Chapter 114 - The Non-Player II

4

Since the subject has come up, the author of the novel The Bird That Drinks Poison (who actually wrote it in run 766) once said:

-A novel’s worldbuilding is like a tree’s roots. It must be extensive and sturdy, but expose it to the light and the tree will wither and die.

This applies not just to worldbuilding, but to every situation.

The protagonist is not omniscient or omnipotent. Wherever and whenever they are, blank spaces like a “white mist” must shimmer at the edges of their vision.

That white wasteland left by the protagonist’s ignorance is, in fact, fertile ground that continually feeds the prose and descriptions with abundant nutrients.

Naturally, information about the characters... the people must always remain shrouded in mist to some extent. How could you possibly learn someone’s intelligence or skills at a single glance?

Therefore, status windows are harmful.

Metaphorically speaking, a status window is nothing short of an atrocity that indiscriminately erases the minerals in the soil and the nitrogen in the air.

What I’m saying is that I have perfectly logical, legitimate grounds for this. It is absolutely not because Sim Aryeon pissed me off.

There is no need whatsoever to listen to objections like: Didn’t you only take an interest in subculture in general starting in run 555? This was run 133, so didn’t you actually know nothing about status windows? Isn’t all the shit you’re spouting now just historical revisionism imposed after the fact?

This is no contradiction. Rather, it proves that the run-133 me possessed prophetic intuition. Even back when I knew nothing about subculture, I instinctively sensed that status windows were “harmful” the moment I encountered them.

“Relying on something like a status window makes people weak.”

I immediately took action.

Not only did I wage a public-opinion campaign on SG Net, but whenever I met an awakened in private, I made a point of explaining just how bad status windows were.

“Huh? Boss?”

“In my day, we gradually gauged our capabilities by fighting anomalies to determine the extent of our strength. That very process of discovery, the experience of testing our enemies and ourselves while crossing the boundary between life and death, is a treasure beyond compare. Yet today’s youngsters brazenly declare that because their strength is B, a mere slime will be easily defeated.”

“Uh...”

“What an ignorant declaration! Slimes cannot be defeated by strength alone, and the danger varies enormously depending on whether you face one in a swamp or in a cramped labyrinth, where it might fall upon you from a ceiling you never thought to watch. The void. It is the void precisely because it is a space that cannot be reduced to numbers in the first place.”

“...”

“How can you judge your own skill, your opponent’s capabilities, or even the depth of the void by trusting nothing but the paltry letters displayed in a status window? The status window is itself an anomaly, an ‘idiot box’ that befouls the minds of the awakened and lowers humanity’s standards! Why do you fail to recognize the anomaly’s vicious scheme to destroy, one by one, those awakened who grow accustomed to its convenience and neglect their training?”

“Um...”

Seo Gyu raised his hand.

“May I ask you one thing, Boss?”

“What?”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“It’s a draft of an opinion piece to awaken the minds of the awakened. I’m thinking of posting it on SG Net like this. What do you think, Seo Gyu? Doesn’t it make your chest swell with pride and give you a renewed sense of your duty as an awakened?”

“Ah, um...”

“Surely you haven’t shouted ‘status window’ too, Seo Gyu? After all the one-on-one instruction I’ve given you since I first took you under my wing in the Busan Station waiting room, I trust you haven’t surrendered your judgment to such a filthy anomaly.”

Seo Gyu’s expression turned peculiar.

Based on physiognomy, the arrangement of his facial muscles could be interpreted as something like, “What’s gotten into the Boss this time?”

Beside him, Sim Aryeon (who was still there) whispered in his ear.

“I-I guess his status window came up, but he didn’t have any triple-S-rank abilities. His gacha pulls were a total bust...”

“Oh, so that’s why he’s acting like this.”

“Y-Yes... Ahh? D-Did I just sense an enormous surge of aggro from somewhere? Gasp! I haven’t done anything, but aggro is piling up in my heart! I-I can feel my ability getting stronger in real time! D-Delicious! It’s so delicious! A delicacy unlike anything I’ve tasted in my life...! J-Just who could resent me this much...?”

“No coffee for either of you for the next six months.”

Seo Gyu and Sim Aryeon shrieked, but I blithely ignored them. These two needed a much keener appreciation of the value of inconvenience.

-ZERO_SUGAR: [Long Post] An Opinion Piece on the Specter Currently Haunting the Korean Peninsula: The “Status Window” ~Awakened of All Nations, Awaken! ~

I sounded the alarm with all the anguish of a man coughing up blood. But the awakened, already thoroughly steeped in the anomaly’s false convenience, offered no support whatsoever.

Instead, they laughed at me.

-Anonymous: ? What’s this?

-Anonymous: Is this a joke?

-Anonymous: No, this is fucking legendary lmao

-[Hundred Flowers]HighSchoolTenthYear: >_<);;;;;

-Anonymous: I saw this in elementary school! Isn’t this the story about that Confucian old fart who smashed up a dugout when the slaves said it was comfortable, because how dare lowborn scum try to escape the winter wind?

