Chapter 113
──────
The Non-Player Ⅰ
Shin Noah
1
I'll tell you upfront—don't expect a clean ending from today's episode.
This time, it's a bona fide bad ending.
Let's talk about this shit game called reality.
2
Mugan.
Since the subjugation of that Ostracized God, many things in the world had changed.
I only realized later, but the Ostracized Gods each possessed their own domain.
Call it a Divine Domain.
If that term feels unfamiliar, you could call it a temple. For Mugan, the 'Tutorial Dungeon' was its representative divine domain and temple. Baekhwa Girls' High School would be their headquarters.
When the influence of one religion declines, other religions naturally infiltrate that space.
The grotesqueries, following their instincts, declared Earth a game board for religious warfare to propagate their doctrines.
Whether humans died or not during this holy crusade was honestly not the grotesqueries' concern. It was an old tradition on Earth that those of different faiths weren't even treated as civilians.
What mattered was the fact that the moment Mugan was subjugated, the balance between forces that had been exquisitely arranged like a house of cards was instantly shattered.
With Mugan's subjugation as the turning point, grotesqueries that had previously been suppressed began to run rampant.
"Huh? This place is...?"
"I'm not Kim Jun-young from Anyang! I'm Namgung Mun-cheong, the first disciple of the Namgung Family!"
"Please send me back to that world again... huh? Why am I crying?"
A representative example was 'Hero Syndrome.'
As I mentioned before, the first time I witnessed Hero Syndrome was in the 118th iteration. And Mugan's subjugation occurred in the 117th iteration.
I'm not trying to test your memory. I can only recount this in detail thanks to my [Perfect Memory Ability] anyway.
What I want to tell you is— isn't the timing rather uncanny?
Doesn't it seem like they were just waiting for Mugan to be subjugated?
Let me reiterate. During this period in the Korean Peninsula, Hero Syndrome wasn't the only grotesquery with increased gacha pickup rates.
- BAAAAANG!
- BANG! BAAANG! BAAAAANG!
- BAAAAANG! BAAANG!
The 'Reincarnation Truck,' the enemy of all authors and readers, first revealed itself in the 119th iteration.
Expanding our view further, there were numerous other grotesqueries. In the 126th iteration, 'Salvation Narrative Syndrome.' In the 141st iteration, the fictional structure 'Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel' appeared.
Hero Syndrome, Reincarnation Truck, Salvation Narrative Syndrome, imaginary buildings... Don't you sense some common thread?
Indeed. All of this was a hint and omen of some massive flow.
Every oven dish needs preheating.
Today, before submitting the answer to that question, I'd like to talk about the most absurd yet simultaneously most impressive omen.
A virtual reality MMORPG.
The so-called 'online game' is the protagonist of this episode.
3
There was a recurring topic, like one of those persistent posts on SG Net, that periodically surfaced.
- Anonymous: Status window! Status window! Status window!
- Anonymous: I shouted "Status Open" as soon as I woke up today. Did it appear? (Day 31)
- Anonymous: Guys, is it just me or can you see the status window??
- Anonymous: I shouted status window and it actually appeared lol
- Literature Girl: Honestly, if you've secretly shouted status window after the world went to shit, upvote lol
The status window bait.
Naturally, as a mature ordinary person, I had never once mumbled "status window" to myself.
You think I tried it in the 1st or 2nd iteration? My memories started from the 5th iteration anyway, so anything before that was ancient history.
There's no point in demanding accountability from a modern nation for crimes committed in ancient times. Does Turkey treat Greece as a war criminal nation for starting the Trojan War?
Anyway, in this world, there was no such thing as a status screen with kindly listed ability values and skill descriptions.
Awakeners had to discover the nature of their abilities through painstaking trial and error.
For example, without SG Net, Sim A-ryeon had no idea that her healing ability was called [Spirit Bomb]. In other words, she didn't realize the secret that the more aggro she drew, the stronger her power became.
This was also why Awakeners with 'simple abilities' had an advantage in the early iterations.
An ability like Lee Baek's [Lion's Roar]—just making his voice louder—was easy to recognize precisely because of its simplicity.
A world infinitely unkind to Awakeners.
