Oookayy! So, this is the first story i've ever posted. It's not my best work, I'll admit, but I don't think it's all that bad.
The idea is kind of, kind of not, borrowed not borrowed from a fanfic I read a looooong time ago. It's discontinued, and I'm pretty sure nobody's ever finishing it (a pity, honestly.). The starting chapter is quite similar to it, in both structure and wording choice, and that's because it's the only chapter I wrote back then right after I read it. Though I can't seem to find it anymore, I remember writing all of this, wanting to post it and realizing that it was reaaally similar to the other fic, so i tried getting in contact with the author to get their permission. Didn't work; so I decided not to continue writing it and ultimately not post it. Also it has a couple of elements from Genshin Impact and Highschool DxD, though it's not exactly a crossover.
As you can see however, regarding the posting of the fic, I changed my mind!
Why? Simple. I have a bit of free time lately, and writing eases my ever-so-increasing boredom.
Plus hey, you might even like the story and where it's going, so me writing is all the benefit to the reader.
That said, I just wanted to let whoever stumbles upon this and enjoys it know, this fic will most definetely change course towards a whole other direction from the one its first chapter is strongly inspired from, so it won't be a carbon copy.
To whomever might recognize the fic I'm talking about, hey - kudos to you, you're without a doubt cultured.
Now let's get the show rollin' , sorry not sorry for the long intro!
-jade & lvky
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CHP. 1 - "Making of Torment a friend, the Start & the End."
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"Shit! I'm gonna be late!" Loyis Seriene Kaedee, a 19 year old boy with a girly middlename and apparent flimsy sense of time scampered towards the VR chair without changing from his part-time job uniform.
The game was not even an hour away from ending, this was really not a good time to be late.
Quickly plugging the VR gear on his head, a sense of nostalgia washed over him as he waited for the game to load. After all, it had been quite some time since he had last seen this interface, three months, to be more exact.
- YGGDRASIL - DMMO-RPG [ 2138 Platinum Edition ] -
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I= Login.. ID:BLAE2128 =I
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Quite a shame indeed, given how the time he had spent on the game with his friends had been extremely enjoyable, and how much effort and money he had spent to better his experience.
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Of course, the game had quite some years on its bones. It was by no means recent, it had been around for a decade now, but it was still hailed as one of, if not the best, DMMO-RPG to ever exist.
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[I= Welcome to Yggdrasil ! =I]
After staring blankly in both excitement and slight sadness at the makeshift void in front of him for quite a while he finally saw her in all her glory.
His pride and joy of the virtual world: Asmoday, the True Dragon of Apocalypse. Or as he called her, his "Dream".
In YYGRASIL existed mainly two slots for character customization, two ''forms'' of sorts between which one could change even if they weren't able to shapeshift. Her first form had blonde light orange-tinged hair with flaming red-orange tips and eyes a mixture of yellow, orange and red with slit pupils, along with horns on her head and a tail. While when in her second form, the one she was in currently, she appeared as a white-haired woman with ruby-like scarlet red eyes inside which resided an ivory iris. Her tail was nowhere to be seen and adorning her head was a crown-like black ornament slightly tiled while she herself was dressed in a blood red off-shoulder casual dress with some teal details and black laces, reaching slightly lower than a normal pair of shorts would it could be classified as a short dress. It had long sleeves that fluttered in the virtually created breeze and the lower part of the dress was longer behind her, reaching almost to her feet.
The expression she had on her face was that of an absolute pride and confidence filled, but at the same time slightly evil-ish and mischievous, smirk.
One of his many passions were evil villains and payback plots, so what?
Back when he wasn't yet working he read alot of novels and books in general about them and took great satisfaction in the payback the main characters would serve to the ones that wronged them.
One thing he liked even more than villains however, was mythology. He had read many legends and myths during his childhood, including even ones such as the Ars Goetia or simple olden tales.
During this time, he fell in love with Dragons. They were powerful and ancient beyond measure, bowed to no-one and most of all they were free. Free as the wind to do whatever they wanted. When wronged, they would get their payback, at all costs, be it destroying the entire city of their target, merely killing them or driving the Kingdom itself to ruin. None could stand in their way.
And then arrived Yggdrasil in his life. A place where he could fuflill both his passion for mytholgy and Dragons, and act as a dramatic villain as much as he wanted! A place where he was free to do whatever he wanted and escape the ugly tight shackles of a pollution-filled reality.
The combination of all those gave birth to Asmoday. With her full name being Asmoday Rea Qilipoth, she was a Dragon and her backstory's lore was in no way lacking any of the villain-like details he so liked in tales.
She truly was his greatest masterpiece. She was his very passions and hope given form, his "Dream".
When he first began playing, at the dawn of the game, he saw many players sporting races and classes of all types. Varying from slime, to human mages, to skeletal liches and even trolls!
There weren't many Dragons however. Or rather, there were many Wyverns and Dragonlings, but no Dragons. And he soon discovered why.
Imagine his horrifying surpirse when he entered the game's character creation screen and discovered there was no Dragon race. Needless to say he was incredibly sad.
