Chapter 41 - The One Who Was a Watcher III

5

There was a hypothesis I had entertained for some time.

Perhaps certain monsters, certain anomalies, were actually born from humans?

I hadn't held this notion from the very beginning. I began to consider the hypothesis seriously when I uncovered the true nature of Udumbara, the World Tree.

As you know, Udumbara sprouted in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. The bodies of a mother and child presumed to have starved to death. It was none other than humans who had given birth to a virus of unprecedented proportions.

By common sense, an anomaly being born from an ordinary human body made no sense. But a slight shift in perspective made it perfectly plausible.

Assume they had been awakened with that sort of ability to begin with, and everything fell into place.

I didn't know whether the mother or the child had been awakened. By the time we found them, they had already starved to death. But what if one, or both, had been awakened?

What if Udumbara itself was an ability?

What if, viewed objectively, the abilities of the awakened were actually no different from those of monsters and anomalies?

In theory, any awakened could fall and become an anomaly. No, it couldn't even be called a fall. It meant that the awakened and anomalies were fundamentally the same from the outset.

[The ability to grow two hearts in one's body and constantly regenerate tentacles].

Thus, Tenlegs was called a monster.

[The ability to freely observe an area large enough to encompass the entire Korean Peninsula, and freely send Telepathy to every awakened].

Thus, the Saintess called herself awakened.

From the perspective of someone wholly unrelated to humanity—an alien, for instance—which of the two would be the more dangerous organism?

Whether or not they assumed a human form was merely a difference in appearance. Weren't they equally terrifying beings?

"... Saintess."

"Yes. I killed them."

An absurdly refreshing admission.

But considering that those words had come from the Saintess's mouth, it was closer to chilling than refreshing.

"Why...?"

"Mr. Undertaker. That's a strange question. I've merely taken the same stance I always have."

She remained expressionless throughout.

"To keep the awakened from readily committing crimes, I created constellations that don't even exist in this world. I imitated them. The constellation system operates on the possibility that [someone might be watching my every move]. On anxiety. It stems from the view that people restrain themselves while others are watching, but abandon their reason when no one is."

The Saintess tilted her head.

"Is the Wheel Killer any different?"

"..."

"The constellation system could curb the awakened's rampages. But it couldn't reach ordinary people, civilians. Unfortunately, my Telepathy only works on the awakened. So I've simply created another possibility, one that ordinary people can fear as well."

Snow was falling.

Flurries settled on the Saintess's head and her double-breasted coat. Those fragments of cold descending from the sky lost their form and melted the moment they touched her body.

Her eyes narrowed.

"There is too much trash in this world. No, trash isn't the right word. There are far too many beasts pretending to be human."

"So..."

"So I killed them. Are you worried that some might have been innocent? You needn't worry about that, Mr. Undertaker. Again and again. I checked again and again before killing them. Not for a single moment have I regretted my murders."

Why?

I was clearly speaking with the Saintess, yet the presence radiating from the person before me felt unfamiliar. It wasn't simply a sense that she had changed as a person, or that her personality had changed.

Her very being had changed.

For no reason I could identify, sweat began to seep from my right palm.

"You're too good, Mr. Undertaker."

"... Me? I never expected to hear that from you, Saintess."

"You're giving everyone infinite chances."

RUSTLE

The Saintess took a step. The snow crunched beneath her feet. Reflexively, I stepped back to maintain my distance from her.

Even if she was a serial killer, I had absolutely no reason to avoid her. We were sworn allies. Even if she burned the entire world to the ground, I would stand by her.

So it wasn't logic that moved my feet, but intuition.

The instincts I had accumulated over 107 runs guided my steps.

"Chances?"

"Yes. What do you think of your ability, [Regression], Mr. Undertaker? Surely you see it as yourself receiving endless chances. But from my perspective, as someone watching you from your side, I see it a little differently."

"How so?"

"You aren't the only one receiving chances. Everyone other than you receives the same chances each time the world regresses."

One step.

"The evil person who killed an innocent girl in the last run received a chance to change in this one. The villain who stole the food a little child had saved until the very end, tied the child up, and deliberately watched them starve to death also received a chance to make a different choice. Once. Twice. Ten times. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty."

"..."

"But how many of them hesitated before committing their evil deeds? How many killed the same people and tortured the same people more than forty, more than fifty times?"

"... Those people don't know this world is regressing."

"That's right. Ignorance. Not knowing is always a good excuse. Even when it comes to killing people, they always hide behind ignorance. I understand. I'll accept that. But what about the people who were killed?"

"..."

"Why must they endure unjust deaths and undeserved suffering over and over?"

One step.

"Someday, you will succeed in saving the world, Mr. Undertaker. Yes, without a doubt. In that future world, the wicked will once again be given a chance to live new lives. Perhaps, in a world with a little more breathing room, in a slightly more peaceful age, even evil people might not bother committing sins. I think that is profoundly—wrong."

Another step.

"Mr. Undertaker. If you've killed someone, you must be punished," the Saintess said softly.

"Not given another chance."

At some point, without my noticing, a small, sleek hatchet had appeared in the Saintess's grasp. It meant she had armed herself faster than I could perceive.

A little more sweat ran down the back of my neck.

