Chapter 197 - The Investor VI

12

Now, you might be expecting a twist along the lines of [But then a terrifying virtual-reality simulation-hypothesis anomaly suddenly appeared, and the world was destroyed...!]. Quite a few things like that actually did happen, but they aren't the subject of today's story.

As I said, in this episode I'd like to focus as much as possible on ordinary people—the side of things I've comparatively neglected until now.

If an anomaly suddenly showed up and hogged the spotlight, wouldn't we end up filming yet another episode of me, the Undertaker, mowing down enemies?

Those are tales of valor I'm stuck telling all the time, 365 days a year, whether I like it or not. Let's save them for later.

"You are heroes who have taken the world a step forward."

I wasn't an NBA star with a congenital tendency to throw a fit unless he was treated as the main character of every game. On the contrary, I was the kind of player who delivered a decisive pass when it was called for.

And from the DMs' perspective, my "pass" apparently proved rather enormous.

"Uh, uhhh..."

The Tower of Babel square in front of National Road Management Corps headquarters.

The DMs had been invited onto a platform erected there. Below them in the square, every team-leader-level Corps member stood at attention.

"On behalf of the citizens of Busan who were too busy earning their livelihoods to attend, and everyone else, please allow us to express our gratitude to you."

I bowed my head, and at the same moment, the team-leader-level Corps members smoothly bent at the waist.

Naturally, Yu Jiwon was among them. In other words, powerful people who could hold their own anywhere were respectfully bowing to the DMs.

I straightened up almost immediately, but the other awakened had no such luxury. Throughout my conversation with the DMs, they had to keep demonstrating the flexibility of their hip joints.

"No... Undertaker, sir, this is... You really don't have to go this far..."

"<The Kingdom Project> has achieved unprecedented success. Guilds participating in this year's rookie draft have been reporting extremely high satisfaction, one after another. Your project has raised the level of the Korean Peninsula's awakened by an entire tier."

"U-um..."

The DMs looked as though the pressure was killing them, but personally, I didn't trust their facial muscles.

I trusted the lives they'd led.

Money for those without money. Friendship for those without friends. Power for those without power. Honor for those without honor.

That was the most basic principle of a "reward." Why else would soldiers be pleased to receive leave as a reward?

The DMs were no different. The people standing before me had made decent money both before and now.

But power and honor?

Had they ever experienced influential members of society lining up and treating them with scrupulous deference, like gangsters greeting their boss?

Never. And they never would again, either.

For the DMs, this kind of "treatment" was a rarity only I could offer. Naturally, the man called the Undertaker would come to occupy a place of unique value in their hearts. Through these rewards, the bond between the DMs and me grew stronger.

'And if they get bewitched by these trickle-down benefits of power, that means they aren't people I can rely on for long.'

When the ceremony ended, I applauded.

The awakened, who had remained bowed to the very end, straightened up and joined the storm of applause. The DMs left the venue awkwardly, looking overwhelmed by the honor and embarrassed.

Their faces showed relief that it was finally over, but from a regressor's perspective, this was only the beginning.

'How many of them will remain, I wonder?'

Time passed.

A few DMs, thoroughly addicted to the sweet benefits power dripped down to them, gradually became absorbed in interests other than <The Kingdom Project>.

They went around teaching ordinary people "how to become a successful DM," and came into the office less and less often. They merely took the occasional lucrative commission and did a little personal DM work. They drifted away from the work of making <The Kingdom Project>'s world more intricate and entertaining.

Just as the DM profession began taking ordinary people by storm, DMs with "achievements and fame" were snapped up as instructors.

It didn't take them long to retire from active practice.

Four of the eight were eliminated.

Of course, they were eliminated only from my perspective. To them, they had wisely made a success of their lives.

Conversely, the DMs who stayed at the company and diligently kept the Kingdom simulation running—the losers foolish enough to remain in this business and keep doing the actual work—were precisely the ones who passed in my eyes.

