Chapter 25 - The Prophet II

2

There was one small problem with my journey following Sweet Dokseo.

Actually, it was anything but small. A problem of the utmost importance had cropped up.

It wasn't a problem I had caused.

[Oh Dokseo: "All right! Tutorial cleared!"]

Nor was it a problem with Sweet Dokseo herself.

In fact, she wasn't half bad for a beginner. With a little help from me—though that is merely my modesty speaking; the help was anything but little—Sweet Dokseo broke through the Busan Station gate in just forty-eight hours.

For reference, I first cleared Busan Station on my third run.

What did that mean? It meant that on runs one and two, I lived in Busan and died in Busan. You could honestly say I had more hometown pride than any native of the city. If only my hometown hadn't been Seoul, I would have been sporting a certified True Busan Man badge long before then.

Even on that third run, clearing it had taken me a full week. Oh Dokseo had cut that down to forty-eight hours. She really did have excellent potential.

[Oh Dokseo: "The protagonist helped, sure, but I finished this in two days? Oh Dokseo, what are you? Fashion, hip-hop, slaughtering monsters—is there anything you can't do? I'm starting to scare myself..."]

Let's fondly overlook a little youthful narcissism.

By this point, though, I was genuinely wondering what sort of place the Busan Station waiting hall was.

It didn't merely overflow with talent. It unleashed a flood.

'Go Yori, an unidentified entity with the potential to destroy the world. Seo Gyu, with his unheard-of community administration ability. Sim Aryeon, the Bird That Drinks Aggro. Uehara Shino, the MacGuffin. Me, Undertaker, the infinite regressor. And now Oh Dokseo too?'

It was downright terrifying.

A veritable treasure trove for farming talent.

It was the equal of Pei County in the tales of the Chu–Han Contention, where Liu Bang lazed around unemployed, Xiao He shuffled civil-service paperwork, and Fan Kuai slaughtered pigs. And that wasn't even... No, let's stop there.

At any rate, Sweet Dokseo's adventure itself was going smoothly.

But if the problem wasn't me or Oh Dokseo, that meant a third party, an outsider, had intruded on this cheerful little party.

"...?"

The unidentified entity walked along with quick little steps, occasionally glancing back at me. Each time, she tilted her head and flashed a lovely smile.

I nearly fell for her. If I hadn't learned that this entity wore exactly the same beaming smile while destroying the world, I might genuinely have gone full macho and declared my love on the spot.

This entity's name was Go Yori.

'This is driving me insane.'

The master of the red flesh.

An extremely dangerous individual whose genre tags would include #Brainwashing, #PerceptionAlteration, #AffectionManipulation, and #CthulhuMythos.

Yes. Somehow, Go Yori had joined Sweet Dokseo's party too. We were all founding members who had started in the Busan Station waiting hall, so the possibility had always existed.

One party formed at the very beginning contained both the person who would make my life tremendously entertaining and the entity who would end it. Did that make any damn sense? Busan Station's waiting hall lived up to its reputation. What an insane starting point.

At that moment, pink hair swayed right before my nose.

"Mr. Undertaker... was it?"

My heart lurched.

For the record, Go Yori was actively using [Perception Manipulation], [Affection Manipulation], and [Impression Brainwashing] even now. All sorts of people had already gathered around her, showering her with flattery and adulation.

Yet she had brushed aside all those sycophants clinging to her and professing their fondness, and sidled over to me instead.

Goose bumps rose on my skin.

"... What do you want?"

One tremendous blessing was that I was currently playing the role of "the coolest regressor in the world."

Keep the expression in character. Keep the expression in character.

The despair of watching the world end, the betrayal when Old Man Scho ran off on his own, the grief of losing Dang Seorin for the first time... I worked relentlessly to dredge up negative emotions of any kind.

Thanks to that, my expression became convincingly obnoxious. Obnoxiousness level five.

"Oh. No, it isn't anything important."

Apparently, Go Yori didn't find it obnoxious.

"I was just curious what sort of person you were, Mr. Undertaker. You know, you stayed calm when that person died in the waiting hall, and even when the monsters appeared."

Had she been secretly watching me?

If my heart had sweat glands, it would have been pouring cold sweat. Just as martial-arts stories had the maxim to beware of old people and children, my life always came with a warning label: Beware of Pink Hair.

I decided to be a little more obnoxious. Obnoxiousness level six.

"I have no interest in you. So stop taking an interest in me."

"Do you like Ceylon Tea? It's my favorite drink too."

"..."

That was dirty.

Was this the power of [Perception Manipulation]?

She was trying to raise my affection for her as naturally as breathing.

But I, Undertaker, wasn't that easy. Frankly, my heart did flutter a little, but I interpreted that as a warning sign of a heart attack. In other words, if I left this untreated, I was going to fucking die.

I had no choice. Obnoxiousness level seven!

"You're a nuisance. Get lost."

"Hmm."

Hmm? Hmmm?

Had she just smiled at me with her eyes?

"Did you know you haven't looked at me once during this conversation?"

"Shut up. Do you not understand what 'get lost' means? Or are you ignoring me? The former makes you uneducated; the latter makes you ignorant."

