[Nazarick, Momonga POV]
A gigantic table carved of gleaming black stone sat in the center of the room, surrounded by forty-one luxurious chairs. However, most of those seats were empty. Once, every single place had been filled, now only one was occupied.
The seated being was clothed in a magnificent black academic robe, edged in violet and gold. The collar seemed excessively gaudy, but somehow it fit the overall design.
However, the exposed head was a bare skull. Points of dark red light glowed in its large eye sockets, and behind that skull glowed a halo of black radiance.
The skeleton is an Overlord — the highest-ranked of those magic casters who had become undead to learn the most potent spells.
One might encounter the skeleton monsters in the most difficult dungeons. Overlords could use powerful spells of the highest tiers of magic, however, he is not a game monster, but instead a player himself.
In YGGDRASIL, players could choose their character races from three broad groups; humanoid, demihuman, and heteromorphic.
Humanoids were the basic player type and comprised humans, dwarves, wood elves, and the like. Demihumans tended to be ugly but possessed superior attributes to humanoids. Examples of demihumans were goblins, beastmen, ogres, and so on. Finally, heteromorphic races had monstrous abilities, but despite their stats being generally higher than those of other races, they also possessed various drawbacks. There were around seven hundred playable races in total, including the advanced versions of these races.
"No one came..." Momonga sighed in sadness as he dully stared at the empty chairs. "Haah!" He let out another sigh. "—Are you kidding me!?" He pounded the table as he shouted in anger.
"This is the Great Tomb of Nazarick that we built together! How could you all abandon it just like that!?" After he shouted the words in his heart, he felt empty and disappointed.
"...No, that's not right. They didn't abandon it lightly... they simply chose between reality and fantasy. It couldn't be helped. Nobody would betray the guild. Everyone who made that decision must have found it painful..."
Momonga muttered as if he is trying to convince himself, and then he stood up. He walked toward the wall, where an elaborately decorated magic staff was kept.
Seven serpents twined around the body of the staff, which resembled the kerykeion carried by Hermes Trismegistus. The serpents' mouths gaped open in agony, and each mouth held a gem of a different color. The grip was exquisitely carved out of crystal and glowed with blue light.
This beautiful staff is an honor and the symbol of his guild, this staff typically kept hidden away in safe places and not used for their tremendous powers because a guild would be disbanded if its associated guild weapon was destroyed, but throughout the years Yggdrasil popularity has been diminished drastically because of its difficulty.
These days literally no one even played this game, so there is no need to hide the weapon. Years ago he took it out from the treasury and kept it in the meeting room as a decoration.
He opened his game window and saw that he have two hours to kill some time before Yggdrasil shut down, he grabbed the staff tightly in his hand and then teleported directly to the starter town of Midgard.
He quietly walked through the beautiful town and made his way to the infamous cliff known as Dread One's Cliff to meet someone, if his luck doesn't betray him then he will able to meet him, he knew that man will be Yggdrasil.
After about 15 minutes of leisure walking, Momonga finally made it to the top of the cliff and was instantly gobsmacked when he saw a certain someone sitting on a boulder at the very end of the cliff, he couldn't believe his eyes. The person who he wanted to meet so badly is right before his eyes.
Dressed in decorative golden armor with a partially exposed chest, golden boots, & black skirt-like cloth wrapped around his waist. The man has silver hair and an extremely handsome face adorned with two pairs of beautiful yet intimidating blood-red eyes.
"Hoh, I didn't think a player would show up on the last day of shut down" The man turned his head slightly and stared at him with a blank look, even though Momonga knew Yggdrasil is not advance enough to show emotion or facial expression, he could tell the man is curious.
"So what do you need?" Momonga quickly snapped out of his shock and made his way to the man's side.
"Sir, I don't need anything I just wanted to ask if this game will make a comeback?" Momonga asked with hope. "It only has a 10% chance of returning" His reply left Momonga in a state of Despair.
"...Holy Shit!?" Momonga forced himself to concentrate when he heard the man screaming, he looked up and saw his status window in front of the silver-haired man.
"...You never stopped playing this game? Damn... That's impressive... " The silver-haired man expressed his shock after going through Momonga's login details.
Momonga rubbed the back of his head awkwardly as he doesn't know what to even say. "Yeah... Kind of" He replied.
"Sigh... Since you are such a loyal player, Momonga, let me tell you a piece of inside news... don't tell anyone okay?" Momonga gave a short nod.
"Our boss sold the company to N.E.X.T GAMES and the new owner has decided to shut down this game due to its harsh gameplay and difficulties. He plans to replace this game with a new game" The man paused.
"Sigh... The new game is awful, it's a total money-grabbing black hole. Almost everything in the shitty game has to be paid with real money" The man informed the unfairness of the game. "So, they made the game to target the richest?" Momonga asked.
