The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

w

Chapter 218

──────

The Unclaimed IV

5

- Have you ever had a dream?

Endless Hell\'s counter-question was half right.

As Doctor Jang and regressor, the typical "dreams" that others experienced rarely visited me.

What came to me were only imitations of dreams—‘dream-like anomalies.’

In fact, it’s been hinted at several times in my stories.

――For instance, [Lucid Dreams].

Lucid dreaming was something that even ordinary people could attempt. But I had gone far beyond that, wandering through dreams as if they were reality.

――For instance, [Prophetic Dreams].

Before the goddess of the night, Nut, triggered the apocalypse, Kim Joocheol appeared in my dream to warn me of the impending disaster.

Readers with sharp memories may already feel something is amiss here.

That’s because Kim Joocheol was unaware he ever did such a thing.

Therefore, it wasn’t actually Kim Joocheol. It was the phenomenon of the "prophetic dream," or rather an anomaly, that spoiled the future crisis for me.

――For instance, the concept of [Collective Unconscious].

In academic circles, the idea of a collective unconscious was still an unproven hypothesis.

But in this world, it existed.

Here, I encountered Koyori and the Sword Demon. I met Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul after the world’s end. I saw Kuro, who endlessly rolled his head on Jeju Island’s Seongsan Ilchulbong, and even the original owner of the monkey\'s paw.

In short.

"I do experience something similar to dreams. But my dreams are one of two things: either lucid dreams that replicate reality or…."

I glanced at Endless Hell.

"Nightmares where anomalies appear. In fact, if you consider lucid dreams as an anomaly, you could say my dreams are anomalies themselves."

"Wow. Is it because of your [Perfect Memory] ability? Or maybe it\'s a side effect of [Regression]?"

Endless Hell muttered, furrowing her brow.

I shrugged.

"Whichever it is, if something different from reality appears in my dream, that alone proves an anomaly has invaded."

It\'s like a litmus test.

That’s why I couldn\'t ignore it when Kim Joocheol caused a fuss in my dream.

While others might dismiss a nightmare as a meaningless bad dream, for me, it was often linked to a dangerous anomaly.

"So, I brought you here, Endless Hell. If there are any anomalies leeching off my dreams, you should be able to track them down with your ability. It would be nice to clean up a bit while we search for the original Doctor Jang, don\'t you think?"

"Excuse me. Could you not use an alien god as a vacuum cleaner, senior?"

"Former alien god. Now that your nausea has passed, let\'s move on. Time to go after my next death."

"Ah, yeah. No complaints here. Actually, I prefer it."

And so, after crossing over my corpses, we finally arrived at the final boundary.

Doctor Jang of the 5th timeline.

The last moment where my [Perfect Memory] had completely gathered memories from beginning to end.

As we approached, Doctor Jang, who was conducting guild business for the Three Thousand Worlds Guild at the train station in Busan, turned to look at us.

Our eyes met.

-…….

Dark, brooding eyes.

Though Doctor Jang\'s eyes in any timeline were equally ominous, those of the 5th timeline\'s early phase were distinctly different.

Dead eyes.

Pupils scorched into oblivion.

Rather than saying "a person cast a shadow," it felt more like "the shadow had taken human form."

- Who are you?

The shadow spoke.

Its mouth, like its eyes, was engulfed in pitch-black darkness.

I let out a bitter laugh. It was astonishing to think that this was the more “human” version after having met Tang Seorin.

“I’m you, from the future.”

- What?

“This is a dream, and you are nothing more than a mere character within it.”

-…….

Doctor Jang stared at us with a blank expression.

At this point in time, I hadn\'t yet set a \'password.\' I hadn’t anticipated that I might one day reflect on the past through dreams.

So, from Doctor Jang\'s 5th timeline perspective, it was only natural for him to be suspicious.

"I don\'t wish to engage in violence. But just from the sheer amount of aura, you should be able to tell. I am a strength beyond your comprehension."

-... What brings my future self here? Are you here to teach me how to destroy my enemies and wipe out their entire clan?

“Pfft.”