"You're an interesting man, Doctor."

"..."

"Let's get along from now on. My name is Go Yori. Please, just call me Yori."

With that, Go Yori walked on ahead. Her shadow had its hands clasped behind its back and was humming a tune.

It seemed she had indeed taken an interest in me. The result was the precise opposite of what I had intended.

'... The next time I get tangled up with Go Yori, forget being obnoxious. I absolutely have to act like a bastard obsessed with booze and gambling.'

To spoil things in advance, changing strategies proved completely useless.

The insane reply I got was, ["You know how to forget your sorrows with drink and let yourself go through gambling. What a wonderful man—you truly know how to enjoy life!"]

There was only one way to handle Go Yori: never enter her field of vision in the first place.

Someone might wonder why I was so terrified of Go Yori when I was an infinite regressor.

But a regressor's greatest fear isn't death. It's ignorance.

Think about it. She was an S-rank Perception Manipulation user. You could call her the final boss of mental viruses.

No matter how closely I approached Go Yori, could I trust the knowledge I gained from doing so? What if that knowledge itself had already been contaminated by brainwashing and manipulation?

And if she ever discovered that I was a regressor, who knew what she might do?

For example:

"Then let me ask you something."

"Since when were you under the impression that I wasn't using brainwashing...?"

"Hee-hee. Doctor, you're merely hypnotized into believing you've regressed. In reality, you're still in the palm of my hand."

"From now on, I shall stand above the heavens."

What was I supposed to do if something like that happened?

The Saintess had the strongest mind of any awakened I knew. Even she had fallen to Go Yori. Until I acquired a "shield" capable of repelling Perception Manipulation—a mental firewall—it was wiser to avoid dealing with Go Yori wherever possible.

But it seemed I wasn't the only one ignorant about her.

[Oh Dokseo: "Hmm. Who's this? Pink hair?"]

Oh Dokseo glanced over. She probably thought she was sneaking a look, but my presence-sensing caught it all.

[Oh Dokseo: "Was there a character like that in ORV? That hair color's a bit much for an extra. She really stands out. But she seems so nice. Looks older than me. I wonder if there's a way to make friends with her."]

Oh Dokseo, too, knew nothing of Go Yori's existence.

3

That fact concealed an important clue.

From what I had observed while following Oh Dokseo so far, she seemed to have read "a certain novel."

Amazingly, its protagonist was me, Undertaker.

In fact, I wasn't sure whether to call it a novel at all. It was practically a documentary about me, a critical biography. Oh Dokseo knew so much that it was difficult to explain otherwise.

Except...

'She only knows things from a really long time ago.'

You might call it a novel with exceptionally slow updates.

For example:

[Oh Dokseo: "Okay, Haeundae elixir acquired! Whoa. Getting an elixir right after clearing the Busan Station gate? Isn't this crazy-fast progress? Maybe I've got some talent."]

[Oh Dokseo: "With this, we could even defeat that terrifying final boss... Tenlegs."]

Tenlegs wasn't the final boss.

It couldn't even qualify as a midboss. Even by the most generous estimate, its days of filming The Solitary Gourmet as it toured the Korean Peninsula's best eateries lasted only until run twenty. After that, it became the eatery itself.

[Oh Dokseo: "Now we need to join up with Dang Seorin somehow. Among all those assholes of guild leaders, there's no ally as reliable as her. According to the lore, anyway, she's the strongest damage dealer once she properly activates Spell-Song Chanting."]

Dang Seorin wasn't the strongest damage dealer.

She might look like one in the very earliest stages, but her true power emerged when she took on the role of support.

Indeed, once Old Man Scho and I came onto the scene and grew stronger with each run, she withdrew from the front line without hesitation and volunteered to back us up.

In other words:

[Oh Dokseo: "Then the protagonist needs to hold off Tenlegs' attacks for a while... That'd be hard on his own. Tsk. Guess I have to fight alongside him after all?"]

Sweet Dokseo didn't even know Old Man Scho existed.

The conclusion was simple.

'The novel Oh Dokseo claims to have read covers, at most, [my life through run four].'

In short, an unfinished autobiography.

A novel that hadn't been fully written. A work whose later chapters had yet to be released. A serial with a slow-writing author.

It truly was an exceptionally unusual ability.

If I had to name it... perhaps [Pestering for Updates] would do.

At any rate, assuming that the work Oh Dokseo had encountered was "an abridged account of my life that had only reached run four" resolved every question.

It also made it easy to understand why she treated me like a psychopath.

'Well, yes. Before I met old Scho, I did tend to be a little touchy.'

Of course, I had never actually been a psychopath to the extent Oh Dokseo mistakenly imagined.

I simply preemptively made the heads and bodies of anyone sowing discord in the group into separated families, threatened to kill everyone if things displeased me, and couldn't feel satisfied unless I profited more than anyone else from every event... In short, about the usual moral caliber of a web-novel regressor?

[Oh Dokseo: "Wow. Look how murderous his expression got the second I said we'd join Dang Seorin's people. That lunatic. So only people he's opened his heart to count as people, and someone like me isn't even human to him? How am I supposed to live with this injustice?"]

