Chapter 238
Chapter 238
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 238
Chapter Title: Village Bus Route Map
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3
As I mentioned before, I, the Undertaker, didn't dream in the ordinary sense.
In other words, if I ever did dream, it meant at least one anomaly had interfered.
The dream I had the day after barely preventing the "Angel Descent" incident in Pyongyang was just like that.
"Hello, Guild Leader."
"......"
"Eh? If you look at me like that, it hurts my feelings, you know?"
Pink-haired Lord Voldemort, who should normally dwell in the deepest recesses of my unconscious, was smiling brightly.
Right in front of my nose.
I barely suppressed a scream.
"...Go Yo-ri. Please, next time, at least change your appearance before showing up? I think I'm developing a pink hair trauma."
"Ahaha. Sorry. That's outside my abilities...... It's because this is the form you feel the most affection for, Guild Leader. Change yourself first."
"Don't lie. I have no memory of ever seeing someone with a face like yours, and I've never felt any special fetish for pink hair."
"Yes. It's truly strange. Maybe we have a karmic tie from a past life?"
"Oh please. If this life is already such a mess, the past one must've been a disaster too."
I looked around.
Dream spaces usually meant nothing, but this one felt somewhat meaningful. Of all places, I was sitting in an old village bus.
A faint rubbery smell.
Go Yo-ri was seated demurely in the seat opposite me. We sat facing each other, barely a meter apart.
"What's this about? It's rare for you to crawl into my dream so suddenly like this."
"Really. 'Crawl out'? Every word choice leaves a scratch on my heart......"
Go Yo-ri placed her palm on her cheek and let out a sigh.
"You treat A-ryeon so kindly when she calls you 'Guild Leader~ Guild Leader~.' And originally, I was the first guild member to claim that title."
"Expelled long ago. Get to the point."
"I didn't crawl out, Guild Leader. You called me."
I swallowed.
"...Village Bus No. 44. An anomaly connected to you?"
"Funny nickname. You always give names to anomalies, Guild Leader."
Go Yo-ri covered her mouth and laughed. The giggle—which could be written as 'kukuku'—didn't come from where Go Yo-ri sat.
It leaked faintly from the speaker mounted inside the village bus, mingled with static.
*Static, giggle. Ahaha—static, static—giggle.*
"I actually think you could praise me, Guild Leader. If I hadn't appeared in your dream tonight, you would've met it in reality instead. Ah. Would you have preferred that?"
"...No, I'm grateful."
"You're welcome!"
*Drip.*
Red paint streaked across the glass window behind Go Yo-ri. Blood trickled down from the half-moon crimson pattern.
"Do you know? Naming something. It doesn't just mean 'trapping an existence within letters' as you intend...... It also means giving a child a name."
"......"
"Among all the words in common use in the world, few haven't passed your tongue. Father of all things. Mother of myriad anomalies. Are you aware you're nearing such a position, Guild Leader?"
"...Not at all."
Honestly, I hadn't predicted it in the slightest.
But only after hearing the whisper from Go Yo-ri's form—reflected in the world of the unconscious—did I realize.
Indeed. It was a valid observation.
When I gaze at the void, the void gazes back at me. An unchanging truth.
"Not all anomalies emerge at the moment you regress, Guild Leader. In fact, the vast majority go entirely unrecognized. But by then, in your mind, 'names have already been attached to countless anomalies.'"
"...The moment of birth, you mean."
"Yes. You recognize anomalies earlier than anyone else in the world, ponder them, and give them names."
*Shh.* Go Yo-ri traced a finger across her lips.
"Calling a name. That alone begins a spell. Every time you regress, you're calling out to every anomaly across the universe."
*Tszzt!*
Noise burst from the speaker.
*-Come here, Ten Tribes, Meteor Shower, Mu-gen-a, Operator of All-Imagination Amusements, Village Bus No. 44, come here.*
"......"
"That's why anomalies are unconsciously drawn to you, Guild Leader. Hmm. To put it cutely, it's like searching for mom and dad. Of course, whether they like their parents or not varies by anomaly."
"Thanks for the advice. I'll be careful going forward."
*-Ahahahahahahaha.*
"......"
I pressed my lips together. Instinctively, I understood the meaning of that burst of mocking laughter from the speaker.
With my [Perfect Memory Ability], I could never forget an anomaly I'd once recognized.
The naming was already complete. How exactly was I supposed to 'be careful' now?
"Have you ever had thoughts like this?"
Go Yo-ri said, hand over her mouth.
We were undoubtedly facing each other a meter apart, yet for some reason her voice whispered directly into my ear.
"You feel like you're barely taking one step forward, but the ground is all swamp, your body sinking deeper than you advance......"
With her mouth covered, it was unclear if her lips were even moving.
Just persistently, like candy melted under the summer sun, her voice pooled like lava in my ear canal.
"The anxiety that regression might not be an all-powerful reset button. The suspicion that you're not saving the world, but instead clawing at its fringes with your nails, dragging it down."
"......"
"There's a method here, Guild Leader. One strategy to reach the ending."
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
In the next instant, the village bus interior—which had held only me and Go Yo-ri—was suddenly packed full.
Every passenger seated in the bus had the face of the "Undertaker."
With utterly expressionless faces, the "Undertakers" sat in various poses. None showed any sign of noticing me or Go Yo-ri.
"When you wake from the dream—"
*Whisper.*
"Board Village Bus No. 44, Guild Leader."
"......"
"Of course, not right away. After raising the Saintess sufficiently, ask her this. With [Time Stop] active, can she inflict minor injuries on the innards of everyone in the world at once?"
*Whisper. Whisper.*
"Then release time, and without the slightest delay, you board the bus. Outside the window, Sim A-ryeon continuously pours healing onto you."
