Infinite Regressor, Chapter 441 - Main Story, End. - I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

A few ignorant people scoffed at the saintess, dismissing her as weak. "She was all high and mighty! And then she surrendered in just a week." "Oh, did the saintess's mental fortitude amount to nothing more than this?" Nevertheless, the voluntary withdrawal of a strong competitor was a joyous piece of news. They boldly proclaimed, "I'm different." Then, they extended their hands to the Yul-Dok-Sim trio, suggesting that this time, they try living together with her. And then... “Kyaaaaaaah!” The shared experience of having the hand that shook hers ignite into flames was bestowed fairly upon everyone, without the need to distinguish between 'you' and 'me.' "Get out! Get out! Get out of my house!" "I-I can't understand it... Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon. I'm sorry. Why, really, why, don't you take a bath?" "I see. Is this homicidal intent?" Surrender. Another surrender. And another. Later, it was revealed that the week the saintess endured was not merely "just" a week, but rather an impressive feat. None among those who declared their resolve after the saintess managed to last a week. Dang Seo-rin held out for 25 hours, and Cheon Yo-hwa only managed a mere 3 hours. [Hoo.] Then a smile, or rather a sly smirk, crept across Lee Ha-yul's face. Perhaps if the concept of 'victory' could be personified in lips, it would look like that. I asked her why she was smiling. [I knew this would happen.] The potency of the venom in Lee Ha-yul's smirk intensified. [In the end, no one would take us in.] -Oh, congratulations. And then? [Now, we're forced by unavoidable pressure to live with Dad.] -...?! [On my own, I could not have reached this state. However, by employing 'Sim,' I believed it was possible, and my belief was proven true.] -... [All the agitation and resentment are focused solely on 'Sim,' while I've gained the reputation of being the 'most normal and adorable' among the trio.] With a creak, Lee Ha-yul pushed her wheelchair. [This is precisely the tactic of borrowing another's knife.] For reference, her favorite character in the Three Kingdoms was Jia Xu. [It's fine if Dad ends up with no one, or with someone.] [Whether or not anyone ends up with him, I can live with him without any issues. If he does end up with someone, I’ll be his partner’s favorite.] [Sayonara.] -... And so, didn’t Lee Ha-yul indeed start living at the uncle’s house for real? ‘Crazy, crazy, crazy. Utter lunatic…’ Even now, recalling how her back retreated so confidently sent shivers down my spine. Yes. The daughter of Busan’s mayoral candidate Jung Sang-guk, who was rising as a frontrunner, undeniably inherited her criminal political instincts from her father, regardless of any denial. "Oh, Dok-seo?" "Ah, yes." While lost in my thoughts in a haze of nostalgia, the uncle spoke to me. ---POV: Oh Dok-seo.--- “Are you okay? You suddenly said you had a confession, then went silent, leaving this uncle in a pinch.” “Oh, right. Sorry, it’s nothing major.” I set down my cup of coffee. "You know, how I, in the past, not now but in one of the previous turns, took the right to write [side stories] without your permission, Uncle?" “Hmm.” The uncle nodded, pausing his coffee bean grinding. Yet, there was a subtle ambiguity lingering on his face. "Yes, I think something like that happened. I’m not remembering it clearly, though." “...” Ouch. There was a piercing pain near my heart. A year ago. After being infected with Udumbara along with my comrades at the abandoned school and losing all our abilities, the uncle sometimes... became this way. He hadn’t lost his memory. It just faded a bit. The timelines of conversations with others got mixed up, and while he remembered the important parts, he didn’t recall every word perfectly. Like all humans do. He had become human. “Yes, yes. Back then, originally you promised we could each publish a side episode every 100 chapters.” Hastily, I tried to steer the conversation back, avoiding any hint of sorrow. The uncle was quick-witted. If I had shown even a hint of sadness, he would have sensed the shift in mood immediately. “I still have that right left.... You know, can I use a bit of a sly method?” “Sly? What do you mean?” "My manuscript is really, really in its final stage. So going forward, could you consider all the upcoming side stories as part of one compilation?" “No, that’s