NOVEL FROG Chapter 69 – Face-in-the-Foot Technique
I left my umbrella, raincloak and demigaunts on a rack in the Starfish Mansion’s foyer and changed my muddy outdoor jackboots to my indoor sneakers. T-Sub also changed his bearpaw boots to moccasins.
By the way, these moccasins were custom-made imitations of my ultra-rare otherworld sneakers. Crafting counterfeit sneaker-moccasins was one of the footwear projects I had assigned to local cordwainers.
Two Pikatrate guards holding spears greeted us immediately outside the foyer. These guards were assigned here by princess Achlop, and although their official duty was to guard the front door and prevent unknown people coming in, the actual reason for their presence was to prevent other Pikatrate citizens from going out without permission.
On the way to Crys’ room, I also gave a thumbs up to a group Pikatrate palatines in a side corridor branching from the main hallway. They were dressed in long, bright orange-yellow robes and were making propaganda pamphlets using a vintage movable type letterpress set. These stamp seal artisans, dyers, engravers, doorwards, pursuivants, etc. were also sent by princess Achlop. Their mission was to work under Crys and learn the ‘ways of the outside’ from him, but Crys mainly used them as manual labor for printing pamphlets. I called this group Gutenberg Gang and they proudly used that name like a prestigious title.
Thanks to our efforts, the literacy rate in the northern territories was rising fast, but people didn’t have much defenses against propaganda; media literacy and source evaluation were practically alien concepts. Revolution Movement was the only house publishing and distributing periodic news pamphlets and propaganda posters, so people believed pretty much every story written down without questioning the details.
This printing project was something Crys started in the anime by himself, but abandoned it after Kimono’s death. In this timeline, with my knowledge, the printing project was supercharged into first mass media of this world, with weekly or bi-weekly publications delivered to all our sub-groups.
I hope they learn to follow my standard archive-ready paper size specifications instead of printing randomly sized hemp papers and bamboo slips. Wanted posters need to be A3, documents A4. Use those rulers and guillotine cutters for every copy, peeps.
I knocked on the door and waited. Kimono answered the door with a frown and let us in without saying a word.
Crys sat behind a large mahogany table like a mafia boss. He was in the middle of writing a pamphlet and didn’t even raise his head to look at us when we came in.
I sat down on and T-Sub took his usual place standing next to the door. After a while, Crys stopped writing and looked at me.
“Speak.” (Crys)
“First, we may have a healer candidate for the party. Klofi Munthe alias Klofi de Argys, daughter of Galvarius de Argys, the court physician of king Korryndin of Kenorland. She currently lives in Visarion area.”
“I see. Does this have an effect on the Reignland plan?” (Crys)
“Well, it’s a good advantage and backup to have. But no, it doesn’t really change anything in the plan.”
“Fine.” (Crys)
I expected Crys to say more, but that was all.
“Okay then, case closed. In other news, Kurdt apparently saw a prophetic nightmare about Thiefmaster last night, and then we received a report that a dude who looks like a Thiefmaster was seen hiking near Pearl Town. Probably a random coincidence and another false alarm. And there was also some bonus wind blasts coming out of Winter Forest, and Qiy port operation went well. But you probably heard about that already.”
“Thiefmaster is heading to Winter Forest.” (Crys)
“Hm? Winter Forest? Why do you think so? Did Kurdt tell you about his dream too? You believe that?”
Crys looked past me at T-Sub, but his words were meant for me.
“A few days ago, I saw you playing with the flagstaff from Suleiman’s palace again.” (Crys)
“What’s with the sudden change of topic? Any further thoughts about this Thiefmaster situation? If you ask me, we should be very skeptical about Kurdt says. I mean, I forwarded the message to the twins, so if they have time to check around, maybe they can track Thiefmaster, and also deal with lokhagi Kailaritai on the side… what?”
Now Crys just stared at me. Completely moving on his own pace again, this guy.
“Okay, sure, I tried to trigger another exploit with the Sultanate flagstaff. Didn’t work, bad idea. What about it?”
“At the start of our journey, I conjectured that you are an actor who has rehearsed a play over and over. I do not think so anymore, but regarding the fact that you are still trying to find a way to slip backstage and take a shortcut behind the curtains, I assume you continue to think that this world is a stage and you are just a supporting character in a play.” (Crys)
“I guess it is still like that, yeah. But I have already concluded that this world is too real and doesn’t have that backstage. Why are we talking about this again?”
For two years now, on and off, I’ve been trying to find glitches and bugs without much luck.
