Chapter 21 - The Reader I

Now that we’ve covered something a little serious, it’s time to lighten the mood again.

In the earliest days of my regressions—before my twentieth run, that is—I was far too serious. It was all because I believed that if I just got my act together and worked hard, I could definitely save the world.

I’m not about to disparage that effort. But it was somewhat arrogant. Who the hell did I think I was, treating my own weight as equal to the weight of the world?

Infinite regression? That’s just an awakened ability.

People need to know how to let go of themselves. The weight you shed gives you room to let other people in.

Anyway, my method of “letting go” is “hobbies.”

I guarantee you won’t find another regressor with as many different hobbies as me.

The most important thing in a regressor’s life is always maintaining their mental health, and hobbies are like housekeepers who clean the home called your mind.

In terms of floor space, a regressor’s inner world is an extravagantly luxurious palace spanning thousands of pyeong, fit for the highest nobility. Naturally, it takes quite a few maids to “clean” it.

The duties of the maids I’ve hired—in other words, my hobbies—are as follows.

[Gaming, browsing SG Net, being a barista, pumping iron, tormenting fairies, giving Seo Gyu hell, cooking, taking walks, listening to music, playing music, stealing Dang Seorin’s pointed hat and secretly hiding it under my bed, guitar, giving Seo Gyu hell, violin, piano, painting, sculpting, pottery, collecting radios, secretly listening to recordings stolen from Old Man Scho’s phone, running a ranch, giving Seo Gyu hell, picking any profession and living that life...]

But I have no intention of discussing every one of those maids. Nothing could be more boring than rambling about hobbies other people can’t relate to.

Thus, the maid I’ve selected today is named “reading.”

Specifically, “reading web novels.”

Originally, I knew nothing about web novels.

Aside from reading a few martial arts novels as a kid, I didn’t discover the web-novel genre until around my 555th run.

Someone I met in that very run introduced me to them.

This person was an awakened named Oh Dokseo. I’ll have a chance to talk about that one in the very next episode.

All that matters right now is that I gained a new hobby, and it made me happy.

What I liked most about web novels was how much content each individual work offered. Reading, as they say, is food for the soul. And when it came to food, I placed a very high premium on quantity over quality.

At least in this restaurant called web novels, it seemed I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of feed.

Of course, that was a fucking delusion.

“There are... no novels left to read?”

I was shocked.

My indulgence in gluttonous feasts lasted only until run 556. In other words, I’d exhausted all my feed in just one or two runs. Web novels were actually a relatively new cultural phenomenon, and there were surprisingly few of them.

“Uh. Hmm. Is it time to explore some other genres...?”

A thirsty person can’t be picky about wells.

I’d started out reading only fantasy, but now I devoured academy stories, horror stories, romance fantasy, martial arts, otherworld stories, professional fiction, fanfiction, gender-swap stories, yuri, and more. Regardless of genre, I gobbled up anything written in King Sejong’s invention. Even that wasn’t enough, so I embraced the alphabet and Japanese too.

A new world opened up.

I was happy.

Run 558 ended.

The new world perished.

“There are... no novels left to read?”

I was shocked all over again.

Now I really had scraped the bottom clean. There was nothing left to eat.

My palate was by no means discerning.

I happily consumed novels by postmodernists who boldly replaced double quotation marks (“”) with reverse double quotation marks (”“).

I consumed minimalist masterpieces that omitted periods in dialogue, as well as masterworks by a new generation of phoneticians who tried to convey their characters’ distinctive voices with tildes (~), or their silence with two dots (..).

I even consumed biting satires of modern selfishness in which an original character absent from the source novel appeared in a fanfic, gobbled up every fortuitous encounter the protagonist was supposed to get, and then looked at said protagonist and asked, “Why is that guy so much weaker than in the original? (Tilts head).”

I also consumed the work of an epidemic researcher who standardized every laugh in the novel as “ho ho,” infecting every character with Ho-Ho Syndrome.

In short, even bizarre documents containing sentences like:

”Hmm~ How strange.. Was the protagonist always.. this weak? Ho! Ho! Ho“

were something I gladly accepted as my daily bread.

Ah—.

From now on, you may call me not the awakened Undertaker, but the diver of the web-novel world. Because that’s what I am.

This was my rock bottom, my deep sea, my Mariana Trench. If I descended any deeper, finding food would be the least of my concerns. I wouldn’t even be able to breathe.

A hellscape where even a seasoned regressor like me couldn’t guarantee survival!

Thus, I could say with confidence:

“There are... no novels left to read.”

Countless readers besides me eventually encounter this exact situation.

At that point, a reader generally has two paths to choose from: resolve to take a break from web novels, or change classes to an author and produce their own feed.

As luck would have it, I wasn’t an “ordinary” reader.

