Hi, I don't own the Overlord franchise and I do not intent any profit with this text. Cover Art by Pere Borrell del Caso (1835 – 1910).

The story contains ideas certainly offensive to more than some people ( though no smute), if some characters appear to be jerkasses it is intended, if you detest dark humor you should abide from reading further. Otherwise: have fun :D .

God is an Idiot

The Great Tomb of Nazarick, 10th floor – year 2138

A tall shape sacked down on the high rising throne of black stone. While it wore a dark hood and a wide baroque robe that exposed its chest, only a flesh-stripped grinning skull sat on its shoulders and the massive rib cage held no intestines, just a blood red glowing orb, where a man would hope to find his stomach. It projected a forsaken atmosphere in the large, barely lit room, as it supported its massive frame with clawed hands on its knees.

Sparsely distributed braziers hinted at mighty pillars, that shouldered the ceiling dozens of meters above it. Many banners, some elaborate, some plain, hung from it, but the throne occupier was alone apart from the many corpses of diverse shape, that littered the ground.

27 players and at least twice that amount of summons and companions. I am beat.

Were its thoughts, as it felled the mental exhaustion finally catch up with it.

While all of the dead possessed the basic humanoid shape, many of them bore features unheard of on normal humans like tusks, long ears or an extremely stocky built and each one wore arms and armor of excellent and often fantastic designs. Clearly this was not Earth but another world, far removed from its depressing state.

They all, the dead and the un-living, were Players of Yggdrasil, the most successful dive-in massive multiplayer role playing game of man's history inspired by the first members of the RPG genre from the late 20th century. Using modern neural interface technology it allowed humans to occupy a virtual avatar and experience artificial realities. When it was released in 2126 the masses had stormed the giant server like it was the Promised Land and who could have blamed them? Earth was no longer a planet capable of naturally supporting life. The selfish greed and resource consumption of the previous generations had irreparably destroyed the planets ecosystem and barren wastes and dead seas had replaced even the last recluses of natural life. Mankind only endured thanks to technology on the poisonous hell hole. The wish to escape was only natural.

At its peak close to one billion players enjoyed Yggdrasil's single large server divided into 9 sub-worlds to be used as a giant sandbox. The game had been designed with the clear intent of enforcing exploration and role-playing. It only offered minimum support and information on its own, so players had to discover most features and secrets by themselves.

Or they asked other players.

Of course, this led to a competitive socialization – hence the forming of guilds and the consequences of their rivalries. Competitive game-play was almost impossible without the backing of such a group.

Where would the average paladin Justin McGoodCheek start to look for his holy grail in a world of almost half the surface area of planet Earth? It was like asking "Where will I find 1 kilogramm of uranium till 9 pm ?" in the real world, when Sandbazone was offline again. Asking several Hundreds of people of diverse ability and expertise for help drastically raised a player's odds of finishing her quests and maybe reach one day level 100 with the one character, the game granted each user.

The Player on the throne had not been blessed with as many friends.

41, unbeaten and glorious. We were like a feature of the game: Die in Nazarick! - Top the High score !

This dungeon, the Great Tomb of Nazarick, had been cleared only once by the small guild Ainz Ooal Gown, when it only consisted of 6 layers. Ainz Ooal Gown was an exotic guild, made up only of players of the monstrous heteromorphic races, a shunned subset of available player races hunted free of punishment by other, regular player. Role-playing and convenience motivated most players to adhere to the meme and in time some players, at least Ainz Ooal Gown's, adapted.

They started to play the villains, others wanted them to be and they reveled in it. After conquering the tomb and setting it up as their official guild base, they expanded its original six floors to ten and set up a terrible death trap with the guild members acting as the final bosses, should it ever fall under siege.

Only once did an alliance of over 1.500 players breach into the 8th layer.

Until today.

They must be so pissed. Besides the effort of gathering almost 700 players for the last day everyone must have invested considerable time and resources for this last effort. And they were rewarded for their work. Some made it to the last floor and throne room.

The skeleton raised its head and scanned the room before making two precise swiping motions in front of it.

11.32 pm. It is almost time and Nazarick will shine. I should revive the NPCs.

