Thanks to Snow Elf's not-so-bright mind, Ellie's questions were almost always answered without reservation. Of course, Ellie didn't believe everything Snow Elf said. Earlier, in the special treasury, Snow Elf had seen through her intentions without Chao Lu's reminder, so Ellie didn't dare to be too careless.
The intelligence gathered was that, of the NPCs originally created by the Eight Greed Kings, besides the two of them who were still active, most of the other NPCs were dormant in the so-called Hall of Heroes within Sky City.
If she remembered correctly, there were as many as thirty Guardians left by the Eight Greed Kings to protect Sky City. However, today, besides the maids who clearly had no combat ability, she only encountered the two Heavy Armor Knights guarding the entrance, and Chao Lu and Snow Elf.
Moreover, Chao Lu had mentioned earlier that they worked in shifts. So, under normal circumstances, either Chao Lu or Snow Elf would be in charge of the entire Sky City. It was only because her fake master had returned today that Chao Lu had called Snow Elf awake.
This indicates that their active periods should be cyclical. Snow Elf also mentioned that the Adventurer's Guild weapon was tricked away while Chao Lu was recharging, and Chao Lu also said that Snow Elf was sleeping, having just finished her shift, when she came out to greet her.
In other words... Chao Lu needs to recharge, and Snow Elf needs to sleep and rest. And this cycle is probably quite long, meaning that, except for special circumstances, normally only one NPC is responsible for Sky City at a time. This is also a rather fatal weakness, and if she were to bring people to attack this place in the future, she should be able to exploit this point.
Afterward, Ellie learned all about Sky City's normal defensive forces from Snow Elf. Besides Chao Lu and Snow Elf being primarily responsible, the maid corps, responsible for daily maintenance of Sky City, also had nearly a hundred people rotating.
In other words, Sky City must have at least two hundred ordinary maids, which is clearly much more luxurious than Nazarick. Moreover, Sky City's maid corps is not like Nazarick's ordinary maids, who have no combat ability.
According to Snow Elf, they were also one of the security teams responsible for Sky City's safety. It felt somewhat similar to Nazarick's Death Knights, perhaps?
This point was not as benevolent as Nazarick. At least Nazarick wouldn't expose its ordinary maids to combat, but here, using maids directly as a defense force was a bit... something else.
Finally, there was the Heavy Armor Knight unit guarding the gate. As Snow Elf said, it was the Iron Bucket Knight Order. Could that even be called a unit? After all, when they entered, they only saw two Heavy Armor Knights guarding the gate, so it wasn't as intuitive as seeing a bunch of maids doing their daily work on the street. However, Snow Elf's words made Ellie a little nervous.
Only ten Iron Buckets were responsible for guarding the gate, rotating shifts. All ten of those Iron Buckets were Captain-level characters in the Knight Order, and only Captains were qualified to guard the Sky City. The true strength of the Knight Order was five thousand… Although most of them were currently in slumber, five hundred were still left as a standby for guard duty. This was not good news for Ellie. With five hundred on standby at any time, it was indeed a bit tricky.
The main problem was the severe lack of information regarding the ranks and equipment of these guard teams, making it impossible to assess their combat effectiveness. Directly asking about it brazenly would also be inappropriate, as Snow Elf was not Bell.
Finally, they arrived at Bai Xia's room. Snow Elf only escorted them to the door, then nodded and bowed to Ellie, informing her that no one had entered her room since she left, and then quickly departed.
I remembered Chao Lu had said earlier that no one was allowed into her room. Uh… this was a bit subtle.
Although in Nazarick, there was also a rule that one could not enter her room without her permission, that was a rule Ainz had specifically made for those two perverts, Albedo and Shalltear.
Other ordinary maids, or Guardians who genuinely had something to discuss with her, could freely enter and exit her room. But Bai Xia didn't even allow the NPCs she created into her room. What exactly was she hiding in her room that couldn't be seen by others?
Besides, how long had Bai Xia been gone? At least two hundred years, right? No one had entered? Could this room still be lived in?
With this mindset, Ellie pushed open the door to "her" room and saw the room was pitch black. Although she could vaguely make out the general layout and some furniture with the help of the faint light, after seeing those things, Ellie instinctively… like a conditioned reflex, clapped her hand against the wall beside the door.
Then, with a click, she indeed hit something like a light switch, and instantly the entire room lit up, revealing the full appearance of Bai Xia's room.
How should she complain? Or rather, where should she start complaining? First, there wasn't the problem Ellie initially worried about—after several hundred years of no one entering, there were no cobwebs, at least not a layer of dust. However, there wasn't a speck of dust in the room.
As expected, it was a world of magic… It was probably maintained by some magic, right? Then there was the overall style of the room, full of modern flair. It should be said it was the style of that world back when she was still alive.
All the furniture was common furniture from that world, and there was even a computer desk. However, instead of a computer, there was a large mirror on the computer desk that looked very much like a computer screen.
Looking at it this way, it looked more like a dressing table, and there was already another dressing table in the room. In short, Bai Xia's room looked very much like the kind of room a typical high school girl from her world would have. It didn't have the various medieval noble-style decorations found in Nazarick; it was just a very normal… commonplace high school student's room.
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