What Is a Supreme Executive?

It had been several days since I had, quite unintentionally, stirred up the users' bitter envy—and, in the same stroke, sent their motivation soaring with declarations that they'd build something similar of their own.

"Am I browsing a mattress retailer's website, by any chance?"

That was how badly the backlog had piled up—for days on end, the entire gallery had been carpet-bombed with nothing but bed talk, which was frankly a sorry state of affairs.

Granted, after nearly a week of that attitude, the frenzy had more or less died down on its own. Not long after I started wondering whether I was running a mattress shop, the users sick of the bed threads took the lead, and all manner of fresh bait came flooding into the gallery.

And so, sprawled across my Ggomuli-bed in a state of utterly incomparable comfort—while the planetary system's automated development hummed along in the background—I turned my attention to developing a new drug. About ten minutes had passed, perhaps, when—

"Huh? Oh? Wait, why on earth does this work?"

Right around the time I'd accidentally cooked up a sensitivity multiplier—the sort of thing that belongs in a dirty doujinshi, yet somehow came with suspiciously realistic stats and every side effect known to man—the gallery finally managed to shove aside that eternal bed bait, as a brand-new thread climbed its way to the concept posts and set the users abuzz.

Curious what it was, I took a look, and wouldn't you know it—it was the sort of "strongest being in the setting" bait you'd expect from a game of exactly this genre. Well, to be precise, it wasn't truly that kind of discussion at first: it began with the fallout from the Babel Cult's "Saint & Holy Maiden Selection Ceremony" that I myself had triggered a while back.

As time passed, the selection ceremony talk died down, and what remained was pure chatter about Saints and Holy Maidens in general—until, eventually, some newbies raised the question, "Do the other nations really not have anyone on par with the Saints and Holy Maidens?" A thread that marched along on pure stream of consciousness, in other words.

I did think the whole structure of it was bizarre beyond belief, but that was that—and in any case, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠inherent appeal of the bait was an undeniable fact. Even the diehards who usually pushed the most deranged threads imaginable—the kind impossible to justify in any civilized language—came swarming in and latched onto it with complete focus.

And once things reached that point, naturally, the old guard who'd lost face over the bed bait seized their moment and posted a thread to settle the question once and for all…

"Ah. That's crossing the line."

The veterans, of all people, had pulled off a completely unexpected herbivore maneuver: "Ask the adjutants standing right next to you about such trivial details."

Inwardly grumbling at veterans who teased like this, I couldn't stop the corner of my mouth from twitching up into a little pout.

Of course, that didn't last long either, because hordes of users started whining in the WWE sense of the word, radiating sheer willpower demanding that someone write it all down.

'Now that I think about it… they're not wrong at all.'

On top of that came a string of remarks from a "PassingLurker" giving off the unmistakable musk of a veteran while desperately trying to pretend otherwise. The end result?

Before long, the other old guard had subtly ganged up on Chicken Curry—hounding her for peddling such bizarre logic—and at last a genuinely substantive post appeared in the gallery.

And so I checked what the actual content turned out to be…

"They've really got everything, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠don't they."

Leave it to SF—yet another piece of bizarre lore came springing out of nowhere to bombard my poor brain, 10% science-track and 90% liberal-arts as it was.

But at the very least, I could breathe an inward sigh of relief over one thing: that particular bit of lore was never going to be my problem in the near future.