Chapter 164 - Blood Donor I

1

Since <The Metamorphosis> happened to come up in the last episode, I thought I might talk about another insect today.

The insect most beloved by Koreans. The ruler of summer. A quantum-mechanical bug whose presence or absence anywhere cannot be stated with certainty until it is observed.

The vampire pilot currently flying around right before my eyes, making a racket.

BZZZZZZ...

That's right.

Today's star is none other than the mosquito.

2

"Hwah! Hey! Hyeee!"

One day, I returned to the hideout to find Sim Aryeon dancing in the lobby.

Assuming, of course, that "making unidentifiable screeching noises while clapping in every direction" qualified as dancing.

CLAP CLAP! CLAP! CLAP CLAP!

Her palms repeatedly clapped at empty air.

To my knowledge, her aura had never reached the realm of the Mind Sword in any run, nor was it ever going to, so it was hard to imagine those movements contained some profound principle. Unless this was a pagan ritual to summon Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep.

"Aryeon. What on earth are you doing?"

"Oh. G-Guild Leader. Please kill the mosquito!"

I blinked.

"A mosquito? One got into our hideout? Through the Inunaki Tunnel?"

"Y-yes. I think this one little mosquito bastard has been following me around since last night. Waaaah. It keeps hovering at the edges of my vision, but I just can't catch it..."

Looking closely, I did indeed find mosquito bites on her wrists and forearms, swollen like plump pimples.

"Come now, Aryeon. You're a guild member upon whom I bestowed an aura training method. Losing sleep over a mere mosquito..."

"I-it's not my fault! This thing is ridiculously fast!"

Aryeon twisted this way and that, trying everything as she clapped her hands.

CLAP! CLAP!

BZZZZZZ!

Every attack missed. As if mocking its food pantry's pathetic handwork, the mosquito flew with the utmost grace and leisure.

"Y-you saw that, right? Guild Leader! This bastard! This mosquito bastard is making fun of me!"

"..."

"P-please don't look at me like that! Seriously, there's something strange about the mosquitoes this summer. They're incredibly fast and incredibly tough... H-haven't you noticed, Guild Leader?"

"Of course I haven't. I wear a protective sheath of energy twenty-four hours a day, so mosquitoes never get to bite me in the first place. It must have been centuries since one last sucked my blood."

Her mouth fell open.

"That's impossible... Sometimes I wonder if you're really human like me, Guild Leader. You're just so inhuman, I suppose..."

What an astonishing coincidence. I often had precisely the same thought when I looked at Aryeon.

But on this particular occasion, perhaps I should have listened to Pathetic Aryeon, defeated by a mosquito.

Even a broken clock scores a critical hit for two of the day's 86,400 seconds.

3

It was summer.

An especially hot summer, at that.

-Anonymous: Mosquitoes seem to have gone insane lately...

└Anonymous: For real. No matter how many I kill, they keep coming out of nowhere. I deliberately built my hideout smack in the middle of a void, and the crazy bastards still show up here. Killed fifteen just yesterday;

-Anonymous: You little fuckers, know when to stop sucking!

Two weeks after Aryeon's whining, posts saying "This weather is insane" and "I want to kill these mosquito bastards" began flooding SG Net.

Honestly, I still didn't think much of it at this point. Instead, I clicked my tongue at the awakened and their younger-generation frailty.

'Young people these days. If they're hot, can't they just improve their aura mastery and cool their own bodies?'

More importantly, a sharp rise in the mosquito-hatred index on Korean online communities in summer had been a fixture of every era. Nothing to make a fuss about, in other words.

With the arrival of the apocalyptic end times, humanity had lost its intimate relationship with air conditioners and electric fans.

Now, every summer presented humanity with a deadly choice: "Close the windows and enjoy a sauna" or "Open the windows and donate blood to mosquitoes." Most people willingly chose to volunteer as unpaid blood donors.

Even the awakened, members of a tiny privileged elite, could not escape summer on the Korean Peninsula.

