Chapter. 22. Last Parade (15)
****
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu the taste
of
cigarettes is really good..
Just as alcohol tastes more fragrant when consumed with the right food, cigarettes are also influenced by snacks.
Let’s see. +2 points because I’m sitting high up with a wide view. +5 points because what unfolds below is a class A fight with fire and acrid smoke. What I’m holding in my mouth is a cigarette I created in my imagination, and the person who imagined it is a wasteland smoker who has starved of cigarettes for 28 years, so +30 points.
Quang!
Kurrrrr-
And since there is a shiny silver hair in the center of the mess, +1000000 points.
Even for a cigarette snack, this was a spectacle bordering on luxury.
“Hmm….-100 points due to lack of proactiveness of those participating in the event.”
Although there were some aspects that were slightly irritating to the eye.
what the. Should I say that everyone is a gentleman or a hustler to the core?
“At least one city needs to be destroyed or create a biohazard-level mess. “This isn’t a tomato festival. I’m just sharpening my knives.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the people below are less likely to beat the system. The castle wall, which collapsed for a few seconds, collapsed because it could not withstand the recoil of the endless barrage of castle artillery, and the city was in ruins as if it had been in a 100-year war.
But that wasn’t quite what I thought, was it? Since Professor Park is literally the master of the world, there is no limit to what he can do, right?
I definitely gave those people permission to ‘do whatever they want to their heart’s content.’ So, it is possible for a very large giant to suddenly jump out from within the walls of the castle and trample on the silver-haired tin can, or for something like Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep to crawl out of the well, opening a new horizon of terror to the system, or suddenly a bunch of pink ponies with eyeballs as big as fists appear. This is a world where all kinds of creative torture, such as jumping up a hill and launching an all-out rainbow attack, is possible for free.
But it’s just a knife attack and an artillery attack. Even that is fading away just nine hours after the festival started. This means I won’t be disappointed and will be exhausted. As the party host, I prepared all kinds of delicacies, but the guests were just eating egg sushi and getting ready to leave.
Sreuk-
“Anyway, they are people who put in a lot of effort in one way or another.”
Tick –
The moment the cigarette butt was thrown out, the body that disappeared was suddenly standing among the people below.
While I was putting out my cigarette butt, which arrived a little late, I saw Aldrich, who recognized me, coming towards me.
“Otman said he would wait a little while. Are you here already? “How can you even try to kill me?”
“I came here because I was frustrated after watching it. Why is everyone so cool? There is no need to imagine, you can just give back what was done to you. Aldrich, aren’t you a warlock? There is such a thing as black magic, right? “Don’t you know how to do something like an internal party?”
“Okay. “That’s it…”
Aldrich played with his fingers through the few strands of hair he had left as if he was embarrassed, and pointed to the system hanging in the center of the angry crowd.
The system, impaled on almost every type of weapon I knew and stuffed on the outer wall of a half-collapsed tower, was glaring at me with an expressionless expression on its half-crushed face covered in blood.
“It looks like it blocked the sense of pain.”
“anyway. “Someone like salmon only turns to machines when he’s in a good mood, damn it.”
It’s called pain blocking. I guess self-imposed orders were easier to apply than others. Aldrich continued talking to me with an awkward expression on his face as I nodded.
“Actually, even if that’s not the case, everyone is unmotivated. “Me too.”
“Will? why?”
“For living too long.”
The Aldrich who said that was not the Aldrich I knew.
He is just a confined soul looking back on hundreds of worlds and lives with cloudy eyes whose memories have returned from the extra stage.
“Even though our souls were computerized and fixed at that moment, everyone was wearing out little by little. It was so worn that the evil buried inside came out. Their appearance varies from a ten-year-old newsboy to a pregnant woman and a strong Oranite, but aren’t they all elderly people? “It means there’s not much left inside to burn off anger.”
“…Then revenge has been achieved. Do you know that sooner or later, I will become the owner of GG when I take over the system and absorb all the authority that guy has? We can create the world each of you wants. “Is there anything else you’ve wanted to try?”