Luckily it didn't last much as he discovered that a smiliar race was still accessible through evolution from the Wyvern race.
However it was incredibly hard to advance in the evolutionary tree of the race. One could go from Wyvern to many other stages, and in the end to Mystical Drachon. Still, there simply seemed to be no "Dragon" race anywhere in sight.
He was the only player to ever reach the Mystical Drachon race, as everybody else just quit or changed character before reaching even the second race-stage of Wyvern. It was simply too taxing, the time it required and the stupidly absurd conditions that needed to be met were simply insane, even he had to admit it.
Things like killing a boss at a specific second of a specific day with a specific weapon of a specific level. It was just too absurd.
Hell, he had to climb up an entire mountain by himself, which took 11 hours of real-time only to unlock the pre-requisite to a race evolution!
Why you ask? Why were the requisites so taxing? Why were the missions so strange and difficult?
Shitty devs. That's why.
When he reached the Mystical Drachon race-stage, which seemed to be the End of the Wyvern evolutionary tree his heart still screamed at him that this was no Dragon.
Sure, it looked like a miniature version of it, it had scales, a humanoid form even, and definetly didn't lack wings. If it looks like a Dragon and acts like a Dragon then it has to be a Dragon right?
But no. It didn't feel like one to him. And the problem was that no matter how much he pondered this issue, he had to do so alone. No one had reached his race, and the devs, shitty as they were, sure as hell wouldn't help him in any way on the forums.
So he decided to search for answers himself.
Yggdrasil was a game known for its freedom and incredibly vast amount of uknown and hidden content. And there was simply no way that there didn't exist a Dragon race.
Absolutely No way.
That's what he convinced himself of. So he started to dig deep into the forums, the lore, and even exploring the game itself ceaselessly.
After a year and two months of investing into his character to make it strong enough to overtake any and all difficulties his journey of discovery would no doubt provide, he was about to give up until on a rainy day he finally unlocked it.
A new stage in his Evolutonary tree.
Turns out that alot of people had been taking note of his journey, and in the end banded together on the forums to make a petition addressing the Devs and asking for the implementation of the race. The Devs, in turn, also appreciated greatly the dedication of the "One Who Seeks the Dragons" as they themselves had dubbed him and his supporters.
A couple months later, by meeting the necessary criteria, which were still uknown and so would remain for the coming years, the Devs had announced that players could finally evolve to the Dragon race when following the Wyvern's evolutionary tree.
It took him alot of exploring and several tries at guessing the requirements, things like maxing out the Mystical Drachon racial levels and the such, but while on a quest in Helheim he was finally able to unlock the race he so coveted, "Dragon".
Or so one would've thought. But no, the surprises didn't end there. While the petition was a welcome surprise indeed, what came off as an absolute shock was the fact he didn't just unlock what was supposed to be the hidden Dragon race, but instead, as the message the Devs sent him said, he had somehow unlocked the Hidden Unique-to-him, Divine Dragon race and subsiquient evolutionary tree.
All because, as they had put it:
"All the first ones, the progenitors, of the different races in fantasy tales or legends are hailed as somewhat unique, divine even. You're the first Dragon! A DRAGON! And the progenitor of such a race has to have a cool-sounding race and title! Amos-chan, it is only right that after all the effort you put in we would reward you, no? Now that you have the cool race you HAVE to earn a cool title too! Don't keep us waiting!"
And so he did. Though only after wondering who the hell "Amos" was, can't even spell his name correctly, tsk.
At first, during the first couple months of his time in Yggdrasil, he put all his points into Magic Attack, MP and Special. After all, as they say, the best defence is offence. Because of this, his defence and physical attack had been nigh-nonexistent. Though it might seem like a slipup, this was something that actually worked in his favor.
As Asmoday evolved, physical attack and defence increased far more than the other stats, making it easy to obtain a decent, if not even good level of both.
This was solified when he evolved Asmoday from Mystical Drachon to the unique race Divine Dragon, gainining an incredible boost in physiology, and thus both defence and offence.
After that he grinded quite alot, becoming a well known solo-player who woudn't associate with any guild. When asked why, he would simply shrug the question off by typing a "Dragons are beings of incredible power. But what fascinates me most about them is their freedom, i shan't ever tarnish it.".
As a consequence he became known as hardcore RP and eventually people stopped bothering him.
With time, going on Boss Raids meant for groups alone and clearing them, Dungeons chok full of hidden treasures left them empty after hours-long investigations and the such became routine for him.
His Asmoday grew more and more powerful by the day, to the point that he eventually unlocked the next stage of his three-step final evolutionary tree, True Dragon. Gaining various skills and abilities, aswell as unlocking a humanoid form.
His new race allowed him to ignore the scaling his stats would have to go through when shapeshifting to human form, allowing him to retain his incredibly high parameters even as a humanoid, which was quite game breaking in his opinion. But at the same time, there were no other Dragons in Yggdrasil, not even a single one to compare to, so there was no way to know.
After the Devs' announcement many of the players who had just started playing, and thus were still in the process of creating their character, decided to choose the Wyvern race in order to become Dragons, but none of them actually managed to do it. That's because the requirements to evolve were still uknown, hell, they were still a mystery to even him, and he was a Dragon! Though one of a kind, for sure.
