Chapter 128 - The Victim II

5

“What the hell is that constellation's problem? It makes me so mad!”

Dang Seorin slammed the table.

We were at a popular sundae soup restaurant in Busan. Normally, Seorin focused exclusively on eating when she was at a restaurant, but today she spent the entire meal chewing out [Collector of All Anomalies].

Proof of just how spectacularly our <Zero Requiem> project had succeeded.

“Hmm. Well, that constellation seems to think of itself as an online game's operator.”

“Ha! Run a game these days talking like that much of a loser, and even the game would go under!”

“It did go under. Reality.”

“Oh... Seriously, everything about it pisses me off. Does it think the Korean Peninsula is its personal playground? I'll make it regret this someday.”

Aside from occasionally putting people in concrete shoes and making them walk a runway across the waters off Busan, Dang Seorin was a person of outstanding character.

Even someone like her was this furious. Imagine how the other awakened felt.

I set aside my guilt toward Seorin for the moment and hurried back to manipulating the media.

――――――――――

Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’

Greetings, human awakened active on the Korean Peninsula.

What a surprise! To think you would defeat Tenlegs, the apostle I so ambitiously prepared, with such ease. Just what one would expect from a region that prided itself on being a nation of gamers, wouldn't you say? (wink)

For your sake, I plan to send out anomalies with a more appropriately adjusted difficulty from now on.

By any chance... do you enjoy ‘hide-and-seek’?

You might say I do. (laughs)

The next anomaly I shall present to you is Udumbara, the World Tree. If you fail to find it within the time limit, this anomaly will infect the entire Korean Peninsula—no, the entire world—with a zombie virus.

――――――――――

When another new post appeared immediately after Tenlegs's defeat, SG Net exploded.

-Anonymous: No, seriously, why does this fucker only show up and hang around on the Korean Peninsula?

-[Yuldoguk]SwordEmpress: Oho! I cannot contain my outrage at the jests of this evil heretic who dishonors the code of the martial world!

-[Hundred Flowers]HighSchoolFourthYear: Hweee >_<);; I wanna tie up its arms and legs and shred it bit by bit with nail clippers, starting with its fingertips and toes >_<);;

-Anonymous: Am I the only one losing my mind over that fucking ‘wink’ bullshit??

-CookingQueen: How interesting.

Me, the Saintess, Noh Doha, Yu Jiwon, and Sim Aryeon.

Only five people in the world knew that [Collector of All Anomalies] was a fabrication.

Noh Doha pursed her lips.

“Sometimes I feel rather ashamed of myself and wonder whether we really have to go this far... But, well, the ‘monster wave’ cheated first. We ought to fight cheating with cheating...”

In any case, our media-manipulation operation, <Zero Requiem>, continued to sail smoothly along.

I, the Undertaker, already had every anomaly that would eventually appear on the Korean Peninsula committed to memory.

Their identities. Their gimmicks. Even when they would appear.

With just a little cunning application of that regressor's knowledge, whipping up a new constellation to play ‘the mastermind toying with the Korean Peninsula’ was child's play.

Had newspaper reporters from before the apocalypse seen this, they would surely have been overcome with emotion. “Truly, the essence of Korean journalism has survived civilization's destruction and been passed on to the next generation!”

Eventually, every last shred of ill feeling people possessed converged on [Collector of All Anomalies]. In other words, on Sim Aryeon.

――――――――――

Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’

Greetings, human awakened active on the Korean Peninsula. (laughs)

――――――――――

By now, just seeing the expression (laughs) sent the awakened into fits.

-Anonymous: Again? It's back again?

-BookishGirl: What the hell are the other constellations doing instead of catching that mastermind bastard?

Absolute evil.

An attitude that treated this apocalypse, in which everyone was earnestly fighting to survive, as mere idle amusement. A way of speaking that conveyed not the slightest dignity or intelligence, despite its role as the mastermind.

... Had [Collector of All Anomalies] been even a slightly serious character, a new cult worshipping the constellation might actually have arisen.

Even if it brought about humanity's death, a constellation's power to unleash terrifying anomalies at will could well seem immense to mortals like humans.

But [Collector of All Anomalies] was far too frivolous to worship even as an evil god.

In short, it had no style.

Whether you loved humanity or hated it, [Collector of All Anomalies] radiated far too much concentrated loser energy for you to offer it your faith.

Nobody could acknowledge any majesty befitting a constellation. All it received was hatred, resentment, and contempt.

-Anonymous: Holy shit, did you see Meteor Strike dropping those starlight corpses as it died?

└Anonymous: Yeah, saw it. That's seriously fucking vicious.

└[National Roads]Historian: We only stopped them because Three Thousand's guild leader was there. Had they hit us unawares, all of South Gyeongsang Province would have been completely devastated.

└Anonymous: Why are all these anomalies such bullshit lol. I seriously wanna beat the shit out of that Collector asshole lmao.

