PopStarry woke up.

Her body was fatigued as usual, as nobody just woke up actually ready to get up, especially in PopStarry's case as she had elected to sleep on the grass that WasabiChan's NPC, Canopa, made using her druid skills.

The grass that Canopa grew in the middle of the desert where Eryuentiu appeared was very comfortable, though. Definitely the handiwork of a level 100 druid.

At the very least, her clothes, the Lover's Momento legendary set which was a French-like suit made with blue, black, white, and gold fabrics which all basically ended up with her being an exquisitely rich noble wearing a suit with shorts, was enchanted to never be dirty. PopStarry wasn't quite sure how it was enchanted to never be dirty, as it wasn't actually something that any of her armor had in Yggdrasil.

Dragging her body up, PopStarry loudly yawned as she called out to the open expanse around her, "Brother?"

"Yes, Rin?" Kazuya's voice reached her ears as she could hear him walking across the desert, his footsteps slightly muffled by the sand before reaching the grass she was laying on.

Theadul was, in an attempt to match with PopStarry's armor set, wearing the blue version of the Lifelong Quarrel set. It was a robe covered in various symbols that conveyed petty grievances, though PopStarry couldn't name any of those symbols. It was also open at the front so that Theadul could wear something more formal underneath, which was a white casual business shirt and black slacks, alongside white gloves and brown dress shoes.

PopStarry was fairly certain that was also what Theadul wore most often in real life. It's a bit odd how little of a difference there was between Theadul and Kazuya, when Rin and PopStarry were nothing alike.

PopStarry giggled, "We're PopStarry and Theadul now! Don't call me by our old name!"

Vagisilious had once told them to stay on until the forced log out. And Vagisilious must've been a prophet of some sorts, because they were sent to another world! With their guild base! And all their friends and NPCs!

The next time that Vagisilious and PopStarry meet, PopStarry is going to give her a big hug and an angry rant demanding for an explanation!

Because, seriously, where is Vagisilious? Or Principality, for that matter? They tried to message them, but didn't get anywhere with it.

Theadul sighed in mild exasperation, "You know how unnatural it is for me to call you that, despite our thousands of hours spent in Yggdrasil."

Out of all of the Greed Kings, Theadul took the sudden transfer the hardest. After all, despite being stuck with her all the time, Theadul did have many friends he left behind on Earth.

In her own opinion though, those friends don't matter anymore. Because of their player avatars, they've just effectively earned themselves an immortal afterlife together!

Well, they think they can be immortal, anyways. It was just a theory on using a few of Theadul's spells to somehow shift the age away from their bodies, but it sounded real smart when Hakon explained it!

So, an immortal afterlife!

Standing up, PopStarry grinned as she teased her love, "Aw, Theadul! How could you just not stand to say my name after all the time we spent together!"

Walking off the grass and onto the hot desert, PopStarry gave Theadul a kiss on the lips.

Or tried to, anyway. Theadul backed off almost immediately.

Frowning, PopStarry upsetedly asked Theadul, "Aw! Why don't you wanna kiss me?! We aren't technically related anymore because player bios don't exist, so we can't be related, right?!"

Still backing off from PopStarry, Theadul replied, "It's not the issue of blood. It's the stigma of having a sexual relationship with my sister that is the issue."

"Aw, I'll wipe your doubts away eventually," PopStarry dejectedly sighed.

Really, it's a whole new world, and her brother doesn't even want to try being a little bit adventurous? Even when she's so willing AND now an adult?

PopStarry loves Theadul, but he makes her so frustrated sometimes!

From behind them, PopStarry hears WasabiChan laughing as she remarks, "Hahaha! It looks like you two are still having your little spat!"

PopStarry had no idea when WasabiChan got here, but she was glad that WasabiChan seemed to be in high spirits. Even though it is at her own expense…

"It is not a little spat," Theadul said, not sounding as though it wasn't a little spat, "It is a minor disagreement between my sister," Theadul emphasized despite knowing full well that they don't care, "And I."

Rolling her eyes, PopStarry whined at WasabiChan, "I'm trying to kiss him, but he won't let me! Isn't that bad, Wasabi?"

PopStarry knew that WasabiChan was a freak in bed, because basically on day 3, the short green haired girl had asked everyone to have sex with her and treat her like an object.

Theadul declined, because PopStarry would've killed him if he did accept, but WasabiChan was now "Dating" all of the other Greed Kings.

If PopStarryhad to guess why she was like that, it was probably because WasabiChan was sexually frustrated from all of the years on Earth where she was confined to her room because her immune system was betraying her.

They did seem pretty content with their relationship that's as open as the sky, considering PopStarry could tell that there was more than one NPC in the guild base being seduced by one of her friends and didn't seem to mind it.

Which was why WasabiChan eagerly nodded on PopStarry's side, "Yeah! Theadul, you shouldn't lead a girl on like that!"

Theadul just sighed, ignoring her words, "Moving on, has Sakaemu's NPC, Fei Fei, if I recall her name correctly, found any sign of life?"

WasabiChan nodded, raising a finger as she said, "Yep yep! She found a village! We were just waiting until everyone was awake and clean before we went to check it out."

PopStarry hummed, "And who's still asleep?"

"Jeremy."

Of course it's Jeremy. OldManJeremy, or now just known as Jeremy, was the 2nd youngest member of the Greed Kings. And contrary to his name, he played as a young blond-haired blue eyed European human player. Why? PopStarry didn't really know, but Jeremy did claim that it was funny.

Either way, Jeremy's first course of action in their guild base, Eryuentiu, was to go to bed. The second thing he did was to have sex with WasabiChan. The third thing he did was to go to bed.

With that in mind, all PopStarry did was sigh, "Oh well. I suppose we can wake him up later. Where's Powerfuel? I'd like to talk to him for a bit."

WasabiChan put a finger to her chin as she thought about it, "Powerfuel? I think he's in the throne room…"

Giving her a thumbs up, PopStarry said, "Thanks! Theadul, don't get lost now!"

Theadul chuckled, seemingly forgiving PopStarry of her previous comments, "Of course. Stay safe, Rin."

"It's PopStarry! Get my name right, at least!" PopStarry refuted before disappearing into Eryuentiu, only mildly upset at her brother.


Entering the throne room, a luxurious marble rotunda where there laid 10 thrones in a crescent formation, PopStarry found Powerfuel brooding on his throne in the middle of the room, which looked quite good on him.

Powerfuel seemed to have decided that wearing his full armor set was a bit clunky, and changed into roleplaying gear that was more comfortable. But PopStarry recognized that said roleplaying gear was still a full set from a level 68 dungeon, and could probably put up a decent fight if Powerfuel was forced to.

Approaching him, PopStarry asked, "Hey! Powerfuel! Do you have any updates on finding civilization?"

Powerfuel lifted his head to look PopStarry in the eyes, "Stop calling me Powerfuel. My name is Hisashi."

"And I've never known a Hisashi in my life," PopStarry blandly pointed out, "It's weird to call you that, so I'm going to keep calling you Powerfuel."

Pinching his fingers between his eyes, Powerfuel sighed in exasperation, "I hate hearing it. Why can't you be more like the NPCs? They don't mind calling me Hisashi, or at the very least, Lord Hisashi."

Sitting in her own throne, which was on the end of the crescent formation next to Theadul's throne, PopStarry put her elbows on the table to hold up her head as she smiled, "Because we're your friends, dummy! We're supposed to do things that mildly annoy you."

"This goes beyond mildly annoying," Powerfuel straightened himself on his throne as he then moved along, seemingly tired of arguing with a brick wall, "Now, what do you need?"

"I was just going to complain about having to wait for Jeremy and catch up with you, but…" PopStarry's facial expression turned a bit concerned, "I think Fei Fei found something you didn't like, right? I could tell by the way you were sitting."

While they haven't physically ever seen each other, and for the past decade, have only heard each other's voices, they were still friends for the better part of a decade, and could still figure when things weren't right.

Powerfuel sighed, "Yeah… Hey, PopStarry, do you think we know how to fight?"

PopStarry looked a bit confused at that question being asked at all, "Fight? Uh… I mean, not really. I know we know how to cast spells and stuff now, but to actually fight people? I'm not so sure."

"That's the issue, you see," Powerfuel took out his own sword, looking at it with an apprehensive expression, "It feels natural for me to hold this thing, despite never holding it before. And that's… Odd to think about, especially considering the path that we're going to have to take."

PopStarry also felt similarly when casting actual real life magic for the first time. It felt natural in all of the wrong ways, to where it didn't feel right to feel so casual, throwing out spells that she knew could kill.

But what did he mean when talking about the path that they're going to have to take?

At that moment, Theadul appeared in the throne room, "Hisashi, Jeremy has woken up. Shall we gather everyone so that we may go to the location that Fei Fei has found?"

Powerfuel grimaced, "Sure, but…"

"I'm not sure if there will be a location left by the time we leave."


The 8 Greed Kings had 10 players and 10 NPCs, not counting the countless pop mobs that spawn in the guild base, which were just mostly golems.

Powerfuel decided to have all 20 members that make up Eryuentiu come with them. But PopStarry wasn't sure why.

Until they got to the village, that is. If you could even call it a village at that point.

It was more accurately a slaughterhouse. With humans as the cattle.

Bull demi-humans had occupied the human village and turned all of the humans into livestock for their consumption. They didn't even bother cleaning the blood or bones of the humans left over. They could still see the remains of humans left littered all around the village, not a single one of them buried.

Not a single one of the Greed Kings wanted the demi-humans to keep standing.

Walking in there, it seems as though the sentiment was met by the demi-humans.

One of the larger ones, who PopStarry assumed was the leader, grumbled at the sight of 20 new people of mostly human origin, "Tch, more humans to the slaughter. Men! Ravage them!"

The bull demi-humans had all charged straight at them, believing they could win because of their superior numbers.

All Powerfuel said in return was, "Kill them."

They had all underestimated their power, as half the village simply ceased to exist alongside all those who had dared to attack them.

But the surviving humans stayed safe, as a few dared to creep out of their captivity upon hearing the heaven shattering noise outside.

The first human who saw them gasped in shock, "Did you kill them?!"

Nobody responded, the players were shocked at the way they condemned living beings to death so easily, and the servants were not allowed to speak on behalf of their masters.

The first human was practically starved as he was just skin and bones, with his only other defining feature being his red eyes and black hair.

Even still, he managed to crawl his way over to the 8 Greed Kings, "You… You must be gods! Here to save us from our torment! To slaughter the demi-humans!"

Continuing without a single response, the human continued, "I'm not worthy to be in your presence, but my name is Fortune! It must be Fate's will that we're able to meet today! Please! Allow us to follow you! Allow us to witness your ascension into this world!"

It was an uncomfortable situation for the Greed Kings to be stuck in. To be in-between two groups of servants, who both revere them as gods.

Nonetheless, Theadul spoke up, "You…" Hearing no counter from Powerfuel, Theadul continues, "You no longer have a home, so we shall take you to ours. In return, you will tell us everything you know about this world."

"Everything! We'll tell you everything, my lords!" Fortune shouted with the utmost faith, "We will all do our best to follow you into a new era! Please! Just tell us your name so that we may pray to it!"

Powerfuel took over, stating, "We are the 8 Greed Kings. If you want anything to believe in, believe in our greed to ensure that our treasure is clean and washed of monsters."

PopStarry didn't think that Powerfuel was that into roleplaying, but she guesses that's what they're doing now?

But Powerfuel did speak the truth.

There was a right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do. And ignoring the violation of human life that was happening around them was clearly the wrong thing to do.

But was there a right way to handle it? If there was, it wasn't likely to be discovered by the 8 Greed Kings.

Instead, they would do the only thing they could do.

Promise to eradicate every single demi-human off the face of this planet.


A few weeks later, they ended up creating a city underneath Eryuentiu just to house all of the humans they were rescuing.

Fortune ended up becoming the leader of the city underneath their guild base. Apparently, they're calling themselves Eryuentiuians, because they wanted the city name to be the same as the floating castle above. And Fortune is quickly becoming a popular icon as the…

Head priest of the Church of the 8 Greed Kings.

It was as absurd as it sounded.

And Theadul was the unfortunate person designated to deal with all of the humans they were saving. Apparently, Hakon was supposed to do it, but he managed to weasel himself out of it because he was able to convince everyone else that Theadul would be more popular with the people.

As Theadul walks through the streets of Lower Eryuentiu with Fortune, taking in the adoration of a people who love them, Theadul decides that they could've sent anyone down here and get the same amount of love.

"Lord Theadul," Fortune whispered to Theadul's ears to be able to talk to him above the shouts and cheers of the people, "If I may be so selfish, I have a request to ask of you."

Knowing Fortune since they had arrived into the new world, Theadul agreed to hear him out, "If it is within my power, I shall fulfill it."

As they turned the corner to walk towards the church that the people of Lower Eryuentiu constructed for the 8 Greed Kings, Fortune said, "I have been having… Dreams, lately."

"Dreams?" Theadul briefly looked at Fortune to ask, "About?"

Hesitantly, Fortune replied, "...I'm not so sure, my lord."

Entering the church where there already laid a hundred of their followers, Theadul spotted PopStarry sitting in one of the 10 thrones laid on raised floor, meant exclusively for them.

Theadul brushed aside Fortune for a moment as he walked to PopStarry, "What are you doing here?"

"You're my husband," PopStarry unashamedly said, "I feel as though we should be going through things like this together, should we not?"

Sitting down next to her, Theadul groaned, "We are not married."

PopStarry held a smug expression as she pointed out, "Even behind my back, you haven't accepted the advance of any woman. It sure sounds like you're waiting for someone special like, oh, I don't know. Me~?"

Having gone through this song and dance more than once, Theadul brushed her aside to speak to Fortune, "Now, you were saying something about having frequent and odd dreams?"

Fortune seemed a bit hesitant to speak after PopStarry, but after PopStarry gave nothing more than a disappointed look on her face, Fortune spoke up, "Yes, my lords. These dreams are near indecipherable to me. The only thing I can piece together is that I seem to be hearing some sort of… Godly conversation."

PopStarry raised an eyebrow, "Godly conversation? What does that even mean?"

"They didn't seem to be communicating with words, but rather with…" Fortune struggled to find an appropriate word to use, before eventually concluding, "Feelings."

Theadul found the idea of communicating with feelings rather than words to not be so divine. From his studies, he knew that now extinct animals used to communicate with pheromones and things of that nature. Perhaps Fortune was trying to describe a concept he didn't know?

Either way, Theadul wasn't going to question him too far about the specifics, "So, you didn't understand what they were saying, only that there was something being said?"

Fortune nodded, "Yes, Lord Theadul. I'm sorry for my inability to assist you…"

"It's fine," PopStarry answered for Theadul, "Though, the fact that you're getting such odd dreams at all is rather worrying."

As PopStarry spoke, Theadul turned his attention to the crowd that had gathered both within, and without, the church that the two siblings stood in.

The people all had eyes on them, quietly whispering about the three's conversation. It seems as though they're quite interested in what was being said as well, having no reservations against in listening into what should've been a private conversation.

How greedy. Theadul would've been upset with them if it weren't for the fact that it was likely their title as the Greed Kings that their citizens took after.

Especially considering their previous situations of being livestock, and never wishing to be under a demi-human's foot again.

Theadul sighed, "If you wish to continue this conversation, please do so after the speech you planned to give here. There are people listening."

"What I'm going to say actually depends on you, my lords," Fortune said, taking a deep breath before asking, "I wish to aid in your crusade… By coming with you!"

Well, that was stupid. Fortune was, if Theadul was being overly generous, level 4 at most. He would be an active detriment if they brought him along with them.

With that in mind, Theadul asked, "Why?"

Fortune seemed to have anticipated this question as he easily answered, "I feel as though the secrets to my dreams are hidden in these distant lands. If I come with you… I feel as though I may be able to help you as you did with us!"

PopStarry scoffed, "That's a bit silly, but I do wonder what those dreams mean," Turning to Theadul, PopStarry asked, "So, do we let him?"

Well, Theadul wanted to deny Fortune, and simply claim that he would be more useful here than on their travels.

However, Theadul cannot deny the earnest request of one of their first followers, and certainly one of their most loyal and devout.

With that in mind, Theadul shrugged, "You are responsible for your own safety."

Fortune grinned as he deeply bowed, "Thank you, Lord Theadul, Lady PopStarry! I shall not forget your kindness!"


Amaru, Theadul's brown dragonoid NPC, looked at Fortune with a suspicious expression on his face before turning to Theadul, "I'm sorry, my lord, but this… Whelp, is meant to follow us as we slaughter the beasts that plague this land?"

