The Troll's Dilemma
Jigoku reached inside her jacket and produced a single bullet.
"Hey, take this."
"A bullet?"
"It's a round I'm particularly fond of, but I'm giving it to you."
"...?"
"Flog it for Points or keep it in your pocket, do whatever you like."
She harbored no distaste for people who treated their own lives as cheap expendable assets. Consequently, she had no desire to watch someone with that mindset abruptly perish. Without a baseline surplus of luck to tilt the odds, reckless assets simply met premature liquidation on the roadside. That practical calculation was the sole reason she parted with her lucky bullet.
Out of nowhere, I had acquired a favorability item from Jigoku.
What brought this on? Is a water-attribute pirate naturally predisposed toward high-affinity ratings with someone who swims efficiently?
Should I invite her next time Professor Sadako summons water ghouls for a practical demonstration? Would that yield a net positive reaction?
After toweling off, changing clothes in the locker room, and turning the bullet over in my fingers on the way out, I crossed paths with the Hero. As expected of the single most broken cheat character in the 981st cohort, she had powered through the current despite the interference of the enchanted washbasin through sheer, unadulterated baseline capability—entirely unassisted by player meta-knowledge or exploitative tricks.
"Orknodi. That was your name, wasn't it?"
"Yup."
"Would you like to join my party?"
"Huh??"
A recruitment offer arrived with even less prior notice than the magic bullet.
"So suddenly? Why?"
"There is only one logical incentive for a pirate to initiate contact with a child. She evaluated your latent talent and proposed bringing you into her crew, didn't she?"
"Not particularly."
"Then what was the exchange about?"
"She gave me a present. A bullet."
"...A woman who borders on clinical withdrawal if a day passes without discharging a firearm gave you a bullet as a gift? How is that anything other than an operational recruitment offer?"
Wait, was that the actual utility function behind it?
"Well, I do plan to board her pirate ship once to trigger a specific event, but I have zero intention of signing on as an official crewmate."
"Then what do you think about enlisting in the Hero's Party instead?"
"Me? For real?"
"Dead serious."
"Why?"
Was it because I secured the top seat in Group A? Because I demonstrated exceptional performance in the Upper Class physical conditioning course? Or had she simply assigned a high projected value to my future returns based on my age?
"Elemental allocation quotas."
"...Excuse me?"
"Seas. Volcanoes. Underground mine shafts. The Hero's adversaries conceal themselves across divergent operational environments, and the Hero's Party must project force across wildly variable theaters. Orknodi, you are my top-priority candidate for the water-attribute slot."
This iteration's Ishtar proved remarkably rational. Rather than fielding an absurd five-warrior brute-force squad or a volatile five-rogue composition on the verge of mutual betrayal, she intended to assemble a party through strict role distribution, elemental coverage, and maximized utility. For an Ishtar—a character notorious across runs for fixating on bizarre conceptual gimmicks—this was an impressively functional approach.
"I appreciate the offer, but I'll have to decline."
"On what grounds?"
"There are specific people I prefer to travel with."
"Those people over there?"
Ishtar pointed toward Son Ocheon and Hestia, who had abandoned conventional swimming altogether in favor of churning the river into white foam through raw muscular horsepower, and the surrounding students observing the spectacle.
"Yes. Doesn't that look far more entertaining?"
"I suppose it does."
A shadow fell across Ishtar's expression—a faint trace of nostalgia and calculated loss. Her gaze, momentarily drawn to the past, recalibrated as she turned back.
"If your assessment changes later, let me know. I'll preserve your vacancy for at least one year."
"Okaay."
"And one more matter."
"?"
"The professor asked me to relay a message: if you're ever hungry, he will brew you a pot of Protein Soup free of charge."
"I'll pass on that..."
I could tolerate a protein shake for its nutritional efficiency, but Protein Soup crossed every acceptable threshold of culinary cost-benefit analysis. Tampering with food was where optimization turned into sheer depravity!
Ishtar recalled the journey here.
She remembered the transactional hospitality offered by the territorial lords whose domains she crossed en route to the Academy, all desperate to secure a stake in the Hero's future returns. Arrogant aristocrats had the sheer audacity to propose betrothals to children barely four years of age, or brazenly inquired how she felt about wedding grown men well past thirty. The commoners exhibited no fundamental difference: dreams of instant elevation, social mobility, and immense windfalls drove people blinded by self-interest to ingratiate themselves, desperate to be taken on as companions. It brought Ishtar nothing but exhaustion and disillusionment.
Worse still, among those opportunists were childhood friends from her very own village.
"Ishtar. I understand you extended a recruitment offer to that child?"
"My apologies, Yupi. I should have coordinated with you beforehand."
"Hmph. As long as you recognize the oversight."
Just as Ishtar was chosen by Sophemia, the sole supreme deity, Yupi had been selected by Golgotha of Decapitation, one of the Twelve Major Gods. She alone stood on equal ground, completely divorced from self-serving greed, desiring companionship purely for the objective mission at hand. Though she turned her head in an exaggerated display of mild pique, the iron cross resting against her shoulder easily weighed upwards of thirty kilograms.
Regardless of discipline, those who lack physical power inevitably become frail in both body and resolve. Even if we don't pursue the extreme extremes championed by Professor Plato, a substantial baseline of physical capacity remains non-negotiable.
Orknodi had failed to notice, but this iteration of Ishtar was fixated entirely on raw physical output. While role distribution and elemental balance entered her equation, the primary metric she prioritized within each domain wasn't the class's standard functional attribute, but sheer physical Strength. To dive straight to the riverbed, withstand immense hydraulic pressure, and advance upstream against a violent current required staggering mechanical force. Rumors that Orknodi was a half-orc boasting greenskin-tier muscle output only augmented her evaluated score.
