7 Chapter 7

— Eight Years, Eleven Months, Two Weeks Until The End of Yggdrasil —

*HUM*

[Gram Breathes!]

[The Realms Part]

[System Alert!: A New World Item Has Been Created! Item [Cursed Blade 'Gram' has evolved from Mythical - World. Find it, and wield its world-destroying power for yourself!]

Fucking…Finally!

I lifted the deep black blade. It didn't look much different, but the blade's hilt now had blackish-purple gems.

[Cursed Blade 'Gram' (Rank - World) - This Sword Has Bathed In the Blood and Souls of Dragons For Millennia. It's True Power to Shatter The Realms Has Been Reached Through Such Means, and Dragon's All Across Yggdrasil Fear Its Name. (Blade Does x3 Damage to Dragons)]

To say the blade was OP would be a massive understatement. Gram boosted my attack power significantly. Whereas before, as a mythical item, a single light attack would do about 7.5K damage, depending on how armored the person being hit is, now that it was a World Item, a single light attack did about 10K damage, and considering it had a 3x damage boost against dragons-

I could do 30K damage in a single light attack against dragons!

This was why I made the build in the first place! To be fast and hit hard. Sure, if a dragon hit me three to five times, I'd be dead, but with my speed, I would never allow that. Now, depending on how tank-heavy the dragon was, I could slay most level 100 dragons with just four to seven light attacks.

That didn't even include my heavy hits, my skills, or my World Champion skills. A World Break with Gram would one-shot any dragon, no matter how tank-heavy they were.

The blade was perfect for me and my proudest possession, even above the Midnight Armor Set.

I looked at the dissipating dragon's corpse that had paid its soul tribute for the sake of helping Gram evolve. I gave it a silent nod. Sure, it was just a game boss made up and forced to move by lines and lines of code, but it had helped me immensely by dying today.

[Your body bathes in Gram's Aura…]

I raised an eyebrow at that notification. It was pretty fucking ominous that it popped up for no reason. I knew Gram had a bunch of lore behind it, much like the blades 'Durandal' and 'Excalibur.' All the blades, when they achieved World Item status, supposedly, according to the developers, attained a mass that rivaled any realm separately, thus becoming their own 'planet/world' and distorting space. Would that have any adverse effects on my character?

I would be fucking angry if I died and had to make a new character because the blade was killing me passively without my knowledge.

I'd say I should ask the devs about it, but knowing them, they wouldn't tell me the fucking truth anyway.

Assholes.

I sheathed my blade and made my way out of the dungeon. It had been a good day of farming. As I started to walk, I realized I had forgotten something.

"Follow."

With my command, eight of my created NPCs followed me toward the dungeon's exit.

I had decided to develop and grind some spider-like NPCs. They were Greater Spiders, and their levels averaged to around level 36.

Two of them were male, and the other six were female.

This dungeon was no place for them, but it leveled them up massively when they fed off my kills while I held aggro: high risk, high reward.

My intended use of these NPCs was to level them all up high and then take one male and one female and fuse the others into them.

I would make some armor, weapons, and set-ups, and by fusing the other spiders into that equipment, it would bolster the stats of the NPCs. This way, I could have two strong NPCs as guards or leisure servants with me.

It didn't matter in the long run, but I was bored, and the Guild Members forced this on me. "What kind of Guild Leader doesn't even make their own NPCs?" They said, and I got tired of making excuses.

As I always say, "Fuck it, we ball."

"Oh, you're done!" Momonga cheered, sounding a little too happy.

"What's got you in a good mood, Momonga?" I asked with a raised brow.

"O-Oh, nothing." She shrunk into herself as she typically would.

"Mhm." I hummed noncommittally. If she wouldn't tell me, then I had no use digging. "You can take Pandora's Actor in; I can help clear the stragglers I ignored."

"Oh, no," Momonga said, looking back at her NPC, Pandora's Actor, and giving her creation a scrutinizing look. "It's fine; I just wanted to talk with you, if that's alright."

"Sure." I smiled, gesturing her forward. "Let's head back to Nazarick first."

"Actually…can we do it here? I don't want to be heard by the others?" She pleaded quietly.

I blinked slowly. "Alright, if that's what you want." I sat down on the grass, looking at my NPCs. "Stand by,"

The Spider NPCs stood at attention, looking at Momonga and me. I patted the grass, inviting Momonga to sit, and she made her way over, dropping down and sighing.

"So, is something wrong?"

Momonga twiddled with her thumbs for a while, opening and closing her mouth as if she were trying to come up with the right words. I waited patiently for her, and eventually, she spoke her mind.

"I think I should quit the guild." She said, looking away from me to hide her shame.

"..."

"..."