And so,

fifteen years passed.

[“Mr. Undertaker.”]

[“A monster wave has been observed in North Korea. We currently suspect it is moving south from Gando toward the interior of the Korean Peninsula.”]

I nodded.

It had been a long, long time of patient endurance.

Who owned SG Net, what could be called the sole information-sharing platform of this apocalypse? I did.

Who had formed a blood alliance with the constellations, the only sources of information people trusted in this apocalypse? I, the Undertaker.

At this moment, all the Korean Peninsula's power over information lay in my hands. The media companies before the apocalypse might have squandered this power on making someone from the ruling or opposition party president at best—but the work I was creating played in a realm far loftier than such shabby political realities.

“Aryeon.”

“Yees?”

“Have you been practicing your singing?”

“Y-yes, sir...! Her Excellency the Great Witch of Three Thousand Worlds certified that I was good enough to graduate now...!”

“Excellent. Now, go. Go and show the people.”

“...”

“That healers were always an aristocratic class.”

“...! Yes, Guild Leadeeer...!”

There had been signs. There had been hints. There had been foreshadowing.

I hadn't devoted so much attention to this girl when discussing the ‘Logout Game’ for nothing.

It had all been for this moment.

Sim Aryeon.

The talent who would now become the Korean Peninsula's savior.

Former occupation: Goryeojang villain. Internet troll.

Alias: The Bird That Drinks Poison.

Deploy.

6

There aren't many problems in this world that can't be solved by crushing them with overwhelming damage output.

Just as I, with little expertise in martial arts, had sliced Tenlegs apart with aura. Just as the ‘monster wave,’ excessively simple for an anomaly, had toppled countless nations through sheer numbers alone.

But now, in my 217th run, I, the Undertaker, would deliver a cold, exhilarating critique of an age utterly steeped in the brute-force DPS meta.

Overwhelming damage output was nothing but a mediocrity before ‘overwhelming healing output’.

“Stop them! Don't let them cross the Yalu River!”

“B-but, Your Eminence! There's no end to the anomalies! There are hundreds of thousands just within sight. How can we possibly...”

“I will hear no such weakness! Jesus of the Second Coming is watching over us! Even if we die, that spot will become the path through the winds by which we ascend to heaven! God wills it! Amen!”

The Yalu River defense line.

Until recently, the Holy State of the East had been thoroughly absorbed in playing at northern conquest. All they had to do was loot the empty stretches of Manchuria that Tenlegs had already torn apart. What fun it must have been.

But as even the Bible says in Proverbs 13:11, wealth easily gained will dwindle.

The Holy State of the East's believers were terrified by the black tidal wave of anomalies pouring endlessly toward them.

Fear of the concept of ‘overwhelming numbers pouring in from the north’ was engraved in the Korean people's DNA. Even cultists brainwashed to their very marrow couldn't easily overcome their DNA through faith.

“Y-Your Eminence, Cardinal! The anomalies are filling the river with corpses to cross it!”

“No! Stop them! Stop theeem! If this line falls, all we have left are the Chongchon and Taedong Rivers!”

At that very moment.

[‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ takes pity on humanity and sends forth his saintess to descend upon the earth.]

The Church of Resurrection believers struggling on the front line raised their eyes toward the sky. Those fighters who couldn't spare even a moment to look up had their heads knocked off by anomalies and got a closer, firsthand view of heaven.

Morning Star of the Second Coming? Wasn't that their church's Jesus? He had sent them a saintess?

“Ah...”

A strand of song penetrated the battlefield stained with pitch-black filth and bright-red blood.

One steady step after another.

Sim Aryeon, that loser of a girl from our guild, was walking across the battlefield with her hands folded neatly together.

Hers wasn't the peerlessly beautiful voice of Dang Seorin, whose singing astonished the Chinese, shocked the Japanese, and brought Koreans to their knees. Reaching the level of the peninsula's greatest idol was, after all, still a distant prospect.

But Sim Aryeon was Dang Seorin's pupil.

More precisely, I had made her one. Seorin had squeezed time out of her busy schedule to give Aryeon private lessons.

For ten whole years!

In that case, even if she wasn't the peninsula's greatest idol, she could make a case for being Pyongyang's greatest idol. Sim Aryeon, our healer, walked forward singing a beautiful Latin requiem (though Aryeon herself didn't really know what the lyrics meant).

Beside her, I secretly generated aura waves to help her voice carry far and wide, beyond the horizon.

“Ah... Ah...”

And then a miracle occurred.

One fighter had just been subjected to an anomaly's ‘get split in half and die’ move and sent flying all the way to the gates of heaven. A lower body grew out of his upper half.

“Huh?”

Someone whose arm had been destroyed sprouted a new arm.

Someone whose foot had been crushed grew a new foot.

The half-dead bodies strewn across the battlefield regained their arms and feet, fingers and toes, eye sockets and mouths, and rose once more.

