"There is a tendency for incompetent individuals to overestimate their own ability and for competent individuals to underestimate their own." - Dunning-Kruger effect.
—————
A man sat on a throne, surrounded by a complex web of highly advanced machinery.
The room itself was massive, more like a city of machines than a single chamber. Gigantic, sleek, and gray, the machines interlocked like a vast neural network, all converging at a grandiose silver throne standing five meters tall.
Beyond the room, It looks just like a city of machines, but seeing it as above the sky, a city, up in the atmosphere, a whole continent, and from the depths of space, it revealed its true form, an entire patch of a mechanized continent covering half of the world, seemingly coexisting with it's counterpart nature, hovering in the void, pulsating with a faint blue light.
But even that wasn't the full picture. Going even farther, encircling the mechanized nature world was an enormous ring structure, an orbital megastructure that guided its path around its home star. However the gigantical ring doesn't cradle only the planet. The ring cradles the world, but so do the other planets that orbit the star, all of the planet is connected to the gigantical ring. The ring didn't just cradle this planet, it connected every celestial body in the system, forming a massive interstellar construct.
It was a grandiose, and awe-inspiring feat and manifestation of imagination, an interstellar infrastructure called a "Dyson sphere".
Immense, indescribable, and alien.
And at the top of the biggest infrastructure overseeing the planet that was mentioned earlier, sat a lone figure.
The man was a genius, a war tactician, a warlord, and lastly an emperor of his empire, his face couldn't be described by the word man itself as he doesn't even look like a human.
His face was sharp, too perfect in an aesthetical way, yet artificial, devoid of human features and function besides his eyes and mouth.
His body was clad in a sleek, red and black military garb with a futuristic design.
He towered over four meters in height, and even seated, he loomed like a titan.
An entity of a thwarting position, no amount of prestige could match.
A being of absolute authority.
That was his setting. His lore. His carefully crafted persona.
The lore of his character.
In real life he was just a young man who apparently reincarnated in one of the worst alternate realities of his beloved green and blue earth imaginable.
What's different about this earth is, this earth is nearing its end, pollution is listed as poisonous air, severe acid rain, chemical smogs, and clouds that covered the ray of life and light called sun.
People cannot go out of their safe place without wearing a gas mask.
Due to the wars happening decades ago, ordinary people have suffered, rich people seized power and the government became personal empires.
Now the judiciary just doesn't work anymore.
There's people that still work but that is only a front.
Everything isn't available, food became scarce and turned it into a blob of nutrition tasteless jelly paste where you don't know where it's recycled from who-knew-what.
Health? A luxury only the elite could afford.
Yet, he was one of the fortunate ones.
Being reborn to such a world, the young man is really fortunate that he was born from a rich man's legacy.
You see, this young man's father is the CEO of one of the top conglomerates in the world.
This means his father was one of the world's de facto rulers, and could be considered one of the world presidents. In a world where wealth is absolute, the son of a corporate king is like a prince of sorts.
But then, everything was taken from him.
His father died together with his mother, shot in the street like animals.
Like Batman™, yeah.
Except there were no pearls spilling onto the pavement, no opera night, no comforting butler waiting back home. Just the stink of burning asphalt and the sound of acid rain sizzling against flesh.
He saw him, from the eyes of his hazmat.
The man who pulled the trigger looked like his face had been melted off, half of it stripped down to raw, corroded muscle. The only thing worse than the sight was the fact that he could smell it.
And he witnessed all of it.
He doesn't even know how they ended up on the road, running, and suddenly hiding from something when they're just driving in a car earlier.
And when they turn the corner.
He was there, raised in his hands a handgun, something a person like him shouldn't even have.
He saw it. He saw how his father staggered backward first, how his mother's knees gave out before she hit the ground. Their hands almost reached for each other, but neither moved again.
The man didn't run. He just stood there, looking at them, looking at his work. Maybe at him, too.
A desperate man. Someone who knew he wasn't going to live long anyway.
He looked resigned.
That meant someone put him up to this.
Later, the police caught him. He didn't resist. They said it was an easy case. Then, just a few days later, they found him dead in his cell.
The reasons? Suicide.
