The Secret Assembly
Wholly unaware of what was unfolding at the National Salvation Hero Assembly, Karlstein whiled away the hours wandering the Dimensional Integrated Community. He had just returned from an avatar matchmaking session.
"Goodness gracious…."
Karlstein, who had entered the Avatar Matchmaking room with the vicious intent of tearing apart any couple foolish enough to cross his path, somehow managed to walk out wearing the serene smile of a Buddha.
Viewer1: WHAT?!
Viewer2: No way….
Viewer3: Where's the gorgeous princess famous even in the neighboring kingdoms?
Viewer4: TheDangersOfFalseAdvertising.avi
Viewer5: LMAOOOOOOO
Viewer6: Look at that guy's face LOLLLL
Viewer7: Tbh the other side is probably the same lmaoooo
As it turned out, the sponsors kept trying to shove the two together no matter what, turning the whole affair into a beautiful tragedy.
"You should be grateful I've graced this occasion with my presence at all, Count Yuleta."
"P-pardon? Y-yes, of course. It is an honor to behold the princess of legend in the flesh."
"An honor indeed. For a mere count's second son to dare set his sights upon me. Honestly, Mother."
LoveCupid has donated 1,000P!
"Go on, confess your love!"
"Um… f-forgive me for being forward, but… I love you."
"Hmph! So you do at least recognize beauty."
Viewer1: Aaah….
Viewer2: I can't… anymore…!
Viewer3: LOLOLOLOLOL
Viewer4: This is a complete trainwreck.
Viewer5: Great stream, logging off now.
And so Karlstein left with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Having since become a ghost haunting every corner of the community, he was idly poking about here and there when—
"Hm?"
Something suspicious caught his eye.
Did I see that wrong? No… definitely not. I definitely saw it.
It was a community post with one of those inscrutable, sentence-as-title arrangements. Meaningless words all jumbled together in a row, you could say — the kind of thing that almost seemed to make sense, and yet made no sense at all.
He searched for it again, but it had been deleted so quickly that it was nowhere to be found.
Well, someone could have posted something by mistake and yanked it down just as fast. Only, he had a feeling this wasn't the first time it had happened. He'd glossed over it before without a second thought.
Something reeked. It gave off that same suspicious stench as the old ghost stories about enemy sleeper agents.
Had it been a post with a perfectly ordinary title, he wouldn't have given it a second glance — but they say curiosity is the defining trait of humanity. The moment something tries to hide, you want to dig it up. That's just human nature.
A trace, wiped clean in an instant. Any ordinary user would have had to wait endlessly for the same phenomenon to happen again before they could confirm anything.
But who was he?
The Juddak.
And what was it that he couldn't do?
Nothing.
He graciously activated admin mode. Karlstein felt not so much as a shred of shame about abusing administrator privileges.
"Let's see…."
Logs scrolled up before his eyes.
"Not this one… not this one either."
The sheer volume of information could have sent anyone wandering in circles, but Aria had long since overhauled the UI, so it was easy enough to find what he wanted.
Title: Doobang-doobang sounds main dealer whole-hearted devotion very cold-blooded Casanova….
qwzxcvbnmlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewqdfkjhzxcvb….
Confirmed
hey
yeah.
"The heck is this? DarkOfDarkness? Doobang-doobang?"
He combed through the account's posting history, but nothing out of the ordinary turned up.
"Hmmm."
Refusing to give up, he dug all the way back to posts the account had written ages ago and picked through every corner of them.
"Aha!"
And there it was — something decidedly off.
"I must say…! They went this far?"
The group had been holding conversations by editing the comments on ancient posts. It was buried so deep in the archives that even the most diligent of assistant mods would never have stumbled across it.
Ah. Now he had the general picture.
DarkOfDarkness's bizarre posts were signals, it seemed. At appointed times, a chosen few would gather at one of the old posts and converse by editing their comments and replies.
A secret assembly?
Member1: The 6th regular assembly will now come to order.
Member2: Clap clap.
Member3: Ooooh.
Member4: Has everyone been keeping well?
