Chapter 1: Missed Message part 1

Two silhouettes could be seen bickering in a dark alleyway while raindrops showered around them. "This was supposed to be our last job, yet you continue to persist because this is your drug. You can't stop... which is why I need to stop you right here, right now." A figure in the trench coat pointed a gun at the other who was facing away. The other looked back and replied, "This is no longer your concern friend... you are but another obstacle in my way." He said as he immediately pulled out a gun and shot the man with the trench coat, now a heap of garbage on the ground. "Aaaaaand end recording. Thanks, Itsuo-kun. You were a great help today." He said as the HUD finally appeared in his view as he reached out a hand to the guy on the ground. "No Problem Kane-kun, I hope that looked good," he said as he stood up and opened his inventory for a patch up item to regain health. "Anything I record is good, you should know that," Kane said as he chuckled while being playfully punched at by Itsuo. "Jerk. Anyways. I'm logging out, unlike you I actually have to go outside to work." Itsuo said while waving to Kane as he disappeared into thin air. "I might log out too and get some food. I need to edit a ton of videos." Kane thought to himself as he opened his console and also logged out from the DMMO.

This person is Maeda Kanesuke, He is what you call a tuber - a person who records games then posts it to earn money. His channel's specialty is DMMO roleplay, where he immerses himself as the character and plays certain story arcs that either he or someone else wrote for him. His fanbase is quite vast to the point where he could do just this as his career because of them - you could consider him the entertainment industry of the net. He was just about to get up as he got a private message from Momonga: "Attention all members of Ainz Ooal Gown, this is a group message to you all. Tomorrow is the last day of the server before it's shut down. It would be nice if the members of Ainz Ooal Gown would take the time to come back and reminisce one last time before the end. I know most of you have quit, but a message would be nice. For those who still have their account, you can join in any time. It has been fun, I hope you guys come. From Momonga, Guild Leader of Ainz Ooal Gown." Kane read the message and a smile creeped onto his face. "Wow... Momonga is still playing Yggdrasil uptil now. Heh. It was fun. I should probably get in tomorrow and make a recollection of the episodes I did about my character- a montage and one last episode of "The Dragon's Adventure of Yggdrasil." It was a popular series that hadn't gone down in viewers. "Huh, this could bring in the old followers" he told himself as he replied with an OK to Momonga.

The next day he booted up his neuronal nano-interface and placed it over his head. He scoured through his vast gaming library to finally locate Yggdrasil. Even though he hadn't played this game in quite a while he had speed reviewed his videos on Yggdrasil yesterday. He breathed in to brace himself to the nostalgia that would soon hit him. When he finally opened his eyes, he could see the most nostalgic HUD, his sizable health and a decent amount of MP. He looked to his right to see a familiar setting of a bed chamber. This was the last spot that he remembered from where he logged out to move onto a new game. He got up from the bed and looked onto his hands. He could see his large scaled hands and black and red dyed claws, reminding him of when he was much edgier. As he got up, he felt an unfamiliar feeling as he looked back to see his character's wings, which he needed to get used to. He unfurled these second set of limbs, which revealed a wingspan twice as long as himself. He smiled to see that he still had it and finally looked at the mirror to his right. His body was that of a humanoid dragon, or a dragonoid. Based on his race, his head adorned two pairs of horns, and another pair of spikes on the side of his jaw. Small spines also decorated his back up to the tail. He grined to reveal sharp fangs that could rival polished steel knives. He peered down at his scales which did justice to his physique to confirm how muscular he was. He did not mind his current state, but it was etiquette to wear some clothes at least, so he opened his equipment menu to see many of his custom-made armor sets. He was reminded of how much he had grinded for materials as he looked through the armor sets. He recalled all the bosses he had to kill for certain drops and also how members of Ainz Ooal Gown had given him materials from guild raids. He was glad that his hard work was still there. He chose one meant for casual wear -, which to him was a set of heavy plate mail that covered every inch of his body. This mail itself was quite a legendary set that he fought fang and claws for, and was just short of having god level item attributes. He looked around and opened his console to recall the Multipurpose Secret House into his inventory.

