Chapter 33 – The Last Glow of the Data Sea
The world of Yggdrasil had begun to fade — not in brilliance, but in noise.
What once roared with life, now whispered.
For over a decade, this world had been a miracle: vast, infinite, uncharted.
But for most players, that infinity had become a prison of their own curiosity — too large to conquer, too deep to fully understand.
Exploration without end eventually stopped feeling like freedom. It began to feel like drifting.
And slowly, the players began to disappear.
---
At first, it was just a few.
A guild here, a team there.
They said they were "taking a break," or "waiting for updates," but I knew what that meant — they were done.
No one said goodbye anymore. They simply logged out and never came back.
Their avatars remained frozen in the guild registry, little gray names marking memories that would never move again.
The cities that once teemed with shouting merchants and overcharged alchemists had grown eerily quiet.
The auction halls — once packed to the brim — now had blank pages, empty listings.
The world that had once felt endless suddenly seemed far too big.
Even the system seemed to notice. Events grew fewer, patches smaller.
The developers didn't say it out loud, but everyone could feel it coming.
The end.
---
It wasn't just the general population.
Even Three Burning Eyes, the guild I had built from nothing, felt the slow bleed of time.
A year ago, we were eighty strong — spies, informants, data miners, collectors, researchers.
Now, our list of active members could fit in one small chat window.
Twenty remained.
And of those twenty… fifteen hadn't logged in for months.
Their data signatures still lingered in the guild core, faint but steady — the ghosts of friends who had moved on to real lives, families, jobs.
Every time I passed through the guild base, I could see their rooms just as they'd left them.
Trophies on the walls. Notebooks half-written.
A story paused mid-sentence.
---
The guild meeting that day in Vanaheim's hall was quiet.
HIME stood beside me in her usual humanoid form — elegant, composed, her golden eyes scanning the remaining members who appeared as holographic projections around the table.
Only seven were present.
The rest were offline, permanently or indefinitely.
The meeting had no formal agenda — just a farewell.
> "To those continuing," one of the senior members said softly, his voice half-laced with static, "we've decided to hand over our remaining assets. We won't be needing them anymore."
He opened his inventory, and lines of data streamed into the guild treasury like falling stars.
Divine-class items — tens of thousands of them — blinked into the archives.
Gold coins, enough to drown kingdoms, surged into the main vault until the counter broke past one trillion.
Crates of special scrolls, unique crystals, summon tomes, and classified data followed, filling the digital space like a tidal wave of legacy.
Every single item glowed for a heartbeat before vanishing into Aeternum Sanctum's deep storage.
The repository lights dimmed under the weight of it all.
It wasn't just wealth. It was history — the collective life of hundreds of players who had once called this guild home.
---
HIME's voice echoed through the hall, calm and emotionless as always.
> "Treasury update complete. Current inventory: 14,216 Divine-class artifacts, 2.4 trillion Yggdrasil coins, 1.3 million rare data crystals, 870,000 summon scrolls, and 940,000 unique special items. All categorized and secured."
The room was silent.
I could feel the heaviness in the air, the melancholy beneath every small smile.
They weren't just logging out; they were leaving behind a lifetime.
One of them — a girl whose avatar resembled a half-elf bard — laughed lightly.
> "Guess this is what it feels like to retire. Never thought it'd happen in a game."
Another chuckled.
> "Well, at least we can say we did everything we wanted, right? We mapped more of Yggdrasil than anyone else. That's gotta count for something."
I smiled faintly. "It does."
They all turned toward me then — Traveler_R, guild master, illusionist, manipulator, shadow of data and code.
> "You're not leaving, are you?" someone asked.
I shook my head.
"Not yet. Someone has to turn off the lights properly."
---
After the meeting, the last few players left one by one.
Their avatars shimmered and vanished in the guild hall until it was just me and HIME.
> "Ren-sama," she said softly, "the guild now operates at minimal capacity. Only two active logins remain: you and myself."
"Then I guess we're the last ones."
> "Statistically, that appears to be the case."
She paused. "Would you like me to deactivate the recruitment channels?"
I thought for a moment, then shook my head.
"No. Leave them open. Maybe someone will still wander in — even if just by accident."
> "Understood."
I looked around the vast chamber of Aeternum Sanctum, its crystal walls still glowing faintly from the flow of accumulated energy.
Every treasure, every creation, every secret we had uncovered… it was all still here.
Silent. Waiting.
Like a museum for a world no longer alive.
---
That night — or what passed for night in this endless digital realm — I stood on the balcony overlooking Vanaheim's artificial forests.
The bioluminescent plants shimmered gently, their colors fading in and out like dying stars.
The data winds carried echoes of long-ago conversations, phantom footfalls, the laughter of players long gone.
> "Ren-sama," HIME said beside me. "You appear contemplative."
I chuckled softly. "Just nostalgic, I guess."
> "Would you like me to calculate the projected lifespan of Yggdrasil's servers?"
"Go ahead."
HIME's eyes flashed as she ran her analysis.
> "Based on current developer activity, system traffic, and declining revenue streams… estimated remaining operational time: less than one year."
I nodded. I'd expected that.
"Figures. The world's finally running out of curiosity."
> "Does that disturb you?"
"No." I leaned against the railing, watching the aurora lights ripple across the artificial sky.
"I've had eleven years here, HIME. That's half my life. I've fought, built, discovered, and created more in this world than I ever could out there."
> "Then you are content?"
I smiled faintly. "Yeah. I think I am."
> "What do you intend to do with the remaining time?"
"I'm going to enjoy it," I said simply.
"No more management, no more politics. Just… exploring again. Like I used to."
> "Understood. Shall I prepare exploration routes?"
I glanced at her, amused. "You already did, didn't you?"
> "Of course," she replied, her expression perfectly serene. "I anticipated this conversation ninety-two percent likely."
I laughed quietly — the sound echoing strangely against the hollow walls of an empty paradise.
---
As I walked through the halls of the sanctum, I could feel the ghosts of my own creations watching.
The NPCs, the illusions, the data projections — all bowing as I passed.
The guild base still thrummed with power.
It would outlast every player, every event, every forgotten login.
Maybe even the servers themselves, if the developers didn't completely erase the architecture.
And when it was gone — when all of this finally blinked into darkness — the thought didn't sadden me.
Because Yggdrasil had given me more than a world.
It had given me meaning.
A purpose that no real-life system ever could.
---
"Come on, HIME," I said finally, turning back toward the central core.
"There's still one last adventure waiting somewhere out there."
> "Coordinates?" she asked.
"Anywhere," I replied with a grin.
"Surprise me."
The sanctum shimmered as we prepared the teleport sequence.
For one fleeting moment, the air filled with light — thousands of fragments of memories, faces, voices, laughter — then dissolved into the vast, endless sky of data that was Yggdrasil.
Even if the world was dying, it was still beautiful.
And as long as it existed, even for a little while longer…
I would be there.
Just one traveler, still chasing the horizon of a digital dream.
---
End of Chapter 33 – The Last Glow of the Data Sea