Chapter Text
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 13:1:14-10:23:24 (Year:Month:Day-Hour:Minute:Second)}
“Hey! Nakayama! Come over here, check this out!” He wandered over to his co-worker, leaning over an looking at the screen. “I just finished making a new quest, thought you’d appreciate it,” the co-worker explained with a smug grin. He read the objectives of the quest along with program notes so they could be sent off to his division for creation.
“You’re a terrible person,” he responded blithely. “No one is going to complete a quest like this; it’s torturous… it was torturous,” he muttered. Looking at the quest rewards, “it’s not even worth it for that reward.”
“Is so worth it.”
“It sucks.”
“Well, I’ll just get Hideyoshi to make it worthwhile.” He looked down on his co-worker, “he owes me a favor or two.”
He sighed at his co-worker’s cruelty, “it’s going to kill him. He’s already working on the slime racial tree. Pass it onto the German,” he suggested. He didn’t know their German co-worker’s name, just that he was also in the division handling level progression not set up under his own AI division.
“How ‘bout you do it? You don’t have much going on right now, do you?”
“I’m working on the last World Breakers, the ideas department is full of insane people,” he complained spotting their manager making his way towards them. “Your quest sucks,” he reiterated, “no one is going to complete it, it’s cruel, and the reward isn’t worth it at all.” He turned to leave, “for the last step, make sure there’s also a bounty, gotta make it a bit harder on them,” he suggested with a knowing cruelty of his own.
His co-worker barked out a laugh at his advice, “I knew you’d see it my way Nakayama!”
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 9:6:22-23:52:02}
Suzuki Satoru, currently logged onto the DMMORPG Yggdrasil as the Overlord Momonga, traveled towards the destination of his guild’s next PVP assault. Currently, he along with Herohero, Temperance, Beast King Mekongawa and Whitebrim were serving as the flanking force while Touch-Me lead another group at the direction of Punitto Moe. Their target was a large guild preparing for a dungeon raid. His group was to be joined by Ulbert Alain Odle’s group which would help to sow chaos among their target’s ranks before starting a mop up operation.
Satoru found it fun, and was in a perpetual state of amazement when it came to Punitto Moe’s tactical schemes so they could rake in enough gold to continue to meet their upkeep on their newly won guild base: The Great Tomb of Nazarick. The upkeep and financials for holding the guild base weren’t quite there for Ainz Ooal Gown as of yet, but they were coming along nicely. Still, with creating their NPCs, restructuring the Tomb to be better suited to their tastes and defenses, furnishing the place, and readying the defenses had left their treasury dangerously empty – they needed a healthy influx of gold if they wanted to keep their dungeon base for longer than a year. As it was, they were barely keeping afloat.
The group continued to move to their ambush point when a naked human player ran towards them. “You’re Momonga of Ainz Ooal Gown correct!?” He shouted from across a clearing hiding his naked character behind a tree, using the emote of a question mark to display intent. “I’ve been looking for you! I am unequipped and wish to speak with you!”
Satoru had seen stranger people if he was being honest. Running up to other players naked was the easiest means of saying “I mean no harm,” save for magic casters who could still cause a ruckus, and for monks since their Ki based attacks were equally dangerous. “Herohero,” Satoru asked, the Elder Black Ooze moving forward to inspect their surprise human.
Herohero was the most defensive member of their strike force, the body guard for the squishy mages, Satoru and Whitebrim, and the assassin, Temperance. Beast King Mekongawa, a ranger, served as the other front line fighter while his beasts would help keep the squishies safe and provide opportunities for Temperance to put his assassin classes to good use. Sending Herohero forward to investigate was the safest option.
“Could you come on out? Hiding behind a tree is pretty suspicious you know that?” The human stepped out from behind his tree at Herohero’s prompting, hands raised above his head. He was one of the most boring looking human characters Satoru had seen, black hair and eyes like a normal Japanese, pale skin, slight features, as classic Japanese as possible. Not even taking advantage of the Customization Editor suite (then again, Satoru didn’t know how many people were buying the suite – everyone in Ainz Ooal Gown had one at least). “What do you think Momonga? He came here for you.”
“Yes! I came seeking Momonga of Ainz Ooal Gown!” The human confirmed.
‘Why though?’ Satoru thought to himself approaching cautiously. ‘Well, worst case scenario, we kill him and he becomes Dark Ritual fodder. Though he doesn’t seem too bad.’ Standing before the surrendered human, “we’re a bit busy with a PK right now, you finding us complicates things and jeopardizes our attack; what do you want?”
Bowing in half, the human shouted his request: “PLEASE LET ME JOIN AINZ OOAL GOWN!”
“Eh?”
“What?” “Is this guy actually stupid or something?” “Why!?” “Suspicious.”
“You want to join our guild?” Herohero asked a bit surprised. It was an open secret from the days of Nine’s Own Goal that they were exclusively Heteromorphs – it was a rule meant to protect players from human PKers, creating a safe haven for their fellow Heteromorphs. “You can’t,” Herohero spoke straight, looking to Satoru and emoting with confusion.
“I KNOW! HOWEVER I NEED TO JOIN YOUR GUILD! I WILL GLADLY BE A SLAVE!”
“Seriously?” “This guy isn’t just stupid, he’s batshit!” “Very Suspicious.” “Again! WHY!?”
Satoru hummed in agreement with Whitebrim’s confusion, “yes, why do you want to join Ainz Ooal Gown exactly?”
“I’m trying to complete the quest: Become Inhuman. The last step is impossible without a guild like Ainz Ooal Gown. I know you guys recently captured the Great Tomb of Nazarick, so that makes you even more ideal for my needs,” the human player, whose character name was Inhuman explained.
“So you want to use us?” Beast King Mekongawa accused, “tasteless!” He emoted an angry face, “why shouldn’t we just kill you and continue on our task? You’re already jeopardizing our mission.”
Temperance emoted a confusion, “I’m curious as to what this lowly human desires of our guild.”
Satoru looked to his guildmates their immovable faces showing nothing, but if he was being honest, he also was curious about the human’s need of their guild. “You already seem to be Inhuman,” he joked – how could he not? “I’ve never heard of this quest: Become Inhuman, is it humanoid exclusive?” Knowledge is invaluable, even if it is completely worthless to Ainz Ooal Gown, keeping track of such things is what their newly aquired massive library is for, isn’t it? They could sell that information down the line if they wanted – and idea to bring in more income for the guild.
“Yes, it is,” Inhuman confirmed. “It’s a 15 step quest that is known for being stupidly difficult with no retry option – no one has completed it as of yet, I want to change that.”
“And you need our whole guild’s help for that?” Satoru questioned inspecting the player, “why not use your guild, Pandora’s Suitors? Wouldn’t they be able to help you out?”
“The final step makes that unfeasible,” Inhuman responded.
“I call bullshit,” Whitebrim accused. “Pandora’s Suitors is one of the top 50 guilds worldwide.”
‘Eh? They are?’ Satoru thought, ‘that just makes this all the more suspicious!’
“Eh, they are? I thought they were ranked 68th or something.” “So why our guild? We’re not even in the top 100 yet.” “Another infiltration attempt? Aren’t Pandora’s Suitors punching down a bit much?” “So, what’s the final step?” Herohero questioned, his cutting through the rest.
Inhuman turned towards Herohero, getting down onto both knees, “the final step of Become Inhuman is to log in everyday for a year for at least 3 hours – all while not seeing or being seen by another humanoid player.”
“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Beast King Mekongawa mused. “I can think of a few places that are pretty out of the way where you could hide out.”
“When you start the step, your name is added to the humanoid’s bounty board – the devs don’t want people to succeed the quest, shitty bastards…” Satoru could empathize with the comment on the devs. “Pandora’s Suitors is filled with humans, many of which failed Become Inhuman; the members of the guild’s leadership are known griefers for the lower ranks, I wouldn’t put it past them to grief me if they found out I started the final step of Become Inhuman.”
“That’s a dick move.” “What shitty dev and guild leaders.” “Sorry to hear that guy, still not our problem.”
“If we accept this offer, what can you offer us?” Temperance questioned.
“Dude!” “We’re not going to accept! No way!” “We’d need to put it to a vote anyways, might as well know everything.” “Momonga stop this nonsense! This is bullshit I’m telling you!”
“I’m the architect of our guild base. I’ll move the treasury to the front of our base along with our guild weapon. The guild weapon is a Divine class dagger and our treasury holds a World Item known as Atlas. For the year I spend sequestered away in your guild base, I’ll use my levels in Administrator, King, and Tomb King to increase the efficiency of the guild. I have 40 levels in production related classes which should also make me useful to help with creating items, even if they are just to be sold off – I have levels in Blacksmithing and Enchanting. As I said, I’ll be a slave to Ainz Ooal Gown, I need to finish this quest.”
“Hmmm, give us a moment,” Satoru responded before turning his back on Inhuman to talk with his guild mates. “This is almost too good to be true,” he immediately addressed. “If Pandora’s Suitors have gotten their hands on our Atlas, then we should take it back,” he argued.
Atlas, a World Item previously held by Nine’s Own Goal, a sore point in their history, the WCI they lost after getting it for only a week. It wasn’t one of the Twenty, but it was still the first WCI they’d captured, and now the opportunity to reclaim it had appeared before them! How Fortuitous!
