Chapter 221 - The Slanderer III

6

Returning from old age to youth.

It meant the phenomenon in which an aged master reached the pinnacle of enlightenment and returned to childhood, or to their prime.

It was also a state every StarCraft player fervently wished for whenever they botched their mutalisk micro and got slaughtered by those filthy marines.

From Gilgamesh, Heavenly Demon of the Western Regions, to Qin Shi Huang, Alliance Leader of the Central Plains, there were few who had not yearned for it—

And so, the first person on the Earth server to unlock the achievement of returning from old age to youth was none other than...

"Hmm? Why have you summoned me?"

The Sword Marquis, a marquis of the Principality of Sealand.

You may remember him. In the run where I used The Monkey’s Paw, this old geezer successfully evolved into Complete-Transformationmon.

A veritable monster of potential.

Of course, I no longer relied on The Monkey’s Paw.

But now that I knew the Sword Marquis had a return-to-youth upgrade, why wouldn't I put that knowledge to use?

"My lord Marquis. First, listen to this. Now, the boundary between day and night is merely a temporary distinction made by humans, and within the relentless flow of time, it is no more than the principle of an endless circle, briefly gleaming and briefly darkening again and again..."

The rest omitted.

The passage above was the teaching through which the Sword Marquis had attained enlightenment when he underwent his complete bodily transformation in run 590.

In other words, it was practically an answer key.

Sure enough, as he listened to a walkthrough that reproduced every last word, his expression grew increasingly inscrutable.

Come on, Marquismon! Evolve!

"Master Undertaker. What the hell is that nonsense?"

It didn't work.

Was this not enough?

The 360 crowd-anomalies watching from the sidelines grew noisy too.

-"Boooo!"

-"You kidnap us and threaten us with force, and now what kind of bullshit are you pulling?"

-"The rest of the world may not have known you were this sort of person, Mr. Undertaker, but deep down, I knew!"

But I didn't give up.

Learning ahead and learning through repetition were, after all, time-honored Korean teaching methods. This regressor's lesson was far from over.

I gave Yu Jiwon a single look to mute the commotion, then immediately drew my sword.

"Sir. Watch closely."

"Hmmm?"

I performed a sword dance.

It wasn't a dance I had invented. I precisely recreated the sword dance the Sword Marquis had performed atop a peak long, long ago, when the two of us had gone to Mount Hua to admire the flowers.

This did, indeed, astonish him.

"Th-that is...?"

"Do you feel something?"

"I do! I feel it! Oh! How can the essence of Mount Hua dwell at the tip of your sword, Master Undertaker?"

"Hold on to that feeling and listen again. Now, the boundary between day and night is merely a temporary distinction made by humans..."

With my mouth, I recited his enlightenment; with my body, I demonstrated it. Surely no professor in the world was this dedicated.

In other words, to an outside observer, I was nothing more or less than someone who had suddenly started dancing with a sword and muttering incomprehensible alien gibberish.

The 360 crowd-anomalies were beginning to look at me like I was insane.

"Ooooh..."

When the sword dance ended, the Sword Marquis applauded. His beard was trembling.

"Truly, a splendid sword dance! Like plum blossoms blooming on Mount Hua, like the mist embracing those blossoms, and also like a lone ship sailing forward through that mist. Ah, how extraordinary! What should I call this ship? The treasure ship of the Grand Eunuch Sanbao, or Lord Chungmu's turtle ship?"

"So, do you feel any signs that you're about to return to youth?"

"Eh? Return to youth? I can't say I do."

Was even this not enough?

More jeers of "Booo!" and "I knew this would happen!" came from the sidelines, but I paid them no mind.

I snapped my fingers.

Yu Jiwon, who had been waiting in readiness, began carrying dozens of televisions over from the bed of a truck.

A staggering 130 CRT TVs.

They encircled the Sword Marquis like Stonehenge.