└[National Roads]Historian: It is an anecdote about Yi Gyubo, a literary figure of the Goryeo period. The original reads, “Summer heat and winter cold are the constant order of the four seasons. Anything that goes against this is an anomaly.” In other words, “It being hot in summer and cold in winter is a constant of the four seasons. Anything contrary to that is anomalous.” Coincidentally, the original also uses the word “anomaly.”

└Anonymous: Who are you, and why are you smart?

└BookishGirl: Oh.

-dolLHoUse: Big brother...

-Goryeojang: hahahaha

-Goryeojang: ha

-Goryeojang: hahahahahahahahahahahaha

-Goryeojang: This fucker got F-rank strength, intelligence, and skills on his status window. I saw it lmao

└Anonymous: Aha!

└Anonymous: And we had no idea :(((

“...”

Nowhere on SG Net did public opinion favor me.

Was this the suffering of a clear-sighted visionary in a city of the blind?

... No, strictly speaking, there was exactly one voice of support.

-[Yuldoguk]SwordEmpress: Ah, this youngster speaks truly! To see something visible only to one’s own eyes is a hallucination, and since ancient times, being gripped by hallucinations has been diagnosed as a sign of madness. If our fellow martial artists are all gripped by hallucinations at once, surely this is nothing other than collective madness. Alas, what a calamity! Unavoidable madness may be called a tragedy, but what can one say of those who go mad of their own free will?

└Anonymous: Welcome, old-fart duo

└Anonymous: Three Kingdoms old fart vs. martial-arts old fart... My chest swells with pride...

That support was worse than none at all.

There were nasty bastards on SG Net who occasionally lumped SwordEmpress and me together, and wouldn’t you know it, SwordEmpress’s covering fire only added fuel to that prejudice.

“... Very well.”

I conceded without a fuss.

“Anomaly, you’ve won.”

I wasn’t talking to myself. The “status window” was clearly an anomaly of the mental-disturbance variety, so it was everywhere and nowhere.

“But don’t think your victory is assured here. Next time, and the time after that, I will return, and in the end, I will bring you down.”

[“...”]

“Saintess. Even if you don’t say anything, I can hear you breathing when you’re watching me.”

[“Oh. Yes. I’ll be careful.”]

And so we moved on to a slightly higher stage—

To put it bluntly, we moved on to run 134.

“Eeeek? W-Why is this much aggro generating all on its own when I haven’t done anything...? I-It is delicious, but I’m scared! G-Guild Leader! Someone I don’t know is hating me for reasons I don’t understand! In real time! Every single day! P-Please help meee!”

“...”

For some reason, Sim Aryeon awakened a more powerful version of her skill in run 134 than ever before.

Of course, such a minor incident was hardly important.

I gave the Saintess emphatic instructions.

“Saintess. Three days from now, sightings of an anomaly called the status window will begin all across the country.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“I explained what sort of anomaly it was last time. You remember, don’t you?”

“Yes. Very well. You passionately lectured Noh Doha and me about it for three hours.”

“Good. Now, I want you to wait for the right moment and hijack the status window.”

The Saintess blinked.

“... Pardon?”

“I mean, make it look as though displaying a status window is a constellation’s power. Then whenever the awakened call out ‘status window,’ all their gratitude—or their emotions, at any rate—will be directed toward the constellations. People will sing of the constellations’ greatness and never realize it was actually an anomaly.”

“... I’m sorry. If I’ve understood your proposal correctly, Undertaker, then... um... are you telling me to steal credit for the anomaly’s achievements and make them ours?”

“That’s a slightly harsh way of putting it, but yes. Exactly.”

“Oh...”

The Saintess groaned.

She must have been overwhelmed with admiration for the strategy of me, the Undertaker: the greatest anomaly hunter in history, who blasphemed against even the gods.

Noh Doha, who had been quietly listening beside us, set down a coffee cup.

“Impressive. Now you’ve gone beyond stealing credit from people and started robbing anomalies of their accomplishments. And didn’t you spew a bunch of old-fart talk last time about getting addicted to the convenience of status windows and becoming lazy, blah blah blah? Why are you telling her to hijack it now? Is this what passes for a regressor’s class...?”

“Hmm.”

“That wasn’t a compliment, you dumbass...”

My operation was flawless.

Naturally, thanks to [Perfect Recall], I remembered the exact moment the first status-window proof post appeared on SG Net, down to the second.

Since this operation could not tolerate even the slightest failure, I went all the way up to Yongsan and directed it from the Saintess’s home. We sat side by side in gaming chairs, staring at the monitor.

“Stand by.”

“...”

“Stand by, stand by. Three, two, one—now! Saintess! Now!”

The Saintess brought her hands together.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ grants you a new power.]

