Chapter 429: The Savior Ω III |
The Savior Ω III
"Strictly speaking."
An old memory.
The first cycle that I had already lost within myself once.
Memories I had barely managed to reclaim by living through the Reincarnator's life exactly as it had been repeated.
"You can't really be called a regressor, Mr. Undertaker."
Yuri and I.
The two of us were the only rebels in the world, rebels plotting a revolution against a fate that had been sealed to end in destruction at the hands of anomalies.
"The only true, 100% pure regressor is Mr. Schopenhauer."
Our language was always cautious, like spies who had infiltrated enemy territory.
"And yet, Mr. Undertaker, you're 'effectively' standing in the same position as a regressor. Isn't that fascinating?"
"Complete Memory."
"Yes, exactly. While this world repeats itself over and over, you simply don't lose your memories."
Go Yuri smiled.
"But to deceive the enemy, you must first deceive your allies. From now on, you'll masquerade as a regressor, believe yourself to be one, and fool both friend and foe alike."
"..."
"In the end, no one will be able to grasp your true identity. Even if some Outer Gods realize that the world is repeating, as long as they can't discern your true name."
True name in both senses.
My original name, Go Yuir.
My original fate, the one who remembers.
"You won't be conquered by the anomalies, doc. Never. Not unless you give up on yourself first."
"..."
"So then, Mr. Undertaker."
Yuri clasped my hand.
"We're the only people in this world who've allowed each other to be conquered."
"...Yuri."
"Yes, Mr. Yuir."
Clink.
The silver bell on her wrist cast a small shadow as it trembled.
"I've entrusted my name to you. And you've entrusted yours to me."
"And you know my identity, just as I will one day live through every moment of your life."
"We are one."
That promise.
"Let's save this world, together."
The silver bell swayed.
In the fate we had conspired against, the world was one that could only exist if both you and I were absent, or if both you and I were present together.
Our martyrdom together was thwarted.
The possessor who inherited our will declared that it was too early for our funeral.
I was merely an ordinary person born with the fate to remember and record the past, but now I thought I might try believing in the future.
True name, Go Yuir.
Alias, Undertaker.
Other aliases.
'Infinite Regressor', 'False Reincarnator', 'Undertaker', 'The One Who Remembers', 'The Sealer of Time', 'The Strategist'.
Schopenhauer's workout partner. Ah-ryeon's guild leader. Seo-rin's gourmet tour companion. Yo-hwa's teacher. Seo Gyu's elder brother. Ji-won's chauffeur. Ha-yul's godfather. Bi-cheong's doormat. The benefactor of the Magical Girl Association. Dok-seo's co-author. Do-hwa's nemesis.
Called by many other names as well.
Someone's family member.
The false regressor was now entering his final cycle.
I opened my eyes.
'June 17th, 1:59 PM.'
Time limit.
'60 seconds remaining.'
The final strategy battle that would determine whether we could save the world completely or not.
I couldn't waste even a single second.
That's why it took not even a moment for me to assess the situation here at the starting point, the Busan Station waiting room.
"Mister!"
The waiting room was dim and gloomy.
The station had suffered a blackout, with all artificial lights extinguished.
It was a symbol proving that this place was no longer the regressor's exclusive domain, but had become a crossroads shared with the Possessor.
"Right away!"
No lengthy explanations were necessary.
Our operational schedule had already been mapped out to the second.
The fact that instead of 399 people randomly summoned to the Busan Station waiting room, our carefully selected strategy team members had taken their places made this abundantly clear.
And…
"..."
"..."
"..."
All the strategy team members were lying down in the middle of the waiting room with their eyes closed, having fallen 'asleep'.
It wasn't just Seo-rin, Ji-won, Yo-hwa, Ah-ryeon, Ha-yul, Gyu, and Do-hwa who had dozed off, the core leadership who had played crucial roles in the Regression Alliance up until now.
Sword Marquess, the Great Priestess, Manyo Neko, Nenet, and others, a considerable number of outsiders were also laid out in rows as if they'd been laid to rest in a communal cemetery.
"Hoeeek."
Around these sprawled people, hundreds of Tutorial Fairies had surrounded them, holding hands and dancing in a circle.
