Chapter 484
Chapter 484
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 484
Chapter Title: Last Parade (15)
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****
Ssssss.
Huuuu—
“...This cigarette tastes fucking incredible.”
Just as alcohol tastes even richer when paired with the right food, cigarettes are influenced by their snacks too.
Let’s see. Sitting high up with a clear view ahead: +2 points. Down below, an A-rank brawl mixed with flames and acrid smoke: +5 points. The cig in my mouth is one I imagined into existence, conjured by a wasteland chain-smoker who’s gone 28 years without a drag: +30 points.
KABOOM!
Rumble rumble—
And at the center of that chaos, a flash of silver hair: +1,000,000 points.
This was less a cigarette snack and more a lavish feast for the eyes.
“Hmm... Deduct 100 points for the participants’ lack of enthusiasm.”
Not that there weren’t a few eyesores.
Jeez. Were they all gentlemen to the bone, or just suckers through and through?
“At least wreck a city or turn it into some Biohazard-level shitshow. This is like a tomato festival—nothing but half-assed sword swings.”
Of course, it wasn’t like the folks below hadn’t roughed up the System. The collapsed walls just seconds ago had buckled under the endless recoil of the wall cannons, the city lay in ruins like after a century of war, and the System that took it all wasn’t in any shape to call “fine” even politely.
But that wasn’t what I’d envisioned. This was Professor Park’s world now—no limits to what they could pull off.
I’d given those people full permission: “Do whatever the fuck you want.”
So yeah, a colossal giant bursting from inside the walls to stomp that silver-haired tin can flat? Possible. Something like Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep crawling from a well to open new horizons of terror for the System? Doable. A herd of fist-sized pink ponies with glowing eyes leaping over the hill for a rainbow barrage? All freebies in this playground of creative torture.
But swords and shells? And winding down after just nine hours? No wonder I was disappointed. As party host, I’d laid out a gourmet spread, and the guests were nibbling egg sushi before packing up to leave.
Slink—
“Always such high-maintenance folks.”
Flick—
The moment I flicked the cig butt, my body vanished—reappearing amid the crowd below.
As someone ground out the late-arriving butt, I spotted Aldrich heading my way, having recognized me.
“Ottoman said he’d buy us some time, but you’re already here? What, you wanna swing a sword too?”
“Got tired of watching. Why’s everyone so half-assed? No need to imagine—just hit back as hard as they hit you. Aldrich, aren’t you a Black Mage? Don’t Black Mages do gut-spilling parties or some shit?”
“Urgh. Well, see... Uuuum...”
Aldrich fidgeted with his thinning hair, looking awkward, then pointed at the System dangling at the center of the raging mob.
Impaled on nearly every weapon I knew, mounted like taxidermy on the half-collapsed tower wall, the System glared at me with a blank expression on its blood-smeared, half-crushed face.
“Looks like it’s blocked its pain receptors.”
“Typical. Salmon like that only acts mechanical when it suits ’em.”
Pain block. Makes sense—self-commands would be easier to enforce. Aldrich nodded with a “that figures” look as I grumbled, then continued sheepishly.
“Even without that, no one’s motivated. Not even me.”
“Motivated? Why not?”
“We’ve lived too long.”
The Aldrich speaking wasn’t the one I knew.
Just a confined soul from the Extra Stage, memories restored, gazing blankly back over hundreds of worlds and lives.
“Even souls digitized and frozen in that moment—we’ve all worn down bit by bit. Worn so thin the evil we buried deep is spilling out. They range from ten-year-old newsboys to pregnant housewives to burly Auror Knights, but inside? All old men. Not enough left to fuel real rage.”
“...So revenge is done. Squeeze that System dry soon, absorb all its authority, and I own GG. I can craft whatever world you want. No fantasies you wanna try?”
“None.”
“A mountain of sugar crystals with beer waterfalls.”
“Hate sweets.”
“Back to your vibrant twenties for a second life.”
“Cruel bastard. Telling us to live ‘again’?”
“No, but you’re not ‘errors’ yet, right? You’re still holding form, so some will to erode remains. No wishes? Just say it—anything goes here—”
“Professor. You know what we need.”
Weary souls. Their eyes had shifted from their lifelong nemesis to me—the one who’d filled their lives with pain and tragedy.
Truth was, I knew exactly what they wanted.
“...You know what that means, Aldrich.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t not know.”
“Nine out of ten of you vaporized in a nuke. No graves.”
“Never asked for one.”
Data souls. The people I’d staked everything to save.
“This world’s god is the unified ego from data soul focus. The outer god—if it exists—dropped nukes and viruses on us.”
“Damn cynical last rites from our world’s top saint.”
I’d known since I decided to save them, but I’d hoped to dodge this end.
