I Thought It Was a Strategy Game

"Did it pop? Did it actually pop!"

An entire globe's territories painted in a single color.

The moment the last stubborn nation surrendered, a small notification box rose up in the bottom right corner of my monitor.

"Behold! Look at that unified color across the land. Now this is gaming."

Expanding Europe 5 — a grand strategy nation-management simulation released just a week ago.

As a streamer who specialized exclusively in grand strategy sims, there was no way I could let the world-first title slip away.

I'd held out on power naps for a full week since launch day, and at long last, I'd cracked the world conquest achievement before anyone else.

I dropped my gaze and checked my current viewer count.

I was someone who had never broken past the wall of an average 200 viewers.

The new-release buff plus the bait of a world-first achievement clear had combined, and for the first time in my streaming career, I'd crossed a thousand.

"Give me a sec, I'm just messaging my editor and then we'll go into part two."

Hitting a viewer count I might never see again in my life and then going to sleep over it? That would be an insult to the profession.

I'd gone over a week without proper sleep, but with the dopamine of a successful no-sleep marathon still coursing through me, I wasn't even that drowsy.

I fired off a quick message to my one and only editor.

Message sent, I turned my eyes back to the stream screen.

"Alright, so what are we doing for part two?"

What would it take to keep the people lured in by the new-game buff glued to my channel?

All sorts of candidates floated through my head, but nothing felt like the one.

As I mulled it over, a message arrived from my editor.

"Hold on, my editor's asking me something…"

South Korea — a barren wasteland when it came to grand strategy simulations.

If a domestic strategy game launched in that very wasteland, wouldn't it be enough to draw people's attention?

"Everyone, my editor's strategy game just hit early access. Let's take a little taste."

"If it's boring, we just drop it. Let's give it a shot."

I know it might seem odd for a personal channel's editor to not edit videos and make games instead, but that's how it goes with small unpopular channels — he worked for a salary below industry standard, staying half out of devotion to me.

As payment in kind, so to speak, the editor would occasionally show me his side projects and ask for my feedback.

"Alright, let's play it."

I downloaded the game and hit launch, and a familiar UI greeted my eyes.

A game where you pick a nation or a family and play against the backdrop of a world map.

True to its unfinished state, there was only one playable character — but since I hadn't expected much anyway, I calmly examined the game systems.

"Oh, the setting isn't Earth? Given the magic talent stat, I'd say fantasy…"

Out of all the world's nations, the one character available to the player was the youngest prince of its mightiest empire.

Considering games of this genre usually start you off as the head of a household, that was a somewhat unusual starting point.

"If I'm an imperial prince, even the youngest should be easy mode. Let's get started."

If I became the youngest prince of a fantasy world, what would the very first thing to do be?

"Obviously, become the Emperor."

Being royal by birth alone meant your hands were tied.

I immediately set to work on becoming Emperor.

"First, let's try for the Crown Prince position."

The Empire's succession law was Designated Succession.

A convenient system: the Emperor declares "you, from this moment, are the next Emperor," and that person inherits everything.

With the First Prince already Crown Prince, there was no legitimate path to the throne.

So I dumped every single point of my character's aptitude into intrigue and began assassinating the imperial family.

"Seriously? How are the imperial princes this sloppy?"

Naturally, the higher one's rank, the harder a covert assassination becomes.

The princes of the world's strongest empire should have been the hardest targets of all.

Yet for some reason, the imperial family roamed far and wide like sheep gamboling across a meadow.

"He's going hunting with no bodyguards — just him and his fiancée? He's practically begging me to kill him."

I assassinated the Second Prince mid-hunt, then set a scheme in motion to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠frame the Third Prince for the murder.

From there, everything flowed smoothly.

Poisoned the Fourth Princess. Staged a riding accident that threw the Third Princess from her horse. Manufactured a scandal between the Second Princess and a commoner, exiled her to a convent, and staged her suicide there.

Through every single step, I left not a shred of evidence.

The people harbored suspicions, but with no proof to be found, they couldn't move against me.

Just as I was serenely devouring the imperial palace, piece by piece—

A sudden warning message flashed, and the screen displaying the world map switched to the prince's bedchamber.

I moved my character with the keyboard, and the Fourth Prince rose from his bed.

"Wait, you can directly control the character?"

A moment later, the assassin cracked open the window and slipped inside.

The character drew a dagger hidden beneath his pillow and faced the assassin head-on.

It was a do-or-die crisis that would have ended my first playthrough, but I wasn't particularly nervous.

"If it were RNG, maybe. But if I'm controlling it directly, there's no variance."

I'd pivoted to grand strategy sim streaming, sure — but at heart, I was a jack-of-all-genres variety streamer who'd played every game under the sun, and a skilled one.

I quickly parsed the assassin's patterns and subdued him without taking a single hit.

