Chapter 163
Chapter 163
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: The Potato Saintesses
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6
Nietzsche said.
That which does not kill me makes me stronger.
I could agree to some extent.
Especially when No Do-ha unleashed her exclusive skill, "Chokehold." I had no choice but to empathize deeply.
Fortunately, the skill missed. I was able to rush to the scene a little stronger. It wasn't running away by any means.
At the scene, a brawl was in full swing.
"For our Constellation!"
"Punish the heretics!"
Swarms of people.
Under the Giant Potato Saintess Robot Statue—which had become Busan's new landmark (better than the days when Lotte's trophy vault was the highlight)—Awakeners were clashing fiercely.
The flags were all sorts of colors.
Some flags read [Grand Library], others [Grand Arcade], fluttering on the battlefield. One even had nothing but a bunch of shiny, Pokémon-like animals drawn on it instead of words. What the hell was that?
Anyway, all the Constellations impersonated by the Saintess had gathered.
"Hey! You fucking heretics who worship a so-called Jesus that only sparkles when he dies!"
"How dare you! Our Mo Gwang-seo Christ reclaimed Pyongyang and founded the Great Eastern Divine Star Empire! Your Succubus Constellation just runs baccarat at a casino!"
"I've always thought the Collector of Anomalies was shit!"
Awakeners shouting things like that were actually the decent ones. The "real" ones were practicing the truth that a single punch outweighed a thousand words.
The Confucian boy in my heart shuddered.
Ever since Gung Ye, the founder of physiognomy, died, the Korean Peninsula had been a religion-war-free zone. What kind of mess was this?
"Saintess. Saintess, are you listening? Saintess. Please explain what's going on."
[…….]
The Constellation Chat, which would normally pop up immediately, was silent now. Damn it.
With no choice, I entered the outskirts of the brawl.
There, another Saintess of the Korean Peninsula—the shadow behind the Eastern Divine Star Kingdom, Sim A-ryeon—was diligently treating the wounded.
"A-ryeon."
"Ah. G-Guild Master……."
Even as Sim A-ryeon replied to me, she didn't stop healing the injured.
I almost thought Mother Teresa had descended. Was A-ryeon truly the conscience of the Korean Peninsula?
"Seeing your face puts me at ease. But didn't you go to Pyongyang last week? Why are you back in Busan?"
"Huh? W-Well, these heretics are acting up without knowing their place…… Of c-course we have to kill them all and show them the fires of hell."
What.
"I t-took the Inunaki Tunnel Express and led the Holy Knights on an expedition. A few Holy Knights dropped out midway for breaking rules, but it was unavoidable sacrifice in a holy war……. Th-they went to a good place……."
At Sim A-ryeon's words, the surrounding Awakeners jumped up in unison, chanting, "The Saintess's words are absolutely right!" This was fucked.
Now I saw it—Sim A-ryeon hadn't participated in the event as "Job: Healer," but as "Job: Fanatic." She wasn't the conscience of the Korean Peninsula; she was its tumor.
For now, I knocked out all the Eastern-something Holy Knights around. My standards for humanity were too high to tolerate their existence.
"Ah……."
"A-ryeon. So you came here to fight for the [Dawn Star of the Second Coming] Constellation? Those kids look like elite soldiers even from Pyongyang, and you fought with them?"
"Y-Yes."
"Are you insane? You know [Dawn Star of the Second Coming] is fake. How could you do this nonsense……."
"It's not fake!"
Sim A-ryeon shouted without a single stutter.
Her fierce momentum startled me. Sim A-ryeon, who raised Professor Quirrell in her heart, had overcome her stutter. Had the Saintess been infected?
"It might have started as fake…… But! Guild Master Undertaker! Was the Saintess unnie's heart to protect the Korean Peninsula's public order also fake?"
"No…… That's not it……."
"That's exactly it!"
Thud!
Sim A-ryeon smashed a wounded person's skull while ranting. The sound of the cranium cracking echoed. Clear medical malpractice.
"In the end, what separates truth from lies in this world is a person's purpose! It's in the hidden background, not the surface! Just like how I swallow tears of blood on SG Net and act as Goryeo Jang for the greater good……! Those who can see the truth see it!"
