Chapter 551: From Beyond the World Tree by i4md347h (DxDxOverlord)
Latest update:March 2, 2021
Summary:Defying reality, Momonga had found himself in the body of a teenage boy, one gifted with a power beyond his dreams. Through the boy, he would begin a new chapter of his life in a world where limits cannot exist, where the surrealities dominate common sense, and on a quest to survive the hurdles the world could throw at him. Be it the foes that threaten him, or the girls wanting him
Link:https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13436172/1/From-Beyond-the-World-Tree
Word count:72k
Chapters:10
From the peaceful twilight, the setting sun slowly sank the world in its orange glow, fading in wait for the world to repeat itself. In the park, under the descending light, within the panorama of peace, a pained cry screamed outside the trees.
The owner of the voice was a young boy, one reaching the cusp of his youth in high school. Brown colored his hair, his eyes an opaque amber, his face soft in features and appealing for girls his age.
The boy was Hyōdō Issei, a sophomore of Kuoh Academy - a school that was once an all-girls school that recently allowed male members to attend. Athwart him was Yuuma, his date… and his murderer who was holding the spear of light that pierced through his gullet, spine, and all.
Issei was bleeding. He grabbed the spear in a desperate attempt to remove the weapon from his person. However, whether he liked it or not, it was a fatal blow. The pain from his wound was intense, but that pales in comparison to the emotional pain of betrayal that Yuuma sadistically speared through his heart. Once, she was a regular, cute brunette his age, but now she was older, more mature in appearance and sex appeal. From her back, sprouted pair of black wings, each as dark as coal mined from the darkest depths.
He was about to die in the next brief moments, but despite that, he endured; he prayed for a miracle to give him the strength to survive through the process and live. But in a godless world, such miracles were dead, leaving Issei to the mercy of others in a grand, twisted game.
"Yu… uma… why…" He could only utter before the woman ripped her spear from his stomach with a mighty yank, allowing the bloodletting to take its course as he fell face-first on the dirt.
Issei struggles to rise, to get back up and run to safety, but he even lost the strength to stand. He lay there on the ground, helpless and at Death's mercy as his life swiftly bled away towards the inevitable cold.
From the corpse splaying facedown in the park, right beside the fountain, blood pooled into the dry soil and stained the dirt red. Standing above her former boyfriend, Yuuma, the alias of Raynare, an agent of the Grigori, flicked the blood off her light spear with a gesture.
She smirked at her work, feeling a sense of accomplishment from her successful deed. Raynare had killed the wielder of an unknown Sacred Gear that could threaten the safety of the Grigori, cutting off the bud before it could sprout.
"It really is such a shame, Issei-kun. I really did enjoy our date." She gave her final words of farewell before giving the corpse her back as she prepared her wings of black, launching herself in an ascent as she took to the skies with a smile on her face.
Now she could focus on the other matter on her list, the tool that could grant her the power to rise beyond her station. However, in a world where almost anything could happen, forces beyond the realm of mortal understanding were at work, pulling strings that touched the rare opportunities beyond the real - and it found an ideal target that was ripe for the picking.
As if to spit in the face of all the laws of the universe, the body stirred postmortem, not from the miracle of a Devil contract on his person or an Archangel's boon, but from another Soul that somehow found its way into the dying boy.
Few could notice the disturbance, but none could estimate the cause or pinpoint its origin. Rising once more, Issei Hyōdō stood once again, his stomach wound already closing through forces indeed of the supernatural and illogical… or at least someone who wore his face.
One moment, the sight of the throne room and the NPCs stood with him, waiting for the inevitable end. After opening his eyes, the first thing Momonga saw was the sunset sky followed by the irritating feeling of something wet and sticky soaking his back from the hair down. After getting up, looking around the area, he found himself in a place he had never seen.
When he did, he accidentally stared into the sun, yet the glaring rays did not bother him like it would an average person. Confusion wracked Momonga's thoughts. Why was he outside supinely under broad… daylight? No, sinking daylight. The sky was so clear for some reason, the clouds not bearing a single tainting black, the air so... refreshing unlike the usual filtered air in his room… wait…
Something was flying off in the distance. He saw a… was that a woman with black wings? Momonga's mind halted as he tried to process the sight. Her black-themed attire was quite revealing, leather high-leg boots, straps barely covering her most sensitive parts, it was quite confusing.
