Narrator POV
In the year 2126, VRMMORPGs have become a reality. They are games that allow players to enter a virtual world as if it were real. In 2126, a VRMMORPG called YGGDRASIL is released. It is a Japanese VRMMORPG set in a fantasy world that offers players an exceptionally high level of freedom.
Lydia is a YGGDRASIL player . She began playing this game shortly after its release out of curiosity. YGGDRASIL quickly turned into one of her preferred pastimes, leading her to spend all her free time on it.
Lydia's avatar is a human magic caster, a summoner to be more precise. The appearance of her avatar is that of a human girl, roughly between the ages of 10 and 12. Lydia customized her avatar's look to make it as cute as she could, and for that, she decided to make a loli character. Her avatar has blue eyes, long blond hair, and fair, flawless skin. Her full username is Lydia Evie Hart.
In real life, Lydia is quite a shy and introverted individual. She struggles with social anxiety and because of that, she tends to avoid most social interactions. Even her voice is exceptionally soft and quiet. It takes her quite a long time to become comfortable around someone and build a friendship.
Lydia has a passion for roleplay and loves to imagine herself as her avatar. She gave herself a goal: to become the best summoner of all YGGDRASIL and discover every secret of the game. To that aim, she started reading books about the lore of magic and the lore of YGGDRASIL in general.
Reading quicky became one of her favorite activities in YGGDRASIL. She spent most of her time reading books that delved into the game's lore and the background details of its universe. Lydia was passionate about discovering new aspects of the game's lore that it nearly became an obsession.
Because of her social anxiety, Lydia didn't have any friends prior to playing YGGDRASIL. Even after she began playing, she rarely engaged with other players due to her irrational fear of judgment and the anxiety that accompanied every social interaction. For this reason, Lydia became one of the rare solo players within YGGDRASIL.
YGGDRASIL is an extremely difficult game for a solo player because almost every job class specializes in a specific task and can easily be countered. This is why almost every player forms teams to cover each other's weaknesses. For example, a magic caster is extremely weak in melee, and a warrior has a hard time dealing with a distant enemy. There are exceptions to this, but they are very rare.
Even though it was challenging, Lydia continued to play the game alone, not due to a self-imposed challenge or a wish to succeed where many others had struggled. But because it is simply easier for her to play the game solo than to speak and interact with other players. On the rare instances when she finds the bravery to engage with other players, she often ends up being turned away or excluded from their party. Often, the issue stems from their annoyance with her inability to communicate effectively and her overzealous interest in the lore.
Thanks to her interest in the lore, Lydia discovered a hidden job class of magic casters called [Sage]. She also discovered a hidden quest that allows her to change her race to that of a rare heteromorphic race called [Spirit of magic].
[Sage] is a special job class that allows its user to use special buff and debuff spells, as well as create their own scrolls and spellbooks. But despite being a hidden job class, it is mostly useless. Aside from the few buff and debuff spells it provides, its stats and skills are underwhelming, as other job classes can perform the same roles more effectively. Despite this, Lydia chose to keep this job class for purely role-play reasons.
The [Spirit of magic] race is a distinct type of spiritual heteromorphic race, falling into the same category as elementals. One of the conditions to become a spirit of magic is to have a pure magic caster build.
The body of a Spirit of Magic is composed purely of mana, giving them an ethereal body that makes them immune to all non-magical damage. However, they are extremely vulnerable to magical damage. They do not possess [HP] and utilize [MP] as a replacement. When they sustain damage, they lose [MP] rather than [HP]. Healing spells and potions are ineffective for them because they lack [HP], but they have a larger mana pool and greater mana regeneration.
A Spirit of magic's spell possesses greater power and lower mana costs than the spells of a magic caster in the same job class. But, they are pitifully weak in terms of physical strength.
When becoming a [Spirit of magic], Lydia was surprised to learn that her avatar's body did not change appearance. The only noticeable physical change was in her eyes, which now emit a faint bluish-violet glow that is barely perceptible unless you look at her directly in the eyes or in the dark.
After becoming a [Spirit of Magic], YGGDRASIL became much harder for Lydia because, as a summoner, she needs to summon creatures to fight for her. But she needs to use [MP] to summon her creatures, which became her [HP]. And the main drawback of the summoner job class is that her individual stats are pitifully low, with only her [MP] being a high stat.
As a summoner, her stats are equal to a player with only crafting job classes, as she isn't supposed to fight herself, but summon monsters to fight for her while she micro-manages them and does her best to stay alive.
