In the OmniverseEngine, there are as many parallel universes out there as there are grains of… Wait, I already did that intro.

What was I writing about?

I must have my notes somewhere…

Oh! Right! Converging timelines.

We’ve all heard of the butterfly effect, or how small changes in the past can snowball into significant changes in the future. So, in theory, every small change in choices should result in vastly different timelines.

In practice… eh, not so much.

It may be related to the OmniverseEngine trying to compress and save space, or it may be some other type of system-related jank that I can’t quite figure out, but there is a lot of overlap in where many sets of timelines end up.

Yes, there can be novel ones like the Ottoverse, the Daveverse, and even the Swapverse, but I’ve told those stories because they’re the exceptions, not the rule.

Anyway, enough yammering. Let’s get into it.

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Admin Victory – AKA The Bad End

In what timelines does Admin get what he wants? It turns out there are a lot of them. We had to balance on a really thin line to snatch Placeholder away from him.

Anyway, here are a few examples of how it could go bad…

Solo [Hero] - Location, Earth (before the events of book 1)

Jake was completely stoked. He hadn’t been to a Comic-Con in ages, and even Garrett had managed to get the time off to go!

However, he was running a bit late… literally.

He checked both ways before running into the street… and into the path of the headlights that appeared from seemingly nowhere.

He froze as the truck closed in… and the next thing he knew, he was in a new world.

He knew enough stories to know what being chosen as the [Hero] meant, and he took to his role the best he could.

Jake fought monsters, made new friends, and battled through hordes of demons with his party to face down the [Demon Lord].

He unlocked new skills, sacrificed parts of himself, and managed to defeat it at great cost… Only for the [Demon King] to appear right after…

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Yeah, it turns out that if Jake gets truck-kun[1]ed that he isn’t able to save the world by himself. Admin stacked the deck way too hard for that to happen, even though he turned out to be as good of a Hero as Placeholder could hope for.

However, the opposite was also true. If you take Jake out of the picture, no one was capable of stopping me… and in turn, no one could stop the demon invasion once it started.

There were a couple of different spots where that occurred. Just take away the server rollbacks.

A [Heroic] snack – Location, Faroff Forest Dungeon (when the party was clearing the dungeon)

“Look, we just cleared this room, and I really don’t want to deal with a mimic right now,” I complained.

“Oh, come on! It’s probably just the reward for clearing the room!” Jake replied.

I gave him a look that communicated my doubt.

“I’ll prove it to ya. [Identify]!” Jake cast. “See! It’s just a chest.”

I folded my arms. “If you’re so sure about that, you open it.”

“Sure!” he replied.

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And those were the last words Jake said to our stunned party as the mimic ate him.

On a somewhat tangential note… Who becomes [Hero] if Jake dies?

The answer? Richard from In Bloom Matsuri. And that should explain why I won.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a good leader and a good swordsman. It’s just… there’s a reason he was number 2 on the System’s pick list and not number 1.

Wrath of the mobs – Location, Starry Forest (before it was technically named that)

“I wonder how many daves it will take to clear this boss,” I thought as I was stuck in the crater/dungeon. “Well, I guess if I wait long enough, maybe the party will show up.”

I was a bit worried about where the massive horde of monsters following me had gone, but I was sure that Jake and the rest of the party could handle it.

I’ll make a couple dozen daves before I try the boss… Just to be sure.

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Meanwhile, Jake and the party fought for their lives against an unending wave of wolves and bears. There was no end to them!

They did what they could. They traded off fights and tried to rest in between.

However, the cruel restrictions of the System were their eventual downfall.

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“Yeah, they should be fine. They’ve got a [Hero]!” I said as I calmly summoned another dave.

The Recurring Reign of Titus the Mad

Honestly, there are only 3 criteria needed to make this timeline show up.

I obtain [Memory Protection] Jake lives through my first life I die before reaching level 25 and getting [Reflect Attack]

If all those are met, Jake “ends my suffering” in my second life with another overpowered [Sunder] and becomes a [Hero] who slew 2 [Demon Lords].

My broken mind never recovers with no [Hero] Sarah to heal me. The name of “Titus” is mostly lost to time as “the Demon Lord of Madness” is all that is left.

However, with the attacks appearing every 50 years, like clockwork, the world adapts to it, and it becomes… just something that happens. Like a natural disaster that occurs on a specific schedule, give or take a few days.

Since the main threat to Jake’s life was me, I basically just had to be a bit less lucky or a bit dumber in any one of my close calls.

Do a flip – Location, unknown mountain (after I was outed as the [Demon Lord] and split from the party)

I had just finished climbing to the top of a freaking mountain, and I looked off a steep ledge down to the other side.

That’s a long way down. How should I-

My planning was interrupted as a gargoyle rammed me from behind.

Then, I was in freefall.

I looked at the rapidly approaching ground. Well, this is definitely gonna put me into wrath form…

So, what did my mind helpfully tell me?

Do a flip.

I shrugged. Instead of keeping my body spread out or attempting to make any sort of landing, I spent my remaining seconds of freefall trying different aerial acrobatics.

When I splatted onto the ground and didn’t go into wrath form, that’s when I knew something was wrong.

I checked my status.

“Oh,” I whispered. “It doesn’t activate if I get dropped to the negatives.”

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That timeline is honestly pretty tragic. I died alone with no one around for miles. However, I did at least cause a System notification that was worth a dark chuckle.

System: Gravity has slain the Demon Lord! …

Bare first boxing is a dangerous sport – Location, Gert (after the duel for my freedom that I lost to Gertrude)

Gertrude had me pinned, and I couldn’t shake her off.

Then… she won. I was at 25% HP.

But, she was in [Rage], and she didn’t stop.

She continued beating me in the face.

“Gertrude! Stop!” I shouted. “I give! You win!”

I was also in a panic. Wrath form was on cooldown.

Belatedly, the [Beserkers] around her moved in to get her off me.

It was too late. My head lolled to the side as I hit negative HP.

System: Berserk Queen Gertrude has slain the Demon Lord! …

Aw man… I was surprisingly calm about my death. I could’ve [Disrupted] her [Rage].

Draconic Revenge – Location, Dragonlands (after I made it to the [Demon Lord’s] castle)

I was hunting around for dragons in the dragonlands version of the ashlands when I got a bit more than I bargained for…

A level 35 adolescent ash dragon.

I tried to sprint back to my waiting daves to do the ambush, but I got caught up in its breath attack.

It instantly gave me the “blighted debuff,”… which was basically all of the different debuffs mixed together.

Unfortunately, that includes “charm.”

“He must be friendly!” I said as I stumbled in the direction of the dragon.

The subsequent tail-whip that tossed me across the ashen plain and took half of my health quickly disabused me of that notion and helped me shake it off.

However, I was tossed away from my dave reinforcements and the safety of the castle.

I made a break for it.

I [Disrupted] the next breath attack and thought I might be in the clear.

Then, the dragon took flight and landed in my path.

“Well, frick,” I said as the tail sped my way once again.

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Honestly, it’s a little bit cringeworthy how I treated automatic activation of wrath form like it was some kind of invincible trump card.

Oh well. At least I took longer to learn that lesson in my real timeline. It still sucked to learn that lesson by dying to Sarah, but at least it was after Admin had left Placeholder alone.

[1] Truck-kun – Reference to an anime meme where enough protagonists were being sent to another world by being hit by a truck that the truck was determined by the anime community to be a recurring character in charge of transporting heroes to another world.