I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell
Chapter 353

The Missing V

“Hey there, Teacher! Huh? What’s with the gloomy face? Oh—don’t tell me you finally got sick of our great witchly leader, the commander of the National Road Management Corps?”

 

“Aww, unnie, come on, like that’s possible! Teacher’s such a magnanimous soul that he embraces even the lowliest of dropouts. You can tell from how he let those people, who literally go around cosplaying as witches every single day, all year round, acting like it’s always Halloween, join the National Road Management Corps. That’s all the proof you need of his generosity.”

 

“Ah—chaa. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. No matter how ugly or vile the vermin are, Teacher still won’t cast them out. It’s a level of magnanimity beyond any normal imagination!”

 

“Mhm. Don’t beat yourself up, unnie... Actually, I have a little confession to make.”

 

“Huh? What is it, little sister?”

 

“Well, every time I climb the Tower of Babel and see all those pointy witch hats bustling around, I completely lose faith in humanity... so today while going up the stairs, I snagged three witch hats and chucked them out the window.”

 

“Good grief! We still have a lot of spiritual training to do, little sister!”

 

“Mm. We just can’t keep up with the speed of this world...”

 

“Indeed, pitiful dropouts like us can only rely on Teacher to guide us!”

 

“Teacher. I’m ready to endure 500 times more reading of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in its original classical Chinese. Please watch over me!”

 

I went blank.

 

It was almost impossible to believe these two were people who’d been summoned at 2 AM. Their tension level was somewhere in another dimension. And those two in question...

 

A pair of twins.

 

Old-fashioned as it sounds, they really looked like a “perfectly symmetrical butterfly’s wings,” a classic decalcomania.

 

Bright orange hair. Red eyes. Aside from one wearing a pure white uniform and the other wearing solid black, there was no telling them apart by appearance alone.

 

“Yo-hwa...?”

 

I choked out their name through my tight throat.

 

The already high-energy twins grabbed each other’s hands with a flourish and struck a pose.

 

“Yayyy!”

 

“The two sisters are problem kids but the strongest!”

 

“Who would have guessed that of the tens of millions of cults on the Korean Peninsula, the final surviving sect would belong not to Christianity or Buddhism, but to Taoism? Who could have imagined?”

 

“The Yo-hwa–Yo-hwa ☆ Sisters have arrived!”

 

“Yayyy!”

 

They high-fived each other.

 

Then silence.

 

Again, note that it was 2 AM.

 

Even though it was technically festival night, in Utopia—a city of upright, well-regulated citizens—most people were fast asleep. Thus, our surroundings were dead quiet.

 

Beside me, Seo-rin let out a sigh as long as an anaconda.

 

“Ugh, that’s exactly why I didn’t want to call these lunatic sisters...”

 

Truthfully, I was even more flustered. “What’s up with them, anyway?”

 

It was bizarre.

 

The younger Cheon Yo-hwa sister was famous for always smiling no matter where or when, but she’d never been quite this hyper. She was more the type to stab someone with a smile on her face. And the same went for the elder sister Cheon Yo-hwa. Even back when she was the Infinite Void, and later sealed in that four-season classroom by Time Seal, she was always sly and inscrutable, not this openly frenetic.

 

They really were shrine maidens from a suspicious cult, so their attitude seemed fittingly shady.

 

But... well. Seeing them together for the first time, side by side, gave off a whole different vibe. It was like an RPG: If the two appear as bosses, one is only vulnerable to magic attacks, the other only to physical, and if you don’t knock them out on the same turn, they resurrect infinitely. That sort of vibe.

 

“Hey, Teacher, Teacher.”

 

One sister linked arms with me on the left.

 

“Hey, Teacher, Teacher.”

 

The other sister latched onto my right arm.

 

“Which one of us do you think is Yo-hwa?”

 

“Wait! That naive idea of identifying us by uniform color... Mm, that’s not good. Not good at all...”

