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«It's... It doesn't look like Yggdrasil two.» — Puzzled, Momonga admitted.
Opening his eyes, he had only two possibilities in his mind as to what he would see. The first he expected, and the second he hoped for eagerly.
The first, and most obvious, was that the servers would shut down and the helmet would activate the virtual reality ejection protocol. And he goes back to his gray routine.
And the second: he opens his eyes, and his consciousness is transferred to another server, straight to the initial location of the second Yggdrasil. But there was incredibly little hope for this option. Not only because there were no rumors about the announcement of a new game, which in today's world could well mean the complete demise of the project. But also because every helmet had built-in protection against any kind of redirection and redirect to other servers. This is due to a perfectly reasonable aspiration, which is to protect the user. After all, despite the artificially created limitations for the technology of full immersion, some unscrupulous programmers of the virtual environment can still harm the average user in many ways. And here we are not even talking about the banal carding, or other ways of stealing money. Nor is it about hacking into hardware in order to use its computing resources. We are talking about a direct threat to the life of the user.
The first attempt to market full immersion technology failed for this very reason. After the first publicized incident of virtual reality assassination, the technology left the market for decades, returning with a whole bouquet of all possible restrictions that block the way to most possible ways of hacking to cause direct harm to the user.
And now, standing in the middle of an old-fashioned-looking living room from the twentieth century, staring at a small pile of ash covered by a dark cloak, he had only one question running through his mind:
"Could they have somehow managed to circumvent the restrictions?" — He pondered in shock.
"But no, that doesn't make any sense." — Slightly relieved, he said. — "Even if they had found a way, it would be extremely foolish to announce it to the world. Especially in this way. The company would simply go bankrupt from lawsuits before it could spin out again." — He assured me.
Looking thoughtfully at the shining moon outside the window, Momonga caught a perfectly sane thought in his head.
"Then the developers probably didn't shut down the servers after the stated time, and moved any remaining online players to similar locations. An Easterling for the most ardent fans who stayed until the very end," he grinned mentally.
Looking beneath his feet, he found the corpse of a red-haired woman lying a few feet away from the pile of ashes left by an unknown, aggressive nonpeer.
"Is this some kind of quest? Am I going to have to investigate a murder?" — Momonga thought. — "So there's nothing to investigate. Here he is, the murderer. Or rather what's left of him." — He hummed cheerfully. — "Or will I need to prove his involvement somehow?" — Momonga guessed, taking a leisurely step toward the dead body of the NPC.
"How strange... Why is she so realistic?" — Satoru exclaimed mentally. "Did the developers go to such great lengths for a common end-game ghost story? It's not like them at all." — He reasoned.
«Then it's definitely an announcement of a new game.» — Momonga smirked. — "Wow, that's a good job by the developers. I'm afraid to imagine how much effort went into hiding all the information, and protecting it from industrial espionage by other studios. Not a single model, not a single screenshot, and not a single rumor of an announcement, as was the case with the first Yggdrasil."
Momonga was so disillusioned with his guesswork that he didn't even notice the strange voice his game avatar was making at first.
But what he noticed immediately, but at first, because of the shock after the sudden transfer, didn't give it much thought, was the lack of a game interface.
"Maybe a hint of the game's new mechanics?" — He thought, trying with rote gestures to open his inventory, or at least the exit menu. — "It's a pretty strange decision to completely remove the interface, though. Even in projects that try to achieve full immersion in the atmosphere of the game, there is at least minimal..."
But he was prevented from continuing his thought by the heavy sound of unhurried footsteps coming from the open doorway to his right.
«М... My Lord?» — A shaky, fearful voice asked, which, with its high pitch, could be easily mistaken for a woman's.
Turning toward the unfamiliar voice, he saw the low figure of an overweight man with facial features remotely resembling those of a mouse.
This impression was created not only by the characteristic wrinkles, but also by his strongly protruding front teeth, as well as by his long, unkempt blond hair of a dirty hue that contrasted sharply with his dark cloak.
