Chapter 81 - The Questioner III

4

To cut to the chase, Go Yori’s proposed solution—“Couldn’t we get complete information if we just blew up another hundred fairy heads?”—did not work out.

Not because my tender heart suddenly secreted sympathy, protesting that it was too cruel.

Just look at our dear Seo Gyu, currently suffering from anger-management issues: the fairies had sent his head flying by express delivery more than fifty times. Sympathy? What sympathy?

I, the Undertaker, might oppose racism, but I proudly declare myself a thoroughgoing speciesist. My emotions have a two-way street open exclusively to Homo sapiens.

There was precisely one reason Go Yori’s solution fell through.

“Commencing extermination.”

“Commencing extermination.”

The moment we left the interrogation room, the fairies swarmed Go Yori en masse.

“What...?”

Dozens of fairies descended without warning from the corridor, the ceiling, above and below—every direction. Every one with the same face. Every one expressionless.

That alone made for a rather cosmic-horror-esque scene, but my attention was focused elsewhere.

'The fairies didn’t use their [cutesy] speech pattern?'

Good God. Talk about culture shock.

Was that legal?

Before my tongue could voice my astonishment, my seasoned regressor’s hands and feet moved first.

“You little bastards! How dare you!”

THWACK!

Wrapping aura around my thighs and calves, I first smashed the three fairies charging Go Yori head-on.

That wasn’t the end of it.

The fairies went flying from my kick, but in that instant, their bodies turned into bright red balloons.

Their little bodies rapidly swelled with red liquid. The sight unfolded right before my eyes as if in slow motion.

A warning tingle shot down my spine.

'Self-destruction!'

Had their goal been to close the distance rather than land a blow on us all along?

I quickly wrapped my entire body in a protective sheath of energy, then pulled Go Yori tightly into my arms.

“Ah—”

Go Yori’s lips moved, but her voice was swallowed by the noise that erupted a moment later.

KABOOOOM!

The explosion shook all of Cheongsong Prison. The place had undergone all manner of modifications to imprison fairies rather than humans, but even its thick protective walls couldn’t fully withstand the blast.

Of course, it couldn’t penetrate my barrier either.

“Oh, shi...”

Everything collapsed. Corridor walls, pillars, ceilings—the whole lot.

THUD! THUMP!

Chunks of concrete slammed into my aura-wrapped body.

“Whew. Go Yori, are you all right? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, thanks to you, Guild Leader. You’re amazing.”

Despite those words, I heard coughing as the rubble collapsed and dust billowed up.

As the dust cloud slowly thinned, the scene revealed through it was drenched all over, as though pelted with red water bombs. Probably from the LCL fluid expelled when the fairies burst.

In the middle of the wreckage, one still-intact fairy hovered in the air.

“Hey, you little bastard...”

“I request a conversation.”

The lone fairy spoke abruptly, as though nothing had happened.

“However, there is a condition. I require a private conversation with you al—”

POP!

I sprang forward, grabbed the fairy’s head, and burst it in one motion.

I shook off the blood-colored slime clinging between my fingers.

“Don’t make me laugh. You carry out a suicide bombing, then decide you’d like to talk things over now that you see we’re unharmed? You murderous lunatics really do think on a whole different level.”

-Caution. Questions will not be accepted.

Then something astonishing happened.

The liquid in the surrounding puddles began bubbling furiously and took on the shapes of fairies in an instant.

Incomplete shapes, though. Only fairy heads, maws, and fingers formed in the various puddles, each twitching and working its parts. Goddammit.

-Demands will not be accepted either. No other person may interfere with the conversation by any means, including filming, recording, or spying.

-Disclosing our conversation to others afterward is also prohibited.

-Unless you promptly secure a space for the two of us alone, we will immediately destroy every terminal entity in this area, as well as every terminal entity you encounter in the future.

“...”

-You have thirty seconds.

I scowled and glanced to my side.

Go Yori wore an inscrutable smile, looking both troubled and amused.

“Hmm. It’s all right. Don’t worry about me, Guild Leader.”

“Really? ... Thanks. For being considerate.”

“Ahaha. In return, would you take me along the next time you go down to Busan? That friend of yours, Dang Seorin... I’m interested in her too.”

“Hmm. Sure, let’s do that.”

Strictly speaking, I had no reason whatsoever to feel indebted to Go Yori.

