The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

4

Once you’ve identified the anomalies’ weakness, namely, their weak point, what’s crucial next?

It’s your wit.

In refined terms, it’s your ‘vitality’ and ‘mental strength,’ but in more colloquial terms, it’s your ‘guts’ and ‘swagger.’ By aligning your mental state with that of a seasoned warrior, you must push forward with nothing but grit and bravado.

This is absolutely no joke.

Let’s briefly revisit an incident from the 90th turn when I briefly managed the Sixth International Convenience Store.

Although I didn’t mention it separately earlier, not only human customers but also ‘non-human customers’ often visited.

One night, ding-dong— the doorbell rang. I immediately turned my head. The digital clock on the door indicated 01:59.

“Welcome, sir—”

– Eeeeh…

“—um, please feel free to look around.”

A foul smell filled the air.

A pitch-black ghost was oozing its shadowy presence toward me. I couldn’t help but wonder how extraordinarily different this ghost was. I even wondered if I had laid out a red carpet for a film festival in the convenience store.

‘Well, crap.’

A highly rational judgment was made.

Do you happen to know about the Pokémon called Grimer? Or perhaps the Stink Spirit from Spirited Away?

A ghost exactly like that was making its way back around the convenience store before reaching the counter.

Thanks to that, I regained my composure a bit. The floor, which I had meticulously cleaned just five minutes ago, was now beautifully coated with the ghost’s excrement.

– Wizaaaang…

The fellow said.

“Yes?”

– Wizaaaang, one. Height… two. Heart, one… lung, one. Fingers… three. Eyeballs, one, please.

“……”

I, a self-employed shopkeeper, always ingrained a sense of propriety in my prefrontal cortex.

Even when dealing with such bizarre customers, I was the owner of a spirit that never forgot the five letters of “customer service” even in the face of adversity.

So, I could smile brightly without a single hint of confusion.

“Sir, will that be all?”

-……?

“Will that be all? Will that be all?”

The ghost flinched.

I leaned forward and placed the counter up, actually taking a step closer to the ghost.

“Do you see the floor here? Yes? Did your eyeballs change? I couldn’t check, so I can’t say anything.”

– Uwooooo…?

“It’s all black as if the sewer overflowed. The smell? It’s too strong. It’s so strong that all the groceries in the store have gone bad. Are you going to take responsibility for this? Are you going to take responsibility, sir? Why aren’t you answering? Yes?”

That’s right.

If there’s an anomaly named ‘problematic customer,’ then there must be a ‘third-rate shopkeeper’ as well to restore the balance of the world.

“What? Disguise? Height? Heart? Are you kidding me, you bastard? Hey, give it to me. Cleaning fee for making the floor clean again. Mop fee for throwing away the mop after cleaning. Compensation fee for replacing all the products in the grocery section. Most importantly, my uniform has absorbed your stench, so dry cleaning fee. All combined, that’s your worth, you bastard.”

– Uwooooo…?

“No money? No money? You come into the store even though you don’t have money and cause trouble? Oh, damn! Hey! Call the police. Call the police! No! From now on, I am the police, you piece of shit!”

– Uwooooo…?

Swoosh.

At that moment, the anomaly vanished. The excrement and stench I had scattered around the store disappeared along with it.

The digital clock still showed 01:59.

The only lesson to be learned from this incident was that even if the anomaly is powerful enough to momentarily halt time, with knowledge of the weak point and fiery wit, you can overcome anything.

I, Doctor Jang.

Unlike some regressors who fled on a long vacation because they missed their loved ones, I was always overflowing with the vigor to confront anomalies. Just as powerful as a seasoned veteran, I always had an abundance of humanity.

So that someday, you can pioneer your own path. In this episode, let me introduce in more detail the ‘anomaly Conquest Guide’ of an expert in breaking through the void.

5

I stepped out of the duty room wearing the security guard uniform.

Flashlight in my left hand, trunk in my right.

I also equipped myself with earphones and a small microphone. It was the equipment set for tackling anomalies in earnest.

Given my current mood, I felt like Liu Bei holding the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. If the conditions were right, even Lu Bu, the mightiest warrior of all, would tremble with fear and terror upon.

“Hmm.”

*Squelch—*

The sole of my shoe squelched as I stepped forward. The reason? The bathroom floor had about 0.5cm of water, creating a slight pool.

