Once more reborn at the whims of Being X, Tanya von Degurechaff now finds herself in the end result of the capitalistic world she so praises. Despite its horrors, pollution, and toxicity, she refuses to falter on her ideals and sees this world a perversion of her beliefs, and Being X at fault for how bad he had let it get. However, born into the lowest of lows, her hope of rising in society is slim, and much like many people she has taken to entertain herself in the advanced gaming technology of the futuristic era she's found herself in. When her newfound brother introduces her to a game called 'Yggdrasil' and the clan 'Nine's Own Goal,' her fate changes forever.
Sister of Disaster [Youjo Senki x Overlord]
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Chapter I - ✠WhiteSilver✠
Tanya stumbled awake, picking herself up as she looked at her hands. Long gone was all the blood and dirt that covered them mere moments ago, now they appeared clean and washed, as if the radiant sun now blinding her eyes had burned it all away.
She squinted as she looked around, seeing nothing but a foggy white void stretching in all directions. Below her was what appeared to be grass, although it lacked any coloration, whiter than snow and faintly glowing in the light. Picking herself up she finally noticed the towering pillars stretching indefinitely into the distance until the fog obscured them from sight.
The pillars were Greek, or perhaps Roman in style, as clear of a sign as any of what or rather who she was about to meet. She sighed and clenched her fists as she turned to face the man who had seemingly appeared from nothing. The shining light obscured the man's face, however it was easy to make out his tall muscular build and majestic beard; a spitting image of the abrahamic interpretation of 'god.'
Tanya groaned with annoyance, "I'm dead now, huh? Guess one of the various 'struggles' you threw at me finally did the trick… So now what? Are you satisfied? You've proven me wrong in one aspect; not even dire straits is enough to bring someone onto the path of your so-called 'faith.'"
The man, although his face was unreadable in the brightness of the light, appeared disappointed, or perhaps annoyed at the small girl before him. "I have given you what many people would kill to have; a second chance at life. Yet despite everything you continue to spit in the face of your creator."
Tanya folded her arms, looking more annoyed by the second. "You say that as if you didn't throw me into a world on the verge of war and proceeded to make my life actively worse all to prove some point. What kind of person would kill for this kind of torture? More importantly, what kind of God would be so petty as to try all of this? Even if by some chance you are the creator, you have no right to authority, you are no god. You're just a powerful man with an even more powerful ego. As soon as society develops proper liberal ideals of democracy and the free market principles of capitalism, faith begins to decline. There is no need to cling to a god in a world where man can forge their own future, especially not a god who sits by and lets the world's atrocities happen."
The man, or Being X as Tanya constantly referred to him as, didn't seem to be listening. Rather his annoyance appeared to only grow. With a heavy sigh he shook his head. "I tire of this," he began. "It is clear that I cannot convince you. I only wish that I had a proper hell to send you to… Well… I suppose…"
Being X was lost in thought for a moment, although his face soon distorted, as if a smug grin had grown on his covered face. "While it would be fun to wipe your memories and watch your soul get reincarnated until it finally found faith in me, there is one place I can send you…"
Being X took a step forward, Tanya taking a step backwards in response.
"If you wish to praise that materialistic free market so much, then how about I show you the end result of that endeavor. I hate to go back on my word, but consider this third life a wake up call; a final mercy I am showing you. Once it is again your time, I do hope that you've finally realized where that line of thinking gets you…"
Tana groaned to herself as she recalled Being X's last words to her. This was her third life now and readjusting to entirely different worlds was getting exhausting. At least this time around she was back in Japan, seemingly her Japan and not some Akitsushima Dominion like what existed in her previous life.
She typed away at the computer on her desk, trying to distract herself from memories that only served to annoy her.
This life was… Annoying to say the least. To say it was as stressful as the chaos that was living on the frontlines would be an exaggeration, however the conditions this world was in was just plain horrible.
Tana, formerly Tanya in her previous life, had always been of the belief that a free market and a democratic government was the right and proper structure of a society. Even now, she still believes that, however even she can admit where that system failed. She had always stressed the importance of keeping the government out of the economy, but upon seeing this world, she also now understood the equal importance of keeping the economy out of the government.
Corporations now control the world, and when a few corporations control the government and those same corporations also have full control of the economy, the end result is basically the same as the government controlling the economy, at least as far as Tana was concerned. To her, corporatism of this degree looped back around to being communism, except instead of lying that wealth would be distributed equally, they lied that the markets were truly free enough for one to rise the ranks.
With corporations controlling everything, any restrictions on making sure the world was a habitable place were reduced to nothing; the world was a toxic hellhole that would've made the inventor of mustard gas jealous… And simultaneously cause him to weep, considering his contributions to agriculture that no longer existed.
She soon finished typing up a report, exporting the document and emailing it around to a few people who needed it before moving onto another task.
Once again she was yet an ordinary salaryman. Unfortunately, however, she was forced to crawl up the corporate ladder from the very bottom. Unlike her last world where hard work and dedication truly could get any member of society upwards in any self-respecting organization, in this world things were hardly fair. As far as documents were concerned, she only had a middle school education, and although her brain was far above even a college level education, she had no real way to prove that. Without a high school education she couldn't get into college, and already being in her twenties, she couldn't hope to get into high school either.
High school unfortunately cost money to enter, most being privatized. Only up to middle school was actually covered by the government; and even that being solely so that the workers had the bare minimum knowledge needed to work either office jobs or manual labor. With her parents having died in a horrific work accident, she and her brother had been completely on their own.
At least I'm not completely alone this time… She thought to herself before returning to focus as she worked away at her computer, shuffling through a few tabs on out of date software which looked like it had hardly advanced from when she died in the early 21st century.
Her job wasn't bad, and with her older brother getting into the workforce early to cover for their now dead parents, she had enough time to secure a decent job. As thanks she and him still live together, neither of them having the money alone to afford anything more than the poorest quality apartments. At least by combining their wealth, which thanks to her slightly better job was mostly Tana's own money, they could afford a somewhat decent apartment with at least mediocre living standards. If nothing else, it stopped the toxic air from leaking into their living room.
Soon a notification appeared at the bottom right of her screen, alerting her that her shift was up. On many days she would have to work late in order to make up for an influx of work, but she was fortunate enough that she was done with all of her major tasks, meaning she got to go home at a reasonable time. Packing up a few of her belongings, she headed towards the exit where she put on her face mask, goggles, and a full bodysuit, both meant to protect against the harsh toxic conditions found outside.
The journey home was as uneventful as ever, or rather nothing was out of the ordinary. The vast neon lights of Neo Tokyo had ceased to amaze her after her first week outside. Although the technological marvels were impressive, they were vastly overshadowed by the soullessness of it all. Never would she think to have such disdain for the corporate world, even if she thought that this was a twisted perversion of capitalism, one most likely brought upon by Being X.
As usual she saw the occasional homeless beggars, some fortunate enough to have some form of protection, but many completely exposed to the acid rain and toxic air, causing their bodies to look tumorous and molding, likely filled with countless diseases scientists are too scared to name.
Still, none of these surprised her in the slightest. She had seen it all already at this point, and likely would see far worse before the month's end. This world was a truly awful place… And if God truly was real, there would be no way he would let it get this bad. I never read the christian bible, or any bible for that matter, but I once read that the rainbow was once god's promise to humanity. If that was the case, then where are those rainbows now? None are in the skies, only in the polluted puddles of sewage and toxic water that burns into the roads and sidewalks, shining unnaturally in the burning neon lights of this living contradiction to God's existence.
Eventually she arrived at the apartment building, riding up the elevator to her floor where she entered the passkey into the electronic keypad. A clicking sound was heard as she turned the doorknob and walked inside.
There she saw the lights already on, her older brother sitting at the table in the kitchen, slowly eating a brown gelatin of processed… stuff. She didn't really know what the 'meat slabs' were made of, nor did she want to know. However with the state of the food industry as a whole, most foods that weren't more expensive than her yearly salary tended to be little more than processed slabs of nutrition with artificial flavoring injected into it.
Walking inside she removed her various layers of protection and walked over to the coffee machine. Placing a tablet into the top of the machine, she let it start running. The machine whirred and buzzed for a few moments before hot 'coffee-flavored liquid' began pouring out of the dispenser. She absolutely hated the drink, but it was the closest she had. She wasn't even sure if coffee beans existed anymore, nor did she have the money to buy some if they did.
As she waited for her mug to fill she turned to see her brother, Albert, waving at her, "Yo Tana! How was work?"
Tana shrugged in response, looking back towards her mug to watch it slowly filling up. "It was fine as usual, some guys are slacking behind as usual, but it's nothing that impacts me too much. Work's slow this time of year, I should probably have a few more days off here soon. How's your job going?"
Albert stretched his arms behind his head, groaning, "How do you think it's going? Some asshole managed to clog the assembly line today, it took us two fucking hours to get it fixed. I'd shake the man's hand for giving me a break from my job if not for the fact that fixing it was ten times more of a headache. I'm just lucky they don't like paying people more than they have to so I was able to go home at a normal time. That's the next shift's problem now. They're probably still trying to fix the damn thing."
"I'm sure you could get a better job if you tried enough," Tana explained, to which Albert simply sighed.
"We've discussed this before, we both know it's not that easy… No, now that I have a job like this on my resume, none of those nicer office jobs will take me seriously. Trust me, I've tried. I'll just have to stick with what I got and hope I can find a promotion somewhere…"
Tana just sighed, picking up her mug and taking a sip of her artificial coffee. If she had been given this coffee in her last life, she would've spit it out instantly and gotten whoever had given it to her shot for attempted poisoning of a superior officer.
But this wasn't her last life, and this was the best she had. And she had spent way too much on that coffee maker to not at least use it.
Tana changed the subject. "So, I presume you're going to be logging onto that RPG of yours shortly?"
Albert nodded, "You know, you could always join me, I'm sure the clan would love to have an extra member! Together we could bring chaos and destruction across the nine realms!"
Tana sat down across from Albert, leaning against the back of the chair and taking another sip of her 'notffee.' "The answer's still probably no. I'm more into shooters if anything, I don't know if I could jump right into a high fantasy combat system of spells, swords, and bows."
Gaming had become one of the only forms of entertainment they had, and with how far gaming technology had come, it wasn't actually all too bad either. With the DIVE systems and neural chips just about everyone now had in their heads, you could fully immerse yourself into the games rather than just playing them through a screen. She had played a bit of strategy games and shooters in her first life, although not as extensively as she did now. With her past experience as a soldier, she was surprisingly good with many of the shooter games, with those having taken her primary focus as a result, although her brother had taken interest in a game called 'Yggdrasil.'
A smug grin grew on Albert's face as Tana raised an eyebrow in anticipation. "Well actually, the devs apparently just added a gunner class to the game alongside a bunch of rifles and more modern weaponry. There's also some gundam stuff now apparently if that's what you want."
Tana took another sip and thought for a moment. With a sigh she asked, "Is there by chance a way to fly in that game?"
Momonga appeared in the middle of the clan's meeting room. It was a simple room, with a few chairs and tables scattered around for various purposes. It was a rented space, one not meant for much permanence, but it served its purpose well enough.
Momonga looked down at the skeletal hands of his undead avatar, moving them around briefly before looking back up and at his peers. He had logged in a bit later than usual today, the trip home had a few hiccups that caused him to get home late. Still, the difference was miniscule as it simply meant everyone was online a bit before him today.
Looking around he saw many of his fellow members of the clan Nine's Own Goal, many of them already conversing among themselves and preparing for various expeditions. It seemed that there would be no major operation today, just basic errands and grinding. In a game with as much freedom as Yggdrasil, everyone had something different they wanted to do. Whether it be grinding data crystals for a new weapon or trying to get a specific rare drop, getting everyone on board with a single task required said task to be of significant importance. For now though, it appeared that there was no such task.
'Now… what should I do today?' Momonga thought to himself, folding his arms and lightly tapping his finger against his elbow as he looked at a map on his UI. 'I suppose there's not much I urgently need to do, might as well see who might need some help today.'
Before he could properly get started, he noticed a light glow as a player spawned in front of him. The player was a demon, his face that of a goat with large sharp-edged horns growing out the top. His attire was a little over-the-top, but it was fairly normal by Yggdrasil standards. The notification that appeared on Momonga's UI informed him of who this was, although he already knew very well; [Friend Ulbert Alain Odle is now online].
Instantly Ulbert appeared to be messing with his UI, although Momonga could not see what he was pressing. As he began to seemingly begin typing, Momonga approached him. "Ulbert, how have you been!"
The demon raised his goat-like head, turning to face Momonga as a smiley emoticon appeared, "Ah, Momonga, it's been a few days since I've seen you. Sorry, I've been having to log on a bit later due to my work schedule."
Momonga returned a smiley emoticon, the only way to express emotions in the game considering facial expressions didn't really exist, nodding. "Don't sweat it, though I hope work's not been too hard on you. Though judging by your tone of voice you seem excited about something."
From behind Momonga heard a familiar cutesy voice shout "Ulberts excited! Everyone take cover! Behind me!"
The voice came from a gelatinous blob of pink slime named Bukubukuchagama. Despite being visually just a slime, she was one of the tankier members of the clan, so it naturally made sense that she'd be the one protecting everyone. That being said, friendly fire didn't exist in Yggdrasil, so her warning was more teasing than anything.
Ulbert shook his head and explained, "I finally managed to convince my younger sister to download and play Yggdrasil. She's always been more into shooters and the occasional strategy game, but with the devs adding rifles to the game I've been able to convince her."
Another player walked over, this one a towering birdman who placed himself next to Bukubukuchagama. This was Peroroncino, the guild's top archer and Buku's younger brother. Tilting his head he exclaimed "I didn't know you had a sister! But isn't Yggdrasil somewhat of a strategy game itself if you think about it? Surely you could've convinced her of that."
Ulbert shook his head and sent up an exhausted emoticon. "No, it's more of a map-based strategy game. Something involving countries and armies and stuff like that. She's arguably more into history than I am. Some game about iron hearts or something. The game was released over a hundred years ago, but it's still getting DLC extensions."
Pero sent the same exhausted emoticon. "Ah… She's one of those."
"Yeah, but she should be done customizing her character here soon, she seems to be going for a build based around flight and rifle usage, so I told her to make her base race a Pixie," Ulbert explained.
Momonga scratched his chin. "An aerial shooter… Considering the lack of much support for the new gunner classes, I feel like it may lean into the territory of a dream build. Though I cannot refute that on paper it sounds very viable. Only issue I can see is that it would take a whole lot of skill with flight and evasiveness considering how much you'd need to sacrifice on defense."
Dream builds were the term used by players for builds that weren't exactly made to be optimal. Instead, they were met to fill an aesthetic or for roleplay purposes. In most games this wouldn't matter, but with Yggdrasil often placing hard caps on party sizes, it often meant that getting paired with one was more a detriment than anything. Nine's Own Goal was accepting enough to allow them without complaint, however other guilds were far less welcoming.
Pero meanwhile nodded in agreement. "There aren't many people good with Yggdrasil's flight mechanics. It's not like there's any real world equivalents to compare it to. Are you sure your sis wouldn't rather aim for one of those gundam builds? They're a lot less versatile but they're also far more tanky… At least compared to the build they seem to be going for."
"There's no way a gundam build could last into the upper levels!" Buku protested. "Those suits fall off fast. Once you're about level 80 they're basically useless. Even if you were to specialize in them, there's no way they'd be even somewhat viable at level 100. That being said, guns are so new that it's hard to tell whether or not a gunner-based build, let alone an aerial glass canon, could be viable…"
With all these items still relatively new to the game, few knew just how to integrate them with pre-existing classes, races, and items. Whether or not they were even viable strategies and builds remained to be seen, but they were all curious how it could be executed nonetheless.
"So where is your sister now?" Momonga asked with Ulbert once again tapping at his UI.
Ulbert looked up and explained, "She's probably exploring some of the initial areas right about now, I just need to find Touch Me to send her an invite to the clan. Where is that idiot anyways?"
A few messages later and an armored insectoid appeared in the clan hall. Donned in full plate armor, the crusader-like figure was their clan leader and arguably one of the best players in the game, Touch Me.
Touch me quickly found the commotion and approached, raising his hand as he sent a smiling emoticon. "So, I hear we're adding a new member! Your sister right, Ulbert?"
Ulbert nodded. "Yes, though if you rope her in with your hero larping I will end you," Ulbert declared, a hint of annoyance present in his voice.
"You cannot blame anyone for seeking to protect JUSTICE and HONOR!" Touch Me teased with a grinning emoticon.
Ulbert sighed and sent a rolling eyes icon, folding his arms. "I've seen her gameplay of those shooter games of hers… Yeah I don't think she'll fall into that category," he muttered. "Still, I've sent you her username, send her a Clan invite already."
Touch Me's fingers tapped against the empty air, typing away at his UI before swiping it away. "There, she should have received an invitation."
A few minutes of messing around later and a short girl appeared in the rented guild hall. Despite the race of 'pixie' implying an incredibly small size, she appeared to simply be a fairly short person. Her face was not quite Japanese as it was in real life, but rather had a Germanic look to it, with her appearance having been based on her memories of her prior life. Her hair was no longer a dark charcoal black but rather a golden platinum blonde, her eyes a deep aquatic blue and her face locked in a constant appearance of apathy. After many minutes of messing with the customization system, this was the face of Tanya von Degurechaff, her identity in her last life; hence her decided username '✠WhiteSilver✠.'
Ulbert raised his hand and sent a smile emoticon towards the newcomer. "Yo! Over here! Nice avatar, I half expected you to take one of the randomized options, but it looks like you put actual effort into it. Though what's the username from?"
"Nothing in particular, I just couldn't really think of anything. So is this the clan base or whatever? Lots of interesting characters in this game," WhiteSilver stated, looking around at all the various monsters and creatures that made up Nine's Own Goal.
Ulbert quickly put his arm around her shoulder, having to somewhat bend down to do so, "Yep! The skeleton there is Momonga, he's a necromancer/spellcaster specialist. Next to him is Bukubukuchagama, that pink slime creature. She's a tank, but avoid pissing her off. Next to her is her brother Peroroncino, the birdbrain. He's a sniping specialist, specifically as an archer though. And lastly behind them is the clan leader Touch Me, unfortunately one of the best players in the game."
"What do you mean unfortunately?" Touch Me inquired, a squinting emoticon appearing next to him.
"So how do I obtain a rifle?" WhiteSilver inquired, looking up at the goat demon avatar that her brother had chosen to use. She didn't really question it, rather she wasn't surprised at all, but having casual conversations with apparent monsters was a somewhat jarring experience.
"Right… Uuuh…" Ulbert began, tapping his finger against his face.
Momonga planted his hand against his face, sighing, "You didn't even bother to find out how to get a rifle before getting her to join solely on the promise of it?"
"Well… You know…" Ulbert began, scratching behind his head as the sighs of the other guild members could be heard.
Pero casually opened his inventory, pulling a low level rifle out of it and walking over to hand it to the pixie alongside a decent amount of ammo. She took it and froze for a few moments before a smiling emoticon finally appeared. "There we go, that's where that menu is. I was wondering where the buttons for those things were. Anyhow, thank you uuh… Per-Perry?"
"Peroroncino, but just call me Pero, full usernames are too long," Pero clarified. "I got that rifle close to when they first released not long ago. I thought it might be a decent addition to my build, but the rifles are far different to use than a bow and arrow, so I decided against adjusting my build. Still, I at least have that one left over. It should be a good enough start."
