Chapter 11 - The Troll II

3

Thanks to the Saintess, I successfully pinpointed the villain Goryeojang’s location.

I immediately sprang into action and dealt with the bastard... or so I would like to write. In reality, it took a little longer.

A regressor’s schedule is, by its very nature, as packed as that of a superstar who has just been hailed as the nation’s favorite actor.

Loathsome as Goryeojang was, I had mountains of far more urgent business. I had to upload an “Aura Demonstration Video (Advanced)” to SG Net on an alt account, reorganize the Korean Awakened Federation, go on a restaurant tour of Busan, prepare for the meteor shower, and so on and so forth...

No joke: counting from the start of my regression, my calendar was booked solid all the way through year seven.

In the end, nearly two weeks passed before I found time to meet JoinedToday. Even that opening had taken some effort to carve out.

I asked the Saintess to arrange a time and place—through the constellation persona she played, the Saintess of National Salvation, to be precise.

When I arrived, who should be waiting there but a muscular young man with broad shoulders?

“JoinedToday?”

“Ah... Are you ZERO_SUGAR?”

“Yes. Pleased to meet you. Please, just call me Undertaker.”

“Likewise. My name is Lee Juho.”

We shook hands.

A substantial hand. I could feel the calluses of someone making his own way through a harsh world by sheer will.

As an aside, I personally believe you can read a person’s character better in their hands than in their face.

“Are you a teacher, by any chance?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Ah.”

Lee Juho smiled sheepishly.

We had met in an elementary school playground. More precisely, I ought to call it an elementary/school. It had been split in half.

Little heads peeked out.

Tiny children were watching us from a heap of junk that a used-car dealer would have immediately written off as scrap. When their eyes met mine, they darted out of sight like squirrels.

Cute, weren’t they?

Lee Juho scratched his head.

“Yes, well... For now, I’m teaching the elementary school kids.”

“That’s truly admirable in times like these. Would you mind if I called you Mr. Lee?”

“Oh, there’s no need. Just call me Juho. I wasn’t a schoolteacher to begin with.”

He smiled wryly.

“I was just a salaried math instructor at a private tutoring academy... But somehow, I ended up being the only person left who could stand at the front of a classroom. Once I finish my guild work in the morning, I teach in the afternoons as well. And, um, another member of our guild is serving as the school nurse, art teacher, and library director.”

“Oh...”

Let me tell you now: by this point, my affection for Lee Juho had already passed Lv.5.

What was this young man? An angel?

“Ah, right. ZERO_SUGAR, thank you for coming all this way in the heat. If you’re thirsty, perhaps you could have this...”

As he spoke, Lee Juho offered me a Coke Zero.

Ever since the gate crisis began, manufactured goods like this had always been precious.

He had probably gone out of his way to get a zero-sugar drink because my username was ZERO_SUGAR. Here was someone who knew how to turn intangible thoughtfulness into something tangible.

“Oh...”

Affection passed Lv.6.

“You really shouldn’t have... But I certainly won’t turn it down. Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”

“Haha. That’s a relief. I thought you might like it, judging by your username.”

“Absolutely. It’s all the more welcome because I haven’t seen one in so long. And I’m sorry I didn’t say this sooner, but please accept my condolences. May your father rest in peace.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

We sat side by side on a bench in the half-ruined elementary school playground.

To introduce him once again, the young man’s name was Lee Juho. He operated in the Pocheon–Cheorwon area, and Pocheon was where we were meeting now.

His guild couldn’t dream of competing with AAA-class guilds like Three Thousand Worlds or Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School, but it was solid enough in its own right.

According to my memories, however, it was one of the small-to-medium guilds that vanished without a trace at some point. Not that such guilds were rare these days.

“So, Mr. Undertaker...”

Once we had warmed up the conversation a little, Lee Juho turned to me.

“You told me you had information about Goryeojang.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

A dark gleam appeared in Lee Juho’s black eyes. The fury of losing his beloved father must have been burning like gunpowder in his heart.

His lips moved.

“Will you help me kill that bastard?”

Hmm.

I set down the aluminum can.

“I’ll leave the decision to kill him or not to you, Mr. Lee. My role is to take you to your destination.”

“By destination, you mean...?”

“Where the villain Goryeojang lives, of course.”

“...!”

Lee Juho’s eyes widened.

“My God! You know where that bastard lives?!”

“Yes.”

“How on earth... Ah. Could you be...?”

The question he swallowed must have been, “Could you be an acquaintance of Goryeojang’s?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t worry. I’m not an acquaintance of his. I’ve never even seen his face.”

“Ah.”

As would later become clear, I had inadvertently told a lie.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to doubt you, ZERO_SUGAR. But then how did you find his location...?”

Through the Saintess and her [Clairvoyance] ability, of course. If you keep listening to my stories, you’ll all gradually realize that the Saintess is a seriously fucking overpowered awakened.

“I can’t tell you that. But I can give you a hint: I found out thanks to my awakened ability and the constellation I personally serve.”

“Ah...”

“Would you like to come along?”

When I rose from the bench, Lee Juho awkwardly followed suit.

He reflexively looked toward the abandoned school—or rather, the heap of junk where the young students were hiding.

“Ah, um, I didn’t expect this, so I haven’t wrapped up my work... There’s guild work, and school work too. I’m terribly sorry, but could you possibly wait a little?”

“No. There’s no need.”

“Pardon?”

I smiled brightly.

“It’s very close to here.”

That was why I had gone to the trouble of rearranging my busy regressor schedule to make time to intervene in this case.

“When you say close, how close...?”

