Ragnarök

by PuddleMan

YGGDRASIL was a dying game, a relic from the past, no longer at the apex of DMMO-RPGs as player numbers dwindled and the once constant flow of game content had long since ceased. However, in one last ditch attempt to revive the game, the Devs released one last expansion; Ragnarök.

10. Chapter 6 Preparations

AN: Hey! Sorry that this is a bit late, I've had school work to do and my mental health hasn't been great these past few days so I haven't gotten time to write much...well, I say that but this part turned out to be three times the original length, somehow :/

Oh yeah, I've kinda focused more on Ulbert and Pero than I probably should have so from now on I'll right more stuff from Momonga's Pov. Writing the goat and bird is really fun though, sorry!

Before I forget, I'll explain why wild magic was spammed so much in the previous chapter in an intermission that comes after the Touch fight.

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The night fell upon Carne and with the descent of night came the descent of demons, a great void in the sky appeared over Carne and dropped a myriad of demonic entities into the forest, the first of which was a humble [Imp] family demon. The imp bounded through the forest, it was finally free from the months of maddening imprisonment, the clawing hunger that ravaged it's body was finally given an opportunity to be quenched. Spurred by the agonizing ache in it's stomach, the beast bolted through the woods, slamming into branches and stray roots as it sprinted in search of its food. Many more lesser demons flanked the imp, all sorts of infernal creatures were present; [Moonlight Wolves] weaved through the underbrush, [Carrion Kites] soared through the air towards Carne and more [Imp] family demons leapt from the trees and sprinted on the ground. They were a deluge of ravenous jaws, waiting for the chance to feast on those within the village. The ground was ripped up, flecks of mud were spat everywhere, bushes and small trees were mangled by the stampeding horde and any animals that were found were assimilated into the horde. All the way behind the horde was an ever approaching danger - the red plague that slithers on the floor and the swarm of locusts that plagued the air. These two factors forced the demons to bolt towards the village, both to escape the jaws of the locusts and also to sate their yearning for fresh meat.

In a flash, the horde had vaulted the outer walls of Carne, the pitiful defences were breached by a simple leap from the demons. There were no guards nor magic to detect any kind of intruders at all and thus, the demons were allowed to run rampant within the village. The ravenous tide had set their sights on the home nearest to the village perimeter. A couple hundred meters away from the towering wall was a quaint little home. While not constructed from the most luxurious of materials, the wood that was used had a healthy colouration to it and was pieced together to create a robust little house. A faint trail of vaporous smoke trickled out from the stone chimney and the frontmost window housed a delicate amber glow. Leading up to the humble home was an equally humble pathway forged from a number of stone slabs - it wasn't elegant but it held a certain charm from a bygone age to it like most other homes in Carne when compared to the more robust and advanced buildings of the major cities. Due to their demonic nature, the horde heeded not the purpose of such a pathway and they darted through the night, the path was ripped to pieces by the slew of frantic feet.

The first to reach the village was an ordinary [Imp] family monster - in this case it was an [Imp Paterfamilias] - the most supreme of all lesser demons and boasting a level of 150 though it's stats were that of a mere level 140. Unlike his lesser imps, the [Imp Paterfamilias] was a hulking brute - it's frame bulged with lithe muscles that pushed it's ruby red fur upwards with each movement. A great black crest of bone glided down it's back all the way down to the lashing tail - signifying its superiority over the lessors of its kind. The only feature that the [Imp Paterfamilias] lacked over it's lessor demons was eyes, in place of normal visual receptors, the [Imp Paterfamilias] had adopted a face filled with specialized feeler-like fur that granted the demon [Tremor Sense+] and [Karma Perception] which allowed to use the karma values of targets to locate them...It was a gimmick implemented in YGGDRASIL during the "dry age" of the game's life where updates were far from frequent or high in quality yet, despite this, it still functioned...most of the time. The imp beat loudly on the shabby wooden roof, it's fist smashed through the half rotten planks and the home's contents opened up. It screeched like a banshee in glee as it continued to bash in the roof, it's fiery fists ignited both the air and wooden planks of the roof as it did so. The sticky red tendrils that ate away at the floor beneath the safety of the roof indiscriminately consumed all matter it found. Demons, the grass, homes and the villagers were all subject to it's scarlet feelers. Plagues of locusts descended from the borders of Carne as well and joined in on the extermination, the deafening clamor of their beating wings drowned out all other sounds, even the screeches of the demons were inaudible in the wake of the insectoid horror that befell the village.

Once the locusts had fully enveloped the village, the demons who were making due with the outermost homes began flooding into the deeper recesses of Carne. It was a tidal wave of demonic entities, they smashed into every house they could find the families that dwelt within were a prize that the invading demons fought over. Even though they were given the order to wipe out Carne, they still gave into their primal urges, the demons allowed the villagers to escape into the forest where they'd be hunted down. Even though the order was clear in assuring a swift death and a preserved body, the glee they felt when they tore their prey to pieces over powered any fear the demons held for repercussion. Even though death was certain for disobeying their master, this was the first time any of them could feast upon the flesh of humans, they were starved for months and months on end and they were finally given the opportunity to feed. And so the devouring horde ate and they ate and they ate. Villagers, demons and animals alike could not escape the jaws of the horde. There were only three things the demons, even when reduced to their primal, troglodyte origins would avoid - The red weed that ate away the floor and the rightmost side of Carne. The weed was easily avoided, just don't step on the bright red tentacles and you're safe and the locusts were easy;y enough smacked away with enough effort, though the thing to the right of the village was another thing entirely. That thing idly bided it's time, every single one of the demons knew that as soon as their slaughter was concluded, that thing would make its move. While none could see nor sense it's actual power, there was no doubt that whatever that thing was, not a single demon would be left alive once it began it's feast. Thus, faced with certain death and spurred on by their urges, the demons did what they do best - devour and corrupt humankind. It was their first and final chance to experience what it means to truly be a demon and so, they made damn well sure to enjoy every single second of it. Even the more intelligent of demons such as the [Evil Lord Wrath] that had been sent as an overseer of the extermination gave into his urges and joined the slaughter. Like the rest of his troops, the Wrath was one of the imprisoned demons, one of the demons that had been used to turn the tide of the second invasion of Nazarick and thus, his hunger had not once been stated from within his prison. Even though demons would normally not even need sustenance to continue living, these demons were cursed by their summoner, to assure that they were as brutal and as fearless as possible when battling godly beings, they were afflicted with [Starvation], thus they were condemned to eternal hunger, a hunger that they desperately tried to quench with the flesh of man.

Amid the chaotic fleeing of the villagers, three solitary figures stood stock still in the center of the village, near-invisible to the horde of demons - a young woman, a little girl and a young man were cowering under the frame of a half eaten [Scale Demon] that the demons had moved on in search of more edible meat.

Nfirea sheepishly looked out from the carcass at the horde of demons which were happily devouring the villagers and animals of Carne. This was his only chance of escape, now that the demons were focused on stating their hunger, he, Enri and Nemu could at least have a chance of escape.

Reentering the relative safety, Nfriea returned to Enri who was consoling Nemu, the smaller girl was tightly gripping her sister and violently shaking as soft cries emanated from her. "We need to leave...Enri, come on!"

"Nfi, we can't just run out there, look!" She pointed all around, though the bulk of the demons they were hiding under obscured their view, it was plain to see that the horde had not subsided much. The moment they stepped out from the demon's corpse, they would be completely surrounded by the waiting jaws of the demons and thus, escape was impossible.

She pulled her arm from Nfirea's grasp, a pleading look in her eye. "We need to wait fo-"

"He's not coming, Enri! We can't risk staying in the village any longer so we need to leave! He's probably been eaten by the demons already so please, we need to leave." Nfirea grabbed onto Enri's hand and stared deeply into her eyes. It was a bold move to use on a girl who was in love with an entirely different man yet, Nfirea tried his best to seem dependable to Enri. Perhaps if he did a good enough job, Enri would finally realize just how much better Nfirea was.

He clasped both of his hands around hers. Though his hair blocked the majority of his eyes, his eyes were determined to see this through, even though the actual chances of survival were slim to none. "Please, Enri."

"But...A-alright but how are we even going to escape the village when we're stuck under here?" Escaping a demon infested village was far easier said than done however.

He pondered for a moment and then, Nfirea fumbled around with the item in his pocket. The gift was given to him by his "rival" for Enr's heart - Ariel - who just a few hours had thrown the item at him before disappearing off into the woods. The crystal pulsed within his pocket and a warm light emanated from the core of the item. He'd have to use it even though he didn't even know it's effects, it'd be better than not using it at least. "The item that he gave me…"

"The item? But we don't even know what it does!"

"We may as well use it, right? He said it was a magical item so whatever it does must be useful to us!"

Nfirea pulled the item from his pocket, it was a lumpy mess of crystal that was carved into the rough shape of a burning flame, within the crystal was a warm light that pulsed rhythmically.

"Now...how do I-"

The crystal shattered the moment Nfirea thought of using the item. The fiery glow from within the crystal erupted from it's container and enveloped Nfirea in a fiery aura. The corpse of the [Scale Demon] lit up as the blaze of the crystal escaped into Nfirea's body, Enri and her sister both shielded their eyes from the radiance coming off of Nfirea's body to little effect - their vision was filled in the amber glow.

After only a short few moments, the blinding glow dissipated and all that was left was Nfirea, looking down at his hands in a stunned silence.

"This...feeling….wh-what the…"

It was the feeling of overwhelming power. An indescribable energy worked its way through his body, permeating into his very soul and being assimilated within him. He could feel it, his mana swelled exponentially to more than triple it's original limits, he was stronger, this he was absolutely sure of.

And so, Nfirea tested out whether or not he had actually gained any sort of new power.

"[Acid Javelin]" A bolt of emerald fluid was ejected from Nfirea's outstretched palm and collided with the [Scale Demon's] body. The acid immediately began eating away at the demon's flesh, even quicker than what the locusts were capable of; in a matter of seconds, the entire right leg of the demon was reduced to a pile of bubbling gunk on the floor.

Both Enri and Nfirea gazed upon the melted limb of the demon in awe. Nfirea could only ever be called a mediocre wizard at best as his skill set was more tailored to his profession of potion making and alchemy, the level of magic was a far cry from the normal capabilities of Nfirea. He'd totally relied on his talent in the rare occasion he was a direct combatant in combat and even then, he'd still have to learn whatever item he was using even in the first place. Normally, Nfirea could only be considered an iron level adventurer though. If he'd have to guess, he'd compare that single feat to a gold or even a platinum level feat seeing as how [Scale Demons] were some of the most feared and powerful demons that adventurers took on along with [Imp Broodlords] and the like. He just stared at his hands in disbelief, he had no right being this strong, why had Ariel give Nfirea an item that would power him up so much and not use it for himself? Why was he given the item just before the demons showed up? Had Ariel been involved in this perhaps? A slew of similar thoughts invaded Nfirea's mind, nothing here made sense at all. The demons hadn't been spotted during the day by anyone, the locust and red weed in the shed that Ariel tended for were, while killing off the demons, indiscriminate in their feasting. The only person who even entered the woods today was Ariel himself, right before handing Nfirea the item so why hadn't he reported the demons? A horde this big couldn't just sneak through the countryside undetected, especially due to those strange creatures that would patrol around the perimeter of the village. These demons couldn't have gotten close to the village without Ariel or anyone for that matter not noticing. The only conclusion Nfirea could think of was that Ariel had at least played a part in this, he was sure. He shunted those thoughts to the side for now, he'd need to get out of the village alive before he thought about whoever was responsible for the demonic invasion of Carne.

Finally breaking the silence that lulled in the air, Enri muttered: "Nfira...how did you…"

"We need to go, now." He grabbed her and Nemu by the arms and made way to exit from underneath the demon.

"Wha-...but-" They'd only made it a single step out from the corpse before all three of them stopped in their tracks.

The only word to describe the sight they saw was "hopeless." Nfirea was granted a miracle in the form of the magic boosting item but even he, with his now immense magical power couldn't even dream of breaking through the horde that surrounded them, the only hope the trio had was to beg for yet another miracle from whoever granted such miracles in the first place. Every single demon in the area now had their gaze directly on the trio. Their mouths salivated at the sight of fresh prey, [Imp Patriarchs] beat the floor in glee, [Carrion Kites] flapped their rotten wings and danced in the sky, [Moonlight Wolves] snarled and spat while a lone [Cerberus] howled with it's triplet heads, gouts of flame gushed from it's blazing belch from atop a ruined house. Just behind the [Cerberus] was an even larger demon, it's body was a blaze of hellfire - the demon was the overseer of the extermination - an [Evil Lord Wrath]. Almost the entirety of the wrath's body was draped in burning flames so it looked like a moving torrent of flame, similar to a [Fire Elemental].

A faint "TOH!" came from the far right to Nfirea but no one nor thing could be seen from the mass of snarling demons.

The great flame demon bared down on Nfirea, letting out a haughty laugh, the lackey demons soon followed suit. : "Hahaha! Impressive light show, little one! It's not often when someone has a death wish as strong as you! It makes our job far easier when they lie down and signal to us like you just did! You have my thanks, foolish human."

The rest of demons continued their mocking laughter in between bites of their meals.

It was at least worth a try, Nfirea wasn't going down without at least trying to protect the girl he loved. And so, Nfirea readied a spell that he knew would surely be in vain.

He may have gotten stronger from the item given to him by Ariel by still, this was nothing short of a joke, how the hell could Nfirea even damage the Wrath, let alone the other demons while protecting Enri and Nemu? He almost wanted to just break down into laughter, whoever had orchestrated this must be having a blast. Most likely Ariel was watching from afar, having the time of his life at the sight of Nfirea's misery, such was the way of Ariel afterall - though they'd only interacted a few times, Ariel was not the kind of man who would shy away from engaging in schadenfreude, in fact, he reveled in it. There was only three people Ariel even ever showed a genuine smile; the girl he'd bring to Carne who spoke in a perpetual monotone, Enri who'd always follow Ariel around and Enri's little sister Nemu who often copy her sister. Those three people were the only ones Ariel would even acknowledge, everyone else was nothing more than a blind worshiper of his. Night after night, Ariel would enlist the help of villagers, ruining their bodies and corrupting their minds with his abominable magic and yet, he was unanimously loved by all. He could do no wrong in the eyes of the villagers, as if he was a God to them. Nfirea squeezed his eyes shut and balled his fists as he struggled to contain himself. The image of Ariel's cocky sneer wormed its way in his mind no matter what he tried, the sneer Ariel infected his mind and amplified his hatred. His hate grew and it grew and it grew. Initially he'd only mildly disliked Ariel, but now, the more Nfirea thought about Ariel, the more his hatred grew. Even the most benign of actions taken by Ariel was spun in such a way that Nfirea or a fellow villager was wronged by such action which only spurred on the irrational amplification of hate. Nfirea knew it was irrational to hate Ariel without such much as a shred of actual evidence and yet, he ignored the pleas of his rational self and he further delved into the depths of hatred.

He channeled all the hate, all the animosity he held for Ariel and all the hate Ariel presumably held for him into his spell. Did this actually power up the spell? Surprisingly, yes it did. He could feel it, the hate swelled the power of his magic to even loftier heights than before. Little did Nfirea know, he didn't actually hate Ariel, well, he did now but the hat he felt towards Ulbert's persona wasn entirely artificial. Nfirea was actually afflicted with a [Hate] manipulating status effect that was housed within the time he'd used to power himself up.

"[Acid Javelin]" Nfirea fired off his favoured spell towards the wrath, the emerald bolt soared through the air and left behind a trail of wispy fluid behind it.

A fire cloaked fist batted away Nfirea's spell in one fluid motion, the spell fizzled out once the wrath's fist made contact with it. No damage was visible on the Evil Lord at all. Just like that, all of Nfirea's hate towards Ariel was batted away as if it was nothing. The most powerful spell he had ever fired off was dismissed as nothing more than the equivalent to an annoying mosquito, for that was what he was when compared to the demon - a bug. His hate wasn't enough to bridge the gap between him and the demon that bared down upon him.

He was met with a mocking round of applause from the demons as the Wrath spoke: "A good try, yet all for nought."

The ground rumbled slightly, a low growling noise came from the Wrath.

Wrath's massive claw lightly tapped his stomach and he spoke in a slightly embarrassed tone: "Ah, my apologies, one can only reel in their hunger of so long. I simply cannot contain myself any longer, so our time together is at an end."

The horde that encircled the trio slowly closed the gap between them and their prey. It was a miracle they didn't just pounce immediately on the trio, though, the demons hungered for more than just flesh - terror was as delectable to them as human meat was.

It was now or never, Nfirea had to give it his all, even though he, Enri and Nemu would die here and now, he had to struggle to the end no matter what. Thus, he cast a new spell - a spell that'd only just entered his repertoire - "[Burning Riposte]"

A massive spell circle manifested around Nfirea, Enri and Nemu and some sort of barrier encased the trio once the spell circle had finished coming into existence. The demons, now determined to shatter both Nfirea's hopes of survival and the barrier, leapt upon the green wall. Their claws dug into the spell, tails slammed into the wall and fists smashed into it. The barrier fell nearly immediately.

