A Peculiar Perspective
A Hero was someone who represented justice.
One who bore that title could not dabble in wickedness.
That was common sense known even to a fledgling Hero’s party.
Which was precisely why they fell into deeper agony.
“Alpha. Can you cut down that troll?”
Alpha flexed his forearms, each thick as Destroyer’s waist, and declared with boundless confidence:
“Three seconds is plenty.”
“Oh.”
“Until my spine snaps and I die.”
All posture, completely fucking useless.
Destroyer cursed inwardly.
“Destroyer. Can we deceive the troll to double back the way we came, or unleash the mercenaries to fight alongside us?”
“Impossible. Look at the greasy gleam in that troll bastard’s eyes. Try any funny business, and he’ll hurl that boulder in his hands to smash our carriage to splinters before we can even blink.”
Of course, Destroyer—who had just been talking trash inside his head—was just as useless.
To begin with, a troll was a medium-sized monster. It possessed an outrageous, utterly unconscionable subjugation difficulty: a hundred armed soldiers had to swarm it and poke it relentlessly with unconscionably long, three-meter pikes for three straight days and nights just to barely make it drop dead. And that calculation assumed there were knights or shieldbearers holding the front line to tank the blows. Without someone tanking, a hundred pikemen were merely an all-you-can-eat buffet laid out before a troll.
“We’ll just have to pick one and run them over.”
“Are you out of your mind?!”
Nyarlathotep’s nonchalant response left Destroyer genuinely flabbergasted.
“Hey, don’t you lose your qualification as a Hero or something if you commit an unjust act?”
“Justice is relative. If reckless bravado beyond our ability to shoulder ends up dragging even the coachman we could have saved to his death, wouldn't that be the most unjust conclusion of all?”
Nyarlathotep was a pragmatic Hero.
“Let’s run down the five.”
“Wait, are you serious?”
“Horses are timid creatures. If we drive the carriage along the cliff path to spare the five and strike only one, the horses will panic and won't be able to charge at full gallop. In that case, we fail to meet the troll’s demand.”
Even in Destroyer’s eyes, it was a remarkably sharp analysis.
Though whether it was fitting for a Hero was another matter entirely.
“If we overreach trying to save a few people and all of us in the carriage end up dead, then ultimately, everyone here dies. Those who can live ought to live.”
Thanks to this, the companions whose lives were spared kept their mouths shut and obeyed the Hero’s decision. As for the gruesome sensation of the carriage crushing human bodies underwheel—Destroyer would only ever describe it as a memory best left forgotten.
The troll kept its word and let them pass unharmed.
After clearing the fork in the road, Nyarlathotep chuckled in that peculiar way of his.
“We may have just encountered the smartest troll in the world.”
“He’s just a troll that dishes out psychotic quizzes.”
“My, my, Destroyer. Have you still not noticed? The real reason that troll is so intelligent.”
The Destroyer of that era had failed to understand. He merely thought of Nyarlathotep as an obnoxious bastard. What he had realized. What he had meant to say. It was only after his adventures were finished, while retracing his old journey on foot from the very beginning, that Destroyer finally reached the same answer as Nyarlathotep had back then.
“It was definitely this village, right?”
He visited the merchant settlement in search of the coachman from his memories, and when he coincidentally ran into that very same coachman with whom he had endured the world’s smartest troll, Destroyer exchanged an awkward greeting.
“I don’t see your companions.”
“Well... things happened.”
“Since fate has brought us together like this, would you care to ride along for part of your journey?”
“You’ve certainly got guts of steel.”
Destroyer took the seat beside the coachman.
Traveling along the aimless road, he exchanged three questions and answers with the coachman, and only then did he understand.
What Nyarlathotep had realized all those years ago.
“Now then, it is Student Orknodi’s turn once again. Imagine yourself as the veteran Hero Destroyer, and pose three questions to the coachman.”
“My, Destroyer, you certainly love asking questions!”
“It wouldn't be a puzzle otherwise.”
“Did you really ask three questions every single time in real life?”
“Do you think I did? Keep pestering me, and I’ll count that as a question.”
Just as expected, Destroyer’s adventure chronicles changed with every retelling. This time, an interesting tale had emerged once more.
Is the motif the Trolley Problem?
A rather famous thought experiment in ethics for modern people: when faced with choices bearing starkly divided stakes, where a crisis threatening many lives can be shifted by one's choice to sacrifice fewer, the experiment asks whether you would sacrifice the few by your own will or stand by and let the many perish.
