paranoianovel Chapter 2: How about we change the name to Ming Cult?
Chapter 2: How about we change the name to Ming Cult?
Will this world ever get better...?
Three days later, Winston woke up to a deluge of news reports about himself.
Breaking News! New Prime Minister Winston Wheeler Faints in Front of the Queen
A Kiss of Death! Prime Minister Faints While Kissing Hand
The new prime minister fell from grace even faster than his approval rating rose.
An unnamed opposition figure suggests that Winston Wheeler might be a deeply hidden heretic!
If it weren't for the headline of the last newspaper, Winston would almost have thought that this world wasn't much different from the Earth he had before he traveled there.
At least the British media remains as inhumane as ever.
Tabloid reporters seized on Winston's loss of consciousness during the Prime Minister's inauguration, fabricating all sorts of vivid and exaggerated details. If it weren't for the system's official determination that there were a total of 418 people in Westminster Palace three days earlier, Winston would have dared to say there were a thousand people there!
Then his inauguration ceremony turned into a famous scene just like Shirou's high jump, Batman's Crime Alley, and the night of the Uchiha massacre!
Thinking of this, Winston forced a bitter smile, placed the newspaper beside the hospital bed, and then opened the system panel with a heavy heart.
In Winston's view, the system and the British tabloids are birds of a feather, and it's hard to say which one is better at making up stories.
[Host: Winston Wheeler]
[Position: Head of a Tantric sect (concurrently serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)]
Winston is speechless every time he sees these two lines, and this time is no exception.
[Today's Earth Trivia Tip: Seven hundred years ago, a meteorite fell to Earth with unstoppable force. Like the day the dinosaurs went extinct, dark clouds covered the sun, volcanoes erupted, and the seas boiled. But just as the apocalypse was about to engulf human civilization, ancient gods awakened from the depths of the ocean and quelled everything with indescribable, incomprehensible, and invincible power. From then on, they became the true rulers of this planet.]
[You've checked in for 4 consecutive days! Congratulations! Your tenure has surpassed 2% of your predecessors!]
Holy crap, they beat 2% of former prime ministers in just four days of checking in. What happened to those 7.12 people?
Winston's lips twitched as he glanced at the "Today's Earth Common Sense Tips" section.
Upon seeing the words "Awakening Ancient God," he felt no emotion and his expression remained unchanged.
Three days ago, Winston would have been extremely shocked by this.
However, during his coma, he had inherited all of the original owner's memories and become familiar with the basic settings of this world.
That is, all anomalies originate from the ancient gods.
The ancient god was the ruler of the Holy Catholic Covenant of Great Britain, Queen Victoria, and the unnamed being residing in Buckingham Palace.
Therefore, the anomaly in the UK was a top-down contagion.
The lives of the lowest-class commoners were basically the same as those of the British in the 19th century of their previous life. They worked from sunrise to sunset every day, living ordinary and unremarkable lives, indifferent to and completely unaware of the differences between Queen Victoria and other humans.
The middle-level members had heard the legends of the ancient gods saving the earth and had seen the drama of them coming from the deep sea and dispelling the apocalypse. Most of them sincerely loved and respected the Queen.
As for the upper class... the upper class generally held Queen Victoria in awe, whether more respect or fear depended on whether they had actually been summoned by the Queen.
Winston, as Prime Minister, was among the elite, the pinnacle of humanity.
So he suffered a severe blow.
If we were to rank all the professions of people throughout history who have died from confronting ancient gods, the British Prime Minister would be far ahead, far surpassing traditional investigators and ordinary citizens.
However, members of the House of Commons still covet the position of Prime Minister.
Because the Prime Minister is second only to God.
Furthermore, human imagination is limited. No one can fully imagine what they will face after taking the position of prime minister before they become prime minister!
"Winston Wheeler" is an example of this.
This guy was both lucky and unlucky. He was unlucky because after struggling for more than 30 years since birth, he finally reached the pinnacle of his political career, but before he could even experience the thrill of looking down on everyone, he suddenly passed away.
Fortunately, he died young enough to avoid the unpleasant experience of facing Queen Victoria head-on...
No, I can't think about it anymore.
Winston clutched his head, which felt like it was being electrocuted, and felt his sanity was in grave danger.
He is able to sit here soberly right now entirely thanks to the system.
From this perspective, the Golden Finger is quite reliable.
[Passive Skill: Absolute Materialism Lv.1 (Any mental pollution, curse, or clairvoyance targeting you will be forcibly transformed into moderate to severe migraines and thoughts about capitalism.)]
This is Winston's initial innate skill, and also the source of his motivation to survive.
[Management Skills: 1 (The "Pretty Face" Leader)]
[Authority: 0 (one on the roadside)]
[Charm: 2 (You're good-looking; that's probably why the Queen took a liking to you. Remember to cover your butt!)]
[Mysticism: 200 (He is watching you)]
[Rationality: 75/100 (Stable)]
[Passion: 5 (Low)]
Health: 65/100 (Sub-healthy)
[Secret religious resources: £1500 million, 275 people (outer followers)]
Seeing this, Winston pressed his thumb against his philtrum for a moment to calm down.