 

“How do you know we didn’t swap outfits in preparation for exactly this scenario?”

 

“Even if you factor in our manner of speech, perfume, all that, you’d be underestimating our intellect if you tried pegging us down that way, Teacher.”

 

“What are you saying, unnie? You can’t call him ‘Teacher!’ I’m the older one!”

 

“Huh? Why are you saying that, little sister? My memory of hearing your first cry the moment after I was born is still perfectly vivid—are you committing some betrayal now?”

 

“Waaah, boohoo, waaa...”

 

“Oh gosh, how adorable! You’re still my little sister! You look exactly like me, how cute, how precious! I want to nibble you up...”

 

“Let’s not cross any lines.”

 

“Yes, unnie.”

 

Someone began to lilt out a sigh.

 

Ah... ahhh... aah.

 

“My energy... my energy is draining away!”

 

I looked to my side to see Seo-rin—and immediately felt her feelings resonated with mine in pitch-perfect tune. She wore the face of someone forced to endure tedium beyond measure.

 

No doubt about it. These twin sisters must have secretly installed nuclear power plants in their throats, evading the supervision of the IAEA. If left unchecked, they’d chatter on forever.

 

“Hmm.” Ji-won, also summoned here at an ungodly hour, stroked her chin. “How fascinating.”

 

Her bluish-purple eyes seemed to quietly, carefully watch my every move. Maybe because this 173rd cycle’s Yu Ji-won had undergone “personality correction” from Dang Seo-rin, her expression gave off a strangely human vibe.

 

“It’s peculiar,” she remarked. “Under normal circumstances, Your Excellency the Undertaker would chime in with them, but now he’s just silent.”

 

“What...? You think I’d jump into this crazy mess?”

 

“Huh? Yes, of course. If I may use a metaphor you’d understand, the two sisters were Rosa and Roy, and you were their cat, Nyaong.”

 

Seriously? Wasn’t the 173rd cycle supposed to be a constant “serious route?” Just who was my past self, anyway?

 

Moving on, they weren’t the only ones summoned to the Tower of Babel main building.

 

Ha-yul’s eyes were drooping closed out of drowsiness, her head nodding as if playing seesaw, while Ah-ryeon stood there in her normal (filthy) everyday clothes, staring intently at me until she at last opened her mouth to say...

 

“Wh-who are you?”

 

Everyone on the terrace turned to look at Ah-ryeon. Even the twin sisters, still clinging to either side of my arms, fell silent.

 

“Huh? Who is he? He’s Teacher.”

 

“Wellllll... He looks like the guild leader, but, um, he feels a bit different... Huh-hum. Very, very different.” Ah-ryeon shook her head violently. “S— so... wh-who are you?”

 

“Wait, I said he’s Teacher—”

 

“Stop. That’s irritating... Would you please shut up?”

 

The night air grew chilly.

 

Someone sucked in a breath: Dok-seo, crouched anxiously in the corner of the terrace. Even Ha-yul, who’d been napping against a cushion, was blinking awake and staring at Ah-ryeon.

 

The twins’ transformation was dramatic as well. Where they’d been all smiles a moment ago, now their faces went blank. Quietly, those four red eyes with fuzzy boundaries between iris and pupil gazed at Ah-ryeon, wordlessly.

 

Like insect eyes.

 

Ah-ryeon, normally the most sensitive to others’ gazes, was behaving differently right now. She didn’t respond at all to the collective stares, only keeping her focus on me.

 

Suddenly, it hit me. That abnormally high tension from the twins might have been their flailing attempt to stir up a little warmth among the members, each of whom harbored a piece of the Void, so to speak.

 

‘In the days before Dok-seo joined us...’

 

After the 555th cycle, things changed.

 

Dok-seo always roomed with Ah-ryeon, who was perpetually drifting on the outskirts of the group. She even got mild scolding from the ever-serious Saintess. She chatted frequently with the perpetually stoic Ha-yul. She also made a point of following after Seo Gyu when he withdrew from the others to keep them safe from his personal issues.  

