Infinite Regressor, Chapter 415 - I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

1 When do you experience déjà vu? When the sunlight pours down on the streets and the outlines of the asphalt seem to melt into a mirage? When red peonies fall and the petals scatter? When you climb the steps of an old government office or school, only to find an empty hallway? I confess, I, the Undertaker, experience déjà vu every single minute of the 24 hours, all 86,400 seconds of it. "Brother. Wake up. It's morning." "...Hey. I'm really curious. Why do you greet me like that every morning? I'm already awake." "I'm sorry, Brother. But I have a sense of aesthetics. The mother of learning is a masterpiece, you know." “?” That's why even when scenes that should be 'nonexistent memories' flowed through like dreams, or when I was hit by intense déjà vu, I wasn't overly surprised. Déjà vu was familiar to me. Of course, perhaps it wasn't just because of mere familiarity. Squeeze- Beside me, Go Yuri's hand, clasped tightly with mine, warmed my heart. "This place..." "As you can see, it's from when we were siblings." "Is this your dream? Have you invited me into your dream?" "No, Guild Leader. For beings like us, there is no such thing as 'dreams.' There's only a fabricated 'unconscious world' created by mimicking dreams." "You too...?" “Yes, we are already anomalies. We only mimic humans, love humans, and serve humans.” "......" The scene before me rapidly transformed. Each scene fragmented, flowing in its own capricious pace. Inside frames made of time, not space, lay pieces of Go Yuri's life. Indeed, we were walking together through an exhibition dubbed ‘Her.’ “The 'red flesh' you occasionally witness is the conclusion where I, as an anomaly, completely consume myself as a human.” “Conclusion.” “Yes. Each time I reincarnate, I lose my family. I just want to become precious to them again. A flesh lump, driven by desire, flailing to become ‘one’ with whatever comes.” Go Yuri murmured. “My ugly and despicable end. An anomaly known as the reincarnate. An alien god of false happiness.” “......” “Those consumed by the red flesh all think of me and become my family, dreaming of eternal unions with me within the flesh, each dreaming their own dreams.” Then, a thought dawned on me. “It’s just like my ability [Time Sealing]." “Correct.” Go Yuri giggled softly. “The Guild Leader can only offer people one day of happiness. However, I can let them dream an entire life—the happiest life they’ve ever lived with the one who filled their heart’s void.” “A superior version, then.” “Perhaps.” Once again, the scenes within the frames changed. In those scenes, many versions of Go Yuri continued to die. Becoming precious to someone, intentionally seeking the cruelest, most miserable deaths. “Guild Leader, perhaps you’ve noticed, but ‘the human version of me’ barely exists anymore.” "......" “From the countless screaming echoes, among the noise, you can barely piece together ‘my voice.’” It was true. “To me, all humans are like that.” “Yes. It pleases me that you still treat me as human, knowing what I am now.” Go Yuri smiled beautifully. "Knowing that about you, Guild Leader, is why I decided to entrust myself to you." “Entrust you?” “Oops.” There was no response. Instead, there was a gesture pushing me. Into the abyssal well, where frames of Go Yuri’s swirling life swirled perpetually. "......?!" A defenseless blow. I desperately reached out. Though already shoved into the massive frame, I managed to grab its edge. Just like a stranded person desperately clinging to the brink of a cliff. "You...?!" “Haha. You’ve been deceived, Guild Leader. This is the price of abandoning those precious around you and getting enamored with a monster like me.” Unlike me, already fallen inside the frame, Go Yuri was looking down at me from above. Smiling broadly, she squatted. “You could still change your mind, you know? If you fall into my dream, truly horrific things will unfold.” "...I swore in my previous life, no matter what. I pride myself on being a person who keeps my promises." Go Yuri’s smile lingered. She bent down closer. “A person even more foolish than I.” Taking my ring finger, still gripping onto the frame, she gently bit down and released it. “Farewell.” With those words, I fell into the abyss. The surroundings turned dark. Rapidly. The only light seeped from above, from the distant frame where Go Yuri’s shadow lingered. A small whisper echoed in the dark. “My precious one.” And thus, hell began. 2 Go Yuri’s life unfolded. “Ah.” The first life. Seeing the reincarnated life she had recounted as a story now being recreated exactly, I understood how truly screwed I was. Even a stranded soul on Mars, who said something akin to 'screwed multiples of screw' might inadvertently sympathize with my current situation. "Are you telling me to live from the beginning, to go through all the time I've walked as a reincarnate...?" My head spun. The absurdity of it all made me laugh. When faced with a disaster utterly beyond their control, humans often laughed as a defensive mechanism. Laughter was as ancient a magic of humanity as language itself. "...A life worth billions and billions. This is a completely different dimension compared to living out Cheon Yo-hwa's life." "Hey, So-yeon! What are you doing over there? Monsters are coming tomorrow. Move those sandbags!" "......" A commander at the final defense line ordered me, and I had no choice but to obey. Suddenly, that commander had achieved the feat of asserting his authority over a reincarnate and a returnee. “That phrase 'let's become one'—I never imagined it would mean this.” Time flowed. Both swiftly and sluggishly. Destruction