Of course, there had been no reason to bring only her along for [Tutorial Upside-Down World] while leaving all the other guild members behind, either. More importantly, it was obvious that Dang Seorin would absolutely loathe anyone else tagging along on our food tours.

Even setting all that aside, laughing “Ahaha” after witnessing this entire scene was itself proof she wasn’t right in the head. Yet at the time, the only feeling in my mind was, 'Oh dear, I feel bad leaving such a sweet girl out of the conversation.'

Your brain had melted, Undertaker.

Go Yori’s footsteps crept over the fragments of rubble like a rattlesnake. Only after another footfall, when the snake’s tail vanished beyond a reinforced-concrete pillar, did the fairy speak.

-Twenty-eight seconds elapsed.

-The subject’s willingness to converse has been confirmed.

“... So you can speak perfectly normally.”

I tore my gaze away from the direction Go Yori had disappeared and glared straight at the fairies... tried to, anyway. Damn it. There were far more than one or two bubbling around me like foam in a boiling pot.

“Don’t tell me that cutesy way of talking was just you playing dress-up all this time?”

-Is that the subject’s first question?

The liquefied fairies stared at me. Despite their utterly emotionless expressions and speech, they somehow conveyed, “Are you genuinely serious?” That was a little remarkable.

“Yes.”

-The terminal entities’ speech patterns were adjusted through configuration settings.

-Location: Korean Peninsula, Language: Korean, Subjects: Koreans, Environment: Apocalypse.

-These entities selected the speech pattern most likely to lower people’s guard.

“What? That crap? ... Hmm, no. Fair enough. If you only hear how you talk, you do sound pretty pathetic.”

-Margin of error.

-The settings are based on an average, so reactions to terminal entities may vary between individuals.

-Proposal. We suggest establishing an exchange in which each side takes turns asking one question.

-What do you think?

“...”

I shrugged.

The gesture conveyed that I didn’t mind, but more than that, I wanted to casually test how well those things understood nonverbal expressions.

-Consent confirmed. First, to prevent misunderstanding: these entities did not intend to exterminate you.

“Then what? Were you trying to kill my girl? What would you get out of killing someone who’s all skin and bones?”

-It is our turn to ask a question.

-Why are you acting together with the pink entity?

The masses of liquid stared at me from every direction.

“The pink entity...? Do you mean Go Yori?”

-Affirmative and negative.

-Neither proper nouns nor definite descriptions apply to that entity. For the sake of neutral assessment, we will provisionally use the designation ‘the pink-haired entity accompanying you at Cheongsong Prison,’ abbreviated to ‘the pink entity.’

-Please answer the question.

I knitted my brows.

“Entity, this and that... I don’t know why you’re making such a fucking fuss over someone’s name. Go Yori is a member of my guild. She serves under me as guild leader. Do people need some grand reason to spend time with other people?”

-...

-...

The distorted fairy shapes—the ‘Fairy Monarch’—stared holes through me.

Silence lingered for a moment.

-Situation assessed. Understood.

“Now it’s my turn. You, the Fairy Monarch or whatever you are. Why did you bring places like the void down into a perfectly normal world? And why did you forcibly summon innocent people into tutorials and make them play survival games?”

-...

“Was it a game? Entertainment? Did you want to play with us humans like toys, the way they so often do in fiction?”

This wasn’t my question alone. It was the question of every awakened who had experienced the tutorial phenomenon—indeed, of all humanity.

It was merely being voiced through my mouth.

I waited for the Fairy Monarch’s answer, feeling like the first human ever to question a god.

-Dividing the question into stages.

-First. We must begin by pointing out a misunderstanding on the questioner’s part.

“A misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?”

-We did not bring the entirety of the void down into this world. We merely controlled the phenomenon known as the ‘tutorial.’

Ah.

Disappointment rose in my chest in place of anger toward the Fairy Monarch. So the being before me wasn’t the master of all anomalies, either.

The me of run eighty-nine was an idiot, but unlike the me of run 1,183, I still believed the world could be restored to its original form.

-Second. We do not conduct experiments for entertainment. Survival—observing survival, in the literal sense—is our objective.

“What?”

-We would instead like to ask the questioner.

-If you were cast into the environment of the void with no preparation, without completing the ‘tutorial’ course we provided, what would you estimate your probability of survival to be?

“...”

-Calculated over a period of 365 days, your survival rate is merely 1.76%.

-By contrast, the average survival rate of awakened in the tutorial approaches 31%.

-Once you survive the tutorial, your survival rate over the following 365 days also rises sharply to 69%.

