Chapter 183 - The Sage II

This may seem out of the blue, but there is a question I would like to ask you all.

Have you ever wondered about this while reading a story whose protagonist is an infinite regressor?

-Final boss defeated! The protagonist has finally reached a happy ending! END!

-So what now?

-What happens if the protagonist dies of old age, surrounded by loved ones? Do they regress again? Live the exact same life all over again?

Exactly.

Surprisingly, a happy ending is not what matters to a regressor.

When you have an infinite supply of regression coins, a happy ending is really no different from a gacha game where you keep pulling until you get what you want.

The true ending waiting beyond the happy ending—that is the real problem.

Perhaps there is no such thing as an “end” for a regressor. Perhaps they must repeat the lives they have already lived, and the lives they have yet to live, for all eternity.

Behold the so-called Never Ending Story hypothesis.

Countless works of fiction have employed all sorts of means to avoid a never-ending story.

The simplest and most elegant solution is simply to give the protagonist eternal life and youth.

-The protagonist gets trapped in Infinite Tsukuyomi if they die a natural death? Then I'll give them a body that can't die a natural death at all.

That solves everything. The protagonist can no longer die of old age, and therefore no longer has to keep regressing.

The problem is that life is always the real thing, and eternal life does not exist in the world I inhabit.

There was, however, a virus that offered something resembling it.

“Well, what can you do? If I get infected with Udumbara, I'll lose my regression ability too, and eventually die like anyone else.”

I answered calmly.

I had personally wrestled with this particular problem many times, long before Yu Jiwon ever asked.

“But wouldn't that be a disaster?!”

The one panicking was Yu Jiwon, not me. The psychopath who had staked her entire career on my life crumpled her brow like aluminum foil.

“Your Excellency! An anomaly that harmful must be rooted out and eliminated the instant it is spotted!”

“Yes. I already go to Onyang and subjugate it every time I regress, so don't worry.”

“No! Ah! The very fact that you have any contact at all with such an anomaly is deeply troubling to me, Your Excellency. Please entrust its subjugation to me from now on!”

“Sure. You mean you'll keep some Udumbara seeds in reserve, then use them as your trump card if circumstances force you to betray me?”

“Good heavens! How could you imagine something so dreadful? Why will you not recognize my devotion to you...?”

Jiwon's fits were nothing new, so I ignored her.

I looked at the magic mirror again.

-From next time onward, become infected with Udumbara immediately, then die.

“Hmm.”

In any case, it was curious.

The mirror before me knew exactly what could truly kill a regressor like me.

“Jiwon.”

“Yes, Your Excellency! If you wish, I shall prove my loyalty this very instant by cutting open my chest and showing you my heart—”

“One more word of bullshit and I won't tell you I'm a regressor in the next run.”

“On further reflection, perhaps the concept of loyalty never existed in my mind at all.”

“Good. Anyway, about this mirror. It seems to know I'm a regressor, doesn't it?”

“Hmm? Hm? Hmmm...”

Jiwon rested a hand on her chin and moved close to my shoulder.

The full-length mirror reflected us side by side.

-Die right now.

-From next time onward, become infected with Udumbara immediately, then die.

This ChatGPT straight out of a fairy tale cleverly produced two versions of its answer to accommodate its two users.

“See? Did you hear what the mirror told me? It's not suggesting I die ‘right now.’ It's telling me to die ‘from next time onward.’”

“Hmm. Indeed.”

“Could ‘next time’ mean ‘the next run’? In other words, it's telling me not to subjugate Udumbara next run, but to get infected and then die.”

“... I see. Now that you mention it, that interpretation makes sense.”

The furrow between Jiwon's brows deepened.

“Then this anomaly's power is far from ordinary. It means it saw through your identity and abilities at a glance, Your Excellency.”

I nodded.

“I agree. This is no ordinary anomaly.”

“... But that makes it strange after all, Your Excellency. An anomaly with such insight and access to information, doing nothing but verbally cursing people to die? Even squandering one's abilities has its limits.”

“I've been wondering the same thing.”

“...”

We looked at one another in silence. In the end, the same sentence was written in both our eyes.

Just what was this anomaly?

“... For now, we can be sure it's the mirror from the Snow White fairy tale.”

“But in Snow White, Your Excellency, the queen asked the mirror a question first. We haven't asked anything, yet this mirror has taken it upon itself to give us answers.”

“And every answer is the same. Even its answer to me amounts to the same thing it tells everyone else. ‘Die.’ What kind of rigged Q&A is this?”

“Perhaps it retains its identity across runs? That would explain how it learned you were a regressor.”

