#094

‘…So, what he’s saying is that if I repeatedly end up in dangerous situations, he’s not going to listen to me even if I say I’ll be fine next time?’

Well, it’s understandable.

From Athanas’s perspective, I had already been warned, yet I’d said, ‘I can’t tell you why, but I’ll be fine. I have a way. Don’t ask what it is! Just trust me!’ and insisted he leave me be, only to show up the next day scratching my head and saying, ‘Turns out that didn’t work.’

‘It was a mistake to emphasize that the previous situation wasn’t that dangerous.’

Athanas must see me as some idiot who can’t even judge danger properly.

Judging by the fact that he’s making me promise this formally.

‘Report the mistakes first, do not mix excuses into the report, promise not to repeat the same mistake, and if you mistake again, I will not consider your proposal….’

In short, he wants me to do everything by the book.

Which, to be fair, is efficient and rational.

“I understand. Thank you for giving me a chance to make up for it. I will strive not to lose your trust in the future.”

“…….”

Despite giving a satisfactory answer, Athanas’s expression remained subtle.

‘What more does he want from me?’

He’s so damn picky.

This guy is going to be a nightmare to build affection with.

* * *

‘I feel like I’m using Valentine’s prayer room as a nap room.’

This time, I managed to wake up on time and didn’t miss lunch. Although I suffered a bit of a mishap while waking Athanas up….

‘…That bastard has terrible sleeping habits.’

Still, it’s a relief it wasn’t the sleeping habits from the ‘Die Heretic!’ days.

If Athanas had the habit of grabbing the nearest weapon and pointing it at someone the moment he opened his eyes, I would never have dared to wake him out of fear.

‘Honestly, I was terrified for a second thinking he was going for a chokehold.’

Athanas also seemed to wake up suddenly out of sheer absurdity when I begged him for my life.

With a serious face, he asked me if the first thing I think of when someone hugs me is getting strangled….

‘…In Die Heretic!, if you equip Athanas with unarmed weapons, the surprise attack motion comes out as a choke.’

Heretic Slayer Athanas can wake up and, with a single attack key, hug the enemy in front of him and strangle them to death silently.

Of course, I couldn’t explain that, so I made an excuse that I was just surprised because I’m not used to physical contact.

‘His reaction was very subtle.’

Anyway, after lunch, I had to go to the orphanage for volunteer work.

To keep up the act of being a double agent, I had to keep pretending to look for Adelaide….

‘While I’m at it, I’ll see if I can Influence the kids and check if my Affinity accumulates.’

Would a notification for ‘Affinity’ accumulation appear even when Influencing children? Or would it just be a notification that they’ve been Influenced?

What is the criteria for an achievement that increases Affinity? How much Affinity needs to be accumulated for a Skill to manifest?

I had many questions.

‘…It would be great if the System gave more detailed information.’

The most important thing in an experiment is obtaining accurate measurements.

However, the System provided very vague and ambiguous values.

Affinity increased ‘very slightly.’

‘What the hell is “very slightly”?’

Tell me specifically that it increased by 0.000003.

Only then can I calculate what happens when a certain amount of Affinity is accumulated.

‘Above all, the fact that it doesn’t show logs is the most infuriating part.’

Isn’t a past log reading function the most basic of basics?

I was genuinely shocked to find out this wasn’t possible.

‘At this rate, when the number of Influenced people increases later, I’m going to get confused about who is in what state….’

It should at least put some marker on the Influenced targets.

It would be so convenient to have the name floating above the Unit and a status indicator next to it.

‘There’s no Effect when using a Skill, either….’

If I tell someone I think I’ve Influenced to listen to me, but it turns out the Skill isn’t actually working, wouldn’t I be screwed?

Of course, in the current situation where the Influenced targets can be counted on one hand, it wasn’t something to worry about.

‘Anyway, I don’t plan on using Skills recklessly.’

I didn’t plan on overusing Influence itself, either.

Because it was said that The ‘Stars’ take notice when Affinity accumulates.

‘If a goblin bastard starts glowing like a neon sign, will it do anything other than make him die faster?’

Having a conspicuous color in nature is a privilege of the strong.

The weak must live draped in dull colors, blending into the background.

“Fabio!”

As if waiting for me, a child who had been peeking out from beside the wall ran over and hugged me. It seemed they wanted to brag about getting a perfect score on the spelling test this morning.

While praising them for being amazing, I noticed a curly-haired child standing sullenly in the corner.

‘That kid must have messed up the test.’

Normally, I would have ignored whoever was sulking and waited for them to come to me after sorting out their feelings, but today was different.

“Marcelo, is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He tried to act like it was nothing, but there was no way it wouldn’t show.

It was simple to coax a six-year-old into pouring out their upset feelings.

“…Why do I have to study writing? If you receive a Blessing, you can read Sacred Script! Ordinary letters are for ordinary people! I don’t know why I have to do such boring study.”

‘It really is boring as hell.’

Here, when studying writing, they are made to memorize sentences from the Bible or doctrinal commentaries.

It was tedious even for me, a Saint; what fun could six-year-olds possibly find in that?

‘It would be at least a bit fun if they started with things like fairy tales….’

In a medieval era where there are hardly any novels, there’s no way there are fairy tale books.

There was no reason to put content for children into ‘books,’ which were incredibly expensive luxury items.

‘Was it around the 19th century when attempts to compile folk tales into books happened….’