I’ve been looking into shapes and surfaces between Starfish Mansion’s doorways and roomworlds, trying to see some tell-tale texture warping, or some corner where you could possibly push something between the mesh seams.
No luck there. The transitions between Starfish Mansion’s door-shaped dimensional portals of are seamless, solid, and instant.
For the people of this world, it seems easy and natural to accept that there are transfer doors to pocket dimensions, and the doors have immovable and indestructible frames, but it’s not easy and natural for me to accept without looking deeper into it. I have to hammer the door frames to see if I can put a scratch on the material and pull ropes from roomworld to roomworld over the main hallway to see if something happens.
All the progress I have made in my lonely academic field of glitch studies are categorical heuristics. For example, Boots of Speed do not work because they rely on game-mechanical errors, but if it’s an actual in-game mechanism like main character special skill or ghost-like monster behavior, it mostly works (with exceptions like Ostero instakill, where the predictable blanket-infinite chaos of reality overrides the neatly ordered, but edge-case flawed game engine).
The setting-thematical layer – an effect mentioned in the flavor text, but not actually seen in-game – is still a gray area. Most of the flavor text stuff seems to work, but not all of it. Or when it works, it works differently from the game, like the skybox in Petrified Garden.
In short, Canon Knowledge is still my only advantage that works consistently.
But accepting that no progress has been made is progress on its own. Time wasted is time saved.
Sometimes when I get tired or distracted, I still try to bring up the HUD or double-snap to open the game options screen. I keep doing these otherworldly magitech gestures that confuse and amuse onlookers. Like Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill without end, I keep trying to find even one working cheat that allows me run on top of that boulder instead.
There’s no rule that says I can’t get a working glitch. I came here because of a glitch.
It happened once.
I have this constant feeling that there’s some blind spot, some thin strand just out of reach I have failed to grasp. Like the universe itself prevents me from seeing something that would be obvious to an outside observer. It’s a constant itch inside my skull: at any moment, I might suddenly see what has been always in front of me.
As I concluded before, a painting is not a perfect image of the world. All the weapons in the game were projectiles, not hitscan – except when certain characters like Mirim picked up certain weapons and they suddenly turned hitscan. Yet after doing extensive experiments with Mirim and Torch Gun, I was 99% sure that hitscan isn’t a thing in this world. Not even for Mirim, not even for her superior aiming ability. It maybe approximates hitscan, but it's not like in the game where special-type damage is registered instantly.
But the very existence of approximate superhuman abilities, the existence of approximate ghosts and apparitions, were still evidence (in my mind at least) that some glitches could approximately work.
All I have to do is find that one ultra-rare dance move that triggers the approximate world-bending magic. If only I can find the right words and gestures, a glitch trigs.
“More eyes on the treeline.” (Crys)
“Okay, we’re back in the topic now? You really think Thiefmaster is aiming for Winter Forest? Based on what, just Kurdt and his dream-beams?”
“The wind blasts, what do you think they are?” (Crys)
“Eh, another topic change? Okay, if that anomaly continues or grows, we should probably send an adventurer party to investigate it. But since I think it’s Stick Witch doing it, normal investigation party would just walk to their deaths. But it’s not a big deal when it’s contained, we can observe the situation from the outside and that’s it. Stick Witch won’t leave the forest as long as Sparkling Source exists. We should tighten the observation net around both Winter Forest and Black Forest areas just in case, but even if we keep track of Thiefy-kun’s movements, it’s an area too wide to send our two interceptor boys in time... So yeah, more treeline observers. I agree.”
“His stray dreams hit the target with suspicious regularity. As you conjectured previously, you must take into account the areas you call ‘silly places’ where the principle of the world is naturally twisted.” (Crys)
“...Crys, can we close one topic at a time? My multitasking skills are not syncing with you right now.”
“You feel like you are being forced into action like those reluctant heroes from the plays you describe in the pamphlets.” (Crys)
“What? No. I don’t feel any pressure, I’m just chilling... Wait a moment, are you trying to say that we should personally go to Winter Forest to investigate the blasts or personally intercept Thiefmaster at the treeline or something? No way. I’m not going anywhere near Winter Forest. Where did you get that preposterous idea, did Kurdt tell you that?”
“It seems you don’t understand the change your mind has gone through. There hasn’t been a point during this whole time where you tell me: ‘this is taking too long, we must eliminate Thiefmaster faster’. Two years ago you would have certainly said so; two years ago you would’ve pushed everyone forward like directing that future theater play.” (Crys)
“When did you become my personal therapist? You think I should throw out safety strats and just start blasting random side quests? No thanks, safety comes first. I already cleared the main quest in record time. No need for repeats.”