It made more swiping motions, at one point even reaching blindly behind its head like moving a large ring, while continuing a different motion with the other hand, before slowing down and only repeating a downward move for a time. Then it grabbed its head in a silent gesture of terror.

19 billion! That is almost all that's left in the treasur- Shut it. The game ends anyway.

It tapped once before staying motionless again.

It ends and I should be happy. I won.

It swiped several more times before rising from the throne and walking into the vast room.

I won the game, THE game, The Game of Games, Yggdrasil! I finally have a decent job constructing life domes. I should be happy and yet… I am not. – Ah, there she is.

The undead stopped in front of a black haired beauty with golden slit eyes, a woman far too perfect for the real world. A set of thick horns hugged her upper head like a low hanging massive crown and from above her hips grew a large set of raven wings. Clad in her white evening dress and cycling through a small series of suggestive poses it soon became apparent, that no real life filled her.

Her eyes were empty and without a spark, even when she started to fix the skeleton on its approach, before it finally towered almost half a meter above her.

Right, Tabula Smaragdina tended to refer to his work as "fap material", but I never saw her in idle mode. Most of Nazarick's NPCs were set on a timed activity list while not in combat to maintain some busy atmosphere in the vast halls of the dungeon. 12 years and I never gave our employees some downtime. I am a terrible boss. At least now I should allow the lady some style.

A faint boom and rushing could be heard in the distance, before a golden, intricately designed staff resembling 8 intertwined snakes, flew into its waiting left hand with the speed of fired bullet. It was the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, the official guild weapon and badge of the guild master: it.

The staff holder started to swipe and tip again.

Okay, let's set her behavior set from [FLIRTY] to [MATURE]

And then it stopped.

Is that alright? This is Tabula Smaragdina's legacy, his personal creation, not mine. Would he mind?

Or even care?

No, he didn't or couldn't care for 5 years; I am sure he wouldn't mind me indulging on this last day.

It crossed and stretched its fingers before starting again.

Okay, let's check the build... Well, even after 7 years of updates I'll... ehm... switch those 3 talents and adjust some skill points and voilà. He picked a really good build. Knuckles for you, my friend. Okay, next the background. Mmm... Mmm... Looks in order, if a little bit extensive. The origin is somewhat garbled, though. I'll just simplify it.

[She is a fallen angel].

Oh what the heck, this is kind of my last meal:[She is the first fallen angel]. There is no reason not to go overboard. Continue... Mmmh... mmh... Really, Tabula? [BTW, she is a total slut.]?

It hesitated before typing.

[She is in love with Momonga.] Just a little fantasy to add some sweet to the bitterness of today. Okay, just to be sure I should check her basic profile.

Ains Ooal Gown's last player knew full well the futility of his wish to set things right in those last minutes, but indulged his need for perfection and meticulousness anyway. Many of the other 40 guild members had often made fun of the player's character trait, calling it "over-complicating", but they were no longer present to judge.

I did not expect that!

The undead stopped its movements and lowered its hands, while stepping back. Its skull turned to the woman and gave her a slow up and down, before it raised its right hand to its head and tapped its temple several times. After a moment of thought it continued its task.

Okay, I always had an idea, but these last few minutes she'll be my glory chick, not your cross dressing fap material, Tabula. Excellent job done on the sculpting, though! Damn! Okay. Make a check in the [Female] box, then [Save and Close]. I've got to hurry. The time is almost up.

It formed a fist in front of its face and a baritone hoarse voice spoke,

"Albedo, Follow!"

It hurried back to throne with the NPC silently following with unchanging expression. In front of the throne it fixed the corpses again and after a few motions of its hands, they dissolved like ash blown away by the wind.

"Albedo, use position 18 on target [Throne of Kings]."

The woman nodded once, before sitting down on the right armchair, leaning on straight arms behind her buttock and angling her body slightly to the seat occupier, which was now the Player in the dark robes. It let his right leg hang over his left, while leaning slightly to its left and lazily produced a victory sign with its left hand.

A sharp "Click" echoed for some time through the hall.

Less than two minutes left and I'm not happy. I managed to rise out of my depressing job into managing real construction. I can change something, create! And now I can safely say I won the game. I should call myself "Best of Billion" or BoB.

