To what extent are Momonga's underlings aware that he's "from a different world"?

Question

Albedo's conversation with Momonga at the beginning of episode 5 has a few elements that confuse me. Albedo reports to him that they have yet to find any other "Yggdrasil players". Later, Momonga tells her that her love for him is a result of him messing with the "settings" Tabula specified for her.

Does this mean that Albedo is aware that her entire world used to be just a video game from Momonga's perspective? Did Momonga tell her this, or did she inherently have this knowledge from the very beginning (i.e. when Momonga got transferred into the game world)? Do Albedo (and the other underlings?) just not care about this?

Answer 1

Short answer, they see them as gods, so they probably think they have their own sort of "heaven". Long answer, they do know that there is a clear difference between the underlings and Ains (He ordered to be called that, so that's what I'm calling him), we see that they often overheard things they were talking about and associate it with god powers, just to drive home how powerful they think Ains and the creators are. Ex: I can't speak for the manga, but in the anime, Demiurge overheard some of the creators talking about their jobs, to which he associated voice acting as actually breathing life into inanimate objects. You also have to remember that they had to behave as regular NPC's before the servers shutdown, and in that time, they literally could not do anything unless they were ordered to. So, although they do realize Ains is from another world, but I doubt the image they have in their heads about the "different world" of Ains is very accurate.

Answer 2

They are aware that Ainz and the other supreme beings are not from Yggdrasil, but they believe the place that they are from is similar to a divine realm. In the light novel there is a moment where Shalltear (vampire) and Sebase (butler) are talking about what she heard from the supreme being (players). Shalltear heard that one of the supreme beings is a voice actor, someone how gives life to characters.

That is just a saying, but Shalltear took it literally. In her defense, the supreme beings did create the NPCs, so if they created you, (which is something you can't do and you don't understand)... It isn't a far off statement to say they can do it with their voice?

Although something else brought them to life (which we don't completely know, there is a theory about wild magic) Their are a few other moments which the NPC's completely take things out of context.

Answer 3

The answer to your question lies in your question. If the NPCs were unaware that they were in a video game, Albedo would have questioned what Momonga meant in the conversation during the beginning of episode 5. However, she was calm during the conversation. Remember that the NPCs also did not show signs of surprise or wonder while they began to feel emotions. The most likely scenario is that the programmers made the NPCs realize that they were in a game, although this is my opinion and I expect the reason to be revealed later on in the season.

Regarding your question on whether or not the NPCs care about their position, this is also my opinion but think of it like the relations between species in different dimensions. There is a theory that although 1D species can think about 2D species, they can never fully see nor understand how they work. The 2D species on the other hand can see 1D species and understand how they work; however, they cannot see nor understand 3D species. Consider the players as a higher dimensional species and the NPCs as a species that are a lower dimensional species than players. The NPCs may think about the higher dimensional species and see an equivalent dimensional version of Momonga (which is what the game software created), but thats their limit.