Head Mod Hunt (3)
A gallery stripped of its Head Moderator was no different from flat, lukewarm cola. The most indispensable conveniences had vanished overnight, marketplace inventories had been wiped clean, and the boards had swiftly degenerated into an anarchic wasteland terrorized by tactical nukes and grotesque shock imagery.
Right when the users were beginning to lose their minds one by one, two pinned notices suddenly appeared at the top of the forum.
sup
Answer me.
It was practically identical to the notice posted exactly a week ago, right when the witch hunt against the Head Moderator had hit its fever pitch. The only real difference was the addition of two little words: Answer me.
Yet this time, the reaction was on an entirely different plane of existence.
The gallery erupted into an unadulterated carnival. For the first time in an entire week, not a single tactical nuke or shock meme was in sight. There was only an avalanche of page views climbing at breakneck speed and an endless cascade of replies piling beneath the post.
A gallery stripped of its Head Moderator had felt as cold, desolate, and unforgiving as a stone floor in the dead of winter. Plunged straight into post-traumatic stress by their instinctive memories of the dark ages, the users had finally woken up to reality. The Head Mod wasn't some volunteer janitor scrubbing public toilets; he was the sole administrator holding the entire community together.
Contrary to everyone's desperate hopes, however, Juddak didn't immediately restock the marketplace shelves.
(Image: Adrian Cathedral)
He had simply uploaded a single picture as a brand-new pinned notice. That was all. Seconds bled into minutes, and minutes stretched into hours without a single follow-up whisper from him.
Though the users were initially bewildered, the implicit ultimatum behind the post was crystal clear.
Discern the author's intent. Fail, and he won't return.
Without wasting another second, the users put their heads together to forge an impromptu hive mind. It didn't take long for the deciphering to succeed.
Greetings, hope you're having a lovely day.
Actually no, fuck that, who am I kidding? Today sucks ass.
Why? Because the Head Mod still hasn't come back.
So I fired up all my remaining brain cells at full throttle to cross-examine that photo with the threads from a week ago during the mod-hunt incident.
And guess what? I found something bizarre as hell.
(Image: A sudden flood of agitator threads appearing all at once)
(Image: Suspiciously identical phrasing, spacing, and punctuation quirks)
(Image: A meticulous period placed at the end of every single sentence without exception)
The entire drama started completely out of nowhere with zero organic buildup.
Usually, when drama kicks off, someone drops bait, people bite, and it gradually spreads like a wildfire. But if you look at the timestamps, dozens of threads questioning the Head Mod suddenly exploded onto the front page at the stroke of midnight.
Their tones tried subtly to sound different, but they all shared that obsessive compulsion to end every single clause with a period.
And above all, look at this phrase: "Do you fools still believe in the Juddak?"
They kept consistently making the exact same typo: 'You fools' instead of 'You guys.'
So what does this tell us?
(Emote: Frog peasant wielding a flaming torch)
What the fuck else could it be? It's time for a revolution, boys.
Armed with nothing more than a single picture, the users had dug through every archive from a week prior, and it hadn't taken them long to unearth the truth.
The Cathedral had orchestrated the entire smear campaign.
Circumstantial evidence was overflowing. Anyone with eyes could tell the Cathedral had instigated the troll wave.
"Still, this alone isn't enough," Juddak muttered to himself.
Tone analysis couldn't stand as airtight legal proof. Nothing was more perilous than framing someone purely based on writing quirks.
Just as expected, Archbishop Louis stepped forward as the Cathedral's official representative, adopting an aggrieved stance.
Where is your proof? If mere mannerisms and punctuation constitute evidence, then anyone in this world could be branded a criminal!
On what conceivable grounds dare you frame us as the perpetrators over such flimsy fabrications? This slander itself is a profound sin!
I issue this stern warning to the Head Moderator:
Do you dare post an image implicitly accusing the holy clergy without a shred of clear evidence? Do you not fear the wrath of the divine retribution awaiting your wicked defamation?
Cease leading more of the Lord's flock astray and repent for your transgression at once. Delete that notice immediately and publish a formal letter of apology addressed to the Cathedral!
Fail to comply, and you shall plunge into the deepest pits of hell to pay for your mortal sins!
You couldn't convict a suspect on writing habits alone. Emboldened, Louis had gone so far as to threaten Juddak with eternal hellfire for stirring public opinion without hard receipts.
And yet...
"So what?"
Who gave a damn? Fake news never needed valid justification in the first place. Hadn't the Cathedral spent centuries running witch trials day in and day out? Fabrications and agitations were their native specialty. Juddak had merely decided to pay them back in the very same currency.
Just two letters. Yet that mocking laugh carried more crushing weight than a five-page manifesto of elaborate arguments and forensic proof ever could.
