Became a Strategist with a 100 Intelligence and 100% Accuracy – Chapter 1

Click, click.
I kept changing the tribute amount by 1, repeatedly making these seemingly meaningless mouse clicks.

[Advisor / Ginor’s Message]
[Alliance / Serpina’s Army / 36 Months / Dowry: Gold 2558]
[Executing Character / Monarch]
[I understand your Highness’s intention, but it seems unlikely that you will achieve your desired outcome]

Click.

[Advisor / Ginor’s Message]
[Alliance / Serpina’s Army / 36 Months / Dowry: Gold 2557]
[Executing Character / Monarch]
[I understand your Highness’s intention, but it seems unlikely that you will achieve your desired outcome]

Click.

[Advisor / Ginor’s Message]
[Alliance / Serpina’s Army / 36 Months / Dowry: Gold 2558]
[Executing Character / Monarch]
[I understand your Highness’s intention, but it seems unlikely that you will achieve your desired outcome]

“Ah, damn it!”

I only had 2558 gold left.
Somehow, I had to form an alliance with Serpina’s Army, the current strongest force.
If not, an almost certain game over awaited me next turn due to an invasion of my homeland.

This game, [Garland Eternity Saga], was a classic game released over twenty years ago.
By today’s standards, it was an outdated territory-conquering game where the goal was to defeat enemy castles and unify the fictional fantasy continent of Garland.
It was a turn-based battle game, not particularly deep, but not boring enough to be tedious—a fairly average game.
However, I had a fondness for it from my childhood, and thus, I often attempted to unify the continent about once every quarter.

This continent had various monarchs, but my favorite playstyle was always with a [Randomly Generated Monarch].
Having played and cleared the game with all the named monarchs, I had grown tired of them.
Although the game wasn’t based on real history, and the monarchs slightly differed in lifespan and received slightly different modifiers in each game, it wasn’t the same monarch unifying every time. Thus, playing with a named monarch could feel like a different game. However, it was almost a rule not to play with a randomly generated monarch unless you were hardcore into this game.

For someone like me, who had poured over 10,000 hours into this game, there was no fun or joy except in playing with a random monarch.

Anyway, to summarize my current situation:
My chosen random monarch, [RandomMonarch5338], had the misfortune of spawning right next to Serpina’s Army, the most brutal and belligerent tyrant in the game.
Serpina, a descendant of Jerome von Aingart, the last emperor of the unified empire before the era of wars, was a character who would unify the continent in about six or seven out of ten games—a near-final boss entity.
In this game, CPU invasions started one in-game year after the game began.
Each turn was three months. So, if I couldn’t form an alliance with Serpina’s Army within four turns, it was over for me.

However, it was too early to give up.
After all, it was a classic game more than 20 years old, not very deep in its gameplay mechanics.

Moreover, there was a reason not to give up.

My advisor, Ginor, had an intelligence of 99.
This was an incredibly high score. In fact, it was practically the best.
Except for the named character Eleonoa, who always dies young, a character with 100 intelligence doesn’t exist unless cheats are used.

In this game, advice from a character with 100 intelligence was 100% accurate.
Advice from one with 99 intelligence was 99% accurate.
99% was practically 100%, so it was reliable enough.

Besides the advisor, the neighboring countries, except Serpina’s Army, were quite favorable.
Aisher’s Army, weak in the early stages but skyrocketing later due to a pool of talents, was right behind me.
The best time to absorb talents from Aisher’s Army was right at the start of the game.
Meaning, if I could successfully ally with Serpina’s Army and win the war against Aisher’s Army to absorb its talents, I could lead the game stably enough that it wouldn’t seem like a random monarch playthrough.
Maybe even a speedrun starting as a random monarch was possible.

Compared to today’s gacha games-
It was as if I had succeeded in rerolling in every aspect except my starting location.

So, I couldn’t give up.

My current situation was that Ginor, with an intelligence of 99, was telling me, “You can’t form an alliance with Serpina’s Army.”
Then why was I stubbornly repeating this request for an alliance, changing the tribute amount by 1 each time?
It was because if I kept

grinding like this, there would eventually be a moment when he said, “[There’s a possibility].”
In other words, it was a kind of loophole play.

What mechanism made this loophole play possible? What was the basis?
I didn’t know any of that.
I had just read in an old strategy guide for this game, “[If you keep repeating, the advice might change, and that’s your chance! Use it if you need to make a difficult proposal].”
It might be a programming issue in an old game. Anyway, I wasn’t sure.

What I knew was-
Even in seemingly impossible proposals, there was a “divine moment” when they would be accepted.

3800 gold was our army’s entire fortune.
Of course, Serpina wouldn’t ally with anyone unless they brought treasures that increased her military strength, so allying with her with just this amount of gold was almost impossible.
But I was convinced that if I kept repeating this [loophole play], it would work at least once.
My head, filled with data from playing 10,000 hours, was assuring me of this.
After all, without this, I was destined to be trampled under Serpina’s army’s hooves.

“Come on, please work!”

