Aeries, a simple "middle-class" bird-like sinner who made his money being an mechanic for Vauche, working on cars all day, decided to check out the streets of Hell to find something to buy.
He had around $300 saved up, and he needed to use it quickly, otherwise, he's going to become a target for theft.
Well, he already is a target for theft. He's a middle-class sinner and this is Hell. But walking around with $300 isn't good for his long-term safety.
Which is when Aeries found a pop-up shop next to where Carmilla Carmine's gun store was.
"THE PLAZA"
The title of the store didn't really give away what the hell it was trying to sell. Fortunately, someone thought about this and plastered the windows with a bunch of ads.
"THE NEXT VERSION OF THE ARCADE! THE CONSOLE ERA HAS ARRIVED! PLAY GAMES IN THE COMFORT AND SAFETY OF YOUR OWN HOME! FOR ONLY $199.99!"
So, Aeries figured out that there was some newbie who brought a new technology to Hell and wanted to sell it.
Considering the pop-up store's location, it was clear that Carmilla Carmine was trying to grab the future faster than Vox was. But Aeries didn't really care about all of the Overlord politics. He's just a simple car mechanic, after all.
Either way, he's willing to check out what a console was. Aeries played on Hammer's arcades a few times and it was decently fun.
Entering the store, the first thing he was greeted by was a cardboard cutout of someone who vaguely looked like an action figure, but looked way dumber with the green, red, blue, box shaped head. And a skirt, apparently.
Then a voice came out from behind the cut out, "Hello! My name is Plaze, the Gaming Overlord! I herald a new era of gaming, the console era! Take your future into your own hands and buy from The Plaza today!"
Aeries lifted an eyebrow at the words that Plaze said. Maybe Plaze was the one who put this store here?
Though, putting an entertainment store right next to the gun store is pretty stupid. Definitely the signs of a newer Overlord.
And the slogan is definitely one of the weirder ones that Aeries has seen. Take your future into your own hands? It was obviously contrasting with VoxTech's "Trust Us."
Well, the console was $199.99, and the games are all $45 each. This should be a decent way to spend his cash.
Walking up to the aisle which held the console, Aeries noticed that all consoles come with a free copy of a game. Overlord Tycoon.
Aeries didn't know what a tycoon was, but he shrugged his shoulders and got the console off the shelf anyways. Today should be a decent day to find out.
He also picked up a copy of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, mostly because their titles sounded the coolest. After all, Aeries didn't want to pick up a game named "Baseball!" or "Duck Hunt."
Walking up to the register, the cashier being an unfortunate book-demon, Aeries said, "Alright, I would like to buy these 3 things."
The cashier seemed tired as he asked, "Would you like to sell your soul for 1 year to Plaze for The Plaza membership, getting 80% off your first purchase and 50% off all Plaza products for the next year?"
Aeries shook his head to deny the register. He already sold his soul to Vauche a long time ago, "Nah, no thanks."
The cashier didn't seem to mind as he then moved to ringing up Aeries, charging him $289.99 for all of his items.
"I also must tell you that if any of your items are broken in the next week, The Plaza will send you a replacement in three business days, or a full refund," The cashier said.
Aeries chuckled. A full refund if their items break? What an idiot. Everyone will break their consoles for a full refund!
"Alright, thanks for letting me know," Aeries said, before deciding to ask the cashier, "New Overlord, right? I know VoxTech only does that if their TVs are broken on the trip home."
The book-demon tiredly nodded, "Yep, new Overlord. I'm just here because Carmilla Carmine is propping him up…"
Ah, so Aeries was right. Carmilla Carmine was trying to cut into Vox's territory with this.
The book-demon then seemed to remember, "Ah, yes. I'm legally required to hand you the pamphlet explaining to you how to start up your Plaza Entertainment System."
Aeries raised his eyebrow again in confusion, "To prevent thieves from figuring it out?"
"New Overlord," The Book-demon reminded, not denying his claim, "He doesn't know these pamphlets will be public knowledge in the next hour yet. He's new to this."
New Overlords really were stupid, then. Aeries sure is glad that Plaze is making a mistake, because Aeries was definitely going to take full advantage of his stupidity.
Picking up his items, Aeries thanked the cashier and went straight home. Hopefully, the "Console Era" is as good as Plaze hyped it up in his ads.
If not, well, he was going to get it refunded anyway.
