This base originally contained 3000 levels of NPC Data Storage, capable of being expanded through the purchase of premium items from the in-game shop. It stuck out diagonally from the surface of a ma.s.sive arctic wasteland, covered in snow and ice, surrounded by legions of frozen blue zombie-like undead unique to the World of Niflheim.

Unlike many other iterations of Zombies, these creatures had higher intelligence levels, greater strength and a variety of skills that allowed them capable of using weapons.

The base itself had a higher difficulty level than the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Two guilds, his own Blue Citadel, and another fairly smaller guild fought over this base. Their fighting eventually entered the base itself, forcing them not only to fight one another but also a powerful boss.

Ultimately the opposing Guild was eliminated within the next fifteen minutes of entering the first floor. Continuing on through the interior of the Dungeon, his guild charged through with him in the lead. Using his World Champion and World Disaster Cla.s.ses to give them an edge, capable of solo fighting a number of the first bosses on the lower floors.

He had known teamwork, he had learned how to be better at fighting monsters and players, all because of his previous affiliation with another guild.

Ainz Ooal Gown was founded by a group of friends and lead by a later co-worker. As the son of a prominent Corporation Chairman, Ainz Ooal Gown had been the place he called family for about five years starting near the end of his expensive high school education. A couple of years later when he finally turned eighteen years old, he gained a management position, overlooking Suzuki Satoru's workplace.

Not long after that, he met the love of his life in person, Bukubukuchagama, also known as Kazeumi k.u.mi through her personal agent.

k.u.mi was a voice actress who often voices loli characters and was the older sister of Peroroncino. He bought all of the media she was involved in, including posters that featured her characters and various other limited collector's items. At one point he even used a three-dimensional printer to print out a scale model of herself to put on his nightstand.

Sometimes he felt he was a little too obsessed with her work, in everything she did. The two of them got along well and they began going out outside of the game.

Whenever they weren't working or playing YGGDRASIL, that was when they were together. With his funds, he was even able to put together a secondary DMMO suite for her to use whenever she came over, so they could play together.

As Suzuki's supervisor, they often talked about the game, even though they couldn't talk about the real world inside of it. It was a great way not only to pa.s.s the time but to stay interested in work. Though that didn't necessarily stop them from feeling overworked by the end of the day.

Either way, it moved much faster to be working with a friend, allowing him to get through the day with relative calm. On the outside, he had always seemed mature, sometimes callous, despite his apparent age in the workplace.

Unlike Suzuki however, he was not paid by Salary, but rather hourly due to being a relatively high skilled worker with a higher educational level than most others employed in the same office.

His happiness came to an end, unfortunately, four years before the end of YGGDRASIL. His personal terminal was hacked by an activist who wanted to target his father and family. Thanks to this a scandal ruined everything.

Nude images of his girlfriend, a voice actress, leaked out onto the web. Images that he was supposed to delete after receiving them, images that never should've been on a networked interface. Kazeumi lost all trust in him, publically humiliated, she ended it with him which utterly destroyed him. For him, his life ended in both worlds in which he adored despite how bleak one was compared to the other.

The Vigor that kept him going, motivated to do just about anything in the game, was drained. He drowned himself in his work and eventually stopped signing into YGGDRASIL for a month. It felt nearly impossible for him to move on from a relations.h.i.+p that spanned a number of years.

Immediately after returning he unexpectantly left Ainz Ooal Gown, unable to remain in the same guild as his ex. He founded a new guild within the same week, formed from a number of other high tier heteromorphic players he poached or recruited while they were without a guild.

As he had drowned his life in work, he changed routes and drowned himself within the game. Not only did he acquire World Champion from the official tournament of Niflheim, but also the World Disaster due to his cla.s.s duality.

His continued contributions to his guild continued to grow, and grow. Even after obtaining the Citadel, he created the Floor Guardians with the help of his most elite five members. Wasting money, he also did what the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown chose to do, and used purchased gacha items in large numbers.

Raids against his guild began, but none of them were able to get pa.s.sed the fourth floor. It was still at a higher difficulty than the Great Tomb of Nazarick, if not even higher than before.

Whenever members were online, they would often join the NPCs in the fights against the enemy invaders. Even he joined them in PvP, which often caused complaints due to his having both World Disaster and World Champion Cla.s.ses.

It wasn't hard for him to fight, having learned from his old friends, he single-incidentally turned his own guild into one of the rivals to that of Ainz Ooal Gown. Yet even then, he felt empty. There had been so much to consume, to build upon, and yet... His motivation began to slip.

