Chapter 2

At some point, it was like a dam broke inside HeroHero, and Momonga shifted to a listening role as the complaints flooded out.

Talking about one’s real life in a fantasy world was frowned on by many.

“Please keep your reality out of my daydream” was certainly an understandable sentiment, but these two didn’t feel that way.

There were two requirements that all the members of their guild, Ainz Ooal Gown, had to meet. One was that members had to be working adults, and the other was that they had to play grotesques.

Since that’s the type of guild it was, real-life work woes were a common topic of discussion, which was fine with the members. The conversation these two were having was an everyday occurrence in Ainz Ooal Gown.

Enough time had passed that HeroHero’s muddy flood of grievances had calmed to a clear stream. “Sorry, I don’t mean to just whine. But I can’t really talk about this stuff IRL, you know?” A part of him that must have been his head wiggled.

Momonga took it as a bow of apology and said, “Don’t worry about it, HeroHero. You accepted my invitation to come tonight even though you’re exhausted, so listening to some complaints is the least I can do—I’ll take as many as you’ve got.”

HeroHero seemed a bit livelier than before and gave a weak chuckle.

“Really, though, thank you, Momonga. I’m glad I was able to log in today and see you after so long.”

“It makes me glad to hear you say that!”

“But I should probably get going soon…”

HeroHero’s tentacles began moving in midair. He’d opened his menu. “Yeah, it’s getting late. Sorry, Momonga…” Momonga paused for a breath so as not to betray his emotions.

“Ah, that’s too bad. Time really does fly when you’re having fun…” “I really wanted to stay till the end, but I’m just too tired…”

“Yeah, I can imagine. Log out and rest up.”

“I’m really sorry… Momonga—err, no—Guild Master, what are your plans?”

“I’ll think I’ll hang around until the forced log out when the servers shut down. There’s still some time left, so there’s a chance someone else might show up.”

“I see… Honestly, I was surprised this place still even existed!”

Times like this, Momonga was truly grateful that their expressions were fixed. Otherwise, his grimace would have been immediately apparent. In any case, his emotions would have been evident in his voice, so he had to keep his mouth shut to suppress them.

Hearing something like that from a guildmate after having worked so hard to maintain their base precisely because it was a place they had all built together elicited feelings in Momonga too mixed to explain. But those feelings vanished when he heard what HeroHero said next.

“As the guild master, you kept it going so we could come back anytime, didn’t you? I really appreciate that.”

“Well, we all built it together, you know? Making sure members can come back anytime is the guild master’s job!”

“I think having you as our guild master was what made this game so fun for us. I hope to see you again…in Yggdrasil II!”

“I haven’t heard any rumors about a sequel…but yeah, I hope so, too.”

“If it happens, let’s definitely play together! Anyhow, I’m falling asleep here, so I’m gonna log off. I’m glad I got to see you at the end like this. It’s been great playing with you.”

“…” Momonga choked up for just a moment. Then he managed his final good-bye. “I’m glad I got to see you, too. Nice playing with you.”

Ba-ding! A smiley emoticon appeared over HeroHero’s head. In Yggdrasil, expressions didn’t change, so players used emoticons when they wanted to convey emotions.

Momonga opened his menu and picked the same emoticon.

HeroHero got the last word in. “See you again somewhere.”

With that, the last of the three other guild members who had made the farewell gathering disappeared.

Silence returned to the room, a silence so deep it was hard to imagine anyone had been there. No echoes, no vestiges of anyone’s presence.

Looking at the chair where HeroHero had been sitting until a moment before, Momonga murmured the words he’d suppressed. “I know you’re tired, but it’s the last day—the servers are shutting down. Won’t you stay until the end?”

Of course, there was no reply. HeroHero was already back in the real world.

Momonga heaved a sigh from the bottom of his heart.

There was no way he could have said that.

It had been evident from their short conversation and the tone of HeroHero’s voice how extremely tired he’d been. A guy that exhausted had read the e-mail Momonga had sent and came out for the last day. That was more than enough to be thankful for. Any further requests would have overstepped the bounds of nostalgia and just made Momonga into a nuisance.

Momonga stared at HeroHero’s empty chair and then shifted his gaze.

There were thirty-nine other chairs. The places where his guildmates used to sit. He looked around at all of them before coming back to HeroHero’s seat.

“‘See you again somewhere’…?”

See you again sometime.

See you later.

He’d heard those words many times. But they almost never came true.

Nobody ever returned to Yggdrasil.

“Where and when exactly are we going to meet, huh?” Momonga’s shoulders shuddered violently, and the true feelings that had been building up all this time suddenly gushed out. “Don’t **** with me!” he roared, pounding the table with both fists.

The game’s system registered his motion as an attack and began computing countless parameters, such as his unarmed attack strength and the table’s defense stats. The result appeared above the place where his hands had struck: “0.”

“This is the Great Tomb of Nazarick! We built it together! How can you all abandon it so easily?” After the intense anger came loneliness.

“No…I know that’s not right. I know it wasn’t easy at all. They were just forced to choose between reality and a daydream. It’s not something they could help.

No one betrayed us at all. It was a hard decision for everybody…,” Momonga muttered to himself as he stood up. In the direction he faced, a staff hung on the wall.

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