Ch2. HeroHero

"Yes, it's just us, Rei." Momonga dejectedly replied as he slowly walked towards the throne. It was honestly a funny sight since Rei could so easily imagine the skeleton sulking.

Despite his existence, Rei didn't really see anything he could dub a butterfly effect. The Yggdrasil was about to end and yet, the only players remaining in the Ainz Ooal Gown guild were still only Momonga and now... him.

"HeroHero sends his regards. He was a total wreck." Momonga continued as he flopped the bony ass of his avatar onto the throne on the right side of the pedestal.

Rei found it kinda funny that Momonga put the effort to prepare a second throne for him so they could enjoy the Yggdrasil's end together. Not that he felt any desire to sit on the atrocity full of gold Momonga pulled out of his inventory.

As such, Rei decided to just stand on the side, happy that Momonga was too distracted to notice him not sitting down.

'Your good intentions are appreciated, Momo-chan... but damn if your fashion sense didn't suck.' Rei wryly thought, remembering Pandora Actor.

"Was he? Well, that's unfortunate. I still think he is an idiot for refusing my help." Rei huffed.

Like Momonga and Rei, HeroHero was one of the nine original players that established Ainz Ooal Gown together. They were friends.

When two years ago HeroHero suddenly decided to quit, Rei naturally investigated and found out his mother was sick and the poor guy was working himself to an early grave in order to get enough money for the necessary surgery.

Rei... decided to pay for it.

After all, when he wished to reincarnate into this world, he made sure the wording of his wish would give him a massive advantage. He was reborn into a very wealthy yet leisure family where he had many opportunities to build up his own wealth before Yggdrasil was even in development. As such, Rei actually owned a full twenty-one percent of the shares of the company that made the game and was cursed as the biggest pay-to-win player in all of the nine realms. He literally left millions in the game and that was not even counting the 'bribes' to the company whenever he wanted them to develop a feature for him. Sure, he couldn't go overboard with that method but... he got what he needed.

Because of his wealth, it wasn't hard for him to help HeroHero which later on brought Rei a lot of happiness and completely changed his future. But... it also made him exasperated because HeroHero felt inadequate about it and promised to return every yen Rei paid for the surgery, earning himself the nickname of a brainless slime from Rei.

Alas, pride was one thing that was hard to fight with reason...

No matter what Rei did, HeroHero refused to just accept the money as a gift. After three months of going back and forth, arguing over it like children, Rei decided to just 'screw it' and gave up. This resulted in HeroHero's retirement from the game as the guy decided to take more work in order to pay his 'debts'.

Rei... really had no idea what was his freaking deal! HeroHero sent him his entire inventory AND warehouse contents, signifying the guy was done with the game for good. Needless to say, both Rei and Momonga were actually speechless. Rei left the contents of HeroHero's inventory and warehouse in the in-game delivery system for an entire year in case HeroHero decided to come back. That way, he could just send it all back with one click... this, however, didn't happen. Instead, more and more people started having problems in real life, some Rei helped, others he let to their fate... all depending on how close he was to the person.

Much to his chagrin, HeroHero's actions actually spread in the guild, and everybody who was helped by Rei also sent him their gear, inventory and warehouse contents.

What was the poor guy supposed to do when he was bombarded by hundreds of thousands of items?

Honestly... it wasn't as if Rei needed it. He was a collector of the highest order with his inventory expanded to have millions of slots with expanded stack count... and yes, that did cost him over ten million dollars just for that massive inventory expansion considering even hardcore players who left a significant part of their salary in the game only had like ten to twenty thousand inventory slots.

All of the inventory contents his friends sent him in gratitude were honestly not even that interesting for him when he compared it to what was in his own inventory. Well, not even Momonga actually knew just how rich and well-stocked Rei was as he kept quiet about it. After all, it wouldn't do for somebody to discover he had stacks upon stacks of cash items in his inventory, no?

It wasn't like Momonga didn't suspect anything with the crazy and madly expensive things Rei did in-game...

The problem was... giving Rei their gear, the guild members basically confirmed they were done with Yggdrasil.

Nobody could really blame them. These people had problems in real life and even if Rei helped them where he could because of their friendship, most of them quit the game anyway. Yggdrasil was running for almost a decade at that point and people simply craved something new. Sure, during its release and a few subsequent years, Yggdrasil had its golden age but now... there were many other games like Yggdrasil and people simply migrated, seeking a new adventure.

Well, as far as HeroHero went, Rei had already set a transaction that would give the man some much-needed money tomorrow. After all, Rei would have no use for his wealth after midnight so he might as well just give what remained of it to people who helped him along the way.

Unfortunately, Rei's family was already dead by this point so... there was nobody who would complain about it either.

The best part?

Rei wanted to see to whom would HeroHero bitch and moan about his pride. There simply won't be anyone to whom he could return the money either. 'Hah! I basically forced the prideful prick to take my help! Serves him right!' Rei gleefully thought.

Then again... he had his reasons why he wanted to help HeroHero so much. At first, it was just a simple kindness towards his friend but... HeroHero did something that made Rei's experience in Yggdrasil into something incredible. These last years of the game... they weren't the best. It was obvious the developers stopped making new content and the game was slowly declining. But when HeroHero gave all of his possessions to Rei, it also included something that made the game again fun for him. Something that occupied him these last two years and kept him supremely busy. Something that, right now, Rei could proudly proclaim to be his greatest achievement in the game and also something that would be his biggest advantage in the new world.

HeroHero... simply deserved a nice fat paycheck for resolving one of Rei's biggest issues without even knowing about it.

The dude was a champ...