Endless Hell chuckled beside me. I applied pressure to my interlocked fingers, and she quickly apologized, "I\'m sorry! I\'m sorry, senior!"

I turned back to Doctor Jang. He slightly furrowed his brow.

"Doctor Jang of the 5th timeline. I have something to ask you. Do you recall when you first met Tang Seorin in the 4th timeline?"

- Tang Seorin?

"Yes. From your perspective, it was only a few years ago. And now you\'ve mastered the [Perfect Memory] ability. By all logic, those memories should be clearly stored and easily recalled in your mind."

-…….

Doctor Jang opened his mouth, then closed it.

It was as if he opened the drawer of his memory to retrieve something obvious, only to find nothing there, repeatedly opening and closing it in disbelief.

-… Why?

For the first time, a faint emotion appeared on the usually expressionless face of the 5th timeline’s Doctor Jang.

Confusion. Bewilderment.

- I definitely met Tang Seorin. As you said, it wasn\'t that long ago. And yet… the memory is… strangely blurred.

“……”

As I thought.

I sighed inwardly.

Until now, I’d believed that perhaps my memories had naturally faded over the course of hundreds or thousands of years. But the fact that even Doctor Jang of the 5th timeline couldn’t clearly remember was bizarre.

- This makes no sense. It’s impossible. The day I met Tang Seorin, my life undeniably hit a turning point. There’s no way this memory could be so… faded…

Slice.

With a single strike, I severed Doctor Jang’s head. The moment it fell, the entire scenery of the 5th timeline’s dream collapsed.

In the complete darkness, I asked.

“Endless Hell. You still don\'t sense any anomalies in this dream?”

"None. I\'ve scanned from the 250th timeline to the 5th, and there\'s nothing. Just your overwhelming presence, senior."

"So, the possibility that an anomaly tampered with my memories is extremely low."

"Yep."

That leaves only one conclusion.

"...I’ve come up with a hypothesis about why my memories before the 4th turn are so vague."

"Oh? What is it? Tell me!"

"[Time Seal]."

A long sigh escaped my mouth.

"I too have lost the memories of the people erased by the [Time Seal]."

6

As you all know, when someone gets hit by a [Time Seal], their memory completely disappears from the world.

Their existence itself is erased.

Except for one person, the one who used the [Time Seal], me—Doctor Jang.

"But what if the reason I alone escaped the oblivion of their existence was... the side effect of my [Perfect Memory Ability]?"

"Huh?"

Endless Hell blinked.

"What do you mean, senior?"

"People who are erased by the [Time Seal] completely disappear. I was no exception. But by chance, since I was given the [Perfect Memory Ability], the two abilities clashed."

"...Oh!"

A skill that erases existence, [Time Seal].

A skill that remembers existence forever, [Perfect Memory Ability].

The two abilities I have are perfectly contradictory.

"As a result of the clash between the two abilities, a strange outcome occurred. All the people on earth forgot the ones erased by the [Time Seal]—."

"Except for one person, you, senior, remembered them!"

That\'s right.

Thus, the Memorial Tombstones were established.

Until now, I thought the Memorial Tombstones were a unique feature of the [Time Seal].

But in fact, it\'s quite the opposite.

The [Perfect Memory Ability] forcibly revealed the locations of the missing people that the [Time Seal] desperately wanted to keep hidden.

"Now that I think about it."

I sighed once again.

"It always seemed strange why the tombstones were shaped like crystals. The shape is a bit out of place, isn’t it? But if you think about it... \'memory\' is the act of reflecting oneself. In other words, it’s a \'mirror.\'"

"So it\'s not really a crystal, but actually…."

"It was a mirror. The tombstones were made out of mirrors, not crystals."

w

"Ah-ha," Endless Hell said.

"Then you didn\'t see the Memorial Tombstones from the start, senior. Originally, you were just like everyone else. You couldn\'t remember the people who were erased by the [Time Seal] at all."

"Exactly."

"But in the 5th turn, ta-da! You happened to gain the [Perfect Memory Ability]. From then on, you started to see the Memorial Tombstones!"

