That Woman D IX
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* * *
If you asked who in the Regression Alliance could really hold their liquor, about two names came to mind.
First, Dang Seo-rin.
She'd always been a good drinker. No, she enjoyed anything at all, as long as there was something to eat or something to drink.
One reason Busan's food scene managed to flourish even amid the ruin of the world was that the city's ruler, Her Excellency the Great Witch, was forever smacking her lips and going, "Isn't there some new place worth eating at around here?"
After her came... Noh Do-hwa.
Anyone in the know knew it well. Noh Do-hwa loved wine to an absurd degree. She'd dug out a separate wine cellar in the underground bunker just to safeguard her collection, which said it all.
If Dang Seo-rin's drinking style was broad, savoring not just the liquor but the whole boisterous mood of drinking and chattering with others, then Noh Do-hwa was the exact opposite.
The only drink she cared for was wine.
She was even the truest loner of the age, insisting on eating alone and drinking alone.
Of course, now and then Lee Ha-yul got summoned as Noh Do-hwa's drinking partner.
But considering that Lee Ha-yul herself was, by her very nature, physically incapable of being anywhere near "boisterous," you could guess just how much Noh Do-hwa loved quiet.
The food industry of end-of-the-century Busan had developed to suit the palates of these two power-holders.
Yet the two of them rarely crossed paths, thanks to that "difference in taste."
And so.
"Care for a drink...?"
When Noh Do-hwa abruptly made that offer in the middle of the trip, Dang Seo-rin was completely caught off guard.
"Huh? Uh, uhh... Huh?"
The first "huh" was for glancing around. Naturally, Dang Seo-rin assumed she'd been inviting Lee Ha-yul, not her.
The final "huh" came after confirming there was nobody around, let alone Lee Ha-yul.
"Me?"
Having proven the strange truth that most communication in Korean gets handled with a single "huh," Dang Seo-rin pointed at herself with her index finger.
"Is there anyone here besides you...?"
Noh Do-hwa replied with the exact same face as always. Which was to say, the expression that everything in the world was a bother and humanity was contemptible and detestable.
"Or what, you don't want to, by any chance? If you don't want to, I really don't mind being turned down..."
"No! I'd love to! Totally love to! Let's drink together, Do-hwa unni!"
"I'd be so happy if you'd toss that 'Do-hwa unni' title into a recycling bin somewhere..."
And so.
Dang Seo-rin found herself going through with the event known as "drinking alone with Noh Do-hwa," a penalty game for every human alive except the Undertaker and Lee Ha-yul.
The venue was a nighttime swimming pool. Cheon Yo-hwa had rented this out in its entirety too, and a dedicated bartender had even been stationed at the bar set up along one side of the pool.
'Whoa. Now I'm getting nervous for no reason.'
Noh Do-hwa, meanwhile, was calmly chatting with the bartender like an android that hadn't had tension built into its blueprints in the first place.
"A sweet martini, please..."
"Yes. A sweet martini. Coming right up."
"Ah," Dang Seo-rin quickly added her own order.
"I'll have a Manhattan!"
"A Manhattan. Coming right up."
To come to a cocktail bar and order a Manhattan for her very first glass meant, for Dang Seo-rin, that she needed to get a little drunk tonight.
Honestly, even though she'd managed to call the woman "Do-hwa unni," it was still awkward to drink face to face with her stone sober...!
"..."
"..."
A silence like death flowed between them. Maybe she really should have dragged Lee Ha-yul along after all, Dang Seo-rin regretted a little.
The bartender didn't toss any fuel onto the conversation either. He'd probably been told beforehand by his employer Cheon Yo-hwa not to disturb the two of them.
Normally, right around now, Dang Seo-rin would have skillfully loaded up the insider-exclusive unique skill [Small Talk], but...
'Ugh. No matter how I look at it, Do-hwa unni's the type who really hates small talk.'
A true insider read the other person before using their skills.
So Dang Seo-rin waited quietly for the host who had summoned her to this deadly drinking session to speak first.
Before long the cocktails arrived.
'Ah. Delicious.'
At the faint, barely-there hint of sweetness in the cocktail's aroma, Dang Seo-rin's happiness recharged at once.
While alcohol slowly seeped into her heart, distilling out her true feelings, a voice came from beside her.
"Have you heard the news...?"
"Hm? News? What news?"
"That Undertaker fellow. Apparently he opened the time capsule yesterday and absorbed all his memories. Just like us."
"Huh?"
The tipsiness rushed straight up to her face.
"H-how? Wasn't Pandora's box closed forever?"
"That was a lie, apparently. Word is unni can basically play with it however she pleases..."
'Cheon Yo-hwa, that little...?!'
Dang Seo-rin was stunned. Don't tell me she'd squeezed out a lie at the very moment they'd all opened the box together on the lawn?
'You really can't let your guard down around this one! Right to the very end!'
Truly the cunning, the dankness of a strategist who deceives friend and foe alike. Fitting for the Miko who handled the yin within Taeguk[1].
"I had originally intended to say screw it and not care whatever choice that human made, but..."
Noh Do-hwa tilted her cocktail glass.
"The memories of me. What was it called, a bad ending? Whatever. If he's regained those memories, that's a different story..."
"U-uhh?"
"That man is mine."
"..."
The air went as still as the surface of the pool, which no one but the two of them was allowed to enter anymore.
Dang Seo-rin looked at the woman across from her.
A few strands had slipped loose from her tied-up hair, draping over the side of Noh Do-hwa's face like wisteria blossoms.
She'd thrown a light white cardigan over her shoulders, on top of her swimsuit, and it resembled the doctor's coat that was Noh Do-hwa's symbol so closely that it suited her oddly well.
She was a pretty person.
"I married him."
"..."
"If it's a marriage and a vow that only my side remembers, one-sided, I have no intention of forcing it. There's nothing wrong with burying it in memory and living on forever. Well, you could say he's practically a different person, couldn't you?"
"..."
"But if he's remembered, yes. If he's remembering, that's a different story. From now on, no matter what happens, I will not let that man go..."
That this pretty person.
Had gouged out the eyes of the one she loved and demanded that he look at no one but her, that much was beyond any way for Dang Seo-rin to know.
Even so, that this woman's love would be terrifying, she could grasp in full without ever having lived through it.
"And so."
"..."
"Would you kindly piss off?"
"Don't want to."
It was an immediate answer.
Only then did Noh Do-hwa turn to look at her. The corner of her mouth was twisted strangely. Her gaze was like glaring at a corpse already dead.
Even so, Dang Seo-rin looked straight back at her without so much as a flinch.
"I am never going to give up."
"Even if that man and I enjoyed some seriously deranged days together...?"
"Yeah. It's a different cycle anyway. A bad ending story, right? And on top of that, a half-baked memory you took in by converting an imagined scenario Cheon Yo-hwa ran in a simulation into memory."
"..."
"Is it even certain that really happened? Me, on the other hand, I'm certain. Was it the 40th cycle, or whatever cycle it was. Anyway, the first time the Undertaker subjugated the Meteor Shower. I heard he kissed me. My first kiss."
Dang Seo-rin gladly took the bait.
She'd also calculated in an instant how the other woman would fire back about this. As if one glass of liquor would turn her into an idiot.
A laugh slipped out between Noh Do-hwa's lips, a soft "heh."
That was ominous. Before that breath could even shape itself into words, it felt to Dang Seo-rin as though a burn had already been seared into her chest in advance.
"That would be Hecate, not you."
"..."
"Because that man treats you as both Dang Seo-rin and Hecate, do you reckon you've actually become that yourself? Is the standard that man? Then like I said, since both of us have regained our memories, the same goes for me, doesn't it...?"
"..."
"Well. Or is it that, drenched in memories that crawled up from your subconscious after subjugating the reincarnator, you reckon you've inherited Hecate? Hmm. But if you put it that way, this memory of mine and that memory of yours seem to be equally half-baked."
"..."
"Which is it?"
Oh. To think such a person.
A person who could drive a knife this casually, this deep, into another's heart.
The Undertaker had been able to love her.
So it was something even a person like this could do.
This thing called love.
"You..."
"From unni to you. The way you address me keeps flipping around. Well, personally I prefer this one."
"...You. You really are vicious. So what is it you want? To chase everyone else off and live alone with the Undertaker? Don't tell me you mean to do that to Ha-yul too?"
"Yes. Obviously."
"My goodness. They're father and daughter! Both of them turn miserable if they're apart! You say you love him, and you don't even wish for the Undertaker's happiness?"
"Yes."
"..."
"In case you misunderstand, let me say this. It's not as if I particularly wish for that man's unhappiness."
Noh Do-hwa's eyes smiled.
