Something I ended up writing anyway. Please tell me what you think.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, except my OC
Note: Based on the anime and whatever knowledge I have found via Overlord wiki etc.
-o0o-
Home away from Home
-o0o-
Darkness.
That was the last thing she could remember.
The magnificent view before the angeloid slowly succumbing to eternal blackness as the shutdown of the server closed in, the seconds ticking away. The artificial night sky stretching above the mountain peak and the enormous full moon, all the twinkling stars and the few light-grey cloud puffs losing their colours and edges and shine as the YGGDRASIL game world inevitably came to its end.
It didn't feel right. The game being ended like this after such a long servitude. Twelve years of adventuring and foraging, completing quests and clearing dungeons, building the guild base, protecting it, giving life to creatures in it, talking and laughing and crying with the other guild members.
The woman sighed heavily. The scenery was fading out.
It wasn't right how the others had just ended playing. How they had just given up on such a large piece of life, their shared life. The last day in YGGDRASIL had been one down memory lane for the lady. She vented another sigh.
Darkness everywhere.
Nothingness.
-o0o-
A strong gust of wind blew past.
Huh?
She blinked. Before her lay a calm turquoise-blue bay, where a few fishing boats were pulling up nets cast into the water. On the shore of the cove, behind the white sand beach, lay a row of houses. Behind them, she could see cottages dotting the grassy shallow hillside; above the scene clear skies and a bright sun.
What..? She thought furrowing, the grasp of her hand instinctively tightening around her combat spear. Didn't the server shut down?
Another breeze sent strands of her loosely tied coppery hair swaying. She brushed a tress from her suntanned face behind her ear, senses sharply studying the unknown surroundings.
What in the name of Nazarick had happened? Where had the grand mountains disappeared to? The temple ruins? The great swamplands far below?
The angel-warrior tried to open her console, poking the air in front of her with her free hand. Nothing. Glancing around to make sure the small clearing was secure, (the trees actually providing quite adequate visual protection) she proceeded to try to contact the administrators about the strange system bug, to no avail.
"None of the communication methods are working," she mumbled out to herself.
Tapping the ground with her boot, as if to make sure it actually was there, she kicked a small pebble into the water. It entered with a small splosh, the sound immediately drowning under the splashing of the waves and the swishing of the aspen leaves. The smell of the budding, blooming nature around her was intoxicating.
…Smell?!
Still highly confused, the angeloid glanced over her shoulder and looked at the two sets of white wings at her back. Blinking, she slowly flexed them open, surprised of the mere feel of them, and flapped once strongly. She rose a good four feet with ease and swayed gently down to the ground fascinated by the sensations the air current created in her feathers, her nerves tingling.
This is… real?
The angeloid bent one wing forward and ran her fingers through it. The feathers were soft to the touch. It tickled. I can feel them?
Carefully she wound her fingers around one and plucked it off sharply. The tip of the wing jerked slightly. The feeling was unpleasant, bordering painful, like someone would have pinched your skin or pulled off a strand of hair. Twirling the feather between her thumb and forefinger she brought it to her cheek, savouring the smooth, warm feeling of it and the calming mild fragrance of lilacs and cool arctic air.
This has to be real, the woman thought, inhaling deeply, and not another game. You just can't program scents. One can always think they're smelling something accordance to the scenery where they're playing, but aroma is just too complex to code. The chemical bonds, the…
Another inhale. Do feathers really smell this good? I thought they'd be stuffy or more animal like. A content smile smoothed onto her lips. Such pleasurable- FOCUS!
The angeloid snapped her eyes open, wondering when she had actually closed them in the first place. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she tucked the feather into one of the small pouches she had on her belt. Who knew, it could be dangerous to just leave it lying around. Even in YGGDRASIL angel feathers had been wanted goods for charms and potions.
"The cautious seldom err."
Casting her eyes on the melee weapon in her grasp, she pursed her lips and gave the steel a studying swing. It felt the spear, she cut a nearby tree cleanly in two. This works, so presumably other items I have with me work too…
She looked up at the sky. What is this place?
"Are you an angel?"
The angeloid spun around, weapon raised to counterattack if needed. Her golden eyes focused on a small brown-haired and -eyed human girl among the trees, dressed in peasant clothes, chewing leaves which looked like wood sorrel.
The warrior-angel blinked. She remained silent and stoic, but lowered her battle stance to one less intimidating.
"Mommy says angels can grant wishes. Can you grant wishes?"
The copper-bronze haired woman looked around to confirm that the child was actually talking to her, and not to anybody else.