WhiteSilver began inspecting the weapon, the build of it was similar to many rifles she had seen in her last life. Specifically, the rifle would've been considered an 'Early World War' weapon, with the first two world wars often being grouped together in this world. Despite it fitting in with that era, its design didn't perfectly match with any rifle she had seen from that era. Instead it was close enough to several, taking aspects and elements from various weapons and sticking them together in a hodgepodge of world war weaponry. Despite that, it was fairly simple to use. Reloading would be done automatically, although an option for manual reload was there.
Testing the weapon she fired a few times before letting the auto-reload do its thing. It was slow, painfully slow. From a gameplay perspective someone may not have complained, but as a former soldier who knew how much every second mattered, if anyone reloaded such a weapon that slowly she would've personally gone down and knocked them out cold before they even pulled out the magazine.
After a bit of looking around the UI she finally figured out how to disable automatic reload. Now when she needed to reload, all she simply had to do was remove the empty magazine and a new one to appear in her hand to which she simply placed back inside and readied the weapon again. Although the weapon was unlike any she had used in terms of overall design, the fundamentals of how reloading seemed to work remained the same as with a few weapons she had used previously.
Now ready to test her manual reload speed she again fired the full magazine of bullets. In a near instant she dislodged the empty magazine and replaced the new one, firing another volley of bullets before quickly reloading again.
"Holy shit, what kind of games did your sister play before? I didn't know Dive shooter games required you to reload." Pero exclaimed in surprise, watching as the pixie was able to reload more than twice as fast as Yggdrasil's automatic reload feature, although he was personally well aware of how slow it was, having stopped using the bow's auto-reload feature himself a long time ago.
Truthfully, however, the games she had played didn't require manual reload, although some had the option for it. Her skills came from her last life, and hopefully, so too would her aim. But that was only half of it, there was still one other part of her 'build' she needed to obtain. "Now, how do I start flying?" She asked, looking back over at the partially shocked clan members.
"I'm not really sure the stats and abilities of pixies, but I imagine like most races you probably have to invest some levels into the race first. You might even need to unlock a more elite version of pixie first," Momonga explained, reaching into his inventory and pulling out a few potions. "For now, you should focus on leveling up. You're only level one, so you're easy pickings for any PKers. I'm sure that Ulbert would naturally be helping you level up but if you want further help I'd be glad to come along and provide supporting magic."
"Indeed!" Ulbert proclaimed proudly, "Soon you shall reach level 100 and we shall bring about destruction onto Yggdrasil! Let the realms fear our mighty power! The siblings of chaos shall-"
"That's enough, Al-Sorry, Ulbert. Stop larping for five minutes so we can get started. I have work tomorrow, I don't got all day," WhiteSilver spat, giving an annoyed emoticon after a delayed few seconds of scrolling through the UI.
Ulbert laughed, "Very well, let's begin!"
Fish Tank: Baptized in fire, 40:1!
She squinted as she looked around, seeing nothing but a foggy white void stretching in all directions. Below her was what appeared to be grass, although it lacked any coloration, whiter than snow and faintly glowing in the light. Picking herself up she finally noticed the towering pillars stretching indefinitely into the distance until the fog obscured them from sight.
The pillars were Greek, or perhaps Roman in style, as clear of a sign as any of what or rather who she was about to meet. She sighed and clenched her fists as she turned to face the man who had seemingly appeared from nothing. The shining light obscured the man's face, however it was easy to make out his tall muscular build and majestic beard; a spitting image of the abrahamic interpretation of 'god.'
Tanya groaned with annoyance, "I'm dead now, huh? Guess one of the various 'struggles' you threw at me finally did the trick… So now what? Are you satisfied? You've proven me wrong in one aspect; not even dire straits is enough to bring someone onto the path of your so-called 'faith.'"
The man, although his face was unreadable in the brightness of the light, appeared disappointed, or perhaps annoyed at the small girl before him. "I have given you what many people would kill to have; a second chance at life. Yet despite everything you continue to spit in the face of your creator."
Tanya folded her arms, looking more annoyed by the second. "You say that as if you didn't throw me into a world on the verge of war and proceeded to make my life actively worse all to prove some point. What kind of person would kill for this kind of torture? More importantly, what kind of God would be so petty as to try all of this? Even if by some chance you are the creator, you have no right to authority, you are no god. You're just a powerful man with an even more powerful ego. As soon as society develops proper liberal ideals of democracy and the free market principles of capitalism, faith begins to decline. There is no need to cling to a god in a world where man can forge their own future, especially not a god who sits by and lets the world's atrocities happen."
The man, or Being X as Tanya constantly referred to him as, didn't seem to be listening. Rather his annoyance appeared to only grow. With a heavy sigh he shook his head. "I tire of this," he began. "It is clear that I cannot convince you. I only wish that I had a proper hell to send you to… Well… I suppose…"
Being X was lost in thought for a moment, although his face soon distorted, as if a smug grin had grown on his covered face. "While it would be fun to wipe your memories and watch your soul get reincarnated until it finally found faith in me, there is one place I can send you…"
Being X took a step forward, Tanya taking a step backwards in response.
"If you wish to praise that materialistic free market so much, then how about I show you the end result of that endeavor. I hate to go back on my word, but consider this third life a wake up call; a final mercy I am showing you. Once it is again your time, I do hope that you've finally realized where that line of thinking gets you…"
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Tana groaned to herself as she recalled Being X's last words to her. This was her third life now and readjusting to entirely different worlds was getting exhausting. At least this time around she was back in Japan, seemingly her Japan and not some Akitsushima Dominion like what existed in her previous life.
She typed away at the computer on her desk, trying to distract herself from memories that only served to annoy her.
This life was… Annoying to say the least. To say it was as stressful as the chaos that was living on the frontlines would be an exaggeration, however the conditions this world was in was just plain horrible.
Tana, formerly Tanya in her previous life, had always been of the belief that a free market and a democratic government was the right and proper structure of a society. Even now, she still believes that, however even she can admit where that system failed. She had always stressed the importance of keeping the government out of the economy, but upon seeing this world, she also now understood the equal importance of keeping the economy out of the government.
Corporations now control the world, and when a few corporations control the government and those same corporations also have full control of the economy, the end result is basically the same as the government controlling the economy, at least as far as Tana was concerned. To her, corporatism of this degree looped back around to being communism, except instead of lying that wealth would be distributed equally, they lied that the markets were truly free enough for one to rise the ranks.
With corporations controlling everything, any restrictions on making sure the world was a habitable place were reduced to nothing; the world was a toxic hellhole that would've made the inventor of mustard gas jealous… And simultaneously cause him to weep, considering his contributions to agriculture that no longer existed.
She soon finished typing up a report, exporting the document and emailing it around to a few people who needed it before moving onto another task.
Once again she was yet an ordinary salaryman. Unfortunately, however, she was forced to crawl up the corporate ladder from the very bottom. Unlike her last world where hard work and dedication truly could get any member of society upwards in any self-respecting organization, in this world things were hardly fair. As far as documents were concerned, she only had a middle school education, and although her brain was far above even a college level education, she had no real way to prove that. Without a high school education she couldn't get into college, and already being in her twenties, she couldn't hope to get into high school either.
High school unfortunately cost money to enter, most being privatized. Only up to middle school was actually covered by the government; and even that being solely so that the workers had the bare minimum knowledge needed to work either office jobs or manual labor. With her parents having died in a horrific work accident, she and her brother had been completely on their own.
At least I'm not completely alone this time… She thought to herself before returning to focus as she worked away at her computer, shuffling through a few tabs on out of date software which looked like it had hardly advanced from when she died in the early 21st century.
Her job wasn't bad, and with her older brother getting into the workforce early to cover for their now dead parents, she had enough time to secure a decent job. As thanks she and him still live together, neither of them having the money alone to afford anything more than the poorest quality apartments. At least by combining their wealth, which thanks to her slightly better job was mostly Tana's own money, they could afford a somewhat decent apartment with at least mediocre living standards. If nothing else, it stopped the toxic air from leaking into their living room.
Soon a notification appeared at the bottom right of her screen, alerting her that her shift was up. On many days she would have to work late in order to make up for an influx of work, but she was fortunate enough that she was done with all of her major tasks, meaning she got to go home at a reasonable time. Packing up a few of her belongings, she headed towards the exit where she put on her face mask, goggles, and a full bodysuit, both meant to protect against the harsh toxic conditions found outside.
The journey home was as uneventful as ever, or rather nothing was out of the ordinary. The vast neon lights of Neo Tokyo had ceased to amaze her after her first week outside. Although the technological marvels were impressive, they were vastly overshadowed by the soullessness of it all. Never would she think to have such disdain for the corporate world, even if she thought that this was a twisted perversion of capitalism, one most likely brought upon by Being X.
As usual she saw the occasional homeless beggars, some fortunate enough to have some form of protection, but many completely exposed to the acid rain and toxic air, causing their bodies to look tumorous and molding, likely filled with countless diseases scientists are too scared to name.
Still, none of these surprised her in the slightest. She had seen it all already at this point, and likely would see far worse before the month's end. This world was a truly awful place… And if God truly was real, there would be no way he would let it get this bad. I never read the christian bible, or any bible for that matter, but I once read that the rainbow was once god's promise to humanity. If that was the case, then where are those rainbows now? None are in the skies, only in the polluted puddles of sewage and toxic water that burns into the roads and sidewalks, shining unnaturally in the burning neon lights of this living contradiction to God's existence.
Eventually she arrived at the apartment building, riding up the elevator to her floor where she entered the passkey into the electronic keypad. A clicking sound was heard as she turned the doorknob and walked inside.
There she saw the lights already on, her older brother sitting at the table in the kitchen, slowly eating a brown gelatin of processed… stuff. She didn't really know what the 'meat slabs' were made of, nor did she want to know. However with the state of the food industry as a whole, most foods that weren't more expensive than her yearly salary tended to be little more than processed slabs of nutrition with artificial flavoring injected into it.
Walking inside she removed her various layers of protection and walked over to the coffee machine. Placing a tablet into the top of the machine, she let it start running. The machine whirred and buzzed for a few moments before hot 'coffee-flavored liquid' began pouring out of the dispenser. She absolutely hated the drink, but it was the closest she had. She wasn't even sure if coffee beans existed anymore, nor did she have the money to buy some if they did.
As she waited for her mug to fill she turned to see her brother, Albert, waving at her, "Yo Tana! How was work?"
Tana shrugged in response, looking back towards her mug to watch it slowly filling up. "It was fine as usual, some guys are slacking behind as usual, but it's nothing that impacts me too much. Work's slow this time of year, I should probably have a few more days off here soon. How's your job going?"
Albert stretched his arms behind his head, groaning, "How do you think it's going? Some asshole managed to clog the assembly line today, it took us two fucking hours to get it fixed. I'd shake the man's hand for giving me a break from my job if not for the fact that fixing it was ten times more of a headache. I'm just lucky they don't like paying people more than they have to so I was able to go home at a normal time. That's the next shift's problem now. They're probably still trying to fix the damn thing."
"I'm sure you could get a better job if you tried enough," Tana explained, to which Albert simply sighed.
"We've discussed this before, we both know it's not that easy… No, now that I have a job like this on my resume, none of those nicer office jobs will take me seriously. Trust me, I've tried. I'll just have to stick with what I got and hope I can find a promotion somewhere…"
Tana just sighed, picking up her mug and taking a sip of her artificial coffee. If she had been given this coffee in her last life, she would've spit it out instantly and gotten whoever had given it to her shot for attempted poisoning of a superior officer.
But this wasn't her last life, and this was the best she had. And she had spent way too much on that coffee maker to not at least use it.
Tana changed the subject. "So, I presume you're going to be logging onto that RPG of yours shortly?"
Albert nodded, "You know, you could always join me, I'm sure the clan would love to have an extra member! Together we could bring chaos and destruction across the nine realms!"
Tana sat down across from Albert, leaning against the back of the chair and taking another sip of her 'notffee.' "The answer's still probably no. I'm more into shooters if anything, I don't know if I could jump right into a high fantasy combat system of spells, swords, and bows."
Gaming had become one of the only forms of entertainment they had, and with how far gaming technology had come, it wasn't actually all too bad either. With the DIVE systems and neural chips just about everyone now had in their heads, you could fully immerse yourself into the games rather than just playing them through a screen. She had played a bit of strategy games and shooters in her first life, although not as extensively as she did now. With her past experience as a soldier, she was surprisingly good with many of the shooter games, with those having taken her primary focus as a result, although her brother had taken interest in a game called 'Yggdrasil.'
A smug grin grew on Albert's face as Tana raised an eyebrow in anticipation. "Well actually, the devs apparently just added a gunner class to the game alongside a bunch of rifles and more modern weaponry. There's also some gundam stuff now apparently if that's what you want."
Tana took another sip and thought for a moment. With a sigh she asked, "Is there by chance a way to fly in that game?"
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Momonga appeared in the middle of the clan's meeting room. It was a simple room, with a few chairs and tables scattered around for various purposes. It was a rented space, one not meant for much permanence, but it served its purpose well enough.
Momonga looked down at the skeletal hands of his undead avatar, moving them around briefly before looking back up and at his peers. He had logged in a bit later than usual today, the trip home had a few hiccups that caused him to get home late. Still, the difference was miniscule as it simply meant everyone was online a bit before him today.
Looking around he saw many of his fellow members of the clan Nine's Own Goal, many of them already conversing among themselves and preparing for various expeditions. It seemed that there would be no major operation today, just basic errands and grinding. In a game with as much freedom as Yggdrasil, everyone had something different they wanted to do. Whether it be grinding data crystals for a new weapon or trying to get a specific rare drop, getting everyone on board with a single task required said task to be of significant importance. For now though, it appeared that there was no such task.
'Now… what should I do today?' Momonga thought to himself, folding his arms and lightly tapping his finger against his elbow as he looked at a map on his UI. 'I suppose there's not much I urgently need to do, might as well see who might need some help today.'
Before he could properly get started, he noticed a light glow as a player spawned in front of him. The player was a demon, his face that of a goat with large sharp-edged horns growing out the top. His attire was a little over-the-top, but it was fairly normal by Yggdrasil standards. The notification that appeared on Momonga's UI informed him of who this was, although he already knew very well; [Friend Ulbert Alain Odle is now online].
Instantly Ulbert appeared to be messing with his UI, although Momonga could not see what he was pressing. As he began to seemingly begin typing, Momonga approached him. "Ulbert, how have you been!"
The demon raised his goat-like head, turning to face Momonga as a smiley emoticon appeared, "Ah, Momonga, it's been a few days since I've seen you. Sorry, I've been having to log on a bit later due to my work schedule."
Momonga returned a smiley emoticon, the only way to express emotions in the game considering facial expressions didn't really exist, nodding. "Don't sweat it, though I hope work's not been too hard on you. Though judging by your tone of voice you seem excited about something."
From behind Momonga heard a familiar cutesy voice shout "Ulberts excited! Everyone take cover! Behind me!"
The voice came from a gelatinous blob of pink slime named Bukubukuchagama. Despite being visually just a slime, she was one of the tankier members of the clan, so it naturally made sense that she'd be the one protecting everyone. That being said, friendly fire didn't exist in Yggdrasil, so her warning was more teasing than anything.
Ulbert shook his head and explained, "I finally managed to convince my younger sister to download and play Yggdrasil. She's always been more into shooters and the occasional strategy game, but with the devs adding rifles to the game I've been able to convince her."
Another player walked over, this one a towering birdman who placed himself next to Bukubukuchagama. This was Peroroncino, the guild's top archer and Buku's younger brother. Tilting his head he exclaimed "I didn't know you had a sister! But isn't Yggdrasil somewhat of a strategy game itself if you think about it? Surely you could've convinced her of that."
Ulbert shook his head and sent up an exhausted emoticon. "No, it's more of a map-based strategy game. Something involving countries and armies and stuff like that. She's arguably more into history than I am. Some game about iron hearts or something. The game was released over a hundred years ago, but it's still getting DLC extensions."
Pero sent the same exhausted emoticon. "Ah… She's one of those."
"Yeah, but she should be done customizing her character here soon, she seems to be going for a build based around flight and rifle usage, so I told her to make her base race a Pixie," Ulbert explained.
Momonga scratched his chin. "An aerial shooter… Considering the lack of much support for the new gunner classes, I feel like it may lean into the territory of a dream build. Though I cannot refute that on paper it sounds very viable. Only issue I can see is that it would take a whole lot of skill with flight and evasiveness considering how much you'd need to sacrifice on defense."
Dream builds were the term used by players for builds that weren't exactly made to be optimal. Instead, they were met to fill an aesthetic or for roleplay purposes. In most games this wouldn't matter, but with Yggdrasil often placing hard caps on party sizes, it often meant that getting paired with one was more a detriment than anything. Nine's Own Goal was accepting enough to allow them without complaint, however other guilds were far less welcoming.
Pero meanwhile nodded in agreement. "There aren't many people good with Yggdrasil's flight mechanics. It's not like there's any real world equivalents to compare it to. Are you sure your sis wouldn't rather aim for one of those gundam builds? They're a lot less versatile but they're also far more tanky… At least compared to the build they seem to be going for."
"There's no way a gundam build could last into the upper levels!" Buku protested. "Those suits fall off fast. Once you're about level 80 they're basically useless. Even if you were to specialize in them, there's no way they'd be even somewhat viable at level 100. That being said, guns are so new that it's hard to tell whether or not a gunner-based build, let alone an aerial glass canon, could be viable…"
With all these items still relatively new to the game, few knew just how to integrate them with pre-existing classes, races, and items. Whether or not they were even viable strategies and builds remained to be seen, but they were all curious how it could be executed nonetheless.
"So where is your sister now?" Momonga asked with Ulbert once again tapping at his UI.
Ulbert looked up and explained, "She's probably exploring some of the initial areas right about now, I just need to find Touch Me to send her an invite to the clan. Where is that idiot anyways?"
A few messages later and an armored insectoid appeared in the clan hall. Donned in full plate armor, the crusader-like figure was their clan leader and arguably one of the best players in the game, Touch Me.
Touch me quickly found the commotion and approached, raising his hand as he sent a smiling emoticon. "So, I hear we're adding a new member! Your sister right, Ulbert?"
Ulbert nodded. "Yes, though if you rope her in with your hero larping I will end you," Ulbert declared, a hint of annoyance present in his voice.
"You cannot blame anyone for seeking to protect JUSTICE and HONOR!" Touch Me teased with a grinning emoticon.
Ulbert sighed and sent a rolling eyes icon, folding his arms. "I've seen her gameplay of those shooter games of hers… Yeah I don't think she'll fall into that category," he muttered. "Still, I've sent you her username, send her a Clan invite already."
Touch Me's fingers tapped against the empty air, typing away at his UI before swiping it away. "There, she should have received an invitation."
A few minutes of messing around later and a short girl appeared in the rented guild hall. Despite the race of 'pixie' implying an incredibly small size, she appeared to simply be a fairly short person. Her face was not quite Japanese as it was in real life, but rather had a Germanic look to it, with her appearance having been based on her memories of her prior life. Her hair was no longer a dark charcoal black but rather a golden platinum blonde, her eyes a deep aquatic blue and her face locked in a constant appearance of apathy. After many minutes of messing with the customization system, this was the face of Tanya von Degurechaff, her identity in her last life; hence her decided username '✠WhiteSilver✠.'
Ulbert raised his hand and sent a smile emoticon towards the newcomer. "Yo! Over here! Nice avatar, I half expected you to take one of the randomized options, but it looks like you put actual effort into it. Though what's the username from?"