A year before the end of the game began to end, members of his Guild began to leave. Most of them giving him their gear and personal items as a sign of resignation and respect.

He simply stored them away in the Citadel's treasury, he didn't care as much as he did when he was once part of 'something' bigger than just a Guild.

Without Ainz Ooal Gown, he had very little to talk about with his friend at work. Things began to slow down, and as the last day of YGGDRASIL was coming about... He received a message of Reconciliation from k.u.mi and for a brief moment, he thought he had regained everything, everything that he had lost.

Then before he knew it, as he engrained this new memory into his mind, everything disappeared as the server clock reached 0:00:00. The HUB was gone, the hot bar was gone, but he was too mentally occupied with what had transpired moments before.

Now, he was standing in front of a small girl with fierce dark blue eyes and short blonde hair. She was pet.i.te and clearly afraid. It was something he wasn't used to seeing as the game itself didn't show emotional expressions on the faces of Players or even the NPCs.

He had just declared she was his prisoner, and that he wasn't going to release her from paralysis.

What in the world was he doing? He kept a stern and cold expression, his eyes exploring her face for a brief moment before out of nowhere, he plucked her right off her feet.

Like a cardboard cutout, Jakku tucked her under his arm after clipping her cloak back into place. He didn't hesitate to begin walking in the direction of the entrance to the Labyrinth, curved trunks and branches forming an archway ahead of them. He could hear her rate of breathing increase, along with heart rate. He liked its sound, despite the fact that it screamed out how scared she was that he was going to tear her to bits.

Jakku pursed his lips as he didn't seem at all slowed by her weight. Not only was she short, but she was also rather portable, in a way... Fun-sized. "Your name is Neia, yes?" While his tone was polite, it never lost the sternness or the blatant cold feeling to it.

Hearing him asking for a confirmation on her name, she gulped and nodded. "Y-Yes," she didn't like being manhandled, but she really wanted out of this position.

If he took her too far into wherever this was, she was sure she'd be trapped or even eaten alive.

"Where are you from, in the Holy Roble Kingdom?" He'd ask with a plain and dry tone, it hardly sounded like an interrogation, but he was sure the answers would come to him either way.

"Hoburns, the Holy Capital," she kept her words short and to the point. She didn't necessarily want to give too much information, but she wasn't going to lie either. A member of the Paladin Order had sacrificed her to this... Creature, whatever he was, a being who could paralyze her without killing her or stopping her breathing.

"Still never heard of it," Jakku clacked his teeth together in slight annoyance to this fact. He had no idea what was going on outside of his place, nor who was outside, let alone where he was.

These people didn't look like natives from the world in which his base was settled. They also didn't seem to be like any sort of character he had seen before. Especially with the whole emotional spectrum, tied to the new senses he was getting.

There was no way in h.e.l.l he was capable of feeling this girl's tunic in the game, but he was. He was even tempted to feel more, but the idea of hearing Buku's voice again stopped him.

"Who is the leader of your Kingdom?"

"The Holy Queen, Calca Bessarez," she stared up at him warily, though to him it looked like she was just glaring daggers at him with those fierce eyes of hers.

Shaking his head lightly hearing her words, he once more had no idea who she was talking about. He had never heard of a Guild Leader with that name, or anything similar to it. "Calca? Like Calculus? What kinda name is that...?"

Clenching her jaw the best she could, she gave him a once over as that is all she could do, "You would insult the Holy Queen? Have you no Sanct.i.ty? You are a holy man, are you not?"

Coming to a stop as they entered a forked path, his gaze matched hers for a few seconds before looking to the greyish-blue lifeless sky above. "A holy man? Just because I am a Battle Priest, does not make me a Holy Man."

After a brief moment, what looked like a woman clad in red armor could be seen flying overhead with a pair of draconic wings sprouting out from her back.

Neia held her breath, never having seen such a sight, though she had heard of the humanoid Dragon Queen of the Dragon Kingdom who could cast Wild Magic.

Could this person up above them be the same? Though they weren't, there was no way of her knowing. She simply waited until the being pa.s.sed.

A Dragonoid and much like the man who held her gave off a Holy Aura of sorts. She had enthralling crimson hair with s.h.i.+ned l.u.s.trously, accompanied by das.h.i.+ng deep blue sapphire eyes. The woman even had fair skin and light freckles that weren't even visible from a distance.

They however just continued to pa.s.s overhead, a number of high dragons following her above the treetops. It was as if they were patrolling the general area, but mostly the forest itself.

Once the redhead was out of sight, he looked forward again, and went marching on down the right pathway. That was of course after looking down at Neia as she let her held breath swiftly escape from her mouth with a gasp for air.

