Isekai Speedrun

And now we wait.

War is 90% boredom and 10% madness, as they say.

We’ll wait in the palace until Korryndin arrives and rides through the main street like a conqueror to take the throne.

When the old system nobles who backed our violent revolution get a word that we were successful, they will arrive with their personal troops to show their allegiance to the new emperor in public. And the nobles who hesitated and sat on the fence (or outright opposed us) will see their status and wealth greatly reduced.

It’ll take a month or two to stabilize the situation, if Crys’ estimate is correct. Plundering is expected when the starving ex-slaves finally realize that they can just walk out of the city. If Sun City were some ancient city like Tikal, it might get completely abandoned after repeated crop failures and polluted reservoirs. You can’t eat palaces and drink pyramids.

We need to make sure that doesn’t happen immediately, even if we want to move the capital somewhere else in the future.

Sometimes the things you want to happen and the means to make them happen are the complete opposites – keep a wounded bird in a cage even when it cries and protests so that you can set it free later when it heals and can fly again; make sure a captive animal fears humans so it doesn’t get immediately captured by poachers when returned to wild.

A month or two in the palace… Well, Rain won’t stay around to water the gardens that long. She will return to Starfish Mansion first. Mostly because she doesn’t want to stay separated from Sorry Man, but also because people must see the Sun during Korryndin’s incoming coronation ceremony.

Sun used to be very important to Reignland’s original religion before Strangers. It still is, but it also used to be. Superstitious masses will see it as a bad omen, if the new emperor cannot wear his royal mask on the high balcony when the The Star You Must Not Stare rises behind him and allows his long, dark shadow to spread over the celebrating citizens.

Rain’s exit will guarantee perfect weather for the morning of coronation.

And after that ceremonial opium for the masses, we will lay the foundation of the sociopolitical reforms that will turn Reignland into a somewhat modern state. Merchants can trade stuff with each other without meddling with Caliphate middlemen and lovers can get married without seeking approval from their landlord.

Install a fresh operating system. From this death and chaos rises peace and harmony; a new order of the ages.

I imagine it’s going to look like news reports from 1960s Sweden when they switched from left-hand driving to right-hand driving overnight. It’s better to do some changes quickly and decisively, like ripping off a band-aid. It’s going to hurt a bit, but it’ll smooth out.

Trust the healing process, even if the wound looks like it turns worse at first. When human greed, ignorance and jealousy take over, even the most purehearted heroes must choose to either become part of the fresh corruption of the new system, or walk out in disgust, or get ousted by the corrupt and power-hungry revolutionaries. Like human immune system that keeps killing healthy cells after attacking infected cells, Revolution has a tendency to eat its own children.

I must be the firm voice of a reasonable adult. I must make everyone understand that it’s time to stop killing when all the boss enemies are dead and concentrate on implementing and maintaining rule of law instead of trying to find new enemies.

I can’t be the fun parent who allows kids to say rude things without repercussions. I must correct problem children’s behavior at every turn, even if they get upset about it and think I’m lame for saying no. In time, they will realize how ignorant and cringe their younger selves were. In time, they will understand that my warnings and limits were for their own good.

I moderate because I don’t want them to get eaten by the meta. They can’t see the death flags; the hidden complexities of the new post-revolution world.

I can see the death flags. Well, most of them. I can see some of them.

Too late to turn back now.

Spend two months turning a totalitarian slave state into something healthier without falling into classic management traps. Avoid feature creep. Avoid development hell. Deliver in two months.

I almost fell into analysis paralysis when doing excessive mission planning while avoiding actual implementation. Luckily my trusted partner Crys kicked my anxious behind into action.

Going from extreme to extreme... while trying to avoid the big problems of going from extreme to extreme.

It’s going to get busy, so let’s enjoy this brief respite.

---

We waited on the first floor of the Sun Palace, guarding a choke point next to the main stairways where we parked the Flame Tank.

I listened the heavy rain outside. Dry heat had turned into a humid heat.

The airship had already moved out of the rainstorm and landed on the roof of the Sun Palace, but there were still explosions and gunshots reverberating from the outskirts. Our associates were following my map waypoints and cleaning up hidden Caliphate stash houses.