a bit...” Despite the uncle's reluctance, I wasn’t deterred at all. This was non-negotiable! “Pleeeease, Uncle? Even if they’re called side stories, they all share the same theme! They might look separate, but they’re basically one episode.” “Enough with the cutesy act.” “Okay.” Why do Lee Ha-yul and Sim Ah-ryeon get away with the cute act, but it's strict for me? This is family discrimination. “Well, over the past year, you’ve worked unbelievably hard. To think you'd write five episodes a week, consistently.” “See? It was the curse of Emanations for sure. Once it disappeared, I carried out my writing duties so well!” “...This is what you should have been doing all along. Anyway, what’s the side story about that made you want to lump them together?” “Yes! It’s Uncle’s romance story!” “...” "To put it bluntly, they're individual routes, individual routes. About which heroine Uncle ended up with, how it would turn out if he did, in straightforward, genuine writing by a literary girl―― Ahhh, don't leave! Uncle, don't go! Hear me out, please!" Screech, screech. I turned into a robot vacuum cleaner, being dragged on the floor, clutching the uncle’s barista apron for dear life. I stood up abruptly. “No! Hey, Go Yuri!” “Oh my.” At the sound of my outburst, the uncle squinted his eyes as if pained. Nevertheless, I refused to stop. “Why is this my fault! Huh?! What's wrong with what I did! This is all because Uncle refuses to date anyone! Are you planning to live as a single forever? Is this the Lee Ha-yul ending? A Lee Ha-yul-Oh Dok-seo-Sim Ah-ryeon trio ending? It’s not even a friendship ending, it’s a family ending?! Unprecedented in dating sim history! What is this!” “I’m perfectly happy with things as they are now.” "That's the issue!! You claim to love people! You go around spreading words about loving this person and that like it's nothing!" "Love doesn't have to only mean romantic love, does it? Dok-seo, I love you too…" "Screw it!!" Crash! I overturned the chair. Suddenly, both my mind and body felt ablaze, and I couldn't help but vent this fury. "I agreed to erase your various powers... especially the complete memory ability, because I calculated that once the sight of our fallen comrades disappeared, your annoying main character cliché would be shattered!" "Hmm." "But that crafty Lee Ha-yul…! Come to think of it, she was smart from the start. She realized you'd be in trouble and made her move first. Ah! To think I considered her a close friend! Oh no, I got backstabbed by that little brat! This is a betrayal of friendship! Betrayal!" Phew. After pouring out all the contempt in my heart, I finally calmed down. Even though I still felt some inexplicable residue of emotion lingering at the tail of my lungs, it was probably just my imagination. It was odd. Lately, whenever I was with the uncle, it was always like this. In the past, just having a silly conversation would make me feel as if an air purifier was running in my chest, leaving a refreshing clarity of zero percent air pollution behind. "I have the right to claim my share, honorably as your ghostwriter! So grant me the permission! For the romance angst side story!" "And it's even an angst story, I see…" The uncle's face grew increasingly troubled. "Still, Dok-seo. You can't just make up non-existent stories to your liking." "Yes, that's true." I beamed. "Don't worry. There are only 2... or maybe just 1 side story that's really 'completely untrue.'" "What?" "The rest are all based on true events." The uncle furrowed his brow. "Based on true events? I can't quite understand. As you know, I've never been through a romance that you could call an [individual route]." "Really?" "..." "Could it really have never happened?" The uncle's eyes wavered. Had he sensed some sort of ominous vibe in my voice? Seeing that expression somehow cleared the clouded unease in my chest. "Uncle, you might not remember, but there was something during the 146th run. You went solo to tackle the Inunaki Tunnel." At that time, the Inunaki Tunnel had greeted the uncle with graffiti on its walls, saying: - Welcome back. It's your 7th time already? It was an eerie greeting. At that moment, the encounters with the Inunaki Tunnel should have been only ‘6 times.’ Where did that missing '1 time' that the uncle couldn't remember come from? "That was…" The uncle fumbled through the fog in his mind. "Utopia. Right, it must be due to the run with Dang Seo-rin, who had fallen as Hecate? Since I didn’t remember that particular run, an additional time got added, didn’t it?" "Hahaha." I involuntarily burst into laughter. "That happened during the 173rd run, Uncle! When you tackled Inunaki Tunnel, it was during the 146th run. Clearly, the timelines don't match." "..." "Hmm. But in a sense, you hit the nail on the head. True! The principle is indeed the same as Hecate's Utopia." I couldn't help but feel my lips curling into a grin. No matter. The uncle said he liked seeing me smile. There was no reason to hold back. "There’s more to it. Additional runs that you don't remember." "..." "Don’t you see Go Yuri’s tricks yet? Go Yuri had fixed Emit Schopenhauer’s coordinate to commit suicide at every starting point. Why?" Undertaker. Even if Go Yo-il, the protagonist, decided to press the 'give-up' button, he was merely a false regresser. The true regresser, Emit Schopenhauer, had already died. Therefore, the fact that this world would regress was ‘fixed.’ "So even if you got infected by Udumbara and lost all memory of that particular run, even if you gave up completely, you could always start anew!" "..." "It doesn’t matter if you fail, because the ‘Undertaker who gave up’ gets erased from the data. In the end, only the memories of the ‘Undertaker who didn’t give up’ remain and continue!" When I realized this, I was genuinely impressed. Go Yuri hadn't just recklessly entrusted the future to Undertaker. She hadn’t just pinned her hopes on words like ‘belief’ or ‘hope.’ She planned. She devised. She designed. Thoroughly calculated, even contemplating scenarios of failure and paths of choosing to end life -- she designed the world to ‘restart upon giving up.’ How kind. How noble a responsibility. And how brutal that act was. "Wait. If I get infected by Udumbara, wouldn’t I lose all of my perfect memory skills too? Then how could I extract and restart with just the memory of that particular run?" “You’d just have to repeat exactly the same from the 1st run to the 146th run.” "..." "You had a hunch, right, Uncle? That the run you deemed as your 100th might not be ‘number 100’ in the truest sense." It repeats. Continuously, again and again, eternally. Until when? Until the Undertaker chooses not to select the option of [giving up on Udumbara while being infected], without giving up, and smoothly moves onto the next run. "Then…" "Yes. The ‘missing one run’ mentioned by Inunaki Tunnel signifies that at that time, the runs were entirely repeated." "..." "For Inunaki Tunnel, the difference lay between the [Undertaker who gave up] and the [one who didn’t]. However, since everything else was the same, it calculated as if there was an extra run." "..." “Understand? Uncle. That was only the 146th run. Just the 146th! Yet, by then, you had already been infected by Udumbara once, repeating from the 1st to the 146th run!" The uncle’s expression showed signs of subtle distress. A sharp twinge resonated within my chest. A touch of pain met with an overwhelming certainty. Because, no matter what, Uncle will never think badly of me or reject me. This side of me, which some might call ugly; yet in front of him, there was no need to pretend or put on a facade. For, as he always said, he loved me. "Then, you know, Uncle." "..." "You gave up during the 146th run, but we've gone through nearly 3,000 runs." I couldn't help but say it. Having removed countless obstacles, it was all stories from the past now. Even Uncle couldn’t remember these lost tales. It was 'safe' to say it now. So I just said it. "Uncle, just how many times did you give up?" "..." Noh Do-ha, the former head of the route management team, or should I just call her Sister Noh Do-ha since there's no longer a national route management team? I perfectly understood why Noh Do-ha would torment Uncle. If someone accepts you so wholeheartedly, would anyone not want to leave some mark behind? "You see? I'm not making up stories. Quite the opposite. I'm merely restoring 'lost stories.'" "You..." "A true gamer strives to achieve a 100% collection rate, right, especially after collecting a happy ending?" "You, are you addicted to Infinite Metagame—" "They're gone now. What are you talking about, Uncle?" With a soft touch, I took his hand. His hands were rough, strong. Yet there was a guarantee that those strengths and toughness would never be directed toward me. Uncle flinched, instinctively pulling his arm back, but I didn't let go. "That thing