Chapter 420 |
The Possessor II
Every plan had been perfect.
Or at least, it had certainly looked perfect right up until I, the Undertaker, got my ass kicked.
'Go Yuri. The one who fell into becoming the worst anomaly while trying to save humanity.'
'She now exists in my complete memory as a [human] who has lived through billions of lives.'
Naturally, my memories were on an entirely different dimension from other people's memories.
"Oh my."
"Oh dear, oh dear."
This difference in dimension was made abundantly clear just by looking at the Go Yuris right before my eyes, all chattering away, bustling about, murmuring here and there, chatting incessantly, testing the very limits of onomatopoeia in real time.
Over there, a Go Yuri.
"But wouldn't it be rather burdensome for Mr. Undertaker if billions of us were all stationed in the Busan Station Tutorial Dungeon?"
Here too, a Go Yuri.
"It's a grand human gathering."
"Yes. It would be more appropriate if only about one person appeared at a time, while the rest remained in the unconscious world of dreams within dreams."
"Then we need to decide who will stay in Mr. Undertaker's reality."
"A lottery? Or perhaps a tournament?"
"Fairness or dopamine, that is the question."
"Truly a difficult problem..."
It was nothing short of a Go Yuri chaos party.
"Could you all be quiet? You're making my head spin."
"Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "Yes."
The Go Yuris obediently replied.
While the Go Yuris suddenly began holding a dice-rolling tournament competition at the edge of my vision, with billions of participants in the main event, I calmly looked around.
At the waiting room of the Busan Station Tutorial Dungeon.
'As expected. I don't see Dok-seo...'
This was the 1,085th cycle.
In the previous cycle, I had experienced every single moment of Go Yuri's entire life, one by one. I had literally walked the exact same life as her.
Now there was no meaningful distinction between Go Yuri's personality and mine. I was Go Yuri, and Go Yuri was me.
In this state, Go Yuri, who had existed with a clear physical form in reality, willingly became infected by 'Udumbara.'
Udumbara was the World Tree that erased the screams of all awakeners.
The ability called reincarnation that Go Yuri possessed was also removed at that moment, and at last the reincarnator finished her long journey and came to sit at the terminal station called 'me.'
Go Yuri. The reincarnator whose name in her first life had been Su-yeon succeeded in discarding herself, who had been contaminated by Void Poison.
'Now I just need to be sealed.'
My sealing method was much simpler.
'After Dok-seo finishes writing my entire life story, if I also get infected by Udumbara like Go Yuri did, everything will be over.'
It wasn't just me.
'Ji-won too, Yo-hwa too, Seo-rin too. No. I'll make Udumbara bloom fully across this entire world and all the awakeners...'
'Even the shrine maidens who have become one with the Outer Gods, I'll infect them all with Udumbara.'
Then the Outer Gods, the anomalies that originated from the Outer Gods, and the awakeners who harbored the Void Poison called awakening.
'I can reset them all at once.'
The problem was Sim Ah-ryeon.
The ability Ah-ryeon possessed was fundamentally similar to Udumbara.
If Udumbara became massive enough to truly become a 'World Tree,' there was a risk that Ah-ryeon would also degrade to the level of an Outer God along with it.
'So I'll infect them with Udumbara little by little, divided across cycles. This way I can minimize the risk.'
A grand downfall.
While this epic of collapse continued, I, the Undertaker, had to remain until the very last moment to control any possible variables.
And beside me, Oh Dok-seo would diligently write the sealing tool called a novel to seal me away.
"...Why isn't she in the Tutorial Dungeon?"
As I was saying.
Oh Dok-seo, the person who had now become most important to my plan, was nowhere to be seen.
'There must have been some error.'
I desperately spun my positive thinking circuits.
'If I go to the next cycle, Dok-seo will appear with a ta-da! Sure! Of course she will.'
Next. The 1,086th cycle.
Dok-seo still wasn't there.
"..."
The 1,087th cycle too. The 1,088th cycle too. And the next one too.