"Now, despair-huh?" Though the barrier was shattered, the spell circle around Nfirea didn't dissipate, instead a blinding green glow flashed from his body. Though blinded, every demon had the same sensation, burning, their legs were being dissolved in waist-deep acid. The shattered pieces of the barrier were vomiting out streams of acid and flooded the demons in a corrosive surge, a few of the trash-tier demons were even dragged under the emerald liquid and devoured by the spell.

With a click of his tongue, the Wrath raised a single hand and cast: "[Magical Destruction]"

The tide of acid evaporated immediately and the spell circle around Nfirea disappeared. The demons which were caught in the spell rose from the ground, still burning yet their hides were almost completely unharmed. Only a single demon was dead on the floor - a [Moonlight Wolf] that ad already been partial cannibalized before Nfirea even cast the spell. This was it, his spell had failed to save the day, the miracle he hoped for did not come.

"Hmph, impressive that such a weak creature was capable of dama-" The wrath fell to that floor before he could finish his sentence, a flash of white smashed into the great demon. Turns out the miracle did come, just a little bit late though.

"USHAAA!" Came a hoarse voice from within the dancing flames that once coated the Wrath's body.

At once all the demons went into a blind frenzy for the sole object of their fears had appeared - the child of the great devourer had descended on the horde.

"Flee this place, boy! Things have gone slightly awry!" A harsh voice came from the burning pillar of flame that housed the wrath. Whatever had spoken to Enfirea sounded as if it's vocal cords were replaced by metallic equivalents.

"Gone...awry? What does that…"

"Enfi, now's our chance!" Enri took Nfireai and Nemu by the hand and bolted from the underside of the [Scale Demon]. They were completely ignored by the horde which were shrieking in terror while the white flash tore through their numbers. Though the group could only catch glimpses of the being's form, whatever it was it was covered in clicking, alabaster scales and bore a resemblance to a [Metallic Golem]. The demons who were just a moment prior slaughtering the villagers, demons which Nfirea had never seen nor even had a chance of defeating were being torn to shreds by whatever the blur of white was. Once legendary demons such as the [War Demons] or [Imp Patriarchs] were effortlessly massacred by the new figure. It was the same as Nfirea's expedition with Momon, once more Nfirea was relying on a third party to save him from assured death. He'd allowed himself to rely on Ariel's item to stall long enough for him to be saved by yet another figure. While the third party was facing death and battling legendary foes, Nfirea was busy running for his life and doing nothing to help. He was allowing someone else to save him even though he'd just come across some sort of item that powered him up to heights he could only have dreamed of in the past, he'd managed to damage a high ranking demon with a second-tier spell and yet he wasn't even trying to fight the demons he passed. He could at least help with the demons, he could kill the weaker demons or stall them or just do anything other than run away. It's not like it'd reduce his, Enri's or Nemu's chance of survival, in fact it's likely to improve their chances and it may even sway Enri's opinion of him! It was his chance to impress Enri - to be her hero and finally get one over on Ariel and get closer to Enri. And so, resolved to earn the affection of Enri and to help out the mysterious white thing that was back at the village square, Nfirea readied a spell and aimed it at an [Imp Broodlord] that was fighting off the red infection on the floor. The surge was magic from within Nfirea churned in his veins, an overwhelming sense of power rekindled itself as his magic surged in preparation to cast the spell. Originally he was going to cast another [Acid Javelin] like when he tested out the effects of the item he was given, but he decided to use a new spell: "[Corrosion]"

The struggling demon was covered in an emerald spired-web of burning acid, not a whole lot of damage was actually dealt to the demon though the spider-web of acid forced the demon to stop clawing away at the red weed on the floor. This resulted in the feeling tendrils to overpower the demon and drag the helpless imp into the deepest recess of it's depths.

"Nfi, over there!" Nfirea was jolted awake from his self congratulatory daydreams as a [Red Terror] leapt from the burning remains of a food storehouse, the remains of devoured villagers coated it's matted fur and it gleefully cackled to itself at the sight of yet more prey to state it's eternal hunger with. The beast leapt from the smoldering doorway it had perched itself from to avoid the red plague and extended it's claws, it's single eye was trained on Nemu and it's maw widened.

"[Acidball]"

The green ball that came into being at the behest of Nfiera's spell collided with the mid-air demon, knocking it off trajectory and forcing it to flip around as it's head was slammed with the spell. The [Acidball] burst a second after impacting the demon, a small wave of bubbling liquid gushed from the interior of the ball and spilled over the general area.

"Nemu!" Nfirea shielded Nemu from the surge of corrosive liquid, it ate through his clothing with ease and quickly fed upon his flesh.

"GROOOAH!" Once the acid had subsided from feasting on Nfirea's body, his back was raked by triplet burning claws that sliced through his already weakened skin. The demon from the floor had already recovered, it's body was half dissolved and yet it's everlasting desire to devour spurred it on.

"Nfi!"

The demon slashed again with it's claws, this time it's claws shredded through Nfirea' legs and brought the boy to his knees. It kicked off from the floor and used Nfirea's body as a springboard to launch itself in the direction of Nemu who had fled to a few feet away.

"[Corrosion]" Another emerald spider-web flew from Nfirea's hands and caught the demon mid-air though, opposed to the last time, the demon easily broke through Nfirea's spell and continued it's advance on Nemu. And then, the demon fell to the floor with it's torso cleaved in half in a flash of pink fluid that splattered on the floor. Completely ignoring Nfirea who was bleeding out on the floor, Enri had rushed to the location of the demon and had tackled the figure who stood next to the demon in an embrace.

"Ariel!" The force from Enri's tackle/hug had nearly toppled over her saviour, she buried her face in his chest and began to sob. Nemu too joined in and contributed her own half tackle half hug though her small stature meant she could only latch onto his leg.

Standing next to the now dead demon was the object of both Nfirea's jealousy and ire - Ariel - the man who'd mysteriously appeared in Carne village one day and had immediately earned the affection of not just Enri and Nemu, but the entire village. In his hands was a short katan-esque weapon that dripped pink fluids from it's blade. It's happened again, once more Nfirea had relied on others to save him and those he cared about, once again he was outdone by another person who just popped into existence a few weeks ago, once again Ariel had wormed his way deeper into the heart of Enri and once more, Nfriea was left to grovel in his own inadequacy while the hero was lavished in praise.

"E…" Contrasting his normal antagonistic behaviour, he stared blankly at her, not returning the embrace at all.

"E-...E-Enri…" His face lit up into a scarlet mess of embarrassment and his eyes darted around as if looking for a way to escape. This was an alien expression on Ariel's face, in all his time in Carne, in wake of the constant hug attempts or pecks on the cheek and all the time he spent around Enri, never once had Nfirea see Ariel's face ever abandon its cocky smirk aside from today. Just as Nfirea was contemplating the disparity in Ariel's attitude, his vision went dark, a numbing feeling shot through his brain as his body gave out. He collapsed onto the floor, the red plague not far behind him and a fuzzy haze blanketed his vision. It felt like he was...forgetting something yet, try as he might, he could not remember what had happened after Ariel had shown up.

---

The fort

After tampering with Lizzie's memories, Momonga had immediately shed his Momon persona and was back at the fort. After assigning Clementine a room in the fort and making sure the residents knew who she was, Momonga had entered the conference room. What awaited him was not a pleasant sight. Ulbert was sprawled onto the floor and rolling around as he gripped his head. Pero was pacing around the room and would sit down on a chair before immediately getting back up and pacing around again. Touch and HeroHero were completely absent.

"We're fucked." Was all that Ulbert said as he continued to roll around on the floor. His voice was no longer that of Ulbert Alain Odle the demon lord but was that of Enji, the normal working class man. Even upon hearing his voice, Momonga could tell that he was panicking, his voice was brittle and riddled with weakness.

"We don't know that yet, Enj. W-we could be f-fine." Pero who was furiously sifting through his gear did not sound too convincing. Like Ulbert his voice was weak and shaky.

The goat on the floor only said: "We're fucked."

"Ulbert, we don't know that! But...we may be screwed."

"Um, U-Ulbert?" Momonga took a step towards Ulbert, concern laced his tone.

He was met with a blunt: "We're fucked."In typical Ulbert fashion, no elaboration was offered.

"Ah, leaderman, we've got uh...a situation if you will…." Tossing on some fire based gear, Pero looked up at Momonga, he'd only realized Momonga had entered the fort.

"A situation? I assume it's bad if you're all acting this way." This couldn't go well.

"HAH! Bad? Naw, that doesn't even begin to Touch it. We're pretty fucked!" Pero's subtle emphasis of touch flew over Momonga's head.

"Sh-shouldn't Touch and HeroHero be here then? If it's urgent we all should be gathered."

Ulbert had literally jumped off the floor, his eyes contained nothin but unadulterated frenzy. "That's why we're fucked! That old man just fucked us!" Immediately after he spoke, he fell to the floor once more.

"Eh?"

Pero turned to Momonga after he had finished putting on his fiery gear and said: "U-uh...sooo...Touch and his group...m-may...or may not have...been m-min-mind controlled."

"EH!? H-how!?"

"We don't know dumbass! That's why we're freaking the fuck out!" The goat leapt from his position on the floor again and grabbed Momonga by his overly large shoulderpads.

"We're so fucking fucked it aint' even funny! We can't beat Touch, even if he were alone we'd get absolutely destroyed in a direct fight! We're all ranged fighters for fuck's sake!"

Trying to salvage the hopeless situation, Momonga offered: "W-well...Ok, we should come up with a plan to deal with them...right?" It'd at least raise the chance of not being immediately killed by Touch so it was a worthwhile endeavor to pursue, even if the group could only offer up token resistance against Touch.

"HAH! Either way we're fucked so what's the point! If we fight Touch with a plan we're dead and if we go in blind we're dead! What's the fucking point?! We're dead either way!" Ulbert slammed his fists onto the conference room table in a very unnecessary display of "grrr I am angry."

"Oi, goatfucker, play along! Sure we're fucked but let's pretend that we have a chance, yeah?" A black talon flicked the goat's snout and a small bolt of electricity tickled his nose.

With a quick swipe of his claw, Pero's talon was deflected by the angry goat whose fur had puffed up a little as a result of Pero's small bolt of electricity. He looked very fluffy, many "uwahs~" to be had.

"Tch, it's pointless...if it was any person other than Touch I'd be able to solo this shit, even with Shalltear and maybe HeroHero there but...fuck it, we're dead. We'd need some crazy bullshit to win." He placed his head into both his hands and leaned on the table, admitting defeat.

"Yup and he ain't got a clue who did it to them either! So, leader, what's the plan then? If you've got some bullshit way we can cheese this boss fight then, by all means please share it."

"Cheese?"

"Yup, cheese. If we've got something that'll just win the fight for us instantly then I'd say that things are looking peachy. So...do we have any cheese?"

"...Wait...cheese…!?" Momonga's scarlet flames within his eye socket flared up at the mention of cheesing the fight and his nonexistent facial expression morphed into a colossal smile.

"Um..again, yup, y'know, if we fight directly then we're, as Ulbert put it, fucked."

"Cheese...cheese...cheese…" Momonga sifted through each and every item he knew the group had access to, he was searching for the most unfair, bullshit item effect he knew of and finally he had figured out what item would bring about the group's salvation - The rings of [Shooting Star.]

Not being a mindreader, Pero had no clue as to what was going through Momonga's mind and thus he had come to the conclusion that his friend had just regressed into some sort of cheese obsessed child. "Oh...well he's broken, Ulbert it looks like it's used two from here on out then."

From the floor came the soft voice of Ulbert, repeating: "We're fucked…" over and over again.

Coming to terms with the fact that both his friends were mentally broken and that he was the sole sane member of Ainz Ooal Gown, Pero sat back down into his chair and pulled out his favourite screenshot of Shalltear in preparation for his final nut. "Just me then, well, one last nut before I die wouldn't hurt."

"I've got it!" Just before Pero was about to whip out his unimpressive anatomy, Momonga had made a loud outburst that jolted both Pero and Ulbert out of their doomer stupors.

Though his face was that of a skull, both Pero and Ulbert recognized the unparalleled joy in their leader's voice. "I know how we can cheese this! We've got two [Shooting Star] rings so we can just negate the mind control by burning our bonus Xp!"

Ulbert climbed his way back off the floor, all the while his face slowly transitioned into a joyous smile as he processed what Momonga had just said.

"Eh? Oh...OH! OH SHIT! Alright, never mind, we're fine." Ulbert's mood had utterly shifted, now he was no longer on the floor and his cocky grin had resurfaced. The sheer dismay he had expressed just a few seconds ago was now completely gone.

Not putting away his screenshot, Pero too joined in on the sudden shifting of moods: "Damn, you bipolar, eh goatfucker? Well...I guess we've won then! There isn't a need to fight them when we can cheese this! Wooo! Hooray for poor game balance!"

The goat puffed out his chest and his lower arms were trembling in a blend of suppressed fear and excitement. "Yeah...Jesus, that was...worrying to say the least but yeah, with our super-tier cheese there ain't no way in hell we're gonna lose now. Phew...that old gorilla bastard won't stand a chance then."

"Indeed, the only thing we need to do is find where they are and then to simply travel over to the location and use the ring." This was the hard part as neither HeroHero nor Touch nor Shalltear had actually said where they were going so Ulbert, Momonga and Pero had no clue where they took Climb.

"Right...so where are they?" Momonga looked around the room, no one spoke up with any relevant information.

Ulbert just shrugged with all four of his arms. "Dunno, I'll just head over to that Royal Capital place in the morning and ask the maids and the Princess where they went."

"Umu that would be useful but we established upon first coming to this world that we'd either be under constant observation or we'd travel in pairs so I cannot allow you to head into the kingdom by yourself."

"Eh? I'll be like an hour at most, who cares? You gonna ground me for being out too late are ya?" He was speaking like the most stereotypical "cool kid" ever, his cocky grin only reinforced this.

"I care considering that three of our allies were ambushed and mind controlled. You're not going out there without a guard as well as being observed by Katsuki."

With no alternative presented to him, Ulbert reluctantly agreed: "Pffft, fine, I'll bring a few of my [Shadow Demons] along then, ok?"

"Umu." Momonga nodded, he definitely felt like the father to a group of unruly children now.

"Kk have fun [Gate]" With acurt wave, Pero readied up a [Gate.]

"No, wai-" Pero clapped his hands together and Ulbert disappeared through a [Gate] before he could finish speaking. So much for waiting until morning.

---

Re-Estize, Ulbert's Pov

Bastard…

Before he knew it, Ulbert was forcibly teleported to the entrance to the mansion which he stole from a noble family. He cast his polymorph and walked out the door, the rain had already soaked it's way into his clothes despite him only being out in the open for a few seconds.

Yeah, super fuckin' stealthy, idiot. Whatever, let's get this over with.

Ulbert kicked down the door to the mansion, he really didn't need to because it was unlocked but such is the way of Ulbert. He had an image he needed to uphold, even though he was polymorphed and the personalities between his Demon Lord persona and polymorph persona were entirely different.

Ulbert shouted into the desolate interior of the mansion: "Oi, maids!" His loud voice cleaved through the solemn silence of the mansion though no one come to meet him.

His shouts reverberated through the hollow interior of the mansion, the illusionary maids walked by and pretended to do daily chores. Slowly, a shaky maid poked her head from the room next to the entrance. Her eyes fell onto Ulbert who'd swapped into his usual form and was staring daggers into the maid.

"Y-yes...my lord?" The maid was clinging to the doorway that separated the entrance and the living room, Ulbert spotted that her knees were buckling and trembling.

What a wuss, I haven't done anything yet, damn [Succubus.] Wait...why am I in my true form when the door is destroyed? Well...uh, too late to change back I guess.

"You, tell me exactly everything that happened until the old man left, now."

"O-o-of course my lord, please f-follow me." She quickly disappeared into the next room.

As Ulbert made his way into the next room, he stopped in his tracks after making it around the corner.

"The fuck?" His eyes fell upon a blonde girl who was sitting down on a sofa, tears welling up in her eyes and another maid was present in the corner of the room.

He turned to the maid next to him: "And who the hell is this? I don't remember any of the maids I summoned having blonde hair nor crying at the sight of me."

"AH! F-forgive her rude behavior, Ulbert-sama sh-" Ulbert swiped the maid's neck with his claws. Her lifeless body dropped to the floor, blood gushing from her wrecked neck.

He tried to do his best "imposing lord" voice: "Speak not that name when in the presence of an outsider, fool."

Ah! Shit that was way too far! Maybe I shou- NO! The idiot deserved it for getting my name wrong….in an anti-scrying magic laced house….Well, I'll just summon more or whatever. At least I managed to say something cool...I hope it was cool.

Ignoring his recent blunder, Ulbert motioned for the maid in the corner of the room: "You, maid, I trust you know not to use that name, yes?"

She furiously nodded and her face was wrought with panic. "I-indeed, my lord."

"Good, now explain to me who this girl is." He pointed to the weeping girl who flinched when his blood covered claw sent small flecks of red onto her once immaculate blonde hair. Once he noticed what he'd done, Ulbert took up the form of his polymorph once more and rubbed his hands on his dei to wipe away the blood.

