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The Savior Syndrome II

True to my words to Noh Doha, I began engaging in “pathetic behavior” from that day forward.

I kicked fairies without any reason and was rude to store clerks. Whenever I had the chance, I would gossip about others. This was just the basics.

I even started a series on SGnet titled [Luxury Series in the End Times], where I subtly mocked every awakened being in the Korean Peninsula. Initially, I did this anonymously but gradually hinted that the posts were from “ZERO_SUGAR.”

-Anonymous: Breaking news! ZERO_SUGAR = Luxury series author evidence.jpg

-ZERO_SUGAR: Oops. Busted.

Finally, I made it look like I was accidentally revealed to be the same person, completing the deception perfectly.

I smiled in satisfaction.

Surely, anyone would consider this pathetic enough…!

“Hmmm… 6 points.”

“…?”

Sim Aryeon, an expert in this field, glanced at my monitor from beside me.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t just post anonymously suggesting they were the same person. I’d constantly change IPs and post praise and comments about the Luxury Series. And, of course, manipulate the upvotes…”

“…!”

“The peak of clique behavior is when your random posts, even if pointless, get flooded with upvotes and dominate the popular posts on the board…”

“…!”

“Yes. Guild leader, you need to create your signature pointless posts. The luxury series is honestly too well-crafted to be pointless… It’s too enjoyable. That won’t do. They need to be utterly useless, making it clear that the upvotes are manipulated by a clique. Post beatboxing, singing attempts, or consistently uninteresting posts…”

“…!”

A teacher is among any group of three, they say.

Indeed, I accepted Sim Aryeon as my teacher and reinvented myself as a pathetic figure in the apocalypse.

-KoreanVillage: ZERO_SUGAR << If you like this guy, give him a thumbs up lol └KoreanVillage: I\'ll start lol └Anonymous: You little bastard just said thumbs up └Anonymous: You little bastard just said thumbs up KoreanVillage’s clique family (surprisingly, there existed a group of followers who idolized Sim Aryeon on SGnet) provided their support. If there is favoritism, there must be hostility to balance the world. Normal SGnet users began to loathe me. -[Three Thousand Worlds]Witch Trial: What\'s wrong with Zero Sugar lately? Have they gone mad? -Literature Girl: Damn, why is half the popular posts about cliques? SGnet is dead. I\'m out, bye └Anonymous: See you tomorrow! -dolLHoUse: Oppa... -[National Road]Officer: It\'s not pleasant to see a handful of people tarnishing the entire board\'s atmosphere. -CookingQueenBee: Interesting. A perfect result, truly. Now, it was time for those afflicted with the Savior Syndrome to come to their senses―― -[Baek Hwa]High School Senior: Thumbs up lol That moment never came. When Cheon Yohwa, the absolute leader of Baekhwa Girls\' High School, pressed the thumbs-up button, hundreds of guild members automatically followed suit. [Doctor Jang. While I have little interest in SGnet activities,] [Considering your desire to become a notable figure, I have captured and publicly revealed the personal information of four awakened beings attempting to slander you.] [Feel free to continue your activities without worry.] Why? I started to evolve from a koala to a sloth and asked Cheon Yohwa. “Yo-hwa, isn\'t what I\'m doing pathetic?” “Huh? No. You overexerted yourself saving us, and it damaged your brain. Don’t worry, teacher! Even if everyone else in the world criticizes you, I never will!” “...” “We’ll take care of you for the rest of your life!” My pupils quivered. Take care? For life? Students taking care of their teacher? This seemed reminiscent of a gacha game before the end times. The tragedy didn’t end here. “Doctor Jang! Did you hear?!” Tang Seorin burst through the door of my hideout. “What?” “Sorry! I didn’t realize...!” She lunged forward like a character from a passionate youth drama and hugged my shoulders tightly. I was bewildered. Tang Seorin wasn’t usually one for physical affection. “Didn’t realize? Suddenly, what...” “You injured your brain fighting anomalies! And now you’re infected with a psychological anomaly known as Attention Seeker Syndrome...! Doctor Jang, why do you always neglect yourself and only care for others?” “...Shit.” “Oh, my god! And now the Rage Disorder anomaly too. I’m sorry, Doctor Jang. Was I too late? Hmm, but don’t worry. Even if you burn the world down, I’ll always be on your side...” This is bad. “Wait a minute, Tang Seorin. That’s a misunderstanding. Who told you such fake news?” “Huh? The constellations told me?” “...That’s a lie. Think logically, between me and the constellations, who’s more trustworthy?” "Ha? Of course, it\'s the Constellations." "...Actually, there\'s no such thing as Constellations. It\'s all a masquerade controlled by one person." "Ah." Tang Seorin\'s expression softened. She leaned forward and gently stroked my bangs. "I see. Yeah, you\'re right. Constellations are all lies... Don\'t worry. There\'s nothing to worry about." Damn it. I felt a stab in the back. The trio of Cheon Yohwa, Saintess, and Tang Seorin—weren\'t they the most powerful awakened beings on the Korean Peninsula? Now that all three were caught in the Salvation Syndrome simultaneously, it was almost as if half of the peninsula\'s power had fallen into the hands of the anomaly. The rest of us, including me and Noh Doha, hastily entered another emergency meeting. "Chief Commander, we\'re screwed." "This is insane..." Noh Doha muttered, then suddenly widened his eyes. "But wait, isn\'t it just you who\'s screwed? I\'m perfectly fine..." "Yeah." "Think rationally, Doctor Jang. Whether it\'s salvation or whatever, what damage does this virus do to us? It\'s just that the prominent awakened ones have relied on you mentally from the start, hasn\'t it? Who\'s dying? Are there material losses? Am I getting tired? No. The more you talk about it, the more I feel like I can afford to step away from this problem..." "And then, if you too fall victim to anomaly, you\'ll come crying to me, saying I was truly the savior of the world, won\'t you?" "Damn it..." "You know I have [total memory ability], right? I swear, if you don\'t help me here, I\'ll eventually hone my art skills to hyper-realistic, almost photographic levels." "Art...?" "Yes. I want to realistically depict you clinging to me. How about titling the artwork \'[Noh Doha, worshipped as the savior]\'? I\'ll immortalize that painting in ultra-high definition on SGnet. Forever. In every turn." "What the hell...?" Bang! Bang! Bang! The meeting room door shook violently. Despite being designed to withstand a nuclear explosion, voices from people outside vividly penetrated through the steel door. - Teacher! Please open the door! - Hyung-nim! Are you there, hyung-nim! I\'m Seo Gyu! I\'ve used my admin authority to promote all your posts to top rank! - What do we do...? Our guild leader seems terrified to come out. Maybe he\'s been too hurt, and his mind has gone... - Oppa. It\'s me, Lee Hayul. Sorry. I should have noticed when you asked for an absolutely impenetrable security system from outside. I regret it deeply. - We messed up, Doctor Jang. Sorry. So please, can you smile like you used to once again? Please? Chills ran down my spine. It was pure terror. ------------------

