The Surrenderer II
As mentioned several times before, it is a fool's errand to expect anything like humanity or human warmth from an Anomaly. After all, Anomalies possess neither "intellect" nor "reason" nor "conscience."
(We'll table the discussion of times when human beings also sometimes lack those qualities.)
In that sense, you could also say that Anomalies have no "mind," and because they have no mind, by Aristotle's syllogism, they of course had no concept of "peace of mind" either.[1] Thus, the proposition that "an Outer God lost its mind" cannot be established in the first place.
And rightfully so. How could the Admin lose a peace it never had?
– Kwaaaaang!
And yet, when the impossible needed doing, Dok-seo delivered.
– Kraaah! Kaaaaaang!
I arrived in the Saharan plains of Africa— No, I mean, in Daegu on urgent business. The entire area had been consumed by Void Poison long before now and consequently been turned into a desert that stretched across the horizon. Thanks to that, we now had a new type of biome here on the Korean peninsula.
Today, that extraordinary visual spectacle came with an additional auditory effect.
– KWAAAAANG!
Boom! Kaboooom!
Something unseen was rampaging in the heart of the desert.
Whenever "it" thrashed about, sandstorms blew in all directions, and tremors shook the ground.
– K-kieeek!
– Geeek! Kiiiiik!
The local Anomalies that inhabited the desert were so overwhelmed by "its" power that they scattered, fleeing in all directions.
Of course, having the will to run didn't necessarily mean you succeeded in escaping. Unfortunately for those Anomalies that hadn't learned the Teleport skill from their ancestors, they got squashed to death with a sickening crunch under the invisible weight of "it."
As the corpses of Anomalies were trampled underfoot, "it" let out a roar.
– Kraaaaaaaah!
Complete pandemonium ensued.
Sharing my field of vision, the Saintess murmured, [There's... nothing visible about it at all.]
"Indeed."
[But with so much sand flying around, we can at least make out an outline.]
"That's right."
[It looks like... a western dragon.][2]
It was a legend from ages past, so ancient that it had essentially gone out of circulation, making the original text hard to find.
Invisible Dragon.
A masterpiece famed for having one of the most perfect prologues seen across the literary spectrum. On the Korean peninsula alone, it stands as one of the two great pillars alongside Kim Hoon's Every Abandoned Island Blossomed.[3]
That heart-stirring prelude, towering higher the more you look up to it, reads as follows:
.
---------->
.
Behold the use of plain words.
A writer's frail instinct might try to avoid repeating the same phrasing, changing "roared" to "howled" or "bellowed" or what have you. But not this text. No, this text boldly ignored such attempts, pursuing the single word "roared" without faltering, with a craftsman's dedication.
And the rhythm it found! By repeating, "I won, I won," over and over and over again, the text achieved a kind of cadence so rarely found in modern Korean poetry—a masterpiece in extreme metrics.
Can you appreciate the aesthetics woven into that prologue, dear human? It is the pinnacle of postmodernism, a challenge to the senses.
"Look at this fine piece of work," it boldly proclaims. "You feeling our art?"
No one dared complain that the text was displayed in the deeply irritating Gulim font. Back in those days, Gulim was the very foundation upon which all great amateurs stood.
The fact that this classic appeared in 2002 sent shockwaves through modern literature.
Think about it. The main body of the Admin of the Infinite Metagame is a white-haired girl. Its design has zero originality. As mentioned when we first subdued it, this white-haired girl was inspired by that stereotypical NPC who goes, Hi? I'm God. And the foundational work upon which that character is based, Fate/Stay Night, had been published in...
2003.
Yes. Just one year afterInvisible Dragonwas released.
"Bah...!" A tremor ran through me. The grandfather blood that coursed through my veins began to seethe wildly. "All of the puzzles... they have been solved!"
Somehow, I'd suspected it. A centuries-old Anomaly that made a habit of rummaging through ancient works, an Outer God with 1 HP. Of course it was up to something like this.
[Um, Undertaker?]
"It's all a scheme by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame!"
Why did the Invisible Dragon appear out of nowhere, despite never once showing its face in previous cycles? Even now, we couldn't see its physical form. I had no actual evidence, only the release years of Invisible Dragon and Fate/Stay Night... And yet I had exposed the truth of it:
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame was the mastermind behind this all.
My own deductive power scared me a little. If this continued for a year or so, over four hundred people around me could very well die.
After hearing my perfect reasoning, the Saintess murmured, [Mr. Undertaker... Strangely enough, whenever something is even slightly related to Ms. Dok-seo, you seem to become... a different person.]
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
[You act like a different person. Or should I say your mental age regresses? Wasn't it just last Wednesday that you visited my place to discuss Kant's pure reason? How, then—]
I cleared my throat. "That is a complete misunderstanding. Much like the baseless slander that you secretly spy on me with Clairvoyance, even while I'm in the bathroom."
The Saintess sunk like a ship. Yet, like the captain of the Titanic, she steadfastly fulfilled her duty even as water flooded the hull.
In a breathless voice, she asked, [How do you plan to subjugate that Anomaly? Even if you know it's the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's doing, it doesn't look like an easy opponent.]
"Ah, yes. Surprisingly enough, it will be simple. First, please log in to SG Net's novel serialization board. Search for Invisible Dragon, and you'll find some documents."
[What? Oh, you're right. I see them.] Then the Saintess muttered, [And the upload date is listed as 2002, before SG Net even existed...]
Surely, it was the Outer God's handiwork.
I also had surmised why it specifically spawned the Invisible Dragon in Daefrica. The Invisible Dragon originally belonged to the genre of "fantasy," yet even in an apocalypse, remnants of modern civilization still remained that defied the fantasy tropes. But Daegu? The city and everything in its vicinity had been cleared of anything resembling city life. With some effort, you can pass its desert landscape off as a fantasy setting.
"In the original story, the Invisible Dragon teleports to reality only after annihilating its world. Right now, it's stuck in Daegu, but once it wipes out all the local Anomalies in the desert, it'll head outside."
[Ah... I see. We have to subjugate it before that happens.] I could practically see the Saintess tilting her head as the next thought came to her, even over Telepathy. [So you plan to use Aura, risking the chance of provoking Leviathan?]
No, there was no need.
First, I asked the Saintess to summon Dang Seo-rin. No matter which cycle we're in, Seo-rin was always deep into Constellation business, and since Busan was nearby, she arrived quickly.
"Hey, Undertaker. Haaah, it's always so hot here near Daegu."
"Indeed. We don't have much time, so let's subjugate that invisible Anomaly first."
"Oh, okay. It's been making a racket, so it's been annoying me too."
Seo-rin began to sing.
Ah―—ah, ah―ah, aaaa―—
Instantly, the roar that had been shaking the entire desert began to fade.
– Kraaaah! Aaaah... aaa...
It was the power of Seo-rin's Cursed Song Incantation, specifically her Anti-Resonance. By emitting sound waves in precise opposition to the enemy's, she completely negated all noise, like magic.
Keen readers may have noticed: Yes, this was her signature technique, the same skill she used to lull the Meteor Shower to sleep back when we first subjugated it.
"Okayyy, song is over! Now I'll set up a loudspeaker here to keep replaying the recording, yeah?"
"Right."
Moments ago, the Invisible Dragon had been screaming as if tearing the sky apart, but now it had fallen silent. Now, only Seo-rin's beautiful singing voice echoed across the desert.
Judging by the way it stomped its feet, maybe we should call it the Invisible Caterpillar instead of the Invisible Dragon.
I exhaled. "If the Invisible Dragon can't cry out, it's no longer the Invisible Dragon. A simple strategy, right?"
[...]
"Oh, just in case, please edit the novel that the Admin of the Infinite Metagame hid on SG Net and run a spell check."
The Saintess carried out my instructions.
Roooar!
Among all dragons, the mightiest was the roaring Invisible Dragon.
The Invisible Dragon was oh-so-strong, the strongest of dragon-kind.
It beat gods and demons. It won against all who came to challenge it.
The Invisible Dragon was the only one of its kind.
Anyway, it roared.
Ah.
I couldn't help wiping away a tear. What a savage defilement of the original text.
"Alas! The proud spirit once exuded by our dear Young-geun has vanished without a trace!"
[...]
For some reason, even the Saintess—who was far beyond the range of Seo-rin's Anti-Resonance—was also inflicted with the Silence status. But the effect was evident.
– Kieeek! Geeek, Kiiiik!
– ...! ...! ...!
From an Invisible Tyrant to an Invisible Worm, the dragon had devolved. The Anomalies that had been running away now turned back and beat on the "unseen" thing.
It was somewhat sad to watch a once-glorious being brought so low, but such was the irresistible flow of time.
Subjugation complete.
If that had solved the problem, we could've had a happy ending. Unfortunately, no such luck was to be had.
As I said, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame had lost its composure.
Why had it suddenly unleashed the Invisible Dragon? Did it believe it could defeat me, the Undertaker, that way? Think it could reverse the tide that had already turned?
No.
It just... got pissed off.
In short, objective power analysis no longer mattered to the Admin of the Infinite Metagame. It just wanted to throw a big middle finger to the Miko who disrespected it, to the Regressor who made the Miko that way, and to the entire world that had allowed the Regressor to be born in the first place.
