Isekai Speedrun

The Tea Garden Room was a small, cozy roomworld with borrowed scenery; a hybrid between Japanese rock garden and Roman pleasure garden. The different varieties of trees, bushes, mossy stones and water elements were arranged in terraced, interleaved layers that created an illusion of depth and space.

In reality, the whole roomworld was just around one football field in size, framed by tall walls, and a vast plane of nothingness outside; the same as the Petrified Garden in the middle of Starfish Mansion. The living plants in this garden felt like real plants but never grew taller. The picturesque trees were like high-level plastic imitations or genetically engineered “forever bonsai”, and the grass was like perfect golf course turf devoid of weeds and insects.

A constructed half-living roomworld that felt like stepping inside a three-dimensional landscape painting.

I arranged some lawn chairs, tables and warm black tea in the garden immediately after breakfast, but only Mirim and Kurdt sat down to drink.

Rain stood with Sorry Man near the entrance – on the side of the garden path next to a water basin – while Crys and Kimono stood on the other side next to a straw-covered fruitless drupe tree.

I walked on top of a never-growing grassy patch in the middle of the garden path like I was about to drop some hardcore performance art.

“We have gathered here today to mourn for the loss of a comrade-in-arms. Three seconds of silence for Test Subject.”
“What is this? You called everyone for this?” (Rain)
“...And done. You can leave candles and flowers on the rock there. Moving on – Everyone, thank you for coming. The following story is for your ears only. Do not reveal any details about what I’m about to tell you to any outsiders. Time is valuable, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

I explained everything what had happened so far – starting from Kurdt’s prophetic water puzzle nightmare, and ending in how I returned from the Winter Forest.

I obviously left out many unnecessary details. Explaining T-Sub’s death was the hardest chokepoint.

“– and that’s why this flagstaff is taped to my left hand. Now, any questions before I continue?”
“They tried to burn you alive as a human sacrifice?” (Mirim)
“Yeah, those guys are real jerks. But thanks to this glitch I’m fine. Other questions? Rain, did you get everything? We’re glitchy bros with Sorry-chan now.”
“…” (Rain)
“I should probably demonstrate how this glitch works in practice. That should clear things up. Everyone ready?”
“Show it.” (Crys)
“Alright, here goes... A candy-colored clown they call the sandman–”

I used the flagstaff like a microphone stand and sang the first bars of an old ballad.

“Sorry, that was just a joke. You wouldn’t know the reference. Just trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere a bit, you know, woop woop. Anyway, real demo next, let me put on my robe and wizard hat. Kimono, could you–“

Kimono flinged a short dagger with a dark blade at my forehead before I could finish the sentence.

The throwing dagger bounced off from my face like hitting a brick wall, and disappeared in the grass. It felt like a small insect had bit me.

“Hey, you don’t have to look so uncaring when you throw blades at me!”
“There was no poison in it.” (Kimono)
“So throwing raw daggers is fine?”
“You asked me knowing I don’t hesitate.” (Kimono)
“Decent tsukkomi, three shurikens out of five.”

Mirim and Kurdt were the only ones who looked surprised by this demonstration.

“You truly are the Chosen One!” (Kurdt)
“Kurdt, don’t start.”
“Which part of your belongings took that damage?” (Mirim)
“All of them, or some of them.”

I pulled a random bone pebble from my pocket.

“Let’s say this pebble took most of the damage. In principle, the damage should be distributed somewhat equally to all objects in the set, but there should also be random variations. I can feel some hits more than others, like right now it felt like a mosquito bite, but others I don’t feel at all. It’s also arbitrary which objects are counted as separate, like the buttons on my clothes are probably not counted as separate objects, but every needle on a sewing kit is a separate object. I’m not sure if a cracked or split pebble counts as two objects or not... Also, I’m not sure if internal damage caused by, for example, aging process is distributed to objects as well, or if only external damage types are counted. I’m pretty sure my fingers and toes have frostbites, but I can still move them normally, there’s no feeling of discomfort. Canonically speaking, I shouldn’t get delayed freezing damage from what was received after the glitch, but I’ll get kickback frostbites I suffered before the glitch – something like that.”

Kurdt was squeezing his empty tea cup like he was trying to divine from the tea leaves.

“The principle of the world is unstable... confused...” (Kurdt)
“Always has been, Kurdt.”
“So, what’s the point of this trick?” (Rain)
“Rain didn’t listen again? The point is that I got my own overpowered curse skill like you guys. Obviously my conditional indestructibility is not on the same level with Sorry Man’s permanent invincibility, but I can still tank damage like a superhero, to a point. As a tribute to my late friends, I might start wearing a face mask and call myself Captain Poledancer.”
“Well, congratulations.” (Rain)

Rain’s disinterest was as high-level as ever.