"That's not healthy, you know."

Blinking up at him, Neia wasn't expecting health advice.

Her eyes began to travel, about the direction her face was stuck looking in. The trees were rather uniform, though some of them had faces carved into them while others didn't. There were even some pumpkins that had faces and candles inside of them randomly sewn along with the oversized roots.

They were unlike any trees she had seen before, especially the ones with faces, as it reminded her of treants written about in books. "Beast! Where are you taking me?"

"Silence girl, before I bite out your tongue," Jakku looked down at her again as he continued walking, both of them hearing the trees s.h.i.+ft about behind them. The maze was capable of changing itself, like mixing up a puzzle.

Now afraid of him once more, she even started to believe they were indeed treants that surrounded them now due to the sound of movement. If she listened to his words, she wouldn't lose her tongue... That was what he was leading her to believe, yet his hands remained gentle.

After about thirty minutes to an hour of being carried, she could feel her legs and arms becoming free. Except, she didn't want to move in fear that he would cut her down before she had the chance to escape.

Then suddenly she found that they were now standing in a different biome all together. Behind them was the forest, but in front of them looked like a desert wasteland with ma.s.sive sandstone walls leading into another maze of sorts.

The smell of toxic tar and sulfur farts reached their senses, immediately causing her to squirm within his arm. This definitely alerted him that she was capable of movement, but he had already known the cooldown of the spell he used.

"Can I put you down without you running away?" She was trapped, there was no getting away. However, he wanted to make sure she wasn't going to kill herself by trying in the first place.

"You have me cornered Jakku-dono... With all my might, I would likely die before I can return to my homeland, wherever that may be... This place, was that archway, a gate to another realm?"

"Welcome to Hel's Citadel," snorted Jakku as a reply to her question which immediately caused her to pale. She definitely didn't get the reference, which made it all the more hilarious in his eyes.

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"H-h.e.l.l!?" She was shaking under his arm before he dropped her to the dirty sand-covered dirt between the seams of the two biomes. She had landed on her s.h.i.+ns and forearms, before pus.h.i.+ng herself up to stand on her knees. Those sharp eyes of hers looking over the new landscape in a mix of utter terror and awe.

From where they stood now though, they could see a singular tower reaching up to the skies above. and abruptly vanis.h.i.+ng as if the sky was really a ceiling.

"Not the h.e.l.l you're thinking about," he placed a hand her head of blonde locks, giving her pats.

Still shaken, she looked up at him with widened eyes, "What is this place then? Don't lie to me!"

"It is a place that I built," the man retorted with a sneer as he lightly gave her head a shove, but not enough to send her to the ground. Like a weighted punching bag, she swayed back into place without bothering to break eye contact now as she kept them wide open. "A place you, the betrayed, now have the honor of seeing... But may end up never leaving."

"What are you... Some kind of G.o.d?" The idea of never leaving this place, made her want to shrink away. Her mother, her father, she wanted to see them again. They were her everything, her world, her aspirations. "Or some sort of demon wolf?"

"Hehe... I say, You're not too wet behind the ears, for a human." A small grin formed over his lips hearing her words. She had called him a G.o.d for having created such a scenery and the things within it. "I am the Divine G.o.d of Wolves and Shadows, and you my dear are my prey. What will I do with you?"

Hearing him speak of her as his prey, she immediately sprung to her feet, her hand moving to her sword only to pause. The squire could clearly recall how he destroyed a holy sword with his bare hands, he was not susceptible to her weapon.

Her hands fell to her sides, her eyes gazing to the sand, imagining her carca.s.s sewn across it. "Nothing, I am not capable of fighting for my freedom, or outrunning a beast as fast as a G.o.d." Her eyes narrowed upon him now with a sense of true fierce integrity, "What will you do with me?"

"I do believe I'm in need of a Squire," his head pitched down towards her tiny form, "You who have been betrayed by your fellow Paladin, your overseers, will you a.s.sist me?"

A self-proclaimed G.o.d had asked her to a.s.sist him, asking for her to be his squire. This was a chance to escape, but at the same time, it gave her a chance to really prove herself. She stared up at the man-beast who had chased off the other Holy Knights.

"Only if you answer me this, as the being who created this place... What is your true name... G.o.d of Shadows?" Though skeptical of the claim, this realm in which she could see was stretching on toward the horizon and he had made it.

"Fenrir, I am Fenrir..." He adopted the name of a famed Wolf from Norse Mythology who was ultimately the child of the G.o.d Loki and giantess Angrboda.