"Jiwon. Turn them on."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

KZZZZT!

The TVs switched on in a burst of static despite not being connected to any power source. Naturally. Every last one of them was cursed.

All the screens were playing degraded footage of a sword dance. I had recorded my own dance on video and put it on.

-"The boundary between day and night, heeheehee!"

-"A temporary human, heehee! Distinction!"

-"The principle of an endless circle... The law..."

-"Kukekekekek!"

For the record, the Undertakers performing the sword dance onscreen were actually all ghosts imitating me.

It had been quite a struggle to drag them out of their wells and make them obey. Look closely, and you might see their faces tinged with the sorrow and resentment of having their homes forcibly demolished.

"Eeeh...?"

Had he sensed that something strange was going on?

Even the Sword Marquis, a contender for the most unhinged person on the Korean Peninsula, had an odd look on his face. The 360 crowd-anomalies jeering from the sidelines were gradually quieting down too.

"What have you been doing all this time, Master Undertaker?"

"Don't question it. Feel it. You must accept the feelings and the flow reaching you exactly as they are, Sword Marquis."

"Exactly as they are?"

The Sword Marquis looked around.

"What am I supposed to accept exactly as it is in this spectacle of ghosts bending their limbs backward and babbling curses?"

"Put these on too."

I handed him earphones. They were connected to an MP3 player, which, naturally, contained a cursed audio file.

Once he put the earphones in, the teaching flowed into his ears in the cadence of a Heart Sutra chant, accompanied by the music from One Missed Call.

-"The bound a ry be tween day and night SAVE is mere ly a tem po ra ry hu man ME dis tinc tion and in the re lent LESS flow of time PLEASE."

"..."

"Oh. Don't turn the volume up too high. Just think of it as listening to an MC Square. You know MC Square, right?"

"Ah, hmm. Hmmm."

"How is it, Sword Marquis? Are you beginning to feel that you're about to return to youth?"

"No, to begin with, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, Master Undertaker..."

Was even this not enough?

The 360 crowd-anomalies, their expressions now somewhat lifeless, muttered their complaints.

-"I don't know what you're doing, but I knew this would happen anyway."

-"I knew it would end up like this the moment you started this whole return-to-youth circus."

-"Do you think we'll submit just because you're using TV ghosts to intimidate us? I knew long ago that this would happen..."

Their voices had lost a great deal of force, but the anomalies still refused to relinquish that one phrase: "I knew this would happen."

But I wasn't discouraged in the slightest.

"Jiwon."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Bring Hayul and Dokseo."

"As you command."

Yu Jiwon, whose mastery of aura was among the very best if you excluded someone like me, swiftly fetched the Little Sisters (Lee Hayul & Oh Dokseo).

Hayul looked particularly haggard.

For the past several days, she had devoted herself to dance practice with a dedication comparable to a K-pop idol trainee at a major agency.

"Hayul, have you mastered it perfectly?"

["Big brother. Die. Please."]

"Excellent. That's exactly the spirit."

["..."]

"Now. Show this old gentleman your dancing skills, just as we discussed."

Lee Hayul drew strings from her fingertips and attached them to the Sword Marquis's joints. With the tacky elasticity of spiderwebs, the strings soon connected to his arms and legs.

"Eh? Huh? Huh?" he sputtered in confusion, but he couldn't stop her. Hayul might look unimpressive, but there weren't many awakened who could beat her one-on-one.

"Jiwon. Drop the beat."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Dokseo. Go."

"Okay."

Oh Dokseo smoothly turned her cap backward.

A swaying gold chain gleamed brilliantly over her shirt—a fashion choice that, on the Korean Peninsula, was barely permissible even for hulking men over 190 centimeters tall.

"Yeah. Alliance of the Regressor. Yo, here we go, fucking psychopath. Freestyle real quick. Let's get it."

As Yu Jiwon supplied a sweet beat, alternating on-beats and off-beats without a flicker of expression, Oh Dokseo gripped the microphone.