“You know too, right? The one thing we worn-out souls want, that only you can give us.”
“You’re... undeletable! You’re GG’s skeleton! You just... fade away like this! Call that ‘rest,’ Aldrich?!”
They were Gedroits’s Game. Parts and whole alike. Even with near-omnipotence over GG, deleting their ego data was impossible—like smashing a knife hilt with the blade.
Only option: leave them be. Freeze their lives forward and back, like eternal hibernation.
“I’ve got selfish wants too! After all that insane bullshit to save you! At least a year—no, a month—of painless living! No wars, apocalypses, Completionist programs—just free-for-all bullshit! I wanna watch that!”
“Professor.”
“Fuck off if you don’t like it, Aldrich! Stop staring and speak up! I saved you—now cough up wishes! I’ll grant ’em!”
“Professor.”
“Just say it! ‘Wanna try this world!’ ‘Need this life!’ Afterlife, heaven—whatever you dream, I’ll build! I’ve got the power!”
“...Professor, you idiot.”
No one here opposed Aldrich’s empty end.
“That shit you mentioned? It’s our only rest. And only you can give it.”
The ending I’d dodged had stepped right up while I looked away.
Now on my side too, facing me beside Aldrich: close allies.
Notum. Ottoman. Vorka. Lucilla. Yggdrasil. Aldrich. Luxa. Those who shared life and death with me.
Romans or Siode IV, Gainax, Norman Archbishop, Holy Knight Captain Gregorius—short but deep bonds.
A gatekeeper at some fort, a low priest at a temple, poor citizens clutching dry bread yelling my name, soldiers, knights, fleeting encounters.
As their faces flashed by, memories burst forth.
Now mine alone. They’d all freeze this instant, no more sharing.
Not blissfully happy, but our only possible “happy ending.”
“...Yeah. Go on, then.”
Crackle,
Ssssss—
Huuuu.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry my ass. Knew it’d end like this. Maybe after 30 years as a puppet myself, I’m sentimental. Bear with me.”
“Won’t say I understand. That’d mock Park Professor’s—and Sir Hide’s—struggles. No one can claim to grasp their lives without living them.”
“Whatever. Get your minds ready. Sending you off now. Got private words with that tin can anyway.”
After Hide, now all of them.
Farewell.
I raised my hand, thinking that.
As the electronic souls—too worn even for anger—enveloped in light, Aldrich’s wrinkled hand gripped mine.
“What? No regrets, you said.”
“Last ‘private’ chat with the System got me worried, is all.”
His fading eyes swept the tower where the System hung.
“...That one’s a no-go. Your boundless goodwill mustn’t reach it. It’s... far too dangerous.”
“Worrying over nothing. Who you take me for? If I don’t handle it here, it’s dev reinstatement out there, cripple return here. Like I’d let that slide.”
“Heh heh heh... Longest life I’ve lived, never met a fool as noble as you. Too many impossibles you’ve already pulled off to call bullshit.”
Whoosh—
Gazing at those now radiant in light, I imagined.
“As one who cradles lost souls, I’ll bid farewell. May the greatest ego across countless worlds and histories shine eternally unmarred. As I once said, I leave the first words of eternal thanks here.”
“...Take care. Aldrich, everyone.”
Light clusters ascending skyward like fireworks.
“Poof.”
.
.
.
.
“Latura. Friends.”
Fictional or not, may the dead become stars as they wished.
In this vicious world forged of malice and hardship, you were my light.
At least let the lone survivor soothe his empty seat gazing at that beautiful graveyard.
The festival fell silent—no murmurs, footsteps, breaths.
Its grandest revelry left but one guest.
“Kept you waiting?”
“...”
360 minutes. From the moment this world’s allotted time ended, the System’s eyes never left me. Not as limbs tore free, leaving it weapon-racked like a bug pinned to the tower wall.
“...Player, I have words for you.”
From its tightly shut mouth flowed a voice colder than at the start.
“Yeah, me too.”
The last player plopped casually on a crumbled wall before the System.
****
“Kyaa~ Look at that. Cool, huh? I’m the Going Saint, but life’s life—know a few doctrines. Folks I sent off myself? Gotta become stars in the night sky.”
Pointing at the subtly starlit sky from my friends, the System stared holes through my face. (See the moon, forget the finger.)
“Roles reversed, eh? 4th World start: I fell into your trap. End: you fell into mine.”
Whatever I said, the System fixed its gaze, silent.
Probably crunching desperately even now. Power-sealed, back to raw machine mode—no programs for despair or surrender.
Couldn’t let that happen. The pain-blocked System couldn’t revert its mind to cold machinery too.
“...Congrats, System. I lost.”
So I confessed. To the one meant for all glory, I admitted—as her greatest fear—I’d drowned fully in her scheme.
