Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Alice now understands how to defeat Luo Ye and how to complete the homework for the third lesson.

....................................

This world called "King of the Undead" is very interesting. It is a universe, but it is divided into two distinct layers with a twin structure that occasionally intersect.

The first layer is the material world, not much different from an ordinary stellar universe. It's not large in scale, consisting of a solar system plus a space extending outwards by about thirty light-years. Overall, this material universe comprises a small cluster of twenty-two star systems. Earth and humanity on it are the only civilization and life there.

The timeline here is quite long, beginning three million years before the large-scale emergence of primates. It ends one million years after Earth and its corrupted civilizations are completely lost. The current timeline is the latter half of the 22nd century, meaning this scenario has a four-million-year timeframe.

It is long, but not that long compared to the true God.

The reason why Earth's civilization in this material universe is called 'fallen' is because they observed the end of the universe too early.

Ah, that's right. There are only a handful of stars in the sky. Whether they are habitable or not, whether there is life, is perfectly adequate to be clearly observed and determined given the technological level of the late 22nd century. And after concluding that 'the universe is so small, and humanity is so alone,' apathy and decadence will naturally follow.

Thus, a utopian society emerged. Class stratification, resource monopoly, and population explosion resulted in countless urban centers rising from the earth. Blinding industrial fumes and stagnant wastewater blackened the sky and sea; over 95% of mortals never saw the sky from birth to death. They were born in darkness, died in darkness, and then became piles of bones at the bottom of these urban centers, only to be devoured by toxic wastewater and mutated creatures, leaving not even a trace.

Rebellions have occurred on the hive, many times. But times have changed. No matter how united flesh and blood may be, they cannot fight against fully armed power armor with hammers and wrenches. Thus, defeat accompanied every rebellion. But when the rulers acquired a powerful tool called the 'Virtual World,' even the soil for rebellion ceased to exist.

Those rulers, those large corporations, and monopolists 'generously' distributed virtual world technology to most parts of the hive city. This gave the lower-class residents, who suffered from poverty, a channel to vent their grievances—those who constantly complain are not scary; only those who silently accumulate power are worth being wary of—once the rulers reached this consensus and handled it properly, this civilization had no further chance to develop.

They have fallen. A small minority enjoys the vast majority of resources and dominates the real world. The vast majority of the rest live a life of decadence in an extremely realistic virtual world, or even an augmented reality. The hardships of real life are seen as nightmares, while the unrestrained fantasy becomes the accepted reality for ordinary people. And the world comes to a standstill.

This civilization will continue its decadence for a million years. Even the occasional moments of growth will only be for the purpose of extracting resources from other planets in the solar system when Earth is depleted. Their decline and decay are inevitable, and perhaps it is precisely because they know this inevitability that they have fallen to this state.

That concludes our explanation of the material universe. What follows is the other side of this twin universe, another universe originating from the mind and illusion.

It should have the same origin as the material universe, and its prosperity is accompanied by the growth of the intellectual civilization—no, it was not the thoughts of mortals that created it. Because from the beginning it had a scale equal to the material universe, and the thoughts of the intellectual beings were merely like ripples caused by a pebble falling into a pond, their role being only to activate it and then allow it to develop rapidly.

After all, it is a matter of mind and illusion; the rules of the material world do not apply here. Furthermore, the flow of time on both sides is not equal. Sometimes tens of thousands of years in the material universe are equivalent to a few days in the mental universe, and sometimes a few weeks in the mental universe are equivalent to thousands of years in the material universe. Under the influence of these different cosmic rules and the flow of time, when the external true gods cast their gaze upon the latter half of the 22nd century in the material universe, the mental universe was still in the fantastical Middle Ages.

Two universes, which do not intersect.

However, the highly developed virtual world culture of the material universe has had some influence on the spiritual universe.

