Chapter 212
Chapter 212
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 212
Chapter Title: The Korean with the Easiest Address to Find
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‘Who’s the easiest Korean in the world to find by address?’ If someone asked me that, I’d pick Yoo Ji-won without the slightest hesitation.
If the civilization of the Korean Peninsula is still intact and the presidential system is chugging along just fine? Then Yoo Ji-won lives near the Blue House.
If the Eastern Holy Kingdom has gone to hell and pushed south to found the Sacred Great Empire? Then Yoo Ji-won is right there next to Mo Gwang-seo, reciting a eulogy.
And if former Busan Mayor Jeong Jeong-guk pulls off a miracle by sincerely apologizing to Lee Ha-yul, rallies the Zainichi Koreans, forms a multinational coalition, and successfully returns to Busan—yeah. At that point, Yoo Ji-won would be the first one on the bow of the lead ship arriving off the Busan coast, silver hair whipping in the wind.
In the end, Yoo Ji-won is a living, breathing Yeouido wind vane.
Wherever Yoo Ji-won lives is the modern equivalent of Yeouido, Bukaksan, and Yongsan all in one.
If Yoo Ji-won packs up and moves somewhere, you can take it as a sign that some massive upheaval is about to shake up the power structure on the peninsula. Hell, animals sense earthquakes before they hit and flee, right? She’s the beast of power.
“This is the magic mirror.”
That’s why I could find Yoo Ji-won’s lodgings as naturally as breathing.
It was exactly 11 meters from No Do-ha’s private quarters, the head of the National Highway Management Corps.
“Ah. Have you been here before, by any chance? If you’ve been alone for 2,000 years, you must have visited all sorts of places.”
“No. I’ve seen it with [Clairvoyance], but this is my first time actually coming here.”
The Saintess shook her head.
The interior was pretty stark.
Walls papered with maps both large and small of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, hand-carved chess pieces, an empty armchair by the window.
Aside from the shelf lined with [Romance of the Three Kingdoms] books, there was hardly any decoration in the room at all.
For the record, if you flipped through those [Romance of the Three Kingdoms] books, you’d see thick yellow underlines wherever my favorite characters appeared.
At this point, it was downright creepy. I hope none of you ever get tangled up with a super-high-IQ psychopath on Yoo Ji-won’s level in your lives.
“Honestly, even now, I don’t really feel like I’m seeing it with my own eyes.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“About 1,000 years ago, my vision got stuck in ‘omniscient viewpoint’ mode.”
Ah.
Come to think of it.
“Like controlling units in Starcraft, looking down from above?”
“Wait a second.”
The Saintess let go of my hand, then grabbed it again. In other words, while [Time Stop] was active and I was petrified, she’d zipped off somewhere and come back.
“Yes, something like that.”
“…Did you just not know what Starcraft was, so you paused time and looked it up without me?”
“Undertaker.”
The Saintess spoke calmly.
“Forcing me to understand a metaphor from a game released in 1998 is a bit of a stretch.”
“…….”
She’s supposed to be my age!
We’re supposed to be the same age now!
A sharp sense of betrayal gripped me.
How the hell did a Korean folk game end up with the notoriety of “wrong Starcraft”? Why not make fun of yutnori as “wrong play” while you’re at it.
A nation that forgets its history and traditions has no tomorrow. There’s a reason the Korean Peninsula’s civilization collapsed.
“And unlike you, previous Undertaker, my memory isn’t that good, so I forgot the name of the game over a thousand years ago.”
“Ah. Sorry. I sometimes fail to consider other people’s perspectives because of my memory.”
“It’s fine. Anyway, that’s why it’s a little hard for me to make eye contact with you even now, Undertaker.”
“…….”
“I don’t think I’ll get used to it.”
Turn 107.
Even back when she’d fallen as an Executor, the Saintess had said the exact same thing.
‘…That’s why she avoided exchanging glances and kept insisting on pressing our bodies together while holding hands.’
A state where she couldn’t check her own position visually. An omniscient viewpoint looking down equally on herself and everyone else.
That’s why the Saintess clung even more to her sense of touch.
The feel of skin against skin was the only proof she had that she was still alive on this earth.
‘Mm. Good call hugging her, then.’
Still holding the Saintess in a princess carry, I used my aura alone to tear apart the blanket draped over the magic mirror.
A smooth full-length mirror was revealed.
In a normal turn, the mirror would’ve greeted my reflection with “Why don’t you drop dead right now?” the moment it saw my face—but.
“You think this mirror is a gateway to the ‘backside world,’ right, Undertaker?”
“Yes. But with time stopped, it can’t perceive us.”
Surprisingly, neither I nor the Saintess was reflected on the mirror’s surface.
It felt like we’d suddenly become vampires.
I pressed my palm against the mirror experimentally. No reaction. My hand didn’t pass through or anything.
“Could you undo the time stop for a bit? Two seconds at most is enough. Put your hand on the mirror with me.”
“Okay.”
The moment the Saintess closed her eyes.
-Drop dead right now.
The mirror spat out its auto-reply the instant time resumed flowing. Our reflections properly appeared on the surface too.
But even with our palms pressed side by side against it, our bodies still couldn’t pass through to the other side.
‘A failure, huh.’
Two seconds later, time stopped again.
It looked like nothing had come of it, but I wasn’t disappointed. When dealing with anomalies, you have to try every method in the book.
“Saintess, could you fetch Fairy No. 264 from the tutorial and Yoo Ji-won?”
“Sure.”
The next instant—after she’d let go of my hand for just a moment—Fairy No. 264 and Yoo Ji-won were suddenly lying at my feet.