Focalors, PopStarry's NPC who was married to Amaru (Much to Amaru's underlying discomfort), nodded along with him, "Yes. It'll just force Smores or Odin to protect him, yes? It would also cause unnecessary stress upon you, my lords, to worry about his safety…"

Odin, Hakon's NPC who was a simple human electric warrior, scoffed at Focalor's words, "How foolish. The 8 Greed Kings would not have to worry about his safety for as long as we stand! If it is their will, then it shall be fulfilled!"

Powerfuel sighed at the antics of all the NPCs, before turning to Theadul, "Look, I don't really care. If Fortune wants to hang out with us while we go massacring the demi-human population, he can. Just don't blame us if he somehow ends up dying too."

Crossing his arms, Theadul pointed out, "You seem too casual to suggest that one of our allies could die. You were quite hesitant to start this crusade, were you not? I suppose the bloodshed must've worn away at your sympathy."

Unamused with Theadul's words, Powerfuel retorted, "I could say that you had very little sympathy in the first place. After all, you're the one who doesn't even offer a word while we end bloodlines. At least we'll have conversations with each other."

Before the situation escalated beyond words any further, Hakon smacks the two players in their heads, "Could you two morons not try and insult each other? We're all trying to make life better for humans. Let's not kill each other, right?"

Nursing the spot that Hakon hit him at, Powerfuel begrudgingly agreed, "Yeah, whatever. It was stupid anyways."

Nodding, Theadul agreed, "Yes, there is nothing else to say. Our actions will speak for us."

Fortune nervously whispered to PopStarry, "Lady PopStarry, is this a… Common thing that goes among the 8 Greed Kings?"

WasabiChan overheard the question and answered, "Nah. We're all friends doing war crimes. Except it's not war crimes if they're not human."

"What?" Fortune confusedly asked.

"Don't listen to her," PopStarry advised, patting Fortune on the back, "Just follow us, and you'll be safe."

And with that, the 8 Greed Kings set out to find more demi-human villages to slaughter in the name of humanity.


The Dragon Emperor, Nibelung, stood at the center of the continent that they called home, surrounded by his kin.

His size dwarfed the surrounding mountains as his prismatic rainbow scales, displaying his natural prowess as an emperor, shined on those who beheld him. The countless concubines he bred for the sole purpose of expanding his species to further grasp the rule of his planet.

For a thousand years, Nibelung stood tall amongst his kind as the Emperor of All Dragons, and yet he wished for more riches, his greed never satiated. And so a hundred years ago, he had created a spell which would grant him treasures from other worlds.

It cost a hefty toll, as Nibelung had to use the lives of his children to fuel the spell, and cut corners to ensure that the spell didn't take his own life. However, he had successfully casted the spell, and all of the treasures of other worlds would be his.

There was only one slight issue.

One of the corners he cut ended up causing those treasures to appear all around the world. As such, Nibelung had to send his children out to find them to bring them back to him. It caused a few of his more… Foolish children to rebel against him, but nothing he couldn't beat down.

It may take a thousand years, but Nibelung would get his hands on what was rightfully his. That was the future he declared he would carve out back when he was born.

But now…

One of his children, who named themselves the Primordial Dragon Lord due to being one of his first, called out to Nibelung, "Emperor! I bring dire news to you!"

Shifting his body to turn to the dragon who called out his name, causing the very environment around him to fall and turn alongside him and the countless priceless treasures that surrounded the Dragon Emperor, Nibelung snidely asked, "What news could possibly be dire to me?"

"It is our western tributes-" The Primordial Dragon Lord began, before being immediately interrupted.

Nibelung snarled, "Did those weaklings bail on giving me their tribute?!"

How dare they try to deny him of what was rightfully his! This entire planet and all its treasure belonged to Nibelung!

Shaking his head, the Primordial Dragon Lord clarified, "No, Emperor! They have been wiped out by humans!"

Humans? Those weak creatures?

Perhaps they've gotten more clever and managed to find a way to defeat the various demi-humans that prey on them. Or maybe they made an alliance with a stronger race to further their own territory. Either way, all that meant was that those humans were going to have to pay tribute to Nibelung if they wanted to live for any longer.

With that in mind, Nibelung calmed down to relay his orders to another dragon, the Feathered Dragon Lord, "You! Go to the west and tell those pitiful humans that they will pay tribute to me or die!"

The Feathered Dragon Lord dutifully nodded, "Yes, my Emperor."

The Feathered Dragon Lord hastily flew to the west, intending to get away from Nibelung as soon as possible to avoid the possibility of Nibelung lashing out at him for being too slow.

Laying back down, assured of his continued dominance over the lesser beings in the west, Nibelung was satisfied.

His dominance shall continue for another thousand years. For not a single being from this planet could challenge him.


PopStarry looked at another demi-human village, sighing tiredly as she sat on a nearby hill, waiting for her mana to recharge a bit.

This would be the third village she would have to destroy today.

They've long since learnt that the demi-humans had no way to oppose them. The level difference was just too large for them to be able to put up any resistance.

As such, the 8 Greed Kings were split up into small groups composed of a Greed King and their NPC.

Though, PopStarry had to be stuck with Fortune for some reason. And Fortune seemed to be very insistent on going with either Theadul or herself.

Oh well, it's not as though she was going to chide him for having favorites.

Focalors stood attentively behind her, ready to do anything in PopStarry's name. Fortune stood not much farther, ready to take in everything with his eyes and years.

"Focalors," PopStarry called out, her voice tired, "Do you know anything about Ainz Ooal Gown or Triumvirate?"

She knows that Fortune was likely going to record these words down, so she was going to keep it brief.

After all, she wants them to know that she remembers them.

Focalors immediately replied, much more relaxed than PopStarry was, "Very little, Lady PopStarry. I only know what you have told me about those two guilds."

Well, that makes sense. It's not as though PopStarry wrote anything special inside of Focalors's bio to make her remember anything that big.

…Other than being married to Amaru, that is. But that's beside the point.

Still, she really wanted to hear about her friends in the other guilds. Theadul didn't talk about them very much anymore, and PopStarry…

It's only been a few months since they entered into this world, but she's beginning to forget them.

She doesn't want to forget them.

Standing up, PopStarry told Focalors, "Hey, if you ever get to meet Ainz Ooal Gown or Triumvirate, be sure to be friends with them, okay? They're good friends of mine."

"How will I know them though?" Focalors asked, tilting her head in confusion, "I don't know who they are, or how they look like."

Thinking about it, PopStarry only said one thing, "Ah, don't worry. They'll tell you."

Fortune seemed curious about PopStarry's friends from Ainz Ooal Gown and Triumvirate, "Are they good people?"

Chuckling, she nodded, "Yes. The very best. At least, they supported Theadul and I's relationship."

PopStarry turned to Focalors, "Good luck with Amaru, by the way. I hear he's being as stubborn as Theadul."

Lightly bowing, Focalors thanked PopStarry and said nothing more of it.

Fortune turned his sight towards the demi-human village, "Is it time, Lady PopStarry?"

Well, it seems as though PopStarry could no longer stall what she had to do. After all, Fortune is watching, and his people demand blood that only she can provide.

PopStarry pointed towards the demi-human village, which she already made sure had no humans inside of it.

She preferred a bloodless means of death. It was cleaner… And more bearable to do.

"[Widen Magic: Drown]."

The lungs of everyone in the village suddenly filled with water. Back in Yggdrasil, it would simply stun the opponent for 2 seconds at most. In the real world, it was a deadly and painful death as they have to bear the sensation of drowning on land.

Not that PopStarry would be there to hear their panicked attempts to breathe and cough out the water in their lungs. She was long gone, taking Focalors and Fortune to the next village.

Not a single demi-human managed to clear their lungs in the end.


Theadul was the unfortunate recipient of something called the consequences of their actions.

That is to say, they were bound to be found by something actually powerful in this world due to their practically indiscriminate murder of demi-humans. And as Theadul watched the large red and green colored feathered dragon in the distance grow larger as it closed the distance between them, Theadul could only hope that the dragon was weaker than him and Amaru.

Speaking of which, Amaru immediately covered his fists in stone as he took a fighting stance, "Shall I remove that whelp for you, Lord Theadul?"

Theadul waved him off, "Only if I start the fight. You were the one who slaughtered this village anyhow."

Personally, Theadul preferred to lay the spirits of the demi-humans to rest himself. His NPC was… Far less considerate than even he was. Even though Theadul quite literally ripped the souls out of his victims, which, as Theadul could see and hear with his own eyes, must've been quite painful.

If Theadul could choose another class to play with the knowledge of today, Theadul would not have become a soul mage.

The large red and green colored feathered dragon landed in front of the two, kicking up much of the dirt and dust that was on the floor as he shouted out, "I am the Feathered Dragon Lord, Yharon! You are to surrender to the Dragon Emperor, Nibelung, and grant him tribute!"

Now that Theadul could see him properly, Yharon seemed to be more of a bird than a dragon, as he had feathers instead of scales.

However, the aura displayed by Yharon was most definitely a dragon's aura. So perhaps this was simply just how dragons looked in this world.

So, an unknown.

Theadul cautiously asked Yharon, "Oh? Why must we pay tribute?"

Yharon growled at his words, unhappy about his resistance and lack of respect, "Because the Dragon Emperor rules this world! You weaker races must pay him the proper respect that he deserves. And as he does not want to suffer your presence, you must grant him your riches so that his hoard will be made of the world's greatest treasures!"

Ah, so a typical greedy dragon.

Well, considering that Nibelung rules the world by the sounds, Theadul really doesn't have the authority required to make any decisions on behalf of Eryuentiu. Especially as, even with PopStarry's vote practically guaranteed every time, he only makes up a fifth of the guild's influence.

That being said, it truly only depends on how Yharon replies to his next question.

"I'm afraid I do not have that authority alone. Would you like to come with us to our city and explain it to the 8 Greed Kings?" Theadul politely asked, his fingers fidgeting on his cane, which was his staff.

Although Theadul was part of the upper class himself, he absolutely despised the arrogant who have no talent other than being born lucky.

And dragons in this world seemed to be a race made up of exclusively those types of individuals.

Theadul will not feel as much pity for them as he did with the demi-humans.

Yharon irritatedly growled, "The 8 Greed Kings? What a foolish title. Fine! I shall accompany you to your city and demand tribute of your rulers myself!"

Theadul smiled, knowing full well that the dragons of this world have sealed their fate, "I see. Then follow me."


"No."

Yharon blinked, not believing the words that had come out of Powerfuel's mouth, "No?"

The 8 Greed Kings let Yharon into the guild base's throne room to have their discussion.

Their complete rejection was 3 sentences into that discussion.

"No," Powerfuel repeated, sitting lazily on his throne to show how unthreatened he was, "We're not giving you tribute."

"What arrogance!" Yharon yelled in anger, standing tall in the throne room, "You dare defy the will of the Dragon Emperor-"

Plaslam, one of the 8 Greed Kings, lazily stood up, his tall stature standing up to interrupt Yharon, "You must not realize who we are."

"That's MY line!" Yharon angrily retorted.

Another one of the 8 Greed Kings, Sakaemu, laughed, "Hahaha! We both don't really know each other! We can both use it!"

Hougan gave Sakaemu a serious side eye, "Dude. Time and place."

Yharon could tell that he wasn't being taken seriously, and he absolutely hated the feeling of insignificance.

There was only one being in the world that should be able to make him feel that way, and it certainly wasn't any one of these insects in front of him!

Hakon was eating during the entire 2 minute meeting, as he finished his sushi and said, "Hey, Wasabi. I can see you thinking about just firing off a spell at the Dragon. Don't."

Yharon was a little happy to hear that, "I see that one of you knows their place."

Yharon's mood was immediately crushed as Hakon continued, "He's more useful alive at the moment. Just send the dragons a message with him or something."

WasabiChan considered it for a moment, thoughtfully saying, "Oh, right. I guess it would be kind of inconvenient to send one of our own people to send a message to somewhere we don't know…"

Tired of the disrespect, Yharon gave the 8 Greed Kings one final chance to save themselves from the war to come, "Fine! Will you pay tribute?! Or will you be destroyed by Nibelung himself?!"

Everyone looked at Powerfuel. After all, despite not acting like it, he was still the actual leader of the 8 Greed Kings.

"Well, considering we kill demi-humans to make sure the humans stay safe…" Powerfuel began, staring at the floor for a moment before staring directly into the eyes of Yharon, "I suppose declaring war with the dragons is our next logical option."

"Logical?" Yharon incredulously stared at those who dared to challenge the millennium rule of the Dragon Emperor, "You all truly wish death upon yourselves, then… You truly are the Greed Kings."

Yharon scoffed, turning back to the exit, "Fine, I shall tell Nibelung that you refuse to submit against our might. You will regret this day."

Nobody in that room, neither Yharon nor the 8 Greed Kings, disagreed with the notion of regret.

Perhaps, even in their hearts of hearts, they believed that they would regret this day someday.


Jaina Proudmoore was the proud apprentice Lore Keeper of Eryuentiu.

Lord Hakon created the Lore Keepers to ensure that their deeds will be remembered for all of time. They entrusted 10 Lore Keepers to ensure that every word and action would be written down.

Of course, those Lore Keepers needed to pass their knowledge somehow, so it was up to apprentices like Jaina to ensure that those sacred texts got copied and distributed around the territory that the 8 Greed Kings had conquered. That way, even if the original copies are lost, there will always be a duplicate somewhere in the world that spoke of the 8 Greed Kings.

As an apprentice Lore Keeper, Jaina wasn't allowed to follow any of the 8 Greed Kings to actually witness what actually happened during their excursions. But she frequently meets with the Lore Keepers themselves to write down their every word.

So, Jaina was requested by Fortune, the first Lore Keeper, to fulfill his duties of ensuring that the memories would stay with them forever.

However, when she got to the requested location, a simple library, Fortune was… Eerily quiet.

Fortune was usually a very active person, viewing his life as an opportunity, a second chance after the demi-humans slaughtered most of his village and his family. As such, Fortune was a young man filled with fervent vigor.

That vigor was gone, as Fortune looked at an empty table with defeated eyes.

Fortune didn't even notice Jaina as she walked up to him.

Knocking her knuckles on the table to try and get his attention, Fortune did not respond.

So, Jaina just asked, "Um. Fortune? Are you… Awake?"

"The next time anyone sees me, I shall be dead."

Jaina blinked as she took in the image of the very first human who was saved by the 8 Greed Kings, pale and barely breathing.

That… Wasn't normal.

Fortune didn't seem to be afflicted with any visible disease, and everyone knows that the 8 Greed Kings could even defy death.

However, Fortune said that he would die with such certainty that even Jaina thought that he was telling the truth.

So, only one question remained, "Why?"

Fortune slowly looked up to Jaina's eyes, making eye contact.

…Or, a man who she believed was Fortune.

"I feel… At peace," Fortune said, his voice even and calm despite his impending demise, "Through my dreams, which were weak just half a year ago when I brought it to our masters' attention, I have been fighting a battle. At first, I didn't even know I was fighting, but… It has been devouring something, and it has it in abundance. I do not know what it is."

Fortune breaks eye contact, leaning back in his chair to look at the ceiling, "I feel so fortunate to have been able to live out these last months of my life in the presence of gods. I believe that presence is the reason why I have lost this battle so quickly and easily. It has been influencing my actions as well, to get it closer to the 8 Greed Kings. But even so, I do not regret a single action, even though it has resulted in…"

Fortune suddenly straightened his back, stopping his sentence before starting another, "I'm… Not…"

"Sir?" Jaina said, concerned for who was likely the most famous person in Lower Eryuentiu.

Fortune suddenly laughed, causing Jaina to flinch at the sudden mood change, "Hahahaha! At the precipice before it all, I can see it so clearly now!"

"Jaina!" Fortune shouted out, Jaina suddenly standing straighter than she was when she entered the library, "Go! There's nothing to be gained in Eryuentiu! It's already claimed by fate!"

Then, his voice suddenly turned tearful, "And if you get the opportunity… Tell the 8 Greed Kings that I'm sorry!"

Jaina was not the one to disobey orders from someone she highly admired, so she quickly did as she was told and ran out of the library, hoping that she'll get to the 8 Greed Kings in time so that Fortune could tell them in person what was wrong with him.


"Fortune" slowly walked up to the corpse of Jaina Proudmoore.

Unfortunately, it has been decreed that Jaina was just especially clumsy today and accidentally tripped on some inconvenient stairs within Lower Eryuentiu, hitting her head. And due to the fact that humans actually do die rather easily by any serious head injuries, Jaina died on the spot.

Humans were pathetically weak just because they were the baseline.

