The Miscalculation of a Rational Man

Dindinaron was a winner in life.

From a young age, he had shown remarkable intelligence. When boldness was called for, he would pour his entire fortune into a venture without hesitation—yet he never gambled recklessly. He always maintained a careful line, steadily growing his business.

Unlike Mitomok, who believed that simply doing his own job well would guarantee success, Dindinaron possessed a kind of madness that allowed him to throw himself into something even at the cost of his own self.

That was why, even after losing the sharpness needed to make business decisions in his later years, he could still enjoy a leisurely retirement playing games while being treated like an emperor.

If that wasn't the mark of a winner in life, then who could possibly claim the title?

Analyzing Dindinaron's current failure was therefore extremely difficult. He had certainly faced ups and downs, hardships, and trials in life—but in the end, he had overcome them all and secured happiness in his final years.

So let me ask this: Dindinaron was so sensitive to mistakes that he deliberately chose subordinates who never made them. He always sought to make the right judgment. Why hadn't that meticulousness worked against the Meteor Cartel? Why had he willingly walked straight into the meteor?

Two problems come to mind.

The first was that Dindinaron understood "structure" and "process," but not "execution."

In short, there existed a mad organization called the Meteor Cartel that used insane strategies to blackmail and threaten others. He could predict that if he launched a crowdfunding campaign to take them down, people would flock to it like clouds. That prediction was correct.

And if he succeeded in toppling the Meteor Cartel, he would rise as one of the strongest factions. That was also true.

Dindinaron had perfectly understood the overall picture. Among two million players, perhaps only one person had even guessed at this strategy—yet he had boldly invested everything into it.

But when you thought about it, Dindinaron had no concrete plan for "So how exactly do we win?"

His investment style wasn't about interfering in a company's management. He simply spotted companies or people that seemed promising and invested based on trust.

In other words, it was like buying betting tickets at a racetrack rather than riding the horse or jockey himself.

Of course, his hit rate on those tickets was extraordinarily high. But if you asked Dindinaron, "So how do you actually ride the horse well?" he would answer, "Ah, well… I don't really know about that."

In short, the absence of a main plan. It was almost ironic that Biin had said at the tenth round that "it would now become a battle between main plans," because even at that stage, Dindinaron still lacked any solid plan for how to actually subjugate the opposing world.

His so-called victory plan was genuinely baffling to look at.

Step 1: Receive investments and obtain massive resources.

Step 2: Use those resources to build a powerful army and the infrastructure to support it through subordinate gods.

Step 3: Entrust command to hero units and achieve victory.

Wasn't something off here? Step 1 itself was fine. If it hadn't been Dindinaron, the investment wouldn't have come through. His boldness had paid off.

But in Step 2, he left all internal affairs to the subordinate gods, and in Step 3, the actual execution was handed over to hero units?

Of course, there were cases where gods ruined things by getting directly involved, but this wasn't granting autonomy—it was outright neglect.

Dindinaron had issued the order: "Build a strong army." His subordinate gods and creations, unable to grasp what kind of "strong army" he wanted, simply created a highly ambiguous force that was competent in every area but possessed no outstanding strengths or weaknesses.

Dindinaron had no concept of "individuality" in his mind. That was one of the reasons for his failure.

But that wasn't the true root cause. Fundamentally, Dindinaron had tried to measure madness with the yardstick of rationality.

Dindinaron possessed no real madness. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was someone who made bold investments through rational judgment. Boldness, of course, carried the possibility of failure.

But he only went all-in because the chance of failure was low.

Dindinaron believed himself to be quite mad, but in truth, his all-in plays were rationality rather than madness.

True madness was something else entirely.

True madness meant charging forward even when the odds of success were low.

Biin, who stubbornly pushed forward with an anti-intellectualism build despite knowing it wasn't particularly good. Sesaisa and Mihun, who refused to change their builds even while aware of their serious flaws. Wahando was relatively normal in running his nation, but even he was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quite extreme.

Dindinaron was the farthest possible person from extremity.

Just look at his army and world. He didn't create any particularly outstanding hero units. He valued armies made of soldiers who were above average but not exceptional. Aside from a low score, his world's metrics were generally average, and his governance was sensible.

Bold investment in sensible things? In the end, it all came down to profit-and-loss calculations. Of course, Dindinaron would retort:

"Then are you saying I should make deals that lose money?"

Correct. You couldn't run a business that lost money. When gambling, you took risks. Dindinaron had indeed taken considerable risks in challenging the Meteor Cartel.

But… Dindinaron was fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of madness.

Pouring your entire fortune into a low-probability gamble was foolish.

Pouring your entire fortune into a high-probability gamble was bold.

But madness meant going to an illegal gambling den and beating up the casino staff to steal money regardless of the dice rolls—while saying, "After all, you can't call the police, can you?"

In other words, Dindinaron had been an extremely upright businessman who believed the world operated rationally.

In his world, if you invested boldly and won, the money would come back… That basic premise, the notion that laws functioned properly and that there were no madmen who openly broke the rules, had been his foundation.

He had gone as mad as he could within the bounds of what he could imagine. But at that moment, it was still measured by rationality.

Why had he failed to consider that his opponent might be mad?

He had already known that these were madmen who had ignored rationality, slaughtered all their opponents to rise, and even elevated that into a strategy.

