A few years before the Day of Blood.
Wisdom did not like the king of Asbestos, Delmardin.
‘He is competent and cruel, but he quickly falls into conceit. What I need is a war machine, not a narcissist.’
However, Delmardin BR Oser was wielding powerful royal authority. Delmardin had been a bit strange ever since he became king 24 years ago.
He was the first prince, so he was most likely to become king anyway, but to keep his other brothers in check, he continuously sought out opportunities to assassinate and poison them to death, and he succeeded most of the time. Those who criticized his brutality were either kicked out of the palace, or made to vanish without a trace.
Once he became king, Delmdardin wasn’t necessarily a dark lord to the citizens, but he was feared by other aristocrats. The aristocrats, who had lost their power to keep Delmardin in check, were then serving Delmardin, and the lords of the borderlands where the central aristocrats couldn’t easily reach were weak in power.
In order to strengthen his power, Delmardin made his cousin the queen, and recently, he had burned his first and third sons alive with charges of treason. The longer he ruled, the more he saw his sons as competitors.
Even with that, Wisdom didn’t see it as a big problem. The Troll country that Wisdom made became violent for efficient choices. A dictator could make a wrong choice at any time, but at least they could make a choice. In some cases, it was better to quickly choose anything than not making a choice and hesitating. But of course, Wisdom did not like such dictatorship.
When Wisdom was on Earth, he had never thought that dictatorship should be tolerated. But this was a game. Although it was a real world that the game The Lost World was based on, Wisdom was increasingly aware that he wasn’t a regular player playing a regular game, but a god. Gods had unlimited power and no responsibilities. Therefore, he acted cruel toward the Trolls in order to make them act efficiently.
The Trolls surrendered to the Binding God, whose name symbolized the tangled threads when playing the game Cat’s Cradle, and they learned of his brutality. They also applied that brutality toward the other species on the land they dominated. Thus, numerous species knelt before the Trolls out of fear. And due to that, the Trolls were able to rule the largest land of the third continent. .
‘…However.’
Despite it being a large land, brutality didn’t guarantee a powerful nation. The strongest country in the third continent wasn’t Asbestos, but Black Scale, and the difference between them wasn’t insignificant. Black Scale had the ability to go against all the other countries combined. And in order to understand how that came to be, every step had to be examined, and every aspect taken apart. But after spending more than 150 years observing Black Scale, Wisdom still struggled to come to a conclusion.
Wisdom knew that Nebula made a record that no one could easily break, and that his strategy was outstanding, but he found it hard to understand how Nebula created such a big difference between them. And that was because Wisdom himself had also made exemplary play.
Wisdom thought to himself, ‘What’s the problem?’
With the war against Black Scale on the horizon, Wisdom showed optimism and believed that his play was still exemplary.
It was true that the five allies were at an advantage and would still be even if someone was to betray the alliance.
Wisdom then found the answer in his methodology.
‘Was it not efficient enough?’
Wisdom’s rotating dodecahedron, which was the biggest out of the Kepler-Poinsot Polyhedrons, came to a stop.
‘No, was it brutality?’
His gameplay was okay. When he examined himself objectively, he couldn’t say his performance was excellent, but it was still prominent. Compared to players like AR1026, who was crushed by Jeol Woo-Bi, and Lunda, whose growth had stagnated for some reason in the middle stage of the game, Wisdom was actually quite a competent player, and thus it wasn’t for a lack of competence that he fell behind Nebula.
The reason Wisdom had missed the opportunity to do better was because the Trolls didn’t exactly carry out Wisdom’s will. They were doing good, but it wasn’t enough. There was a big difference between him and Nebula when he thought about how Nebula had been controlling Black Scale like his hands and feet.
‘I cannot know Nebula’s ways. I have no other choice but to act according to the method I do know.’
Wisdom knew war was approaching. So even if it would take a little while, he decided the king should be replaced. And he found someone who qualified. It was Delmardin’s son, Redin.
***
Trolls’ skin was generally green, but looked closer to gray. Every now and then, however, there were Trolls born with red skin due to mutations, and they were typically born with a recessive trait, so they were physically weak and didn’t live long. In contrast to the healthy Trolls with green skin, the Trolls born with red skin were called Withered Ones.
Delmardin’s twenty-first child, Redin BR Oser, was a Withered One. Although he was a royal, he was the child of a mistress and had red skin, so he was raised outside the palace. In fact, since there was no chance Redin would become king, he only had by his side a servant looking after him and an errand boy sticking close to inform the king whether he was alive or dead, as well as any other news. Redin’s mother was also an ordinary Troll, so she had no grounds to help Redin.
Wisdom had been paying attention to Redin. Redin’s abilities were considered to be in the top 1%, so he was competent, but he wasn’t special. Top 1% could seem superb, but still too numerous for him to automatically become the right choice. However, it was worth noting that his Strength, Intelligence, and Sociability were all within the top 1%.
‘He’s the most noteworthy out of all the children of Delmardin. And I like the fact that he was kicked out of the palace.’
The lower the status a character started with, the more room there was for a god to intervene and place them in a higher spot. And the more dramatic the rise in power was, the greater the individual’s faith would grow.