"Nothing in particular, I just couldn't really think of anything. So is this the clan base or whatever? Lots of interesting characters in this game," WhiteSilver stated, looking around at all the various monsters and creatures that made up Nine's Own Goal.
Ulbert quickly put his arm around her shoulder, having to somewhat bend down to do so, "Yep! The skeleton there is Momonga, he's a necromancer/spellcaster specialist. Next to him is Bukubukuchagama, that pink slime creature. She's a tank, but avoid pissing her off. Next to her is her brother Peroroncino, the birdbrain. He's a sniping specialist, specifically as an archer though. And lastly behind them is the clan leader Touch Me, unfortunately one of the best players in the game."
"What do you mean unfortunately?" Touch Me inquired, a squinting emoticon appearing next to him.
"So how do I obtain a rifle?" WhiteSilver inquired, looking up at the goat demon avatar that her brother had chosen to use. She didn't really question it, rather she wasn't surprised at all, but having casual conversations with apparent monsters was a somewhat jarring experience.
"Right… Uuuh…" Ulbert began, tapping his finger against his face.
Momonga planted his hand against his face, sighing, "You didn't even bother to find out how to get a rifle before getting her to join solely on the promise of it?"
"Well… You know…" Ulbert began, scratching behind his head as the sighs of the other guild members could be heard.
Pero casually opened his inventory, pulling a low level rifle out of it and walking over to hand it to the pixie alongside a decent amount of ammo. She took it and froze for a few moments before a smiling emoticon finally appeared. "There we go, that's where that menu is. I was wondering where the buttons for those things were. Anyhow, thank you uuh… Per-Perry?"
"Peroroncino, but just call me Pero, full usernames are too long," Pero clarified. "I got that rifle close to when they first released not long ago. I thought it might be a decent addition to my build, but the rifles are far different to use than a bow and arrow, so I decided against adjusting my build. Still, I at least have that one left over. It should be a good enough start."
WhiteSilver began inspecting the weapon, the build of it was similar to many rifles she had seen in her last life. Specifically, the rifle would've been considered an 'Early World War' weapon, with the first two world wars often being grouped together in this world. Despite it fitting in with that era, its design didn't perfectly match with any rifle she had seen from that era. Instead it was close enough to several, taking aspects and elements from various weapons and sticking them together in a hodgepodge of world war weaponry. Despite that, it was fairly simple to use. Reloading would be done automatically, although an option for manual reload was there.
Testing the weapon she fired a few times before letting the auto-reload do its thing. It was slow, painfully slow. From a gameplay perspective someone may not have complained, but as a former soldier who knew how much every second mattered, if anyone reloaded such a weapon that slowly she would've personally gone down and knocked them out cold before they even pulled out the magazine.
After a bit of looking around the UI she finally figured out how to disable automatic reload. Now when she needed to reload, all she simply had to do was remove the empty magazine and a new one to appear in her hand to which she simply placed back inside and readied the weapon again. Although the weapon was unlike any she had used in terms of overall design, the fundamentals of how reloading seemed to work remained the same as with a few weapons she had used previously.
Now ready to test her manual reload speed she again fired the full magazine of bullets. In a near instant she dislodged the empty magazine and replaced the new one, firing another volley of bullets before quickly reloading again.
"Holy shit, what kind of games did your sister play before? I didn't know Dive shooter games required you to reload." Pero exclaimed in surprise, watching as the pixie was able to reload more than twice as fast as Yggdrasil's automatic reload feature, although he was personally well aware of how slow it was, having stopped using the bow's auto-reload feature himself a long time ago.
Truthfully, however, the games she had played didn't require manual reload, although some had the option for it. Her skills came from her last life, and hopefully, so too would her aim. But that was only half of it, there was still one other part of her 'build' she needed to obtain. "Now, how do I start flying?" She asked, looking back over at the partially shocked clan members.
"I'm not really sure the stats and abilities of pixies, but I imagine like most races you probably have to invest some levels into the race first. You might even need to unlock a more elite version of pixie first," Momonga explained, reaching into his inventory and pulling out a few potions. "For now, you should focus on leveling up. You're only level one, so you're easy pickings for any PKers. I'm sure that Ulbert would naturally be helping you level up but if you want further help I'd be glad to come along and provide supporting magic."
"Indeed!" Ulbert proclaimed proudly, "Soon you shall reach level 100 and we shall bring about destruction onto Yggdrasil! Let the realms fear our mighty power! The siblings of chaos shall-"
"That's enough, Al-Sorry, Ulbert. Stop larping for five minutes so we can get started. I have work tomorrow, I don't got all day," WhiteSilver spat, giving an annoyed emoticon after a delayed few seconds of scrolling through the UI.
Ulbert laughed, "Very well, let's begin!"
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
I've previously uploaded this fic into three websites; Spacebattles, Ao3, and FFN. Due to me dropping FFN I've decided to upload it into other websites because why not. This is my first time uploading onto this site, so I'll see how it goes. This story currently has three chapters as of me putting it here, so if some of the authors notes at the bottom of the fic seem a bit strange, that's why.
Anyways, onto the basic stuffs. Discord invite link is ( https://discord.gg/Ghn8qtkaFz ) or ( Ghn8qtkaFz ) if your fanfic website of choice chooses to break the link for some reason. You can apply to be a beta reader there which grants you early access to completed chapters in exchange for looking over them for grammar mistakes, possible rephrases, or giving suggestions on the story. Now below are the Beta Readers who read for this chapter:
I've previously uploaded this fic into three websites; Spacebattles, Ao3, and FFN. Due to me dropping FFN I've decided to upload it into other websites because why not. This is my first time uploading onto this site, so I'll see how it goes. This story currently has three chapters as of me putting it here, so if some of the authors notes at the bottom of the fic seem a bit strange, that's why.
Anyways, onto the basic stuffs. Discord invite link is ( https://discord.gg/Ghn8qtkaFz ) or ( Ghn8qtkaFz ) if your fanfic website of choice chooses to break the link for some reason. You can apply to be a beta reader there which grants you early access to completed chapters in exchange for looking over them for grammar mistakes, possible rephrases, or giving suggestions on the story. Now below are the Beta Readers who read for this chapter:
Fish Tank: Baptized in fire, 40:1!
Chapter II - The Nine Realms Trembled
"Party at 2 o'clock heading southwards at standard walking speed, approximately 440 units out."
WhiteSilver watched as a volley of blazing red orbs of flame erupted from the small group almost directly below her. It flew quickly, arching over the skies, and within moments struck the unsuspecting party of players. By the time they realized what was approaching them, it was far too late to retreat or to throw together barriers. The orbs landed amidst their ranks, massive explosions rocking the ground below. Instantly the entire party was dead, destroyed in an instant.
The attack that had struck them was [Calamity Bombardment], a Super-Tier spell of the World Disaster class. Her brother was quite proud of being one of the few that had it, but still sought to truly master it, thanks to her advice. [Calamity Bombardment] was always among the spells in his arsenal that was rarely ever used due to how finicky it was. It was a spell built for long-range, and it was impossible to fire fully straight. Instead, all firing angles had to be at least 30 degrees upwards, and it had to have an uninterrupted pathway the entire way through.
Due to this fact, the spell was really only useful in a few very niche situations. Unless you were fighting someone up some very steep high ground or had perfect distractions, someone very far away that you could see the incoming projectiles, likely due to you being on high ground or in an open field, or even if an enemy was lured into a location you knew ahead of time, you wouldn't be able to easily hit it since they could always flee.
While you could fire it nearly straight up, allowing you to attack a target at a far closer distance, the time it would take to go all the way up and then come all the way back down made it incredibly easy to dodge or anticipate, especially considering its initial casting time not being exactly short either.
Fortunately, you could decide what angle to fire at when the casting time for the spell was done as long as it met the minimum 30 degrees, meaning you didn't need to predict where the enemy would be and instead you could aim when you were actually ready to fire.
For all of the spell's shortcomings, its range was insane compared to most, even compared to other Super-Tier spells. Being capable of firing out several miles away, the person firing it was effectively a nuclear artillery gun firing further than most enemies could even spot you, and with enough firepower to one-shot anyone but tanks if you landed a direct hit, it was a spell that almost rivaled [Grand Catastrophe], the apex of the World Disaster class, in damage output.
However, if one were to know exactly where their enemies were, especially ones several miles away – or several hundred 'units' as the game had no consistent frame of reference for height – then the spell could suddenly become a very viable tool to take out potentially dangerous parties before they were even close enough to spot them, especially if you had an excellent scout.
That's where WhiteSilver came in. She had been playing long enough to reach almost Level 80, allowing her to at least hold her own in combat against higher-level players, so long as she avoided being hit. While this cut her out of a direct combat role aside from basic support, she could easily return to her old days as an artillery spotter, enabling her allies to rain hell upon their enemies. Except now that artillery was a goat demon firing off nuclear-sized bombardment spells, and occasionally a bird man from somewhat shorter long ranges.
Her Pixie race levels granted her three things that helped in this aspect: flight, illusionary magic, and vision/sense improvement spells. Because of this she could fly high in the air for relatively cheap, apply illusionary magic to hide herself from prying eyes, and use vision-based spells to spot enemies from afar. For most players, this wasn't a viable ability combination option, as ultimately even those with all those abilities wouldn't have the skills required to properly gauge the distance of enemies for the sole purpose of bombardment. At most one might use it for basic recon, but aiming a Super-Tier spell to hit a target miles away was unheard of in the global player community. At least until now.
Although it had taken some practice to get the angles right for the proper distances, a good few days of harsh training from WhiteSilver and she managed to get her brother, Ulbert, to become incredibly accurate with it. Peroroncino had once tried to join in, but a few hours of grinding later he had left, citing wanting to get used to orbital bombardment of archery before rejoining.
Satisfied with the latest bombardment, she flew down towards the players' loot as her brother quickly dashed over from the hidden ground as well. She soon landed next to the dropped items, her brother appearing shortly afterward. Although flight made her faster than a base walking speed, it was far less quick and agile than she would've liked, even with all of her levels in the Pixie class. She would have to look into spells or items that may help with that, but for now, there wasn't much.
Ulbert began to crouch down and survey the items dropped. In Yggdrasil, players who died didn't drop all their items, but they did drop their most important ones first. Most important in this specific scenario was the fact that World Items, the strongest items in the game, would almost always drop if a player was killed possessing them, turning any World Item holder into a massive target. Realistically it would be impractical to kill every player you found and hoped one of them had a World Item, but if you knew of a player who had one and were expecting them to come by… Then you had yourself a nice target to turn into digital ashes.
She soon began helping her brother with the inspections, picking up a chunk of a green stone, glowing faintly with small star-like lights twinkling within it. Her UI informed her that the stone was 'Celestial Uranium,' an ore she had learned to be one of the prismatic ores of the game. Fairly valuable, sure, but not what they were looking for. Momonga would enjoy squirreling it away though
"Although these are quite nice drops, none of these seem like World Items to me, are you sure you're really onto something?" WhiteSilver asked, looking at Ulbert whose body posture gave the impression of his annoyance.
"No, they're not. But I'm confident that my informant is correct. He said that he's looking for a rare drop from one of the mobs in this forest. He comes here frequently to grind away at it in hopes of obtaining it. Chances are, they're saving it for when there is a more powerful enemy somewhere," Ulbert explained, picking up the remaining loot and storing it away.
"If we keep blasting everyone that enters this forest to kingdom come he's going to eventually hear about it and grow cautious. How do you even know for certain that he has this world item on him?" WhiteSilver questioned, giving an annoyed emoticon.
Ulbert began to explain, "He got in a fight with an acquaintance of mine and a former friend of his; really pissed him off, and in response he gave all this intel to me. The guy doesn't have a guild or a clan and so he doesn't have a proper base to put his item, and since he hasn't publicly come out and announced that he has it, he just keeps it on him. Issue is, whenever he enters a dangerous PvP situation, he instantly bails. He has a dozen cash shop items that help him do so in addition to his own skills as a rogue class, along with his general skills. So if we want to actually kill him, he needs to go down in one shot, specifically in one shot that he doesn't see coming."
WhiteSilver nodded along at his explanation, commenting, "I suppose that does make sense. Do you know what World Item we're specifically going after though?"
Ulbert shrugged. "I don't think even his friend knew. All I know is that it's a very dangerous item to be in the hands of someone who doesn't exactly have the best opinion of Nine's Own Goal and Heteromorph players in general."
"Well, I suppose we'll just have to continue then. It'd be a whole lot easier if I could just cast the spells directly from the skies, instead of needing to play the artillery spotter role," WhiteSilver grumbled, stretching and reactivating her flight, her bug-like fairy wings fluttering on her back as she did, taking to the skies.
Ulbert didn't move for a few moments, hand under the muzzle of his goat-like head as he appeared to be typing. "You know what, I think we should call it here for today. Head back to the clan base, maybe find someone to help with refining your build. You still have a few more levels to go, after all."
WhiteSilver seemed confused, but shrugged it off, teleporting away as she assumed her brother simply had other things to do. It wasn't uncommon, after all, there were so many players in the clan to play with, and oftentimes missions required a full team of max-level players, something that she had yet to fully achieve, being only around level 80. She could only contribute to the lower-level quests, albeit since most of the clan was maxed out she had practically a buffet of options to choose from.
Appearing back in the Clan base, she noticed it to be unsurprisingly empty. Most people had already headed out for the day, forming together with groups or going out on their own; most members of the clan didn't have terribly long to play each day and so made the most of every moment they could.
Still though, one player remained in the hall, distracted with some items in his hands, likely inspecting them. WhiteSilver recognized the player as Momonga, a player of the Overlord race, basically a large undead skeleton. Regardless of his conventionally scary avatar, he was a close friend of her brother, though she had only limited interactions with him directly due to their initial split in player goals. She had focused hard on regaining her abilities to fly, dodge, and spot in the early levels after all.
With the guild hall empty, Momonga spotted her rather quickly. Waving his oversized skeletal hand in her direction, he sent a smiling emoticon. "Ah, WhiteSilver! I assume Ulbert should be here shortly."
WhiteSilver shrugged and approached him, explaining, "He said to go off on my own for now. He seems to be busy with something."
Momonga nodded in understanding. "I see, it's probably best to leave him to it. What are your plans now, then?"
WhiteSilver opened up a map on her UI, looking around at it as she thought of what to do. She leaned her head against her hand as she thought, Momonga quickly taking notice.
"Well if you're undecided, I could always help you with leveling up. Once you're level 100 you'll be able to go on a lot more quests and no longer have to worry about grinding," Momonga offered, placing the items he was inspecting back into his inventory and standing up.
WhiteSilver closed the map with her hand as she responded, "I suppose I have nothing better to do. Your masses of summoned undead should work quite well as a distraction while I blast them from the sky."
"Perfect. Follow me, I know a good area for grinding where the mobs are weak to explosive damage, it should be perfect for you."
Momonga watched from an elevated position, before him were over a hundred summons, mostly skeletons and various undead. As he watched, large beasts made of stone tore through them, eyes glowing an intimidating red as they easily destroyed the low-level summons. Fortunately though, the summons weren't meant to be more than a nuisance to the monsters, just serve as a direction.
From above three beams of red light soared to the ground, erupting into massive explosions as they made impact with their targets, sending dirt flying across the area. Each bullet landed soundly and precisely between the eyes of the golems, landing critical blows that instantly dropped their HP to zero.
With a tap of a button on his UI, his undead army stopped its attack, parting ways and making a path for him to walk through. Momonga walked up to the item drops the monsters had left behind, inspecting the stones for any rare materials as he always did.
Shortly afterwards the pixie WhiteSilver hovered down beside him, kicking up a stone into her hands as she glanced at the direction the monsters had come from. "That's all of em' then? How long does it take for them to respawn?"
Momonga tossed the ore in his hands to the pixie who caught it and stored it away in their inventory without a word. "Shouldn't be too long if I remember correctly, we have a few minutes. Though for level 80 it's surprising just how quickly you were able to clear the area of them."
WhiteSilver stored away her weapon and sat on a nearby rock, filtering through her inventory to survey the drops she had obtained from the initial wave of the monsters. "I suppose it's a sign that my build's coming along well. I was hoping I could find a good way to increase my defense more, but the only option I have left to increase it in any significant capacity is to either invest levels into a more defensive class or invest in proper armor. The latter isn't really viable as it would basically cut down on my agility and limit my flight."
"Ah right, I almost forgot the weight system…" Momonga commented. The weight system wasn't something most players really needed to worry about, but for min-maxxers and for certain builds, it was vital. Weight impacted things like knockback and agility, playing into player strength and buffs. Heavier characters took less knockback, making it advantageous for tanks, reinforced by their brute strength. Meanwhile, lighter characters moved faster and could make the most out of their agility stat, making lighter armor more advantageous for more agile builds. Of course, many builds couldn't wear armor either way, but when it came to races with innate flight abilities, having too much weight would slow down one's flight, if not outright prevent it with the heavier armors.
As a spellcaster whose feet were always firmly planted on the ground, it was never much of a concern for him, but it made sense how it would be a much bigger deal for a flight-oriented build like WhiteSilver's. Meanwhile, the pixie continued, "While investing in a tankier class might be a good decision, it would mean dropping many opportunities to boost my firepower by taking levels in such classes, which is also annoying."
Momonga began to fully understand. "So it's a choice between sacrificing firepower for a more well-rounded build, or going full-on glass cannon, right?"
"Precisely. However, with my flight and illusion magic, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to avoid taking hits, so perhaps it's a good trade-off," WhiteSilver thought out loud.
"For most players I'd suggest taking the safer option. The glass cannon build you're making is certainly powerful, but it requires an exceptional amount of skill in evasion and flight mechanics that most players don't have. That being said, I don't think I've ever seen someone actually master the flight system like you have. And here I thought it was just a mediocre mode of transportation completely unviable for combat before you came along."
WhiteSilver grunted and pulled out a boot from her inventory. It seemed somewhat mechanical in nature, fully metallic with a flat bottom with glowing lines along it. "It kind of is," She muttered, looking at the boot.
"What's that boot for?" Momonga asked, looking down at the pixie who seemed annoyed at the item, even if her avatar's facial expressions remained unmoving.
"It was an experiment, I suppose. An attempt to increase my maneuverability in the air. Aerial movement always felt clunky, I was trying to fix it. Unfortunately, the boots I created function as little more than a glorified jump pack. Its ability to boost me while already in the air is basically non-existent," she explained, tossing it back in her inventory as she lifted herself up. "There might be a class, spell, or item that could help me, but if it exists it's not been discovered yet, or at least not publicized yet. And I'll be damned if I have to spend real money on it."
"Spoken like a true member of the No Cash Item Alliance," Momonga laughed. A question mark then appeared next to the pixie's head as she tapped on her UI, causing Momonga to explain, "It's a pact between a few of us here in the clan to never use cash shop items. Your brother is an avid member of it, so I assumed he roped you into it."
"I wouldn't say I'm completely opposed to Cash Items. Should I have been in a better financial situation I probably wouldn't mind too much considering this is a free-to-play game, although being on the poorer end of the playerbase I can understand how frustrating the pay-to-win style of this game can be, even if I do understand its existence."
Momonga nodded to her response, commenting, "I get it. Though it's interesting how light you are on the subject considering your brother. With how calm you tend to be I sometimes forget you're related to him."