was easy and swift. In what could truly be called a first run, or even a pre-first run, the final defense line crumbled ridiculously easily. "A world where there’s not a single awakened one aside from the reincarnate." What a hard difficulty level this was. The 'monsters' piercing through the final defense weren’t just the endless army waves of a monster wave. AhーーーAhーaaaaーーー High above the battlefield, a 'witch' was singing. At a glance, she seemed human, but she was anything but. ――Aaーahーaaーーaーー What appeared to be a witch's hat was actually her living, writhing locks of hair. Eyes and fingers sprouted and wilted from her entire body, singing songs marred by curses and resentment that no human ear could replicate. I couldn't help but mutter. "Dang Seo-rin..." “It’s Hecate! The witch! Hecate has appeared!” But the soldiers on the battlefield, civilians drafted as auxiliary troops, and boy soldiers were different. They didn't know the name 'Dang Seo-rin.' 'Hecate?' Just as I didn't know that creature's name. "Retreat! Retreat! Don't listen to the song! Don't listen to it!" "Aah, Aaah..." A soldier exposed to 'Dang Seo-rin’s' song suddenly stood with a blank expression, his mouth agape. From his gaping mouth, the rhythm of 'Dang Seo-rin’s' screams began to play like an acapella. Bang! Without hesitation, the sergeant pulled out his pistol and shot the soldier. The soldier collapsed instantly. -Aa, aa, A. But only his body fell. The soldier's head remained floating in 'mid-air,' continuing the acapella. “Argh!” A comrade beside him freaked out, slashing with a sword to cleave and cut the head, finally stopping the song. “Don't listen! Keep babbling nonsense from your mouth! Make noise, damn it! Don’t focus on the song!” “Aa Aa Aa Aa- Aa.” “Aa Aa Aa Aa Aa.” Bang! Bang! Guns echoed all over the battlefield with the sergeant's commands. As an auxiliary on the scene, I could only stand in stunned silence. The fate of 'Dang Seo-rin,' known in this form as Hecate, was shocking. But the intricate details terrified me even more. “They're using guns!” Chekhov's gun. One of the anomalies that inflicted the greatest damage on humanity. Once a gun appeared, it was inevitably used in a 'decisive scene' somewhere. For most, the decisive moment was the one that held their life in the balance. Thus, when firearms were used, the user's life was inevitably at stake. “No... But truly, in such a broken world, there’s no choice but to use whatever weapons we have.” It seemed the soldiers knew nothing of Chekhov's gun. "The experience." It was desperately lacking. "No knowledge of dealing with anomalies, no strategies. Even those who could turn the tide of war with their knowledge, the awakened, were gone." There was nothing. -Ahahaha! Then, the soldiers who should have been dead, rising from the battlefield, began to stand once more. -Ahahaha. -Ahahaha. -A Ha Ha Ha. Like zombies. -Exist, Blend, Harmonize. -Life, Heaven, Earth, Born. -Path, Virtue, Natural Law. The revived zombies danced, drawing primitive circular motions. Those with broken necks continued to recite Daoist texts, and those without heads matched rhythms with their swords, slashing their own corpses alongside others. -Path, Virtue, Natural Law. -The Human follows the Earth, Earth follows the Heaven. -A Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Tens of these circles erupted across the battlefield. Oddly, the endless monster waves did not touch them. Mixed among the retreating soldiers, I looked back toward the rear. "...Yo-hwa." In the midst of the ever-growing dance circles, someone dressed like a shaman stood, endlessly laughing and orchestrating the march of the dead. A soldier beside me grumbled. "Goddamn necromancer..." "......" "Commander, there's no more ground to give here. It must be the same for the other units." "Evacuate the civilians, at least." "Where to?" "Back. Just keep moving back." "Understood." A soldier grabbed my shoulder and pulled me along. “Please, go on.” “......” I tried to stand firm, but I was easily pushed away by the soldier's grip. There was no choice. The 'me' of this moment was too weak. As I stumbled back, there was a splash— “……?” I heard the sound of water. Looking down, I saw, even though it hadn't rained, a puddle had formed. No. It wasn’t just a puddle. “Ah.” The ‘surface’ was rising across the entire ground. Leviathan. Yu Ji-won. “......” Yet, the soldiers fiercely fighting to hold the front line, and the civilians who were moving with the feeling of impending death, paid no mind to the water at their feet. They didn’t realize it. The water itself was an anomaly. “...This can't be happening.” “What do you mean, So-yeon?” The foreman moving alongside me, with a weary face, asked in return, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer. It seemed the foreman didn’t really expect a proper conversation. The civilians hardly had anyone in healthy condition among them. Humanity was exhausted. Facing a destruction with not a glimmer of hope in sight. Aa――Aa―aa――― Above the battlefield, the song that shredded people's sanity continued to echo endlessly. Ah ha ha ha ha ha. On the ground, like holes were punctured everywhere, the dead performed a mocking dance of life in circular motions, permanently dishonoring life. Splash. Splash, splash. Even as the people retreated backward to escape those horrors, their ankles were submerged by an anomaly mimicking ‘water,’ mocking this Earth’s most fundamental form of ‘life.’ There were no awakened beings. Just the Fallen, or rather, Foreign entities borrowing the bodies of the Fallen were all that existed. “......” That was the first iteration. A prologue, not an epilogue. It was humanity's origins.