Chapter 215
Chapter 215
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 215
Chapter Title: Novels Differ from Illustrations
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1
Novels are different from illustrations.
It might sound like an obvious statement, but from my perspective, this difference is surprisingly important.
For example, Lee Ha-yul.
She's living with me in the Inunaki Tunnel, which I've converted into my hideout. Almost always, except during vacation rounds.
Compared to the other members, Lee Ha-yul's attendance rate was overwhelmingly high.
"Ah, sorry, boss. I have a bit of a deep-sea phobia, so living deep inside the Inunaki Tunnel is kinda... If it bursts, you'd drown right away."
Seo-gyu tried to stay near the National Highway Management Corps headquarters as much as possible.
"I-I'm the National Mother of the Eastern Divine Holy Kingdom."
Sim A-ryeon spent a lot of time working as a saintess up north, so she surprisingly rarely showed up at the hideout.
O Dok-seo was a new recruit who joined after the 555th round. She lacked experience.
On the other hand, Lee Ha-yul always claimed the best spot in the hideout, no matter the time or place.
Yet in my tales, Ha-yul didn't appear as often as you'd think. Why?
There was a sad reason for that.
For instance.
"...Ah. This coffee is really delicious."
"Isn't it? I picked three kinds of instant coffee packets that the Saintess likes, blended them, and added exactly one spoon of cinnamon powder. This is the Saintess's favorite coffee."
"...Hey. Undertaker. If you've reached that level, can you even call it instant coffee anymore? Though it is delicious."
Imagine the Saintess and I having this conversation in the hideout cafe at a depth of 1,200 meters.
But this is a novel.
If we strip away the novel's filtering and express it more visually, the truth was like this.
"...Ah. This coffee is really delicious."
"Isn't it?"
(Lee Ha-yul silently holding up instant coffee packets like dual swords by my side.jpg)
"I picked three kinds of instant coffee packets that the Saintess likes, blended them, and added exactly one spoon of cinnamon powder. This is the Saintess's favorite coffee."
(Ha-yul gripping the dual packets and rhythmically tapping my back, immersing herself in the jazz band Dreamer's Whip Lash.jpg)
"...Hey. Undertaker. If you've reached that level, can you even call it instant coffee anymore?"
(Then failing to control her aura, causing the packet to pop! and spilling coffee mix all over my barista outfit.jpg)
"Though it is delicious."
(Ha-yul, this spinning-top kid, wriggling with her head gripped in my hand.jpg)
What a different scene this is.
That's right.
As you all know, Lee Ha-yul was born with a speech impediment. So she usually carried a maid-doll that spoke for her.
But when it was just the two of us, or when she was messing with me, she'd come alone and stage a full-on 'silent protest.'
I just didn't describe it to you readers, but Ha-yul pulled stunts like this next to me in the hideout about 80% of the time.
Why only when we're alone, leaving the maid behind?
'Ow. It hurts. Hurts, oppa. Skull in danger.'
Because this kid could write on my back in real-time using her aura.
And I have exceptional ability to read aura, so I could understand what she was saying right away.
"You can take a little pain."
'Ow! Anti-violence. Anti-violence.'
"...The Undertaker and Ha-yul are really close. Like siblings with a big age gap."
Anyway.
In this way, Lee Ha-yul was always forcing you readers of my tales into a game of hidden pictures.
Ha-yul had all sorts of ways to communicate with me. Writing on my back, vibrating aura to speak in a Voiceloid-like tone, tapping Morse code into my palm...
And after getting a thorough scalp massage from me, Ha-yul scurried behind the Saintess and pulled out a sketchbook.
This is what was written in the sketchbook.
[Sun] [Name] [Sun]
?
[The Undertaker is a monster] [Regressor monster confirmed] [You empty you wave] [When you gaze into the void, the void also gazes into you] [This regressor has no memories before the 4th round] [So what guarantee is there that a monster didn't suddenly appear starting from the 4th round?] [Korean Peninsula entrusting humanity's defense and fate to a monster] [Is this really okay?]
....
[Rock] [Me] [Rock] [Me] [Rock] [Me]
[Great] [Monster] [Lee] [Under] [Taker]
[Sun] [Name] [Sun] [Sun] [Name] [Sun]
For reference, the sketchbook pages flipped by at a rate of 0.3 seconds per page.
Without my highly developed aura-enhanced eyes, I wouldn't have seen a thing.
"......? Undertaker, is something wrong?"
As the Saintess sensed something off and turned around, craftily, Ha-yul timed it perfectly to show a portrait she'd drawn.
It was an illustration of me solemnly brewing coffee. Thanks to learning art from Sim A-ryeon, Ha-yul could draw pretty well.
"Ah. That's a really cool drawing."
"......"
"By the way, Undertaker. Could you tell me the three products you mixed into my coffee earlier and the ratios?"
The moment the Saintess turned back, Ha-yul flipped to the next page as if she'd been waiting.
(The regressor monster Undertaker wearing a monster doll costume, spewing pitch-black aura like coffee—Kwaoooo!—defeating No Do-ha, Dang Seo-rin, Sim A-ryeon, and other Korean awakeners, destroying Busan.jpg)
This kid...