When Momonga looked into the stout man's face, his eyes, unexpectedly for Momonga, opened wide with indescribable horror, and he turned and began to run away quickly, stumbling down the stairs.
"What quality facial animation." — He thought in amazement. — "Too high quality, even. Especially for my outdated equipment." — He came to an unexpected conclusion.
«Something's not right here...» — He whispered, taking his time catching up with the strange NPC.
"What's wrong with my voice?" — Abruptly stopping, Momonga was taken aback.
Only now did he manage to notice that his voice had become considerably lower. The timbre was flatter, deeper, and... muffled?
But Momonga stopped his musings when he saw the unknown man make his way to the exit of the house.
"There is no time for such reflection. NPC almost ran away from the location, so it's worth catching up with him. I might even be able to open a dialogue with him." — He thought to himself.
Stretching out his skeleton-shaped palm, Momonga tried to activate a spell according to what he thought were the new mechanics of the game.
«Leadfoot.»
A common third level beginner's spell that imposes a slowing debuff on enemies who have a below average resistance to magic, as well as immobilizing enemies with a low magic defense rating.
Effective against enemies up to level forty, but useless against players with higher levels. Even assassins who pump their defenses to the minimum have enough points at this level to ignore this debuff.
Of course, there's also the orichal foot spell, which is an enhanced version of lead, but Momonga felt that using a rank five spell against an enemy that's terrified to see it alone would be an unnecessary waste of mana.
Just as he thought, a rank three spell was enough to make the enemy simply fall off his feet.
"Is that blood?" — Momonga wondered.
The thing is, as he fell, the fat man hit his face squarely on the door, smashing his nose into a bloody skirt.
"Too complicated an interaction to play. If the look of horror on the man's face can still be written off as plot animation, and the phrase spoken earlier as a pre-recorded line, then how do you explain this?" — Satoru wondered, "What if I had used immobilization while still on the stairs? Would he have broken his nose as well, or would there have been another injury? And if I had used an attack spell —what then?"
While the mouse-like man, who he already felt frankly sorry for, was thrashing about on the floor in panic, Momonga finally noticed the mayhem that the man he had presumably killed recently had caused, as well as the dead black-haired man with broken glasses, who, unlike the dead woman above, had his ribcage ripped clean through.
But what bothered Momonga wasn't the quality modeling of the brutally murdered corpse, it was the lingering smell of blood that hung thickly throughout the living room-yes, butter, all that. I know it's a tautology. I just love that expression...
"That can't be true!" — Satoru exclaimed mentally. — "Not only does the 'Virtual Environment Programming' convention, forbid the mass distribution of software that simulates olfactory sensation, but my helmet is not equipped with such a feature!" — Momonga lamented.
While he was racking his brain with fantastical thoughts, which the pragmatic Momonga was trying to drive out as best he could to find some logical explanation for the outrage, the fat man, whom Momonga had already forgotten about, finally stopped rummaging in his fall-torn robe and pulled out a straight wooden rod from the robe.
With trembling hands, he drew a zigzag symbol with the rounded tip of the wand, and in a shaky, high-pitched voice, he muttered:
«Av... Ava... Avada Kedavra.»
Without achieving the desired result, he nevertheless gathered all the confidence left deep within him, and remembering his Lord's mantle, which lay on the pile of ashes left of him, furiously exclaimed:
«Avada Kedavra!»
Momonga, who had finally awakened from his musings and still bothered to pay attention to his immobilized captive, stared in surprise at the venomous green curse coming at him.
"Isn't that the spell that deflected Thaney's ring, turning the poor man who'd let him down into a pile of ash?" — A thought flashed through Momonga's mind.
He didn't dodge the strange curse, opting to observe his new piece of equipment once more as he felt the half-minute time-out was long gone.
