289 Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production Plan (1/2)
”I, Ayer, Death God, Guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation, and Defender of Order henceforth declare that, in this Holy War, we proclaim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!”
It was a simple proclamation that the entire world heard, yet it shocked every living creature. Not only were ordinary people shocked, but even the other True Gods and demons were shocked by this ancient True God's calm yet sudden proclamation.
Perhaps this was only a simple proclamation of war, but the hidden meaning and political ramifications behind it were worth deep consideration.
A proclamation of war? Why make a proclamation of war? Weren't all the Holy Wars in the past begun just like that with no need for such proclamations?
Why was the Death God Ayer making the proclamation of war? Based on the current state of things in the Order Faction, even if they wanted to proclaim war, shouldn't it have been the strongest Order God, the God of Holy Light, declaring the war?
No other True God had made a public statement like this before, so why was it that Ayer, who had stayed out of so many Holy Wars and remained neutral, had suddenly come out with such a proclamation? Just what was Ayer intending? Wasn't he afraid of the God of Holy Light's displeasure?
Oh, and he even used the term ”we.” That meant that there were others apart from him! Was this an internal power struggle amongst the Order Gods? Were factions beginning to form amongst the True Gods of Order?
Only the first part of this proclamation already caused the perceptive to notice that there was a huge storm brewing. It would make anyone afraid to think too deeply about what was really happening.
Still, I nodded, as I had expected all this.
”Battling without a proclamation of war? Infighting without making it apparent on the surface? So we'll all just pretend to get along, while secretly doing our own things?”
”Yep. We don't need to directly have any conflicts with the God of Holy Light and his Follower Gods. What we need is the right to speak about the Holy War. Only those considered to be on the side of justice will find the most followers! When everything is chaotic, only those who shout the loudest are considered justice. Only those with the right to speak up can possibly be considered the just. Since this is naturally a scenario about justice fighting against evil, we need to figure out a way to become the biggest representations of justice and morality.”
This proclamation of battle was the first step in my plan to steal the microphone. It would declare Ayer's faction's ambitions and goals. This seemingly meaningless proclamation was actually using the Holy War as an excuse to raise a gigantic flag representing the Ayer Faction, giving birth to a new Order Faction different from the God of Holy Light's faction.
Yep, although Ayer's faction appeared to be on the Order side on the surface, internally… since it was quite obvious that they were a faction splitting off from the Order faction, how could they truly still be considered an Order faction!? Well, they wouldn't be on the side of Chaos regardless, so it was more like a Neutral faction.
But only raising the flag and letting people know about the existence of an Ayer faction definitely wasn't enough. After all, nobody would want to board a sinking ship.
Since the God of Holy Light and his system of belief was overwhelmingly powerful in the current era, everyone knew who they should be supporting. Even though there wouldn't be an all-out internal conflict on the Order side for the time being due to the Holy War, since we had made it so obvious that we were breaking off from the God of Holy Light's faction, if the God of Holy Light emerged as the overall victor in this Holy War, we would definitely become his next targets immediately right after.
”So, we need to take advantage of the opportunity of this Holy War. Not only do we need to find a way to keep being proactive, we also need to enlarge our faction. At the very least, we need to become a faction similar in power to the Holy Light faction.”
This sounded rather self-contradictory. Since our faction wasn't large and powerful enough, we wouldn't be able to attract followers. Without enough followers, we wouldn't be able to enlarge our faction. However, I knew a method to break this contradiction.
”Have you heard of the Anli Insurance Company? No? Wonderful! Cough—whoops—we're not as bad as Anli, and we're not a pyramid scheme. After all, we're only doing direct selling. Fine then, I'll speak simply. What we need to do is to make customers believe in us and spend money on our various products that will enrich our faction. Basically, they're going to be investing in our faction. Once they've paid and invested in us, that makes their personal benefits tied to us, so naturally they'll be unable to leave us.” [1]1
How to do all this, specifically? Actually, it was quite simple, as I had an example already—my System that loved to make me suffer.
When talking about how to make people fall into pitfalls, who could possibly compare to this bastard System of mine that has made me suffer for several centuries already? What we planned was to give every person a ”System”, which would naturally give all the ”Main Gods” of the neutral faction the authority to speak. Then, people would fight for us on the neutral faction and would be rewarded and slowly grow in power level. This was my self-named ”Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production Plan.”
Indeed, as the battle continually escalated in scale, in ”history,” this Holy War was destined to become the final Holy War. The constantly increasing power level of the enemies finally even made most of the game's players, who were like cheaters in how fast they could level compared to Eich's natural residents, unable to keep up with the difficulty spike and never making it to the end of the game.
But as I reminisced on the game's ”history,” I felt that it was only natural. After all, for quite a long while, these visitors from another dimension didn't feel a sense of belonging in this world. Everything they did was motivated by only their personal benefits. Perhaps today they would fight for honor and glory on the Order Faction, while tomorrow they would betray Order for the sake of some extravagant Myth-ranked sword that a powerful demon promised them as a reward. There were countless players that even transformed themselves into demons or undead.
”A sword that fights without belief behind it is meaningless. Power without direction will only harm oneself.”
Meanwhile, the original residents were another matter entirely. They had their own species, families, and homes, and already stood resolutely on one side or the other. However, their births determine what side they were on, and it was too difficult to change their ways of thinking that had been deeply ingrained. They were limited by their own countries and species and kept fighting countless internal conflicts amongst themselves, losing elites and resources. By the time that they learned who the real enemy was, it was already too late.
With all these restrictions against them, the original residents of Eich were limited in growth speed as well. They were unable to keep up with the enemies that only became stronger and stronger and were far too weak to do anything by the end.
However, this world that became real for me didn't possess any dimensional travelers that represented the players who didn't have any beliefs or ties of their own in this world. The original residents were all I could rely on, but just the current them alone were still insufficient.
”So, we need to give them a direction to point their swords at, along with helping them with shortcuts to growth. We need to give them opportunities to jump out of their narrow way of thinking.”
This was the main objective that I mentioned in my report. As long as we were able to achieve all this, the world's original residents would become our sharp swords. Not even counting the power of new believers' faith which would power up the neutral faction's True Gods, the power we possessed would naturally keep increasing as well.
Was my plan unimaginable? Impossible to put into place? All we had to do was imitate what my System was doing for me. Although my System was truly unique in this world, I had True Gods on my side. What my System could do for me was quite easy for the True Gods of Eich, who were connected to the basic natural laws of the world, to imitate.
”I, Catio, God of Fate, Weaver of Fate, and Defender of Order henceforth declare that, in this Holy War, we proclaim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!”
The second scroll, which was golden, opened, and Catio's proclamation echoed throughout the entirety of Eich. However, the truly important part of the proclamation was destined to come afterward.
”I, Patricia, Moonlight Goddess, Guardian of the Night, and Defender of Order henceforth declare that, in this Holy War, we proclaim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!”
This time, a silver scroll was torn and yet another powerful True God made a proclamation. Patricia's gentle-sounding female voice made such a steely proclamation.
”We shall act as guardians and mark all invaders from different dimensions as well as evil members of Chaos! All heroes who are willing to fight for justice and Order shall receive rewards directly from the Order Gods!”