Chapter 218: Deep-Layer Epilogue: Backstage, or the Ones Known as Gods

Author's Preface
I heard someone claimed yesterday's update was the epilogue. Who's the insolent bastard spreading such lies?

It was an exceedingly barren room. Windowless, completely enclosed in concrete as if rejecting the very light of the sun, it contained nothing but the soft glow of LED lights, a desk... and a single, outrageously outdated desktop computer.
It had an antiquated keyboard—not even a touch panel—and a monitor that was neither high resolution nor compact and thin. This early 21st-century PC, practically an antique by modern standards, sat proudly at the center of the room, having been reinforced to its absolute limits with state-of-the-art technology not yet available to the general public.

"..............."

And within this desolate room, there was a single woman.
Draped in an oversized, faded tracksuit top and mismatched bottoms, her hair was so unkempt and overgrown out of pure laziness that if she stood up, the tips of it would undoubtedly drag across the floor.
Alone in this room with only an archaic computer, she was staring at the low-resolution display with a look of supreme happiness. But suddenly, as if remembering something, that blissful smile vanished completely, replaced by a scowl so severe it looked as if she had just witnessed every ounce of malice in the world.

"Haaa... I wonder if I should just turn this into a death game even now..."

"Spare me, Tsukuri. My head would literally roll."

"It's just a joke, Tsukuyogi. I could never accept leaving our... no, my world behind with such an infamous legacy."

At her muttered words, the man who had just entered the room fired back a joke while maintaining a completely straight face.
'That's my maiden name, I have a different last name now...' The man in the sharply tailored suit sighed internally as he leaned against the wall, addressing the woman... the woman he called Tsukuri.

"Amachi will probably come storming in here any minute now."

"I'm sure she will. Honestly, even I'm surprised."

Tsukuri, Tsukuyogi, Amachi... The three core members who built the "game" known as Shangri-La Frontier had now accumulated enough wealth to literally build houses out of stacks of cash. Tsukuyogi couldn't help but feel a vague sense of nostalgia for the days when they used to make a racket in a small university room with cheap booze in hand.

It was exactly at that moment. The door was already left wide open, but even so, the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps echoed from the supposedly soundproofed hallway. It was clear evidence that someone was sprinting at breakneck speed, and as if kicking the half-closed door open, that woman burst into the room.
Wearing a lab coat simply because "If it gets dirty, it's easy to notice, which means it's time to take a bath," and sporting a completely haphazard, straight-cut fringe supposedly trimmed with stationery scissors—devoid of even a single shred of feminine charm—she stormed in, her face scrunched up as if she had gathered every single wrinkle on her body straight to her glabella.

"Tskuurriiii! Don't tell me you messed with the data again!!"

"Shut up. You're the one who's been messing around in my world, aren't you?"

"If I hadn't, there's no way Unique Monsters would be going down back-to-back in such a short amount of time!"

Click, Tsukuyogi hallucinated the sound of a switch flipping. Actually, the other switch had probably already been flipped since sometime this morning.

"Don't give me that bullshit! You're the one who shackled my precious Ctarrnid and Wethermon with those tasteless restrictions! And now that they've been defeated, you have the nerve to come complain to me!?"

"You seriously expect me to program a 15-phase boss fight that uses spatial teleportation and temporal interference to launch ambushes from both the past and the future!? That's impossible, you idiot!!"

"Oh, my poor Ctarrnid... Forced to fight such a tragic battle with only four forms... Even Wethermon, if he could use all his functions to their fullest, he'd be peerless under heaven...!"

"What the hell do you mean, peerless under heaven! That's not strong, that's just a trash game!!"

"Trash!? Did you just say trash!? Of all the things to say! You called! My! World! Trash!?"

Tsukuyogi let out a long sigh and swallowed some of the stomach medicine he could no longer live without.
The genius who created the "World" of Shangri-La Frontier, Tsukuri Tsukuyo.
The genius who balanced Shangri-La Frontier as a "Game," Amachi Ritsu.
And the one mediating between these two—whose compatibility was somehow even worse than oil and water—was himself... Sakai Tsukuyogi (Maiden Name).

Calling it a catfight might make it sound somewhat endearing, but the conflict between these two women could genuinely lead to the collapse of the massive system known as "Shangri-La Frontier."
Because of that very fact, Tsukuyogi fought tooth and nail every single day, fueled entirely by gastrointestinal medicine and his beloved wife's packed lunches, to keep the peace between them.

"If it weren't for me, your world would have just become 'data algae'! Stop acting like God and actually do your damn job!"

"Look who's talking! You're nothing but an aphid sucking the 'scraps' off my world!"

"...Calm down. I know you both have an endless amount of things to say, but take a deep breath first."

"Fuuu! Fuuuu!"

"Gurururururu...!"

They genuinely looked like two beasts engaged in a death match, but sadly, even if it escalated into actual physical violence, both of them possessed motor skills below the level of literal garbage. The resulting sight would probably be more pathetic than a fight between two hamsters. After all, both of them were physically frail enough to lose a wrestling match against a soda can pull-tab.

"First, Amachi. Since the data hasn't been tampered with, the two Unique Monsters were defeated through the correct procedures... That much is a fact, correct?"

"...Even so, it's way too fast."

"It's likely just a coincidence that the timing of their subjugations overlapped. Players have been challenging Wethermon for a while now, haven't they? And the prerequisite scenario for Ctarrnid had already been triggered as well."

"...Yeah, I guess."

"And Tsukuri, you know that if you get serious, even we wouldn't be able to notice. Can you swear on your grandfather's name... that you haven't tampered with the Unique Monsters' data?"

"...Bringing him up is playing dirty, Tsukuyogi. Yes... I can swear it on my grandfather."

