Otherworld TRPG Game Master

Chapter 2: 30x Grant Increase Event

༺ 30x Grant Increase Event ༻

 After the virtual idol, Heart-chan, achieved an unprecedented success, the state of the Purple Magic Tower Master seems a bit strange. She seemed to have a slight misunderstanding.

 “……”

 She continued to give me a look that said, ‘Are you actually gay?’

 In the entire continent, only the Purple Magic Tower Master knew the identity of the mysterious girl, Heart. Given that the Illusion Magic (a female character) of a self-made man (male) had shaken the continent like a storm, it wasn’t unreasonable to think so.

 But the Purple Magic Tower Master was failing to understand one important truth.

 “Characters and players are clearly separated.”

 “……….?”

 Yep. Indeed, characters and players must be distinguished.

 When playing an RPG game, there may be times when you would become immersed in the character, but you should not become one with the character. What would happen in real life the moment you became one with your character in GTA? Your life would be in shambles.

 The same went for TRPG.

 Just because I played a super beautiful girl in a game didn’t mean I became a super beautiful girl in reality; moreover, a disaster would happen the moment I identified with it. I would get sick of ‘not being able to see the game as a game’.

  ‘GM, my character worked so hard. Even if the dice shows a 1, can’t I still succeed?’

 A level 1 character picked a fight with a dragon, and the dice roll failed hard. What was there even left to do? What could you even do? It’s over.

  ‘GM, so my character is an elf and doesn’t want to sit at the same table with these insignificant humans, you know?! It’s not that I don’t want to play, it’s just that this is what’s correct for my character!’

 Then how would we be supposed to proceed with the session when all the other players chose their race as human?

  ‘………….’

 Did you just stop talking and turn on the Hearthstone¹besides the game, hearthstone is an enchanted stone that can teleport the wielder to the starting location just because your character failed?

 “Urgh.”

 I twisted in pain from the stifling dilemmas, clenching my chest.

 Anyway, characters and players are differentiated, just like the principle that a novelist would not become a furry female character just because he introduced one into his story.

 I manipulated Heart and pulled in the donations sweetly, but it was Heart, the character I created and released, not me, who was doing something like net-begging.

 I like women.

 “Ah, so the scars from your breakup with the Grand Duke of the North are still……?”

 How exactly did she interpret my suffering from that trauma?

 I decided to just ignore the Purple Magic Tower Master, who began to manifest some twisted backstory of a taboo love. After all, misunderstandings were not easy to resolve. If she didn’t believe me whether I spoke or not, the right answer was to just leave it to the heavens and go about my day.

 And that was magic development.

 What magic to create next was already decided.

 Weren’t the three elements of a story said to be characters, events, and settings?

 In the process of implementing the virtual idol Heart, I had completed a thesis called, ‘Realistic Hologram Implementation Using Illusion Magic : Focus On Enhancing Tactile Illusions Through the Immersion of the Caster’.

 Illusion Magic was, after all, just an illusion. Just as a finger being cut off or a person burning in a dream did not cause real harm, no matter how much one was deceived with an illusion, the physical damage was zero. It was a fatal weakness.

 Also, illusions weren’t very effective on superhumans above a certain level. It didn’t work if the magic resistance was high, and it didn’t work well if the will of the caster was strong. If one became a Swordmaster, they could break hypnosis with just their fighting spirit.

 The special hologram I developed compensated for such weaknesses.

 It was a magic that reinforced Illusion Magic by using the will of the target. If the person thought even a little that they ‘want to believe’, it raised that emotion and solidified the illusion.

 Such an enhanced illusion could even reproduce the sense of touch. Even though it was an illusion you could touch it!

 In the development stage, I couldn’t implement a sense of smell due to a lack of resources, but now that it had been revised and supplemented, I could even add smell to the illusion.

Having perfectly implemented a character like this, the next was the setting.

 Land, flowing streams, a rising sun, blowing wind.

 The sunlight breaking through the shaking leaves and the scent of phytoncides²Phytoncides are various volatile organic compounds that are produced by plants, especially trees, to protect themselves from harmful parasites and germs. for example garlic/onion/spices. What if you could feel that as an illusion?

 At that moment, my Otherworld TRPG plan was as good as complete. I was full of ambition.

 I confidently asked the Purple Magic Tower Master.

 “I’m going to lock myself in the room for about 3 years to develop magic, so please prepare three meals a day with meat and don’t bother me with trivial things.”

