[Enter scene: Reader and Actors 1-5 to the Stage]
Tsk~ almost forgot I'm still in Manhattan, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. There should be an enormous amount of people here right now. I must've looked crazy falling down and somehow surviving, so of course I knew people would look. This is a bit much though, the area is densely populated by people and they all have the start screen in front of them, they should have much more in their minds than just—
"Someone said you had a pretty big fall there, they said you even hit your head on the powerlines, I didn't see it but it must've been pretty bad.
"Don't worry about me, it must've broken my fall or something, but I guess I do have a bit of a headache now."
"Well good for you, god certainly has his favorites! Not even a single scratch on your body!"
[Hearing this, Reader lets out a little chuckle]
"Yeah, I guess he does…"
[Reader snaps back to reality, and he looks up to see the audience still in the moment, with their pupils dilated, Reader feeling threatened freezes up by instinct. One by one the audience loses their rush, they take back their gaze, and their shoulders relax. Seeing this Reader tries to relax too, but alas he can't get a moment's rest]
I know the book said people would whisper, but what are they talking about?
["Who is that?"]
"Yo, did you see that head was just blown up?"
["Broke his fall, broke his entire head as well…"]
"Forget his head his entire body was split in half, did you see that?"
[Ask him if he has anything to do with the screen in front of us]
"This must be a government experiment or something…"
[Ok- ok-, I'll go ask him…]
Hmm? Was there something I missed in the book? It probably has to do something with those empty spaces in the book, I swear to god when I see that damn author—
"Soo~,"
"Yeah?"
"Ack—, actually nevermind."
"Yes, I do know something about the stuff in front of you"
The book just leaves an empty space after this part so I just have no fucking clue.
"Go ahead and ask me whatever you want."
I'm just going to have to improvise this part.
"I see,"
"I just fell off the building behind me, just wait here for a few minutes."
There's no way that line worked, did it? Whatever...
It's fine, there should be about ten minutes until the first scenario starts. I remember back in the past when I tried to convince other people of the future, however it would always fail miserably,
"Yes, yes! That's correct!"
"And to prove this, you said the wind pushes your papers sometimes?"
"Well— yeah, that's right!"
"You're crazy."
And I absolutely can't forget what almost got me fired from my archeology job:
"It sounds crazy but you know they loved cats!"
"And because of that, the Egyptians had a cat for a pyramid?"
"Well, When you put it like that—"
"You're crazy."
The damn author only chose to play crazy tricks around me, ~well, whatever, his books saved me anyway. The possibilities of death were so numerous, that it was mentioned on every page,
[In the heat of battle he tried to catch his breath, the result was tanking a blow that reduced him into thousands of bits effectively killing him]
[flayed the captured alive, and left them out on the streets]
[tortured to gain information, but he later died of blood loss]
[they looked to his partner for information but he died of shock]
[disagreeing on virtually everything, it was only natural for them to have a territorial dispute]
[the two subspecies couldn't stand each other and so they disputed]
[questioning the fairness of the situation they disputed]
[alas, not even the system can escape the dispute]
There seemed to be a lot of disputes…
However, one of the worst conflicts was "The Low Human Incident."
The amount of pain caused during the incident is gut-wrenching, I can't—
[An impatient random disrupts the Readers train of thought]
"I think it's been more than a few minutes,"
Shit, I let my mind wander for a sec, I have nothing to say…
[The public speaks out their frustration.]
"The timer says it's at 3 minutes now!"
"Should I click yes or no?
"Hurry up and tell us!"
These people have no patience.
"Is this a government experiment?"
[A side conversation appears between two single travelers.]
"Idiot use your head, there's no more conflict, so what would they experiment for?"
"You don't need to experiment just for conflict, dumbass!"
[The Reader manages to get them under control, but their bickering resumes in whispers..]
"Alright! Everyone, just a few moments please!"
I guess I'll have to get this under control somehow, it might be a bit hard because of the population size, but it should be fine, I plan to save every single person again.
You read that correctly. Again, a second time.
Truthfully, I saved everyone here. That's right. All conflicts ended a while ago. When I started college, everyone realized democracy was the best form of government, and people slowly started realizing everyone needed to be unified.
Throughout the next few years, with the help of a few other historians including me, and some politicians, we formed deals, contracts, and even stopped a few wars. However, there were still some stubborn ones in the pack, we had to sort them out through espionage work, resulting in documents I had to edit, remove, and publish. While working I had to choose which side I would have to write for. Through many sleepless nights and hard work, we finally succeeded, unifying all countries and lands under the UN. From this, we went on dissolving unjust laws and treated each country as if it were a state in a bigger organization, which it was.
As the newest and highest layer of government, the International Court made laws that everyone was required to follow, and states would have to abide by, with little flexibility that they could change. My colleagues were regarded as heroes, doing something as grand as solving all conflicts. The once naive thought of saving the world was now turned into a reality. I never got any credit though, since I was the smartest and most trusted I had to do all the dirty work, never revealing myself because I or the world's biggest nations could be in danger. Of course, I knew I wasn't getting any credit, but shouldn't they at least give compensation for my work?
Me, Yulihan Yeogsaga, the one who worked the hardest for humanity, didn't.