Combined with the fact that she had become a target for other players after becoming an heteromorph. Lydia could bearly progress in the game without being PK by parties of players. At one point the hunt and harassment of heteromorph players were so intense that Lydia almost gave up and quit the game.
In fact, Lydia would have quit the game if she hadn't received help from another heteromorphic player. She had been saved from a party of PKs by that player in a scene so cliché that Lydia almost burst out laughing. She was surrounded by players who were about to kill her, when a knight in shining armor came and one-shot the PKs. The moment Lydia really lost it was when that player then announced,
"Saving someone who is in trouble is common sense!"
With large letters displaying the word "justice" floating behind him, while he struck a pose.That player's username was 'Touch Me,' and he had become Lydia's first real friend. He was not bothered by the low volume of Lydia's voice and her lack of communication skills. He accepted it, offering help and encouragement to help her feel more comfortable with him and other players. He had somewhat become like her big brother in the game.
He even presented her to a group of players that he was leading and invited her in. It was a party of heteromorph players. They were not a big party, but with her, they were just big enough to form a clan. They decided (or rather, Touch Me) to call that clan 'Nine's Own Goal' because that clan was composed of nine players with their own goals but banded together to protect themselves against the hunt of heteromorph players.
The member's of 'Nine's Own Goal' became Lydia's first group of friends. She tried her best to fit in despite her social anxiety. The clan member were supportive, which helped her a lot in getting out of her shell. She got along particularly well with, Momonga and Amanomahitotsu.During their time in 'Nine's Own Goal', Lydia was the one crafting scrolls and grimoires for the others, while also serving as a wildcard player thanks to the polyvalence of the [Summoner] job class and the buff and debuff spells of the [Sage] job class.
It is also during that time that she managed to get the job class [Arch-Summoner], an evolution of the job class [Summoner], and the job class [High Sage] which is also an evolution of the job class [Sage]. She also managed to evolve her racial class twice, first [Spirit of magic] evolved into [Greater Spirit of magic] then into [Arch-Spirit of magic].
Significantly enhancing her character's attributes and abilities, she had by then firmly positioned herself as a key player in the clan, owing to her powerful summons and thorough grasp of the game's lore.
In a game like YGGDRASIL where knowledge is a powerful weapon, Lydia's deep knowledge of the game's lore was extremely helpful to her party members to understand hidden mechanism or secrets.
This is how she earned the nickname 'Sage of Nine's Own Goal' from her clanmates, much to her embarrassment and their amusement. This also created a contrast between her childlike avatar and her reputation as an all-knowing being. They also often called her 'Little Sage' to tease her.
With time, other heteromorph players started to join the clan. The clan 'Nine's Own Goal' started taking importance. But with more players in a single group, tension started building up.
Especially during the conflict between Touch Me and another player called Ulbert Alain Odle, there was a day when the disagreement escalated to such a level that a clan member chose to leave the clan entirely.
After that, Touch Me chose to quit his position as leader and disbanded the clan 'Nine's Own Goal' to later form the guild 'Ainz Ooal Gown' with Momonga as its leader.
At that time, some of the players of the guild 'Ainz Ooal Gown' had reached level 100. Lydia was one of them, thanks to her habit of playing alone when others were unavailable. She managed to evolve her racial classes two more times. She first evolved into a [Primal Spirit of Magic] and then into a [Child of Mana]. The last one was especially powerful and unique, as only one player could have it in the entire game. Lydia managed to get it after completing an extremely well-hidden and difficult secret quest.
The name bothered her deeply for a considerable time, as it became another source of teasing from other guildmates who compared her avatar's looks with her race's name.
Lydia also managed to get a secret and unique job class called [Mother of Monsters] by doing another hidden quest. This job class is a secret evolution of [Arch-Summoner], and it limits Lydia to summoning only monsters and heteromorph-class beings. In exchange, it replaces the [XP] cost of high-tier summons with [MP], greatly boosts the stats of all her summons, removes the maximum number of summons allowed to be summoned at the same time, and allows her to summon World Boss-class monsters.
The drawbacks of summoning a World Boss are immense. First of all, the incantation is absurdly long, requiring thirty minutes to complete. During that time, she cannot micromanage her other summons. Furthermore, the invocation consumes all of Lydia's [MP], leaving her with only 1 [MP], and completely blocks her [MP] regeneration for the next hour, preventing any other form of recovery as well. Finally, the ability enters a week-long cooldown after use.
