Chapter 119 - The Brainwasher I

1

I’m not fond of famous quotes or aphorisms.

Admiring a famous quote is generally less like seeing a beautiful landscape firsthand and more like admiring a photograph of it.

For those who have already visited that landscape, it may hold meaning as a memento. For everyone else, it is merely a fake antique brought home for interior decoration.

Still, there is one exception. I believe this aphorism left by Nietzsche is useful even to a pragmatist.

-He who fights anomalies should beware lest he himself become an anomaly. When you gaze long into the void, the void also gazes into you.

Surely this is the ultimate guide for hitchhikers traveling through the end of the world?

If you want to make it a little more practical, a slight revision to the latter half makes it perfect.

-When you gaze long into Go Yori, Go Yori also gazes into you.

Go Yori.

Personal color: pink.

Pokémon type: Psychic.

Specialties: a gentle smile for everyone. And a brainwashing hypnosis beam.

Had she appeared as Kadabra in the first-generation Pokémon anime, she would have enjoyed a cult following among children. Unfortunately, she had reincarnated in reality instead, leaving me with a throbbing ache at the back of my head.

What I want you all to understand is that I, the Undertaker, worked tirelessly to seal this Pokémon away.

‘What if I take a picture without looking directly at her? Wouldn’t that let me see Go Yori’s true appearance?’

CLICK.

I committed the atrocity of secretly photographing Go Yori. It was an act of defiance in the face of death.

The photography itself succeeded, but the result was disappointing. There was no meaningful difference in performance between an ordinary camera lens and my retinas.

In short, the photograph showed nothing but the same beautiful woman with the same pink hair and the same gentle smile. Hmm. Somehow, the photo seemed not to do her justice.

The instant I thought, ‘Hmm. Somehow, the photo doesn’t do her justice,’ I realized I was already under mild hypnosis. A chill ran down my spine. I burned the photograph immediately.

Failure.

‘What if someone else takes it for me?’

I had Yu Jiwon take the photo, since her life wasn’t particularly precious to me. The result was identical. Yu Jiwon also returned alive and well.

Failure².

For the record, none of my tests were ever conducted in the same run.

Go Yori had to be handled and studied with even greater care than a nuclear bomb. Naturally, every test had to take place in a separate run.

‘If I record her voice with a recorder, her real, unaltered voice might—’

Failure.

‘... Wait. What if I photograph her with the Paranormal Camera?’

That was a rather inspired idea.

By this point, I had acquired an instant paranormal camera from the Magical Girl Council as payment for clearing Inunaki Tunnel.

CLICK.

I had fairly high hopes for this test. The paranormal camera was a haunted artifact among haunted artifacts. Surely no item could be better suited to exposing Go Yori’s true nature?

Then it happened.

BRRRRR...

A strange noise began to emerge from inside the paranormal camera, which had been developing its photograph normally.

BRRR! CLICK! RRRING! RRRING, RRRRRING! RRRRING!

It was the sound of a telephone ringing. No, perhaps it was more like the racket that erupted when someone pressed the red button on a fire alarm.

CLUNK!

The camera began creaking of its own accord. A moment later, it spewed smoke as though a fire had broken out inside.

PSSSSSH!

Then it stopped.

"..."

Goosebumps rose on my skin.

"Is something wrong?"

More chilling still was the fact that Go Yori had approached before I even noticed.

Right under my nose.

With her head tilted and her waist bent, she was looking up at me at an angle from below.

"Oh. You look familiar somehow... Ah, oh, oh! Just a moment. Weren’t you in the Busan Station waiting room with me? Hmm. Your name was definitely... Undertaker. You’re Mr. Undertaker, aren’t you?"

"..."

"Wow! My goodness! What a coincidence, seeing you again here! Oh! Smoke keeps leaking out of whatever you’re holding. Are you all right? Is there anything..."

Go Yori beamed.

"... I can help you with?"

I was fucked.

