Prologue
The glow of the monitor painted Kenneth Richards's face in shades of electric blue—a cold light for a boy who'd learned to prefer pixels over people.
Video games offer sanctuary, not merely entertainment. They are portals, doorways, escape hatches from a world that doesn't fit quite right. For some players, they're social spaces where friendships bloom across fiber-optic cables. For others, they're time-killers, digital distractions from the mundane march of hours. But for a rare few—those who've tasted loss and found reality wanting—they become something more dangerous: a home.
Kenneth Richards understood this better than most.
As the only child of Desmond Richards, co-creator of the legendary DMMORPG YGGDRASIL, Kenneth had inherited more than wealth. He'd inherited absence. His mother's death—metal twisting, glass shattering, a life snuffed out in the blink of an eye—had hollowed out their family home like a fire through dry wood. In the aftermath, Desmond made a promise, voice cracking like old leather: he would give Kenneth the life he wanted, support him in any way he could. Words meant to comfort. Words that would reshape destiny.
When Desmond gifted his son a copy of YGGDRASIL, he expected gratitude. Instead, Kenneth frowned at the character creation screen, scrolling through avatar races with the disdain of an artist presented with a child's crayon set. "They're all so... ordinary," he'd muttered, fingers drumming against the desk. What Kenneth craved wasn't power—not exactly. He craved distinction, the kind of presence that makes a room go silent when you enter.
His epiphany arrived courtesy of late-night television and serendipity. Power Rangers Zeo—an old American series his mother used to watch—flickered across his screen at 2 AM. Kenneth was captivated not by the heroes in their color-coded spandex, but by their nemesis: King Mondo, the Machine Empire's sovereign. Here was a villain who commanded respect, a mechanical monarch whose metallic voice rang with theatrical menace and whose clockwork empire struck with precision and pageantry. King Mondo didn't simply destroy; he orchestrated destruction, a conductor leading symphonies of chaos.
"Dad," Kenneth said the next morning, sliding into the kitchen with the quiet intensity of someone who'd discovered purpose, "I need you to build me something special."
Desmond looked up from his coffee, dark circles under his eyes a testament to another sleepless night coding. "Name it."
"A King Mondo avatar. Modified. Better. Make me... make me the Machine King of YGGDRASIL."
Most fathers would have hesitated. Desmond Richards was not most fathers. Grief had transformed his love into something fierce and indulgent, a determination to give his son everything the world had taken away. "Give me a few weeks," he'd said, and the glint in his eyes suggested he relished the challenge.
When Kenneth finally logged in with his new avatar, he was magnificent. The character towered over other players—a towering construct of brass and steel, crowned with spiked regalia that caught the light like a constellation of blades. His voice, modulated and mechanical, boomed with theatrical grandiosity. Every gesture was calculated drama, every movement a performance. He was art incarnate, terrible and beautiful.
He was also practically invincible.
The first player who attacked him learned this swiftly. Kenneth's avatar—christened King Mondo in homage—dispatched the assault with almost casual efficiency, automated defenses and overwhelming stats reducing his opponent to a corpse in seconds. Then another challenger fell. And another. Kenneth's laughter echoed through the game world, mechanical and triumphant, a sound like gears grinding in celebration.
For a time, he was untouchable. A legend. A nightmare made of code.
For a time.
Leon Hunter was cut from a different cloth—expensive cloth, certainly, but cloth nonetheless. As the son of another YGGDRASIL creator, he'd grown up in Kenneth's shadow, always second-place, always almost. The rivalry had started in childhood, two boys at the same private school, competing over test scores and trophies. It had intensified online, where Leon threw himself against Kenneth's avatar again and again, each defeat stoking the furnace of his frustration.
"It's not fair," Leon complained to his father after his seventh consecutive loss, slamming his fist on the desk hard enough to rattle the keyboard. "His character is broken. You know it is."
His father, Mr. Hunter, was a man who valued winning above all else. He made inquiries. Desmond Richards, ever trusting, explained the source of Kenneth's power—the Power Rangers Zeo inspiration, the custom mechanics, the careful calibration that made King Mondo a force of nature.
Mr. Hunter watched the show. He took notes. Then he went to work.
When Leon logged in next, he piloted something new: an avatar burning with crimson and gold, patterned after the Red Zeo Ranger, leader of the heroic team. But Leon understood what his rival did not—no hero succeeds alone. He recruited five friends, convinced his father to grant them the powers of the other Zeo Rangers, and together they formed a guild with a singular purpose: the Mondo Hunters.
The irony was delicious. The hero, hunting the villain. The light, pursuing the dark. Poetic, really, in a way that made Kenneth's blood boil when he heard the news.
"Let's see what these wannabe heroes are made of," Kenneth muttered, mechanical voice dripping with synthesized disdain as he tracked them down.
The battle was spectacular—a clash of titans that lit up the server logs and drew spectators by the hundreds. Kenneth fought brilliantly, his avatar's systems firing in perfect synchronization, but mathematics doesn't lie. Six coordinated opponents, each powerful, each supporting the others, overwhelmed even his superior stats. When King Mondo fell, his metallic body collapsing with a sound like a cathedral's bells tolling, Kenneth stared at the respawn screen in stunned silence.
He'd forgotten what losing felt like.
It got worse. Every quest became an ambush. Every dungeon dive ended with the Mondo Hunters materializing like avenging angels, striking him down and looting his gear with almost surgical efficiency. Leon had turned Kenneth's game into a living hell, and the mechanical king's laughter had long since died in his throat.
