Overlord - Prologue

Part 3

The members of the guild Ainz Ooal Gown — once known as the clan Nine’s Own Goal — gathered on the outskirts of Helheim, roughly one hundred meters away from the toxic fog-covered Poison Swamp, in a place called the Piercing Crystal Plains.

Much like the Poison Swamp, the Piercing Crystal Plains were a hazardous environment, covered in frozen vegetation that resembled crystal razors. These razors dealt damage with every step taken within the Plains, and they could damage players wearing Relic-class armor. In addition, mineralized monsters wandered through the plains, and anyone who did not use bludgeoning-type weapons would have a hard time dealing with them.

In any world — especially on the heteromorphic species’ home turf of Niflheim, Helheim and Muspelheim — things became more dangerous the further one went from the center of the world. In addition to the wandering monsters, the very terrain itself became a hazard.

Still, this was nothing for the members of Ainz Ooal Gown. Although certain countermeasures had to be taken, and though these countermeasures were not permanent, with them it was still possible to move at full speed through the Piercing Crystal Plains. In fact, they were making preparations on the plains.

Of course, this was not to say that they were not tense, or that they were careless.

After casting several layers of defensive magic, they used magically-created eyes to scout their surroundings. In addition, they used illusion magic of the highest tier, the 「Mirror World」 spell, to create a hemispherical screen which enclosed the members of the guild.

One could observe the outside world from inside the bubble without any problems, but from the outside, the inhabitants of the barrier were invisible, and people outside would only see the background. Aside from making the user harder to detect, the spell could also deflect a certain proportion of attacks directed at the occupants within.

Such extensive preparations were made not because they feared monsters, but because they were on guard against players of similar power to themselves. Not only was there no penalty for PKing heteromorphic species, there were even benefits for doing so. In fact, some powerful classes were unlocked by PKing heteromorphs, and although heteromorph hunting was not as common now as it was in the past, it was still a very real thing. Only a fool would lower their guard, even in a heteromorphic home world.

Momonga fiddled with the console by his hand. There he saw a list of guild members, along with their HP and MP gauges. At the top was Touch Me, followed by Nishiki Enrai, Wish III, Warrior Takemikazuchi, Momonga, Ancient One, Flatfoot, and Amanomahitotsu, the eight remaining founding members. After that were the nineteen who joined later: Peroroncino, Bukubukuchagama, Herohero, Blue Planet, Ulbert Alain Odle, Garnet, Bellriver, Variable Talisman, Nearata, Nuubou, Genjiro, Yamaiko, Whitebrim, Punitto Moe, Tabula Smaragdina, Beast King Mekongawa, Tigris Euphrates, Temperance and Slathan.

In total, there were 27 people — the full strength of Ainz Ooal Gown.

As he looked at the names, an indescribable feeling welled up within him and heat surged through his chest.

Amanomahitotsu the blacksmith was the leader of the guild’s crafters, who typically preferred to adventure by themselves. They were here now to take part in the guild’s first group event.

He had to thank them. It would be wrong not to do so.

However, on the other side of his elation was a hefty burden.

His stomach ached as he thought of what would happen if their maiden venture ended in failure. There would be no guarantee that they would ever adventure together again if that came to pass. As he thought of how Touch Me had struggled under this stress for so long, Momonga could not help but bow his head in respect.

Failure was not an option.

Momonga quietly took several deep breaths, cleared the screen away, forced himself to get it together and then approached one of the guild members.

“Nuubou-san, how are things going?”

“Hm? Ah, it’s fine. For now, I can say nobody’s spying on us through magical means.”

This conclusion came from Nuubou, who built his character as a divination specialist. He was also known as the “Eyes of Nine’s Own Goal”. His words guaranteed that there was no magical surveillance observing them. It would have taken an infiltrator of unprecedented ability to hide from his eyes.

“Also, there’s nobody spying on us via physical means, Momonga-san.”

That report came from Flatfoot and Nishiki Enrai, who had gone to reconnoiter the surroundings.

Though the assassin and ninja duo were not as good as pure scouting-type characters, no stealth- specialized character had evaded their eyes so far.

After taking their feedback into consideration, he could be certain that nobody was paying attention to this place.

