6 Chapter 3: 1-2: Prelude to Greatness part 3

I started from the ground up, creating a featureless model wearing the plain one-piece slip designed to prevent R-18 content. I selected the base Race as 'Imp', the same base that every Demonic Race had to start from. The options for skin tone came next, so I turned her a lovely tan color with extra fine graphics from a cash item. I input the numbers 87-53-87 in the BWH box, moving to the convenient drop-down menu to specify her as an E-cup.

…Hey. I do have priorities, you know. This game panders to perverts and fetishists, at least one of which I most definitely was.

I turned her hair white and her eyes silver, modifying her stature so her height was due to long smooth legs. Her outfit was carefully considered to be the maximum amount of sexy I could get while still maintaining the minimum game requirements. The dress went to about ten pixels below her panty line—more than enough to give tantalizing peeks if that were allowed here. After a moment of thought I militarized the outfit, turning it into a cross between a uniform and a roleplay costume.

Much time was spent continuing to tweak, add, and polish details of my custom NPC. I knew I would be changing it with time in order to accommodate the changes her form went through while changing Races, but for now it was perfect.

The finished NPC stood before me as I closed the design window. She was tall and tan-skinned, contrasting with her long white hair. Tassels tied the loose strands back, keeping them from interfering with her vision. She wore a red and black dress bearing similarity to a short kimono and long European style coat, complete with a high collar held closed by a rope tassel. Her long, smooth legs were covered up to the thigh by armored boots, adding to her militaristic look. All in all, the very picture of a female Archer.

Oh, yes. She looked positively scrumptious.

I reached out and brought up her profile, which contained two boxes. One for programming, the other for flavor text. The programming window was lacking the typical interface most had, the Developers not bothering to add it in when I could do so much better without it. Since it was going to be coming to my aid in combat, this NPC would definitely need a lot more customization than most.

Data Crystals were burned like fuel as I added more and more to that little box, directing her A.I. on how to move, to react, to fight. I kept my own tactics in mind while designing hers', creating a few somewhat feasible strategies on the fly and setting them to one-word commands easily barked out in the midst of a fight.

Then came the fun part. The flavor text. Her history was easily put down and her past fabricated, but I still had plenty of free space to work with. I toyed around with different ideas and things to add, but ultimately decided to shelve it for later. By the time the World ended, I would have enough there to account for any situation.

One thing, however, I made absolutely sure was present. My Race's flavor text stated, at my request, that Dragons took multiple mates and gained significantly increased power from protecting Maidens. So, obviously, I made it so that my NPC had one specific line in her code and flavor text. The very first line, in simple, easy-to-read font.

"A Maiden that loves her Dragon with all her being."

And with that, I considered my first Maiden complete.

Now came the hard part. Leveling her to the point where she was actually useful.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a few of my favorite exploits were still present.

Unfortunately, there were also some downsides to this.

Archer couldn't do dungeons by herself at her Level, and I couldn't exactly leave her at home and expect the system to work. She had to be in my Party in order for me to tell the system to funnel all the EXP I gained into her. I eventually wound up transferring 20 of my own Levels to her just to get her Stats high enough to survive, but after that it was fairly smooth sailing. I brought her up to 31 with rinse and repeat dungeon crawling, then paused to allocate her points.

Angels and Demons were a bit unique in that their Racial Levels reset after they cleared the requirements to 'evolve'. To get where I needed, I had to follow a very specific path. 'Imp' for ten Levels, 'Demon' for another ten, 'Greater Demon' for five, 'Demon Lord' for five, then a variety of different options depending on which of the Sins the Demon Lord is attuned to. I wanted her to go down the Lust route, 'Succubus', so I chose that. Her Racial Levels reset with Succubus at the base, and from there it got a lot harder. Once I maxed out 'Succubus' she became a 'Greater Succubus', hopefully to turn into a 'Lust Archdemon' later down the line.

Unfortunately, I was only able to get her past the Succubus stage. As with all 'prestige' Races, it required a whopping 30 Levels to fully max it out. It granted the same bonuses as all the Racial Levels that had been removed, though, so it was well worth it. I only got a single Level into the 15-Level 'Greater Succubus' when my grindfest was interrupted by a friend.

"Hey, Ancient-san!" Touch Me's voice came clearly through the Message Spell, giving me pause. I hadn't even realized he was calling.

"Hey Touch Me. How's it going?"

"Pretty well at the moment. Hey, what Level are you right now?"

I grimaced. "Only Level 64. I used 20 Levels' worth of EXP to power-level a combat NPC. Why?"

"Well, see, I was thinking of getting a few friends together and embarking on a quest of exploration across the Nine Worlds. Wanna come?"

I blinked. Such a careless request, yet one that told of a future that was coming faster than I expected.

Sorry Archer, I have to advance the plot now. I hope you'll understand.

Ah, who am I kidding.

I've been waiting a long time for this.