If I were the protagonist of a God-World Genre, I would have used this conversation as a catalyst to (plagiarize) write fairy tales and become a legendary author for the ages.

‘Ah… this is what a fairy tale is….’

‘This is… a fairy tale? If I could read things like this… it’s only natural to want to learn to write! I’ll learn right now!’

Of course, this is the Dark Realm, so such a development wouldn’t happen.

‘Why would I advertise that I’m a player?’

For that reason, I couldn’t solve Marcelo’s dilemma.

‘Even if I tell him how beneficial studying writing is, his mind won’t change.’

I’ve heard countless times why exercise is good for health, but that didn’t make me like exercising.

Then, a method occurred to me that could help him find interest in studying writing while also allowing me to research ‘Influence.’

“If you think there’s no use in learning it, you really wouldn’t want to study. Right?”

I gave a bright smile.

“Then shall we try something together that makes learning to write fun?”

* * *

What I wanted to verify this time was the method of ‘Influence.’

‘Is Influence only possible through direct face-to-face conversation?’

Could other means work?

For example, letters.

‘…If Influence is possible through writing, I can overcome temporal and spatial restrictions.’

And more than that, I was curious if I could Influence someone I didn’t know.

Suppose I create a worry consultation box and send answers to anonymous worries.

If someone among them is Influenced after reading the answer, how would it appear in the notification window?

‘It might say “Someone whose name is unknown has been Influenced,” but….’

When I Influenced Andrea, the notification window displayed the information that he was a servant of the Distorted One, even though I didn’t know it.

‘That means there’s a high probability that the name will be correctly displayed in the notification window even if it’s someone I don’t know.’

Not only that, considering Andrea’s case, I might even be able to check whether the Influenced target is a ‘Vassal of an Othergod.’

‘…It would have been more useful if I could check a separate list of Influenced people.’

Stupid System….

Anyway, just confirming that indirect Influence is possible would vastly increase the things I need to try.

‘If Influence works through letters, what about books?’

If someone’s life changes after reading a self-help book I wrote, would my Affinity increase every time? What if an Influenced person conveys what I said to someone else and Influences them second-hand? Is multi-level Influence possible?

‘…Let’s not get ahead of ourselves when it’s not even confirmed if it’s possible through writing yet.’

Thump.

I set a pile of wax tablets down on the desk.

Since there were more than I expected, I started to regret it a little.

‘When am I going to finish writing all these answers?’

I thought only three or four people would participate, but there were more than expected.

‘Did I offer to do this for nothing?’

What I proposed to the children was very simple.

I told them to write letters on wax tablets without writing their names and put them in a box, and I would write answers for them.

‘A sort of bamboo forest, so to speak.’

The reason it had to be anonymous was purely to test ‘Influence,’ but I gave Andrea a plausible excuse.

If they write anonymously, they can write freely without fear of making mistakes. Since they’ll be curious about other children’s letters, the training of reading will also happen voluntarily. Furthermore, there are things that are easier to confess when anonymous, so it’s a way to better understand the children’s worries and interests….

‘Thanks to Andrea, I learned that the same person can be Influenced twice.’

Affinity didn’t increase on the second Influence.

‘…Now, time to write the answers.’

Perhaps because it was the first day, the content wasn’t much.

The most common were questions about the person I was ‘dating.’

I let out a deep sigh.

‘I already answered that a lot during the day, kids….’

Because I’ve been carrying around the reliquary, I’ve heard the question of who the partner is to a sickening degree. Was the answer I gave then not enough?

I wrote what I knew about Athanas moderately and for things I didn’t know, I either said I didn’t know or made up an answer.

‘…And at the same time, the operation to press the players’ trigger buttons is underway.’

Spreading rumors through children is a viral method proven since the Silla dynasty.

Not that I carried the reliquary specifically aiming for the Seodong-yo effect.

‘The next most common were….’

Letters that were closer to personal diaries.

What happened yesterday, who fought with whom, what they saw on the back mountain….

These kinds of letters weren’t hard to reply to. I just had to agree with them moderately.

I also answered the many questions about myself appropriately.

‘And….’

Two kids asked about math homework.

‘…You’re using the anonymity very efficiently.’

Regardless, since I promised to reply no matter what, I didn’t write the correct answer but wrote the solving method in detail.

‘It’s not that difficult, and it’s elementary math level, so it should be fine to tell them this much.’

However, because I felt they were a bit cheeky, I wrote that they should help me think about ‘a problem I’ve been agonizing over lately’ as a way to tease them.

‘I’ll give you a damn famous one-stroke drawing problem.’

The one famous for having no answer: ‘How to cross the seven bridges only once.’

Suffer and agonize while holding your head over why it doesn’t work!

* * *

And the next day.

I held my head in my hands after seeing a clean ‘proof’ written densely on a wax tablet.

‘This… the answer shouldn’t have come out.’

After Euler proved it was impossible, this one-stroke drawing became a riddle that even an elementary student could solve, but until then, it was a difficult problem that gave many mathematicians headaches.

It is not a problem that a medieval mathematician could solve in a single day.

‘…This was definitely solved by someone who already knew the answer.’

A hollow laugh escaped me as I obtained a clue about a player from an unexpected place.

‘Getting a clue is good, but….’

That means the other person is in a position to identify who I am?

But I don’t know who they are?

‘…I’m screwed, aren’t I?’

Chapter 95