Chapter 63 - The Sleepwalker I

1

I consider runs one through one hundred the “early stage” of my life as a regressor. Another word for it would be my “childhood.”

That was when I harbored the romantic delusion that if I just beat the shit out of the anomalies, peace would somehow return to the world.

And in those early days, there were three boss-monster brothers who claimed the Korean Peninsula as their turf.

Stage 1 Boss: A crawling octopus-head. Stab it all you like—unless you pierce both hearts simultaneously, its infinite regeneration means it will never die! Introducing “Tenlegs the Undying”!

Stage 2 Boss: If you don’t know, you pay the price! You gleefully welcomed what you thought was a virus promising free eternal life in the apocalypse, only to discover you were nothing but fertilizer for growing one fucking enormous World Tree! The New Buddha, and a divine Buddha: “Udumbara the Eternally Immortal”!

Stage 3 Boss: Even knowing won’t save you from this one! An Armageddon that descends from the night sky in year seven after the start of a regression, no matter what: “Meteor Strike the Inescapable”!

Is this really the Korean Peninsula’s location? Truly, it fills my heart with grandeur.

Still, you can pretty much ignore Tenlegs out of that lineup now. By around run one hundred, a little thing like Tenlegs is just a trash mob you can kill in a single turn.

-“Ky҉uu҉?”

Yep. Acting cute won’t get you any mercy. Octopus-tentacle-headed knockoff Cthulhu: eliminated.

The same went for Udumbara, which had accumulated aliases such as “New Buddha virus,” “Red Cordyceps,” and “World Tree,” and a reputation twice as vile as all those names combined.

-“Hu҉ng҈҉ry҉?”

It might feel a little unfair from its perspective, but Udumbara was a terrible matchup against a regressor to begin with.

The moment I learned that its original point of emergence was Room 202 on the second floor of a closed-down inn in Onyang, Udumbara was completely cracked.

So now, the final chapter of my childhood.

“Huh? Hey, look at the sky.”

Let’s talk about Meteor Strike—the meteor shower.

“Whoa! Shooting stars! My God, there are so many!”

“Even if everything down here is fucked, the sky’s still beautiful...”

Actually, to be perfectly precise, of those three early-stage boss brothers, Tenlegs was the only anomaly that singled out the Korean Peninsula alone as its hunting ground.

As you know, Udumbara spread the cult called New Buddha throughout East Asia.

Meteor Strike was no different. Those “shooting stars” didn’t fall only on the Korean Peninsula.

They fell all over the world.

“Huh? Why does that keep getting closer...”

“What are you doing? Move! Run!”

“Run...? Where to? They’re falling from all over the sky, Guild Leader.”

“...”

Have you ever played a battle royale game?

In those games, the radius of the map available to players gradually shrinks over time. A “magnetic field,” for instance, closes in and reduces the safe zone.

It’s a technique for herding players into a smaller ring as the game enters its final stages.

This world copied only the bad parts of games. Because our lives were a shitty, broken game.

“Half of Eurasia is gone!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Apparently, it was literally just deleted. You know that meteor shower last week? They say it hit and blew away half the entire continent.”

“That’s fucking insane.”

One time it was South America, another Australia, another Eurasia, and on one occasion, the Pacific Ocean.

Every continent struck by that bombardment of stars invariably became a wasteland where people could no longer live.

It was Armageddon itself.

Humanity, which had gazed up at the shooting stars raining across the night sky and indulged, however briefly, in a sense of apocalyptic romance, shuddered in terror.

“A-again! They’re falling again!”

“Fuck, where is it this time? Where are they falling...?”

Meteor Strike. Western awakened often called it “Armageddon,” while Japan’s awakened named it “Meteor.” According to the classification system of the Library Society, which considered naming anomalies its sacred mission, its threat level was Continent, and its designation was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

“...”

This was none other than the true identity of the shooting stars Lee Hayul had stood on tiptoe and reached toward in the previous episode.

Yet another way our world met its end.

2

My first encounter with Meteor Strike was in run twenty-three.

The number twenty-three held tremendous significance for me. In a somewhat unpleasant sense—or, to put it more bluntly, and please forgive me, because I personally believe we’ve grown close enough to use language like this with each other—in a seriously fucked-up sense.

Perhaps some of you have exceptional memories like mine and will immediately recall what happened in run twenty-three. More precisely, what began happening from run twenty-three onward.