'Is that an Angel?' Momonga had no clue since that person did not look like the generic angels of YGGDRASIL. Was it a customized NPC or something? He shrugged as he returned his attention to his surroundings to inspect his dilemma.
Momonga could not recognize his location. Not only that, he stared at something that should not exist. He saw trees, lush trees, flora that should've been long extinct years ago when the pollution first consumed the Earth. He even saw a fountain spewing crystal-clear water with no sign of tainted smog floating in his surroundings.
'Am I in another Game?' Actually, the fact that he had no breathing apparatus attached to his face was indication enough that there was no pollution abound. He didn't even cough upon inhaling the outside air, only fresh, untainted air, along with the scent of trees and the humid soil.
"…where am I… eh?" So many questions bombarded his mind, even the abnormal tone of his voice.
What was happening to him? A glitch in the system?
He was to log off in his room, not in a strange place where pollution did not exist. Not only that, he felt weird, more… hyperactive for some reason. Not only this, his stomach also itches to his angst, growing to the point of being unbearable to ignore. Momonga briefly scratched his torso, but he stopped his fingers when he felt a wet spot on his shirt. The liquid was warm, very warm, and it was sticky.
Unsure what it was, Momonga looked down on himself, but he froze when he saw the dark color of crimson staining his front. Was he bleeding? Why was there a pool of blood around his feet? He just realized that he was standing in a pool of blood.
"...eh?" All thoughts screeched to a halt as he tried to deny the reality before him logically, but he was failing.
As if to confirm that he was not in a dream or another virtual reality, Momonga grabbed the red spot and wrung the blood from the squelching polyester. When he brought up to his face, he smelled it carefully. It stunk of copper and iron, and the smell was so strong that Momonga pulled back from the stench. The scent was too authentic to be virtual. The technologies of today could never replicate such a tangible sensation.
However, he wasn't convinced. He needed to test his theory. The scent of iron was strong, too strong for it to be virtual as there was no technology capable of replicating such a robust and acrid stench. To affirm his suspicions, Momonga decided to taste-test.
Placing the wet blood to his tongue, Momonga spat it out, the horrible taste of iron and lingering copper confirming his fears to his growing horror. Momonga woke up in a pool of his blood.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He was bleeding!
What happened to his body when he was in YGGDRASIL?! Quickly, he lifted his shirt to inspect the damage. Although… there was no hole around his stomach area. The lack of stomach wounds confused Momonga, but the outlines from a large scar indicated the presence of a puncture.
However, that was not the only problem. Momonga's body shape was… wrong. It felt off, very off. Not to mention that his current clothes did not match the formal attire he usually wore. What the hell happened to him when he was in the virtual dive?
Swiftly rushing to the fountain, ignoring the loud cracks in his step, Momonga quickly looked at his reflection from the tranquil waters while daylight still burned in the twilight.
"Huh?" A stranger greeted him from the waters.
Whose face was this? His hair was brown, his eyes that of amber orange, and his face twenty years younger than what he expected. Why was he in the body of a teenager? No, how did he get inside the body of a teenager in general? He was to wake up in his apartment back home!
Momonga had so many questions that he couldn't pick which to ask first. His first conclusion was that he was somehow kidnapped, his consciousness abducted in virtual reality, but… the environment was too tangible for that possibility. Momonga touched the pond, feeling the cool water embracing his hand. No environmental technology could replicate such realism.
But to triple check his hypothesis, Momonga tried to open his menu screen to narrow down his conjecture. However, to his surprise, a menu did open… he saw his Status Screen on display.
Quickly, Momonga searched for the GM. He found it and tried to call for aid, but the call function wasn't there. That one button somehow vanished from his screen. Not only that… he quickly looked for his Status Screen, pressing that button hanging in the air.
Once the screen switched to his character build, Momonga could see his usual Overlord Class on display, hovering before his eyes… along with a few more additions, something that should be impossible in YGGDRASIL.
The questions kept piling in his mind without end, and Momonga was buried under that mountain. To dig himself out of it would take a while… but the big question was, where should he start?