Once the house recalled itself to his inventory, he scanned his surroundings to get the feel of the land. which was a marvel for any nature lover. This was the forest of Jörmungandr named for the world serpent residing complemented by the towering trees. He inspected the time and saw there were still a few hours before he had to teleport to the tomb to meet with Momonga, allowing him to record a few nostalgia missions memorable to his roleplay character, Siphex. He opened his item menu to see if his items were still there. He had all the necessary items a solo player needed in addition to a ton of cash items for both resusable and disposable things. He continued to look and noticed the expired cash items for which he needed a subscription, like the Box of Treasure, which could hold as many items as a small guild, or Premium Class Box, which stored classes that you had acquired. He shrugged and renewed all the subscription items for the last time as he had quite a bit of cash that was forgotten in the account. He refamiliarized himself with the way the game worked and quickly inspected his skills and abilities. He made an emote of a smiley face before walking out of the safe area. "Well, time to record."

A few hours passed as he stopped at a dungeon cave to stop recording. "Wow that took a while. That felt great being reminded of the moments of achievements I did... Oh god! The time! I forgot! Idiot!" he bashed himself. "Oh well. I'll just message Momonga that I couldn't make it" he said to himself as he opened his PM to start typing his apology. He was too preoccupied typing that he lost track of the time. 23:59:56. 23:59:57. 23:59:56. 23:59:59. 23:59:59. Then 00:00:00. But for some reason it continued to count up. 00:00:01. 00:00:02. 00:00:03. When he was about to send the PM, his HUD started glitching then disappeared. "What? Did I glitch out? Never knew such a thing existed on a 12-year-old game... Oh well." He shrugged it off and tried to open his main menu. "What? I can't open my menu... something isn't right." As he continued to try with no success, he resorted to make a GM call but that too failed. "This isn't right... I feel weird..." He said as he sat down and suddenly it hit him. "What?! I... felt that... I shouldn't have felt that... This game is not advanced enough to give a sense of touch to the user" he thought as he looked to the ground and removed his gauntlet to touch the cool wall to his side. He could feel the coolness on his scales. "This isn't normal... what's happening." He should have been panicking at this moment but it seems as if his passive skill prevented that. "I need to think. I've watched anime. If I'm right..." He looked on towards the tunnel and started to concentrate. "I can feel them, my skills, as if they are embedded into my mind and body. [Dragon Sense] His eyes glowed and he could see his surroundings all at once in a 360° angle. The distance he could see was about 1 mile from his location. He could sense even small patches of minerals inside the rocks. He did not bother with that as he slowly stood up and continued onwards.

Dungeon crawling is one of the many features of Yggdrasil, but this one felt different. It felt too real for him - he could ascertain that this was not part of the game or even an update. He was there himself as his character Siphex; he was teleported into this world, am unknown world, yet he felt strangely excited about it. It was like the first time he played Ygg. This was an experience he only thought would happen on tv or in anime, but yet it had happened to him. He could not shake the excitement off as he wondered what lay ahead.

Slowly but surely, he finally reached another face of the cave beside the tunnels - a large cavern. He knew this before entering, thanks to his perception skill, but as he walked further he felt multiple life signs inside the cavern, growing stronger and stronger as he neared and finally arrived at the mouth of the cavern. In the middle he could see statues of goblins, kobolds, and even humans, with their faces distorted from expressions of fear and agony. In the middle of the group of statues were a group of 10 or so lizard like creatures. These creatures had pale coloration in their scales, spike like spines protruding from their hunched backs, and they supported their 11' to 17' long bodies with 8 legs. Most of them were sleeping while the others were biting and crunching on the stone statues. Siphex remembered what these things were - Basilisks, a lizard-like creature that could turn anyone into stone with their gazes. It seemed he had stumbled upon a huge group of them with a variant sleeping in the middle. The variant was whiter than the rest and it stood longer and bigger than the regular Basilisks. This must have been their leader, or at least someone that held power among these creatures.

"Typical... maybe I should... I need to find out how strong I am" he wondered as he looked upon the Basilisks. One of them noticed Siphex and started hissing as the group woke and began to all stare at him. He did not budge for they had not yet cast their [Stone Gaze] at him. The white one roared and suddenly all of the Basilisks started to charge at Siphex, getting closer and closer until he was within the range of their gaze.