Hmm.

It seemed we needed to talk.

I quietly observed Oh Dokseo for about four months. As a result, I concluded that I could place a fair amount of trust in her character.

"Oh Dokseo."

"Huh? What's this, all of a sudden? Didn't expect you to start a conversation."

"I'd like to talk. Somewhere quiet, if possible. Just the two of us."

I approached her while the other party members were briefly away. I'd checked twice, three times, to make sure Go Yori was gone, so we were safe for now.

[Oh Dokseo: "Eeeek! Fuck, I knew it! He's going to bury me where no one will ever find me!"]

Apparently, Oh Dokseo didn't feel particularly safe.

"Yeah? Sure, why not. Listening to party members' concerns is part of being a great party leader."

Well, I couldn't speak to that, but she certainly had a talent for controlling her expression. Inside, she was crying and making a tremendous fuss; outside, she calmly chewed her bubble gum.

We entered a neighborhood café with a sign reading [Regrettably, we will be temporarily closed until August 20]. Today was October 25.

The interior was neatly arranged. Thinking of the proprietor, who had put their possessions in order but couldn't put their heart in order, I carefully took a seat.

"Okay... What's up?"

Oh Dokseo looked at me with a nonchalant expression, determined eyes, and a frightened heart, all at once.

I switched off [Mind Reading] for the moment. It wasn't a particularly appropriate skill for a serious person-to-person conversation.

"First, I recommend that you not be too surprised."

"Huh? What on earth are you going to say?"

"I'll get straight to the point. Oh Dokseo. I know that you've read a novel you consider the original work on which this world is based."

"..."

TICK, TOCK.

The wall clock's batteries hadn't run out yet, and it diligently swept its second hand around, still in perfect working order. Unfortunately, it wasn't a cuckoo clock.

Oh Dokseo's mouth fell open.

"Huh?"

"For the record, I'm deliberately imitating this manner of speech to accommodate your expectations. If you don't mind, I'd like to return to the way I normally speak. This is surprisingly uncomfortable."

"... Wait, waitwaitwait. Hold ooon! Wait!"

Oh Dokseo practically screamed.

"A novel? What novel? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!"

"Omniscient Regressor's Viewpoint, of course. The novel you yourself claim to have read. You may not know this, but I have an ability called [Mind Reading]. It converts another person's surface thoughts into words and lets the user hear them."

"Huh? That's a lie. There wasn't any ability like that in the original... Oh."

Oh Dokseo blinked.

"... Was that a trick question just now?"

"No. It's true. I'm also well aware that you privately consider me half a psychopath."

"I-I never did that?"

Despite her trembling voice, Oh Dokseo staunchly maintained her innocence. Such shamelessness hinted at a talent for politics.

Ten minutes later.

We talked through our misunderstandings—or, more precisely, Oh Dokseo's entirely one-sided misunderstandings. Her face went through a truly impressive range of expressions during the exchange.

She muttered in dismay.

"No... This is cheating."

"Cheating?"

"Usually, in novels, regressors can't discover the protagonist's... Oh, by protagonist, I mean me here. Anyway, they can't discover the secret the protagonist is hiding. But what's this? You found me out the moment I was summoned to Busan Station... That's not how novels work!"

"Sorry, but the world isn't a novel."

"It was to me until just now!"

Oh Dokseo slammed her hand onto the table.

BANG!

"And what's with that way of talking? Where did the Undertaker who'd kill anyone who pissed him off, comrades included, disappear to?"

"No, honestly, that was so long ago for me. Imagine being fifty and hearing, [\"You were such a sweet child at five. \"] Would that resonate with you?"

"Huh? That long?"

"That long."

"Just what run are you on now?"

"Run 555."

"Five hundred and fifty-five?"

Oh Dokseo shrieked like a wall clock's cuckoo.

"What the hell? What's with that number? Not run fifty-five, but run five hundred and fifty-five? No matter how strong Tenlegs is, you still haven't killed it after 555 runs? What are you doing? That's practically dereliction of duty!"

"Oh, Tenlegs isn't the final boss. It's actually the weakest of the lot."

Oh Dokseo went pale.

"... Tenlegs, which made boneless chicken out of the Great Witch Dang Seorin, guild leader of Three Thousand, is the weakest?"

"These days, I grill it into chicken skewers and eat it."

"You're bullshitting me, right? ... Huh, wait. Undertaker. Then just how old are you now?"

Hmm.

I answered a little defensively.

"My child. Age is meaningless to a regressor."

"No, no, no. It's absolutely not meaningless. Let's see. Even if we estimate roughly ten years per run... 5,550 years old?"

"..."

I exercised my right to remain silent.

Not because I had nothing to say. I did, but saying it seemed likely to turn the conversation even further against me. For example, the fact that the average should actually be higher than ten years per run.

Reading my expression, Oh Dokseo recoiled in horror.

"What the hell! You're a seriously old guy!"

"..."

"Unbelievable. The protagonist I thought was the coolest guy in the world was actually an old man!"

That was the moment Oh Dokseo settled on "old man" as her form of address for me.

I felt a little depressed.

Mean little thing.

Just you try getting as old as me, you brat.