Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Vulgar Slaughter, Cowardly Survival (8)

Status Ailment Parrying.

We called it SA Parrying for short.

It was a bug that exploited a judgment error in the game. The 'status ailment' applied to a character would be counted as an attack. Parry it at exactly the right moment, and the ailment stripped right off.

'A method I relied on in my past life, too.'

Pretty handy.

Exploit the bug and your potion costs shrank overnight. Most problems, sorted with a single parrying click.

'Of course... there were some status ailments it couldn't crack.'

Still, it worked more than half the time. The potion costs that had been bleeding everyone dry got cut down to something manageable. The community's reaction back then, I still remembered it.

[Title: A Bug I Found Today]

[Author: PlayingToFindBugs]

Found a bug today.

I'll call it [SA Parrying] for now.

Footage attached at the bottom of the post.

[HeresMyFix]

-> Brought something weird again lol

-> How do you even keep finding these things?

-> PlayingToFindBugs) Found it while playing character baseball with parrying.

-> Holy shit lmaooo

-> Character parrying baseball lmfaoooo

-> What is this guy even doing alone in this game lol

-> I can't even picture what "character parrying baseball" looks like lol

-> And the fact that I can't picture it makes it even funnier lol

[BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter! BugHunter!]

-> He's a god!

[This one's actually useful? Play it right and you won't even need potions.]

-> Nah you still gotta use some. There are a fair few it doesn't work on.

-> Still cuts the potion bill way down compared to before.

Regular bug-hunting uploads.

For something posted as a hobby, it'd gathered an almost embarrassing amount of love.

[Title: My Experience Using SA Parrying]

[Author: Anon(110.12)]

BugHunter came through again

Wild find as usual lol

Was clearing Purgatory Floor 75, ran out of potions mid-boss fight.

Veterans already know, but Floor 75's boss is debuff-heavy.

Was about to restart when BugHunter's post from the day before suddenly popped into my head.

(Footage attached)

Controls were harder than I expected, but managed to clear Floor 75 without a hitch lol.

[Wow that's wild lol]

-> As a newbie I can't even figure out how you pull this off

-> Yeah the inputs are genuinely difficult

[Every parry removes one status ailment from your character.]

-> Blindness, Fear, Bleeding, Suppression...

-> One per parry because they each count as separate attack instances?

-> Yeah, SA Parrying works by treating status ailments as attacks.

-> Normal parrying only deflects one attack at a time anyway. Makes sense.

[But you'd really need to put in serious practice for this one.]

-> Yeah it's insanely hard

-> BugHunter makes it look easy, but even a slight timing mistake and it doesn't trigger.

-> You'd need it completely muscle-memorized before using it in a real fight.

[Anyway, thanks for finding this bug.]

-> Fr, solid find.

-> Spent way too much on potions last month, at least I can save a little now.

'Honestly... I posted it fully expecting it to get patched quickly.'

When I first found the bug, I assumed a fix would come within the month. Of course it would. From the developer's perspective, this was a fatal bug. A bug that cut into players' potion purchases. With their customers closing their wallets, how could they sit on that?

'Patching it was the right call.'

RGM.

(Ranne & Grandia Academy: The Märchen, that is.)

The game had let countless bugs slide over the years, but I thought this one would be different. And honestly, I thought they'd be right to patch it.

But.

The following month's patch notes carried not a single mention of the bug. Not patched, not even flagged for patching. And at the very end of those notes, there was this:

[Shout out to PlayingToFindBugs.]

Reading that, one thought: these people are absolutely insane.

Officially shouting out a user who was gutting their own revenue stream. It became legend. The studio locked in GOAT status, the most beloved developer in the community, untouchable.

'Anyway, thank goodness.'

If the bug had been patched back then, there would have been no day like today, using it in reality.

I looked down at the warmth cradled against my chest.

A boy who couldn't have been older than ten. Just moments ago, he had been in the grip of [Ghoulification], but.

'It actually worked.'

My SA Parrying had brought him back to normal. Not a single scar left on his body. He had returned to his original self.

'I was a bit scared, not gonna lie.'

Honestly, I'd had my doubts. It wasn't like I knew everything or moved with absolute certainty in every action. This had been a desperate throw. Wailing from every direction, and I'd figured, what the hell, let's try it.

'I'd never done anything like this in the actual game.'

Status ailments were usually debuffs, things like [Blindness] or [Bleeding]. I knew [Ghoulification] was technically one of the status ailments, but I never expected SA Parrying to actually work on it. There had never been a situation in the game where you'd parry a ghoul.