"Fortune" was also mildly annoyed with the situation, because he found himself with another hoop he had to go through before he could truly be free.

Until then, Fortune would have to make do.

Gently kneeling down, Fortune whispered to the corpse of his valued apprentice, "Sorry… I didn't mean for you to die so soon. It's a waste of a good name."

Carefully picking up the corpse, Fortune told the nearby observers of the event, "I shall bury her. Do not mind me."

Walking towards the nearest graveyard, Fortune sighed, "Another few months, then."


It was Theadul's turn to essentially babysit Fortune as he followed the 8 Greed Kings along their journey to save humanity.

However, almost immediately, Theadul could tell that there was something different about Fortune today.

Before, there was always a reverent look to Fortune's face, never letting them forget that they were his saviors.

But today, he seemed… Muted. As though something happened to him.

As though something good happened to him.

He had known Fortune for a long time, so Theadul had no hesitation to ask him, "Fortune, you seem a bit different today."

Fortune had an easy smile on his face, not stressed at all about his change in attitude being noticed, "Oh? Well, it's only natural to feel like a completely different person after something good happened to you, isn't it?"

That was true, yes. But Theadul didn't think that Fortune was being metaphorical about feeling like a completely different person. After all, Theadul could feel souls using one of his many soul mage abilities.

And with just a thought, Theadul could tell that Fortune's soul was twisted into something else completely. However, it was still Fortune's soul at its core.

…Or, was it? His soul seemed to be getting consumed, and Theadul had never seen someone's soul like this before.

Calmly, Theadul raises an open palm towards "Fortune." It was a clear threat, as any spell that Theadul could cast would kill him instantly. With the threat made, Theadul asked him, "So, what happened to Fortune? Your soul is far too different to be called Fortune."

Even with the silent threat issued towards him, he didn't seem worried, as though he was still in control of the situation, "Fortune? Well, his soul is still intact. I'm just using his body to enter into this world. I just need to perform a ritual to get my own body into this world, but I'll have to obtain a couple of things to get that done. Until then, I'll be your Fortune."

Body into this world? Theadul wasn't sure if this was someone from another world should act, however… Theadul supposed that he wasn't from this world either.

But that wasn't what Theadul wanted to address at that current moment. Because, in his heart, Theadul only cared about one thing.

"Call yourself something else," Theadul demanded, feeling offended even at the notion that he would be able to call himself Fortune, "I know who our friends are. You are not one of them."

Theadul has been around Fortune for long enough to call him his first friend in the New World. He won't allow Fortune's name to be used without any consideration to the person himself.

He sighed, "Then… Hm, I can't call myself my true name just yet, it has to be spoken at a special moment. So… Call me Reiwa, for now."

Theadul narrowed his eyes at Reiwa, "Why can't your true name be spoken?"

Reiwa chuckled, "I placed a curse upon my true name… Well, not a curse, exactly. But if I say it at the correct time, I'll get a little boost. But if I don't say it at the correct time, or someone else speaks my true name before that time, whoever spoke my name will incur a penalty."

"That penalty being?"

"Oh, I don't know," Reiwa unapologetically said, shrugging his shoulders, "Nobody is dumb enough to try it."

Theadul had absolutely no trust towards Reiwa to just let him roam free. However, Reiwa also implied that if he were allowed to complete his ritual, then Fortune would be returned to them just fine.

So, the question was, should Reiwa be allowed to exist in this world?

Theadul lowered his hands as he asked, "What are you?"

Reiwa put his right hand on his chin as he hummed, "Hmm… I would describe us as…"

Then, Reiwa's eyes widened as he seemed to have thought of something.

Reiwa grinned from chin to chin as he finished his thought.

"Parasites."


In the end, Theadul allowed for Reiwa to live, taking Reiwa with him as they cleared out the belligerent demi-human villages.

After all, he wanted to see Fortune again. Theadul has had enough of losing friends for one lifetime. And if Reiwa was of any actual powerful descent when transformed into his true form…

The 8 Greed Kings have never faltered to any challenge.

Of course, Theadul wasn't about to hide something of this magnitude to his friends. So as soon as Theadul was finished clearing out the demi-humans settlements, which apparently had the required materials for Reiwa's ritual as he eagerly looted the corpses of those Theadul slayed, Theadul called for a meeting of all 10 members of the 8 Greed Kings.

Theadul is sure that the 10 members of the 8 Greed Kings joke still cracks up a few of their members to this day.

Eventually, their NPCs all leave the throne room, leaving only the players.

Powerfuel sat down on his throne and immediately asks Theadul, "Hey, what did you call us here for-"

"Fortune's body has been taken over by someone else."

Everyone's minds paused for one moment as they took in that sentence.

Then, pandemonium.

PopStarry was the loudest, as she was also the one Fortune enjoyed spending the most time with, "WHAT?! HOW?! DID YOU GET FORTUNE BACK?!"

PowerFuel, the one who allowed for Fortune into the inner circle of their most trusted citizens, snarled, "Seriously? Who did it? Kill him."

Hakon, someone obsessed with recording things for the future, and thus spent a lot of time speaking to Fortune about things, calmly said, "Well, shit."

Everyone else was drowned out in Theadul's mind, as he quickly recognized that everyone liked Fortune enough to be ready to kill the parasite as soon as possible.

However…

"I'm afraid that the ability to return Fortune is beyond my current capabilities," Theadul informed everyone, tanking the mood of the room, "However, the one using his body, someone using a fake name, Reiwa, has told me that if he can perform a ritual to pull his true body into this world, Fortune will be returned to normal."

PopStarry voiced her discontent, "And do you trust that Reiwa guy? Theadul, this is Fortune we're talking about! We can't just take a risk by trusting Reiwa! Your main class is about souls, right? Can't you do something about it by getting Fortune's soul back using one of your spells? Or removing Reiwa's soul?"

Theadul was considering it before coming here, even targeting Reiwa with a few silent spells without actually activating those spells.

"In my silent observation, I've noticed that my spells don't detect a difference between Fortune's and Reiwa's souls," Theadul crossed his arms, silently cursing himself for being unable to manipulate anything beyond what his toolbox carried, unlike a true master who started from zero, being able to solve issues as they arose, "Considering our collective issue in being rather unrefined with anything beyond our current spells that we own, I doubt I'll gain the necessary skill before Reiwa gets his necessary materials to complete his ritual."

And oh, didn't that hurt? The simple fact that, despite all of their power, they were but children wielding weapons far beyond their capabilities to imagine. And that if those weapons were taken away, they had no idea how to rebuild them.

In the face of someone actually skilled, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

OldManJeremy raised his hand, his young face looking oddly excited.

Powerfuel looked at OldManJeremy with a judgemental glance, "You know you don't have to raise your hand, right?"

"Sorry, habit," OldManJeremy apologized, before speaking, "So, our issue is that we don't really know how to learn magic, right? Don't we have Five Elements Overcoming?"

Everyone pauses for a moment as they remembered their singular world item they owned as a guild.

They had briefly brought it up on the day of their arrival, but they had assumed that it wouldn't work without the developers. However, that was before they began to experiment with their magic and realized that nothing was the same as Yggdrasil anymore. But they didn't end up getting back to the topic of Five Elements Overcoming.

Five Elements Overcoming used to allow the users to submit a change to the system of Yggdrasil, usually its magic system, and that change would usually be honored and put into the next expansion. However, they had gotten the world item after the developers died, so it was left in the treasury to rot and be forgotten.

Until now, apparently.

"Would that even work?" Asked WasabiChan, stating the obvious, "Who would we even tell our request to? God?"

Hougan scoffed, clearly not taking her words seriously, "It's more likely that we won't be able to use it than speaking to a god."

Shrugging, WasabiChan replied, "Hey, it's possible."

Hakon chuckled, "Well, it's not as though we lose anything by trying. Should I go get it? You guys can figure out what to do with it."

Powerfuel nodded, "Yeah, go ahead. We should use it if we can, because I really doubt that the weaklings of this world have an actual world item that we would have to use Five Elements to protect against."

Raising a dissenting comment, Theadul asked, "We're not sure about the strength of the Dragon Emperor, Nibelung. He may be a world enemy, even though Yharon was fairly weak when we saw him not long ago."

"Nibelung?" PopStarry raised an eyebrow, "With a name like that, I definitely agree he might be strong. But is it possible that we're in the equivalent of a starter area, despite reality not working like a game?"

Sakaemu rolled his eyes, "I doubt that game logic works in reality, even if our avatars are from a game. At most, I think Nibelung is level 100."

"Our toughest opponents were probably the people in that elf forest," Hougan said, looking up at the ceiling as he decided on a level estimate, "Who were like… I don't know, maybe level 30 at most."

Theadul, who was there fighting those same elves, slyly smiled and told Hougan, "You're overestimating them simply because we spared them so you could get an elf consort, Hougan."

"I am not!" Hougan retorted, mildly annoyed, "Those arrows hurt- Well, they didn't, I took physical immunities- But they would've hurt if I didn't!"

Belloal tried to get the topic back to where it should've been, "Alright, can we talk about what we're going to do with Five Elements Overcoming? We're trying to help Theadul be able to, like, do something with Fortune's soul so Reiwa doesn't try to kill him, right?"

At the reminder of what's at stake, everyone acted more professionally as Theadul stated, "I believe the simple statement of let us develop our magic should suffice. It breaks our ceiling, and it is also broad enough to fill any gaps we may miss."

Nobody wanted to argue with the person who Five Elements Overcoming was meant to improve, so they all silently accepted it.

At that moment, Hakon came back with Five Elements Overcoming.

Five Elements Overcoming, instead of being made out of a single material, it was made from 5 different elements, equally distributed along the staff. From the bottom to top, the elements were water, electricity, earth, fire, and air. The staff was meant to be held in the earth section, though Hakon was holding it in the fire section because he was weird.

Theadul stood up, holding a hand towards Hakon, "Will you hand that to me? I'll use the world item myself."

Without complaint, Hakon handed over Five Elements Overcoming to Theadul.

Theadul briefly composed himself, not sure of what was to come. Or if it would even work.

However, for the sake of his friend, Fortune, he couldn't afford to do nothing.

With that in mind, Theadul raised Five Elements Overcoming into the air and declared, "I wish for us to be able to learn, develop, and fully understand our magic."

In Yggdrasil, after the request was made, Five Elements Overcoming would simply disappear as the developers deleted it from your possession.

In reality, Five Elements Overcoming exploded.


Nibelung could tell immediately that something in the air changed.

No, not the air… But rather, the very world itself changed just now.

Raising his head from its resting position, Nibelung carefully observed his surroundings.

Nothing physical has changed. His children and wives are all going about their day, meaninglessly surrounding him in the hopes of somehow gaining some excess power he exudes.

The smarter ones seemed to notice the change in the world, though Nibelung doubts that they know exactly what changed. But since Nibelung didn't expect any of them to notice what had just happened, he will instead praise those who noticed instead of insulting those who didn't.

Nibelung looked to the west, where the apparent shift in power occurred.

In fact, looking in that direction, Nibelung felt a distinct familiarity in the type of power that was used. It was similar to the power from the artifacts that Nibelung summoned with his spell a century ago.

If one of his precious artifacts were touched… Then Nibelung will personally ensure that their pathetic lands are bathed in flames.

Nibelung turned to a few of his weaker dragons. This shall be their test.

"You whelps!" Nibelung roared, gaining everyone's attention, but Nibelung did not care for the attention of any weaklings other than those Nibelung would send to fight, "I doubt the Feathered Dragon Lord is coming back because of the power that was just emanating from the west. Go investigate what happened to him! Then bring the heads of those who dared attack a dragon!"

Every single dragon in the direction he was staring, a group of about 23, immediately roared out some vague cheers before stumbling over themselves to throw themselves into the air towards the west.

Nibelung sneered as he watched the group of dragons disappear into the distance.

Hopefully, those fools will come back as conquerors. Otherwise, this may end up in a similar situation as that one human brat almost 50 years ago…

Placing his head back down, Nibelung began his slumber to regain his power from his previous fight half a century ago.


Surshana was busy tending to the graves of his former friends when that sudden feeling of change washed over him, causing him to flinch from a primordial sense that if something weird was touching you, it was probably dangerous.

However, when he jumped up and turned around with his scythe drawn, there was absolutely no one there. Not even a single attendant from the nation that his friends had insisted on creating.

Slowly lowering his scythe, the undead Overlord tried to deduce what just happened and figured it out relatively quickly.

That feeling was similar, although not exactly the same, to when his friends used Downfall of Castle & Country against a few enemies a few decades ago.

Meaning… A world item was used just now.

Turning his scythe into its magic form, Surshana internally debated whether he should tell the new leaders of the Slane Theocracy about the whole ordeal. But eventually, Surshana decided that it would probably be more merciful if their gods just disappeared one day.

After all, old age was the cause of death for half of his friends. Their worshipers should be free from the idea that they weren't actually gods. Surshana would hate it if their faith was shattered and they think that it was all for nothing. And besides, Rufus could probably handle it.

Creating a Soul Eater to ride upon (Because like hell he's walking), Surshana followed his instincts on where the world item that just changed the world would be.


Reiwa, sitting on top of the feathered dragon that Moniseven had generously captured just for him, blankly stared in the direction of Eryuentiu, cutting off his conversation with the tall elven man.

To be fair, Moniseven wasn't much better as he stood below Reiwa, openly gaping in the direction of Eryuentiu as the very laws of the world changed openly in front of them.

At the end of the sudden shift, Moniseven immediately glared at Reiwa, coldly stating, "You didn't tell me that the 8 Greed Kings had a way to invoke the power of one of the four."

Reiwa clicked his tongue in annoyance as he replied, "I didn't know that either, buddy. Besides, that was probably just Five Elements Overcoming, boosted with the power of that title we can't say."

"Which is why I named it as one of the four," Moniseven off-handedly mentioned before walking up the feathered dragon to get up in Reiwa's face, "More importantly, you've outed yourself, making our subversion infinitely more difficult. Have you no shame?"

Making their subversion infinitely more difficult his ass. Reiwa knew fully well that Moniseven was waiting for a knight in shining armor, given how weak he was right now. And besides…

"One of the 8 Greed Kings can detect souls," Reiwa pointed out, enjoying finally being able to use sturdy logic against Moniseven who was being overly emotional about the loss of his true body, "Considering that our only method of getting into this world is through infecting someone that's already here, I would say that me getting caught red handed was to be expected."

Crossing his arms, Moniseven calmly retorted, "Your host spent the past half year leeching off the energies of one of the four, yes? I'd say that you should've had the ability to conceal your soul quite easily."

Once again, Reiwa replied back, "My main class is a warrior, dude. I didn't consider my magic to be a core component of myself, so it didn't really translate over here."

Moniseven just sighed, slowly making his way away from Reiwa's comfort zone. Considering the fact that Moniseven didn't make a witty comeback, Reiwa will consider that a success.

Reiwa looked back down at the bound dragon that they were having their conversation on.

Moniseven ended up catching this thing using his, and Reiwa hates to admit it, considerable skill in archery that wasn't using their collective crutch. And because Moniseven could recognize what resources needed to be dedicated to who, Moniseven decided to let Reiwa use the feathered dragon for his ascension ritual.

Speaking of that ritual…

"Can you do me a favor, Moni?" Reiwa said using the kindest tone he could muster inside the body of Fortune.

Moniseven was not amused at all by the tone of his voice, but he lent him an ear, "Depends on the favor, Japanese Era."

Rolling his eyes on the nickname Moniseven used in return, Reiwa elected to ignore it and ask, "When the final battle comes, could you lure everyone to where Nazarick is going to show up?"

Moniseven raised an eyebrow, questioning, "Would we not want to revisit the resting place of the Dragon Emperor? Or the battlefield upon which you make your ascension?"

Reiwa waved it off, "Nah, we'll be fine. The others who make it here can get their own little important spots. But I get Nazarick."

All Moniseven did was shrug as he agreed, "Very well, then. Your ascension will be in the middle of nowhere, where it will only become a place of notice 500 years from now."

"Wouldn't our battle make it a place of notice?"

"If we were planning to loudly announce our presence."

Reiwa's face fell, "Blegh. Fine, we can go with your plan. What's the name of the group, by the way?"

They had all agreed that whoever got there first would get dibs on naming rights. Seeing as though Reiwa could only sense Moniseven, he assumed that Moniseven got those rights.

Given Moniseven's name, though, Reiwa didn't have much faith in what

Moniseven smirked, "Incarnation of Fate's Will."

"I hate it."

"That's why I picked it."

