Chapter 1: When Gods Awaken in Silence
—A Moment Where Reality Itself Seems to Hold Its Breath—
The Throne Room of Nazarick had always been a cathedral of silence—a monument carved from darkness and divinity, where even shadows knew to bow. Tonight, however, the silence breathed.
It was alive.
Thor stood motionless before the throne, a mountain made flesh. His crimson hair fell like spilled war-paint across shoulders broad enough to bear the weight of dying worlds. Mjölnir rested against his hip—not holstered, not sheathed, but present—a gravity unto itself. His expression remained as it always had: unreadable, carved from stone and storm, a mask that had never learned to smile.
Beside him, Momonga—skeletal overlord wrapped in the ceremonial robes of a Supreme Being—struggled not to unravel entirely.
Between them stood Albedo.
And she had spoken first.
Not as a script. Not as programming. Not as the hollow echo of predetermined dialogue trees and pre-recorded voice lines. No.
She had spoken as a person.
The words still hung in the air like smoke after cannon fire, mocking every law of Yggdrasil, every rule of reality they'd once taken for granted. Thor felt the weight of that impossibility settle across his shoulders—familiar and unwelcome, like armor donned before an unavoidable battle.
For several long seconds, neither Supreme Being moved. The throne room itself seemed to wait, vast and yawning as an open mouth, anticipating the first word that would determine whether this was awakening or apocalypse.
Momonga's skeletal jaw worked silently—open, close, open again—a man drowning in air.
Thor simply observed.
His gaze swept across Albedo with the measured precision of a predator assessing prey—or a general surveying a battlefield before the first charge. She stood with wings half-furled, golden eyes bright with something that shouldn't exist: concern. Genuine. Unscripted. Alive.
The pulse of her heartbeat reached him even from this distance, a war drum echoing where there should be only silence.
Finally, Thor spoke.
Thor: "Nothing is wrong."
His voice came low, resonant, a thunderhead rolling across distant hills. Each word fell with the weight of a hammer strike—deliberate, unadorned, absolute.
Thor: "We felt a shift. That is all."
A shift. An understatement worthy of a god describing Ragnarok as "unpleasant weather."
Albedo's wings twitched. Her eyes widened—pupils dilating with emotion no NPC should possess.
Albedo: "A shift? Oh! If something threatens you, my lords, please—please allow me to destroy it!"
The fervor in her voice bordered on violence. Her hands clenched into fists, black talons glinting like obsidian knives. She leaned forward, weight shifting onto the balls of her feet, a warrior poised to launch herself into oblivion at a single command.
Thor watched this display with the same stoic intensity he might watch a storm gathering on the horizon: inevitable, powerful, and utterly beyond mortal control.
Thor: "Your loyalty is noted, Albedo."
Four words. Delivered without inflection, without warmth, without anything resembling encouragement.
Yet Albedo ignited.
Her wings flared—a sudden, involuntary burst of feathers catching impossible light. A blush crawled across her porcelain cheeks like sunrise breaking over snow-capped peaks. Her breath hitched audibly, and for a heartbeat, she looked ready to either weep or combust.
NPCs don't do that.
They don't blush. They don't tremble. They certainly don't look at their creators with the desperate, aching devotion of a saint beholding the face of God.
Thor and Momonga exchanged a glance.
In that single look passed an encyclopedia of unspoken terror: This is wrong. This is impossible. This is happening anyway.
The mental link between them crackled to life like lightning seeking ground.
Momonga (thought):"Thor. I… I don't know what to do. This wasn't in any manual. This wasn't—this isn't—"
His thoughts spiraled, fragmenting like shattered glass.
Thor (thought):"Compose yourself."
The command cut through Momonga's panic like a blade through mist—sharp, clean, undeniable.
Thor (thought):"We test their loyalty. We confirm their sentience. Then we adapt."
Momonga (thought):"How?"
Thor (thought):"Sebas."
The name alone was enough.
Across the throne room, the head butler stepped forward with the fluid grace of a drawn sword. His silver hair caught the dim light, and his expression—calm, attentive, impossibly real—held the weight of decades of refined service.
Sebas: "My lord?"
His voice was a benediction.
Momonga (thought):"Can we trust him? Will he obey? What if—"
Thor (thought):"Give the order, Momonga. If he rebels, I will end him."
It wasn't a boast. It wasn't a threat. It was meteorology—a simple statement of atmospheric conditions.
Momonga's skeletal form straightened. Magic flickered briefly in his empty eye sockets—nervousness transmuted into authority through sheer force of will.
Momonga: "Sebas. Exit the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Survey the surrounding area. Report any anomalies immediately."
A pause—vast and terrible as the space between heartbeats.
Then Sebas bowed.
Sebas: "It shall be done, my lord."