"Dang Seorin, are you all right?"

"Hm...?"

"You look terrible. If you're tired, you can go back to your hideout and rest. You don't have to eat with me when you're not feeling well."

Sitting across the table, she looked as gloomy as someone who had stayed up all night.

At least once a month, we sought out a good restaurant and had a meal together. But that day, she was strangely listless.

"Oh... Thanks for worrying. But it's nothing serious."

"Has something been troubling you lately?"

"No, it's not that... It's just that the mosquitoes have been so noisy at night lately, they keep waking me up. I suppose the fatigue is piling up because I can't get a good, deep sleep."

She let out a long yawn.

I blinked.

"You, Dang Seorin, are losing sleep over mosquitoes?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. I developed a spell that works on insects, so I keep Spell-Song Chanting playing quietly every night... But it doesn't do much against mosquitoes. I'm wondering if I should improve the spell."

"How long have you been having trouble sleeping?"

"Let's see. Yaaawn. I don't think I've slept much since last week."

"..."

That was when a genuine sense of alarm began creeping up the back of my neck.

Other awakened were one thing, but even Dang Seorin being tormented for a whole week by insignificant creatures like mosquitoes defied common sense.

After finishing my restaurant outing with her, I immediately contacted the Korean Peninsula's dedicated Science Vessel.

"Saintess."

["Yes."]

Her answer came as if she had been waiting. Good evidence that a regressor enjoyed no such luxury as privacy.

"Have mosquitoes been troubling you lately as well?"

["Oh. A lot of people have been suffering because of mosquitoes lately. Perhaps because this summer is hotter than last year's, people's energy levels have indeed fallen severely."]

["I stop time when I sleep, so my sleep isn't disturbed like everyone else's."]

However, she added:

["When I'm awake, the mosquitoes keep coming at me too, which is troublesome."]

"Do they pester you enough that it seems a little strange?"

["Yes. It wasn't like this before. But ever since you told me that... story about the 'potato robots' from another run, Undertaker, the mosquitoes have become particularly relentless."]

I had no idea what correlation there could possibly be between the potato-Saintess story and mosquitoes, but this made me halfway certain.

"There's a strong chance this is an anomaly."

["Pardon?"]

"You may have heard, but Dang Seorin says mosquitoes have been tormenting her for a week too. Even though she sleeps with insect-repelling Spell-Song Chanting playing."

["I hadn't heard. I deliberately tune out when you're talking with other people, Undertaker."]

"This has never happened before. Perhaps this abnormal situation arose because other Gods of Alienation were subjugated."

Whenever a God of Alienation was subjugated, things that had never happened in previous runs would occur.

It was like aftershocks rumbling after a major earthquake swept through.

Abnormal situations erupted because the delicate balance maintained among the Gods of Alienation had collapsed.

"It's very likely this 'Mosquito anomaly' appeared under those same circumstances."

["Mosquitoes, and an anomaly."]

BZZZZZZ!

As it happened, a mosquito was flying right in front of my nose. Ordinarily I would have ignored it, but now that I suspected an anomaly, it was a serious eyesore.

["... But if an anomaly is transmitted to people when mosquitoes suck their blood, how on earth can we stop it?"]

A hint of dismay colored her otherwise emotionless voice.

["Perhaps an awakened with mastery of aura like you could manage it, Undertaker. But is it possible to avoid mosquito bites on the Korean Peninsula in summer?"]

["Is there a way?"]

I reached out and lightly slapped the mosquito in front of me.

POP!

Struck by the aura-powered slap, the mosquito's entire body burst. Pitch-black blood splashed out, sucked from someone, somewhere.

I shook off my hand.

"That's what I'm going to find out."

4

I immediately went to find Sim Aryeon and explained the situation.

Naturally, she was startled.

"What? An a-anomaly is behind this...?"

"Yes. And as far as I know, you were the first person to notice it, Aryeon. I need your cooperation."

"Eeeek..."

As we talked, I took a closer look and found her face very peculiar.