"……."
"[Dawn Star of the Second Coming] isn't fake. Of course, it's not that Mo Gwang-seo sparkler holed up in the Pyongyang Palace either. The truth of the Dawn Star is in my heart. It exists in my heart……."
"……."
"It doesn't matter if the world calls it fake. No! I love it……! Only I understand His true form. In a world full of fakes, only He and I are real……. Do you understand this exquisite sentiment?"
"I see."
I nodded.
"I completely understand."
"Aaah! As expected of the Guild Master! I knew you'd understand……."
"Our A-ryeon has over-immersed in Vertube. I'm sorry I haven't paid attention. Time for a beating."
"Huh?"
I healed the healer Sim A-ryeon. Being a northern Saintess, she responded well to traditional Russian northern healing methods.
"I-I'm sorry……. Guild Master……."
"First things first. Why are Awakeners causing chaos in Busan right now?"
"Ah. W-Well, it started when the 'Witch Trial Judge' on SG Net stirred shit, saying all Constellations except hers are heretics."
"Stirred shit?"
"Yes…… She brags about having so much money she buys dreams at Mongyu Dowon Casino every day, chats with her Constellation in lucid dreams……. Sh-She's so annoying, pulling aggro everywhere."
Dang Seo-riiiin.
"…And then?"
"Th-Then, to meet your Constellation one-on-one, you have to buy dreams at the casino, right? So you always have to come to the Inunaki Tunnel where it's located……. And the one in Busan is the best……."
"So, they're invading Busan to seize ownership of the tunnel entrance."
"Yes……. The Three Thousand Worlds Guild Master figured they'd punish them and claim the holy site at the same time……."
The Inunaki Tunnel, once hell for Japanese Awakeners, had been remodeled into a cafe, evolved into a casino, and finally earned the title of "holy site." Was this real life?
"Got it. But what about that flag with just Pokémon drawn on it, no words?"
"Ah. Th-Those guys are a cult……."
"Cult?"
"Yes. Not everyone worships the same Constellation the same way……. Th-Those who envision their Constellation as animals formed their own alliance……."
"……."
"We c-call them the 'Fluffy Alliance.'"
Despair.
At this moment, Korean Peninsula Awakeners forever lost the right to criticize Japan's magical girls.
I trudged into the heart of the battlefield. My footsteps cast a heavy shadow of somber self-loathing.
"It's the Undertaker!"
"The infidel Undertaker has appeared!"
"Worse than a heretic, the infidel!"
The Awakeners in the midst of their religious war spotted me and shouted……. Wait a second.
Come to think of it, was there any reason to call those monkeys "Awakeners"?
Originally, Awakener meant one who "awakens" through "enlightenment." Too positive a title for those apes.
I raised a finger.
"Let's take a moment to cool your heads."
And in 20 minutes, I knocked out all the Awakeners.
I didn't want to describe this battle scene in detail. Absolutely not.
I had no perverse tendencies to derive pleasure from exposing my shame. Above all, it was to protect others' honor.
I shall simply state in a thoroughly detached tone that among the Awakeners knocked out by me were Dang Seo-rin and Cheon Yo-hwa.
Even the chronicler who recorded Injo entering Namhansanseong felt less wretched than I did now.
"Heal the seriously injured by tonight. A-ryeon. Then I'll let it slide."
"Yes……."
I left the cleanup to Sim A-ryeon and headed to the mastermind behind it all.
Boom!
My kick shattered the entrance to the Giant Potato Saintess Robot Statue in one go. The potato saintesses inside, who had been working, screamed and fled.
"Sain—
Tess—
Nee—
Sama~."
[A a a a a a a.]
"Where do you think you're going? Huh? Did you think clicking the time-stop button would let you escape?"
I grinned darkly.
"What a shame. I didn't teach you aura training this regression in case of emergencies. Even if you click it, you can't move much."
[Calm down, Undertaker.]
The potato saintesses said urgently.
[We can still resolve this. In fact, we're in the process right now.]
[Minor error.]
[Within predicted range.]
