Chapter 4: A Mount? and a Nightwalk
Time passed away quietly, over time the players came less and less to visit the 9th Floor.
The only on still regulary coming to look at the Nightwalk was Momonga, though this also had been already some time since the last time he had been there.
Shuten Dōji knew what was happening and why they weren't coming anymore, because they decided to leave this place behind.
Although he understood their decision, I mean who would choose a game over reality. Truly at the end of the day it was just a game world after all.
He couldn't really be angry with them, they all didn't know what would happen on the day that the servers would be shut down, so it was understandable.
Truth be told he was rather glad, he didn't want to see the day come when more than one person went into the next world and then they start to fight eachother over who would rule this place.
Although it was better this way, there was still disappointment for this situation deep in his heart.
But there was also excitement, as he knew what was coming, when the players stopped coming. The time for the transmigration would be coming closer and closer and he would be lying if he said he was not excited to finally be able to move again by himself.
Sitting there for who knows how long without being able to move by himself, all actions his body made coming from the program put into him by the players, left him with only one desire, which was to move again by his own will.
Not that he wanted to go against his Creators, the players, but just that he wanted to be able to stretch and stroll around according to his own will again.
'How long will it take to finally be able to move again?' Shuten Doji thought to himself.
Just as he thought of this the door to his room opened and one of his Creators came through it.
It was one of the players he respected the most among the guildmembers of Nazarick, the Insectoid and holder of the title Worl Champion, Touch-me.
"Haa... this going to be really the last day isn't it?" Touch-me seemed to be talking to himself, but Shuten Dōji clearly heard it.
'So the first among my Creators to leave is you?' somehow, he felt great sadness for this, not for himself, but rather for his other creator, who also holds Touch-me in high regards, Momonga.
'The future Sorcerer King, huh... Lord Momonga is going to be very depressed knowing that his first friend among the guildmembers is going to leave...'
He couldn't think to much about this, as the next words spoken by Touch-me caught his attention.
"I finally found it as a mount... let's make this the last gift and contribution to the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick and Ainz Ooal Gown..."
Shuten Dōji then watched as the man came over and opened his property panel with the help of a special set of items, which is called the "creator kit".
"But what name should I give it? I heard that Tabula spend dozens of hour to find the right Mount for "Yoru Kuro" and finally ended with one of the four holy Beasts in mythology, the Vermillion Bird..."
"They even gave it the name "Lightbringer" just to contradict Yoru's name..."
"And Shiro's Mount, the white tiger, should have been given the name "Darkstar", to contradict her own name at least somewhat."
Shuten Dōji and on the side listened attentively, he was a bit suprised that his "fiance's" were given such absurd Mounts.
This was something he never thought about before, 'Wait didn't Albedo have a mount she couldn't ride because she was a virgin?'
Remembering the absurdity of such a situation, his mind and soul burst into uncontrollable laughter. It is just a pity that his expression can't change at all.
'HAHAHHAHAH!!! That part was so good! I still remember how she complained about Momonga not calling her into his room to serve him! But then again, how should she serve someone, who doesn't even have what it takes to do something like this?'
"Let's see what name should be given to an azure dragon?" when the words of Touch-me sounded again, Shuten Dōji's mind seemed to stop working for a while.
Only after a while did his mind caught up with exactly what Touch-me had said, 'Wait what?! He came to give me a dragon as a mount?! Wtf?!'
"The lv.95 Azure Dragon was really difficult to grind... but it is the most fitting mount for this lazy drunkard. hehehe" Touch-me snickered to himself as he remembered how he together with Momonga and Ulbert had programmed the Guardian of the 9th Floor.
"It was a great time I had in this game and with the people of this guild... but it's time to let go." He mumbled, nostalgia and sadness going hand in hand. "How long has it been since the first time I met Momonga? Since we first made a clan and then made it into the now glorious guild..."
"But... at the end of it all, it's just a game and I can't continue this way..."
"My family won't take it any longer and I also need to be there for them..."
"Ah I drifted again away from what I wanted to do!" Suddenly coming out of his nostalgia and sadness, Touch-me refocused on what he came her to do.
"Anyway this will be my last day in Yggdrasil, let's at least give something to the two Npc's, which I had a hand in making..." Refering to Sebas Tian, the Head Butler of Nazarick and Shuten Dōji, he refocused on the task at hand.
"Let's first put him here, instead of making him a direct mount, it fits better to be his subordinate and work as his mount. That is more according to the style in which we created Shuten Dōji..."
"But... I still don't have a name..."
"It's not a normal azure dragon anyway... so let's go with *Nightmare* maybe? Nah... it's to boring... how about *Bane's Torment*...? Also not what I want..."
Thinking for a while, he suddenly had a moment of enlightenment,"*Purgatory's Bane*! That's it! it especially fits well in combination with the myths of Shuten Dōji, I once heard he also had the name of *King of Purgatory* so this seems perfect!"
Touch-me almost jumped with Joy and soon excited the editor menu of Shuten Dōji, he had just added a few words about the Dragon being his mount to his bio.
Then he stood on the Balcony and released the so called "Azure Dragon he had gotten his hands on.