Thus, in the past century of the development of virtual world technology, there have been occasional instances of the souls of gamers who died in the material universe traversing to the mental universe. And because the individual existence in the mental universe often depends on their own perception, these descendants often arrive in the form of what they perceive as 'real life,' that is, the player characters in the virtual world.

Some left a lasting mark, while others lived quietly in seclusion or wandered the world. But whatever their lives, these beings born from a decadent civilization were generally quite content.

After all, it was a life full of ups and downs. Compared to the reality of constantly having to wake up from nightmares, this side of the universe was clearly more in line with their needs. And despite the interference of these invaders, this side of the universe, even after undergoing one new ideological revolution after another, has always maintained its form of civilization and level of technology in a fantasy medieval manner.

After all, they were all lower-class people who had finally escaped utopia, and no one wanted to return to that era. Even if such a descendant occasionally appeared, the changes it brought would be overthrown and erased by his successors.

Then, time has moved on to the present.

As the otherworldly gods cast their gazes down, in the material universe, an ordinary office worker who had established a vast guild and stronghold in a virtual world game called Yogg-Trasil, and was elected as the guild leader, opened his eyes to the sound of his alarm clock.

His name is Suzuki Satoru, and his character ID is "Momonga." He is a max-level, fully equipped Archmage of the Dead. The guild he runs is called "Ainz Ooal Gown," and it has a massive guild base at the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

Tonight marks the day his game 'Yogtrasil', which he has spent years playing, will shut down.

He decided to play the game until the very end, as a way of witnessing a part of his life.

Section 10: A Day in the Life of a Salaried Worker

In the summer of 2164 AD, the word 'summer' still existed only as a figment of imagination in the virtual world. When ordinary office worker Suzuki Satoru put on his partitioned uniform, wore an extra-thick mask of resistance, and stepped out of the double-partitioned door of his residence, he was greeted by the same cold wind as always.

A palm-sized, rhomboid floating machine hung in front of him, projecting visible and invisible rays from its intricate, mouth-like mechanism, scanning Suzuki Satoru's entire body. As the indicator lights on the machine changed from yellow to green, the implant the man had placed behind his ear simultaneously displayed text and speech on his retina and auditory nerves.

—【Routine inspection complete—Verified: Citizen: Suzuki Satoru, age 29, clearance level 4, vital signs good, low contamination level, isolation suit intact and functioning properly.】

—[If you meet the travel criteria, please state your travel destination.]

It's morning now—or more accurately, eight o'clock sharp. Yogg-Trasil shuts down at midnight. Considering the twelve-hour daily work quota required by the Nest City for residents below the thousandth floor, starting work in ten minutes will allow you to return around 8:30 PM.

"I'm going to the 963rd floor, the 11th district, to work at the 'Thousand Eyes' company," the ordinary office worker calmly replied. This kind of question and answer happened at least twice a day, once when he went out and once when he came back. Everyone did the same thing, and he was completely used to it.

—【In progress—Identity confirmed: Suzuki Satoru, Level 4 employee of 'Thousand Eyes' Company. Your work and travel permits have been approved by the Floor Management Bureau and your company. Route planned; please proceed along the designated route before 8:30 AM.】

A complex yet familiar electronic circuit appeared on Suzuki Satoru's retina. He nodded, and before he did, the spider-like machine in front of him had already moved away with small, orderly steps toward another open door, and the same detection would likely be applied to another Nest City user within seconds.

"This is unnecessary," Suzuki thought to himself, but he knew it was necessary.

He knew that the Floor Management Bureau didn't actually need these 'floating cubes' at all; they could locate each person's position and obtain all their information through the implanted plugins in each person's brain. But that was a good thing fifteen years ago. Ever since a 'ruthless and cunning' rebel hacker successfully breached a hive's main computer and backup data engine, causing 'a certain degree' of damage, the good old days when middle-level residents could remotely control their cybernetic bodies from home via mind linking were gone forever.