Recently, his wife had been busy as well, so it was undeniable that their marital relationship had felt a bit chilly. However, today's packed lunch included octopus wieners. Therefore, the current Tsukuyogi was invincible.
Perhaps due to the fact that their relationship culminated in marriage after an epic romance, whenever the typically overly-serious Tsukuyogi reached this state, he became incredibly bothersome to deal with. Knowing this full well, the two women temporarily sheathed their blades of anger.

"More importantly, I'm personally much more curious about the fact that the exact same name is listed among the players who defeated both Wethermon and Ctarrnid."

"I looked into that too. At the very least, he's not an 'insider'; he's a regular player........."

"What's with the dramatic pause?"

"This guy... it's only been about a month since he started playing the game."

A brief silence descended.
Amachi's face scrunched up as if she had bitten into a bitter bug; Tsukuyogi's stoic face was cast in a slight shadow; and Tsukuri's eyes widened in genuine surprise.

"On top of that, he's also triggered the EX Scenarios for both Lycaon and Vysache."

"...An Alpha Tester?"

"Nope. I checked both the Alpha and Beta tester logs, but there was no connection. What's more, when I checked the logs, he managed to fulfill two of the 'Curse' conditions against Lycaon at level 18. I suspected cheats or third-party tools, but..."

"Do you honestly think such things could be brought into my world?"

"And since our resident God-sama says exactly that... Achieving the conditions might have been a fluke triggered by some insane luck, but... basically, this guy has accomplished all of this on pure 'skill' alone."

Both of them understood exactly what Amachi was getting at. She was asking: whether it's a coincidence or there's some underlying logic behind it, should we interfere with a player who is blazing through the most crucial events in Shangri-La Frontier at such a terrifying pace?

"...No, I won't allow that."

"I'll humor you and listen to your reasoning."

Perhaps tired of standing, Tsukuri pulled out a rolling chair and sat down. The woman who built the foundation of the world of Shangri-La Frontier and managed it—truly an existence akin to a God—declared with an arrogance befitting that very title.

"A God may observe an individual, but a God does not love an individual."

"What, did you read a Nietzsche quote book or something?"

"Oh my, then should I compile the reasoning into a 5-gigabyte file so even a mental gorilla like you can understand it?"

However, Amachi merely let out a sigh and shook her head.
It was certainly true that Shangri-La Frontier had fallen into a sort of stagnation before this player appeared.
The implementation of the New Continent was done with that very stagnation in mind, but it was also a fact that this unexpectedly rapid progression had caused unnecessary panic. Mainly because her workload had skyrocketed.

"So you're just going to let a piece of memory turn into a garbage dump... Fine, whatever. If our esteemed World Creative Administrator says so, I won't say another word."

Well then, Amachi slapped her cheeks lightly to switch gears and brought up a completely different matter.

"So, regarding the agenda we set up yesterday... You've got two groups with business for you."

"Hmm... Who is it?"

"Yeah, the 'Bully' and 'Your Folks'."

"I suppose I can at least listen to their demands."

The previously hostile atmosphere vanished completely, instantly replaced by a conspiratorial unity reminiscent of children plotting some mischief. Seeing the mocking grins on their faces, Tsukuyogi felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his stomach.

"The former is asking us to 'leak some new information'."

"Honestly, they're like children with zero patience... We've already inputted the data for 'Orchestra,' so just dangle that in front of them. Ah, but wait, they misbehaved previously, so perhaps a little punishment is in order?"

"Spanking the Bully's ass sure sounds satisfying... As for the latter, it's a request for maintenance. They claim 'It broke even though we didn't do anything to it'."

"Pfft... What kind of archaic excuse is that... Fufufu, having parents who can't let go of their child is so embarrassing."

They were mocking them as if it were nothing, but both the former and the latter were existences capable of effortlessly lopping off the heads of everyone in this room if they made a single misstep. Though, in Tsukuri's case, it couldn't be ruled out that they might just fake her death and abduct her.
Furthermore, the one who actually had to stand on the front lines and deal with them was him. As these terrifyingly genius women said, there was certainly a dark joy in seeing the indescribable expressions on the faces of the envoys sent by the 'Bully,' but it was equally true that his consumption of stomach medicine was accelerating at a terrifying rate.
He had previously expensed an entire gross of stomach medicine due to an ordering mistake, but his stomach had taken enough damage to burn through all of it in just six months. If it hadn't been for his wife's omurice last night, he would have died instantly.

"Alright, enough. Stop interrupting my blissful time and get out."

"You don't have to tell me twice. I've got a mountain of work to do for the Fourth Stage adjustments anyway."

"...You are a working adult, so please do your job properly as well."

"Now then... Let's see about that player... If it's from a month ago, would it be under 'Leviathan'...? Ah, there it is."

Fiddling with a customized mobile terminal not available on the market, Tsukuri searched for the information of her target player.
While smiling at the instantaneous response from the entity that was both her loyal servant and her child, the God gazed upon the logs of that player and muttered softly.

"Hmm... Even if 'Tsukuyomaru' is impossible, 'Kyojuro' might be doable... Well, I suppose I can observe him from time to time."

The file categorization shifted by the hand of God. Among several player names displayed, at the very bottom... the newest entry bore the name "Sunraku."

A God does not love an individual, but a God observes the world. If that is the case───

Author's Afterword
I've finally made it this far... This was content I wanted to write relatively early on, but before I knew it, I had written 820,000 characters...

And so, this is the epilogue for Act 3. I'll be taking a break for a while. Specifically, the Guild War is happening... As a Shiva-Shiva main, I need to open at least 12 boxes.
I plan on uploading side stories to the Inventoria section, so if you'd like, please check those out as well.

Actually, among these three people, there's one who...