*****Chapter 1: Beginnings*****
AN: Nothing up here, but the bottom AN is especially long to make up for it. Anyway, enjoy!
Fuyuki grinned as he observed the NPC from the bushes.
He loved it when developers put fanservice like this in a game; though watching the NPC just walk silently on the dirt path, he found himself a little confused as to why she was designed the way she was.
It must be a bug or something, he thought reasonably. She only has underwear on and is using just a club and shield. Still, I'll take it. It's probably supposed to be some kind of chain-mail bikini or something; but I'm not gonna complain.
The woman was relatively attractive, all things considered, at least as far as NPCs went; the only features of note (aside from her outfit, naturally) being free flowing dark, potentially black, hair. And given her European or American facial features, she blended into the game like any other NPC; being so heavily influenced by norse mythology as it was.
All she had was a wooden shield that looked cobbled together, and a simple wooden club that looked to have been carved out of a tree branch.
The only thing off about her was the eyes.
Her eyes were normal, and yet they weren't at the same time; they were a bright blue that seemed to almost glow, and yet the longer he looked, they almost seemed to shift to a faded dull gray-blue instead.
She won't have any decent loot, but at least this should be some good eye candy. He thought eagerly, eyeing the NPC up further as he stepped out of the treeline in front of her; making sure he was taking as many screenshots as possible, since this was almost certainly a one in a trillion bug.
Certain groups of Yggdrasil players were notorious for trying to find exploits, bugs, and hacks to make nude characters; to no success, unfortunately. But there was always the next best thing, and he'd just found a gold (or rather silver, given how it wasn't quite on the mark) mine for sure.
"Alright, that's enough pics for now; time to kill her and move on to that quest I've been putting off…" he muttered once he was satisfied, equipping a trash tier sword so as not to waste his real sword's durability on such a weak opponent. She probably won't survive a single hit anyway with stats like mine. Shame really.
Having already dismissed the NPC's uniqueness as being just a glitch normal for a game as new as Yggdrasil, said game being only a few months old at this point, he pulled his arm back and swung, aiming to cut her in half horizontally. So imagine his surprise when barely a second before impact, she simply dodged underneath his swing. "Huh? That's new. Normally, trash mobs like this just take the hit…"
Again brushing off the strangeness, he shrugged, his avatar being a human and allowing for such things. For his second attack, he figured he'd switch it up, and instead went for a punch using his gauntleted left fist instead of his sword. Again, she dodged, and this time, countered with a swing of her club that hit his arm, doing a surprisingly high amount of damage considering the level she should've been.
The hell? Hold up a second, he thought, jumping back a distance to get some time to think. That can't be right. What level is this NPC anyway?
Using a basic detection skill, he found himself confused when the only symbol indicating level was a question mark. Ok, now I KNOW this is a glitch. The only way a player can't see an NPC's level is if they either have a magic item blocking it, or they're much higher level than the player. And considering that she's basically wearing nothing at all…
Yet again pushing past the gamer instincts telling him something was wrong here, he instead decided to take the NPC a little more seriously, opting to use some of his skills to buff himself ahead of time. The NPC in question, however, began charging at him as soon as the telltale magical glows started to waft off of his body, something in her eyes making him think she was annoyed at him. Which was impossible, considering she was nothing more than a program.
Ya know what? Screw it! She wants a fight, she'll get a fight! Fuyuki decided, drawing his actual sword out of annoyance and tossing the trash one back into his inventory.
"Take this, you cocky bitch!" He yelled, activating his best melee skill: Blade Storm, which started with a powerful swing, and followed up with half a dozen more, each one intended as a critical hit versus human or human-like opponents. Already he felt some satisfaction knowing that he was about to delete the NPC with the damage from his level 40 skill, and as soon as she came within range, he lashed out with an overhead strike; the initial move that started Blade Storm.
Only for the satisfaction to immediately morph into confusion when, rather than vertically bifurcating his opponent, she merely raised her cheap, practically scrap wooden shield, parried the strike that should've torn through anything short of adamantite or better armor, and in the bare moment where he was left defenseless, brought her club down straight onto his head, somehow managing to kill him with the one decisive blow.
