Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Tyrant (1)
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Ballantine: SKELTON, don't worry. Everything's going to work out just fine.
Ballantine, who'd recently changed his nickname, was showing remarkable confidence in preparation for this coup.
The requests I'd made to Ballantine boiled down to two main things.
The first was to keep this skeleton's identity as secret as possible.
In other words, my primary order was to make sure SKELTON didn't look like Professor. The second was obvious, but inevitable: this skeleton would wear the armband.
By restoring Failnet, we'd created the conditions for holding the armband election.
The Failnet users, who'd been surviving through blinding blizzards and pitch-black darkness for days on end, had flocked to whatever government-run puppet site—NationalNet or CountryNet or whatever it was calling itself. But that hastily thrown-together site couldn't handle Failnet's massive traffic.
Not to mention it was a backward system forcing real-name registration and public certificate logins from the start. Even if you managed to make a real-name account, the servers kept crashing left and right, making it impossible to even browse.
This was yet another moment that highlighted just how brilliant and thoughtful my model operator, John_nenon, truly was.
Of course, the Failnet users erupted in ecstasy the moment it was restored.
On the day of restoration, it was inevitable—the exact same scene as Failnet's very first invasion played out on our board.
...
The board, which had been quiet for a bit, was heating up again after so long.
To the point where it was almost impossible to post anything.
But unlike before, there were no beggars in sight.
Well, they popped up occasionally, but it was more accurate to say their voices were drowned out by the cheers of the vast majority of good, honest users simply thrilled about the internet's return.
Amid this fiery reunion, Ballantine and I steadily advanced the work to get this skeleton the armband.
Ballantine: There's one variable. When voting, do we exclude Failnet users without accounts, or let everyone participate?
The easy path was the latter.
If Failnet users could join, this skeleton's election was a done deal.
Sure, Failnet users were freezing to death, but even so, there were countless more of them than our handful of board users.
But neither Ballantine nor I thought things would go that smoothly.
Considering the board moderator position was created precisely to filter out trolls flooding in from Failnet, it made sense not to give Failnet users voting rights. So what plan did Ballantine have?
He had one.
Ballantine: Back when John_nenon hyung analyzed the systems to connect Viva! Apocalypse! and Failnet, we discovered a ton of spare accounts on the Viva side.
Each Viva! Apocalypse! account has a unique value, which only becomes a valid account once linked to the user's satellite device, the Obelisk.
But Melon Mask had apparently created several reserve accounts in Viva! Apocalypse!'s system that weren't linked to any satellite gear yet.
Ballantine speculated on the reason like this:
Ballantine: Like that intercontinental drone delivery Dongtanmom got, or the shopping site she verified, it seems Melon Mask wanted to do business even in the apocalypse.
Wasn't Viva! Apocalypse! one of those? Secure a group of doomsday enthusiasts like us first, build a market, then lure in outsiders who aren't participating.
If I'm right, Melon Mask probably has a stockpile of satellite gear at headquarters.
I'd thought something similar.
For a once-in-a-lifetime merchant like Melon Mask, wasn't this apocalypse just endless opportunity?
If that space bunker incident hadn't happened, we might be gawking at our world's creator right now—a million times more annoying version of him.
Even now, the corner of the board screen still featured Melon Mask's photo and drawing with Bumpy, titled "Mutation's First Friend."
"......"
Anyway, those unsold spare accounts were the secret weapon to arm this skeleton.
Ballantine: All those accounts have the password fixed at 0000. Not hard at all. But a simple password doesn't activate them.
Viva! Apocalypse! links accounts to satellite gear, so without it, spare accounts are worthless shells. But what if we fake a virtual satellite device and link it to the spares? Wouldn't that yield some amazing results?
My expertise is killing monsters or beatboxing, not systems, accounts, or IT stuff.
But from what I gathered, the idea was to use some program that fools the net into recognizing the spare accounts as linked to satellite gear, activate them, and then vote for this Park Gyu with those accounts.
If it worked perfectly, it'd be a brilliant plan. But I had my worries.
SKELTON: SKELTON worry) How many of those spare accounts can we use?
It's undeniable that I'm something of a board regular with a name people know, and I've secured a few friendly users who support me.
But that number isn't huge.
To be objective, do I really have the pull to sway the so-called floating voters?
Sure, if I showed my new monster hunts live, public opinion would swing my way—but that's impossible.
Not just Woo Min-hee, but old comrades like Kang Strong-min or Na Hye-in seem active on this board.
I figured Woo Min-hee was manageable.
To be honest.
Even if SKELTON was outed as Professor, proving it would take more evidence and effort.
