Chapter 6 - The Operator I

1

How many years I survive in any given run varies wildly.

Sometimes I enjoy the mayfly lifestyle, dying just one day after regressing. Sometimes I stubbornly hang on for over twenty years before freezing to death. Sometimes an alien skewers me with a tentacle in year nine. And sometimes a meteorite falling to Earth kills me in year seven, giving me a taste of how the dinosaurs must have felt.

Even with my regressor perks, that was how things went for me. How much worse must everyone else have had it?

Most awakened died before lasting even two, five, or ten years, let alone twenty.

Those with power died because they had it, and those without power died because they lacked it.

In a dying world, a cause of death was whatever you chose to call it. Daily life itself was a cause of death.

But there was one person who died sooner than any awakened.

The man known as SG Guy.

Of course, “SG Guy” wasn't his real name.

It was simply shorthand for “Fucking Bullshit Guy,” a nickname I'd privately given him in my head.

I learned SG Guy's real name in my fiftieth run.

2

The first man in the world to die.

That was my image of SG Guy.

To tell his story, I first need to describe the scene I see immediately after regressing.

“Wh-what? Where am I?”

“Huh? Busan Station? I was in a park just a moment ago...”

“Cult Leader? Cult Leader, where are you?”

Every time I begin a regression, I open my eyes in the waiting hall at Busan Station.

Besides me, 398 ordinary people had been forcibly summoned there. Incidentally, there were no rules governing the summons. There was even a Japanese person dragged all the way from Fukuoka.

As hundreds of people reel from this sudden turn of events, something appears in midair with a pop.

“Ah, hello there, everyone!”

The so-called tutorial fairy.

A cartoonishly stylized character that, alone amid reality, looked as though it had just leaped out of a 2D world.

“Oh my? We're a little short on numbers... Anyway, being summoned here so suddenly must have given you all quite a friiight! But there's no need to worry! I'm your guide, here to kindly walk you through everything from the very beginning!”

Sorry to the fairy, but worrying was inevitable.

For starters, its way of talking was fucking idiotic. A person's speech is like ink produced by a printing press called personality. If the ink comes out a complete mess, it's reasonable to conclude that something is seriously wrong with the printer.

The slightly more serious problem was that the fairy was floating in midair.

Human civilization wasn't yet mature enough to accept an alien life-form that could levitate without any equipment. As a result, screams of “Aaaah!” erupted throughout the waiting hall.

“Oh! It's all right, it's all right! Now, now. I'm going to explain a few things to you! You've all had a basic education, haven't you? Think of Busan Station's waiting hall as your classroom, and me as your homeroom teacher! I'll treat you kindly so long as you do your best to follow my instructions. Now, let's begin...”

“You fucking bastard!”

Everyone froze.

A magnificent roar rang out.

“What kind of bullshit is that!”

Early twenties, perhaps?

A man wearing tattoo sleeves on his arms was pointing at the fairy, showing off his triceps.

That's right.

This was none other than SG Guy, Mr. Fucking Bullshit himself.

“Huhhh...? Yes?”

“You fucking bastard! If you've dragged people here out of nowhere, the first thing out of your mouth should be an apology! How dare you run your fucking mouth!”

SG Guy had an exceptionally booming voice. Enough to make the civilians nearby unconsciously step back.

His thunderous rebuke even left the fairy stumbling over its words.

“No, uh. This wasn't my doing, I'm just the staff member assigned here...”

“You fucking bastard!”

The fairy flinched.

As you've probably realized by now, I had good reason to call SG Guy what I did.

He was the sort of man who couldn't say a word without decorating the opening with “fucking.” That earthy diction you can only acquire by working on construction sites.

“So you're the one in charge here anyway! Huh? Aren't you going to apologize?”

“Buuut... My seniors told me people like this were rare these days. They said humans had gotten too crafty to fall for any provocation...”

The fairy looked ready to cry.

A notebook suddenly appeared in its hand. “How was I supposed to respond in a situation like this again?” the fairy muttered, rapidly flipping through the pages.

“Oh! Here it is!”

“You fucking bastard! Think you can laugh me off?”

“Presto.”

The fairy casually waved a magic wand—which had also been summoned at some point. SG Guy's head exploded.

POP!

“That should do it? Now! Everyone, follow my lead!”

The fairy beamed, like a child expecting its prank to have gone over perfectly.

What the fairy had failed to consider was the average sensibility of the people gathered here. Also known as morals, or ethics.

“Eeeeeek!”

The source of that amusing scream was Sim Aryeon. (I know the names of every survivor of Busan Station's waiting hall.) Unluckily positioned right beside SG Guy, she had been drenched in bright red blood.

