Infinite Regressor, Chapter 421 - I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

Waiting was the sound of footsteps that weren't heard. "The trail ends here." "Cheon Yo-hwa's cult headquarters, is it?" "Judging by the footprints... Hmm. Three people: Yu Ji-won, Jeong Ye-ji, and Oh Dok-seo." "The crutches would be Ha-yul's." "If I were them, I'd place Jeong Ye-ji at the command center and have her wait in the rear. But perhaps they decided they couldn't spare the combat strength." "...At this point, the Saintess's [Time Stop] is feeble. However, even such a force must be mustered to annihilate the cult along with the otherworldly god." "Ahaha. Such absurd arrogance. Ah—Is this why veterans enjoy watching newbies? It's quite fascinating." Waiting was a message being typed. "It's Dok-seo's corpse, Undertaker." "......" "Don't look so sad. For the first time across hundreds of cycles, we’ve encountered 'a death with a remaining corpse.' Leaving a whole body after fighting the otherworldly god, isn’t that a remarkable achievement?" "A whole body? Only half remains." "Yes. The integrity of a corpse is simply whether the deceased's intent remains. Ta-da." "What's that?" "My goodness. It's a hidden will in Dok-seo’s body♪" "......" "[To the Uncle.]" [Sorry.] [If you're reading this letter, uncle, it probably means I'm already dead.] [Ah, I’ve always wanted to write a will like this—.] "This is as far as it goes. The rest of the letter got cut off and disappeared somewhere!" "......" Waiting was. [Ah, I've always wanted to write a will like this. Writing it myself is way more fun than I thought. You should try it too, Uncle.] A bell that didn’t ring. [Anyways, if I die, Uncle will reset the cycle, so I don’t really care.] [I pondered whether I should feel sorry about my death.] [But I've decided not to feel sorry.] [Uncle, you never think about the world you leave behind after you die, do you? You don’t bother stressing over what’s beyond your control.] [I thought that was your attitude.] [So, about the good things—I figured.] Neither night nor night. The sound of a pen scribbling under a lantern that wasn't visible yet hovered before the eyes. [So.] Continuing. [I’d like to learn the good things.] The voids that exist in this world. The emptiness. The paths cut off before me. The routes. [To me, Uncle is just a person, not a god. Sorry, but I have no desire to worship you.] [A life held hostage to worship someone is just too desolate, isn’t it?] [You have your own life, Uncle.] [If at the end of that life, sealing Go Yuri and even isolating yourself in writing is your answer—] [I’ll accept it.] [But there’s no reason why that should be the end of my life.] Breath into a letter that holds no breath. [I told Ji-won and Ye-ji about your scenario, Uncle.] [No comment on their reactions. You can just loot their wills from their corpses.] [But just between us, those sisters are real pieces of work. Uncle, why did you include such people in your hero party??] [This is why life’s a mess, you idiot.] Laughter on a blank page without a smile. [I persuaded Cheon Yo-hwa.] The letter gradually lengthened. [I persuaded Sim Ah-ryeon.] The places where Oh Dok-seo's corpse and the corpses of other companions were found began to change ever so slightly each time. [Go Yuri thought the only solution was to make Hecate into a human named Dang Seo-rin.] [I respect that judgment.] [But that's not my judgment.] [I haven’t lived long enough to reach that point yet.] In certain locations, bodies were found repeatedly over hundreds of cycles. [I can't live a life like Go Yuri's. I’m neither a reincarnator nor a regressor.] [Uncle, the regressor, may have understood and completely accepted Go Yuri, the reincarnator’s methods, even agreeing to them.] [Even if it meant abandoning your own love.] [But I can’t.] [I won’t survive that long. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't.] [I intend to test my own life.] [Without Dang Seo-rin, your life is incomplete, Uncle. If you regard that incompleteness as aesthetic, then I’ll tell you my aesthetics are different.] A succession of gunshots without bullets followed. [I will save Dang Seo-rin. The Princess of the Night.] Hecate was a strange being whom even reincarnators and regressors scarcely dared to challenge head-on. Her domain was the entirety of the night sky, where all the planets and starlight were akin to her limbs. Thousands upon thousands of bodies were scattered. And. [I saved Dang Seo-rin.] A direction formed for the footsteps. [In the end, Dang Seo-rin became an ordinary human, but whether you’d like her without being Hecate, Uncle, I don’t know.] [That would be your life.] [Since I’ve saved the one I wanted to, I don't think I need your approval, Uncle.] Clomp. Clomp. The footsteps always vanished at some midpoint. But the direction in which they advanced was all too clear. To Busan Station. To the Tutorial Dungeon. To the endpoint of reincarnation where the reincarnated last reached, to the starting point of the first regression where the regressor began anew. "Wow. Fascinating. How did they defeat Hecate? It’s immensely interesting." "...This person started with the strategies of both the reincarnator and the regressor in hand. The conditions must have been much more favorable than ours." "Even so, it’s impressive. A grand feat." "Yes. What a remarkable thing." Time passes. The era flows. Listening to the waves of those footsteps, I suddenly looked up at the sky. 