The maid jolted up in surprise: "Sh-she is...a girl that Tou-Tatchi-sama had rescued and brought back here. I believe her name to be Tsuare."

Eh? Don't act surprised you moron, I just asked you a question! Alright, these maids are gonna have to go, well we'll have to come up with reasons as to why all the maids are gone...OH! Touch can just die to motivate Climb when he finishes his training! Of course, every hero needs a mentor figure that they strive to work towards and then has them ripped away at the first encounter with the big bad! Aha, we have a plot forming!

"Tsuare, eh?" With each step Ulbert took closer to her, Tsuare recoiled back into her seat. The heavy footsteps of Ulbert drowned at the quiet sobs of the girl.

He gently stroked Tsuare's hair to remove the flecks of blood, once the scarlet stains were erased, he softly patted her head and sat down next to her.

"Tell me, why the hell did the old man do that? I thought he said he'd only roleplay when we're safe and, I don't know if you know this yet, but we ain't anywhere close to being safe. Why the hell did he bring a girl here? He knows he can't just grab people off the damn streets as he pleases."

"My lord, I do not know his motivations, I-I apologize. The only thing he said to us about her was...um, 'justice.'"

"Tch, yup, sounds like the old man alright. Look, at me girl." She complied after a brief deep breathes and she completely avoided making eye contact. Rather, she opted to turn her head in the general direction of Ulbert and kept her eyes fixed on the bloody mess that stained the side of his clothing.

Seizing both of her shoulders, which made her jump up in fright, Ulbert at least tried to look her in the eye which she would only maintain for a second or two.

"You're free to leave this place, alright? You're a burden that we do not have the resources to support and you being here means that we're at threat of a few annoying bugs coming our way in search of you. Look, I can tell you don't want to be here so we will not force you to stay in this place, go back home and, here." He dropped a sack of gold coins created by [Evil Lord Greed] into her lap. Surprise couldn't even describe the sheer amount of shock on her face when she opened up the bag and was greeted by the shimmering surface of platinum, gold and silver. The entire bag swelled with a coin, not a single copper piece in sight - it was the most amount of money she'd ever bore witness to in her life. The coins would disappear within three days of being created but if she spent the coins immediately and exchanged them for actual currency, she'd be incredibly wealthy by the kingdom's standards at least.

Just as Ulbert was getting up from his seat, the maid in the corner spoke up: "Ah, about that my lord, Tatchi-sama stated that he had left a summon to eradicate the brothel this girl was in before he left to see the Princess. I believe that she has no other alternative lodgings so sending her away would result in her becoming homeless. Furthermore, I do not think such a young girl would fare very well out in the street so please retake your generous gift before sending her away."

He'd stopped paying attention to what the maid was saying once she'd said "brothel".

"A...brothel you say?"

I swear to God...if she tells me what I think I'm gonna hear...

"Indeed the girl lived in a brothel for at least sometime before being found by Tatchi-sama. She was in horrendous condition when Tatchi-sama brought her back here he had to heal her and expunge a number of potions to make sure she survived. It had taken the usage of many of Her-...Ginn-sama's potions to wake her from unconsciousness."

"O-oh...I see." His face softened at this but then immediately defaulted back into his sneer as he realized his persona was slipping.

He fought back the surge of anger that was swelling within him, surprisingly, it was far harder than he imagined, even one of his passive effects was reactivated by mistake as he mustered up the willpower to not blow up the entire kingdom there and then. The passive effect in question wasn't exactly useful so it was always deactivated but it had the effect of cloaking Ulbert in a blazing pillar of condensed negative energy, it looked cool sure but it also cost a whopping 5% of his MP every two seconds to maintain so he never used it.

"So you're all alone in this world are you, girl?" he tried his best to speak in a comforting voice but the overwhelming anger seeped into his words, making sound more accusatory than anything.

She didn't answer, only nodded in response, the negative energy caressed her skin and tried to breach her delicate skin. However, due to the abysmal range of the passive, she was relatively unharmed, only suffering a prick on her arm before Ulbert turned off the effect.

In an outrage over Tsuare's silence, the maid had gotten up from her seat and stomped her way over to the pair. "You! How dare you not answer a sup-"

Ulbert snapped at the maid: "[Shut it!]" In accordance with Ulbert's [Command Mantra], the maid silenced herself and returned to her seat in a frenzy.

"Now then, if you will not answer me I shall assist you. [Answer me]"

Tsuare's eyes glossed over and she spoke in a monotone, dead voice as a result of Ulbert forcing her body to comply with his orders. "Yes I am, I have no family, friends or anything of the sort."

Her eyes widened in surprise once she finished speaking and she gripped her throat in panic. "Wh-what...did you...do?"

Alright...now I don't have to worry about scaring her so that's a plus for me.

A wide predatory grin blossomed on Ulbert's face. "You need not worry about such trivial things, girl. You came from a...brothel, correct?"

Once more her voice transformed into a flat monotone as she replied: "Yes."

"And...the conditions within were poor, yes? So much so that you suffered continued abuse to the extent where your life was nearly cut short?"

"Yes."

"Tch...of course, and there were more within the brothel?" He could feel the rage swelling up once more.

"Yes, many more women were forced to live like me and each was in a similar condition to I."

"...I see." A small trickle of blood dribbled down his lip, one of his pseudo-fangs had punctured his bottom lip. "And...it was all against your will? You never chose to even work at said brothel, c-correct?"

Ah shit, she said she was forced into, you idiot! Pay attention! Either way...I'm going to raise hell over this, I don't care how many people die, I'd rather kill ninety-nine innocents than miss a single guilty one of this point! I swear...every single person involved in anything even related to brothels, guilty or not will be fed to HeroHero after this.

"Yes, I had no say in what happened. I was forced into the brothel after being bought by the store owner."

"What did you say? Bought? You were bought, did you say?"

Human trafficking...to be expected but still...

"Yes, I was sold to the owner of the brothel by one of the nobles of the kingdom after I had served my purpose to him."

"And this purpose...I would like to make sure I know what it is...I can guess already but…"

"It's...most likely what...you're thinking…"

She was a sex slave? Are you fucking kidding me!? How the hell does this shit happen!? Why did it take Touch bumbling around the streets to save this girl? How the fuck do you just ignore shit like this when brothels ain't the most subtle places on earth?Then that means...the fucking nobility! Those pieces of shit loved doing shit like this back home... it's the same, it's always the fucking same! Regardless of worlds, the rich will just keep on trampling on the weak and poor won't they? She was bought by a noble and sold by a noble then sold to a store owner, that shit doesn't seem very hush hush though. Slave trafficking isn't exactly easy to hide, especially with spells like [Detect Life] having the possibility to discover stowed away slaves. That just means that the higher ups are complacent with this, they're allowing this shit to happen aren't they? I refuse to believe that no efforts have been made with all the stuff that magic can do. You know what, screw it, I'm gonna make my absolute damndest that this entire Kingdom burns for the sins of its people. This is my chance to make a new pawn as well!

With the prospect of gaining a new pawn to use and the chance to raise hell, Ulbert offered the girl a deal: "Bought...Tell me...do you hate those who did that to you? Do you not wish to bring harm to them? To force them to experience the same misery that you did? Do you not want revenge?"

This was the perfect chance to rear a hero to use - the girl's hatred could easily be played off as a motivational factor to get her to increase her strength at a rapide rate and even give her her first trial to overcome all in one. It was a perfect opportunity for Ulbert to secure himself another potential slayer, Nfirea, Climb and potentially the magic caster that Momonga had adventured with were while relatively balanced, were low in numbers so a fourth party member would do wonders for them. Hell, since he'd revealed himself to her, he could even corrupt her and make her some sort of traitor within the group as well.

She gave her honest answer, much to Ulbert's delight: "I...do."

Those two words brought immense joy to Ulbert, one more hero in the bag.

Ulbert's grin only widened. "Then I shall assist you in your efforts then."

He was sifting through his inventory in search of a stat boosting item to give her when she shattered his hopes of attaining a new hero to slay: "But…"

That single word brought boundless confusion to Ulbert, why the hell would she refuse his offer?

"But? But what? I'm giving you an opportunity to plunge those who caused you despair into the abyssal depths of damnation and you refuse me? I do not understand, those people, they beat and raped you for God's sake, how can you not want to harm them? How can you not give in to wrath and do them harm?"

You...idiot girl! Think about me will you? I want a new hero, goddamnit!

"I...don't want to...harm anyone...I want to live...a quiet life…"

His hand rested on her shoulder and he spoke in a warm, fatherly voice. "A quiet life? I see…"

Immediately, his grip tightened on her shoulder, his nail ripped through her soft skin and punctured deep into her. She let out a loud cry of pain but Ulbert's grip only tightened, both her shoulders were dyed in the colour of her blood. "You wish to rot away in complacency is that it? You'll refuse to get stronger and just wait for someone else to take advantage of you while you pretend everything is ok? This is the problem with you humans! You submit over and over again to those stronger than you simply because it's easier than fighting! Tell me, girl, how do you plan on living a quiet life in a world like this? The weak are trampled wherever they go! Only the strong can enjoy such things as a quiet life, earn that life for yourself! Use the hatred that you arbor for those nobles as fuel to propel yourself into a position above them, don't just sit by and let it all happen again."

Once more she shattered Ulbert's hopes of reeling her in: "B-but...I-I don't...w-want to hurt...anyone..." Her tears flowed down her face in a salty tidal wave.

He smiled bitterly after composing himself. Finally he spoke in a warmer voice though his anger was still apparent in his voice: "Want it or not, might make right in this world and you must do what you do not want to in order to survive as no one will do it for you. Your strength should be the sole thing you rely on in this world and not the charity of others. Look, I am offering you a chance to live a quiet life, all you need to do is get stronger and that's it. Please, just...Accept. My. Offer."

She shook her head and quietly said: "But...T-Tatchi-sama…"

Really? You're relying on the old man? Hmph, I almost feel sorry for you if you can't see how he's using you to feel better about himself, foolish girl.

"Tch, you are of no use to me, if you insist on relying on others then your life is without merit to me." Ulbert raised his hand and prepared to strike the girl. In response, she merely closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable to happen. She did not cry, did not scream or even bawl her face in fear, she was calm and content.

The fuck is she calm for? You're about to die, you idiot so act like it!

Trying to understand how someone could just act so calm when faced with certain death, Ulbert asked: "You do not object? You do not struggle for your life or contest my decision? Pray tell, answer my question and I'll do you the mercy of a swift death instead."

In a meek voice she replied: "Because...there is no point, you are stronger after all...there isn't a thing I can do…"

Aw, well that ain't any fun. She's less cowardly than I thought, with enough effort I could even remove her aversion to inflicting harm to others and have myself a new potential slayer. Though, her body is weak and unsuited to even begin the training needed...hm, if I have an excess of body parts then I should give them to her then I'll transplant them into/onto her to make her stronger but...I'm running a little low and I don't think demon parts would be a good fit for her. Maybe demi-human body parts like a lizardman's or an elve's would be better suited for her. Either way, no way in hell am I just passing up a free body to use since no one even knows she exists, I'll have to work on removing all that trauma then since she isn't using it as motivation to get stronger. Once the ring does it's thing and unbrainwashes Touch, I'll ask him what his plan is for the girl.

Lightly tapping the girl on the head, Ulbert said in an unusually genuine warm voice. It wasn't his usual fake voice he'd use when talking to Enri in Carne or even to Shizu, he was genuinely trying to comfort her. "Congratulations, you will live to see another day. I have no intention of killing you due to the sliver of courage you showed me in both refusing my offer and not breaking down when told you were about to die. In recognition of your bravery, I shall forgive you for refusing my offer and I hereby grant you…"

Uh, shit, what would a Demon Lord grant someone who doesn't want power? Uh...

He'd said the first boon that came into his mind: "My eternal protection. You see, I'm a...frei-...an acquaintance of the old man so fear not, no harm shall come to you...probably..."

Ah~ Why's comforting a girl so damn hard? I understand why Suzuki hasn't made a move on the NPCs now, talking to girls is hard!

A soft "thank you" escaped her lips.

You can sound more grateful! Ugh, I go through all the effort of doing this and I get a mere thank you? No groveling at my feet in gratitude? No pledge of eternal allegiance? Nothing? Whatever.

"Now, explain to me what the hell the old man was doing here before he left, I need to know everything he did up until he left with Climb so tell me what he did from the very first time he stepped foot here." He motioned for the maid in the corner of the room to come over to him, she did so but her eyes never left the still twitching maid at the entrance of the room.

Oh...I forgot about her...well I can harvest her body parts before she despawns to off set our low supply.

The maid reported exactly what Touch had done while in the kingdom: "Of course, my lord. Tatchi-sama only brought his student here for training and would occasionally leave to visit the pawn girl as well as to 'save' people from certain events he'd manufacture with the assistance of Per-the bird. Other than that, the only other thing he had done was bring this girl here for healing and then he left for the palace. Forgive this ignorant one my lord but-"

"I'm leaving then, I'll venture over to the palace and ask the girl what she knows. [Shadow Demons], go and search this place for any brothels and dismantle them, bring me the workers and the girls when you're done." From Ulbert's shadow came a number of writhing black masses that were in the vague shape of a human, they slithered around the floor and exited the room in search of any brothels to raid.

Well, now that I'm here I should inform the girl about our change of plan...shit I forgot to harvest the maid, eh, I'm already like fifteen feet outside so I'll do it another time.

---

Ulbert moved through the murky streets of Re-Estize, making absolutely sure his [Shadow Demons] located each and every vaguely brothel or slave related building while he wandered towards the palace. The desolate streets of Re-Estize were awash with grime, the pounding rain sprayed grime all across the buildings and streets.

God, the rain just sucks…and it's night as well so I'm cold as fuck!

With heavy sloshes, Ulbert waded through the ocean of mud and grime that laced the roads further towards the palace that stood erect in the center of the city. Two guards stood at the rusted gates outside the palace and had already stood to full attention as Ulbert carved a path through the mud towards them.

Once he'd gotten close enough for his intention of entering the palace to be clear, the larger of the guards boomed: "You there, state your name and business!"

Not wanting to waste time talking to a lackey, Ulbert opted to use his mantra: "[Shut up]" The guard immediately locked up, his vocal cords tightened and refused to produce any further sound and was met by a disappointed sigh from Ulbert. The guard next to him, though he did not speak to Ulbert found it impossible to utter any kind of sounds as well.

Ulbert snapped his fingers to get the attention of the guards back on him rather than his magic. "[Escort me inside, I am here on urgent business with the Princess]"

The larger guard was forced to obey, his mind was too weak-willed to defy Ulbert's [Command Mantra] and thus, he signaled for the guard behind the gate to let Ulbert through. With a pained squeal the gates were opened up, the beaten path that lead up to the palace could once have been called beautiful, now it the path was tarnished with long since extinguished fire and dried up blood that persisted despite the best efforts of the palace's staff. The palace was while a step up from the surrounding city, was destitute and lifeless, dull paint was lazily flecked onto the walls, destroyed portions were only partly replaced or fixed and the windows had a thick grey filter over them.

This place is even more pathetic up close...well, as expected of a nation of slavers after all you can't expect them to give a shit about anything really. How the hell is this place still standing? It looks like the Demon Lord just gave up his invasion before the Kingdom could fall, pft, amatuer.

Ulbert made a note of all the guards, each was in an equal state to the palace, that is, the scars of war had been lazily patched up and poorly hidden to conceal the destitute reality housed just beneath the facade. They all wore broken, rusted equipment that looked like it could give out at any moment, their faces were all obstructed from a helmet yet from their slumped posture it was clear to see the hopelessness they held. The weapons they wielded were the only halfway decent equipment in sight and even then their spears were minimally enchanted holy weapons with only a few swings of magic left in them. Not a single guard acted or looked as if they wanted to be there, just like Ulbert.

Deciding to have some fun while he had access to a lackey of the crown, Ulbert mocked the state of the royal palace: "The palace is hardly fitting for royalty, don't you think? This place is a disgrace to royalty everywhere, it's a miracle the palace is still standing...well, same with the entire city for that matter now that I think about it."

He couldn't help but smirk, these people probably thought themselves invincible if the Demon Lord had presumably ceased his invasion of their country. All the faces the city-folk would make when the true Demon Lord took to the throne and destroyed their homes brought immense joy to the goat demon.

The guard's grip on his spear tightened at Ulbert's insult though, try as he might, he couldn't even think of harming Ulbert. The mantra of Ulbert's held the guard's mind captive and would not relinquish its grip on him anytime soon.

The guard ground his teeth to calm himself before saying in a deep baritone: "The palace has...fallen into disrepair over the years."

"Yeah, no shit." He kicked a stray fragment of the path, it collided with the palace wall and the paint chipped away from the impact. A pathway was carved through the slickened mud by the rock, a deep scar had cut it's way into the earth just from that single kick.