Plugging everything into his VoxTech TV, the Plaza Entertainment System boots up, asking what game he wanted to play.
Aeries already had Overlord Tycoon in there, so he figured that he would just play that. So he selected the only option on the TV, Overlord Tycoon.
After a title flash of "OVERLORD TYCOON" In bold red text, followed by bold green text stating "THE PLAZA" which was followed by another bold green title of "CREATED BY PLAZE, THE GAMING OVERLORD" the game finally loaded.
A miniature and pixelated version of who Aeries assumed to be Plaza showed up on a blurred screen with a text box next to him, along with voice acting from what Aeries assumed to be Plaze himself.
"Hello, aspiring Overlord! My name is Plaze, and welcome to Overlord Tycoon! Take your future into your own hands and become the Overlord you want to be!"
The miniature Plaze then moved to the side as he said, "First, I'll teach you how to play the game! Follow me as I introduce you to where your base of operations will be!"
The screen behind Plaze unblurred as it showed a rather pitiful one story building.
Plaze had an sorry expression on his face as he stated, "Unfortunately, we all don't start at the top. Which is why your current status as an Overlord is Petty Overlord, But don't worry! One day, you'll climb the ranks and one day become a Hell Sovereign Overlord!"
Aeries liked the way that Hell Sovereign Overlord sounded. And he really didn't like how Petty Overlord sounded. Already, Aeries was convinced that becoming an Hell Sovereign Overlord couldn't be too hard.
Plaze then looked at the screen with an upbeat smile, "First of all, we have to make sure that an Overlord like yourself is looking good! Why don't you create your avatar first?"
The screen suddenly shifted to a menu called "Character Creation" and Aeries was given the choice to pick his head, torso, and legs.
There were 10 items for each option and those options had some limited coloring options, and he could choose them in any order he wanted.
Aeries was tempted to just pick the bird themed items for all of them, but Aeries figured that some variety would be nice.
So, Aeries chose the red bird head, the black suit with red claws, and orange snake legs.
Plaze gave a smile as Aeries clicked finish, as the next text box said, "Looking Good! Next, you need to figure out what industry you're going into! A good Overlord needs a good monopoly, after all!"
Then, out of the blue, Plaze leaned closer into the screen and mentioned, "By the way, every character in the game are all fictional characters because I don't need to make my life difficult for myself."
Aeries lightly chuckled at the comedic way that the line was delivered. Aeries could understand what Plaze was saying. If he was to pick something a real Overlord existed for, that Overlord wouldn't be happy.
Again, there were 10 options that were able to be chosen.
Aeries hummed as he decided which thing he wanted to be the Overlord over. The three options he was conflicted over were Porn (Which apparently included drugs), Cars, and Gaming.
Each of them had a little description next to them stating why they were an option, and what kind of problems they might have when you try to progress your status.
For example, Aeries' first choice, porn, was listed off as "an easy start" in the pros list, which was highlighted in blue. But in red, it was also listed as "Many stronger and older Overlords to fight against," which made sense. Because it was porn.
Cars were apparently a "Hard start," because of the investment needed to begin in the first place. But the fact that the car industry was fairly small in comparison to the other industries was a good thing because the competition was weaker.
Gaming was another hard start, and it also clashes with a lot of other industries because gaming has to fight with the arcades, which consoles replace, TVs, who gaming has to use, and every other industry that needs you outdoors.
With all of that considered, Aeries chose the car industry to become an Overlord of, mostly because it sounded like the easiest of the three options. And besides, Aeries has fantasized about replacing Vauche before.
A celebratory ping sounded out as Aeries chose to become a Car Overlord.
"Ooh! Good choice!" Plaze encouragingly said, another text box appearing, "Now that you've chosen the industry you want to become the Overlord of, why don't you pick a new name for yourself? After all, nobody will take an Overlord named Steve seriously!"
Aeries decided to just button in Aeries. He already renamed himself long ago. And if an Overlord named Grillbys could exist, then Aeries was totally fine.
His name was engraved into gold as Plaze remarked, "Nice name. Something that Hell will remember for all of time. Now, let's finally get you started!"
The screen was filled with a bunch of buttons that Aeries had no idea how to use. Luckily, the game had a tutorial system as a certain section of the screen was highlighted with Plaze's words explaining what it did.
From the tutorial, Aeries figured out that the game was fairly simple.
The game was a basic management type, where all Aeries needed to do was make his number of souls go up. Currently, Aeries has 0.
