Chapter 138
Chapter 138
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 138
Chapter Title: False Claimant III
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Pretender III
Shin Noa
6
Kuro.
The nickname of the "diary owner," who never appeared by name throughout the entire testament notebook, was Kuro.
Pay attention to the fact that it was a nickname, not a real name. Even Black Gold didn't know the diary owner's true name.
"Kuro never talked to anyone."
And probably no one knew.
"Weren't they in the same group?"
"Yes. He was part of our group because he was Japanese like us, but he always trailed at the end, following us. He never actively tried to do anything or join in."
"......"
In crude terms, a loner. An outsider.
You know how there's always that one kid on elementary school field trips? When all the other kids are huddled tightly in line following the teacher, that kid lags at the very back, insisting, "Don't worry, everyone. I'm immersed in appreciating the scenery, the true purpose of the trip."
Kuro was exactly that type.
A loner's life became far harsher after the apocalypse than before.
In this era, social skills weren't just a "nice to have" trait—they were directly tied to human survival.
"If he was such an isolate, he must've been treated poorly in the group too?"
"You're right. Even when fighting yokai, he'd just stand there blankly watching. I remember he wasn't even included in the distribution of spoils from the fairies."
"......"
"But we didn't kick him out of the group. He didn't cause any trouble.... To put it bluntly, there was also the calculation that if yokai ambushed from the rear, Kuro would be the first to be sacrificed."
"Just cannon fodder with no other use?"
"To be honest, yes. That's how it was."
...That impression was completely opposite to the one I'd formed from reading the testament notebook up to now.
In the diary, Kuro seemed like an Awakener who, despite a twisted personality, at least pulled his weight in the group.
Moreover, starting from the early parts, there was a nuance that he'd grown strong enough in power to single-handedly fend off a centaur tribe raid.
Was all that testimony a lie? Was the diary I picked up just some loner's delusion notebook?
"But.... Now that I think about it after hearing what you said, Undertaker, there were some strange points."
"Doesn't matter how trivial the info. Speak freely."
Black Gold furrowed her brow. As if rummaging through a drawer in her memory for a photo already faded.
"...Kuro slept a lot."
I blinked.
"Sleep?"
"Yes. Sleep. You know how, with kamikakushi, you're always tense because you never know when some yokai might pop out? But Kuro was always hesitant when awake, yet strangely carefree when sleeping."
"......"
"And this might sound weird, but every day after sleeping, fur would grow thicker on Kuro's arm. Yes. Just like in this photo you showed me, Undertaker."
Monkey's Paw.
A human who draws on a怪異's power gradually becomes more like the怪異.
If someone relies on the Monkey's Paw, they themselves will devolve into a monkey-like form.
"Fur suddenly sprouting from a person's arm made us wary too. It could be some unidentified contagion or curse. So we restrained Kuro and searched his belongings...."
"What was in the backpack?"
"...A monster's hand, a plain notebook, and some snacks. We naturally tried to confiscate the monster's hand. But."
But they couldn't confiscate it.
"As soon as we tried to take it, that hand went berserk with tremendous strength. Several of our group members were knocked out in an instant."
"Huh."
"Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt. But in the chaos, Kuro escaped. The monster's hand crawled after him like it was following. We were flustered and dumbfounded.... But more than that, we felt disgusted. So we just let Kuro disappear."
"Never reunited with Kuro after that?"
"No."
Black Gold looked down at the photo on the table.
"I was a bit curious what happened to him, but he'd turned into this furry beast. Probably some kind of curse."
"......"
I chatted with Black Gold about this and that until that evening before parting.
Just before leaving the shrine, I asked Black Gold, who had come to see me off.
"Oh. One last thing."
"Yes?"
"By any chance, during the early stages of running the Tutorial Dungeon on Jeju Island, did a bunch of Japanese people die? Like, around 16 near the dungeon entrance or something."
Black Gold shook her head.
"No. Nothing like that happened. Our group had a high survival rate."
"As expected. Yeah. Thanks."
"......? No. Take care."
I quietly descended the shrine stairs.
Now then.
What on earth was the truth behind the incident?
For starters, the 'Monkey's Paw' had definitely pulled some trick. Assuming Black Gold's testimony was trustworthy, it was clear the diary didn't depict reality as it was.
"Hmm."
I wrote a small sentence on the back of the diary.
[Old Man Show is an idiot].
And when I moved to the next loop, I went to Sunrise Peak and picked up the same diary.
Even flipping through the pages, I couldn't find the words [Old Man Show is an idiot].
"--Aha."
Only then did I realize how the Monkey's Paw granted the wish, the true nature of this diary, and the truth about the 'false regressor'.
The solution was simple.
7
"This is a 'dream diary'. Dokseo."
O Dok-seo blinked.
"Uh.... Dream diary?"
"Yeah. You've heard of it. Sometimes used for psychological counseling, or just to experience lucid dreaming, but anyway, this item is a 'notebook that records events from dreams'."