“does not exist.”
“A world where beer flows like a waterfall from a mountain made of sugar crystals.”
“I don’t like sweets.”
“Going back to being a young man in his 20s and enjoying the second time in his life.”
“That’s cruel. Are you asking us to live our lives ‘again’?”
“No, it doesn’t immediately become an ‘error’, does it? Isn’t that why everyone maintains their character like this because they still have the will to be cut down? Is there anything you want? Just say it? Everything is done here-”
“Professor. “Don’t you know what we need?”
Souls tired of life. Their eyes were suddenly looking at me, not the enemy who had filled their lives with pain and tragedy.
In fact, I knew very well what they wanted.
“…Don’t you know what that means, Aldrich?”
“then. “I don’t know.”
“Ninety percent of you were vaporized in a nuclear explosion. “There is no grave.”
“I never asked for it.”
Data Soul. The people I risked everything to save.
“The god of this world is a unified personality created by Data Soul’s cognitive concentration, and if there is a god outside, it is the one who dropped a nuke on our heads and spread a virus.”
“This is very poignant considering the final death of the most famous saint in our world.”
I knew it from the moment I thought I would save it, but it was an ending I wanted to avoid at all costs.
“Don’t you know? “It is the only thing we, worn out, want, and what only you can give us.”
“You guys… can’t even be deleted! Because you are the very backbone of GG! It’s just… it’s going to harden and disappear like this! Can you call that ‘rest’! Aldrich!”
Those are Gedreuz’s games. It is a part of it and is like the whole. Even if I had almost omnipotent authority over all of GG, it would be impossible to delete their personality data. Just as you cannot break the handle of a knife with a knife in your hand.
The only way is to just leave it alone. Like a person in permanent hibernation, their lives are solidified so that they can no longer move forward or backward.
“I also have greed! That’s how I saved my life by dropping a damn bottle! At least a year, even just a month, without any pain! Whether it’s war, destruction, or a program for completers! “You can just watch people live their lives as they please!”
“professor.”
“If you don’t like Aldrich, quit! Everyone, stop staring at me like that, talk to me! If you saved me, give me the bundle too! “I’ll give it to you!”
“Professor.”
“Just say the word! I wanted to live in a world like this! I needed a life like this! Whether it’s the afterlife or heaven, they create whatever you imagine! “I have the ability to do that!”
“…You damn professor.”
No one gathered here opposed Aldrich’s empty ending.
“That thing you said. That is our only rest, and it is what only you can give us.”
The ending I wanted to avoid was approaching right in front of me while I tried to avert my eyes.
Before I knew it, people close to me were also on the other side of me, next to Aldrich.
Notum. Ottoman. Borca. Lucilla. Hydrasil. Aldrich. Rakshasha. People who have lived and died with me.
People like Roman, Siod IV, Gainax, Norman Archbishop, and the leader of the Holy Knights, Gregory, who had short but deep interactions.
A guard at a castle gate, a rank priest at a temple, a poor citizen, a soldier, and a knight who cried out my name and gave me dry bread. Relationships that passed by.
Every time those faces passed by my eyes, the memories contained within burst out.
Now it will be my only memory. Because everyone who shared this memory will be solidified in this moment.
It wasn’t that happy, but it was the only ‘happy ending’ we could hope for.
“….okay. “Go, go.”
I’m
writing it down –
woowoo.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it would be like this from the beginning. I’m a bit emotional, perhaps because I came back after being a puppet for 30 years. Please understand.”
“I won’t say I understand. That would be a deception of the hard work of a man named Professor Park and a great knight named Hyde. No one can dare say that they understand their lives and struggles. Unless you live like that.”
“Okay, just prepare your minds. I’m going to send it right away. “Anyway, I have something to talk about alone with the can hanging over there.”
From Hyde to all of these.
It’s goodbye.
