Chapter 186
Chapter 186
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 186
Chapter Title: Birth Rate 0%
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4
Birth rate 0%.
Even survivors from South Korea had never witnessed such an unprecedented crisis. The policy I proposed was simple.
-Use a dream demon to enter the fetus's dream.
-Exterminate the mysterious monstrosity lurking there.
It was arguably the most practical low birth rate countermeasure ever proposed on the Korean Peninsula. However, even this one couldn't avoid creaking right from the first step.
For starters, Fairy No. 264, dramatically appointed as a low birth rate advisory committee member, was the first to voice her objections.
"Hieeek. Secretary-General Comrade. For a fully grown adult—a total stranger, no less—to enter a fetus's dream is an insanely reckless thing to do!"
"…That difficult, huh?"
"Hoe. Of course!"
As befitting an expert selected for the advisory committee, Fairy No. 264 wore an expression that said, 'How can a person not know something this basic?'
"The fetus's world is mostly made up of 'sounds'! The dual melody of the mother's high notes and the father's low tones, the rhythm of the heartbeat, the dissonance from the digestive organs… And then there's the mystical light and shadow! It's really just the parents turning the room light on and off, but to the fetus, it's twilight and darkness where the sun and moon take turns dancing. The feel of water. Scents. The fetus's world, the fetus's dream—it's all made of nothing but these!"
"Hardly any visual information."
"Yes! That's the big problem!"
The revolutionary cadre bobbed her head emphatically while using some foreign lingo. Quite realistic.
"The fetus's world is composed of sound for 80%, no, over 90%! Meanwhile, for a fully grown human like you, Secretary-General Comrade, visuals make up over 80%! It's practically a different species!"
"Still, it's something we must accomplish. There has to be a way."
"If you want to enter the dream and immediately disintegrate into a three-quarter-beat noise, I won't stop you?"
"Urgh…"
As I let out a groan, Fairy No. 264 added with a "hoe."
"But if it's someone whose voice the baby is familiar with, the success rate skyrockets. Like from 3% to 9%?"
"Someone whose voice the baby is familiar with?"
"It's way easier to connect to the baby's dream if it's the mother or father! In other words, your own child would double the success rate event!"
Twitch-.
In that instant, the atmosphere in the meeting room shifted.
I could sense the change in the air. Everyone present perked up their ears, focusing intently on our conversation.
…I had promised O Dok-seo never to use [Telepathy] on her again, but this time, it was hard to hold back.
I promptly closed one eye to activate 'Gungye-jil'. Oh, I haven't described it, but closing my left eye makes telepathy work better.
[Cheon Yo-hwa: Whoa. That dream demon just asked the taboo question everyone was curious about but no one dared to voice…]
[Seo-gyu: I am curious. Bro's a regressor who's lived hundreds of rounds—has he really never had kids? Never even married?]
[Dang Seo-rin: Gotta keep my face focused on savoring this coffee. Yeah, delicious.]
[Sword Marquis: Mount Hua is number one.]
[Sim A-ryeon: The Guild Leader's kid would be so cute.]
[No Do-ha: Oh? Closing one eye? That bastard's using telepathy, isn't he…?]
I immediately turned off telepathy and rubbed my left eye vigorously, pretending I'd just blinked because of some dust.
Even so, No Do-ha kept shooting me suspicious glances, but I smoothly changed the subject as if nothing had happened.
"Having a child solely for the purpose of slaying that monstrosity would be an insult to the child. How about this instead?"
"Hoe. What method?"
"Rather than me entering the fetus's dream, invite the fetus into my dream instead. That should work, right?"
"…!"
Fairy No. 264 bounced up from her seat, her butt jumping in excitement.
"Hoeek! As expected of the Secretary-General Comrade! What a brilliant decision! That pushes the success rate straight past 50%!"
From various corners of the meeting room came soft sounds of disappointment and frustration: 'Aw', 'Tch', 'Tsk', 'Haa'.
I was getting fed up. Is a human's curiosity about another man's love life really on the level of instinct?
"Alright. Instead of just dragging them into the dream willy-nilly, let's decorate my dream to match the fetus's environment as much as possible. Make it dark like you said, fill it with the scent of water, layer in natural white noise."
"Success rate breaks 90%! Secretary-General Comrade, you're a genius…!"
The project's outline took shape.
All that remained was to find a collaborator—namely, a pregnant mother. And that was resolved quickly.
"What kind of monstrosity bastard dares kidnap my baby? I'll cooperate. Hell, go ahead and chew its limbs to bits."
"Right, Undertaker! Dissect it completely!"
"……."
Apocalypse survivors were tough by nature. Especially the Busan citizens who watched Dang Seo-rin's weekly monstrosity disassembly show live—their spirit was nothing short of majestic.
There were 49 volunteers in total.
The one selected was the most advanced in pregnancy.
At Fairy No. 264's request.
"Hoe. The fetus's brain needs to be developed enough to dream!"
A perfectly valid point.
Nowadays, fetuses stopped developing from as early as 8 weeks, and by 10 to 30 weeks at latest, they 'vanished' completely.
The final selectee was at 25 weeks.
Yet her belly wasn't even bulging—there was no visible difference from before pregnancy.
The baby could be kidnapped at any moment, which made the mother's anger and anxiety toward the monstrosity all the more urgent.
