#144

As soon as the message window popped up, I clutched my head and screamed.

“Are you seriously trying to screw with me? Fuck! Why! Why! Why the hell did you leave like that!”

>> What did I do?

“You could have just stayed hidden and left quietly!”

>> Why would I?

‘Why would Iiiii?’

I was so pissed off that I felt breathless.

Does this really look like a joke to him?

‘…No, he couldn’t have done it without thinking.’

Because in this situation, Pandemonium is the one who stands to lose more.

I took a deep breath and brought up the virtual keyboard.

[Isn’t it a loss for you too if this gets out? Your family must be incredibly sensitive right now because of the former heir.]

It wasn’t long ago that the family was in an uproar over a crazy heir who abandoned the house for love.

And now, the heir’s younger sibling just hands over a ring of significant meaning to a Chanter he just met?

Isn’t that basically triggering the family’s PTSD?

‘If it were me, I’d be foaming at the mouth opposing it.’

To begin with, Pandemonium has a critical disqualification: he cannot inherit the succession.

That is why, even now, he is not the heir, but merely the future ‘Acting Family Head.’

This is because the one who can become the Head of the family is not Pandemonium, but Pandemonium’s ‘daughter.’

‘Even if the Empress holds the power and rules the country, the legitimacy belongs to the Emperor.’

He can only become the Acting Family Head thanks to a daughter who doesn’t even exist yet; if he acts like he has no intention of producing an heir, that position will surely vanish.

Moreover, he said the current Head of the Teres family is still alive.

He’s just too old to give birth to a new Divine Bloodline.

The Head must already have a headache because of the daughter’s crazy antics; if he starts doubting whether his son is sane, wouldn’t he think it’s safer to just cast him aside early on?

What if he changes his mind and decides to find a new apostle while he’s still healthy?

[Right now, they’re sending women to you, but if they think you’re insane, they’ll try to target the Head immediately.]

>> Are you worrying about me?

[Fuck, stop annoying me and just explain why you did it.]

>> My position isn’t that precarious over something like this.

‘…Does he have some hidden ace?’

Even so, I couldn’t understand it.

The gains from that action were small, and the losses were many.

[Regardless, you’re going to get nagged. Why the hell did you do this when you’re the one who hates the idea of being told to marry?]

>> I just felt like it.

[Fuck, if you don’t want to tell me, just say so.]

>> You really don’t believe me.

‘Why would I believe you?’

Only after a while did a proper answer come back.

>> There was a need to create a bit of a controversy. Among the Archbishops, the atmosphere is unusual, so there are some who are going around questioning the nobles about why they came to the Capital Church.

[I thought the Inquisition intended to just stand by and watch the Council happen?]

>> The priests don’t know what those guys are thinking.

‘…Even the Archbishops don’t know how the current situation is unfolding?’

Is it because it’s related to the Being Beyond the Starry Sky?

He said the only people who know about the existence of the Othergods are the apostles, the Knight Commander of the Inquisition, and Casimir.

If so, is Casimir letting the Council proceed entirely based on the Saintess’s will?

‘What is the Saintess thinking?’

Is she standing by because it’s the Tutorial?

Or is there actually some calculation behind it?

I fiddled with the ring in my hand.

[Then you’re planning to tell your vassals that this was all a staged act, right?]

>> They’ll think that on their own even if I don’t say it.

[And I should just keep this ring and give it back later?]

>> I gave it to you to use in an emergency. You should keep it.

[Forget it, I’m giving it back before you leave, so just know that.]

>> If you’re worried about rumors, there’s no need. Once the Council is over, no one will care where the ring went.

‘…What on earth is going to happen at the Council?’

Fuck, this is terrifying.

Still, if it’s something the Pioneer of Civilization suggested….

‘Wait a minute.’

[The Pioneer of Civilization, who is presumed to have Game Overed. That’s ‘House Lizard,’ right?]

>> Correct.

‘As I thought.’

House Lizard.

The exact nickname was DomesticReptilian, which translates to ‘domesticated reptile,’ but the first person to translate his strategy guides started calling him ‘House Lizard,’ and that’s how the name stuck in Korea.

House Lizard identified himself as an IT professional and said he started the game because he was interested in the technology used in Conclude, only to fall deep into the world-building of the Dark Realm.

For instance, he tore apart packets to find out why a package game required an internet connection to play, discovering that the in-game text was being downloaded and output from the server in real-time.

