The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 165

──────

Blood Donor II

5

To be honest, my "dark past" as Doctor Jang wasn\'t all that painful.

It\'s similar to how someone could run up to the Buddha and say, "Hey, didn\'t you raise your finger and point to the sky right after you were born, saying \'I alone am honored in heaven and earth\'? Isn\'t that embarrassing?" It wouldn\'t faze him in the slightest.

Does a butterfly feel ashamed of its caterpillar days?

I was lenient with others, and I was lenient with myself as well.

But it seemed that others had a different experience.

- Anonymous: It\'s weird, but don\'t you feel oddly good when a mosquito sucks your blood? Is it just me?

(Picture)

- Anonymous: It feels so good that I trapped a mosquito in a glass and have been letting it bite me every hour. My arm is all bumpy now, but running my fingers over it is a strange pleasure. You guys should try raising a \'pet mosquito\'...

└ LiteratureGirl: Are you out of your mind?

└ Anonymous: Lol, actually I\'ve been addicted to getting bitten by mosquitoes lately, so I\'ve stopped swatting them. We\'re pretty similar, haha.

└ [Baekhwa] 5th year High School: That\'s a monster! Don\'t let it bite you carelessly, you\'ll regret it! ‍↕️;;

└ Anonymous: There are seriously some crazy people here.

└ [National Road] Cadet: I truly don\'t understand.

The atmosphere on SG-net started to shift.

Just a few days ago, it was full of anger and curses towards mosquitoes, but now the topic of \'pet mosquitoes\' was popping up more frequently.

It was a sign that the mosquito monster was starting to show its true colors.

I was on high alert.

"Saintess, didn\'t you warn the awakened ones about mosquitoes in the last message from the Constellation?"

[Yes, I warned them. I still caution them daily, changing the Constellation\'s name each time.]

"And yet, people are still getting bitten by mosquitoes?"

[Well, it\'s a mosquito.]

The saying "you know it\'s coming but still get caught" is meant for moments like this.

It was nearly impossible to escape mosquitoes on the Korean Peninsula completely. Even if you sealed your windows, mosquitoes would still find a way in.

[The real issue is that people feel a sense of pleasure when they\'re bitten by mosquitoes.]

"Pleasure? Do they really feel pleasure?"

[Yes. You should try getting bitten as a test. Having your blood sucked once shouldn\'t cause much harm.]

I tried it.

I lowered my guard and caught a mosquito, placing it on the back of my hand. I tore off its wings so it couldn\'t escape.

Sssuuuuck—.

The mosquito desperately sucked my blood to survive.

"...Well. I don\'t really feel any pleasure."

[Hmm. I suspect it\'s because you lack \'dark pasts.\' I guess the more dark pasts someone has, the more intense the pleasure they feel.]

"Wait a minute. Then, does that mean Aryeon, who got bitten faster and more than anyone else in Korea, and ended up reaching nirvana...?"

[They must have had a lot of shameful dark pasts. At least in Korea.]

Indeed.

Anyway, the situation was getting worse by the day.

This wasn\'t just a figure of speech. The mosquito monster\'s rampage intensified with each passing hour.

Posts saying "It feels good to be bitten by a mosquito" became more frequent, while "It feels bad" responses decreased. Eventually, a new term "mosquito drug" even emerged on the forums.

- Anonymous: After I finished the tutorial dungeon, I’ve had insomnia.

- Anonymous: I\'m fine now, but back then, seeing people drop dead in front of me left me with trauma.

- Anonymous: But strangely, I sleep well after being bitten by mosquitoes. Those people died, but I feel grateful to be alive.

- Anonymous: The Constellations keep warning us that it\'s dangerous to get bitten by mosquitoes, so I’m honestly scared… But now I can’t sleep without them.

Yes.

Though I called it a "dark past," those memories were actually psychological traumas. They could even develop into PTSD.

People\'s mental states these days were far from normal.

In a time when a bug flying into your eye could turn your DNA into a potato, it was only natural.

People went missing every day. More accurately, their \'humanity\' went missing.

After realizing that the adhesive strength of DNA inside the human body was weaker than elementary school glue sticks, many began to rely on external things.

Alcohol. Drugs. The Three Kingdoms. And so on.

It was that kind of era, and that’s why Saintess\'s VTuber psychological counselling project was such a huge success.

Of course, we had been using the Saintess\'s [Clairvoyance] to warn drug dealers that the Korean Peninsula was no longer a drug-free zone.