I had been an idiot to trust this shitty camera in the first place. How powerful could a treasure belonging to a bunch of magical-girl cosplayers possibly be?

But a regressor’s job is to account for precisely these contingencies and prepare countermeasures. I immediately activated Protocol 552-71.

"Suddenly, a raging gale goes RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE! The wind roars loud, and Zhou Yu hastens down from the platform, THUMP-THUMP-THUMP, to look upon the flags!"

"... Huh?"

"Ah-ha! The Azure Dragon and Vermilion Bird banners answer the White Tiger and Black Tortoise, FLAP-FLAP toward the northwest! In an instant a mighty southeast wind rises, and the flagstaffs CRACK! LURCH! The banners ROLL-ROLL-ROLL! Ah, they rise like thunder, and at this sight Zhou Yu’s heart falls cold with terror!"

"Uh. What...? Sorry?"

"O Heaven! Aaaah! Why, having brought me into this world, did you also bring forth Kongming! Ooooooh! Ooo-WHEEE!"

"..."

I ran toward the horizon, dancing wildly like a madman. In the process, I hurled the character, dignity, and every other shred of standing I had built up over more than a thousand years as a regressor straight into the mud.

Protocol 552-71’s original name was Sing the Pansori Song of the Red Cliffs. Alternatively, Act Insane.

For the record, I was good at pansori.

I was slightly better at acting insane.

Sure enough, even Go Yori, the supreme demon king of curiosity whose first response to everything in creation was "How interesting," did not pursue this specimen of human failure. Dobby was free, and I escaped.

For the rest of that run, I never again came within thirty kilometers of Go Yori.

Failure.

Go Yori was indeed a dangerous being.

As the founder and secret mastermind of the Library Society, I could barely resist the urge to append [Go Yori-class] to the end of its threat-level lineup: [village-class–city-class–Continent-class–Ocean-class–God of Alienation-class].

Noh Doha, commander of the National Road Management Corps and the business partner I readily leaned on and consulted at times like these, wore an unremarkable expression in headquarters’ operations room.

"To my eyes, you seem like the more dangerous being..."

"Hmm."

I didn’t particularly agree with Noh Doha’s criticism, but I revised my strategy for the time being.

"As I explained, ‘She Who Must Not Be Named’ is dangerous not just to me, but to every human being. Everyone projects their own ideal partner onto her. Even a cold urban gentleman with as little emotion as myself is bound to fall victim."

"Fuuuck. I don’t even know how many parts of that I need to object to... First of all, your ideal partner has pink hair...?"

"Such peripheral details are unimportant, Commander. But examining the issue above allows us to formulate the following hypothesis. Might someone who goes beyond having little emotion and has no emotions whatsoever be safe even after coming into contact with ‘She Who Must Not Be Named’?"

"Hmm? Someone with no emotions at all? Does such a person exist...?"

"More precisely, we only need someone whose capacity to feel affection for another person—in other words, to like them—has been excised. That is where Go Yori’s Perception Manipulation begins."

"..."

"..."

We turned our heads almost simultaneously.

"Hmm?"

SCRITCH, SCRITCH.

There sat Yu Jiwon, director of the Operations Control Office under the commander of the National Road Management Corps, whittling wood with a carving knife. She was carving pieces herself to use as chessmen on her [Minimap].

"Why are you suddenly looking at me?"

The highly intelligent psychopath tilted her head.

2

Yu Jiwon.

Personal color: silver.

Pokémon type... No, who cares? A psychopath, anyway. Spending much time explaining this one was a waste of life.

Compared to Go Yori, she had nothing going for her except her looks.

Though it was a fact too hateful to seem real, Yu Jiwon’s face, at least, was outrageously beautiful. That was simply an objective truth, and even I could find no way to twist it.

The fact that Go Yori and Yu Jiwon were the rivals vying for the top two spots in sheer beauty among the Korean Peninsula’s awakened ought to make it perfectly clear: this land had no hope.

