V2 Chapter 8: Prince and the Summit of the Stupid People
When I turned my eyes at the people who lived in the world I conjured, an old memory when I was not Fearless returned. I was Fearless, but I was not. I was Phúc at the time. I woke up from a strange nightmare, a nightmare where everyone in the world started looking like Thùy Dương for unknown reasons. They did not just look like her. They sounded like her as well. Everyone in the world became Thùy Dương. That is the most toxic world for a person like me to live in, no, that is for anyone other than Thùy Dương to live in. A single Thùy Dương is already enough. Two is too much. A world of full of Thùy Dương is impossible to live.
But the people of my dreamland, they managed to upset that prejudice in me.
The people of this dreamland, they made a world where everyone is Thùy Dương looked like a candy store, all sweet and sugary because, at the very least, Thùy Dương is a smart woman, a real prodigy.
I tried to create people who would be as smart as and as just as FY. I got people who were as stupid as and as unjust as me. I repeatedly tried to create more people until I would succeed. I still got a bunch of wackjobs who was about as stupid as me. That was when I knew I had to stop creating more people. I then allowed them to live their lives on their own without any interference from me. I was stupid enough to believe that there is hope in these people. I was stupid enough to believe that these people, as they progress in time and become more civilized, they would become smart.
I was wrong.
The people of this dreamland, they branded themselves as “The stupid people of Fearless” and held that designation in their heart with pride. A toxic bunch, they were, the whole lot of them, man and woman, the old and the young, the brave and the coward, the weak and the strong. They are the most toxic community that I have ever seen. They spoke like me, they acted like me, they were as irresponsible as me, and the best specimens of their kind were those who were equally as stupid as I was. Furthermore, when they formed their own unique social structure, religion, and communities where every man and woman was equally as stupid as each other, the toxicity level of everything was turned up to a hundred where the maximum base score to measure toxicity is ten. These people made me realized why I was so against the idea of unprotected sex.
The world only needs one Fearless, no more.
But, even when these people were poisonous and cancerous, they had their use. With the correct amount and the correct administration, a poison can become a medicine.
Within the imaginary land of the stupid people, a Summit was held to decide what kind of relationship that I should adopt toward those brainless Immortals who wanted nothing more than to tear me into pieces.
The first speaker,
“…Thus, my stupid people, URLOX have set us up with that prophecy. URLOX set us up so that we would come into conflicts with these brain-dead immortals. There is nothing we can do now to change or rectify that at this point. Due to that prophecy, these morons would not leave us a chance for us to live and operate in our freedom. We are too great of a threat, too great of an unknown, too great of a champion, too great of a human. With or without that stupid prophecy, these brain-dead morons would never leave us alone due to our greatness, for we are the Prince of The Alliance.”
“They want to Pick us as their representative and champion. But we can only champion one of them and there is only one of us.”
“Therefore, it’s only logical that they have to Ban us, my stupid people. Forcing us to accept the role of neutrality under Death’s protection is how they decided to Ban us. And that’s why we are here today, my stupid people. That’s why we are having this Summit to decide our future.
I ask you, my stupid people, should we accept this Ban? Should we accept living the rest of our lives in Neutrality? Or should we search for a different option? Should we Unban ourselves through this dilemma knowing that we would butt head against not one or two, but many powerful enemies who have lived through many timeless eons, all at the same time? Are we even capable of pursuing such a path? I hope we shall find the correct answer through this Summit. Here, I shall end my speech. Without further ado, let the first
The entire Summit erupted with the sound of clapping hands when
With my position of the Ultimate Judge and the Arbiter of the Summit, I knocked my mallet and called for order. “The first speaker has finished presenting the fact. The
Among the forest of
“My stupid people, we are currently playing the biggest handicapped game of our lives. Never before had we given such this many large handicaps to this many powerful opponents. We are all alone in this world. FY is not here with us to tell us his strategies and shows us the clearest path to victory. Merleon is not here to cover and protect our exposed back. Misery is not here to lighten our loads and be our failsafe. Fantasy is not here to provide us with his usual supports.”
If
By appealing to our anger, by showing us how truly alone we are in this world, being the lone member of The Alliance participating in this wicked game,
“My stupid Fearless people, we are truly alone in this game. We are playing against fifty or so opponents. Our enemies overwhelm in numbers and might.”
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
A booming voice filled the hall. That voice did not just fill the hall. It ruptured the ears of every Fearless presenting inside it. Amidst the ocean of the
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,” he shouted, shattering that calm and cold acceptance atmosphere that
SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM. If you want peace, prepare for war. Every Fearless who participated in the Summit knew that phrase and we did not just know that phrase, we understood its philosophy and practical reasoning.