"Hey, mister! Something huge, huge is happening! All those works from the old internet era called the Seven Forbidden Tomes are going wild! Members of the Samcheon World Guild suddenly started worshipping something called Harry & Monsters instead of Harry Potter! The great witch is going on a rampage! You're the only one who can stop this, mister!"
The momentary high I'd felt after elegantly subjugating the Invisible Dragon had been dashed. My brain temperature swiftly returned to a cool 38.5°C.
We'd known for a while that the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, an Outer God, was lying low and waiting for a chance to make its comeback. A typical vanquished-king-returns story. But now that it had decided to double, triple, quadruple down on its tantrum, the whiplash of events was leaving me dizzy.
"Wait a second. Infinite Metagame, let's talk it out. We can use words to solve this."
I rushed over to turn on the laptop, but oh? How baffling. Its avatar—a white-haired girl who always rushed over eagerly whenever I booted it up, hoping to seduce me or something—was nowhere to be seen.
Well... Actually, no, it was there. Just there about 20 meters away from the monitor screen, curled up in a ball with its back turned to me.
The white-haired girl avatar was smaller than the Recycle Bin icon on a desktop. Anyone else might not have noticed it.
"Admin? Ms. Metagame?"
[...]
"O Great Adminship, the peerless AI that can degrade the entire world into mere characters of its novel?"
[...]
"You know that using your power in these petty ways won't help you. It's only slightly annoying for me, but it poses no real threat to my forces."
Bzzzzzt.
Like a laptop that'd been on its last legs for five years, the screen fuzzed with static. Then the desktop background changed. Now, on a blank white screen (matching the avatar's white hair), there was only a single character:
凸
Uh. Hmm.
"...If I were to say that using that character as a makeshift middle finger is an old-school touch, would that make you even angrier?"
[...]
"Oh, by the way, imagine I said that line with '(lol)' appended at the end. Just to suit your tastes."
Flick!
The laptop screen went black.
Maybe if I had stopped mocking it right then, comforted the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, shown a bit of kindness, things might have turned around. But how could I resist savoring the downfall of an Outer God that had plummeted to the bottom?
I, the Undertaker, had always lived true to my own desires. I believed that was the secret to maintaining a healthy mindset as a regressor. And every ounce of satisfaction came with a price.
"Aaaaagh, misterrrrr!"
Boom!
Dok-seo struck the door with a flying kick again. By now, the hinges were starting to break. She landed in a flashy flourish.
If you looked at her status screen, you'd see [Skill: Novel Writing] had been stuck at the same level for years, while [Skill: Kicking] had soared past level 90.
"S-something huge happened! Mega huge!"
"You always come to me saying it's something huge, you know."
"I'm being so for real this time, though! It's, l-like, really, really big! Come on, hurry!"
I followed.
Dok-seo led me to Haeundae. Though civilization had collapsed and the concept of vacationing had disappeared, the outdoor gym Seo Gyu set up was still thriving. The gym members were all bustling about the beach. Even if the world ended tomorrow, they'd lift a barbell one more time.
"Huh? What's this now?"
"They keep washing in from the sea."
"What does it say?"
"Dunno. Something about serialization? It's going off on some weird stuff."
Stone tablets.
Like the Rosetta Stone from Egypt, monument slabs etched with densely packed text were floating in the sea and drifting ashore at Haeundae. Some gym members tried to approach one of these monoliths, but Dok-seo rushed at them in terror.
"Stoooop!"
"Huh? Who are you?"
"I'm the administrator here! Don't look at them! Don't you dare! They're all Anomalies! If you read them, you'll lose your mind!"
"Whoa, damn."
"Get back! Hurry, hurry! Don't even tryto read what's carved in these stones!"
Sure enough, though she never writes, she wanders the Void, and that made Oh Dok-seo a surprisingly seasoned Awakener.
Following her guidance, the gym members scattered.
While Dok-seo was clearing people away, I drew near to one of the dozens of monoliths stuck in Haeundae.
I read the inscription.
Resting a Little Longer (Must-Read)
I'm so sorry...
This is your author, LiteraryGirl, speaking...
As I mentioned in my last notice, I've been suffering from severe burnout, so I decided to take a break from my projects and immerse myself in various works by other authors to recharge my creative battery.
But alas, I didn't realize at the time that burnout can cast its sinister spell not only on writing but also on reading...
So although I told my readers I'd take time off to recharge, in the month or so since I stopped uploading, I haven't managed to read a single work...
And yet, at the same time, I discovered hope.
Yesterday, I noticed I was enjoying a free web game distributed on SG Net, and it startled me.
Wait, I thought to myself. I'm enjoying a work again, aren't I?
That's right.
Who says creative works have to be novels? The song of Korea's absolute top star in the Great Witch of Samcheon World, the music of the Nymphcalypse channel that plays on the radio daily, the occasional games that trend on SG Net—they are all, all of them, legitimate "works."
As soon as I realized that, it was like a door to heaven opened in my mind!
Yes. I'm not a lazy bug who's been ignoring all nourishment after telling my readers I needed a break.
The sunlight of this world that shines upon me. Like an environment that wholeheartedly bestows its moisture and light upon plants, everything around me has continued to whisper works of "recharging" to me.
I have nothing to fear anymore.
Even if my progress is slow, excruciatingly slow, I am definitely taking small steps forward, heading toward that unknown realm known as serialization.
So I ask my readers to please wait just a bit longer for my small struggles.
I'm listening to songs, listening to music, playing games. That is how I, LiteraryGirl, am gradually moving closer to you all.
Give me just this month and next month, plus or minus about 20 days, and I should truly be able to return this time.
Lately I've been really into games.
This little step from me, LiteraryGirl.
Please, watch over me.
I fell silent.
The monoliths that washed up onshore bore the same message, and it wasn't just in Korean. The message also appeared in Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, German, French, English—dozens of languages from around the world.
Having dispersed the crowd, Dok-seo stomped over to me, fuming. "Ugh, seriously! I never wrote any notice like that! Who the heck is flinging this slander around? Seriously, if I find them, I'll dox them on SG Net so hard!"
She wasn't wrong. She'd never written such a notice. Not in thiscycle.
But I, who entrusted her with the job of writing Undertaker: The Romance, the Regressor with Complete Memory, remembered it perfectly.
'This is the 13th notice Dok-seo posted on SG Net's novel serialization board in the 788th cycle...!'
I glanced at another monolith lying next to it.
'And this one... It's the legendary text she uploaded in the 813th cycle, your 39th message, where you torched not only your own readers but every lurker on the serialization board...!'
All around us, and all around that too.
Dozens of monoliths, hundreds of monoliths, all of them...
Proof of all those times Oh Dok-seo had abandoned her serialization...!
Pure disgrace incarnate!
"Ugh. Anyway, I was actually gonna build a three chapter backlog and resume uploading next month for real. I have no idea where this nonsense is coming from."
Dok-seo turned to me, the sea breeze at her back and her smile wide and cheery.
"Right, mister?"
The next day, a total of 1,131 of these monoliths landed on Busan's Haeundae shore.
Footnotes:
[1] This is likely in reference to a quote often misattributed to Aristotle but that was actually written in a treatise on anxiety and mental peace by Seneca the Younger: "No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."
[2] Could be a running joke after the SSS-Clas Suicide Hunter artist mistakenly drew a western dragon in the manhwa's martial arc instead of an eastern dragon.
[3] Invisible Dragon has been mentioned before in previous chapters, but the story would more accurately be described as "infamous" rather than "famous" for its... particular quality in both Korean and English versions alike. The other work mentioned, Every Abandoned Island Blossomed, has yet to be translated into English.
-x-X-x-
The Surrenderer III
After careful consideration, I reached a conclusion:
Oh Dok-seo was screwed.
Honestly, she'd been screwed from the moment she posted enough announcement notices on the SG Net novel-serialization board to reach double-digits. Now, countless stone tablets had washed ashore in Busan like a landing force, a veritable four-figure count of them.
Could there be a situation that better embodied the word "karma"?
Yesterday, we only needed to control Seo Gyu's gym members, but as of today, these tablets weren't just on Haeundae Beach, they were popping up on any Busan beach facing the sea.
Once again: Oh Dok-seo was screwed.
"C-Commander Noh! No, Do-hwa unnie! Please, just lend me 50 of your National Road Management Corps personnel! Please, I'm begging you!"
"You think I can just casually hire out 50 people from the corps...?"
As dedicated as the National Road Management Corps was to battling Anomalies, they didn't have the resources to deal with something like this. Besides, these tablets gave off no hint of Anomalous energy. What potential harm did they pose? At worst, sailors might find them annoying when navigating and... a certain author going by the handle "LiteraryGirl" had her reputation severely tarnished?
Do-hwa felt no reason to care about that second part. Indeed, she was a normie with zero interest in subculture. Astonishingly enough, among the members of the Regressors' Alliance, she was the only one who wasn't a reader of LiteraryGirl.
"P-please! Look, I've been shipping you and the Undertaker since forever! Even when everyone said I was stuck in a minor fandom, I never lost hope! Take pity on me and help me out!"