"The boundary between day and night, yo, it's a human distinction, temporary distinction, K҉I҉҉҉E҉E҉K, yo, in the relentless flow of time it briefly shines, H҉҉E҉H҉E҉҉H҉҉, dark again, repeat, S҉C҉҉REECH, repeat, yo, repeat, da capo, K҉Z҉҉҉ZT҉, it's the principle of an endless circle, the law of an unbounded world, yo..."

The noises interspersed throughout were there because the microphone was cursed too. Most electronic devices had ghosts attached to them, so there was no helping it.

But Oh Dokseo, this era's pure rapper, elevated even the howls of anomalies into part of her rap.

Meanwhile, Lee Hayul was moving her puppet strings, controlling the Sword Marquis however she pleased.

"Guaaagh! M-my joints?"

Why hide it?

Lee Hayul had perfectly learned the movements of the sword dance I recreated. Thus, she could manipulate the Sword Marquis like a puppet and force him to perform the "dance of enlightenment."

This was the regressor's footwork.

If he couldn't reach that level himself, my strategy was to concentrate enlightenment to 300 percent and pour it straight into him.

"Huaaagh! Haaaagh!"

"How is it, Sword Marquis? Are you gradually beginning to feel that a return to youth is coming?"

"I-I'm dying! I feel like I'm dying! M-my knees! My shoulders! My back feels like it's breaking aparrrt!"

I brought in Sim Aryeon.

She crouched beside the Sword Marquis, quietly healing him whenever his joints creaked.

"Ugh! Hah! Guaaaagh?"

"I-if you scream... it hurts more."

His spine snapped once along the way, but that was no problem at all. Sim Aryeon giggled innocently, "Hehe, ehehe," as she showered him with healing.

That's right.

How much had we suffered under the Sword Marquis's high-handedness simply because he was our sole savior from the food shortage?

My companions, who had long harbored grudges against him, gladly cooperated in this operation.

(Only the Saintess exercised her veto, which was why I used an MP3 player instead of Telepathy.)

"Huaaaaaagh!"

With the Sword Marquis's screams serving as background music, I turned around.

The 360 crowd-anomalies were watching us, white as sheets.

In other words...

-"I knew this would happen..."

-"Kugegegegegek."

Here, ghosts were dancing on 130 cursed televisions and shouting teachings of enlightenment as though chanting Buddhist sutras.

-"I knew this would..."

"An either-or existence, yo. For me, day is still day, night is still night, uh-huh, K҉I҉҉҉E҉K҉, showing off their own beauty, yooo."

The National Road Management Corps' psychopathic operations team leader supplied the beat with a blank face while Oh Dokseo, shrine maiden of a God of Alienation, performed her rap.

-"I knew this..."

"Ehehe."

The Puppeteer controlled the Sword Marquis, making him shimmy his shoulders, while a healer of unprecedented ability mended the old man's spinal joints whenever they failed to withstand the violent dancing.

-"I..."

-"Knew this..."

"Huaaagh! Guaaaagh!"

That dance was a sword dance containing the supreme mastery of the Mount Hua Sect's leader, and the dancer himself was a marquis of the Principality of Sealand.

Anyone with even a grain of conscience could not dare claim to have known that such a hellscape would exist in this world.

-"..."

-"..."

And then came the finishing touch.

After performing his sword dance for over thirty minutes, the Sword Marquis suddenly opened his eyes wide between gasping breaths.

"Hah, ugh? Th-this move... I seem to remember... yet perhaps I don't...!"

At that moment, his body began to give off not only the smell of sweat, but the fragrance of plum blossoms.

I clenched my fist.

"It's here!"

It was a little different from the plum-blossom scent of run 590, though.

Hmm. Back then, it had been a 100 percent natural aromatic plum-blossom fragrance. Now it was more of a synthetic floral scent that felt as though long-term inhalation might be bad for your lungs?