'Could it be that I’ve become conceited?' The sky was, to me, the Undertaker, a haven. At least while looking up at the sky, I could slightly avert my gaze from the countless corpses enshrined within my [Perfect Memory Ability]. Like a meteor shower, the bodies of the assault team members fell—only the starlight, made of human grudges, desperate hopes, and will, adorned my sky. "I believe I lived a righteous life." "Yes, I do too." "But the world I imagined, and myself as I imagined... Maybe I unknowingly imposed them on the children." "It's because they believed in it." "In the end, you will come to the same conclusion as I did, once you are wounded like me." "Yes, Undertaker. Isn't that belief beautiful in itself?" Waiting was continuation. "The world as I think of it and myself. The world and self as others think of them. The two paths overlapping to form a single road. I think that's the only truly beautiful thing in this world marred by emptiness." "..." "The two of us are beautiful." Waiting was about revealing oneself. "Only the two of us in this universe are beautiful." Waiting was about accepting even your misconceptions as understanding. "Undertaker and I perfectly understand each other. We pursue the same purpose. Our footsteps overlap. Is there a purer beauty, a miracle, that exists in the world beyond this?" "......" I thought it didn’t exist. "Perhaps we might be wrong." "Why do you think so?" "We just happened to become reincarnators and happened to become regressors. In such incidental existences between us, something as beautiful as the most beautiful thing in the world can't possibly be established." "......" "If it's the most noble beauty, surely anyone, not just reincarnators or regressors, should be able to grasp it." The letter continued. The footsteps continued. "In the end, I understood my story in my own way, and I still believe it's right... yet." "Yet?" "Dok-seo has the right to judge my story. She's watched my story closer than anyone else." When life was compared to a work of art. One is both the author and the reader of their life. But in a true sense, the 'first reader' could only ever be one's child. "My inevitable decision may have seemed an intolerable sacrifice to Dok-seo." "......" "My conclusion, rendered meaningless by becoming a monstrosity, deciding to seal myself, may have seemed an incorrect answer that needed amendment to Oh Dok-seo." "That child lacks experience." "It doesn't matter. We are all the same." "......" "I am willing to let Dok-seo judge my life." I glanced back at Go Yuri. Under the night sky, I cast my gaze upon the one who understood all humanity by having lived through billions of lives as a conclusion bearer. "Don't you sometimes consider this?" "What do you mean?" "Even if we reach the ending, will it truly be the world's end? Perhaps emptiness will return anytime, repeating 'destruction' a century, a millennium from now. It might push the world back into void." "......" "At such a time, Go Yuri, neither you nor I will be there. Without the miracle that is you or the miracle that is me, people will have to fight desolation again." "That's a horrific scenario." "But the strategies left behind by some reincarnator and regressor will remain at least as traces, and Oh Dok-seo’s children's children will exist." "......" "I still believe I'm right. But Oh Dok-seo might think I'm not. In hindsight... Giving her that leeway of life." A blank. "Handing over a blank page where she could write her own story about me, that might have been the best decision I ever made in my life." "......" "Dear God." For the first time, I invoked the name of God. Not jokingly invoking Jesus, Buddha, or Mokwangseo, but looking at the reincarnator who became my true deity. "May luck be with her future." "......" "May she, someday, accept that I merely did my best in this lifetime." "......" "So that her life will not always be one tortured and twisted by the absence of someone from this world." I prayed. "May every step of her own journey be one where she can walk with a happy smile." "Ah." "May she, too, someday pass on her solution to others as a right answer and not as a wrong answer." "......" "I pray for it." Go Yuri remained silent. Her expression, for the first time, twisted. In a direction it had never twisted even once throughout her billions of lifetimes. With a face never remembered in my memory. "I..." [I discovered how to make Udambara bloom.] "I arrived here simply to remain human to you, giving up all my powers. Is my sacrifice wrong then?" [The conditions are exceedingly harsh. But it’s not entirely unachievable. Ah-ryeon became a bit strange, but when wasn’t she?] [So then.] "It's not that it’s wrong." "...Do you think Oh Dok-seo—the self-proclaimed reincarnator, yet to take her first steps—could find a better solution than me?" "I told you, your life isn't an answer sheet. Countless wrong answers are recorded to arrive at the correct one. Seeing the same right and wrong, Oh Dok-seo might reach a different conclusion." "Undertaker, you reached the same conclusion as me." "As I said, Go Yuri, not every human can be like me." "That’s why I... you—" "That's why I choose Oh Dok-seo." [Uncle, but isn’t there suspiciously little information on how to deal with the Monster Wave??] [Since the undead are a kind of deceased too, and the gathering of the undead forms the Monster Wave, if you conduct rituals