Munching some more sorrel-like plant, the girl continued, oblivious to the unanswered questions. "Why did you cut down that tree? Had it done something bad?"
I can understand her? The angeloid straightened her pose. "It was infested."
"The tree was sick?"
"Yes." She can understand me?
"Is the forest sick too?"
"No."
"Okay." The child stretched out her palm and presented three slightly crumbled leaves. "Want one?"
"No, thank you." The angel-warrior cleared her throat and lowered down a bit, putting a small fake smile on her lips. "Could you help me?"
The girl nodded vigorously, mouth full of leaves.
"What is this place?" The woman swirled her free hand around the clearing.
"A forest."
"I see. And that small town over there, on the other side of the bay?"
"My home."
Clearly, the angeloid thought, wanting to roll her eyes at the comment but refined to only think about it. "Ah, and what is the name of your home?" She said in a cheery tone.
"Home." The girl pulled a small stained cloth from her pocket. Folding it open she grabbed another punch of herbs to nibble on.
"How about the name of this pool of water?"
"You mean the sea?"
"Yes, what is its name?" The woman asked, smile still plastered on her face.
"I don't know."
Not wanting to deem this conversation a complete waste of time, the angel-warrior decided on the last possible course of action. If the girl really wanted to play, she'd play.
"You know, you're a very brave and a very wise child. In exchange for a cloak and a few items, I'd like to grant your wish."
For the first time the girl seemed to fully concentrate on the conversation. She stopped her eating and just looked at the winged woman in front of her with huge, brown eyes. The child opened her little mouth to say something, but closed it quickly. She gaped a few times more before slowly lifting her thumb to her lips and sucking it silently.
The angeloid remained patient.
After what felt like an eternity, though in reality having been the duration of only three splashes of waves, the peasant child took her thumb out of her mouth and said with a confident, firm voice: "Mommy says not to make deals with strangers."
Well, that was it, then, the angeloid thought straightening to full height. "Thank you for this chat, young one, I bid you good day." She bowed gently and started to walk past the girl and into the woods, eyes fixed on the town.
The girl watched the woman pass her before calling out. "But angels fly, don't you?"
-o0o-
Darkness.
That was the first thing he noted. A pulsating darkness, slowly turning grey.
What…? He thought.
Among the lightening haze he could start to make out the silhouettes of pillars and flags.
Did they push back the server shutdown?
Momonga felt like blinking, but found himself unable to do so. What was going on? Before him was the Ainz Ooal Gown throne room, underneath him the throne itself, in his hand the golden guild staff.
"Is something wrong, Lord Momonga?"
He turned his head towards the voice. Only a few meters away, Albedo, the chief of the floor guardians, was bowing before him, face lifted up in query. Behind her, the undead could see the worried looks of the Pleiades battle maids and the head butler, Sebas Tian.
"Lord Momonga? Is everything alright?" The raven black –haired woman sounded worried and she rose to her feet, closing in on him. "Lord Momonga?!"
The mage let his jaw drop open. Eh?! What is going on?!
-o0o-
She had been wise not to fly.
There had been not a single cloud on the sky and the number of birds had been below ten. The visibility had been better than in any parts of the YGGDRASIL, clearer and more real. The angeloid would have stuck out like a human in the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
She had been observing the quiet village from the edge of the grove, using her skills as a rogue to hide in the shade of the foliage. During the passage of the day she had noticed fishermen and farmers traversing the cobblestoned path in between the first row of houses and the sandy beach. One of the houses acted as a shop, clearly, and the amount of laundry drying on the clothesline meant the surrounding buildings were residences. The building closest to the two-forked pier buzzed with life; a tavern undoubtedly.
What puzzled the lady was the lack of other species. Sure there were human settlements all over YGGDRASIL where the sight of a slime or a beastman was scarce, but even in a place like that a traveling heteromorphic or a demi-human would've passed by at least once a day, or been seen on the moors or walking on the main dirt roads.
Perhaps in this unknown land there were no other races. A most terrifying and distressing thought. And even a wiser reason not to take to the skies.
I must blend in, the copper-bronze haired woman thought, kneeling behind a sturdy tree trunk, eyes following a hay cart heading lazily to town along the path running by the forest. And gather as much knowledge as I can of this place.
Ducked low, she dashed towards the wooden wagon and sliding and rolling around -wings protecting her as she spun on the dirt road and then tucked neatly out of the way against her back- she latched herself to the underside of the cart. Digging her fingers and nails into the main wooden support beam, the angeloid flattened her body against the wood, legs clasped around the structural timber as well as they could be. Her spear was in its strap partly hidden under her feathers, tightly secured.
