Steven Universe x Overlord

Prologue

He would return to the real world several seconds later. Even so, this moment felt like it was made to vividly display the calmness of Suzuki Satoru. Though still sad that it was the end, he felt strangely accepting as it approached.

And then—

—Momonga began to panic.

He'd thought that once he opened his eyes, he would be greeted by the familiar sight of his room beyond a pane of thin glass. After all, YGGDRASIL was going to be shut down, he had thought. However, what he actually saw turned out to be something else entirely that left the man bemused and somewhat worried.

Momonga: "...What's this?"

His mutterings didn't come from loneliness, but rather an encounter with something he couldn't understand. The first things which came into view was the night sky. New constellations sparkled all around him, and the slowly-moving clouds seemed to cover up the moon from his sight. It was breath-taking.

Momonga could see the tips of green hills in the distance, and the dark forests at their foothills rippled like waves in the breath of the night wind. It was a sight he couldn't see in the real world —aside from the arcologies— and due to the quality of the 'textures', it was as though he'd never left the game at all.

He looked down — and saw that he was standing in a field of grass. This was very perplexing, as he'd just been flying over the swamps of Helheim mere seconds prior, and this caused Momonga to freeze in shock and stupor.

Momonga: 'This doesn't look like anywhere I've been in Yggdrasil. What the hell is this place?'

The Guildmaster continued analysing his surroundings. The landscape was very unfamiliar. Granted, there was no way Momonga could know what every single square inch of YGGDRASIL's map looked like. However, this was the last day of the game, and it was scheduled to end at midnight.

Now that time had passed, yet he was still here.

YGGDRASIL'S end of operations had been delayed, it seemed. Or perhaps it would show him something like this if he did not log out on his own. There were many reasons flashing through his bewildered thoughts. The most likely possibility was that an unknown issue had led to a delay.

If this were the case, the GMs would have announced something. Momonga hurriedly made to open the game communications function that he'd shut down before the final day — and then he froze in place, hand looming.

The console didn't show up.

Momonga: 'What... happened? What is this?'

As a mix of anxiety and doubt filled him, Momonga tried to activate other functions from the game, but none of them responded. It was as though he'd been forcefully excluded from the system, and the concept left him unnerved. He grabbed both sides of his skull, flinching at the sensation of touch from his claws.

Momonga began feeling other strange forces in the back of his mind. He suddenly "understood" how to control his YGGDRASIL spells without a second thought, but he didn't know what that meant. He was not even conscious of it; it was as though it were perfectly natural, leaving him in an abnormal situation that he didn't know how to solve.

After that, Momonga looked at his hand, and noticed that nothing had changed. There was no doubt that those bony white hands belonged to his avatar, just like in YGGDRASIL, but now he could sense through the marrow. Detailing the difference precisely was difficult, but there was a strong sense within it.

However, it was his ability to remain calm despite being in such a dangerous situation which scared him more than anything. Momonga could feel something within himself, scratching at the walls of his mind. Ignoring it for now, he decided to investigate the nearby landscape with [Fly].