Chapter 187
Chapter 187
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 187
Chapter Title: Do You Still Want to Be Born?
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"Does it hurt?"
The monster spoke to the fetus.
"Even like this, do you still want to be born?"
A voice that seemed gentle at first glance.
That alone was quite bizarre. After all, every pose taken by monsters was nothing more than an awkward imitation.
Yet this monster was pulling off the act of being human with considerable skill.
It had mimicked a human form, imitated a human voice, and copied human mannerisms.
"The outside world is full of lives like this?"
Splash. Without hesitation, the monster plunged its forearm into the amniotic fluid and stirred.
"……!"
The water forming the fetus flickered in a rainbow of colors.
The surface of the water turned into a television screen, and images began to flow across it. Just like film reels spinning in a projector.
Scenes of Jeong Seo-ah's mother in agony.
Sights of her father stressing over running the bakery.
Uncles, aunts, great-uncles, great-aunts, paternal grandparents. All the blood relatives connected to the tiny fetus named Jeong Seo-ah were shown suffering in full detail.
"Hieeek. That's no ordinary footage."
Fairy No. 264 whispered softly beside me.
"That's definitely the misfortune and pain they would have felt 'without dopamine'...! Each color is thick with raw emotion...!"
Birth, aging, sickness, death.
From humanity's most trivial misfortunes to its most devastating ones—all the things normally erased by dopamine were being transferred intact to the fetus.
Once the transfer was complete, the monster shook its hand with a huff.
- Jeong Seo-ah.
- ……
- Even so, do you still want to be born into this world?
Thump.
The heartbeat sustaining the fetus's dream began to weaken. The rhythm slowed, the sound grew faint.
But the beating persisted. Jeong Seo-ah had not yet let go of the will to live that had carried her through 25 weeks.
However, the monster's words were not over.
"Of course, there's a way to avoid that pain."
The monster stroked Jeong Seo-ah.
"You can just take dopamine, too."
The fetus's body shuddered violently.
"Then you can pretend all the misfortune and suffering rampant in the world don't exist. Just like your mother. Just like your father. Just like everyone else living in this world right now."
- ……
"Why should you have to take the bomb? This world's the way it is, but that's not your fault. You were just born. You can just pass it on, too."
Once more.
"But if you do that, you'll be the first generation to know all this and still do it."
Drip, drop.
The volume of water forming the fetus's body shrank as well.
Water droplets fell from the amniotic fluid's surface, like old skin peeling away.
Tears.
The fetus, not yet formed with limbs, knew no other way to cry.
From outside, we inferred that "the fetus's size was gradually shrinking until it vanished entirely."
The truth was different.
The child made of water was simply fading away by shedding tears.
"Yes. Good thinking."
The monster licked a droplet that had fallen from the fetus. It lapped at the water like a hamster in our midst.
"There's no need for you to do it. No reason to bear the unhappiness yourself, or to pass on the guilt knowingly. So...?"
It tilted its head.
The monster, mid-sip of the amniotic fluid, cocked its head.
"This isn't a dream?"
In that instant, the monster's right arm was severed.
A single strike from my sword had cleanly bisected the forearm.
"Ah."
Thud.
The severed arm from midair turned to water and spilled onto the floor.
Only then did the monster, which had taken Jeong Seo-ah's face, glance obliquely at me.
At this point, Fairy No. 264 went "hieeek" and fled somewhere. What a useless thing in a fight.
"……!"
But without sparing the fairy a glance, surprise spread across the monster's face.
Its eyes held the look of recognition, a reaction straight out of a human playbook.
"Undertaker?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"The local big shot around here? I'd have to close up shop if I didn't."
"You're quite the talker for a monster. Your tongue rolls like you actually possess intellect."
"Ahaha."
The monster laughed.
The laugh was spot-on in fidelity. It echoed through the dream's darkness like a pure child's genuine giggle.
"Why? Because I'm human! Of course I have intellect!"
"Oh ho. So you're not a monster, but human?"
"That's right, that's right. Because I—"
The monster spread its arms wide. The arm I'd sliced off had already regenerated.
"We feel pain and misfortune."
Like Michelangelo's Pietà, the monster cradled the fetus.
"More than those fakes out there who no longer feel pain, misfortune, or responsibility—or don't want to—we're the real humans."
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
That logical structure was utterly human.
"You humans cherish and call human only those who are more miserable, more pained, right?"
My family is more unhappy. My situation is more pitiable.
My teacher is scarier, my company harsher, my country more tyrannical.
Competing over depths of misery is something humans love to do—something only humans could do.
