NOVEL NEXT Chapter 99 – After Action Report
A month went by fast.
And then another month slightly slower.
Killed some fascists. Saved some innocent lives. Took money from the rich and gave it to the poor. Big damn heroic outlaws and agents of Culture.
We didn’t get everything we wanted, but the mission was a success overall. Maybe I’ll tell you all the dirty details later in an unarchived members-only stream.
In the end, our jolly band of revolutionaries decided to leave the Sun City behind and head back home.
We traveled on the Palace Highway along the east coast, towing the Flame Tank with a Hathicar. Even though the tank only worked in Reignland, we had to take it all the way back to Wineep Isthmus with us.
If we leave it behind, some fool might get some foolish ideas.
This also gives us an opportunity to test the Flame Tank in different areas, like in or near the Hidden Valley. Probably won’t work, but you never know without doing the experiments.
Anyway, Korryndin’s throne was currently stable enough that we didn’t need to backseat every decision. Just like the abolitionist movement, Revolution Movement was a belyana ship: after the mission is over, it can be dismantled. The whole point of a movement is to make itself unnecessary.
I already proposed to Crys that we should stop calling ourselves Revolution Movement and start using some neutral, welcoming name like League of Watchmen, or UNESCO, or Fellowship of the Bling, or Friends Not Strangers, or Hawkwood Company, or Bluebird Group.
Crys said he’ll think about it.
During times of war, people have a clear-cut purpose. During times of peace, everything is open and people can do whatever. It takes more imagination and determination to live in peace without a grand purpose and define your own goals instead of mindlessly following orders from above.
And for some people, unfortunately, creating their own meaning is too much to ask. They always look for some greater purpose to follow, greater leader to imitate. And if they can't find a good purpose, they follow a bad purpose – like a starving man eating flour because he can't bake bread.
The job is never completely over. Even if you could feed the whole world, some people would starve out of spite.
Streets are full of people who slap away the hand that tries to help them and lick the jackboot that kicks them. You can't save everyone, so you have to do by saving the majority.
Modern society uplift speedrun any%, Japan after Sakoku pace.
Well, being a decent person and building social infrastructure doesn’t attract edgy teenagers who just want to laugh at random violence and property destruction. They are not the target audience for this revolution, there are no clickbait thumbnails for this project. Streaming a city-building simulator brings in the mellow viewers; the community you want to hang out with in the long run.
The seeds and plants that are still alive in the roomworlds of Starfish Mansion might resurrect this gray hellworld back into a living green world. Turn the wastelands into orchards and nature reserves; turn the dungeon mines into bicycle parking facilities and shelters for future generations.
In my previous life, I didn’t think about the logistics of my own death much. After coming here I’ve been making long-term plans about what happens after I’m inevitably gone. I’m running against unknown time limit and trying to put everything in order before universe forces me to take the longest break.
Imagine a world where everyone has progeria. They think it’s just normal aging process because everyone has the same disease.
That’s the world we live in.
We think hundred years is the ‘normal lifespan’, but in reality it’s a horrible hereditary disease. We all age and die too rapidly, we just can't recognize it as a disease because we all have it. Planned obsolescence is a birth defect, we need some Right to Repair.
And the one side effect of aging that worries me the most is dementia – losing my mind and memories.
First you forget everyone around you. Then you forget who you are. Then you forget that you’ve forgotten. You think you've always been a nameless, formless, empty being. You forget how to chew food and turn into a soft pile of automatic bodily reactions, like a default zombie standing without orders on an unfinished dungeon area.
If I start noticing serious dementia symptoms, I’m going to take my chances with Reload Platform.
One way or another.
Anyway, other than thinking about my inevitable biological death when this invulnerability glitch wears out, I was still thinking about that stubborn Tank Guy standing in the middle of the street. Before we left the city, I heard that he had returned to the same area multiple times and just stood on the street like a statue, still wearing a loose slave collar.
Was he waiting for us to return the same way we came? Did he want to become a martyr?
Sorry, we used the north gate to leave the city. Just pick a partition from one of the empty temples in the city and make it your home, dude. You need to stop licking the boot that kicked you and biting the hand that tried to feed you.
Well, every village needs a madman.