'Half remain.'

The next run came.

This time, I approached Writer A first and proposed <The Kingdom Project>. Greatly surprised, Writer A listened to my blueprint.

"Something like this... Y-you're saying you'd entrust a project this enormous to me?"

"Yes. The National Road Management Corps has already completed about twenty percent on its own."

I handed Writer A some of the worldbuilding material the four eliminated writers had created in the previous run.

Writer A marveled as he leafed through it.

"... Amazing. This is really like something written by a professional... Ah. But the major NPCs, main events, and lucky-break sections haven't been done at all. Essentially, only the worldbuilding is detailed..."

"Yes. That's why I'm seeking out people who worked as writers before civilization was destroyed and presenting them with this proposal. Would you participate?"

"... Y-yes. I'd love to!"

Time passed.

Writer A didn't have to go to the trouble of gathering colleagues himself. I personally found the colleagues who had remained at the company to the very end in the previous run and assigned them to him.

Then temptation came calling.

-"Hello. I've come to see you discreetly at the request of Three Thousand Worlds' guild leader."

-"Could you create a super account for us in the project you're working on?"

-"I'm here from Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School. Just one item for our Student Council President..."

-"We'll make it well worth your while."

"Well worth your while" meant sixty billion won.

An immense sum at a time when <The Kingdom Project> was still unfinished, when there was no certainty it would achieve unprecedented success.

Two of the four were eliminated.

'Half of the half again.'

The next run came.

Writer A, who had once embarked on the project with seven colleagues, now had only one left by his side.

But there wasn't all that much work to do.

"Ah... This should be done in no time once we finish the major NPCs and main-event settings."

Because there were so many parts the National Road Management Corps had "already completed."

"Hmm. There really isn't much to fault in the other sections... No, seriously, there's almost nothing. W-who made this?"

"I can't disclose that."

"Ah. I see... I have a few writer friends. I was wondering if it might be them..."

Time passed.

Starting from a more comfortable position than before, <The Kingdom Project> reached an even higher level of polish. Writer A refined and refined the work his previous-run self had created.

Revision carried out across the gap between runs.

Meanwhile, his one fellow DM loaded his own account with absurd equipment and items.

He overstepped his bounds as an administrator and roamed around as a player, acting as though he were this world's true protagonist.

Why had he done it this time, when he hadn't in the previous runs? It was difficult to know the exact reason.

One eliminated.

"Wow! Th-this is!"

And so, next came run 208.

Writer A's hands trembled as he received the blueprint for <The Kingdom Project>.

"This is truly incredible! Really, I've had an idea in mind for a while, and this is similar... No! It's even better than mine... H-how did the Corps come up with a project like this...!"

There had been every kind of temptation and trap.

Countless tests that ordinary people couldn't endure, and had no reason to endure in the first place.

Even through all of them, Writer A never once abandoned <The Kingdom Project>. Nor did he do anything to betray the players.

He was the kind of person a regressor needed.

"Writer A."

"Really, this is... Wow, ah. Yes?"

"I'd like to entrust this project to you."

"What? Whaaat? Really? Wow, r-really! Thank you so much! I've only read two pages, and my hands are already itching to get started...!"

"And I'm a regressor."

"... What?"

13

We sat down for drinks.

Drunk on makgeolli, Writer A stared blankly up at the ceiling.

"No way. This is something I made with those guys...?"

"Why is that impossible?"

"Because it's so damn good. Fuck. Ah, s-sorry for swearing..."

"It's fine. We're having drinks, after all. Incidentally, your other colleagues secretly receive mysterious donations like a pension in every run, so you needn't worry about their circumstances. Thanks to the merits of their past lives, they'll get to spend hundreds of future lives at leisure."

"Thank you..."

After hearing the whole story, Writer A wore a complicated expression. He looked proud, fascinated, and as though his competitive spirit had been stirred, too.

