[ Re-translated on September / 11 /2025 ]
Chapter 6: The Answer Was There from the Start
Placing the still-unconscious Gladiia on the bed, Steven shut the door and sat at the bedside, pressing a hand to his forehead.
She was sleeping like a baby. Meanwhile, he was the one drowning in headaches.
The priority right now was obvious: figure out which game or anime world this place came from. Only then could he know what cards he actually had to play.
That so-called "acknowledgement points" system couldn't just be about grinding mobs and ruffling girls' hair, right? There had to be other ways to earn them.
On the way here with Gladiia slung over his back, he had already done some testing. Most of the mod packs required hundreds of thousands, even millions of acknowledgement points just to unlock. Even the simplest quality-of-life mods were way out of his current budget.
At first, after farming nearly two hundred points from those sea freaks, Steven had been feeling pretty smug. But now? The smile had vanished.
At this rate, he could wipe out half the continent and still not scrape together enough points to buy a decent mod.
And if it really came down to just one point per headpat… well, forget going bald, he'd grind himself into dust before hitting a million.
Steven tilted his head back and gave a silent middle finger to whatever "will of the world" was watching.
'If this world really has some godlike consciousness, then damn… what a coward.'
No way around it—he needed to find a grind spot.
Sure, even without mods, he was confident that with his years of Minecraft combat instincts plus a body that could bench-press mountains, there weren't many people in this world who could actually take him head-on.
But come on. Who in their right mind would say no to free cheats?
And there was one more critical issue.
He'd discovered something nasty about acknowledgement points: they decayed over time. One point every hour, gone.
Which meant even if he decided to laze around playing vanilla, refusing to unlock a single mod… the system still wouldn't let him.
"…So basically, I'm being forced to stir up trouble?"
Steven exhaled sharply through his nose. He still had enough points for now, but the idea of running out gnawed at him.
What happened when the counter hit zero? Would he get booted out of this world altogether?
"Damn it, so where is this place? Terra, Iberia… I know I've heard those names before, but why can't I remember? Ugh, if only I had a 'Google Search Mod' or something…"
Rubbing his temples, Steven suddenly froze. Then he snapped his fingers.
Sure, he didn't have a search engine mod. But maybe—just maybe—the clue had been sitting right under his nose the whole time.
He pulled up the system interface in his mind and tapped into the Achievements tab.
Skipping past the ancient vanilla achievements he'd long since completed, his eyes quickly landed on a brand-new page.
[Arknights World Achievement List]
[Entering Terra] Achievement Completed √ World Acknowledgement Points +10,000.[Participating in the Plot: Evil Time] Locked. (Basic Completion Reward: 100,000 World Acknowledgement Points) [Participating in the Plot: Separated Hearts] Locked. (Basic Completion Reward: 100,000 World Acknowledgement Points) [Participating in the Plot: Stinging Shock] Locked. (Basic Completion Reward: 200,000 World Acknowledgement Points) —
Steven just stared, dumbfounded, at the four bold characters at the top of the page: Arknights.
So the answer had been here the whole damn time. And he'd been burning brain cells trying to Sherlock it out.
Arknights… he had heard of the game, sure. But back then, the main story had a reputation for being wall-to-wall riddles and cryptic dialogue, so he'd never touched it. He was more of a PC-and-console guy, not the type to dive headfirst into a gacha mobile sinkhole.
After crossing over into Minecraft, it wasn't even worth mentioning anymore. If he'd been able to play mobile games inside Minecraft, he never would've been so desperate to escape in the first place.
"Let's think this through… now that I know what world this is, grinding acknowledgement points just got a whole lot easier."
He rubbed his chin, eyeing the list of ridiculously chūnibyō achievement names. Even if he'd never actually played the game, Arknights' reputation was huge. As a certified shut-in, he'd cloud-surfed more than enough lore to piece together the basics.
For one thing, he knew all these overdramatic titles were taken straight from the main story—the chronicles of the game's protagonist.
And since every single one was still grayed out and locked, that meant he was sitting at the very beginning of the timeline. The main story hadn't even kicked off yet.
Steven didn't care much about the story itself—he'd never touched it, after all. What caught his eye was the fat stack of acknowledgement points listed after each achievement.
No wonder killing mobs gave so little. The real jackpot was here.
When he thought about it, it actually made perfect sense. If this world was based on a game, then of course the fastest way to be "recognized" by the world was to take part in its main story.
"…So in that case, she's gotta be someone from the main plot, or maybe a side story, right?"
He glanced down at the girl beside him—at some point, Gladiia had grabbed his hand to use as a pillow, a faintly blissful smile resting on her lips as she slept.
Back when he'd gotten points from patting her head, the system had clearly flagged her as a "plot character." That left two options: either she was a central figure in the plot, or… she was straight-up a gacha unit.
And he knew damn well that Arknights was a gacha game. Sure, it had a reputation for being one of the more generous ones, but generous or not, it was still gacha.
That was also why he'd never played it. He was broke—and to make matters worse, he was a textbook "ultra-unlucky player." In any game with a 100-pull pity, he was the type to always get shafted at 99.
Tragic stories aside, he now had a clear plan.
The achievement system had laid out exactly how to farm big chunks of acknowledgement points. All he had to do was find a way to insert himself into those storylines.
And the best part? The requirement only said "participate." That was it. Which meant all he had to do was sit back and watch the chaos unfold. And if there was one thing Steven enjoyed, it was watching the drama.
"…So next step is, before the main story starts, I've gotta track down that… what was it, Rhode something? Pretty sure the protagonist's organization was called that."
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Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M