Time Capsule

by Skryb

The previous reincarnate in line must've really hated her, because she's been forced to go to an dystopian world and play a game for a decade. Fortunately though, the game and the people in it aren't that bad.

13. Drako Urbo

Ancient One was arbitrarily picked as the 'leader' of the Argland Council State expedition team. Mostly because he was the most senior member of Ainz Ooal Gown in the group.

Every member of their group swapped one of their usual rings with a Ring of Human Deception, a level 72 trash ring that applied [Human Disguise] to them, a 6th tier spell.

Normally, they wouldn't even consider using a disguise on that low of a tier, but the Ring of Human Deception was the only illusion ring that they had in bulk since it had dropped very commonly from the trash mobs of a raid they used to run for vanity gear for Liberta, and they got extremely unlucky with the drop rates so they had to run the raid like 10 times. And they didn't bother selling the rings because it was too much of a hassle for too little gold.

Also, Punitto said that if they were caught, the enemy would think that they only had 6th tier disguises, which would work in their favor when they pulled out the good stuff from the treasury.

Ancient One had no clue how much of that was true and how much of that was paranoia fueled copium, but hey, it sounded smart, so they went with it.

The Argland group was the first to go as the guild decided to use the Gate of Atlas to transport them to their location.

Punitto also noted that apparently that this world only has 1 major continent, the one that they're on, and a bunch of smaller islands. But that wasn't relevant to their situation so they just mentally noted their position in the north west of the continent and Punitto told Shatallia, the naga NPC that apparently has experience with making maps, that she would have to make a few maps of the new world later, and she can make more personal maps at a later date.

Anyhow, that led to the Argland group standing in front of a massive wall that probably signaled the border between the Holy Kingdom and the Argland Council State.

Strangely enough, it wasn't manned by angels, but rather some demi-humans that were probably from Argland's side.

Ancient One flexed his neck as he led the group, "Alright guys, you know the plan, but any questions before we go?"

Ancient One was in his demi-human form, which gave an absurd -40% penalty to all of his stats. And because of the weird transfer thing, he felt somewhat uncomfortable not being in his full dragon form. Not debilitatingly uncomfortable, but more like being in a cramped space for an extended period of time uncomfortable.

"Do you think that Seraphim has a few divination users to just, I don't know, check this area every once in a while?" Tabula asked while he fiddled with his Ring of Human Deception, "Also, are we sure humans are allowed in there?"

The cover story that they were working with was that they're independent human merchants that want to sell their stuff in the Argland Council State because business isn't doing so well in the Re-Estisize district.

They have absolutely 0 clue on how the economy is doing in Re-Estisize, but that's the story they're rolling with.

Nazarick didn't have any horses or any other generic animal that would've made sense as something that would carry stuff. Fortunately, Mekongawa was in their team, and he never ended up killing himself back to level 5 in order to optimize the skills and spells that he took, so he still had the normally worthless 2nd tier spell, [Spawn Equine], which was perfect for what they needed.

"If our anti-divination spells haven't activated, it's probably safe enough," said Ancient One.

"I'm sure that they wouldn't dare deny you entry, my lords," Solution assured, walking alongside Herohero who wasn't too happy to be here.

Herohero hadn't actually wanted to be here, instead he wanted to laze around with Solution all day, but Suratan insisted he get his lazy bum outside, so Herohero caved in. But Herohero did manage to bring Solution along, so he wasn't too upset.

"Don't call us your lords, stick to the fake names," Mekongawa reminded.

The 6 players collectively agreed that they were never going to be able to memorize their names, so they were just going to not call them by each other's names and instead just vaguely refer to each other as 'my friend' and such.

Eventually, they made it to the massive gate, and Ancient One shouted out, "Hello?! Can you guys open the gate?!"

Some sort of lizard man looked over the wall, saw their faces, and shouted back, "What do you want, humans?!"

Ah, good, the illusions work.

"We wanna sell our stuff!" Ancient One shouted, pointing back to the horses who were strapped with a few bags filled with a bunch of junk loot.

The lizardman blinked, "What?!"

"We wanna sell our stuff!" Ancient One repeated, pointing again to the bags held by the horses.

The lizardman blankly stared at him as he then left the scene to go somewhere else.

Variable Talisman worriedly asked, "Damn, do you think he knows that we only have junk loot?"

"Nah, no way. I bet he's just getting a superior or something," Mekongawa assured, "Besides, merchants aren't that surprising, are they?"

Suratan hummed and theorized, "It could still be uncommon. Maybe humans don't like the demi-humans."

Suddenly, a much older looking elf male poked his head out, Did a double take upon seeing them, and then he shouted, "What are you selling?! Did you bring food?!"

Ancient One looked back to the horses and consequently Leviathan & Tokino who were looking through the bags to see if they had anything. After a while, Tokino brought forward a bag and opened it, revealing a bunch of pastries, baked goods, vegetables, meats, and a whole bunch of other random foodstuffs.

Why the hell they were carrying that, who the hell knows, but Ancient One was very glad that they were.

The old elf widened his eyes as he shouted down, "We'll open the gate!"

Variable Talisman gave them a thumbs up, "Good job on bringing that, you two."

Leviathan & Tokino bowed, but did not say anything. Likely because Tokino was liable to blow up at any moment because Vagisilious decided it was a good idea to make Tokino hate her humanoid form, which she is in right now.

If there were a vote, Vagisilious would no doubt be voted in as the most irritating and the greatest member of Ainz Ooal Gown. With so much foresight and still absolutely screwing them in the present for 'the good vibes of the old days.' She wouldn't be her without that character trait, but it was still a bit bothersome whenever something like that came up.

Similarly to how Luci*Fer's pranks were still bothersome on the 9th floor...

Eventually, they opened the gate and the group took that as an invitation to let themselves in.

The elf from earlier and the lizardman came up to them and the elf introduced them, "Ah, hello. My name is Guava Ganor, and this gentleman here is Shasuryu Shasha. We're pleased to meet you, travelers."

Ancient One nodded, "Hello, my name is Garfield, and these are my fellow associates…"

Punitto told them to stick to something vague and wont make them immediately suspicious. So Ancient One decided to be Garfield, because Ankoro, a few months ago, decided to message him at 2:30 in the morning a 'funny' Garfield comic strip.

And he's still upset about that. It wasn't even that funny. She meant to send it to Mekongawa, even.

Ancient One vaguely gestured to them to start introducing themselves, and as they finished up their introductions, Ancient One started to speak again, "Anyways, business has been a bit tough in the Holy Kingdom, so we're hoping that the neighboring countries can hopefully be a bit more profitable."

Guava nodded, "I see. But if I may ask, are there any more merchants coming? Or perhaps could you send some more merchants over this way? Ever since the Holy Kingdom started dumping demihumans and heteromorphs on us, we've been having a tough time feeding everyone. I know you humans don't generally like us, but hopefully if you show that we have the money…"

Wait, the Holy Kingdom drops people on them?

Tabula fortunately decided to ask the question, "The Holy Kingdom drops people on you guys?"

Guava looked a bit confused, "What? Are you saying you don't know?"

Tabula nodded, "I'm afraid foreign news doesn't get to us very often…"

Shasuryu bitterly growled, "Ugh, I hate those damned angels," Then Shasuryu decided to elaborate when seeing their confused faces, "A few years ago, the angels came to my home village and told us that we had the choice of either dying, or getting off our land that we've been on for centuries. Knowing we didn't have a fighting chance, we took our chances and ended up here."

"Ethnic cleansing…?" Liberta quietly muttered, then he dared to speak up, "Mr. Shasuryu, how did they get you all here?"

Shasuryu scratched his head, "I don't know, kid. They somehow used some sort of big spell to put us all to sleep. Next thing we know, we woke up on this side of the wall."

Guava nodded, "Yeah, the main thing that the 11 of us that are here is to mostly direct the unfortunate people that are teleported here to the nearby capital city of Argland, Drako Urbo."

Huh, a mass sleep spell, then teleportation? Why are they trying to hide what is clearly just a Gate spell?

Anyhow, it seems as if they now have somewhere to go to.

Ancient One slightly bowed, "Thank you for the help and information. If you have the money, we have a few things that you can probably buy."

Shasuryu eagerly nodded, "I'll get the boys together and pool together all of the money we've got! We're running low on rations, so we'll take all of the food you can give us!"

Well, food seems to be a prized commodity in this nation, definitely going to take notes on that.

But the forced deportation of demi-humans and heteromorphs? Including elves if Guava was also a victim of it? What the hell are Seraphim doing?

---

An elf, lizardman, bafolk, birdman, quagoa, human, ogre, centaur, magelos, minotaur, and durri all came together in their collective living quarters to civilly discuss about the merchants that had just come from the Holy Kingdom.

10 years ago, none of these people would've even remotely liked each other. Most of them would've likely killed each other on sight.

However, because of the actions of the universally disliked false idols, they could gather around and discuss things without coming to arms. Nobody wanted to try to boast about strength when they've all seen what true strength really was.

There were only 2 places in the world that could possibly foster an environment like this one. But somehow, it feels as though they were the unlucky ones. Rumor has it that the Dragon Kingdom, who aren't boxed in by the Holy Kingdom, fares much better than the Argland Council State, not to mention the Dragon Kingdom has been cross-species for the better part of a 100 years now.

However, this is the best they can do. And so they discussed the merchants.

Kren, the small durri, growled from the sidelines, "I don't trust those humans! I say we just force them to get out now!"

Kren was a big criminal back in the day, dedicating his life to the small sect of the Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle. He stole, killed, and tore through communities to give to his deities. In the end, though, he was smart enough to recognize that Nazarick wasn't a real thing in the face of the power of the Holy Kingdom's angels. And so he was thrown here to make a new life for himself.

Shasuryu shook his head, "No! We can't just afford to let this opportunity go! We need the food!"

Shasuryu was once the chieftain of his clan in his old homeland. He had a brother, once. But he hasn't seen him since the transfer, so he assumed that his brother was likely dead at this point. But somehow, he doesn't think that his brother would just say no to the angels.

"I agree with Kren. No one from the Holy Kingdom can be trusted," said Golus, the centaur with tattoos covering his upper body, a sign of high ranking in his old home.

Golus once used to be the strongest warrior in his clan. Yet he willingly gave up power to his brother because he felt that his brother was the wisest in the clan. No matter how the centaurs tried to rebel against his brother, Golus was always there to quell the rebellion. But ever since the angels came, they were separated, and Golus doesn't know where his brother has gone.

"I'm from the Holy Kingdom," John, the human of the group, joked as he swiftly moved on, "Anyways, yeah, are you sure they're not trying to poison us or anything?"

John used to be an adventurer back in his prime. But then he eventually looked back at his life and realized that a life of killing wasn't a life for him. And so he left the Holy Kingdom and made his way to the Argland Council State. That was 11 years ago, but John doesn't regret leaving, because he's seen the result of the angel's cruelty.

Guava shook his head, "No, I saw the food. And it's only in one bag. They're trying to sell things because apparently, business hasn't been going well in the Holy Kingdom."

Guava used to be a warrior fighting against the Slane Theocracy 9 years ago. But then the angels came and decimated their country and people, and he was one of the lucky few to be outside of the villages to be spared and sent to a neighboring country.

Saveas, the tall bafolk, hummed as he threw his horns into the ring, "Well, I say that we take the risk. It's not like we could've used our money here anyways."

Saveas was not a particularly well respected name back in his home tribe. He was strong, but not that strong. He was smart, but not that smart. He looked good, but not that good. But when he was coming back from a hunt alone, he saw the ruins of his tribe. And so when the angel asked if he would die, or submit, he willingly chose to submit.

"What are their names?" The blue ogre, Gart, asked, "Do they sound Holy Kingdom?"

Gart used to be an exile in the Forest of Tob, casted out of his clan for being too weak in comparison to all of the rest. But he tried again and again to be accepted into his old tribe, and again and again he was rejected. But eventually, he came home and found nothing but an angel asking for his submission.

Shasuryu shook his head, "Nah, they didn't sound Holy Kingdom, but honestly I wouldn't be able to tell you."

Arare, the birdman, his wingspan shortened by a fight from many years ago, scratched his chin, "Honestly, what do we have to lose? We're all the suicide squad anyways."

Arare is an native of the Argland Council State. He was raised to be one of the state's finest warriors, but his peak came too soon, and he was placed on guard duty forever.

The ugly magelos, Tarmanei, pointed out, "You're the designated runner, though."

Tarmanei was a relatively young magelos, being only 38 years old in comparison to the 200 year old height he could live up to. However, Tarmanei was a relatively weak magelos, his strongest spell being only of the 3rd tier despite many of his peers being able to cast 4th tier spells at a minimum. But in exchange, when the angels came, he alone had the humility to ask for forgiveness.

"Shut up, Tarmanei," Arare half-heartedly retaliated, "If it's the angels, I would die here anyways."

The red quagoa, Yozu, cleared his throat, "Alright guys, what are we doing about the merchants? Are we actually going to buy anything from them or not?"

Yozu used to be the strongest, once. Then an upstart stole away his position and for a brief time, it seemed as though the quagoa would be the strongest creatures on that planet. It took only a few months until the angels arrived and slaughtered the quagoa for the dwarves, and the remaining asked for forgiveness.

John raised his hand, "Why not buy some of them, eat their food, and if it turns out to be poison, we didn't stand a chance anyways and we can hope their food is delicious?"

"Is your plan seriously to die?" Guava asked.

John nodded, "Yeah, basically."

"This is stupid, do you guys know that?" Questioned Arare.

Yozu shrugged, "We're the canaries anyhow. We might as well do our part and check if these merchants are real or not."

Kren sighed, "Fine! Fine! We can buy their dumb food! I bet it won't taste good anyways!"

"Then let's pool together all of our money and see what we have," Saveas said as he pulled out his meager savings.

"I lost all my money in a bet with Shasuryu, are we sharing?" Tarmenei spoke up to ask.

Shasuryu nodded, "Of course, we wouldn't leave you out of this."

And so, they pooled together their money and headed out to meet the band of merchants.

---

They ended up chatting with the guards, who were all of different, interesting species that some of them didn't even exist in Yggdrasil, for almost an hour as the guards pooled together all of their money and tried to haggle with the group to try and get the best deal possible.

That was also when Vagisilious decided to check in with the group, and when she realized what was happening, Vagisilious told them to give them all a small free sample.

Which is how the guards went from giving them most of their money to all of their money because the sample was just that good.

When Suratan asked how the hell did Vagisilious know that would happen, she promptly responded "Propaganda" and left without elaborating.

Anyhow, after giving up about a third of their food stores, they said their goodbyes and started to trek towards Drako Urbo.

As they were doing so, Herohero started to count the coins they got in his slimy tentacles.

The guards only had 9 silver and 18 copper coins to exchange with, so that's what they went off of. The coins are all worth about 20 of the coin below them.

"Hm, they put a dragon on all of their coins, along with their emblem. That's sort of cool, right?" Herohero pointed out as he showed off one of the silver coins.

Variable Talisman nodded, "That is cool, but… Damn, Seraphim are doing these guys dirty."

Yeah. Basically half of the group had a story about how Seraphim came in to relocate them from their homes. It was pretty sad to hear.

"Yeah, these guys deserve better," said Mekongawa, "If we get a chance to talk with Seraphim, we're definitely getting an answer out of those guys about this."

Tabula agreed, "Definitely. By the way, did the control center hear that conversation?"

Liberta eagerly nodded, "Myself in the prime of my life sent the information, my lord!"

Ancient One silently noted that he definitely liked Liberta youth the best out of all of the Libertas. He's definitely just a kid.

"Good job, Liberta," Ancient One complimented, causing Liberta to grin.

"If I may, my lords?" Leviathan spoke up, and Ancient One gestured for him to continue speaking, "At this rate, it may take quite a while to reach Drako Urbo at this rate. Perhaps we should move a bit faster?"

"I actually kind of enjoy the nature walk," Tabula said, "I don't want to miss out on everything."

Mekongawa nodded, "It's not like we're in a hurry or anything. Besides, I'm sure our control center is busy dealing with other stuff right now."

Leviathan dutifully bowed and rehearsed, "Of course, my lords."

And so for two whole hours, they were simply walking along the trail at a steady pace, taking in all of the sights of the grasslands.

Though, the closer they got to the city, the more they noticed that there were more and more tilled lands that were left unattended to.

"Hey, why do you think that there's a bunch of land that looks like it could be farmed to help their whole starvation thing, but they aren't actually being farmed?" Tabula asked, then turning to Tokino, "Tokino, you're in charge of the farms, right? Do you know what's the problem?"

Tokino blinked at being called for, then she started to growl at Tabula before Leviathan swiftly puts an end to it by hugging her, which makes her more amenable to actually answer, "...It might be because the quality of the soil isn't up to par for the crops to grow healthy and yield anything."

Ancient One didn't know anything about farming, so he has no idea why putting seeds into the ground won't automatically grow anything, so he'll just take that answer at face value.

Tabula was probably in the same boat as him as he hummed, "That makes sense."

'That didn't make sense at all.' Tabula thought as he looked towards the fields.

Tokino looked out towards the fields before turning to the players, "Ah, if I may take a closer look, perhaps I may get a more accurate answer…?"

Ancient One, "No, it's fine. We know everything we need to."

Which is to say, nothing. They'll just accept the fact that crops aren't being grown because they can't.

Anyhow, after another hour of walking, they finally saw the city walls.

For the past 30 minutes, Liberta had looked slightly worried, but otherwise didn't say anything, so nobody took notice of it.

Suratan very excitedly pointed to the capital city of the Argland City State, "Ooh! Guys! Which tall building do you think is the one where all of the dragons live?"

There were 4 buildings that towered over the rest of the houses in the city.

One was a massive marble building that held the presumable flag of the Argland Council State. The architecture on the building was extremely fancy and detailed as massive pillars held up the circular roof of the building.

The second was some sort of massive stone cathedral, covered in black and red tones.

The third was some sort of clocktower, inscribed with words they couldn't read.

And the fourth was yet another massive stone building that, while smaller than the marble building, still looked incredibly detailed and supported yet another circular roof, flanked by two other buildings attached to the center. This one also had a flag on it.

Variable Talisman hummed, "Well, it's gotta be the bigger one, right?"

Tabula disagreed, "No, I think it's the smaller one because of the two buildings attached to it. It sort of looks similar to what our government building looked like, right?"

"Then what would the bigger one be used for?" Mekongawa asked, "For the dragons? Wait, actually that makes sense."

Ancient One shrugged, "We won't know until we check. Actually, speaking of checking, let me message Vaggy really quickly."

Ancient One brings two fingers to his temple to message Vagisilious, "Hey, Vaggy, you there?"

There was a slight pause before Vagisilious answered, "Bad timing, Ancient. There's something not so great happening right now with Orphea's group and I need to focus on that."

Huh? How the heck did they get into trouble so quickly? Actually, maybe he doesn't want to know that.

"Do we need to be called in to help them?" Ancient One worriedly asked.

"Not right now, just, uh, whatever you need from me, you can save it for later or ask Nubo. I need to focus on them," Vagisilious said as she cut off the message.

Okay, that was extremely worrying.

"Okay, I just heard from Vaggy that apparently Orphea's group that apparently something went wrong there," Ancient One announced, much to the worry of his peers, then he turned to Liberta, "Hey, Liberta, do you know what's happening with the Liberta in Orphea's group?"

Liberta knocked himself out of his thoughts as he looked up to the players, "Ah, I think they fell into a guild base and got split up because of a teleportation trap? And right now my Midnight self is trying to help Lord Temperance negotiate with that guild base's creations…"

What.

"Not Seraphim's guild base though, right?" Tabula concerningly asked.

Seraphim's guild base, Kami no Toshokan, or just Toshokan for short, which was really just the word library, was #2 on the player's vote for 'most impenetrable guild base' and the only reason why it was number 2 was because Nazarick was actually able to live up to the hype and 5000 people couldn't get past the defenses while Toshokan never had that type of challenge posed to it.

Despite being called the Library of God, Kami no Toshokan was a series of floating islands all holding massive castles on top of each island. Maybe there were libraries inside every one, nobody had ever leaked the full insides of the castles, only showing a few rooms here and there, but otherwise the name didn't really correlate to the experience.

What made the guild base hard to penetrate, however, was the world item that Seraphim got for beating the level 81 guild base dungeon on the first try in the level 72 patch.