He already understood it. People like him don't get to kill people like his father and mother and live to tell the story.
They tied up the loose end.
They always do.
And soon, the vultures circled.
Some old man acted like they were on the same side. Tried to be chill with him. Smiling, talking like he was doing him a favor, telling him it would be better to just sign everything away. Make things simple.
But he didn't sign.
Not because he had a plan. He didn't.
He barely even understood how the whole thing worked. He was just some guy who only graduated high school, worked part-time jobs, and barely scraped by in his old life.
He wasn't a businessman.
He wasn't some genius, nor was he a protagonist just because he reincarnated.
But he wasn't dumb enough to give up his father's legacy just because someone told him to.
So they stopped being nice.
They started getting impatient.
Less talk, more pressure. They told him straight up, that if he didn't let go, things would get worse.
Then, his father's trusted aides started flipping. One by one. People who used to stand beside his father, people who once called him "boss," were suddenly acting like they didn't know him.
They didn't even try to explain. No excuses. No fake sympathy. They just moved on.
And that was when he gave up.
He wasn't Batman enough to fight the corrupt.
At least they didn't kill him, which is fortunate enough for him.
And thus, he gave up.
He felt sorry for his father and mother. They left behind a useless son. A guy who had no idea what he was doing. Someone who got threatened once and folded immediately. That was all it took.
People might say he should've fought back. That he should've done something. But those people weren't the ones watching their back 24/7, waiting for the next hit to come.
Every person you come across.
Every open window.
Every food you eat.
Every sleepless night.
You have to watch out for everything, wondering if today was the day something "accidental" would happen to you.
That kind of pressure wears you down.
"A pathetic, powerless coward."
"A cowardly dog that doesn't know how to bark and bite."
The words repeated in his head, over and over. Maybe it was supposed to push him to do something. Maybe it was supposed to make him mad.
But it didn't.
It just made him tired.
So he stopped trying.
He can only give up and pretend that he doesn't care.
Now he was just living his life locked in his room. Let the world move on without him. Played games, watched whatever, wasted time. At least in there, things made sense.
There was a system. You play something right, you win. You do something wrong, you lose.
At least it was something he could control.
And so, he became a NEET. But not just any NEET—an Ultimate NEET.
That was his life now.
No secret plans.
No hidden ambitions.
No burning desire for revenge.
If you thought he was waiting for the right time to strike back, sharpening his mind, preparing for a comeback, well, NUH UH you'd be wrong.
He was, quite literally, doing nothing. Just playing games.
And not even the productive kind. He wasn't some pro player making money off esports. He wasn't grinding for clout as a streamer. He was just playing for the sake of playing.
All this time, he'd been messing around in many VR games like Mortal Battle and Yggdrasil.
Mortal Battle was just fighting VR game until you're the last one standing.
No levels, No special abilities, No magic.
Just hit the other guy harder and faster. The tutorial wasn't some pop-up text or some scripted NPC dialogue, it was actual martial arts classes, and players either learned how to fight properly or got stomped.
It sold well, mostly because the player base was full of psychos who wanted a reason to beat the crap out of each other. The game let you turn pain sensory feedback all the way up, so people actually felt like getting stabbed or punched. Some people even died.
No one could sue, though.
The company had backing from important people, and the terms and conditions were full of legal tricks. Arconet(this world's version of the internet) was filled with stories about players getting wrecked or straight-up dying, but the game still made money.
Mortal Battle has this game rule, your real-world strength mattered.
The game scanned your body and estimated your physical strength—your muscle mass, test your reflexes, and endurance. If you were built in real life, you'd be built in-game. If you were a twink, you'd get folded in seconds.
(A/N: I like twinks though, No Homo( ꈍᴗꈍ). I mean if you're a goth femboy, I'd fold under zero pressure too.)
This made the game brutal. The top players weren't just gamers—they were actual fighters. Gym rats, martial artists, military guys, and psychos who treated the game like a real battleground.
It encouraged players to work out just to survive. Some guys bulked up just to stop getting one-shot. There were entire communities dedicated to workout plans specifically for Mortal Battle. Some even hired personal trainers just to climb the ranks.
