Chapter 165
Chapter 165
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: Even Though I'm an Infinite Regressor, I Tell Tales
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Honestly, confessing here, my black history with the Undertaker wasn't all that painful for me.
It was like running up to Shakyamuni and teasing him, "Whoa, I heard you pointed at the sky with your finger right after birth and shouted 'Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one!' Aren't you embarrassed?" You just couldn't inflict psychological damage that way.
Does a butterfly get embarrassed about its caterpillar days?
I was lenient with others and even more so with myself.
But it seemed things were different for everyone else.
-Anonymous: Weird talk, but doesn't it feel kinda good when a mosquito sucks your blood? Am I the only one?
(Photo)
-Anonymous: It feels so good I trapped a mosquito in a glass cup and let it bite me every hour on purpose. My forearm's all bumpy now, but running my finger over it gives this strange pleasure. Try raising a 'pet mosquito' yourselves....
└Lit Girl: What, are you insane?
└Anonymous: Lmao, actually I've gotten addicted to mosquito bites lately and stopped killing them. You're just like me lololol
└[Baekhwa] High School 5th Year: That's a monster! Don't let it bite you carelessly! >_<;;
└Anonymous: There are so many crazies here
└[National Highway] Historian: I truly cannot comprehend this.
The atmosphere on SG Net had started to shift bit by bit.
Just a few days ago, it had been overflowing with rage and curses toward mosquitoes, but now 'pet mosquito' bait was popping up everywhere.
It was a sign that the mosquito monsters were beginning to reveal their true colors.
I was on pins and needles.
"Saintess. Didn't you warn the Awakeners about mosquitoes via constellation messages last time?"
[Yes, I did. I'm still urging caution every day, changing the constellation name each time.]
"And yet people are still lining up to get bitten?"
[Well, mosquitoes gonna mosquito.]
You know that saying about knowing better but still doing it? This was exactly the time for it.
Completely escaping mosquitoes on the Korean Peninsula was practically impossible. Even if you sealed the windows shut, they kept crawling out from somewhere, didn't they?
[Above all, the pleasure from having your blood sucked is the real problem.]
"Pleasure? For real, you feel pleasure?"
[Yes. Try it yourself, Undertaker. One bite won't be a big deal.]
I gave it a shot.
I released my protective aura and caught a mosquito, placing it on the back of my hand. I ripped off just its wings with my fingers, so it couldn't escape anywhere.
Sluuuuurp-.
The mosquito desperately sucked my blood to survive.
"...Hmm. I don't feel any pleasure, though."
[Hm. I suspect it's because you lack 'black history,' Undertaker. My guess is the more black history someone has, the deeper the pleasure.]
"Wait a sec. Then A-ryeon, who got bitten more and faster than anyone on the peninsula and ascended to nirvana...?"
[She must be the one with the most embarrassing black history of anyone. At least on the peninsula.]
Indeed.
Anyway, the situation grew more serious with each passing day.
This wasn't hyperbole. Every single hour, the mosquito monsters rampaged.
Posts saying 'It feels good when mosquitoes suck your blood' kept multiplying, while 'It feels bad' reactions dwindled. Hell, the boards even coined a new term: 'mosquito dope.'
-Anonymous: TBH, I've had insomnia ever since finishing the tutorial dungeon.
-Anonymous: It's fine now, but back then seeing people drop dead in front of me left a trauma.
-Anonymous: But weirdly, after a mosquito bite, I sleep great. I feel grateful that those people died but I'm alive anyway.
-Anonymous: The constellations say it's dangerous, and yeah, I'm scared.... But I can't sleep without it now.
Right.
We called it 'black history' for convenience, but those were actually psychological traumas. In severe cases, they could develop into PTSD.
Realistically, no one's mental state was intact these days.
In an era where a bug in your eye during a daytime stroll could turn your human DNA into potatoes, what more was there to say?
People vanished every day. More precisely, their 'humanity' vanished.
Once everyone realized the adhesive holding their DNA together was weaker than elementary school craft glue, countless people started relying on external crutches.
Booze. Drugs. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You name it.
It was that kind of era, which was why Potato Saintess's VTuber psychological counseling project had been a smashing success.
Of course, we'd used the Saintess's [Clairvoyance] to let drug dealers know the peninsula was no longer a drug free-for-all.
But even with a cheat key like the Saintess, controlling mosquito breeding and reproduction was impossible. Obviously. How do you even catch those bastards?
"The situation's dire, Undertaker."
Even Dang Seo-rin came to me occasionally to vent.
"We've put screens on every train window, check sewer holes nonstop, run fans whenever there's spare power, drained all puddles.... But mosquitoes keep popping up from somewhere."
"Even DDT doesn't work?"
"Yeah. Brief effect, then nada. Immunity in two weeks."
I sighed.
That was the terror of the Void.
What should've taken organisms decades unfolded sloppily in days here.
Even evolving into dinosaurs took just a few years. Mosquitoes gaining pesticide resistance? Barely a week.
"Look at this."
Dang Seo-rin handed me a photo.
It showed someone with a shaved head.
Weirdly, their skull was shaped exactly like a Buddha's pine cone head.
"One of our guildmates. Head swollen from mosquito bites. Poor thing, right?"
"...."
"But they say they're happy. Feels like they've escaped past pains and reached enlightenment or something."
Dang Seo-rin sighed.
"Not just the head—whole body covered in bites. We locked them in a cell for now, but they went berserk begging to be let bitten again. Really. The world's gone mad. Soon we'll have deaths from exsanguination."
"You holding up okay?"
"Me? Yeah, fine. Fans on constantly. Easier than for most kids."
Dang Seo-rin's face darkened.
