Fifteen minutes to midnight.

Masaki Ando was hungry and tired. He spent most of the weeks on night shifts patrolling the less hospitable parts of the city, careful not to flaunt too much of authority. Most of the gangs reside there ignored him and his colleagues, putting a mutual invisible barrier to mind each of own business. He did had to save a hooker from her client beatings yesterday, earning him a kick at his stomach, which promptly paid back with a nasty punch on the nose. That drunkard won't wear his gask mask comfortably today.

But right now all that he wanted was to jump at his bed and hide under its blanket for as long as possible. Tomorrow is his day off, afterall. But he need to take a bath first. His late wife would be livid if she ever found out, at best. She didn't like neither bed reek of sweat or the act of jumping at the bed itself.

Ando turned left to the bathroom when he caught glimpse of blinking notification from a wall-mounted smartscreen. It was a leftover perk from his better days, along with some others: bathtub with running hot water, banana deliveries every Tuesday (paid enough to last another two years), actual bed instead of wornout futon. Small things like that.

The notification was two e-mails from Yggdrassil internal guild messaging system. Yggdrassil. How long ago were those days? Ando sighed, opened the first one addressed to Ainz Ooal Gown members.

From: Guildmaster
To: All

Hey, this is Momonga here. As you guys may or may not know, Yggdrassil will shut down its last servers at Thursday, May 29th 2138, 23:59:59. It's been a long time since the last full gathering. Would you like to meet again one last time, at the final day? Nothing major planned of course, no quest or raid. Just incessant rambling like how a proper guild should be :) It's a good chance to keep up of what each other doing. I'd be forever grateful if you can accept this selfish request.

Missed you all,
Momonga

The second one was identical to the first e-mail, but only sent to former members of Nine's Own Goal, or what Nishiki dubbed "The First Nine".

He tapped his finger on the screen. Ainz Ooal Gown, the infamous Yggdrassil guild of heteromorph misfits. Admired by some for its overall strength, hated by more for its "evil" theme, revered by scant few for its PKK practices.

Should he go back?

He gave up on Yggdrassil few years past. It was hard, but necessary. The guild shouldn't share his personal burdens, but there'll be questions if he's still loitering around Helheim or Muspelheim. So he gave up all his game possesions to Momonga, the Guildmaster, froze his account and wrapped up his Dive console...

"OhshitwheredidIputit?" Ando scrambled to the bedroom, reaching out the cardboard boxes above the wardrobe and frantically opening each box. Yeah, he should get back. He honestly surprised that Ainz Ooal Gown still existed. And Momonga was still there. The thought of Momonga alone in Nazarick, waiting for his comrades to celebrate an end...He know what it felt like. Momonga deserves better. They forcefully make him the Guildmaster and the least Ando can do is accompanying Momonga in Yggdrassil final hours.

His Dive console found, Ando is now ready to log in to Yggdrassil for one last time.

###

Five minutes to midnight.

Ando stand before the gates of the outer wall of Nazarick. It was his last location before he froze account. It didn't look familiar to him since he usually just teleport to the main entrance or straight to one of Nazarick ten floors. But he didn't wear his Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown now. Actually, he didn't even wear anything. Butt naked. For his race of choice, clothes or armors is optional. But that is last of his concern.

"Let's see, the guild interface..." His fingers hover above the menu, and then froze.

What should he say to Momonga? To Ulbert & Peroroncino? To other guild members?

He was never good with parting words. Even when he was quitting Yggdrassil, he only spoke to Momonga. As far as other members concerned, he just straight up disappeared. No explanations, no excuses. And now he'll just pop back in and cheerfully announce "Hey guys, look who's back?"?

In his hesitation he didn't notice a shadow passing by far above the walls. He just stood there, unsure of his feelings.

###

23:59:57
23:59:58
23:59:59
00:00:00
00:00:01
00:00:02
00:00:03

###

Ando barely recover from trance when he was roughly tugged into ... some sort of void, for lacks of better words. It almost like the space and time ripped itself into millions of strands and weaving it back together in chaotic order, again and again. It made him want to puke except now he can see his own avatar twisted in impossible manner and keep on twisting. How would you explain seeing a pair of mandible attached to a heart (he hoped it's a heart) perked above left shoulder (he hoped it was actually the left direction)? Now he felt want to die seeing those horrors.

Suddenly the twisting stopped, almost like it never happened in the first place.

"Shitty devs still introducing bugs in final hours", Ando grumbled, still shaken. He didn't notice now it's already over midnight. What he did notice is that the poisonous swamp behind him gone, replaced by boundless grasslands.

"Huh?"

Something's not right here. Maybe he should find Momonga and others and confer of what happened. He tries to jump over Nazarick wall, but the disorientation from the tugging make him stumble over the top stone, and tumbled over tombstones.

Ando tried to stand up and look around. Nazarick Old Guards didn't raise from their tombs as they still register Ando as a guild member instead of an unknown enemy. There was however, a loud shriek heavily ladened with hostility.

"YOU SCUM! HOW DARE YOU FILTHY INSECT TREAD UPON THE SACRED GROUND OF 41 SUPRE-"

The source of that shriek was a little girl above the stairs. She was clad in red blood armor, holding an oversized lance. Her eyes widened as if in shock.

Then she rushed over to Ando, putting a tight embrace on his hip.

"loRdd tOuZhmEEee!"

Shalltear Bloodfallen was in tears.

Author Note:
- Yes, I'm aware that Touch Me deleted his account in the light novel. But I can't write story about him if he can't return to Nazarick, can I?

- On that matters, many things will deviate even more from the canon story. Part of it is because I may need some wiggling room to expand the story. But most of them will be because I can't recall Overlord facts on the fly and wholly unfamiliar with TTRPG mechanic. Inconsistencies will be abound.

- Updates will be sparse. I had the rough framework of how the story will progress, but filling in the words and details turn out more difficult than I anticipated. This story is garbage, compared to other more refined fanfictions there. But it's my garbage, and I assure you I planned to keep on piling more of it until I make a decent mound of it.