Chapter 107 - The Tenant I

1

One question has plagued me for a very long time.

'How do I build a hideout that people will agree is well built?'

A hideout. My own secret base.

As you all know, I have a certain trauma.

Specifically, the incident in run 89 when a pink-haired alien named Go Yori took down my headquarters in one fell swoop.

Ever since then, Go Yori's fully voiced ASMR has been echoing in a corner of my skull: "A loser who got wrecked by a single brainwashing hypnosis beam♡ An infinite regressor, and you still got utterly wrecked♡ Your hideout suuucks♡"

Of course, there was absolutely no chance Go Yori would actually talk that way. If she ever learned about my trauma, she'd probably tilt her head with a "?" It simply meant the psychological damage was severe enough to torment me with such hallucinations.

I desperately needed a countermeasure.

And so, today's story will be an episode about my home sweet home.

2

I simply haven't mentioned it to you directly before, but I've actually spent countless runs searching for my own El Dorado.

Those utopias came in many forms. I tried turning an ultra-luxury yacht into a mobile sea fortress, and even set up house on a deserted island.

High-rise buildings, underground bunkers, subway tracks, railway guns... You can safely assume I've tried every form of "hideout" that people would ordinarily imagine.

Yet somehow, none of those hideouts satisfied my aesthetic sensibilities one hundred percent.

Two percent. They were always missing that last two percent.

"Big brother's standards. Too high."

Lee Hayul, the Puppeteer, grumbled.

Her own lips, of course, remained firmly shut. She was merely speaking through the housekeeper marionette she always brought along.

Lee Hayul, whose father was a traitor of historic proportions—the former mayor of Busan—had a knack for drawing puppet strings from beneath her fingernails.

Her puppet strings deserved to be called the superconductors of the aura world: aura could flow through them to their tips with almost no loss. These miraculous superconductors proved extremely useful for hideout security.

When building an impregnable hideout, Hayul's cooperation wasn't optional. It was essential.

Not only I, but Noh Doha and Cheon Yohwa as well, always hired her when remodeling their headquarters.

Yet even this expert balked at my requirements as the building's owner.

"Tell me. Honestly. Big brother, what's your ideal guild building?"

"First of all, obviously, it needs to withstand physical impacts from outside for a long time, no matter how hard it's hit."

"Like an underground bunker?"

Hayul nodded.

"Possible. Every guild leader wants that. What else?"

"I'd also like it to be able to handle intruders who get in through means other than physical force."

"Possible. Just make entry itself difficult. Like a labyrinth."

"But at the same time, guild members need to be able to deploy quickly. There should be plenty of secret passages."

"...?"

"And I have no intention of forcing my guild members to live in hardship. At the very least, their daily lives should always be more comfortable than in other guilds. For example, if they want to take a walk along the Han River, they should be able to do so right away. Ideally, the view should be wonderful too."

"..."

Hayul closed her notebook, then looked up at me with her golden eyes.

"Big brother. Where's your conscience?"

Admittedly, my demands were shameless.

Flawless security was required to prevent any invasion by the alien known as Go Yori.

But beyond a certain point, security and convenience became difficult to reconcile. You couldn't expect five-star hotel room service aboard a nuclear submarine, could you?

But if I simply pretended Go Yori didn't exist—ah! In my head! That pink voice inside my head! Iä! Iä! Let us become one, Guild Leader!

In the end, my days continued to be plagued by echoes on the scale of a Berlin Philharmonic orchestral chorus.

Then, one day in run 196...

Lost in my worries, I set a table beside the Han River and sat staring blankly at the water.

Far in the distance, an unfamiliar man approached, pushing a mountain bike. Two pistols at his waist. A rifle on his back alongside a backpack. The latest in apocalypse fashion.

"Huh...? Is this the wrong place?"

The bicycle man stopped about six hundred meters away and looked around.

"That's weird. SG Net definitely said it was here..."

The words "SG Net" caught my interest.