 

She got along awkwardly with Yo-hwa, but she never avoided talking to her—she just got verbally smacked around for her trouble.

 

She even clung to Do-hwa and teased, “Wow, Old Undertaker x Commander pairing! The black-and-black couple is the best!” The type of reckless remark that only LiteraryGirl could make.

 

All told, the relationships between the current group members were precarious. They were all cursed souls, each just one step from slipping into Corruption. And in that group, Oh Dok-seo was like a clown—a jester among the Regressor Alliance.

 

After all, weren’t writers historically once called minstrels in the earliest days—a sort of clown in a way?

 

‘I see.’

 

It cast new light on why my 173rd-cycle self might have played along with the twins’ antics.

 

I broke the silence. “Here’s a question. My dear members of the Regressor Alliance. You mostly remember that it’s the 173rd cycle right now. In your opinion, how many cycles do you think it’ll take to save the world without error?”

 

“Ah... Teacher, you’re quite talented, so even if it takes a while... maybe around the 300th cycle?”

 

“Hey, unnie, think about Teacher’s mental health. Let’s be generous and say 350 cycles! By the way, let me come along on vacation next time, Teacher!”

 

[Monster Wave has been wiped out. All that’s left is the Admin of the Infinite Metagame. We figure 200 cycles total.]

 

“I also side with Ha-yul’s opinion. It shouldn’t be much longer before Undertaker becomes our true savior.”

 

Hmm. Putting on a resolute face, I said, “Here comes the correct answer.”

 

I took a deep breath.

 

“It failed. It failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, failed.”

 

...

 

...?

 

???

 

The question marks floating above their heads gradually evolved and grow in number, a bold challenge to Korean spelling conventions.

 

“We achieved absolutely nothing!”

 

????????

 

Silence.

 

All of them clammed up. Dok-seo, who’d been quiet as a mouse the entire time, suddenly relaxed and got chatty.

 

“Wow, mister... You just did that coming out thing from Attack on Titan, right? After all, Steins;Gate was a time-loop story, and Attack on Titan once had fan theories that it was a loop story too! So it’s a kind of self-referential metaphor for our current predicament, yeah? Haha. That’s quite impressive... but you’re dealing with a grand literary mind like me, so let’s keep it moderate!”

 

Exactly 12 seconds earlier, the terrace at Babel Tower headquarters had been abuzz in uproar.  

 

 

---

 

 

“Um, Teacher. Let me see if I’m understanding this right.”

 

“Go ahead, Yo-hwa. It’s still a bit weird for me to see you and your sister together, but I’ll try my best to ignore that.”

 

“Ugh, that only complicates things more, so let’s set that aside! Anyway!” Cheon Yo-hwa spun around. “So, Oh Dok-seo? Ms. Dok-seo? You have a power called Side Story Creation. Because you used it in front of all of us in the future, you ended up coming here to the 173rd cycle from the 999th. Is that correct?”

 

“Uh, y-yeah... that’s right.”

 

“And Teacher used the Great Witch’s golden scales of Equivalent Exchange, sacrificing ‘his current life and memories’ to bring in ‘future knowledge.’”

 

“Precisely.”

 

Cheon Yo-hwa sighed and pressed her hand to her forehead. “What on earth is going on...?”

 

The members of the Regressor Alliance each sank into their own thoughts, trying to process all this. They were likely struggling to digest these impossible events.

 

[That was quite a wise decision.]

 

The one with the most free time, the Saintess, finished collecting her thoughts first. Apparently, she’d been quiet so far because she’d promised Seo-rin she wouldn’t use Clairvoyance at all today. But seeing the entire Alliance gather like this, she’d gone back on that and was now speaking via Telepathy.

 

[According to Mr. Undertaker’s explanation, the more cycles we go through, the harder the clear condition becomes. The usage of Aura is eventually restricted as well.]

