Chapter 150 - The Strategist II

2

[First, we’ll take the fastest route.]

The Saintess’s “broadcasting” voice rang out.

Incidentally, she wasn’t in Seoul. She was hiding nearby. Immediately after forging our alliance, I had carried her here on my back.

[The most efficient route takes us from Busan to Jeju Island, then from Jeju Island to Japan.]

Hidden from Oh Dokseo’s sight, the Saintess read out the script I fed her.

I kept moving my lips without letting Dokseo notice. The Saintess used [Time Stop] to painstakingly decipher every movement.

Script: Undertaker. Voice: Saintess.

In a sense, this might have been closer to a slightly more traditional broadcast than an internet stream: a program built around scripts written by producers and writers.

I gave Dokseo instructions through the Saintess’s voice, and the Saintess gave them through my script.

[Our first hurdle is finding passage from Busan to Jeju Island. This is a problem.]

[The Immigration Bureau anomaly hasn’t appeared yet, and even if it had, we couldn’t use it because Jeju Island is a domestic destination.]

[With sufficient mastery of aura, we could demonstrate Treading Duckweed, Crossing Water, but we’re still in the very early game. It’s difficult to demand such an advanced technique from our character.]

[Training her to that level would require spending more than ten years on the Korean Peninsula alone.]

[But don’t worry.]

[Safe passage aboard a ship is a luxury in speedrunning. Reverse your thinking. Instead of taking a ship, we can simply “drift” to Jeju Island.]

“What?”

Dokseo started in alarm.

But as the character in this game, she had no such thing as free will.

[Now. Follow this road straight ahead, and you’ll find a library in Yeongdo. It’s half destroyed, but the Yeongdo Library Materials Center is more or less intact.]

[Go to the location I indicate, and you’ll find a book titled <Hamel’s Journal>.]

[Now put that book in your backpack and jump into the sea.]

“What?”

Dokseo looked around.

But she wouldn’t have been able to find me. I was watching her from a fair distance away, hidden in the shadows of the ruins.

The Saintess—I—murmured softly.

[Let’s jump. Into the sea.]

“...”

[There’s a life jacket and a wooden plank over there. Equip those and jump.]

“... Aaaaaaagh!”

SPLASH!

The sea off Busan swallowed the self-proclaimed book transmigrator.

“Aaaaah! C-cold! It’s fucking freezing!”

[Our character is making a lot of noise about something or other. Let’s simply ignore her.]

[Some of you viewers may already know this, but Hamel was originally a Dutchman whose ship was wrecked on its way to Japan.]

[The ocean currents then carried him to Jeju Island. Since our ultimate destination is also “Japan,” we resemble Hamel in several ways.]

“Eeeeek! I-it’s rocking! It’s rocking! Pff! Hrrph, mmph, water! Water’s getting iiiin!”

[There’s a reason I specifically chose the “book transmigrator” Oh Dokseo for this playthrough. Her hair is red.]

[In Joseon, Westerners were once called red-haired devils. It meant their hair and beards were bright red.]

“Pff—mmph! Pff! Hah! H-help me! I’m dying! Misteeer! Eek! I’m dying! I’m really dying!”

[Don’t worry.]

[Considering Oh Dokseo’s personal color palette, it’s no exaggeration to say she was born to be a red-haired devil.]

[With <Hamel’s Journal> in her backpack as well, all the energy of the sea will help deposit her on Jeju Island.]

[Tests across numerous playthroughs have shown that early-game Oh Dokseo has an astonishing 81% chance of drifting safely to Jeju Island.]

“What? W-wait! Then the other 19%—aaagh! W-waves! The waves! Eeeeeek?”

Dokseo screamed.

I leisurely walked across the sea, following her from a distance. I intended to rescue her if anything went wrong, yet she was so terrified. Tsk, tsk.

A little later, the waves washed Dokseo ashore, where she flopped onto the beach.

Landfall on Jeju Island.

“Urgh, uuurgh... Eek...”

[Ah. As expected. We’ve successfully reached Jeju Island in just 31 minutes and 14 seconds.]

[Normally, the sea is far more dangerous than land in this game. There are even deep-sea anomalies for which proper guides have yet to be written.]

[But even a beginner who’s only just cleared the tutorial can cross the sea easily like this by using character traits and items. Easy, isn’t it?]

“Easy, my ass, urgh, bleeeeeurgh!”

[There’s no time to waste. Let’s take the bare minimum of rest and get moving again immediately.]

“Waaah, I don’t want to anymore...”

While Dokseo suffered from landsickness, I hurried to Seongsan Ilchulbong and picked up The Monkey’s Paw.

