The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 170

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Divers II

4

In the past, there was a policy in Joseon called Gongdo, which literally meant "emptying the island of its inhabitants." Instead of constantly having mineral and gas-sparse areas raided by Zerglings (pirates), they decided to simply relocate the command center—a radical reversal of thought.

This was evidence that our ancestors had always cared for their people like SCVs were looked after in the Terran race. As a Terran myself, I couldn\'t help but follow in my ancestors\' footsteps.

"Director, the evacuation of Jeju Island residents is complete."

"Good job."

Following my orders, Yoo Jiwon traveled around the southern islands, guiding the evacuation of the refugees. There was some resistance, but it was ignored. The difference between what ordinary people considered a "monsoon" and the "Great Monsoon" approaching was as vast as that between a breeze and a typhoon.

If we didn\'t evacuate now, they would all be annihilated anyway. This had been proven in multiple previous episodes.

The evacuation orders weren\'t just issued in reality.

-[Three Thousand] Witch\'s Judge: (Mandatory Reading) Guidelines for Living During the Great Monsoon.

-[Baekhwa] 8th Grade High Schooler: All roads connected to Sejong City will be closed until the Great Monsoon ends in July and August! If you are short on food, please come to Sejong City Hall to apply for refugee status!! >_<);;

-Administrator: (Notice) Please note that access to SG Net may be unstable during the Great Monsoon period.

Guild leaders like Tang Seorin and Cheon Yohwa, who were in cooperative relationships with us, volunteered to act as canaries in the coal mine. Even SG Net\'s administrator, Seo Gyu, stepped forward.

When the rare "Administrator" nickname appeared, even some awakened individuals who prided themselves on being tough began to feel a sense of urgency.

-Anonymous: Hasn\'t SG Net never been down before?

└Anonymous: Nope, it did occasionally connect to weird sites. I once typed in the same address and got redirected to a site called "Let\'s Live Net." LOL

└Literature Girl: OMG

└Anonymous: That was just a temporary contamination by a suicide site anomaly. The SG Net connection itself wasn\'t blocked. This Great Monsoon is definitely a record-breaking event.

-Anonymous: So, is Busan the most dangerous? Can\'t we just run away?

└Anonymous: Yep, that\'s why most of the ordinary folks in my neighborhood have fled to Daejeon. That\'s where the shelters and free meal centers are operating well.

└Anonymous: They\'ll probably get lost and die in the void on the way LOL

└[National Highway] Officer: The National Highway Management Corps is operating emergency caravans twice a week. Please use the caravans, ordinary citizens.

-CookingQueen: If you\'re in a tough situation, please come to Daejeon. I\'ll help you whenever I can.

The southern part of the Korean Peninsula was abuzz with preparations for the flood. Of course, even with all these warnings, some people remained complacent.

-Anonymous: Wow, people are overreacting LOL

-Anonymous: A typhoon? We have the SSS-class breakwater Japan. No worries LOL

It couldn\'t be helped. Humanity is a species enslaved to dopamine and thrill. Even when floods come, people will still enjoy camping in the valley, and even when a typhoon strikes, they\'ll try swimming in the ocean.

-Anonymous: Isn\'t it just a monsoon? LOL. Ordinary people might have a hard time, but do you really think awakened ones will die from a bit of rain??

Amidst the hustle and bustle of those fleeing Busan, those staying behind, those building arks, and those laughing it off—

Plop...

Plop. Plop.

The rain began to fall.

5

[I\'ve confirmed the wall of the typhoon with my own eyes.]

The voice of the Saintess echoed in my mind. It would have been conveyed to the other awakened ones as well. However, for them, the message would have come under the name of a "Constellation."

[Jeju Island has entered the typhoon\'s influence.]

"Good. Begin withdrawing the Three Thousand Worlds guild members scattered across the southern coast."

[Understood.]

All members of the Three Thousand Worlds guild could use flight magic, so they were currently serving as meteorologists. They flew over the sea, hanging from a single staff, observing the approaching typhoon in real time.