"The Kingdom has fallen into an economic crisis so totally repairing the palace isn't an option, I assume. It goes to show that the royal family cares about the people more than their own comfort. We're tru-"

"Pft, I highly doubt that, lapdog. Prestige breeds pride and pride breeds hate to those beneath you. Those in power have a knack for lying and abusing those lesser than them. Besides, I wouldn't trust a royal family who sanctioned the act of selling and owning a fellow intelligent being, 'cause slavers ain't the most honest people, ya know? Chances are they're hoarding the nation's wealth for themselves while purposely keeping this place in shambles to give the air of camaraderie, y'know, the whole 'we're in this together' act? Don't make me laugh, I'm well accustomed to the lies and hatred that the elite surround themselves in, none are free from the vices of malice, I assure you."

Damn that was cool!

A faint look of determination blossomed on the guard's face, as if he'd thought he had come up with a halfway decent retort to Ulbert's claim: "The Golden Prin-"

Ulbert was finished arguing and so he shut up the guard before things got annoying.

"[Shut up]" The pair had reached the grand doors to enter the palace proper, in front of the twin titan doors was a pair of guards who stood on either side of the doors. This half gateway half doorway looked as if it was a relic from hell. Unlike the majority of buildings in Re-Estize, which only had a few claw marks and burn marks, this single doorway was completely covered in scars. All the way up and down it's length there wasn't a single spot that wasn't torn asunder, the metal was buckled and it had clearly been melted at once point as evidenced by the gas pockets and solidified channels of metal. The entire area around the gateway was completely ravaged, not a single point of ground or wall wasn't in a similar state to the gate.

Hmph, the failed demonic assault got this far or maybe this was the follow up assault in which the kingdom had prepared for? Whatever, it at least explains the holy enchantments on the door and the fuck tonne of damage this place has seen but...whoever organsied the assault clearly failed as humanity is still running rampant here. Still, that goes to show that things won't be a complete curb-stomping once I get things going if something this high level is present in this world.

"[Appraise Item]" He held up his hand to the door and waited for his spell to appraise the door.

Jeez...level 80 enchantments and there's...five of them? That puts the true level of this door at around a level 130 item and no more than relic class, So, this door is definitely from a player then but...damn this piece of junk is really damn old, whoever put it here is already dead most likely, probably...two-hundred years old I'd say when taking into consideration the rust and wear on the door. Eh? There's...four enchantments now? [Protection from Negative Energy], [God's Ward], [Greater Shield of Faith] and [Stalwart Rejuvenation], I coulda sworn there were five...oh well.

Unlike the guards stationed at the rusted gates, these guards were burly and their gear was of a far higher quality than their brethren. The largest guard spoke once Ulbert and his escort approached: "Name and-"

Not wanting to trouble himself with coming up with a cover story, Ulbert opted for his favoured method of dealing with people - his mantra: "[Let us through]"

They complied, each guard moved asides as they opened up the doors for Ulbert and his escort, their faces contorted into a confused face, their bodies acted on their own in accordance to Ulbert's will.

The gate screeched and heaved as it was pried apart, revealing the innards of the palace. In common fashion with the exterior of the palace and the rest of the buildings in the kingdom, the innards were no less destitute than everything else in the kingdom. However, the only notable difference between the palace's innards and the exterior was the complete lack of battle-damage, the flooring was draped in a vibrant purple carpet that extended to each and every corner of the palace. Any staff Ulbert would pass all had energetic and even happy faces, their clothing was pristine and spirits high. The walls were covered in numerous paintings and other such items, Ulbert had a mental note of each and every painting as he made his way through the palace. They could be people he'd be able to revive should he be in need of bodies after all and they're the people who allowed slavery to run rampent in their country so it was only natural he take not of them for when their time of judgment comes. Every so often, the duo would pass a door-like indent in the wall that were weakly enchanted with an illusion spell, a spell which Ulbert could completely see through.

Secret rooms, eh? Shame I can't smash 'em down yet but I doubt anything useful will be on the other side, just dust or whatever.

It took several minutes to actually reach the room of the Princess as Ulbert nor the guard had a clue where they were going, sure Ulbert could have asked another guard to lead him to the Princess but Ulbert was essentially given a free pass to wander around the palace and take note of every "secret" door and other oddities without having to even speak to lower lifeforms.

Finally, after trudging through the palace for far too long, Ulbert had arrived at the door to the princess' room, a single guard was stationed outside the room, keenly watching Ulbert and his escort. This guard was likely the elite of the elite, his armor was heavily enchanted by the standards of the new world, his armor and weapons were nearly full with their respective enchantments and were of noticeably higher quality than those lower guards.

"Halt, you are approaching the room of Princess Renner, state your business."

Guarding a little girl's room are you? Well fair play, most Princesses in these fantasy worlds do tend to get kidnapped after all.

"[Leave]"

At the behest of Ulbert, the elite guard relinquished his post outside of the Princess' room.

This ability is so freaking cool! Ahem...it's...very potent on weak-willed people.

"[Knock on the door]"

The zombified knight pounded on the Princess's door with heavy knocks, a resounding crashing sound was produced from the collision of metal on wood.

"Princess Renner, there is a visitor who seeks an audience of the utmost importance!" Boomed the guard.

"Yo-you may enter." The shaky voice coming from the other side of the door responded after a moment of silence.

With permission granted, the guard opened the doors and allowed Ulbert to enter the room of the Princess. The room was the spitting image of a generic Princess' room from any kind of fantasy media. Grandiose furniture covered the entire room, a massive wardrobe, excessively large bed, tables and chairs sculpted from disgustingly expensive materials and a whole host of other items were present. The Princess had seated herself to the far back of the room, nervously sipping tea and trying to avoid eye contact with Ulbert.

"[Stay here]" The guard stopped himself from entering the room and stood still besides the door, closing it once Ulbert had entered the room.

Ulbert didn't utter a word, he only advanced on the princess who was sitting down at the table at the back of the room and sat down at the seat in front of her with a huff.

"You are Princess Renner, are you not?" He already knew who she was, this was just a good opportunity to practice for future encounters with royalty should the time come.

"A-a...I-...Indeed I am...?"

Ignoring her attempt to get his name, Ulbert continued: "Tell me, did a man named Tatchi use a scroll in this room?"

"A-a s-scroll…?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, due to the claw-like nature of his polymorph's nails, he nearly poked himself in the eye. "[Answer the question]"

On top of using his [Command Mantra], he also activated his passive effect, even though the yellow embers coming from his feet were entirely cosmetic and had no real effect, the Princess' eyes still widened in both fear and surprise though she did not speak.

Eh? Did...did she somewhat resist my mantra?...Whatever, I'll just put more MP into next time then or something? That should power it up...maybe...I dunno! Let's test it.

"[Please, answer the question]" He put just a little more MP into the spell than was necessary to cast it.

"Ye-...Indeed he did."

Umu...what it actually worked!? How the hell does that even work? Eh, whatever it's a free tool to use and is a good thing to note though: the mantra isn't dependent on level but rather simply on the mental fortitude of the target and the amount of mana inputted by the caster, more experiments for later, great...

"Good." He snapped his fingers, the lingering spell from the scroll that Touch had used activated and isolated the room from any prying eyes. With a sigh, Ulbert dispelled his polymorph, the Princess, despite being a cowering mess, still held back her urge to run which was admirable in Ulbert's eyes.

"First I would like to apologize for deceiving you with my appearance just now, it is rather hard to get around when your form is as wicked as mine." He flamboyantly bowed to the Princess.

"I-It's quite...al-alright."

Alright I really don't want to speak to a stutterer, let's just fix you up real quick. Let's see, if I use...1.5x the normal MP needed to cast the mantra, would it work on her or is it only in the threshold of like 1.1x or 1.2x?

"[Speak Eloquently]...Now then, Princess Renner, you're the one responsible for planting the statue in the palace are you not?"

"That is correct, lord…?" Again, she tried to get his name though Ulbert had lost himself in thought before he could answer.

Ok so [Command Mantra]...let's call it level one works on incredibly weak-willed people then, I guess I'll call this version level two...I assume if I pour even more MP into the ability then it'd actually be a useful ability in combat though it was never like this in YGGDRASIL, it had a fixed MP cost and wouldn't affect anyone who reached a high level, interesting.

"My lord?"

Shit, took too long thinking...Hmmm, should I tell her my name? She probably knows the old man's so it should be fine, right? Hmph, I'll have her accompanied by a summon to make sure she doesn't spill anything or acts stupid in future.

His smuggest of smiles spread onto his face as this was the first chance he could boast to a new-worlder about his might.

"I am Ulbert Alain Odle - The [World Disaster], th-" He caught himself before he could enter a tirade about how great he was. "Ahem, I am the true Demon Lord of this world, you've met with one of my associates, yes? The white armored one who's taken the appearance of an old man?"

Shit! Fuck, I should have used my persona's name!...am...I not cut out for this? NO! Of course I am, it's her fault for giving me an opportunity to boast about my achievements! Yes, it's her fault that I messed up and not mine!

"That is indeed correct, my lord, I was contacted by him a day after Climb had agreed to train under him. Touch Me-sama had me locate a band of mercenaries who could pose a threat to Climb's li-"

"I know the plan, you needn't trouble yourself with explaining to me. There is only one thing I would like to know and that is where did you send Climb and my...f-friend?"

"Forgive me my lord but...I do not understand, should you not have some form of contact with each other? I believe the [Mess-"

"It doesn't work, now hurry up and tell me where you sent them. I really do not have time to waste with you telling me things I already know."

"Of...course...The bandit encampment I had the kingdom soldiers locate was to the north-east of E-Pespel, it was located in the forested region where caves are in abundance." E-Pespel is the closest city to E-Rantel, at least it's the closest Kingdom controlled city to E-Rantel that is. While not an overly impressive city, E-Pespel boasted a large mining export as well as a booming farm industry as the city is located north of the former demon inhabited mountains and is also surrounded by a dense forest, similar to that of Tob forest. Though the Demon Lord himself had abandoned the Abelion Hills after first the Argland Council State attempted an invasion and later the mass zombification of the area destroyed much of the hills, remnants of his army still lingered in the deep mountains and the hills, terrorizing anyone or anything they could find in those ravaged blights that couldn't even be called hills anymore. Similar to it's neighbor, E-Pespel was a fortress city, being located so close to the former demihuman controlled Abelion Hills and bordering Demon Lord territory, the walls of E-Pespel were fortified to no end to ensure that the city would not be breached. However, as a result of near constant onslaughts of demonic threats, the walls were in shambles - much like the majority of the Kingdom for that matter.

"E-Pespel? And where is that and may you give me more information other than it's damn name?"

"O-of course, my lord! E-Pespel is the closest city to E-Rantel, at least it's the closest Kingdom controlled city to E-Rantel that is. While not an overly impressive city, E-Pespel boasts a large mining export as well as a booming farm industry as the city is located north of the former demon inhabited mountains and is also surrounded by a dense forest, similar to that of Tob forest. Though the Demon Lord himself had abandoned the Abelion Hills after first the Argland Council State's attempted an invasion a century or more ago, and later the mass zombification of the area that destroyed much of the hills, remnants of his army still lingered in the deep mountains and the hills, terrorizing anyone or anything they could find in those ravaged blights that couldn't even be called hills anymore. Similar to it's neighbor, E-Pespel is a fortress city, being located so close to the former demihuman controlled Abelion Hills and bordering Demon Lord territory, the walls of E-Pespel are fortified to no end to ensure that the city would not be breached. However, as a result of near constant onslaughts of demonic threats, the walls are in shambles - much like the majority of the Kingdom for that matter."

"Right, so E-Pespel is falling apart?"

"It is as you say my lord, my father and his father before him both failed to maintain much of the Kingdom's economy so the majority of our cities are crumbling. I'd wager it only a matter of time before the Demon Lord finally lays waste to us, it's a miracle we've survived this long."

" I see, then I shall lay waste to that area in accordance with the new plan, thank you for the information, I guess. Princess, are there any other settlements around that area that I should be aware of?"

"Not to my knowledge no. But, Ulbert Alain O-"

"Just Ulbert."

"Ahem, Ulbert-sama, I do not understand why E-Pespel must be laid waste to."

"*sigh* Just don't think about it. The inner-machinations of my mind are an enigma to the likes of you."

"Very well, Ulbert-sama."

"Good, I apologize but your hard work was for naught. The plan has been amended such that your input is no longer necessary, so our agreement is thus void."

"My lord, have I done something to insult you? Was I not-"

"Not at all my dear, you're simply no longer needed in our plans. Of course, now that you know both my own name and that of my friend's as well as knowing our appearances both in and out of our polymorphs, I can't just let you run around by yourself can I?"

"No...I guess you cannot. I am to die then am I not?"

Uh...ok then, I know my mantra would force her to speak nominally but...yeah, whatever, let's just end this here.

"Wrong, your input is required at a later date so, to ensure your survival until you are needed, I will leave with you a summon of mine which will act as your guard in the absence of that boy you're fond of. Please do not be mistaken however, my summon will ensure your survival at any costs but should it suspect you of anything that will be a detriment to our plans then it will not hesitate to kill you. In that case, you shall be resurrected and be thoroughly taught a lesson. You wouldn't dare refuse a resurrection, correct? Not when your dear Climb would be left all alone in this world, free for the taking of any woman who happens by. Ah~ I can see it now, Climb destitute and alone over the death of his Princess being comforted by a-"

Ulbert was interpreted by a cracking sound coming from the Princess' side of the room.

"Um…those things on the table wouldn't happen to be…yes, they are..." The Princess' fingernails had broken apart, the long ends of her nails had broken away from her finger. All around her hands were claws marks in the tablecloth, the Princess' left eye twitched ever so slightly.

What the hell is this girl! That should hurt like hell! Damn yanderes are not for me at all, I almost pity that Climb boy.

"A-anyway, you should understand what I was getting at at least. That is all the time I require of you for now...Actually, just so you know, Climb is most definitely dead and you will be reunited once we've ascertained a few details first. Farwell." Hurriedly, Ulbert recast [Wolf in Sheep's Clothing] and dispelled the anti-scrying barrier before exiting the room.

Alright, my work in the capital is done and we didn't gross any information other than the general location of where the idiots are. Well I believe it's time I head back to the fortress and wait for Pero to find them. Back to the mansion I go.

---

The fort

Ulbert opened the door to Pero's surveillance room cum bedroom, as soon as the door creaked open, Ulbert's nose was assaulted by the acrid stench of Pero's fluids, spilled drinks and body odor. The bird had already ruined the room with his NEET lifestyle, not even the designated cleaning staff were allowed in the room as a "no girls allowed" sign was hanging off of the room's door, much like Pero's original bedroom. LAying down in a bed of his own discarded clothing and tissues, Pero was fiddling around with the [Mirro of Remote Viewing]. While the room was filthy, Pero's feather had a dazzling golden and alabaster hue to them and they were all fluffed up with not a single blemish to be had. The man was clean, the room was not.

"Alright, the girl told me where the idiots are - somewhere near E-Pespel or whatever it's called. They're by some cave so hurry up and find them."

"Eh? Uh, sure. Away I go!" Pero got up from his seat and immediately sat back down, this single action caused an avalanche of rusted tissues to completely cover his waist.

"You know, we have maids, right?"

"Yup."

"And you're perfectly happy lying in a blanket made of used tissues?"

"Eh, I'm coated in fluids from my own body so who cares? I know what it is and where it's been so I don't see the issue here. Look," He patted his feathers. "I'm not actually all that dirty!"

Ulbert just clicked his tongue and severely questioned his choice of companions. "You're disgusting." That didn't even cut it.

"I'll have a bath later so it's all good, yeah?"

"Just find them and we can worry about your abysmal hygiene later."

"Kk."

It'd taken only a few minutes for Pero to locate the group and so, he announced to the group: "Heya~ Guess who found our lil' guys?

"You found them already? Damn, I underestimated you!" Pero being reliable? What is this, heresy?

"I mean...it's really easy to find them when they're surrounded by wastelands that're in the middle of a forest...It's also not hard to miss a small army of YGGDRASIL monsters so I didn't even do that much."

"Monsters?"

"Probably from the old man's abilities or something. No one else in YGGDRASIL could summon that many space themed monsters while being unconscious so there's that."

"I see, so, how're things with them then? I'd assume that since you're not freaking out then everyone is safe?"

"Yup, you guessed it Mr leaderman! Shalltear looks a little roughed up but I'm sure she enjoyed it so it's no big deal. They're all unconscious from the looks of it and...they've killed two people as well and injured a few more from the amount of armor on the floor."

"Injured? Is anyone still there with them and alive?"

"Nope, just a bunch of destroyed armor and the like so I don't think so. I can't see what kind from here but once we get down there then we'll find out."

"And…? Where is it then, hurry up so I can fix their mistakes."

"Calm down there, bud. Uuuuh…Lemme check for any mean people in the area first…." He waved his hands around and pretended to use the mirror while he opened up a portal and cast a few spells.

"Yup, all good!"

"You can just check like that?"

"Yeah, I am a [Ranger] you know? Enemy detection is a specialty of my class, I'm just shit at it when compared to most YGGDRASIL players."

"So ther's still a chance we could get ambushed?"

"Yup."

"...I see. If that's the case then I'm not going without a guard...I'll take Solution with me."