She knew that when drinking coffee in my cafe, the Saintess temporarily paused [Clairvoyance] and [Telepathy] for a break.
"Hmm."
But setting aside Ha-yul's ill-mannered personality, her point was valid.
The so-called [Regressor Monster Theory].
As I once told you, I have no memories of my family. The memories before the 4th round are too distant and faded.
That wasn't the only reason.
'Even in rounds where I became quite famous and people who should know me did, no acquaintances ever came looking for me.'
Not even distant relatives.
Not even friends from the same neighborhood.
I had none of those.
Very occasionally, the 'class reunion monster' would call saying there's a gathering this time, come out—but I can't call that an acquaintance.
Oh, for reference, the way to deal with the class reunion monster is extremely difficult yet incredibly simple.
Just show up in a limousine like a Maybach S-Class Pullman or a supercar like a LaFerrari, and it's done. It gets automatically subjugated and never calls again.
Back to the point.
'In the end, all my family and acquaintances must have been caught up in the Void Descent and either died or went missing.'
It wasn't a low probability.
On the Korean Peninsula, 19 out of 20 people died, right? People who felt their daily gacha luck was bad all lost their connections like me.
"Then....... Shall we really look into it seriously?"
"Yes?"
"Ah. Ha-yul keeps teasing me, saying I'm actually a regressor monster. So I was thinking of verifying if I really popped out as a monster in the 4th round."
(Startled jump! Then glaring contemptuously at me for snitching such details.jpg)
"Ah. Um......"
The Saintess set down her coffee cup.
"Wouldn't that be difficult?"
"Yes? Why do you think so?"
"...Because of your personality, Undertaker. Of course, I don't know about the pre-4th round Undertaker, and I'm just speculating based on what I've heard so far, but......"
With a slight hesitation, the Saintess spoke.
"You probably applied [Time Seal] to the closest people first, one by one."
"......"
"You said you cleared the Tutorial Dungeon for the first time in the 3rd round. So, I think right after exiting Busan Station, you'd go looking for your family and acquaintances. And persuade them—"
"I placed them in crystal tombstones. But now, I no longer remember where the cemetery was or who received the [Time Seal]."
"Yes. Just my speculation."
...It made a fair point.
In the end, to find clues about my family, I'd have to check every crystal tombstone on the Korean Peninsula.
But the graves I dug were quite numerous, weren't they?
At least 500,000. Including ones I didn't track, who knows how many there were.
"It would definitely be difficult."
"Yes. Unfortunately."
[Sun] [Name] [Sun]
At this point, the discussion ended with only Ha-yul's sloppy placards left behind.
I wasn't particularly interested in filming a regressor version of 'Finding Lost Time' anyway, so the matter was naturally shelved.
Until the 267th round arrived.
2
As I told you, to find traces of the 267th round Saintess, I mobilized all the fairies.
I sent out all the dream demons to thoroughly search the dreams of all survivors on the Korean Peninsula.
In the end, no trace of the 267th round Saintess was found anywhere.
"Hoe."
Instead, I stumbled upon an utterly unexpected puzzle piece.
"Isn't this Secretary-General Comrade? Right?"
"Hm?"
"Look here, in this person's dream, check out that uphill road over there. The human passing by the supermarket!"
Fairy No. 264 invited me into a dream. The dream of a 50-year-old woman I'd never met.
"...I see it, but why? Isn't it just a mom and kid walking side by side?"
"I feel like that kid strangely resembles Secretary-General Comrade!"
"What?"
In this person's dream, the 'silhouette presumed to be the Undertaker' was faintly visible.
"No, it's too blurry. You can't even identify the face—how do you know if it looks like me or not?"
"Hoe. But the dream demon's sense is subtly telling me! The dim aura! Shadow painted pitch-black with ink! Eyes deader than dead fish! Footsteps heavy enough to trample the earth in hatred of the world! That's! Undoubtedly our iron-fisted Secretary-General leading us fairies... Gyaaaak! Skull! My skull is being squeezed!"
"It's sense of touch, not sense."
"A-Against violence! Against purges!"
While giving the fairy a complimentary scalp massage, I furrowed my brow deeply.
Far away, in the dream owner's unconscious as an 'extra' no one notices, some kid with a hat was walking. On the boundary of perception, I couldn't approach.
'That kid is me?'
Around elementary school age, maybe.
No particular feeling came through.
I completely ignored the fairy's sense, but similar reports kept coming periodically afterward.
"Secretary-General Comrade! Check out the middle school graduation ceremony auditorium here!"
"Where?"
"From the dream owner's perspective, 20 meters away, among the crowd of students, just barely glimpsed over the shoulder! That's definitely Secretary-General Comrade's past!"
Only at the absolute limit—using the eyesight I'd squeezed to the max, as the most aura-refined awakener among living humans—did the silhouette faintly shimmer.
I muttered in disbelief.
"...No, this really is hidden pictures. 'Where's Waldo?' is five thousand times easier than this."
Still, if the fairy was right, one thing was certain.
The past before the 4th round, which I'd thought lost forever. Especially the original '1st round' Undertaker.
Proof that I wasn't a monster that suddenly appeared in the 4th round.
A clue to piece together that hidden puzzle had been given to me.