──────
"..."
A torn-off arm. A severed leg.
It was far too cruel to call a fashion anyone would willingly wear, yet that was Sim Ah-ryeon's outerwear.
The Undertaker paused for a moment, then muttered.
"...No. Ah-ryeon. You can grow an arm or a leg back in an instant now with your healing ability, can't you? So why are you suddenly doing that one-legged, one-armed cosplay?"
"Aah."
Sim Ah-ryeon grinned ear to ear.
"S, sorry! I forgot!"
"Sure you did. Liar. What idiot in this world forgets that their own arms and legs got blown off?"
"Ehehe."
Sim Ah-ryeon stroked her opposite shoulder with her remaining hand.
"It's just, um. If my limbs aren't all in one piece like this, the people who come to, you know, do me harm, they flinch a little."
"..."
"I, interesting, right? Haaah. Even people who lost family to the anomalies and storm in furious, the moment they actually see me looking like this, they hesitate. Ah. Not everyone, of course. About sixty percent...?"
I see.
The Undertaker nodded.
"A kind of filter, then. It screens out whether someone carries emotion dense enough to keep spitting rage and resentment even while looking at you in that state."
"Yes!"
Ten years ago.
The instant the Undertaker learned that Sim Ah-ryeon possessed the 'ability to drink emotion,' he set to work in earnest on 'raising Sim Ah-ryeon.'
The premise of the project was simple. All the desperate, brutal events unfolding across the present world, he pinned the blame for every one of them on a single human being named Sim Ah-ryeon.
To pull the project off, the Undertaker marshaled every scrap of knowledge he had.
He used the authority of the Infinite Metagame, a 'real Constellation,' and on top of that he exploited the powers of the Saintess, a 'fake Constellation.'
And so was fabricated the worst of all enemies, humanity's traitor, the Miko of ten thousand anomalies.
The villain known by the alias of the Necromancer.
The very Sim Ah-ryeon standing before him.
['The Saintess of National Salvation' congratulates you on the subjugation of the Ten Legs.]
['The Saintess of National Salvation,' however, frets that the Necromancer who called the Ten Legs down upon the earth is still scheming in the shadows.]
He made quests.
['The Conquerer of the Alps' lavishes praise on the warriors who subjugated the Meteor Shower.]
['The Conquerer of the Alps' reports that the Necromancer, defeated, has fled to the Japanese archipelago.]
He composed scenarios.
The story the Undertaker fabricated was simple. He had merely placed the 'Necromancer' Sim Ah-ryeon behind every major incident in the world.
She summoned the Ten Legs. She spread the Udumbara virus. She called down the Meteor Shower. She birthed the Monster Wave.
She, she, she...
She, above all, was absolute evil.
['The Saintess of National Salvation' blesses the awakeners before the final battle!]
Naturally.
This cycle's humanity began to gather its collective will toward eliminating a single absolute evil.
Not a soul suspected the scenario was fabricated.
Even within the Regression Alliance, only the Saintess, apart from the Undertaker, knew the truth.
Because it was an age when everyone needed an object for their resentment.
Because the very hologram the awakeners forever summoned with a whispered 'status window!' had been in the grip of the Infinite Metagame, dancing to the Undertaker's will from the start.
Because the Infinite Metagame, having devoured even the authorities of the Endless and the puppet master, had arrayed an endless, countless host of zombies around the 'final boss' Sim Ah-ryeon.
That majesty. That army. That healing ability that mended endlessly no matter the wound, far beyond anything a human could possess.
It was a disguise more than sufficient, more than excessive, to deceive humanity.
['The Conquerer of the Alps' declares the victory of the Human Allied Forces!]
And so, not long ago, the allied forces, braving countless sacrifices, succeeded in subjugating the Necromancer.
The awakeners who had lost family and comrades were out of their minds. The ordinary people who counted awakeners as family and comrades were stained with the same madness.
They craved Sim Ah-ryeon's death. A festival of blood. Above all, an execution as agonizing as one could imagine.
But.
['The Chancellor of the Red Cape' prophesies that if the Necromancer is killed carelessly, a curse beyond death will blanket the earth.]
['The Saintess of National Salvation' frets that, while she understands your rage, you must not be toyed by the Necromancer's tricks to the very last.]
Simultaneous warnings from several Constellations.
When the voices that had faithfully guided humanity until now restrained them all at once, even the people whose eyes had gone bloodshot regained their reason.
No. Could that be called reason?
The false Constellation had been brainwashed by the Undertaker. And humanity, in turn, had been brainwashed by the Constellations.
Their judgment. Their courage. Their war. Their blood-spitting rage, and even their reasons for swallowing that rage. Their epic.
All of it.
There was nothing the Undertaker had not engineered.
-Let us think of it as a blessing in disguise.
A few years earlier, the Undertaker had spoken before the leadership of the Human Allied Forces.
-Look back on the atrocities this one has committed all this time. A simple death may not satisfy us.
-Then what is it you propose we do, nya?
While the other officers held their silence, Manyo Neko of the Magical Girl Association answered back on their behalf.
Manyo Neko had lost a dear friend during the war with the Necromancer. Weeping tears of blood, she had tried to tear the Necromancer apart limb from limb, and the magical girls around her had barely managed to hold her back.
-Consider the nature of this Necromancer.
The Undertaker seized Sim Ah-ryeon by the head and lifted her up.
A hiccupping moan. Even so, the corners of her mouth still curled in that silly grin, and the awakeners of the Human Allied Forces glared at Sim Ah-ryeon with eyes full of revulsion.
-No matter how much you wound her, she regenerates at once. Unless you blow her head clean off in a single stroke, she won't die easily.
-So what are you getting at, nya?
-We have surely marched all the way to this hell as humanity's representatives. But does that give us the right to stand in for all of humanity's hatred?
The Undertaker declared,
-Let us keep her alive. So that anyone, whenever they wish, as much as they wish, may take out their grudge on the Necromancer.
-...
-It won't be atonement. But won't it at least be a release?
It was a sweet thing to say.
If sweetness could ever linger in blood, anyway.
The Undertaker's tongue ended up bewitching the awakeners after all.
They believed, firm as iron, that executing the Necromancer rashly would call down an unprecedented curse no matter what.
If the main dish was wrecked, then claiming at least the dessert felt like nothing less than a victor's rightful due.
-But, Undertaker. I'm not confident I won't just kill her if I'm left alone with that son of a bitch, nya. And there are more than a few people as pissed off as me, nya.
-There is a way.
-What is it, nya?
-I will entrust the Necromancer's management to Yu Ji-won.
-...
-Even when venting grudge and rage on the Necromancer, it must always be done in front of Yu Ji-won, while she watches.
The awakeners turned to look at Yu Ji-won.
And every last one of them nodded. Indeed. That psychopath without a drop of blood or tears would manage the Necromancer's life splendidly.
And so two years passed.
"Yu Ji-won."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"There are no more visitors for today, correct?"
"Correct, Your Excellency. The heat has been severe lately, so I've been arranging the schedule to wrap up business in the morning where possible."
In the beginning, Sim Ah-ryeon's door had been thronged with those who wished to take revenge on the Necromancer, humanity's traitor.
But around the two-year mark the schedule gradually loosened. Murderous intent and hatred were emotions too, and it wasn't easy for a human to sustain a single emotion forever.
Above all, revenge against the Necromancer permitted, quite literally, only the kind of torture that ground her arms and legs to pulp.
Those who tried to approach the Necromancer with other intentions under the guise of revenge, Yu Ji-won screened out at her own discretion.
Torture was work that demanded evil of the perpetrator too, and there weren't many people willing to prescribe themselves such a deadly poison.
"Ms. Manyo Neko did put in a reservation for this evening. But she's the same all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, so I expect she'll grant us this one day's grace."
"I see. Then I'll contact Manyo Neko separately. I'll book Sim Ah-ryeon's evening myself today."
"As you say. Dispose of it however you wish, Your Excellency."
The Undertaker looked at Sim Ah-ryeon.
"..."
Why was it? Even as the two of them talked, Sim Ah-ryeon kept watching the Undertaker with a beaming, simpering smile across her whole face.
What on earth was so wonderful about all this? The Undertaker frowned, not wanting to understand.
"...If you haven't developed some obsession with caterpillar cosplay, heal yourself already. If you're going to go around in that state, I've got no choice but to, what, carry you piggyback or something."
