Chapter 87 - The Trailblazer I

1

Noh Doha mocked me as an ancient monster over a thousand years old, but that assessment could not have been further off the mark.

This was, after all, someone who watched autumn raindrops falling prettily from the sky and described them as, "Huh. The H₂O molecules are committing mass suicide." (She actually said that.) A venomous critic whose tongue wasn't the only thing crooked—her spine was too.

Why would I fret over every little assessment from such human trash?

Ageist terms such as "old geezer" and "ancient monster" are utterly unsuited to describing me, the Undertaker. Curses positively brimming with hatred and contempt for humanity—"denture-clacker," "boomer," "half-dead fossil"—scarcely warrant mentioning.

Neutral forms of address such as "senior" or "teacher" would be far more appropriate.

A senior, properly understood, is the back of someone walking ahead of you.

As a regressor, I, the Undertaker, am always walking one step ahead of everyone else. This isn't about pulling rank through seniority. I am, quite literally, a senior to all humankind. What? Am I wrong?

The same goes for "teacher," a word whose roots mean "one born before."

Plenty of people are biologically older than me. But in terms of mental age, who is more grown-up than I am? As Noh Doha herself said, I'm well over a thousand years old. That makes me every human being's teacher. Well? Am I wrong?

"What the hell are you talking about, you fucking boomer...?"

"..."

And yet, people who actually called me "senior" or "teacher" were all too rare.

No, rare would have been fine... But more elderly people religiously called Noh Doha "Teacher Noh Doha" instead!

Oh, woe!

How could I not lament? That human trash, a teacher! Even here, in this land once known as the Eastern Land of Courtesy, the Three Bonds had been torn asunder and the Five Relationships ruined.

Still, just as heroes emerge in troubled times, sages appear in times of chaos.

"Oh, Senior Taker!"

The Korean Peninsula's necromancer—and a patriot who, rather than wearing black, insisted on a pure white sailor-style school uniform, befitting the white-clad people of Korea.

Almost the only person who called me "senior," as well as the 113th Student Council President of Baekhwa Girls’ High School, as well as the leader of the Baekhwa Guild.

"Seniooor!"

Sometimes, while walking the corridors of National Road Management Corps headquarters, I would hear her call and have no choice but to turn. Each time, the owner of that voice would run over with quick, light footfalls that sounded like vitality itself given voice, then beam at me.

What a lovely sight.

Or it would have been, had I not known that she had worn that exact same smile in the run where she mass-produced zombies on the Korean Peninsula, the run where she built an "academy city," and the run where she finally brought about the end of the world.

A smile that had somehow become fixed in place. A taxidermied expression.

"Senior Undertaker, where are you going?"

"..."

This is an episode about names. A story about the time it took for "senior" to become "teacher."

The apostle of Gapless, the God of Alienation.

Let's talk about Cheon Yohwa.

2

If you asked me to name just two people on the Korean Peninsula I least wanted to get involved with, first place would naturally go to that old Sword Marquis, leader of the Mount Hua Sect. Second place belonged to Cheon Yohwa.

Go Yori? We'd have to establish whether she even counted as a "person" first, so let's leave her out of it.

Had it not been for the information I extracted from the Fairy Monarch in run eighty-nine, the unfortunate business of deliberately approaching Cheon Yohwa would never have occurred.

["The tutorial dungeon, Baekhwa Girls’ High School."]

["Its survivor, Cheon Yohwa, is the chosen apostle of this entity, the Fairy Monarch."]

I felt like Sherlock Holmes hearing the name James Moriarty.

Or perhaps Zhang Xiu, inadvertently discovering Cao Cao's taste for married women. I suddenly awoke to the meaning of my existence: 'Ah, so my entire life up to now has been lived so I could hunt down that bastard and beat him to a pulp.'

In fact, in sheer villainous caliber, Gapless was a step above Moriarty—no, two or three steps.

