Chapter 15 - The Internationalist I

1

Few things matter more to a person than mental resilience.

I already stressed that in my account of Old Man Scho. Even if you can split the heavens with a single sword, once your mind breaks, you're done for.

I, Undertaker, took great pains to look after my mental health, too.

Allow me to introduce my own unique method.

For five to seven runs—roughly a hundred years—I work hard. I run myself ragged trying to prevent the end of the world.

Then, for the next run, I enjoy life.

'The end of the world? How is that my problem?' I abandon that whole line of thought.

I turn away from lives I could save. I stay out of destinies I could change. I prioritize only my own life, my own peace, and my own enjoyment.

I devote an entire run of roughly twenty years to healing my mind and having a pleasant vacation.

An event run that briefly branches off the main story route—a side story, you might call it.

Call me a coward if you like. There's nothing I can do about it. My mind has its limits.

Without resorting to a method like this, I could never have endured the long life of a regressor all the way to my 1,183rd run.

As it happened, run ninety was precisely one of those "vacation runs."

The timing truly couldn't have been better. Rest was essential if I hoped to reel my sanity back in after Go Yori had sent it flying all the way to Mars.

"So I'd like your opinion. How should I relax if I want people to say, 'Now that guy really knew how to take a damn good break'?"

"W-why are you asking meee...?"

The fairy trembled, its head clamped in my hand.

It was the tutorial fairy.

In an ordinary run, I would have dispatched it in a flash before it could kill Seo Gyu, but this ninetieth run was my so-called sabbatical. I was free to follow the compass of my heart.

Well, in the previous run, number eighty-nine, I'd imprisoned the fairies en masse and put on one hell of a survival show, which had washed away some of my lingering resentment... Anyway.

After capturing the tutorial fairy, I dragged it to one side of the waiting hall.

It resisted at first, but after I folded its elf ears twice and turned them into half-elf ears, it became very well behaved.

"No, I'm just asking. Come to think of it, we've hardly ever had a proper, leisurely conversation."

"Eek. Why did a lunatic like this have to turn up in my assigned area...? Fairy No. 264 is the most unfortunate fairy in the universe..."

"Now, now. What's so unfortunate about a bastard who was about to blow a civilian's head off out of nowhere?"

"But, buuut, if I don't drive home the fact that this isn't a joke, it'll lead to much greater harm and tragedy later! From a utilitarian standpoint, there was nothing wrong with my response!"

"So you're a utilitarian."

I'd learned something new.

Another of regression's little pleasures, I supposed.

"Anyway, tell me what you think I should do for my vacation. All you fairies have your lives mortgaged to the Fairy Monarch, don't you? You must think every day that you'd want for nothing if you could just take a vacation."

"Eeeek? H-how did you know?!"

The fairy jolted in surprise inside my grip.

"You! Could you be one of those RPR types my seniors warned me about until my ears nearly fell off, telling me to be careful and stay on guard?"

"RPR?"

"Regression, possession, reincarnation! Those accursed protagonists! And the variation on that old formula: people with prophetic abilities! Our most terrifying enemies! Because of you lot, fairies get treated as early-game mobs in literature!"

"Oh. Do these RPR people, or whatever you call them, actually exist in the fairy world?"

"No? They're just recurring fixtures in classic fairy literature."

So Old Man Scho and I really were special.

I'd hoped there might be more companions out there, and felt a little deflated.

"I see. Anyway, I'm not particularly hostile toward your Fairy Monarch, so don't worry. All you have to do is advise me on my twenty-year vacation plan. If your advice is no good, I'll grind up your head and make fairy juice."

"Eeeeeek! What horrific wording! I'm confident I'd win if I filed a complaint with the Fairy Rights Commission!"

"Earth doesn't have that shit."

"What kind of barbaric civilization is this...?"

In the end, Fairy No. 264 raised the white flag.

"Hmm, hmmm. Anyway, you're saying you've been given twenty years of free time? And you feel like going a little wild during that period?"

"That's right."

The fairy's expression turned resolute.

"If No. 264 were given freedom and power as great as yours, I'd want to drive the bamboo spear of revolution into the Fairy Monarch's gut!"

"..."

So it was a utilitarian and a revolutionary fighter.

I'd learned something new.

Another of regression's little pleasures... Well, I wasn't so sure about that.

The day will come when I discuss this, but the fairies were actually divided into republicans and royalists. Not that it mattered right now.

"Drive a bamboo spear into its gut? How? You've all got explosive seals on your hearts. If you defy the Fairy Monarch, your heart will burst immediately and your whole body will melt, won't it?"

"H-how do you even know that...? Hmmm. No, if you already knew that much, that actually makes this easier. Anyway! The Fairy Monarch is a despot far more vicious than the bourgeoisie! Even if No. 264's heart must burst, the Fairy Monarch must be overthrown for the advancement of history and the transformation of civilization!"

The fairy flapped its arms.

"Human! Though your species is physically primitive and weak, you have achieved an admirable, linear progression of the mind! When No. 264—no, every member of our [Fairy Revolution Club]—read history books saying you'd chopped off the heads of absolute monarchs hundreds of years ago, we were deeply moved!"

So there was a club like that.

"Sadly, fairy society is in a hopeless situation, with salvation through our own efforts a distant dream...! But with help from a human as powerful as you, salvation through outside aid may be possible! Human! Help us, and stand with us until the day the red flag flies, planted in the Fairy Monarch's belly button!"

If this had been a game, a notification would have chimed, and a message would have appeared: 'A new route has opened. Will you help the fairies bring about a revolution?'

"Hmm."

My interest was piqued.