"I only wish for both his unhappiness and his happiness to originate entirely from me. The oath of marriage, isn't that what it's about?"
"You're insane..."
Dang Seo-rin groaned.
She had no choice but to groan.
"...Until now I thought Sim Ah-ryeon was the craziest of all our members. Guess not. Sim Ah-ryeon, at least... at least, she wouldn't regard the Undertaker as her possession."
Sim Ah-ryeon merely loved beautiful things.
The name "Undertaker" had been inscribed at the very pinnacle of that beauty; it wasn't that she'd drawn the concept of beauty out of the Undertaker himself.
A matter of order.
The former Management Captain before her, by contrast, was saying she would draw every valuable thing in this world out of the Undertaker and the Undertaker alone.
Dang Seo-rin could grasp it intuitively.
"...Now I see why you're the only one among us who never fell to corruption. You were already crazy. You're a crazy person. Which is exactly why there wasn't even a gap for an anomaly to seep into."
It was a strange thing.
In a world stained with anomalies, Noh Do-hwa should have been the most human of humans.
And yet, in this present world where humans had returned as masters... Noh Do-hwa was the closest thing to a monster.
Just how absurd were the people the man she'd come to love had gathered as companions, she felt it cut to the bone all over again.
"...Whether you love the Undertaker or not, that's not my problem."
"Hmm."
"Honestly. When I went on a date with the Undertaker along the sea road yesterday, I was going to confess."
Yes.
While strolling the wharf, Dang Seo-rin had been prepared to accept a life spent forever with the other members, so long as just a promise along the lines of "he'd like me best" got engraved into her heart.
It wasn't as if she had some grand plan. More like, the Undertaker can handle it however he likes, and if handling it however he likes doesn't work out, she'd figure it out then.
But.
"...If I leave someone like you alone, everything's going to end up a mess again before I know it. The chaos you'd cause is on a level Sim Ah-ryeon can't even compare to."
"That one just now stung a little..."
"And hand the reins over to Cheon Yo-hwa instead? No way. The unni's far too untrustworthy, and the younger sister's far too emotional. Ye-ji? She's got way too much sentiment, and she's far too kind. Leaving it to Dok-seo or Ha-yul would be insane."
"So you'll be the Captain, then?"
"Yeah. Originally I figured I'd try to work something out with you, but I can't trust you."
Dang Seo-rin felt a sense of duty.
And whether it was when she'd first tried to take over the flower shop from her family, or when the Korean Peninsula had collapsed completely and only Busan remained, Dang Seo-rin was the type who sublimated a sense of duty into her reason for being and her purpose in life.
That instinct, which had gone off a couple of times before, sounded its siren alarm without reservation this time too.
'It has to be me! Everything's doomed otherwise!'
At Dang Seo-rin, exuding a tragic heroism about standing in the heavens herself, Noh Do-hwa scoffed.
"Will it work out...?"
"Will what."
"Everyone living it up, laughing ha-ha and ho-ho. Well, I can't imagine the human heart being so soft and round."
"Wow."
"Go ahead, do as you please. But a catastrophe is bound to happen, plain as day, and when it does I'll kick back and amuse myself."
"Wooow."
Dang Seo-rin was genuinely impressed.
"You, don't tell me right now... you're going to believe we'll fail, and wait for the aftermath of that failure? Again? Aaagain? After pulling that crap, waiting all the way until the Undertaker dropped into a bad ending?"
"There's a fallacy in the word 'wait.' Whatever you do or don't do, I'll enjoy what there is to enjoy with that man. So rather than wait, 'look forward to' would be the correct expression..."
"Seriously. Wow, seriously. You're cold-blooded. You. How about you just go ahead and admit you lost the bet you made with the Undertaker?"
"I admitted it. A while ago. But somehow, the scenario where the bad ending succeeded has now entered my head too... In that case, even tallying wins and losses, it's one win, one loss. Practically a draw, isn't it?"
"..."
"A draw means a rematch. It'll be a fun rematch. Try running things well. See if you can."
Dang Seo-rin clicked her tongue.
"Forget it. If I keep talking with you... with Do-hwa unni, my own head's going to go strange too. I'm leaving."
There was a sarcastic remark at the address that had flipped yet again, but Dang Seo-rin paid it no mind.
Because she stood up at once. To head back to her room.
'Seriously, seriously, seriously, seriously!'
Treading over the hallway carpet, Dang Seo-rin fumed all on her own.
'Please, Undertaker! Couldn't you have hung out with some normal kids?!'
'...If they'd been normal kids, they wouldn't have been so powerful as awakeners, I guess.'
'Couldn't you have just gone all lovey-dovey, all in love with me and me alone?! I saved you, didn't I!'
'...But wait, I was an Outer God. If you'd only hung out with me, the universe would've ended.'
'Do-hwa unni isn't even a particularly strong awakener! So why drag in human trash like that too?!'
'...She's similar to Ha-yul, I guess. Ha-yul would be sad living apart from the Undertaker too. And Do-hwa unni, life would have no meaning for her now without the Undertaker either.'
'Why are there seriously no normal people around at all?!'
'...Well, that's because the Undertaker himself is abnormal.'
This was the problem with being a rational person.
Even when she tried to vent her anger outward, her head had already produced counterarguments against herself, completing a miraculous self-sufficiency system.
"...Haah."
At a repeat sign too large to swallow down alone, Dang Seo-rin sighed and sighed.
'I give up. I left the drinking half-finished too. I'll just go to the Undertaker, have a drink, and talk a bit.'
That was when it happened.
"Dang Seo-rin."
"Hm?"
A familiar voice rang out in air stripped of noise the way only hotels manage. She raised her head, and the Undertaker was walking toward her, step by step.
"Ah, Undertaker!"
The moment she saw his face, her stomach, which had been groaning and aching, loosened right up, ahh. A handsome face came with a built-in defrost function.
Maybe it was because she was so happy to see him.
"Perfect timing! I was just drinking and stuff, but it got cut off halfway and it was really no fun. Let's drink together in your room, you and I..."
"Drink?"
Dang Seo-rin didn't immediately catch that his expression and tone carried a shadow unlike his usual.
"Who did you drink with?"
"...Hm?"
"True enough, a trip abroad. An ultra-luxury trip at that, so of course you could go meeting other people. But it was only for a single day."
"...Hm hm? Hm?"
Step.
The Undertaker came right up to her face. The whole time, nothing but question marks kept firing off from Dang Seo-rin's expression.
'Hmm? Something, something... isn't the mood a little different?'
When she looked closely. No. He'd already come right up to her face and cornered her against the hallway wall, so she'd been forced to look closely whether she liked it or not.
'There's a bit of a shadow under his eyes too. Huh, and his dress shirt's slightly undone...?'
If the white doctor's coat was Noh Do-hwa's symbol, then a neat appearance anytime, anywhere was the Undertaker's emblem.
'Did he, did he go drinking like me too?'
But whether her nose was numb or for some other reason, no trace of alcohol whatsoever could be detected from the Undertaker's body as he lowered his head to envelop her.
"You're a free-spirited soul. Left alone, you could fly off anywhere you pleased, however you pleased. I know that well."
"Uh... huh?"
Not even twenty seconds after they'd met, a strange mood was hanging in the air.
Feeling she ought to say something, Dang Seo-rin opened her mouth, breaking out in a nervous sweat.
"Um, look. I don't really get what you mean. Anyway, you've got it wrong, Undertaker. It's not like I met some total stranger..."
"Mm."
Right onto her parted lips, the sound of his breath layered over.
"...?!"
Dang Seo-rin's pupils dilated rapidly. She tried to let out a muffled moan, mm, but even that, before she knew it, her hand had been clasped tight in the Undertaker's hand.
She couldn't move in the slightest.
"...!!"
It wasn't only her hand that was caught.
The tip of her chin. As if he wanted to kiss her even a fraction closer, he'd lightly taken hold of her chin, adjusting the angle at which their breaths flowed together.
A moment that felt like eternity.
In Dang Seo-rin's head, countless question marks and exclamation marks crossed back and forth in turn.
Was she flustered? Of course. Was it a little unfamiliar, this being so different from usual? Maybe.
But just one day earlier, Dang Seo-rin had nearly fired off the proposal of a lifetime, and even before that she'd had countless, truly countless, will-they-won't-they moments with the very man before her now.
The fluster and unease settled, and his breath and touch came to the fore.
In the middle of the red carpet.
Just as the Undertaker had taken her hand and chin without realizing it, before she knew it, without anyone realizing it, Dang Seo-rin too had wrapped her arms around the Undertaker's waist.
"..."
"..."
Their lips drew apart. A little.
It was the perfect distance for gazing into his eyes, so Dang Seo-rin saw. And felt.