I was an infinite regressor.

A regressor had a third path.

“I’ll have to kidnap all the authors and turn them into machines that do nothing but shit out stories.”

I threw out my chest.

A path no one had traveled.

Yet a path every reader had dreamed of at least once.

I, the Undertaker, proudly stepped onto that path.

I spent one run gathering web-novel authors’ personal details and other information, then traveled all over the country collecting authors as soon as the next run began.

Of course, authors weren’t strange creatures you could catch by throwing a red-and-white ball at them, so I had to manually add each one to my collection.

Someone sensitive to authors’ feelings might have raised a minor objection: “Isn’t that kidnapping, not collecting?”

But by around run 560, I was rather strong. Wouldn’t being raised in captivity under a regressor’s protection make them happier than living in that harsh world?

At last, I succeeded in collecting over three hundred authors and ascended to the rank of Authormon Master. The authors probably had no idea who had dragged them away, why, or where they’d been taken.

“Where are we?”

“Excuse me... Are you, by any chance...?”

“Oh, ProseThug? Aren’t you ProseThug?”

“Ah, I thought so. You’re WritingSlave. We met briefly at that wedding last time, right?”

“YuriIntrusionBug! You’re here too!”

“Whoa, HaremPureLove! Hey, man!”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

With hundreds of authors assembled in a hotel lobby, plenty of them recognized each other, as expected. Unable to hide their fear, they nevertheless tried to make sense of the situation.

“But why on earth were we brought here?”

“Has anyone been given an explanation?”

“Sorry. I suddenly blacked out, and when I woke up, I was here... I’ve already been here three days.”

“Three days?”

“Oh, it’s been four for me.”

“Wow. That must have been so hard.”

“Huh? No? They serve balanced meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the beds are comfortable, and I don’t have to post chapters every day. It’s been great.”

“...?”

Time to give them an explanation.

“Ah, ah. Can you hear me?”

I took the microphone and climbed onto the check-in counter. Hundreds of eyes turned toward me.

Actually, I was raising my voice with amplification magic, so the microphone was purely decorative. Still, standing in front of these authors somehow made me feel I ought to observe the proper courtesies.

Despite appearances, the 335 people kidnapped to this hotel were brilliant creators selected through painstaking rounds of screening. Regardless of genre, gender, or age, only authors who had made my heart race even once were gathered here.

“Hello. I am an awakened known by the alias Undertaker. Some of you seem to have guessed already, but everyone gathered here is an author involved in the web-novel industry.”

A stir ran through the crowd.

“Only authors?”

“Where are we?”

“If there’s nothing but authors here, this must be hell.”

“You there, with the microphone! Who are you?”

I spoke solemnly.

“As I said, I am an awakened known by the alias Undertaker. This is a hotel near Incheon. The original staff all fled when disaster struck Seoul, but please don’t worry. I have already hired new staff, and every one of them is a highly trained professional.”

I pointed across the lobby.

Twenty fairies in Che Guevara T-shirts snapped off a salute. I returned it.

I had once been hostile toward fairies, but by around run 560, I’d established excellent relations with the [Fairy Revolution Club]. I knew perfectly well what they really were, too.

“Given these circumstances, please rest assured.”

“Holy shit! Those are fairies!”

“Aaaah! Somebody save me!”

The authors were not particularly reassured.

A little commotion and uproar ensued, but I suppressed it without any trouble. Ninety-nine percent of the authors were far too insignificant to cause physical events in the macroscopic world.

I took the microphone again.

“Ah, ah. Testing the microphone. Unfortunately, you cannot escape. The hotel’s main entrance has been sealed. You can open the windows in your rooms and look outside, but you cannot pass through them. Much like our lives.”

“Let us go!”

“You cannot be released. Highly trained fairy revolutionaries will monitor you twenty-four hours a day.”

“This is insane...”

“What’s wrong with that guy? He’s scary...”

“Everyone. Let me ask you this first. Even if you could be released, would you really want to leave?”

Question marks seemed to appear above the authors’ heads. I decided to answer their questions immediately.

“As you’ll know from the news, the world is ending to great acclaim. Monsters have appeared and gates have formed all over the world. That’s right. You are all profoundly fucked.”

“Uh...”

“The fiction platforms that provide your livelihoods have become difficult to access. Even if you manage to log on, readers can’t buy your work. The banking system is going down, you see. Soon, internet networks will start getting cut off entirely. Under these circumstances, your writing skills are utterly useless.”

The truth gets through.

The authors began turning seriously pale. After all, a great many of them had started writing with the attitude, “I can make money just writing by myself, with no manual labor? Fucking sweet.” Now all that sweetness was gone.

“Even if you continue writing and publishing, there’s another problem. From now on, readers of your work have a 0.06% chance of encountering a [Reincarnation Truck]. In this era, novels are practically lethal weapons.”

