I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell - Chapter 356

The Missing VIII

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Next up: the second, commemorative contender.

Ah‑ryeon fussed with her fingers, her weed‑colored hair hanging like willow branches. “Um, Guild Leader… isn’t the o‑order here all wrong?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well… my power only grows when I feed on people’s negative emotions, but… the t‑team leader fell to Corruption first, so now there’s literally no one left who can hate me…”

“That doesn’t matter.”

The one who cut her off wasn’t me. It was Seo‑rin.

The four of us—Ah‑ryeon, Seo‑rin, Dok‑seo, and I—sat in a circle in a nearly pitch-black safe room, the single candle our only light, like middle‑schoolers sneaking into a classroom for a séance.

“In my city, citizens gullible enough to chase low‑rent villains like OldManGoryeo disappeared ages ago. Everyone’s living their best real life now.”

“Y‑you devil! H‑how can you say something so evil so casually? Those citizens of yours have all had their souls pawned away, they’re the Great Witch’s slaves! This place is hell!”

“If a place where kids like you run free is heaven, I’ll take hell any day.”

They traded barbs, but I honestly felt conflicted. On SG Net, Seo‑rin was no less a villain than OldManGoryeo. In every cycle, Samcheon guild members passed around unwritten rules like “The moment the Great Witch posts, hit Like and rocket her to the front page!” and “Leave a comment on her posts!” and “If too many comments have the [Samcheon] tag, log out and comment as Anonymous!”

I remembered it all, clear as day. Even the girl in the corner nibbling her sandwich, Dok‑seo, was an SG Net superstar.

So I was the only wholesome celebrity in this room—me, ZeroSugar…

The dark side of internet culture hit me anew.

“Hold on, Undertaker? Could you please explain why you’re looking at me like that?”

“Just worried I might be wasting too much of the city ruler’s precious time.” Before Seo‑rin could fire back, I switched targets. “Ah‑ryeon, like Seo‑rin said, the moment Utopia was complete, emotions like resentment, contempt, or jealousy all but vanished from this place. The order doesn’t matter.”

“Th‑then isn’t that even worse?” Ah‑ryeon asked with quivering lips. “I’m already the outcast… I‑I’ll get left behind. The Ops Team Leader, the Baekhwa High Sisters, even that chuuni kid suddenly acting all chummy—”

Dok‑seo, who’d caught a stray for no reason, chomped her sandwich with a big question mark over her head.

“They’ll all Fall and their power level will be crazy high! I’ll be the only low‑level left. Even you’ll ignore me, Guild Leader!”

I sent her a wry smile. “Don’t worry, Ah‑ryeon. You’ve got me.”

“Huh…? And what does your existence have to do with my perfectly rational prediction?”

Everything.

Let’s pull up some quotes from Ah‑ryeon in other cycles:

Cycle 133: “D‑delicious! So tasty! A delicacy I’ve never once tasted in my life…! Who could be giving me such delectable resentment…?!”

Cycle 134: “Eek?! I did nothing and all this aggro spawns on its own…?! It’s tasty but terrifying! G‑Guild Leader! Someone I don’t even know is hating me for no reason—live, in real time!”

Cycle 267: “Ahh! As expected of the guild leader. S‑so delicious. Your aggro’s the tastiest in the world…”

It was a veritable anthology of great lines.

When I calmed my spinning head, the conclusion was simple: For the villain Ah‑ryeon, who finds other people’s aggro “tasty,” the sweetest gourmet hatred was none other than my own malice.

Ah‑ryeon jolted at that. “Eek! W‑what are you saying, Guild Leader? You mean… you’re going to resent me now?! The one abandoned by the world, shunned even by my forum friends, arguably the most pitiful being in the universe… even you, Guild Leader? Even you’ll curse me?!”

“Wow,” Dok‑seo muttered under her breath. “Ah‑ryeon unni’s fangirling is off the charts this cycle. Is this what happens when you quit the internet?”