Looking around, I noticed a faint smell of bleach mixed with a strange odor. It was the smell of freshly cut hair soaked in water.

The tap was off.

“I don’t even need to look, this is definitely a spiritual hotspot.”

There was no need to hesitate.

The bathroom had four stalls. I immediately knocked politely on the third stall.

“Is anyone in there, Hanako?”

-……

“Hanako?”

Silence.

I tilted my head.

“Hmm.”

-……

It was an incredibly awkward silence.

The seasoned anomaly hunter of the 117th turn whispered to himself, “There’s definitely a ghost here.”

I hastily turned off the tap, but it was already too late as the water had filled the tiled floor.

Being a forgiving person who trusted himself, there were only two possible answers. Either the original of the ghost was Japanese and couldn’t understand foreign languages, or it was intentionally pretending not to understand me.

In this global age, the former was impossible. According to my intuition, it was the latter.

“Oh. Right. Let me clarify my thoughts. Depending on the version, just knocking might not fulfill the conditions for appearance.”

-……

“Alright. Shall we start?”

*Tap.*

I locked the bathroom door and began to perform the ritualistic spin inside the stall.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”

-……

“Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Finished.”

I knocked on the door.

“Hanako, let’s play together. Hanako, are you there?”

-Yes.

The response came promptly.

This was the destiny of anomalies. They had their own ‘laws,’ and through these laws, even the anomalies themselves couldn’t be truly free.

Because it was through these laws that anomalies could exist in the world.

Like a Tenjo, an anomaly with tremendous ‘material destructive power’ had the corresponding weakness of being ‘able to be materially destroyed.’

The convenience store ghost could appear as a customer in any convenience store when it was the Ushi hour. It seemed to transcend the constraints of space, but conversely, it had the weakness of ‘only being able to exist as a customer.’

The Hanako ghost in the bathroom was no different.

The Hanako ghost could exist ‘in the third stall of any empty bathroom.’ It was a kind of residual ghost.

Therefore, to people entering the third stall of the bathroom, especially those who recited a chant, Hanako had to ‘reveal her appearance.’

If she didn’t answer? It meant she acknowledged that she didn’t exist in the third stall. Mission accomplished.

The bathroom ghost murmured with a trembling voice (though in my perception, it was an extremely eerie ghost voice):

-Red toilet paper or… blue toilet paper…?

“Ah, a collaboration between red and blue toilet paper, huh? Quite rare.”

-Purple toilet paper…?

“Oh.”

The ghost was suggesting a compromise.

According to some rumors, if you demanded ‘purple toilet paper,’ Hanako would retreat on her own. It was a kind of strategy, a way to banish her.

But just now, the ghost, without me even memorizing the strategy, came forward and proposed a ceasefire.

I was almost touched. What a considerate ghost she was.

“Purple toilet paper isn’t bad either. But what about this?”

-……?

*Zzzzip!*

I opened the zipper of the leather trunk bag I had brought in advance. This trunk bag was also an anomaly, but that’s a story for another time.

The important thing to note now was that inside the trunk bag were rolls of ‘red toilet paper’ and ‘blue toilet paper.’

“I’ve got both red and blue toilet paper. What do you want?”

-……

“It’s the post-COVID era, isn’t it? In times like these, personal hygiene is important. Isn’t it reassuring to carry your own toilet paper? Right, Hanako? Do you want one? Red or blue?”

-Purple toilet paper…

“There’s no purple, kid!”

*Kwaang!*

I immediately got up and stepped on the emergency button. The toilet bowl shattered into pieces, and shards of white porcelain flew everywhere.

*Rumble rumble—*

The water surged back. But what surged back wasn’t just H₂O. A ghost in the form of a girl wearing a red cloak also suddenly emerged.

I chuckled.

“I’ve found you.”

-……!

The ghost’s form trembled.

This was the great thing about ‘ghosts’ that were based on humans, unlike other anomalies.

“Strength Weakness Weakness Strength”.

Most of these ghosts possessed a very human characteristic, too human in fact, where they became weaker in front of the strong and infinitely stronger against the weak, just like humans.

This trait was particularly pronounced in ghosts with distinct human characteristics, such as “Hanako in the Bathroom.”

Of course, most ghosts also had the annoying trait of being ‘physically immune,’ but it didn’t matter. With the right approach, physical immunity could be bypassed easily enough.

For example,

“I’ve got you.”

-……! …!