A mere troll conducting an ethical experiment on humans? What a bizarre troll!
Yet just as there had been clues within the story when he shared Undying Sheep during the first lecture, hints existed within Troll's Dilemma this time as well. The three questions were merely a process to retrace the premise and attain certainty; she had already grasped the clue.
“Does the coachman's carriage happen to have a spare wheel attached?”
“A keen observation. You would indeed discover a spare wheel strapped to the back of the carriage.”
Thanks to that, it was certain. The coachman wished to conceal the fact that he had undergone the Troll's Dilemma—going so far as to prepare meticulously enough to carry spare wheels.
“Second question. Were there people who took the shortcut ahead of the carriage this time as well?”
“The coachman would answer that yes, there were.”
“Final question. Did the local garrison or the Adventurers' Guild ever attempt to subjugate the troll?”
“The coachman would answer with considerable certainty that to his knowledge, no one ever had.”
“Then that's enough. I think I've got the general idea.”
“Then give it a shot.”
It wasn't particularly difficult. If questions tied to morality were the clue, then the answer would naturally relate to it.
“The troll’s ethical experiment ultimately turned the humans into ‘accomplices.’”
“Righteous coachmen, who wished to save their fellow men even while risking their own lives, tried to run down the single person on the cliff path and ended up dead.”
“Conversely, selfish coachmen, who were willing to trample a crowd on the wide main road so long as they survived, coldly struck down the many and managed to escape with their lives.”
Destroyer nodded, bidding her to continue.
“In truth, the Troll’s Dilemma doesn’t lie in the fork itself. The cliff road is a ‘trap,’ and the main road is the ‘correct answer.’ The real dilemma begins right afterward.”
“Do you report to the local garrison or guild that you struck down five people in cooperation with a troll's ethical experiment and brand yourself a murderer, or do you pretend this bizarre incident never happened, keep your mouth shut, and prioritize your own safety?”
“If you choose the former, the menace lurking near the trading village disappears, but your personal security is ruined. If you choose the latter, the danger to the local community remains, but you yourself are safe.”
Risk becoming an enemy of human society?
Or risk letting an enemy of humanity persist?
The troll forced an absurdly intellectual torment upon them. And the people who passed this dilemma were all coachmen who had chosen to run down the five on the main road. Those whose self-interest outweighed their altruism toward their fellow man were far more likely to look out for their own skin than to make a choice predicated on self-sacrifice after the fact.
The surviving coachmen became accomplices, keeping their mouths firmly shut about the danger dwelling upon the path they had traveled. In fact, they might even actively conceal and distort information about the deceased.
After all, it would be troublesome if their crime came to light!
“Former Hero Nyarlathotep realized that in an instant right from the beginning of your adventure, didn't he?”
“Correct. Conversely, I find myself curious: how did you realize it in an instant?”
“Because Mr. Nyarlathotep possessed a selfish view of justice, entirely different from universal justice!”
A player could understand it.
In any story, once the player dies, they cannot witness whatever happens next. For that reason, players with weak specs sometimes chose options despite knowing full well that they were morally depraved or unjust. Having played games with all sorts of trash-tier builds back before discovering rerolling, she understood this intimately.
There were times when the weak had to be cowardly and selfish just to survive.
Though Nyarlathotep was a Hero, he had grasped that reality and made a cold-blooded judgment. Almost like a ‘player’ enjoying a game.
What a peculiar NPC.
“Had you been born fifteen years earlier and become Nyarlathotep’s comrade, the two of you would have hit it off splendidly.”
“Ugh. No way, I'd hate that.”
“You would enjoy the honor of becoming a companion in a Hero’s party, wouldn't you?”
“That’s only for weak people. I’m strong, you know?”
When she curled her arm, flexing with an adorable grunt to make a bicep, the professor gave her a look that said aren’t you an adorable little rascal, before replying, “Right, right, you're strong.”
“Hm? Why are you suddenly blushing? Gross.”
“It’s not gross! It’s just... lately whenever I say I'm strong, everyone starts making Orc jokes. I think you're the first person to treat it so nonchalantly, Professor, that's all.”
“Hah.”
Destroyer clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“A tsundere disciple. How troublesome.”
“Ugh, seriously, what are you even saying?!”
Any shred of gratitude vanished into thin air!