Chapter 216
Chapter 216
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 216
Chapter Title: Original Undertaker
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3
The actual protagonist of the story, me, has absolutely no memory of the Undertaker from the first round.
For convenience's sake, I'll call him the Original Undertaker, Undertaker: The Beginning, or Undertaker the First.
“Teacher. Didn't you say you'd call him something simple, but now it's even more grandiose...?”
The person giving me that jab had orange ponytail hair. Her fashion was a white sailor uniform. Her signature item was Jordan basketball shoes.
No need to hide it. She was Cheon Yo-hwa, the VIP student council president of Baekhwa Girls' High School, specially invited for this Original Undertaker hidden picture hunt project.
“Anyway, I desperately need your help to piece together the Original Undertaker, Yo-hwa. More precisely, I need Mugan's assistance.”
“Eek.”
Cheon Yo-hwa made a blatantly displeased face. Her facial muscles were so honest, yet they never quite offended anyone—that was this girl's peculiar charm.
“Mugan? Why him?”
“Well, the Original Undertaker appearing in other people's dreams has, how should I put it... low resolution.”
I personally took Cheon Yo-hwa along and wandered through a few dreams.
I showed her the 'blurry silhouette' presumed to be the Original Undertaker.
“Ah. It's real. What is that? It looks just like an unrestored old black-and-white photo.”
“Right?”
“Yeah! But even with this crude quality, he's super cute at a glance! Teacher, you wore a fur hat when you were little. Heh. Hehe-.”
Cheon Yo-hwa, who had paled slightly at the mention of summoning Mugan, instantly cheered up the moment she laid eyes on my childhood form.
She went wild with “Whoa— whoaaa—” noises, scrutinizing my silhouette from every angle—front, back, left, right—like she was savoring it.
I cleared my throat awkwardly.
“…Anyway, so far, we've found a total of 13 dreams where the Original Undertaker appears. This one shows him at his youngest. The Original Undertaker in dreams is generally pre-college age.”
“Eek. Look at this kid's cheeks! He's so, so adorable! Teacher, Teacher. Can't you record a video in the dream and preserve it?”
“You're not planning to tease Dang Seo-rin with it, are you? Please hold back.”
“Tch.”
Cheon Yo-hwa's cheeks puffed out like a hamster's.
“Whatever. Just summon Mugan for a bit. I plan to restore the resolution using the data Mugan has built up in this world.”
“Hmm... I hate loosening that guy's leash even a little, but whatever. If it's the price for witnessing Teacher's childhood... Got it. Wait just a moment!”
Cheon Yo-hwa closed her eyes.
Then, swish—.
The hair tie binding her ponytail came undone. Her orange hair cascaded down.
Blink.
Her eyes reemerged from between the strands. The boundary between pupil and iris had vanished. Only a deep, dark crimson stared back at me.
“Hey, senpai?”
The red well cracked faintly into a smile.
“Long time no see. Missed me?”
“Long time. Let's not pretend we're close.”
“Huh? You're the one holding my hand, senpai.”
True enough.
Whether in the void or dreams, it was best for companions to hold hands to avoid getting lost.
I snorted and let go. Cheon Yo-hwa—no, Mugan, the alienated god sealed within her form using a sealing spell—shrugged his shoulders.
“So cold. Even if it looks this way, I was shaped based on this girl's personality because I fell for your scheme, you know? Treating someone you like this way hurts.”
“Thanks. I'll be even more indifferent from now on. To the point: you know why I called you, right?”
“Yeah. I've been watching the whole time.”
Mugan tapped his lips.
“But—it's not easy for me to wield my full power from back in my prime. Just listing the seals you've put on me: [Doppelganger], [Dual Personality], [Weakens Upon Ally Recruitment]—that's three already?”
“Self-inflicted.”
“Aw, come on. If nothing else, [Dual Personality] is totally your scheme. Gifting her a new name and demoting me to a mere second personality. Only someone like you could devise such a vicious tactic.”
“…….”
“Of course, I'm not dissatisfied with my current state. Why, it's better to be dumb than smart to find happiness, right? Self-awareness is fun in its own way.”
I sighed.
“Collecting data on my childhood should be intriguing even for an alienated god like you. So cooperate.”
“Ah. True that. Sure, got it.”
The affirmative came more readily than expected.
Mugan touched the Original Undertaker's fur hat with the fingertips that had been toying with his lips. Tap.
Zzzzt—crackle—.
The surroundings flooded with noise in an instant.
The faces of pedestrians passing a supermarket distorted, the sizes of streetlights lining the road warped. Tiny veins sprouted on tree trunks.
“Wait a sec—. Whew. Back when I had nightmare demons as minions, this wasn't so taxing. Thanks to certain someones.”
“Want me to make it worse?”
“No thanks. Ah, done. This is the limit.”
With those words, details sprang to life in the scenery, vivid as reality.
The color tone was a bit muted, though—like a brown filter overlaid.
The once-vague silhouette of my child self sharpened into crystal clarity.
“…….”
An ordinary kid's face.
Nothing distinctive except for the oversized, odd-shaped fur hat. An elementary school boy.
He had no inkling of the thousands, tens of thousands of years of fate awaiting him.
“…Is this really me?”
“Who knows? The nightmare demons said so. They must've roughly checked your real name and identity.”
“Hmm.”
“If you don't trust it, let me access the nightmare demons' data for a sec. I'll verify it myself.”
I ignored the nonsense.
“More importantly.”
“Yeah?”
