The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 48 – Survivor I

Chapter 48 – Survivor I

1

Excuse me, but how do you feel when you encounter the words ‘student council’ or ‘student council president’ in a creative work?

Why this sudden question, you ask?

Well, it’s because it’s relevant to this turn.

As mentioned at the end of the last turn, there are truly many eccentrics among the rivers and lakes.

The character we’ll be introducing today is no exception, just like the Marquis. In other words, he’ll boldly carve his name into the ranks of ‘illustrious figures who illuminated the Korean Peninsula’.

In the distant past, Korea had this and that soccer player, this and that idol, and filled the national pride with them.

However, even if civilization collapses, history tends to progress. Now, people from various countries competed in national pride by boasting about how great Awakeneds they possessed, and in this new standard, the Korean Peninsula was never left behind.

‘A witch who spends every day on the train forcing her subordinates to wear berets’, ‘A marquis who turns Mount Hua into Mount Hua (flower mountain)’ and so on.

It couldn’t help but be a lineup that made your heart swell with pride. Is this really the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula?

Truly a feast for eccentrics, no, for illustrious figures. Blessings never ceased on this land. There were even more figures that I hadn’t introduced yet.

Name, Cheon Yohwa.

Occupation, reflecting the trend that it’s hard to make a living by focusing on just one job nowadays, she’s a multi-faceted individual working multiple jobs.

Primary occupation, high school student.

Since the country collapsed along with public education, children were reduced to unemployed individuals who couldn’t even choose between ‘elementary school student/middle school student/high school student’ when signing up for internet communities.

In that sense, Cheon Yohwa was one of the last high school students remaining on the Korean Peninsula. If you were to measure it by grade, she would probably be around the sixth year of high school.

Just this fact alone made her an SSR-class rare occupation in gaming terms, and the rest of her occupations were even more unique.

Secondary occupation, necromancer.

Cheon Yohwa was the only necromancer in the Korean Peninsula.

2

Since we’re talking about high school, there was no longer such a thing as ‘school connections’ on the Korean Peninsula.

It couldn’t be helped. What good was it even if you graduated from a prestigious university? Would monsters care about your educational background while they’re eating people?

But the human system didn’t change easily. If there’s no bread, people will eat cake, and if soccer players disappear, they’ll suck on the national pride as Awakeneds. In place of school connections being erased, new cliques were installed immediately.

“Hmm?”

One day, while wandering around the guild, I witnessed a shocking sight.

“Wow, really?”

“Yes, I’m serious. Ahaha.”

It was none other than Seo Gyu and Sim Aryeon (villain of the KoreanVillage) laughing together while having lunch at the restaurant.

As everyone knows, Seo Gyu had anger management issues, while Sim Aryeon was a serious internet addict.

Both of them had some flaws in their DNA when it came to establishing close relationships with other Homo sapiens.

It was like seeing a hippopotamus and a crocodile peacefully sipping from the same oasis spring, and like witnessing a miracle, I couldn’t help but feel intense curiosity.

“When did you two become friends?”

Blinking.

Both of them turned to each other at the Guild Master’s unexpected question.

“Us?”

“Uh, we’ve just been friends for a while…”

Are they dating by any chance?

Two souls clashed in my mind. There was the old-fashioned belief that frowned upon office romance, and there was the nostalgic feeling of watching young people flirt with each other.

“No, sir. Whatever you may think, it’s definitely not like that…”

“Then how did you become close?”

“Why not?”

Seo Gyu replied as if it were obvious.

“Well, we’re all from the same ‘Busan Station.\'”

“What?”

That’s right.

Nowadays, Awakeneds didn’t care about their academic backgrounds. Instead, they focused on where they were when they awakened.

If we had to name it, it would be called Gongyeon, a kind of connection related to location. If it was delayed, it was delayed.

Seo Gyu, Sim Aryeon, and I all awakened at Busan Station. The being who must not be named, the master of hypnosis and brainwashing, ‘K’ also hailed from Busan Station. Later, by the time we reached turn 555, even Oh Dokseo joined the Busan Station Awakened Family.