Spawning back in at the nearest town moments later, Fuyuki just stared at the scenery around, blinking dumbly, before feeling anger bubble up at the insult. "I'm gonna get that bitch for this!" he growled out before running off in the direction of where he died, to the confusion of the other players nearby.
And not five minutes later, imagine their surprise when he appeared on the respawn circle yet again, this time missing his helmet and holding a broken sword in hand. "FUCK YOU, YOU SHITTY DEVS!" he screamed, running off again… just to return minutes later.
And so began the player myth regarding a new field boss roaming the area…
Yana sighed as she walked out of the pub and into the town, taking in the atmosphere and appreciating the nice clear sky offered by the game.
In Novaya Siberia, there was either constant acid rain or constant snow; with only one day or night every month or so actually being clear. But there was something about Yggdrasil's moon that always stirred something within her.
That is what my ancestors fought for in the Great Patriotic War, she thought sadly. The basic right to see our own sky unmolested. And yet now, we are lucky to even see the sky at all…
Shaking her head, she slowly walked out of the town and onto a nearby path leading into the woods.
Normally, she wouldn't leave a pub or an inn at night, especially not without some of her friends or guildmates, but she needed some coins to repair her gear and decided to kill a few weaker monsters in order to get it.
She shuddered internally, hoping that she wouldn't run into PK'ers or players with thief skills looking to make some easy money. While they mostly went after heteromorphs, simply because those players generally wouldn't retaliate in fear of getting hunted down, there was no telling when they'd decide to try their luck on humanoid players instead.
A few minutes into her walk in the woods, she heard footsteps and frowned.
They sounded off to her, to say the least.
They weren't the padding feet of wolves, or werewolves, or direwolves; nor were they the distinctive sound of hooves like with deer or horses, or even the scratching and crunching sound of insects. But they also lacked the metallic sound of armored boots, or even the sound of shoes.
Yana quickly turned towards the sound and blinked in surprise.
It was a female NPC, wearing only a loincloth and chest wrapping to cover her breasts. She also had a crudely made and well worn out club, and a cobbled together wooden shield. Her features were hard to make out, but Yana could see the vaguely European face, the black hair, and oddly enough, a pair of strange blue eyes.
She frowned and felt her gamer danger sense go off at the last detail, and took a step back as she unslung her bow and knocked an arrow, frowning the whole time.
Is this some kind of new quest? she wondered for a moment, then asked, "Who are you?"
The NPC just stared at her for a moment and tilted its head, then simply continued walking as if she wasn't even there. Yana narrowed her eyes, not liking being ignored by a damned NPC of all things, and she growled, "Answer me dammit!"
The NPC ignored her and kept walking, so Yana loosed her arrow in its general direction to see what would happen.
The near-naked woman spun around with a speed that an NPC her level simply shouldn't have, and caught the arrow with her shield.
Yana blinked in confusion, then double checked to make sure her recording software was capturing everything for her lets play channel. This footage better not get corrupted, she thought, drawing another arrow as the NPC glared at her from behind its shield.
If she didn't know better, she would have assumed that it was annoyed at her; but as anyone even remotely familiar with modern games could attest, that was impossible.
Thinking about the scenario a bit more, she remembered hearing rumors of a field boss roaming about; but she had never seen it herself. It only appeared once in a blue moon, and those that had seen it had sworn up and down that it was an unkillable boss. It was so rare to encounter that most dismissed it as a myth, and the first person to ever encounter it had had his screenshots dismissed as photoshop.
Still, Yana wasn't going to take a chance, and loosed another arrow.
Only for said arrow to miss as the NPC blitzed forward with its club, passing so close that the arrow actually cut off a lock of hair.
Yana only had enough time to think, That's a lot of detail for just a normal NPC, before the club smashed into her bow and shattered it, followed by carrying onwards with enough force that it crushed her character's skull in with no effort, and Yana found herself spawning back in the village.
She blinked rapidly, took a breath, and released it as her heart hammered in her chest.