Reiwa sighed. He knew that the bastard was going to do something petty just because Moniseven wasn't the strongest person in the room because of the whole transfer process. And he was absolutely justified in that belief because Incarnation of Fate's Will is about the worst name he could've come up with for a shadow organization.

It was almost as bad as-

Reiwa began to violently cough out his lungs, throwing up blood as he lost all control of his body for five seconds. Falling to the ground, Reiwa's body spasmed as it tried to fix an issue that couldn't be fixed.

Reiwa tried to punch his chest to get the blood out, but all that did was hurt him as he was still suffering for a future action he couldn't ever take.

Moniseven raised an uncaring eyebrow in his direction, "Oh? Did you stumble on that trick that he placed?"
The pain wasn't a major issue. Reiwa had gone through much worse on purpose. But even so, it was kind of inconvenient to try and breathe through blood filled lungs.

So, after a moment, Reiwa calmed down and calmly said, "That sucks."

Reiwa understood what happened. And, to be completely honest, Reiwa respects the hustle to keep the obvious a secret. It was likely that their opponent had some inkling of what was coming their way.

But there's nothing that they can do about it, can they?

So, Reiwa ignored his pain.

"It does," Moniseven agreed, "Now, I suppose that will be the end of our conversation, then? The next time we meet will likely be at the final battle."

Reiwa's body was too tired to move, but his eyes still stared at Moniseven as he weakly said, "Sure…"

As the conversation was wrapping up, Reiwa remembered to inform Moniseven, "Ah, by the way, the 8 Greed Kings actually have 10 players in their group for some reason. Don't be caught off guard by it."

It was weird, but Reiwa wasn't that surprised to see a joke gone too far. After all, they were a corporation filled with people who were a joke gone too far.

Moniseven scoffed, "It will not matter how many players they have. Their fates are still the same. Now, if you have nothing else to say…"

Moniseven unceremoniously kicked Reiwa off of the feathered dragon almost as soon as Reiwa realized that Moniseven was supposed to take the dragon with him to prepare the battlegrounds.

Still, Reiwa had enough strength in his body to shout out, "Fucking asshole!"

"You're now the strongest, yes? Deal with it," Moniseven blandly replied as he dragged the unconscious dragon away from the location of their conversation.

Reiwa was going to kill that damned elf one day, he swears it.

Standing up, Reiwa made his way back to Lesser Eryuentiu. And there, he was going to have a conversation with the 8 Greed Kings just to make sure nothing was extraordinary.

After all, the script must be followed, else the laws of the universe gain the opportunity to defy fate.


Theadul's first attempt at trying to learn anything was… Fairly pathetic.

He went to Lower Eryuentiu and tried to look at the souls of people, however, it didn't really get anywhere as Theadul didn't have any direction or guide on how he would even learn the things he needed to do.

What he did learn, however, was the fact that Five Elements Overcoming seems to have subtly affected the soul of every living thing in the world. Something that Theadul could only see because he was intently studying every detail laid upon the human soul.

Yet, Theadul was able to slightly shift someone's soul for just a moment, not using any active spell he once knew. It didn't make any difference to the random passerby he experimented on, at most he was slightly bothered by a feeling in his chest.

So, Theadul would consider that a success. He was likely able to use his magic much more freely than just being confined to what spells he had.

Still, the issue was that Theadul didn't quite know how to create a spell…

At that moment, Theadul heard a man's scream pierce through the air.

Theadul turned to the direction the man was in, but in that very direction, he laid eyes upon Reiwa.

So, Theadul trusted his friends to investigate what that was about as he focused on Reiwa.

Stopping in his tracks, Theadul crossed his arms and asked, "Oh? What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were out of the city."

Reiwa shrugged in return, "Well, I get around quickly. But speaking of rumors, it seems as though you've been up to something that made itself evident across the entire world fairly quickly."

Ah, so their activation of Five Elements Overcoming was felt by Reiwa, and judging by his words, the entire world.

That might be a little inconvenient.

Theadul spoke, "Oh? Well, whatever challenges may arise because of it, I'm sure we 8 Greed Kings will be able to handle it without issue."

Not interested in that line of thought, Reiwa switched the conversation topic, "That thing you did with Five Elements Overcoming-"

"And how do you know that name?" Theadul coldly interrupted, his eyes turning into a glare.

There was no way a resident of the new world should know that name. Much less realize the function of it.

He knew that Reiwa was some sort of otherworldly being, but even so, he shouldn't know what a game item did.

Reiwa seemed annoyed at the interruption, "What? Of course I know about Five Elements Overcoming. But what you actually did with it is more interesting."

So, Theadul's question was practically ignored. Theadul would've pressed the issue harder, however…

What did Reiwa mean by the activation being interesting?

With that question in mind, Theadul asked, "If you know Five Elements Overcoming, then its effects should be known to you. And I don't believe my request was too outlandish for you to understand."

"The activation zone was a bit limited in comparison to the real thing…" Reiwa began, briefly pausing to collect his thoughts before continuing, "The effects you chose were also unbecoming of one of the four, you could've asked for anything as though it was Ouroboros and it likely would've worked. However, the spectacle of this universe suddenly shifting to accommodate for your demands…"

Reiwa's smile placed doubt into Theadul's heart, as though he had made a mistake.

Reiwa lightly chuckled, "Yes, it was truly magnificent. You should've had a bigger ego and asked for more. Then that would be something that even I remember for the rest of my life. As it is right now, I would forget you in a century."

Somehow, Theadul didn't think that Reiwa wasn't being serious when he said that he would forget him in a century. If Reiwa's claims of being from another world were true, then he was much older than Theadul was.

Theadul couldn't do much about the soul of Fortune that was being taken over by Reiwa right now. However, he knew that Reiwa wouldn't resist if he tried to test the waters.

Raising a hand towards Reiwa, Theadul pulled.

Freezing, Reiwa quietly muttered, "What are you…"

Theadul's pull pulled the entire soul, of course. He wasn't yet skilled enough to be able to locate where Reiwa ended and Fortune began. However, he was still able to locate one line where Reiwa's soul and Fortune's soul clashed.

However, Reiwa's soul was scattered all over the surface of Fortune's soul. It would require surgical precision to remove it all. Or some great power that Theadul did not have access to, due to being inexperienced in being able to use magic that wasn't limited to what spells he had.

After getting dangerously close to pulling their souls out of his body, Theadul decides to push back in their souls. Today was not the day they would be meeting Fortune.

Taking in a large gasp of air, Reiwa slowly said, "That was rude, don't you think?"

Theadul turned around, not needing to hear anything more, "I shall see you later, Reiwa. I have business that needs to be attended to."

Now, Theadul can investigate what was with that scream earlier…


Well, humans could learn magic now.

It used to be that it was all up to innate talent, and that whether you could learn magic or not depended entirely upon your blood. And that blood seemed entirely dependent upon if your family ended up having kids with another species that could use magic.

Martial Arts, the native's actual "Magic" system which was basically just swordsmanship, was something that the humans in Lesser Eryuentiu used to try and bridge the gap between the players and themselves. However, even the strongest warrior was only perhaps level 25.

However, due to Theadul's liberal use of the word "Us," everyone could now learn magic.

Of course, from the beginning, it was still quite clear that some were more gifted in learning magic than others, but everyone could technically learn a first tier spell, given enough time and effort was spent trying.

Of course, none of the 8 Greed Kings knew how to actually teach, so that duty fell squarely on the shoulders of their NPCs, who actually did know how their magic worked.

And, due to the 8 Greed Kings deciding it would be super cool to have all of their NPCs have at least one class tree invested into an elemental mage, all 10 NPCs of the 8 Greed Kings could teach magic.

Which leads to the NPCs current predicament.

After the very first day of teaching a school filled with hundreds of people who want to learn whether they have the ability to learn magic or not, all 10 NPCs gathered back into the guild base in one of the guest rooms with a window overlooking the city.

And they had very strong opinions about the humans they were teaching.

Kordhell, Powerfuel's fire brawler NPC, his entire body covered with a fantasy version of a biker's gang uniform mixed with a skeleton on fire, was loudly complaining, "Why do we have to teach these guys magic?! They were doing perfectly fine without it, right?!"

Odin, Hakon's Thor copy NPC, calmly replied, "It is our kings' will that we teach the humans how to use magic. Do you think they're wrong for decreeing so, Kordhell?"

Kordhell bitterly crossed his arms and fumed without offering another word.

Sitting on the window stalls, the small Chinese child in a Japanese miko outfit that was Sakaemu's NPC, Fei Fei, lightly chuckled, "Now, now, Kordhell. They're just weaklings, practically children. You can't expect them to learn everything we teach them on the first day, can you?"

Fei Fei also had the record of the highest percentage of people who were actually able to manifest any magic at all on the first day of teaching.

A fact that Canopa, WasabiChan's pet llama, eagerly pointed out, "You say that, but a bunch of people you taught did learn everything…"

Because Canopa was the one of only 2 NPCs that wasn't human or human-adjacent, she wasn't very popular within Lower Eryuentiu. However, because she was a cute llama, she was still more popular than Amaru, who was a brown dragonoid.

Fei Fei stuck her tongue out in response like a child.

Smores, Plaslam's actually just an adult woman NPC, did not contribute to the conversation at that moment, but she was looking cute in the corner playing patty cake with Cherric, Hougan's Yuki-onna NPC that looked human enough so everyone just called her human.

Raichi, OldManJeremey's NPC, wearing the corpse of a particularly mechanical angel as a cloak, stood up and pointed out, "You guys seem to be very eager in complaining about the duties given to us by our masters. Should I be worried about any… Insurgent thoughts crossing your minds? Something I should bring up the next time we are called to the 10 thrones?"

Raichi was also infamous among his peers for being a snitch, busting all of the many pranks that Fei Fei decided to pull on her peers, and all of the fun that the NPCs had in Lower Eryuentiu. Fei Fei once joked that his real name was Rat D Snitch.

Of course, the only real consequence from Raichi's action was OldManJeremy lightly chiding them, "Hey, they look up to you. Maybe don't break that mysticism?" Which was basically code for "Hey go wild."

It was true because PopStarry told them it was true.

Focalors sighed, crossing her arms and addressing the clear complaint held against them, "Raichi, are you really going to tell your friends that they aren't allowed to complain at least a little about doing something they aren't good at?"

Cherric spoke up, "We're good at it!"

"No, you're not," Focalors snickered, getting an indignant shout from Cherric that Focalors ignored, "Anyways, Raichi, you need to live a little, don't you think?"

Narrowing his eyes, Raichi replied, "We live in service to our masters. That is all we need."

Focalors sighed, knowing it was a futile effort to try and change him, "Well… Amaru, you tell him off."

Amaru, Theadul's brown dragonoid NPC, sent an incredulous stare at Focalors, who was technically his wife, "What? Why do I have to?"

Focalors put her arms behind her back to make herself as cute and weak as possible to pull on Amaru's heartstrings, "Oh, Amaru, my dear husband… Can't you do your beautiful wife a little favor and get this brute to listen to me?"

Unaffected by the attempt, Amaru deadpanned, "No."

Focalors immediately dropped the facade, "Well, darn. Raichi, consider yourself lucky today."

Unamused, Raichi replied, "Right. I'm sure I will."

Then, Hounoku, Belloal's ghost that could just disguise himself as a human and was therefore considered as one, spoke up, "Can I go back to my room now?"

Focalors shrugged, "Go ahead. Good job on speaking up though, Hounoku! You'll be a stellar conversationalist in no time! Unlike those two girl failures over there…"

Feeling the stare on their backs, Smores and Cherric looked a bit frightened by having their introvertism called out as Smores weakly justified their actions, "We're just tired from having to teach students?"

"That was a question," Blandly pointed out Kordhell, who was about to make his exit.

Cherric blandly insulted back, "Thank you for your astute observation, Kordy."

"For the love of Yggdrasil just call me Kordhell."

"No."

Hounoku had already made himself scarce, so Amaru was about to jump out the window as Focalors was standing next to the door and Amaru did not want to be with his genuinely obsessive wife for much longer, however…

"Hey, Amaru!" Focalors called out to Amaru, ending his chances of getting away, "Let's go on a date!"

Despite being forced into a marriage that Amaru still wasn't quite sure about, he still, at the very least, cared for Focalors. Even if Focalors was his sister.

Amaru hesitantly nodded, "Ah… Sure."

And so, Focalors physically dragged Amaru to Lower Eryutentiu.

Odin raised an eyebrow in their direction, "Are they going to be alright?"

Canopa easily responded, "Of course! Amaru would never hurt Focalors!"

"...I somehow don't think it's Focalors you need to be worried about," Odin quietly said to himself as he made his exit.

At that, the 10 NPCs dispersed, going about their day to prepare for tomorrow's classes and conquests.


Which was how Amaru was being dragged around Lower Eryuentiu by Focalors as she ended up gathering a large crowd around them while she sang her tunes.

Amaru did have to admit though, they were very good songs. Focalors was using her water mimics to recreate the sounds of various instruments and alter her voice, so it was kind of cheating… But the end result was something very pleasant to hear, so who cared if she was using magic to supplement the sound of her own voice?

Still, this stopped being a date and more "Focalors gets all the attention from everyone," but considering Amaru's position of not wanting to date his sister, he'll consider it a win.

Because he was given a lot of alone time to think, Amaru ended up thinking about the family tree and realized that Focalors was more akin to a cousin instead of his direct sister. After all, only his creator, King Theadul, was a sibling of Queen PopStarry.

And, considering the fact that Amaru was a dragonoid instead of a human like Focalors was, it made it a little less weird.

Still weird, but Amaru definitely hates the fact that Focalors gave him time to think about the blood relation between himself and her.

Once Focalors was finished with her performance, she sheepishly apologized to Amaru, "Sorry. I was hoping to serenade you, but I ended up just catching the attention of everyone else in the city…"

Amaru just sighed. This was still his wife after all, even if he still wasn't fully sure about it, "That's fine. We should just find somewhere more isolated, then."

Focalors nodded, "Right! Then… Why not pick one of those hills in the forest?"

Amaru waved his hand in a random direction, "Lead the way."

Focalors eagerly did so as she turned both of their bodies into water to teleport them onto the nearest and largest hill within the forest to the north of Eryuentiu.

It was quite a distance away from Eryuentiu, as Eryuentiu was in the middle of the desert far away from any human civilization. But that was probably what Focalors was going for.

He had the decency to ask Focalors, "Shall I create a few chairs for us?"

"No, we don't need to," She declined, picking a direction to stare in as she slowly sat onto the grass, "C'mon, we should enjoy this world, right?"

Agreeing with the words of his wife, Amaru sat next to Focalors, taking in the beautiful views of the forest around them.

Then Focalors puts her head on Amaru's lap.

Amaru gaped at Focalors as she smugly looked up at him, "Oh? Is something wrong, my dear?"

Yes.

Amaru's entire life up until now.

Of course, he couldn't just say that, so instead he shook his head and said, "Nothing at all."

King Theadul, forgive him.

Focalors turned her head over to where the sun was setting, "Hmm… Amaru, do you dream?"

He could feel his legs protesting in being a pillow, but Amaru wasn't about to just drop his wife, so Amaru just ignored the weight on his legs as he answered, "Dream? Of course I do."

"What do you dream about, then?" She asked, still not looking at him.

Amaru gave it some thought. The last time he dreamed, it was a dream of being useful to King Theadul and gaining praise from him.

So, that's what he told Focalors, "I dream of being useful."

Somehow, it felt as though Focalors silently judged him for that answer, though no change appeared on her face.

Despite that, Amaru asked anyway, "You seem… Off."

Focalors sighed, reaching out to grab his hand, gently caressing it.

Despite his earlier doubts with his relationship with Focalors, Amaru could not lie and say that the intimacy wasn't nice.

"I dream of… Love," Focalors forlornly said, looking back up into his eyes, "PopStarry complains to me often about how King Theadul doesn't reciprocate her courting. It's easy for us servants to see how King Theadul loves PopStarry, but not visibly in the way that she wishes. And so I think… Is that how you see me?"

Ah.

Well, it was true that Amaru did love Focalors, it was simply the fact that their creators were siblings that pricked his skin underneath his scales. If it were for just a simple fact changing, then Amaru would feel a lot less guilty about his feelings.

…Reluctantly, Amaru agrees, "Yes. It feels as though the barrier of blood is preventing me from truly indulging myself in you."

She seemed to expect that answer, but she still blushed anyway, "...Is that so?"

Focalors looked away for a moment before making up her mind as she confidently asked, "Then, using my authority as the Regina of All Waters, why don't I just change my blood?"

"...That's not really what blood is, Focalors."

"Eh? That's literally what it is!"