"Ulbert is… chaotic. But in the real world, he's surprisingly normal, if a bit prone to anger at times. If I had to guess, this is where he goes to let it out. We didn't have much of a childhood, him especially. When our parents died I was too young to work, even by corporate standards. Instead, my brother had to take the first job he could land in an assembly line to keep us going. Thanks to him I was able to get a half-decent job as a salarywoman. With how poor his job is and with how mediocre mine is, we still live together solely so that we can combine our limited wealth to live at least decently." She sighed and returned her rifle to her hand, hefting it in the direction of the respawn area. "Sorry, I've gone off-topic. Pretend I said nothing."
WhiteSilver quickly launched into the sky, reaching higher altitudes as the stone monsters began to respawn and advance against his summons. Momonga thought to say something for a moment but decided not to pry into her personal life too much. He knew she and Ulbert had it hard, even if he wasn't much better off himself. Yggdrasil was meant as an escape from the harshness of reality, it wasn't his place to push it further. He knew many others came here for the same.
Without another word said, the streaks of light once more rained down onto the monsters, large explosions lighting up the rocky mountainside. Momonga, of course, had a part to play. A small part, sure, but he would play it to perfection. "[Undeath Army]!"
His friends had decided to make this their home, and he would protect that joy with all his might.
The last stone dragon collapsed as a massive explosion engulfed its torso, tearing it into falling boulders before fading away into a cloud of particle effects. It had been a few hours and WhiteSilver's grinding progress had been impressive. With ten levels of progress having been made so far, the Pixie player was now level 92, with the two of them having moved on to the stronger dragon boss that spawned nearby, switching between the normal golems and the dragon depending on their cooldowns.
"I'm surprised I managed to level up as fast as I did," WhiteSilver commented, analyzing her stat page as she distributed her points, although she held onto her levels for the time being.
Momonga began picking up the loot and explained, "With the most recent update, whether by intentional design or a bug in the code, many enemies got their XP values janked up. Some gave way too much XP while others gave way too little. The newer enemies were especially affected. Eventually, the devs readjusted their values back to reasonable levels, but every now and again players find mobs that they seem to have missed, such as most of the golems in these mountains. Tabula's made quite an effort to locate some of these. Honestly, I'm impressed by how well he can find them."
WhiteSilver nodded along with Momonga's explanation, beginning to scroll through some of the class options on her UI as she spoke, "Interesting… Explains the absurd level-up speed I've gotten. Give us a few more hours and I'd probably make it to level 100 in no time."
"Right," Momonga began, "though I'm curious, what are you putting your levels into anyways? I haven't seen you try any new spells out just yet I don't think."
"That's because I haven't spent them yet," she stated, closing her UI. "I don't really know what I want to put levels into yet. I do plan on taking your advice on going all in with the Glass Cannon build, but that being said, there's still a lot of directions I can take it. Just what kind of cannon do I want to be? Perhaps I could even spec more into some support classes, even if solely to get a bit of additional utility considering I'll often be in the backline once the spells start to fly."
"Still indecisive I see," Momonga mused. "Well, it may be best to sleep on it or perhaps do a bit of research. If you meet the requirements, the 'Disciple of Disaster' class is quite like Ulbert's World Disaster class. It might not pair the best with him, but it would certainly provide the firepower."
Ulbert's voice could suddenly be heard from behind, "Why settle for a weak class like that?" Momonga turned to see Ulbert walking over, hand raised as the dark void of the [Gate] spell closed behind him. "Tabula told me you were grinding over here, thought I'd pay a visit."
"Are you done with that business of yours?" WhiteSilver questioned, looking up at her brother.
Ulbert folded his arms and lifted his expressionless head up smugly, "Not quite! But I do require you for the rest. Momonga, it may be helpful to have you come as well."
Momonga stepped forward, rubbing his skeletal chin and inquiring, "What exactly are you doing?"
"I've organized a secret meeting with a fellow World Disaster. He'll be bringing some friends as escorts, and so I wish to bring the two of you as mine," Ulbert gladly explained.
World Disasters were a unique class, with obtaining it only being possible by killing its previous owner. For that reason, World Disaster players often had targets on their backs. Fortunately, the class wasn't one that many people actually wanted to play, even despite its usefulness in a party due to a variety of reasons. For that reason, oftentimes the only people who could properly organize a meeting or deal with a World Disaster were fellow World Disasters themselves – who couldn't steal a class they already had – and even then they rarely came alone, with it being easily assumed that anyone in a party, clan, or guild with a World Disaster wouldn't be terribly desperate for another one considering how resource-intensive or niche they could be.
"What exactly would you want with a fellow World Disaster? Are you planning to take over one of the realms or something?" Momonga questioned, a squinting expression popping up next to Momonga's skull.
Ulbert gave a hearty laugh. "Not at all! Though, that is a good idea… But no! What I want is his class! The meeting is a trap!"
"Don't you already have the World Disaster class? Is there some kind of 'World Disaster Squared' class that I've not heard of?" Momonga asked with confusion.
Ulbert lightly smacked Momonga, no damage being registered thanks to Yggdrasil's anti-friendly fire features. "Not for me! For my sister!"
WhiteSilver sent a questioning emoticon. "Me?"
Ulbert proudly nodded, moving his entire upper body in the process. Striking a dramatic pose, he waved his hand outwards, causing his cape to wave dramatically behind him for a brief moment. "Indeed! Let us bring carnage and disaster to this world together! Let the realms tremble! Let their cities burn! Let thei-"
WhiteSilver raised her hand. "Alright that's enough." She looked back over at her UI, gazing over her stats for a brief moment, considering her options and ultimately sighing. "Very well, let's do this."
Ulbert and Momonga walked through foggy fields of decayed grass, stretching as far as the eyes could see. For many people, that distance wasn't very far thanks to the fog, however, Momonga and Ulbert could see just fine thanks to a mixture of racial traits and applied buffs.
It wasn't long before they met with the other party; a group of three individuals each at level 100. In the front was a human player, clad in crimson robes with deep crimson eyes and a comically large wizard hat upon their head. They held a large staff, likely a spellcasting focus for their other classes. Despite their more wizard-like appearance, they were very much one of the very few World Disasters that existed in Yggdrasil, easily recognizable from their feats against world-level bosses.
Behind them were two players; the first was a woman, seemingly a support player dressed in a blue dress with matching blue hair and eyes and a skirt that nearly violated Yggdrasil's TOS in terms of length; the absolute territory was strong with this one. The second was an armored fighter, the party's tank, and as analysis would show; a player of the paladin class, their armor was blindingly white and orange, a feathered pad covering their right shoulder.
Ulbert approached the group, standing in front of Momonga while maintaining a good distance away from the trio in front of him. "Thank you for coming, I'm glad you could arrive on such short notice. Us World Disasters need to stick together."
The fellow World Disaster – hardly more than a teenage girl – proudly struck a pose, acting more stand-outish than even Ulbert often did. "Hahaha! Indeed! The nine realms cower wherever we move! Our path of destruction leaves nothing but the ashes of the realms behind! Our meeting shall shake the very foundations of the world tree itself! Pray tell, what business does thou bringeth?"
"My sincerest apologies for being so cryptic when organizing this meeting, I'm sure you'll understand how it would be best if others did not find out about this too soon. But I believe I have found a bug with some of our spells as of the most recent update. The bug… Well, it'd be a lot easier to show you. Do you mind if I launch an attack right between the two of us? It is a basic [Catastrophic Blast] spell, so it shouldn't hit you if I aim it right in the middle," Ulbert stated, leaning forward.
The chuuni wizard nodded, "Very well! Though I'm sure you'll understand if I apply some resistances first just in case. Arch-Priest!"
The blue priestess behind her raised her staff, the World Disaster and her allies glowing one color after another as various barriers and buffs were applied. Momonga watched closely as Ulbert turned and glanced in his direction. With a subtle nod, Ulbert continued.
"If you're ready, I am launching my attack! [Catastrophic Blast]!" Ulbert pointed to the ground between them and tapped on the spell's icon in his UI. In the same instant, a meteor materialized in the sky, immediately beginning to fly down rapidly towards the ground, flames erupting along its sides as it made its way down. Hovering behind where the meteor spawned was WhiteSilver, who quickly moved with the attack, soaring as fast as her flight system would allow as it plummeted into the ground.
The attack soon made impact, a large explosion filling the space between Ulbert and the other World Disaster. In the cloud of fire and smoke, WhiteSilver moved, closing the distance before the bayonet of her rifle found its way into the World Disaster's chest, straight through the heart. The various colored glows previously applied to the mage appeared one by one only to instantly shatter as they reappeared.
Without a moment to react, WhiteSilver shouted, "[Assassination]!"
A bang was heard and the World Disaster's HP instantly dropped to zero, turning them into a pixelated body. The crusader, although startled, leaped forward and slashed her sword at the pixie, who simply leaped into the air and took to the skies. In response, the priest angrily began firing volleys of ranged magical attacks, each expertly dodged by WhiteSilver as she increased her elevation.
Ulbert glanced back down at the remaining two members of the party, watching as the Crusader's focus shifted from the flying pixie to the grounded demon and skeleton. "That might be our cue to leave," Ulbert explained.
Momonga nodded, tapping on his UI. "[Greater Teleportation]!" The two appeared atop a nearby hill hidden well by the fog, surveying the situation. Momonga watched as the priestess's spells continued to miss their target, both from the priestess' inaccuracy and WhiteSilver's own evasive skills. Invested in watching the spectacle, he mused, "I didn't know the gunner class had a spell that powerful…"
Ulbert was surprised, a shocked expression appearing next to his avatar. "You didn't know about their [Assassination] spell? As someone who specs a lot into instant death magic, you'd think you'd at least hear about it."
"Huh?! Gunners get instant death magic?!" Momonga exclaimed in shock.
Ulbert just nodded and shrugged. "Since it's a projectile that can be relatively easily blocked, dodged, or otherwise interfered with, it's arguably a lot harder to nullify than most instant death abilities. Issue is actually landing a hit with it, even if it's designed to be some of a gunner's strongest abilities. For it to work, you have to fully pierce whatever armor you're facing, whether it be magical or physical. Gunners can do damage without fully piercing something, but Assassination won't work if it doesn't. Furthermore, some instant death protections and general buffs can still nullify it, but they're usually dependent on extremely expensive pay-to-win items."
"Sounds about right. She got really lucky that the other player didn't have too many buffs applied. What kind of idiot goes to a meeting like this without basic anti-PKing defenses?" Momonga questioned, turning to see Ulbert just shaking his head with his arms folded. Confused, he questioned, "Am I wrong about something?"
"Their defenses were actually pretty standard if I had to guess. Perhaps even above standard," Ulbert stated. "However, WhiteSilver's bayonet has quite a lot of data on it. Most people wouldn't bother with a bayonet or would apply mostly offensive buffs and modifiers to it. WhiteSilver however stocked that thing full of only piercing capabilities and debuffs. Specifically, debuffs to counter things like anti-death protection and other general defensive and vitality buffs. After she snuck with my attack as cover, she stabbed the player and broke all of their buffs before shooting them point-blank with the [Assassination] spell to ensure it didn't miss or get blocked by some other means."
"That's… Actually a pretty terrifying combination, albeit very risky considering her build," Momonga recognized, though quickly acknowledged, "Though, knowing her, she probably could pull it off consistently."
Ulbert simply laughed. "I mean she pulled it off there! And look at her! She hasn't even taken any damage yet!"
"Speaking of…" Momonga muttered, "Should we help her retreat? Instant death spells or no, those are level 100 players."
Ulbert placed his hand out to stop Momonga as he began preparing his spells. "No need. If she hasn't retreated on her own by now, she's planning something. Just sit and watch."
Momonga grew worried but went along with it. Whatever WhiteSilver had planned, he was now fully invested to see it.
Meanwhile, the bombardment of the pixie continued as she sat mid-air looking at her UI, dodging around the occasional spell that got too close for comfort. "Will you stop wasting your MP down there! I'm trying to find something!" After a bit of scrolling, she finally found it, "There! World Disaster! Max that out… Sheesh, only five levels? Well, I suppose it is an elite class. Guess I can put the remaining five into a racial class. But which one… Eh, well there's only one viable option for this class I suppose. Besides, my karma value is technically in the negatives right now, even if only slightly, so most of the popular pixie classes aren't even open to me right now. Not that I need them. The best option is right in front of me."
WhiteSilver tapped on the text 'Unseelie' and set the level all the way up to five. In an instant her avatar's appearance changed, her rounded wings with a light green hue turning to jagged wings of crimson red and bloody orange. Her skin paled and her aqua-blue eyes turned to a fiery shade of red to match her wings. Although her appearance otherwise stayed the same, her stats across the board took a noticeable increase, both from her World Disaster class and her new racial one. Tapping on one of her newfound spells, she thought of no better time to test it out.
Pointing her finger towards the remaining two on the ground, she tapped on her UI and unleashed the ultimate spell of the World Disaster class – unlocked by maxing out its level at five – [Grand Catastrophe].
A destructive surge of energy came from WhiteSilver, pouring onto the two below. In mere seconds the HP of the priestess dropped to zero with the crusader being the last one standing, HP low but not quite gone yet.
Enraged, the crusader raised their sword to the sky and shouted, "Come down here and fight me properly!"
Although her avatar remained expressionless, WhiteSilver felt a grin growing on her face. Landing down on the ground with a thud, she politely bowed and swapped out her rifle for a high-tier shovel. "As you wish, [Perfect Warrior]."
"You really think [Perfect Warrior] can compete with an actual Crusader build?! Are you insane?!" The crusader spat, readying their own blade.
WhiteSilver spun the shovel in her hand, noting the reflection of the moon shining against it through the foggy air. "You see, the tricky thing about physical attackers…" WhiteSilver failed to suppress a rising giggle, "Is that you have to actually HIT YOUR TARGET!"
The pixie dashed forward, ducking under a slash from the crusader as her fist hit their chestplate, knocking them back several feet. The crusader stumbled back but quickly secured their posture and dashed back towards WhiteSilver. The crusader's sword swung down, clashing against the pixie's shovel as she slid to the left, knocking the sword to the right before swinging the shovel back up to bang against the front of their face.
As WhiteSilver again ran towards the crusader, they brought their sword down onto her, only for her to sidestep their slash and rotate their body along the crusader's right shoulder. Arriving behind them, she lifted her shovel up and slashed along their back before kicking them away, gaining distance once more.
The pixie watched as the crusader stumbled back into posture. Even without expressions or even a visible face under their armored helmet, she could practically smell their fear through the game. WhiteSilver had never been proud of her fighting skills in her previous life, but with no real lives on the line, she would be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying it.
Having gauged the skills of the–frankly clumsy–crusader, she returned the shovel to her inventory, much to the confusion of said crusader. With a rising wave of laughter, she dashed towards her faster than ever. The crusader swung wildly, applying spells, skills, anything they had, with each and every one of them failing to hit the blitzing pixie. With each missed strike, the pixie landed a powerful blow with their fists. The damage wasn't anything impressive, but [Grand Catastrophe] had already gotten them incredibly low, and the hits were beginning to add up.
The crusader desperately swung their sword down one last time as the pixie sidestepped their swing, pushing their blade aside with their left arm as their right pulled back, launching forward as their fist punched straight through the crusader as their HP hit zero, their avatar disappearing moments after.
From atop the hill, Momonga watched in awe at the spectacle. For a brief moment he wondered why she was playing a ranged class to begin with, however, he quickly suppressed his questions. With a heavy sigh, he turned to his friend. "Ulbert…" He said, exhaustion and concern in his voice.
"Yes, Momonga?" Ulbert replied.
"Your sister scares me."
"I know. I'm so proud!"
WhiteSilver watched as a volley of blazing red orbs of flame erupted from the small group almost directly below her. It flew quickly, arching over the skies, and within moments struck the unsuspecting party of players. By the time they realized what was approaching them, it was far too late to retreat or to throw together barriers. The orbs landed amidst their ranks, massive explosions rocking the ground below. Instantly the entire party was dead, destroyed in an instant.
The attack that had struck them was [Calamity Bombardment], a Super-Tier spell of the World Disaster class. Her brother was quite proud of being one of the few that had it, but still sought to truly master it, thanks to her advice. [Calamity Bombardment] was always among the spells in his arsenal that was rarely ever used due to how finicky it was. It was a spell built for long-range, and it was impossible to fire fully straight. Instead, all firing angles had to be at least 30 degrees upwards, and it had to have an uninterrupted pathway the entire way through.
Due to this fact, the spell was really only useful in a few very niche situations. Unless you were fighting someone up some very steep high ground or had perfect distractions, someone very far away that you could see the incoming projectiles, likely due to you being on high ground or in an open field, or even if an enemy was lured into a location you knew ahead of time, you wouldn't be able to easily hit it since they could always flee.
While you could fire it nearly straight up, allowing you to attack a target at a far closer distance, the time it would take to go all the way up and then come all the way back down made it incredibly easy to dodge or anticipate, especially considering its initial casting time not being exactly short either.
Fortunately, you could decide what angle to fire at when the casting time for the spell was done as long as it met the minimum 30 degrees, meaning you didn't need to predict where the enemy would be and instead you could aim when you were actually ready to fire.
For all of the spell's shortcomings, its range was insane compared to most, even compared to other Super-Tier spells. Being capable of firing out several miles away, the person firing it was effectively a nuclear artillery gun firing further than most enemies could even spot you, and with enough firepower to one-shot anyone but tanks if you landed a direct hit, it was a spell that almost rivaled [Grand Catastrophe], the apex of the World Disaster class, in damage output.
However, if one were to know exactly where their enemies were, especially ones several miles away – or several hundred 'units' as the game had no consistent frame of reference for height – then the spell could suddenly become a very viable tool to take out potentially dangerous parties before they were even close enough to spot them, especially if you had an excellent scout.
That's where WhiteSilver came in. She had been playing long enough to reach almost Level 80, allowing her to at least hold her own in combat against higher-level players, so long as she avoided being hit. While this cut her out of a direct combat role aside from basic support, she could easily return to her old days as an artillery spotter, enabling her allies to rain hell upon their enemies. Except now that artillery was a goat demon firing off nuclear-sized bombardment spells, and occasionally a bird man from somewhat shorter long ranges.
Her Pixie race levels granted her three things that helped in this aspect: flight, illusionary magic, and vision/sense improvement spells. Because of this she could fly high in the air for relatively cheap, apply illusionary magic to hide herself from prying eyes, and use vision-based spells to spot enemies from afar. For most players, this wasn't a viable ability combination option, as ultimately even those with all those abilities wouldn't have the skills required to properly gauge the distance of enemies for the sole purpose of bombardment. At most one might use it for basic recon, but aiming a Super-Tier spell to hit a target miles away was unheard of in the global player community. At least until now.
Although it had taken some practice to get the angles right for the proper distances, a good few days of harsh training from WhiteSilver and she managed to get her brother, Ulbert, to become incredibly accurate with it. Peroroncino had once tried to join in, but a few hours of grinding later he had left, citing wanting to get used to orbital bombardment of archery before rejoining.
Satisfied with the latest bombardment, she flew down towards the players' loot as her brother quickly dashed over from the hidden ground as well. She soon landed next to the dropped items, her brother appearing shortly afterward. Although flight made her faster than a base walking speed, it was far less quick and agile than she would've liked, even with all of her levels in the Pixie class. She would have to look into spells or items that may help with that, but for now, there wasn't much.
Ulbert began to crouch down and survey the items dropped. In Yggdrasil, players who died didn't drop all their items, but they did drop their most important ones first. Most important in this specific scenario was the fact that World Items, the strongest items in the game, would almost always drop if a player was killed possessing them, turning any World Item holder into a massive target. Realistically it would be impractical to kill every player you found and hoped one of them had a World Item, but if you knew of a player who had one and were expecting them to come by… Then you had yourself a nice target to turn into digital ashes.