 

Though not physically present, everyone listened to her Telepathic voice.

 

[And if the older Ms. Cheon Yo-hwa falls out...]

 

The group’s gaze fell on the twins. They’d been sitting on a bench, hands tightly clasped together.

 

[That would be a serious blow, indeed. In essence, we’d lose the brains of our central strike force in the Korean Peninsula. Though from what we’ve heard about the Outer God known as the Mastermind, her sacrifice is definitely worth it.]

 

“...Unnie.”

 

The younger twin looked worried, but the older one had no answer. Strictly speaking, she seemed lost in very deep thought and pointedly kept her gaze fixed on empty air to ponder to herself silently.

 

“Hmm.”

 

The next one to gather her wits was Ji-won.

 

“I have a question. Ms. Dok-seo, does Side Story Creation usually allow you to hop between past cycles like this?”

 

“Uh— Oh, no way! All it ever did was let me ‘download’ someone else’s personality. Like, tbh, I have no idea what’s going on or how it happened...”

 

“I see.”

 

For a fleeting moment, I caught a glimpse of disappointment in Ji-won’s eyes.

 

An unstoppable desire surged up from my stomach.

 

“So, Ji-won... You might not have told us yet that you’re the Leviathan’s Miko, but eventually you open up to everyone, so no need to fret.”

 

“What do you mean, exactly? I was planning to inform everyone in due course.”

 

“Oh, so it wasn’t just a matter of being content to let Awakeners keep training Aura, thus strengthening Leviathan and your powers, like some sort of ‘auto-hunt is sweet’ approach?”

 

“Good heavens, of course not. Your Excellency, I wasn’t aware of the Outer God’s identity either. Leviathan? That’s horrifying.”

 

“Right? By the way, I’m Mr. Matiz.”

 

“...Excuse me?”

 

“You remember that spot wasn’t actually Dobongsan, right? Took me a while to recall.”

 

I diverted the conversation by saying, “The Saintess is correct. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We can figure out exactly how this miracle happened later.”

 

“Excuse me, Your Excellency the Undertaker, sir? ‘Mr. Matiz?’ What exactly—”

 

“I’ll be forgetting everything that happens from now on, anyway. The summoning was premised on my forgetting. That’s how it works.”

 

“Your Excellency the Undertaker? Are you listening, sir?”

 

“But that doesn’t mean my actions from here on are meaningless. I want to seize this chance to muster our maximum fighting force and hunt down the Outer God we can only defeat right now.”

 

“Sir, please listen to me!”

 

I glanced around. Seo-rin, who’d been quietly waiting for everyone to catch up, finally spoke. “So which Outer God is it that we can only defeat now, Undertaker?”

 

“The Goddess of Night.” I bit down on my anger as it bubbled up from my heart. “Nut.”

 

Looking around, I explained, “Mirror realms. The geocentric worldview. The Eye of Horus. An Anomaly so powerful it treats regression like a mere virus, capable of distributing it across existence. It has so many titles, but we still haven’t pinned down its true nature. And...”

 

I looked up at the night sky. As always, the moon shone brightly, a pristine sphere untainted by the messy chaos below.

 

“Just like Cheon Yo-hwa sacrificed herself to seal the Hidden Mastermind, and how the Saintess once gave herself to freeze time—”

 

[...]

 

“I’m convinced that here, in this ephemeral bonus stage, this short-lived vantage point, we have to launch a surprise strike against that one.”

 

A small hush fell.

 

Seo-rin nodded. “Sure. If it’s that formidable of an enemy, you’re wise to strike it early, now that I’ve gone Corrupt.”

 

“Thanks for understanding.”

 

“Mm. By the way, you might want to answer Ji-won soon. She’s giving off an Aura that’s... Well, it seems quite concerning...”

 

“Oh.”

 

Breaking news: Yu Ji-won had narrowly avoided Corruption by a hair.