Chapter 202 - The Ugly One V

6

The National Road Management Corps conference room.

“I'm sorry...”

Oh Dokseo knelt with her hands raised. The people gathered in the conference room regarded her as pathetic. Her shoulders trembled under a burden of shame and disgrace that only a fresh teenage brain could withstand.

“Pfft. Pffft...”

Sim Aryeon, one of those summoned to the meeting, was feeling cocky for the first time in ages and kept delivering auditory one-two punches.

“A-a Fallen... An awakened who fell because she didn't want to write. Apparently, even I fell while stopping a monster wave as the S-Saintess of the North... Dokseo, you're really even less of a decent human being than I am. Please, mature a little emotionally. You can't keep living like a child forever. You're a n-nuisance to everyone around you.”

“Fuuuck...”

Oh Dokseo shook.

To be officially recognized as someone with a lower mental age than the Goryeojang Villain. She must have been deeply moved by her own achievement, a feat of almost miraculous difficulty.

Noh Doha, commander of the National Road Management Corps, was also in the conference room. She looked at me with her chin propped at an angle on her hand.

“Awakened Undertaker. Is it really possible to fall for such a fucking idiotic reason...?”

“I'm bewildered myself, since this is the first time I've ever encountered this phenomenon. Still, a God of Alienation probably had a hand in it.”

“A God of Alienation...?”

“I believe Dokseo's absurd slump and burnout symptoms are a kind of curse originating from the ‘Operator of All Things at Play.’”

A tiger leaves its hide behind when it dies, and a God of Alienation leaves traces after being vanquished.

A little further back, calling it something like ‘post-mortem Nen’ would have gotten the idea across perfectly. But that series had contracted Indefinite Hiatus Syndrome to rival Oh Dokseo's, so the analogy would no longer work.

In any case, God of Alienation-class anomalies were difficult to eradicate at the source. Sealing them was the best one could do.

Just as a faint funky smell escapes no matter how tightly you seal the containers in a kimchi refrigerator, sealing a God of Alienation produces various side effects.

Since Oh Dokseo always carried the Operator of All Things at Play's laptop in her item inventory, she was bound to be constantly exposed to such a curse.

“Aha. So, just as the guild leader of Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School occasionally has her split personality flare up, Miss Oh Dokseo over there has her slump flare up...?”

“Yes. Turning into an AI to make her dependent on it, making her unable to write without it. I suspect it's using all sorts of means to wrest control back from Dokseo.”

“R-right! Mister is absolutely right!”

Oh Dokseo shouted urgently. Calling it a desperate cry would not have been an exaggeration.

“There's no way I'd willingly, genuinely not want to write...! I've always wanted to help you, Mister! In the past! And right this very moment! But that nasty God of Alienation keeps getting in my way...!”

Then Sim Aryeon casually murmured from beside her.

“Oh. D-don't tell me. Is the God of Alienation also responsible for my inability to stop trolling SG Net, no matter what I try? I thought something was strange. So that's what it was...”

“...”

“...”

Oh Dokseo fell silent. So did the rest of us.

Then I spoke as though nothing had happened.

“Dokseo. Your authority as a Fallen should have begun manifesting by now.”

“H-huh? Authority?”

“Yes. When the Saintess fell, she could stop the world's time forever, and Dang Seorin could command an entire city as though it were her own limbs. You should have received an authority on a similar level.”

“...”

“Don't you already have some idea what it might be? That's how you realized you'd become a Fallen yourself.”

Dokseo hesitated.

“I do, buuut...”

“Tell us what it is. You can stop holding that punishment pose.”

“O-okay.”

Oh Dokseo took the laptop out of her backpack.

“Actually, I'm not entirely sure myself yet... But I discovered this phenomenon.”

As befitted a supernatural artifact incorporating anomaly technology, the laptop took less than a tenth of a second to boot up.

An AI chatbot soon appeared on the screen.

――――――――――

>> Enter a prompt...

※ GPT-MSYH can make mistakes. Please do not neglect cross-checking.

――――――――――

“So. When I used this to write my novel before, the writing was kind of sloppy, right?”

“It was.”

“Yeah... But as I went around the voids leveling up and stuff, the AI gradually improved too.”

“Oh?”

“Actually, I asked the AI how to cure my slump, too. That was when it recommended exploring voids to gain all sorts of experiences. Looking back, I think that was all groundwork the God of Alienation laid to restore its own existence.”

So that was what had happened.

Oh Dokseo turned her head.

“Aryeon. Play rock-paper-scissors with me for a second.”

“Y-yes?”

“I want to test something. I'll throw paper, so you throw rock. I've got an ability that only activates if I win.”

“Oh. Yes. I understand.”

“Got it? I'm paper, you're rock. Rock, paper, sciiissors.”

Oh Dokseo threw rock, and Sim Aryeon threw scissors. Neither looked remotely surprised.

“Now. I just beat Aryeon, right? Then this effect occurs, but only for someone I've achieved ‘victory’ over.”

Oh Dokseo tapped at the laptop's keyboard.

――――――――――

>> Describe what will happen to Sim Aryeon within the next two minutes. Exclude death and injury, respect her characterization, and keep it to minor embarrassment.

――――――――――

BEEP-BEEP.

After a very slight stutter, AI-MSYH rapidly spewed out sentences.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Sim Aryeon. One of the greatest healers of all time, she did not show it outwardly, but inwardly she welcomed today's incident.

'Dokseo has gotten far too full of herself lately just because she's become a little stronger.'