The anomaly that had made Kuro ill and once brought even me, the Undertaker, perilously close to disaster.

Specifically, it had threatened my hair follicles.

It had been dizzying to discover that even Sim Aryeon’s healing ability couldn’t cure my hair loss.

Troublesome as the anomaly was in so many ways, The Total Fortune System was a key item in our strategy for slaying the God of Alienation.

I had to collect it here.

[Everyone, did you know this?]

[After arriving on Jeju Island and being detained by Joseon, Hamel finally escaped after thirteen years.]

[The place he fled to was none other than Japan. The very same destination as ours.]

[Normally, that means we’d have to wait a whole thirteen years for <Hamel’s Journal> to finish its cooldown...]

[But as you all know, the Logout Game is a buggy piece of garbage. Naturally, there’s an exploit here too.]

TAP.

I tossed Dokseo a piece of charcoal without revealing myself. Still suffering from motion sickness, she was too dazed to notice.

“Huh...? Pencil lead? What am I supposed to do with this?”

[In the past, prisoners marked strokes on the wall to keep track of how long they’d been imprisoned.]

[Right now, Oh Dokseo occupies the position of “someone detained in Joseon.” So let’s enter any room surrounded by walls on all sides.]

Dokseo entered a ruined house. I had scouted this place beforehand as well.

She went down into its windowless basement, locked the basement door, and began writing characters on the wall with the charcoal.

正正正正正正正正正正

正正正正正正正正正正

正正正正正正正正正正

正正正正正正正正正正

正正正正正正正正正正

The Saintess’s voice flowed on.

[Hamel was detained for approximately thirteen years. We don’t need to account for leap years here.]

[365 days times thirteen is 4,745. Divide that by five, and we get 949.]

[If we write the five-stroke character meaning “upright” just 949 times in this enclosed “prison”—]

Before long, the charcoal snapped. Dokseo had finished drawing all the strokes on the wall. The fingers she’d used to grip the charcoal were stained pitch-black.

“I-it’s done...”

[Very good. Now <Hamel’s Journal> considers Oh Dokseo to have spent thirteen years in detention.]

“Wow... What the heck? How did you figure out a strategy like this?”

[This strategy only works for journeys to Jeju Island and Japan. With sufficient mastery of aura, there would be no need to use it.]

[But right now, this is the fastest method.]

When she left the house and walked down to the beach, a rowboat that hadn’t been there before lay resting its weary body on the shore.

“Huh. I don’t know how to row. Is that okay?”

[It’s fine. No matter what happens, this little boat is guaranteed to reach Japan safely.]

“Shit, I’ve got a bad feeling about this...”

Dokseo took the rowboat and landed safely in Japan.

Of course, “safely” here meant that she had, at any rate, arrived with all four limbs still attached and intact.

“Bleeeeeurgh...”

[Arrival in Japan in fifty-nine minutes.]

“I’m never... Seriously, never getting on a boat again...”

[Now we’ll farm hate potions.]

The Saintess casually ignored Dokseo’s lament.

Incidentally, unbeknownst to Dokseo, the Saintess had enjoyed a comfortable trip across the strait on my back.

Her [Clairvoyance] had a range limit of a 1,000-kilometer radius. To provide Dokseo with a reliable voice-navigation service, she had to travel a certain distance too.

[Hate potions can be obtained throughout the Japanese archipelago.]

[The closest location is Sasebo City in Nagasaki Prefecture.]

[There’s a naval port along this city’s coast. Of course, it belongs to anomalies, not humans. This entire area is a void.]

[But follow my directions, and you can reach headquarters safely. Trust me.]

Every so often, anomalies appeared, spotting Dokseo and attempting to annihilate her, but I quietly disposed of those grunts.

She reached the command room safely.

Then, the moment she flung open the door—

“Eek!”

She recoiled in horror at the sight inside.

“Wh-what is this...?”

I, and thus the Saintess, spoke calmly.

[The final fate of protagonists who killed themselves in works of misery fiction.]

Inside the command room, dozens—hundreds—of dolls hung by their necks from the ceiling.

One wore an admiral’s white uniform, another a medieval knight’s armor, and another the suit of someone working in the entertainment industry.

These were anomalies of beings called “Commander,” “Knight,” “Producer,” “Commander,” “President,” “Teacher,” “Trainer,” and so on in various games.

I had learned about this place through the Magical Girl Council back in the 590th run.

The mannequin-like anomalies dangled and swayed right in front of Dokseo’s nose.

“Eeeeek!”

[All of them died after taking hate potions, unable to bear the hatred of those around them.]

“I-I’m scared... This place is so scary...!”