His analysis of how the game content changed based on player input, explaining how complex the calculations of the AI used here were, was quite impressive.

‘Did he say that ST Games would be in the red because of server costs as the number of people playing Conclude increased?’

The method he used to check how many different choices the game could respond to was also pretty wild.

He created a basic AI that responded to choices and then ran 100 instances of Conclude simultaneously on a ‘personal workstation’ (a high-performance computer that integrates various functions on a scale larger than a personal computer).

Of course, since simultaneous connection with a single account was impossible, he logged in with entirely different accounts for each.

‘He spent hundreds of dollars just purchasing the same game multiple times.’

That’s not even counting the cost of equipping and running the personal workstation.

In many ways, he was a player of unrivaled status.

About 80% of the sources on the Conclude Wiki were from House Lizard’s personal blog.

‘Since his gameplay mostly consisted of repeating trial and error, he wasn’t immortalized in official Clips very often, but….’

Because he analyzed the world-building and, whenever there was uncertain information, he designed experiments and ran the game specifically for ‘verification,’ everyone would say, “Let’s ask House Lizard,” whenever a debate broke out.

House Lizard’s achievements couldn’t be summarized in just one or two things.

‘Most notably, he created the Dark Realm weather forecast.’

Unless you do something that affects the climate, the weather in the Dark Realm moves according to a set pattern.

When he organized and uploaded the weather for 30 years after the start of the game, I truly thought he was a lunatic.

Besides that, he completed the ‘Dark Realm Ecological Map,’ which encompassed all biological data that could be collected depending on the region….

‘Anyway, if it’s that guy, he must be a celebrity even among the Othergods.’

Mother God recognized the posts I wrote using a VPN.

If so, she must know about House Lizard’s blog too.

Even if he wasn’t the Pioneer of Civilization, he was the kind of person who would have been chosen by another Othergod to become a player.

‘Because House Lizard was incredibly immersed in Conclude.’

He even left serious contemplations on whether the Dark Realm was a simulated universe existing within some server.

He also wrote about research ethics regarding ‘living beings’ who are unaware that they are nothing more than data.

[House Lizard was the first to find out that NPCs are clones and fakes, right?]

Natural rights (rights humans possess from birth) cannot be seen as belonging to data that can be cloned.

However, it is a bad thing to inflict meaningless pain on a living being who does not know they are merely data.

Experimental animals that survive after an experiment ends should be provided with a comfortable life.

In the same vein, cloned beings who were sacrificed should also be able to enjoy life if possible.

Thinking about it now, those are exactly the kind of things House Lizard would say.

>> …Were you close with that guy, hyung?

‘Close?’

We exchanged emails a few times, but I don’t think we could be called close.

If that’s what you call a close relationship, then academic conferences would be joyful insider parties where friends gather to hang out.

[It’s closer to me knowing him unilaterally. Well, there probably isn’t a player who doesn’t know House Lizard.]

>> The Pioneer of Civilization player mentioned you quite often too.

[Uh…. Really?]

>> They said you were a very impressive person.

Me?

What about me was impressive?

‘Is it that, after all?’

House Lizard put in tireless effort to create an artificial apostle with two or more Divine Traits.

To find traits that didn’t repel each other, he must have tested almost every possible combination.

As a result, House Lizard succeeded in creating a chimera that could use two Divine Powers, although its lifespan was extremely short.

While he was looking for a way to extend that chimera’s life….

‘…I completed the Divine Cancer Cell.’

The Divine Cancer Cell is a perfect upgrade over the Trait Chimera.

House Lizard immediately dropped his current research and tried to reproduce the Divine Cancer Cell.

At the time, I felt quite proud when he introduced the Divine Cancer Cell theory using the phrase ‘a genius shift in perspective.’

‘How embarrassing.’

[That’s a shame. It would have been nice if we could have talked directly.]

In truth, that was an idea I could only come up with because House Lizard had shared his records of failure.

Now that the Dark Realm has become reality, House Lizard’s serious contemplations will be incredibly helpful, making me feel regretful all over again.

>> When asked why he did those things, he answered, ‘Because it’s fun,’ right?

‘Huh?’

>> He said that even if the creatures of the Dark Realm have souls, the reason they were cloned was to provide pleasure to the player, so just enjoy it.

‘No, fuck.’

[That’s because he thought it was a game back then! That’s why he said that!]