Even the mental state of this regressor, whose only virtue was being positive about everything, naturally had no choice but to enter the five stages of grief.
"No. There's no way Dok-seo died. Why would she die in the first place? She just needs to not go anywhere dangerous and keep using her AT-Field at the right times and endure!"
Denial.
"Dok-seo! Wasn't it enough to just save Lady Adele and make contact with Old Man Scho? What kind of trouble are you causing before the regression starting point?!"
Anger.
"...No, is this the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's doing? Surely not. That's why I thoroughly crushed that bastard and even got a declaration of defeat and surrender. Still. What if Dok-seo fell for the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's whispers and decided to become the god of a new world?!"
Fear.
"Right. Our Dok-seo was a Noh Do-hwa supporter. I neglected the romance part where this old man gets all lovey-dovey with the National Road Management Corps leader too much. Dok-seo. Can you hear me? Are you reading my monologue? Ah, you must be hearing it! Ten cycles. Sure. I'll devote a full ten cycles to the Noh Do-hwa romance route. Huh! This is generous, completely generous! So our Dok-seo, don't do anything else and just save Lady Adele and come here. Okay? Sorry for always pressuring you to write. Our dear author. How about from now on you write just one chapter every ten years?"
Bargaining.
"......"
Acceptance.
"Right."
I had actually known.
"You couldn't accept it, could you."
That perhaps Dok-seo might react this way.
Having helped and watched over that child for countless tens of thousands of years, this was one of the scenarios I could sufficiently anticipate.
However, I hadn't considered this possibility very high.
The reason was simple.
"From your perspective, I'm still a future person you haven't actually met. A character in a novel. Nothing more than an unknown stranger."
Dok-seo was different from me.
The book possessor had a characteristic that was distinctly different from both regressors and reincarnators.
"You and I had no point of contact in reality."
Regressors continued to live by repeating their own lives.
Therefore, even if others couldn't remember them, regressors remembered the bonds and oaths they had made with others.
Reincarnators continued to live by repeating other people's lives.
Therefore, reincarnators had no boundary between self and others. You were someone I once was, and I was someone who would one day become you.
Possessors were different.
For a possessor, there was only one life. The self was the self, and others were others.
"At this point in time, you and I in reality haven't built up any connection. In terms of favorability, it's zero. Even if I generously inflate it, it would be hard to exceed fifty."
She read an interesting novel.
She picked up a mysterious prophecy book.
Even so, to risk her own death for some strange 'old man' who only appeared in lines of text, to move toward a 'happy ending' whose existence was uncertain.
"Would that really be possible?"
The probability was abnormally low.
If there was a gap in my judgment.
"...It's that you're a child far more abnormal than any probability. Dok-seo."
Once upon a time, Dok-seo and I had built a bond where we would think nothing of giving up our lives for each other.
Dok-seo didn't remember that. She had merely witnessed through sentences mixed with her own handwriting that such a thing had happened.
'With just that.'
With only that much, Dok-seo had decided to bet her life on me.
"......"
"An interesting miscalculation."
The one and only Go Yuri who had lifted the championship trophy in the tournament battle that recorded the most participants in human history smiled warmly beside me.
"Mr. Undertaker. You don't trust ordinary people's memory. Not because you look down on them, but because they truly cannot remember you."
"......"
"You don't expect the impossible from others. You don't arbitrarily expect things and don't arbitrarily get hurt."
Go Yuri said as if humming.
"That attitude is the very foundation of the posture that allowed you to get along with people. Therefore, you naturally didn't expect an impossible achievement from Ms. Dok-seo."
Go Yuri and I were similar.
We both knew well the sensation of hurt felt when others didn't recognize 'past life' or 'previous cycle' versions of ourselves.
"But it seems Ms. Oh Dok-seo was an error, an anomalous human that our attitude failed to account for."
"...Children really don't grow up or act the way I think they will."
"Indeed they don't."
Go Yuri chuckled softly.