She soon began helping her brother with the inspections, picking up a chunk of a green stone, glowing faintly with small star-like lights twinkling within it. Her UI informed her that the stone was 'Celestial Uranium,' an ore she had learned to be one of the prismatic ores of the game. Fairly valuable, sure, but not what they were looking for. Momonga would enjoy squirreling it away though
"Although these are quite nice drops, none of these seem like World Items to me, are you sure you're really onto something?" WhiteSilver asked, looking at Ulbert whose body posture gave the impression of his annoyance.
"No, they're not. But I'm confident that my informant is correct. He said that he's looking for a rare drop from one of the mobs in this forest. He comes here frequently to grind away at it in hopes of obtaining it. Chances are, they're saving it for when there is a more powerful enemy somewhere," Ulbert explained, picking up the remaining loot and storing it away.
"If we keep blasting everyone that enters this forest to kingdom come he's going to eventually hear about it and grow cautious. How do you even know for certain that he has this world item on him?" WhiteSilver questioned, giving an annoyed emoticon.
Ulbert began to explain, "He got in a fight with an acquaintance of mine and a former friend of his; really pissed him off, and in response he gave all this intel to me. The guy doesn't have a guild or a clan and so he doesn't have a proper base to put his item, and since he hasn't publicly come out and announced that he has it, he just keeps it on him. Issue is, whenever he enters a dangerous PvP situation, he instantly bails. He has a dozen cash shop items that help him do so in addition to his own skills as a rogue class, along with his general skills. So if we want to actually kill him, he needs to go down in one shot, specifically in one shot that he doesn't see coming."
WhiteSilver nodded along at his explanation, commenting, "I suppose that does make sense. Do you know what World Item we're specifically going after though?"
Ulbert shrugged. "I don't think even his friend knew. All I know is that it's a very dangerous item to be in the hands of someone who doesn't exactly have the best opinion of Nine's Own Goal and Heteromorph players in general."
"Well, I suppose we'll just have to continue then. It'd be a whole lot easier if I could just cast the spells directly from the skies, instead of needing to play the artillery spotter role," WhiteSilver grumbled, stretching and reactivating her flight, her bug-like fairy wings fluttering on her back as she did, taking to the skies.
Ulbert didn't move for a few moments, hand under the muzzle of his goat-like head as he appeared to be typing. "You know what, I think we should call it here for today. Head back to the clan base, maybe find someone to help with refining your build. You still have a few more levels to go, after all."
WhiteSilver seemed confused, but shrugged it off, teleporting away as she assumed her brother simply had other things to do. It wasn't uncommon, after all, there were so many players in the clan to play with, and oftentimes missions required a full team of max-level players, something that she had yet to fully achieve, being only around level 80. She could only contribute to the lower-level quests, albeit since most of the clan was maxed out she had practically a buffet of options to choose from.
Appearing back in the Clan base, she noticed it to be unsurprisingly empty. Most people had already headed out for the day, forming together with groups or going out on their own; most members of the clan didn't have terribly long to play each day and so made the most of every moment they could.
Still though, one player remained in the hall, distracted with some items in his hands, likely inspecting them. WhiteSilver recognized the player as Momonga, a player of the Overlord race, basically a large undead skeleton. Regardless of his conventionally scary avatar, he was a close friend of her brother, though she had only limited interactions with him directly due to their initial split in player goals. She had focused hard on regaining her abilities to fly, dodge, and spot in the early levels after all.
With the guild hall empty, Momonga spotted her rather quickly. Waving his oversized skeletal hand in her direction, he sent a smiling emoticon. "Ah, WhiteSilver! I assume Ulbert should be here shortly."
WhiteSilver shrugged and approached him, explaining, "He said to go off on my own for now. He seems to be busy with something."
Momonga nodded in understanding. "I see, it's probably best to leave him to it. What are your plans now, then?"
WhiteSilver opened up a map on her UI, looking around at it as she thought of what to do. She leaned her head against her hand as she thought, Momonga quickly taking notice.
"Well if you're undecided, I could always help you with leveling up. Once you're level 100 you'll be able to go on a lot more quests and no longer have to worry about grinding," Momonga offered, placing the items he was inspecting back into his inventory and standing up.
WhiteSilver closed the map with her hand as she responded, "I suppose I have nothing better to do. Your masses of summoned undead should work quite well as a distraction while I blast them from the sky."
"Perfect. Follow me, I know a good area for grinding where the mobs are weak to explosive damage, it should be perfect for you."
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Momonga watched from an elevated position, before him were over a hundred summons, mostly skeletons and various undead. As he watched, large beasts made of stone tore through them, eyes glowing an intimidating red as they easily destroyed the low-level summons. Fortunately though, the summons weren't meant to be more than a nuisance to the monsters, just serve as a direction.
From above three beams of red light soared to the ground, erupting into massive explosions as they made impact with their targets, sending dirt flying across the area. Each bullet landed soundly and precisely between the eyes of the golems, landing critical blows that instantly dropped their HP to zero.
With a tap of a button on his UI, his undead army stopped its attack, parting ways and making a path for him to walk through. Momonga walked up to the item drops the monsters had left behind, inspecting the stones for any rare materials as he always did.
Shortly afterwards the pixie WhiteSilver hovered down beside him, kicking up a stone into her hands as she glanced at the direction the monsters had come from. "That's all of em' then? How long does it take for them to respawn?"
Momonga tossed the ore in his hands to the pixie who caught it and stored it away in their inventory without a word. "Shouldn't be too long if I remember correctly, we have a few minutes. Though for level 80 it's surprising just how quickly you were able to clear the area of them."
WhiteSilver stored away her weapon and sat on a nearby rock, filtering through her inventory to survey the drops she had obtained from the initial wave of the monsters. "I suppose it's a sign that my build's coming along well. I was hoping I could find a good way to increase my defense more, but the only option I have left to increase it in any significant capacity is to either invest levels into a more defensive class or invest in proper armor. The latter isn't really viable as it would basically cut down on my agility and limit my flight."
"Ah right, I almost forgot the weight system…" Momonga commented. The weight system wasn't something most players really needed to worry about, but for min-maxxers and for certain builds, it was vital. Weight impacted things like knockback and agility, playing into player strength and buffs. Heavier characters took less knockback, making it advantageous for tanks, reinforced by their brute strength. Meanwhile, lighter characters moved faster and could make the most out of their agility stat, making lighter armor more advantageous for more agile builds. Of course, many builds couldn't wear armor either way, but when it came to races with innate flight abilities, having too much weight would slow down one's flight, if not outright prevent it with the heavier armors.
As a spellcaster whose feet were always firmly planted on the ground, it was never much of a concern for him, but it made sense how it would be a much bigger deal for a flight-oriented build like WhiteSilver's. Meanwhile, the pixie continued, "While investing in a tankier class might be a good decision, it would mean dropping many opportunities to boost my firepower by taking levels in such classes, which is also annoying."
Momonga began to fully understand. "So it's a choice between sacrificing firepower for a more well-rounded build, or going full-on glass cannon, right?"
"Precisely. However, with my flight and illusion magic, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to avoid taking hits, so perhaps it's a good trade-off," WhiteSilver thought out loud.
"For most players I'd suggest taking the safer option. The glass cannon build you're making is certainly powerful, but it requires an exceptional amount of skill in evasion and flight mechanics that most players don't have. That being said, I don't think I've ever seen someone actually master the flight system like you have. And here I thought it was just a mediocre mode of transportation completely unviable for combat before you came along."
WhiteSilver grunted and pulled out a boot from her inventory. It seemed somewhat mechanical in nature, fully metallic with a flat bottom with glowing lines along it. "It kind of is," She muttered, looking at the boot.
"What's that boot for?" Momonga asked, looking down at the pixie who seemed annoyed at the item, even if her avatar's facial expressions remained unmoving.
"It was an experiment, I suppose. An attempt to increase my maneuverability in the air. Aerial movement always felt clunky, I was trying to fix it. Unfortunately, the boots I created function as little more than a glorified jump pack. Its ability to boost me while already in the air is basically non-existent," she explained, tossing it back in her inventory as she lifted herself up. "There might be a class, spell, or item that could help me, but if it exists it's not been discovered yet, or at least not publicized yet. And I'll be damned if I have to spend real money on it."
"Spoken like a true member of the No Cash Item Alliance," Momonga laughed. A question mark then appeared next to the pixie's head as she tapped on her UI, causing Momonga to explain, "It's a pact between a few of us here in the clan to never use cash shop items. Your brother is an avid member of it, so I assumed he roped you into it."
"I wouldn't say I'm completely opposed to Cash Items. Should I have been in a better financial situation I probably wouldn't mind too much considering this is a free-to-play game, although being on the poorer end of the playerbase I can understand how frustrating the pay-to-win style of this game can be, even if I do understand its existence."
Momonga nodded to her response, commenting, "I get it. Though it's interesting how light you are on the subject considering your brother. With how calm you tend to be I sometimes forget you're related to him."
"Ulbert is… chaotic. But in the real world, he's surprisingly normal, if a bit prone to anger at times. If I had to guess, this is where he goes to let it out. We didn't have much of a childhood, him especially. When our parents died I was too young to work, even by corporate standards. Instead, my brother had to take the first job he could land in an assembly line to keep us going. Thanks to him I was able to get a half-decent job as a salarywoman. With how poor his job is and with how mediocre mine is, we still live together solely so that we can combine our limited wealth to live at least decently." She sighed and returned her rifle to her hand, hefting it in the direction of the respawn area. "Sorry, I've gone off-topic. Pretend I said nothing."
WhiteSilver quickly launched into the sky, reaching higher altitudes as the stone monsters began to respawn and advance against his summons. Momonga thought to say something for a moment but decided not to pry into her personal life too much. He knew she and Ulbert had it hard, even if he wasn't much better off himself. Yggdrasil was meant as an escape from the harshness of reality, it wasn't his place to push it further. He knew many others came here for the same.
Without another word said, the streaks of light once more rained down onto the monsters, large explosions lighting up the rocky mountainside. Momonga, of course, had a part to play. A small part, sure, but he would play it to perfection. "[Undeath Army]!"
His friends had decided to make this their home, and he would protect that joy with all his might.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
The last stone dragon collapsed as a massive explosion engulfed its torso, tearing it into falling boulders before fading away into a cloud of particle effects. It had been a few hours and WhiteSilver's grinding progress had been impressive. With ten levels of progress having been made so far, the Pixie player was now level 92, with the two of them having moved on to the stronger dragon boss that spawned nearby, switching between the normal golems and the dragon depending on their cooldowns.
"I'm surprised I managed to level up as fast as I did," WhiteSilver commented, analyzing her stat page as she distributed her points, although she held onto her levels for the time being.
Momonga began picking up the loot and explained, "With the most recent update, whether by intentional design or a bug in the code, many enemies got their XP values janked up. Some gave way too much XP while others gave way too little. The newer enemies were especially affected. Eventually, the devs readjusted their values back to reasonable levels, but every now and again players find mobs that they seem to have missed, such as most of the golems in these mountains. Tabula's made quite an effort to locate some of these. Honestly, I'm impressed by how well he can find them."
WhiteSilver nodded along with Momonga's explanation, beginning to scroll through some of the class options on her UI as she spoke, "Interesting… Explains the absurd level-up speed I've gotten. Give us a few more hours and I'd probably make it to level 100 in no time."
"Right," Momonga began, "though I'm curious, what are you putting your levels into anyways? I haven't seen you try any new spells out just yet I don't think."
"That's because I haven't spent them yet," she stated, closing her UI. "I don't really know what I want to put levels into yet. I do plan on taking your advice on going all in with the Glass Cannon build, but that being said, there's still a lot of directions I can take it. Just what kind of cannon do I want to be? Perhaps I could even spec more into some support classes, even if solely to get a bit of additional utility considering I'll often be in the backline once the spells start to fly."
"Still indecisive I see," Momonga mused. "Well, it may be best to sleep on it or perhaps do a bit of research. If you meet the requirements, the 'Disciple of Disaster' class is quite like Ulbert's World Disaster class. It might not pair the best with him, but it would certainly provide the firepower."
Ulbert's voice could suddenly be heard from behind, "Why settle for a weak class like that?" Momonga turned to see Ulbert walking over, hand raised as the dark void of the [Gate] spell closed behind him. "Tabula told me you were grinding over here, thought I'd pay a visit."
"Are you done with that business of yours?" WhiteSilver questioned, looking up at her brother.
Ulbert folded his arms and lifted his expressionless head up smugly, "Not quite! But I do require you for the rest. Momonga, it may be helpful to have you come as well."
Momonga stepped forward, rubbing his skeletal chin and inquiring, "What exactly are you doing?"
"I've organized a secret meeting with a fellow World Disaster. He'll be bringing some friends as escorts, and so I wish to bring the two of you as mine," Ulbert gladly explained.
World Disasters were a unique class, with obtaining it only being possible by killing its previous owner. For that reason, World Disaster players often had targets on their backs. Fortunately, the class wasn't one that many people actually wanted to play, even despite its usefulness in a party due to a variety of reasons. For that reason, oftentimes the only people who could properly organize a meeting or deal with a World Disaster were fellow World Disasters themselves – who couldn't steal a class they already had – and even then they rarely came alone, with it being easily assumed that anyone in a party, clan, or guild with a World Disaster wouldn't be terribly desperate for another one considering how resource-intensive or niche they could be.
"What exactly would you want with a fellow World Disaster? Are you planning to take over one of the realms or something?" Momonga questioned, a squinting expression popping up next to Momonga's skull.
Ulbert gave a hearty laugh. "Not at all! Though, that is a good idea… But no! What I want is his class! The meeting is a trap!"
"Don't you already have the World Disaster class? Is there some kind of 'World Disaster Squared' class that I've not heard of?" Momonga asked with confusion.
Ulbert lightly smacked Momonga, no damage being registered thanks to Yggdrasil's anti-friendly fire features. "Not for me! For my sister!"
WhiteSilver sent a questioning emoticon. "Me?"
Ulbert proudly nodded, moving his entire upper body in the process. Striking a dramatic pose, he waved his hand outwards, causing his cape to wave dramatically behind him for a brief moment. "Indeed! Let us bring carnage and disaster to this world together! Let the realms tremble! Let their cities burn! Let thei-"
WhiteSilver raised her hand. "Alright that's enough." She looked back over at her UI, gazing over her stats for a brief moment, considering her options and ultimately sighing. "Very well, let's do this."
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Ulbert and Momonga walked through foggy fields of decayed grass, stretching as far as the eyes could see. For many people, that distance wasn't very far thanks to the fog, however, Momonga and Ulbert could see just fine thanks to a mixture of racial traits and applied buffs.
It wasn't long before they met with the other party; a group of three individuals each at level 100. In the front was a human player, clad in crimson robes with deep crimson eyes and a comically large wizard hat upon their head. They held a large staff, likely a spellcasting focus for their other classes. Despite their more wizard-like appearance, they were very much one of the very few World Disasters that existed in Yggdrasil, easily recognizable from their feats against world-level bosses.
Behind them were two players; the first was a woman, seemingly a support player dressed in a blue dress with matching blue hair and eyes and a skirt that nearly violated Yggdrasil's TOS in terms of length; the absolute territory was strong with this one. The second was an armored fighter, the party's tank, and as analysis would show; a player of the paladin class, their armor was blindingly white and orange, a feathered pad covering their right shoulder.
Ulbert approached the group, standing in front of Momonga while maintaining a good distance away from the trio in front of him. "Thank you for coming, I'm glad you could arrive on such short notice. Us World Disasters need to stick together."
The fellow World Disaster – hardly more than a teenage girl – proudly struck a pose, acting more stand-outish than even Ulbert often did. "Hahaha! Indeed! The nine realms cower wherever we move! Our path of destruction leaves nothing but the ashes of the realms behind! Our meeting shall shake the very foundations of the world tree itself! Pray tell, what business does thou bringeth?"
"My sincerest apologies for being so cryptic when organizing this meeting, I'm sure you'll understand how it would be best if others did not find out about this too soon. But I believe I have found a bug with some of our spells as of the most recent update. The bug… Well, it'd be a lot easier to show you. Do you mind if I launch an attack right between the two of us? It is a basic [Catastrophic Blast] spell, so it shouldn't hit you if I aim it right in the middle," Ulbert stated, leaning forward.
The chuuni wizard nodded, "Very well! Though I'm sure you'll understand if I apply some resistances first just in case. Arch-Priest!"
The blue priestess behind her raised her staff, the World Disaster and her allies glowing one color after another as various barriers and buffs were applied. Momonga watched closely as Ulbert turned and glanced in his direction. With a subtle nod, Ulbert continued.
"If you're ready, I am launching my attack! [Catastrophic Blast]!" Ulbert pointed to the ground between them and tapped on the spell's icon in his UI. In the same instant, a meteor materialized in the sky, immediately beginning to fly down rapidly towards the ground, flames erupting along its sides as it made its way down. Hovering behind where the meteor spawned was WhiteSilver, who quickly moved with the attack, soaring as fast as her flight system would allow as it plummeted into the ground.
The attack soon made impact, a large explosion filling the space between Ulbert and the other World Disaster. In the cloud of fire and smoke, WhiteSilver moved, closing the distance before the bayonet of her rifle found its way into the World Disaster's chest, straight through the heart. The various colored glows previously applied to the mage appeared one by one only to instantly shatter as they reappeared.
Without a moment to react, WhiteSilver shouted, "[Assassination]!"
A bang was heard and the World Disaster's HP instantly dropped to zero, turning them into a pixelated body. The crusader, although startled, leaped forward and slashed her sword at the pixie, who simply leaped into the air and took to the skies. In response, the priest angrily began firing volleys of ranged magical attacks, each expertly dodged by WhiteSilver as she increased her elevation.
Ulbert glanced back down at the remaining two members of the party, watching as the Crusader's focus shifted from the flying pixie to the grounded demon and skeleton. "That might be our cue to leave," Ulbert explained.
Momonga nodded, tapping on his UI. "[Greater Teleportation]!" The two appeared atop a nearby hill hidden well by the fog, surveying the situation. Momonga watched as the priestess's spells continued to miss their target, both from the priestess' inaccuracy and WhiteSilver's own evasive skills. Invested in watching the spectacle, he mused, "I didn't know the gunner class had a spell that powerful…"
Ulbert was surprised, a shocked expression appearing next to his avatar. "You didn't know about their [Assassination] spell? As someone who specs a lot into instant death magic, you'd think you'd at least hear about it."
"Huh?! Gunners get instant death magic?!" Momonga exclaimed in shock.
Ulbert just nodded and shrugged. "Since it's a projectile that can be relatively easily blocked, dodged, or otherwise interfered with, it's arguably a lot harder to nullify than most instant death abilities. Issue is actually landing a hit with it, even if it's designed to be some of a gunner's strongest abilities. For it to work, you have to fully pierce whatever armor you're facing, whether it be magical or physical. Gunners can do damage without fully piercing something, but Assassination won't work if it doesn't. Furthermore, some instant death protections and general buffs can still nullify it, but they're usually dependent on extremely expensive pay-to-win items."
"Sounds about right. She got really lucky that the other player didn't have too many buffs applied. What kind of idiot goes to a meeting like this without basic anti-PKing defenses?" Momonga questioned, turning to see Ulbert just shaking his head with his arms folded. Confused, he questioned, "Am I wrong about something?"