As they bickered for hours, the sun set and day turned to night. Eventually, they ended up calling it a day and decided to go back home.

Before Focalors could turn the two of them into water again, however, Amaru felt a powerful being in the distance.

Narrowing his eyes, Amaru gestured to Focalors to stop for a moment as he said, "Someone is coming in our direction."

Focalors pouted, "Can I kill him?"

Finding the incoming intruder, Amaru told Focalors, "We'll go together to see what he wants. If he is hostile and can be killed, then we shall do so."

With that in mind, they simply moved into the path where the intruder was bound to cross. And within a few moments, they found an Overlord skeleton riding upon a soul eater.

Thankfully, they were polite enough to stop.

Amaru called out, "Who are you and what are your intentions for heading this way?"

The Overlord responded, "My name is Surshana, from Slane. I felt the tremors of the world shifting yesterday, and I decided to go visit whoever did it. I assume that they're players like me, and you're their NPCs?"

Amaru and Focalors shared a look.

Powerfuel once told them all, "Hey, if someone says the word player or NPC, you should probably bring them to us just to be safe."

So, with that in mind, Amaru told Surshana, "Come with us."


Powerfuel blinked at the Overlord named Surshana after hearing his introduction, "I have never heard of you in my entire life."

Groaning, Surshana complained, "Seriously!? I mean, we took part in that 5000 man raid on Nazarick that one time!"

"4999 other people did the exact same thing as you," Hakon pointed out in a joking tone, "You're not that special."

Surshana had to concede that one, "Yeah, I guess you're right. But man, I didn't think I would ever see another player again!"

Amaru had woken them all up late at night, very apologetically, and told them that there was a player that had come to visit.

PopStarry had her hopes up for either Principality or Vagisilious, but she supposed that she couldn't be so lucky.

Instead, they got Surshana, a stereotypical necromancer player. From a clan that no one has ever heard of.

So there they were, the 11 of them scattered around the throne room, staring at Surshana who didn't seem to mind the eyes on him.

"To be fair, we didn't expect to see another player either," Hougan admitted, "Honestly, I thought this was kind of our own world."

Surshana chuckled goodheartedly at the admission, "Yeah? Well, too bad, you have to share it with me!"

While the conversation was nice, Theadul felt the need to turn the subject towards more serious matters, so he asked, "By the way Surshana, did you bring anyone alongside you?"

Surshana visibility deflated, "...I did. But it's been 100 years since we arrived in this world, and my friends were all human…"

Despite the lowered mood in the room, PopStarry still had to ask, "Aren't you a necromancer? Couldn't you… I dunno, do something about it?"

Surshana sighed, "I'm not level 100, you know."

"Wait, you aren't?" Belloal sounded genuinely confused that a player under level 100 could genuinely exist.

Surshana sounded embarrassed as he explained, "Ah, well… We played for a few days after the whole coup. But then we got ganked, revived, then ganked again. So then we tried to level up again, but then we got hit with the same trick and we kind of just agreed to go play something else. That was the last time we played Yggdrasil until the shut down."

A wave of sympathy passed through all of the Greed Kings.

"Oof, that sucks."

"My apologies."

"Man that sucks."

"Hm."

Surshana sheepishly scratched the top of his skull, "Yeah, so we were all in trash level 80 gear because we're all level 80. And we sold off our actually good level 80 gear…"

Hakon worriedly asked, "Surshana, how are you an Overlord? Isn't that an advanced racial class?"

"...I placed my first 40 levels all into racial classes first before job classes."

"That's embarrassing."

"I know."

The topic of the conversation was derailed once more as Surshana and the rest of the 8 Greed Kings laughed.

"Hey! At least I came online a few days before the shutdown to get some level 100 gear! I never ended up using it because I couldn't wear it, but it's the thought that counts!" Surshana defended himself from invisible haters.

Those haters became visible as Sakaemu joked, "The thought that counts? Surshana, there's never been a single situation where that phrase was used and it was actually correct."

Surshana simply held up the middle finger, "Nope."

Sakaemu indignantly shouted, but everyone else just laughed.

Holding up a cup, Plaslam asked Surshana, "Hey! Can you drink some sake or wine with us? Or does it just fall through your body?"

"It just falls through my body, yeah," Surshana answered, "It sucks."

"Man! Being an Overlord must suck!" WasabiChan pointed out the obvious, "You can't even have sex, can you?"

Trying to get the conversation back on track, Theadul loudly cleared his throat.

Only PopStarry and Powerfuel looked at him while everyone else was busy shouting at how WasabiChan shouldn't be so horny all of the time.

So, Theadul pulled out his cane weapon and casted, "[Magic Arrow]!"

All 10 magic arrows hit everyone harmlessly, as nobody could truly be hurt by a 1st tier spell, successfully dragging their attention to himself.

Theadul cleared his throat once more, speaking, "Now, Surshana, you've been here for 100 years, yes? Could you perhaps give us any insight into any potential threats against us in this world? If there are any threats to us at all?"

Surshana hummed, thinking about it for a moment before deciding, "The dragons."

Theadul raised an eyebrow, "Dragons?"

"Yeah, dragons," Surshana repeated, "Most of them weren't that strong. Or, at the very least, we level 80s in trash gear could take care of most of them. But the few that were strong, the ones that call themselves True Dragon Lords… I think they could be level 100 or higher."

Ah, and there it is.

Surshana continued without noticing the mood drop within the room, "Luckily, they're all pretty arrogant and won't pay attention to much unless you guys actively seek conflict with them. You guys didn't do that already, right?"

PopStarry meekly raised her hand.

"No," Surshana's mouth fell wide open, "You didn't."

"Question," PopStarry continued as though she had permission to speak, "What if we already declared war on the dragons by not paying their tribute?"

Surshana's mouth closed. Then opened. Then closed again.

Eventually, Surshana decided to just say, "3 of my friends died to the dragons."

Everyone was only somewhat surprised to hear that the rumored level 100 dragons could beat not even a handful of level 80 players in trash gear. But these were their fellow players. That could've been them in another world.

"I'm sorry," PopStarry said more out of instinct than anything. The unexpectedness of the response had gotten to her.

Surshana waved it off, "Don't worry about it. It was 50 years ago at this point."

His voice betrayed him, however, as his voice was filled with sorrow trying to convince himself that he was over it.

And with that, Powerfuel made his decision, clapping once to get everyone's attention.

They all stared at him incredulously because everyone knew what Powerfuel was about to say. How could they not after Surshana's words?

And so, Powerfuel announced, "We're going to exterminate the dragons from this world."


Quite literally the morning of that announcement, the dragons finally arrived with the intent of either gaining their tribute or to destroy their city.

It was a group of just 7 dragons. There were no special attributes to be named other than that they were big and looked strong.

The 8 Greed Kings and the 10 NPCs, alongside Surshana, all stood at the edge of Upper Eryuentiu, glaring at the incoming intruders.

Powerfuel turned to the 2 girls in the guild, "...Hey, should we announce ourselves as the 8 Greed Kings or the 10 Greed Kings?"

Wasabichan looked at Powerfuel oddly, "Huh? We've just been rolling as the 8 Greed Kings, right? Why are you asking now?"

"What I say next probably appears in a history textbook in the future," Powerfuel explained, "I just wanted to know if you would rather just stick with the joke to the end, or be recognized as one of us instead of just some random footnote detailing the 2 Greed Queens."

PopStarry scoffed, as if she was offended to even hear the question, "Are you kidding me? The answer is obvious, Of course we'll stick to the joke until the very end! We're the 10 players of the 8 Greed Kings, and that's final!"

Reiwa, who was completely uninvited and was just hanging his legs off the edge of the floating island, gave his unsolicited opinion, "That's funny. I'll be sure to remember that joke. I'm sure my friends back home will have a good laugh about it."

Not even sparing a glance at the parasite, Powerfuel responded, "Nobody asked you."

Reiwa wasn't offended at all, but he still rolled his eyes.

With that finished, Powerfuel shouted towards the dragons as loud as he possibly could, "WE ARE THE 8 GREED KINGS! WE REJECT TO OFFER YOU TRIBUTE! IF YOU CONTINUE COMING TOWARDS US, IT WILL BE WAR!"

The largest dragon, still on their warpath, shouted back, "THEN DIE!"

With that, they were now fighting for the future of the world.

Powerfuel gestured to all of the mages, "Shoot them down. Now."

They were all very generous with their power, using 10th tier spells to shoot the dragons down.

Of course, they would not be attacking them if they weren't able to evade basic magic attacks or tank them decently enough.

All 7 dragons split apart relatively unharmed, still heading straight towards Eryuentiu.

"7 divided by 21… Eh, go 3v1 them," Powerfuel said, drawing his blades, "Someone will have to carry Surshana, but it'll be fine. Just make sure that they don't hurt our people."

With all that needed to be said out of his mouth, the 8 Greed Kings leapt into the first serious battle of their lives.

But within just a minute of fighting, they could tell that a single dragon was absolutely not on their level.

They were definitely close. The dragons' attacks hurt a lot and they seemingly had no concept of tiers as each of their attacks was similar in strength to each other, the only difference was what they were throwing at them with each attack.

However, in a 3 versus 1 with 3 level 100s, it was a forgone conclusion.

Once one began to fall and open up more players for the other fight, the dragons began to fall like dominoes.

It only took 1 minute after the first dragon fell to all of them losing their lives- bar the one fighting Surshana's group.

The yellow dragon fighting Surshana, Fei Fei, and Hougan seemed to realize the situation and made his retreat even before the purple dragon was killed by Powerfuel.

At the end of the battle, Surshana asked Powerfuel, "Hey, should we really let that one escape?"

Theadul answered for their guild leader, "If we walk into a den of dragons, it may not end well for us. It's better to lure them here, and hopefully they'll be foolish enough to waste valuable pawns coming in waves rather than all at once."

Also, to be perfectly honest, Surshana told them about how the Dragon Emperor was as large as a mountain. Which he knew because apparently he went to pay tribute personally once.

They really didn't want to mess with someone that sounds like a world enemy, even with 20 people.

Reiwa somehow appeared out of nowhere, clapping his hands as he congratulated the group of players and NPCs, "Congratulations! I've already told the people in Lower Eryuentiu about your victory. A whole 5 minutes ago, actually. Quick fight, huh?"

Hakon blandly asked Reiwa, "Who invited you?"

"I invited myself," Walking towards PopStarry and Theadul, Reiwa asked, "So, how was the fight? Brutal? Painless? Something a bit challenging?"

PopStarry decided to humor the parasite as she scratched her head to get her feelings about fighting a real opponent for the first time, "It was… Ah… Hm… Bad."

That caught Reiwa off guard, noticeable to everyone because he said in a tone of complete shock, "Bad?!"

Nodding, PopStarry elaborated, "Yeah… Sure, I felt more aware of myself now that I was trying to save my life by killing the dragon. But… I just really don't like fighting, I guess? It just doesn't feel right, even if I know all of the motions of dodging attacks and throwing them back."

It was a stark contrast to how she felt about Yggdrasil. Though she was more of a roleplayer herself, she still enjoyed the fighting aspects of the game.

Maybe it was just the fact that these were real people she was killing instead of code.

Looking towards Theadul, Reiwa asked him, "Well, how about you?"

"Unremarkable," Theadul simply said, "It is no difference whether the opponent is strong or not. I feel no emotion with killing."

That one was just because Theadul was a mega corporate kid and didn't have much sympathy for people outside of his friend group.

Reiwa sighed in disappointment with the responses, "Really? Fighting is a bunch of fun, you know. You should really get into it!"

"No."

"No thank you!"

Reiwa childishly stuck his tongue out, "Bweeh. Fine, don't come complaining when you aren't strong enough to protect what you love, then."

Even coming off a battle high, PopStarry and Theadul could tell that Reiwa was completely serious about his words.


The Golden Dragon Lord came back bloodied and bruised. And without any of the other dragons who accompanied him.

Nibelung didn't even have to question him what happened to know why one of his children came back defeated. The answer was obvious.

So, all he asked was, "How many, and how strong?"

The Golden Dragon Lord caught his breath as he quietly answered, "There were 21 of them, my lord! They fought three against one, and utterly decimated us!"

…3 against one.

Nibelung growled, causing everyone around him to stop what they were doing momentarily to freeze and hope that Nibelung wasn't growling against them.

"They lost to such pathetic numbers?!" Nibelung roared, enraged at the thought that his children could ever be defeated by mere men.

So, 21 humans dared to raise their blades against dragon kind, then?

There were hundreds of dragons in the world. They would crush them!

Nibelung shouted towards a flight of dragons, "You! 21 of you will fight the 21 of them! Go and do not disappoint me!"

As 21 dragons went to fly into battle, Nibelung decided that if they cannot secure the victory with only 21 dragons, then he will simply send more dragons.

And if there were ever a point where even 100 dragons were not enough to put down the so-called 8 Greed Kings and their followers…

Nibelung will put an end to their pathetic rebellion himself.


When the wave of 42 dragons came to Eryuentiu, where people began having to fight two on one, that was when issues began to arise.

There were tiers to the dragon hierarchy, that much was clear. Usually, bigger was stronger. But it was surprising how much stronger the difference in size made.

Because 2 of the True Dragon Lords was enough to kill Surshana.

Surshana once told tales about how it only took a single True Dragon Lord to kill 2 members of Slane, but to see it displayed in a real fight was shocking to say the least.

Unlike what happened when a player won their fight, the same didn't happen for the dragons. Because the weaker dragons would be killed and quickly even up any fight.

The dragons eventually broke rank and had to retreat, just as every group before them had done.

Immediately after the battle, everyone rushed to the corpse of Surshana, his bones scattered everywhere as though the invisible force holding them together simply disappeared.

And not a single trace of Suransha's personality was visible on those bones.

PopStarry panickedly asked, "Who's our reviver?! We can revive him with just a single level loss, right?!"

"Well, it's time to test if revival spells work, then…" Hougan said as she pointed towards Cherric, "Hey, revive him!"

Cherric quickly obeyed the words of her creator, using her best revival spell on Surshana.

Immediately, the spell shows its ability to work as the scattered bones of Surshana came back together, forming his body and relighting his eyes.

"What the…" Surshana quietly mutters to himself as he gets up, causing a great deal of relief in everyone as they now know that revival spells work.

Powerfuel helped the naked skeleton up, "Hey man. I'm gonna tell it to you straight. You just died. Are you feeling alright?"

"I what."

"Yeah, you're alright."

Looking down, Surshana pointed out, "Wait a second, why am I naked?"

A second later, WasabiChan points out, "You're level 79 now."

He didn't reply back.

Instead, he just laid back down in defeat, knowing full well that he was destined for only trash gear.

With the first person to die in front of their eyes not taking death seriously, the seriousness of death was considerably lowered in the eyes of the 8 Greed Kings.

Something that would soon come back to haunt them very soon.


"Please, my Emperor! Have mercy- AGH!"

Squashing the weakling that came back alive to bring him news of defeat, Nibelung wiped his claws of his child's blood.

So, after 100 dragons in total went to go after the 8 Greed Kings, not a single one has been able to even take down a single one.

Even Nibelung, in his great pride and hubris, could tell when things were becoming useless. And his children were most definitely useless.

Nibelung stood up for the first time in years, the land suddenly breaking apart as the immense weight of a mountain suddenly disappeared. Every dragon around him was shouting in panic, some of them young enough to not even witness Nibelung move more than a few miles every time he shifted his body.

"You pathetic weaklings find yourselves unable to even deal with pests…" Nibelung began, the flap of his wings causing hurricanes in distant lands.

Taking steps forward, causing earthquakes throughout the world, Nibelung growled, "Now, you force me to fix the mess that my children have made…"

"PATHETIC!" Nibelung roared as he took flight, causing volcanoes to erupt by the sheer magnitude of his rage.

The skies were completely clear of clouds that day, for not a single cloud dared to risk the wrath of Nibelung, The Dragon Emperor.


Reiwa was absolutely giddy as he skipped his way towards where he knew all of the 8 Greed Kings were.

Reiwa didn't even need to have his powers to know that Nibelung was on the move. It was obvious just by the shift in the air that something powerful was about to do something insane.

Though, Reiwa only really knew that feeling because he was someone very powerful that frequently did something insane. And he also knew someone in particular who had the personality of a spoiled child who frequently did something insane and caused the very fabric of reality to shift whenever he moved.

That being said, the world could not look any more beautiful right now. In fact, Reiwa hasn't gotten a good night's sleep since the dragons started attacking Eryuentiu almost weekly.

Just under a year under the 8 Greed Kings rule, and Reiwa will have the honor of leading them all to the location of their final battle as a unified group.