The Clan had been formed and was quickly growing. Ulbert was one of the first to join. The name 'Nine's Own Goal' was quibbled about at his entry into the circle. It was eventually decided that the name stayed, no matter how many Players were in the Clan.

The idea of a Heteromorphic Clan that banded together for the safety of individuals was apparently an extremely popular idea. Some of our star members were drawing the eye of the server, which was a double-edged blade. On the one hand our name was being spoken of, but on the other, I was frequently interrupted during a Leveling session to bail out a Clam Member being mobbed by PKers. They always apologized profusely, but I didn't mind all that much. Anything I could do to help Ainz Ooal Gown become a reality.

One of the most exciting things that happened over the next few months was the addition of Raid Bosses. Low-Level ones, but still, they were there. They were technically called 'World Threats' in the theme of the game's lore, but everyone knew what they really were. I was over the freaking moon about it, having been bugging the Devs to add them pretty much since day one. I felt confident enough to run them, even though there were many clear warnings not to.

I got one-shot by the first few I tried, but hey. I could afford a few failures now that I had EXP stocked up in my Ring of Total Bullshit™.

I developed strategies, planned moves, and slowly began to push back. All World Threats dropped enough EXP and Items for ten to twelve players, which meant I could get a Level or two a pop from each one. It was slow going and I didn't do them often, but when I did I knocked them out of the park.

Archer's NPC Level hit 100 before I even reached Level 70 again, but that was pretty much expected. With my base EXP needing several times what a normal Race would, go figure that she Leveled several times faster than me. What made me more excited was giving her the Job Classes she would be using.

According to YGGDRASIL standard, the DMMO-RPG had over 2000 basic and advanced Job Classes available in the game to unlock and choose from through various conditions, such as killing certain monsters or finishing certain Quests. I gave Archer two Base Classes, both of which having their own Skills and Job trees later down the line. The first was obviously the Class 'Archer', but the other was a bit of an odd one that not many people knew about. 'Arcanist'.

After I had gotten her 15 Levels in each of the Base Classes, they offered a Rare Class that was a cross between the two, as was the design. It was one I had never seen before but was intrigued with nonetheless. 'Sacred Archer' took a mere 10 Levels before it finished, granting access to the final tier of 'Artemis' and several decent Skills.

With an even 50 Racial Levels already allocated, 15 each for Archer and Arcanist, 10 for Sacred Archer, and 5 for Artemis, I was left with a Level 95 NPC and room for only one more Job Class.

The last was one I had unlocked by being one of the first ten Players to beat a World Threat. I knew as soon as I saw it in the list of possibilities that she had to have it.

World Guardian.

In the Web Novel, when Nazarick was invaded by Players, the members came across those with the World Guardian class. The outcome of this invasion was that the World Guardians were repelled, but only through very careful planning. Each World Guardian were separated and dealt with individually, which was the only reason residents of Nazarick could win. The Job Class was an official cheat in and of itself, giving all of the ridiculous Skills and Stats that the likes of World Champion and World Disaster did, only oriented towards defense instead of attack.

When Archer reached the New World with her almost Defense-heavy build and unlocked the magic and memories she had from the Fate universe… she was going to be a terror to behold.

With my Maiden completed (and her appearance revamped slightly), the only thing I had left to do was to get to Level 100 and figure out what the hell I was going to do with all the extra points I had saved up. My Racial Levels only took up 45 of the 76 Levels I had thus far, meaning I had a choice to make.

Would I focus on pure firepower and make my character the most game-breakingly powerful being imaginable, or would I go for Job Classes specializing in Item Creation to prepare for the future? I would already have all the firepower I'd ever need by the time I hit 100, but should I try to go beyond even that?

No, I eventually decided, I would not. Instead I would focus on the long game. Power might be nice and all, but I'm going to live in a world where pretty much no one is above Level 50. I would never really have a chance to use all the power I might amass, which made it kind of silly to gather it in the first place.

So instead I poured all my available points into two Crafting-based Job Classes. Alchemist and Blacksmith. I put a few points into Sage as an afterthought, but ultimately decided to leave the rest to Future Me.

The Clan grew around me, the days got shorter, and a single player left the Clan after an argument with Touch Me.

The days of Ainz Ooal Gown were drawing near.

It was a longer time than I expected, apparently. I waited on the edge of my proverbial seat for a solid week, but nothing really interesting happened. The Clan was growing, sure, but that was about all. Momonga stopped by to check up on me, only to find me in the middle of frustratedly grinding gear for Archer.

Turns out that no matter what game you play, RNG is still a bitch to deal with.

"Ano… Ancient-san, what are you doing?" Momonga asked, a question mark emote appearing over his head.

I grunted, glancing up. "I'm grinding Job EXP to try to Level my Blacksmith Job. That and trying to get some decent rolls on this bow."

Momonga held out his bony hands in a silent request. I closed the Upgrade screen and handed it over to him. He examined it, then fell deathly silent for a moment.

Heh. Necromancer puns.

