Do You Want to Dance, Too?

YGGDRASIL was the name of the World Tree in Norse mythology. In 2126, a DMMO-RPG named after it was released.

YGGDRASIL used the internet and nanotechnology to make players feel as if they were actually inside a virtual world. Its vast world and extraordinary freedom of play attracted a huge number of players.

But its glory lasted only twelve years. Now, its life was nearing its end.

In a room with a distinctive style of decor, a long walnut-colored table stood in the center, flanked by finely crafted chairs. The furnishings were luxurious, but the room's most striking feature was the enormous cat statues placed against the walls in its four corners.

The lifelike cat statues seemed almost alive. And in fact, with a single command, all four could spring into motion.

That was because they were made from a material called "golems." Though they were known as living beings, they were actually artificial creations with no self-awareness or ability to think. They could only passively accept their master's orders and act on them.

But the six players in the room had no intention of commanding them to move. Or rather, they were in low spirits and had little interest in anything.

Today was YGGDRASIL's final day. The game would shut down at midnight, and everything here would cease to exist.

They didn't want the guild they had built with so much effort, "Cat People Kingdom," to disappear. But once they left this virtual world, they would be nothing more than ordinary people, powerless to stop the publisher's decision.

"Cat People Kingdom," a guild of cat lovers, had grown to nearly a hundred members. Yet in the game's final hours, only six had logged in.

"There's nothing we can do about it. Everyone's time is precious, especially at a time like this." Sitting in his chair, Ulbert Alain Odle spoke to the other five guild members who were online.

He wanted to make a helpless expression, but he couldn't. His character was an undead creature, with nothing but pale bones left on his body—including his skull.

"It's true, but it still feels like a shame. Even the guild master couldn't log in at the very end."

Alah Alaf spoke in white robes that made him look like a religious devotee. Unlike Ulbert Alain Odle, his character was human. His voice sounded sad, but his face remained expressionless. The only way he could show his regret was through the game's built-in emote system.

Though he wasn't an undead skeleton, the game's settings prevented player characters from making facial expressions.

"Come to think of it, the last time the guild master logged in, he said he wouldn't have time to play because of a transfer at work. Looking back, I should've said a proper goodbye."

Outage Cat Punch spoke with an orange cat curled up in his arms, which he stroked without pause. Needless to say, the cat was also a creature made from a golem.

"Ahem. Since this is the very end, let's talk about something cheerful."

Glorious Angel Cat Meow rapped his knuckles on the table. He used an angry emote to complain about the gloomy tone of their conversation. His full suit of pure-white armor, trimmed with gold, made him look like a medieval nobleman.

"Sorry." Outage Cat Punch turned to Glorious Angel Cat Meow and apologized.

Then the handsome guild member in fiery red armor looked at Glorious Angel Cat Meow and asked, "By the way, did you notify that guy?"

"Eh? Who?" Glorious Angel Cat Meow looked at Meow Meow Miya, surprise in his voice.

"Obviously, Hahaha Hades." Karamifamiao picked up the thread, sounding a little gleeful.

"Ah!" Glorious Angel Cat Meow exclaimed, then shrugged helplessly. "I figured he probably wouldn't care. He's part of life's 'winner group,' after all."

"Still, he spent a long time preparing for this." Karamifamiao said.

"The Great Tomb of Nazarick?" Glorious Angel Cat Meow made an amused emote. "I wonder if anyone's banded together to launch a final assault on that heteromorphic guild at the very end."

"Hard to say. Even Hahaha Hades doesn't care anymore. He used to be a fanatic who swore he'd wipe out those heteromorphs in Nazarick, but then... sigh." Ulbert Alain Odle finished with a long sigh.

He didn't say what came next, but everyone present knew what he meant. As YGGDRASIL's popularity declined, even old grudges had faded away.

After a brief silence, Karamifamiao broke it.

"Ahem. Actually, I already notified him—just now."

Karamifamiao's words made them look at one another before they burst into teasing laughter.

"Hahaha, that's so mean of you."

"Notifying him at a time like this will only make him feel worse, won't it?"

"Even if he logs in, there's nothing he can do."

"Just getting to Helheim will take him quite a while."

YGGDRASIL had nine subsidiary worlds. Helheim was the world of heteromorphic players, but Cat People Kingdom's guild base was in a different world.

As they were teasing one another, their voices suddenly fell silent. Their friends list had just announced that the very person they'd been making fun of—Hahaha Hades—had logged in.

