Giants always fall.
Their desperation to stay standing is the reason they keep growing, and the reason they keep falling.
The larger one is, the faster and harder one falls.
But is it possible for one to emerge, having passed all the tests of time to the point where their own weight does not chain them to the ground?
Only speculation can support the idea of eternal law, in practice…it can only be proven by the existence itself.
However, it shall be known that the basis of all life is evolution, if one cannot make it through, there's always the chance that the next one will, and with enough attempts, it is all but impossible to reach any target.
Having completed all of his daily assignments from work, Takahata returns to his lonely house.
He has grown old, yet in this dystopian society, he can only hope to die from exhaustion to earn a vacation.
And so, once he closes the metallic door to his house, he towards his seat and picks up his dive gear.
"At the very least, I finally took the weight of this god-forsaken game off my back, couldn't bother but be sentimental about it in the end.
He said, as he wore the electrical device on his head and turned it on.
Before him appeared a beautiful, smooth marble floor split into three directions, one to the right, the left, and finally, behind him. Further away, a clean, white armor with gold edges, holding a sword pointed towards the ground could be seen.
One would wonder if there's even someone in it, as it was completely still and could very well simply be a stand on which the armor is displayed onto.
"I gathered all of the data crystals and materials yesterday but didn't even manage to finish the crafting, I barely have any time left to complete my last work here."
And so, the 『Death Vine』 character turned around and opened a door.
He entered a large room, similar to the previous one, however longer, resembling more accurately a hallway.
Four strong pillars held the ceiling and next to each was a luxurious wooden door, coming in contrast to the rest of the building, which was until now entirely constructed by marble.
Opening one of the doors, he instantly turns towards a large, alien workbench.
There are several tools needed to create what he had in mind, however, the character in question left the resources needed for the construction of the item onto the workbench, and after tapping a couple of times on a prompt that appeared in the air, he turned and started walking out of the room.
"Ahh…so little time left to mourn the loss of this game from my life, yet none of my guildmates showed up…"
Stopping in his tracks, he sighs and starts reminiscing about old memories.
"I expected at least FiveThree-san to show up, all this obsession with Japanese culture and yet no respect towards his superiors?"
The figure in question could be described by the name Natural Green, it is what's called a "user name" amongst the dwellers in the world he is currently in.
Furthermore, the world in question is not an alternate reality, but a DMMORPG by the name of YGGDRASIL, a previously popular game in these times.
"Well, enough of that, my last achievement would be to finally gain the guild item I've wished for so long, it should be done by now.
The impatient player made his way back into the room he had just exited, staring at the object that is floating slightly above the workbench he had previously left his items onto.
"…I did not expect to manage to craft this last second, but surprises like these sure are welcome."
He slowly approached the workbench, dumbfounded at the fact that the object is within his reach.
Extending his viny appendage towards the tiny object, it finally stops levitating and slowly descends onto the tendril-like part of Natural Green's body.
It appears to be a ring, a wooden one. It has a spiral-like shape in the middle and is surprisingly unremarkable.
"Finally, even if it's nothing in comparison to the rest, it's something I can call finished work."
As Green retracts his appendage he exits the room and goes back to the area where he logged into the game from. This time, he doesn't stop there, but he keeps walking to the right of the room, passing by the shiny armor.
He enters a room devoid of any objects other than two relatively small pillars and a chair on the opposite side.
-No, perhaps it would be better to call it a "throne", one made out of living wood, one suitable for a character such as Natural Green.
After approaching the throne, he leaves the ring, which the UI describes as 『The Woods with a Thousand Young』, on the right arm, which has what appears to be a slot specified for the object. As soon as he inserts it into the slot, the wood of the throne starts morphing and pulling it in until what's left is just the vortex symbol of the ring.
"Well, that's done with, it looks like no one's going to join so I guess I get free reign over the entire base for its last moments"
Green backs away from the throne and looks toward the clock embedded into the UI.
"I guess I should just collect all the NPCs here and act all epic before logging out, should make for a nice and sentimental screenshot."
And so, he walks off back to the hallway area where he chooses to go into the door directly ahead of him. As he enters the room, it is noticeable that it is entirely different compared to the rest of the base. Instead of glistering marble, it was full of dirt and seemed as if he had stepped out into a mine.
In this area, however, stood a tall man with silver hair, wearing ancient Greek armor, otherwise called "Hoplite armor", as Natural Green knew very well.
"Alexandrus, follow."
And so the man starts following Green's movements.
Stepping back into the hallway and checking an empty room, he goes to the next one to find a werewolf with blueish fur and extremely long and sharp blades for nails, connected to a network of pipes around his body that transfer an unknown chemical.
