3. Nine's Own Goal and First Boss

It's been about a month since I started playing and let me tell you, levelling in this game is no joke. I'm only about level 20 after constantly grinding, and I read rumours on the forum page that the dungeon found is almost level 30. I'm slinking through the forest with Barak and Sheath next to me as my weapon is in Cane form in my right hand as my left hand is rolling the Rusted Silver Coin over my fingers before I hear shouting. It sounds like some Human Players are picking on another Heteromorphic Player so I rush over.

I arrive in a clearing to see a scene most people who watched Overlord would remember. Ainz, or as he is called right now Momonga in a tattered brown robe on the ground surrounded by 3 Human Players.

'If I remember correctly this should be where Momonga meets Touch Me after the latter saved the former.' - As I finish this thought I see a glint of silver in the forest on the opposite side of the clearing and make my way towards it, seeing Touch Me I appear next to him after making myself known so as not to have a sword run through my guy.

I use sign language, which I learned over the last month, and ask if he knows it, he signs back that he does. Together we quickly come up with a plan before I disappear into his shadow, a low levelled skill as a True Vampire I mainly use for surprise attacks against Human Players.

As he makes himself known and engages in combat with them, purposefully looking like he's struggling. I make my appearance with my weapon in Scythe form before swinging at one of the players behind Touch Me, decapitating him as his body fades and he drops an item. Noticing my appearance, Touch Me stops playing around and quickly finishes the last 2.

"Tch, fucking casuals…" I say in my slightly feminine voice. I pick up the item that got dropped as Touch Me helps Momonga up. My weapon turns back into its Cane version as I take a closer look at the item. It's a book, a poetry book. Well, I say poetry book but it's not just confined to poetry. It's full of ballads and short stories as well. Some appear to be ones of grief while others appear to be more neutral. The title of the book is 'ᛞᛖᚨᛞ ᛗᚨᚾ'ᛋ ᛚᚨᛗᛖᚾᛏ' which thanks to my interest in runes in my past life I can translate as 'Dead Man's Lament'.

'It seems interesting and gives me a reason to be even more edgy so I'm taking it.' I think before putting the book away into my coat I look over too Momonga and Touch Me.

"Oi, you guys ok over there?", my voice, which still sounds slightly feminine, breaks them out of their conversation.

Momonga: "Y… yes, thank you miss. If it weren't for you and Touch Me-san I probably would've died."

Touch Me: *boisterously laughing* "All in a days work Momonga!! But anyways, I digress. Miss, if you would like to join us on our adventure then I'd be much obliged as thanks for helping me save one of my friends!"

(AN: Ok, I seriously get Solaire vibes from Touch Me, does anyone else? Also I understand that this is where Momonga and Touch Me met in canon but I'm saying they knew each other beforehand)

"Sure, I'll join you guys. But, just so you know… I'm a guy…"

Momonga & Touch Me: "Eh?"

"Yep, I'm a guy. Both in real life and my character, we both have dicks. It's just that I made my character a trap because I myself am, technically, one as well."

Touch Me: "Hahaha! Well then. May I ask what your player name is?"

'Right, I forgot about that mechanic. You can't see player names unless you're friends with them or you actually tell them.'

"Sure, send me a friend request and party invite real quick."

*Touch Me has sent you a friend request… would you like to accept?*

*Momonga has sent you a friend request… would you like to accept?*

*Touch Me has sent you a clan invite to 'Nine's Own Goal'... would you like to accept?*

'Accept All' I think mentally as I see Touch Me and Momonga appear on my friends list, which not 5 minutes prior was empty. 'Yay friends…'

"So, what do we do from here?"

Touch Me: "Now, we meet up with the rest of the party members before going out and doing missions."