“Yeah, if he’s being honest, who’s to say it isn’t just a massive trap!” Beast King Mekongawa growled.
“We don’t have enough time to fully consider this even, we need to get moving,” Whitebrim reminded. “Though I’m willing to give it a shot, especially if we can confirm more about this quest.”
“But letting a traitor into Ainz Ooal Gown?”
“There is a guild member setting where they can only offer funds and items to the guild, we don’t use it on any of us though,” Momonga brought up said menu. “What shitty devs, they even call the role ‘slave.’” Satoru thought about it for a little while longer while the others bickered. “I’ll share my mail with him, we’ll take a week or so to confirm his story before acting, and getting the rest of the guild’s opinion on this, agreed?”
“Agreed,” the rest hummed in unison.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 9:6:3-01:26:36}
Satoru walked out of Pandora’s Suitors’ guild hall, inventory filled with loot and none of his personal items. Inhuman hadn’t lied to them at this point. Even if he had, in his hands was the guild weapon, which if destroyed would dissolve the guild, sending all unique items in their treasury back to their original spawns. It felt a bit dirty, but Nazarick required money to be run, and they’d be set if they got all of the millions of gold held within Pandora’s Suitors’ coffers.
‘For the glory of Ainz Ooal Gown,’ Satoru considered admiring the Kriss of Pandora’s Suitors. He wondered if his NPC within Nazarick, Pandora’s Actor, would be able to use the guild weapon. They couldn’t be stored in inventory, yet still held many usage restrictions, such as this Kriss of Pandora’s Suitors requiring the user be a Human Thief. They would likely destroy the weapon if they couldn’t find a use for it. ‘It would be a pretty cruel twisting of the knife, dissolving their guild…’ he thought, loathing his own actions a bit.
He cast a [Message]: Inhuman wasn’t joking, send in the second wave, I’ve secured the guild weapon, Atlas, Depictions of Nature and Society, and a wealth of Legendary and higher quality items.
From behind various illusions, other nude raiders cropped up, rushing into the guild base and the awaiting Inhuman, leading them into the treasury, eager to loot the base of everything they held dear. Inhuman truly is a scumbag, or at least, to his guild mates – who granted would grief him given the chance, conducting an audit of everyone’s equipment, or, as he’d explained it:
“The guild leadership is very concerned about their friends having the best equipment in the guild: the Ace Raid Team doesn’t produce the best equipment or claim it too often, so we have these audits. Everyone gives in their items, and they get redistributed by the leadership after a week of accounting. I’m the unofficial vice-guild leader, so me announcing an audit is pretty normal, and me handling everything is just as normal. The only people who won’t hand in items will be the other guild leaders.”
He hadn’t explained how he came to be close enough to the guild leaders to be allowed to conduct guild audits. Clearly, they’d misplaced their trust in him; Satoru and Ainz Ooal Gown would not fall for the same trap.
They made out like bandits, or no, bandits could only steal so much at a time. They made out like Kings! And while they were at it, the guild of Pandora’s Suitors disappeared, while the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown gained a new member, or slave.
Servant? Ainz Ooal Gown gained their sole human servant.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 9:5:30-23:12:00}
“Thank you for allowing me to complete my quest within the hall of the Great Tomb of Nazarick,” Inhuman formally introduced himself to those not part of the Pandora’s Suitors raid party, “I’m a level 100 human with a mix of classes, which as a guild member with the rank of slave, you should all be able to view.”
A wave of confusion emotes filled the conference hall. “Master of Crafts and Master Craftsman!? Aren’t those mutually exclusive?” “HOW DID YOU BYPASS BLACKSMITH AND GO RIGHT TO MASTER BLACKSMITH! HACKS!” “General and Supreme Commander levels, that’ll be useful in future attacks.” “HAND OF GOD! BUT YOUR KARMA IS 0!” “Who actually takes Administrator levels?” “I didn’t even know you could take levels as an Administrator.” “This is so un-optimized; it makes me want to vomit.” “Magic and Divine spell access? That shouldn’t be possible…” “Seriously, this guy’s a hacker.”
“I’m very curious as to how you also have Eclipse levels,” Satoru questioned of the human. “Eclipse is a job class exclusive to Overlords who’ve taken over 30 instant death spells along with certain other necromancy spells. Would you mind explaining that Inhuman?”
His build was very, very illegal, or at least it was very sketchy and clearly made using exploits if what his guild members were shouting about. If he got banned, it would reflect poorly on Ainz Ooal Gown. So unless he had a damn good explaination, Satoru felt it might be better to just report him to the GMs right then and avoid the drama of it all.
“There’s a questline in Valhalla where you temporarily gain a level as a skeleton; I did so at around level 40, right after I’d gotten done setting up my crafting build – I needed a few levels to protect that massive exploit abuse. Since I gained levels as a Skeleton, I wondered if I could gain more undead levels, which took a while. Anyhow, I eventually got to Overlord-“
“You experimented and managed to gain 55 levels of undead and ended up with being an Overlord,” Satoru deadpanned. “Excuse me if I say that’s insane.”
“I’m currently here to complete a quest where I cannot see or be seen by another humanoid player character, I like trying things out – I’ll explain the exploit I used for my crafting levels later, but I knew I needed to keep them safe; free undead racial levels were my best bet – the set up cost me a lot of time and EXP scrolls.”
“So then you naturally went for undead exclusive classes like Tomb King and Eclipse,” Peroroncino mused. “Wonder what else you could have done – isn’t Hand of God an Angel exclusive?”
“Shut up Pero,” Bukubukuchagama shouted down her younger brother, “you have the creator’s suite? I want nice clothes for my NPCs,” she demanded of their newly aquired servant.
“If that is your wish,” Inhuman accepted of Bukubukuchagama’s request. “I have the Professional Creation Suite and extensive experience in item creation.”
“Eh? But your character looks so plain!” Yamaiko gasped. “I’ve seen base game models that look better than that,” she mused stepping forward to inspect him like cattle.
‘Hey! We haven’t accepted him into the guild yet! He’s still really suspicious!’ Satoru shouted to himself. “Inhuman, you haven’t answered my question,” he reminded, trying to keep some amount of decorum in the conference hall.
“He already did, he did a quest to become an undead for a bit, when he finished the quest, his undead levels became invalidated,” Bellriver explained, “though it does open the question of how you still have Eclipse levels; if prerequisite levels can be ignored under certain conditions, that would explain how you have Advanced Job Classes without their Base Job Classes – though it doesn’t explain how you tricked the system.” Satoru paused for a moment, thankfully taking in Bellriver’s explaination, begrudgingly accepting the logic. He was one of the intellectual elites of Ainz Ooal Gown for a reason.
“I assume it’s some absurd exploit where you trick the system into thinking you’re a higher level than you are?” Punitto Moe postulated. “I can understand the… Ah, I see how you did it for the Wizard levels – you used the Skeleton Mage racial levels to skip the basic mage levels,” he explained. Inhuman emoted a checkmark. Punitto Moe emoted a smiling face, “So the devs just don’t give a damn about you abusing these exploits?”
“I have a friend on the dev team, he told me about the exploits – they find them hilarious,” Inhuman emoted a shrug. “Since it costs a lot of money to get the necessary EXP scrolls for it, and the benefit isn’t that great for most, they don’t really give a shit.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Because the option was there for it to be done?” Inhuman emoted a question mark.
“Oh!” Yamaiko exclaimed, pointing to the back of Inhuman’s neck, “this is a custom body! He’s got a non-standard birthmark! I’m sensing a story~” She placed hands on his shoulders, the gossip emoting a smile. Inhuman emoted a frown.
“I have no problem with him joining the guild,” Punitto Moe sounded off.
“Seconded!” “Agreed.” “No problems here.” “He’ll be useful, I have a lot of trash items that he could turn into money for us.” “Glad we finally have a dedicated production member now.” More and more members of Ainz Ooal Gown accepted Inhuman as their servant, with an ease that surprised Satoru.
“Are you all serious? He just finished betraying his own guild and you’re all willing to just let him join no problem!?” Peroroncino shouted in annoyance. “Momon-chan, you’re with me on this, right?”
“Momon-chan? When did you two start dating?” Bukubukuchagama asked of her little brother. “Now shut up and let him make me clothes for my NPCs.”
“No, he hasn’t been admitted to Ainz Ooal Gown yet, he’s still on probation,” Momonga called out in a non-too-forceful voice. “I’ll open up a poll of current members on his admittance, only once everyone has voted will his joining be confirmed. Until then… I suppose you can’t log out in our guild base, can you?” Inhuman shook his head. “Then let’s try and do this quickly.”
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 9:5:30-22:43:30}
“As the newest member of Ainz Ooal Gown, and our servant human, I command you, Inhuman, make clothes for my NPCs, Aura Belle Fiore and Mare Belle Fiore!” Bukubukuchagama demanded the moment the vote officially passed.
“My Vampire loli is also gonna need better equipment!” Peroroncino chimed in, along with many others.
Satoru sighed. Servant, slave, either way, he wasn’t sure if Inhuman would be able to last with the other members bullying him like this. “It’ll be fine, my friend,” Touch-Me assured, placing a hand on Satoru’s shoulder, “he’s keeping a few secrets, like most of us, but you heard him right? He needs to complete this quest – he didn’t say it in a whining tone, he was solemn and serious.”