"But if we scrape by this summer, what about next year...? Honestly, it'll be tough. Undertaker, can't you do something?"
Sure enough, after the rainy season passed, mosquitoes rampaged even more.
Just as Dang Seo-rin feared, people dying from blood loss averaged one per day.
'How the hell do we exterminate this monster?'
I pondered deeply.
Mass-breed dragonflies, their natural predators?
Viable, but eradicating mosquitoes completely? Doubtful.
Rigorous training for MZ Awakeners to master protective aura as a basic skill?
Fundamental solution, but a 20-year project minimum.
Maybe the mosquito monster fused with a 'vampire' type? The pleasure from bloodsucking matches.
But if so, weird. How dare a lowly bloodsucker strut before garlic-loving Koreans....
"Hmm."
Stuck, I paced the lobby.
Then O Dok-seo, also in the lobby, yelled.
"Ah, seriously. You're annoying. Mister! If you're gonna keep pacing, just leave!"
"Dok-seo. I'm pondering humanity's survival right now. Between us, you should be the one to leave."
"Huh? What? I'm fighting for humanity's survival too!"
O Dok-seo held up manuscript paper.
"See! Writing a novel, like you said! If I fail, an outer god descends. Mosquitoes? Who cares!"
True enough.
O Dok-seo was scribbling on manuscript paper.
Balled-up sheets littered the table corner—probably unsatisfactory drafts.
"Good on you for writing, but why in the lobby? Just write calmly in your room."
"Argh! That's why I came here—can't write in the room! Already stressed 'cause words won't flow, now you're nagging? Huh? I'm writing this for you!"
"No.... You're the one who started nagging first...."
"Aaaagh!"
O Dok-seo clutched her head and screamed.
"I hate writing! Why did past-loop me decide to write?! Idiot! Moron! Bastard! Die! Die!"
"Hm...."
Dok-seo seemed to have acute 'writer's block fever.' I'd seen plenty of authors freak out running the canned hotel.
Then, a mosquito entered my view.
Whiiiir-.
It circled elegantly in the air. I surged my aura to snipe the pest but hesitated.
Its target wasn't me. Nor Dok-seo.
It was her discarded manuscript balls.
And then, a shocking scene unfolded.
Sluuuuurp-.
Landing on the wad, the mosquito 'stuck its straw in the manuscript' and 'sucked up black liquid.'
Not red blood.
The manuscript's ink. The mosquito slurped the black ink like it was delicious.
"Huh?"
I could only blankly watch the mosquito's bloodsucking.... no, ink-sucking.
Sated, it whirred off.
Zero interest in our blood. Like mouthwashing with top-shelf wine, why bother with soju? Its wings fluttered smugly.
A lightbulb exploded in my head.
"Black history...!"
"What?"
"Yes, black history! Just leave black history out, and that's what they eat!"
Why hadn't I thought of this?
Mosquito monsters are drawn not to human blood, but black history.
So 'black history in human form' wasn't necessary.
"Saintess. Saintess, answer me. Urgent."
[Yes? What's up?]
"Remember that story I told you? About the potato saintess robot from another loop."
[Oh.]
The Saintess chat glitched midway, maybe my imagination.
[Sorry, Undertaker. Mosquito flew by my face just now.... Anyway, I remember. Why bring it up suddenly?]
"Write the potato saintess story yourself. Like a diary."
[Yes?]
"Leave it in a corner of the room. I guarantee, mosquitoes will swarm it like bug repellent in reverse."
[....]
Next day.
[...It worked.]
Her voice was... how to put it. Like a geocentrist facing heliocentrism proof.
[Left the diary overnight, 24 mosquitoes stuck to it. None near my bed.]
"As expected. My prediction was spot on."
[....]
"For safety, contact the canned hotel authors. Have them transcribe old practice works onto manuscript paper. Ideally childhood ones—high school, middle school drafts."
[....]
"SNS posts work too. Cyworld era stuff even better."
[Are you the devil, Undertaker?]
"Pardon?"
[...Never mind. For humanity, right. I'll relay it.]
From that day, time reversed at the canned hotel.
Korean authors poured effort into transcribing middle/high school drafts.
No easy task.
"Fuck! Kill me instead! Just kill me!"
"Aaaah! No! This one, really, absolutely not!"
"Forgive me! Back then, wavy tildes (~) in titles and guillemets («») instead of quotes were trendy!"
"Can we just fix typos? Please, a shred of mercy."
"I deleted this! I swear I did! Why do you have the text file, Undertaker?"
"Don't wanna transcribe.... Feels like dying...."
I wrangled the wailing authors.
Thus, I, the Undertaker, completed it: the 'Top 100 Most Embarrassing Black Histories in Korean Literature,' curated meticulously.
Printed en masse at the factory, distributed one copy per household.
"Fwaaaaaagh!"
"Why? Why this cruelty?"
"Yeah, let's die.... Just die...."
Master authors wailed as their past works (and SNS) were forcibly exposed.
But I didn't care. The resentment in their cries made the effect phenomenal.
If asked whether I didn't love those authors, why inflict such pain on favorites....
From my view, they weren't black history at all.
I enjoyed their middle school parody drafts just fine. Honestly, what's the issue?
Anyway, thanks to the blood-soaked manuscripts, people were safe from mosquito monsters.
Plaster manuscript paper on every doorstep, and mosquitoes swarmed there exclusively.
At last, in storied history, mosquitoes overcame their stalkerish obsession with humanity. Touching.
O Dok-seo, who claimed major credit for this triumphant end, muttered dumbfoundedly.
"...Wait. So my current drafts are basically all black history? Fuck. Mister! Kill all the mosquito shits! They say your novel's all black history!"
Truly, no epilogue today. End.
-Blood Donor. Fin.