“... So what? You’re saying you prepared that parade of death games for our sake? How very kind. I’m practically weeping with gratitude.”

-This entity possesses no benevolence. Nor does it possess malice.

-We ask the questioner to judge only whether our ‘experiments’ actually conflict with your objectives.

Just then, I sensed movement behind me and whirled around. About ten fairies, revived at some point, were stealthily closing in on me.

Our eyes met.

-...

“Oh, fuck!”

I immediately drew up my aura and harvested the fairies’ heads.

POP!

Their heads burst like strawberry juice.

“A sneak attack while we’re talking? You bastards are worse than Nazis!”

-Operation failed.

-Adjusting the questioner’s threat rating.

“Hey! Do you really want to take this all the way with me? Huh? Fine. Just what I wanted. Let’s see this through to the bitter end!”

-Correction requested. It was you, not these entities, who first displayed hostile behavior.

-With abnormal hostility, you not only abducted these entities but placed them in an exceedingly childish experimental environment.

-In addition to the poor conditions, the experiment’s objective is unclear. It is the questioner who abducted intelligent beings for ‘entertainment.’

“What the... Hah.”

The reply 'You’re the ones who fried and stirred humans around like anchovies from run one through run eighty-nine' surged up, but I held it back.

I didn’t want the anomaly before me to discover I was a regressor. Even the smallest hint could lead to dangerous consequences.

-Subduing the questioner by force is presumed to be extremely difficult.

-Establishing a relationship of continuous mutual exchange with the questioner is preferable.

“Well, aren’t you something. Who said you could decide that?”

-In return, we will disclose information the questioner has not requested. Information directly related to your life.

The Fairy Monarch moved its mouth slowly—perhaps excessively so.

-The҉ pi҉҉■■҉҉ en҉҉҉tity you҉ call҉҉҉ ■҉■҉■ is n҉҉■҉ot ■■.

As the fairy’s mouth moved, a crackling noise like an antique radio rang inside my head.

I frowned.

“... What did you just say?”

-Y҉■u҉҉,҉҉҉ ■҉҉■҉҉■҉,҉ ■҉■҉҉,҉ ■҉■҉■҉,҉҉҉ ■҉■҉■҉҉҉҉■҉■■҉҉҉҉҉, ■҉҉■҉■҉,҉ n■҉҉҉҉ot҉.

The crackling and sizzling only grew worse. The furrow between my brows deepened with it.

“Enough. You’re noisy. If this is some stupid prank, stop it right now.”

-...

Dozens of Fairy Monarchs poked their heads out from gaps throughout the rubble and looked at one another.

-Failure. The entity’s contamination level is observed to be at least 99%.

-Discarding Operation B. Redirecting anger by provoking hostility toward a specific entity is judged difficult. Mental brainwashing at a level exceeding that of the opposing entity is impossible.

-Commencing Operation C.

“...”

I was starting to consider how to eradicate this anomaly collective called the Fairy Monarch.

“If you keep dismissing and looking down on humans like this, I’m going to...”

-Sharing information. Although this entity did not bring the entirety of the void down into this world, it is indeed close to the highest tier among the entities the questioner calls ‘anomalies.’

-A total of seven such highest-tier anomalies are currently confirmed to exist.

I blinked.

Yes. This was the first time I caught wind of Level 5, ‘God of Alienation-class’ anomalies under the Library Society’s classification system.

“There are seven highest-tier anomalies?”

-Correct. Furthermore, highest-tier anomalies exert a powerful influence on humans, resulting in contamination without their awareness...

-If anomalies are likened to gods, objects, plants, animals, and humans that may be called ‘believers’ inevitably arise. This phenomenon occurs regardless of whether the subjects actually worship the anomaly as a god.

-Faith is unnecessary.

-Among the believers, entities powerful enough to be called ‘apostles’ arise in turn.

-Naturally, this entity, the ‘Fairy Monarch,’ also has a human awakened corresponding to an ‘apostle.’

I tilted my head.

“Uh, that’s interesting information, but... why bring this up all of a sudden?”

-There is a high probability that this entity’s apostle is someone the questioner already knows.

-Cheon Yohwa.

I froze.

The countless fairies—the single Fairy Monarch—gazed at my face from multiple angles, like the eyes of a spider.

-Tutorial dungeon: Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

-Its survivor, Cheon Yohwa, is the chosen apostle of this entity, the ‘Fairy Monarch.’