The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 140

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A Fortunate One II

3

"Doctor Jang, we have a problem."

One day, the Saintess sent a message on the Star Chat in the middle of the night.

I jumped out of bed. It was 3 a.m. If the Saintess woke me up at this hour, it must have been an urgent event.

"What happened?"

"You mentioned before that in the seventh year, a \'meteor shower\' would appear in the night sky and devastate the Gyeongsangnam-do region."

"Yes, that\'s correct."

"Right now, something that appears to be a meteor shower has been observed in the sky over the East Sea. The observation point is Ulleungdo."

What?

"There\'s even a photo uploaded on SG Net."

"Since it\'s early morning, it only has 14 views, but please check it."

Startled, I quickly changed out of my pajamas and rushed out.

Even the Sword Maiden, who was curled up like a cat sleeping by my doorstep, followed me in a hurry.

"What is it at this hour, Sword Duke?"

I won\'t explain how the Sword Maiden came to call me the \'Duke of Swords\' instead of Doctor Jang.

There are many things in this world that I don\'t want to explain, and generally, those things are related to lunatics.

"A strange phenomenon has appeared in the East Sea."

"Hah! Something wicked is attacking at night! What a wicked thing!"

Tap, tap, tap-

The two of us stepped onto the sands of Haeundae Beach and naturally ran across the sea toward Busan.

Stepping on Water.

From my perspective, it was the peak of aura control, and from the Sword Maiden\'s perspective, it was the height of internal energy mastery, allowing us to run across the water\'s surface.

"But a strange phenomenon in the middle of the sea. I don\'t know if it\'s an ominous sign or a good one. Still, it\'s better than it appearing on land, but you seem to think differently, Sword Duke."

Of course, it was an ominous sign.

My [Regressor\'s Schedule] was so meticulously planned that it could be believed it was written by someone with a severe obsession with timekeeping.

There was always room for a margin of about a week, but the most important point, the timing of the appearance of the \'strange phenomenon,\' was planned down to the minute and second.

\'There should still be several years left before the meteor shower appears. Why now? Could it be that something went wrong when I killed the butterfly effect in Beijing?\'

This would severely disrupt my plan to strengthen the bonds of the awakened by using the pretext of the meteor shower subjugation.

My heart pounded with anxiety.

When we finally arrived near Ulleungdo and looked up at the sky, a brilliant array of colors spread across the pitch-black night sky.

I muttered in disbelief.

"It\'s really a meteor shower...?"

In truth, there was no problem with subjugating the meteor shower itself.

Surely, as a regressor on my 590th turn, I could handle an early boss in Korea.

But as I mentioned before, the disruption of my plan was inevitable.

How would I strengthen the unity of the Korean Awakeners\' Alliance, and how would I solidify the position of the leader, Tang Seorin, and so on...?

As I was deep in thought, surrounded by the night sky and the dark sea.

"What?"

Flash!

Something else sparkled on the other side of the meteor shower in the night sky.

The sparkle was quite fast.

A \'disc-shaped\' object, in other words, a saucer-like flying object, swiftly crossed the sky and...

Crashed head-on into the meteor shower.

-Twinkle, twinkle, little star?

The meteor shower shuddered. It might have been akin to a human tilting their head in confusion.

By the way, there was an artificial space around the meteor shower, similar to an ocean.

Naturally, the disc-shaped flying object bounced off the surface of the meteor shower as if it were a skipping stone.

"......"

I was speechless.

\'No way, that\'s a UFO, isn\'t it?\'

Yes, it was.

A disc-shaped mysterious flying object.

It was an unfortunate entity with the strongest combat power in the universe but, ironically, had a fire attribute like a Pokémon, making it vulnerable to water. It was doomed to dissolve like sugar as soon as it entered the East Sea—a tragic UFO.

"W-what the- W-wait- What?"

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The UFO\'s skipping stone-like motion didn\'t stop.

-What? What?

The meteor shower, repeatedly struck in the middle of the night, was killed on the spot.

No, it really died.

Meteor Shower Subjugation Complete.

