The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 131

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Eschatologist III

"Don\'t worry too much, Guild Master."

Koyori gave a bittersweet smile, as if she were genuinely concerned about me.

"As you know, this place is a well of dreams, passed down through you, Guild Master. I am nothing more than a character within a dream within a dream. I have no connection to the real me."

"…Just an illusion?"

"Yes. Hmm. To put it another way, perhaps this is a manifestation of your fear and avoidance? Of course, it\'s quite sad that your subconscious fear happened to take on my form..."

Koyori\'s eyes drooped sadly, but I couldn\'t let my guard down.

Imagine Godzilla wagging its tail, asking to be petted. Even a light novel protagonist equipped with a "petting → opponent\'s surrender" internal protocol would probably start to doubt the power in their palm.

"It doesn\'t make sense for me not to be an illusion. No matter how mysterious I might seem to you, Guild Master, things like sitting on clouds or being 600 meters underground wouldn\'t happen, would they?"

"……."

"Everything here is just a fantasy created by your fears. The fact that I call you \'Guild Master\' is strange enough on its own. After all, I never…"

"…Accepted me as the Guild Master. That title only exists within my memories."

"Yes! Exactly."

What should I do?

Trusting Koyori was out of the question. I’d sooner believe that the UFO that fell into the East Sea was actually an alien goodwill ambassador.

But it was also true that I couldn\'t escape from here.

I had to wait for the tutorial\'s fairies to rescue me, or find a way to escape on my own.

Until then, it was clear that Koyori would be right on my tail, whether I liked it or not.

"Besides, I can be your guide here, Guild Master."

"A guide? That’s a very welcome offer. Someone just assassinated the guide I hired."

"Haha. I\'m sorry. But wouldn\'t a local guide be more reliable than an outsider?"

Koyori clasped her hands behind her back and leaned in.

"Dream demons are just a bridge between dreams and reality. Hmm. It’s hard to call them a \'complete resident\' of this place. But I\'ve always existed here, as a manifestation of your subconscious."

"……."

"I know almost everything about what\'s happening here, Guild Master. You came to explore a nightmare, right? I can guide you much better than any ordinary dream demon."

A brief silence.

"…There’s a condition."

"Yes. Please, anything you want."

"Don\'t try to win my favor unnecessarily. Don’t get too close. And don\'t kill dream demons without warning, like you did earlier. If you break these conditions, I will do whatever it takes to escape."

What would happen if I took my own life in this dream?

I didn’t know, but it was worth trying simply because it was a death method I was unfamiliar with.

Koyori smiled somewhat wistfully.

"I understand, Guild Master. I\'ll do my best. But…"

"But?"

"Hmm. It\'s nothing. This place is dangerous, so we should get out of here quickly."

Koyori turned around. Tap, tap. The sound of her loafer heels echoed in the waiting room.

"Please follow me. I\'ll show you the \'nightmares.\'"

4

The scene that unfolded before me as soon as I stepped out of Busan Station was emptiness.

Let me take this moment to remind you of the fear of emptiness.

In our reality, that is, before the end of the century, \'space-time\' was always orderly. When you looked to the left, you saw the left; when you stepped to the right, you moved to the right.

But emptiness is not like that.

In that place, normal space-time and physical laws were meaningless.

Especially in the case of a deep void.

"……!"

As soon as I stepped outside Busan Station, my head became hazy.

A yellow traffic light was set up 200 meters away. For some reason, it caught my attention, and in that instant, the traffic light was \'right in front of my nose.\'

Blink, blink, blink-

The yellow light from the traffic light flashed furiously in front of my eyes. When I closed my eyelids for a moment and opened them, the traffic light was nowhere to be seen.

"……."

Waaaah!

Somewhere, the cries of children could be heard. When I turned my head, I saw only a simple grassy field. Every time the grass swayed in the wind, a baby-like cry echoed, "Waaaah, waaaah."

"Good, good."

Thud. An old woman squatted in a flowerbed, picking azalea buds. Waaah! As the crimson liquid gushed out, the cries burst forth. The old woman stroked the azalea petals as if soothing a newborn, her fingernails stained bright red with the flower’s sap.

"……."

I steadied my breathing.

In the midst of the endlessly repeating blinking of the traffic light, the crying of flower babies, and the old woman’s caresses, I focused only on the path I was walking.

Next to me, Koyori blinked.

"Wow. That’s impressive. You’re really maintaining your self-awareness. How do you do it?"

"…It\'s thanks to my own know-how. So, where are the nightmares?"

"Ah. They’re right over there."

Koyori pointed her finger.

I paused.

As my gaze naturally followed, I found myself holding my breath.

"What… is that?"

In front of me was a scene that was both familiar and alien.

The familiar part was the building. The headquarters of the National Highway Management Corps. That building, practically a landmark in Busan, stood tall like the Tower of Babel.

In one iteration where Busan had fallen into \'Utopia,\' I watched fireworks from the rooftop terrace of that building with Tang Seorin.

"A――ah――ah――."

Even in this dream, Tang Seorin was there.

But this time, she wasn\'t on the terrace but hanging from the spire.

It was as if she had been crucified. Large nails were driven into her wrists and feet, just like a victim of a witch trial. For someone who claimed to be a witch, she was subjected to an extraordinarily cruel witch hunt. Tang Seorin, bleeding from her limbs, continued to sing without pause.

My own limbs turned deathly pale.

But the horrific scene didn’t end there.

"――Ah――Ah――."

Directly below Tang Seorin, another person was crucified.

It was Sim Aryeon.

With the singing technique she learned from Tang Seorin, in Latin, Sim Aryeon followed her master, echoing the chorus.

Neither of them had any expression on their faces. The duet of the witch and the saintess resonated endlessly through the city\'s night sky, vibrating across the entire universe.

"What on earth is that…?"

"You already know, don\'t you?"

Koyori spoke.

"It\'s a perpetual motion machine. The \'Great Witch\' burns her life away as she sings. It\'s a power that must eventually come to an end, but with the \'Saintess of the North\' joining in, the story changes."

"……."

"Even when the Great Witch\'s life runs out, the Saintess of the North can replenish it. Then, it’s essentially creating a never-ending fuel source for the dream."

"……."

"The Great Witch will keep dying and coming back to life as she sings, again and again, solely for the peace of the world. That\'s the kind of nightmare it is."

I immediately swung my sword.

The Tower of Babel crumbled. Tang Seorin\'s and Sim Aryeon\'s songs were swallowed up by the sound of the collapsing tower and faded away.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like Tang Seorin and Sim Aryeon looked at me and let out a brief, dying breath of "Ah" before they were buried in the cloud of dust.

My heart pounded.

But the nightmare wasn’t over.

"…You can\'t kill a dream, Guild Master."

Koyori spoke as if it were an unavoidable truth.

"As I mentioned, the nightmares here simply manifest your fears. You\'re wise, so surely you\'ve imagined it at least once? The idea that if those two were to fall and their powers were to intertwine, it might just create an eternal, peaceful Utopia—something like that."

"…What a twisted hobby. I would never choose such an option."

"Yes. And you could say that this place is a trash heap of possibilities that you didn’t choose, Guild Master."

"……."

"Worlds after bad endings. The fate of parallel worlds. Fragments of possible worlds. Or simply bad dreams. A macabre hobby."

Koyori took a step forward.

As she did, the surroundings changed drastically.

Sejong City turned into a white desert, and in the middle of it, Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul were sitting facing each other.

Even though they were far off in the distance, I could clearly hear the conversation between the two children.

"…But sometimes, out of nowhere, the teacher brings up references to Records of the Grand Historian and Water Margin. Shouldn’t we implant that kind of knowledge into ‘Teacher’ too?"

"Rejected. It\'s better to pursue a perfect version of Brother as he is."

"Wow… Hayul, you and I really have matching interests, but also don’t match at all."

"Agreed. I don\'t understand why you cling to such an outdated movement like Realism."

"What are you saying, you doll-obsessed nerd?"

They chatted away. On the surface, it looked like a heartwarming scene, but my mouth was dry.

Creak—

There was something between Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul. It was \'me.\'

A doll-like figure that looked like an Doctor Jang, the corpse of an Doctor Jang, stood hunched between the two.

"Hmm—then let’s omit Records of the Grand Historian and Water Margin, and just implant knowledge of Three Kingdoms. If we remove that too, it’s really hard to call him ‘Teacher’!"

"Agreed."

Creak. Creak.

Cheon Yohwa was inputting data into my corpse. As if turning a zombie into an AI judge.

And connected to the limbs and all the muscles of this \'Doctor Jang\' were puppet strings held by Lee Hayul.

The \'Doctor Jang\' opened his mouth.

-You two… what exactly do you think of humans? I\'ve told you time and again, Yohwa. You need to look at humans with a bit more warmth.

"Wow! Just like Teacher!"

-And Hayul, I\'ve also told you, don’t play with living people like they’re dolls. No, you shouldn’t even do it with dead people.

"Satisfied."

The two of them were cheerful.

Only those two endlessly performed their puppet show in the world that had turned into a white desert.

The scene felt so distant.

"That too is one of the bad endings,"

Whispered Koyori beside me.

"When the Endless Hell was unleashed, covering the entire world in emptiness, only Cheon Yohwa and the Puppeteer were granted a small oasis."

"……."

"Oh, and please, don’t even think about approaching them? Even though it looks normal, the Cheon Yohwa and Puppeteer over there are already in an advanced state of corruption. They’ve become anomalies that could destroy the world on their own… Guild Master?"

I ignored Koyori’s words.

Crunch.

My footprint left an imprint in the desert sand.

As soon as I took that single step, Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul\'s gazes instantly focused on me.

"……."

"……."

Silently. Intently.

My students looked at me. I walked slowly, but with purpose, towards the two of them.

During that time, Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul\'s faces became completely expressionless, as if they had never been happily chatting at all.

I stood before them.

And I embraced them both.

As tightly as possible. Cherishing them so they wouldn’t break.

"Yohwa."

"……."

"Hayul."

"……."

"You shouldn’t be in a place like this. Let’s go home. Let’s go back home…."

"……."

"……."

Shhhh—

In my arms, Yohwa and Hayul’s forms began to dissolve. White sand, turning into a sandstorm, scattered from within my embrace.

Even the desert itself was swept away by the wind and vanished. I found myself sitting in the middle of a cracked asphalt road.

"Impressive…," Koyori murmured.

"Truly, how can you keep such a firm grip on your sense of self? In a place like this, you could indulge in whatever desires you want. No, this is a place where you can\'t help but indulge."

"…It\'s nothing special. Even I take breaks and go on vacation sometimes."

"But vacations are just a means to eventually return to reality, aren’t they? Why is it that you refuse to let yourself go completely? Just once. Even if you did, no one here would be able to harm you."

It might have felt good if I could have replied that it was because my spirit is that strong.

But that wasn’t the truth.

To become strong, one’s own reasons are never enough; the presence of others is necessary.

The reason I’ve been able to hold out so strongly—

"――Ah."

—ironically, is because there have always been ‘others who fell apart before me.’

"This is bad, Guild Master. That ‘ending’ is truly dangerous."

"……."

"It’s one of the most dangerous entities in this post-apocalyptic world. I highly recommend you flee. It probably won’t be as easy to bury them as it was with Cheon Yohwa or the Puppeteer."

Even before Koyori’s warning, I had sensed something ominous.

\'Something\' was approaching us.

The hair on my scalp stood on end. My nape, which always detected threats even before my five senses did, was prickling fiercely.

I enhanced my vision with aura. Beyond the asphalt forest of ruined buildings, it was walking toward us.

"Hah."

Seeing the figure, I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

Of course.

If this place is truly my nightmare and the collective unconscious of humanity, as Koyori suggested—a place where ‘the worst of bad endings’ gather—then it makes sense for something like that to exist here.

"That damn old man, who was never of any help in life…."

Emmett Schopenhauer.

My old comrade.

An Awakened. Nicknamed the Sword Star.

A Fallen. Nicknamed the Sword Demon.

The swordsman with the most outstanding martial talents, possessing a divine martial body, was now exuding an aura far beyond what he had in reality, as he approached me.