Chapter 395 |
The Bereaved III
Everything in the world has its pros and cons.
The pros.
The advantage of the regressor, me, the Undertaker, was being able to roll the dice again and ‘retry’ at any time.
The advantage of the amnesiac, Cheon-hwa, was her ‘trauma immunity,’ where she could simply forget, even if she failed.
However.
“Oh? Yo-hwa. What are you doing here...”
“Ah, Teacher! I’ve, uh, decided to open a Baekhwa Girls’ High branch school in Busan, starting today!”
“A branch school?”
“...”
Every advantage, when turned upside down, was bound to become a disadvantage.
“But... Yo-hwa.”
“Yes!”
“This is difficult for me to bring up, but...”
“Aww, come on, you know the relationship between us. You can say anything to me, Teacher!”
“About the temporary building that’s under construction. The spot where the container box is supposed to go is, from my perspective, exactly where the crystal gravestone of the [Time Seal] is.”
“Oh? Oooh, was it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but would it be okay if you built the temporary building a little to the side, not right here?”
“Hmmmm.”
“...”
“Why? Teacher?”
The cons.
Until he rolled the dice again, until he reset the regression, the regressor was bound to be followed by the traces of his failures.
The amnesiac was given the compulsion of having to accept only the results of failure, without even the awareness that she had failed.
“I can’t see it. And I don’t particularly want to see it, but if you must visit, Teacher, you can just come into the student council room, right? I’m always welcome to have you!”
“...”
“Ah. For the time being, I plan to stay here at the Busan branch rather than the Sejong main campus because of various work. Hehe. Please visit often, Teacher!”
Yo-hwa’s red eyes were smiling.
――Access has been denied.
I was Yo-hwa’s teacher. We had even spent several years alone together inside the barrier of Infinite Void.
Naturally, I could read the hidden undertones in my lovely disciple’s smiling eyes as if they were in the palm of my hand.
Just now, I had been forbidden from meeting with ‘Cheon-hwa’ at all.
That night.
[The prevailing reaction inside Baekhwa Girls’ High is also confusion.]
I immediately tried to contact the Saintess. To grasp the situation.
“You don’t mean to say this was the student council president’s... Yo-hwa’s, unilateral decision?”
[Yes. The vice president and the secretary, the other executives of Baekhwa Girls’ High, didn’t know.]
[Yesterday, Ms. Yo-hwa suddenly met with Ms. Noh Do-hwa alone and struck a deal.]
[Ms. Noh Do-hwa was also puzzled, but she gave her the container since it would be irrational to antagonize Baekhwa Girls’ High over just giving up a corner of the Tower of Babel rooftop.]
It was fast. Excessively so.
The member of the Regression Alliance who had always been the fastest in judgment and action was Yo-hwa.
She was different from her older sister, who constantly calculated variables from behind the scenes to weave an epic saga of grand strategy.
The younger of the twin sisters created her plans the moment a strategy was established, or in real-time after diving into the battlefield.
To put it one way, she was the action leader.
My failure to consider that characteristic of Yo-hwa’s was my fatal mistake.
In less than 24 hours, the rooftop of the Tower was under the surveillance of the Baekhwa Girls’ High student council president.
When Yo-hwa was an ally, it was an incredibly reassuring advantage, like when she came as reinforcements during the Leviathan subjugation.
But in a situation like this, it felt as if my own breathing room was slowly being choked off.
“What is Yo-hwa doing now?”
[She’s on the rooftop. She’s been there the whole time.]
“...”
[She’s continuously exchanging messages with the Baekhwa Girls’ High guild members in Sejong through me.]
[This is just my personal judgment, but.]
[I think Ms. Yo-hwa really intends to stay at the Tower of Babel alone for the time being.]
[Um, Mr. Undertaker.]
[What on earth happened inside the Time Seal?]
“...”
A reversed scale.
A person’s heart is covered in invisible scales, and among them exists one that grows in the opposite direction.
“...I’m sorry. If Yo-hwa happens to leave her post, please let me know right away.”
[Yes. I will.]
What exactly one’s own reversed scale is.
It was common for not only others but even the person themself to not know. Some people lived their entire lives without ever realizing it.
For Yo-hwa, that reversed scale was the existence of the twin sister she had already lost.
[I’m sorry, Mr. Undertaker.]
[I tried summoning her to the meeting room through Ms. Noh Do-hwa, and I’ve tried various other means, but Ms. Yo-hwa isn’t budging at all.]
[Rather, she... doesn’t seem to trust my words.]
[I think she was convinced from the very beginning that I was scheming to lure her somewhere else.]