Most guild bases of those types dropped a world item that's specifically made to make the base harder to attack through as well as to make the guild leader's life easier. For example, Nazarick's Throne of Kings denies invaders the ability to teleport into Nazarick via coordinates such as Gate or Greater Teleportation, which forces invaders to walk through Nazarick every time a new group enters, which subjects them to the reset traps of Nazarick, and additionally, the Throne of Kings massively buffs the user sitting on the throne. Though, teleportation in general still works such as the super tier spell that let in Seraphim and Triumvirate back in the day, because the spell connected 2 players and brought every living entity in a 50 meter radius to whoever casted the spell's location. Not to mention the 5th tier spell, Teleportation, which simply allowed the player to teleport within eye distance with some limitations. A minor crack in the world item's ability, which was among the weaker of its peers.

Seraphim's world item, Praise The Lord, simply made flying inaccessible, forcing invaders to go through the entire guild base in a similar style to Nazarick.

Oh, and if you fell off the islands, you died, because Praise The Lord killed anyone who was 5 feet above the ground in order to enforce its rule.

Praise The Lord also made the numerous traps that deliberately took the floor away from the invaders comically deadly when all it really was was a 10 foot drop. The world item could be averted by using spells such as Earth Walk which would simply just make ground where you stood, and thus never be , but the guild base NPCs still had the ability to fly and kill you without you being even able to fight back because warriors didn't even get the opportunity to even approach the NPCs or players, who were all designed or knew to target the ranged players so they couldn't fight back. A world item could negate the effect of Praise The Lord for the user, but with the rest of the raid party unable to take part in flight, it wasn't really a risk worth taking, and so it wasn't ever tried. Though Nazarick was hailed as the landmark impossible to destroy guild base, Kami no Toshokan was a truly impenetrable guild base in every sense of the word.

Quite frankly, if that entire group were in Kami no Toshokan, they would probably die the moment they stepped foot, if they were even allowed to take a step. The more likely option in such a scenario was that the teleportation just dropped them 20 feet into the air and let Praise The Lord kill them. Maybe Blue Planet or Temperance had some sort of earth creation or air hardening spell and instantly knew to use them, but it's an unlikely scenario that they reacted faster than Praise The Lord's 3 second windup while they would be debilitated from the confusion of the teleportation.

So, it couldn't be Kami no Toshokan, that much was certain, because Temperance was alive long enough to negotiate.

Liberta nodded and tapped into the shared memory that all of the Libertas had, "Uh, I think I heard Lord Temperance refer it to as… Bad Bad Bathhouse?"

That definitely sounds very concerning, in Ancient One's humble opinion. But also infinitely better than Kami no Toshokan.

"Should we… Try and go help them?" Mekongawa slowly asked, trying to gauge how the hell they were supposed to proceed from here.

Ancient One shook his head, "Vaggy said that we didn't have to. We'll trust them to not die."

If Ancient One recalled from his memory, Bad Bad Bathhouse's guild base was only 1200 levels and very few bought levels. Though, that's all based on his very faint memory.

Basically, as long as the function of NPCs getting stronger the more intruders there were didn't kick into action, they should be fine.

Should.

"How the heck are we supposed to enjoy this if I know that they're probably in trouble?" Herohero asked as he gloomily looked back towards Drako Urbo.

Suratan patted Herohero's shoulder, "Trust in our friends. They'll live, and we'll do our best here and figure out what's going on with the Holy Kingdom from an outside perspective."

"And the dragons," Variable Talisman pointed out.

Suratan nodded and amended his statement, "And the dragons."

And so they set off towards the gates of Drako Urbo, determined to do their part.

---

After virtually the same interaction happened at the gates of Drako Urbo as it did at gates of the Argland Council State, they were allowed inside of the city.

The captain of the guards, a big green orc named Ghulmongar, practically ass-kissed them the entire time they were talking, "Hello, good merchants of the Holy Kingdom! I humbly thank you for choosing to do business with the Argland Council State! I'm currently getting my subordinates to prepare the most luxurious of hotels for you to stay at while you decide on what you're willing to sell."

Ancient One didn't really enjoy the ass-kissing, so he told Ghulmongar straight up, "You don't need to act like that, we're not a big fan of it. You probably don't like doing that either, right?"

Ghulmongar's face dropped as he let go of the act, "Oh, thank you. Yeah, the moment I realized that you were actually serious about wanting to sell your things here I knew that we needed to kiss your ass to leave a good impression so more merchants are attracted here."

Ancient One scratched his chin, "Is it really that bad?"

Ghulmongar nodded, "Yeah, it is. We've been rationing our food for the past 8 years, and we're still going to bed hungry. Quite honestly, our policy of accepting everyone that the Holy Kingdom throws at us is to blame. But it's also because there haven't been any merchants that come to sell anything for the past 7 years. Speaking of which, I hope you could tell us why that is?"

Ancient One hummed, trying to think of an answer that sounded good enough because they didn't know the actual reason.

Which is when Liberta decided to quietly tap him on the back, gesturing that they needed to speak for a moment.

"Excuse me," Ancient One said to Ghulmongar as he quickly stepped to the side with Liberta and leaned down so Liberta could whisper to him.

"My penultimate self found that there's a lot of liars in Re-Estisize that tells people that Argland kills people," Liberta quietly said.

While perhaps the older Libertas would've just assumed the Supreme Beings knew anything that they would've known, the youngest Liberta was still running on the assumption that if he didn't see anyone tell them or didn't know that they were told, they couldn't know.

The other Libertas thought this was a foolish notion to hold, but such foolish notions were what he was supposed to have.

Ancient One smiled, "Thank you, Liberta."

Liberta happily nodded, and so Ancient One stood back straight and walked back to Ghulmongar, "I'm sorry for the interruption. Anyhow, the reason why there haven't been any merchants in a while is that there's a rumor going around that you've been killing all of your humans because you're all demi-humans or monsters."

Ghulmongar looked surprised, "What?! Why would we do that?! Who's spreading that sort of junk?!"

Ancient One shrugged, "Beats me, but nobody wanted to find out if that was true or not, so nobody except us has taken the risk."

Ghulmongar sighed, putting his hand on his forehead, "Ugh, well, at least that's better than there being some sort of trade sanction that we didn't know about. You better get that rumor dissolved when you get back, do you hear me?"

Ancient One nodded, "Of course."

At that moment, a goblin came to them, "Sir Ghulmongar! We've managed to get some rooms at Poisson for these merchants!"

Ghulmongar clapped as he complimented the goblin, "Well done, Jirk! Garfield, why don't I take you to Poisson and I can introduce you to some people that I know that might be interested in your wares?"

Ancient One smiled, "That would be lovely."

---

"Lady Vagisilious, we have made it to the capital city of Argland," Leviathan messaged his creator, just to ensure that she knew.

While Leviathan has the utmost respect for his savior, he knows that with whatever situation is occurring with the other group, her attention may be a bit too narrowed.

He could feel Lady Vagisilious's sight hone in on them as she messaged back, "Hm? Oh, that's good. Where are the others?"

Leviathan's eyes gazed outside of the window of the room he was in with Tokino, "They are currently discussing with the merchants on the price of our goods, I believe. Liberta, Tokino and I were given the task of getting our temporary living quarters all tidied up."

"Ah," Vagisilious hummed as he could feel her gaze expanding across the city, "I thought that Punitto said not to… Ah, whatever. As long as you're in the city, I can keep track of you. Actually, in fact, let me check in with Punitto and I can get that 'don't split up' rule axed while you're in the city, so you can go on a date with Tokino. Consider it like a honeymoon or something!"

Leviathan's mouth curved up, satisfied with her words, "Thank you, my lady."

Vagisilious cut off the message.

Just a minute later, Punitto sent out a group message to everyone, "If you guys are in a city, you have permission to split up just a bit. But don't exit the city alone, and you should all probably walk in pairs or trios. You're probably all aware of what's happening with the wilderness group because of Liberta. Don't be stupid like they are."

Leviathan stood up as he closed the curtains and turned to Tokino, who was in the middle of making their bed, "Tokino, my dear, we've been granted permission to go on a little trip around this city."

Tokino turned to Leviathan and tilted her head, "Oh, really? But what will we do about Liberta?"

Leviathan shrugged, "He will be fine. The Supreme Beings will return to this lodging to likely turn it into their base of operations while in the city anyhow. And anyhow, the equines count as a pair for him anyhow."

Tokino smiled, before it rapidly fell, "I don't want to go out in my humanoid form though…"

Leviathan walked towards Tokino and lightly grasped her hands and gave her a little kiss on the cheeks, "It'll be fine, my dear. I'll be with you."

Tokino giggled as she burrowed her head into Leviathan's chest, "Okay, Levi…"

And so they set out into Drako Urbo, intending to enjoy their time alone.

---

Herohero found that he enjoyed haggling a bit more than he should as he was irritatedly accusing the guy in front of him, "You're trying to cut me the four gold I deserve!"

"The quality of these little trinkets are not worth seven gold! They're worth only three!" Warek, the weird bear man merchant argued.

Little trinkets! How could he call level 42 junk trinkets not worth seven gold?!

He remembers the old days where he had to use these little junk trinkets to get through a really difficult quest. The way he used the voodoo doll to curse that angel enemy and the ring that held a few charges of the 6th tier spell, [Strong Cleave], was absolutely vital to defeating that mini-boss! They're not valued at three gold!

Solution glared at Warek, promising death with her eyes, "Insolent beast-"

And now his girlfriend was getting racist, "Solution," He warned.

Solution backed off immediately, "I'm sorry my lo- Kamaze."

Kamaze? Oh, right, the fake name he came up on the spot with absolutely no backstory whatsoever.

Warek crossed his arms, "Alright, alright. Why not meet in the middle and go for five gold?"

Herohero disagreed, "No. Seven."

"Five and ten silver."

"Seven."

"That's not how haggling works."

"Seven or I'll find someone else to give me seven."

Warek sighed, seeing reason, "Fine, fine, I'll give you seven."

If Herohero had a mouth, he would've smirked.

They exchanged the items and the voodoo doll and the small rings became property of Warek, and Herohero was 7 gold richer.

'Hah! Idiot! Those trash items absolutely weren't worth seven gold!'

---

Warek smirked as soon as his back was turned.