He could purchase things with money that would help him get souls, though. As a Car Overlord, he could get loans with interest to buy his own car manufacturing plant, which was represented in the game as a mini factory inside of his building.
Then, that mini factory would make money for him, which he could use to buy more things to get more money. And once Aeries had enough money, he could start buying things that can give him souls.
It was clear to Aeries that this was basically a glorified spreadsheet. And quite frankly, Aeries really wanted to quit the game after getting his first factory.
However, there was a menu that outlined different tiers of Overlord depending on the amount of souls the player had. Currently, Aeries was a petty Overlord, but there were milestones for the 100th, 500th, 1000th, 5000th, 10,000th, 50,000th, and 100,000th souls, all with unique Overlord titles.
And, well, getting 100 souls didn't sound that hard. So Aeries decided to just get the 100th soul and ditch.
It took Aeries about 10 minutes before his plan to get 100 souls was derailed as a special event popped up on his screen.
Apparently, a different Petty Overlord, Tysi, had put his attention on Aeries and wanted his stuff. So Aeries either had the option to sell all of his things and lose the game, or say no and get into a turf war.
Now, a turf war was definitely Aeries's style, so obviously he chose to get into a turf war.
The game shifted from the pixelated building to a weird pixelated battlefield as Aeries's chosen avatar was put on the screen, against Tysi's avatar, which was a mishmash of a bear head, a dark girl's body (Huh?), and stick legs.
Tysi has 7 souls, but Aeries has 8. But that only contributed to some weird menu where Aeries had 8 Health Points and Tysi had 7.
Then apparently, there was an attack menu. So Aeries was able to click that one, where he had a couple of different options.
A basic attack that did one damage. An attack that took 1 soul but did 3 damage. An defend button that nullified 1 damage. And lastly, a summoning spell that took 1 soul.
Aeries was fairly certain that wasn't how souls worked. But hey, Aeries liked the idea of using souls to help yourself.
Aeries wasn't taking a Petty Overlord named Tysi seriously though, so Aeries decided to just basic attack him to death. After all, Aeries had more health than him. And more souls.
As Aeries takes Tysi down to 6 Health Points, Tysi uses a summon, summoning a sinner to the battlefield with 3 Health Points.
Aeries narrowed his eyes as he whispered to himself, "Wait a second."
If he tried to just basic attack Tysi to death, he'll lose because he can tell that the sinner Tysi summoned will start dealing damage to Aeries. This bastard was basically forcing Aeries to spend his souls!
Well, Aeries didn't want to lose, so he decided to use a strong attack against the sinner, killing it.
Then Tysi does a strong attack against Aeries, putting him to 5 Health Points.
Doing the basic math in his head, if Aeries strong attacks Tysi now, he'll have 3 Health Points. Then Aeries will have 2. But because Aeries goes first, he'll win.
This fight will cost him 3 souls, but it's better than losing. So that's what Aeries does.
After 2 strong attacks, Aeries wins.
And what does he get for his trouble?
$20 and the text box of, "Petty Overlord Tysi has retreated!"
Aeries didn't even get to kill the bastard!
Scrolling through his buyables menu, he finds that he can eventually buy angelic weapons to deal with rival Overlords permanently, but he needs a lot of money to even purchase the cheapest angelic weapon.
So, you know what? Fuck Tysi. He's going to both become a Hell Sovereign Overlord AND permanently kill Tysi!
First things first, he needs to upgrade his factories to make more money for him. And these loan interests are starting to rise, and it sucks…
After another 12 minutes of gaming, another special event popped up on Aeries's screen. Apparently, he just so happened to stumble on $100 lying on the floor!
Aeries grinned. Yeah, he's going to like this game.
Aeries did not refund his Plaza Entertainment System.
"Hm, what ranks do you think our real Overlords would get?" Ulysses, a fat deer sinner, asked his friend Yatise, a three eyed sheep sinner.
Yatise was playing Overlord Tycoon on her PES while Ulysses was watching her from behind. She had already gained 6391 souls, and was a High Overlord.
For reference, the tiers went as follows.
Anything below 100 souls is a Petty Overlord.
100 souls is a Minor Overlord.
500 souls is a Small Overlord.
1000 souls Middle Overlord.
5000 souls is a High Overlord.
10,000 souls is a Special Overlord.
50,000 souls is a Royal Overlord.