The problem with modern VR-AR games was that it sometimes looked so real that you felt as if you were in actual danger.
Yana shook her head.
There was no way on God's snowy earth that she was going to go back out there and face that damned NPC again. She had read about the myths, and every single one told the same story: how people who faced it multiple times inevitably lost most of their equipment to either damage or random drops, and eventually just left it alone in frustration.
But she had gotten footage of the thing in action, as opposed to screenshots, so she would take what she had and upload it to the Net and see what others thought.
Hopefully she wouldn't be laughed off as a 'Russky Fraud', which was doubtful seeing as she had video evidence instead of mere screenshots, but she wouldn't hedge her bets on it. As it stood, she had no intention of going back out there tonight to get a second glimpse.
One death is enough I think… and I'd rather not have nightmares of that thing bashing my head in over and over again, thank you very much…
Two years later, and Yggdrasil was hitting its peak, a golden age, where it was without a doubt the game to play. Level 100 guilds were starting to become the norm, and chief among them was a relatively new but quickly emerging group known as Ainz Ooal Gown; made up of only those that played as monsters and non-humans.
They quickly became well known for rushing to the defense of any heteromorph players that needed help with issues they had; chief among them being attacks by PK'ers, with a war having slowly brewed between Ainz Ooal Gown and several other guilds, with many regular players being caught in the middle. Or at least, that's what the human player dominated forums claimed; but any way you cut it, 700 players attacking a single guild base wasn't a simple 'coincidence.'
Given the response by the devs – that is, no response aside from congratulating the first guild in the game's history to survive such a massive assault – no one had any intentions of starting another war with Ainz Ooal Gown any time soon.
The recent guild war had the unintentional side effect of causing a certain myth to be cast by the wayside and forgotten; with a few notable exceptions. After all, what's so special about a near naked field boss? By this point in the game, a few players had even managed to kill the damned thing; but it would only drop its club, which was a higher level than it had any right to be, but nothing to write home about.
What no one noticed, however, was that the players who claimed to have killed the boss started dying themselves days or weeks later; seemingly ambushed by random NPCs whose only singularly defining attribute were strange blue eyes that appeared far more expressive than they had any right to be.
A few months went by, and even the legendary "Invasion of Nazarick," as was dubbed by the forums, began to disappear from the average players' mind.
And in the midst of this happening, something odd started to be noticed: many new players, still learning the ropes of the game, were experiencing help in the form of a silent, fully armored NPC who aided them on certain monster slaying quests for things like giants, or demons, or dragons, even the occasional raid boss. While its HP wasn't that high, all things considered, the damage it dealt and its sheer agility was simply staggering, often dodging out of the way of strikes that would've ripped apart even max level players like it was nothing.
It wasn't until one greedy raid party decided they'd stab the NPC in the back for its loot that it happened: rather than drop the high grade weapons and armor that the NPC wielded, instead, it disappeared in a blue-white mist, leaving behind nothing but a simple, yet high level, wooden club, to the anger of the backstabbing raid party.
Of course, that raiding party began to be mysteriously picked off one by one by various NPCs; mainly hooded and masked women, but at times they were heavily armored men, and sometimes even children armed with a simple dagger, which they'd typically use to stab the raid members in the neck after luring them in with 'programmed cuteness'. It was like a waking nightmare for the party, where every NPC they met aside from the outright monstrous ones had a chance of killing or trying to kill them.
But the one shared trait that all these NPCs had were the same odd and discomforting glowing blue eyes that showed far too much emotion; which was naturally ignored by whoever the unfortunate raid members told in favor of thinking they were just imagining it. It could've been a simple coding error, after all, even if it was true.
Not that anyone put the pieces together of course.
Well… except for one guild.
"So… the only way to know for sure if it's the field boss is if they have glowing blue eyes?" a monstrous demon with a goat's head, wearing a trench coat and top hat, asked where he sat at a deep black and circular stone table; numerous other creatures, each wildly different and in no way human, sitting around the same table as him. Forty-one creatures, to be precise.
