The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 173

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The Diver V

“Mmmpf, grrmmmph...?”

Lee Hayul, clinging to my back, was struggling desperately. Perhaps a bit too dramatically.

Unlike me, Hayul had been given goggles and an oxygen tank. Her prosthetic leg had even been replaced with a "Noah\'s Workshop Special: Swimming Webbed Foot." If it had appeared in a gacha game, it would have been at least an SR-ranked item.

That’s right.

Except for the fact that the water we were diving into wasn’t ordinary H₂O but a deadly poison that made the cooling pools of a melted-down reactor look like a serene fairyland, there was really no reason for Hayul to be struggling.

"Hayul."

My gentle voice resonated softly even underwater, carried by my aura.

“By any chance, did you watch Evangelion like I recommended the other day? Remember how the pilot gets dissolved into the orange liquid? If you don\'t keep your wits about you, your body will melt away, leaving only that wetsuit you\'re wearing."

“...! ...!”

“Raise your aura to envelop your entire body. Constantly remind yourself of who you are. If you find it too difficult, think of the anger you hold toward your father.”

Of course, if it became truly dangerous, I would protect Lee Hayul myself.

But I couldn’t shelter her forever. I was the kind of instructor who pushed my guild members and comrades quite hard.

“You can also think of your mother.”

“Mmph...?”

“The doll you\'ve always carried with you since Japan. You pretended it was a maid, but I know it\'s actually your mother.”

“...”

“If you disappear here, that doll will never move again.”

Bubbles gently rose behind me. They were particularly cold.

Today’s Lee Hayul quickly adapted to the training as in other timelines.

Her fingertips turned white and transparent, but the existential contamination hadn’t spread beyond her forearms.

There were no signs of her turning into a “frog” either.

“Good. Well done.”

“...”

“Always remember the being you carry within you. Compared to that, the void’s poison is utterly irrelevant to your life.”

A small nod was felt at the nape of my neck.

It couldn’t compare to the sea, but humans each had a dark well dug deep within their hearts, and I trusted the depth of that well more than the ocean\'s vastness.

Ssshh...

As Lee Hayul regained some composure, a creature swam past just ten meters ahead.

It was a monstrous being shaped like a shark.

-Wooo...

Lee Hayul was startled.

It was understandable. Sharks don’t usually go “wooo,” nor are their bodies transparent like glass.

And they definitely don’t reach 20 meters in length.

In this void ecosystem, where it seemed life couldn’t possibly survive, a school of Megalodon sharks swam by, each the size of a bus and long extinct on modern Earth, indifferent to us.

-Woo...

-Wooooo...

“...”

Lee Hayul, clutching my neck with both hands (she must have picked up some strange habits from hanging out with the Road Management Chief over drinks), watched the prehistoric Jaws in a daze.

Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeeze.

Her ten fingers pressed into my neck like a pianist playing the keys of a piano.

It wasn’t due to some peculiar taste inherited from the Road Management Chief, but a Morse code-like squeezing.

‘Amazing.’

That’s how it would translate into regular speech.

A gentle squeeze, and Hayul added,

‘Beautiful.’

Bubbles rose—blub, blub—as the transparent Megalodons disappeared into the deep sea, showing no particular interest in us.

The ripples from their tails gently reached us, softly bursting right before our noses.

“Hayul. Connect the puppet threads to the figurehead here. I\'ll handle the swimming."

“...”

“Make sure to thread them generously. If they break, you\'ll have to come back to reattach them.”

The pressure on my neck seemed to tighten a bit, perhaps just my imagination.

The work proceeded smoothly thereafter.

We installed the puppet threads at the first Ark, then stretched them out and connected them to the fourth Ark, as if laying an undersea cable.

“Whew-haa...!”

Upon reaching each Ark, we took breaks, sometimes as short as three hours, other times as long as half a day.

No matter how superhuman their regenerative powers, even Awakened beings found the void within a typhoon to be daunting.