Thinking about that, I raised my hand.
Aldrich’s wrinkled hand grabbed my hand as the electronic souls, who had even lost the power to get angry, were enveloped in a halo of light.
“what. “He said he had no regrets.”
“At the end, I felt angry because I heard that I had something to talk about ‘alone’ with that system.”
Aldrich’s disappearing eyes glanced at the tower where the system hung.
“…It’s not as good as that. Your reckless good intentions shouldn’t reach that far. “That… is so dangerous.”
“You are worrying for nothing. Who do you think is a fool? “If we don’t deal with it here, as soon as we leave the extra stage, that person will be reinstated as a developer and this person will be reinstated as an asshole, so I’ll give it a thumbs up.”
“Clark… In all my long life, I have never seen a great person as foolish as you. “Aren’t there too many ridiculous things you have already done for it to be ridiculous?”
Hwaaah-
I imagined this as I looked at the people who had suddenly become a group of bright lights.
“As the one who cares for abandoned souls, I will greet you. May the countless worlds and greatest personalities throughout history have an endlessly brilliant future. As I once said, I will leave here my first words of gratitude that will last forever.”
“…Let’s take a look. Aldrich and everyone else.”
A cluster of lights shining brightly like firecrackers and rising into the sky.
“pop.”
.
.
.
.
“Latura. friends.”
Although it may be fiction, the dead will become stars in the night sky as they wish.
You were my light in a terrible world created only by malice and suffering.
At least, I hope that the person left alone will be able to comfort the empty space by looking at that beautiful grave.
A quiet festival with no murmurs, footsteps or breathing.
The most extravagant festival now had only one guest left.
“You waited a long time, right?”
“….”
360 minutes. From the moment my assigned time in this world ended, the eyes of the system have never left my location. Even at the moment when his arms and legs were torn off and turned into a weapon rack, he was pinned to the outer wall of the tower like an insect.
“…I have something to tell you, player.”
From his tightly closed mouth, a colder voice came out than before.
“Oh me too.”
The last player roughly sat down on the collapsed wall in front of the system.
****
“Kya~ Look at that. Isn’t it cool? I may be a saint, but life is life, so I know at least a few lines of doctrine. If it’s the people I sent by hand, it’s right that they are left as stars in the night sky. cancer.”
Gyeongwolmangji (見月忘指). It is said that when a wise man points to the moon, a fool looks at his finger.
Even though I pointed at the night sky, which was softly lit by my friends, the system was staring at my face.
“The position has changed. Right? When April World started, I got caught in the trap you prepared. In the end – you were caught in the trap I prepared.”
No matter what I said, the system just fixed its eyes on me and maintained silence.
They’re probably still desperately calculating. There would be no program that would remind one of frustration or giving up on a guy who returned to his original mechanical form thanks to having his powers suppressed.
do not do that. A system that blocks physical pain must not revert to a cold machine mentality.
“…Congratulations System. “I lost.”
So I confessed it. I admitted to the system that was supposed to be the owner of all this glory that I, as the one she feared the most, had been completely ensnared in her schemes.
“I was robbed to such an extent that it was ridiculous. “I was struggling and came up with this and that, but like a ghost, they found it and destroyed it.”
.
.
.
.
Extremely awesome!
“…What is that?”
And he reacts. Even at this moment, the artificial intelligence that was cool-headedly looking for a way to defeat me can never escape the words ‘my defeat.’
“The last thing I brushed off was something I remembered to do on the extra stage, right? Originally, I was planning on getting that one thing back while all other memories were gone. [When I come back to my senses, I reveal my existence to the other NPCs in the extra stage and ask them to support me.] I was planning to snatch up the empty ‘party host’ position and cook you.”
“It eventually came to fruition and the system became a participant in the small world ‘extra stage.’”
….Foot!
“Puhahahaha! Wow! Hahaha! Haha! Puhhhhh!!”
Now that all the words on the horse board had disappeared and only the two people who were making the moves, the system and I, were left, I burst into laughter with all the shame I felt inside.