In reality, they were players who chose to be heteromorphs, the 'inhuman races' as it were.
"Pretty much. It's been spotted using any shape it wants, so long as it's human or near human. Though most of the time it appears as a nearly naked woman armed with only a club and a wooden shield." answered a skeleton clothed in immaculate robes, a bright red orb held in his chest cavity.
"Hmph." A blackish-blue slime in the vague shape of a person scoffed from his chair. "A doppleganger then. Assuming that this secret boss even exists, what do we do? Try and kill it? Supposedly, all it drops is a club that would be a game ender for a noob, but for us it would be a trash weapon to be used against mobs."
"Hm…" The robed skeleton rubbed his chin in thought. "Well… given how certain guilds have been abusing heteromorphs, even after our overwhelmingly successful defense of the Tomb… perhaps we could lure this boss into killing them instead?" He speculated, "And when it's done killing them… we wait for it to leave and take the loot left behind."
A silver armored warrior, looking like the epitome of a knight, crimson cape and all, stood up, humming in thought. "That's all well and good, but we can't expect a single NPC to kill an entire guild, boss or not. At least, not all at the same time. According to the info I dug up, this thing tends to rely almost entirely on either powerful, hard to dodge ranged magic, or close combat where it goes in for critical hits with its high agility and strength. What we could really use it for though… is farming."
"How so?" the skeleton asked, others in the room echoing his sentiment.
"Easy: lure it into a dungeon, and find a way to trap it there. May not be permanent, but I bet we can score quite a haul from all the mobs it'll massacre. Doesn't even need to be an evil aligned dungeon from what I've heard; it should go after angels the same as it does devils, at least when it 'gears up' anyway. If I had to guess, putting on armor and using weapons aside from its usual club switches its targeting parameters from players to other NPCs."
"Leave it to the World Champion to figure something like that out…" muttered a tentacled monstrosity that appeared to have crawled straight out of eldritch horror or H.P. Lovecrafts 'Cthulhu Mythos'; though if the 'Champion' in question heard it, he made no indication.
"Hmm… that could work, yeah…" the skeleton said in thought, before nodding to himself. "All in favor of using the 'Mythic Nightmare' to produce easy loot?"
Forty-one hands or other, similar appendages went up. It was unanimous.
It was a good plan all things considered, and it worked surprisingly well… absent a few hiccups.
"Jeez, Momonga, she really did not like you."
The robed skeleton shrugged, even as he stared at the Mythic Nightmare; the NPC glaring at him with far too much hate in its eyes, to the point that he was actually uncomfortable.
"I'm just glad that the binding spells worked." He mused.
"They almost didn't." A large mound of living and entangled vines growled. "All of our magic users had to bind and freeze it in place, you included, and even then it won't hold for long with those weird pulses of gold energy it keeps sending out that eat through my holding spells."
Momonga nodded, "Right then, let's get her over to the dungeon and seal it off; shall we?"
He turned away and cast a group flight spell, taking point and flying towards their destination, but he could still feel the piercing glare on the back of his head, and the Guildmaster fought down a shudder of unease.
It's just an NPC, he told himself, glancing back at it and appraising it for a moment; glad that it still used its 'default' appearance. He honestly wasn't sure if they could have stopped it if it wore the gear it used to fight other NPCs.
Welp, more loot for us. He thought, trying to dismiss his concerns; though once the guild member carrying her took off, he noted the sudden almost passive nature of the NPC. If he didn't know any better, he'd have mistaken it for fear. Before long, they reached the pre-designated dungeon that they had laid out, landing just outside of it.
The dungeon itself was a pit, which would be easy to seal and also buy them time to get away so the Mythic wouldn't target them. The spell casters gingerly lifted the Nightmare up above the pit, turning it to face them; then simply let go.
Momonga couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of disappointment that the NPC's loincloth didn't flap upwards like in an anime, but he did take a little bit of pleasure at seeing the raw panic on the NPC's face as she fell. She had very nearly landed a hit on his skull during the binding process, after all; something that, being immune to critical hits or not, tended to heavily damage skeletal undead like him.