"Ah… if I don't take a single hit, won't that look suspicious?"

If I defeated an assassin out to kill a prince without suffering so much as a scratch, wouldn't strange rumors start swirling?

Doubtful the game tracked that level of detail, but caution never hurt anyone.

So I used the subdued assassin's own blade to give myself a few moderate wounds, then called for the guards.

Under interrogation, the captured assassin revealed his backer: the First Princess.

The First Princess denied every charge and ceased all public activity.

"Leaving things here would leave a bad taste. Loose ends get ugly."

Politically sidelining the First Princess was all well and good, but with her holed up tight behind closed doors, assassinating her became rather difficult.

"No help for it. Even if it takes a while, I'll have to do this the honest way."

I abandoned direct assassination and began picking apart everyone around the First Princess instead.

I named her the mastermind behind the other royals' murders, drove her wet nurse into a fatal fainting fit, and cultivated her spiritual isolation.

The people who had once followed her died one mysterious death after another.

After that, I burned her beloved flower garden, killed her favorite horse, cut the hair of someone she'd been close to and scattered it along her walking path.

And when I pinned every single one of those acts on the First Princess herself—

She came to be treated as a madwoman within her own palace, and her character sheet gained the Paranoia trait.

At last, the First Princess was stripped of her place in the succession and confined to an underground dungeon.

One royal remained.

Just as I began scheming to kill the Crown Prince — the Empire's rightful heir—

Before I could even lay my schemes, the Crown Prince ended his own life.

"Wow, there are events like this too? This thing might actually be a masterpiece."

Only one obstacle remained on my path to becoming head of the family: the Emperor himself.

Given time, when the reigning Emperor retired, the throne would naturally fall into my lap.

But as an efficiency-obsessed strategy gamer, letting time bleed away for nothing was a crime.

As I hunted for a way to assassinate the Emperor, a strange system caught my eye.

"What the— Duel Succession? Why does something like this even exist?"

An insane mechanic where the Crown Prince formally challenges the reigning Emperor to a duel and, upon winning, seizes the throne.

I had no idea why it was in there — but there was no reason not to use a system the developers had built, so I immediately issued the challenge.

"What genre even is this game? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Because it sure isn't a strategy game…"

Fitting for a boss monster, hunting the Emperor was no easy feat.

But I calmly whittled down his entire health bar, and two choices appeared.

"Hm. No reason to keep him breathing, is there?"

Killing the Emperor publicly might attach all sorts of penalties.

But letting a former Emperor live meant the spark of civil war — or an old man meddling in state affairs down the line.

Stage an accident and kill the Emperor. ← Selected!

And so the Emperor died, and my character ascended the throne.

The moment I became Emperor, the game's systems began unlocking in earnest.

The map of the entire continent unfolded before me, along with the armies I could command and the state of my treasury.

"Ooh, look at this rainbow map. Time to start painting, obviously."

Show a human a multicolored map and the instinct to paint it one color takes over.

Before launching my wars of conquest, I surveyed the Empire's internal state.

"Gotta strip the nobles of their privileges, expand the crown domains a bit… what is this? Marchlord? Not a margrave, not even a marcher count — what the hell is a marchlord?"

Of the Empire's vast territory, most of the north was held by the Northern Grand Duke.

The problem was that his loyalty was so abysmal, he ignored the central government entirely.

One cannot wage wars of conquest with a dangerous enemy festering inside the borders.

"Convenient — the Northern Grand Duke has a younger sister, doesn't he?"

I abducted the Grand Duke's sister and held a wedding.

Once a child was born, I'd have my pretext for usurping the Grand Duchy through that very child.

As I waited for my casus belli, a bizarre trait caught my eye.

"What the hell — why does my character ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have a eunuch trait?!"

It definitely wasn't there a minute ago, and suddenly my character had sprouted the castrated trait.

"Is there no cuckolding mechanic? All I need is for a baby to appear…"

It's a world with no paternity tests, after all.

So long as I could secure the pretext, the seed (?) involved shouldn't have mattered much.

Unfortunately, no such mechanic existed.

"The freedom in this game is way too limited. How is there no cuckolding?"

"No, come on — it's supported by the game's own systems… I'm innocent here!"

I followed the multiplayer rules and used no cheat programs, and I still got banned for "toxic play."

Sure, right after my ban, that particular playstyle was explicitly prohibited under the long-distance rules — but when I played, it wasn't against the rules yet.

"ANYWAY! Back to the game!"

In the court of public opinion, the side with the greater headcount wins.

Swallowing my sense of injustice, I continued playing.

"Hah, what do I do now? Fighting a war while under a royal marriage treaty carries huge penalties…"

My perfect (?) scheme had, rather unfairly, run headlong into the limits of the system.