'I could become powerful enough to turn into a Fallen whenever I wanted, too. I'm only living quietly in seclusion because the Guild Leader told me not to.'

'I must log into SG Net anonymously and let everyone know what a nuisance Oh Dokseo is as an author...'

'It's for the public good!'

――――――――――

Every gaze in the conference room turned to Sim Aryeon.

She jumped in alarm.

“Eek. I-I've never thought anything like that!”

“...”

“It's all lies! You all know how fond I am of Dokseo! Y-you nasty anomaly! How dare you slander and defame me like this...!”

AI-MSYH's response was not finished yet.

BEEP-BEEP-BIP.

More sentences appeared in succession.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Naturally, the Heavenly Demon Oh Dokseo saw through every last sordid thought in that petty woman Sim Aryeon's heart.

'How pitiful and pathetic!'

'When disparaging the accomplished, they invoke the world's unfairness; when disparaging the inadequate, they point to the individual's lack of diligence.'

'They are a breed that sees shadows rather than light wherever they look, so in truth, they might as well have no eyes. Having yet lacking, living yet dead. Truly, their lives are as dust.'

Such extraordinary insight was none other than the discerning wisdom of the Heavenly Demon Oh Dokseo, born a woman of letters and reborn a warrior, accomplished in both literary and martial arts.

――――――――――

Every gaze in the conference room turned to Oh Dokseo.

“N-no! The data just happened to build up weirdly, so I keep showing up as the Heavenly Demon!”

“...”

“A-anyway, this stuff doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. Look at the sentences coming next!”

We looked.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Heaven is fair and impartial, bestowing good fortune upon the virtuous and misfortune upon the base.

Thus, at this moment, though Sim Aryeon was standing perfectly still, she suddenly sneezed. Startled, she tried to make excuses, only to trip over her own feet and finally fall flat on her bottom. Truly, it was a farce that encapsulated her life.

――――――――――

Just as Sim Aryeon blinked with a little “Huh?”—

“Ah—ahh, ah, achoooo!”

A sneeze burst out. Achoo! Achoo! The sneezing would not stop, and she looked around with eyes that had quickly grown watery.

“W-wait! I'm sorry! S-some, uh, achoooo! Suddenly, dust got in my nose and I can't stop sneez—”

Then, backing away in a fluster, Sim Aryeon caught her foot on a chair leg.

“Eep? Huh?”

CRASH!

Sim Aryeon, who always tied with Hayul for dead last whenever the guild members were ranked by physical ability, lost her balance and fell all too easily.

“Aah! Ugh, o-owww... Waa...”

A low groan drifted through the conference room.

Nobody had touched her, yet she had genuinely put on that entire ridiculous performance all by herself.

Having witnessed the whole sequence firsthand, everyone in the conference room turned to Oh Dokseo.

“Um...”

Oh Dokseo took off her cap and scratched the back of her head.

“So this is my ability... Or, I guess, my authority as a Fallen. I can sort of control someone's actions, but only if I've beaten them... More precisely, I guess I ask the AI and find out what's going to happen...”

[Scenario Writing].

An ability that first ‘prophesied’ what would happen in the world, then forcibly ‘executed’ that prophecy.

That was the new Fallen's authority.

7

At first, it had merely been a way to pass the time.

Or, Oh Dokseo confessed, she had used the AI to find even a little motivation.

――――――――――

>> I just can't get over this slump. How can I get my motivation to write back?

MSYH >> A slump is a difficulty anyone can experience.

MSYH >> A writer's assets are their experiences. Why not broaden your exposure to experiences most people have never had, and delve more deeply into experiences most people have had?

MSYH >> Everything in the world has advantages and disadvantages. Voids may be poison to some, but to a writer, they can be gardens of medicinal herbs that continually offer new experiences.

――――――――――

At first glance, the AI's advice was reasonable.

The very fact that its response was ordinary enough for anyone to give reassured Oh Dokseo.

You hardly needed to be an anomaly to offer advice like that.

――――――――――

>> I'm scared of the voids. I'm afraid of anomalies, too. Gaining experience is good, but those experiences are sharp as thorns. Every time they pile up, thorn trees grow inside my heart.

MSYH >> What deeply wounds one person may leave another entirely unaffected. This depends on the attitude and strength of the mind.

MSYH >> Strengthen your mind. Define yourself as a powerful individual, and cultivate strength that actually approaches that standard. The strength of the awakened is deeply linked to their psyche.

MSYH >> As a first step toward building your mental muscles, why not define yourself as the ‘Heavenly Demon’?

――――――――――

Like so many anomalies, the Operator of All Things at Play gradually ate away at Oh Dokseo's mind.

Whether inside a void or out, Oh Dokseo lived with the laptop practically clutched to her chest.

Even the Saintess, who always kept a close watch on the awakened, detected nothing wrong.

Seeing Oh Dokseo typing away at the keyboard, she concluded that Dokseo was trying to overcome her slump.

Peeking at a novel that had yet to be written would be discourteous.

The role of ‘first reader’ of Oh Dokseo's work belonged to Undertaker, not her.

So the Saintess did not pay attention to the sentences being written on the laptop screen.

For seven whole years.

――――――――――

>> How do I claim the lucky break hidden in this void?

>> Is there a way to maximize my Absolute Defense ability?

>> I've started feeling guilty when I see Mister Undertaker lately. Tell me how to avoid him so our schedules overlap as little as possible.

>> About how to beat Cheon Yohwa.

――――――――――

As a result,

Oh Dokseo, once no more than a half-fledged prophet, grew ever more complete.

It was the birth of the Fallen, the ‘Ghostwriter.’