'Is he feeling anxious?'
Who? The Undertaker.
'Why?'
Because he hadn't seen her face for a day. Because in the meantime, she might have spent time with someone he didn't know about.
'No way.'
This man, who was always composed and as carefree as though he stood one step removed from the secular world, and yet, despite all that, who'd been bound to the secular world more than anyone and had tried to save people.
'The Undertaker? Him, the Undertaker?'
Dang Seo-rin looked up into his eyes once more. In the pitch-black darkness, only she was reflected.
'He was... fixated on me? Just now?'
Thump.
'The Undertaker is fixated on me.'
Her heart went all ticklish.
In this very moment, Dang Seo-rin newly became aware of a preference of hers that she'd never once noticed across all those tens of thousands of years, whether she'd been an Outer God or a human.
'It's not... bad.'
It seemed that she.
'No, I actually like it!'
It seemed she liked it when the person she loved fixated on her like mad.
* * *
The night had flowed on for a while.
Even though Dang Seo-rin had slipped away, the drinking didn't break up. From the start, for Noh Do-hwa, liquor had been something to drink alone.
And so, taking her time, now that she'd even gone and secured a bartender to use exclusively, Noh Do-hwa ran through a full course of cocktails.
The flavor wasn't as deep as wine, but cocktails had their own way of being enjoyed too.
Freely changing the strength and taste of her cocktails, Noh Do-hwa savored the night thoroughly.
And then, on the way back to her room.
"Management Captain Noh Do-hwa."
"Mmmmm...? Oh. Who do we have here. Heh. The day before yesterday, or is it the day before the day before yesterday now? The regressor fellow whose wedding I officiated, donning a wedding dress and all, isn't it."
"You smell of alcohol."
"Alcohol? Aaalcohol? Ah, well. I had a bit. Having money sure is convenient. I'm seriously thinking I might just go mooch off that Cheon Yo-hwa's place from now on."
"Who did you drink with?"
In that moment.
"...?"
Even dead drunk, Noh Do-hwa sensed something ominous. Her vision, this, sloshing around with the liquor, wasn't seeing too well.
'What is this?' 'Something.' 'I'm getting,' 'a seriously moronic feeling here?'
Still, Noh Do-hwa was Noh Do-hwa. The seasoning of her days reigning as the absolute power of the Korean Peninsula hadn't gone anywhere.
Putting the part of her brain not yet drowned in alcohol into maximum operation, she tried to read the expression on the man's face before her.
Fortunately, Noh Do-hwa had a very good read on the human called the Undertaker.
She'd known him well to begin with, but in a world destroyed by a bad ending, the two of them living together through thick and thin, eyes gouged out, marriage held, she'd come to know him even better. After all, he was her husband.
That instinct of hers was whispering.
"Who did you drink with, Noh Do-hwa?"
That this son of a bitch was up to something weird again.
Footnotes:
[1] Taeguk (the Korean form of the taijitu) is the red-and-blue swirl on the South Korean flag, dividing cosmic forces into yang (the active, bright half) and yin (the passive, dark half); calling her the one who "handled the yin" casts her as the dark, concealing counterpart of the pair.
-x-X-x-
That Woman D X
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* * *
The word that fit "closed retreat" the worst was "group."
If you likened wuxia to Pokemon, it had evolved in stages, from classic wuxia to new wuxia to web wuxia.
And among those, the stage called MZ wuxia[1], also known as xianxia[2], was basically its Gigantamax evolution.
Anyone who'd encountered Pokemon back in the day, the moment they laid eyes on a Gigantamax, would let out an involuntary Lion's Roar[3] of "Hah! What kind of Pokemon is that?!"
Xianxia was bound to exactly the same fate.
Even so, there was one rule of grammar that hadn't changed from past to present.
The unwritten law that a "closed retreat" had to be done alone.
Obviously, if you did it not by yourself but as a like-minded group all hyping each other up, how was that a retreat at all?
Even if it happened at some little spring deep in the mountains, that wasn't a retreat. It deserved to be called a vaguely offbeat team-building lodge instead.
"...Hey."
In that sense, Noh Do-hwa was a flawless, perfectly normal person who had never read so much as a single volume of wuxia in her life.
But even she could sense that the present situation was deeply abnormal.
"We've been holed up in a hotel room for over ten days now without even getting to see the sun outside. Is this normal? Huh...?"
"Go get your sunlight on the terrace."
The Undertaker answered.
For the record, besides the two of them, several other people were sprawled out across this ridiculously spacious suite. Dang Seo-rin was over there, Cheon Yo-hwa way over there...
Damn it, Noh Do-hwa cursed under her breath. For someone with misanthropy as a passive trait, far too many people were living here.
"Outside. I said outside, you bastard..."
At that, the Undertaker's eyes flashed. They gleamed like a beast's in the dead of night.
"Why? You want to leave? You're saying you want to get away from me?"
"You, dog..."
It had been ten full days since the Undertaker had evolved into the most insane, obsessive man the world had ever seen.
As though the grammar of the genre were no concern of his, this atrocity called "team-lodge training" was being carried out with perfect composure.
Noh Do-hwa came to a deep, deep realization. Mostly a reflection on her past self, and especially on the way she herself loved.
The realization that maybe the sight of someone obsessing over another person like a lunatic could, from that person's point of view, be way more screwed up than she'd ever imagined.
* * *
To run quickly through the various incidents that occurred during those past ten days of madness, it went like this.
First, Lee Ha-yul ended up with a whole pile of mothers.
Even Silence Suzuka[4], seeing Lee Ha-yul as she was now, surely couldn't have spouted the nonsense, "It must be nice to have so many mothers."
[Hmm.]
Lee Ha-yul's attitude toward the mass-produced mothers was complicated too.
Dang Seo-rin, Noh Do-hwa, Jeong Ye-ji, Yu Ji-won. For people like that, Lee Ha-yul was willing to put on a thick face and cling to them going "Mama."
But little-sister Cheon Yo-hwa and big-sister Cheon Yo-hwa? Not so easy.
Sim Ah-ryeon? Get lost. Oh Dok-seo? Has the world ended?
[Now that I really think it over.]
Lee Ha-yul solemnly raised her sketchbook.
[I'm pretty sure I only ever had one mother to begin with.]
"You're only realizing that now??"
Oh Dok-seo, Lee Ha-yul's best friend, was dumbfounded.
If Lee Ha-yul's mother, who was probably tending the household plants in Busan right now, perfectly fine, had heard it, it was an unfilial remark scandalous enough to make her faint.
[More to the point, I never expected even you to make a move on Dad. I trusted my friend just as much as I trusted you.]
"No. I'm not in that closed-retreat crew, am I. Mister and I have a noble spiritual love. Author-to-reader platonic love, okay?"
[I'm gonna puke.]
"What's really gonna make me puke is the plain truth that Ah-ryeon unni walked into that gate of hell on her own two feet. She was even the most eager one about it..."
[Our Dad has something wrong with his head.]
That's right.
Lee Ha-yul and Oh Dok-seo, the only two who had not joined the genre-shattering atrocity of the group-cohabitation closed retreat, were savoring a trip to California in the United States together.
The travel expenses they could foist off onto the Cult. The cultists would tag along as bodyguards and even interpreters. They had a friend whose heart matched theirs. It was just a gold mine.
And in the middle of the two of them savoring it.
"Hello?"
They ran into an irregular they never saw coming.
A being whose hair color should have gone back to ordinary after the final subjugation battle.
And yet, for some reason, here was someone with pink hair flowing down again. Go Yuri.
"Hwuhk!"
[Oh. Auntie, hi.]
Oh Dok-seo jumped like a Joseon villager who'd run into a tiger on a hillside, but Lee Ha-yul actually welcomed her.
Go Yuri gave a wry smile.
"I'm Auntie because I'm Go Yuir's little sister? Hmmm. Ha-yul. No, niece, the way you address people really does have a lot of depth to it."
"H-how did you get here?! You shouldn't be able to use your Teleportation anymore! And why has your hair color regressed again too?!"
"Ahaha. Dok-seo."
Go Yuri smiled demurely.
"I have a lot of money. I've got private jets in every major city, you know."
"..."
It was true.
These days, a mysterious investor going by the nickname "Saintess" had been showing off insane returns and slowly building a reputation on the dark side of Wall Street, but to Go Yuri, even that was just a cute newbie.
Add up all the assets she'd scattered across nominee accounts and countless organizations, and Go Yuri's wealth was on an overwhelming level. She hadn't been all talk about saving the world.
The moment she came to her senses after the final subjugation battle, what Go Yuri had said was this.