I nodded.

"My hypothesis is this. Since the 5th turn, I can remember the people erased by the [Time Seal] without any problems."

"Uh-huh."

"But when it comes to the people erased before the 5th turn, I also have no memory of them."

At this point, I held up a finger.

"And I… in the turns before the 5th, Doctor Jang was very actively erasing his personal relationships."

"Uh-huh."

"Now, imagine someone who has lost almost all of their personal relationships, including their family."

For example, what would happen if the memory of your mother was erased by the [Time Seal]?

It wouldn’t be so bad. As we can see from football player Kim Joocheol and his son Kim Sieun, losing one family member doesn\'t immediately shatter a person\'s psyche.

You just feel an inexplicable void.

But what if it wasn\'t just one person—but the memory of all your family members that was erased?

What if not just family, but even friends were erased?

What if not just friends, but all your close acquaintances were erased by the [Time Seal]?

If I, Doctor Jang before the 5th turn, was put in such a situation?

"Amnesia...!"

Endless Hell exclaimed.

I nodded.

"Exactly. It’s like a game of Jenga where half the pieces have been removed."

"That’s true. If you lose most of your childhood memories of family, and the memories of friends from your youth, and then all the acquaintances from later on, that’s what would happen."

"Exactly. So the only memories left would be trivial ones, like survivors I met during the Busan Station tutorial. And people from relationships that weren’t all that important."

And those trivial memories would naturally fade over the years before I acquired the [Perfect Memory Ability].

That’s the truth I’ve deduced.

In short, Doctor Jang before the 5th turn was someone without any connections in the world, someone who appeared as if they’d fallen out of the sky—a mere ‘extra’—and—

At the same time, someone who couldn’t recall anything about their past—a ‘person with amnesia.’

Whether I wanted it or not, I had become a character with an overly obvious ‘main character trait.’

...No wonder the alien god [The Admin of All-Play] had taken an interest in me. With traits like these, it was like being forcibly pushed into the role of the protagonist.

"Wait a minute, senior. Then why does the 5th turn\'s Doctor Jang struggle to remember Tang Seorin? You didn’t use the [Time Seal] on her."

"...Someone must have been nearby."

"Huh?"

I closed my eyes.

And I recalled. The memory of the first time I met Tang Seorin.

Faint, vague, with static as if seen through poor-quality reception.

—There’s a dangerous glint in your eyes.

—You’re the one, right? The only survivor from Busan Station. The strange person who keeps going around asking people weird questions.

After a moment, I opened my eyes.

"...When I first met Tang Seorin, there must have been \'someone\' standing beside me or beside her, someone I can’t remember now."

"Oh."

"Let’s call that person X for now. X was probably someone extremely important to me. Important enough that if they disappeared, it would leave a huge gap in my memory. So… even the data of my first meeting with Tang Seorin was partially damaged."

Who could it have been?

Was it someone who survived and escaped the dungeon of Busan Station with me? Or someone Tang Seorin brought along when she recruited me?

I couldn’t tell.

I couldn’t remember.

The ‘erased person X.’

X must have been a key figure in shaping the version of me before the 5th turn, and when X was erased by the [Time Seal], my memory took a heavy blow.

"But…."

"But?"

"In my memories, there are some people I erased in the 4th turn. Like football player Kim Joocheol."

Although my memory of Kim Joocheol was blurry, it was still there. Maybe X was with me when I erased Kim Joocheol.

In any case, even without the [Perfect Memory Ability], I was able to remember a little about the people I erased in the 4th turn.

“If my hypothesis were wrong, I should have completely forgotten about Kim Joocheol. He was sealed when I didn’t have [Perfect Memory]. But I still remember him.”

“Hee...”

“Why is it that I can recall Kim Joocheol, but I can’t remember myself, my family, or X at all? This part remains unexplained.”

We even tried entering the dreams of the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st rounds.

Of course, there wasn’t much progress.

[404 - Not Found]

[404 - Not Found]

[404 - Not Found]

Because of a crazy regressor who erased all of their relationships, not even a single meaningful memory was left behind.

