I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell
Chapter 405
Bab ini belum diterjemahkan ke Bahasa Indonesia
Naskah di bawah ini ditampilkan sementara dari versi English asli.
Ta-da. Who could have guessed?
That the terminal point of endless regression isn't the future, but the past, precisely to the first iteration.
A classic twist! Even a time traveler would be surprised!
"...Uncle. I'm sorry, but could you please stop imitating Cheon-hwa without warning? It really gives me the creeps. Seriously. I'm begging you."
Unfortunately, after receiving a perfectly executed dogeza filled with Oh Dok-seo's 100% sincerity, the Cheon-hwa impersonation was announced to be in its final season.
"My apologies. I still have lingering aftereffects."
"Oh, I see. So, when you experience those aftereffects, you cosplay as your apprentice by mimicking her appearance with your enchanted aura control?"
"Thanks for understanding."
"Yeah. That's why the Alliance of Regressors needs a mad dog commander like you. Someone has to call out the crazies for the world to keep turning properly..."
Oh Dok-seo treated me like a complete lunatic, but frankly, it felt unjust.
Habitual young mistress transformation syndrome. The sudden Cheon-hwa impersonation wasn't just a perverse or self-destructive joke. It truly was an aftereffect.
"Dok-seo, mimicking a completely different person in the void is a perilous endeavor. If it weren't me, this could have turned out much worse. If it had been someone else, they might harbor multiple personalities in their mind for life."
"Hmm. Is it really that bad?"
"It's that bad. Honestly, I'm more amazed that you're just fine. You sometimes turn your [Side Story Writing] into a VTuber mode and fully immerse yourself as different characters. How do you maintain your sense of self like that?"
"Beats me?"
Oh Dok-seo tilted her head, puzzled.
"It just works for me."
"You talented little..."
Well, it's probably due to her unique ability known as the [AT Field], an absolute barrier.
Oh Dok-seo's sense of reality seemed somewhat disconnected from others.
Not because she didn't take life seriously, but because she had a solid tendency to perceive both her life and the people around her as [stories within a fictional world].
She said she carried the characteristics of a 'possessed' person dropped into the center of a narrative.
An experienced actor knows how to immerse in a role without losing themselves.
In that sense, Oh Dok-seo's [AT Field], [Absolute Barrier], and [Fourth Wall] might all correlate.
I was lost in thought at that moment.
-Yaaaaaaahhh!
A loud shout.
While sitting across from Oh Dok-seo enjoying a coffee in a café at the Inunaki Tunnel, an ominous ‘upstairs noise’ suddenly came from above.
-Damn it! Die! Just die! Get out! Get oooouuut!
"Ugh."
Oh Dok-seo grimaced as she sipped her espresso.
It wasn't just the upstairs noise that made her face crumple. Despite hating bitter flavors, she insisted on espresso.
At that point, her middle-schooler syndrome had reached the realm of an art.
"That place is at it again."
"Yeah."
"There's almost a 30% chance of hearing that upstairs noise no matter where you sit. It's more frustrating because I can't even understand what they're yelling about."
Oh Dok-seo was right.
What you might call the infamous 'upstairs noise phenomena'.
The mere fact that you could hear such noise from this Inunaki hideout café was bizarre. In an underwater tunnel that had sunk into the sea, where would any 'upstairs' be to generate living noise?
That yelling was commonly heard in any building where a ceiling existed.
In reality, many banal and mundane phenomena were generally what regular folks perceived as anomalies.
Such events are too trivial to fully address. However, simply ignoring them leaves an annoyance.
Thus, they inevitably became just the inconvenient neighbors in life's complications.
“Can’t you do something about it? Uncle? I swear, every time I even consider pulling out my laptop to get started on my writing, the upstairs noise kills my motivation.”
"Once you vanquish the upstairs noise, the fear of a blank notepad, slump phenomena, and burnout anomalies will show up one after another."
"The fact I can't write at all is entirely due to those anomalies."
"Could it be that because people blame others instead of themselves, and with hatred and shirking responsibility, these anomalies are born? This uncle secretly predicts as much."
"What? Are you implying I belong to such irresponsible and insensitive types? Oh my goodness. I'm hurt. Because of the trauma and scars you've given me, I'll never be able to manage a consecutive double update as a dreadful hack writer ever again..."
-Dieeee! Just die! I said DIE!
"...No, I'm not kidding, Uncle. Really, do something about it."
Oh Dok-seo looked up at the ceiling with an exhausted expression.
"On SG-Net, people constantly complain about potentially going insane from upstairs noise. That thing is qualitatively degrading living standards!"
"Hmm."
"It endlessly spouts unintelligible noise!"
"......"
"It'd be better if I could at least understand what's being said so I could vent properly!"
While Oh Dok-seo was rising into angry steam, I quietly sipped my coffee.
Because.