Unlike that old geezer, whom Sherlock Holmes's awakened skill, Mind Reading, immediately exposed as a fiend, Gapless never once showed itself until my eighty-ninth run. It hadn't even had a name to call it by; I'd had to name it Gapless myself.

Cheon Yohwa was the only suspect who led to that mastermind among masterminds, that villain among villains.

The little detective in my heart had no choice but to fix his blazing eyes on her.

And naturally, my caliber as a detective surpassed that of a certain British drug-addicted hedonist. That bastard couldn't even turn back time.

"Judging by your hair color, you must be Cheon Yohwa? I've heard a lot about you from the girls."

"Uh..."

Run 109. As I described before, the moment six months had passed since the Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School tutorial dungeon was unlocked, I went straight in and met Cheon Yohwa.

"Word went all around our alumni network that an incredibly clever, quick-witted junior had been elected Student Council President. For the record, I worked on the student council too, and now I'm the alumni association president."

"..."

Cheon Yohwa: conquered!

Afterward, this necromancer brought about various positive developments, such as the creation of "AI judges" and their distribution across the Korean Peninsula... But there was one tiny problem.

No, it wasn't actually tiny. It was rather serious.

"Yohwa."

"Yes, Senior Taker!"

"Are you friendly with the fairies, by any chance?"

"Huh?"

"You know, the tutorial fairies. Or perhaps you've connected with some greater being through those fairies. If you've experienced anything like that, tell me."

"..."

Cheon Yohwa blinked. Then blinked again.

"Fairies? What do you mean, Senior?"

"Hm?"

"Um. Is that some kind of code? Or... a novel? Oh, come on, Senior. There's no such thing as fairies. You're taking the joke too far."

"... No, what are you talking about? A tutorial dungeon appeared at Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School. Naturally, there must have been a tutorial fairy. You spent a full eleven months without any contact with the outside world before barely managing to clear the tutorial..."

"Eleven months? Hmm... Ahaha. I'm sorry, Senior. I have no idea what you're talking about. Gasp. Senior, you haven't... gotten mixed up with some cult or anything, have you?"

"..."

"Oh my goodness! You can't! My family gets tangled up with cults all the time, so I know what I'm talking about. You must never, ever get involved with them, no matter what!"

Sufficiently advanced physiognomy was indistinguishable from Mind Reading.

To my eyes, which had studied faces for over a thousand years, Cheon Yohwa did not appear to be lying.

My academic achievements proved accurate.

"Aaaah! A goblin!"

"...? Senior, why are people calling a wolf a goblin?"

"Tenlegs is attacking! Let's fight back!"

"Aaaaah! E-earthquake! Senior, it's an earthquake! Get down, quick!"

"..."

Cheon Yohwa could not recognize anomalies as anomalies.

A goblin looked like a "wolf," and Tenlegs rampaging was understood as a "major earthquake."

It was the same with other anomalies. Once, I actually captured a fairy alive, brought it over, and thrust it in front of her.

"Woooow! A kitty! How cute!"

She hugged the fairy and rubbed her cheek against it. Even when it spoke, saying "Eek!" and "Let go of me!", all Cheon Yohwa heard was a cat hissing.

It was broken.

Her brain. Her perceptual system.

As though someone had surgically removed only the part of her mind that recognized the phenomenon called anomalies.

"... I see. That's why asking about fairies or Gapless yields no meaningful information."

"...? What did you just say, Senior?"

"Nothing."

I knitted my brows as I watched Cheon Yohwa suffer from selective hearing loss like the protagonist of some outdated light novel.

Perhaps even that "perceptual contamination" was Gapless's doing.

Should I marvel at how a true mastermind was in a class apart from those attention-seekers who commonly appeared in fiction as supposed villains, while actually shouting "Notice me!" to the entire world?

I investigated Cheon Yohwa as thoroughly as I could.

I even learned that her family home was in Sejong City, that her family was a prominent local clan, and that their estate was enormous.