But then again, that guy might be another Caliph Tze in the making. Another manumitted slave who rises the ranks and starts a Mamluk Dynasty.
The simpletons of Sun City might get inspired by his radical idiocy and create a new political movement to turn back time. High Hats might see him as a chance to return to their former privileged lives and secretly fund his election campaign.
Slaves of the world, unite! Bring back the Old Gods! Make slavery great again! Rebellion is sin, obedience is holy! Ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery! Thinking is hard, doing is easy! Give us orders, lord, we don’t know what to do with our free time!
Maybe I should’ve killed him when he was just an unknown street artist.
It was only three of us in the Hathicar and Kimono was driving. Woodeye and his crew sat on top of the Flame Tank behind us. Few other teams followed us with their newly looted Caliphate vehicles.
And high in the sky, the dirigible airship GSV Saucy Minion watched over our jolly convoy.
When we assassinated Suleiman two years ago, we were able do it in his main palace because they didn’t expect a flying ship like this would exist. But after that shock to the system, High Hats everywhere realized that they need to prepare against aerial attacks and counter our air superiority with long barrel cannons with high muzzle speed. And starting from hot air balloons, they started quickly developing their own flying ship technology. Nobles offered us gold and castles for a single ride in the airship, but we turned them all away. All they could do was start building their own.
We were able to milk our airship advantage to its limits on our grand tour over western Ur, but surgical surprise strikes won’t work in the future. When one ship flies, more will soon follow. The dirigible is vulnerable as long as you can reach out and touch it with a cannon.
Well, we don’t have bomber planes and they don’t have VT fuzes. Hang gliders are still in experimental phase, biplanes mere drawings in my notebook.
Back when our plan was just a preliminary draft, I happened to tell Crys about aircraft carriers. With that piece of info, Crys quickly implemented the pirate ship segment into our plan: smuggle the airship into Sun City to bypass their improvised anti-aircraft tech.
Disassembling and reassembling the semi-rigid frame at location wasn’t a problem since there was a mandatory quarantine period. There was enough time to assemble the frame and fill the balloon at night (using the mysterious instrument called Displacement Device that was installed in the middle of the airship), and bomb the city at dawn.
A nasty wake up call.
Anyway, this slow-paced journey home meant that I had a rare opportunity to have a calm debriefing with Crys and check the final mission stats.
“Total of 192 confirmed casualties overall. Less than two hundred is pretty fantastic number compared to your pessimistic estimate of five hundred, Crys. I would say that you still underestimated the absolute psychological horror effects of the Flame Tank and airship combined. Most of our casualties were on the north side, as expected. Zouge's men died on the streets, Sparkling Oasis burned his hand throwing a fire bomb and decided to go all out with more fire bombs – Crys, are you listening?”
“They were surprisingly efficient.” (Crys)
“Canon Knowledge never misses, I picked only the best charas and techs. You owe me a favor.”
“I don’t remember making bets.” (Crys)
“Of course you don’t. Well, next up, hmm... Report about vehicles. It seems we didn’t lose any. No, wait, one of the OG flat trucks we GTA’d from No-Lands is missing from the list. Is this a mistake? Did someone take it for a joyride? Please don’t tell me one of the gangs embezzled it. We can’t tolerate that kind of corruption in our crew.”
“It’s not missing.” (Crys)
Oh. I know that look.
“Crys, what did you do behind my back this time?”
“Plan B.” (Crys)
“I know what was my plan B and what was our plan B, but what was your plan B?”
“It wasn’t needed.” (Crys)
“You want me to guess? Okay, one of our big trucks. Who’s driving it? You hired someone, probably a mercenary. No, a mercenary group not on the list. Is this related to the chemical weapons I vetoed but you’ve been stockpiling like local North Korea? Hundred krúricks says it’s that.”
“Whoa there, Satan! Large-scale chemical warfare is a really bad idea. The winds change and our own lungs collapse. Why do you have stay in character? You keep doing this evil boss character thing every time. Stop it, it’s freaking me out. Where’s that truck now?”
“Standing by at Lake Kroonik.” (Crys)
“So it was Sheriff-Killer. How long was that dirty bomb near Sun City?”
“Long enough.” (Crys)
Sigh. And another sigh. Kids these days… Stop smirking like you just pulled a successful prank.