“The woman holding hands with this boy, walking along. My family—looks like my mother.”
The elementary boy walked briskly, hand in hand with his mom. So after noting the Original Undertaker's appearance, I planned to identify his mother's face next.
Or so I thought.
“Why isn't her face visible?”
There was no face.
More precisely, the 'noise' Mugan had spread to restore the dream's resolution hadn't cleared from the mother's face.
At the noise's center floated the text [404 - Not Found]. Mugan's doing, probably.
“Hm?”
Mugan tilted his head at my question.
He was already perched on a walkway fence, swinging his legs.
“You're really asking out of curiosity, senpai? You had a hunch already.”
“…….”
“[Time Seal]. She's gone. No data. Actually, her clothes should be noise-covered too, but I Photoshopped them roughly.”
As expected.
No fresh disappointment. What reason to grieve the loss of a memory that no longer exists?
“Got it. On to the next dream.”
“Yessir, senpai—.”
Using Mugan, I delved deeper toward the Original Undertaker.
Not just the 13 discovered dreams, but from the successfully restored ones, I unearthed new characters and dug into their dreams too.
From the dream owner's perspective, the Original Undertaker started as a mere extra passing by a shop far off—nothing more.
But tracing dream relationships step by step, he shifted to a 'closer position' for the dream owner.
'A customer who ate hamburgers with friends at the shop' → 'A kid from the same apartment who had snowball fights' → 'A kid from the next class when he became the 3rd-grade homeroom teacher' → 'Not super close, but a friend of a friend who hung out occasionally'….
However.
“Hm?”
Just as the relationship level was about to jump from 'friend of a friend' to 'close friend,' Mugan hit something and froze.
“Senpai. This one's deleted too?”
“Deleted meaning... hit with a [Time Seal]?”
“Yeah. See. Your high school friend.”
The friend walking home alongside the Original Undertaker was processed in noise, just like my mother.
Unlike Mom, though, not just the face—the whole body crackled with noise. Mugan skipping the effort, lazily.
In this vividly realistic space, only the friend's spot was unnaturally marred by
[404 - Not Found].
In conclusion, the Original Undertaker wasn't walking home with a friend.
To onlookers, he'd look like a kid grinning and chattering at 'empty air.'
“Hmm.”
“…….”
“For some reason, I feel like I know what's coming next?”
The same thing repeated endlessly.
No matter the route I chose, I could approach up to 'friend of a friend,' 'acquaintance of an acquaintance,' 'neighbor's neighbor.'
But at the crucial final step, a [404] error hit every time.
No matter how meticulously I restored the dreams or followed relational chains, the outcome stayed the same. At that last stride, the Original Undertaker scattered smiles at 'empty air.'
In other words.
“Whoa. Senpai, you really thoroughly erased everyone around you, huh? How'd you pull that off?”
It was impossible to approach beyond a certain boundary line to the Original Undertaker.
He had no family. No relatives. No friends. No acquaintances.
Only tenuous 'extra'-level relational remnants lingered like vestiges.
Flip that around—and from this world's people's viewpoint, the Original Undertaker was merely an extra.
No ties.
No roots.
A rootless wanderer.
Not just legally. Objectively, truly, the '1st round Undertaker' entity was excised from earth's web of human connections.
To the point of marveling how such a 'perfect extra' could exist.
“Ah- ah-. I see. That's why, back when I was an alienated god, I couldn't muster my full power against you.”
Hospital corridor.
Cheon Yo-hwa leaned against the wall amid sporadically wandering patients.
Presumed to be my birth mother's workplace. But it yielded no extra info.
I'd inferred her job as a nurse, but [404] blocked it here too.
“What do you mean?”
“Y'know, I oversee all matter as the data anomaly. But compared to other humans, senpai—you're a total data void. Hard for me to calculate behavior patterns.”
“Hm.”
“And that weapon you carry... Do-ha, was it? Same vibe. Really bad matchup. Cheating, isn't it?”
I stood beside Mugan in the hospital corridor, arms crossed, murmuring.
“…Something's off.”
“Hm? What?”
“If my surroundings were this meticulously wiped with [Time Seals], there should be revisionary tombstones related to them scattered here and there.”
“Revisionary tombstones...? Oh, those only you can see, and can't enter without your permission?”
I nodded.
“I've scoured nearly all revisionary tombstones on the Korean Peninsula, but none for my family, friends, or acquaintances. Weird, right? After this much searching, at least one should turn up.”
“Hmm…….”
“And originally, I have zero memories before the 4th round. Even if I [Time Sealed] my mother, I should still retain memories of her.”
“Thousands of years ago? Forgetting's natural, no?”
“Not natural.”
I turned my aura into ink and scribbled in the air.
“I gained [Perfect Memory Ability] at the 4th round point. And at that time, I hadn't fully forgotten my mother yet. Not much time had passed.”
“Hm. Yeah?”
“So any memories I had then should've been locked by [Perfect Memory Ability]. Like my mother's face from the dream. Or family memories.”
I furrowed my brow.
“Minor stuff, maybe. But forgetting something this vital 100%? Doesn't add up.”
“…Huh?”
A spark of interest lit Mugan's eyes.
“…Yeah, huh? It's ancient history now, but back in the 4th round, it was just a few years prior for you. Even with poor human memory, no way you'd totally forget family and friends….”
“No way.”
My eyes narrowed.
“The reason the regressor's 1st round— the Undertaker's— was perfectly erased... lies elsewhere.”