Hachiman frowned.
He had been following leads all day, dressed up in a mask and with a voice changer acting under the name of Jaldabaoth, a demon lord exacting righteous vengeance upon the sinners of the world. Parts of his old personality had began to resurface, and he had even begun concocting elaborate speeches on the fly.
At least he hadn't started flourishing a cape. Yet.
He had however, gotten a little overboard with summoning demons. He now had about twenty of them. He and his team would appear before their victims out of nothing and would vanish almost as quickly as they had come leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.
They were all of little use though, as he had now reached a dead end which his demonic army could not bypass.
In other words, the trail had gone cold, even for someone with magical means of interrogation.
Surprisingly, it had lead him to the company that developed Yggdrasil.
Bellriver didn't work for that company, but he had learned that nine employees who had worked at the company had died under mysterious circumstances. Their deaths had been explained away as a suicide, but that was far from the truth. Of course, nine people working in the same company committing suicide simultaneously on the same day was in itself implausible, but what was the truth then? What had been the truth? Bellriver knew, but had died before he could tell Hachiman the full story. Bellriver had actually worked for a news reporting agency, and had been ordered the quash the story before it could be released to the public. But, he had on the side still continued investigating it and when it had been found out that he had gotten too close to the truth, he had been taken care of. And it seemed the secret had died with him.
None of the others he had interrogated had any idea as to what the truth was.
And as such, he had ended up here. In the offices of those who had developed the game in the first place.
Only to find everyone dead.
They had no injuries on them. A fire had broken out, but as far as he could tell they had not asphyxiated. It looked as if they had simply dropped dead without any apparent cause.
He frowned. There must have been some employees or higher-ups who hadn't been here. There were also definitely databases on their servers, but despite all his magical powers he couldn't break into a computer. That was one thing that his supernatural powers could not accomplish. If there was someone alive he could Charm them into opening the databases, but with everyone dead there was nothing he could do.
Just as he was contemplating this, a door suddenly slammed open and four uniformed officers barged in holding special grade weapons. Kenpeitai, Hachiman assumed.
There had been a time when he had admired them- had even considered joining them back when he was little- the idea of being part of a special forces unit seemed so cool. In his eyes, they were kind of like Batman, a superhero he had adored when he had been little.
Speaking of Batman, it reminded him of that one time he had been playing Yggdrasil. Touch Me had entered the guild base and told him excitedly about this player who had been going around dressed up as Superman. Hachiman remembered once fighting a monk build who wore an orange outfit and long black spiky hair, so this sort of behavior was not unheard of in Yggdrasil. Apparently Touch Me's favorite superhero was Superman, and that had led to an argument between them about who was the better superhero. Granted, them arguing was nothing new, but this was one of the few arguments that Hachiman could look back at fondly.
Anyway, he had wanted to become one of the Kenpeitai until he read the numerous stories about their abuses of power. None of them were ever confirmed of course, but the rumors were always there, and as he got older he realized they were all nothing more than cogs in the machine.
They didn't even notice him though, instead turning their weapons randomly around, wondering which of the twenty odd or so demons they should point their weapons at.
One of them even spoke up, though his voice cracked, "Freeze! Japense Secret Service, Kenpeitai- we order you to-"
Though Hachiman didn't know it, the man had gotten his order of words completely wrong. But as it was, Hachiman realized that he was not going to get any answers out of a bunch of corpses anyway.
"We're leaving," he said.
He grabbed a nearby demon as it used Greater Teleportation to take him back to his home. The officers began firing, but most of the demons were high levelled enough that they were immune to such projectiles, and even if they weren't, they would still be able to take a couple of hits easily.
Suzuki and Hiroshi were sitting in the conference room.
Hiroshi didn't seem to have had much of a good night's sleep- his eyes were reddened and he had slight bags under them.
"Weren't able to sleep properly?" Suzuki asked.
"Yeah," Hiroshi said while rubbing his eyes. "But it looks like you slept well! You're quite energetic!"
"Uh..." Suzuki mumbled, unsure of what to say.