“...”
[The only time Ms. Yo-hwa moves from the rooftop is when she goes out somewhere with you, Mr. Undertaker.]
Warning.
The sound of a low-quality siren flickered in my head.
“Hehe. It’s so nice to be walking around the city with you like this, Teacher! Hwaa, I really wish I had settled down in Busan instead of Sejong...”
“But the Inunaki Tunnel is there, isn’t it.”
“Mm, yes. Still! Please understand the heart of a disciple who wants to be as close to her Teacher as possible!”
“Then how about moving into my guild hideout and living there?”
“Ah.”
“Ah-ryeon does that all the time anyway. Except when she’s working in Pyongyang, she’s cooped up in a corner of the hideout all day. There’s always a guest room ready for you.”
“Ugh! Wh, what a sweet offer...! My, my heart is pounding like crazy... What should I do, Teacher?”
“What do you mean, what should you do. Just come in with the feeling of having another vacation home――”
“Do you want to meet her that badly?”
“...”
“Why? Teacher. I’m right here, aren’t I?”
“...”
“That’s cheap.”
“...”
“I keep regretting that I was too far away recently. Sim Ah-ryeon is much farther, working in Pyongyang. I also went to help as reinforcements whenever the northern front was in danger. It’s a little, cheap.”
Warning.
Yo-hwa wasn’t the only case of someone losing a family member to [Time Seal].
A long time ago, in an episode dealing with the football player Kim Joo-chul, his son Kim Si-eun had been mentioned.
As a result of his father’s existence being erased and distorted from the very beginning, Kim Si-eun ended up living a life of traveling all over the country.
This was that kind of era. Traveling was synonymous with suicide, and Kim Si-eun, not content with just the country, even crossed over to the Japanese archipelago.
As if he were desperately searching for something.
Kim Si-eun never loved his father, the football player Kim Joo-chul.
Kim Joo-chul was a casino addict. Unable to forget his past glory, he wielded violence and abuse against his family.
That kind of human.
Even though he only lost that kind of family member, his son Kim Si-eun’s life was decisively changed.
It happened even when losing a family member you didn’t love.
...In the case of losing a family member you loved more than anyone, to what extent would the remaining person’s life be twisted?
“Teacher?”
“Teacher.”
Warning.
Nevertheless, I trusted my disciple and believed that the problem could be solved through conversation.
Giving up was always the easiest solution. It was also a stopgap measure. Therefore, I attempted to talk.
“Ahaha.”
“So.... what is it?”
“That I have a twin sister.”
“And that unni liked you so, so much. That she was willing to offer her very soul to save the world with you.”
“And on top of that, if everything happened according to unni's plan. That means she’s an incredibly-incredibly, incredibly smart person, doesn’t it?”
“What is that! Ahaha.”
I attempted to talk.
“I can’t do something like that. Ugh, I could throw away my life for you a hundred, a thousand times, any number of times, but―”
“To calculate hundreds of regressions as variables and weave a plan with your own life. I don’t have that kind of brain, you know?”
“She looks just like me.”
“Her voice is the same too.”
“Her scent, it’s the same too.”
“That means she’s so much smarter than me, right?”
I attempted to talk,
“So that’s why you’re drawn to ‘that thing’, Teacher.”
“What do you call this? Hmm, there was a specific term for it. Ah. That’s right! A superior version! That’s what you call this, right? Ahaha.”
“Hmm. I don’t dislike being challenged like this. In fact, I like it. Because I can prove myself by fighting. But.... she’s not here, is she?”
“She doesn’t exist in this reality.”
“She’s dead more certainly than death itself.”
“So, what do I fight with? How do I fight?”
“Don’t you think that’s cheap?”
The attempt.
“So what am I supposed to feel?”
“A sense of apology for not even realizing my family sacrificed themselves for you and the world? Sadness for losing my unni?”
“Am I in a situation where I have to feel sorry and sad for a family I’ve never even had?”
“Isn’t it the opposite?”
“I’d like it if you apologized. To me.”
Warning.
“It doesn’t end just because you got her consent, Teacher. It means I was there too. But unlike you, I’m not a regressor, and I don’t have Complete Memory, so there’s no way for me to get my memories back.”
“She disappears on her own terms, and now she expects me to just accept it on her own terms?”
“If I acknowledge her on top of you, that thing, she’ll really become my ‘unni’.”
“I don’t want that.”
“You’re the worst kind of person.”
“Cheon Yo-hwa is me. Teacher.... Yes, that’s right, isn’t it?”
Warning.