“That would mean it's powerful enough to transcend runs, which makes it even stranger. With all that power, why crawl into your bedroom just to keep telling you to die? Is it a stalker?”

“Hmm. Because I am that valuable a talent?”

“The anomaly must need its eyes checked.”

“... I have no idea what it is.”

“... Yeah. Neither do I.”

In the end, we raised the white flag in run 41.

We surrendered. Truly, we couldn't come up with a single guess about this anomaly's nature or purpose.

In one run, I smashed the mirror in a fit of “Ah, fuck it,” but that only backfired.

“Your Excellency. You destroyed the magic mirror and threw it outside last time, did you not?”

“I did.”

“The rate of void appearances has risen rapidly around the spot where the glass shards were discarded. The number of anomalies has also increased exponentially.”

“...”

I learned later that this was the so-called “broken windows” effect.

You know the theory that leaving a broken window unrepaired causes crime rates to begin rising in the surrounding area?

Like the heart of a certain archer who participated in the Holy Grail War, the magic mirror was made of glass.

Breaking either one produced the same phenomenon. Namely, everything around it got fucked.

“So, to sum things up, we know almost nothing about what this anomaly is...”

“Whereas the anomaly understands your identity and abilities, Your Excellency, and probably those of every other human as well.”

“But if we destroy it, the broken windows effect kicks in and other anomalies start swarming around it like flies?”

“Yes. Leaving it alone is unsettling, but destroying it causes a disaster instead.”

“And yet, if we leave it alone, it only tells whoever looks at it to die, without actually harming anyone?”

“Precisely.”

“Fuck. Seriously, what is this bastard?”

“The mystery deepens.”

What kind of anomaly even was this?

Worse, as the runs progressed, the magic mirror's answers began changing in subtle ways.

It gave the same answer from run 41 through run 116, only to suddenly update its response in run 117.

-Preserve all newly born lives. It makes no difference anyway. Then become infected with Udumbara and die.

“...”

Newly born lives.

That referred to children who had not been born in previous runs, but had come into being for the first time in this one.

For example, the little girl who had given me sugar-covered doughnuts in Haeundae. Jeong Seoa, the bakery couple's daughter, had existed only in run 19.

-Preserve all newly born lives. It makes no difference anyway. Then become infected with Udumbara and die.

The magic mirror advised me to “preserve” those lives like taxidermy specimens.

“Preserve them? What is that supposed to mean, Your Excellency?”

“...”

Jiwon tilted her head, utterly unable to understand the words.

Probably anyone else in the world would have been equally bewildered.

But I alone understood the mirror perfectly.

'... It's telling me to use [Time Seal].'

Preserving time. Sealing time.

Making the target repeat their happiest day, at the cost of being forgotten by everyone.

The magic mirror was pointing to that ability of mine.

'This mirror has seen through not only my regression ability, but Time Seal as well?'

No one remembered the Jeong Seoa of run 19 anyway.

Not even her parents.

Because in other runs, a different child had been born instead of her.

So whether I used Time Seal or not, it “made no difference anyway.” No one but me could remember Seoa.

Therefore:

-Preserve all newly born lives. It makes no difference anyway. Then become infected with Udumbara and die.

The outcome would be the same: everyone would forget them, and no one would remember. Wouldn't it be kinder, then, to let them “repeat a happy day forever”—

Rather than falling into the bottomless abyss of death, regressor, wouldn't they be far happier savoring eternity within the graves you built—

That was what the magic mirror whispered.

'Ah.'

Only then did I realize what this anomaly was.

No, more precisely, I understood the principle that governed its actions.

The magic mirror from the Snow White fairy tale.

Strange as it might sound, this anomaly was simply telling people how to reach their “happy ending.”

King Midas.

There is a figure by that name in Greek mythology.

Yes, the king famous for the “Midas touch.”

Anything he touched turned to gold. You could call him the ancient world's Federal Reserve Board.

A somewhat less famous legend about Midas has also been passed down.

One day, the king supposedly captured a sage who was half man, half beast.

He was a demihuman with a human upper body and the lower body of a horse—or a goat.

And then, as now, the fate of a demihuman caught by humans was pitiful indeed.

After threatening the sage, the king abruptly presented him with a thoroughly human demand.

-You there! Give us humans the finest and greatest happiness at once!

-Eeeek...

The sage didn't particularly want to answer. Frankly, he was sick of humans treating him like some kind of lottery ticket.

When the demihuman prisoner dared to play hard to get, the king of humans employed another “all too human” solution.

He plied the sage with strong liquor until he was blind drunk!

Only then, thoroughly intoxicated, did the sage comply with the human king's demand.

-You s-stupid mayflies. I kept quiet on purpose out of consideration for your lowly race, so why do you keep forcing me to answer? P-pissing me off...