With his humanoid form he was finally able to fight off the PKers more efficiently and as time went by he eventually accumulated an obscene player-kill count, even though it was technically self-defense.
With a limited-time event, he was also able to unlock the very pinnacle of Heteromorph existance, and jump directly to the last stage of his evolutionary tree, [ True Dragon God ], which was later reworked to be [ Deity ], by evolving it as a consequence of his newly acquired [God Beast] racial line. It granted him a plethora of powers, including the summoning of items he could only dream of before, weapons, and skills such as [Battlelust], which would buff him the more the battle lasted. But the most shocking was the fact that his Asmoday was no longer [Lv. 100], but had instead been boosted over the level cap to [Lv.200].
This was the tangible confirmation he had waited for that he was officially the strongest single player to ever exist in terms of raw power.
He still remembered how he jumped around his room for a good half an hour, spouting sentence after sentence to himself about how happy he was he had finally made it to the apex of the race he so loved.
Having become the only one in the game to have completed both the Wyvern evolutionary tree aswell as his hidden unique one, he also unlocked extra racial levels. Which he ended up, after a little research, using on a hidden class known as Phoenix, in order to boost his defence and HP, which before were still slightly lackluster compared to his attack stats.
However fun only lasts so long. None but one person at a time could hold the God Beast title, and consequently racial line, which, because it meant that the holder was the most powerful Heteromorph or Demi-Human ever, could be passed down to someone stronger by killing the current owner.
With this, PKers became an annoying problem. Humans would keep attacking him merely for the fun of it and eventually regretted it, while Heteromorphs and Demi-Humans because he wouldn't reveal how he became a Dragon, which he didn't even know, or to gain his God Beast title and race.
Nonetheless, with his min-maxed offence build he still was able to prevail, but eventually the Heteromorphs got fed up of being killed and their community called on their greatest asset to " kill the unkillable solo bastard".
They made a public request to the strongest guild in YGGDRASIL, Ainz Ooal Gown, which, needless to say, they accepted as a challenge.
Well, they failed.
Kinda.
Asmoday was a borderline cheat. She was an absolute powerhouse, created in order to fight solo even groups of players through only class and job skills, let alone when casting spells, and his race buffed all of that to the very extreme with each evolution. Plus, of course, the fact Loyis was no noob to PvP and its strategies didn't help them either.
He expected to win, by far even.
True, Ainz Ooal Gown had never failed a Guild Raid until that point, and they too expected to win.
But they were no Dragon, now were they?
In the end, the day they set off to kill Asmoday, after having almost exhausted his mana he was able to pull off the impossible in everyone's eyes. Twenty two of their strongest members, led by Momonga [Lv. 100], a level 100 player and incredible strategist, ended up in a stalemate with a single one, Asmoday [Lv.200].
In truth, after an hour and a half of exhausting battle, through spells and skills he had chipped at their HP enough that a single blow that would require all of his leftover mana, MP, could kill a good 19, maybe 20 of them but he couldn't risk it. He would end up facing 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 the survivors in physical combat, and there was a chance that given his luck they'd be the three who specialized in it, Touch Me, Takemikazuchi and Nishikienrai.
He had to give his compliments to them. They were good, not only were they powerful, but their teamwork was incredible and their strategies too.
Not even mentioning their leader, Momonga, he was astonishing. Every last one of his spells was perfectly timed, and had not only direct effects but even indirect consequences that would hinder Asmoday continiously, as if he had planned them beforehand.
Which, thinking of it now, perhaps he did.
After having established that neither could Asmoday deal the final blow, nor could they penetrate her defenses enough to deal fatal damage they were stuck using minor, near cost-less attacks on eachother uselessly for a good ten minutes while thinking of a plan.
There was a spell that would allow him to beat them, indeed there was, it was the Super Tier Spell that only high level Phoenixes had access to once every year, [ - Gregrace: Sunlit Flamebird - ], but it was so overkill that it would likely backfire and with only the half-full HP bar that remained he couldn't possibly withstand it. The issue was extremely similar to the one he encountered with his former plan to beat them.
And then it dawned on him. Or more like, it dawned on Momonga. He decided to, likely in a panic, scream his lungs out asking weather someone had any way of dealing critical damage without wasting mana to him, like a Super Tier Spell.
So he asked that same question to himself.
Indeed. Super Tier Spells don't need mana, he hadn't thought of that. And when he realized it, he knew he could win by taking the slighest risk of not having enough MP to do what he planned. Through [Self-Exchange], a rare spell whose effect is that of converting HP into MP, and by adding the [Reverse] chant before it, he would be able to convert part of his MP into HP.
Thus allowing him to resist the spell he was about to unleash to declare the end of the fun, but ultimately too long, battle against Ainz Ooal Gown.
In the adrenaline of the moment, he decided on going through with it.
He used the two spells and then cast the Super Tier [ - Gregrace: Sunlit Progenitor - ].
The skies went pale orange, all but covered in fire in all the realms.
