Chapter 121 - The Dreamer I

1

Before I knew it, my tales had passed the 120-chapter mark.

Not that I counted them one by one myself. That was what Oh Dokseo told me.

I wouldn't know, but according to Miss Oh Dokseo, our self-proclaimed web-novel expert, the number 120 apparently held some symbolic significance.

"Got it, Mister? Anyway, I need 120 chapters' worth. You have to get everything through chapter 120 to me without a hitch."

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm planning to stockpile a good 120 chapters and release them all at once on the platform... Oh, fuck. Would you even understand if I explained? You said you'd never so much as looked at a web novel before the void arrived."

"Hmm."

"Anyway, 120 chapters! I need at least 120 chapters' worth. I'm telling you this because I have a plan!"

Oh Dokseo nagged me relentlessly, as though she were my editor. In fact, she did serve as one.

What could an old, sick man like me do? I had to go along with what the youngster wanted.

How I wrote, however, was up to me.

I preferred traditional methods. I wrote by hand in a notebook and passed it to Oh Dokseo. Sometimes I reverted to an even more traditional approach: rather than writing anything at all, I delivered oral literature straight from my mouth.

Given a taste of the old traditions her generation had lost, Oh Dokseo looked deeply moved.

"No... fuck. What am I supposed to do with this? You're supposed to give me a manuscript I can actually use."

I was an author who treated his editor kindly. Accordingly, I answered at a level suited to Oh Dokseo's intellect.

"Sounds like a you problem."

"..."

"Keep up the good work."

My role was simply to tell my tales.

It would be unreasonable to make me edit, revise, proofread, and trim them to fit some particular format as well.

Not because I couldn't be bothered, but because a regressor leads a busy life.

If my tales were officially released somewhere and errors turned up, they wouldn't be my fault. Naturally, the blame would lie entirely with Oh Dokseo.

Surely I, the Undertaker, possessor of [Perfect Recall], could never make a mistake?

Just between us, if you happen to spot a typo or the like, feel free to blame her with an "Ugh, goddammit, Oh Dokseo." She may be an otaku with a raging case of adolescent delusions, but she's a good person, so I ask you generous souls to be understanding.

But I digress.

Anyway, since 120 chapters is supposedly a milestone, this seems like a good opportunity to compile the cities on the Korean Peninsula that have appeared in my tales so far.

You might call it a newly drawn map for the apocalypse era.

Here is a verbatim copy of the notes I gave Oh Dokseo while explaining the state of affairs.

――――――――――

[Busan]

Headquarters of the National Road Management Corps.

Food produced on the Gimhae Plain and in Kyushu through 'SwordEmpress' is stored in Busan. The Corps' patrols double as merchant companies, transporting food and supplies from Busan throughout the country. For this reason, the patrols are also called 'caravans.'

Judicial and military authority within Busan is exercised by the Three Thousand Worlds guild. The National Road Management Corps and Three Thousand Worlds are bound by a blood alliance.

The Korean Peninsula's last hope. Water outages and blackouts happen at every opportunity, but the romance of rainwater and candlelight makes it all fine. A toast to you, living through today despite it all.

-Key figures: Noh Doha, Dang Seorin, Yu Jiwon, Old Man Scho's corpse.

[Daejeon]

A vast refuge city. The majority of the Korean Peninsula's refugees and displaced people gather here.

Large numbers of organisms altered by void poison inhabit the area around Daejeon. By exploiting this ecosystem, Daejeon produces its own food. However, absolutely no guarantee is made as to the safety of its foodstuffs.

Daejeon is administered by the Great Satisfaction Society guild, which should be regarded as effectively controlled by Pink Hair. If you don't value your life, by all means visit this city and enjoy the sights.

-Key figures: Voldemort.

[Sejong]

Alongside Pyongyang, one of the Korean Peninsula's foremost sacred cities. A county of Cheon Yohwa, by Cheon Yohwa, for Cheon Yohwa.

The Hundred Flowers guild, composed of former students of Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School, rules the city with an iron grip.

The guild's members originally came from families that followed a cult called the Thousand Suns Church, and they still revere Cheon Yohwa. Cheon Yohwa herself may loathe cults, but however you look at the way the city operates, it's cult headquarters.

If you suddenly grow tired of living in the apocalypse, insult Cheon Yohwa in Sejong. The recommended phrase is, 'Still, isn't there something a little wrong with your head if you're going around in a school uniform?' You can then complete a biology lesson that will remind you just how many organs your body contains.