I sincerely confess that in recent centuries, I have never been as terrified of an anomaly as I am now. It was more frightening than the underworld itself.

I muttered seriously,

“Is it a suicide cult?”

“Oh. That’s a brilliant idea. I’d like to say, ‘Please go ahead and commit suicide now,’ but can you guarantee that the Salvation Syndrome won’t occur in the next turn? Each time this anomaly appears, would you just commit suicide…?”

“Cowardly facing the facts.”

“Please come up with some kind of plan. I don’t want the current turns I’m living through to be ruined by such a stupid anomaly. Anyway, aren’t you an expert on anomalies…?”

Bam! The steel door shook like a scroll.

I urgently asked, “Chief Commander, what about this?”

“Try anything you damn well please…”

“In fact, I’m going to set it up as if I helped those people because I had malicious intentions and ulterior motives. In other words, I approached them with sinister intent. If it becomes clear that what they thought was ‘salvation’ was just a delusion and was actually driven by my selfish desires, the premise of the Salvation Syndrome itself will be destroyed. How about that? It just came to me on the spot, but isn’t it perfect?”

“Don’t, you asshole…”

“…?”

“Just, if you’re going to do something, don’t. Damn it. Do you want the Korean Peninsula to go to hell? You said ‘try anything,’ and you’re just babbling anything, you crazy bastard…”

If this were turn 555, in other words, if this were the turn where I first encountered Web novels and entered the world of novels, I might have been able to analyze the current situation coldly.

…Originally starting as the ‘Salvation Syndrome,’ this anomaly made those around me feel guilty by suddenly doing strange things that ‘he didn’t used to do.’ Taking refuge in Noh Doha’s secret bunker was the worst move.

The plot trigger ‘the protagonist with mental scars stuck in a small room’ intensified the guilt of those around me, and the ‘salvation’ narrative eventually deteriorated into a genre of ‘regret, obsession, and degradation.’

If I had chosen ‘suicide’ at this point, it would have been even worse.

Perhaps this anomaly, surpassing even my regression ability, might have developed into a storyline of maximum guilt, where ‘the protagonist died sacrificing himself for us,’ drifting my life into the genre of degradation, unable to be overcome even with regression…

In short, the true identity of this anomaly was not the ‘Salvation Syndrome.’

‘Cliché.’

That was the true identity of the anomaly.

Genre literature had settled into clichés, avoiding them and twisting them had become clichés themselves.

Even causing a disturbance to change the Salvation narrative was more difficult than I originally thought.

