Chapter 9 - The Determinist II

4

I had visited China several times in earlier runs. It was nearby, and a certain old geezer obsessed with martial arts fiction had even given me reason to visit Mount Hua.

Beijing, the destination of this trip, lay a little outside what you might call my turf.

But who was I? Very little was impossible for an infinite regressor.

After meticulous field surveys spanning four runs, from eighty-two through eighty-five, I finally completed The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Beijing.

“First, we get a boat in Incheon and take it to Tianjin Port.”

“Um, Mr. Undertaker, I’ve, um, never been on a boat before, and my stomach is, a little, ah, this is bad, ah—”

With the refreshing sound of waves off Incheon playing as our ASMR soundtrack (there was a little noise mixed in here and there), we crossed the Yellow Sea.

“Next, we can’t travel aboveground. There are far too many anomalies. I could fight our way through, but that would attract too much attention, so we’re better off going underground.”

“Wait. Underground...?”

“Yes. The Chinese awakened have set up hideouts in the Beijing subway. What are you doing? Come over here.”

“Um, I, actually have a little claustrophobia, Mr. Undertaker, ah, um, oh, this is bad—”

The awakened who had yet to escape anomaly-devastated Beijing had formed the so-called Beijing Liberation Assault Force.

Among the stations they controlled, I had my eye on Ciqu Station.

Its stationmaster, who also commanded the force’s Seventeenth Unit, was a man of character who was wonderfully easy to talk to.

The Ciqu stationmaster took quite a liking to a foreigner who spoke the Beijing dialect so fluently.

By that point, his form of address for me had already been promoted from “this bastard” to “you.”

When an anomaly that had been giving him headaches for some time fell into slices like a rolled omelet with one swing of my blade, I leveled up another rank to “sir.”

Finally, when I presented him with the premium pu’er tea I had brought as a gift, the stationmaster at last remembered that, though our nationalities differed, we were brothers in faith who had honored the teachings of Confucius and Mencius together long ago.

“Brother Jang!”

“Little brother!”

The identification issued to me by the Seventeenth Unit commander was practically an all-access passport. We entered Beijing at once.

“... Isn’t that just bribery?”

“Now, now.”

Bribery? Who would call gifts exchanged between brothers bribes?

I had merely offered a few modest tea leaves out of goodwill, and the other party had duly accepted them out of generosity.

Some complain that China’s guanxi culture is an exclusive club, but that is only because they have forgotten the fine traditions of East Asia.

Having eaten my fucking fill of life as a regressor, I possessed numerous virtues besides the way of tea.

First, we could hardly leave out the traditional East Asian game of Go. The Liberation Assault Force’s Tenth Unit commander loved Go more than his three daily meals. After playing a match with me, he seized my hand and declared, “Only now do I realize that a national master has come to us from the east!”

Next came calligraphy. The First Unit commander subscribed to the philosophy that a person’s entire character revealed itself in their handwriting. When he saw the words I dashed off on calligraphy paper—“A friend comes from afar”—he immediately saluted me with clasped hands.

“Look at this regular script, so majestic yet so disciplined! Truly, you are Yan Zhenqing reborn!”

Of course, I was a fellow who knew how to conduct himself. How could I act arrogantly after receiving such extravagant praise?

At each such occasion, we enjoyed a modest cup of pu’er tea—first-flush leaves from Bingdao Laozhai—and warmly exchanged good wishes.

Exactly forty-eight hours after arriving in Beijing, I had unrestricted access to the Liberation Assault Force’s intelligence network.

Having witnessed this entire process firsthand, the Saintess murmured in disbelief.

“Mr. Undertaker... You have a gift for making friends with anyone within ten minutes, even people you’ve never met before.”

Her eyes seemed to ask, Is this what life is like for social butterflies?

“Now, now. Never met before? This is the shortest walkthrough route I developed over four whole runs of exploration.”

“I see. Then, strictly speaking, this wouldn’t be my first trip abroad either. I must have traveled with you in one of the earlier runs.”

“No? This is your first.”

“What?”

“You’ve gone into North Korea on your own before, but I believe this is your first trip across the sea. Why do you think I invested four whole runs in finding the shortest route? I wanted to make your first trip as comfortable as possible.”

“...”

“Well, with the world in this shitty state, this is about as comfortable as it gets. So, Saintess. How does it look? Can you see the anomaly we’re after?”

“... One moment.”

The Saintess let out a breath and steadied her breathing.

“Just give me a little time.”