"Hmm." "I should head down to South America to manage the organizations." "And tidy things up while I'm at it." "There are a lot of useless places now."
Right after that, Go Yuri vanished for a while.
She wasn't missing, exactly. You could reach her by phone reliably enough.
But her number changed every single time you placed a call, a regular circus trick, so Oh Dok-seo cleanly gave up caring. Her life was precious.
So coming face to face with Go Yuri like this was a reunion after quite a while.
Go Yuri walked over lightly and sat down across from them at the cafe's outdoor table. Exactly like a friend you'd hung out with yesterday and parted from, only to meet again today.
"By the way, niece Ha-yul can talk in her own voice as much as she wants now, can't she? There's Uehara Shino's potion. And the surgery should have finished successfully too."
[Yes.]
[But to draw out my own voice, you have to clear the Lee Ha-yul exclusive route.]
[When you reach the route's climax, this me, who has only ever talked through a sketchbook and tablet, gradually opens her mouth and answers her partner's proposal...]
["Yes," like that.]
[Hwaaaahk.]
[That's when, for the first time, a line comes out in my own raw voice, and it's seared in clear as day that this Lee Ha-yul has been conquered.]
[Jackpot. Mega jackpot. Total mega jackpot.]
[The plain, undeniable fact that the one true heroine of supreme dignity is me, Lee Ha-yul, will be revealed to all the world...]
[From now on, I shall stand atop the heavens.]
"Ahaha. That route sounds fascinating. Though Go Yuir would probably get killed at the hands of the other members."
Watching the two of them talk in front of her, Oh Dok-seo's face soured into a "Bleagh."
It bore repeating. Lee Ha-yul and Oh Dok-seo were best friends.
Just as Lee Ha-yul would sooner choose death than call Oh Dok-seo "Mom," Oh Dok-seo too found the Lee Ha-yul route utterly revolting.
And likewise Lee Ha-yul found the route of being called "daughter" by Oh Dok-seo very, very revolting, and conversely, on the matter of being called "Mom" by Lee Ha-yul, Oh Dok-seo actually found it very, very, very, et cetera omitted. They were an ouroboros of mutual disgust.
There was a solid reason these two could become friends.
"So why'd you suddenly show up like a wild Pokemon? Weren't you busy as anything tidying up the organizations you'd scattered around the world?"
"Yes. I've about finished tidying up now."
Go Yuri demurely covered the corner of her mouth.
"Above all, my information network brought me some very interesting news. Not just Yu Ji-won and Oraboni alone, but the whole group going on a trip together! What on earth happened?"
"I'd love to ask what kind of information network that even is, but... well. It's a straw you stuck inside the Cult, I'm sure."
Oh Dok-seo shrugged.
She'd thrown her own weight around internationally trying to save even one regressor, but the spies Go Yuri had recruited really did operate in the shadows everywhere.
"I'll explain."
A little while later.
"Wow!"
Clap, Go Yuri brought her hands together.
If you put her current expression into words, it was nothing but all smiles. Her whole face was brimming with delighted laughter.
"Going along with everyone. I never expected that at all!"
"...Really? But Mister had tons of people with a thing for him from the start."
"It's a matter of Oraboni's personality. For Oraboni, the final stage of love is, in the end, 'the resolve and the decision to spend a lifetime with the person in front of you.' No matter who he was close with, or how close, up to that point, once he decides on love he unconditionally puts that person at priority zero."
Go Yuri smiled brightly.
"You peeked through the Infinite Metagame's mischief too, Dok-seo, so you'd understand. Even when he ended up with Sim Ah-ryeon, Oraboni vowed to give everything for that one person, you know?"
"..."
"That's why I predicted that no matter how Oraboni reached a happy ending, the conclusion would have him joined with no one... in other words, a no-romance ending, or an ending where he lives only with Ha-yul."
Go Yuri giggled and stirred her lemon tea with a spoon.
"My goodness. So that's it. Making a time capsule by taking advantage of the cycle where I was killed. As expected of Cheon Yo-hwa. Every now and then she leaps right past my predictions!"
"..."
Watching that purely, genuinely fascinated reaction, Oh Dok-seo couldn't help feeling it all over again.
Ah, the one whose way of thinking and emotions resemble Mister's most really is the person right in front of me.
Even if the members had ended up with other people, the Undertaker would have blessed it purely. Just like Go Yuri was doing now.
Only.
'Mister is someone who can change even his own way of thinking for the members' sake.'
That he would turn into an insane, obsessive man, even Oh Dok-seo couldn't have imagined, but in any case the Undertaker had abandoned a superior position of his own accord.
He'd lived loftily above the clouds as though lust and carnal desire had nothing to do with him, then deliberately fallen from heaven, you might say.
'Enlightenment is awakening. Go Yuri, who stays in the realm of enlightenment forever, and Mister, who hands down a death sentence even on his own enlightenment. Maybe that's the decisive difference between the two...'
In the end.
Oh Dok-seo had searched every cycle, mobilizing the Infinite Metagame and even collaborating with Cheon Yo-hwa's Taeguk, but there was no "Go Yuri route" to be found there.
Of course. If even a single bad ending with Go Yuri had ever come about, every worldline would have ground to a halt that very day.
"By the way."
Go Yuri said to Oh Dok-seo, who was lost in thought.
"I'm asking in case there's a cycle I missed again. Dok-seo."
"Y-yeah. Ask me anything."
"Among the observed bad endings. Was there a separate Dang Seo-rin route too?"
"Hm? No?"
Oh Dok-seo denied it at once.
"Seo-rin unni's bad ending was the cycle where 'Utopia' descended, right? So that bad ending already existed in the main story, not the side stories. There were a few cycles where Seo-rin unni and Mister got to flirt a little, sure..."
"There were?"
"Mm. Well, it didn't work out."
It couldn't be helped.
Unlike the other members, Dang Seo-rin had already 'been dead' by the time she met the Undertaker.
Only Hecate, who had inherited Dang Seo-rin's personality and memories, existed.
This death of hers, which could never be undone even through regression, was the very obstacle that blocked the progress of the "Dang Seo-rin route" time and again.
The deeper the relationship between the Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin grew, the more sharply the odds rose that she herself would realize she was a false existence.
A figure for whom only catastrophe was fated as an ending.
No matter how romantic the mood, no matter how much love there was, there simply was no route that ever joined them. The absolute "sub-heroine" in that sense.
That was the Dang Seo-rin Oh Dok-seo had looked upon.
"Ahaha."
After hearing out Oh Dok-seo's view, Go Yuri laughed softly.
"That's a mistaken view, Dok-seo."
"Hm? What is?"
"All the others were joined with Undertaker through the side stories. But only one single person. Only Dang Seo-rin's bad ending was included in the so-called main story..."
A grin.
"Couldn't that be read to mean that this worldline is, of all things, the route joined with Dang Seo-rin?"
"Uh... i-is that so?"
"Yes."
Go Yuri rose quietly.
"It's a relief for me too. Dang Seo-rin, surely, will face any hardship head-on together with Oraboni and press on. The two of them are the finest of companions."
She turned her back.
"W-wait. Where are you going?"
"My curiosity's been satisfied. I'm content. Now I have to go do what I have to do again."
"You came after so long, at least see Mister and the other members before you go, come on..."
"I can call anytime, after all."
Go Yuri turned her head slightly to look at Oh Dok-seo, the one who had dragged this route all the way here.
A being who was, in a sense, like a child born between the two of them, regressor and reincarnator.
"All of you are very, very precious to me. But as you know, among the people living and breathing on this earth, there isn't a single one who isn't precious to me."
"Ah."
"I'm not a god. And I couldn't become one, either. But I still want to try to save as many people as I can."
"..."
"Take care, Dok-seo unni. Ha-yul unni. Let's meet again next time."
Step.
Go Yuri's back grew distant.
It was an age where awakeners and anomalies alike had died down now, so that back didn't vanish in an instant the way it used to.
Instead, a jet-black limousine glided smoothly along the road and, as if it were only natural, stopped right in front of Go Yuri.
Go Yuri opened the rear door herself and got in. And the limousine departed without a sound.
Still the person with the faintest presence of anyone, and the densest presence of anyone.
So Oh Dok-seo thought.
[Hey, Ms. Oh.]
"Why?"
[That stuff you explained to Auntie Yuri earlier. Real? The simulations you ran. The ones you said you wrote as 'side stories'?]
"Yeah. Taeguk ran the simulations, but anyway it's a washed-up loser-god whose juice has all run out now, so I figured I'd better lend it at least a bit of the Infinite Metagame's power."
[Is there a route for me in the side stories?]
"As if."
[Why not?]