 “Wha, what kind of rubbish is that…… So, so, 3 years?”

 “The shortest will be about 2 and a half years.”

 “Ex, excuse me… You know there’s a conference early next year, right?”

 “Huh?”

 “The Magic Tower Research Conference… nobles and people dispatched from the royal family visit the Magic Tower in rotation, checking the usage of the grants… We’ve always been criticized, but this year, with you…”

 “Hmm…”

 This was a crisis.

 I had sweetly collected money through Heart, but I didn’t earn a huge fortune because I was conscientious about getting paid. If I had sold my conscience and also wagged my tail a bit, I would have earned enough money to build another Magic Tower, but then my tender heart would have been torn apart along with my masculinity.

 The grant amount was too large to coolly say ‘I’ll earn and use my own money’ if the funding was cut. I needed to secure the budget somehow to cover the research costs…

 A conference, huh?

 I felt like showing the Virtual Idol project would make us burn in popularity, but the day that happened, the Magic Tower might also burn at the same time. According to the Purple Magic Tower Master, who I asked cautiously, the popularity of Heart-chan was beyond imagination.

 Even two years after Heart’s graduation, there are still men looking for her whereabouts, so revealing it is out of the question. What if the girl they were so obsessed with and adored turned out to be the Illusion Magic of a male wizard?!

 They would immediately come rushing to the Purple Magic Tower with pitchforks and gasoline.

 And I didn’t want to research a new Magic of Mass Destruction for the conference either. If I researched such magic which lacked fun and emotion, my soul would just die.

 Hmm.

 I didn’t think long and said,

 “Just trust me.”

 “Re, really? It’s not another… strange thing this time?”

 “Yes. Even the high-ranking people will probably like it.”

 “T-Then I’ll trust and leave it to you… F-Fighting³used in Korean to to cheer on someone and to wish him good luck! I’ll prepare lamb for dinner tonight!”

 The Purple Magic Tower Master ran off cheerfully. Her face, which looked like she had gastritis, brightened up, which was pleasant to see.

 Yes, she should at least feel at ease.

 There was something called a white lie in the world. Could she have smiled brightly if I had told her my true feelings, saying, ‘Upon reflection, I am not the Tower Master. It doesn’t seem to be my business if the budget is insufficient, right? The Tower Master should earn it.’

 At least I didn’t think so.

 I prayed that her mental peace would last a long time. Because then, the meals would be good, after all.

===============================================================

 The Magic Tower Master’s heart, which had become peaceful thanks to my empty promise, gradually raged like a storm as the conference approached.

 One week before the conference.

 Perhaps because she herself said she would ‘trust and leave it to me’, she couldn’t even ask ‘Is everything prepared?’ or ‘How’s it going?’; instead she lingered around me in anxiety.

 Seemingly determined, she began to say ‘T-Talkk to me!’, but then suddenly switched to ‘N-Nevermind….. I just wanted to ask how the stew was today…..’; truly, a smooth advance and retreat. I made a ton of memos because it was crucial real-life material for implementing a socially awkward loser as a character.

 After about three days passed, my compassion surpassed my academic fervor. After witnessing the pitiful sight of her biting her nails like a woodpecker, I decided to finally show her my magic.

 “R-Really…..?!”

 “Yes. I thought it might make you feel better.”

 “That’s just because you’re using your brain in shi…Uh…bizarre directions…….You’re a genius, after all! S-So, you’ve prepared for the conference properly, r-right? That’s why I trust you…….”

 I was touched by the Purple Magic Tower Master’s boundless trust in me.

 Also, her slander about me using my brain in shitty directions was partially fine since she only let out the first syllable, right?

 I made my staff stand up straight, levitating it, before overlapping my hands and spreading them to both sides. 

 I gathered mana. The mana flowing through my body followed a specific law, moving through various parts of my body.

 Delicately. As delicately as forging a blade by carving out water.

 I put my soul into these seemingly pointless movements that converged to perfection and offered it to the world. This was what magic was meant to be.

 “The heavens are indifferent. There is no love in its downwards gaze.”

 “If no one understands my heart, I have no choice but to go beyond the moon alone.”

 “Use my heart as a brush and bloom it under my feet.”

“Scenery of the Crossing Moon – Bound Pillar in the Sky.”

 The world turned upside down with me as the center of axis.