A loud bestial roar of pride was heard when the spell went off as Asmoday grew two majestic wings of fire and columns of heat were raised wherever the members of Ainz Ooal Gown were stationed automatically.
Asmoday just stood there, admiring the spell, without the need to do or aim anything, the entire process doing it by itself.
No-one had ever used this hidden Super Tier spell before, not that he knew of any other half-Phoenixes either, so it was impressive to see everything get burned by flame, including the very sky, as the Sun seemed to laugh it off.
Sadly however not even this sufficed, technically speaking that is. Apparently, the Spell was too much for the servers to handle. The Devs, likely added too much graphic dramatical flare and not having had the opportunity to test its results since nobody had ever used it before they couldn't predict what would happen.
The servers crashed, along with the thousands of players on them after having witnessed the sky go up in flames, turning orange-yellowish and then crimson along with the rays of the virtual sun extending far too out of normal reach as if getting closer to examine the destruction.
With a laugh, and the servers back on, they decided to call it a stalemate after having asked question after question about what the skill or spell he used was, to which he, not wanting to spoil the fun of discovering the hidden Phoenix race, responded without lying but at the same time not being one hundred percent truthful. He said it was a skill that had to do with his race, fooling everyone into assuming he meant "Dragon".
After the servers were back up, he sent Momonga a friend request, his first ever friend request, in the hopes he would accept, which he was incredibly happy to see he did.
Soon afterwards, the Yggdrasil forum blew up with recordings and videos of his battle against Ainz Ooal Gown and the crash of the server following his last invocation.
Because of the terryfing onslaught of high-tier spells and skills he continuously rained at them, how he defenfended from theirs, and how he literally brought on the temporary End of the game by making the servers crash, he was given the title "The True Dragon of Apocalypse".
In a day, he went from always being chased by PKers and insulted on the forums, to being loved by the very same people and being left finally alone.
It was that very day that his greatest adventure would also begin. Loyis was surprised by Momonga's strenght, his leadership skill and truthfully Ainz Ooal Gown as a whole. He had never expected them to even be able to make it past a quarter of his health and make him burn half his MP, let alone be able to achieve a stalemate with the character he had spent a fortune in both time and real money creating.
But the point is, they did. And he, well he was thoroughly impressed.
And though at the time he didn't know it, so were the members of Ainz Ooal Gown, Momonga in particular.
They could not fathom the complexity of his build, and were amazed at his skills in battle in general. How could a single person almost best 22? He was indeed the strongest solo-player ever and anyone who'd tell them otherwise was a fool.
Momonga on the other hand, was mostly astonished by how fast he was able to adapt and learn, almost making his fighting style of calculated and precisely placed spells his own in a single battle.
With that, in the evening of that day, something happened that Loyis didn't expect in the slighest.
Momonga messaged him inquiring if his no guild status in the friendlist was the result of some visual bug, out of pure curiosity. And the response he got was a simple 'No, i just never really found the right one to join'.
Indeed, up until that point, all guilds seemed like constraints. He was looking for a group of friends, someone to share his freedom and adventures WITH, not someone to feel chained to by a mere in-game prefix with whom he didn't share a single interest. And, once again up until that point, no one had caught his eye.
And then, again, Momonga surprised him.
Momonga replied with a simple 'I see. Then i belive i have somewhat of a proposal.' , then asked what he did for a living and next thing he knew, he had a pending invite to join Ainz Ooal Gown.
First thing that came to his mind was 'Gotta be a joke.'
Ainz Ooal Gown was one of the top guilds in YGGDRASIL, nigh-impossible to join. Boasting a 25-ish members, each being incredibly powerful, they also posessed the highest amount of World Items in the game aswell as were undefeated.
Strictly speaking they weren't undefeated anymore, but oh well..
He pondered on it for a good ten minutes staring at the message. He had heard of them, how they were an amazing guild, and how all of them were good friends, not just members of the same group. At the time he hadn't really paid much mind o the rumors, shrugging them off as pipedream nonsense.
But now. Now, he had seen them himself. During his battle with them, how they were all serious, yes, but also had tons of fun. How Momonga, their leader, asked, not ordered.
He saw how they shared their freedom in a big all-including adventure.
If there ever existed a guild he'd join after refusing so many, perhaps..
In the end, he got rid of all his doubts and decided to click accept on the invite.
In a second, he was teleported to a gigantic ivory round table adorned with golden linings where all the members were sitting.
Immeadiatly he was bombarded with welcoming messages like ''Congratulations!'' and friend requests from all the members of Ainz Ooal Gown.
A voice to his right popped up in his ears, which shocked him slightly because he had never had to use those features before as a solo player.
It was that of a young adult, " Hello and welcome Asmoday-san. I am Momonga, and I'm the guild leader of Ainz Ooal Gown.''
''Hello'' he replied, "It isn't.. April's fools, is it?" he continued, earning chuckles and giggles from the other members, aswell as a dissapointed ' Wait you're a guyy!? ' from Peroroncino, to which everybody laughed even more.