“My question to you, time traveler, is this: does Thiefmaster pose a major threat or a minor threat exactly now, at this point in time? The longer he is alive, the larger the threat grows. If the future of Revolution Movement is at risk because he enters this ‘silly place’ where ‘glitches’ may happen, it would be better to intercept immediately, correct?” (Crys)
“Yeah, sure, but it’s not a major existential threat on worldwide level like Tze. I’d rather stay alive in a safe place than take a wild risk because there’s maybe possibly some inconsistent effect happening in some dangerous place out of reach. Self-sabotage, as I said.”
“Caravans of ex-slaves have gathered at southeast Wineep.” (Crys)
“...Okay, maybe I’m tired, but I really don’t see the connection here.”
“Don’t pretend.” (Crys)
“No, really, it’s been a long day.”
Listening Crys nowadays makes me understand how incomprehensible I must sound to others when I lorespeak.
The tables have turned: Crys jumps several steps forward, connects things I can’t and looks deeper into things than me.
I shouldn’t even be surprised about that. We have worked together for a long time and I’ve installed most of my knowledge into his canonically genius brain.
He is already much more knowledgeable about the current power cliques and political events going on at Reignland. He keeps track of the movements of Caliph Tze’s mid-bosses and area bosses, nobles, aristocrats, lokhagis, navarks while they are fighting over who should choose the next emperor.
Crys predicted that core areas of the Caliphate would fall into a state that looks like cold civil war. Few months ago there was that expected development and Reignland basically split into a two dominions: a smaller area ruled by a conglomerate of nobles in the western and northern parts of Mu, and a bigger area ruled by Caliph’s military in the southern and eastern parts of the Mu. This meant that the mid-boss known as Autokrator was pulling strings behind puppet emperor Xil.
Autokrator wasn’t particularly strong or notable boss in the game, and barely seen in the anime. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time and took care of business in the Sun City when Caliph Tze got assassinated. According to Crys, Autokrator was probably placed behind the throne by Caliph’s magisters as a conciliating compromise.
In any case, the cold civil war in Reignland saved us lot of trouble because low-level area bosses kept assassinating each other. We just watched the fireworks from afar and sniped the winners.
Similar things happened in Sultanate, but the clear winners of the game there were the underground criminal syndicates: Princes of Darkness and Dark Murderers. They took over southwestern Ur like mafia took over Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. That’s how it goes: if you allow criminal organizations to grow too big, you force legitimate organizations into making business deals with them and then corruption at all levels becomes the norm.
This insightful political commentary brought to you by Mad Seer Speedrun, the self-described visionary who’s trying his best to see the big picture the same way Crys sees it.
During these tumultuous years, Revolution Movement pushed itself in the middle as the third alternative. Northern lords and ladies were forced to recognize that Revolution Movement stood at the top; our words and actions carried a lot of weight on both continents.
In people’s eyes, a shadowy dragon’s head called Sorry Man was practically the high king of the northern realms and ruled over all these shattered lands with raw firepower. Crys used rumors and propaganda fliers to turn Sorry Man into a sort of mythical existence; a criminal mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes; a supernatural monster playing 5D Enochian Advanced Squad Leader with rebellious High Hats and Deviant Lords.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Real Sorry-chan saunters around the Petrified Garden like a sad zombie, twiddling petrified tree branches under Rainwoman’s loving gaze, unaware of his mythical reputation.
Crystal Pencil is the actual capo dei capi sending letters of “inspiring guidance” to potential key allies, or full-on death threats soaked in secret knowledge to influential enemy characters. Sometimes he just sends a blunt wooden sword wrapped in white cloth, with a short message to “make it so”.
And I’m the magister generalis who tries to direct key characters into correct positions. They join us or surrender to our threats. Mad Seer of the Moors; loquacious oracle who knows the secret names of everyone in the world and predicts the future by reading the entrails of his enemies.
...Well, Crys’ rumor mill has a tendency to exaggerate.
Speaking of titles, the Caliphate hierarchy of titles and officials was a mess that fans of the franchise often compared to the convoluted nobility system of the Holy Roman Empire. When Caliph Tze came to power, he changed the old system drastically, but the old system remained underneath the new system and authorities overlapped: one person was a ceremonial leader, second one was a theoretical leader, and a third one was the actual practical leader.