"What the heck are you talking about...?"
The golden hour had passed. Now in this hour and day, countless people in Busan encountered these mysterious monoliths. Some glanced at them on their way to work at Dream Casino, some while walking their Sapsal dog on the sand. And among them, inevitably...
– Anonymous: Lmao, wtf hahahaha
Some were LiteraryGirl's readers.
– Anonymous: I was on a morning stroll and I saw these tombstones? Stone slabs? Stuck on the beach haha. I'm a coward, but I got curious whether it was some Anomaly, so I went closer...
(Image)
– Anonymous: LitlololerlololarylololGirllololol
– Anonymous: Lmao is she posting indefinite-hiatus notices in reality now instead of on SG Net? Every day with this author is legendary lmfao
Countdown.
3, 2, 1.
Ready.
– [Samcheon] MeteorIsIceMagic: This looks like Busan?
Action.
– [Samcheon] MeteorIsIceMagic: Some of our guild's scouts just got back from a night flight. The beach was jam-packed with those things.
└Anonymous (OP): oh rly? did the Road Management Corps say anything?
└[Samcheon] MeteorIsIceMagic: They said it's harmless, so just ignore it.
– Anonymous: lmao f**k LiteraryGirl hahaha
– [Baekhwa] SixthGrader: Hoehee >_<);;
– Anonymous: Wth is this??
20 comments reached.
– [Baekhwa] SchoolNewspaper2: Weren't there rumors that a Constellation read her stuff? Guess it's true lmao
└Anonymous: Ah
└Anonymous (OP): O
└Anonymous: So that's why these tablets suddenly appeared, huh?
50 comments reached.
Post becomes popular.
– [EasternHoly] KindlyOne: Wow, I'm zooming in on the pics and reading them. My blood is boiling from my dantian.
└Anonymous (OP): Right??? I gave up a year ago, but seeing that hiatus notice again raised my blood pressure.
└[NationalRoad] ForbiddenBooksDept17: Ugh, why does LiteraryGirl keep posting announcements if she's never going to return? She could be writing during that time instead.
└[EasternHoly] KindlyOne: secret info our Saintess is also a readerㅋ
└[NationalRoad] ForbiddenBooksDept17: Haha, so is my squad leaderㅋ
└[Baekhwa] SchoolNewspaper2: Same with our guild leaderㅇㅇ
└[Samcheon] MeteorIsIceMagic: Our Great Witch too. Add her in.
└[EasternHoly] KindlyOne: lolol
200 comments reached.
300 comments reached.
Dok-seo begged Seo Gyu to use his authority as the SG Net admin to remove it from the "popular posts," but he refused. By then, more than 30 identical posts were going viral, anyway.
– OldManGoryeo: lmao these guys are hilarious. At this point it's not the author, but the readers who have issues lmaoooo
OldManGoryeo stepped in.
1,100 comments reached.
– Anonymous: How does LiteraryGirl have the nerve to keep going on indefinite hiatus?? Wouldn't a normal person just keep writing?
– Anonymous: I don't get it. Someone please explain LiteraryGirl's mental state.
└dolLHoUse: Not simple
Boom.
SG Net exploded.
From Pyongyang to Seoul, Sejong, Busan, to even across the Chinese mainland and Japanese archipelago—courtesy of AOIM-GPT's stellar translation—all these regions' power players were now united, all reading in the same language.
We might fight each other for various reasons, but we all shared one thing: we despised authors who went on indefinite hiatus.
A grand unification of Asia. A stunning miracle.
On the old internet, folks sometimes posted that if East Asian countries ever stood united, they would "theoretically" be the strongest in the world. Of course, there were no more states in the apocalypse, yet now that national borders had fallen, East Asia had ironically decided to prove that "theory" in practice.
"Uh, hyung... It's looking pretty rough. I'm not even sure mobilizing the Constellations will help," Seo Gyu said. "These guys are convinced the Constellations are on their side, so if we try to suppress them, we might get hammered instead."
We were in a corner of the room where Dok-seo was gnawing her fingernails. If you listened closely, you could hear a rapid-fire rap verse escaping her lips:
Whydidthishappen
Whydidthishappen
Why
Thissodoesn'tmakesense
Iwasreallyreallygonnacomebacknextmonth
Whycan'ttheyjustwaitonemonth
Whydotheyhavenopatience
It'scompletelynonsensical
From a reader's perspective, her attitude was infuriating. But for my own part in it, my surprise stemmed from another source.
'I can't believe even her mental fortress can shake like this!'
Unlike the characters in the original anime who used the AT-Field, her mind was more like a fortress of hardened steel.[1] Usually, if an author posted a hiatus announcement and then went to play games, they'd feel guilt. I promised my readers I'd write, they'd sigh to themselves, but here I am just gaming like the trash I am. But in Dok-seo's case...
Haha! I'm taking in nutrients from other works to feed my readers better. There's no other author like me!
That was how she genuinely thought about it. It wasn't self-justification or escapism either. She sincerely believed it, 120%.
On top of that, in my hundreds of iterations, she'd never once used macros for her hiatus notices. Every notice was handmade—painstakingly typed out, letter by letter. Why? Because that was how she showed devotion and courtesy to her beloved readers!
The perfectly obvious courtesy, some might say, would have been actually writing the dang novel. But that argument never reached Dok-seo.
'Even that adamantine spirit is crumbling now!'
Truly the work of an Outer God. It might not have been able to save its Miko's rotten mind, but it could most certainly drag that mind by the hair and drown it in a well.
She looked even more unstable than in iteration 888, when she secretly had an AI ghostwrite her chapters and got caught by me.
[Mr. Undertaker. Sim Ah-ryeon finished a week's worth of tasks this morning and is rushing down to Busan now. If we don't resolve this before she arrives, Oh Dok-seo's state might deteriorate even further.]
A similar Telepathic message must have reached Dok-seo too. She snapped out of her muttering and jerked her head up.
"N-no! I can't handle Ah-ryeon unnie on top of this! My dignity! My honor! They'll die! I'll be butchered, strangled, then utterly massacred and ground to meat paste!"
I watched in silence.
"Y-yes! It's all the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's fault! I won't forgive it! Outer Gooood!"
She dashed off. Seo Gyu, who oversaw SG Net, stared after her with a baffled expression.
"Uh, hyung, aren't you going after her?"
"...Should I?"
"Of course. You picked her up at Busan Station. Her, Ah-ryeon, me—all your responsibility."
"I'm only human, Seo Gyu."
"Huh..."
Ignoring Seo Gyu's dubious look, I went after Dok-seo. Much as I didn't want to, who else would take responsibility for that kid?
"Stop that right noooow!"
When I arrived, Dok-seo was violently shaking the precious laptop—the main body of the Admin of the Infinite Metagame—that I had stored in my room.
"I-I'm your Miko! Your agent on Earth! Why are you slandering the person most important to me? Is it... Does it make you happy? Huh? You sadist? Why frame me as an enemy of the world over something that never even happened?!"
[Heeheeheeheehee.]
A cheap speaker played giggling on loops while the character for "laughter" was displayed on-screen. The white-haired avatar was carefully retracing the letter with a brush pen.
"S-stop laughiiiiiing!"
[Kieuk-kieuk-kieuk.]
Apparently, the Admin pronounces the Korean character for "lol" as "kieuk-kieuk-kieuk." I added that useless factoid to my mental Akashic Records and stepped into the center of the commotion.
"Name your terms."
[Hah?]
"Surely you didn't do all this arbitrarily. You squeezed out your already-weakened power to produce thousands of stone tablets. In martial arts terms, you spat out your last innate energy," I analyzed calmly. "You must want something. If it's a reasonable proposal, I'll consider it. State your demands."
"Y-yeah! That's right! What do you want? What's so important that you started all this madness?!"
On the monitor, the 144p white-haired girl smirked.
[Go—search up the Three Kingdoms tag-at the novel-serialization board—right now lmao]
I tilted my head but complied.
SG Net's novel-serialization board had tabs sorted into Fantasy, Martial Arts, and so on, but there was one very special feature distinguishing this site from older novel platforms.
Three Kingdoms.
No need to even search the tag, the Three Kingdoms genre was boldly displayed at the top of the site in a stately style. Throughout the previous cycles—thousands of years combined—Three Kingdoms was always massively popular. SG Net was in the throes of a total Three Kingdoms obsession.
"That's because of you, mister."
This time, it was Dok-seo who responded calmly.
"You push the popularity of any Three Kingdoms-based story, artificially inflating their views by at least 100 to 5,000 with a macro. Then you literally pay authors royalties based on those rigged view counts, so from their perspective, they'd be stupid not to churn out these stories. They're guaranteed sales, no matter how trashy the writing is."
"Silence. What do you know about the loyalty and camaraderie contained in Three Kingdoms?"
"I'm just saying, normal readers complain about why it's always another Three Kingdoms whatever topping the charts..."
I had no interest in listening to the indefinite-hiatus demon.
With a snort, I clicked on the currently top-ranked Three Kingdoms work. I'd already purchased and read up to the latest chapter this very morning, so if the Admin had tampered with it, I would notice right away and—
Zhang Fei: Aha, Sister Liu Bei! Just rely on your lover Zhang Fei!