 Moisture rose from beneath my feet, turning into droplets and floating in the air. The dry floor of the drill hall transformed into a calm lake surface in an instant.

 “…..U-Uaaah!”

 The Purple Magic Tower Master floundered, but didn’t sink into the lake. The water droplets only splashed around and the calm lake supported her like jelly.

 Below the clear lake, the heavens were reflected.

 In the clean sky reflected by the lake, a giant pillar, like Sun Wukong’s Ruyi Jingu Bang, floated in the air. Mana threads on the surface of the pillar undulated like jellyfish. It was a beautiful and majestic scene, but the Purple Magic Tower Master shrank in fear from the intense threat she felt.

 Her intuition was right. The mana threads emitted by the pillar were toxic like the tentacles of a jellyfish. After all, once stung, one would lose the ability to resist Illusion Magic.

 It was a background modeling of the setting that granted Mana Resistance Penetration to all Illusion Magic occurring within the occupied space……The extremity of Illusion Magic.

 Hm.

 It was what otakus of yore called a Reality Marble⁴from Fate (Anime, VN) and what modern otakus called a Domain Expansion⁵from Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime, Manga).

 I worked so hard on it. Good job, me. It was a struggle to implement the moisture, the smell of the lake, and even the somewhat oppressive feeling.

 The Purple Magic Tower Master, startled by the impressive effect, looked at me with anticipation and awe in her eyes. She placed one hand on her chest as if trying to calm her heart and took a deep breath.

 Then, she asked cautiously.

 “W-What’s the effect of the spell……?!”

 I answered cautiously as well.

 “Swag.”

 “……Huh?”

 “Coolness.”

 “…….Any other effects besides that?”

 “None, obviously.”

 “Gurgle.”

 The Purple Magic Tower Master fell back, her twintails fluttering.

 She seemed to have been too moved by the declaration of decided awesomeness.

 Hm. I wasn’t thinking of using this for the conference. After all, powerhouses would immediately realize that all there was to the illusion was that it was cool, so pretending it was some killer move wouldn’t work.

 The reason the Purple Magic Tower Mater was fooled was because this wasn’t really her major.

 Obviously, the video I was going to play at the conference was a bit different.

 The point was that I could create some sick visuals. If so, there was no reason not to jump into media industries like film! And what was the genre with the most shares in movies? That’s right, it’s action.

 Action was loved by men and women of all ages.

 And I heard that nobles liked new things.

 Then the answer was obviously……a Heavenly Demon.

 It would be so cool if a Heavenly Demon of Murim used Heavenly Demon Steps and blew up an entire mountain with a Heavenly Demon Death Beam. 

 Wouldn’t everyone love it this time as well?

 ⋯⋯⋯⋯.

 It was a failure of analysis.

 “Do you think you can squander sponsorship money on such a ridiculous, poorly-made illusion? How laughable.”

 “Look at the state of it. What a joke. It seems like he doesn’t even know the word sword in swordsmanship. Why was it swung horizontally? It’s only going to be inconvenient and uncomfortable when trying to concentrate mana, right?”

 “Snicker…….PUHAHAHAHA! What kind of knight would use such an incomplete and lacking technique with poor cost-efficiency?”

 “Did you use some fancy words to make yourself look better? What was it again? Soft, but strong? WAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!”

 In a world where magic existed, it was not strange for a Swordmaster to suddenly emerge among the exploited residents of a fief. What did that mean? It meant that without physical power, it was hard to survive, even if one was a noble.

 Generally, authority and physical force was proportional, Even if they were not, one could have a strong bodyguard by their side. And in the face of the human weapons who had been killing all sorts of people on the battlefield, my Illusion Magic was……

 No different from showing a soccer player ‘How To Dribble Well : Using the back of your heel works well’!

 All I ended up receiving was a shower of insults and curses.

 Only a small boy knight showed a gaze that seemed to say that it wasn’t so bad. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. He was at that age where he would like anything that was flashy and cool, after all…..

 After the doomed conference, the Purple Magic Tower was about 70% of the way to being a house in mourning. It was like a funeral there. 

 “My, my sponsorship money……My sponsORSHIP MONEY……..!!”

 Euk, Gurgle, Kek

 The Purple Magic Tower Master gasped for breath and fainted.

 As I mulled over my defeat with a gloomy face….