“But I’m not going to walk into ambushes and shield you from bullets like Sorry Man, I need to save this armor boost for the moments when I really need it.”
“You have to hold the staff to stay like that all the time?” (Mirim)
“Yep, that’s the trade-off. If I let go off the staff, the glitch is canceled and the magic disappears. Then I probably feel all the damage I received before the glitch, and hard withdrawal effects will kick in as well since I was forced to eat that thing I always tell you to not eat unless it’s absolute emergency. I had to do it to survive and now I’m permanently blazed... Anyway, I’d have to go back to Winter Forest, if I attempt to trigger this glitch again, if and only if I can trigger it again. In that case, I would fill my pockets with steel balls and needles, and that would truly be my final form. Any other questions?”
“Can you also make the boots work now?” (Mirim)
“No, this glitch isn’t connected to the Bayonet Boots. But you’re going in the right direction, because this glitch does open up some combo opportunities–”
“Yes.” (Crys)
“Crys here already understands the combo implications, because there’s that thing in Sun Palace we talked about before.”
“The Reload Platform.” (Crys)
“Ding ding ding, we have a winner. I should be able to combo this glitch with the Reload Platform aka Save Point.”

Rain immediately furrowed her brows in annoyance.

“Is that platform trap the same thing Tze used to stop Sorry Man in that stupid future story of yours?” (Rain)
“Yes, but actually no... Now, we obviously want to try and replicate this glitch ritual to see if it works for everyone here, right? Crys wants to try next?”
“Exactly.” (Crys)
“Yup, we need to find out if everyone here can trigger the same glitch. No need to play capture the flag among ourselves, right? My intention is not to hoard these riches of glitches only for myself. If everyone can trigger it, everyone should trigger it. We all want to live longer, right? People who do not want to live longer are pretty strange.”
“Taking the possibility into account, we must plan a long-term campaign around it.” (Crys)
“Yup. But at the same time, this might have been an ultra-rare once-in-a-lifetime glitch and not a constant, but still, we need to investigate and experiment. Altar, fire, shoulder bag, staff – add all ingredients together as before, and if the stars are right, it might work again and again. But don’t get your hopes up too high, there’s a real possibility that this is an ultra-rare one-off glitch that happens only once in eternity, and if the low health is an absolute prereq, some heavy, exact dose of poison is needed...”
“It’s still worth it.” (Crys)
“Yeah. Those who think it’s worth it can choose to participate in these future experiments.”
“But it’s the same platform that turned Sorry Man into a statue?” (Rain)
“Sorry, it’s that same thing. But I haven’t told you all the details yet, it’s not what you think. I’ll explain: this is the full story about Reload Platform aka Aestivation Platform aka Sacrificial Save Point aka Lossy Respawn Point–”

As said before, this vicious little device with multiple arduous mechanisms had many names both in official lore and among players.

“It’s a raised, circular platform around two meters in diameter, usually located on the right flank of Caliph’s throne room in the Palace of the Sun. If you activate the device in a certain way and step on the platform, it practically creates a suspend save point. How to explain... You can freeze the condition you are right now and then autoload yourself back to the platform when you die, when your health points drop to zero. So your body goes back in time to the moment where you stepped on the platform.”
“You’ve already told this.” (Kimono)
“Kim, there are other people present. To recap: using the device seems like a good deal, but unfortunately there’s a price to pay because the save system is not lossless. It cuts corners, compresses data, drops frames. In practice, you lose a random body part every time you use the save function. You might lose a fingernail, a whole finger, or even your whole arm; you might lose your tongue, nose, or both ears, or half of your heart or lung. Needless to say, you might die immediately.”

The loss amount probabilities of the platform were thought to be related to the gap between save and load somehow, but that was just weird speculation because it would require the system to look into the future and somehow understand when you die and load back. In practice, there was no real rhythm or reason to the probabilities.

In the game, the Reload Platform’s proclivity to inflict permanent random status damage every time it was triggered was simply accepted as a system rule to prevent savescumming, but since there seemed to be Strangers-related lore reason to every other nerf in this world, I didn’t doubt that Reload Platform had something as well.

