‘So tired… I guess… I guess Momonga couldn’t make it.’ Herohero yawned at the table. ‘No one else either… so… tired.’ His eyes scanned the many empty chairs. “What a shame.” He said out loud, “I had hoped to see them all just one more time. Even if I probably would have just shamefully vented myself to some of them.”
“Maybe I should go, maybe… maybe I should logoff.” He said and yawned one more time. “No, no… VRGEAR. Set Alarm. Five hours. Wake on shutdown.” He commanded his equipment, and the telltale buzzing in his ear said it had been done.
“I’ll just stay here, and if I fall asleep in my chair just once, so what? I’ll be fine. It’d be a shame if anybody showed up and I missed them.” Herohero made the argument to himself, and chose to wait the timer down for the last fifteen minutes.
They say nobody really feels the moment they fall asleep, it’s just a transition between two states that we can feel approaching but never feel take place. This was certainly true in the case of Herohero, who had no idea when he fell asleep. He only knew he slept, by waking up.
But contrary to his previous night’s settings and expectations, he didn’t wake up to the sound of a buzzing alarm in his VR gamer chair. Instead he woke up slumped over the conference room table. His vision returned in an instant, and a feeling of horror swept over the black oozing body of his ‘elder slime’ avatar.
“No! How long was I asleep?! Did I miss work?!” He shouted, nobody was there in the room to answer, he was alone with his fears. His anxiety, his dread of explaining why he was late.
[Logout].
[Disconnect].
[Emergency shutdown].
[GM Call].
Herohero tried every command he could think of. From his oozy body came two appendages that served as hands and arms, and in a flurry of desperation, he reached for the top front of his avatar like he was going to grab the helmet and rip it off of his face. Of course, as it wasn’t there, it was nothing but futile gesticulation. But it consumed precious seconds as fear overtook him.
“Help! Someone! Help me!” He cried out, and began to ‘drip’ down to the floor out of his own chair. Nobody answered, even if the mindless NPCs could have heard him, he knew it would be useless. ‘Please restate your command.’ He could already hear the empty response of the limited AI.
That sense of aloneness became even more overwhelming, and he slipped down to the floor and curled up in a kind of black ‘lump’ where he started to make ‘crying noises’ though his avatar could shed no tears.
“The doctor… my appointment… my pay will be docked… I’ll have to kowtow to my supervisor and beg him not to fire me… I’ll be on the worst shifts for months… I’ll…” He quietly recited every terrible thing that he knew was going to happen when he finally got in and explained that he was late because he stayed up late on a videogame that was shutting down and fell asleep inside of it.
‘Some kind of an error… maybe they rescheduled the shutdown.’ He thought and tried to check the time, but the countdown timer was gone. That was when he noticed something else. The floor had a feel like its flavor text, it had a temperature, the chair and table, even the air around him. Everything had a feel of some sort.
“How can this be?” Herohero asked the nothingness around him.
How long he remained curled up on the floor with fears and doubts abound within him, how long he recited the troubles ahead and recited the doubting question, he had no idea. But one idea came to mind. ‘The throne room. If Momonga showed up and decided to go there, he’ll be on the Throne of Kings and he’ll have seen any announcement made by the shittydevs.’
The thought was an optimistic one, and Herohero oozed himself up into a more upright, if somewhat lumpy form, and slid his body over the floor, out the door, and into the hall.
To his surprise, he encountered Solution Epsilon walking in the hallway. As soon as she saw him, she moved out of his way, went to one knee, covered her chest with one hand, and bowed her head. “Master.” She said in a sensual voice.
That made Herohero stop. ‘NPCs can’t talk!’
Panic ran through him. But accustomed to covering his ass at work, he covered here as well. “Walk with me, Solution. I’m going to the throne room. I may need attending.”
She brightened up like an angel, “My lord! I’d be honored!” She was like a happy child told by a parent she would get a present when he returned from a trip.
She sprang to his side and followed him, and Herohero applied another skill of his.
Covert questioning. In his blackhearted enterprise where brutal politics ruined the lives of the unprepared or overly blunt, it was a skill everyone learned to apply. The key to covert questioning was to not ask directly, instead ask for related information.
He began with the blunt foundation, “How long was I in the conference room, do you know?” Herohero asked.
“Master, you entered there three days ago.” Solution said, and her bright blue eyes pooled, “We don’t know how you saved us from the end of the world, but we are grateful. All of Nazarick has been waiting for you to emerge. Some of us, they feared you saved us by sacrificing your life… but as your creation, I knew better.”
She beamed up at the elder black ooze.
‘End of the world, they mean the shutdown, Momonga must have talked about it.’ Herohero realized, ‘They don’t know they were just characters in a game, to them, Yggdrasil was the real world, which means…’ Herohero ran through the implications, what that meant he and the other players were to the NPCs, and how they understood the present.
