Chapter 12 - The Troll III

“Saintess, are you sure this is her?”

[“Yes, Mr. Undertaker.”]

The Saintess answered immediately, apparently following my movements in real time through Clairvoyance.

[“That is the person who uses the username Goryeojang on SG Net.”]

“Huh.”

I stroked my chin.

‘Well, sure. These things happen.’

My surprise didn’t last very long. That was largely because she wasn’t particularly important to me. It wasn’t as though Sim Aryeon and I had no connection at all, but we were even further from having anything you could call a close relationship.

To briefly illustrate what the Busan Station waiting hall looks like to my eyeballs:

[Extra A] [Seo Gyu ← Important!] [tutorial fairy] [vending machine] [Extra B] [Extra C] [Go Yori ← ※Danger※] [souvenir shop (must farm silver bells)] [Extra D] [Gravestone] [Extra E] [Uehara Shino] [Extra F] [Extra G]...

Something like that.

And Sim Aryeon’s exact role in that lineup was [Extra B]. She was the sort of character no reader would ever notice unless someone drew an arrow specifically pointing her out.

To exaggerate a little, her entire reason for existing was to let out a distinctive “Eeeek!” whenever Seo Gyu died.

‘Her awakened ability was... healing.’

Of course, as a regressor, I had made sure to learn every last one of those extras’ abilities too.

‘I remember her being pretty unimpressive for a healer...’

In game terms, she was a two-star healer. This might be a little harsh, but she was the kind they hand out for free just for logging in.

Useful enough early on, but inevitably dropped from the party as you reached harder stages. She was an awakened destined to be advised to retire with a line like, “You’re banished from the party. You’re far too weak to keep up with us.”

And my story didn’t come tagged with #Regret, #Obsession, or #Misery. What does that mean? She gets kicked out, and that’s the end of it.

I had relied on Sim Aryeon in my first, second, and third runs. But that was only because I was such a beginner back then.

After that... well? Not really?

Aside from events like the joint funeral in my tenth run or the construction of an impregnable fortress in my twenty-fourth, I had no particular memories of her.

‘So a third-rate awakened got lucky, survived Busan, and somehow drifted all the way to Pocheon?’

Put that way, she had traveled from almost the southern tip of Korea to its northern edge. For some reason, that tugged at my heartstrings.

My curiosity about Sim Aryeon’s life had edged just ahead of my disgust at the villain Goryeojang’s character.

‘I should hear her out.’

As it turned out, giving in to my curiosity was the right call.

Once I had knocked Sim Aryeon out and dragged her into the living room, Lee Juho followed me inside and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“... My God. A fellow guild member—and the [Angel of Healing], of all people—was the troll posting that shit?”

“So you two do know each oth—what?”

I thought I had just heard something strange. No, not so much strange as bizarre and embarrassing.

“The [Angel of Healing]?”

“She’s famous around here.”

Lee Juho’s expression was equal parts troubled and bewildered.

“She’s also the person who serves as the nurse, art teacher, and librarian at the elementary school where we first met, ZERO_SUGAR.”

“What?”

“Well, I told you earlier, didn’t I? Another member of my guild helps look after the children... That’s her.”

???

I turned my head and looked up at the ceiling.

[“She is Goryeojang, Mr. Undertaker. Please don’t doubt me.”]

I quickly lowered my gaze to Lee Juho again.

“You’re saying she’s your coworker?”

“Yes, both at the guild and at school... The world ended, and the entire medical infrastructure collapsed with it. Healthy people die from a bad cold, little wounds turn into tetanus and kill people... More people die of illness than from monsters.”

I knew that too. I had seen it more times than I cared to remember throughout my regressions.

Without antibiotics, modern people die with horrifying ease.

Ultimately, that was why cremation had so quickly become the universal funeral practice in this ruined world, and why Lee Juho’s older acquaintance, the mage who used fire magic, was so busy. Burning bodies was the surest way to prevent epidemics.

“But around here, patients have stopped dying those pointless deaths.”

Lee Juho continued, looking at the villain Goryeojang.

“She... the Angel of Healing has used her ability to cure everything from minor ailments to most cancers. For about a year now.”

“What?”

Her?

A two-star healer?

“She was famous for looking after patients and students like that, healing them without accepting anything in return. She even treated my father whenever he was unwell. Without her, he wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed...”

Lee Juho furrowed his brow.

“Um. Mr. Undertaker, are you really sure she’s Goryeojang? There might have been some misunderstanding or mistake...”

“No, that part is certain. There’s no room for misunderstanding. Ask her yourself when she wakes up in a little while.”

“...”

At last, Lee Juho fell silent.

Honestly, I was even more confused than he was.

‘Sim Aryeon displayed healing powerful enough to cure cancer...?’

I could say with absolute certainty that I had never once seen her show that much power in all my lives as a regressor.

At best, she could ease the pain of a scraped knee a little, or help you get over a cold that would clear up within a week... within a week. Her ability was basically Pamprin Q.

How the hell?

“I’ll wake her up.”

Lee Juho nodded at that.