Momonga looked around.

A lot of the people here had frightening appearances. The way they sat around the place looked like some sort of dark cabal conducting an evil ritual. However, all Momonga saw were the figures of veteran players.

“Then, everyone! Are you ready?”

As one, thumbs-up icons blossomed around them.

This was the signal that their preparations were complete. After all, there were nearly thirty of them, so individually asking if they were ready would waste a lot of time. In order to avoid that, this was how they had responded, ever since they had started out as a clan.

“Then let’s go. Advance party, we’ll leave the details to you.”

“OK~” replied Nishiki Enrai, leader of the scouting team.

After that everyone changed their equipment, stepping into the Poison Swamp once they were immune to poison.

The toxic areas in normal wetlands were scattered throughout the terrain, so one could simply go around the poisoned areas to reach the dungeon which was their objective. However, the detours involved would take a long time, so instead they chose to take the shortest path and cut straight through the toxic regions. The reason for that was because they were all working people, and thus wanted to avoid wasting time. There was also a father who laughed and said that despite the day off tomorrow, his family would kill him if he did not take care of them.

A system message appeared.

「Grenbera Swamp」

That was the only thing Momonga saw, but some of his comrades knew more about the region, and they raised their voices to inform the others.

“This is a huge patch of wetlands littered with poisonous marshes, controlled by the Tuvegs, who are immune to poison.”

Players received different pieces of additional information upon entering a new area, depending on the skills and abilities they possessed. For example, alchemists and herbalists, with their herbological skills, would learn about the various herbs they could harvest in the area.

“And then… huh, it’s nothing special. Monsters in residence — they’re about the same as what Nishiki-san discovered. There’s no information on rarities either… could it be hidden? Or maybe there’s no rare info? Which could it be?”

“There’s no way there’s no rare info, it must be hidden. You probably need to wade in until you’re covered in mud to find it. I feel it’s most likely in one of the Tuveg hamlets. Let’s try to swing by there and take it down as soon as possible. If there’re some undiscovered herbs there, we might be able to make a rare potion. Man, the game developers are insane. They make you scrounge for the ingredients for your potions… I’ve already made over 200 types of potions, but there’re still a lot which haven’t been discovered yet.”

“Aside from potions, there’re still a lot of undiscovered ores as well, right? The description on apoitakara says that it’s a type of rainbow ore, which means that only two of them have been found so far…”

“Well, the developers are one thing, but I think the game company’s mad as well. I mean, with all the content, you can play for a long time… but they seem to have forgotten the word restraint. They must have left the term ‘user friendly’ back at their main office.”

“Indeed. Speaking of the main office… the guy they sent over from our company’s head office a while back was terrible…”

“Uwah, sorry, let’s not talk about this. I seem to be having an allergic reaction to the word ‘company’… Should we make it a guild rule not to talk about the workplace? Maybe only allow it in the half an hour or so before you log off. You know, when you have to return to reality.”

Momonga chased away the words in his ears.

He did not know who had spoken last, but he agreed fully with him. He did not want to think about work. Whether you wanted it or not, tomorrow would come anyway.

As these dark thoughts slowly began to swallow Momonga, he decided to use the conversations around him to try and motivate himself. Therefore, he kept his ears open for anything game-related which the others might be talking about.

“—Knowledge-type skills, huh? I’ve been thinking about respeccing towards those. I’ve almost unlocked a class which uses special attacks derived from monster lore. Do you think my DPS would go up if I branched out from there?

DPS was an acronym for Damage Per Second.

It measured how much damage one could do in a second, and to attackers, it was the most important thing in the game. Theoretically speaking, one could create the ultimate weapon by embedding damage-increasing data crystals into a big weapon with high data capacity. However, weapons like that were unwieldy, and would result in fewer attacks due to the difficulty of using them. As a result, the wielder’s overall DPS would go down. No right-thinking attacker would even think of using a weapon like that.

In addition, as monsters went up in level, they gained all sorts of special abilities. At this level, they could greatly decrease any damage done to them. Therefore, it was quite common to require weapons made of special materials or with the appropriate elements to bypass these abilities.

“But that would mean you wouldn’t be as focused on attack power as you are now, right?”

