Chapter 37 - Father and Son II

3

Nobody knows the geography of the Korean Peninsula as thoroughly as I do.

Even Kim Jeongho, who created the Daedongyeojido map, would have to admit I had him beat. I'm not joking. He never walked every inch of the country. Me? I've even visited a shuttered inn in Onyang to kill Udumbara.

After the National Road Management Corps was founded in run fifty-four, the navigation app inside my head received increasingly precise updates.

However capable Noh Doha was, managing every road in the country was impossible. There simply weren't enough people or funds.

We had to limit the roads connecting any two cities to exactly one, and restore only a single lane of it.

Tunnels were particularly dangerous.

They were dangerous if they had already collapsed or were likely to collapse in the future, and even more dangerous if they remained perfectly intact. Because dark, pitch-black tunnels... were terrain that anomalies absolutely adored.

That was a fatal problem for the Korean Peninsula, where mountains covered seventy percent of the land and tunnels had been popular for precisely that reason.

Oh, not as bad as Japan, of course. Their tunnels were a serious problem. I'll get around to covering that separately later.

Anyway, the National Road Management Corps had to find routes connecting cities while bypassing every tunnel. If there was no other option, we had to carve new roads even if that meant cutting into mountains.

We called it Operation Road Thinning.

The project was almost as challenging as a national infrastructure initiative.

"Undertaker, sir, we'll be counting on you to handle this..."

Naturally, the entire plan was entrusted to me.

"Understood."

I didn't particularly complain to Noh Doha.

I'd intended to take this project on from the start.

Suppose, for example, that we needed to travel north from Busan to Daegu. Which route would be the most effective to restore as a single-lane road?

Here, "effective" didn't simply mean taking the least time. In fact, travel time ranked relatively low among our considerations.

The most important questions were: How far was it from monster dens? Could we maintain a reliable lookout in every direction? And, especially, how many rest points—intermediate way stations where patrols could safely camp—could we secure?

If we wanted to get a little more ambitious, proximity to drinking-water sources was preferable. But dams could collapse at any moment, so unless we wanted to get the Eulji Mundeok flood-attack treatment, we also had to keep our distance from them. Bridges went without saying.

In other words?

'There are far too many things to keep track of in this project.'

Exactly. I was the only one who could do this.

No matter how intelligent someone was, sitting at a desk and drawing a plausible road network was useless. What could they do when the map spread across that desk was already hopelessly outdated? Every map we could get our hands on was an antique made before the gate crisis.

Ultimately, there was no option but for me to do the legwork myself. We did have a few satellite images, but we needed to consider extremely fine details that those alone could never reveal.

And who else had enough time on their hands to tour the country in a world this thoroughly ruined? Only an infinite regressor.

"I'll be counting on your help, Saintess."

["Of course. I'll support you."]

From run fifty-four through run fifty-six, I lived out a road movie, exploring every corner of the country until the soles of my feet practically broke out in heat rash.

Sometimes I traveled with a patrol, but mostly I wandered alone. Well, I could chat with the Saintess through [Telepathy] whenever I wanted, so I wasn't particularly bored.

If I collected just those three runs' worth of travelogues and published them as a side story, the title would probably be something like [I'm an Infinite Regressor in a Ruined World, but I'll Enjoy a Leisurely Journey Alone with the Saintess's Voice].

There weren't many major incidents, so it would probably be a dull story, but personally, I'm quite fond of those three runs. For the first time in ages, I met more ordinary people than awakened. I formed so many connections then.

"Huh, this road... Is this the wrong place?"

Kim Sieun.

My first meeting with the son of a certain former professional soccer player also took place in run fifty-four.

"Excuse me."

"Whoa! Y-you scared me!"

A young man dressed for travel jumped in fright.

He was somewhere in that age range where you couldn't quite decide whether to call him a young man or a boy. Perhaps I got that impression because he was unusually short.

Until I spoke to him from behind, he had been standing motionless in front of Changwon Tunnel. His face was practically buried in a map much larger than his head, worn ragged from being unfolded and refolded dozens, if not hundreds, of times. What particularly caught my eye was his enormous bag, which looked almost too much for his tiny frame to bear.

In short, he looked like a stereotypical backpacker from head to toe.

"Who are you?"

The one slightly unusual detail was that he carried a spear instead of a walking stick.

He leveled his spear at me. It was a pretty shoddy spear, though. Clearly a one-hundred-percent homemade, handcrafted item, fashioned by tightly binding a dagger to the end of a walking stick with blue duct tape.

Actually, that was the latest fashion among backpackers these days. Unless you wanted to hear people nagging, "What, you're traveling without a spear? Is the final destination on your itinerary a monster's stomach?" you had no choice but to follow the latest trend.

"I'm sorry for startling you. I'm an awakened from the Three Thousand Worlds guild. I took part in the campaign to kill Tenlegs."

"An awakened...?"

His eyes were still full of wariness, but a hint of "Maybe I should at least hear him out" began to show.

In every run, ordinary people's attitudes toward the awakened softened considerably after the Tenlegs campaign. You might compare it to how Americans treated veterans returning after ending World War II.