Liu Bei: Uh huh, sure! I trust you, little sister!
Mi Zhu: Goodness. You girls' bond amazes me more every time I see it.
"Uwoaoooooooooooooook?!"
A cry straight out of Munch's The Scream escaped my mouth.
"Eek! A-are you okay, mister? Hey, mister! Snap out of it! Is this a mental attack? An Anomaly? An Outer God? Don't pass out!"
This novel, that novel!
All the stories I'd been reading—even logging in from multiple dummy accounts to give them 20 upvotes each because I sensed the author's extraordinary talent from just the first three chapters.
The warriors of Shu Han, the strategists, and Wei, Wu, even Emperor Xian... Every single one, all of them had been replaced...
With girls!
"Ogh. Ughk, huk. Kugh. Kkh, snrrk."
[Hehehehehe.]
[Don't you findRomance of the Three KingdomsturnedRomance of the Sisterhoodquite intriguing, Regressor?]
"I-I can't... breathe... You, you scoundrel, Admin. How can you commit such a monstrous atrocity? How...?"
[Why? Don't you devour every genre you see anyway?]
What nonsense. It was like someone saying they loved pineapple and also mint chocolate, so a chef lumped them together on a pizza to claim they'd "used all your favorite ingredients."
"Wh-whatever it means! Don't torture the old man, you nasty Outer God! Take that! And that!"
[I still have 3,122 more of your hiatus announcements, if you'd like me to show them?]
"Huwaaaaaack!"
A KO.
The Regressor and the Possessor collapsed side by side.
What no other Outer God could achieve, this so-called "weakest" Outer God, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, had managed it.
I groaned. "Let's... talk..."
[ ? ]
"A... A friendly negotiation. Why spill meaningless blood here? At this point, you can't destroy the world, right? Let's settle this nicely. Huh? Let's both be happy..."
[Heh]
"Name your conditions, specifically. This time, I swear I'll refrain from mockery or criticism. I'll listen seriously..."
Bzzt.
Until now, the white-haired avatar had trudged around the desktop in an area about the size of a Recycle Bin icon, but now, the screen zoomed in.
Click.
In both hands, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame held up a text file like a signboard. Once more, the note spelled out the Outer God's demands.
[You—must—respect—me.]
Footnotes:
[1] AT-Field is a reference to the nearly impenetrable shields called Absolute Terror (A. T.) Fields in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
-x-X-x-
The Surrenderer IV
[Monster Wave and Nut were nothing more than marionettes meant to hasten my own doom.]
Tap-taptap-taptap!
Text poured forth at a speed of a thousand keystrokes per minute across the laptop screen's notepad file. Along with it, a low-quality TTS voice prattled on.
[I used the descent of the Monster Wave and Nut to reimagine this Void-tainted world as a server shutdown, thereby cutting through all competition among the Outer Gods to ascend proudly as the one who would destroy the world.]
[And by reinterpreting the Awakeners' abilities as "skills" in a game, I turned every phenomenon into a "game"—an illusion.]
[In this way, I also devoured the Mastermind's simulation-cosmology. I set up a contrast between—the "inside" of the logged-in game world—and the "outside" of the logged-out real world.]
[The same goes for Infinite Void.]
[The property of Infinite Void—treating all the world's elements as mere data—was clearly a step below—my own Void, which turned this entire world into a game.]
[I—was the Outer God that made Monster Wave—Nut—the Mastermind—and Infinite Void all bow down.]
[Unlike them—I was not helpless against the regressor's time. I placed my own preparations—like demonic artifacts.]
[You must—respect—me.]
Truly, humans are creatures that learn from experience.
Which meant that mocking the Admin of the Infinite Metagame again right now would risk yet another tragedy occurring.
Even beyond all my beloved Three Kingdoms novels being forcibly turned into genderbent stories—who knew what horrendous new hybrid might be born. Imagine if Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all turned into internet streamers.
I had to endure.
I could endure.
Unlike these Anomalies that knew nothing of humanity or compassion, we humans had the capacity for introspection and repentance—
"But either way, your Miko is still Oh Dok-seo, right?"
[#$□)%(♡)@#%^?_□!]
Ah. Slip of the tongue.
In short, the Outer God the Admin of the Infinite Metagame was in despair.
– I was honestly pretty confident, you know.
Henceforth, the monologue that follows shall be acknowledged as the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's "human-friendly version" with the background noise filtered out, resulting in a cleaner, more polished voice. The wording and tone were slightly adjusted to be something of an "edited for humans" version.
– Whether it's Nut's night sky, Infinite Void's qualia, or the Mastermind's simulation games, I could easily reinterpret them all as "games" or "works of fiction."
– No matter how fiercely they struggled, they couldn't deny the board I'd laid out.
Of course, the Admin wasn't truly strategizing in elaborate moves against those other Outer Gods or anything close to it. The Outer Gods altogether were more like a group of mutually incompatible viruses vying for territory, devouring or propagating at will.
Yet once again, for the sake of this "human-friendly version," we'll call it a puzzle-solution style retelling.
– Still, in order to convert this world into a "creation" for my "game," I had to accept certain shackles and chains of my own.
On-screen, the white-haired girl raised her index and middle fingers. No longer was her avatar 144p, but instead, she had become 8K HD. Even so, her skin was unnaturally flawless, betraying her inhuman nature.
– A God.
– I, who would reign as "God," was bound to remain just a typical raid boss in any piece of fiction.
– That was my first constraint.
Clank!
From the blank desktop, a pixelated chain arose and snared the white-haired girl's ankles.
– Irregulars like regressors.
– Such a typical "main character" trait, always found in a story's cast.
– That was my second constraint.
Clack.
Another chain slithered forward like a snake and cuffed the Admin's slender wrists, leaving no gap.
– But it was a manageable risk.
– From the perspective of an Outer God like me, do you know which type of irregular is the hardest to deal with?
"...Some regressor like me?"
– No.
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame smiled politely, like a well-bred noble maiden.
Come to think of it, the character design this was based on apparently had a background of German nobility too.
– Regressor types are surprisingly easy to handle. They're mentally fragile.
"Ah."
– It's never easy to live the same life dozens of times over. Even if they do survive, they're prone to Corruption. You just happen to be an exception, Regressor.
I was reminded of Old Man Scho, and of many protagonists in countless works who fell to despair under the loneliness and pain of regression.
– The real threat is... "Prophets."
"Prophets."
– Yes. No matter how ingenious my strategies, what good would that do? Even if I respond to their moves, they can read four or five moves ahead. If someone can see every future, the game inevitably ends in a stalemate.
– I don't want a draw.
– So I killed them.
Like Zeus punishing Prometheus.
"...I see. That's why in the novel you showed to Dok-seo, the prologue had all the prophets die off from the start."
– Hehe. Indeed. I'm the sort of person who devours the tastiest part of the curry first.
The Admin's voice had once degraded to series of girlish scoffs, but now she wore a more refined, old-fashioned smile.
– Six prophets, promised for humanity's future.
– I wiped them all out by letting them all simultaneously read your, the Regressor's, future. Their minds basically exploded.
– After that, I tossed in a bit more gunpowder. That is, I generously shared with them all my data—absolutely everything—about the entire cosmos.
– Unless you had a special ability, it was impossible for a human brain to handle that much data capacity. Cue poof—nice fireworks.
Firework effects filled the desktop.
– From that point on, I only had to worry about regressors. Out of the two main ones, one was no problem at all.
– As I'd predicted, after tens of cycles, that one collapsed on his own.
Swordmaster Schopenhauer, disqualified.
– Which meant only you remained.
The last irregular. Codename: Undertaker.
– As soon as you surrendered to the time of regression, it would be over for you.
And here, for the first time, the Admin realized her miscalculation.
– Unlike that other regressor, you had no real talent in martial arts or brute force.
– Nor did you have any special standout abilities compared to other Awakeners. Complete Memory? That's bait for Anomalies at best. He's sure to die in the tutorial dungeon, anyway.
– A trash ability. An F-rank skill.
– Even Time Seal was no threat. If anything, it helped me, since you basically erased humans for me.
Yet...
– Why did you refuse to give up on this "game"?
100 cycles passed.
200 cycles passed.
300, 400 cycles passed.
To the Admin, it felt like that old song, "Air Man ga Taosenai," was playing on loop.[1]
– That's when it hit me.
By the 500th cycle, as an Outer God, she had to admit her miscalculation.
– Complete Memory. That was the culprit.
– Ordinary people internalize pain and trauma more than necessary and quickly let happiness fade.
– But... because you possessed perfect recollection, that typical phenomenon never affected you.
– No matter how many people around you died, how many killings ensued, how many fell into hell, you preserved in your memory the exact moments when they lived most happily.
– To think that this trash skill, which seemed useless, was a trump card for the Regressor...
That was the Admin's first blunder.
– But... it was still within acceptable parameters.
The Outer God soon devised her next move.
– I would degrade you, the Regressor, to a "mere character in a novel" and introduce someone with a stronger protagonist trait than yours.
Oh Dok-seo. Trait: Book Possessor. A cheat-like ability that could read the entire life story of the Undertaker in advance, in "book" form.
