Chapter 24 - The Prophet I

1

Let’s talk about Oh Dokseo: web-novel otaku, trailblazer of nerd fashion, poser hipster with main-character syndrome.

As I mentioned in the previous episode, I first met her in run 555. No, actually, we’d been acquainted long before that, but run 555 was when we formed a real connection.

Back then, I regressed to the waiting hall of Busan Station as usual.

'Boring.'

At this point, I hadn’t even picked up web novels as a hobby.

Optimist though I was—enough to contend for a top spot in a [Most Positive About Life Infinite Regressor Contest] encompassing all fiction—even I couldn’t help feeling a little indifferent on my 555th visit to the starting point.

Even the world’s most entertaining theme park would get tiresome after 555 visits, wouldn’t it?

And the Busan Station waiting hall was severely lacking in amusements for a theme park. About the only attraction worth anticipating was Seo Gyu’s booming cry of “Fuck you, you son of a bitch!”

There was one secret hidden in the waiting hall, but we’ll get to that later.

'... Should I turn on Mind Reading?'

This time, I decided to spice things up a little.

[Mind Reading] was an ability I’d acquired in run 554. It let me listen to the inner voices of beings of a lower order than myself.

The standard for “order” was incredibly vague, and the ability itself was far from all-powerful, but it was worth trying for fun.

[Lee Jaehui: My phone has no signal?]

[Uehara Shino: There are too many people. It’s hard to breathe.]

The moment I switched on Mind Reading, the thoughts of everyone gathered in the Busan Station waiting hall flooded into my ears. Some voices were familiar; others were relatively unfamiliar.

[Seo Gyu: Fuck, what the hell is going on? This is bullshit.]

[Park Yedam: I need to contact my department head...]

[Lee Baek: What? Where did everyone else go?]

[Go Yori: O҉҉h҉҈ m҉y.]

[Jeong Sohui: Cult Leader? Cult Leader, where have you disappeared to?]

[Sim Aryeon: Where am I? Who am I?]

[Kim Siun: Mom.]

My head spun for a moment.

[Mind Reading] wasn’t something I could use only on a person of my choosing. The instant I activated it, all the surface thoughts around me were converted into words I could hear.

But it was bearable.

And my impression after using [Mind Reading] in the Busan Station waiting hall for the first time was...

'Nothing special.'

All I found were fairly predictable thoughts.

'Well, they’re all familiar faces.'

I already knew almost everything about the original members of the Busan Station waiting hall: their names, appearances, backgrounds, even which abilities they would awaken later.

So nothing they did or thought was remotely new. I’d reached the point where I could tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces, making [Mind Reading] practically pointless.

'And sure enough, I can’t read Go Yori, though I’d hoped I might.'

Yes, I absolutely needed to stay away from that girl.

I walked as far away from Go Yori as I could, then leisurely bought a drink from a vending machine on one side of the waiting hall.

The people around me shot me looks that said, “How can he be so relaxed at a time like this?” But I didn’t care.

Later on, even drinks like this would become incredibly precious. From their perspective, they’d only just been summoned into the waiting hall, but I’d returned to a world that wasn’t quite as ruined yet for the first time in twenty years.

“Ahhh.”

My first Ceylon Tea in ages tasted absolutely fantastic. So fantastic that I quickly drained a can and bought another. After I polished off four cans in a row, people stared at me in disbelief.

[Lee Jaehui: ... What? He makes that look fucking delicious.]

[Jeong Sohui: Ceylon Tea? How utterly blasphemous.]

[Park Yedam: That young fellow knows a good drink.]

[Sim Aryeon: Where am I? Who am I?]

[Lee Baek: Why’s there some bastard with geezer taste buds here?]

Hmm. Lee Baek really hadn’t changed since run one, either.

Listening again yielded no particularly interesting thoughts. This was why [Mind Reading] was a double-edged sword.

The moment you used it, your heart raced, wondering what entertaining thoughts everyone might be secretly having. But once you actually checked, you ended up disappointed: “Aw, nothing special.” Paradoxically, then, [Mind Reading] was most fun right before you used it.