They explained that they had been astounded by his might and how they already had their eyes set on him since a long time ago, all thanks to his incredible YGGDRASIL journey he had been on to find and unlock the Dragon race. Explaining that such was what Ainz Ooal Gown, this place and group, was meant to also be, a journey.
After the cheers and welcoming subsided, he was thrown into a pit of questions, first from Touch Me about his build and classes, then from Ulbert, who had proposed to band together and bring absolute destruction upon the world as the mightiest of villains, and then Momonga, about his strategy and playstyle. All questions, to which, now that he didn't need to hide any details from them anymore, he obliged happily.
With that, in the coming months YGGDRASIL became like a second home. He forged bonds with all the guildmates but his closest friends were Momonga first and foremost and then Ulbert, who in the end also convinced him to change his character's name from Asmoday to Asmoday Rea Qilipoth, mixing in both his like for myths and the evil-ish vibe they both so cherished.
He grew closer to Momonga the more time passed, as they both shared a fiery passion for both Magic and the game itself, likely being the most online members of all.
With time, eventually their numbers grew to 41 members, they had fun together and enjoined countless adventures. At first all their meetings were hell, everybody disagreed or wanted to do things a different way, or wanted to go to another dungeon, use different tacticts, and the such. So with time he started using his wisdom as a gamer to help Momonga in his decisions as a leader, and eventually, because of how frequent he gave him advice on which all 41 nigh-unanimously agreed and acted upon, he became jokingly known as ''The Shadow of the 4 1'', because he seemed to be able to embody everybody's will in a perfectly balanced mix.
As the months went by, they became the most powerful guild in all of YGGDRASIL, or one of the many anyways, and even acquired a crazy amount of World Items, mainting the title of guild with most of them and growing ever more powerful, both individually as Asmoday and as a consequence as Ainz Ooal Gown, the Guild.
But then reality hit.
Litterally.
And really hard too..
A few years after he joined, the number of active guild members dwindled down as they found more important things to do IRL.
He could understand. Bitterly, sure, but he couldn't blame them either, so he really had no choice left but to understand. Or try, at least.
Despide it all, Momonga remained. His rival, but most importantly, his closest friend had remained with him and eventually even met IRL a couple times, going to cafes together.
Slowly, but surely, the game was dying. Its golden age ending. The guild's active members went from 41 to 35, then 26, to 14, and as the end now approached, though in truth since a long time ago now, only two active members remained.
Asmoday and Momonga.
Momonga often vented about how sad and frustrated he was that their friends had abandonded them, and in truth, he too felt quite angered at the thought of it, but for his friend's own good he suppressed it and tried to ease Momonga's burden by prompting him to be more understanding.
They continued playing, until one day a post showed up on the YGGDRASIL forum on December 1, 2138.
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELESE:
Today, the Developers have made the difficult decision to shut down YGGDRASIL DMMO-RPG permanently as the game is no longer in line with the newest techonology and is getting more and more difficult to update. The official day of shutdown is January 1, 2139.
The Developers thank you for having played YGGDRASIL up until this point.''
Not even an hour later, Momonga sent emails and messages to every member of Ainz Ooal Gown asking them to stay until the shut down of the game as a last meet-up.
And there he was, scrambling over his unmoving loading screen merely half an hour away from the game's shutdown.
After a few minutes, he finally entered into the game and teleported directly to the meeting table. Momonga was sitting at the large round table, all alone.
He was sad. After having grown closer to Momonga in the past years he now knew that YGGDRASIL was everything to him too. He had poured his heart into the game, just like him. They were truly kindred spirits and so he could not help but feel sad for him.
But now; now, they had to celebrate their efforts. It was no time to be sad. Rather, they should be happy one last time together in their home, at least.
Being sad could wait.
''Mo-chan~!'' he cheerfully spoke in the mic, for the first time in quite a while, using the girly sounding "buku" voice, as he had dubbed it because of Bukubukuchagama's insistence he learn it to troll with his female avatar, though currently his intention was merely trying to lighten up the mood and not a prank as he would much rather, ''Sorry for being late, I had a bit of an issue with loading in.''
He never was too good at soothing others' emotions, more the "if your emotions don't work, shut 'em off and go for a nap, next time you wake up you'll be fine and dandy." type. Though he'd try in the hopes to achieve some sort of result for his friend anyway.
"Mh? That high pitched voic..? Asmoday-san! I'm so glad you're here! And, it's fine! The important thing is that you're here, I'm so happy you could come.''
He definetly sounded happy. Well at least that's a step out of the gloomy shadow that seemed to be cast on him before.
"Am i the only one here?'' he asked.
"Herohero was just here Asmoday-san, but he couldn't stay long.'' his tone drooped slightly, showing how disappointed he was. But there was nothing to be done. The fact that someone even visited for the last time was already more than he had hoped for, he knew they didn't care, and never would care, as much as Momonga and him.
"Well.. i finished my work for today, so i'll be here by your side until the very end Momonga.'' He affirmend, in a consoling and solemn way as Momonga looked at him.
''So rejoice, this dragonic beauty will be your companion for the night!" He added.
Momonga sent a lughing emoji, "That's true."