“Huh? Old man? Old man, are you here?”

Ta-da!

Congratulations! You have discovered Old Man Scho’s corpse!

“Fuck.”

That’s right.

Run twenty-three was when Old Man Scho first went on vacation. It was also the moment “(Congratulations) Totally Fucked (Congratulations)” was selected as the exclusive character theme music for yours truly, the Undertaker.

Back then, I was... Hmm.

Frankly, I was a sorry sight.

You might call it a dark chapter in my past. The person I’d always thought would fight alongside me for the rest of my life had suddenly disappeared.

“Wow, a grand spell like this with only two chants... I really am a genius! And Undertaker! I think you’re a bit of a genius too!”

I never said so, but this was part of why I helped Dang Seorin complete Equivalent Exchange. In those days, I leaned on her emotionally.

Because, well...

I do have my doubts about whether I really need to reveal this much, but surely you and I can start speaking freely about these things now.

I’ll be honest. It was because I believed Dang Seorin was the only person in my life as a regressor who could share the same timeline as me.

“Even if we can’t live together in life, we travel together in death.”

“Here’s to our future together, my companion through time.”

Of course, Dang Seorin couldn’t remember the time she’d spent with me. But at least her magic, which unleashed songs by burning her lifespan, continued accumulating her lifespan even across regressions.

So, embarrassing as this is to admit, I treated Dang Seorin like a replacement for Old Man Scho.

No, even “replacement” was too mild a word. I was plainly dependent on her.

Yet even with my mental state in ruins, I hadn’t forgotten my last duty as a regressor.

Somehow, without Old Man Scho, I built an organization on my own, put Dang Seorin forward as Alliance Leader, and defeated Tenlegs.

Then came year seven.

“Wow. Undertaker, look over there.”

“Hmm? Shooting stars?”

“Yeah. So many of them.”

Dang Seorin, walking barefoot along the sandy beach with her shoes dangling from one hand, pointed at the night sky.

That was the first moment I observed Meteor Strike.

Naturally, at the time, I couldn’t even imagine that the meteor shower twinkling in the night sky was actually an anomaly.

I came home after my evening walk and drifted comfortably into a deep sleep—and...

I blinked my eyes open, and suddenly I was back at the starting point of my regressions.

Busan Station.

“... Huh?”

I stared blankly around me, utterly dumbfounded. What on earth was going on?

Anyone would be disoriented if they’d only just gone to bed and suddenly found themselves forced into a regression.

At first, I thought it was a dream. But no matter how often I pinched my cheek, I didn’t wake up. So—good God. I really had regressed “in my sleep.”

“You fucking bastard!”

SG Guy’s trademark “fuck” rang out at full volume—I still didn’t know Seo Gyu’s real name back then—like an alarm app whose sole lifelong duty was to ruin an office worker’s morning.

And I was overcome by precisely the same emotions as those office workers: 30 percent bewilderment and 70 percent fucking misery.

‘No, seriously, hold on. Why the hell did this happen?’

But regardless of my confusion, the world’s physical time flowed inexorably onward.

A shriek tore through Busan Station’s waiting hall. The fairy had neatly snipped Seo Gyu’s head off.

While everyone else stampeded away in a frenzy, I alone stood there blankly, my mind checked out.

When their minds leave the building, some materialists take their bodies along and wreak havoc, while some idealists fill the vacancy with reason. I mostly belonged to the latter group.

‘Could someone have poisoned me?’

That was, in fact, the most rational hypothesis.

‘Or an assassination? Even so, come on. I may have been asleep, but someone assassinated me, the Undertaker, as easily as wringing a chicken’s neck?’

Ah.

I let out a groan.

‘How could this happen! I was far too complacent!’

That’s right.

Ultimately, humanity’s enemy wasn’t monsters, but humanity itself: humans against humans. Wasn’t the reason our ancestors first decided to write history books that they wanted to preserve the words [I’ve lived long enough to know humanity is fucking awful] for all future generations, forever?

“From now on... I’ll live for myself.”

As I solemnly made my Live-for-Myself Declaration, the fairy playing alone beside me by rolling Seo Gyu’s head around cocked its head.

“Hoeh? Why isn’t this human running away, and what bullshit is he talking?”

“Shut up, tutorial-only mob.”

I answered Fairy No. 264’s objection with a knuckle to the head (“Hoeek!”), then farmed a silver bell from the waiting hall’s souvenir shop, as usual.