In truth it was in the style of an Azure Dragon, but it's coloring was very different from one. It's scales were as black as the night, while it's mane was as white as snow and the claws had a blood red shine to them, which seemed rather ominous.
"Perfect! and let the Dragon guard this place from the sky while dancing around the Pagoda from time to time. This is the perfect program habit for it!"
While Touch-me immersed himself in programming the beautiful Dark Shenlong he released, Shuten Dōji was struck in his heart by immense sadness.
Although he knew it since the beginning that this day would come, right now he truly realized the sadness his other Creator must have felt when his first friend among the guildmembers left the game.
Not only this, Touch-me was one of the three people who gave him this new body, this new chance of living, how could he himself not be sad?
If he were able to do anything, than he would probably shed tears right now, as his heart was crying.
Even when he knew that this was just a game for Touch-me, to him it was so much more and even when he knew that no words could ever persuade Touch-me from being an upright man and stay with his family, he at least wanted to thank him for this new chance in live.
'F***! F***! S**tty Game rules! Why can't I at least thank him? Why can't I say anything?! Curse this Rotten mouth that won't open no matter how much I try to cry out!!!'
No matter what he did, he couldn't go against neither the mechanics of the game, nor against the programming instilled into him by his Creators.
His heart and soul struggling with all their might to try and express something, but everything he felt would be left only in his own heart.
"Finally ready!" As Shuten Dōji struggled with his situation, Touch-me finished what he wanted to do and turned towards him.
"Ha... it's been really a good time..." The voice was again filled with nostalgia, but this time also with a sense of gratitude, "It's really time to let go..."
He walked over and stood beside Shuten Dōji, taking one closer look at him before turning around and leaving the Imperial Pagoda.
And inside, Shuten Dōji was now really going crazy cursing the world for not making him a player, but an Npc.
Still there was nothing he could do to change that, 'In the end all I can do is wait endure until we reach the new world...'
Not to long after Touch-me left, another one of the players who made himself came through the door to visit him.
It was a skeleton in magnificent Ravenblack robes with golden ornaments on it, this was of course the Guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown, Momonga.
Seeing him coming over, the pain in his heart which started to fall accelerated again, 'Huh... poor guy... the first friend he had in this world has left the game and the guild... If I remember right, Momonga, or Suzuki Satoru didn't have any friends in real life and basicly all his social life was inside the game of Yggdrasil...'
Such a life was really horrible in the eyes of Shuten Dōji, no matter how much of a nerd he was in his previous life, his social life still existed and he also had a family...
So Remembering what was written about Momonga in the novel of his previous life, he felt this guy was really a bit to pitiful in reality.
Even his parents had already died, meaning besides working and Yggdrasil there was nothing else for the man to do, it also explained why Momonga had invested a lot of money into cash shop items and the like.
But momonga didn't seem to come to visit him, rather it gave him the feeling of watching the last place where someone had been who left.
"Huh... Real life finally caught up to him..." Momonga lamented, then walked to the balcony, he seemed to want to see something outside and Dōji knew exactly what he wanted to watch.
'He should be taking a look at the Dragon outside... it was really a magnificent being, although it's strength isn't to great, as a minion it isn't to bad...' he thought while waiting if Momonga would come to him again.
This player was somehow different, there were times when he seemed to relief his loneliness by talking with him, though this only started rather recently.
It probably came from thr fact that the other players had less and less time to play with him, so he talked to the Npc's sometimes unconciously maybe.
'It seems he already misses Touch-me although he just left today...'
After a while, the sky on the 9th Floor started to turn dark and the moon slowly started to rise, Momonga was still on the balcony and Shuten Dōji knew this.
'Is he going to stay and watch the Hyakki Yagyo?' He asked himself as his body slowly started to stand up.
Making his way towards the door he opened it, outside waiting for him were servants and guards living in the Imperial Pagoda.
These were all high leveled Minions from the Yokai Race, among them most prominent was a woman with black ears like a dog and a fluffy tail with similar color.
She wore a classic Samurai costume and knelt only on one now different from the postrating of others.
On her waist hung two beautiful Katanas, one with a black hilt in a blue sheath with golden ornaments, while the other had a white hilt in a red sheath with black ornaments.
She was his direct servant and one of the Npc's created by the players, 'Kiyomi... my personal Samurai, I wonder how she will be after we come into the new world...'
This was a question always lingering in his mind, as he hadn't seen the character description of other Npc's living on the 9th Floor, so he had no idea about their personalities at all.
'I just hope those two woman won't be like Albedo... otherwise... I might actually die in my sleep one day...' he was really scared of that woman.
Although she was an absolute beauty in the descriptions and depictions in each Version, be it the novel, the manga and the anime, he still felt scared of this crazy yandere.
'I just pray she can focus all her love on our great lord momonga and leave me the fuck alone!' this was truly his heartfelt prayer.
He was already scared of the two fiance's his Creators had burdened him with, he couldn't take on another crazy woman. Especially since he didn't even know how crazy the already existing fiance's were.
His body started to walk through the hall, passing by Kyomi, after which she immediatly got up from her knee and followed behind him, as did the other start to fall in line after the two passed.
