Chapter 225
Chapter 225
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 225
Chapter Title: The Earth Hid the Sun
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Faced with the crises of "Seo-gyu hid his hair" and "Dang Seo-rin hid her fandom," my mind ended up in a complete fog.
The latter was especially horrifying.
"Witch cosplay and train fandom abandoned by Dang Seo-rin?"
How could that possibly be Dang Seo-rin!
By nature, the Great Witch of Three Thousand Worlds was the leader who commanded a witch's hat and a steam locomotive.
By gripping symbols representing the medieval era and the modern era in both hands and brandishing them, she herself became a superhuman reborn as the history of humanity.
In short, the Dang Seo-rin of the 244th round might as well have lost her soul. A soulless non-human. We agreed to call it Yoo Ji-won.
"Normal people? Is there really not a single normal person in this round?"
Normal people here, of course, meant normal by my standards. In other words, someone exactly the same as in the other rounds.
Setting aside my comrades who each had a screw loose somewhere, I desperately searched for a normal person.
"Excellency. Why are you so anxious?"
"Yoo Ji-won, you've been hiding your personality and humanity from the start, so stay out of it."
"I don't understand what you mean, but understood. Since it's Your Excellency's words, there must be some astonishing insight contained within. I'll consult on my concerns later."
Leaving behind Yoo Ji-won—who remained a psychopath unchanged this round as well—I diligently scouted the surroundings, but the results were utterly frustrating.
"No Do-ha Division Chief. Why are you being kind not just to the elderly but to young patients too? Where has the MZ-phobia rooted in your heart gone?"
"Hah? ...Is there a bastard in the world who discriminates against patients by age?"
"I see. You're not No Do-ha."
"You wanna die...?"
No Do-ha OUT.
"Saintess. Why don't you have aquariums inside your house? No intention to raise fish?"
"Fish... you say? Sorry, but I've heard fish tanks are too hard to maintain, so I have no real interest. Lizards are cuter."
"As expected, a fake..."
"Pardon?"
Saintess OUT.
"Yo-hwa. Why do you keep calling me 'senior' instead of 'teacher' even after handing over your diploma?"
"Huh? Ahaha. But senior, there's not much age difference between us! At least not in appearance. Calling you 'teacher' now would feel a bit weird, right?"
"...I see. Then why aren't you wearing a white uniform after graduating?"
"Eh. Senior. Who in the world wears a sailor uniform after graduation? Only crazy people. It was tacky from the beginning anyway."
"You damned scum! Get lost, won't you!"
"Eek."
Cheon Yo-hwa OUT.
"Manyeopmyo! Why are you talking like a normal human without attaching 'nyang' or 'nya' to the end of every sentence! Are the cat ears on your head just for show!"
"You picking a fight? Undertaker?"
Even the magical girls of Yeol-do were all OUT.
It was a subtle detail, but the coffee Old Man Show had left behind this round wasn't a café au lait—it was a hazelnut Americano.
A German! (A German!) An old man whose barista pride was off the charts! (Old man!) An Americano! (An Americano!)
The shock in my head formed an a cappella choir, echoing around.
I despaired.
Even if something was wrong, this was thoroughly, solidly wrong.
I holed up in the Inunaki Tunnel, mumbling groans filled with agony.
"...Something's wrong. This isn't right. How can differences like this arise right after regression, before the butterfly effect even activates? Could I have unknowingly fallen into a dream? Oh, what calamity. In truth, the existence known as the Undertaker was merely a mundane brain, and my consciousness is trapped in a dream..."
"Excellency. Are you alright?"
"Yoo Ji-won, stay out. No matter how pushed to the cliff I am, I haven't fallen so far as to expect human understanding and sympathy from you."
"I still don't understand what you mean, but of course. Concerns like mine are mere luxuries, so I'll shut up obediently."
How on earth should I resolve this once-in-history crisis?
Looking back now, the me of the 244th round still lacked experience in many ways.
I hadn't subjugated the "Night Goddess" Nut yet, nor defeated the "Operator of All Phenomena Amusement."
The fact that any power strong enough to interfere with my rounds must inevitably be at least an outsider god-level anomaly—the me of the 244th round hadn't precisely pinned that down yet.
(The Saintess volunteering to seal herself and erect an absolute barrier around my regression was still a future event at this point.)
"For now... yeah. Let's have the kids regain what they've lost one by one. That should offset the anomaly's machinations."
"Even if Your Excellency has a habit of muttering unidentified soliloquies, this Yoo Ji-won harbors not the slightest blemish in her adoration and service toward Your Excellency. Please command me freely."
"Get me a wig, Ji-won."
I placed the wig atop Seo-gyu's bald head.
Then, while looking in the mirror, I styled the hair to 99.99% resemble Seo-gyu from the other rounds.
"How about it, Seo-gyu? Doesn't it feel like you've recovered what you lost, returned to your true appearance, your original self?"