The reasoning? Anything could be traced back to me, so they did nothing. To protect my identity was the excuse, but I knew it was to erase the dark parts of the past. They gave me a new identity and downgraded me to a simple bachelor's degree in history. Completely stripping me away from previous accomplishments, leaving me to work a few odd jobs. Then I saw an opening, for an archeologist, another government job, and it's the same one where my old colleagues worked, so I figured why not and applied for it. I was accepted and welcomed warmly by my old friends, I thought my life would return to normal.
Unknown to me, many politicians hated me, because the espionage works I wrote and carried out were often sometimes in their territory. They made my life a living hell, they paid management just to separate me from my colleagues, paid people to just give me a rough day, and they only let me work on a few projects, sometimes by myself just to keep me overworked. The few times I saw my friends were nice but were short-lived, history was solved, and nothing to be discovered in archeology anymore. So I was fired. My next job was history teacher, but I absolutely hate kids so it wasn't going to work. And then I ended at my last job, a journalist company called Uncharted Futures. Everyone knew they had shitty lives, and they weren't afraid to voice it out to each other. Except for my boss, who let me stay over for my 2 weeks' notice, and a few others.
People like them make me happy I saved the world, sometimes it is my only source of pride, and that is 100 percent why I can't let the Star System take them out. World peace, achieved by me, I can't believe it's cut short only after four years. It's pissing me off so bad… I will make it to the final scenario no matter the cost, no matter what happens nothing will stop me until it's beaten.
Now to lead these people, they won't believe me if I tell the truth, so I guess a little lie won't hurt.
[Here the Reader walks a few paces to the right,
and steps on top of a bench to better reach the populous.]
- Passive effect: "Defier of Death" is in use -
Let me clear my throat a little, *ahem* now just the loud part, I really hate talking loud, another reason I quit that teacher job.
"Everyone! Listen up! The fall you just saw was a government experiment. It was to make sure systems were up! But definitely do not do that! Do not do what I just did! So for now everyone must click 'Yes' before we figure things out!"
[The populous now alarmed, all click yes, and they go tell their neighbors, But Reader worries the message might take a while for the people in the back, he needn't worry though, it is dead silent, partly from the shock, and partly from their natural desire to listen to a leader.]
[The Reader now pauses for a second to think, his mind spirals towards any reason that the people would think reasonable, he already knows after what they saw they would believe every word, and so he chooses the most concise explanation he could think of: space fluctuations that shake very fabric of reality itself.]
"It's an emergency system put up in secret to not cause the public any panic. The situation is, that an undetected anomaly is causing major gravity fluctuations, the extreme gravity warps time, causing timelines to converge, and causing strange situations. The government does not have everything in control however, and in these times forward, you must only depend on yourself, your friends, and your family when your lives are in danger! There is very little—"
What? Wait, what is that?
[The Reader squits his eyes… "Crap".]
[A crying child covered in dust walks aimlessly,
It only appears for a second then glitches out of view.]
「Planes are heard in the distance… It comes in close frightening the young ones,
Some expect them to become
quieter as they pass by,
but it never did.」
Crap. I didn't think it'd be so soon, has the time changed?
_________________________________
Attention participants!
ONE MINUTE REMAINING
make your choices now,
this will directly affect your lives later.
_________________________________
This wasn't in the book though, how could this be right?
[The populous hearing the message play out in their heads, are understandably afraid,
but they are already at the shore, and with ships in the distance,
they take a breath of relief, knowing help is here. The Reader succeeds, saving everyone but one person: survivors: 6 million, casualties: 1.]
That's how it should go…
"Did you hear that?"
"But it never did?"
"Stay close kids,"
"How could I not hear that?"
"Did you see that crying kid over there?"
"Everyone change of plans, it's going faster than expected, so when you see the next screen, just click the x and walk to the shore! Now!"
[The crowd is extremely agitated]
But, this shouldn't be happening in the first place, it must be a thing from the future, but that must mean the book is wrong, or it must also mean someone is against me. Why would anybody have anything against me anymore? Even my identity was changed…
[Please wait…]
[Rewriting memories…]
There are six million people in Manhattan in this time period, and that number will go up another hundred thousand when npcs spawn in, six million people, normally there have been at most a hundred thousand here, but for some reason, the population skyrocketed to 897 billion by 2034, and adding to the fire, only a quarter of the people were supposed to click yes, but I had already told all of them to accept it. This is bad, people will get trampled, and the destruction would only allow for at most 100k to survive…
I believe the books so much, because of the [Prelude], it was too big to contain it in my small bedroom-sized office, and it was too big even for the public library I worked in. Its length,
[7 million and 2034 years]
That's right, from the beginning of the human race…
Homo sapiens, to modern day. Not just the major parts of history as well, every single thing that happened, was recorded. It had sub-sections upon sub-sections upon sub-sections.
It recorded every trade on the Silk Road, it filled about every major gap scholars ripped their hair about, and even every thought people had in their daily lives. It helped me in all my jobs tremendously, it felt as though it was only for me, to read countless stories, and go through the highs and lows with every human. The [Acts] and I have sort of become similar, like looking through a mirror. It showed me everything, from ways to unite the world, to writing interesting scoops for journalism. In a sense, I was never truly overworked, the books always saved me when I had an impossible task. Unfortunately, no matter how badly I feared it, the [Prelude] would have to end, because all major events were done, history was solved, society was solved, and nothing major would ever happen again.
But the story must continue, and so they had a [Rehearsal], where all the actors read the [Script], except it was only me, and only I read the [Script]. I was the lone actor.
I was the only one who knew how to reach
[ ].