Because of the black fog blocking his view, which had suddenly appeared after the strange move, he was unable to properly study the workings of the new divine item.
"Now, thinking back to that moment, I realized that because of that strange fog, I was never able to get a detailed look at the NPC who was attacking me. The only thing I could make out were the piercing bright crimson eyes. Was it possible that the attacker was a vampire?" — Satoru thought. "But I don't see any vampire traits in his subordinate." — He hesitated, remembering how the mouse-like man had addressed a certain Lord. — "If anything, this man looks more like a rat—like werewolf. But if he's a rat-snout, he'd have to have rat claws in place of his nails. And apart from the slightly pointed fingernails, there are no other distinctive features to be seen. Maybe some kind of subspecies?" — He pondered.
In the time it took him to think about it surprisingly quickly, the green spell had already bounced off the golden dome that had suddenly appeared around the Overlord.
"Quite a standard manifestation for a protection spell. But what are those sparks?" — Momonga inquired, watching as golden sparks spread out in all directions, from where the spell struck, leaving behind the traces that are typical of lightning-type spells.
But after remembering the description of the object, Momonga calmed down, finding a logical explanation for at least one of the strange phenomena that had been coming at him in a steady stream since the beginning of the day.
Finally, a spell struck the NPC who had attacked him, causing him to simply fall unconscious.
"Is this exactly the same spell, or is it different, but with the same manifestation?" — He wondered. — I wondered if he was dead.
«The essence of life.»
Just as he thought, there was not a drop of life in the man: he was dead. But that wasn't what surprised him.
There was a life force signal coming from the second floor, specifically from the side of the room into which he had been moved.
"Maybe that girl is still alive?" — He thought.
Heading at a leisurely pace to the second floor, Momonga again wondered hard about the reality of what was happening:
"Is this really a game?" — He asked himself a major, eerily urgent question. — "I've certainly heard about the development of a virtual environment as close to the real world as possible. Both on the visual side and the sensory side." — Momonga suddenly remembered. — "But they're being conducted in government, and private corporate laboratories of very high secrecy, equipped to the highest standards of technology."
"Maybe some mega-corporation kidnapped me as a guinea pig?" — Stopping, he thought earnestly.
«That's crazy.» — Shaking his head sideways, he admitted. — "Millions of people would gladly agree to become lifelong guinea pigs in such a field. It's too tempting an opportunity to escape forever from a cruel reality where you can't even go outside without a mask. Unless, of course, you're afraid of catching lung cancer." — He summed it up.
«And after all, why would they want an ordinary office clerk?» — He sighed sadly as he approached the entrance to what he could only now see was the nursery.
But again applying the essence of life to the area, he was unable to detect any sign of life in the red—haired woman's body. Instead, he found a small cradle standing by the window, which he had hitherto failed to notice.
"Suzuki, be more attentive to your surroundings." — He rebuked himself. — "You're in unfamiliar, knowingly enemy territory. Though the local opponents are not particularly strong, this could be just a trick to trap a gaping player. It would be a shame to be killed by a rookie's mistake."
Finally, he turned his attention to his guild staff, which he had been holding all along.
"All the more reason, I have something to risk." — A grim shadow lay over his bone-faced face. — "I should have left the staff in the guild. I can't hide it in my inventory, since guild items are subject to the same restrictions as world-level items." — Satoru sighed frustratedly.
"There is no way I can let myself die. Otherwise, the staff of Ainz Oal Gone will end up in the wrong hands. And that would only mean the end for a once great guild. My guild."
Slowly approaching the outdated-looking cradle, which basically applied to the rest of the house, Momonga recalled his first, and rather traumatic, experience with infants.
"Tabula-san always liked to breed people emotionally." — Momonga suddenly remembered, "And most of all, he liked to scare. Especially his co-guildmates."
"And especially me." — With a shudder, Satoru acknowledged.
Hovering over the cradle, Momonga found, as he had expected, an infant there quite alive, albeit asleep.