Having clung to me for hours, enduring the underwater environment, Lee Hayul was gasping for breath.

‘Exhausted. Drained.’

“Are you okay?”

‘Yeah. But, I need to rest a bit longer.’

Even while resting, Hayul clung tightly to my left hand, not letting go.

It was understandable. For safety reasons, she hadn’t been able to bring her “maid doll” on this mission.

Whether through sign language or Morse code, I was the only one Hayul could communicate with in real-time during this operation.

An extremely dangerous void environment.

Extremely limited communication.

For Hayul, this triggered old traumas.

The gray days when she was treated as a “non-existent child” by her father, former Busan Mayor Jung Sangguk, effectively living in confinement.

I was the one who brought the child, who had attempted suicide to escape that life, to Japan.

‘Brother.’

“...”

‘Life is so hard.’

Lee Hayul burrowed into my arms like a baby kangaroo.

I spread my hand and gently stroked Hayul’s head.

Pat. Shhh.

As my hand passed over, her wet hair dried softly under the influence of my aura.

A person’s hand could cover many things.

For example, how Hayul subtly blurred the pronunciation whenever she called me "brother," blending "bro" and "ther" into something in between.

And how neither of us ever mentioned it.

“...”

“...”

Hugging.

A gesture of connection far older than a handshake.

For a while, we shared human warmth in that position.

9

The awakened ones in charge of the 4th Ark were utterly shocked by Hayul and me’s visit.

"Oh my. Did you really swim through that water to get here? Just now?"

"Yes. I connected the puppet strings between the figureheads. I’m continuously infusing them with aura to keep them from breaking, but the ship might sway oddly due to the currents. Please don’t be alarmed if that happens."

"Y-Yes...," they stammered.

"I knew the café owner wasn’t an ordinary person..."

The awakened ones answered hesitantly, clearly unnerved by our mad actions.

After receiving all the reports from the 4th Ark, I immediately headed for the next destination.

\'As expected. It’s better to hunt down the Great Flood early, even if it means overexerting ourselves.\'

I thought as I swam through the transparent depths of the sea.

Hayul, too, had grown accustomed to it and was paddling in sync with my movements.

\'In the previous turn, the other Arks suffered severe damage. The mental breaking point is likely around the 10th day.\'

We connected the Arks one by one with the puppet strings, proceeding quickly but not hastily.

If someone knowledgeable saw this, they would quickly recognize the true nature of my strategy. It was the ‘Linked Chains’ tactic that appeared in the Battle of Red Cliffs from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Because of this strategy, Cao Cao faced ruin, but unfortunately, there was no Zhuge Liang or Southeast Wind here. The Great Flood\'s fate was nothing short of overwhelming destruction.

Rumble...!

Of course, there was something akin to the Southeast Wind within the Great Flood.

It was the current.

"Ugh, blub, bruuuh...!"

Whenever a violent current surged within the water tornado, Hayul and I were tossed around like pieces of wood.

Sometimes, we were swept thousands of meters away.

Finding our bearings in such an environment was nearly an impossible feat.

I simply relied on the superhuman senses honed through my long life of reincarnation and my perfect memory, scattering my aura like a radar in all directions, groping my way along the sea route.

Towards the center. Closer and closer to the center.

-Woooh.

-Woooooh...

As we neared the eye of the storm, more underwater anomalies appeared.

Not only Megalodon, but also Leviathan Melville, Dunkleosteus, and Cameroceras.

Creatures that once ruled the seas of ancient Earth were swimming again, borrowing the bodies of anomalies.

As if to say that the true life of Earth was not in the human realm, but here.

-Screeee!

Some of these creatures even showed interest in humanity, their far-off descendants in the evolutionary timeline.

Ancient fearsome whales lunged at us, jaws wide open.

Whenever that happened, I gladly drew my staff sword and demonstrated firsthand what the miracle of Moses was.