“S-someone's fucking dead...! A person! Eek, he's fucking dead! Eeeeeek! Someone's fucking deeead...!”

The instant she was drenched in blood, she fled faster than anyone else, in her own distinctive fashion, splattering blood and guts everywhere with wet slaps and splashes.

That grotesque sight brought the reality of the situation home to everyone.

“Aaaaaah!”

“M-murder! It's murder!”

“Ruuuun!”

Nearly four hundred people began stampeding after Sim Aryeon.

The fairy reached out, saying, “Oh,” “Excuse me,” “If you go there,” and “Wait.” But that gesture only terrified them more.

In the end, within mere seconds, only ten or so people remained in the waiting hall, myself included.

“...”

“Uh...”

The fairy looked ready to cry.

“The guidelines were all wrong! They said everyone would quiet down if I got rid of just one person as an example!”

SG Guy's body, its head deleted, lay forlornly on the waiting hall floor.

And then I head into the souvenir shop all alone to farm my personal item, a silver bell.

Now, I'm sure you all understand why I didn't know SG Guy's real name.

The “extra who mouths off to the tutorial fairy and gets executed” you so often see in novels.

That was who SG Guy was.

3

Honestly, until then, I had felt nothing at all toward SG Guy.

In every run, he flew off the handle at the fairy.

As I regressed again and again, the routes my life took grew wildly diverse. But that very first event—“SG Guy dies at the fairy's hands”—always occurred.

'... What would happen if I saved that man?'

So it was hardly strange that I suddenly grew curious.

'Right. Let's save him.'

Who knew?

If I saved him and helped him awaken, he might turn out to be the teleporter Old Man Scho had yearned for so desperately.

Incidentally, I was very prone to indulging my curiosity. I hadn't always been that way, but repeated regressions had changed my personality all on their own.

And so, in my fiftieth run, I decided to satisfy that curiosity.

“Ah, hello there, everyone! Oh my? We're a little short on numbers... Anyway, being summoned here so suddenly must have given you all quite a friiight! But—”

But the one who got a real fright was the fairy.

The reason was simple. I pushed off the floor and leaped up, closing the distance to its face in an instant.

“Huh?”

My shadow fell over the fairy's vacant face.

I didn't feel particularly sorry.

Before the fairy could even finish closing its eyes, my rough palm seized its head.

I circulated concentrated aura through my hand once.

POP!

The sound rang out like a joke. The sound of the fairy's little head bursting. A rather ironic end for a fairy that had always blown up other people's heads, wouldn't you say?

“Huh?”

“What just happened...?”

People murmured as they watched me land on the floor with a light tap.

The clash had lasted literally an instant.

It was still the earliest stage, right after my regression, so no witness could have properly followed the fight between the fairy and me with their eyes.

Oh, incidentally, I pulverized the rest of its body too, not just its head. All the others probably registered was, “A tiny creature appeared in midair, then suddenly disappeared.”

“Huh?”

SG Guy, who had just opened his mouth to unleash his roar, was likewise letting nothing but a dazed sound slip from it.

I approached him and greeted him politely.

“Hello.”

“Pardon? Oh, yes... Hello?”

For the first time, I heard SG Guy open with something other than “Hey, you fucking bastard.”

A historic moment, in its own way.

4

SG Guy certainly lived up to his macho image.

“And who might you be?”

That choice of “you.”

I could sense his determination to hold on to his pride and nerve without abandoning polite speech.

But after he witnessed me cut down a monster that appeared in Busan Station with a single stroke, his “you” became more respectful. By the time I'd severed over fifty monster heads, it had turned into “...”

When I finally cleared the gate, his form of address underwent a slightly more dramatic change.

“Um... Boss?”

“Yes.”

SG Guy hesitantly studied my expression.

“S-seeing how you handled those monsters, you seem like someone incredible. Why did you go out of your way to bring a guy like me out...?”

“There are two answers. One that's true but unbelievable, and one that's a lie but believable. Which would you like to hear?”

“Pardon? Uh... The truth, of course?”

“I'm a regressor, and I'm currently repeating the world for the fiftieth time. Each time, you died in the waiting hall. I was curious what sort of person you were, so this time I intend to save you and travel with you for a while.”

“Whaaat...?”

SG Guy's face, which had been regarding me with a mixture of respect and fear, crumpled in an instant. If you expressed “What the hell does that mean, you fucking nerd?” with your facial muscles, that's probably what it would look like.

I felt a little deflated. My thirty-fifth run, when I met the Saintess, had been something of a turning point. Since then, I'd occasionally tried revealing that I was a regressor.

Yet aside from the Saintess, not a single person had believed me so far. Why was that?