"Hah? Damn it, so you want me to write the part where you and Mister are left alone, just the two of you, chattering away in a destroyed world? My fingers cringed themselves into knots even writing the Final Weapon BUSAN part[5]! Are you insane?!"
[It's not Final Weapon BUSAN, it's the Mobile Land-Based Aircraft Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City 『BusaN』. Don't ever get it wrong again.]
"Get lost! Hey! Get lost!"
The next day.
After enjoying their trip to the fullest, Oh Dok-seo and Lee Ha-yul returned to the hotel in San Francisco, where they got word that Dang Seo-rin had splurged on an ultra-luxury yacht.
After much deliberation, the naming rights for the boat went to Lee Ha-yul.
The name of this nice boat was, of course, the Mobile Sea-Based Aircraft Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City.
It was 『BusaN』.
Footnotes:
[1] "MZ" is Korean shorthand for the "MZ generation," a popular media coinage lumping together Millennials and Gen Z; here it jokingly frames the newest wave of cultivation fiction as the genre's youngest, trendiest stage.
[2] Xianxia ("immortal heroes") is a Chinese fantasy genre about cultivators pursuing immortality through martial and spiritual training, an evolution of the older wuxia (martial-hero) tradition.
[3] The Lion's Roar is a stock wuxia martial-arts technique that channels inner energy into an overwhelming shout; the accompanying cry "Hah!" is a cliché villain/elder exclamation in the genre.
[4] Silence Suzuka is a character in Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, a media franchise personifying real racehorses as girls; the joke alludes to a well-known fan meme about her in-game story.
[5] A parody of Saikano ("She, the Ultimate Weapon"), a tragic manga/anime about a girl turned into humanity's final weapon; the gag swaps in the city of Busan, then bloats the name into an absurdly long mecha-anime-style title.
-x-X-x-
That Woman D XI
──────
* * *
Time passed and passed, and then one day.
A rookie struck the VTuber streaming scene, which had already turned into a red ocean, like a bolt from the blue.
Not in a good way.
『Goryeojang』
goryeochan_ra_vtuber
The center of the Regression Alliance! The rightful master of Pyongyang, the Saintess of the North, everyone's lover, Goryeojang♡
『(●LIVE) Hawawa, I saved the world from world annihilation and woke up a super-bishoujo genius painter?!』
A thunderbolt really was a thunderbolt.
It carried the implication that everything where it landed would burn to the ground.
"H, hello! I'm the Saintess who saved a world that nearly fell into ruin. A, and. I'm also Goryeojang, the guardian of Pyongyang and the North..."
"A, also, I'm the best artist in the universe. Me. Anyone acting all cocky because they can draw should get under me and lick my toes..."
-?
The viewers could not hide their confusion at this rookie who had shown up with such a bizarre concept.
Sure, this scene had turned into a red ocean fast, but even concepts had their limits.
A Saintess? Fine. There were plenty of streamers everywhere, regardless of nationality, who came out with a Saintess concept.
A genius painter? Also fine. Plenty of streamers sold themselves on their drawing skills.
The master of Pyongyang? The guardian of the North? The center of the Regression Alliance? What even is that, you weeb?
-Excuse me, streamer, but could you maybe settle on one concept?
-fr saintess, painter, Pyongyang citizen, I have no clue what's going on here;
"B, but... Hng. This is me."
It was some truly shameless bullshit.
And it did not stop there.
-guess streamers have a hard time making money these days too
"Huh? N, no? I'm rich, though. I live off spending money and it still never runs dry..."
"H, here. I'll show you my bankbook!"
-?
An internet first. A VTuber who started broadcasting and immediately proved she was rich by showing her bank account had appeared.
The viewers were stunned by a bankbook showing not tens of billions, but hundreds of billions of won.
That shock spread through the communities like wildfire, and the beasts startled by that wildfire slowly began gathering around the rookie's stream.
-is this real???
-obviously fake lol do you know how easy it is to fake screenshots like that these days lol
-fr if you trade stocks you see fake proof posts like that every day
"I, I figured you wouldn't believe me. So if you go post something praising me in your community right now and send me the link and your account number by DM, I'll give you a million won..."
-?
-?
-?
-wow this girl's actually insane;;
-until just now I just thought she was weird, but that got creepy fast...
-the avatar quality's decent, but the person inside is deranged
Of course, nobody believed the rookie liar's wild claim.
However, the time minimalists who had devoted their lives to the internet were the sort who would happily act for the fun of it even without believing.
Two or three viewers really did post praise for the "Saintess" in the communities they used, then verified it, and,
-???
-holy shit
-guys jackpot
-why what happened?
-I literally just got one million won deposited into my account
-?????
Something.
Something had started happening.
-what? did she hire shills?
-no I'm serious it actually got deposited!!
-?? I got one million won too?
-what the fuck
Even the "sensible people" who had first assumed the streamer must have hired part-time workers herself,
once the witnesses saying they had gotten a million won stopped being one or two people and started reaching the dozens, then the hundreds, had no choice but to doubt their own common sense for a moment.
Otherwise, the only explanation was that every single one of these people, chatting and posting proof in every community under the sun, was a paid shill.
Then what, she had hired over a hundred of them? A rookie on her very first stream? Did that make any sense either?
"S, so. Today I'll just keep it simple and hand out one billion won. Posts I don't personally see don't count..."
"I'll come back tomorrow too, at the same time!"
The next day.
-openupopenupopenupopenup
-Saintess, I wrote a proof post! I sent you a DM too! Please check it, Saintess!
-My dog is starving, Saintess. If your grace can save my dog, I'll become the dog instead
-ugh all the beggars in the world gathered in this room;;
-and you're saying I'm supposed to resist a million won??
A mere two days after debut, thousands of viewers flooded in.
It was a comedy born from this insane stunt sweeping through every community overnight.
And what did the culprit behind all this chaos, the VTuber who had shown up with the ridiculous nickname "Goryeojang," say?
"T, today I'm giving away ten billion won."
Just.
"This time it's not one million, it's 100 million each. No more, no less, e, exactly one hundred people. I'll pick them starting now and send each of you 100 million won..."
That day.
Every community was annihilated.
* * *
After gaining fame as "the lunatic who burned ten billion won on her own debut stream,"
Goryeojang kept streaming with surprising ease.
"T, today. I'll draw an anomaly called Udumbara. It'll get auto-filtered a little on its own, so please keep that in mind..."
Because of the early ragebait, chats begging please just 100 million or no, please, even just one million kept popping up every now and then for more than half a year.
Even after that period passed, however, Goryeojang's stream kept cruising along, boasting an average viewership of around 5,000.
Why did people even watch this kind of stream?
The reason was simple.
-Saintess! Tell us about what happened in Sinuiju today!
"A, the b, battle for Sinuiju? That place was always the same. But when the aliens invaded, even I got a little scared."
The occasional stories she told from her days as the Saintess were unexpectedly, no, genuinely, strangely,
full of realism.
"Mo Gwang-seo Christ Cathedral... Ah. It's Kumsusan Palace of the Sun now, right? Hehe."
"T, they really layer the defensive lines around that palace tight, one after another. But then the aliens invaded from Sinuiju in less than thirty minutes while we let our guard down for just a second!"
"I, I was still fighting the defensive battle in Sinuiju with the Paladins back then... It sent a chill down my spine, seriously."
"At least it was raining, thank goodness. I, if it hadn't, the northern front would've collapsed that very day."
On and on.
Once she got going, her lips twisted and her tongue stumbled, but she kept forcing the story out, and some parts were so vivid it almost felt like she had experienced them herself.
There was even one viewer working in the National Intelligence Service who fell into serious thought over, Wait, why is this girl's information on North Korean geography so accurate?
Then one day,
-hey
-but you've got tons of money
-and it doesn't even seem like you need to stream
-so why do you work this hard at it?
one viewer asked out of simple curiosity.
Then an ah slipped out from beyond the speaker.
"Sooo. U, um, everyone. You're almost all guys, right...?"
-nope?
-I'm not a guy
-hawawa I'm a 15-year-old bishoujo-jang
-graduated from an all-boys high school, graduated college, did my military service, but I'm still a bishoujo anyway deal with it
"A, anyway!"
Goryeojang spoke before five thousand viewers.
"I'm doing this stream b, because. Most of you are probably men..."
The viewers tilted their heads. The viewer listening to the stream through earbuds while bench-pressing only twitched an eyebrow.
She was streaming because we were men?
What did that mean? Did she just enjoy drawing broth out of us that much?
"U, um... I, I have a b, boyfriend."
?
"But my boyfriend's possessiveness is. Hwaaa, i, insane. He's suuuper possessive."
??
"I'm secretly streaming with all of you without telling my boyfriend... Because, hehe. Becauseee...!"
