The Missing VII
In most works, regression is treated like a lopsided playing field that overwhelmingly favors the protagonist's side. Naturally, everyone except the regressor fails to notice the loop and just keeps treading water, which means only the regressor's allies get to monopolize every lucky break.
However, is regression truly advantageous to the protagonist alone?
"Truth is, regression benefits the enemy as well."
[Why is that?]
"Every time the cycle resets, the Anomalies we've already slain spring back to life. That's virtually immortality."
My counselor this time was the Saintess.
Noh Do‑hwa was the one who always slammed on the brakes whenever the Regressor Alliance tried to barrel forward, so with her now gone, the Saintess had the final say on our plan in this 173rd cycle.
Project Collapse.
Since the scheme asked every member of the Alliance to fall into Corruption on purpose, we obviously had to win the Saintess over.
[I‑I never thought of it that way.]
"It's a hardship only someone who has actually regressed can understand, Saintess."
After parting with Cheon Yo‑hwa, I strolled through midday Utopia. Lively laughter echoed through the streets as children darted past with high‑pitched giggles.
In that surprisingly peaceful post‑apocalyptic afternoon, I traded Telepathic messages with the Saintess.
"Each cycle I have to infiltrate Baekhwa Girls' High to catch Infinite Void, spending what feels like a year—sometimes ten—inside its prison of time."
[Ah... You suffer so much.]
"The same goes for Ten Legs and Meteor Shower. I get infinite tries, and the Anomalies get infinite life‑coins."
And yet...
"Outer Gods like Infinite Metagame or Nut are different. Their partial immunity to regression... makes them vulnerable."
The immunity they cultivated against me could be turned into a new opening. A weakness.
"If we wound Nut this time, it'll carry that scar forever, cycles be damned." I shrugged. "Just like I carry mine."
[...]
"By sharing my heart with my comrades, I've secured spare hearts. An Outer God hasn't—it's fundamentally alone. Saintess, we won't be the ones who collapse. They will."
There was a small sigh.
[...If it's to save the future me, it's hard to refuse.]
"Then you consent?"
[Yes, provided we have safeguards so the Corrupted don't end the world.]
"I already have a strategy for that."
The first runner of Project Collapse was the silver‑haired former psychopath. Now, thanks to the Golden Scales, she was a member who'd had humanity and emotions forcibly injected into her.
Yu Ji‑won.
Even when I looked her way, Ji‑won turned her head without a word. She'd stayed like that ever since my "regression coming‑out" that night.
"C'mon, Ji‑won, I said I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Please be more mindful of what you say, Your Excellency. How could a lowly, ignorant soldier like me deserve a personal apology for failing to recognise a regressor?"
In short, Lady Yu Ji‑won was sulking.
I couldn't hide my dismay.
"Wow... I can't get used to this side of you. I know it was unromantic to blurt out I was Mr. Matiz on the spot, but—"
"It's fine. My birth parents never adapted to me either. Adding one more maladjusted person to my life changes nothing."
I, the Undertaker, warrior of 999 cycles, could handle Dang Seo‑rin's tantrums or the Saintess's sulking any day.
Been there, done that.
But Yu Ji‑won sulking? This was my first! After all, a humane Ji‑won only exists in the 173rd cycle—a limited edition!
"What does our Ji‑won like...?"
"Forgive me, Your Excellency. Even if we met in childhood, you can't keep treating me like a kid. Letting go of the past is something adults must learn."
"I said I'm sorry!"
"Are you shouting at me now?" Ji‑won blinked. "My apologies. I've incurred Your Excellency's wrath—why live any longer? I should die."
"Ji‑won! Please! I swear I'll never spill the Matiz secret without romance again!"
"...Adding another disgrace to your dignity—why live any longer? I should die."
"Ji‑won, where is the pure, innocent girl from that summer...?"
"She's dead. I should die too."
"Please, just spare me..."
"Also, use that old perfume for the rest of your life."
I froze. "Um... for life? Just this cycle?"
"Oh? So you plan to die after this cycle, Your Excellency? If you'll abandon the world, why live any longer? I should die."
"All right! All right! I'll use that perfume until my regression ends. Will that appease you?"
"Excuse me? Are you suggesting I'm angry?"
Someone kill me...
Who would've thought that the comrade I assumed easiest to persuade—and easiest to Corrupt—turned out to be the trickiest.
So I quietly brewed the perfume.
"Hmm." Ji‑won inspected the seven‑note fragrance like a picky civil servant approving paperwork, then nodded. "This suits you."
"Right... Thanks."
"Is that sincere—"
"Thank you, Ji‑won! I'll wear this forever! I'm thrilled!"
A nod. Approval earned.
Sometimes, a person without psychopathy is scarier than someone with it.
After learning that brutal truth, Project Collapse truly began.
Execution date: June 6, midnight.
That night, Ji‑won climbed up onto the rooftop of the Tower of Babel, in an odd outfit: a school uniform.
For Dang Seo‑rin's Operations Team Leader to wear a uniform of all things was sacrilege. Not only that, she'd even graduated long ago. How embarrassing.
"Whoa, team leader! Transferring to Baekhwa Girls' High?"
"Must... photograph! And archive on SG Net forever!"
The others teased her, but I kept silent.
It was the uniform of Shinseo Middle School, practically Miko robes to Ji-won. She'd first received Leviathan's possession in that attire.
Ji‑won ignored the jokes and draped a white blanket over the uniform like a cape, then knelt quietly on the rooftop. I watched with the others, then it hit me:
I'd never seen Ji‑won Fall before.
We observed from afar as her lips moved, her hands clasped in prayer.
"Thank you."
I tilted my head. Who was she talking to?
"Thank you for watching over me."
Ah.
To Leviathan.
She prayed to the colorless, odorless sea‑dragon that had chosen her as priestess.
That, too, was a never-before-seen event. I'd never seen a Miko harbor gratitude for an Outer God.
"Thank you for letting me distinguish between people. For letting me see colors. For letting me smell."
Clearly, evenly, the silver‑haired priestess offered her lone worship to the midnight sky.
"Thanks to you, someone like me could live among humans... The human heart was an unknowable well to me. Thank you for turning that nameless transparency into Aura I could see... But now, that's enough."
Ribbit.
Somewhere, a frog's cry rang out.
"I don't need to see them anymore."
Ribbit, ribbit.
I looked down. Citizens were gathering in the plaza, gazing up.
Ribbit.
The sound came from their mouths.
Though they should be asleep, more and more people flocked beneath the tower. Their mouths were gaping and their eyes were hollow, like wells whose rims had collapsed into darkness.
"I no longer wish to separate people by color, scent, or spirit."
Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.
They did not move their tongues—only their uvulas bobbed. Even newborns stood upright, croaking ribbitwith their throats alone.
"But if I may, my god." Ji‑won bowed her head. "Please leave me the color and scent of the single person precious to me..."
Ribbitribbitribbitribbitribbit.
"...and of the people precious to that person."
At that instant, rain began to flow in streams—but not downward.
Upward.
"Eiyaaaah!" Ah‑ryeon shrieked, clinging to my arm. "Their m-mouths— Look!"
No. With my sharper sight, I saw where the water truly took form.
It was their hair.
Drops seeped from every strand, from Unawakened and Awakened alike, looping around necks like nooses and then shooting skyward like ropes.
Ribbitribbitribbitribbit.
Color drained.
Black, brown, blond, red, blue—every vivid shade of post‑apocalypse humanity melted into the water.
Desaturation.
[...My word,] muttered the Saintess. [It isn't limited to Utopia. The few survivors across the peninsula are experiencing the same. The colors, Mr. Undertaker. Everyone's hair is turning white.]
Humanity's colors were being stripped away. Instead, the night sky, now soaked in their pigments, blazed with an aurora brighter than mankind.
As though saying we no longer need to look at humans, only at the sky.
Oddly, the aurora spilled scents as well as light. It was as if people's bodily odors had also been stolen.
And yet...
"Uh... Huh?" Ah‑ryeon peeked out from behind me. "I‑I think... we're fine?"
Yes.
Members of the Regression Alliance were exempt. While the aurora reaped every hue and fragrance from humanity, only we on the rooftop remained untouched.
I stared at the aurora above us for another moment, then spoke. "Ji‑won's prayer got through."
"Ehhh."
"Come to think of it, she has never once defied Leviathan. Unlike some, she's been a devoted Miko. Leviathan must cherish her."
Though she'd weaken the dragon by abstaining from Aura usage in the distant future, even that tactic was gentle. It lulled Leviathan, not killed it.