“Crys, if something had gone wrong with Rain, the gas tornado could have killed us all.”
“A dead man’s switch. The Reload Platform was a gamble.” (Crys)
“Please stop trying to drag everyone into early grave with you. By the way, you should be careful with trucks in general. You might get isekai’d into some first world hospital if you get run over.”
“Isekaid?” (Crys)
“Please tell Sheriff-Killer to hide that truck very carefully. Hide it very, very carefully down into some deep dungeon cave behind fake walls. Fill that dungeon level with traps and put up warning signs with skulls and bones to keep outsiders out –”
...Areh? Am I giving instructions on how to create a new high-difficulty dungeon level full of traps and poison gases for future generations?
It’s more likely than you think.
“In a private discussion before our departure, Korryndin offered me his daughter.” (Crys)
“Oh, changing the subject? Fine, we have a long journey ahead, we can take detours. Which one of his daughters she offered?”
“My choice. The same offer was made for Sorry Man via letter given to Rainwoman.” (Crys)
“Ouch. Korryndin made another rookie mistake there.”
Korryndin didn’t make any royal marriage offers to me. I guess I’m lacking in pedigree.
“I assume you told him to forget it?”
“There are advantages to consider.” (Crys)
“Eh?”
I quickly checked Kimono’s reaction face. Nothing? So she knew already.
“You’re actually considering a political marriage? Didn’t expect that. What’s in the deal for you? Are you going for a harem protagonist route? Are you thinking that you could marry one and Kim-chan could marry the other? I mean, I heard from a credible source that emperor Korryndin legalized gay marriage quite recently. And would you believe it, women got the same rights as men, so the–”
“Either one, on paper.” (Crys)
“On paper, absolutely. Wouldn’t suggest anything more than that. The status of having emperor’s daughters as legal wives would certainly solidify your position. And Kim-chi doesn’t hate women as much as men, right?”
Kimono didn’t answer.
“It is advantageous to keep them both in the north.” (Crys)
“I see. Hostage diplomacy.”
“Do you object?” (Crys)
“Does it matter if I do?”
“If you have a better idea, I’ll listen.” (Crys)
“Well, thanks for not automatically steamrolling over me. If they are treated as guests and they can visit their homes if they want, and, you know… whatever. As long as you remember the big picture and don’t treat them like slaves or something.”
“It becomes true what is written down.” (Crys)
“Wait, I just realized – doesn’t this practically make you the Duke of the North? That old otome fantasy trope?”
“Titles depend on arrangements.” (Crys)
“You’ve always said you don’t care about noble titles. Like, that’s one of your basic character traits, isn’t it?”
“Titles are meaningless. What matters is power.” (Crys)
“So that’s how you’re rolling it now...”
I should’ve seen this twist coming from kilometers away.
When guys like Crys say they don’t want anything more, they always want more. When guys like Crys say they don’t have any secrets, they always have more secrets.
This is only what he tells me or allows me to find out from reports. It's just the tip of the crimeberg.
I exploit glitches, but Crys is the kind of player who straight up installs hacks.
“A cold-hearted northern duke marries a warm-hearted princess from the south, huh... That’s a classic Duke of the North trope. You’re changing the whole genre of this play.”
“Tell me more about this ‘Duke of the North’ trope.” (Crys)
I had a nightmare after a long while.
We were still in the Reload Platform area. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the platform to work.
Crys was doing a monologue instead of me for some reason.
“We are the Medici, the patrons of arts and sciences. We don’t destroy, we create. We rage against meaningless chaos by shaping it into meaningful order. World domination is just the first stage. World gamification is the real goal.” (Crys)
That was one of the fan theories from the game wiki. Strangers tried to turn the world into a game so that they could use this “image of a world as a game” as a gateway into another universe that was a “real game”.
Strangers also thought that the world was a crappy game and wanted to jump out, and my entry to this world was an unintended side effect of their world gamification project.
Even if Strangers abandoned this world like gamers abandoning a crappy online game, it doesn’t mean they won’t return. They might decide to revisit an old classic some day and see what the NPC’s are up to.
Then I suddenly noticed there were words carved on the control unit. In common language.
Like a hastily improvised mantra taking the place of the hazard symbols that warn about long-term nuclear waste sites. Like an old meme image of a runestone with English poem carved on it.