"Their defenses were actually pretty standard if I had to guess. Perhaps even above standard," Ulbert stated. "However, WhiteSilver's bayonet has quite a lot of data on it. Most people wouldn't bother with a bayonet or would apply mostly offensive buffs and modifiers to it. WhiteSilver however stocked that thing full of only piercing capabilities and debuffs. Specifically, debuffs to counter things like anti-death protection and other general defensive and vitality buffs. After she snuck with my attack as cover, she stabbed the player and broke all of their buffs before shooting them point-blank with the [Assassination] spell to ensure it didn't miss or get blocked by some other means."
"That's… Actually a pretty terrifying combination, albeit very risky considering her build," Momonga recognized, though quickly acknowledged, "Though, knowing her, she probably could pull it off consistently."
Ulbert simply laughed. "I mean she pulled it off there! And look at her! She hasn't even taken any damage yet!"
"Speaking of…" Momonga muttered, "Should we help her retreat? Instant death spells or no, those are level 100 players."
Ulbert placed his hand out to stop Momonga as he began preparing his spells. "No need. If she hasn't retreated on her own by now, she's planning something. Just sit and watch."
Momonga grew worried but went along with it. Whatever WhiteSilver had planned, he was now fully invested to see it.
Meanwhile, the bombardment of the pixie continued as she sat mid-air looking at her UI, dodging around the occasional spell that got too close for comfort. "Will you stop wasting your MP down there! I'm trying to find something!" After a bit of scrolling, she finally found it, "There! World Disaster! Max that out… Sheesh, only five levels? Well, I suppose it is an elite class. Guess I can put the remaining five into a racial class. But which one… Eh, well there's only one viable option for this class I suppose. Besides, my karma value is technically in the negatives right now, even if only slightly, so most of the popular pixie classes aren't even open to me right now. Not that I need them. The best option is right in front of me."
WhiteSilver tapped on the text 'Unseelie' and set the level all the way up to five. In an instant her avatar's appearance changed, her rounded wings with a light green hue turning to jagged wings of crimson red and bloody orange. Her skin paled and her aqua-blue eyes turned to a fiery shade of red to match her wings. Although her appearance otherwise stayed the same, her stats across the board took a noticeable increase, both from her World Disaster class and her new racial one. Tapping on one of her newfound spells, she thought of no better time to test it out.
Pointing her finger towards the remaining two on the ground, she tapped on her UI and unleashed the ultimate spell of the World Disaster class – unlocked by maxing out its level at five – [Grand Catastrophe].
A destructive surge of energy came from WhiteSilver, pouring onto the two below. In mere seconds the HP of the priestess dropped to zero with the crusader being the last one standing, HP low but not quite gone yet.
Enraged, the crusader raised their sword to the sky and shouted, "Come down here and fight me properly!"
Although her avatar remained expressionless, WhiteSilver felt a grin growing on her face. Landing down on the ground with a thud, she politely bowed and swapped out her rifle for a high-tier shovel. "As you wish, [Perfect Warrior]."
"You really think [Perfect Warrior] can compete with an actual Crusader build?! Are you insane?!" The crusader spat, readying their own blade.
WhiteSilver spun the shovel in her hand, noting the reflection of the moon shining against it through the foggy air. "You see, the tricky thing about physical attackers…" WhiteSilver failed to suppress a rising giggle, "Is that you have to actually HIT YOUR TARGET!"
The pixie dashed forward, ducking under a slash from the crusader as her fist hit their chestplate, knocking them back several feet. The crusader stumbled back but quickly secured their posture and dashed back towards WhiteSilver. The crusader's sword swung down, clashing against the pixie's shovel as she slid to the left, knocking the sword to the right before swinging the shovel back up to bang against the front of their face.
As WhiteSilver again ran towards the crusader, they brought their sword down onto her, only for her to sidestep their slash and rotate their body along the crusader's right shoulder. Arriving behind them, she lifted her shovel up and slashed along their back before kicking them away, gaining distance once more.
The pixie watched as the crusader stumbled back into posture. Even without expressions or even a visible face under their armored helmet, she could practically smell their fear through the game. WhiteSilver had never been proud of her fighting skills in her previous life, but with no real lives on the line, she would be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying it.
Having gauged the skills of the–frankly clumsy–crusader, she returned the shovel to her inventory, much to the confusion of said crusader. With a rising wave of laughter, she dashed towards her faster than ever. The crusader swung wildly, applying spells, skills, anything they had, with each and every one of them failing to hit the blitzing pixie. With each missed strike, the pixie landed a powerful blow with their fists. The damage wasn't anything impressive, but [Grand Catastrophe] had already gotten them incredibly low, and the hits were beginning to add up.
The crusader desperately swung their sword down one last time as the pixie sidestepped their swing, pushing their blade aside with their left arm as their right pulled back, launching forward as their fist punched straight through the crusader as their HP hit zero, their avatar disappearing moments after.
From atop the hill, Momonga watched in awe at the spectacle. For a brief moment he wondered why she was playing a ranged class to begin with, however, he quickly suppressed his questions. With a heavy sigh, he turned to his friend. "Ulbert…" He said, exhaustion and concern in his voice.
"Yes, Momonga?" Ulbert replied.
"Your sister scares me."
"I know. I'm so proud!"
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
New Chapter is le done. Le beholdeth./center]
LuckCrusader: 2 Kings 2:23-24
Dr. Rx: No need for an annoying Being X this time around to rain hell upon her enemies from above.
Fish Tank: "I have become death, destroyer of worlds." - xXWhiteSilverXx
New Chapter is le done. Le beholdeth./center]
Discord invite link is ( https://discord.gg/Ghn8qtkaFz ) or ( Ghn8qtkaFz ) if your fanfic website of choice chooses to break the link for some reason. You can apply to be a beta reader there which grants you early access to completed chapters in exchange for looking over them for grammar mistakes, possible rephrases, or giving suggestions on the story. Now below are the Beta Readers who read for this chapter:
LuckCrusader: 2 Kings 2:23-24
Dr. Rx: No need for an annoying Being X this time around to rain hell upon her enemies from above.
Fish Tank: "I have become death, destroyer of worlds." - xXWhiteSilverXx
Chapter III - The First Guardian
WhiteSilver hovered far above the forests, below her were no doubt countless enemies and players, all carrying on and about their business without a care in the world for the pixie hovering just out of their sight. She had spent a good few hours here over the past several days, on the hunt for a lucrative yet simple prize: a World Item.
Her brother had given up the hunt a few days prior, deeming it a waste of time, and even she had lost most of her interest. Still, more intel about the target had recently come through, and although none of it helped them pinpoint his location, it did explain more about what the item was.
Apparently it was a consumable, one-time-use World Item, although seemingly not one of the 'Twenty' that were the strongest in the game, just one of the many that could bend in-game rules slightly. Still, it being a single-use item meant that she or the clan could easily use it without worrying about having to hold onto it. The clan had already lost the World Item 'Atlas' to another group previously, so not having to worry about it being stolen would be optimal for the group. Still, the question was why haven't they used it yet? The answer was either that the situation to do so hadn't presented itself yet, or alternatively they were hoping to use it as leverage in a deal of sorts, perhaps to garner more supplies or scare off threats. With who or what didn't matter; what mattered was that he seemingly still had it in his possession, and that was the important part.
As she thought of what the World Item could be, she watched for players. Anyone in a group was instantly a non-target. The target worked almost exclusively alone, and his stealth-based build meant he wouldn't even enlist Mercenary NPCs either. If a player was in a group, there was no use in firing upon them, and doing so would only alert more players to her hunt. If the target ever learned there was someone PKing here, he would never show up.
After a few minutes of searching, she finally spotted someone; a lone player wandering alone through the woods. He wore no armor, either being a spellcaster or a more agile-based class like a rogue. A prime candidate.
WhiteSilver raised her rifle, pointing it in the direction of her next victim. Countless circles appeared around her and along the barrel of her rifle, loading her magical shot. A few moments later she pulled the trigger, unleashing a powerful beam of [Grand Catastrophe] down at the lone player.
The World Disaster class was a dynamic one, and although the attacks were all functionally the same, they adjusted based on the other classes of the player. In WhiteSilver's case, they manifested through her rifle, given her classing into gunners. In Ulbert's case, they became massive meteors, and in the case of the mage she usurped the class from, direct and massive explosions.
Soon the beam of chaotic energy made impact with its target, a massive flash blinding all within the forest as a ball of light several stories high engulfed the player. In an instant he was dead, his health dropping to zero as WhiteSilver landed roughly onto the ground to see what she had won from his death, ensuring nobody was nearby to get the jump on her.
Amidst the few items the player dropped was what appeared to be a standard lump of clay. Despite its basic appearance, the light of the sun gently shimmered against its surface, causing it to stand out amidst the otherwise fairly high-tier items the player dropped. Picking up the blob of clay, she almost gasped in shock.
Looking at the UI pop-up told her exactly what she had been waiting to see; '[Clay of Creation] - [World Class Item].' A brief skimming through its info page taught her all she needed to know about the item, instantly sending it into her inventory to hide it from possibly prying eyes who could be arriving given the unavoidable theatrics of her unleashed spell of choice.
Despite the name getting her hopes up about potentially being able to create anything, the item in particular seemed to be for creating an NPC, a feat that usually required a Guild Base. With this World Item, she could theoretically create her own to join her as a companion without the need to rely on the shitty AI of the mercenary NPCs, who were dumber than rocks most of the time. Despite its apparent utility, she couldn't help herself from feeling a tad bit disappointed considering the stories she heard about the other World Items. Disappointment or not, this was still a World Item, and although she could easily use this without another word, she was a productive member of her clan and would prove herself as such. She would bring this up to them before doing anything further. However, with how late it was getting, she was better off logging out for the night… Once she was in a safe location first, that is.
Tana sighed as the clock struck the end of her shift. In her first life, she would have normally been satisfied with a long day's work, knowing that it was yet another step closer to her ambition to become a comfy executive. Now she found said motivation increasingly difficult to come by, even despite her beliefs. This wasn't the free market she had once lived through, this was a corrupt corporatocracy that was functionally little different from communism, barring some legal jargon.
Still, she was determined and refused to give up that easily, but the data she had experienced and researched spoke for itself. She wasn't moving, she wasn't even close. Sure, she was still relatively young, but even despite her skills, experience, and accomplishments, they all fell on deaf ears in a corporation that cared little for expanding or even replacing its upper ranks. It almost felt impractically stupid how they refused time and time again to let her rise upwards, given especially how many of the upper echelons were only present because they were literal offspring of further higher-ups.
If she had to guess, Being X possibly had something to do with it, but given the state of the world and what she heard from colleagues and acquaintances alike, this was likely just how things were. If there was one way up, it was through being born into the right families, and that was it. If you weren't lucky, you could die and nobody would care. If you were, the management positions were handed to you on a 24 karat golden platter with a 12-course meal of endless riches, perfect healthcare, and a meaningful life.
It all felt dull to her. It was repetition with no progress, stagnation in the upper lower classes rather than in the lower upper classes. It was a progress bar that hadn't moved from 5% in even ten hours. In her previous life, such stagnation would have come from a reason. Nobody stagnated without it being some fault of their own or due to some awful accident too improbable to make a dent in the statistics. Perhaps in a way, she was a result of one of those improbable accidents, but from what she heard from her peers, it was seemingly the standard of this world. She wasn't one to quit, but she also wasn't one to ignore the sisyphean nature of the task in front of her.
Time and time again she had searched for some other route upwards, another job or career perhaps, but none of them came with any real hope to move forward, in fact many were worse than the route she held now. She was stuck in endless stagnation with the only hope being that something, anything, happened to allow her an opening. For now, she had no choice but to wait. She could try to sell her body to the higher-ups, but that route was both morally repugnant and rumored to be a quick way to an "accident" that removed you from your lease on life. The fact she even thought of such an idea was a testament to how deep this world drove her to insanity.
Standing up from her computer, she made her way to the elevator, carrying her protective gear in her right arm as she stepped inside. The elevator was quiet, just her and a coworker getting off at the same time as her, seemingly equally as quick with clocking out as she was.
"Suzuki Satoru, right?" Tana asked, looking up at the man who was a good bit taller than her, although was seemingly about the same age. Unfortunately, Being X had cursed her with short height once again in this life.
The man seemed completely zoned out, blinking a few times before finally processing what she had said, "Huh? Oh right – Yes, that's me. Tana right?"
Tana nodded, "I sent you and some others an email about some things I need looked over. I sent it just before clocking out so you probably haven't seen it yet, just be sure to check it sometime tomorrow, the earlier the better."
Satoru nodded, "Yes, of course. Thank you for telling me, I'll get to that tomorrow."
"You seem distracted, is something going on?" Tana asked, trying her best to sound empathetic. To her credit, she was actually quite good at it when she wanted to. She'd be lying if she said she genuinely cared about the individual lives of the random coworkers she had, but if she wanted a chance to move up, she needed all the cards possible. That included being a friend to all her coworkers. A bit of small talk with the right person could mean everything, after all, and who knows who might have a powerful cousin who could help secure her future?
Satoru seemed startled at the conversation but simply scratched the back of his neck nervously as he explained, "Oh, no it's nothing like that. I'm just thinking of what I'm going to be doing when I get home. I-I don't let it interrupt my work or anything like that though, don't worry about it…"
Satoru knew better than to piss off Tana. She was friendly with all of her coworkers, but also arguably the best at her job, and made certain that everyone else kept up the near-breakneck pace too. She was determined to make sure the department she was in wasn't falling behind, even if she could only do so much without being a manager of some kind. Frankly it was surprising to everyone that she hadn't been promoted yet. But given the nature of the company and work in this time period, he understood why she wouldn't be that lucky. Still, some of his coworkers speculated that she had pissed off someone really high up, who that was or what she did is still unclear even if that was the case.
Their manager was highly incompetent too, but this was this and that was that.
Regardless, if she found out you were slacking off, even if she couldn't do anything about it besides inform management, the glares she would give you would seemingly pierce right into your soul. If not for fear of her, he probably would be a bit lazier when it came to his actual work.
"Ah, I see. That's good, it must be something really exciting then," Tana commented with a professional smile.
Satoru merely glanced away nervously, hoping the elevator ride would end soon. Unfortunately, most buildings in the city were extraordinarily tall, and while architecture had advanced greatly in the last century, elevator technology had somehow stagnated, at least as far as this building was concerned.
Still, a mixture of his fear and the genuine friendliness she was giving off encouraged him to keep talking. "Well it's more of a video game than anything, a game called Yggdrasil to be exact, I doubt you'd really understand," he explained, hoping bringing up a topic like video games would throw her off.
"Yggdrasil, huh? I've played that somewhat," Tana commented, causing Satoru to turn with a shocked expression. Tana raised her eyebrow at his face. "I have a personal life too, you know. But I suppose I don't strike you as someone who's into a game like that. Normally I wouldn't, but my brother got me into it, so I suppose I'll stick with it."
"I suppose not… Sorry, I didn't mean to jump to any conclusions," Satoru muttered, scratching the back of his neck again.
Tana turned back towards the elevator doors as the number above it inched closer to one. "Although I'm sure it could be fun to talk about Yggdrasil, it's about time I leave. Just remember to keep your game life out of your work. Don't want to be distracted trying to think of how to beat some dungeon boss."
"Right, of course," Satoru muttered as the elevator doors opened and the two parted ways.
As Satoru walked away he was left a bit startled. To think the terrifying devil of the office was somehow also a fellow Yggdrasil player was shocking to hear.
He could only dread just what kind of terrifying monstrosity she was playing and hope he never got on her bad side in-game.
Suzuki Satoru logged onto Yggdrasil as he felt reality warp around him. Soon, he looked down to see skeletal hands dressed in dark elegant robes. His avatar Momonga fully materialized in a room of almost undetailed grey material. On one side of the room was an exit, walking through it would lead the player into the game, usually where they logged out.
Normally this room would be empty, at most with a few other people around who tended to go straight for the door. When he did see people, none of them were those he recognized, however for the first time since he started playing, he actually did.
Walking over he waved his hand, an emoticon appearing next to his avatar. "Hey, WhiteSilver! Seems we logged on at the same time. Don't think I've ever met someone in this room before."
WhiteSilver looked up from her UI, turning to Momonga and nodding in response, "Ah, same here, you almost startled me. Sorry, I was busy trying to read more about this item I got yesterday. I was going to show it to the clan today."
"If it's worth bringing up to most of the clan, it's gotta be something interesting. What is it?" Momonga asked, sending a question mark next to his face with instinctive muscle memory.
WhiteSilver pulled out what at first glance was merely a boring piece of clay. Confused, he ran an inspection on it only to jump back in shock. "Holy shit!"
WhiteSilver quickly put the clay away, assuming Momonga had realized just what it was. "It seems to allow me to make an NPC without a guild base. The NPC will function just like an NPC made from a guild base would, except with the guild base technically being me. As such if it dies, I can revive them with gold, and I can fully customize their stats, classes, levels, and gear. Theoretically, this item allows me to request aspects of the NPC that aren't even possible for players to have, which could be quite useful."
"Depending on how you use it, it could either be incredibly OP or painfully mediocre. That being said, it is a World Item. That fact alone, along with the immunity to other World Items you get just by holding it or being linked to it, makes it very valuable. Honestly, I wouldn't fault you if you just decided to use it selfishly."
WhiteSilver scoffed, "I wish to actually be a productive member of our clan. Best to see what others think we should do it with. Even I can admit that it's not the best World Item to begin with, but maybe we can trade it off for something good if we have to."
"I understand, well we should probably stop stalling then. I presume your brother is already online as usual?" Momonga continued, to which WhiteSilver nodded.
"He gets off a bit before me, so he's usually already on by the time I get home nowadays."
Without another word, the two walked through the hallway towards the exit, reentering the game proper.
After a few minutes it wasn't long before the two of them had made their way to the Clan Base, most active members of the clan already being present and beginning to go about their plans, teleporting or flying off.
Soon WhiteSilver and Momonga approached the largest group of people, consisting of some of the top and most active members of the clan. Although gathering everyone around for a meeting was tricky, if this group of people could agree on something, the clan was almost certain to go along with it anyways.
As they approached the group that stood huddled around a small table, WhiteSilver tossed the clay onto it, causing a few to look down and stop their conversation.
"Is that…?" Buku muttered under her breath.
A proud laugh came from Ulbert, "Ahahaha! You fuckin' got em! Nice job!"
"What do you mean by 'got em?'" Pero inquired, a confused face appearing with the tap of a button.
Ulbert shrugged and explained, "Some idiot with a World Item pissed off a friend who told us all we needed to know to track him down. I gave up looking a bit ago, but it seems my fellow disaster managed to catch em'."
WhiteSilver nodded, "Yes, I got this World Item from randomly one-shotting some player in the middle of the forest. Killed him long before he could probably even find out who I was. Best he could probably deduce is that it was a World Disaster, one that had access to long-range magic. But there's about a dozen of us, so best of luck to him in narrowing it down."
Touch Me, the clan leader, stared at the item, reading information on it as he ran inspection on it. "So, what do you plan to do with this? The Clan doesn't technically have any rules on World Items unless they're obtained as a group like Atlas was. Since you got this all on your own, I'd argue it's yours to use."
WhiteSilver shook her head. "I wanted to see if the clan would have any use for it. I didn't want to just use it without seeing if we might need it first."
