Ch4. Madness
Momonga looked weirdly at Rei who seemed to shudder. He wondered why Rei would be so pricky about the flavor text, going as far as making him delete a single word...
It was only then he remembered what happened two years ago...
His eyes briefly wandered towards the spot where the Pleiades stood, more precisely, towards Solution Epsilon.
'Oh... Rei is still traumatized because of that bug, huh?' Momonga thought in amazement. He could remember the time when Rei begged him almost fifteen times a day to try and change Solution's flavor text with the Guild Weapon.
Naturally, Momonga refused for the first sixty times. Using the Guild Weapon for such a thing... Momonga didn't want to do it. He found it extremely selfish and these requests from Rei put him in a very difficult spot.
But Rei was really annoying and relentless then. He was more like a whiny little brat than the levelheaded guy who was always calm. In the end, Momonga got angry and decided to just freaking do it if it gave him back his peace back. And then... he found out he couldn't.
Rei had a fit and didn't log back into the game for an entire week. Considering he didn't miss a day for years, THAT was a major reason for concern.
'Damn... I even remember being thrown out by Rei's bodyguards when I tried to visit him to cheer him up in real life that one time.' Momonga thought with mirth.
Rei apologized afterward as it was just a simple misunderstanding. A normal salaryman trying to meet a millionaire... really, Momonga didn't know what he was thinking.
'Ah... fond memories.' He inwardly chuckled.
After the Rei-less week, as Momonga dubbed the event, Rei returned and... became even crazier motherfucker than before. It was really an eye-opening experience for Momonga as he could see someone go mad with his very own eyes.
Don't get him wrong... he liked Rei. He was one of his best friends. The only one who stayed with him and helped him to keep Nazarick going.
But that didn't mean Momonga was blind to Rei's faults.
Even before Rei got traumatized by the completely harmless bug, Momonga found Rei crazy. He was spending more money on the game on monthly basis than what Momonga would earn in thirty years. It took a long time for Momonga to come to terms with that. He doubted many members of Ainz Ooal Gown noticed but... Momonga certainly did. He had the sheet with donations at hand and Rei donated a LOT of cash items to the guild treasury. Momonga could only imagine how many of them his friend must have bought for himself if he could donate so many of them to the guild. Momonga's head spun for days after finding out this little fact.
Naturally, he was jealous for a day or two... but then, who wouldn't?
The best example was gambling.
In Yggdrasil, there were some items, important items, that could only be obtained through gambling. The problem was, the currency was real-life money. Even for Momonga who gave half of his salary into the game every month, getting these items was a hassle. Getting them wasn't necessarily hard. It just required luck and could be frustrating when one lacked it.
Rei, however, seemed to always have these items at hand, no matter how low the odds to roll them were.
When Momonga asked and Rei said he simply put fifty million into the gambling so now his entire warehouse was full of various items one could win there... Momonga almost spat blood and fainted right on the spot.
'It was really a trying time period.' He reminisced. 'Getting past jealousy wasn't easy. But... in the end, it is just a game. If Rei wants to waste his money on it, who am I to prevent him?' Momonga shook his head in melancholy. His friend was a crazy madman but sadly, he was a crazy madman who could afford it.
And then... the bug happened. Momonga had no idea what was the big deal. It was just a bit of flavor text but he was already accustomed to Rei's brand of craziness so it didn't bother him all that much. To be honest, Momonga was glad when Rei returned. He was afraid Rei would quit the game because of that event too but fortunately, Rei stopped sulking.
Momonga thought everything would go back to normal but... oh, how wrong he was.
Rei flipped.
There was no other way to call it. He simply decided that...
"If I can't get rid of the flavor text, I just have to remake Solution into the picture of perfection in my eyes! HeroHero! I am gonna show you how to make a perfect NPC!"
Momonga remembered as Rei fervently proclaimed that. At first, he thought it was just a momentary obsession but... what followed were two years of hardcore grind and the maddest splurging of cash Momonga ever witnessed.
Rei stopped at nothing and at times, Momonga felt sick in his stomach observing him.
It was exactly as Rei proclaimed. He totally obliterated Solution Epsilon. He changed EVERYTHING about her except her appearance and flavor text which were unchangeable for him.
The amount of money that went into that NPC... Momonga didn't have the exact number but he could confidently say she cost more real-life money than all guild bases of Niflheim together.
It was utter madness that lasted years!
When Momonga heard that Rei used more than sixty Wish Upon the Star world items to make requests to developers in order for some additional programming and fine-tuning of Solution...
The world items everybody sought because it let them request something from the developers and Rei was buying them like cabbage for real money from players who were lucky enough to acquire them before he WASTED them on things like requesting enlargening Epsilon's inventory, creation of special passive skills for her, and... much to Momonga's chagrin... Rei actually requested developers to create a whole new race for that NPC.
Naturally, the developers decided to do as Rei asked only because they knew the game was in decline and Rei paid them millions to do these changes alongside using the world item. Without that, they would not even bother. Rei simply took advantage of the situation where the developers didn't care much about balancing the game because it was in its abyss years anyway.
As long as Rei didn't start breaking the game, the company decided to just enjoy the large paychecks Rei provided.
Still... requesting to actually make a special FEMALE slime, just because Rei didn't like the fact his NPC was categorized as genderless was something that caused Momonga's brain to freeze. Oh... Rei put impressive lore behind it and worked for an entire month with the developers to create the racial evolutions, etc.
To give Rei credit, his effort did make a massive difference in Solution as far as racial levels and their effectiveness went. Momonga simply didn't understand the point of it all.
In fact, Rei only finished his hardcore grind of min-maxing of Solution's build just two weeks ago! Two weeks before the closure of the servers!
Momonga really couldn't wrap his head around Rei's actions. He spent two years on making Solution the best NPC in the game while tweaking his own build, making sure to pay attention to every single detail, no matter how small, only to enjoy it for two weeks before the servers are shut down. He could only shake his head and mumble, "Rich people are all mad." with an exasperated sigh.