Harbingers of Change

The last day finally came. Twelve years of his life were spent in the game and all that will be gone in six hours. The company that made Yggdrasil had announced the beta for the next next-gen Dive MMO, but it was a small consolation. Logging in felt like visiting a friend or home for one last time.

What would be the point of starting anything anew if it will end the same way one day? Maybe the next game would last longer. Maybe he would find new friends or reconnect with old ones if they play the same thing. But in the end, did it even matter? The next game, the next world, would fade away just like this one.

Suzuki pushed the negative thoughts aside and logged in. A few days ago, he sent out invitations to his old guild members for one last reunion, but the response was rather underwhelming. Most didn't even bother to respond. Some gave polite declines. There were a few who asked why he still played that dying game when the new, better ones were out.

But on a positive note, two people told him that they would come. Peroroncino, with his older sister Bukubukuchagama, was the first to respond. Once his closest friends, it was fitting they would be the ones to come and witness the end with him. At least he didn't need to spend the last hours of the game alone.

Despite everything, Suzuki knew how it looked from an outsider's perspective. Who in his right mind would stress over a game that much? After all, there were thousands of virtual worlds to pick from, but for him, it was the place where he got his first friends and found a place to belong.

As usual, he was the first online. Momonga walked towards the Throne room at the same dignified pace as the day before. There were still a few NPC routines to tinker with while he waited for Pero and Buku to come online.

With Albedo beside his throne, he started the work. The same gentle smile. Same beautiful golden eyes. Soon she will be gone, just like everything else. If he was a better artist, he would have recreated her and many others from Nazarick somewhere else, but it was just not meant to be.

Momonga only snapped out of his activity when an almost forgotten ping sound of an ingame friend logging in reached his ears. A guild member had logged in. A few seconds later, a second one came. Both Pero and Buku were finally here.

{ Hey Momo, where are you? } The familiar voice of Pero came through a private message.

{ I'm in the throne room. I'll teleport to you both right away. }

{ Right, this place has a throne room. Don't worry, we will get to you soon enough. Might as well do some sightseeing if I'm logged in, right? }

{ Sure thing. Take your time }

Knowing that it would take some time for them to arrive, Momonga returned to his pastime. Almost done. Only a few little things and…

"Someone's sitting like a proper king! And with a wife by his side! Quite a deal you have made for yourself." Pero's loud voice echoed throughout the hall, followed by cheerful laughter.

"Hey Momo, missed your little sister Buku?" A high-pitched childish voice followed.

Whenever Buku was in a good mood or just wanted to tease someone, she would always use her talent and pitch her voice to sound like a child. That is what made her career as a voice actress so successful. These days there were not a lot of hentai games where she didn't voice at least one loli character.

Momonga quietly chuckled when he heard it. It was only when you heard Buku's natural voice tone that you had to be worried about her being in a bad mood. Once there was a running joke among guild members that if you ever hear Buku speaking in a deep tone; run.

"Pero! Buku! It's so good to see you both made it."

"We can't just leave you alone on the last day, can we? I kind of expected to find you in some cave, not our old guild base."

Both avatars finally came to the throne itself and Momonga could look at his old friends once again.

Peroroncino played a birdmen race. A white feathered, four-winged avian with few brown feathers at the edges of wings. Most of the race's majesty was lost due to him being clad only in games default underwear. The day Pero gave up all his gear and other game possessions was one Momonga remembered all too well. He and his sister left with the first mass player drop-off.

During those times Suzuki dreaded to log in only to find another of his friends leaving. Losing seventeen players in a single month was a hard blow to take, not only as a guild master who still needed to keep the guild together, but as a human who had to watch his friends leave one after another.

Unlike Pero, Buku's pinkish slime form looked almost just like before. All her gear was just a ball of data submerged in her form with very few cosmetic effects. How many times she had complained about picking such an unappealing race to play... But with one character per player and her unwillingness to abandon the character she had put so much time in already, Buku didn't end up re-rolling a new avatar.

"Brother, you don't have to be so mean to Momo. You can see he has taken good care of the guild base."

"Yeah, yeah. By the way, do we have any decent gear in the armory left? It would be so lame to just run around in my underwear."

"Lame is your title, so why even bother with gear?" Buku said, following up the jab at her brother with a with laugh.

"Sure thing, chubby."

"Watch it, you little shit!"

Momonga did a tactical cough to interrupt their little spat.

"I put all your gear in the treasury. You can get it back."

"Awesome, let's go!" Pero says.

Momonga gave each of them the Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown and then activated his own ring, teleporting to the treasury. Even at the entrance stood piles upon piles of various items and an enormous pile of gold coins. It, of course, was but a fraction of treasures held within the unreachable depths of the Great Tomb.

A lone figure sits on the couch. Momonga's own creation, Pandora's actor. A greater doppelgänger who could imitate all the guild members. Momonga made him after everyone had already left, so it was the first time someone else could see him.

He looked like a traditional doppelgänger, a lean white figure with prolonged fingers and three dark holes for facial features. What set him apart was the yellow military uniform.

Pandora's actor reacted to three newcomers, recognizing them as part of the Nazarick and standing up with a salute.

Momonga unequipped his Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown and put it in Pandora's inventory.

"Take the rings off. The defense system will turn on and be hostile to everyone with the ring on when inside the vault." Momonga said, with his friends following his advice.

The trio went deeper into the vault and were met with two rows of statues. Each statue mildly resembled a guild member but looked like someone's first 3d modeling project. Momonga had forgotten about them and how bad they looked when he made them. The moment their eyes fell on statues, Momonga wished to disappear into the ground out of shame.