And this unkindness was precisely the secret behind how I, Undertaker, earned overwhelming popularity and trust among Awakeners.
"Seo Gyu. Your ability is [Ubiquitous]. As long as you have a smartphone, you can create an internet community that anyone can unconditionally access. The more users connect, the more your ability develops, and the more systems you can add to the bulletin board."
"Huh?"
"A-ryeon. Your ability is [Spirit Bomb]. Once Seo Gyu creates SG Net here, you'll become a founding member and the most famous villain, absorbing all of humanity's aggro and growing."
"Heh?"
Monopoly of information.
The nature of abilities that Awakeners themselves didn't know, their strengths and weaknesses, and even 'cultivation methods' for how to develop their abilities further.
I held all this information in my palm, able to release as much as I wanted, to whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
No, I didn't even need to step forward myself.
['The Saintess of National Salvation' bestows an ability upon you.]
With a slight 'distortion,' I could make it appear as if abilities were awakened and developed by the Constellations.
['The Saintess of National Salvation' gifts you the 'Lesser Healing' ability.]
['The Conqueror of the Alps' gifts you the 'Hammer Proficiency' ability.]
['The Chancellor of the Red Cloak' gifts you the 'Pain Control ability to the degree that stubbing your pinky toe doesn't hurt.']
The Constellation chat's performance was reliable.
From the Awakeners' perspective, abilities they didn't even know they had were suddenly granted like fortuitous encounters by the Constellations.
['The Chancellor of the Red Cloak' hints that intentionally stubbing your toe on table legs and door thresholds 999 times will improve your 'Pain Control' ability.]
Sometimes I did it directly. Sometimes the Saintess posed as a Constellation.
The regressor wove schemes both forward and backward.
Those who awakened (or learned about) their abilities through me followed me as an individual. Those who received them through Constellations worshipped the Constellations. Either way, they were in the palm of my hand.
We gained absolute support by revealing information a bit earlier that Awakeners might have discovered on their own 2, 6, or 10 years later.
This was one reason why Korea's warlord-level guilds were quieter than those in other regions. Teachers and students are one. Those guys were essentially disciples who owed me. Just look at Dang Seo-rin—she quickly learned 'Equivalent Exchange' magic thanks to me.
Therefore.
- Anonymous: I shouted "Status Open" as soon as I woke up today. Did it appear? (Day 191)
- Anonymous: It appeared so I'm posting lol (Day 191)
A post that suddenly appeared in the 133rd iteration threatened not only my position but also the security of the Korean Peninsula.
At first, I dismissed it as shitposting and passed over it.
But about 30 minutes later, it became clear my thinking had been too optimistic.
[Mr. Undertaker. It's an emergency.]
"Huh? What happened?"
['Status windows' are appearing one after another before the eyes of Korean Awakeners.]
"What?"
I immediately connected to SG Net.
- Anonymous: Wait, what is this? A status screen really appeared as a hologram in front of my eyes!
- Literature Girl: Rate my status window.
- Anonymous: These bastards are now doing group fishing of all things. Is SG Net dead? Block this no-fun bait.
- Anonymous: Did anyone get S-rank combat stats??
- Anonymous: Guys, guys, my status window says I have A-rank charisma. Is this good?
Chaos was erupting in the community.
"What the..."
"Guild Maaaster!"
Bang! Someone kicked open my door and came tumbling in.
The preceding statement was noteworthy in two regards.
First, the fact that they opened my private room's door without any warning meant they had no concept of manners.
Second, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't 'walk' or 'run' but 'tumbled' in, the subject perhaps lacked even the capacity for bipedal locomotion.
A creature unqualified to be recognized as a homo sapiens either mentally or physically. The identification name of this unidentified cryptid was Sim A-ryeon.
"Guild Maaaster! I-I-I, it appeared! It appeared!"
"..."
"M-m-my SSS appeared..."
As you can tell from the dialogue, I didn't particularly ask Sim A-ryeon "What?" or "What do you mean appeared?"
I also didn't ask what "S-s-s-SS" meant.
But cryptids don't follow human conversation patterns. The being before me spread out a sketchbook and scrawled something with a marker—swish swish!