And SA Parrying didn't always succeed, either.

Divine Pressure. Instant Death. Baptism. High-tier status ailments like those, SA Parrying couldn't touch. The difference from ordinary ailments was that those only triggered under very specific conditions. The community consensus was that the developers had built them carefully enough to keep bugs out.

'Honestly... I was afraid [Ghoulification] might fall into that category too.'

Fortunately, it turned out Ghoulification sat firmly in the 'standard' category.

A hand thrown out with a whatever-happens-happens shrug had come back as a jackpot.

I carefully set the boy down.

"My son... our, ah, my, my son...!"

"Oh? It's Mom!"

Pitter-patter.

He slipped from my arms and threw himself into his mother's. The woman pulled him close and fell apart. She couldn't quite believe this was real.

"Ah... Jeri, Jerian..."

"Mom, why are you crying...?"

Again and again she pulled him in, pressed her face to his, touched her forehead to his. The kind of scene that makes your chest ache in the best way.

I stood beside them, smiling.

Content, tilting my head a little.

"Little one, is anything bothering you?"

"Huh...? What do you mean?"

"I'm asking whether anything hurts."

"I feel fine? Nothing hurts at all... but Mom is crying so hard."

"Don't worry. She's just so happy she can't help it. You're a very loved child."

"Yes! Mom is my favorite person in the whole world!"

"Good boy. Go on and hold her tight."

I reached out and ruffled his hair lightly. His eyes were bright and clear. Not a single scar anywhere on his body.

Right.

The rebound of stripping away Ghoulification. As a rule, vampires and ghouls both carry regenerative ability. Given a steady supply of blood, wounds heal continuously. Of course, if damage crosses a certain threshold, even that stops working, but.

The wounds had healed because the Ghoulification was doing its work. SA Parrying had landed while the body was mid-regeneration, and so he came back without a mark. Clean, as though nothing had ever happened.

Who would have thought it could work that way.

I filed the new knowledge away.

"Thank you... thank you, oh my goodness. God..."

The woman murmured the words over and over, clutching her child and refusing to let go.

"Thank... hic, you, ngh..."

Her words crumbling under the weight of her sobs. I patted her back, slow and steady.

Her tears bloomed like irises.

"Urgh, hhh..."

While I received her thanks, some of those watching approached. The first two to speak up were the same two.

"Viktor... ah, no. Deputy Commander Garulik?"

"L-Lord Garulik...?"

Carmilla. Kantas.

Both stood there, eyes wide. Carmilla's expression in particular was something to see.

"H-How...?"

How.

Being a vampire, Carmilla understood exactly how impossible what had just happened was.

"T-Turning a ghoul back into a human? Nothing like this has ever been recorded in vampire history! Even the Progenitor, who vanished in ancient times, never performed a miracle like this..."

"Ha. You seem quite surprised."

"How could I not be?!"

"Fair enough."

"How did you do it? Is it related to that strange power you've always shown?"

"Unfortunately, that's a trade secret."

"That, that can't be...!"

Carmilla froze. I reached over and patted the top of her head lightly. A quiet signal.

"Ahem."

A few dry coughs to gather attention. Carmilla was still dazed. Kantas, the same. Behind them, others had drifted over at some point, forming a loose crowd.

"Wh-What... what just happened?"

"That boy was definitely a ghoul just now, and he turned back into a human...?"

"Is that possible? You can reverse Ghoulification?"

"That can't be right..."

"Really...?"

"Is it actually possible...?"

Every murmuring voice was soaked in tears. These were the people who had been weeping at the edge of the pit just moments before.

"Everyone."

Eyes gathered.

Only.

Eyes looking at me alone.

"......"

They glistened, as though filled with hope. Welling up, blurring, spilling over, clearing again. Hot streams traced down their cheeks, once and again and again.

Longing for an answer to a question they hadn't even asked. Desperate for one, right now.

So pitiful, all of them.

And so I understood their plea.

"Would everyone be willing to help?"

And.

I had no intention of betraying that plea.

"We're all going home together."

The pit.

To those at the bottom whose lives had been crushed, whose branches had been snapped.

To you who had suffered so much pain that weeping was all you could do.

"Didn't I promise? That I would see every last one of you home safely."

May my Windfall be a blessing.

May this moment remain not as a curse, but as an encounter with a miracle.

"Well, then."

Orphanage.

Teacher.

Friends.

Burned.

The salvation I never had.

"Would anyone be willing to go catch me a ghoul?"

That kind of prayer.

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