After what seemed like hours of click-grinding, I had YouTube on my phone and watched it while mindlessly repeating mouse clicks on my computer.

And finally.

[Advisor / Ginor’s Message]
[Alliance / Serpina’s Army / 36 Months / Dowry: Gold 2556]
[Executing Character / Monarch]
[As your Highness personally visits to show sincerity, it might move Serpina’s Army’s heart]

“It worked!”

I almost missed it because I was watching YouTube while repeating the task, but I managed to catch it just in time.

Done!

Ginor’s intelligence was 99.
That meant his advice in this world was 99% accurate.
99%! Not 90%, but 99%! In this game, that was practically 100%!

“Good. Now, while allied with Serpina’s Army, I’ll wipe out Aisher’s Army nearby, appoint Yoori as a general to secure the rear, and deploy soldiers along the border with Serpina’s Army to somehow hold off.”

36 months.
An incredibly precious 12 turns.
In this game, where a lot could be done in one turn, it was a time as valuable as gold.

I carefully planned my next moves and pressed the [Send Envoy] button.

And then.

[Envoy of RandomMonarch5338 / RandomMonarch5338]
[Today, I have come to discuss directly with Lady Serpina]
[Please form a 36-month alliance with our army]
[Condition: Gold 2556]

[Serpina’s Army Advisor / Jena]
[My lord, you should not be swayed by flattery]

[Serpina’s Army Monarch / Serpina]
[There’s a limit to treating people like fools]

“What? Why?”

Why won’t it work?
Why won’t you form an alliance?
Ginor’s intelligence is 99. His words are 99% accurate.
But… there was always one harsh truth that was easily overlooked.

99 is not 100.

“Ah, damn it.”

1%!
The figure that tripped me up, just 1%!

I had failed to form an alliance with a 1% probability and got rejected.

[Envoy of RandomMonarch5338 / RandomMonarch5338]
[I won’t borrow your strength]

There was no choice.
I had to abandon the castle and flee to another province with Plan B.
Of course, I would suffer huge losses in the process… but I didn’t want to end this round with the highly intelligent advisor of 99 that I had acquired.

However.
My small glimmer of hope soon started to dissipate.

[Serpina’s Army Monarch / Serpina]
[Is there anyone there?]
[Throw this person into the dungeon]

‘???’

What?
Taking an envoy as a prisoner?
Yes, the game had such a feature.
But, normally, envoys sent for diplomacy weren’t imprisoned due to the penalty of plummeting reputation with other monarchs, making diplomacy very difficult.
But who was Serpina?
The greatest tyrant this game had ever produced.

‘Sigh…’

Still…
Even if I was locked in the dungeon… there must be a way…
If I could escape before the invading army reached our territory…

Beep!!!
Just as I was burning my last circuit of hope, an unpleasant 8-bit sound echoed in my ears.

[Serpina’s Army Monarch, Serpina, has beheaded the monarch of RandomMonarch5338’s Army, RandomMonarch5338]
[The monarch of RandomMonarch5338’s Army, RandomMonarch5338… closes his eyes here]
[The legacy of RandomMonarch5338’s Army is inherited by Ginor]

[GAME OVER]

‘…Sigh.’

I was dead.
It seemed Serpina had executed me right after putting me in jail.
Just imprisoning would already incur a huge penalty in diplomacy, making dialogue with other countries impossible. Executing an envoy would certainly stop any proper conversation from any neighboring country.
But what does it matter?
That’s how she always was!

‘That damn Ginor!’

And now my army is inherited by Ginor?
It was just a game, but the situation was too perfect.
Did he deliberately send me to my death to take over the country?

‘Always the case with intelligence 99. Should’ve been at least 100.’

It was my mistake to trust intelligence 99.
I should have just restarted the game.
I sighed deeply and clicked the mouse to move past the [Game Over] screen, planning to start anew, far from Serpina’s Army.

But.

No matter how many times I clicked, it wouldn’t go to the next screen.

‘?’

Did it freeze?
After several mouse clicks-

A screen I had never seen in my 10,000 hours of gameplay appeared.

[Advisor Ginor / Message]
[Do you find intelligence 99 too easy?]

‘???’

What?
What does this mean?

No matter how much I clicked, it wouldn’t go to the next screen.
There was only one option I could click.
The button at the bottom reading [It’s easy. Intelligence should be at least 100].

Beyond understanding this bizarre situation-
Feeling like the phrase spoke for me, I clicked the button as if mesmerized.

[??? / Response]
[It’s easy. Intelligence should be at least 100]

[Advisor Ginor / Message]
[Is that so]

And at that moment.
The world began to fluctuate.

‘This can’t be…!’

I know this development.
Getting sucked into the game, right?
These involuntary possession plots, I’ve seen them dozens of times.

But… why?

Why am I the one being dragged into an old, outdated game world!!!
I’d prefer to be dragged into a novel with beautiful girls obsessing over me or a sophisticated gacha game!!!

[Advisor Ginor / Message]
[I hope you do well]

As I read that line, I lost consciousness.