– Did you know? A "Book Possessor" is essentially the same as a "Prophet." In fact, that's the most powerful trait you can have.
– Sure, I shot a data bomb at the real Prophets, annihilating their minds. But my Miko was different.
– What the Miko read was a novel—merely text, infinitely compressed in resolution.
– And I just... added a bit of seasoning so that she would form a certain prejudice about you, that's all. Really just a sprinkle of bias.
Suddenly, I recalled my first meeting with Dok-seo in the 555th cycle, after she'd become a "Book Possessor." She was quite different then from how she was now.
[Oh Dok-seo: There he is.]
[Oh Dok-seo: The protagonist of this world. Codename: Undertaker.]
[Oh Dok-seo: He's better-looking than I... Actually, maybe the cover art was better? Hmm. Is he better in person?]
[Oh Dok-seo: But I mustn't be fooled by his looks.]
She remained alert toward me.
[Oh Dok-seo: The Undertaker is a protagonist who has multiple regressions under his belt. He's got no tears to shed or warm blood to lose.]
[Oh Dok-seo: He's full of hatred for monsters, a typical regressor who lives only because he can't die...]
[Oh Dok-seo: Basically, he's a madman. If I slip up, he might kill me on the spot. I've got to tread carefully.]
It was hard to believe when confronted with the indefinite-hiatus-laden LiteraryGirl of today, but she was once quite sharp. Her movements were swift, her brain cunning, her approach to people proactive, and she knew how to lead. Above all, she had started at the same vantage point as the Regressor Undertaker.
– I was confident I'd chosen the perfect Miko.
A Book Possessor who was wary of the Regressor, fated to collaborate sometimes and clash at others, eventually dancing on the Admin's puppet stage to overpower him.
But then...
– Then why?!
All at once, the white-haired girl's face contorted into that of a demon, and the desktop went blood-red.
– When did you acquire Mind Reading?
– Infinite Void! Cheon Yo-hwa! That piece of trash offering! How dare they meddle with the Mastermind's powers and pull off such a cheap trick!
Yes.
The Admin never realized that she wasn't exchanging moves with me, the Regressor, across a chessboard as she thought. In reality, someone else stood off-board behind me, wearing a secretive grin as they guided my hand with "hints."
"Seriously, sunbae, you have too few strategist characters by your side... That's the problem."
My "Tactician" in Regressions.
"I'm sorry. I really wanted to save Old Man Schopenhauer for you too, but messing with the causality so drastically would've been too much."
"It already took a miracle to weave together a timeline that could coexist with your footsteps up through the 688th cycle without negating them."
An expert who knew more about Outer Gods than anyone.
"Aha-ha. Sorry for dropping out early like Grandpa Swordmaster, yeah? Good luck living the rest of your life, sunbae. Work hard for my share, okay?"
"After all, that's the fate of a regressor."
Unlike the hotheaded, martial-arts-loving, frontline twin who always charged into battle...
This twin was cold-blooded and cunning, hiding in the background and setting traps.
That was Cheon Yo-hwa's doing.
In hindsight, it was strange.
Oh Dok-seo was chosen as the Miko and became a Book Possessor in the 555th cycle, yet I gained my Mind Reading in the 554th cycle. They were only one cycle apart: the Book Possessor arrived, and the regressor acquired a new skill. Wasn't that timing a bit too perfect to be mere coincidence?
"Haaaah, Teacher, can't you please help me...?"
Thus spoke the 554th cycle.
That day, the student council president of Baekhwa Girls' High, Cheon Yo-hwa—the younger of the twin sisters, sporting orange ponytails—came to me.
"Help you with what?"
"Well, the house I used to live in was the main base of that cult, right? There's negative energy piling up and ghosts keep appearing, so I decided I have to do some cleanup. It's just... too big for me to do alone."
"Why not ask your Baekhwa friends?"
"Eugh. That's my old home! There are a bunch of my childhood photos and clothes in there, they'd totally swipe them if they found out."
"...You've had it rough."
"Hueeeng. Sorry! You're the only one I can rely on in times like this, Teacher!"
So I helped my student clean out the big Cheon-family estate.
Though it was already touched by the Void, I'd been here before while investigating one thing or another, so clearing it wasn't too hard. However...
"Exploring these Void-infested spots together reminds me of the old days. I was so scared back then, but now, it feels almost nostalgic."
"Yeah. That coffee you brewed in the student council room was delicious. And that time we took the water-scooter to the ends of the earth, that was fun."
"Hehe! Oh, Teacher. There's still a place here!"
This time around, Yo-hwa knew all the secret passages in the estate. Thanks to that, we made it into places we'd missed in previous cycles, including deep into some tunnel as she led me by the arm.
"Huh? What's that?"
A jet-black stone statue stood there.
"This thing was here all along...?"
It was a bizarre statue, one that likely represented some deity or another at some point in time, but its head had been cleaved off, making it impossible to identify. In its place was a Buddha's head on the neck stump. That Buddha's head was also strange—perfectly ordinary except for an "eye patch" carved over one eye.
I muttered it without thinking. "Gung Ye...?"
"Pardon?"
"No, nothing."
Gung Ye. A real historical figure, but on the internet more famous as a meme from the drama Taejo Wang Geon for being a mad cult leader who claimed he had the "power of clairvoyance" and shouting "Who coughed?" among other things.[2]
"Huh, weird. My family forbids anything related to Buddhism, so normally we'd just destroy a statue if we found one... If this had been around, they would've disposed of it right away," Yo-hwa mumbled.
It was unfamiliar even to the former successor of the cult. In other words, only someone on par with the "other twin successor" could have hidden such an item so thoroughly under her nose.
Who placed it here, and when?
At the time, neither I nor the younger twin could guess the truth, which was that since the 1st cycle, Yo-hwa's older twin had stored that strange statue in the estate's depths.
Why?
"All right, let's investigate, then."
"O-okay, teacher. But be careful? The head's chopped off, so you can tell it's suspicious. Don't just reach out and—" She paused, startled as I touched it anyway.
She'd arranged things so that her "sunbae" and her "sister" would discover the statue in the 554th cycle. So that in the next cycle—when the Admin played its "Book Possessor" trump card—the Regressor would already hold a sword to counter it.
"T-Teacher? Why are you spacing out? Is it cursed? Even you can't handle something so obviously fishy?"
"Yo-hwa."
"Yes?"
"It seems I... might have just acquired... a new ability."
"...Huh?"
At long last, after hundreds of cycles, the Regressor unlocked the skill Mind Reading, and all thanks to a certain supreme trickster who possessed the authority of both Infinite Void and the Mastermind. She took care that the Admin of the Infinite Metagame would never notice, even making the event appear like sheer coincidence to me, her ally.
"Hey, you, mister."
So in the 555th cycle, Dok-seo approached me.
"Come over here. That freaking fairy's just caused a blood geyser to spout, and everyone else has gone and bailed. The ones of us left gotta stick together, don't you think?"
Surely the Admin of the Infinite Metagame was smiling cunningly from behind her then.
The Admin felt confident that by placing the regressor and Book Possessor in close proximity, she could intervene anytime she liked and manipulate the scenario.
[Oh Dok-seo: Come on, damn it, please. Come over here. Without you, we're all dead!
Except her plan derailed at step one. Because to my Mind Reading eyes, acquired anew in the previous cycle, Oh Dok-seo was...
...not suspicious or dangerous, nor someone the Regressor must keep at arm's length.
[Oh Dok-seo: I get it, your first love and the only guild leader you served under is dead and lost to you, monsters are shit, the world is shit, I get it...]
[Oh Dok-seo: But for real, help us out!]
On the contrary, I felt curiosity.
'Following this kid around looks like it'll make this cycle a blast!'
Then goodwill. A quick glimpse into Dok-seo's psyche told me she wasn't vicious or wicked, so as the Regressor, I felt secure staying close to her.
Hence, the Regressor and the Book Possessor never clashed, never doubted each other. We trusted one another.
Brrrrkk.
From that moment on, the massive tower the Admin had built began to crumble uncontrollably.
Undone by a certain strategist who happened to fall in love with a single regressor.
Footnotes:
[1] "Air Man ga Taosenai" (lit., "I Cannot Defeat Air Man") is a song about trying to defeat Air Man, the boss of Mega Man 2, and failing over and over again.
[2] In the drama, Gung Ye beats people to death with a mace for coughing in front of him.
-x-X-x-
The Surrenderer V
The admin had reached her conclusion.
For a moment, my private room fell silent. On the laptop resting on the table, the screen showed the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's avatar again in 144p resolution—or even more degraded, like a dot-pixel white-haired girl perched atop the Recycle Bin icon.
[At first, I did not suspect—Infinite Void or that elder twin girl, Cheon Yo-hwa.]
Her voice had likewise weathered further. Gone was any trace of that aristocratic flair she once gave off, that sense of maybe smiling with a butterfly on her hand. No vintage elegance, just a worn-out relic. All that remained was a simple, off-beat TTS voice emerging from the laptop's tinny speaker.
[Just a worthless-loser.]