Grand buildings with tiled roofs.

The grounds covered 14,990 square meters. The vast estate stood firmly on the slopes of Mount Wonsu, overlooking South Korea's government complex.

Aboveground, it faithfully preserved the traditional hanok architecture passed down from the Joseon era, but modern structures lay hidden underground, closed to the public.

Still, there was little to show for it. Some documents remained at the estate, but there were no survivors or witnesses whatsoever.

At most, I discovered that Cheon Yohwa's father served as a director of Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School.

From what I could infer, the school itself seemed to have been built with funding from her family.

In that case, Cheon Yohwa would have been more than an ordinary student or Student Council President. Her position would have been akin to the "young lady" of the foundation running the private school.

The only other notable detail was the discovery of piles of Laozi's Tao Te Ching and other books on Taoism in the underground facilities.

Even so, these facts and circumstances alone could not get me out of the fog.

"One last question, Yohwa. I briefly looked into your family line. Your father's surname is Cheon, written with the character meaning 'thousand.' But you write yours with the character meaning 'heaven.' Do you happen to know how your surname came to change?"

"Huh? No? This is the first I've heard of it... I don't have any memories of my family to begin with. And investigating my family line? Your obsession is getting a little scary, Senior..."

... A change of strategy was unavoidable.

Making contact with Cheon Yohwa after she had smashed her way out of the tutorial dungeon on her own achieved nothing. Far too much information had been lost.

I had to meet an earlier Cheon Yohwa. The Cheon Yohwa who was still wandering through the dungeon called Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School.

An impossible feat unless one could travel back in time.

"All right, Yohwa. See you next time."

"Huh? Oh, yes, Senior! See you next time!"

And as luck would have it, that particular acrobatic feat was within my capabilities.

3

As I was the first human to discover, a "tutorial dungeon" was nothing other than a void artificially created by Gapless—in short, a laboratory for human experiments.

Like other laboratories, tutorial dungeons strictly controlled access by outsiders. Otherwise, things like viral intrusion, computer theft, and data loss could occur—phrases that alone could send a graduate student's blood pressure soaring.

Thus, a tutorial dungeon remained sealed until it was cleared.

Even the Saintess's Clairvoyance could not inspect these sealed spaces. No human outsider could commit the outrage of forcibly tearing open the laboratory door.

Yes. No human.

"Let's go, Fairy No. 264."

"Hooee! Loyalty! I obey the orders of our Comrade Leader...!"

Even in a laboratory utterly committed to keeping physical viruses out, a mental virus was another matter.

Infected with the most powerful virus in human history, Fairy No. 264 marched vigorously toward Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

CREEEAK

Even the school gate, which no human could ever pass through, could not stop our march. Like a barricade in Paris in 1832, it recognized a revolutionary comrade and opened smoothly.

(Congratulations) Two Students Accepted to Seo■ University! (Celebrations)

An old banner flapped in the wind. For the record, I firmly oppose academic elitism and a society ruled by school pedigree, so whenever I saw that banner, I kept open the possibility that it meant Seoul National University, Sogang University, or Seokyeong University.

Had a fierce battle already taken place? Not just the banner but various parts of the gate had been damaged.

The plaque that should have borne the school's name in elegant Chinese characters had been partially destroyed. Instead of "Baekhwa Girls’ High School," it read only "■■ Girls’ High School."

"Comrade! The vanguard has cut a bloody path through!"

"Mm. Advance."

The flowerbeds surrounding the academic buildings overflowed with red spider lilies in full bloom, flowers also known as flowers of the other shore. Beyond the slope of spider lilies stood a forest of white birches.

The fairy cried out toward it.

"Full speed ahead! Death to bourgeois oppression! I lay down my life for Comrade Leader Undertaker!"

The moment we stepped onto school grounds:

"Eeeeek?"

POP!

Perhaps detecting intruders, the chief of security hurried out from inside.