A couple seconds went by and Momonga broke the silence, whispering as if talking strictly to himself, though it was loud enough for Asmoday to hear "I really am happy that you came.."
Asmoday smirked under the helmet in mischief, and responded while repressing a laugh, "Hoooh? Are you now? Take care not to fall in love with me you know? Though I may not look it in the game, I am a guy after all!"
Momonga looked at him as if he was made of stone for a good 5 seconds without making a single sound and then they both broke into laughter.
"You're so silly Asmoday-san''
So what? If anything he was thankful he could lighten up the gloomy mood he had been in before.
"Now,'' Asmoday got up from the chair she was sitting on and approached the Guild Weapon with slow steps, then he grabbed it and handed it to Momonga, who just stared at it for a while.
''I couldn't possibly-''
He stopped him and spoke in a serious tone, ''Mo-chan. It's yours by right, take it.''
He continued to look at it for a couple moments, ''Bu-But I don't know if the others would want me to..''
Asmoday closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
''Momonga-san.'' He addressed his closest friend seriously, in a way he normally never would, "You once told me that I embody the will of the entirety of Ainz Ooal Gown, so listen close, because when I say this I embody the entirety of the Guild.''
"Wha? What's all the seriousness about, Asmoday-san?''
His voice softened, "Thank you. Thank you for everything you've done, for all your hardwork and dedication. Thank you for having been the best Guild Master we could ever hope for. And most of all, thank you for having been a great friend to many, and my greatest friend to me. You deserve that weapon. It is the crystallization of our Guild and friends, if any are worthy to wield it, it's you without a doubt.''
While he talked he could sometimes hear him gulp or sniffle, showing how much simple words could do when said aloud.
He took the staff that Asmoday was handing him, ''Thank you, really... thank you, Asmoday-san''.
He cleared his throat. "Well then, now that all of that's said and done, how about one last tour of the Tomb?''
''Of course! It'd be my honor to give such a fair Lady one last tour.'' He said in a joking tone.
He laughed at him. ''Let's go then, you lead.''
With that, they walked around the Tomb for some time, floor per floor, committing to memory as much as they could so that their home could live forever in their memories, though before Momonga visited the Floor Guardians once last time Asmoday had a little incident with her internet connection, thus missing on that very same visit and sadly only getting to see a few NPCs because of the ticking timer.
At one point they got to Floor 9, the place where the space created by Asmoday was situated: Elenesyia.
It was accessed through a normal black door with golden outlines, but the moment the door was opened it revealed the sky, along with a single bridge-like constrution made out of prim-white bricks. It led to a floating citadel with the castle inside which lies the second Throne Room of Nazarick on top. The castle was pearl white with golden rooftops and linings, its architecture and decorations were of the highest complexity, it had many towers and was surrounded by a clear, never-changing sky in which one could discern many floating steampunk-like ships.
"Wow, you've really outdone yourself with this place Asmoday-san...it's really pretty."
Naturally, almost none of that was actually physical, just illusion-like cosmetics, aswell as the citadel and its citizens, which were all base tier angel summons with some high-ranked seraphs and the like mixed in. Though none of them lacked a backstory Asmoday took the time to write for everybody, even if they existed and had a story of their own, they were more like a background to the only actually interactable part of Elenesyia, the castle known as Celestia and its inside.
The Throne Room, which belonged to Asmoday, had its floor made out the most precious of dark marbles, a brownish stone that glittered with the slighest ray of sun. It was mostly adorned with navy blue or cyan pieces of cloth, hanging from top of the many white-grey doric columns with bases and ends made out of gold and sculpted in the likeness of bird-like creatures, easily recognizable to be Phoenixes if one knew of their existance.
It wasn't a long, stretched room, like the first and Momonga's Throne Room, but instead it was located in the tallest tower of the castle, which was by no means small, but had an almost circular shape.
The walls were full of columns and intricate designs, with mixes of golden, white, gray and cyan decorations aswell as black, while the ceiling on the other hand was mostly a painting of scenes from Asmoday's lore.
As one entered the room they could notice a carpet, jet-black in color, and as they approached the black with golden linings and cyan stuffying armchair-like throne, they could make out the pedestal it stood on, decorated with designs and a small head of a dragon sculpted in the gold. On top of the first of two stairs of the pedestal there were two roughly shaped person-like statues, each with six angelic wings, one female and one male.
Behind the throne there were four columns, displayed in a two and two fashion, with a gap between the pair. There lay the carvings in gold of clouds and four dragons all with their jaws open and two wings folded in awe and respect. All of them were looking at the centre, where there was a single dragon, Asmoday's dragon form, with its twelve wings spread seemingly flying upwards while looking at the one observing it, at the same time having on top of its head a crown-like halo, symbolizying both her Divinity and Royalty as a Dragon.
There existed 10 NPCs that in Elenesyia were made from scratch by Asmoday, seven of which were currently in a standby-like state. Seven of them died during the last Guild siege after defeating all the intruders, but being NPCs of the highest level had also some negative sides to it, one of which being this state. They weren't dead anymore per se, the Guild was able to revive them, but the absurd amout of money needed to fully restore them was a sum even Ainz Ooal Gown didn't have at the time. Thus, they decided to pay for their resurrection at the time in the hopes they would one day be able to fully bring them back, but sadly the Guild became inactive before they could ammass the necessary in-game wealth.
