Chapter 113: Secrets that may be hidden in the world
ㅤFirst, I want to hear your opinion.
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ㅤ――In games, dungeons that overuse teleportation are boring.
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ㅤSince you can’t predict beforehand where each teleportation leads, players have no choice but to jump in blindly.
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ㅤThis is already a pretty boring mechanic, but there’s also the struggle after you jump in.
ㅤIf you immediately end up on the correct route, you’ll wonder if there was a treasure chest on the other path and want to go back. And if you go back and take the wrong path, it often turns out to be a dead end where only monsters spawn.
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ㅤFurthermore, maps become completely useless.
ㅤMaps that show teleportation routes are rare in games. In most cases, you don’t know where each teleportation leads, even after you’ve completed the map.
ㅤEven strategy guides just use symbols like G and G’, which is extremely unhelpful.
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ㅤIt’s the worst when there’s a single hidden room tucked away in the corner of the map.
ㅤUnlike maze-type games where you fill in squares, in a normal 3D map, if you miss an isolated area connected only by teleportation, you won’t even realize you’ve missed it. And of course, those are the places where they often put slightly important items that you can’t get anywhere else.
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ㅤIt’s difficult to grasp the connections of teleporters, including one-way ones, just by feeling.
ㅤIf you hate missing things, you’ll have no choice but to keep a notepad handy and create your own map separate from the game.
ㅤOr, you can open the internet and refer to a map that someone has uploaded to a strategy wiki.
ㅤEither way, it completely ruins the immersion in the game.
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ㅤBut on the other hand, there’s no easier map to create for developers.
ㅤWith a normal map, you have to create routes that fit within a limited space, but with a teleportation map, there are almost no restrictions. You can just create random islands and connect them forcibly with warp gates.
ㅤMoreover, maps with teleportation devices are usually ancient ruins of super civilizations, so you can just give them a futuristic and simple design.
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ㅤAs a result, you end up with a completely uninteresting dungeon where players are forced to navigate through maps with unchanging scenery, with no idea where they are, how far they’ve progressed overall, and constantly irritated by warps that send them to unknown locations.
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ㅤOn top of that, the situation is made even worse by the various switches that the designer has thoughtfully placed, the effects of which cannot be predicted beforehand.
ㅤA switch that changes the warp destination? You have to go there once before flipping the switch to confirm it’s a dead end, so there’s no excitement like “Which one is the right way?”. Players have no choice but to check all the branches. And it’s the worst if the warp gate is one-way. You’ll end up having to go all the way back just to see what was on the other side.
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ㅤ――Warp maps are the cancer of RPGs.
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ㅤThat’s my theory.
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ㅤ”But, this time it saved us.”
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ㅤThanks to the complex warp structure where we don’t even know where we are, there’s no sign of Grunblin catching up to us.
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ㅤAnd, what’s more――
ㅤMy minimap properly records the rooms and passages we’ve been through.
ㅤNot only that, it also displays to some extent other passages and rooms that are close to the places we’ve passed.
ㅤMoreover, it shows with arrows where each teleportation formation leads to （So far, all the teleportation formations we’ve passed through seem to be one-way）.
ㅤIt was one of the most excellent minimaps I’ve ever seen in any game I’ve played. Well, this isn’t a game, though.
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ㅤ”And the monsters weren’t that strong either…”
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ㅤI saw a few Abyss Worms, but they were much smaller than the named one on the sixteenth floor of the Loft dungeon.
ㅤThere were also monsters I’d never seen before, like a flock of Hippogriffs, a Brainless Chimera, and an Insane Ogre, but thanks to Beginner Mode, I was able to defeat them without any problems.
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ㅤ……By the way, Beginner Mode works on most monsters, but it’s inconsistent when it comes to humans.
ㅤIt worked on Latifa-san, but not on Cretias.
ㅤBut, in terms of sheer strength, the named Abyss Worm should have been stronger than Cretias before he awakened, and even Bearnov would probably be a good match for Cretias before he awakened in a one-on-one fight.
ㅤAnd yet, Difficulty Change worked on the named Abyss Worm and Bearnov, but not on Cretias.
ㅤIncidentally, I don’t think it worked on Oceanus and Kraken that we fought in the sea either.
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ㅤ（I thought it simply didn’t work on opponents above a certain strength, but maybe that’s not the case）
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ㅤAll I can say for sure is that Difficulty Change definitely works on the monsters we encounter inside the dungeon, for now.
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ㅤI stopped thinking and called out to Arsh-san, who was sitting with her back against the wall.
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ㅤ”Have you calmed down?”
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ㅤ”Y-Yes.”
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ㅤ”Let’s drop the honorifics while we’re at it. We look about the same age.”
