— 4 Years 9 Months Until The End Of Yggdrasil —

It's been about two months and some change since Momonga moved in with me, and life has been overall good.

My boss accepted Momonga taking on the role of secretary pretty quickly, and now she was making just about double her wage-

Which admittedly still wasn't much, but it was damn good money considering she was living with me.

With her making a decent amount of money now, she offered to help me pay the monthly bills, and while I was handling it fine on my own, I wasn't going to turn down the extra help.

So, with us sharing the burden of monthly payments it gave both of us a good amount of money to spend on ourselves and one another.

Momonga had bought me several of the event items in Yggdrasil; they were primarily useless things at our level, but I appreciated them all the same and bought her some as well.

Of course, gifts weren't all we did to show each other affection. We tended to relax and watch TV whenever we were done with work. I didn't have to clock much overtime anymore, with Momonga taking up the hassle of doing the paperwork, which meant we now had a lot more free time to spend with one another before hopping on the game.

The furthest we've gotten is snuggling together on the couch, and it was her who initiated it. I've been keeping myself in check for her sake. I knew this was her first relationship, and I didn't want to overwhelm her by acting too pushy. In time, I would ease her into being more intimate.

As for Yggdrasil, a few of the twenty world items had been found-

And not by us.

By some smaller guilds who were mainly hiding out in low-level bases. Which means they didn't have much defense.

Ulbert had demanded we blast their asses to hell and steal their spoils, Touch Me had argued that doing something like that was against the system of justice, and the Guild had mostly been torn between the two sides.

Mostly because a great deal of them thought it didn't matter. We already have the strongest one, and we had several World Champions/Disasters. We were set up for success. Plus, attacking smaller/weaker Guilds with the hopes of gaining their most precious treasure would put them at odds with us.

I personally didn't care either way, but I leaned more to Ulbert's side. Mostly because I wanted Nazarick to have all the World Items whenever the New World Transportation happened. Ending up coming 500 years after a bunch of other players who possessed World Items would fucking suck, and I'd rather not have my friends or Nazarick get destroyed because I was too lax of a Guild Leader.

No, we were going to attack them, and today was the day I made that announcement for the Guild to hear.

"You okay?" Momonga asked, cuddled into my side.

"I'm fine, Megumi." I ran my hand through her hair. Having someone close to you in this horrible world was nice. And honestly, I don't think I could ever let her go now that I know what it feels like to love someone. "It's about time to log on. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, let's do it." I nodded, smiling as she remained where she was. "Is something wrong?"

"You're warm." She admitted, snuggling closer.

"So are you."

I was content with staying here, just a little bit longer, and I hoped the Guild didn't mind if we ran a bit late.

— Later —

'[You must bring an end to the World Eater.]'

I blinked at the message. Never in my life had I seen it before, and I had no idea what had prompted it to appear now. I did, however, know what the World Eater was-

And I was nowhere near the level of being able to fight it, much less "bring an end" to it.

Hell, the entire Guild could come with me to fight it, and we'd likely get our asses handed to us.

The World Eater is the final boss of Yggdrasil. In the game's lore, it is a God rivaling the World Tree Yggdrasil. We had defeated a fragment of it earlier, which is how I got my armor, but we were nowhere near being capable of beating the full-powered boss.

According to lore, a massive dragon ate the leaves off of Yggdrasil's tree, and considering every one of Yggdrasil's leaves is a World Item, it means the dragon ate entire worlds. Thus, the name World Eater.

Several of these leaves remained; 9 of them went on to form the 9 realms, and the rest were scattered throughout those realms.

We haven't been given an exact level of how powerful the World Eater is, but it's said to have a great many skills that hail from World Items.

It's fucking skills are World Items.

Such a thing could not be beat. Not by any guild alone, I knew that, and so did everyone in Yggdrasil. It was likely that all the Guilds would have to come together on a group front with the goal of defeating the World Eater.

Even then, it was unknown if we would be able to beat it. The only way we would actually win against it is if we had a World Enemy or two on our side-

And there was no one like that.

All of the World Enemies in the game were NPCs, but the Devs hinted at a World Item that could be capable of turning a player into one if the conditions for such a thing were met. The World Item wasn't one of the Twenty and was a random one we'd have to find.

Hell, someone has probably found it by now.

I let out a sigh, my eyes unfocused as I sat in my chair.

"Everyone here?" Touch Me asked, sitting in his seat to my right. The table was stacked full of people, with the last member of the Guild taking his seat. "Good."

"I'll be brief," I spoke up, earning everyone's attention. "Three Guilds have collected three of the World Items. Those three Guilds are Orion's Ring, Timestoppers, and JenkinsHub."

"Wait, is JenkinsHub led by LeroyJenkins?" Take asked.

"Those are all dumb names," Pero interjected. I held up my hand, urging them to let me finish before he spoke, though I agreed with Pero for the most part.

"They not only have World Items, but they each have one of the Twenty. Those three are 'Ahura Mazda,' Five Elements Overcoming,' and 'Longinus,' respectively. All of those World Items are powerful, and Ahura Mazda is detrimental to most people in our Guild. So we have two options: We could leave them be, or we could attack. Let's decide."

"The answer should already be obvious." Ulbert slammed his hands on the table and stood up. "We're an enemy to most guilds and not in alliance with any of those three. To leave them be to get decimated by the likes of Seraphim or Slaine would be idiotic!"

"But to attack them would be heinous!" Touch Me stood up as well, his voice growing aggravated, "To attack a group of players that do not go against the balance of Yggdrasil would be against justice!"

"To hell with justice!" Ulbert roared back. "This is for the good of the guild, not the world."

"That's so selfish!"

