Click. Click.
I kept changing the value by 1 and repeated the meaningless mouse clicks over and over again.
[Strategist / Ginore's Message]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Tribute: Gold 2558]
[Actor / Monarch]
[I understand Your Majesty's will, but it seems unlikely that your wish will be fulfilled.]
Click.
[Strategist / Ginore's Message]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Tribute: Gold 2557]
[Actor / Monarch]
[I understand Your Majesty's will, but it seems unlikely that your wish will be fulfilled.]
Click.
[Strategist / Ginore's Message]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Tribute: Gold 2558]
[Actor / Monarch]
[I understand Your Majesty's will, but it seems unlikely that your wish will be fulfilled.]
"Damn it, seriously!"
The money I had left was 2558 gold.
I had to secure an alliance with the Serpina Army, currently the strongest nation, using this amount.
If not, the next turn would almost certainly result in an invasion of my homeland and a guaranteed game over.
This game, Garland Eternity Saga, was a classic that came out over twenty years ago.
By today's standards, it was an outdated territory-conquest game. The goal was to destroy enemy castles and unify the fictional fantasy continent called Garland Continent.
It was turn-based combat, and while it didn't have much depth, it wasn't so boring as to be unplayable. Just a very average game.
Still, I liked it quite a bit, partly because of childhood memories, so I would try to unify the continent at least once every few months.
The continent had various monarchs, and my favorite playstyle was definitely the Random Monarch route.
I'd already played all the named monarchs at least once and cleared them all on high difficulty, so I was bored of them.
Of course, the game wasn't based on real history, so monarchs had subtly different lifespans and slightly altered stats every game, which meant it wasn't always the same monarch unifying the continent.
That said, unless you were a hardcore player, the unspoken rule was to avoid playing Random Monarchs.
But for someone like me, who poured over 10,000 hours into the game, Random Monarch was the only way to find any fun or challenge.
Anyway, to sum up the situation—
The randomly selected monarch I was playing, RandomMonarch5338, had unfortunately spawned right next to the most brutal and aggressive warlord in the game: the Serpina Army.
Serpina was the descendant of Jerome von Aingart, the last emperor of the unified empire before the age of war. In about six or seven out of ten playthroughs, she would end up unifying the continent, practically the final boss.
In this game, CPUs only began invasions one year of in-game time after the start.
Each turn was three months. That meant I had four turns to secure an alliance with the Serpina Army, or I was done for.
Even so, I didn't have to give up yet.
Since this was an old game that came out over twenty years ago, the lack of depth was a major flaw and allowed exploits.
And I had another reason not to give up.
Our army's strategist, Ginore, who was currently advising me, had an intelligence stat of 99.
That was an excellent value. Practically the best you could get.
A character with 100 intelligence was almost always short-lived—like the named character Eleanor—and didn't appear unless cheats were used.
In this game, advice from a character with 100 intelligence was always correct.
Advice from someone with 99 intelligence was 99% accurate.
And 99% might as well be 100%.
Plus, the surrounding countries weren't bad either, aside from the Serpina Army.
To the rear was Aishas Army, weak at first but booming later due to a strong talent pool.
The optimal time to absorb Aishas' talent pool was right at the beginning of the game.
So, if I could just succeed in forming an alliance with the Serpina Army and win the war against Aishas, absorbing their talent, the game would stabilize so much it wouldn't even feel like a Random Monarch run.
Maybe even a speedrun was possible.
In gacha game terms—
It was like a perfect reroll in everything but the starting location.
So I couldn't give up.
Right now, Ginore with his 99 intelligence was telling me, "You can't ally with the Serpina Army."
Then why was I so stubbornly adjusting the tribute amount by one and sending the request again and again?
Because if I kept grinding like this, eventually, he'd say, "There is a possibility."
It was a kind of exploit.
Why was this exploit possible? What was the logic behind it?
I had no clue.
I just remembered seeing a guide back in the day that said: "Keep trying and sometimes the advice will change. That's your chance! Use it if you want to make difficult proposals."
Old game programming? Bugs? Who knows. I didn't.
What I did know was this—
No matter how unreasonable the offer, there would eventually be a Divine Moment when it gets accepted.
3800 gold was our army's entire fortune.
Of course, Serpina wouldn't usually accept an alliance unless you brought her a treasure that boosted military strength. Offering only gold was practically hopeless—
But by repeating this exploit, I was sure it would work once.
The big data from my 10,000 hours of gameplay said so.
If things stayed like this, I was doomed to be trampled under Serpina's iron heel, so I had no better plan.
"Please work, just once!"
How many minutes—no, hours—had I been clicking?
I opened YouTube on my phone and kept watching it while mindlessly continuing the mouse clicks on my PC.
And finally—
[Strategist / Ginore's Message]
[Alliance / Serpina Army / 36 months / Tribute: Gold 2556]
[Actor / Monarch]
[Since Your Majesty is personally going to show sincerity, the Serpina Army will surely be moved.]
