I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell
Chapter 366

Chapter 366

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The Missing XVIII

Go Yuri had always been an unfathomable riddle to me. Her demure way of speaking, her whisper-soft voice, the scent of freshly rinsed apples, even the faint smile that lingered on her face—­all of it.

 

“...So, what is it you’d like to talk about?”

 

“Oh my, were you really listening to me that attentively just now?”

 

As I watched her—pink hair framing a masked chuckle behind her hand—I felt it.

 

Something was different. Indescribably so.

 

“I’m sorry, Guild Leader. I was just teasing you a little.”

 

“Teasing...? You, teasing me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The difference became clear in an instant.

 

‘There’s no impulse.’

 

Whenever that crisp apple scent hit my nose, a tingling electric shock would normally race from the frail edges of my brain all the way to its most vulgar core. The smell was not sliding down my throat, soaking my stomach in fruit stench. No invisible jam was being slathered along the inside of my skull with a butter knife. The ground was not falling away, the sky was not reeling, and Go Yuri’s body-heat was not closing in on me with suffocating intimacy. The sudden urge to hug her, to stroke her hair, to comfort her—­every impulse was sinking quietly beneath the surface.

 

‘It’s calm.’

 

Everything was serene. Go Yuri’s profile, bathed in sunlight pouring through the ceiling, was serene. The half-shadowed throb of my own heart was serene.

 

All of it.

 

How long had it been since I’d felt such peace in Go Yuri’s presence?

 

“The thing in your hand,” she said. “Is that Cheon Yo-hwa’s hair tie?”

 

“...It is.”

 

“Wow. Looking closely, it’s the very ribbon she wore the first day she met you, isn’t it? Do you remember?”

 

I had no idea how Go Yuri could know a memory I myself could not recall. Whether she was spinning a plausible lie was impossible to judge.

 

She smiled brightly. “It’s a treasure. A gui-mul. You would call it a ghostly relic, but take that same word and put it in a different context, and you get a precious object. I think this gui-mul is the latter.”

 

“This hair tie?”

 

“Yes. Something left behind by someone who kept believing in herself until the absolute end. How truly strong of will. Even in this place where every object is slipping into chaos... it stands out so clearly.” When I didn’t respond, she continued, “People devote an entire lifetime to coloring in an hour’s worth of memories, yet to some, that single hour can be as beautiful as a piece of music.”

 

Maybe so.

 

I couldn’t explain the logic behind it, but this thing Cheon Yo-hwa had prepared was somehow letting me keep this mirror-calm, even in front of Go Yuri. In exchange, Yo-hwa had vanished.

 

True to her word, she only knew how to pay with her life.

 

“To be honest, I don’t dislike Cheon-hwa at all.”

 

The confession came out of nowhere. “Cheon-hwa?” I asked reflexively.

 

“Yes. The elder sister is Cheon-hwa, the younger is Yo-hwa. That’s how I distinguish them.” I had never heard anyone separate their names like that, but Go Yuri carried on as if it were obvious. “If I had to judge, the comrade who resembles me most is Cheon-hwa.”

 

“Sometimes, you say the most absurd things.”

 

“Oh, I’m not talking about personality. Our personalities couldn’t be more different. I mean our way of thinking has similar twists and turns.” Then a short little laugh tinkled out of her. “Dang Seo-rin killed the ‘me’ outside. Thanks to her, even if only for a short while, I can act a little more freely.”

 

Go Yuri rose to her feet. Hands folded neatly before her, she slowly turned toward me.

 

“Will you come with me?”

 

I kept silent, simply looking up at her, when she suddenly struck an awkward pose. “Rawr!” she mock-growled—a childish tiger noise.

 

“And that is supposed to be...?” I questioned warily.

 

“Ahh. You were staring as if I might swallow you whole. Don’t worry, Guild Leader, I won’t eat you. Mmm... Although, that sort of unexpected event could be fun. But asking me to loop another 365 days just for entertainment would be far too cruel a future for me.”

 

I had no idea what she meant. The unnatural impulses had vanished, but Go Yuri’s unpredictable behavior remained. Still, I stood up to follow.

 

“By the way,” she began, “you have to step where I step and nowhere else, all right? If you don’t, even Cheon Yo-hwa won’t be able to protect you.”

 

“You should’ve led with that. Are you stupid?”