He turned and departed with the silent efficiency of falling snow. No hesitation. No question. Only obedience rendered with the precision of a master craftsman completing his life's work.
Thor watched him go, crimson eyes narrowing fractionally.
Loyalty. Sentience. Awareness.
The trifecta of impossibility.
Momonga: "Pleiades. Station yourselves on the Ninth Floor. Eliminate any intruders without mercy."
Yuri: "Understood, Lord Momonga."
She and her sisters vanished into shadow and light, leaving only the faint scent of jasmine and steel.
Momonga's thoughts churned like a storm-tossed sea.
Momonga (thought):They obey commands that don't exist in Yggdrasil's code. They respond to nuance. They adapt. They… think. What is this? What have we become? What IS this place?
His internal monologue might have spiraled indefinitely had Albedo's voice not cut through it like a silver bell.
Albedo: "Lord Thor? Lord Momonga?"
Her smile could have melted glaciers or frozen suns—something beautiful and terrible and utterly impossible to classify.
Albedo: "Do you have orders… for me?"
The way she breathed the word orders made it sound like sacrament and seduction wrapped in silk.
Thor's gaze settled on her with the full weight of divine attention—a pressure that could crush mountains or crown kings.
Thor: "Momonga. Sixth Floor Amphitheater. Test your abilities."
Momonga: "Y-Yes. That's… wise. I should—yes."
He vanished in a cascade of dark magic, teleportation ripping reality like parchment, leaving behind only the lingering ozone scent of displaced air.
Now it was Thor and Albedo.
Alone.
The throne room seemed to contract, vast space condensing into something intimate and dangerous—a gladiatorial arena where only two souls existed.
Thor: "Come closer, Albedo."
Not a request. A statement of inevitable motion.
Albedo: "Yes!"
She moved with startling speed—not quite teleportation, but far too fast for something merely mortal. Her wings stirred the air, and with them came the impossible: scent. Jasmine. Vanilla. Something warm and alive and utterly beyond the capacity of code to replicate.
Thor's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes—a flicker of recognition, perhaps. Or calculation.
She stopped mere inches away, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin, close enough to count the individual feathers in her wings.
Thor: "I will touch you now."
Albedo: "P-Please do…"
No preamble. No seduction. Thor's hand moved with the same deliberate precision he brought to every action—lifting Mjölnir, ending battles, reshaping destiny.
One arm around her waist.
Contact.
Warmth. Not the ambient heat of rendered graphics or simulated physics, but the living warmth of blood moving beneath skin, of a heart pumping life through impossible veins.
His other hand rose to her neck—fingers resting against her throat where the pulse should be.
Should be.
Was.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
A heartbeat. Real. Undeniable. Mathematically impossible.
Thor (thought):Alive. She's alive. Not code. Not programming. Flesh. Blood. Consciousness.
His face remained impassive—a mask of divine indifference—but behind that mask, calculations ran at the speed of thought.
If she's alive, then what am I? If this isn't Yggdrasil, then where is this? If these aren't NPCs, then what have we created?
Questions cascaded like dominoes falling in perfect sequence, each answer spawning three more questions.
He needed one final confirmation.
One ultimate test.
Thor: "Albedo."
Albedo: "Y-Yes, Lord Thor?"
Her voice trembled—a violin string pulled taut, humming with tension.
Thor: "Your chest. I will touch it now."
Silence.
Absolute.
Profound.
The kind of silence that precedes avalanches.
Albedo: "...Eh?"
A tiny sound—barely a syllable—that somehow contained entire universes of shock, hope, confusion, and desire.
Thor: "You object?"
Albedo: "OBJECT?! N-No! Not at all! Please! Touch me! Touch anything you wish! Everything! I am yours entirely!"
Her wings exploded outward in a burst of involuntary motion. Her face flushed crimson—a color so vivid it seemed to glow. She began trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, hands clasped against her chest as if physically restraining herself from lunging forward.
Thor paused.
Tilted his head fractionally.
Thor: "You are… enthusiastic."
It might have been a compliment. It might have been an observation. With Thor, the distinction was purely academic.
But Albedo melted.
Her knees buckled slightly. Her wings fluttered in rapid, uncontrolled bursts. A tiny sound escaped her lips—something between a gasp and a whimper—and she looked for all the world like she'd just been struck by lightning and found the experience transcendent.
Thor placed one hand—carefully, deliberately—over the armored portion of her chest. His palm rested there with the same neutral pressure he might use to test the surface of unfamiliar stone.
Sensation flooded through the contact point.
Texture. Temperature. The subtle rise and fall of breathing. The faint vibration of a heartbeat transmitted through layers that should be inanimate.
And from Albedo—
Albedo: "Ah—!"