"Eh? Why? She's not a tank and would die in a single hit from a strong opponent so why pick her?"

"Indeed , he's right, Solution isn't exactly the most durable NPC we have. I can summon a [Death Knight] for you if you'd like." A wild Momonga appeared from behind Ulbert, his bony hands grabbed onto Ulbert's shoulder, causing the latter to jump out of his skin in shock."

"FUCK!" The scarlet claws that lay at the waste of Ulbert lightly punched his skeletal friend, though they were 1.5x stronger than his more useful arms, he only dealt a single point of damage to Momonga.

"Ah, sorry. So, why Solution though? She wouldn't be my first choice as a dedicated tank." Solution was far from being called a tank...or useful for that matter, she only really served to set up a bunch of traps around the fort and that was really it.

A faint blush made its way onto Ulbert's face, a very rare sight indeed! "Yeah well...She...she hasn't had a lot to do...s-so…"

"Ah~ You wanna make her feel better for not doing anything right? Damn, what a compassionate Demon Lord you are!" Pero clasped his hands together and mockingly swooned into a pile of his screenshots, each showing a female NPC from YGGDRASIL...for science!

Of course, the goat couldn;t just be upfront with his emotions, no, he had to be the cool guy even in the wake of overwhelming evidence. "Tch, N-NO! I care not for the feelings of the likes of her! She is a tool and I intend to use her, nothing more!"

"Ulbert, you can just say that you want to make her feel useful." Yet Ulbert does not heed the words of skeletons, you can never trust a man without skin.

"I don't care about that! She could feel as worthless as she so pleases, it doesn't affect me!" He'd subconsciously entered "cool guy pose no.3."

"Yeah, sure, just stop shouting, alright? Put your ring on, go get the maid and head on over to the boys, ok?" What Pero just said, while mind-numbingly simplified, was completely correct.

"Yeah, I will."

"Good, do it then."

"I will."

"Then go."

"I am."

"You're standing still."

"Goodbye."

"Buh-bye~"

Momonga's head was firmly planted into both his hands and he let out a deep sigh. "*sigh* Idiots…"

---

Ulbert had only walked a good twenty or so steps before getting bored and simply opted for shouting his request and hoping Solution heard him.

"Oi, Solutions, come here!" He shouted down the staircase that led to the second floor of the fort.

Nearly instantaneously, Solution came bolting upstairs, her entire body shifted around as it struggled to keep it's form consistent. While half of her body was in a semi-molten state,it did not detract from her beauty at all. Well, provided that you didn't mind the fact that her hair, eyes and legs were all bright blue balls of goo that wiggled around and slowly took the form of a woman.

Not waiting for her body to retain it's humanoid state, Solution kneeled in front of Ulbert after ascending the stairs. "How may I serve, Ulbert-sama?"

"So...Solution...I require your body for some time." He worded his request in the worst possible way he could.

"Very well." Solutions's face rippled with some form of slime only emotion, her mouth shifted into a monstrous smile that was spread from ear to ear. Ulbert gave her a very wrong impression, even though slimes cannot engage in traditional intercourse, Solution wasn't about to disobey a direct order from one of her masters.

Um...what is she-

Solution began taking her clothes off...despite her clothes being a part of her body that is.

"Stop, you idiot! Ulbert frantically flailed his arms around to shield his eyes from the sight. While successful in his venture, his hands also collided with two very dense, yet very soft mounds of modified slime.

"STOP, YOU IDIOT!"

Her clothes immediately appeared on her body once more. "I apologize my lord, I shall keep my clothes on during the act then."

"The fuck are you saying!? Are you trying to make me uncomfortable!?"

She wore a very confused face, Ulbert's order didn't leave much up to interpretation after all. Regardless, she prostrated herself in front of Ulbert. "Ah! F-forgive me Ulbert-sama, I misunderstood you. If you may be so merciful, perhaps you c-"

"Whatever, you're forgiven or something, get up. Ahem, what I wanted to ask you was if you slime is capable of mimicking more than just the human form. For instance, perhaps you could only mimic clothing, I wanted to use your body as a form of armor, if you will allow it."

"Just clothing? Of course my lord, we predator slimes posses such abilities, our mimicry abilities may be limited compared to our mim-"

He cut in: "Great, can you turn into my clothes now?"

She nodded in the affirmative, [Predatory Slimes] were highly adapted at prying upon humans so morphing into rudimentary objects was easy for such creatures.

"I should be able to mimic the basic shape, yes. May I ask why you would need me to do that and not simply summon a mercenary slime to do the job? I fear that I am unworthy of the guardian of your magnificent body." The emphasis on magnificent sent shivers down Ulbert's spine, not "ooh how sexy" shivers, no, he was incredibly uncomfortable right now.

"'Cause I need to use you as guard while attracting the lowest amount of attention possible. So, I need you to take the shape of my clothing." He did not answer her question at all but it was good enough for Solution who happily nodded along, a look of glee plastered her face.

"Y-you would...allow me to-"

"I do not give a shit. Hurry up and do it and we'll get going."

"Very well, Ulber-sama, I shall begin immediately so please stay still." As she spoke, her humanoid form melted away and a blue slime, identical to HeroHero in every facet other than colour took her place. The blue slime extended a stubby tentacle and prodded Ulbert's clothes, feeling them and gauging how best to mimic them.

"Hurry up."

The slime latched onto his arm and pulsed as it made its way up his arm. A cool sensation ran up his arm as Solution worked on the fabric and slowly took the form of his sleeve. For the next few minutes, Ulbert stood stock still at the top of the staircase while Solution gradually made her way around his body, slowly taking the shape of his clothing.

"Ya done, yet?"

Solution's face appeared on Ulbert's left sleeve: "I am, my lord."

"Thqnk God for that, alright, let's go."

Ulbert walked the twenty feet to the surveillance room and opened the door, his nose was assaulted by the dreadful smell like last time.

"Oi, bird, prep is done so hurry up and send us over there."

Looking up from his screenshot gallery, Pero looked around the room in search of something though he did not find it. "Us? Um...where's Solution? I don't see any chest tumors anywhere."

"She's...uh...y'know?"

"I do not know, no." Pero was not a mindreader after all.

"She's wrapped around my body." Again, Ulbert gave the worst possible version of what he wanted to say.

"Uhuh...well, I'm not exactly into vore but you do you, goatman."

"I'm no-" Ulbert was cut off by Pero.

"K bye [Gate]" Before Ulbert could make a retort at being called a vorarephiliac, he and Solution were swallowed by the gate cast by Pero.

---

Ulbert's vision has shifted, now he was no longer in the nut stained surveillance room cum bedroom of Pero, now he was standing in the incinerated remains of a forest. For hundreds of meters the ground was a charcoal black and blanketed in dunes of soot. There were no trees nor animals nor sounds, the only thing in sight that could be called alive was a handful of low level [Star Elemental] class monsters which had somewhat low HP and were currently ignoring Ulbert. Dotted around the floor of the newly created black wasteland was the charred remains of incredibly high-level demons, the scythe of a Greed, a torso from a Wrath and the horned skull of a [Deathdrinker].

You really did a number on the place didn't you, old man? I almost pity whoever you had to fight.

Small puffs of blackened soot would be sent into the air with each of Ulbert's steps, invading his nose with the stench of burning and irritating his eyes slightly. As he came closer to the mind controlled group, two figures also came into view, both of which were motionless and crumpled on the floor in a heap of long since dried blood and innards.

And those are the culprits, I'd say. So, we've got a Gnoll and some old bitch, no clue who they are so that's good, at least they're not [World Champions] or anythin' dumb.

By the time Ulbert had run through all the worst case scenarios involving other players, he'd been brought face to face with the unconscious Touch.

"Oi, old man, you alright?" He flicked the top of Touch's alternate helmet with a soft *dink*.

No response.

"Good on ya for killing those two people, I guess. Right, let's get you a lot sorted out then."

We've got no real clue who actually did this shit other than the people on the floor but Touch'll probably have some info on who did this. Right let's get this underway, this has been a waste of time though, I can't blame the morons who thought simply brainwashing us would work. Those fools are ignorant of my mastery of the arcane. Well, I can't blame them , fools are forever condemned to...being fools…? Ah, I'll have to work on that one for the future.

Ulbert positioned himself into a suitably "cool" pose, the hand wielding the [Shooting Star] was thrust into the air with his other hand on his hip, his legs were spread into a wide stance and his lower arms were crossed together. Due to the overdesigned nature of Ulbert's character, he just looked like a mess of heteromorph parts lazily thrown onto some cheap cosplay suit. With his stance chosen, Ulbert initiated the casting of the spell, a massive matrix of arcane symbols encircled Ulbert and glowed with a vibrant cyan. In his hands was a [Chronos' Timepiece] to shorten the long casting time, once he was satisfied with his pose, the item was crushed in his grapes and a blinding light flickered from the arcane symbols as they grew in magnitude. The spell was ready to use.

With a roar, Ulbert activated his spell: "O' Gods of the most secret of arcana, o' undooers of civilizations, bless me with peerless magical might, and assist me in this plight! I call forth the miracle of the Gods, I [Wish] for salvation! [Free Touch Me, HeroHero and Shalltear from their mental afflictions!]"

The magic circle around Ulbert shattered into nothingness.

"Eh?" He waited.

Did I mess it up? Was what I said too convoluted for the spell to understand?

"[Discern Ally]" He cast the spell on himself. A small screen appeared in front of him - it showed his stats, current HP and MP bars, level, YGGDRASIL profile picture, classes, etc.

The exp was refunded? Wait...a super-tier spell...w-was...ne...gated…!? SHIT!

Ulbert's body began to shimmer as Solution poked her head out from the thin membrane that surrounded Ulbert. "Ulbert-sama, wha-"

He looked around the place, Touch and co were still motionless.

"O-oh no. Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" A fiery hoof slammed into the ground, the earth shattered as the golden hoof splintered the floor and a haze of black soot sprayed over his body.

"FUCK!" He stomped the floor even harder, small embers of fire surrounded him, as his passive effect worked over time to keep up with his stomping.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" He'd completely stained his body in the umbral residue left on the floor.

His tantrum extended for more than a minute, Ulbert stomped and cursed and stomped on the ground some more. By the end of his temper tantrum, the ground around him was the spitting image of the moon. He would have kept going if not for the massive black oval that swallowed him up.

"Calm down...calm down, this is still...doable just clam the fuck down…" A massive void of black appeared beneath Ulbert, swallowing him up into its murky depths.

His vision went black for a second and then, he was back in the surveillance room of the fort.

"FU-" The golden hoof was raised for another stomp.

"Calm down, goatfucker! Don't go destroying the fort, y'hear?" A taloned hand grabbed Ulbert by the shoulder and had barely prevented him from stomping the ground once more.

After slightly composing himself, Ulbert turned to Pero and muttered: "We're fucked. We're dead…."

"Ulbert, what happened? We were watching you cast the spell and then you started having a tantrum...so?"

He flopped down onto the only non crusted part of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. "We're fucked...the spell was nullified."

"Nullified? And that means? Wait...doesn't that mea-" Momonga was once again cut off by his guild-member.

"It means that whoever mind controlled them used a [World Item] and so we can't undo it with any normal means."

"Ah…Yeah, we're so dead, so God damn dead! Ooooh God, oh God, oh God." Pero rocked back and forth in his chair, the mantra of "oh God" was inaudible repeated numerous times.

Placing a skeletal hand on the fluffy shoulder of his friends, Momonga too was on the verge of both a temper tantrum and a mental breakdown. "W-wait but you said we'd be fine if it failed 'cause we've got [World Items] though. We...w-we're fine...right?"

"Yeah, I said we'd be fine but I didn't think the spell wouldn't work! I didn't actually think it would fail though, I just wanted to think I had a backup plan!"

"But what happened to consider everything?" Momonga was correct, Ulbert did say to consider literally everything.

"Yeah, consider everything, aka, not think about the bad possibilities! I-I don't want to kill my friends so I just, y-y'know, ignored all the bad possibilities and stuff."

"S-so...we're not going to win?"

"Hell if I know! Sure we have a plan to fight them but coming up with the plan was the easy part! Chances are we're all going to die 'cause even if all three of us dogpiled Touch we probably wouldn't win! That old gorilla bastard ruins everything for us! If it was just HeroHero and Shalltear this'd be a joke but noooo, the shitty old bastard just had to go into the forest, didn't he!?"

"S-so...what's the plan then?" A few feathers flew into the air as Pero flapped his wings around while he practiced a few breathing techniques.

"Leave them! We can't go risking our lives over this! They're not moving and no one had collected them so we can just leave them for the future!"

"Eh? Leave them-"

"I'm not done, idiot. We should leave them for...a week? No, a few days at most, th-that would give us enough time to prepare ourselves both menatally and gear wise. Our first step should be to secure the area around them, aka we need to take E-Pespel such that we have a monopoly on Touch and co. If we secure the area nearest to them we can both save MP on surveying them as the distance between us will be shorter, we can then quickly act if anyone approaches them, we would have ample supply of bodies, etcetera, etcetera. Will this work? Who fuckin knows!? It at least gives us somethin' to do before we die. 'Course, if we really wanted to not die then we could just leave them there but I don't think anyone here wants that so we should prepare ourselves for the next few days by placing a bunch of traps, delayed spells, gathering stuff or whatever else we need to do to get an advantage. It's our only chance of winning this..." His claws dug into the fabric of the crusty sofa.

"Ah, just a tad too vague but nevertheless it's...an ok plan. We should come up with a plan to beat each member, right? That's how these things work, right?" For once, Pero had actually calmed down relatively quickly, albeit he was still flapping his wings around like there was no tomorrow but still, progress!

"A plan of action then...Let's see, first we need to come up with a way to deal with each of them first and then we'll just have to come up with a way to get close to them after that."

"Right, right, let's figure out the easy ones first then, ok?" The bird did not offer anything useful though, he only turned to the smarter people in the room, looking for guidance.

Momonga to the rescue: "Indeed, so, any ideas on dealing with Shalltear and her [Einherjar]? They're the easiest ones to deal with out of the lot so we should at least come up with a plan to defeat them before we lose ourselves in hysterics."

"Duh, just use holy magic." Ever helpful, Ublert pitched in with his idea.

"Damn Ulbert, such a great strategy, how didn't any of us figure that out! Your genius knows no bounds!"

"Tch, piss off, bird! You said to play along so I am."

"Umu, it is still a viable strategy...yet we don't have many holy spells at our disposal though. We can't win a war of attrition either considering that Shalltear, her [Einherjar] and HeroHero both power up from defeating monsters. That means using en masse summon tactics won't help us out." This was a massive problem as Momonga's entire build was centered around necromancy and summoning spells and Pero and Ulbert relied heavily on fodder monsters to act as shields for themselves as both had horrible defences.

"Yeah, and you're a summoner so you're nearly useless in this fight! We can't have meatshields to tank the hits for us and we won't survive close-range combat 'cause only your defence is even passable! This is why we're fucked! "

"Yeah, it ain't lookin' good for us, y'know? But hey, at least Shalltear's dumb so we can rely on her peanut brain to make things easier for us and her [Einherjar] is even more dumb than she is since it's a golem. And we've got a bunch of info on her cause...well, I made her and Momonga's got an entire encyclopedia entry on her in his [Player Encyclopedia.]"

"Umu, but she'll most likely be taking orders from either Touch or HeroHero though. However, she's still anything from a genius so she'll be likely to fall for traps or diversions that we set up. Furthermore, only she can order the [Einherjar] as it's mindless so it'll be far easier to kill than Shalltear will be. Furthermore, she's already out of the summon skill because it's still present so that's another useful thing for us."

"Uhuh...and how do we beat her?"

"Easy, just gang up on her 'cause her magical defense is garbage and I'm the strongest magic attacker we have. She's dumb as dirt and she's a pretty big target cause of her hug fuckin' tits so I can do some good damage to her. If it was just Shalltear this'd be piss easy 'cause all of us can consistently beat her one on one, maybe not bony but it'd most likely end in her defeat. Even Pero would destroy her so she's not really as big of a threat as HeroHero or the old man are. Shalltear was never that much of a threat anyway, HeroHero is probably the most dangerous person we're fighting right now, probably more so than Touch at this point."

"Slimyboy? Really? Why's that, ain't' he real weak compared to Touch? Touch has karma advantage on both you and Momonga as well as counter both of your builds pretty heavily so I'd assume that he would be the most troublesome to fight."

"'Cause, idiot, he can eat our damn gear! That's why he's a threat! If we were just fighting Touch then all we'd need to do is spam summons and run away 'till he goes down, it's just that both Shalltear and HeroHero make up for his poor CC. We've got no way to repair or replace any lost gear and our resources are spread thin already so us being weakened via a lack of gear is a huge detriment! Whatsmore is that HeroHero's presence completely prevents us from using any summons 'cause he can just eat them and buff himself or buff Touch using his [Parasitic Link] ability. He's got massive defences and pretty good skills as well as being naturally adept at protecting his party members to boot. Therefore HeroHero should be the first one we kill, then Shalltear and then we'll worry about the old man."