Residents from the outskirts of Seoul were especially kind to the awakened. Perhaps the young man was from that area too, because he at least attempted to adopt a polite tone.

"Um. I'm sorry. I was just so startled..."

"It's my fault for speaking to you from behind without warning. I don't mind. More importantly, this tunnel has collapsed, so you'd be better off not trying to go through it."

Dismay crept into his expression.

"What? W-why?"

"You can see the entrance has collapsed, can't you?"

I pointed at Changwon Tunnel. Beyond civilization's reach, the area around it had become wildly overgrown with bushes and scrub trees. Only the asphalt road, cracked like diseased skin, and the tunnel entrance barely managed to insist, "This used to be our territory, you know."

His voice grew small.

"But I think one person could somehow squeeze through..."

"I wouldn't recommend it."

"Huh? Why?"

"There's an extremely high chance that anomalies... I mean, monsters are living in there."

"Oh."

Even for a young man traveling through this harsh world with only a walking stick and a backpack, the word "monsters" had the magical power to make him give up on everything.

"Then, um, why are you here, sir...?"

"We've received reports of people disappearing around here. Quite a few have met with disaster while trying to pass through, thinking one person should be fine, just like you. So I'm planning to block it off completely."

"Good heavens."

"It's dangerous. Please step back."

I brought the tunnel down right before his eyes. A ghostlike wailing echoed from deep inside, but I paid it no particular mind. Probably just the noise of slimes bursting.

"You really are an awakened...!"

Now that he'd witnessed that I wasn't merely some guy claiming to be awakened, the young man finally lowered his guard.

For the record, he probably hadn't lowered his guard because he trusted the awakened to be good people. It was closer to humbly acknowledging that, against an awakened powerful enough to destroy a tunnel with a single stroke of a blade, no amount of vigilance would do him any good.

An objective assessment of yourself was fairly important if you wanted to live in this broken world without unnecessary stress. In that sense, he had adapted well.

"Where are you coming from?"

"Oh, I used to live in Asan."

"Wait. You walked all the way here from Asan? Alone?"

"Haha. Yes."

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"My mother's hometown is Daesan-myeon in Changwon. Do you know Daesan-myeon? It's in Changwon. Anyway, I was going to stop there and then head down to Busan. I thought the route through this tunnel would be the quickest. I never imagined it would be a slime dungeon..."

"Is your mother in her hometown?"

"Oh. No. She passed away seven years ago."

At that moment, a familiar little chime rang inside my heart. It was the sound of my affection for the young man before me going up.

Why hide it?

I, Undertaker, was a man who could shed tears at the mere mention of filial devotion, and not particularly because I was getting older. Substitute love for family and the result was the same. A regressor's weakness is always love.

"Did you decide to travel because you wanted to see your late mother's hometown at least once?"

"Yes!"

"That's truly admirable. You must have known it would be a difficult journey."

"Aw, it's nothing compared to everything my mother went through raising me."

Affection plus 200 points!

By this point, I'd already resolved to get the young man safely to Busan, no matter what. I needed to stop in Busan to see Noh Doha anyway. One extra traveling companion wouldn't be any burden at all.

"I was planning to head down to Busan after destroying this tunnel myself. If you don't mind, would you like to come with me?"

"Really?"

His face brightened at my offer.

"Yes. My name is Undertaker. It's an alias, not my real name. It'll be a short trip, but I look forward to traveling with you."

"Likewise! My name is Kim Sieun! Um, you don't have to be so formal with me."

"All right. Good to have you along, Sieun."

"Yes, sir!"

We shook hands. There was quite a difference in our heights, so I had to bend slightly at the waist without making it obvious.

I'll be honest.

Even then, I hadn't realized at all that the Kim Sieun standing before me was that Kim Sieun.

There were unavoidable circumstances behind that. To condense a very long, rambling excuse into one line: the truth was, I'd forgotten the name Kim Sieun all this time.

Of course, in this episode, I've made it sound as though I remembered the soccer player Kim Jucheol's final words all along. But as I've emphasized time and again, that consistency is nothing more than the result of my editing the text.

I met Kim Jucheol in run four, and Kim Sieun in run fifty-four. More than five hundred years lay between those two moments. How was I supposed to instantly recall events from a time before I'd even acquired [Perfect Recall]?

"What does your father do?"

"Huh? My father?"

It was while preparing camp with Kim Sieun that evening that I truly began to sense something strange—a certain feeling that something was off.

He frowned at my question, like someone who'd just been asked what they thought of the mythical Black Tortoise.

"Uh... Well. I'm not really sure."

"Why? Did something bad happen when you were little?"

"No, it's not that... Hmm. I just don't remember!"

I'd been absentmindedly unrolling my sleeping bag, but my eyes suddenly widened.

The way he'd acted as he spoke just now. That slightly drawn-out tone was a kind of response all too familiar to me.

"Wait. This is a really rude question, but I'm an orphan too, so I'll ask you straight out. Do you have absolutely no memories of your father?"

