Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Internationalist III
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Shin Noah
5
People often compare the heart to the heart itself, and the heart to fire.
The heart blazes. The spark in one's heart grows.
But in my case, "water" was a more fitting metaphor more often than not.
After my 89th regression was severed by the red flesh Go Yo-ri summoned, the well in my heart ran dry for a while.
The condition commonly known as burnout.
A slump that any regressor inevitably faces at some point.
"Total annihilation..."
"If Three Thousand Worlds is gone, doesn't that leave Baekhwa Girls' High School as Korea's only top-tier guild?"
"Nah, the corpse collectors are a bit... I'm not even sure if they're really a guild."
"They failed to subjugate the Void anyway. I looked up at the night sky last night, and it gave me chills."
After recovering Dang Seo-rin's remains, cremating them, scattering the ashes at the beach, and returning, I found the awakeners whispering under the parasols outside the convenience store.
For some reason, their whispers sounded to me like the ticklish trickle of water.
That sound of water converged on a single object.
[This place has great coffee. Three Thousand Worlds, Dang Seo-rin]
A wine-colored 1,000-won bill.
I transferred the bill signed by the Three Thousand Worlds guild leader into an acrylic case. Then I displayed it behind the convenience store counter, in the spot usually reserved for cigarettes.
Lately, supplies in the basement warehouse had started running out. Alcohol and cigarettes were the first resources to become scarce, so there was plenty of space to exhibit the bill.
Naturally, customers could admire the display every time they passed the counter.
One day, the Sword Marquis pointed at it with his hand.
"Store owner. What on earth is that treasure? I can feel an extraordinary aura from it."
"Ah, that? It's a signed bill left by the Three Thousand Worlds guild leader before heading out to hunt the Meteor Shower."
"Hmm..."
The old man let out a grunt and left the store.
The next day, as usual, the Sword Marquis bought a bottle of green makgeolli and suddenly placed a 10,000-won bill on the counter.
"Store owner. This is personally drawn by me—an orchid."
"An orchid? Where did this orchid come from?"
"Take a good look at the drawing."
I looked.
Beyond King Sejong's sturdy shoulders, an actual orchid was drawn.
"......?"
Honestly, the drawing skill was abysmal. If Heungseon Daewongun had seen it, he would've raged that it was a pineapple leaf, not an orchid.
Still, it seemed to have some effort put into it, as the corner of the cabbage leaf had [Yuldo Nation's Sword Marquis] inscribed in tiny letters.
The Sword Marquis huffed proudly at his own work. The only tolerable part of the old man's appearance—his mustache—fluttered.
"Please hang it up in your store like a folding screen."
"......"
Well, no harm in it.
I displayed the Sword Marquis's bill without much thought.
But that seemed to be the trigger.
Customers visiting my convenience store began offering bills with their own signatures, one after another.
"Um, boss. I'm heading out with the raid team this time—would it be okay if I left this...?"
"I'll come again next time! Give me a 2+1 discount then!"
"You really can't sell me just one carton of cigarettes? Please?"
They'd been cautious when it was just the Three Thousand Worlds leader's memento, but with the Sword Marquis's bill on display too, it suddenly seemed approachable.
The currencies left by the awakeners varied wildly.
Old 5,000-won bills, 2-dollar bills, East German marks (that one was the most surprising), yen, euros, pounds, Mongolian tugrik, Hong Kong dollars, Vietnamese dong, Philippine pesos, North Korean won, Indian rupees, Nepalese rupees...
Before long, the space behind my counter was filled with bills.
Whenever I had a moment, I would gaze at the display.
As the bills filled the hollow cigarette rack like bricks, one by one, the well in my heart somehow felt a little fuller.
If life is ultimately a journey to leave behind a single photograph, then this would probably be my portrait for the 90th round.
"Store manager comrade..."
"Hm?"
Fairy No. 264 set down a box of Zero Sugar drinks. Her expression under the saemaeul hat looked utterly dejected.
"That's the last box of Zero Sugar. Hic..."
"I see. What about the liquor?"
"Beer, soju, whiskey, wine, makgeolli, sake—no matter how much we scrape together, there's only 50 bottles left. Our funding for the revolution has dried up... I'm so ashamed..."
It wasn't just liquor. Stocks of nearly every item had bottomed out.
There's no such thing as an oasis that never runs dry.
But so what? Have you ever seen a tree refuse to provide shade out of fear it might rot someday?
"Here."
I pulled out a treasured pack of Champion sausages.
Twitch! Fairy No. 264's ears perked up at the sight.
Something I'd learned in this regression: for some reason, fairies went crazy for these sausages.
"Ahh! Sausages I thought were all gone!"
"Eat it in secret from the others."
"As expected, you're the only one who thinks of me, store manager comrade...!"
I patted Fairy No. 264's head.
"Gather everyone and let's drink up all the remaining booze."
"Yes, comrade!"
I called the customers together.
Posting on an internet community would've easily drawn in the awakeners, but unfortunately, that wasn't possible.
[Unable to connect to the site.]
Seo-gyu's "Hunter Community" had shut down some time ago.
Seo-gyu had died somewhere I didn't know about.
Go Yo-ri had likely met the same fate. She was someone who couldn't survive among people without shapeshifting in the first place.
The fairies went around on foot to gather people, and we ended up with about a hundred participants. Not entirely satisfactory, but just the right number to enjoy 50 bottles of booze decently.
*The Saintess didn't come.*
The awakeners laughed, chatted, sang, and reveled.
They too had hoarded their own final supplies, so the party didn't feel shabby. Surprisingly, one awakener brought 11 bottles of 1990 Château Ducamp—she instantly became the greatest hero in human history.