It was a game where natural talent and physical training mattered more than quick reflexes or strategy. Some players loved it. Others hated it.
Not that it mattered to him.
Because Yggdrasil was more important.
It was a DMMO-RPG (Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) developed in Japan.
It was one of those insane Japanese VR games that let you completely immerse yourself.
Full dive?
Full sensory experience?
If you weren't careful, you'd end up forgetting what the real world even felt like. And honestly? That sounded fine to him.
The game itself was lit. The customization was ridiculous, almost anything was possible. You could be the usual knight, wizard, assassin, whatever. Or you could go full crazy mode and play as something completely inhuman.
He went with the latter.
A useless heteromorphic race.
A Biomaton—a race of bio-androids closely related to automatons.
Not one of the flashy ones. No sleek, polished metal exoskeletons or fancy combat modules. His character was some outdated prototype model—organic components fused with machine parts in a weird, unnatural way. Fragile, weak, full of technical limitations. Barely even functional.
Most players wouldn't even look at it. Too many drawbacks, too many mechanical downsides. A trash-tier race, unoptimized for combat or survival.
But whatever. He wasn't trying to min-max. He just wanted to screw around.
And to think, Japan actually managed to create something this advanced after World War IV.
The same Japan that was falling apart at the seams.
Not that it mattered. It wasn't like he'd ever go back.
Infamous as the game was, its degree of customization made YGGDRASIL so popular that at its peak in Japan, the word "DMMO-RPG" was practically synonymous with it. It was Japan's magnum opus of virtual gaming.
Other VR games existed, sure, but none of them came close. Nothing matched YGGDRASIL's sheer freedom.
The DMMO-RPG's feature ignited the creative spirits of its Japanese players and sparked what would later be known as a Stylistic Revolution.
And he was a huge fan of it.
Not just as a spectator, he outright let some of those Japanese players design parts of his own setup. How? Well, that would be revealed later.
But in the end, even legends had to fade.
YGGDRASIL first launched in 2126, and for years, it dominated the DMMO-RPG scene.
But now, in 2138, the game was dying.
The once-vibrant community was almost gone. The player count had plummeted. The servers were still up, but the world felt empty.
As a result, the remaining players still playing YGGDRASIL met their final day online.
And tonight was the final night.
The servers were about to shut down forever.
However, things weren't all bad for him.
Yes, because for the first time in both his lives—he planned.
A long-term, absurd, money-fueled plan.
Because he was rich.
It wasn't some complex master strategy. No, he wasn't that smart. It was simple, because he was stupid—but what it needed wasn't intelligence. It needed money. A ridiculous amount of money.
And that, at least, he still had access to.
Even though his corporate enemies had stripped him of power, they didn't completely cut him off. They left him with his personal wealth, treating his spending habits like the indulgences of a spoiled rich kid.
They didn't care what he did with it.
It was pocket money to them.
Like, damn. These jerks treated thirty million dollars as loose change.
So he used it.
Although everything was lost. But not literally everything.
In this age money was power, and people's happiness. Back in his past world it might be the same, but here it is magnified.
And so, his plan was simple.
Earn his way into the new world by owning a World Item.
But there was a problem.
Owning a World Item in YGGDRASIL meant becoming a target.
A target for thousands, no, millions of insanely strong players. Guilds, lone alpha wolves, meta-abusing strategists, people with years of experience, broken builds, and impossible tactics.
And him?
A latecomer.
He only learned about YGGDRASIL five years ago. That meant he only had five years until the game shut down.
So he did something unthinkable.
He used his few remaining brain cells and bought shares in the company that developed YGGDRASIL.
His enemies? They didn't care. They just saw him as a rich idiot obsessed with a dying game.
A fanboy wasting his money.
The money he spent was nothing to them. So they let him, and that was their mistake.
The other parties(enemies) didn't mind as they don't really see suspicious things in his movements.
First he bought shares, second he brought his own server, and third hire developers and Artists.
The first is already self explanatory. He bought shares in the company that developed YGGDRASIL. Not because he cared about investments, but because it gave him influence over the game.
Leverage.
Access to things normal players couldn't touch.
