Chapter 204
Chapter 204
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 204
Chapter Title: The Eternal 24-Hour Hell
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1
This story begins in a certain nightmare.
"Undertaker! Hey, Undertaker sir!"
In the dream, someone grabbed my shoulder and shook it violently.
When I looked closely, who else could it be but the soccer player Kim Joo-cheol.
A fullback by trade. His nickname during his playing days was Iron Wall.
Once a promising pro, he lost his family to a gambling addiction.
Far in the future, he reunited with his son, but having already been hit with my [Time Seal], he lost even the chance to apologize to his child forever.
That man, now erased from reality, appeared in my dream, sweating profusely.
"Please, just help me out! Huh? Save me, please!"
"Wait. Calm down. What's going on?"
"Get me out of this hell! I'll beg you! Please, get me out of this eternally repeating 24-hour hell!"
At that moment, I thought.
'Ah. Just a normal nightmare, then.'
The number of people I'd erased using [Time Seal] had reached a whopping 500,000.
Even I, the Undertaker—a mental powerhouse who prided myself on unmatched resilience—still carried guilt over that.
That burden of conscience was one of the two reasons I considered myself better than Adolf Hitler.
(The other, of course, being my drawing skills.)
"Mr. Kim Joo-cheol. This is a dream. What you're repeating can be called a dream too, sir."
"A nightmare!"
"Yes. It's a condensed version of our lives, but aren't you dreaming of your happiest day? In a way, it's better than real life. You yourself agreed to..."
"No! No way! I never agreed!"
Kim Joo-cheol screamed.
"Because you said that after 24 hours, I'd forget the day's memories and live the day over again!"
"Yes. That's right."
"But it's different! I'm repeating the 24 hours over and over! Perfectly intact! Yesterday, the day before, the day before that! I've been living the same day for 40 days already!"
"...Pardon?"
This was a new kind of nightmare.
"Save me, sir. Please save me. No matter how much I tell people the day is repeating, they don't believe me! Even if they do, it resets after 24 hours! It's hell! This is hell."
Kim Joo-cheol kept spitting as he spoke. The breath, the angle and density of the spittle—it all came back with dreamlike clarity.
"So... Mr. Kim Joo-cheol. Normally, you'd only retain one day's memories, but for some reason, your memories are continuing now. Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes! Exactly! That's what I've been saying! ...Ah, oh, it's coming. It's coming again!"
It's coming?
Kim Joo-cheol suddenly whipped his head around, trembling violently. He must have been the type to bluff back in the day, but now he was clearly terrified.
"Calm down. Explain slowly. Maybe some anomaly has intervened in your situation..."
"That one is comingggg!"
Kim Joo-cheol's scream echoed across the neighborhood, clung to the top of the building, hung from the ceiling of the sky.
Then the sky shook.
The sun's outline melted, red bloody light from it suddenly formed a sunset, and where the lava passed, night descended.
In a mere five seconds or so.
It was an anomaly.
One I knew well, at that.
'The Goddess of Night, Nut?'
One of the world-ending scenarios.
The horizon narrows bit by bit, the world is completely shrouded in night, and eventually all existence vanishes into nothingness.
In the 53rd round, when I worked as an assistant under No Do-ha's Workshop Master, the world had ended by Nut as well.
A being that could melt even the sun and moon—it was undoubtedly a terrifying powerhouse. At least ocean-class, for sure.
And yet, I'd never treated Nut as important in my tales.
Why? Simple reason.
'This guy's just a finisher, right?'
An anomaly that only went for the killing blow!
It never stepped up on its own to trigger world destruction, not even once.
Only when monster waves had already devoured the land, or meteor showers had rained down everywhere and humanity was on the brink of extinction, or the World Tree Udumbara had fully bloomed and covered the skies—
In short, only at the 'moment when world destruction was already certain' did Nut finally appear.
Different from a long-term camper like All-Phenomena Amuser. At least that one distributed games itself to end the world.
Nut was truly only serious about the finisher.
Conversely, when the world wasn't particularly on the verge of destruction and was cruising along, it was an anomaly with zero need to worry about.
'But why has this guy suddenly shown up in my dream?'
Splash—
Regardless of my doubts, the Goddess of Night swiftly dyed the world into a night sky.
The buildings spread out in the dream were all sliced by the sharp darkness of the night sky and plummeted into the abyss. Nothing was visible.
"Aaah! Ah, aaaaah!"
Kim Joo-cheol now hugged not just my shoulder but my whole torso, wailing.
"I don't wanna get eaten! S-save me! I don't wanna fall into hell! Save meee—"
That scream didn't last long.
Crash—
With the sound of shattering glass, the darkness of the night sky engulfed Kim Joo-cheol's neck.
Kim Joo-cheol couldn't even scream. No blood spurted from the severed part. The space devoured by Nut simply turned into 'empty darkness.'
I alone remained in the hollow world.
A familiar sensation. A familiar sight.
"......"
Hating that, the me in the dream closed my eyes.
At the same time, the real me lifted my eyelids.
The nightmare ended as the weight of Kim Joo-cheol's headless body slumped onto my chest.
"......"
"Ah. Mr. Undertaker, you're awake?"