“S‑see? Even this kid who’s clearly younger than me looks down on me! Ahh. Let the world just end already…”

I sighed. “Fine. For the next few hours—maybe days, maybe weeks—in this room, I’ll resent you, Ah‑ryeon.”

“Hiiieeek!”

“But with a dash of illusion.”

“Hee‑hee… huh?”

I turned to the side. “Seo‑rin. I want a contract.”

“What kind?”

“I, the Undertaker, until I leave this room, will believe any illusion shown to me is the absolute truth.”

With a flourish, a golden scale appeared in the darkness.

“And I will not recall that I made this contract. Moreover, if I never realize it’s an illusion, I can’t affect reality in any way.”

“Hmm, that restriction’s not hard.” Seo‑rin weighed it, then glanced my way. “Okay. What’ll you put on the other pan?”

“When I wake, I want to remember nothing of what happened inside the illusion.”

“Huh? That’s not exactly to your advantage— Wait, the scale is balanced?” She tilted her head, hesitating at the sight. “Strange… but fine. Shall I cast the spell?”

“Yes. Oh, and Dok‑seo.”

Dok‑seo stared at me. She’d been watching my every move.

“You know what’s coming. Remember, it’s only an illusion. I’m about to dive in—you’re the anchor. I’m counting on you.”

She wiped sandwich sauce from her lip and gave a solemn nod. “Got it, mister. Leave it to me.”

Seo-rin breathed a sigh as Ah-Ryeon whined, “I’m used to being the hated role.”

I closed my eyes.

The candle barely clung to life. When my eyelids fell, the world returned me to darkness. From there, I faintly heard Dok‑seo asking Seo‑rin, “Huh? No… Wait… I can manage that… You…”

A peculiar silence settled over the room.

“The Miko of Infinite Metagame proclaims…”

Dok‑seo’s voice, uncharacteristically grave, rippled through the dark.

“…This is the 5th cycle. Undertaker, you staged a final defense line in Busan. Yet Dang Seo‑rin, fighting beside you, was impaled and killed by Ten Legs. And now, what you see before you is not Sim Ah‑ryeon but that very Ten Legs—”

At that instant, my memory cut out.

“You failed to stop the Meteor Shower. You dragged the half-dead Seo‑rin away in retreat, but in the end, both of you turned to white dust.”

…

“Dying together was your only solace, your escape. Yet even solace has a hint of falsehood. In truth, you died after Seo‑rin. One second—perhaps a millisecond, a mere instant. Enough to watch her scatter like dust…”

…

“It went unspoken, but death’s simplicity spares no one. Even comrades met it. In the 173rd cycle, you brought her Pu’er tea as usual, yet found Noh Do‑hwa bleeding out in a rehab ward hallway.”

“She was killed by marauders, a gang that would’ve vanished if you’d purged Butterfly Effect sooner.”

“A marauder stands before you.”

…

“You favor the good. You indulged Yu Ji‑won because in no timeline does an ‘accident’ or ‘mistake’ kill her.”

“You’ve watched too many loved ones die to uncontrollable variables.”

“So you relied on her survival.”

“On the Outer God’s servant. On the Anomaly’s power. Because of them, you were being saved.”

“When you learned that very same Yu Ji‑won had tortured an innocent girl named Kim Ji‑soo and dozens of drifters—”

…

“Dang Seo‑rin is” “dead” “The Saintess” “killed her” “Cheon Yo‑hwa” “your disciple” “Lee Ha‑yul” “your sister” “Noh Do‑hwa” “Jeong Seo‑ah” “everyone” “you love” “because of you” “Had they become Anomalies, hundreds of deaths if not more might have been averted” “Your obstinacy” “Pride” “Failure” “Murderer” “Bystander” “The mirror” “is before you.”

…

…

…

“—Sorry, mister—”

“Cutting the feed.”

I opened my eyes.

A gasp.

My body, why was it in this position? I didn’t see an unfamiliar ceiling but, instead, an unfamiliar floor.