"Umu, it is as you say Ulbert, HeroHero is a large threat that we need to take out as soon as possible. We have a few ice based spells and equipment as well as a bunch of lighting spells so we can somewhat bypass his defences. The only tricky thing would be isolating him seeing as how Touch and HeroHero will definitely catch on to our strategy."

"Yup, good plan, goat. I've got racials in [Thunderbird] so I've got a bunch of lighting spells and abilities to slap him with. We could use [Gate] cheese if we really wanted to since none of them have [Dimensional Lock]. It's pretty hard to use a [Gate] in rapid succession but I should be able to manage it."

"No, you shouldn't use up your MP that way since we need you to use your spells to enchant your arrows. Though, if you have a fuck tonne of mana potions then go ahead."

"Ah, well...I've got seven mana potions left over but…"

"But we need to use illusions to hide the fort, exactly. I've got fourteen left from my Carne experiments."

"Umu, I've got thirty but they're the negative energy variants so you can't consume them." Being undead, Momonga couldn't use the normal variations of potions as he completely lacked a stomach and the fact that the Devs, rather than fix a bug that prevented undead from drinking potions and consuming food, decided to give them their own variants of such items instead.

"Great, our damn potion maker just had to get mind fucked didn't he? Even if his potions are shit it'd help out a lot if we had him here."

"Eh, if Touch managed to get mind controlled as well then we can't really blame the lil' guy, y'know?

"So, who's playing what role then and what's the battle strat?"

"Hmmm, Momonga, can you act as the frontline attacker? You've got access to heavy armor and melee weapons and you've got the best defences out of all of us so you're a good pick. Therefore you should be able to handle Shalltear and her [Einherjar] while Pero draws HeroHero's agro and I distract Touch. I'll hand back and use my magic while Pero hides out from afar once we've separated them, ok?"

"Umu, a good plan, I'll bring [BillionBlades] to strengthen my attacks. Ulbert, I can give you my staff as well to offset your low defences and poor HP pool if you'd like, seeing as it has a massive lifesteal stat."

"Yeah, of course I'll take it 'cause I've got some abilities that are pretty draining on my HP."

"Ah~ Your [Diabolist] skills, right? Fwah~ I wish I stayed a demon as well, being a bird sucks."

You see, Pero wasn't always the lovable yet uber degenerate birdman we all know him as. Once, he was a humble heteromorph, boasting all the insane stats that his guild-members enjoyed, he was originally a [Pazuzu], or simply put, a lazy reskin of the birdman model that had a lion for a head instead of a beak. That was it, that was the entire race - it was nearly identical to the birdman race appearance wise at least. However, due to Pero being Pero, he fucked it up and used a race changing item to turn himself into the birdman we know him as today.

"Well that's what you get for using a race changing item without reading the flavour text, you're not even a heteromorph anymore 'cause of it!"

"It wasn't my fault! I was just sleepy and drunk so I used it, the model looked the same as the [Pazuzu] model so I thought it was a stat buff! But hey, being a bird is pretty cool!" He flapped his wings. "I already had wings when I was a [Pazuzu] but...I'm better at flying, I think!"

"Ahem, back on topic, Pero, I trust you've a surplus of arrows that you can use to target everyone's weaknesses?"

"Yup, I've got mostly explosive stuff so Touch and Shalltear'll take a lot of damage. My ice ones are a bit low but I can just enchant new ones if needs be. Once HeroHero goes down I'll help out with handling Touch so don't expect me to save your ass from the vampire."

"Very well. So, I'm the frontliner, Ulbert's our mage and Pero's the backliner….Should we use any of the NPCs as well? I'm sure some of them could help us out if we asked them to."

"No way in hell can any of them survive it...wait, no that's not right! Pero, your mount can also be our frontliner along with Momonga then so the [Einherjar] has a separate opponent. Do we have any other mounts or strong familiars?"

"Uuuhh...we have your super chimera and HeroHero's golem thing but that's it."

"Ah, Lacerta and my pets, eh? I'll let Abaddon play around then, his brother will have to stay here with the rest of the chimera though. Good, we've got a solid frontline that is on par or superior to Shalltear and HeroHero in terms of physical attack. So, the only thing we would need to do is isolate Shalltear and her [Einherjar] and beat them up while HeroHero and the old man are distracted! Hell, if we're lucky we could even kill Shalltear in one fell swoop if we all use some super-tier spells! Holy shit, we might win this after all!"

"Yup, sounds good. So, what about Touch then? And what about phase two of the fight? All three of them can transform in some capacity so we've only gotten a strat for their phase one."

"Pft, we'll just use the same strat if they transform. Anyway, the old man, huh? Well he's an insect so he's stats aren't that amazing without his armor on and he's got a bunch of weaknesses 'cause of his shit racials."

"Umu but that's without his gear on, with his gear he's near unstoppable."

"Yup, the old man's armor and weapons are busted and he's got a bunch of op skills."

"Hmmm, before we come up with another strategy, how much gold do we have? If need be we could use mercenary NPCs and use a guild resurrection on Shalltear to save us some fighting power when the time comes.."

Pero was the first to answer, in his hands was a single bag of gold coins. "I've got three-hundred mil."

Ulbert was next, a slightly smaller bag of coins in his hands. "I got two-fifty."

And finally, Momonga too had a bag of coins in his hands. "And I've got the same as Ulbert. Damn, we can't even resurrect Shalltear via a guild resurrection, our resources are just disappearing."

"Could we even do a guild resurrection though? I mean, Nazarick ain't here so is it possible? It's the same with mercenary NPCs, can we even summon them without a guild or clan?"

"Ah, true but I was hoping we could at least try it out to be sure. Momonga's got revival spells so it's not that big of a deal."

"Fwah~ HeroHero and Touch aren't gonna be happy that we've reduced their levels by five when they wake up though."

"Heh, maybe Momonga could finally beat the old man if he has a level advantage?"

"You're acting like you've beaten him before."

"I have...once...eight years ago…Regardless, I still fare the best against him out of all of us!"

"Naw, I do 'cause my range is two kilometers, y'know? I can beat any single player in all of YGGDRASIL if I'm at my max range."

"No, you couldn't, dipshit! You've got the worst PvP record out of the entire guild! Even Amanomahitotsu had a better ratio than you!"

"Yeah well...uh, at least my build isn't hot garbage!"

"Mine isn't, idiot and neither is Amanomahitotsu's. I'm nearly min-maxed for magical damage so piss off with your single good stat! Oooh you have a physical attack of two-hundred, wow Pero, you're the first and only archer to ever do that! Congrats for being soooo original!"

"Oh? We're talking about being original now are we? You're just some generic pyromancer, man! You're even more basic than I am 'cause at least I've got my teleportals and barrier."

"Yeah, well-"

Before the argument could escalate further, Momonga halted the feuding pair: "Ahem, back on track, can we start talking about something important?"

"Sure~"

"Tch...Say...I've just realised something."

"And that is?"

"We have depiction, right?"

Momonga immediately shut down what Ulbert was getting at. "Indeed we do but HeroHero would make quick work of the demons within it and we'd end up in an even more troublesome situation. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't even be able to control that many demons coherently so there'll be a lot of collateral damage that we'd have to worry about."

"No we won't, idiot! Think about it, we've got God knows how many demons kept within a single space where they're all nearly immobile and can't fight back. So tell me, what do you think we can do with that?"

"Uuuuhhh….we're all max level so we can't grin-...wait...That fucking lizard guy! He can just eat the demons, level up and get buffed up by his class! Hooray for broken class abilities!"

"Indeed, it's a shame our other NPCs won't gain exp from killing the demons but we must make due with what we have. If we do this and just set up a fuck tonne of traps then we'll have a...I dunno, a decent chance of not dying so it's worth a try."

"Oh boy, setting up a bunch of traps is the plan, eh? Alright, let's get to it then. Since we're abandoning Carne me and Suzuki should head over and reclaim our items and summons. Thi-this is gonna be easy..." In spite of his confident declaration, Pero was violently shaking in place and his talons were furiously scratching away at his feathers.

"Burn the place down as well if you see that...uh, Nfirea guy, make sure he gets the full tragic backstory that most heroes get, ok? If the boy is there do everything in your power to get him to hate either you or me. In fact, here," From his inventory, Ulbert threw some sort of crystal at Pero. "this'll make him the generic hero with a tragic backstory who awakens his power in the midst of tragedy or whatever. Use some of the demons from depiction to wipe out Carne and make sure Lacerta is there to clean them up once they've killed the villagers. Momonga, make sure the chimera in the rightmost shed doesn't come out until Carne is destroyed so the only thing you have to do is reclaim our items and move the weak chimera from Carne. Pero, once Carne is destroyed, bring my pets over here. Do everything in your power to make Nfirea hate me."

"Everything?" A hopeful inflection wormed its way into Pero's voice.

"Yes, everything you think will work should be used."

"Can I polymorph into your polymorph? Y'know, I've got [True Polymorph] so I can copy your human form to make things easier. If he hates me then he'd wanna murder me, y'know? But if I look like you in you rpolymorpg then the hentai protag guy will hate your guts and thus would like to murder you, win-win, right?"

"Do it then, Momonga, while he's doin' whatever he's doing you should round up your summons and any items that're in the village. My chimera should do whatever you say, so long as you look like me, Pero 'cause they're dum as dirt. While you lot are in Carne I'll be prepping to take over E-Pespel and send out a few summons to draw any strong people to the countryside around E-Pespel. I'll bring Solution and Lupusregina with me as well so I have meatshields and people to constantly watchover Touch and co."

"Ah~ Leaving Shizu all alone to guard this place ain't the best choice but whatever, do as you want."

"*sigh*...Ok...now we need to come up with the theories as to who did this. I was gonna wait until we've got everyone back but...fuck it! We may as well brainstorm some ideas before we all die. As for my theory, I'd assume it to be the fake Demon Lord but it'd be naive to have him as the sole candidate, any thoughts?"

Pero raised his hand and waited for Ulbert to nod before he started. "Uh, another player? Or players? Or a guild? Or a clan? Or-"

"Umu, it is possible but we shouldn't just lock ourselves into that way of thinking. Not everything that is strong in this world is a player...well, it would be far easier for us if it was like that but it'd be naive to believe such without proof."

"Players or not we know that they have access to at least one [World Item] and are hostile to us, for now we shouldn't actually theorize about who the culprits are. We should just focus on trying to kill Touch, HeroHero and Shalltear. "

"Indeed, we should ask them once they've been resurrected before we even think about who the culprits are."

"Alright now that that's over with, I've got one last thing to say before we go head out: I don't think [Message] is as secure as we believed it to be."

A collective "Eh?" filled the room.

"I guess now is the best time to say this. I'm nearly certain that someone has compromised either mine or Pero's [Message] spells, either that or [Message] as a whole isn't secure at all."

"Mhm, and who'd you think did this then?"

"Pero, did you perhaps experiment with your [Jester] skills at all in the past week?"

"Huh? Wait what? Why're yo-"

"Answer me."

"Uh, no? I was here keeping tabs on everyone as normal. The only times I stepped out of this place was to help you out a few days ago with those demons in the village that came out of nowhere and to help Momonga clear some undead. Other than those two times, I've been here staring at the mirror all day. So, why'd you need to know?"

"Because when I was still working in Carne, my anti-scrying barrier was triggered so I [Messaged] you."

Pero tilted his head. "Uhu, yeah I didn't get a single message all the time you were in Carne."

"Then I'm right in thinking that someone was pretending to be you. When I'd [Messaged] you I got into contact with someone who sounded almost exactly like you and yet they were acting...I dunno, not like a human would when talking to their friend? Either way, they admitted to breaching my barrier and claimed it was as a result of a random effect from an ability. They didn't say the class, the name or anything related to the ability, just that they'd used one, ain't that sus?"

"Uh...and you're just telling us now?"

"Of course, why would I try to report it by using [Message] when it's compromised? If I left Carne suddenly it's both affect my experiments and it'd look incredibly suspicious if I just up and left immediately after talking to the fake. That's why I waited a couple days."

"So, that further cements that there are people in this world who're immediately hostile to us then. If they were friendly then why would they hide behind an easily uncovered lie? It wouldn't be unreasonable that the people who've been breaching our anti-scrying defenses are responsible for mind controlling Touch and the rest. But how are we going to communicate without [Message]?"

"We'll just have to meet up in the conference room more often then, wouldn't we? That doesn't mean we'll stop using [Message] though."

"Um...Why would we use an easily compromised spell to communicate?"

"Ever heard of misdirection? You're a [Jester] shouldn't this come naturally to you?"

"Ah yes, because my entire personality is based around my classes!"

"Whatever. *sigh* It'd be incredibly sus if we just stopped using [Message], correct? That's why we need to keep using it but just feed them the wrong information in our [Messages]. Also, it provided us with chances to contact whoever is listening in on our plans once our anti-scrying barrier goes down and therefore gives us a chance to learn about whoever is contacting us and the scope of information they have about us. 'Course, we could just blow up the world if needs be but, I don't think anyone here wants that level of destruction. I'd like to limit the level of destruction to only the shitty people who deserve it."

"Ok, ok, let's not go and subscribe to just this theory, ok? Sure it's not the worst thing you've ever said but we can't lock ourselves into one way of thinking and get bit in the ass later down the line."

"Oh? You got something you'd like to say then, bird?"

"Nope~"

"Umu, I do. I do not think we should just attribute the mind controlling to whoever has been listening in on our [Messages] just yet. Yes it is plausible and the most likely outcome but we should prepare for everything we can think of. So, Theocracy doctrine states there were six Gods in total, right? It also states that they were defeated by eight other God-like beings. Assuming these parties are actually players then that means that multiple groups of players were alive during the same time, if two groups of players can be alive at the same time then it isn't unreasonable to assume three or more could coexist in roughly the same time period. Therefore, it is possible that we're unknowingly co-existing with other groups of players. Yes, this is a massive stretch but it is a possibility we need to consider, maybe we're being surveyed by multiple parties or something."

"Eh, pretty weak theory but the concept of us being underwatch by multiple parties is something we should consider at the very least. I doubt that multiple player groups are active though since I don't see anyone proclaiming that their God is alive, do you? There haven't been any super OP adventurers since...um, I dunno, you're the adventurer man so you should know, I'm just going by the reports you guys send in but I don't think anyone is on our level and is in the public eye. Sorry bonedick but your theory is trash."

"Yeah it's trash but we should consider everything we can think of at this fuckin' point. It doesn't rule out other possibilities like...what if these players are already dead? We know that players have appeared before us due to the Gods that are worshiped in this world and the YGGDRASIL magic system is pretty ingrained in this world history. So, maybe the descendants of these players heard about us or something from their ancestors? We were pretty infamous in YGGDRASIL so maybe the stories that Gods would tell about YGGDRASIL would include us or another guild or other players or something. Maybe there's some group of people that we're yet to discover considering that most of the nations surrounding us aren't too talkative about what happens about what happens in certain territories like the South and the West. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that some kind of force or entity or whatever had a hand in this and just hasn't showed up because we're too far away from them or some shit. Momonga, you said something about people from the South 'acquiring' certain looks, correct?"

"Indeed, that is the information I had grossed from the adventurers I was traveling with, I'd need to resurrect and interrogate them for anything more useful than that though."

"Yeah, do it then and that girl you've brought back, she had knowledge as well?"

"Yes, she said something about dragons in the South but that was it."

"Ah...Dragons, huh? Well if they're anything like in YGGDRASIL then I doubt we'd be able to take them out going in blind and without a full party. Even if we threw everything we currently have at a YGGDRASIL dragon we'd be out of usable personnel and we'd be in pretty bad shape."

"You think YGG dragons are here? I dunno, the world isn't currently on fire so I doubt any are here."

"We're just brainstorming things here, idiot. Another thing we should think about is the Southerners."

"Uhuh, and why's that?"

"White hair and red eyes paired with pale skin on top of a penchant for evil, don't that sound familiar? Kinda sounds a little like Shalltear doesn't it?" Ulbert was really stretching things.

"You're suggesting vampires? Really, man? Dont' get me wrong, I'd love to have an entire country filled with vampires but I don't think that's really possible in this world, even YGGDRASIL didn't do something that dumb." Even with his raging attraction to vampires and all other "succ" races, Pero just couldn't agree with Ulbert.

"Hey they've got mind control stuff...uh, right?...maybe, I don't know! It's theory!"

Placing a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, Momonga said: "While your theory isn't very good, it is at least a good train of thought. We shouldn't assume we're simply dealing with players or their kin, we need to take every possibility into consideration...regardless of how stupid it may be. The new-worlders possess techniques we are unfamiliar with and magical items of their own making, we cannot just say everything strong is from YGGDRASIL and be done with it. Even if what Ulbert just said was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, we shouldn't rule anything out unless proven otherwise."

"Tch, don't pity me, bastard! I'll have you know that I'm-"

"You're Ulbert Alain Odle who's the future Demon Lord, you're the slayer of worlds, the [World Disaster], the strongest magical caster in YGGDRASIL, the icon of sin, a fury and everything else, right?"

