Settlement, Farming, and the Glitch (3)
We call the items, spaces, and skills that developers deliberately hide inside games hidden pieces. They might be difficult to find, but they were created with the intention of being discovered, so the more we make use of them, the better. Messages hidden according to the developer’s intent are what we call Easter eggs. They rarely provide any direct benefit to gameplay, but they let you uncover the game’s lore and hidden details, which is why finding them always felt rewarding. And then there were the things the developer never meant to create—mistakes and oversights. We called those errors. Or bugs. If they had a massive impact on gameplay, we went even further and labeled them cheats.
Of course, if the developer eventually embraced the bug, it could be rebranded as emergent gameplay… but if it was neither intended nor tolerated, it remained nothing more than a cheat. An error in the game system. An object born from the developer’s unintended coincidence. A mistake that slipped into existence between strings of zeros and ones. In that sense, this thing was both a bug and a cheat. Which meant it had no right to exist here. Because this was reality.
A world where errors and bugs simply could not exist. Hidden pieces and Easter eggs could be rationalized as things that had always been there, but an error defied such logic. The space itself felt fundamentally wrong, completely at odds with the concept of the Insect Assembly Castle. It was nothing more than a hole that had suddenly appeared, nothing more and nothing less.
What the hell is this?
For a moment the thought actually crossed my mind: Maybe this really is a game world. Maybe I hadn’t been transported to another universe at all. Maybe I had simply fallen into a game. A world built not of atoms and particles, but of binary code. The people I thought were alive were nothing more than sophisticated AIs, and everyone except me was a virtual character. In that case, the existence of a bug like this would almost make sense—like a wall-clipping exploit in any other game.
But the thought lasted only a second before I shook my head.
No. No, that’s not it…
I was overthinking it. Without any real evidence, this line of thought would only give me a headache. Besides, even though I had no concrete proof… I wanted to believe this world was another living, breathing reality. Only then did my actions feel like they carried any meaning.
Anyway. The effect of the corrupted-text item was simple: it nullified the authorities of the Four Heavenly Kings and the Demon King, and inflicted a temporary stun. For a bug item, its effect was absurdly powerful. There had been times when the nullification alone let me completely dismantle a Heavenly King. A few minutes of total helplessness was more than enough time to pour in catastrophic damage.
Still, I had never used the item often. It carried a fatal flaw.
This brings back memories.
It was the first time I had found the item and used it out of curiosity. I was stunned by its incredible power and its sheer strangeness. At first I genuinely thought it was a hidden piece the developer had tucked away. That is, if not for the messages that followed.
Inappropriate gameplay detected!
Deleting character for disciplinary action.
If only those goddamn messages hadn’t appeared.
—Are you fucking kidding me?
The character I had raised for so long died just like that. The cause of death wasn’t a desperate battle with the Demon King or the destruction of the world. It was an administrator’s sanction. I think it happened while I was fighting the third Heavenly King. It had already taken me two full weeks just to reach that point. Yet the developer decided to delete my character without hesitation over a single item.
After wasting two weeks of my life, I naturally sent an angry email to the development company. I asked if this behavior was even acceptable. I told them I hadn’t known. I asked whose fault it was that they failed to prevent the bug in the first place. No one could stop me in my rage back then. I sent a 5,700-character complaint.
The response I received was:
Action unavailable.
We apologize, valued user. Our development team’s policy is to issue an unconditional permanent ban for any use of this item.
That was it. In the end, the message was simple: you used the bug, so deal with the consequences.
Looking back now, I genuinely couldn’t understand why I had loved playing such a broken, miserable game. But from that day on, whenever I found this unidentifiable item, I started carrying it with me. Sometimes I would even clear out the area where the bug spawned and save the coordinates separately. Part of it was to spite the developer… but mostly because simply possessing the item caused no problems. The deletion only triggered upon use.
Even knowing the risk of character deletion, I couldn’t give up on its incredible utility. Using it almost guaranteed deletion afterward, but at least I could take the boss down first. Whenever I was on the verge of death with no other options, I would use it. If I was going to die either way, I at least wanted to drag one more boss down with me.