I threw an empty drink can at the villain Goryeojang. The aluminum can struck her squarely in the head. I had put a little aura into the throw, so her whole skull probably tingled as though she’d received an electric shock.

“Ugh... Huh! Uhhh...?”

The villain Goryeojang, alias the Angel of Healing—this two-faced Anubis—groaned and slowly blinked.

“Coming around?”

“Uh... Uhhh, wha... Yes...?”

I waited for her to regain consciousness, then explained the situation.

Naturally, she was horrified.

“Eeeek...! H-how did you know I was here? How did you get all the way...?”

“My constellation happens to love me quite a lot.”

Having lied as easily as breathing, I peered at her.

“More importantly, why did you do it?”

At my blunt question, the villain Goryeojang fumbled for an answer. An awkward silence settled over the living room.

“Um, well... The thing iiiis. What actually happened was... Ummm...”

But that awkward silence itself gave us every answer we needed.

“Hah.”

Lee Juho looked deflated. Discovering that his acquaintance really was an internet troll seemed to have drained away his murderous intent.

He spoke quietly.

“... Ms. Sim. Was looking after patients stressful for you?”

The villain Goryeojang blinked repeatedly.

“Eek. Y-yes...?”

“I mean, you didn’t really want to care for patients. No, it actually made you angry, but because of your ability, you couldn’t turn them away... And the elementary school kids are always causing trouble. Is that why you did it? Did you put on a completely different mask online to blow off steam?”

“Oh.”

I voiced my admiration from beside him. A neat hypothesis, befitting such a fine young man.

I had often seen cases where someone’s ability and personality didn’t match.

Besides, in a world like this, having a healing ability was a double-edged sword. People with the mindset to lord it over others—“I’m a healer? That makes me nobility and you commoners”—were rarer than you might think.

Quiet, introverted people who couldn’t refuse requests simply got dragged from one demand to the next.

I had seen countless cases where they eventually snapped and did something disastrous.

But the villain Goryeojang, Sim Aryeon, vigorously shook her head to reject this reasonable, highly credible hypothesis.

“T-th-th-that’s not it! It’s not that, um, it’s because of my skill...!”

“Exactly, your skill. You don’t actually want to use [Walking Hospital], Aryeon, but the patients force you to—”

“N-no, my other skill! My second ability!”

Flapping both arms, Sim Aryeon began explaining that second ability.

“Just give me a moment. This ability was really hard to figure out...”

Abilities didn’t neatly appear or reveal themselves like skill cards. (If they did, it would have been wonderfully convenient for me to prove I was a regressor.) So, going strictly by Aryeon’s own account, Sim Aryeon’s second ability was as follows.

――――――――――

[Grudge Bomb]

They say those who are cursed live long, healthy lives.

You are an upgraded version of that. The more you are cursed and hated, the more you can go beyond enjoying health and longevity yourself to share that health and longevity with others.

This effect grows stronger the more numerous and powerful the people who hate and curse you are.

If you possess medical or healing skills, those skills will also be strengthened in conjunction with it.

――――――――――

Lee Juho’s mouth fell open as he read the notepad the villain Goryeojang had written in.

For the record, mine did too.

“What kind of fucking idiotic skill is that...?”

Having an ability like this was shocking enough, but figuring out its details and documenting them was even more astonishing.

Again, except in highly abnormal cases, awakened weren’t given status windows or stat screens. Discovering your own abilities took endless grinding.

What kind of trial-and-error bullshit had Sim Aryeon gone through to identify this ‘Grudge Bomb’?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one engulfed in shock and horror.

[“... The boundless mysteries of awakened abilities never cease to amaze me.”]

I heard the Saintess’s voice. She must have been secretly watching, curious to learn the truth herself.

I looked into empty space and carefully mouthed the words.

‘You didn’t know either, Saintess?’

[“Didn’t kn... You’re asking whether I knew? No. I can observe awakened whenever I wish, but I can’t read their minds. Like Mr. Lee Juho, I simply assumed she was under a lot of stress from caring for patients.”]

Fair enough.

Shock had a peculiar way of becoming lighter when shared. As I talked with the Saintess, my emotions gradually settled, and suddenly a new perspective opened up.

The sequence of events that could be called ‘the Goryeojang Incident’ unfolded before my eyes.

‘... I see. There was a reason she started being called the [Angel of Healing] in this particular run.’

The world had ended.

The internet infrastructure had collapsed too.

People had no choice but to interact face-to-face, as they had before the internet.

In this world where everyone was lonely, even earning someone’s hatred wasn’t easy. Especially for someone as timid as Sim Aryeon.

That was why her second skill had never even stood out in previous runs, and why her first skill had amounted to little more than a health supplement.

But this was run fifty.

SG Net, which had never existed before, had come into being.

In this perfect world for trolling, Sim Aryeon had finally opened her eyes.

She transformed into the villain Goryeojang and rose to become the most loathed of the loathed.

What’s more, every SG Net member was an awakened. Quite a few genuinely intended to kill her if they ever got their hands on her.

All that overflowing aggro poured straight into ‘Grudge Bomb.’

Of course that would be more than enough to earn her the epithet [Angel of Healing].