"Santuu, follow."
The werewolf's red, striking eyes seem entirely lifeless as he starts walking in unison with Green and Alexandrus.
Opening the next door, what is revealed is a tall, mature woman, with a black, long gown as clothing. It was almost as if she was heading to her own wedding, but couldn't change her clothes fast enough to go to a funeral right after.
"Meredith, follow"
After a short bow, her green eyes and curly, black hair spring back into place as she begins to move towards Green.
With three in tow, Green heads towards the armor set out before the throne room and utters the phrase:
"Rosamund, follow"
The heavenly armor bows as well and joins the line of NPCs behind Green.
As he settles onto his throne, he commands two NPCs to stay on his right, and two on his left.
"About a minute left, thank God I start late tomorrow otherwise I wouldn't even be able to sleep"
As he utters these words, he sinks into his throne and stays in deep thought, reminiscing of the times he spent with his friends in this base, but even more so the time he had spent farming all of the items he has currently, even if he joined the game after its popularity had diminished.
He was aware that there were many players outside of his base, celebrating together, but he didn't want to join them, he preferred being alone and figuring out how he would fill his time after this.
Takahata Shinzaburo was already a very old man by this world's standards, due to the nature of this world where everyone died young, even his age, which was in the 50s, was considered too old to be working.
This is why he wondered about his next course of action, if he has become too old to work what would he do? Pension does not exist among the megacorps of this world and the only way to have financial support after leaving work due to age would be to have children, which he did not have.
"Maybe me being a manager got all of my employees to bite me in the ass collectively and give me a long enough life to feel the misery of needing to work while being unable to even run."
As he looks up towards the ceiling and closes his eyes, the only thoughts on his head are of how to move forward after the game is finished, as he has already managed to cope with the thoughts that his friends wouldn't come back and the fact that he'll be lonely for the remainder of his life.
"At least I can probably still just quit my job, waste all of my money in recreation and then get some criminal to kill me while he steals my empty wallet…that is actually a pretty good prank, now that I think about it."
A tear still runs down his face, even though he had been acting as if his friends being gone did not affect him whatsoever.
He knew that in truth he was just an old man without any family or friends, he was bitter in his job as a manager and so was seen as a horrible person, but he tried his best to put these thoughts aside and think of other, more happy things.
He remembers all of the work he had put towards the maintenance of this guild base and the money he put into gacha drops. Despite his late start compared to the rest of the playerbase, he tried closing the gap by wasting money on the game, but it still was too little to manage to fare against the top players of this time, the money they had spent was easily tens of times more than he had.
He sighed and opened his eyes to look at the time.
[23:59:49]
At least he takes care of his sleep schedule as an old man, he didn't use to do so as a kid.
[23:59:55}
He once again looks up and closes his eyes, this time resisting the urge to tear up.
[23:59:56…57…58…59…]
Waiting on the automatic logout…
[00:00:00]
He hears no more noise from the clock he had digitally set.
He assumes that this meant that he had logged out, even though the light level had stayed the same from what he could tell by his closed eyes, and so opened his eyes.
What he realized is that he was still in the throne room, the marble and pure white pillars of the room were glistering more, as if they were real.
He notices that beyond that, there is not even any UI, no command console when he tried to make it appear, and so he assumes that this was either the servers and the game bugging last second or, since the graphics looked as if this was real life, that this was somehow a teaser for YGGDRASIL 2, however, one thing was off.
He could not quit the game, if this were a new game leak, they would surely allow people to exit as there would be countless lawsuits to follow against the game company if they didn't.
Natural Green slowly started panicking, he was more gathered than expected, but an old man with nothing to lose generally doesn't panic all that much, so he thought nothing of it.
He suddenly remembered an old anime that he watched, it was one of his grandfather's favorites, where the first season had people stuck in a video game of similar design, and they were unable to exit as a scientist tried doing experiments on them.
This did not help his already panicking self.
"Is something the matter, Natural Green-sama?"
Green froze.
An NPC had just spoken to him, and even more so, it seemed to realize Green's frustrated status and inquire about it.
As he stares over to the NPC in question, he notices that it's Alexandrus, the NPC that he himself made, so he feels some sort of familiarity towards him, yet still cannot speak out of pure confusion.'
"Impossible, impossible!"
The blonde-haired luxuriously-dressed man seemed very out of place in his current, stressed, status. He was in a luxurious room falling onto a comfortable couch that resembled a throne, but instead of a cool, self-centered, and confident man, what could be seen could only be described as a nervous wreck.