"Those idiots, they're asking for it, but don't they know they're causing trouble for others? They deserve to be stuffed into the power plant!" He shook his head, not wasting time on sentimentality, and quickened his pace slightly. Once he felt he had made up for the time wasted thinking, he slowed down to his normal walking speed.

This is the 1022nd floor. The higher the floor number, the closer it is to the ground. The 1000 to 2000th floor is considered the middle of the hive city. Being able to live here means that you can be considered a decent person in the hive city, although you are far from being as noble as those on the 500th floor and above. But you can't afford to lose your composure.

Of course, maintaining appearance is only part of it; more importantly, it's about not causing trouble for others.

He walked forward, alone in the empty, wide metal corridor. The route planned by the floor management was projected onto his retina as a physical light bar, and as he passed through the narrow corridor toward the elevator, the sensors provided by the partition suit only detected the hollow echo of his footsteps.

—It's all an illusion.

He knew it was fake; everything he saw was a neural signal disguised by the isolation suit—it was eight in the morning, and this hive city had around three hundred million registered residents. In this three-thousand-layer hive city, each of the middle layers had at least a million inhabitants. How could such a city possibly be quiet?

No, that's impossible. Suzuki Satoru knew that if he took one wrong step—no, one or two steps were within the margin of error—but if he took three wrong steps, he would definitely run into something he couldn't see or hear, but could touch. And then his week's salary would become a penalty.

Hmph, partitions, partition suits and resistance masks exist for this very reason. After all, the floor management bureau doesn't want residents on the lower and middle floors to have too much interaction. And the implementation of this policy stems from a floor rebellion six years ago.

"Those damned rebels! It's because of them that life is getting harder and harder for us ordinary people!"—he couldn't help but curse inwardly again. Then he realized he had slowed down a little—he quickly caught up. And he realized this was the second time he had been distracted in the last few minutes.

[Oh no, is it because Yggdrasil is shutting down? If this continues... there's no other way but to spend some money to avoid even greater losses.]

“I need to enable augmented reality,” he said after resisting the mask.

Soon after, another floating rhombus emerged from some unknown corner, hovered beside him, and established a neural connection with him.

—【Please select the augmented reality feature you wish to enable.】

A list appeared in front of him. He quickly filtered out those he couldn't afford and then selected the one he liked and could afford from the collection section.

—【Would you like to pay 100 credits to purchase a 30-minute augmented reality 【Primitive Cemetery】project?】

【Yes. 】

The world before his eyes suddenly shifted, the empty steel passageway instantly transforming into a gloomy, dark graveyard corridor. His surroundings and everything in front of him seemed—no, as if they had been completely recreated—to be instantly filled with a dense swarm of low-level undead creatures. The howls of the dead and the wails of vengeful spirits then filled his ears through his sensors.

Ah...that feels so much better.

He let out a soft sigh and continued along the route assigned by the floor management bureau to his workplace. Now that he could see 'others,' he no longer worried about losing a lot of credit or even being punished for taking the wrong route. His mood immediately brightened, and he even had the leisure to nod slightly to a zombie walking towards him before they passed each other.

He quite liked the theme; after all, he was a high-ranking mage of the dead in Yggdrasil. Although, because he couldn't afford the advanced themes, he and the inhabitants he could see were realistically enhanced into simple, low-level undead like skeletons or zombies, he couldn't help but feel a surge of pleasure when he saw those disordered opening and closing jawbones and heard the continuous grinding of the joints.

The advantage of reality over the virtual world is that, although middle-class residents don't have the authority to communicate verbally, they can express emotions through facial expressions and body language. Unlike in games, where players can only communicate their emotions through a limited number of speech bubbles, aside from waving their hands and feet.

There was no way around it; after all, he wasn't an upper-class resident who could freely express his emotions. And since his status wasn't high enough and his contributions weren't sufficient, it was only natural that he would face some restrictions when receiving order from the floor management bureau.

[At least it's better than those poor wretches on the lower floors.] Suzuki Satoru thought to himself, whistling a tune that only he could hear to the long, slender legs of a ghost, and then he figured he'd be at most two more minutes walking to the elevator.