'Hah! Idiot! These powerful items absolutely weren't worth seven gold!'

Warek had a special talent that allowed him to gauge the power of any given item.

And these trinkets were brimming with power!

He couldn't sense anything from the clothing of Kamaze and Problema, so he thought that their clothing was just for show.

And clearly, they must be new to things because they just pawned off for 7 gold what must've been a national treasure!

In fact, this may be worth hundreds, maybe even thousands of gold!

He chuckled as he put the items in his bag.

While holding the doll, he heard a whisper in his ear.

'Huh? Did someone say something to me?' Warek thought, looking around but finding no one.

I can give you more power…

The doll suddenly looked far more enchanting than it did just a moment ago.

Maybe he won't sell these little trinkets…

Good… Now please, will you carry me to a few of your friends?

Yes, mistress…

---

The trio of Ancient One, Tabula, and Mekongawa blankly stared at the offer that they had been given for the things they had on them.

25,800 gold. Not just for the things they had right now, but to also act as advertisers for the Argland Council State.

Now, Yggdrasil inflation was pretty crazy at the end of the game. Just to revive NPCs started to cost millions of gold, and that was usually on the cheaper end of things they could use gold for.

But 25,800 gold in this economy? That didn't feel deserved at all for what they earlier learned was just the passive product of the 4th floor of Nazarick.

But quite frankly, nobody wanted to stop them from doing that, so Ancient One shook the merchant guild leader's hand, "We'll gladly take the deal."

The goblin smiled, "Thank you, sir! I hope that merchants will be flowing into our state once more!"

As they left the room to let the merchants count the gold up, Tabula quietly asked, "Hey, it's getting a bit late, are we sleeping here or in you know where?"

Mekongawa shrugged, "Ask Va- Uh, control."

Ancient One sighed as he once again messaged Vagisilious, "Hey, are you busy right now?"

He could feel her attention suddenly shifting onto him, "What? Oh, I mean, kind of? It's still a bit dicey with Orphea's group, but the situation has been getting a bit better."

"It's been hours, how is the situation over there still bad?" Ancient One genuinely questioned.

None of his guildmates were particularly bad players, even Bellriver, so how could they be struggling with a relatively low-tier guild base?

"Yeah, apparently world items are a real pain in the ass to deal with. Not to mention Bad Bad Bathhouse is basically a maze. Orphea's running around trying to get Peroroncino out of Two Worlds Mandala with Ginnungagap," Vagisilious answered.

Ancient One blinked, "Doesn't that sound… You know, serious?"

Vagisilious gave a hum of 'I don't really know,' "Eh… I mean, you guys should probably have taken a world item with you guys in hindsight. But I think it'll be fine for now, I haven't found a player yet, just NPCs, so I think we're clear. Just don't be stupid while you guys are doing things."

Ancient One nodded, "Alright, well, good luck, then… Wait, hold on, I need to ask, are we sleeping in Nazarick or here?"

"There," Vagisilious promptly answered before hanging up the message.

Ancient One groaned as he announced, "Here."

The trio groaned loudly.

---

Suratan and Variable Talisman were busy scouting out the cathedral, while their friends were doing the whole merchant questline.

"Say, Variable, do you have anything that could read that?" Suratan asked as he stared at the writing on the board in front of the entrance to the cathedral.

Variable Talisman shrugged, "Nope. Also, fake names."

"Right, right," Suratan waved it off as he instead took advantage of the fact that he wasn't an introvert and straight up asked some sort of small plant creature, "Hey man, I can't read the board right now, can you tell me what it says?"

The plant creature looked at the board, and looked back at him, "Oh, it's the Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle turn to use the cathedral right now! I think the religion of the Star Deity is coming after them, and that'll be all for today. But, uh, if you're too drunk to read the board, maybe it's okay to skip today and wait until next week for your church?"

…The Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle.

Suratan and Variable Talisman looked at each other, had the same thought of 'oh shit,' and Suratan looked back to the plant creature, "Thanks, man."

Suratan didn't even mind that the plant creature thought he was drunk.

The plant creature politely nodded and entered the church.

Variable Talisman quietly whispered to Suratan, "Bro, I need to see what they're saying about Ulbert."

Suratan whispered back, "I can't believe that guy out of all the guys got a cult! We definitely need to report this back home!"

With their minds made up, they both made themselves look more professional instead of a bunch of gossiping teenagers, and entered the church.

The insides of the church were extremely grand and mighty, though judging from what the plant creature said, it might just be because this church was shared among many different religions and so they all had an investment into keeping the church as grand and cleanly as possible.

There were many seats, and from what Variable Talisman could see, he'd wager about half of the spots were taken. Not that bad for Ulbert's cult.

From what Variable Talisman knows about Ulbert, that guy would definitely make a grand entrance to make everyone shit their pants and validate the existence of his cult.

And you know what? He knows he's going to love watching it happen live. No matter what, he's going to be there.

Suratan and Variable Talisman took a seat closer to the back as some kind of goat demi-human wearing some pale imitation of Ulbert's "Catastrophe of Nine Worlds' set, came out to the front holding a book.

If Suratan had to guess, the Six Great Gods probably drew a picture of Ulbert from memory, and this was what they got. However, Catastrophe of Nine Worlds was Ulbert's latest set. So maybe whoever lost World Disaster was so salty that they kept track of Ulbert's progression until the end of Yggdrasil?

Well, it could just be that, because Ulbert was a frequent poster on the Yggdrasil forums, and the forums displayed the character avatar next to your name, they had just remembered him from there. But Suratan thought that it was a more fun idea to think that whoever drew Ulbert here was just super salty about it.

Either way, the goat started speaking, "Hello, my fellow cultists of Ulbert Alain Odle, master of Ainz Ooal Gown and the creator of the infernal fortress of hell, Nazarick."

Suratan, just by hearing his opening, could immediately tell he was about to have a hard time trying not to laugh.

"For those new here, my name is Yakult, and I will be leading the prayer today for our head priest, Alain Evermore, is out sick today." Yakult said before opening a page of his book, with many of the more of the devout looking members taking out their own books.

Suratan has never been to a church before, so he was somewhat interested in seeing how it worked.

Yakult then looked like he realized something and set down his book, "Ah, excuse me, I'm proceeding a bit too fast. For the newcomers here, I recognize you may not have the knowledge of what is about to occur. First of all, I shall randomly select a page out of the collection of the knowledge on Lord Ulbert Alain Odle, then, we shall send a prayer for His Majesty's eternal standing, and we shall sing a song dedicated to Lord Ulbert Alain Odle's Ainz Ooal Gown today. If you wish for a book to follow along, you may quietly stand up and grab one from the back stand."

Suratan and Variable Talisman absolutely needed this book to show off later, so they quietly got up, along with some other people, and they took two copies and returned to their seats.

Then, Yakult started by opening a random page, then he widened his eyes as he read, "Page 50! What a marvelous page to get today!"

Suratan leaned over to the people in front of him and asked, "What does that mean?"

The frog creature leaned back and whispered, "Oh, page 50 depicts the tale of Lord Ulbert Alain Odle's birth!"

Ulbert's birth?

Yakult cleared his throat as he read out from the book, "In the deepest parts of hell itself, populated with the strongest beings of hells and formerly ruled by the Demon Gods, Lord Ulbert Alain Odle manifested himself into existence, his deadly sin being the culmination of all the hatred of mankind. The Demon Gods immediately sensed the power from the newly formed Lord Ulbert Alain Odle, and because of their arrogance, demanded for Lord Ulbert Alain Odle to surrender to them. However, Lord Ulbert Alain Odle declined, and instead offered that if they apologized fast enough, he may spare them from total annihilation. Yet, the Demon Gods declined the kind offer, and attacked Lord Ulbert Alain Odle. His Majesty completely destroyed many of the Demon Gods, and those who were lucky enough to escape his wrath warped through space and time in order to avoid ever coming into contact with Lord Ulbert Alain Odle ever again, and thus landing on our world. And so, Lord Ulbert Alain Odle began his reign over hell, gathering his most loyal followers under the guise of Ainz Ooal Gown, and then he created Nazarick in order to ensure that all the demons of hell knew that Lord Ulbert Alain Odle was unmatched in strength."

Suratan had to admit, that was actually a pretty interesting story.

Total bullshit. But still interesting.

Though, demon gods? Is that something real or also made up?

Yakult closed the book, "And now, our prayer."

The other members of the cult stood up, so the two players also stood up and copied whatever they were doing.

Yakult cleared his throat before continuing, "O' Great Lord Ulbert Alain Odle, we send a fraction of ourselves to the almighty Demon King of hell. We wish for just a fraction of your power so we can empower ourselves to steal the Holy Kingdom's throne, just as you stole from the Six Gods all those years ago. To your eternal reign."

Then everyone said, "To your eternal reign."

Suratan and Variable Talisman missed the mark, but the next time, they were definitely going to make the timing.

Then, Yakult announced, "Now, we begin our song dedicated to Lord Ulbert Alain Odle!"

By the end of the song, Suratan no longer liked this entire situation, because there was no reason for that to be a 10 minute long song.

Well, at least they were thoroughly entertained by it all.

As they left, all Suratan could say was, "We need to let him find out about this."

Variable Talisman nodded, "I know, I'm already messaging him about it."

Variable Talisman paused, confusedly asking, "Eh? Why can't I message him?"

Suratan shrugged, "Well, it doesn't matter-"

The sound of a dragon's roar interrupted Suratan's sentence.

---

As the sun was setting, Leviathan & Tokino were heading back to the hotel room, empty handed because they didn't have any money.

However, it was quite nice to get out of the tomb, for once. Though Leviathan didn't have any disdain for the 4th floor of Nazarick, he did yearn for the sun every once in a while.

Perhaps one good thing from before Leviathan, and Yowairyu was still around.

His face fell as he remembered a few fragments of the old days, and Tokino immediately took notice, her face lighting up in worry, "Are you okay? Did you remember something you didn't want to?"

Leviathan squeezed her hand, "Yes, just a bit. I'll be fine, though."

Tokino smiled as she nodded, "Okay, well, don't be too sad while I'm here-"

"Hey! Who do you think you are walking up on this street all high and mighty?" A crass interruption sounded out from behind them.

Leviathan didn't sense any strong beings around him, so he didn't really feel worried about the situation they were placed in.

