“It’s running longer than expected. The Watch Head is even exceeding the configured specs. What’s your take on this?”
“It seems the Feast’s Offering outside the observation point injected a strange ideology into Bubble Head.”
“So your view is that this trouble was triggered by a Feast’s Offering from another timeline. In the end, it’s a timeline problem again. This is why I advised scrapping the Watch Head.”
“I regret that part. But aren’t you satisfied with Bubble Head’s conclusion? A dilemma born of time travel and an irreconcilable conflict—hard to reach without Bubble Head.”
“I agree it’s provocative, but the situation is also needlessly abstruse. And the Watch Head’s repeated actions will harm the observers as well. I’d like this stage resolved within this turn, or at least to see a meaningful extra event.”
“Agreed. To that end, I strengthened control, accelerated Bubble Head’s derangement, and injected an obsession with amputation plus abnormal attachment. Bubble Head will start forgetting his original plan. The Feast’s Offering has shown ruthless responses to anyone judged a cultist, so the episode’s climax will arrive soon.”
“Understood. Please further amplify Bubble Head’s derangement and aggression so there’s no more deviation. I’ll grant one free resource to that end.”
“Thank you. Does Bubble Head get narrative control now?”
“Yes. It’s the Watch Head’s turn. What action does he take?”
“He starts something more extreme than before. I’ll consume the resource I just received.”
“What effect do you want? Depending on the declaration, a check may be required.”
“I’ll show Bubble Head a powerful illusion.”
“An illusion. I like it. What does the Watch Head see?”
“Memories that jab Bubble Head’s trauma. What appears before his eyes is the Feast’s Offering, connected to a magical life-support rig.”
“The Feast’s Offering from another timeline lived longer than expected, but it was closer to being kept alive by force. He tried to endure, but in a scenario destined to fail, it only prolonged pain.”
“So the Watch Head couldn’t stand it and killed the Feast’s Offering. That’s the setup.”
“Yes. Bubble Head was born with that disposition. Cutting away the imperfect to obtain something complete. Being unable to accept failure as failure. That’s the nature regressors share. I’ll deepen the derangement so he sees the current Feast’s Offering as ‘imperfect.’”
“Excellent. Continue.”
“Don’t. Stop!”
Gong Isu suddenly clutches his head and staggers back.
“What now?”
What pattern is this? Hallucinations already?
I can’t know what erratic move comes next. I don’t stop—I fire spells.
BZZZZZT!!
Flame, frost, lightning, necromancy, venom, petrifaction, paralysis—
seven spells tracing a fiendishly complex set of arcs.
“Stop it! Stay out! This kind of meddling is pointless—just stop!”
Gong Isu keeps shouting like a scream right up to the brink—then thrusts his right hand toward the [Golden Hairpin].
Is he about to rewind time?
Tzzzzzzzt—
No. He uses an ability he hasn’t used until now.
[Right Hand of the Creator-God]
Mana surges from his right hand, routes through the [Golden Hairpin]—amplifies, augments—and bursts outward on all sides.
Shraaaah!!
My spells scatter in an instant, turned into butterflies and petals of every color.
“What the—why add a power you weren’t using?”
“My head changed. Get lost. Show it all you like—damn it, I said stop! I never did that!”
What sits where his head should be is totally unlike the ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) things I’ve seen till now—clock, camera, plasma globe, or those truly handsome masks.
A ring of light, floating and blazing.
“Looks great. A halo? No—an angel halo?”
He’s not about to machine-gun light powers and zip around at light speed now, is he?
No, it doesn’t feel like that class of ability. It’s operating as part of a more magical rite.
The rite’s shape—transmission. Leap. And observation?
What is he trying to observe and transmit now?
Unknown.
‘Damn it. Stop pulling out things that never existed in [Cthulhu World].’
“Kim Sinhwa, this isn’t a game. You don’t get to redo. Stop. No—I do get to redo. Stop. Stop the crazy talk! Hoo— junior, what did I just say?”
“Ah. It’s fine. You look busy—don’t strain yourself talking. Let’s both just do what we each planned.”
I say that and raise mana. If he’s decided not to rewind, advantage me.