“I’m thinking I could make up for it with an elemental weapon.”

“Ah, that’s not a bad idea, but then you’d really need those divine-class items, right? Wouldn’t that be difficult?”

“Is that so~? Well, it can’t be helped~ I wanted to experiment a little but it’s too troublesome…”

If one could make a second character in Yggdrasil, this sort of complaint would not exist. However, that was impossible in games like these. Experimenting with different classes was only possible by dying and losing levels.

Even if it was easier to gain levels in this game as compared to other DMMOs, it was still a time-consuming process. One would not go to that kind of trouble just to fool around.

Momonga often longed for a second character himself. He had heard people complaining about how unfair it was that one could not make another character in this game, and he personally agreed with them.

If he could, he would like to be a warrior, like Touch Me.

Although it was said that the warrior classes were limited by one’s real-world reflexes, that restriction only came into play during duels between top-class warriors. It was not a deciding factor during normal play.

Touch-san gave himself a scarf, but I think I’d like a big, flowy red cape… My sword would have to be huge, just like Warrior Takemikazuchi-san’s. I could swing it around stylishly.

Incidentally, Momonga had learned the warrior transformation spell, but it was not very useful, and so he had almost no chance to use it. In a party, each person divided the workload among themselves and did their part in order to achieve victory for the team. In order to do that, they had to excel at their assigned function.

Momonga was a back-liner, and when he went adventuring in a party, he was obliged to use magic that made a meaningful contribution to the group.

If he could not do that, then there was no point in playing in a group.

That being the case, if he were travelling alone — if he were playing solo, there was a good chance he could bring it into play.

However—

Momonga looked to his guildmates, quietly advancing through the poison swamp. He watched his friends chat as they walked, flitting from topic to topic.

He was suddenly lost in a memory of loneliness.

When the guild had still been a clan — although it had been a clan until recently— the only members had been working folk, oddly enough, and they had gathered to meet at night. While some of them had unusual jobs and thus kept odd hours — Bukubukuchagama the seiyuu being a prime example — for the most part, nobody would be online during the day.

Momonga would return straight home after work, log on ahead of everyone else, and then he would summon undead to protect himself and hire NPC mercenaries to hunt monsters. So technically speaking, he was used to playing alone.

However, he never felt lonely, because he was certain that someone else would log on. But if they were not around — if nobody logged on any more, what would he do?

Should he quit this guild, and join a new one?

Or should he recruit new members?

He disliked both options. It was not as though he was afraid of strangers. After all, he could get along normally with the people in his company — although they probably thought he was antisocial because he did not go drinking with them.

Still, he disliked having to make that choice.

This opinion was not born of logic, but his emotions. Therefore, he could not bring himself to accept those options.

“What’s wrong, Momonga-san? Are you low on nanomachines?”

Herohero was beside him.

“My nanomachines are fine. I topped them off before going online.”

“Really? That’s good, then. This may take a long time — although I’m not sure if that’ll be the case — but it would be a good idea to make sure you’re topped off before entering the dungeon. It would be bad if you were forcibly ejected at a critical moment. I’ve a friend in real life who was playing a different game, he was kicked out of the game during a guild ranking battle, and by the time he came back, his guild had lost and they reamed him out for it. And it wasn’t even his fault that they lost.”

“…That’s pretty scary.”

“I know our guild won’t be like that, but there are guilds like that out there. You know, the try hard types. I hate those picky guilds. Games are meant to be played, after all…Oh, what’s this? You look pretty suspicious, comrade. The type that Touch-san would arrest.”

“That’s mean, saying I’m suspicious,” Momonga smiled bitterly. “I’m just a guildmaster wondering about how we’re going to breach the dungeon soon, and it made me feel a little melancholy.”

“…Hahaha. Seems you’re worrying right from the start… However, if we manage to find data crystals loaded with rare data or artifacts, it’ll be worth it. Well, if you ask me, being able to actually clear an unknown dungeon in one shot would be a greater treasure than any of those.”

“Exactly. It’ll be an unforgettable memory.”

Halfway through their conversation, a squishy sound, as though one were walking in a pair of flooded long boots, came from the side.

“Oh, visibility is poor now.”

“Eh?”

