Overlord Supreme

In YGGDRASIL, the monsters and NPCs that appeared in the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick would be recognized as belonging to the Ainz Ooal Gown faction. Since every member of the guild was also flagged as belonging to Ainz Ooal Gown, there should be no problems even if they attacked each other.

Could it be that she no longer belongs to our guild? Or has friendly fire been enabled?

The latter possibility was more likely.

With that conclusion in mind, Momonga apologized to Albedo.

"Forgive me. I forgot to deactivate my negative energy touch skill."

"Please pay it no heed, Momonga-sama. That damage hardly counted as damage. And as long as it is you, Momonga-sama, I would gladly endure any kind of — kya!"

"Ah… mm. Is… that so… No, no, I must still apologize."

Momonga was caught off-guard by Albedo's adorable yelp and the way she shyly covered her face, and his reply ended up being less dignified than he had hoped for.

So it was due to the negative energy touch after all.

Momonga turned his eyes from Albedo, who was going on and on about how this was nothing compared to the pain of losing her v.i.r.g.i.n.i.t.y, and began thinking about how to temporarily deactivate the always-on skill — and then he suddenly knew how to do it.

To Momonga, who wielded the power of an Overlord, it was as simple and natural as breathing.

He could not help but laugh at the strange situation he found himself in. After all the shocks and surprises he had received so far, this was hardly worth panicking about. It was frightening how well he had adapted to his condition.

"I'm going to touch you."

"Ah."

After deactivating the skill, he touched Albedo's hand. Thoughts like Her hand's so slim, her skin's so white, and so on raced through his head, but he cast aside these male d.e.s.i.r.es and focused on one thing — the pulse at her wrist.

—It was there.

It was a steady rhythm, lub-dub, lub-dub. She was a living being, so it was only natural.

Yes, she was alive.

Momonga released her hand and looked at his own arms. All he saw was an expanse of polished white bone, bereft of skin or flesh. Because he had no blood vessels, he could not feel a heartbeat. Indeed, an Overlord was an undead creature, a being that had transcended mortality itself, so obviously it would not have a heartbeat.

He shifted his gaze to Albedo.

Momonga saw himself reflected within Albedo's moist golden eyes. Her cheeks were pink, probably because her body was rapidly heating up. The changes in her body surprised him.

"...What's this?"

Is she not an NPC? Is she not pure electronic data? Why does she feel like a real person? What kind of AI could do this? More importantly, why is it that YGGDRASIL feels like the real world...

Momonga shook his head in denial. There was no way such a fantastic scenario could have occurred. But once the idea took root, it was not easy to eradicate. Momonga was not sure how to proceed given the changes in Albedo.

The next step… yes, the final step. If he could confirm that, then all of his predictions would be vindicated. Was this real life, or was this just fantasy?

He had to do this. If she attacked him with that weapon of hers, it could not be helped.

"Albedo… I, may I touch your b.r.e.a.s.ts?"

"Eh?"

The air between them seemed to freeze.

Albedo's eyes went wide.

A wave of depression washed over Momonga as he considered his words.

"I have to do this," what the hell was he thinking, saying that to a woman? He wanted to scream "Despicable!" at the top of his voice. Indeed, using one's superior position to commit s.e.x.u.a.l harassment was the most despicable thing imaginable.

As Momonga convinced himself with all his strength, his composure gradually returned to him. Resuming the air of a proper ruler, he continued forcefully:

"That... should be fine, right?"

It was not fine at all.

In contrast to Momonga's nervous request, Albedo seemed to be overflowing with joy. She gave him a glittering smile.

"But of course, Momonga-sama. Please, help yourself."

Albedo straightened herself up, presenting her ample twin peaks for Momonga's inspection. If he still had saliva, he would have swallowed several times by now.

Her b.r.e.a.s.ts swelled up through her dress. And now, he was going to touch them.

On the other side of his abnormal tension and nervousness, a quiet, calm part of Momonga's brain was observing his own actions. He noted how foolish he was, and wondered why he had thought of this, and why he was still going to follow through anyway.

He sneaked a peek at Albedo, and found that her eyes were shining, jiggling her bosom as though to say Hurry up and touch me.

The first thing Momonga felt was something hard under the dress, followed by a soft, yielding sensation.

"Fuahh.. haaa..."

As Albedo m.o.a.n.e.d wetly, Momonga completed yet another experiment.

If his brain was normal, there were two possible explanations for his present situation.

The first was that this was a new DMMO-RPG. That was to say, the moment YGGDRASIL had shut down, a new game, "YGGDRASIL II", had immediately taken its place.

However, in light of this experiment, the probability of that being the case was vanishingly small.

This was because R.-.1.8 actions were strictly forbidden in these games. Who knew, perhaps even R-15 actions might be banned as well. Violators would be publicly listed on the game's official website, and their accounts would be deleted, or worse.

Once the records of these R.-.1.8 actions were publicly released, they might be punished for damaging moral culture and thus violating the Social Order Maintenance Act. As such, most people would consider these acts off-limits.

If they were still in a game world, the company should have made it impossible for players to do such things. If the GMs and the game companies were watching, they would have prevented Momonga from performing l.e.w.d actions. However, there was no sign of any resistance or opposition.