“Have you spoken with all the others, then?” He asked.
She nodded, “We talk a lot over meals, I of course tried to be the one to guard your door at all times, but Lady Albedo wouldn’t permit it, she said if you wanted a guard, you’d have said so. So instead we’ve taken turns patrolling this hall, hoping for your emergence. I hoped I would be the one to see you first, master.” Solution’s slender pale fingers folded together as if in prayer.
“I wanted to give my thanks first… I’m glad that dream came true.” She said with a breathy sigh of contentment that made her ample bosoms heave.
‘Damn, I really did put this one together…’ Herohero reflected, but he focused chiefly on the knowledge he gleaned from his creation just then. ‘I’ve been asleep for days, they think I saved them, I’m alone here among the players, the other NPCs can talk, think, and act on their own. That settles it, this isn’t the game. The fact that I can feel everything… wait, one more test.’ He thought, and stopped in his tracks.
“Solution,” He stopped, he thought about the black hearted bosses who took advantage of young interns both male and female alike, and he changed what he was about to say, “may I touch your body?”
“Of course, my creator. Should I face you, turn to the side, turn around, or is there some position you would like?” She had a bright smile on her face.
Herohero wanted to reach up to touch her cheek, but that wouldn’t do for this test. Lewdity laws were extremely tight in Japan where the game was hosted, and any player who deliberately engaged in it would quickly find themselves banned, logged out, or even fined so that the company could protect its reputation and comply with the rules of the state.
So, he extended an appendage from his body and began to caress Solution’s chest, she made a little squeak when he did this, and Herohero was grateful his avatar couldn’t blush. He continued the motion well beyond the point that the server would notice, her supple flesh gave beneath his touch, and she made little noises with his caress that revealed her body was as sensitive as his flavor text described it to be. ‘I should have gotten off before writing her flavor text, I think I made her too responsive.’
He finally gave up and pulled his hand back. “Master, I’m a slime too, if you want I can…” Solution began, then stopped when Herohero took the general shape of a bipedal person and shook his head.
“No, I know enough for now, thank you, Solution. I apologize if that went on longer than it should have or gave you the wrong idea.” He said with a bow of his head, she only flushed a little in the face.
“Nothing is wrong for a god who so loves his children that he stays with them to save their lives.” Solution proclaimed with fervent devotion.
‘That again…’ He thought and resumed his walk to the throne room.
He left the comment otherwise unaddressed, and when they reached their destination, he found Albedo standing at the base of the stairs, kneeling as Solution had, and waiting.
“Master, I have things to report about ‘Salvation Day’. If it pleases you to hear them.” Albedo said with a bright light in her large yellow eyes. Her black wings trembled with excitement.
“I knew you were alive.” Albedo added with joy. A bright smile lighting up her face as Herohero came near.
“Who thought I wasn’t?” Herohero asked, “Not that I blame them for doubting it, that wasn’t easy, even for me.” He added, ‘Better to run with that belief, and I guess ‘Salvation Day’ means the day the world they knew ‘didn’t end’.’
“Eclair Ecleir Eicler, Master. He thought he would get the throne.” Albedo answered with a snort of derision.
Herohero had to pick his brain to find the memory of the ambitious penguin butler. “I see, and where is he now?”
“Shizu has had him locked up in her room for the last three days to keep him from coming to the throne room.” Albedo answered, the sense of mirth in her voice told him it was very funny, and so he chose to chuckle as he tried to recall Shizu’s settings.
‘Right, she squeezes cute things… poor penguin, I’ll rescue him later.’ Herohero made a mental note.
“What have you to report?” He said as he stood in front of the kneeling Guardian Overseer.
The succubus proceeded to explain the reports of their outside patrols, the terrain change, securing the perimeter with Mare’s help to disguise the area completely. “We couldn’t bring ourselves to dirty the walls of Nazarick, but we compensated by expanding the range of them to as far as the swamps. We considered wiping out the inhabitants there, but instead we chose to simply monitor them instead.”
Herohero brought her settings to mind. ‘Right, negative karma, damn, almost everyone in Nazarick is basically evil. Especially… right, Demiurge. Ulbert’s creation was modeled off of black hearted CEOs… I need to keep a tight lid on this place.’
“I see. You made the right call there Albedo. Go-Good job. Has… did Momonga come by here?” Herohero asked.
“No, no he didn’t, my lord. You’re the last.” Albedo hung her head.