He was, however, irritated at how they interrupted Tokino's sentence.

The pair turned around to see 7 thugs of various races all brandishing some basic knives against them.

The leader, he assumed, said again, "I know you ain't around here, so you might not know this, but you're in the poor part of town. And you look like you have tons of money…"

"I have a better offer for you," Leviathan proposed a simple deal, "You will leave our presence. Or you will die."

While the Supreme Beings have outlawed the use of fighting if not necessary, he will be the first to say that defending his wife's honor is most definitely necessary.

The leader seemed to be lacking the fundamental building blocks of life as he sensed absolutely no danger at all as he bared his fangs, "You think you can just get away with that? Huh!?"

Leviathan could sense the presence of others watching, so he supposed that death is off the table if they wished their status to still be relatively unknown.

Leviathan sighed, and looked over to Tokino, who was growing increasingly irritated by this charade when they both knew that the beings in front of them stood no chance against the two.

Leviathan cleared his throat, "Let me try again. Run. Or die."

Leviathan could use his Abyssal Aura 1 to try and add some weight to his words. But more likely, they would just die because the amount of damage he would deal with it would instantly evaporate these low leveled beings.

The leader scoffed, "Psh, who do you think you are, the Primordial Dragon Lord?"

…Primordial?

Leviathan used to be a primordial dragon, before Nidhoggr essentially devoured them all and made him the sole survivor. And with his new body, it's not very clear whether he is still a primordial dragon or something new, even with all of his powers returned to him.

And so someone calling himself the Primordial Dragon Lord…

Perhaps it was the old king of the primordial dragons, Neuvillette? But if he were here, he wouldn't have participated in this farce called the Argland Council State… Perhaps someone closer to his old stature?

Hm, this country had 5 dragon councilors, if he remembered the man describing the landmarks of the country. Perhaps the Primordial Dragon Lord is one of them?

Either way, either he is a fellow survivor, or he is a fraud and deserves punishment for taking on their name.

He has no real love for his old brethren, but he feels that they don't deserve to be lumped in with a potential faker. Perhaps a behavior he inherited from Vagisilious due to her creation of his new body.

Leviathan took his eyes off of the worthless thugs and looked over to where the councilors presumably were. Focusing his eyes on the building… Yes, there were some powerful beings in that building.

Not a primordial dragon, however.

Leviathan told Tokino, "My dear, we're going on a bit of a detour. But first of all, will you quickly deal with these thugs here?"

Tokino smiled and nodded, "Of course!"

And so they left 7 old men behind.

---

The Primordial Dragon Lord could only blankly stare at the bickering councilors below him.

Why the hell did he ever agree to this farce that Tsaindorcus proposed? These lower lifeforms clearly had no idea what they were doing…

Tch, he'd be more happy about this if Tsaindorcus himself were to sit in this room suffering with him, but nooo, that egotistical bastard was off doing 'more important things.'

And who was the one who killed the most full-powered players in the history of their species? That's right, him. 4 of the deadliest threats to dragonkind, all dead because he killed them.

…Well, for 3 of them, he had to get some help from the others. But he was the one who landed the killing blow for the three. And that idiot from Slane was just particularly old and weak to the point that he had to prop his strength up to add it to his score.

Well, not weak exactly. It was just that the age clearly caught up to him. He'll begrudgingly give the man who's the cause of most of the scars on his body that.

…Though, Catastrophe & Heavenly both scored a kill a few years ago on those angels, didn't they? He doesn't remember their exact score, perhaps they're closer to him now. Though, with 72 players, it's going to take beyond their best in order to defeat them.

Quite frankly, he doesn't know why those angels don't simply just walk into Argland and destroy the country. Maybe it's Platinum's doing. Oh well, he can just ask him when he shows up tonight.

Looking to the other dragons in the room, of which not a single one was a true dragon lord, he could see them acting increasingly mortal as they bickered alongside everyone.

How nice it must be to be that young. He remembered the days he cared about mortals, before everyone he actually liked died of old age.

His heightened senses heard something coming from the smallest entrance into the council room. He thought that something interesting might be happening today.

The doors suddenly burst out as one pigman burst into the room shouting, "You need to leave! There's someone trying to-Agh!"

He was interrupted by the body of a quagoa guard being tossed directly at them, which knocked him out.

A man with black hair with white streaks, dressed in some overly elaborate dark suit entered the room. A woman with purple hair wearing some sort of equally elaborate witch's dress followed him in.

And the strangest of all…

He couldn't sense any power coming from them.

Euryalus Joukahainen has fought many players over the years, the one of the telltale signs that the opponent is a player is that they either exhibit so much power it's hard to see all of it, or that they exhibit a complete lack of it.

None of these beings looked strong at all.

The man started to loudly speak above all of the worried voices of the council, "Is there a Primordial Dragon Lord within these chambers?"

…He's here for him?

Recognizing that he's been called, he stood straight as he called out to the mysterious man, "I am Euryalus Joukahainen, the Primordial Dragon Lord. What do you want so badly that you so rudely burst into and interrupted our council?"

The still unnamed man simply asked, "Have you paid your respects to Neuvillette?"

Neuvillette? Who is that?

The name sounded rather familiar to Nibelung, the Dragon Emperor who was the cause of the players in the first place. But Nibelung and Neuvillette weren't very hard to not get mixed up, so they must be different people.

But then, who the hell was Neuvillette? He needed to find out.

Euryalus cautiously told him, "I do not know of a Neuvillette, will you perhaps tell me of him?"

The man's face fell as it looked like he had answered incorrectly, then he calmly said, "If you do not know of Neuvillette, you are not a true primordial dragon. I urge you to change your name immediately, or face my wrath."

Every dragon innately knows of their type since birth. He's the Primordial Dragon Lord because that's what his instincts told him he was.

And now here was this… Thing. That was trying to tell him that he was wrong, and he is no Primordial Dragon Lord and that he needs to change.

Disrespectful.

His eyes narrowed as he wagered his chances of winning the fight.

The 4 other dragons were complete pushovers, so he may as well consider them canon fodder, but the intimidation factor may push things into his favor, so he'll consider them as active combatants, for perhaps the 25 seconds they'll last in total if the duo in front of them were real players.

Speaking of the duo, they were clearly not human. He could tell that a faulty disguise was placed upon them. Perhaps to masquerade around Drako Urbo. So it could be that their actual forms are much more monstrous.

If he had to guess just based on their clothing, though, perhaps they're both mages.

Mages were probably equally the best and worst thing to face against. On one hand, their potent magic usually destroys everything around them, including their opponents. On the other hand, if he simply outlasts them in a long enough fight, they'll run out of mana for the fight and he can go in for the kill.

But will the two even allow him to live long enough?

The two in front of him weren't like the 8 Greed Kings he faced before. They had no hesitation like they initially did…

They were fully prepared to kill for the petty sake of a name.

Quite frankly, he knew he had no chance. His allies in the room were of no use, and the Platinum Dragon Lord must still be hours away, so he couldn't stall out the fight for him to come help either.

But still…

He couldn't just accept the fact that they want him to change the very essence of who he is.

And so, he fully stood up, and boldly proclaimed, "Then we shall fight!"

---

Tabula was mockedly shocked as he denied the allegations, "No! I would be an awesome teacher! What are you trying to frame me as, huh?!"

Mekongawa shook his head, "Nah, man. You have the aesthetics for it, and you definitely have the knowledge about weird eldritch stories for it. But you can't teach, I'm sorry."

Ancient One nodded, "Yeah, I really wouldn't try teaching one of the natives here about your weird smut."

"Huh?! Who do you think I am? Peroroncino? No way, I'm Tabula Smaragdina!" Tabula quietly shouted, mindful of the fact that there are still people around here.

"Yeah, that's the issue," Mekongawa said, smiling at the casual conversation.

They were going to head back to the hotel because it was getting dark, and most of the merchant stuff was already settled. So they were going to get some sleep and explore the city more formally tomorrow, maybe figure out what Suratan and Variable Talisman were up to.

Then, a massive explosion sounded out in the distance.

"Huh?" Tabula wondered what the sound was, so he looked around the city, and eventually his eyes landed on the capitol building.

…Currently covered in dust as the silhouette of a massive dragon was tossed out of it.

"Uh. Guys. I think I just saw a massive dragon being tossed out of the capitol building over there," Tabula pointed towards the commotion.

"Huh? Really?" Ancient One asked just in time for said dragon to start flying into the air, "Wait, is he fighting someone?"

Mekongawa tilted his head, "Why would a dragon fight someone in their own city?"

They gained their answer a moment later as, while the dragon was trying to charge up some breath attack, the figure of a man leapt out of the building and straight into the dragon, punching him far outside the city boundaries.

"Wait- Who's that?!" Tabula asked the obvious as he tried to get a closer look at the fight.

Ancient One immediately attempted to contact Vagisilious-

But she didn't answer.

Ancient One tried to ask Nubo, and he did connect but-

"Everything is turning to shit, can't help you right now dude," Nubo quickly said, and then immediately disconnected the call.

What the hell is happening?

Ancient One tried for Nigredo, because he knew that she was also a divination user, and fortunately, she picked up.

"Ah- Lord Ancient One, things are in dire straits as of now, but how may I help you?" Nigredo hastily said.

"What's happening?" Ancient One concerningly asked.

"Well-" Nigredo began, but then she suddenly stopped for a few seconds before she began again, "Lord Ancient One, Lord Punitto Moe has requested that everyone return to Nazarick. Now."

---

On some level, the Primordial Dragon Lord understood that the man he was going up against was stronger than him.

But not to this extent…

As the Primordial Dragon Lordharshly made contact with the dirt ground outside of the city, he immediately got back up and channeled his wild magic into a spell that didn't have a windup time, sending a few beams of light straight at his enemy.

The still unnamed man simply dodged every single one of them as he rapidly came towards him, shouting, "Is that all you have?!"

The man, channeling some sort of dark mystical energy that he's never seen before in his hands, punches him and sends the Primordial Dragon Lord flying into the side of a hill, rapidly approaching the mountains nearby.

The Primordial Dragon Lord had severely miscalculated the strength of his enemy. This was not a mage. He was obviously using magic to strengthen his punches, yes, but even so, he was far stronger than any other challenger he's faced before.