Issei did not use the contract pamphlet.
When she discovered his Sacred Gear, Rias decided to take him in by any means necessary, to recruit his aide for her cause. Rias was sure that Issei was to use it in his time of desperate need. Yet the pentagram was crumpled and tossed aside, sitting in the crimson pool to rot.
Standing over the blood puddle in confusion, Rias could only find a trail of blood walking out of the scene step by step. There was no corpse, but also no indication of his body disintegrated by the Fallen Angel. No ashes were present in the scene.
The trail headed towards the water fountain before the direction shifted left. The path stopped after the ninth step, ended by thin drips of blood fading in a line.
"Hmm… did Issei awaken his Sacred Gear at the last moment, and it saved him?" Rias could only come to this conclusion.
Walking towards the fountain, Rias leaned closer at the bloody handprints on the stone rims. From the position, she could tell that Issei was trying to look at himself in the reflection. Probably to find out about his wounds or state when he got up.
When she first saw Issei, she sensed something about him was off. When she sent Koneko to spy on him, her rook told her she that Issei bore the scent of a Dragon.
There were only a few dragon-based Sacred Gears that she knew of, but there was something off. Even if the Sacred Gear could heal the user, why didn't her pentagram trigger upon his time of critical need?
There wasn't just blood. Violent indentations wounded the concrete, each sharing the size of one of the bloodstained footprints. Did Issei's Sacred Gear bestow him inhuman strength along with flight?
She did not know what kind of Sacred Gear he had in him, but it should be too early for a beginner to acquire more than one assortment of abilities. By now, he should be home, at least. It was past ten, two hours before midnight.
Or he could be pursuing his murderer with a vengeance. The fallen angel did kill him in cold blood after betraying his heart. Now that Rias thought about it, Issei would make a lot of noise if he did consider his simple personality so far.
The musing reminded her of the problem that Fallen Angels that trespassed into Kuoh, one of the territories under the co-op rule of the Gremory and Sitri clans. She should add to dealing with them in her schedule.
Her plan was to obtain another trump card to aid her against Riser Phenix, and it was already crumbling by its foundations. She needed to salvage the situation her life would fall within Riser's clutches.
Her first step was to reevaluate the situation and edit her plan to recruit him to her cause. All she needed was a new approach.
How long had passed since his wandering, Momonga couldn't tell. Whoever this Issei was, he didn't have a watch in hand. It took him a while to find the address in that ID card from that wallet in his pocket.
The previous owner's name was Issei Hyōdō, age fifteen, child of two parents and student of Kuoh Academy. That was the rough summary of Hyōdō's background. There was even the address of the boy's demesne on it.
Navigating through the city took him some time. He had to stealthily use [Fly] while cloaked in [Perfect Illusion] to cheat his way through the hassle, albeit sparingly since he had no idea if other supernatural beings could detect him. That brunette with wings of black was not a figment of his imagination as far as he knew.
When he did arrive at Issei's home, triple-checking his address to confirm the matching numbers, Momonga stood outside the door, tightening his fists as he closed his eyes to brace himself mentally. When Momonga enters that door, his parents will greet him… no, Issei's parents.
Momonga remembered the time when he still had parents. The sight of his mother dying from overwork in the kitchen was still fresh in his mind. He trembled when he recalled his shitty world, the struggles he endured under a polluted sky. It was a terrible memory that robbed most of his capacity for emotion.
As for the first hurdle with the parents, Momonga must muster every ounce of his acting skills at his disposal. He was entering someone's house with the face of a loved one usually spelled doom if others knew of his identity. Momonga did not know the names of his parents, the hobbies of Issei, or the Hyōdō family's way of life. He was a stranger through and through, and there were only so many lies he could throw.
He was afraid. Thoughts of the two faces calling him out flashed within Momonga's mind, exposing him at first glance should he somehow slip. He had never done this before, so of course, it should rattle his resolve. However, once his chaotic emotions reached a certain point, it died like a smothered flame, quenched by cold waters.
It was a strange feeling to Momonga, despite it being from his Overlord Racial Class. His Undead [Emotion Suppression] would suppress his emotions once they reach a particular peak. However, he found out that he could turn it off by thought for some reason… Momonga could never do it in the game before. Maybe him having a flesh and blood body helped with that.