At the time, I'd given up on security altogether and built my hideout south of the Han River, near the convenience store where I'd first met the Saintess.

Aside from my hideout, there wasn't a single proper building in the vicinity. The void in Gangnam—the so-called "Seoul's Summer" incident—had swallowed most of the area south of the Han River whole, along with Old Man Scho's wife.

In other words, the place the bicycle man was looking for was almost certainly my guild hideout. As the person concerned, I had to ask what he wanted.

"Can I help you?"

"Aagh!"

The bicycle man jumped in fright. I'd concealed my presence a little and spoken to him from behind.

He instinctively fumbled for his rifle, but immediately let go, apparently deciding it would only provoke me.

"Ah. Well, no, I heard a rumor that there's a café around here with incredible coffee..."

"A rumor?"

"Yes. Um, do you know SG Net? I'm an awakened. They said on SG Net that if you follow the Han River, you'll find a café with amazing coffee... But this is the only proper building I can see."

"A café with amazing coffee?"

I tilted my head.

... I only discovered this later, after searching SG Net myself, but the people responsible for setting this incident in motion were none other than Dang Seorin, Cheon Yohwa, and company.

The culprits had been indulging in what you might call humblebragging on the message board.

-[Hundred Flowers]HighSchoolFourthYear: Waaaah >_<)! Cream lattes while gazing out at the Han River are the tastiest thing in the world >_<)!!

(Proof photo. No face visible, just a left hand holding a cup of cream latte in a toast toward the Han River.)

-[Three Thousand]WitchTrialJudge: In times like these, how precious it is to savor coffee richer in flavor than before the world broke. A magical autumn.

(Proof photo. A witch's hat and a coffee cup on a table, photographed against the Han River.)

Dang Seorin and Cheon Yohwa occasionally came to visit my hideout. Whenever they did, I naturally served them coffee, since playing barista was my hobby.

But their competitive posting of proof photos on SG Net had started a rumor: "Apparently, there's a café in Gangnam with unbelievably good coffee!"

-Goryeojang: MorningCoffee.jpeg

The finishing blow came from my own guild member, the "Bird That Drinks Aggro."

-Goryeojang: Your boss here just can't get going without topping up his caffeine when he wakes up.

-Goryeojang: TodaysCafeMocha.png

-Goryeojang: Surely there aren't any broke-ass beggars on SG Net who can't even afford coffee? If there are, you're lowering the tone of the board, so please hurry up and kill yourselves. Yeah...

-Goryeojang: MyPersonalBaristasSkills.jpg

When the compositions of Sim Aryeon's daily proof photos began to overlap oddly with Dang Seorin's and Cheon Yohwa's, SG Net users grew more convinced that the "Gangnam café" really existed.

Our bicycle man had taken the bait and come all the way from Gangwon Province to Seoul.

"There aren't any cafés around here. As you probably know, there are no properly functioning businesses left in Gangnam. There's Sauron's Tower over there, but that's a void."

"Ah... I thought so."

The bicycle man's face fell.

Had he even reached his early twenties?

I smiled.

"Still, I do know how to make a little coffee. Since we've crossed paths, why don't you have a cup before you go?"

"Sorry?"

At first, the bicycle man declined, but when I offered again, he accepted, unable to hide his delight.

The result:

"Wow, this really is... delicious. Whoa, sir. I think this must be much better than that Gangnam café...?"

"Thank you."

"Wow, I really enjoyed that! Thank you, sir!"

"You're welcome. If you happen to find any coffee beans, come by anytime. I'll make you another cup."

"Ahh. Thank you so much...!"

The bicycle man tried to give me bullets, emergency rations, and the like in return, but I politely sent him on his way. Those supplies were of no real use to me anyway.

He left looking flustered, bowing toward me over and over even after mounting his bike.

RRRR...

The bicycle rolled along the asphalt road, scarred all over.

As I watched his retreating back from a distance, it suddenly struck me that today's unexpected encounter had been surprisingly enjoyable.