Herohero’s ooze bubbled in a slow, rhythmic sadness. ‘My friends…’ He thought, and for a moment all he wanted to do was cry, vent, rage and scream. And yet there was only Albedo and Solution, and he wanted to be alone, but not be alone. ‘I want my friends to vent to, I want to let it all out, but if they were here, I wouldn’t need to…’
It was a nasty catch twenty-two.
Finally he settled on a solution, ‘Who to use… Mare is powerful, but… honestly he’s such a sweet, non-intimidating guardian… he can’t summon, but we have scrolls and rechargeable wands for that.’ The thought settled it quickly.
“Have… Have Mare join me in the Arena, Solution, meet me in my quarters tonight,” Herohero said while thinking, ‘I need to buy time to think about what to do next. I’m a salaryman, not even a guild leader, I don’t know what to do about this!’ Still, he knew his duty to Nazarick, and couldn’t think of anywhere else to go or anything else to do.
Albedo stood by patiently, she caught his eye with her attentive, longing stare up at what passed for the face of the oozing elder black slime. The dripping slime plopped back into his body in an endless cycle as he considered what to do. ‘Give me a task!’ She seemed to plead, and a sense of guilt made his constant cycling of slime roll faster over his skin.
‘Is this the equivalent of hairs standing on end for me?’ Herohero wondered as the ooze moved faster, ‘Or is it like my heart rate now?’ He had no answer to either question, but the sense that he was obliged to give her something to do to keep her busy, hung over him like the sword of Damocles.
Finally he had something. “Albedo, I want you, Demiurge, and Pandora’s Actor to begin scouting the surrounding areas. Learn everything you can about the populated areas of this world, use summoned dopples and our highest level, stealthiest summons for the task. We need to know what to make of this place.”
Albedo brightened up immediately, but a sense of dread came over Herohero that made his slime race up his back and down his ‘face’ much faster. The bubbles boiled and popped like bubble wrap until he came up with an additional option. “Take your time about this, I want to know everything useful about the lands around us. Give it a few weeks at least and tell me if you need even more time than that. Better done right, than just done fast.” Herohero added, recalling the phrase of a rare ‘good’ boss.
“As you command, my lord.” Albedo bowed.
Albedo was alone with Demiurge and Pandora’s Actor in a private meeting room intended just for guardians, they sat at a small black round table with ornately carved matching chairs with swirling patterns along the backs.
“...So that is his plan.” Demiurge suggested, tapping his chin in thought.
“Have you come to some conclusion, mein guter colleague?” Pandora’s Actor asked, leaning forward with great interest.
“Yes! He is making moves to control this world, and we must make preparations to bring his wish to fruition.” Demiurge answered.
Albedo glanced toward the double door that led into the room they occupied. “Lord Herohero isn’t Lord Momonga or Lord Ulbert, I can’t picture him wanting to rule an empire, even if he deserves one as the one who stayed behind.”
“Perhaps not, but he wouldn’t ask something like this without wanting an important role befitting a Supreme Being. So, this is what I believe we should focus on…” Demiurge said, and began to lay out his thoughts.
Herohero remained in his room more or less constantly for days after his testing of his skills in the arena, visited only by his own creation and Mare, he left only when he came up with an idea to give the guardians or the other servants something to do.
But even that could only last so long, keeping the most dangerous of the guardians busy and allowing them full use of the others to achieve his orders bought him weeks of time, just as Herohero hoped.
Nightly he melted into a lump of black ooze on the floor and let his slime fall like tears… but there was an upside.
‘I’ve never felt so vigorous and strong!’ He thought for the thousandth time as he rocked through the emotional chaos of his isolation, his loss, his anxiety about what was expected of him, and his newfound and all too real power.
Gradually, a kind of equilibrium began to settle over him that reached a plateau the day Albedo came to his quarters saying, “We have finished, master.”
“Enter. Enter. Yes, come in.” Herohero said and waved to a small round table he kept in the corner of the massive room. Unlike the rooms of his friends, Herohero’s quarters were decorated sparsely, with only a few pieces of mostly nature scenes at night, a seascape of the old world, and a mountain peak before the top was removed to get at the resources within.
The exceptions to this were a few pictures taken from within Yggdrasil itself, of him and his companions, friends, at the height of the guild’s power and gameplay. Christmas parties, costume days, and birthday celebrations. The misery of most of their lives was abundant outside of the game, much like his own.
‘I never have to go back to that now.’ He understood that days before Albedo came to join him, but as she sat at the table and began to recite everything she and the others had learned about the outside world, he realized something.
When he learned of the pitiable state of the world’s peasants, the tragedies of the slaves, the cruel actions of lords and the utter unfairness of the contract systems and guilds, it hit him like a ton of bricks. ‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’
Covert tests against the world’s inhabitants revealed that any guardian could overthrow a nation by themselves.
