The First Anomaly Resolved
Several hours earlier.
I was racing alone down a night road, an anomaly hard on my heels while my stamina hit its absolute limit.
Magic Conch Flute. Would hiding underwater be better?
Yep!
I followed the Magic Conch Flute's answer, hurling myself into the water and sinking beneath the surface. The child at least tolerated my use of the Magic Conch Flute.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.
Anomalies skimmed past overhead. If I died now, I'd have to repeat the entire process all over again. Going through military service twice was already a nightmare — replaying Red Light, Green Light a second time was absolutely off the table.
"Could've at least thrown me one sexy anomaly. Not even one?"
The anomalies moved on. I poked my head back above the water. Whether she was toying with me or not, the child made no move to stop me from using the Magic Conch Flute.
At this rate, I've got no future.
The Magic Conch Flute was a copy. Copied items didn't restore their durability even after regression. Permission to use it meant nothing once the durability ran out.
Damn it. Escape is the only option left.
Either escape, or eliminate the anomaly. One of those two was the only way out of this mess — and I had to solve it with seven lives remaining.
If I just survive long enough, will a rescue team come?
Unlikely. They'd probably write me off as anomaly food and leave without me.
Am I just going to die like this?
Death was closing in. I'd thought infinite regression meant I could never truly die. Wrong. I was still reeling from that unexpected truth when—
Goe-bung-i, who I'd thought was long gone, had left a comment.
He'd replied in such a rush he hadn't even read my post.
I'd shared the intel that an item warehouse sat in Daejeon. But why go there? He should've been running for his life. When I asked, this was the answer I got:
I'd heard he'd been trapped by the anomaly for at least a year. Half a military enlistment wasted — of course he was bitter. He'd already been down to Daejeon once, so a second trip would've been easy.
Did everything go smoothly because all the attention was on me?
Maybe Goe-bung-i had slipped out of the cult building so easily thanks to me. The anomaly's core had its eyes locked on me, and that made everything simpler.
No need to think it over. If there was anywhere to pour holy water, it was the massive pit at the cult's center. Every Thursday they offered sacrifices into it. Nearly every ritual revolved around that pit.
It might not be the core. But it's clearly a vital place for the anomaly.
Even if it wasn't the heart, it was definitely a critical organ. Pouring holy water into the pit looked like the right call.
Goe-bung-i agreed with my hunch.
Fired up, Goe-bung-i charged toward the pit. That had been several hours ago.
"He did it!"
A crack split the sky, and I knew instantly that Goe-bung-i had pulled it off. The space the anomaly had created began to collapse.
"What… is this…"
Cracks spiderwebbed across the child's face. The shock must have hit hard.
I posted my thanks on the gallery and sprinted toward the fractured darkness.
"Go play with some other kid instead of this old man! Adults have stuff to do besides games, you know. I've got work tomorrow, so I'm heading out!"
I even remembered to wave at the child. The shock must have been severe — she couldn't even get angry at my blatant trash talk.
"Hah… hah…"
I ran with everything I had. But I'd lost too much blood, and my stamina gave out almost immediately.
"Fuck. Still — I'm outside."
I'd escaped that remote mountain backwater. I collapsed and crawled across the ground. The ruined landscape of Seoul stretched out before me.
"Kehek. At least I got out."
If I could just make it back to the escape route, survival was possible.
But how? How do I run from an anomaly that's completely pissed off?
Phase one of the plan was done. From phase two onward, I had no idea. How the hell was I supposed to escape that insane anomaly? Was escape even possible? I'd charged in boldly enough, but I couldn't see a way through.
That was Goe-bung-i's final comment. This time, he'd actually escaped for real.
How do I get out?
I clutched my head and forced my tiny brain into overdrive. No answer came.
"You startled me. Why do you keep trying to ditch me and run away?"
The anomaly's core approached, grumbling. The cracks on her face had already healed, and she was thoroughly annoyed.
"Mister, don't you want to play with me?"
The child who had treated me as a friend was, for the first time, addressing me as an adult. Rage had climbed all the way to the top of her head — she fully intended to tear me to shreds.
"I don't need friends who won't play with me."
The child reached out. Reality inverted.
"Don't worry. Soon you won't be able to think about anything at all."
A low, relentless voice shaking me awake. No — not waking me. Putting me to sleep. Dragging me down into a deeper, blacker slumber.
When I came to, all I could see was dense darkness. The dark was pulling my body under. I raised a hand. The hand was mine, and yet it was not. All that remained was the fact that the hand resembled me. Thoughts scattered like shredded scraps of paper. I tried to gather the pieces and put them back together, but they wouldn't fit — only warped and fell apart.
Can't breathe.
A continuous stretch of time in which existence itself seemed about to vanish.
"Do you want to live?"
A light of salvation descended from the sky. A single faint thread of light. I reached toward it.
"Then strangle yourself."
I did as the voice commanded. I stretched out my hands and choked my own throat.
"Keegh."
Breath cut off. My mind plummeted into the abyss. Just as my consciousness was about to vanish completely—
"Huh?"
The strength left my hands. My mind snapped back. Realizing too late what I'd been about to do, I hurriedly released my grip.
"Kehek. What the fuck was that."
I crawled across the ground, putting distance between myself and the child. Her mental assault had briefly stolen my mind — a mental attack so powerful I wondered if I'd even stay conscious through a gunshot wound.
How did the mental attack break?
"You alright?"
I found out almost immediately.
"Father-in-law?"
The voice came from behind me — the voice of my father-in-law, who I'd thought had already escaped.
"Didn't you get out already?"
I'd expected him to reunite with his daughter after ten years and flee without looking back. In-seo would protest, but he'd ignore that much.
"There's an anomaly here. How am I supposed to escape?"
My father-in-law laughed, and behind him a massive machine was dragged into view. The Causality Generator. The Causality Regenerator on the tenth basement floor had been torn out and was gone, but the Causality Generator remained.
"Thank you. Because of you, I finally let go of the last bit of attachment I had left."
One of the senior agents operated the Causality Generator. His body vanished. He converted his entire existence into causality and imposed it upon the Cursed Child. Offering up one's whole being was no different from suicide.
"Seniors?"
The seniors' suicide charge didn't stop. Every last one of them threw themselves into the Causality Generator, bestowing causality of their own free will. One by one, their bodies disappeared. As if they had not a single regret left, they sacrificed their lives to force causality onto the enemy. They didn't even leave last words — they simply, willingly, gave up their lives.
"Mister. It hurts so much. Help me."
The little girl's body turned black. She stretched a hand toward my father-in-law.
"Right. I remember now. I fell for those words of yours and let everything go wrong."
My father-in-law ground his teeth and raised a spear straight. It was the spear In-seo had gone down to the Daejeon item warehouse to retrieve herself.
"Let's end this."
With a battle cry, my father-in-law thrust the spear. It pierced straight through the child's body.
"Mister? Mister? It's me. Why are you trying to kill me?"
The Cursed Child reached out in panic. My father-in-law gave no answer. He twisted the spear free and drove it down into the child's face.
"It hurts? It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Mister, it hurts."
"It's withstanding the Spear of Longinus?"
The child screamed, still impaled on the spear. My father-in-law broke out in a cold sweat, startled. The Spear of Longinus — the spear that had pierced the body of Jesus Christ. So something that extraordinary had been sitting in the item warehouse.
And she's tanking it? How strong is she?
Judging by appearance alone had been a mistake. The child's power to endure a holy relic left me reeling.
"I made everything convenient so you misters could live comfortably."
"I could have killed all of you from the start."
"I knew you misters were scheming to kill me."
"I knew about all the toys you hid away so you could play with me."
"Why do you hate me?"
"You know. Those kinds of things aren't allowed."
The child trembled with betrayal. My father-in-law wore a bitter smile and swung the spear. The blade split the child's body in two — but the divided halves immediately fused back together.
"Then is it my fault? Is it my fault that my body has been like this since I was born?"
"Yeah. I know. I know it's not your fault."
My father-in-law raised the spear high. The child's body shot into the air.
"But for humanity to continue, you have to die."
He slammed the child into the ground with everything he had, driving her body into the floor. He muttered flatly, his expression bitter.
"Aaa… aaaaaaa… aaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
The child screamed. By then, every senior except my father-in-law had offered their existence to the Causality Generator. Only my father-in-law and I remained.
A deep, grinding roar. Space compressed. The cult compound folded in on itself, and the pit appeared right in front of us.
"What's happening?"
"We imposed causality to weaken the anomaly's power."
Oh. Then if we played this right, we could win, couldn't we? I pulled out holy water and poured it into the pit.
"Aaaaaaaagh."
A faint scream rose from deep inside the pit. The anomaly's true body was down there.
"It won't last long. A few minutes at best."
"What? Why?"
They'd sacrificed two people — Senior Lee Hong-cheol and In-seo — and managed to pin causality on a body-snatcher anomaly of comparable strength for several days. Dozens of times more humans had just offered up their existence, and it would only hold for a few minutes?
"We're just dregs. The causality we have left is almost nothing. The only reason we can still think for ourselves is because that child allowed it."
So that was it. My father-in-law and the seniors were already dead. A future where they returned in triumph to the Management Bureau had never existed in the first place.
But the fundamental problem still isn't solved.
I had to completely resolve the anomaly before leaving. Otherwise that child would come after In-seo and me whenever she pleased. I bit my lip and searched for a way to kill the anomaly for good.
"What about throwing the spear?"
"No. The durability's gone. You need to survive and run. I'll hold her off with everything I've got — escape on your own."
"It's the Spear of Longinus."
Would a holy relic burn through its durability that easily? It was a spear steeped in the blood of Christ.
"It's a copy of that spear. If only we had just one more…"
"Just one more would do it?"
There was a way to copy the Spear of Longinus.
"Perfect. I've got exactly one left."
Replicate this item?
Previously replicated items will be deleted.
I picked up the Spear of Longinus and replicated the item. A Spear of Longinus materialized in my right hand. I gripped it, drew my arm back.
"Aaa…"
I could see her — the child sleeping deep inside the pit. I took aim and threw the spear with everything I had.
The spear cut through the air and struck the child dead-on.
A death cry erupted from the pit, a final scream that shook heaven and earth.
Did I kill her?
"You resolved the anomaly. How? What was that just now?"
"My own little secret."
The world began to break apart. The moment the child's life ended, the world built around her collapsed.
"What are you so surprised about? I told you. I'm already dead."
My father-in-law's body was crumbling. He spoke with a lonely expression and gestured for me to go.
"Father-in-law, one last question. Does a staircase leading underground exist at Management Bureau headquarters?"
There was something I had to ask before I left. No matter what, I had to ask this and go.
"It does. Why?"
"That's all the answer I needed. I respect you, Father-in-law!"
I saluted him, then turned. I didn't look back. I ran for the prison that served as the escape route and threw myself inside.
"Grandma? Grandpa?"
A child's voice brushed my ear — a voice a hundred percent identical to the anomaly's core. But unlike the anomaly I'd faced, it carried an unstained purity.
"Don't you worry. Uncle's here now. You don't need to worry about a thing."
My father-in-law's voice reached my ear, fading into the distance.
"Ah…?"
"We've located Agent Seol In-yul. All personnel successfully extracted."
Exploration Team One sat right in front of me.