ALL NOVEL chapter 1
1 – Episode 1: Lion Rock Camp and Possession
Click, click.
I repeatedly clicked the mouse, changing the numbers by one, meaningless.
[Book Trading / Zinor’s Testimony]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Deposit: Gold 2558]
[Character / Monarch]
[I understand your intentions, but it seems that you will not be able to achieve what you desire]
Click.
[Book Trading / Zinor’s Testimony]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Deposit: Gold 2557]
[Character / Lord]
[I understand the Lord’s intentions, but it seems that they will not be able to achieve what they desire.]
Clank.
[Character / Bookkeeper’s Statement]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 Months / Contribution: 2558 Gold]
[Character / Lord]
[I understand the Lord’s intentions, but it seems that they will not be able to achieve what they desire.]
“Oh, really!”
I have only 2558 won left in my pocket.
I had to form an alliance with Serpina, the current strongest nation, with this money.
No, if I couldn’t, then in the next turn, it would be a definite game over situation with the enemy invading our territory.
This game, “Garand Eternity Saga,” was a classic game that came out twenty years ago.
By today’s standards, it was an outdated land-grabbing game, where the goal was to defeat enemy castles and unify the virtual fantasy continent, “Garand Continent.”
It was a turn-based battle, not with an immense depth, but not boring enough to be uninteresting.
Still, I had fond memories of this game from my childhood, so I quite liked it and attempted unification almost every quarter.
There were various lords in this continent, and my favorite play was definitely the “Random Generated Lord” play.
I had already played all the named lords that could be chosen in the game once, and I got tired of it because I raised the difficulty and cleared all of them.
Of course, this game itself was not particularly based on actual history, and the lords had slightly different lifespans and received subtly different adjustments in various situations with each game. So it was never the same lord who unified every time, which made choosing a named lord feel like playing a quite different game. Therefore, unless you were someone who played this game hardcore, it was common not to choose a random generated lord.
From my perspective as someone who has poured 10,000 hours into this game, it was impossible to feel any fun or enjoyment other than playing as a random lord.
Anyway, let’s summarize the current situation –
The army led by the random lord I chose, [RandomLord5338], had respawned right next to the most cunning and aggressive tyrant in this game, the Serpina army.
Serpina was a woman who inherited the blood of Jerome von Einagarde, the last emperor of a unified empire before the era of war, and she was a presence that was close to the last boss who would achieve unification after playing about ten games.
The period in which the CPU would invade in this game was from one year of in-game time after the game started.
One turn was three months. So, if I couldn’t form an alliance with Serpina within four turns, it would be over for me.
But there was no need to give up yet.
As it had been twenty years since the game came out, the fact that it didn’t have much depth was its weakness.
Moreover, there was a reason not to give up.
The bookkeeper, who is advising me now, namely our army’s bookkeeper, Zinor, had an intellect of a remarkable 99.
This was a very good score. No, it was practically the highest score.
Except for the named character [Elenoa], who possesses an intellect of 100 and is almost guaranteed to be eliminated, there were no characters with an intellect of 100 if they didn’t use cheats.
In this game, the advice from Intelligence 100 is 100% accurate.
The advice from Intelligence 99 is 99%.
Even if it’s 99%, it’s practically 100%, so it was trustworthy enough.
Moreover, not only the book store, but also the surrounding countries excluding the Serpina army were quite good.
In the beginning, the Acesse army, which was initially weak, had a surge of potential and was behind me.
The optimal condition for absorbing the talents of the Acesse army was undoubtedly at the start of the game.
In other words, if I succeeded in forming an alliance with the Serpina army, won the war against the Acesse army, and absorbed their talents, I could lead the game stably enough that I wouldn’t think of myself as a random ruler.
Perhaps a speed run with a random ruler starting was possible.
Comparing it to gacha games these days –
It’s like succeeding in a resimara in all aspects except the starting position.
So I can’t give up.
The current situation is that Zinor, with Intelligence 99, is making a truthful statement to me that “You can’t form an alliance with the Serpina army.”
Then why am I foolishly changing the values of the gold tribute to ask for an alliance repeatedly?
It’s because if I continue to grind like this, someday I can say “There is a possibility.”
In other words, it was a kind of trick play.
What mechanism allows this trick play? What is the basis?
I don’t know any of that.
It’s just that I saw it written in a strategy guide that collected tips for this game in the past, saying “If you keep repeating, sometimes the truth changes. Let’s use it when we need to make a difficult proposal.”
As an old game, maybe there are programming issues? I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t know.
What I know is –
Even if it’s an unreasonable suggestion, there is a moment of [divine intervention] that will accept it at least once.
Gold 3800 is our current army’s entire assets.
Of course, since Serpina is a person who won’t form an alliance unless we bring a treasure that increases our power, it was impossible to form an alliance with her with just this amount of gold. But –
If I continue to use this [trick play], I was convinced that it will definitely work at least once.
After playing for 10,000 hours, the big data accumulated in my mind was insisting on that.
Since I was destined to be trampled by Serpina’s army, there was nothing else to do but this.
“Please, just work!”
I wonder how many tens of minutes, no, how many hours I spent clicking tirelessly.
And finally.
