Chapter 223
Chapter 223
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 223
Chapter Title: The Self-Exploding Prophet
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3
‘Someone in the Japanese archipelago shouted the Undertaker’s name and self-destructed on their own!’
What in the world could have happened?
It didn’t make any sense, logically speaking.
There was an insurmountable physical distance between me and the mystery woman (whom I’ll refer to as Y from now on).
The Tutorial Dungeon I’d been dragged into was in Busan. Meanwhile, the stage where the Grand Shrine Maiden and Y had been enthralled was Kyoto.
Even by straight-line distance, they were a whopping 600 kilometers apart.
How could some complete stranger—not even in my memories, and a Japanese person at that—shout “Undertaker” as their dying cry before exploding?
“Were they perhaps an acquaintance of yours…?”
No Do-ha, who was periodically forced to take swimming lessons from me, surprisingly showed interest in this intriguing mystery.
“An acquaintance? Well. I did obtain degraded data through the Tutorial Fairies, but based on their appearance, they were someone completely absent from my memories.”
“Even if they’re not in your memories, they could still be an acquaintance. You said yourself that your memories from age one to twenty were all basically wiped clean, right? You’re a memory amnesiac…”
“Ah.”
“Koreans with relatives or acquaintances living in Japan are surprisingly common. It wouldn’t be strange if you had one or two like that…”
It was an angle I hadn’t even considered.
As No Do-ha said, my childhood was like Schrödinger’s box. Until opened, anyone could potentially have been connected to me as an acquaintance.
But I soon shook my head.
“…No, thinking about it, the possibility is low.”
The eyes of No Do-ha, who had her head submerged in the pool, floated the word ‘Why?’
“All those close to me at the family or friend level were hit with [Time Seal]. That would leave only very distant acquaintances. For one of them to shout my name as their dying cry upon death? That’s odd.”
“Aha. Hmm. That makes sense…”
Thus, the hypothesis that ‘they were actually someone connected to my past self’ was discarded.
No Do-ha seemed to lose interest at that point and swam dolphin-like along the pool lane with elegant grace.
It was a truly leisurely backstroke.
She had no idea that the moment her stamina improved just a bit more, I planned to switch her swimming lessons straight to PT training.
“…? Undertaker Awakener. You’re not thinking something super annoying in your head while looking at me right now, are you?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Ah. Fuck, it feels like you are. Hey. Hey. What bullshit scheme are you plotting this time…?”
“Ahem. Groundless accusations.”
I played innocent.
Anyway.
Compared to the [No Do-ha Makeover ~5-Year Plan~] project, which required all sorts of schemes and plots to barely achieve, the solution to Y’s mystery came surprisingly quickly—and easily.
“Huh? The moment the Void Advent started, someone in Japan’s head exploded?”
The key to unlocking the answer was none other than O Dok-seo.
The bratty kid, who’d excitedly tagged along when she heard No Do-ha and I were doing swimming lessons—‘No way! Swimming? Private lessons? A hidden juicy event between the National Highway Management Corps leader and Uncle?’—only to get sullen on her own when she realized ‘Wait, it’s actually just wholesome swimming lessons…?’, perked up her ears while eavesdropping on our conversation.
“That’s her. Prologue. Fake protagonist.”
“…?”
“…?”
Prologue? Fake protagonist?
O Dok-seo, the eternal middle schooler (note: fixed at second year), was using her own private language again, so question marks floated above No Do-ha’s and my heads.
Her expression scrunched up in frustration, like ‘ughhh.’
“Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, I mean Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint! The [Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint] I read before the Void Advent. There’s an identical story in its prologue.”
This was yet another bizarre connection.
The person who’d fallen into the exact same Tutorial Dungeon as the Grand Shrine Maiden just happened to appear in O Dok-seo’s Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint too?
“So, does that novel explain why their head suddenly exploded?”
“Of course.”
O Dok-seo said flatly.
“She’s a real prophet, after all.”
4
Up until then, I hadn’t really pried into the contents of [Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint] from O Dok-seo.
The reason was simple.
Unlike my biography, which O Dok-seo herself had written and edited, [Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint] was originally penned by the operator of All Phenomena Amusement.
In other words, it was close to a cursed, polluted monstrosity infused with the Alien God’s malediction.
‘If I read Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint and grasp myself from the 1st to 4th regressions, it’d be no different from handing the [power that defines the existence of the Undertaker] over to the Alien God.’
Exactly the kind of insidious scheme a sly Alien God like All Phenomena Amusement would concoct.
Of course, All Phenomena Amusement might have kindly written only the truth.
But my suspicion level toward anomalies was at the level of the German army in WWII, terrified with ‘The French army is an overwhelmingly strong force—we’re all doomed!’ I had to assume the worst case.
