The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

Shooting myself in the foot? I was way too used to that already.

Scheming so much but accidentally digging a pitfall for myself? I was already numb to such things.

I had thought that my luck would get better after I reincarnated, but I had apparently overthought things.

“Is this fate? System, could I really possess the legendary luck rating of E…”

[Karma calculations are highly complex. The more’s involved, the more difficult it is to calculate. But if I calculate it based on your personal “karma” and “fate”, you’re definitely not so-called luck rating of E. You’d have a luck rating of Z!]

“Oh, so there’s not a single person in the world who’s unluckier than I am?”

[It’s not about being unlucky, it’s about the ability to run into trouble. Considering how many karmic connections you must have created when you’ve established Hell, the karma you possess is probably at the level of a bug in the world’s system. That’s why I’m absolutely telling you the truth when I call you the greatest jinxer in the world.]

“…In that case, when you previously tried to fool me, and all those random little quests you issued me, it really wasn’t because you were trying to make me suffer?”

[…]

“Fine, I got it. You’re just someone who wants an excuse to see me in a bad situation because it’s funny!”

It would seem that I had mysteriously obtained the passive ability of being a “main character” (the ability to attract trouble anywhere I went). But, unfortunately, I wasn’t treated like a main character at all. I didn’t have beautiful women just throwing themselves into my arms, nor did I find treasure chests containing wondrous weapons wherever I went. All that awaited me was the ability to always fish up killer whales when I wanted to relax and fish and walk onto a battlefield when I just wanted a vacation. That was the type of abnormal luck I possessed.

Did this seem funny? It probably seemed funny to everyone but myself. At the very least, the silly cat was rolling on the floor while laughing (I’m going to write that in my notebook and remember her for this)… But, right now, I really was unable to laugh at the current situation.

Powerful undead enemies had invaded, while Starwood City’s factions were in conflict. I clearly had nothing to do with the undead invasion, yet everyone was treating me as an enemy.

“I’ve had enough!”

I simply lay there on the table, making it obvious that I didn’t care.

“You’ve had enough? Awesome, let’s flip the table, then. I really wanted to experiment with my new weapon in actual battle.”

“Damn, why do you look like Terminator?”

I looked back behind me, and was rather startled at the sight.

Timlad now had a glowing blue scanner on top of his eyes. He had a two-meter-long cannon on his back, and another smaller magic cannon on his shoulder. His extremely muscular arm was equipped with several strange machines I couldn’t identify. All sorts of data were scrolling at high speed on the machines’ screens. He also had a fully equipped ammo clip at his waist, and another two smaller cannons attached to his feet.

Forget about the rest as I could sort of understand, but why did that magic cannon on his shoulder have the atomic symbol on it? Just what exactly happened to this fantasy world? Could the legendary mushroom cloud really have been invented by Timlad? Was he really intending on saving the world? I felt that he put points in the wrong technology skill tree!

“…Just what exactly happened in the past seven years? What changed a siscon shota into the Terminator!?”

My words caused Timlad to instantly lose all the fighting spirit he just had.

“…Please don’t mention me being siscon anymore, it was because I was too young and didn’t know any better. Please don’t label me as a siscon for the rest of my entire life! My most famous nickname is now the ‘Siscon engineer’, and even the bastards from the Gentlemen Alliance are using that as my official title. It’s all your fault!”

“…Then, did you sister get married?”

“How is that possible? I’ll send anyone who dares to touch my sister on a rocket trip… Don’t misunderstand! I’m really not a siscon! I, I have a girlfriend now! Although she really resembles my sister, I really didn’t choose her for that! Although I really love her face, I, I, I really didn’t pursue her just for that!”

Although Timlad had just been smiling and trying to act innocent, he suddenly realized what he’d just said. He finally noticed that everyone was now looking at him, and that nobody believed him.

“…” I had a helpless expression with how honest he was being.

“…” The silly cat covered her face with her paws. She couldn’t bear to witness his honesty anymore.