“Could it be… Busan Station is treated like some kind of prestigious university among Awakeneds?”

“Why wouldn’t it? Of course we get that kind of treatment. Sir, we’re the top dogs in Gongyeon.”

“…”

I was shocked.

No, you guys would all be lost in Busan Station or eaten by monsters within three weeks without me!

In reality, all the Busan Station natives died by turn 3. Even Seo Gyu, the fastest man, recorded 50 deaths by turn 50, achieving the shortest escape time.

These little kids… a prestigious university?

“Hey, you bunch of clueless fools. What’s with all this fuss about Gongyeon? Instead of wasting time on that nonsense, you should be focusing on improving your skills through training.”

“Why do you always speak like an old sage, sir?”

“Yeah, it’s weird. If it weren’t for this, you might have been really popular…”

Even as the Guild Master lectured them, they looked unimpressed.

‘Ah, here goes Inspirational Grandpa again,’ their expressions seemed to say.

My head was spinning, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I’m an infinite regressor. It’s my destiny (or not) to save the world. Do I deserve this treatment?

“Um, Guild Master… But isn’t it natural to discuss Gongyeon?”

“What are you talking about, Aryeon?”

“….”

Sim Aryeon’s expression changed from ‘Ah, Inspirational Grandpa is using outdated expressions again’ to a more subdued one as he met my gaze.

“Well, it’s terrifying when you first fall into the Void, isn’t it…? Your phone doesn’t work, weird creatures jump out at you unexpectedly, and people are dying left and right… Gongyeon is about going through the same hell together with your comrades, enduring hardships. So, you can’t help but feel deep emotions, right…?”

“Hmm.”

“I think all guilds, not just ours, would feel the same way….”

Upon listening again, Sim Aryeon’s logic didn’t seem absurd.

“But I didn’t suffer.”

“Why? Do you have something to say, Aryeon?”

“No, Guild Master…”

I joked, but in truth, I meant it. The decisive reason why I couldn’t relate to trends like Gongyeon was right here.

Yeah. I didn’t feel like I suffered alongside them in the same place and time.

I suffered alongside Old Scho.

To me, the Void wasn’t ‘Busan Station,’ but the ‘world’ itself.

Challenging, dying, regressing, challenging again. A dungeon where you repeated countless processes to clear it somehow.

So, I couldn’t help but feel a strong camaraderie with Old Scho, who had the same regression coin as me.

Of course, camaraderie like that no longer existed. When the heck is this old man coming back from vacation? I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.

“Just out of curiosity, where’s the most famous awakening site among Awakeneds?”

“Huh? It’s Busan Station.”

“No, besides there.”

“Besides there? Uh, well…”

Sim Aryeon hesitated before speaking.

“…Then, it’s probably Baekhwa High School… isn’t it?”

“Ah.”

Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

There was a private school with that name.

Perhaps some of you may have heard of the name. Whenever there’s a post on internet communities like ‘List of the Prettiest School Uniforms in Korea,’ Baekhwa Girls’ High School is often mentioned with a high probability.

I’m not sure objectively if the uniforms are really pretty. I’m not interested in uniforms anyway.

But objectively, I could admit that they were unique.

Here, the uniform is a rare traditional sailor suit in Korea.

– The ribbon of our uniform symbolizes Baekhwa’s pride!

Such ridiculous words were passed down among juniors and seniors like a tradition.

While in the neighboring Japan, it was still a style of uniform that showcased its robustness as an active-duty sailor suit, the trend of sailor suits and sailor-type uniforms hadn’t even crossed the waters of the Korea Strait.

Nevertheless, the reason Baekhwa Girls’ High School accepted the J-uniform (strictly speaking, originally from the UK) was surprisingly simple.

Because the school itself was built during the Japanese colonial period in the 1920s.