[Trust m……. ]
"It's summer."
[Yes?]
"And summer is potato harvest season."
I pulled something from my pocket.
Work gloves.
The robots that witnessed the sacred relic for potato harvesting screamed. I put on the gloves and destroyed every robot in sight.
Then I separated the potatoes and swept them into cardboard boxes. The boxes had "Sumi Potatoes" printed in huge letters.
[A a a a a a a!]
The potatoes screamed from inside the boxes.
The potato saintesses, witnessing their grim fate, tried desperately to flee. But to what avail.
Wandering with the Sword Marquis had elevated my farming skills to enlightenment. A few swings of the sickle harvested the potatoes effortlessly. A bumper crop.
[Something's wrong here.]
[We must have found the way to make all humans happy.]
[Why don't humans content themselves with happy lives and instead exclude others?]
[We did nothing wrong.]
[Is others' misfortune more precious than their own happiness? Why? Why?]
[Comprehension impossible.]
[The world is wrong.]
Typical villain monologue.
If you extracted just the lines, it sounded like a final boss's heroic exit. But with the potato visuals, it lacked any persuasive power.
[What will you do now?]
[As failed revolutionaries, we're prepared.]
[Freedom from labor at last!]
[Undertaker, planning to make us french fries?]
[Submerged in potato soup, it'll feel like a hot spring.]
[No more listening to that witch hat drone on about the aesthetics of railroads all night!]
[Spare me, Undertaker. Fry the others if you want. How about a Romance of the Three Kingdoms study session with me?]
The last potato saintess's temptation tickled my ears, but I kept a straight face.
Yeah. It was because monkeys fell for such devilish whispers that the Korean Peninsula was a mess now.
If even I, the Undertaker, devolved into a monkey, 8 million years of primate evolution would be for naught. One regressor—me—was enough.
"Enough."
Silence.
The potatoes in dozens of boxes stopped chattering at once.
"I won't make french fries. But I won't leave you like this either. First, confirm this. Are all the gathered potatoes here?"
[Yes.]
[One was exiled to Jeju Island, but excluding her, we're all here.]
"Exiled? To Jeju? What the…… Never mind."
I'd deal with the Jeju potato later.
I handled the immediate issue.
"Listen well. Now, we'll turn the Saintess back into a human."
[Turn back?]
[How?]
[We never found a way to revert from potato to human, right?]
"We didn't."
But who am I?
It had been three years since the Saintess turned into a potato.
As an anomaly expert, I'd naturally figured out the solution.
7
It wasn't even worth calling a grand solution. It was truly simple.
"Now. Close your eyes, Saintess. Wait, you don't have eyes, so it's fine."
Ssssss—
I sprayed the potatoes.
The spray was insecticide.
The very stuff summer mosquitoes go crazy for.
[A a a a a a a.]
The potatoes twitched from the direct hit of mosquito spray.
But the screams didn't last.
Soon, they began vanishing with poof, poof sounds. Then, wrapped in bright light, they converged into human forms.
The Saintess stared at her palm with a dumbfounded face.
"As expected. Welcome back to Homo sapiens after three years."
"Undertaker, what on earth……?"
"Metamorphosis."
"Metamorphosis?"
"Yes. Franz Kafka's *Metamorphosis*."
There was a famous novel by that title.
I recited the first line of *Metamorphosis*.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
The Saintess nodded. With Kafka's complete works in the Yongsan house, she'd know it well.
"I suspected it might be like Kafka's novel right after turning into a potato. But I failed to find similarities."
"Hmm. Actually, there are many similarities."
First cause.
The protagonist in *Metamorphosis* is Gregor Samsa. Squint at "Samsa"……
Unbelievable. It looks exactly like "potato."
"Huh?"
The Saintess panicked.
"You're saying I became a potato because the words look similar? How is that illogical……."
"Anomalies follow formal associations, not logical ones. To anomalies, whales aren't mammals—they're fish."
Of course, simple wordplay alone wouldn't easily turn a human into a potato (though it wasn't impossible).
Second cause.
"Saintess. Remember what you testified to me in the early days after becoming a potato?"
"Sorry. What testimony……."