But even with the Saintess, it was impossible to control the breeding and spread of mosquitoes. Obviously. How could we possibly catch all the mosquitoes?

"Things are getting serious, Doctor Jang."

Even Tang Seorin would occasionally visit me to vent her frustrations.

"We’ve installed mosquito nets on all the train windows, we keep checking the sewer drains, we run the fans whenever we have extra power, and we’ve eliminated all the puddles. But still, mosquitoes keep coming out of nowhere."

"Even with DDT?"

"Yeah. It works for a bit, but then they seem to develop resistance in just two weeks."

I sighed.

This was the scary part of the Void.

Adaptations that should take decades happened within just a few days in the Void.

It only took a few years for words to turn into dinosaurs. It only took a week for mosquitoes to develop resistance to insecticides.

"Look at this."

Tang Seorin handed me a photo.

In the photo, there was a person with a shaved head.

Strangely, their skull was shaped like a pinecone, resembling the head of the Buddha.

"This is one of our guild members. His head got bitten by mosquitoes so much that it ended up like this. Poor guy."

"......"

"And it’s not just his head; his entire body got bitten by mosquitoes. We had to lock him up in a cell, but he’s been going crazy, begging us to let him get bitten by mosquitoes. Honestly. The world’s gone mad. At this rate, someone might actually die from excessive blood loss due to mosquito bites."

"Are you okay?"

"Me? I’m fine. I keep the fan running all the time, so it\'s easier to manage than the others."

Tang Seorin\'s expression darkened.

"But if this continues into next year… To be honest, I think it’s going to be really tough. Doctor Jang, can’t we do something?"

Indeed, after the rainy season passed, mosquitoes became even more rampant.

Just as Tang Seorin feared, there was a person dying from excessive blood loss due to mosquito bites almost every day.

\'How on earth do we deal with this monster?\'

I fell into deep thought.

Should we mass-produce dragonflies, the natural enemy of mosquitoes?

It could be effective, but it would still be difficult to eradicate mosquitoes completely.

Maybe I should just push MZ-awakened ones to the limit and make self-defense energy a basic skill?

It might be a fundamental solution, but it’s a project that would take at least 20 years to implement.

Could it be that the mosquito monster is fused with the \'vampire\' monster? Considering they both feel pleasure while sucking blood, it seems possible.

But if that’s the case, it’s strange. How dare a lowly creature like a vampire loiter around in front of Koreans, the people of garlic…?

“Hmmm.”

Unable to decide, I paced around the lobby of the hideout.

Then, Oh Dokseo, who was out in the lobby with me, shouted.

“Ah, seriously. It’s bothering me. Mister! If you’re going to keep wandering around, just go out!”

“Oh Dokseo. I’m currently pondering the survival of humanity. If one of us has to go out, don’t you think it should be you?”

“Huh? What are you talking about? I’m also fighting for the survival of humanity, you know?”

Oh Dokseo lifted up some manuscript paper.

“See! I’m writing a novel, mister! If I fail to write this novel, the Alien God will descend, so who cares what happens to those damn mosquitoes!”

It was true.

Oh Dokseo was writing on manuscript paper.

Somewhere on the table, crumpled bundles of manuscript paper were rolling around, probably because she wasn’t satisfied with what she had written.

“It’s commendable that you’re writing a novel, but do you really have to do it out here in the lobby? You could just write calmly in your room.”

“Ah, damn it! I came out to the lobby because I couldn’t write in the room! I’m already stressed because the words aren’t coming, and now you’re going to scold me too? Huh? I’m writing this novel for you, mister!”

“But… you scolded me first…”

“Arrrgh!”

Oh Dokseo grabbed her head and screamed.

“I hate writing! Why did my past self decide to write! Idiot! Fool! Bastard! Die! Die!”

“Hmm…”

It seemed Oh Dokseo had caught an extreme case of ‘I-hate-writing disease.’ Having run the Canned Hotel, I was familiar with authors having such outbursts.

At that moment, I spotted a mosquito.

Bzzzzzzzz—

The mosquito gracefully floated through the air. I immediately summoned my aura to shoot down the harmful insect, but hesitated.

The vampire’s target wasn’t me. It wasn’t even Oh Dokseo.

It was the crumpled manuscript paper Oh Dokseo had discarded.

And then, a shocking scene unfolded.

