This Trash is Delicious Trash
This trash is delicious trash. Gigachad saves the world! What a half-assed plan. The fact that this was the only way to avert doom made the world itself feel utterly half-assed.
"I've more or less accepted that this plan is the only way to stop the end of the world. Hate to admit it, but after a few weeks living with Gigachad, even I've gotten a lot of mental support out of it. Those writhing muscles even grew on me quicker than expected."
Even so, Canaria didn't point out the plan's clumsiness or ridiculousness. She didn't drag things out by insisting there must be a better alternative. She was as wise as she was bold, clearly distinguishing between what she could handle and what she couldn't.
So, she asked the one question that was truly necessary to make sense of this situation—the one about me.
"But why are you smiling, Your Grace?"
"Huh?"
"If that's true, then failure means we all die, right? Yet to me, it looks like you're enjoying this situation immensely."
"Am I?"
Was I smiling? Yeah, I guess I was. Touching the corners of my mouth with my fingers, they were pulled up ridiculously high. At this rate, it looked like my grin would split my face into a red mask.
Ah. Of course I was enjoying it.
"Alright, suppose you were sentenced to roll a boulder up a mountain."
Sisyphus. The Greek myth criminal who was punished by eternally rolling a rock up a hill came to mind. I projected an image via telepathy: Gigachad (feat. Sisyphus) straining to push a massive boulder uphill. His grotesquely bulging muscles were for naught as he slipped, dropped it repeatedly, and kept at it diligently. The scene fast-forwarded like a time-lapse: the boulder reaching the summit, then tumbling powerlessly down the other side.
"The moment you reach the top, it rolls right back down the opposite side. You'll feel emptiness, misery, sorrow, and despair as you follow it down. Then you'll push it up again with all your might—and repeat it all. After hundreds of times, what happens to a person?"
"...They go insane?"
Canaria's question basically boiled down to, 'Is that why you're grinning like a maniac?' I shook my head and, with the passionately boulder-rolling Gigachad as backdrop, gave the answer.
"They become indifferent."
"Pardon?"
"The boulder rolling down doesn't even make you miserable or sad anymore. You just mechanically think, Oh, last time I rolled it right here. This time, left side. Even though it'll fall the same way no matter the direction, you find tiny differences, it falls, and you roll again without a spark of emotion. Not out of hope... but because all the time you've invested so far would be a waste. You keep repeating."
To find Endless's 'non-doom possibility,' I'd suffered hundreds of game overs. I tried every possible choice, racking up thousands of hours of playtime. By the 1,000-hour mark, fun and endings were long forgotten. I'd pour dozens of hours into a single run just to chase even a sliver of a new route.
"Forgetting even why you started the punishment in the first place."
In the illusion, Gigachad didn't stop. He rolled the boulder toward the peak again and again, advancing toward that sharp summit repeatedly. Maybe he was just using the rock for muscle training. From the sidelines, it looked utterly foolish.
"Then, one day, you give up following it down and just sit at the top... Huh?"
And then. Maybe from the weight of that endlessly pushed boulder. The infinitely sharp mountain peak...
Just a tiny bit—literally a slight flattening.
"Hey, the top's a little flatter now?"
It had been shaved down.
"Fuck, I was really gonna quit this time—"
Gigachad, flexing those grotesque muscles, grinned.
"But suddenly, this shit's fun as hell…!"
Honestly, I had no regrets about perishing with the world. What was the point of surviving long in a world without the internet? Better to live fast and hard as a wastrel. With my transmigrator perk of an S-Rank trait, building a harem and playing king sounded way more rational. I could've lasted decades on a decent survival route.
No need to obsess over this stupid, uncertain Gigachad plan.
"Seeing new possibilities like this? Nothing beats the thrill."
But not for Endless. Sure, it was trash—shitty enough for masochists only. Still, it was my delicious trash game. The trash I'd devoted my life to. A god-game for me. I couldn't bear letting it end as trash.