Even now, just by the sheer force of those two hits alone, he knew that he was already halfway close to death.

But he can't just go out without achieving a single hit…

Replying to his challenge, the Primordial Dragon Lord shouted out, "Not yet!" as he flew once more into the air and channeled earth to act as his shield as he conjured mines across the sky in order to inhibit the player's movements.

Because this must be a player. He couldn't imagine him to be anything else.

The player had the most sinister grin on his face as he twisted his body around the mines, and as the Primordial Dragon Lord was unleashing an almighty breath made of lightning, the player responded by flicking his finger, imbued with his power.

And completely altering the trajectory of his breath.

The Primordial Dragon Lord's eyes widened as he tried to protect himself from the counter attack, commanding the earth to shield him from the threat in front of him.

And the player simply punched the wall away as he landed on top of him and kicked down.

The Primordial Dragon Lord fell back to the earth and shattered the land.

The player chuckled as the Primordial Dragon Lord tried to recover, nonchalantly walking across his back so he could make eye contact with the dragon.

The player smiled as he looked gleeful at the damage he's done, "Come, now. You named yourself after the primordial dragons. Surely you can do more than that?"

The player hummed as he put a hand into one of his pockets and the other on his chin, "Ah, that's right, I never introduced myself, have I? You may call me Leviathan. Now, shall we continue?"

Euryalus Joukahainen did not want to fight anymore.

But the Primordial Dragon Lord had to fight.

---

Tokino hummed as she heard the one-sided fight happening outside.

No doubt her husband was currently ignoring all of the rules that Lord Punitto Moe had set for them…

Well, she's sure that Lord Punitto Moe, in his infinite generosity, will forgive them if they give the Supreme Beings something of value in return.

Tokino turned her eyes towards the 4 dragons in the room still remaining.

Leviathan had told her to 'force them into submission,' and so, as the dutiful wife she is, she'll do so.

She loudly proclaimed to the room, "Surrender now! Or you'll end up like your leader is out there!"

"You- You can't just do that!" Some harpy whelp protested.

Tokino glared straight at the girl, "Who do you think you are, trying to decline my offer, you brat?"

One of the dragons, the black one, cleared his throat as he boldly proclaimed, "You… You are not as strong as the one out there!"

Her eye twitched as the other 3 dragons seemed to act more confident after the weak one spoke up.

What arrogant little dragons this country has. Especially this black one, acting as if it even has the right to have the same scale color as her beloved…

Well, she'll give them one last chance.

Tokino's body shifted and warped as she revealed her true form, her large body taking up most of the central space in a room made for 5 dragons.

Then, Tokino repeated, "I'll repeat myself. Surrender. Or we can really find out how strong I am!"

The blue dragon stuttered out, "It's- It's the one from the legend of Nazarick! Isn't it?!"

Oh, do they know of her? The Supreme Beings spoke of Ulbert Alain Odle being known, but not of her. Or of Nazarick.

"I-I- We Surrender!" The white dragon shouted out, bowing in submission.

And the entire room followed.

Tokino chuckled at the sight, "You all seem to have more intelligence than your leader. Well, former leader. I don't think he'll be alive for long."

The green dragon that didn't have any legs, and quite frankly looked more like a winged snake, quietly dared to raise his head, "May I dare ask a question?"

"Go ahead, I'm in a decent mood now that you've decided to surrender?" Tokino said, moving over to the hole in the wall to watch the fight.

"Are you and that man… Perhaps the same ones from the legend of Nazarick?" He slowly asked, as if he feared the answer.

"Ah…" She slowly thought of what to say.

The answer was yes, but Lord Punitto Moe explicitly ordered them to not reveal anything about Nazarick…

…But if they already know about Nazarick, then it should be okay, right?

Tokino nodded, "I am from Nazarick, yes."

Despite the bombshell that dropped, you could hear the dust falling onto the floor.

---

The Primordial Dragon Lord's main form of attacks was to just use the power of the elements around him for strength, while supplementing it with his wild magic.

Not a single player he's encountered had the strength to break through his wild magic enhanced walls, nor cleanly take a hit from the enhanced earth.

And yet, Leviathan had just punched through every wall he conjured, and on multiple occasions he just shrugged off his attacks.

The Primordial Dragon Lord created flying stone golems to attempt to even halt Leviathan's movements for just a second, sending them all on a suicide mission. But Leviathan takes it as an opportunity to use their bodies as jump pads to further close the distance between the two, while every golem he sent started to rapidly decay because of some strange power.

The Primordial Dragon Lord tries to force him back with the power of the winds by flapping his wings in his direction, but what would've sent lesser men flying back was just a breeze to the player.

Leviathan kicked him once more, sending him flying into the direction of the ocean this time, but not quite at the ground.

Reorienting his body, he managed to force 2 nearby mountains to converge onto where Leviathan was jumping towards, and by a miracle, the Primordial Dragon Lord successfully crushed Leviathan in between the two mountains.

Then Leviathan responded by simply bursting forth a massive amount of dark power, throwing his arms out to the side and completely shattering the mountains into dust.

Using the mountain as a jumping off point, Leviathan kicked himself towards the Primordial Dragon Lord and sent him into the ocean below.

He remembered he once forcibly drowned a player after taking the fight to the ocean. They were both on their last legs, but ultimately, the player was a human, and he was a dragon. And so the player drowned first.

Somehow, he feels as if he won't be that lucky today.

As he landed in the water, he decided that this would be his final battle.

He channeled his life's energy into his one last attack, as he consumed all of the water to make one final beam of pure power straight towards Leviathan, hoping to do any sort of lasting damage to allow for perhaps the Platinum Dragon Lord to deal with Leviathan.

But because of his wounds, the rate at which he was turning water into the power was far too slow to be of any use.

At that exact moment, Leviathan touched the ground for the first time since he launched the Primordial Dragon Lord out of the capitol building.

Leviathan seemed a bit amused by the power he was amassing, "Oh? That's the attack you're trying to beat me with?"

Leviathan rubbed his chin, "Hm, what do you call that type of magic? I personally call it world magic."

World magic…?

No, he had no time to think about these things, so he answered, "We call it wild magic, the natural magic of true dragons."

Leviathan chuckled, "True dragons? Perhaps. I sense a slight difference in where the magic comes from, but functionally, it's not that different from what I have."

The Primordial Dragon Lord would've loved to question what Leviathan was talking about, but he knew that if he didn't focus his entire being on this attack, he wouldn't have a chance.

The chances were still less than one… But it was higher than zero.

Leviathan stretched a bit, "You know what? I enjoyed the fight. Allow me to show off a bit."

Then, Leviathan's disguise fell off as the horns made itself clearer, and his skin started to distort and turn black. Scales started appearing all over his body as it grew and grew, and eventually…

The Primordial Dragon Lord did not have any doubts upon seeing Leviathan's true form.

This was the black dragon from the myths. The one that slew countless players, including the Six Gods of Slane.

Leviathan then began to glow with power as he started to conjure a breath attack, speaking telepathically to him, "From what I can tell, your wild magic comes from your soul, while my world magic comes from forcing the world itself to change to my benefit. But it both essentially has the same effect, so let's have a test of firepower, shall we?"

"May I dare ask a question?" Euryalus Joukahainen asked, and once Leviathan nodded, he questioned, "I've been incredibly lucky to have been able to kill 4 players… But how many have you and your masters slain?"

The concept of Leviathan not even being the strongest of Nazarick somehow didn't fully register inside of his brain.

Logically, he knew that Nazarick bowed to Ulbert Alain Odle, and so that everything inside of Nazarick was weaker than him. But, if Ulbert Alain Odle was stronger than Leviathan…

Somehow, he couldn't comprehend it.

"Ha, I've been fortunate enough to slay 472 over the years. But I know that my masters have slain thousands of players," Leviathan answered, "And of all my battles… I know it may not have looked like it, but you weren't the worst to have fallen victim to me. You were just unfortunate enough to have to fight against my full power. If you were to have fought me in another world where I hadn't regained my full power… Who knows, maybe you would've had a better chance."

Euryalus Joukahainen smiled, "Is that so? That does make me feel a bit better… Now, I believe I've kept you waiting for long enough, Leviathan."

And so, Euryalus Joukahainen finished pouring his entire soul into his final attack, and he turned himself into a vessel of destruction as he turned himself into an attack that could shatter the skies, and the Primordial Dragon Lord launched himself with the power of the ocean straight towards Leviathan.

Leviathan unleashed his world magic, battling against the Primordial Dragon Lord with the full might of the abyss made manifest.

---

Leviathan stared down at the remains of the Primordial Dragon Lord.

Not much had survived his Abyssal Breath. All that was left were some scales, a few bits of flesh here and there, and maybe a part of an organ that was rapidly being eaten by the abyss.

So, enough for Tokino to fix.

Leviathan looked down at the empty spot that was previously his front right leg.

The Primordial Dragon Lord's final attack proved to be a bit more dangerous than what he was expecting. If he tried to take that attack head on, he wouldn't discount the possibility that he may have actually died in such a scenario.

Instead, Leviathan had simply used a teleportation spell and moved to the left once he realized that the power of his final attack could actually do serious harm to him once his front right leg was cut off.

Yes. He wouldn't disagree that there existed a universe where he may have been far too cocky and allowed for the Primordial Dragon Lord to defeat him here.

Though, it was interesting to see that dragons in this world could apparently use a variation of world magic, the same type that world enemies such as himself used. And though he could never confirm it, the dungeon and raid bosses that Ainz Ooal Gown used to frequent might've used world magic as well, seeing as many of those enemies had similar properties as him from what the players had let slip while talking in his presence.

The Developers were lazy in such a sense of recycling 'assets.' Something that BigStall had offhandedly mentioned in front of him while talking to Vagisilious.

Anyhow, Leviathan now had the confirmation that many of his spells had transformed into world magic spells, and though he didn't really take the opportunity to see if he could perhaps revert the changes and use the old spells, mostly because he was enjoying his power a bit too much, no longer bound by the restriction of having two-fifths of his power locked away by his humanoid form.

Yes, he'll have to squash this arrogance sooner rather than later. But for now… He'll enjoy the power he can now properly enjoy without the threat of an unending hell.

Leviathan could feel Tokino messaging him, so he let it through, "Levi! The Supreme Beings have requested us to come back to Nazarick!"