“No! That’s not it! Junior, work with me! The Abyssal beings—the Administrators—have started intervening. Any further is dangerous. I need to cut your limbs off before I forget that I have to cut your limbs o—”
“Mm—senior. Deep breaths. Calm down first.”
I’ll knock you cold, then seal you so you can neither die nor move—
“Damn it, listen! Shut up! Stop! No. Cutting your limbs wasn’t what I meant to do. Wait—why did I change my head to this ring?”
KRAAA-BOOM!!
Damn. Dodged again.
Since the derangement surfaced, Gong Isu stopped rewinding.
Instead, he seems to have completely changed his policy.
He’s keeping only one behavior—pulling away to open distance and evading my attacks. That neuters the strategy I’d been maintaining...
Meanwhile, his halo is sending thought somewhere.
‘He’s buying time.’
Why start stalling now? Waiting for the derangement to abate? What hallucination is he seeing? What’s that ring’s function?
Where is he sending what? Intended effect? What range of trouble can it cause?
[System: The Spatial Dominion trait deepens your understanding of space.]
...Huh?
Did this trait always do that?
As if answering my will, [Spatial Dominion] starts offering a different effect than before.
Thanks to it, I can clearly perceive:
Gong Isu is hurling his will and mana—or his madness—into some space.
The direction of that space is...
“Remember the pasta.”
A ridiculous sentence Gong Isu blurts.
Pasta?
“What?”
“Right. I remember now. Over there. Look over there. Ah, right, I get it. I’d been waiting to go completely mad. That’s what it was. Junior—remember the pasta. It was pasta!”
“Pasta?”
“Yes, pasta! Can you see over there too?”
He points at a direction you can’t physically point to.
It’s neither left nor right—
neither the direction time flows toward nor the direction it flows from—
a direction from a completely different dimension. Not in the multiversal sense. I mean the counting of dimensions as in one, two, three.
A two-dimensional being cannot perceive three.
And a three-dimensional being cannot perceive four.
I look where Gong Isu is looking—
and every hair on my body rises. A hideous shiver.
“What is that? It’s looking at me.”
I lock eyes with something vast—so vast it defies words—an unreal being.
What are you?
You’ve been watching me unt—
[System: The Abyssal Madness trait activates. Erasing your memory.]
Wait, what?
Bzzzzzt!
[System: A critical error has occurred. Using Administrator privileges to pause execution.]
Gong Isu is mad.
Fully delusional.
‘But in this world, there are things only a madman in full derangement can do.’
There are not.
What a madman is granted is only warped perception and twisted delusion.
‘No—what a madman is granted is an expanded view, a consciousness that can reach beyond the horizon.’
In a ghastly delusion, Gong Isu feels he’s reached some grand state.
‘I finally understand. The flesh is merely a material medium. I thought throwing away my head meant I’d lost to you, but I’d actually surpassed human flesh—and gained more.’
Post-hoc self-justification without coherence. Jumps of abnormal logic. Nonsense only a madman would utter.
‘Remember the pasta.’
Derangement. Derangement. Derangement rolling in like waves. Derangement. Derangement.
Delusion. Delusion. Delusion pouring without end. Delusion. Delusion.
Past. Past. A past tangled with the present. Past. Past.
Future. Future. An ideal future forever out of reach. Future. Future.
Yearning. Yearning. Desire. Desire. Hollow plans. Horizons too far. Unattainable goals. Broken hopes. A life once abandoned. A life only ever used by others. You were deceived by Kim Sinhwa. Betrayed. Kill Kim Sinhwa. Hate. Hate. Delusion. Delusion. Evasion. Evasion. Kill what obstructs, cut away what discomforts, erase what irritates.
‘Remember the pasta.’
Gong Isu has experienced more deaths than any human—but in truth has never once reached a true death.
A weak coward. A coward in words. A loser who only flees to safe places. Trash that wanders forever in search of a utopia, making no effort.
‘Remember the pasta.’
He has never overcome or accepted failure even once. The rewind power reflects that nature. A marvelous power to destroy and recreate? A power gained because he couldn’t accept things as they are.
‘Remember the pasta.’
Remember the pasta.
‘Remember the pasta.’
There is nothing in the pasta.