Then she closed her eyes.

Here, she had only one role: radar.

The assault force might have retreated into Beijing’s underground, but personnel watching the surface were stationed everywhere.

The Seventeenth Unit commander was on brotherly terms with the First and Tenth Unit commanders. The Tenth was close to the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth, while the First was close to the Second, Fourth, and Fifth.

Their “generosity” and my “goodwill” combined, and at this very moment, the surface observation duties the assault force members ordinarily neglected were being carried out as a mission of the utmost importance.

And the Saintess’s ability was [Clairvoyance].

For exactly ten minutes starting now, she had acquired an omniscient observer’s perspective, allowing her to survey every inch of Beijing.

“...”

One minute.

“...”

Two minutes.

“...”

Three minutes.

“I found it.”

The Saintess opened her eyes.

We hadn’t even needed ten minutes. The seven minutes left over were a numerical expression of our competence as a duo, measured in time.

“Where?”

“Temple of Heaven Park.”

We were lucky, too. It was close.

“Understood. Then please wait here underground and keep sending me messages. I’ll finish it off quickly and come...”

“Please take me with you.”

The Saintess gripped my forearm tightly.

“I want to see you fight with my own eyes, not through Clairvoyance.”

“... Hmm. It’ll be dangerous.”

“You said it was the shortest, safest, most comfortable route. I’ll trust you. Besides...”

The Saintess released a faint breath. That was her way of smiling.

“If I come all this way on my very first trip abroad and all I see is seawater and tunnels, I think not only I, but the versions of me in later runs, would feel a little cheated. Don’t you?”

It was an argument I couldn’t refuse.

5

As I bounded up the stairs of Tiantandongmen Station, a thunderstorm raged aboveground.

The noise battered my ears.

The storm spared no place. Whirlwinds swept across all of Beijing.

“A rather violent welcome. Hold on tight, Saintess.”

[“Yes.”]

Perhaps because the storm was so loud all around us, the Saintess spoke through Telepathy rather than aloud.

I ran toward Temple of Heaven Park with her in my arms. Her arms, hanging around my neck like a swing, tightened their grip.

The world was dark clouds.

The park’s central avenue must once have been straight and well maintained, but green pines and cypresses, pagoda trees, and ginkgoes had seeped onto it from the woods on either side. Like rust spreading over an old iron sword.

I raced straight down the center of that blade.

GR҉R҈R҉? GR҉R҉R҉?

G҉R҉K҉R҉R҉?

The anomalies were as numerous as the trees.

Lightning flashed. The forest cast its shadows.

They were now the supreme beings on Earth.

Standing on roots, hanging from branches, coiling in the treetops, they looked down on the member of an obsolete species who had dared charge into the surface territory they ruled.

They didn’t retain that angle of view for long.

“This will be a little bumpy.”

[“Yes.”]

One flash. I cut down the obstructing trees in a single stroke.

My signature ink-black aura swept down the avenue like a tidal wave. The anomalies infesting the trees came down to the ground all at once.

As befitted anomalies that had occupied one of humanity’s greatest cities, they landed without losing their balance, but that hardly mattered.

One strike. I sliced through the necks of all the anomalies now roughly at eye level.

Two swings were enough to make humanity’s avenue a road again.

[“... Amazing.”]

The Saintess murmured softly.

[“It really is completely different from watching through Clairvoyance. You’re incredible.”]

“You flatter me. Believe it or not, I’ve often been scolded for having no talent for martial arts.”

[“That’s impossible. You, Mr. Undertaker? You’re joking, aren’t you?”]

I smiled faintly.

“It’s true.”

I really had no martial talent.

That wasn’t the only talent I lacked. I hadn’t known what made pu’er and green tea so different apart from their color, hadn’t known Go openings, hadn’t known how to grind ink and wield a brush.

And I still lacked much. I had no gift for borrowing other people’s vision, and I never would.

That was why I always needed companions.

My companion whispered to me.

[“Ah, turn left there—”]

[“Right. Yes, farther right.”]

[“Yes. Just keep going straight.”]

Following the Saintess’s guidance, I cut through forest paths and anomalies until we reached the towering structure north of the Temple of Heaven: the Altar of Prayer for Good Harvests.

Battered by lightning, the building had already mostly collapsed. Yet its pillars still stood precariously, reaching toward the sky like hands raised in prayer.

A tornado rose from their very center.

[“That’s the place, Mr. Undertaker. All the other tornadoes covering the city are originating from that one.”]

