Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Mecha God Chronicle - Episode 17 (4)
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To cut a long story short, every single plan I'd laid out had gone completely off the rails.
More precisely, you could say everything fell apart the very moment Serika burst into the room.
Why?
Because Serika's face alone carried an overwhelming persuasive power.
Any guy with normal tastes would hear every word from her lips as gospel truth, and every action she took would seem like a noble sacrifice for the good of the world.
So when Serika made her plea—that all the controversies surrounding Mecha God Chronicle were her fault and no one should blame me—the game was already over.
And on top of that, her revealing herself as Saya's voice actress was a huge boost.
Saya was already one of the top three most popular characters in Mecha God Chronicle.
Once it came out that Serika was her voice actress, all that goodwill toward Saya got piled onto her as well.
And the result? This.
"Come to think of it, Eli's voice from Eli and Hamel's Disappearance sounds a lot like Saya's. Are the two roles connected somehow? Did you voice Eli too, Miss Serika?"
"Miss Serika! Could you recite Saya's iconic line from episode 5 just once? You know, 'Just looking at you makes my heart feel all fluffy and soft.' That one!"
"Miss Serika, in your opinion, Saya's totally head over heels for Kai, right? So doesn't that make Saya the one true heroine of Mecha God Chronicle? Right?"
Fuck... This isn't what I had in mind at all.
I'd planned to host this fake debate with the Mecha God Chronicle critics, pull every possible aggro move, and end up drowning in backlash.
But right now, this was nothing more than a fan meet-and-greet with anime enthusiasts and a famous voice actress.
As I stared blankly at the sky with eyes full of despair...
"Everyone, hold on a second! I get that you're all excited, but please calm down just a bit!"
Hikardo, the one leading this gathering, stepped forward to rein in the crowd.
"I know you're all hyped up right now, but this is going too far. Have you all forgotten why we gathered here today?"
"...Why we gathered?"
"Wasn't it... to worship Miss Serika?"
"Damn... It's Miss Serika again. I've laid eyes on her. Now I must worship. It's my sacred duty..."
"...We came here today to discuss episode 17 of Mecha God Chronicle. And since we've got a special guest, we can't delay any longer."
At Hikardo's words, the Serika worshippers blinked in confusion.
"...Special guest?"
"Who could that be?"
"Allow me to introduce him. Professor Ermion, former conductor of the Imperial Orchestra and current dean of the Imperial Academy's Arts Division!"
With that, Hikardo stood up the middle-aged man who'd been quietly sitting off to the side of the debate area, and everyone in attendance gasped in shock.
"What did you say?"
"Professor Ermion himself is here? For real?"
Meanwhile, I was just as stunned.
Because Professor Ermion was someone I knew all too well.
That's the guy. The one who rips into Mecha God Chronicle in the morning paper every day for lacking depth.
While other papers were busy sucking up to Mecha God Chronicle, he stood alone like a dark knight, meticulously picking apart its plot holes and setting inconsistencies.
For someone like me, desperate to steer the show's story into total trash territory, he was the perfect ally.
As I watched this Professor Ermion with hopeful eyes...
The professor, standing beside his mustache, cleared his throat and scanned the room before speaking.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Ermion, a humble professor in the Imperial Academy's Arts Division. To you, I'm probably known as the guy who constantly slams Mecha God Chronicle in the Greediel Times."
With that, Professor Ermion flashed a self-deprecating smile.
I couldn't pinpoint why, but it felt like he was mocking his foolish past self.
"In the past, I dismissed Mecha God Chronicle as cheap melodrama. I criticized it for rushed pacing just to grab immediate interest, ignoring future consequences, or tossing aside settings for shock value—calling it third-rate trash."
I nodded unconsciously as I listened to Professor Ermion.
Everything he said rang true, no exaggeration.
True to his education, every word dripped with wisdom.
But then.
"Last night, after watching episode 17, I realized I was wrong. It was all meticulously calculated from the start. Fools like me, who only saw half the picture, got completely duped."
...What the hell did you just say?
Meticulously calculated story? Where?
His words were so absurd that I felt my jaw drop.
"First, in episode 17, the Mecha God suddenly rampages and kills Luke. Some called it rushed development."
Of course they did.
I'd forced that abrupt acceleration just to get people riled up.
"But it wasn't rushed. Every bit of it had foreshadowing laid out beforehand."
"...?"
Foreshadowing? What foreshadowing?
Was there foreshadowing in my anime that even I, the creator, didn't know about?
"In episode 1, the Mecha God rampages while Kai is unconscious. But note this: it wasn't just the rampage—after defeating the Outer God, the rampage stopped on its own."
...And what's weird about that?
"The rampage stopping after defeating the Outer God means the shutdown was Unit Zero's intent too. In other words, Unit Zero judged there were no more threats to Kai's life nearby. But flip that around—"
"...If Unit Zero detects any threat to Kai's life, it'll attack no matter what?"
"Exactly. Unit Zero classified the Outer God-corrupted Unit Seven as an enemy, so it fully destroyed it despite Kai's pleas. And the foreshadowing for that? It's been there since episode 1, as I said."
"....."
...No, that scene was just me tossing in a mecha genre cliché.
In mecha stories, rampages auto-stop after beating the enemy—that's standard!
Why the hell are you reading meaning into a cliché?
Why?
"Crucially, episode 1's ending and the flashback in episode 10. The Supreme Commander looks at the rampaging Mecha God and says, 'Everything is going according to plan,' right?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah."
"And at the end of episode 17, he smiles at Luke's corpse. Coincidence? Really?"
Professor Ermion clenched his fists like Conan exposing the culprit's tricks.
"In short, the Mecha God's rampage and Unit Seven's destruction—they're all part of the Supreme Commander's scenario!"
"The Supreme Commander's scenario!"
"He was wearing sunglasses indoors—super suspicious! So he is the final mastermind!"
Everyone gasped at Professor Ermion's words.
Everyone except me.
No, fuck, why is that foreshadowing?
The Supreme Commander scheming something shady is a mecha cliché, so I threw it in!
I'd just dumped genre clichés into the anime to max out dopamine hits.
Somehow, people were treating those clichés as foreshadowing and piecing together their own narratives.
Was all this karma from everything I'd built up so far?
"Looking at those scenes in isolation, I didn't see them as foreshadowing and trashed the show's sloppy pacing... Now, I'm ashamed of my past self. So foolish and pathetic."
Professor Ermion let out a deep sigh.
"If the Mecha God Chronicle director were ordinary, he'd have snapped at my ridiculous newspaper critiques and issued clarifications right away."
"...But he wasn't ordinary, so he silently endured my nonsense. All for this brilliant scene in episode 17!"
With that, Professor Ermion looked at me with eyes full of admiration.
"Ahh...! So that's how it was!"
"He sacrificed himself for the viewers' enjoyment?"
"Sob... What have the viewers ever done to deserve such a sacrifice...!"
Muttering like that, they collapsed to their knees as if their legs had given out.
Honestly, watching it live was utter bullshit.
"So, on this occasion, I retract everything I've ever said. And I declare: the Professor Ermion who criticized Mecha God Chronicle until yesterday is dead. Now, I am reborn as its ultimate fan!"
"Wooooooooah!"
"Rebirth! Resurrection! Blessing! Judgment!"
"Resurrected lamb, Professor Ermion! Bestow upon him our group's honorary president title! Bestow it!"
"So, Professor, who's your personal favorite heroine? If you say Ailin or Chloe, we're enemies, right?"
"....."
Meanwhile, I silently watched the frenzy before quietly slipping away.
With that, all hope was lost.