"Aah. P, piggyback. You'll give me a piggyback ride?"
"Dream on."
"Heehee. Yaah...! Trans! Form!"
The moment Sim Ah-ryeon called out playfully, there came a slithering sound.
From the cut faces of her severed limbs, masses of flesh grew out like vines. The vines wove and tangled together and at once formed the shape of arms and legs.
Sim Ah-ryeon sprang to her feet.
"Boom! Pow!"
"..."
No one laughed.
The Undertaker pressed his lips shut, and to bury the fact that he had pressed his lips shut he hurried to speak.
"Here. Put on some new clothes."
"Ah. This is... M, more of a hijab than clothes? It's basically just a cloak...?"
"Would you rather walk around with your bare face out? The citizens would throw stones at you the moment they saw you. I've never made a hobby of getting stoned over one traveling companion."
The Undertaker turned his back and stepped out of the alley. It was his way of giving her space to change.
"Your Excellency."
Yu Ji-won, too, left Sim Ah-ryeon behind and followed him.
"There's something I need to tell you."
"You can speak freely."
"It's about the healing ability the Necromancer just displayed."
A glance. Yu Ji-won checked the depths of the alley for a moment, then dropped her voice as low as it would go.
"Just a little while ago, she couldn't put out that kind of output."
"What?"
"Didn't the Necromancer say something about deliberately not healing her arms and legs to stir up sympathy for herself?"
"She did."
"But that's not it. In reality, she wanted to heal but had no battery left to do it with. With her limbs being shaved down and crushed every single day, even that seemingly infinite healing ability had a limit."
"..."
The Undertaker blinked. That was how unexpected it was.
"No. What are you saying? You witnessed it up close too, Yu Ji-won. Her arms and legs recovering fully in under ten seconds."
"Yes. That's exactly why I'm raising the matter."
"Didn't Sim Ah-ryeon just lie to you? Pretending her healing power was all drained. That girl acts better than you'd think. You have to consider the possibility that you were fooled."
"Hm. I am considering it, of course."
Yu Ji-won stroked her chin.
"Still, Your Excellency. I pride myself, for what it's worth, on a natural gift for telling truth from falsehood. As for why a person who only this morning was wilting, barely enduring the torture, suddenly flits about full of energy the moment Your Excellency arrives, that I find hard to guess."
"..."
The Undertaker's heart stirred.
Again. Again, that unpleasant feeling came over him.
Like the moment he first met Sim Ah-ryeon and draped a doctor's coat over her, like the ten years he spent brainwashing the Saintess.
Deep waters. The sea where he had dropped a heavy anchor in his heart kicked up black waves.
'Now that I think of it, even the Saintess fretting over Sim Ah-ryeon out of nowhere this morning, was that already strange?'
The Saintess too would have been monitoring Sim Ah-ryeon from time to time with her Clairvoyance.
It wasn't something to brush off easily. Both the Saintess and Yu Ji-won were reporting the same anomalous signs.
And as far as the Undertaker knew, the two of them still ranked among the most trustworthy awakeners.
"...I understand your concern."
"I beg forgiveness for daring to trouble Your Excellency's mind with such presumptuous words."
"It's fine. That's your role. As I said, I'll keep Sim Ah-ryeon with me today, so you go on home."
"Thank you, Your Excellency."
Yu Ji-won gave a crisp salute and turned to leave. Not a word of complaint. Even in an age like this, she carried herself like the trusted aide who still held the Undertaker's favor.
"...What a mess this all is."
The Undertaker drew out a cigarette and put it to his lips. On the surface it looked like an ordinary cigarette, but it was in fact a special blend crafted by the Alchemist Uehara Shino.
A little while later.
"Ehehe... I, I'm all dressed!"
"Mm."
Wrapped head to toe, Sim Ah-ryeon poked her head out of the alley.
Dressed like that, no one would recognize her. The Undertaker took out an ashtray and asked.
"So. Anything you want to eat? Worst case I can rent out a restaurant for us, so say whatever you like."
"I, I want to eat something the Guild Leader cooked with his own hands... Ah. W, wait a second!"
"...?"
Sim Ah-ryeon came hurrying over. Then she snatched the cigarette from the Undertaker's hand and, of all things, pressed its tip against her own forearm.
The Undertaker froze.
Sssss. The faint sound of searing flesh trailed through the alley like a lingering echo.
"..."
"Ehehe."
Sim Ah-ryeon was watching the Undertaker's face just like that.
With eyes crinkled into a smile.
"N, now let's go! Guild Leader..."
"..."
They arrived at the Azit.
Walking over while trying to avoid the citizens' eyes where he could, the Undertaker turned things over in his head the whole way.
'Ah-ryeon, you said you eat people's emotions.'
'There's no emotion more intense than the grief and hatred of people who have lost family and comrades. So your ability ought to grow stronger.'
'Why has it weakened, then?'
'Did I build the Strategy Guide wrong? Or is Sim Ah-ryeon deceiving Yu Ji-won and the Saintess, and beyond them, me?'
But every line of worry came to nothing.
A stifling feeling, somehow never quite hitting the core, had welled up in his heart. Like filth backed up and overflowing from faulty drainage.
"Hwaah. A, as expected. The tteokbokki[1] the Guild Leader makes himself is the best!"
The filth's uneasy stench didn't fade even after he brought Sim Ah-ryeon to the Azit and cooked up this dish and that, even when they sat across from each other at the table.
A tilt of the head. Sim Ah-ryeon, munching down tempura with her tteokbokki, cocked her head.
"Hm? G, Guild Leader, you're not eating?"
"No."
"B, but it's this delicious. Mm. Then I'll eat all these fried dumplings myself! Strangely, there's a flavor only these cheap fried dumplings that come with tteokbokki have, this damp, chewy thing..."
"Ah-ryeon."
"Y, yes?"
"Why does your healing ability recover properly only when you meet me?"
"You already know."
Nom.
Sim Ah-ryeon leaned over, forking up even the Undertaker's share and eating it as if it were nothing, and answered.
"D, does that part really need explaining? Honestly?"
"Explain it."
"It's because the Guild Leader is the one whose emotions surge most violently when he looks at me."
"..."
"Other people's emotions are, how do I put it... Mm. It's a bit funny when you think about it, isn't it? Going on about how precious their family and comrades were, and then mixing up the real culprit who drove their family to death... Farmed fish? Stuck in an aquarium, thinking the place they live is the real sea? It makes me laugh just watching, and when I laugh, they get even angrier..."
His chest.
"Honestly, the Ten Legs, the Guild Leader could subjugate them alone if you went all out, couldn't you? The Meteor Shower too... But you deliberately had other people do the subjugating. So, um, there are victims, aren't there. After all. The people who died, too."
His heart.
"Which means... It's no different from the Guild Leader killing them. The truth is."
"..."
"B, but people think I killed them. Hwaah. The farmed fish and the bugs in their breeding tanks come thrashing and rubbing themselves against me... And honestly, taking it seriously is a teensy bit... much, right? Hehe."
The Undertaker pressed his lips shut.
This time he couldn't subdue the silence with words.
No. Even if he had subdued it, it would have meant nothing.
For all that the words went away.
"So that's just it," she said.
The filth that had filled his chest like a settling tank churned without rest.
"I don't live off the emotions of animals or bugs. I live off the emotions of people."
"..."
"And when the Guild Leader is the only person left in this world, isn't it only natural that my ability grows stronger when the Guild Leader is around...?"
Quietly.
Feeling stifled, the Undertaker, without thinking, laid a hand over the center of his chest.
His heart was beating.
Footnotes:
[1] Tteokbokki is a popular Korean street food of chewy cylindrical rice cakes simmered in a sweet-and-spicy gochujang (red chili paste) sauce, commonly served with fried side dishes like tempura and dumplings.
-x-X-x-
What is a human?
To this perilous, cliff-edge question, Sim Ah-ryeon had held her answer for a very long time.
A human meant Sim Ah-ryeon.
Only herself.
-Woof! Woof woof, woooof!
-...
Back when she was younger. Summer vacation.
There was a puppy abandoned by the roadside, its belly caked with dust. Sim Ah-ryeon just felt like it one day, so she picked it up and raised it.
-A, Ah-ryeon.
-Woof!
-Your name is Ah-ryeon...