That was the kind of item it was. Something that could flip the tide of battle, yet also bring total ruin to its user.
…Wait a second.
My thoughts naturally continued. What would happen if I used it here?
A chill ran down my spine. Did that mean I would be deleted for real if I used it in this world? Suddenly the stone in front of me looked like a lump of catastrophe capable of summoning destruction.
“…I’ll take it anyway.”
Even so, I slipped the stone into my pocket.
It felt too wasteful to leave it behind. And carrying it caused no issues. “I should buy a personal subspace pouch later,” I muttered, leaving the bizarre space.
The bag I currently had was enchanted with subspace magic, but since it was shared party property, I felt uneasy stuffing something this dangerous inside it.
“Hero! Where are you, Hero?”
When I returned to the original location, I heard someone calling for me. Looking around, I saw the Saintess searching for me. It seemed her exploration of the bedroom was finally over. I walked up behind her and lightly tapped her shoulder.
“I’m right here.”
“Kyaa! You scared me! Where were you, Hero? You appeared out of nowhere—my heart nearly stopped!”
She jumped as if she had seen a ghost. I had approached with consideration, yet she reacted that dramatically… I pointed at the hole I had just emerged from.
“I was in there.”
“Huh? Where?”
“Right there. Can’t you see the hole?”
“What are you…?”
She stared at the wall for a long time. The hole was directly in her line of sight, yet she couldn’t find it. Even though the answer was right in front of her, she remained unable to see it for quite a while.
“…Ah!”
Only after a long delay did she finally spot the hole and flinch violently.
“Wh-what is that?!”
“What do you mean?”
“Why is it radiating such an ominous aura…? Is it connected to the Demon King’s chamber or something…?”
That was when I felt a sense of unease. I had no choice but to notice. The way she couldn’t find the hole for so long, the way she trembled in terror the moment she saw it—everything about her reaction was unnatural. Inside that hole there had only been a single small stone.
There must be some kind of enchantment on it.
If I had to describe it, it seemed like a combination of perception obstruction and Cognitive Distortion magic. No wonder it felt so suspicious with that level of concealment.
I’ll have to investigate it later.
With that decision made, I took her with me to rejoin the rest of the party. As we approached the entrance to the audience chamber, I saw them huddled together, chatting excitedly.
“So Lily, all you found on your side were a few strange books?”
“Yeah!! I was expecting magic grimoires or something, but all I got were novels! And the content was so weird—a kid who hasn’t even turned twenty suddenly becomes the world’s strongest archmage—”
“…Sounds like you didn’t have much luck. But don’t worry. We had pretty good hauls on our end. If we sell all this, we probably won’t have to worry about our budget for a long time.”
They were sharing the results of their respective searches. I joined in and suitably falsified the findings from the research lab. After all, there were plenty of reagents and books besides the things I had secretly kept. Throwing them a few research documents would be enough.
After finishing our loot tally, we began preparing to leave.
“Well, we’ve taken care of the bastard and gathered everything worthwhile… Shall we get ready to head back?”
“What? Really?!”
Lily’s face brightened as she continued.
“Haa~ We’re finally leaving this disgusting place! I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind. From now on I’m not even going to turn my head in this castle’s direction!”
It seemed her time in the Insect Assembly Castle had been truly miserable. Well, spending all day surrounded by bugs with no clean place to rest would wear on anyone mentally. The others seemed to feel the same; faint smiles lingered on every face.
“Ah, finally…”
The Saintess’s reaction was especially worth watching. She wasn’t just smiling—she was actually shedding tears of overwhelming emotion. Her sapphire eyes, wet with emotion, held a depth even I couldn’t fully measure. She must have been that happy… Given how much she hated bugs, the relief must have been overwhelming.
We were finally returning to the Empire.
But while their hearts were light, mine was heavy with anxiety.
…Sigh.
In the end, we really were going back to the Empire. I had endured the party’s harsh treatment. Now it was time to endure the people of the nation. Just thinking about having to root out those rotten nobles already made my head ache.