“And?” Satoru questioned.
“Helping others in need is common sense, isn’t it?” His former guild master chimed before laughing boisterously.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 8:7:5-23:52:48}
Satoru walked into the crafting room to get Inhuman for help with a certain task. He and a few other members had been thinking about it, the Dagger of Pandora’s Suitors, a divine class item with more abilities crammed into it than any other divine class item they’d gotten their hands on – it was above divine class. It had been a lowly buzz throughout the guild for the duration of Inhuman’s stay with them, and now, he, as the guild master, was being tasked with investigating more about the guild weapon.
Entering the room, he found Inhuman hunched over a tailor’s bench, crafting the maid outfits that Whitebrim, Herohero and Coup De Grace had been working on as roleplaying elements for the residential 9th floor. Having him around had been plenty useful, Satoru could admit. Applying his Administrator, King and Tomb King buffs to the guild had made getting Nazarick set up to their spec much more painless than Satoru had been expecting. Just his presence in the guild hall had reduced operating costs by a decent chunk, and his ability to recycle trash materials into beginner items helped their financials even more.
Inhuman’s quest only had two months left before he’d have no reason to stay with them any longer, so they needed to get started. The process of gathering items and intelligence on guild weapons had already begun – though the problem laid in something they should have expected – guild weapons were kept secret as much as possible. They hadn’t been able to uncover much about their background functionalities, with other guilds not being forthcoming about what a guild weapon could do aside from being a weapon. What they had however, was knowledge, proven knowledge that Inhuman was friends with at least one dev on the Yggdrasil team.
So, naturally, they were going to ask him, their slave for details about guild weapons, maybe even forcing him to pester his developer friends for all the mechanics to make sure they have the best guild weapon in all of Yggdrasil. He didn’t like thinking about his fellow player like that, even if some of the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown did, playfully or not. “Inhuman,” Satoru called to the craftsman as he came to a halt behind the human.
Turning around, the same human face looked back at him, donning a butler’s attire (sponsored by Whitebrim and Yamaiko, Inhuman was another ‘maid’ of Nazarick) made by the wearer and enchanted specifically to improve his crafting outcomes to their limit. Satoru was slightly surprised that the shitty devs had put in oversight to prevent chain upgrading crafting abilities.
“Yes Momonga? What can I do for you?” Inhuman answered emoting a smile, turning away from his tailoring job for one of the maids, pausing the creation process (an oversight in the game which allowed him to skip base crafting classes through overlaying menues).
“Ainz Ooal Gown is going to be making our own guild weapon soon, and we need information on mechanics as well as how to optimize the weapon – namely against invasions.” Removing the guild weapon from the guild hall was immensely dangerous, as if it were destroyed, Ainz Ooal Gown too would perish. “We’ve started collecting some materials, but aside from readily available information on guild weapon crafting, we want more.”
“So, since I know devs, you’re telling me to give up information?” Despite his words, Inhuman’s tone was not confrontational, it was almost jovial, as if he enjoyed being ganged up on. “Sounds good to me,” he shrugged. “I also saw it coming and already got in contact with a few devs in charge of guild systems and item creation.”
‘Maybe this is why everyone else in the guild likes having him around, he preempts our questions and requests without prompting.’ Satoru could appreciate the air of care Inhuman put into serving Ainz Ooal Gown, he himself felt similarly indebted to his guildmates, working to provide the survival and might of Ainz Ooal Gown. The past few months had seen a few more people joining the guild, with one of them having sought to do harm to the guild and resulting in a more thorough vetting process.
“Thank you Inhuman, that saves us a lot of time,” Satoru sighed, put at ease by Inhuman’s casualness concerning his enslavement. “How strong can our guild weapon become?”
“World Class, though, a bit different since most WCI have major world breaking powers. I think the best description would be having the guild weapon be equal to having three level 100s rolled up into one. That should be the limit, but then again, this is Yggdrasil.”
“Meaning?”
“Most of the game systems are controlled by AI, neural networks designed to be infinitely flexible, and grow to accommodate whatever nebulous things players might attempt – like that one minotaur player who uses his real-world medical knowledge to heal others,” Inhuman offered as an explaination. Satoru had heard about the minotaur player, though that was just rumors, wasn’t it?
Sometimes it felt like Inhuman was too knowledgeable about the goings on in game.
“So, while the original limit should only be near WCI in that you can’t really expect anything to become properly game breaking, who knows if that rule is still in place – my own build is technically against the rules of the game. There are a handful of people over level 100 too, so even something as seemingly absolute as the leveling system isn’t flawless.” Satoru was glad that Momonga himself couldn’t emote, as he would have shown his surprise at finding out that 100 wasn’t an absolute level cap. Did that mean they could use these exploits to boost above level 100 themselves and become the strongest guild? Why hadn’t anyone else done so? Questions for another time. “I don’t know how we could break the WCI barrier, but knowing some of the people in this guild, namely Ulbert, Moe and Bellriver, I’m pretty sure a scheme could be thought up.”
“Not you?”
“I can think up something, but I’m not sure if I’ll still be here for it, you know?” Inhuman shrugged. “I’m not one to take advantage of those who’re doing me a huge favor like this, I owe you guys a ton, and I like most of you too, but I can only do so much for you guys in the end.”
“Still be here?” Satoru was genuinely confused at Inhuman’s somber tone.
“Well, once I finish up Become Inhuman, you’re gonna kick me from the guild right?” Inhuman asked with a painful about of resignation in his voice. That was the deal.
‘He’s good to have around though!’ Satoru internally raged at the thought of giving up Inhuman. ‘How can we make him stay with Ainz Ooal Gown though?’ “I don’t see why that means you cannot still assist in the creation of our guild weapon, or just helping with ideas – I would still welcome you as a guest.”
Inhuman emoted a suspicious. “I wouldn’t be able to help with crafting the guild weapon, the crafting process takes months, not to mention the grind for materials, artifacts and magic scrolls – all things you need to craft a guild weapon, which can only be made by a guild member.”
‘Was this all a trick? To put himself in a position where we have to keep him around more?’ Satoru couldn’t help but think. How had Inhuman gotten into their guild? By offering to destroy his own for them, giving them all the money they were in so desperate need of, and introducing them to the concept of guild weapons! ‘He’s basically our whole production department now too, we don’t have anyone else who can really support Touch-Me’s need to revamp his equipment every month, or Peroroncino and Bukubukuchagama’s clothing desires for their NPCs, or anyone else’s needs for weapons, armor, clothes or even just potent enchantments.’
Could Ainz Ooal Gown afford to let Inhuman go?
‘Ah! I’m thinking like a scumbag boss!’ Satoru cried out at his thought process. ‘Part of Ainz Ooal Gown is letting people go if they want to… right?’ He didn’t know because there was no rule for such things. “I see,” Satoru spoke not knowing what else to say. ‘He doesn’t think of himself as a guild member… though that makes sense too, he’s our slave, a servant, little more than an NPC.’
“That’s the crafting part, then there’s the mechanics behind having a guild weapon. From what I understand, you guys disbanded Nine’s Own Goal because of issues around how Touch-Me was running the guild, right?” Satoru nodded, uneasily, it felt dangerously close to talking behind Touch-Me’s back, it wasn’t right, he didn’t like it. “A guild weapon would have allowed Nine’s Own Goal to remain since it can be registered and set up to have administrator rights for the whole guild – like making someone a vice guild leader or even transferring leadership to another person. Though, to the best of my knowledge, it can’t remove people from a guild or remove guild leader privileges, those have to be voluntary. Though, I guess someone could just destroy the guild weapon and cause the guild to dissolve.”
“That would be bad,” Satoru agreed uneasily. He wanted to trust Inhuman, but there was still this obvious distance between the two of them. “Anything else I should know?”
Inhuman went still for a few moments, “I don’t think so… oh, there is one more thing – the name is auto generated, you don’t get to pick it.”
“That’s a bit disappointing,” Satoru emoted a sweat drop.
“I know, I feel like they could have put in a bit more effort, maybe letting people rename weapons? Whatever, I guess it’s too much to ask,” he emoted a sigh.
“You’re friends with one, why not get them to fix it?”
“No chance. I’ve complained about it before; they feed on the tears of others – terrible bastards, the lot of them,” he emoted a scoff. “I can draw up plans to make a WCI type guild weapon, though I don’t know how feasible it’ll be, some of the information is based on things my friends told me, and who knows how accurate those shitbags are, they’re just as big of griefers as my last guild.”
“Thank you for working so hard, Inhuman. I’ll leave you to it then,” Satoru thanked, turning to leave as Inhuman hummed in acknowledgement.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 8:6:16-02:02:02}
“Hey, Momonga,” Satoru stopped hitting confirm on his logout command, turning to see Inhuman, wearing his butler’s uniform like normal, though he’d recently decorated it a bit more, as he had with all 41 of the maid of Nazarick, adding small customization details to make them unique entities.
Satoru had been worried about what was going through Inhuman’s head when he decided to personalize every single maid beyond their model’s being unique. Little unnecessary things like embroidery that no one except those equipping the maids would notice. Satoru was more than a little convinced that Inhuman had gone a bit insane after being cooped up for a year within the Tomb. He knew for himself being able to go outside the tomb, experience the simulation of nature helped get him through the days, the escape from the hell of the real world was difficult to restrain when digital beauty and freedom was just minutes away.