-What?

-The “finest and greatest happiness” is i-impossible for your kind in the first place.

Because:

-That “supreme happiness” means never being born, never existing, remaining in nothingness altogether. For humans, never being born is best. O-once you're born, hurrying up and dropping dead is the next best thing.

-...

There was no established account of what happened to the human king after he was hit with this legendary hate comment.

The anecdote, also recounted in Nietzsche's work, essentially said this:

-Humans always ask about happiness.

-But ultimate happiness does not exist for humans, because life itself is suffering.

-Therefore, freedom from suffering is the only happiness, and escaping suffering as quickly as possible is wisdom.

-Better never to have been born.

An unequivocal conclusion indeed.

The reason this anecdote suddenly came to mind while I was discussing the magic mirror was simple.

“Jiwon. The magic mirror has actually been taking our questions and answering them all along—”

“Pardon? What do you mean, Your Excellency?”

“Think carefully. Whatever we ask, don't all our questions ultimately come down to one ultimate question?”

“One ultimate question.”

“Yes.”

Mirror, mirror.

Please tell me how to be happy.

“Which numbers to pick to win the lottery, how to reconcile with our families, how to get ahead in life. In the end, the questions humans would ask a magic mirror are all aimed at their own happiness and well-being.”

“...”

“So from the mirror's perspective, all our questions are superficial, and their substance is identical.”

“Tell me how to be happy. ... You mean that is the question the mirror hears from us, Your Excellency.”

Exactly.

The mirror already knew what we would ask without needing to hear our voices.

That was why it automatically supplied an answer whenever our reflections passed before it.

-Die right now.

Immediate death.

That alone was the only happiness permitted to humans in this world stained by the void.

I tapped the mirror lightly.

“In the Snow White fairy tale, this object is called a magic mirror. Magicians have symbolized sages since ancient times.”

“Sages.”

“Yes. And the magic mirror in Harry Potter is also where the ‘Philosopher's Stone’ is secretly hidden. In other words, the name of the anomaly before us is none other than—”

The Sage's Mirror.

That was this anomaly's true name.

“The Sage's Mirror... I see. I believe that is a fitting name.”

Jiwon nodded, a hand on her chin.

“Just as I would expect of Your Excellency Undertaker. Then the countermeasure for this anomaly is...”

“There isn't one. If it recommends death to humans, it must long for its own nonexistence as well. It won't cause trouble for those around it.”

“...”

“If it's too noisy, cover it with a blanket. Perhaps darkness, with nothing to reflect, is true happiness for a mirror.”

“Indeed. That makes sense.”

Jiwon brought an airline blanket—probably something else she'd picked up somewhere; old habits die hard—and covered the mirror with it.

Just before it was completely enveloped in darkness, the mirror spoke in a voice as emotionless as Jiwon's.

-Die right now.

The blanket slipped into place.

And the mirror fell silent.

There is an epilogue.

In almost every run, the Sage's Mirror invariably appeared at Jiwon's side.

Now that we knew how to handle it, I paid it no special attention, but whenever I visited her room, I would lift the blanket a little and check the mirror.

Why? No particular reason. I was curious whether it might change again.

-Preserve all newly born lives. It makes no difference anyway. Then become infected with Udumbara and die.

Of course, the mirror's answer did not change easily.

I checked once in every run from 117 through 430, but our esteemed sage's answer remained the same.

Hurry up and die yourself, it said, and before you do, at least hold funerals for those poor lives.

'An utterly useless answer. Well, that's what all the wise sayings of sages are like.'

Even a regressor's curiosity has its limits.

When it showed no sign of changing at all, I finally stopped checking the mirror for a while.

Then, in run 593, it suddenly came to mind.

'Would its answer have changed by now?'

Run 593 was the run in which I finally succeeded in subjugating the Operator of All Things at Play.

It was also the run in which that brat Oh Dokseo made some cheeky declaration about saving me.

The mirror was still kept in Jiwon's private room. For the first time in a very, very long while, I lifted the blanket.

A reunion after a thousand years.

“...”

The mirror was clean.

And quiet.

Jiwon probably hadn't done anything to maintain it, yet it was clear and utterly spotless. It seemed to look into not only my face, but my innermost thoughts.

The silence continued.

Just as I began wondering why it was so quiet:

-Keep living.

“...”

-Keep living.

I heard footsteps behind me.

“Hmm? Your Excellency Undertaker? You're here?”

“...”

“How unexpected, for you to visit me in person. Has something happened?”

Jiwon's figure briefly appeared in the mirror as well.

Then the voice sounded softly once more.

-Keep living.