A secret gathering this suspicious? Karlstein's mouth began to water.
He quietly settled in to observe their meeting. The time-honored rule for such occasions was 'shut up and lurk for three days' — watch the room's atmosphere before barging in like a clueless fool.
Member1: I do wonder what the Juddak is truly after?
Member2: A streaming broadcast, of all things. I cannot even begin to fathom what the Juddak intends.
Member3: Precisely what I was thinking.
Member4: Sucking our Karma dry, and this tacky little sideshow is what he spends it on.
Member5: Everyone's been hoarding their points without spending, I trust?
Member6: But of course. Fufu.
"Huh? What did they just say?!"
Well, well — it was gossip about him, of all things!
How could it possibly not be entertaining?
DarkOfDarkness: It may well be the opening move of a dimensional invasion. Just like 'those things.'
Member2: It is not an impossible theory. Some of our comrades have already gone silent, after all.
Member3: That was probably just people getting worked up watching that FlameYongYong fellow's videos…
Member1: Enough! Silence, newbie!
Newbie: Yes….
Member1: In any case, this is no trivial matter.
Member4: That's right.
Member5: The Juddak is a demon, plain and simple! Creating that utterly absurd, satanic system called gacha!
Member2: Ahem. The Earth users did seem remarkably accustomed to it.
Member3: ….
This was, without a doubt, far more entertaining than any of the other attention-begging shitposts people shoved online to scrape together views.
"…."
Had he perhaps spoken too soon?
No reply came to his friendly greeting.
Silence.
The lively conversation had cut off cold, mid-sentence.
He did feel a little bad about it, actually…?
Awkward as it was, would someone please answer him?
Pop!
Or so it sounded, anyway.
Posts deleted in an instant! Not a single trace left behind. The lot of them had scattered like a colony of hamsters catching sight of an elephant!
"Hooo…."
He'd said exactly one greeting? Wasn't that a bit much?
Not that he'd failed to snag every last one of their IP addresses beforehand. He did have at least that much sense.
"Heheh."
Humming a little tune, Karlstein pulled up DarkOfDarkness's logs. And sure enough—
DarkOfDarkness: I never imagined there existed a pervert who would dig all the way back to posts from ages past.
Member2: Tell me about it.
Member3: What a pain, having to relocate like this.
Member1: Has everyone arrived?
Member4: Ah, the Saint has not yet come.
Newbie: Newbie here! Just arrived!
Now that's teamwork. The secret assembly had regrouped in the blink of an eye!
Petty, suspicious little creatures, the lot of them.
Member2: By the way, that fellow who wandered in earlier — the username felt familiar.
Member1: Hm. The one who has been making waves on the donation rankings as of late, I believe.
Member3: Ah… I remember now. That guy whose points keep overflowing, no?
Member4: He could have made a fine new recruit, honestly? He certainly has plenty of points….
DarkOfDarkness: As you all know, we operate on referral only.
Member5: Quite right. Naturally. Should anyone ever betray us, we might well end up as dust scattered across the cosmos along with the continent itself.
"Hey now, kids. I'm not that petty of a guy…."
Karlstein felt the very faintest flicker of being wronged.
Those who'd received special (?) gifts from him had, admittedly, all been ones who'd gone and messed with the dimensional pathways.
He had never vaporized anyone together with their continent merely for talking a little trash. Granted, there was no escaping the razor-sharp bans of his hardworking assistant mods — but still.
Anyway.
It wasn't entirely wrong, so he simply kept lurking.
DarkOfDarkness: More importantly — we will be welcoming a new member this time.
Member2: Oho…? I look forward to it.
Member3: Might it be someone we know?
Member4: Whoa. A talent recommended by Darkness himself?
DarkOfDarkness: That is so. And I suspect you are all acquainted with them already. Not a person, mind you….
Member5: Ooh! Who could it be, keeping us in such suspense!
DarkOfDarkness: That would be…!
"Ooh! And that would be?"
Member5: Ooooh!
Member2: Welcome.
Member3: Clap clap clap.
Member1: Hey, newbie! Aren't you being awfully insolent for a mere rookie?