"Yes, normal people could play it but those who dump money in the in-game items will level up faster, and stronger in no time. And on top of that, the game is based on our world, so I am pretty sure it will not be able to make a good impact on the market, & Let's be fair Yggdrasil will always be no 1!" Momonga on hearing that the game is based on their own world lost all interest in it because their worlds sky was always hidden behind black smog, while the sun making only brief appearances now and then. Thick, toxic fog frequently covered the cities, so almost no one went out without wearing a gas mask beforehand. With nature almost destroyed, the people have no other choice but to also rely on artificial lungs solely created for their safety to help breathe in the current, poor state of the environment.
The blue planet has become so dirty & polluted that the discovery of a single drop of freshwater will be a miracle. Why would someone see the same shit in the game world? Their life is already filled with hardship & extreme misery, why would they play a game that was based on the same world that is responsible for their bad luck.
"Yes, it is" Momonga admitted truthfully. "Tell you what... since this is also my last day in the company I will fulfill any wish of yours?"
"Really?" Momonga asked excitedly, even though he has an hour and few minutes in his hands he has a wish that he wanted so badly for a very long time.
"Yep, so what do you need? A world-class weapon... or an NPC special creation crystal?" The man asked.
"Can I have a subclass without any restriction, loss of level, jobs, and penalty?" Momonga asked.
"Well that's new, but it's doable..." The man summoned two windows side by side, one is empty and another has Momonga's character on it.
"Smart man, if Yggdrasil ever makes it back to the market you will probably become one of the strongest players" The man praised Momonga's ingenious idea. "So which race do you want?" Momonga didn't think twice and opened his mouth.
"True demon!"
"Heh, good choice. That race only available to the players who have defeated the Níðhöggr and If my memory serves me right, no one has managed to defeat him yet" The man said and gently drive the character creation window at Momonga.
"Your stored exp will be able to level up this character up to level 40 & you can switch characters by simply clicking on the exchange skill or you can also say exchange" The man paused and then summoned his twelve majestic wings.
"You have less than an hour so hurry up with the character design." The man said.
"Thank you, Samael!!"
"No problem, Farewell!" The man expressed goodbye and then blasted off into the sky.
[Timeskip: Nazarick]
Momonga nodded his head in satisfaction when he saw his new character, his new character has the appearance of a tall, handsome man with long black hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and a pair of yellow ridged horns that curve outwards from beneath his hair along the sides of his head, his clothing consists of a dark jacket with gold trim around the seams, the bottom partially opened to reveal his waist. He wears short black pants which are the same color as his top, the former of which is tucked into a pair of large dark boots that cover his animal-like calves and feet. Over his clothing, he wears a high-collared cape in the same colors as his jacket, fastened at the front with a thin golden chain, and held in place by large golden shoulder pads.
Momonga really wanted to add few more details to his new character but he only has 4 minutes in hand so he quickly transfers all his exp to his new character leveling it up to level 40 instantly.
"And done" He muttered while clicking on create. If this game ever returns oh he can't wait to see the shocked faces of the players.
Momonga raised his left hand to check the time.
[23:55:48]
He was just in time. Momonga leaned against the back of the throne, he let out a sigh. " ...I am going to miss this place" He muttered and then slowly raised his head to look at Albedo.
"Tabula's NPC?" He facepalmed after he goes through her unique backstory created by his perv friend.
"Would it be fine to change an NPC's backstory based on a personal decision?" After thinking about it for some time, Momonga came to a conclusion.
"Should I change it?"
Currently, with the guild weapon in his possession, Momonga could be said to be the master of the guild. It should be all right to exercise the guildmaster's authority he had never used before.
He shrugged his shoulder and he made some changes & then he still typed out a few last words on the console keyboard.
"She loves Momonga." Momonga covered his face with his palm like an embarrassed girl. It felt as though he were designing his ideal girlfriend complete with love events for himself, which embarrassed him so much that his heart began pounding. Although the thought of changing it back to what it before came to his mind out of shame, in the end, he quickly changed his mind and decided against it.
The game would end soon, after all, and his shame would vanish with it. Besides, the sentence he added matched the gap left by the deleted sentence exactly. It would be a shame if Momonga deleted it and left an empty space again... Right?
"Ding"
"Eh, I got an email?" Momonga opened his game console and checked the mail. There in his mail was a gift from an unknown sender. He quickly claimed the gift and was about to check his item storage but the timer has already hit zero.
"What's going on? Could it be they delayed the server shutdown—? Or had they extended playtime as a form of compensation?" If that was the case, Samael who happened to be the "leading Game master" would have told him at their brief meeting and on top of that, the other GMs would have made an announcement.
He hurriedly tried to reopen the game panel he had closed — and then he stopped halfway. There was no command console!
"...What the hell is going on!?" Momonga's voice filled with confusion echoes through the Throne Room.
"What's wrong, Momonga-sama?" Momonga was startled when he heard a soft beautiful woman voice.
When he found the one who had spoken the words just now, he was speechless. The person who had answered him was the NPC, Albedo.
[Momonga's Pov End]
Author Here: Mc will be cruel and will never show mercy to his enemy.