Sim Ah-ryeon poured everything into that puppy.
No. Even "everything" fell short.
They slept in the same bed.
Since they couldn't eat at the same table, Sim Ah-ryeon set her own bowl on the floor too and crouched down to eat.
On their walks, wherever no one was around, she didn't walk on two legs but crawled on all fours.
She didn't just draw the puppy toward herself. She offered up her own existence to it as an equal.
Plainly, abnormal.
The phrase "raising a pet like a child" is almost always nothing but hyperbole.
But for Sim Ah-ryeon it was no metaphor, nothing of the sort, just a plain, simple fact.
The people around her looked at her like she was insane, but Sim Ah-ryeon didn't care in the slightest. Something else mattered to her back then.
-Th, this is... Love...
Yes. Sim Ah-ryeon was running an experiment.
On what? On what love is.
What feeling did people point to and call affection? What sort of resonance did attachment murmur inside her heart?
Whether she was a being allowed to love. Herself.
-Hmm. I'm not really sure...
-Woof woof woof!
-I heard somewhere that affection comes from deprivation. Come to think of it, our house. It isn't poor at all.
Maybe I'm just too well-off.
So Sim Ah-ryeon murmured.
And that night, after packing her sleeping bag and easel, she ran away from home with a single puppy as her only companion.
It was summer vacation.
Sim Ah-ryeon spread her sleeping bag beside an abandoned grave on a wild hill and lived there. A public restroom nearby let her steal water.
[Middle Schooler Genius Painter!]
[I'll Draw Your Caricature!]
She covered her costs with her drawings.
Sim Ah-ryeon knew her age and her skill made for plenty of advertising appeal, and she drifted between the local park and the riverside park, earning pocket money.
-Wow. You're really good at this!
-Hehehe. Th, thank you...
-But wasn't this supposed to be a portrait? It looks less like a portrait and more like some abstract piece. Really alien-looking.
-Huh? It, it is a portrait, though.
-?
-?
With the money she earned that way, Sim Ah-ryeon bought dog food.
That raising a single life took a fair bit of hard-earned money was something young Sim Ah-ryeon got to learn.
-Woooof!
The hot summer clouds were drifting by.
Even by her own measure, Sim Ah-ryeon prided herself on having tried about as much as she possibly could.
Whether it was love, she didn't know.
But at the very least, it was certain that she treasured the puppy before her more than any living thing she had met from birth until now.
On the last day of summer vacation.
When Sim Ah-ryeon came back to the tent, she found the puppy dying.
-Whine, whee...
It had probably been hit by a car passing along the mountain road.
The puppy simply loved every sound humans made. Whether a ringtone spilling from a phone, the footsteps of a person, or the gray snorting noise a car left behind, the foolish thing would yip and yelp and dash out as if it were a meaty rib bone.
But this place was dark, and the puppy was so very small, small enough to be hard to spot both before and after being hit...
Maybe, no probably, no surely, that whole chain of cause and effect drew itself in Sim Ah-ryeon's head the moment she saw the dying puppy.
What did Sim Ah-ryeon do then?
Did she resent it?
Did she blame the careless driver?
Why didn't you see the puppy, why didn't you find it even after hitting it, why didn't you rush it straight to a hospital, did you maybe find it and pass it by on purpose because hauling it that far was a bother and a nuisance, or did you perhaps hit it on purpose from the start? Did she hate them like that?
Did she blame herself?
Did she think she should have come back a little earlier, that if she had she could have saved it?
Did she reflect that she should have raised the puppy more strictly, that she should have made it wary of the world, that the world is not a place that is always only beautiful, that she should have taught it the world turns ruthlessly cruel and cold the instant you least expect it?
Did she wail?
Did she hold the puppy and say she was sorry, that she was wrong to leave it alone, no that she should never have brought it out of the house like this in the first place, or, further back still, that someone like her should never have picked it up at all? Did she regret it like that?
-...
In that moment Sim Ah-ryeon was observing her own heart in the finest possible detail.
Am I sad? What exactly is sadness? What density, what rhythm, what hue does the feeling I call sadness possess?
What is the loss of affection?
What is death.
-...
Obsessively.
Sim Ah-ryeon controlled her own madness for the sake of madness. She watched the pet die, taking enough time for the puppy's death to settle into her heart.
-Mmm.
Sim Ah-ryeon pressed a hand to her chest.
-Sadness... Sadness, sadness.
Sim Ah-ryeon buried the puppy in that abandoned grave where she had slept beside her pet all vacation.
School started up again.
This girl of few words, whom the teachers had once welcomed with delight as a genius enrollee but came to call "a truly strange child" as the days passed, until they shied away from getting involved with her at all, drew on the same single subject the whole new semester.
A drawing of a puppy.
-Sadness, sadness, sadness...
Her classmates had to fight hard not to look at that detestable girl's drawings.
But the more one loved art, the more impossible it was not to look, and among the children who finally steeled themselves to look, a few snapped their brushes in half.
-Ah-ryeon, you...
-Y, yes?
-You, how do you draw so well?
One of her classmates asked.
It was a question that took enormous courage. The trembling lips. Even the tightly clenched fist couldn't fully measure the total sum of that courage.
'Courage?'
Sim Ah-ryeon looked at her classmate with level eyes, but with her head tilted at a slant.
'Jealousy? Jealousy. Jealousy. Hope. Friendship.'
So Sim Ah-ryeon told her. About the kind of summer vacation she had spent.
-Get out here! You crazy bastard, get out here!
A week later, the classmate's parent stormed into the school and threw a fit.
Apparently their daughter had tried to kill a cat behind their backs, failed, and was sobbing her eyes out.
-Some lunatic told my daughter you have to kill a cat to make art! What crazy bastard said that to my girl!
Not really. Sim Ah-ryeon had never said "to make art you need the death of a pet."
The word art itself was still far too distant for Sim Ah-ryeon. The girl had only explained how the color called "sadness" came to be on her palette.
'Anger. Anger... Worry. Sadness.'
Still, that parent's reaction was interesting.
While the teachers stood flustered, unsure what to do, Sim Ah-ryeon stepped up to the parent with quick little strides.
-That lunatic, right now...! And who the hell are you?
-I, I'm the one who thaid it.
-What?
-Ah. I bit my tongue. Um, so. I'm the one who told Ye-eun... The cat. To stop clinging to that worthless thing and just kill it.
-...
-That an artist grows by how far they can sacrifice themselves for the sake of art. So, simply, starting with the cat...
Screams burst out around them.
Sim Ah-ryeon collapsed onto the hallway floor, and ah, so this is what it feels like to get slapped really hard across the cheek, she thought dazedly.
-Ye-eun's mother! You can't! You mustn't!
The next day.
Rumors about Sim Ah-ryeon spread all through the school. A devil who killed her own pet dog for the sake of art. A lunatic no one could ever associate with, who had even egged a friend on to kill her pet cat.
'Jealousy. Malice. Justice.'
Sim Ah-ryeon found it fascinating.
'Human emotion.'
It was endlessly fascinating, this act of peering into her own heart and watching those surging waves.
'My emotion.'
Each time a semester repeated and vacation came around, Sim Ah-ryeon experimented with one of her feelings at a time.
'Beautiful...'
The language of the world's people meant nothing to her either way.
'So pretty...'
The anger they shouted about was not Sim Ah-ryeon's own anger.
The friendship and reputation they said they shared. That was not the nourishment Sim Ah-ryeon's life required.
The overseas trips they said they wanted to take. That was not the journey Sim Ah-ryeon longed for.
'Could blue ever be prettier than the sky?'
Her journey had no map.
It was an amusing thing. Even in this present age, when humanity had explored every remote and polar region, emotion alone remained dark.
'Could green ever be more beautiful than the tender flesh of a leaf just sprouted in late spring...?'
She busied herself diving only into her own feelings. Into the sea of emotion so vast its shape could not even be traced.
The sea she set out on for her journeys was never abroad but always an inner sea.
Winter vacation ended.
Summer vacation ended.
Winter vacation ended.
Summer vacation ended.
No longer could the young girl find anyone around her who drew better than she did.
-Th, this is so pretty.
The girl spoke with joy.
-Look. Isn't it so. So, so pretty?
But no one answered her.
The one classmate who at least used to speak to Sim Ah-ryeon now and then had already transferred schools a few semesters ago, hadn't she.
-...Ah.