*Time Skip 1 Month*

It's been a month since I joined Nine's Own Goal, which, because of me, was changed to Ten's Foregon Oath before one of the members quit Yggdrasil. We got stronger as we always worked together in high leveled areas. Allowing for what I called "Power Levelling", where we would work together to take down high levelled enemies multiple times, taking all the EXP we can before moving on. Through this time I got to Level 40, and was the highest rank player in all of Yggdrasil, leading me to have an unofficial "Flee on Sight" order. The only people who wouldn't run when they spotted me were other Heteromorphic Players, leading me to gain the nickname "Guardian Demon". Due to my black clothing, demonic mask, and glowing red eye. Nobody but Momonga and Touch Me knew exactly what my race build was, and Nine's Own Goal were the only ones who knew exactly what my gender was. I even have my own Forum page that lists my sightings, clan, equipment, appearance, and some speculation on what I was. Some people thought I was a girl due to my voice, others thought I was a guy due to my avatar, but no one knew for sure. They also didn't know what my race was as I kept my racial skills concealed, they don't need to know it's a special race.

People had been able to "confirm" I was at least partial vampire due to the Life Steal trait from my unique class Queenslayer. We had also gotten a few new members and even though I only ever interact with Touch Me, Momonga, Peroroncino and Bukubukuchagama on a daily basis but I maintained friendly relations with all the members.

I'm stirred from my thoughts by the approaching Momonga who is finally wearing something befitting of the future "Grand Sorcerer". He's wearing a rare cloak called the "Billowing Cloak" which is a black cloak that descends towards his feet before turning into a dark purple smoke. It boosts 'Death' related spells and Debuff Spells which is perfect for the current him. In his left hand he has a staff that I forged for him. It increases his Mana Pool while also increasing his spell damage and is his current weapon. For close quarters he also has a long dagger on his belt just in case something gets too close and we can't reach him. It was the only weapon he could wield with his class restrictions without ruining his build.

Momonga: "Are you ready Alastor? We're about to enter our first dungeon as a clan!"

"Yeah, I'm ready Momon-san, lets hurry up and regroup with the others. If I remember correctly Touch Me-san is going to tell us our roles. Hopefully we can clear the dungeon and be the first clan to clear one."

Yep, you heard right. Yggdrasil dungeons are so fucking tough. That even 2 months into the game nobody has cleared one yet. We were only confident that we'd clear the dungeon after our lowest level player reached Level 30 as this is a Level 30 dungeon. Me, Momon-san, Touch-san, Pero-san and Buku-chan might be able to clear this dungeon just by ourselves, but we all agreed that we should be cautious first. After the dungeon we would split the rewards depending on what everyone did for the raid with the person who kills the boss getting to keep the Last Hit Loot.

Me and Momon-san arrived at the group, made up of about 20 heteromorphic players just as Touch-san started to speak.

Touch: "Today, my friends, we delve deep into the unknown. Today, we are the pioneers who will complete something nobody else has down so far! Today! We raid the first ever dungeon of YGGDRASIL! TODAY! WE SET OUR NAMES IN STONE, AS THE CLAN OF NINE'S OWN GOAL! ARE YOU WITH ME?"

*Cheering!*

Touch: "THEN LET'S GO!"

He opens the door to the dungeon as everyone arrives into a dank corridor that splits into 4 different pathways. 2 in front, one to the left, one to the side.

Touch: "Everyone, split into your groups of 5. The Main Group will be with me, we'll go down the front left pathway. Everyone else, choose a path, send a message if you find a chest or a dead end."

As he finishes speaking, Momon-san, Pero-san, Buku-chan and I all arrive next to Touch-san. We are the Main Group, but also the strongest. We're a really balanced team.

Momon-san is spell support, sadly his own healing spell only affects fellow undead so I'd be the only one affected which is fine as it's offset by the amount of debuff spells he has access to.

Pero-san is ranged support, he utilizes a bow for quick and decisive shots which can either a. Hit a vital spot or b. Give access to a vital spot.

Buku-chan is our tank, she utilizes heavy armor and specializes in aggro management. She has some spells that are mostly caster focused such as a aggro spell, defense spell and self healing spell.

Touch-san is the leader, he can deal damage, heal allies, and take aggro though he can't tank as well as Buku. For this fight he's mainly joining me to deal damage due to how well we all fight together.

