Blue Planet sat on the grass of the sixth floor and lay down. The ‘roots’ of his Elder Ent monster avatar, those bits which served as his toes, grew with a slow and steady crackling noise, like fines or rustling bushes, until they pierced the soil.

It accomplished nothing for him being maxed out and in his own base, of course, but it was a nice visual effect. His arms were the limbs of trees, still coated with bark, with ultra rare ‘naturium’ armor laying over it. An exceedingly rare metal available only from one place. A place you could only reach after killing all nine of the Great Elven Kings of Greed and gaining their tokens. With those you could open Elfheim and gain access to mines that would drop a fragment of naturium ore every ten thousandth strike of the pickaxe. Having even one piece was rare, but he wore a whole set, with offensive equipment to go with it.

The armor looked at first glance like pale bark that peeled back from a tree limb to curve toward the wearer, but it was in fact only a step below prismatic ore and its actual protection extended beyond its physical touch.

In the heyday of the guild, Blue Planet had felt great pride in his avatar’s successful creation of an entire naturium outfit.

“It still feels strange to wear it again, even if I can’t ‘feel’ anything. He could hear the breeze of the sixth floor rustling through the leaves that grew from the waving branches that sprouted at the top of his head. His arms flopped out at his side, and his fingers sunk into the ground as well.

Of all of Nazarick, this was his favorite place. He stared up into the night sky he’d made years ago, crafting it with the utmost love, it consumed his vacation time, and so many data crystals that he was on the verge of being compared to Tabula Smaragdina. He snorted a little, the joking had been casual, and he didn’t mind.

‘I’d forgotten how well I made it.” He said to himself and tried to send a message to Momonga. Again a buzz of ‘not online’ answered him. “Damn, I’m glad I saw your email, even if we don’t get to meet again. Seeing this as it is… one more time, I want to remember, I don’t want to forget…” Blue Planet whispered, and watched the twinkling stars of the midnight sky that wasn’t really there. Clouds drifted past a bright white moon, obscuring a fragment of it. A stone’s throw away, he heard the sound of a fish leaping in the lake he’d put on this floor. That add-on feature cost him a production bonus, but it was worth it at the time. ‘Still is.’ he thought when he heard the splash. The buzz of insects, if he could only ‘feel’ everything that he saw, heard, and even smelled right now… then he would have been content to never leave.

His bright, solid green eyes, the color of spring leaves and shaped like long spear tips, slowly closed as he tried to absorb what sensations he could without relying on sight, committing everything to memory in anticipation of the moment when the forced logoff would take place.

He couldn’t bring himself to move, nor could he bring himself to check the system time. All Blue Planet could do was lie there on grass he wished he could feel, and dream of the sort of world his home used to be. ‘Maybe I can recreate this somewhere. Maybe.’ He thought, he hoped. He knew he couldn’t.

‘The cost of system resources is simply too high, the investment in a game like this, I doubt any company will go so far ever again.’ He recalled the debate and discussion on the boards, the hopefuls themselves had already begun to mock the idea. ‘This is it.’ He bemoaned it, and thought of all the hours throughout the years, put into the NPCs, the levels, everything in Nazarick.

‘I wish I hadn’t had to go when I did… I swear, I promise, if there ever comes a chance to thank Momonga for preserving this world as he did, this beautiful guild that we made together… I’ll repay him ten thousand fold.’ Blue Planet promised, lamenting his failure as an environmental engineer to convince companies to hold back on some of their more destructive projects.

He breathed slowly, deeply, the chest of his avatar barely moved, and he longed for the disconnect not to happen. ‘I should check the time.’ He thought, but didn’t.

He thought it again later, and again refrained, however… ‘It wasn’t this long… Did I misread fifteen minutes as fifteen hours?!’ He wondered, but decided that was absurd.

His long limbs stretched and groaned, his back in this avatar wasn’t as flexible as his real one, but he could still arch and feel the pleasant release. The stars winked overhead just as they were intended to, out of the corner of his eye, the trees swayed back and forth as they always did. It was a true paradise except that nothing had any real ‘feel’ to it, it was like walking into a painting.

Not far away from the forest, a single tree stood towering over the others, ‘Bukubukuchagama’s twins live there…’ He recalled, and this was confirmed when two distant dots emerged from the base of the tree. But as his eyes lingered on them and they were brought into focus, he saw the impossible. ‘Are they… shouting? Are they arguing? What’s with all those wild gestures from Aura, what’s with Mare’s cringing… flavor text had them act that way but we never were able to program NPCs to move and act that seamlessly.’ [Whispers of the Earth]. He cast the spell, and listened in.

“Yes! We are going over to Lord Blue Planet to ask if we can help him in any way! We’re servants of the Supreme Beings! We’re not going to just wait around for him to come to us, little brother!” Aura shouted and began to tug at his drooping ear.