‘I can give workers a fair shake, I can make… a workers’ paradise… and nobody can stop me. Nobody has to live like Momonga, Ulbert, or me.’ He thought.
When Albedo finally finished her explanations, Herohero knew exactly what he wanted to ask about first.
“How hard will it be to take over the organization known as ‘Eight Fingers’?” Herohero’s ooze popped excitedly atop what served as his head.
“Covertly, master? Demiurge prepared a plan for that already, waiting for your approval. We can dominate the underworld of the Kingdom and the Baharuth Empire within one year.” Albedo answered with a confident smile already growing on her face.
‘He was right!’ Albedo was elated.
“Good. But we need more than that, the corruption in these places seems bad, we need to push for reform. Start with judges. Offer some bribes, then kidnap the ones who accept them. Have them… ‘taught’ not to engage in corruption, bring them here, teach them to fear to do evil, then return them to their positions. Oh, and…” He looked at another paper on the table, “This annual war needs to stop. Leave a dagger on the Emperor’s bed with a note, tell him that is his only warning to stop his attack on the Kingdom. If he goes again. Make him disappear. If he stops, leave a new dagger every few months, reminding him we are watching, and inform him he is to come up with a plan to set the slaves free, and he has one year to complete it. If he refuses, bring him here for reeducation.”
“We’ll force the world to reform, one black hearted enterprise at a time… can you handle that, Albedo?” He asked.
“My lord, it would be my utmost pleasure.” She said with a happy grin.
“I’m sure it is.” Herohero said, “I’m sure it is.”
...Six months later… Baharuth Empire…
Emperor Jircniv shivered, he felt the strands of hair falling out of his head, he swore it. His face was haggard for want of sleep. An irony, as he was holding yet another dagger, this one laid to rest on his very chest. Guards had been rotated out, servants replaced, nobles questioned, and still they appeared, always wrapped in a note that counted down the time he had left to formulate a plan to end all slavery in the empire. “Damn it… I don’t want to die… fine. Nameless one… but tonight I leave a note for you.”
He set the dagger aside at the desk and snatched a paper and quill, with rapid, aggressive motions he soaked the feather tip into the dark ink and scrawled in a crude, crude hand. ‘You win. I will create a plan to free them. But I want something in exchange.’ He thought about it for only a moment, ‘Asking for my life is the expected route, so don’t do the expected. Especially an expectation I can’t enforce.’ The thought died when he came to his conclusion and wrote, ‘I want to meet.’
He set the quill aside, then when the ink dried on the paper, he stabbed his note through the knife and went to bed. ‘No commander has lived to march three days past garrison in half a damn year. Everything is disrupted, I must have answers, and it seems I have to risk myself to find them.’ Jircniv steeled himself with his thoughts, wondering what sort of man he would meet, and then lay down on his bed, setting the knife into place lying flat on his chest with the note there, hoping it would gain the attention of the ones who left their warnings.
...Kingdom of Re-Estize…
Zero blubbered on all fours as he crawled through the streets of the capital. At every house he came to, he begged forgiveness and drew out coins of gold from his pockets as compensation for anything he had ever done wrong to the occupants or their neighbors.
It took him most of a month by himself, but he was not alone in what he did. The rest of Six Arms, except for the now very dead, Undead King, were doing the same. Clad in penitent clothing of sackcloth, heads shaved bald, and faces etched with terror, they did as they were commanded.
‘Anything… anything… anything to never meet them again…’ It was the thought they shared in common. Those who questioned the penitent hardened criminals were met with blank stares of raw trauma.
“Please… don’t ask me to remember… I can’t bear even that…” Zero whispered in hushed tones.
Inside the palace weeks after the ‘great moral awakening’, Princess Renner sat at the conference table with the other council members and laid out her plans. “This is for contract reform, this is for business reform, this is for tax reform…” One after another after another, she laid the papers down, and slid them to the finely dressed men who aided in her father’s rule.
“Brilliant, we’re sure it’s brilliant, of course we must read over it, but… I’m sure we can do that today and have copies made and prepared to go throughout the kingdom in less than a season,” Marquis Raeven said with a broad, enthusiastic smile painted on his face.
He wasn’t alone. While his was genuine, the others wore smiles that sat below darting eyes, fearing that any dissent would be observed. Renner only smiled her innocent smile. ‘If I keep at this for much longer, I’m sure ‘marital reforms’ will be my reward from Demiurge soon enough. Just a little bit longer…’
So it went… little by little, day by day, hidden within the bowels of Nazarick, the elder black ooze began to find satisfaction with his life that he had not had in years, and so he turned an eye in a direction he hadn’t yet.
The way out, the exit, where the world he was working for, lay waiting, and Herohero’s curiosity began to grow.
Arise workers, arise!