Sim Ah-ryeon was a species that existed on this earth in a population of exactly one, a kind that had split off from humankind, holding a moral system that could not commune with present-day humanity.
-...Mm, well. Whatever. Hehehe.
People found her revolting. Because they regarded her as the same species, they lamented that someone of the same kind as them could be like that.
It was a strange thing.
If she had simply been a different species altogether, a puppy could be pretty and a cat could be pretty. Even a beetle turned beautiful with ease.
Calling a fellow human beautiful, that alone seemed to require some special condition.
-So pretty...
To Sim Ah-ryeon alone, so many things, far too many things, were beautiful.
That was her solitude.
* * *
From the very first moment she met the Undertaker.
Sim Ah-ryeon always found him fascinating and fun.
"Wow! A sea made of human!"
"...?"
"No. Mm. A, a sea pretending to be human? An acting sea?"
"...I have no idea what you're talking about."
The Undertaker himself brushed it off, as if he couldn't understand a word she said.
But the truth was, Sim Ah-ryeon knew.
That he understood, down to the last detail, exactly what she had meant.
'Twitch twitch!'
Of course, she could see so vividly just what emotion the Undertaker before her was feeling.
'Twitch twitch. So cute... Twitch twitch.'
The Undertaker was a truly interesting being.
First, that every time she looked at him he was holding back the urge to kill himself on the spot.
'Suicidal impulse... mm. But patience? It feels a little different from that too. There's patience, sure. But more than that it's... giving up?'
It was strange.
'Giving up on life is something that happens often.'
'But giving up on suicide? Are there cases of that too? Isn't suicide supposed to be the final hurdle people see it as?'
'Giving up on life is easy. Because you can know about life. Because you've experienced it.'
'But... you've never experienced suicide, have you. Usually. The sensible thing is not to give up on suicide but to renounce it. For most.'
'How do you know suicide? How can you truly wish to die and at the same time look down on suicide?'
'Fascinating...!'
After that the Undertaker grandly recited some project or other about developing her ability, but it was none of Sim Ah-ryeon's concern.
The project even ultimately amounted to nailing Sim Ah-ryeon herself to a cross and turning her into a Miko[1] to soak up people's hatred, yet this too was none of her concern.
'He's suffering...!'
The Undertaker's inner feelings, as he explained that project calmly with an endlessly calm face, were the real prize.
Those emotions were, to Sim Ah-ryeon, like treasure twinkling brightly in some shipwreck.
'Why? Why is he suffering? A pang of conscience?'
'Hypocrisy? Mm, but. For hypocrisy the pain is far too distinct! Whoa. Suicidal impulse. Red. Black. Blue. Pretty...'
'He's in so much pain. He's suffocating. So why does he drop me into hell with such a perfectly unbothered face?'
'Why?' 'Why?' 'Why?' 'Why?' 'Why?' 'Why?'
Struck by a baptism of emotions verging on outright violence, Sim Ah-ryeon could barely keep her wits about her.
It was rapturous.
'The suicidal impulse, I've eaten that many times. It's a delicacy, but. Mmm. The worse the suicidal impulse, the more a person's other emotions fade, until in the end the colors all wash out... And the flavor turns the same.'
'Drenched in MSG.'[2]
'But.'
Awake or asleep, Sim Ah-ryeon hovered around the Undertaker. Go away, you're a nuisance, the Undertaker kept trying to drive her off, but Sim Ah-ryeon clung to him with indomitable will.
'[This] is different...'
There was nothing to be done. She had learned that this kind of "flavor" truly existed in the world. She could never go back to the past where she hadn't known it.
'The suicidal impulse runs th, this deep. And yet. Even the other emotions are vividly alive!'
'Mmm... Not just alive. Strong. Intense. Powerful.'
Even just watching the Undertaker chat for a moment with a passerby on the street, or talk with a colleague, it came through without a single blemish.
Affection. Friendship. Mercy.
Whatever name you put on those feelings, the Undertaker was digesting his emotions ten, twenty times more clearly than ordinary people.
'He cherishes people.'
And yet.
'He deceives people.'
'He wants to die.'
'And yet he lives.'
'He cherishes... me.'
'And yet he torments me.'
A person.
There was no way a person could endure this imbalance.
It was impossible!
The seismic design of the human psyche was simply not sturdy enough to withstand a dissonance worsened to this degree.
But it actually existed.
Total magic! A miracle!
"Haaa, hoooo... Hk, haaa..."
"...Ah-ryeon, you're burying your nose in my back and drooling all over me right now. Could I get an explanation for the reason behind that behavior?"
"Hehehe."
Sim Ah-ryeon was happy.
So she sank into an even happier fantasy.
'What if, what if. What if... Mm. If I took on every torture and every hardship for the Guild Leader's sake...'
'Would the Guild Leader suffer even more than he does now?'
A hundred percent.
She was certain he would.
It was a thing truly hard for Sim Ah-ryeon to understand, but this man treated even her as a "precious human."
He didn't just say it. Out loud he actually treated Sim Ah-ryeon like some lab rat for living experiments, like a tool.
'I want to try it!'
Sim Ah-ryeon's heart raced.
'I want to try it! I want to try it! I want to try it, I want to try it!'
'Let me leave the Guild Leader's side entirely for a few years! Yeah. Because, hoo-ah. That way the Guild Leader will even feel guilt for having neglected me...!'
'Thump thump. Thump thump.'
A time of endurance.
In all her life so far, Sim Ah-ryeon had never put up with anything. If she wanted to try something, she did it right away.
This decision had nothing to do with patience either.
From Sim Ah-ryeon's standpoint, the decision to "wait a few years and taste the delicacy" was no more than carrying it out "right away."
And so, at last.
After several years had passed, the Undertaker came to find her and treated her to a meal.
But the dishes the Undertaker made for her were appetizers at best.
The dish she truly wanted to sample was sitting in the chair across the table.
"Ah-ryeon."
"Y, yes?"
"Why does your healing ability recover properly only when you meet me?"
Sim Ah-ryeon grinned wide.
She had been waiting for this very meal.
So she could tell him smoothly, without her words stumbling much.
"Honestly, the Ten Legs too, if you'd given it your, your full effort, you could have subjugated it alone, couldn't you, Guild Leader?"
A flinch.
At her own words, the Undertaker's emotions began to surge.
"The Meteor Shower too... But you deliberately let other people do the subjugating. Mm, there were victims, you see. After all. People who died too."
With narrowed eyes Sim Ah-ryeon traced that pulse without missing a beat. Lapped it down and drank.
Like scraping out the ice cream left at the bottom of a tub. She jabbed a spoon made of language deep into the Undertaker's heart.
"In other words... It's no different from the Guild Leader killing them yourself. The truth is."
In that moment.
The waves that had begun to rise in the sea finally surged into a raging current. A tsunami.
Emotions in all sorts of vivid colors spread out.
It was beautiful.
It was pretty.
Sim Ah-ryeon couldn't hold back.
So she drove the spoon in deeper.
"Murderer."
"..."
Black.
"Traitor."
"..."
Red.
"Slaughterer."
"..."
Blue.
"Liar."
"..."
The Undertaker's heart was soft.
To other people it might feel as hard as frozen ice cream, but to Sim Ah-ryeon at least it was always a dish ripened to just the right deliciousness.
Goodness, how could anyone fail to recognize this? Because they lacked the ability? Truly, she thought, she was a blessed and chosen gourmet.
"People often call me those things. But, in truth, I don't think they're words that suit me much... I think. Because."
"..."
"Because those are all... All of them are titles for the Guild Leader's sake, aren't they?"
"..."
"Isn't that right, Guild Leader?"
Silence settled in.
Then suddenly, a trickle.
Without a sound, a tear ran down the Undertaker's cheek.
"...!!"
Sim Ah-ryeon shot to her feet. Crash, bang, clatter! Because the motion was far too clumsy for a human, the chair toppled over, and Sim Ah-ryeon's legs went over with it.
But Sim Ah-ryeon didn't groan. As if even the time to groan were too precious, she got right back up and went to the Undertaker.
And she took the Undertaker's face in both hands. The tear that had run down his jawline now pooled along the creases of her fingers.
Sim Ah-ryeon flinched, startled, and drew back her left hand. Then she frantically licked the Undertaker's tear gathered shallowly in her palm.
"...!"
Inside her head.