-Key figures: Cheon Yohwa.

[Seoul]

The front line. Everything south of the Han River has been devastated. Boasts the cheapest housing prices on the Korean Peninsula.

A defensive line has been established to hold back the anomalies constantly pouring in from the north. Every bridge except Jamsu Bridge and Seongsu Bridge has been blown up for security purposes.

My hideout was originally in Seoul too, but ever since the Inunaki Tunnel was remodeled, Cheon Yohwa's Hundred Flowers guild has been holding the city.

Highly recommended for anyone of the old generation who still wants a Han River view. Just be aware that an anomaly view comes with it.

-Key figures: Saintess.

――――――――――

There are various other cities and places, including Jeju Island, Naju, and Pyongyang, but I will omit them, since I haven't covered them in my tales yet.

"Huh? Mister."

Once you've organized things this way and spread out a map, you might find yourself thinking the same thing as Oh Dokseo.

"Isn't this surprisingly doable?"

"Hmm."

"Food production's going smoothly, and the factions centered on Busan are running just fine. You said Cheon Yohwa follows you like crazy, too. So saving the world... might be a stretch, but saving the Korean Peninsula should be totally doable, right?"

"Who knows."

Sorry, but it isn't that easy.

You saw Daejeon evaporate overnight just last episode.

Let me take this opportunity to say it again.

This world hates humans.

2

First, I should point out that maps made back when the world was normal are of no help whatsoever.

Because this world is extremely serious about fucking humanity over.

If the National Road Management Corps sends out a patrol caravan without proper precautions, incidents like the following occur quite frequently.

"Ah, this is bad. We should be reaching Daejeon around here. Why does it feel like we're just going in circles?"

"Team Leader. We have a serious problem. This is our fourteenth day wandering around this area. I've tried posting on SG Net, but there aren't any comments at all..."

"Fourteen days? What are you talking about, Deputy Team Leader? It's only been four days."

"What?"

Disappeared. Evaporated. Missing without a trace.

You might cross a distance of no more than two bus stops, only to spend over half a month doing it.

You might think you're walking down a road, then realize you're descending toward the bottom of a pond.

A rock-salt mine rises where a river should flow, and where a mountain should stand, a vast lake stretches to the distant horizon.

A literal labyrinth.

A world swallowed by the void is nothing less than one enormous maze—a Labyrinthos.

In a world like this, the role assigned to me was to conquer the labyrinth. To draw a comparison with Greek mythology, I would be Theseus, who penetrated the maze and cooked himself a Minotaur steak.

"Your Excellency Undertaker."

"Hmm? What is it?"

"Patrol Twenty-One has been stationary on my map for three hours now."

"Not moving at all?"

"Correct."

"What about the utility poles? The lines?"

"They appear to have been severed. The regular reports on SG Net also stopped 180 minutes ago."

"Ah... They're trapped in the void again. Honestly, something always goes wrong whenever we send a patrol near Daejeon. Saintess? Are you watching?"

["Yes."]

"Please send Patrol Twenty-One a message in a constellation's name. Tell them a rescue team will arrive shortly, so they should stay calm and wait where they are."

["Are you planning to go yourself?"]

"Yes. If the lines have been severed, I'll need to repair them too."

["Understood."]

Yu Jiwon's 'Minimap' and the Saintess's 'Telepathy.'

Thanks to their assistance, I somehow managed to connect city to city even in this harsh apocalypse.

Though I couldn't dream of controlling entire areas, I could at least hope to govern the lines between them.

And, of course, many talented people besides the Saintess and Yu Jiwon were helping the National Road Management Corps.

"Hayul."

"Yeah?"

"They say the lines have snapped again. Let's go lay some thread."

If Theseus is to walk the labyrinth, he needs an Ariadne too.

Lee Hayul, the Puppeteer.

This girl, who spun puppet thread like a spider, was another indispensable talent in maintaining the Korean Peninsula's national roads.

3

Running with Hayul on my back, I soon found Patrol Twenty-One sitting slumped in the middle of a forest.

They must have been bewitched by the void for quite some time already, judging by how utterly haggard they looked.

"Ah...! Sir Undertaker!"

The patrol commander recognized me, and his face brightened. My official position in the National Road Management Corps varied from run to run, but its members always treated me with the utmost respect.

"You've come for us!"

"Yes. You've all been through a lot."

