Great job this week!
Thanks to you all, we've collected 350 Power Stones, and our Patreon community is growing with both new free and paid members. I'm so grateful for your support!
This Week's Chapters
As a result of your efforts, from Monday to Sunday this week:
4 chapters will be published daily on Webnovel.
Paid Patreon subscribers will get a total of 8 daily chapters.
A New Goal for a Permanent Increase!
Now, I have some exciting news about a permanent change: if we reach 20 paid subscribers a month on Patreon, the base number of daily chapters will increase!
The base on Webnovel will go from 2 to 3 daily chapters.
The base on Patreon will go from 5 to 6 daily chapters.
This means that any extra chapters we unlock with our weekly goals will be added to this new base, boosting the daily total even more! Your support on Patreon is the key to making this possible.
Thanks again for everything. Happy reading!
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Chapter 23: The Multiple Endings of Undertale
Setting aside the meta, Undertale's story itself is quite impressive. It's filled with fascinating and engaging characters. For example, Sans, who shakes the protagonist's hand while holding a whoopee cushion, and his brother, Papyrus, who delights in using riddles to frustrate the protagonist.
Sans, seemingly lazy, enjoys telling skeleton puns to tease his brother, Papyrus. Meanwhile, Papyrus, a man who delights in using riddles to frustrate the protagonist, reveals the answers only when the protagonist doesn't actively try or can't solve them. He's a nerdy, almost geeky, professor.
The most impactful are Sans's words in the magnificent hallway just before the final boss battle. Here, Sans begins to judge the player's actions. Sans reveals that EXP does not refer to experience points, but to execution points. LV is not what players understand, nor is it simply LOVE.
It means Level of Violence, that is, "level of violence." Each time a player kills a monster, their execution points increase, and as these increase, so does their level of violence. This is not about experience points or the character's level, but about the game's violence index.
This is where Undertale subverts traditional RPG clichés. Killing monsters to level up is a natural progression for most RPG players, but Undertale is different. Most new players will reach the neutral ending, where they will encounter Flowey and be deeply moved by his content.
However, if the player chooses not to kill the flower in the neutral ending, it will reveal how to achieve the pacifist ending.
In the latter, the player must remain silent and converse with each monster. Throughout this ending, players will discover that each monster has unique characteristics. Even the most ferocious-looking monsters possess a charming side. For example, the fish warrior Undyne is a classic example of a tsundere!
"Listen, human, we need to be more than friends."
"We'll be best friends."
"I'll make you addicted to me."
"This is my perfect revenge."
At Papyrus's provocation, the legendary captain of the Royal Guard accepted the protagonist as a friend. She even gave him a cooking class, even though she burned down her house. The Skeleton Brothers, the Goat Mother, the Fish Warrior... especially the final battle against the final boss, the King, and the Goat Mother's son, Asriel, brought countless players to tears.
Dying in this battle did not mean a game over. Instead, a subtitle read: "[Your determination has been rejected.]" Finally, with the help of the determination of countless friends, the player defeated Asriel.
Asriel also revealed part of the game's story. A long time ago, a human child fell underground and was rescued by Asriel, who took him in. They became best friends, but later, for some reason, he lost his friend. Asriel absorbed the first child's soul, transforming into an immensely powerful being, capable of crossing the barrier. After leaving the underground, he returned to the surface to fulfill a friend's last wish.
However, humans mistakenly believed he had killed the first child and attacked him. A wounded Asriel stumbled home, collapsed, and transformed into a cloud of dust that scattered throughout the garden. His determination was infused into a golden flower, and this is the origin of the flower. In this final battle, Asriel finally found liberation and relief, releasing the pain he was clinging to.
Both the neutral and pacifist endings were achieved. It might seem that players should be satisfied, but curiosity is part of human nature. The violence points, execution points, and the sinister side of the flower seem to drive players to explore another ending. And it is in this ending where players experience a truly indescribable shock and spiritual contemplation.
Sitting in front of his computer, Ryan's expression was serious.
"Three scenes remaining," a prompt appeared on the monitor.
In the underground world, the monsters had been massacred, leaving only three monsters unfound. The map was empty and the once-bustling tavern was eerily silent. At that moment, Ryan experienced an indescribable feeling. Due to the game Mirror, he was also very curious about Alex's new work, Undertale.
He felt disdain upon entering the game and was surprised upon finishing it. After achieving the neutral and pacifist endings, he was curious about the supposed genocide ending. But now he felt a little regret. In the previous playthrough, the monsters who were his friends died one by one at his hands, simply to fulfill the plot conditions.
Even Papyrus, the angelic skeleton, believed, even in his last moments, that he could turn from evil to good.
[What a wonderful excuse! You must understand better than anyone how liberating this is!]
[But at least we are better than those hypocrites who stand idly by watching evil being done, those poor creatures who yearn to witness it but are too cowardly to act for themselves!]
The game's voice-over was full of irony. Even so, he continued his attack. All monsters were instantly annihilated. Until he met Undyne, the captain of the Royal Guard. Near a waterfall, Undyne appeared, shielding a small, bean-sized monster from the blow. As captain of the Royal Guard, she had long protected the monsters of the underworld, but now she claimed to have failed them.
But just as she was about to die, touching background music began to play. A howling wind, accompanied by a flash of white light, and the Determined Undyne appeared. This hero has reinvented herself thanks to her determination to save the world. Hearing the touching background music about fighting a true hero, Ryan felt a deep irony. The monsters in the game were considered heroes. Meanwhile, the protagonist he controlled was doing what the monsters were supposed to do.
This was the toughest battle he had fought so far. After painstakingly defeating Undyne, he continued to advance until he reached a familiar place. The throne room, resplendent with gold and jade, with a familiar figure waiting just ahead.
Previously, Sans had judged the player's actions. But now? No more empty conversations. The battle began directly.
"What a beautiful day! Birds are singing, flowers are blooming! On a day like this, people like you... will burn... in hell!"
With those words, a wave of attacks unleashed, instantly annihilating the defenseless Ryan. Continuous effort, continuous experimentation. Finally, just as he was about to defeat Sans, the Sans in the game seemed to have found a solution: not moving during his turn. Unfortunately, Sans failed. Taking advantage of Sans's respite, he stealthily moved into attack position, ambushed him, and killed him.
Then Flowey appeared. Unlike the Flowey in the neutral ending, this Flowey was deeply afraid of the protagonist, begging him not to kill him. The next instant, eight consecutive slashes tore him to pieces. Everything seemed to be over, but then someone appeared, surprising Ryan. It was Chara, the first human to fall into the underworld. She had awakened from the dead.
He was presented with two options: destroy this world or not. Faced with the eerie silence, darkness, and unsettling Chara, Ryan felt a profound oppression. At first, he just wanted to know the ending. He regretted it halfway through, but he didn't stop. Now, this regret intensified. So he chose not to.
But the next instant, Chara's expression darkened.
"It seems you've misunderstood something? When will it be your turn to decide?"
Chara's words appeared, and the sword gleamed. The game screen trembled, and a series of blood-red damage numbers filled it. Then, the game automatically shut down.
'Is this the genocide ending?'
Ryan, sitting in front of the computer, took a deep breath and pursed his lips.