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,”
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,” he kept shouting, and shouting, and shouting, fearlessly, even when I have ordered him to be dragged out of the hall to face a firing squad for disrupting the summit. An example needed to be made for these Fearless people to take my warning lightly.
“A true Fearless among the Fearless people until the end,” I heard a quiet whisper coming from the
I called for the
Another figure coolly rose from the ocean of the
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,” he shouted and started chanting that phrase as if it was a motto of his faction.
Fuck, I clutched my head, should have expected that… These Fearless people, they are a part of me. They speak like me, walk like me, and behave like me. They are just as stupid as I do and they behave in the most infuriating manner as I do. I hammered the mallet and gave the bastard a stern warning. Being stupid, he did not heed the warning and kept on chanting, “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,” continuing to disrupt the flow of the summit in the most unproductive manner. Thus, he too faced the firing squad.
Boy oh boy, I sighed internally, face-palming myself, cursing myself when I gave out the sentence to send that bastard to face the firing squad. Have I always been this annoying? I knew exactly what would happen when I have to make the choice to send that bastard to face a firing squad.
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
Those two bastards of the
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
Two stupid Fearless people of the
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
The entire hall shook with the chanting of “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” coming from the
I struck the mallet in resignation, sending a thousand of those “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” chanting people to face the firing squad. Otherwise, the summit could never proceed.
The
Amidst the presentation, those stupid “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” chanting people kept popping up like cockroaches to disrupt the presentation. I kept being headstrong, sending them to face the firing squad, continuing to make examples for as long as I must, Until these morons learn their lesson. I told myself. Slowly, that ocean consisted of
“…The best case scenario if we pursued this strategy is a stalemate, a stalemate that would last until infinity and beyond. Otherwise, we shall have victory for three short years with these presented tactics before we face the ultimate destruction. I ask you, my stupid people, is that worth it? Three shorts years of continuous meaningless victories? Is our life only worth that much? What’s wrong with bending our neck a little bit for the sake of safety and peace? What’s wrong with retreating from an enemy that we could not defeat?”
“There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with admitting our disadvantages and resign. As great as we are, we cannot do this alone. We cannot win this game alone. Accepting the role of Neutrality is not an act of fear. It is bravery. It is the bravery of a wise man who understood the threshold of his limit and willing to admit his limit. That is bravery in the truest sense. My stupid people, as Prince Fearless of The Alliance, we have done everything to prove ourselves and to not drag that name to the mud. We have been tested and tested, again, and again, and again and we have proven ourselves on every occasion. We have nothing else to prove now.
Being Banned from the Game in a vote of confidence is the highest caliber of honor and praise that a person can ever receive from these brain-dead immortals. We are the first and only person to be Banned from this Game. We should be proud of that. That alone speaks of the amount of fear and uncertainty that these brain-dead morons had for us. This alone is a Draw. Being able to score a Draw on that many opponents at once should be considered a victory us.
However, my stupid people, if we pursued the other paths, only defeat awaits us.
The path that leads us to that stalemate is a mutual destruction for those brainless morons and us, neither them nor us win in this scenario. That’s a mutual defeat.
And this path, three years, we shall win battles. In these three years, I am sure that we will kill many immortals. In these three years, I’m sure that our name will be sung across this world. And in three years, everything that we have built, everything that we cared will go up in flame. Our name and the name of The Alliance will go down in ashes. We will face true defeat. We will be defeated. I urge you my stupid Fearless people, do consider the consequence of your action.”
When
I hit the mallet and ordered silence. I sighed a bit, turning my head at the last of the
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
“The
Quietly, he walked to the podium. He was
“Stupidity is a commitment. Stupidity is a choice, a choice that we make while knowing the consequences of making such a choice.”
Surprisingly, what escaped his lips was not “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM.”
“My stupid people, we are stupid, but not because we are born ignorant and naiveté. We are stupid, but not because this is the role that the world has forced upon us. We are stupid because we make the choice to be stupid. We chose to be stupid. We make the choice to be stupid and we are proud of that choice.” He spoke passionately, appealing on the pride of the stupid Fearless people. He then pointed his finger at the execution ground, “The people of my clan, those morons, they died while chanting “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” in such a disruptive manner. They deserved to die for causing unnecessary chaos in such an important moment when we have much to lose if we made a single mistake.” He bowed to the
“They deserved to die. Your Honor, you were not wrong to execute them.” He then bowed to me.