“To put it another way, the system takes a part of your body as a payment for keeping your memories intact. Your body returns to its earlier form at the point of death, but you still retain your memories, so your brain cannot return back exactly the same because then you would obviously forget everything. So maybe there’s some way to save without losing any part if you also lose all your memories, but I don’t have any knowledge about that kind of setting.”
“A crime lord who cuts a random piece of your flesh for every favor.” (Crys)
“Yes, thank you for that analogy. Now then, think about this: what happens if you are indestructible like Sorry Man and step on the platform? Do you get unlimited free rides when the system is unable to cut your flesh? Rain?”
“…” (Rain)
“Sorry Man’s indestructibility is so absolute that it overrides the Reload Platform’s capability. The system tries to force a lossless save, but it cannot, so it must commit to a hundred percent uncompressed save. The system slows down to snail’s pace and freezes Sorry Man in place like a statue. He’s not hundred percent frozen because the process still keeps running in the background, just very, very slowly. Sorry Man still moves a few millimeters per year. And eventually, in the far future, the system solves the problem somehow and halts. Maybe it takes Sorry Man’s muscle tension or some abstract property as a compromise payment instead of an actual body part. And that’s why, theoretically, in the original timeline, Sorry Man got frozen on the platform for a long time.”
“...” (Rain)
“Mind blown, huh?”
“It’s a time travel device?” (Mirim)

Sigh. Repetition is the mother of learning, iteration is the core of game design. These people have never played a computer game.

“Think about it like this: it preserves your body, but you keep living normally. When you die, your body returns to that preserved state, except your mind remembers. That’s what we mean by a save point. The world doesn’t rewind, it still moves forward one second per second. Or in yet other words, your previous body state rubberbands to the future and replaces your dead body... You can take your time thinking about it, this won’t be in the test.”
“As expected from Unbeliever, the Chosen One!” (Kurdt)
“The core point is this: if we can trigger the flagstaff glitch for everyone by traveling back and forth between Winter Forest and Sun Palace, we might be able to save our current selves and let the system cut pebbles as a payment instead of body parts. Learning the correct sequence to trigger the platform takes some time and effort, but at least the device doesn’t kill you if you make a mistake like Tze's Star Cutter, so everyone should be able to learn it if necessary.”
“There will come a time to take that gamble.” (Crys)
“That’s my take as well. Even without the glitch, for example, if you get a lethal cancer and you have only weeks to live, you can hop on the platform and roll the dice since you have nothing to lose. Best case scenario: the platform cuts out the cancer as a payment. Worst case scenario: you’ll die anyway.”
“Should I use it too, brother?” (Mirim)
“Ah, you don’t need to worry about any of this. Your machine transformation triggers automatically when you die. But for everyone else here: if I can get a safe save point at Sun Palace, Crys will try it next. Trigger the glitch for Crys in Winter Forest and travel to Sun Palace again to get a save point for him, and so on. If it’s consistent, we repeat the process for everyone except Mirim and Sorry Man.”
“He won’t go.” (Rain)
“Yes, yes, Sorry Man doesn’t need to go to Reignland at all. But for everyone else, there’s going to be a whole lot of traveling back and forth in the coming years, if it works. And we need to decide the order as well... that is, if everyone wants to do it? What do you think?”
“I will go after brother.” (Kimono)
“Dibs called by Kim-chan. Rain, do you want to be the third one? Left hand glued to a stick is a small price to pay, aye?”
“Did Tze know about this?” (Rain)
“Excellent question. In the original timeline, Tze learned about the save function before Rukhkh’s egg and tried it several times using slaves as test subjects, but when the slaves kept respawning without faces, he didn’t dare to step on the platform himself. The world got lucky when he kept rolling low results with his first experiments. If he had gotten good respawns like only fingers lost, he would’ve decided to use it himself immediately. But then he learned about Rukhkh’s egg and it’s convenient arrival, so he kept the platform simply as a backup plan.”

There was one route in the game where you could push Caliph Tze into using the Reload Platform on himself before the Moving Palace stage, but the game actually cheated and never killed Tze with the platform, so you just gave a free respawn to the final boss.

Just like Caliph Tze didn’t need the platform after getting Rukhkh’s egg, our team might not actually need a healer in the future as much as I thought.

“If those two go first, I’ll go third.” (Rain)
“It’s definitely worth a try, right? When you die of old age or whatever, you can still return and spend more time with Sorry Man... Kurdt, are you fourth in line?”
“...I’m not sure. I don’t know if I want to do it.” (Kurdt)
“Why? Because you’re scared of Strangers?”
“I have to... I have to think about it...” (Kurdt)
“Alright, no pressure. In the future, we also need to think about sidekicks outside our core group who we want to save as well. I have a list of best candidates, but we’ll take it one step at a time.”