"I was hard mode. I lived for eons so long that counting them was meaningless. Mr. Undertaker is normal mode. You lived for tens of thousands of years."
"Right."
"I wonder how many years Ms. Oh Dok-seo will live? Until she reaches that certain summer station on June 17th that will never end."
The cycles flowed on.
Each time they flowed, Dok-seo's name was recorded at the very top of the list of deaths I couldn't do anything about.
'Dok-seo.'
Once, I had hoped that child wouldn't have to bear all the wounds.
'You don't need to save me. This old man is truly satisfied just appearing in the paragraphs of text you'll read, just in the prologue of your story.'
Could my voice be heard?
Even if it could be heard, would it be understood?
"......"
I felt an intense ambivalence.
I hoped that the words I left here and now would be understood by that child someday, if not now.
I believed they would be understood.
But understanding my words meant that child would experience the same wounds I had.
I hoped those wounds wouldn't be too great.
'Do I want them to be understood, or do I want them not to be understood? Well. This is troublesome.'
In the end, my hope had only one destination.
'I hope you become strong.'
To walk strongly.
And strength was ultimately something that could only be obtained by oneself.
The 'prophecy book' and 'strategy guide' that Dok-seo would read contained my life story, my experiences, the record of the failures and mistakes and successes I had gone through.
That was all.
The only thing I could possibly give to this child called Dok-seo was my life.
'I can't become strong in your place.'
I tried though.
Even though Dok-seo kept repeating death until she reached that June summer, I couldn't just stand by and assume she would somehow become strong on her own.
'Could I develop a new time machine ability?'
I tried.
'The black sword that the National Road Management Corps leader made for me has properties that transcend space and time. With that, somehow cut out time... could I perform that ultimate technique?'
I tried.
"......"
For hundreds and thousands of years, Go Yuri simply watched in silence with a smile as I struggled to gain new wounds to help that child.
And then I realized.
"Fuck. This isn't going to work, is it?"
I put down the cane-sword.
The 1,183rd cycle.
It was exactly one hundred cycles after I had lived through Go Yuri's life.
The regressor still hadn't developed any ability to turn back time further. What will be will be, what won't won't. No matter how much I struggled, I lacked the 'talent.'
"I told you, didn't I, Mr. Undertaker."
Go Yuri whispered gently.
"You critically lack the talent to be wounded. Because no matter how wounded you become, you absolutely never give up."
"...I thought that was my strength."
"All strengths contain weaknesses."
A giggle.
"Originally you had only lost your fellow regressor Emit Schopenhauer. But now you're losing the possessor Oh Dok-seo 'before regression' every time too."
"......"
"But from Ms. Dok-seo's perspective it's the opposite. In a 'world without the Undertaker,' Ms. Dok-seo is aiming for a clear. Hmm. Now that I think about it again, maybe it's not exactly easy difficulty after all?"
It might be similar to the difficulty I experienced, Go Yuri breathed.
"Aha. I might be witnessing a very new possibility."
"What?"
"Like this, Mr. Undertaker keeps searching for someone to seal him away. Since Ms. Dok-seo failed, then the next one. The next one. The next one. But each time, other people struggle somehow to save Mr. Undertaker. As a result, everyone dies without reaching June 17th."
"......"
"So even though Mr. Undertaker regresses, the people around him gradually decrease. First Ms. Dok-seo. Then someone else. Then someone else again. And so eventually... you regress, but no one remains! My word. An ending where only one regressor remains in this world. And that's the result of all humanity desperately struggling to save one single regressor!"
"......"
"But Ms. Noh Do-hwa will remain."
Go Yuri smiled brightly.
"Because that person will absolutely die trying to save you. She'll just keep living to kill you, left alone in the world."
"Indeed."
I gave a bitter smile.
"That would be the perfect bad ending."
"The destruction of everyone for one person. It's romantic. Mm, I don't think it's bad. If that's humanity's ending, I can accept it."
Go Yuri looked far into the distance at the sunset.