Those unholy beings not even recorded in the scriptures witnessed the divine power and perished. A testament to the fact that in the harshness of nature, there was no room for senior-junior culture.

\'You’re the best, oppa.\'

As I repelled the sharks and whales from millions of years ago that attacked us now and then, we finally connected all 12 Arks.

We finished the work on the 9th day.

It happened to be just as the sun was setting.

The red sunset descended, casting a crimson hue even over the storm of the Great Flood.

Unlike the sea, which could only receive sunlight on its surface, the towering typhoon was exposed to the sunset with its entire body.

The depths of the sea were dyed in sunset colors.

In the middle of those deep waters, the webs Hayul and I had woven also reflected the red sunset, sparkling like the Milky Way.

"..."

Throughout the entire swim back to the 1st Ark, Hayul, clinging to my back, couldn’t take her eyes off the sunset within the typhoon.

Could it be that even the void of hell, which slaughtered countless human lives and was always ready to butcher more, was designed to be perceived as beautiful by humans?

It was a harsh existence.

"Welcome back..."

After leaving the water after such a long time and returning to the 1st Ark, Noah greeted us.

His eye infection seemed to have worsened, as both his left and right eyes were bloodshot.

I was somewhat taken aback. Could it be that Sim Aryeon still hadn’t healed him?

"You’ve managed to stay alive like a street performer... Did you really find and connect all 11 other Arks with puppet strings...?"

"Ah, yes. I’ll find a more sensible way in the next turn. Fortunately, the other Arks aren’t as severely affected by the void’s poison as ours."

"Hmmm..."

Noah looked at us with a skeptical gaze.

But his gaze wasn’t directed at me, but at Hayul. Currently, Hayul had changed her species from a turtle to a sloth and was sticking to me like glue.

"It seems you two have grown closer..."

"We’ve been swimming together for nearly a week. You’d either become enemies or best friends."

I tapped Hayul on the head. Hayul, seemingly pleased, used my shoulder as a pillow like a cat.

"All that’s left is to maneuver the Arks to trap the Great Flood. By the way, has anything happened while we were away?"

"Well..."

I roughly expected a reply along the lines of \'You not dying is the only thing out of the ordinary.\'

But reality was different. Noah’s bloodshot eyes briefly avoided mine.

An abrupt sense of foreboding began to creep up my neck. Naturally, my tone lowered.

"Chief. What’s going on?"

"Hmm. You’re aware that we thoroughly checked the identities of everyone who boarded our Ark..."

"Of course, since we’re taking on the role of sacrificing ourselves in place of East Asia. Especially since this 1st ship is much more dangerous, we only selected thoroughly vetted individuals."

"But, uh... Even though I checked the list myself twice... It seems there was an illegal stowaway..."

An illegal stowaway?

I tilted my head in confusion.

Many people had fled, refusing to board the Ark even with promises of gain, but no one would go as far as to sneak on board illegally. Who would do such a thing?

No, more importantly...

"Are you saying our awakened ones failed to catch an illegal stowaway?"

"...To be precise, saying they sneaked on board isn’t entirely accurate. It’s more like when people came to their senses, they were already on board... At least, that’s what the witnesses said. They claimed it was as if they suddenly appeared out of the floor..."

The sense of foreboding grew stronger.

"Where is that stowaway now?"

"We’ve locked them in the 13th quarantine area. It’s the only empty place. Well, I say \'locked up,\' but they went in voluntarily... Would you like to see them?"

I went to check.

The 13th quarantine area was where everyone had been wiped out on the first day of flooding. The water hadn’t yet receded, and the shirts and pants of the victims were still floating around like tropical fish in an aquarium.

In the middle of that water...

Koyori sat demurely on her knees.

"......"

"Oh my."

Koyori smiled brightly.

"Hello, Guild Leader? Long time no see."

My body began to tremble like a small polar bear in front of a sun bear.