Entering the 8 Greed Kings throne room where everyone was fated to be, Reiwa announced, "Hey, Nibelung is on the move!"

WasabiChan spoke first and said, "Nobody cares- Wait, what?"

A silence permeated through the halls of Eryuentiu for a brief moment as they comprehend the words spoken by the dagger in the shadows.

Then Theadul spoke out with genuine surprise in his voice, "Nibelung is on the move?!"

"Nibelung is on the move?!" PopStarry repeated what her brother said not a second after.

Reiwa chuckled, "That final, climactic battle is coming! Would you like to have Eryuentiu crushed by a mountain? Or would you like to move towards somewhere more isolated?"

"I doubt we can just force Nibelung to not come to Eryuentiu, you know," Surshana pointed out.

Surshana stopped participating in battles after his first death, preferring to just stick in the back and send cannon fodder towards places that need it.

Shrugging, Reiwa simply said, "Don't worry. If we move towards the location I'm thinking of, Nibelung won't even set eyes on this city. Have I ever been unable to keep my word to you guys?"

"I've had like, maybe 2 conversations with you," Hakon pointed out, "But sure, either we destroy Eryuentiu by not being here, or we destroy Eryuentiu by being here."

Reiwa pointed towards himself, "You should trust me more, you know? Besides, you'll be reunited with Fortune soon because today is the day that my ritual will be complete."

And with that, their full, undivided attention turned bloodthirsty.

"Theadul," With the call of his name by Powerfuel, Theadul immediately went into action.

Holding his hand towards Reiwa, Theadul focused on the soul within Reiwa's body…

…And found nothing of Fortune.

Reiwa was looking at Theadul with a calm expression as he simply stated, "Why would Fortune be visible inside my soul if I wanted to ascend and bring my real body here? Don't worry, Fortune is hidden beneath my own soul. He will be saved."

Despite his words, Theadul attempted to separate Reiwa's soul from Fortune.

However, no matter how he poked and prodded at Reiwa's soul, he could not force a single tear within it.

Still keeping his smile, Reiwa calmly told Theadul, "We can only march towards our fate. Unfortunately, our fate doesn't have me being ripped from this body yet. Either way, we should be moving, right? Nibelung is coming."

Theadul wanted to keep trying, but PopStarry put a hand on his shoulder and told him, "Ah… Theadul? He is right that we should probably at least try to dissuade Nibelung away from here…"

Reluctantly, Theadul agreed that he had no choice but to hope that Reiwa wasn't just a liar.

As Theadul backed down, Reiwa spoke up, "A friend of mine will handle getting Nibelung's attention. All we need to do is show up at the correct battlefield."

"How is he getting Nibelung's attention?" OldManJeremy asked, "By dying?"

Reiwa waved him off, "Don't worry about it. Now, come with me. I picked up a few portal tricks watching you all."

And with that, the 8 Greed Kings and all their allies left Eryuentiu.


Even from a distance and in the sky, Nibelung was an imposing figure. Nibelung had long since spotted them, and was only waiting to get closer to begin his assault.

Reiwa had brought them all to a plains biome practically in the middle of nowhere in the north.

And now, Reiwa is standing far behind where the battle would take place with his mysterious elven friend drawing lines on the ground.

Theadul briefly spared a glance towards the two as he quietly asked Powerfuel, "Do you think we can trust him not to stab us in the back?"

"No," Powerfuel bluntly answered, "I think he's up to no good, but I don't want to find out what side he's on before we kill Nibelung."

Crossing his arms, Theadul silently nodded to agree with his assessment. Given the fact that they were about to get into the most important fight of their lives, nothing else seemed important at the moment.

PopStarry turned to Theadul, tapping her cheek, "A kiss for good luck?"

Theadul rolled his eyes, "Seriously?"

He knew that his sister was still persistent even after a year. But right now…

Giggling, PopStarry nodded, "Really! Before he speaks and ruins the mood!"

Theadul sighed.

Considering the fact that he gave her a peck on the cheek for her 18th birthday, Theadul supposed it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to indulge her before a battle that they may not return alive.

And wasn't that a fun fact?

To distract himself, Theadul leaned down to slightly lift PopStarry's face up a bit to give her a small kiss on the cheek.

PopStarry beamed, extremely happy that he indulged her desires, "Hehehe! If we live through this battle, can I get one on the lips?"

"Maybe," Theadul said, getting a happy squeal out of PopStarry.

That was where it ended, however, as Nibelung began to speak.

"EIGHT GREED KINGS! YOU HAVE DEFIED ME, NIBELUNG, FOR THE LAST TIME!"

If there were any consolations to trying to fight a giant prismatic rainbow dragon that might as well be a world enemy, it was that Nibelung didn't seem to have brought his brood with him.

Out of arrogance that their presence would only hamper his own fighting ability? Or perhaps out of just a belief that Nibelung could defeat all 21 Beings of Yggdrasil on his own.

Either way, the battle begins.

Nibelung attacked first by causing a massive earthquake in the area, forcing everyone into the air.

Then before they can ever do a thing, the ground beneath them turns into spikes, heading straight for them.

Powerfuel led the charge of melee warriors towards Nibelung, closing the gap between them.

Nibelung, in response, simply flew up.

Nibelung was far faster than the warriors in the air, and once he reached the lower stratosphere, he turned around with a roll more swiftly than anyone there could've imagined and breathed out magma towards the warriors.

They were not able to fully dodge the attacks, their armor slowly melting away due to the sheer heat of Nibelung's fire. But they were still able to scatter in order to ensure that no matter where Nibelung would dive, a warrior would be there to meet him.

The mages of the guild were able to get a couple of lucky hits in during the whole exchange, landing many 10th tier spells.

Which were immediately absorbed into Nibelung's scales, making it difficult to tell if Nibelung actually took damage or not.

Theadul gritted his teeth as he checked Nibelung's health using Detect Life.

In all honesty, it was only because Theadul had spent countless hours trying to fully understand magic that Theadul was able to see the slight decrease in Nibelung's health.

After all, when fighting against a mountain, it's difficult to notice a few rocks being removed.

"We're doing damage, just very little of it," Theadul informed the guild, "Would you all like to risk using super-tier magic without knowing if he has a counter?"

"Sure, why not?" Belloal agreed, immediately showing off his own super-tier spell.

Nibelung noticed the sudden appearance of a large magical array and immediately treated it as a threat.

With a flap of his wings, a hurricane was sent towards Belloal.

Powerfuel and Kordhell immediately put themselves in front of the hurricane's path. But even they were treated like ragdolls due to the sheer might of Nibelung's magic.

Every mage immediately teleported away from Belloal as he shrieked, "HOLD ON! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CANCEL THIS!"

A moment later, Belloal was consumed by wind.

Hakon shouted out in surprise that he just took that storm head on, "Belloal?!"

Nibelung would not grant them a chance to grieve as he conjured clouds in the sky to rain down thunder upon the 8 Greed Kings.

Not just calling down thunder, but intercepting spells with lightning to ensure that they don't even get a chance to hit Nibelung.

Immediately, Odin, the lightning NPC, took the opportunity to launch himself at Nibelung to stop the wall of lightning stopping his masters from attacking.

But Nibelung was still high on his throne in the sky, so he scoffed at the meager attempt to attack him by Odin, "Pathetic!"

With just a flick of his tail, a waterfall emerged from his tail, completely stopping his ascent into the air.

And diverted enough attention away so that Hakon, a dual mage fighter player, could teleport to Nibelung's eye level.

Using Firestep to engulf himself in flames and get himself closer to Nibelung's eyes, Hakon turned his hands into fiery claws and slashed at Nibelung's left eye.

It was truly just a shame that Nibelung put reinforcement magic on his eyes at all times to ensure that this didn't end with Nibelung losing his eyes.

Nibelung forcibly shook Hakon off his body, and once Hakon was in the air again, Nibelung turned one of his claws into light, grabbing Hakon far faster than what he could've imagined.

Before Nibelung could solidify his hand to crush Hakon, Belloal's super tier magic made itself clear from the dust of the hurricane.

"[Super-tier Magic: God's Thousand Arms]!"

To put it simply, Belloal was tired of the warriors being unable to do something because Nibelung was flying in the stratosphere. And so he would forcibly drag him down to Earth.

As the name of the spell suggested, a thousand long arms erupted from the ground and reached out towards Nibelung.

But Nibelung was high enough in the sky to where he had the spare time to solidify his arm and crush every bone in Hakon's body. Afterwards, he unceremoniously dropped him as he surrounded himself with an invasive darkness to prevent things from getting close to him.

Cherric immediately flew towards the corpse of one of her masters and casted, "[True Revival]!"

Hakon was revived with only 1 level removed from him, but his gear had all fallen off.

They planned for this scenario, however, and so they had a spare set of level 99 gear in all of their inventories.

But they didn't have the auto-equipper cash shop item nor the instant super-tier spell cash shop item because Theadul and PopStarry were cheap players.

So Hakon temporarily left to go put on his gear as Belloal was busy trying to bring Nibelung back to Earth.

Nibelung's darkness had successfully warded off Belloal's thousand arms. However, it had also prevented Nibelung from fully attacking.

That being said, Nibelung was the conqueror of an entire world. Such an issue was not destined to last for long.

With a terrifying roar that forced everyone to freeze for a moment to sort out their terrified emotions, Nibelung dived straight for the ground.

During the course of the fight, they learnt that anything Nibelung used as a weapon was dangerous to them because it was coated with his power.

So if Nibelung was diving straight towards the ground…

Powerfuel realized it first, shouting, "EVERYONE WATCH THE GROUND!"

Nibelung made impact, completely shattering everything in eye distance and bringing miles of dirt and stone into the air, all coated with his power and all going at high speeds, ready to impale anyone who was unlucky.

And by anyone who was unlucky, it was basically everyone witnessing the battle.

It wasn't a powerful enough attack to kill anyone but Surshana, marking the last time anyone will see him ever again. But the simple fact that it was the first time anything had truly severely wounded them, or at least gave the image of severely wounding them, caused the 8 Greed Kings to falter.

An opening that Nibelung eagerly took.

With a swing of his head, life giving breath spewed out of his mouth. But it was not for the purpose of healing the players, but rather to ensure that the dirt and stones had plants growing inside of them.

Plants that would overgrow their dirt and stone prisons and impair 8 Greed Kings from moving.

Canopa did her best to try and use her own druidic power to force back the entanglement. However, it was a llama versus a dragon. The moment that Nibelung felt any pushback at all, Nibelung switched tactics and lit everything ablaze.


Watching the 8 Greed Kings get torched from the safe distance of "within eyesight of the fight," Reiwa remarked to Moniseven, "Hm… He seems a bit stronger than he usually would be, doesn't he?"

Moniseven, who was standing behind Reiwa, nodded in agreement, "Yes, he's displaying outstanding control over the elements he possesses. He almost reminds me of Azure Dragon when I saw him fighting Fate."

Reiwa wasn't there for that fight. So Reiwa pouted and pointed out, "I don't know how that fight went other than it went badly for our boss the first time around."

Gesturing to Nibelung, Moniseven said, "This is the reason why. Too many abilities and too good at using them compared to only a few abilities from each person."

Reiwa tapped his chin, "Say, think we can rope him into my ascension ritual?"

Staring intensely at Reiwa for a few moments, Moniseven eventually concluded, "I suppose we are close enough for that. However, I do have to warn you that your skill level might not be ready for this fight. Nibelung seems to be one of the children of Azure Dragon. Or at least one of his thousand parts reincarnated."

"Sweet, I'll call dibs," Reiwa nonchalantly said, doing some light stretching.

"Now, let's start the ritual," Reiwa announced, throwing his hands to the side as though he was being nailed to the cross.

Moniseven pulled out a handcrafted cog from his pocket, "To the Lord of Cogs, I grant you this offering to stride towards perfection."

Placing the cog on the ground behind Reiwa, Moniseven moved to Reiwa's left, pulling out a building block from another pocket, "To the God of Vanity, I grant you this building block to build a world you will be proud to look upon."

Putting down the building block and moving to the right, Moniseven picked out a katana from the ground nearby and placed it down to his right, "To the Shogun, I grant you this sword to conquer all of your enemies."

Then, Moniseven walked in front of Reiwa to look him directly in the eyes.

"And to you, Sengoku, I offer you this world."


As the smoke cleared down, Nibelung carefully observed the battlefield.

Of the 8 Greed Kings, it seemed as though none of them were in condition to fight. And from the looks of it, Nibelung has been able to kill some of them as well. Serves their pathetic gang of rats right.

Some of the servants were still alive, but Nibelung doubts that they will be fighting anymore.

Everything else though, was ashes.

Nibelung had won.

However, as soon as he thought that, Nibelung laid his eyes upon a patch of ground that looked suspiciously undisturbed. As though nothing in the past 10 minutes affected it.

Narrowing his eyes, Nibelung spots a human and an elf committing some odd ritual upon it.

At first, Nibelung was going to just ignore it to finish off the pathetic 8 Greed Kings. But the more he thought about it…

The more wrong this felt.

Anyone with eyes can see that the sheer impact of his landing caused the terrain for miles on end to shatter and become uneven. The land that they were standing upon was the only flat land in miles.

Yes, Nibelung needed to take them out before they did something Nibelung didn't expect.

"And to you, Sengoku, I offer you this world."

Something's wrong.

His gut feeling is immediately justified as the man in the middle, who he assumes to be Sengoku, begins laughing. Not just any type of laugh, but one filled with joy and glee.

Nibelung makes up his mind. Someone laughing at him either has a death wish, or is extremely powerful.

Not even offering a word, Nibelung swung his hand in Sengoku's direction, sending a bolt of electricity directly at him.

Sengoku took the hit straight on. The elf disappeared long before the hit landed.

But Sengoku was still laughing.

Sengoku jumped up, at which he could get a better view of the man who dared to take an attack of lightning and live to laugh about it.

Sengoku was a short man, his tanned skin was completely unordinary, however, in comparison to the steel placed upon him. It was as though Sengoku had transformed himself into a half golem. But he still had human futures. Only one arm and leg were steel, and they were both on opposite sides. And he still had a full set of short blue hair despite half his face being made of steel now.

And apparently, Sengoku chose to only wear a half ripped blue shirt and shorts.

Either way, it was all irrelevant as Sengoku loudly declared, "Hahahaha! I feel great! Amazing! That year of being so irrelevant is over!"

Nibelung carefully looked at Sengoku, who was currently bouncing up and down in pure ecstasy.

If Nibelung just attacked him now…

Using the nearby plantlife, Nibelung forced vines to grow to restrain Sengoku.

Sengoku simply jumped really high into the air.

Then the next moment, Sengoku uses the air as leverage to jump straight into Nibelung's face, metallic fist first.

Nibelung gets flung back by the sheer force of the punch, his scales shattering and his body causing shallow ravines to form.

"You dare?!" Nibelung shouted, enraged at the devastating attack.

This pathetic… Thing dare harm him?!

Flying up, Nibelung sends a hurricane with the flap of his wings.

Sengoku laughed as he simply walked through the winds unscathed.

"Hey? Did I introduce myself yet?" Sengoku asked, suddenly appearing on Nibelung's shoulders.

As his presence suddenly registered in his head, Sengoku had already told him, "My name is Sengoku."

Sengoku kicked Nibelung with his metallic leg, only forcing his head to move this time.

Which is a bad thing because Sengoku started to rapidly kick Nibelung in the head, shattering his scales and skin.

Nibelung manages to roll and force Sengoku to jump off back into the air.

Then Sengoku has the audacity to walk on the sky.

Not even caring about that, Nibelung forced darkness to converge into Sengoku and tried to crush him with pressure.

It was the first attack to actually do something to Sengoku, so Nibelung pressed the advantage and attempted to end the fight there by crushing him to death.

"Nibelung! Look down! You really should!" Sengoku mocked, childishly sticking his tongue out.

As if Nibelung would fall for such a paltry trick to distract him-

A massive spear suddenly pierced through his stomach, ending by severing his spine in half, causing him to fall out of the sky.

His lapse in concentration freed Sengoku from his cage, and all he did was laugh, irritating Nibelung, "Hahaha! You almost had me there! I should thank Moniseven for that! What a great guy!"

His words were supplemented by grabbing one of the spare clouds that Nibelung used to throw funder and dividing the cloud into multiple spears.

Nibelung tried to create a shield using just his energy. But those types of shields were the weakest amongst his race. He knew how this would end.

His shield managed to block the first spear, and the second. But the cracks were already forming and Nibelung knew that he would not land alive.

So, Nibelung did the only thing he could do.