The quest “Become Inhuman” really was impossible. Over the last year since becoming aware of the quest’s existence, Satoru had taken it upon himself to learn more about the quest which his guild’s slave was about to complete. A brutal storyline with 15 steps in the progression, the final step being the year of solitude. According to various message boards, it was a touching story too, revolving around the life and loss of an NPC with the final steps being a solo dungeon and boss fight before the year of solitude after acquiring a number of items. Of course, then there were the rumors surrounding the creation of the quest being a true story which occurred during the development of the game to one of the devs.
He wouldn’t have believed they could be so shitty if not for Inhuman being friends with a dev and having stories of their consummate cruelty.
And he was friend with the bastards!
Satoru let out a yawn, “what’s up Inhuman?” He greeted, waving away his menu.
Inhuman took a moment, “…never mind, get some rest Momonga.” He left the room after waving, leaving Satoru confused at what Inhuman was going to say, half wishing the human would have just gone ahead and done it.
“W-wait,” Satoru asked reaching out in vain as Inhuman had already disappeared back into the depths of Nazarick. He sighed, logging off for the day.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 8:5:30-22:00:59}
Satoru sat in the conference hall, joined by all other members of Ainz Ooal Gown with exception to Inhuman. “I called this meeting because tomorrow at 1 AM, Inhuman’s agreement with us will be up, he’ll have finished his quest and no longer have a reason to stay with us.”
“Wait, what?” Luci★Fer gawked. “He’s here because of a deal?” Luci★Fer had joined after Inhuman, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise that he didn’t know about the deal between Ainz Ooal Gown and their resident human. “No, he’s a member of Ainz Ooal Gown, right? This is a shitty prank right?”
“Inhuman joining Ainz Ooal Gown was contingent upon his clearing a quest and paying us in servitude as well as the original Pandora’s Suitors’ treasury,” Ulbert Alain Odle educated. “It’s because of that human that we’re now within spitting distance of the top 10 guilds. That start-up investment and his efforts have paid dividends. This is about how we can keep him, right?”
“I’m in favor of asking him to stay on, I’ve devised a few strategies that would be useful for us to engage in that are dependent upon his support levels and spell list,” Punitto Moe agreed readily. “He’s dedicated, hardworking, deceptively intelligent, and the sort of person I’d be happy to party with in the future.”
“Here! Here!” Peroroncino cheered, emoting a smile. “He’s really nice too, a bit of a prude, but he’s totally into Yggdrasil, crafting, messing around with any sort of hijinks I can come up with. Definitely good with Inhuman sticking around.”
“He’s my NPCs’ Godfather,” Bukubukuchagama stated. Not many had read the lore for the twin guardians of the 6th floor. “Plus he can be really cute at times! It’s fun to tease him, right Yamaiko?”
“Yeah, he’s a pretty nice person. I’ve had a duel with him, although I don’t think he was going all out, he definitely didn’t play like a noob, and he was really hard to nail down since he can do so many different things. I want to keep him, pretty please Momonga! We still don’t know his tragic backstory!”
“Why are you asking me!” Satoru rebuked.
“You’re the guild leader,” Touch-Me reminded, throwing him under the bus. “I like having a dedicated production manager around, even if my World Champion armor is perfect for my current build, being able to have new top tier weapons made as we get better materials and items to craft with is really nice. Plus, seeing him wander around in his butler’s uniform is pretty neat. Though I would like to go on adventures with someone like him. He’s got dedication, sticking with a quest that I doubt most of us would be capable of completing.”
“Here’s to that.” “No way am I sticking around the Tomb for a year.” “Absolutely brutal.” “Man is built different.”
“He’s been helping me map out the stars for my recreation of the night sky on the 6th floor, it’d be difficult to do it without him at this point,” Blue Planet admitted.
“Have all of you been relying that heavily upon him?” Satoru asked, curious if everyone else in the guild was treating him like a slave.
“Yeah.” “Of course.” “He signed up to be our slave.” “Well, yeah.” “Duh?” “Yup.” “When it’s convenient.” “Pretty much.” “I certainly have no talent for clothing design.”
“Isn’t it the same with you?” Warrior Takemikazuchi questioned.
“Eh?” Satoru gulped. “No, I haven’t been using him.”
“You sure?”
“Yes!” Satoru exclaimed. “I never asked him for anything.”
“What about the buff from his support classes?”
“Those don’t count!” Satoru defended.
“They totally do!” “You’re not even asking him! You’re just taking advantage of him!” “For shame Momon-chan!” “The Godfather of my children Momonga Onii-chan!” “You better apologize.” “Not cool dude.”
At the same time.
“I don’t know what you’re getting your panties in a twist over, they apply passively!” “Yeah! You’re good Momonga.” “Darn right they don’t count.”
Though overall those who saw Inhuman’s buffs to Nazarick’s upkeep as something Satoru should ask him for, or thank him for them won out. “Alright, I’ll thank him for being a part of Nazarick,” he said emoting a sigh of surrender. “So then I take it everyone wants to try and keep Inhuman as a member of Ainz Ooal Gown?” A wave of agreement swept through the room. “Then we have some things to talk about…”
“Shouldn’t be that hard, should it? Just upgrade him from a slave to full member, right?”
“Everyone else has an NPC though.”
“Well, we’re out of levels to make new NPCs unless someone wants to remove their NPC from the roster.”
No one was willing. Those who’d made NPCs had spent a healthy amount of time working on them, writing lore, getting them equipped (admittedly with the help of Inhuman’s crafting skills) and obsessing over the tiny details such as their inventory compositions.
“I suppose we’ll deal with that later?” Satoru offered, seeing the realization dawning upon his fellow guild members about their treatment of Inhuman. “If we want him to stay with us, I think we’ll need to change some things about how we treat him, starting with how we deal with him as head of production.”
“So no more asking him to make us stuff?”
“I think it’s more like treating him fairly, maybe paying him for services rendered.”
“He hasn’t raised a fit about it, maybe he likes it?”
“Shut up Pero, I doubt he’s a masochist.”
“Maybe we could… let him opt in for PKs? That and raids are the two main things we do as a guild.”
“I would like to have him for both;” Punitto Moe admitted, “while it is true that his build is hilariously weak, it covers a number of weaknesses in our guild due to its versatility, while also having support classes to make his role on the battlefield relatively superfluous. Those small buffs are worthwhile at our level of play where most don’t bother with them in PVP.”
“Maybe we could let him have his own little treasury? I was talking with him a while back, he’s a lot like Momonga with his collector tendencies, complaining about how cluttered his inventory is… we’re able to add a private treasury aren’t we?”
“That should be possible, yes,” Whitebrim confirmed. “Though, we all have our own private storage spaces in our bedrooms don’t we?”
“Whitebrim’s right. It was part of furnishing the 9th floor, dressers with space for all the outfits, armors and such we could come across,” Herohero confirmed.
“What can we offer him?”
“A guild not populated by assholes?” Ankoro Mochi Mochi suggested. Emotes of confusion filled Satoru’s vision. “Whenever I talk to him about why he betrayed Pandora’s Suitors, he always complains fervently about how they treated him, how he still gets hate mail from them about killing their guild, not that I blame them for that.”
“Yeah, remember when they tried to raid us because it got out that he joined our guild?” Shijuuten Suzaku remembered fondly of the raid which resulted in a total party wipe at the hands of the guardian of the 1st through 3rd floors, Shalltear something or other. A healthy profit was had that day.
“We don’t treat him that badly, do we?” Ankoro Mochi Mochi questioned, putting a canine paw on her chin. “He usually gives me positive emotes whenever we finish chatting.”
“Is that before or after asking him to make a new outfit for your dog or penguin?” Temperance asked.
“Rude! I talk to him without needing to check up on Éclair Ecleir Eicler’s latest butler outfit! And I am perfectly happy with the outfit he made for Pestonya Shortcake Wanko.”
“I have no problem admitting him as a proper member of the guild, but doesn’t that set a bad precedent? One of the rules to join Ainz Ooal Gown is you have to be a heteromorph, he’s human.”
“Shit.” “Can’t we make an exception?” “Yeah, but he’s different.” “He’s Inhuman.” “He spent a year with our crazy asses, he deserves to choose to be here.” “GODFATHER OF MY CHILDREN!” Others continued to voice their support of Inhuman joining Ainz Ooal Gown.
“We have a day to figure this out…” Satoru reiterated. A day to figure out how to keep Inhuman in Ainz Ooal Gown.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 8:5:29-23:11:15}
Satoru called Inhuman with a [Message]: Hey Inhuman, I was wondering if I could meet with you to talk about how we go forward from here on out, since you’re no longer doing the quest and all.
Inhuman arrived in the conference hall a few minutes later, emoting surprise to see all the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown present, along with a ‘Congratulations’ banner.
They joined Inhuman in emoting surprise when three players warped into the guild hall at the same time. “Yo, Inhuman, come with us.”
“Takotako? German? Outcast Recon? What’re you three assholes doing here?”
‘…What?’ Satoru couldn’t see the health bars, and they shouldn’t have been able to just warp into Nazarick unless they had Rings of Ainz Ooal Gown, which could only be worn by guild members. “Wait!”
