1 Awakening

"Oi, Suzuki, you missed a spot there!"

A half-empty cup of soda clattered near Suzuki Satoru's feet, spilling the sticky pink liquid all over the floor. He gritted his teeth as he felt a cold, wet sensation soaking through the hem of his trousers.

Satoru looked up at the man who threw the drink. Dressed in a grotesque, yellow pinstripe suit, Hade Noburu's beady black eyes bore down on him, his lips curling into an ugly sneer as he savored Satoru's barely concealed indignation.

"You had an okay thing going for you, Suzuki, and you just had to go ahead and ruin it. Absent for five whole months? Do you know how much of a headache you caused management? You're lucky they let you stay here at all!"

"I guess it is fitting," Noburu continued with a disdainful laugh. "Being a janitor is about as much as you're worth. They pay you less than the upkeep cost for an actual robot."

Satoru said nothing in return. He grabbed the white rag he kept on his waist belt and lowered himself to the ground, proceeding to wipe away at the new mess without a word.

"Hoh? Nothing to say? Well, I suppose that's for the best. People like you should just lower your head and-"

Before Noburu could finish, Satoru sprung up with frightening speed to look him dead in the eyes. The man gave a slight gasp of shock as he took in the almost inhuman mask that was now only inches away from his own face. Satoru's eyes shone with a cold yet distant fury, like the chilling light of an impending comet. His pale malnourished features contorted into an almost skeletal visage, a countenance that exuded both an otherworldly authority and a ruthless aura that unnerved Noburu to the bone.

Noburu recoiled, his meaty hands clumsily pushing Satoru away as he stumbled away in a panic. Satoru toppled backwards from the push, slipping on the spilt soda and crashing down onto the ground, soaking his back with the sticky liquid as he did so.

"W-who the hell do you think you are? You h-have no right to be dissatisfied h-here. I'll be letting management know about this!" Noburu huffed, still struggling to get over his momentary panic.

However, as he saw the frail, pathetic looking figure on the ground, the fear and anxiety on his face slowly transformed back into a cruel look of superiority and disdain.

This weak and lowly man was clearly no threat to him, he thought. But then again….what was that expression on his face just now….? It was almost like the glare of a monster….no, something far more terrifying….

However, as he continued to watch the defeated looking Suzuki Satoru clumsily make his way to his feet, any and all feelings of doubt or wariness quickly left his mind. Noburu scrunched his face up in disgust and spat at the ground near Suzuki's feet before making his way out of the office room, slamming the door on his way out.

Suzuki said nothing as he finally hoisted himself to his feet. It was 3am and all the other employees had long retreated back to their homes. He was always the last one to go, as the only way he could survive with his wage was to work nineteen hours a day.

In the morning and afternoon, his presence was more or less entirely ignored as he toiled about in his ceaseless tedium of work. However, every night before Satoru could close up, he would have to endure the torment of Noburu's endless taunts and attempts to humiliate him.

After wiping the soda off the floor, Satoru shut off the lights of the office and closed up before trudging over to the janitor's quarters on the second floor.

The so-called "quarters" consisted of one tiny room with a small, barely functioning shower stall and a dilapidated sink with the added luxury of a stained and foamy mirror. A chewed out sleeping bag lay on the ground next to a small suitcase containing the few belongings Satoru could call his own.

Satoru walked over to the sink and took off his shirt, the back of which was still stained pink from the spilt soda. As he began rinsing and washing out the residual stickiness, he looked into the mirror to see the gaunt face of a broken man staring back at him.

5 years ago, Suzuki Satoru lost everything.

The memory of that day haunted every moment of his life. He was on the cusp of an utter and overwhelming victory, but it was all blown away because of one fateful and completely unexpected turn of events.

The final contingency of the Slane Theocracy was no World Class Item. It wasn't Wild Magic. It wasn't a Player.

It was one of the infamous GM April Fools items, the "Big Red Button."

The mounting anger and frustration in Suzuki Satoru's heart reached a boiling point, and tears welled in his bloodshot eyes as he took his clenched fist and sent it smashing into the dirty glass before him. He grunted in agony, holding back a pained scream as he felt a great stabbing sensation surge through his knuckles and into his wrist on impact.

