Goddess's blessings on this Not So Wonderful New World! (R34 Economy / Overlord)

Waking up to find myself leaning against a tree in an unfamiliar forest that was out of place given the climate of my home country can be considered a good indicator of being Isekai'ed.

Repeating the action of putting on my glasses and taking it off again yielded results that were, for the moment, very promising.

It seems that my eyesight had been corrected, and given that my arms feel perfectly fine despite the intense bouldering activities I was involved in with my friends recently, it's safe to say that my body's condition was healed and improved on as well.

"... the fact that I can consider all of that without freaking out should be a clear indication that my mind has been fucked with too."

I shouldn't be able to deduce all this within the span of a minute without sufficient amount of panicking and far-fetched conclusions.

But I did.

And it left me with conflicting feelings of worry and pride.

Well, nothing I can do about it!

It's better to stay positive and be the Isekai Hero that I always wanted to be!

Knowing the tropes, it is highly likely that if I walk in a straight direction I will eventually discover…

a) Civilization, monsters, bandits or a random situation that will force me into action such that my cheat skills will reveal themselves or be very apparent to me after sufficient testing
b) Some secret, undiscovered treasure trove of OP items that will allow me to breeze through everything in life despite only maintaining a mediocre level of competency
c) A single OP weapon or artifact that will allow me to do the above
d) Discover a pretty slave girl or abandoned waifu to be picked up
e) That I'm in a deconstruction / parody story where I'll get one-shotted by a Dark Souls-like enemy from around the corner, only to be revived somewhere else and come to the realization that I'm in a death / hell world
f) Some combination and variation of the above or other generic scenarios

Silly thoughts, but I entertained them as a way to maintain an optimistic mood.

After half a minute of walking, a dense fog began to envelop the forest… at an unnatural speed.

I couldn't even keep watch of my footing with how dense the fog was.

I almost walked right into a tree, twice!

"This is the weirdest prologue level ever."

Oh wait, isn't this just like the first (and last, in hindsight) dungeon in Persona 4?

I have a bad feeling about this.

"Who said that!? Is there someone there? Hellooo…!"

I heard a woman calling out from somewhere in the fog! It looks like I'm not alone in this predicament. Why am I not surprised?

"Hello there fellow lost person!"

"Oh thank god! I'm not the only one lost in this place. Um, where are you?"

"Give me a moment, I'm going to try to reach you. Could you count out loud so that I can follow your voice?"

"Okay~"

Come to think of it, isn't it odd that someone in the same predicament as myself is so trusting of an unknown voice coming out from a fog that obscures most of our sight?

This is either a generic waifu encounter… or some kind of trick.

Well, I can't discover the truth without getting closer.

I proceeded to walk towards the voice in dramatic fashion, only to trip over something!

Okay, let's not try the Dio Walk when visibility is at an all time low.

Damn these tree roots!

"11! 12!"

"Hold up, ah, I've found you."

My hand somehow found its way onto her shoulder.

"Why yes… yes you did."

The obscured woman grabbed hold of my hand and I was struck by a momentary vision of a woman with wavy grey hair and red eyes. Suddenly, I felt queasy and a stabbing pain as a sharp headache was upon me!

Everything went dark for a moment, and the pain was gone just as quickly as it had come.

When I opened my eyes the fog was entirely gone from this place… along with the woman I saw. Before I had the time to take stock of the situation, I heard another girl's scream somewhere not too far from where I was.

I (foolishly) ran towards the scream without hesitation, soon enough, I found myself staring at what seemed to be a frightened, crying girl dressed in black and a red smear in front of her.

Bones and flesh. Some manner of being had died right here.

The girl must have been frightened by the gory sight when the fog had been lifted.

"A-are you going to kill me?" She asked me with tears in her eyes.

What kind of question is that!?

Before I could react with those harsh words I found myself struck still in awe by the girl's otherworldly beauty.

Silver hair and purple eyes.

My first thought was that I had somehow landed in the world of ASOIAF and had just encountered someone with Valyrian features.

Then I noticed the pointed ears.

An elf. I had never been more certain in my life.

My gaze left her ears within the span of half a second, a strange sense of calm and focus was upon me, allowing me to process the horrifically hopeful tone of her words. One look at her eyes and I was overcome with the desire to protect her.

My brain ran at light-speed, I quickly worked on the assumption that I was in a fantasy realm, knelled down on one knee and stretched out an open hand towards her.

Shaking my head in clear refusal, I spoke using a voice that I only just realized was not my own. I decided to solve the mystery of my altered voice at a later time.

"My fair lady, I refuse. Instead, I would rather… no…. I WILL save you!"

A part of my brain wanted to shrivel up and die for white knighting this hard!

Yet there wasn't a part of me that didn't want to save her. Not just protect her, but save her from whatever had made her feel such sadness.

