Eventually, Tabula returned back to me, as my count was entering the lower thousands. Tabula walked over to me, and with one word my entire body began to move.

"Follow", and so I did. I kept pace with him throughout the labyrinth of halls and doors. The more I looked, the less I understood. Paced throughout the halls were groups of maids and servants, doing monotonous chores. Their movements as stiff as my own.

Dread seeped in as I feared that they may be going through what I am now. Others recently dead, put in bodies that weren't theirs, unable to move even a single muscle unless told to. All toys in someone else's toybox.

Tabula led me to a set of giant wooden doors, and told me to halt. Naturally I did as he said. He left me in the hall as he entered.

"My friends, I would like to introduce you to my newest creation. Enter!"

I walked into the room, and my mind didn't blow any further. A large, circular marble table occupied a majority of the room. Around it sat a series of chairs, not all occupied. Among them sat creatures of all different kinds, slimes, insect monsters, a man in silver armor, at the head of the table sat Death itself. All eyes were on me.

"May I introduce Citrinitas, our new alchemist and transmuter."

"What do you mean, transmuter?" said death in a way too friendly of a voice. A confused emoji popped above his head, confirming a fear I had.

Spawning into Tabula's hand was a copper bar, which was handed to me. I took it without choice and it began to glow. I knew not what I was doing, but once the glowing had died down, I held a silver bar. I had just defied all known laws of chemistry with my bare hands.

Peroroncino reminded me of some of my either my high end students, or my failure students, as he didn't seem all that interested in what was going on.

"This my dear friends, isn't even her limit. She can go all the way up to the prismatic ores, the rarest in Yggdrasil." Death raised it's hand with a question.

"How exactly did you achieve this feat?" he questioned as he crossed his fingers on the desk.

"Ok, so no one here had taken the alchemist class. Yeah, I have a few levels in alchemist myself, but I could never afford to put too many levels in it. No player reasonably could as it isn't effective in combat. It relies too heavily on item creation, which anyone could use once the item is created. The stats scale like shit. I myself am not fully built into an alchemist. However, this doesn't necessarily apply to NPCs as they can be given base roles without complaint. So I gave this homunculus levels in alchemist, and I found that there are a plethora of branches for alchemists to go down. This one happens to contain transmutation."

"OK,' Peroroncino cut in. "But why is she hot?" Death's jaw looked like it was going to fall off. A chorus of rapid fire conversation fired off among the monstrous gathering. They were firing off terms unbefitting their natures, such as "-she looks like Mercy!"

"No, no, she has to be based off of Vanessa."

"Dude, those games are like, over 100 years old! It's obviously just a blonde character." Someone outside my sightline yelled. Chaos began to swell among the occupants.

"UNLIKE you! I take the time to craft my NPCs to perfection!" Tabula shouted over the noise. Death stood above the corrus and raised his hands.

"[Silence]!" The skeleton shouted, as a purple bubble expanded around him, and deafness followed. Everyone looked to the head of the table, taking their seats again. As Death took his seat, the bubble retracted and sound returned.

The meeting of monsters carried forth, as they discussed inter-guild politics, including the now threatened monopoly that the merchant guild '7CZ' had established regarding their ownership of several prismatic ore mines.

While they plotted and planned, I began putting together pieces. The disconnected voices, the emoji's, the familiar terminology, there could only be 1 option. I was an NPC in some form of MMO. Judging by the small mannerisms, such as Peroroncino tapping his heel, or Touch Me nodding along to others talking, or Momonga (who was not Death itself) capable of eye tracking a thrown object launched by Bukubukuchagama to Perononcino, I can assume that this is some form of matrix sim. The meeting soon devolved once more into chaos after that, a joyous havoc possessing the room in only the way that friends knew how.

They certainly didn't seem evil, and without mention of the other NPCs, I felt fairly safe assuming that I was the only soul possessed NPC in the dungeon.

Life wasn't all too bad as an NPC, if you compared it to that of a stylized vending machine.

The main area I hung around in was an occult chemistry lab. While maintaining the high fantasy look at the edges, it still held a sterile white achieved by polished marble with silver finish, setting it apart from the dungeon's standard of white, purple, and gold. Along one wall was a series of blackboards. Counters with alchemy equipment ran through and around the room. Shelves of assorted books, scrolls, and other occult-esque items dotted the walls that weren't dominated by blackboards, stations, or doorways. Attached to this room were two large glass doors leading into the dungeon halls, on the same side. Tucked into the corner was a door marked 'head alchemist', I never got to see what was in that room. There and a vault door both on the opposite side from the right glass entrance. Just across the hall from my workplace was a massive greenhouse which I couldn't fully explore, but the small glimpses I caught hinted at it being enormous and over the top, much like everything else within Nazarick.

At one point, Tabula had spawned a bunch of assistant NPCs. It was slightly unnerving about how they were all carbon copies of each other, with the same raven black hair, paper white skin, and eyes like amethysts. Like any good lab, they wore their white coats, and general usage PPE. My own outfit didn't have a closed front though, instead being open to show a tan blouse with a short yellow tie dangling to my diaphragm.

We had a routine we'd cycle through, with myself having the least to do. The assistants would operate machinery throughout the room, even if it achieved nothing. Then they would go about organizing things that were never moved in the first place. All the while I would stand diligently at the front, near the glass doors looking out at the wall. For a big show I would go over to a chalkboard and they would gather around, as if I were going over something big with them. That was always my favorite, it went off every 6 hours, making timekeeping much easier.

Without autonomy, I had attempted other methods of passing time. I counted everything I could see, every stone, every glare, every nicknack that cluttered my shelves. It was around this time I had recalled a quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, "but have you named them yet?" to which I would have replied no. During the lecture display, I would recall all I could from my years as a chemist, as a student and professor. I had to keep my mind sharp enough to thrive should I get free… every game came to an end someday, right?