"You think you should, or you want to?" I asked after a long moment of silence. During that silence, my brain froze; I hadn't considered her leaving a possibility.

"I think I should." She said after a moment.

"I see; what brought this on?" I questioned with genuine concern.

"Well, it's just…I'm not strong; in fact, I'm one of the weakest members of the guild as things are. Everyone is so hyperactive about growing stronger and motivated to climb to the very top of the game. I'm…not like that. I'm just an undead with a little extra MP."

"Ah, you don't feel you deserve to be in the guild?" I asked, earning a shallow nod. "You're full of shit."

"Huh?!"

"Momonga, I don't know if you realized, but your role in this guild is beyond magical support." I frowned, looking at her. "You, Touch Me, and Ulbert are the glue that holds this guild together. Touch Me is the paragon of good that rallies some of the more optimistic players to his side. Ulbert is his opposite as a paragon of evil that rallies the demonic/pessimistic players, and you…you're in the middle. You bring everyone together, hear people out, and give them advice. Hell, HeroHero will spend hours shit-talking his job, and when all of us leave, not wanting to hear it, you stay and offer counsel. If there's anyone who matters in this guild, Momonga, it's you."

The woman's skeletal mouth was left open as she processed my words. She looked away, whether because of shame, embarrassment, or happiness, I don't know.

"I-I…thank you, Kakuei."

"No, Momonga." I smiled warmly, placing my hand on hers. "Thank you for everything you've done for this guild, and I hope I can continue to thank you until the realms themselves collapse and Yggdrasil breathes her last."

"Mnm!" Momonga nodded, rotating our hands and intertwining our fingers. I looked at the action with a slight pause. I didn't know handholding was allowed in Yggdrasil; knowing the Devs, they certainly subscribe to the belief that 'handholding' was the lewdest of acts.

"Damn, now all we need is the moonlight to shine on us as we share a deep first kiss filled with passion and love." I grinned; the girl looked at our hands and then back to me. Before pulling away quickly, her mouth hung open.

"I-I, I d-didn't-"

"I'm teasing, Momonga!" I laughed, pushing myself off the ground and offering my hand once more. She stared at it, hesitance budding in her body language, before I reached down and grasped her hand, pulling her up. "Let's head back, okay?"

"Y-Yeah." She nodded quietly, and we began our walk back to the Guild. All the while, I kept my eyes open for any attackers.

I was the leader of the Guild of Hell's Paradise, and never once could I have my guard down fully, lest I get fucking ganked and die.

— Momonga/Megumi Suzuki —

Her life hadn't been incredibly hard until this point. She was a twenty-two-year-old college graduate who had started work recently. Sure, she didn't have many friends and never had been in a relationship, but she was content with the life she had built.

She was lying, she wasn't, not one bit.

That's why she was so excited whenever she logged onto Yggdrasil for the first time. A DMMORPG where the game was nigh reality, and the possibilities were endless! She would undoubtedly find friends in the game!

Until she hadn't, being ignored every time she asked for help, even though she was a girl. It probably had something to do with the skeletal face she walked around with, but who could blame her? Skeletons were cool!

Eventually, she asked the wrong people and got attacked for it. They decided to play with her, making a game out of hunting her, and had almost killed her-

Until they had shown up.

People she looked upon and felt safe, and more than that, with their clashing attitudes yet joyful personas, she began to feel hope again that she would see her wish come true.

That she would make friends, ones that would stay by her side as long as she wished.

Indeed, her dream had come true, and as she walked beside Kakuei, she realized that it was all she ever wanted. Friends that would look after her, no matter what.

Kakuei had shown her that much.

She looked up to Kakuei, his crimson red eyes scanning the tree line as if prepared for any threat, the way his body stood slightly before hers, masking her in case of attack.

Even now, he was worried for her, and his body showed that.

Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up at him. Her hand reached out to grasp his hand again, but she pulled it back. She didn't know she could feel like this.

She had never felt any romantic interest toward someone besides thinking that a boy was cute when she was younger, but now she understood what it meant for someone to be in love based on personality.

Even though she didn't know how Kakuei looked IRL, she wanted to hold and be with him, and with all her heart, she hoped that he wanted the same.

Yet she knew he didn't.

With the way Kakuei acted in his day-to-day life, it was as if he didn't care about IRL, nor did he truly care about the game. It was as if he was looking beyond it, hoping to reach the climax of the game and when all was said and done, look back at everything he built with a smile on his face.

While people like Peroronchino, Wish III, and HeroHero would flirt with her from time to time, in their own little ways, Kakuei had never once shown any interest in her.

It hurt her, just as much as it motivated her.

She wanted to meet Kakeui IRL, to see the true him, and in turn, have him see the true her.

That way…she could tell him how he made her feel to his face.