A familiar face had appeared.
The Lich King Raymond? Ah, that guy.
Somehow, Karlstein couldn't help thinking the lich was a perfect fit for this kind of gathering.
LichGonnaLich: So what exactly is it that this place does?
DarkOfDarkness: Fufu. A pleasure to have you. There is no need to rush. We have all the time in the world. Don't we, Master Lich?
LichGonnaLich: My research has seen recent progress, so I haven't the time to spare. I would have you get to the point.
His research had made progress?
'Well, it's not entirely impossible, I suppose.'
Whenever a Dimensional Store item contained technology beyond a certain threshold, the sealed-packaging option was applied automatically — designed to break apart or explode if anyone tried to dismantle it for a peek inside.
However, technologies deemed far too primitive for the Galactic Empire were often exempted from this. Sealing them actually consumed more points, more often than not. Though the receiving party was probably delighted all the same, gushing about the "cutting-edge" tech.
DarkOfDarkness: You, too, harbor no shortage of grievances against the Juddak, do you not? Feel free to speak of them at your leisure.
LichGonnaLich: Grievances? Well…. Plenty, I suppose.
DarkOfDarkness: Hahaha. Just as I thought! My eye is never wrong!
Member5: The Juddak is obsessed with points right now!
Member2: At this rate, the community as we knew it is bound to disappear.
Member3: The pastoral charm of the old days has all but faded away.
Newbie: It was never exactly… pastoral…?
Member1: Silence, newbie!
Member4: No one knows what effect each and every item might have upon the worlds we live in. Releasing them this recklessly….
Member6: Some items of monstrous performance have crushed and rendered meaningless our own personal will to train.
Member2: Quite so. Far fewer of us are serious about training these days. Plenty simply dump their Karma hoping to land a single lucky pull.
Member3: And to earn Karma Points, some have shattered the order of entire worlds without a second thought.
Member1: Change this abrupt is far too dangerous.
DarkOfDarkness: Ahem. In any case — welcome to our little gathering, Master Lich.
These were grievances Karlstein had long since anticipated, so they didn't bother him in the slightest.
And besides.
Was there any particular need to address the grievances…?
No. There was not.
He did not run the community to win brownie points with its users.
Though it might be worth considering a slight pivot in a softer direction, if only to suck down even more Karma.
Then a comment from the Lich King Raymond appeared.
LichGonnaLich: Just look at these pathetic wretches. Nothing but a pack of small fries stuffed to the brim with inferiority complexes and envy, no?
DarkOfDarkness: …I would say that is going rather too far, Raymond.
Member3: Inferiority complexes?! Excuse me?!
Member4: Ugh! The lich struck us right to the bone!
Member1: Silence, rookie.
"Huh? What's gotten into him? Why is he suddenly taking my side?"
LichGonnaLich: There is no denying the Juddak's greatness. The technology he possesses and the results he has produced speak for themselves. There is no need to insist otherwise.
DarkOfDarkness: What do you mean by this? Which side are you choosing?
LichGonnaLich: I see now that this was nothing but a waste of my time. Hoo. Then listen well, all of you. If you have fallen behind, then accept that you have fallen behind, and emulate — and chase after — those who ran ahead. Not spew nothing but complaints from where you stand. Envious of his technology? Jealous of his power? Then the answer is to whip yourselves onward, not to flap your gums about it.
DarkOfDarkness: It seems I misjudged you, Master Lich.
LichGonnaLich: …We do not speak the same language. I will be taking my leave. Discuss this pointless chatter among yourselves. And for the record… I am not a person. Tsk.
DarkOfDarkness: ….
"What is wrong with him all of a sudden? So awkward."
The lich had evidently already logged off; no further comments appeared from him.
The remaining members, too, had apparently fallen silent in the frosty atmosphere.
My, my.
This wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for, you know? Raymond, you poured a bucket of ice water straight into a delicious honeypot!
Regardless — now was the moment.
Karlstein's eyes gleamed.
Timing is everything!
Charge!
And just like that, Karlstein had swapped out his username.