"I've heard of it.... What? So all the stories in this notebook are delusions that happened in dreams?"
"Something like that."
I picked up the notebook and lightly fluttered it.
"Didn't you notice anything strange?"
"Strange?"
"Yeah. The diary says from Day 5 onward, time loops infinitely. But for some reason, this diary alone 'persists through regressions without being affected'."
"......! Ah! Ah!"
"You get it too, huh."
I smiled faintly.
"My staff-sword Do-ha, or the logout game laptop I gave you. Unless it's a special unique item like those, a real regression should reset the diary to blank. But the diary just continued as if it were natural."
"Then that diary is also an item like Uncle's unique that persists through regressions...?"
"That was possible, but I tested it myself, and no."
[Old Man Show is an idiot].
The sentence I'd written as a test was cleanly gone in the next loop.
In the end, this diary wasn't some amazing item. Just an ordinary notebook.
"So the conclusion is simple. The person dreaming they're looping wrote this diary."
"Ah.... Huh? Wait, Uncle. Then the Monkey's Paw tricked Kuro by pretending to grant the wish?"
O Dok-seo snatched the notebook from my hand. And opened to the part marked 《Day 4》.
――――――――――
1. No matter what wish I make, don't create any side effects from that wish.
2. Remove the limit on the number of wishes. If removing the limit is impossible, treat this wish as not made.
3. Give me luck. Save me from all 'accidental misfortunes' like dying from a randomly falling rock.
――――――――――
"Here. This."
O Dok-seo's fingertip pressed hard on wish 1.
"Look closely. He clearly wished for no side effects from his own wish."
"Yeah."
"But if it just showed Kuro a dream of 'I'm actually a max-level luck regressor?!' while in reality he's still a powerless loner, isn't that fraud?"
I smiled.
"Dokseo. You lack怪異 sensitivity."
"What? What bullshit?"
"Think deeply about the Monkey's Paw怪異. This thing was never a 'wish-granting being' to begin with. It's a 'being that causes wish side effects'. That's the Monkey's Paw."
Humans always want gains without losses.
In a word, no conscience.
怪異 speak in place of humanity's lost conscience: Every coin has two sides.
If you gain something, you must lose something.
'Luck and misfortune are equal in total amount'.
That's the law the Monkey's Paw stubbornly upholds.
"In that sense, the name [Monkey's Paw] isn't true to its essence. Should call it [Pros and Cons]? [Law of Luck Total Amount] fits better."
"Law of Luck Total Amount...."
O Dok-seo murmured blankly.
I nodded.
Luck Total Amount System.
That was this怪異's true name.
"The principle of the Luck Total Amount System is this. First, a person wishes for 'luck' they desire. Then the怪異 assigns an equal amount of 'misfortune' to match that luck."
"Aha...?"
In short, the Monkey's Paw is like a merchant's hand that trades luck for misfortune.
"But one day, a customer demands free luck. That was Kuro. Now, how would a merchant who's been doing good business feel?"
"...What kind of deadbeat asshole is this?"
"Yeah. Tricky."
Of course,怪異 don't feel 'trickiness'.
It just causes an 'error'.
When forced into a situation against its essence, the怪異 will do anything to fix the error.
The Luck Total Amount System was the same.
"Therefore."
I took out a pen.
Scribble scribble.
I drew an arrow next to 《Day 4》 in the diary. And added my interpretation on a blank page.
"The Luck Total Amount System had no choice but to twist Kuro's wish. Like this."
――――――――――
1. No matter what wish I make, don't create any side effects from that wish.
→
(1) Any luck must come with equal misfortune. That's the 'side effect' Kuro mentioned.
(2) If there's no flip side or side effect, there's no luck. Kuro's wish effectively means desiring no luck.
(3) Thus, Kuro made no wishes in this reality. Kuro's empty wishes are fulfilled 'somewhere not reality'.
(4) 'Somewhere not reality' needn't obey the Law of Luck Total Amount. There, Kuro can enjoy near-infinite luck.
(5) No need to assign misfortune for luck enjoyed there, so no misfortune befalls real-world Kuro.
(6) Real-world Kuro has neither luck nor misfortune. Thus, Kuro's wish for no 'flip side' or 'side effects' is fulfilled.
――――――――――
O Dok-seo's mouth gaped open.
"No waaay...."
"How's that? Understand?"
"No side effects means.... Ah, yeah, no matter how sweet the dream, it doesn't cause real side effects.... Wow, really. You can't mess with怪異 carelessly...?"
I was satisfied with O Dok-seo's murmur. I'd wanted her to grasp that precious lesson from the start.
"But it doesn't end there. Wish 2 caused an enormous backlash too."
――――――――――
2. Remove the limit on the number of wishes. If removing the limit is impossible, treat this wish as not made.
――――――――――
I tapped wish 2 with the pen tip.
"This unlocked the Monkey's Paw's limit."
"Unlocked the limit?"