Only overreaching greed. A welcoming shackle of debt that doesn’t know the crashing wave of proper collapse erases memory tick-tock the time can’t be measured a voice you can’t know is hungry so milk is transcended a beautiful task carried out by flesh click a camera and you can tell in the sensation something a glass marble flashes lightning a ring of light rides a wheelchair butterflies lift off in the far darkness I want to know you’re doing well, senior. Please remember the pasta.
Bubble Head, what are you doing?
‘Remember the pasta.’
Bubble Head?
‘Remember the pasta.’
Kim Sinhwa is coming to kill you.
“Junior. Over there.”
Kim Sinhwa will ignore your words and kill you. Lightning incoming. Danger. Fire pouring down. You will die. Your toes are freezing. Horrific pain. Sensation vanishing. Arm severed. Leg severed. Danger. Danger. Danger. Danger. Danger.
“Right. I remember now. Over there. Look over there. Ah, yes, I get it. I was waiting to go completely mad. That’s what it was. Junior—remember the pasta. It was pasta!”
“Pasta?”
“Yes, pasta! Can you see over there too?”
Kim Sinhwa looks where Gong Isu points, and is horrified—time stops.
“This is the worst sort of trouble. Resolve the issue while the Feast’s Offering’s perception is impaired.”
“Understood.”
Gong Isu stretched an ability and touched what must not be touched.
A strange domain where perception surpasses sight.
A spot leading square from the sun.
A line that runs long.
Six spheres whose meaning is unknowable.
White. Or gray. Or black. Then black again. Yellow or green.
Gothic. Serif.
Yin and numbers and yang.
Then yin and numbers and yang.
And again yin and numbers and yang.
A vortex that resets everything.
Gong Isu’s will flings the [Golden Hairpin] beyond the range of observation.
Crkk-crkk-crkk-crkk!
Armed with the power to punch through the walls of time and space, the [Golden Hairpin] will now destroy something outside observation—and return.
Something flows in through the space Gong Isu tore.
Or maybe it’s only something born of his delusion.
Hello. I worked really hard on this. Please enjoy it!
Wow bug tree-lined street Nyarlathotep first chapter for real no way dead so then Kim Sinhwa daily serialization impressions slurp fun fantasy mask-fixation correct answer envelope bandage blade as expected first-person POV. Stop reading. This is just a string of meaningless words. There is no context.
Gong Isu spits meaningless words.
“I’ll make a proposal.”
A deranged proposal aimed in a meaningless direction.
“Anyway, one Feast’s Offering is enough, isn’t it?”
So?
“I’ll be the Feast’s Offering.”
Impossible.
“I told you, I’ll rewind until I win.”
Impossible.
“Negotiate with me.”
Gong Isu wears a ghastly smile for a moment and babbles mad nonsense.
“How about it? I sound like the protagonist now, don’t I?”
“We’ll reset the situation, then proceed with a rollback. However, the Watch Head is excluded from the rollback. If included, he’s liable to restart the entire process from the beginning.”
“I request a discussion.”
“I’ll accept.”
“If we proceed as you propose, the result is effectively the disposal of Bubble Head. There’s no precedent, but I want to evaluate whether Bubble Head’s proposal is a technically addressable issue.”
“There’s no precedent, so it’s hard to judge. Plus, we also have to recompute what trouble might occur going forward.”
“I want to consult a higher Administrator.”
“Tic-Tok Man, you’re overly fond of the Watch Head.”
“I’m concerned about problems that arise if we exclude him.”
“Fine. I’ll ask a higher Administrator. ...The answer is back.”
“What’s the answer?”
‘Refer to the rulebook.’
“Does the rulebook cover this?”
“No. But I found a rule we can apply. We’ll send a singularity to the outside dimension and grant an advantage to one of the two.”
“A singularity. Understood. If one side gains overwhelming superiority, the deadlock ends somehow.”
“Correct. We’ll use the [Duel Check] rule. Two singularities will measure the influence supporting the Feast’s Offering and the influence supporting the Watch Head—whichever receives more support gets an extreme advantage.”
“What window do we measure against?”
“It can’t run long... We’ll measure exactly six hours by the outside dimension’s time. However, this [Duel Check] will not proceed in a fair manner.”