Scratch that. I've got no trophy, but I've been occupying the leader board top for 3 years straight and I hauled Ainz Ooal Gown back into the Top Ten of the Guilds on my own, after they abandoned me! But still…

In its Golden Age Ainz Ooal Gown had been counted among the most powerful and recognized guilds in all of Yggdrasil, despite, or maybe even because, of its exclusive nature. While other guilds often had Hundreds, sometimes Thousands of members, they had rarely admitted new ones. Only those who convinced Ainz Ooal Gown members, that they truly wanted to join to work on behalf of the guild, instead for selfish reasons, got the chance to prove themselves worthy of membership.

Because of this stringent sift out they never counted more than 41 members, it, the guild master included, but everyone had been a level 100 character equipped with the finest gear, intimately familiar with the strengths, weaknesses and quirks of each fellow member. That alone constituted a power few rivals could match.

To most players just reaching the level 100 cap and holding it was an achievement on its own, because every death meant a loss of levels, they had to work for to achieve again. While this was not much of an issue on low levels, the exponential growing experience point requirements meant, it could take weeks to gain even one level, when close to the level cap. But farming for the best equipment, items of divine rank, was always risky. Only the strongest monsters had a reasonable high chance of dropping such gear to make it worth fighting them. Thus the vast majority of level 100 players did not even sport one such item. Even at the peak of Yggdrasil's popularity there were less than a half a Million players possessing such an item.

Ainz Ooal Gown's members possessed, each and every one, at least one complete set of divine gear suited to their character and many even several for different occasions and purposes. Striving for the game's greatest achievements made their use almost mandatory, but the required time and effort to get to that point made it an utopian prospect to most players.

Yet this dedication was the entry fee to Yggdrasil's true endgame, the hunt for the 200 unique and extremely powerful World Items and class and race specific rewards. Possession of even one such item was a huge source of prestige amongst the guilds. Ainz Ooal Gown possessed 11, more than any other guild and 8 more than the second largest collection any rival ever amassed, but it had only been possible by the extreme efforts of their close comradeship.

Unfortunately one by one the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown had to quit Yggdrasil, some because they founded families of their own, some because their work left them no more time or energy to play and in some cases for even sadder reasons. By 2133 Momonga had become Ainz Ooal Gown's last active player, bereft of the only people his user, Suzuki Satoru, ever considered friends and family, after he grew up as an orphan nobody.

It was a depressing time, during which Momonga resigned himself to clinging to happier times and administering the legacy of his friends. Most likely Ainz Ooal Gown's last active member would have defended and farmed gold to maintain its old glory till today, had Suzuki Satoru not received a message in the real world from one of the guilds founding members.

Touch-Me, their champion and one of Momonga's most valued friends, had passed from the same disease, that forced him to abandon the game. Touch-me had been a very straightforward member, some would have called his bluntness rude, but it was exactly this quality of his, that Momonga had respected the most about him. True to his nature he had told Momonga in his dying message to stop festering in the past and have another shot at real life. He even sent a verified letter of recommendation along with the message.

After hesitating for weeks Suzuki applied with it for a new job in an engineering office, despite having only graduated from elementary school. The bosses were highly skeptical, but Touch-Me's memory still held respect in the business world and they gave him a chance. What he lacked in education, he made up with tenacity and lateral thinking and finally his superiors recognized his meticulous work and offered him a permanent post.

For the first time in his adult life he received recognition and praise in the real world, but it still felt, like Suzuki Satoru was his true mask, the avatar, instead of Momonga. He could not forsake Yggdrasil and returned every night to the server, only now with a healed ego and new motivation.

Just maintaining the Great Tomb of Nazarick was no longer enough for him, he needed a new goal, something to look forward to. But his gear was almost perfect and trying to rob other guilds of their World Items would have been a fool's errant. Even decked out with his best gear and cash items it would have been in practice impossible to best a whole guild capable of securing a World Item and its homes defenses all on his own.