“Looks like some mist just rolled in. Momonga-san, if you change your vision mode, you’ll see it.”

Momonga had cast the spell 「Widen Magic — Complete Vision」, which could pierce fog up to a distance of 200 meters ahead of him. This was why everything looked clear to him.

Although there was no reason for him to put himself at a disadvantage, he had a friend at his side, so there was no harm in doing as Herohero said and briefly disabling his magical vision.

He entered the command to change vision modes into the console.

In that moment, the world became a sea of cloudy white.

“Uoh!”

The difference between his expectations and reality forced a quiet gasp of surprise from him.

“Haha, scared? Actually, it’s been like this for a while now.”

An aura of wicked amusement seemed to be coming from Herohero. It might even have qualified as satisfaction.

“Come on, give me a break.”

Although the bitter smile he was showing seemed to imply nothing was the matter, the fact was that it had touched a nerve. The terror of not being able to see anything aside, the shock blended with the lingering dark thoughts from earlier, and he felt as though he was alone again.

Momonga operated his console, and restored his vision.

It seemed everyone in his party could see through the mist. Or rather, that was to be expected. They had been through all sorts of adventures to get to their current levels, so everyone had already made the necessary preparations for this endeavour.

Just then, Momonga felt something was amiss, and asked:

“Still, Herohero-san, how did you come to have human eyesight?”

Herohero was a slime. Slimes used a sort of motion detection sense to learn about their surroundings in place of ordinary vision, so he should not have perceived the world like a human did.

“Ah, I equipped a magic item that gave me that ability. The innate motion detection ability which all slimes possess is very useful, but it’s only effective within a limited radius. I can’t see beyond 100 meters, which is pretty spooky if you ask me. I’d be in trouble if someone attacked me from outside that range, so I decided to give myself something to let me see normally.”

“Any advantage comes with a weakness. It’s how this game works.”

“The good balances out the bad. Oh, I’m picking up something on my vibration sense.”

He turned to where the black tentacle was pointing, and saw the outline of a massive worm.

It was a vast purple worm, over ten times the width of a human torso, its surface gleaming wetly.

These worms moved in packs, so it would be troublesome if it detected them.

The group suddenly halted. The magic casters pointed their fingers at the worm, while the warriors readied their ranged weapons.

If it spotted them, they were ready to destroy it in an instant, before it could summon its friends.

Momonga had a spell ready on his console, and took the stance he always did for attack spells. While Momonga’s usual role was to buff and debuff people, it would be more effective to attack directly given their numbers now.

After several seconds had passed, it seemed that their enemy had not spotted them, and slowly slithered back into the swamp.

“I’m not one for sneaking about. I want to cut a swathe through them,” Ulbert complained from somewhere in the distance.

“Ulbert-san, please don’t waste your MP. You should spend it all on the boss.”

Ulbert’s character build revolved around World Disaster, a class with incredible firepower. On top of that, he took levels in classes which further specialized in offensive ability. By attack power alone, he was easily among the top five in the guild, but he had a weakness. Though he had an ample supply of MP his consumption rate outstripped even that, in other words, he burned through MP quickly.

One could say that the difficulty of a dungeon expedition was directly related to how much MP he could bring to face the boss.

“Aw, I was just kidding. I know that. I’ve been saving up all this time, haven’t I? This is the maiden adventure of Ainz Ooal Gown, no? I’ll make sure it all works out!”

He clenched his right fist to show his sincerity. Momonga could feel his motivation, which was quite uncharacteristic of him.

“Ah, but I wouldn’t mind if you gave me some MP. That way, we could blow right through them and still have enough for a grand display at the boss.”

“Hm? Were you talking to me?”

Yamaiko was a magic caster who was adept at spirit-type magic, and she had further specialized within that field as a healer, which granted her curative spells. If it was her, she could transfer MP to another person via the appropriate spell.

“It’s not a bad idea, actually. Do you mind if I do it when the time comes? I can use staves and wands for healing anyway.”

“I don’t trust wands and staves for healing during a boss battle, and besides, you run out of juice fast, Yamaiko. If you want to transfer MP, I’d rather you get it from someone else.”