and funerals for each of them, the strategy becomes clear.] [But damn, that's such a tough method, right? It's a strategy that only works for those who can visualize the deceased as if they were living, like you, Uncle.] [I think it's too specialized a method.] "Even if I were to be worshipped as a god, all that would be left for these children would be regret, grief, and days of self-reproach." "......" "The same goes for you." [Come to think of it, all the souls captured by the Monster Wave are missing people, right? Deceased without families left to conduct their funerals.] [But can't those kinds of deaths have funerals conducted jointly by the 'state'? Traditionally?] "I don't want Dok-seo to live a life of constant regret because of me. I don't want people just gathering together, apologizing to me and among themselves, claiming to be true human beings." "......" "What do you wish for your children, Go Yuri? My god?" [I'm planning to appoint Ji-won as the chief mourner.] "...Naturally." [Isn't Ji-won the priestess of Leviathan, and Leviathan originally a distortion of the concept of a 'state'?] "Naturally, I want them to be happy." [Then Ji-won, as the state's proxy, would certainly be treated as such even more in this world of strangeness.] [I think a funeral with Ji-won as the chief mourner would inherently be a 'state-conducted joint funeral.'] "I've lived earnestly just for that." [Isn't it interesting? A person who can’t become anyone's family or mourn any individual's death, but Ji-won, paradoxically, becomes the sole human capable of conducting funerals for everyone.] [I know it's difficult, but I'll try.] "My entire life was lived solely for that." "Then you should open yourself up to understanding from others as well." "......" "The only way for us to become happy humans is to do that." I've thought for a long time. [Hmm. I don't get why everyone in the novel keeps raving about your coffee, Uncle.] What is the world? What is life? [I want to hope, but what if I hype it up too much and it's a letdown when I actually taste it? I'm trying to temper my expectations a bit.] [But shouldn’t I be really excited for a special cup brewed by a barista who's lived through thousands of cycles? It's gotta exceed my hopes, my gentle heart, somewhere in the world, right? It’s gotta be you, Uncle...] [There is an absence of anticipation. There exists anticipation. Ambivalence is absent and present. Existence is absent. Absence is present.] [A rhyme to kill for.] Somewhere along the way, I began to believe that with my extensive experience and profound scars, I had the right to define the world and life. Yet, I also realized that to someone, I too was a world and a life, especially after entrusting my autobiography to Oh Dok-seo. The world and life, that’s how they continue. 'Follow, Dok-seo.' No. 'Forge your own path, Dok-seo.' Though you were born slower than I, your steps are quicker than anyone’s. Walk on from my failures, my compendium of strategies, the chronicle of my days. My life was always meant for others, but now it’s for you as well. Thus, I wait. "......" I simply waited. "......" In the waiting area of the Busan Station Tutorial Dungeon. Those summoned with me to the tutorial were nowhere to be found. Even guide fairy number 264 didn’t appear. 'This isn't the void.' I realized it as soon as I regressed. This place was no longer an intended void under the pretense of the tutorial dungeon. It was merely an ordinary concrete structure where people had vanished. 'Someone isolated everyone supposed to be summoned to the tutorial elsewhere and somehow subdued even the tutorial fairy.' The waiting area at Busan Station was vast and serene. The lighting played an essential role in this quietness. Every window, entrance, and gap that could let light in was entirely shrouded with heavy drapes. It was dark. In that monochromatic graveyard. Creak. Slowly, the door opened. As the curtain was drawn back, faint light began to spill out. The light turned into a carpet. "Who did you think would save you, Uncle?" With a sound of footsteps. "The Saintess?" A white voice floated down. "Dang Seo-rin? Cheon-hwa? Yo-hwa? Sim Ah-ryeon? Lee Ha-yul? Noh Do-hwa? Yu Ji-won?" Footsteps. "Go Yuri?" Footsteps. "No." I turned around at the sound of footsteps and the voice. Oh Dok-seo's breath was present. Unlike the Dok-seo I knew, she had longer hair now. And its color had changed too. She had let her black hair flow down her shoulders. "Surprisingly, you might not have expected this at all." Chew, pop. Dok-seo blew a bubble with cheap bubblegum. Having always failed to make one before, somehow this time it puffed out perfectly. After wiping away the bubblegum that had impressively burst for the first time— "Me." Dok-seo drew out a pair of scissors from inside her clothes. Hairdressing scissors caught the spilling light from the doorway, gleaming silver. Snip. Hair fell gently to the floor. As it scattered, the hair gradually turned red from the tips. Shortly, Dok-seo was back to having long hair, transformed into the red-haired girl I knew. With a wide grin— She pulled out a cap and covered her head. Then with a twirl, she spun the cap backward. "――I am your salvation, Uncle." She was my postscript. The author to record my answers as wrong solutions. Thus, connecting all wrong answers into a singular right one. The child I've always waited for. She was the one I loved. -The Possessor. Conclusion.