Not that in the period the Guild wasn't at its peak they didn't try, in fact, the 1 NPC of the seven that died during that siege that was now alive was the product of uncountable hours of grinding that Momonga and Asmoday did for gold, eventually arriving at the necessary sum for a single complete revive that Asmoday decided to use on her earliest creation, an NPC named Raiden Ei.
It was in this room, that three of those 4 remaining of then 10 NPCs that lore-wise had authority outside of Elenesiya were positioned. All them being dragons: Fafnir, which in human form appeared as a tall dark-brown, basically black haired teenage man; Tiamat, which appeared as a teenage girl of average height with pale blue, messy, almost wet-looking hair, and in the end, Ophis, also known as Orphis, the highest-ranking and most powerful NPC in the whole of Eleneyisia, created together by Asmoday and his real-life now deceased sister back when she wasn't in hospital yet. She was inspired by her favorite character, and his sister had insisted she be his lore-wise sister as a small act of mischief since she didn't play the game as much, to which, thanks to how much he spoiler her, he agreed. A Dragon almost on par with Asmoday herself, a dreambuild optimized to its max that appeared as a young cute girl with hip-lenght jet-black hair and pure crimson eyes, exactly like Asmoday's. Both Tiamat and Fafnir had red-ish eyes somewhat reminiscent of Ophis and Asmoday's, but with both being tainted by golden and orange, lacking the ruby-like purity.
They walked the majestic halls of the castle at a slow but steady place, passing by all the NPCs as Asmoday gave each one some parting words.
Eventually it was Ophis's turn, "H-Hey Momonga.. mind if you go ahead? I'll catch up in a minute."
"Mh..?" He looked at his friend and noticed the NPC.
Ah I see.. I understand Momonga thought, "Sure, no problem. Take your time.", a smiley-emojii popping up.
"Thanks" Asmoday spoke as Momonga made his way back.
She looked at her creation. The NPC that embodied, even if only partly, her sister.
"Ophis.." She spoke, trying to find the right words.
I feel so stupid talking to an NPC…
"I'm sorry for not having been here lately...I really wish I had more time…"
He let out all his pent-up feelings and gave her a long, emotional, speech. One he should've given his sister when he still had the chance to. He told her how much he loved her, how much she mattered to him and how he hated the situation in which he found himself in.
But sadly this wasn't his sister. She resembled her, yes, but she was just a bag of data stuffed with his sister's personality and a backstory aswell as levels, classes and skills. Not somenome who could answer to his feelings.
"Well...that's all I guess, goodnight, Sister."
Calling her that feels wrong, but she resembles her so much...
After having taken a last good look, she returned to the Throne Room on the 9th floor of Nazarick along with Momonga accompanied by some NPCs: the Pleiadies Battle Maids, Nazarick's Head Butler Sebas Tian and Tiamat, by request of Momonga, she was one of his favorites NPCs after all.
''This place hasn't changed a bit. Still as majestic as ever huh?'' Asmoday said out loud without paying much attention to it. Indeed, this Throne Room was one of the most intricately designed places in Nazarick, and it was breathtaking at the very least.
Momonga then proceeded to sit on the lone throne in the room, and Asmoday sat on its meanwhile Momonga commanded the NPCs to kneel in front of the steps leading to the throne.
"You're really into lore writing and all that stuff Asmoday-san right? have you read Albedo's ?"
''That I am good Sir. Jokes aside though, I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to. All I know is what Tabula-san kept blabbering about.''
Momonga opened her lore for Asmoday to read.
"She is a demoness who holds the title of Guardian Overseer, which is the highest-ranking position in the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick. With flowing raven hair and golden pupils, her beauty could bewitch a nation.
She is proud of her position and confronts intruders as a confident, dignified superior being.
Regardless of how brilliant or brave her foes are, or whether she considers them strong, she will never acknowledge them as being equal to herself.
This is because she understands the meaning of the position bestowed upon her.
Her abilities befit the title of Guardian Overseer, with outstanding intelligence and combat ability.
That said, she is not omnicompetent. For instance, in pure wits, Demiurge is her superior, while Shalltear is superior in fighting ability. Yet, nobody in Nazarick can rival her administrative ability.
In addition, her feminine skills - particularly those pertaining to being a housewife - are excellent, and during her free time, she can be seen sweeping, sewing, and so on.
Though the reason is unknown, she enjoys cleanliness and her desire for such frequently drives her to clean things up.
In particular, her ability to sort out bookshelves knows no peer.
However, she recognizes the possessions of others as belonging to them, so she rarely insists on cleaning up.
That said, the items accumulated through her collector's habit are typically very messy.
Therefore, it remains to be seen whether she actually likes being tidy.
This might well be an act - in order to appear as the perfect woman - though the truth of that is unknown. It is too scary to confirm.
She always has a gentle smile on her, and her elegant way of speech has made many people think she is a goddess or an angel.