'...Lulling a god to sleep is within a Miko's role.'
When the rain ceased, I glanced at Seo‑rin, who nodded. This city—the "Divine Realm that Shouldn't Exist"—was hers, giving her a keen sense of just what had been sacrificed.
"The people of Utopia feel... devoid of individuality. Humanity excised—almost like AI. Their hair is all white, their scents gone."
"Has your power suffered?"
"No. It's annoying, but the sacrifices themselves are still recognised as mine. The god only took what it could claim."
Ji‑won rose, and the blanket slipped, revealing her true form. She'd shrunk—no—returned to the girl I met that summer.
She scanned us, nostrils twitching—an old habit of a girl born with prosopagnosia. Then she raised her hand.
"Dang Seo‑rin... Sim Ah‑ryeon... Cheon Yo‑hwa. Cheon Yo‑hwa. Lee Ha‑yul. Oh Dok‑seo. Seo Gyu."
Like tracing the contours of existence, she named each person, then her finger halted at me.
"Mr. Matiz... Mr. Matiz."
Those mirror‑clear eyes held only me.
"Yes. My world needs nothing more."
She clenched her fist, and the night sky rippled, curling with the soft curve of her fingers, and I knew it then:
The galaxy of Aura dyeing that sky, the palette of that virtually limitless aurora, had gathered into Ji‑won's grasp.
"Who's next?"
Awakener: Yu Ji‑won
Corrupted alias: Despot
Has joined the party.
-x-X-x-
The Missing VIII
Project Collapse.
Next up: the second, commemorative contender.
Ah‑ryeon fussed with her fingers, her weed‑colored hair hanging like willow branches. "Um, Guild Leader... isn't the o‑order here all wrong?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Well... my power only grows when I feed on people's negative emotions, but... the t‑team leader fell to Corruption first, so now there's literally no one left who can hate me..."
"That doesn't matter."
The one who cut her off wasn't me. It was Seo‑rin.
The four of us—Ah‑ryeon, Seo‑rin, Dok‑seo, and I—sat in a circle in a nearly pitch-black safe room, the single candle our only light, like middle‑schoolers sneaking into a classroom for a séance.
"In my city, citizens gullible enough to chase low‑rent villains like OldManGoryeo disappeared ages ago. Everyone's living their best real life now."
"Y‑you devil! H‑how can you say something so evil so casually? Those citizensof yours have all had their souls pawned away, they're the Great Witch's slaves! This place is hell!"
"If a place where kids like you run free is heaven, I'll take hell any day."
They traded barbs, but I honestly felt conflicted. On SG Net, Seo‑rin was no less a villain than OldManGoryeo. In every cycle, Samcheon guild members passed around unwritten rules like "The moment the Great Witch posts, hit Like and rocket her to the front page!" and "Leave a comment on her posts!" and "If too many comments have the [Samcheon] tag, log out and comment as Anonymous!"
I remembered it all, clear as day. Even the girl in the corner nibbling her sandwich, Dok‑seo, was an SG Net superstar.
So I was the only wholesome celebrity in this room—me, ZeroSugar...
The dark side of internet culture hit me anew.
"Hold on, Undertaker? Could you please explain why you're looking at me like that?"
"Just worried I might be wasting too much of the city ruler's precious time." Before Seo‑rin could fire back, I switched targets. "Ah‑ryeon, like Seo‑rin said, the moment Utopia was complete, emotions like resentment, contempt, or jealousy all but vanished from this place. The order doesn't matter."
"Th‑then isn't that even worse?" Ah‑ryeon asked with quivering lips. "I'm already the outcast... I‑I'll get left behind. The Ops Team Leader, the Baekhwa High Sisters, even that chuuni kid suddenly acting all chummy—"
Dok‑seo, who'd caught a stray for no reason, chomped her sandwich with a big question mark over her head.
"They'll all Fall and their power level will be crazy high! I'll be the only low‑level left. Even you'll ignore me, Guild Leader!"
I sent her a wry smile. "Don't worry, Ah‑ryeon. You've got me."
"Huh...? And what does your existence have to do with my perfectly rational prediction?"
Everything.
Let's pull up some quotes from Ah‑ryeon in other cycles:
Cycle 133: "D‑delicious! So tasty! A delicacy I've never once tasted in my life...! Who could be giving me such delectable resentment...?!"
Cycle 134: "Eek?! I did nothing and all this aggro spawns on its own...?! It's tasty but terrifying! G‑Guild Leader! Someone I don't even know is hating me for no reason—live, in real time!"
Cycle 267: "Ahh! As expected of the guild leader. S‑so delicious. Your aggro's the tastiest in the world..."
It was a veritable anthology of great lines.
When I calmed my spinning head, the conclusion was simple: For the villain Ah‑ryeon, who finds other people's aggro "tasty," the sweetest gourmet hatred was none other than my own malice.
Ah‑ryeon jolted at that. "Eek! W‑what are you saying, Guild Leader? You mean... you're going to resent me now?! The one abandoned by the world, shunned even by my forum friends, arguably the most pitiful being in the universe... even you, Guild Leader? Even you'll curse me?!"
"Wow," Dok‑seo muttered under her breath. "Ah‑ryeon unni's fangirling is off the charts this cycle. Is this what happens when you quit the internet?"
"S‑see? Even this kid who's clearly younger than me looks down on me! Ahh. Let the world just end already..."
I sighed. "Fine. For the next few hours—maybe days, maybe weeks—in this room, I'll resent you, Ah‑ryeon."
"Hiiieeek!"
"But with a dash of illusion."
"Hee‑hee... huh?"
I turned to the side. "Seo‑rin. I want a contract."
"What kind?"
"I, the Undertaker, until I leave this room, will believe any illusion shown to me is the absolute truth."
With a flourish, a golden scale appeared in the darkness.
"And I will not recall that I made this contract. Moreover, if I never realize it's an illusion, I can't affect reality in any way."
"Hmm, that restriction's not hard." Seo‑rin weighed it, then glanced my way. "Okay. What'll you put on the other pan?"
"When I wake, I want to remember nothing of what happened inside the illusion."
"Huh? That's not exactly to your advantage— Wait, the scale is balanced?" She tilted her head, hesitating at the sight. "Strange... but fine. Shall I cast the spell?"
"Yes. Oh, and Dok‑seo."
Dok‑seo stared at me. She'd been watching my every move.
"You know what's coming. Remember, it's only an illusion. I'm about to dive in—you're the anchor. I'm counting on you."
She wiped sandwich sauce from her lip and gave a solemn nod. "Got it, mister. Leave it to me."
Seo-rin breathed a sigh as Ah-Ryeon whined, "I'm used to being the hated role."
I closed my eyes.
The candle barely clung to life. When my eyelids fell, the world returned me to darkness. From there, I faintly heard Dok‑seo asking Seo‑rin, "Huh? No... Wait... I can manage that... You..."
A peculiar silence settled over the room.
"The Miko of Infinite Metagame proclaims..."
Dok‑seo's voice, uncharacteristically grave, rippled through the dark.
"...this is the 5th cycle. Undertaker, you staged a final defense line in Busan. Yet Dang Seo‑rin, fighting beside you, was impaled and killed by Ten Legs. And now, what you see before you is notSim Ah‑ryeonbut that veryTen Legs—"
At that instant, my memory cut out.
"You failed to stop the Meteor Shower. You dragged the half-dead Seo‑rin away in retreat, but in the end, both of you turned to white dust."
...
"Dying together was your only solace, your escape. Yet even solace has a hint of falsehood. In truth, you died after Seo‑rin. One second—perhaps a millisecond, a mere instant. Enough to watch her scatter like dust..."
...
"It went unspoken, but death's simplicity spares no one. Even comrades met it. In the 173rd cycle, you brought her Pu'er tea as usual, yet found Noh Do‑hwa bleeding out in a rehab ward hallway."
"She was killed by marauders, a gang that would've vanished if you'd purged Butterfly Effect sooner."
"A marauder stands before you."
...
"You favor the good. You indulged Yu Ji‑won because in no timeline does an 'accident' or 'mistake' kill her."
"You've watched too many loved ones die to uncontrollable variables."
"So you relied on her survival."
"On the Outer God's servant. On the Anomaly's power. Because of them, you were being saved."
"When you learned that very same Yu Ji‑won had tortured an innocent girl named Kim Ji‑soo and dozens of drifters—"
...
"Dang Seo‑rin is" "dead" "The Saintess" "killed her" "Cheon Yo‑hwa" "your disciple" "Lee Ha‑yul" "your sister" "Noh Do‑hwa" "Jeong Seo‑ah" "everyone" "you love" "because of you" "Had they become Anomalies, hundreds of deaths if not more might have been averted" "Your obstinacy" "Pride" "Failure" "Murderer" "Bystander" "The mirror" "is before you."
...
...
...
"—Sorry, mister—"
"Cutting the feed."
I opened my eyes.
A gasp.
My body, why was it in this position? I didn't see an unfamiliar ceiling but, instead, an unfamiliar floor.
The breaths rattled through the lung's rib cage.
Yes, I was face‑down. And yet, most of my vision wasn't gray concrete—it was a washed‑out green.
Gasping breaths, a breath huffed, "G‑Guild... Leader..."
Ah‑ryeon.
She was pinned beneath me, her two hands clamped tightly around my throat.
"Mm..."
A pained breath.
And yes, she was suffering.
Even after having lost my Aura control, my grip strength remained. It crushed her windpipe mercilessly.
Crack—her neck snapped. Grind—her trachea and esophagus splintered, over and over.
Red handprints bloomed.
Yet her breathing didn't stop. A faint thread of air still slid between the breaks.
Like a survivor's groan beneath earthquake rubble.
"I‑it's... o‑okay."
Heal. Mend. Regrow. Restore.
She didn't die. My hands severed life, but her power re‑knit bone the instant it broke, racing by me by several steps, stitching the lifeline back together in a crescent‑thin razor of possibility.
And she smiled.
"I... mm, I—"
Drip.
The bruises and handprints were not the only things covering her, but also water that couldn't evaporate fast enough. Her face was soaked.
Drip, drop—again and again.
"...It's okay."
She reached out like a child walking home in the rain, stretching a hand beyond her umbrella to feel the sky. Her fingers traced the wet path, then pressed a palm to my cheek.
"It's okay..."
I let go. My palms still burned with the heat of her newly‑won breath.
Only then did the room come into focus.
What had been immaculate before I blacked out was a wreckage now. Chairs were overturned, the table flipped, the door swung wide. Ah‑ryeon and I lay slumped on the threshold, cans and food wrappers littering the floor around us.
Someone was breathing heavily at the door—Dok‑seo. She gripped the doorknob, panting hard.
Her hoodie and cap were filthy.
She straightened, cracking her back. "Whoa, that was seriously crazy close! Took an author of my caliber to keep control. Whew. Ask me to do that twice? Yeah, no thanks. Priestess duties? I'm half‑quit already, anyway."
"Dok‑seo..." I began, but she cut me off.
"Let's skip the apologies. We both knew what we were doing, you and me... Seo‑rin unnie's more shaken than she thought she'd be. She stepped out—I forced her to rest." She dusted off her hoodie and straightened her crooked cap, then looked straight at me. "We are going to save her, the Saintess stuck in the 267th cycle, captured by Nut."
No hint of wavering existed in that gaze.
"Up you get, mister. Steel yourself. The world's already broken, but you came because even one life is worth saving. The enemy's the worst match-up for you. A regressor's natural predator. Scratches and tears are expected. And none of us—not me, not Seo‑rin, not Ah‑ryeon—are weak."
Dok‑seo held out her left hand to me, her right to Ah‑ryeon.
"So don't bother with sorrys. Save it for if we fail."
"...How long was I under?"
"A week." Then she sighed. "Yeah, it was rough."
Seven days and nights. She hadn't left this room once, orchestrating the illusion for our sake.
I turned. "Ah‑ryeon... Thank you."
"Ah. Uh‑heh‑heh. R‑really, it wasn't bad at all! Totally fine!"
"Still... Thank you."
"Of course." She beamed, the bruises on her neck were already erased. "I know, Guild Leader. I've known for ages."
We took Dok‑seo's hands, rose together, and stepped outside.
"Haah."
"B‑beautiful..."
From the widest boulevard to the narrowest alley, the city called Utopia was steeped in the flower field of A Hundred Blooming Blossoms that Ah‑ryeon had summoned.
Awakener: Sim Ah‑ryeon
Corrupted Alias: The Victim
Has joined the party.
-x-X-x-
The Missing IX
Spring came.
Summer came.
Autumn too. Winter as well.
In a city that shouldn't exist, on a timeline of cycles that shouldn't exist, flowers that shouldn't bloom were in full bloom.
For Dang Seo‑rin, the Lord of Utopia, it could only have been a harsh season.
If you analogized it to the CthulhuTRPG, her character sheet proudly listed [Flower Phobia] and [Plant Phobia].
'Ahh! On that window! On that window! Flowers!'
'Daangkiiiiyaaaah!'
A sanity check might have been triggered in other circumstances, but surprisingly enough, Seo‑rin remained silent. Even as her companions fell into Corruption one by one, the Lost One of Time and Space, the Great Witch, sat quietly.
Perhaps a bit too quietly.
There on a bench on the beach, she seemed to be enjoying the flower viewing—watching the city, where the vegetation of spring, summer, autumn, and winter had mixed, losing any sense of seasonality.
She sat as if entranced by the flowers.
"Dang Seo‑rin."
"...Ah, Undertaker. On a walk?"
"Something like that."
Only when the breath drew near did Seo‑rin turn toward me.
Her gaze was somehow lost.
Even if a person was lost, they could still sit. In silence, she shifted her hips to make room, and I, in turn, silently sat beside her on the bench. After entrusting a moment of silence to the summer cherry blossoms falling at three centimeters per second, I softly drew in a breath of spring with my lips.
"I heard from Dok‑seo. Your heart took quite the blow during the week Ah‑ryeon was Corrupted."
"What hardship? I just clicked my magic at the right times— No... Hmm." Seo‑rin shook her head. "You're right. There's no need to put on a brave face in front of me. I did go through a lot. More specifically, I was a bit shocked."
"Could you tell me what kind of shock?"
She pursed her lips. It was not a sign of refusal or rejection, but her choosing her words carefully so that she would neither lie to me nor to herself.
"Until now..." she began slowly. "I believed I was the only one, the special one to you. Somehow." When I didn't respond, she continued, "I mean, doesn't that make sense? Even after turning into a monster wearing human skin like this, you still told me you'd stay by my side."
Seo‑rin flicked her hand in a wave, and the citizens strolling through Utopia's gardens all turned their backs and vanished. They had acted in obedience to their Lord of the Realm's command.
Before Yu Ji‑won received the divine possession as a Miko, those citizens had barely maintained their humanity, now they revealed their true natures completely.
The aurora shot up by the silver‑haired Miko rippled in endless waves above us, dyeing the night sky of the failed worldline.
Once again, it told me that this was objectively nothing more than the aftermath of a bad ending.
"But Dok‑seo... that brat who dragged you through agony and back made me realize something. Ah." Seo‑rin forced a bitter smile. "What it means that you've suffered nine hundred ninety‑nine failures... I was just one failure among those nine hundred ninety‑nine failures."
"Dang Seo‑rin."
"No, it's not self‑pity. I'm not blaming you. Quite the opposite. I should have foreseen from the start how cruel the suggestion to bring you back for the 1,000th time would be―but I didn't. I'm just reproaching myself is all."
She looked down at her hand. As guided by winds of fate, the wind carried a blue hydrangea, a white petunia, baby's breath, a sunflower petal, and a scarlet spider lily, placing each gently into her palm.
"I hoped I wouldn't become a burden to you."
"...I've never once considered you a burden."
"I didn't want to see you cry."
I had no answer to that.
"When I died by the Ten Legs, when I got caught in the Meteor Shower, when I screamed away on the frontline, I didn't want to know what expression you'd have." Seo‑rin looked up at the sky and said, "You know what? When I locked myself in a sealed room for about four days, the Student Council President busted in. She actually tried to kill Dok‑seo."
...Did she actually? Yo‑hwa was one of the most emotional personalities in the Regressor Alliance. It was entirely plausible.
"But Dok‑seo, that child, deployed a transparent barrier and just blocked the whole building."
"Absolute Barrier. It's Dok‑seo's power."
"Yeah. It looked like Dok‑seo had already Fallen. Damn, the Student Council President struck with all their might, but it didn't budge."
I grimaced. "That brat. She's a troublemaker who surrendered her Outer God to humanity. She must've already reached the peak of her Miko powers by the time she was pulled into the 173rd cycle."
"Is the Saintess precious to you?"
It was an ambush.
Seo‑rin wasn't looking at me. After all, the city of Utopia was like her eyes, ears, even her innards.
I nodded. "Yes... She's precious."
"From the moment you realized this was a bonus stage, your first thought was about saving the Saintess in the 267th cycle?"
"Yes."
"You've been thinking about her all along. You've always wanted to save her. So you made your decision without hesitation. Right?"
"...Yes."
I took something from my pocket. It tinkled, quiet and cheap.
It was a silver bell, one from the lobby of Busan Station. This 9,900‑won silver bell stayed by my side in any given cycle.
Only then did Seo‑rin turn and gaze at the bell. Her violet eyes seemed to feel its warmth. A moment later, she murmured, "It's hard... I want you not to be hurt. I want you not to suffer because of me. But at the same time... I want you to think of me, always. Yet if you always think of me... you'll think of my death too. It's all contradictions."
"I don't blame anyone for falling into contradictions," I said firmly. "I'm the weak one, after all."
"You idiot. No one thinks that."
"To hide contradictions for oneself, or reveal them for others. I believe only that matters."
Seo‑rin was silent for a moments, then rose from the bench. "Yeah, you're right."
On the Great Witch's head sat a pointed hat; in her hand hung a well‑worn broom.
"You're right," she muttered again. "You haven't forgotten how to fly yet, my guardian?"
She smiled.
"Today, we'll fly."
Of course, I'd long since withdrawn from the Samcheon World, so I was a poor mage without a dedicated broom.
Yet it mattered not.
"Ready, Undertaker?"
"Always am, Seo-rin."
With a tap of Seo‑rin's foot gracing the ground, the broom shot up and I gently wrapped my arms around her waist from behind.
If it were a bicycle or motorcycle, helmets would be required for the passenger, but alas, the muggles on the Korean peninsula hadn't applied traffic laws to brooms. Thanks to that, though, I could watch the world's greatest witch‑pilot's flight skills with my bare face.
"How far are we going?"
"That's a secret," Seo‑rin said with a giggle. "I'll give you one hint: a place stuffed with the world's tastiest cheese."
The altitude climbed endlessly higher.
In the mid‑atmosphere, we even collided with a curtain of auroras. Each hue in the aurora hissed as if a living snake.
Just as they discovered us and swerved to attack, the bands of aurora paused. Then, clearing a path for our passage, they formed a hole in the empty sky.
Seo‑rin huffed in interest. "Looks like even the Void Poison covering the Earth is free‑passing for you, my guardian. Charming existence from long before the world was doomed?"
I remained silent.
I didn't proclaim that if I hadn't stopped that girl Yu Ji‑won back then, the whole world would've drowned under Leviathan's rain and perished ages ago. The ENFJ Dang Seo‑rin would've called me a son of a bitch, plucked out my eyes, and sent me free‑diving from the stratosphere to the Pacific.
"Be careful. From here on, it's space."
"Mm."
After passing through the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and the "aurorasphere," darkness enveloped us.
Fortunately, Leviathan honored its Miko's request and granted me the right to use Aura, which I summoned to shield my body.
I frowned as I looked down. In the middle of space unfolded what "used to be Earth."
"Like I thought... The surface has flattened out."
"Mm. Conspiracy theorists would freak."
Flat Earth theory. Geocentrism.
The "sun," now greatly diminished, orbited around what remained of Earth alongside the moon. In no uncertain terms, they had been Corrupted by Anomalies.
"That's said to be the work of the Night Goddess Nut's contamination, right?"
"Ah. It used to be treated as a variant of Masterming or Monster Wave. But it's officially classified as an Outer God."
"Outer God... I suppose. It's not content with Earth or the Sun alone."
The broom sped up a bit. Eventually, when we landed at our apparent destination, I couldn't hide my astonishment.
"My goodness. Cheese? Dang Seo‑rin, how many people these days even know Wallace and Gromit?"
"Why not? A sequel came out in 2024—the latest one too."
Seo‑rin's chosen nighttime travel spot was none other than Earth's only... no, now sole remaining satellite.
We were on the moon.
'But...'
The moon's appearance felt a bit off. Well, compared to the completely flattened Earth, it was small potatoes, yet there was a stark gulf between the moon I remembered and this universe's moon.
"This place is... smooth."
"Yes. Like a silver platter."
Originally, the moon should've been pockmarked by meteor impacts, a lumpy bread roll texture, but this moon was unnaturally pristine.
No bumps—not a single scratch.
A pure white world.
"A silver platter, you might say. It's almost..."
I tried to think back, feeling an odd sort of dissonance. I'd seen a similar scene somewhere, but strangely, it wouldn't come to mind.
I looked around and spoke my honest impression. "It's like a mirror."
"Heh heh. Exactly."
Seo‑rin folded her arms behind her back.
In the silence of space, except for our breathing and footsteps, nothing else could be heard. Her voice, humming as if singing a tune, seeped through.
"You know, Undertaker."
"Mm?"
"No one can eavesdrop here."
I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"
"Because it's the moon. Your sole observer. Even the Saintess's Clairvoyance can't reach here."
Silence enveloped us on all sides. In this vast space, only our gazes met—like waves crashing against each other's pupils and shattering into nothing.
Carried by that current, my heart pounded.
How much had Dang Seo‑rin uncovered?
How much...
"Nut, you know."
She spoke softly.
"You confidently explained and detailed out every other Outer God, yet somehow, when it came to Nut, you trailed off—saying you still don't really understand her, that her true nature remains a mystery."
"...Because I truly don't know her. It's only natural."
"Mm-mm." Seo‑rin shook her head. "I told you earlier, you've been agonizing over how to rescue the Saintess all this time. But surely, you must have endlessly researched and probed Nut as well. You're just that kind of person."
Thump.
"Hey, you know," he said again, "it's strange, isn't it?"
"...What is?"
"Why doesn't Nut envelop the world in this cycle?"
"...Because Nut is the quintessential Last‑Hit Parasite. In this cycle, the Monster Wave didn't destroy Utopia. That's why."
Seo‑rin smiled wryly. "Liar. You know? When Dok‑seo showed you that illusion, I was right beside you. When Do‑hwa died... even before the Monster Wave arrived, Nut appeared first and killed both you and her, right? Monster Wave and Nut aren't the same. Sure, they might be related, but fundamentally, they're separate. Even if the Monster Wave hadn't swept through Utopia, it's odd that Nut would behave so quietly."
I...
I regretted it.
I had underestimated Dang Seo‑rin.
I never expected her to piece together the full picture from such small clues. I'd let my guard down.
"The more you repeat cycles, the stronger Nut, the Outer God, grows."
"..."
"No one else can enter your sealed territory—Time Seal—yet somehow only Nut can visit. Right? As if you unconsciously permitted only her entry."
"..."
"Nut creates 'a paradise nowhere in this world.' She abducts people, and those people find happiness in her divine realm."
"..."
"And Leviathan, who's always been so docile... the moment you and I traveled across the Pacific, it convulsed as if its territory had been invaded."
"..."
"Hey."
She spoke, a sorrowful smile flickering on her lips.
"It's such a coincidence, don't you think?"
"..."
"Undertaker."
She said, turning to me.
"I know. You dressed it up with fancy words like 'bonus stage,' but this world—this cycle—was one you vowed to live for me, and no one else."
"...Ah."
"But you, without a moment's hesitation, would never devote everything to someone else—no matter if it were the Saintess—right in front of me."
"..."
"You're not that kind of person. No, absolutely not."
"..."
"The Night Goddess—an entity that feeds on the Regressor's time, that grows stronger for the one you allow to visit even in dreams, that you keep letting slip away with half‑spoken words."
She spoke.
"She's just like... me, right?"
-x-X-x-
The Missing X
Aura is an energy that appears in works of fiction as a natural phenomenon of sorts, serving as an all‑purpose power. But in reality, nothing comes for free.
By now, you well know that even Aura actually originates from an Outer God, that it is no more than another Anomaly.
And so, here is a question naturally follows:
Then what ofMagic?
Originally, Awakeners could be classified as either Aura‑type or Magic‑type. Although Aura had developed to a monstrous degree on the Korean peninsula—thanks to the influence of a certain regressor—the same could not be said of the situation just across the sea in the Japanese archipelago.
The Great Priestess. Manyo Neko. Phantom Blade. Obsidian Qin.
Among those acquainted with the Regressor, every one of them possessed a magic‑based ability. From the outset, they were even known as Awakener "Magical Girls" here.
Thus, the Regressor formed a hypothesis.
If so, might not Magic share a similar origin with Aura?
A premonition triggered only after confirming Yu Ji‑won's case. A reasoned conviction.
The Regressor immediately began to investigate.
If there is an Outer God of magic, then a Magic Miko must also exist. And if current circumstances are anything to go by, that Magic Miko is likely among those around me.
Why were Mikos so plentiful only on the Korean peninsula, of all places? It could not be that the Outer Gods were infused with national pride. Otherwise, the protagonist of this story would have been Jung Sang‑guk.
The answer was simple.
To grow strong enough to become a Miko, one must survive to the very end and level up. And the world's best environment for leveling up is none other than being within the Regressor's vicinity.
It was a form of natural selection.
In theory, countless people had the potential to become Mikos of the Infinite Metagame. Yet most fell out early, unable to overcome Anomalies and the Void. But the Miko apprentice, Oh Dok‑seo, the one who dwelled near the Regressor, continued to survive.
She acquired elixirs. She mastered the Aura Heart Method. Riding the optimal tech tree arranged by the Regressor, she grew powerful with overwhelming efficiency compared to other competitors.
Thus, it was she who was chosen.
Of course, this alone could not explain the unique case of Yu Ji‑won, but that would be a topic for another discussion.
If I can identify the Magic Miko in my midst... I can ambush and capture her before the Outer God reveals its claws.
The decision was swift in its making, and the action as a result even more swift.
The Regressor questioned those around him quickly yet cautiously.
"Hmm? Infinite Void? Well... I've heard she uses Black Magic, unlike the Great Witch of the Samcheon World, but it's not really magic, is it?"
First candidate: the younger Cheon Yo-hwa.
"Strictly speaking, I seize corpses or people, overwrite their data, and then command them like familiars. It only looks like magic. In reality, I handle the data of all things. The question of whether Infinite Void is an Outer God of magic... it just doesn't feel right, you know? Ehehe. Sorry, sunbae, I'm not much help!"
Candidate rejected. Next.
"Come on, sunbae. It's not Mastermind—it's the one running the simulated universe. Doesn't it look more like a scientist than a wizard?"
Second candidate: the elder Cheon Yo-hwa.
"In terms of imagery, Mastermind is more strategist than mage. Calculating optimal routes by weighing every possibility. If magic is a miracle, Mastermind's power is strategy—or AI. It's entirely contrary to the idea of miracles."
Candidate rejected. Next.
"Hmm... Probably not, right? Also, Cheon Yo-hwa's a notorious loser."
Third candidate: Oh Dok‑seo.
"Aura and magic are both common tropes in fiction, so at first glance, one might think it's within the Infinite Metagame's domain... But Aura's always belonged to Ji‑won. I see that the Infinite Metagame cannot create something from nothing. Its specialty is overlaying 'fictional elements' onto pre‑existing things, distorting them. Mister, you can make something looklike magic, but you can't truly create magic itself."
Candidate rejected. Next.
Next.
There should be a next.
[Oppa?]
It wasn't Lee Ha‑yul.
"Hmm? Guild Leader, what is it?"
It wasn't Sim Ah‑ryeon either.
[Mr. Undertaker?]
Nor the Saintess.
No. At that point, the Regressor was already in considerable confusion, for beyond the mystery of just who this Miko was, the bigger problem was who the Outer God of Magic could be.
It isn't Infinite Void. It isn't Mastermind. Not Cheon Yo-hwa, not Monster Wave, naturally not Leviathan.
The Regressor hesitated.
Then which Outer God governs magic?
It was understandable that the Regressor spiraled into a rut of rumination. From his knowledge, only one candidate remained.
The Night Goddess, Nut.
But Nut was sealed by the Saintess of the 267th cycle. Phenomena related to Nut should have, for all intents and purposes, "disappeared." Yet magic still continued to exist.
Why?
Perhaps the culprit was not Nut.
Perhaps there was an enigmatic Outer God even the Regressor did not know.
And yet...
"No."
Cheon Yo-hwa, the Miko who had reached into the simulated universe and temporarily harnessed the power of Mastermind, affirmed it.
"All the Anomalies that you've deemed Outer God‑level have surfaced already, sunbae. There are no additional external factors here. Even if there were, I would stop them."
[It does not exist.]
Once the Infinite Metagame, the one who came closer to the throne of Anomalies than any—Infinite Void, Mastermind, Monster Wave—fully surrendered, its very existence diminished and it could no longer lie.
[The number of Outer Gods is seven. This is an already established fact.]
[Of course, an effective "overlap" in which two Outer Gods are in practice "one" remains possible.]
["One‑Seven" is the number of sorcery. The absolute boundary. Even if you need not understand it, please believe it.]
[On the name of Oh Dok‑seo.]
Even if the reliability of that testimony abruptly plummeted at the end, Infinite Metagame had long utterly surrendered. It dared not utter lies.
Then.
Then...
The worst possibility.
Suppose for a second...
Though he dared not think it.
He was the Regressor, a superhuman who had resolved to bear the weight of the world. No matter how uncomfortable the truth, he had to confront it.
Suppose the Saintess's seal was imperfect?
A hypothesis.
The Regressor muttered, as if vomiting the words rather than thinking.
Suppose that Nut's presence, bound by the Saintess's Time Stop, was only half a seal.
The silver bell jingled.
Then what would happen?
It was simple when one thought it through. Affection for the Saintess, dependence, guilt, gratitude—all had merely clouded the Regressor's sight for a moment.
Ah.
Looking back to the 267th cycle, at the moment the world nearly perished under Nut's power, a contradiction was still at play.
Before the Saintess could be reborn as Nut's Miko, Nut had already descended and brought hell to the world. The Saintess Fell only afterward.
It was a temporal contradiction.
For Nut to be powerful enough to turn the world into hell, the Miko sharing Nut's power must have been equally strong. After all, a Miko was the conduit for an Outer God to manifest on Earth. If the conduit were not solid, the Outer God could not cross over.
And yet, Nut... Even before the Saintess Fell, Nut's power was more than sufficient—overflowing, even.
That was it.
The Saintess Fell only later, too late.
When did the Saintess stop time and resolve to Fall herself? At the brink of unredeemable despair, when the world's destruction seemed irreversible.
"I will now prove that hypothesis wrong."
"Farewell, Undertaker."
"I'll see you soon."
At that desperate moment when the Regressor was driven to despair, the Saintess stopped time.
In reverse.
Time itself reversed.
It was not that the Miko Saintess grew so strong that the Outer God Nut fully manifested. It was only after the Outer God Nut manifested that the latecomer Miko Saintess Awakened.
The green light went out.
The red light began blinking.
The Saintess was never Nut's Miko to begin with.
There was only one conclusion.
The Saintess forcibly connected with Nut. Despite not being destined to be a Miko, she stole that position, defying the natural order.
In other words, a rebellion. No, a usurpation.
Only one conclusion.
The one truly bound to Nut was not the Saintess, but someone else.
Only one.
She hated flowers.
If she touched the Udumbara, the world's most splendid bloom, it felt as if everything she had built would vanish.
Instinctively, unconsciously, she recoiled.
She was more suited for magic than anyone.
When the Japanese Magical Girls developed the Word Magic system to fight Anomalies, only she pioneered her own magic, Cursed Song Incantation. Strangely, it was a miracle that only shecould perform on this Earth.
She was a being who, upon receiving something as an offering, would return something of equal value. If she gathered lives on Earth to create hell, she would build heaven in the Otherworld for the same price.
It didn't matter whether it was "hell" or "heaven." One should have noted that this entity, unlike other Anomalies, was most strict about exchange.
One must not be ensnared by the appearance of a flattened Earth.
If one had recalled that "flatness" could also be interpreted as "equality" or "fairness."
○
〓〓〓
●
She...
If it was to make this world equal...
Ⅱ
● Ⅱ ○
Ⅱ
She even created a single sun to balance the weight on the scales.
She was the owner of the golden scales.
She was the greatest witch.
She was the judge who first established justicein this ruined world.
She was the Lord of Utopia, who placed paradise nowhere to be found oppositethe broken world on the scales.
In the middle of an intersection where green and red lights blinked, she who said she had lost her entire family stared up at the sky as if alone in the world.
In truth, the name "Nut" did not suit her. A name more fitting must exist.
"...Ah."
The Night Goddess.
The deity governing sorcery and magic.
The one who presides over the moon and night, crossroads, souls, good and evil, and the threefold Samcheon World of sky, earth, and sea.
Ἑκάτη.
Hecate.
"Hello? Did you lose your way too?"
She was Dang Seo‑rin.
Where breath and voice were far from all and only two were allowed to be, the universe was unbearably quiet.
There, on the moon's surface, which had long since become something other than a planet, its surface unnaturally pristine.
I struggled to pry my lips open to speak. "...It's still too early to conclude that you are Nut, Dang Seo‑rin. You might simply be a Miko."
"Well."
Whether she sensed my anxious heart or not, her voice was calm, as it was when she viewed Utopia's flower garden earlier.
"Actually, I'm still curious. That 'Miko' you mention—what exactly is that? Can you really draw a sharp line between Outer Gods and Mikos? 'All the damage done to the world is the Anomaly's fault. Humans were only ever randomly destined to be Mikos.' It's a rather gentle distinction, but... Undertaker, perhaps that classification you created is actually a projection of your own hopes—or even your own greed."
Seo‑rin waved her finger.
"Shall I play devil's advocate for a moment? What if it's the exact opposite—entrusting the desire to reshape the world, to paint it in one's own colors, to the Anomalies, while Mikos live as ordinary humans, pretending to be innocent victims?"
"...That's not true."
"Mm. Sorry. I was just entertaining the idea. But I wanted to point out that your dichotomy of Outer God versus Miko is actually pretty blurry."
Her mutterings drifted on. If this were a normal universe, that voice would never have reached me.
"Actually, I've been uncertain of what I am... ever since that night, after I heard a shard of truth from you."
"You are human."
"Perhaps."
Then she said it.
"Perhaps I'm both."
And I had no reply.
"Hey, you know, Undertaker. I want to ask you one more thing."
Déjà vu.
Memories of the past and impressions of the present intertwined.
A crossroads of time, not space.
"You promised you would never harm me no matter what. Even if I became an Anomaly, even if I stained every corner of the world in the Void, even if I razed everything to the ground, you told me you would still stand by my side."
Dang Seo‑rin lips lifted in a smile split half by light and half by shadow.
"Even now, will you still be on my side?"
-x-X-x-
The Missing XI
"Hmm? Why the long face, sunbae? Did something good happen while I wasn't looking—?"
I still hadn't answered Seo-rin since our midnight stroll to the moon and back. I doubted she ever expected an instant reply.
I needed time to think.
I began spending more and more time alone, even going so far as to ask the Saintess not to keep watch on me with her Clairvoyance for a while. That was how four days passed with my door firmly shut... until my unruly pupil—dressed in a black sailor uniform and carrying her school bag—popped in without warning.
I stared at her for a beat, then greeted, "Cheon Yo-hwa."
"Geez, using my full name is embarrassing." The elder twin beamed. "Call me like you always do. 'My adorable protégé.' 'The very meaning of that brief season when you tutored for pocket money.'"
"That's even longer than your full name..."
"There's an old saying: Like father and child, lie teacher and student. In other words, we're basically already family, you know. I've wanted to call you this for ages—Daddy!"
I let a wry smile slip out. If Ha-yul were here, she'd probably explode, complaining that Yo-hwa was stealing her form of address. "How did you know I was here? Did the Saintess tell you?"
"Nah. She respects your wishes too much. She kept quiet, so I just followed my intuition."
We were in a café inside the abandoned Baekje Hospital. The very place where Emit Schopenhauer chose to die.
Whenever I need to lose myself in thought, I end up here because—
"This is the graveyard that keeps a Regressor's End. The other regressor who left this world before you, your sunbae. He kept nagging you for clinging so stubbornly to something you'll abandon, anyway. So you use him as a mirror to look back at yourself, right?"
"Yeah," I said after a pause. "It really is hard to fool you."
"Ehehe, I am your star pupil."
I looked down at the floor at the exact spot where Old Man Scho's body had lain, minus the head. The corpse had already been burned away by my Aura, but the keepsake he clutched to the end still rested there all alone: a smartphone, carrying the voice of the woman he loved.
"I've been wondering what makes me any different from that old geezer."
Yo-hwa gazed at my face, silent as I spoke.
"His death was clean. He wasn't tainted by Void poison, and he didn't resurrect his wife with some inhuman art. While she was still alive, he simply talked with the love of his life, over and over—a remarkably gentle way to live and die... And then, there's me. The path I might tumble down is nowhere near that quiet. I've already come too far, already paid too much."
"Udumbara is always there, sunbae," Yo-hwa whispered. "If that tender world-tree infects you, your Regression, Complete Memory, even the Time Seal—all of it will vanish."
"...Udumbara is Sim Ah-ryeon."
Blink. "Huh?"
"More precisely, it's Ah-ryeon's Grudge Orb. The Bird That Drinks Poison and Udumbara are the same at their core. You know every Awakener's power blooms from their own scars and resentment."
"R-right, I'd kinda guessed..."
"Instead of drinking someone's grudges, she gives that person life-force. Sound familiar?"
Yo-hwa's ruby red eyes widened in shock. "Why didn't I see it? That's right, when Ah-ryeon fell, all of Utopia turned into a garden..."
"Udumbara isn't a cursed tree that steals an Awakener's power; it simply gathers up their scars."
A life without wounds and scars. The manifestation of that ideal would be a Huayen world where people transform into their own flowers—into plants.
[Maybe I always wanted to become a plant.]
Long ago, someone who'd been hurt more than anyone confessed that wish.
[I wanted to have no choice but to accept everything, to run away from everything that angered me or hurt me. It was my deepest, darkest desire.]
[So, I guess I just became a plant.]
That was the Saintess's self-revelation after she turned into a potato.
Ah-ryeon cherished the Saintess fiercely, even dragging the Eastern Holy State's elite troops under her banner. Perhaps she felt an instinctive— No, an essential kinship.
"So infection by Udumbara isn't an exit. Not in any sense of the word," I told Yo-hwa. "And who knows what it would do to Ah-ryeon, who shares the same root. The more I treat Regression like a curse—like shackles I want to break—the harder Udumbara will cling to me."
"Oh no..."
"If it ever blooms inside me, I might lose all the memories I've kept from hundreds of cycles in a single instant."
Silence settled over the café. After staring at the blossoming four-season garden outside, Yo-hwa finally spoke.
"When I heard you came from the 1,000th—no—the 999th cycle, I honestly felt nothing. It was just some far-off future. But just now, I realized for the first time that you really are a man of the future. The info gap is insane."
"Is it? You've been looking like you're lost in your own thoughts the whole time, Yo-hwa."
She lowered her eyes. "Anyway... Our allies are scary strong when you think about it. They're all Mikos or soon-to-be Corrupted. Feels like someone planned the whole scenario. Sunbae... Why did you deliberately Corrupt the children you cherish so much? What made you agree to Project Collapse?"
I couldn't say it aloud.
'The moment Dang Seo-rin completed Utopia, everyone here became her limbs.'
Yo-hwa, too, was no exception. No matter how independently she moved, how self-aware she seemed, she was still ensnared in the Great Witch's Divine Realm.
Enchanted.
'But once someone Awakens as a Miko, the story changes.'
Yu Ji-won proved that when she summoned Leviathan. She broke free of Utopia and reclaimed her individuality—barely escaping the Witch's half-hypnotic cradle. Sim Ah-ryeon as well.
'In short...'
I'd hidden it from my comrades.
'This is rebellion against Utopia—an uprising from within.'
In the one-in-a-million chance that Seo-rin would lose control and truly become an Outer God... In the truly, wholly unlikely event that that happened, at the very least, my friends and I had to keep our sanity and fight.
'We have to save the Saintess. This is our only window. But then, what about Seo-rin...?'
On and on, the thoughts spiralled in an endless swamp, the punishment for humanity that bit the fruit of good and evil.
The café floor, once soaked in a regressor's blood, now seemed to beg for my gaze as well.
"Sunbae."
How long had I been lost in that void? Her voice reached my ears like a muffled cry from above the water.
"Hold on, don't turn this way yet."
Before I could answer or look away, Yo-hwa turned her back, and the soft rustle of clothes fell quiet.
Startled, I jerked my head aside, my heart lurching. "Yo-hwa! I've told you a thousand times, stop using my heartbreak as an opening and quit that sisterly seduction tactic!"
"Ahaha. So this happened in other cycles too? I'd love the juicy details."
"You two are going to be the death of me! I must've been an idiot, moving to Sejong for a job that paid this much, yelling about the jackpot I'd landed all the way!"
"But the money was sweet, right?"
"It was extorting cultists! I still want to refund it!"
"Ahaha!" Yo-hwa giggled. "All right, you can look now, sunbae."
I frowned and lifted my head— And my eyes went wide.
"No, I guess I should call you 'Teacher.'"