"Frankly, doom wasn't even that bad. Think of it as a time-attack roguelike—no regrets. Even without averting doom as the goal, the content was endless: conquering dungeons as a hero, running them as a demon lord. So much fun."
For 19,800 won, thousands of hours? Perfect value. Demanding more after that? Just greedy.
"But still... I wanted to see it. What those damn doomsday buttons would look like if they survived."
And I was the greedy bastard who'd hammered nails into his own coffin. Endless' thousands of hours had made me this way.
"Canaria."
"...Yes."
"You planned to kill yourself after assassinating the Nosferatu Duke, right?"
In the future I knew, the Nosferatu Duke was assassinated by a maid, his family crumbled. The maid who killed him took her own life. That was all the game revealed about the maid named Canaria—her name didn't even appear.
"Let me prophesy: You'd have succeeded. After the kill, you'd suicide immediately, and the Nosferatu family falls without its center. That's the future I know."
But now I knew her name, her voice, her past, her gold obsession. The Duke wasn't killed by a maid—he was succeeded by his wastrel son. The maid didn't assassinate and die; she became that wastrel's subordinate.
Honestly, it was a blast. I felt high on content, ready to dance. Our game is a god-damn god-game.
"So, how about now?"
"......"
"Gonna suicide since you borrowed someone else's power to achieve your goal?"
"......"
Silence flowed. It pooled below my throat. Despite my chatter, Canaria remained composed. Quietly tapping her cheek with her fingers, she pondered carefully.
And then, slowly—like gathering the spilled silence—she opened her mouth.
"...If this was me when I first infiltrated the mansion, yes, I'd have done it. Family and house gone... only revenge left. No attachment to life. But now..."
Glancing at the boulder-rolling Gigachad, Canaria grinned broadly, flashing her teeth for the first time.
"Gigachad's pissed, saying settling for mere revenge is pussy shit. Aim High. Set your sights high. At least try saving the world, he says. And I've got a rich employer promising top-grade gold. Dying now? I'd regret the coins left in my pocket."
I wasn't using telepathy. That was her true inner voice.
"You've changed."
"Yes. My inner Fucking Lion woke up. Gigachad changed me."
– "No, that's wrong. I'm your inner self. I just gave you a little push—I don't have the power to change you."
I couldn't change this world's ending. Endless only ended in doom. This world was fragile as coffee-flavored Choco Pie.
But even if I couldn't change the world's end...
– "You changed yourself, my daughter."
People could change. A vengeful ghost who succeeded and suicided could choose life instead. The doomsday buttons could change too.
– "And you'll keep changing infinitely. You've got infinite potential."
So I'd just give the push. That was Gigachad's role.
......
The long talk ended, and Canaria tilted her head as if struck by a thought.
"Your Grace, does that magic work regardless of distance?"
"Yeah. I'll respect your privacy, don't worry."
(For the record, Canaria washes her hair first in the bath. Then her face, then wipes sweat from her neck down her left armpit and under her breasts with her right hand. How do I know? Secret.)
"Then you could peek at opponents' cards through Gigachad during card games. Mind if I ask next time?"
"...Salary not enough?"
"Friends and gold? The more, the better."
"Heh. I like your consistency, Canaria."
"Thank you."
Yeah. That's my Canaria. I tossed her a gold coin from my pocket. She flipped in midair to catch it in her mouth—like a circus seal or monkey. Kinda fun... Addictive.
"What's your plan from here, Your Grace?"
"Biggest goal is rehabilitating doomsday buttons with Gigachad, but first priority—"
I recalled the trash mobs from the game. The ones who, left alone, suddenly smash the doomsday button with a 'click,' game-overing players for no reason. Players called them doomsday clickbugs.
"—is kicking all those bastards who press doomsday buttons out of curiosity right out of the story."
Poor clickbugs—unfair and tragic from their view. But no worries. Just like in the game, they'd exit life without knowing why.