“Actually, I'm a member of Special Operations Team Five, which the National Intelligence Service has long been preparing for a situation like this. I request your cooperation.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I'm late in introducing myself. My code name is Undertaker. May I have your name?”

“Seo Gyu, Boss. Please, no need to be formal with me.”

“Yeah?”

Seo Gyu. That was SG Guy's real name.

On my journey to prevent the end of the world, I'd realized just how important companions were. So I actively sought out and brought together promising recruits who would later grow into A-rank awakened.

The fiftieth run was no different. As I traveled with Seo Gyu, I recruited more and more party members.

Countless previous runs had already taught me how to make the most efficient use of their abilities, so my party members grew stronger by the day.

“... I don't think I have any talent, Boss.”

Seo Gyu couldn't enjoy those regressor perks.

Naturally. This was the first time he had survived the tutorial, and the first time he had joined my party.

I didn't even know what ability he would awaken. I wasn't in a position to offer personalized, one-on-one tutoring.

“Ah, fuck. Everyone else is doing so well. Why am I the only one...”

From Seo Gyu's perspective, though, he must have felt like an utterly talentless failure.

All the companions around him were promising future A-ranks, monstrous geniuses. Comparing himself to them was bound to leave him feeling worthless.

But I knew all too well how to handle situations like this.

“Saintess.”

“Yes?”

“Please send Seo Gyu a message.”

The Saintess of National Salvation.

It was time to deploy the legendary Pokémon I kept carefully hidden away.

At my request, the Saintess would occasionally send messages to my party members, sometimes admonishing them and sometimes cheering them on.

[The 'Lord of the Red Horse' is certain that your talent is real!]

[The 'Conqueror of the Alps' dispels your doubts.]

Naturally, I knew my party members' information inside and out. Family relationships, education, past traumas, special skills, and so on.

All that information went straight to the Saintess. Using this top-grade personal information, she provided the trainees with psychological counseling.

Legally, this constituted leaking personal information and deserved punishment, but after civilization collapsed, privacy laws lost a little of their force. In truth, they hadn't been particularly well observed before the collapse either.

The Saintess was already an S-rank awakened with Clairvoyance.

Add my information leaks to that, and the party members had no doubt that constellations really existed, voyeuristically watching their every move.

And now those constellations were falling over themselves to vouch for their talent?

“... I'll train hard and awaken my ability, no matter what!”

Seo Gyu couldn't help but burn with determination too.

The Saintess and I made a perfect three-legged team.

If you ask whether that was brainwashing and gaslighting, I'll exercise my right to remain silent.

Eventually, not long afterward, Seo Gyu came to see me in the middle of the night, without the other party members knowing. His expression was terribly grave.

“Um, Boss.”

“What is it?”

“I think I might have awakened last night.”

Finally!

I felt anticipation swell inside me.

The tutorial's victim. The man who, throughout fifty regressions, had always been the very first to exit the stage.

What would his ability be?

A jackpot? A bust? Either way, I was confident I wouldn't be too disappointed, since my curiosity would be satisfied.

I shook Seo Gyu's hand.

“Congratulations. I knew you'd do it someday.”

“Th-thank you. It's all thanks to you, Boss.”

“So, what's your ability?”

“Oh. Well... Fuck, how do I explain this?”

Seo Gyu's hand lay limply in mine.

His expression was peculiar too. Despite achieving the awakening he'd wanted so badly, he didn't look particularly happy.

'So it was a bust after all.'

Seeing his face, I too folded down a layer of the colored paper of my expectations. High-tier abilities weren't something that appeared so easily in the first place.

“What is it? Don't hold back. Just tell me straight.”

“No, that's not it. It's a little tricky to explain in words... Boss, you carry a phone, right? Could you take a look at it for a moment?”

“My phone?”

“Yes.”

Puzzled though I was, I obediently took out my smartphone.

The phone had no service. Half a year had already passed since the gate crisis began, and most means of communication had gone haywire.

Phones, the internet, radios, radar—anomalies had contaminated them all, regardless of type.

“Could you open your browser and try going to the address I give you?”

“Hmm...?”

Then I witnessed something astonishing.

The internet, which should naturally have been inaccessible, connected.

Experiencing the emotion of surprise for the first time in a while, I tried various things on my smartphone.

It still showed no internet connection, and the other apps didn't work either. Yet for some reason, the site I'd accessed at Seo Gyu's direction ran perfectly.

“What is this...?”

It was a message-board-style website.

The design was utterly primitive, like something from the old days of dial-up bulletin boards.

Seo Gyu spoke shyly, as though showing someone a drawing he'd made as a child.

“Th-this is the ability I awakened. Website operation.”