A/N

Hey, I've been reading fics on this site for some time now but I didn't create an account until recently. I've had the idea for this story bouncing around in my head, and after a lot of procrastination, finally decided to try write it. Don't ask me why I chose this series to start off with, it just happened. Please keep in mind this is my first fanfic.

I don't own anything related to Overlord. This is purely for my own amusement. I am sharing this so others may be amused as well.

XXX

It was the end of an era.

After over a decade of popularity, YGGDRASIL's servers were shutting down.

On the last day of service, many players entered the game to experience it one last time.

In another timeline, a certain undead overlord player had a seemingly impossible experience.

This is not that story.

XXX

20:30

'Haaaaaaa' the player sounded, even though he couldn't actually exhale here.

'Kenichi' was a level 100 human player who had just returned to his guild base.

"Even though it was only a level 75 dungeon, why did I just have to do it today?"

Kenichi had just returned from a dungeon in the world of Jotunheim that he had raided for treasure. Of course, with this being the last day of YGGDRASIL, there was really nothing to be gained from doing so. The only reason Kenichi had gone was to experience it for one last time.

As he stepped into the area administered by his guild building, he dismissed the two NPC mercenaries that were following him.

"Such a shame no one could come though".

Even though he missed his friends, Kenichi knew they would not come today.

'Royal Order' was a somewhat well-known and well-connected guild, at least among beginners. That being said, it was not very powerful. Currently, it was ranked 282 out of just under 800 guilds in YDDGRASIL, putting them slightly above the average, but in the heyday of the game, they were consistently in the bottom fourth of all guilds.

The reason why they were currently ranked so high now wasn't because they had gotten stronger, but because stronger guilds had disbanded.

'Royal Order' was a guild that generally gathered new players and taught them some basics of the game. While they welcomed all players regardless of race or class, most were human players. Their founding members were causal players who simply wanted to explore the game world. As the new players got stronger in game, many would decide to leave 'Royal Order' to join other guilds. This was accepted throughout the guild and no one complained about it. After all, they were playing just to have fun. As a result, 'Royal Order' had no guild secrets, powerful items, or powerful players. They did however, have many connections with other guilds through former members, and those guilds would help out whenever they could and within reason.

Most high-level players would leave the guild, but a few would decide to stay. Kenichi was one of those few, and about two years ago was given the position of guild master. However, by that time, YDDGRASIL was already in decline and the guild membership numbers steadily fell. Eventually, he became the last member of 'Royal Order'.

Kenichi walked past the stone golems and lifeless constructs working the fields around him and headed for the main guildhall. 'Royal Order' had conquered this base, located in Midgard, a little over four years ago and it had been their headquarters ever since. The guild base 'Silver Castle'. As its name implied, it was a castle. Normal castle-grade guild bases had 700 levels of NPCs to work with, but 'Silver Castle' had 1200 levels. This was the result of a base level total of 900, which was already high for a castle, and a bonus of 300 levels. No one in 'Royal Order' knew why they were given this bonus, but they didn't complain.

'Silver Castle' was actually an unusual guild base in several ways. The actual castle itself was somewhat smaller than usual with two stories and a basement, but the guild base included a large area surrounding the castle. This area was designed as fields where crops grew in the mild climate of Midgard. The POP monsters automatically spawned by the base would work in these fields instead of attacking intruders, generating low quality consumable items that could be sold to NPC merchants. As a result, 'Silver Castle' was a base with poor defenses, but steady income generation. Most powerful guilds highly valued defense in their guild halls and therefore did not consider 'Silver Castle' as a desirable base, so there were few attacks after 'Silver Castle' had been conquered.

As a low-ranked guild, "Royal Order' did not have players with high-tier items. During the peak of YDDGRASIL's popularity, no one in the guild had a divine-class item and only a few had legendary-class items. Most players in 'Royal Order' used top-class or high-class items for their normal gear. The NPCs in 'Silver Castle' were originally also equipped with items of that tier, but over the past few months, Kenichi had replaced them with relic-class items that he obtained.

As he neared the main entrance to the guildhall, 5 NPCs walked pass Kenichi. After hesitating for a moment, he called out to them.

"Stop"

Obeying the command, the NPCs stopped their patrol and stood motionless.

Kenichi walked up to the NPCs and silently observed them.

Standing in front were three male NPCS. The one on the left wore full plate armor bearing an intricate design and was armed with a sword and buckler. The one in the center also had plate armor on, this time with a large green gem in the center, and carried a spear, with a short sword at his waist. The one on the right wore durable leather armor and carried a bow and quiver on his back and wielded two blades by his waist.

Kenichi had walked past this group of five NPCs that patrolled this area countless times. He also gathered the many magical items they were equipped with. He knew that they were all level 100 NPCs set to patrol the grounds and repel intruders, but he had never really paid that much attention to them. One thing he occasionally wondered was why they looked the way they did. Most NPCs in YDDGRASIL were pleasing to look at, but these three looked somewhat silly. He had no idea who made these NPCS and their background information and never felt the need to know.