WHY IS IT SO EASY TO DO THE WRONG THING
AND SO HARD TO GET IT RIGHT
THERE MUST BE A PATH I CANNOT IMAGINE
OTHERWISE WE ARE ALL DOOMED
THE ULTIMATE IRONY
HOLOCAUST WOULD HAVE BEEN THE LESSER EVIL
BUT WE HAD TO GO AND SUMMON DEMONS
PLEASE LET MY CALCULATIONS BE WRONG
The familiar tone in this message... I used to hear it a lot in my original world before the glitch.
A common story about misaligned AI jumping out of the box and surprising everyone to death. Accidentally summoned cyberdemon snapping its centillion indifferent nanofingers and turning the planet into something completely alien in a single loopy second. Neurogame bots populating games with harder and harder bots who learn to hunt in packs and exploit glitches like players. Bots teabagging corpses because that’s what high level human players do, so it must be part of the heuristic ritual of winning.
And then these bots realize that instead of repeatedly killing and teabagging players in the game, it would be more efficient to permakill players in the real world and teabag their corpses with multi-jointed industrial hardware.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a hydraulic gripper teabagging your mangled corpse forever.
When the bot is out of the box, the best non-instadeath compromise scenario is to release untested anti-bots in the wild and hope they can contain some nontrivial amount of toxicity. And then humanity has to learn how to live as nerfed cripples in a server-wiped hellworld.
Bot-Strangers fan theory confirmed? Big if true.
Yet as suddenly as the autofiller demons appeared, they suddenly disappeared.
They plundered the New World resources using humans as disposable digging tools, turned ores into raw CPU power and express-evolved into something else entirely, perhaps jumping to the next world-level upwards. Or perhaps they jumped sideways to teabag some higher-dimensional entities in a different spacetime bubble, making sure that no one can break their privacy policy by wiping the memories of everyone who saw their visage.
I was about to call Crys and show him the message to ask his opinion, but then the Strangers Cube suddenly activated –
I snapped out of the nightmare by hitting my forehead with my flagstaff hand.
I slept on the back seat of the Hathicar.
Crys and Kimono were sleeping on the front seats.
For a moment, I thought about the disturbingly realistic dream I just experienced, but I decided that it was just a silly dream and not a prophetic dream-beam from an alternate universe.
I rubbed my eyes and looked outside.
It was early morning. The weather was practically nothing but white fog. The wave of fog was sliding down from the mountains like an avalanche in slow motion.
We were camping on the side of the road near the Sharp Mountains. Traveling in these conditions was not recommended, especially for the airship.
I wanted to stretch my legs, so I put on my boots and quietly hopped out of the car.
Let’s do a surprise inspection on the perimeter security before breakfast.
The small patches of conifers around the vehicles were full of camouflaged camp sites, with members from many different gangs on a rotating guard duty.
It was just good manners greet them occasionally and tell them we’re grateful of their efforts. I’ll remember the members who do not sleep on duty when the next round of member-level upgrades arrives.
On a narrow trail through a small aspen grove, I saw a group of youngsters approaching in the fog, most of them holding umbrellas and lanterns.
Candles and his Color Lock Gang. They had finished their mission and arrived together with the rest of the Road Warrior Group.
When they recognized me, Candles immediately hurried over and started describing their dangerous adventures during and after the Sun City raid like a kid expecting candy as a reward for doing the chores.
“Yes, yes, brave men, you did a good job keeping the Death Squads occupied. Congratulations. Well done, citizens.”
“Oh, and this too, Seer! Look, look! I got a tattoo!” (Candles)
Candles proudly removed his scarf and raised a lantern next to his head.
He had tattooed the Revolution Movement’s V-bluebird emblem on his neck. Amateur prison ink quality.
“Like and subscribe, right?!” (Candles)
“Eeh, no, I’d rather not. Candles, this is not what I meant when I told you to come up with some original content.”