And by reaching the maximum level in the job class [Mother of Monsters], she earned an absurdly strong passive called [Permanence]. [Permanence] is a passive affecting all of her summons, and it removes their time limits, meaning that now when she summons a creature, it will never disappear unless it is killed by a foe. The only downside of the skill is that it increases the mana cost of her summons.
She also reached the maximum level in the job class [High Sage], giving her a new passive called [The Sage's Wisdom]. This passive affects the player differently depending on their classes. For a [Mage] or other classes like it, this passive removes their limits on learned spells and unlocks the ability to learn more spells by reading books.
For a warrior or another physical job class, it removes the limits on the number of skills the player can learn and gives them the ability to learn more skills by reading a book about them or observing them in action long enough.
For Lydia, as a summoner, this passive removes the limit on the number of summons she can learn, as well as allowing her to summon creatures or monsters that she has seen before or read about in books. It also gives her the ability to create her own personalized summons.
After having both [High Sage] and [Mother of Monsters] at the maximum level, their two final passives, [The Sage's Wisdom] and [Permanence], fused together to give Lydia the passive [The Breath of Creation]. This passive gives Lydia the benefit of both passives, but boosted. Her summons still have the effects of [Permanence], and she can create summons with much greater liberty in their personalization. She can even create new species of monsters and heteromorph-class beings.
Lydia's theory as to why the passive given to players for reaching the maximum level of [High Sage] is so powerful is that it's a reward to the players who persevered through the [Sage] job class path. Besides some buff and debuff spells, this job class is effectively useless. As for scrolls and spellbooks, they can be brought to any library or magical shop and are quite cheap for the majority of them. The condition to unlock this passive is to have both [Sage] and [High Sage] at max level, taking a whole 25 levels of the player's character.
The only reason Lydia kept the job class was purely for roleplay, as Lydia is, like Momonga, a player who makes her build with roleplay in mind instead of min-maxing her character.
This resulted in Lydia becoming one of the most versatile players in all of 'Ainz Ooal Gown'. Thanks to her racial class, [Child of Mana], she had gained an absurd amount of mana and passive mana regeneration, allowing her to summon armies and swarms of creatures specialized for any situation, ranging from colossal beasts with extremely high durability, creatures capable of inflicting an insane amount of damage, creatures capable of healing, to even small or discreet creatures for scouting.
Not long after forming the guild of 'Ainz Ooal Gown', the guild decided to raid a dungeon named the [Great Tomb of Nazarick] to transform it into their guild base and headquarters. Thet managed to clear the dungeon their first try, and as a reward, the guild obtained a world-class item called The [Throne of Kings].
After the conquest of the [Great Tomb of Nazarick], the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown started modifying the six existing floors and creating 4 more floors. They also started creating NPC to serve as guardians or just to create more life inside the dungeon.
Lydia herself didn't create an NPC at first, as she had no idea what kind of NPC she could create that would fit the voted theme of the guild as an 'evil guild'. Also, she thought that it was silly of her to create an NPC while her character literally fights by summoning hordes of NPCs.
The "evil guild" came from various reasons. The reasons are that a big amount of the guildmembers has at least some kind of interest for roleplay and they all play an heteromorph character, in other words monsters. Then it has been decided by a vote that they will roleplay as an evil guild, of the likes of demon lords and other similar things.
After some time, the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick' had been filled with NPC of all kind, and the guild members of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' had for the great majority reached level 100.
Because they were roleplaying as an evil guild, they had made a lot of enemies with other players and guilds. A lot of tension was steadily growing between the guild and the non-heteromorph players, but three events in particular increased the tension and animosity.
The first of the events that made the tension grow was a tournament organized by the devs. The majority of the guild of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' was not available to participate, so Lydia decided to participate on her own to represent the guild.
She was exceptionally nervous at the idea of participating in a tournament watched by a lot of people, but she convinced herself to do it for her friends.
She asked Amanomahitotsu, the guild blacksmith, for a ring that would give her character the [Ethereal Lock] effect. [Ethereal Lock] is an effect that makes an ethereal being, such as spirits, physical, making them vulnerable to physical attacks. Lydia's plan was to make herself pass as a human during the tournament to bring less attention to herself, and she felt that her immunity to physical attacks would give her away.
But in the end, the ring was unnecessary, as Lydia's opponents in the tournament never got past her swarms of summons. The tournament was played in a big arena in a 1v1 format with only one winner at the end.