For what happens if you don’t, please refer to the [Monkey’s Paw] episode.
Still, from what O Dok-seo was saying… the part about the mystery woman Y seemed relatively safe from the anomaly’s curse.
“So, in Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, Uncle doesn’t appear as the protagonist right away.”
“Really? Unexpected.”
“Yeah. In the novel’s prologue, someone completely different from Uncle acts like he’s the protagonist, fooling the readers.”
Fake protagonist.
It wasn’t a super common cliché, but it popped up occasionally to surprise readers.
A prime example was the immortal masterpiece among Romance of the Three Kingdoms tales, [Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Jia Xu Edition].
“Anyway, forget stuff like that… Right at the start of the prologue, people get summoned to the Tutorial Dungeon? Including the fake protagonist.”
“Hm.”
“But while everyone else is panicking, the fake protagonist immediately awakens ‘prophecy’ ability. Strictly speaking, it’s precognition, but whatever.”
Precognition. Seeing the future ahead.
Literally, events yet to unfold unrolled before Y like a VR video, whoosh.
Like O Dok-seo, this Y was well-versed in subculture. Since ‘prophet’ characters weren’t rare in novels whether Korean or Japanese, Y instantly realized the massive stroke of luck she’d grasped and fell into ecstasy.
-Show me! How to clear this dungeon and escape!
-That person over there? In the future, they’ll be called the Grand Shrine Maiden and lead the magical girls of the Japanese archipelago. You must get close to them!
-Ahh! Yes! Even as the eight million spirits descend and the archipelago falls to ruin!
-It’s so sad…!
-With this power alone, this ability to vividly survey the future, I can save so many people! Yes! I definitely will!
She could do anything.
“Up to here, it felt like a standard munchkin story prologue.”
However.
The twist came right after.
-Huh?
How to save the Tutorial Dungeon survivors, the archipelago’s citizens, and ultimately the world.
Y, who’d been continuously precognating future visions about that, froze.
It didn’t end.
-Huh?
The video didn’t end.
Above all, the viewpoint of the video was strange.
What had seemed centered on Y gradually focused on someone else.
A man with pitch-black well-like pupils.
He died. Died endlessly.
Sometimes he died the moment he was summoned to the Tutorial Dungeon; other times, he wandered the world alone for over hundreds of years.
-Huh? Huh? Huh?
The people the man cherished all met death—or worse fates.
Some were torn limb from limb in witch hunts by crowds enthralled by anomalies. Some suicided endlessly. Some lost human form, became anomalies themselves, and killed the man with their own hands.
It happened a lot.
-Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
And all these deaths were vividly ‘precognated’ by the prophet Y.
Not just seen—heard, smelled, tasted, felt, sensed, intuited, awakened to. Fully.
Thousands, tens of thousands of years of the man’s deaths and suffering condensed into a single instant, flooding Y’s brain.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Y screamed. No, she wasn’t even aware she was screaming.
The ‘awakening’ to the prophecy ability was happening in real time. Her hair turning white from the tips to the scalp was proof.
-N-No…
She didn’t want to awaken.
-Stop, please, stop! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The whiter her hair got, the stronger the precognition. The pain and agony from the man felt as vivid as if she were experiencing it herself.
She couldn’t awaken further. She couldn’t. Born in a human body, feeling this. Feeling this much.
-Huh.
At that moment, Y ‘prophesied.’
That as long as she lived as an awakener, until death, forever, she’d endlessly repeat watching that man’s entire life story.
-Hah, haha. Haha.
The power was a curse.
Life was mere suffering.
Thus, the moment her hair turned completely white and awakening completed, Y precognated and used an aura technique she’d never learned or even seen before.
On her own head.
Kwa-juk!
Y died instantly.
“That day, exactly at that same moment, all six humans worldwide who awakened prophecy ability committed suicide… or so [Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint] describes. Pop, pop, boom boom pop. Six heads exploding.”
Each could have been the savior of the world.
And in some remote corner of history, a certain man lightly opened his eyes.
Undertaker.
The regressor who, every time he opened his eyes, sent six Prometheuses to their graves.
“That’s how the prologue ends.”
“…”
“Kyaa. Isn’t it awesome? Right? In the prologue, all the pain and scenes Uncle will go through flash by like a panorama, whoosh whoosh whoosh.”
O Dok-seo chattered excitedly.
“I knew just from the prologue. This is the real deal! I figured the fake protagonist wouldn’t appeal to other readers, but I loved it anyway!”
Indeed.
In other words, at the starting point of my regressions as the Undertaker, the group already expelled from the world wasn’t just the hundreds of thousands under [Time Seal]—it included Y and the other five prophets too.