Yamaiko’s role in one sentence was that of a defensive healer. With her innate defenses and regeneration, combined with a build which emphasised those two qualities, she could even serve as a tank of sorts. Even when surrounded by the enemy, she could still heal her allies.

That said, being able to off-tank was a far cry from being able to main-tank.

Her weapon of choice, a huge gauntlet, could not do much damage. In exchange, it had an increased ability to inflict knockback on her foes. The fact that she used a weapon which put distance between herself and her enemies was ample proof that she was a healer at the core.

In this sense, she had two weaknesses.

The first was that she did not have much MP. Of course, she had more than enough for general healing, but it was insufficient when one factored in the need to cast buff spells and other things. The other weakness was that her attack power was very low, in exchange for improved regeneration.

With these in mind, she could be said to be the final defensive line of the group. Her role was to off-tank if the battle line started to crumble, heal everyone’s wounds and revive dying comrades.

“Still, why are we speaking so quietly?”

Ulbert and Yamaiko looked at each other's’ faces, and confusedly replied, “I have no idea.”

It would seem that they had unconsciously lowered their volume since they were trying to be stealthy. After all the monsters could detect them with their programmed senses — vision, hearing, smell, and magic. Because of that, it was not wrong to crouch and speak softly.

However — those considerations were only applicable at low levels. Once players reached high levels, they could use a variety of spells and skills to conceal the entire party and infiltrate together. Given the abilities they had been using up till now, there was no need to sneak around.

When the worm from just now had appeared, the others only raised their weapons because they saw someone do it first and thought, “me too”.

“Maybe it’s just because visibility is better here.”

“Ah. Yes, that’s right. Like how you’d feel, leaving the house in just your underwear.”

Although Ulbert’s meaning was quite subtle, Momonga managed to get it, more or less.

“Mm, it sounds kind of wrong, but I guess that’s how it is.”

“I don’t get it.”

Keeping quiet for reasons they did not quite understand, the group followed the pioneers into the swamp.

They encountered many Tuvegs along the way, but they carefully went around the detection radius of the bipedal frog-monsters. Their attitude was different from just now, because some monsters had the ability to see through concealment, and the Tuvegs were such monsters.

Of course, they used magic to improve their mobility, but the journey still took a long time, given that they had to detour around the Tuvegs. However, they could finally see something different on the other side of the swamp.

This was their destination, the dungeon. Part of it looked like a small island

“So that’s it…”

After overlaying the map drawn by Nishiki Enrai on top of the current area minimap, it was easy to ascertain that they had arrived at their objective.

If they relaxed at this point, there was a possibility that guardian monsters might ambush them. It was not uncommon for the monsters to employ the old trick of hiding underground.

Given the malicious nature of the Yggdrasil developers, this might be the cue for a Tuveg boss to jump out and draw everyone into a full-scale battle. Or rather, Momonga had seen such things before in game videos, where the result was a total party kill.

This was why the scouts had such an important job.

First, Momonga made sure that there was nothing that would be triggered by the presence of the undead nearby.

Then, he accessed the hotkeys on his console, selecting the number 8 out of the numbers 1 to 10. This 8 represented 8th tier spells.

A complex menu composed of layers of ring-shaped pages appeared before him. There were 12 spells in each of the four rings, for a total of 48 spells.

In this way, he could hotkey up to 480 spells.

Normally, a level 100 magic caster would learn around 300 spells over the course of the game. Even cash items could only increase that number by another 100. However, there were more than a few players who looked at the extra empty spaces on the shortcut menu and took it as a challenge from the developers.

The ability to skilfully navigate these menus — fully understanding and memorizing the effects and proper application of each spell — was one of the biggest factors in one’s ability as a magic caster.

Just as warriors were affected by their real-life reflexes, magic-using classes relied heavily on their memory.

Momonga fluidly navigated the menus.

Although he would not browse his spells so leisurely in combat, he had the luxury of taking his time for now. As he went through the pages of spells by rote, he recalled the order in which the spells were arranged, an order which he had forced himself to memorize.

He tapped the fourth ring, the outermost one.

Out of the ring of 12 spells that became larger than the others, he tapped on one of them.

“「Remote Viewing」.”

There was no need to tap any other hotkeys, given that he was not planning to apply any metamagic enhancements to the spell.