Blood that had spilled and broken down enough to dye the earth red returned to its owners and became flesh and blood again.

As the ripples of song spread farther and farther from Sim Aryeon, the wounded and half-dead within their reach were healed, one after another.

Resurrection.

And that wasn't all.

Human lives weren't the only things blooming anew at Aryeon's feet. Green grasses and flowers of every color, swallowed and befouled by the pitch-black muck, softly unfurled again.

“Ahh... Ah...”

Green rebirth.

The believers looked down at their palms. At hands whose exposed cross sections of bone had been plain to see just seconds earlier.

Someone murmured without realizing it.

“It's a miracle...”

Yes.

It was a miracle.

Even in an apocalypse populated by anomalies and awakened, the sight of ‘life’ regenerating with every step Sim Aryeon took was sublime enough to make the heart ache.

The ‘monster wave’ couldn't bear to wait and tried to charge in, but I quietly disposed of those ill-mannered anomalies.

I, the Undertaker, placed great importance on etiquette. Villains were supposed to shut up and stay put during a magical girl's transformation sequence.

“A saintess. She's a saintess...”

“Jesus has summoned Santa Maria for us!”

“Hallelujah! God wills it!”

The tide of battle changed abruptly.

The monster wave was bewildered. It had suddenly received a lesson in walking in someone else's shoes. No matter how many humans it killed and sliced apart, there was no end to their damn numbers.

Humans were a race of fighters by nature. Under the game's rule that they could start a ‘New Game Plus’ as long as their heads weren't cut off, the Koreans awakened their ancestors' ferocity.

Four full nights passed.

In the battle at the Yalu River defense line, the Holy State of the East's two thousand elite troops won a crushing victory against a monster wave numbering a staggering two hundred thousand. It was a historic triumph.

“Woooooo!”

“W-we won! We won!”

“Mo Gwangseo Christ will never abandon us humans! Long live Jesus! Long live the Saintess!”

“...”

Sim Aryeon smiled gently.

It wasn't that Aryeon had suddenly decided to follow Go Yori's example. I had repeatedly impressed upon her, ‘You look perfectly normal as long as you keep your mouth shut, so please, don't say a single word.’

Provided she wasn't involved with internet communities or the Logout Game, Aryeon was generally a good, obedient girl.

The Church of Resurrection believers greeted her mysterious smile with fervent adulation.

Let me say it again: this world's genre was, in fact, fantasy.

And according to fantasy's genre conventions, a holy empire must naturally have a saintess.

Especially if Seoul in the south already had one, Pyongyang in the north needed another saintess to oppose her. Such were the laws of physics on the Korean Peninsula.

Who could possibly have foreseen it?

The Saintess of the Holy State of the East.

Her name was Sim Aryeon.

7

There is an afterstory.

Thanks to <Zero Requiem>'s success, another Ocean-class anomaly, the monster wave, was handled more or less safely.

Still, this ‘solution’ couldn't be called an ‘extermination.’ Monster waves continued to arise periodically beyond the Yalu River.

Each time, Sim Aryeon had to ride on my back to the Yalu front and display her majesty as a saintess.

“G-Guild Leader. Did I do well? I did, right? Really well, right? H-hurry and praise me...”

“Yes, yes. You were truly perfect. You worked so hard. Just what I'd expect of the world's strongest healer. Our Aryeon is an absolute blessing.”

“Hehehe...”

Yet even if it was only a stopgap, Sim Aryeon steadfastly protected the Korean Peninsula as the north's ‘unbreakable bulwark of life.’

In year fifteen, year sixteen, year seventeen, year eighteen, year nineteen, year twenty, year twenty-one, and year twenty-two.

Although her ability grew too powerful around the start of year twenty-two and caused a ‘fall’ phenomenon... Until then, Aryeon had effectively defended the front line alone.

For eight whole years.

In truth, I agonized over quite a few things while discussing the ‘monster wave’ this time.

Whatever impression I may have given, the monster wave was one of the midboss-level anomalies that destroyed our world countless times. Naturally, it brought about countless tragedies.

At first, I intended to describe those tragic, heroic deaths as I had when discussing ‘Tenlegs’ and ‘Meteor Strike.’

But thinking of Sim Aryeon changed my mind.

Even as she received every kind of hatred and contempt from the awakened, even as she played a saintess—a role she had never been destined for—and was summoned to the battlefield at least once a month, Sim Aryeon never let her exhaustion show.

Shouldn't I, her guild leader, sing of laughter rather than tragedy, too?

Grandeur, sorrow... At least while Aryeon is smiling, I don't want to paint her such landscapes.

Because.

“Hehehe... W-when we get back to the hideout, please make me a café mocha...! W-with lots of chocolate syrup...!”

Perhaps it was because, just as this girl loved my coffee, I had come to love her smile very much.

-The Victim. End.