"That'll take her some time to chew through," Momonga chortled as he saw her land, almost instantly attacked by some nearby dungeon mobs. Then a thought occurred to him that none of them had considered up to this point, even with all the careful planning. "So… it'll be pretty boring waiting for this thing to clear out the dungeon, um… now what do we do?"
The group of players near simultaneously blinked at that, not having really thought that part out. "I guess… sit back far enough away so that we don't get caught in the aftermath, but close enough to enjoy the show?" a red slime suggested, her girlish voice uncertain.
"I guess that could work…" Momonga said, not entirely sure himself. As he glanced back down into the pit, he was surprised when the sight that greeted him was wave after wave of dragonfire spreading out along the previously dark depths, each breath accompanied by an animalistic roar of utter rage that matched the dragon head that suddenly appeared and disappeared every time the flames were breathed out.
Upon getting a closer look using an item, Momonga felt sweat cover his brow, though his avatar naturally didn't show it. "Is the Nightmare doing what I think it is?" he asked aloud, causing the others to look and then stare as well. "Because it looks like it's spamming dragonfire and dragon body morphing to wipe out those mobs by the dozens…"
"...maybe it's best if we just came back later to pick up the loot," offered a birdman who, in any other scenario, would've been mourning his guild's decision to throw a beautiful girl, field boss or not, into a literal pit filled with level 80 and higher monsters. And yet, in this case, discretion was the better part of valor.
"Maybe we should, yeah," someone muttered in the intermittent periods between roars, and having reached a decision, the guild of 41 booked it, making sure there was no way for the 'Mythical Nightmare' to track them down afterwards.
While they doubted it could ever breach the walls of Nazarick, they had no desire to be locked up in their guild base every time they logged in either. Having thoroughly read the forums regarding the Nightmare's habits, they knew there was still a chance it could try coming after them, but it had to find them first; and besides, up to now, it only hunted down players or monsters that managed to kill it. As they had merely… temporarily relocated the boss, they shouldn't have any worries.
At least, that's what they hoped…
When the guild logged in the next day, they were both excited and worried.
Excited because the Nightmare had almost assuredly cleared out the dungeon by now; and worried because they were afraid that it was still in that dungeon waiting for them to return. They had read on the forums how it hunted down other players, and in spite of their own self assurances that it only hunted those that killed it, well…
They were more than a little sketched out by the damned boss when they reached the pit dungeon.
"Be on your guard everyone." Momonga warned.
All the mages began preparing their stasis and paralysis spells, fully intending to try and cage it again if possible, and the warriors all drew their swords and raised their shields in anticipation.
The lower level loot was untouched, as was the coin, the latter of which they grabbed and sent to their coffers at every opportunity; the gaming habit ingrained into them. As for the dungeon itself, most everything was burned, especially the walls, and there were massive gouges carved from the floors in the shape of claw marks, which indicated that the Nightmare did indeed transform into a dragon, making the group shudder in thought.
Momonga grimaced as he touched one of the burn marks on a wall. None of the forums stated that it could transform into anything besides a different kind of human. This could be a problem if we have to face it, because it could just make itself any kind of monster and force us to change fighting styles. At least, so long as dragons aren't the only thing it can turn into anyway, he mused.
"Hey! Where's the high level loot?!"
The shouted question drew the guildmaster's attention back to the task at hand, idly realizing that they had reached the final chamber.
All the actual good loot was gone, and Momonga grimaced as he realized what had happened.
"The Nightmare probably cleared out the dungeon, either leaving it or dying in the process; and then some other player came in and took all the loot," he speculated out loud, before noticing something. He walked right up to where the loot chest would normally rest and knelt down.
"Boss? What is it?" One of the others asked.
Momonga chuckled and stood, holding up a well worn out loincloth and some cloth wrappings completely undone. "I'd say it died and left what little coverings it possessed behind as loot," he said.
"Weird. It's never dropped its clothes behind as loot, according to the forums. How good is it?" One of them asked, looking intrigued.