So Kenneth wandered. Aimless. Purposeless. A god reduced to a ghost, drifting through digital landscapes that had lost their luster. The game had become a cage, beautiful and suffocating.
That's when he found Momonga—or rather, when Momonga found him, fleeing from a party of player-killers like a rabbit from wolves.
"Need a hand?" Kenneth asked, his modulated voice cutting through the chaos.
Momonga, an Overlord-class undead with hollow eye sockets that burned like coals, hesitated. Kenneth's reputation preceded him—the mechanical tyrant, the fallen king. Why would he help?
But drowning men don't question the rope.
Together, they turned the tide. Kenneth's systems hummed to life, defenses and offense working in concert as they dismantled the attackers one by one. When the last player fell, Momonga stood there, silent and stunned, staring at his unlikely savior.
"Why?" Momonga finally asked.
Kenneth's avatar shrugged, a gesture rendered somehow melancholic by the mechanical body. "Misery loves company. And I'm tired of being alone."
Friendship, like rust, creeps in slowly—a gradual corrosion that transforms metal to something softer. Kenneth and Momonga became inseparable, two outcasts finding kinship in a world that had rejected them both. They tackled dungeons, shared loot, and slowly, Kenneth remembered what it felt like to enjoy the game rather than dominate it.
Their partnership caught attention. Ainz Ooal Gown, a guild of Heteromorphic players—the monsters, the demons, the creatures that made other players uncomfortable—extended an invitation. Kenneth was suspicious at first, a mechanical mind cataloging potential betrayals.
"Why us?" he demanded when their guild leaders approached. "Why not recruit the shining heroes? The pretty elves and noble humans?"
The guild leader, a slime creature that pulsed with iridescent colors, laughed—a wet, bubbling sound. "Because this guild is a sanctuary for those the 'heroes' despise. We're the monsters under the bed, the nightmares in the dark. We're the Heteromorphs, and we don't apologize for it."
Kenneth and Momonga joined that day. Within months, they'd become the guild's strongest members, Kenneth's mechanical precision and Momonga's necromantic mastery earning respect even from the veterans. Kenneth befriended most of the guild, though his interactions with the three female members—close, almost tender—became legendary fodder for guild chat, inspiring jokes that made his avatar's face-plate glow with what might have been embarrassment.
It was during a quiet moment, sitting beside the virtual fireplace in Nazarick's common room, that Kenneth approached his father with a new request.
"I want to build something," he said, voice stripped of its usual mechanical bombast. "A floor. My floor. In Nazarick."
Desmond, who'd watched his son bloom from depressed recluse to engaged guild member, agreed instantly. Kenneth designed his masterpiece: the Machine Empire Floor, a mechanical wonderland inspired by Power Rangers Zeo's aesthetic. Gears the size of buildings turned eternally. Steam hissed through brass pipes. Robotic servants marched in perfect formation. At its heart, a throne room worthy of a king.
"I need defenders too," Kenneth added. "NPCs to protect what we've built. The guild—they've become my family. I won't let them be overrun again."
Desmond approved despite protests from Mr. Hunter, who argued that Ainz Ooal Gown didn't deserve such advantages, given their reputation for attacking non-Heteromorphic guilds. Desmond's response was acid: "You gave your son and his friends overpowered characters to hunt my boy. Don't talk to me about fairness."
Kenneth poured his creativity into his creations. Cogbots and Quadrafighters populated his floor, mechanical soldiers programmed with ruthless efficiency. And at their command, he placed Louie Kaboom—a general-class NPC inspired by the show's explosive antagonist, leading the Machine Empire's forces with bombastic enthusiasm and devastating firepower. Kenneth even coded a special resurrection system: destroyed mechanical NPCs would be rebuilt in the floor's foundries, returning to battle again and again.
The Machine Empire became YGGDRASIL's nightmare. Kenneth led raids with theatrical flair, his mechanical voice booming declarations of conquest as his forces razed enemy guild halls. Fear of the Machine King and his guild spread like wildfire. Ironically, this elevated the Mondo Hunters to hero status—defenders of the innocent, protectors of the weak, champions against tyranny.
Kenneth found the irony delicious.
But all empires fall.
Time, that relentless enemy, eroded Ainz Ooal Gown's ranks. Real life—jobs, relationships, responsibilities—pulled members away one by one. The guild hall grew quieter. The chat logs grew sparse. And then Desmond delivered the news that shattered Kenneth's mechanical heart.
"YGGDRASIL is shutting down."
Kenneth fought. Oh, how he fought. He appealed to creators, organized petitions, and even confronted Mr. Hunter with pleas that fell on deaf ears. Nothing changed. The game was ending. His empire, his family, his home—all of it would vanish like morning mist.
On the final day, Kenneth sat in his room, hand hovering over the mouse. Around him, the real world loomed—cold, empty, a house that echoed with his mother's absence and his father's guilt. In the game, at least, he'd been magnificent. He'd been loved. He'd been alive.
"I can't stay forever," he whispered to the empty room, a quiet moment of acceptance settling over him like snow.
His avatar materialized in the throne room, brass and steel gleaming in artificial light. Around him, his NPCs stood at attention—loyal, unflinching, perfect. Kenneth leaned back in his throne, mechanical fingers drumming against armrests, and waited for the end.
The countdown began.
Three.
Two.
One.
The world went white.
And Kenneth Richards discovered that sometimes, the universe grants the wishes you're too afraid to speak aloud.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoy the prologue of The Machine King of Nazarick. Thank you for the support. As I mentioned in the Announcement page, I own nothing except the main character, the original characters, and the plot. Everything else belongs to its respective owners. Till next time. Stay safe, everybody.