The dainty elf stared back at me, and with a soft and sweet voice asked me, "R-really? Even if I'm t-too dangerous to be allowed to live?"

"I wouldn't care even if the world wants you dead. A person with such kind eyes cannot possibly be evil, and that's enough reason for me to save you from whatever is the cause of your grief."

"Ah…!"

Stunned for a brief moment, she took the time to wipe off a bit of her tears with her long sleeves before reaching out to place her hand in my own, allowing me to help her off the ground.

"Mn! Haha… it's strange. I feel like I can really trust you. I will be in your care from now on, Sir Mystery Knight."

"Not a knight, my lady. And I'm hardly mysterious myself. I'm Nicolas, my friends call me Nick. It's nice to meet you."

She looked at me tenderly and introduced herself in return.

"It's a pleasure to meet you in this odd forest. My name is Satella. Just Satella. Thank you for comforting me."

That sounded a little familiar.

"Stella?" I questioned, wanting to make sure I heard her name correctly.

She smiled and held out her other hand in a closed fist, then sung the syllables of her name as she raised her fingers.

"Sa~ Tel~ La~"

S-so cute. My heart.

"Satella."

"Yes! You got it. Hmm, I'm curious. What does "Stella" mean?"

"Oh! It means "Star" in one of the languages from where I came from. And if I'm right, and I could be wrong, then the word "Constellation" in my language is derived from it, which means "a set of stars" by the way."

"Ah, I see. Like those stars in the night sky that look like animals."

"Yeah, like that."

We chatted excitedly for a bit before we realized we were getting side-tracked. The both of us refocused on the more important task of finding our way out of this forest soon after.

After a few minutes of walking with my new magical travel partner, I felt her edging closer to me, until she grabbed onto the sleeve of my shirt.

"Satella? Are you alrig-"

Her face was close to mine in the blink of an eye.

She tugged on my sleeve as she tip-toed to reach my ear, then she whispered my name.

"Nicolas?"

"...Yes?"

"I won't allow you to die."

I felt an unnatural chill in my spine. An oppressive, chilling sensation spread across my body, and I broke out in a cold sweat at her alluring voice.

She released her grip on my shirt, I turned to look at her fully and froze at her bewitching smile.

"Nicolas won't leave me. After all, you're not like them… right?"

There was a dark smile on her face, a smile that didn't belong to the girl I came to know a handful of minutes ago. It was as if she was a completely different person.

"Y-yes. Of course not."

And just like that the oppressive atmosphere dissipated and I was greeted with a happy, innocent smile from Satella.

"Hehe, I know you won't. The spirits say you can be relied on, after all."

"Aha..haha… I thought it was my confident smile."

"Mmm, that too, maybe~ Oh, I think I see a way out of the forest. We should go that way."

As we walked in the direction of the exit, the knowledge of where her name originated from had finally dawned upon me.

The Witch of Envy had just forbidden me from dying.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!

My internal screaming was not reflected on my stone-still smiling face. At all. Nope. Non-whatsoever. I'm stoic. I'm cool. I will be fine. I won't be the next Subaru.

T-this will be easy.

I just have to not die.

I won't die if I am not killed. And even if I was killed it doesn't necessarily result in my death.

Aha...hahahaha, I'm fucked, aren't I?

Satella stopped all of a sudden, her expression was grim.

"The spirits have been odd here but… right now, they're screaming. Something terrible has happened not too far from here."

"W-what has happened?"

I managed to calm my heart down somewhat, now I was able to focus on the more imminent and real danger to our lives.

"Death. So much death. Come on, we have to help!"

"Wait, slow down! Satella!"

I ran after her and caught up to her just as we escaped the forest of trees.

A loud "boom" echoed across the land right when we laid eyes upon the new burning, smoking crater that for a brief moment in our eyes, was 'just' a burning village.

Satella gasped in distressed horror, and I instinctively grabbed her shoulders to keep her close. I felt her gripping on to my hands desperately, as if seeking help.

My entire being was in a heightened state of alert now.

Something was here.

Just as I thought that a shadow flickered past us!

Then a single feather floated down slowly right in front of our eyes.

"Well now."

A sensation of overwhelming bloodlust brought both our bodies to a halt.

W-why can't I move? I can't believe this is a thing. No, this can't be happening!

The sickeningly condescending voice continued, "I thought I would only be restarting my collection with just monkeys, but it looks like I can add the skull of such a disgusting forest mongrel as well. Lucky day~"

I fell as I turned around to face the monster.

Wait. My legs are up there.

Ah, I didn't fall by accident.

The upper half of my body was simply separated from my bottom half.

I couldn't hold on to Satella's hand anymore as we tumbled on the dying grasslands.