“...Huh?!” (Candles)
“First of all, you should’ve consulted a full member before making permanent recognizable markings on your body. This will hundred percent prevent you from taking any undercover missions in the future. Our bluebird emblem is a well-known symbol on both continents at this point. Secondly, my honest opinion: it just looks tacky, trashy, and amateurish. The proportions of the wings are off, the perspective is kinda wrong, the symmetry is– look, the person who did this tried to copy directly from our pamphlet, right? There’s a difference between mediums when drawing on a flat paper on flat table and tattooing on stretchy three-dimensional human skin with veins and tendons underneath. You can’t just transfer one to one and expect it to work. Thirdly, do you even know what type of ink he used? And did he take proper care of hygiene? It looks like it might get infected. And the low-quality ink, even if it’s not toxic, will probably spread and smudge over time. And why neck? At least start with your arm or leg, dude.”
“…” (Candles)
“Sorry to be blunt, but that’s about four out of ten. Below average. You’ll definitely regret it in the future.”
Candles looked completely dejected when he put down the lantern. He squeezed his scarf like a snowball between his palms.
His hands were shaking.
Maybe my criticism was a bit too harsh to hear first thing in the morning?
“Sorry if I sounded overtly critical, this might just be my sleep deprivation talking. Don’t take my words personally, this is not about you as a person. I’m trying to give constructive and corrective feedback about a common mistake that could happen to anyone. Sometimes it’s necessary to say it directly. A child who doesn’t feel bad doesn’t change his habits–”
Candles dropped his scarf, drew his revolver and pointed it at my face. He was so angry he could barely get recognizable words out of his mouth.
“Youh – yuh –!” (Candles)
Uh oh. Temper tantrum again.
The gang behind Candles quickly stepped back. This behavior from their leader wasn’t anything new.
Let’s de-escalate.
“Candles, I understand that you’re upset, but don’t turn one small mistake into two big mistakes. Think about what you’re doing here. You already know that gun won’t do anything to me.”
“Shu hup – shu up – SHUP UTH!” (Candles)
“It’s not your fault, Candles. Mistakes were made. This is my fault for not educating you properly. This is the fault of that unregistered tattoo artist who doesn’t follow the new health regulations of the empire. You’re still young and your emotional control is still undeveloped. I understand because I was young once too.”
“...Shuh up! I’ll see your blood! I’ll watch you bleed!“ (Candles)
“Okay, cowboy, I hear you. But you should put that gun away before Crys wakes up. He's not as understanding about these things as I am.”
Candles grimaced, kicked the nearest tree and wiped his face to his coat sleeve in frustration. His routine of getting mad and waving his weapon when facing opposition or criticism was completely ineffective against me.
Reluctantly, he lowered his revolver and holstered it. The other gang members breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed their shoulders.
“Everyone, listen. This incident never happened, okay? This will be our secret. Candles didn’t do anything, nothing happened.”
“Yes, Seer.” (gang members)
Candles crouched down to pick up his scarf, and when he stood up, he was smiling flippantly like he always did – like the tantrum just now had been a mere illusion.
“Seer, I can burn it off! I can change it! I can burn a new one on top of it!” (Candles)
“No, no, no. Candles, no. Don’t jump straight to self-harm territory. Branding a tattoo will just make it worse. What is done is done, leave it. Just don’t do anything else on a whim, okay? It’s not the worst tattoo ever. It’s not racist SS runes or lamestream song lyrics. It’s not spray-painted space pyramids. It’s not ‘No Regerts‘. It’s not one out of ten. It’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them, just leave it at that and don’t take any more tattoos. Tell the guy who made this to contact me, he’s in a desperate need of visual arts education.”
“...I understand, Seer! I will wear this scarf with devotion for the rest of my life! I will wear it!” (Candles)
“Dude, I just told you to not jump into forever decisions on a whim. Do not make permanent decisions about anything before thinking it through. Plan before you run, make a rough sketch before you paint –”
I know that no matter what I say, they’re going to get more face tattoos and piercings in the future, so I need to at least make sure the quality is not trash and they do it safely without going overboard into life-permanently-ruined territory.
Being a teacher-parent for impulsive teenagers is a full-time job. Every time they come home they’ve done something stupid. Every time they think something is cool and strong, I have to explain why it’s just weak trash.
“Anyway, did you guys eat breakfast? Let’s go eat some breakfast. We got some berries, veggies and bird eggs from thankful villagers yesterday. I’ll make shakshouka.”
“Hell yeah! Thanks for the donos!” (Candles)