 

“Ahaha!” Go Yuri smiled softly. Being called stupid by me seemed to put her in the highest spirits.

 

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I don’t mind following. This place is practically your own divine realm, anyway. But at least tell me where we’re going.”

 

“To Dang Seo-rin’s house.”

 

I froze, caught mid-crouch just as I was about to stand. My eyes found Go Yuri’s, creased into twin crescent moons.

 

“Have you ever been there?”

 

I hesitated for a long moment before admitting, “Seo-rin’s house was a flower shop in Busan. It closed after her family was massacred.”

 

“Yes. Have you been inside?”

 

“When I regressed, it was already destroyed. Seo-rin never considered those ruins a home.”

 

“Yes.” Go Yuri’s gaze narrowed, and she insisted, “Have you been there?”

 

I had not. “Of course not... Anyway, it’s impossible now. The place no longer exists.”

 

“Dang Seo-rin was born at home.”

 

“What?”

 

She began to walk ahead of me, leaving me behind. I almost stopped her but immediately remembered her warning.

 

Follow my footsteps.

 

I placed my feet exactly where hers had tred.

 

One step. Two steps.

 

She never looked back, certain I would keep pace—or perhaps signaling that if I slipped even once, that would be the end of that.

 

“You’re telling me she was born at home... not at a hospital?” I mused. “That’s rare nowadays. Was that what her parents wanted?”

 

“Who knows? You should know, all of her younger siblings were born in hospitals.”

 

With each stride she took, the scenery shifted. If I’d had any mischief left in me, I would have joked that her footwork was some advanced technique.

 

“If Seo-rin was born at home, and if the ‘home’ you speak of is not merely a physical location but a space imbued with ritual meaning, then it too must be part of Hecate’s divine realm,” I realized.

 

“A sound deduction.”

 

“Even if this is a dream-within-dream and even if you’re irregular beyond all comprehension, can you really trespass on another Outer God’s territory at will? The mirror in Ji-won’s room can at least—”

 

“No need for that,” came her matter-of-fact answer over her shoulder. “That Magic Mirror is nothing more than a degraded copy of the moon.”

 

“What?”

 

“You thought Hecate descended on the moon’s surface and decided it looked like a mirror, didn’t you? It’s the other way around: The moon resembles the mirror. Ancient people believed another world existed up there in one way or another. The world in a mirror seems to exist yet not exist. A place that is nowhere. All of them, every one of them: utopias.”

 

Her explanation was easy to follow. Perhaps because, voice and tone aside, the logic she used to discuss Anomalies was almost identical to mine.

 

As though she were mimicking me.

 

As though she had learned from me.

 

Talking to her felt like standing before a mirror.

 

“I understand your logic,” I granted after a pause. “But then why has the Magic Mirror always appeared near Ji-won instead of Seo-rin? Ji-won has nothing to do with it.”

 

“Ahaha. Mmm... Guild Leader, you’re usually brilliant, yet sometimes you overlook the simplest points. How troublesome.”

 

“I don’t follow.”

 

“Yu Ji-won is beautiful.”

 

I almost replied, As beautiful as you, and would have if not for Cheon Yo-hwa’s hair tie. While I kept my mouth shut, her voice flowed on.

 

“Guild Leader. To a breathtaking, moonlit beauty like her, it is only natural to bestow a replica of the moon.”

 

“What? No, uh...”

 

“You really should look more honestly at the faces around you. I know you feel as if you’ve lived for tens of thousands of years, but if you let basic human senses dull, things get complicated.”

 

That almost sounded like she was scolding me.

 

“Did you know? Whenever your other comrades have to wedge themselves between you and Princess Kaguya, they get incredibly tense. Yu Ji-won won’t consider feelings like those, so you have to be the one to step up, Guild Leader.”

 

Yep. Whatever the reason, it sure seemed like I was being lectured by Go Yuri.

 

–  Undertaker.

 

I jolted, startled to find Dang Seo-rin standing just beyond Go Yuri’s shoulder.

 

– Do not be fooled by that thing.

 

It was unmistakably Dang Seo-rin. Black cloak laundered clean, witch’s hat perched—the Great Witch of Samcheon World was staring straight at me.

 

– If you follow it, you’re finished. You know this, right? Cheon Yo-hwa is an Anomaly and so is that thing. The very fact it brought you here is the trap.