Touch Me looked at the World Item and thought for a few moments, ultimately declaring, "I see… Truth be told, no matter what we do, if we use it, it's gonna be bound to someone as the 'creator' of it. Might as well be you. It's not like we could trade it off either, even if we can get a good deal for a world item like this, we'd be basically asking to get tricked and robbed. It's best if we use it quickly, lest we get another World Item stolen. Besides, even if we did have a use for it, your brother would kill me if I tried to use it instead of you."
"Damn right," Ulbert responded, grinning behind the unmoving expression of his avatar.
WhiteSilver picked up the clay once again, peering down at it with curiosity. She had been thinking a lot about how to possibly use it for the clan, but she had only briefly gone over how to use it for herself. Now that she was, she was getting plenty of ideas.
"If you wouldn't mind…" The braineater Tabula Smaragdina politely raised his hand, his masked face turning down to glance at the lump of clay. "I would love to help you write the request to the devs for that item. I've heard of that item being used once before, albeit said NPC was made incredibly mediocrely, and I am quite interested to see its potential. Given its World Item status, it could open the door to all sorts of interesting abilities and possible exploits for the NPC. Though I don't have too many ideas right now, I could easily help you min-max your ideas."
"I suppose I didn't have any specifics in mind anyways, so help in making it stronger would be appreciated," WhiteSilver responded with a nod to Tabula.
"Just what kind of build were you going to give this NPC of yours do you think?" Tabula continued, taking the clay himself and reading its description.
"My build is a glass cannon. I have more than enough firepower for three people, but I lack any sort of defense. I was thinking of making a counter-build to my own. An NPC specced fully into the sheer defensive and protective capabilities at the cost of their own firepower and range, albeit one that can still keep up with my speed and maneuvers."
Tabula nodded along with her explanation, intrigued by her idea. "So a personal bodyguard basically? I can see that being very useful for your build."
"If not for your World Disaster class, I'd say that'd be a waste. But since you have more than enough firepower for both of you and abysmal defenses, having a bodyguard to defend you against attacks you can't dodge could be very interesting," Pero remarked.
"I'd be more interested to see what kind of monstrosity of a build comes out when your sole focus is on defense with little to no care for offensive capabilities. WhiteSilver is already a build that's the opposite of that – all firepower with no care for defense – but even she specced into more than sheer offense. An NPC with just defense with a side of agility would be a terrifying flying brick wall," Buku remarked with a shifting of her slime, chuckling.
"Wasn't there already a player with a build like that? The one with the flying turtle? Though if I recall, she makes up for her lack of firepower with a bunch of overpowered items and classes, probably a few Cash Items too," Momonga brought up to the collective shivers of some of his clanmates.
Tabula raised his hand, "Indeed. She's actually a friend of mine, though the absurdities of her build are more a result of her tendency to occasionally stumble into exploits rather than intentional self-empowerment. However, what she's done accidentally, we could recreate intentionally. Add on the additional bonuses of a Heteromorph class and flight and we could make a beast that could rival the highest defensive stats of anyone in the game."
"Something along those lines would probably work…" WhiteSilver responded, taking the clay back from Tabula and opening the box to make a request to the devs. Unfortunately, the use of the World Item wasn't as instantaneous as most of them were. She would need to wait for the devs to respond, however, during that time the item wouldn't be in her possession, meaning losing it wasn't something she needed to be worried about. It was officially in the hands of the devs now, and if she died it'd still stay in the queue for attention.
Still, depending on what she requested, she could get completely different things. It would take a lot of thought and consideration to decide just what type of defensive build she wanted to craft. She was the sword, she just now had to make the shield.
The group watched with interest as WhiteSilver and Tabula walked over to nearby seats to discuss the finer details of her future creation. As they left, a few others in the group walked away as well, leaving only Momonga, Buku, Pero, and Touch Me left standing there in interest.
"She is quite the interesting player, I'll say that much," Touch Me commented, pulling out some maps. "Though having seen her fight with [Perfect Warrior] before you'd think she was a monk main with how skillfully she could fight, especially when dodging. Ulbert said this was one of her first dive video games besides a few shooters. I wonder where she learned to fight like that."
"Some people have hobbies, you know. Some parts of the world are quite dangerous, after all, perhaps she needs to know how to defend herself," Buku responded, casually giving a shrugging emoticon.
"Whatever she played before certainly gave her some interesting ideas. I've never heard of a build like hers – at least not to the extremes that she's taken it – let alone anyone who could execute it to that level. She's taken a dream roleplaying build and turned it into a fully viable strategy through sheer skill," Pero admired, folding his arms and looking at the table where WhiteSilver and Tabula were avidly discussing minor points and battle tactics.
The pink slime to his left quickly raised an arm and slapped him on the back of the head. Although no damage was registered, the message was still sent. "Stop staring, idiot! We both know you pay so much attention to her because she's got a flat chest!"
Pero waved his sister off with a groan, "We both know there's no way in hell I'd get with her, even if I knew her IRL. If she didn't kill me herself, Ulbert certainly would. It's like those mantis bugs that get their heads bitten off after sex. Except I wouldn't even get to the first date."
Buku sent a smug emoticon, teasing, "Oh so you're not denying it?"
"Sure she's attractive, not my type though. She reminds me too much of you when she gets angry. Really you should hang out more, you're nearly the same person–" Pero explained.
"Ey!" Buku snapped, her voice dropping its higher pitch as she raised her hand again.
"–and although her short height is definitely appealing, she frankly scares me. Besides, I think she's into chicks anyways."
"You two should probably stop discussing this before either she or Ulbert hears you," Momonga suggested, the conversation ending abruptly afterward.
Momonga suppressed a sigh; Pero could be a bit deranged sometimes, but it was all in good fun. That being said, Momonga knew that he really shouldn't push his luck with topics like that, especially with game permissions. Still, his sister would likely sort him out later, best for him not to add onto the impending rant he's bound to deal with once he logged off.
"Where did Ulbert go anyways?" Pero asked, glancing around and noticing that Ulbert had seemingly left the clan base entirely.
"I believe he's become interested in trying to recreate a World Item capable of summoning armies of demons. He's only just started work on the project, but apparently there's still quite a few more niche items he needs to grind for to even create a prototype," Momonga explained simply.
Before the topic shifted, Tabula and WhiteSilver returned to the group. "Well then, now all we need to do is wait for the devs to review the request an-" WhiteSilver stopped as a popup appeared on her UI.
<Dev Request Approved - Select Confirm to Summon NPC>
"Huh… Well then…" she muttered, selecting confirmation as instructed as the clay once more appeared before her, hovering mid-air. It began to glow and warp for a few seconds before manifesting into a woman of generally basic features with large glowing wings extruding from their back. Their attire was basic plated armor with a large but visually bland tower shield attached to their right arm, their left holding a much smaller but still equally bland one-handed shield.
The NPC was one of the randomly generated appearances that players could create if they lacked the skills or care to design the finer details of their avatar or NPCs.
Momonga walked over and analyzed the new NPC, commenting, "An angel, huh? Interesting choice."
"I heard the devs usually just skim over requests for World Items like these, but I didn't think they'd approve it this quickly," Tabula commented with surprise, leaning forward.
"What's with the angel pick anyway? You're gonna scare off your brother with something like that considering his own race," Pero asked, his voice filled with a bit of disappointment as he added, "Also you went with a basic rando design? Boooring! C'mon, you gotta customize it somewhat at least! Yggdrasil uses your brain to run itself, so it's pretty good at copying anything you can imagine, so surely you can imagine something more unique than that."
WhiteSilver walked past Pero and scoffed, almost wanting to ignore him. "The angel pick is simple. For one, there's only so many races that provide flight without needing to invest in a specific class for it, and every class and level counts. Intrinsic flight through racial abilities is far cheaper to maintain than using the spell-based [Fly] or other alternatives. Secondly, the other flight races don't work as well as my support. Pixies and Fairies, although good supports overall, are completely lacking in innate defensive and physical capabilities. Demons and their variants such as Succubi are far more invested in sheer firepower, although not a bad option in all fairness. Angels meanwhile allow for flight, tankiness, and even some support traits like healing. Whether I like it or not, the cultural idea of a 'guardian angel' has led the devs to give some of the angel classes quite a bit in the realm of protecting teammates."
WhiteSilver meanwhile turned back towards her NPC, opening up its customization panel. With a sigh, she remarked, "I suppose you're right on customization. My apologies but…" She closed her eyes as she imagined what she wanted the NPC to look like. Although closing her eyes was unnecessary for the system to work, as soon as she opened them, the appearance of the NPC had dramatically changed. Now it resembled someone from her past life she used to know; Viktoriya Serebryakov. She didn't feel perfectly right using her likeness, but she couldn't think of anyone better to fill the role of her bodyguard.
"Who are you apologizing to?" Pero inquired, a tad confused at WhiteSilver's comment.
"Nobody, I was talking to myself more than anything." WhiteSilver suppressed a sigh and began to reconsider the NPC's appearance. It felt… disrespectful. Perhaps it was best to let the memories sleep in her head, though perhaps mockery is flattery in a way. Would Visha be flattered or confused by her decision? In the end, WhiteSilver decided she would likely be the former, and that was enough to keep it as it was. It was more than just a visual replication of her former adjutant, it was a constant reminder of how low Being X was willing to go just to convert one person. How many additional deaths had Being X caused in his crusade? How could he do all of that and still call himself a benevolent God? How could he demand faith when all he did was needlessly slaughter. How could he-
"WhiteSilver, are you alright?"
Momonga's voice snapped WhiteSilver out of her own internal thoughts. Although her avatar's face was apathetic as ever, her fists were balled up and shaking with rage. Quickly calming herself, she sent a smiling emoticon to reassure her allies. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."
"If you say so…" Momonga muttered, sounding unconvinced.
Pero meanwhile leaned forward, eyeing over the NPC's new appearance, sending a smug emoticon as his gaze turned towards its chest. "Looks like WhiteSilver's definitely got a type. Told ya', definitely into chi-"
<Bukubukuchagama has left [Nine's Own Goal]>
<✠WhiteSilver✠ has left [Nine's Own Goal]>
A moment later, Pero's avatar was sent flying across the Clan hall, left on critical HP as Buku and WhiteSilver stood, fists raised where he was once standing.
As the two accepted Touch Me's invites back into the Clan, Buku respectfully bowed and apologized, "Sorry about my brother. That idiot doesn't know when to shut his mouth."
"I'm sorry you have to deal with that…" WhiteSilver muttered to Buku with a polite nod in her direction. "It's not that big of a deal though, I understand he's not that serious, just a moron."
Truth be told, he probably wasn't wrong either, despite having been a girl for arguably longer than she was ever a guy, her male preferences had never truly faded. Though she's never been too interested in a relationship anyways, even if she did once consider it in her first life. Especially now she has no interest in any relationship, male or female.
"Getting back on-topic," Tabula began, "I'd be interested to help you gather the needed materials to level up the NPC properly. My ideas to maximize her potential only begin with the dev request. If you don't mind some experimentation, I wish to use this as an opportunity to plan for my magnum opus, whenever we should become a proper guild."
Touch Me hummed to himself as Tabula mentioned a guild, glancing around briefly before being interrupted by Momonga.
"Touch Me? What's up?" Momonga asked, looking at the armored insectoid.
Touch Me shook his head, "I may have an idea for this clan going forward, but I'll need a few days at least before I settle on the best course of action."
Momonga gazed at Touch Me, perplexed, but simply let it go. When Touch Me needed to think about something like that, it was probably rather important. Momonga was quick to assume that his input likely wouldn't be all too helpful, given Touch Me's tone.
"Well if we have nothing better to do, grinding to maximize this NPC could be fun to do with a group," Momonga remarked, turning towards Buku and Pero, the latter of which was finally healing from his pummeling a few moments prior. "What about you two? It wouldn't exactly be the most optimal party, but it could be fun."
"I suppose I owe it to her…" Pero mumbled, scratching the back of his head as if he was actually hurt from the attack.
Buku adopted a cutesy voice she gained from years of voice acting, shouting, "Let's do it! The first NPC of our clan! The progenitor of what's to come!"
"We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves," Tabula remarked, "Even if we became a proper guild tomorrow, we still wouldn't have a permanent base to make NPCs yet."
Buku slithered over and patted Tabula on the shoulder, "You don't gotta be a downer all the time! Look at how big the clan is, we'll be a proper guild with a base in no time!"
Touch Me seemed even more in his own world now, Pero even waving his hand in front of his eyes to no response. "Huh, didn't think someone could be AFK in a dive game."
Touch Me looked up and quickly stammered, "Oh sorry, I'll be on my own today. Busy thinking about some things. You five go on ahead."
"Alright, whatever you say." Pero shrugged and walked forward, opening his map, "Now then, where we droppin'?"
"Oh shut up!" Buku spat.
LuckCrusader: One must imagine Tanya happy.
Fish Tank: Gotta love that double whammy that Pero received.
Dr. Rx: Huh. Tanky Visha. Instead of a gun she's got a shield! Let's see where this goes.
Her brother had given up the hunt a few days prior, deeming it a waste of time, and even she had lost most of her interest. Still, more intel about the target had recently come through, and although none of it helped them pinpoint his location, it did explain more about what the item was.
Apparently it was a consumable, one-time-use World Item, although seemingly not one of the 'Twenty' that were the strongest in the game, just one of the many that could bend in-game rules slightly. Still, it being a single-use item meant that she or the clan could easily use it without worrying about having to hold onto it. The clan had already lost the World Item 'Atlas' to another group previously, so not having to worry about it being stolen would be optimal for the group. Still, the question was why haven't they used it yet? The answer was either that the situation to do so hadn't presented itself yet, or alternatively they were hoping to use it as leverage in a deal of sorts, perhaps to garner more supplies or scare off threats. With who or what didn't matter; what mattered was that he seemingly still had it in his possession, and that was the important part.
As she thought of what the World Item could be, she watched for players. Anyone in a group was instantly a non-target. The target worked almost exclusively alone, and his stealth-based build meant he wouldn't even enlist Mercenary NPCs either. If a player was in a group, there was no use in firing upon them, and doing so would only alert more players to her hunt. If the target ever learned there was someone PKing here, he would never show up.
After a few minutes of searching, she finally spotted someone; a lone player wandering alone through the woods. He wore no armor, either being a spellcaster or a more agile-based class like a rogue. A prime candidate.
WhiteSilver raised her rifle, pointing it in the direction of her next victim. Countless circles appeared around her and along the barrel of her rifle, loading her magical shot. A few moments later she pulled the trigger, unleashing a powerful beam of [Grand Catastrophe] down at the lone player.
The World Disaster class was a dynamic one, and although the attacks were all functionally the same, they adjusted based on the other classes of the player. In WhiteSilver's case, they manifested through her rifle, given her classing into gunners. In Ulbert's case, they became massive meteors, and in the case of the mage she usurped the class from, direct and massive explosions.
Soon the beam of chaotic energy made impact with its target, a massive flash blinding all within the forest as a ball of light several stories high engulfed the player. In an instant he was dead, his health dropping to zero as WhiteSilver landed roughly onto the ground to see what she had won from his death, ensuring nobody was nearby to get the jump on her.
Amidst the few items the player dropped was what appeared to be a standard lump of clay. Despite its basic appearance, the light of the sun gently shimmered against its surface, causing it to stand out amidst the otherwise fairly high-tier items the player dropped. Picking up the blob of clay, she almost gasped in shock.
Looking at the UI pop-up told her exactly what she had been waiting to see; '[Clay of Creation] - [World Class Item].' A brief skimming through its info page taught her all she needed to know about the item, instantly sending it into her inventory to hide it from possibly prying eyes who could be arriving given the unavoidable theatrics of her unleashed spell of choice.
Despite the name getting her hopes up about potentially being able to create anything, the item in particular seemed to be for creating an NPC, a feat that usually required a Guild Base. With this World Item, she could theoretically create her own to join her as a companion without the need to rely on the shitty AI of the mercenary NPCs, who were dumber than rocks most of the time. Despite its apparent utility, she couldn't help herself from feeling a tad bit disappointed considering the stories she heard about the other World Items. Disappointment or not, this was still a World Item, and although she could easily use this without another word, she was a productive member of her clan and would prove herself as such. She would bring this up to them before doing anything further. However, with how late it was getting, she was better off logging out for the night… Once she was in a safe location first, that is.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Tana sighed as the clock struck the end of her shift. In her first life, she would have normally been satisfied with a long day's work, knowing that it was yet another step closer to her ambition to become a comfy executive. Now she found said motivation increasingly difficult to come by, even despite her beliefs. This wasn't the free market she had once lived through, this was a corrupt corporatocracy that was functionally little different from communism, barring some legal jargon.
Still, she was determined and refused to give up that easily, but the data she had experienced and researched spoke for itself. She wasn't moving, she wasn't even close. Sure, she was still relatively young, but even despite her skills, experience, and accomplishments, they all fell on deaf ears in a corporation that cared little for expanding or even replacing its upper ranks. It almost felt impractically stupid how they refused time and time again to let her rise upwards, given especially how many of the upper echelons were only present because they were literal offspring of further higher-ups.
If she had to guess, Being X possibly had something to do with it, but given the state of the world and what she heard from colleagues and acquaintances alike, this was likely just how things were. If there was one way up, it was through being born into the right families, and that was it. If you weren't lucky, you could die and nobody would care. If you were, the management positions were handed to you on a 24 karat golden platter with a 12-course meal of endless riches, perfect healthcare, and a meaningful life.
It all felt dull to her. It was repetition with no progress, stagnation in the upper lower classes rather than in the lower upper classes. It was a progress bar that hadn't moved from 5% in even ten hours. In her previous life, such stagnation would have come from a reason. Nobody stagnated without it being some fault of their own or due to some awful accident too improbable to make a dent in the statistics. Perhaps in a way, she was a result of one of those improbable accidents, but from what she heard from her peers, it was seemingly the standard of this world. She wasn't one to quit, but she also wasn't one to ignore the sisyphean nature of the task in front of her.
Time and time again she had searched for some other route upwards, another job or career perhaps, but none of them came with any real hope to move forward, in fact many were worse than the route she held now. She was stuck in endless stagnation with the only hope being that something, anything, happened to allow her an opening. For now, she had no choice but to wait. She could try to sell her body to the higher-ups, but that route was both morally repugnant and rumored to be a quick way to an "accident" that removed you from your lease on life. The fact she even thought of such an idea was a testament to how deep this world drove her to insanity.
Standing up from her computer, she made her way to the elevator, carrying her protective gear in her right arm as she stepped inside. The elevator was quiet, just her and a coworker getting off at the same time as her, seemingly equally as quick with clocking out as she was.
"Suzuki Satoru, right?" Tana asked, looking up at the man who was a good bit taller than her, although was seemingly about the same age. Unfortunately, Being X had cursed her with short height once again in this life.
The man seemed completely zoned out, blinking a few times before finally processing what she had said, "Huh? Oh right – Yes, that's me. Tana right?"
Tana nodded, "I sent you and some others an email about some things I need looked over. I sent it just before clocking out so you probably haven't seen it yet, just be sure to check it sometime tomorrow, the earlier the better."
Satoru nodded, "Yes, of course. Thank you for telling me, I'll get to that tomorrow."
"You seem distracted, is something going on?" Tana asked, trying her best to sound empathetic. To her credit, she was actually quite good at it when she wanted to. She'd be lying if she said she genuinely cared about the individual lives of the random coworkers she had, but if she wanted a chance to move up, she needed all the cards possible. That included being a friend to all her coworkers. A bit of small talk with the right person could mean everything, after all, and who knows who might have a powerful cousin who could help secure her future?