"It worked!"
I almost missed it while watching YouTube, but I barely caught it.
Yes!
Ginore's intelligence is 99.
That meant his advice had a 99% success rate in this world.
99%! Not 90%, a whopping 99%! In this game, that basically meant 100%!
"Alright. Now I'll use the alliance time with the Serpina Army to wipe out the nearby Aishas Army, appoint Yuuri as a general to secure the rear, and station troops along the border with Serpina. I should be able to hold her off."
36 months.
Twelve precious turns.
In this game, where each turn allows a lot to be done, that was like a golden age.
I carefully planned my next moves and clicked the [Send Envoy] button.
And then—
[Envoy of RandomMonarch5338 / RandomMonarch5338]
[Today, I've come personally to speak with Lady Serpina.]
[Please form a 36-month alliance with our army.]
[Conditions: Gold 2556]
[Serpina Army Strategist / Jena]
[My liege, we must not be swayed by flattery.]
[Serpina Army Monarch / Serpina]
[There's a limit to how much you can take someone for a fool.]
"What? What the hell?"
Why not?
Why won't you accept the alliance?
Ginore's intelligence is 99. His predictions are 99% accurate.
But… there was always one cold, hard truth that was easy to overlook.
99 is not 100.
"Goddamn it."
1%!
The stat that dragged me down—just 1%!
I failed the alliance due to a 1% chance, getting flat-out rejected.
[Envoy of RandomMonarch5338 / RandomMonarch5338]
[I don't need your power or anything like it.]
It couldn't be helped.
I had to go with Plan B—abandon the castle and flee to another region.
Of course, I'd suffer massive losses in the process... but I didn't want to end this run, not when I finally had a strategist with 99 intelligence.
But even that small sliver of hope began to crumble far too quickly.
[Monarch of the Serpina Army / Serpina]
[Hey, is no one there?]
[Throw this one into the underground prison.]
"???"
What?
Taking an envoy prisoner?
Sure, the game had that feature.
But it was rarely used—imprisoning a diplomat who came for negotiations, not war, would cause your reputation to nosedive with neighboring monarchs, ruining future diplomacy.
Then again—this was Serpina.
Wasn't she the greatest tyrant this game had ever created?
"Haa..."
Still...
Even if I was locked in the dungeon... maybe... there'd be a way out?
If I could escape before the invasion army reached my territory...
BEEP BEEP!!!
Just as I was burning through the last threads of optimism, an unpleasant 8-bit sound rang in my ears.
[Serpina of the Serpina Army has beheaded the monarch of the RandomMonarch5338 Army, RandomMonarch5338.]
[Monarch of the RandomMonarch5338 Army, RandomMonarch5338... has closed their eyes here.]
[The legacy of the RandomMonarch5338 Army will be inherited by Ginore.]
[GAME OVER]
"...Ha."
Dead.
Looks like Serpina locked me up, then executed me shortly after.
Even just imprisoning someone came with massive penalties and crippled diplomacy. Executing an envoy? No country would ever talk to her again.
Not that it mattered, I guess.
That woman was always like that anyway!
"Ginore, that bastard!"
And what now—Ginore inherits my army?
I know it's just a game, but the timing felt way too perfect.
That bastard sent me to my death on purpose so he could snatch up the nation, didn't he?
"See? This is why 99 intelligence isn't good enough. You need at least 100."
It was my fault for trusting a 99 in the first place.
Should've just restarted from the beginning.
I sighed deeply and clicked to get past the [GAME OVER] screen.
I hit New Game, planning to start again—this time, far away from the Serpina Army.
But.
No matter how many times I clicked the mouse... the screen wouldn't move on.
"Huh?"
What? Did it freeze?
After several repeated clicks—
A screen appeared that I had never seen before in all my 10,000 hours of play.
[Strategist Ginore / Declaration]
[Do you take 99 intelligence lightly?]
"..."
What?
What is this supposed to mean?
No matter what I did, I couldn't proceed.
There was only one clickable option:
At the bottom, a button that read: [I do. It should be at least 100.]
It went beyond confusion—
The phrase echoed my inner thoughts so perfectly that I clicked it without hesitation.
[??? / Response]
[I do. It should be at least 100.]
[Strategist Ginore / Declaration]
[I see.]
And at that moment.
The world began to ripple.
"No way..."
I knew this setup.
This is when you get sucked into the game world, right?
I'd seen this sort of possession plot dozens of times.
But... why?
Why me, dragged into such an outdated, clunky old game world?!
If I had the choice, I'd much rather be isekai'd into a sleek gacha game or a romance novel where cute girls obsess over me!!!!!!!!
[Strategist Ginore / Declaration]
[I wish you the best of luck.]
Reading that line, I lost consciousness.