“Long time no see, Antonio.”
“Sent by Casimir, I presume?”
“You arrived earlier than I expected. I was informed it would take three days.” Antonio set his knitting aside.
“So, did you meet Fabio?”
“All this time, and not even a ‘how have you been’ from you.”
“Indeed, Antonio is truly a generous person.”
I roughly grasped what had happened.
Antonio must have known that I received a blessing not in accordance with the Order. Fearing that if I wandered near the Order’s altar without knowing anything, I might be branded as a heretic and face challenges.
A jolt of surprise ran through me upon seeing the system message.
What? Hypnosis?
“You seem surprised.”
“Huh?”
“What startled you?”
My mind raced to find a plausible excuse.
The day I first entered Antonio’s house, I realized something:
There are subtly expensive items everywhere.
Though Antonio lived modestly and it wasn’t immediately obvious, there were several items that a lower-class clergyman like him shouldn’t typically possess.
Six months have passed since I started learning to read and write from Antonio.
That’s right.
Half a year.
Damn these medieval people!
Bell-ringer Antonio was the only literate person in our village.
As a result, whenever the villagers were puzzled about something, they first turned to him for answers.
“In order to survive this insane medieval era, I needed to boost my mental strength.”
People from the Middle Ages typically had a mental fortitude of around 30. At that score, the sight of a rotting corpse might upset your stomach for a few days at most.
With a jolt, I found myself waking up in the Dark Realm.
In other words, I had been plunged headfirst into a chaotic maelstrom of a medieval era, thick with religious fanaticism. The kicker? I wasn’t standing against this fervent horde — I was supposed to lead them.
What if Hapenesus’s core philosophy is just a bunch of nonsense? Then I’ll just ignore it!
I’ve bent the rules before, like when I played the ‘Reverse the Plague’ strategy and drastically reduced the plague’s death rate.
Isn’t it a gamer’s creed to conquer the unbeaten path?
Why did I keep choosing the path of sorrow? Because through trial and error, I found that unhappiness was the only way to extend my playtime with Hapenesus.
I was browsing for new games, feeling a bit tired of the Conclude community after stepping away from the strategy site. Then, out of nowhere, a pop-up from Conclude appeared on my screen.
“These lunatics have invaded here too, huh?”
While I was playing Conclude and browsing some strategy guides online, my face twisted in annoyance as I opened the game’s forum.