"...!! ...!!"
Gunpowder went off, pop pop pop.
'I want to die. Suicide. Impossible. Giving up. Challenge. Renouncing. Despair. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I want to die. Disgrace. Shame. Self-blame. Guilt. Relief. Pride. Love.'
In a flash, the tear in her palm ran dry.
'More.'
Where did it go? Where is it?
'More.'
Sim Ah-ryeon forgot even to breathe. She only searched for the source where she could taste this tear, this paint, this fireworks display.
So she licked. His cheek. Even catching it in her palm to drink felt like a waste, so she just sucked down the flowing tears as fast as they flowed.
'More. More. More. More. More.'
The heart, the head, no the very existence of the human called Sim Ah-ryeon writhed in rapture.
'More from here.'
To do that?
'Ah!'
Only then did Sim Ah-ryeon shudder as if struck by lightning. She understood.
Until now she had never been able to grasp why on earth mixing tongue with tongue became "an expression of affection."
It seemed too cliché.
But no. It was, if anything, exact. Because rather than catching and drinking tears, pressing lips together was a far, far deeper way to draw close.
It seemed humanity up to now hadn't been complete fools after all.
So Sim Ah-ryeon kissed him.
"...!!"
Pop. Pop pop, pop... paaa...
Before her eyes, things burst into every shade and color.
'What is this? Guild Leader? What is this feeling?'
It was a delicacy.
'What is it, what is it, what is it? What is it?'
Sim Ah-ryeon didn't stop the kiss. She didn't stop thinking either. The former was easy and the latter was not.
Because it was a feeling Sim Ah-ryeon was truly tasting for the first time.
She couldn't put a name to it. No. She wondered whether she might be the first human ever to experience a feeling like this.
'Sorry. Sorry. Joy. Love?'
She wanted to find out. With a heart far stronger, beyond any comparison, than the one she'd had that summer she choked the puppy's throat.
'Love. Love, love, love? Love?'
Sim Ah-ryeon was clever.
'Ah.'
So even as she went on kissing the Undertaker, she could tell.
'This. Maybe.'
'Maybe it isn't the Guild Leader's emotion...?'
Sim Ah-ryeon listened closely to the sound of her own heart. Her eardrums had already gone numb, but luckily the vibration in her chest could be felt through another path as well.
'My emotion?'
Sim Ah-ryeon stopped the kiss for a moment and stared at the Undertaker's face right up close.
The pounding didn't stop.
'Love?'
To Sim Ah-ryeon, the man before her, only the man before her, was so very beautiful.
'Love.'
That was her love.
Footnotes:
[1] Miko is a Japanese shrine maiden; the line uses that Japanese-flavored otaku register rather than a plain priestess term. Here it means a priestess set up to take on the public's hatred and curses.
[2] MSG (monosodium glutamate) is widely used in Korean internet slang as shorthand for something cheap, artificial, and one-note in flavor; here it describes how a suicidal person's other emotions "all wash out" into the same dull, oversalted taste.
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
That day, the Undertaker woke up late.
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame will stand in as your alarm clock.]
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame will stand in as your alarm clock.]
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame will stand in as your alarm clock.]
Was it already past noon?
If the Constellation had not been firing off messages so diligently, he might have slept even longer.
"What time is it...?"
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame informs you that it is 12:02 PM.]
"Mmm."
A groan slipped from the Undertaker's mouth.
For the past ten years. No, counting the previous cycles, he had lived for at least several centuries with almost no sleep at all.
'...How long had it been since I last slept in?'
His head felt foggy.
The bedroom was dark. Since a living space had been artificially carved out of the void that had originally been the source of the Inunaki Tunnel, the lighting was bound to be lousy.
He could even faintly smell dust. The place felt bleak. Unlike in other worldlines, the Undertaker here had never opened a cafe.
Here, he had no need to invent notations like "depth 100 meters" or "depth 1,000 meters" to show how strong awakeners were.
His ally, the Infinite Metagame, could just pop open a status window and display the level.
Which was why.
-Scratch, scratch.
Only belatedly did he notice that a figure was crouched like a ghost in the corner of the room, some distance from the bed, painting away in a frenzy.
"Hwuahk!"
"Hyeek?!"
The Undertaker jumped. The person painting jumped too.
The timing was perfect. If they had entered any Olympic event run in pairs, they might actually have medaled.
In any case, thanks to that jump, the doctor's coat the other person had been draped in like a rag slipped right off.
"Ah, Ah-ryeon?"
"Ah. Yes... Y, you're awake?"
"What are you doing over there? I thought an anomaly had broken into my bedroom. You scared the life out of me."
"Mmm... Sorry. I can't be bothered talking right now, so please shut up..."
The Undertaker's head went even foggier. This time it did not seem to be from sleepiness.
'After reaching a position like mine, was there anyone besides Management Captain Noh Do-hwa who could tell me to shut up to my face?'
Fortunately, the Undertaker had many, many vices, but pride and arrogance were not among them.
If anything, it was the opposite.
In fact, right now, even if someone walked up and stabbed him on the street, the Undertaker probably would not have gotten particularly angry.
It was just that no one else, and not even he himself, realized his state of mind had been driven that far.
So even though someone like Sim Ah-ryeon, far weaker than him and treated as a traitor to humanity on top of that, had just verbally abused him with a "shut up," the Undertaker really did shut up.
His mouth might have shut, but his hands were free. To drive off the enemy called sleep, he brewed some caffeine. While he was at it, he also changed the badly soiled blanket and bedsheets.
"Here. Coffee."
"..."
"I didn't know what kind of coffee you like, so I just made a cafe latte."
Sim Ah-ryeon did not reply. She did not even touch the coffee he had brought over.
She just kept moving her brush without rest.
"Hmm."
The Undertaker shrugged.
Then the hand reaching for his espresso froze in midair. His gaze had finally fixed on the canvas.
"..."
It was incredible.
Magnificent.
For a moment, his vocabulary itself seemed paralyzed. That was how fiercely the reds and blues Sim Ah-ryeon had conjured up writhed like blood vessels.
'...Even a beginner like me can tell. This is a terrifying piece.'
But that was as far as it went.
The Undertaker, as he was now, lacked the eye to describe in detail why, how much, or in what way that painting was great.
What could he do? He had never once put any effort into cultivating or caring about hobbies or tastes.
'Infinite Metagame. What level of painting is this?'
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame judges that the painting placed before the player is ominous.]
'Ominous?'
The Undertaker tilted his head. It was a word his partner, the Constellation, rarely used.
No. It might even have been the first time in several thousand years he had heard that kind of word in that kind of tone.
[A world rests on the perception with which an intelligent being beholds it. A work of art is always an attempt to rival a world.]
[For that reason, a highly perfected work of art is no different from a Void.]
[Player Undertaker. The painting placed before you is a Void.]
"..."
[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame designates this painting as a Void and recommends incinerating it at once.]
The Undertaker did not do so.
Instead, he watched. The whole time.
The painter was not picky about her tools. Sometimes she used a brush. Sometimes her palms and fingers.
She smeared paint all over her bare body, paint that gave off that distinctive well-cooked oil smell.
"Hooah."
It seemed she had gotten up much earlier than him. In less than two hours, the finishing touch had been laid on the canvas.
"It's, it's been a while...! I really painted again after so long!"
Sim Ah-ryeon stretched long and wide. From the silly grin at the corners of her mouth to her fully extended body, complete satisfaction overflowed from her.
"Good. Nice work. Drink your coffee."
"Ah! Coffee...!"
Like every other art school graduate, Sim Ah-ryeon too was a slave to caffeine. Her brain rejoiced at the master who had finally deigned to visit.
"Hwaaa, it's good... Guild Leader, you make really good coffee. B, but I kind of prefer sweeter coffee..."
"How would I know your tastes? Those beans are precious, so drink it gratefully."
"Yeees."
Leaving Sim Ah-ryeon to sip at the cafe latte, the Undertaker leisurely examined the finished piece.
"Did you paint a dog?"
"Mmm. Well, yes..."
"I can sense some dissatisfaction in that answer."
"Well, I mean. Ex, explaining my own work to some scrub with trash eyes who does not know the first thing about art feels really lame to me..."
"...I don't know much about your field, but aren't painters supposed to explain the meaning and context of their work in front of people? Isn't that a proper part of the job too?"