Ignoring the zig-zagging bleeding wound on half of its forehead, it was a perfectly normal looking, human, one-year-old baby, with black hair, and a European appearance.
Momonga scrutinized the curiously shaped wound, which was presumably left by his inadvertent use of a reflective ring.
"I think it's only fair to correct my oversight." — Satoru thought, reaching his free left hand out to the side, trying to focus on opening the inventory.
«Open inventory.» — Said Momonga for more convincing, and indeed, in front of his outstretched hand, a small portal suddenly formed, resembling in its structure, the ninth rank spell, the Gate.
Slipping his hand into the mouth of the portal, Momonga tried to fumble for the item he needed at the moment, thinking that it was the right key to properly use the new inventory opening mechanic.
And he realized he was right when he started to pull out the item he was looking for, namely the standard healing potion, which was an elegantly designed glass flask that was just over half filled with a red, blood-colored liquid.
The rational part of Satoru was still trying to find some logical explanation for what was happening, so he still continued to think it was all an over-realistic game. But with each passing second, his mind was leaning more and more toward the irrational side of the explanation, which was getting more realistic with each new thought, as strange as it sounded.
Momonga shook off his musings again, concentrating on the task at hand.
With a move he'd learned over a decade of practice, Momonga uncorked the cap of the healing potion, bringing its neck right up over the fresh wound.
Slowly pouring the potion over the bleeding wound, Momonga watched as drop by drop, the wound, once huge for a one-year-old, began to gradually heal right in front of him.
«Unbelievable," Momonga whispered in amazement.» — "Why am I beginning to believe more and more in the reality of what's happening?" — Satoru snorted.
Momonga finished watering the boy's forehead, noticing that the potion had begun to drip onto the sheets, simply not absorbing into the wound, which left only a thin, zigzagging scar.
"I may not use a healing potion because of my race, but I do remember that it's not supposed to leave any scars. In fact, apart from the hitbar, there were no outward manifestations of creature damage in the game." — Momonga sighed, realizing where this was going.
When he tried to touch the faded scar, however, suddenly, the kid abruptly opened his greenish, tinted eyes like that strange spell, and cried very loudly.
«Idiot!» — Momonga hissed, yanking his hand away sharply.
"Surely the little guy must have sensed the approaching danger somehow." — Satoru guessed, shutting off his negative touch. — "I'm still too inconsiderate. It would be a shame to kill the little guy by wasting the potion used on him, which may well become an irreplaceable resource in the near future." — Momonga pondered.
"Indeed, it would be a shame. All-in-all..." — Caught himself in a strange thought.
"Why don't I feel any compassion for this child?" — He thought frowned.
«Stranger and stranger...» — He involuntarily burst out.
The little child's scream had become so unbearable that Momonga had already begun to prepare a sleep spell to finally silence the noise that was interfering with his thoughts.
But Satoru immediately quelled the thought.
"I don't know what's happening to me, but it defines abnormal." — He realized suddenly. — "You have to limit these sudden cynical impulses. At least the ones that would be too cynical even for the old me." — He reasoned wisely.
"Still, it's worth it to calm the kid down somehow." — Momonga decided. — "But I've never cared for small children. What's more, I don't even know how to take care of them!" — Satoru lamented.
"No, I'm lying, though. Yamaiko-chan sometimes gave various advice when she told me about how she worked for three years as a babysitter for children from well-to-do families before entering the teaching profession." — Remembered Satoru.
«I think the child should be given some kind of pacifier to start with.» — Said Momonga, rummaging through his inventory, looking for something at least resembling a pacifier, but then, having stopped doing the useless thing, he remembered a useful spell.
«Object Creation.»
When a magic circle appeared over Momonga's hand, he began strenuously imagining what a standard pacifier would look like.
"I doubt I have anything resembling a baby pacifier in my downloaded templates, but it's worth a try."
A second later a bright light flashed and a small plastic object appeared in his hand.