"Yea-NO! I'm not a fuckin' fury, for that last time! If you don't start treating me with the re-"

Placing a finger to Ulbert's snout, Pero tried to get things back on track for once: "Hush, furyboi. Anyway, we should probably worry about that once we've actually dealt with Touch and his gang, right?"

"That is correct but how exactly are we going to go about this? The primary factor we need to take into consideration is the amount of damage a battle between us would cause."

"Ah~ Yeah we're pretty strong so I doubt the battle would be easy to hide from prying eyes…"

The serious atmosphere was cleaved in half by Ulbert's crude outburst of "Holy shit!"

""Eh?"" In unison Pero and Momonga tilted their heads as they gazed upon the noew shaking goat demon.

"This is my chance! It's my time to debt as a Demon Lord proper! I can just spam some summons and blow up the Kingdom! Think about it, we'd be able to throw out as many spells as we wanted if we own the territory and we get to kidnap as many people as we can! An entire city worth of people would be invaluable to us!" In a blaze of condensed chun energy, Ulbert had slipped into his "Demon Lord" voice and had begun to enter various poses.

Shielding his eyes from the sight in front of him, Momonga placed his skeletal hands over his face and said: "...Right... Well, mass destruction to conceal mass destruction? How subtle...yet effective."

Pero slammed his talons into the table in an outrage. "WHA-...Like, the entire Kingdom? Just like that you're gonna wipe it out!? Enj, that's fucked!"

"Oh fuck off with your morality bullshit! Think about the bigger picture, if we don't take at least one city, we'd run out of villagers at Carne in no time and we'd be without a semi-secure base of operations. I don't know if you haven't noticed it but even without concealing spells, we're out in the open with no wya of running if someone comes and finds us."

"Huh? Naw man I don't care about that shit like morals! Think of all the girls you'll kill! My potential harem members will get wiped out 'cause of you!"

"Eh? Then...whatever, I'll fuckin' order my demons to not kill young girls and lolis if that makes you happy." Instinctively, Ulbert had reached for his emoji hotekys...there were no emojis :(

"Hell yeah!" He thrust his fist into the air.

Trying to ruin his good mood, Ulbert smugly said: "But no underage kids."

"I'm….ok with this still! A shame but I shall make do!" Our lolicon hero stood strong in the wake of him being prevented from degeneracy.

Defeated, Ulbert slumped down onto the table. "Jesus Christ….why am I friends with a pedophile?"

"I'm not!" He technically wasn't, therefore, everything was a-ok by Pero's standards.

"You like loli and shota stuff though." The evidence wasn't looking good for Pero.

"B-but they're drawings and technically legal! Hey, if they have the proportions of an adult but just so happen to have an incredibly youthful appearance and are the same height as a child, it's a-ok, right? I have no interest in underage kids!...well they're cute but that's it! I swear!"

Ulbert pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. "You're fucking retarded...J-just, ugh, whatever. Do you swear you're not a pedo then? I will not hesitate to murder you if you do anything sus."

"Yes, I swear!" The bird saluted.

"Mhm, I doubt that but whatever. Anyway, I'll use this opportunity to gain us some usable territory and a permanent base of operations as well as a bunch of bodies to use in experiments once we've found where the old man actually is. This'll be a good chance to gain some resources from the Kingdom as well and we can give a big 'fuck you' to the fake Demon Lord while we're at it."

"Yeah but, ain't it a bit obvious though? Even if we gain the territory it'd be announcing to the world that 'Hey! We're a bunch of super strong people who have no knowledge of the world, please come and manipulate us!' y'know?" Pero flailed his arms around for some reason, probably to emphasize his sarcasm.

"Pft, they know we're here so we may as well jump on the opportunity and whoever mind controlled Touch will probably be watchin' our fight anyway so we don't have much choice. Besides," His claws dug into the table and a predatory grin spread across his face. "Whats wrong with wiping out a society built upon slavery? We'll give 'em a taste of their own medicine, y'know, see how they like being abused and dominated. Hehehe, it'll be a good chance for us to take up some brides as well 'cause we're gonna need as many strong entities as we can. It's a win-win 'cause we grace the lesser beings with bearing our young and we gain an endless supply of minions as well as free food for HeroHero and Lacerta."

"Umu, can we please go now? We do have things to do, you know?"

"Eh? Oh yeah, guess this meeting is over so...WAIT! Momonga, what magic does that Nfirea boy use?"

"Eh? Um...uh...I can't remember, though he said he was an alchemist and potion maker at least."

"Well, he's now an acid based caster cause it's the only class change item I've got. Guess he's stuck being a [Acrid Sage] and," He brought out a roughly carved crystal and flicked it. "Now it's charged with a [Hate] manipulation spell so he'll be pretty pissed at my persona if everything goes to plan. Here." He threw the crystal at Pero.

"Jee, thanks, bud. Alright, I'm off! [Gate]" Pero summoned himself a [Gate] and jumped through it, his talons grabbed onto Momonga at the last second to pull his friend in with him.

---

Carne village, Pero's Pov

As the [Gate] behind Momonga and Pero dissipated he was immediately met the stench that had often clung to Ulbert and Shizu, it was a peculiar smell however, not too unpleasant but not something one would enjoy breathing in. It was a mix between the stench of rot and just plain grass that lightly tickled Pero's nose, causing him a small deal of discomfort in the process. Momonga, not having a nose, did not find the stench particularly horrible though the smell still wasn't pleasant. The early morning sun beamed out glorious rays of warm light that were reflected off of the slick morning dew. The group hadn't slept in days, though due to their heteromorphic bodies, or in Pero's case, his NEET lifestyle, sleep was unnecessary. There was a good few locusts happily munching away at the grasslands as well, their wings and legs would click every now and then, one could almost call it peaceful...except that these locusts, at their largest, grew to nearly half a foot in length and their bodies were dyed in the scarlet, writhing pustules of infection that was commonly found to the far right of Carne village. Other than the freakish locusts, Carne was peaceful for once, the chimera were all transferred to a different location further in the forest as to avoid any accidental deaths when night came and Ulbert had stopped destroying the minds of the villagers. The villagers happily went about their work, though most of their minds were broken, they faithfully completed each and every mundane task one would expect of a village peasant to perform. No one would have been able to even tell that these villagers were being harvested for their organs and body parts by the icon of sin himself and future Demon Lord - Ulbert Alain Odle...not like anyone even knew who the hell Ulbert was, mind you. Regardless, the village of Carne was tranquil.

Momonga was the first to speak, he kicked away a locust that had gotten just too close for comfort: "Alright, I'll gather up my undead summons and reclaim the totems we've got laying around the village."

Pero was in the middle of various stretches that he had no clue the purpose of: "Yup, that's plan, have fun in the woods, ya creep~"

"You sure you can head into Carne by yourself? If you'd like, I can cover for you instead, I don't want you having some sort of panic attack when the villagers speak to you." This was a very real concern, being a NEET, Pero was not the most ideal person for this role, he was only present to make things go faster such that the group could have a longer time to fully prepare themselves to face Touch. It would be an understatement to say that Pero suffered from social anxiety, social interactions with anyone who wasn't his friend or with someone he perceived to be equal or superior to him would always result in the bird completely shutting down, especially if he wasn't with his friends but, in order to build his harem, he must get better at social interactions. That was the sole factor that motivated Pero, nothing would get in the way between him and his harem-to-be.

"Naw I'll be fine~ Er, probably...I hope so at least! Anyway, we've gotta get this plan in motion quickly though - our deadlines a few days from now and I'd like to say we gave it our all before we died!"

"Umu, how optimistic. If you're certain that you want to head into Carne then I won't stop you, just please, remember that I offered to cover for you when you inevitably break down."

"Right, right, let's get to it! Enough of your chatter, Suzuki!" Pero raised both of his hands into the air and readied up a super-tier spell, the spell in question was [True Polymorph].

After thirty seconds of standing in silence with his hands in the air, the spell completed it's casting and Pero's body began to shift around and a tingly feeling permeated Pero's body.

"Alright, I'm heading off into the forest then." With that, Momonga cast [Undead Slave Sight] and made his way over to his first minion that was some hundred meters or so away.

Pero squirmed a little as the tingly sensation intensified. "Oh~ This feels funky."

His body continued to contort and morph around before a small puff of smoke escaped from his body.

"*cough cough* Jeez…*cough*" Waving his hands from side to side to clear the air stood...Ulbert's polymorph. Pero had used [True Polymorph] to polymorph into Ulbert's placed his hand into the wilds of his hair and shook his hand around the dense jungle of hair.

"Jeez Ulbert, how the hell do you function with this stuff on your head, it's like I've got the worst knitted sweater on my head." And now for the moment of truth, Pero unbuckled his trousers and peered within the folds of fabric that housed the objects of Pero's curiosity.

"Alright now that Momonga's gone, I can gave a snoop around Ulbert's poly' body...let's see what he's rockin'...ah." He immediately re-buckled his trousers and banished the site he just saw into the deepest recess of his memories. "Well I feel even more emasculinated than usual, onwards to the village!"

Pero made his way into Carne, not before he booted one of the oversized locusts that just so happened to be in his pathway.

He'd entered the village proper, the buildings had actually improved since he'd first spied the village on the first night of being in this world. Each building was, while still poorly built, was constructed of far higher grade wood with actual glass windows instead of just a hole in the wall, doors were more than just a wooden plank on hinges. Even a handful of guard towers were erected around the village perimeter, standing sentinel at regular intervals around the newly constructed wall that Ulbert had borrowed far too many materials to construct.

I don't understand...what kind of idiot would go about actively bettering the lives of these people and spending a huge amount of material building a wall to protect them, only for him to just wipe them out a few days later? It's not even evil, it's just dumb! Whatever, the furry ain't too bright in the head but I wish he'd learn what moderation is.

The next few minutes were filled with a mind-numbing boredom mixed with a near unbearable stress. Minute after minute, Pero's posture worsened and worsened, his eyes drooped and he dragged his feet along the floor and his stress only inflated in size. Every couple of steps he took, another villager would come out from their homes or abandon whatever they were doing and approach him.

"Ariel-sama!" A particularly large yet surprisingly burly man had bumbled his way into Pero's path and only further stalled his search for Nfirea. This was the fifth time already that a villager had sought him out and Pero was on the verge of bursting into tears already.

For fuck's...just leave me alone! I can't keep doing...this! Momonga, save me!

This was the fifth time he'd been approached by a villager, Pero had lost his patience after the first time. His fists bawled tightly and he grinded his teeth into oblivion, a nervous sweat cascaded down his forehead and he felt a slight tear well up in his eye.

C'mon man...this is actually kinda pathetic! Get it together! He's just the same as other villagers...he can't...hurt you, ok? You're level 200 for God's sake...c-calm down.

Today was already taking its toll on him, he'd practiced the breathing technique HeroHero had taught him innumerable times since being taught it.

"H-how...can I...help?" He wanted to cry and roll around on the floor already.

"Ah, I'm sorry to trouble you my lord but I-"

He already knew exactly what the villager was going to say to him. "Just...w-wanted to pay...yo-your respects, r-right?"

"Ah, you've completely seen through me my lord! Do forgive me but I must take my leave." As the man uttered those words, fireworks lit off within Pero's head, he was free to walk the next couple steps of the social gauntlet he was thrust into.

Don't talk to me if you've got nothing to say!...phew what a nightmare! Why did Enj have to make everyone worship him and why is his Demon Lord name so lame!?

And so, Pero continued his arduous trudge through Carne, constantly being pestered by the peanut brain villagers all the way. Eventually, he'd found the person he was searchin for - Nfirea who was in the middle of a conversation with Enri - the "pet" of Ulbert, aka the girl he forced to be friends with him but he was too embarrassed to ask her so he brainwashed her. The conversation was going poorly from the looks of Nfirea's ever worsening posture and nervous shifting.

Ah, there he is! Eh? Is tha- shit!

Pero ducked behind the wall he was just about to turn once he saw Enri, their eyes met briefly.

Aaah...not now! Why's she here? Ok, ok...breathe….breathe….breathe...phew alright, crisis averted! We'll just hide out here until she disappears and everything will be ok.

Just as Pero's composure had returned, Enri had turned the corner and bumped into Pero, Nfirea close behind her.

CRISIS NOT AVERTED, COD RED, CODE FRICKING RED, OH SHIT!

"Ariel!" and then, Pero's heart stopped for what felt like an eternity. He was overcome by a soft and warm sensation that enveloped the majority of his body, it was a mix of absolute bliss and unadulterated horror, for Enri had just hugged him. Pero's hugg virginity was stolen from him, he was planning on giving it away to the first member of his harem but now, he is dirty - unclean and impure. Enri had ruined him, at least that's what Pero was thinking, that is.

I'm going to die. Was the only thought Pero's mind held. This was it, he was going to die, the sudden act of affection would be his undoing, there wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind.

Noticing that neither the hug was reciprocated like usual or that he even spoke, Enri removed her face from Pero's chest and gazed up at thim. His entire face was drowned in a scarlet mess of a blush, not a single inch of his face wasn't dyed ruby red.

She...she hugged me...she hugged me...she...I-I need to leave, I need to leave! I can't do this!

He fumbled to get coherent words out but he could only make incomprehensible noises: "E-e-e...Enri...urk…guh..."

Nononononononononononononononononononononononono! Leave!

Alright, time to give him the super duper convenient plot device to make him a hero. Now...uh, what the hell does this item do again? Enji didn't say but knowing him it'll probably be something edgy like "oooh he gets stronger the more he hates me oooooh" kinda thing. Oh well, not my problem, I just wanna hurry this stuff up and get my harem going.

"O-o-oi, kid, h-here." Pero threw the plot device to Nfirea who was behind the "hugging" pair with the worst hidden look of jealousy Pero had ever seen in his life. In a flash, Pero had unwrapped Enri's body from his and tried his best to not keel over there and then.

"E-eh..?" Nfirea studied the crystal that was just thrown at him. It was a crudely carved crystal in the shape of a blazing fire with nothing all too special about it.

"Magic! A-a-alright, see ya!" With the task of planting the MacGuffin a success, Pero ran away back to the dedicated [Gate] spot, leaving Nfirea and Enri in the village square, staring at the super convenient item that would power Nfirea up in a pinch. You see, this item had two very potent effects; the first would grant Nfirea the [Acridic Sage] class which specialised in acidic based spells and secondly: the item contained one instance of [Grave Offence] - a spell which would inflice the [Hate] value of the target max out towards whoever placed the enchantment. This was to ensure that, should Pero mess up, Nfirea would hate Ulbert regardless of whatever Pero does or doesn't do to him while in his polymorph.

I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die! My room! I need to get back to my room before I die!

"[GATE!]" He dived into a [Gate] to escape back to his surveillance room cum bedroom. However, he was immediately thrown back out of the [Gate] before he could even sit back down into his favoured seat by an Evil Lord [Greed] that had been stationed by Ulbert to oversee Pero's activities. So, faced with nothing else to do, Pero led down on the grass and waited for night time.

Welp, guess I'm stuck out here 'till the big [Gate] is needed...great...I'm stuck here until nighttime.

---

Nightfall

Night had finally descended on Carne, the villagers locked them and their animals up in their homes to escape the bitter wind that would come with the night. The villagers had blind faith in Ulbert's chimera and his persona, even though his Chimera had long been evacuated in preparation for tonight. Tonight was the night that could make or break the battle with Touch, if Lacerta and Ulbert's special chimera failed to gain enough stat boosts from devouring their prey then the group's chances of survival would drastically drop. However, the villagers were not the primary prey - humans were far too weak to gross large buffs from, instead, Pero was about to unleash his favourite strategy on the new world, a strategy he called - "Nerd Slaying"...very creative. So, in the cover of night, Pero flew up into the night sky and spread his arms out wide.

"[Mass Gate]" A gargantuan void in the sky appeared at the behest of Pero's spell, the night sky paled in comparison to the sheer blackness of the void. Without even giving the signal, a deluge of demons were already dropping from the sky and into the forest, the prey of Lacerta and Abaddon were unleashed on the new world. Now all Pero had to do was to do a big reveal in front of Nfirea to get him to hate Ulbert and his mission would be successful. There was no way her could fuck it up. Nope, not at all...

A few minutes later

Pero was crouched behind a destroyed building and was watching Nfirea getting absolutely destroyed by a demon. He didn't even enjoy watching it, no, he couldn't get up from his hiding because of one simple factor - Enri. The girl who had robbed him of his first hug with a girl was present and so Pero remained motionless, not wanting to be further ruined by the village wench.

ok...ok...ok...ok….OK! I cannot do this! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, just talk do it you coward! The plan needs this to work!

And yet he could not move. Technically the plan only neede Nfirea to be alive long enough to fight Ulbert, it was never specified that Nfirea couldn't die here and just be resurrected after the face. Pero wanted to do the second option of just leaving Nfirea to die in order to avoid contact with Enri, he desperately wanted to just hide away and let the boy die. And yet, for the first time in his life, Pero took the initiative and he stopped hiding from social interaction...albeit, he was sweating buckets, shaking like crazy and couldn't think straight nevertheless, our NEET hero was one step closer to becoming a functioning person.