There was another reason for her selection.
"If the baby is born, I plan to name her Seo-ah."
Jeong Seo-ah.
You might remember her. From a very old regression cycle, the little future chef at Haeundae Beach who hand-fed me a sugar donut.
Her personality and appearance varied slightly each cycle. Even her gender changed. But her identity as the bakery owner's kid was always the same.
Yes. The 'Jeong Seo-ah' I knew and the 'Jeong Seo-ah' to be born this cycle would be similar yet different.
But what did it matter?
Every child carves out their own life in the gap between adults' knowledge and the unknown.
I didn't want to watch this child get kidnapped by a monstrosity.
"Now, sit side by side! Time to sing the lullaby to enter the dream properly!"
Preparations were complete.
36 fairies formed a circle, holding hands. I shook their hands with my right, the mother with her left.
Then the fairies chorused in unison.
"Mommy's gone to the shade-♪"
"To cut some wood-♪"
"Baby's left alone- and poops♪"
"……."
Are you guys still insisting that ridiculous song is a lullaby?
Right after common sense vanished, my consciousness plunged into the floor.
5
We had agreed in advance with the fairies: don't go down to the excessively deep unconscious.
As everyone knows, the underground bedrock has become the territory of 'That One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken'.
To put it purely in terms of feel, the unconscious realm inhabited by the 'pink entity' is basement level 13. The unconscious I descended to this time was merely basement level 2 at best.
-Thump.
Even that was plenty to mimic the fetus's mental image for interior decorating.
-Thump. Thump. Thump.
There was only darkness there.
But it wasn't silent darkness, nor a bland black background. The darkness was sound.
The world was growling softly.
To humans, the heart was never a visible diagram but a sound—a ripple echoing faintly in water.
"I can't see a thing."
"Of course! Babies haven't seen anything yet! The world behind closed eyelids is all the visual they know."
"No wonder prophets in myths always show up having lost both eyes. To experience the primordial world, you have to discern by sound."
"Shh. There's the baby!"
Fairy No. 264, holding my left hand, pointed to one side of the darkness.
I saw it.
-…….
My five senses reinterpreted 'the world as the baby perceives it' into full visual data.
And it was astonishing.
"That's… just water, isn't it?"
In the midst of the darkness, water floated, wriggling.
No limbs visible. No head. Something like a long tentacle squirmed inside the water… The umbilical cord, maybe?
No matter how you looked at it, it was less human and more undine aspirant—nothing more, nothing less.
"Yes. It's water?"
"…No. Where's the baby quietly curled up, and why is there a giant fluid-type slime instead?"
"Tsk tsk tsk. Secretary-General Comrade. That's adult thinking."
This kid's really asking for a knuckle rap.
"Adults distinguish between fetus and amniotic fluid—'this is human, that's liquid'—but to the fetus, amniotic fluid is no different from part of their own body! They've been together since the beginning, so of course!"
"Oh."
"Human scholars interpret the pain of birth as mere separation from the umbilical cord or mother, but more fundamentally, it's losing 'water'—the most primal 'skin'! Mammals are horrifying creatures that get their skin stripped off at birth…."
Fairy No. 264 shuddered.
'No, that's a pretty intriguing perspective.'
So, a significant part of the pain humans experience at birth was the 'loss of water', the 'loss of body'.
Or, another way: babies who were originally 'water spirits' being forcibly turned into 'humans'.
But right now, there was no time to ponder such anthropological musings.
"Secretary-General Comrade! Monstrosity appearing!"
"……!"
The culprit behind the Korean Peninsula's zero birth rate era had finally shown itself.
Splash splash-.
The monstrosity approached lightly from the other side of the darkness. And upon seeing it, my eyes widened.
Jeong Seo-ah.
A monstrosity that looked eerily similar to the form the fetus would grow into someday was walking toward the fetus.
-Haa. Yesterday was tough too.
Flop.
The 'grown Jeong Seo-ah' sat down beside the 'yet-to-be-born Jeong Seo-ah'.
-Hey. I think Mom finally heard the news. If this keeps up, I might not even be born.
-…….
The monstrosity mimicking Jeong Seo-ah whispered to the fetus in a bizarre voice and eerie speech.
-Our dad died last month going into the Void, right? So Mom thinks I'm the only thing he left behind. Now that even I might disappear, she's in agony. She even took that dopamine stuff.
-…….
-It's not just Mom. Dad was scarfing down dopamine rice pizza every day until he vanished. Uncle too. Aunt too. Great-great-aunt from the Gojong line too. Don't forget the two great-grandpas. Thanks to that damn dopamine, they all lived long, healthy, happy lives.
-…….
-So… now it's my turn?
Splash.
Jeong Seo-ah plunged her hand into the sleeping surface of the water-formed fetus.
Then, a sinister 'black' unlike the serene darkness enveloping this dream world contaminated the fetus's water.
-……! ……!
The amniotic fluid turned murky black.
The fetus, not yet knowing how to scream, simply thrashed the water's surface violently to express its pain.
'Ah.'
Only then did I realize the true nature of dopamine.
How it had kept people purely happy without side effects until now.
The side effects hadn't vanished.
Nor had the unhappiness.
They'd merely been transferred and deferred—to 'other people'.
Namely, to children not yet born.
In other words, to the 'next generation' sharing their bloodline.