"Q, quiet. Just shut up. Look if you want, or don't..."
A brief silence followed.
"Right. Come to think of it, where did you get the paint and canvas? I wouldn't have stocked anything like that here in the Azit."
"Ah. I, I asked Yu Ji-won to bring them."
"?"
The Undertaker turned his head. Sip. Beside him, Sim Ah-ryeon was still carefully savoring her coffee.
"Yu Ji-won?"
"Yes? Yes."
"This is my Azit, so why would Yu Ji-won, and how, take a request from you...? Ah. Did you use the Saintess's Telepathy?"
"Eh? N, no?"
"...Then?"
"I had a schedule starting this morning. She, she came to get me ready at dawn. Yu Ji-won. Knocking on the door. But, um. I felt like painting today. So I canceled the whole schedule and asked her to bring me painting supplies instead."
"...She came? Right up to this room, in person?"
"Yes? Yes."
"Why didn't I know about that?"
"? Be, because you were asleep...?"
"..."
The Undertaker looked.
At the being called Sim Ah-ryeon right before his eyes.
She might have been draped in a rag, but if you asked whether it covered her body completely, the answer was no.
Traces of time. To put it bluntly, traces of last night still remained all over her.
Then he looked down.
At his own body.
He turned and looked behind him too.
There was the bed. Since he had changed the blanket and sheets earlier, it looked at least somewhat presentable now, but that did not mean the smell hanging thick in the room had gone anywhere.
"..."
The Undertaker bolted out.
"Ah. You're awake."
At the entrance to the Inunaki Tunnel, Yu Ji-won had set up a parasol and was waiting leisurely.
Grab. Without thinking, the Undertaker seized both of Yu Ji-won's shoulders. Her slender body swayed a little.
"Ji-won."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
Yu Ji-won's face was as flawlessly expressionless as ever. Since it was no different from yesterday, the Undertaker let himself hope, maybe.
Of course, hope, as always, was the overture to despair. Soon, a classic rang out from Yu Ji-won's neat lips.
"Did you enjoy last night?"
"..."
Da da da daan.
The title of the classic was Beethoven's Fifth, the Fate Symphony.
"I'm sorry, Yu Ji-won. Whatever you saw at dawn today, forget it."
"Hmm? Understood."
Yu Ji-won said that casually, even while her shoulders were still being gripped.
Considering that the Undertaker's eyes were bloodshot red right now, Yu Ji-won's nerve was anything but ordinary.
"I had judged that Your Excellency's heart had come to rest on Sim Ah-ryeon. If it was merely a one-night whim, that is rather a relief. It means the danger of Sim Ah-ryeon framing me has disappeared."
"Don't tell me that after seeing that scene at dawn, and given how deeply you've been involved in torturing Sim Ah-ryeon until now, you rushed to bring in paint and canvas for the sake of your own self-preservation, in short, to flatter and fawn over her?"
"Yes. People in middle management like me must always pay attention to the direction power is flowing."
"You really are a lunatic. You know that?"
"And isn't that exactly why Your Excellency employs me? I am always grateful for my own madness."
"...Who else knows?"
"Ah, please do not worry. I instructed the Saintess that today the Undertaker, Your Excellency, would be with Sim Ah-ryeon, so she must absolutely not keep watch."
"That means the Saintess knows too!"
The Undertaker shook Yu Ji-won's shoulders violently.
But no matter how much he put her on a roller coaster, it still was not enough to draw from a customer like Yu Ji-won the review, "The ride called Undertaker seems too intense."
"Who else? Who else knows?"
"Your Excellency, I regret to say this, but I have disclosed that fact to no one. I merely put up an extremely friendly warning asking that surveillance be halted and the like. If the recipient, upon receiving that warning, happened to infer a certain fact, then that would be due to the recipient's own deduction, not any leak on my part..."
"I asked who knows!"
"Sim Ah-ryeon is under my supervision, and I belong to the National Road Management Corps. To change a schedule, I naturally need to report it to my superior."
"Management Captain Noh Do-hwa?!"
"It is true that my superior is also known by that name."
"Management Captain Noh Do-hwa?!"
"Your Excellency. Again, forgive my boldness, but I have begun detecting aura from the grip currently on my shoulders."
"Management Captain Noh Do-hwaaaa?!"
"Hmm. If you seek my confirmation once more, then yes. That is correct."
"..."
Da da da daan.
"Your Excellency, I say this only out of concern, but I have never once dealt with Sim Ah-ryeon out of malice or bitterness. Please, I beg that not only Your Excellency but Sim Ah-ryeon as well understand and excuse my professional mindset, too..."
The Undertaker ran.
Now and then, citizens who recognized him tried to speak to him, but it was impossible.
At the moment, his footwork was as elite as when he had fought Outer Gods, and it was not easy for an ordinary person to keep up with that speed.
In under two minutes, he stormed into the office of the Management Captain at the Tower of Babel, headquarters of the National Road Management Corps.
"Management Captain Noh Do-hwa."
"Yeees. Did you feed your manners to the dogs...?"
"Whatever you may be imagining or inferring, it differs from the truth."
"The truth? What truth...?"
Noh Do-hwa shuffled through some documents.
"You branded the Sacrifice your accomplice against humanity and kept her locked in a year-round torture horror show, and now, whether your conscience finally started to sting or you got horny late in the game, you're saying you slept with the very Sacrifice you created? Then again. Well. You're not some beast. There's no way a story like that could possibly be true..."
"..."
Da da da daan.
'Why. Why had it turned out like this?'
The Undertaker clutched his head and sank down.
He hated being put in situations like this. Whether it was in front of Yu Ji-won or Noh Do-hwa.
He instinctively avoided situations where the conversation flowed on the assumption that he was human.
Management Captain Noh Do-hwa surely knew about that dislike of his. Until now, that was why both of them had lived without touching the other's sore spots.
The wall they had both worked so hard to maintain, barely, precariously, was collapsing with astonishing ease.
The Undertaker's heart grew anxious.
So much so that even he himself did not notice it.
"Well, well."
Noh Do-hwa laughed at him with her eyes.
"So you did know how to make a face like that...?"
"..."
"I thought a bastard not even human only did things even less human. But now I see you were completely hopeless in that department...? Hah. It's not even funny as a joke..."
"Just one thing."
The Undertaker ground his lower teeth against his upper teeth like a millstone.
"Let's correct exactly one thing, Management Captain."
"Do as you please. Or rather, do as your dick pleases..."
"I did not seduce her. Absolutely not. I swear to heaven. I had no such intention whatsoever."
"That is an astonishingly trashy thing to say..."
"She was the one who jumped me."
"Are you actually insane...?"
"That is the truth!"
"You've really got all sorts of ways to spew bullshit..."
A snort. Noh Do-hwa was not taking his excuse seriously at all.
'Ah!'
Only now did the Undertaker realize.
'Of course. They don't know. They don't know what kind of person Sim Ah-ryeon is. No one knows.'
His body trembled. Not from the joy of realization, but from fear.
'By anyone's eyes, I am the one with power. I am the stronger one too. So even if I say Sim Ah-ryeon jumped me, everyone will just snort!'
'What sort of relationship has formed between us. Has ended up forming between us. The appearance and the reality are completely different!'
But the Undertaker had nowhere to air his grievance.
Because... had he not seen this kind of picture many times before?
'It's me!'
The Undertaker's brain had not rotted away completely just yet. The concepts of self-awareness and self-reflection still remained inside his skull.
'When I dealt with the Saintess. When I dealt with other people. I was the one acting first. And I swore I would not make excuses for that. So, so...'
He could not make excuses!
'I can't even explain that Sim Ah-ryeon is not someone you can regard as nothing more than a pitiable victim!'
What kind of absurd fate was this?
-Knock, knock.
It was then.
Someone knocked on the office door.
"Hmm...?"
Since the Undertaker, in the middle of being toyed with by fate, kept his mouth firmly shut, the role of asking who the visitor was naturally fell to Noh Do-hwa.
"Who is it...?"
-My apologies.
A crisp voice rang out from beyond the door.
-Management Captain, this is Yu Ji-won.
The Undertaker jerked his head up.
Yu Ji-won? Again, at a time like this? Why?
"Team Leader Yu? Didn't you take today off? What brings you here...?"