In a DMMO-RPG like YGGDRASIL, which used nanoneural technology, players could feel as if they were truly inside the world. Their behavior in the game could also reflect some of their real-world character.

They weren't exactly the same, but in a multiplayer game that felt so real, people's words and actions inevitably carried traces of who they were in real life. If someone was kind in the real world, they wouldn't often PK others for their gear in a game this realistic.

And if someone wasn't a good person in real life, they wouldn't feel the slightest guilt about PKing others and taking their gear in a game.

Everyone knew that a player's gear represented a great deal of effort—not just money, but time as well. Even in a virtual game, it was still their property. Anyone who could take someone else's property without a qualm—

Even if they seemed like good people in real life, perhaps it was only because the law held them back. Given the chance, they would reveal the evil in their hearts. Virtual games could draw that evil out of them.

For that reason, the vile conduct of Ainz Ooal Gown led everyone to suspect that they were a gang of antisocial criminals.

The guild members worked together, PKing players everywhere. Their victims were usually ambushed when unprepared, so the guild almost never failed.

They didn't target only individual players; they targeted guilds too. Once, a guild had been caught off guard by their sudden attack and lost a World Item.

At last, their vile behavior provoked a backlash. Several major guilds joined forces to form a fifteen-hundred-player force and attack the infamous guild.

It was the largest guild siege in YGGDRASIL's history.

Before the attack, a website had been set up where players who had been maliciously PKed by the guild could write about their experiences.

Everyone thought this righteous force would ultimately win. Instead, the guild wiped them all out. Afterward, the attackers reported what they believed to be abnormal data, but the official response was that nothing was wrong.

Many of the players who had taken part in the raid quit the game in a fit of anger. Perhaps YGGDRASIL's decline began with that battle.

Ainz Ooal Gown carried on as usual, PKing players everywhere like a swarm of locusts. A few players organized counterattacks, but they accomplished little.

Later, as the game's popularity dwindled, many members of the guild may have quit, and they seemed to rein in their behavior. But rumor had it that the guild master kept it up until the very end.

Even in the game's final days, there were still occasional reports of Ainz Ooal Gown members PKing players.

Hades recalled the reasons behind the crusade against Ainz Ooal Gown, which had been launched by an alliance of eight guilds.

Hades, who usually played alone, joined the fifteen-hundred-player raid. As a casual player, he wasn't particularly strong, but he followed the main force all the way to the eighth floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

During the raid, something happened that left the young Hades fuming. Perhaps because he was a casual player, he had always been quick to hang back whenever danger arose. As a result, he was among the last to remain in the battle to annihilate the defenders on Nazarick's eighth floor.

As expected, he was no match for Nazarick's counterattack. Momonga, the guild master of Ainz Ooal Gown, cornered him. Momonga's character was the same undead race as the guild member Ulbert Alain Odle.

"Do you want to dance, too?"

Hades would never forget how Ainz Ooal Gown's guild master, a complete villain in the game, looked down at him and taunted him contemptuously with those words—the obnoxious, pretentious line from an anime that had become a huge hit more than a hundred years earlier.

That was how Hades's grudge against Momonga, the guild master of Ainz Ooal Gown, began. Perhaps because he was young and hot-blooded, and didn't lack money in real life, Hades started spending heavily on the game to increase his strength. He hoped that one day he could stand before that skull-faced man and throw those words right back at him.

But time had passed, and the game had lost its popularity. That old grudge no longer made him as angry as it once had. As he grew older, the game mattered less to him. After all, he belonged to life's "winner group." The game wasn't his whole life, and losing his temper over something like that would have been embarrassing.

When he received a message from his guildmate Karamifamiao, memories of the past came flooding back.

Memories of his youthful, cringeworthy phase stirred something in him. Perhaps he wanted to pay tribute to that embarrassing stretch of his youth.

Or maybe he wanted to give a proper ending to all the effort he'd once put in, even if it had seemed pointless. He powered up his nanotech virtual device and logged into YGGDRASIL.

Hades saw that the names of his six guildmates were marked online on his friends list, and that they were at the guild base.

But he didn't have time to greet them. Ainz Ooal Gown's guild wasn't in the same subsidiary world as Cat People Kingdom, and there wasn't much time left before the server shut down.

Hades wasn't particularly close to those guild members, but out of politeness, he sent them a greeting as he made his way to Helheim, where Ainz Ooal Gown's guild was based.

As he hurried along, he familiarized himself with the control interface, which had grown somewhat unfamiliar, and headed for Ainz Ooal Gown's base: the Great Tomb of Nazarick.