Chapter 159

[Translator - Jjescus]

[Proofreader - Gun]

Chapter 159

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The Strategist XI

13

Have you ever heard of the term "sixth sense"?

Sixth sense. Literally, the sixth sense.

It's something beyond the five senses that all humans have: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

Usually, people would question if such a sense even exists, but I truly possessed something that could be called a sixth sense.

It was a premonition about fate.

Perhaps it was because, as a regressor, I had lived far too long and experienced far too many events.

My ability to perceive the causality of events had developed excessively.

Not always, but occasionally, with just a single word or gesture, I could sense what would happen next.

Anyone who has fallen in love at first sight will understand what I mean.

A human life is like a bundle of threads woven together. One of those threads connecting you to the person right in front of you.

“――I’ll write your story, mister.”

This was one of those moments.

Oh Dokseo's eyes were half-closed. The more her eyes closed, the shallower my breathing became.

“A story?”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying you want to seal the Alien God in a novel instead of a broadcast?”

“Yes.”

My voice wasn’t much different from usual.

But with each word exchanged between us, my consciousness, which had been far off in the back of my head, began to wrap around to the forefront.

I opened my mouth.

“Why?”

“Look. In the ‘broadcast’ format you chose, I’m just playing the role of a game character that follows your instructions. Everyone else, except for the Saintess, is nothing more than an NPC. So.”

Oh Dokseo pointed downward. There, the [The Admin of All-Play], who had turned into a white girl, clung to her feet.

“There’s some truth in the warning that the Alien God spat out. If you set yourself up as too much of a ‘superior being’ compared to other humans, one day, no, inevitably, you too will become a monstrous entity like the Alien God.”

“......”

“...I’m the same.”

Oh Dokseo gave a bitter smile.

“I’ve felt it the whole time talking with you, mister. If I had opposed you as the Alien God had planned... If the ‘Book Possessor’ and the ‘Regressor’ had fought... And if I had finally taken the protagonist’s position... I think I would have become a anomaly too.”

I remained silent.

Because that scenario was indeed one of the world destruction scenarios I had prepared in advance.

[Protagonist] anomaly.

Oh Dokseo defeats me and ascends to the position of the protagonist. Then she merges with the Alien God and receives all the clichés and ‘protagonist perks’ that only a protagonist can enjoy.

“Neither you nor I can afford to take too much of an upper hand. We’re too powerful. It’s not about the level of aura or anything like that. From the start, we’ve been given the positions of the Book Possessor and the Regressor.”

“......”

“Just by existing, we have the potential to define the world... the potential to become anomalies.”

That’s right.

- Be wary of anyone who fights anomalies. For in doing so, you may become a anomaly yourself. And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

This phrase, slightly altered from Nietzsche’s famous quote, was fitting for us.

Therefore.

“...I’ll become the writer who tells your story, mister. You know, there’s a genre called reportage literature, right? Reconstructing real events into a novel.”

“Hmm.”

“If I record your life with my own hands, you won’t fall into a higher dimension of anomaly than me. Because I’ll be your ‘writer.’”

And.

“And I’ll just be a narrator, following your life story... Yes. I think it’ll create a reasonably balanced relationship.”

“So, you’re saying we should chain each other down?”

“Oh, yeah! Exactly that!”

Oh Dokseo laughed heartily.

The sound of a human laugh was like a fountain shooting up in a square, briefly catching a sip of sunlight as it falls back down, sparkling.

I said,

“It’s not a bad idea. But doesn’t that make you, as the writer, a bit too powerful?”

“Hm? Does it? I think that since novels are ultimately evaluated by readers and the writer is bound by those evaluations, it’s not such a significant position. Isn’t it more like a priestess offering herself as a sacrifice to the people? But if you’re worried... Ah.”

Oh Dokseo lightly tapped the laptop with his palm.

“How about this? I’ll write the novel about you, but when it comes to the parts that mention me, you write those instead.”

Danger level: Lv.5 Alien God-Class (Alienation).

Subjugation complete.

14

There’s an epilogue.

It should be clear to all of you by now.

Yes. The very story I’m telling here, which Oh Dokseo is editing into a novel, is itself a ‘vessel that seals the Alien God.’