Shaking off his stray thoughts, Momonga took a deep breath as he steeled his mettle. With one hand raised, he pressed the doorbell and rang the residents inside, assuming that they were present. He hoped that they do not work at night shifts; otherwise, he would have to wait for them until morning.
After waiting for five suspenseful minutes, the door opened, revealing a feminine face. Momonga assumed that she was Issei's mother. She was in her late years, wrinkles already creeping on her face, but the kindness and maternal warmth radiated palpably like the setting sun.
"Ummm, mother. I'm home…" It was the best he got, taken from when his mother was still alive, but it took a lot of effort to bring the words out.
The woman tilted her head. Momonga could tell she was confused by his question.
"Oh, dear, Issei! What happened to you? It isn't like you to come home so late. Who knows what could happen to you at night?"
'She is his mother… or… my mother…' Momonga did not know how to parse this feeling. It was like he was stealing a good life from someone else. The fact that it wasn't by his intention worsened it.
Seeing the matriarch reminded Momonga of his mother. She was a kind one, a hard worker. His true mother was the only kindness Momonga knew in his life, the spark in the dying world choked in pollution of greed and the insanity of humankind. He could still recall his mother's death when she tried to make him a sandwich.
How couldn't he forget? The most traumatic of experiences always left a mark no one would forget. He could even remember the scarring pain that morning - how his Soul died along with her. Burdened with this recollection, Momonga answered with an opposite lie.
"Well… somewhat."
He cannot help but cringe when he spoke those words as his gut entangled itself in a knot. The sheer awkwardness was far more onerous than he expected.
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Please, come in! It's dangerous to stay outside at night!" The mother kindly urged as she took his hand and pulled him inside.
He now entered the Hyōdō Family's house. He was starting to regret it as it meant crossing the line of no return. Momonga may have traveled from place to place as a salaryman, but this wasn't business. It was an unpredictable drama, ready to burst.
After taking off his shoes with the mother, Momonga reviewed his lines a few more times while she took him in the living room where a middle-aged man sat on the couch reading a newspaper.
Momonga was sorry for them, but he had to do this. He must play the role of Issei Hyōdō. This way, he could investigate Issei's background with much room for freedom. If he was lucky, he can play dumb and survive on the ignorance of the parents, assuming that they were not the abusive type.
"How was your day? You've almost missed dinner, you know! Please, we've saved some for you." The mother urged, kindly. She was way too kind… it reminded Momonga of his mother. His heart pained somewhat at the memory.
"Hahaha, I am… quite busy, honestly."
Ironically, this was the truth. He was busy as hell, trying to uncover his being here.
"Nonsense, sweety. You must have quite a lot of fun at your friend's place. Don't tell me you were wasting your time playing with those worthless 'eroges' you youngsters play these days?"
The mother said something both incredible and ridiculous that it already painted Momonga a good idea of who Issei was.
"Hah?" He was genuinely perturbed. The first thing that came out of the mother's mouth was the mention of material Pererochino would adore with religious zeal, one that would lead to his big sister beating him up.
"I, I cannot, no!" Momonga denied.
"Hehehe, you don't need to deny it, son." The father joined in, chuckling warmly at his haphazard response. "We already know you're in the springtime of youth. It is absolutely normal."
'Is it?' Momonga didn't graduate from elementary school, so he could not know. He started to hate his former world and those that did make it to junior high.
"But Issei-san, you really should stop hanging out with Motohama and Matsuda. Why can't you find some normal friends for a change?" The mother asked, making Momonga leak an awkward sweat.
'Eh?' Her response shattered all expectations in Momonga's mind. Reviewing what he learned so far, he learned that Issei went to visit a friend's place. But he was at a park, alone and bleeding in a puddle of Issei's blood, no friends in sight. Wait, did his friends murder him? No, it did not add up.
Even so, Momonga took note of Motoyama and Matsuda and stored them for later use. From her tone, the mother verbally painted them as Pererochinos when she mentioned eroges and 'Issei's' fondness for them. From this conversation, Momonga saw Issei as the depiction of a pervert or an enthusiast for the female body.