 I realized that there was no benefit in being all moody or holding a grudge. It wasn’t like I was going to go all-in on researching Magic of Mass Destruction, right? Basically, now that the character background was over, it was time to set up the server, so to speak.

 I went into my laboratory and quietly closed the door.

 “You, You, you fucking, you f-fucking piece of shit! Are you really thinking of doing that when we’re in this mess-AH!”

 Someone’s harsh curses were heard, but I wanted to believe that it wasn’t the Magic Tower Master……

===============================================================

  Clip. Clop.

 A master and a servant passed through the forest road while riding a carriage.

 A boy carrying a longsword much taller than himself was sitting on the top seat and a middle-aged knight with a beard was holding the reins and driving the carriage. It was quite a strange sight.

 They were talking about the peculiar performance presented by the Purple Magic Tower.

 “It was a laughable magic. The Illusion Magic was flashy and not too bad, but the content was far too childish.”

 “Well……”

 Interestingly, the middle-aged knight was using honorifics while the boy was speaking informally.

 The boy tilted his head and asked the middle-aged knight.

 “Do you really think it was Illusion Magic?”

 “Are you implying it wasn’t Illusion Magic? Sir.”

 “What we saw was indeed an illusion. But the content of the illusion wasn’t fabricated. What did you think about that man’s martial arts?”

 “I thought it was nonsensical. The idea that the earth trembles with just a step is ridiculous and also creating an aura sphere using the tip of the sword…. Isn’t that a concept a wizard would come up with? The final strike that split the mountain was hilariously absurd.”

 “So that’s how you saw it.”

 The young knight recalled the man wearing an unusual cloth garment from the illusion.

 A man who referred to himself as a demon. The Heavenly Demon.

 His martial arts definitely had a sloppy and exaggerated aspect to it.

 However, the words he spat out intricately contained the subtle principles of martial arts. Some words and expressions had depth that became more enlightening the more they were chewed over. Soft, but strong. Reach the peak, thus return to the start.

 Could a wizard in a small cramped room come up with the clear enlightenment that only a  person who had deeply studied and mastered martial arts could convey? Moreover, the man’s attire and the terrain he was standing on belonged to a new cultural region, unseen before in the continent.

 Rather than a person’s delusions…

 It was more rational to assume that the wizard, who had directly witnessed the scene, reproduced it with Illusion Magic, but due to the wizard’s lack of discernment, he was not able to 100% reproduce the subtlety of the movements.

 “Then what you’re saying is….”

 “I believe that Dimensional Magic has been made practical.” 

 That’s right.

 The half-wits thought the wizard’s creation was just an illusion and ridiculed it, but in fact, the event was not for a ‘Illusion Magic Demonstration’.

 It was Dimensional Magic.

 The Purple Magic Tower metaphorically announced that they had observed other worlds beyond the sea of space-time.

 “So, why did they announce such a……great achievement in such a twisted meaning? If all the nobles gathered there had invested, it would have been a substantial amount of money.”

 “It must have been to filter out the unworthy.”

 To sift out the mediocre and only demonstrate to those who could recognize its true value.

 That was the reason they subtly whispered to a few powerhouses, instead of telling the wealthy and famous that was already abundant throughout the entire continent. 

 There were many ways to interpret this, but the fact that the video shown at the demonstration featured a man who unapologetically dominated everything, showing that ‘he alone was the Honored One’…….

 The message was clear. ‘We will continue to travel our own path, so you guys have fun managing the traffic behind us.’

 “How adorable.”

 There would be chaos throughout the continent if Dimensional Magic for practical use was revealed. And if that chaos could be prevented from under the surface, investing some money in the Magic Tower would be a bargain. The boy wrote, ‘Increase Purple Magic Tower’s Royal Family Grant: 30 times’ on the virgin parchment.

⋯⋯.

 After the Purple Magic Tower Master, who had been bedridden after the demonstration, got hit with the sudden 30 times increase in grants, she ran around the tower all day, giving kisses to everyone she met.

 The sensation of lips was added to the Illusion Magic.

• 1

  besides the game, hearthstone is an enchanted stone that can teleport the wielder to the starting location

• 2

  Phytoncides are various volatile organic compounds that are produced by plants, especially trees, to protect themselves from harmful parasites and germs. for example garlic/onion/spices

• 3

  used in Korean to to cheer on someone and to wish him good luck

• 4

  from Fate (Anime, VN)

• 5

  from Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime, /genesisforsaken

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