That mistake is not particularly laughable, given that she is surrounded by that sort of atmosphere and acts in an appropriate way.
The fact is, it would not be wrong to view her in that way.
She was originally planned to be an angel of the highest order, but she ended up with a greatly distorted appearance after being fused with a monster from the land of dreams.
Because of that, her personality is similarly twisted, being merciless and cruel, cunning and savage. She gives her enemies despair and revels in their agonizing deaths.
Her usual expression seems to be there to suppress the urges which flow from her heart - a mask which exists to conceal her desire to perform ruthless acts upon the weak.
If the mask breaks, she would probably end up being like Empress Lu Zhi Shen or Empress Wu Zetian.
However, that only applies when dealing with those not of Nazarick.
Fortunately for those who do not serve Nazarick, one can take comfort in the fact that the mask is very sturdy and will not break easily.
She feels very strongly about her duties as the Guardian Overseer of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.
Naturally, the fact that she has ears everywhere listening for information goes without saying.
But that doesn't mean she knows everything. An example of that is the fact she has only vague knowledge regarding many of her masters, one of them being Seriene Asmoday, the King of Destruction, also known in her "legend" by many other names, Anthares or Satanael alike.
In addition, she smiles all the time - to the point where one might say she does not show any other emotion.
Her smile is nothing more than a poker face to her.
She can also show emotions like anger, grimaces and fake tears.
Her sophisticated lady's face will not break, even when she is torturing the fools who oppose her.
By her appearance alone, she is a perfect beauty.
Incidentally, she's a slut."
Asmoday immediatly laughed, unable to keep the urge down.
"Man, that was a good one Tabula-san, what a plot twist… still, what's with the extreme gap moe? Poor Albedo..'' He was silent for a few moments, "How about we make a little tweak? Do you have a way of changing it?".
"Well, since I have the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown here I can acess the master source, so yes. What do you want to change?"
"How 'bout we take out the slut part?"
Momonga moved to do just that, but Asmoday stopped him, "Wait! Can I do it? I've never had the opportunity to use the staff even if I had basically the same authority as you because there could only ever be one Guild Master''
Ainz looked at her for a few seconds and then relented slightly amused, ''Sure.''
The orange virtual keyboard and screen rotated towards Asmoday and she started writing something after having deleted the slut part and then closed the tab without giving Momonga any chance to peek.
"So, what did you change Asmoday-san?'' He asked curious.
Asmoday coughed twice and looked straight at him, then, in the most girly voice he could muster, he seductively whispered. "Se-cr-et!"
Momonga stared at him, likely blushing under his helmet, for a good twenty seconds and then Asmoday burst out giggling as he mumbled something incredibly Peroroncino-like, akin to "Damn virtual traps… he's even got game.." or so he heard at least.
Momonga would deny it later on.
A little time went by, and Momonga started looking at the various flags on the columns near the ceiling and pointing at them. " Ankoro MochiMochi, Peroroncino, Bukubukuchagama, Warrior Takemikazuchi, Tabula Smaragdina, Variable Talisman, Genjiro…''
He kept listening to his voice speaking their names one by one, with a no small amount of nostalgia.
"… Me, and in the end, with the longest name in the whole guild, Asmoday Rea Qilipoth Anthares,'' he finished.
''We really had a great time.''
[23:58:34]
Asmoday hummed, witholding his nostalgia as not to ruin the moment.
[23:58:12]
"I have to wake up at 4 AM tomorrow morning, definetly not looking forward to that..'' He slightly chuckled.
"Hey Suzuki, if there ever is an YGGRASIL II or something of the likes.. wanna play together?''
[23:59:01]
For once, even Momonga dropped the charade of slight formality and answered using his real name without honorifics, "I'd like that Serieen.''
Haven't heard that name since grade school.. Haaa, I guess if it's you who's calling me that I might even not mind it.
He was the only one to whom he had spoke of that name. Embrarrassing though it was to keep it a secret, he didn't really like it. Not because of the name itself, mind you, it was the name of his mother, which had passed away as a child so he took great pride in it, merely the memories it reminded him of where he was picked on as kid for having a "girly" name by those despicable little jerks weren't as pleasent as he'd like to admit.
But he was the exception. With his sister gone, noone had called him that in a long, long time.
Aside from him. They were best friends after all.
[23:59:24]
And their world was ending…
"So is this End.. "Apocalypse" of sorts we're facing your handywork O' mighty Dragon of the Apocalypse?'' Momonga joked.
"Guess so huh?'' Asmoday chuckled weakly.
"If so.. I wish I could take it back..and make all this last longer, or rather – I wish it could last forever..'' He spoke in a soft tone.
[23:59:49]
Momonga responded, "So do I my friend, So do I..''
[23:59:52]
''Sleep well, or you'll feel tired tomorrow.'' Spoke Asmoday.
[23:59:54]
"Same to you,''
[23:59:56]
"Goodbye Nazarick." They spoke in unison and turned to eachother, "Goodnight''.
[23:59:58]
The virtual clock ticked.
[23:59:59]
The end of an Era.
[00:00:00]
[00:00:01]
And the unexpected start of a New One.