Arriving at his room an instant later left Momonga free to let out a sigh of

relief. For good measure, since one sigh was not enough, he peeled off his
mage robes, tossed it aside, and put a hand to his chest to exhale an even
larger sigh a second time. He went to the mirror of his room and looked at
his reflection. “You’ll have to get used to this. Even as good as this looks,”
he put his hands on his hips and then ran them over the curve of concealed
leg, “I can only feel so confident for so long before I need a break. At least I
don’t have. To. Do this for…” Momonga trailed off as realization dawned.

He relaxed his disguised human face into the blankness of a doppleganger,

“Wait… No. I’m going to have to do this for the rest of my life!” He shivered
as the realization hit him, and even though it was impossible, he could have
sworn that dopple blankness paled a little with his spirits.

“The rest of my life.” He repeated the words.

“The rest of my life.” He repeated it again.

“And all my friends. At least before I thought they might come or I might
see them again… but now?” He thought of the glances of Gazef’s warriors,
the way they clustered together, rode together into danger, following his
lead… ‘True comrades… I had that, once… they were ready to fight and die
together…’ He closed his eyes and sat down, not on the bed, or in a chair,
but on the floor with his back against the end of the bed. The skirt slid up
as he drew his legs to his chest.

“The NPCs… they seem alive, and they must be… but their programming… I
can’t think of them as comrades. They were created as servants. They’d
never see me as an equal, as a comrade…”

The more he thought, the more he said, the worse it sounded, and the
deeper he fell.

He recalled the relief on the faces of grown men that knew they were going
to live, ‘I made that face when HeroHero appeared and I thought the others
would follow him. Just one more time.’ A doppleganger couldn’t weep, and
so he restored his more familiar human face, and let himself just feel for a
time.
As if they were dead and gone… all at once.

Momonga didn’t know how long he stayed like that, the truth was he didn’t
want to know, his arms clung tight enough around his legs that he could
have easily crushed a normal human, but for him it was just the comforting
pressure of a self embrace as liquid grief ran away from his face.

“No. They wouldn’t want me to live like that.” He realized in an instant,

looking down at the floor between his knees, “They wouldn’t want me to sit
around all weepy, grieving forever. They were my friends, and they left the
game a long time ago. I should have gotten over it before now.” He sniffled
loudly and wiped his nose, “They can never be replaced but… I made friends
before, maybe it will be different but-” He snapped his jaw shut and raised
his head to glare into the mirror.

“No. It will be different. I know that. Guys… all of you, if you can hear me
somehow, I’ll miss you, all of you like I always have. But I know you
wouldn’t want this for me. That you wouldn’t want me to just be alone
forever… damn it! Making friends is hard. Losing them is harder. Starting
all over again is hardest.” Momonga said and thought back to the declining
days of the guild, the exodus beginning with one or two, but spreading as
time went on, and the ranks were never replaced.

‘First we went out as forty-one… then as forty. Then as thirty-eight. And

Thirty-five… it was like a countdown, a countdown to the last days. Till the
last raid when it was just three of us. Ulbert, Touch Me, and I… then it was
just Touch Me, and we didn’t even raid. We just sat in the hall with the
maids, with Albedo, he gave me his things and left us all behind. Left me
behind. I should be glad at least HeroHero appeared.’ Momonga squeezed
his eyes shut as tight as if they’d been glued that way.

“Now here I am, the world is beautiful, even I can see that, but dangerous…
I need-” Momonga stopped his words and began to open his eyes, staring
ahead as if he’d never even seen his reflection before.

“I need to rebuild. I can rebuild the guild! I can make new friends who will
make this place safe for my late friends’ children. I’m easily stronger than
anything out there, aren’t I?” Momonga asked, briefly putting a hiccup on
his realization. “There may be stronger foes, I suppose. I need knowledge.
I need to know more, and I need, no, if I want to honor my guild, I can’t let
it languish with me alone, I have to make it something like it used to be! I
have to find people worthy of embodying the traits of all those who made it!”
Momonga shouted and began to rise to his feet as his vision began to take
shape.

All forty-one seats, empty for so long save for himself, filled again with men
and women who embodied the traits of every one of his friends as he
remembered them. From Pero the Horny and Buku the cute, to Ulbert the
Merciless and Touch Me the Just. “I don’t have to stand at the top alone, I
can stand with new friends, in a renewed guild, something that has its glory
stamped all over this world and that would make every single person who
ever mattered to me, proud to say that ‘we made this together’. Inheritors
of their will… even if they aren’t as strong, at least not at first. That can
change. As the gods are my witness…” He turned his eye toward the mirror
and shouted loud enough that he wondered if despite the privacy
enchantments, the whole world could hear him…

“Nazarick will rise again!”