Chapter 220 - The Slanderer II

3

At some point, the “Witch Hunt” anomaly began sweeping across the Korean Peninsula.

It would have been fine if it had amounted to nothing more than people shitting out garbage posts online, but the truly terrifying part of this anomaly lay elsewhere.

“I knew this would happen.”

“What?”

“I said I knew this would happen.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You agreed to go into the void too. Who could have predicted some bizarre anomaly like that would pop out of—”

“I’m telling you, I knew this would happen. Look at you, crawling into a void without even preparing. Tsk, tsk.”

“...”

Exchanges like this were taking place all over the country.

Whenever something went wrong, people contaminated by the anomaly went to extraordinary lengths to pretend they had known all along, or that they were impartial, objective third parties.

It was a truly peculiar phenomenon.

Ever since the void began staining the world, hadn’t the range of events humanity could predict shrunk to the size of a palm?

The attitude required of people living in our era was therefore rather simpler.

‘I didn’t know this would happen.’

‘Since I don’t know, I’ll prepare as much as possible.’

‘If I don’t know, I’ll have to take a beating—but I’ll learn as I get beaten.’

Yet this new anomaly was openly rebelling against the state of the times.

“I knew this would happen.”

“I knew you’d pretend to know.”

“Oh, please! I knew you’d pretend you knew I’d pretend to know!”

“I knew a very, very long time ago that you two would be pretending to know what the other knew again.”

Even when a completely unfamiliar void appeared, even when they heard news unlike anything they had encountered in their lives, people somehow flaunted their knowledge with perfect composure.

At this point, I admitted that the anomaly was tougher than I had thought.

But what good did admitting it do?

Scratching my head, I patted our most powerful internet asset on the shoulder.

“Aryeon, good work.”

“Ah. Y-yes.”

“It looks like rebutting every individual piece of slander isn’t doing us any good. You’ve worked hard. You can stop now.”

“Ahh. Yes, Guild Leader. Sigh... I-I knew this would happen...”

“...”

That day, a small circle was added to the back of Aryeon’s head.

For Sim Aryeon, who cultivated nothing but triangles and squares in her heart, it would serve as a useful externally attached conscience circuit.

In any case, the situation was growing worse little by little—very little by little.

Divisions were appearing within smaller guilds that had been running perfectly well until recently. Citizens were also frequently seen arguing in the streets.

It was still tolerable. This wasn’t an anomaly like Tenlegs, openly slaughtering people.

Still, it was equally obvious that leaving it alone would lead to serious trouble.

“B-but, Guild Leader.”

“Yes?”

“I think this is a little different from a ‘witch hunt’... No. I think it’s c-completely different.”

Sim Aryeon spoke while rubbing the lump on her head.

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, it’s happening in real life just as much as on the internet. A witch hunt is usually more underhanded... A-at the very least, you hide behind a mask of anonymity.”

“I don’t know. Modern witch hunts happen in real life all the time. Have you heard of the Dreyfus affair?”

“D-Dreyfis...?”

“It’s the incident made famous by Émile Zola’s <I Accuse>.”

“Oh. That... I know all about it too... He’s famous, that, um, YouTuber with a hundred thousand subscribers, Émile Zola...”

No, seriously.

Anyway, Sim Aryeon worked her lips.

“A-anyway, at the very least you blend into a crowd, the public, some big group, and hunt from there... right?”

“Hmm. That’s true.”

“Yes. But this anomaly is a little different. F-for starters, slandering the National Road Management Corps’ Demon Overlord or Three Thousand Worlds’ humblebrag witch... It’s a little...”

“A little?”

Sim Aryeon muttered offhandedly.

“A little lacking in that flavor of nastiness.”

“...?”

A question mark appeared above my head, but Sim Aryeon ignored it and rattled on.

“On SG Net, even if you wear a mask of a-anonymity, there’s a risk a constellation will expose you. So people don’t cross the line carelessly. Even more so in real life. But... picking a fight with the two most powerful people on the peninsula? It’s t-too fair and square, unlike the usual stuff. It doesn’t stink...”

“Aryeon. What are you talking about?”

“G-Guild Leader, because Three Thousand Worlds’ Great Witch was attacked, you’re too fixated on the keyword ‘witch hunt.’”

What was that?

“Besides, even if you do act like a villain on SG Net, all you do is parrot Romance of the Three Kingdoms... You don’t know the first thing about real trolling. This isn’t a witch hunt.”