The Imperial Palace was the only place on the 9th Floor which had all races of the yokai. No matter if it were Kijin, Inugami, Tengu, Kitsune, Nekomata, Yuki-Onna, Hane-Onna, Kappa's and countless more, all falling in line behind the Guardian of the 9th Floor as he stepped down the stairs making his way towards the exit of the Imperial Pagoda.
Soon he came to the entrance, were another much wider set of wooden doors awaited him, Dōji's body strode forward without stopping.
He himself had been through this set of processes rather often already, and he had actually lost count of how often.
Opening the doors, walking outside, there were already around 200 beings following him and there outside around 50 more were waiting while kneeling.
Among them were two more Npc's, one resembled a Turtle in some way, wearing a green yukata, it was the Kappa called Hisahito and he didn't even reach half the hight of Dōji.
Besides him was another even smaller Npc, it didn't even seem to reach the formers waist. This little creature had some similarity with a Mushroom, and it's skin was made up of green and white.
It was Enmei, a very special creature among the Yokai called Kodama. It was a pure spirit of nature and not an evil being like most yokai, but rather a Guardian of the forest.
These two didn't prostate themself but knelt on one knee like Kiyomi before, until Shuten Dōji passed by them after which they fell in line with Kiyomi, while the others fell in line with the Minions.
They walked on a road specially made for this Nightwalk of a hundred Ghosts and Monsters.
The road went through the forest of Cherry Blossom Trees until they reached an open plane of gras, this was the area between the Cherry Blossom Forest and the Dream Forest.
In the distance it was already visible to them, a Forest filled with a thick fog, this was the area of one of his fiance's, Shiro.
It didn't take long for them to reach that place and along the way, the Minions behind him started to take out instruments, such as drums and flutes, playing the same song as on every walk.
It didn't take to much time for them to enter the forest and along the road they started to hear others ahead of them playing the same tune of music with them.
Soon they reached a village with a magnificent looking wooden Palace inside of it, this was the Dreamweaver Palace inside the Dream Forest.
There were already Minions prostrating themselves there along the road, one woman and a girl were kneeling, while one woman was standing with her head bowed slightly.
The woman bowing her head was of course his Fiance Shiro and she wouldn't need to kneel in front of him, so she simply bowed her head. She was dressed in a black Yukata with a red Sashi, which only accentuated her beautiful and volouptuos figure.
Shiro wore her long white hair in a wide braid which hung over her shoulder to the front, reaching beyond her waist.
The two kneeling were her personal servants, the Nekomata called Mana, a woman wearing a costume like a shinobi in pure black, even covering her face with a mask.
The girl was the beautiful doll-like Hane-Onna called Yukiko, she wore a black Yukata similar to her Lady, but hers had a white Sashi and white ornaments on the Yukata.
Shiro waited for him to reach the place where she was waiting before falling in line directly behind him staying slightly to the side.
The other two fell in line with the other Npc's made by the players, while the Minions followed behind with the others.
There were already around 350 people walking on the road and now they started to make their way towards the other side of the 9th Floor, walking on the road in a wide way around the Cherry Blossom Forest after leaving the Dream Forest again.
A Mountain came into sight and even from a distance, you could see wide stairs going up the mountain.
Why they were so visible in the middle of the night one might ask himself. The reason was very simple, on the sides of the stairs torches were lit, which illuminated the stairs.
When they reached it, a similar sight to before greeted them, with Minions prostating themselves, two kneeling woman besides a woman bowing her head.
The woman bowing her head was Yoru, the Tengu Priestess and the other fiance of Shuten Dōji.
She didn't come short in any way in comparison with Shiro, wearing clothes similar to a Shrine Maiden, with two black feathered wings sprouting from her shoulders and her waist long black hair fell over her back.
The two woman beside kneeling beside her were her two personal servants.
The first woman among them was the Hebihime called Kiyohime, she wore a pruple cheongasm with golden snakes as ornaments, fitting very well with her purple hair worn in a bun and accentuating her plump figure.
The other one wore a white Yukata with an ice-blue sashi, her figure was more modest, but not flat. Her face gave the impression of an icy beauty which fit very well with her name and race. She was the Yuki-Onna called Yuki.
Similar to before, Yoru fell in line directly behind Shuten Dōji, to the opposite side of Shiro.
Kiyohime and Yuki fell in line with the other Npc's following behind and lastly the Minions fell in line with the other Minions.
In this way they continued on the road, which went around the Mountain, when they had come around the mountain so that the road again led them toward the Cherry Blossom Forest, the moon finally reached the highest point signaling the begin of midnight.
Now they followed the same road again and walking through the Cherry Blossom Forest and walking past the Imerpial Pagoda, the residents of the Dream Forest left after reaching the forest inside of it, while the residents of the shrine on the mountain left when they again reached the bottom of the stairs.
Finally the residents of the Cherry Blossom Forest left while walking through it after leaving behind the people of the Shrine.
Finally Shuten Dōji again entered into the Imperial Pagoda, making his way towards his own room, where he would again place himself in a leisurely way for the next 14 days, until the same would repeat itself again.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone