BXBX NOVEL Chapter 128 - Victim II
Chapter 128 - Victim II
5
“What the heck is that Constellation? It’s infuriating!”
Tang Seorin slammed the table.
We were at a popular sundae soup restaurant in Busan. Contrary to her usual focus on eating, Tang Seorin had spent the entire meal ranting about the [Collector of All Anomalies].
This was proof that our Zero Requiem project had been a resounding success.
“Hmm. Well, it seems that Constellation thinks of themselves as an online game operator.”
“Hah. If someone ran a game with that kind of nerdy attitude nowadays, the game would tank too!”
“That’s why reality has already tanked, hasn’t it?”
“Ugh... Seriously, everything about it is annoying. Does that Constellation think the Korean Peninsula is their playground? I’ll make sure they regret it someday.”
Except for occasionally putting concrete shoes on people and making them walk the runway over the sea in Busan, Tang Seorin was an upstanding person.
And even such a person was this angry. Imagine how other awakened ones must feel.
I set aside my guilt toward Tang Seorin for a moment and focused on the media manipulation.
――――――――――
Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’
Greetings, human Awakened Ones active on the Korean Peninsula.
I’m surprised! I never imagined that you’d defeat the Apostle Ten Clans so easily that I prepared with such ambition. I suppose I should have expected this from the land known for its gaming prowess! ()
In response, I’m planning to send out even more challenging anomalies from now on.
By any chance... do you like ‘hide and seek’?
Because I do! ()
Next up, I’ll introduce you to the anomaly World Tree Udumbara. If you don’t find it within the time limit, it’ll spread a zombie virus across the entire Korean Peninsula, or even the world.
――――――――――
As soon as a new post appeared after the Ten Clans were exterminated, SGNet exploded.
-Anonymous: Seriously, why does this bastard keep showing up only on the Korean Peninsula?
-[Yuldo Nation] Sword Maiden: Oh! I cannot contain my indignation at the outrageous mockery of the world by this demonic outsider!
-[Baekhwa] High School Senior: Hoee ;; I want to tie him up and start cutting off his fingers and toes with nail clippers ;;
-Anonymous: Am I the only one about to lose my mind at that stupid thing??
-CookingQeenB: Interesting.
Only five people in the world—me, the Saintess, Noh Doha, Yoo Jiwon, and Sim Aryeon—knew that the [Collector of All Anomalies] was a fabricated entity.
Noh Doha pouted.
“Sometimes I wonder if we really need to go this far... But " Monster Wave" scammed us first, so we have to respond with our own scam...”
Anyway, our media manipulation and Zero Requiem operation were progressing smoothly.
As Doctor Jang, I had already memorized all the anomalies that would appear on the Korean Peninsula.
Their identities, gimmicks, and even the timing of their appearances.
Using this knowledge of a regressor just a bit cunningly, creating a new Constellation to act as the mastermind playing with the Korean Peninsula was a piece of cake.
If journalists from before the apocalypse saw this, they’d be moved to tears, thinking, ‘Indeed, the essence of Korean journalism has been passed down to the next generation, even after civilization was destroyed!’
In the end, all the malice and resentment of the people were directed solely at the [Collector of All Anomalies], which meant at Sim Aryeon.
―――――――――――
Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’
Greetings, human Awakened Ones active on the Korean Peninsula. ()
―――――――――――
At this point, Awakened Ones would have a fit just at seeing the phrase ().
-Anonymous: Again? It’s here again?
-LiteratureGirl: What are the other Constellations doing, not dealing with that mastermind?
Absolute Evil.
Someone who treats this end-of-the-world scenario, where everyone is seriously struggling to survive, as nothing more than a light-hearted game. A mastermind with no dignity or intelligence to speak of.
...If the [Collector of All Anomalies] were even slightly serious, a cult might have formed to worship this Constellation.
After all, even though it brought about humanity\'s doom, a Constellation that could freely unleash terrifying creatures would naturally seem immense to mere mortals.
But the [Collector of All Anomalies] was far too frivolous to be revered as a malevolent god.
Simply put, it lacked any kind of dignity.
Whether someone loved or hated humanity, no one could bring themselves to worship the [Collector of All Anomalies]. All it received was scorn, resentment, and contempt.
-Anonymous: Damn, did you see the meteor shower dropping star corpses?
└Anonymous: Yeah, saw it. That was really messed up.
└[National Road] Officer: The only reason it was stopped was because the head of the Three Thousand Worlds was there. The Gyeongsangnam-do area would have been completely devastated if we hadn\'t known about it.
└Anonymous: What’s with these crazy creatures? I really want to beat the crap out of that Collector guy. Lol.
And so.
Fifteen years passed.
[Doctor Jang.]
[A Monster Wave has been detected in the North Korean region. It’s currently presumed to be heading south toward the inland from the Gando area.]
I nodded.
It had been a long, arduous time.
Who owns SGNet, the only information-sharing platform left in this post-apocalyptic world? Me.
Who is the one who has formed blood pacts with the Constellations, the only reliable sources of information in this world? Me, the Doctor Jang.
At this very moment, all the information power of the Korean Peninsula was in my hands. Before the apocalypse, the media might have used this power merely to create a president, whether from the opposition or the ruling party―― but the work I was creating operated on a far higher level than such petty political realities.
"Aryeon."
"Yes."
"Have you practiced singing a lot?"
"Y-Yes...! The Great Witch of the Three Thousand Worlds said I’m ready to graduate...!"
"Excellent. Now, go. Show them."
"..."
"Show them that being a healer was originally a noble profession."
"...! Yes, Guildmaster...!"
There were omens. There were hints. There were foreshadowings.
It wasn’t by chance that I focused on this girl when dealing with the ‘Logout Game.’
Everything led to this moment.
Sim Aryeon.
She was now about to become the savior of the Korean Peninsula.
Formerly, KoreanVillain. An internet troll.
Alias, the Bird That Drinks Poison.
Deploy.
6
In this world, there are few problems that cannot be solved by overwhelming damage.
Just as I, with no particular expertise in martial arts, sliced through the Ten Clans with my aura, and just as the overly simple ‘Monster Wave’ destroyed numerous countries with sheer numbers.
But I, Doctor Jang, now on my 217th turn, will offer a cold and exhilarating critique of the current state of affairs, steeped as they are in the meta of overwhelming damage.
Overwhelming damage. It is nothing compared to ‘overwhelming healing.’
“Hold them off! Don’t let them cross the Yalu River!”
"B-But, Your Eminence! The number of anomalies is endless! There are tens of thousands just within sight, how can we...?"
"Don’t utter such weak words! The Reborn Jesus is watching over us! Even if we die, this is where we will ascend to heaven! God wills it! Amen!"
The Yalu River defense line.
Until recently, the Eastern Holy Kingdom had been thoroughly engrossed in playing the game of northern expansion. It was so much fun to simply loot the Manchurian regions, which had been ravaged by the Ten Clans.
But as Proverbs 13:11 says, wealth gained hastily will dwindle.
The believers of the Eastern Holy Kingdom were terrified by the endless black tide of anomalies.
The fear of a ‘relentless wave from the north’ was ingrained in the DNA of the Korean people. No matter how deeply indoctrinated a cultist was, overcoming such fears with faith was not easy.
"Y-Your Eminence! The creatures are trying to ford the river using the corpses to block it!"
"No! Stop them! Stop them! If this line breaks, only the Chongchon River and the Taedong River will be left!"
At that moment.
[‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ pities humanity and sends down your Saintess.]
The believers of the Resurrection Church, who were struggling at the front lines, raised their eyes to the sky. Those who didn’t even have time to raise their heads had their throats cut by the anomalies and could admire the sky up close.
Morning Star of the Second Coming? Isn’t that our Church’s Jesus? Did He send the Saintess to us?
"Ah―――."
A single note of song pierced through the battlefield, drenched in black, filthy water and crimson blood.
Step. Step.
Sim Aryeon, that awkward girl from our guild, clasped her hands together and walked across the battlefield, step by step.
It wasn’t a heavenly voice that would astonish the Chinese, shock the Japanese, and bring the Koreans to their knees, like Tang Seorin’s song. Reaching the pinnacle of the peninsula’s idols was still far off.
But, Sim Aryeon was Tang Seorin’s disciple.
More precisely, I had made her a disciple. Tang Seorin had squeezed time out of her busy schedule to give Sim Aryeon one-on-one lessons.
For ten years!
So, if not the peninsula’s top idol, she could at least be called Pyongyang’s top idol. Sim Aryeon, our healer, walked on, singing a beautiful Latin requiem (though she didn’t understand the lyrics).
I secretly used my aura to amplify her voice, spreading it far and wide, beyond the horizon.
“Ah―― Ah――.”
Then a miracle happened.
A soldier who had just been bisected by an anomaly, almost on his way to heaven, suddenly grew a new lower half.
“Huh?”
An arm sprouted from someone who had lost one.
A foot grew back for someone whose foot had been crushed.
Half-corpses scattered across the battlefield began to regrow arms, legs, fingers, toes, eye sockets, and mouths, rising once more.
The blood that had soaked the ground, almost turning it red, flowed back to its owners, becoming flesh again.
As the waves of Sim Aryeon’s song spread, the wounded and the half-dead within its range were healed one by one.
Revival.
And that’s not all.
What bloomed from Sim Aryeon’s footsteps wasn’t just human life. The green grass that had been blackened and sullied by the filthy water, the multicolored flowers, blossomed again.
"Ah... Ah..."
Green revival.
The believers looked down at their hands. The hands that, just a few seconds ago, had exposed bone.
Someone murmured without realizing it.
“It’s a miracle...”
Yes.
It was a miracle.
Even in this apocalyptic world, where monsters appeared and awakened ones emerged, the sight of ‘life’ being revived with every step Sim Aryeon took was breathtakingly sacred.
The ‘Monster Wave’ couldn’t stand by and rushed in, but I quietly dealt with those foul creatures.
I, Doctor Jang, valued etiquette very much. After all, it was a villain’s courtesy to quietly stay out of the way during a magical girl’s transformation scene.
“Saintess, you are the Saintess...”
“Jesus has called upon Santa Maria!”
“Hallelujah! It is God’s will!”
The tide of battle shifted rapidly.
The Monster Wave was thrown into confusion. It suddenly learned the lesson of empathy. No matter how much it killed and sliced, the number of human heads never seemed to diminish.
Humans were naturally a warrior race. As long as their heads remained attached, the Koreans, under the game’s rule of ‘new game with increased strength,’ awakened the primal instincts of their ancestors.
Four days and nights passed.
The battle at the Yalu River defense line. Here, 2,000 elite soldiers of the Eastern Holy Kingdom achieved a resounding victory against a force of 200,000 monsters. It was a historic triumph.
“Uwooooooo!”
“We... We won! We won!”
“Lord Christ does not abandon us humans! Long live Jesus! Long live the Saintess!”
“...”
Sim Aryeon smiled faintly.
It wasn’t that she had suddenly started to emulate Koyori. I had repeatedly warned her, “As long as you keep your mouth shut, you seem perfectly fine, so please, whatever you do, don’t open it.”
As long as she wasn’t involved with internet communities or logout games, Aryeon was generally a good kid with good behaviour.
The Resurrection Church believers responded with fervent cheers to Sim Aryeon’s mystical smile.
Once again, it’s worth mentioning that this world’s genre was, in fact, fantasy.
And according to the genre rules of fantasy, there had to be a Saintess in the Holy Empire.
Especially if there was already a Saintess in the southern capital of Seoul, there must be another Saintess in the northern capital of Pyongyang to counterbalance. That was the physical law of the Korean Peninsula.
Who could have predicted it?
The Saintess of the Eastern Holy Kingdom.
Her name was Sim Aryeon.
7
There’s an epilogue.
Thanks to the success of Zero Requiem, another ocean-level monster, the Monster Wave, was more or less safely dealt with.
However, this ‘solution’ couldn’t be called an ‘extermination.’ Monster Waves continued to occur periodically beyond the Yalu River.
Each time, Sim Aryeon had to be carried on my back to the Yalu River front lines, where she would wield her authority as a Saintess.
“G-Guildmaster. Did I do well? I did well, right? I did really well, right? P-Please praise me...”
“Yes. You were truly perfect. You’ve been through a lot. You’re indeed the world’s strongest healer. Aryeon, you’re such a treasure.”
“Hehe...”
But even if it was only a temporary solution, Sim Aryeon consistently protected the Korean Peninsula as the ‘Unyielding Wall of Life’ in the North.
In the 15th year, the 16th year, the 17th year, the 18th year, the 19th year, the 20th year, the 21st year, and the 22nd year.
Although by the 22nd year, Sim Aryeon’s powers had grown so strong that a ‘corruption phenomenon’ occurred... But in essence, Sim Aryeon had defended the front lines alone until then.
For a whole eight years.
――Honestly, while dealing with the ‘Monster Wave’ this time, I had a lot on my mind.
After all, the Monster Wave was a mid-boss level creature that had destroyed our world countless times. Naturally, many tragedies had been caused by this monster.
At first, I considered describing those solemn deaths, just as I did when talking about the ‘Ten Clans’ or the ‘Meteor Shower.’
But when I thought of Sim Aryeon, my thoughts changed.
Despite receiving all sorts of hatred and contempt from the awakened ones, despite being dragged to the battlefield at least once a month to play the role of a Saintess, which was never in her destiny, Sim Aryeon never showed signs of struggle.
As her guildmaster, shouldn’t I sing of laughter rather than tragedy?
Magnificence, or sorrow. At least while Sim Aryeon is smiling, I don’t want to paint such scenes.
Because.
“Hehe... Ah, when we get back to the hideout, please make me a café mocha...! With lots and lots of chocolate syrup...!”
Just as this girl liked my coffee, I also liked her smile very much.
-The Victim. The End.