Chapter 2: High Effort Low Product

"Writing Tip 101: Write your story somewhere else where everything is constantly being auto-saved, and then copy-paste it to wherever you want to publish it."

So it turns out that saving drafts often is a thing that you need to do in ScribbleHub. I wrote a lot of paragraphs and went off-tangents a couple of times for this story, but that all got deleted because I didn't save it.

...

"Avoid starting something you are not going to finish." (Fuck me, I should have listened to this sentence in my first iteration. I did everything from the first chapter in one attempt after writing for about an entire hour. I did the same to this chapter, so why didn't it work out this time? Ugh...)

After reading Korean novels such as Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, I was interested in making a scenario of my own. The writer of ORV wrote something they were familiar with; Korean geology, culture, history, and fables. Later on, this expands to other countries' mythologies as well.

I know few to nothing about Asian history, but I did learn the general gist of European history, in which Germany was part of. I searched the population of Germany in the past, only to find out that the records were incomplete because of territorial changes and incomplete data. So I had a thought: "What if I were to copy each state from different years in the earliest 20th century, and paste them into a sandbox world?"

That's exactly what I did: I wrote down the earliest records of the population of each state and its year, and expanded "the world" as is. Among others, I had enabled duplicate entities, which means that if someone was alive in State A in Year M, then that very same person might also exist in State B, because State B was copied from Year N.

"The world" was set such that nothing but a fog exists outside the borders of Germany. It's the very same fog as the one in Pokémon the Movie: The Rise of Darkrai, where any attempt to leave the country would just result in looping back to the starting point.

The people in this sandbox world would have to to expand the borders by completing missions such as "kill monsters", "find artefacts", and "survive certain days". However, despite having two "quirks" in this "idea-which-I-wanted-to-become-a-project", I was not satisfied. It was not enough to copy-paste a country and give them missions.

As a third quirk, I added NPCs into the world, resembling soldiers, to surpress the inevitable chaos that would follow after the initial paste. Whenever I think of fiction, I am more of a "brute-force my way out" of person, and I didn't care about how others thought about me using fictional NPCs to surpress fictional people. This was all in my head anyway, and no physical harm was done in the end. At worst, I would offend people who can read my mind, but I have never encountered one, so if they exist, then they are probably not bothered by my thoughts anyway.

...

You would think that having three quirks would be enough for my "project", but it wasn't. The second quirk involved spawning monsters from the borders -the fog- of the country, be it from the land, sea, or sky. Even though I planned to spawn NPC soldiers, I felt as if that was not enough. The NPCs are only measures to surpress the chaos, but they needed someone to lead them for the incoming monster waves. Thus, I made the fourth and final quirk: Four "Super NPCs" that are supposed to lead and reign over the country. To top it off, I gave them two superpowers each.

I made four Super NPCs because I didn't think a single Super NPC would be able to manage surpressing all states. (Especially since the normal NPC soldiers number in hundreds only, but let's be honest here: The real reason is because I got inspired by whatever people in the past did to fuck up Berlin.)

Frankly, I never thought for even a moment about having the pre-existing order to continue functioning as is, since I expected for them to also fall into a state of chaos after the initial paste.

I had initially only remembered one of the Super NPCs, which I had my own gripe with. It was someone with the ability of necromancy (the art of controlling the dead) and the ability of resurrection (the ability to bring someone back from the dead). I frankly don't remember where I was going with this idea.

Did I mean to have this Super NPC spread a philosophy where "alive citizens are privileged people while dead corpses are mindless slaves" or something? For the record, this might have actually been the case. I have a clear distinction where undead people have no ego and individuality, and I vaguely remember wanting this Super NPC to be involved with religion. Though, that kind of thought seems lame to the present me.

Around this point in the original "chapter", I found a note regarding the other Super NPCs:

• "Someone who can make their allies go berserk (thereby temporarily enhancing their physical strength in exchange for their rationality) and can curse their foes to weaken their mental and physical strength."
• "Someone who can mend the flesh to disguise their own allies, and bend the blood of their foes to control them like a puppet."
• "Someone who can brainwash and control memories of anyone."

...damn, I sure did have a good taste at making villains. There are less than a handful of stories I know where someone with any of these ability is a "good guy"; there is no way this project won't end in tragedy.

You are reading story Rambling Zone at novel35.com

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Up to this point, I have been trying to repeat writing the words I have written in the original version. You probably wouldn't notice it since this is your first time reading this "chapter" (well, actually, you might notice it since I have been less upfront with my flow of thoughts), but every paragraph I wrote has been demotivating me ever so slightly.

I hate repeating things I have already written and thought about. The content of this iteration isn't even the same; some paragraphs were obviously forgotten while some paragraphs (e.g. the reason why I made four Super NPCs and my thoughts on the pre-existing order) are new content that I wrote because of the altered structure of this "chapter" made me think about the stuff I didn't think about in the original version.

Hah... Hah... Hah... With that frustration out of the way, let's just continue. I want to end this "chapter" as soon as possible. Heck, I am just talking about my failures anyway. Why do I even need want to do this? "...because you wanted to vent your frustration about your past creations, no?"

...sigh. Where was I? Copy-paste Germany. Introduce game system. Add NPC soldiers and Super NPC with broken and incohesive abilities. Right. Super NPCs. I can talk a bit more about them before ending this "chapter".

...

...

I think I meant to have the one controlling the dead act as a pope. I don't like the thought of an individual holding the power of controlling life and death though, but I don't plan whatever I thought in the past either. Maybe a future me will do it, but not the present me.

"Future me"... Heh, what a stupid thought. In the end, it is just a "me" that has forgotten about "who I am now"; someone who has "matured" and only "remembers" my words.

...

The one who can make others go berserk and curse others to weaken them is probably meant to be a shaman, which is frankly an odd thought. If I recall correctly, then I should have had an image where all Super NPCs are wearing whatever generals and nobles wear from faux-medieval "reincarnated as a villain/villainess" manhwas. The thought of one of those people being a shaman, who usually wears tribal clothing is... an odd one, to say the least. (...? Is the "current me" less adapted to breaking expectations?)

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Fleshmending and bloodbending. Brainwashing and manipulating memories. Writing down these words, I am starting to think that -despite giving these powers to leaders of the NPC soldiers- the Super NPCs were never meant to be "the good guys". Perhaps I should have paid more attention to their names. "Super NPCs". Non-Playable Characters. They were never meant to be the protagonists. This world is meant to be a sandbox where stories such as World of Cage can reside in; a sandbox world where "players" can fulfill missions and explore the limited world that is this mess of a copy-pasted country.

...

I don't remember what expectations I had for the fleshmender, but I definitely thought of the brainwasher as someone who controls their territory with an iron fist. I think they are supposed to perfectly counter espionage by brainwashing any spies from whatever resistance resides in their territory.

...

Welp. That is it. I don't think I can talk about anything else because I don't remember anything else. This is a shitty chapter if I say so myself. I don't know why you're still reading this paragraph. Maybe you want to mock me. Maybe you want to read about how someone else's life is doing worse than yours and feel good about yourself. Whatever it is, I currently don't believe any "good person" would be reading this... whatever this is.

Thank you, and goodbye. I'll see you in the next "chapter".

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