Chapter 1

In the year 2138, there exists something called a “DMMO-RPG.”

This stands for “Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.”

While connected via an intracranial nanocomputer network called a “neuro-nano interface,” which combines the best of cyber- and nanotechnology, players experience physical sensations as if they were really inhabiting an imaginary world.

In other words, you play as if you’re actually in the world of the game.

And among all the various DMMO-RPGs that had been developed, one stood above the rest.

Yggdrasil.

It had been released twelve years earlier, in 2126, by a Japanese developer who had been waiting for just the right moment.

Compared to other DMMO-RPGs at the time, Yggdrasil gave players an incredible amount of freedom.

For example, consider the class system, a fundamental element of character customization. Counting the advanced classes as well as the base ones, there were well over two thousand. Since each class had only 15 levels, players could have seven or more classes by the time they hit the overall level cap of 100. As long as they met the basic requirements, they could dabble as they pleased.

Though it would be inefficient, a player could acquire one hundred classes at level 1 if they wanted to. In other words, the system was such that, unless they were deliberately created that way, no two characters would ever be the same.

Then, by using the creator’s tool kit—sold separately—players could edit the appearance of their weapons and armor, as well as the advanced settings of their in-game residences.

The environment awaiting players who ventured into this world was enormous. In fact, there were nine worlds: Asgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim.

A vast world, a staggering number of classes, and graphics that could be tweaked to one’s heart’s content—it was precisely the amount of customization that poured nitroglycerin onto the Japanese creative spirit and led to the game’s explosive popularity. It got to the point where in Japan the word DMMO-RPG was practically synonymous with Yggdrasil.

But that was all in the past now… In the center of the room, a gigantic circular table shone with an obsidian gleam. Around it were forty-one magnificent seats.

Most of them, however, were empty.

Once, all the seats had been filled, but now only two figures remained.

One wore an extravagant raven-black academic robe with purple and gold trim. The collar was perhaps a bit overembellished, but strangely, it suited the wearer.

The bare head of the figure in question had neither skin nor flesh—just bone. Reddish-black flames burned in his gaping eye sockets, and something like a black halo shone behind him.

The other one wasn’t human, either. More of an amorphous black blob, almost like coal tar. His constantly shifting surface meant that he had no fixed shape.

The former was an elder lich—an undead being that was what remained of a caster who had pursued magic ability to its extreme—and the most elite type: an overlord. The latter was an elder black ooze, which was a slime race that had some of the most powerful acid abilities in the game.

Both races occasionally appeared as monsters in the most difficult dungeons. The various types of overlords used the highest-level evil magic while the elder black ooze had the ability to corrode weapons and armor, so both were famously hated.

But these two weren’t monsters.

They were players.

The races players could choose from in Yggdrasil were split into three main categories: basic humanoid races (humans, dwarves, elves, and so on);

subhuman races, who weren’t pretty but performed better than humanoids (goblins, orcs, ogres, etc.); and grotesques, who had monster powers and got more ability points than other races but were penalized in other ways.

Including all the elite races, there was a total of seven hundred at the users’ disposal.

Naturally, overlords and elder black oozes were two of the elite grotesque races that players could become.

The overlord spoke without moving his mouth. Even for what had once been the pinnacle of DMMO-RPGs, it had still been impossible to animate expressions to align with conversation.

“It’s been a really long time, HeroHero. Even though it’s the last day Yggdrasil’s servers are open, I didn’t think you would actually come.”

“For real—long time no see, Momonga,” another adult male voice answered, but compared to the first, it sounded pretty lifeless.

“It’s been since you changed jobs IRL, so…how long ago was that? Two years?”

“Mm, yeah, about that. Geez, it’s been that long.…Damn. My sense of time is messed up from working so much overtime.”

“Sounds rough. Are you doing okay?”

“My health? It’s pretty much in tatters. Not doctor-visit level, but pretty close. Ugh. I really wanna just run away from it all. But I gotta eat, so I’m working my *** off and getting whipped like a slave.”

“Yikes…” The overlord Momonga leaned back to exaggerate his wince— this conversation was kind of killing the mood.

“It’s seriously awful.”

Momonga was already put off, but HeroHero’s follow-up sounded exactly as awful as he said things were.

Their gripes about their jobs in reality gathered steam: how their subordinates had no communication skills, how the spec documents were liable to change from one day to the next, how their bosses would grill them if they didn’t meet their quotas, how they could barely ever go home because there was too much work, their abnormal weight gain caused by the crazy hours they kept, the increasing number of pills they took.

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