Momonga focused instead on an altogether different goal, a feature heavily criticized by players at the release of game, yet quickly forgotten, when the first guilds formed: the solo endgame rewards. In theory players could, depending on their class and race levels, unlock additional rewards, once they had hit the level cap. The dominant humanoid and demi-humanoid races could each earn extremely powerful user bound gear beyond even the quality of divine gear or access to permanent aura blessings from the deities of Yggdrasils lore. Staying in tune with their focus on race levels the unpopular heteromorphic races instead gained additional levels on top of the normal level cap and immunity to the level drain from dying.

It was still easier to find a hen's teeth than a player, who ever achieved that for a simple reason. The requirements of the individual quest chains, that unlocked them, were of such ridiculous difficulty, that the usual farming for divine gear in a guild was by far more efficient to compete in the end-game than meeting all the requirements of the solo rewards, which had to be repeated in their entirety, should the player drop below level 100 before finishing the quest. Momonga himself only saw two such players in the 12 years he played and one of them had been Touch-Me's final opponent in the tournament, that won him the title of World Champion.

For Momonga, who already owned an extensive collection of divine gear and had access to the equipment of one of Yggdrasil's once mightiest guilds, it was a perfect challenge. He had been an Overlord, the final evolution of the Elder Lich, itself an upgrade of the skeleton mage race. His build emulated the stereotypical undead magic caster with a strong focus on instant death magic and summoning monsters to bind his enemies.

Rolling with the inherent strengths of his race he had developed his character into a PvE killing machine, so he had expected some kind of monster hunt or dungeon diving to qualify for the class. When he finally had found the tome, that would start the quest he learned, he was correct. Mostly.

It was indeed a head hunt, but not for monsters or obscure treasure. No, the developers had decided, that the prey of the Overlord race would be guild masters, he had to slay without any allied players backing. Each of his targets had to be of a different race and guild to advance his quest.

His first attempt ended after guild master number 8, when the rest of his target's guild returned too early from their raid and simply mobbed the floor with the lonely heteromorph, who had sneaked into their base. It took him 2 months of leveling up back to the cap and locating a new tome, before he could start his second attempt.

Momonga had been for a long time an avid user of cash items, consumable tools, that could only be bought with real money instead of the in-game resources or gold currency and had often invested a third of the income of his old job for that purpose, since he lived alone and had no other relatives or passions to support besides Yggdrasil.

This time he was not as thrifty and his expenses reached a new height. In the time of 9 months he spent so much money on cash items as he used to earn in his old job in a whole year. If not for the better pay in the engineering office, he would have went bankrupt. He knew a normal person would have questioned his mental health for spending so much money on a game, but to him it made no sense to hoard it. He had always been a virgin single, had no friends to hang out with after work and no known relatives, that could inherit from him. After his death the earnings would have been lost anyway.

His almost fanatical dedication to his goal worked. The willingness to spend in one fight, what others earned in a whole week was a tremendous advantage and he started to score more and more guild master kills. Then he met target number 49, an enemy like none he ever encountered before.

Momonga had been willing to spent most of his income in Yggdrasil, but the guild master Dagon Berth, was a filthy rich member of an industrial clan, as he later learned. The last member of Ainz Ooal Gown belonged to the elite of the elite of Yggdrasil's player base and had at that point more knowledge of the game and experience in fighting other pros than most Players could ever forget.

But Dagon Berth also knew how to use his gifts. Instead of fighting he fled from Momonga and offered every player he met during his escape from the driven man real cash bribes just to stall him. Despite the resistance Momonga foolishly kept chasing, untill Dagon Berth's guild had finally assembled and saved their leader and sugar daddy.

Again he had to crawl back to the starting line and Momonga realized, he had to overhaul his whole approach. He had relied on his extensive knowledge of the game, fighting experience and willingness to spent money and still he failed. While he leveled back to the cap in winter 2135/36 he started to develop a new mindset to solving the problem. He fathomed, that even with his formidable skills and dedication he could not match or safely anticipate the power a guild master commanded.

So instead of spending even more time in Yggdrasil he decided to do the opposite.

Yggdrasil was already in decline and with it the number of viable targets. Often enough he could not switch to an easier victim or postpone the hit, because the guild master was the last of his race occupying such a position and he had to farm him or her, before they quit the game. His use of cash items declined, but not his expenses.