[From now on, you can check your abilities by murmuring ‘status window,’ ‘Open Status,’ or similar phrases.]

At that moment:

-Anonymous: Shouted Open Status as soon as I woke up again today. Did my status window show up? (Day 191)

-Anonymous: Of course it did, why else would I post lmao (Day 191)

With impeccable timing, the proof post appeared on SG Net as well.

The Constellation Talk message went out simultaneously not just to the first witness, but to awakened all over the Korean Peninsula. Posts like “What?” and “Whoa, guys, I just got a constellation message” appeared on SG Net, followed by a flood of confirmations like “My status window actually showed up?” and “Why is this real?”

I clenched my fist.

“Success! Saintess! We did it! You did an excellent job!”

“... Yes.”

That split-second timing. To spring the perfect ambush and fuck over the anomaly, the Saintess had briefly pressed the pause button on time and sent a message to every awakened on the Korean Peninsula.

How could this not be exhilarating? Even Xun Yu, opening the lunchbox he’d ordered to find the deliveryman had eaten everything inside, would have been less surprised.

-Anonymous: Saintess of National Salvation << Upvote if she’s the GOAT of all constellations lmao

-Anonymous: fr this bitch is just the answer lol

└Anonymous: Bitch?

└Anonymous: Address her with respect. How dare you

-BookishGirl: You tell us what our skills are, tell us how to develop them, and now you even give us status windows. Just how much more will you give us so generously, O GOAT...?

Naturally, all the faith that would otherwise have gone toward the anomaly flowed toward the constellation—in other words, the Saintess.

The anomaly does the tricks, and the human makes the money. This is the supreme Way available only to a regressor.

“How’s that? Check, and checkmate.”

“...”

The status-window anomaly had been neutralized.

What I had not yet realized was that the “status window” was merely a repercussion of the vacuum created by the subjugation of Gapless, the God of Alienation.

Just as earthquakes produce repeated aftershocks, repercussions of the void occur multiple times.

THUD!

Not even a few days after I’d gleefully celebrated overpowering the status window, Sim Aryeon kicked my door open and tumbled inside.

“G-Guild Leaderrrr!”

“... Aryeon. As I keep telling you, you shouldn’t obsess over trivial things like S ranks or whatever...”

“It’s triple-S rank. Please never get that wrong again.”

“Oh.”

“Ah! A-Anyway! That’s not what matters right now—no, that matters too, but! S-Something terrible has happened! H-Hurry and come outside!”

Sim Aryeon tugged at my sleeve.

For a moment, the proposition ‘I guess I’m not budging because she’s pulling with measly E-rank strength’ surged up my throat and even reached the corners of my mouth, but I narrowly held it back.

I hadn’t sunk quite that low yet.

Anyway, when I went out to the vacant lot outside the guild (I had yet to conceive of using the undersea tunnel as a hideout at this point), I found a slime wobbling around half-dead.

“Aaaah! It’s already getting away! Hah! Hah! Stooop! How dare a mere slime...!”

Apparently Aryeon was the one who had beaten it up, because the slime wriggled around, clearly wary of us.

She picked up a club.

“L-Look at this, Guild Leader! You have to pop your eyes wide open...!”

What did it mean to pop your eyes wide open?

As I reflected that the language of this cryptid grew more incomprehensible by the day, Sim Aryeon swung her club.

And my eyes popped wide open.

“... Huh?”

“L-Look. Hehe. You saw that, right...?”

I wasn’t surprised because Aryeon’s club strike contained some incredibly profound principle, or because the slime underwent a chemical reaction I’d never seen before.

More precisely, the reaction occurred in the “empty air” above the slime’s body, in the space that should have been left blank for its own aesthetic value.

[DAMAGE!]

[91!]

There they floated.

The English word “DAMAGE” above the slime’s body. And the numerical “value” of that damage.

Red letters hovered in an exaggerated bold font... then disappeared a moment later.

Something even more astonishing happened immediately afterward.

DING-A-LING♪

A ridiculous sound effect rang out. Then Sim Aryeon said, “Oh,” and wiggled her fingers as though operating a status window in midair.

“I-I got experience points and leveled up...”

“Experience points? Levels?”

“Oh, yes. I beat up slimes every day to relieve stress, and suddenly d-damage and things started appearing. Experience points and levels were added to the status window too...”

“...”

“I-It says I’m level 13! Oh. I just went up, so 14... What level does yours say, Guild Leader? Huh? Ehehe. Wouldn’t it be funny if you were the only one at level 99?”

Sim Aryeon’s eyes sparkled brightly, but I could only remain silent.

It felt as though I could hear the anomaly’s illusory voice from somewhere far away.

-Checkmate? No. Countercheck.

-Where are you looking? That’s only my afterimage.

The status window was merely the tip of the iceberg.

Experience points. A leveling system.

The anomaly that freely controlled all these elements was none other than an RPG... a “role-playing game.”