Chapter 3 - Watcher I

The café where I often meet Old Man Scho... No, let me correct that.

The café where I often meet Old Man Scho’s ‘corpse’ has little fish tanks dotted around it. Probably the barista’s personal taste.

None of the fish are particularly rare, but their tails have a magic that soothes the heart just by watching them.

Perhaps because the flow of time slows a little when it gets caught in those fins.

Or perhaps it’s simply because their bulging eyes make them look like brainless idiots.

Whenever I drink Old Man Scho’s café au lait and watch that blue tropical fish over there wriggling through an underwater ballet in time, one person invariably comes to mind.

The Saintess.

Today, I think I’ll tell you about her.

When the gate crisis broke out across the world, Korea held up surprisingly well.

Not thanks to the government.

For a start, half of Seoul had been devastated, including the National Assembly building on Yeouido. More than a hundred gold-badged lawmakers evaporated that day alone.

Opinions may differ on whether this was a tragedy or a blessing, but at least in those early days, Korea’s political leadership was temporarily paralyzed.

Nevertheless, Korea’s awakened somehow managed to weather the crisis for one simple reason: translucent ‘messages’ appeared before their eyes like holograms.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ shows interest in your heroic achievements.]

In my case, for instance, a message like this appeared whenever I took the lead in clearing the Busan Station gate.

I wasn’t the only one to experience this phenomenon.

“Huh? What’s this?”

“... The Chancellor in the Red Cloak? It says this one’s interested in me?”

Awakened began distinguishing themselves all across the country. Without fail, ‘messages’ came to them.

The names of the entities sending them varied from person to person. What they all had in common was that someone was paying attention to their actions.

“They’re constellations!”

And someone named this phenomenon ‘constellations.’

Apparently, these messages were quite familiar to awakened who regularly enjoyed reading web novels.

Meanwhile, people with little connection to web novels—awakened like me, for instance—could only look on in bewilderment. Eventually, I approached someone practically radiating ‘I know what this is! I’ve seen this before!’ and asked outright.

“Excuse me, sir. I apologize for approaching you out of the blue, but what is a constellation?”

“Oh, you don’t know constellation novels!”

The awakened I’d asked eagerly explained.

“They’re transcendent beings who watch awakened like us, show interest, and give us support! You know livestreaming, right? It’s like that! We’re the streamers, and the constellations are the viewers sending donations!”

“I see.”

“Constellations are incredibly powerful. Some are terrifying beings like Cthulhu, and some are deities friendly toward humans like us... Anyway, it’s a good thing! Make sure you get on their good side, no matter what. Oh, which constellation should I choose? Is [Choose none] the way to go after all?”

The awakened went on rambling through explanations for quite some time.

At first, I simply nodded and accepted that this was how things were.

Monsters were roaming out of gates, after all. The existence of transcendent beings munching popcorn while watching the human world wouldn’t have been especially surprising.

[The ‘Conqueror of the Alps’ admires your exploits!]

[The ‘Chancellor in the Red Cloak’ pays respect to your stratagem.]

As the runs went on, I grew accustomed to the constellations’ presence.

They seemed to follow my activities from beginning to end, praising or encouraging me whenever I did something unusual.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ praises your great feat.]

I was even secretly proud that the constellation supporting me was the ‘Saintess of National Salvation.’

She was famous for cherishing awakened with good hearts, and it certainly seemed that I was her favorite.

Without the constellations, perhaps my life as an awakened would have felt a little bleaker.

Their identities remained a complete mystery, but in any case, most awakened—not just me—felt warmly toward them.

“... There’s something strange about this.”

Old Man Scho thought differently.

Before he left on his long ‘vacation,’ around the tenth run, he began finding the constellations suspicious.

“What? What’s strange?”

“I contacted some friends abroad a little while ago. Most of them are dead, but a few bastards survived. And they tell me... they don’t see any of that shit in their countries.”

“Any of what?”

“Bah. The constellations’ messages, the messages! My German friends have never seen or even heard of them.”

Old Man Scho scrunched his nose and frowned.

“I asked a few friends in other countries just to be sure, and they said they’d never experienced any messages either.”