[…] Even my System typed out an ellipsis… But the ellipsis didn’t count for word count, so it wouldn’t help to fill in the chapter.

Although we were quite free and bored, everyone seemed to have surrounded us with great enmity in their expressions. They were all put even more on guard by the heavy weaponry that Timlad suddenly brought out.

But, from another standpoint, how carefree we seemed made everyone even more vigilant. After all, only the strong would be so carefree in such a situation…? What? Acting pretentiously? That was indeed possible, but those who acted pretentiously typically wouldn’t live long.

“Perhaps this can prove that we’re actually on your side.”

I reached out my right hand and created a ball of pure Holy Light, which then transformed into a shining silver cross.

“Allow me to reintroduce myself. I’m the Legend-ranked holy knight Karo. My current mission is to hunt down the bastards from the Death Council. All my undead magic is actually nothing more than special effects created by items. I received information that the Death Council bastards were intending on opening a Dimensional Door to the Death Planes, so I disguised myself as an undead mage to try and join them. But, I didn’t even get to join them when the undead arrived already. This time, I’ve failed completely in my mission.”

Pure Holy Light had an astonishingly good reputation. Holy knights were always considered trustworthy. My words served to reassure everyone. Plus, I also had something else that they could trust, as I always went around prepared.

“Look, here’s my certificate, and my military achievement badge.”

“Certificate for Porn Lovers Book Club? Eating contest winner badge?”

“Sorry, I brought out the wrong ones. I remember that I put them all together…”

It would seem that I needed to clear out my dimensional storage bag. I had so many random certificates that when I tossed them all out, they actually piled up into a small mountain.

“Dragon language, level eight certificate? I don’t think I’ve seen this certificate ever since I graduated. Basic dragon language is quite easy to learn, so there’s no need to take the level eight test. If you really meet up with an actual dragon… In this day and age, just about every dragon knows how to speak the human language. It was such a pain to get this certificate back in the day, and it ended up being completely useless after I graduated.”

The black certificate with a dragonhead emblem seemed amazing if you looked at it. But now that I thought back on the past, I felt that it was probably a scheme by the Cloud Tower’s dragon language teachers. This certificate seemed rather grand, and could attract people to spend their money only to learn lots of useless rare words and ancient grammar which wasn’t even accurate anymore. So, this dragon language level eight certificate had remained in my dimensional storage bag ever since I graduated.

“…Which one is it?”

Everyone backed up two steps, apparently having been scared off by my mountain of useless certificates. Or, maybe time was of the essence right now, so they didn’t have the time to deal with this.

“Nutritionist certificate, undead mage certificate, level two priest certificate, Contract Hero certificate, battle of Oak Town honor certificate, lawyer certificate, vigilante certificate, three-hundred year old archmage certificate (ten times ultimate virgin certificate), bone expert chef certificate… I really should have cleared out my dimensional storage earlier. By the way, did I just find something that didn’t belong to this world?”

Cough, cough, you shouldn’t misunderstand, that wasn’t a bug, it was just my System toying with my certificates. Finally, I found the thin piece of white paper (cause it was cheap) proving that I was a holy knight, along with the iron holy knight badge (again because it was cheap).

“That’s enough, I believe you. No other job class apart from holy knight would use such a cheap-looking certificate and badge. Actually, just your Holy Light was enough to prove your identity. Um, why don’t you laminate your certificate? It’s so tattered. Why don’t you pay more attention to your own proof of identity?”

This was the result of being several centuries old. Luckily, I was smart enough to cover the date of issuance on my certificate. Otherwise, people would have suspected that I was counterfeiting my certificate or even identity.

But, with such a ruckus, it greatly helped to ease the tense atmosphere in the room. Only that Blood Spear Countess kept staring at me, even if there was no longer any enmity in her eyes. However, it was quite evident that she was shocked and astonished, with even some fear and idolization. With such complex emotions coming from her, it would seem that she might have guessed my true identity.

