, one would only lose a bit of experience.

It was simpler for NPCs. As long as the guild paid the requisite fees to resurrect them, they would be recalled to life without any ill effects.

Therefore, players who wanted to respec their characters often favored using death to lower one's levels.

While the loss of even a single level was a harsh punishment in a game where each level required a lot of experience points, losing levels was not such a frightening prospect in YGGDRASIL. This was because the game company wanted its players to explore previously undiscovered regions and find new things, instead of hunkering down in familiar territory because they were afraid of losing levels.

With all this in mind, were the two people who perished in the wake of the fifteen-hundred-man invasion the same after their resurrection?

Momonga wanted to verify this, but at the same time, he did not want to disturb them unduly. For all he knew, that large invasion might have been a traumatic experience for Aura. Momonga felt it would be unwise to question her in that manner when she had showed no overt signs of hostility. The important thing was that they were lovingly crafted NPCs of his friends in Ainz Ooal Gown.

Perhaps after settling all the accumulated problems, he would ask her about it.

In addition, the concept of death in-game might be different from outside it. Of course, if one died in reality, that was the end of everything, However, that might not be the case right now. He wanted to perform an experiments on this, but first he needed to collect information and establish his priorities. Thus, putting this matter aside would be a wise decision.

After all, Momonga still had many doubts about how the YGGDRASIL he knew had changed.

Aura was still scolding Mare as Momonga stood in contemplation. Momonga pitied Mare a little. After all, he had not said anything that warranted such wrathful castigation.

In the past, when brother and sister argued, all Momonga could do was watch. But now, things were different.

"That should be enough, don't you think?"

"Momonga-sama! But, but as a Guardian, Mare—"

"It's fine. Aura, I understand how you feel. It is only natural that you would feel unhappy if Mare, as a Floor Guardian, said such a cowardly thing, especially if it were in my presence. However, I believe that if anyone invaded the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick, you and Mare would fearlessly step forward to engage them. There is no need for scoldings as long as one does what is required of them when the time comes."

Momonga walked up to between the two of them and helped Mare up.

"And Mare, you should be grateful to your kind sister. Even if I were angry, I could not remain so after seeing how your sister scolded you."

Mare looked in surprise at his sister. At this moment, Aura hurriedly said:

"Eh? No, no, it's not like that. I wasn't scolding him to show off in front of you, Momonga-sama!"

"Aura, it's fine. It doesn't matter what you had in mind. I understand your kind intentions. However, I must tell you that I am not dissatisfied with Mare's performance as a Guardian."

"Um, ah, yes, yes! Thank you, Momonga-sama!"

"Th-Thank you very much…"

Momonga felt uncomfortable as he watched the two of them bow to him. He felt particularly ill at ease as he saw them look at him with their shining eyes. In order to camouflage the embarrassment he felt at being looked at that way, Momonga coughed.

"Hm, that's right. Aura, I think you said something about being bored because there were no intruders?"

"—Ah, no, that, about that…"

After seeing Aura's fearful reaction, Momonga felt bad about asking his question.

"I do not intend to reproach you for your answer, so feel free to speak your mind."

"...Yes, a little. There's nobody around here who can spar with me for more than five minutes."

Aura touched her index fingers together before looking up hopefully to Momonga.

As a Guardian, Aura was level one hundred. There were precious few opponents in this dungeon which could rival her. There were nine such NPCs, including Aura and Mare, as well as one other.

"What if Mare was your opponent?"

Mare's body trembled as he shrank away. He shook his head with moist eyes, and he looked very afraid. Aura sighed as she saw the way he looked.

As Aura sighed, a sweet scent filled the surrounding air. Unlike the fragrance Albedo radiated, this scent seemed somewhat persistent. As he remembered Aura's ability, Momonga took a step away from the scent.

"Ah, sorry, Momonga-sama!"

As Aura noticed Momonga's strange reaction, she hurriedly dispersed the scent with her hand.

Among Aura's skills as a Beast Tamer, there were certain passive skills that had buffing and debuffing effects. These abilities acted through her breath and had a radius of several meters, some even up to ten meters. With the effect of certain skills, that radius could be enlarged to unbelievable proportions.

In YGGDRASIL, icons representing buffs and debuffs appeared in one's field of vision, so one could see if they were under the effect of an ability. However, no indication of these changes appeared before him, which made things quite troublesome.

"Ah, it should be fine now, I cancelled it!"

"Is that so…"

"...Although you're undead, so mind-affecting effects shouldn't work on you, right, Momonga-sama?"

That was true in YGGDRASIL. The undead were immune to mind-affecting effects, whether positive or negative.

"...Was I within the effective radius?"

"Mm."

Aura lowered her head in fear, and so did Mare beside her.

"...I"m not angry, Aura," Momonga said in as gentle a voice as he could manage. "Aura… You don't have to be so afraid. Do you think such a simple skill would inconvenience me? I was simply asking if I was within the effective range of your skill."

"Yes! Just now, you were within range of my skill."

After hearing Aura's energetic answer as relief flooded back into her, Momonga realized that his very presence filled Aura with fear.

Once he noticed this, he felt a clenching pain in his nonexistent stomach. What if he became weaker from this? Every time he thought about that, he tried desperately to put it out of mind.

"And what was its effect?"

"Ah, the effect just now… should have been fear."

"Umu..."

He did not feel afraid. In YGGDRASIL, one would not be affected by attacks from the guild or party to which one belonged. Although, there was a very real chance this rule no longer applies, so it would be best to verify that now.

"Aura, I was just thinking that your skill should not have an effect on people from the same guild… the same group."

"Eh?"

Aura's eyes went wide, much like Mare's did from the side. Judging from their reactions, Momonga realised that they did not agree with him.

"Am I mistaken?"

"Yes… Could it be you mixed it up with the ability to freely change the range of one's skills?"

So it seemed the rule disabling friendly fire was no longer in effect. Mare was not affected while being near Aura, but that might be because he had equipped an item which negated mind-affecting effects on himself.