“...”

“That means this peculiar phenomenon only happens in Korea, out of the whole world... Isn’t that far too strange? Why do the constellations only operate in Korea? They’re supposed to be transcendent beings. What reason would they have to favor Korea of all places?”

“Uh... Maybe they like K-pop?”

“That’s some concentrated bullshit, Doctor.”

It happened just then.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ is disheartened by your conversation.]

[The ‘Conqueror of the Alps’ asks you to set aside your suspicions.]

[The ‘Chancellor in the Red Cloak’ mocks your shallow understanding.]

Messages appeared as though they’d been waiting for their cue.

By this point, Old Man Scho and I were already persons of interest receiving plenty of attention from the constellations. Naturally. He was indisputably the strongest Swordmaster, and I was... Well, anyway, I was an irreplaceable resource.

I glanced sideways. He was furrowing his brow, apparently seeing something before his eyes too.

“You too, old man?”

“Yes. These bastards are watching our every move.”

Old Man Scho grumbled, waving at the air as though swatting away an annoying fly.

“Anyway, there’s more than one suspicious thing about them. They never sent me a message before I learned Korean. But the moment I started speaking a little, didn’t their messages arrive like clockwork?”

“...”

“Unless they’re getting seriously high on Korean nationalist pride, as you suggest, there’s no explaining it. Doctor, don’t put too much trust in these constellations, or whatever they are.”

Sadly, Old Man Scho never uncovered the constellations’ secret.

Starting with the twenty-sixth run, he left on his long vacation with his wife. He hadn’t had enough time to investigate.

But that wasn’t true of me.

An infinite regressor is, by definition, the Bill Gates of time. It was no exaggeration to say time was all I had to spare.

‘Why do constellations only appear in Korea?’

I rested a hand on my chin.

It was an intriguing enough riddle to warrant investing one run out of my countless regressions.

First of all, Old Man Scho’s observation was correct.

‘Messages’ never appeared for awakened working abroad—or even for those working in Korea who hadn’t learned Korean.

‘Thanks to that, Korea’s awakened are fairly decent in terms of quality—or perhaps I should say their moral awareness.’

In other countries, awakened committed acts of terrorism, massacred ordinary people, and perpetrated all sorts of crimes, several every day.

Only in Korea was their crime rate low.

Why was this happening?

As I saw it, there were two possible answers.

First, the constellations really were addicted to Korean nationalist pride and only cared about Korean awakened.

And the second was—

‘The constellations only know how to speak Korean...?’

If this was true, the implications would be enormous.

Think about it. Even Old Man Scho, with his aging brain, had mastered a foreign language in just a few runs.

Yet these so-called constellations could only speak Korean?

What kind of damned transcendent beings did that make them?

‘In other words, the constellations aren’t transcendent beings.’

I formed a hypothesis.

‘But without being transcendent, it would be difficult to monitor every awakened in Korea and send them individual messages. There must be some secret behind it.’

Starting with my thirty-fifth run, I began my ‘constellation investigation’ in earnest.

I had finally decided to find out what sort of beings these friends were, who had admired my actions and gasped at them all this time.

‘First, draw the constellations’ attention.’

The method was simple. Constellations had a tendency to show interest in outstanding awakened.

As soon as my thirty-fifth run began, I drew on every ability I had, even pushing myself a little too hard. I cleared the gate that opened at Busan Station within twenty minutes.

In my first run, I’d died without closing this gate.

Only in my third had I conquered it, after an entire week.

Now I’d finished that same gate in less than twenty minutes. What’s more, of the 399 people summoned into Busan Station’s waiting hall, only one lost their life.

I’d only farmed the silver bell from the waiting hall’s souvenir shop for items, so there was no wasted time there either.

A literal speedrun.

A record sure to astound the constellations.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ is astounded by your exploits!]

[The ‘Lord of the Red Horse’ feels a competitive urge at your strength.]

[The ‘Conqueror of the Alps’ takes notice of your actions.]

[The ‘Chancellor in the Red Cloak’ is wary of your skill.]

Sure enough, the constellations took the bait as though they’d been waiting for it.