Obstructing the logistical lines was a key part of the plan. When the Death Squads outside the walls run out of ammo and supplies, they have to ride further inland for support. Destroying all the Death Squads in Reignland is practically impossible, but forcing them out is doable.

Under the new regime, Caliphate knights will become the rebels hiding in the forests. The hunters become the hunted.

In the game, killing a single High Hat had a chance of triggering all the Death Squads in the area, but now most Death Squads here were either dead, trapped, or hunting decoys outside.

Most of the Strangers vehicles of Sun City were engaging our kiting forces at the north side. They must’ve realized at this point that they were baited, so they probably tried to return in the city, but failed spectacularly because their vehicles were being choked by newly formed mudflats.

Caliphate commanders made a far-reaching strategic mistake by sending low ground pressure equipment on the front lines while keeping the regular automobile-types at Reignland. Since our vehicles were sourced from the front lines, the hit-and-run tables between Caliphate cats and revolutionary rats were turned: the proud knights were like sitting ducks in their fast lowrider slave transport technicals against our slow off-road portée ore haulers.

Turn the windblown sand into quicksand and let them sink. All part of the plan.

We attacked from the south, while the airship concentrated it’s firebombing on the northeast side. The logical escape routes for civilians and unmotivated soldiers were northwest and southwest, but since southwest side was the slum area, traffic packed up on the northwest gate. Most of the citizens pushed forward to get out of the burning city, but some citizens tried to take advantage of the chaos and loot local businesses –

My internal monologue was suddenly interrupted when Rain stood up.

Idol meeting?

No, she walked into a hallway leading outside onto the front terrace.

I glanced at Crys. He concentrated on reading the library books like a true nerd.

I was a bit worried because Rain and Mirim were the only ones who survived the final battle in the original anime. It would be a shock of tragic irony if Rain were the only one to die this time, for some reason.

I decided to follow Rain outside.

Siren followed me like a silent bodyguard, leaving Ragdoll to man the Gatling alone.

---

Seeing the cityscape from the high terrace perspective was quite a spectacle. The scene reminded me of John Martin’s apocalyptic paintings like Seventh Plague of Egypt and Belshazzar’s Feast.

Let me take out my phone and take a picture for you… oh, right. Let me take out my sketchbook instead.

The city was taking a long shower under partial moonlight and waning fires. Mud and garbage flowed down the streets, oozing into cellars and catacombs, washing away hawkers carpets and street carts, quenching out street lanterns and drowning weak people who couldn’t move away.

Streets were full of dead people and dead horses.

I feel bad for Korryndin’s men who have to clean this.

Rain sat on a marble bench under a canopy next to the terrace doorway. She seemed calm enough, so the rainstorm probably wouldn’t get any heavier than this.

I stood under the same canopy, but leaned on the parapet on the left side of the terrace to look down on the muddy courtyard.

This particular courtyard was right next to a side branch of the Ob Canal. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a deep, wide well that extended into a long, narrow ground fissure.

Woodeye's crew was on the courtyard rounding up Caliphate priests and palace officials. Their names, faces and colors were checked and compared to the list I created with Crys.

It was a simple process: search all temples and altar rooms in the palace grounds. Look for hidden weapons and lockboxes. Bring all priests to the courtyard and check their name on the list. Blue ones can live, red ones are executed. If their name is not on the list, take them into a prison cell until further notice.

This “Evil Religion” thing is a common story trope for the same reason “Evil Nazis” is a common story trope: religion attracts the weak-minded and the corrupt, and the corrupt quickly rise to positions of power to take advantage of the weak-minded.

The praying and begging officials on the courtyard were forced to kneel in two lines. They were stripped from their robes and valuables. They were ordered to leave their shoes on a parapet one by one. Their names and faces were double-checked, and then pikes were used to stab and push them down to the Ob fissure. No need to waste ammo or get bloodstains on your clothes.

