Chương 16: Stir in bacon bits, toast crumbs, and other extras

"Guys I got bad news." The Goblin appeared out of nowhere, rushing into the scene between pained, panting huffs.

"I just died and I didn't run into the goddess of reincarnation."

"Ah shoot there's the hook," I said with a huff, "we really could have ended the last chapter with that."

"Look: my mother told me. Someday I would buy. A galley with good oars. Sail to distant shores. But she also told me that you can either be bitter about what you don't get, or be grateful with what you do. So which is it going to be?" Ilia asked with a dignified huff.

"Ah gee I guess I'll be grateful," I huff once more, as huffing one of the key components to being a choo-choo train.

"Okay so what's going on The Goblin."

"I just said that's all the information I have." The Goblin huffed.

"Oh. Well that's still really bad, if there's no goddess of reincarnation then when we die we'll be dead for real," Ilia huffed.

"Heh. A problem for you weaklings, maybe. But in so far that it helps me get revenge on the men who wronged me, I'm actually glad to hear the news. Now I know they won't come back to bite me once I cut off their venomous heads," I huffed threateningly.

"But protagonist-baka, your various deaths and reincarnations is the source of all your various overpowered cheat skills and ultimate-level powers. Without dying, you'd have to…" Ilia huffed the next words, bitter as they were, "... you'd have to actually work for your success."

"What?! That's antithetical to the entire genre we're satirizing!" I wheel around, huffs clenched with indignant range, "If we're not breezing through challenges without an ounce of effort or a pinch of risk, we're at risk of challenging our readers with actual depth and growing through struggles! And who wants to read to be challenged?!"

"It could be disastrous for the patreon," The Goblin huffed somberly, reminding me I need to set up a patreon for all my (checks notes) 1 followers.

"Exactly my point. Someone get me a gun. I need to die so I can see for myself." Ilia hands me her pistol and I shoot myself in the brain. Unfortunately, my body has evolved to view bullets as a tasty breakfast treat instead of an avenue towards death, so instead of dying I just drool a little through a Pavlovian response. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Ah sugarplums. Goblin, stab me sixty times. That killed me pretty good a while ago."

"I can't. When Jesus Christ died to save me, I returned with a new skill, [The Love of the Shepard], which lets me speak every language and makes me super tasty to lions," The Goblin shook his head sadly.

"And since I only have one skill slot I had to erase the stabbing one."

"Double dipped sugarplums," I say, which was close to the worst thing I could say since I didn't get the chance to cultivate any swear words.

"Well there has to be something around here that can kill me. Let's give it a jolly search, shall we old chums?" The search for death is a pointless one, as any wise man will tell you that with patience, Death will always find you. Yet all the same, a pointless quest is not a wasted one: for one, this whole story is pretty pointless so it's on-brand. But secondly, it is often in pursuing the unnecessary that we discover the vital.

'Often' being the operative word here, because it didn't happen this time. No, this time, it was just a montage of various wacky suicide attempts with Yakity Saxs playing in the background. Imagine, like, them dropping a bolder on her head and the boulder breaks, or she jumps off a cliff and the wind picks her up and puts her back with a nightcap and a blankie, or trying to drink 'poison', but misreading it and it says 'rat poison' instead so they kill all the rats that were living in her stomach.

Loony Toons stuff. If you can think of something funny leave it as a comment and I'll edit this chapter to plagiarize your ideas!

"Triple- no, that's too nasty, it would get us demonetized. Just normal sugarplums again." The Protagonist grunted.

"It seems I'm too overpowered for my own good."

"Aw gee. There's no reason to give up yet! We only tried for a single montage!" The Goblin cheerfully pointed out.

"Besides, I have an idea: why don't we borrow a bit from mythology?"

"Ugh, learning? You trying to bore me to death you little rat-snot penny-penis punk?"

"Hush. Have you heard of Baldr? In his myth, his mother forces everything on earth to swear a vow against hurting him, thus making him immune to everything except mistletoe, which they thought was too weak to do any harm to him. All we have to do to kill you is that, but in reverse."

"As in make all the forces on earth promise to try and kill me?" I say, eyebrow raised.

"Now that's a fine idea, The Goblin. Making friends has never been my style, but making enemies? That I can do."

"As it so happens," Ilia jabs her thumb towards the giant conference center right next to them.

"We're already in front of the inanimate object UN, where inanimate objects around the world gather to discuss matters of import. Why not go in here and give a big speech about how you need to die?"

"Heh. A rousing speech about how important it is for me to die? I have a SSS+ rank in speeches, inspiring or otherwise. This will be cake. Get out of my way, guards! I'm on my way to give a speech to the inanimate object UN!" (See, THAT'S how you end a chapter with a hook! Take that, me)