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ㅤ”I was born about sixteen years ago, so I think our actual ages are about the same.”
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ㅤ”Huh? What about the story of the Demon King being reincarnated?”
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ㅤ”That’s supposed to be the case… but the Demon King’s consciousness hasn’t awakened yet. I can tell that the power is there. However, I don’t know how to use it.”
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ㅤ”Honorifics, honorifics.”
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ㅤ”Ah, I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry. No, that’s not right… Um… S-Sorry?”
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ㅤ”Why the question mark? You’re the Demon King, so shouldn’t you be speaking casually to the Four Heavenly Demon Generals?”
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ㅤ”I can’t speak disrespectfully to my elder and long-serving vassals… I mean, I can’t… yeah.”
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ㅤ”You were being considerate. Despite that, Grunblin called you her food or something.”
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ㅤ”She meant that she would take my power and become the Demon King herself… I mean, uh… right?”
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ㅤ”What about the other Four Heavenly Demon Generals? There are two more, right?”
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ㅤ”Y-Yeah. Hamilton the Steadfast and Boroneal the Schemer.
ㅤHamilton-san has sworn absolute loyalty to the Demon King, so he will also be loyal to me, the Demon King’s reincarnation.
ㅤBoroneal-san… I’m not really sure. To be honest, he doesn’t seem as passionate about the Demon’s mission as the other Demons, he has a rather detached attitude.”
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ㅤ”If we report this incident with Grunblin to Hamilton, do you think he’ll protect you, Arsh?”
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ㅤ”Yeah, probably. But… what Hamilton-san wants is the Demon King who’s supposed to be sleeping inside me.”
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ㅤ”Even if it means the current Arsh will disappear when the Demon King awakens, Hamilton is on the Demon King’s side, huh?”
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ㅤ”I don’t know what Boroneal-san is thinking. He doesn’t seem to be plotting anything like Imusoda-san, but he’s keeping his distance from both Hamilton-san and Grunblin-san.
ㅤBut, he’s also the only one among the Four Heavenly Demon Generals who will actually talk to me, who is not the Demon King 『me』.”
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ㅤ”I thought they weren’t a monolithic group, but it’s more than I imagined.”
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ㅤ”Demons――no, the demonic beings who were spiritual life forms dwelling in the Netherworld have a strong attachment to their self-identity. In the Netherworld, even a little bit of empathy with others can blur the boundaries between self and others, and there’s a risk of one being absorbed by the other. The physical bodies of earthlings are cages that confine the spirit, but they are also armor that protects the spirit, whose boundaries are essentially vague.
ㅤThat’s why the Demons want to regain their stolen bodies. They’ve had enough of being in the unstable Netherworld, not knowing when they might be swallowed up by another existence.”
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ㅤ”The story was that the Demons were originally on the surface, but their bodies were stolen, and only their spirits were left in the Netherworld, right?”
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ㅤ”We should be able to find out the truth of that if we go to the Demon King’s Museum of All Creation.
ㅤProof of that is that the Museum has emerged from the seabed and has been waiting for people to visit for a long time.”
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ㅤ”Um, the Museum of All Creation is at the center of the Navel of the World, right?
ㅤSo, does that mean the giant whirlpool is being caused by the Museum emerging from the seabed?”
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ㅤ”I can’t think of any other explanation. It’s impossible for a maelstrom like that to occur naturally, right?”
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ㅤ”I don’t… think so.”
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ㅤI don’t know the details of how whirlpools are formed, but I do know that the giant whirlpool of the “Navel” is too big. It’s probably almost the size of a large typhoon.
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ㅤArsh looks at me with her beautiful, light blue eyes.
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ㅤ”When I saw the teleportation formations in this dungeon, I thought, this is the ruin where the means of transportation to the Museum of All Creation lies dormant.”
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ㅤ”I see. So the ancient Demons used teleportation formations to go to and from the Museum of All Creation.”
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ㅤ”Yes. But, because this place was so hard to find, the Museum decided to create a whirlpool to reveal itself from the seabed. However, because of that whirlpool, no one was able to head towards the Museum, which should have been exposed on the surface.”
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ㅤ”I didn’t ask how long the whirlpool has been there, but it must have been there for a long time, right?”
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ㅤ”I think something very important has been forgotten for such a long time. If the Demons try to take over the surface by possessing the bodies of earthlings without knowing that, it will surely lead to something irreversible.”
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ㅤArsh stops there and looks directly at me.
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ㅤBeing stared at by a girl with the same face as me, I almost lose my sense of reality.
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ㅤ”Please, Minato. Take me to the Museum of All Creation. I believe you can do it with your power.”
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ㅤI involuntarily gasped at Arsh’s words.