Chapter 65 - The Sleepwalker III

4

And so my first engagement with Meteor Strike earned me an after-action report that read: “Got absolutely fucking wrecked.”

Actually, even calling it our first engagement reflects a decidedly human-centered perspective. From Meteor Strike’s point of view, it was the third.

Since I’ve started writing this report, I might as well finish it. Although my twenty-fifth-run self had already croaked and couldn’t witness it firsthand, the following scenes unfold after Meteor Strike falls to earth.

A blinding flash—

The instant the starlight lands, it “evaporates” everything within a radius ranging from several dozen kilometers to as much as two hundred.

Evaporation means exactly that. What happens is difficult to describe with any other word.

KABOOOOOM!

The humans caught within the starlight’s reach—no, not just Homo sapiens, but animals, plants, and even most anomalies—instantly turn to “ash.”

And the ash isn’t gray, either. It’s pure white, a lovely color.

If you rush to a place where Meteor Strike has just appeared, you can admire a world reduced to pristine white ash, with countless flecks drifting through the air like cherry-blossom petals. It’s quite a sight.

Of course, you’d do well not to approach it just because it’s pretty.

Take so much as one step into the “Territory of Ash”—even poke a single finger across its boundary—and somehow you’ll burn away to pure white.

Yes, I’m talking to my twenty-sixth-run self. You fucking idiot, so full of scientific curiosity.

Thus, South Gyeongsang Province on the Korean Peninsula was deleted in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, Meteor Strike’s exploits didn’t end there.

After the Korean Peninsula came Hawaii in the Pacific, Russia’s Ingria region, China, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and so on. Meteor Strike took itself on a world tour, visiting them in order.

Naturally, each stop punched more holes in the world, like the Swiss cheese that so often appears in Tom and Jerry. The territory humans could inhabit shrank accordingly.

The whole world tour took six years.

Exactly six years after Meteor Strike first fell on the Korean Peninsula, the entire world joined together in becoming ash.

For reference, Meteor Strike falls on Seoul in the fifth year. At that point, not just the Korean Peninsula but half of East Asia becomes part of the “Territory of Ash.”

The Meteor Strike that killed me during my vacation run as a convenience-store owner was this Seoul-bound one.

There are no exceptions to annihilation.

However deep you dig underground to build a bunker, even if you flee out to sea in a little boat, the day inevitably comes when every surface on Earth is covered by the “Territory of Ash.” Even the sea turns white when Meteor Strike beats the shit out of it.

A beautiful death.

An apocalypse bleached white.

A world of white.

"..."

In my twenty-seventh run, I succeeded in escaping Meteor Strike.

“Scouting to devise a future strategy” would be a slightly more accurate description than “escaping.” In any case, all I had to do was get out of Meteor Strike’s range, so fleeing wasn’t difficult.

Even at the cost of watching my base of operations, the Korean Peninsula, Dang Seorin, and countless people I had formed bonds with turn to ash beneath the starlight, I gathered information about the anomaly with painstaking thoroughness.

'For now, I endure.'

As a regressor, I was used to it.

It was around this time that I began using the term anomaly instead of monster. As I observed Meteor Strike, I revised many of my long-held assumptions about monsters.

Of course, that didn’t produce some miracle in which I immediately defeated Meteor Strike.

Because the Korean Peninsula at this point was quite literally a blazing hellhole.

"Eternal life without killing! Life of the spirit, splendor of flowers! Peace beneath the heavens for a hundred million li!"

"Ah! You know about New Buddha! Just put a flower on your head, and you can live even if your arms and legs get blown off!"

"Who needs awakened? Believe in New Buddha, and you really can live forever!"

In year seven, “Meteor Strike” rained down on South Gyeongsang Province, and to top it off, the World Tree “Udumbara” burst into full bloom.

Was that all? If Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School wasn’t properly sealed away, our dear junior, the black mage Cheon Yohwa, would smile brightly and go full “academy city” on us.

Honestly, even for a regressor like me, this was some seriously unfair bullshit.

Meteor Strike on par with nuclear explosions, an apocalyptic cult powerful enough to spread throughout East Asia, and a zombie city thrown in for good measure? What was this? Was I supposed to just roll over and fucking die?

'Endure.'

So I obligingly fucking died.

Yep. A regressor can always just die, after all.

'Someday, the tide will surely turn.'

In other words, I watched for an opportunity.

Sometimes I died beneath Meteor Strike’s bombardment of starlight. Sometimes the academy city’s million-strong zombie legion tore me apart with their teeth. Refining strategies for the various ways the world ended, lamenting that I still lacked the masterstroke needed to put those strategies into action, growing impatient, enduring and enduring again, I waited.

Was it really possible to clear a stage—no, stages—this difficult?

I endured.

Even now, shouldn’t I follow Old Man Scho’s example, cast off my sense of obligation, and focus on enjoying life’s little pleasures? Didn’t I know better than anyone that the world barely changed, no matter how many times I regressed?

I endured.

If only I told Dang Seorin everything.

I endured.

And then.

"The constellations don’t exist."

At last.

"The Saintess of National Salvation, the Conqueror of the Alps—all of them are just characters I created by myself."

LAP.

The sound of a small wave rippled through my world.

—At last, the tide of change had arrived.

5

No matter how hard the world tried to force me into the misery-fiction genre, I, the Undertaker, never broke.

Had Oh Dokseo heard me, she would have retorted, “No, Mister, that refusal to break is exactly the key seasoning that makes misery fiction so delicious.” But let’s just brush off the nitpicking of that literary-pervert nerd.

A game changer.

The Saintess’s arrival, with her overwhelmingly powerful awakened abilities, completely transformed a battlefield situation that had repeated itself dozens of times.

