We're Fucked — This Vast Land Has No People
A strategy game where you pick a civilization out of history—Rome, America, Greece—and raise it to greatness.
History.
I fell into that game.
"Ah, hell…"
I couldn't tell you what I'd done wrong. A status window had materialized in front of my face, so I read it. That was all.
Helen, leader of civilization Greece, denounces you!
Not exactly what you want to hear. A public denunciation from a neighboring nation means one thing: your civilization is about to get invaded.
And Greece, of all people, is infamous as an early-game terror. Their unique unit, the Hoplite—Greek spearmen—is so broken that if even three squads come knocking, you have to start worrying about your entire country getting turned inside out.
Sadly, my civilization didn't have any broken units like that.
"Isn't this a bit much?"
I was seething with the sheer injustice of it when the status window came back to comfort me.
Leader Han Min-guk. This is karmic retribution.
The voice was soft and silky, which somehow made the wording even more infuriating. This bitch was probably the one who'd dumped me here in the first place. The System went on to explain why I was being "punished."
User Han Min-guk, you have installed an illegal mod banned by the developers.
"The beautiful girl civilization mod?"
As expected of a ranker. Yes. That banned 18+ mod.
The beautiful girl civilization mod being completely unhinged was just a fact. It didn't stop at swapping every civilization's leader for a pretty girl—dumping Qin Shi Huang for Diaochan, for instance. You could enter political marriages with them and knock them up, or wage outright wars of conquest, turn them into pregnant sex slaves, and rape them.
And it wasn't just the soldiers. The bureaucrats, the laborers, every last unit was a beautiful girl. That about says it all. Japan's unique unit, the samurai? Picture a cute sushi girl in a kimono, sword in hand. And if you lost a war, you could make those bitches take "full responsibility."
That's the kind of idea only a Hannam would come up with!
"I'll give you that. But dropping a guy into the game over one mod is a little extreme, don't you think?"
It is not extreme. User Han Min-guk has accumulated karma and must pay for his sins. That is the judgment of our developer AI.
Karma, huh.
It took me a second, but I could follow the System's logic well enough.
"So you're punishing me because I'm the Hannam who made the beautiful girl mod?"
You're quick on the uptake!
"……"
Something I'd hacked together after work, just for fun, and it had come to this. Granted, distributing it across the Steam community was another matter entirely—but making an adult game isn't a crime.
"Heh."
A hollow laugh was all I had left. I tried begging the System, clutching at straws, but of course it didn't do a damn thing.
"So what do I have to do to get sent back?"
It's simple. Lead your civilization to victory.
"On hell difficulty?"
Oh, they were really committed to fucking me. Even a ranker like me was going to tense up when the ante was his actual life. No way I'd be playing at full strength.
Fuck it. Even if I die, I'm going down swinging.
I had no idea if it would work now that the game had become reality, but I played my trump card anyway.
Fortunately, the System reacted.
What the… you son of a— what the hell did you code into this mo—
In my old life, I was a programmer. Hiding a trap card inside a mod is nothing.
……
Strictly speaking, it was just an Easter egg.
Anyway.
The moment I changed my civilization's name, something remarkable happened.
Congratulations. You have become a Hannam leader in a world overflowing with beautiful girls.
Why Would You Marry a Hannam?
A unique ability has been added to civilization Hannamguk.
A twinge of self-disgust, sure—but I had to survive first. Time to show them what a Pangyo coding-slave Hannam is really made of.
You're going to… regr—
Bzzt—
Just like that, the System bitch who'd been tearing into me vanished. The price was getting stuck with a meme civilization called Hannamguk, but right now I was just grateful to still be breathing.
"Let's raise this thing right. We're already here."
In History, the civilization of Korea is treated like garbage. But a great leader creates something from nothing. I read the unique ability's description and felt a weight lift off my chest.
Planting that Easter egg had been the right call.
◊ You can have sex with female units or leaders and impregnate them.
◊ When a pregnant beautiful girl gives birth, Population is added to your civilization.
A civilization needs population if it wants to raise an army capable of conquering other nations. The more brilliant scholars a country has, the faster its science advances; the more gifted artists it produces, the more its culture flourishes.
The one who masters population is the leader of the century.
That, I can do.
I have no doubt that Hannamguk will rise.