The Saintess shared the meteorological observers\' vision through her [Clairvoyance]. Thanks to this, the typhoon\'s path could be tracked from multiple angles.

[This is...]

That\'s why, more than anyone else, the Saintess, who witnessed the true form of the "Great Monsoon" firsthand, hesitated for a moment.

[Jeju Island is being torn apart. No, it\'s being swallowed. The entire island. In one go.]

[Like a tsunami... No, it’s like something from a movie, but much, much bigger...]

[A wall of waves that covers the horizon to the sky, a tsunami over 10 km high is approaching. How is that even possible...]

Even the Saintess, who had witnessed numerous anomalies and voids, momentarily lost her composure.

"Saintess, we cannot allow that thing to head towards other regions. We need to gradually guide it toward the ark through the Three Thousand Worlds guild members."

[But, no matter how many arks we built, can we really withstand that... that thing?]

"We can. If we don\'t, either Japan will sink, or the entire Korean Peninsula will be submerged."

[...Understood. I\'ll start the guidance.]

The Saintess regained her composure and began directing the operation according to my orders. The command staff gathered in the operations control room of the first ark.

Noh Doha, Tang Seorin, Yoo Jiwon, Seo Gyu, and Lee Hayul were all looking down at the map.

Chess pieces were moving here and there on the map, guided by Yoo Jiwon\'s ability, [Minimap]. Each piece represented a scout from the Three Thousand Worlds Guild.

Thanks to this, we could observe the typhoon\'s movements in real-time from a third-person perspective.

I spoke.

"The typhoon will arrive soon."

"......"

"That typhoon of the Great Monsoon is not just a storm; it\'s a void as well. The moment it reaches Busan, we will be entering the \'Great Monsoon Void.\'"

These were points I had already emphasized several times. But no matter how much I repeated them, it was never enough, so I gave one final briefing.

"The rain that this typhoon will bring is not just ordinary water, but a toxic substance made of \'Void Poison.\' It poses an immediate risk of body deformation upon contact."

"......"

"No matter how well our ships function as arks, there will still be flooding. When that happens, calmly use buckets to continue bailing out the water—whether it takes an hour or several tens of hours, keep relaying the buckets. Do not doubt the effectiveness of this. The act of bailing out the water itself is crucial."

We had gathered old cruise ships and retrofitted them into arks. The outer walls of the cruise ships were reinforced with wood, and inside, we stocked enough supplies to last at least 40 days.

The total number of arks was twelve, with each ark capable of holding about 5,000 people on average. In total, 60,000 Busan residents were now boarding the arks anchored along the Geumjeong Mountain ridge.

"The rain will undoubtedly pour inside the ships, so do not move recklessly to other areas. Each zone must remain strictly isolated, and if you must communicate with another area—"

I grabbed a string.

The string was connected like a spider\'s web, stretching from the ceiling of the operations control room to other zones. It was a puppet string set up by Lee Hayul.

"Use this puppet string. SG Net and telepathy will be disrupted as we get closer to the typhoon\'s influence. In that case, use the puppet string to transmit Morse code with your aura."

Thud.

At that moment, a drop of rain splashed against the window. The window was made of reinforced glass. The raindrop wriggled, moving like a living creature. The drop spread out horizontally and vertically, forming a strange shape. The shape was,

雨 (Rain).

The raindrops twitched, sometimes growing larger, sometimes smaller. But the shape they ultimately formed was always the same character.

雨 (Rain).

As the characters formed by the raindrops wriggled, the faint sound of a frog croaking could be heard from somewhere. It was bizarre.

No frogs had been brought aboard the ark. We had only modeled the ark after the one in Genesis as a means of survival, not to create a cradle of life.

雨 (Rain).

[Doctor Jang.]

雨雨 (Rain Rain).

[It has landed in Busan. Now, ah. The waters of the typhoon are rapidly converging on Busan. This is impossible. The typhoon... has transformed from a massive spiral into something like a giant straw, and ah. The waters■, the tsunami on the horizon. All converging on Geumjeongsan■. Everyone is c■――.]