“Sisssterr! What if he doesn’t want to be bothered?!” Mare exclaimed, flailing as she dragged him away from the tree.

Blue Planet killed the spell. “They’re talking, they’re talking, they’re talking, they’re…” He stopped talking. He stopped thinking. At his feet, the roots that grew as toes and delved into the soil, he could ‘feel’ them, and he could feel the cool earth and the soft grass. The air now had a temperature.

The sky overhead was transitioning to its ‘morning’ setting. But everything around him, including his own elder ent body, felt utterly sublime.

Now… he checked the timer.

There was no timer.

In the world he knew, isekai was a very popular genre, so the concept wasn’t a novel one. However… he tried to access log data, gm access, everything he could think of that would indicate that he was part of a computerized system.

None of it worked.

But as a further test, he activated a message spell. [Message]. ‘Aura, Mare, come to me by the lake, I need you.’

In the distance, he heard her ecstatic yelling, “I told you sooooo!”

‘So she’s still a child.’ Blue Planet mentally smirked, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Aura all but stalked over a little rise, dragging her little brother by the ear until they were in front of him, and they each fell to one knee.

Blue Planet reached down, unable to restrain himself, he patted their heads, and Aura blushed the same as Mare at the affectionate touch. ‘Their hair, silky.’ He thought, further confirming his hypothesis.

“Thank you for coming.” Blue Planet said, his low, gravel voice from his avatar, quite different from the one he remembered. ‘I had to buy the modulator pack from the Lord of the Rings special event… I ‘had’ to, didn’t I?’ He mocked himself, but went on aloud.

“I need the outside of the tomb inspected, I need to know what’s changed, something is either very wrong, or very right. Exercise caution, and do not engage in combat if threatened. Am I understood?” Blue Planet asked.

“Yes, my lord!” The twins said as one, and rose, then parted from his company.

Chaos should have rampaged through his heart, Blue Planet knew that beyond a doubt, but it didn’t. Every time it seemed like his emotions were going to rise… he felt them begin to get tamped down. After the fourth time of rising excitement, then breaking, and then equilibrium again, one thing made sense. ‘This is no longer merely an avatar. Ent race monsters are notoriously… ‘even tempered’. Try not to say boring… try not to say boring… try not to say boring…’ Blue Planet told himself, his leaf green glowing eyes winked out as he tried to find something to stir deeper emotions.

And yet nothing really worked for the hours of practice.

When the twins returned, he quickly acknowledged the truth. ‘I guess reality is easier to deal with when you don’t really have to feel strongly about it.’ Blue Planet concluded, and began to summon the guardians to him.

The meeting moved smoothly, smoother than he dreamed, ‘They seem to think this is what I always was, and see me as a kind of god, but who knows what lies beyond this place. We may very well be mere ants to a lowly slime or skeleton monster in this place. But it’s useful not to have to convince them to obey.’

The twins briefed the others, and at Demiurge’s suggestion they began to scout more widely with their highest level and most undetectable creatures.

Disguising Nazarick with hills was Mare’s idea, and for that, Blue Planet rewarded him with another pat upon his head, which earned the young trap, jealous, envious stares from the other guardians.

“First we have to learn about this world… I wanted to save Nazarick, but… this is not what I expected. As such, caution is our highest priority. I want copious maps made from overhead, I need to know the environments, the creatures, the people, if any, everything.” Blue Planet gave the order, and as one the guardians answered…

“At once, My Lord!”

“I’ll be with the mirror, return to me when you have something.” Blue Planet said, and slowly walked away.

Blue Planet spent the better part of the next three months just at the mirror, going over everything he could find, mastering its use and combining it with a listening demon that would follow his direction. Further using the ‘Gate’ spell to best effect, the entire world was within his reach, down to the inch.

“What a malthusian world… this is on the same path as my own, even with magic.” Blue Planet reached that conclusion only very slowly, largely because he didn’t want to believe it. But there it was. Watching the beastmen devour a Draconic Kingdom village, he felt a sense of pity for the unfortunate dead, but as he traced the path back to the Beastman Kingdom, he saw why they were launching their invasion.

“Trophic Cascade.” Blue Planet muttered.

“My lord?” Sebas asked while attending the elder ent.

“It’s a domino effect of failures, like lighting a match in dry grass, it spreads quickly and consumes everything. The Beastman Kingdom has to eat humans or other living beings to survive, but they’re victims of their own success. There are now too many beastmen, they started eating their own replacement stock, maybe they could eat other races like trolls, but it’s a harder fight. The Draconic Kingdom is their only option, but they also wrecked their home trying to raise enough food.” Blue Planet explained, his body creaked as he brought a wooden hand up to scratch at what passed for his cheek. ‘You’d think I’d be more upset after seeing a literal baby get torn in half and eaten… but this emotional dampener really keeps me locked down… that’s probably for the best… still, I don’t care for the Beastmen. They’re like a more destructive version of humanity… if I leave them unchecked…’

Blue Planet’s mind turned to the thoughts of just how beautiful the night sky outside truly was, ‘Everything I dreamt of in a world… is here. The air is clear, crisp and clean. The rain falls and I can soak in it… it isn’t toxic or acid laden. I can see the sun, the moon and all the sky… if I leave this place unchecked though, this world will be like home… if this is to be my ‘new’ home, I have to protect it from those living on it.’