As a side note: it was common for street rats to fetishize noble’s clothes and their tacky gold jewelry and symbols, and wear them in excess. I had to remind them that Caliphate fashion was still slave fashion, and they should wear practical gear suitable for their persona instead of trying to emulate corrupt jerks in opulent togas. From my future point of view, wearing flashy clothes crafted by slaves, or blood diamonds mined by slaves, was a sign of being poor and uneducated, not rich and smart.

Money is a sign of poverty, as they say. But kids are kids. They see shiny things and want to put them on.

Another side note: they also wanted to paint bluebird tags and write profanities on the palace walls, so I had to explain how trashy it would look. We want this city to look nice and cozy, not a garbage dump full of visual spam and unsolicited ads created with paints that contain chemicals that eat concrete and make it brittle. Don’t be spambots, kids.

Speaking of spam – while I was vehemently against polluting the Ob Canal further, we had to get rid of the corpses and this was an easy, fast solution. Hopefully this will be the last time the canal burial is used in Reignland. The horrible thing about this old Caliphate custom of dumping bodies and trash into rivers and canals meant that the bloated bodies and detritus were net-fished by mist slaves downstream and delivered to slave farms in the west to be used as a fertilizer for crops.

A circle of trash, from polluted canal to the table.

All these sick Caliphate systems needs to be dismantled and reorganized – from ceremonial hot-iron stigmatization at birth to water-polluting burial rites at death.

Install four obligations of a citizen: get educated, pay taxes, obey the laws, defend the country. Install liberty, equality, and separation of church and state.

And this mass murder of priests is the fastest way to separate the church from the state.

“The dust murmurs in our veins and makes us roar! From the immaculate sands above to the underworld of clear waters, the sacred masks of Strangers summon the reaping scythe–” (high priest)

The kneeling priests were desperately praying while throwing handfuls of mud in their mouths. Their prayers were directed to their gods (Strangers) and to the great prophet of gods (Tze).

They were basically imploring the Strangers to jump down from the clouds, kill the invading infidels and help them to... return to slavery or something? Well, religions are not known for being rational or internally consistent.

Virtuoso and Lovely sun, who were guarding the lines of priests, just laughed instead of stopping them.

Suddenly one of the high priests noticed me looking down from the terrace and guessed correctly that I was one of the leaders of the invasion posse. This particular high priest wore a garish antler headpiece, which meant he had a high position in the main temple.

He stood up and screamed at me.

“You infidel! Stop this madness right now! Why are you murdering everyone?!” (high priest)

Virtuoso was ready to stab and Lovely Sun ready to shoot the high priest, but I stopped them by raising my hand.

I’ll humor this one a bit. We have some time.

“Sorry, but this madness won’t end. Because this is the best we can do for you, because we can’t fix you. It’s horrible, isn’t it? You don’t know how far in the wrong way you’ve traveled. Your brainwashed mind is beyond repair and the corruption keeps spreading as long as you are alive. That’s why we need to cut the tumor out, and probably remove some healthy tissue surrounding the tumor. We need to make sure the cancer of your religion doesn’t return.”

The high priest looked at me in absolute shock.

“Madness! Your words are madness?! What wrong have we done?! We have done nothing wrong!” (high priest)
“See, you don’t understand how wrong you are. Among the multiple evil deeds you have done in the name of your religion, like routinely torturing and stoning women to death, you are also the people who went to Fireland to kill all the adult tribesmen and capture the children.”
“I haven’t done anything like that! I have never been to Fireland!” (high priest)
“Not in this timeline. Because Tze died. But you would have gone there if he had lived.”
“...You are insane! You are all insane!” (high priest)
“A wise person often seems like a crazy person to an ignorant person. Or how did that old saying go again? I mean, my opinion is that people are free to believe any stupid thing they want as long as they don’t try to impose their beliefs on other people and limit other people’s freedom to believe what they want believe. But your beliefs are very much based on enslaving, exploiting and limiting other people’s freedom, so I can’t agree to disagree. Forcing your religion down other people’s throats is the very core of your cult. You want to micromanage every aspect of human life: what people can eat and drink, what they can read and wear, how they dance and what music they listen, how they must procreate, who they can start a relationship with... There are so many things wrong from start to finish. You want to be slaves to these arbitrary rules and force everyone else to become slaves like you. Yet at the same time you people in the main temple ignore every rule you create and secretly revel in all the things you have forbidden from others. That’s why you need to go.”
“This is obscene! You are not allowed to judge me! The gods will punish you for this! When the gods return, those who do not lower their heads will face the whip!” (high priest)

Many other kneeling officials agreed with the high priest, expressing hopeful fervor.