[Pathetically tried imitating—a human, clinging to the Regressor with flattery—and coquettish wiles, that pathetic insect—]
[I—took her lightly.]
Perhaps because of that, even in the 688th cycle when we subjugated the Mastermind, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame chose to cooperate with Cheon Yo-hwa. She decided that Infinite Void was a more serious threat as an Outer God, not suspecting that the real puppet master was Cheon Yo-hwa.
[You would—remember.]
[That I tried persuading Infinite Void—to form a pact with me and rise against you, the Regressor.]
But Infinite Void did not act as the Admin wanted. It used the Admin and betrayed her, leading to the Admin's ultimate conclusion.
[Cheon Yo-hwa was actually the Mastermind—]
[She was just Infinite Void at first, but then stole the Mastermind's authority—granting Mind Reading to you.]
[She's the one who toyed with me from start to finish.]
Bzzt.
The curses, fried in static, dripped like sticky black grease.
[Sly creature.]
[Treacherous creature.]
[Malicious creature.]
Indeed.
From the moment that Book Possessor, her trump card, was dismantled by Cheon Yo-hwa, the Admin's chances of victory nosedived. After that, the Admin's moves were less rebellion, more desperate flailing.
She gave Oh Dok-seo Side Story Creation, hoping it might shake the Regressor's psyche. Failure.
She pumped all the Aura she could into Oh Dok-seo while Leviathan slumbered, yet though Oh Dok-seo fell somewhat, she still wouldn't oppose the Regressor Undertaker. Failure.
She tried secretly poisoning the novel Oh Dok-seo was writing (Undertaker: The Romance) to distort the readers' perception.
And yet the more the Admin tampered, the more Oh Dok-seo felt a primal aversion to writing. The Miko's drive to avoid harming the Regressor overpowered her servitude to the Outer God.
Failure.
Failure, failure, failure. Failure.
[If at least...]
The speaker crackled in her lament.
[If you had treated your comrades as disposable pawns even a little bit.]
[If you hadn't given them your trust—I would have won—]
[And you—would have become me.]
Finally, I broke the human silence. "So? A loser can replay the chess game all she wants, but the outcome doesn't change."
[...]
"I get that scattering tablets along the shore was your way to vent your grudge against Oh Dok-seo. Now go ahead and state the real condition you want."
Squirm, squirm.
That black curse-stuff seeped over the background, forming greasy droplets as they all converged in one direction: the recycle bin. Once all the black sludge had drained into the icon, the background turned pure white again, as though bleached.
With a squelching plop, the Admin's avatar hopped out of the bin, then knelt quietly in the center of the white screen.
[I surrender.]
Like a white flag unfurling, a notepad file popped up with lines of text typing out in real time.
[Please grant—the victor's mercy.]
[At least spare—my life—if you would.]
In the 925th cycle. Autumn.
So it was the day the Outer God known as the Admin of the Infinite Metagame formally offered a complete surrender.
Faking it until you make it. Raising your price before offering terms.
That was what all this fuss amounted to for the Admin of the Infinite Metagame. Making a pathetic show of proving she wasn't dead "quite yet," so to speak.
I hummed in thought. To be honest, there was no particular urgency from my end of things. So what if my beloved Three Kingdoms stories were all transformed into bizarre gender-bent side-lore? Fine by me. I could simply re-read the same text in a new twist and enjoy it again.
Two ways to savor the meal. Men's camaraderie and maidens' friendship. Different flavors, perhaps, just as Ceylon Tea was distinct from café au lait, but if you prided yourself on being the greatest glutton in the best of times, you might declare them both delicious and gulp them straight down.
"P-please accept her surrender, mister..."
However, our illustrious literary figure clung to my arm like slime, stretching out in desperation.
"If that thing promises not to sneak any Outer God junk into my novel anymore, I can keep writing without interruption! Then our dear readers are happy, your allies are happy, and I'm happy too! A happy ending! An overwhelmingly happy ending—!"
"I-I won't be happy at all," a voice intervened.
Dok-seo and I turned to look, and there stood Sim Ah-ryeon, who had rushed to Busan so quickly she hadn't even changed out of her Saintess garb. Fidgeting, she said, "Don't accept the surrender, G-Guild Leader..."
"Huh," I huffed, somewhat intrigued. "Considering you're also part of the Regressor Alliance, I'll at least pretend to listen. Why not?"
"B-because an Oh Dok-seo who updates daily isn't Oh Dok-seo at all. Characterization. There's a certain personality trait that must remain protected, even if it's h-hidden from others."
I nodded. "I see. What's your real reasoning?"
"Because I won't let go of this precious gem who's living a life even more worthless than mine..."
"What the— Ah-ryeon unnie?!"
"I— I absolutely won't let you go. Ms. Dok-seo, taking it upon yourself to become a decent human being is a betrayal I can't forgive..."
"Mister! Mister, I'm scared! Please accept the surrender!"
So Ah-ryeon clung to Dok-seo, and in turn, Dok-seo clung to me.
Ha-yul, who had been wandering around the guild hideout, saw this and latched onto Ah-ryeon's waist, asking, [What's this game, anyway?]
It was total chaos.
[Listen—to how it feels to be bested by these scoundrels.]
Anyway, it was a momentous event: an Outer God formally surrendering.
We had but one crucial question left to settle: Where would we accept this surrender? If there were some famous "capitulation hot spot" nearby, like the Palace of Versailles in France, that would be convenient, but we had nothing so thematically fitting in Korea.
When in doubt, improvise. We needed a space meeting three specific criteria:
1. It must remain intact no matter how much time passes.
2. Neither the Admin nor the Regressor can easily meddle with it.
3. The host of that space must be on par with or above an Outer God in stature.
Could such a place actually exist?
Surprisingly, yes.
"Welcome, sunbae! I've been waiting!"
Beam, beam.
Waving her hand was Cheon Yo-hwa, the older twin sister, dressed in a black sailor uniform.
The Divine Realm of Infinite Void. A classroom that kept the windows of four seasons sealed. The domain of a god, in which time stood still.
"And... Aha."
When she looked at me, she had a face of pure innocent cheer, but upon noticing the laptop in my arms, her expression turned sly.
"Pop Quiz: The manga character Whitebeard and that white-haired girl inside your laptop share something in common. What do you suppose that is?"[1]
[...?]
"Three, two, one, buzz! The answer: They're both holdover losers from the previous era!"
[...]
"Bahahah! Ehehe, ahahahahaha!"
Zzzt—zzzt—zzzt.
Static hissed violently from the laptop, but Cheon Yo-hwa just pounded on a desk, rolling from laughter.
"Wow! Remember how that Outer God once mocked me? 'How can a god stoop to love a human or surrender to a human,' she said. Huh? What happened to her old adage, 'you can't beat them, join them'? But you wouldn't listen! Then, oh, I heard we got a new member this season, so I came here and—and what do you know? It's you? Youalso joined?!"
[CENSORED.]
"Uh oh, sorry! I can't hear a has-been whose power got sealed by sunbae like a disobedient puppy—!"
[CENSORED.]
"Gasp! Or could this be an example of the Great Guardian of the Script? Like how the word for male genitalia can't be spelled out directly, forced into the obscure world of bleeps. You're physically demonstrating the content guidelines of a creation—?!"
[CENSORED.]
"Hehehe. Goodness, Admin-chan! You're so committed to roleplay. If you had this level of RP skill in Japan, you could shoot for the top Vtuber rung! I'm laughing because you're so into it."
[CENSORED.]
[CENSORED.]
[CENSORED.]
"Repeat after me: The Admin of the Infinite Metagame... is just an above-average laptop, that's all!"
[CENSORED.]
[CENSORED.]
[CENSORED.]
For over fifteen minutes, Cheon Yo-hwa tormented the Admin with every variety of otaku insult, humiliating her psychologically.
'Man, she has a nasty streak...'
Then again, from what I could recall, the older twin was always a real piece of work. While her younger twin might troll the entire world from behind a mask—she was Ah-ryeon's friend, after all—the older twin would pick one target and tear them apart until they coughed blood, curse-caster style.
Cheon Yo-hwa stretched her arms wide, looking thoroughly refreshed. "Haaah! I feel better!"
In stark contrast, the laptop across from her was spewing black smoke as if broken.
"You done venting?" I asked then.
"Mhm! I'm good now. Anyway, I guess from what I'm seeing, the Admin wants to fully surrender to you, sunbae?"
"...Yes."
"Aha, it's all going according to my plan. Ehehe, guess I really am a genius."
She giggled manically like a clown, but I couldn't bring myself to laugh along.
"There's something I'd like to ask, Yo-hwa."
"Sure, sunbae! Ask anything you want. Doesn't mean I can answer everything, though."
"The Admin suspects you of gifting me Mind Reading, specifically to sabotage the scenario she cooked up of pitting her Miko against me. Is that true?"
"Ah, yep," she confirmed briskly, as if it were no big deal. "I did. To be exact, I did it after absorbing the Mastermind's powers. Remember when I apologized because I couldn't save Old Man Schopenhauer? That time."
I swallowed hard. "I'm not accusing you of anything. Just curious. Why didn't you tell me?"
Smiling, Cheon Yo-hwa answered, "I'm sure you have an idea already, sunbae... And that guess is correct."