"The spell then summoned five eldritch beasts, which trampled the Kingdom's army. Then, his Highness Gown entered a duel against the Kingdom's Head Warrior, Gazef Stronoff, and came out victorious. Our forces endured minor damage…caused by gross bewilderment…"
Another man was also present in the room, the one who was explaining this event, a slender, average-looking man, with a defeated and worried look on his face. He knew just how much this impacted their situation and that the end of their hard work could very well be close to its end.
"Head Warrior Gazef Stronoff? How did he beat him in a duel?"
These words were of yet another man in the room, sitting on a different couch, he wore strong armor that could only be described as imperial and due to his height and build, could easily be a bodyguard for royalty. Yet, he seemed more confused about who won a duel rather than the capabilities of summoning eldritch beings that trample an entire nation's army.
"Loune, Baziwood, please step out of the room."
"Jircniv-sama, we should first try to calm the populace before taking any a-" Loune gets cut off
"I need time to think, do not let anyone into this room until I come out myself"
"As you wish, your Majesty"
And so, the men named Loune and Baziwood take their leave and the noble figure named Jircniv stays by himself.
"How? I've done everything perfectly in my life waiting for the exact moment we'd be able to make gains against the Kingdom and plunge them into a civil war to control, them from the shadows. The Empire has finally done so, yet this is the absolute worst-case scenario." Jircniv pauses for a few seconds, trying to gather himself.
"An undead, an undead."
The news that he received from his subordinates seemed to have plunged him into a type of depression. His stress, anger, frustration, and confusion have left him in an exasperated state, unable to fully fathom his situation.
"I've almost finished my life's work and an undead with power in the realm of gods shows up, wiping an entire army in a single spell, if these are the capabilities of the king alone, how would we stop him?"
After a few more seconds of silence, Jircniv stands up.
"This plan for an alliance against the undead needs to go into effect right now if we want to have any chances of victory. The Theocracy especially is needed if we are to try to win Ainz himself in a battle."
The undead in question was regarded as a very strong opponent, the news that Jircniv had just heard were that of the frontline that Ainz fought in. He killed several tens of thousands of soldiers in a single spell, which then spawned monsters that almost doubled the kill count.
Jircniv's entire life was per his mission to make an empire that can stand the test of time, but now, it all came down to this moment, it did not matter what objectives he had accomplished until now, what mattered is that the undead king was currently knocking on his hard work's door and the only way to keep them away would be to work with all the other kingdoms in proximity.
"Maybe he'd be as merciful as to simply ally us…?...No, this is insane, the only chance we would get is if he would perhaps vassalize us, but I'll only consider that if there are no ways around this."
And so, he exits his room, trying to think of possible solutions to his problems.
His mind rushing through all possible explanations for his situation, he decides to deal with the NPC as if it's alive.
"No, Alexandrus…I simply am having some thoughts"
"If anything is displeasing to you please tell us, we're here to serve you"
Natural Green realizes that this is beyond in-game dialog. The NPC's mouth is moving, it's using slight gestures similar to the character given to it, and it can understand him in abstract ways.
"…Everyone except Rosamund, exit the throne room. Alexandrus, examine the area above Memento Mori, if you see any players or anything that can be considered as a threat, retreat back into the crypt and explain your findings."
"Yes, Natural Green-sama" they all reply with one voice.
"Rosamund, tell me what you can remember as far back as you can go"
The shining knight slowly approaches Green's throne and gets in a bowing position before him.
"Yes, I was one day created by Devile-sama, All I can remember is seeing his face as soon as I was crafted."
"You do not remember any backstory that he has given you?"
"I do, but Devile-sama wrote it specifically to grant backstory to my character, did he not?"
"I see, go join the rest of the NPCs"
"Yes, Natural Green-sama"
After the knight walked away, Green went into complete distress, barely not letting any yelps and weird sounds escape his mouth.
"Wait, my mouth? How am I speaking out loud, and what's with this voice? It's way too extreme. Am I caught in that isekai story? No, they wouldn't go as far as to make the game this polished just for it to be fake in the end. This…this is an actual isekai…I'm in another world."
As he sits dumbfounded, he looks at his viny appendages which he calls arms, his living wood armor and clothing come into view.
"Okay, I need to deal with this situation as carefully as possible, if this is all of the pl-"
Natural Green gets cut off as Alexandrus knocks on the door to the throne room.
"Natural Green-sama, I'm sorry for interrupting."
"It's okay Alexandrus, tell me"
Alexandrus opens the door somewhat hurriedly, but at the same time tries to do it calmly.
"What is it Alexandrus, you look rather distressed"
"I'm sorry Natural Green-sama, but it would seem that Memento Mori has been transported to an entirely different environment."
"…Huh?"
AN: This is the first story I've ever written, any criticism's welcome but just keep in mind I know nothing about writing.