“Chill out Momonga, we’re just here to collect our friend here, we’ll drop him off after we’re done with him.”
“No way am I letting my guild member get kidnapped in our own base!” Touch-Me shouted brandishing his sword.
“Guys, it’s fine. Takotako and Outcast Recon are devs. German too, but he’s an asshole.”
“Fuck off Nakayama,” The one wearing a German flag as a cape scoffed, grabbing Inhuman before warping out of the base, followed by the other two.
…
Then the confused panic began.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 8:5:28-02:32:35}
Satoru was looking over guild finances when he received a notification that Inhuman had entered the guild base. Shooting up from his seat, he set a [Mass Message] to the rest of the guild to inform them of Inhuman’s return.
They gathered quickly in the conference hall, with Satoru tracking Inhuman as he descended through the dungeon. “Did… oh my god, we didn’t give him a guild ring,” he facepalmed.
“Seriously? We really forgot to do that?” “Oops.” “Always wondered why it took so long for him to come to my bedroom.” “What was he doing in your bedroom?” “Making new sheets for the bed.” “You actually use the bed?” “No but I like having nice looking blankets on it.” “Tailors can do that?” “He certainly can.”
“Can someone go get him? I don’t know how long this conversation is going to take,” Satoru asked, with a few members teleporting out at the same time to get fetch their human. “Haaa, we’re gonna lose him,” Satoru sighed in dismay.
The teleport sounded through the hall, next to Touch-Me stood someone whose player ID read Inhuman, but the model was nothing like the human they knew.
He still wore his butler attire, though nothing else about him remained the same. “The reward for completing Become Inhuman is 10 levels of a racial class,” Inhuman explained, Satoru noting his level now read “110.” His face was distinctly different, black sclera with bright orange irises lacking pupils surrounded by a facial structure which screamed predator, violence, a permanent scowl in the eyes, piercing and a bit creepy if Satoru was being honest. “Of course, since no one had actually finished the quest before, they decided that as the first person to complete the quest, I should be allowed to spend some time creating the cosmetic changes for the race change.” Outside of his eyes, his skin had become a bit less pale and Japanese, taking on a more Nordic inspiration with the coldness of the skin tone. His previously tamed black hair becoming unruly and ragged, running down to his shoulders, wilder compared to his previous character design. “Takotako, German and Outcast Recon just wanted to congratulate me a bit for it, and give me some time to edit my character’s appearance.” He’d also gotten a bit taller, now on par with most of the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown, well taller than his previous human body.
“Since I now have 10 levels of the heteromorph race Arch-Human, can I join Ainz Ooal Gown as the 41st member?”
‘Oh, well that was easy.’
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 3:8:17-05:59:59}
Satoru returned from their mine, one they’d only narrowly held onto thanks to the extra WCIs they’d managed to gather with Inhuman’s insider information. At current, they held all three of the craft-able WCI (one of which being a duplicate Caloric Stone, the original having been used in the creation of Rubedo), three items of the twenty, and another 12 “standard” WCI. Although all of them were, by design, game breaking, some were more valuable than others; Atlas’s ability to map and create warp points between worlds was invaluable in maintaining control over their interests across the other worlds.
Hence why Ainz Ooal Gown still held a monopoly on Star Silver, Irradiant Iridium, and Eternal Samarium. They once also held the only known Celestial Uranium mine, but that one had been lost when an alliance of guilds launched a three-pronged attack on Nazarick, the Star Silver mine and the Celestial Uranium mine. The original Star Silver mine, which had been compromised, was moved using numerous golems and a WCI (which the process had consumed). They managed to locate an Irradiant Iridium mine during a raid mission; Inhuman, as he often did, used his dev friends to find out the location of the Eternal Samarium mine.
Despite the cost of the situation, it still gave Ainz Ooal Gown a powerful standing as the sole supplier for three of the seven Prismatic Ores, of which only six had even been found: Apoithakarah, Scarletite, Celestial Uranium, Star Silver, Irradiant Iridium and Eternal Samarium. With half of the mines in their hands and the ability to purchase the other three on the human grand exchange through Inhuman, they had no difficulty obtaining the rare ores for whatever projects they came up with.
Of course, that assumed people were present to take advantage of those reserves of raw materials.
Satoru looked at what ultimately had cost the guild most of its members, the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown. The guild weapon they’d sacrificed half of year of their personal lives in order to craft, a World Class item for a guild weapon, the only one of its kind. Their ambition of having the greatest guild weapon had stretched themselves too thin, even with Inhuman making daily trips to the human Grand Exchange to track down items they needed, the vast quantities of Prismatic Ore, ultra rare Divine Class drops from certain dungeons, it had pushed all of them to their limits.
As of now, only 7 members still actively played, with himself and Inhuman being the only two who still logged in daily. A far cry from the halcyon days of Ainz Ooal Gown holding the undisputed position as the strongest guild in Yggdrasil.
He inspected the guild weapon with remorse. It was designed to exude an aura of absolute supremacy befitting the strongest guild, constructed of the highest quality materials. Nine serpents forged from the Prismatic Ore’s and their alloys, each holding a jewel, each a Divine Class item themselves, within their maw entwined to form the body of the staff, the heads resting upon a reliquary holding another Divine Class item which served to boost the guild weapon into the realm of World Class. It was glorious in the majesty of the weapon, exuding power capable of enhancing the magic capabilities of the wielder far above their base. The original plans for the weapon had meant to only have seven serpents holding the crystals they’d managed to acquire during the main time of their grind, comprising the seven elements of magic. They only moved the goal post once a new dungeon was found by Suratan and Peroroncino while the two were performing an intelligence gathering mission in the realm of Valhalla, stumbling upon another item in the set. That discovery lengthened the grind by another two months, but brought the capabilities of the weapon even higher, crystalized spheres of magic power relating to the elemental alignments of Sun, Moon, Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Time, Life and Death.
It stood as testament to the dedication of his guildmates, his friends to raising Ainz Ooal Gown to the pinnacle of Yggdrasil. The greatest times of comradery spent under a unified duress, the bonds forged through their quest for greatness, even as they all faced troubles IRL with jobs relationships, a few with financial difficulties which were handled through charity of other members.
‘We all sacrificed so much to make this guild as great as it is, now it’s a ghost town, the other member who shows up was our damn slave!’ Satoru had never gotten past how he and his fellow guildmates had treated the 41st member of Ainz Ooal Gown. ‘They have lives outside of Yggdrasil, just like me, I understand that, but for so many of them to just drop it…’ He wasn’t much better, his company had just announced a new project and his life was likely going to become very hectic for the next few months, probably longer.
Real life was going to get in the way of his playing Yggdrasil, but that was the point of the second joining requirement. A member of Ainz Ooal Gown had to be a functioning member of society.
…
‘What does Inhuman do for a living? He isn’t just some rich guy who takes advantage of those beneath us is he?’ He couldn’t think of anytime that Inhuman had mentioned what he did for a living. Not even in passing from another guild member. He would have to ask about that.
As if on cue, the “Weakest Master of Magic and Craft” teleported into the base. He no longer wore his old butler’s attire, instead having begun wearing equipment which “suited his position and build,” which meant sorcerer’s cloak lined with Star Silver chainmail covering a silken shirt made from a rare spider monster drop embroidered with more Star Silver, leather belts with buckles made of Celestial Uranium, a goofy wizard hat, the brim stitched with Irradiant Iridium thread, dragon leather gloves stitched much the same as his oversize wizard hat, somewhat plain trousers tucked into grieves made out of Celestial Uranium, and a massive staff with a large white gemstone floating in the center of the elaborate headpiece. Floating next to him was a zweihander with an angel motif for the guard and a demon motif for the blade.
The floating sword was new! And it looked really cool too!
“Good evening Momonga,” Inhuman greeted with a bow. Another thing about his appearance was the use of a cosmetic item to hide his eyes from view, with them instead appear as two orange dots in a sea of darkness cast by his wizard hat – similar to Black Mages from Final Fantasy’s old games. Really, if one didn’t know it, Inhuman could easily pass as a traditional heteromorph. “Had a productive day?” He asked with a question mark emote and a pleasant tone.
“Umu, it seems you had a more productive day though. The sword is new, and quite cool,” Satoru admired of his guildmate. Of the members of Ainz Ooal Gown, Inhuman had a tendency to collect quite a few unique and interesting items due to his habit of running around realms the rest of them normally couldn’t and making sketchy deals. “Where’d you find it?”
Inhuman looked at the sword, “I picked it up last night after leaving the guild, I had a mission in mind that I needed some extra firepower to complete.”
“I would have been willing to help you out,” Satoru emoted a frown.
“Sadly, it had to be done solo,” Inhuman responded.
“Something your dev friends told you?” Satoru asked, already knowing the answer.
“German was annoyed about getting transferred to a different division so he may have let slip the requirements to acquire another one of the Twenty,” he explained with a smile emote. He drew out the item in question, a very plain looking blindfold. “Complete twenty level 80 and higher dungeons while wearing a blindfold and it’ll turn into the Else-World Eye Wrappings,” he explained offering the World item to Satoru who investigated it eagerly.