"Well, let's see: Appraise Item," he said the spell all players were given to, unsurprisingly, appraise items. "The stats are… huh." He double checked the stats to make sure he was reading it right. "You can't wear these as undergarments, it replaces all the armor you are wearing, and it requires a female player character to equip both pieces so as to get the full buff. Buuuut it increases your stamina by 75% and your speed by 100%."
One monster in the shape of a humanoid cloud raised a 'hand' to her chin. "Hm…" she hummed.
"I mean, if your class was built around speed, it would be great, but you become a glass cannon. No armor means the slightest hit would kill you," she pointed out. "And it's clearly oriented towards human female player models, given how little it covers up and how much it shows."
"In other words, it's worthless for us," Momonga sighed. "Probably what the players that looted this place thought when they saw such a fanservicey thing," he stated, waving the loincloth and chest wrappings about.
Everyone grumbled in disappointment, but the guildmaster remained optimistic.
"Look on the bright side: we got a bunch of low to mid tier loot that will crush mobs, and we made a massive amount of gold basically for free, so I call this a win."
The others were less enthused, but accepted that he had a point, and the guild of 41 slowly filed out of the dungeon and fast traveled away; eventually leaving only their guildmaster, who was still staring at the loincloth and wrappings and thinking about whether or not he should keep it just because.
A moment later though, Momonga shuddered, almost as if he felt a presence nearby while exiting the dungeon; and he quickly looked around, intuitively guessing that the Nightmare was nearby thanks to having been ambushed one too many times by PK'ers. She'd left that stupid loincloth and the chest wrap behind, so it only made sense the effectively immortal field boss would still be in the area.
After a minute of searching, he shook his head. After one last glance toward the outfit, he decided it wasn't worth risking a permanently aggroed boss tracking him down. They may have given an OP speed and stamina buff, but the negatives outweighed the benefits; especially considering his build and kit.
Momonga dropped the Nightmare's 'garments', and fast-traveled back to Nazarick. While technically a success, he privately hoped that the guild wouldn't see that Nightmare again…
EEYYYYYYY! I'M BAAAACCCK!
So, uh… explanations. To everyone just now learning who I am, glad that you're here, and I hope you keep reading what I've got to offer! To everyone else… yeah, so, I went and joined the Air Force. Fun stuff. Basic was nice. Anyway, before reliving that crapfest, let's move on to more important things, like this new story that my friend, Arch, and I worked on.
You may be wondering: "Why not just start in the New World instead?" Answer: context and buildup. What'd be so special about a fanfic where a powerful being/player is thrown into Overlord, while Ainz is already in the new world? We've seen that before (at least I have) more times than can be counted. On top of that, if said being was unkillable even by the bone daddy, it'd get stale, fast. But… that's the beauty of Souls games mechanics getting thrown into the mix: death is just the beginning. And let me tell you now, death is most certainly what you should expect.
Anyway, on a different topic and as I've already talked too much, this is Arch's first serious dive into either Overlord or Elden Ring, so please, be gentle with the newcomer. And with that, I bid you adieu.
Pilot A/N: For those who don't know who I am, Hi! I'm ThePilotArchangel. I've done my own thing on fanfiction (mainly Halo, Mass Effect, and Half Life), and a friend of Edge's, and I've decided to throw my hat in the ring and help him out.
I'm rather happy to have my good buddy back from basic and all that. I will admit, I was skeptical of Overlord when he pitched the idea, as I'm not the biggest fan of anime; but the story did intrigue me, the whole deconstruction of the SI concept and all that.
With that said, the more I read into it, the more I found myself grimacing and sliding into the 'Eight Deadly Words' of fiction; "I don't care what happens to these people." Always a result of feeling as if evil acts are never punished and all that; Nihilism sucks man…
Well… take a guess as to how Edge sold me on this?
As for the NPC's appearance; she was inspired by the Dark Souls Fan Comic, "Deprived", and the main character Ashemma… For obvious reasons, ; )
Alright, enough long-windedness on my part; let us know what all y'all thought and be sure to check out our other stories.
Edge: What he said. Now offering free digital cookies for every follow and fave!