In an instant, the pendulum swung back. The gallery collectively locked in on the Cathedral as the culprit. Grievances resurfaced in droves: people chiming in that they'd hated the priesthood all along, that they knew this was coming, and that the clergy had always reeked of corruption.
"Proof? As if I don't already have it," Juddak chuckled.
He held the undeniable receipts right in his hands. Cross-referencing the IP addresses of every inflammatory thread published during the mod hunt revealed that every single trail led straight to Adrian Cathedral. They had tried to be clever by creating different handles and posting from disparate rooms across the cathedral complex, but...
"Who do they think I am?"
No matter how many proxies or spoofed nodes they jumped through, the system archived every breadcrumb in its server logs. The Cathedral had undoubtedly orchestrated the psychological operation to drive him out. The reason Juddak hadn't laid his cards on the table yet was simple.
"They need a taste of their own medicine."
They had led an ambush using baseless smears. It was only fair that they drown in a baseless smear campaign of their own making.
(Image: A colossal crowd laying siege to the cathedral from every corner)
(Image: Clergymen attempting to reason with the crowd, pelted by a relentless storm of rotten tomatoes, scrambling back inside)
(Image: Protesters violently rattling the massive iron-studded gates)
Open the fucking door, you bastards!
Following the notice, a tidal wave of citizens converged on the cathedral steps. The swelling mob encircled the perimeter in scenes reminiscent of a modern mass demonstration.
"Man, this really takes me back to those protests back home," Juddak observed through his monitor.
The only difference was that these people carried rusty pitchforks, scythes, and sharpened cleavers instead of placards and scented candles.
"Please, calm yourselves!"
"We are not responsible for this evil!"
A few priests dared to crack the heavy doors open to appease the enraged mob, but their pious pleas backfired catastrophically.
(Image: A high-end marketplace refrigerator visible through the arched window of the archbishop's study)
Turns out they were using the marketplace just fine, huh?
Got that exorbitantly expensive refrigerator and everything, lmao.
You bastards take our tithes and buy out the market in secret, yet you have the audacity to run a smear campaign to shut it down? Make it make sense, honestly.
As every dirty skeleton in the Cathedral's closet was dragged out into daylight, the fury boiled over. You could find someone who had never tried the dimensional marketplace, but nobody who had used it just once. Crushed beneath ruthless war-torn hyperinflation, the masses had finally realized how sacred that price-locked marketplace truly was—and it made their blood run even hotter.
This is all an abominable fabrication engineered by the Head Moderator!
We did not commit this foul deed! I implore you, regain your senses!
Naturally, not every single person had jumped on the bandwagon. A few users recoiled at the polarized mob mentality, while others retained remnants of their lifelong faith in the holy clergy.
Judging the timing to be ripe, Juddak pinned his final card to the board.
Comprehensive proof that the Cathedral orchestrated the agitation:
(Image 1: Historical IP analysis log of the thread authors during the Head Mod Hunt)
(Image 2: Server telemetry showing a drastic plunge in Cathedral-registered IPs right as the attack concluded)
(Image 3: Archbishop Louis's personal administrative IP directly matching the primary smear thread author)
lol
He had intentionally withheld the undeniable receipts until now. The more desperately they squirmed and made excuses, the more catastrophic the backlash would be when the hammer finally dropped.
Whatever lingering sympathy remained for the Cathedral dissolved into dust.
"Now what are you going to do?"
Their lies were shattered, and their media manipulation had imploded in their faces. Juddak figured their only remaining recourse was total surrender and an unconditional apology.
He was wrong. There was one other option left in their playbook.
Labeling the demonstration an act of heresy.
Thwip—thunk!
Without warning, an arrow whistling through the air pierced clean through the forehead of a man shouting at the very front of the mob.
"...What?"
In the uploaded GIF, the man collapsed backward onto the stone pavement, dead before his body hit the ground.
The clergy had actually drawn steel against the people.
"Wait... they're shooting their own citizens?!"
Stunned into speechless disbelief, Juddak watched the frozen feed suddenly erupt with lightning-fast posts.
(Image: Volleys of iron-tipped arrows raining down into the crowd)
(Image: Protesters clutching bleeding wounds, writhing or lying lifeless in pools of blood)
(Image: Armed Inquisitors and Cathedral knights storming out of the heavy gates, hacking indiscriminately with broadswords)
These psycho bastards have completely lost their goddamn minds.
Now that they have nowhere left to hide, they've started butchering people left and right.
They're screaming that this protest is a heretical uprising and an act of blasphemy against God—fuck, what do we do?!
I have to run, I can't write anymor—
Adrian Cathedral had officially branded the civil protest as heresy and begun a ruthless slaughter.