Ah. That's a shame. He would've liked to stay out here longer.

"I will return shortly… But first, could you come to my location? I have someone that I would like for you to revive. He will be my offering to the Supreme Beings."

---

Short Stories that I want to write but otherwise don't fit into the chapter proper (And is also me trying to get to like 15K words but that's sort of a stretch because I'm at 12.8K right now)

1: The Everyman Reaction (Canon)

Eminia, the elf delegate that represented all of the elves in the Argland Council State could definitely say that this was the wildest day in her 6 year career as a delegate in this council.

Her best friend, Meryl, the delegate of the nagas, whispered to her while the strange man and the Primordial Dragon Lord were speaking to each other, "I bet you that the Primordial Dragon Lord beats him."

Eminia shook her head, "No way! Do you see the amount of confidence he has? I think the Primordial Dragon Lord is done for!"

They got their moment a second later as the Primordial Dragon Lord took the challenge.

And the man immediately disappears from sight and appears in front of the Primordial Dragon Lord to punch him through the building, practically bringing the entire building down.

The stone of the building was about to fall on top of all of the councilors, and Eminia and Meryl clutched each other for safety.

But then… the stone suddenly stopped mid air.

Then, it started to crumble into dust, and suddenly it dissipated into nothingness.

The man looked back at the woman and simply said, "Force them into submission," before jumping out to probably continue the fight.

Meryl turned to Eminia, "We are either so dead or we're entering a new era."

Eminia slowly nodded, "Uh… Yeah."

The woman then hummed for a moment before turning to the 4 dragons and loudly proclaiming, "Surrender now! Or you'll end up like your leader is out there!"

Eminia and Meryl didn't even say anything, because the one option they had was obviously surrender. They were both pretty sure everyone agreed because they all just saw the same scene of that one guy just punching the strongest being in the nation through the wall.

Which is why it shocked the both of them that, apparently, the Obsidian Dragon Lord was under the influence of some type of drug as he decided to accuse, "You… You are not as strong as the one out there!"

"He's so fucking stupid," Eminia quietly swore, Meryl silently nodding alongside her.

The woman wasn't very pleased about the accusation either, as she then took that moment to transform into…

Wait… That looks like… The giant deer creature in those Nazarick myths…

Then, she repeated, "I'll repeat myself. Surrender. Or we can really find out how strong I am!"

"She's the one from Nazarick," Meryl said, sounding both completely sure and also utterly baffled.

Meryl has been a member of the Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle for her entire life, so this must be a confusing moment for her, to suddenly be validated.

Eminia immediately agrees with the assessment, and so she asked Meryl, "Hey, do you accept members?"

But Meryl did not answer fast enough.

The Blue Sky Dragon Lord stuttered out, "It's- It's the one from the legend of Nazarick! Isn't it?!"

"I-I- We Surrender!" The Diamond Dragon Lord shouted out, bowing in submission.

And the entire room followed, because what else were they supposed to do? Say no and die?

The Wyrm Dragon Lord then had the courage to ask, "Are you and that man… Perhaps the same ones from the legend of Nazarick?"

There it was, the question they all wanted to know the answer to. Because if the answer was yes, the only valid cult inside of the country would be the Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle.

"Ah…" She hesitated, as if trying to figure out what to say, "I am from Nazarick, yes."

For a few seconds, it was all quiet inside of the council. The only sounds being the sounds of the world outside and the fight between the man and the Primordial Dragon Lord.

Quite frankly, probably the first time the council has been this quiet in years.

Then seconds later, chaos erupted as people declared themselves to the Cult of Ulbert Alain Odle and saying that they were always believers, despite Eminia literally seeing them in church for other religions just yesterday.

Meryl ecstatically smiled as she grabbed Eminia's shoulders and shook them, "I was right! We were right!"

"You were right! Where can I sign up?!" Eminia excitedly asked.

If Nazarick was here, then they could totally destroy the Holy Kingdom and return the balance of the world!

Those 'angels' are done for!

"Is that- Is that a mountain that the Primordial Dragon Lord is using to attack with?" The Diamond Dragon Lord asked, as if he didn't believe his eyes.

The entire council room turned to the fight scene, which was rapidly moving towards the nearby ocean beyond the mountains, and yes, that was actually 2 mountains that were in the process of crushing something.

Said mountains were immediately destroyed, and they could see the Primordial Dragon Lord get punched with dark magic into the ocean below, far beyond their sight.

The giant deer hummed as she stepped to get a closer look.

"Ah, excuse me, my lady, but could we please get your name?" the Obsidian Dragon Lord tried to ask.

"Ah, I'm… Oh well, my name is Tokino," Tokino answered, "Just, um, don't tell anyone who isn't a part of Nazarick."

The Obsidian Dragon Lord dutifully nodded, "Yes, Ma'am!"

Tokino then paused for a moment, and in that moment, a large bout of light came from the ocean, Illuminating the sunset sky.

"Oh, he just won," Tokino offhandedly said before she went back to whatever she was doing inside of her head.

So, that was it then. The Primordial Dragon Lord was defeated.

"Can you believe it?" Meryl whispered to Eminia, "It's like we're entering a new age."

Eminia nodded, "I can't believe it, but it's happening in front of my eyes…"

Tokino then suddenly announced, "Oh, I need to leave. When we come again, make sure you don't forget this."

And then she turned to Eminia and Meryl, "By the way, you both look cute together."

And then Tokino suddenly disappeared.

A beat passed.

"WHAT?!" Eminia and Meryl shouted at once.

---

2: What did I miss? (Canon)

Flying over Drako Urbo, The Platinum Dragon Lord could immediately sense that something was not right.

He could see that the capitol building had suddenly lost half its mass, and there were only 4 dragons waiting for him on the hill outside of the city.

And… He could've sworn that there were more mountains nearby. And what's with the damaged ground scattered around?

…A fight.

There must've been a fight.

Counting the 4 dragons, he noticed that the Primordial Dragon Lord was missing. So it must've been the Primordial Dragon Lord who fought against someone and…

Was it a loss? Or was it a win that cost his life?

Either way, he landed in front of the 4 dragons and immediately asked, "What happened?"

"Nazarick happened," The Obsidian Dragon Lord answered, and he could immediately tell that this was going to be a long night.

"Nazarick?" The Platinum Dragon Lord questioned, not believing his ears.

Nazarick was a legend. A legend about players, yes, but legends nonetheless.

He couldn't imagine something that would be able to kill 5,000 players in a single day, when just one had managed to kill so many dragon lords in their prime.

The Wyrm Dragon Lord nodded, "Yes, it was them. The deer from the legends- She really was there! And the other man must've been the dragon, for he was the one who single handedly killed the Primordial Dragon Lord!"

…So he really was gone, then.

And if what he was saying was true, and it really was Nazarick instead of a different group of players…

"Why?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked, "Why did they kill him?"

The Blue Sky Dragon Lord just shrugged, "I don't know, they came in here asking for a primordial dragon lord, asked if he knew… a Neuvillette, I think? And once he said no, he immediately asked him to change his name or face his wrath, and well… This is what happened."

…Nazarick really was no different from the others, then.

At the end of the day, players simply play around with their powers with no regard for other lives.

"Nazarick… Is a threat to our world," The Platinum Dragon Lord declared.

The 4 dragons all nervously looked to each other, and then the Diamond Dragon Lord tried to speak up, "Hey, we didn't get to speak with them for long, maybe it's a misunderstanding?"

"They killed Euryalus, how is that a misunderstanding?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked, genuinely looking for an answer, "They could've easily used words to resolve their differences, and instead they used force. They're no different from the 8 Greed Kings or the 72 Lords of Seraphim. They must be exterminated."

A moment of silence passed as the 4 dragon councilors took in the words of their unelected leader. It was true that Nazarick was no doubt a stronghold of players, and that they were their natural enemies.

However...

"I quit."

Everyone turned to the Sky Blue Dragon Lord in surprise.

Seeing that he had everyone's attention, the Blue Sky Dragon Lord decided to elaborate, "I think it's time to finally accept the fact that we're not the strongest anymore, and we haven't been for 500 years. The next time Nazarick comes, let's just bend the knee to them and ask for forgiveness. They have a dragon, maybe they could use some more, even if we're all weak in comparison."

"Wha- How could you say such a thing?" The Platinum Dragon Lord said in shock, not believing his ears, "Are you trying to say that all of our brethren died for nothing?"

"We're starting to die for nothing, yeah," the Blue Sky Dragon Lord agreed, "Maybe it was a noble goal back when the 8 Greed Kings first came, but that's not today, is it? We lost that war, and we're trying to attain a status we'll never get back. Let's just bend the knee and accept the fact that we're not the apex predators anymore, and hope that our new masters will be kind to us."

The Wyrm Dragon Lord slowly nodded, "...Yeah. I think you're right. I wasn't even old enough to fight against the 8 Greed Kings. All I've seen is us in stagnation hoping that things will get better."

The Diamond Dragon Lord hesitantly suggested his own idea, "...There was a brief time after the 8 Greed Kings self-destructed where it felt like we were back on top of the world, right? Can't we chase after that?"

"What makes you think Nazarick or Seraphim will self-destruct like they did? I think it's time that we accept it's over." The Obsidian Dragon Lord said.

The Diamond Dragon Lord sighed, "...I guess so."

"...Are you all truly so spineless?" The Platinum Dragon Lord quietly asked his former colleagues.

He had known all of these dragons for decades. Hundreds of years, even. And now, they were starting to abandon him.

The Blue Sky Dragon Lord nodded, "If it's between death and reluctant servitude, I'll choose the latter."

The Platinum Dragon Lord closed his eyes, shutting off his emotions, "Then I have nothing more to say. Goodbye, old friends."

And so, the Platinum Dragon Lord flew off into the distance, a new plan brewing inside his head. This was a great loss, but he needed to continue, not for his own sake, but the entire world.

"...I must save this world from the players," The Platinum Dragon Lord whispered as he headed back to his base of operations, the old home of the 8 Greed Kings, Eryuentiu.

---

3: Fraudiathan Vs Primordial Goaton Lord (Non-Canon)

Fraudiathan, the Fraud Enemy, challenged the Primordial Goaton Lord, the King of Dragons, to a duel.

The Primordial Goaton Lord, sensing the weakness of his enemy, Fraudiathan, politely declined the request, for it would be too easy of a battle.