"How?" He eventually asked in disbelief. "This bow has some of the best Stats I've ever seen! If you sold this right now you might start a bidding war so huge it destabilizes the Player economy!"

I coughed, shuffling sideways to keep my bulk in front of the enormous pile of Caloric Stone I had been spamming. "It's not exactly what I need, though. Those rolls are mediocre at best. I'm a pure melee type with next to zero effective range. Hell, my Race makes it so that all of the Spells I cast below a certain Tier are zero range. If Archer isn't there while I'm pulling aggro, my effective DPS tanks."

Momonga wordlessly handed back the bow, making a quiet sound of anguish as I returned to tapping the pile Caloric Stone with my tail to activate the 'Craft' function and then applying it to the bow. The Stone worked like an extremely high-tier randomizer—every quality I didn't burn Prismatic Ore to make permanent was shuffled around with the values rerolled. I needed the Range on the bow to be utterly ridiculous for it to be effective, but on most bows doing so made the damage it dealt decrease significantly. Hence my mass-use of Caloric Stone to try to bullshit the system.

Oh, calm down. I found a way to mass-produce the stuff after a while. Turns out that if you use the Second-Tier Spell known as [Silk Touch], you could mine the Celestial Uranium in its 'ore' state rather than the usable 'Item' state. From there if you placed it in a large enough cave, the game registered that area as a mine. After that, it would respawn every time you mined it as long as you were willing to wait a while.

Heh. I bet you thought I was an idiot for trading for a Base with no NPC Levels. Who's the idiot now that I can use the cave to infinitely stock and store Celestial Uranium? Even if it takes ages to transform, it's still worth it to any Player willing to play the long game.

Caloric Stone. The World Item for people with too damn much time on their hands.

"So…" I said slowly, keeping my focus on the process before me. I was flipping through rerolls once a second, so if I glanced away I might miss the one I had been looking for. "What brings you here?"

"I just hadn't heard from you in a while even though my Friends List said you were logged in."

I nodded absently. "Sorry about that. Had stuff to do."

"I can see that." He glanced around. "You have your own Guild Base?"

"Not exactly." I set down the pitch-black longbow, glancing around. "This place doesn't really qualify as a Guild Base. It doesn't spawn POP mobs, doesn't give any NPC Levels, and doesn't have any Guild Members. All I use it for is setting up an AoE buff to all Crafting Skills."

"I see." A nodding emoticon floated above Momonga's skull. He really loved those things for some reason. He could've just nodded, would've been much faster. "I heard you were facing down those low-Level World Threats when they first came out, did you get bored of them?"

I let out a bark of laughter. "Are you kidding? Bored of the one official cheat the Devs put in on my request? Those things are mobile EXP farms is what they are. No." I stretched, wings cracking hollowly. "I just got my Battle NPC to Level 100 and decided to give her better equipment before going back into the fray."

"Ah. I see now." He glanced around, looking for the absent NPC. "I take it this 'Archer' you're talking about is an NPC?"

"Yeah, guess I should've said that first." I muttered. "It's not like you'd know otherwise. Sorry. I'll have to show her to you sometime, she's not exactly here right now. I left her to grind Job EXP for her own Job Classes."

"NPCs can do that on their own?" The Elder Lich asked incredulously.

I chuckled. "They can if you're a programmer. I have two or three documents open in windows other than my game, all holding different preset codes. I cut-and-paste them in whenever I need her to go into a different 'mode'. Right now she's in one of those infinite spawn areas I showed you, repeatedly spamming the same attacks."

"Like practicing a single strike in kendo!" The Lich blurted. "We used to do that at my high school. Man, that's a blast from the past."

"'I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand different kicks, but the man who has practiced the same kick ten thousand times.'" I quoted fondly.

"Er… what?"

"Sorry, old man here." I shook my head, returning to the bow. Click, examine, click, examine, repeat. "Look up Bruce Lee sometime. He does a lot of old fighting movies."

"I'll look into it." Momonga paused, cocking his head. "Ah, Ulbert-san just called. He and Touch Me are planning on farming a Boss together, would you like to come?"

I shook my head absently, concentration beginning to block out my surroundings once more. "Nah mate, you go ahead. Tell Ulbert that I'm grinding again, he'll understand and won't say another word."

"He never did explain what you did to make him so terrified of your methods. You're a tad brutal, but not harsh."

I stopped, an evil grin spreading across my face. My Avatar's mouth may not have moved, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the expression. "Ask him about the White Bunnies sometime."

"White bunnies?"

"Mmhmm, with lovely red eyes. A whole pack of them at once." My eyes gleamed viciously. "Inside an enclosed space, with nowhere to run."

"I-I see… well, take care Ancient-san."

"You too, skelly. Keep your ass alive, you hear me?"

"Yeah. Good luck with your bow."

I waved awkwardly with a wing, returning to the endless grind.

Click, glance, repeat. Click, glance, repeat.

This was going to take a while.

A very long while.

Damn you RNG.

Word count:3120