"It is... Acceptable." — Momonga thought, looking at the fairly standard—looking pacifier. He had seen them more than once in movies and TV shows that featured small children.
His own, so early childhood, he either unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, could not remember.
Momonga tried to feed the baby a pacifier, but it stubbornly refused to take it in its mouth, starting to cry even louder.
"Maybe we should grease it with something." — Satoru guessed, remembering one of Yamaiko's tips.
Momonga, rummaging through his inventory for a while, found the right snapper after all.
"Valhalla honey. Sweet enough to tempt the baby's receptors, and strong enough for the baby to fall asleep immediately. I think the healing properties of this drink, can offset all the possible harm alcohol can do to a one-year-old's body." — He reasoned. — "Still, since Yamaiko-chan, judging by her stories, has done this more than once with regular wine, everything should be fine. — Satoru thought worriedly.
Just as he thought, the little guy fell for the treat, and after a few seconds, he passed out without a backward glance.
«I hope she wasn't joking after all.» — He added as he took the passed-out baby in his arms, wrapping the sheet tightly around him so that the Lord's hard, bony fingers wouldn't dig into the tender skin of the one-year-old.
"Softly..." — He thought, gently running his finger over the thin scar.
«And yet he wondered why the potion had left that scar?» — He mumbled thoughtfully. — "Though I don't have a spell for it, and I'm afraid there isn't one in all of Yggdrasil, I think exposing the statistics might shed some light on the situation."
«Enhanced Magic: Revealing Stats.»
He didn't use this spell often, since almost all players, had protection against this kind of magic. The same applied to most bosses.
Still, when the right moment turns, this spell is an indispensable tool. As, for example, it is now.
Images flashed through his mind of the various meanings of the boy's various characteristics.
«The third level?» — Momonga exclaimed. — «Suddenly...» — He whispered after a moment's hesitation.
"The physical indicators are at an acceptable level for an infant." — Satoru thought, comparing the boy to the entourage of non-babies infants, who usually don't exceed level one. — "But that doesn't apply to magical characteristics." — He marveled.
"It feels like he's been pumped full points into the amount of mana, completely ignoring the rest of the stats." — Momonga concluded. — Interesting kid.
Suddenly, the boy began to tossing, and with his mouth slightly open, dropped his pacifier on the floor.
But when Momonga reached down to pick up the fallen object, he noticed a white wand under the cradle, which presumably belonged to the creature that had attacked him.
"Most likely some kind of magic wand." — Satoru thought, picking up the rolled-up trophy.
«Great knowledge of the object.»
The wand, white in color, glowed a muddy-white light before the realization of what the object represented came to Momonga's mind.
"Magic wand. A spicule, as the shell; and a phoenix feather, as the core. Funny that a wand made from the feather of such a luminous creature, ended up in the hands of someone like this... Human? I'm not sure." — Momonga thought, remembering the dark silhouette of the creature he had killed. — "Whatever he would have been like, it wasn't like this creature had light karma."
"Now, if you think about it," Satoru suddenly realized, "I was definitely not his target, since the spell was released before I even got here. Rather, I was the one so fortunate as to be in his way." — Momonga grinned. — "Was this little guy really his target?" — Satoru suddenly guessed, looking at the boy sleeping peacefully in his arms. — "But what was the point? Could it be because of his elevated level?"
Watching the already soothed toddler, Momonga wondered seriously:
"I don't know: how, why, or because of whom; but I'm definitely not in the game." — Taking a deep breath, Satoru admitted to himself.
"Even for a powerful computer simulation, things are a little too realistic." — Momonga admitted —"Plus, those strange thoughts that are more peculiar to the emotionless undead, and my deadpan composure in a situation like this..."
"Fantasy stories about assassins, went out of fashion back in my teenage years." — Satoru recalled. — "And before that, they were still popular in the early twenty-second, and twenty-first centuries."