He felt he needed to think about something, something unrelated to Yogg-Trasil. Like the lower levels—yes, the area below the two thousandth floor was called the lower levels. It was said that the inhabitants there took drugs daily to suppress their useless thoughts so they could be better used for society. And he'd heard that the lowest level was the prison for rebels and criminals, where they would become raw material for power plants, unable even to enter virtual reality, forced to remain conscious, spending their long and arduous lives in iron coffins where they couldn't even lift a finger.

How pitiful.

But who told them to rebel? Who told them to disrupt public order?

Suzuki Satoru paused, taking his assigned spot from the floor management office just before the giant coffin-shaped elevator doors closed. Then, accompanied by a low, grinding sound of bones, the massive elevator... the coffin, carried him and the thousand passengers traveling with him upwards.

A thousand, no more, no less. Suzuki Satoru glanced around. To his left was a zombie of similar size to himself, who seemed to be a man. To his right was a skeleton soldier of the same kind as him, whose physique and height suggested she was a petite woman.

He couldn't help but look the other person up and down.

[Tsk, those slender bones, those smooth joints, that perfectly symmetrical neck and shoulders… she really is a beauty. I wish she played Yggdrasil. That way, I could get her contact information in the game.]

He couldn't help but click his tongue, suppressing the fleeting, infatuated thoughts that welled up within him—he admitted that the female skeleton was quite pleasing to the eye, but he also knew he couldn't cause trouble for others unnecessarily. Through the partition, accidental touches would be filtered out as useless neural signals, and to attract the other person's attention, one would have to push them away forcefully or establish a direct neural connection with them.

That's illegal! It'll result in a large credit deduction and even a downgrade in your floor! Mr. Suzuki finally managed to get to the edge of the 1000th floor and even found a job at a top-tier company. He has no intention of burying his own future and everyone else's future here!

—Although she is indeed very beautiful.

And so the elevator… the coffin stopped on the 1000th floor, witnessing this lovely… but Gu’er leave and another tall zombie taking her place. Suzuki Satoru then sighed, suppressing the slight frustration in his heart.

He almost forgot that he should be a human being, and that humans should have aesthetic sense. But in such a gloomy world, is aesthetics really a meaningful thing?

Hmm...it probably makes sense, but it seems only to the upper-class residents. After all, only the upper-class residents are entitled to have mates, while for the middle and lower classes—aren't virtual worlds and synthetic dolls more appealing? Synthetic uteruses aren't infertile. And they don't even need to raise themselves!

Suzuki Satoru shook his head, banishing these distracting thoughts. After reaching the 963rd floor, he spent a few more minutes riding the moving track to the 11th district. Just as he arrived at the entrance of the 'Thousand Eyes' company, his augmented reality service expired.

—【Level 4 Employee, Satoru Suzuki, clock in on time. Please proceed to your workstation immediately.】

And so, the cemetery scenery before him faded away, and the cold, steel reality once again filled his world.

He still couldn't see a single person around him. The isolation suit blocked all optical and auditory signals from his kind, and only when augmented reality was activated would a specific image appear in his field of vision—but he was used to it, so he wasn't surprised. After all, he'd been working for seven or eight years; surely he knew what 'going to work at a company' really meant?

It's now the second half of the 22nd century. Companies like those of the old days, with storefronts, reception areas, and large buildings, have long been obsolete. In this new era, what we call a company is nothing more than a high-tech pod placed in the public sphere.

Suzuki Satoru's gaze shifted from the 'empty' sides back to the area directly opposite him. He reached out and touched the massive metal capsule before him. As the verification notification sounded in his mental plugin, he was dragged into darkness by a network of tentacles made of metal and tubing.

His thoughts were interrupted, and then... he awoke.

The time had already passed from 8:30 to 2:30, and his 'workstation' was slowly closing in front of him.