But the problem was that Redin was satisfied with his current situation. He accepted it as a natural progression of things and went along with it. Even though he was born to a king, he had 15 older brothers, and no one had ever encouraged him to become king up to this point. Even a non-royal baron would have a greater chance of becoming king by starting a rebellion.
‘If he were a dunce, he might have dreamt of becoming king, but Redin isn’t.’
So Wisdom decided to give Redin the chance to become king with his creation, Schtreihner.
-Your order?
‘Kill Redin’s mother. But you need to leave a trace.’
-What do you mean by that? Do I leave a sign saying that it was me?’
‘No. Say that someone from the royal family did it.’
Schtreihner did as Wisdom ordered. And this consumed Wisdom’s Faith points because killing a certain player was considered an active intervention. Still, it wasn’t enough to be worrisome.
As Wisdom had perceived, the principle of causality didn’t demand much faith points unless a player was to totally go against it.
‘The mother of an abandoned royal with no chance to become king. The principle of causality is barely shaken.’
But there was something that was greatly shaken, or rather someone. It was Redin. Redin learned business from a village merchant during the day and returned home when it was evening. Upon his return today, he discovered that his mother had been murdered and found a dagger that belonged to the royal family next to her. Redin, who had lived with no expectations about the royal family until then, gained a new purpose in life—revenge.
‘Schtreihner.’
-Did you call?
‘We need a scapegoat now. Search for a good fit among the royals.’
-What do I do after that?
‘Kill the scapegoat so that Redin can’t get revenge.’
-…With all due respect, may I ask the reason why?
Wisdom found it novel whenever his creation talked to him.
He then gladly explained his reasoning.
‘If Redin succeeds in his revenge, his story ends there. His desire for revenge must not be satisfied.’
-But what happens with the desire for vengeance that has no place to go?
‘It needs to be sublimated into a different emotion… Now do as I say.’
Redin set out to go to the capital of Asbestos. And the night before he met his father, a murder hit the royal palace. The person killed was Delmardin’s sixth child, the owner of the dagger Redin was looking for. Missing the chance to take revenge left Redin empty, but he found another piece of evidence. It was evidence that Redin’s dead brother might have been killed by another brother. And at the same time, Redin became the suspect for killing the sixth child, and he pleaded for a chance to prove his innocence. In the process, Redin’s prominent ability got revealed, and he was acquitted.
And he caught the attention of Delmardin.
-What should I do now?
‘Go rest.’
-Isn’t my work here not done yet?
‘It’s done.’
Wisdom added.
‘The leftover work is mine.’
Redin eventually ended up living in the palace and received the attention and favor of the king, which he had never experienced before.
Amid his luxurious lifestyle, he continued his investigation, and he soon realized that enmity had been secretly brewing among his brothers since a long time ago. Redin judged that it was all very unreasonable and wrong.
‘Is there a reason to continue this brutal fight when father is still alive?’
He then grabbed onto an idea that came to mind. He realized who would benefit the greatest from all those clashes.
‘…Father. Were you the culprit?’
Wisdom manifested before him as a metaphysical and complex dream. Then Redin accepted everything until now as fate, not coincidence.
Wisdom’s revelation was clear and simple.
‘That weak-kneed man does not befit the throne. But regardless, that man is afraid and swings his sword at those who don’t even care about the power. Now someone is needed to allow him to rest in peace.’
Redin’s desire for revenge then got replaced by another emotion. And he decided to accept God’s will. Redin first went to serve Delmardin and did all the miscellaneous and dirty work. And as he did so, he slowly gained confidence and began to do dangerous and important work that Delmardin wanted his son to do in his stead.
Soon after, Redin, the son of a mistress, the twenty-first child that the attendants couldn’t even remember the name of, and the Withered One looked down on by the other Trolls, became the faithful servant of the king.
As Redin looked for an opportunity to overtake the throne, gunpowder was invented, Wizards appeared, and the war was just about to begin. .
Wisdom intended to give him a signal at the right time through a divine revelation. But Jang-Wan suddenly contacted him.
***
‘I shouldn’t have gotten involved with you.’
As Wisdom checked his status windows, Jang-Wan approached him again. Jang-Wan still had the lion costume off.
With an anxious expression, Jang-Wan asked, “Was the calculation…correct?”
Even though all the Kobold priests had died, their god remained with only her Divinity level lowered. And because Jang-Wan started out with a high Divinity level, she didn’t become a vassal.
“Yes, I was able to make Redin an apostle.”
“That’s good enough. We now have a card to play too.”
At those words, Wisdom replied, “Now that things are done, is it okay to ask you the question?”
Jang-Wan had told Wisdom not to pry until they carried out their plan, and Wisdom compiled. Now that things were done, Wisdom thought he had the right to ask.
Jang-Wan nodded.
Wisdom asked, “Why do you hate Nebula so much? It’s unlikely that you’ve interacted much during the game, so it would be difficult for any kind of relationship to form, let alone a bad one. Your feelings…are hard to understand.”
For a moment, Jang-Wan was silent. Then she clearly said, “Because I know Nebula.”
“You know him?”
“I know exactly who Nebula is. His real name is Choi Sung-Woon, and he’s a jerk that always stays at home and plays games.”
Jang-Wan clenched her teeth.
“Nebula is my older cousin.”
Updated from 𝑖𝘳.𝒸ℴ𝑚