Lydia never realized how powerful her character had become at level 100 with her various broken passive skills given by both [Mother of Monsters] and [High Sage] at max level, as well as the various racial skills of her unique racial class, [Child of Mana].
She won the tournament without any real difficulty, as she can summon an almost infinite number of monsters without any drawbacks thanks to her absurdly large [MP] reserves and quick [MP regeneration] due to her racial class, [Child of Mana].
There were players that suspected Lydia of cheating, but it was quickly shut down by the devs after a quick investigation of her character. It was because of this investigation that most players discovered that she was not only a Heteromorph player, but of the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown as well.
As a reward for her victory in the tournament, the devs gifted Lydia a custom-made set of Divine-class equipment that matched her character and build perfectly. Lydia didn't know if the devs thought it was funny, but they named the collection "The Monster's Princess Set," and all pieces in the set included "The Monster's Princess" in their names. Plus, the items looked really girly and frilly. It was essentially a blend of mage and princess attire, but presented in a more childlike manner, as if designed exclusively for a little girl, while still maintaining an air of grace.
Even if she was flustered by the name and appearance of the set of items, she couldn't simply turn down a complete set of divine-class items. The amount of stats and overpowered abilities that they gave her was enough to convince her to bear with it. Plus, they are "soul-bonded" to her, which means that she cannot give them to someone else and they cannot be stolen.
But what Lydia hadn't expected was the ungodly amount of teasing she received from her guildmates after this. Not only about her new item's appearance, but also about her new reputation on the forums as 'The Monster's Princess'.
Lydia could change her new equipment's appearance at any time, as it was one of the abilities of her soul-bonded set. But the initial design was, despite the frills and girly appearance, absurdly complex and beautiful. She had no idea into what she could change it without making it look worse.
She also lost a bet with Peroroncino not long after receiving it, and his terms were that she had to keep her equipment as it originally was, solving the dilemma of her equipment appearance once and for all.
The teasing and new nicknames never stopped, but Lydia eventually got used to it. Although she temporarily avoided her guildmates by venturing out alone to gather resources for the guild, during her solo adventures, she mercilessly killed any player that attacked her or made fun of her, making her reputation grow even more.
The second event that affected the reputation of the guild of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' was a raid organized by an alliance between various enemy guilds to attack the base of 'Ainz Ooal Gown'. This attack was one of the biggest raids in all of YGGDRASIL. The raid consisted of over 1500 invaders, including players and mercenary NPCs. The guild members of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' prepared themselves to receive them in the throne room, but they never passed the 8th floor. The NPCs of the 8th floor were simply that powerful.
The third and final event that sealed the guild's reputation as a public enemy of the 'righteous' guilds was an event organized by Lydia herself.
It all started when Lydia was roaming the corridors of the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick' and got an idea. She wanted a place where she could put all of her summons, summoned in advance, for future battles.The ideal would be an entire new floor for them, as she can summon armies and swarms. A floor with different environments to create a living ecosystem inhabited only by her summoned creatures.
So, she spoke of her idea to her guildmates, a bit guilty because she knew it was going to cost money to expand the limits of the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick' with an additional floor, and even more with her idea, because if she did what she wanted to do, it would be the largest floor of the entire tomb.
Lydia needed something to convince them to invest in the idea, a project that would justify the length of the project. And the idea she got to convince her guildmates was to plan a swarm for an invasion.
She told them that she was going to summon an ungodly amount of monsters to invade and conquer the world of Midgard.
Lydia proposed that idea without any real thought, as she was sure it was going to be rejected because of the absurdity of the project. But instead, not only was the idea not rejected, but the majority of her guildmates were in fact thrilled at the idea of giving payback to the humanoid and demi-human players for the heteromorph hunt.
With the project being quickly voted on and approved with near unanimity, the entire guild started investing their game time, and even money, into everything necessary. The 11th floor of the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick' was created, and it was approved by the majority that this floor would be Lydia's floor.
Lydia named the 11th floor of the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick' the Underworld, even though all her guildmates simply call it Lydia's Garden.
Just like what she had in mind, the 11th floor had become almost like a separated world with every biome Lydia could think of. Thus, the floor was absolutely massive. It was not enough to really call it a separate world, or even a continent, but it was still massive in comparison to the other floors of Nazarick, as the 11th floor was still five times the circumference of the 6th floor of Nazarick, previously the largest floor.