It also serves as a weight to hold down both me, Doctor Jang, and Oh Dokseo.

The real-time act of you reading and evaluating this story is what suppresses various strange phenomena.

I, Doctor Jang, consider all humans who subjugate anomalies to be comrades (even the High Priestess of the Magical Girls’ Council), so of course, you too are my comrades.

I’m grateful to Oh Dokseo for connecting us in this way.

“Mister, we have a problem...”

And so, Oh Dokseo, having realized the genius of literature that danced down from the heavens, proclaimed, “God has made me write this novel! But now I am the god, Oh Dokseo, who has become the writer!”—yet such a happy ending did not occur.

In fact, it was closer to the opposite.

"I can't write..."

"You can't write? Why?"

"It just feels like everything I write is terrible."

Oh no.

Oh Dokseo, who used to look down on all creative works as a reader, turned into the weakest of the weak the moment she started typing on the laptop keyboard.

Sipping the coffee I made, Oh Dokseo mumbled gloomily.

"Before bed, I resolve to write tomorrow, but as soon as I wake up, turn on the laptop, and see the blank screen, my fingers go blank too..."

"Why don’t you just write like you just described? You’re pretty good at speaking."

"Ugh! It’s not that easy!"

It wasn’t entirely Oh Dokseo’s fault.

As it turned out later, when Oh Dokseo defined herself as a ‘writer,’ the [The Admin of All-Play] also treated her as such.

In short, all the chronic diseases that afflict writers clung to Oh Dokseo too.

[My writing sucks syndrome], [Remake syndrome], [Endless revision syndrome], [Drifting syndrome], [It’s all because I lack experience syndrome], [Why do I keep changing my desktop background syndrome], [Unexpected family issues causing delays syndrome], [Editor’s mistake causing late uploads syndrome], [Simple depression syndrome], [Constantly procrastinating by clicking around SGNet syndrome]...

Truly, the lord of all diseases!

The very essence of the ‘writer’s’ idea, which drags every disease in the world, was forced upon Oh Dokseo.

"This isn’t it!"

Bang! Oh Dokseo would throw the laptop to the ground whenever she got the chance. However, since it was the relic of an Alien God, the laptop didn’t get a single scratch.

"Oh Dokseo, you proudly declared that you would write a novel, but 60 days have passed, and you haven’t even completed a prologue..."

"What do you know about the struggles of a creator!"

I knew all too well. By this point, I had already stockpiled 100 chapters of the Three Kingdoms parody (writing two simple chapters a day).

Fortunately, the ‘The Admin of All-Play’ laptop preserved the work across cycles.

So, even if only 6 chapters were completed in this cycle, those 6 chapters would carry over to the next.

Of course, from Oh Dokseo’s perspective, who was cursed by the Alien God whenever she typed, it felt like receiving both the disease and the cure at once, which understandably made him furious.

"Being a writer is such agony..."

"Try discussing pain with an infinite regressor."

"I can’t live like this on my own. Ah! Yes! mister! Let’s ask the Alien God to spread these diseases to all the other writers, not just me!"

"What?"

"If I’m going down, everyone should go down with me... That way, the world is fair and just, right?"

I voiced my opposition, but Oh Dokseo stubbornly pushed forward with spreading the infection.

That day, a storm swept through SGNet’s novel serialization board.

Readers spewed blood as one by one, the novels they had been enjoying suddenly announced hiatuses.

So, if any of you writers out there ever open your computer and think, ‘Damn it, why do I feel so unwilling to write today?’ please blame Oh Oh Dokseo for that. It’s the Alien God’s curse.

"Mister! Finally, I’ve finished the first chapter!"

Thanks to Oh Dokseo’s relentless effort, two long years after the Alien God was subjugated, she finally showed me his first prologue.

"Look at this! Ah, don’t mind me! I’ll just watch you reading from behind!"

"Alright."

Let’s see what we’ve got here.

I took a sip of my café au lait with one hand and moved the mouse cursor with the other.

Click. The first sentence of the blank notepad file began like this:

――――――――――

Infinite regression.

There is a genre by that name.

――――――――――

- The Strategist. End.

[Translator - Jjescus]

[Proofreader - Gun]