Somewhere beyond the shutdown…
"Cherry blossoms?"
Elijah froze.
The scent drifted through the still air—fragile, nostalgic. The kind of detail no raid boss or dungeon crawl ever needed.
But he remembered it. From long ago.
It had been the one flourish he never turned off.
A memory wrapped in fragrance.
Then—awareness. Cold. Complete.
His senses ignited all at once. Not like a login. Not like spawning into a zone.
It was real.
He looked down.
His hand—translucent, ghostlike—passed through his chest.
No heartbeat.
No HUD.
No armor. Just empty space.
"Am I…dead?"
His voice was a low whisper, more a thought spoken aloud than a question seeking answer.
He turned slowly, absorbing the room. The tatami. The scrolls. The relics.
Everything was exactly as he left it in YGGDRASIL.
And yet—
It pulsed.
Not data. Not code.
Life.
His eyes stopped on the stand.
The blade.
Touch Me's sword. Folded steel, weathered from countless battles. Given freely, without fanfare. A symbol not of power, but belief.
Beside it, the lacquered box.
The feather. His most sacred treasure. Not for its rarity—but for what it cost. For what it proved.
And there…
The cloak.
Mimic.
She rested like a shadow coiled into cloth, her edges shifting ever so slightly, like breath beneath silk. She wasn't just waiting.
She was watching.
Elijah's eyes locked on the cloak.
She pulsed once—gentle, expectant.
A weight passed between them. A memory.
He stepped forward slowly, reverent, every movement like a ritual.
"Mimic"
His voice was low. Grounded. Almost human again.
"Join me"
She obeyed.
Without hesitation, the cloak lifted—rising not in fabric but in form. Shadow crawled from the stand like smoke seeking its fire.
She wrapped around him—not covering, but crawling.
Up his arm.
Across his ribs.
Over his back, his throat, his face.
She didn't dress him.
She became him.
When she sealed over his skin, he felt it—a thrum down his spine.
Not magic.
Not animation.
Recognition.
A breath passed.
The room dimmed. Even the light seemed to step back.
Elijah stood still, the phantom fully reborn.
And for the first time since the world ended—
He felt whole.
The silence held, heavy but not empty.
But then… something shifted.
A scent.
A scream, too distant for any normal ear.
A wrongness carried on the wind.
Something in the world had been broken, and Elijah—
No, the Lone Reaper—felt it before it could be seen.
, Elijah tensed.
Then—he was gone.
A ripple of shadows. A distortion in the air.
Only the dust remained, drifting lazily where the ninja had once stood.
And then—
A scream.
Outskirts of Carne Village — A Few Miles from Elijah's CabinHe didn't follow trails.
He followed absence—where mana didn't flow right, where trees leaned the wrong way, where the silence wasn't peace, but anticipation.
He moved through the underbrush like a rumor.
Not bending grass. Not shifting air.
Just appearing.
Assassin. Ninja. Rogue. Ghost.
A voice snapped through the trees:
"Don't touch my sister!"
Then—steel striking steel. A desperate clang.
Elijah's eyes narrowed.
That was enough.
Village Road — Seconds LaterEnri closed her eyes.
The knight's sword was mid-swing—too fast to dodge, too close to block.
She held Nemu close and waited for the end.
But it didn't come.
TANG.
The blade was stopped—by something.
Then—two thuds.
Heavy. Final.
Enri opened her eyes.
A man knelt over them.
A cloak of living shadow wrapped protectively around her and her sister like the jaws of a beast shielding its cubs. The knights—both of them—were sprawled behind him, their bodies unmoving, faces frozen in confusion.
The man didn't look at her.
He looked ahead. Past the panic. Past the flames.
Then he said, softly, like it was nothing:
"Stay down. You're safe now."
Mimic pulsed behind him. Hungry. Watching.
More knights emerged. Five. Then seven. Then more.
They didn't charge. Not yet.
Something in their instincts screamed at them not to.
But they still came.
Elijah stood slowly. His back still to Enri and Nemu.
"Mimic," he said. "Kindly."
The cloak detached. It flowed outward, rising like smoke—and then formed arms. Claws. Daggers. Shadow appendages lashed out in coordinated strikes, slitting throats, shattering knees, caving ribs.
Each kill was surgical. Efficient.
But Elijah didn't move. Didn't lift a hand.
He simply spoke to the terrified girls behind him.
"What's your name?"
Enri blinked.
"E-Enri."
He nodded.
"That was brave. What you did."
Another scream. Another knight fell.
"That's your sister?"
"Yes—Nemu—"
"She's safe."
Mimic returned to his side like a tame predator. Satisfied.
But before he could say more—
the world changed.
Above the VillageA pressure. Impossible. Heavy. Ancient.
The sky cracked.
Not with sound—with presence.
A gate opened in the air, yawning wide like a wound in reality itself.
Elijah turned toward it. Slowly. Carefully.
Mimic responded with a violent shiver.
Two girls. Two targets. Too exposed.
Without a word, Elijah extended a hand.
Mimic obeyed.
Two clones formed beside him—twins of the cloak, swirling with shadow, humanoid in form but faceless and still. They stepped between the girls and the portal like silent bodyguards.
And then seconds before the gate closes- a figure in obsidian armor and a halberd steps through the gate
The pressure of a world item presses against her skin. immediately she moves, the halberd swings the cloak moves around the Ninja
A shield of black, shadow tendrils wrap around her halberd.
Without flinching and with no hostile intent Elijah raises a single hand.
"Enough mimic. She knows not of what she does"
The Overlord speaks "The lone reaper stands before me… though I only remember you as the ninja class attached to Touch's hip"
The ninja smirks "
"He had a habit of saving stays. You should know…Momonga."