“Then what do you think this anomaly is related to?”

“H-here.”

Sim Aryeon pressed her smartphone screen. Under her fingertip was an SG Net comment.

-Anonymous: I knew this would happen

The single phrase that had appeared most often in our investigation of this anomaly.

Pointing to it, Sim Aryeon said:

“Ultimately, this is the key. P-pretending to know. Pretending you’re some big deal. So this isn’t a Witch Hunt anomaly... It’s a poser. Or an expert.”

“An expert?”

“Y-yes. A fuckwit expert, I guess. Anyway, it likes showing off, wants to stand out rather than hide in a crowd, and pretends to know things at every opportunity... It’s closer to an ‘Expert anomaly.’”

That was the diagnosis of Professor Sim Aryeon, an internet expert by her own account and everyone else’s.

4

If I, Undertaker, had one virtue, it was knowing how to listen to experts.

Just as a broken clock gets the time right twice a day, even the Goryeojang Villain had things to teach me.

Sim Aryeon was positively intoxicated by the situation: she was imparting wisdom to me about nothing less than anomalies.

“O-of course, I understand why you got confused, Guild Leader. At first glance, it does feel like a witch hunt... There’s agitation, and a bit of shirking responsibility. And at your age, um, however hard you try to act young, there are limits...”

A brief interlude followed, during which another externally attached conscience circuit was installed.

“It’s probably because the anomaly is developing in real time. A little further and it’ll evolve into the broader category of ‘internet culture.’”

“Y-yes.”

“Though I don’t know why its influence is spreading into real life, not just the internet,” Sim Aryeon whispered.

“Anyway, if we leave it alone, I think all of humanity will turn into a bunch of bandwagon mobs. Awakened supremacy and hatred of the awakened will get m-much worse than they are now too...”

The mere thought was horrifying.

‘All humanity turning into Sim Aryeon!’

Goose bumps rose on the back of my neck.

Surely humanity deserved a more dignified extinction than that.

We had to suppress this early, and fast.

“How should we get rid of it? Please, Professor Goryeojang, share your esteemed opinion.”

“Hee, ehehe. Ehehehe...”

Sim Aryeon rubbed her fingertips together in delight.

“U-um. The best way is, of course... to crush those fuckwit experts so hard they can’t make a peep! Crunch!”

“Crunch?”

“Yes! S-so they won’t even dare say [I knew this would happen]! Some feat that only you can pull off in this whole world, Guild Leader. Or an accomplishment so obviously incredible and outlandish that nobody can possibly nitpick it...!”

“Outlandish.”

“It has to be something absolutely nobody can predict! So instead of ‘I knew this would happen,’ they’ll say [I really didn’t see this coming]... Show them a huge, shocking event...!”

“Shocking, huh.”

Hmm.

I opened a notepad in my head and wrote down Professor Goryeojang’s words verbatim.

Meanwhile, the Saintess’s voice reached me through Telepathy from beyond my eardrums. For some reason, she sounded rather urgent.

[“Wait a moment, Mr. Undertaker. However knowledgeable Miss Sim Aryeon may be about internet culture, taking her advice at face value poses a problem—”]

Then Sim Aryeon drove her point home.

“I-if it weren’t you, Guild Leader, I wouldn’t suggest this approach. After all, people even play fuckwit expert about Admiral Yi Sunsin. That’s how the world works...”

“Hmm.”

“But you’re the greatest person on earth, apart from me, aren’t you? So I’m sure you’ll show us a solution some insignificant anomaly like that can’t even imagine!”

“Hmmm.”

“I believe in you, Guild Leader...!”

Sim Aryeon clenched both fists tightly.

I nodded.

“Of course. Just trust me, Aryeon. Your guild leader will put on a scene that nobody anywhere in the world could have predicted.”

“Ehehehe. Yes!”

The Saintess, who was probably watching the same scene through my eyes, lamented softly.

[“Why is it that you torment Miss Sim Aryeon every day, Mr. Undertaker, yet lose your composure and let her sway you at truly important moments like this...?”]

Aryeon’s guild leader, deploying!

5

First, I selected and captured the people most severely contaminated by the “Expert anomaly.”

A full 360 of them.

That number was deliberate, not a coincidence.

Long ago, when Socrates was sentenced to death in Athens, exactly 360 people voted for the death penalty.