-I sincerely apologize. There is someone who needs to see not the Management Captain, but His Excellency the Undertaker, so I had no choice but to bring the guest along.
Noh Do-hwa's brows drew together. The Undertaker's brows trembled.
The reason was the same for both of them. Yu Ji-won. That power-oriented psychopath had referred to a third party, of all people, with an honorific.
In Yu Ji-won's worldview, the Undertaker and Noh Do-hwa were exempt from honorific suppression.
If she had said, "There is someone who wants to see His Excellency the Undertaker," that would have been one thing, but "There is someone who needs to see His Excellency the Undertaker"?
Was she saying that a character who had to be elevated even above the Undertaker and Noh Do-hwa had suddenly been added to the setting?
"...Come in."
-Yes.
The door opened.
"Ah! G, Guild Leader!"
"..."
Da da da daan.
"Y, you suddenly ran out and scared me. I, I was going to ask you to make me another cup of coffee. Ah. Yu, Yu Ji-won. Thank you for bringing me here..."
"Not at all, Master Painter Sim Ah-ryeon. I am nothing but a microbe unfit for a setting like this, so I shall take my leave."
"Yes, yes. Please take good care of the painting I left with you earlier..."
"Need you even ask? Compared to such a masterpiece, a life like mine is no more than a fly. Even if I must sacrifice the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay alike, I will defend Master Painter Sim Ah-ryeon's work."
"Yes!"
"On second thought, for someone capable of producing such a grand masterpiece, the title Master Painter seems somewhat too low. Would Painting Marquis, Painting Artisan... no, Painting Emperor, Painting Sage, or Painting God suit you better?"
"Mmmm... Painting God, maybe...?"
"Would Painting Immortal be better? I have heard that, judging by recent content trends, the word immortal tends to rank higher than god these days."
The Undertaker finally grasped the whole truth of the matter.
'You betrayed me, Yu Ji-won!'
That was right.
At dawn today, the moment she opened the door and saw the scene in the bedroom, Yu Ji-won had sorted out the entire hierarchy with her genius brain.
"Why would His Excellency the Undertaker, with Sim Ah-ryeon?" "The protector of humanity, with humanity's traitor?" Questions like that were not sexy from Yu Ji-won's point of view.
"Aha, so she is no longer humanity's traitor, but the predator of humanity's protector." That was the correct answer.
Yu Ji-won immediately shifted her stance with perfect flexibility.
From that point on, deceiving someone like the Undertaker was perfectly fine. Even if she deceived him, who was going to punish Yu Ji-won? All she had to do was win Sim Ah-ryeon's favor.
When a king died, it was customary for a eunuch to climb onto the palace roof and cry, "Changeover ritual cry! Changeover ritual cry!"
Yu Ji-won truly was a loyal retainer. While delivering the paint, she had immediately relayed the news to the Saintess and Noh Do-hwa, placing the Undertaker in an irreversible situation.
"Yu Ji-won! Operations Team Leader Yu Ji-won! I valued you highly, and yet how could you do this to me!"
"My apologies."
Yu Ji-won withdrew, graceful as a swan.
She had survived.
Yesterday too. Today too. And of course, tomorrow as well.
-x-X-x-
──────
* * *
Kuung.
Yu Ji-won left. Her gait so graceful that no one would have guessed she was running away. But run away she had, all the same.
"..."
"..."
"Heheheh."
Now only three remained in the office at the top of the Tower of Babel.
The Undertaker, Noh Do-hwa, and Sim Ah-ryeon.
Even a castaway who had lived alone on a deserted island for twenty-eight years, aching with longing for human warmth, would have mashed the second button without hesitation if offered the choice, "Want to hang out with those three? Or want to extend your stay on the island?" That was the kind of company this was.
"So..."
To be specific, that was pretty much what Noh Do-hwa was feeling right now.
Noh Do-hwa had spent her whole life building deserted islands inside crowds of people. It would not be unfair to call her nature closer to a beaver's than a human's.
Which was exactly why she wanted the two pups embracing right in front of her face (it was mostly Sim Ah-ryeon driving it, but as far as Noh Do-hwa was concerned that changed nothing) to clear off, and quickly. As far away as possible. For life, if she could swing it.
"Let's talk practicalities. Undertaker, awakener. What exactly do you intend to do from here...?"
"Intend to do? What do you mean?"
"I mean the arrangement. The torture horror show. From the looks of it, you've gone and developed feelings for that Necromancer trash over there, haven't you. Do you plan to keep running this daily quest where her flesh gets torn open and her limbs get mangled in front of people who don't know any better...?"
"..."
The Undertaker pressed his lips shut. His face was more bearable shut than open, so Noh Do-hwa let the corners of her mouth curl up.
"Whatever. If you can stand it anyway, it's no business of mine. Sure, I suppose a pervert who gets off on watching his own lover tortured could exist in this world. I'd just like you out of my sight, urgently, but..."
"I, I don't mind, though?"
Sim Ah-ryeon said.
"Don't mind, or rather. Oh, I'd actually prefer it kept going."
"Hoh. May I ask why that is, Miss Necromancer...?"
"Hm? Th, that's because. While you're watching me suffer, Guild Leader will be suffering too."
After a slight pause, Sim Ah-ryeon went on.
"Today. Tomorrow. The day after that too. He'll be thinking about nothing but me, all of it, won't he?"
"..."
Noh Do-hwa stared at Sim Ah-ryeon. A blink. Sim Ah-ryeon was looking right back at her.
"Hmmm?"
A tilt. Sim Ah-ryeon cocked her head. She had leapt up to paint the moment she woke at dawn, so she still hadn't washed, and the stale strands of hair slid down across her face.
Sim Ah-ryeon seized the Undertaker's hand.
"Ah-ryeon?"
The Undertaker's voice came flustered. But Sim Ah-ryeon only curled her fingers tighter, squeezing.
Her gaze stayed fixed on Noh Do-hwa.
"..."
"Hm? Hmm? Mm-mm-mm?"
Sim Ah-ryeon wrapped her other arm around the Undertaker's waist. She didn't stop there. Rising onto her toes, she pressed her lips to his neck.
Naturally, the Undertaker grew more flustered.
"No. Ah-ryeon. What are you doing all of a sudden, again. In front of everyone, no less."
"Kiss me, please."
"What?"
"The moment I woke up you left me all alone and ran out of nowhere. The truth is, I was hurt so, so badly. If you kiss me, I'll forgive you."
"Now?"
"Yes!"
The Undertaker glanced around.
Around, for all that meant, was nothing but a silent desk and papers. And Noh Do-hwa, who was keeping just as silent. That was all.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"No. Look, Ah-ryeon. Later. Let's do it later. There's a time and a place for everything. You've been strange this whole time."
"I love, you."
"..."
Quietly, still up on her toes, Sim Ah-ryeon took the Undertaker's cheek in her hand.
Flustered, he reflexively grabbed her shoulder and tried to push her away, but, "Owww!" a scream far sharper than the grip warranted, a groan stained with far too much pain, burst out of her.
"Ah."
At the sound, the Undertaker's hand froze and went stiff.
It was something the Undertaker himself did not yet know, but already a kind of trauma had grown in his heart around "any act of inflicting pain on Sim Ah-ryeon."
A trauma freshly grown only yesterday. With no time to scab over, the raw red wound was still bleeding. Sim Ah-ryeon grinned ear to ear.
Grinning. Pushing the angle of her tiptoes higher and higher, sweeping her sidelong glance over someone other than the Undertaker.
Blood spurted.
"Ow."
A groan slipped out too. But compared to when the Undertaker had grabbed her shoulder, it was a cute little groan.
The level of the cause itself was the exact opposite. A fountain pen stood driven into the back of Sim Ah-ryeon's hand.
"Ow, owww... It, it hurts, you know. Management Captain, um. Is that what I should call you?"
"..."
Noh Do-hwa.
With eyes colder than perpetual snow and hotter than lava, the fountain pen still driven into the other woman's hand, she was looking at Sim Ah-ryeon.
The Undertaker was startled, but more than startled, he was unsettled. The instant he tried to part his lips to stop Noh Do-hwa, an instinct that he must not do so prickled coldly at the back of his neck.
Thanks to that, Noh Do-hwa could focus entirely on the person before her. She spoke.
"Where did this rootless little bone fragment come rolling in from."