—【Level 4 Employee, Satoru Suzuki, you have finished your shift. Please return to your rest area following the designated route.】

As usual, his memories of work were completely erased before he awoke. Because everything on the upper floors was confidential, the residents on the middle and lower floors were not qualified to know even a single word of it. When Suzuki Satoru opened his eyes, all he could perceive was the route home marked in his field of vision by a physical light barrier, and the overwhelming, uncontrollable fatigue that permeated his entire body.

He didn't know what he had done, nor what had been done to him. This kind of life had been repeating itself for nearly ten long years, every day the same, every month the same, every year a simple repetition—he had thought he had grown accustomed to it all. But today, perhaps because today was special, a slight ripple stirred within him.

"I really feel like I'm living the life of an undead soldier," an ordinary wage earner lamented to himself.

He shook his head, letting his instincts lead him back home...or to his resting place. The day's events were over. Tonight...

...There is one more important thing to do.

Section 11 Awakening

Alice lowered her gaze, freezing the script's events in the relative flow of time at the moment when 'Suzuki Satoru' returned home, ate, cleaned, and then stepped into the stealth pod.

This was actually the thirteenth time she had seen this scene.

Yes, this world has changed twelve epochs since the moment she descended. The world has been created thirteen times and destroyed twelve times. In other words, it has been a cycle of more than twelve times, each cycle lasting four million years, totaling a long period of approximately fifty million years.

Fifty million years…that’s a truly long time. But for a true god, it’s just a blink of an eye. Throughout these twelve eras, she and Patchouli repeatedly interfered with and corrected this twin universe. Ultimately, both she and Patchouli successfully integrated their own timelines into this universe, ensuring its continued operation even after the changing eras. While embarking on their own paths of transcendence, they methodically uncovered the many secrets within the world.

They changed many things, such as the origin of Suzuki Satoru, the 'protagonist'. From having healthy parents to having both parents dead, and now having no parents at all, they have modified him in almost every era. They once made Suzuki Satoru a slave laborer at the bottom of the hive city, once made him the world king at the top, once made him a reformer who raised the banner of rebellion, whether he succeeded or failed. They even made him serve as a human battery from birth as a descendant of sinners, stuffed into the lower level of the power plant and turned into a living lump of flesh.

Then they discovered that the information Luo Ye provided was indeed true; this guy really was the destined protagonist of this twin universe—no, this doesn't mean he was incredibly lucky, but rather that the event of 'Suzuki Satoru traveling to the other world' was inevitable. Perhaps it was an assassination, perhaps an accident; whatever his identity, Suzuki Satoru would arrive at the other side of the twin universe as a transmigrator, and his identity would undoubtedly be non-human.

Normally, he is a high-ranking mage of the dead or a skeletal general. Occasionally, he reincarnates as a vampire or a demon-like being. What's even more interesting is that even if Alice directly intervenes and arranges an accident to kill Suzuki Satoru without his true form descending, this world will still continue, and several years later, another 'Suzuki Satoru' will appear as a trans-space traveler to the other side!

It's quite interesting, and it also proves that this is the bottom line for script memes—there's no room for negotiation. If one wants to further interfere with Suzuki Satoru's fate or even force the script memes to back down, then the original entity would have to be brought down directly.

Ordinary transcendent beings would probably do this around the third or fourth era at most. However, Alice and Patchouli cannot. After all, they are essentially true gods who have taken a shortcut, and their true forms might not necessarily possess the script meme of a four-million-year timeline in this single era. More importantly, if they, as reincarnators, were to descend in their true forms, the main god would distort this world before they do.

The consequence of that would be a failing grade on the third lesson's homework—an outcome Alice didn't want, and Patchouli had no interest in this way of exiting the stage. So they simply kept trying until the "interference" that met their needs filled the universe and continued into the next era, and only now did they feel they were well-prepared.

What did they do? They infused their message into every aspect of this stagnant, decadent civilization.