There was no helping it. Expecting fresh ways of thinking from the original members at this point was simply too greedy of me, an unreasonable demand—

[Oh Dokseo: Whoa. The Busan Station waiting hall. I saw this in a novel! In a minute, the tutorial fairy’s going to show up and blow the head off the guy yelling, “Hey, you fucking bastard!”]

Or not.

“Pfft!”

I sprayed my fifth can of Ceylon Tea into the air. Just like the picture on the can, the sunset-colored tea painted the world in twilight hues, horrifying the people who suddenly found themselves witnessing sunset about seven hours early.

[Lee Jaehui: Agh! Gross!]

[Jeong Sohui: Filthy. Repulsive.]

[Park Yedam: Good grief, what a filthy fellow.]

[Sim Aryeon: Where am I? Who am I?]

[Lee Baek: Fucking disgusting bastard.]

The original members, whose personalities, tendencies, backgrounds, political affiliations, and beliefs differed so wildly that their chemistry had been a miracle to behold since run one, had agreed to unite for once. I’d accomplished a nearly impossible feat, but that crap wasn’t what mattered to me right now.

I whipped my head around fast enough to make a swishing sound.

[Oh Dokseo: Let’s see. There weren’t many illustrations in the novel, so it’s hard to recognize people... Oh. But I know that asshole. Lee Baek! The tanned blond! Man. That guy made the waiting-hall clear arc so goddamn infuriating...]

There she was.

Oh Dokseo. Throughout my long life of regression leading up to run 555, she’d always worn an indifferent expression, a face oddly resigned to everything in the world. Defining features: dead-fish eyes. Hoodie. Baseball cap.

Unless I intervened, this victim was overwhelmingly likely to die in the Busan Station waiting hall. Yet for some reason, she was scanning her surroundings with eyes that, though still as dead as a frozen fish’s, had just a little more life in them.

[Oh Dokseo: Well, that settles it. This is the prologue of ORV... Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, the novel I stayed up all night binge-reading yesterday.]

Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint? Prologue?

[Oh Dokseo: Then what’s my ability? Status window. Hey, status window. ... Status? Open? Ability window? Skill window? Wow. Following the latest trends, are we? Won’t even toss me a scrap of hologram? This is status-window discrimination.]

Latest trends? What was she talking about?

“You fucking bastard! What kind of bullshit is that?!”

“Ho!”

Oh, shit. I’d been so focused on Oh Dokseo’s thoughts that I’d failed to stop Seo Gyu’s head from exploding.

'I’m sorry, Seo Gyu!'

Fairy No. 264 scored a kill for the first time in ages. As blood sprayed in every direction, Sim Aryeon and countless others screamed.

Of course, I wasn’t surprised. All I felt was, “Seriously, how long has it been since this last happened?”

[Oh Dokseo: Oh. Thanks for fulfilling the tutorial exploding-head guy cliché. You follow all these ancient tropes, but won’t give me a status window?]

Oh Dokseo was the same.

She showed no sign of panic whatsoever. Though I thought calling Seo Gyu “exploding-head guy,” rather than even SG Guy, was a little harsh.

[Oh Dokseo: Well, anyway. The only thing that matters in the Busan Station arc is how early you can secure the elixir hidden in Haeundae.]

How did she know there was an elixir in Haeundae?

[Oh Dokseo: And the awakened to keep an eye on in the waiting-hall stage would be Uehara Shino, I guess? She’s treated as dead weight now, but later she awakens as a high-level alchemist...]

How did she know that, too?

[Oh Dokseo: Sim Aryeon’s the exact opposite of Uehara. She’s useless later, but through the prologue you can totally get some decent mileage out of her as a healer... Oh, she’s running away. Right. She was a coward.]

How did she... Wait. Sim Aryeon was useless later?

On the contrary, this was her lowest point. Once SG Net opened, she was a talent who’d say, “The world of the NET is vast, isn’t it?” and ascend to a higher plane.

But I had no time to nitpick the details. Like a Himalayan beehive with an inexhaustible supply of golden honey, Oh Dokseo kept dripping deliciously entertaining thoughts.

[Oh Dokseo: First, I should start grinding affection with Uehara Shino. Tsk. An original-character power fantasy that wrecks canon isn’t really my thing, but... I’m crippled here, without even a status window, aren’t I? Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?]

Wrecking canon? Original-character power fantasy?

As I said before, I still knew nothing about web novels at the time. The person who converted me to that hobby was none other than Sweet Dokseo over there. Naturally, everything Sweet Dokseo muttered inside her head sounded like an alien language to me.

[Oh Dokseo: Still, Uehara Shino’s only my second priority.]

[Oh Dokseo: If I had to pick the single most important person here, no matter what anyone says, it’s that man.]

At that moment, she turned toward me.

I sensed her gaze moving beforehand and quickly turned away. Unaware I’d been watching her, Sweet Dokseo stared straight at me.

[Oh Dokseo: There he is.]

[Oh Dokseo: The protagonist of this world. Code name: Undertaker.]

?

[Oh Dokseo: He’s more handsome than I expec... No, maybe the cover illustration was better? Hmm. Is he better-looking in person? Hard to tell. How does he look so vaguely like the cover?]

??

[Oh Dokseo: But I can’t let his face fool me. Right. Undertaker’s a protagonist who’s already experienced regression several times. Utterly cold-blooded.]

[Oh Dokseo: A regressor who lives only for his hatred of monsters, the classic guy who keeps living because he can’t die... Especially since he lost Dang Seorin to Tenlegs in his last run. His rage at the world must be at MAX right now.]

[Oh Dokseo: He’s just a lunatic. A complete lunatic. If he notices anything suspicious, he might kill me on the spot. Handle with care.]

???

Cold-blooded... Hatred... Rage, what?

Excuse me, but who was this person?

For starters, Dang Seorin hadn’t died to Tenlegs in the previous run. Tenlegs had only felt like an insurmountable wall briefly in the beginning. From around run twenty onward, that overhyped dud had been getting taken out by me in five minutes.

Could this girl...

'Could she possibly know my past self?'

That was when it happened.

[Oh Dokseo: Hey, mister, over there.]

“Hey, mister, over there.”

Her thoughts and actual voice overlapped.

Oh Dokseo pointed her index finger at me. By now, only ten or so people remained in the Busan Station waiting hall, and everyone except me was huddled together.

“Come over here too, mister. That fairy bastard made a fountain of blood and everyone bolted, but at least we should stick together. Don’t you think?”

“No. 264 hasn’t done anything wrong! My seniors gave me the wrong guidelines! If anything, No. 264 is the poor victim here...”

“Yeah, that’s enough out of you. Shut your trap. The adults are trying to have a conversation. Who said you could butt in?”

“Eek.”

Standing in the middle of the survivors, Oh Dokseo puffed out her chest confidently, as though she were their leader.

With everyone else afraid of the fairy, her being the only one to stand up to it and talk back had clearly made a deep impression on the survivors. In fact, Fairy No. 264 really had only acted according to the manual and bore humans no ill will whatsoever (except the bourgeoisie), so it rapidly shrank into a meek little thing.

“So? Mister, are you coming over here or not?”

“...”

Oh Dokseo muttered. In her inner voice, that is.

[Oh Dokseo: Come on. Fuck, please come over. Without you, we’re all dead! I get that you lost your first love, that Dang Seorin—the only guild leader you ever served—died too, that monsters are fucking awful and the world’s fucking awful, but please save us!]

Honestly, I didn’t understand half of what this kid was saying, and I had no idea what had led her to such misconceptions.

But one thing was clear.

'If I follow her around, this run’s guaranteed to be a blast, isn’t it?'

Besides the impulse to have fun, there was another reason: I thought I might be able to use her to defeat a certain anomaly... But let’s leave that for much later.

Anyway.

I recalled my old self. My very old self, from literally over a thousand years ago. The expressions I’d worn, the looks in my eyes, the way I’d spoken.

“... I will not follow you.”

Was it something like this? Right? I thought so.

Even in my long life as a regressor, this was my first time acting as myself. It felt remarkably novel.

“I will merely observe you.”

“Oh. Well, suit yourself.”

Oh Dokseo snorted as though it were no big deal.

After farming only the silver bell from the souvenir shop, I immediately read her thoughts.

[Oh Dokseo: Holy shit. Is that terrifying voice for real? I’m fucking shaking... Hmm. But without the protagonist, even getting out of the Busan Station waiting hall is almost impossible... I have to grind affection somehow, by any means necessary.]

Hmm.

She really was entertaining.