"No matter how many times you regress to save this world, Mr. Undertaker, the sins the wicked committed within those runs won't disappear. No. I will make sure they don't."

"What do you mean...?"

"I will give sinners suffering for all eternity."

Vapor rose from the Saintess's mouth.

It was white smoke drifting toward the boundless sky.

"If you wish to regress, you may do so whenever you like. A hundred times. Two hundred. Even a thousand—please keep trying to save this world. But I won't let the wicked enjoy the benefits of those efforts too."

"..."

"Every time you regress, Mr. Undertaker, I will execute the punishment this world deserves. If the wicked commit crimes for eternity, I will torture them for eternity."

The vapor flowing from her lips twisted to one side.

That was the Saintess's sneer.

"For though I am too inept to create heaven in this world, I do have the ability to build a little hell."

When the Saintess took her final step, I unleashed sword aura in a flash.

My target was the hatchet in her hand.

I didn't know why she had drawn a weapon against me. But I didn't doubt her intelligence in the slightest. If the Saintess had armed herself, it meant she had a reason to do so.

What was her plan? What did she intend to do after subduing me, a regressor?

It was difficult to guess, but the outcome certainly wouldn't be good for me.

Suppressing my foreboding, I attacked her.

"What...?"

But she evaded my sword aura with effortless ease. One step. Just a single step to the side.

A simple movement, as though she had known in advance exactly where the attack would come from and where it would go.

CRASH!

Suddenly, the sound of breaking glass rang out from my body. Not from one place. My left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg—aura collided and vibrated in all four limbs simultaneously.

Four hatchets struck my body, rebounded, and scattered in every direction.

I couldn't tell when or where they had come from.

It felt as though the hatchets had suddenly appeared right in front of me.

"Ghk?"

If I hadn't developed the habit of wearing aura over my whole body like armor, that strike would have severely injured my arms and legs.

I immediately moved away from the Saintess. Kicking off the snow, I leaped far backward in a single bound.

But the gap between us didn't widen.

"You're strong. Just as I'd expect of you, Mr. Undertaker."

I must have leaped dozens of meters at once, yet the Saintess was already standing before me.

"...!"

And that wasn't all. Hatchets rebounded from my body with the sound of shattering glass. This time there were six. I barely managed to react to two of them and knock them aside with my sword.

'How? She had talent for martial arts, but not this much. Unless this is an ability...'

It was then.

Watching the Saintess follow my movements with such nonchalance suddenly brought back a fairly old memory.

The thirty-sixth run. The conversation we had when we first met.

["What do you mean, you created the constellations?"]

["It's thanks to my abilities. I can use [Clairvoyance] and [Telepathy]."]

["But isn't it impossible to impersonate the constellations with only Clairvoyance and Telepathy? You'd have to observe several people and send messages at the same time. Do you perhaps have another ability?"]

["Oh, that's..."]

Back then, the Saintess had given a small smile.

["That's a secret. I'll tell you later."]

An old memory.

Now, I felt I knew what that secret was.

"Time Stop...?"

"..."

The Saintess paused.

"Did you know?"

"I only suspected. It was one of several possibilities. To impersonate multiple constellations and observe multiple awakened at once, you'd need an extraordinary ability of some sort. Multiple fields of vision, perhaps, or multiple personalities... But Time Stop?"

Time Stop. The wild card I had considered least likely.

If she truly possessed [Time Stop] as well, the Saintess was effectively the most powerful awakened.

Forgetting even the predicament I was in, I let out a hollow laugh.

"Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and now Time Stop too? That's ridiculous. Any one of those would qualify as a top-tier ability, and you've hogged all three for yourself? Give the cheating a rest, Saintess."

"You're far too kind. No matter how I stretch, I could never compare to an infinite regressor."

... At last, everything made sense.

The Saintess had used [Time Stop] to observe so many awakened simultaneously, and to play the constellations simultaneously as well.

It explained how she had dodged my attack, and how she had suddenly thrown hatchets at me from four directions.

With time stopped, she could calmly work out exactly which way an attack was coming from and where to launch her own.

And that wasn't all. By using [Clairvoyance] on me, she could synchronize her vision with mine. She would immediately know which direction I was looking and aiming.

As long as she didn't let her guard down, calling her invincible would hardly be an exaggeration.

"My ability wasn't this strong from the beginning. Even with time stopped, at most I could keep thinking, or only move my eyes. But this, too, grew stronger over the years. Now I can stop time and travel the country searching for evil people."

"Remarkable. So what do you intend to do once you've subdued me?"

"Who knows?"

The world stopped for an instant.

In the next moment, my eyes flew wide.

Countless footprints had appeared in the snow where, before, there had been only three or four trails at most. None of them were mine. Only the imprints of the Saintess's shoes spread around me in their hundreds and thousands, like a kaleidoscope.

It meant that my instant had been her eternity.

The Saintess hadn't wasted her time.

The thousands of bullets now flying toward me from across my entire field of vision proved her diligence.

And it wasn't just bullets. Dozens of hatchets appeared among them. Unlike the bullets, which had merely been fired, each hatchet had been carefully imbued with aura.

[It's a secret.]

Countless bullets rushed toward me.

Boss battle.

Ocean-class threat level.

Awakened. Alias: Saintess.

Fallen. Alias: Executor.

Commence combat.