For one thing, the area beneath her eyes was drawn. To exaggerate a little, she was practically skin and bones. Presumably because the mosquitoes had been disrupting her sleep for weeks now.

But at the same time, there was what I could only call a "weary contentment." An odd ease and languor showed through.

"A-actually, something did seem a little strange."

"What, exactly?"

"I'm incredibly tired from not sleeping properly, but a few days ago I actually started feeling better..."

Feeling better?

The back of my neck went cold.

"Don't tell me you mean you feel good as if you're high on drugs?"

"What? Hmm... No. It's a little different from drugs. My brain still works. Perfectly normally. It's just that I don't get stressed anymore, I guess, or that even remembering my embarrassing past doesn't upset me... Oh."

BZZZZZ.

A mosquito approached and landed on the back of her hand.

She gave a weak little smile. Not long ago, she would have freaked out and clapped at it, but now she gazed down at the mosquito as though it were cute, even lovable.

"Aryeon?"

"Look, Guild Leader. Normally, whenever I remember my embarrassing past, I always scream 'Gyaaagh! Gyaaagh!' Right? Cringing from head to toe."

"... You do."

"Even now, I'm remembering my embarrassing middle-school days. Back then, I thought I was a greater genius than da Vinci, so I churned out embarrassing memories with every breath. When painters held exhibitions, I'd deliberately go there, set up my easel at the entrance to the gallery, and display my own paintings. Ahaha. Just remembering that should have me rolling around on the floor..."

SLUUUURP.

The mosquito inserted its straw and sucked her blood. Clearly, it had drawn blood more than once or twice; its skill surpassed the needlework of most veteran nurses.

"Ahhh..."

Her shoulders trembled with apparent pleasure.

"I-it doesn't hurt anymore."

"..."

"That's right. Maybe I did do something wrong in middle school. But wasn't t-taking the world so lightly precisely the privilege of youth? Maybe I've been too harsh on myself all this time..."

Unbelievable.

"Aryeon."

I adopted a grave expression.

"You said you were vice president of the student council in high school, didn't you?"

"What? Oh, yes. I was. I was going through my storm-and-stress phase in all sorts of ways back then... But how did you know that, Guild Leader...? Ohh. I told you in another run."

"Yes. You had to go up onstage and give a speech, but you deliberately threw away your prepared script in front of all the students."

"Huh."

"Then you shouted, 'Everyone! These crude words cannot fully express my feelings for you!' You meant to deliver a brilliant speech off the cuff, but you'd barely ever done that before, so after throwing away the script, you kept stammering—"

"GYAAAAAAAGH!"

She went into convulsions.

"AAAAAGH! S-stop! Please stop! Why! How! How do you know that? W-which run's version of me told you something like that, Guild Leader? Why are you saying this to me? A-ahhh! My embarrassing past! My embarrassing past! GYAAAAAGH!"

SLUUURP!

Blood was sucked up through the mosquito's syringe-straw.

"Oh."

Then something astonishing happened.

Her facial muscles, which had been twitching as though she might faint at any moment, suddenly relaxed.

Like a monk who had attained enlightenment.

"Ah... Wellll, that did happen. But isn't that sort of thing a privilege of childhood too? Pretending to be someone impressive... Nobody can start out possessing something special."

"..."

"You keep pretending you're special, acting as though you've become special... And little by little, you actually build up something special of your own. Then you realize that being special doesn't make you as happy as you imagined when you were young. As you let go of your fixation on being special and the delusions surrounding it, you begin to cherish the people around you. It's nothing to be ashamed of, just an experience everyone goes through in youth..."

At that moment, I remembered what the Saintess had told me.

["Yes. It wasn't like this before."]

["But ever since you told me that... story about the 'potato robots' from another run, Undertaker."]

["The mosquitoes have become particularly relentless."]

That's right.

The Mosquito anomaly that had appeared this summer was not merely drawing human blood.

Astonishingly, these mosquitoes were sucking out their victims' "embarrassing pasts" along with it.