Go Yuri.
That entity living not just in my mind, but in the deep unconscious of humanity.
'I can't forget anything once I hear it. That's just the way I am.'
Finally, I felt certain.
All along, Cheon Yo-hwa had not only been taking the Regressor's point of view into account when interacting with me, she had also always factored in the presence of Go Yuri, who was entwined with my memory.
Noticing my face stiffen, Cheon Yo-hwa forced a faint smile. "It's tough, huh, sunbae? The world can collapse so easily. And to prevent that, we have to calculate variables as complicated as the Sands of the Ganges. If a mere vow to sacrifice ourselves could solve everything... it'd be simple."
"Indeed," I said gravely. "It's not easy."
"Mhm. Not easy."
For about five seconds, we gazed at each other. Perhaps we both need the time to verify the angles and intensities of our mutual wry smiles.
"But in any case, we've come this far because you never gave up, sunbae."
With a motion of her hand, Cheon Yo-hwa made chalk levitate and write on the blackboard in a nostalgic rhythm.
"People often say that strategizing is about variables. They think preparing for unknown factors demonstrates intelligence and deserves praise." Cheon Yo-hwa curled her arms around her knees. "But for a tactician like me, the truly precious thing isn't the variables, it's the constants. Something that stays the same wherever, whenever. A bedrock for your calculations, a reliability that lets you plan strategies without worrying it'll shift."
In that classroom, her gentle voice and the chalk's scratchy writing formed a sort of a cappella duet.
"What was the reason the Admin lost, anyway? Because I'm the greatest genius who defies even the gods?"
[...]
"No, she was a genius too. Our calculation power is basically the same. So I myself can't be the decisive cause of her defeat."
The chalk paused against the blackboard.
Resting her face on her arm, Cheon Yo-hwa turned, letting the light of sunset frame her silhouette.
"The Admin and I were originally both far from human. But after hundreds of cycles, we each grew more human. Think about it, sunbae."
"What do you mean?"
"Simply the fact that she says 'I surrender'—that's extremely, profoundly human. And 'making promises' even more so."
A small smile tugged at her lips.
"You call humans Corrupted by Anomalies 'Fallen Ones'? 'Corrupted'? Those are nice terms. It's the same on this side, too. By now, The Admin has fallen so far from being an Outer God that she's barely an Anomaly. She genuinely got mad at her Miko, sulked, sought survival—enough to consider surrender... And it's thanks to you, sunbae. All because you've remained the same, unwavering you."
There, behind Cheon Yo-hwa.
"While the Void gazes upon humans, so too do humans gaze upon the Void. Maybe Anomalies need a saying like that."
The blackboard's "Surrender Agreement" read:
1. The Admin of the Infinite Metagame shall relinquish all authority over creative works (novels, comics, movies, games, etc.).
2. The Admin of the Infinite Metagame shall, under no circumstances, interfere with any future works authored by her Miko, Oh Dok-seo.
3. The Admin of the Infinite Metagame shall not threaten the Regressor Undertaker's physical or mental survival in any way. Nor may she communicate with other Anomalies without the Regressor's permission.
4. The Regressor Undertaker will allow the Admin of the Infinite Metagame to avoid entanglement in the flow of regression and to retain her own sense of self and memory.
5. The laptop provided by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, and any works written on that laptop by Miko Oh Dok-seo, will remain safe from the ravages of time, recognized as an Ark that retains its own unique identity.
6. All of the above shall be guaranteed by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, the Regressor Undertaker, and the Divine Realm's Cheon Yo-hwa. Should any party break the agreement, that violator shall face unconditional destruction.
7. The right to determine the ultimate interpretation of the words and phrases in this pact lies solely with the Regressor Undertaker.
The white-haired girl on-screen bit her fingertip, tipping away the tip of her right index finger with a static hiss.
[...If it will ensure.]
[That my life—is guaranteed.]
[Gladly.]
Thump.
She held out her hand, and—oddly—in that very moment, the laptop screen and the blackboard both displayed her fingerprint.
A blood oath. The strongest form of pledge.
Cheon Yo-hwa and I placed our own bloody seals in turn.
After wrapping her finger in a white handkerchief, Cheon Yo-hwa turned to me to say, "You know, sunbae, to me this world was always just variables. Ever since I was a kid."
Then she smiled like a blooming flower.
"You're my only constant, sunbae."
There is a brief epilogue.
One day in the next cycle...
"Mister! We've got a problem, a huge problem!"
"Now what?"
"I-I can't write anything!"
I stared.
"What do I do? I took Friday off because I was sick, Saturday and Sunday are always off by default, Monday I claimed I had the Flu Anomaly, so I took another day, but if I slack off today, Tuesday, everyone will start asking why I didn't just get healed by Ah-ryeon unnie! Because the Baekhwa Girls' High student council leader and Ji-won both know I can get treated anytime! So I need a legitimate excuse—some miraculous reason—why a literary figure like me can skip Tuesday too, so I can trick the Regressor Alliance...! Mister!"
Thus was it proven that Oh Dok-seo's indefinite-hiatus disease wasn't wholly the Admin's fault. QED.
Footnotes:
[1] Whitebeard is a character from the manga One Piece.
-x-X-x-
The Inviter I
The Great Witch of Samcheon World.
My guild master.
Let's talk about Dang Seo-rin.
A regressor and an Undertaker. The sole survivor of the Busan Station tutorial dungeon.
That was the honor bestowed upon me in my 4th run. A bloodstained name.
It must have been raining that day.
Oh Dok-seo still needed thousands of years before she would Awaken as the Book Possessor.
Sim Ah-ryeon would later be reborn as the savior of the North.
At that point, Lee Jae-hee was still active as a frontline swordsman in the Regressor's party.
Uehara Shino personally risked her life to taste-test and concoct tonics out of the Void vegetation that grew in the tutorial dungeon.
Seo Gyu, I didn't get a chance to learn his name before his head burst open.
Lee Baek always stirred up trouble in the tutorial dungeon.
I couldn't share any genuine bonds, create any real memories, or live any real life with them. All of them died too soon, to a world fallen to ruin. In a season of drought where any harvest was slow to yield, only death ripened prematurely.
I had nothing in those days.
Nothing but anger and hatred.
Even if the sky poured down rain, the flames devouring the wick of my soul would never go out, burning on endlessly.
"Those eyes of yours are just dripping with poison, huh?"
Footsteps.
You stepped forward, trailing your shadow behind you. The boundary your black leather boots stepped upon lay at the edge of a single pyeong radius where the sound of my burning heartbeat reached.[1]
"So you're the one they talk about, right?"
I couldn't recall your voice or expression of that moment, nor the hue of the thunderclouds raining down, nor the angle at which you offered me your umbrella.
For me, a regressor who needed to remember everything, another death was still required.
"The one who survived from Busan Station—almost the only one. Word is it had the highest difficulty among the tutorial-stage Gates. Some hellscape you made it through... Your name?"
My mouth opened, then halted. Something tried to jump out of my throat but got stuck in my vocal cords. I tried coughing out a few breaths, but my voice, having tripped once, couldn't get back up.
I truly had nothing.
Not even a name.
"...Undertaker. It's an alias."
"So, someone who buries people?"
You liked to assign meaning to everything.
You called emptiness—where no crops could ever be harvested—"the open sky" and rose into that sky on a broom that only swept up dust.
You called the scrap metal that could no longer run anywhere "a train" and made it your home.
Because there wasn't enough water to wash one's hair, people stubbornly took to wearing hats all the time, and you adopted those battered hats as your guild's symbol.
Since there wasn't enough water to wash clothes, people grew accustomed to covering themselves fully, and you called those ragged coats "capes" and loved them.
You were alive.
"Not bad. A person is only as deep as the number of corpses they've buried in their heart."
Only later did I learn that the corpses buried in your heart were your parents and three younger siblings.
"So what do you say? Wanna join my guild?"
In the cold rain, your breath bloomed pale and white.
To my eyes, it looked just like a signal of smoke, drifting in the hope that some other survivor out there might see it.
If there was white smoke in this world that even rain could not wash away, it would be human breath.
"...What's your guild called?"
"Samcheon World. Samcheon for short."
I sometimes wonder what conversation passed between us then.
Now and then, I'm curious, yet not terribly lonely. At the time, my timeline hadn't been completely devoured by the whirlpool of regression. The better half of me—or perhaps just the soles of my feet—still barely stood on the same plane of time as other people.
So even the fact that I forgot you sometimes, as well as the memories I held of you, were proof that we once shared that era together.
"Undertaker. Help me... I need your strength."
You bowed at the waist and held out your hand.
Even if every word and sentence were erased, the color known as "you" still remained, and within that dark sky, we sought the feeling of one another like castaways sent adrift from each other.
Can I entrust my life to you?
Yes, I'll keep it safe.
I grasped your hand. You set aside your umbrella and helped me up.
We were too powerless to lessen the rain falling endlessly on this world, not even by a drop. But I could promise that my heart would be submerged in the same rainfall soaking you.
My last was memory this:
Two tendrils of smoke lit up in the dark sky. Two silhouettes overlapping in a rain puddle.
"Then, let's go."
