Chapter 13 — Ah, Madness… My Old Friend
Since it was already late, I went there the next day.
Today, I stood in front of the same waterfall as always, with Piai beside me. We passed by Doldoli’s grave—the grave we had buried him in yesterday while wiping away our tears.
Today, I was extremely serious.
There was an incredible fact that my friend had taught me with his life, and I needed to confirm it properly.
“It really is true, right?”
Piai spoke carefully, looking a little nervous.
I wanted to confidently say that it was true, but I still wasn’t sure whether the emotions I felt inside the game were actually my own emotions. So I couldn’t simply say yes.
Once today’s test was over, I would have to tell the company. This thing called Mental Power seemed to affect the player himself, so they needed to fix it or remove it as soon as possible.
“We won’t know until we try, right?”
“Hmm. So I just watch you until you really go berserk, then hold you down?”
“Yeah! It might work even better if you call me while putting lots of emotion into it!”
“That’s noisy. But how are you even supposed to go berserk? Is it really that easy?”
“Well…”
I guess we would find out by trying.
I had plenty of things to do already, so I couldn’t waste any more time on this. Even if I didn’t know how to do it, I had to make it work.
There really was a lot to do.
I had to convince Modak about whether I could transfer into the body of that disgusting wolf I was able to summon. I also needed to gather materials for weapons and armor and find a place to build a home.
“No matter what I do, don’t talk to me.”
“Okay.”
Her expression clearly didn’t say okay, but since she had agreed, I decided to go wild.
It probably wasn’t good to concentrate too much, so I tried to lose myself a little and act wildly.
And then…
Honestly, I don’t even know how to describe what I did.
The only thing I can say is that, from the corner of my vision, I occasionally saw Piai looking at me with pure contempt.
“Heeheeheehee! I’m going crazy! What! What the hell am I supposed to do?! Damn this stupid game! Is it really okay to treat a person like this?! Aaaaaah! Bring out the president!!!”
I was confident I could keep doing this for hours if it meant getting a new result.
But even so, improvising like this was getting harder and harder.
Do I really need to take acting lessons somewhere?
More importantly, I had absolutely no idea what this game’s definition of madness was.
I had simply been desperate. But they had arbitrarily decided that my desperate behavior was madness and had affected my emotions because of it.
Thinking about it that way, perhaps I hadn’t been completely normal even before the wolf battle.
I wasn’t sure, but maybe coming up with the idea of taking a shower in monster blood, like that Báthory-whatever lady, had been the real problem.
Hmm…
Come to think of it, I had done quite a lot of cruel things.
I believed they were necessary for living as a primitive human, though.
“Yeah, yeah. I think so too.”
“Huh?”
A pure-white version of myself appeared in front of me with an annoyed expression and started complaining.
A white version of me.
It felt like his colors had been completely inverted. He also seemed slightly sharper than me.
Hmm…
This wasn’t exactly an exciting event.
This kind of thing had been popular more than twenty years ago. Experiencing something like this now felt a little outdated.
If I had experienced an event like this when I was around fourteen, I probably would have shouted Hurray! three times, grabbed the hand of the friend standing in front of me, and cried tears of emotion.
But now…
Wasn’t the whole “Another me!” or “My dark side!” thing a little behind the times?
Besides, what was I even supposed to say to this guy?
Everything that came to mind sounded embarrassingly childish.
Even if I said something I thought wasn’t childish, I’d probably turn bright red with embarrassment when I remembered it later.
“Hello?”
Should I greet him?
Ah, no.
That sounded like, “Yeah, I’m totally relaxed right now. Your existence? Oh, it means absolutely nothing to me~.”
I couldn’t explain why, but it felt wrong.
“Get lost.”
Should I insult him?
No.
That sounded like I was trying too hard to act tough.
This guy had probably appeared in front of me after struggling for a long time, so telling him to get lost while pretending to be cool didn’t feel right either.
“Ah! Nice to meet you. My name is Kim In-gwang, and I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”
Hmm…
That might be the safest option.
If I entered the conversation by declaring that I had come for some business-related matter, this guy might respond with something like, “Oh… okay.”
After all, he was another me.
“Are you greeting me, insulting me, or saying you have business with me? Can’t you just choose one?”
“Did I say all of those out loud?”
Oh, God!
I had always thought accidentally saying your thoughts out loud was something that only happened in comics.
What a terrible mistake!
“Ahem! No, I didn’t! I’m going to do all of them! I’m not going to choose just one! Don’t interfere with my free will! I have the freedom to choose!”
“Wow. You’re crazier than I expected.”
“Excuse me? When have you ever seen me before to call me a crazy person? You shouldn’t casually insult people like that!”
Even I found myself disgusting.
Yep.
That’s definitely me.
I always calmly did crazy things that went beyond even my imagination.
There was absolutely nothing admirable about it.
“Enough nonsense. Let’s get to the point.”
“Ugh, don’t lower your voice using my face…”
“I don’t want to!”
It was embarrassing.
But at the same time, the way he confidently refused really captured the behavior I had shown throughout this game.
Right.
This AI had been created based on everything I had done until now, right?
What the hell was this insane level of quality?
Super Real… What kind of path did you people walk to make something like this?!
“I have a proposal for you.”
“From now on, don’t try to suppress yourself.”
“Stay away from that woman who has such a huge influence on you.”
“If you do that, I’ll give you enough power to easily defeat even that ox-headed bastard.”
“…What? Is that all?”
“Is this one of those ‘take my hand and I’ll give you half the world’ things?”
“Hey, do you know how old that cliché is?”
“We’re living in an era where Demon Kings and Heroes are dating now.”
“You think I’m joking?”
Black energy burst from his body and wrapped tightly around mine.
Status-effect windows appeared one after another.
The power was so strong that even Indomitable Spirit activated.
But then I thought about the fact that the power inside me was supposedly madness.
Was this really what madness looked like?
Seriously.
He was supposed to be another version of me.
So why didn’t he resemble me at all?
Am I really that violent?
Me?
I’m like that?
Hah!
What a joke.
“Still think I’m joking?”
“Haa…”
“This guy…”
“This is exactly what they call fake madness.”
“What?”