The early boss of Korea disappeared without the Korean Awakeners lifting a finger.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Even in the midst of this, the UFO continued to skip across the meteor shower\'s surface, a total of 89 times.

As a result, the UFO, which should have originally fallen in the middle of the East Sea, veered off in a completely different direction.

The direction was north.

And not toward the sea, but toward the land—toward North Korea.

"No, no!"

I screamed, and I was dead serious.

"Hmm? What do you mean, \'no,\' Sword Duke?"

"If that thing crashes on land, it\'s over! That saucer contains 120 monsters, each one stronger than you, Sword Maiden! It will be a catastrophe!"

"What?"

The Sword Maiden\'s expression changed.

"Then we must chase it immediately! I need to teach it a lesson!"

"Yes, damn it."

Regardless of the Sword Maiden\'s crazy talk, he was right that we needed to chase it.

I pushed my aura to its maximum output and ran, making sure not to lose sight of the UFO.

The Sword Maiden yelled, "Hey! Sword Duke—wait for me, Sword Duke!" from behind, but I didn\'t care.

I didn\'t have time to humor that old lunatic right now.

"Huff, huff... huff!"

For the first time in a long while, I ran so hard that I was out of breath. I ran so far that I lost contact with the Saintess along the way.

To cut to the chase, the UFO crash-landed further north than North Korea.

Specifically, it landed between Shenyang and Sinuiju, in the region known as Manchuria, where aliens were now crawling out.

-Screech?

-Screech. Screeech.

It was like watching disgusting cockroaches scurrying out of their nest.

Except these cockroaches were strong. Very strong.

I hid in the bushes from a distance and observed the aliens.

For a species from a sci-fi world, they naturally moved with martial arts-like agility as they scouted the area.

Then again, if their genre was more space opera than pure sci-fi, it wouldn\'t be that different from traditional martial arts.

-Screech?

One of the aliens tilted its head and dipped its ankle into a stream.

Splash, splash.

It was a bold move, but foot baths were a privilege beneficial only to humans and Japanese macaques.

The alien melted away, from its toes to its head.

-Screeeech!

-Screech! Screeeech! Screech!

The aliens panicked.

They probably said something like, "Oh no! How can such a terrible substance exist in this world?" or "Seeing your comrade melt like wax just by touching it requires a SAN check!"

After that, the aliens became more frantic in their movements.

-Screeeech!

-Screech! Screeeech!

The aliens pulled out laser guns from their belts and started collecting rocks, soil, and minerals from the surroundings.

Bzzzzzzz-

Using incomprehensible technology, Earth\'s minerals were perfectly adapted for the aliens\' needs.

-Screech! Screech!

The aliens used their lasers to gather all sorts of materials and began constructing something.

The minerals hit by the laser beams floated in the air and were shaped in real-time into walls, pillars, and mysterious interior items.

In less than 30 minutes, a bizarre structure rose in the middle of Manchuria.

To describe its appearance in the most Earth-like terms... it was like a termite mound.

Except it was pitch black. The surface of the termite mound oozed a dark, lava-like substance continuously. It was an ominous sight.

-Screeeech.

-Screech, screech.

The aliens, apparently impressed by their own construction skills, embraced each other and danced in celebration.

They enjoyed their dance party for a while and then slipped into their termite mound... er, their black termite fortress.

"......"

What the heck?

Is that fortress some kind of foothold for an invasion of Earth? Or perhaps an antenna tower to send signals to their fellow refugee ships still wandering in space?

"Huff! Huff, huff! Huff! Sw-Sword Duke. I finally... huff, caught up. To think that I, a master of footwork, would be this late..."

"Shh. Be quiet. They\'ll hear us."

"Huff... Huff? That strange-looking, huff, tower—what is it?"

"I don\'t know either. Other than that the aliens built it."

I dug a proper trench and went into full camouflage mode.

Even if it meant abandoning this timeline, I was determined to figure out these things\' motives.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, my time in hiding didn\'t last long.

The reason why the aliens built that strange structure was soon revealed.

Rumble, rumble, rumble-

It started to rain.