«What can I say... Fashions are making a comeback.» — He grinned incredulously.
Remembering the environment he was in now, Satoru stepped back into reality.
"I don't think I should stay in a house full of corpses for long. And I don't think it would be good for the baby either." — Satoru remarked.
As Momonga descended the stairs, he suddenly thought hard:
"Why am I lugging around this baby? I'm in a strange place, in the body of my game avatar. I should be taking care of myself right now." — Pragmatically, he remarked.
"But, what would I have done before?" — Satoru thought. — "Probably would have given the kid to the police to turn him in to an orphanage. Of course, it's unlikely he would have survived to adulthood there." — Satoru sighed sadly. — "But what can you do? Few people have enough money nowadays to fully meet their minimal needs. And to still take care of someone else... The world is a tough place. Especially, our current reality." — Promoted Momonga.
"That's probably what anyone from Ainz Oal Gone would do," Satoru admitted. — "Unless, that is, except for Touch Me-san." — He hummed. — "And it's not just his.
"That's probably what anyone from Ainz Oal Gone would have done," Satoru admitted. — "Unless it was Touch Me-san." — He hummed. — "And it's not just his affluence. He's a very good man in his own right, and a noble man. I think if he were in a similar situation, he would take the child into his care without delay. Even penniless." — Satoru suggested.
"Except, I'm no Touch Mee. Too bad. Maybe if I had his character and worldview, I'd live a much happier life." — Satoru sighed sadly.
Walking through the trashed living room, Momonga caught sight of a black-haired man with a torn chest.
"And I only now realized that these two could be the boy's parents." — Satoru realized suddenly, looking closely at the gold ring on the man's finger. — "Come to think of it, that woman also had a similar ring on her finger. So I'm right after all," Momonga thought, halting abruptly.
"Wouldn't it be better to resurrect those two than to be running around the unknown world, seeking shelter?" — Satoru thought.
"No, that is impossible. I'm afraid my kindness will only lead to far more trouble than I have now." — Momonga remarked. — "Though there are spellcasters in this world, I don't know how common resurrection magic is here." — He pondered, also remembering another point: "That's not to say that such magic would completely compromise me as a Yggdrasil player. And I also don't know how the locals might react to this fact, if someone else was here before me. But most likely, negatively."
And so, finally reaching the door, and opening it, Momonga froze in place.
«What a beautiful sky.» — Whispered Momonga, taking a full, ephemeral breath, feeling the clean air of the surrounding atmosphere.
"Judging by the houses, this world is somewhere in between the twentieth, and twenty-first centuries." — Satoru guessed.
Looking at the baby wrapped in a white sheet, Momonga thought:
"I can leave a baby on any doorstep of the houses around me without worrying that it won't be able to survive in an orphanage, since the world has not yet entered the age of mega-corporate rule." — Satoru thought. — But, is that what Touch Me-sama would have done?
Momonga had always admired Touch Me nobility and determination. — "Saving someone in trouble is a common thing!" — were the first words he heard from his lips. At that moment, on the swamps of Helheim, he saved him not only from another kill at the hands of passing pk-shears, but also from his eventual exit from the game, most likely with the deletion of his account.
Since then, for Satoru, Touch Me has become not only a loyal companion and best friend, but also his first role model in his adult life.
"What's stopping me from being like him now?" — Satoru thought to himself.
"Of course, I'm unlikely to become a throwing-at-the-bombardment, unselfish hero. But great things start small. Right, Takemikazuchi-san?"
Activating total invisibility, Momonga decided to fly closer to the stars to admire their beauty.
"Besides, level three for his age... I doubt very much if that's the norm for a local one-year-old infant. Since he's even apparently being hunted." — Momonga thought interestingly. — "I think he might be useful in the future."
Staring intently into the blackness of the starlit sky and the light of the full moon, Momonga said with a quiet chuckle:
«Yeah, and who knows. Perhaps being a parent can even be fun.»