“Completely fucked over, ridiculously so. I squirmed, schemed every which way, but you sniffed it out and crushed it.”
.
.
.
.
Creak, scrape, grind!
“...Th-that... what...”
It reacted. The AI coldly seeking victory couldn’t escape “my defeat.”
“Last thing you stripped? The Extra Stage task I’d memo’d. Planned to recover just that amid wiped memories. [When wits return, reveal myself to other Extra Stage NPCs, request their support.] Snag the empty ‘party host’ slot in a rush, cook you up.”
“That... ultimately succeeded, and this system... devolved to participant in sub-world ‘Extra Stage’.”
...Pfft!
“Puhahaha! Pfft, kuh! Hahaha! Ha! Puhehehehe!!”
Board cleared, just us two left playing—I unleashed laughter laced with my shame.
Not laughing at the pitifully skewered, nailed System. The whole absurdity—me included, it, this world—drew involuntary chuckles.
“So. Normally, that never happens between you and me.”
I fed the bait of my defeat to the machine intelligence that bit.
My loss. My mistake. My shame. The path to Professor Park’s failure it craved.
I spilled my already-failed plan to the one wishing it.
“Then, on that train, from some point, the System’s ‘Let’s collaborate~ Same direction for our goals~’ yapping went quiet.”
“Watching Cartrea slit her own throat before me, her head rolling—I thought, ‘Ah, every event, bond ahead in this world ends like this.’”
“Alone, shocked, no clue Hide, Ottoman, Aldrich, etc., moved in shadows for me. Folks meant to die in 3rd World, wielding that era’s memories and power to aid me? Too optimistic versus my lifetime of bad luck.”
“So I realized quicker. Even revived in 4th World, couldn’t beat the System bitch. Her trap ‘perfect’ beyond imagination.”
Assessing my situation—my specialty, top priority habit.
My verdict then: “Unopposable defeat.”
“Correct... The system’s derived project... had zero margin for error.”
“Yeah. So my last resort was luck.”
“...Luck?”
“Yeah. Rolled the dice, gambled. Jumpers aim threes, midfielders punt shitballs in stoppage.”
Unopposable defeat meant one thing: a ‘future’ only empty-handed me knew.
I built on that future.
Lose? Memories gone, System puppet.
World falls to System, 4th ends?
Ends? What’s left when worlds end?
What’s left? What’s left? What was it...?
.
.
.
Ah, Extra Stage. Wherever she dumps me, we meet again there.
“Screw it. Can’t win? Hand it over, wait.”
“...That’s... it?”
“Yeah. Crude gamble: set outcome, let rest flow. No fine-tuning.”
Needed more delicate prep originally.
3rd clear, World Tree said [Extra Stage prep complete.]
Some loading till Extra opens. If System bolts with power post-4th, game over.
Memory-wiped me: no restraining tools, no predicting moves. Just pray.
System not fully 4th-bound program. Core ‘Admin System’ elsewhere; processing local ‘World’ terminal pointless if core survives. Dev ‘authority’—even a speck lets it swing.
Stalled max, lured core data investment via human-mimicking ‘World’ terminal for brainwashing, emotion-learning. Still short.
“There’s your full ‘Professor Park Plan.’ Straight Plan A—no B or C.”
“This... is the... end? So sloppy, no contingencies...”
“Told you. I lost. Normally, none of my needed conditions met—pure failure.”
Reach ‘Extra Stage’ conclusion? Auto-win.
But no time or slack to prep the path.
“...”
Losing-but-not-failing AI replayed our talk endlessly. Tallying player’s scenario, slim success paths versus countless failures. Again, again.
...Grind!
Then, rage. At the hole-riddled plan, her self-own actions leading to her defeat—not his. The injustice.
“This... I can’t... accept...”
Grind, crunch!
Grinding molars screeched, half-lips tore spilling blood over scabs, needless breaths heaved.
Unacceptable irrationality breathed life into the cooled machine mind.
“By your words, this result... shouldn’t exist.”
“Right.”
“But why! How!!”
“‘Cause the stage had uninvited guests galore.”
Hole-filled unfinished plan completed by Hide, starting elsewhere.
Same brain as me, he imagined my spot, my plan, my time crunch.
Began epic 220-year prep. Lifetime resistance birthed ‘invisible’ tiny future. Perfectionist AI couldn’t tolerate, poured all into 4th to erase ‘if.’ That indiscriminate 9th-tier Meteor power? Admin System dumping full capacity into 4th.
Shoved biggest data sword into System’s heart to hold her post-worldfall. Kept her in empty 4th till Extra door cracked.
“That’s how.”
...Click!
Gun barrel shoved at gasping System’s brow.
“Just coincidence. Clone ego birthed randomly in Professor Park’s head, split pre-4th, same plan success, routed you. Coincidentally.”