However, since today was the last day they would exist and therefore the last chance he would get, Kenichi decided to try to find out the reason. Kenichi opened the game console and navigated to the data of the NPCs before him. As he read the names of the three NPCs, he fought the urge to face fault.

"Curly, Larry, and Moe, who the hell creates NPCs based off the three stooges?"

Even in the year 2138, people still knew about the classics, or perhaps they knew them because they were classics. While their backstory was consistent with the setting, the appearance and names of the NPCs were drawn from obvious sources.

Turning his attention to the other two NPCS behind the three stooges, Kenichi focused on the middle-aged man and young woman.

The man wore baggy grey robes, had a turban on his head over his jet-black hair, and carried a staff. He was obviously an arcane magic caster. Pulling up the information screen for this NPC, Kenichi let out another sigh.

"… Merlin. Our guild's naming sense never ceases to amaze me. Should I even bother with the last one? She should be named Nightingale or something."

Kenichi focused on the last member of the five. She had short blonde hair, wore a white skirt and top, and held a mace and shield, obviously being some sort of healer. Pulling up her information, Kenichi was once again surprised.

"… Sachiko, well, that's a surprisingly mundane name."

Losing interest, Kenichi sent the five NPCs on with a 'continue patrol' command and entered Silver Castle.

After passing the entrance hall with the NPC maids, Kenichi headed directly to the treasury room in the basement. After descending the stairs, he stood in front of the vault door and accessed his console. Selecting the option to deposit all of his loose items, he turned around to head back up.

Or at least that's what was supposed to happen.

"Huh?"

A large red X appeared on Kenichi's console.

"… Impossible, how can the treasury be full?"

The treasury for 'Silver Castle' was smaller than the large guild bases, but it still had a large capacity. It could easily hold over 5 million separate items with room to spare. Kenichi brought up the console and inspected the treasury contents.

"… What the, 562,814 potions, 818,213 wands, 16,411 artifacts, 1,125,121 scrolls, 808,002 crystals, where did all of this crap come from?"

The treasury was filled with a huge amount of low class items.

Kenichi would normally stock these useless items in the treasury and occasionally sell them to NPC merchants for quick gold. They weren't worth much, but he had a habit of not throwing anything away. That being said, not everything in the treasury was trash-tier. It actually held enough rare data crystals to create several dozen divine-tier items, courtesy of members who quit the game, Kenichi's latest dungeon conquests, or gifts from friendly guilds that disbanded. However, Kenichi couldn't bring himself to use them as he was a bit of a hoarder. He always saved the rarer items and after several years even managed to completely equip himself with legendary-class items, but the vast majority of these items in the treasury were low quality.

Kenichi realized that he couldn't remember the last time he had cleared the treasury of these trash items. He briefly considered doing a shop run, but decided against it. It was the last day after all, there was nothing to gain and he would lose time. Besides, there was already over 10 billion gold in the treasury, a small amount for a large guild, but much more than a single player would need.

Keeping the items in his inventory, Kenichi walked up the stairs to the main floor of Silver Castle. He was headed for the central room, the throne room. As he passed the main staircase to the upper level, he idly realized that he couldn't remember the last time he went upstairs as well.

"Should I look around up there? Eh, other than the library, there's only guest rooms there, not missing anything."

Kenichi continued deeper into the castle, passing the kitchen, armory, and several other rooms before entering the throne room. The room was empty other than the three NPCs meant to be the last line of defense, all lined up before the throne. Unlike the NPCs patrolling outside, Kenichi was more familiar with these three.

The one that caught Kenichi's eye first was naturally the one closest to him. A large monk-class fighter with short hair, loose fitting clothing, a dignified air about him, and no weapon to be seen. This was Black Belt, an NPC guard with exceptional resistance to elemental attacks. Incidentally, 'Black Belt' was the third name choice for this NPC. Originally, the guild member who created him wanted to create an NPC called 'Sebas Tian', but the system bounced that name back because it was already being used. The same thing happened when they tried 'Fist of Fury'. Behind him was a woman with long red hair, wearing a black skirt and white top. She held in her hand a small book with strange characters written on it. Her name was Miranda, she was a priest class NPC capable of a wide variety of healing and support spells. At the rear, nearest to the throne, was a woman with medium length black hair tied into a ponytail. She was wearing light armor that almost seemed to be more for appearance than function and was not equipped with a weapon. Despite this appearance, this was arguably the most powerful NPC created by 'Royal Order'. Her name was Serenity and she was capable of summoning a large variety of creatures, from angels to beasts, and had multiple command classes and skills that boosted the strength of both her allies and summoned creatures.

These three NPCS were all level 100. Along with the five patrolling outside, they were the only level 100 NPCS in 'Royal Order' as well as the only ones designed for combat, the other custom NPCs being lower level NPCs usually specialized for production like cooking and crafting.