I always thought I was bad at lying, but I'd just never tried. Turns out, I'm pretty good.
There were around 150 users active on the board right now, but probably more in reality.
Our board skewed older than others, and those older folks tended to lurk like the good old SKELTON days, just confirming people were still alive without posting.
Meaning vote counts could exceed 100 easily.
A few extra accounts alone wouldn't arm this skeleton.
I sipped my coffee, waiting for Ballantine's reply.
Ballantine: Thinking around ten or so.
"?"
What?
I hammered the keyboard immediately.
SKELTON: That won't cut it.
Ballantine: Pardon? Ten not enough?
SKELTON: Yeah. Not enough.
Ballantine: Why? I thought SKELTON was plenty likable.
SKELTON: With 10 votes, Dongtanmom and m9 are no-gos, and we'd lose to trash like DS or Berkut.
Ballantine: Trash? I hate Berkut too, but DS seems decent. Has leadership vibes.
SKELTON: (SKELTON serious) That's not the point. We lack votes!
Ballantine: So what's your target vote count, SKELTON? I'll match it.
My target?
Let me think.
Rebecca, Defender, Defender's little bro, Ballantine, Fulcrum who's been quiet lately but still, and me.
Tap tap
SKELTON: Feels like we've got about 5 secured...
Ballantine: No.
"......"
Tap tap
SKELTON: (SKELTON startled)
Ballantine: Surely those five don't include me and SKELTON, right?
SKELTON: (SKELTON tears)
Ballantine: Hey, do you know how many Korean board users there are?
SKELTON: (SKELTON curious)
Ballantine: Data mining shows about 600. Used to be 1,300 nationwide, but Jeju got cut off due to signal interference when the war started, and the rest died to raiders or vanished.
Not latest data, so active users unknown, but given us doomsday folks, at least 500 left?
SKELTON: Wow...
Ballantine: No time for wow. You thought you'd win the armband with five votes? What confidence is that? Five is ridiculous.
SKELTON: Each one's a ten-thousand-man general like Guan Yu or Zhang Fei.
Ballantine: Votes are one per person?
SKELTON: Ah!
Ballantine: I know you've worked hard, SKELTON, and thanks to you Failnet got fixed, but fine. Let's do it. While we're at it, hack 300.
SKELTON: (SKELTON touched)
Ballantine: But you gotta help rig the votes later.
SKELTON: Deal.
Ballantine: Four days left, no sleep for us. Gotta make 300 accounts. Catch you later.
And with that, our election strategy was set.
"......"
A little sting of conscience, but can anyone live without a scratch on theirs?
For now, I left it all to Ballantine.
Glancing at the board, Failnet's welcome-back party was dying down, and my rivals were stretching for their armbands. Even if Ballantine was handling the election, this was still my fight.
Voting only with spares would tip off that lazy Viva Bot, so a bit of my own campaigning was the smart play.
"SKELTON, it's cold out—what's up?"
I headed to Rebecca and Soo first.
"No word from the US military yet?"
"Too cold. Once it warms up a bit."
The mother-daughter duo had their place fixed up nicely.
Rebecca clearly lacked my modern eagle skills in cement, plumbing, or wiring, but her traditional carpenter's touch—honed in America's vast Canadian forests—was a cut above mine. She'd turned her American home into something straight out of the 19th or 18th century.
With the log walls, roaring fireplace, and tapestry-like fabrics adorning the walls.
"Ondol's nice too."
I tossed in a casual suggestion as I watched her, but Rebecca was still Rebecca.
"I don't like baking my body like bread."
Anyway, I offered her a heartfelt gift.
"What's this?"
"Oh, nothing much. Had some free time during the winter, so I whipped it up."
"Sausage?"
"Yeah."
Soo came down from upstairs, yawning.
With the brutal cold lately, no patrols meant she was pretty idle these days.
I handed Soo the juicy canned goods I'd gotten from Melon Mask before.
"SKELTON. Thanks."
"No need—having you around always comforts a corner of my heart."
"SKELTON, you're different today?"
Sharp as ever.
I got to the real point with Rebecca.
"What? Voting? Armband?"
"Yeah. Korean board moderator election coming up. Cast your precious vote for me, and oh, you got American friends?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"Talk them up good—any votes you can snag for me would make for one hell of a happy New Year's."
"...SKELTON's talkier than usual."
First time seeing Rebecca's look of contempt.
So that's the face.
Now I get how Park Sang-min felt.
Politics ain't easy.
Elections mean setting your pride aside.
"Please."
"Uh, um..."
Anyway, secured Rebecca +@.
"......"
Next up: Defender.
<74. Tyrant (1)> End