Yes. I always assigned Yu Jiwon the task of monitoring Go Yori.

On the map of the entire Korean Peninsula spread out in the operations team’s room, a black bishop (♝) engraved with the name ‘Go Yori’ was always creeping around.

"Jiwon. I need you to make contact with ‘She Who Must Not Be Named.’ Naturally, you must never let her discover that I sent you. Above all, if I detect even the slightest sign that you’ve been brainwashed, I will isolate you immediately."

"Hmm..."

Yu Jiwon rested a hand on her chin. Resting a hand on her chin and going "Hmm" right in someone’s face. Such an unmistakable sign of psychopathy was enough to give me chills.

"Your Excellency. I have a condition."

"What condition?"

"When you go to the next run, please make sure I get something out of this."

Those were the words of a born lunatic.

Had Yu Jiwon been an ordinary psychopath, her thinking would have followed this course:

‘Huh? Me in the next run? That’s an entirely different person from who I am now. I’ll pursue happiness in the present.’

‘From now on, I’m living for myself.’

But not a chance. Our psychopath was exceptional down to the shape of the folds in her brain.

‘Hmm. If that man—the Undertaker—causes the world to regress, then however hard I work to accumulate wealth and power, won’t it all disappear with a single click of regression?’

‘Why should my power and security disappear because of that one-click bastard?’

‘But a regressor cannot be killed.’

‘Therefore, I must attach myself to the regressor.’

‘In other words... I negotiate something with the regressor so that more power and information can be passed on to me in the next run. Then even more in the run after that. If I keep passing down that inheritance...’

‘Won’t ultimate victory belong to yours truly?’

‘From now on, I’m going all in on regressor coin.’

That was the outlandish idea she had arrived at.

How do I know all this? I heard it directly. From her.

I trust no further explanation is needed as to why I treat this silver-haired beauty as a lunatic. At least, I had never encountered anyone with a thought process like this in fiction involving infinite regression.

Another example of reality effortlessly triumphing over fiction.

"Jiwon."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard you say that?"

"No. However, your latest remark confirms that I remain sane in every run. That is reassuring."

"I think you need to replace ‘sane’ with something rather different for that sentence to make sense..."

"Hmm. Intelligent? Rational? Sound in judgment?"

"The opposite of every one of those would be precisely right."

"...?"

In the end, I had no choice but to make Yu Jiwon another promise. For the record, this bastard’s Depth at my Café Hideout was 1,000 meters.

She had started at 100 meters.

I doubt I need to explain how she clawed her way from 100 to 1,000 meters. I will merely add that I am a man who keeps his promises very faithfully.

I sent Yu Jiwon out and followed her. Maintaining a scrupulous distance of several hundred meters, of course.

Go Yori was running a soup kitchen in Daejeon. In return for a little labor from ordinary people, she distributed food twice daily, morning and evening.

I watched through a telescope. The sight of Go Yori in an apron, personally serving food with beaming smiles, made my teeth chatter uncontrollably.

There were even Chinese characters written on her apron.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

‘How terrifying you are, Go Yori!’

I shuddered.

‘Even at a moment like this, you try to toy with my mind and bewitch me! Do you think that will make me like you?’

What was more, her apron was neither some baseless blue nor red, but green—practically the symbol of Shu.

Truly terrifying brainwashing!

My hands shook. Forcing myself to turn the telescope slightly, I found our National Road Management Corps’ ultimate weapon, the silver-haired psychopath, striding steadily along.

And then—

"..."

"..."

The two beings met.

One who unfailingly inspired affection, and one who never felt affection.

In other words... a contradiction!

A spear and shield whose mere contact seemed capable of shattering the laws of the universe and insulting society’s ethics—and who would therefore never have met in the proper course of history—now stood face-to-face thanks to some bizarre trick of causality (me).

My heart swelled with grandeur all on its own.