With this, it’s pretty much decided that the Source Tribe’s archipelago will be invaded and annexed by Revolution Movement in the future. Crys might decide to wipe out both tribes because controlling the whole Winter Forest has suddenly become very important. I can’t say I will miss the tribes, but I hope some of the younger tribe families have enough common sense to escape outside the forest and avoid complete extinction.

There’s definitely some evil colonial vibes in attacking native tribal lands and seizing their resources, but it can’t be helped.

Is there any better way? Is peace with Source Tribe possible? I don’t hate them, even if they tried to burn me alive as a human sacrifice, but I’m afraid that peaceful negotiations with violent religious zealots are doomed to fail. It’s one thing to try to anti-brainwash cultists who worship invisible space gods or regular human dictators, but when you can actually see a magical portal appear with your own eyes, it’s a whole different level of fanaticism.

Anyway, this should be enough to keep Crys’ more selfish tendencies at bay. If this were the original timeline where Crys suffered from sleep deprivation and hallucinations, he might have already tried to assassinate the whole group to get the flagstaff only for himself. In the same vein, if this were the original timeline, Addict!Rain might have already thrown a violent fit and attacked me due to some paranoid misunderstanding about Sorry Man.

Internal crisis averted, I guess. Everyone is still alive and we have a common goal. I can fix you, I can fix all of you.

It’s a long shot, but if we can actually make everything work, we can create a save point for all the main characters and live happily ever after like elite timelords in a respawn loop, or a circle of high wizards holding matching magic wands. What a happy, ideal utopia.

...So why do I feel like I’ve triggered a literal death flag?

Just when I was about to explain the details of the situation with Thiefmaster, there was a knock on the door. Everyone turned to look at the entrance to the garden.

“Open it.” (Crys)

Kimono flash-stepped at the door.

Mailman-Steve came in and nervously bowed to everyone. It was his first time seeing the whole crew together in the same place.

“Mistress Kimono, master Crystal, mistress Rain... my lords and ladies, I bring an urgent message. A person that appears to be Thiefmaster was spotted on the northeastern path heading to Cursed Forest this morning. Two patrolling observers there were found dead. According to orders, the observers who found the bodies retreated immediately after seeing Thiefmaster from afar.” (Steve)
“Frell me dead. I straight up gave him our home address, but dude can’t follow simple instructions.”

---

Freeze frame. Let’s return to the OG timeline for a bit.

It was a bottle episode during the final anime season. Thiefmaster disguised himself as a visitor from one of the big gangs to infiltrate Starfish Mansion. The doormen weren’t checking visitors closely, so he got in pretty easily and started offing characters one by one.

For players who didn’t watch the anime, Thiefmaster spawning inside the Starfish Mansion in the game came as a nasty surprise during first playthrough – like the game was suddenly cheating and spawning boss enemies in a 'safe zone'. Some players dropped the game right then and there.

And this wasn’t even the first nasty surprise from Thiefmaster. The first one was the betrayal during Sylvania side quest when you played as Ivorythief.

I had already summarized to everyone how Thiefmaster found the Starfish Mansion in the original timeline, and what kind of damage he did while inside, and how he finally died in the Garden Room by dueling Sorry Man.

Side note: it was pretty strange that Sorry Man was challenged to duel twice during the series (first by Cleaner-Goby, then by Thiefmaster), but that’s just how madmen rolled in this mad world.

In the game, Thiefmaster’s second stage Torture Hypnosis ability was one of the main reasons why he was such an annoying enemy. It was basically a more powerful version of Command Poison: if you were close enough to see Thiefmaster’s eyes, he could temporarily break your mind. In melee combat, he triggered the ability occasionally without warning and caused player to attack self with bladed weapons or jump to nearby sharp objects.

Player losing control of his character was a big no-no in modern game design on its own (even if it was only few seconds at a time), but for speedrunners this was doubly annoying. It was simply excruciating to watch yourself to lose time and health because your character was dealing piercing and/or slashing damage to itself.

Not only that, Thiefmaster was able to trigger the ability in ranged combat in a lesser form. All he needed was a direct line of sight and a few seconds of windup, and your player avatar started lunging at sharp corners of the level geometry instead of attacking forward. The only good thing was that there was a variable cooldown time of at least twenty minutes between uses, and it was limited to one target at a time.

Sorry Man was immune to all physical attacks due to not having hitboxes, but mental attacks like Thiefmaster’s hypnosis skill could elicit a reaction. In the original canon, Thiefmaster’s ability activated Sorry Man in an unexpected way: where a normal person would punch or strangle himself under Thiefmaster’s orders, Sorry Man was incapable of dealing any type of damage to himself. Thus, giving a hypnotic self-harm command to Sorry Man practically glitched him further and forced him to do extremely fast movements with his arms. And anything that happened to stand in front of Sorry Man at that time was instantly destroyed.