"......"
"Recall your true form! Seo-gyu! You can do it!"
"...Brother. Sorry to say this, but do you perhaps want to get hit by me?"
Failure.
In other creative works, if a regressor caused this much of a ruckus, the surrounding comrades would mutter things like "Eh, why do I recall memories I've never experienced...?" and readily overcome cross-round memory loss, but in my genre, fat chance.
At least Seo-gyu was one of the better ones.
I rushed to No Do-ha and urged her, "Come on, Division Chief! Hurry and be rude to young people! Quick! Parade every curse in the book—'fuck' or 'bitch' or whatever!" only to get beaten like a dog and chased out for real.
For Dang Seo-rin, I personally donned a witch's hat, witch outfit, and witch's broom before visiting, then shouted, "Dang Seo-rin! How's this! Doesn't your passion for fashion feel like it's awakening?"—only to get the response, "Hmm— are you conveying in a very classy way that you want me to strip you?" and nearly end up devoured.
For Cheon Yo-hwa, I couldn't go wearing the uniform myself. I'm the Undertaker; I haven't abandoned my humanity to that extent yet. Moreover, with only her title and fashion changed while her craziness remained intact, I couldn't predict her reaction.
Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed.
The regressor's mentality, which I'd believed to be unbreakable, cracked with a crunching sound.
Surprisingly, I was the type to be more shocked by my comrades' hobbies changing slightly than by getting annihilated by an anomaly.
"Hmm. Even if Your Excellency says so, we have no way to verify it. To use Your Excellency's phrasing, we can only perceive up to the '244th round' after all."
"Yeah..."
And this sort of worry could surprisingly only be discussed comfortably with Yoo Ji-won.
The reason was simple. She didn't give a damn about my mental trauma, so I could just converse without any consideration or tact.
"Rather, inversely— isn't there a possibility that Your Excellency's mind has changed?"
"...Meaning Seo-gyu was bald across all rounds, but my memory got distorted into perceiving him as full-headed?"
"Yes. That would be far more rational."
Scrape.
Yoo Ji-won spoke while carving a chess piece with a sharp sculpting knife.
"It aligns perfectly with Occam's razor. Assuming everyone besides Your Excellency has changed would make the anomaly's power that caused this incident extremely potent. It would have to reach across rounds as Your Excellency described."
"Hm."
"Conversely, assuming only Your Excellency's mind was touched simplifies the story. It would just be a mental brainwashing or perception-distortion type anomaly. No need to cross rounds."
"......"
Yeah.
It was hard to admit inwardly, but Yoo Ji-won's analysis was correct. I probably had a high chance of currently being under mental brainwashing.
At some point, my [Perfect Memory Ability] had been hacked. That explained why my perceptions were twisted so strangely—everything fell neatly into place.
It also clearly explained why everyone else had one trait "hidden," while I alone seemed fine.
I was simply the weird one.
"Of course, Your Excellency is perfect at any time, any place, and commits no errors. But sometimes, it is necessary to flip the board and reconsider."
"......"
In truth, I wasn't the only one who was fine.
Yoo Ji-won. This silver-haired psychopath sitting here taking my consultation was unchanged from the other rounds.
Speech patterns. Hobbies. Fashion. Thought processes.
Not a single element constituting the personality known as Yoo Ji-won had been deleted. She was exactly as I remembered: the ace of Three Thousand Worlds and operations team leader of the National Highway Management Corps.
Barring the slight oddity in her abilities.
That was why I was suspicious.
This unidentified anomaly that phrased things as "X hid Y" for amusement—wasn't it actually possessing Yoo Ji-won?
"I judge that observing until the next round is not a bad strategy."
Scrape.
Yoo Ji-won finished the chess piece and examined it from various angles.
"Until the next round? Why?"
"If that anomaly truly possesses a curse that deletes one thing from people one by one, then by the next round, additional deletions will occur."
"......"
Placing a knight piece (♘) on the paper map, Yoo Ji-won said as if to imply, "That's what I would do."
"It starts with seemingly trivial points like baldness or fashion on purpose. That way, it can relatively easily slip past Your Excellency's suspicions."
"My mentality's already sounding the alarm, though."
"That's something the anomaly failed to predict. It will probably start seriously deleting the awakeners' abilities, personalities, and behavioral principles from the next round onward."
"...Then it's definitely a threat."
"Yes. Lull the opponent into complacency, then ambush. An effective tactic."
At that moment, something bizarre happened on the map.
Ssssruk—.
As if a magnet were attached, another knight piece was drawn to the exact spot where Yoo Ji-won had placed hers.
The chess piece Yoo Ji-won had just made was positioned on the upper part of the map, while the one pulled out by an invisible hand was on the lower part.
If illustrated, it looked like this.
A form as if forming a taijitu.
The paper map, pinned top and bottom by the chess pieces, naturally floated up—buu—.