*Ta-da...*
Go Yo-ri whispered softly into my ear.
"Wow. Then everyone in the world becomes the Guild Leader! Regressor paradise! Following the Wise Folk, the birth of the Regressor race."
"......"
"Ahaha. If world-scale is too much, even just one or two is fine. You often miss Schopenhauer, but actually, making comrades might be surprisingly simple."
It's about becoming one.
That was what Go Yo-ri said.
"How about it, Guild Leader?"
"Indeed. A strategy I'd never considered. I'll keep it in mind."
"You're lying."
"......"
*Rumble-.*
The village bus lurched into motion. The engine shuddered as it headed somewhere.
Scenery beyond the window raced by far too quickly. Day and night swapped endlessly, shadows ceaselessly draping over Go Yo-ri.
"Wherever you're headed, whatever your final stop is, I support you, Guild Leader. I'll be with you forever. But you've already passed quite a few stops."
"......"
"Please don't forget that fact."
*Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble.*
The bus's vibrations shifted to those of a subway, the interior stretching long on both sides. Lights flickered. The seated "Undertakers" tore lengthwise with a *riiiip*, their bodies bursting open.
And I woke from the dream.
"......"
"Eek."
Sim A-ryeon was before my eyes. A-ryeon, who had been peeking at me, jumped in fright.
"Y-You woke up......"
"Saintess duties?"
"Just finished! L-Like you said, I claimed it was traces of angels descending via Mother of Light Christ's blessing, and turned it into a holy site."
"Good. Good work, our A-ryeon."
"Ehehe. P-Praise me more."
Sim A-ryeon grinned from ear to ear.
In that smile, Go Yo-ri oddly overlapped.
I wasn't mistaking one for the other.
It was just that the advice Go Yo-ri had given me in the dream came to mind unbidden.
-Guild Leader recognizes anomalies earlier than anyone else in the world, ponders them, and gives them names.
Because of that, Go Yo-ri had warned that I would become the "parent of anomalies."
But was that really the case?
The first things that came to mind right after regressing weren't solely anomalies.
I thought of people I hadn't been able to save in prior loops. I saw Seo-gyu on the verge of his head exploding the moment I opened my eyes. I recognized Sim A-ryeon trembling in a dim corner.
'For me, human smiles come before exterminating anomalies?'
The answer was YES.
If it had been the early days of regression, maybe not—but now, the answer was always "yes."
Like sails swelling in the wind with every gust, as long as this answer cradled the contours of my heart, I wouldn't lose my way no matter what sea I crossed.
"Our A-ryeon is the best."
"Ehehe......"
In the midst of this boundless ocean, I stroked the head of the girl who became my wind.
The wind laughed purely white within my palm.
4
There is an epilogue.
"Let's draw up a bus route map."
Back in Busan, I proposed this at the meeting. No Do-ha, seated at the round table, tilted her head.
"A bus route map......?"
"Yes. The organs of Village Bus No. 44 passengers are randomly transferred anywhere. This is likely because the bus lacks a designated route map."
I sketched a route map on the blackboard.
ⓞ Hwang Seo-young's Pancreas (54 · Busan) - ⓞ Kim Jin-cheol's Cornea (11 · Sejong) - ⓞ Namgung Hee-young's Lungs (37 · Pohang) - ⓞ Park Da-ram's Kidney (21 · Busan) .....
What appeared on the blackboard was a typical bus route map. The only unusual thing was the stop names.
"Like this, we prepare a list of patients to receive organs in sequence. Volunteers can freely select and add 'stops' to the route map for those they wish to donate to."
"Oh......"
"Family, friends, acquaintances. Or those connected by chance. Essentially, selecting recipients for your organs after death."
The apocalypse already had an extraordinarily high number of suicides. There were far heavier reasons to leave this world than to stay.
Even those people would gladly donate organs if it benefited the "survivors."
Anyone boarding the bus—an ordinary person—died instantly, without time to feel pain. Organ donation could occur simply, swiftly, and precisely, without cumbersome procedures.
"Not just suicides—even among the elderly, some would donate organs. Village buses appear anywhere, making them accessible to all."
"Hmm......"
Calling it "donation" makes it sound like a purely altruistic act from human goodness, but I also viewed it as "efficient resource allocation."
The apocalypse was brutal.
Even human corpses had to be actively utilized if useful.
Village Bus No. 44 had a fatal flaw, but if we were cautious of anomalies like Mother of Light Christ, it was still highly valuable.
After hearing my full presentation, No Do-ha twisted the corner of her mouth.
"What. Wouldn't that be good......?"
Bus route maps and stop lists were distributed nationwide.
Any changes to the routes were first uploaded to SG Net. Guilds across regions then updated the stop names for public viewing.
Occasionally, there were side effects—like forcing innocents onto buses—but such incidents were mostly preempted by the Saintess.
From that day on, while walking streets, you'd often spot a frail old man sitting beneath a bus signpost.
Such an old man always clutched a crumpled memo in his hand. A memo listing the names of stops where he would leave his final mark.
The old man would glance around for the bus, occasionally unfolding and reading his memo.
Moments later, Village Bus No. 44 would materialize like a mirage before the signpost.
Then the old man, gripping the memo in one hand and his cane in the other, would board the bus.
The green village bus would vanish somewhere, leaving behind the smell of exhaust.
"......"
Even in forsaking life, striving to leave something for someone.
Perhaps in that faint weight of the cane tapping the ground to board the bus lay the reason I always chose humans over anomalies?
Doesn't all of humanity merely cling to the tip of that cane?
'Go Yo-ri. The day I accept your proposal will never come.'
In the end, even one's final destination might just be a stop where someone pauses briefly.
And so I wished.
Rather than reigning as the terminus for the masses, may I simply be a stopover for the children.
-Transplantee. End.