‘Hm? But when I asked you to pinpoint Goryeojang’s location, didn’t you call her an unusual person?’

[“Pardon? Yes, I did.”]

‘Wasn’t that because you’d realized Goryeojang was also the Angel of Healing, like someone with a split personality?’

[“Oh. Um, no. That was... I’ll tell you later.”]

Just then, Sim Aryeon bowed her head low toward us.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know your father would be hurt, Juho...”

“Haa.”

“I-I know insulting people’s parents and things like that is baaad... The triangle of my conscience keeps prickling too... B-but, hic, but people have to resent me like that, so I get stronger, so I can treat even one more patient...”

Hugging her knees, Sim Aryeon scooted on her backside into a corner of the room and sat there muttering. Lee Juho and I could only watch in silence.

Silence.

Lee Juho spoke.

“W-what do we do, Mr. Undertaker...?”

“What can I do? It’s your decision that matters, Mr. Lee.”

“Uhh...”

Lee Juho scratched his head, apparently remembering only then that he was the one who had charged out in righteous anger after his father was insulted.

It wasn’t long before he made his decision.

“Then—”

It wasn’t a particularly difficult decision.

6

Most of our SG Net friends, who had been curious about the outcome of this real-life showdown between awakened, probably clicked their tongues.

After that day, JoinedToday vanished, while the villain Goryeojang continued posting without a hitch.

-Goryeojang: Gave that son of a bitch who came to fight me a real warm welcome lmao

Even her regular posts grew more vicious.

The villain Goryeojang was an excellent artist as well as a troll, and she went so far as to draw a comic and attach it to a post.

It featured a child and an old man, rendered with needlessly dynamic, high-quality artwork. It went like this.

-Old man: Huh? Who’s that?

-Old man: (Frowns)

-Old man: Isn’t that my son?

-Child: Dad, where are you going?

-Child: I’m coming too!

-Child: (Smiles brightly)

(A cheerful cartoon-style drawing of a father and son holding hands as they cross a river)

Finally, she attached a photo of what looked like a family grave, complete with a sticky note bearing Goryeojang’s username on the headstone.

Naturally, SG Net members with a conscience ground their teeth at this deplorable turn of events.

-Anonymous: Oh, dear God.

-[Yuldoguk]SwordEmpress: I shall come myself this time. Give me your address, whelp.

-[Contentment]CookingQueen: The curses you pour upon others will someday return to you. Why not take a little more time to reflect on yourself? I’m certain you still have a bright nature within you, brother.

└Goryeojang: Just fuck off already, you crazy bastard.

-Anonymous: Didn’t this one say they lived in Canada? That photo’s totally Korea.

-[Three Thousand]WitchTrialJudge: Contact me if you come to Busan.

-dolLHoUse: Rage.

-Anonymous: But seriously, why is this one so good at drawing? That’s some incredible talent...

Of course, not every member had a conscience.

Some were wildly enthusiastic about the troll.

-Anonymous: Damn, two kills for the price of one lmao. That’s our god-tier bro Goryeojang, brutal as fuck lol

-BookishGirl: Thought this fucker Goryeojang was only good at internet arguments, but apparently he’s fucking amazing at real fights too. Holy shit

Wasn’t there a saying that a true star drove fans and haters alike insane?

With Lee Juho and me keeping silent about the truth, the villain Goryeojang was drawing all of SG Net’s aggro onto herself.

At least no one around Lee Juho’s guild would die for lack of timely healing anymore.

One more thing.

“No, my God. How can an ability...?”

For the record, Seo Gyu was profoundly shocked when I told him the whole story.

“I don’t know whether to laugh about not being the only one with a bizarre ability... It feels strange.”

Personally, I was pleased. He seemed to have shed a little of his insecurity about his skill.

And so it was a happy ending where everyone won, except for one thing.

There was some unexpected collateral damage.

-Anonymous: Didn’t that fucker ZERO_SUGAR leave a comment saying bro Goryeojang was gonna get his nose bloodied?

-Anonymous: Talked so much shit, then shut the fuck up lmaooo. Why’s it so pathetic watching him grit his teeth and ignore this lol

-Anonymous: Nose bloodied, fuck lmao. Turns out ZERO_SUGAR was the one who got his nose broken hahaha

-BookishGirl: This ZERO_SUGAR person... That’s quite a nose.

└[Contentment]CookingQueen: Disparaging others is really an act of lowering yourself. Every person is a mirror reflecting me, and I am a mirror of every person. Please respect and care for one another.

“...?”

I stared at those posts for a moment.

I made a thoughtful humming noise, stood up, sat back down, then went to the kitchen and made myself an espresso.

The fact that I had consumed espresso rather than café au lait was a sign that the work I was about to undertake demanded intense concentration.

First, with absolutely no intention or purpose whatsoever, I logged onto SG Net with an alternate account.

Then, just as I was about to type into the administrators-only chat, “Gyu. It’s nothing important, but could you find out these people’s personal details?”

[“Mr. Undertaker.”]

“Hm.”

[“Please don’t do that. Please.”]

I put down my phone.

Let’s finish this episode by simply hating the villain Goryeojang a little.

- The Troll. End.