"If he finds out I've been secretly chatting away all lovey-dovey with men for over half a year! Then my boyfriend will get r, really, really really!"
"Jealous..."
???
At that moment, about five thousand viewers briefly got confused over whether they were really human, or maybe Protoss.
All their hearts were connected through the Khala and displaying a single word, a question mark.
For the record, the viewer bench-pressing got pinned under the barbell. The gym erupted into chaos.
-no
-what the hell is this
-a VTuber just openly admitting she has a boyfriend like this??
"W, what? Y, yes. Yes!"
"Actually, calling him my boyfriend is only technically true... Since we're going to live together forever, he's basically my husband anyway, isn't he?"
-???
What the hell was this nonsense?
When people saw something beyond the limits of imagination, they could only freeze up.
And so, astonishingly, the number of viewers watching Goryeojang's stream neither increased nor decreased.
Everyone was glued to the screen.
"Hwak! T, the boat rocked again..."
"Mmm. Yachts are nice and all, but sometimes the boat sways and it makes my stomach churn. I changed the antenna to an expensive one too, but it still lags sometimes."
-?
-Saintess, are you streaming from a boat?
"Ah, yes. I guess I never mentioned that until now."
"U, um. My husband is seeing quite a few people. So while we're at it, we're traveling together on a yacht..."
-?
-?
-?
What the hell was this nonsense?
The viewers' heads, already suffering from setting overload, started exploding by the dozen.
-so she's rich and doesn't need money at all
-and she just threw ten billion won into thin air purely for attention
-and she goes live diligently every day on the dot, draws, tells stories, and built herself up to mid-tier size
-and all of that was purely to drag out her boyfriend's? husband's? obsession and jealousy
-and that boyfriend or husband is dating other people besides you?
-and all this is happening on a yacht??
It was torture to link together even a single sentence without a question mark.
The moment it got expressed in human language, it felt as if the brain itself might become contaminated.
"Yep!"
And yet Goryeojang's voice was utterly bright as she answered the viewers' questions.
"Hauuu. The Guild Leader... Ah. Guild Leader is what I call my boyfriend. A, anyway."
"It's nice when the Guild Leader gets all possessive over me, but what I really want is for that person to get the most j, jealous over me."
"So fooling around with other men would probably work best. But this is our private yacht. There's nobody else here."
"And if I try to go ashore at a port, the Guild Leader will figure out exactly where I went and who I met. So I can't make the operation succeed..."
"S, so! Internet streaming!"
"I'm usually just holed up in my room surfing the internet anyway. So the Guild Leader never touches what I do on the computer, and lets the guard down... Hehee."
"So... I'm having a secret affair with all of you. I'm cheating..."
"E, even if! It's online romance!"
"Romance is still romance."
"And cheating is still cheating."
"R, right?"
"Answer me."
By this point, the viewers' heads had already exploded, and yet they were still somehow exploding further.
A secret affair? Wasn't that usually what VTubers hid from "us" and then carried out in "reality" behind the screen?
Why were we the secret affair?
Why were we the objects of the cheating?
How did this logic even exist? How was this mindset possible?
"I, I should stream on Christmas too. And it'd be nice if I got caught having a secret affair on Christmas..."
The viewers realized.
This.
Had.
Transcended.
Humanity.
-we've never dated someone like you in our lives, fuck
"Eh. Th, that's mean. Why are you being like that? You sent huge superchats before too... Chat messages are that, you know? They're like the love letters you and I keep exchanging."
"I, I saved every single one."
"I'm going to show them to the Guild Leader..."
-hwaaaaaaaaah
-crazycrazycrazy
-run holy shit
There was no escaping.
On Christmas Day,
"T, ta-daaaaaan!"
"Oh. What's this, Ah-ryeon?"
a man's voice the viewers had never heard before came out of the speakers.
Even though a real man's voice appearing on a VTuber stream was the kind of event that could burn related communities to the ground,
the chat was silent.
Perfectly silent.
It was not normal.
But then again, if anyone wanted to talk about what was normal, the very title of today's broadcast was already not normal.
『Goryeojang』
goryeochan_ra_vtuber
The center of the Regression Alliance! The rightful master of Pyongyang, the Saintess of the North, everyone's lover, Goryeojang♡
『(●LIVE) Christmas Boyfriend Grand Reveal』
A stream title so soaked in dopamine that it felt like some substance that should never be secreted by the brain was being squeezed out like juice.
Pure entertainment. No, pure violence.
All the viewers became one and clasped their hands in desperate prayer. Mister nameless boyfriend, Mister Guild Leader, please run!
Someone might ask, if that was the case, why not just turn off the stream and ignore it?
That was impossible.
Miss this huge premium event? Resist this?
-the Guild Leader has a nice voice...
-runrunrunrunrun
-nice to meet you, your girlfriend threatens us with a knife all the time, so if it wouldn't be too much trouble could you please take her away
-so your name was Ah-ryeon, Saintess
The current viewer count was a whopping 160,000.
It was a record-breaking number.
Truly a fitting finale for the greatest villain of the year, who had started with the shocking "ten-billion debut" and set countless communities and shorts vultures on fire all year long.
"It's my stream!"
"A stream?"
"Yes! I, actually. I've really been streaming for a whole year. A, a VTuber. Guild Leader, you're an o, otaku too, so you know all about it, right?"
"..."
"Hehe. Look at this! I have 160,000 viewers! I'm super popular. Just a second, Guild Leader. I'm going to greet the Paladins watching right now!"
"..."
"H, hello, my beloved Paladins? Today is Christmas. Even on this most holy of days, you came here to love me, so I'm sincerely th, thankful."
The viewers had no idea when this streamer had started referring to them as "my beloved Paladins."
They truly had no idea.
Wasn't her daily routine just mocking this bastard and that bastard all day long?
Even the hardcore viewers who had been there since the ten-billion debut were only just now learning for the first time that their fan name was "Paladins."
"And to show my gratitude to you all in that spirit... I specially prepared an ASMR microphone!"
"Just a second. I had everything ready in advance, but I, um, need to change the settings a little. Ah. There."
"E, everyone."
"Hwaaaa."
"I love you..."
Before she could even finish saying I love you,
"Ah."
somehow, that sounded delighted.
"Ah. Ahaha, aha. G, Guild Leader. Your face right now. Y, your faaaace... Hwak."
Then the sound of something crashing around.
"M, Merry Christmas! This is my present, Guild Leadeeer... W, were you surprised? Right? Right?"
And then.
A moment later.
『This broadcast has been terminated for violating community guidelines.』
Everything fell silent.
And that was the "Christmas retirement live" of the rookie VTuber Goryeojang, who had appeared like a thunderbolt.
For some reason, from the very next day onward, videos and recordings related to it started disappearing one by one,
and so it became the end of a streamer whose fate remained only in legend.
* * *
"Ah-ryeon."
"Yeees, Great Witch..."
"Undertaker."
"..."
"Answer."
"Yes."
"Right. The only Undertaker I need is the one kneeling in front of me, but goodness me. This time you went and hired hundreds of internet Undertakers?"
"I'm sorry..."
"I have to deal with this starting on Christmas? Huh? Do you know how busy Yo-hwa and I have been?"
"I'm sorry..."
"That's enough, so drop that ridiculous obsession concept already! I know! I get it! I know how much you love us, so do it in moderation! For once!"
"Yes."
"Ah-ryeon, you're banned from the internet for one year."
"Hieeeeeeeeeek!"
Sim Ah-ryeon, internet confiscated.
This too must be Great Witch's grace.
"Hoo."
Dang Seo-rin, worn out from erasing traces from the internet over the last few days, let her shoulders droop.
This damn household, no, this damn ship-hold, really never had a quiet day.
From an outsider's point of view, this "Goryeojang fiasco" might have looked like some kind of grand incident.
Of course, it really was grand. If a person had to experience something like this in life, that event would usually occupy the place of a final battle.
But in this godforsaken ship-hold, it was only around the level of the first Cooper trial.
Just the week before last, Dang Seo-rin had needed to suppress an incident called Riot of a Hundred Flowers, and the week before the week before that, she had been forced through that damned event called Great Debate! Philosophy Battle, and the week before the week before the week before the week before the week before that...
Dang Seo-rin pressed a hand to her forehead. She had poured this much mental energy into it, yet she did not feel in the slightest that anything had ended.
The only thing that somehow felt rock-solid was the certainty that this kind of bullshit would keep repeating forever.
If this were a novel, it was the kind of absurd uproar that would consume nearly 200 chapters, yet nobody would want to describe it.
"Hey. Undertaker. We'll reach the northern Mediterranean around January or February, right?"
"Yeah. R, right. We were planning to stop by Venice then too."