I didn't want to look. I didn't want to see her face make such an expression.

I didn't have to for much longer.

Everything went dark.

I felt myself floating, my thoughts scattering before it was pulled by some unseen hand.

"-you can be relied on, after all."

I turned around to look at Satella, who was standing, upright, healthy, all of her body together.

She was smiling. All was well again.

"Nicolas? Nick? Are you alright?"

Am I alright?

"Y-yes." I nodded slowly.

I came back. I returned by death.

Now I had to find a way to save Satella from a strangely familiar super-powered winged threat.

Wait, where did I hear that voice before?

The feathers and wings, casual racial slurs, sexy murderous hobbies.

Memories of the day before I woke up here returned to me.

I was introducing my friend to a certain CYOA, then the fucking maniac made a built with various waifus to make it "hard mode", and if I recall correctly, Satella and Jibril was on his list.

I'm living my friend's Waifu Catalog build.

"Nick! We don't have time to dilly dally! There's something terribly wrong over there."

Think. Think… think!

What was the build again?! What world am I in? What are the control methods?!

Who else is here? Is there anyone that can help stop a genocidal angel of death?

Satella has a lot of power but doesn't seem to have any combat instincts or any good compatibility with her witch genes so that makes her unreliable in combat so… wait, where is she?

"Ye-yeah… huh… Satella? No… don't…!"

Shit! I spaced out for too long!

She went ahead without me!

I ran towards her as I shouted her name.

"Satella!"

"Oh, whoops. I'm so out of practice."

Her body fell to the ground like a puppet as her head flew off her body.

The dark scythe made of elements went right through my body like a hot knife through butter.

"Ah, you talking monkeys are so noisy."

"-you can be relied on, after all."

She hasn't died. She can't die. I reassure myself that even though Satella had been killed, she would have pulled herself together and avenged us both.

If those OP heroes from her native world couldn't kill her then nothing Jibril could do would kill her.

I relaxed and smiled at Satella, then followed the first script as I attempted to recall more details of my friend's build. I couldn't remember all the binding methods yet but I distinctly remembered the many perks that had been selected for my body.

I could try talking people down with my voice considering the Siren's Song perk, but that runs on the assumption that I have the time to talk.

I also remembered that I should have the Sweet Home option taken. I could use that to escape.

But it looked like I had to activate it manually instead, considering there was a burnt down village nearby that should not be part of the personal home dimension.

Think Nick Think! What are the meta options?

How can I access my build and the rest of the catalog?

I didn't have time to recall more as I was at the point where Jibril was finishing her sentence.

This time, I pushed Satella and my body down with all my strength, narrowly dodging her black scythe.

"Kyaa!" I pulled Satella to myself and rolled down the grassy hill, turning around to glare at my would-be killer.

"Flugel."

"Oh my, you're the first Imanity I've seen here that hasn't called me an "angel". Could you be from Disboard then?"

I grinned, not letting the fear show on my face, "Nope. Can't say I've been there. But I definitely heard of all the Exceed, tell me, has the war ended?"

Her face fell at that question, and she pouted cutely, "Thousands of years ago. Don't remind me. It's been so long since I've properly bathed in the blood of lesser creatures. Ahh~ It feels so good. I woke up in this world all of a sudden and then I saw humans killing humans, just like the good old days where everyone was killing everyone!"

Unlike Satella, I found myself utterly unsurprised by her joy at the thought of violence being permissible to her.

"Of course, I just had to join in." She patted a skull dangling on her waist, wait, that was a fresh head not a skull! It was a skull of some unknown blonde male.

"This hairless monkey was yapping all about some Sunlight Scripture thing then had the gall to summon a piece of scrap metal with wings thinking it could hurt me. An angel he called it. It was soooo insulting, how could anyone liken my beautiful wings and body to the likes of that construct!"

Sunlight scripture. Blonde man... Fuck, the dead man's Nigun.

I'm in Overlord. And Jibril, if the timeline is exactly at the start of canon, had quite possibly saved Carne Village by killing Nigun and his bois a little earlier in a different human village.

Thinking quickly, I decided to distract her until I could remember more important things.

If I recall correctly, my friend hadn't picked any binding methods… but I could be wrong? Does Satella have a brand somewhere? She doesn't have a collar so that's a no… wait, what about command seals? Shit, I should have checked my whole body when I had the time!

"Sunlight Scripture? One of the many so-called elite forces of the Slane Theocracy?"

"Huh?" Satella was confused next to me.

"Heeeh?! You know where they're from?"

All of a sudden, Jibril went from bloodthirsty to drooling for knowledge in two seconds flat, "Theocracy? What's that? That sounds interesting. There's an organized Imanity here? Are there other magic using humans? Tell me! I'm curious!"

The Flugel was panting like a bitch in heat, which she naturally was, but hadn't discovered it yet.

