"Huh..."

"Where... am I?"

Questions flew through the man's mind, as the nature of the situation he currently found himself in were as unknown and mysterious to him as they could get. The man having these thoughts, Akio Kouki, was the average working class citizen.

In front of him, he saw an endless horizon; miles and miles of land, primarily grass, but many trees scattered along the way. He breathed the air in, seeming somehow more pure than the air he'd come to know all his life.

As the man awoke from his daze, memories of the previous day marched upon his mind like an unstoppable wave of reminiscence. He'd remembered the previous day, which was as normal as could be. He'd worked as a police officer; a job he pursued out of the kindness and justice-seeking flame deep within his heart, no - his soul.

If such a thing as a soul truly existed, then his would undoubtedly take the shape of an eternal, radiant fire; unwilling to be blown out by anything that opposed his ideals. The man, suddenly snapping back into reality, looks around him. Miles, and miles, followed by many more miles of grass terrain. The man had an intuitive feeling that; this place, the place he felt he was currently in, and felt as if he had just awoken from his slumber to, was not the place, nor world, he knew.

He remembered going to sleep after a long day of work, just as any other, and now he was seemingly outside his house, in a place, possibly not even in the same world as his. Suddenly, as his senses return to him little by little, he feels a slight weight he had neglected noticing before due to his present mental shock. It was, a strange sort of weight, however.

It was a different weight from that which he was used to. As a police officer, he'd had to endure training in order to be fit for the position. He was capable of lifting 200 pounds upon his back, without extraordinary trouble. While not too uncommon in the present age, this was not a man who was overweight, nor had a monstrous physique. He was a hard-working man, who, despite only having trained for a few months, became extraordinary strong for such a short time period.

Due to his past experience, he was not unfamiliar with the feeling of carrying weight. Not at all, in fact; he was more used to it than the average man is used to brushing his teeth, showering, putting on clothing, and even chewing. This weight, however; was not that which he was used to, not by a long shot. Though barely putting a strain on his body, he intrinsically knew, from both his work as a police officer and a dedicated gym-goer, that this weight was easily over twenty times that which he was used to - reaching into the thousands of pounds.

How he could tell this was uncertain, even to him, as it was just a feeling, a gut feeling, in fact. Granted, this feeling was to be taken with a heavy dose of salt, as the next logical question in this line of thinking is: "How could his movements, the movements of a regular man, be barely infringed by thousands of pounds upon him?"

As he instinctively looks to himself in order to find the source of the weight, he looks down at his feet. Instead of seeing shoes or pants, what he sees is, unquestionably himself, covered from tip to toe, in effulgent, platinum armor.

He's startled, as he trips backwards, but doesn't fall due to his excellent balance. Granted, as a result of his near tumbling, he still moves a bit, causing the armor to clank and reinstate within his mind the unavoidable sight he had observed, making him more confused than when he arrived in this mysterious place. He looks to his side, noticing he is also wearing shoulder plates of the same, radiant color.

"Not only am I in a place I don't recognize at all, I'm also wearing a cosplay? No... those clanks, and the weight I felt earlier, and still feel vividly even now; this armor isn't a cosplay, it's real metal."

The man sobers up, yet there was no alcohol to be drunk on in the first place - only the stupefying absurdity of the situation he'd found himself in. He looks to his arms, and sees the same radiant platinum armor, now in the shape of gauntlets, covering his hands. He'd like to check what he looked like from 3rd person, like a video game character, to confirm if he was also wearing a helmet. It'd be unlikely, since he cannot feel any particular weight upon his head, but so weightless are also the gauntlets, to the point of not being able to differentiate them from his real hands.

"If only it was like Yggdrasil..." The man thought to himself, before having a moment of reflection. "Stop it - Yggdrasil shut down long ago. This is real life. There's no way I'd be able to view myself from third person; I'll just find a mirror somewhere.." As he spoke these words aloud to reinforce them within himself, he felt a sudden sensation, different from anything he'd ever felt.

To clarify, this feeling was not akin to that of familiar nature like, carrying weight upon your shoulders, no - this was far different. If he had to describe it in words, he'd probably end up sounding like a deluded maniac. He was not an insane man, however. No, he was quite sane, in fact. This feeling was unfamiliar, but that did not liken it to undesirable. No, in fact, he found it quite pleasurable.

It felt as though he could do many things, and had access to many a belonging under his possession. This feeling gave him strength, but his logical mind disagreed with his heart. What was this illogical feeling that caused him to think he was powerful? Suddenly, the man had a flashback to words previously thought by himself.

"If only it was like Yggdrasil..."

What before had been an out-of-place, unwarranted thought, had now become a theory of sorts. "What if this really is Yggdrasil?" It seemed preposterous, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Memories from many years ago, from the times of adventuring, conquering, learning, exploring, fighting, and much more; within the legendary game world of YGGDRASIL.

YGGDRASIL was the most popular DMMORPG, DMMORPG standing for Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Quite the long title, huh? What was also long, was the lifetime of YGGDRASIL. It lasted a whopping 12 years before finally fizzling out, as the only players remaining within the once-glorious game, were forced to endure a countdown of 24 hours, as the last day Yggdrasil was online was not remembered my many.

Back to the present, Akio is reminiscing upon his times in Yggdrasil, though to the average man spectating from outside, it might look like a mental breakdown. Nevertheless, Akio composes himself in a matter of seconds. It seems as though he has some sort of resistance to mental deterioration, much to his surprise.

"If it's really Yggdrasil, then..." The man says to himself, as he looks down at his chest. "No way..." Somehow not having noticed it before, the man was even wearing the same armor he had worn in the game, as he observes its signature azure gem encrusted on the chest plate. He extends his hand towards his face, and hears the same slight clank as with the other pieces of armor. Out of shock, but very much distrustful of his own senses, he comes to a conclusion:

"Fine. There's only one way to find out if this really is Yggdrasil. Please let me be right... it'll be so embarrassing if I'm wrong..."

Filled with an emergent determination, he takes a deep breath, and readies himself.

"「Summon Item Box」"

He calls out the name of a common skill he had learned in Yggdrasil. The 「Item Box」, a function that allowed the storing of an infinite amount of items within its confine. Suddenly, a dark, otherworldly-textured gap in space appears in front of him. "No fucking way..." He says, unable to limit his disbelief to family friendly vernacular. He reaches into the otherworldly space, as it expands with the movement of his arm. He thinks of one of, if not the item he used the most within his time playing Yggdrasil.

As he retracts his arm from the space, he gradually pulls out a platinum-white shield, as the gap closes shortly after. "It really is like in the game..." He says to himself.

"I'm... actually in Yggdrasil..."

Hey. As you can tell, this is a fanfiction with the plot line revolving around a certain Ainz Ooal Gown member getting summoned to the New World years after Yggdrasil's shutdown. If you have any questions about any of the happenings within the story, share them, and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.