It inflicted blind upon the user, which sucked and was one of the worst status effects in game since it could even disrupt 100% accurate attacks like [Magic Arrow] and its variants, and enabled friendly fire for AoE attacks and skills. The upside of granting the wearer every other sensory ability at the same time wasn’t even that good since they would overlap and make playing the game impossible! The activation effect of inflicting Sensory Loss in a mass AoE was decent enough though since it could only be countered by another WCI, especially since the duration was measured in hours.
Damn asshole devs.
“You completed twenty dungeons while blind?” Satoru questioned passing back the ordinary seeming WCI. “That sounds really difficult.”
“This thing trivialized it pretty effectively,” Inhuman nodded tapping on his newly aquired zweihander.
“How’s that?” Satoru wondered. “Auto Attack functions?”
“Let me introduce to the Blade of Demon’s Hallow, formerly held by the guild master of the 39th ranked guild Demon’s Hallow, Kamaeleudey,” Inhuman touted of the surprise guild weapon. “I couldn’t have completed the task without this bad boy and all it’s autonomous attack functions and buffs to my physical stats,” he pat the blade affectionately, emoting a heart. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to add a spot on the 8th floor to display it and maybe a few other guild weapons I’d like to get my hands on,” he requested while emoting a pleading face.
He used emotes a lot.
“How did you convince the guild leader to part with their guild weapon?” Satoru questioned, “better question, how did you get them to trust you with the fate of their guild?”
Inhuman emoted a smile. “Kamaeleudey is an old friend, from before my last job. He and I go way back, we spent a lot of days covering one another’s ass from our superiors. We recently met up again, he found out I play, so when he decided he wanted to reroll his character without dissolving his guild, I checked to see if there was a way for the guild leader to have their account reset without dissolving the guild – lo and behold, if the guild is missing its guild weapon, it cannot be dissolved normally,” he explained with a few more emotes thrown in for good measure.
“Really?” Satoru questioned.
“Yup!” Inhuman answered with a nod of his head and a grin emote. “Kamaeleudey and I used to play a high-speed ARPG where reflexes were king. It was still going for a little bit after the start of Yggdrasil after I left the company, so he kept playing that while I got into Yggdrasil. Maybe you heard of it? Star Aces Unlimited?” Satoru shook his head.
‘I have to ask him about what he does for a living, this is going to kill me if I don’t!’ Satoru decided. “So you met Kamaeleudey at your old job? What did you do? You still have a job, right?”
“Did I never mention what I do for a living?” Inhuman asked to the air, playing dumb. “Could have sworn I’d mentioned it to Buku or Yamaiko, or Ulbert and Bellriver. Whitebrim probably knew since that whole affair with my maid,” he mused, referencing his sole NPC, the 41st homunculus maid of Nazarick.
When Whitebrim had announced he was planning on leaving, he and the other architects behind the homunculus maids decided to give the 41st slot to Inhuman so she could be completely remade as his NPC. That was years ago, and last time Satoru had checked, Inhuman’s maid’s changelog was still receiving minor tweaks while still keeping her uniform with the other 40 maids. This was after the Maid-Counsel decided to let Inhuman write lore for each of the maids since they couldn’t be bothered to populate all of the settings when they’d gotten interested in other projects, namely the golem maid affair.
The affair Inhuman was referencing would have been when he started using rare, paid cosmetic items on his maid sparking a guild wide debate on the use of paid cosmetic items for NPCs… it somehow lasted a whole week. The end result was an overwhelming “why are we arguing about this? This is stupid!”
‘So the others might have known and didn’t tell me?’ Satoru thought disappointedly. ‘I thought they would have… well they thought that I would know too, wouldn’t they?’ He considered. It didn’t seem like Inhuman was keeping it a secret. “Eh, they would have known? They never told me,” Satoru said, emoting a sweat drop.
“I’m a programmer,” Inhuman said simply.
“Oh? What sort of programmer?”
“Well, I used to do software development, but once I no longer had to, I switched to game design, you know? Not like I hide it at all,” he shrugged emoting a smile.
“Eh, is that so? I didn’t even know you were a programmer,” Satoru admitted. ‘He did game design? Is that how he knows a few devs? And how he found those exploits?’
“Well, I’m not currently working on anything I can talk about in specifics. The project I’m working on right now is going to be a competitor to Yggdrasil, though I don’t think it’ll hold up since there’s too much interference with the AI governors for magic and item generation. Plus World Breakers are just too cool to restrict like they’re planning.”
“World Breakers?” Satoru questioned.
“World Items, it’s a dev term,” Inhuman explained awkwardly.
“Right, you’re friends with the devs,” Satoru understood. “When did you get into game design?”
“Around 15 years ago, my first project was just doing maintenance on Final Fantasy Online, got out of there pretty quickly to get in on the ground floor of a different project.”
“Cool. Did you work on anything I might know?” Satoru asked.
“Seriously?”
“Hmm?”
“Yeah, I’ve only worked on three other projects, but my first has a special place in my heart.” He emoted a smile.
“What is it?”
Inhuman paused for a few moments before emoting a devil smirk. “You have Tako, German and Outcast in your known players library right?”
Satoru brought up the aforementioned library menu, finding the trio of devs who liked to kidnap his guild member. “Yeah?”
“What’re their player IDs?”
‘What is he getting at?’ Satoru thought, reading off their player ID numbers: “DD0Y-XGSAZYGM9Z, DD0Y-XZILPWBB4J, DD0Y-9GZQ3CFNDK.”
“Now, what’s, say, Pero’s player ID?”
Satoru obliged: “PVKY-MMAPNURBO6”
“And mine?”
Satoru read it off: “DD0Y-D500YFIGZA”
“Notice the pattern?”
Satoru hadn’t ever toyed around with the string system behind the player ID systems. “Well, like with all player IDs they’re 14 character long alpha-numeric strings with a dash after the first four characters.”
“Yeah, but what do you notice about Tako, German, and Outcast’s?”
“They start with DD0Y?”
“And mine?”
Satoru flicked between the two screens a few times. They both started with DD0Y. ‘You shitty bastard!’ “You’re a dev!”
“Formerly in charge of the AI that created all our magic and items,” Inhuman bowed. “I got fired while I was completing the Become Inhuman quest.”
“!!!” Satoru was shocked. “It was named after you! You’re Inhuman!”
“Well duh,” Inhuman emoted a grin even as he audibly sighed. “Tako made it to mock me like the shitty bastard he is,” Inhuman explained, or rather, complained. Satoru was too shocked to pay attention as Inhuman continued to complain about his dev friends… COWORKER!
“YOU’RE A SHITTY BASTARD OF A DEV!”
“Yeah, I know, we’re all asshole sadists, I’m pretty sure it’s like a hiring requirement,” Inhuman shamelessly answered – no emote. “Making things hard on players and forgetting to worry about balance is probably another thing we all have in common.” He laughed, slapping his character’s knee.
“You kept this from us!”
“No I didn’t!” Inhuman immediately defended. “You guys never asked! Besides, I’ve put a lot of effort into screwing over the other guilds with ex-devs in them for the sake of Ainz Ooal Gown!” He praised emoting a hurrah.
“Are there a lot of ex-devs running around in Yggdrasil?”
“Yeah, for the last two years, the world champion has been an ex-dev. We’re horrible really,” he admitted unabashedly, “I’m on an illegal character, keeping my dev account because no one gives a shit as long as I continue to fly under the radar – hell, I freelance for Outcast sometimes. He used to be my underling you know? The upcoming Mech event? I’m going to be listed in the credits for it despite no longer officially working on Yggdrasil.”
“Mech event?”
“You heard nothing,” Inhuman stated with a tone of finality. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go log these two rarities into the treasury,” he excused before warping away.
Satoru wasn’t done with him, and warped after him. ‘You can’t just tell me that you’re a dev and there are many other ex-devs running around messing with Yggdrasil and leave it at that! I have so many questions!’ Finding Inhuman power walking into the treasury, Satoru continued to give chase. ‘Does that mean that no matter what we do, we’ll always be at the mercy of another asshole dev messing with us?’
“Inhuman! I have questions,” Satoru demanded of his guild member.
“Momonga! I might have answers,” Inhuman mockingly responded.
‘Oh, so now you’re acting like an ass? Is this who you really are?’ Satoru thought with venom. “Are the other ex-devs something we should be worried about?”
“Nope,” Inhuman responded with a wink emote. “We’re all shitty people, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who managed to get into a guild with other people; most of them are running solo guilds and can’t actually bring anything to the table besides individual strength,” he reported clinically, depositing items into the treasury.
“What uh, are the individual strengths?”
“Aside from game knowledge, most ex-devs aren’t anything special. Those of us who still have dev accounts can see devs and mods even when they turn on invisibility… oh and infinite inventory space. That’s probably everything, really, you’re not too far off from being a dev with your inventory of 14,550 slots,” Inhuman said offhandedly.
“How do you know about how large my inventory is?”
Inhuman emoted a question mark, “you bragged about it to me. Momonga, I know that I’m probably the last person who should be talking, but are you balancing life and Yggdrasil well?” He emoted a worry a second after he finished speaking.
Satoru sighed, “ahh, well, work is looking to be getting a bit hectic soon.”
“Don’t burn yourself out,” Inhuman advised. “If you need to take a break, I’ll keep an eye on things here. I do rather love this place,” he noted while looking around at the treasury, guarded by Pandora’s Actor along with 12 Prismatic Maid Golems. He emoted a stop. Clearing his throat before kneeling, “Momonga, my guild master, I am a servant to Ainz Ooal Gown, I shall forever watch over that which has been made here; should you ever decide to leave, I will keep and grow your legacy.”