Another difference was that the energy, once almost perfectly aligned with the orthodox sects, somehow had the aura of the unorthodox about it. Wait. Maybe it was the Demonic Cult?

But he was still one step short.

The Sword Marquis kept dancing (feat. Lee Hayul), his expression hovering on the verge of enlightenment.

I immediately took out my smartphone.

"Sir Sword Marquis."

"Hagh, haaaagh... E-eh?"

"Look at this."

The smartphone screen, connected to SG Net, displayed a post.

-Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Click this post and you will travel to《Another World》. (Views: 2)

[Hero Syndrome] itself!

And this wasn't an ordinary Hero Syndrome post. It was one bearing the tags #MartialArts #MountHuaSect #Regression, found through the efforts of the National Road Management Corps' death-row prisoners.

The condemned prisoner who clicked it testified that he had been born as the Namgung family's second son, risen to become the Sword God, and participated in the war between the orthodox sects and the Demonic Cult.

Though thirty seconds later, he muttered, "Huh, why am I crying?" and forgot everything.

This was the finale of the full-course feast that I, Undertaker, had painstakingly selected for this moment alone.

"Seize it, Sir Sword Marquis."

"Huaagh...?"

"The final piece that leads to enlightenment!"

Lee Hayul moved her strings.

And so the Sword Marquis reached out, and—

CLICK.

He clicked the post infected with Hero Syndrome.

—There was light.

Plum blossoms spread like wildfire around the imitation Greek temple.

The olfactory information known as "plum-blossom fragrance," which modern people had never actually smelled—in other words, something that probably smelled roughly like a blend of rose and cherry—permeated the surroundings.

At last, the light subsided.

The wrinkled old geezer was nowhere to be seen. In his place stood only a gray-haired boy, his head lowered.

"Hmm."

I found myself nodding.

Return to youth successful!

I turned to the 360 crowd-anomalies who had watched it all live.

Then I asked quietly,

"Well? First time seeing someone return to youth?"

-"..."

"Did you still know this would happen?"

-"..."

All 360 shuddered.

-"I-I..."

-"I knew this would..."

A shriek erupted.

-"I didn't know this would happen, you crazy fuck!"

-"What kind of lunatic could predict this?"

-"Aaaaaaaaagh!"

-"Weknownothingwecanknownothingwedidn'tknowthiswouldhappenourthirstforknowledgeandwilltopoweraredestinedtobethwartedweknownothinglifeissufferingandwearemerelybeingsthrownintotheworldwedidn'tknowthiswouldhappen..."

-"Can'tslandercan'tslander."

-"Hikyaaaaaaagh!"

They shook violently!

All 360 went into seizures together, then collapsed onto their sides.

Pale specters burst out of their bodies like spirits expelled by an exorcist, then fled into the thick woods far away.

The forest friends had returned home.

["... Mr. Undertaker."]

["All across the Korean Peninsula, specter-like anomalies have burst out of people's bodies and disappeared somewhere."]

Hmm.

I looked at the companions who had participated in the operation and gave them a firm thumbs-up.

Sim Aryeon wore the brightest smile of all as she said,

"A-as expected of our Guild Leader... The best!"

The "Expert" anomaly. An entity with the potential to evolve into "Witch Hunt," "Internet Specter," or something of the sort.

Subjugation complete!

7

There is a brief epilogue.

"Congratulations on your great achievement, Sir Sword Marquis."

"Hmm."

"How do you feel?"

"Good. My mind has been washed clean, and the world looks different. At first, I could not begin to understand what bizarre nonsense you were up to, Master Undertaker, but now I see that all these trials were solely for my sake. I understand. Yet now... Right now, I simply..."

"Right now?"

"Right now, I simply wish to beat you very, very badly, Master Undertaker."

"Ah."

I knew this would happen.

-The Slanderer. End.