"Ren, tonight's the night YGGDRASIL shuts down its servers for good. Do you… want to come with me…?"
"To stay with our guild, Ainz Ooal Gown, until the very last moment, right?"
Hearing the slightly hesitant voice coming from his phone, Ren Kuroda smiled knowingly and finished the sentence for him.
"Yeah! I figured you'd think the same way!"
The excitement in the caller's voice was unmistakable.
"Even though everyone else already left the game one after another once the shutdown announcement was made… I still want to stay until the very end."
"After all, this guild was something all of us built together with so much effort!"
Through the phone, Ren could clearly hear how emotional the speaker had become.
Especially after realizing Ren felt the same way.
Strictly speaking, the name displayed on Ren's phone wasn't Suzuki Satoru.
It was Momonga.
That was the name Ren had saved in his contacts.
However, Ren already knew that the person behind the avatar called Momonga was actually named Suzuki Satoru.
They had met through an RPG game.
Although they were guildmates and had exchanged contact information, none of them had ever truly met in real life.
As for why Momonga knew Ren's real name—
That was because Ren's in-game character name was literally "Ren Kuroda."
Back then, the members of Ainz Ooal Gown had teased him several times for it.
"Who the hell uses their real name as their game ID?" they had joked.
Because of that, they had initially assumed Ren was just a clueless newbie.
Overlord, also known as The King of the Undead, was a series Ren was very familiar with.
In fact, it had once been one of his favorite anime.
But what he could never have imagined…
Was how he had somehow ended up in this world.
If Ren's memories weren't mistaken, he had been in the Slime World just before this—specifically on the hundredth floor of the Underground Labyrinth.
As the labyrinth's reputation continued to grow, and thanks to Ren's careful management, it had generated enormous wealth for the Kingdom of Falmuth and several other nations.
On that particular day, Veldora happened to be out wandering somewhere again.
With nothing better to do, Ren had casually taken over the role of guardian of the hundredth floor.
And that was when a challenger appeared.
A man named Yuuki Kagurazaka.
The guy was incredibly strong—and frighteningly good at hiding his true abilities.
His unique skill, "Creator," was eerily similar to the legendary power once possessed by the Star Dragon King.
As long as Yuuki understood the structure of an ability, he could recreate it.
Of course, since Yuuki's Creator had not yet evolved into the ultimate skill Creator Lord, the battle had been completely one-sided.
Ren had suppressed Yuuki the entire time.
Just when Ren was about to defeat him—
A blonde, large-breasted elf suddenly appeared.
She was none other than Kagali, who had been revived.
Then, together with Yuuki, she activated some unknown ability.
The next moment—
A blinding white light swallowed Ren whole.
And when he opened his eyes again…
He had appeared in this world.
Once Ren realized that the place he had been sent to was the world of Overlord, he had been completely speechless.
A crossover between Rimuru the Slime and Ainz the Overlord?
Playing an RPG game—and then actually ending up inside an RPG world?
Strangely enough, the situation felt bizarre…
Yet also oddly fitting.
The bootleg system he possessed still existed.
Which meant one thing.
He could probably go back.
From the battle logs provided by the system, Ren had also learned exactly what ability Yuuki and Kagali had used on him.
When people from another world enter the Slime World, it generally happens in two ways.
One type retains their physical body and crosses over directly.
The other is a reincarnator, whose soul alone travels and is reborn in a new body.
The spell Yuuki and Kagali had used on Ren was originally designed to summon otherworldly travelers.
However—
They had modified it into a reverse summoning ritual.
Kagali was known as the Curse Lord, someone with unparalleled knowledge of magical formations and spellcraft.
Combined with Yuuki's Creator ability, which could produce new skills…
The two of them had actually succeeded in creating a special technique designed specifically for dealing with otherworldly travelers.
Ren was simply too powerful.
He was someone who could even contend with Milim for a short time.
If Yuuki's plans were going to succeed, Ren would become the biggest obstacle.
The other Demon Lords were certainly strong…
But most of them weren't exactly known for their strategic thinking.
Ren was different.
After conducting a series of investigations, Yuuki had concluded that Ren was both dangerous and extremely intelligent.
If confronting him head-on was impossible…
Then the simplest solution was to send him back to his original world.
At the time, Ren had no idea that Yuuki was the mysterious mastermind behind Kagali—the person Luminous had mentioned.
Treating Yuuki as nothing more than another challenger, Ren had been caught completely off guard.
And so he ended up here.
In the world of Overlord.
In this world, Ren lived the life of an ordinary office worker.
Well… mostly ordinary.
Because of his ridiculously handsome appearance, he also worked part-time as a model.
As a result, his income was actually quite impressive.
And most of that money—
He spent whaling heavily in the game called YGGDRASIL.
To many rational people, spending huge amounts of money on a game was incredibly foolish.
Why trade your hard-earned money for digital data that could disappear at any moment?
But Ren knew something they didn't.
Soon enough—
Those "data" would become real.
And they would turn into his greatest cheat ability.
At eleven o'clock that night, Ren logged into the game early.
He didn't want to risk any unexpected delays that might interfere with the moment of world transfer.
His destination was the guild base of Ainz Ooal Gown.
He thought he had arrived fairly early.
After all, since YGGDRASIL had already announced its shutdown long ago, the game had basically become a ghost town.
The servers wouldn't close until midnight.
Which meant he expected to sit around in the guild hall for nearly an hour.
However—
Ren hadn't expected that someone else would arrive even earlier than him.
The figure standing inside the guild hall was a white skeleton with glowing red eyes.
He wore an ornate black cloak and had a rather imposing frame.
"Ren, you came early too?"
The skeletal figure spoke in a warm tone.
"But it looks like no one else has shown up yet besides the two of us."
Even though he was just a skeleton and had no facial muscles to display expressions, Ren could still clearly sense Momonga's emotions.
When Ren appeared, Momonga seemed to relax with relief.
And he also looked genuinely happy.
In real life, Suzuki Satoru had lost both of his parents.
He had no friends.
He lived a lonely existence in the real world.
Because of that, he treasured the friendships he had formed with his guildmates in YGGDRASIL more than anything.
"The others probably won't come," Ren said calmly.
"They had already left the game long before the shutdown announcement—everyone had their own reasons."
"I know it's hard for you as the guild master."
"But even if it's just the two of us… we'll guard the Great Tomb of Nazarick until the very end."
Despite everything, Ren wasn't completely detached from the guild members of Ainz Ooal Gown.
After all, he had already spent more than a year in this world.
During that time, he had lived like a normal player—logging in every day to hunt monsters alongside his guildmates.
For a while…
Ren had even felt as if he had returned to the normal world of his previous life.
A world without swords and magic.
Without Demon Lords.
Without yokai.
And because Ren spent the most money on the game out of everyone in the guild—
He also possessed the largest number of World Items and premium cash-shop equipment.
At one point, many of the guild members had even joked that Ren must secretly be a rich second-generation heir.