*Whish.*

With red toilet paper in my right hand and blue toilet paper in my left, I grabbed Hanako’s ghost head firmly.

No matter how free Hanako was from physical force, ‘Hanako’ caused physical changes to the toilet user through the words ‘red toilet paper’ and ‘blue toilet paper.’ In other words, it brought about death.

This was how to exploit a weakness.

There was no one-way traffic in the world of anomalies. It was all two-way. If interference could occur from one side, then naturally, interference could occur from the other side using the same methods.

The result was the scene before me. The ghost of the bathroom, hanging limply in my hands like a puppet, tied up with a vice grip.

-……! …! …!

“Red toilet paper or blue toilet paper?”

-……

“The correct answer was both. It’s a 1+1 sale this month, you know, my dear customer.”

*Crack!*

The ghost’s face turned purple, then burst with a bang. Her entire body turned into red liquid and melted without form.

Even if it resembled a human, there was no trace of sympathy.

The reason became apparent as soon as the bathroom ghost was exorcised.

The water on the tiled floor turned red, revealing corpses underneath, like a dam bursting open to reveal a flooded town.

“……”

In this bathroom alone, there were seven bodies.

If you added up all the other bathrooms, it would easily be dozens. The students trapped in the “White-Walled High School Tutorial Dungeon” without knowing anything were endlessly appetizing prey for the anomalies.

I gathered the bodies in one place. They probably wouldn’t decay until the void broke apart.

“Hmm…?”

However, while cleaning up the bodies, I found suspicious items.

“…Amulets?”

Amulets were hidden all over the bathroom. Behind the toilet where the red and blue toilet paper ghosts emerged, in the cleaning supplies box, under the sink. There were almost three of them.

If it were me after the 200th turn, I could have interpreted the meaning of the amulets one by one. But at this time, I hadn’t read the Book of Changes, the Analects, Mencius, and the Doctrine of the Mean, let alone the Zhouyi.

Still, I knew how to distinguish between amulets for blessings and amulets for curses. The intention behind the characters written on the amulets was too clear to miss.

死. 死. 死. 死.

[PR/N: The phrase “死” (sǐ) repeated 4 times in Chinese translates to death in english.]

Even amidst the water bomb exploding in the bathroom, the characters on the amulets glowed like snake skin, clearly and distinctly.

“Hmm.”

It was quite ominous. Even the shops selling cursed amulets usually only wrote ‘death’ as a rule.

I examined the amulets, scratching off the red characters with my nails and sniffing the scent.

“…It’s real human blood.”

Amulets made from human blood. Among curses, it was the most dangerous one.

Why on earth were these amulets hidden in the school bathroom?

I put away my doubts and tucked them into the closet of my mind, then burned all the amulets.

Then, I took out paper and tape from my trunk bag and affixed them to the door of the men’s bathroom on the first floor.

[Patrol Completed]

It was a kind of ‘safe zone’ marker.

I didn’t know how many students wandered around here, but it might provide a hint for survival.

“Good.”

I moved again.

There was a reason why I exorcised the bathroom ghost as soon as I entered the ‘school ghost story.’

From ancient times, the ‘place where you urinate’ was considered a kind of threshold for people.

w

The shrine where rituals were held was the center of sunlight, and the bathroom was the center of shadows. It was a place that humans inevitably had to deal with, but it was still feared as dirty.

In the void, ‘the place where you urinate,’ along with ‘the place where you eat’ and ‘the place where you sleep,’ always held significant magical importance.

In other words, it was one of the central axes of the ‘school ghost story.’

In contrast, ghosts from the science lab, art room, or music room were completely unimportant.

‘I’d like to join Cheon Yohwa or the survivor group right away, but it’s so difficult to pinpoint the exact location in this distorted void…’

Thud.

The beam of my flashlight scanned the pitch-black hallway.

The school space, unnaturally elongated and duplicated, twisted grotesquely.

The sky outside was dyed bright red, and oak trees protruded from the broken windows with white fingers, sticking out of the hallway.

Countless anomalies lurked in those white shadows.

I nodded. Then, I adjusted the badge on my front pocket, labeled ‘[Security Guard Sergeant].’

‘Until I join Cheon Yohwa, I’ll just defeat every anomaly I encounter along the way.’

Rumble rumble……

Perhaps it was just my imagination, but at that moment, I felt the void of the ‘school ghost story’ trembling.