Thiefmaster’s first and last attempt at using his hypnosis skill in a melee battle against Sorry Man became his downfall: indestructible arms moving like a bugged high-speed industrial robot splattered his head and torso.

Hoisted by his own petard, Thiefmaster was.

---

“Thiefmaster followed the twins’ tracks.”
“Most likely.” (Crys)
“Steve, is the northeastern path the same one that goes through the flower grove?”

Steve stared at Sorry Man like starstruck by a celebrity, but snapped out of it when I said his name.

“...Ah, apologies, lord Speedrun! I have no further information. What is this flower grove you speak of?” (Steve)
“You haven’t been there? Okay. Well, hopefully the twins didn’t use the path that goes near the orphanage school area when they returned to Spyglass Tower... Ugh, why do I even hope? They definitely used that path. They must’ve walked near the orphanage school if they followed that path.”

There’s also no way Thiefmaster would miss all the converging tracks leading to the orphanage school. He's not an expert tracker, but he knows his way around.

“The children are in danger.” (Mirim)
“Yeah, we need to move fast. Thiefmaster will either kill them for sport or use them as hostages. Those are the two most probable scenarios when Thiefmaster encounters a large group of weak enemies. Hopefully it’s the latter. I might have a way to save them if it’s the latter.”
“Kimono, we are going to the orphanage.” (Crys)
“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)
“I’ll grab my rifles.” (Mirim)
“Steve, get out.” (Crys)
“...Ah, yes!” (Steve)

Steve hurried out of the room.

“Rain, you and Sorry Man, I need you for this.”
“No.” (Rain)
“Look, I told you what happened in the original timeline. Sorry Man versus Thiefmaster duel, the original boss battle. Remember how Cleaner-Goby came looking for Sorry Man last year and they dueled? It’s the same thing again, except this time there’s a good chance Sorry Man actually moves instead of just tanking all the attacks and winning a ruled fight by default. This time it’s a no-holds-barred duel with Thiefmaster. He will use his hypnosis skill and Sorry Man will definitely react to that.”
“…” (Rain)
“Ridiculous. Why would he accept such a foolish duel?” (Kimono)
“If correctly triggered, Thiefmaster cannot help but accept. I’m pretty confident that I can force-dialogue him into it. Rain, don’t you want to see it? Rain, don’t you want to see Sorry Man in action? Don’t you want to see him destroy that fool?”

I know Rain wants to see it. I can almost see her brain processing the ramifications. She’s completely fine living with non-reacting Sorry Man in the Petrified Garden, but every now and then a clear reaction to an external stimuli would be nice to see too, wouldn’t it? Admit it, Rain: you want to see Sorry Man kick ass and take names. You want to watch him curbstomp Thiefmaster and go: Kyaa, Sorryman-sama, you’re so cool!

“It will be the same as back then?” (Rain)
“Yes, yes, except much more flashy action from Sorry Man’s side. It’s a big publicity event for us. Thiefmaster versus Sorry Man in front of large crowd of younglings. The only reason Ivorythief lost to Thiefmaster in my timeline was because he didn’t know about Thiefmaster’s special ability, and that special ability actually works in Sorry Man’s advantage. Sorry Man is made of pure defense so he won’t lose and he won’t take damage. He just gets a bit more lively for a moment, that’s all. It’s the safest and hypest strat ever.”
“…” (Rain)
“The audiences demand it, Rain. There’s no end to the hype train when Sorry Man crushes Thiefmaster like an insect. Once in a lifetime event, Rain!”
“...Fine, whatever. Mirim, get the wheelchair.” (Rain)
“Yes, sister.” (Mirim)
“Kurdt, you’ll be in charge of the house while we’re gone.”
“Yes, master! I will take care of the house while you fulfill your destiny as the Chosen One!” (Kurdt)
“...Uh, sure.”
“Kimono, clear the main hallway. Inform the Pikatrate guardsmen that Dragon’s Head Sorry Man is heading outside. They must bow their heads and stay silent. They are not allowed to look at him directly. Tell them to cover their eyes or faces with white cloth. If princess Achlop wants to pay her respects to Sorry Man, their delegation must stand in the hallway by the Pikatrate door and extend a clenched fist salute in formal attire. They have ten minutes.” (Crys)
“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)

Crys immediately turned a simple march down the hallway into a publicity parade. He wants to keep up the precedent and tradition that Sorry Man going outside the Starfish Mansion is a major event and a rare opportunity for Pikatrate envoys to see the big boss in person.

After a long while, the original MC posse is going all-out.