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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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Chapter - 4: Of Course, Eternally, My Shit
The unique perk, ‘High Performance Telepathy,’ is a power that interferes directly with the mind.
It distorts perception, manipulates emotion, and exposes vulnerabilities.
No limit on range, no limit on targets.
Depending on how it’s used, it can be more terrifying than most S-rank combat abilities.
It must be a shame for the clickers of destruction.
“Count Saddler has committed suicide. After tormenting slaves with a whip barely fit for cattle, he finally wrapped it around his neck.”
Kanaria had mastered cruelty.
Violence and hatred aren’t the sole privilege of villains.
Even the righteous, when stripped of everything by a monster, can dedicate themselves wholly to brutality.
When that person is a revenant, who has succeeded in her revenge.
“I wanted to kill him in more certain despair… What a shame. I had more scripts written for him. Pathetic until the very end.”
“Take it easy. I'm going to cry."
Kanaria was well acquainted with malice.
She knew just how far the whims of the powerful could drag the powerless into the pits of misery.
She was one of those dragged.
Every night, she dreams of her revenge against Duke Nosferatu.
Even now that the Duke of Nosferatu is already dead, she imagines his downfall as if by habit.
And I had the ability to make imagination a reality.
“Apologies. It was just so satisfying, I got a little carried away.”
“Well, yeah. Cleaning up trash can be oddly refreshing.”
We didn’t just show the Count some nightmares to drive him mad.
If we kept pulling that trick, we’d eventually give the ‘hero’ a reason to intervene.
So Kanaria showed him exactly what he wanted.
Fed him the perfect fantasy.
Stoked the flames of his inner desires until they grew out of control.
And then he crumbled under his own weight.
We also gathered a nice pile of biological test data about High Performance Telepathy while we were at it.
“Alright. I think we’ve dealt with most of the morons who’d push the damn Triggers of Destruction just for fun.”
“In the end, the Imperial Family remained untouched.”
“Yeah. That’s one place you don’t poke unless you want a full-blown Destruction Event. Best to leave that landmine buried forever if you can.”
“So, you’ll begin the Gigachad Operation?”
"That's right."
Gigachad Operation.
A ridiculous plan to reform the ‘Triggers of Destruction’ who are destined to bring the end of the world using Gigachad.
The first ‘Trigger of Destruction’ to be targeted in Operation Gigachad had already been chosen.
“We’ll start with the Witch of Suicide.”
The Witch of Suicide, Priscilla.
She was the first nightmare of Endless, the one who shattered the expectations of players who had mistaken the game for just another soulslike RPG.
'I was really pissed when I first got hit.'
This 'Suicide Witch' scenario can be explained as...
While playing through the Hero Route, the player hears rumors of a strange plague affecting a village and residents repeatedly committing suicide in bizarre ways.
Hanging themselves with ropes, overloading their mana until it combusts, stabbing their own hearts and one after another, they die by their own hand.
Sensing something off, the player starts investigating the root cause of these strange deaths.
It’s revealed that the plague stems from a single witch’s curse.
This witch, in her pursuit of immortality, perfected a curse that transfers her soul at the moment of death.
To get a perfect body, she repeatedly kills herself, jumping into younger, more talented bodies each time.
Once this secret is uncovered, she’s marked as wanted.
The heroes use the 'soul-killing poison' to kill the witch.
-“I want to live... I don’t want to die...!”
The moment her soul is destroyed, her body also dies.
But the witch's curse is activated.
‘When the soul dies, the body dies too. That was the real problem.’
Though the witch is dead, the curse carved into her soul persists.
It continues to function endlessly.
Her dead soul wanders like a zombie, trying to possess living bodies.
And every body her soul enters instantly dies.
The curse reactivates and the soul leaps again.
An endless cycle of death.
Not a zombie virus.
Something far worse.
A definite, irreversible apocalypse.
Once all human beings' lives have gone extinct.
The player is greeted with a message.
[The world has perished.]
[You failed to protect this world.]
[Seek a possibility where destruction does not occur.]
Naturally, in the second playthrough, players avoid pursuing the witch.
They naively assume the world will be safe so long as the truth behind the ‘suicide plague’ remains buried.
Even if the player does nothing, some other hero eventually uncovers the truth and the witch is marked once more.
Because this world is filled with heroes.
And when that happens, it all starts again.
A random event happens out of nowhere and you get a game over.
It’s infuriating beyond belief.
'In the end, you had to kill all the heroes who were going to investigate the witch to avoid this ending.'