“A reincarnation truck...?”

“I think he’s a little unhinged.”

The authors whispered among themselves, apparently thinking I was spouting nonsense.

Hmm. No, though. The “Reincarnation Truck” was a real anomaly.

After it was first discovered in run 119, sightings had increased rapidly.

Well, even thousands of trucks couldn’t possibly breach the protective barriers I’d plastered over this hotel, so it didn’t matter.

“Then... why did you bring us here...?”

“Because I am an avid reader of your work.”

I pointed at an author in the front row.

“You there.”

“Y-yes?”

“You’re BadEndingEnthusiast, aren’t you? The one who always writes yuri on Novel Campus.”

The author I’d singled out jumped in surprise.

“H-how do you... know me...?”

“Didn’t I tell you I was a fan?”

“No, well. I appreciate that, but. Um. There’s no way you’ve read my novels... Even my most successful work only has 2,000 favorites, and the latest chapter barely has 100 views...”

“Your first work was a misery story in which the protagonist suffered every conceivable kind of undeserved abuse. But from your next work onward, you began incorporating a no-romance approach, and recently you’ve managed to reconcile the appeal of misery fiction with the solidity of a romance-free narrative. Of course, toward the very end, a supporting character suddenly floors the accelerator and becomes the protagonist’s partner, ending things on a note of pure love. But I believe even that roughness is part of your charm, BadEndingEnthusiast.”

“You really did read them...?”

The authors were astounded.

I called on the next ones in turn.

“FemaleHeavenlyDemonsAreTraditionalMartialArts. You quietly persist in writing traditional martial arts fiction in a serious style in this day and age. In an era when the Heavenly Demon has become a vulgar joke, your discussions of chivalry and righteousness always move me.”

“MuttFeed. You’re always trying something new in a romance-fantasy market where every conceivable premise is being exhausted...”

“LoveHorseFuckers. I know you’ve made outstanding contributions to broadening the horizons of alternate-history fiction, once considered a genre for entrenched veterans. A novel in which the protagonist is born into the Hungarian nobility during World War I, becomes the last cavalry commander, and is praised as a loyal servant of the House of Habsburg. An extraordinarily rare premise that still delivers on entertainment...”

By the time I’d listed about thirty of them, the authors whose works I’d discussed individually looked moved. For people who were moved, their faces turned rather red whenever I called out their pen names, but in any case, no one in the hotel lobby doubted my sincerity anymore.

“Wait a second.”

Their suspicions merely wandered in an unexpected direction.

The authors whispered. Their voices were as faint as mosquitoes, but my hearing, enhanced beyond human limits, caught every word.

“So this reader consumes yuri, gender-swap stories, pure love, harems, traditional martial arts, fusion martial arts, misery fiction, mild misery fiction, traditional fantasy, Mary Sues, and even genres we can’t bring ourselves to mention for various reasons...?”

“Eek, a monster...!”

“Good heavens. How can anyone have such an indiscriminate palate?”

“He’s not Kim Dokja. He’s Kim Mutt...”

Now, now. These authors were slandering a precious reader.

I’d merely avoided snacking to maintain my mental health as a regressor. My tastes were perfectly wholesome.

“I would like to express my feelings to everyone here, but in the interest of time, I’ll refrain today.”

“‘Today’...?”

“Above all, some of you probably don’t want your genres exposed in such a public setting.”

Several authors flinched.

“I’ll invite those individuals to a private meeting sometime. At any rate, authors, please think carefully. I am, of course, the person responsible for kidnapping you and confining you here, but the world outside your blankets is dangerous. Are you confident you can survive in a world falling apart in real time?”

The lobby fell silent.

In fact, in runs where I didn’t bring them here, half of them died within six months. The other half died within a year. At most, only about two survived for a comparatively long time.

“Here, you don’t need to worry about survival. Food, clothing, shelter—I will provide everything. Even the fairies you fear so much are nothing more than employees in this hotel. There is only one thing you need to do: write novels.”

“...”

“You may continue the novels you were serializing, or you may write your next work. Just write. In return, I’ll give you everything else.”

The authors stirred at that.

“He’s not wrong. It really does look like the country’s going under.”

“I was going to flee overseas, but I gave up when I heard things were no different there. I wouldn’t speak the language very well, either...”

“They serve a buffet every day, too. It’s not bad here!”

“Actually, compared to the people who couldn’t come here, maybe we’re lucky...”

“Yeah. I wonder what happened to the other authors.”

The mood was taking a positive turn.

Then someone suddenly muttered, almost to themselves:

“Wait, fuck. Isn’t this just locking us in a writing sweatshop...?”

Hmm. There were some quick-witted people, but with the tide already turned, nothing was going to change.