"Oh right," Hiroshi said, realizing what he had just said. "Sorry about that- I kind of forgot." Undead in Yggdrasil didn't need to sleep, and while he had not had confirmation of this fact in real life, it appeared it was true even in the real world.
"No, nothing, it isn't a problem," Suzuki said and waved his hand. "I can understand. So what was wrong? What kept you up?"
"Uh..." Hiroshi said, seemingly unable to articulate his feelings. "I think we should tell the NPCs the truth."
Eh? Suzuki had not expected something like this to start off their conversation. He had expected to start this meeting by exchanging some pleasantries, and then telling Hiroshi about Takeshi.
"Where did this concern suddenly come from?" Suzuki asked.
"It's just," Hiroshi said. "I went around talking to the NPCs yesterday, and not just Solution Epsilon. Also the others- like Sous-chef, and Demiurge. And they're all just so, so, innocent, y'know?"
Suzuki was speechless. The words 'Demiurge' and 'innocent' were usually not used together unless words such as 'tortures' or 'kills' were in between them.
"I mean, they just want to serve us," Hiroshi said. "They believe anything we say. Even Eclair Ecleir Eicler who's supposed to want to take over the Tomb still wouldn't ever harm us, I think. In a way, I actually feel rather bad that we made the NPCs the way we made them. But, I feel like they deserve the truth, you know?"
"But," Suzuki countered. 'We can't be sure if they'll still be loyal to us if they know the truth. If they have sentience, they might also very well be able to change their allegiances out of their free wills. Who knows, they might even go crazy at learning they're video game characters and end up going berserk."
"I don't think so," Hiroshi said. "I mean, Solution just seems to want to do anything I ask of her. And what about Albedo? I mean, you programmed her to love you, so I don't think she'll say anything. We can try telling just those two these things first."
Suzuki scratched his chin. He felt this was a bad idea, but as it was, the guild always made decisions democratically. Granted, there were only two of them, so this was inevitably going to come to a tie, but he wanted to at least delay having to take such a big step until they had gathered more guild members. "The thing is, they have quite a high opinion of us. I can't bring it in myself to take that away from them."
"I know," Hiroshi replied. "And that's why I feel like I can't keep lying to them. And they'll find out the truth eventually, if we go on long enough. And what if they do something wrong because they didn't know about it? Like what if one of them accidentally kills a few humans like we would've programmed them too?"
"I get your point," Suzuki said. "But I still think that it's far too early right now. After all, we can still wait a while and keep our activities to a minimum." From his own point of view, Suzuki's words made total sense. However, he realized that Hiroshi had something else to add.
"I never really told you this, because it never really came up," Hiroshi said. "I mean, in game or anywhere else, and it was a personal thing- but did you know that I was adopted?"
"Oh? No," Suzuki replied. Abandoned children were not common in Japan of the year 2138- as it was the birthrate had sunk so low that it was expected the population would halve itself every fifty years, as such any children that people bore were usually planned. A possibility could be that his birth parents had died, however.
Any orphans as it were would probably be adopted within a heartbeat. A reason for declining birth rates the world over was that the pollution had a tendency to lower fertility in both sexes, as well as create a manner of large complications with pregnancy. As such, there were long waiting lists for people wanting to adopt a child in Japan.
The megacorps looked upon this as a positive change, thinking that having fewer humans around would mean that the Earth's resources could last longer. Also, if all children were adopted they would not need to pay money in order to support them. This however, was rather shortsighted given that humanity was in itself the greatest resource of all, and if numbers dwindled in the future it would lead to massive problems as there would eventually be too few humans to support the higher-ups in society. For the first time in history, birth rates among the wealthy were higher than those among the poor in Japan. However, corporations ignoring long term problems to instead reap short-term benefits was not a problem unique to this century.
"Yeah," Hiroshi said. "I was actually raised by a distant aunt and uncle from the moment I was three months old, but they never told me that growing up. I was told I was their son all my life, and I don't resent them for it or anything- but one day when I was twenty-one my father suddenly said 'Well, it's time I tell you this now that you're a man,' and told me about it. I-I had trouble sleeping for quite a while after that. I just couldn't bring my mind around it, and I got why my aunt and uncle hid the truth from me, but still, part of me wishes they had told me sooner."