A sharp, involuntary cry. She clapped both hands over her mouth, golden eyes wide with mortification and something far more primal.
Thor's hand remained motionless.
Thor (thought):Sensory feedback. Physical response. Emotional reaction. This confirms it. They're not simulations. They're real. Living. Conscious.
Which means everything has changed.
His hand withdrew—smooth, unhurried, giving no indication that anything significant had occurred.
Thor: "Albedo."
Albedo: "Y-Yes?!"
Thor: "Gather all Floor Guardians. Sixth Floor Amphitheater. Exclude Fourth and Eighth Floors. One hour."
Albedo: "At once, my lord!"
She bowed so deeply her hair swept the marble floor, but before she could turn away, Thor reached out.
One finger beneath her chin.
Lifting.
Forcing eye contact.
Thor: "Perform well. You will be rewarded."
If words could detonate, Nazarick would have been reduced to rubble.
Albedo's eyes went supernova-bright. Her breath stopped entirely. Her wings snapped open with enough force to generate a small windstorm.
Albedo: "I WILL NOT FAIL YOU!"
She spun and bolted—vanishing down the corridor with the speed of religious fervor given physical form.
Thor stood alone in the throne room.
Silent.
Still.
A statue of a god processing the fact that he might no longer be playing a game.
Then he vanished—teleportation pulling him through space like thread through needle's eye—toward the Sixth Floor.
Toward answers.
Toward whatever came next.
The Amphitheater of Living Green
—Where Artificial Suns Illuminate Impossible Truths—
Light erupted.
Magic twisted.
Thor materialized in the heart of the Sixth Floor Amphitheater—a vast coliseum carved from living forest, where trees grew in geometric perfection and sunlight (that had no sun) filtered through impossible leaves.
Thor: "Teleportation functions. Ring mechanics remain operational."
He spoke to himself—or perhaps to the universe—testing the weight of words against the pressure of reality.
Momonga stood near the arena's edge, skeletal hands clasped behind his back in a pose that might have suggested composure if not for the faint tremor in his finger bones.
Momonga: "You took your time."
Thor: "Albedo required testing. She remains loyal."
Momonga: "...Testing?"
Thor: "She is real, Momonga. Living. Aware. All of them are."
The words fell between them like stones into still water—ripples spreading outward, disturbing everything.
Momonga: "Then… what does that make us?"
Thor didn't answer.
Some questions were better left to philosophers and madmen.
Children of the Dark Elves
Aura: "Ha! Lords Momonga and Thor! Welcome to our humble Amphitheater!"
The blonde dark elf bounded forward with the irrepressible energy of summer storms—all wild grins and confident swagger. Her beast-tamer's outfit rustled as she moved, and her heterochromatic eyes sparkled with unguarded delight.
Momonga: "We don't wish to intrude—"
Aura: "Intrude?! You're Supreme Beings! You could burn this place to ash and we'd thank you for the honor!"
Thor's gaze swept past her to the trembling figure half-hidden behind a tree.
Thor: "The other one. Bring him here."
Aura: "Mare! Get out here before I drag you!"
Mare: "B-But sister, they're terrifying! Their auras are so heavy I can barely breathe and Lord Thor looks like he could kill me with his thoughts and—"
Aura: "MARE!"
Mare: "C-Coming!"
He stumbled forward—a boy wrapped in robes too large for his frame, face hidden behind blonde hair, fingers twisting nervously around his staff. When he finally looked up, his eyes were liquid with barely-restrained terror.
Mare: "F-Forgive me, my lords. I didn't mean to keep you waiting. Please don't—"
Thor: "Stop."
One word.
Mare's entire body locked like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Thor: "Fear is natural. Do not apologize for it."
Mare: "I… oh. Um. Thank you?"
It might have been the gentlest thing Thor had said in a century. Which is to say, it was only moderately terrifying instead of completely apocalyptic.
Momonga: "Actually, we'd like your help with something."
Both twins perked up—Aura with enthusiasm, Mare with the cautious hope of someone who'd just been told the execution was postponed.
Then Momonga unveiled the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.
The twins' jaws dropped in perfect synchronization.
Aura: "Is that—?!"
Mare: "The guild weapon! The legendary—! Oh gods, it's real, it's actually real!"
Their reverence was palpable—a physical weight pressing against the air.
Momonga explained its functions with growing confidence. Thor added technical details—his voice a steady drumbeat beneath Momonga's enthusiasm—and together they painted a picture of power that left the twins breathless.
Momonga: "We'd like to test its capabilities. Would you two be willing to—"
Aura: "YES! Whatever you need!"
Mare: "Wait, test? Test how? Test like… academic testing? Or test like—oh no—"
His face went pale.