As the spell was cast, an arcane eye — a magic sensor — appeared. There were other members of the guild who had already released similar sensory organs, so there was no need for Momonga to do that. Still, Momonga was the best undead detector in the guild, so just in case, he deftly manipulated the arcane sensor and sent it toward the small island.

His right hand held the control stick for the sensor’s movements, while he used his left hand to direct the sensor’s field of view. Missing a huge chunk of one’s visual field was frightening, to say the least, but it was fine now, because he had trustworthy allies nearby.

The wall which separated the island from the swamp was overgrown with moss and broken in many places, and could no longer serve its purpose as a barrier. One could see the inside through the gaps.

There were remains there — the remains of a tomb.

The destruction was thorough, even the tombstones had been smashed. There seemed to be something like a mausoleum in the middle, but it was beginning to collapse. There was a shrine of some sort as well, but it was little more than a ruin. Not even monsters could hide within it. At a glance, there was nothing else which was suspicious.

Still, after viewing this scene, Momonga seemed even more tense than before.

In games, tombs would almost certainly be inhabited by undead creatures. Yggdrasil was no exception, which was why Momonga had cast this spell.

If there were any undead in there, he would definitely find them.

With that resolve steeling his movements, he turned the control stick, sending the arcane eye in a full orbit of the small island. However, there were no undead reactions.

“No sign of monsters. No sign of incorporeal beings either.”

“Same here. No signs of moving objects above or below ground.”

“No undead reactions either.”

“Do you think a boss is going to pop out?”

“Or a trap? Multiple summoning-type traps at once are hard to deal with.”

“In any case, I’ve used my trump card once already, out of four times a day. At the very least, there are no magical traps here.”

The other guild members had already examined the island in their own ways, and the reports slowly filtered in. They paused for a moment to look at each other, and then began heading out for the small island. The rear guard team remained on alert, keeping an appropriate distance from the delving team in case something should happen.

“…So this is the sort of dungeon where the real fight starts after we step into that broken-down old building?”

“No, it should be once we pass through the mausoleum and enter the underground, right? After all, we’re still quite close to the swamp.”

“Well, that’s pretty meta…. In any case, keep your sensors away from the building so you don’t trip any flags. After we set foot on the island, it’ll be a different matter. Then, Momonga-san, please do the honors.”

“Well then…”

The moment he set foot on the ground from the swamp, text appeared in his field of view, just like when he had entered the swamp. However, this time, beside the words Great Tomb of Nazarick was an icon which indicated an unexplored dungeon.

“Nazarick, huh… I wonder which mythology it came from?”

“No, I’ve never heard of this before.”

The prompt answer came from Tabula Smaragdina, part of the rear guard. They were steadily catching up with the advance party, and establishing a formation against possible enemy attack.

“It’s not Latin or Greek either. Ah well, not all names in Yggdrasil are from mythology anyway. This is probably one of those exceptions. Also, there’s no special info about this place either.”

Just then, Nuubou stepped forward and cast a spell. He should probably be able to scan the area with no problems.

Several second later, he informed the group of his findings.

“—There’s nothing, Momonga-san. I sent my arcane eye into the central mausoleum, but there were no contacts on the enemy sonar.”

“In other words, this is a safe area, then?”

“Still, those shitty developers built this place, there might be some sort of timed effect waiting for us…”

Many people indicated their approval of the scathing criticism. Most players thought poorly of the Yggdrasil developers.

“Scouting party, is everything alright? If it is, then I believe the dungeon is in the basement of that building. Then, shouldn’t we change our team lineups for dungeon exploration?”

“I’ll make a shelter for us, then.”

Blue Planet the druid raised his shovel in response to the suggestion from Punitto Moe, the strategist.

Then, he cast the 10th-tier divine spell, 「Nature’s Shelter」, and everyone entered the bunker which had sprung forth from the earth.

The massive doors swung open easily.

The roof of the vast chamber they entered was just like the outside, the sky spreading endlessly above them.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while. It looks like anyone could see everything inside from above, and it kind of unsettles me.”