Now how should he go about this? There was a big hole in their logic. They only mention his male friends, not a female friend. He thought that they were referring to females when she said a friend's place. Issei did not visit a friend's abode unless the two were females with a fondness for eroges, treated as males by his parents, which was impossible unless he saw them with his own eyes.
"I can see that I… have let myself go quite a lot today." Momonga carefully phrased. Crap, this was harder than he expected. How should he worm his way through this hurdle? Wait, an epiphany struck him.
"Although, to be fair, I had to go meet a certain someone in the park, but no one was there." Momonga was baiting them for a response.
The scantily-clad brunette was the most likely suspect behind Issei's murder unless evidence suggested otherwise.
The parents looked at him confused, their confoundment arousing his heart to pulse at a faster beat, but it cut its acceleration down after reaching a peak, feeling instant calm, dowsing his emotions. Momonga thanked his avatar's undead trait for killing his panic in this situation, or else he would've cracked like ice under the desert sun.
"Park? What are you talking about? You went to your friends' house, right?" The father asked, lowering his newspaper to give Momonga a quirking brow.
His response did not make sense. He purposely left the girl out to test their knowledge on Issei's schedule. Did Issei lie to his parents? There was so little evidence here to work with, and the amount of contradiction was not helping him. Momonga nearly cracked his mask from the boiling anxiety before his emotions were killed again.
Still, he really did not like to play the role of their idiot son. Momonga had no idea how he could play it, but he must bear with it until he found a way out.
"Ahaha. Sorry, I… well, I'm a bit tired. Can I go to bed?" Momonga asked, deciding to cut off the conversation here.
He could always deal with this tomorrow.
"Oh, right. You do need to get ready for school." The mother mentioned.
Judging by her reaction, she did not seem to care about how he cut off their conversation midway. Momonga got a good picture of their character, and it made him all the more guilty inside for using their trusting nature against them.
Momonga grimaced somewhat. He must wake up extra early to find the route to his school and to avoid making eye contact with those 'friends' of his. As far as he knew, they were also murder suspects. Momonga could use his presence to test their reactions. If they look at him baffled that he lives in any way, he would haul them in for interrogation. He did need to practice his abilities, after all.
"Thanks, mom." Momonga nodded and then headed upstairs, sighing in relief that he no longer have to deal with them.
Playing the idiot son was stressful enough. Reaching the end, he looked around, looking for Issei's room. From door to door, Momonga peeked inside. He found the bathroom, his parent's bedroom judging by the mature decor and the size of the bed, and…
Momonga blinked. Was this what a teenager's room looked like? He saw a computer desk with cases of DVDs messily stacked on the desk shelf beside the computer. Getting closer, Momonga could see various titles of anime series he did not recognize but was confident that Pererochino would adore judging by the girls on the covers.
"I'm in the body of a hentai enthusiast," Momonga uttered again, fully accepting this fact after seeing the evidence of Issei's livelihood, but was unsure how he should feel about it.
And that didn't count the strange background of said hentai enthusiast as well. Momonga shook his head as he looked at his bed. It was a plain bed like the one he had, white pillow and white sheets, nothing special. He might be able to sleep in it… but did he need to?
He was still undead despite wearing flesh and blood. He still needed to test out his powers again once he had the time. Actually, he could do it right now if he wanted to, but he had no idea when he should get ready for school. He realized that he had no idea where his school clothes were… Momonga sighed.
He had a lot of work on his hands, and it did not please him in the slightest. His first step was to familiarize himself with Issei's room and then his way of life.
Kuoh Academy.
Momonga looked at the address plate beside the gate once more to make sure. He looked at it and then back to his ID card again, finding the numbers and letters match with those on the plate. There was even a schedule on it, saying that the school opens around five in the morning, which was an hour prior.
Momonga felt figurative worms eating his guts the more he stared at the school in full uniform and backpack, his nervousness growing only to die down and for it to regrow and repeat the cycle. He had absolutely no idea how to play Issei Hyōdō. He doubted that even the greatest minds of all time could play a pervert's life without fail or without multiple attempts, and Momonga knew that he was no genius.