Momonga thoroughly investigated all intel he could get in his claws and began to resort to tactics, some would have called underhanded and many more reprehensible. Bribing other guilds to attack his target was among the nicer methods he used, but he didn't stop there. In-game Momonga let go of his moral inhibitions and started to use every dirty trick, he could think of.

Bait them into Nazarick and cut them down once they fled its terrible defenses? Check.

Support a less competent player with gold and gear, so he could succeed his current master, just to be slain afterwards by Momonga? Check.

Call the police or fire fighters to his opponent's home? Check.

Falsely offer players, no matter which race, a place in Nazarick so they would abandon their old guild? Check.

Crack the guild master's mind with false messages of passed relatives or an unknown child? Check.

Momonga considered every tactic worthwhile, as long as it brought him closer to his goal. At one time he learned of the suicide of one guild master, after he planted the rumor, said GM had manipulated the vote for the position. The only thing he refrained from was cheating and active physical harm of his opponents in real life. He was acutely aware, that his old friends, even the chuunibyo Ulbert Alain Odle, would have been horrified by his deeds, but to lonely Momonga only the final goal, the prestige class mattered.

Finally the deceiving Overlord faced his one hundredth target and was instead duped himself in a trap instigated and supported by many of his victims. It would have been a bitter-sweet revenge to watch him fail so close to his goal, to see all the hate and rejection, Momonga had embraced in his dedication, be for naught.

The tables had turned, the hunter became the prey and when they had finally cornered him, cut off from any escape, he indulged in the last glee, that remained his in the hour of failure: spite. Rather than granting the wronged their vengeance, he used his remaining power to kill himself.

He robbed them of their retribution in that last act of betrayal and was rewarded for it. Momonga became unintentionally his final sacrifice and revived in Nazarick, not as an overlord of reduced level, but as a level 101 character. He was the first and last heteromorphic player to finish the solo endgame quest chain.

In fall 2137 Overlord and Master of Death Momonga became a memory.

From now the [End] walked Yggdrasil on a greedy quest to restore the treasures of Nazarick, he had spent on his immoral endeavor. Apart from a few humanoid and demi-humanoid players he had become the singular most powerful player in all of Yggdrasil and the most hated one, but instead of the game becoming easier, it became even harder, as the story of his accomplishment spread.

He was certain, that this last attack on Nazarick had been, at least for some members of the raid party, motivated by the wish for revenge, because he had recognized several of the attackers as guild masters or Players, he had duped.

It had been one of the closest battles he ever fought, partly because of the sheer number of enemies, each a veteran of the game in his own right, that had gathered and partly, because never before an enemy succeeded in breaching the 8th floor. Most guilds and alliances, that had tried to conquer Ainz Ooal Gown's home, did not even make it past the third floor and the first NPC guardian, a true combat monster designed by his friend ( and outspoken erotic games lover) Peroroncino.

It would never again come to that to his great regret.

Yggdrasil would shut down tonight. Ragnarok had come. After 12 years of domineering the multiplayer games market its era would end and with it: Momonga. Only Suzuki Satoru would survive the night.

Tomorrow and everyday thereafter he would have to wake up with the knowledge of the many crimes he committed with nothing to show for it. He could no longer stave off the the thoughts, he denied for so long. In the end it would have all been for nothing.

And what will I do then? Find a new game, hope that someday a successor to Yggdrasil will be released? Could I even find the heart to try something new?

One last time the skeleton moved its left hand to summon 1.5 meters in front of it a levitating countdown in red letters, not much larger than the flat of a hand, that had almost reached its terminus.

In precious few moments all this will be gone. Ainz Ooal Gown's glory will be forgotten, just as my only friends are already lost to me, Will my memories fade in time, too, slightly different with each time I recall them?

Will they die happy, sad or angry, those figments?

I want to sleep her. I can shower in the morning. Its no big deal. No one to judge here, anyway. Farewell Yggdrasil.

Wondered the damned player and counted the last seconds, as mental exhaustion dragged him to sleep.

5

4

3

2

1

…

…
Did someone break a door?

…

Steps, so many steps?

…

Did I hear a zipper?

…

That noise... it must be hailing.