"Is that person the Secretary General that Secretary Oh Dok-seo mentioned, or is it?"
"That's right! No more talking, put him to sleep quickly!"
"Hihiek. There is no paradise in the place you flee to. I thought we'd barely been liberated from the oppressor's rule, but all that waited for us was just another form of violence...!"
Time limit.
50 seconds.
"Hush-a-bye, our baby."
"Mother is in the island's shade."
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
Song infused the fairies' dance.
An incantation, the most primitive emptiness for humans, a spell meant to bewitch and lure humans into the dream realm ruled by Baku.
An abrupt drowsiness tugged at my eyelids.
"Catch! Mister!"
Dok-seo threw something.
I snatched it from the air with a swift motion.
It was a silver bell.
"No-sho will join soon too! I'll wait here until that old man arrives and go in together with him! Don't worry! You go first, old man."
I didn't hear what came after that.
My consciousness had fallen into the emptiness disguised as a dream, thanks to the incantation woven together by hundreds of Baku all at once.
But I wasn't worried.
'I know, Dok-seo.'
Just as she trusted me, I trusted her as well.
Time limit.
40 seconds.
'I'm counting on you to handle that perpetually late old man.'
Dive.
And to the next stage.
'I'm leaving it to you.'
The scenery changed abruptly.
"You've arrived, Mr. Matiz."
It was some shabby alleyway.
Just like the '0th station' from moments ago, people were sprawled out in rows in this '1st station' alleyway as well, sleeping soundly.
However, Ji-won wasn't lying on the street but inside a car, sitting in the passenger seat herself, looking at me as I opened my eyes in the driver's seat.
"I've been waiting."
"Why didn't you go ahead?"
"How could I abandon the mission of waiting for Mr. Matiz on my own?"
Ji-won wore a faint smile.
"Everyone's already gone ahead and is waiting."
"I see."
"Yes. Since the flow of time hasn't slowed down enough at this location yet, I, who doesn't need to say much, took charge of this place."
She extended her hand to me.
"Your Excellency."
"..."
"I wish you a pleasant journey."
I took her hand.
It was cold.
Ever since that night when it seemed the rain would sweep away everything on the ground, the body temperature that the girl called Ji-won held had always been cool.
It was because she had hastened to prepare herself to accept another person's warmth.
"It shines so beautifully."
From beyond the car window, above the villas and multi-story houses lining the alleyway, the fairies were singing lullabies in chorus.
"Please go ahead."
Listening to the song instead of the sound of rain, I closed my eyes.
The hands we held curved slightly into a gentle arc.
The smallest circle permitted on this earth.
"Guiding the latecomers is my role too. Mr. Matiz, will you wait for me this time, instead of the other way around?"
Time limit.
30 seconds.
'Of course, Ji-won.'
Dive.
And to the next stage.
"..."
2nd station.
"...Teacher."
It was a classroom in some school, willingly soaked in the evening glow.
We had already rapidly approached a dream within a dream.
Time had long since become distorted, the second hand probably moving at a much slower pace than in reality.
Space had become just as strange, the classroom that existed not in reality but in a dream was warped in some indescribable way, making its size difficult to gauge.
Hundreds of people were slumped over classroom desks, sleeping.
Only one student with orange hair draped down was looking at me with an expression that seemed about to cry.
"I'm sorry, for forgetting."
"It's not your fault, Yo-hwa."
"But both unni and teacher..."
"We all just acted on our own and disappeared from your memory on our own. People who believe themselves to be clever tend to make a lot of mistakes."
Cheon Yo-hwa was regaining her memories.
Was it an achievement Dok-seo had accomplished while conquering the cult?
Or perhaps, as we drew closer to the great emptiness of the dream within a dream, the sediment accumulated there had 'flowed backward' and engulfed Yo-hwa.
'Probably both.'
Oh Dok-seo had persuaded Yo-hwa before June 17th arrived.
And thus obtained even the Baku, crafting a battle plan composed of just 60 seconds.
In the process of rehearsing to realize this operation that bordered on pure gambling, the Yo-hwa before my eyes must have grown accustomed to dreams within dreams countless times.
"I... it's okay if I fail."
"..."