"The reason I've disclosed this information to you is that I have an extraordinary interest in <The Kingdom Project>."

"Uh... I-interest, meaning...?"

"I want people to advance a step through the dream simulation that is <The Kingdom Project>."

"Ah. Copy-pasting real anomalies to raise everyone's overall level? That certainly seems possible..."

"Correct. But that's not all."

I got to the heart of the matter.

These were my true intentions, revealed after four runs. Regressors were, by nature, cautious about choosing whom to confide in.

"As you know, the void and anomalies aren't the only problems weighing on our reality. There are absurd ideologies such as awakened supremacy, too."

"Ah. Yes..."

"People get swept up in those ideologies because the reality divided between awakened and ordinary people feels far too immediate. I want people to gain enough distance to take a step back, look at the situation calmly, and embrace those on the other side."

A question mark appeared above Writer A's head.

His face said that it all sounded very good, but he didn't understand why I was telling him this now.

"The distance needed to contemplate your own life from afar isn't easily acquired. But what would happen if a person could live several lives?"

"Um, I-I'm not sure what you mean..."

"Please plant unspeakably brutal ideological conflict in the world of <The Kingdom Project>."

Writer A's eyes widened.

"Kingdom has pure humans and demihumans. Intensify the conflict between them. Spread such fierce hatred and revulsion throughout Kingdom that the racial and religious conflicts in our world look like nothing. Terrorism. Rebellion. Violence. Let every evil come to pass."

"Uhh. Uh. Uh...?"

"That way, we make the real people dreaming it feel: Ah. Compared to Kingdom, the conflicts between people in this reality really are nothing."

"..."

Writer A closed his lips.

In his eyes, intellect and imagination that the alcohol hadn't quite managed to obscure were bursting into rapid, brilliant life.

"Uh—b-but. Wouldn't it just be someone else's story to the people dreaming? For us, too, well... What was it? When we hear that white and Black people fought a lot over in America, honestly, it never feels like our own story."

"Yes. A valid point."

I nodded.

"Which is why, while they're dreaming, they mustn't know it's a dream."

"...!"

"Until the previous run, the Kingdom simulation operated like an online MMORPG. But from now on, it will be different. It will become a single-player RPG, and the participants will completely 'forget' that they were originally different people in reality."

"They'll forget reality and truly become members of my Kingdom...?"

"Exactly."

SNAP

I snapped my fingers. A tutorial fairy peeked out from beneath the table.

"Eek!"

Writer A jumped in surprise, but the fairy did him no harm. It merely climbed onto my lap and sat there like a docile cat.

"This is my dream."

"..."

"From now on, we'll advertise that <The Kingdom Project> lets people dream an entire lifetime in just one night. With a fairy's abilities, 'time acceleration' is possible within dreams. They will literally live seventy or ninety years in a dream."

"An entire lifetime every time they sleep..."

"Yes. Naturally, people will find that incredibly enticing. And we will tell them this."

While you dream—that is, while you live in <Kingdom>—you will not realize that this is a dream.

"However."

After you awaken from the dream, we will allow you to 'remember' the life you lived within it.

"... Ah."

"Each time they dream of Kingdom, people may become a demihuman terrorist, a pure-human shopkeeper who curses those demihumans every day, a slave swinging a pickaxe in a mine until death, or a young noblewoman who has never even heard of the existence of mine slaves."

"..."

"And if, every time they awaken, they collect those lives they've lived one by one, they become people capable of thinking from the perspectives of a terrorist, a small merchant, a slave, and a noble. Surely that would make the world better than it is now?"

"..."

"In effect, it would be almost as though everyone became a regressor, not just me. This is my dream. I want to invest my dream in yours."

Writer A's lips parted slightly.

"The Kingdom I made would become something like that..."

"Hweh! The memories we provide can't be that clear!"

The tutorial fairy spoke up then, bouncing on my lap.