[Ah, of course, they aren’t real humans. They’re merely anomalous phenomena derived from fiction and parodies.]

[Since they’re already considered dead, they can’t have much effect on living humans. Now, approach the nearest doll and open its mouth.]

“M-mouth? You want me to open that thing’s mouth?”

[Hurry.]

“Uuuugh...”

On the verge of tears, Dokseo pried the doll’s mouth open. Still hidden in the shadows, I opened another doll’s mouth as well.

Inside the mannequin’s mouth, a bright red pill lay on its tongue.

A hate potion.

I farmed two of them, keeping one for myself and handing the other to the Saintess.

[Now take the potion.]

GULP.

Dokseo, the Saintess, and I swallowed our hate potions at precisely the same moment.

Without delay, I took The Monkey’s Paw from inside my clothes. This was the very moment for which I had brought the anomaly from Jeju Island.

I whispered softly to the furry hand.

“Monkey’s Paw, Monkey’s Paw. Grant my wishes.”

—...

The Monkey’s Paw trembled.

These were the wishes I recited.

――――――――――

1. Bring all manner of “misfortune” upon Oh Dokseo, myself, and the Saintess (hereafter referred to as “us”). Specifically, make everyone who meets us dislike us.

2. Restrict the misfortune inflicted upon us to us alone as much as possible. In other words, do not let other people around us get caught up in it.

3. Let the reaction to our “misfortune”—that is, “good fortune”—take effect only at the moment we desire.

――――――――――

With a sudden twitch, The Monkey’s Paw contorted.

OOH, KEEK, KIK.

The Monkey’s Paw reacted strangely. Its fur bristled, as though it had never expected a mere human to make wishes like these.

Yes.

This was the “proper way to use The Total Fortune System” that I had arrived at after all my experiments.

Paradoxical as it might sound, you shouldn’t wish to The Monkey’s Paw for good fortune such as winning the lottery.

Quite the opposite.

[“Please make every lottery ticket I buy from now on a losing ticket.”]

Misfortune.

Collect and bank misfortunes one by one—misfortunes of a magnitude you can bear, misfortunes you could even call perfectly ordinary.

Then what happens?

The more unfortunate you become, the harder The Total Fortune System must work to bring you an equal weight of good fortune.

Then someday, at the moment you truly need it, you convert all that carefully accumulated misfortune into good fortune.

If The Monkey’s Paw does everything in its power to inflict side effects on the person who makes a wish—

Exploit those side effects from the outset, leaving it no choice but to bring you good fortune in the end.

OOK, KEEKIK, KIK, HIK, KEEK.

It twitched and twitched and twitched!

The Monkey’s Paw convulsed as though resisting my wishes, but it was no use.

An anomaly couldn’t reject its own essence. That meant it had to submit even to some mad human who wished for “misfortune” rather than “good fortune.”

For an anomaly that lost its essence, nothing remained but the extinction of its existence.

KEEKEEHIIIK...

At last, The Monkey’s Paw slipped away into thin air.

My wishes had been granted.

At the same time—

[... Ah.]

I heard the Saintess briefly draw a startled breath. This was a private, one-on-one conversation that only I could hear, not Dokseo.

[I see... So this is how it affects a person’s emotions.]

“How is it, Saintess? Have you started finding me repulsive?”

[... Yes. If you hadn’t explained it beforehand, I might have had some difficulty.]

The Saintess steadied her breathing.

It was still early in the run. Her affection for me wasn’t particularly high.

Naturally, reversing that affection with a hate potion didn’t cause too great a swing. With her innate mental fortitude, she could endure it.

But what about everyone else?

From now on, everyone who met us would feel an inexplicable dislike toward us.

That dislike would keep growing. Knowingly or otherwise, they would try to obstruct us, slander us, and endlessly belittle our accomplishments.

These would not be happy days.

As time passed, “misfortune” would inevitably accumulate for Dokseo and me.

[... Now. Taking those hate potions has just raised this game’s difficulty in one fell swoop.]

[But in exchange for increasing the difficulty ourselves, we’ll receive absolute good fortune for one single moment. We can even decide when that moment will be.]

Yes.

From now on, Dokseo, I, and the Saintess—the game’s character, player, and broadcaster—would act in perfect unison, as three personas and, at the same time, a single personality.

We would endure misfortune together.

Store up its weight.

Then, when the most decisive moment arrived, the very moment that loathsome [Operator of All Things at Play] revealed itself—

[That is when we’ll convert all our misfortune into good fortune.]

“...”

Dokseo swallowed.

In the darkness beyond her sight, the Saintess and I quietly exchanged a glance as well.

[This is the strategy for killing a god.]