Well, ever since a certain incident in the Northlands, many people had tried combining Holy Light and death magic. However, nobody had ever truly succeeded. It might have been possible to guess my true identity if she successfully discerned that my death magic had been real, but it was more likely there were other reasons for her to come to such a quick decision.

Hey, you could trust my judgement of others’ emotions. Ever since creating Hell, my racial talent Stare of the Hell God had greatly evolved. My eyes were now capable of seeing directly through the soul. No changes in anyone’s emotional wavelengths could possibly fool me. It was also impossible for anyone to fool me with a lie. That was why I had instantly seen through Katerina’s true essence.

From a certain standpoint, I had been the greatest beneficiary of Hell’s completion. And, my greatest benefit was the completion of my soul. My soul’s regained strength helped my physical body’s evolution as well. All my racial talents had evolved, yet this was only the tip of the iceberg of what I’d gained.

“So what if you can see through souls to determine exactly what emotions they’re feeling? Such a nice pair of eyes, given to a coward. If you have any courage at all, why don’t you look into a mirror, and ask yourself just which girl you’re going to choose? Running away won’t solve anything! You have romantic entanglements with so many women.”

“…Your emotional colors are purple with a tinge of red. You’re somewhat expectant and a little displeased. Is this the legendary tsundere? Were you looking forward to me peeking at your emotions or not! I think that you don’t want me to choose—didn’t you also help me when I ran away from them back in the day!?”

I spoke a bit too directly to Harloys, and instantly regretted it afterwards. Now, things became awkward with neither of us knowing what to say.

“Cough, cough, Brother Roland, please be a little more serious. We’re now at war.”

Thankfully, Timlad still remembered that we were now in a war against the undead. I was grateful to him for reminding me.

Since there was nothing wrong with my identity anymore, everyone else started working on their own affairs, such as sending out messages or scouts. Meanwhile, I had extremely few subordinates with me, so I could just take it easy and watch everyone else.

It wasn’t because I was being lazy and not wanting to lead. Ever since the creation of Hell, although I obtained much recognition, I was also blacklisted by many organizations and factions. If any of my enemies discovered my true identity, they would likely set aside even any war at their doorstep in order to kill me first. That would be the equivalent of me raising the difficulty level even further, which would be too foolish.

I had wanted to chat for a little more, when a powerful fluctuation in the Elemental Tide attracted all my attention.

“That unfamiliar Undead Emperor Conservation? No, this is Zero. She’s far stronger than before!”

What my eyes could see was that a towering black soul pillar had just arrived in the mountains. The soul pillar reached all the way up to the skies, and the power she emanated was actually even above Aso’s.

Without a doubt, an Undead Emperor had descended. This was now going to be even more troublesome.

Although I saw this, everyone else was still busy with their own affairs. Evidently, none of them had such acute senses.

“Cough, cough, I have some good news and bad news. Which do you all want to hear first?”

Everyone thus focused their attention on me as I smiled in delight. As expected, whenever I was in a bad mood due to the circumstances, making others be in a bad mood too was always the best cure.

“The good news is that we no longer need to worry about finding the undead’s leader. I’ve already located her, so we can carry out a kill the leader plan!”

Battles of attrition would forever be the most foolish decision possible when fighting against the undead. Killing the leader was the only method of victory in the great majority of situations. Obviously, it was a piece of good news that the undead’s leader had been located.

I felt even more delighted to see everyone’s faces light up with expectant looks.

“The bad news is that the enemy leader is an Undead Emperor. That’s right, you heard correctly, an Undead Emperor. She’s at the very peak, just like in the myths, basically undefeatable! She’s brought half of the entire population of her Death Plane. We no longer need to worry about deserters amongst ourselves, because it will be impossible to escape. Running anywhere will be the same! Hey hey, don’t have such depressed looks, be a bit happier! We’ve already located her, so we won’t be completely unprepared for the Undead Emperor’s ambush!”

“Could you stop stirring up even more trouble!? Are you that twisted that you derive pleasure from seeing others’ misery!?”