Every biome was set in place by Lydia, with the help of some of her guildmates who had an interest in nature, particularly Blue Planet, who made the sky just like he did for the 6th floor. But if his words are to be believed, he did an even better job at the sky of the 11th floor than on the 6th.
Once the floor was set, Lydia put all of her summons on it and set them to "Wild mode". This mode makes the summons live on their own, hunt for food and XP, and reproduce by themselves. In this mode, Lydia has much less control over them until she removes the "Wild" mode, but they are still non-hostile to Lydia and her allies. She unlocked the ability to put her summons in "Wild mode" after gaining the passive skill [Permanence].
Lydia also created an NPC to serve as the Guardian of the 11th floor of the 'Great Tomb of Nazarick.' She called her NPC Ivory, a female [Vermin Lord] with the appearance of a tall and thin humanoid moth with four lithe arms. Ivory's purpose was to serve as the caretaker of the balance in the ecosystem of the 11th floor. For that goal, she received levels in [Druid] job classes as well as levels in [Priestess] job classes.
Also, various members of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' found it so funny that Ivory looked kind of similar to the NPC Cocytus, the Guardian of the 5th Floor, that they pressured both Lydia and Takemikazuchi, the creator of Cocytus, to link them together in their bios in a romantic way.
Lydia accumulated an absurd amount of summons on the 11th floor, even various World Bosses, during the next few months. The plan was then to create massive [Gates] from the 11th floor to the world of Midgard to create a flood of monsters to invade the world.They chose Midgard because it is officially the world of the humanoid players, so by invading their world, 'Ainz Ooal Gown' could give them payback for the heteromorph player hunt by turning the hunters into the hunted for once.
Once a sufficient amount of summons was accumulated on the 11th floor, the guild members and the NPC of the guild who could cast [Gate] opened various portals towards Midgard, and the invasion began without any warning. Lydia didn't remove the "Wild" mode as she thought it would make it more roleplay-like this way, and the monsters would act by themselves, keep themselves alive, and reproduce on their own during the invasion without needing Lydia's intervention. Lydia also discovered later on during the invasion that when a summon kills a player in "Wild mode," it doesn't affect her karmic value.
The swarms of monsters took the players of Midgard by surprise, but they quickly formed lines of defense to fend off the monsters attacking the cities.
At first, the players thought that it was an event, but the devs clarified that it wasn't, as it was a player-made invasion. Despite their words, the devs did turn the invasion of monsters into an event, giving quests to the players to defend the cities and the NPCs. 'Ainz Ooal Gown' had been turned into the bad guys of the event and even received their own quest to conquer or destroy Midgard, with rewards growing exponentially with their performance.
In the end, the various swarms of monsters were too strong for the players of Midgard to fend off entirely. Some cities were saved a few times by players with World items, but the swarms were never-ending as the monsters in "Wild" mode reproduced by themselves. After a few weeks of battles, the world of Midgard was destroyed, forcing the devs to reset the entire world.
As a reward for completing the surprise event, the devs gifted the guild of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' with an immense amount of gold, an absurd amount of crystal data of all kinds, a title for every member of the guild [World Destroyer], and a World Item called the [Eye of Heimdall]. It is a small and beautiful pendant that emits a soft blue glow, giving it a sort of divine appearance. This item allows its wearer to observe and scry anywhere, even other worlds, without being able to be blocked by scrying defenses of any kind. The wearer of the [Eye of Heimdall] can even teleport to the places being observed and/or teleport other beings to the place being observed; the teleportation cannot be blocked. The only way to block this item's abilities is to be countered by another world-class item.
After a quick vote, the World Item was given to Lydia as not only was she the one who made the entire thing even possible, but also because she was the only one who really participated in the surprise event. And also because this World Item complements Lydia's build perfectly as well.
Lydia was flustered by her guildmates' praises but accepted them nonetheless. That was the golden age of the guild of 'Ainz Ooal Gown', but like every golden age, it could not last forever.
At first, it was just a few members of the guild that stopped playing the game for personal reasons. But with time, more and more members of the guild started to leave the game permanently.
It continued until just two members of 'Ainz Ooal Gown' were left: Momonga and Lydia.
Lydia and Momonga did their best to keep the guild alive in the hope that some of their friends would one day come back.
But YGGDRASIL was a game in decline. The players started leaving to play other games. It relied on too few loyal players to remain financially viable for the studio that had developed it, and eventually, the inevitable came to pass.
In 2138, the developers of YGGDRASIL announced the game's closure after 12 years of operation. The servers f YGGDRASIL were set to be shut down.