A Throne. That would have been the first thing that anyone would have noticed upon entering the room. A pure black mass of obsidian, fashioned into a seat, impossibly large for a human. The backrest of said throne extended far towards the ceiling, seemingly surrounded by spectral light. Above it, a gigantic red banner with an intricate golden design hung down from the ceiling. At the foot of the throne were stairs, and beyond those, the hall extended into a seemingly unending pathway, flanked by gigantic columns made of material known only to their architects. On the columns were more banners, all in different colors and with different symbols.
The room itself was plunged in darkness, with the only source of light coming from the spectral light surrounding the throne. The chandelier, which was hanging down from the ceiling, bore no light. Yet, in the vicinity of the throne, a silhouette could have been made out. A beautiful figure of a woman, with wing-like appendages growing out of her hips and yellow eyes, eternally watching over the throne room.
Outside of the throne room was the Lemegeton. A domed hall, resembling a theater, in which stood 67 golems, each in one of the 72 niches left and right of a beautiful, wooden-looking door. On the opposite side of said door was an archway, which was followed by yet another door. The door, however, was all but ordinary. It was a beautiful set of double doors, over 5 meters in height, made of a grayish or silvery material. The left side showed a carving of a beautiful goddess, while the right side featured a horrifying demon. Said doorway was known as the Gates of Judgment, and it led into the throne room.
In front of the gates stood a being.
A being clad in dark purple robes, mindlessly gazing at the gates. The being stood nearly 3m tall and nearly equally as wide. It bore a pair of large shoulder pauldrons, resembling the horns of a beast, each 1m in length. The being itself was something that could only have been described as an aberration of life.
By the simplest means of description, you'd refer to it as a skeleton. It was an amalgamation of clean white bones, forming what could have once been a human, were it not for its abnormal size. However, there were plenty of anomalies, which further distanced it from humans. It had only one bone on its forearm instead of 2. The skull was nothing like that of a human as well, rather indicating another humanoid race. Whatever it might have been, it was no longer of consequence. In its empty eye sockets lingered a red flame. Yet, the strangest thing about the being lay under its exposed ribcage. A bright red orb, pulsating with /sOmEtHiNg./
The description of the being was strange. It was certainly a scary-looking creature, yet the most horrifying thing about it did not stem from its looks alone.
No.
It stemmed from its very presence. It was not something that anyone could have explained, yet the very atmosphere surrounding that being was filled with dread. A feeling of worthlessness, like nothing could ever come close to the being in question. However, reality was different.
It had been an emotional time for Suzuki Satoru. He had always been a rather sentimental person when it came to things that mattered to him, such as his friends, and the fact that not even one of them had bothered to respond to his last invitation to say goodbye to their guild really gnawed away at him.
"Damn it!"
The voice was calm, nearly soothing, and sounded completely out of place. The only thing that connected the voice to the undead, who had been gazing at the doors, lost in its own mind, was the fact that its fist hit the wall at the same time as the voice made its exclamation.
"Not even one of them bothered to show up." Suzuki Satoru gritted his teeth. He knew it was ridiculous. It was just a game after all. Yet he had been playing the game for 12 years, and now, everything was coming to an end. He had hoped to be able to say goodbye to his friends and separate from what had been his reason to live in a happy manner, yet that was not something he could do without talking to at least one of his friends. For someone as emotional as him, the betrayal stung deep.
"Haaaahh." His deep sigh resounded through the intercoms of his VR set.
"Well, it's not as if I didn't expect it," he murmured. "It probably wouldn't even have changed anything. The game is dead, and the chance of seeing my friends again after this is close to null." He was aware of it after all. They hadn't stopped playing because the game came to its end. They had stopped out of their own volition due to either personal or professional reasons.
"Well, I guess Bellriver is an exception," he reminisced about his old friend, who had been killed because he had looked into a corporate secret. "He wouldn't have stopped like the others." Yet, even saying this to himself, the words felt hollow. Everyone had their own lives after all, and Bellriver had been no different.
"Ahhh, I wish the adventure could keep going forever." He wasn't going to cry. No matter how immature Suzuki Satoru was being at the moment, he was still a grown man living in the very center of a dystopian society. In his time, where it rained acid and the air was poison, the people had long gotten used to despair, and Suzuki Satoru was no different.
He had seen dead children on his way to work and had clawed his way up to a desk worker in a merciless work environment. He had been in an even worse financial position growing up, and even though he was still not even close to the top, he had managed to secure a somewhat stable life in the lower middle class of society.
Given the sheer size of the world population, he could have been considered lucky. He was still in the 30% of the world's richest people. It was still a miserable existence, given the unreasonable wealth distribution, but that still meant that he could avoid the slums and live a more comfortable life than the remaining 70%.
But in a world like his, happiness was truly difficult to acquire. Yggdrasil had been his happiness and what he had looked forward to spending money and time on after a long day at work. And now it was coming to an end.