Hiroshi didn't need to elaborate further for Suzuki to know what he was getting out. Solution was in a way, Hiroshi's child, and Hiroshi couldn't bring himself to lie to her like he had been lied to.
Ah, I should have realized it sooner. Or is the fault of this strange body?
Suzuki had never been particularly good at figuring out emotions, but he thought he should have been able to pick up that there was something deeper plaguing Hiroshi a lot sooner in their conversation. Had he ceased to become a human in mind as well? This skeletal body really was turning out to be more trouble than what it was worth.
"Understood," Suzuki said. "Let's call Solution here, and we'll start by telling her. Then, we can tell Albedo, and after that we'll go get Tabula-san."
In the time it took Solution to reach the conference room, Suzuki filled in Hiroshi on what had happened last night between him and Takeshi.
"Hmm," Hiroshi said. "I've never heard Touch Me mention someone like that either, but if it was just a chance encounter maybe he wouldn't have told all of us?"
There was a knock on the door. "Come in!" Hiroshi said as Solution let herself in.
"Alright, Solution," Hiroshi said while taking a deep breath. He tried to appear confident, but was honestly kind of nervous. He knew Solution really couldn't harm him, not when Suzuki could finish her off rather easily, but he was scared that she might reject him if she got to know the truth. That would be more painful than any physical wound, in his opinion. Ah, so was that how his uncle and aunt had felt when he had been younger and they decided not to tell him? Perhaps he had judged them far too harshly for that. "There's something I need to tell you, but you have to promise to keep it a secret until we tell you otherwise, alright?"
Solution bowed and smiled- it was a smile that reached from ear to ear. Hiroshi was sure he should have been disturbed by the sight, but the point remained that this meant that she was actually genuinely really happy. "Understood, Herohero-sama. I will die before this secret leaves my lips."
It creeped Hiroshi out how serious she was- and he was pretty certain she meant it. She would die based on his word alone. He gulped. "You might have wondered why I'm human. The truth is that I was always human- and so was every single one of the guild leaders, including Su-Momonga I mean. This world that we're in is the original world we all grew up in. And all of us are rather weak, especially by your standards, probably only level one or two at best. This world only has humans in it, and there is no magic. Humanity has kind of ruined the environment, but we could still play games using headsets, one of which was Yggdrasil. Everything you knew about the world was from this game, which was where we liked to pretend to be villains and heteromorphic creatures. That's the thing- we only pretended to be such creatures, but the other humans who liked to play as well, humans, liked to kill us in game so we sort of made it our philosophy to get revenge on them. So we made a lot of you to hate humans for that reason alone, but you can't go around killing humans in this place, not the real world."
Solution seemed to be confused by this, so Hiroshi sighed, explained it again and took a piece of paper to explain a few things- namely that killing people in game would result in them coming to life again over and over, but this wouldn't happen, as far as they knew- in real life.
Solution still seemed to be processing this, which was understandable.
"So, Herohero-sama, do you still need me?" Solution asked.
"Huh?" Hiroshi asked. This wasn't the reaction he had been expecting.
"I understand that I can't go around hurting humans as you originally made me," Solution said. "However, I will try my best to serve you, even in this world, if you will let me."
Hiroshi had been expecting anger, or perhaps denial. But this was...
"Are you really alright with this?" Hiroshi asked. "I mean, still working with me..."
"Of course!" Solution said. "It doesn't matter in which world we're in, or if you are a human. I still want nothing more than to serve you all my life!"
Suzuki sighed out of relief, this went far better than he had hoped. Well, it seemed as if Hiroshi had been right regarding the NPC's loyalty being absolute. And he was beginning to see this 'innocence' that Hiroshi had been talking about.
"I see," Hiroshi said. He didn't feel relief- he wasn't even sure what he was feeling. On the one hand, he was happy, on the other hand- it seemed as if Solution had no choice but to want to serve him. It was a thoroughly unequal relationship and it deepened his guilt. "Ah, that's it for now. Just remember to not say anything to anyone else until we say you can, okay?"
"As you wish, Herohero-sama," Solution said and bowed before leaving.
"Well, I guess that went okay," Hiroshi said before slumping in his chair. He didn't seem too happy.
"Ah well, let us call Albedo then and I'll fill her in," Suzuki said.
Albedo took the news far better than either of them had expected. Her smile had broadened somewhat, though it was rather hard to tell if this was genuine or not given that she spent most of her time with a smile on.
However, Albedo wasn't just happy inside. She was ecstatic!
If the other Supreme Beings were indeed all human right now, it meant that they could pose no threat to her Momonga-sama or challenge him for his position of power! At first, she had thought about making a hit squad dedicated solely to dealing with the other Supreme Beings, but she had to admit that it was almost impossible for her to raise a force that could deal with so many powerful warriors even if she did have Rubedo on her side.
However, if they were only as strong as Herohero-sama was right now, it would be easy to pick them off one by one, or to use Dominate or Charm to ensure their loyalty to Momonga-sama. Even if they did turn, it was unlikely that it would be all of them against Momonga-sama, and she was confident in her ability to deal with such a situation.
Granted, the chances of this were low, but the mark of a true genius was the ability to foresee situations far before they had occurred. That made her wonder- had her master already foreseen this?
As of now though, the existence of such a hit force seemed completely unnecessary.
However, this left a small nagging problem in her mind...
"Momonga-sama, does that mean that you too, were once a human? Then where is your human body?" Albedo asked. And the moment these words left her lips, the realization hit her like a sack of bricks.
It couldn't be... the human body she had seen before- the one she had insulted! Her face reddened deeply suddenly.
"Don't tell me, was that corpse yours?" Albedo asked. Given that Pandora's Actor had mentioned it looked like his creator, it seemed to be a natural conclusion to draw.
Hiroshi frowned. What was Albedo talking about?
Suzuki had no idea how to respond. Had he still been human, he probably would have wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. No- he wanted to do that even now, just that his body didn't respond appropriately. Instead of hyperventilating or breaking out into a sweat, he said, "Ah, it's fine Albedo. You're right, but there's no need to worry about what you said. It was just a test after all."
Albedo was having none of it. "No, no, it is not at all fine, Momonga-sama. I cannot possibly forgive myself after having insulted your personal visage in such a way. Please see fit to punish me as you wish it!"
Hiroshi was getting even more confused. Suzuki shot him a look that said 'it's a long story and I'll explain later' before saying, "As I said, Albedo, that was fine. There was nothing that you said that was out of place or wrong- if those had been your true feelings, in that case I cannot truly reprimand you for them."
"Oh, but Momonga-sama, that wasn't what I thought," Albedo urged. "Those weren't my true feelings. Truth be told, now that I think about, I think that human body of yours is-"
"As it is, we will leave this topic aside for now, there are more important things we need to do," Suzuki said, hastily cutting her off. He did not want to relive that situation again, especially not in front of Hiroshi. He didn't even want to tell Hiroshi about it for that matter and wanted to deflect the conversation away from that path and hope that no one would bring it up again.
"Ah, alright," Albedo said, though she still looked a little shaken.
"Namely, we should go and visit your creator, Tabula Smaragdina," Suzuki said. "I need you to remember though, he probably doesn't know that you've become real, ah, so we need you to ah, stay in the background until we're ready to call you in."
"Understood," Albedo said.
"Secondly, you must keep this fact a secret from the other Floor Guardians and NPCs," Suzuki said. "Until we make this a public announcement. However, Solution already knows so you may discuss this with her."
"Of course, Momonga-sama," Albedo said.
"And now," Suzuki said as he got up and Hiroshi mirrored him. "It's time for us to go."
The Platinum Dragon Lord raised his head as he felt a strange disturbance. Indeed, his ears picked up a strange sound coming from the norther entrance of this fortress that had once belonged to the Eight Greed Kings.
He could not see through walls however, so the only thing he could think of to do was to send out his suit of armor.
As his suit emerged from the guild base, he saw that there was a consortium of several strange machines outside. He had first thought that they might be some kind of strange heteromorphic race, but he could see other figures within them, meaning they were probably vehicles of some sort.
A voice called out to him from one.
"This is the Thirty-Second Division of the Eastern United States Air Force!" the voice declared. "You and your strange aircraft are currently in United States territory!"
The Platinum Dragon Lord had never heard of the name of such a country. As such, he chose to answer.
"Friends, I do not know the name of your country, but I would be happy to talk this matter out with you if possible," he said.
However, it appeared that his voice was lost amidst the strange whirring of the machines.
So he descended back towards the ground- or rather, the guild base and lowered his floating set of weapons.
Many of his fellow Dragon Lords would find it odd that one of such power as himself would lower his weapons like that, but such things didn't matter to him. He needed information, and he needed it badly.
As such, he did not want to antagonize these people.
You see, he had had a good long time to mull over what had happened to himself, and had come to the only logical conclusion: he had been transported to Yggdrasil.
The Platinum Dragon Lord knew of the world known as Yggdrasil.
Thousands of years ago, after his father the Dragon Emperor had consolidated power all over the world he still found it unfulfilling. His appetite for power grew even more.
And, roughly one thousand years ago, when his mother had been born and been made one of the Dragon Emperor's favorite concubines a pathway to even greater power had revealed itself to him.
True Dragon Lords were able to use Wild Magic- which was analogous to the World Items of Yggdrasil. The two even cancelled each other out. However, a given Dragon Lord could use several types of Wild Magic, but their trump cards would usually only be singular. As an example, the Coffin Dragon Lord had a chief ability that was analogous to the World Item Longinus. As such, the Dragon Lords could not actually do anything they pleased with Wild Magic. As such, his father had constantly been afraid that a new Dragon Lord would appear with Wild Magic that could topple him.
His mother had an ability that let her see beyond this world and into another one. A world where entities who were as powerful as themselves were widespread, and in particular, there were objects- the World Items, which would let anyone possess the power of Wild Magic.
His father had been ecstatic on hearing the news, and devised a plan to bring these items into their own world.
And so, a massive tragedy unfolded. To perform the ritual the lives over one hundred million creatures from the world had been sacrificed. At first, nothing had seemed to change. Dragons had a natural nose for treasure, so they would have certainly been able to detect World Items if they existed.
Two centuries later, his father had begun to actually find some of them. He had been overjoyed at this- until it appeared that the players who possessed World Items were being transported along with them.
His father and mother had both been killed by one of the Greed Kings and from that point onwards, Platinum Dragon Lord had made it his mission to counter this sin that his family had committed. He had brought down the Greed Kings with the help of the Slane Theocracy, and had even managed to befriend two players from the Thirteen Heroes. Most of his knowledge on Yggdrasil came from them, though sadly the leader was dead and had refused to be resurrected. As such, his information was incomplete.
When he found himself in a strange world, he could only assume that somehow, the ritual had backfired in a way, and how now transported him- who knew Wild Magic, the equivalent of a World Item, into Yggdrasil.
As such, if these people were from Yggdrasil and these 'United States' were a guild, he would most likely be slaughtered instantly. He could not antagonize them in that case.
As it was, if he wanted information, he would have to play along.
One of the strange machines landed beside him and several humanoid figures emerged. They had several guns in their possessions- and he was reminded of the Powered Suits of the adventurer group Red Drop. However, their armor did not appear to be high grade.
These individuals seemed fixated on Platinum Dragon Lord's floating weaponry.
"Hands in the air!" one of them screamed.
Platinum Dragon Lord had no clue why he was requesting this, but agreed momentarily until he could figure the situation out a bit more.
"Greetings, friends," Platinum Dragon Lord said. "I must profess I do not know the name of this nation called the United States- I come from a nation by the name of the Argland Council State."
There was confused chatter.
"Who does he think he's playing at? Never heard of us?"
"Never heard of an Argland Council State or whatever."
There was much more noise, but those two sentences told him a few things. One, he was expected to know what this country was, meaning it was massive and quite powerful. Secondly, they had never heard of his own nation. These two things supported his theory that he had been transported to a new world.
So was this what Yggdrasil looked like? It was nowhere near as beautiful as he had been told it was, but perhaps this was simply a section that was particularly ugly.
"What's your name, buddy?" one of them asked.
Platinum Dragon Lord didn't want to give out his actual name, so he went with, "Riku Aganeia."
"And where'd you get this armor?"
"It's a product of my own Wild Magic," Platinum Dragon Lord said.
He was met with laughter, despite the clearly tense situation.
"Magic? Really? Next he'll be telling us he's an alien of some sort."
Several soldiers moved towards the entrance to the guild base behind him. He turned his head, he would have to stop them. He could not let them have access to the treasury.
To their protests, he flew up and considered his next move. What should he do? He could erect a barrier that would contain all of them and then interrogate them at his leisure- though if they had a World Item or were as powerful as the Greed Kings they would either escape or be able to finish him. He could not fight at full strength in this armor either.
As such, there was only one thing he could do. "Wait!" he shouted.
His floating hammer and sword intercepted the paths of the soldiers who were heading into the entrance of the guild base. He now considered his next option. "One of you. I will allow one of you to accompany me into the guild base, to meet with our leader."
"Your leader?" one of them croaked.
"Yes," Platinum Dragon Lord said. "In other words my master." It was a bit of misinformation he could work to his advantage- if he presented himself as being two people or more he would seem to have a numerical advantage compared to appearing as one, though not by quite an amount. He had tried to contact all of his old flames, but he had been unable to reach any of them, even with the Message spell. That meant he was all alone.
Was this how these players from Yggdrasil had felt all this time? It seemed fate was not without a sense of irony given that he now found himself in the same predicament as those he had hunted for so long.
He had to talk to them to gain information, but he couldn't let all of them inside the guild base where they might attempt to take his treasure. He didn't even know how powerful one of them was, but he couldn't go ahead and test his powers on one of them in case they really were very powerful. As such, this seemed to be the best option to take.
Of course, the Platinum Dragon Lord knew that if this little gamble of his went wrong, he would likely be killed.
And perhaps, then, he would have paid the price for his family's sins.
The man who was known as Tabula Smaragdina in the game of Yggdrasil was actually named Tabito Shigimura in real life.
He was a research assistant in a chemistry lab- and it was his interest in chemistry and its history that had fueled his interest in alchemy in the world of Yggdrasil.
For you see, Tabito did not have enough education to rise beyond the ranks of research assistant or the money to pursue such a higher education. As such, he was stuck in the same low post with superiors who disregarded many of the ideas that he had. He was told simply to perform the experiments as required by his superiors and to not think too much, and that was all he was allowed to do.
As such, he could only live out his dreams in the world of Yggdrasil. Alchemy was not chemistry of course, but he did enjoy pretending to be a top rated alchemist in Yggdrasil. It did something to fill the large hole in his heart which he knew could never be fulfilled in real life.
And then the accident happened. The company that had designed the special masks they used had done a bad job of it- as a result a toxic chemical had disfigured half of Tabito's face and his left shoulder as well. It turned out the company had known about the defect long beforehand, but had found it cheaper to just pay off the lawsuits and fines rather than recall the product.
The amount Tabito had gotten couldn't even pay for proper plastic surgery to fix his face and most of it had gone towards other medical bills given he had been hospitalized for four months, and so after recovery he was still slogging it away at his old job for the same low pay as always, with the only change being that many people had looks of disgust when they saw his face. Many tried to hide it, but they were rather bad at it. His relationship with a girl he had been seeing for five years had also failed- either due to his looks or due to his vitriolic temper following the accident.
Against this backdrop, he had started drinking heavily and had abandoned most of his other hobbies- including reading chemistry literature or playing Yggdrasil for that matter. Alcohol was his only comfort in this world.
That was why when the quarantine was announced, he was furious. He went to get a new stock of booze every fifteenth of the month, and it was the thirteenth! That meant that his stash was almost finished and he most likely wouldn't be able to get any more.
There was no outlet for his anger save for some of the older books he had had, and he went and ripped some of them to shreds.
With that, and him consuming twice the usual amount of alcohol as he would usually, the first day of quarantine passed.
And then he was awakened by the sound of someone knocking loudly at his door.