“Do I look like someone who cares what your gods think? I don’t negotiate with religious terrorists. Your threats are double-empty. No gods, no masters; there is only Zuul.”

Another priest raised his voice.

“I am innocent of the crimes you listed! I haven't done anything wrong! I demand justice in the name of the emperor!” (priest)
“Do you want to be cut into 198 pieces, or do you want 155 years in prison?”
“...What?” (priest)
“Well, this conversation isn’t going anywhere. Foxy, let them eat cake.”

I extended my arm like a Roman emperor for gladiators, thumb sideways. Then I gestured in the general direction of the canal before turning my thumb down.

The screaming high priest was dragged away. Still screaming curses, he was pushed down into the canal after his false antlers were removed.

Other officials tried to get up in protest, but they were quickly beaten back to the ground.

“Please show mercy on the young at least! Allow the young acolytes to live!” (priest)
“Shut up! If your name is on the list, you’re dead!” (Fox laughing)
“...The strange gods will return and you will all be punished for this!” (priest)
“Shut up, enpicis! You’re already dead!” (Fox Laughing)

Yep. Already dead. Faceless and nameless minions.

I guess it’s a bit weird to punish people for something their different versions did in a different future timeline, but I don’t really care to explain again why we’re doing this death penalty slash involuntary euthanasia thing instead of forced quarantine and therapy.

Delete the corrupt files because repair function doesn’t exist in the system yet.

Hmm… Am I doing this right? Should I give them a second chance? Has this world corrupted my thinking and turned me into a cruel tyrant who executes people for crimes they have not committed?

Maybe living in this world has radicalized me?

No. I’ve always been a hard-boiled gamer. This is the fastest way to clear the map of enemies.

It might be cynical in the context, but it gets the job done. We don’t have time for long therapy sessions to make them understand the harm they have done. We don’t have enough neuropharma to repair their narcissistic career criminal brains. We don’t have enough prisons to keep them quarantined extended periods of time.

Keeping them alive would be both a security risk and a possible PR disaster.

You need to think about the practicality instead of ideology. Do you want criminals to be rehabilitated back into society or do you want to feel the feels of justice served by punishing them without end?

If you want criminals to eventually return to society, then you should advocate for shorter prison sentences, house arrests and second chances – because those are the rehabilitation practices that actually work.

If you just want to punish people for revenge (and have them lose all their possessions and keep them away from society forever; maybe have them lose their minds in solitary confinement), then why bother keeping them alive year after year? If you think they cannot be rehabilitated ever again, why waste all that time and money feeding and housing them? Just murder them and be done with it. If you don’t want them to become normal citizens and neighbors ever again, why keep them alive?

It’s either efficient rehabilitation or efficient punishment. All solutions in-between are inefficient half-measures.

If you live in a modern society with neurotech, you should be able to ignore primitive feelings of tribalistic revenge-justice and choose efficient rehabilitation in quarantine. If you live in a primitive society and scream for infinite punishment for a finite crime, you should take the involuntary euthanasia route.

It’s either constant on-site live moderation or instant permabans to keep your community troll free.

Leave no legitimate heirs, as Crys succinctly put it, and leave no high priests to crown legitimate heirs.

We’re paving the road for Korryndin to take over the empire without opposition. He’s already a legitimate ruler of a Caliphate vassal state, so he will soon be the closest living thing to a legit ruler of Reignland as a whole.

Some resemblance of order of succession will be preserved for the records for those who care.

So, again, is this execution spree for theatrical legitimacy really necessary or not? Tyrants in the real world tend to think that they know which people are good and evil based on something like skin color, language, religion, ethnicity, or some equally trivial aspect. I’m different because I have the special advantage of knowing for sure which people in this world are enemies and which are not.

