Chapter 25: A Dangerous Worldview
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 25: A Dangerous Worldview
"No, now is not the time to rest."
After An left, Muen suddenly rolled over and sat up. Ignoring his lingering physical weakness, he moved to the desk nearby.
Following the fragments of his memory, he rummaged through the desk drawer and pulled out a blank sheet of paper, then picked up a quill and dipped it in ink.
"The plot has completely diverged from the original novel. This means that from here on out, every event is unknown to me."
"The original book no longer serves as a reference. I have to rely on myself."
"First, I need to set some goals."
Muen pinched his chin in thought, then began to write in reasonably neat script.
"These are my three current objectives."
Staying alive went without saying. He was, after all, a man who had effectively died twice; even now, the lingering fear of death haunted him.
Even if this world was unfriendly to a yellow-haired villain like him, he wanted to live a full life.
"Next is that ending from the prophetic dream..."
Now that the Destruction Ending had been thoroughly derailed, the world line was likely veering inevitably toward the ending where he was sliced into a thousand pieces.
But...
Muen paused to reflect, then picked up the pen again and added a few notes after the second point.
→ Did not apologize to the protagonist; this might prevent that ending.
→ The idea that apologizing was the trigger was just a guess based on the words of the mysterious person in the prophetic dream. It might not be a necessary condition. The world line might still be drifting toward the 'Death by a Thousand Cuts' ending.
→ The Black Book cannot be trusted.
"..."
Muen thought for a moment, then crossed out the last line.
He didn't dare gamble on it.
"So, the current situation is basically Schrödinger's Thousand Cuts?"
The more Muen thought about it, the more his head ached.
"Ugh, no. There’s too little information. Any more thinking is just blind guessing."
The root of the problem was that the prophetic dream provided by the Black Book was too vague, and there were no other clues.
Muen didn't even know if this prophecy was an inevitable destination regardless of his actions, or if it would change based on what he did.
"Forget it, I won't think about it. What I should do now is focus on the most important goal."
Muen’s gaze settled on the third point.
Get stronger.
This was the most urgent matter.
No matter how unfriendly this world was to a yellow-haired villain, it was ultimately a fantasy world where strength reigned supreme.
Power was the foundation of survival.
Without power, he would be just like before—facing death with no choice but to trade his life for another's.
"And most importantly..."
Muen gritted his teeth, his face twisting with annoyance.
"I never want to be pinned down and ravaged by a woman ever again!"
Muen recalled the traumatic experience of being held down by Celicia and having her way with him. While it had certainly felt good physically, his pride as a man absolutely forbade it!
Even if the other party was Celicia!
...
...
"As for how to get stronger... as the son of a Duke, there are countless ways to gain power. Unfortunately, they're all too conventional to bridge the gap between me and the protagonist's group."
The original host had wasted too much time. Despite spending an entire year at Saint Maria Academy, the only thing Muen could recall from his memories was a single Illumination Spell!
"This is ridiculous. Did that guy just sleep through every single class?"
How could you even sleep at a time like that?!
Muen wished he could travel back in time just to slap the previous Muen Campbell and give him an early taste of the world's cruelty.
"At least the physical foundation seems decent. It's at the Late First-Tier."
...
In this world, the classification of power systems was somewhat complex.
Broadly speaking, they could be divided into:
Martial Artists, who followed the path of physical force and cultivated Fighting Spirit.
Mages, who followed the path of Mana and practiced magic.
Clergy, who followed the path of faith and exchanged their devotion for power from the gods.
And the God-Blessed, those born with a deity's favor who received Divine Blessings.
Aside from the God-Blessed, whose status was determined at birth, the first three were the most fundamental paths. There were many "crooked" paths as well, but those weren't within Muen's considerations.
For example, the assassin who used prayer to offer sacrifices to an Evil God for temporary power was known as an Evil Priest.
That was one such crooked path. It allowed one to gain power quickly, but since it involved dealing with an Evil God, the fate of an Evil Priest... was usually quite grim.
In reality, an Evil Priest was just a branch of the Clergy, except they worshipped malevolent Evil Gods.
...
If it were just that, the power system wouldn't be considered too complex. To make things easier to remember and distinguish, almost all power systems were divided into Tiers One through Five before reaching the Coronation Level, though each system used different titles.
For instance, Tier One in the martial system was called Body Tempering, while Tier One in the magic system was called Mercury.
The differences were minor; they were mostly just names.
The real reason the system was considered complex was twofold:
First, in this world, there was no rule saying a cute, soft Cleric girl who spent her days using Holy Light to save lives couldn't secretly be an ultimate Macho Man with maxed-out physical strength who could bludgeon a dragon to death with a holy tome.
Nor was there a rule saying a frail Mage who spent the whole fight sniping you with spells from a distance couldn't pull out a club bigger than you and beat you into a pulp once you got close.
Indeed, there wasn't just one path to take... and one could walk more than one path at a time.
Take the previous assassin, for example. Not only did he display at least Third-Tier martial techniques, but he also used Gravity Magic and finally revealed his trump card as an Evil Priest!
To a certain extent, a single rank couldn't accurately represent a person's true strength because you never knew how far they had progressed on another path.
The second reason could be called an external factor.
In this world, gods truly existed.
Just Gods, Evil Gods, Demon Gods—there were so many it was a mess.
Aside from providing a steady source of power through faith, what these deities loved most was bestowing "favors" upon those who caught their eye.
These were the God-Blessed.
In other words, they were the official wholesale cheats provided by the "author."
Celicia, for example, had the favor of the Ice-Snow Goddess.
The protagonist, in the late stages of the original novel, possessed a terrifying double-digit number of divine favors. She had connections with almost every deity imaginable, making her a gender-swapped Sun Wukong who could call upon various gods for help at a moment's notice.
The sheer number of gods wasn't the main issue, as for certain reasons, they couldn't directly interfere with the mortal realm and could only project a fraction of their power.
The real problem was that no one knew what kind of people the gods favored. Divine Blessings didn't manifest outwardly until they were used. Thus, a beggar you accidentally offended on the street might suddenly manifest a "nuclear bomb" and send you straight to heaven!