Chapter 217
Chapter 217
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 217
Chapter Title: The Void Disguised as Dreams
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Let me pause here for a moment.
To put it simply, there is a perfect hierarchical relationship between me and Mugan.
In other words, clichés like "Mugan, who I thought was sealed away, actually endured with superhuman patience, built up her strength, and one day smashed the backs of Cheon Yo-hwa's and my heads!" do not exist.
They just don't. They aren't real.
"No, no. Senior, can't you at least allow for a 0.02% chance? A heroine doomed to eternal defeat—my life, no, my monstrous existence would be way too tragic."
"Who's whose heroine?"
"Why, I'm yours, of course. The back personality of a dual-personality heroine. Isn't that the kind of trait that could gain cult popularity in certain fan circles?"
"Leaving aside the claim that Yo-hwa is a heroine, Mugan... didn't you drop this?"
I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and handed it over.
Mugan took the paper labeled "Self-Objectivity" and made a bizarre expression.
"What the hell? Why are you carrying around crap like this?"
"What do you think?"
"Hmm. Because you're insane, Senior? Or maybe you're studying for the Korean proficiency exam by carrying a vocabulary notebook? Or... you knew I'd say something like this someday?"
Mid-sentence, Mugan's expression twisted even further.
She had reached the answer with her excellent computational abilities.
"That's exactly it."
Outsider gods each have their specialties. Their strengths.
Naturally, they have weaknesses too.
Compared to other outsider gods, Mugan was particularly vulnerable to "regression." For someone who claimed to be the incarnation of randomness, she could only repeat the same actions in the same situations.
Not to mention, when the Saintess of the 267th turn froze Nut's domain herself, my regressions became even more solid.
At the very least, Mugan couldn't break through it.
"Damn it, this is unfair! Regressors are total cheats!"
Mugan stomped her feet.
It was a pattern I'd seen many times before, so I felt nothing.
As long as the tempo and speed of her stomping matched exactly what I'd observed in previous turns without a single deviation, what more was there to say?
However.
Seeing her do it in Yo-hwa's form was a bit much.
"Change your clothes."
At my sudden words, Mugan's head tilted.
"Huh?"
"The white sailor uniform is the symbol of Baekhwa Girls' High School. You're not affiliated with them. So wear something else."
"Eh... Wait. Is that why you undid the hair tie?"
"Just do it."
"Nooo..."
She muttered something like, "Isn't this too harsh?"
But regardless of her grumbling, the shabby Mugan-rocket-outsider-god flicked her uniform.
A light noise spread across the sailor uniform.
Moments later, the distinctive white uniform of Baekhwa Girls' High School turned pitch black.
A black sailor uniform. The complete opposite of "Baekhwa."
"Yeees, yeees. Is this good enough? You're too much, seriously..."
Mugan pouted her lips.
The way she trailed off and the angle of her pout were exactly the same as in some past turn under similar circumstances.
This is why mistaking Mugan for human was impossible—at least for me, with Perfect Memory.
By Cheon Yo-hwa and me, that existence was merely forced to "act human."
"So, Senior Botch Undertaker, who has no family, relatives, or friends? With every route blocked, how do you plan to approach? I'm dying to hear the wisdom of the Human King."
"I'll ride my memories straight into the 4th turn."
I pointed to the Han River bank.
There was a bench perfect for lying down. Overgrown with weeds up to waist height since no one maintained it, but still lie-able.
"I'll enter your dreams and rewind through all the turns I've experienced in reverse order. 250th turn, 200th, 150th, like that."
"Huh? Why? Why not just jump straight to the 4th turn?"
I sighed.
"Mugan. Just suppose, for argument's sake, that in the 4th turn, I think of myself as a 'being that suddenly fell from the sky.' As some monster."
"Okay."
"If that's the case, what's to guarantee I didn't suddenly appear in the 266th turn as a monster?"
"...Huh?"
Mugan blinked.
I explained.
"I possess complete memories up to the 267th turn, of course. But that might just be my delusion. I could be a monster that only started existing from this turn, with 'memories up to the 267th manipulated.'"
"Ooh...? Oh."
"If a regressor—or a monster who thinks itself one—can suddenly appear in the 4th turn, then by the same logic, it 'could suddenly appear in any turn.' We have to verify that part too."
"Ah, got it."
Mugan made an impressed face.
"Yeah? You're right. Same possibility, huh? The commonplace brain? The world-is-five-minutes-old hypothesis? Hmm."
"Seems like you dropped this too."
Mugan took the paper labeled "Intelligence" and tore it to shreds, scattering the pieces in my face.
"Hey, you crazy human! You're the one who stole my intelligence, Senior! My brain's like a computer with 64MB RAM right now!"
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3 will run fine."
Isn't that enough? She's asking for too much.
We lay side by side on the bench.
Strictly speaking, not quite side by side. I lay on the bench, and Mugan provided a lap pillow.
The white fingertips covered in black sleeves touched my forehead like the tip of a compass.
"By the way, Senior, you're funny too. You say the bonds you've built are precious and sincerely thank the Saintess of the 267th turn, but at the same time, you're assuming it could all be fake?"
"Remove your hand."
"Ah, sorry. Did I scratch you?"
I gripped my sword cane tightly.
A white sneer in the shape of a nail fell from my forehead.