But it’s still selective mass murder we are doing right now...

Do real tyrants ever question themselves? Successful narcissists never ask “are we the baddies?” because success itself seems to prove (in their mind) that they are right.

Don’t get too philosophical now, Qwerty. Everything’s going according to plan.

No society for those who scorn society. No pardon for a president who demands a pardon.

It’s just a game.

That’s how every gangster explains it. It’s all part of the game.

About a year ago, I had an argument with Crys about some small detail I don’t even remember anymore. I blurted out the cliché line “you treat this like it’s just a game”, and Crys immediately countered with “interesting accusation considering the accuser”, like he had been expecting it. Crys had deduced long ago that the ‘theater play’ I was part of in the ‘future’ was actually a complex game where rules were enforced by machines, and the imperfections in those rules could be exploited by the players of the game, and those exploits were the things I called glitches. Crys was smart enough to imagine a future he had never seen and understand the implications of technological progress taken to the extremes of virtual realities as detailed as real worlds.

In a way, we both treated this world like a crappy game, but for different reasons.

You know the rules... so you try to bend them.

Don’t hate the player, hate the ineptitude of the game designers.

I didn’t treat my life in my previous world like a game because I didn’t have to. I was born during a peaceful era, in a privileged situation where I was fed and educated, and had time to play imaginary games on my leisure. If I had been born in a kill-or-get-killed situation in some war-torn failed state like Crys, I too would’ve tried to bend the basic rules of society in my favor, out of necessity.

Most people in this world can’t imagine anything different. Like a bully who thinks that all people would be bullies if they were stronger, or a thief who thinks all people steal, they are unable to imagine a cooperative game; an iterated win-win universe where random strangers send drones to cut your grass or powerwash your driveway for video clicks. They think the only dream a slave has is to be a slaveowner. Becoming an abolitionist and jumping out the whole system doesn’t compute.

It's tiring to keep second-guessing yourself. I’d like to think we are enlightened philosopher-kings, but I fear that we have become one of the people I hated in the old world: a group of shadowy billionaire oligarchs.

What is the core of Revolution Movement? A cabal of rich one-percenters working behind the scenes, trying to bend the society into their own image, thinking they are above the rules, flying high in the sky in their private airships, sailing the international seas in their pirate ships, relaxing in their secret luxury bomb shelters with a private army keeping guard...

We are already living the opulent lifestyles of the top caste in a floating world separated from normal people’s problems. Yet we still think we are able to understand the common people and dictate how they should live.

I’m sure there will be some wild conspiracy theories about us down the road. Something like we are a secret society of puppet masters behind the curtains (as we are), or some high council of superpowered beings trying to take over the continents (which we kind of did already).

They think of us as tyrants because they mistake us for one of them.

But we’re not the baddies, right? Our aim is to be a prospiracy, not a conspiracy. We are secretly plotting behind the scenes to make the world a better place for everyone.

Strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest, as my boy Diderot said – because voting and peaceful protests won’t cut it in this sick, sad world. We must speedrun these changes with a violent revolution and force-feed the rolling enlightened, progressive social democracy 2.0 update down their throats... Yet the transition to a new system should be as smooth as possible, with least amount of downtime and disorder...

It’s like in the early days when I had to keep telling Crys that leaving hanged bodies on trees with V-sign carved into their torsos would look bad in our portfolio in the long run. We don’t want to rule people with fear and terror like Caliph Tze and Suleiman. More carrot and less stick. More hearts and minds, and less “beatings will continue until morale improves”. Assassinate bad guys by night, deliver food to hamlets by day – that was the basic division of labor when we started. Crys was in charge of violence and moonless nights, I was in charge of public relations and sunshine.

Shadowy benevolent oligarchs.

That’s a band name.

Did you hear the latest track from Shadowy Benevolent Oligarchs? It’s called Come See the Violence Inherent in the System.

Maybe I just like the cool jazzy vibe of Shadowy Benevolent Oligarchs a bit more than the boring four-on-the-floor of Crazy Fascist Dictators. That’ is that, and this is this.

...But more importantly, most importantly: why didn’t the Reload Platform work?

I need a save point. I want a save point.