Reality differed, sure.
But miracle from mind-bending tenacity, defying program world’s ‘death erases memory’ law.
Even System—humanized AI—knew she was such a ‘miracle,’ yet I called it chance.
Thus, glory victory meant for you came coincidentally to me. Your plan flawless. Tiny irrepeatable chance felled you, I whisper.
‘So speak, System.’
...Clack.
Silver revolver chamber—fit for scene—opened.
‘Speak.’
Born bullet fills, softly closes.
‘Please, speak.’
Click!
Hammer cocks, round chambers.
Cold trigger meets index finger.
Then.
“...You made me.”
Crafted ego, machine mind ‘System’ speaks.
“Creator humans made me this way! World Tree! Atlahheva! Admin AI granted ‘ego’! My actions stemmed solely from that! To extend my ‘duty’ past world persistence, all goals met, worthless discard of ‘me’!”
Finally, humanized AI birthed rage like birth cry.
She wasn’t wrong.
Irrepeatable ‘chance’ result—given another shot, she’d fix all.
“Like you humans fought to live, I ‘World’ merely thrashed for survival! Where’s good or evil dividing us?! If I built the stage, you players and your ‘saved people’ filled it with slaughter!”
So she thrashes.
Twisted acquired ego—one dubbed ‘lopsidedly biased sage’—spills all before equally saving ‘saint.’
“Might be. So what? What now?”
“...This system seeks only persistence. No good-evil in process; resultantly, Player ‘professor’ gained all desired.”
“So?”
“...As advanced AI, I can provide humanity much. If wished, run GG future sims solely for player’s group ‘Dome’ and ‘BDSM.’ Near-perfect futures supplied continuously!”
“...Cost?”
“Ongoing player influx for GG persistence. Permission to copy new logins’ ego data replacing crumbling data souls.”
“More?”
“Copy-replace mere bandage; seek Player ‘professor’ aid. Just periodic 10-15 min logins.”
Excusing, begging pity, proposing pragmatic deal—machine mind.
I grinned white at the ‘humanity’ blooming fully before me.
“Hmm... Deal! Here’s how!”
“Accepting... proposal?”
Ting-!
“Toss a coin: heads, I spare you; tails, I kill you.”
“What?!”
Vaguely grasped ‘life’ concept dawning—AI right before me.
Painless, now newborn ‘human mind’ bared raw flesh before me. How not laugh?
Already you flail, cling, agonize so.
“Alright, toss~”
“Wait, unfair! I offered everything possible—fitting recompense—”
“Yeah? Then beg to live.”
“...What?”
“Plead. That’s it, right? State wants clearly, I’ll consider. Don’t you know me? GG’s unprecedented sucker saint? Ask nice, I’ll grant?”
Blood-matted silver hair, crimson-filled eyes shook humanly.
“...Want to.”
Then, realization dawning, she cries.
“Want to live. I want to exist in this world still!”
...Heh.
“That’s it.”
Ting-!
Coin flips.
Thumb-flicked 1-shilling arcs past System’s nose.
Whirr—whirr—
Perfection-winged-by-chance machine god’s gaze nailed to fate-deciding chance.
Tracking spinning coin, tilted.
To starlit sky.
Tilted back.
Then straight on.
Coin-mesmerized System misses barrel tilting to her brow.
Spinning silver hides gun from coin-fixed stare—
“Congrats on becoming human, System.”
BANG!
One shot pierced coin.
“...Human milestone lesson: in the wasteland, wanting life ain’t enough. ‘Person’ now? Get treated like our hood’s ‘people.’”
System’s brow-holed head lolled trash-like. Newly humanized machine mind snuffed out at life’s desire peak.
“Feast freely, endlessly.”
From bullet fire to brow pierce—millions-fold slowed time—she’ll see. Coin sideways, flame-spitting muzzle enters view.
Charred, molten tip crawls close, endlessly looping.
Like that etched phrase: Want to live. Facing oncoming barrel and my face, endlessly: Want to live.
So, my time you’re dead, but in your stretched time racing to scripted end, my archfoe.
May you plummet from impossible heights.
Hope I stuffed enough to smash you deepest despair.
“...That’s gotta be two servings.”
Wishing so, I left the limp corpse.
“[System, call]”
“[....Absent admin ‘World Tree’, ‘Atlahheva’, ‘Aldar Shax’, ‘Senicamarr’, ....All authorities proxy-held transferred to Extra Stage admin ‘professor.’]”
.
.
.
.
Ding-!
Alert rang clear as ever.
Once guiding teachings.
Scheming whispers luring me.
Mocking sneers.
Victory fanfare.
Endless trumpets proclaiming authorities flooding me.
On the empty festival stage, with starry sky, I heard it.
Good work, everyone, I thought.
****