I took Hayul and some chocolate out of my backpack. Hayul went off on her own with a creaky gait, while I handed the chocolate out to the patrol members.

"How many days have you been stranded?"

"By my reckoning, today is day fifteen. But everyone has a different sense of how many days it's been, so that's not exact."

"Thoroughly bewitched, then. The sun?"

"We observed its direction as instructed in the guidelines, but it rose in the south on day one, the east on day two, the north on day three, and so on. The direction of sunrise changed from day to day."

"The moon?"

"I've only ever observed one, but there was exactly one report from a patrol member who saw three moons."

"Has anyone gone missing?"

"No. Everyone moved in groups of three."

Of course, that couldn't be true.

Once they had been engulfed so deeply by the void that even the sun and moon were contaminated, the odds of everyone returning safely were vanishingly small.

When I checked, the patrol that should have numbered twenty-four was down to twenty-one. Their colleagues, however, neither noticed nor remembered the three missing people.

I let out a deep sigh.

'At this rate, I'll really have to open up a separate road near Daejeon. Honestly.'

Then Hayul looked at me. Her tiny hands moved busily.

-Found. Broken spot.

It was sign language.

Normally, Hayul had a doll she brought around as a housekeeper, which spoke for her. This time, however, we had left the housekeeper behind in our haste.

Still, the two of us conversed perfectly well in signs. Sometimes we even chatted in Japanese Sign Language instead of Korean Sign Language.

"Where?"

-Here.

Hayul summoned golden aura and gestured, smoothly drawing a thin puppet thread out of the ground. It had snapped in the middle.

A transmission line.

The puppet threads Hayul spun weren't used solely for security at the guild hideout. We also laid continuous lengths of them beneath the roads used by the National Road Management Corps.

When it came specifically to aura, Lee Hayul's puppet thread performed almost like a room-temperature superconductor. Anyone proficient enough with aura could even send Morse code through the lines.

Above all, for the patrols, these 'lines' truly were like Ariadne's thread.

In the void, both celestial phenomena and compasses were easily rendered useless. Within that maze, Hayul's puppet thread was the only objective guide.

Lee Hayul and I buried the threads only along the safest paths.

In other words, as long as the patrol members kept feeding aura into the lines as they moved, they could at least avoid dangerous areas.

Put another way, the moment a puppet thread snapped for any reason, the patrol members' chances of returning alive plummeted.

"Why do you think it snapped?"

-Don't know. Suspected work of an anomaly living underground.

"Hah... I've lost count of how many times it's happened around here alone. We really should abandon the Daejeon route and only send them along the Sejong route."

-Is that okay?

"It'll isolate Daejeon even more and make its transformation into a void worse, but, well. We have no other choice. Let's reinstall the line for now. Try burying it a little deeper this time."

-Okay.

Thread streamed from beneath Hayul's fingernails. The puppet thread sank, slicing through the ground as though it were cake.

THUD

Meanwhile, I brought over a utility pole and drove it into the ground. Utility poles were easy to find anywhere in the country, and they made perfect markers for 'a line runs underground here.'

The repairs were finished in no time. But the truly important rescue work was only just beginning.

"Team Leader Park."

"Yes, Sir Undertaker."

"Take your team north to Sejong. I have something to attend to around here. I'll join you once I'm done."

"Understood. Thank you!"

The patrol caravan set off.

Had this been after run 380, Spiky and Bonky would have served as their wagon transport, but unfortunately, this incident took place in run 205. The patrol members disappeared into the distance, pulling handcarts.

"All right. Let's get this done quickly and head back. Hayul, hop on."

-Okay.

Hayul hopped up and clung to my back like a sloth. With a regressor's exceptional footwork, I scoured the entire surrounding area.

Lee Hayul reached a hand out from behind me. Her fingers formed signs.

-Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.

"..."

The little rascal loved riding around on my back. In her words, it was just like riding a roller coaster, or something of the sort.

Anyway, I searched for a full hour but couldn't find the missing people.

Just as I was thinking I might have to give up and return, something that had no business being in a secluded void came into view.

-Big brother. Over there.

"... Yes. I see it too."

I stopped dead.

[DREAM CASINO]

[Sleepwalking Amusement Hall]

Flashing brilliantly, pink and red neon signs blazed with light. Even Busan suffered blackouts practically every day, so I had no idea where they were getting that much electricity.

"What the hell is a casino doing here...?"

... Apparently, the missing Corps members had switched careers to become gamblers.