But what the heck was this school? It looked like something a wealthy Englishmen would build from the ground up. Momonga was sure that the construction would cost millions of yen if one put the workforce, materials, and planning into account, and that did not include the other facilities adjacent to the main building. Heck, there might be other buildings that Momonga was unaware of. There was even a fountain behind the entrance surrounded by extravagant trees, which he believed was to beautify the area behind the fence of bricks.
Momonga woke up around four in the morning, got dressed, packed his things, head out via [Fly] under [Perfect Unknowable], familiarize himself with the layout of this city and the routes leading to this academy, and then bought his own breakfast from a nearby store.
The sun was still stretching up on the horizon, with most of the night replaced by radiant orange. Some of the girls walked past him with a confused face, others with disgust on their miens. Every time he saw a teenage girl giving him a look usually reserved for scum killed him a little inside. His ears caught words like 'ehhh, it's him,' 'what's he doing this early,' and 'probably to get an early peek at us, so let's just get in faster.' It seemed that Issei had garnered quite a bit of infamy in this school, at least with the female populace.
Momonga sighed as he entered through the gates, wanting to get to class without encountering any of Issei's associates. He had no plan on how to deal with them just yet… no, wait, he was just too scared of them. As he entered the building, enduring the girls avoiding him and giving him stink eyes, Momonga took a good look at the lobby and the dividing halls. He blinked with Issei's eyes several times as his expression crumbled into a realizing horror.
'I have no idea which classroom Issei goes to…'
He wanted to ask for help, but that would attract too much suspicion. Strangers were a different animal compared to family members. They have no incentive to play along with Momonga's blunders. If that came to be, then Momonga would have no idea how to act.
As he stared at the end of one hall blankly, he felt a pat on his back.
"Yo! Issei! You got here pretty early!"
'Oh, thank god.'
He thanked whatever divine power up there for granting him this save. He could use this encounter to his advantage. Turning around, he saw two males greeting him, one with his hand raised while the other giving him a goofy smile.
One of them was a nearly bald, thin teenager, his head was ovular, millimeters of hair coloring his head gray. The other was more rotund, chubby cheeks with glasses covering his eyes.
"Yo, Matsuda. Motohama." Using their lingo, Momonga greeted back, assuming that they were the two friends of Issei that the mother mentioned. For some reason, he knew that they were Issei's friends based on appearance alone.
"You're up pretty early, doncha think? What are you thinking about? Wait, don't tell me. Whose boobs are your imagining now?"
'...'
Momonga stared at the guy with glasses, rendered speechless. He had his [Emotion Suppression] shut off now, so he could express himself more humanly to others. He was glad that he got their names right, but his feeling of success quickly degraded into bafflement.
"Wait, wait, wait! Don't tell me… is it Rias of the Student Council President?" The thin one asked.
Momonga, again, had no words to respond. He didn't even know of Rias. Should he turn his [Emotion Suppression] back on? He might need it to prevent himself from running away from the two perverts to preserve whatever dignity he had left. Some of the girls were lasing him with judgemental stares, eyes filled with disgust.
'Stop. Stop looking at me like that… please… I'm not that kinda guy.' Momonga was crying down inside, his dignity as a man wilting like a dying flower.
"Ahahaha! Anyways, let's get to class! We have time till class starts, so…" Both of them furtively eyed their lefts and rights as if trying to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
"Wanna go sneak in the girls' locker room?" The chubby one asked.
'Like hell I will!'
"N-No. I feel quite tired today. Kinda want to get to class and nap." Momonga gently shrugged his proposition off, pretending to yawn into his hand.
"Awwww, really? Come on, it's no fun without you, dude." The two whined in disappointment while Momonga cheered in his heart.
'Yes!' He successfully evaded social suicide.
He stole a glance at the girls behind him. They were still giving him the stink eye before they left one by one. They were probably keeping an eye on him just in case. Momonga wanted to know what the hell Issei had been doing when he was still alive.
"Anyways, let's get to class then. We can talk until the bell starts."
Momonga sighed in relief. He had finally passed the first hurdle, yet the victory was bittersweet. Even so, he couldn't help but wonder. If the first test was this stressfully demanding, how difficult would the next ones be? He turned on his [Emotion Suppression] just in case, bracing himself for the trials to come.
Link:https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13436172/1/From-Beyond-the-World-Tree
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