Assuming, of course, that All Phenomena Amusement had written Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint truthfully.
“Impressive…”
No Do-ha, who had poked her head out of the pool to listen, sneered.
“So basically, without lifting a finger, you sniped six incredibly powerful awakeners—each one a potential hero who could’ve saved a country? As expected of the Undertaker Awakener. An anomaly candidate is different from the seedling stage…”
“Slander.”
I shrugged.
“Those six were probably candidates that All Phenomena Amusement’s operator was scouting to make its shrine maiden.”
“Hmm…?”
“All Phenomena Amusement targeted me from the start. So it must’ve meticulously checked who was the most suitable talent. To counter a regressor, you need prophecy ability at minimum, so it tested the top six with the best aptitude.”
But like an anomaly, All Phenomena Amusement didn’t consider human limits at all.
The awakeners who gained overly vivid prophecy ability chose death over being connected to me.
“So it diluted the prophecy ability much more to show it to you here, Dok-seo. The result, filtered enough not to destroy a human brain… is Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, written in novel form.”
“Ooh! Uncle, that makes sense!”
“Hmm…”
Of course, this hypothesis had flaws too, but escaping No Do-ha’s slander took priority for now, so it didn’t matter.
Anyway, the anomaly was at fault.
From the perspective of those six pitiable prophets, dying to an Alien God after failing to save the world even after a thousand tries—wasn’t that a more honorable death than a regressor’s?
5
There’s an epilogue.
As I said earlier, I didn’t trust the Alien God.
So, in the next regression, I visited the Tutorial Dungeon in Kyoto where the Grand Shrine Maiden had been enthralled, as quickly as possible.
Even if [Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint] contained some truth, there’d surely be parts deliberately distorted to its advantage.
For example—
‘No matter how agonizing the prophecy was for Y, she actually had at least 30 seconds before her head exploded in self-destruction.’
About 30 seconds.
It felt terribly short, but surprisingly long.
For an awakener who foresaw a regressor’s entire fate in under 30 seconds, it must’ve felt even longer.
‘Wouldn’t she have left some trace?’
A so-called dying message.
The prophets, especially Y, had the grit to resolve to save the world at least once if only I didn’t exist.
Even if the process felt too agonizing and she chose to exit herself, wouldn’t she leave some comment about the figure who, unlike her, never gave up and kept challenging endlessly? That is, me.
Like ‘keep it up’ or ‘sorry.’
If she’d been nastier-tempered, ‘die’ or even a curse as a last will.
‘Here it is.’
Sneaking past the Grand Shrine Maiden—who hadn’t contracted with the kumiho yet and reeked of noob—I arrived at the explosion site where Y had died.
The scene was better preserved than expected.
“Oh.”
The body was intact too. Except for the [mosaic] [mosaic] treatment above the collarbone.
Well, if you witnessed a person’s head exploding right in front of you, trauma would keep anyone away.
Back then, when Seo-gyu died in Busan Station’s waiting room, everyone fled in fear.
“Let’s see…”
Sure enough, I soon found handwriting presumed to be Y’s dying message.
A blood-written will, using blood from clawing off her own scalp, and it read as follows.
S U
I tilted my head.
‘SU? A code?’
Meaningless.
Perhaps the prophet had wanted to write more letters.
But unable to endure the pain any longer, Y had exploded midway through ‘some word.’
‘SU… SU… Hm. Assuming the shortest possible sentence or word. Then, what words start with SU…’
I thought from her perspective.
She had little time left anyway. She knew she’d soon end her life, unable to bear the pain.
So the will she left me had to be the shortest yet most important message.
In other words.
‘A prophecy about my conclusion.’
Ultimately, would this regressor save the world or fail?
That was the crux.
On a question even I wasn’t sure of, the prophet who’d ‘peeped the future’ could provide the answer.
Weighing it that way, ‘SU’ could be interpreted in roughly three ways.
① SUCCESS: You will ultimately succeed. Keep striving.
② SUICIDE: You will fail anyway. Just kill yourself now.
③ SUKI: I love you! I’m a fan!
④ SUCK YOU: Seo-gyu did it.
First, the last fourth candidate was too out-of-left-field, so eliminated.
Third too. No need for alphabet; I spoke Japanese well.
That left 1 or 2… but no clear evidence for either.
“Hm.”
So, 1 or 2 came down to taste.
Crunch. I bit my fingertip.
Using the slowly oozing blood as ink and my finger as brush, I added my writing to Y’s word—
Her ‘prophecy’ and dying cry.
S U
C C E S S
I buried Y’s headless corpse and held her funeral. Then I left with much lighter steps.
Ultimately, how to interpret the prophecy is up to the heart, isn’t it?
-Exploder. Conclusion.