His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Huh? What the heck?” he yelped in spite of himself. No matter how many times he doubted his eyes and reread, the words didn’t change. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of anything for them to mean besides the first thing that popped into his head. “It’s gotta be ‘bitch,’ the insult…”

All forty-one members of the guild had set up at least one NPC. He wondered if someone would really give the character they created that sort of background. If he took his time and read the whole thing, maybe there was some deeper meaning?

But there were some people who came up with the craziest backstories… And the member who had created Albedo, Tabula Smaragdina, was one of those.

“So you’re into that unexpected contrast, eh, Tabula? Still…” Isn’t this going a bit too far? The NPCs the guild members made were like the legacy of the guild. If the one on top of the hierarchy had this in her bio, it seemed pretty…

“Hrm…” Was it okay to mess with someone’s original NPC due to personal feelings? Momonga thought for a moment and then gave his answer. “I’m gonna change it.”

Now that he was carrying the Guild Weapon, he was guild master in both name and substance. He figured it would be okay to exercise the privileges he’d mostly ignored in the past. Using the fuzzy logic of “If a guild member makes an error, it should be corrected,” he broke through his hesitation.

Momonga pointed his staff. Usually one would need the creator’s tool kit to edit bios, but he could access them with his guild master privileges. A couple menu inputs later and the sentence about being a “bitch” was gone. “I guess that’ll do.” Then, he thought for a moment and looked at the space he’d opened up. Maybe I should put something in there…

“This is so stupid.” Momonga winced at his own idea and input the characters via the menu keyboard. It was a short sentence:

“And she’s in love with Momonga.”

“Ugh, how embarrassing.” He put his hands over his face. He felt he might collapse due to sheer mortification, as if he’d made up his own ideal lover and written a romance about it. He fidgeted. He was so embarrassed he considered changing it again, but he decided it was okay.

It was the last day. This embarrassment would disappear in just a few more minutes. Plus, both sentences had the same amount of words—what perfection. Deleting it and leaving an empty space would be a bit of a waste.

Momonga sat on the throne and distracted himself from his slight satisfaction (and thus multiplied shame). He looked out across the room and noticed Sebas and the maids standing stiffly at the bottom of the stairs. In this room, their rigid postures seemed somehow lacking. Oh right, I think there was this one command…

“Genuflect!” Albedo, Sebas, and the six maids all dropped to one knee at once and bowed as if they were his subjects.

That’s better.

Momonga lifted his left wrist and checked the time: 23:55:48. Made it just in time. By now the game masters are probably making announcements nonstop. There are probably fireworks… But Momonga was cut off from all that, so he didn’t really know. He leaned back in the throne and looked up at the ceiling.

He had thought a party might show up to storm them on the last day, since this was the base of the guild that had crushed that punitive expedition. He’d been waiting. As guild master, he was ready to take on the challenge. He’d sent an e-mail to all of his old guildmates, but only a handful replied. He’d been waiting. As guild master, he was excited to welcome his old mates.

“Is this guild just a relic of the past?” he wondered. Now there was no one around, but it sure had been a lot of fun. He moved his eyes to count the flags hanging from the ceiling. Forty-one. A flag for every guild member with their crest. He pointed a phalanx at one of them. “Me.” Then, he moved his finger one over. That flag had the crest of Ainz Ooal Gown’s—no, the entire game’s—best player, the one who originally proposed starting their guild. He was also the one who had united its forerunner, the First Nine.

“Touch Me.”

The next one over was the crest of Ainz Ooal Gown’s oldest member age-wise, a university professor in the real world: “Death Suzaku.”

Momonga’s finger sped up as he went. The next was one of the guild’s only three women members. “Ankoro Mocchi Mochi.”

Momonga continued naming all the guild members according to their crests, with no hesitation. “HeroHero, Peroroncino, BubblingTeapot, Tabula Smaragdina, the Warrior Takemikazuchi, Variable Talisman, Genjiro…” It didn’t take very long for him to say all forty of his guildmates’ names. They were still burned into his brain.

He slumped down in the throne, somewhat tired. “Yeah, we had fun…”

The game was free to play, but Momonga spent about a third of his monthly salary on microtransactions. It wasn’t that he was making so much—he just didn’t have any other hobbies, so Yggdrasil was all he spent money on.

Once he put so much into a lottery that came with a bonus that he blew straight through the bonus. He went to all that trouble and finally got the rare item he’d been after, but Yamaiko, a guildmate, won it for the price of a single lunch out. Oh, did that suck. He’d writhed around on the floor.

Since Ainz Ooal Gown was made up of working adults, almost everyone was buying stuff in-game, but Momonga was definitely up there in terms of spending. He was probably pretty high up even among everyone on the server.

That’s how hooked he’d been. Questing was fun, too. And playing with friends was even more fun. To Momonga, with his parents already gone and no friends in the real world, Ainz Ooal Gown represented the awesome times he’d spent with his friends.

And now he was going to lose it.

How miserable, how awful.

He tightened his grip on the staff. Momonga was a normal office worker. He didn’t have the money or connections to do anything. He was just another user whose only choice was to silently accept the end.

In the corner of his field of vision, he saw the time: 23:57. The servers would shut down at midnight.

There was almost no time left. His fantasy world was ending, and soon all his days would be spent in reality.

It’s only natural. Humans can’t live in a daydream. That’s why everyone left. Momonga sighed.

He had to be up at four tomorrow morning. If he didn’t go to bed as soon as the servers went down, it would affect his work.

23:59:35, 36, 37…

Momonga counted down along with the numbers.

23:59:48, 49, 50…

He closed his eyes.

23:59:58, 59—

He counted the moments as they ticked off the clock…to the end of his fantasy… Here comes the blackout—

0:00:00… One, two, three…

“…Huh?”

Momonga opened his eyes. He wasn’t back in his room. He was still in Yggdrasil in the Throne Room.

“…What’s going on?”

The time was accurate. He should have been booted by now.

0:00:38…

It was definitely after midnight. The time displayed by the system clock could not possibly be off.

Unsure how to proceed, he looked around for any information.

“Was the shutdown postponed?”

Or is there some kind of loss time?

Countless possibilities crossed his mind, but they were all far from convincing. The most likely was that for some reason, some unfavorable reason, the server shutdown had been postponed. If that were the case, the GMs would probably be making announcements. He rushed to turn the communication channels back on—his hands stopped.

His menu wouldn’t come up.

“What the…?”

Feeling slightly uneasy and confused (but surprised by how calm he was), Momonga tried to use some other features: forced system access that bypassed the menu, chat, a GM call, force quit. He couldn’t get to any of them. It was like he’d been locked out of the system.

“What is going on?!” His irate voice echoed across the spacious Throne Room and faded away.

This is the last day. It’s unthinkable that something like this could happen on the day that is supposed to be the end of it all. Are they teasing us? What came over him now was irritation at not being able to make a beautiful exit at the game’s glorious end. It could be felt in each word he spoke and almost sounded like he was taking out his anger on someone, but there shouldn’t have been any response. However…

“Is something the matter, Lord Momonga?”

It was a woman’s pretty voice, and he was hearing it for the first time.

Dumbfounded, Momonga looked to see where it had come from. When he saw who had spoken, he was absolutely shocked.

It was an NPC who was looking up at him—Albedo.