There's not much to say about the personal attributes mentioned above. Overall, aside from the mystical principle that the higher the attribute, the worse the occultism within the Kreece universe, everything else is perfect, and there's no weakness to be found.
The exhaustion of rationality leads to utter madness, a common occurrence in the Cthulhu universe.
Passion can be used to hold gatherings or ceremonies, while zeroing out represents the exhaustion of the soul, turning one into a walking corpse.
Winston is practically a walking corpse now. He tries to pull himself together, but the foreseeable future is just too hopeless!
Tantric resources... Winston's personal assets were quite limited; that £1500 million was actually from the national treasury.
Winston couldn't help but smile with relief after discovering that the system had included all the gold in the Bank of England's coffers.
Go ahead and punish me, whatever makes you happy.
Today, he is a "secret religious leader" who is rich and influential, but whose personal character has sunk to the bottom.
Furthermore, it's unclear what the "secret" aspect of Tantric Buddhism is.
The whole world knows we are the British government, right?
How about we change the name to Ming Cult?
Winston sat blankly in the hospital room, feeling as if he had vented all the grievances of the entire UK, and he had no idea what to do next.
Should he be a good prime minister and govern the country well?
I have no clue! As I mentioned before, he was never even a class monitor in his past life!
What if... this is an opportunity to become a legitimate leader of a secret religion?
Winston opened the system panel again, stroked his chin, and fell into deep thought.
How do you usually play cult simulation games? I think you can talk to NPCs, convert them into followers, and then send those followers to engage in various illegal and disorderly activities…
There's no need for illegal or disorderly conduct, after all, we are a legitimate government... a legitimate esoteric religion.
But we can still try to talk things out first.
Winston rang the bell for the nurse: "Where is my personal secretary? Let him in!"
Soon after, a young man with black hair, blue eyes, black-rimmed glasses, and a nerdy air rushed into the ward carrying a folder.
"Good morning, Prime Minister! How is your recovery going?"
"Not bad, Martin." Winston remembered that this person's name was Martin Grayling, eight years older than him. They graduated from the same university, so the other was his senior. "I didn't expect that I would fall into a coma and sleep for three whole days. The cabinet must have accumulated a lot of work by now?"
"Yes, to put it kindly, the cabinet is in complete chaos for now."
Martin adjusted his glasses with his index finger and said, "To put it bluntly, the government has come to a complete standstill because of your coma. You collapsed at a terrible time; you didn't even have time to submit the list of new cabinet members. Her Majesty the Queen had to recall several ministers from the previous cabinet. As a result, the Home Secretary, perhaps due to his advanced age, unfortunately passed away on his way back to take office. The other ministers, affected by this, are all listless and their work efficiency has dropped..."
Winston strongly suspected that the way the Queen had "invited" the ministers back was too dramatic.
Who knew that being a cabinet minister was such a high-risk profession!
But overall, he's still better than the Prime Minister. You only meet someone once in a lifetime, and that one meeting is a once-in-a-lifetime event...
Winston, rubbing his head which was starting to throb reflexively, asked Martin, "Besides appointing ministers, is there anything else that urgently needs my attention?"
Martin hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment before not answering immediately.
This is because, although he was the Prime Minister's private secretary, he was also part of the government's civil service system and not Winston's own strategist or advisor. Although there was a senior-junior relationship between the two, they did not have much personal interaction before Winston became Prime Minister.
Therefore, when faced with ambiguous questions, he was unfamiliar with Winston's style of doing things and inevitably struggled with whether to answer or not, and if he did answer, how much he should say.
Winston immediately saw through his thoughts and felt it was necessary to quickly turn this private secretary into one of his own.
Otherwise, you'd see them every day and have to be wary of subordinates turning against you; it's simply inhuman!
"System," he called out to the system in his mind, "can I expend passion to increase Martin Grayling's loyalty?"
[To forcibly increase the loyalty of peripheral believers, a "brainwashing room" must first be established. Would you like to spend £5 to set up room 17 on the top floor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a "brainwashing room"?]
St. Bartholomew's Hospital is the oldest hospital in London, founded in 1123, long before the ancient gods emerged from the sea.
Today it is the most authoritative hospital in the UK in terms of medical standards, but under normal circumstances, important figures like the Prime Minister still do not come here for treatment.
In societal perception, hospitals are often seen as places for the poor, and it's considered highly undignified for the Prime Minister to remain in a hospital room without a private doctor. However, as Martin Grayling points out, Winston's coma occurred at an inopportune time; private doctors couldn't access Westminster Palace, so people had no choice but to take him to the hospital…
"Establish!"
Winston responded without hesitation.
Five pounds is something our Prime Minister can afford.
[£5 has been deducted from the available funds of £1500 million. The "brainwashing room" has been successfully set up. Would you like to consume 4 passion points to brainwash Martin Grayling?]
So you're saying you have to withdraw five pounds from the national treasury?!
Winston momentarily lost focus, his thoughts clicking the confirmation button.
Immediately afterwards, he felt a surge of energy draining from his body. Winston had been able to muster his energy when he first opened his eyes, but now it felt as if his body had been hollowed out.
Martin, standing by the hospital bed, stared blankly into the void, motionless.