And I immediately began devising countermeasures.

Never sleep alone. Not only establish a guild and recruit comrades, but build an impregnable fortress-hideout and have everyone live there together...

It was around then that I began putting serious effort into my guild hideout.

Much later, everyone would get hit by the brainwashing-hypnosis beam of an unidentified being named Go Yori, and it would collapse from within. Until then, however, my guild hideout was a citadel that had never fallen. It was Gongsun Zan’s Yijing, Jiang Wei’s Jiange (let’s ignore for a moment that both eventually fell).

Of course, despite my Live-for-Myself Declaration, becoming one of those monopolize-everything regressor protagonists from Korean web novels, desperately struggling to survive alone, simply didn’t suit my personality.

Aren’t people only truly people when they live together?

Naturally, I enthusiastically shared my fortress-building expertise with those around me.

“Uh, Undertaker. I appreciate you looking out for my safety, so I’m not sure I should say this... But, well. Aren’t you overreacting a little?”

Hmm. Perhaps “urged upon” would be more appropriate than “shared.”

“Fool! Live with your guard down like that and you’ll be assassinated without a soul noticing, Guild Leader Dang Seorin!”

“Eh? Huh? Oh, um...?”

“Everyone coos over you as the Korean Peninsula’s greatest awakened, and now your vanity knows no bounds! However powerful you are, that’s only after you’ve sung at least three verses of Spell-Song Chanting! Until then, you’re merely a mage standing before a Swordmaster! Do you think those treacherous assassins will wait for you to leisurely put on a concert?”

“No, look. It’s... This is my guild headquarters, for starters. I’ve set up a really good night-watch and patrol system. Unless an awakened is on your level, they couldn’t possibly break through to the train car where I sleep, so why bother...”

“Fool! An assassin would naturally have already bribed every one of your supposedly loyal guild members! What if the enemy had an ability like hypnosis or brainwashing?”

“Uh...”

Amazingly, I had predicted my distant future of getting utterly demolished by Go Yori with 120 percent accuracy. Such is a regressor’s hard-earned experience.

It was fucking idiotic experience.

Dang Seorin seemed to have reached a similar conclusion.

“Against an awakened with an ability that broken, wouldn’t security be meaningless to begin with...?”

“Fool! From now on, before you sleep, you must sing at least four layers of songs: [Repeat], [Autoplay], [Silence], and [Barrier]. Naturally, you’ll also call Hayul over and cover every train car in puppet strings.”

“Eek, those look like spiderwebs, so I’d rather...”

“Fooool! If you die, the Korean Peninsula is finished! Do you understand your own importance?”

“Um, looook... All right. Yeah. I’m sorry for everything...”

“As long as you’re sorry. No, on second thought, using Spell-Song Chanting before bed isn’t practical.”

“Ah! Exactly, that’s what I was...”

“So we’ll have to build an utterly impregnable fortress instead. Don’t worry, Dang Seorin. I won’t ask you to leave your beloved train. I’ll simply remodel it into the strongest fortress on earth.”

“...”

Dang Seorin gave me a look that said, ‘Why has this little shit suddenly become such a nuisance?’ I ignored it completely.

In the end, not only my hideout but Three Thousand Worlds’ train was remodeled into the “Ultimate Weapon–Railway Gun Fortress–Galaxy Express 999.” Now, forget assassins—even a whole swarm of their grandfathers wouldn’t stand a chance.

And then came year seven.

“Wow. Undertaker, look over there.”

“Hmm? Ah, shooting stars. Probably a meteor shower that normally appears around this time.”

“Really? There are so many. Lovely. They’d be much prettier if a certain someone, wherever he lives, hadn’t plastered fucking iron bars and spiderwebs all over the windows of my luxurious train car.”

“...”

After drinking with Dang Seorin, I returned to my hideout and drifted comfortably into a deep sleep—and...

“Ah, hello, everyone! Oh dear? There seem to be a few fewer of you... Anyway, you must all be sooo surprised to have been summoned here so suddenly! But don’t worry! I’m your guide, and I’ll kindly show you the ropes from the very beginning!”

Naturally, I had regressed yet again.

The familiar ceiling of Busan Station’s waiting hall greeted my eyeballs. And of course, tutorial Fairy No. 264 was fluttering adorably around.

“...”

My vision swam.

Into my ears rang SG Guy’s ever-so-considerate alarm.

“You fucking bastard!”