"As you know, the Monkey's Paw only acknowledges 3 luck-misfortune trades. It's like an unwritten rule. But Kuro said, 'remove the wish limit'."
From Kuro's perspective, he thought he'd snuck in a cheat clause to suck honey.
But the 'side effect' he so feared happened in a completely different way.
"This ended up freeing the chains binding the Luck Total Amount System怪異."
"...What does that mean?"
"This."
――――――――――
2. Remove the limit on the number of wishes. If removing the limit is impossible, treat this wish as not made.
→
(1) A human wish means 'luck'.
(2) No limit on wish count means no limit on 'accumulated luck'.
(3) But luck and misfortune must always maintain equal total amount.
(4) Thus, if luck has no limit, misfortune has no limit either. From now on, humans must trade not just 3 times, but infinite times and infinite amounts of luck-misfortune.
――――――――――
O Dok-seo froze.
"Eh? Eh? Ehhh...?"
"Pay attention to Kuro's wish, Dokseo. If Kuro had wished [remove limit just for me], no big side effect."
But consciously or not, Kuro made one mistake.
"Kuro requested to unlock the [wish limit] on the Monkey's Paw itself."
"In other words...?"
"In other words, wish 2 became a wish applying not just to Kuro, but all humanity. You and I aren't exceptions. If we take more 'luck' than needed, equal 'misfortune' hits immediately."
"Eeeeeek?"
O Dok-seo screamed.
"W-we too?"
"Yeah."
"Why!"
"Because some no-name Awakener named Kuro wished that on the Monkey's Paw."
"Fuck, total public nuisance?"
"Total public nuisance."
That's right.
We took a long detour, but the theme of this episode was simple from the start.
-Why can't I, the Undertaker, monopolize opportunities like protagonists in other stories?
Now the answer is revealed to you all.
One reason. This world already has the 'Luck Total Amount System'怪異 as its base layer.
"You've felt it subconsciously too, right? We luckily have two regressors, and luckily have No Do-ha, the once-in-a-lifetime workaholic, who even built the National Highway Management Corps. Things are clearly improving, yet nagging bad luck keeps piling up."
"Gasp. No way?"
"Luck Total Amount System. If you try to freebie too greedily in this world, the bad luck hammer smashes your head right away."
"Aaaah! Ack! Aaaah! What kind of shitty game is this!"
O Dok-seo wailed.
In a word, our world made 'opportunity monopolization' impossible at the law level.
Truly despairing for O Dok-seo, who saw herself as the world's protagonist.
I sipped the cafe au lait, already cold midway through the story. Still tasty even cold.
"Well, don't worry too much."
As a seasoned regressor, I'd always prepared countermeasures for the Luck Total Amount System.
It was actually a boon to me. Useful in many ways.
"How can I not worry.... Wa-wait! Earlier I ate that Ten Tribes heart steak! So from now on, I'll be that much more unfortunate? What the hell did you feed me, Uncle!"
But that's another story.
We'll spin that tale in some future episode.
8
Epilogue.
After learning a great void of 'dreams within dreams', 'bad ends', and 'parallel worlds' slumbered in humanity's unconscious depths, I occasionally infiltrated the unconscious realm.
The goal was simple. Periodically clean humanity's unconscious warehouse so people could always sleep soundly.
"Hm?"
"Grrr.... Grr...."
Thus, today too, while satisfactorily beating Old Man Show's bad end, I sensed a strange aura from far south of the Korean Peninsula.
I finished thrashing Old Man Show and headed south.
Southern sea of the Korean Peninsula. There stood a Seongsan Ilchulbong that looked like reality copied, scaled 50 times larger, and pasted.
"......"
Roll roll roll-
From a height rivaling Everest, 'someone' was rolling something down.
Human heads.
That someone had long black hair. So long it hid the face.
Roll. Roll roll-
She piled heads like a mountain beside her and endlessly dropped them into Seongsan Ilchulbong's crater. Expressionlessly. Meaninglessly.
Like an upside-down Sisyphus.
Suddenly, I thought.
――――――――――
3. Give me luck. Save me from all 'accidental misfortunes' like dying from a randomly falling rock.
――――――――――
Kuro wished to eliminate all accidental misfortunes from himself.
How did the Monkey's Paw interpret that wish?
If misfortunes are 'inevitable' rather than accidental, it doesn't matter?
Countless myths and tales warn of human hubris, yet people still think lightly, 'If I just word the wish right, I can still use the怪異?'
Why settle for a mere 3 wishes.
Why not demand infinite wishes.
I could've used the怪異 more wisely.
Even if [Kuro's Tale] remains as folklore passed among humans, some future descendant will still approach another Monkey's Paw, thinking 'I could've used it better'.
Hubris.
That may have been the inevitable misfortune given to the human called Kuro.
I turned away from the southern sea.
Roll roll roll-
Today too, in someone's dream, a single girl will be rolling severed heads.
-Pretender. End.