The Eve

Darkness and cold were the melody of this world. Daylight was brief in Helheim, and even during the day, the sky remained a gloomy gray.

Hades had come from the central regions of the world to Helheim, which lay on the outskirts. He couldn't help shivering. Though he couldn't feel the cold in the game, the place's perpetually gloomy atmosphere still sent a chill through him.

Ever since YGGDRASIL's major expansion, Fall of the Valkyries, Hades had been only half-active in the game. He still updated his equipment and the like, but that was just the force of habit from his past spending. Eventually, he quit the game altogether.

After a year away, he had returned to the world of YGGDRASIL and felt somewhat out of place. That was only natural, since he hadn't logged in for a long time.

That unfamiliarity also meant it took him longer to reach Nazarick. He had arrived at the Crystal Plains, a border region of Helheim. This was the only route to the Grenbera Swamp, where the Great Tomb of Nazarick was located.

The Crystal Plains weren't named because they were full of crystals. Rather, on this plant-covered plain, the frozen leaves were as sharp as crystal blades, and every step caused damage. Even armor of the Relic class could be cut by them, inflicting a damage-over-time debuff.

But Hades wasn't worried. His equipment was all Divine-class, so he had nothing to fear from the negative effects of the environment. Besides, the Crystal Plains were home to mineral-type monsters with high defense stats, but they were no obstacle to him.

That was because he wasn't traveling on foot. He was flying toward Nazarick. The sky also inflicted negative effects on humanoid races, but with his top-tier equipment, those effects were nothing to worry about.

Hades picked up speed, heading for the Great Tomb of Nazarick in the Grenbera Swamp, while checking his backpack.

He kept most of his important items in his backpacks. An Infinite Backpack had a capacity of only 500 kilograms, which wasn't nearly enough for him, so he had several. They could be crafted as long as he had the materials, and they were especially useful for players focused on crafting. They could sort and store all the materials they needed for refining and production, without having to make the hassle of running back and forth to their warehouse.

But Hades had another reason for carrying so many Infinite Backpacks.

That reason had to do with one of the World Items he owned: the Seed of the World Tree.

Compared with other World Items, or even the Twenty, whose powers were absurdly strong, the Seed of the World Tree wasn't especially impressive. Its upper limit depended on the strength of the user.

The Seed of the World Tree let players freely change their race. In YGGDRASIL, changing races wasn't especially difficult. Players only needed certain items and to complete some special quests before they could successfully change their race.

But one race was an exception in YGGDRASIL: undead players could only change their race with the Seed of the World Tree.

If the item's only purpose were to help undead players change their race, then as one of only two hundred World Items, it would be rather underwhelming.

Perhaps the developers had realized this, so besides letting players change races, the Seed of the World Tree could also store all the data for the races its owner had used.

More specifically, once your current character reached level 100 and you wanted to change to another race, the item would store all the data for your current character and let you play another race without worry.

But what if, while you were leveling up as that other race, a high-level player came along and tried to PK you?

The answer was to use the Seed of the World Tree to switch to your stored level-100 character and show your opponent they'd picked the wrong person to mess with.

The Seed of the World Tree could store the data for two characters of different races. That meant that besides his main character, Hades had two backup level-100 characters he could switch to.

Of course, the two stored races and the race he was currently using had to be three different races. The Seed of the World Tree had only two storage slots. If he wanted to store a fourth race besides the one he was currently using and the two already stored, he had to choose one of the stored race profiles to delete.

Naturally, that meant he needed more backpack space. Different characters and different classes needed different items and supplies. Hades had characters with three races and three types of classes, so 500 kilograms of backpack capacity wasn't nearly enough.

In theory, he only needed to add another 500-kilogram backpack, and that would be enough. But one of the two races he'd stored was entirely dedicated to crafting, so triple the backpack capacity was essential.

Even so, Hades couldn't carry all the materials for his crafting classes with him. There were simply too many, and carrying them all around was impractical. In his personal guild warehouse, he had not only countless materials but also all kinds of half-finished items and equipment from when he was raising his crafting proficiency.

As Hades familiarized himself with YGGDRASIL's interface after such a long time away and replied to each of the six guild members' messages, he was nearing his destination.

"Purple Poison Swamp, huh..."

Hades looked at the location shown on the map in the YGGDRASIL interface.

"Hmm... The Grenbera Swamp is deep inside the Purple Poison Swamp. I'm almost there," Hades muttered to himself.

Although one of his stored races was a Magic Caster and could use teleportation magic, YGGDRASIL's map was enormous, and many areas were off-limits to teleportation. Those areas were often unavoidable, so getting around in YGGDRASIL took a considerable amount of time.

As he watched the time remaining before YGGDRASIL's servers shut down dwindle, Hades realized he wouldn't make it to Nazarick in time to break in and use the second World Item he had worked so hard to obtain.

There wasn't enough time left for him to do anything else, either. But at least visiting Nazarick one last time would give him some closure on the goal he'd once pursued.

As he grew older, Hades gradually lost the passion for games he'd once had. Perhaps it was because his real life was more fulfilling than the virtual world. Either way, YGGDRASIL held memories from his awkward teenage years.

For example, his in-game name, "Hahaha Hades." Hades was the Greek god of the underworld, ruler of life and death. Back when he was in the throes of adolescence, he'd thought the name was pretty cool.

But he'd started playing a few days too late, and someone else had already registered that name. So, on a whim, he'd typed in "Hahaha Hades"—and to his surprise, the name registered successfully.

23:59:40

Looking at the time on the YGGDRASIL interface, Hades sighed. The Great Tomb of Nazarick lay right beneath his feet, but there wasn't enough time.

23:59:50

Looking at Nazarick's surface structures, Hades recalled the battle from back then. Time had passed, and that experience was now nothing more than an insignificant part of his life. Still, those days had been his youth.

23:59:59

...Time to say goodbye to the past...

00:00:00