‘Actually, I can understand what’s being said…’
An astute reader might have already noticed.
Regarding the upstairs noise, there was a subtle difference between Oh Dok-seo’s complaints and my narrative.
-Why are you my mom! Why are you my mom!
Precisely.
To me, the undertaker, the content of the shouting beyond the ceiling, the uproar of the upstairs noise anomaly, was entirely comprehensible.
It wasn’t just the upstairs noise anomaly.
All voices of anomalies were audible to me.
[Understanding Only the Anomalies' Voices]
That’s how I humorously titled my peculiar situation, as if it were the headline of a web novel.
If you ask when this strange phenomenon started, I can answer with pinpoint accuracy.
Since the 1,000th iteration.
"What?"
Among the changes, the most definite confirmation of this anomaly came when I encountered Dang Seo-rin.
An encounter with Dang Seo-rin that had been replayed over hundreds of iterations.
-Where is this place?
-Dad. Dad. I’m right here, Dad.
It was a moment to meet Dang Seo-rin as usual, but then I started perceiving sounds that had never been audible in prior iterations.
The diagonal crosswalk in Centum City, Busan.
The extra dimensional space of extraordinarily broadened ‘intersections’.
-Can you hear my voice?
-There are people here. People here.
Swish. Splash, splatter.
At the intersection, over a thousand traffic lights stood like the pillars of a temple, each red signal overflowing with crimson blood.
"Excuse me?"
"Excuse me, excuse me?"
The blood from the traffic lights transformed into 'red handprints' that sluggishly crawled across the crosswalk.
It wasn't just a few. Tens of thousands of handprints moved chaotically back and forth over the crossing.
Visually, it was no different from previous iterations.
It was a landscape I had seen enough times to be sick of by the 1,000th iteration.
'Why am I hearing these voices?'
Aurally, however, it was vastly different.
-Our home disappeared. Officer, please help us find our house.
-Mother's not answering her phone. I turned it off for a moment earlier. There was a missed call. I shouldn't have turned it off then. Mother won't pick up.
-I've been kicked out of my home. How can this be? It’s our house. Strangers were living there.
With every slap of the bloody handprints, pre-recorded voices seemed to play, like hundreds of people mumbling simultaneously about their own grievances.
"......"
Faced with this overwhelming scene, I was momentarily left speechless.
'Why can I hear the voices of these handprints at the crossing now when I never did before? And why suddenly at the 1,000th iteration without any warning...'
But that wasn't the only sudden change that occurred near the 1,000th iteration, though I was too flustered to consider it.
"Actually, you know... I hear songs."
Dang Seo-rin, too—she had changed.
"I hear songs coming from you."
Strictly speaking, it started from the 999th iteration.
Her testimony that the world's elements, even the setting sun included, were heard as 'music', 'noise', or 'songs', remained valid from the end of the 999th iteration onward to the 1,000th and beyond.
What kind of magic was at play?
Dang Seo-rin began hearing the entirety of existence—everything including the sky—with 'sound'.
And for me, I began to perceive the 'voices' of anomalies previously inaudible.
There was a clear similarity between our two anomalies.
However, no matter how hard I thought, I couldn't fathom why, without any indication, these 'abilities' were bestowed upon us.
"Dok-seo."
"Hmm?"
"It seems around the end of the 999th iteration, some strange incident occurred that I'm unaware of. Can't you somehow use your [Side Story Writing] to find out what happened?"
Reflecting on it, the 999th iteration was peculiar.
'I was just drinking with Dang Seo-rin alone, and then the world suddenly ended.'
Though there were no clues or evidence, I could infer that an event had indeed taken place then.
"Uh, uh. I'd love to help you, Uncle."
"And?"
"The 999th iteration is too recent. I haven't caught up to that in my writing progress for it to be close enough for [Side Story Writing] to take effect. I need to be near that in my chapters..."
"......"
"Oh, come on. Don't look at me like that."
"......"
"I want to write! I want to be praised as the ultra-diligent author who updates daily except during holidays like Chuseok or Christmas! Do you think I chose this?! Huh? You have no idea. You don’t know the pain of creation. The agony of the soul! Damn it, every consistently updating writer is just talented! It's in their DNA! If only my parents had given me more diligent genes, I wouldn’t be like—"
For the sake of preserving Oh Dok-seo's honor—and her parents', I'll leave it there.
I realized anew.
If I ever choose not to have children, it would only be out of fear that there's at least a 0.01% chance of having a child like Oh Dok-seo...
'Two Oh Dok-seo beings on Earth?'
A chill enveloped my nape.
Despite being a professional destructor who's followed every world-ending scenario, such a future seemed too daunting even for me.
"Well, anyway, please try to write as soon as possible. Now there's no risk of everything being corrupted by Infinite Metagame."
"The more you push, the less motivated I feel."
"Please write as slowly as possible."