 

“Please don’t listen, Guild Leader,” said my pink-haired guide, cutting off my silence at Seo-rin’s whisper. “Ahh. Well, actually, you can listen if you like... Hmm, no, actually it does matter. But even that’s part of your choice... Will you listen?”

 

– Don’t be deceived.

 

Buildings of sand-laced concrete. Rust-stained signs pointing to a traditional market. Traffic lights flickering red.

 

Everything behind Seo-rin was collapsing.

 

– You’re misunderstanding something. You think no temptation is reaching you? That this version of it is different? Since when did you trust your own senses so completely in front of this thing?

 

“Time is short. I’ll go ahead, Guild Leader.”

 

Ignoring it all, Go Yuri’s heels stepped over the street ruins. Her back receded one pace at a time.

 

Seo-rin looked at me.

 

– Even that act is part of the play.

 

– It’s pretending it doesn’t care whether you follow, because that indifference works on you.

 

I...

 

– Trust me, Undertaker.

 

– Do not follow it.

 

I followed Go Yuri’s footprints.

 

– ...Why?

 

– Why? Why? Why?

 

Every time I stepped, Seo-rin appeared—by a moss-covered wall, beside a bent storm drain, under a rusted sign.

 

– Liar.

 

– You said you liked me. You told me you’d stay with me. Liar, liar, liar, liar—

 

Her voice became a blood-slick blade carving into my heart.

 

I could have answered in many ways. This Seo-rin wasn’t the real one. If she saw the pink entity, it would mirror my face, so how could she tell us apart? If she used the presence or absence of static as a clue, then all creation still sounded like noise to her—that was Hecate’s mark.

 

– Don’t go.

 

– Please don’t, Undertaker.

 

Seo-rin sank to her knees.

 

– No. No. Don’t go. No...

 

Yet Go Yuri kept walking and so did I. She glanced back, eyebrow twitching in surprise that I was indeed following. Then a smile touched her lips and she faced forward again, treading across the ruined city.

 

“A sanctuary—no, a divine realm—always has an outer ring and an inner core,” she exposited. “Picture an onion made of countless growth rings. The lower an Anomaly’s rank, the thinner its layers. The higher, the thicker. There’s a Kafka short story called ‘An Imperial Message.’ Have you read it?”

 

“I have.”

 

“Read it again. It helps with the imagery. Like the emperor’s palace, an Anomaly’s realm is itself a nine-fold palace. To cross a wall, you either march through the gate or clamber over by brute force.”

 

Something was off. I’d said I’d read it, yet she’d spoken as if I hadn’t, reciting her lecture calmly—as though addressing not only me but another unseen listener.

 

“In the past, Guild Leader, you slipped into Hecate’s realm through what you might call a dog-hole.”

 

“A... dog-hole?”

 

“But shortcuts seal quickly. That’s why you never reached Hecate’s realm again.”

 

She must have been referring to the 267th cycle, when that cycle’s Saintess sacrificed herself to seal Hecate’s domain.

 

“You’ve realized patchwork fixes can’t sink the world. A direct assault is the answer. Hecate is the goddess on the far side of mirrors, the Mistress of Utopias. To approach her essence, we must keep stepping onto one nowhere after another.”

 

We exited the market into an intersection that opened before us. There was a potato stew joint, a café, an auto-repair shop. Ruined yet recognizable buildings dotted the street.

 

I now knew exactly where we were. It was the town where Dang Seo-rin once lived.

 

“Hecate’s perfect city in Busan—first step.”

 

– Undertaker.

 

“This stage that you agreed to forget entirely once it’s over—second step.”

 

– Don’t go there.

 

“The moon itself, remade from Earth’s satellite into a planet-sized mirror—third step.”

 

– Why are you choosing to be fooled?

 

“The dream of a corpse whose personality has flown away—fourth step.”

 

Go Yuri crossed a crosswalk littered with scrapped cars. I followed.

 

Ahead stood a flower shop.

 

– Please.

 

The shop was strangely intact. That was both bizarre and natural at once. Bizarre because when I visited this town with Seo-rin, the greenhouse had already been cinders. Natural because in a dream-within-dream, anything could happen.

 

“It’s no coincidence.”

 

She read my mind with a voice colder than any since our reunion.

 

“This is the product of chance that isn’t chance. Cheon-hwa overlaid a simulation of this universe onto the dream-within-dream using the Mastermind’s power.”