“As a member of the
Only when I nodded my head out of sheer respect and the
“Those morons of my clan, they did not die while chanting SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM. They chanted “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” so that they could die in such a manner. Your Honor, we all knew that your warnings are not meant to take lightly. Those morons, they make a choice to ignore your warnings. Stupid people, for that, they deserved death,”
“However,
“We are only deluding ourselves in the illusions that we conjured. We are only lying to ourselves through our illusions. We are using facts and smart arguments to avoid facing the most important matter, the only matter that truly matters. And yet, we are beings who are incapable of falling for own lies and illusions. We can lie to ourselves. We can delude ourselves but we are incapable of buying them.
Since nobody mentioned that, I will.
What does this Neutrality cost us? We are avoiding facing this question. Why? Because we don’t want to admit that by accepting Neutrality, we would make a compromise with our principles.
The enemies are strong and we are at our weakest. In order to live, we must make a compromise with our principles to avoid this collision. Should we? Yes, we should, to live.
But, should we?
These enemies have ignored our warnings on three separated occasions. The first time was when Clariciel invaded our dream, the second time and the third time was when we executed Bloodbeard and his gang.
They deliberately ignored our warnings. They chose to invade this world, our world, our dream. They gave themselves the right to trespass and twist our dreams according to their design. We should punish them for making such a choice. Even if we cannot punish all of them, we should make an example of a few to make the rest learned the lesson. If we don’t, these brain-dead bullies would keep pushing the boundary of our compromise.
Our memories and dreams are our sacred place. Whether they brought us pain or joy, suffering or peace, our memories and dreams are ours. We, stupid Fearless people, we are people of no nation. Our home was lost to us and now we are stranded in a strange land. Our memories and dreams are what connects us to our lost home, family and nation. We cannot tolerate these invaders for toying with them. We cannot allow such impudence to go unpunished.
I ask you, my stupid people. Can you forgive these invaders for tainting the most sacred part of your memories and dreams with their intruding presence? Can we allow them to twist and redesign our dreams to their will? Can we allow them to alter our memories? No, we cannot. We must not allow such a thing to happen. If we allow such a thing to happen, one day they will make us forget who we are.
If they kept making small alterations to our memories, one day, we will be Fearless no longer.
One day they will make us forget why we are Fearless. One day they will make us forget everything that makes us, us. We must not allow that to happen. These
“You, the
He apologized wholeheartedly as I and the Summit forgave him, knowing only too well that we are no better than him. When we are being too emotional, our speech-craft became weird and we started losing control over the content of our language.
“What I mean is I would rather die first before that happens to me.
You, the
Will she prevent those brain-dead morons from twisting our dream?
Yes, she will. However, when you present such an idea to her, she will execute that idea on all of us out of her perverted infatuation with us. If she could sentence us to live and suffer for an endless eon to make us love her, there is nothing to stop her from altering our memories and tainting our dreams to make us love her. I will rather be torn into pieces and died suffered than living such fate. My people have already chosen death over such fate.
However, before that, before these invaders could change our dreams and twist our memories, we are defeating ourselves here by having this discussion.
Your Honor, you have the power to observe them. You are observing them right now. You are listening to their conversation right now. Do they appear to be the agent of justice to you? Do they sound holy like Buddha, gods and goddess on earth to you? Do they sound human to you? Or do they sound like demons to your ears? They look like us. They smell like us and above everything, they sound and act like us. Therefore, they cannot be anything but demons and injustices.
They are the injustice and we are the greatest injustice. There is only one choice for us to make here and we all know what that is. If we cannot kill them all, we are not the greatest injustice, and thus our principle will become a lie. My
My stupid people, I ask you, what is the point of having this summit? Your Honor, why are we even having such a discussion?
We already know the answer, our answer. You should already know the answer.
We must not compromise with these brain-dead morons, not our freedom, not our principle, not our pride and cherished treasure. We must not compromise with them.
Instead, we should rejoice in this opportunity. We should take this opportunity as a test, a challenge to our name and principle. We should teach these invaders that we are the Mt. Himalayan of this game and they are some random average climbers. We should teach them that we are the ultimate raid boss of this game and they are just some low-level noobs. Even when we are alone, weakened and handicapped, the Prince of The Alliance is a name to remember with respect and fear.
Make them learn our name, my stupid Fearless people. Make them tremble with fear when they hear our name, Your Honor. You are Prince Fearless of The Alliance, Your Honor. If you don’t crush these low-level noobs who do not understand their place, you are sullying the name of The Alliance, you are sullying the name of The Prince of The Alliance, you are sullying the name of all the players you have crushed in the past. Crush them, Your Honor. Let our black and gold flag becomes their trauma.”