Trial by Fire
Momonga: "Primal Fire Elemental!"
Magic exploded.
Flame roared to life—coalescing, condensing, taking shape. A towering figure emerged from the inferno: humanoid, massive, wreathed in fire so hot it warped the air into liquid shimmer.
The elemental's eyes ignited like twin suns.
Mare: "Oh gods."
Aura: "Oh HELLS YES!"
She grabbed Mare by the collar as he tried to flee.
Mare: "Wait! I have chores! Important chores! Watering plants! Feeding animals! Literally anything that isn't THIS—"
Aura: "You're fighting! Come on!"
Momonga: "Primal Fire Elemental—engage the dark elf twins!"
The elemental roared—a sound like mountains cracking—and charged.
Mare: "I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!"
Aura: "You're seventy-six!"
Mare: "STILL TOO YOUNG!"
Thor and Momonga watched from the arena's edge as battle erupted—fire against earth and wind, magic clashing in cascades of light that painted shadows across ancient stone.
Momonga: "They should handle this easily."
Thor: "Agreed."
Then Momonga tested another ability—Message—and felt his consciousness reach out across impossible distance.
The response came immediately.
Sebas: "Lord Momonga? How may I serve?"
The butler's voice arrived crystal-clear, as if he stood beside them rather than leagues away beyond Nazarick's walls.
Momonga: "Sebas. Status report."
A pause.
Long enough to sharpen anxiety into a blade.
Sebas: "There is… a complication, my lord."
Thor's eyes narrowed fractionally—the only outward sign of attention sharpening to razor focus.
Momonga: "Explain when you arrive. Come to the Sixth Floor Amphitheater. Bring your report in person."
Sebas: "At once."
The connection severed.
Momonga: "A complication. He said 'complication.'"
Thor: "Then we prepare for war."
Momonga: "We don't even know what the complication IS—"
Thor: "Irrelevant. A complication for Sebas means danger. We prepare."
It wasn't paranoia. It was experience.
Down in the arena, Mare collapsed onto his back, chest heaving, robes singed at the edges.
Mare: "Hah… hah… I saw my life flash before my eyes… twice…"
Aura: "That was AWESOME! I haven't had that much fun in forever!"
She practically vibrated with residual adrenaline, grinning wide enough to show teeth.
Momonga: "Excellent work, both of you."
Then—with casual divine generosity—he summoned water.
Two crystal cups materialized alongside a pitcher of liquid so pure it seemed to glow. Condensation formed immediately on the glass, and the scent of mountain springs filled the air.
Aura: "Whoa…"
Mare: "Is that… real water? Actual, drinkable water?"
Momonga: "Drink. You've earned it."
They stared at the offering like it was the Holy Grail.
Aura: "You know, Lord Momonga… I thought you'd be scarier."
Momonga's skull tilted—a gesture of confused innocence that somehow made him more endearing.
Momonga: "Scarier? Would you prefer I terrify you?"
Aura: "NO! Nonono, you're perfect! Perfect exactly like this! Please don't change!"
She waved both hands frantically, panic written across every gesture.
Momonga: "Hmm. I see."
He didn't see.
Thor, watching this exchange, said nothing—but the faintest suggestion of amusement might have flickered behind his eyes.
Might have.
Then the air shattered.
The Vampire's Entrance
—Where Elegance Meets Apocalypse—
Without warning, without preamble, the arena floor split open.
Not physically—nothing so crude—but dimensionally. Space folded, twisted, inverted itself in a spiral of crimson and violet light that reeked of old blood and older magic.
A portal bloomed like a wound in reality.
From its depths came the click-click-click of heels against emptiness.
Then silk rustled.
Then presence.
Shalltear Bloodfallen stepped through with the casual arrogance of someone who knew—with absolute certainty—that she was the most beautiful thing in any room she entered.
Her dress flowed like liquid shadow. Her parasol twirled lazily in one delicate hand. Her crimson eyes gleamed with predatory amusement—until they landed on Thor and Momonga together.
Then everything changed.
Her posture snapped into rigid perfection. Her smile widened—all teeth and danger and barely-restrained devotion.
Shalltear: "My, my… It appears I am the first to arrive. How fortunate."
She curtseyed—a movement so precise it could have been choreographed by angels or demons, and with Shalltear, the distinction was academic.
Thor met her gaze without flinching.
Two apex predators acknowledging each other across the space between heartbeats.
The tension settling over the Amphitheater was different now—heavier, sharper, electric with the promise of violence or revelation.
Or both.
Shalltear: "Lord Thor. Lord Momonga. I await your command."
Her voice was honey laced with arsenic.
The Amphitheater held its breath.
And somewhere in the distance, beyond Nazarick's walls, Sebas was returning with news that would change everything.
—To Be Continued—