There had been one run in which I'd fought the Fairy Monarch. Repeating that, only this time with an allied army of fairies instead of on my own...

But I shook my head.

"Sorry, but I'll have to turn down that offer."

"What...? Why, human?!"

"I'm a bit worn out in body and mind right now, so a combat route is a bit much. I'm more drawn to a support route. What I need right now is a lonely city man's warm cup of coffee, not the tears of blood of a revolutionary charging the barricades with a red flag in hand."

"What a petty-bourgeois notion! Even at this very moment, fairies are killing humans against their will under the Fairy Monarch's evil orders! Your own countrymen! Can you neither see nor hear their blood, sweat, and tears? Do you not fear a scolding from Mr. Marx?!"

"Sorry, but in the country I live in, anticommunism is embedded deep in the national psyche..."

"Dog of capitalism! Traitor to the people! I curse you!"

"Instead, I could lift the curse on just you and hire you separately."

"I swear eternal loyalty, Master."

Of course, around my 210th run, I really did join the [Fairy Revolution Club] as a guest member and fire the opening shot of the revolution, but that's a story from another run.

I'd succeeded in hiring the tutorial fairy.

"Uh, excuse me... Boss?"

Oh. Right.

For the record, Seo Gyu had been beside us listening in on the conversation the entire time. After all, I'd saved him from having his head blown apart by the fairy.

For some reason, he was looking at me as though I were a lunatic.

"What should I do now...?"

"Your ability is to operate an online community, and any awakened can access that community even without a network connection."

"What?"

"SG Net would be a good name for it. Best of luck."

"What?"

I parted ways with Seo Gyu.

After farming a silver bell from the souvenir shop, I gave the fairy a piggyback ride. I felt it tilt its head behind me.

"But, human master, what are you planning to use me for now that you've hired me? World conquest? Revolution? Dictatorship? A few quick stabs with an ice pick? Once you've succeeded in your country's revolution, will you export your second-in-command to another country under the pretext of internationalism because they've achieved far too much?"

I had no idea what materials Fairy No. 264 had read while researching Earth to acquire such distorted prejudices.

But as the fairy had said, I was a dog of capitalism.

I intended to dip my toes into the cutting edge of modern consumer culture.

"No."

"Then what?"

"We're going to open a convenience store."

2

The twenty-four-hour convenience store.

Before the gate crisis erupted, these small shops could be found all over Korea.

They may not evoke quite as much nostalgia as the neighborhood corner shop, but once the end of the world begins to accelerate, convenience stores, too, earn a proud place among the "things we remember fondly."

["Hey, rookie. Go to the convenience store and get me some Dunhills."]

["What?"]

Convenience-store jokes were also a common way for awakened to torment their newest recruit.

Based on my experience across regressions, a surprising number of awakened refused to throw away their wallets even after money lost all value.

In fact, people who used to pay exclusively with debit cards started carrying banknotes after civilization collapsed.

Part of it may have been that cards no longer worked... But money must have been a kind of talisman to them.

A talisman carrying a stubborn insistence that the world hadn't ended yet. Or a wish that it wouldn't.

Strange as it sounds, when awakened from different countries came together for an operation, they even had a custom of exchanging banknotes from their homelands. Koreans offered won, Americans dollars.

Like soccer players swapping jerseys after a match.

At one point, I had collected more than thirty kinds of banknotes in my wallet.

Why am I suddenly telling you all this?

To emphasize that, in a dying world, people not only refuse to discard money, but also place enormous value on "memories."

"We're going to create the only convenience store in the world operating normally."

"Huh."

A truly ambitious aspiration!

I made this proclamation after forcibly occupying a convenience store in Seoul (the owner had fled anyway). It was that memorable store where I'd first met the Saintess.

Despite hearing a plan as stirring as world conquest itself, Fairy No. 264—no, our store's Employee No. 1—merely blinked.

"What kind of gocepa-eating-grass nonsense is that?"

"What's a gocepa?"

"The closest equivalent on Earth would be a 'puppy.'"

So it meant dog-eating-grass nonsense.

But I was a man who had already lived nearly a hundred lives. I'd mastered the art of persuasion.

"No. 264. There is a tremendous flaw in your theory of world revolution."

"Huh?"

"The world is vast, and there are many people in it. Going to each one in turn and asking them to join the revolutionary cause is an amateur's approach."

With a solemn expression, I declared:

"A true master doesn't go looking for people. He makes them come to him."

"...!"

"We will build a convenience store that workers of all nations come to of their own accord. This is the revolutionary base of the Sixth International! You are the first banner of its avant-garde, and the proud clerk of our convenience store. The rise and fall of our International depends on how wholeheartedly you serve our customers!"

"Comrade Manager...!"

The fairy prostrated itself on the store's not-yet-fully-cleaned floor, shedding great, fat tears. Its tears smelled of flowers, filling the shop with a sweet fragrance in an instant.

That would save on air freshener.

"I've gravely misunderstood you all this time, Comrade Manager! I swear eternal loyalty!"

"Good. Since this enterprise serves the revolution, I hope you'll attend to our customers here 365 days a year, without pay."

"Yes! Without pay!"

No. 264 had merely switched careers from the Fairy Monarch's slave to mine, but it looked happy.

Wasn't happiness all that mattered?

I stole a political party banner from a nearby intersection.

Turning it over, I painted words on the reverse with skills that practically qualified as fine calligraphy. Then I hung it in front of the shop.

[We Are Open for Business as Usual.]

It was a historic moment: humanity's last convenience store, the "Sixth International," had opened at Jamsu Bridge in Seoul.