As such, forcing a player to test out a game in this manner was a prosecutable offense, especially if there was no way to force-quit the game. It would not be unexpected for a company to receive fines or jail time for such things. If a situation arose where a player was not able to log out of the game, up to a week's worth of game activity could be stored in a legally-mandated record, which would make it easy to prosecute the company for their violations of the law.

Therefore, if Momonga did not report to work for a week, someone would have found it strange and come to his house to check on him. Then all the police would need to do was to access the records with a specialized console and the problem would be solved.

Which company would risk arrest or worse to commit a corporate crime like this? Of course, they could try to muddy the waters by saying "this was a closed beta test for YGGDRASIL II," or "there were third-party programs used here." But in truth, such a risky matter would have no benefits at all for the game company.

That being the case, the only answer for his present circ.u.mstances would be that a third party was doing something here, and it had nothing to do with the game company. If that was the case, he would need to throw out all his previous theories and think in other directions, otherwise he would never find the answer.

The problem was that he had no idea where to start. And there was another possibility...

...The possibility that the virtual world had become reality.

Impossible.

Momonga promptly rejected that idea. How could such an illogical, foolish thing happen?

But on the flip side, the more he thought about it, the more strongly he felt it was the right answer.

And then — Momonga remembered Albedo's scent.

In accordance to the software legislation for virtual reality games, such games were not allowed to provide sensory data for smell and taste. Although YGGDRASIL had food and drink items, consuming them was little more than changing a value in the game system. In addition, the sense of touch was heavily limited, in order to prevent confusion with the real world. These limitations meant that VR systems were not very useful for the s.e.x industry.

However, none of these limitations were in effect now.

Realizing these facts shocked Momonga. Countless questions like, "What about tomorrow's work? What'll happen if this keeps up?" flashed through his mind, but then he cast them all to the back of his mind.

"...If this virtual world is just a simulation of the real world… then the quantity of data involved must be unimaginable…"

Momonga swallowed with a nonexistent throat. Though his mind could not comprehend the situation, his heart could.

His hands finally left Albedo's ample bosom.

He realised that he had been groping her for a long time, but Momonga justified it to himself by saying that he had no choice but to grope her for that long, and it was definitely not because squeezing her supple flesh felt so good that he reluctantly let go of her… or something.

"Sorry, Albedo."

"Fuahh…"

A sensual m.o.a.n came from the red-faced Albedo, and he could practically feel her body heat raising the surrounding temperature. After that, she shyly asked Momonga:

"Will I have my first time here?"

Momonga was caught off guard by her question, and before he could think clearly, he replied:

"...Eh?"

His mind was suddenly frozen, and was unable to parse her question,

First time? What's that? What's this all about? And why does she look so shy?

"May I ask how you wish to dispose of my clothes?"

"...Wha?"

"Would it be better if I disrobed myself? Or would you like to unwrap me, Momonga-sama? Or if we did it while I was wearing the dress, afterwards… it would get dirty… no, if you want me to wear this dress, I have no objections, Momonga-sama."

His brain finally managed to make sense of Albedo's words. Although, whether there really was a brain under that skull remained to be seen.

As Momonga realized why Albedo had this reaction, an immense struggle took place within himself before he finally said:

"Enough, that's all for now, Albedo."

"Eh? I understand."

"Now is not the time for… no, there's no time for that sort of thing."

"My, my apologies! I allowed myself to be ruled by my d.e.s.i.r.es despite the urgency of the situation!"

With a swift movement, Albedo made to genuflect in apology, but Momonga stopped her:

"No, all this is my fault. I forgive you, Albedo. That aside… I have an order."

"Please give me any command you d.e.s.i.r.e."

"Tell the Guardians of each Floor, with the exception of the Fourth and the Eighth Floors, to meet at the Colosseum on the Sixth Floor in an hour's time. I will contact Aura and Mare myself, so there is no need to inform them."

"Understood. Allow me to repeat the order; aside from Aura and Mare of the Sixth Floor, I am to inform all the Floor Guardians to meet one hour later at the Colosseum."

"Correct. Go."

"Yes."

Albedo swiftly departed the Throne Room.

As he watched the retreating Albedo, Momonga let himself sigh, in a way that suggested he was thoroughly exhausted. Once she left the Throne Room, Momonga g.r.o.a.n.e.d painfully:

"...Oh, what have I done? It was supposed to be a silly joke… If I'd known I wouldn't have done it. I've… I've soiled the NPC Tabula Smaragdina-san created…"

When he thought about it, there was only one reason why Albedo would react like she had.

It must have been when he was editing her backstory, and changed that line to "She is in love with Momonga."

That must have been why she acted that way.

"...Ah… shit!"

Momonga muttered to himself, thinking about how Tabula Smaragdina had painstakingly created his masterpiece Albedo out of whole cloth, and then someone else had splashed paint all over his work at will, and now she had become like this.

The knowledge that he had ruined someone else's hard work made him feel miserable.

However, the frowning Momonga — although it could not be seen because he was a skeleton — eventually rose from the Throne.

Momonga told himself that he had to leave this at the back of his mind. After the important things were taken care of, he could agonize over it later.