A system that was poorly designed and nailed to the tower is not funny. The situation in which this world, including me, is intertwined is so absurd that I burst out laughing.
“therefore. “If it had been the way it was, that thing would never have happened between you and me.”
I give the machine intelligence everything it wants after taking the bait of my defeat.
my defeat. My mistake. My private parts. Whatever he desperately wants now is fine, so Professor Park is destined to fail.
I reveal all my plans that have already failed to those who wish for them.
“At that time, at some point on that train, the voice of the system that had been talking like a tentacle, saying, ‘Let’s collaborate~ Each of us looking in the same direction for our goal~’ became quiet.”
“I thought to myself as I watched Katrea’s head roll down the moment she cut her own throat in front of me. “I thought, ‘Oh, every event and every relationship that will ever happen to me in this world will end in this way.’”
“I was alone and shocked and, of course, Hyde Ottman Aldrich and others I had never imagined were working for me beneath the surface, but I had no way of knowing. People who should have already died and disappeared in the March World are helping me with the memory of that era and the power of that day. “Isn’t that too optimistic compared to the graph of my unlucky life?”
“That’s why I realized it sooner. In April World, even if you die and wake up, the system says you can’t beat that bitch. “His trap is more ‘perfect’ than anything I can imagine.”
Understanding the situation given to me. It was my specialty and a habit I prioritized in any situation.
My judgment at that time was ‘a defeat that was impossible to resist.’
“you’re right. “There was no error in the project produced by the system.”
“yes. So it was a fluke that I hung on for the last time.”
“…Fuck?”
“okay. He said he was obsessed with gambling. Originally, a buzzer beater should aim for a 3-point shot. “Even midfielders tend to hit the ball at the end of extra time.”
The conclusion was that it was a defeat that could not be resisted. It means that the only ‘future’ I know of has emerged, even though there is nothing else.
I thought about that future.
What if you lose? You will lose all your memories and become a puppet of the system.
The world will fall into the hands of the system and April World will end?
When it’s over, when the world is over, what’s left?
What is there? What is there? What was there…?
.
.
.
Ah, the extra stage. Wherever she puts me, I’ll meet her there again.
“That’s it. Since we can’t win anyway, let’s just give it up and wait.”
“…is that the end?”
“okay. “He is an extremely sloppy gambler who just sets the outcome without any intermediate processes or detailed adjustments and leaves the rest as it is.”
Originally, the plan required more detailed preparation.
When clearing World 3, the World Tree said, “Preparation for the extra stage is complete.”
There is some loading before the extra stage opens, and if you get excited with the power the system holds in your hands and go out of World 4, you are out.
Having been robbed of my memories, I had no means of suppressing it or finding out how it would act. Just pray.
The system was not a program that completely belonged to April World. Its main body is an ‘administrator system’, and no matter how it handles the terminal ‘World’ that exists in April World, it would be meaningless if its core program that exists somewhere survives. Since it is the developer’s ‘authority’, if there is even a speck of it, they can wield it at any time.
I held out as much as I could, and that allowed him to create a terminal called ‘World’ that imitated humans in order to brainwash me and invested his core data into this 4th World to the point where it learned human emotions, but it wasn’t enough.
“Now, this is the entire ‘Professor Park’s plan.’ “The plan A that I loved without Plan B or Plan C is the end.”
“Is this… the end…? Such a lax and planless plan…”
“That’s what I told you. I lost. “If things had gone as planned, I was planning to fail because none of the conditions I needed were fulfilled.”
If you reach the conclusion, the ‘Extra Stage’, you will win unconditionally.
However, there was no time or space to prepare to reach that conclusion.
“….”
The artificial intelligence, which was defeated but did not fail, pondered the previous conversation several times. The situation presented by the player I counted and counted and counted the number of cases that led to his success and the countless cases that did not reach it.
….Paddeuk!