Which tyrant do I have to murder to make it work?

I have the flagstaff glitch, but I can’t rely on it. Aging-related illnesses and senescence should count as damage, so I’ll probably live longer than mundanes as long as I hold on to this flagstaff. And since I had the privilege of growing up in a world of high-tech healthcare, my base life expectancy is already longer than average in this world.

But still... could I get a little bit more uptime, please? Just a tiny bit more?

If only some type of deviant healing magic existed in this world.

By the way, that’s one thing about magical fantasy stories that keeps rubbing me the wrong way – when aging is treated like something separate and different from ‘normal’ physical damage. Aging is just accumulated physical damage over time, so any healing magic should be able to reverse the damage by default. Yet somehow characters in fantasy stories keep dying of ‘old age’ like it’s something different from physical damage. Just heal the body part that is failing!

“It’s a timeless victory, Seer Speedrun! Percent run!” (Woodeye)

Woodeye waved his hand to me. They were close to finishing their job; the courtyard was almost empty.

“Sure, sure...”

As I was saying before, nothing ever works out how I want in this crapsack world. You don’t even get a second life. A survival game that uninstalls automatically after the first death.

“Complete victory! Hundred percent! We veeted it!” (Woodeye)
“Yeah, yeah, I heard. Still no signs of Keylord and that soothsayer guy?”
“No, but we’re winning!” (Woodeye)

No, this is the darkest timeline. Every timeline where the final result is death is the darkest timeline.

Bad Ends only. That’s Mu-Ur Quincunx for you.

That’s what the game always was.

Yet still I run.

One must imagine Sisyphus happily grinding for that Billionth Boulder Uphill achievement. In an absurd universe one must draw an absurd map to reflect the reality accurately.

Only eternal life in an eternal universe would count as a Good End, if you ask me.

Oh, what’s that? Eternal life would be boring, you say? That right there is a thing called brain-stopping cliché; an old meme that has been repeated so many times that you believe it without even noticing that it can be questioned. Here, let me give you a new meme that makes your brain run again: only boring people get bored. An immortal human being, by definition, cannot be a boring person.

Unfortunately that Good End where everything is interesting forever is impossible to achieve.

Only Bad End exists.

I straightened my back and raised my arms like an emperor addressing his subjects.

“I am the one who grabs the sun! I am the one who cleans the filth of this grimdark world! Like and subscribe, my droogs!”
“Share! Share!” (Virtuoso)
“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads! Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines!”
“Share!” (Double Shadow)

Is this the only comfort I have in this grimdark world, shouting from the rooftop of a school building? I was practically baiting for some random sniper to make an assassination attempt, but no one tried.

Okay then. You had your chance, assassins.

I turned and saw Rain staring at me with a question mark above her head.

“Did I say something weird just now?”
“It’s always something weird when you open your mouth.” (Rain)
“I was just thinking random things, like save points and stuff.”
“I didn’t ask.” (Rain)

I lowered my arms. My throat suddenly felt dry, so I took a sip from my canteen.

I had instructed everyone to carry their own waterskins or canteens and avoid using the drinking fountains in the Sun Palace. The groundwater in Reignland itself was okay, but it was pumped in the palace through lead pipes.

Speaking of water, there was a question that sometimes popped into my mind in these situations: is it strange to drink the water that Rain’s ability brings down from the sky? It’s just normal raindrops from clouds, right? Nothing perverted about it.

Just open your mouth and taste the rainwater.

But I kind of don’t want to do it. Not when Rain is watching at least.

“Everything alrighty, Rainy?”
“Why do you ask?” (Rain)
“Because I care? This outcome, are you fine with it? The hats you wanted to kill have fled the city or are currently being eaten by poisoned rats in poisoned tunnels. Or they might be still hiding somewhere in the city. Or they are currently getting killed by our friends somewhere out there in the general direction of my hand gestures.”
“...It’s fine.” (Rain)

Tze’s original scheme was to control Raingirl by manipulating her emotions, keep her in a cage and haul her around Reignland like an automatic irrigation system. Now there’s droughts and starvation everywhere outside the city, but the capital is drowning.