"...Where?"
"Home!"
It rained.
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The rain was still cold.
But not so cold as to freeze two people's worth of body heat.
Today's episode is a bit special.
"Saintess."
[Yes?]
"I have a favor to ask."
[What is it?]
In this story, I didn't go out to hunt any Anomalies or subdue any Void. I didn't observe or save anyone.
It was just a story of me heading off to meet someone. That was all.
Perhaps, this story might not strictly meet the standard narrative conventions that Infinite Metagame obsesses over. But the treaty of surrender already featured the line I wrote that says, "Sign here! The Admin of the Infinite Metagame is... just a slightly more powerful laptop." Why care about that when it's already been undone by that big distortion?
"For one day, please refrain from using your Clairvoyance on me."
[...]
"Not just on me, but please do not share the viewpoint of anyone I meet as well."
I sensed hesitation in her silence.
Given our lack of real trust, it was hardly surprising. We'd only formed our alliance right after clearing the tutorial with the Saintess, just yesterday.
[Of course, I respect your wishes, Mr. Undertaker.]
[But I'd feel better if you shared why you need to hide something from me.]
"It's nothing serious. I'm about to meet someone from a past life, and it would be embarrassing if you were watching."
[Ah. If it's that sort of thing,] the Saintess replied calmly. [All right. So I just have to stop observing for 24 hours, correct?]
"That would be enough. Thank you."
[No need to thank me.]
[See you in 24 hours, Mr. Undertaker.]
A soft click signaled the end of our transmission.
Of course, since the Saintess's Telepathy isn't like a walkie-talkie, there's no real "end-call" tone.
That little click was made by the Saintess herself tapping her tongue on the roof of her mouth.
It was like a small code between us, whenever we sensed our conversation nearing an end, one of us would make that clicking sound with the tongue.
If, by any chance, you Awaken to telepathic powers someday, this tiny life tip might prove useful... but let's move on.
"Hmm."
I finished showering and stood before the mirror. I ran my fingers through my still-damp hair in light strokes.
"Time to begin."
"Hey, you're so dull."
"What?"
"Undertaker. I'm talking about you. You're so dull."
"..."
"Why don't you cut your hair? Are you trying to grow it out? Do you realize unkempt long hair is practically a capital offense?"
"True. I'm part of an organization now, so going around like this doesn't look good. I'll cut it. I was being short-sighted."
"Yes, good thinking. There's a barbershop at that intersection that our guild members often use. The owner's pretty nice."
...
"No!"
"...?"
"Now it's way too short?!"
"...Is there a problem?"
"Of course there's a problem! My gosh! That's practically a shaved head! I never told you to cut your hair shorter just because your vision of the future is short-sighted!"
"Long hair is an issue, short hair is an issue. I have no idea which tune I'm supposed to dance to."
"Listen, there's something called moderation in everything. With a face like yours, you should at least keep your hair so it doesn't get in the way!"
"Self-care... in this day and age? That's quite extravagant to—"
"If I say do it, do it. I can't stand seeing a guild member of mine roaming around looking like a beggar. And plus... come to think of it, you. There's something else short about you besides your thinking and your hair, isn't there?"
"What else could that be?"
"Your speech."
"..."
"Formal speech."
"..."
"Do you want to wear a pointy hat?"
"I'm sorry, Guild Leader."
"Hmph. Next time, let's cut your hair with moderation, okay?"
"...Yes."
That happened once.
"Great."
I looked into the mirror. In it stood a man with quickly trimmed hair and neatly shaped eyebrows, standing upright.
Just as a dog that watches a school for three years can recite poetry, after hundreds of regressions, I could style my own hair perfectly.
I turned my head this way, then that way.
"Mm."
Looks good.
After finishing with my hair, I applied a light sheen of lotion all over. Basic makeup had already been finished off by washing my face earlier.
The perfume came a little later.
On to the next step.
With a rattle, I opened my closet. Inside were various barista uniforms I'd gathered from (closed-down) cafés in Seoul and Busan, all hung up by type.
I stared at roughly sixteen different barista outfits, then paused.
Barista uniforms are more diverse than you might think, unlike the more standardized butler attire. The single most crucial element is the apron.
Do I go with a style that includes an apron or something closer to a bartender's vest? And if I do pick the apron, what sort of style should it be?
This is a very important matter. You could say there's no issue more pressing than this.
If Rodin had known about barista uniforms, he would surely have put an apron on his sculptures.[2]
'But no. Today, I'll go with...'
Decision made.
I reached into the closet.
"Undertaker. What do you do?"
"..."
"I said, what do you do, huh?"
"What is it this time? More— I mean... Guild Leader? We have a meeting soon with the people from Cheong-un Guild, remember?"
"Were you about to call it nonsense— No, bullshit? Huh?"
"No, absolutely not."
"Pointy hat."
"Yes, that's correct. I'm sorry."
...
"Ugh."
"Look, all our guild members are required to wear witch hats and carry brooms, but you're the only one wandering around dressed like a Muggle."
"Yes, I am a Muggle. I can't use magic, I'm lower than a Squib. I am truly grateful that the Great Witch of Samcheon World, with a heart more cunning than Slytherin and more brilliant than Ravenclaw, would kindly look upon me."
"Heh heh."
...
"Argh, no, that's not what I meant! Honestly. Listening to your flattery can be hypnotizing, you cunning Tongue Grand Wizard!"
"...What exactly is it, then? We really do have to go soon. The meeting time is approaching."
"Undertaker. You're a guild officer, but dressing like a Muggle doesn't set a good example for the others."
"Mm."
"Just yesterday, an owl delivered a Howler."
"A Howler... you mean the wooden owl figurine containing the guild members' petition, yes?"
"Yeah. They complained about how 'Lord Undertaker' roams around freely while they have to wear witch outfits every day. My goodness! Reading that letter made me feel faint. I, Dang Seo-rin, the master of Samcheon World, shall address this matter sternly."
"..."
"..."
"Even so, witch cos— witch outfits are a bit..."
"You were about to say 'costumes,' weren't you?"
"Certainly not. It's a misunderstanding, Great Witch."
"You wanna die?"
"Yesterday, I managed to find a Ford Anglia while roaming a haunted mansion. The moment I saw it, I realized only the majestic presence of our Great Witch of Samcheon World could handle such a remarkable car. Please accept it as my tribute."
"Undertaker. I name you an honorary witch."
"It is an honor spanning three lifetimes—"
"No, that's not it at all!"
"..."
"Ugh, seriously. Fine, if you can't wear a witch hat, I'll graciously forgive you! But at least pick some uniform that'd make the others go all approving when they see it."
"A suit is also a uniform."
"Guess what? A school uniform is a uniform, too."
"..."
"Want me to just stick you in my sibling's uniform?"
"Pardon me, but which sibling's uniform do you mean—your younger brother's or your younger sisters'?"
"Here."
"...?"
"Roll the dice."
"..."
"If it lands on one or two, my younger brother's. Anything else is my younger sisters' uniforms. Oh, don't worry about sizing. I'll hand it off to a tailor."
"...I promise I'll find a suitable uniform that sets a proper example. Soon."
"All right."
That happened too.
Okay.
"You've been chosen."
A thick, white, cotton dress shirt.
Bright white, but not too glaring, with thick cotton so the folds of the shirt crease nicely. To offset the plainness of the color with the folds, I rolled the sleeves up to my forearms.
There was another reason for this choice: It naturally showed off my arm muscles.
Let us remember, in fashion, a touch of exposed skin is a bonus.
'And I'll match it with simple black pants and a black apron.'
A barista apron can easily slip into tackiness, but that didn't matter. I wanted to be seen not as a fashionably balanced passerby, but as a "barista who just stepped out of the café" for a moment. In other words, to give the impression of a man stepping out from work rather than going out to play.
Poetically, not the image of someone "lost with nowhere to go," but rather "lost though there was somewhere he should return."
Hence, rolling up my sleeves to bare my forearms was crucial. It relaxed the rigid impression of a uniform.
A wristwatch is enough for accessories. And not a metal watch, but one with a leather strap. Small in size.
'She actually prefers a pocket watch much more, but...'
This was only the first meeting. If I showed up perfect from the start, it'd be off-putting.
We were both people who had lost our way, whose paths just so happened to intersect. We didn't have to be perfect.
We weren't players competing to determine a winner or loser.
We were simply an inviter and a visitor.
Hiss.
Finally, I chose a perfume and lightly spritzed some behind my ears—done.
In the mirror stood the person you used to like.
'Well.'
Were you nervous? I know I was.
Time only truly becomes life when it's accompanied by the sound of one's heartbeat—that's what you taught me.
'All right, off we go...'
Come to think of it...
I've mentioned countless stories shared with Dang Seo-rin, yet never once have I described the exact moment I first crossed paths with her.
Why hide it?
Until the distortion of Infinite Metagame was severed, I'd maintained my silence about this moment.
I, too, learned a thing or two about waiting from her.
'Time to go... get lost.'
I'm on my way to see you now.
Footnotes:
[1] Translator's Note: 1 pyeong ≈ 3.3 square meters. A Korean unit of area.
[2] François Auguste René Rodin was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture.