The Interpreter I
Ta-da.
Who could have possibly guessed it?
The final stop for the infinite regressor wasn't in the 'future' but in the past, back in the very first timeline, of all places.
A classic cliché, twisted. Even the regressor was surprised by this one.
"...Mister. I'm sorry. But you're genuinely giving me the creeps, so could you please stop mimicking Cheon Yo-hwa without any warning? Seriously. I'm begging you."
Unfortunately, having received Oh Dok-seo's 100% sincere ultimate technique, the dogeza, I had to declare the end of the season for my Cheon Yo-hwa impersonation.
"My apologies. Some side effects still linger."
"Aha. Right. So when mister has lingering side effects, he uses that divine control over his aura to copy his student's appearance and cosplay as her, is that it?"
"Thank you for understanding."
"Yep. This is exactly why the Regression Alliance needs a manager like Noh Do-hwa. Someone has to tell the crazy person he's crazy for the world to function properly..."
Oh Dok-seo treated me like a complete lunatic, but honestly, I felt it was unfair.
The habitual transformation into the young lady, this convulsive impersonation of Lady Cheon Yo-hwa, wasn't just some perverse or self-deprecating joke of mine. It truly was a side effect.
"Dok-seo, imitating someone else entirely within the void is an incredibly dangerous thing to do. It only ended with this kind of joke because it was me you were dealing with. If it had been anyone else, they would have spent the rest of their lives with a second or third personality living in a corner of their mind."
"Hmm. Is it that serious?"
"It is. In fact, I'm more surprised that you're perfectly fine. You sometimes turn on your VTuber mode with [Side Story Creation] and completely immerse yourself in other people. How do you manage to maintain your own ego so effortlessly after doing that?"
"Well, you know?"
Oh Dok-seo tilted her head.
"For me, it just works."
"You talented rascal."
Well, it was probably thanks to Oh Dok-seo's unique skill, the absolute defensive barrier known as the [AT Field].
Oh Dok-seo's sense of reality was, in some way, detached from that of others.
It wasn't that she didn't live her life seriously, but she had a strong tendency to perceive her own life and the lives of those around her as a [story within a work of fiction].
She insisted that she herself possessed the attribute of a 'transmigrator' who had simply been dropped into the middle of a story.
An experienced actor knows how to fully immerse themselves in a role while still maintaining their own self.
Oh Dok-seo's [AT Field], her [Absolute Defensive Barrier], and her [Fourth Wall] might have been interconnected in that sense.
It was just as I was lost in thought.
– Yaaaaah!
A loud shout.
I had been sitting across from Oh Dok-seo, drinking coffee in the cafe at the Inunaki Tunnel, when a 'noise complaint' suddenly echoed from the floor above.
– Shit! Die! Just die! Get out! Get oooout!
"Ugh."
Oh Dok-seo's expression soured as she was drinking her espresso.
It wasn't just the noise from upstairs that made her face crumple. This girl, despite hating bitterness, insisted on drinking espresso.
If her chuunibyou was at that level, she had practically reached enlightenment.
"That house is at it again."
"Mm."
"No matter where you sit, there's like a 30% chance you'll hear that noise from upstairs. It's even more annoying because you can't make out what they're shouting."
Oh Dok-seo was right.
It was the so-called noise complaint anomaly.
The very fact that a noise complaint was being heard here in the Inunaki hideout cafe was bizarre. Where could an 'upstairs' that generated domestic noise possibly exist in a submerged underwater tunnel?
But that kind of shouting was often heard in any building that simply had a ceiling.
In truth, many of the anomalies that ordinary people encountered in their daily lives were of this trivial sort.
Too insignificant to subjugate, yet too annoying to ignore.
They were the kind you just came to accept as an uncomfortable neighbor in life.
"Can't you get rid of that thing for me? Mister? Every time I'm about to take out my laptop to start writing, that noise starts up and completely kills my motivation."
"Once you get rid of the noise complaint anomaly, I suppose the phobia of the blank white page in your notepad file, the writer's block anomaly, and the burnout anomaly will be waiting for you in succession."
"The only reason I can't write is because of all the anomalies."
"This mister has an inkling that anomalies were born in the first place because people blamed others instead of themselves, hated them, and shirked responsibility."
"What? Are you saying I'm one of those irresponsible and insensitive types? My goodness. I'm hurt. Because of this wound and trauma I've received from mister, I'll now forever be a pathetic writer who can't post two chapters in a row...."
– Dieeeee! Die! Just die, already! Die!
"...No. I'm not joking, Mister. Seriously, do something about it."
Oh Dok-seo looked up at the ceiling with a fed-up expression.
"People on SG Net are always complaining that the noise is driving them crazy. That thing genuinely lowers the quality of life."
"Hmm."
"It's always making a racket with that incomprehensible noise!"
"..."
"It would be better if I could at least understand what it's saying! Then I could at least curse back at it properly!"
While Oh Dok-seo was fuming, I just quietly sipped my coffee.
Because…
'I can actually hear it. What it's saying...'
An astute reader would have already noticed.
The subtle difference that existed between Oh Dok-seo's complaints about the noise and my own narration of it.
– Why are you my mom! Why are you my moooom!
That's right.
To me, Undertaker, the shouts of the noise complaint anomaly from beyond the ceiling were perfectly understandable.
And it wasn't just the noise complaint anomaly.
The voices of all anomalies, I could hear them.
[I'm the Only One Who Can Understand the Anomalies' Voices].
That was the web novel-esque title I had given to my current situation.
If you were to ask exactly when this strange phenomenon began, I could answer with great precision.
It was from the 1,000th cycle.
"Huh?"
The moment that made me certain of this anomaly was none other than my encounter with Dang Seo-rin.
It was our first meeting, an event that had already been repeated hundreds of times.
– Where is this place?
– Dad. Dad. I'm here, Dad.
The moment I arrived to meet Dang Seo-rin as usual, I began to perceive sounds that had never been audible in previous cycles.
The diagonal crosswalk at Centum City in Busan.
An alternate space, a 'crossroads' that had become bizarrely wide.
– Can you hear my voice?
– There's someone here. Someone's here.
Drip. Splat, splat.
Thousands of traffic lights stood like pillars in a temple at the crossroads, and crimson blood overflowed from every red light.
– Excuse me?
– Excuse me, hello?
The blood from the traffic lights became 'red handprints' that crawled across the crosswalk with splatting sounds.
There weren't just one or two. Tens of thousands of handprints were chaotically moving back and forth across the crossing.
Visually, it was no different from the previous cycles.
It was a scene I had watched to the point of exhaustion up to the 1,000th cycle.
'Why can I hear voices?'
Auditorily, however, it was completely different.
– My house disappeared. Officer. Please find my house, please.
– My mother isn't answering her phone. I had it turned off for a moment. There's a missed call. I shouldn't have turned my phone off then. My mother isn't answering.
– I was kicked out of my house. Does this make any sense? It's my house. There were strangers living there.
Swarm, swarm, swarm.
Every time a bloody handprint was stamped down, a sound, as if it were prerecorded, played from that spot.
It was like hundreds of people in a crowd all muttering whatever they wanted to say at the same time.
"..."
Faced with that overwhelming scene, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
'Why? I've never heard the voices of the handprints at this crossroads before. So why now, in the 1,000th cycle, without any warning....'
No.
At the time, I was too flustered to think about it, but this wasn't the only sudden change that had arrived around the 1,000th cycle.
"Actually. I… I can hear a song."
Dang Seo-rin too, had changed.
"I can hear a song from you, too."
To be precise, it had started from the 999th cycle.
Dang Seo-rin's testimony that everything in the world sounded like 'music,' 'noise,' or 'songs' remained valid even after the 999th cycle passed and the 1,000th began.
What kind of magic could have unfolded?
Dang Seo-rin, for whom all things in the world, including even the sunset in the sky, had truly begun to sound like 'sound.'
And me, who had begun to perceive the 'voices' of anomalies that had been completely inaudible before.
A clear similarity was observed between these two strange phenomena.
However, no matter how much I thought about it, there was no way to know why this 'ability' was suddenly granted to Dang Seo-rin and me without any warning whatsoever.
"Dok-seo."
"Yeah?"
"It seems like a very strange incident that I don't know about must have occurred around the end of the 999th cycle. Is there any way you could use your [Side Story Creation] to find out what happened?"
Come to think of it, the 999th cycle was strange.
'I was just having a drink with Dang Seo-rin, and then the world suddenly ended out of nowhere.'
There were no clues or evidence, but I could at least deduce that some kind of incident had occurred then.
"Uh, yeah. I'd like to help you out if I could, Mister."
"But?"
"The 999th cycle is too recent, you know. My novel hasn't progressed that far yet. To empathize with someone using [Side Story Creation], it needs to be at least somewhat close to what I've written...."
"..."
"Ah. Why? Don't look at me like that."
"..."
"I want to write too! I want to write the novel too! I want to be revered by the readers as a super-diligent-author-nim who posts every single day except for Chuseok and Christmas! You think I want to be like this?! Huh? Mister, you don't know anything. You don't know the pain of creation. You don't know the pain of the soul! Shit, all those diligent writers are just talented hacks! It's in their DNA! If my mom and dad had just passed down some more diligent genes, I wouldn't be in this mess――"
I'll omit what followed, not for Oh Dok-seo's honor, but for the honor of her parents.
It dawned on me anew.
If I were to ever get married but choose not to have children, the reason would be singular. It would solely be due to the fear that there was even a 0.01% chance of a child like Oh Dok-seo being born…
'Two Oh Dok-seo lifeforms on this earth?'
A shiver ran down the back of my neck.
No matter how many world-ending routes I, a professional destructionist, had walked, I couldn't bear to face such a future.
"A-Anyway, please try to write as quickly as possible. Now there's no risk of the world being corrupted by Infinite Metagame even if you write fast."
"The more you rush me, the more my motivation drops."
"Please write as slowly as possible."
"Are you saying you don't trust me right now?! Mister?!"
"...Just please stay healthy."
"I was actually thinking about getting personal training from Mr. Seo Gyu. I heard he is a PT master? Could you put in a word for me, Mister?"
"Sure. Just don't go beating up your readers after you get strong."
"Hm? Ahahaha. Are you silly, Mister? Where in the world is there an author who beats up their readers?"
"..."
"Anyway, just you wait! Once I get PT and become healthy, I'm definitely going to earn the title of a diligent author who posts five times a week, every week, except for the holidays!"
'You think that's gonna happen?'
The truth of the mystery fell into a state of utter confusion due to a certain author's catastrophic writing pace.
Still, it was a relief. It wasn't an 'unsolvable' problem, but merely a 'delayed' one.
After all, if I just held on for a thousand or ten thousand more years, wouldn't a future Oh Dok-seo eventually reach the truth of the 999th regression on her own?
For a regressor, time was the one thing I had in abundance.
"But is there really a need to be so anxious? Mister? In any case, you gained another ability, so isn't that lucky?"
"..."
"An awakener has awakened again. For now, isn't it fine to think of it like that?"
Though my personality wasn't carefree enough to jump rope with my nerves like Oh Dok-seo, for now, I had no other choice but to adapt to the new situation.
The advantage of being able to [directly and fully understand the voices of the anomalies] had certainly brought me an enormous benefit.
For example.
– Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
– How I wonder, what you are.
– Up above the world so high....
– Like a diamond, in the sky.
– Twinkle, twinkle... little star.
– How I wonder what you are.
The Meteor Shower. Meteor.
The shooting star anomaly that always arrived in the skies above the Gimhae Plains seven years after a regression began.
From the anomaly that had once driven the entire Korean peninsula into terror and even destroyed the world, a 'voice' of incredibly clear quality could be heard.
"Heo."
Originally, that is, before the 1,000th cycle, the only sound I could hear from the Meteor Shower was, at best, something like noise.
To express it in text.
– Twi҉nkle҉,҉ ҉twi҉nkle҉,҉ ҉litt҉le҉ s҉tar҉.
– Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
– Ho҉w҉ I҉ wo҉nder҉ ҉wha҉t҉ y҉ou҉ a҉re.҉
Something like that.
The melody was so familiar that I could guess it was a 'lullaby,' but even so, I had never been able to hear the Meteor Shower's song clearly.
It was different now.
I could hear it.
– Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.
– How I, wonder what you are.
– Like a diamond... in the sky....
And because of that, I could also understand.
I noticed a minute detail in the trembling of the song that I would never have caught before.
'The voice is trembling.'
The voice of the Meteor Shower belonged to a woman.
Between the brilliant starlight spread across the night sky, the whining sound of a siren was tearing through. It was an air-raid warning.
1. On a certain night when an air-raid siren is wailing.
2. A certain woman sings a lullaby.
3. With a trembling voice.
4. The humans who die by the Meteor Shower die instantly, feeling no pain.
"..."
Having gathered this many clues, I hadn't squandered my life as a regressor so foolishly as to be unable to make the leap toward the truth.
I wonder if you remember.
Back when I first subjugated the Meteor Shower.
I had mentioned in that story that there had been an 'unexplained bombing' in the Gimhae Plains at the time of the void's advent.
No evidence related to that bombing incident remained anywhere, so it was impossible to even know how exactly the bombing was carried out.
The reason for death had evaporated.
Because death went missing, life too went missing.
'Perhaps.'
I put Do-hwa down. I released my aura as well.
In a situation where I had to conserve my aura as much as possible to suppress Yu Ji-won's Outer God, also known as Leviathan, the Meteor Shower had been an exception until now.
I knew of no other way to deal with it other than to slice it apart in a single strike with a powerful aura.
However.
"...Mom."
Only after more than 1,000 cycle.
I felt like I finally knew how.
"I'm… I'm okay."
I muttered, looking straight up at the host of the Meteor Shower staining the night sky.
"I'm not scared."
– Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
"I'm with you, Mom."
– How I wonder...
"When I'm with you, Mom, I'm not really scared."
The siren wailed.
"Actually, I'm more scared when you cover my eyes."
The siren wailed.
"So it's okay if you don't cover them."
The siren wailed.
"I want to keep looking at your face, Mom, until the very end."
The Meteor Shower trickled down.
The streaks of starlight that had been ceaselessly striking down, etching diagonal lines across the night sky, began to fall all around like hail.
Thud, thud, patter.
Small fragments made of starlight.
As the fragments of light rained down, something wrapped around my shoulder. I couldn't see its shape, but it had a contour similar to a human arm.
– I love you. My baby.
The starlight all melted away, and the night sky blurred.
– Mommy, really, truly loves you.
I held onto the invisible forearm.
"Yes. I love you too."
Click.
The siren stopped.
The pebbles that had fallen to the ground no longer emanated starlight. The night sky grew quiet, as if it had always been that way.
"..."
I bent down and picked up a pebble that had lost both its light and sound.
And I realized.
I must not use my invincible aura. And yet, I must put the anomalies to rest.
My route, which was extremely self-contradictory and at a glance seemed impossible.
I realized how I could walk it.
-x-X-x-
The Interpreter II
In retrospect, I suppose I was a rather bland and unremarkable person for an awakener.
Let's imagine, for instance, that there was a Protagonist Certification Association for genre novels, and an interviewer there asked me a question like this.
'Oh! A regressor! How wonderful. But just being a regressor isn't enough to be competitive among protagonists these days, you know?'
'The key is a unique skill!'
'Setting aside regression, which every Tom, Dick, and Harry seems to have these days, what powerful ability is uniquely yours?'
Hmm.
Despite being a professional regressor who had been through over 1,000 cycles, if they were to ask me that, I really wouldn't have had anything suitable to write on a resume.
Time Seal?
'That's certainly unique! But unless you get the other person's consent, it's useless.'
'It's far from powerful. Man, this kind of thing isn't popular these days.'
A tremendous amount of aura?
'Oh, I'll give you that. That is powerful. But reading your resume, it says you've entered an 'aura diet' phase…'
'In the first place, aura isn't even a unique skill, is it?'
Interview result: Rejected.
That's right.
Except for the fact that my mentality was more flexible than anyone else's, and aside from my extraordinary love for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there was nothing particularly special about me.
But in a way, wasn't this also a tradition?
The cliché of the 'ordinary protagonist', which had long since devolved into an old joke. Perhaps the perseverance that had steadfastly preserved this beautiful culture like a fossil until now was the very identity of me, Undertaker.
At least, that's how it had been until now.
"I can hear the voices of the anomalies. It isn't just simple noise or static. I can decipher their screams just as if I were listening to a person's voice. Everyone, if you are with me, you will experience the days of conquering anomalies by devising highly sophisticated strategies."
"Undertaker! Undertaker! Undertaker!"
"Woooooah!"
"Hey, hey! We believed in you!"
Receiving the fervent cheers from the awakeners, I raised both my arms high. The shouting, of course, grew even more intense.
The Undertaker.
A successful debut as a protagonist, after a grand total of 1,000 regressions.
Sometimes, life was truly coincidental.
"Suppose I had the ability to understand the voices of anomalies from the very beginning. Say, from around the 5th cycle."
"Hmm."
"Then I probably wouldn't have been able to face the anomalies with the same mindset I have now."
I was walking with Oh Dok-seo, Sim Ah-ryeon, Lee Ha-yul, and the kids from the Regression Alliance.
Crunch.
The asphalt gravel from the crumbled highway scraped unevenly under the soles of our shoes.
The cycle was the 1,022nd.
The location was the Japanese archipelago.
"Why? Wouldn't that have been better?"
Oh Dok-seo, shouldering a backpack, tilted her head.
"Being able to understand the voices of all anomalies is a huge advantage only you have, Mister. If you had acquired it in the early regressions, I think you could have greatly reduced all sorts of trial and error."
"I wonder. Ah, this is the spot."
The broken highway led to a tunnel, which was half-buried in earth and sand. I pointed to a patch of bare ground near the tunnel entrance.
"Everyone, grab a shovel and dig around here."
"Hweeeh. W-why do we have to do this manual labor…"
Sim Ah-ryeon looked like she was about to cry.
But with Lee Ha-yul, who was much smaller than her, taking the initiative and starting to dig, she couldn't afford to slack off. Sim Ah-ryeon also joined in the digging, whining as she followed us.
Soon.
[Ah.]
Lee Ha-yul's shovel stopped.
[Oppa. It's here.]
We immediately stopped working and gathered around Lee Ha-yul. After digging out a little more dirt, the thing we were looking for finally revealed itself.
It was the forearm of a child.
[It's an arm, not a foot.]
Lee Ha-yul muttered as if disappointed. To be precise, she wasn't speaking with her own mouth but moving the mouth of her maid puppet.
[It would have been easier if it was a foot.]
"You can't be full on the first spoonful. It's lucky we found it this quickly. Store it for now."
[Okay.]
Lee Ha-yul lightly brushed the dirt off the child's forearm, then placed the remains into the refrigerated compartment of her yogurt cart.
We didn't have to worry about it rotting.
As you could tell just by seeing how its original form was preserved without a single insect bite mark despite being buried in the dirt, that was no ordinary piece of a corpse.
"Next is a tunnel 40km from here."
"Hweeeeng. Guild Leader, I-I want to ride in the cart too…"
"Do you really want to take the ride from a kid with no legs?"
"B-but! She has the Director's special prosthetic legs equipped, so she has legs now! Guild Leader, you only dote on Ms. Ha-yul…"
"Sigh."
The three of us, excluding Sim Ah-ryeon, shook our heads and headed for the next destination.
"Eh. W-wait for me! I'm coming too...!"
For a full fortnight, we scoured the Japanese archipelago.
Here, a left leg. There, a few fingers.
Like that, the corpse was assembled piece by piece in the cart's refrigerated compartment.
"Ha-yul."
[Roger.]
After neatly arranging the scattered body parts, Lee Ha-yul drew out her puppet strings.
The puppet strings burrowed into the corpse like living parasites. Squeeze. Before long, the severed sections of the body were stitched together with the puppet strings.
[Complete.]
The corpse shot up to its feet.
If you looked closely, the severed sections were attached so cleanly you wouldn't even notice. Just like the marionette maid that Lee Ha-yul always had with her.
There was one difference from the maid puppet.
"Ugh."
Oh Dok-seo was repulsed.
"They really messed up the face badly. What kind of bastard did this?"
Thanks to Ha-yul's puppet strings, the limbs were intact, but the face was so severely damaged that it was impossible to recognize.
If this had been before the fall of civilization, the kids gathered here would have gagged several times.
But now, since they observed corpses whenever they were bored, everyone just furrowed their brows a little, with no intense reactions.
"Ah-ryeon, it's your turn."
"Mmm… Okay."
Sim Ah-ryeon furrowed her eyebrows and opened her sketchbook. She seemed to have a lot to say, but her tone suggested she wouldn't complain since it was 'the Guild Leader's request'.
"…"
However, once she actually began the task of drawing, the residue of emotion vanished from Sim Ah-ryeon's face completely.
"Please turn it around." "Sitting pose." "Please spread its arms wide," and so on.
Sim Ah-ryeon constantly made requests in a low voice. Lee Ha-yul received those requests and manipulated the doll accordingly.
"Mm… Well, yes. I'm done drawing."
Her tone was tinged with the sentiment that it wasn't particularly satisfying, but the quality was somehow acceptable.
What was drawn in Sim Ah-ryeon's sketch was none other than the full body of a child.
The ruined face was also properly 'restored,' and it was smiling brightly on the drawing paper.
"Yes. Good job. You must have had a hard time following us around, so rest for a while now."
"Ah. Ehehe…"
When I patted her head, Sim Ah-ryeon smiled with a silly grin.
My heart ached at her smile, which seemed to say that this simple gesture relieved all her hardship.
It wasn't that I wasn't happy. It was just that I knew the '□' cut out with scissors in Sim Ah-ryeon's heart was just as empty.
'This is a problem I'll have to solve someday. Someday.'
For now, I had to focus on the anomaly in front of me.
I attached the portrait of the child drawn by Sim Ah-ryeon to the face of the corpse doll assembled by Lee Ha-yul.
Then I picked up a mask I had prepared in advance and covered the corpse doll's face.
The terribly mangled face and Sim Ah-ryeon's portrait were both swallowed and buried by the mask.
"Oh."
Then, something amazing happened.
"Ah, Mister. It disappeared!"
Just as Oh Dok-seo said, the corpse doll wearing the portrait and mask had vanished in an instant.
It hadn't run off somewhere with footwork that far surpassed my own. It had literally just vanished in the blink of an eye.
Lee Ha-yul tilted her head.
[Was it eliminated?]
"No."
I shook my head.
"Probably not. I'll be right back."
[Be right back? Where are you going?]
Inunaki Tunnel.
The plaque at the tunnel entrance, faintly engraved with '犬鳴隧道' (Inunaki Tunnel).
Beneath it, a child wearing a plain white mask stood hesitatingly.
– Ah.
Has it spotted me?
The masked girl flinched and trembled, but spoke cautiously towards me.
– Uhm. M-mister.
"What is it?"
– I have to, um, get through that tunnel. It's too dark, so I'm scared to go alone. Could you possibly go with me?
"…"
I smiled.
"Of course. That's fine."
– Ah.
"I was just about to cross the tunnel myself. Even if you're scared, I'll be by your side, so shall we go together?"
– Th-thank you!
"But this tunnel. There are a lot of rumors that ghosts appear here."
– G-ghost!
The child was startled. Even though its expression was completely hidden by the plain white mask, I could clearly feel that it was terrified.
"That's right. Even if you hear a voice calling you, never look back. And you mustn't lose sight of me until we get out of the tunnel. Got it?"
– Yes, yes. I'll do that.
I held out my hand. The child then raised its arm and firmly grasped my hand.
We entered the tunnel.
Thump, the sound echoed longer than usual.
It was probably because a slightly smaller footstep, pitter-patter, echoed after my own.
– Euh…
"Are you scared?"
– I'm not scared…
This wasn't the first time I had entered the Inunaki Tunnel. It was probably the place I had spent the most time in during my life of regression, so it was only natural.
So, I was able to walk through safely.
The sections where a wrong step would plunge you into invisible water up to your head, choking you. The sections where your limbs would be torn apart. The sections where your fingers would be splintered.
"Oh. By the way, I never asked why you're trying to cross the tunnel."
– M-Melt is gone.
"Melt?"
– Ah. It's the dog we're raising at home. It's really big. But a little while ago, it suddenly started barking a lot and disappeared inside the tunnel.
"…"
– If Melt is gone, my dad and I will be very sad. Melt will be sad too. That's why even though I'm scared, I have to cross the tunnel and bring Melt back!
"You must be scared too, but you mustered up the courage because you were worried your pet dog would be more scared. That's very brave of you."
– Hehe. Ah. I-I'm not scared!
Thump. Pitter-patter.
As always, the Inunaki Tunnel was terribly long.
It wasn't strange. A tunnel seen through a child's eyes was bound to be much longer than one experienced by an adult.
Why is it so rare to find an adult who will take the hand of a child when they muster a handful of courage and reach out?
– Melt shouldn't have gone far…
The masked girl muttered this the entire time we walked through the tunnel. It was partly to fight her fear, and partly because she was genuinely worried.
– There were flyers posted in the village, you know, asking to find lost pet dogs or cats.
"Is that so?"
– Whenever I saw those, I wondered what they were for. If Melt disappeared, I'd have to put up flyers too…
How long had we walked?
Woof!
The sound of a dog barking came from the other end of the tunnel. The child, who had been walking with its head down while holding my hand, was startled.
– It's Melt!
The child let go of my hand and, as if forgetting this was a scary tunnel, rushed towards the other end.
A faint light streamed in from the far end of the tunnel. The light settled in the puddles of water on the tunnel floor, then, Splash! it flew up with droplets of water at the girl's footstep.
– Melt! Melt! Melt!
The child kept calling its pet's name.
It seemed to harbor a slender hope that the dog would recognize it from that simple call, an expectation that a mere name would connect the two beings.
Woof woof.
Fortunately, it seemed to have recognized the voice.
To me, the sight of a puppy crying for its young master was completely invisible, but it seemed different for the masked girl.
The child plopped down at the end of the tunnel and hugged the empty air. As if the puppy that had been waiting for its master at the exit was right there.
– Thank goodness, Melt. I'm so glad. I'm glad you didn't go too far.
Woof.
– From now on, don't suddenly run off like that, okay? I was really scared. Let's go home quickly, Melt. Let's hurry home…
Woof.
And then, all sound ceased.
I exited the tunnel. The exit. The bushes were overgrown, and the concrete was broken. There was no sign of a puppy waiting for its master.
The child was gone too.
Instead, a mask lay on the ground. Beneath the mask, the picture Sim Ah-ryeon had drawn was pressed flat.
As I lifted the mask, I paused for a moment.
In the drawing, the girl was smiling. And next to the girl, something that Sim Ah-ryeon had not drawn was now there.
A large, brown-colored dog was drawn with a crooked crayon.
"…"
I carefully stored the drawing so it wouldn't get folded.
This time, there was no separate epilogue.
No. Not just this time, but the next time, and the time after that, there was no need to record a separate epilogue.
And that was only natural.
Because from now on, every story would become the epilogue of a certain regressor.
-x-X-x-
The Exhibitor I
As I mentioned in the last story, I continued to travel around the world, 'conquering' anomalies as I went.
This time, let's talk about something that happened in Busan along the way.
My colleagues in the Regression Alliance often expressed their gratitude to me.
The reason was simple. They said that my intervention, as a regressor, had changed their lives.
"Yeees. I'm so grateful that I feel like flaying you, stuffing you, and then enshrining you like a household god for the rest of my life."
I'll correct myself.
With the exception of personality-defects like Noh Do-hwa, 'most' of my colleagues in the Regression Alliance were grateful to me.
For instance, Lee Ha-yul.
[Yeah. It's horrifying to think of a world without you, Oppa.]
Having returned to the Busan hideout after a long time, Lee Ha-yul philosophized while curled up in my arms like a squirrel.
[I probably would have killed the esteemed Mayor Jung Sang-guk and then neatly ended my own life.]
[The extermination of all traitors to the nation. It's sad, but this was the mission given to me, Lee Ha-yul, the last proud descendant of the Deoksu Lee clan….]
And she really would have done it.
But, to put it another way, it meant that I had presented the choice of life to a Lee Ha-yul who was originally supposed to meet her end.
Though no one forced me to, I felt a certain sense of duty about this.
Of course. If you're going to force someone who wants to die to stay alive, shouldn't you take responsibility for their life?
I didn't mean I had to take responsibility for everything.
It meant I had to do just enough so that Ha-yul wouldn't give up on life, just enough to keep her finger from leaving the 'Continue' button in a game.
[…]
I had no intention of just dropping her into a hunting ground and abandoning her to grow on her own.
Nor did I have any intention of letting her dependency on me go unchecked.
[You mean I have to get stronger.]
That's right.
I taught her how to become stronger. I provided her with time to practice.
If there was a hole in her heart that was too difficult to bear, I would even enter her subconscious to reveal that '□'.
"It's hard to believe how things ended up this way, but every person in this world has a scar from having lost a being named Go Yuri. Ha-yul, you're no exception."
[…]
"The secret to the magic that makes people feel an instinctive fondness for Go Yuri, as if they've been brainwashed, lies here."
I used to think it was a simple brainwashing ability.
But not anymore.
"When people see Go Yuri, they feel the same emotion as if they've been reunited with a precious person they lost a long, long time ago. Subconsciously."
[Because she really is someone we lost?]
"Yes."
That was Go Yuri's secret. Her trick. Her method.
Anyone who saw Go Yuri felt a sense of 'longing'. They sensed a nostalgia for a time before the world had turned into a complete mess, before their own lives had been ruined.
It was a temptation that was difficult to refuse.
"But in my case, it went beyond just having a part of my past distorted. My past was thoroughly erased. It's literally a blank space, a void. That might be why I was able to remain relatively free from Go Yuri's brainwashing."
[…]
Nestled in my arms, Ha-yul tilted her head back and looked up at my face.
[That's actually a bad sign.]
"What do you mean?"
[Dad. If Go Yuri was a part of my life, even if I don't remember it, and my memories were distorted as that part was cut away.]
[The fact that your memories disappeared entirely.]
[Doesn't that mean Go Yuri was such a precious existence to you that simply cutting out a part of it wasn't enough, so everything had to be deleted?]
"..."
She was a sharp kid, as expected.
I gently combed through Ha-yul's chestnut-brown hair. It was slightly curly, and Ha-yul liked it when I combed it this way.
"The fact that I have a wound I don't even know about doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing."
[Why?]
"You and I, Ha-yul. The members of the Regression Alliance. And even other people, it means we all suffer from the same void in our memories, doesn't it?"
[…]
Lee Ha-yul rubbed her head against my chest. I, in turn, accepted Ha-yul's childish affection.
'However.'
All of humanity shared a common '□'. They had lost the being known as Go Yuri.
For that very reason, for some people, when they descend into a dream within a dream, a dream of dreams, a great void known as the subconscious world must unfold.
'An Outer God is a being that corrupts all humans and twists the world. If that's the case, has Go Yuri already devoured the people of Earth?'
It was at that moment.
"Ah, ahhhh."
At the entrance of the cafe hideout, Sim Ah-ryeon, who hadn't even washed her hair, stood with a trembling finger.
"G-Guild Leader is… again! Again, you just got home after so long and you're only giving affection to Ms. Ha-yul…!"
Lee Ha-yul let out a scoff.
[The early bird gets dad's lap.]
"I… I was awake too. If only I hadn't been protecting the peace on SG Net until dawn, I could have done it!"
[That's impossible.]
Lee Ha-yul said coolly.
[Ah-ryeon unni is a famous community addict.]
"My hair! C-comb my hair too, please!"
[You smell. Don't come any closer.]
"What? W-what are you talking about? I only smell nice…. The faithful followers of the Eastern Holy State all like me. If my smell is b-bothering you, then it's entirely Ms. Ha-yul's sense of smell that's at fault."
[Why in the world is this person a perfect woman when she's cosplaying as a Saintess, but a complete mess the moment she comes home? I really don't get it.]
Regardless of Lee Ha-yul's laments, Sim Ah-ryeon squeezed herself in between us like a hedgehog and claimed her spot.
Ugh, Ha-yul let out a groan not with her voice, but with her entire body.
And yet, the fact that she only bickered with words and didn't actually chase her away proved our Ha-yul's beautiful nature. QED.
So what if she killed and tortured her family and carries them around as marionettes? Such things can happen.
It's all the fault of Go Yuri, who implemented the Humanity Affection Deficit Plan by drilling a □ in Ha-yul's heart. Mhmm.
"..."
Sim Ah-ryeon was staring at me intently.
Expecting this, I took out another comb I had brought separately and tidied her hair, and only then did her expression slacken into a wide grin.
"Ah-ryeon."
"Yes?"
"Are the preparations for the exhibition going well?"
"Yes!"
Ah-ryeon giggled.
"It's all thanks to you, G-Guild Leader."
The one and only person who was always elected with an overwhelming first place in the 'Shall we vote for the person in our Regression Alliance who might actually be an anomaly?' poll, a title acknowledged by herself and others.
Sim Ah-ryeon.
This ungrateful OldManGoryeo Villain whined that I only ever doted on Ha-yul, but that was, of course, fake news.
I could confidently say that if you searched the entire three thousand worlds, past life, present life, and next life, you wouldn't find anyone who put as much effort into caring for Sim Ah-ryeon as I did.
"A-a painting…?"
"Yes. I want you to paint funeral portraits for the anomalies."
The portrait painting project.
This too was part of the plan to rehabilitate the human enigma known as Sim Ah-ryeon.
As I mentioned when I dealt with the Inunaki Tunnel in a previous story, around this time I was taking Sim Ah-ryeon around and always instructing her to paint 'portraits of anomalies'.
There was a deep thought behind it.
'Ah-ryeon is, in the end, just a pitiful victim who developed a sickness of the heart due to that wicked Go Yuri's mischief!'
The reason why Sim Ah-ryeon couldn't find fulfillment in the real world and always escaped to the SG Net community to leech self-esteem from others.
The reason why, when I begged her to live in reality and even got her a job as a Saintess in the North, she would cry out, 'This isn't the real me,' and act as a completely different persona, turning reality itself into a stage play.
The reason why, every time she saw me, she would exert a silent pressure of 'ehehe' and 'If you saved me, I won't allow you to run away,' showing the very essence of a menhera.
It must all, all be the fault of the '□' that Go Yuri left behind.
"Um…"
Hearing this assertion of mine, Oh Dok-seo tilted her head.
"Mister. Didn't you say before that the reason anomalies are born is because people disregard their own responsibility and blame everything on others and the world? It feels like you're doing the exact same thing right now, just swapping 'blaming others' with 'blaming Go Yuri'…."
"The most recently uploaded chapter was 172 days ago."
"Gyaaaaaaaaaak!"
Do not worry. The monster that threw my pure and innocent readers into the swamp of a hiatus has been vanquished by me, the Undertaker.
Anyway, the problem was the heart. A sickness of the heart.
But it wasn't as if I could bring Go Yuri over and plead, 'Now, become one.'
What could I do to heal Sim Ah-ryeon, this troublemaker of the Regression Alliance, this one-of-a-kind villain who manufactured trouble like a perpetual motion machine, even just a little?
The answer.
'It's art.'
That was the tentative conclusion I reached.
'Ah-ryeon dismisses all her activities in the real world as mere 'pranks,' but at least when she's drawing, she's more serious than anyone.'
That was the blessing Sim Ah-ryeon had received.
The fact that she could be sincere in at least one field. The fact that there was a point of friction where she could make her own self confront the world and clash with it.
And she even possessed a heavenly talent?
If this wasn't a blessing, what was?
'Even though I can draw quite well myself, Ah-ryeon's anomaly paintings… they have a power that's difficult for me to express, moving and living with detail.'
Considering that I, a regressor, had invested easily hundreds of thousands of hours into painting, Sim Ah-ryeon's sense was truly remarkable.
'And yet…'
The product of that very talent.
Sim Ah-ryeon had never once revealed it to people under her real name, her true name.
Even when she occasionally posted doodles on SG Net, it was always under the nickname
[OldManGoryeo] , the villain.
Or they were attached as uncredited illustrations to the guide posts uploaded by [The Librarian of the Great Library].
'No. It's not just her art.'
In the first place, how many people on Earth right now even know of the existence of Sim Ah-ryeon?
There were plenty of Awakeners who knew of the villain OldManGoryeo. There were even more people who worshipped the Saintess of the North.
Whether through infamy or fame, both 'nicknames' were receiving the most attention of the era.
But Sim Ah-ryeon?
"M-Ms. D-Dok-seo. Look at this. I'm sorry, readers. I've been cutting down on sleep to write and rewrite the manuscript, but I just can't seem to get a satisfactory quality. I sometimes resent my own artisan spirit…"
"Hwaaaaaak! Mister! Ah-ryeon unni is tormenting me again! She's reciting an old announcement I wrote and following me around!"
"..."
How many people, I wonder, truly know about Sim Ah-ryeon.
'It's probably just the members of the Regression Alliance.'
Whether it was the true Saintess residing in her home in Yongsan, or the fake Saintess coming and going from the palace in Pyongyang, both showed a strange similarity in that they were secluded from the world.
'That's why I'm going to make her debut! As the great artist Sim Ah-ryeon! The master of the art world who, following in the footsteps of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, has given birth to the Anomaly Expressionist style of painting!'
"?"
As if sensing my fervent gaze, Sim Ah-ryeon tilted her head. Then, thump thump, she returned with the comb and plopped down in front of me.
'Hehe.'
I smiled like a wicked young lady and combed her hair. Ah-ryeon-ah, soon the whole world will be cheering your name.
'Then you'll find joy in reality and stop putting on your mask-and-troll acts!'
"?"
At last, the long-awaited day of the exhibition.
We set up a temporary gallery in the Tower of Babel Plaza so that the citizens of Busan could come and go and view it comfortably.
Noh Do-hwa seriously questioned whether it was right to invest manpower in such a project, but faced with the great cause of normalizing Sim Ah-ryeon, even the great Director of the National Road Management Corps had to concede.
"What's this? An exhibition?"
"Wow, it's been a really long time since I've heard that word."
"Is it an event hosted by the National Road Management Corps?"
People who in the old days would never have given a second glance to something like an art museum, claiming it lacked dopamine, now looked around the gallery in twos and threes.
"Oh…"
"This has a certain vibe."
"I know, right? It looks really esoteric, but it's strange how you feel like you can understand what's what."
The choice of theme was also excellent.
In the exhibition hall, the visages of the anomalies for whom Sim Ah-ryeon and I had held funerals were painted in a vigorous style.
Anomalies, after all, were beings familiar to Awakeners and known to the general public through rumors. A field that held interest for everyone, regardless of class.
And yet, a genre that had never once been 'properly' established in art history was being created at the tip of Sim Ah-ryeon's brush.
"Ah. Gremlin! I know this one! It's a Gremlin!"
"Just looking at it makes me want to kill it…"
"Ahaha."
"But what's this masked kid here? Is this an anomaly too?"
"I don't know. The esteemed Awakeners would probably know."
Murmur murmur.
The number of visitors, which had been decent even during the early morning commute, had multiplied fivefold by lunchtime as word got out, and by the evening rush hour, the gallery was bustling enough to be completely full.
"Heh."
"...I didn't expect it to be this popular."
On the second day, even Dang Seo-rin and Cheon Yo-hwa, who had each brought their executives, couldn't hide their surprise.
Looks of newfound respect focused on Sim Ah-ryeon, who sat at the counter with her head bowed low.
"The Teacher always protected and doted on her, so I just thought she was someone who was all about healing…"
It was only natural to be impressed.
This exhibition was, after all, the 『Special Anomaly Exhibition』.
The more types of anomalies a viewer was familiar with, the deeper and more they could see.
In other words, it was designed so that the more outstanding an Awakener was, the more immersed they would become in the exhibition.
'The response wasn't this good when people saw it as an illustration on SG Net.'
There was quite a big difference between a picture cut off by a smartphone screen and encountering the real thing.
Sim Ah-ryeon had even expressed 'Infinite Void' and 'Mastermind' as abstract paintings infused with expressionist techniques.
In front of that enormous canvas, even Cheon Yo-hwa couldn't help but linger for a long time.
"Hmm…"
Day four of the exhibition. Noh Do-hwa must have heard the rumors, as she somehow found the time to stop by.
After touring the gallery with my commentary, having taken on the job of a professional curator, Noh Do-hwa muttered.
"I see. I was wondering what kind of carefree art exhibition this was, but at this rate, it will be helpful for people to accurately perceive anomalies. This was meaningful…"
For even Noh Do-hwa, who had lived her life with a wall between herself and art, to evaluate it this way.
The exhibition project was, in short, a grand success.
– Anonymous: I don't think I've ever seen someone who can draw that well in my life
└Anonymous: fr fr I thought modern art < this was just for clapping when a famous person takes a dump but my opinion changed a bit this time...
└[Samcheon]WitchJudge: I was surprised too
└Anonymous: Wow a comment from someone so esteemed in such a humble place;;
SG Net was also buzzing with talk of the exhibition.
"Hmm."
I looked down at my smartphone with a pleased smile.
That's right. Whether in reality or in the virtual world, it was fine even if she didn't draw attention as the villain OldManGoryeo.
Sim Ah-ryeon was overflowing with enough charm to capture people's interest.
Now, won't Ah-ryeon be able to escape, even just a little, from suffering due to the deficiency in her heart?
As I was feeling so thrilled.
"..."
Blankly.
Sim Ah-ryeon was staring intently at me.
-x-X-x-
The Exhibitor II
The first-ever 'Special Anomaly Exhibition' came to a successful close.
It was a triumph that engraved the three-syllable name 'Sim Ah-ryeon' into the minds of everyone on the Korean Peninsula, Awakened and ordinary people alike.
"Artist Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon! Can I please have your autograph!"
"Me too! I was so deeply moved by your work, I can't even pick a favorite!"
"Eh, ehehe. Yes..."
"Can we take a picture, Artist-nim?!"
"What? No. I'd absolutely hate that..."
"Eh."
"Eh."
Of course, the visitors all felt an instinctual sense, whether they knew it or not, that this artist might not be entirely sound of mind, but isn't that just how geniuses are?
A person's personality could be packaged in any number of ways. With titles like 'artist', 'genius painter', and 'mad anomaly artist' attached to her name, Sim Ah-ryeon's unique eccentricity was actually a charming point.
After all, the only people who would like someone for being perfect were Plato or Confucius. Unless finding joy in being adored by old men was your life's goal, a few moderate flaws in a person were like necessary breathing holes.
"Much like my own passionate love for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is for me, the Undertaker."
[Hey, Dad. If you have time to spout nonsense, hurry up and move the equipment.]
"Yes, milady."
[Alright.]
Chastened by Ha-yul's retort, I sullenly directed the demolition of the gallery's temporary structure.
Now that the exhibition was over, clearing out the Tower of Babel Plaza was the natural course of action.
The plaza was also a place where some homeless people lived and food stalls thrived, so it wasn't good to monopolize it for too long.
"Ah."
Just then, Sim Ah-ryeon came scurrying over from a corner of the exhibition hall.
"G-Guild Leader. Please don't clear it out yet!"
"Hm? Why? The exhibition ended today."
"Well..."
Sim Ah-ryeon twiddled her index fingers.
"I-it's a secret!"
"A secret?"
"Yes, yes. There's something I want to show you, Guild Leader... Could you maybe leave it up without tearing it down for about a week?"
"Oh."
I was a little taken aback.
"I think Director Noh Do-hwa is going to be breathing down our necks, asking what we're doing and telling us to clear out."
"T-the gallery doesn't have to be as big as it is now! Just a space big enough for you and me to walk around is enough."
"Hmm."
If it was just that much.
"Wait. Let's see. You're saying it's okay to shrink it to about one-fifth of the current size, instead of using the whole plaza?"
"Yes!"
"Alright. Your Guild Leader will see what he can do."
"Ehehe. Th-thank you. You're the best, Guild Leader..."
At Sim Ah-ryeon's strange request, the demolition work was halted immediately. The marionette labor corps led by Lee Ha-yul also trotted back.
"D-don't. You absolutely cannot enter the gallery until I say you can!"
"No one?"
"No one! It's a t-total secret. A super, super secret... If you try to peek behind my back, I won't forgive you, even if you are the Guild Leader..."
A threat from anyone else might have been different, but a threat from Sim Ah-ryeon was terrifying, so I quickly made myself scarce.
If anyone wishes to know the reason for my fear, please refer to the list of posts made on SG Net by [OldManGoryeo] and [Saintess of the North] in the slightly earlier episodes.
"Saintess, do you know anything?"
[No.]
I exchanged telepathic messages with the real Saintess, not the fake one, but I didn't get much.
[Ms. Ah-ryeon made me promise not to peek either.]
"She's already been holed up in the gallery for four days without a word... I'm getting worried."
After the demolition was postponed, Sim Ah-ryeon had surrounded the entire exhibition hall with a white tent. Then she went inside and started working on something with tapping and clicking sounds.
She had cut off all contact and communication with others.
Twice a day, when I placed a meal at the gallery entrance, a hand would shoot out from the tent as quick as a flash and snatch the meal tray.
The sliver of Sim Ah-ryeon's bare arm that I saw was completely covered in paint.
"From the looks of it, she's clearly working on something else inside the exhibition hall."
It was strange.
"But all the anomalies Ah-ryeon could possibly paint have already been completed as artworks. The exhibition ended well, too. What more could she be drawing."
[Perhaps she is painting a piece she wants to show only to you, Mr. Undertaker?]
The Saintess said in a gentle tone.
[Ms. Ah-ryeon surely knows how much you do for her.]
[So I suspect she might be preparing a kind of thank-you gift.]
"My goodness."
What a thoughtful gesture.
'Ah, our Ah-ryeon is becoming more and more human! This Guild Leader is so happy I could cry!'
Tears were, in fact, streaming down my face.
[...You truly are devoted to Ms. Ah-ryeon, Mr. Undertaker.]
"Well, as an intellectual, I can't help but be moved, since I'm witnessing the evolution of an ape into a human in real time."
[Pardon?]
"Yes?"
The promised week passed.
That morning, I was drinking a cafe au lait while brushing Ha-yul's hair.
I was feeling a little lonely without the green-haired coffee thief who always appeared like a ninja to steal her share of caffeine, when.
Ping!
A notification popped up on my smartphone.
– Saintess of the North: Mr. Barista.
Sim Ah-ryeon had sent a message.
It was a private, secret message sent to the 'Admin-Only Chatroom,' which only members of the Regression Alliance could access, an internet chatroom we had set up using Seo Gyu's SG Net ability.
I skillfully turned on the one-on-one secret chat function and replied.
– ZERO_SUGAR: What?
– Saintess of the North: Respectfully, the preparations are complete. I request that Mr. Barista come alone to the designated place tonight at 11 PM.
– ZERO_SUGAR: OK
So the preparations were finally done.
'This is making me strangely excited.'
The thought that I might receive a proper gift from the green-haired coffee thief for the first time in my life mixed excitement and pride, creating a cocktail called fondness.
Ping!
– Saintess of the North: Furthermore, a strict dress code will be in effect at the location. Please refrain from using the seven-colored perfume you usually wear.
– Saintess of the North: I will see you tonight then.
I paused for a moment at the follow-up message.
First, I wondered what on earth was the correlation between a dress code and perfume.
But more than that, it was because an intangible sense of foreboding was creeping out from between the casually arranged words.
"..."
When night fell, I went to the exhibition hall.
The 11 PM of today felt quite different from the 11 PM of the past.
In the past, the dazzling modern civilization forced insomnia upon people, but now, the entirety of Busan was shrouded in quiet silence, except for the area around the casino.
"Ah."
That was why Sim Ah-ryeon's gallery, the only place in the area where lights swayed brightly, looked just like a bug zapper lamp or a fishing light on the night sea.
"W-welcome... Guild Leader!"
Sim Ah-ryeon was…
She was waiting for me at the entrance of the exhibition hall.
For someone who had mentioned a dress code in the chatroom, the great artist's own attire was a mess.
Her whole body was splattered with paint, a complete disaster.
She had barely covered it with a doctor's gown, but even the white gown was stained with paint here and there.
However.
"Ah-ryeon, that thing in your pocket is..."
"Ah?!"
Sim Ah-ryeon hastily shoved the bridal veil peeking out of her doctor's gown pocket back inside.
"Th-this is a secret! A secret!"
"You've been saying it's a secret for a whole week, and there's another secret now?"
"Yes! Ugh, I-I was really pressed for time. It reminded me of my graduation exhibition deadline for the first time in a while. I don't have those dreams much these days, but before, whenever my condition got a little bad, I'd always have nightmares about my gr-graduation exhibition..."
Sim Ah-ryeon suddenly came closer and sniffed me. There was no context for it, but she often did things like this.
In the first place, overt 'speech' and 'language' didn't hold much meaning for Sim Ah-ryeon.
"Ah. Y-you didn't wear it... The scent."
"I didn't realize you disliked that perfume. You never showed it before."
"Hm? Oh, I don't dislike it. It's just that if you smelled like that today, Guild Leader, it might have been a bit of a problem..."
"Why?"
"What? Ummm. That scent is p-proof that Guild Leader is always thinking of Ms. Yu Ji-won in a corner of your mind, isn't it. Ehehe."
Sim Ah-ryeon laughed as if she were embarrassed.
"So it would have been a d-distraction to viewing the exhibition. An interference with immersion. It's distracting. So I got rid of it."
"..."
Question:
Does Sim Ah-ryeon dislike Yu Ji-won?
Answer:
No. That is impossible.
Counter-question:
Is there anyone in particular whom Sim Ah-ryeon dislikes?
Response:
No. That is impossible.
Interrogation:
Why is it impossible?
Reply:
Because while one can dislike cockroaches as a whole, to single out and hate or detest just one particular cockroach would be a very strange thing to do.
"P-please come in, Guild Leader. I worked really hard on this all night for a week! Ho-honestly, I think these are the masterworks of my life."
Sim Ah-ryeon suddenly grabbed my hand and led me inside.
Into the gallery. Into a labyrinth of vision, blocked on all sides by temporary walls and white canvas.
"Ta-da, ta, ta-daaaa..."
The exhibition that had received nothing but praise from all walks of life, from the National Road Director to influential guild leaders, Awakened, and even ordinary people.
All the paintings in that place had been painted over in black.
Chaotically. Messily. Like graffiti.
The paintings that had so brilliantly depicted the anomalies were all ruined.
The works that some would have paid a fortune to add to their collections were gone, and in their place, hideously distorted 'overpaintings' were coiled.
"..."
My mouth went dry.
"What... is this, Ah-ryeon?"
"Yes?"
It was a natural question.
It was no exaggeration to say that the portraits enshrined in this gallery were originally the last treasures produced by the art world of humanity. And to think she had spent a week painstakingly ruining them like this.
But upon hearing my natural question, Sim Ah-ryeon made an unnatural expression, muttering, 'Ummm'.
It was similar to before.
When I had asked 'Why?' about not wearing the perfume. In fact, her reaction back then was exactly the same as it was now.
It's strange.
Why does Guild Leader keep asking me things he already knows?
"Even if you ask... what it is. Well. I-it's how the anomalies look from Guild Leader's perspective... isn't it."
My heart pounded.
I barely managed to calm the trembling of my tongue.
"You're saying this is how I... see the anomalies?"
"Yes."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well... Because you have Complete Memory, Guild Leader?"
Sim Ah-ryeon tilted her head.
"M-memory is a form of association. It's not that different from sensation. An apple you see right now... and an apple you saw three years ago. From a person's perspective, it's all visual information."
"..."
"But for normal people, the present perception is much stronger. O-of course. The thing in front of your eyes is clear, but the apple in your memory is blurry and indistinct... B-but! You're different, Guild Leader!"
Sim Ah-ryeon continued.
Like a university student explaining her work in front of a panel of judges. Like a curator leading visitors to the true meaning of a painting.
With conviction.
"They're both... the same... aren't they?"
"Ehehe."
She laughed.
"Um, for exaample... Here! Here, the Ten Legs!"
The painting of the Ten Legs had also changed drastically from what I saw a week ago at the 'Day Exhibition.'
In the portrait of the Ten Legs hanging in the 'Night Exhibition,' the corpse of Dang Seo-rin was depicted for some reason, her chest pierced and her limbs severed.
"B-because of the Ten Legs, something very precious to you died, didn't it, Guild Leader. Because you have Complete Memory. For normal people, the object in front of them is just the object in front of them... and memory is memory. Well, of course they can overlap, but the clarity and blurriness are so distinct that they can be separated..."
She brought me in front of the massive painting.
Sim Ah-ryeon brought her hands together, palms touching.
"But not you, Guild Leader. Y-you can't do that. Because you literally have Complete Memory... The present Ten Legs and the past Ten Legs are perceived as completely equal, 'overlapping.'"
"..."
"I-I think it's amazing. Picasso's Cubism was an attempt to paint human perception by overlapping not just the present, but also the realms of recollection and prediction, but h-honestly, that was something imagined with the 'head.' It's not like the p-past, present, and future appeared to the artist with equal color and tone... It's a bit… lame. For a theme that pursued fundamental intuition, the m-method to reach it was ultimately intellect, not sensation. But... not you, Guild Leader! You're total human Cubism!"
"..."
"Wh-when you see one Ten Legs. Assuming this is the 1,000th cycle. You're looking at a whopping 1,000 Ten Legs at the same time! Weell. In most regressions, the behavior of the Ten Legs would have been similar, so even if it's 1,000, they'd probably blend into some clumps... Ehehe. I'm so jealous, Guild Leader."
Sim Ah-ryeon squirmed.
"Guild Leader, you're a… a living, moving exhibition hall. You're different from the kids who just talk about how their intuition is special or whatever. You, Guild Leader, are, fwah. The real deal..."
"..."
"Umm. But it's strange. Why do you keep telling me to paint from 'other people's perspectives' and not 'your own perspective'? Y-your perspective is so much. Soo much, a million, ten million times more interesting..."
My throat was parched.
My mouth had long since become a desert.
The thick saliva that pooled under my tongue felt not like the moisture I craved, but like a swamp pulling my tongue down.
"How..."
"Well, because I was thinking of you, Guild Leader?"
It was an immediate answer.
There wasn't even a need to finish the sentence, 'How did you know?'
Because in Sim Ah-ryeon's mind, my lines were already being completed automatically.
"Every single day."
Skip. A conversational shortcut.
It was something that often happened when I was talking with Sim Ah-ryeon alone.
As I said, overt 'speech' and 'language' didn't hold much meaning for her.
"I… I'm actually always amazed by you, Guild Leader. You must see everything. You must be seeing it. How can you a-act so perfectly..."
"See everything?"
"Us, in our dead forms."
"..."
"You can see them, can't you? Even now."
Thump. Sim Ah-ryeon came closer.
"L-like being decapitated. Or having our limbs torn off by an anomaly. Bloodstains. All those things, all those memories, you must see them clearly, right before your eyes."
"..."
"A-amazing, Guild Leader! Actually, your acting skills might be your most amazing talent, even more than your intuition..."
Fumble, fumble.
Sim Ah-ryeon took something out of her doctor's gown pocket. The bridal veil she had crumpled up earlier.
It was the veil from a Saintess's habit.
"U-umm. Sooo. Ah. There."
Sim Ah-ryeon unfolded the veil this way and that before placing it on her head.
Click, clack.
She walked down the gallery corridor, and in the very center, beneath the largest painting, Sim Ah-ryeon knelt down.
Artwork Title:
'World Tree Udumbara.'
On the painting where vibrant petals should have been dancing wildly.
Brushstrokes were painted over, and the 'corpses' of Sim Ah-ryeon were drawn, her limbs all twisted like dead trees.
Like an afterstory of Sim Ah-ryeon, fallen to corruption while fending off the Monster Wave.
"..."
I could recognize it.
No. In this world, only I could immerse myself in the true meaning of the masterpieces in this 'Night Exhibition.'
"Every time you brush m-my hair, Guild Leader."
Sim Ah-ryeon, kneeling with her back to me, murmured softly.
"I can feel it. So many... emotions. Sadness. Resentment. Sorry. Gratitude. Really, really dense emotions..."
"..."
"So I thought. Ah, come to think of it. I must have been active as the Saintess of the North in the Final Defensive War. Since the Eastern Holy State would have participated. Then I would have worn a Saintess's habit... The sight of me becoming corrupted. I couldn't let the believers see that, right? Ah, so I'd wear something like a veil that covers even my head. So."
The shoulders of the kneeling Sim Ah-ryeon, her back turned to me, trembled slightly.
"Ehehe. I thought, this is probably what I looked like at the very end! What do you think? Am I right?"
"..."
"G-Guild Leader, now…"
Sim Ah-ryeon smiled.
"Brush… my hair, please."
-x-X-x-
The Exhibitor III
Reminiscence.
I am always thinking about how I can be truthful to all of you.
I must confess now, there was a rather desperate reason why I hired the 'ghostwriter' known as Oh Dok-seo.
Was it merely to subjugate Infinite Metagame? That was part of it, but that wasn't the only reason.
I was fundamentally unsuited to writing the story of my own life.
I couldn't be any other way.
Far down the street, the back of someone you know is walking. So you quicken your pace and call their name.
"Ah."
That person turns around.
"Undertaker. What a coincidence. Are you going somewhere?"
A daily occurrence. A normal reaction. A natural response.
However, for me, who possesses the [Complete Memory] ability, such a thing never happens.
That person.
"Ah" "Vice Guild Leader?" "Undertaker" "I knew you'd come" "Why are you so late?" "I've been curious since we first met… what is that staff?" "What a coincidence" "Hm? Oh, it was you? Sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment" "What, that outfit again? I told you not to wear it because it's so dreary" "You really are always wearing a barista uniform" "Are you going somewhere?"
They look back at me. They keep walking, as if they didn't hear. They smile brightly. They blush and grin. They snort as if it's absurd. They playfully jab my side with their elbow. They clasp their hands behind their back.
Now, after more than 1,000 regressions.
There are over 1,000 versions of you.
"…"
Complete Memory.
The coexistence of the past and the present.
Within the scene that unfolds before my eyes like a kaleidoscope, I am like an archaeologist, brushing away the sands of the past to separate them from the present.
I snatch up 'this cycle'.
How can I possibly convey this feeling to you all?
I select the most appropriate vision that fits the context of the present moment.
In a way, you could say that I immersed myself and 'acted' as the me of this regression.
It is so natural to me that there are many aspects that are, conversely, difficult to explain.
"…"
Sometime ago.
"Mister. I'm sorry, but this is… unusable."
Oh Dok-seo said, picking up my manuscript.
Yes. Originally, I had no intention of leaving the novel's writing entirely to her. I had planned to help with a significant portion.
What Oh Dok-seo was holding was my first draft.
"What do you mean, unusable? Why?"
"Well… for a single line of dialogue, there are a thousand lines overlapping. Also, at this point in the novel, we should be telling the story of the 20th cycle, but there's dialogue that appears much later, around the 400th cycle. If it's like this, the readers can't follow."
"But Dokseo."
I said.
"This is the truth, for me."
"…"
Oh Dok-seo's expression distorted.
"If my truthful world seems bizarre in your eyes. Then perhaps I really have already degenerated into an anomaly."
"…"
A long silence followed.
Oh Dok-seo took off her hat.
"…No."
She opened her laptop, unclasped her hands, and looked straight at me.
"That's not it. Mister, you just became an awakener with an ability called Complete Memory. You just rolled through hundreds of regressions because you didn't give up, and the result of that is becoming an anomaly? I can never accept something like that."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I'll edit it for you."
Oh Dok-seo put on her glasses.
It was a tool she only wore when writing her novel alone, saying for some reason that she didn't like showing her face with glasses to others.
"There's no reason anywhere for you to lie to the readers, Mister. Just tell me things as they are. Instead, I'll edit it in my own way—as much as possible, as sequentially as possible."
"…"
"You said I'm not just the priestess of Infinite Metagame, but your priestess too, right? This is perfect. That's originally the role of a priestess, isn't it? An intermediary. To interpret and translate the language of a god."
I am always thinking about how I can be truthful to all of you.
"Let's share the truth."
"..."
"Your truth is your own, Mister. I'll also be faithful to my truth. The friction that arises between the two, the narrative errors, I'll take full responsibility for all of it."
That was my editor.
That was the solution Oh Dok-seo presented.
"But… okay. I finally understand."
"Understand what?"
"I was curious how you could tread the same path hundreds of times without getting tired. Where that mentality came from."
A bitter smile crossed Oh Dok-seo's lips.
"From your perspective, Mister, the same route isn't all that bad. Why? Because it's easier when people's reactions are the same. It eliminates the 'need to distinguish only this regression from the hundreds of other people'."
"…"
"Of course, since you're human too, there must be times you get tired. At those times, you create a 'regression that will never overlap with other regressions'. Well. Either way, there's a common point in making the other person's reaction into 'one'."
I nodded my head.
"But there is one problem."
"Hm? What problem?"
"Didn't we decide that I would be in charge of the descriptions of you?"
"Ah. Um. In that case, just try to follow the way I wrote the novel."
Oh Dok-seo shrugged her shoulders.
"It doesn't really matter if you lie a little to the readers about me, right? I'm just an editor, anyway. Originally, I'm a presence that shouldn't even be revealed at the forefront of the novel."
"Hmm."
"In the Regression Alliance, I'm a bit of a clown anyway. I don't really have any desire to show my true self to the readers."
"Will you be okay with that?"
"Yes. That's what I want."
And so it was.
"I will never let you be treated like an anomaly, Mister."
Oh Dok-seo's eyes shone with a red light.
"I've decided. In the novel I'm going to write, all the story titles will end with 'Ja'."
"Ja?"
"Yes. The character for person, 者. In the end, this will be a story of a person, a story of a person meeting another person."
"…"
I held back a smile at that grandiose declaration.
"For something like that, it seems you haven't followed it very well."
"Huh?"
"Like 'The Monad' (單子). Or 'The Potato' (감자). In the first case, it's the character for son (子), and in the second case, it's just pure Hangeul."
Oh Dok-seo's head tilted.
And her lips parted.
"What are you talking about?" "Ah, jeez. That was like a short story collection! Make an exception!" "I never wrote a chapter like that?" "Potato (Gamja) was a title that omitted the 'si' from Gamsija (Watcher). And it was a pun that meant potato at the same time. In reality it's Potato, so I wasn't wrong anyway" "The character for son is similar to the character for person, so shouldn't it be fine?" "Sorry, mister" "I didn't understand what you just said" "What did you mean?"
"…"
I smiled.
"It's nothing."
"Honestly, Mister. As if it's not enough that you have the protagonist attribute, you're always muttering nonsense or talking to yourself."
"…"
Reminiscence.
To me, a reminiscence was the same as the present.
Life was always an epilogue.
――Every time I faced the Ten Legs.
There, I saw not only the teeming tentacles but also the figures of my comrades.
There was Dang Seo-rin, her head severed. There was Old Man Scho, his chest pierced. There was Yu Ji-won, who had pushed me aside and died in my place. In all sorts of ways, my comrades who had died in each cycle were collapsed at the tips of the tentacles, under the grasp of the Ten Legs.
"Undertaker…" "Doc!" "Your Excellency," "Run" "At least you" "I'll cover the back!" "Please, my last words" "We've been annihilated" "Vice Guild Leader!" "Sorry" "For getting you caught up in this" "Another failure" "The defense line," "…" "I'm sorry" "Will you tell the next me?"
This world hated humanity.
The anomalies were insulting humans.
They were even desecrating the deaths of humans.
I could not forget.
I could not run away.
I simply could not forgive.
I had been seen through by Sim Ah-ryeon.
A secret that only Oh Dok-seo had known. A truth that I had even told Oh Dok-seo myself first, Sim Ah-ryeon had figured it out entirely on her own.
It was a surprising thing.
But for some reason. In a corner of my heart, there was also a feeling that it was 'natural'.
Sim Ah-ryeon ate human emotions. As a joke, I had described her a few times as 'the bird that drinks poison', but in truth, she was closer to 'the bird that drinks emotions'.
Before Sim Ah-ryeon, every human could not help but reveal their true, bare face.
For example.
– Can I take a picture? Miss artist?
That visitor's request, which sounded perfectly ordinary on the surface, might have sounded completely different to Sim Ah-ryeon's ears.
Because the color changed depending on what kind of emotion was held.
Was it pure fan adoration? Did they want to brag to someone? Was it to spread her personal information on SG Net by pretending it was a mistake. Was it lust?
Whatever it was, Sim Ah-ryeon 'felt' it.
Since Sim Ah-ryeon's intelligence was by no means low, she could also guess the events that would follow based on the emotions she felt.
So she answered.
– Pardon? No. I absolutely hate the idea…
– Eh.
– Eh.
The reaction was misaligned.
A frictional sound. Noise was generated.
An irreparable gap had opened up between the world Sim Ah-ryeon perceived and the world people walked in.
It was the same when having a conversation.
– Hahh, i-it was really tight. It reminded me of the deadline for the graduation exhibition for the first time in a while. I don't have those dreams much these days, but before, whenever my condition got a little bad, I always had, had nightmares about the graduation exhibition…
Even when the other person was quietly listening to her story, Sim Ah-ryeon could actually see the other person's emotions 'reacting in real time'.
So from Sim Ah-ryeon's perspective, a 'person who quietly listens without a word' in the truest sense did not exist.
Instead, it was like this.
– Hahh, (Why is she moaning) i-it was really tight. (What was tight) It reminded me of the deadline for the graduation exhibition for the first time in a while. (Graduation exhibition?) I don't have those dreams much these days, but before, whenever my condition got a little bad, I always had (Condition?) ha-had nightmares about the graduation exhibition…
Therefore, she couldn't help but stutter.
Because the other people were constantly questioning her back with their emotions. Reacting. Too quickly.
Matching that tempo, Sim Ah-ryeon was swayed this way and that by the ever-changing context, repeating her words as if rambling.
Now, a certain contradiction would be understood.
Q. Why does Sim Ah-ryeon not stutter at all when she is playing the part of the Saintess of the North?
A. Because she does not need to answer the other person sincerely. Without needing to have a 'conversation', she just needs to perform the role given to her.
It was similar in essence.
The me with Complete Memory, and Sim Ah-ryeon who lived by drinking emotions, we were both detached from the world.
…People might blame Sim Ah-ryeon, asking why she doesn't wash her hair, why she walks around so messily.
But Sim Ah-ryeon herself would probably want to ask the complete opposite.
'You all are leaking emotions everywhere, you know?'
Washing one's hair and dressing neatly.
That was, in essence, the act of covering up one's appearance because you 'want to look good' to others, because you 'don't want to be criticized'.
But before Sim Ah-ryeon, there was no use in covering anything up. Everyone was, in a sense, walking around stark naked.
Our values were different.
Our perspectives were different.
So, it was perhaps natural that my most secret truth was seen through by Sim Ah-ryeon of all people.
Because we were two of a kind.
"Ehehe…"
Rustle.
While I was combing her hair, Sim Ah-ryeon, with her back turned to me, laughed softly.
"I-it's nice…"
I didn't ask, what is?
Sim Ah-ryeon was responding 'it's nice' to my own feeling of seeing her as a kindred spirit.
Unlike people who live bound by words and sentences, between the two of us, language was always nothing more than a secondary tool.
"When did you notice?"
"Ah. Uum. Th-that, Guild Leader… You don't feel lust under any circumstances."
"?"
This time, an unexpected answer came back.
"Lust?"
"Yeees… I-it's strange, isn't it. So I thought about it. I mean, every time you see people, you see piles and piles of corpses layered on top of them… There's no way something like lust would arise."
"…"
"Because you are a normal person, Guild Leader."
A bitter smile formed on my face.
It was truly difficult to hide anything in front of this child.
With this, not only my attribute of 'monologuing', which I had disguised under the pretext of the conventions of genre fiction, but even the cliché of the 'asexual protagonist' had been seen through.
"People… are really strange, aren't they."
"Please try to understand them."
"Yes. But, it's a problem you can solve by just imagining it simply, isn't it? You remember everything perfectly. Then how would the world look. You drink emotions. Then what would happen… I-it's so easy."
Sim Ah-ryeon leaned the back of her head against my chest.
"O-only you did it, Guild Leader. That."
"…For me too, only you have been like this. They are truly wonderful paintings. Thank you."
"Ehehe."
"Still, Ah-ryeon-ah. There are many times when people don't know unless you tell them."
"Even though you knew, Guild Leader?"
"That is…"
"I don't really need other people."
Sim Ah-ryeon looked up at me.
"I am… happy. Guild Leader."
"..."
"The exhibition. It was nice to hold it after a long time. But those people just revere me after seeing my paintings, right? Uum. I mean, Guild Leader… it wouldn't matter if I could never paint for the rest of my life, right?"
"That's right."
"Yes."
The combing stopped.
It wasn't me who stopped. Sim Ah-ryeon had leaned completely against me, so I could no longer comb her hair.
"You don't have to try to fill the hole in my heart, i-it's okay, Guild Leader."
From under my chin.
Sim Ah-ryeon was looking up at me.
"It's not because I have a deficiency in my heart… or because I have a memory of losing someone. Th-that's not why I like you, Guild Leader."
"…"
"I like you because you are you, Guild Leader. Whether I can't draw, or I cause trouble… it doesn't matter. Just like how I am still me to you, Guild Leader."
Sim Ah-ryeon raised both her arms and wrapped them around my neck. And she buried her head in my chest.
"Aside from the two of us, h-honestly, no one will understand this exhibition but…"
In the quiet night of the exhibition hall.
Beneath all the frames stained with anomalies. In the middle of a gallery where the thousands upon thousands of deaths I had witnessed were all listed.
Sim Ah-ryeon smiled.
"I think it's truly… beautiful."