Baekhwa Girls’ High School boasted quite a long history. And like most such schools, it occupied a very subtle position, treated as a ‘prestigious high school’ by graduates but giving an impression to external students as ‘Hmm, is it really that good?’

In other words, except for having a sailor-type uniform and operating a dormitory system, it was just a widely known regular high school in Korea.

Despite being such a typical school, with a dormitory but seniors advising against entering the dormitories unless absolutely necessary, with a relatively small number of prestigious university admissions compared to its long history, and therefore, during the college entrance exam season, the granite school gate would be even more tumultuous and heated with banners reading ‘(Cheers) Congratulations to those who passed (Celebration) Seoul National University’, and thus, during an extremely ordinary lunchtime, in the middle of the school grounds.

– Huh? Why isn’t the school gate opening?

– The security guard… is nowhere to be found. Let’s tell the teacher.

Emptiness descended.

– Huh?

– Wait. Even the teachers aren’t here?

– What’s going on…?

The school gate remained closed.

It was a typical closed-type void.

The closed period was not typical. The school gate of Baekhwa Girls’ High School remained closed for 11 months.

That year, Baekhwa Girls’ High School didn’t produce a single successful candidate for the college entrance exam.

3

I couldn’t fathom what tragedies the students of Baekhwa Girls’ High School experienced in an environment of nearly a year of closure.

Because I was an outsider.

The only thing I could find out was the ‘numbers’ observed from the outside.

Approximately 750 enrolled students.

Survivors after 11 months, 19 people.

12 months later, 17 survivors. 2 suicides.

“Oh, it was actually longer than 11 months!”

It wasn’t until much later that I had the chance to talk to one of the survivors, and I’ll write down exactly what that child testified here.

“It was longer?”

“Yes. Why, you know, sometimes the flow of time changes, the speed varies? Space changes haphazardly too. Ahaha. It seems our school was one of those cases!”

The survivor who spoke like this seemed unwrinkled. I heard somewhere that there are ways for people to accept unhappiness, either through their faces or through their hearts.

“So, how did it feel for you… exactly how long were you trapped in the school?”

“Oh, it was 4 years!”

Some might call this a tragedy.

Out of over 750 trapped students, only 19 barely made it out alive, and out of them, 2 committed suicide.

But I dare say it’s a ‘feat.’

When I cleared Busan Station for the first time, I was the only survivor. There were plenty of cases where everyone trapped in the void perished.

For ordinary high school students, enduring 11 months or 4 years in the jar of isolation and loneliness, and surviving to two digits—isn’t it closer to a miracle?

“Ah, a miracle, huh. Doctor Jang, you’re overdoing it.”

And every miracle has its protagonist.

In this case, it was the one and only necromancer on the Korean Peninsula, acclaimed as the best in the world, today’s Awakened Hero we’ll focus on, Cheon Yohwa.

“Alright, Baekhwa Girls’ High School! Fighting!”

“Fighting-!”

The 17 survivors rallied around Cheon Yohwa.

…No, to be more objective, more precise, such a description should be revised.

Cheon Yohwa gathered the 17 survivors around herself.

There will come a day when in another turn it will be mentioned, but Cheon Yohwa had such a talent.

Interpersonal skills.

Organizational skills.

The ability to read human psychology and use it.

The skill to break down the walls surrounding people’s minds. The skill to choose the right space and time.

Mediation skills.

Resolving conflicts within the organization and projecting unresolved conflicts outward.

Cheon Yohwa skillfully used all these abilities as if receiving divine inspiration.

As a result,

“President.”

“Student council president.”

“Cheon Yohwa, student council president.”

To the survivors of Baekhwa Girls’ High School, ‘Baekhwa’ was no longer just the name of their alma mater.

It was their destiny, their connection. According to today’s trend, it was a ‘performance,’ and perhaps even stronger than blood ties.

For 4 years, Cheon Yohwa secured 17 awakened individuals who were willing to risk their lives for her.

And together, they emerged into the world.