Undertaker's voice shrank. Even a once-in-an-age obsessive lunatic became subdued in a situation like this.
"So, about that... Mm."
Dang Seo-rin quietly ran the numbers.
At present, the Mobile Land-Based Aircraft Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City BusaN was continuing its voyage in full swing.
Sometimes the members split up into one group traveling by land and another by sea.
In any case, the world tour was proceeding smoothly.
"When that time comes, set aside some time just for me."
"Hm? You mean the two of us should go around together?"
"Yeah. Honestly, I've been through a lot lately, so even if I tell the others, they'll probably let..."
"No."
Undertaker said it. His voice was still quiet, but there was a bitter smile mixed into it as well.
"I can't keep making only you suffer. I'll handle getting permission from the others myself."
Venice, between January and February.
Right in time for Carnival season.
It was winter.
-x-X-x-
That Woman D XII (Fin)
──────
Now and then.
Dang Seo-rin would have a dream like this.
-...
A dream where she opened her eyes to find the Undertaker right in front of her, weeping.
An intersection.
The intersection where she had first met the Undertaker at the start of every cycle.
-...?
Naturally, there was no way for Dang Seo-rin to figure out why the man before her was crying, or who he even was.
His face, at least, was her type.
'Good. So this isn't real.'
Dang Seo-rin accepted it quickly.
The intersection itself had been strange from the start. Instead of living passersby, only bloodstains went clomping along on their own. It would have been harder to believe this wasn't a dream.
A dream within a dream.
-I'm sorry. Dang Seo-rin.
The man always held her close and repeated his words of apology.
-I'm sorry.
-Uh. Um..., excuse me. Who are you?
-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was a fool. I went and used up your entire lifespan. I didn't know that a lifespan could not only be whittled down, but go into the negative.
-...? ...?
-I'm sorry. Even just talking with you like this is allowed only for a brief moment. Truly, I'm sorry.
It was nothing but riddles.
Still, the word 'lifespan' somehow landed with her.
Ever since she had opened her eyes at that intersection, her eyelids had been terribly, unbearably heavy.
'Ah, so in this dream, I'm dying.'
Why was that? She had surely never experienced death before, yet, strangely enough, she could feel it clearly.
It was as though her real self had died long ago, and that believing herself alive was, on the contrary, the illusion of the dream.
-I'm sorry, Dang Seo-rin. I'm sorry...
The man apologized.
Over and over.
Her eyelids grew so heavy that she couldn't bear it, and when she let them slip shut for just a moment, just the briefest blink, and opened them again,
-I'm sorry. Dang Seo-rin.
the man was repeating the very same apology, as if no time had passed at all.
It was eerie.
-...?
The eerier part was that, after each blink, she could no longer remember anything about the man.
-Uh. Um..., excuse me. Who are you?
-I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
The same question. The same answer.
The same forgetting. The same repentance.
Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times. She blinked and blinked again, far too many times to count.
-I'm sorry.
The man always held her close at that intersection and confessed nothing but his apology.
-...
Then, at some moment, Dang Seo-rin felt the self held in the man's arms split apart from the self watching that scene.
How should she put it?
Maybe the one over there gazing at the man's weeping in bewilderment was the 'real' Dang Seo-rin, and the one blankly watching the two of them was the 'dreaming' Dang Seo-rin.
In any case, Dang Seo-rin thought:
'He doesn't have to hurt himself that badly.'
It was clear that some mistake had occurred between that man and herself.
What kind of mistake had it been?
She couldn't know for sure, but it was probably because of it that she had fallen into an irreversible fate.
And yet, if it were her, if it were 'Dang Seo-rin,' she would surely forgive a person who was apologizing this hard.
'It's all right.'
Dang Seo-rin was someone who knew how to love.
She cherished her family. She held pride in herself. She knew how to sacrifice for the ones she held dear.
That proud life of hers had surely been built up for the sake of people who wept on and on, like the man before her.
Dang Seo-rin could say it honestly.
'I'm fine. Please don't cry so much.'
But.
-I'm sorry.
She couldn't reach out her hand.
No matter how much she wanted to send her voice across to say it was all right, the 'Dang Seo-rin' at that intersection beyond the fog couldn't put those words to her lips.
'I'm really fine.'
-I'm sorry, Dang Seo-rin. I'm so sorry.
'...'
After all, the Dang Seo-rin over there was a being inside a dream.
She was a being separate from herself here, within the dream inside the dream.
She couldn't reach her.
'...'
If asked which of the two was the false one, then naturally the one over here, watching the intersection from afar, would be the false one.
Dang Seo-rin thought quietly.
'I don't want to die.'
Once, it seemed, someone had wished such a wish.
But she actually knew the truth. Back then, that girl hadn't prayed out of some greed to never die, or to live forever.
'I don't want to die like this.'
So in what manner had she wanted to die?
With what kind of death could the being that had wished its wish upon her have smiled and accepted death with peace of mind?
Dang Seo-rin pondered it for a long while.
'I don't want to die leaving you behind like this.'
She traced the outline of the wish with her fingertips.
'Death is frightening. But...'
'If I'm with you, I think I'll be all right.'
That was Dang Seo-rin's wish.
It was her own wish.
'So, here.'
She reached out her hand.
And at last, she parted her lips.
-I'm counting on you from now on. My companion through time.
* * *
With a rattle and a jolt, Dang Seo-rin's eyes opened.
Her vision was a little hazy.
"Ah. You awake?"
A familiar voice came from right beside her.
When she turned her head, the Undertaker was sitting there, peeling a peach with practiced hands even as the train car swayed.
Had she gone and dozed off with her head leaning against him? The area around the Undertaker's shoulder was wet with drool.
"...Eugh."
The moment she saw it, the computer OS in Dang Seo-rin's head began booting up at high speed.
"Sorry. I dozed right off..."
"It's nothing. You only slept about thirty minutes. Call it a nap, and it was just the right amount of rest."
"Hwaa. Where are we right about now?"
Dang Seo-rin pulled a handkerchief from her front and wiped briskly around the Undertaker's shoulder. There wasn't any particular meaning to it, but a thing like this was really about wiping the heart, not the object.
The Undertaker smiled.
"We'll be in Venice soon."
"Where do you think the kids will be docking?"
"It's too big, so they'll probably have a hard time bringing it into the city center. I figure they docked out in the outer harbor through some agent."
What the two of them were calling docking was, of course, the matter of the 'Mobile Maritime Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City' BusaN.
Even though she had gone to the trouble of acquiring an ultra-luxury yacht, there were times when Dang Seo-rin would do exactly this, sending the other members ahead and traveling separately with the Undertaker by train.
Traveling by boat wasn't bad either. But a train trip like this was exactly what stirred Dang Seo-rin's sense of romance.
'When I think about how I had to clean up after that Sim Ah-ryeon just to get to enjoy this romance, my head still spins...'
Well. It was already water under the bridge.
"We've arrived. Shall we get off?"
"Ah, yeah!"
The Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin shouldered their backpacks and got off at the train station.
By every measure, they looked like a backpacking couple. Who, seeing these two, would guess they owned wealth beyond imagination?
The life goal that crowds of people might envy, being a 'rich person nobody's heard of,' was something these two had already achieved.
A reward for the heroes who saved the world from an eternal apocalypse... perhaps that was too trivial a word for it.
But the two of them were satisfied, calling it more than enough, overflowing even. Then again, it was precisely because they'd had that disposition from the start that they'd been able to claw their way out of the apocalypse.
"Wow!"
A white breath rose, haa-, from the corner of Dang Seo-rin's mouth. She was wearing a thick fur coat.
"Look at that, look! Undertaker! People are actually walking around in masks!"
"Mm."
"I'd only ever seen it in videos! It's a real carnival...!"
Winter in Venice.
Even though the weather wasn't exactly great for traveling, this wintertime Venice was hitting its peak season thanks to the festival, the Carnevale di Venezia.
Look here. Look there.
Crowds of people walked around in cosplay, decked out in masks and costumes that probably cost a fair bit to rent.
For Dang Seo-rin, a master craftsman of cosplay, it was the kind of event to make her head spin.
"Hold on. I get that you're excited, but let's go to the room first and drop off our bags. If we walk around with our packs on, it'll be hard to rent costumes anyway."
"Okay!"
The lodging was right up against the Grand Canal.
Back in her student days, it would have cost a per-night fee she couldn't have dreamed of, but now there was no problem at all even if she rented out an entire hotel.
The staff served the two of them with the utmost devotion as well.
Especially when fluent Italian came spilling out of the Undertaker's mouth, it felt like their friendliness doubled in an instant.
(The best moment when traveling with the Undertaker was exactly this dramatic shift in courtesy.)