merely exists in name now. It's gone. It has no substance. This laptop belongs to me." "Ah..." With a lurch, Uncle stumbled and collapsed against the counter. He had fainted. "Oops, oops." With a thud, I gently supported his upper body so he wouldn't get hurt, laying him down slowly. I pulled out an empty vial from my pocket and set it beside the coffee cup. "Never let your guard down, Uncle." "..." "Ahaha. Even if all the Awakened ones have disappeared, the 'items created before the Udumbara infection' still exist." For instance, Uehara Shino. Until now, I've kept these ‘MacGuffins’ hidden to ensure that Uncle never developed any suspicions while reading my novel. She was a pharmacist. An alchemist. While her healing abilities were lesser compared to the Awakened Sim Ah-ryeon, when it came to creating items unrelated to the world's salvation, she definitely excelled. "Really, Uncle is way too nice, and that's the problem! Even if she was a C-rank healer, she was an S-rank in drug manufacturing! Why wasn’t that put to use?" Naturally. I, Oh Dok-seo, caching drugs of 'various kinds' before the white nights of June 17th because there was a chance Uncle might relinquish his power. These were items now unavailable anywhere. Perhaps this is what it means to persevere until the end, for a C-rank operative to revert back to an S-rank. "Great. Yep, the effect sure is kicking in. Lucky I mixed it into the milk last night, knowing he drinks café au lait every morning!" Until now, the story unfolded from Uncle's perspective, who was truly a rare saint-like person in this world. Sorry, but to reach a happy ending, one must often pass through many bad endings—such is life's truth. Uncle seemed to believe that failed runs amounted to bad endings... but well. From my perspective, previously identified 'give-up' runs, those dead ends where Uncle repeated the same path from run 1 to X due to Udumbara infection, were truly the ultimate 'bad endings.' The main story concluded. A happy ending with no room for debate—a resolution where Uncle, his surroundings, and even the laws of physics reclaimed normalcy. But seasoned readers familiar with dating sims and visual novels would know. In the world, beyond happy endings, a True Ending exists. Typically, the True Ending unlocks after traversing every happy and bad ending. The final dessert, provided to a gourmet patron who relished their omakase without skipping a beat. "Don't worry, Uncle. This finish line achieved with Go Yuri and you will remain intact." "..." I tenderly ran my fingers through Uncle's hair as he lay slumped over the counter. The faint hint of the rainbow cologne he always wore daily seeped subtly into my nasal passages. "As I said, it’s safe now. It’s all in the past. Oh. Did I only monologue this in my head? Anyway." Click. Placing the laptop beside Uncle's head as he lay there, I turned on the screen. As it had always been, a fresh, blank page greeted me. I stretched leisurely. "Uh-huh! Hoooah... Shall I hastily finish up before Uncle wakes?" This was the room of reminiscence. Individual routes. Bad endings. True Endings. If ‘clearing’ the game for the protagonist Undertaker meant saving the world: For Oh Dok-seo, a single player and an easy-going gamer, 'clearing' always entailed achieving 100% completion even after the main story concluded. Play—in its purest form, simply a game. "Uhuhu." The rules of the game were simple. ―――――――――― 1. Oh Dok-seo uses her remaining authority for 'side story writing' once. : Gaining the qualification to serialize the side story series. 2. Consume the remaining two 'canvases' from what the Undertaker was yet unaware of. : Integrate bad endings that would never have been remembered into the main story. 3. But, there are only 2 canvases. : Any remaining individual routes not blessed with a canvas are truly 'fabrications' that never existed in any world line. 4. Oh Dok-seo does not disclose which side stories are true or false. : Leave behind hints to determine what might be false but leave the answer within the realm of deduction because it's more fun that way. ―――――――――― I etched these rules into the notepad and grinned widely. "I've lived for this moment, there’s no exaggeration in saying so…!” Well, maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration. Anyway. This time, let's delve into the true epilogues. -That man. 結. ---TL NOTE: Well, now I see why the people at the spoiler discord were frustrated.---