I explained the meaning of theocracy before giving a one liner summary of the Slane Theocracy, namely that of them being a hyper religious and racist country of assholes that kills and enslaves all other races. I may have emphasized on the elf slaves for Satella's sake in order to reduce future sympathies.

"A country founded by other dimensional migrants with magical artifacts of varying effects and power?! That sounds so interesting, I want it! I need it to start a new collection. Come on, you're taking me there!"

"W-what!? No! You're not taking Nick anywhere!"

"Oh? Did I say that you could speak, elf? Hmm, your ears, you're half elf. OH, I'm so sorry. I meant to tell you to keep quiet, mongrel!"

I pulled Satella away from the casual strike that Jibril unleashed, just in time to avoid a purple magic laser of death.

"Lay off her!"

Well shit, there goes the friendly distraction plan.

"I couldn't care less about her. You just told me there's a whole nation of elves for the pickings right next to the Slane Theocracy. Her skull rarity is at zero~ just like yours."

"Ni-Nick…!"

"Satella, run…"

"Oh well, I guess I will find my way there myself. It's not as if I need you as my tour guide."

She floated up above us, dark purple elements coalescing in the form of black wings and a powerful orb.

Shit. Am I going to die again?

"I am Thou, Thou Art I…" A familiar voice echoes from within my head, a familiar pain erupts from my mind.

Is this…?!

"Well, haha, third time's the charm." That was... the voice of the first woman I met here!

Ah, I see. Now I remember.

"The time has come to lead all into a new age!"

"I'm planning to travel light so your skulls aren't necessary. Ah, where are my manners. My name is Jibril. Goodbye."

She held up a hand of dark power and I held up a hand of blue flames.

I crushed the tarot card in my hand.

"PERSONAAAAA!"

With a great deal of mental focus I reigned in the surge of energy during the awakening process, then I repeated a mental prayer to the name behind me, to take every scrap of power I had in order to allow me a few more seconds of survival.

"MATARA-"

The large orb of magic was thrown at me!

"-KARN!"

I forced out the high-level technique from my newly formed humanoid Persona.

"Eh?"

Jibril tilted her head in curiosity as her magic disappeared into the invisible barrier that had been made with power well beyond my current abilities.

And was caught off guard and blasted back across a great distance by the reflected power.

I wouldn't be able to use that power again, not at my level. But for a one-time trick, it worked like a charm.

"Crowley."

I spoke the name of my Persona, based on Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema and ceremonial magician. Considering the other selection on my friend's build, I found my Persona to be particularly ironic.

"What… is that…?"

"Heh… apparently? A manifestation of a facet of my personality. It is a "mask" that someone uses to face hardship. Satella, we need to hide-"

"Too late~"

The dark scythe was upon me.

Streaks of light crossed the sky and pierced the darkness.

"What-"

And then the angel was grounded. Her wings bounded to the earth by two blue spears.

"A spear… no, it's an arrow."

"Ah, I made it!"

Then a goddess descended.

"I wanted to come as soon as I saw the fires but I had to stop to get the surviving children to safety." The graceful goddess glided down to my side, looked over me and smiled happily, "I'm glad that I made it in time, my Orion."

Build

Intensity 9 ("Frayed Ends of Sanity"):
Worlds: Overlord (LN)
Budget: 2500 credits

Controls and Perks

Binding: Stamp (Default)
Lures: Sticky Fingers (5), Faerie Feast (10), Siren's Song (50)
Others: Command Seals, 7 sets with the 1st set free (30). General Seals (10)
Perks: Body Affinity (10), Martial Affinity (5), Wild Affinity (10), Science Affinity (10), Psychic Affinity (20), Soul Affinity (20), Body Defense (20), Mind Defense (20), Soul Defense (20), Destiny Defense (20), Sweet Home (50), Warranty Plan (200)
SubTotal = 510

Waifus

Jibril (NGNL) - Tier 6, 50
Othinus (ToAru) - Tier 8, 200
Artemis (Danmachi) - Tier 8, 200
Aqua (Konosuba) - Tier 8, 200
Chris (Konosuba) - Tier 8, 200
Satella (Re:Zero) - Tier 8, 200
Izanami (P4) - Tier 9, 500
Subtotal: 1550Remainder: 440

AN: My week has been tiring since this project started and I've been required to attend to calls at 9pm evening/night every weekday. Well, my writing motivation and energy had taken a huge dip, so this bandwagoning was meant to help me get into the groove of things. Anyways... yeah, poor dude wasn't as familiar with the CYOA thing since his friend filled it in, not himself, so its taking him awhile to recall the details.

P.S. Satella fucks the world up in the aborted timeline endings, only being put down nearing the end of the world when Othi-chan starts giving a fuck.