I watched as the Guild started to join in the argument; the ones who sided with Ulbert fought strongly against the ones who sided with Touch Me-

Nah, let me call it as it was; they were mainly siding against Ulbert. The guy wasn't very likable. Momonga looked at me from my left side, and I could tell, even with her skeletal face that held no expression, that she hated to see the people she cared about fight.

I couldn't stand for such a thing, especially when I felt the same way.

"Enough!"

The War Room grew quiet with only a few last remarks before they all regained order.

"We are not animals." I scanned my eyes along the table. "We are Heteromorphic creatures with minds and rational thought, and we will act like it."

I earned some quiet apologies from the various people around the table, which lifted my spirits quite a bit.

"This is a pretty big call. So, I would like to hear all of your thoughts on the matter. Starting with you, Touch Me." I held my hand out to the light blue World Champion frost armor-wearing man, and he stood up.

"I will not continue to scratch your ears with justice." Touch Me started, and from his voice, everyone could tell he was no longer just playing a character. He was serious. "Everyone has something going on outside that leads us here. And those other guild members are no exception. I do not wish to be a part of ruining what they've built here unprovoked. That is all."

I could tell just by looking at Ulbert that he wanted to say something. He wanted to lay into Touch Me, to tell him that his compassion was flawed-

That humans didn't deserve mercy.

I waved my hand over to Momonga at my left, and she stood up.

"I'm tied between both sides, honestly." She admitted. "I know how hard it is to build from nothing; we all do. Because of that, I don't know if I would feel comfortable attacking them." Momonga paused to take a deep breath. "But at the same time, I love our Guild; it's my second home, and I'm sure it's a lot of yours as well." She earned some nods from the other Guild Members, myself included. "I…I think we should do what's necessary for the guild, no matter how much it bothers me."

With those last words, she took her seat. I gestured over to Ulbert, who was sitting beside Touch Me, and the man Arch Demon stood.

"First of all, I would like you all to let go of the amalgamation of preconceived biases you have toward me out of your minds. I will not allow you all to obscure and deflect my reasoning simply because you aren't too keen on the idea of agreeing with me." Ulbert said it was clear he was angry that he even had to make such a request.

"Agreed," I said, earning the eyes of everyone. Ulbert Alain Odle is a member of Hell's Paradise, and more than that, he outranks most of you. I don't care if you hate or dislike him. You will listen to what he has to say, and you will not disagree simply because you don't like him. Logic comes first, feelings second."

Again, a chorus of grumbles made their way through the room. Ulbert gave me a thankful nod, which I returned as he continued.

"The guilds we wish to attack, sure they are small, and sure they built themselves up, but they aren't our concern, nor should they hinder our guild's ascension. We have enemies that we cannot beat easily. We need all the World Items we can get our hands on, and if we do not act now, Seraphim, Slaine, or any other notable guild in Asgard will do it themselves. We'll be wiped out."

Silence permeated through the room at his serious yet solemn declaration. The thing is, everyone knew he was right. Nazarick was a fortress, a nigh impenetrable one-

But an army of level 100s storming our door with nearly all the World Items in hand…

We would stand no chance.

As Ulbert sat down, I gestured for Pero to stand, and then it continued down the line until all fifty guild members had spoken and given their thoughts. Momonga had been keeping a record on a note, and once everyone had spoken their thoughts, she handed it to me.

The majority agreed with Touch Me, 27-22.

However, I had not spoken yet.

Everyone's eyes were on me as I read the note. I pushed myself out of the seat and ran my eyes along each of them.

"Final vote, 22 for attack, 27 for inaction."

Their eyes all remained firmly on me. After all, I was the guild leader; majority vote be damned, I made the final decision-

But I cared about their thoughts and opinions.

"I'll tell you what I think, and then I'll make a final decision." I pulled out World Savior and Gram and laid them on the table. "No matter what you all may think, no matter how much you all like me, we can all agree that I am the strongest, right?"

Progressively people nodded at my words; after all, they had to be reaching up their asses if they thought otherwise.

"Good, then I must ask. To those of you who disagreed, should I say we go and raid their base, would you participate?"

"No." Was Touch Me's immediate answer. "I would not do something that goes against everything I stand for, you know that, Kakuei."

I nodded, expecting that. The others that declined the raid nodded their heads in agreement with Touch Me, some even being more vocal about it.

"Good, now keep that same energy," I said, storing my weapons back out of sight. "Then I guess should all of Asgard come knocking at our doors, you all would be comfortable with us sitting out, would you not?"

Though their expressions did not change, I could tell everyone was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

"Why would you not want to defend Nazarick?!" Touch Me shouted, slamming his hands onto the table and standing up. "This is our precious-"

I held my hand up, stopping him. I looked back at everyone and shook my head in disappointment. "This guild has a great deal of meaning, not just to me, but to all of you, I'm sure. Which is why I would never want to see it destroyed, ever. I won't stand by and watch as Asgard amasses an army and storms our guild without doing anything, just like I won't stand by and watch as Asgard comes knocking at our door."

The Guild grew silent as I took a moment to pause. My voice had been calm and collected the entire time, but internally I was pissed the fuck off.

Cowards!

"We are a united front! We stand by each other, even if we disagree with the means; we will do all we can to ensure the end is the best for the guild and Nazarick! We will attack tomorrow, and all of you will participate. We're done here." The moment I finished speaking, I made my way out of the room. Ulbert and Momonga quickly got up to follow me, and most of the guild remained sitting, soaking up my words.

Now wasn't the time for half-assess and pushovers; we needed to be the strongest, and we needed to annihilate anyone that stood in our way-

Because we weren't just playing a game, we were setting up for our future.

— Chapter End —