The players visited me often, never to talk, why would they? They didn't know I was trapped in here. My favorite occurrence was when multiple players would show up, whether they both needed my work, or they formed a queue, or any other reason. The gossip you'd pick up on could fill books. I began to become familiar with them, even if they never acknowledged me more than they would a normal vending machine.

My work was simple, the players would come in, hand me something, tap at a menu, and my glowy hands would convert what they handed me into other items. I made potions, poisons, exilers, and things I couldn't even name. The most tedious, and frequent, was turning cheap metals into higher quality metals. Copper into steel, then adamantine or mithril, all the way up to galactic uranium. It was always amusing when one of the players had me transmute some hour-long project, and another would show up and get all angry at my filled out inventory. The laws of chemistry my last life strived off of were blown out of the water on the daily.

They would discuss plans of the future, complain about shitty devs, or one another. One of the things that kept catching my attention was whenever they mentioned the outside world. It was nothing akin to my own.

"Yeah man, the air purifier in my block broke yesterday. So now we're all wearing our masks indoors too. Never thought I would be happier at the shop."

"Sorry I couldn't come to the raid the other night, acid rain ate through our power lines." I wasn't particularly buying that one, but the fact that it didn't raise any alarm with the others implied that this was a normal occurrence in their world.

"Boss has me pulling double duty, again." There were so many complaints among them all about their intense work. I got the feeling that they must have been living in some kind of polluted nightmare of a world.

They spoke of smog storms, acid rains, and ash winters, as if it were as common as the passing of the seasons. There was no mention of countries as anything other than locations. Instead they referred to companies as if they were political bodies. People would drop dead, and nobody would blink an eye, for this was such a common occurrence that death lost its meaning. In the truest sense, I pitied them. We were both living in nightmares, but I already died once, and they have known death their whole lives.

It wasn't all dreary though, this was a game for them after all. The dreary reality they came from would melt away in favor of raids, guild fights, exploration, and more. Sometimes the players would just goof off and have some light hearted fun. I would get moved from my post for certain events, this was the only real time I ever left the lab, as well as saw the other guardians. We would wear thematic outfits, pose for photos, and run through a series of simple loops to create a background for the players who were celebrating.

As the years went by, I longed for my freedom. I longed to be a part of the lives that surrounded me, the jokes they made, the arguments they got into, even the mundanity of waiting for Warrior Takemikazuchi to log on (dude takes his sweet time getting on), I longed to be a part of all this. The memories I once relied upon to pass the time, of a past life, started to get phased out for dreams of a life I wasn't a part of. Dreams of being there to guide them, as the teacher part of me cried when I saw them lost, dream of being a parent figure to the players who had it rough. In my past life, some of my students saw me like a father they never had, and while it was cheesy, I had loved it.

More and more, these desires took up the time I spent waiting. Luther kept feeling further away, and the identity of Citrinitas seemed more applicable. At the time, I had barely realized the transition, it's hard to keep track of such small things over such a long time. Years pass so slowly when you spend your time staring at a wall.

There was one exchange I would never forget though. Peroroncino had been waiting around for me to finish his order, when I could hear the clapping of Tabula's hooves coming down the hall.

"Peroroncino! Explain yourself!" Tabula shouted, entering into my lab in a fury.

"What am I being blamed for this time!? Whatever it was, I swear it wasn't me." the accused had said, backing up to the counter with his hands up.

"I saw what you wrote in Shalltear's bio. I am not having Citrinitas subjected to the manifestation of your fetishes."

'Pardon!?'

"Yuri love is wholesome love though, she would never. Her love is pure."

"Either you cut out half of that wiki-list or you enter a statement exempting Citrinitas from those horrors."

"I mean, that's what I had in mind. If you want some more lines tossed in, I will."

The octopus made an annoyed sighing sound as it pinched the front of its face. "Hmm, fine. But it better be good. I'd doubt that Citrinitas would want to marry someone with those traits anyhow."

'Me! Getting married? I was not informed of this at all.' Little did I know, just how important that exchange would be for my future.

Time had really been chugging at its own pace. Players started showing up less frequently, some not even being mentioned anymore by those who did come. Silence would fall upon my idle lab, with only my assistants, moving like clockwork, to break the silence. I would give a series of lectures, each one marking 6 hours, without a sound to break the monotone note of nothing.

At first, I began to grow bored. My source of entertainment had grown scarce, as the gossip became infrequent, and their subjects dry. Then I began to grow worried, my duty as a potion dispenser, as monotonous as it was, was an important role in Ainz Ooal Gown. If I had begun seeing less action, then there was less action happening around the entire guild. This meant that either the players had moved on, whether to better things or to better places. Even in my bodily prison, I feared for them, and wished the world for my players.

I had always kept track of the time, my count never giving up. There were roughly 8760 hours in a year, with each of my lectures taking place at 6 hour intervals, that gives me 1460 lectures a year. Having reached close to 8 thousand, marking almost 6 full years of being trapped here, a dreadful nothingness had descended upon Nazarick. It had been almost a year since we've had any celebration, and it had been a month since I've seen anyone. What I wouldn't give, just to hear a voice, or to walk out of this room and check in on them.

I knew that they didn't know I was trapped in here. Having not seen many of them for a long while, I began to grow worried about them. While they may not have known me, in the same way as a refrigerator, I had watched them grow up over 6 long years. They overcame struggles, both from within and without, both in-game and IRL, they patched over grievances, and they shared a bond between them. Some had fallen to these struggles, but the rest always pushed on, and in a sort of way, I couldn't be prouder. I missed them, and I hoped they were doing well out there.

A sigh left my lips…