“True, I mean, even though they say it’s so you’ll know if the enemy is above you or something, I’m still uneasy about it. Still, I heard this thing can remain standing after taking a hit from super-tier magic—”

“Ah, that’s not true. I’ve seen a video, it’s been breached by a 「Sword of Damocles」 before.”

“That’s an orbital weapon, right? But isn’t that an exception to the rule? After all, it’s super-tier magic designed to target structures. Bit unfair to use it as a comparison, right? Shouldn’t you compare it to other super-tier spells?”

“All right. Everyone, your attention please~”

The idle chatter died down in the wake of Punitto Moe’s voice.

“We will now begin assigning parties for the dungeon expedition…”

In response to this, Tabula Smaragdina put up his hand in opposition.

“Hang on! Don’t you think it’s a little early for that? I think we should stay in our current movement parties and go as deep as possible before changing up. If we break up now, we’ll need to dispel our whole-party spells.. In addition, we should be able to go through the dungeon in this state, with only a little more trouble with the mid bosses, right?”

“That’s certainly possible, but shouldn’t we be more careful? Besides, there’s a pretty good chance those shitty developers will spring a raid boss on us.”

The other guild members began discussing the matter with each other, as though Punitto Moe and Tabula Smaragdina had given them the cue to start talking. However, Momonga, who had stopped to think early on, felt that he could combine their ideas, despite the differences in the details.

And then Punitto Moe, who knew that this would end up going nowhere, turned to look straight at Momonga.

“What do you think, Momonga-san? Should we change party composition before we enter the dungeon, or go in and take things one step at a time?”

This was one hell of a curveball. Neither side was absolutely correct, and there were pros and cons to both courses of action. In all likelihood, everyone would agree with whichever option he went with.

However, he was uncomfortable enough even when he thought of picking the right course of action. The very idea of choosing wrongly made his stomach start to ache and the burden on his shoulders felt even heavier.

This was the burden a guildmaster had to bear, and personally, Momonga would prefer to decline on deciding for them. However, that would not be possible.

Momonga turned the matter over and over in his mind.

At this point, Touch Me the clan leader would have eagerly led everyone forward. So, should Momonga the guild leader imitate him?

However, Momonga’s chest ached.

The last time that happened, there was an argument, which resulted in a person leaving.

Although Momonga deeply respected Touch Me’s leadership, that memory stuck in his craw. Or no, for all he knew, that incident weighed heavily on Touch Me as well. That might have been why he abdicated his position as leader, and put forward a successor with a different personality from his own.

If that was the case, then Momonga should not do as Touch Me would have done.

“—Then, we’ll go by majority vote. Everyone, those in favor of changing parties please come to my right, and those in favor of carrying on without any changes please proceed to my left.”

After some quiet discussion, everyone moved toward their respective sides.

Momonga counted their numbers, and came to a conclusion.

“It seems there’s more people who want to move on. Then let’s go. Also, everyone, I wish to use majority vote as the standard procedure for resolving guild-wide problems like these. If a tie results, we’ll have the suggesters play rock-scissors-paper… though that might be difficult for some of us here, so maybe some other form of tiebreaker might be better. In any event, I would like to settle disputes in this way. Does anyone have any objections, or a better idea?”

Nobody spoke up.

Was it because they had no objections, or was it because they felt uncomfortable about voicing their thoughts?

Things like this happened at work as well. When asked “what do you think?”, few people would speak up. Sometimes, the reason for their silence was not because they had nothing to say, but because they were afraid that voicing their opinions would lead to them being put in charge of any courses of action born from those words, or because they were afraid of having their ideas rejected, and so on.

Momonga would need to speak with people in private after these meetings, and made a mental note in his mind.

“Then, everyone, let’s make a move.”

After indicating their acknowledgement, everyone headed outside.

Although the losing side might be dissatisfied, nobody would throw a childish tantrum in the face of a majority decision. One could say that it was expected of adults… no, that was not quite right.

There were many kinds of adults as well. Momonga knew of adults who had never really grown up, like children. The fact that none of them could be found here was due to Touch Me’s good judgement in picking friends.

At this moment, Momonga was once more keenly aware of the gravity of a guildmaster’s position.

And then, Momonga heard a conversation which dispelled his unease.

“Aw man! I thought you were one of us, Flatfoot-san!”