"Scary. I'll dive into the dream right away. Senior, close your eyes."
I did.
And we entered the dream.
Our destination: the 250th turn.
Mugan, once the lord of dream demons. Me, now the lord of dream demons.
With such a dangerous duo forming a temporary alliance, hitting exactly the desired dream was child's play.
Thus, the moment we entered the lucid dream.
-Hm?
A man turned to look this way.
The Undertaker of the 250th turn.
He was sitting on a bench at Jamsu Bridge, reading a book. [Psychic Phenomenology]. A book he had read around this time with the Saintess.
-Yo-hwa? And... me?
The Undertaker twisted one eyebrow.
-Doppelganger?
"No, 250th turn Undertaker. This is a lucid dream, and you're a figure in the dream. The one with me isn't Cheon Yo-hwa—it's Mugan."
-Hoo.
The Undertaker's lips curved into a smile.
Dull silver pupils without a hint of shine.
No matter the angle of sunlight, they reflected nothing—like black holes, wells lurking in his eyes.
An ominous gaze, no matter when you saw it.
Just as your own recorded voice sounds terribly awkward, facing the Undertaker directly like this made me feel some inexplicable gap.
-You're claiming I'm just a dream figure? Interesting hypothesis. Fine. If you're the true Undertaker, start with the password.
"Café au lait."
-And?
"Schopenhauer, you bastard."
-And?
"Please take care of me. Companion of my time."
Thud.
The Undertaker closed the book.
Before the sound even faded, the Undertaker drew his Doha and charged at me.
It happened in an instant. His pitch-black aura clashed with my pitch-black aura.
――――!
Waves spread across the Han River surface beyond Jamsu Bridge. Restrained ripples. Compared to the aura clash, surrounding objects were surprisingly intact.
My aura had overwhelmed his, greatly canceling the force.
-Indeed.
The Undertaker, whose blade I had caught in my hand, nodded.
A sort of test.
If I were truly from a "future turn," I naturally had to be stronger.
The Undertaker's jet-black pupils looked at me.
-What do you want?
"First, tell me what turn this is."
-250th turn. You?
"268th."
-Not that far off.
"Yeah."
I nodded.
"Now, kill yourself immediately."
-My class isn't Lancer.
Regardless of the grumbling from his lips, the dream Undertaker ended his life in one go.
Without the slightest hesitation.
Mugan, beside me, laughed.
"You're a real madman, Senior."
"Just a pre-set protocol."
Thud.
As the Undertaker's body crumbled, the world instantly went dark.
Not just the lights going out. Literally, engulfed in pitch blackness where nothing existed.
The dream had ended.
"Mugan. I'll allow you to use the dream demons' data for one question. Right now, here, do you sense any existence besides us?"
"Wait a sec... ..... ..... None. It's void. True void, meaning absolutely nothing. Empty space."
"Not even outsider gods?"
"None at all. Just you, Senior."
Mugan furrowed her brows fiercely.
"...But seriously, what are you growing in that skull? A real human black hole."
"I've never cultivated it. Next."
200th turn, 150th, 100th, 50th.
The subsequent Undertakers were subdued far more easily. Since we all shared the same protocol, the dream Undertakers willingly made the decision.
No problems at all.
At least for me.
"――Uweeeek."
The problem was Mugan.
The deeper we delved into past turns, the worse her expression got, until at the 50th turn, she suddenly collapsed to the ground and started vomiting.
"Eeek! Urp, ptooeeek. Huergh! Weeek."
True to an outsider god's vomit, it was rendered in rainbow static.
Thus cleared for any platform's censorship—truly reassuring.
"...What are you doing, looking so pathetic? You."
"I-I'm gonna die, Senior. I can't take anymore. Uweeek."
Mugan expelled her existence in vomit form for a while.
Not a metaphor—the rainbow vomit chunks turned into tiny Mugans upon hitting the ground. They ran with all their might before dissolving away.
A sight that could drive you mad just watching.
Mugan herself shook her head frantically, looking like she was going mad.
"What... kind of dream is this? It's just borrowing the form of a dream. It's completely different."
"Hm."
As expected of Mugan.
Being an outsider god origin, huh. Tutorial fairies couldn't even notice, but she'd seen through this place's true nature.
"It's not like you're harming people like you do. No one gets hurt unless they invade on purpose."
"No.... Urk! Wha—Just breathing feels like my HP and MP are plummeting. And you call this normal...?"
"Here."
I pulled out my notebook, wrote "HP and MP," and handed it to Mugan.
She looked at me like I was crazy but didn't refuse the paper.
With the single sheet between us, our hands clasped, Mugan's breathing finally normalized.
Moments later, Mugan opened her lips.
"Senior... one question."
"What?"
"Is this really a dream?"
Mugan wiped her mouth with her black sleeve, static crackling.
"This place... isn't a dream. It's just your domain, Senior. Like the divine realm you set up at Baekhwa Girls' High School before you subjugated me—when you were about to. Isn't it the same?"
"......"
"It looks endlessly like a dream but is completely different. Like the void mimicking a school, this is 'the void mimicking a dream.' So if my analysis is right..."
Mugan looked up at me, still holding my hand.
My reflection shone in her red pupils.
The same human figure as all the Undertakers I'd made self-destruct crossing dreams.
"Senior. Have you ever actually dreamed, even once?"