Four, then seven, then eleven constellations kept sending messages in an unbroken stream.

For the moment, I ignored them.

Only after leaving Busan Station and reaching a deserted parking lot did I speak.

“Constellations. I know that you’re Korean.”

An abrupt stop.

The messages, which had been flying in as ceaselessly as Hogwarts acceptance letters, all stopped at once.

With the messages blanketing my vision gone, the sky turned blue. I looked up into the empty air.

“I also know you’re not transcendent beings. I could announce this fact to the awakened... But what interests me more is your identity. Please tell me what you are.”

-...

There was no answer.

To tell the truth, I was quite nervous at the time.

The possibility was vanishingly small, but perhaps—just perhaps—the constellations really were transcendent beings who ate kimchi wrapped in seaweed at every meal, listened to K-pop over tea, and watched nationalist-hype TV in the evening.

What if that was why they bestowed their mysterious nationalistic favor only on Korean-speaking awakened?

‘They might be enraged by my insolent proposal and attack me all at once.’

I took a fighting stance.

My awakened ability wasn’t combat-related, but even a dog at a village school learns to recite poetry after three years. After all my struggles alongside Old Man Scho, the strongest Swordmaster of all time, my fighting prowess had grown considerably.

As I steeled myself for a fight to the death, telling myself that if the worst happened and I died here, I could simply move on to the next run—

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ invites you.]

A message appeared.

Fortunately, this did not turn into a scene where the constellations appeared to punish an insolent mortal.

Instead, dozens of constellations fell silent, and just one conveyed her wishes to me.

As it happened, she was the ‘Saintess of National Salvation,’ the first constellation ever to express interest in me.

I asked cautiously.

“An invitation? What sort of invitation?”

A message came back a moment later.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ invites you to Jamsu Bridge on the Han River.]

Seoul.

The hell on earth where Old Man Scho had lost his wife and countless gold-badged lawmakers lay buried.

‘Ah.’

... Only then did it strike me that the constellations had never once used a regional dialect.

I’ve probably mentioned several times already that a gate opened in the middle of Gangnam and reduced the surrounding area to ruins.

But the places beyond its reach were surprisingly intact. Jamsu Bridge, too, looked exactly as it had before the world became like this.

The place where the ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ had arranged to meet me was a sky-blue convenience store near Jamsu Bridge. An awfully down-to-earth venue for an invitation from a constellation.

A woman with her hair tied back sat beneath the convenience store’s patio umbrella.

Her appearance was ordinary. Her water-blue hair was unusual, but awakened often experienced changes in hair color when they became aware of their abilities.

At the very least, she didn’t feel like a being beyond humanity.

“Hello. Are you the Saintess of National Salvation?”

“...”

The woman looked at me. Her gaze scanned my entire body in an instant.

Her eyes were so like a fish’s that she seemed less immersed in thought than submerged in water.

“Busan Station gate?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“... I never imagined you’d actually get here from Busan in less than a day.”

When half of Seoul was torn away, most of the transportation network leading to the capital was disabled in one stroke. Roads, railways—everything had been wrecked.

Conversely, that meant a few usable routes still remained for now.

Old Man Scho had wanted to reach Seoul before his wife disappeared, by any means possible. As a result, we’d conducted countless studies into ‘how to get from Busan to Seoul as quickly as possible.’

... Even the fastest route couldn’t get him there within a minute, so the research had ultimately been utterly useless. Well, at least it had let me meet the ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ this quickly.

“My code name is Undertaker. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, yes... But Undertaker?”

“There’s a story behind that nickname. Feel free to call me Doctor.”

After shaking her hand, I sat down across from her.

Far in the distance, a Seoul skyscraper also known as ‘Sauron’s Tower’ shimmered like a shadow.

“More importantly, I’d like to ask you this first.”

“...”

“Are you the Saintess of National Salvation? Or her representative? What are constellations? Are they really transcendent beings?”

She fell silent. For a fleeting moment, countless concerns passed through her eyes.

After a while, she worked her lips, then clenched her fist tightly.

And let out a small sigh.

“... Yes. I’m the Saintess of National Salvation.”