"Ah."

At that moment, realization dawned.

I understood what kind of hideout I wanted, and why all the ones I'd experimented with had always left me dissatisfied.

'A café. A café!'

That's right.

I'd always wanted to run a café.

For the first time in ages, passion blazed in this regressor's heart.

2

"Big brother. So you're saying you'll run a café in the guild hideout building too?"

"That's right. A café-style hideout, if you will."

"What the fuck is that, you nerd?"

Hayul didn't understand my idea at all. But I wasn't disappointed.

Visionaries, after all, have always been scorned by the ignorant masses.

The café I intended to create was a type that had never existed in the history of the world. Its design would have to emerge entirely from my own fingertips, from beginning to end.

"I don't like that look. A café is a business. Accessibility is everything for a business. Agreed?"

"Hmm."

"What you want is security that will never fall to physical force. Plus mind-brainwashing anomalies. That leaves me with a question. How? Do you run a café and a hideout? At the same time?"

"Oh dear, Hayul. You're far too trapped in conventional thinking. In this day and age, with anomalies and voids running rampant, you can't insist on such antiquated approaches."

"... I'll tell you a secret. Sometimes Noh Doha calls me over when she's drinking and badmouths you. For three hours straight."

"...?"

"Her drinking habit is annoying... But lately, I might understand how she feels."

"...?"

Ignoring that absurd slander, I presented my solution.

"We can kill two birds with one stone by using an anomaly."

"An anomaly?"

Hayul blinked.

"Use it? ... How?"

Like this.

That very day, I took Hayul down to Busan. The Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel—the last remaining trace of Inunaki Tunnel—still lay off the coast.

Inunaki Tunnel. This anomaly was the master key that would let me achieve both a café and a hideout, both accessibility and security.

CLICK.

First, I photographed the entrance of the undersea tunnel with the spirit camera.

-Welcome home. This is already your fifty-seventh time, isn't it?

It had been a while since I'd taken a photograph, but Inunaki Tunnel was still updating the number of times we'd met.

I didn't know how it worked, but it seemed fair to conclude that we had an "ongoing relationship."

In that case, might communication also be possible?

"Can you understand what I'm saying?"

CLICK.

After asking the question aloud, I took another photograph.

-Welcome home. This is already your fifty-seventh time, isn't it?

Unfortunately, the spirit photograph hadn't changed.

I tried to communicate again.

"Inunaki. If you understand what I'm saying, leave a different mark at the tunnel entrance. I have an interesting proposal for you."

CLICK.

-Welcome home. This is already your fifty-seventh time, isn't it?

"Hmm."

Ordinary communication had failed.

No matter how much some anomalies appeared to use language like humans, they didn't actually think like humans.

But who was I? Wasn't I the infinite regressor who'd successfully bred horses in a void to create dinosaurs in run 380?

"... Big brother. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity. Why are you suddenly making giant dumplings?"

"Just wait. This is all part of a meticulously designed operation."

From that day forward, I began searching for a way to communicate with Inunaki Tunnel.

Day 1. Judging by the way it had killed the magical girls, it seemed to have an abnormal fondness for human noggins. So, just as Zhuge Liang had done in the southern barbarian lands, I stuffed dumpling wrappers full of meat and offered them in front of the tunnel.

(No response.)

Day 3. Wondering whether it didn't like noggins specifically, but simply had a secret hobby of tearing human bodies to shreds, I prepared human-shaped dolls and gave them to it.

(I deliberately placed them deep inside the tunnel, and the next day they'd been vomited out beyond the entrance. Effect confirmed.)

Day 5. I arrived at a revelation: could magical girls be its preference? I collected magical-girl figurines from before the end of the world and arranged them in the middle of the tunnel.

(They were torn to shreds and expelled through the tunnel entrance. Communication successful.)

"Look! It's responding! Hayul! Anomalies have their own ways of communicating, and we humans can discover them!"

"... No, I think it's just angry."