He tried his best to calm himself with deep, heaving breaths in an attempt to suppress the cacophony of desperate thoughts and emotions as they threatened to engulf him. He turned the rusted knob of the faucet, splashing himself with the cold water that gushed out into the sink to steady his nerves.

As he stared back into the broken mirror, water still dripping down from his pale face, he could almost see the remnants of the Overlord that once was staring back at him through the fissures of the cracked glass.

How comical….

The Big Red Button was a throwaway gimmick item. Every April Fools day, the GMs would leave a bunch of random items lying around that players could find scattered across Yggdrasil. Stuff like the "Turkey Costume," which turned the user into the appearance of a giant Turkey for an hour. The "Orb of the Disco God," which forced every NPC or player within a certain radius to dance for 15 minutes. The "Bubble Dragon Wand," which summoned a giant Bubble Dragon to entrap people with….bubbles.

The shitty devs never did give a crap about game balance….

All such items only had one charge and disappeared after a single use, but could be kept indefinitely even after April Fools day until they were eventually consumed.

Eventually, the shitty devs stopped GMs from throwing out these April Fools items as certain tryhard guilds (Ainz Ooal Gown being one of them) started stockpiling them to abuse in PvP and against certain boss encounters. There was a large uproar on the forums as many players were upset that the devs decided to stop giving out these fun flavor items because of the actions of a few overly competitive guilds, but the devs, as usual, never responded to the complaints.

The "Big Red Button" was arguably one of the least impactful of the April Fools items. It could be used to temporarily disconnect one player from the server. It was mostly used as a harmless joke between guild mates as there was nothing stopping the player from simply reconnecting instantly.

But right now…..

Suzuki could never reconnect again…..

And that wasn't even the worst part of it all.

The cascade of emotions that were beginning to fade instantly returned to a state of frenzy as he recalled that irrevocable mistake.

Now even if I could go back, everything is already lost…..

Upon reaching this final stage of reflection, all energy and emotion dissipated from Suzuki's body like air from a punctured balloon. He crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

He went through this sequence of emotional torment every night. And every time he would think about ending it all.

When he returned five years ago, he discovered that only several months had passed since he logged into Yggdrasil for the last time. He found himself lying in the dirt lot near what was once his apartment, and from which he had long been evicted. As Suzuki realised what had happened to him, he felt almost a sense of relief as he began suffocating under the toxic air without a gas mask, and he had silently cursed the good samaritan that saw him and took him inside.

Fired from work with no place to stay and stripped of most of his earthly belongings, Suzuki was a man who had nothing. But the hardest part of it all was the physical and mental transition. He had spent far too long inside an undead body, and the sudden onslaught of physical and emotional sensations drove him to the brink of insanity. He spent days in the slums simply adjusting to the overwhelming transformation of his body as he relearned how to control his emotions and libido while coping with the physical limitations of his flesh and bones.

Eventually, Suzuki managed to get a grip on himself and returned to his former company in hopes of returning to work. Initially, security was reluctant to let his disheveled self enter the building, but a friendly acquaintance passed by and guided Suzuki to his former manager's office.

They offered him work as a janitor. At first, it seemed like they had a genuine interest in helping him get back on his feet, but Suzuki soon realised what was in store for him. There was one thing Noburu got right-they hired him as a cheaper alternative to an actual cleaning robot.

Throughout the five years that ensued, Satoru had been overworked to the bone. He got paid enough to barely afford one can of food a day and had been given a place to stay in the form of the shithole he currently resided, but he figured that it would be a matter of time before he joined the masses of employees that had died from overworking and malnourishment in the society of 2043. The same way his own parents had died.

That was if he didn't decide to just walk into the putrid air without a mask on to off himself first. Oh how tempted he was to do just that. How very, very tempted….

But ultimately, he could not bring himself to do it.

He now had a family that relied on him and loved him that he cherished beyond measure in return. No matter how slim, how impossible the hope, he would do everything in his power to reunite with them once again.

A fire of dedication kindled deep within Suzuki's defeated and lifeless eyes as he struggled to get back on his feet, grabbing the edges of the sink to steady himself. For the briefest of moments as he stared into the broken mirror that reflected his fractured heart and soul, he thought he could still see the crimson glint of an Overlord's gaze.

Next chapter