“Yes. So it seems.”

The site’s name translates into English as “Temple of Heaven.”

Since ancient times, humanity had demonstrated its power through who offered sacrifices and prayers to heaven. In that case, the tornado rising toward the heavens there now was nothing less than a proclamation of the anomalies’ victory.

I enhanced my eyesight with aura. Then, seeing the presence I sensed at the storm’s very center, I couldn’t help chuckling.

“Just as I thought.”

[“Why are you laughing?”]

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking how very much like anomalies these anomalies are.”

In the middle of the tornado... a tiny sapphire-colored “butterfly” was beating its wings.

Blue wings. A morpho butterfly.

That was the true identity of the tornado.

An anomaly falsely claiming to be the Son of Heaven of this age.

On stormy days like this, some of the tornadoes born from that “butterfly” had probably traveled beyond Beijing to the opposite side of the planet.

‘... Literally a butterfly effect.’

I gripped my sword cane.

Normally I used it as a walking stick, but when necessary, I could twist the handle and draw a blade. It was my weapon of choice.

Perhaps another opportunity would come to explain how I had ended up using such an unusual sword.

For now, I think I’ll say just a little about what this sword was cutting.

Perhaps sensing my presence, the butterfly tilted and fluttered its wings.

H҉A҉G҈I҉L҉Z҉M҉I҉J҉G҈P҉I҉D҈K҉S҉?

The wind howled.

I swung my sword.

Amid the thunder’s deafening roar, a single ink-black sword strike swept silently across the world.

The blade tore apart the butterfly that proclaimed itself Earth’s new supreme being.

B҉H҉N҈L҉K҉B҉Y҉I҉J҉T҉B҉S҈S҉R҉!

A scream rang out.

Translated into human language, it probably meant something like, “That’s cheating, you regressor bastard.”

But once you falsely claim to be the Son of Heaven, tasting the bitterness of a dynastic revolution is only the natural course of history. All I wanted was to welcome it to Earth.

The storm, thunder, and tornado roared, and then, in one instant, the world’s noise subsided as though it had never been there.

[“... Ah.”]

As the dark clouds receded, one last shower poured down. Sunlight dwelled in the raindrops like transparent shadows.

[“... It’s beautiful.”]

My senses, spread out in all directions, still caught the presence of countless anomalies. They would probably realize their boss was dead and swarm here in droves.

But they couldn’t outrun the sunlight.

During the brief respite granted to us, the Saintess climbed down from my arms and looked around.

“I’m glad I came on this trip.”

Water lapped beneath the Saintess’s shoes. It sounded just like a little fish leaving its aquarium and fluttering its fins in a stream.

The Saintess turned back and moved her lips. Then, wordlessly—with a voice only I could hear—she spoke.

[“The Saintess of National Salvation praises your great achievement.”]

I stood dazed for a while, then burst into loud laughter.

Amazingly, in all the time it had taken me to reach my eighty-sixth run, that was the first joke I had ever heard the Saintess make.

5

There is an epilogue.

According to my philosophical convictions as a determinist, the butterfly effect was an anomaly I could never tolerate.

But I, too, was human. Sometimes I grew tired of a life that repeated over and over.

At such times, the butterfly effect, which twisted the flow of causality to generate random variables, wasn’t so bad.

After all, even an anomaly’s value depended on how you used it.

In every run, I killed the Beijing anomaly as quickly as possible, before the six-month mark when the butterfly effect began stretching its wings in earnest. But now and then, I deliberately left it alone.

... It was in my 173rd run that this complacency of mine finally brought about an irreversible “butterfly effect.”

[“Mr. Undertaker.”]

“Yes?”

[“Perhaps I’ve been working with preconceived notions about constellations all this time. Don’t you think we need to revamp their image to make them a little more approachable and friendly?”]

“Oh, sure. Do whatever you like.”

[“A good idea suddenly came to me last night.”]

“I’m sure it’s a wonderful idea.”

I had never heard this proposal before in my life, but I had a fundamental faith in the Saintess. I approved without giving it much thought.

And the next day.

[“Hi, hi! Hello to all you awakened on the Korean Peninsula! Nice to meet you, meow!”]

[“I’m the constellation who’ll be watching you aaall the time from now on—the Saintess of National Salvation, meow!”]

[“Meeooow! Let’s get along, meow!”]

“...”

Oh. Dear God.

I dropped my coffee cup.

... Yes, anomalies and humanity truly cannot live under the same sky.

- The Determinist. End.