"Do you not trust me?! Uncle?!"
"...Just stay healthy."
"I was actually considering taking personal PT sessions with Uncle Seo-gyu. He's said to be a PT master, right? Could you put in a word for me?"
"Sure. Just don't go around beating readers once you're stronger."
"Wha? Ahahahaha. Uncle, you're so silly. What kind of author would do that to readers?"
"……"
"Anyway, watch out! Once I get healthy from PT, I'll nab the title of a dedicated author who updates five times a week except holidays!"
Could she really?
The mystery's truth had fallen into a quagmire due to an author's disastrous publishing pace.
Yet, it was somewhat better. It was a ‘delayed problem’, not an ‘impossible to solve’ one.
Surely, if I persist for a thousand years or more, a future Oh Dok-seo will eventually uncover the truth of the 999th iteration?
For a time traveler, there's never a shortage of time.
"So is there really a need to fret so much? Uncle? After all, it's lucky for you to have acquired another ability."
"..."
"An Awoken gains another awakening. Can't you think of it positively for now?"
Though not as carefree as Oh Dok-seo who could use her nerves like a jump rope, adapting to the altered situation was the only option for me too.
The [Ability to Comprehend the Voices of Anomalies] had indeed bestowed several advantages upon me.
For example.
-Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
-Beautifully, you shine.
-In the eastern sky...
-And in the western sky.
-Twinkle, twinkle... little star.
-Beautifully you shine.
Meteors. A meteor anomaly.
An anomaly of meteor showers that covers the skies above Gimhae Plains in the seventh year of regression.
An anomaly that had once driven the entire Korean peninsula into terror and even brought about the world's end emanated a 'voice' that reached me with pristine sound quality.
"Whoa."
Before the 1,000th iteration, the only sound that the meteor shower would emit was noise at best.
If transcribed into text, it would be something like:
-Twinkle҉,҉ Twinkle҉,҉ Little҉ star҉.
-Whiii҉i҉i҉i҉i҉i҉ir҉r҉!
-Beautifully҉ it҉ shines҉.҉
The melody was familiar enough to guess it was a 'lullaby', but even so, the song of the meteor shower was never distinctly audible.
Now, it was different.
I could hear it.
-Whiiiiiirrr.
-Beaautifully it shines.
-In the western sky... In the eastern sky...
Thus, I could also understand.
It was a detail so minute that I would never have noticed in previous iterations, but I discerned it in the trembling of the song.
‘The voice is trembling.’
The voice of the meteor shower belonged to a woman.
Between the radiant starlight scattered across the night sky, the wailing sirens tore through. It was an air raid warning.
1. In the dead of one such night when air raid sirens wailed.
2. A woman sings a lullaby.
3. With a trembling voice.
4. Those killed by the meteor shower die instantaneously, feeling no pain.
"..."
With so many clues assembled, I hadn’t squandered my reincarnated lives foolishly enough not to leap toward the truth.
Perhaps some of you might recall.
The first time I subdued a meteor shower.
At the time, I mentioned how there had been an inexplicable 'bombing' in the Gimhae Plains during the advent of the void.
No evidence of that bombing remained anywhere, so it was impossible to know precisely how it was conducted.
The cause of death had evaporated.
With death vanishing, life vanished too.
‘Perhaps.’
I set down my scythe. I released my aura.
In a situation where I had to conserve my aura for weakening Yu Ji-won's alien god, known as Leviathan, dealing with meteor showers had always been an exception.
I knew no strategy other than slicing through them with formidable aura.
However.
"...Mom."
Only beyond the 1,000th iteration.
I felt as though I finally understood the method.
"It's okay."
I murmured while gazing directly at the meteor shower streaked across the night sky.
"I'm not scared."
-Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
"Because I'm with Mom."
-Beautifully...
"When I'm with Mom, I'm not that scared."
The sirens blared.
"Actually, when you cover my eyes, I get scared."
The sirens blared.
"So it's okay not to cover them."
The sirens blared.
"I want to see Mom's face to the very end."
The meteor shower dissipated.
The starlights, which had relentlessly raced across the night sky like blitzing hail, fell around like scattered fragments. Tiny pieces of what once made up the starlight.
As these fragments poured down like rain, something wrapped around my shoulder. Invisible yet shaped like a human arm.
-I love you. My child.
The starlight melted away, leaving the night sky smeared.
-Mom truly, truly loves you.
I grasped the unseen forearm.
"Yes. I love you too."
Thud.
The sirens stopped.
Even the scattered bits that had fallen to the ground no longer sparkled. The night sky returned to its serene state, as if it had always been tranquil.
"......"
I bent down to pick up the now sightless and soundless pebbles.
And I realized.
I shouldn’t use your invincible aura. Yet, I must pacify the anomalies.
The seemingly impossible, mutually contradictory path that was mine.
How to tread upon it.