The only way to prevent this ending was to murder every hero near the village struck by the ‘suicide plague’.
Does that at least stop the apocalypse?
No, this later turns into destruction as the heroes who must survive die.
In the end, whether you kill or spare the witch, the world perishes all the same.
“This game is garbage the more I think about it…”
There are dozens of such unfair traps in this game.
Why on earth did I fall for it?
“Duke.”
“Huh?”
“Before we start, may I fetch a bag of snacks?”
“Of course. Here’s a gold coin, go buy plenty at the market.”
“I’ll keep the change as payment for my errand.”
"Wow, you're really impressive..."
The first operation to reform a Trigger of Destruction began.
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A deep forest where not a single ray of sunlight reaches.
A girl who looked like a corpse was leaning against the wall of a ruined cabin.
Her once bright, gem-like eyes were empty slits scarred by knives.
Through the tattered folds of her witch’s robe, bone and mangled flesh peeked out.
Dark blood trickled from her ears, a cruel aftermath of mana overload.
Shards of broken teeth lay scattered around her.
Anyone could see that she would die soon.
It was more appropriate to pronounce her death.
‘…What a mess. I guess this body’s done for. If I kill myself, it’s over anyway.’
Priscilla, the Witch of Suicide closed her shredded eyelids.
She was just about to unleash full mana overload, hoping to end her pain.
-“You fucking idiot! Open your eyes. Nothing’s over yet.”
A wildly macho, passionate voice boomed right beside her.
Priscilla opened her eyes again.
Her eyes were too damaged to see yet somehow…
“—Khak!”
Next to her sat a ridiculously muscular man whose presence felt utterly out of place.
Startled, she inhaled sharply and her broken lungs coughed up blood.
Even a centuries-old witch like her found the sight bizarre.
‘Good grief, now I’m hallucinating. Did I overuse sorcery and damage my soul?’
Finding the situation absurd, the witch forced her torn lips into a faint smile.
After all, she was already dying what difference would one more vision make?
-“It’s not a hallucination. I’m your inner self, My Daughter.”
‘That’s a hallucination, you moron…’
At her feeble retort, the macho man scowled and shouted.
"Shut up! Keep your mouth shut and stop with the stupid crap, you fucking idiot!"
‘I didn’t open my mouth…’
-"Look at yourself right now. You’re nothing but a total pussy. If I were you, I wouldn’t be giving up on everything so stupidly."
‘Aren’t you supposed to be my inner self? Every single thing you say is contradictory. Ha… I guess even I’m tired enough to be worn out. Whatever, it’ll get better once I die.
The witch closed her eyes again.
Hoping that rest would come even a little sooner.
She didn’t want to hear that foolish hallucination or stupid jokes anymore.
And then, as if mocking her, the hallucination spoke an incomprehensible phrase.
-"Same shit, different toilet."
‘What does that even mean?’
-"Pfft, just because the toilet changes doesn’t mean the shit changes. The shit isn’t in the toilet—it’s inside you."
‘What a refined metaphor.’
-"I’m your inner self. Closer to you than your heart, always by your side."
In that moment, a cold jolt struck the witch’s consciousness like ice water.
Soul transference.
The forbidden magic of transferring the soul to another body to continue eternal life.
If this childish hallucination was a part of her soul…
‘No way, do I have to keep experiencing this stupid hallucination even after endless soul transfers?’
And the answer she received from the man was the most horrifying thing she could imagine.
-"Of course, eternally, my shit."
-"Of course, forever, my friend."
For the first time since mastering soul transference, the witch was afraid of death.
===============
"Good start. Perfect timing."
“This part really amplifies the visceral disgust toward the giga-chad. The worse the first impression, the more impactful the redemption arc later.”
"Oh… not bad. How should we project the emotion?"
"Just connect it and I’ll handle the rest. I once had a sandwich someone gave me that had half a cockroach in it. Some asshole used to do that kind of thing to homeless people on purpose.”
"You really had a tough life, huh?"
“Honestly, the cockroach itself didn’t taste that bad. It was the roach poison it ate that gave me stomach cramps for days.”
Kanaria said this expressionlessly, taking a bite of the sandwich she bought at the market.
Without a word, I took out a gold coin and handed it to Kanaria.
"Not going to just toss it like usual?"
"Uh…."
"Ah, that’s a shame. I had a neat little trick planned."
"Maybe next time."
If I did that now, I feel like my fragile conscience would shatter.
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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