Fraudiathan, enraged at the casual dismissal of his challenge, ran up to the Primordial Goaton Lord and used his strongest attack, [Strong Fist] straight to his face.

The Primordial Goaton Lord took the attack and was not phased by it.

However, because Fraudiathan attacked, the Primordial Goaton Lord decided that he would fight, and so with the flick of his finger, Fraudiathan was instantly blown away.

But Fraudiathan was still alive after that single attack ripped off 3 of his limbs.

And so, Fraudiathan channeled his dragon form, and turned into Fraudiathan, the Fraud Enemy.

He made a massive breath of evil air inside of his mouth, and spewed the foul attack at the Primordial Goaton Lord, who simply took a whiff, didn't like it, and gently blew the attack away.

Fraudiathan, enraged at the Primordial Goaton Lord for not taking him seriously, began to open his domain, Consequences of The Lingering Past.

But all Primordial Goaton Lord did was smile and say, "You're weak."

Then, Primordial Goaton Lord opened his domain, Unlimited Goats. Fraudiathan shrunk back in fear, and Primordial Goaton Lord said, "Stand proud, Leviathan. You're strong."

But Fraudiathan could not accept this result, so with all of his might he shouted, "Wallahi! Skryb-Sama! Help me! We haven't reached 15,000 words yet! Help me or I'm FINISHED!"

Then, Skryb, the King of Not Being Able To Sleep At Night appeared.

He checked the word count, and then he deduced, "I'm at 15,000 now, but I also need a bit extra so it doesn't look like it's just my transitions getting in the way."

Then, Skryb opened his domain, "Domain Expansion: Fair and Balanced Incorporated."

Primordial Goaton Lord shrunk back in fear, and Skryb said, "I don't actually give a fuck about any of that 'love' or 'stand proud you're strong' sort of shit. You're weak. Fucking kill yourself."

Primordial Goaton Lord began to cry, confusedly asking, "What is this?"

Skryb shrugged, "I don't fucking know."

And so Fraudiathan won the battle, being saved by Skryb.

---

4: Praise The Lord Bio & Affect (Info is canon, reactions are not. I am writing this after I wrote my AN because I remembered I told Tristeza1 that I would write the stories whenever the world item is shown to be used or whatever. And I am a man of my word at 11:23 AM with 2 hours of sleep.)

[Praise The Lord - World Class Item - An orb crafted by the gods. Invaders within the guild base cannot fly further than 5 meters off the ground.]

Praise The Lord Lore

Beyond Yggdrasil, there are stars.

But what do those stars really mean? Are they other world trees? Other planets? Something entirely out of their comprehension?

For the minor gods of Plastique, knowledge was what they sought.

Yet, the Lord of All Gods on Plastique denied them from searching out the truth, citing that they had everything they needed on Plastique.

But the minor gods on Plastique hated his declaration, and they elected to ignore it. Instead, they crafted an item that would allow them to go beyond the realm, and explore the cosmos.

But the Lord had caught them, just as they were about to use the item.

"Do not think you had any chance. I am an all knowing God." He declared, and so he cursed the orb to never allow its anyone to fly again, and sentenced the rebels to death.

And when Nidhoggr sent those gods to a restless night, all that remained was his final declaration that no one shall dare fly again.

Denshosho's Notes: Reading about gods in world items is always hilarious, because they always end up dying without doing anything. Anyways, pretty basic bio for a comically strong world item. 7/10.

BlessThyHearts' Notes: Your bio may not be that interesting, but your effect is the cornerstone of our defense. Thank you, Lord of All Gods.

TheHistorian's Notes: Yggdrasil World Item Lore Team Try Not To Make A Tragic Story Challenge: Impossible Edition.

Yeah but actually I wanna know what those stars are, fuck you, LoAG and your shitty ass name.

---

AN:

The actual dragon arc was only around 4k words long, by the way, in this 15k chapter.

We're totally counting the short stories, including that crack one, as part of the chapter proper.

Anyhow, I had trouble sleeping tonight, but since the 15th is MLK day, I wagered I could just stay up and finish this chapter real quick since I was on like 8k words or something and I thought I could finish this up quickly.

Anyhow, that was 4 AM.

It's now 10 AM.

If you see any errors in this chapter, it's because of that. Maybe I'll fix them when I wake up tomorrow, or maybe I won't. I'll let future me decide that.

X

Drako Urbo is Dragon City in Esperanto.

Neuvillette and Nibelung I just stole from Genshin Lore.

I know the Primordial Dragon Lord is canonically MIA but then I realized I named Leviathan's species primordial dragons and I instantly knew I had to change stuff so this matchup could happen.

Golus, Kren, and Saveas are all names from AFK Arena, that one chinese mobile game I mentioned to you guys a couple of time. Still awful, don't play it, I'm stupid. Oh right I should do my dailies right now brb.

God damn it I didn't get a Lucilla from my 10 pull. But I got an Awakened Shemira from my other account, hell yeah. Expect Shemira to be somewhere in this fic. Lucilla… Idk, I'll write about her more in the hopes that it won't take 20 years to get my Lucilla to ascended 1 star on my 2nd account. I know only like 3 of you are getting what I'm saying, but it's 10:48 AM idrc.

Guava is the name of a fruit or something idk. I just saw a bunch of elves being named after fruits on the wiki and ran with it.

Warek is also another AFK Arena expy. Might as well tag this as a crossover at this point lmao.

Euryalus Joukahainen is random name generator where I took a first name that I liked, another first name that I liked, and mashed them together.

Ghulmongar was the name of my orc warrior I used to play in World of Warcraft.

I think that's it idk don't quote me.

X

First, I'd like to give a shoutout to Zodiac_Rolex and Tristeza1 in the Ao3 comment section. If you were scrolling past this fic for the past few days and noticing the rapid expansion of the comment count, the three of us were the reason why. We singlehandedly added like 60 extra comments to this fic lol.

Tristeza1 was helping make world items for later on in the story. And Zodiac_Rolex was helping me make NPCs for later on in the story.

In fact, if you go down into the comments of chapter 12 right now, while I'm changing the general effects around and nudging things here and there, if you look at the comments, you basically spoiled a lot of the fic.

Not really. But you can expect those names to show up.

Anyhow, the world items may be finished, but the NPCs are not. I'm not going to spoil where the NPCs are going to be used, but feel free to unleash an infinite wave of NPCs down in the comment section of this chapter. They can also not be angels, just so you're aware.

I'll also probably comment my thoughts about them. If you want to know my general thoughts on NPCs, you can brave into the depths of the Ao3 Chapter 12 comments.

Anyhow, most of these NPCs this time will be used as mostly background characters to spice up the bits and pieces.

And the reason why I'm letting you guys do it all is because I am not creative enough to come up with 50 different NPCs who will only be used for like 2 sentences max for like 99% of NPCs.

…I swear I needed to talk about something more…

I guess I'll just talk about this chapter?

Uh, so, I really liked the cathedral scene, I just didn't wanna write singing, so I didn't. I also looked up what churches usually do on Sundays because I'm not religious, and now I'll probably have religious stuff in my youtube feed for like a week.

Ulbert reaction in the Dragon Kingdom chapter, by the way.

Speaking of chapter, Slane. I'm gonna be honest, I had no idea what to do with Slane for a while. But then I eventually decided it'll act as a setup for the 3rd act, which means that most of the things you learn in the next chapter won't be relevant for like, 20 chapters. Idk how long this fic is going to be though, so don't quote me on that.

It will either be super hype for me or super lame.

Anyways, you got peeks at the Wilderness because Liberta Youth is the best Liberta. I'm sure they're having a grand ol' time right now.

While writing this chapter, I ended up writing a scene for act 3 and I'm super pissed I can't share it with you all because the entire essay is a walking spoiler, but I feel like I did the entire thing really well.

Anyways, the keyword is Fusion of Delusion and Reality. So in like 2 years you'll read those words and go 'wait, you wrote this like 2 years ago? No wonder why it's trash.'

Oh, yeah, the Leviathan Vs Primordial Dragon Lord fight, I wanted it to be like Jogo Vs Sukuna.

And the Fraudiathan Vs Primordial Goaton Lord fight is obviously Jogoat Vs Fraudkuna. But Fraudkuna gets saved by Mahoraga like Fraudiathan gets saved by Skryb because I needed to reach 15k.

Oh, yeah, can you guys come up with Seraphim player names while you're at it too? Cause I ran out of names for those guys like years ago. Reminder that they're all Japanese players and they won't all have fancy pants names though. I think I named one of them Coolio.

I know I'm outsourcing a bunch of the work I should be doing onto you guys, but look, I am not coming up with 72 unique names, a bunch of NPCs, a bunch of world items, a bunch of just everyone all on my own. I can do plot, I can do the story, I don't wanna do all of that boring background work.

Anyways, it would be hilarious if you all striked or something and didn't do that. Terrible for me because now I'll have to fill in slots using characters I don't have the ideas for, but that'll also be great for me because I'll laugh about it while I'm trying to come up with different variations for 'warrior' or different types of demons at 11 PM.

Man, I just love long ANs where I can dump my brain onto the google doc and inflate the word count a bit. My word count is like 16K now. This fic would be like 15,000 words shorter if you were to remove all of the ANs from the word count.

Oh I just scrolled past my chapter. I made Kami no Toshokan's essay because I saw that Zodiac_Rolex kept defaulting to the 72 Lords of Seraphim instead of the name of the guild base. Then I realized he didn't have the name of the guild base, so I wrote that whole 600 word essay in like the span of 35 minutes yesterday.

…Wait, I promised Tristeza1 that I would write the world item stories down at the bottom. Damn it, give me an hour.

Okay it's 11:51 AM now, I ate breakfast, wrote the world item out. I think I'm ready for upload just gimme a second.

Actually I just felt the urge to create an MS Paint, give me like an hour.

[You know the deal by now. Ao3.]

Okay I made the funny JJK reference.

I made Leviathan look ugly, but that's mostly because of the lack of my artistic skill. I think I did the dragon pretty nicely though.

It's 12:33 PM now. I think I'm done for.
Yeah anyways, I'll either go to sleep right after this, or I'll just strengthen it out until like 9 Pm so I can have like 13 hours of sleep.

So, comment if you have any thoughts about it.