Chapter 142 - The Fortunate One IV

6

I’ve mentioned several times already that the Magical Girl Council, the entrenched power of the Japanese archipelago, holds me in considerable esteem. Part of that was because I, the Undertaker, often helped the magical girls out.

But in East Asia, relationships between people don’t run on such cold calculations. In these lands, “true fellowship” is achieved only by transcending the constraints of time—that is, the human limitation of perceiving nothing but the present.

Blood ties. Regional ties.

What sort of person you are in the present is merely a secondary concern. Far more important is how long “we” have been building our bond since the past, and how far that bond has allowed us to overcome our species’ temporal limitations.

The Japanese, too, understood this truth deep in their bones. Their wisdom was plain to see in the fact that, no matter how dazzlingly charming the characters who appeared in a romantic comedy might be, the ultimate victor was the childhood friend who had secured “regional ties” with the protagonist before the story even began.

How could I not follow their example? The moment I arrived in the archipelago to procure a hate potion, I sought out an old acquaintance.

“Ah, Jang-san! It’s been so long! Have you been well?”

“Yes. How about you?”

“Yes! Oh, it’s been ages, Dokseo-chan!”

“Ah. Yeah. Sis. Long time no see.”

Sure enough, upon meeting me, she flaunted the extraordinary closeness of our relationship to everyone around us by deploying her own exclusive form of address rather than a commonplace nickname like “Undertaker.” Like the childhood-friend trope, this was another time-honored Japanese convention. Faced with the august authority of her reshaping my alias, Undertaker—or Jang-uisa—into “Jang-san,” the other magical girls around us duly clamped their mouths shut.

“Uehara, you look much livelier than you did in Busan. Nothing beats home, does it?”

“Hehe. Yes! Welcome to Fukuoka, Jang-san!”

Uehara Shino. In my mind, her nickname was MacGuffin. To the Koreans, her alias was Alchemist.

Those with good memories would already have recalled her. Yes, Uehara Shino was one of the “Supreme 399” forcibly summoned into the Busan Station Tutorial Dungeon. To Oh Dokseo and me, she was practically a founding member. In the parlance of the times, you could say we shared the same void ties.

“You did so much for me in Busan. This time, let me show you around!”

The girl who had always been so timid at Busan Station now had other magical-girl apprentices following under her command in her hometown.

In my early runs, Uehara Shino had stayed on the Korean Peninsula throughout. Finding passage back to Japan was difficult enough, and conditions there were poor as well. After learning that the archipelago required everyone to use the term “magical girl” instead of “awakened,” she had chosen political asylum through tears of blood.

Uehara was still on the Korean Peninsula in my ninetieth run, when I ran a convenience store. She even inscribed this message on a banknote:

[Thank you sincerely. But no matter how I look at it, the store’s name and the employees’ T-shirts are strange. Manager, are you perhaps a member of the Red Army Faction? Yours sincerely, Uehara Shino.]

By around the 590th run, however, things had improved on several fronts. The biggest turning point was, of course, Inunaki Tunnel. Once the thing that had severed transport links between regions and sent the Japanese archipelago back to its feudal-era patchwork of sixty-odd provinces disappeared, the magical girls could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

With a little breathing room at last, the Magical Girl Council turned its attention to the skilled personnel who had slipped overseas. Uehara Shino, who had emerged from “the very same void” as “that Undertaker” and possessed “exceptional abilities to boot,” was naturally among their top recruitment priorities.

[“Still, being a magical girl is a bit...”]

[“Oh, we’ll fast-track your career in return!”]

The position offered to the alchemist was head of the apothecary. It entitled her to claim first priority over every medicinal ingredient produced or discovered in the Japanese archipelago.

My old friend, now firmly established back in her hometown, gave me a bashful smile.

“How can I help you, Jang-san?”

I can say with certainty that protagonists who personally tramped around searching for items in works of fiction were third-rate regressors. A true first-rater arranged for their contacts to bring them the desired item of their own accord.

Uehara not only went out to search for the hate potion herself, but also forcefully requested the Council’s cooperation. As a bonus, she implied that if they turned her down, she might return to serving under the Undertaker.