Second, he bought a private server. YGGDRASIL was a fantasy world, magic, gods, ancient races, it had it all. There were bits of sci-fi, but it was minor. That wasn't enough for him.
And he?
He wanted to change that.
His plan was insane—he wanted to insert himself into the game's lore.
A world separate from the World Tree, YGGDRASIL.
A world that did not belong…
Third, he hired developers and artists.
This was where the real money went. People who had actually worked on YGGDRASIL before and some poor professional freelancers who got skills enough. Professionals who could design and build exactly what he wanted.
They created the visuals, the assets, the world.
Everything he needed.
And once all of that was done.
Everything he needed was in his hands.
○●○●
"It's about time…"
He waved his hands and a panel displaying his status appeared.
Name: Aman
Race: Asterran (Heteromorphic)
Level: 100(+)
An ancient being of a race called Asterran who possessed incomprehensible powers.
Ability Chart:
- HP (Hit Points): 100(+)
- Energy Points (EP): 100(+)
- Physical Attack: 100(+)
- Physical Defense: 100(+)
- Psionic/Magic Attack: 100(+)
- Psionic/Magic Defense: 100(+)
- Agility: 100(+)
- Resistance: 100(+)
- Special Ability: 100(+)
Racial Level:
- Asterran Warlord(Lv 10)
- Asterran Emperor(Lv 5)
Etc
Job Level:
- Eldritch Psion(Lv 5)
- King of Outerlands(Lv 5)
- Elder Myth(Lv 5)
Etc
[Image]
Titles: Emperor of Asterran, World Champion, World's Savior, World Disaster,...
Although all of this might be just a design for now.
Soon…
"Now, I'll just bide my time until the games shut down ... And then I will have real power."
All his plans will come to fruition once he is able to transfer all of his work to the new world.
[23:58:48]
Sitting in his custom made world item throne, much like the world item that was in the possession of the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown the throne of kings, the one who was sat upon by Momonga.
He has made his very own throne befitting of him and this throne will pave the way to the new world where a new adventure awaits, all sorts of people to meet.
Although all of this is a result of money, and not really hard work, well all of those poor developers and employees have compensated the need for blood and sweat so it doesn't matter.
(Being filthy rich is the best.)
Excitement overcomes his being just by thinking about it, he thought all of those days were worth living for, and he has come this far.
"There's no need to fear for my life every second….."
[23:59:12]
He remembered the day when he first opened his eyes and the eyes of his mother and father were watching above him.
He remembered the day when they were killed, when he was reminded of how life was unfair.
His past life where he was a loser and even now he was still that loser.
He can't let go of that identity, he lost and that's it.
But soon he will recover that very thing he lost.
His very pride.
[23:59:45]
[23:59:46]
[23:59:47]
[23:59:48]
[23:59:49]
.
.
.
.
.
[00:00:01]
".....Haha…..Things are about to get interesting."
With a thought, a command was passed and soon a figure materialized near the entrance, an Asterran. One of his own creations.
The movement to crucial places of the Imperial Capital was done through teleportation terminals, but this terminal isn't really used that much as every denizen of the Empire of Asterran is connected to each other and information flow wasn't a problem, and each Asterrans is capable of teleportation, besides restricted area like throne room where important people is the only permitted to enter, everyone is capable of teleporting technically anywhere.
Every Asterran is unique when it comes to their individual consciousness and colors but aside from that, everyone bore the same features all were perfected to perform extremely efficiently.
"My liege," the asterran spoke, kneeling.
"Forgive my intrusion. But I must report."
The moment he saw the Asterran, a smirk appeared on his features. He spoke.
"Continue."
The Asterran hesitated.
"Forgive my negligence, my liege. It appears... the Imperial Capital has been transported."
Silence descended between the two of them.
"...I'm sorry what?"
The Asterran straightened. "The Imperial Capital, Asterra. The very planet we stand upon, it has been transported."
Alfred, his direct servant.
One of the Asterrans personally designed to oversee imperial affairs, said something to him that didn't quite register.
A long silence once again stretched between the two of them.
"...Wait. You mean "only" the whole planet?"
"Yes, My liege."
".....What the f, ."