"I'd rather hope the next cycle doesn't come. I've only just gotten my memories back this way, but if the wheel turns again, I'll become the me who doesn't remember you, teacher."
I don't want that.
Yo-hwa covered her face with her hands.
"Really?"
I patted my student's shoulder.
"I want to see you receive your graduation certificate and experience university life, Yo-hwa."
"..."
"It might not be particularly exciting. You've experienced too much already. But the experience of being able to call boring things boring isn't actually that bad."
I said playfully.
"And it would be troublesome if your trademark remains a sailor uniform forever. Don't you want to try some different fashion?"
"Uht..."
"This will be my last cycle."
The classroom bathed in sunset.
Even excluding the seats reserved for latecomers, there was still one empty chair there.
"I'm sorry for continuing to inflict wounds you couldn't remember."
"..."
"Your teacher was clumsy too. Immature. I wanted to do well, but there were many things I failed at. Will you forgive me?"
The birch forest spread out beyond the window swayed, a thousand white shadows melting into the redness.
"Yes..."
The song of that forest was the Baku's lullaby.
"Unni, please take good care of her."
Time limit.
25 seconds.
"Of course."
Dive.
And to the next stage.
"..."
3rd station.
It was not the red of evening but a more primitive red, a mansion drenched in blood.
Ha-yul.
A small-framed girl sitting in a wheelchair had her back turned, looking at the mansion.
[Why are you so late?]
A murder that hadn't occurred in this cycle.
But Ha-yul, already infected by the emptiness poison that had flowed back from the dream within a dream, seemed to find this entire scene familiar.
"The time here is slowed down quite a bit, you see."
[That's your entire excuse?]
"Sorry."
This mansion, which would have originally been located in Fukuoka in reality, had many parts distorted, just like the previous station.
The mansion was a chaotic mess of corridors, doorways, and staircases scattered about like the backrooms.
The people mobilized for the operation were dangling from the ceiling by puppet strings, sleeping in rows like meat in a butcher shop.
The blood flowing beneath them all came from a single person, Jung Sang-guk, Ha-yul's biological father.
[I was thinking about murder.]
As I approached her side, Ha-yul muttered while still keeping her gaze fixed on the slaughterhouse before her.
[If the world is repeating, then in the end, a single murder is no different from thousands, tens of thousands, eons of murders.]
[I hated Jung Sang-guk.]
[But was I hateful enough to kill him for eons, does a sin worthy of that much hatred even exist, I was thinking about that.]
Ha-yul looked up at me obliquely.
[And love too.]
"..."
[Oppa cherished me for hundreds and thousands of times. How can a person do that?]
"Didn't you love me just the same way?"
[I only did it because I couldn't remember. There's nothing difficult about that at all.]
"Even though you couldn't remember or know, once you loved someone that one time, you love them forever, repeating that love through eternity, isn't that wonderful?"
I knelt down in front of the wheelchair.
And matched my gaze to be slightly lower than Ha-yul's.
"I'm always cheering you on, Ha-yul."
[...Oppa.]
"Even when you're hurt, you're the kind of child who asks herself whether this wound should suffer eternally and answers 'no'."
[...]
"When you receive love, you're the kind of child who marvels at how that love reached eternity and rejoices at that miracle. Ha-yul, you have courage stronger than anyone and wonderful love."
Ha-yul was…
[...]
Crying.
She had a body where both crying and laughter were processed as silence.
Because the world couldn't hear those sounds, she had never cried with exaggerated tears meant for others, and never laughed with expressions meant to show off to others.
She had kept a tower built of crying and laughter purely for herself within her heart, and yet still permitted the footsteps of others to climb that tower.
The most beautiful tower in the world had always been built within the heart.
"When this is all over, become independent."
[...]
"Let's go on a trip together."
[Far away?]
"Very far away."
Ha-yul haltingly leaned forward, supporting herself on the wheelchair's armrests.
[Go ahead and wait for me.]
Thump.
The time one person had crossed was contained in a gentle weight that embraced my head.
From the tower of her heart, a soundless song.
A melody longing for that summer day was echoing.
[I love you, Dad.]
Time limit.
22 seconds.
"I love you too."
Dive.
And.
To the next stage.
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