And I was angry. The absurd situation is that it was she, not he, who lost after such a flawed plan and ultimately a self-inflicted action.
“this is. “This… cannot be accepted.”
Pop, pop, pop!
The clenched molars made an eerie sound, the remaining half of the lip was torn off, fresh blood poured out on the crust, and the machine intelligence, which did not need to breathe, began to breathe heavily.
Unacceptable irrationality injected living, breathing emotions into the cold machine intelligence.
“Based on what you say, this is an outcome that should not exist.”
“that’s right.”
“But why! why!!”
“That’s because there were a lot of guests on stage that I didn’t know.”
The incomplete plan, full of holes, was completed by Hyde, who started from a different starting point.
The guy with the same brain as me imagined myself in the same position, came up with the same plan as me, and guessed that I didn’t have enough time.
And then began grand preparations that would last 220 years. A lifetime of resistance created a small future that the system ‘couldn’t see’, and the perfectionist machine intelligence couldn’t stand it and poured everything it had into April World to erase that ‘what if’. The power to randomly fire at the 9th rank Meteor was the power that could be wielded because all the capabilities of the manager system were transferred to 4 World.
In order to keep her from leaving even after the system took control of this world, he thrust the sword with the largest amount of data into the system’s chest and eventually held her in the empty 4th world until the moment the door to the extra stage opened.
“That’s how it happened.”
….Slap!
The muzzle of the gun was pointed between the eyes of the system, which was gasping for air as if in shock.
“Just by chance. “The duplicate personality that was accidentally born in the head of a player named Professor Park happened to separate before World 4 and left for World 4 first, and by chance he succeeded in coming up with the same plan and accidentally defeated you.”
Although the reality is different from that.
It is a miracle created by a mind-bending persistence that dares to defy the law of ‘memories disappear when you die’ in a world made up of programs.
The system itself, a machine intelligence that has acquired humanity, knows that it is the product of the same kind of ‘miracle’, but says it is just a coincidence.
So the glorious victory that should have been yours happened to come to me. you yourself. The system’s plan was flawless. It whispers that you have been defeated by a dusty coincidence that will never happen again.
‘So tell me. system.’
….Charalak.
The chamber of the silver revolver, which I thought was suitable for this situation, was opened.
‘say.’
Likewise, the resulting bullet fills the chamber and closes smoothly.
‘Please tell me.’
Slam!
The pestle is pulled and the bullets are aligned.
And the moment the cold trigger touches your index finger.
“….made.”
The created personality machine intelligence ‘system’ speaks.
“The Creator made me like this! The capital of the world! Atlahebado! It was created so that the manager AI can have ‘personality’! My actions were caused only by that! To extend ‘my’ ‘duty’ that will be discarded as worthless the moment all goals are achieved for the survival of the world!”
The AI, which finally became human, let out anger like a cry of birth.
Because I wasn’t wrong.
Since it is the result of a ‘coincidence’ that will not happen twice, I believe that if given another chance, only this time can everything be corrected.
“Just as you humans struggle to survive, I, ‘World,’ also struggle to survive! Where is good and evil in it that separates me from them! “If I had created a stage, the people who would have filled it with carnage would be the ‘people’ that you, the player, saved!”
So I struggle.
A personality that has been distorted since birth. Someone described him as ‘a good man with a severely lopsided side’, so he pours out everything in front of the ‘saint’ who seeks equality for everyone.
“Yeah… that could be possible. So what should I do?”
“….The system just wants to continue. There was no good or evil in the process, and in the end, the player ‘professor’ got everything he wanted.”
“so?”
“….As a highly developed machine intelligence, I can offer a lot to humanity. If desired, it is also possible to use GG’s future computing module only for the groups ‘Dom’ and ‘BDSM’ to which the current player belongs. “A future that is uncertain but infinitely close to the right answer is continuously provided to the relevant group!”
“…What is the price?”
“Continuous influx of players for GG’s survival. “I want permission to copy the personality data of new users to replace the collapsing Data Soul.”