Day 10. Since the "magical-girl figurine strategy" had worked, this time I procured a huge batch of posters for magical-girl series from the old world. The Magical Girl Council actively cooperated. I plastered the tunnel walls with posters.

(The moment the posters went up, the graffiti came alive and tore them apart. Real-time communication successful. The Saintess, who watched the process, tried to dissuade me.)

Day 17. I requested the National Road Management Corps' cooperation and used death-row inmates to keep plastering the walls with magical-girl posters. I also recorded magical-girl anime soundtracks and played them over radios at thirteen locations, including the tunnel entrance, midpoint, and exit.

(The graffiti throughout the tunnel writhed. Noh Doha disapproved.)

Day 25. While continuing the previous tasks, I requested the cooperation of Cheon Yohwa, guild leader of Hundred Flowers. I released the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons into the tunnel.

(Flooding confirmed in various parts of the undersea tunnel. The graffiti went beyond writhing and moved violently, as though screaming. Cheon Yohwa disapproved.)

Day 30. At last, a change was observed in the words inscribed on the stone wall at the tunnel entrance.

-Don't come (来るな).

-Go back (帰れ).

I was thrilled by this great advance.

Of course, it was difficult to believe that the anomaly understood the semantic meaning of language. But it could remember how humans reacted when it manifested certain words.

That was also why the cries heard most often and most frequently in voids were "Please save me!" and "Help me!" They'd learned that those words were effective at luring humans.

CLICK.

Besides "Don't come" and "Go back," countless other words had manifested in the spirit photograph.

"Bastard," "noise pollution," "why?", "die," "nuisance," "incomprehensible," "curse," "stop," "too loud," "I hate this," and so on.

What a dazzling discovery!

It had been worth pursuing communication with Inunaki Tunnel, even as countless people looked at me with contempt.

In that case, couldn't I develop our means of communication even further?

Inunaki Tunnel was an anomaly born in Japan. And Japanese, like Korean, had a culture of honorific language.

Never forgetting propriety, even when making friends in private, was an essential East Asian virtue.

Day 60. I increased the number of posters on the tunnel walls fifteenfold and extended the endless anime-song viewing to twenty-four hours a day.

The Magical Girl Council expressed reservations, saying it had no more poster reserves left to export, but I would never underestimate the potential of the Japanese archipelago. Ever since the Iwami mines had run out of silver, the Japanese archipelago's main export had been otaku culture.

I mobilized not only death-row inmates but every ordinary prisoner as well to plaster the tunnel. However hard Inunaki tried to shred the posters, it was no use. Humans put them up faster.

Now the undersea tunnel linking Korea and Japan exuded so much nerd power from its interior decor alone that it might as well have been Comic Market.

(Lee Hayul, Noh Doha, the Saintess, and Cheon Yohwa came together to request an end to the operation.)

Day 70. The anime-song radios stationed throughout the tunnel were destroyed. I requested the Magical Girl Council's cooperation once more and held a magical-girl concert in the middle of the tunnel. Live music, in a completely different league from recorded sound, echoed majestically beneath the sea.

(Manyoneko and Armless Sword disapproved.)

Day 77.

The messages at the entrance changed.

-Please don't come (来ないでください).

-Please go back (帰ってください).

-I'll do anything (何でもするから).

-I'm begging you (お願いします).

A thrill ran through me.

At last, East Asian propriety had been imprinted even upon an anomaly. Only now was I certain that the other party was worthy of a serious friendship.

"Hayul. You've waited a long time. I've finally succeeded in persuading Inunaki Tunnel. Now we can build a hideout with perfect security."

"Sorry. Can we work on it tomorrow? I have plans with Noh Doha this evening. Drinking plans."

"Of course, absolutely. Have a good time!"

"..."

The next run.

Instead of chaotic graffiti, a neat sign hung on the stone wall at Inunaki Tunnel's entrance.

[Café Hideout]

[New Location Opening Soon!]