雨雨雨雨雨 (Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain).

Noise interrupted the Saintess\'s telepathy, which had never been cut off before.

Croak.

Seo Gyu, who had been nervously checking his smartphone, froze.

"Brother, SG Net is down,"

Croak.

The space of the ark, which had been securely held by the law of gravity, and the ship we were standing on, felt like they were momentarily floating.

Croak.

Seo Gyu was about to speak, and Tang Seorin shouted something like,

"Doctor Jang!"

But their voices were drowned out by the sound of the pouring rain and the croaking of the frogs outside the window.

Croak.

The rain fell.

雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨.

In the midst of the deafening noise of the rain and the frog croaks, I blinked.

In the next instant, I couldn\'t breathe.

My vision blurred.

Everyone in the operations control room, including myself, was now submerged underwater.

6

Bubbling—.

Bubbles rose right in front of me.

They were Lee Hayul\'s breaths. She was visibly panicking, facing a kind of void she\'d never encountered before.

All it took was a brief blink of an eye, and suddenly our entire bodies were submerged in water.

"......! ......, ......!"

Lee Hayul flailed underwater. The others reacted in much the same way.

No matter how much I had emphasized and re-emphasized my explanations, it was difficult for a person submerged in water to remain calm.

Croak.

The worst part was that Lee Hayul and the other Awakened ones, who were bubbling frantically, were gradually starting to resemble \'frog hands\' more and more.

Physical mutation. Existential contamination.

These were typical symptoms of exposure to Void Poison. Witnessing their hands and feet, which they had used their whole lives, suddenly transforming into \'frogs\' threw them into a temporary state of panic.

Bubbling—croak, bubbling—croak.

The Void Poison, feeding off human panic, spread even faster. Now, the sound of bubbles rising from Lee Hayul\'s mouth was becoming more frog-like.

In Chinese characters, the word for frog is represented by "蛙," which contains the radical for insect "虫." This is because a frog\'s crouching posture resembles the shape of the insect radical (虫).

Croak, bubbling. Bubble, croak.

Frog hands. Frog legs. Green skin. My comrades were rapidly transforming into insects.

The time it took for all this to happen was merely six seconds.

I infused my voice with aura and shouted.

"Move the buckets!"

"......!"

My roar reverberated through the water.

"Perform the bucket-bailing action! It doesn\'t matter how clumsy it is! Bail the water! Hayul, move! Come on! How many times have I told you!"

"......! ......!"

Finally, Lee Hayul and the other Awakened ones came to their senses and began moving the buckets.

It was difficult to act underwater, but they had all been trained together in such conditions before boarding the ark.

"......!"

"......! ......!"

Though their appearances might have been laughable, they all desperately performed the \'bucket-bailing action.\'

Splash, splash.

Then, the water level, which had filled the operations control room, began to gradually decrease.

In reality, the water in the buckets wasn\'t being moved outside. However, the water level seemed to \'really be decreasing as if it was being bailed out.\'

"Phew, haa!"

As the water level finally dropped, my comrades raised their heads above the surface.

The skin that had started turning green was now gradually returning to its human color.

"Damn, I thought I was going to die!"

"Haa... haah, haa, haa...!"

"Is everyone alright?"

My comrades, drenched and panting, looked around.

Their hands were still elongated like frog\'s hands, with membranes forming between their fingers, but even that was slowly healing.

"It\'s too early to feel relieved."

They all turned to look at me at once.

I glanced at the window.

Outside, there was nothing but \'Rain.\'

Just like us, the ark was completely submerged. It had been entirely flooded.

Not in the nurturing waters of the mother of all life, but in the deadly Void Poison.

"We now need to check if the other zones are safe."

"......"

"Hayul, follow me."

"Okay."

After bailing out the rest of the water from the operations control room, I left the room with Hayul.

Croak, croak, croak, croak.

The long hallway of the ark echoed with the pervasive sound of frogs croaking from all directions.