Marquises, margraves, earls, barons, counts, burgraves and baronets were intertwined with strategoses, voutis, lokhagis, navarks, nomarks, and so on.
For example: count was an old system noble who ruled over county of some size, and lokhagi was a new system title of a commander of a specific location – an island, a city, a lake, or a mountain, or maybe just a single castle like a burgrave. The location ruled by lokhagi overlapped a county ruled by count, or even a nome ruled by nomark, but lokhagi was Caliph’s favourite, so counts and nomarks had to just deal with it.
But then Caliph Tze died, and the new system suddenly lost a whole lot of legitimacy compared to the old system.
Other titles like navark – a commander of some amount of naval forces – were confusing by design. Did navarks command only warships or also the soldiers traveling in these ships? Did they also command harbors and ports? How many captains were placed under a single navark: five, ten, hundred? It seemed like the ones with more ships than fingers were called arch-navarks, but harbormasters were also called arch-navarks or navark-lokhagis.
In a way, this gallimaufry was an accidental security-by-obfuscation feature: the enemies of Caliphate couldn’t tell which High Hat they had to assassinate to break the command chain.
And don’t even get me started about the separate special forces working directly under Caliph Tze, like Death Squads and Dominator Squads. Their modus operandi was to either catch and return escaped slaves, or kill and destroy them. They formed a sub-system of fanatical, highly-skilled individuals that could overrule even people of higher status with acts of extreme violence, like Gestapo mashed together with Spanish Inquisition.
Tze also had knight-couriers, imperial bodyguards and other even closer personnel, but luckily most of the holders of these titles died at Rukhkh Mountain.
In the game, Death Squads driving Strangers vehicles were the biggest obstacles in Reignland; low-to-mid level boss mobs that appeared if you went on a blind killing spree, or destroyed important Caliphate property, or gained high notoriety in other way. They were heavily armored, carried high-quality firearms, moved fast and had coordinated teamwork. If you killed the first waves of Death Squads that appeared, you gained high wanted status on top of high notoriety status and the game got progressively harder because everyone came after you: bounty hunters, mercenaries, random fanatics, etc.
And since wanted levels and noto levels in Mu-Ur Quincunx were semi-hidden in-universe information instead of clear stats, you couldn’t be exactly sure what flags you had triggered, except by getting direct access to Caliphate documents and making some educated guesstimations.
In Tze’s eyes everyone were just slaves (although some of the slaves were “first among equals”), but he still invented grandiose titles for vain High Hat peacocks on the fly and gave them some inconsequential jobs at the edges of the empire where they could proudly proclaim their names, titles and duties, and do mostly nothing. Like religious cults and marketers who came up with silly ranks like ‘Elders’, ‘Grand Wizards’, ‘Diamond Platinums’ and ’Omega Wolves’.
I ranked everyone to main characters, major side characters, minor side characters, final bosses, area bosses, mid-bosses, and so on – although now we also had the internal member system of Revolution Movement: core members, full members, regular members, apprentice members, hangarounds, wannabes, and so on.
It’s starting to get convoluted on our side as well, isn’t it? By the way, the street title ‘dragon’s head’ was used for all types high-level leaders, but mainly for syndicate crime bosses.
The point of this tangent: I’ll just leave it to Crys to untangle this mess of overlapping cable knots.
Crys is our evil bureaucrat-puppeteer holding the strings of destiny.
...But yes, Thiefmaster and Winter Forest.
“Sorry, I slipped into my brainworld again.”
“A fixed personality trait.” (Crys)
“So what was that thing about caravans?“
“Your careful approach hasn’t worked. Hiring peripheral mercenaries and assassins to find and kill Thiefmaster hasn’t worked. It is only a matter of time until he forces his way in. He must be dealt directly while we know where to find him.” (Crys)
“Sure, pursuit hunting sucks if the prey is as smart and endurant as you, but...”
In the anime, things were already going downhill even without Thiefmaster. He entered the mansion using a fake personality and started some vile intrigue, but ended up dying in the end. It was a monster-of-the-week bottle episode where the recurring villain Thiefmaster played the role of a backstabbing impostor among multiple shady characters. In this timeline, in these circumstances…
...Wait a minute. Hold up. Why is Crys so sure Thiefmaster is going to Winter Forest?
I’m starting to catch up to what he's implying.
“Did you plan this? Have you been knowingly baiting Thiefmaster? Have you been leading him into Winter Forest?”
“Would you have preferred Cursed Forest?” (Crys)
“What the... what?”