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

Thus, finally determined to save Nfirea, Pero jumped into the fray and leapt upon the weak demon. With all his might he slashed at the demon with The Nerd Slaying Blade and cleaved the monster in half before Nfirea, Enri and Nemu even noticed. He'd done it, he saved the day! Now all he had to do was not fuck the big reveal up and all would be well.

However, the NEET could only accomplish so much in one day. His mind was too overwhelmed to even function properly at this point. To makes things even worse for our NEET hero, Enri had tackled him in the time it took for him to even remember where he was and thus, his mind was sent spinning once more.

"E…" Was all he could muster up, his mind was on the verge of shutting down.

After trying a few more times, he managed to get out :"E-...E-Enri…"

Come on! You're so close! Just say it! You've got like three lines you need to say so just say them!

"E...Enri. I-...did...this…uh, this didn't exactly go as planned but...oh well?"

I DID IT! HOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY DID IT!

Fireworks were going off in Pero's mind but his joyous thoughts were cut short.

"H-huh? Wha-...p-planned? A-ariel you..." Nfirea had just forced him to speak once more.

"E-eh? Um...Y-yea-yeah...uh, I did this whole thing, y'know? Kinda...er...obvious ain't it?" Pero was on cloud nine, he'd done it again! He spoke while being hugged by a girl and it was even eloquent...kinda...not really, cut the boy some slack!

"Wha-...you…" Of course, due to the horrible way in which Pero had delivered the reveal, Nfirea didn't really have a clue as to what was going on.

"W-well...y'know...I'm not exactly the best villain though so...I dunno...t-ta-dah? I-I killed all those villagers...uh, by proxy at least!" Pero spread his arms out wide as if he was offering a hug.

"I...I guess imma take Enri now…GOODBYE!" Behind Ariel, Nemu and Enri manifested a massive void, Pero leapt into the [Gate] at mach 1000, reluctantly pulling in Enri and her sister with him. That was a complete disaster.

---

The fort

Pero stepped out from the [Gate] that linked Carne village to the fort, Momonga had long since completed his task of rounding up his undead minions and collecting the group's items from Carne so Pero's entire stay in Carne was as stressful as it possibly could have been. With his re-emergence into the fort - his safe space, his composure nearly immediately recovered. He wasn't even allowed to go back to the fort, Ulbert had ordered every NPC to keep Pero from returning until he'd secured Enri, Nemu and made sure that Nfirea had gotten the power up from Ulbert's item. So, with his task completed, Pero was finally allowed to step back into the fort, Enri and Nemu were close behind him and the faint screams of Nfirea as he either had a temper tantrum at Enri leaving him for Ulbert's persona or because he was benign eaten alive. Pero desperately hoped for the former option. Once he had entered the room, he was greeted by Ulbert who was midway through knitting some sort of scarf.

"Yo, goat, what're you doin' up this late? Shouldn't you be prepping for your demonic invasion?"

"Nah, I sent Greed over to E-Pespel to plant some weaker demons there first. If we want to make full use of this situation then we need to attract as many strong people to E-Pespel as we can."

"Mhm, yeah but, ain't it real sus if all the strong people disappear though?"

"Yes it will be, that's why I've come up with an alternative plan."

"And?"

"That is, we're gonna have Momonga manipulate them into becoming heroes who're gonna kill me or somethin', I dunno."

"Uhuh, easier said than done though, won't that be really hard?"

"Yup."

"...and that's it? That's your entire plan?"

"Yup." Simple and effective.

"...Right. Anyway, what'm I gonna do with these two?" He motioned to Enri and Nemu who were stuck trying to comprehend the scene in front of them. It's not every day you see an archdemon knitting a scarf and some sort of freakish birdman happily sit down in tens of crumpled tissues of dubious purposes.

"Hold on." He got up from his seat with a comically exaggerated sigh and walked towards the door leading to the rest of the fort. He opened said door and shouted out "SOLUTION! HERE, NOW!

A few seconds later, Solution came bolting up the stairs, her entire body jiggled and contorted around as her slimy body struggled to stay in it's humanoid form once more.

Once she'd reached the doorway, she knelt in front of Ulbert and asked: "How may I serve, Ulbert-sama?"

"Take the things in the back over to my room, make sure you don't eat them or anything."

"My lord, forgive me but is such a thing necessary? Surely such creatures haven't earned the right to step a foot in you bl-"

"Shut up and do it."

She immediately shut up. "At once, my lord."

She did the thing and took the village girls back to Ulbert's room.

"Phew~ Crisis over!" Pero flopped down onto a sofa.

"Still can't function around girls?" The answer was obvious.

"Duh."

"And you expect to build a harem for yourself?" The chances of a social enepted NEET even successfully becoming friends with a girl was slim, let alone acquire an entire harem!

"Yup." Ever the optimist.

"*sigh* All right. So, gimme a report on how Carne went then."

"Horribly." It was true, things did go horribly in Carne.

"In detail."

"So, I threw the item at Nfirea and...yeah that's it. Oh, I also didn't know how I would do the big reveal of oh~ I orchestrated this whole thing so I just told him outright that I did it. Yeah, he was pretty confused and I didn't know what to say so I jumped through a [Gate] before he could talk to me."

"You ran away and didn't do the proper reveal?"

"I did, yes."

"You...you...YOU FUCKED IT UP!"

"Ok, in my defence, the hell was I meant to do? I'm not some villain! You shoulda expected this!"

"That was the first act of evil my persona committed and you ruined it! You didn't even try to scare him or act evil or get him to hate you! The hell were you thinking!?"

"I'm not an actor or a roleplayer! Why didn't you do it if you cared so much about this then? Besides that item you gave him causes [Frenzy] anyway so we're still fine cause he'll hate you regardless."

"Because I was busy preparing for the fight! All you had to do was to make sure Nfirea hated you. You had three lines of dialogue I prepared for you! You just had to remember what I told you to say, steal the girl from him and emasculate him! That's it! How the hell do you fuck that up?!"

"Hey it's whatever, y'know? Just zap his memory away and insert a few false memories to plug the hole, yeah? Simple fix so don't worry about it."

"Yeah we can do that but that isn't the damn point! We shouldn't have to keep using mental magic on people, especially because we're trying to conserve our mana for the fight tomorrow and because I'm still shit at using it."

"Whatever, he's still bumbling around Carne and he's nearly dead so either way we'd need to make a round trip and make sure he doesn't die, right? There's no harm in using some light mental magic while we heal him up, y'know?"

"Tch, whatever, bring along your dragon mount as well, there'll be a bunch of blood for him to drink up. We should wait for a 'till morning to make sure Abaddon's had enough time to stretch his legs."

"Abaddon? Creative as ever I see, he's that weird red thing on the floor, right?"

"And the locusts, yes. He's my magnum opus! Well, him and his brother are at least."

"Mhm, and where's his brother then? I didn't see anything else in Carne other than demons and red things on the floor so where was he hidin'?"

"I told you, idiot, he's been in the fort! Pay attention to what I say!"

"Lalalalala, I can't hear you~ Anyway...uh, what are we gonna do while we wait for morning?"

"Imma got make some shit and see what Shizu's doin', have fun nutting into your gear, nerd."

"Kk, will do~"

And with that, the duo waited until morning came.

[Morning]

Ulbert's room was peaceful, a mountain of stuffed toys lined the walls of the demon lord's room at the behest of Shizu who hadn't stepped a foot into her own room since Ulbert first gave her a plush toy. Ever since then, Shizu had commandeered the room from Ulbert, effectively stealing the room from him. This resulted in a large scale refurbishing of the room; the trophies of past hunts that Ulbert had proudly displayed were replaced by wardrobes filled with fluffy clothing. The many furniture items that were created from the bodies of countless powerful YGGDRASIL monsters were replaced by pinker, more cuter variants, Ulbert's weapons were of course, permanently returned to his inventory as to not ruin the atmosphere of the room. The only thing o Ulbert's that remained unmodified were the countless screenshots of him and his friends that hung from each wall, placed on every table or desk and even every door in his room had at least one screenshot of Ulbert's on it. Granted, the frames of such were entirely replaced by ones made of [Unicorn] fur but still, good enough. Flopped atop a massive bed was Shizu, face down and hugging the covers with her face buried in their folds. In spite of the fact that the automaton never needed rest, she was dressed in goat themed pajamas that were slightly too big for her. Similar to Shizu, though he didn't need sleep at all, Ulbert too was dressed in pajamas though due to the overly complicated nature of his body, he could only wear pajama shorts and even then, his lower arms basically made the shorts more of a thick loincloth than actual decent clothing. Regardless, both were dressed for bed despite neither needing to sleep. The goat was playing out some sort of scene with two plush toys. In one hand was a vaguely white knight shaped toy and in the other was a goat toy, the two seemed to be engaged in a battle while Ulbert muttered to himself and became ever increasingly distraught.

The door burst open and a familiar bird leapt into the room. "WAKE UP NERD!" Pero landed onto a pile of discarded soft toys, all of which had their midsections crushed by Shizu's vice-grip hugs.

"Peroroncino-sama, hush, they are sleeping." She gently patted a goat toy on the head.

"AH! Y-you're here…"

"I am here."

"You...you are here."

"I am here."

"You ar-"

Putting an end to the ensuring back and forth, Ulbert cut in: "THE HELL DO YOU NEED!?"

"Time to go! It's morning and we need to feed the NTR, pick up Lacerta and check up on Nfirea. Uh...PFT! Yer p-playin' with...toys are you, Mr Demon Lord?" The golden mask of Pero rattled while he suppressed his laughter very poorly.

The toys were thrown across the room. "NO! I'd never do something as childish as that! I was merely practicing how the battle between me and Touch would go!"

"Mhm, and? Come up with a strat?"

"No."

"Yup, thought so! We're gonna die! Wooooo!"

"Ahem, so, let us go to Carne."

"Kk, let's go! [Gate]" Pero dived through his [Gate], followed closely by Ulbert who bid farewell to a pretending sleeping Shizu.

---

Carne ruins

As soon as Ulbert stepped through the [Gate], he was greeted by the sounds of Pero summoning his mount.

"[Summon Mount]"

NTR - the dragon mount of Pero manifested in front of his master. The shimmering alabaster scales of NTR glistened in the sunlight and gave him an ethereal radiance. He'd undergone a slight modification since the last time he'd been used, now he was outfitted in slightly more feathers than last time. That was it, he was the same freakishly disproportionate dragon as last time.

"Yo, NTR, how's it goin'?"

The great white dragon kneels before his master and spoke in a respectful voice: "Greetings my lord, how can your faithful servant assist you today? Perhaps you would like to be taken somewhere upon my back for instance?"

He was met with a few finger wags from Pero. "Naw not today, we've got something special lined up for you."

He quizzically tilted his head, though because of his massively overproportioned anatomy, his entire neck twisted into a screw shape by the action. "Special? My lord, forgive me but may you be so kind to enlighten this ignorant one?"

"Kk, so, uh, we've got a bunch of blood lying around and...well, you're a vampire so we're gonna let ya suck up all the blood in Carne 'till you're strong enough to smack around Touch 'n' co." The blood produced by the liquidation of Carne would definitely serve to bolster NTR's strength, as he was a [True Vampire.]

"I-I...M-my lord...While I am eternally grateful for such an opportunity to feed on an entire village worth of blood and I remain your faithful servant...Why must you have me attack Touch Me-sama?" He attempted to prostrate himself, it did not go well however as his body was far too large to do such an action when Pero was so close to him.

"Eh? Oh, I forgot to mention, uh, Touch, HeroHero and Shalltear got mind controlled so we need you and Lacerta to slap them around while the rest of us attack from afar. We dunno who did it yet and we need you to be as strong as possible if we wanna live through this so get drinkin'! Lacerta had already eaten the demons that wiped out Carne so you don't have to be worried about fighting or being seen so have fun."

"M-my lord!" Nostarr deeply bowed to Pero, a massive dragon tear traced down his face. "Please allow me to restate my fealty!"

"E-eh? Uh, sure, go ahead…?"

"Thank you! Ahem...I, Nostarr Trastul Rulfassnor, as named by the supreme being known as Peroroncino, willingly submit myself into eternal servitude to my master and his comrades." NTR happily awaited Pero's approval, his whip-like tail wagged behind him and sliced through the trees with ease.

"Rrrright...um, ok. Go and drink the blood then, me and Ulbert'll be snooping around the area to give us a shout if you need anything."

NTR rushed towards the village in search of his promised meal, the stench of blood fueled his ever growing hunger and quickly he had found himself at the outer walls of Carne. The walls were completely wrecked, they were charred black and shredded by the claws of the rampaging demons as well as Lacerta having fun hunting said demons as well. The entire village of Carne was completely dyed in NTR's favourite colour - red. His massive jaw unhinged and released a deluge of salvia, his tongue lashed from his mouth and eagerly slurped up the crimson fluids that stained the floor of Carne.

"Alright, come on goat, let's go find our new hero!"

"Fine." A matte red gem was pulled from Ulbert's pocket - it was an [Armageddon Gem] - Ulbert's favoured method of summoning his demons.

"The hell you doing that for, Enj? He's over there," The black talon of Pero pointed towards Carne. "We don't need your stinky demons, come on."

"Well, I ain't got a clue where he is. My eye ain't as busted as yours are, bird."

The dup waded through the charred ruins of Carne, while blood and organs blanketed the land, there were no bodies to be found. No stray body parts, no full cadavers, nothing, Lacerta and Abaddon had consumed everything in the village. Well, aside from two corpses that Pero had spied.

With the disgustingly overpowered eyes of Pero, locating Nfirea was easy so the duo had found their way over to the hero to be in a matter of minutes.

"He should be...here!" Pero turned the corner and he'd found Nfirea who was huddled beneath the corpse of an [Imp Marauder], his clothes were tattered and his skin was torn to shreds. Why Lacerta or Abaddon hadn't eaten the demon was a mystery. He wasn't in very good condition to say the least. "Hoho! There he is! Hey, you dead!?"

Nfirea, surprisingly did not reply.

With a haughty attitude, Ulbert stomped on one of his special chimera's locusts. "Pft, he died? Jesus, that's pathetic."

"Hey, can you blame him? This wasn't very fair on the poor guy, y'know? There's a reason we used these demons to grief players."

"Alright, let's rez him and mess up his memory. [Raise Dead]" A soft blue light descended on Nfirea's corpse, nothing happened however.

"Pft, fifth-tier magic ooooh, I'm terrified~ How the hell do you expect to rez him with trash magic, Enj?"

"...Stop calling me Enj, please."

"Well, you said not to call you Enji so it's either or, no way out."

"How about you call me by my new name?"

"Ah, gotcha, Ariel~"

"Tch! That name was a spur of the moment! I'll change it when I've figured out something cooler!"

"Mhm, suuuure thing bud….Kid's alive by the way." He pointed down at a very confused Nfirea.

The boy sheepishly spoke: "U-um...Are y-you-"

"Naw we ain't death, kid." Pero knew exactly what Ulbert was going to say and so, he ruined it for his friend.

"Idiot! You ruined the grandiose speech I had prepared for this very moment!"

"Who cares? The kid won't remember this so we shouldn't bother with doing something like that."

"Ugh, fine, you damn killjoy. [Control Amnesia]" Nfreia's body went totally limp, he fell to the floor and a small text box and keyboard appeared in front of Ulbert in which he began spamming the backspace key until he'd fully erased a large portion of Nfirea's memories that day.

"Not using [Corrupt Mind?]"

"No, takes too much MP." Ulbert then began to furiously type God knows what into the textbox. And after typing out only a few sentences, the keyboard disappeared as the spell's duration ran out already. "Alright, that's 30% of my MP gone. Now, HEY! Abaddon! [COME HERE!]"

Ulbert hollered for one of the chimera, almost immediately after his shout dissipated in volume, the ground to Ulbert's side burst open and an animalistic figure leapt to the side of Ulbert.

"Uh...that's...Abaddon? The...the strongest chimera you made and literally named him "the destroyer" ironically?"

"Shizu was in charge of the design and I was in charge of the name. There's only so much I could do with the provided materials, the hamster thing I found in the forest didn't help 'cause it's fur had some magic in it and Shizu insisted I used it's corpse. Not my fault he looks like this."

Abaddon, the angel of the abyss, the destroyer, the king of locusts was a fluffy red dog, very short dog, being only just over a foot tall. Well, Abaddon was actually a massive locust with mammalian parts grafted onto his body that was covered in an [Imp Paterfamilias'] coat so he just looked like a dog with a wonky face and insectoid feet. He was very fluffy, and very high level however, even if he was a walking abomination.

"Right and where's his brother then? You said you had two chimera, didn't you?"

"Apollyon is already back at the fort so don't worry, you'll meet him later on."

"Apollyon? Wow, you're just great with names ain'tcha?"

"Better than you, Mr 'nerd layering blade.'" Anyway, let's go, Carne's done for now and we've gotta blow up E-Pespel."

"Yup, have fun, I'll sit back here and take the NPCs back when they're done."

Thus, with his task completed, Ulbert [Gated] back to the fort to rehearse his lines and wait for the time when suitably strong people show up around the E-Pespel area.

---

AN: Dunno what to write here :/

Cya - Puddle