Gone was the black uniform sliding to the floor. Standing there in a snow-white school uniform was Cheon Yo-hwa, the little sister of that twin pair, grinning ear to ear.
"How's my impression of my sister? Pretty good, right?"
I couldn't respond, my eyes still wide with surprise.
"I don't know what exactly you're struggling with, Teacher. I mean, I know it's about the line between Anomaly and human, but I can't tell how deeply that line cuts for you. Unlike me, whose life ends with this one, you have so many factors to weigh." Hands clasped behind her back, Yo-hwa continued, "But just as the border between my sister and me depends on what you believe, I trust you more than anyone to see the other person as they truly are."
"...Yo-hwa."
"Who I am doesn't matter. I decided to entrust my self to whoever watches over me." A shy smile danced across her lips as she said, "Whether someone counts as Anomaly or human is up to you, just like it was for me and just like it was for my sister... Well, okay, I don't really like her, but for Ji-won too. And Dok-seo, I haven't known her long—no clue about her at all. Let's call her an Anomaly, okay?"
That made me laugh out loud. "Offend Dok-seo and you're dead. She's ghost-writing my story and if she's in a mood, she'll cut anyone's screen time. Her grudges last."
"No worries. I live in the here-and-now, faithful only to the person in front of me."
"Thank you." I patted Yo-hwa's shoulder, just like that winter day inside the student-council room when we shared the white season alone. She chuckled, puffs of breath misting. "Right. Nothing to hesitate over. The scale's bigger, but I'll keep doing what I've always done."
"Yes, Teacher."
"Speaking of Dok-seo... Yo-hwa, I hear you tried to kill her?"
"Ah—"
"Let's dig just a bit deeper into that bottomless hole, shall we?"
"L-language is amazing, huh? How can you do a little deep dive into a chat hole without an end, and do it all at once too?"
"Yo-hwa."
"S-sorry, sunbae! Actually, I am Cheon Yo-hwa pretending to be the other Cheon Yo-hwa pretending to be me! How was my little-sister act? Great, huh?!"
I gave her a good scolding.
Before that summer was over...
[Dad.]
Even Ha-yul managed to Fall, freeing herself from Utopia's brainwashing. Her condition for Corruption was simple: I, the Undertaker, had to be assassinated or die an unjust death at the hands of ordinary people—no one special.
So, just like with Ah-ryeon, all I had to do was screen an "illusion" for Ha-yul.
Since the pattern was the same, there was no need to re-enact the exact scene with someone else's pain.
Yes, I skipped the timeline. The process of Falling was erased, and only the result remained. All that was left was the fact that Lee Ha-yul Fell.
Everything in between is gone.
[I feel so light.]
Ha-yul straightened her back, emotionless, and raised her fingers in a peace sign.
[I've never been this happy.]
[I'm not alone anymore, Dad.]
[Now, nothing scares me.]
"...You don't have to pile up the defeat flags that neatly, kiddo."
Awakener: Lee Ha-yul
Corrupted Alias: The Tuner
Has joined the party.
Night-Goddess Raid Team—COMPLETE.
-x-X-x-
The Missing XII
The Regressor Alliance hatched an audacious plan of Collapse: every one of us would willingly fall into Corruption, yet three members had to be left out.
"Saintess, please help us from the non-Corrupted side."
[Why? I'm sure I could be a huge help to you.]
"Of course. But our final goal is to rescue the Saintess of the 267th cycle."
First, the Saintess.
"After we beat the Night Goddess Nut—no, Hecate—we somehow have to break into the 267th cycle, a world where time has frozen forever. But if, at that moment, the current Saintess also exists..."
[...There will be two identical versions of one person in the same frame of time—basically a doppelganger. It would practically be a well-crafted, open invitation for Void-tainting...]
"Thank you for understanding."
The Saintess exhaled softly. [Mr. Undertaker, you know this. Even if I let myself Fall, there's still a way I can help you.]
"That option is off the table. Asking the Saintess to sacrifice herself to save the Saintess is nonsense."
What she had suggested was simple: fall into Corruption first, then pick the right moment and die by suicide.
No doppelgänger, no problem—so she said.
Even through the Telepathic silence, I could feel her dissatisfaction. I allowed myself a wry smile. It was so like her to consider her own life trivial.
"Even setting aside the sacrifice," I said gently, "we have no idea what could happen if we tried it."
[You're worried about a time paradox?]
"Yes. It's only a hunch, but... if the paradox actually fires, I have a very bad feeling about what the fallout might be."
At that, the Saintess finally relinquished, and I sensed her nod of acceptance. [If Mr. Undertaker's intuition says so, I trust it. Very well. I'll help you from the safest line I can hold.]
Next person off the list.
"Ah— Sorry, sunbae. I'm sitting this one out!"
The older twin, Cheon Yo-hwa, flashed me a sun-bright grin. Amazingly, the very woman who had proposed Project Collapse was asking to be excused. Her face was so smug that I treated her skull to a good old knuckle-grind.
"Kyah! C-corporal punishment is wrong!"
"Hey. Hey. You've got some nerve. Ah-ryeon and Ha-yul went through hell to Corrupt themselves, and you just bow out? Huh?"
"A-ah-haha..." Yo-hwa rubbed her own head as an awkward smile broke free on her face. "Um, yeah. People say I have no shame, which is fair enough. But I do have a solid reason!"
"And that is?"
"Nut— Uh, her real name's Hecate, right? Anyway. We can't predict exactly how we'll fight the Night Goddess, but... once the battle begins, anyone who's Corrupted and fails to break free of the Great Witch's grip will be turned into her minion."
I nodded. "Which is why we have to weaponize Corruption. If we leave you as you are, you'll end up a brain-washed doll for Dang Seo-rin."
"Exactly, sunbae!"
"What?"
Her face hardened, deadly serious. "I'm... going to become a parasite inside an Outer God!"
I stared back at her, entirely silent.
"No, no! Don't make that face! Eh? Eh?" she whined, poking my waist with her elbow. "I've thought it through from every angle, so trust me, sunbae. Please? I have to slip inside Hecate and turn into a lion-hearted—no—a lion heartworm."[1]
"Trust begins with details. Explain the stunt so I can agree."
"Sometimes you can't explain a plan! Honestly! You hide bad news from us all the time!"
She hit me with facts so hard that I lost my words for a beat there. So that was what the others felt with me. Still under mirror-therapy, I watched her slide a thermos my way.
"And this is?" I prompted.
"My blood. I drew it little by little. Drink it before we start."
I stared at her.
She stared back.
"...Yo-hwa."
"I know what you're thinking," she protested. "Handing someone a syringe of your own blood and saying, 'Drink up!' looks insane. It feels like some creepy prank and could easily be misinterpreted. But there is a real, real ritual meaning behind it."
"What are you plotting?"
"Obviously, I'm plotting the brilliant scheme that will save the world under your command, as always."
"So slamming your blood like a shot is somehow linked to saving the world?"
Yo-hwa flopped to the ground, prostrating herself on the spot as if worshipping Buddha. The technical term for this is, of course, dogeza.
"Please, sunbae. Don't ask, just do it... Do it."
Then she raised her legs while staying face-down, balancing only on her arms and head. Behold, the evolved dogeza: a "grand-bow."
She popped her finisher like it was nothing.
"Sunbae, if you refuse the one request of my life, I'll follow you around in this pose. Forever."
"You little monster."
The world was already doomed; birthing a grand-bow monster on top of that was too much. And so, with a deep and suffering sigh, I granted her wish.
Moving on, why no talk of our superstar Oh Dok-seo, you might ask?
Simple: she didn't need to Fall. She was effectively in permanent Corruption already.
"Oh, yeah. It's because Infinite Metagame surrendered, I guess? I'm pretty much in 'always Corrupted' mode."
"Excuse me?"
"I've already fused completely with an Outer God. Basically, there's no point switching between normal and Corrupted versions. And yep, it's still me—the first shrine-maiden ever to swallow an Outer God. No one left who can rival me..."
Dok-seo sipped cola and stared blankly at the sky.
"When I was yanked into a past cycle, I panicked, but... I'm good now. I actually did wonder why everyone else stayed put and only I warped after you, mister," she admitted, then shrugged. "I kinda figure Metagame got totally absorbed by me."
"What do you mean?"
"You're the axis of all regression. When you rewind, others can't chase that timeline. But Metagame's different. You knowthis, mister. It sensed your rewinds and kept inching after you."
Right. Maybe regression itself was a cliché of fiction. As the overseer of all stories, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame had tools to answer whatever questions the existence of a regressor could pose.