Slluuuuurp—

The mosquito landed on the manuscript bundle and ‘stuck its proboscis into the paper’ and ‘sucked up black liquid.’

It wasn’t red blood.

It was the ink from the manuscript. The black ink was being greedily slurped up by the mosquito as if it were the most delicious thing ever.

“Huh?”

I could only stare blankly at the mosquito’s blood-sucking... no, ink-sucking behavior.

After feasting on the manuscript bundle, the mosquito seemed satisfied and flew away with a hum.

It had no interest in the blood of either Oh Dokseo or me. The way it flitted about suggested it didn’t need to drink soju after having indulged in top-quality wine.

A fanfare echoed in my head.

“Embarrassing history…!”

“What?”

“Yes, embarrassing history! All we had to do was let them feed on our embarrassing history!”

How had I not thought of this?

The mosquito monster is drawn not to human blood but to embarrassing history.

If that’s the case, it didn’t have to be a ‘human-shaped embarrassing history.’

“Saintess. Saintess, please answer. This is urgent.”

[Yes? What’s the matter?]

“Do you remember the story I told you last time? You know, the one about the Potato Saint Robot from another timeline.”

[Oh.]

It might have been my imagination, but the connection seemed to crackle for a moment.

[I’m sorry, Doctor Jang. A mosquito just flew past me… Anyway, I remember it. But why are you bringing it up all of a sudden?]

“Write that Potato Saint story yourself. Like a diary.”

[What?]

“And then leave it somewhere in your room. I guarantee that the mosquitoes will flock to it like it’s mosquito incense.”

[…]

The next day.

[…It worked.]

The Saintess’s voice sounded... how should I describe it? Like a geocentrist facing the scientific truth that the Earth orbits the Sun.

[After leaving the diary out overnight, I found 24 mosquitoes stuck to it. They didn’t come anywhere near my bed.]

“Just as I thought.”

[…]

“Just in case, please contact the authors in the Canned Hotel and instruct them to transcribe their old writings onto manuscript paper. Oh, and the older the writings, the better. Something from middle or high school would be perfect.”

[…]

“Of course, it doesn’t have to be a novel. Old SNS posts will do as well. Something from Cyworld would be even better.”

[Doctor Jang, are you a demon?]

“Excuse me?”

[…Never mind. This must be for the sake of humanity too. I’ll relay the message right away.]

From that day forward, time started moving backward at the Canned Hotel.

The authors of the Korean Peninsula were forced to put all their energy into transcribing their old middle and high school writings.

It was by no means an easy task.

“Damn it! Just kill me! Just kill me already!”

“Arrrrgh! No! Not this one! Anything but this!”

“Please forgive me! Back then, it was fashionable to use guillemets (「」) instead of quotation marks and to put tilde (~) in titles!”

[PR/N: 「DOGOOOO!」]

“Can’t I at least correct the typos? Please, just a little bit of human decency.”

“I deleted this piece! I definitely erased it! So how do you have a text version, Doctor Jang?”

“I don’t want to transcribe it… I feel like I’m dying…”

I had to train the crying and wailing authors.

Finally, I, Doctor Jang, completed the task. I compiled a carefully curated collection titled “The 100 Most Embarrassing Moments in Korean Literature.”

I had it printed in a factory and distributed one copy to every household.

“Uwaaaargh!”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Yes, let’s just die… Let’s just die…”

The great authors, whose embarrassing childhood writings (and SNS posts) had been forcibly made public, cried out in despair.

But I didn’t care. The more bitterness there was in their cries, the more effective the solution proved to be.

If anyone asks me if I didn’t love these authors, why I inflicted such pain on them… Well, it’s because, from my perspective, none of it felt like embarrassing history at all.

I even enjoyed their middle school parody pieces. Honestly, I don’t see what the problem is.

Anyway, thanks to the blood-stained manuscripts of the authors, people were saved from the mosquito monsters.

By pasting manuscript paper on their doors, the mosquitoes all flocked to them instead.

At last, it was a touching moment in history when mosquitoes finally overcame their stalker-like obsession with humanity.

Oh Dokseo, who played a key role in this grand conclusion, muttered in disbelief.

“…Wait. Does that mean everything I’m writing now is going to be embarrassing history too? Damn it. Mister! Kill all those mosquitoes! They’re saying all my writing is embarrassing history!”

Oh, and there’s no epilogue today. The end.

—Blood Donor. End.