“Pocheon. You and the villain Goryeojang actually live in the same neighborhood, Mr. Lee.”

“...”

Lee Juho’s mouth fell open blankly.

Why hide it?

This case was a lousy little quest I could clear with one easy outing.

4

[Turn into the alley on your right.]

[Then take the alley on your left.]

[Keep going straight.]

The limited-edition navigation system “Saintess,” available to me alone in the entire world, certainly delivered. Thanks to it, I could find my way with my eyes closed.

“...”

Behind me, on the other hand, the signs of confusion never let up. They came from Lee Juho, who was following me.

“Are you all right?”

“Ah, yes. Yees... It’s just such unexpected information...”

It was understandable that he was rattled.

Access to SG Net meant that Goryeojang was also an awakened. And since Pocheon wasn’t a major city, all the awakened here would know one another.

“Oh! Team Leader Juho!”

Sure enough, as we walked, members of the neighborhood watch appeared and greeted Lee Juho.

These days, a neighborhood watch was every town’s must-have item. In keeping with the latest trends, its members gave the unfamiliar outsider—me, in other words—dirty looks.

“Excuse me, but what brings you to this neighborhood?”

Lee Juho stepped in for me.

“Ah, well... A friend from my hometown came up for a visit, so we’re taking a walk.”

“A friend from your hometown? Wow. That’s a rare friendship in times like these.”

The watch member opened the road barrier.

“Well, if he’s someone you know, Team Leader, there shouldn’t be a problem. Go on through.”

Once we passed the checkpoint, the streets became a little cleaner. This was probably Pocheon’s affluent neighborhood, its equivalent of Cheongdam-dong in Gangnam. The original Cheongdam-dong was a wasteland now, though.

“Um, ZERO_SUGAR. Are you really sure this is the right place?”

As we entered the neighborhood, Lee Juho’s already anxious voice immediately began to waver.

“Why? Are you nervous?”

“To be honest... Yes. This is where most of our guild’s awakened live. There isn’t a single member of any other guild here.”

“Is that so? Then you’d better brace yourself.”

“...”

In truth, it didn’t matter much whether Lee Juho finished bracing himself or not. After all, I had come all this way because I too wanted to see just what kind of magnificent face the villain Goryeojang had.

Unlike Lee Juho, I didn’t particularly intend to kill Goryeojang. I could give the troll a decent beating and a warning: “Now, don’t you ever go stirring shit up on the internet again.”

“Here we are.”

Before long, I arrived in front of a house. Red bricks. A small front yard.

It wasn’t particularly luxurious, but in times like these, living in a detached house rather than shared quarters already marked you as one of the privileged.

Lee Juho’s eyes wavered. As expected, it seemed to be the home of someone he knew.

“My God.”

“This is the place my constellation told me about. You know the Saintess of National Salvation, right? She’s the most trustworthy of all the constellations. Shall we have a look at this bastard’s mug?”

“Z-ZERO_SUGAR. Wait...!”

Lee Juho tried to grab my shoulder, but I had already charged into the house.

As befitted an awakened’s hideout, the residence had various security devices installed. But I slipped inside as easily as a mosquito in summer.

Because the person who had originally proposed and implemented the designs for all these security devices was none other than... me, the regressor.

Passwords? Traps? The puppeteer’s custom-made webs? Before me, their copyright holder, not one of them lasted even a second. They all came down in quick succession.

“What the—”

I heard Lee Juho’s astonished voice behind me, but ignored it. Speed was the most important part of an infiltration like this. Once you went in, it was best to finish quickly without looking back.

If this world were a game, my profile would probably read [Primary Class: Regressor], [Secondary Class: Assassin (Rogue)].

In an instant, I reached the innermost part of Goryeojang’s hideout.

“Heeh... Blue here, hehehe...”

The villain Goryeojang was amusing themself by painting on a canvas.

Apparently so absorbed in the painting, the troll hadn’t noticed my intrusion at all.

Only when I came right up behind the troll did those ears twitch to attention.

“Hm? Who...?”

A critical hit to the back of the neck. With aura added as a bonus.

“Eek.”

The woman in a white doctor’s coat crumpled like a pushover. My final act of consideration was to adjust her fall so she landed on the floor clear of the paint containers.

Target secured. Operation complete.

Child’s play.

“Hm?”

This was where the trouble began.

Knocking Goryeojang unconscious had gone just fine, but when I finally checked her face—good heavens.

What was this?

“Wait...?”

The villain Goryeojang, sprawled on the floor with spiraling @ signs for eyes, was... one of the 399 survivors who had been summoned to the Busan Station waiting hall, just like Seo Gyu and me.

‘What are the odds?’

Since 399 wasn’t a particularly small number, a coincidence like this was perfectly possible, statistically speaking. But amazingly, I wasn’t the only one who had seen Goryeojang before. You, the people listening to my stories, had too.

In that earlier episode, no less.

Do you happen to remember the scene where our hot-blooded SG Guy, Seo Gyu, had his head neatly sliced off by the tutorial fairy?

[“Eeeeeek!”]

There had been someone who got thoroughly drenched in Seo Gyu’s blood that day.

[“S-someone fucking died...! A person! Eek, he fucking died! Eeeeeek! Someone fucking diiiied...!”]

The person who fled screaming those words, scattering Seo Gyu’s blood and entrails as she crossed the Busan Station waiting hall and performed the miracle of Moses—though her Red Sea was somewhat redder than the original.

That person was Sim Aryeon.

‘... What’s she doing here?’

It really is a small world, isn’t it?