The mood reached a fever pitch.
"Alright, how about we form a guild with everyone here!"
"Ooh!"
"The Final Guild! To celebrate its founding, after tonight's afterparty, let's charge the Meteor Shower Gate!"
"Isn't this less a guild and more a mob...?"
The awakeners who'd survived this long without dying were either stubborn loners who'd never joined a guild or outcasts expelled for issues. Mostly people with rocky interpersonal relationships.
But as the final moment approached, they banded together to form a party. Of course, those 11 bottles of Château Ducamp had wielded tremendous influence on their unity.
"Store manager! Won't you come with us, store manager?"
I shook my head.
"I still have one customer I haven't said goodbye to. I'll follow after you all leave."
"Ah, with just the store manager, we could hold out 30 seconds longer. What a shame."
"Three minutes, maybe?"
"Come on, let's go!"
The people chuckled.
That night, the sky was particularly vast and boisterous.
6
From long experience with regressions, I could now instinctively sense that the world's end was truly upon us.
The day after the Last Supper ended, I summoned all the fairy clerks.
The little ones in Che Guevara T-shirts—forty of them—gathered in a huddle. I declared before them.
"Today is a holiday."
"Hic."
The fairies blinked.
"A holiday means a day without labor, right?"
"Labor reflects human value, but holidays discard one's own value. It's utterly anti-utilitarian."
"If I may, doesn't that depend on whether it's paid leave or unpaid?"
I chuckled and handed each fairy a 50,000-won bill.
"Don't worry. It's paid leave."
Each bill bore my signature.
[6th International General Secretary cum Chairman cum Store Manager.]
The fairies' eyes sparkled.
"Wow! A handwritten signature from the store manager comrade!"
"So感動!"
"We should legislate hanging them framed in every public office!"
"Yeah, do as you like. Anyway, I'll mind the store alone today, so rest well."
"Yes!"
The fairies hoisted red flags and marched off somewhere. I was left alone.
As I mopped the quiet store floor,
the glass door chimed.
"Welcome. Customer."
"......"
It was the Saintess.
The customer I'd waited for until the end.
She quietly surveyed the store. Shelves were empty here and there, like a mouth missing teeth. Those shelves had signs reading [Temporarily Out of Stock - Please Wait for Restock].
The Saintess murmured.
"Restocks are taking a long time."
"Yes. I've been urging headquarters, but they're really struggling."
"...I see."
The Saintess offered no rebuttal to my words, simply nodding quietly.
Doomsday loomed right before us.
Even in such a situation, the Saintess didn't die. Not just this regression— she always survived until the very last day, to the point where "invariably" fit.
It wasn't quite obsession with life.
She imposed a duty to live upon herself.
"Could you make me one cup of coffee?"
"Certainly."
I fetched the last of the beans, milk, and sugar, brewing a coffee as close as possible to bagged coffee.
This— the store manager personally brewing coffee— was how we at the 6th International treated our regular customers.
Naturally, we had to provide such service to our store's very first regular.
"......"
"......"
While drinking the coffee, the Saintess said nothing. She simply gazed with pitch-black eyes at the counter behind me, the store shelves, and the world beyond the glass.
Her gaze lingered longest on the bill cases.
"That was good. Here's your change."
What she offered was a 50,000-won bill.
"No need for change. I'll come again."
The back read [Your first customer.]
That day marked the last time an awakener visited the convenience store.
At midnight, I closed the shop and headed to the Han River bank.
The Milky Way stretched across the night sky. Red. Green. Purple. The galaxy gaped like a long-torn lip, countless stars twinkling as if ready to pour down.
And pour down they did.
The gate that guilds like Three Thousand Worlds had desperately tried to seal was now fully open, spilling calamity made of starlight onto the earth.
An event that invariably struck in Gyeongsangnam-do in the 7th year of regression, and in Seoul in the 12th. The so-called Meteor Strike.
"This regression ends with the Meteor Ending, then."
I sat on a riverside mound, looking up at the sky.
I could survive by dodging it, but surviving alone like that left nothing to do in this regression.
There was plenty for the next one.
*Not a bad vacation.*
I opened my smartphone.
While waiting for the stars to fall, I swiped through the saved photos.
I'd never had the habit of taking photos. More precisely, living as a regressor had killed the habit. Photos preserve memories, but they couldn't for me.
Yet even knowing they'd vanish anyway, I couldn't help taking these.
[This place has great coffee. Three Thousand Worlds, Dang Seo-rin]
[Yuldo Nation's Sword Marquis]
[Thanks, had a great time. Lee Joo-ho.]
[Sincere thanks. But no matter how I think about it, the store name and clerk T-shirts are weird. Store manager, are you in the Red Army Faction? From Uehara Shino.]
[Off on our school trip! Baekhwa Girls' High School♡ May our love span a thousand miles forever - by Cheon Yo-hwa]
[The road here is so inconvenient. Nearly died carrying this wine bottle. - NDH]
[6th International, fighting! - Sim A-ryeon]
[Would've been GOAT if you'd sold me just one carton of smokes... Y]
.
.
.
[Your first customer.]
My lips curled up unwittingly.
Why I'd accepted the regressor's life, who I wanted to help, why I wanted to help— the volume of those reasons welled up in my heart more vividly than ever.
Twelve years seemed enough time to nourish a regressor's life.
Of course, in another hundred years, I'd need another vacation.
*Wait. But isn't the Meteor Ending feeling a bit old-school?*
The whole world drowned in starlight.
Regression time.
That day, I retired as the 12th-year convenience store manager and returned to active duty as a regressor.
- Internationalist. End.