["I found it, Mr. Undertaker."]

["South Chungcheong Province. Asan. Onyang."]

World Tree Udumbara: elimination complete.

A regressor’s “knowledge” of the future and Clairvoyance’s “eyes” on the present created tremendous synergy.

Even setting aside her awakened abilities, the Saintess was a reliable partner.

We shared information, devised operations, and eliminated, one by one, the factors turning the Korean Peninsula into a fiery hell.

"Still, I have no idea how to deal with Meteor Strike. Starlight falling from the sky, with an effect that forcibly puts people to sleep..."

"Don’t worry. I have a plan," I said. "For now, Saintess, the only role I need you to take on is prophecy."

"...?"

The Saintess tilted her head.

Before long, translucent text appeared before every awakened active on the Korean Peninsula.

[The ‘Saintess of National Salvation’ issues a quest.]

"Huh?"

"What’s this?"

The awakened tilted their heads and read down the quest window.

The message read as follows.

──────────

[Meteor Strike]

In six years, the special-class anomaly ‘Meteor Strike’ will descend upon the Korean Peninsula. Meteor Strike will burn the entire southern Korean Peninsula.

Survive the threat of Meteor Strike.

-Reward: Survival

-Upon failure: Death

──────────

A quest broadcast to every awakened on the Korean Peninsula. This was possible thanks to the Saintess’s [Telepathy], which could transmit text as well as speech.

Of course, the messages were sent under a constellation’s name, not the Saintess’s own.

"Huh? Death? We just die?"

"Fuck. What kind of quest is this?"

"There’s no chance it’s... bullshit, right?"

The awakened were thrown into confusion.

The Saintess portrayed the constellations so well that even I, a regressor, had been completely fooled. It was extremely difficult to question the authenticity of a quest bestowed by a constellation. After all, who could possibly imagine some lunatic using [Clairvoyance], [Telepathy], and [Time Stop] together to impersonate constellations?

Above all, what followed revealed just how masterfully the Saintess manipulated the constellations—and, consequently, her innate talent for swaying the awakened’s minds.

"Anomaly? Meteor Strike? ... What are those?"

"There aren’t any clues except that it’ll happen in six years. How are we supposed to progress the quest with this?"

"Does anyone have more specific information? Share it with our guild, and we’ll make it well worth your while!"

The Saintess didn’t reveal everything at the outset. She guided the awakened to piece the clues together voluntarily, on their own.

[The ‘Chancellor in the Red Cloak’ secretly informs you that anomaly is the constellations’ term for a monster.]

For awakened particularly devoted to their constellations, she slowly leaked messages framed as information shared exclusively with them.

[A quest chain leading to ‘Meteor Strike’ has been activated!]

For certain awakened, she disguised information about Meteor Strike as quests and revealed it in stages.

──────────

[The True Nature of Meteor Strike] (2/4)

Investigations thus far have revealed that Meteor Strike is responsible for the destruction of countless worlds.

Should Meteor Strike’s starlight touch the ground, no one can escape annihilation.

You are currently the only person who fully understands the threat posed by Meteor Strike.

──────────

I prepared all the quest rewards that would motivate them.

As you’ll know from my time running a convenience store, I could secure a substantial portion of South Korea’s remaining supplies if necessary.

I hid the stolen goods in remote warehouses. When a constellation revealed a warehouse’s location as an “event reward,” the awakened eagerly gobbled up the supplies.

And later, when Cheon Yohwa joined our operation, she put the finishing touch on the credibility of the “quests bestowed by the constellations.”

"Ah, Meteor Strike...? Indeed. Those things brought my home world to its end."

"I’m merely someone who fled. I don’t know much about Meteor Strike. But rumor has it... before starlight rains down from the night sky, a song always rings out."

These were NPCs Cheon Yohwa had created at my instruction.

We arranged for villages inhabited by NPCs to be discovered occasionally when people ventured deep into the void. The NPCs claimed to be “refugees from another world that had already been destroyed.”

"A song? What song?"

"I’m afraid I know no more than that."

"Damn, this sounds like really important information... but we’ve hit a dead end."

Parts of the NPCs’ bodies had melted away like zombies’, and that visual shock actually lent credibility to their words. Anyone who didn’t know the truth could only take it as a sign that something truly ominous was coming.

After about a year of this:

-Anonymous: Complete compilation of information on the special-class anomaly ‘Meteor Strike’.txt

-[Three Thousand]WitchTrialJudge: On the ‘song’ consistently reported in Meteor Strike-related quests.

-Anonymous: Posting the messages the constellations have supposedly sent about Meteor Strike so far.

An entire “Meteor Strike board” was set up on SG Net.

There, the awakened not only compiled information of their own accord but actively debated strategies for defeating it.

Because they believed they had earned this information through their own blood, sweat, and tears, they became all the more certain that Meteor Strike would appear.

Sure, there would always be one or two awakened like Old Man Scho who doubted the constellations’ true identities.

But combine the Saintess’s [Clairvoyance], [Telepathy], and [Time Stop] with Cheon Yohwa’s [NPC Creation], plus my future knowledge as the regressor Undertaker and my cunning distribution of supplies, and we created an “authenticity” no one could question.

As a result:

-Anonymous: There’s only a year left until Meteor Strike shows up. Shouldn’t the guilds start getting together for joint training or something?

-Anonymous: Apparently Three Thousand Worlds is already regularly gathering its allied guilds.

-Anonymous: Looking at it objectively, Dang Seorin really does seem like the only possible Alliance Leader for the Korean Peninsula...

└Anonymous: You wear a pointy hat, don’t you?

The awakened of the Korean Peninsula had completed every preparation for hunting Meteor Strike.

Now it was the regressor’s time.