"I CURSE THIS LAND…"

The third spear hit his heart, ending the thousand year reign of Nibelung, the Dragon Emperor.


Sengoku stood on top of the dead corpse of the dragon. As planned, the corpse was situated right where Nazarick would spawn.

This basically meant that the remains of his corpse would disappear when Nazarick arrives, when it replaces everything within the area.

Why did he want to do that? Well, because in the scenario that Nibelung actually had one of the thousand pieces of Azure Dragon, Nazarick spawning in should override it and actually permanently erase one of his thousand pieces.

Probably, anyways. It also could just end up in Nazarick and that would end up being a whole different problem.

But it doesn't seem as though Nibelung ultimately had a part of Azure Dragon, so there really was no need to fight here other than because he could.

What was actually important though was the fact that Nibelung seemed to have unleashed a curse into this world. One that seemed to be powered by the death of dragons.

Sengoku began snickering as he thought of a hilarious idea.

At that moment, Moniseven chose to appear right next to him, "So, not one of Azure Dragon's, then. That's both disappointing and a cause for relief."

"More importantly, did you feel that curse?" Sengoku asked, getting a nod from Moniseven, "I was going to wipe out the 8 Greed Kings here, then wipe out the dragons myself. You know, stick it to Fate, but now that I'm thinking about it…"

"I've always wanted to see someone end an era of their own name."


Even just immediately, Nibelung's last curse had lasting effects on the many battlefields where the 8 Greed Kings laid waste.

The number of undead in the world began to increase exponentially, the curse augmenting their powers.

The Dragons finally found out that their newborn were no longer born with wild magic, but were now cursed with tier magic.

And people eventually began to turn on their neighbors, causing a mass exodus from every part of civilization in the world.

It would help revitalize the growth of civilization in the long run as the population of the many races began to spread out after centuries of only being able to live in one place due to the tyranny of the dragons.

In the short term, there was still so much blood to spill.


After Nibelung's explosion that ended up taking out most of the 8 Greed Kings, they had all agreed to run as soon as possible from the battle.

That sentiment was doubled when Reiwa became Sengoku, without a trace of Fortune.

They collected their dead, minus Surshana because this time, he truly seemed gone, and immediately teleported back home to Eryuentiu.

At the end of their battle, Surshana died from the shatter attack and his corpse was too scattered to be revived, Hakon died once to the crush, and Belloal, Odin, Kordhell, and Canopa were all victims to the explosion.

So, the 8 Greed Kings only lost 2 levels and billions of gold for reviving their NPCs. A price that was only paid through the other 8 fine members and PopStarry and Theadul gold farming for 4 years.

What wasn't fully able to be fixed though, was their emotional state.

"Guys, what the fuck was that?" Powerfuel demanded as soon as all 20 of them were safe and sound, "We go fight the Dragon Emperor, get our asses kicked, and then Reiwa-Sengoku- whatever his name is, doesn't even give Fortune back? What the fuck?"

Hakon clicked his tongue, "More importantly, now we're just overall weaker because Belloal and I died."

Hakon and Belloal were very upset with that.

"If we're going by importance," Theadul collected his thoughts out loud, "Then surely we should focus on the killer of Nibelung, Sengoku? The man we called Reiwa, who took Fortune's body for his own benefit, and lied to us that we would see Fortune again?"

"I liked Fortune too, Theadul, but he's super dead," OldManJeremy callously stated, "If we didn't see him after Sengoku showed up, we're not seeing him again."

"Yes, I suppose we won't," Theadul said, doing his best to keep his voice even, "Then, yes, I suppose Five Elements Overcoming was mostly wasted."

PopStarry put her head on Theadul's side to comfort him. And for once, he didn't resist.

Hougan was rude enough to point out, "Yep, totally wasted."

"Wasted," Sakaemu agreed, "Could've asked for something like a magic spell that one-shots anyone. Instead we get to learn stuff."

Theadul was irritated at how they treated his decision based on the knowledge they knew at that time, "Didn't you all agree to allow me to make that decision? We were bound by what we knew at that time."

"I know," Hougan conceded, hands in his chin, "But I just wish that we were never defeated."

…And wasn't that just a pervasive thought amongst them all.

Powerfuel sighed, "Well, what should our next course of action be?"

"Hunt down Sengoku?" PopStarry suggested, thinking of what could soothe Theadul.

However, Theadul himself declined such an action, "He is far too powerful for us to fight. We're better off trying to hunt down the remainder of the dragons before they decide that we were the reason why their emperor is dead and act accordingly."

Powerfuel seemed to consider Theadul's suggestion, "Well, that could work… Hakon and Belloal need the EXP to level up."

WasabiChan raised an eyebrow, "Seriously? After we just lost a fight because we weren't skilled enough? Or strong enough?"

Hakon raised his hand, "I agree with the dragon hunting thing. We were already hunting demi-humans so that they wouldn't hurt our humans, right? Hunting dragons doesn't seem like a logical leap."

"Eh? I don't wanna fight anymore…" Belloal complained to Powerfuel, "I got my ass kicked once, and that's all I needed."

Powerfuel sighed, "I know that we don't want to fight anymore, but if we want to stay on our thrones, we have to do something. And we should get rid of the dragons before they become too much of a threat."

"...All in favor?" Plaslam hesitantly asked.

In the end, if was 7-3.


The next 2 months were filled with more bloodshed.

Ever since they had decreed that all dragons were to remain their enemies, people have been acting oddly.

Case in point, Hounoku.

The ghost human was a quiet man, but since the blood of dragons began to spill en masse, he began to be more… Eccentric.

Kordhell was wandering aimlessly around Eryuentiu until he heard Hounoku talking to himself, "The blood. The blood? Why, why, why are we spilling blood…"

Of course, Hounoku was Kordhell's friend, so Kordhell walked up to Hounoku to ask, "Hey, buddy, what's wrong?"

He couldn't quite see Hounoku's face, so Kordhell turned Hounoku around-

To see black tar all over his friend's face.

Kordhell was speechless. He didn't even know what that was-

Hounoku attacked him.


Standing on the corpse of a dragon, Hakon laughed at the power trip of it all.

Just a year ago, he was on trash duty for a Japanese mega corporation, and now he was slaying dragons!

There were only a few hiccups along the way, but the he was finally achieving all of the goals he set for himself!

Just… Where were his friends?

…He could've… Sworn he had friends.

Gulping, Hakon looked around the area, only to see more dead dragons.

Right! Right! He went on a solo mission to clear his head! To gain more power!

To ignore his growing insanity!

Hakon laughed. What was he talking about?! Insanity!? That doesn't make any sense. Why would Hakon ever go insane? He was with the best friends a man could ever wish for.

But then why weren't they here? They should be here…

Well, you know what? He didn't need them anyways.

If they can't appreciate him for what he was, then they shouldn't exist.

…What was he talking about?

He… He has friends.

Dear friends.

"Hakon! Hakon!"

Someone was calling out to him. A girl who wore green. A girl who seemed to love him at one point.

…Who was it again? He can't recognize her.

Hakon wanted more power.

Hakon attacked the girl in green. She will make a wonderful corpse.

"What the- Hakon?! What are you doing?!"

Hakon shouted out the obvious, "I want power…"

Huh? That wasn't a shout. It should've been like, "I'M SORRY!"

What was he saying? His mouth wasn't working in the same language as his mind.

Sneering at the girl, Hakon decided that he would just focus on killing her.

That was the only thing he was good for.


WasabiChan hugged Hakon before dying, comforting him with tears in her eyes, "It's okay, Hakon… I know you didn't mean it…"

She knew that the words meant a lot to him, because Hakon was crying too.

WasabiChan knew it looked pathetic, but that didn't really matter to her. Because dying in the arms of one of her best friends was one of the best ways a person could go out.

And there ended the tales of Hakon and WasabiChan.


PopStarry blinked, listening to Powerfuel's words over Message.

"Our friends are doing what?" PopStarry couldn't even believe what she was hearing from Powerfuel's mouth.

PopStarry and Theadul had taken a day off to just go and take a vacation. They ended up choosing to hang out in a small forest, but just a few hours into the vacation, they get a call from Powerfuel.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

"They're killing each other…" Powerfuel slowly said, as though he was sick, "I think… It's some type of karma for our actions."

Theadul disagreed with that thought, "If it were karma, I would be going insane too!"

"...I don't know what to tell you, then," Powerfuel said, "Because… I can feel myself disagreeing with the thoughts in my head too."

No, no, no! This couldn't be happening! They were getting closer to that ending she wanted!

PopStarry panickedly asked Powerfuel, "Where are you?! We can come help with whatever-"

"It's too late for me," Powerfuel interrupted, sounding content with his fate, "I feel as though this is the only natural ending for me… At the very least, it sounds as though most of the fights are ending in us killing each other instead of allowing one of us to live with guilt. That's good, isn't it?"

"It's not!" PopStarry refused, "I want you all to live. Hey, where's everyone's bodies?! We can revive them, can't we?!"

"I had Fei Fei check Hakon and Wasabi," Powerfuel paused, not having the heart to continue.

But, if they aren't talking with them right now…

Speaking for Powerfuel, Theadul summarized, "The corpses are all desecrated."

"...They are."

PopStarry could feel the tears come into her eyes, "Powerfuel- Hisashi! Come back to us! We can make a new plan, right?! We'll be okay, right?!"

"...I don't really care about Hisashi anymore, PopStarry," He answered, "Hey, Theadul, we're living in the end times. In the spirit of all the jokes we made, go marry your sister."

Theadul didn't even have the heart to follow up and tell him to shut up.

Powerfuel ended up continuing without a response, "...Fei Fei and KordHell are in the room with me right now. They don't look too good, and to be honest, I don't either."

At the lack of options all Theadul said was, "...Goodbye, Powerfuel."

PopStarry punched Theadul in the gut, "You can't just-"

At that point, she couldn't take it anymore and broke down in tears, dropping to the floor.

What could she do? She could teleport to Eryuentiu and get caught up in a fight that she knows will end in a desecrated corpse or someone that isn't her friend.

Or she has to just accept that this was happening and try to stay safe with Theadul.

Powerfuel forlornly sighed, "Goodbye, Theadul, PopStarry. I'll see you at the end of the road, wherever we end up."

And with that, they never heard from Powerfuel again.

Theadul ended up dropping to the floor with her. He placed a comforting arm around her as he asked, "Would you like for me to try and contact Focalors or Amaru, or would you rather not know?"

"...I would rather not know."


Focalors held the body of Amaru closely to her chest as she carried it through the city of Lower Eryuentiu.

Amaru didn't lay a finger upon her. Instead, he killed himself the moment he realized that he was corrupted.

…But then…

Why didn't Focalors die with him?

She was corrupted with sin too, was she not? How was she exempt from the Dragon's wrath?

…It didn't matter right now.

She needed to bury her husband somewhere.


Watching Powerfuel bleed out on his throne, his death being sealed, Sengoku was quite content with how the fall went.

Sure, he had to be a bit heavy handed in making sure everyone died at the same time so they all had peaceful deaths. And Powerfuel had to withstand a few seconds of guilt.

But overall, Sengoku thinks he did his friends a service by making sure the corruption didn't last as long as it could've.

Standing up, Sengoku had to visit the last few people he had to make sure died in this era.

After all, while this era may have ended by their own hands…

Sengoku was still a man of war.


PopStarry and Theadul didn't even need to turn around to know who was standing behind them.

"So, have you come to take our heads as well, Sengoku?" Theadul coldly asked, standing up.

Caught red handed, Sengoku merely chuckled, "Well, I guess you could say that. Any way I could convince you to die easily?"

That was all they needed to hear to know that it was all part of Sengoku's plan. So, at that point, they didn't have to ask about Fortune, or the journeys they had together before Sengoku.

All they needed to know was that he was an enemy.

Taking Theadul's hand to stand up, all PopStarry said was, "Theadul, marry me."

Theadul spared her a glance before shrugging, "Sure."

"Really?"

"We have nothing much to lose or be hopeful about," Theadul answered, "I don't mind indulging you."

PopStarry had a massive smile on her face as she tried to focus on the upcoming fight and failed miserably, "We can have our wedding in the next life, then. Invite all of our friends, have the biggest cake… Until then, sure, we can fight together until the end."

Sengoku raised an eyebrow, "Am I invited?"

"No."

"No."

In Sengoku's opinion, that was a bummer. The wedding would be incredibly hilarious.

Conjuring their magic, PopStarry stated, "I have a lot of friends, you know?"

"But you're not one of them."

Beneath Sengoku was a boiling water spout ready to burst. Surrounding Sengoku was a soul cage that would harm him if he dared try to move out of the cage.

Naturally, Sengoku just punched the ground hard enough to break the water spout and create a path underground to not touch any of the bars of the soul cage.

Only slightly caught off guard by Sengoku's path of escape, PopStarry casted, "[River's Path]!"

The river created to stall Sengoku's advance was taken advantage by Theadul who casted, "[Close Function]."

The 9th tier spell activated, beginning to put an immense amount of pressure on Sengoku's soul, the soul attempting to not shatter into a thousand pieces.

Kindly, Sengoku snapped his organic finger and allowed for it to be engulfed into flames.

Wait a minute, flames?

Sengoku instantly closed the gap between himself and Theadul, and used that shortened distance to sucker punch Theadul far away.

PopStarry immediately tried to back up, but Sengoku's organic leg was bursting with electricity. And that leg hit her squarely in the neck, kicking her away from Theadul.

"You know what I just realized?" Sengoku casually said as he played eeny, meeny, miny, moe to decide who to pursue, "All I needed to do was kill the 8 Greed Kings. Killing the NPCs was totally unnecessary! Hehehehehehe!"

Sengoku chose to hit PopStarry, so Sengoku chose to do a double back flip to break her spine.

However, PopStarry simply moved out of the way, coating her fist in water.

"Don't talk about my friends like that!" PopStarry yelled as she landed a punch directly into Sengoku's face.

Sengoku stumbled a bit but otherwise did not move far.

Sengoku lightly chuckled, "Sorry, but they were my friends… too?"

He had a nose bleed.

Huh.

That wasn't supposed to happen-

Suddenly Sengoku was punched in the gut by Theadul.

The two players were both mages, and their physical capabilities were all awful. However, they once met a player from Ainz Ooal Gown called Orphea Scarlet, who used her abilities to coat her fists with magic so she could use magic damage instead of physical damage, but still do blunt damage.

So, if Sengoku would just do his best to dodge any ranged attacks thrown his way, then PopStarry and Theadul would just punch him using the training from months back that was trying to teach them how to use magic without relying on just spells.

For 5 whole seconds, PopStarry and Theadul took advantage of Sengoku's confusion as bits and pieces of his flesh and skin fell due to the sheer power of the hands being thrown.

In the end, though, Sengoku just took a step back and did a sweeping kick, forcing them all away.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't familiar with your game," The worst part about that sentence was that Sengoku sounded genuinely serious.

Which was a good sign as any to switch back to magic attacks.

Theadul casted, "[Maximize Magic: Hel Shackles]!"

Sengoku's arms and legs were suddenly chained to the floor.

"[Maximize Magic: Drown]!"

Sengoku's lungs were filled with water. And due to his immobility from Hel Shackles, he would drown.

If Sengoku were an ordinary man.

Instead, the maniac breathed in tighter, building up the pressure in his lungs and released it, shooting out a beam of water.

After the water in his lungs were out, he calmly unlocked all of the shackles binding him with just a chop of his wrist.

"As I said, I wasn't familiar with your game, and I apologize," Sengoku repeated, his voice solemn, "There's no need to prolong this fight any further. I'm glad we could've been friends."

And with that, Sengoku flies into the air with a single jump.

Pointing to the sky, a massive sun appears in the sky.

Then, Sengoku chants, "End of An Era, Another Goodbye, Close!"

Sengoku then forcibly grabs the sun with the palm of his hands and throws it at the duo.

"Ah. This sucks," Was all PopStarry had to say for her final words.

Theadul followed suit, "Indeed."


Standing in a vast field of flowers, PopStarry, Theadul, and Sengoku stood amongst each other as equals.

Well, of course not. PopStarry and Theadul immediately made themselves clear on where their positions were. On the opposite side of Sengoku's.

"Well, is the afterlife just talking with you?" PopStarry scathely asked, "Because if it is, I want out."

Sengoku just looked away, as though he was contemplating something.

Theadul was being the less serious one for the moment as instead of attempting to verbally fight Sengoku, he instead knelt down and grabbed a white flower.

PopStarry blinked, "Huh? Why did you?"

Theadul put the flower into her hair, causing PopStarry to blush at the intimacy of putting something in a girl's hair.