"So from Metagame's perspective, this isn't the 173rd cycle. It's just the extension of the 999th world where the Regressor called 'mister' lives."
"Huh," I mused.
"Even in the 999th cycle, there's no 'laptop' here. Normally, Metagame would split half-and-half between the notebook and me. But for this stage, everything that it was and is—all of its power—was absorbed entirely by me."
Was it my imagination? Dok-seo's eyes looked harder than ever.
"Once this stage ends, you'll forget everything—golden scales, contract, and all. But I won't. Someday, mister, I'll remember the world after this doom."
"...Because you're the slowest prophet."
"Yep." She flipped her cap backwards. "Sure, I still haven't recalled the 555th cycle, let alone started chasing the 1000th. But that's future me's problem. Present me's got work to do."
"Like handing tomorrow's you your daily upload schedule?"
"Exactly, exactly." The self-proclaimed great author grinned and offered up her right hand. "Let's go, mister. Let's crystal-punch that bratty girl who thinks she's the Outer God of this universe."
I took her hand and mine, and we shook on it—which could have been a stirring moment until someone beside us timidly raised a hand.
"Uh, hyung-nim?"
It was Seo Gyu.
"Sorry to butt in, but is there nothing for me? Like, Corruption or something? Or am I just supposed to stay mind-fogged in this utopia?"
"Ah, Seo Gyu, sorry. For you to rampage, SG Net would have to explode in user count."
"Oh."
"But as you know, right now SG Net is a ghost community with only Ah-ryeon logged in. So there's no chance."
"Ah..."
The apocalypse's last muscle-man drooped his deltoids in gloom.
Let us have a moment of silence.
Myself, Yu Ji-won, Sim Ah-ryeon, Cheon Yo-hwa, Lee Ha-yul, and Oh Dok-seo. Six people in the strike team.
'A party for the ages.'
All of them except me were Corrupted, though not to the point of total nihilism. Ji-won, for example, still treated me as an equal. Corruption has wild-caught and farm-raised grades, perhaps, like martial arts power gained by demonic techniques versus the pure internal energy of the orthodox schools.
'Even so, they're indisputably the strongest this world has to offer.'
With this team, we could probably wipe out a Monster Wave in one sweep.
"Mr. Matiz," Ji-won said, drawing close. She was shorter than usual—strangely unfamiliar yet familiar. "Where is Hecate? I haven't been able to see Her Excellency Dang Seo-rin lately."
"On the moon."
"Pardon?"
"Literally, Dang Seo-rin is on the moon."
Ever since our last talk she had stayed up there, never returning to Earth.
"She must have steeled herself for our fight," I explained. "Knowing she can't fully control herself as an Outer God, she exiled herself as far from Earth as possible."
"...Whatever verdict you reach, perhaps she has already decided to lose."
"Possibly."
Another reading existed, though.
Since ancient times, the moon acted as the wellspring of sorcery. It was a mirror hung in the sky, a hole to the Otherworld. The philosopher Parmenides once said the moon shines because it "always looks upon the sun," likening it to the universe's eye. Just as a human blinks, the cosmos' eye blinks between crescent and full. In other words...
"Hecate may have chosen the battlefield that most favors herself. Is it Dang Seo-rin's heart that refuses to wreck Earth, or the Outer God's instinct to repaint the world in her color? I can't say which will win."
Right now, Seo-rin stood too close to Hecate. Unless you possess Complete Memory like I do, a mere human ego can hardly survive inside an Outer God. It was a miracle she still even looked like "Dang Seo-rin." And that miracle existed only because of me. I could recognize that much, at least.
I turned to my comrades and said, "The Outer God named Nut, now called Hecate, never shows herself carelessly."
The strike team looked back—all of them still Yu Ji-won, Sim Ah-ryeon, Cheon Yo-hwa, Lee Ha-yul, and Oh Dok-seo, even under the thrall of Anomalous power. They were the last humans standing in the 173rd—no—the 1000th world.
"Hecate used to cloak the universe in night at the very instant that the world perished. I once thought she was like Infinite Metagame, sniping the last hit... but surely, it tied into Seo-rin's condition."
Ha-yul tilted her head. [So if Dang Seo-rin dies, Hecate descends?]
"Probably. I'm not certain."
Questions remained about their link. Was Dang Seo-rin truly an Outer God or merely a priestess? Either hypothesis left unexplained shadows, a fog of omen around my heart. Yet fog or not, this operation demanded everything.
"To Hecate, this world is post-apocalypse already. Humanity is fused to her Utopia, hence she can appear freely here... But for us, an impossible chance—the epilogue after the ending—has been handed down."
It had been a chain of coincidences.
Dang Seo-rin's power reached Outer-God class, so the golden scales worked near-omnipotence.
She granted my wish to call my future self.
Oh Dok-seo tamed Infinite Metagame. Even if I were to forget this step forever, someday, she alone will recall so that no one—no god—can erase it as having "never happened."
So many "once-in-a-lifetimes" stacked into inevitability. If I was a miracle to Dang Seo-rin, then my miracle stood before me now.
"Our one objective: sever the Outer God from Dang Seo-rin and rescue our ridiculous yet lovable pointy-hat devotee."
Their gazes were of different colors and different passions, yet each and every one of them was already resolved. As well they should be. After all, this 173rd cycle had fought Monster Waves in endless war. Theirs was a world of veterans.
"If it's the moon, the trip alone takes ages. I'll clear a path," Ji-won said first. She spread her hand, then closed it. The aurora that flowed across the night sky suddenly dropped like a net.
"Wh-whoa!"
"Oh."
Startled yet compliant, the party let the auroral mesh wrap them, then ascend like a silent elevator.
Dok-seo muttered, "Wow, busted-tier. Ji-won unnie may be pint-sized now, but when she embraces Corruption, she's the strongest human alive..."
"Thank you."
"No, I'm the one thanking you! Free cruise into space!"
"Indeed." Ji-won dipped her chin. "If you truly are grateful, then when you chronicle Mr. Matiz's life later, please allocate me exceptional page-time."
"Uh, wha—?"
"I felt goodwill the instant I saw you, Ms. Dok-seo. As befits a self-styled prophet at Mr. Matiz's side, you radiate an uncommon Aura. I haven't read your work yet, but I am sure it is superb."
"Uh, uh! Yeah? Hmm. Well. That's true. Ji-won unnie's face is a national treasure! I'll write you a special feature!"
"Thank you."
Ji-won, you're unchanging as ever. Corrupted or not, you sniff out power like a bloodhound and milk it for all it's worth...
"We'll soon arrive."
Even beyond Earth's atmosphere, we felt no discomfort. The aurora kept weaving, shielding us from harm. Under Ji-won's command, Leviathan guarded us flawlessly, its auroral net even doubling as a mental barrier. The dragon did, after all, excel at brainwashing and hallucination.
A hopeless foe when an enemy yet so reassuring as an ally, these Outer Gods.
'Wait. Infinite Metagame never felt reassuring, even as an ally.'
Let's just file that cosmic horror under the umbrella term of "a big misunderstanding."
As Ji-won said, the moon—Hecate's sanctuary—drew closer by the second.
"Wow!" Yo-hwa exclaimed. "Beautiful. Spotless. A perfect mirror hanging in the middle of space..."
The others felt much the same, though they left their thoughts to the silence.
However, I could not be moved by the moon's beauty. My eyes locked on its surface, on a lone figure still wearing a cone hat and cape.
My eyesight outstripped the team's. I could zoom in further, clearer.
Far away, Dang Seo-rin seemed to notice my stare, and I sucked in a breath. Across the gulf of a whole universe, she shaped words with her lips, crisp and slow.
You're here, Undertaker.
Maybe a bit late.
Or perhaps still early...
A chill ran down my spine. She still looked human—gentle smile, calm eyes—and no different from the Dang Seo-rin I knew...
Except for her left hand.
Hm? Oh,
This bothers you?
In her left hand...
There lay something that must not exist.
By every rule of common sense, an impossible sight condensed there.
Got bored waiting for you.
I was looking over Earth,
And it just caught my eye.
Go Yuri.
It annoyed me.
There it was, cleanly severed with pink hair and all. Go Yuri's head was clenched in Dang Seo-rin's left hand as if it belonged there.
The Great Witch smiled.
So I tidied it up.
Footnotes:
[1] Lions, like other carnivores, are susceptible to heartworm infection, although they are not the primary host like dogs. Mosquitoes transmit the parasite, and heartworms can cause serious health problems in lions, including heart failure and death. Basically, a parasite. It should also be noted that Hecate is associated with lions.
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