Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord just like it
I originally started writing this chapter a year ago. But over time I found it more difficult keeping track of my notebooks and even harder translating paper to text. There was also taking on an actual comic. I would like to thank Buujack and Seriyus the Azure for giving me the confidence I needed to just finish this chapter and hopefully this story that may be the final chapter in Dack's adventure.
I_I_I_I
There was a time when Yggdrasil was still just an online game with a multitude of different people trying to level up their Avatar to beat the final boss in the World Tree. A simple goal but with many quests, monsters and guilds to diverge the player from the singular path. Even so, over seventy percent of the players have managed to defeat the final boss and "complete" the game.
Dack was not one of those players.
He stood a few yards away from a giant squirrel standing on its two feet. This squirrel made intimidating guttural sounds and grinded its big teeth ready for a fight. Dack was sure this time he had what it took to defeat Ratatoskr, the mini-boss from hell that kept thrashing him about in its bore teeth.
He took a leap, a knife clenched in both his hands, and he...
I_I_I_I
Very rarely do man and beast form a bond with one another.
A man and a griffin-two different species who hardly have a reason to work together were as close as brothers. The man who rode the griffin was cladded in blue sewn on the creases with red jewels, a double-sided wooden staff with the midsection slitted with silver alloy, yellow eyes with red sclera's and a scowl on his face. The griffin's owl side was a tawny owl with puffy cheeks and a black orifice, purple eyes, fiery red underbelly on his lion side and great white wings seemingly to be extracted from the wings of a swan.
They arrived in the kingdom of Mallavaria. Like all kingdoms it was big, had a multitude of different people treated equally except demi-humans, and had a castle with a bridgehead looking marble jutting from the cloudy white building.
The main difference between it and Re-Estize or E-Rental was the burrowers the size of basilisks hanging around outside the castle walls. It was a good thing adventurer's such as Mao, the wizard riding the griffin, could just fly in there no problem.
He was flying there to go into an antique store looking for a book.
They landed in a den of griffins being fed by long cattle prod and being lassoed around their beaks acting all rowdy, thrashing about to get farmer's off them. It was barbaric in the wizards' eyes. Back when he was Fluder's disciple they could control their steads with relaxing magic. It was the same as using smoke to calm down bees before extracting their honey.
One of the farmers sauntered towards them with a lasso in his hand, but Mao made him halt with his hand raised. Hand still raised he started stroking the griffin, Demonbeak. The griffin purred before he spoke to the wizard telepathically.
'Human's. Think we're all their pets.'
'I know.' He stopped stroking his companion's beak. He gripped his staff with both hands. 'But this is no longer a human world. Maybe this Sorcerer King will untether your kind and kin and show us humans what it's like to be tied in a straw hut only being taken out when their cruel owners expect a show.'
'That happens...I'll let him kill you in the most painless way possible.'
Mao playfully punched Demonbeak's right shoulder bone.
After giving his friend a love tap he ventured to the store. The lighting was half-on and half-off shrouding the left section off from the outside.
He opened the door being greeted by a wizen looking brown skinned with red eyes and a white tricorn goatee. Next to him was a sculpted wooden statue of Momon holding his right sword back and his left sword high above his head. On the other side was a sculpture of Ainz just standing stolidly with his hands clapped on his chest.
"Hope your travels weren't so weary. Can I interest you in a grimoire?"
Mao pried into what this man's deal was. "Not a grimoire; that sounds like a black magic spellbook. What I need is a double-sword learning book."
"Double-sword? Aren't you a wizard?"
He mustered a chuckle before flitting his double-sided wand before the store owner's face. The metal between the wand glinted before he pulled them apart.
They suddenly shown bright yellow light. As the light stopped enveloping his wands, two swords with red scaled pommels swished before the owner's eyes startling him.
"Right. Allow me to take you to the shelf."
I_I_I_I
Turns out the shelf he kept his skill books was the same kind of shelf they keep in doctor office for little kids to read books. The book he picked out cost three gold coins; worth fifteen quests of an iron rank adventurer. Not like adventurer's rank meant anything when their whole world was ruled by a skeleton. It was sad that humans were no longer the superior race, but at least taverns were still open where Mao was reading in a corner his new skill book.
Even though adventurers were nearly extinct, there were those who resembled them in the round tables of this tavern.
He noticed two burly adventurers pulling on the arm of a gaunt girl with a long red ponytail, fishnets crowned around her forehead, and a simple sleeveless green tunic as she tried prying her arm out of the pointy blonde haired one's grasp.
Another one with two long prongs of blonde hair cascading down his ears was drinking a mug of alcohol. Mao saw his chance. With a little second tier ice magic he solidified the beer into a chunk of ice right when he was halfway to spilling it down his piehole. The chunk fell out plummeting right into his groin.
He roared a loud, guttural sound a wolf would make if some kid threw a rock at his jewels. Before the pain could subside, he slammed his fist on the table, his partner flinching in fright. As his partner was distracted by the uproar, the gaunt girl slipped her hand out of his grasp and ran as fast as she could away from them.
Mao tried not to look too conspicuous; he picked up an empty mug of ale the bar wench was too busy to get too and chugged it down sloshing up those non-existent liquids. Fortunately for him, the double cropped burly man blamed his partner for the solidified cylinder of ale falling on his groin.
While Mao was keeping us his ruse of binge drinking, he noticed a blonde woman wearing micro brown skirt, black doll shoes, a spider tattoo on her midriff, and purple lipstick. She was just sitting by the counter taking her time with her ale when a blonde man with sky blue armor and gray blue eyes approached her.
"What is it this time, Migkael?" She groaned. "Want a repeat of last time? Want to drag me away because a Death Knight might be coming after you and that somehow puts me in danger?"
"I'm here because I wanted to apologize for everything I put you through. I want to dissipate these feelings of anger, guild and grief and pay you for that remnant like I should have. You were right-you found it and deserve a reward for it."
The girl looked like she didn't even want to look him in the eye, but now she was turning her head and looking a little flushed. If Mao was to guess his generosity not to mention him being a little handsome was making her heart race. That excitement changed to her furrowing her eyebrows as she looked at him sternly.
"Show me the bag and maybe then I'll believe you."
Mao didn't need to hear anymore from those two. They were just some fleeting interests, a little too pessimistic for his taste, so now he looked at a girl with brown hair with a strange snake tongue having a debate with a paladin.
"You have such temerity to be sitting in a bar with former adventurers instead of ensconcing yourself in a forest surrounded by trustworthy bandit allies. What happened to your big man with the muscular chest?"
She let her head fall to her drink before giving him a big mischievous smile.
"After that bull severed him of a few fingers he used it as penitence to be a priest. I might ask what you're doing here-aren't paladins not supposed to drink?"
He reached into his chest plate pulling out a red envelope.
"I was invited to come here. I usually wouldn't listen to the scrawls of a stranger, but then he mentioned my leaders' church and the recent defeat of Dark Typhoon."
This tavern was starting to feel cavernous to Mao. He saw a prostitute talking to an adventurer and a bandit talking to a paladin, he wanted to skedaddle before an elf and a demi-human started discussing prejudice in their life and how evolution should've made it nonexistent by now.
He put his hand on the door knob...something fast was hurled and twirled towards him slamming right into the door's frame. Turns out it was a five jagged black knife with a few speckles of gold meshed in its embroidery. Following this great shock was a voice shouted as smooth as a slave trader.
"Ladies and gentlemen, can I ask you to please return to your seats and pay attention to what I'm about to say. Thank you-thank you-and please enjoy some nuts and beer refilled by your fabulous waitress!"
This waitress, as he put it, was a child; a little girl no older than eight. He half-expected to see a vampire, a mummy or even a warrior lady with scars all over her body but instead of those he saw a brown-haired little girl wearing a yellow dress with white laces crossed all around the dress in a pattern. She was sitting on a monster: an orange orthros with red eyes and a lolling pink tongue on its right head. She also carried a tray stacked with dozens of empty alcohol glasses.
Mao found this cute, but also felt sinister motives were involved with whoever brought them here and wouldn't let them leave.
Once the girl intently interacted with everyone in the cavern taking away mugs or refilling them with more alcohol, her orthros stead leaped heavenward towards the ceiling disappearing through a portal.
After they left, the lights concentrated on a singular spot in the tavern with a man leaning forward with his hands outstretched.
"Welcome all to the first step in a long road of your life. The last adventure you'll ever undertake or another weird quest to live up to your roles as adventurers.
"My name is Dack, King of Nothing. That title may not mean anything to you, or my name for that matter. All that matters is I know Ainz Ooal Gown personally and I'm willing to help you before he completely rules you all."
He expected them to be a little excited hear the name "Ainz" and his offer for "help"...all he got was a roar of laughter so loud it reverberated throughout the tavern. At first he kept quiet at this ridicule mostly because he expected that would be their first reaction; now he was laughing with immense slyness.
"I knew talking would be a waste of time. So, I guess I'll show you."
In a puff of smoke he turned from a human to a nine-foot-tall werewolf with brown fur with gleaming yellow claws. Everyone in the guild flinched seeing this beast now in the tavern.
Mao still looked at his book instead of looking at the beast.
Transforming into a beast didn't interest him. Him using one paw to send a table skyrocketing into the ceiling didn't impress him. Not even him looming over him or breathing down at him with fetid breath impressed him.
"I was neither invited nor am I against you. If you could just talk to the paladin over there and leave me in piece, I promise to leave you alone."
Dack replied swiping his right claw at Mao. A gleam of emerald light emanated from Mao's staff. It expanded and morphed, a few sounds of astonishment resounding through the tavern. In the next instance his double-sided staff was now a gold trimmed shield with a platinum plating.
Dack's claws hit the shield reflecting off. If he wasn't a feral beast it might have hurt.
3h agoHe stared for more than a fleeting moment at his claw after his shield deflected his blow. He was thinking this was a moment he gained some clarity about attacked people in a tavern for no reason.
He bellowed a strong howl, muscular men with wolftail haircuts, scars on their cheeks and gold eyes stood up. At first they stood like choir boys in a church-unmoving and looking yards ahead of what was really there. In an instance, however, they made suppressed noises before guttural animal sounds came out. To everyone's surprise, and a raised eyebrows from Mao, they started to grow fangs and fur!
Mao was impressed; he thought the guy was just a third-rate adventurer being a blowhard; found out he was a demon in disguise much like the kobalds disguised as humans. He mistook them for werewolves at first. It was the axe's they were wielding that told him what they really were.
Three kobalds leaped towards him raising their axes up high before cleaving them down with great force.
Mao quickly stood up and twirled his double-sided staff around. a spherical barrier encased him keeping him safe as the sharp blade came crashing down.
An onslaught of three axes repeatedly banged against his barrier. It took a lot of concentration to keep the barrier up-if it wasn't for a certain friend who only required him to take a deep breath and stick two fingers in his mouth, he would have at least one axe embedded in his shoulder or head.
He whistled as loud as he could. No one outside the barrier could hear this sound-it was resounding back to him flowing through his thymic membrane. When he heard things a big feathered friend heard things with him.
The walls were ruptured as two big talons hugged a dissolving barrier.
By the time the barrier completely dissolved, Maso and Demonbeak were high in the sky, the beating of his wings flapping like butterfly wings if the butterflies were being chased by foxes.
Although kobolds weren't known for levitation or long ranged attacks, they actually managed to chase him enveloped by blue aura.
"Don't worry about them," Mao assured Demonbeak. "I thought well ahead in this den of complicity."
He raised his double-sided wand over his head. The sky turned dark than the nostril spew of a death dragon.
One kobald started twitching its ears seeing all these dark clouds before the rest felt the same thing. From those clouds blue lightning rained down about to punish them for trying to devour him.
The level of the kobalds were the same as a Death Knight. Compared to a Pleiades maid or a Floor Guardian a Death Knight was like a peanut they could crush; for even a silver adventurer a Death Knight could be an overwhelming foe. This adventurer was about to disintegrate three of their rivals with a single spell.
The god of canid's smiled upon them; a knife soared towards the lightning absorbing it before it made contact.
Demonbeak never stopped flying back and keeping Mao safe in his talons so sharp they could put holes in his torso, a stalwart griffin like his kin. What he did, however, wasn't enough to escape the madmen Dack.
He moved faster than the lightning could crackle down the sky. The kobalds lolled out their tongues and wagged their tails as a fleeting glimpse of nails the size of lion tendons gave their fur a little scratch. In no time he moved/flied upclose to Mao looking him directly in his eyes.
He nearly throttled the white robe mage coming at him with great haste, the kind of action a guard would make if he was chasing a thief.
Not this guy.
Not one droplet of sweat was trickling down his face. On his face was a broad, deceitful smile only a sadistic gaoler would have.
"Pretty good. Originally my target was only four people. I tried emulating what Ainz Ooal Gown would do when he wanted to earn someone's trust but also flex his power." Small ebony flecks nearly resembling dirt fluttered around his right hand. Where they came from the mage didn't know. These flecks made up a knife and they were congealing together, morphing and expanding like pottery clay, becoming a black knife with a red jewel embedded in the pommel. "Fly, maneuver, use your magic, do anything. We are high above the city so if you do have a moral side it should be sheathed knowing no one but you and I can get hurt."