"Ishtar."
Yupi, possessing a precise grasp of her leader's recruitment algorithm, spoke with a deadpan expression.
"If that is your overriding parameter, wouldn't that towering monkey beastman, Son Ocheon, serve as a far superior candidate? His baseline strength and physical frame are demonstrably greater."
"That presents an insurmountable operational complication."
"Because he hasn't mastered the Mana Body Refining Method?"
"Because I suffer from a severe fur allergy."
"Ah..."
That explained why she had recoiled in absolute terror when an adorable cat beastman girl had approached earlier to offer greetings. One of Yupi's minor logistical questions was thus cleanly resolved.
Thanks to concluding physical training ahead of schedule, I arrived at my second-period class without issue.
"Good day, Professor Destroyer!"
"Aye."
The professor fixed his gaze on me with an expression of profound unease. He looked exactly like a programmer staring at an executing script with zero comprehension of why the code was functioning, radiating an aura of anxious scrutiny that made me feel inexplicably uncomfortable in turn.
"Is something the matter?"
"Tell me. Do you experience lucid dreams with any regularity?"
"No? I generally don't dream at all when I sleep."
"Then by what mechanism did you unravel the Trial of Nightmares with such trivial ease?"
"...?"
"...Never mind. Staring at that blissfully vacant face drains all productive energy from the inquiry. Let us proceed with the second lecture."
What an eccentric. Lacking companions and spending every day acting aloof and self-important had clearly left the man chronically starved for engagement.
"You're calculating something exceedingly disrespectful in that head of yours right now, aren't you?"
"Not at all."
Destroyer eyed me with heavy suspicion before snorting softly and reclining against the back of his chair.
"In our preceding session, we examined the case of the Undying Sheep. Today, I shall present another case study."
"What is the subject?"
"Today's material is The Troll's Dilemma. A narrative guaranteed to extinguish any lingering impulse to travel the continent on foot."
Thursday, second period: Adventure Tales of the Retired Former Hero. Professor Destroyer's second historical case began to unfold.
Approximately fourteen years prior.
During an era when the party was operating on the frontier, accumulating merit points by resolving low-tier requests alongside complex investigations like the Undying Sheep, the Hero's Party arrived at an outlying trade nexus that linked remote settlements to frontier outposts.
"You brainless, stamina-obsessed idiots! My legs are on the verge of snapping! What are you hoarding our coin for if you refuse to spend it? Rent a carriage, you absolute bastards!"
Destroyer finally snapped, venting his misery in a torrent of unfiltered profanity. Between the Hero Nyarlathotep and the party's first recruit, the warrior Alpha, every procedural vote regarding transport predictably concluded in an identical two-to-one split. One could rationalize the Hero's endurance through divine favor, but Alpha appeared to have received a blessing directly from the concept of raw muscle itself.
"Seeing as Destroyer-kun is undergoing notable physical distress, shall we resolve the matter equitably through a majority vote?"
"Walk."
"Haha. It is my firm belief that an adventure yields far greater personal satisfaction when traversed upon one's own two feet. Consequently, by democratic consensus, the motion to proceed on foot carries!"
"You motherfucker."
Subjected once again to the systemic tyranny of the majority, Destroyer—the party's rogue and second companion—found salvation extended not from his comrades, but from a coachman navigating his team of horses alongside them.
"Ho-ho. While fiscal discipline is an admirable virtue in young adventurers, wouldn't it be optimal to accommodate your comrade's reasonable grievance once in a while?"
Having accumulated sufficient regional Savior accolades to earn the upgraded title of Reliever of Remote Villages, the party's subsequent objective lay at a distant mining outpost—a journey demanding an entire month of continuous foot travel. For Destroyer, who had stretched his patience to its absolute limit, that distance was the breaking point.
"Are you offering us transport?"
"Provided you serve as escort for the wagon along the way."
The benevolent driver allocated seating upon his carriage free of monetary charge. Three men clad in threadbare, road-stained gear were hardly the caliber of assets an employer would actively contract for security. Possessing significantly higher social intuition than his muscle-bound peers, Destroyer recognized the reality instantly: the coachman had zero practical expectation of protection, extending the gesture purely as altruistic charity toward exhausted wretches.
"I harbor an exceptionally positive intuition regarding this carriage passage. It promises to be quite entertaining. Fufufu."
"...I'm getting off."
"Is another disaster brewing? Dammit, now even I'm tempted to walk."
Whenever Nyarlathotep produced that profoundly unsettling laugh, an incident inevitably materialized. Yet faced with the prospect of an entire month sleeping rough on bare ground, Destroyer forced himself to calculate the trade-offs and accept the risk. Whatever crisis unfolded, they simply had to neutralize it upon arrival.
"Rest at ease. A party of six mercenaries traversed this exact road several days ahead of us. Should any hazard manifest, they will absorb the initial impact. If we encounter those mercenaries retreating in broken ranks, that will afford us more than sufficient advance warning to wheel the carriage around."
The driver's risk-mitigation logic was sound.
That is, until reality presented its variable.
"Me, Troll. Tear humans apart."
"Full right now. Spare you for game."
"Pick one path. Run carriage through at full speed, let you live."
Before a fork in the road stood a deranged troll. Bound across the broad, open main road on the left lay five captured mercenaries; secured across the precipitous cliffside track on the right lay the remaining one. And the beast demanded they steer their charging wagon straight over one of the paths, forcing a catastrophic calculation of lives.