"Huh? Oh, yes..."

"Your mother never once talked about him? And you never asked her about him either?"

"... Yes. Why?"

"And you've never thought that was strange, have you?"

Kim Sieun stared at me with eyes as round as a squirrel's. There wasn't a trace of doubt on his face. If anything, he looked as though I was the strange one for worrying about such a thing.

Because it was only natural not to think about something that didn't exist.

"Yes. That's right."

"..."

I sighed.

Then I gazed up at the night sky above our campsite for a long time.

The bonds between people in this world were so tenacious, and so frightening.

"Sieun."

"Yes?"

"When we get to Busan, come with me. There's somewhere I want us to stop by for a bit."

4

In a word, Kim Sieun's meeting with me was a miracle.

Well, I wasn't throwing the word "miracle" around in some terribly grandiose sense. Like every miracle, closer examination revealed that this meeting hadn't suddenly burst into being like something emerging from nothing. It had happened because several existing conditions had aligned exquisitely.

The details of those conditions could readily be deduced from the personal information Kim Sieun himself had provided.

"You worked in Asan before the gates broke out?"

"Yes. A relative of mine ran a really big supermarket there. I just worked part-time!"

What caught my attention was none other than Asan itself.

Readers who know their Korean geography might have felt a chill at the back of their necks, just as I did, the moment Asan came up.

To explain briefly, the administrative boundaries of Asan in South Chungcheong Province included an area called Onyang.

That's right. Onyang. The very place where that shuttered inn stood, where the World Tree, Udumbara, had first blossomed red.

Unless I killed Udumbara, Asan's residents were guaranteed to become infected with the virus. They were too close to the epicenter for it to be otherwise. I'd never calculated it separately, but by the time the World Tree reached full bloom, ninety-nine percent of the civilians from Asan would have been wiped out.

And Kim Sieun would naturally have been among the dead.

Even if he somehow miraculously avoided the virus, his situation would not improve. Because Korea was home to Tenlegs, the Korean Peninsula's one and only Michelin Guide inspector.

No matter how much the New Buddha virus guaranteed humanity eternal life, you were screwed if Tenlegs ripped your fucking head off and destroyed your brain. Until the guild alliance killed Tenlegs, every human on the peninsula was nothing more than an omakase item laid out on its dining table.

In short, several conditions had to be met for Kim Sieun to survive unharmed and travel from Asan to Changwon to Busan, clutching a single homemade spear. If I laid out those conditions neatly like an RPG quest window, they would look like this:

──────────

[Conditions to Unlock Kim Sieun's Survival Route]

1. Defeat 'Tenlegs.' If Tenlegs is not defeated and moves south from Seoul, Kim Sieun will die.

2. Defeat the World Tree, 'Udumbara.' Kim Sieun is among those infected in the virus's initial stages. Unless Udumbara is defeated immediately after regression, Kim Sieun's death cannot be prevented.

──────────

A difficulty level nobody could have dreamed of clearing without me, a regressor.

And was Kim Sieun the only person on the peninsula in that situation? Countless people were in the same boat. Take Dang Seorin, who tried to coax me into becoming witch friends whenever she got the chance. Even her survival was only guaranteed once Tenlegs was eliminated.

Defeating boss-level monsters was like opening up previously locked areas one by one. Kim Sieun was like an NPC unlocked only on a route where both Tenlegs and Udumbara had been killed.

Of course, all of this was merely a game analogy. The real world wasn't a game. Real people weren't NPCs either.

And so the responsibilities one ought to bear toward other people were very real.

"... Uh, so."

After hearing my entire explanation, Kim Sieun furrowed his brow.

"You're saying I actually had a father named Kim Jucheol? And because you sealed my father away, Undertaker, I lost every memory of him."

"Yes. To be more specific, he was erased from everyone's memories, not just yours."

"What kind of ability even does that?"

His mouth fell open in disbelief.

He was only reacting that way because he was an ordinary person. In truth, [Time Seal] was a fairly sensible ability. This world even had an ability that strengthened your healing powers the more you trolled people on the internet.

Ordinary people tended to mistakenly assume that the awakened all had abilities like RPG characters. In reality, bizarre, outlandish abilities were far more common.

"Anyway, I could be mistaken, but from where I'm standing, it looks very likely that you're Kim Jucheol's son."

"Hmm. I don't know. None of this feels real to me..."

"Have you ever taken an interest in soccer?"

Kim Sieun hesitated.

"... No?"

"Kim Jucheol was a former soccer player. If you lost all your memories of your father, you probably lost a substantial portion of your memories of soccer too."

"But lots of people aren't interested in soccer."

"True. But having no memories of it at all is a completely different matter. Have you never watched the World Cup in your life? Not even once? Have you ever seen a video or an article about Korean players who went overseas?"

Kim Sieun fell silent.

"Kim Jucheol is sealed in a stadium in Busan. If this is all a mistake and I've misunderstood, I'll apologize in advance. But I think it's worth coming with me at least once to find out the truth."

"..."

He didn't deliberate for long.