Finally there's me, I'm the main source of DPS. My weapon is specially made to cause 3 status effects that greatly limit any enemy we come across and most of my spells either increase my damage or cause damage. I also have a couple healing spells, 5 of them actually:

Greater Evil Resurrection: Resurrect someone with evil karma with returned health = to their karma score. For this one Touch-san would get the least benefits as he has the highest karma score out of all of us, despite it still being negative.

Wicked Mend: Heal someone with a evil karma score.

Neither of them work for people with positive karma or "good" karma scores. Which is fine for now as all of Nine's Own Goal has "evil" karma. It's really hard for Heteromorphic Players to gain good karma.

My last 3 healing spells are from my Unique Class and is the only one that can effect everyone.

Modest Offering: Offer up a small portion of your own health to give to a player of your choice.

Restorative Offering: Offer up a medium portion of your own health to give to a player of your choice.

Sympathetic Boon: Offer up a large portion of your own health to give to a player of your choice.

This is our party layout. We continue downwards with Touch-san and Buku-Chan in the back. Me and Momon-san in the middle so I can protect him if need be but equal distance to any enemy we come in contact with. Then finally Pero is behind us with his bow, ready to quick fire at any enemy ambushes.

We continue down the hallway, occasionally looting some chests with decent items before giving them all to Touch Me for the redistribution at the end, minus 1 item of choice for each person that opens the chest. So far the items I've taken are:

A new cuirass called 'Requiem Impious' which was quite better than my plain steel one, so I took a second to update 'Unholy Reverend' and now my armor is a bit better. It was a deep black with pulsing pulsing red veins.

I also found a new pair of gauntlets called 'Wyrm Bane' that I used to replace my old ones, they had the appearance of blackish dragon bones in the same style of my old ones,

Eventually, we come across a set of stairs going deeper down. We've been on our guard as we haven't come across any enemies yet and it's been nearly an hour since we entered. We've gotten notifications from the other parties that their route either ended or, in the case of one of the parties, got wiped. Out of the 4 parties that originally came, 1 of which got destroyed by a "monster mob" where one of the players accidentally triggered a trap that spawned a lot of monsters that wiped them out. The other 2 hit dead ends and went back to deal with the mob the wiped party got, only to hit a deadend themselves. So, we know that we have the way to the boss room, and I'm currently hearing boss music. So I make it known.

"Hey everyone. I don't know about you, but this feels like the boss room. Make sure everything you need is ready for quick use."

Touch: "I agree, Alastor-san. Buku-san, get your defense and aggro spell ready. Pero-san, ready your archery skills. Momon-san, get your debuffs ready. Alastor-san and I will work on damaging the enemy as much as possible. Everyone ready?"

Everyone: "Yes!"

We enter the boss room and instantly see a giant tree golem with a giant Health bar.

"If it's anything like it's normal counterparts it's really weak to fire. Are you ready Touch-san?"

I glance over at Touch-san as he nods and see he's already preparing his highest level flame spell Burn Lance, it's a 4th tier spell and one of the more powerful in our arsenal, if you don't add me to the mix.

I prepare my own spells before, with a war cry, Buku-chan charges at the Golem, gathering it's attention. Above it Health Bar is finally a name. 'Protector of the Barkion'. It's guarding something then?

I let a smile come to my face at this little idea before shooting my own fire spells towards the golem until I coat my own weapon with fire and charge in.

It takes us about 10 minutes of hit and run tactics because, even with the fire weakness, his second phase not only increased their resistance to it but also their general defense, and damage. Not to mention, if we backed too far away they would attempt to heal. So we had to have someone always attack them as the others tried to recover. Usually I was the one who did that as I was the only one with fast enough reaction speed to dodge a majority of his blows. But they did eventually fall to a combined blow of my and Buku-chan nonetheless.

When it did finish both me and Buku-chan got a "Last Hit" reward. I got a black leather book belt. While Buku-chan got a twisted black wooden staff.

'So, that's the staff that Mare eventually uses. I could probably upgrade it better than normal upgrading would…'