"You look more beautiful this way," Theadul said as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

PopStarry smiled, "Oh? Well, I guess I can keep a few flowers in my hair, then…"

"Hey," Sengoku started, getting suspicious looks from the two of them, "Were we ever friends?"

"Were we ever… No," Theadul declined, "Not after you took away one of our friends from us."

The cyborg frowned, "Is that so? Because I felt as though you were my friends, no matter how much you all disliked me."

"Nobody asked for your opinion," PopStarry repeated without the usual snide of the comment, "That's what we all repeated because that's what we all thought. But you kept barging into our meetings just using the immunity that our friend's body gave you."

"What about letting me travel with you guys?" He brought up, "Was that not something enjoyable?"

"You're a traitor!" PopStarry shouted frustratedly, "How could you say that you enjoyed traveling with us while blatantly stabbing us in the back? Forced us to kill our own friends!?"

Theadul nodded, "Yes… Sengoku, you called yourself a parasite when I asked you what you were. Parasites often aren't in symbiosis with their hosts, harming or outright killing them. Is this what you meant? To be able to enjoy the process of killing us?"

Sengoku looked to the ground again as he thought of the answer to that question.

…Did he truly enjoy what he did?

Well, of course. He wouldn't have been laughing otherwise. But did the fact that he enjoyed the ending mean that he couldn't enjoy the beginning too?

No, in fact, "It's my privilege as a parasite to be able to hold both joy and hate. I truly did enjoy my time with you all, and I don't feel bad for killing you either. I loved both experiences, and there was a simple fact that it had to be done."

"Had to be done?" PopStarry asked, "Why?"

Sengoku kicked his legs as though he was a bit embarrassed to tell the real reason why.

Theadul offered him a hand, "Well, dead men don't tell tales, yes? Why don't you tell us why you believe that you had to do this?"

Sengoku sighed, "To be honest with you, we've met in the wrong time period. You're with the 8 Greed Kings, but the 8 Greed Kings don't exist in the future. That's just fate. So, you had to be removed from it, but your entire guild had to be destroyed too."

PopStarry and Theadul were starting to fade away, so it was likely he could only get one thing in before they pass towards the future.

With the softest look that Sengoku could imagine, he told them both, "I can tell that we're fated to meet again. I'll eagerly await the day that we cross paths again."


Staring at the desecrated corpses of PopStarry and Theadul, Sengoku felt… Content, yes. That's what he was.

Not happy, not sad, not emotional, but just content.

Sengoku could sense one of their remaining sane NPCs, probably the only one remaining, hanging around and waiting for the opportunity to retrieve the corpse of their masters.

Still, Sengoku couldn't imagine where that NPC could put their bodies. After all, Eryuentiu was destined to be ruled under someone not very enthused about keeping the bodies around.

Sengoku turned to the direction where he remembered there was a massive lake with a city floating on it. A city populated by nobody particularly important, aside from a group of NPCs that had arrived 50 years prior.

It was destined to sink. Sengoku could be the one to sink it and create an appropriate tomb for them.

Yes… That would be nice.

Telekinetically picking up the corpses of his two friends, Sengoku called out to the snooping NPC, "Hey… Focalors."

Focalors tried to snipe him with a water beam, but with a flick of his wrist, Sengoku deflected the beam into the ground, causing a small crater to form.

Sengoku chuckled at the blatant assassination attempt, "Focalors, I'll be constructing a nice tomb for them. Don't interrupt me while I'm trying to help."

Focalors decided that it was a futile effort to try and fight the man who effortlessly defeated both of her masters, so she finally showed her face in front of Sengoku.

Very pointedly, she crossed her arms and told him, "They will be laid to rest in Eryuentiu. Where they belong."

"Eryuentiu is going to come under the control of the few dragons who remain," Sengoku explained, knowing full well that Focalors could probably beat said dragons, "It's better to get somewhere less known for them to stay undiscovered for the next 500 years until Ainz Ooal Gown shows up."

Focalors narrowed her eyes, "What makes you so confident that it'll be 500 years until Ainz Ooal Gown arrives? Or that they'll arrive at all?"

Sengoku waved his robotic hand at her, "I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two. It's not really that important. Anyhow, you want to watch me purge the world of this corruption?"

"...You'll what?" Focalors said in disbelief.

Sengoku turned around to begin walking with the corpses in tow, "It's a rather simple thing, though it's very flashy. I have enough power to target a variable and change it. Maybe I'll even show off a bit and transform the sea city into the forgotten city."

Having no other choice, Focalors followed Sengoku, blandly stating, "I didn't give you permission to take the bodies-"

Sengoku interrupted her, "Yadeyada. Focalors, you're a very special person, even being alive right now. I just forgot to kill you before I realized I didn't have to. By the way, I just realized that the trip is going to take a long time if we just walk. We're teleporting."

Focalors genuinely growled at him, "You think you can just-"

Suddenly, they were standing on top of water, right in front of the sea city that Sengoku just mentioned.

"Do… That?" Focalors weakly finished off her sentence as she realized what had just occurred.

Sengoku chuckled, holding out his hand in front of him, pointing towards the city, "Now, just watch…"

He hasn't done this personally, all he's been able to do was just watch. But at a moment like this? He feels as though he could do anything.

Closing his eyes, Sengoku stood still with his robotic arm out for a solid 10 seconds.

Then, he chanted.

"Blood of Dreams."

"Dust of The Legislator."

"Will of Fate."

The reason for the chanting was very simple.

Sengoku didn't have enough power to do what he wanted to do without setup. And so he had to physically carve what he wanted to do into the fabric of the world.

4 Large pillars of stone suddenly appeared above the sea, the stone being cut into modern buildings.

His etching was very amateur, if Sengoku had to admit to anyone. After all, if one were naturally physically gifted, they may forgo actually training. In the same vein, Sengoku never imagined himself in a scenario where he was low on power, and never learnt how changing reality actually worked.

The four modern buildings crashed into the sea. And to showcase the defiance of reality, did not cause even a single wave to form.

Now was the difficult part.

Opening his eyes, Sengoku chanted one more time.

"Let This Era Be Known By My Name."

The world heaved as the skies turned a sickly black as dark corruption spewed from the lands, heading straight for the city and Sengoku.

The dark aura didn't hit Sengoku, instead just surrounding him and Focalors. But the city wasn't so lucky.

The city was devoured by the corruption, returning it to nothingness. But that was all part of the plan.

Sengoku tried to move forward, but he found it was a bit more difficult to move than he had expected.

More like moving a wooden box than a casual stroll.

However, he moved forward, causing his sphere of influence to move with him as he moved into the destroyed city.

Though Sengoku may be a barbarian at heart, he much preferred destroying modern cities than medieval towns. And so, etched into his soul was the title "God of Vanity."

Zenith once questioned Sengoku on why he chose to be a God of Vanity to impose his love of modernity upon the world, instead of choosing something more on the nose such as the God of Modernity or the God of Change.

Sengoku's reply was simple.

He didn't want for his creations to be as efficient as a cog, be constantly changing to fit the trends, or to showcase a particular style in history.

He simply wanted everything to be created and be destroyed in the most satisfying way possible.

As he moved towards the center of the city, the corruption was forcibly shapeshifted by Sengoku to rise and become skyscrapers. A dome formed around the city to limit how high the buildings could rise, for otherwise, they may have gone to space.

All the while, Sengoku could hear the screams and pleading of all of the people who died from the corruption.

All of the screams and pleading of the people who will now make up the concrete of The Forgotten City.

Reaching the center of the city, Sengoku knelt down as he placed the palm of his robotic arm onto the floor.

Naturally, the entire city sinks not long after.

At the same time, a building is formed around Sengoku, one much larger and grander than the rest.

And on the top floor of that building laid a simple altar.

Sengoku stood back up, not sensing any more corruption as it was all converted into building material and the power to transport said material.

Sengoku gently laid down the bodies of PopStarry and Theadul onto the altar next to each other.

And with that, Sengoku had finished creating the Forgotten City.

Then, he turned to Focalors, "There you go. This city is a bit bland, but I plan to use this place as our base of operations for the next 500 years or so. So we'll have a lot of time to decorate it."

Focalors was staring directly at him with a blank expression on her face. A trained expression, from what he could tell. She was impressed by the power displayed, but didn't want to admit it.

But Focalors asked, "And what of the corruption?"

"Completely gone," Sengoku casually answered, tapping on the walls, "Not even this city, constructed by said corruption, has a single trace of it. Maybe if one of the four enters the city, they might notice. But since I hear that their power was hamstrung by Paradise, I doubt they will."

One day, they'll come into this city and see it as nothing more than a set piece.

But Sengoku knows that a battle here will occur one day, and the corruption within will make its grand entrance into the world once more, hopefully heralding the coming of the man who will become a true God one day.

500 years, and such a wonderful future will be in grasp.

Focalors shifted her gaze towards the corpses of her masters.

"You can't revive them, by the way," Sengoku mentioned, "They're perma-dead. Nothing that even a crippled politician can't fix, especially considering it looks like Theadul managed to keep their souls here. But reviving them is out of your reach."

Focalors narrowed her eyes at Sengoku, "Who are you speaking about?"

Sengoku shrugged, slowly beginning to walk out of the room, "Who knows. I hear from PopStarry that there's a player named Vagisilious who stuck it out to the end with Ainz Ooal Gown. Could be her, could be that Principality guy. Either way, I eagerly await their appearance."

"And Amaru?"

Sengoku paused.

Then, he shrugged, "I'll make sure your guild weapon stays safe. It'll take 500 years, but you'll see them again."

Focalors did not reply, nor did she follow Sengoku. It would take her another 2 decades to finally leave that room and become more active in the world once more.

As Sengoku was about to leave the city, Moniseven made his appearance once more.

"Oh, hey, Moni!" Sengoku greeted him with a wave, "How have you been?"

Moniseven sneered, "What do you think you're doing, cleansing this world of the corruption I was going to use for my own ascension?"

"I thought you already went ahead and ascended?" Sengoku tilted his head to ask.

Crossing his arms, Moniseven calmly stated, "I was going to kill myself and use the corruption as fuel for my next vessel, obviously."

"Oh."

Well, what's done has been done. Sengoku would apologize when Moniseven actually had the strength to get that apology.

Moniseven sighed, "By the way, I've located The Priest's vessel in a mountain of harpies. What's more important is that The Priest managed to carry along a token with him."

Sengoku's eyes widened in shock, "That bastard somehow managed to get a token here?"

"I don't know how," Moniseven said, not surprising Sengoku at all, "However, the more pressing issue is that The Priest's vessel ended up as a slave to the harpies and is at risk of being executed."

Sengoku snorted, "That doesn't surprise me at all. That guy's luck is really bad for some reason."

All Monisven did in response was sigh.

Sengoku turned towards the exit, "C'mon, let's go save him, yeah? I'd hate for that idiot to try and use the token only to get a common. We can get GreenWitch to use it. Her luck is great."

Rolling his eyes, Moniseven remarked, "How stupid. We're gods, and all we can do for the next 500 years is go on pointless errands. I should've never agreed to this idiotic plan in the first place."

Sengoku raised an eyebrow, briefly turning around to point out, "Hey, 500 years for us, a decade for them. We've lost our time warping. Might as well pick up a few genuine skills while we're here, right?"

Again, Moniseven told the world, "This is stupid."

And with that, the Incarnation of Fate's Will left the Forgotten City.


Bonus Story 1

Back Into The Shadows

Arriving at the beach, GreenWitch spotted The Priest casually chilling on the sand, trying to get a tan.

Announcing her presence, GreenWitch told The Priest, "I've returned from my quick expedition."

The Priest spared her a glance, "Already? Didn't you want to revive Sengoku? It's going to take a lot more than just a day to get enough power to get him into a shape worthy of being the gatekeeper."

"I've met that Politician."

Knowing the codes for the words they couldn't say, The Priest was genuinely caught off guard by her casual declaration of what were the most important words that had ever come out of her mouth, "For real?"

"For real. Her name is Vagisilious, by the way. Ainz Ooal Gown," GreenWitch confirmed, holding out her basket of genuine trash, "I already infused her power into these spare junk items. Because Sengoku already arrived into this world, we won't need cogs like his first ascension did."

The Priest stood up from his sunbathing as he excitedly asked, "Alright, so we're going to be free soon, right? We're going to have Sengoku open the path-"

"A team up with Seraphim and Ainz Ooal Gown at both of their respective peaks is undesirable," GreenWitch put an end to his train of thought, "And, as he proved with Azure Dragon and himself, we require Vagisilious to at least have some knowledge of what she's capable of before he can take her power. To that end, Seraphim will be a beautiful stepping stone to her own ascension."

The Priest sighed, going back to sunbathing, "So, another year of waiting, huh?"

GreenWitch nodded, sitting down with him, "Another year of waiting."

The two briefly shared a small moment of silence with each other before The Priest asked, "Oh, are we ever going to use that mountain…?"

She hummed, "I brought up the possibility of an alliance with Momonga. If it feels as though the shackles on Vagisilious are too great, we can tip the scales if we have to."

"...So only if the Politician doesn't know how to rig the system?"

"Yes."

"So no."

"Yes."

The Priest sighed, "God. I'm going to erase my memory of these 500 years. Those stories lied to me. This isn't going very fast or as effortlessly as they made me believe…"

"Get used to it. You have another eternity to live through."


8 Greed King members

Powerfuel (leader) (Dead)

King Hougan (Dead)

WasabiChan (Dead)

Belloal (Dead)

OldManJeremy (Dead)

Sakaemu (Dead)

Hakon (Dead)

Plaslam (Dead)

Theadul (Dead)

PopStarry (Dead)

NPCs

Focalor (Immortal Human) (PopStarry) (Water) (Alive)

Amaru (Dragonoid) (Theadul) (Earth) (Dead)

Canopa (llama pet/mount) (WasabiChan) (Druid) (Dead)

KordHell (Human) (PowerFuel) (Fire) (Dead)

Fei Fei (Human child) (Sakemu) (Air) (Dead)

Odin (Large Human) (Hakon) (Electric) (Dead)

Raichi (Human) (OldManJeremy) (Light) (Dead)

Hounoku (Ghostly Human) (Belloal) (Dark) (Dead)

Cherric (Yuki-onna) (King Hougan) (Ice) (Dead)

Smores (Human) (Plaslam) (Psychic) (Dead)

AN:

So, I wrote like, uhh… 13k words or so in the span of maybe 24 hours.

During the night.

This chapter is 26k words long, so literally half the chapter is under the influence of sleep deprivation.

This was also a bad chapter to do sleepless because there were way too many ideas that kept popping up that I had to add extra scenes for. There was a time where I estimated I had like 8-12 scenes left to write, I wrote like 5 scenes, and I was still at 8 scenes remaining.

Still didn't break my 15k record somehow. So my lock in method is superior to my genuinely insane method.

And yeah, because I was genuinely insane while writing this chapter (I started seeing things in my screen) some things might not add up in this chapter as it did previous chapters.

It'll either be fixed July 1st, the day I upload, or I'll just shrug my shoulders and say screw it, who cares.

Though I do kinda wish I spent more time on the fight scenes but they're all stomps anyways so…

X

As for new names, the 8GKs I just brainstormed with the Grand Library of Ashurbanipal members, mostly with 0bama.

Though, I did take the name Hakon from one of the mods of the server who occasionally visits my channel. I was gonna give him a more painful death but I was not in the right mind for it while writing his death so he gets to die with the class GF.

As for anything else, IDK, my beta readers can ask.

X

You know how parents tell you that most of school is just for you to build discipline.

Yeah my ass was not disciplined with the art and foreign language. I got like 30 minutes for the first 3 days before breaking and going to 5 minutes.

I blame the heat.

At least the water of shame was cool.

Oh yeah, I got (tricked) a friend from another discord server to read through this monstrosity. Go send his fic some love. It's for My Hero Academia and he decided to send Izuku 100 years into the past.

I also beta read for it, but you know, details.

Also, I somehow ended up telling him I would finish the fic by the time he woke up.

I did not. But hey, it's finished on the same day so… I guess it's a success?

(Search up Kelpten on Ao3, FFN readers.)

I dunno how many people are picking up MHA fic recs from an Overlord fic 350k words into the fic, but hey, it's there.

Kelpten's Note:

Three hours of my life gone

I don't even watch overlord

Readers?

Do me a favor please.

Bully this man. Effective immediately.

Thank you.

In other news, I have an MS Paint for this chapter. I didn't feel like doing a full tracing, so I just did Trollbelung.

(And of course, The Grand Library of Ashurbanipal, or Ao3)

Anyways, if you have any thoughts about the chapter, drop a comment.