 

“...Yo-hwa.”

 

“The Mastermind can run simulations beyond time. The dream-within-dream only supplied the material. This greenhouse isn’t an accident—it’s Cheon Yo-hwa’s inevitability.”

 

“...”

 

“Listen carefully. Remember it. Don’t miss a single piece.

Without Yu Ji-won, we lack combat strength.

Without Sim Ah-ryeon, we can’t replenish that strength.

Without Lee Ha-yul, Ji-won’s power drains too early.

Without Oh Dok-seo, Undertaker has no time to think.

If Undertaker can’t think, the Saintess can’t stand.

Without Yo-hwa, there’s no passage into dreams.

Without Cheon-hwa, the dream-within-dream loses its shape.”

 

“...”

 

“Do you understand? You have one chance only. If even one shard—just one—is lost, we can’t reach this place.”

 

She looked at me, or perhaps through me to someone else.

 

Under that multilayered gaze, I asked without thinking, “And you?”

 

For the first time, she paused. “Pardon?”

 

“If countless inevitabilities are required to come here, you must be one step yourself. What role are you playing?”

 

She blinked, entirely unprepared to hear that from me. “Oh dear. Am I, perhaps, counted among your comrades, Guild Leader?”

 

She giggled, and for some reason I couldn’t answer. After studying me, she parted her lips.

 

“The dream-within-dream, the so-called unconscious world. Its Void that exists yet scoffs at reality is the fifth step.”

 

– No no no no no

 

“And me.” She touched her chest. “As you know, I’m the sixth step, Guild Leader.”

 

My heart pounded with no cause.

 

“I’m the nonexistent human, the ideal form strolling among you, utopia stuffed and mounted while still alive.”

 

She turned her back to me to gaze at the sign that read Dang Sect Flower Garden. Seo-rin once complained that her father’s obsessed with wuxia had led to said name.

 

“Only the last step remains.”

 

She reached out, fingers closing on the greenhouse’s steel latch.

 

Once the door opened, that would be the end.

 

Go Yuri drew a long breath. “Ahaha. Sorry, I’m a little nervous too... Truth is, climbing to the seventh step is a first for me. It was a massive gamble, and honestly? Even now, I can’t guarantee the door will—”

 

Her eyes widened, taking in the sight of my hand covering the back of hers.

 

“Let’s open it together. I’ve guessed who you’ve been talking to all this time. Oh Dok-seo, right?”

 

Her gaze lingered on me. She breathed, smiled, and spoke. “It has to be the 366th.”

 

Each word, crystal clear.

 

“365 days make one year—sun and moon and night sky ruled by Hecate’s symbols. But 365 isn’t enough.”

 

Not to my present self nor my future self, but straight toward the slowest prophet who would one day spy on this moment. Epimetheus.

 

“A leap year.”

 

Go Yuri said:

 

“The surplus day calendars can’t capture, the empty day, the gateway Hecate’s magic must leave ajar... This door opens only in that instant.”

 

A strange déjà vu seized me. When I’d declared I would fight Hecate, these words had slipped from my mouth:

 

“My witch... No. I have come to reclaim my princess, Outer God Hecate.”

 

Never once had I thought of Dang Seo-rin as a princess, yet in that moment, the title came as naturally as breath. Why?

 

‘The leap year. The character 윤(閏) meaning intercalary.’[1]

 

A king (王) behind the door (門). In other words...

 

‘Open this door and the princess awaits.’

 

I was certain I’d stood here once before, though no memory contained it.

 

“Well then, Guild Leader. Shall we see if we’ve succeeded?”

 

Who had been beside me then?

 

“One. Two... Three.”

 

With her palm under mine, we pushed the greenhouse door. Perhaps because no one had come for ages, the flimsy vinyl door refused to budge. As the hinge squealed, Seo-rin’s silhouette screamed within the plastic.

 

– Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

– No, don’t, no, Undertaker, stop, don’t look, don’t, die, die— No! Undertaker, ah, no...

 

My hand faltered, but Go Yuri’s other hand covered it. Palm over palm.

 

We exchanged a silent glance, nodded once, and together pressed on the thinnest vinyl door.

 

For a heartbeat, the hinge’s groan and Seo-rin’s shriek ceased. Then—

 

The door opened.