Fortunately, thanks to Noh Doha preventing suicide, I was able to avoid the worst bad ending.

‘What should I do? Is making me a pathetic person of any use? But that doesn’t mean I can really kill an innocent person or commit evil deeds.’

By the way, I said that the situation would improve even if I really “committed evil deeds.” It’s a plot development in a fief.

‘What should I do now?’

Kwaaang!

Finally, the steel door was crushed. Through the gap in the unperceived dimension, faces I knew reached out.

“Teacher.”

“Hyung-nim.”

“Guild leader…”

“Oppa.”

“Doctor Jang.”

Noh Doha was terrified.

“Please do something quickly. Don’t just talk nonsense about a solution…”

“Ah.”

At that moment, a lightning-fast inspiration struck my brain.

It was a stroke of luck.

Something that the protagonist of the Salvation narrative would never do. Not only that, but something that had not been established in any work in the world, and therefore could never be considered a cliché.

Not even giving the impression of ‘suddenly changing as a person’ to those around me, inherently disliked… One of the characteristics I had cherished for a long time.

Like a miracle, that one ‘strategy’ was given to me alone.

Snap!

As the steel door crumpled completely, the exit was wide open.

People approached in a movement reminiscent of a zombie horde. Yes. Even the last bastion of the Korean Peninsula, the underground bunker of the National Highway Administration, had fallen.

Even so, I did not retreat. Like Jangpanpa’s equipment, I stood tall before those Salvation zombies.

[PR/N: Battle of Jangpanpa from Romance of Three Kingdoms, bro’s a HUGE fan.]

And I charged.

“Who’s going to talk about [The Romance of the Three Kingdoms] with me?”

Thud.

The salvation zombies hesitated.

“If Wei Yan’s strategy of the Jiao Guo was accepted by Zhuge Liang? If Ma Su hadn’t climbed the mountain? If Liu Bei hadn’t been defeated at Yiling?”

“…”

“Was Jiang Wei’s Northern Campaign truly justified? Was Liu Shan really a foolish ruler? Surely, no one here is defending Cao Cao, right? The massacre of Xuzhou is an unforgivable crime!”

“…”

Hesitation. Hesitation.

The salvation zombies took steps away from me. My eyes widened.

It worked! It really worked!

I shouted even louder and advanced towards the salvation zombies.

“Come on! The Shu Han alone is the Ji Han, the rightful successor of the Han Dynasty! Wei fans are psychos, and my brother is just a mentally disturbed attention seeker!”

“…”

“Cao Cao killed his father and massacred the people of Xuzhou, but he actually coveted the widow in Wan and caused the death of his own son! What hypocrisy is this! With that, Cao Pi, an unprecedented sociopath, ascended to the throne, bringing tragedy upon us! Cao Cao, he is the enemy of the world and should be struck with a stone! Tang Seorin!”

“Uh, uh?”

“Let’s talk about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms!”

“…Sorry. Something big came up in our guild. Actually, I came here to see the Chief Commander. But you seem busy. I’ll come later.”

“Yohwa!”

“Yes, yes?”

“Do you want to talk about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms?”

“–Sorry, Senior! I have a basketball appointment with the kids later! I’ll go first!”

“Hayul! Seo Gyu! Aryeon! You guys like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, too, right? This weekend, let’s go to Gisan and find out why Ma Su wanted to climb the mountain, and enjoy a historical exploration of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms!”

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Whoosh. Starting with Sim Aryeon’s scream, famous since turn 1 for its scream-filled vibe, the salvation zombies fled.

The anomaly of the Salvation narrative was vanquished.

Only Noh Doha and I were left in the meeting room.

“…”

“…”

I looked back at Noh Doha.

His expression was, well, what is this? It was a face that defied description in any language.

Pitiful. Relieved. Contemptuous. Annoyed. Incredulous. Pitying. Annoyed. Pitiable. Hateful.

A combination of very subtle and mysterious emotions that could only be conveyed to others if I mastered hyper-realistic painting and drew it for them, Noh Doha looked at me.

“…Chief Commander.”

“Yes…”

“Would you like to talk about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with me?”

Silence.

Noh Doha chewed on his lips.

“…Alright. Whatever.”

“…”

“I’ll go along with it…”

To be honest, that answer hurt more than anything else. The end.

Epilogue.

“—That incident happened in turn 126. Chief Commander Noh Doha. So, whenever I get the chance, I bring up the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It’s not because my taste has aged, but as a preventive measure to protect the peace of the Korean Peninsula and the safety of the world, I keep bringing up Three Kingdoms bait whenever I get the chance. That’s how we can stop the Salvation Syndrome. What do you think? Will you appreciate this noble spirit of sacrifice of mine?”

“Bullshit.”

– Savior A. End.