“Inhuman, what are you doing?” Satoru asked confused by the bit of roleplay from the human. “I don’t plan to leave any time soon.”
“Should you however, I will handle things in your stead, Momonga, I swear it on my life.”
“Drama queen,” Satoru sighed.
“You don’t even know how terrible I was when creating this world. We’re all Shitty Dev Bastards, some of us are just better at hiding it,” he emoted a devilish grin once again. Looking up at Satoru from his kneel, “If you decide you need a break, I’ll keep Ainz Ooal Gown, until… well honestly, probably until after the end of Yggdrasil.”
“Eh?” Satoru gasped, ‘what do you mean by that? Keeping Ainz Ooal Gown even after the end of Yggdrasil? Why are you even thinking of Yggdrasil’s end! This game isn’t going to end any time soon, is it?’
“Well, another dev, one you don’t know – he works server side, maintaining everything, he’s a decent guy and not insane like those madmen in the creative department – he was talking about grabbing some of his favorite places in Yggdrasil, like this one spot on Midgard where the sunsets over a certain formation of mountains with a waterfall creating this really pretty location. It’s actually where dev meetings are held in game,” he commented. “Anyways, so Torigamu was making a program to copy areas from Yggdrasil so they could be loaded up in standalone versions, dropping them into the engine raw.”
“Wait! You mean this person is planning to make a copy of Yggdrasil?”
“Just a few locations. I plan on getting a copy of Nazarick… maybe try to get a copy of it into the project I’m currently working on, though we aren’t at the stage where quests are even being thought about you know? Still a ton of engine modification and asset creation, that sort of thing. I just thought it would be cool to have some representation of the guild in the next game. Hell, Nazarick was a player from a previous game one of the other guys played.”
“Really?”
“Yup!” Inhuman exclaimed, getting off his knee, “I actually wonder how long the chain of connections runs. Was Nazarick connected to a dev from a previous game like I am with Ainz Ooal Gown and Sakuga is with Nazarick?” He emoted a thinking. “Was that all Momonga?”
“Thank you Inhuman,” Satoru emoted a smile. “If anything comes up, you’ll be the first person I ask to look after the guild. Don’t expect me to just give up my legacy without putting up a fight though you shitty dev!”
“Ha!” Inhuman emoted a devil smile, “if you think that I, a creator of the world you inhabit would ever be beaten, you’ve got another thing coming! I am immutable! The Inhuman who does not know defeat!”
“It is Ainz Ooal Gown that does not know defeat!” Satoru corrected playfully shouting at the human. The two stared at one another before breaking down into a fit of giggles, both emoting laughter. “So then, Inhuman, got any plans for the night?”
“Well, my Dark Wisdom came off cooldown, so I’m going to go trick someone into letting me harvest them for more spells and magic.”
Satoru stared at Inhuman for a few moments, before asking the obvious question, “how do you have Dark Wisdom? That’s an Overlord exclusive skill.” Then the thought occurred, ‘he’s a dev, he probably has some bullshit explaination that abuses an oversight in the game engine or something! What a bastard! If he told the rest of us, what sort of builds could we create with this sort of information!’
“It’s a quest reward,” the answer was severely underwhelming. “It’s an annoying quest, I mentioned it before; it’s how I got the Eclipse class. The quest reward is Dark Wisdom, provided you perform all the side objectives, which are about as painless as pulling teeth,” he groaned. “Anyone can learn the skill, it’s just time consuming and tedious, as with all the most interesting things in Yggdrasil, hidden in plain view behind a lens of tedium and aggravation.” He emoted a smirk.
“Why?!” Satoru exclaimed.
“Because, fuck the players,” Inhuman answered with a devil smile emote.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 3:5:29-02:48:26}
Satoru yawned loudly as the boss fell over dead. “Another rough day?” Inhuman asked with that tone of curious care that Satoru had begin to notice about the ex-dev. “If you want to hop off for the night, I can find other things to do solo,” he emoted with a shrug.
“Yeah, today was tough,” Satoru admitted. “The company didn’t tell us that the client expected us to actually hit their insane deadlines, so they decided to have us start earlier since there were complaints about people needing to end their work day by 8.”
“That’s considerate of them, letting you guys leave at 8,” Inhuman emoted laughter, yet his tone was grim. “What time did you normally get out of there?”
“The day used to go from 6:30 AM to 7 PM with a 30-minute break,” he paused for another yawn, “the last few days have been 4 AM to 8 PM.” Inhuman emoted concern. “I’m okay, just less time for most other things.”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Artificial egg yolk with my ramen noodles.”
“Ah, a dinner fit for a king,” Inhuman emoted deadpan. “You’re going to die if you don’t make a bit more time for life. Yggdrasil isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” Inhuman promised. “Take some time off.”
“What about you? It wouldn’t be right for the guild master to leave his guild members behind.”
“I’ll be okay. I did my time as a hard-working drone already, you’re still a bit on the younger side, aren’t you?”
“How old are you Inhuman?”
“Older than you. You remind me of a few of my kouhai actually,” Inhuman explained. “Go back to Nazarick and log out, I’ll watch over the guild while you deal with your shitty bosses.”
“And leave it to a shitty dev?”
“You’re stuck with your shitty boss, you aren’t stuck with a shitty dev,” he joked good-naturedly. “You can only deal with so much shit in life, believe me. Don’t set yourself up for more pain.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“As your senpai in life, I only think it’s best to offer you advice Momonga,” Inhuman spoke with that serious as a filter failure. “You can come back to Yggdrasil so long as you keep on living, you can still live so long as you aren’t dead, understand?”
Satoru was perplexed. “’can still live so long as you aren’t dead’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s a difference between being alive and living. When was the last time you felt truly happy and alive Momonga? It was when we were making the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown – you need your people around you. Solo play, even duo play doesn’t suit you.” Inhuman shared a screenshot of all them standing around as he lifted the completed Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown over the remaining members of Ainz Ooal Gown.
“Ah, good times.”
“I won’t say to open up Ainz Ooal Gown to new blood, but maybe you should look elsewhere for the company you so desperately need,” Inhuman advised. “I’ll be fine with keeping the guild on top by myself – I love it with or without all of you guys in the halls of Nazarick.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Satoru accepted through another yawn. “I’m gonna turn in for the night… and think about what you said, Inhuman… thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it Momonga. I get off on seeing you taking care of yourself.”
“Ew,” Satoru recoiled at Inhuman ruining the moment.
“Still a shitty dev,” Inhuman emoted a winking face.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 2:3:8-22:00:06}
Nakayama Tadashi, better known by his nickname and screenname Inhuman, teleported into the Grand Exchange on Midgard. For whatever reason, the team in charge of creating the GE had always insisted upon requiring players to show up in person for all dealings with the world-wide market. He always thought it was stupid, and that they should have simply levied a heft convenience fee on those who used remote methods. Somewhere above the 20% threshold would have been ideal in his opinion.
Walking up to the counter, he opened a menu with the NPC to check on the purchase and sale of his goods. He’d been on the hunt for spell scrolls to finish up one of his build’s goals:
- Be capable of crafting anything in game
- Be capable of using anything in game
- Be capable of using every spell in game
- Experience every aspect of Yggdrasil
- Be capable of letting others experience more of Yggdrasil
The 2nd goal was already complete, he was currently working on the 1st and 3rd goals namely because of his own idiocy. He wanted to be able to solo craft a World Breaker. His favorite World Breaker: The Embodiment of Magic and Mystique: Astral Mystic Plane Guide Stone, crafted by combining a copy of every spell scroll in the presence of characters capable of casting all 358 Super Tier magic spells. Ainz Ooal Gown already held one copy of The Embodiment of Magic and Mystique: Astral Mystic Plane Guide Stone, one created with the help of every guild member and a bit of manipulation in getting all the mages in the guild together in the same room.
While simply possessing one copy was enough, he now also wanted to show it off, and ideally use it against another guild. It was practically the same as having the World Disaster class maxed out at 15 (even though it was sub-optimal), on a glass cannon guild, and casting any of the AoE super tier spells focused on causing as much havoc as possible. [Grand Catastrophic Luna] would be a pretty decent approximation of The Embodiment of Magic and Mystique: Astral Mystic Plane Guide Stone in terms of effect.
The beauty of the item was in the activation before the damage all applied – oh it is a glorious event! He really wanted to use it in an appropriate circumstance.
His sale of Ainz Ooal Gown exclusive products had been completed, netting the guild a good deal more wealth due to the exorbitant prices he commanded of the rare crafting materials. It was enough where a guild of decent size wouldn’t be able to purchase the ore in any sort of decent volume, perfectly well suited to fund Tadashi’s endeavors – such as attempting to create a personal armory for every single class in game.
His current effort was for Cursed Warriors. Those that use weapons with curses on them in order to boost their own stats before flipping the curse onto their target. Very interesting hybrid class, very strong at solo play. The influx of Cursed Mithril would be going towards his third revision of Kilineiram… ‘maybe revision is the wrong word for it? I mean, I am just remaking the sword for use with a high level so that the Cursed Warrior can keep their iconic look.’
Tadashi would not admit to be vain.