“Nah, I like them flat, but not necessarily lolis.”

“You’re one to talk, naming your weapon Tsururinpettan[4]… Or are you referring to something else? Could it be you like men’s chests, Flatfoot-san?”

“M-men’s chests?”

“Am I wrong? Don’t you like them flat? If that’s the case, then men’s chests would be… are you a homo?”

Peroroncino!

Momonga suppressed the urge to yell at him. His introspection from earlier was nowhere to be found. Still, Momonga understood his friend’s personality… or rather, his fetishes. With him around, it would not be a surprise if this sort of thing was brought up.

Should he get himself together, and lend a helping hand to the dumbfounded Flatfoot?

Just as Momonga was waffling over this decision, he heard another voice.

“…People might laugh it off at a drinking party, but do you really think you can shout this sort of thing out just because you’re among friends?”

It was Bukubukuchagama. A premonition of dread filled Momonga as he noticed that the pitch of her voice was a bit low. However, for some reason, her little brother Peroroncino had not realized this yet.

The truth was, Flatfoot had already backed away from Peroroncino.

“Well, it’s because you’re flat yourself, Aneki, that men don’t—”

“—Oi.”

That cold voice carried a hint of impending doom, like a guillotine blade slicing down.

“Oi, brat. Do you want me to tell everyone about what you did when you were twelve?”

“…I, I’m very sorry for what I said.”

“…Hey, did I give you permission to shut up? Did that sound like a joke to you? Hah? You’d better—”

Sensing that something terrible was about to happen, Momonga hurriedly interposed himself between the two of them, forcing them apart with his body.

“Chagama-san, Chagama-san. Calm down a little, please.”

“Ah— Momonga-san.”

Bukubukuchagama’s voice seemed to have reverted back to normal, but the flames of her wrath were not completely extinguished yet. This was probably a small respite at best, so Momonga quickly continued:

“Well, ah. We’ll be heading into the dungeon soon. I think it would be best if you let go of your anger, right?”

After seeing Momonga pleading with his palms pressed together, Bukubukuchagama — presumably — relaxed her shoulders.

“That’s right, that’s right. It’s not that I don’t understand how you feel, Bukubukuchagama-san, but this is probably for the best. Thank you.”

With that, Flatfoot came to Momonga’s side and put his hands together as well. Now that the two of them had spoken up, Bukubukuchagama had a hard time getting mad. Therefore, she sighed in an exaggerated way.

“There’s no need for you two to apologize since you did nothing wrong. Ahhh, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I can’t believe I let that dummy get under my skin. Sorry about that.”

With that, she turned her face — presumably — toward Peroroncino.

“Oi, dumbass brother of mine. Remember this well — mind your manners, even if you get along with people. Especially when you crack your dirty jokes. Don’t embarrass me just because you get excited around friends. Got it?”

“…Yes.”

“Shouldn’t you be thanking Momonga-san and Flatfoot-san?”

“Mm. Thank you, guys. Sorry about that, I think I got a bit carried away.”

Peroroncino’s words were devoid of energy. His subdued, obedient way of speaking made him sound like a dog which had been hit by a shock baton.

After hearing her brother’s apology, Bukubukuchagama left the bunker.

Of the three people watching her leave, Flatfoot was the first to break the silence.

“…Haaahh, your big sis is scary. Super scary. Scarier than my department chief. She really knows how to change her voice.”

“She’s not a bad person. And I don’t know if it’s because she’s a seiyuu, but she has a really powerful voice. Its impact is even greater in Yggdrasil, since our faces don’t move in the game…”

“You sure are tough, Momonga-san.”

Flatfoot placed his hand over his heart. There was no heartbeat for him to feel, but it had affected him there.

Momonga fully understood what he meant by that.

Games like Yggdrasil — DMMORPGs — were all very realistic. As a result, it was not at all unusual to feel that this was reality.

Of course, the fact that expressions did not change, or because there was no sense of taste and so on were handy indicators that this was still a game world.

“I’m not that tough. Still, I felt like I was standing in front of a scary boss.”

The two of them chuckled quietly.

Momonga smiled — though his face did not move — and then urged the other two onward.

“Alright, let’s move out! We’re the only ones left.”