From the aliens\' perspective, it was as if "the substance of death" was raining down from the sky.

Earth\'s specialty, H₂O, poured down on their black termite fortress in abundance.

The black, grimy liquid continuously flowing from the fortress\'s surface was washed away by the rain.

Peek—

After the rain stopped and quite some time had passed, aliens poked their heads out from the black ant nest.

-Ka?

-Kaa, Kaa.

-Kaaakaaakaa.

Surprisingly, the aliens were unharmed.

First of all, the armor the aliens were wearing had slightly changed in shape.

Should I call that a raincoat? Anyway, they were wearing something that resembled a black raincoat.

It seemed they had been tirelessly working on a sewing machine inside the black ant nest.

-Kaaakaaak!

But anyone who has worn a raincoat knows that its waterproofing isn\'t perfect.

The newly modified armor of the aliens wasn\'t entirely flawless either. If they wandered on the humid surface of Earth for too long, it would slowly start to melt away.

Are you guys like Ultraman with a 3-minute time limit or something?

Anyway, the very fact that there seemed to be hope for survival on this hellish, doomed planet was precious to the aliens.

-Kaaakaa! Kaa!

The aliens gradually started expanding the black ant nest.

However, they actively increased the real estate area instead of building upwards.

Have you perhaps heard of the project called "The Line" that Saudi Arabia ambitiously pursued, only to scale it down drastically?

You could also think of the Great Wall of China.

In short, the black ant nest of the aliens started to increasingly resemble a wall. As the building continuously expanded sideways, this was a natural progression.

"Huh?"

And that wall… kept expanding toward the West Sea on one side and toward the East Seacon the other.

‘Wait. Wait. Wait, hold on.’

Eventually, the aliens\' Black Wall spanned across Manchuria horizontally.

In other words,

‘If a Monster Wave occurs... it would be blocked by the Black Wall!’

And indeed, it was.

A few years later, when the ocean-level monstrosity known as the "Monster Wave" swallowed the world and finally advanced to devour the eastern frontier of the Korean Peninsula, it encountered an entirely unexpected obstacle.

-Guruk?

-Kruruk?

Some shabby-looking wall was standing in the way of their advance.

Initially, the Monster Wave wasn\'t fazed. They confidently advanced. What was this wall, after all, compared to Wall Maria in front of the giants?

-Kaaakaaak!

-Kaaakaaak! Kaaakaa!

The problem was that each of the aliens emerging from this Wall Maria had combat skills on par with Captain Levi.

In front of the total of 116 (a few had died in the meantime) Captain Levi-level aliens, the Monster Wave was annihilated without being able to put up a fight.

In the process of annihilating an army of 200,000, not a single alien died.

Of course, the Monster Wave, with its automatically replenishing forces, launched the same onslaught the following month, and the month after that. And each time, they were crushed just the same.

Naturally, the Korean Peninsula south of the Black Wall remained safe.

There was no need for Holy Eastern Kingdom to stage any antics, nor for Sim Aryeon to initiate a Zero Requiem operation.

Without suffering any damage, the Korean Peninsula was completely spared from the threat of the Monster Wave, which had been deemed virtually untameable.

"Is this… really happening?"

My jaw dropped.

To be honest, my mouth had been hanging open for years now, unable to close.

So, the actual strategy against the Monster Wave was to use a meteor shower somehow to skip UFOs like stones, land them in Manchuria, and then induce the construction of an alien-only Great Wall to block the nomadic invasions of the Monster Wave?

And now you expect me to believe this, Monstrosity?

"You’re quite lucky…."

Noh Doha commented as he sipped his coffee after hearing my story.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but the dark circles under his eyes seemed lighter than in previous encounters. After all, everything he was doing was going well.

"But isn’t this all because you wished upon that ‘Monkey’s Paw’ or whatever it was? Hmph. I don’t care, but aren’t you eventually going to be screwed in a few years…?"

“……”

“I’m really looking forward to what kind of messed-up blues will hit you. I’ll go ahead and reserve a VIP seat in advance to watch it all unfold….”

This is driving me nuts.