“Meow! If it’s a request from Undertaker, I’ll lend a paw too!”

[“It is time to repay all you have done for us. Leave it to me.”]

Manyoneko and Armless Sword joined in as well. Both ranked among the Magical Girl Council’s top ten.

“Here you are, Jang-san!”

As a result, less than a month after I landed in Japan, a hate potion was presented before me. Behold—the greatness of connections.

I had no idea why the protagonists of certain novels insisted on playing lone wolf. With things this convenient, why wouldn’t they build relationships with their companions? What strange protagonists.

Naturally, I would have to help them again later in return, but wasn’t that what friendship was all about?

“Except you were like that too until your sixth run, Mister.”

“Now, now. Why judge a man by his greenest youth?”

“You were older in your ‘greenest youth’ than I am now, Mister...”

Grumbling, Oh Dokseo looked down at the item on the table.

“So this is the hate potion.”

“Mm.”

The hate potion was a bright red pill. Its red was so deep and bloodlike that I wondered whether the Demonic Cult had manufactured it. It looked ominous at a glance; if anything went wrong after you swallowed it, the outcome ought to count as death by natural causes.

But for me, with the Total Fortune System bringing judgment day closer by the second, it was the finest elixir under heaven!

“What are you going to do? Take it right away? Honestly, I’m kind of curious what’ll happen if you eat it, Mister. I actually love hate-filled relationships.”

“No. Recklessly gulping down elixirs is a recipe for disaster. To brew their effects to perfection, you must consume them according to the proper procedures and methods.”

“Uh... Did hate potions have procedures like that?”

They did. More precisely, I was about to invent them.

7

From that day on, I quit talking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms. No matter how much discussion of it circulated on SG Net, I never joined in. Still less did I bring it up myself.

This astonishing change horrified the people around me first.

“T-Teacher hasn’t brought up Romance of the Three Kingdoms even once today?”

Cheon Yohwa.

“Boss, are you all right?! I scraped together every last bit of Ceylon Tea we had left and brought it!”

Seo Gyu.

[“Are you truly all right?”]

[“This is an emergency.”]

[“Undertaker. Could signs of a fall finally be appearing in you as well?”]

The Saintess.

“Th-the Guild Leader... is broken... What do I do? Healing isn’t working... I’m powerless...”

Sim Aryeon.

“Your Excellency. In truth, I have never been particularly fond of Romance of the Three Kingdoms either. The same goes for the Chu-Han Contention and Water Margin. Aren’t they excessively dated content?”

Yu-Psycho-One-Pass.

“Big brother, I think I’ve started liking Liu Bei lately. So you can talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms with me.”

Lee Hayul, that treacherous Wei-and-Jin fangirl.

“Undertaker, I’m sorry. I haven’t paid enough attention to you lately, have I? Some good food will help you feel a little better.”

Dang Seorin.

And:

“...”

Noh Doha.

While all my other companions worried about me—I had no idea what sort of person they’d thought I was all this time—Noh Doha alone stared at me with suspicion instead.

“You...”

“Yes?”

“Confess honestly. What sort of bullshit are you plotting this time...?”

Typical of a workaholic with a pathological suspicion of everything. In other words, unnecessarily perceptive.

“You’re a strange one. Who was it that constantly nagged me to stop stirring up Three Kingdoms discussions?”

“I’m worried because your eyes have been looking disgustingly scheming lately...”

“Now, now. Please refrain from slander, Commander.”

“...”

Simply eliminating Three Kingdoms discussions wasn’t enough to brew the hate potion’s effects to their highest potency. I began helping my other companions in earnest—openly, almost shamelessly.

“Yohwa. One of the students at Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School was carrying a concealed pistol. It looked dangerous, so I confiscated it.”

“Huh? Really? Whoa. Thank you, Teacher! Something terrible might have happened if it weren’t for you!”

“That could have been dangerous, Saintess. Even if you can stop time, you’re powerless against a threat that strikes before you have time to perceive it.”

“Ah... Yes. You’re right. Thank you for saving me, Undertaker.”