Something they once could do.
"You've lost your claim to humanity."
In this dopamine-saturated era, it was what humanity had forfeited.
"Now, we'll become the new humans of this age."
At that moment, I looked at Jeong Seo-ah in the monster's arms and said,
"A world where no one is born?"
"Dream. Reality. Only the layers change."
Indeed.
So the new humanity would unfold in dreams.
In that instant, I felt I understood where the unborn children had gone.
But.
"You're wrong."
I raised my sword and declared,
"Not everyone takes dopamine. So you can't strip them of their humanity."
The monster scowled deeply, as if I'd resorted to wordplay.
"Well, the Sword Marquis's fields and supply chains don't reach all of humanity, so sure. But you know that, right, self-proclaimed monster expert? Talking 'reality' with us holds no meaning..."
"No Do-ha."
The monster froze.
"That one doesn't take dopamine. She's refused it since before knowing about side effects like you."
- ……
"If you know my name, you know about No Do-ha too—and that she doesn't take dopamine. Am I wrong?"
Silent, the monster soon gnashed its teeth.
- ...That one's a freak. An outlier. Can't represent humanity.
"I agree, in a way."
I swung my sword again. The monster's other arm flew off.
"But not the rest. Only she can represent humanity."
And this time, the severed arm did not regenerate.
The monster's argument crumbled before the counterexample of No Do-ha.
"Kuh!"
The monster staggered back, as if to flee.
But this was my dream. Entering was free rein, but leaving? Not so much.
Slash! I immediately unleashed a slash, severing one of its legs. The monster toppled backward mid-stride.
I caught Jeong Seo-ah as the monster looked up at me—both at once.
"H-Hate... it..."
The monster trembled.
"Don't kill me. I don't want to die..."
I'd slain countless monsters—and humans who weren't.
Those with mouths, tongues, and vocal cords often begged for life before my blade.
I never listened. I'd lived long enough to know that being born human and looking human didn't make one human.
Let alone a monster merely mimicking one.
Yet.
"Why."
I found myself asking before I knew it.
"Didn't you just tell Jeong Seo-ah the same? That the world holds only pain and misfortune, bombs passed down from above. So why beg for your life?"
"That was..."
The monster's words trailed off.
Its once eloquent arguments vanished like a lie. Its tongue fell silent. Its expression blanked.
Only its eyes.
The monster's gaze fixed on Jeong Seo-ah in my arms.
I recognized the envy—no, longing—in that look.
"......"
Right.
If the monster had kept spouting fluently, I'd have swung my sword instantly.
But it didn't. I couldn't easily cut down a being that envied life—bearing pain and misfortune, chewing it down without fleeing to easy death.
Especially with some damn old coot doing it all too casually.
But I knew what I had to do.
I knew how to do it.
The feeling would subside. My hand would move. The monster would be exterminated.
In 10 seconds, it would be done.
But.
Even so.
"I have a question."
I sheathed my sword.
"Y-Yeah...?"
"If you claim to be human, I have to ask this."
Jingle-.
A bell rang in the dark space. From the bracelet on my wrist.
A silver bell dangled there.
Showing the monster the very cause of my "Undertaker" moniker, I asked,
"Do you want to escape hell?"
6
Originally, [Time Seal] only activated on humans.
Simple reason: the target had to consent—"Yes, please use that ability on me!"—for it to work.
A sort of contract.
Thus, using [Time Seal] on non-humans was nearly impossible.
Most monsters merely mimicked human thought and language without true understanding.
They couldn't even sign a contract.
But.
"Do you want eternal peace?"
- ……
"I can let you live the happiest day of your life forever. For you, who complained of bearing humanity's misfortunes, imagine how sweet that offer is."
If a monster truly believed itself human.
Even if, through some means, it had come to comprehend human thought and language.
"But in exchange, you'll be forgotten from all human memory. No one will recall your existence."
- ……
"Except me."
If such a monster existed.
It could be sealed in the tombstone of time.
"Ah."
The monster murmured.
"If you retort that even the happiest dream is mere illusion..."
"You yourself said dreams and reality are no different—so that'd contradict your own claim."
"True. Checkmate."
The monster murmured.
"Yeah. Refuse here, and you forfeit being human. Accept, and you're exterminated."
Unblinking.
The monster stared at me.
"Cruel human."
"I merely posed the question."
"Truly cruel."
Humans call it suicide when one kills oneself.
So what do you call a monster that exterminates itself?
Suicide, perhaps.
- ...I've only dreamed unhappy lives till now.