100,000 souls is a Hell Sovereign Overlord.
However, there were also unique words to be added on depending on the situation that your game was in.
For example, if you were in debt, you would get the "Debted" title added to the start. If your soul belonged to someone else because of a special event, you would have the title "False." And if you had no such issues, you were known as a "True" Overlord.
With that in mind, Yatise responded, "Hm, most of the big popular Overlords already have millions, or close to it, don't they? They're obviously True Hell Sovereign Overlords."
Unimpressed by her response, Ulysses told her, "I meant the less obvious ones, idiot. And I'm talking about where they fit based on how they feel, not on what they have."
That was something more worthwhile to think about. Because while two Overlords may own the same amount of souls, there were sometimes a clear difference in the way they acted that gave them a certain amount of prestige.
For example…
"Sergeant Hammer is probably either a Special Overlord or a Royal Overlord, but she acts like a Middle Overlord," Yatise claimed, getting light chuckles from Ulysses.
Ulysses responded, "You got that fucking right. No doubt she's bitching about Plaze right now. Speaking of which, you know any Petty Overlords? Or maybe False Overlords?"
Yatise briefly paused her game to think about it, "Do False Overlords even exist in real life?"
"Plaze, maybe?" Ulysses offered, pouring himself beer, "I hear rumors that he's under the thumb of Carmine."
"I think I heard it was more like an alliance or a deal," Yatise said, not sure of the exact situation herself, "But either way, I think Plaze is independent."
Ulysses tapped his chin as he thought of another Overlord that might be false, "Valentino?"
Yatise grimaced, "Him? False? No way, even if he was, him and Vox don't act like it. They're definitely equals."
She had one encounter with the moth demon, and that was one encounter too much for someone like her, who hates sex. She hated handing out compliments to Valentino, but Valentino wouldn't be an Overlord if he wasn't, at the very least, competent.
It's a shame that Valentino had to be so charismatic and smart as well. Not to mention his god awful backstage personality.
Ulysses shrugged it off, not concerned about her uncomfortability when talking about Valentino, "Eh, maybe they don't exist, then. Either way, it's fun to think about, isn't it?"
At the very least, Yatise could agree with that.
Yatise nodded, "Yeah. Speaking of, who do you think the next Hell Sovereign Overlord will be in Hell?"
Ulysses thought about it for maybe a second before he responded, "I like Super Mario Bros from Plaze. I think I might sell my soul next year for his membership to help him out."
"I might too," Yatise said as she saved her game, "I'm gonna head to bed, it's getting a bit late."
"Eh?" Ulysses looked confused, "It was like 6 PM when we first started, right?"
"It's 10 now."
"What the fuck?"
Reaching the title of a Hell Sovereign Overlord, effectively beating the game (Though he was given the offer to continue to get the highest score possible), Vox put the controller down as he collected his thoughts about the new piece of technology that made its debut in Hell.
Vox has known about Plaze's presence for a while, as he's been monitoring Mehira for a while now, considering she's one of the few hellborn demons actually doing anything of interest up in the Pride Ring. It was also because Vox's designs were copied into the other rings of Hell because the Sin of Greed, Mammon, is a piece of shit who won't pay him royalties for inventing the thing he's making money off of, and Vox was forever distrustful of hellborn demons because of it.
Plaze himself though, in Vox's opinion, didn't seem to be that interesting.
Sure, he had that satellite ability which was kind of useful. However, Vox's TV screens bring newcomers to Hell to Vox simply by being something modern. Plaze's ability wasn't that useful to him.
The console though, was much more valuable.
Already, Vox mapped out the future of such a technology like this, and the results were very interesting. Imagine a world where nobody needed to go outside, because you could control a virtual avatar that could live a life the way you wanted to and feel all the things it was feeling?
Just from this simple two dimensional game, Vox felt great joy in advancing his Overlord rank and taking down all of the morons who wanted to take his virtual character down (Which had to be a suit wearing humanoid demon because the character creator didn't have something for Vox, unfortunately). If that could advance to experiencing other feelings as well, then Vox had something truly revolutionary in his hands.
Well, not in his hands, as it seems as though Plaze ended up in some sort of alliance with Carmilla Carmine.
Vox fully intends to send an upset message to Carmine about it. How the hell does she think that stepping on his toes was alright? The entire entertainment industry belonged to Vox! Plaze belongs to him, and no one else!