Satoru seemed startled at the conversation but simply scratched the back of his neck nervously as he explained, "Oh, no it's nothing like that. I'm just thinking of what I'm going to be doing when I get home. I-I don't let it interrupt my work or anything like that though, don't worry about it…"
Satoru knew better than to piss off Tana. She was friendly with all of her coworkers, but also arguably the best at her job, and made certain that everyone else kept up the near-breakneck pace too. She was determined to make sure the department she was in wasn't falling behind, even if she could only do so much without being a manager of some kind. Frankly it was surprising to everyone that she hadn't been promoted yet. But given the nature of the company and work in this time period, he understood why she wouldn't be that lucky. Still, some of his coworkers speculated that she had pissed off someone really high up, who that was or what she did is still unclear even if that was the case.
Their manager was highly incompetent too, but this was this and that was that.
Regardless, if she found out you were slacking off, even if she couldn't do anything about it besides inform management, the glares she would give you would seemingly pierce right into your soul. If not for fear of her, he probably would be a bit lazier when it came to his actual work.
"Ah, I see. That's good, it must be something really exciting then," Tana commented with a professional smile.
Satoru merely glanced away nervously, hoping the elevator ride would end soon. Unfortunately, most buildings in the city were extraordinarily tall, and while architecture had advanced greatly in the last century, elevator technology had somehow stagnated, at least as far as this building was concerned.
Still, a mixture of his fear and the genuine friendliness she was giving off encouraged him to keep talking. "Well it's more of a video game than anything, a game called Yggdrasil to be exact, I doubt you'd really understand," he explained, hoping bringing up a topic like video games would throw her off.
"Yggdrasil, huh? I've played that somewhat," Tana commented, causing Satoru to turn with a shocked expression. Tana raised her eyebrow at his face. "I have a personal life too, you know. But I suppose I don't strike you as someone who's into a game like that. Normally I wouldn't, but my brother got me into it, so I suppose I'll stick with it."
"I suppose not… Sorry, I didn't mean to jump to any conclusions," Satoru muttered, scratching the back of his neck again.
Tana turned back towards the elevator doors as the number above it inched closer to one. "Although I'm sure it could be fun to talk about Yggdrasil, it's about time I leave. Just remember to keep your game life out of your work. Don't want to be distracted trying to think of how to beat some dungeon boss."
"Right, of course," Satoru muttered as the elevator doors opened and the two parted ways.
As Satoru walked away he was left a bit startled. To think the terrifying devil of the office was somehow also a fellow Yggdrasil player was shocking to hear.
He could only dread just what kind of terrifying monstrosity she was playing and hope he never got on her bad side in-game.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Suzuki Satoru logged onto Yggdrasil as he felt reality warp around him. Soon, he looked down to see skeletal hands dressed in dark elegant robes. His avatar Momonga fully materialized in a room of almost undetailed grey material. On one side of the room was an exit, walking through it would lead the player into the game, usually where they logged out.
Normally this room would be empty, at most with a few other people around who tended to go straight for the door. When he did see people, none of them were those he recognized, however for the first time since he started playing, he actually did.
Walking over he waved his hand, an emoticon appearing next to his avatar. "Hey, WhiteSilver! Seems we logged on at the same time. Don't think I've ever met someone in this room before."
WhiteSilver looked up from her UI, turning to Momonga and nodding in response, "Ah, same here, you almost startled me. Sorry, I was busy trying to read more about this item I got yesterday. I was going to show it to the clan today."
"If it's worth bringing up to most of the clan, it's gotta be something interesting. What is it?" Momonga asked, sending a question mark next to his face with instinctive muscle memory.
WhiteSilver pulled out what at first glance was merely a boring piece of clay. Confused, he ran an inspection on it only to jump back in shock. "Holy shit!"
WhiteSilver quickly put the clay away, assuming Momonga had realized just what it was. "It seems to allow me to make an NPC without a guild base. The NPC will function just like an NPC made from a guild base would, except with the guild base technically being me. As such if it dies, I can revive them with gold, and I can fully customize their stats, classes, levels, and gear. Theoretically, this item allows me to request aspects of the NPC that aren't even possible for players to have, which could be quite useful."
"Depending on how you use it, it could either be incredibly OP or painfully mediocre. That being said, it is a World Item. That fact alone, along with the immunity to other World Items you get just by holding it or being linked to it, makes it very valuable. Honestly, I wouldn't fault you if you just decided to use it selfishly."
WhiteSilver scoffed, "I wish to actually be a productive member of our clan. Best to see what others think we should do it with. Even I can admit that it's not the best World Item to begin with, but maybe we can trade it off for something good if we have to."
"I understand, well we should probably stop stalling then. I presume your brother is already online as usual?" Momonga continued, to which WhiteSilver nodded.
"He gets off a bit before me, so he's usually already on by the time I get home nowadays."
Without another word, the two walked through the hallway towards the exit, reentering the game proper.
After a few minutes it wasn't long before the two of them had made their way to the Clan Base, most active members of the clan already being present and beginning to go about their plans, teleporting or flying off.
Soon WhiteSilver and Momonga approached the largest group of people, consisting of some of the top and most active members of the clan. Although gathering everyone around for a meeting was tricky, if this group of people could agree on something, the clan was almost certain to go along with it anyways.
As they approached the group that stood huddled around a small table, WhiteSilver tossed the clay onto it, causing a few to look down and stop their conversation.
"Is that…?" Buku muttered under her breath.
A proud laugh came from Ulbert, "Ahahaha! You fuckin' got em! Nice job!"
"What do you mean by 'got em?'" Pero inquired, a confused face appearing with the tap of a button.
Ulbert shrugged and explained, "Some idiot with a World Item pissed off a friend who told us all we needed to know to track him down. I gave up looking a bit ago, but it seems my fellow disaster managed to catch em'."
WhiteSilver nodded, "Yes, I got this World Item from randomly one-shotting some player in the middle of the forest. Killed him long before he could probably even find out who I was. Best he could probably deduce is that it was a World Disaster, one that had access to long-range magic. But there's about a dozen of us, so best of luck to him in narrowing it down."
Touch Me, the clan leader, stared at the item, reading information on it as he ran inspection on it. "So, what do you plan to do with this? The Clan doesn't technically have any rules on World Items unless they're obtained as a group like Atlas was. Since you got this all on your own, I'd argue it's yours to use."
WhiteSilver shook her head. "I wanted to see if the clan would have any use for it. I didn't want to just use it without seeing if we might need it first."
Touch Me looked at the World Item and thought for a few moments, ultimately declaring, "I see… Truth be told, no matter what we do, if we use it, it's gonna be bound to someone as the 'creator' of it. Might as well be you. It's not like we could trade it off either, even if we can get a good deal for a world item like this, we'd be basically asking to get tricked and robbed. It's best if we use it quickly, lest we get another World Item stolen. Besides, even if we did have a use for it, your brother would kill me if I tried to use it instead of you."
"Damn right," Ulbert responded, grinning behind the unmoving expression of his avatar.
WhiteSilver picked up the clay once again, peering down at it with curiosity. She had been thinking a lot about how to possibly use it for the clan, but she had only briefly gone over how to use it for herself. Now that she was, she was getting plenty of ideas.
"If you wouldn't mind…" The braineater Tabula Smaragdina politely raised his hand, his masked face turning down to glance at the lump of clay. "I would love to help you write the request to the devs for that item. I've heard of that item being used once before, albeit said NPC was made incredibly mediocrely, and I am quite interested to see its potential. Given its World Item status, it could open the door to all sorts of interesting abilities and possible exploits for the NPC. Though I don't have too many ideas right now, I could easily help you min-max your ideas."
"I suppose I didn't have any specifics in mind anyways, so help in making it stronger would be appreciated," WhiteSilver responded with a nod to Tabula.
"Just what kind of build were you going to give this NPC of yours do you think?" Tabula continued, taking the clay himself and reading its description.
"My build is a glass cannon. I have more than enough firepower for three people, but I lack any sort of defense. I was thinking of making a counter-build to my own. An NPC specced fully into the sheer defensive and protective capabilities at the cost of their own firepower and range, albeit one that can still keep up with my speed and maneuvers."
Tabula nodded along with her explanation, intrigued by her idea. "So a personal bodyguard basically? I can see that being very useful for your build."
"If not for your World Disaster class, I'd say that'd be a waste. But since you have more than enough firepower for both of you and abysmal defenses, having a bodyguard to defend you against attacks you can't dodge could be very interesting," Pero remarked.
"I'd be more interested to see what kind of monstrosity of a build comes out when your sole focus is on defense with little to no care for offensive capabilities. WhiteSilver is already a build that's the opposite of that – all firepower with no care for defense – but even she specced into more than sheer offense. An NPC with just defense with a side of agility would be a terrifying flying brick wall," Buku remarked with a shifting of her slime, chuckling.
"Wasn't there already a player with a build like that? The one with the flying turtle? Though if I recall, she makes up for her lack of firepower with a bunch of overpowered items and classes, probably a few Cash Items too," Momonga brought up to the collective shivers of some of his clanmates.
Tabula raised his hand, "Indeed. She's actually a friend of mine, though the absurdities of her build are more a result of her tendency to occasionally stumble into exploits rather than intentional self-empowerment. However, what she's done accidentally, we could recreate intentionally. Add on the additional bonuses of a Heteromorph class and flight and we could make a beast that could rival the highest defensive stats of anyone in the game."
"Something along those lines would probably work…" WhiteSilver responded, taking the clay back from Tabula and opening the box to make a request to the devs. Unfortunately, the use of the World Item wasn't as instantaneous as most of them were. She would need to wait for the devs to respond, however, during that time the item wouldn't be in her possession, meaning losing it wasn't something she needed to be worried about. It was officially in the hands of the devs now, and if she died it'd still stay in the queue for attention.
Still, depending on what she requested, she could get completely different things. It would take a lot of thought and consideration to decide just what type of defensive build she wanted to craft. She was the sword, she just now had to make the shield.
The group watched with interest as WhiteSilver and Tabula walked over to nearby seats to discuss the finer details of her future creation. As they left, a few others in the group walked away as well, leaving only Momonga, Buku, Pero, and Touch Me left standing there in interest.
"She is quite the interesting player, I'll say that much," Touch Me commented, pulling out some maps. "Though having seen her fight with [Perfect Warrior] before you'd think she was a monk main with how skillfully she could fight, especially when dodging. Ulbert said this was one of her first dive video games besides a few shooters. I wonder where she learned to fight like that."
"Some people have hobbies, you know. Some parts of the world are quite dangerous, after all, perhaps she needs to know how to defend herself," Buku responded, casually giving a shrugging emoticon.
"Whatever she played before certainly gave her some interesting ideas. I've never heard of a build like hers – at least not to the extremes that she's taken it – let alone anyone who could execute it to that level. She's taken a dream roleplaying build and turned it into a fully viable strategy through sheer skill," Pero admired, folding his arms and looking at the table where WhiteSilver and Tabula were avidly discussing minor points and battle tactics.
The pink slime to his left quickly raised an arm and slapped him on the back of the head. Although no damage was registered, the message was still sent. "Stop staring, idiot! We both know you pay so much attention to her because she's got a flat chest!"
Pero waved his sister off with a groan, "We both know there's no way in hell I'd get with her, even if I knew her IRL. If she didn't kill me herself, Ulbert certainly would. It's like those mantis bugs that get their heads bitten off after sex. Except I wouldn't even get to the first date."
Buku sent a smug emoticon, teasing, "Oh so you're not denying it?"
"Sure she's attractive, not my type though. She reminds me too much of you when she gets angry. Really you should hang out more, you're nearly the same person–" Pero explained.
"Ey!" Buku snapped, her voice dropping its higher pitch as she raised her hand again.
"–and although her short height is definitely appealing, she frankly scares me. Besides, I think she's into chicks anyways."
"You two should probably stop discussing this before either she or Ulbert hears you," Momonga suggested, the conversation ending abruptly afterward.
Momonga suppressed a sigh; Pero could be a bit deranged sometimes, but it was all in good fun. That being said, Momonga knew that he really shouldn't push his luck with topics like that, especially with game permissions. Still, his sister would likely sort him out later, best for him not to add onto the impending rant he's bound to deal with once he logged off.
"Where did Ulbert go anyways?" Pero asked, glancing around and noticing that Ulbert had seemingly left the clan base entirely.
"I believe he's become interested in trying to recreate a World Item capable of summoning armies of demons. He's only just started work on the project, but apparently there's still quite a few more niche items he needs to grind for to even create a prototype," Momonga explained simply.
Before the topic shifted, Tabula and WhiteSilver returned to the group. "Well then, now all we need to do is wait for the devs to review the request an-" WhiteSilver stopped as a popup appeared on her UI.
<Dev Request Approved - Select Confirm to Summon NPC>
"Huh… Well then…" she muttered, selecting confirmation as instructed as the clay once more appeared before her, hovering mid-air. It began to glow and warp for a few seconds before manifesting into a woman of generally basic features with large glowing wings extruding from their back. Their attire was basic plated armor with a large but visually bland tower shield attached to their right arm, their left holding a much smaller but still equally bland one-handed shield.
The NPC was one of the randomly generated appearances that players could create if they lacked the skills or care to design the finer details of their avatar or NPCs.
Momonga walked over and analyzed the new NPC, commenting, "An angel, huh? Interesting choice."
"I heard the devs usually just skim over requests for World Items like these, but I didn't think they'd approve it this quickly," Tabula commented with surprise, leaning forward.
"What's with the angel pick anyway? You're gonna scare off your brother with something like that considering his own race," Pero asked, his voice filled with a bit of disappointment as he added, "Also you went with a basic rando design? Boooring! C'mon, you gotta customize it somewhat at least! Yggdrasil uses your brain to run itself, so it's pretty good at copying anything you can imagine, so surely you can imagine something more unique than that."
WhiteSilver walked past Pero and scoffed, almost wanting to ignore him. "The angel pick is simple. For one, there's only so many races that provide flight without needing to invest in a specific class for it, and every class and level counts. Intrinsic flight through racial abilities is far cheaper to maintain than using the spell-based [Fly] or other alternatives. Secondly, the other flight races don't work as well as my support. Pixies and Fairies, although good supports overall, are completely lacking in innate defensive and physical capabilities. Demons and their variants such as Succubi are far more invested in sheer firepower, although not a bad option in all fairness. Angels meanwhile allow for flight, tankiness, and even some support traits like healing. Whether I like it or not, the cultural idea of a 'guardian angel' has led the devs to give some of the angel classes quite a bit in the realm of protecting teammates."
WhiteSilver meanwhile turned back towards her NPC, opening up its customization panel. With a sigh, she remarked, "I suppose you're right on customization. My apologies but…" She closed her eyes as she imagined what she wanted the NPC to look like. Although closing her eyes was unnecessary for the system to work, as soon as she opened them, the appearance of the NPC had dramatically changed. Now it resembled someone from her past life she used to know; Viktoriya Serebryakov. She didn't feel perfectly right using her likeness, but she couldn't think of anyone better to fill the role of her bodyguard.
"Who are you apologizing to?" Pero inquired, a tad confused at WhiteSilver's comment.
"Nobody, I was talking to myself more than anything." WhiteSilver suppressed a sigh and began to reconsider the NPC's appearance. It felt… disrespectful. Perhaps it was best to let the memories sleep in her head, though perhaps mockery is flattery in a way. Would Visha be flattered or confused by her decision? In the end, WhiteSilver decided she would likely be the former, and that was enough to keep it as it was. It was more than just a visual replication of her former adjutant, it was a constant reminder of how low Being X was willing to go just to convert one person. How many additional deaths had Being X caused in his crusade? How could he do all of that and still call himself a benevolent God? How could he demand faith when all he did was needlessly slaughter. How could he-
"WhiteSilver, are you alright?"
Momonga's voice snapped WhiteSilver out of her own internal thoughts. Although her avatar's face was apathetic as ever, her fists were balled up and shaking with rage. Quickly calming herself, she sent a smiling emoticon to reassure her allies. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."
"If you say so…" Momonga muttered, sounding unconvinced.
Pero meanwhile leaned forward, eyeing over the NPC's new appearance, sending a smug emoticon as his gaze turned towards its chest. "Looks like WhiteSilver's definitely got a type. Told ya', definitely into chi-"
<Bukubukuchagama has left [Nine's Own Goal]>
<✠WhiteSilver✠ has left [Nine's Own Goal]>
A moment later, Pero's avatar was sent flying across the Clan hall, left on critical HP as Buku and WhiteSilver stood, fists raised where he was once standing.
As the two accepted Touch Me's invites back into the Clan, Buku respectfully bowed and apologized, "Sorry about my brother. That idiot doesn't know when to shut his mouth."
"I'm sorry you have to deal with that…" WhiteSilver muttered to Buku with a polite nod in her direction. "It's not that big of a deal though, I understand he's not that serious, just a moron."
Truth be told, he probably wasn't wrong either, despite having been a girl for arguably longer than she was ever a guy, her male preferences had never truly faded. Though she's never been too interested in a relationship anyways, even if she did once consider it in her first life. Especially now she has no interest in any relationship, male or female.
"Getting back on-topic," Tabula began, "I'd be interested to help you gather the needed materials to level up the NPC properly. My ideas to maximize her potential only begin with the dev request. If you don't mind some experimentation, I wish to use this as an opportunity to plan for my magnum opus, whenever we should become a proper guild."
Touch Me hummed to himself as Tabula mentioned a guild, glancing around briefly before being interrupted by Momonga.
"Touch Me? What's up?" Momonga asked, looking at the armored insectoid.
Touch Me shook his head, "I may have an idea for this clan going forward, but I'll need a few days at least before I settle on the best course of action."
Momonga gazed at Touch Me, perplexed, but simply let it go. When Touch Me needed to think about something like that, it was probably rather important. Momonga was quick to assume that his input likely wouldn't be all too helpful, given Touch Me's tone.
"Well if we have nothing better to do, grinding to maximize this NPC could be fun to do with a group," Momonga remarked, turning towards Buku and Pero, the latter of which was finally healing from his pummeling a few moments prior. "What about you two? It wouldn't exactly be the most optimal party, but it could be fun."
"I suppose I owe it to her…" Pero mumbled, scratching the back of his head as if he was actually hurt from the attack.
Buku adopted a cutesy voice she gained from years of voice acting, shouting, "Let's do it! The first NPC of our clan! The progenitor of what's to come!"
"We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves," Tabula remarked, "Even if we became a proper guild tomorrow, we still wouldn't have a permanent base to make NPCs yet."
Buku slithered over and patted Tabula on the shoulder, "You don't gotta be a downer all the time! Look at how big the clan is, we'll be a proper guild with a base in no time!"
Touch Me seemed even more in his own world now, Pero even waving his hand in front of his eyes to no response. "Huh, didn't think someone could be AFK in a dive game."
Touch Me looked up and quickly stammered, "Oh sorry, I'll be on my own today. Busy thinking about some things. You five go on ahead."
"Alright, whatever you say." Pero shrugged and walked forward, opening his map, "Now then, where we droppin'?"
"Oh shut up!" Buku spat.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Next Chapter
Chapter IV: Glory to Ainz Ooal Gown!
Beta Readers:
Next Chapter
Chapter IV: Glory to Ainz Ooal Gown!
Beta Readers:
LuckCrusader: One must imagine Tanya happy.
Fish Tank: Gotta love that double whammy that Pero received.
Dr. Rx: Huh. Tanky Visha. Instead of a gun she's got a shield! Let's see where this goes.