“It’s not strange at all. If I listened to all the selfishness of the people and their high regard for their petty lives then there would be no future left for the country or the people.”
“Are you planning for a war to restore Britain’s glory?”
“No, you are misunderstanding me. Past mistakes should inform us but not dictate future actions. What I am interested in is the future.”
I didn’t really see anywhere that our conversation could have gone. At least until I found a way to return to the real world as my real self, there was no reason for me to directly oppose Chamberlain. I turned to leave.
“Are you angry that you were sacrificed for such impersonal, vague goals?”
“No, if it had been for a selfish reason then I could understand and be angry about it but your reasons make so little sense and are rooted in nothing so I can’t even be angry about it. I might as well paste a human face to fate and be angry at that.”
“I read them, you know, your web novels. That is why you were chosen for this task. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I am your biggest fan.”
“I don’t think my novels were that special. It’s just your everyday dystopia.”
“Every dystopian novel is a handbook for every ruler and a power fantasy for some author. I am no exception as a ruler and you are no exception as an author. I thought you would be happy inside that game where you can have your own harem but you seem like you want out to your life which was going nowhere just for vague notion of freedom which is indifferent from degeneracy whereas now I have given you a life of purpose. Namely to serve the nation and progress.”
“I am not angry, just disappointed. Fantasies are only satisfying as long as they remain fantasies, so I didn’t write stories of self-less heroes fighting and building empires in a virtual world because I wanted to do anything like that. I simply wrote that because it was what I wanted to read. But more importantly I don’t want to live for someone else’s sake, or to have my freedom taken away. Right now I don’t feel free, because I am just an ordinary prisoner, no matter how many duties you bestow on me.”
“None of us are free from God’s chosen fate for us. Your hand which brought you here too was guided by Providence to write and create whether you’d like to admit it or not. If you feel like you are prisoner now that you have a duty just because of superficial things like physical reality being out of your bounds then you were always in a prison even in your human life.”
“Your God must have some really average tastes if he made me write that novel or your world based on it. Aren’t you the one forcing me to play a god’s role here? Well, I don’t want any gods or masters or servants who can and will stab me in the back at some point.”
Above everything I hate being made someone’s pawn, not even the saintess’ self-proclaimed God.
“It doesn’t matter what you want or I want. Whether my plan succeeds or fails, that, and only that will determine whether it was God’s will or not. National rejuvenation. The greatest glory for the greatest number of people.”
The second thing I hated the most was people hiding their true intentions behind something vague like God’s Will or the Will of the People.
Let’s see, this man didn’t actually care about the well-being of the people, I think I understood him fairly well. He was your bottom of the barrel villain, well unfortunately I am no hero of justice, I am just a prisoner.
“National rejuvenation? Basically you want me to make Britain the strongest country? What a meaningless goal to live for. Fine, I will do that but once that is over, you must let me free.”
Chamberlain’s expression suddenly hardened with a murderous aura.
“Don’t look at me like that, I am not afraid since you can’t go ahead with your plans without me so you can’t really do anything to me. However, I will set up the virtual world in such a way that things will keep on running even without me. After all, isn’t that what you want in the end? An endless non-existent, fully automated virtual empire, in which essentially nothing ever happens, and that keeps on expanding for its own sake?”
Naturally, I will retain enough influence in case he tries to destroy me but I don’t need to say everything out loud.
“Oftentimes, it is better if nothing happens, although I am not foolish enough to assume that human progress would stop at any point. But really? You would give up the only thing you have over me?”
Finally, we were getting somewhere.