Both siblings stare at them for a moment and in silent unison decide to not address it at all. Pero found his statue first and took the gear off, equipping everything onto his own avatar. Buku did the same, but since hers were just various data balls floating inside her jelly-like body, the difference was much smaller.

With saved teleportation locations all over the world maps, the trio had a vast array of places to visit one last time. Most would be off-limits to them as heteromorphs. It was likely, even on the last day, a player-killing group would go out just to ruin someone's fun.

Their first target, a trade hub, had many more players than usual. There was no trading going on, but seemingly half of the server population had gotten the idea of taking pictures with friends. The most popular spots had lines already, so the trio just decided to visit other less populated spots.

Even with the danger of triggering a world enemy battle, the few pictures with the extremely dangerous creatures in the background were worth it. Buku's screeching at Pero to not be a careless idiot provided additional entertainment for Momonga, as the avian more than once wandered dangerously close to mobs on purpose, just to aggravate his sister.

For a moment it felt like old times. Suzuki was desperate to grasp even the smallest bits of nostalgia. These were the social interactions he missed so much. The jokes, the jabs at each other,siblings fighting over the smallest of things.

The momentary happiness was enough to keep the dark thoughts away. At this moment, the game just was, and his friends were with him.

They say time flies when you have fun and the last day flew by very fast. With just an hour left, it was unanimously agreed to spend the last minutes inside their home base as they spent much time there during the glory days and it was fitting to end the game there.

‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›

It was 23:30 when they finally teleported back to Nazarick. The main reason was Herohero, who had logged on and patiently waited for his friends in the conference room.

It surely was a surprise, but a welcome one. Herohero responded to Momonga's invitation but made no promises because of being busy with work.

"Hey Hero, how you doing, buddy?" Peros asks the moment he sees the black ooze sitting in his designated chair.

"Good to see you all," the Herohero responds. "I feel the same way my avatar looks. I had to take so much overtime lately that half the time I slept in the office. My health is a mess…"

Herohero then stops for a moment and then adds, "Sorry, I didn't come online just to complain. I will be online for just a few minutes. I really need to get some sleep."

"So you are not staying with us till the very end?" Momonga asks.

"I wish I could, but I don't think I will remain awake much longer. Take care. It was nice to see you all three once again. Sorry for dropping off so soon."

Before anyone could respond, HeroHero had already logged off.

"That sounded rough. I hope he is alright." Buku says quietly.

To lift the mood again, even a little, Peros had walked up to the floating golden staff, which looked like seven snakes had twisted around it, each with a jewel in their mouths.

"Hey guild leader, why aren't you using the guild weapon? If I recall, we spent about a month making it."

"Ok, ok, I will equip it. So, what are we doing in the last five minutes?"

"Big brother Momo should sit on this throne with the guild staff in hand at the last moment. And we should be beside him. I want to have a picture like that for memory." Buku said.

With four minutes remaining, they went through with the plan and Momonga sat on the Throne of Kings, with Buku and Pero beside him. Albedo is nearby with the default expression, as usual. Momonga makes a majestic pose, trying to look like the real last boss of the dungeon. His two friends have made these last moments so much better. Sadness was still there, but at least he didn't have to be online alone like some kind of loser.

Pero stood beside the throne, trying to look as majestic as possible. The last picture must be the best out of them all. He could send it to other former players and show them what they missed. It didn't matter that all of them were at least in their thirties, if not much older. Once upon a time this game united them all.

Buku stood on the other side of the throne. As busy as she was with her daily life, Momonga was once a close friend and she knew how much he loved the game. To be with him when it all ended seemed a thing a genuine friend would do. It didn't matter that it was just a digital world.

"Only a few minutes left. Oh, by the way, Momo, do you plan to sign up for that next-gen game the shitty devs are making?" Peros asks.

"I don't know yet. After Yggdrasil I'm not so sure I want to start another MMO so soon, but who knows, maybe it will be fun."

"We don't have to play full time, you know. We can make it a casual weekend event, be the plebs with the common level of gear and just do it for fun."

"Ok, ok, I will check it out at least," Momonga says with a chuckle.

The last-minute started. The room fell silent once again. Momonga was at a loss for what to say at this moment and seemingly his friends were, too.

A sudden wave of dizziness strikes him out of nowhere. The vision gets blurry as he hears a faint voice inside his head.

< Target Satoru Suzuki acquired. >

< Error, too many additional parameters. >

'What is going on? This doesn't sound like the usual system notifications.'

< Extending target! >

< Acquiring the Great Tomb of Nazarick. >

The dizziness got worse and worse. Momonga felt like he wanted to vomit. For a moment, he could swear he saw Albedo look around in confusion.

< Target, Nazarick, acquired. >

< Start reconfiguration of the Target. >

< Error, unknown type of matter. >

The feeling got so much worse immediately. He felt like he was dying. With such unpleasant sensations, every moment felt like an eternity. A feeling of relief overcame him as the voice spoke to him once more.

< Reconfiguration complete. >

< Preparing the transportation sequence. >

The panic set in. Something has gone terribly wrong. Has his dive gear malfunctioned? Had the game servers caused some kind of short-circuiting in his brain?

The UI blurred out more and more, his vision almost non-existent.

23:59:58

< Target transportation commencing. >

< Error, power requirements exceed possible. >

< Using innate reserves to compensate. >

< Er… >

< Error, inner reserves depleted. Using self to compensate. >

< Transportation suc… >

Everything went black. A moment later, he opened his eyes and all the dizziness was gone. Everything felt normal again.

'That was weird!'

After a sigh of relief, he realizes the UI is gone, but he still saw the throne room in front of him.

Edited by Edgy.