In short, 360 was practically a symbol of mob rule and mass psychology.

I didn’t stop there. I used aura to carve stone pillars and built an entire Greek-style building.

Whether we defined the anomaly as playing expert or witch hunting, this place had now become the perfect temple for bringing it down among us.

“Mr. Undertaker! How can you just kidnap people and tie them up like this! Even if I did know all along that you’d do this someday!”

HUBBUB

The people I had abruptly captured and bound raised an uproar.

“Even if there’s no law these days, isn’t this going too far? I knew this would happen!”

“This is awakened tyranny! An outrage! Just as I predicted!”

“I saw it coming when he colluded with the Commander and took over the peninsula. Tsk, tsk.”

“Did Dang Seorin tell you to do this! I’m telling you, huh? The two of you, I knew it! I knew it!”

“See? Put a war hero on a pedestal and they end up a dictator. I knew this would happen.”

What was this? Had this many people awakened prophecy abilities without my knowledge? As far as I knew, there were only two prophets.

‘Definitely an abnormal reaction.’

These people, appearances aside, had stubbornly survived the apocalypse. They possessed exceptional judgment and a keen nose for danger.

If Undertaker—the Undertaker—had captured them and tied them up in a strange-looking Greek temple, they should have immediately sensed that something unusual was afoot.

Yet they were busy complaining about my behavior. Even claiming they had known it all along.

I had to assume their minds were already deeply contaminated by the anomaly.

“Everyone, please be quiet.”

I made a paper megaphone and shouted through it.

“What! You expect us to be quiet in this situation!”

“Are you trying to silence the citizens!”

“Dictator! Dictator! Dictator!”

“Kill us! Go on, try killing us!”

They immediately erupted into an uproar. Filtering out repetitive noise like “I knew this would happen,” I continued.

“How could I possibly kill you? However...”

I casually pointed to the side.

There stood Yu Jiwon, the National Road Management Corps’ operations team leader and silver-haired psychopath, in silence.

“If Team Leader Yu Jiwon here loses her marbles and murders someone, that’s beyond my control.”

“...”

“...”

A chill settled over the temple.

It fell silent in an instant.

Most psychopaths had the sense to conceal their psychopathy appropriately, but our Miss Yu Jiwon took a different approach.

Noh Doha, at the pinnacle of society, and a regressor seated on the throne of time. The moment she became certain those two would never abandon her, Yu Jiwon removed her restraints without the slightest hesitation.

So long as she had a justification and a need, she simply cut people down to her heart’s content.

There were plenty of reasons public order on the Korean Peninsula remained so good for an apocalypse.

“First, please take a look at this aura.”

I drew Doha and raised it skyward.

Then I poured every last bit of aura into it.

———!!

Ink-black aura pierced the heavens, swallowing even sound.

Strangely, the clouds sliced by the aura turned dark. Despite it being broad daylight, a small patch of night hung like a hole at the center of the sky.

That was the result of pouring in aura with all the strength I currently possessed.

“...”

“...”

CLAP

CLAP CLAP CLAP

While everyone else kept their mouths shut, a faint clapping could be heard.

I didn’t need to look. Yu Jiwon was applauding alone, her face expressionless.

Lightly ignoring her flattery, I turned to the 360 people.

“What do you think?”

“... I-intimidating citizens with force!”

“Hah. That’s nothing but showing off his aura. It’s no different from flexing his muscles.”

“Research shows that excessive aura actually reduces efficiency when applying your skills in real combat—”

“I knew what kind of person he was ages ago.”

The anomaly had faltered briefly, but it was still wagging its tongue with ease.

More precisely, it was probably manipulating the contaminated people into wagging theirs.

I muttered.

“So this really isn’t enough.”

“Shall I execute them all, Your Excellency?”

“They were unlucky enough to get contaminated by an anomaly. What do you mean, execute them? We’re moving on to the next method.”

If an aura talent show wasn’t enough, I had no choice but to bring out my trump card.

The Goryeojang Villain wasn’t the only supreme asset the Korean Peninsula could boast of.

I spoke the name of my second ultimate weapon.

“Jiwon.”

“Yes.”

“Bring the venerable Sword Marquis here.”

If an aura show wasn’t enough, fine.

Now I would show them the Mount Hua Sect leader’s fucking awesome “Complete Transformation Show.”