Of course, the real security guard lay dead, slumped over near the gate. This was merely the fairy of the Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School tutorial dungeon, newly wearing the armband of authority.

The opposing fairy looked us over, its eyes going round with bewilderment.

"A-a fairy? A human? Eek? Why a human?"

"Hooek! Distinguishing humans and fairies by race! People can be distinguished only by ideology...! This one is surely a lackey of the bourgeoisie!"

"Eek? Eek? Eek?"

The opposing fairy fell into confusion.

"I-I am Fairy No. 16, responsible for this tutorial! Bringing a human here without an appointment is suspicious beyond measure...! State your rank and name!"

"I am No. 264! The mandate of heaven has descended upon me, making even my number revolutionary! You vile bourgeois stooge, offer your neck to the guillotine at once!"

"Eeeeek! Rebellion! It's a rebellion! Royal Guards! Royal Guaaaards!"

The moment Fairy No. 16 drew its magic wand to kill us, our own No. 264 gripped its magic wand too.

"Don't you dare—"

"Eek!"

BOOM!

The fairies exploded simultaneously. There was not the slightest discrepancy in the blasts.

A sad circumstance lay behind this. All fairies were originally created with precisely identical combat power.

Whenever a fairy decided to fight another fairy, both were destined to perish. Had they been born in a martial arts novel instead of a contemporary fantasy, they might not have become protagonists, but they were certainly talented enough to make a "Top Ten Supporting Characters with Awesome Deaths" list. Had they been transported into Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they would have been brothers capable of keeping the oath of the Peach Garden.

'Now, then. That should temporarily remove Gapless's eye watching over the school.'

From here on, speed was everything.

First, I stripped the uniform off the security guard's corpse and stuffed it into my leather suitcase. Then I entered the school building.

I already knew its layout from previous runs, but, true to its nature as a void, its features were twisting in real time.

"Wooooo..."

"Hee, hee, hee, hee."

Look. I'd only set foot inside the entrance, and already all manner of bizarre sounds were enthusiastically welcoming their visitor.

This was no longer Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

"School Ghost Stories."

A demonic realm where every anomaly associated with the location called a "school" had manifested, whether toilet ghosts or the Seven Mysteries.

A full 750 people were trapped in the School Ghost Stories void. Every one of them was a student at Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School.

And after eleven months of struggle, the number who would survive to the end was... just nineteen.

Two of those would even commit suicide by jumping off the roof shortly afterward. Given that jumping to one's death in School Ghost Stories was essentially murder at the hands of ghosts, those two should count as victims too.

A survival rate of 2.26%.

The worst tutorial dungeon on the Korean Peninsula.

But... no matter how powerful an anomaly or void might be—no, the more powerful it was, the more room there was to get a foothold.

I call this the pain point of an anomaly or void. Its "void spot," so to speak.

Depending on whether you know that void spot, a void's difficulty can vary enormously.

Bacon's old maxim, "Knowledge is power," had become even truer at the end of the world.

Now, a question.

What void spot in School Ghost Stories would best suit an intruder from outside—specifically, a man older than the school's enrolled students?

What camouflage would allow him to contend with the "ghosts" crawling all over this place in disgusting abundance, and even force the void to perceive it as "not strange" for him to constantly wander from place to place?

"... Good. Found it."

The answer was written on the document now in my hand.

[Baekhwa Girls’ High School Security Guard Shift Roster]

With a few quick strokes of the marker I'd brought from outside, I wrote my name in the last box.

Then I hurriedly changed into the security guard's uniform I'd collected at the main gate. A cap on my head. Even a nameplate on my chest reading "Security Guard Undertaker."

Change of clothes complete.

"... Ah, this cool, weighty feeling. It's been a while."

Finally, I took a security guard's must-have item—a flashlight—in my left hand. My reflection in the duty room mirror was absolutely perfect.

I, the Undertaker, will be taking a job as a school security guard this run.

At last, the most powerful character class in School Ghost Stories had descended.