The monster's gaze lifted to the sky.
"I said pain is humanity's condition, but truthfully, I didn't want to be unhappy. I wanted to live experiencing only happiness, like those humans outside."
Gazing at the sky, then down at Jeong Seo-ah in my arms, then at its own form—Jeong Seo-ah grown.
"Now, I want to live happy dreams."
- Because I'm human.
I nodded silently.
Jingle.
As the silver bell rang one last time, the monster wearing Jeong Seo-ah's form exploded entirely.
Its body melted into pitch-black liquid on the floor. Amid the wet floor rose a crystal-clear tombstone.
Yes.
I had witnessed a monster's suicide for the first time.
7
An epilogue.
"Dopamine? What's that?"
As expected, once the monster was [Time Sealed], people lost all memory of dopamine.
Not just memory was lost.
"Dang Seo-rin. Can't you see the rice covering that plain?"
"Huh? What are you talking about? It's just wasteland?"
"......"
People couldn't perceive dopamine at all.
Even if opium rice grew before their eyes, even if refined grains were shoved at them, they saw only empty air.
The fact that no newborns had come in two years was seen as merely "extremely strange."
No one remembered it stemmed from the dopamine chaos. Not the Saintess, not the Sword Marquis.
"How about it, A-ryeon? Doesn't it make you feel suddenly happy?"
"N-No, not at all. Feels the same as always?"
Even more astonishing: force-feeding dopamine to others now had zero effect.
The crop once hailed as humanity's savior, carried and eaten by all.
Now, I alone remembered dopamine.
"Hmm."
Probably, next regression, even the Sword Marquis discovering and bringing dopamine won't happen.
Feeling oddly bittersweet, I brewed tea for No Do-ha and suddenly asked,
"Captain No Do-ha. Say there's food right in front of you—known to have no side effects, at least none reported, that just makes you happy."
"Hot fried chicken...?"
"Whatever...... Would you eat it?"
No Do-ha adjusted her glasses. The dangling chain jingled hysterically.
"God knows what bullshit affliction's got you asking that...... Do others eat it too...?"
"Yes."
"Hmm......"
On her second day of all-nighter, No Do-ha pressed her deep dark circles and said,
"If it were just enough for me, I'd devour it all alone... but if everyone's eating it, well... I probably wouldn't...?"
"Why not? If everyone's eating it."
"Well...... I'm the type whose niche genre sours once it goes mainstream...?"
"Fair enough."
I nodded immediately. Perfectly understandable.
So I couldn't comprehend what happened next.
"Wait, Captain. Why hit someone else's head?"
"You actually bought that bullshit, so I got pissed..."
"It was bullshit?"
"What else...? Fuck, who do you take me for...?"
Shaking her head, No Do-ha set down her teacup and spoke in a far more serious tone.
"If everyone's popping some unknown happiness pill, someone has to skip it to prepare for emergencies, right?"
Hm.
As the one who'd cornered the monster thanks to that, I had nothing to say—but precisely because, I couldn't not ask.
"You'd give up certain happiness now for an uncertain future prep?"
"What the fuck are you saying, you bastard...? Ever since you showed up, my life's summed up by that sentence you just said... No self-awareness...?"
"That, fair enough."
I resolved to brew her tea more often from now on.
8
Second epilogue.
One day, after cleaning up scraps from the lowest layer of the dream-within-dream, I suddenly ascended to the dream's second layer.
That layer's scenery changed every time I slept.
But in one corner, a crystal tombstone always stood.
'Now I'm burying graves even in my dreams.'
I touched the tombstone experimentally.
Normally, fiddling with its surface replayed the sealed human's "happiest day" like virtual reality.
So now, it should replay the dopamine monster's happiest moment—.
Something mildly surprising happened.
"Do you want to escape hell?"
- ……
"Do you want eternal peace?"
In the monster's dream, the scene of me confronting it looped endlessly.
I blinked blankly. Why?
'Ah.'
Of course.
The monster called dopamine had no "happy memories" to begin with. It had lived off human misery until exterminated.
Thus.
- ...I've only dreamed unhappy lives till now.
- Now, I want to live happy dreams.
This was the monster's sole happy memory.
- Because I'm human.
Jingle.
In the dream-within-a-dream, the monster left those as final words and exploded, dying.
Right before death, the monster beamed ear-to-ear.
For this monster, its happiest day was the moment it suicided.
"......"
Watching the monster endlessly repeat its happy suicide in the dream, I had to inwardly admit.
Here was one monster that was human—excessively so.
- Addict. End.