Unplugging Overlord Tycoon from the PES, Vox decides to try out The Legend of Zelda, as Vox had nothing planned for today.
The technology present was quite impressive, and Vox decided that Plaze is definitely a cut above other sinners.
Vox made a deal with Valentino to become equals with him, because Valentino was an up and coming Overlord that was sure to become a big force in the porn industry, and Vox wanted a piece of that pie. So Vox helped expand Valentino's industry, and Vox got increased sales (And a piece of shit boyfriend but that's beside the point.)
Maybe Plaze could get the same offer. After all, Plaze was an up and coming Overlord that was sure to become big in the future.
Vox is going to have to wait until Plaze defeats Sergeant Hammer, though, as Vox doesn't want to deal with rebuilding the VoxTech headquarters after Hammer gets pissy and blows it up once she hears about Vox helping Plaze.
Still though, having Plaze work with Vox would be a massive boon to the Vee's (What they called Vox's and Valentino's combined company name) that it would be foolish to not try and recruit him.
That being said, if Plaze does end up actually being a Carmine loyalist…
Well, there is a reason why very few Overlords dared to challenge Vox in a fight.
After all, how do TVs communicate with each other?
That's right, with radio waves that are constantly emitting signals all throughout Hell.
And who do you think controls them?
Vox, and only Vox, of course. No one else has his level of control over the hidden signals that dictate all of technological progress.
Vox smirked as he took up the controller once more to play Plaze's game.
He's going to keep a very close eye on this newcomer, that's for sure.
Sergeant Hammer blankly stared at the console she was presented with.
Actually, it was hard to tell whether Sergeant Hammer was thinking at all. That was the level of blankness her face had reached.
Her underlings nervously shifted around as they waited for their master to say literally anything. After all, that dictates whether they would leave this room intact or in pieces.
Sergeant Hammer turned to the person who brought the console to her, intimidatingly asking, "You said that brat with the shitty idea I shot away earlier made this?"
It was certainly not "earlier" as that incident happened almost a month ago, but the robot sinner nodded anyway, "Yes, Sergeant Hammer!"
She seemed content with that answer as she turned to someone else, asking, "And he's getting actual sales of this crap?"
The fish sinner nodded, "Yes, I hear that he's made hundreds of thousands of dollars from it…"
"He fucking what?!" Hammer's voice exploded, causing everyone in the room to flinch. They had all seen the numbers for the arcades, and it certainly wasn't in the tens of thousands range.
Hammer slammed her hand and demanded, "JESSIE! WHAT THE FUCK!"
The doll sinner seemed petrified as she meekly answered, "Yes, Sergeant Hammer?"
"WHY DON'T MY SALES LOOK LIKE THAT?!" Hammer angrily asked, leaning out of her tank to look Jessie dead in the eyes.
Jessie took a step back as she gulped and made an excuse, "Well, Sergeant Hammer. It's a new technology and it's also easy to take home. People are probably just going to dump it very quickly anyways…"
Sergeant Hammer nodded, seeming happy with Jessie's answer, "Exactly! Why don't we help them with that? Let's blow up the factories that Plaze is using-"
"Plaze is using Carmilla Carmine's factories to build his consoles," Jessie's mother, Pam, an overweight hamster sinner, pointed out.
Hammer blinked, "Seriously?"
Then, a massive smirk appeared on Hammer's face, "Awesome! I hated that bitch anyways! C'mon, boys, we're declaring war!"
The entire room was compelled to applause, as Hammer played up the mood of the room by shouting, "It's gonna be Hammer Securities that owns everything in Hell! Hahahaha! Jessie! Get working on our tanks! We're declaring our war in December, just in time for Extermination Day!"
Jessie dutifully nodded, "Yes, Sergeant Hammer!"
And with that, the chess board was set.
AN:
My tongue hurts ;(
I'll be better when you read this, but I want everyone to know that on June 8th, 2024, my tongue hurts while writing this which really sucks.
I think out of all of the areas where it sucks to have pain in, the mouth definitely makes the top 5, if not top 3. I wanna eat, but it physically hurts to talk or move my tongue or anything.
Are tycoons a real thing back in the 80s? Idk, I read somewhere with a tycoon title. But I'm sure Plaze could do it.
[The Overlord ranks are all made up and I can definitely change them before they gain major traction if anyone has better ideas.]
[Also, I have an 11th chapter, and my 12th is halfway finished! So, 2 more weeks of backlog!]