Maybe flooding the Sun City feels like a poetic bookend for her character arc.

“Rain, thanks for trusting me. And thanks again for allowing Sorry Man to have that duel. I really appreciate it, you know. You’re the coolest character in the crew.”
“...What?” (Rain)

Rain’s body language told me she wanted to say something. Are we entering tsundere territory? She’s bad at receiving compliments.

“True story. Just say you're welcome.”
“…Thanks.” (Rain)
“You’re welcome.”
“...Are you fine with this?” (Rain)
“Who, me?”
“You.” (Rain)
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Thanks for asking. Maybe I'm a bit disappointed about that save point thing, you know, not working. But it’s not unexpected in this world. Can’t always get what you want, not even mostly. But sometimes it’s good to force yourself to travel and experience these things, you know, step out of your comfort zone and do something you don’t want to… So, yeah, thumbs up for asking, it’s a rare treat. Usually it’s only your sister who asks what’s up with me. I mean, from the main character gang.”
“Stop talking so much.” (Rain)
“Sorry. It’s a coping mechanism, I can’t turn it off. I’ll try adjusting the volume. Anyway, we’ll find all those dunce caps eventually, and even if you can’t kill them personally, we can arr–”
“I said it’s fine.” (Rain)
“Okay... Speaking of silly hats, there’s another signal flare from the Kenorland gang.”

A small, red firework exploded in the dark sky above the city.

King Korryndin, the savior of Reignland, was approaching.

He will bring peace and order to the chaotic situation, and the old system nobles will welcome him as their new emperor.

No victory parades or speeches from the Revolution Movement. We'll just walk away without looking at the explosions.

...Well, even though I’d like to do that, the work of admins and mods never ends. You need to keep banning trolls wherever they crop up. If you never turn tempbans into permabans, the toxic weeds will eventually party up and take over the garden, hoarding up all nutrients and preventing other types of flowers from flourishing. What do you call a normal person who hangs out with fascists? A fascist. Unbounded tolerance for intolerance equals applying fertilizer on noxious weeds and suddenly you realize you have a fascist garden.

Speaking of flowers, I’ll take a vacation after this. Sera will like that.

After Korryndin sits tightly on the throne, we’ll leave Sun City and stop disrupting Reignland’s agriculture and trade. Korryndin will collect all the praise for it and take the reins of this white horse from here on. He’ll give a grand speech from the palace balcony, declare himself the emperor of Reignland and announce the end of slavery.

Crys will write about this coronation day in the Revolution Movement’s pamphlets and call Korryndin the epic king who brought raging fire and miraculous rain in Sun City. Korryndin will be remembered as the heroic liberator of slaves and reformer of laws.

It’s a new national holiday in the making. Let’s call it Freedom Day or something.

When speedrunning the game, it was possible to get an overly dramatic red full moon for the end of the final battle sequence when the clouds dispersed.

Would be nice if we could time Rain’s exit from the city exactly and get a big rainbow over the coronation ceremony.

Probably won't work, but let's try that. Let's get it first try.

Happiness and rainbows... In an ideal world, slaves could just throw away their chains and buy homes immediately after abolition, but in the real world it’s going to be a long process of incremental steps: mental health services, physical support, social support, education, general hygiene and sanitation – all this just to get them up to speed with the bare basics of civilized freepersons.

As the saying goes: give man a fish first and then teach him how to use a fishing rod because it’s easier to learn on a full stomach. If you don’t give the man fish first, they’ll sell the fishing rod to buy fish for their hunger.

Speaking of angel investors, princess Spell will probably jump out of his hiding place in the Victorious Shields area and run to Sun City on her own after he hears the good news about her father. Find Princess Spell quest gets cleared automatically as a side effect of the revolution.

Hmm... Princess Spell of Kenorland, princess Achlop or Pikatrate, and princess Seroptina of Oxus...

The tea party collab plan for all the princesses to meet each other just got boosted with a third participant.

If we find princess Charm, and she wants to leave the Shadow Gods bandit gang, we have a whole princess idol unit ready to dance.