[Book Merchant / Gino’s Statement]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Contribution fee: 2556 gold]
[Character / Sovereign]
[Serpina Army will certainly be moved as they personally seek the favor of the Lord]
“They’re here!”
I barely managed to hold back from clicking again, almost missing it, as I was watching YouTube and doing repetitive tasks.
Alright!
Gino’s intelligence is 99.
That meant that his advice is 99% accurate in this world.
99%! Not 90%, but a whopping 99%! That’s practically 100% in this game!
“Great. Now if we can conquer the Eisers Army near Serpina Army, appoint Yuri as the general to secure the rear, and deploy troops along the border with Serpina Army, we can somehow prevent any attacks.”
36 months.
12 turns that are so valuable.
In this game, where you can do quite a lot in one turn, it can be considered as precious as gold.
I carefully planned the next move in my mind and pressed the button [Send Envoy].
And then.
[Envoy of Random Sovereign 5338 / Random Sovereign 5338]
“I have come personally today to have a conversation with Lord Serpina.”
“Please form an alliance with our army for 36 months.”
[Condition: 2556 gold]
[Book Merchant of Serpina / Jena]
“My Lord, we must not be swayed by sweet words.”
“Serpina’s Sovereign / Serpina”
“There is a limit to treating people like idiots.”
“Huh? What’s this?”
Why isn’t it working?
Why won’t they form an alliance?
Gino’s intelligence is 99. His words hit the mark 99% of the time.
But… there was always one cold fact that I easily overlooked.
99 is not 100.
‘Ah, sh*t.’
1%!
A statistic that caught my ankle, only 1%!
It means I failed in alliance with a 1% chance and ended up with a setback.
[The Messenger of Random Ruler 5338 / Random Ruler 5338]
[I won’t borrow your power or anything like that]
There’s nothing I can do.
For now, I had to abandon the castle and make a B-plan to escape to another region.
Of course, I will suffer huge losses in the process…. But since I don’t want to end this round, where I obtained a rare talent of 99 intelligence, like this.
But.
Even that small hope of mine started to turn into mere bubbles in no time.
[The Ruler of Serpina’s Army / Serpina]
[Look, who’s there?]
[Imprison this person in the underground dungeon]
‘???’
What’s this?
Making the envoy a captive?
Well, of course, this game had such a function.
But it’s not even war, and the envoy came here for diplomacy, so imprisoning them in the underground dungeon would lead to a steep decline in reputation from other rulers, causing a significant disadvantage in diplomacy as a penalty. That’s all.
But- who is Serpina?
Isn’t she the most influential tyrant born from this game?
‘Ha….’
Still, well…
Even if I’m trapped in the underground dungeon… Well… there must be some way, right?
If I manage to escape before the invading army reaches our territory…
Bee-beetch!!!
As I was burning my last thread of hope, an annoying 8-bit sound entered my ears.
[Serpina of Serpina’s Army has killed the leader of Random Ruler 5338, Random Ruler 5338]
[The leader of Random Ruler 5338, Random Ruler 5338… Closes their eyes here]
[The continuation of Random Ruler 5338 is passed on to Zinor]
[GAME OVER]
‘… Ha.’
I’m dead.
It seems that Serpina imprisoned me and immediately executed me.
Just being imprisoned is already a huge penalty, making diplomacy impossible. If they go as far as executing the envoy, there will be no proper conversation with any neighboring country.
But it doesn’t matter.
That woman was always like that!
“Jinor, you bastard!”
And to top it off, my army? Jinor takes over?
I know it’s just a game, but the situation was too delicate.
That bastard, did she deliberately send me to my death to gulp down my country?
“Anyway, Intelligence 99 doesn’t work like this. It should at least be Intelligence 100.”
It was my mistake to believe in Intelligence 99 from the beginning.
I should have restarted the game earlier.
I sighed deeply and clicked the mouse to move past the [GAME OVER] screen.
I pressed the start button, intending to try again far away from Serpina’s army this time.
But…
No matter how many times I clicked the mouse… it wouldn’t move to the next screen.
“What?”
What’s this? Did it stop?
After repeating the mouse clicks several times…
A screen appeared that I had never seen in the 10,000 hours I played this game.
[Book Merchant Jinor / Words of Truth]
[Is Intelligence 99 really enough?]
“???”
What?
What is this?
No matter how much I click, it won’t move to the next screen.
There is only one button I can press.
It’s the button that says [It’s enough. Intelligence should be 100].
Beyond the emotions that I couldn’t understand in this situation-
As if representing my own feelings, I pressed the button eagerly.
[??? / Answer]
[Too easy. Intelligence should be at least 100]
[Bookstore Zinor / Jin-eon]
[Is that so]
And at that moment.
The world began to ripple.
“This can’t be happening…!”
I know. This kind of development.
Being sucked into a game, right?
I’ve seen this kind of development countless times.
But… why?
Why am I the only one being dragged into this shabby old-fashioned game world!!!
I would prefer to be sucked into a novel or a stylish gacha game where cute girls obsess over me!!!!!!!!
[Bookstore Zinor / Jin-eon]
[I hope you can do it well]
By reading that sentence, I lost consciousness.
* * *