"By human standards, they'll probably only remain as clear as recollections of something more than ten years ago! Hweeh, human memory is far too unstable!"

"..."

Writer A was silent. For a long time.

But his eyes never stopped whispering.

"I'll do it. No, please let me do it. If my work can become people's—someone's—dream, then that is the finest ending I could ask for as a writer."

"However," Writer A added.

"... After hearing what you've said, Undertaker, I don't think the name <The Kingdom Project> fits anymore. It needs another title."

"What title do you have in mind?"

"<The Reincarnation Project>," Writer A said.

"I want to invest my dream in yours, too, Undertaker. A world where everyone can reincarnate again and again... I will devote my life to creating a world that is loved and hated."

14

There is a short epilogue.

There are truly countless stories connected to <The Reincarnation Project>, and someday I'll take my time telling them to you.

In fact, you can probably already guess why the awakened's skills improved so rapidly as I moved beyond the early runs.

And why I went out of my way in run 555 to create the Canned-Author Hotel and put writers through their paces.

That's right. Half the reason for establishing the hotel was to improve the writers' skills so I could eventually assign them to <The Reincarnation Project>.

(The other half, of course, was my pure desire to read entertaining web novels.)

Setting those stories aside, though, let's focus for now solely on Writer A, an ordinary person—

"I'd like to try living in my Kingdom, too," Writer A said one day.

"Pardon?"

"Well, it's just... Everyone else lives a life in Kingdom every single day, but I'm the creator, and I'm the only one living solely in reality... It feels a little unfair."

"Didn't you say before that living in Kingdom as its creator and administrator would actually be dangerous, because you might lose your objective perspective?"

"Ah, I did. So... Hmm."

Writer A hesitated.

"Could I make an avatar of myself in advance, in case I die?"

"Pardon?"

"I mean, I'd like to create an NPC. A character who closely resembles my personality and way of thinking. Then, if I die... if you could tell the fairies to, um, add that NPC to Kingdom's setting... Ah! Of course, I don't mean reincarnating as an NPC with my memories of reality intact. I just meant that I'd like to become a citizen of Kingdom as a different being with the same personality."

That was a request I could grant anytime.

"Understood. But we protect you extremely thoroughly, so barring something exceptional, you shouldn't die."

"Ahaha... Even so. If we happen to meet in the next run, please just tell me how I lived and died in Kingdom."

Across my life as a regressor, spanning more than a thousand runs, there were occasions when Writer A met an untimely, violent death.

When that happened, I entered 'Kingdom' and sought out Writer A's avatar.

Surprisingly—or entirely unsurprisingly—Writer A's NPC, whose personality closely resembled his real self's, worked as a writer in Kingdom, too.

I spoke with him briefly, but naturally, the NPC knew nothing at all of 'reality.'

He was an ordinary citizen of Kingdom, born there and raised believing it was the only world.

Then, by chance, I managed to obtain and read a printed book the NPC had published in Kingdom.

The novel contained the following passage.

――――――――――――

... Unlike ours, that world had no such thing as magic.

Ships made of steel sailed the seas, mysterious cogwheels turned without rest, fragments of iron spewed from rods took people's lives, and acrid clouds and air always swirled around the cities' spires.

There were not even races there. When I recalled how we had repeated massacres and reprisals for thousands of years based on how many feet someone had, whether they bore horns, or whether their skin was like snakeskin—that, in itself, was the magic of this world.

I wish to tell you the story of my brief visit to this world of magic...

――――――――――――

I chuckled.

'I see. Perhaps my reality could be someone's simulation, too.'

Of course, the possibility was exceedingly slim.

Just how extraordinary a world could someone want to create that they'd configure a man like me to repeat his life a thousand times in succession?

Only after finishing the NPC's printed book in the bookstore did I look at the genre label on the shelf where it had stood.

The book was classified as:

<Fantasy>

-The Investor. End.