With a heavy heart, I dissolved the royal marriage and declared war on the Northern Grand Duke.

"What the— why are the nobles backing me?"

For some reason, the neutral faction had taken the Emperor's side, and the noble faction sent letters endorsing the war.

I didn't know why, but a win's a win — so I personally took command and marched on the north.

At first, the battle-hardened elite soldiers of the north held the advantage.

But when my character personally stepped onto the battlefield, third-person control unlocked —

and on the overwhelming martial might of a playable character, I was able to take the Northern Grand Duke's head.

"It's a fantasy world, so there really is something satisfying about mowing down whole armies."

With the Northern Grand Duchy — my greatest internal threat — settled, nothing could stand in our Empire's way.

From there, I grew the Empire at a steady clip.

"How dare you run that mouth for two whole years. You're welcome."

The daughter of a ducal house — the woman who should have been my sister-in-law — hurled insults at me, so I used that as my pretext to swallow the duchy whole. Delicious.

*

"Huh? Publishing a memoir raises my war support?"

I published a memoir while I was at it.

*

"The academy? Switching it to a military academy gives great modifiers, doesn't it?"

I converted the useless general academy into a military academy.

*

*

*

Kingdom after kingdom knelt beneath the relentless wars of conquest.

In a mere ten years of in-game time, I had conquered the entire world.

If the Demon King's Army hadn't shown up out of absolutely nowhere and stalled me, I'd have unified the world comfortably inside of a decade.

"They even built in a Late-Game Crisis. This thing really is a masterpiece."

A mysterious third faction, the Demon King's Army, appearing in the late stage of the continental campaign.

An army of monsters and demons marched on humanity — but the fully unified Empire, with its overwhelming productive capacity, ground them to dust.

I seized direct control of my character and beheaded the Demon King myself, then turned my armies toward the last holdout: the Anti-Imperial Coalition.

The scales had been tipping long before the Demon King's Army ever appeared.

The coalition that had resisted the Empire to the last abandoned the fight and capitulated.

And now the leader of the Anti-Imperial Coalition — the woman who had tormented me from the very start — knelt before my character.

"You. You nearly killed me, you know."

A beautiful woman with golden hair and golden eyes, kneeling before the Emperor.

A commoner by birth who had rallied the masses with overwhelming charisma and leadership to forge the Anti-Imperial Coalition in the first place.

I'd attempted overtures of peace constantly since the early days of the war of conquest, yet she'd never once shown her face.

As the golden-haired woman lifted her head toward the Emperor, a choice appeared.

"…What the hell is this."

The game had just drifted headlong into dating-sim territory.

Scrolling past one absurd option after another, I hunted for the choice I actually wanted.

"Hold on, the leader of the Anti-Imperial Coalition was single? Did I kill her husband?"

I'd assassinated so many characters over the course of the conquest that my memory was hazy.

But when I checked her traits, there was no longer any reason to deliberate.

"Somebody's walking around with a eunuch trait, and then there's this. Envious. So envious."

I flipped past the trait window and scrolled the choice list all the way down.

.

.

.

"There it is. Marrying a commoner — what even is that legitimacy?"

Without a moment's hesitation, I pressed the final choice.

99. Execute her. ← Selected!

"Eh, I'll just move on to the next globe."

I'd gazed upon a beautifully unified map in a single color — time to set sail for the next Earth.

I'll admit, being told what happened after the ending did leave a slightly sour taste.

"Next run, maybe I'll develop my territory a bit while conquering…"

Coming straight off a world-conquest speedrun, I'd fixated on rapid expansion without even thinking about it.

Thanks to that, I'd achieved world conquest at a blistering pace.

The price was that the Empire's economy had collapsed outright.

Of course, to a gamer, the world after the ending doesn't matter.

As I was basking in the afterglow of the ending, my editor appeared in the stream chat.

"This thing is insane. There are rough edges, but with some polishing…"

A quality I couldn't believe came from a solo developer.

I gave my feedback on everything that had bothered me during play.

"First, add a cuckolding mechanic. Then lower the trigger rate for noble ladies randomly insulting me. And this weird Duel Succession thing…"

Just as I was diligently listing all the game's flaws, my editor asked.

"There's a second run? Obviously I'm playing it!"

"Email it to me? Oh, and by the way — what's this game called?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

A title far too strange for a strategy game.

An old memory surfaced in my mind — a webnovel my editor had once serialized.

"The protagonist of that novel… is way too identical to the character I just executed, no?"

Before the thought could go any further, my vision blurred and my head began to ache.

'Ah… did I go too long without sleep?'

Running a no-sleep marathon for over a week and then doing a part two — had that been greed? My eyes wouldn't focus.

And within my fading vision, a strange message appeared.

'When I wake up, I really need to cut back on gaming.'

With that final thought, I closed my eyes as the messages continued scrolling past.