"Ah. Um... Th, that's. I'm sorry. But going by the order of time, I met Guild Leader first, and... Hmmm. So, even across all the cycles. I, I'm from the Busan Station concourse, you see. So... I, I don't think this is something you get to say to me. Management Captain."
"I'll kill you."
"You can't kill me... I, I have healing ability!"
"I'll dig out your eyeballs and bore through your ear holes. I'll cut out your tongue too. Shall I throw you into a pitch-black cell where you see nothing and make you crawl like a bug for the rest of your life?"
"Ah. That one... um. That works."
Sim Ah-ryeon plucked the fountain pen out with a pop. The wound that had dug all the way to the bone slid shut, healing far too easily.
Sim Ah-ryeon's eyes sank down, forlorn.
"S, sorry. It was delicious. I'll stop."
"Shut up."
"But... are you really going to fight me? Th, things would be unfavorable for you..."
"I won't bother with where you go or what the hell you do, do as you damn well please."
"Ah."
"Just don't spout a single word where I am. And don't even look my way."
"..."
"This isn't a deal. It's a final warning. If you're going to treat people like toys, then you'd best be prepared for your own goddamn body to become a scrap of one too, wouldn't you?"
Sim Ah-ryeon pressed her lips shut. Her gaze turned away too.
"Don't even step into my field of view. Because I'll want to kill you."
At that, Sim Ah-ryeon went trotting off and plopped herself snugly down on the sofa in the corner of the office.
Noh Do-hwa clenched and unclenched her fingers three or four times.
A black glove smeared with blood. Beneath it, an anger she hadn't quite tucked away was stretching itself awake.
"Fine."
Noh Do-hwa muttered, in a tone that was anything but.
"You damn bastard."
"..."
"Even when you date, you go and date some idiot with a mad-dog disease. Is there really nothing but lunatics around you?"
Mm, the Undertaker groaned.
There was a lot he wanted to say. A lot he could say. But none of it was the conversation Noh Do-hwa wanted.
Noh Do-hwa preferred language that had a correct answer. All the more so the more answerless the life and the world were.
"Anyway, you're not the one doing the pouncing, you're the one getting pounced on. I understand that's true. So, back to the first question. What do you intend to do from here...?"
"I'm aware it's already too late to undo the situation."
The Undertaker said.
"Even if I explained that the Necromancer was a false boss, and that the grudge and vengeance everyone holds was all fabricated too, there's no way people would believe it. And it'd be a problem even if they did."
"Yes. Because the reason they've clawed their way through life all this time was that goddamn hatred. In Manyo Neko's case, well, it's plain as day she'd kill herself..."
"Even so, watching Sim Ah-ryeon tortured over and over... my heart probably won't be able to bear it. I'm sorry. I didn't know I still had a heart like this left in me."
"..."
Noh Do-hwa made a curious face. A curiousness neither she nor the Undertaker could explain.
"...Whatever. If you can't get the people to understand and you can't make yourself understand either, is there any other way?"
"I'm going to run."
"Haa...?"
"Together with Sim Ah-ryeon, I'm going to run away."
The Undertaker meant it.
"The Necromancer worked some manner of sorcery and bewitched me. And so I, the Undertaker, a man once called humanity's guardian, abducted the Necromancer and fled. Framed that way, people will accept it."
"...No. If you vanish, doesn't that cut our fighting strength in half?"
"I'll stay in contact through the Saintess. I just have to work in secret, alone, and quietly take out the anomalies. When you get right down to it, it's not all that different from now."
"Hoh? Hmm. Hmmm..."
"The only thing that takes a hit is my honor. The acquaintances who don't know the inner workings of the Regression Alliance might be a bit heartbroken, but their hatred for the Necromancer will only grow larger than that sense of loss. So it's fine."
"Not bad..."
Noh Do-hwa nodded.
"Above all, the fact that that revolting thing vanishes from my field of view forever is satisfying..."
"I'm sorry. I'll leave explaining things to Yu Ji-won and the others to you, Management Captain Noh Do-hwa."
"I've gotten sick-to-death used to cleaning up after you, so do as you please..."
"Then."
The Undertaker drew his sword from its sheath.
"Excuse me."
The next instant, the Management Captain's office was half-destroyed.
A roar rang out. Even the innermost depths of the Tower of Babel, slathered in every kind of security device and incantation, crumbled before a single stroke of the Undertaker's blade.
Even though the sword strike had blown past right beside her like a storm, Noh Do-hwa stayed calm. The wind rushing in through the gaping outer wall set her hair fluttering.
"Hup."
The Undertaker scooped Sim Ah-ryeon up. A princess carry. Then he set one foot on the outer wall he'd torn down and looked back.
"The world will know me as having fled, but I'll come to see you now and then, slipping in during the night hours. Management Captain Noh Do-hwa. Take care."
Noh Do-hwa silently raised her middle finger. The Undertaker, for the first time in a long while, a truly long while, snorted out a laugh and leapt off the Tower of Babel.
The tower was already in an uproar. From the corps members' standpoint, they could only conclude that anomalies had suddenly come attacking.
Cutting through the commotion and clamor, treading roof to roof, the Undertaker sprinted.
"Hmmm..."
Only then did Sim Ah-ryeon speak again.
"I really, truly don't mind being t, tortured by people forever, you know..."
"And while you're at it you're trying to provoke the people around me."
Dak-kong! The Undertaker moved his aura and lightly flicked Sim Ah-ryeon on the forehead.
"Hiek."
"Tormenting me is fine. You have the right to do that. But messing with the people around me on top of it, that I can't sit back and watch."
"You, you didn't even really treasure them, though."
"You're the one who made me realize what treasuring is. To be precise, wasn't it your doing that tore the wrapping over my heart to shreds, so I could no longer ignore it?"
"Hmmm..."
"Maybe somewhere along the way, without even knowing it, I stepped onto a wrong path."
He had that strange feeling.
Last night, when Sim Ah-ryeon had laid him bare with all sorts of words.
The Undertaker had shed tears, but they had not been drawn out by sorrow and self-reproach alone.
In them welled not only "the life I've lived so far was wrong" but also "what must I do to keep from being wrong going forward."
'Right. It isn't too late yet.'
The Undertaker felt that too.
'Thankfully, I was born bearing the fate of a regressor. Anything can be undone. Even when it's already too late, I can promise myself a next time.'
That it wasn't too late yet.
For some reason, though he didn't know why, the Undertaker seemed to carry a sense of something that had "truly become too late."
That sense whispered to him. Your life can still be undone, and rich blood still flows through your heart.
"G, Guild Leader."
"Hm?"
"Still, promise me one thing. Even when the next cycle comes. And the cycle after that. And the cycle after that one too... You have to tell me what happened just now. You have to."
"..."
"You, you'll promise, won't you? Guild Leader?"
"Yes. I promise."
"Eheheh..."
Cradled in his arms, Sim Ah-ryeon laughed softly.
'Where should I find a secret hideout?'
While crossing Busan, the Undertaker turned to slightly more practical worries.
'A deserted island would be best after all. If I use the Inunaki Tunnel[1] I might be able to open a portal. Ah, Tsushima Island. How about Tsushima? It might be just right.'
"Huh."
But.
His pondering couldn't go on for long.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry? Guild Leader."
A halt. The Undertaker's stride stopped.
It happened just at the junction where Busan ended. On a road of crumbled asphalt, empty of any trace of people because it was the caravan's day off, a single figure stood alone.
It used the address "Guild Leader," but it wasn't Sim Ah-ryeon's voice. Nor did the hair resemble green.
A pink hue.
With the summer sunlight baking the abandoned road, a woman draped in pink hair smiled demurely.
The Undertaker spoke, still holding Sim Ah-ryeon.
"...Go Yuri."
"Yes. It's Go Yuri."
"Why have you appeared before me now?"
"To resolve the irreversible while it can still be reversed, of course. Guild Leader."
The cry of cicadas blanketed the gaunt leaves of the undergrowth that had crept even onto the asphalt road.
Go Yuri spoke. With a bright smile.
"I'm sorry, but Sim Ah-ryeon will have to die here and now."
Footnotes:
[1] The Inunaki Tunnel in Fukuoka, Japan, is one of the country's most famous haunted and urban-legend sites, tied to the lost "Inunaki Village" myth and treated in horror lore as a gateway to another, cut-off place, which is why it is invoked here as a means of reaching an isolated hideout.