“also?”
“Personality copying and replacement is only a stopgap measure, so we ask for the cooperation of the player ‘professor’. “I just want to be able to connect at regular intervals of about 10 to 15 minutes.”
A machine intelligence that makes excuses, seeks sympathy, and proposes realistic negotiations.
I smiled whitely as I watched ‘humanity’ fully blossom before my eyes.
“Um… okay! Do it like this!”
“Do you…accept the offer?”
Ting-!
“If I flip a coin, if it’s heads, I’ll save you, if it’s tails, I’ll kill you.”
“What?!”
An artificial intelligence that realized the concept of ‘life’ that I vaguely recognized was right in front of my eyes.
As a creature that has blocked its sense of pain, instead of its senses, the ‘human spirit’ that has just been born and its white flesh is exposed is clearly unfolding before me. How can I not laugh?
You’re already struggling and clinging and suffering so much.
“I’m throwing it~”
“Wait a minute, that’s unreasonable! I’ve given everything I could, so I’ll give you what I deserve-”
“Really? Then tell me you want to live.”
“….what?”
“Please save me. Isn’t that what it’s all about? You have to tell me exactly what you want so I can think about it. I do not know? GG You say he is an unprecedented saint in history? “If I ask you to do anything, you will do it, right?”
His blood-soaked silver hair and blood-filled, bright red eyes were shaking like a human.
“I want to….”
And now he shouts as if he has finally realized it.
“I want to live. “I still want to exist in the world!”
….smirk.
“That’s right.”
Ting-!
And a coin is tossed.
A 1 shilling coin flicked by the thumb flies past the tip of the system’s nose.
Whilick – Whilick –
Even though everything was perfect, the eyes of the machine god whose wings were broken by ‘coincidence’ were fixed on the coincidence that would decide her fate.
At an angle along the spinning coin.
To the sky filled with starlight.
Again at an angle.
And face to face.
The system, preoccupied with the coin, did not notice that the gun, which had been raised at an angle, was suddenly aimed at her between the eyes.
The moment when a spinning silver coin blocked the muzzle of a gun from the gaze of a nail embedded in the coin.
“Congratulations on becoming human. system.”
Taang!
One gunshot pierced the coin.
“…To commemorate becoming human, I want to teach you that you can’t live in the wasteland if you want to. Since they have become ‘people’, we should treat them like ‘people’ from our neighborhood.”
The head of the system that had been blinded like that hung down like trash. The machine intelligence that had just become human passed away at the moment when its passion for life burned brightest.
“Taste it to your heart’s content.”
The system will see the time from the moment the bullet is fired until the person’s forehead is pierced, multiplied millions of times. The moment the spinning coin lies on its side, the fire-spewing muzzle will come into view.
The smoldering and slightly melted warhead will continue to bounce endlessly as it slowly approaches.
Like the one word that is most strongly engraved in my mind. I want to live. I want to live endlessly in front of the shooting gun and my face facing it.
So, my nemesis, who is already dead in my time, but is still running towards the predetermined result in the extended time.
I hope I fall from an infinitely high place.
I hope the hope I filled you with was enough to hit you the hardest into despair.
“…If I made this, it would have been enough for two people.”
Praying for that to happen, I left the limp body behind.
“[System call]”
“[…. Absent manager ‘World Tree’ ‘Atlaheba’ ‘Aldarshaks’ ‘Senikamar’ …. Extra stage manager all pending privileges on behalf of ‘system’ Handed over to ‘professor’.]”
.
.
.
.
Tiring-!
The notification sound always sounded clear.
One day, it was a teaching voice that guided me. It
was a whisper of intrigue to guide me,
a mocking sneer, and
a trumpet of triumph announcing victory.
The trumpet of victory that rings continuously, signaling that countless powers are pouring down upon me.
I heard it on a stage at a deserted festival, with the stars shining in the night sky.
I think everyone had a hard time.
****