"Hng?"
At last, after coming to the room and setting down their backpacks, Dang Seo-rin tilted her head.
"Why is everyone else gone? Did they go out to play?"
As far as she knew, she'd been traveling around with just the Undertaker until now, but around this point they were supposed to be sharing the same lodging.
At that, the Undertaker shrugged.
"Who knows. Guess they haven't arrived yet. When I reached out yesterday, they said they might be a day or two late."
"Yeah?"
Dang Seo-rin nodded without much thought. If the Undertaker said so, then that was how it was!
Any other time, maybe. But she didn't want to go checking the schedule or making calls one by one when they were finally getting to spend precious time, just the two of them.
"You wash up first."
"Hmm? Aw, no. It's fine, it's fine. It takes a lot of time, so let's just wash up together. The bathroom's huge."
"Mm. Shall we?"
One hour later.
Her body, grimy here and there from travel, had been made cleanly refreshed.
As Dang Seo-rin came out drying her hair, the likewise freshened Undertaker gave a knowing smile.
"Take a good look, Dang Seo-rin. If you open up this wardrobe here... ta-da."
"Hraaagh."
"I didn't know which mask you'd like, so I had them gather every kind. The witch costume is perfectly prepared too. It's a present for you."
"Hraaaaaagh...!"
Looking closely, it was perfectly identical to the witch garb she had worn back in her days as the Samcheon World Guild Leader.
When she flipped the lining inside out, she could see traces of stitching done by hand, one careful stitch at a time, not by machine.
Dang Seo-rin's emotion, which had already been running at maximum from the moment she stepped off at the Venice train station, broke right through its limit.
"D-don't tell me. Undertaker. You...?"
"Aah. Managing the Guild Leader's wardrobe is, by tradition, a duty entrusted to the Vice Guild Leader."
"I love you!"
One hour later, again.
Inside the belly of the witch-costumed Dang Seo-rin, a biological-clock alarm went off with a growl.
"I'm hungry...!"
"Traditional seafood dishes? Pizza?"
"Hm. Is Venice pretty good at pizza?"
"It's Italy, isn't it? Wherever you go, it'll be way better than franchise pizza."
"Then pizza!"
"Always the right choice."
Filling her stomach inside her freshly cleaned body, there was no happiness quite like it. Add a glass of wine to that, and Dang Seo-rin had nothing left to ask of life.
"Hwaaaaa... This is nice."
"That café over there, Caffè Florian, is that famous spot Goethe is said to have visited too. In the masterpiece manga ARIA[1], they say you can refill café au lait however many times you want, but that's actually a load of bull."
"You really do let your otaku side slip out so casually sometimes... ARIA? What's that?"
"Ho. You're missing out on half of life."
"Then would you mind returning the other half of me I left in your keeping?"
"I've got all the volumes of Aqua and ARIA stocked in the yacht's library, so be sure to read them later."
"And what's Aqua now..."
A boisterous bustle.
Dang Seo-rin in her witch costume, the Undertaker draped in his cape. The two of them strolled freely through the alleys and squares of Venice, masks on.
A festival night.
Everyone was giddy. To Dang Seo-rin, who had at least wet her throat with wine, every breath she drew in now felt giddy too.
'Huh.'
Besides them, plenty of people were dressed up in all sorts of outfits. A few of them caught Dang Seo-rin's eye.
'There are more people in pointy hats and witch costumes like mine than I'd have thought. Hm, is it always like this?'
It wasn't a terribly strange thing.
Witches were, after all, a regular guest at carnival as a theme.
'But... Their outfits really do look so much like mine. Oddly familiar.'
While her attention was elsewhere, oop, her shoulder bumped into a traveler. Dang Seo-rin quickly took off her mask and met their eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Ah, no. The fault's mine."
The other person took off their mask too.
"Huh?"
In that instant, Dang Seo-rin was swept up by a powerful sense of déjà vu.
The other person was wearing a witch costume similar to her own, and... their face, too, was familiar.
"Have a good night!"
But the other person didn't seem to recognize Dang Seo-rin. They gave a bow of the head and moved off.
They weren't alone. The other person had a friend traveling with them too, and that friend was wearing a witch costume as well.
Dang Seo-rin watched their retreating backs in silence.
"You finally noticed?"
said the Undertaker.
Beaming, with a face somehow brimming with mischief.
"Noticed...? Noticed what?"
"That person we just bumped into. Didn't they look somehow familiar?"
"Yeah. But... I can't quite place it. They were Korean, right? Who was that again?"
"My, my. To forget your old subordinates. The Great Witch of Samcheon World has fallen on hard times."
"...Huh?"
"They're your guild members."
He was smiling faintly.
"The witches of Samcheon World. Comrades who once ran across the sky with you and saved this world alongside you."
"..."
"The main players who held off the apocalypse may have been the Regression Alliance, but we still ought to remember their struggle. I kept it secret from you, but all this time I've been supporting them as Anonymous."
"Ah."
"Of course, those people have already forgotten us. They weren't deeply affected by unconscious memory the way you and I were, and they never opened a time capsule. That's why they didn't recognize you."
Only then.
Dang Seo-rin stood still and looked around the square.
There were many people. But among the crowds, there were so very many 'witches' walking about.
Some alone. Some in pairs. Some in groups.
That day, now grown as distant as a dream.
Just as it had once been, in a square of some Utopia that no one could remember anymore.
"The one condition I set as Anonymous, their sponsor, was just this. Each year at this time, I'll book lodging at the Venice carnival, and when you come to travel here, you have to wear the costume prepared on this end."
"..."
"As the price for living your whole life free of money troubles, a condition this light isn't half bad, is it?"
Dang Seo-rin understood.
That the reason Yu Ji-won and the rest of the members, who'd be on the yacht right about now, hadn't arrived in Venice today was no coincidence at all.
That sponsoring the witches of Samcheon World. Preparing the lodging and the costumes. Sending out the invitations. And then timing it all to the moment she, traveling the world, arrived in this city on this day, none of it was a coincidence.
That perhaps, even before she had first asked for time alone, just the two of them, the Undertaker might have been preparing for this day from far, far back.
A festival dream that existed for this one night alone.
'...I. I forgot something.'
No one remembered that the people walking around in witch garb now had once fought against the malice of the void.
Not even the people themselves.
'Forgetting is a deeply sad thing.'
How someone lived. How they died.
What wish they made looking up at the night sky. How desperately they wished it.
Nothing had been left behind.
'But... even if I don't know, I think it's all right.'
The fireworks bursting in the night sky cast a brief shadow across the side of her face, then died down.
Forgetting was still sad. It was sad, but.
If it were forgetting of this kind, if forgotten memories were scattered across a night sky where the breath of the festival had settled,
then she could accept it.
"Undertaker."
She was someone who loved.
With every rash love, a wound had healed over. And from the blood she had shed, she grew a red flower in her heart.
She couldn't love the wounds, but she could love the flower, and so she could accept the wounds as well.
"Mm."
If that was so, then for the petals that had died too soon, she could sing forever.
Without hatred, without contempt.
A song where neither this world hated humanity, nor humanity hated the world.
"I'll love you, forever."
Simply a story about a certain red petal.
-I'm an infinite regressor, but I've got stories to tell. END.
Translator's Note:
With today's release we're finally done with IRS. In the April 2025, on a random evening @resnut pinged me saying sinnoa has released another novel and I immediately went to LiteraryGirl and spam pinged her saying we have to translate this. I remember, I had semester finals back then but I still spent 2 whole days translating back then so we could get ahead of the mtl competitors then. I don't know how good of a decision that was but I'm glad that it got us here at the completion of this masterpiece.
I've never seen a community be as involved theory-making and sharing fanarts/fanfictions, props to everyone in the discord for that. If everyone wasn't eagerly waiting throughout the ups and downs this novel had, I don't think I would have had the motivation to continue it through the several takedowns it took.
I'm not going to take more of your time but please enjoy reading and check out Sinnoa's new novel, The Regressed Gangwon Hunter, which I'm also translating (and the other fabulous works we have here :)
A big thank you to LiteraryGirl for her proofreading and editing work on the novel, even though she may have gotten busy now, she's done more than I could ever ask of anyone for the novel.
The entire main story is available for free on the website and the side stories are all in advanced chapters right now which will be freed up at 1ch/day till completion.
Thank you everyone and enjoy reading!
-ZERO_SUGAR
Footnotes:
[1] ARIA (2002-2008) is a slice-of-life manga by Kozue Amano set in Neo-Venezia, a recreation of Venice on a terraformed Mars; it follows trainee gondolier-guides. Its prequel was originally titled Aqua, mentioned a few lines later.
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