"Now you understand my gamble. Mr. Undertaker. Right now in the situation you're experiencing, I bet on your success in exactly the same way."
"Is that so."
"Yes. Thanks to Mr. Undertaker being competent, thanks to you not giving up, I didn't fail and was able to talk with you like this."
Go Yuri's eyes turned to look at me.
"What about Ms. Dok-seo?"
"......"
"Will Ms. Dok-seo be as competent as you? Will she not give up like you?"
The world perished. Again.
"By any chance, do you have any regrets about entrusting the end of this grand life to Ms. Dok-seo?"
"Mm."
Go Yuri's words were right.
At last, belatedly, I fully understood what state of mind Go Yuri had been in when she entrusted her ending to me.
"I don't regret it."
"Why?"
"No one has read my life story as thoroughly as that child. Everything I could give, everything I couldn't give, it all depends on that child. Even if Dok-seo fails, that would be... well. From my position it would be something to feel sorry about, but I wouldn't resent it or regret it."
"Absolutely?"
"Absolutely."
She lived diligently.
She tried hard.
She didn't give up.
"I'll just wait."
Waiting.
To wait for someone.
That was something quite unfamiliar to a regressor like me who had lived longer than anyone.
A regressor was someone others waited for, not someone who waited for others. It was because I knew completely what events would unfold going forward.
Where I go, who will be there.
If I go there, someone will survive.
If I don't go, someone will die.
A regressor was a kind of omniscience.
I was an existence that always urged myself forward to get as quickly as possible to the people who would be waiting for my arrival.
Unless you were a regressor-failure like Old Man Scho who just went 'ah, I don't know, anyway if you guys don't do it I'm quitting, good luck' to the world.
'But... I see.'
I understood now at last.
"Waiting isn't so bad either."
"Ahaha. Right?"
"Yeah."
What state of mind had the regressor Emit Schopenhauer been in when he took his life over a thousand times?
Was it stubbornness? Obstinacy? Guilt over finding peace before leaving his comrade behind? Love for his wife? Desperation?
There would be many reasons, but among them I finally guessed there was 'faith in me,' 'support,' 'waiting.'
"If I had given up, Old Man Scho would have understood. Well, we wouldn't have even had a chance to talk though."
"Yes."
"But if he could have somehow received news of my giving up through some miraculous method, Old Man Scho would have felt... sorry toward me, I think."
"Yes."
"We're all pretty much the same."
"Because that's what people are like."
I waited.
At the end of a perishing world, a world without you, I waited for you.
I waited.
I waited.
"......"
"Oh my."
One day.
"Ms. Yu Ji-won died."
"So she did."
"It's strange. There should be a resolve in Ms. Yu Ji-won's heart, a vow more solid than anything, that she absolutely won't die before reuniting with Mr. Matiz no matter what happens."
"......"
Something had changed.
"Yes, Ms. Yo-hwa's death has been confirmed. Hmm. No Void occurred at Baekhwa Girls' High either."
"What's going on?"
"It means the Void that was originally scheduled to occur at Baekhwa Girls' High was triggered early, somewhere else. But it didn't go as planned and the whole party died."
"......"
"But Mr. Undertaker. Haven't you noticed another strange thing?"
"What?"
"Ms. Jeong Ye-jii's telepathy."
"......"
"The messages from the Constellations. We're not hearing them, are we?"
The world continued to repeatedly perish.
People died countless times, and you were included in those predetermined deaths.
The state of the world that 'you' had changed was completely different from the history of regression I had experienced, and even I, who possessed so much experience and 'knowledge of a regressor,' was helpless.
As a result, the situation had worsened even more.
However.
"She's coming."
That too was part of the waiting process.
"One step at a time."
I couldn't hear or see it.
"To this place."
Just as I had done for Go Yuri.
Oh Dok-seo.
When I turned around, that child was approaching my waiting.
---
Footnotes:
- Not sure if anyone noticed so far but AT Field is a direct reference to Absolute Terror Field from Evangelion.
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