It was a truly mysterious sight, but that was the "change in the Yoo Ji-won of the 244th round."
Aside from the map floating a bit, her [Minimap] ability was intact. Her chess pieces still tracked people's positions accurately.
The kind of minor error, one might say.
"It's definitely weird, isn't it..."
I muttered.
For Dang Seo-rin and the others, it felt like one trait had "disappeared," but with Yoo Ji-won alone, it felt like a trait had "glitched."
This discrepancy kept nagging at me.
Why, just why, was Yoo Ji-won showing such a different side compared to everyone else?
"Perhaps the psychopathic trait that Your Excellency named has disappeared from me? In fact, this round's me has regained the ability to deeply empathize with others."
"Try saying that with some emotion in your eyes at least?"
"My gaze is already packed full with respect for Your Excellency; there's no space for other emotions to squeeze in. Please forgive me."
"Space my foot. You've had that look in your eyes ever since we met in the 5th round..."
I halted.
I stopped speaking in that instant.
Not on purpose. My instincts—my nape, endowed with a sixth sense—cut off my words of their own accord.
As if I'd just brushed past an incredibly important keyword.
My vision was still imprinted with the chess pieces in a taijitu shape, firmly pinning the map top and bottom.
"Space? Space. ...Space?"
If it wasn't an error in Yoo Ji-won's ability.
If those chess pieces were "perfectly accurately" marking people's positions on the map.
Then, how should it be interpreted?
"......"
I shot to my feet.
"Ji-won."
"Yes?"
"Grab the map and trunk and follow me. I have something to test."
Yoo Ji-won glanced down at her analog wristwatch.
11 p.m. In the days when past civilization thrived, it might have been perceived as morning by some, but now it was an hour far too late for anyone to go out—deep into the night.
"Understood."
Yoo Ji-won followed me out of the Inunaki Tunnel without raising a single question.
I took up position in an open lot fairly distant from the coast. And instead of my sword, I gripped a shovel.
"I'm going to dig downward from now on."
"Downward, Your Excellency?"
"Yeah. Even I think it sounds absurd, but a one-in-a-million possibility occurred to me. I'm going to keep boring straight through the bedrock downward, so you stay by my side and keep observing the map continuously."
"Understood, Your Excellency."
I put my declaration fully into action.
Crunch!
The shovel blade scooped into the dirt floor like pudding. It was a feat made possible by pouring in aura without stint.
Underground. Underground. Deeper underground—.
I went down to a depth incomparable to digging a well.
The ground was gradually hardening, to the point where any other awakener would have long since ruined their shovel.
'No, it's way too hard.'
Even using aura, the crust was excessively rigid, and my digging speed slowed bit by bit.
Crunch! Thud! Thuuuud!
Undeterred, I pressed on with the work. Right now, I was no regressor—just a human drilling machine.
How much time passed.
I'd descended to a depth where magma erupting wouldn't be surprising; before I knew it, sweat was beading thickly on my forehead.
"Your Excellency. Drink some water while you work."
"Ah, thanks."
Yoo Ji-won pulled out bottled water she'd prepared in advance in the trunk and fed it to my mouth.
For reference, while I was digging, Yoo Ji-won appropriately illuminated the surroundings with aura from the side. Truly perfect talent, if you ignored the humanity part.
And so, descending silently and wordlessly while shattering the underground bedrock.
"Huu, huuu... Oh?"
Pffft—.
A deflating sound rang out from the tip of the shovel.
The long crust layer had ended, and the shovel had shot into some empty space.
"A new rock stratum?"
"I don't know either, Your Excellency."
"Might be a cave. Let's head down for now."
I gradually widened the small hole that had been pierced.
However, faint light leaking from the hole was suspicious for a mere cave.
As the hole widened, the light grew more intense; once it was big enough for a person to pass, no separate illumination was needed.
And the moment I leaned my head out beyond the hole—like peeking out of a Mario pipe.
"......"
"......"
I had no choice but to hold my breath.
Yoo Ji-won, who had stuck her head out alongside me, also froze upon witnessing the scenery beyond the hole.
It was rare for reactions like "surprise" and "shock" to appear from her.
We remained silent for quite a while. The visual information pouring onto us both was that shocking and overwhelming.
"Ji-won. That...?"
"...Yes."
Deep within the underground hole.
No, beyond the hole.
"No matter how you look at it, that's the sun."
There was a "sun."
An enormously vast underground space unfolded. It wasn't on the scale of the Korean Peninsula or anything like that.
Even with my eyesight enhanced by aura, I couldn't even guess at the end of the space stretching out into the distance.
Right in the center of that space, that void—a tiny "sun" was positioned, illuminating the underworld.
In other words.
"No..."
'The Earth hid the sun.'
"Crazy... you can't hide something like this..."
Hollow Earth theory.
That was the anomaly that had descended upon this round.