Perhaps he had thought of it as merely "an extremely daring strategy." That his opponent was still someone who could ultimately be measured within the bounds of rationality.

But no… That was completely wrong.

The Meteor Cartel hadn't slaughtered their opponents to climb up and then turned it into a strategy. They had simply slaughtered everyone to rise, and only afterward realized they could use it as a strategy. The order of events was different.

So Dindinaron wasn't a fool who had deliberately gone to get hit by the meteor.

He had always been ambiguous. He appeared bold, but he always drew a line somewhere.

He never pushed things all the way past the critical threshold.

The moment it became clear he couldn't capture Shuc-rimmurath, he should have gone truly mad in his attacks.

He should have abandoned capturing Shuc-rimmurath entirely and instead burned and destroyed the opposing ecosystem completely—destroying more than Shuc-rimmurath ever could.

Even if it meant all the forces he sent died in the Dessert Desert, he should have focused solely on destroying the enemy world.

Then, because his average attack power would have exceeded Shuc-rimmurath's ecosystem recovery rate, he could have destroyed the opposing world in the long run.

That would have forced Biin to deploy Yogur-tosoth. If he managed to shoot it down there, that would be ideal. Even if not, once Chaltteoggua was brought out, the opponent's hand would be fully revealed, and from then on he could slowly begin creating giant monsters to fight alongside his army. After all, the rushed production would lower their efficiency.

Of course, this strategy would mean all the forces he sent would definitely die. Roughly 70% of his total military power would simply vanish, and 90% of his world's capacity would be depleted.

Even so, there had been a chance of victory.

It would have been better than scrambling to strip his world bare later to keep fighting.

Alternatively—and this was very much a retrospective analysis, one he would have found difficult to judge at the time…

Dindinaron might actually have fought quite well if he had faced Wahando's army instead.

Both of them fought based on elite soldiers and competent officers. His supply situation was far better, so if he had truly fought Wahando instead of Biin, he might not have been completely crushed…

It was all retrospective. If he had fought Sesaisa or Mihun, he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would have been trampled without any chance of victory or strategy. In that sense, Biin had been the second-best opponent for him.

It was the ending of an ordinary man who failed to understand true madness.

Dindinaron's vision went dark.

∞

Chaltteoggua and Yogur-tosoth alternated between physical and magical attacks, pounding the massive mud monster in the enemy's main base.

It had invested even more extremely in defensive stats than Shuc-rimmurath, but its recovery had limits. They simply kept beating it all day long. After bringing in nectar and having Nyaltartep continuously resupply the two creations, the enemy mud creation eventually died.

Before only that one remained, the opponent had desperately sent surrender requests, but honestly, it had seemed absurd. What was this? Where had the hero of justice gone? They had known I never spared opponents when they started fighting, hadn't they?

I simply blocked the requests and finished it off. If the enemy creation could have endured being beaten for twenty years, maybe things would have been different. But once we committed to destroying it, it didn't even last a month.

Having won, the angel appeared as always to offer praise.

"Congratulations, Biin. You've truly broken through the tenth round without any civilization. From the organizers' perspective, who wanted to see the growth of civilization and strategy, this must be a tearful situation—but congratulations on your victory nonetheless."

"The opponent was too weak."

"Was he weak? I think the matchup was simply unfavorable. There was reasoning behind every judgment. I don't believe I have the right to casually judge why Dindinaron lost."

Well, maybe that was true.

But honestly, I wasn't sure.

"What do you mean?"

I couldn't figure out what Dindinaron had been trying to do. His army was certainly powerful, but what exactly had he wanted to accomplish with it?

Once he realized at some point that I had no civilization, shouldn't he have prepared something accordingly… either a main plan or at least a next plan after the main plan?

"Didn't he lack a next plan?"

"Hmm. It seems a bit different from that. I'd say it was doubtful whether he even had a main plan to begin with."

In many ways, he had been a faint impression of an opponent. Aside from the giant monster that appeared at the end, there were no memorable high-ranking entities, and while the enemy must have had some characteristics, I couldn't even recall what they were.

Well, since I won, wasn't that enough…? Even so, something felt unresolved.

Since I had won the collision, I did what needed to be done. I had my community persona post the victory announcement. Then I looked over the regions connected to the opponent's Great Ocean and began managing them to some extent.

Ah, there was also the matter of dismantling those two monsters made from god fragments and rebuilding the terrain… Plenty to do.

The angel was still looking at me as if she had more to say.

"Why? The next event is the disaster section, isn't it?"

"That's correct. It's the disaster section with two mandatory disasters. However, there is an additional announcement for players who have broken through the tenth round."

…? There were so many events that I wasn't surprised anymore. So what was it?

"Breaking through the tenth round means, in other words, that you, Biin, are one of the 1/1024 talents. The current number of remaining players is 1,048,576. Compared to the over one billion players at the start, the numbers have decreased significantly. Therefore, you possess the qualification."

"Qualification?"

"Yes. The qualification to converse with the organizers."

"!"

I was genuinely surprised. I had thought I wouldn't be able to speak with the organizers until the very end.

"In other words, we would like you to express everything you felt while experiencing these ten collisions to the organizers."

"Does this opportunity come every time?"

"I'm afraid I cannot answer that. So please consider this your final conversation and tell them everything."

With that, the angel smiled and stopped the absolute time within the game.

Then she pulled my consciousness into a specific space.

"With that, we shall now begin the Dialogue Segment."