“Dang Seorin. I already know you can cast great spells by consuming your lifespan. And I don’t want you to die even a little earlier than I do.”

“... Undertaker. You...”

“Sword Marquis, sir. Shall we take a sightseeing trip to Mount Hua?”

“Oh! As always, only the Undertaker understands my heart!”

“Workshop Master Noh Doha. Isn’t it difficult doing all that work alone? I’ll help out as your assistant from time to time.”

“Fuck, you really are plotting something, you son of a bitch.”

A full year passed with me avoiding Three Kingdoms discussions and shamelessly flirting in every direction. And sure enough, “that anomaly” finally descended.

“Teacher! I can’t even imagine a world without you anymore!”

“Undertaker. Thinking about it, Inunaki Tunnel may have excellent security as a hideout, but you can’t really call the surroundings pleasant, can you? Why not move into my train?”

“Boss! I renamed the General Board the Three Kingdoms Board! Compared to everything you’ve done for me, it’s so little I’m embarrassed even to mention it, but please accept this small token of my gratitude.”

Inwardly, I clenched my fist.

‘It’s here!’

Yes. The “Savior anomaly” had appeared again. Just as fish invariably proliferate when a river’s water quality improves, the Savior anomaly promptly returned once the condition “the Undertaker doesn’t ramble about Romance of the Three Kingdoms” was fulfilled.

“You fucking son of a bitch.”

Noh Doha strangled me.

“You said you’d gotten rid of that thing. Hm? You said you knew perfectly well how to eradicate it. Then why the fuuuck did you deliberately bring it back? Hm...? Do you want to die? Has being strangled to death by me actually become your newest hobby?”

“For the record, you’ve only strangled me to death three times, Commander. And since I currently have a protective sheath of energy around my neck, it’s impossible for someone with your utterly pathetic mastery of aura to kill me.”

“Three times? Fuck, wasn’t it once? How did the other two... No, this crap isn’t important right now. Start talking about that fucking Three Kingdoms shit immediately...”

“Now, now. Is that any way to ask a favor?”

“No, seriously. This fucking bastard...”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The salvation zombies hammered fiercely on the steel door of Noh Doha’s private bunker. Since I’ve already covered this scene once before, I’ll skip the detailed description.

Of course, some things had changed. Oh Dokseo was hiding inside the bunker, peeking out, for instance, and among the blows on the steel door were knocks imbued with the Sword Marquis’s formidable internal energy. But even apart from those minor changes, one major difference remained.

“Commander Noh Doha.”

I took a step forward.

“You said something before, remember?”

“What? That working with you is fucking miserable...?”

“No. That you wanted to watch from a VIP seat when the day came to see what a wretched state the side effects of my wish to the Monkey’s Paw would leave me in, so you’d get in line early.”

“Huh...?”

“Thank you for your patience.”

BANG!

The steel door buckled.

The salvation zombies surged toward us past the final barricade.

“Teacher...” “Undertaker.” “Boss!” “Lord Jang!” “Guild Leader...” “Big brother.” “Undertaker.”

And at that very moment, I took the red pill from inside my clothes. My hands formed a seal handed down since the days of Naruto. In an end-of-days apocalypse ruled by anomalies, there were certain aesthetic conventions one had to uphold.

“Watch closely, Commander Noh Doha. I’m about to get just a little rough.”

“...”

“Cursed Technique Lapse: 「Savior」. Cursed Technique Reversal: 「Hate Potion」.”

“...”

“Hollow Technique: 「Affection Reversal」.”

CRUNCH.

I chewed up the red pill.

“Mister!”

Oh Dokseo shouted behind me. Her voice, as a terminal otaku, trembled with indescribable emotion. Translated into human language, it probably amounted to the pride of saying, “I’m the one who got that man into this! Me!”

“Mister, against a freeloading parasite anomaly like the Total Fortune System... would you lose?”

I smiled. Oh Dokseo. She, too, was a talented individual who understood how important aesthetic conventions were to defeating anomalies.

“I’d win.”

The regressor declares victory!

Amid the frenzy, Noh Doha alone muttered in a low, icy voice.

“You absolute son of a bitch...”