His words moved many of the stupid people of the
Those who went out dying while shouting “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM,” were martyring themselves for their cause and belief. They died shouting “SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” in the most stupid manner so that the last one of their representative could gain the best chance to make a clear difference in this Summit.
This is not a strategy that smart people would come up with. Only the stupid people of my dreamland would employ this kind of strategy.
With his words, he turned the stupid people of the
While the
He appealed to me by currying my desire for true freedom. He appealed to me by using my pride and sense of identity. He appealed to me by using my love and respect for the name of The Alliance. He alone understood my will ahead of everyone participating at the Summit.
I have already made up my mind about whether I should butthead with those brain-dead immortals or cower before them. I merely called upon the Summit to see if there is a different path.
If only I was less stupid, this strategy would have an impact on me as it did to the stupid people of the
And he will, because there is just no way that I could forget such exemplary illustration of commitment to stupidity, as I kept my thought a secret, a Fearless raised from the rank of the
Whereas the majority of his
He was
“We can win battles. Sure! We can crush them. Sure! Ten or twenty of these brain-dead assholes, or perhaps more. But there are fifty of them. What’s the point of crushing only twenty of these brainless morons only to face our inevitable defeat in the end? That’s a lost cause. Realistically speaking, we cannot win this war. So instead of fighting them and lost, we should try to compromise and find a method to mitigate their authority over us.”
“Did you fall asleep during our presentation? Our calculations and battle forecasts have shown that we cannot win this war.”
Undaunted,
“That’s a fallacy. Just because he could win against Heavennet, it doesn’t mean he could win this war.”
“That’s a fair argument. However, all of our calculation and forecast are made base on the premise that these brainless immortals are mentally unbreakable and unshakable. I doubt it.”
“We should always assume the worst.”
“That’s too pessimistic. I do not believe that we cannot break their mind with our combined stupidity.”
“That, again, is a fallacy.”
The two stupid people argued back and forth without relenting for hours. One of them used facts, numbers, and logics to back up his reasoning whereas the other used emotions and fallacies to spur his arguments. Regardless of their differences in ideology and political outlook, as far as stupidity is concerned, they are the equal of each other.
One embraced the hopelessness of the future whereas the other earnestly tried to combat such hopelessness. One selfishly sought immortality for himself and his people through martyrdom whereas the other selflessly sought to protect his God from the inevitable doom even when he has already all but vanished into the clouds of a dream. And yet, through their argument, the selfish one appeared almost holy to everyone whereas the selfless one appeared as a devil who tried to convince his God to be less than a God.
Harsh facts, numbers, and logic cannot convince people but emotions do. Every Fearless presenting at the Summit knew that.
Therefore, in order to convince people,
Therefore, the end of their argument was predictable. In the truest fashion of a stupid person of the stupid people of Fearless,
“SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM” were the final words of
“Your Honor, please take care of yourself,” were the final words of
Two truly stupid people until the very end.
Technically, they are me, so why are they so different?
“My stupid people, I ask you, what is the point of having this summit? Your Honor, why are we even having such a discussion?” The voice of
If my path was destined to collide with those brain-dead beings and the only way to prevent the collision is to compromise one’s identity, purposes, and principles, I will not be the person who avoids the collision.
If war is inevitable, then there is no reason to avoid it. Instead, one should embrace it and combat it. As the God of the stupid people, I must combat war with war. SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM, that is the science of war of the stupid people.
War is not a game. War is a clash of ideology and value. War is a twist of politics, the battle between selfishness and selflessness. War is not a game. War cannot be fought like a game. War is costly and the most important resource in war is human’s life. Therefore, the one who wages war must be prepared to pay for it with his life. War cannot be fought with the knowledge and ideology of a gamer, that, the stupid people of Fearless have shown me.
The one who fights war must be prepared to be undone by war. So, what’s the point of worrying about one’s inevitable defeat?
Result matters. Legacy matters. History matters. Even if I must face my inevitable defeat, my ideology and wills must survive and win the war as
So how can one’s legacy survive when one is defeated?
Through the combination of Example and Cost, as both
I will not forget the two of you.
So, how can one’s legacy win the war when one is defeated?
“Make your enemies paid for the war more than you did. Make it costly for them with examples.”
I mulled for a while before returning that water abyss to give Phúc a piece of my mind and his final warning. Whether he decided to quit lying to himself or not, whether he decided to take away my control as the god of this world or not, he could no longer stop this war. He can try to salvage it but war can no longer be stopped.
Immortals, you sold me a fight without showing any regard for my repeated warnings. I am buying it. In return, I will sell you a war, the most costly war in your lifetime.
“Are you prepared to pay for it?”