The Shadow of Version 1.0.0
Elaine Huxley was strangely proactive today.
The developers of King's Crown, who had wanted to faithfully benchmark the original Crusader Kings, incorporated both the "Crusade" — the largest event and thematic core of CK — and "Pilgrimage" into their game. Just like the medieval Catholic Church, most nations on the western half of the Hamaltia continent had made the worship of the goddess Lunaria their state religion.
Lunaria was known as the Goddess of the Moon and Magic. Her appearance and setting reminded players of a certain character from a famous hardcore action RPG. Since that original character's nickname was "Wife," Lunaria naturally earned humiliating nicknames among gamers such as "Fake Wife" or "Corrupted Wife."
In truth, when you looked at their personalities, Lunaria and the "Corrupted Wife" were polar opposites. Lunaria was cold and ruthless toward the mortals who believed in her. So why did people worship such a terrifying goddess? The reason was simple. Though she usually wielded the whip, she occasionally bestowed a carrot. And every mortal who received that carrot went on to become a legendary figure whose name was etched into history.
The first emperor of the Lu Empire was one such person. So was Alhazard, the founder of the academy Leon and Elaine now attended. The great archmage Alhazard, savior of the West, had been a devout follower of Lunaria. Blessed by her, he twice repelled the invading armies of the Khan Emperor, who had come to annihilate the West.
And that was where the Crusade and Pilgrimage began. One of the battlefields where Alhazard had stopped the Khan's forces was the Holy Land itself. Even before Alhazard's time, the Holy Land had been deeply intertwined with Lunaria. It was the place where she had once descended in person, albeit briefly, and where her ancient followers had offered sacrifices. Naturally, it was no longer under the control of the western nations that worshipped Lunaria. Numerous tribes who believed in the Sun God Bel Solla had built various kingdoms upon the Holy Land.
Thus, the western nations repeatedly waged war under the noble cause of reclaiming the Holy Land. "The Goddess desires a Crusade." This proxy war between the Moon Goddess and the Sun God came to be called the Eclipse Crusade. Pilgrimage, then, meant traveling to the Holy Land that had sparked the Crusade, setting foot upon the ground where Lunaria had descended, and offering prayers to her.
In King's Crown, players could go on pilgrimage several times in their lifetime, and countless events would occur during the journey. One of those events was encountering Papiyas, the God of Fertility, though the encounter rate was absurdly low. Unless I was extremely unlucky, I probably wouldn't meet the Old Man God again.
Having organized my thoughts up to that point, I answered Elaine's question about when we would go on pilgrimage.
"I was thinking of going during summer break."
Before I possessed him, Leon had planned to go on pilgrimage after graduating from the academy. But it was better to go as soon as the opportunity arose. That way, you could go more than once in a lifetime. Since King's Crown was a fantasy world, completing a pilgrimage truly granted Lunaria's blessing. The blessing was most effective for magic-related classes, but it was still quite good even for a swordsman like me, because Lunaria's blessing was related to mana.
In the sparring match Elaine and I had just finished, we had refrained from using mana for fairness and fought with pure physical ability alone. But in reality, swordsmen in this world also used mana. Thanks to that, the world of King's Crown had things like the Sword Master commonly seen in generic fantasy novels. Elaine Huxley, who was currently training with me, was also destined to reach the Master realm in a few years. If she hadn't married the Crown Prince so early, she might have reached it much sooner.
But according to the original scenario, Elaine would marry the Crown Prince shortly after graduating from the academy.
"..."
Only about a year left until Elaine's marriage? Time was far too short. Did we really have to go on pilgrimage during such a precious period? To reach a higher realm than now, I would have to complete the pilgrimage...
While I was seriously pondering these thoughts, her voice suddenly came from right behind me.
"Don't worry too much."
I flinched so hard my body trembled. Her voice had been far too close. Had I been too lost in thought? When had she gotten so near?
I slowly turned around. Elaine stood with her hands behind her back, looking up at me. Her eyes were filled with certainty as she spoke.
"No matter what crisis you face during the pilgrimage, the Goddess will surely protect you."
The Goddess? She meant Lunaria? That wasn't exactly a merciful deity... If it was the goddess I knew, she would probably look at me being kidnapped and offered as a sacrifice to the Demon King and say in an icy voice, "To think you cannot even overcome a trial of this level. How weak and useless," before losing all interest.
I kept that thought to myself. There was always the chance Lunaria might be listening and curse me.
"If the Goddess protects me like you say, that would be great."
Elaine nodded, affirming my words.
"Yes. She will definitely protect you. Without a doubt."
Hearing her say that strangely eased the anxiety and stress that had been churning in my chest. But had Elaine always been this proactive? She had always taken the lead in conversations, but today she seemed unusually assertive. I didn't think much of it.
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After finishing morning training, Elaine and I parted ways to attend our respective classes. During sword training against the automatons, the beneficial effect of the Diligent trait had activated, lowering my stress from 49 to 34. But considering how it had shot up by 36 points in an instant earlier, this was far from reassuring.
Returning to my room in the noble dormitory, I washed up as usual and prepared for class while thinking about this abnormally high stress increase. In version 1.8.6 of King's Crown, which I had been playing before I died, even the Righteous trait wouldn't cause stress to spike this violently in one go. If the stress increase I had just received was the default value, then every NPC except lucky ones like Leon who had stress-relief methods would go insane or die within weeks, not months, once their stress exceeded 200.
This abnormal stress surge caused by personality traits had been a serious bug in King's Crown. The Khan Emperor of the East was a prime example. The Ambitious trait he started with granted tremendous advantages — conquering other nations or houses would increase his prestige and stats. Yet in earlier versions, this same Khan Emperor would suddenly die before even invading the West, before the event where he fought Alhazard even triggered.
When players investigated why such an absurd bug occurred, they discovered that the Ambitious trait inflicted stress every time the character gave away owned land to someone else. Considering how much land existed between East and West, it was impossible for the Khan Emperor to monopolize it all. Naturally, he would distribute conquered territories to his vassals who had distinguished themselves in battle. The problem was that every time he performed this natural act, his stress would skyrocket until he died of a heart attack.
After receiving massive backlash from players, the developers repeatedly patched most of the bugs where personality traits caused explosive stress increases. Of course, the Righteous trait was one of the few that didn't make it into that "most," though its increase value had at least been lowered. But this was clearly abnormal. This kind of excessively high stress increase was exactly like the very first version released — 1.0.0.
Could it be... that this really was version 1.0.0? If so, then all the overpowered glitches discovered since the game's release — could I actually use them? If I could really use those glitches... this might just turn into a total overpowered isekai story.