‘Maybe I should make it a whole weapon set? A dark and twisted mirror to my holy swords? All inferior to the master of both lines of weaponry, the monstrous Blade of Demon’s Hallow!’ He thought of one of his guild weapons. While they technically belonged to the guild as he displayed them on the 8th floor alongside the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, he was the only player who could use the two other guild weapons of Ainz Ooal Gown: the Blade of Demon's Hallow and the Arcane Cannon of Zabanya’s Servants. The former had karma requirements the warriors of Ainz Ooal Gown couldn’t meet, and as for the latter, Ainz Ooal Gown didn’t have any gunners.
The NPCs however, he’d yet to find an item in game one of Nazarick’s NPCs couldn’t make use of, guild weapon, crafted, dropped, or otherwise.
‘Man, I love those kids,’ he thought pleasantly of the numerous unique NPCs within the confines of the tomb, many of which he would talk to casually when other players weren’t in the room. ‘I should add another skill tome to Shion,’ he thought of his maid putting in another purchase order on the GE. Most skill tomes were worthless since they only gave base class skills without the class’s supporting stats, but for roleplay, putting them into the inventories of NPCs gave them more character! Such as with Cixous who, according to her lore, loves singing and exploring the upper floors of Nazarick despite it being against the rules, giving her a Songstress skill book felt right!
Tadashi had gone through quite a few phases of modifying Shion and her lore, usually small tweaks to make her fit his perfect idea for her. She was his personal maid, the Inhuman’s maid needed to be as excessive as himself! ‘I she already has all the same base abilities as me, what else do I add to her? A good maid should be capable of… I got it!’ He mentally cheered as he selected the skill tome for his maid. The thought of his maid also being a dancer was wonderful.
Humming as he put down the gold for the purchase before resolving the other deals he’d been party to, he left the GE with a warp outside onto the streets of the capital city of Midgard, a place called Norway despite the city being named Hedeby, a city which would have existed in Germania. ‘Damn idiot players, ruining our vision!’ Tadashi thought in mock anger.
He like most of the devs, had gone out of their way to make things difficult for players, or add little eccentricities and inside jokes which would be otherwise lost on the average player – all to harvest the most hilarious rage comments. Many times, Tadashi had gleefully thought, ‘man, I am such an asshole.’ Making his way through the streets patrolled by level 100 guard NPCs, he smiled at the world he’d helped create before heading to his favorite place in Norway – the starter’s guild.
A place where someone like him could trade some trash items for a group of low levels to fulfill his requirements for Dark Wisdom, expanding his spell list even further. Entering into the guild, many low levels immediately recognized him. Since telling Momonga directly, he’d come up with the plan of letting others know about his being a dev and using that to his advantage.
Of course, nothing that he offered was anything the moderators would get annoyed at, if anything tricking low levels into going along with his schemes in exchange for trash gear would make many of his friend laugh at their stupidity.
“Woah! It’s Inhuman!” One of the low levels wearing some of his trash armor gawked, rushing over with two of his kiddie friends. “Lord Inhuman, it is fortuitous that I see you once more!”
‘I don’t remember you, ant,’ Tadashi mentally responded. “Hello again Dynamic Virtue,” he greeted with faked cordiality, throwing in a smile emote for good measure. He was here for his own goals, not to befriend these noobs, even if some of them could be pretty entertaining. “I presume you are wishing for my guidance and assistance once more?”
“Indeed! It is as you say, Lord Inhuman!”
‘Getting called ‘Lord Inhuman’ is also pretty sweet,’ Tadashi sighed contentedly.
“My ally, the Black Knight has recently followed myself to the lands of Midgard,” Dynamic Virtue introduced of another low level wearing blackened knight armor. “I beg your assistance once more for the sake of my ally to be brought up in levels and equipment.”
“And your payment?”
“We both gladly offer ourselves a trip through the underworld for the sake of your greatness,” Dynamic Virtue answered quickly as other low levels came forward, a party of noobs, how fun.
“Hey, you’re Inhuman right? How do you complete ‘Trials of the Outcast?’ I’ve been trying for days and no one else will tell me what to do! They just laugh!” Tadashi emoted a laugh, “like that!”
“In a moment,” he read the username, “UrMomsHoe. Nice username,” he emoted a thumbs up at the name. Turning his attention back to Dynamic Virtue’s black knight, username: Veldstarian Ironblood, performing an [Inspect] on his character.
The world really is a funny place; this black knight had levels in Cursed Warrior. “Veldstarian Ironblood, the black knight hmm?”
“I’m not a roleplayer,” Veldstarian Ironblood emoted a stop. “Also just Veld is fine.”
“Cool,” Tadashi accepted, emoting a thumbs up. Sending a trade request to the black knight, he pulled up Kilineiram MK. 1, erased ‘MK. 1’ from the name and put it along with some standard black knight armor gotten off an undead that could drop useful materials for cursed weapon crafting. “This should be good enough to take you and your party to midgame at least.”
“For real? You’re just giving me stuff so freely? Man you’re the best!” Vald cheered, emoting a cheer.
“It is as I told you is it not? Lord Inhuman is a gracious and righteous dev! Unlike those who seek to spread only grief and foulness,” Tadashi checked out as Dynamic Virtue got into his RP. “Now shall we be off good sir?”
“In a second,” Tadashi paused Dynamic Virtue’s eagerness. “Outcast Recon’s whole questline is about scouting and getting knowledge, what part of the quest are you stuck on?”
“The one where I have to ‘find something more beautiful only when viewed,’ I’m totally lost!”
“Go to the hot springs in Edernsrab, peep on the other side of the wall, that’ll skip around half of the quest, though you will get kicked out of Edernsrab if you get caught.” Common knowledge on the quest for those who wanted to skip it and kick themselves later when they find out that almost every humanoid quest passes through Edernsrab.
“Thank you so much!” UrMomsHoe shouted in thanks, running out the hall.
“Shall we be off my friends?” Tadashi offered to his willing sacrifices.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 2:0:6-01:17:54}
Tadashi finished work on his unholy blades, a wonderful set of weapons ideal for all the evil karmic classes and perfect mirror to his holy swords. Veld had been all too thankful to receive the “perfected” versions of his weapons three months later in exchange for a few more sacrificial deaths.
Cursed Sword: Kilineiram, Corrupted Sword: Crocdabai, Death Sword: Sfeiz, and the Evil Sword: Hymilis, a set of four swords crafted from evil, counterparts to the holy swords; Sword of Light: Safarlisia, Sword of Law: Lybertia, Sword of Justice: Farfaalaiz, and the Sword of Life: Thresh-Thalia. Yet even these legendary blades pale in comparison to the Legendary Cursed Holy Sword: Blade of Demon’s Hallow!
Tadashi closed the lore book on his blades. Creating these sorts of things was so fun! If only he had any talent for writing quests.
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 1:11:29-03:33:59}
“I’m granting you guild leader rights,” Momonga said unprompted as Tadashi warped into the 8th floor with a newly aquired guild weapon – this time a bladed staff gotten in return for tips on the Become Inhuman quest (which he smugly was still the sole legit completer of, having hunted down several attempters). Tadashi emoted surprise at his guild leader’s return. It had been a few months between Momonga sightings, putting him about on par with the other still “active” guild members. “I just can’t find time to manage the guild anymore with work and life,” he tiredly explained. “You’ve been doing a good job keeping money flowing into the guild along with other things,” he gestured to the wall which contained the guild weapons Ainz Ooal Gown now called its own.
All five of them.
Maybe he had a problem.
“After all this time, you’re finally trusting me with your guild?” Tadashi asked unable to put on the fake antagonistic voice he liked using with Momonga.
“Yes,” Momonga said. He was clearly tired, and not in a way that sleep could fix. “You promised a while ago that you’d take care of Ainz Ooal Gown should I need to take a break, I’m calling in that favor now,” his words came with a quiet resignation. He reached out and took the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown in his hands, navigating menus which would only appear to the guild master while using the guild weapon.
A notification popped up in Tadashi’s vision: Guild Rank increased to Guild Leader.
“I’ll come back one day, Inhuman, so don’t get too comfortable,” he emoted with a smile setting the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown back into its display, flanked by the Blade of Demon’s Hallow, the Arcane Cannon of Zabanya’s Servants, Dagger of Sanguine Law, and the Arcane Submachinegun of Clem Cult Clan. “You’ll have to reorganize this to fit that new guild weapon in… maybe get another one so it’s balanced around our guild weapon.”
“This one is hardly worth displaying, it’s only on par with legendary class items, all those are divine class or above.”
“Still worse than ours?”
“Is there a guild in existence that can match the glory of Ainz Ooal Gown?” Tadashi asked rhetorically. While it was true Ainz Ooal Gown was no long the top ranked guild, it had held onto the rank for longer than any other clan.
“Glory to Ainz Ooal Gown,” Momonga agreed with a nod and a smile emote. “I need to get to bed.”
“Still working under that shitty boss?”
“Moved divisions, so I have a bit more income, but there’s still a lot of work. I’m trying to enjoy life a bit more, though I do miss being able to spend so much time in Yggdrasil.”
“It’s not going anywhere Momonga, don’t worry about it!”
{Time Until Yggdrasil Shutdown: 1:00:00-00:00:00}
‘Ah, damn. That’s kinda… that’s fucked up.’ Tadashi thought.