“......”

A bitter taste lingered in my mouth.

Why did my past self seal away so many of the people dear to me?

The question of whether Doctor Jang was originally an anomaly or not had been clearly answered, but another mystery had surfaced.

[404 - Not Found]

This is my starting point. The origin. The birthplace.

――The void spreading out in the outer world might somehow be defeated.

But will the day come when I can cross over the void that has settled inside me?

I silently watched the point of origin, covered with error messages, for a long time.

* * *

There’s an epilogue.

“Ah! Wait a moment, senior.”

As I was about to leave the dream, Endless Hell grabbed my collar.

I looked at her with a gaze that asked what she was trying to pull, and Endless Hell imitated Cheon Yohwa\'s laughter, going “Ahaha.”

“No, no. Don’t look at me like that. You know, even though I’m an anomaly, an alien god, you’ve been pretty kind to me, right?”

“That’s only because you’re sharing a body with Yohwa. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have shown any mercy.”

“Ah! Well! I’ve been living through days of torture and abuse in Cheon Yohwa’s head, so your attitude was quite touching to me!”

I frowned. What nonsense.

Sure, Endless Hell might have felt touched. Something like, ‘It’s a situation where I should feel touched, so I will, and I’ll react by doing one of these three standard poses.’

I shook my head to clear the thoughts and asked.

“So?”

“So, I’ve prepared a small gift.”

With a pose of “Ahem,” Cheon Yohwa snapped her fingers.

Suddenly, the scenery, which had been covered in [404], turned into a hospital corridor.

It was the place we had just visited in the dream.

“…Isn’t this the hospital where my mother supposedly worked?”

“Yes! That’s right. While you were moving on to other dreams, I was analyzing data by compiling all the dreams together.”

“Hmm.”

I didn’t bother to nitpick.

After all, in this “hidden picture search” project, Endless Hell and I were in a give-and-take relationship. We had a contract to exchange what we needed from each other.

“Thanks to that… I was able to restore this!”

Creak.

Endless Hell opened the door to the hospital room.

My presumed mother’s workplace was in obstetrics. Unlike her son, who would become known as the Undertaker, my mother had a profession in the field of bringing life into the world.

Inside the room, my presumed mother, her whole body covered in noise, lay diagonally on a hospital bed――.

In her arms, she cradled a newborn baby.

“That’s you, senior.”

“…….”

“Probably.”

Ahaha, Endless Hell laughed.

“It’s not certain. You erased your relationships so thoroughly. But based on the data, this woman is most likely your mother, and the baby is around your age at the time.”

“…You restored this?”

“Yes, didn’t I do well?”

The presumed mother performed no actions. She was simply holding the baby.

It was impossible to restore what kind of movements she had made at the time.

The same was true for the newborn.

I felt no sense of realization that this was me. The baby’s face was also small and distorted by noise.

“......”

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but watch the image of the mother and child for a long time.

“Indeed.”

I thought of Busan Station.

“No matter how much my memory is covered by [404], that place can’t be my starting point.”

I realized something anew.

Even if there is a blank space in my memories of the origin, how does that disrupt the fact that I am human?

No one remembers the moment they are born.

Even if there is a gap at the starting point of memory, it was clear that I, Doctor Jang, am human.

The scene unfolding before my eyes, the ‘hidden picture’ uncovered from the regressor’s life, was proving that fact.

“How do you feel? Do you like it?”

I looked at Endless Hell.

Endless Hell was striking the “proud” pose. It was as precise as the automatic poses taken by idle characters in a game. Even the rhythm of her feet tapping the floor, ‘tok, tok,’ with no margin of error, was flawless as she waited for my reaction.

But for some reason, this didn’t bother me as much as it had before.

I said what I had to say.

“Thank you.”

Endless Hell grinned.

“So, senior, how about reconsidering and allowing me to take control and command of the tutorial fairies for being such a considerate junior?”

Instead of answering, I handed her a piece of paper.

Endless Hell took the paper, which had “No” written on it, chewed it with a pout, and spat it out.

Epilogue. End.

w