“Look. Teacher. This is Busan. The city you protected. The town.”
“I’m the only one who can walk here, holding your hand like this. The real Cheon Yo-hwa, you know? Not some illusion that only exists in that creepy classroom.”
“Your hand.... it’s warm.”
“Yes, Teacher. A little more....”
Warning.
“Teacher, look at this. I got a wound in the last battle.”
“Here― On the nape of my neck. You can see it, right?”
“What? No. I didn’t ask Sim Ah-ryeon to heal it. I wanted to leave it.”
“Why, you ask.... Ahaha. Because, well, my wound doesn’t disappear even after 24 hours pass, you see?”
“It’ll heal, sure.”
“But it won’t be ‘reset’ without a trace. Never.”
“It’s okay to come closer. Actually, I wanted to show it to you. Yes, up close.”
“Teacher.”
“My Teacher――”
Reset.
The conversation failed. A great failure. A fumble.
Until that regression ended, Yo-hwa never left my side. Her position as student council president, her power as the head of one of the two major guilds on the Korean peninsula, none of it mattered anymore.
Baekhwa Girls’ High collapsed.
It was an organization that had been established on the charisma of a single student council president in the first place. The bees that lost their queen scattered, and their members were absorbed by the National Road Management Corps and Samcheon separately.
Once, the former vice president of Baekhwa Girls’ High came and cried out in protest. But there was no change in Yo-hwa’s expression.
The only thing I could do was take responsibility for Yo-hwa and accept her until the regression ended.
Reset. And.
“...”
The next regression.
I was at a classroom desk. Across from me sat Cheon-hwa. As soon as the new regression began and the situation was somewhat sorted out, I had come to visit the sanctuary.
“Aah―”
Cheon-hwa, after hearing the whole story from me, the older of the twin sisters, sighed a long sigh.
“I see... So that’s what happened. Yes. I’m sorry, Sunbae. I’ve really given you a painful role.”
“It’s fine. This kind of thing wasn’t unique to Yo-hwa.”
“Hm? Ah, I see. It was always common for mentally unstable colleagues to rely on you. Mm, still, I’m sorry.”
Cheon-hwa muttered.
“My sister is right. This is the price for me using [Time Seal] as I pleased. At the time, I was so busy subjugating the Mastermind that I thought this was the best way.”
“...”
“Actually, I don’t mind it being this way! Wow. Just the fact that you remember me as a human, Sunbae, is a gamble that succeeded against astronomical odds, you know? To win the heart of my lovely little sister on top of this? That’s like trying to pull a 5-star with a single roll in a double gacha. Ahaha.”
“...”
“You don’t have to tell Yo-hwa about me. Sunbae. I have some shame, you see. I don’t want to be a nuisance to the point of harming my sister’s mental health! Nope!”
Leave it like this.
Neglect it.
Just as I had until now.
No one would know anyway.
Yo-hwa would never know that she had an older sister. And Cheon-hwa would never be able to remember the fact that she had inflicted an indelible wound on her younger sister.
It was a story that no one in this world, aside from the two of them, knew.
Except for me.
“...”
If I were to just close my eyes to this, it could be left as something that ‘never happened’. As a blank. As a void.
“Cheon-hwa.”
“Hm?”
“This classroom you’re sealed in. It’s a sanctuary modeled after a classroom at Baekhwa Girls’ High, right?”
“Uh... yes. But, why all of a sudden?”
And wouldn’t that be in line with the entirety of a regressor’s life?
“I have a strategy.”
The fact that Yo-hwa wasn't a necromancer of zombies, but just a girl who wanted to save a few more of her friends.
The fact that Yu Ji-won wasn't a psychopath mad with power, but was searching for someone she met one summer.
The fact that the Constellations didn't exist, but were just an act put on by someone who wanted to save people.
Like with Old Man Scho, they were all facts that no one would know if I just closed my eyes.
Originally, the void was a world only to those who sought to know it, and the other was a human only to those who sought to see them.
I had believed that a regressor was a human who sings of loss.
“In this regression, I haven’t saved Yo-hwa yet. Right about now, Yo-hwa is probably trapped in Baekhwa Girls’ High, fighting a desperate battle.”
“Yes. So I’d like you to go quickly.”
“And as you know, to subjugate the trace of Mugan sleeping there, I have to endure until the world shrinks to the size of Baekhwa Girls’ High and enter the void within the void.”
“...”
“Into the Baekhwa Girls’ High of the void, I will summon you.”
“...!”
Cheon-hwa’s eyes widened.
I continued, declaring.
“I will reunite you two sisters there.”
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