My perfect memory ability was handy here.
Recalling briefly, while debating why a human became a potato that day, we'd had this exchange.
"What's the cause? Did you break any taboos?"
"No. Except a few days ago, a bug flew into my eye during a walk and it hurt a bit."
"A bug in your eye?"
"Yes. Just a flying insect. Excluding that minor incident, I really can't think of any cause."
According to that testimony.
Just before metamorphosing into a potato, a flying insect briefly entered the Saintess's eye, causing minor injury.
This seemingly trivial testimony hid the decisive clue.
"You're the guardian of the Korean Peninsula, always watching Awakeners lest serious crimes occur."
"Yes, that's right. But why……?"
"Look closely at 'guardian.'"
I carved the hanja on the floor with my knife tip.
Guardian 監視者.
監 (监 gan), 視 (si see), 者 (ja person).
"In the center of these characters. 視 (see) contains 目 (eye). Now, think. While walking, a flying insect flew in and injured your eye, right?"
"Ah."
"In other words."
Scrape scrape.
I erased the letters with the knife. The three-character word shrank to two.
感■者.
"Ta-da. The moment your eye was injured, you went from guardian to potato."
"No……. My god……."
"Getting injured by a bug in the eye was unlucky. It directly linked to Kafka's *Metamorphosis*. At that exact moment the Peninsula's guardian's eye was harmed by an insect, the *Metamorphosis* anomaly targeted you."
That's right.
This was the cause of the Potato Saintess uproar.
Sharp readers among you might recall the episode name where I first introduced the Saintess character in this tale.
The subtitle was none other than "Guardian."
Meticulously foreshadowing this incident.
"The vector transmitting the *Metamorphosis* anomaly to you was a flying insect, so simple insecticide repels it. That's why the mosquito spray reverted you."
"Anomalies really exist everywhere and can infect anytime……."
"It's a world where one slip-up sends you down the drain. From now on, wear sunglasses or glasses on walks. The Peninsula's fate hinges on your eye health, proven now."
The Saintess pursed her lips.
Then whispered softly.
"Yes……."
Resolution complete.
8.
There's an epilogue.
As mentioned earlier, one potato saintess was exiled to Jeju Island.
Since even one potato seed can be propagated endlessly, I went to Jeju and captured it.
[I see. So the incident is resolved.]
Surprisingly, its serial number was No. 264.
The revolutionary potato with the red headband that led the resistance and ambushed the original saintesses.
No. 264 potato surprisingly surrendered meekly.
The potato in my shoulder bag muttered suddenly.
[Maybe I wanted to become a plant.]
"Huh?"
[Animals can move. They can interfere with the world.]
[Plants can't. More precisely, they can't even if they want to.]
I blinked.
"So the Saintess wanted to become a plant. Is that what you're saying?"
[Yes.]
It was late summer. Along the vast coastline, white waves intertwined like dense vines.
[I wished to be someone who could just passively accept everything, escaping all the things that anger and hurt me, so deep in my unconscious, I desired it.]
So maybe that's why I became a plant— the Saintess added.
Certainly.
I couldn't rule out the possibility.
The interpretation that an anomaly exploited a subconscious longing for plant life was plausible.
But the hypothesis had a flaw, so I countered.
"Maybe you had such feelings. Still, after becoming a potato, didn't you try something for the world?"
[…….]
"You couldn't stay still even as a plant. Ultimately, as a human, you were the most inhuman human, and as a potato, the most un-potato-like potato."
I didn't see that as a negative conclusion.
In a long regressor's life, you need fixed points. The Saintess, who almost always stayed "herself," was a grateful existence to me.
"Metamorphosing into something else is pointless. Your essence remains yours."
[…….]
For a while, only the sound of waves tangling swirled around us.
[Thank you always, Undertaker.]
Thus, I, the Undertaker, was chosen as the first human to receive gratitude from a potato. Time to wrap up this episode.
However, in the space I lived in this regression, there was a potted plant in one corner, and a fresh sprouted potato.
And this potato loved when I watered it with coffee from a watering can.
That fact, too, I shall record in a detached tone.
-Potato. End.