"L-l-look!"
I didn't want to look.
However, the regressor's trained senses gave me numerous advantages and one disadvantage.
That one disadvantage was that even just glancing at the sketchbook Sim A-ryeon spread open, all the text and contents were instantly comprehensible to me.
――――――――――
[Status]
Name: Sim A-ryeon (沈娥漣)
Title: 'Bird That Drinks Poison'
Occupation: Healer, Apothecary, Painter, Saintess (Potential), Novelist (Potential)
[Vitality: E-rank] [Strength: E-rank] [Intuition: S-rank] [Agility: E-rank] [Intelligence: B-rank] [Charisma: F-rank]
Personality Traits: [Unwavering Devotion] [Social Phobia] [Carelessness] [Arrogance]
Exclusive Skill: [Bird That Drinks Poison (SSS)]
*Bird That Drinks Poison (SSS): The ability to convert the poison flowing through this world into medicine.
The more resentment and curses you receive from others, the more powerful your healing ability becomes. The greater the resentment from more people, the deeper the curse penetrates, the stronger the healing.
Evil into good. Grudges into opportunity. You were born with the destiny to become this land's savior, a saintess.
May fortune be with you.
――――――――――
"Y-you saw it, right? You saw it? Guild Master... hehe. Hehehe, I-I'm an SSS-rank ability user..."
"..."
"Bird That Drinks Poison... hehe, it says Bird That Drinks Poison... And also, s-savior and saintess..."
Only then did I realize that "S-s-s-SS" was the pronunciation of "SSS-rank."
I had to acknowledge my ignorance regarding why Sim A-ryeon pronounced "SSS-rank" that way.
My ignorance didn't end there.
I developed an interest in web novels, and genre fiction in general, starting from the 555th iteration. Therefore, I couldn't feel anger or condemnation toward this cryptid before me who called herself Bird That Drinks Poison—this insult to the world, this disgrace to the universe.
I simply remained silent. As Wittgenstein said, we must remain silent about what we do not know.
"G-Guild Master, you should try shouting it too."
"What?"
"The status window. If you shout 'S-status Open,' it appears... If you just think about it without speaking, it still appears, but the f-first time you must say it out loud. Ah! When you say it, you have to put your heart into it, your will, really wanting to see your stats, press it down hard and shout..."
Then what about mutes? This status window thing, since only a grotesquery would pull this kind of stunt, its identity was already confirmed as a grotesquery—but anyway, does this mean it's a grotesquery bastard that discriminates against people with speech impediments? (Coincidentally, if you say it fast, it sounds like 'son of a bitch' in Korean.)
"C-come on! Guild Master! Hurry!"
"...A-ryeon. Handing over your domain so readily to such a grotesquery is never advisable."
"Huh?"
"You've been in our guild long enough to know about grotesqueries. Just as traffic lights have an agreement that 'red means don't cross,' calling one's name to this status window grotesquery is likely the 'condition that activates the agreement.' If you call it carelessly, you can't take it back."
"...Ah."
Sim A-ryeon made an expression of understanding.
"G-Guild Master... You don't want to say it because you're afraid your stats will be worse than mine..."
"..."
"I-I'm sorry. As you know, Guild Master, I can be inconsiderate sometimes... Hehe. I won't brag about my stats in front of you anymore."
Sim A-ryeon said "Ah, I should go brag to Seo Gyu" and left my room.
More precisely, after leaving the room, she poked her head back through the doorway.
"Oh, um...! Even if Guild Master doesn't have SSS-rank ability... or has S-rank stats! Or E-rank stats! I will never, ever look down on you...!"
"..."
"Actually, you shouldn't look down on people just because of abilities like this, right? Hehe. So... G-Guild Master! Fighting...!"
Slam.
The cryptid closed the door and left.
The room fell silent.
Silence flowed.
"Saintess."
[Yes.]
"Gather all information on this grotesquery bastard. As quickly as possible."
[...Yes.]
I sensed reluctance in the Saintess's tone, but I had no doubt in my mind. To describe it from a future perspective, this was a historical event connected to the grammatical reform of genre fiction.
I hereby declared war on the 'Status Window.'