Behind them was the throne for Silver Castle. Set flat against the wall, it looked quite impressive at first glance, but it had no special properties and just looked good. More important was the item that was the weapon displayed above the throne.

The guild weapon, 'Royal Hammer'.

Most guilds liked to create exceptionally powerful guild weapons, with their guild weapon surpassing the power of even divine-class weapons. They usually had amazing power, but were never used for fear of losing it and having the guild be disbanded.

'Royal Order' did not think this way.

'Royal Hammer' was a weapon built to last. It had poor offensive power and few special abilities, but was exceptionally durable. It was created with many data crystals that boosted weapon resistance and damage reduction. It would take a long time for a top-level player to destroy it, even if they were armed with divine-class equipment or used super-tier spells. It would be much easier to steal it than destroy it, even considering the many layers of defenses against theft that surrounded it. Kenichi even thought that it would be able to survive a hit from a world-class item.

"Of course, it would certainly be destroyed with the second hit, but it should be able to survive one, right?"

As he sat on the throne, Kenichi idly thought of the world-class items in YDDGRASIL. He recalled the greatest moment of victory that 'Royal Order' ever experienced. Once, they managed to get their hands on a world-class item. It was called 'Picture of Nature and Nation'. It was an unexpected prize from an attack on a PK guild called 'Grinning Hyena'. Many in the guild then never thought they would even see a world-class item, let alone own one.

"Ah, good times"

Of course, it couldn't be expected to last. Just six days after they had acquired 'Picture of Nature and Nation', it was stolen from them by a guild called 'Burning Embers". The members were furious and wanted to launch an attack to reclaim it, but just three days later, before they had even started planning, they learned that it had been stolen by yet another guild. This continued for a while, with 'Picture of Nature and Nation' going through several guilds, until finally a large guild called 'Shadow Star Society' took it. 'Shadow Star Society' was one of the strongest guilds in YDDGRASIL then and no one was foolish enough to attack them recklessly. As far as Kenichi knew, no one was able to steal 'Picture of Nature and Nation' from them, up until the day the guild disbanded several years ago.

"Hmm, I wonder where it is now. Ah, no point in worrying about it now. Speaking of world, I never did find out where or how I got this class."

The class Kenichi was referring to was the 'World Guardian' class, one that he discovered over four years ago. It gave him a huge boost to HP and greatly enhanced the defensive effects of his equipment, as well as rendering him immune to the special effects of world-class items. It also had an ability that let him designate up to 8 other targets to give a boost to defense and magic defense and immunity to the special effects of world-class items. This effect stayed until revoked, even when he was in a different area or even logged off. The only downside to this class was the fact that it cut all damage done by him in half. It didn't affect his taunts, but it did cut his combat ability. That was why he needed to hire mercenary NPCS to help him clear dungeons; it would take too long by himself.

"Ah, no point in worrying about it now."

Kenichi sat in silence, reminiscing about the experiences he had in game. Slowly, his fatigue built and he felt increasingly tired. After a while, he glanced at the time display.

21:58

Kenichi had originally planned to stay until the server shut down, but he knew he couldn't make it. With regret in his heart, he decided to leave the game early. Standing up from the throne, he moved his hand to the logout symbol, but stopped halfway.

"Eh, no good lord abandons their vassals without appointing a successor."

Accessing the master console, Kenichi used his authority as guild master to alter the settings of Serenity. He added one line at the end of her description.

'Has been designated leader of Royal Order when all guild members are absent'

As an afterthought, Kenichi accessed his 'World Guardian' skill. Currently, he had designated the two mercenary NPCs from earlier and six of his absent guild mates to receive his protection. Revoking that protection, he then designated the eight level 100 NPCs in 'Royal Order' as the targets for his skill.

"Well my lady, I leave everything to you. Take care of them."

Kenichi addressed Serenity respectfully before logging out.

XXX

In southern Tokyo, in a large apartment complex, Ichiro Yamanaka returned to reality. Slightly depressed that he couldn't see the end of one of his favorite games, he lay in bed and let sleep overtake him. Ichiro was 30 years old with a well-paying job, but still lived with his parents. Although he had more than enough money to get his own place, he was a miser who hated spending money. He even refused to use the cash shop in YDDGRASIL, unlike some of his guild mates. He lived with his parents because it saved him money, and he didn't know how to cook very well. Ichiro silently fell asleep in his soft bed. Tomorrow, he would wake up, go to work, and continue his life as normal. The world will keep spinning. Ichiro would live on completely unaware of the effects his actions that night would have.

XXX

In another world, three people silently stared at an empty throne. After what seemed like an eternity, the one with black hair tied in a ponytail broke the silence.

"My lord, I understand and shall carry out your will."

XXX

I plan to upload two chapters to start off. I don't plan to edit this first chapter, but I may change my mind later.

Also, don't argue with me on the proper names of stuff. Since the original story was written in Japanese, there may be several ways to translate it.