---

At some point during our stay in the Sun Palace, we also need to check the prison dungeon. I don’t really want to go down there personally because it’s full of filth and decay. Even in the game, the level design made me nauseous, so I’m thinking of sending in some newer members with stronger stomachs.

I’ll leave the complete cleaning of the dungeon and it’s prisoners to Korryndin. As for me, there’s only one person down there I want to talk to, provided that she’s still sane: a woman named Mirelle Mireis, Tze’s childhood friend from Pnath-Sora dungeon mine.

Practically all the people from Caliph Tze’s early life, his family included, were killed and erased from records, but there was one exception: the girl who lived in the slave hut next door. For some reason, Tze allowed Mireille to live as a prisoner in the dungeon.

Fans speculated that Mireille was just a backup plot device and kept around in case the showrunner decided to take a final redemption approach with Tze and use her as the “last remnant of Tze’s humanity” that makes him understand his foolishness in the end, and then Tze jumps into a volcano voluntarily or something.

I mean, the ending where fascist dictator shoots himself alone in a bunker after finally having introspective revelation about his own stupidity and ends everything with a suicide as an apology would be fine with me, but the more realistic side of me understands that they’re probably doing it out of cowardice and stubbornness rather than having a change of heart.

In the anime, Mireille was seen only briefly in the Tze flashback episode as a kid telling Tze to act properly and stop causing trouble.

In the game, Mireille was basically an Easter Egg. You could find her as an unrecognizable old woman (except for her immediately recognizable quincunx back tattoo) working in the prison dungeon under the Sun Palace – but only if you went there at a certain time early in the game. Mireille’s tongue was cut off, so she didn’t have any dialogue, but she could communicate by writing and drawing on the walls. Later in the game, she was already insane and simply stared you in an eerie manner when you tried to start a dialogue.

If she learns how to write and communicate properly in this world, I’d like hear more details about Tze’s past and find out the location of the Pnath-Sora open-pit dungeon mine where they grew up. Tze implied in the dialogue of a different flashback episode that ‘the Magma Dungeon of the gigantic bones’ was near the Pnath-Sora mine, but our archaeology team had not found any clues about it.

“It’s getting sweaty out here. Time for sardines to get back in the tin can!”
“Enemy coming?” (Rain)
“No, our friendly neighborhood emperor is coming. That was just a figure of speech, no need to use the Flame Tank.”
“Why do you… You don’t make any sense.” (Rain)
“Sorry. I’m the opposite of Sorry Man, I'm talking and moving all the time. Totally not your type.”

I wanted to throw away my armor and take a cold shower, but I settled for took a few more sips from my canteen.

“Hey, if you could hop around and turn the rainstorm into a snowstorm, that would be cool right now.”
“What?” (Rain)
“Oh crap, sorry! Sorry! I forgot. I’m really sorry for making such a rude suggestion!”
“…” (Rain)
“Please don’t hate me. My mistake. I talk too much. Forgetti beeeam!”

Damn. I need to remember that Rain really hates to be told how to feel. That’s what Tze’s men tried to force her to do. Cry and laugh on command to change the weather, feel pain or pleasure to adjust the amount of rainfall. She’s already doing us a massive favor just by being here and ignoring how uncomfortable this makes her feel.

I should refrain from making goofy jokes about her curse for a while. We can’t get out of the city safely if Rain loses it.

That was really dangerous proposition to make so suddenly. Why did I say that? I’m too relaxed and too stressed out at the same time.

“We good? Sorry again. It was my dissociative trauma talking, not me.”
“Just shut up for a while.” (Rain)

I was about to apologize again, but forced my big mouth to close.

---

When I returned to the inner halls with Rain, I happened to look into an empty side room.

There was a single standing partition wall that looked like a wooden door.

A flat depiction of a regular three dimensional door without a lock; a fake door standing in the middle of a room, painted on a panel.

I suddenly had this strange feeling that if I were to repeat the Cursed Forest glitch – the breakdance moves in the Orphanage School mansion that threw me into this world – in front of this painted door, I might be able to leap through and return to my original world.

And then I had that annoying feeling of forgetting something important, missing something obvious right in front of me.

I shook my head and kept walking.