The Saintess's voice reached me.
I turned my head. Yongsan House. I was lying on the sofa in the Saintess's home, decorated like an aquarium.
I brushed aside the pillow on my chest and sat up. We'd been studying together yesterday, and it got too late, so I'd crashed there briefly.
"Wait just a bit. I'll make you some morning coffee. I always just receive from you, so this time I want to treat you."
"...Thank you."
The shadows of fish swimming in the tank rippled faintly up to my forearm.
I sipped the coffee the Saintess brewed (instant, the golden-packaged kind) and opened my mouth.
"Saintess."
"Yes?"
"There's something I want to consult you about."
She tilted her head.
The Saintess's water-like hair tilted with it.
2
"I see. An anomaly that normally only appears at the moment of world destruction suddenly showed up in Mr. Undertaker's dream..."
"Yes. I'm curious what this portends."
"Hmm..."
After hearing my full explanation, the Saintess rested her chin on her hand.
This was the 267th round now.
When it came to anomalies, past or present, the Saintess was always my best consultation partner.
After all, the 'Saint' before me—who monitored Korea's Awakeners 24/7—had encountered more anomalies than anyone except me.
Accordingly, she didn't dismiss it with something like 'Isn't it just a random dream?' She knew well that dreams were the void closest to humanity.
"I don't know exactly what it signifies for an anomaly to appear in a dream. I've never experienced it myself. But listening to your story, Mr. Undertaker, it touches on something that's been bothering me for a while."
"What is it? Please speak freely."
"...If it's just my overactive imagination, it'll be quite embarrassing."
The Saintess took a small breath.
"Could it perhaps be... because of me?"
I blinked.
"Pardon?"
"...As you know, Mr. Undertaker, the Saint system we've built is also a highly advanced 'anomaly surveillance system.' If an Awakener contacts a dangerous anomaly, visual info comes straight to me, and I pass it right to you."
"Correct."
I nodded.
Thanks to the Saint's grace, I could receive 'emergency disaster alerts' and rush to disaster zones immediately.
Unlike most Regressors obsessed with individualism and elitism, I, the Undertaker, was a system advocate too. And I prided myself on building a damn good one.
"And wouldn't that be a huge inconvenience for the anomalies?"
"From the anomalies' perspective...?"
"Yes. Reality is too unfavorable for anomalies. But dreams are different. Even if I observe sleeping Awakeners with [Clairvoyance], it's just pitch-black darkness behind their eyelids."
"......!"
It felt like a light smack to the back of my head. A perspective I'd never considered.
"You're saying anomalies are fleeing into dreams to escape the Saintess's [Clairvoyance]?"
"Perhaps. More precisely, avoiding our alliance. The moment they're spotted by me, you find out, so from their view, we feel like one entity."
"Oh..."
"Of course, anomalies don't have human-like intelligence to purposefully 'flee into dreams.' But as a result, some anomalies might thrive more in dreams than reality. Like living creatures."
I rested my chin on my hand.
It made... sense!
So, suppose there's an anomaly 'A.'
A can act in both reality and dreams. Like the Tutorial Fairy or Go Yo-ri.
Now, from A's perspective.
▷ Reality
: Kill a human, and soon after, a terrifyingly strong bastard (me) shows up for punishment. Countermeasures against it are shared on the virtual hub (SG Net).
▷ Dream
: Roam freely without dying. Sure, if you sink too deep into the subconscious, a scary big sis (Go Yo-ri) appears, but aside from that, relatively safe.
A definite appearance by the Undertaker? Or Go Yo-ri, who you can avoid with enough care?
Faced with that choice, any rational A would pick 'dream'—no question.
That was the Saintess's hypothesis.
"To put it better, anomalies content with reality are naturally nearing extinction."
"...Indeed. A form of natural selection, then."
"Yes."
The Saintess added,
"From the anomalies' view, Mr. Undertaker, you're not just one human. You're a 'force of nature.' An evolutionary pressure that can drive them to extinction."
"......"
"Just as anomalies were to us humans, maybe you're that to them."
Should I like this or not?
Pride that as a Regressor, I hadn't wasted my life—and disgust at anomalies now slinking into dreams to multiply despite all that.
Feeling conflicting emotions, I set down my coffee cup.
"Thank you. That was a truly insightful hypothesis. I'll keep your words in mind and investigate this anomaly."
"You're going to check that Mr. Kim Joo-cheol's crystal tombstone?"
"Yes. It's in Busan, so I'll take the Inunaki Tunnel."
"I'll go with you."
Before I could reply, I blinked, and the Saintess's outfit had already changed.
Just 0.1 seconds ago, she'd been in comfy t-shirts. Now she was geared in an outing longcoat.
A backpack for void exploration, her signature hand axes dangling—all equipped.
The Saintess's trademark. She'd stopped time and changed in an instant.
With a straight face, she said,
"I've always been very interested in your [Time Seal] ability, Mr. Undertaker. I want to see the scenery inside the tombstone this time too."
Her unyielding tone brooked no refusal, and I found myself chuckling despite myself.
"Yes. I'd be happy to guide you."
The graveyard I'd created in the past.
A personal hell I'd never revealed to any guild member—we headed there together.