The middle-aged farmer steering the one horsed cart noticed nothing. He continued his way and soon the crunching of the wheels on the dirt switched to steady clacking on the cobblestone. The angel-warrior could hear the man mumbling about the boat being late again, and seeing her opportunity she let go. Turning mid-air she landed on her palms and toes face-down and as soon as the cart had rolled off of her she twisted to her feet and darted into the cover of a nearby alley.
It was a tight space, only about one-and-a-half feet wide but ran for the entire length of its adjacent buildings; the tavern and what looked like a small-sized warehouse. The angeloid sneaked in the shadows of the alleyway avoiding a few empty bottles, a sleeping drunkard and a dozen of small puddles. The stench was formidable.
Diagonally from the tavern, behind the storehouse, was the woman's target.
Peeking through the small gaps in the planking of the tall fence surrounding the two-storey residence, the warrior deemed the yard empty and she could detect no one in the windows or the porch. Jumping like a feline she grabbed hold of the side of the fence and flipped herself over the edge. Landing silently on her feet se dodged to the cover of a largish flower bush, fighting back a sneeze as she brushed against one of the twelve-petal blooms.
Still an empty yard. Only the wind shuffled the clothes drying in the sunlight.
Three steps in, an inaudible snap and three steps back. Over the fence again and into the shadows of the alley.
Kneeling down behind a pile of crates, the lady halted and listened. She could hear talking from the tavern as well as some laughter, there were distant huffs and grunts coming from the direction of the pier and a steady snoring from the drunkard some ways down the alley from her hiding spot. Deeming it relatively safe, the angeloid took off her war spear and its strap, and quickly donned on the loose, white long-sleeved shirt (first having made tears in the back to let her wings through), leaving under it the lightweight shagreen leather corselet she had been wearing in YGGDRASIL.
Yes, stealing wasn't the best start to a life in an unknown world, but this time, it was necessary.
I shouldn't have left my better equipment in HQ, she criticized her previous actions as she put the spear holder back on and the spear in it. But they aren't as comfortable as these…
Throwing on the still-damp cloak to hide her folded wings and most of the melee weapon, she secured her small pouched belt on her hip, checking through the pockets that what she had put in back when the server had still been operational was, in fact, there.
Since no pants or such had been on the clothesline, the angeloid had to bear with the shagreen leather pants and knee-high boots.
Loosely braiding her long hair, she threw on the hood, the braid dangling down over her right shoulder.
There is a chance, she noted narrowing her eyes as she started down another strip of alleyway, that I'm not the only player having ended up here.
Dodging a stray cat hissing at her, having undoubtedly interrupted its lunch, the warrior-angel flattened against the shadowed wall of the tavern. There's strength in numbers.
"So, will that be all?" She heard a man say.
"Yeah, for this month at least." Another man, older by the sound, sighed. "Tell that leech of a tavern master in Re-Lovell that if he doesn't cheapen the prices no occasional traveller stumbling into this seaside shack of a village will have the money to pay for the night. And that just breaks an honest Innkeeper's heart."
The first man spluttered out a laughter. "You're a real god's envoy, Harold. Why don't you just let them stay for less, then?"
"And pay the taxes from my own pocket? Get going, you slacker, or my gracious attitude towards your room fee is gonna have a sudden and permanent augmentation!"
"Yeah yeah, I hear ye." From the shadows the angeloid could see the younger of the men climb onto the fully loaded wagon and sat down behind the reels.
"And make sure not to break the cargo!" The one called Harold growled and slapped the dapple grey mare to the upper thigh. The horse neighed at this.
Another set of yeah's and the man ushered the horse forward, clicking his tongue. The wheels clanged against the stone road and the crates on the cart rattled slightly at the jolt of the movement.
"And no stoppin' at the Fairies' Inn!"
"Yeah yeah…!"
The tavern's door creaked open and shut with a thud. The lady watched as the wagon passed the alley mouth she was in. Glancing quickly around, she dropped low and took a few running steps after the vehicle. Stretching and sliding she was once again under a wagon, hitching a ride. At least this wagon had metal reinforcements she could swung her legs and arms over and just 'hang on'.
It wasn't the most comfortable way to travel, she knew, but paramount for her survival. She could start moving more freely when she was in a place more visited by travellers.
As the cart with the full cargo (and one stowaway), the horse pulling it and the coacher urging the horse forwards put distance between the shoreline town, making decent track climbing the hillside, the angel-warrior watched the scene grow smaller and smaller. She had already wasted too much time there. She needed more information and more flexibility. But most of all, she needed to find an ally.
A friend.
Reviews are welcomed and appreciated!