“I’m back.”
“Great wor……?”
And it was only then that I noticed something so obvious.
‘Hold on. The Saintess is still in my arms. So that means… she got down from my arms, went outside, grabbed them, climbed back up my arm like a ladder, and then took my hand again?’
“……?”
As I stared down at her, the Saintess tilted her head with a blank which was her default).
A 1920s Disney-style short cartoon started playing in my head.
The Saintess letting go of my hand impassively, the Saintess hopping down from my arm yop-yop, the Saintess returning with the fairy and Yoo Ji-won in tow, the Saintess ladder-climbing up my arm and grabbing my hand again.
“What’s wrong, Undertaker?”
“…Nothing. Anyway, have the fairy hold hands too and undo the time stop.”
“Okay.”
0.1 seconds later.
“Hokkieeeek!”
Freed from temporal petrification, the fairy went into convulsions, screaming her head off.
“Wh-what the hell is this?! I can’t breathe……! No, it’s like my very existence is getting slathered in white in real time……! Phek! Such a blasphemous taste! Blasphemous squish-squish! The fairy’s dying! Hok! I’m dying! I’m dead……!”
“Here. I’ll protect you with aura.”
“Ah. It suddenly feels comfy. The fairy lives.”
The fairy, whose eyes looked ready to pop out, shook her head sleepily.
“Hiet. Comrade Secretary-General. What is this counter-revolutionary entity? Just being in the same space makes me feel like I’ll be crushed into fairy-death…….”
“She’s a collaborator, appearances notwithstanding. Treat her with respect.”
“Hoee. Are you sane, comrade? It felt like this when I heard the old Iron Secretary-General had signed a non-aggression pact with some art school hopeful.”
“Then you know what the Secretary-General’s specialty is. Want me to call someone else?”
“Hiek! Not the purges, please……! I pledge eternal loyalty to you, Comrade Secretary-General!”
I explained the situation roughly.
“So, you need to set up a dream. First off, see this silver-haired human? We’re going into her dream.”
“Hoee.”
“The dream setting should be exactly like this room we’re in now. Especially the mirror—make sure it’s there.”
“Got it……. But are you really planning to enter the dream with this entity?”
The fairy kept glancing at the Saintess, sweating bullets. If this were a comic, there’d be a speech bubble saying “perception…”
“Yeah.”
“But comrade, the moment we bring this entity into the dream, my mental state turns into 120% charcoal-toasted despair!”
“I’ll protect you as best I can. Finish the job, and I’ll give you 100 portions of General Goryeo Jang’s pork ribs.”
“Only the brave win the beauty!”
We entered Yoo Ji-won’s dream while listening to the dream demon’s lullaby.
In the dream, Yoo Ji-won was frozen sitting by the window. The Saintess’s [Time Stop] worked in dreams too.
The Saintess paused her power.
“…Hm?”
Blink. Yoo Ji-won opened her eyes.
“Excellency Undertaker? And even Lady Saintess? To what do I owe the visit to my private quarters?”
“This is a dream, Ji-won.”
“Pardon?”
“See the tutorial fairy over there? We rode the dream demon’s lullaby into your dream.”
“Hm? Oh? Uh-hm? …Oh ho.”
Yoo Ji-won looked around in wonder.
“As expected of Excellency Undertaker. An Awakener of your caliber can freely enter anyone’s dreams. No matter how much a sycophantic villain prattles in the waking world, they can’t hide their true nature in dreams before your brilliant, righteous gaze. Who would dare?”
“Hide yours, for god’s sake.”
“If Your Excellency has graced my dream, there must be an urgent reason. How may I assist?”
This woman knew exactly how to deflect when talking to me.
“For now, come look at the magic mirror with me.”
“Understood.”
The power-oriented psychopath walked over without raising a single question and flung aside the mirror’s curtain.
Me, the Saintess, Yoo Ji-won, the fairy. As our four reflections appeared on the surface, the mirror cramped up instantly.
-Drop dead right now.
-Drop dead right now.
The mirror wailed its ARS message like its panic button had been mashed.
“Now.”
“Yes.”
As the Saintess and I reached out simultaneously.
-Drop dead right n…….
Crash.
With the light sound of shattering glass, our two wrists passed “into” the mirror.
It wasn’t that we’d broken the glass. The surface was intact.
It had just rung out with the sound of breaking.
“……!”
The Saintess’s transparent aura flared up briefly.
An expression of surprise.
She’d lost the ability to show emotions through her eyes and facial muscles—this was her unique language.
The invisible, delicate expression of transparent aura, that lonely foreign tongue—only I could understand it.
So instead of speaking to the Saintess, I extended my own aura to draw hers in. I matched my sentences to her grammar.
‘Shall we go, Saintess?’
‘Yes, Undertaker.’
The language of silence.
Still hand in hand, I took the first step into the mirror, and the Saintess followed half a step behind with another half step.
Crash.
Crash.
Crash!
Just crossing the eyelid-width of the mirror, the sound of shattering glass echoed endlessly.
Probably the noise of the alien god detecting intruders in its domain and thrashing about.
But the moment the Saintess followed me in and stopped time again.
Crash――.
Even the sound of breaking glass held its breath.
I looked up. We were standing hand in hand right in the middle of Seoul Station.
Hundreds of pedestrians were all petrified. The world was painted in grayscale, like an old black-and-white film.
The Saintess’s power had enveloped the backside world.
I smiled.
“Success.”
At the center of the sky hung an alien god.
In the zenith where the sun should have been, the goddess of night Nut floated with her eyes wide open, perfectly “stopped.”