It was an unexpected revelation, a sudden, impulsive thought. An intrusive, unlooked for idea. But it grabbed him. ‘All of Demiurge’s experiments showed that nothing less than a dragon lord is a threat to us, and even that… I have no doubt we could kill them based on what our spies learned of the past players that Albedo learned about.’

“Sebas… What do you think of the beastmen?” Blue Planet asked without looking behind him.

“Cruelty is not to my liking, master. They may not be evil just by how they need to eat to live. However, they revel in the suffering of the weak, I have found not a single good one in these weeks of watching.” Sebas answered truthfully, and Blue Planet found it hard to argue.

“Then you will cull their numbers. Approach the Draconic Queen, offer to turn back the tide on the condition that twenty-five percent of her nation be left as wild preserves with only caretakers or specially licensed hunters or travelers allowed to enter it. That is fair, isn’t it?” The elder ent asked.

“Half her kingdom or more is now dead, so… very, and it should pose no burden for them in what to do with survivors. How many of the beastmen should be allowed to survive, my lord?” Sebas asked.

Blue Planet thought about the severe damage done by the constant playing with weather, the many ruined areas in the Beastman Kingdom where he saw almost no normal wildlife, even monsters. ‘It will take a century and a half to recover if left alone, at least.’ He thought after running a calculation in his head that was very ‘back of the napkin’ like.

“Ten percent. We can engage in some productive trade with survivors and use some morph magic wands to let them convert from ranching to farming, and they can convert plant life to an equivalent weight of meat. Then…” Blue Planet thought of the mountains.

“How are the dwarves doing?” He asked.

“Badly, my lord. Another three months or less and their kingdom will cease to exist.” Sebas explained, and Blue Planet gave a thoughtful look at the mirror. “Send Shalltear, overpopulation of mineral consuming species can only lead to long term disaster. Plus the dwarves seem to have some interesting ideas about how to live in confined spaces. They might have experts worth recruiting. Tell her to cull the Quagoa too. If left unchecked, they’ll eventually eat the damn mountain range, and we must think long term to preserve this world against the destructiveness of the ones who live on it.”

“How many should be left alive, my lord?” Sebas asked with his face as passive and stoic as ever.

Blue Planet reached out to touch the perfect glass of the mirror, his wooden finger tips that were harder than any metal he’d yet found on this world, traced over the smooth surface of the magic item. His green eyes closed halfway as he took the power of divinity into his grip.

“A few thousand, make the smarter ones a priority and… I guess, children. Ones we can influence in how they grow up.” The last member of Ainz Ooal Gown answered.

“Of course, My Lord, will there be anything more?” Sebas pressed. Blue Planet knew what the butler was asking, but it wasn’t truly a priority for the last ruler.

Still, it cost nothing. “You want to return to Re-Estize? To rescue the one that was taken away when you were scouting there?”

“I apologize for my selfishness, master. But it is a loose end in my heart that I have not been able to cut, no matter how I try.” Sebas bowed his head in apology, but the elder ent only turned his towering form around to look down at his head butler.

He placed a twig covered hand over the old man’s head, “You are like the son of the man who made you, and you bear his spirit. I have no real care for… their kind. But if it will ease your heart, go there first. Rescue her and her friends, and bring her here. Nazarick could use a few servants from the outside to teach us more about the people of this world. Then go to the Draconic Kingdom after, with the Pleiades and anyone else you need to ensure you have the job done in a month.”

“A month, My Lord?” Sebas asked even while relief flooded his heart. ‘I am blessed with a compassionate lord.’ The Butler of Steel thought on repeat until the elder ent’s hand came away from him.

“Yes, I’ve decided we will be exceptionally busy after all, this world needs us, and whether they know it or not, the people living on it do also, and I will make sure they know it.” Blue Planet said, and the whorling void of a gate opened a few paces away. “Get started, I have to plan for many, many tomorrows.”

‘If I’m going to save this world from being destroyed… I’m going to have to kill a lot of the people in it… curious, I should feel differently about that. But… when I look out at their beautiful forests and bright, clear night’s sky…’ Blue Planet thought as he turned the angle of the mirror up to see more of the bright and nearly perfect world around its viewing angle, ‘I know I’m doing the right thing, and the descendants of the survivors will thank me, one day.’

“At once, My Lord.” Sebas answered, and stepped through the gate, leaving Nazarick behind.

roberthbutlerwriter

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