“What's wrong, Momonga-sama?”

“She… she talks!” Kimi was surprised that the NPC could talk. He knows they could, with the programmed subroutines or as Herohero had put it for him to understand when he helped Kimi create his NPCs, to make them feel alive. He didn't take what Herohero had said, but now, he had to take Herohero's words in a literal way.

Kimi glossed and circled the now living NPCs—Albedo and the Pleiades—with stars in his eyes. 'If they're… alive… then what about the others?' Miki thought as he remembered his NPCs and got even more excited.

“Momonga-san! I'll be on my floor!” Kimi ran by the throne room's door before he remembered he could teleport with the ring of Ainz Ooal Gown.

A good thing the child was gone, otherwise the child needs to wash his eyes from the indecency the skeletal overlord is about to do to the succubus NPC.

~ 7th Floor: Industry ~

Kimi got teleported to the 9th floor, the industrial floor. The industrial floor’s entrance door is riddled with copper- and iron-colored gears and hydraulics with divisions in the door where it opens. Kimi was wondering why the door didn't automatically open, then he saw the unilluminated Kimini's sigil at the door's center. He got too excited that he forgot that he had shut down the whole floor for the end of Yggdrasil.

“Industrial floor on~!” He shouted the command to jumpstart the heart-generators.

*Ba-dump*

*Ba-dump* *Ba-dump* …

Even from the outside, anyone could hear the heart-generators. As it continued, the sounds of beating hearts become background noise drowned by machinery. With the power flowing, spell sustainers containing the silence spell muted some of the lounder machinery.

The door's gears turn and hydraulics hissed, letting out steams to open the triple door to the industrial floor. The door slid three ways: left, right, and up. Kimini's sigil was with the door that goes up. As the door was opening, Kimi could see the thickness of the door, made to withstand almost anything below the 10th tier. Upon intrusion, the intruders must solve a puzzle on the two sides beside the door or blow it with 10th-tier power. It would be easier to circumvent with the floor unpowered as the intruder would only need 8th-tier power without all the defensive spells to back it up.

The opened doors showed what lies beyond it, a steampunk-like city. Buildings on the floor and the ceiling covered the entire floor into a maze in which only the inhabitants know where to go with a handheld 3D hologram map of the floor. Mindless robots move materials and items from one station to the next continuing the production chain. A floating gigantic heart inside a tube beating at the city's center along with a smaller floating heart-in-tubes around it, connected to wires that powered the entire city.

Kimi was skipping and humming to the center where the command center for the whole floor was and where his NPCs lives. There are three NPCs in total guarding the Industrial Floor. One android, two automata. They command everything on the floor from production, buildings, energy management, robots, and security.

“Central control panel,” said Kimi informing the floor of his path.

The android skipped without care when there was no path on the bridge. Instead of falling, platforms floated and locked themselves in place, continuing the bridge that was a dead end. The aligned bridges were in the direction of the central control panel near the giant heart generator.

The platforms were a shortcut to the central control panel, although a scenic one. A faster route there would be the hover ships, the Speeder Mark 7 to be exact. The hovering ship could take anyone from the entrance to the central control panel in a minute instead of fifteen minutes. Kimi wanted to see the changes before and after the shutdown of Yggdrasil, so he took the platforms.

There wasn't much difference. Kimi had noticed the floor was much livelier, there were more variations of sounds instead of the limited predetermined sound set by the devs; the shine, glint, shadows, and texture were more pronounced. With those real-life-like definitions, he looked at the heart generator hoping he wouldn’t get repulsed, but he had no aversion to the gore. He had thought he would, but he guessed it had to do with his now android body.

Once Kimi passed the sliding door to the central control panel, he smiled when he saw the person in the steampunk train conductor whom he was looking for. “Magellan!” he shouted.

The automaton noted a few monitoring devices for all the production buildings on the floor. The automaton bowed. “Kimini… -sama….”

“Everything OK?”

“All… systems… nominal….”

“Do you know where your brother and sister are?”

“Positive…, Kimini… -sama…. they're… at… the… resting… floor… above….”

“Come on! Let's go see them!”

“Positive…, Kimini… -sama….”

They both ride an elevator to the second floor. Every elevator on the Industrial Floor played elevator music. His favorite music chosen at random played as he rode on it. He hummed along with the music and exited once the elevator dinged.

“Venera! Artemis!” shouted Kimi to the two that were in the room.

The two kneeled in front of their creator. “Kimini… -sama…/Kimini-sama.” They said in unison.

“Eh–ehhh! No–no need to kneel!” Kimi flustered "And–and just call me Kimi!"

“That would be disrespectful, Kimini-sama,” said Venera.

Kimi huffed from her answer. He saw the other two nod so he knows they agree with her. They were being way too formal for his liking. “Let’s go and —”

A message spell come into Kimi’s mind, ‹Kimi, where are you?›

Kimi got confused about who had said that turn his head around to check if someone was on his back. “Whose there!”

Kimi’s three NPCs go on alert on the non-existent invisible enemy.

‹It’s me, Momonga. I’m contacting you with the message spell.›

“Oh. Message spell. You sound different Momonga-san, your voice is deeper.”

With those words, Kimi’s NPCs lowered their guard.

‹Indeed, it’s the body we’re inhibiting that changes our voice. Your voice had changed or rather had synthesized, though not noticeable if I hadn’t heard your voice beforehand.›

“It is!?” He was surprised by it; he hadn’t noticed it as if it were already a part of him even before the change. “But I don’t have any voice synthesizer on my gear.”

‹I suspect, we are no longer in Yggdrasil —› “EHHH!” Kimi interrupted, but Momonga continued, ‹—I’ve checked that no console displays are showing and I can’t contact the GM. I can also smell and feel the touches that were not allowed in a dive gear.›

“So—so th—these are all rea—real!?”

‹That is what I concluded, yes.›

“Th—then mom can’t meet me….” He brooded.

‹Sorry Kimi-kun.›

Kimini crashed down into a child’s W-sitting posture and cried with tearless eyes into his hands. He loved his mother. He grew up with her. Even when he was comatose he could hear his mother’s fuzzy voice reading him stories from the books he read after he woke up. But now… now he could only hope to meet with her again.

A\N:

I'm using 9th-tier, 8th-tier, etc. power instead of spells 'cause it ain't only magic casters in Yggdrasil.

Kimi doesn’t know he could just think the [message] instead of saying it yet, so like in Yggdrasil he says the [message]