The breaths rattled through the lung’s rib cage.

Yes, I was face‑down. And yet, most of my vision wasn’t gray concrete—it was a washed‑out green.

Gasping breaths, a breath huffed, “G‑Guild… Leader…”

Ah‑ryeon.

She was pinned beneath me, her two hands clamped tightly around my throat.

“Mm…”

A pained breath.

And yes, she was suffering.

Even after having lost my Aura control, my grip strength remained. It crushed her windpipe mercilessly.

Crack

—Her neck snapped. Grind—her trachea and esophagus splintered, over and over.

Red handprints bloomed.

Yet her breathing didn’t stop. A faint thread of air still slid between the breaks.

Like a survivor’s groan beneath earthquake rubble.

“I‑it’s… o‑okay.”

Heal. Mend. Regrow. Restore.

She didn’t die. My hands severed life, but her power re‑knit bone the instant it broke, racing by me by several steps, stitching the lifeline back together in a crescent‑thin razor of possibility.

And she smiled.

“I… mm, I—”

Drip.

The bruises and handprints were not the only things covering her, but also water that couldn’t evaporate fast enough. Her face was soaked.

Drip, drop—again and again.

“…It’s okay.”

She reached out like a child walking home in the rain, stretching a hand beyond her umbrella to feel the sky. Her fingers traced the wet path, then pressed a palm to my cheek.

“It’s okay…”

I let go. My palms still burned with the heat of her newly‑won breath.

Only then did the room come into focus.

What had been immaculate before I blacked out was a wreckage now. Chairs were overturned, the table flipped, the door swung wide. Ah‑ryeon and I lay slumped on the threshold, cans and food wrappers littering the floor around us.

Someone was breathing heavily at the door—Dok‑seo. She gripped the doorknob, panting hard.

Her hoodie and cap were filthy.

She straightened, cracking her back. “Whoa, that was seriously crazy close! Took an author of my caliber to keep control. Whew. Ask me to do that twice? Yeah, no thanks. Priestess duties? I’m half‑quit already, anyway.”

“Dok‑seo…” I began, but she cut me off.

“Let’s skip the apologies. We both knew what we were doing, you and me… Seo‑rin unnie’s more shaken than she thought she’d be. She stepped out—I forced her to rest.” She dusted off her hoodie and straightened her crooked cap, then looked straight at me. “We are going to save her, the Saintess stuck in the 267th cycle, captured by Nut.”

No hint of wavering existed in that gaze.

“Up you get, mister. Steel yourself. The world’s already broken, but you came because even one life is worth saving. The enemy’s the worst match-up for you. A regressor’s natural predator. Scratches and tears are expected. And none of us—not me, not Seo‑rin, not Ah‑ryeon—are weak.”

Dok‑seo held out her left hand to me, her right to Ah‑ryeon.

“So don’t bother with sorrys. Save it for if we fail.”

“…How long was I under?”

“A week.” Then she sighed. “Yeah, it was rough.”

Seven days and nights. She hadn’t left this room once, orchestrating the illusion for our sake.

I turned. “Ah‑ryeon… Thank you.”

“Ah. Uh‑heh‑heh. R‑really, it wasn’t bad at all! Totally fine!”

“Still… Thank you.”

“Of course.” She beamed, the bruises on her neck were already erased. “I know, Guild Leader. I’ve known for ages.”

We took Dok‑seo’s hands, rose together, and stepped outside.

“Haah.”

Thıṡ 𝐜hа̄p𝙩ɛr 𝖎ʂ p◎ʂ𝑡𝕖ɗ b𝑦 Ⱪ𝚤𝙩𝗲ɳ𝐨𝙫ɛ𝘭

“B‑beautiful…”

From the widest boulevard to the narrowest alley, the city called Utopia was steeped in the flower field of A Hundred Blooming Blossoms that Ah‑ryeon had summoned.

Awakener: Sim Ah‑ryeon

Corrupted Alias: The Victim

Has joined the party.