Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: Lay Buddhist II
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Shin Noah
3
In the 17th round, Old Man Show and I were running an academy. He was the principal, and I served as vice-principal. It was one of the schemes to more easily attract and train promising awakeners from various nations.
We ran the academy in earnest for a while, which allowed us to amass a wealth of data on awakeners. The story of this academy would come up separately later.
“Assemble the senior class and all the faculty!”
“They’re already assembled, you punk! You’re the last one!”
Old Man Show was bluffing. We had to wander the dorms in our pajamas, waking up the entire combat team.
Once preparations were complete, we set out. We headed to the location we had pre-arranged with other guilds for emergencies.
“Three Thousand Guild Leader!”
“Oh, Undertaker. Sword Saint’s here too?”
Along the way, we linked up with other guilds one after another.
Three Thousand Worlds, one of Korea’s top two guilds, also swiftly arrived with only their elites. The sight of sixty awakeners all wearing tall conical hats and clutching staffs was comical, but their combat power was anything but.
“What in the world is going on?”
“We’re still figuring out the exact cause. The constellations are babbling at me about it, but I need to see it with my own eyes first. Anyway, that ridiculously huge tree over there was first spotted at 2 a.m. today.”
“Did it bloom out of nowhere?”
“Yeah. It grew to that size in less than an hour. It only started glowing red like that after it was fully grown. So the report was a bit delayed.”
“…Ominous.”
“Tell me about it.”
At that moment, a Three Thousand guild member approached and whispered something to Dang Seo-rin.
The guild leaders gathered at the rendezvous point, including us, all turned to look at Dang Seo-rin. Even though the Ten Tribes had already been subjugated, she was still expected to fulfill her role as alliance leader. She let out a sigh.
“Well, you all need to see it anyway. Bring it here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The guild members dragged something over. Bound tightly with ropes, it was human—or more precisely, clearly a person dressed as a Shinbul cultist.
And to be even more precise, it was a human gnawing relentlessly on their own forearm while muttering nonstop.
“Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.”
Even bound by the ropes, its teeth didn’t stop. Forcing its neck to bend unnaturally, twisting its elbow backward, it devoured its own flesh however it could.
It was too dark at night to notice before, but now we saw that both legs and the left arm were already gone.
The guild leaders’ faces hardened.
“…What the hell is that thing doing? A zombie?”
“Even for a zombie, it’s pretty well-behaved. It’s not eating anyone else—it’s devouring its own flesh.”
“Maybe it’s an especially humble zombie.”
“What’s it muttering?”
The grotesque sight of human flesh being torn off in real time was quite horrifying, but the guild leaders who had survived this long had nerves of steel. Their expressions soured completely, but their gazes remained sharp as they observed the zombie.
“From what we’ve observed so far.”
The guild leaders fell silent as Dang Seo-rin spoke.
“All Shinbul cultists are showing the same symptoms.”
“All of them!”
Shocked murmurs rippled through the group.
“Really all of them?”
“Yes. Ah, I misspoke. It’s not just Shinbul cultists—anyone infected by Shinbul is the same. Doesn’t matter if they’re civilians or awakeners.”
“I knew it.”
Old Man Show grumbled.
“Ever since the old days, getting tangled up with those cult bastards never leads to anything good. What? Just getting infected gives you a free extra life stack? As if something that lucky would ever happen. Bah! I suspected it from the start.”
“……”
The guild leaders shot glares at the German old man, who never picked a time or place for his curmudgeonry. I cleared my throat to smoothly take the floor.
“Three Thousand Guild Leader. Are these the zombie’s only symptoms? Eating itself like some gluttonous monster? It’s certainly intriguing, but I don’t see how the world tree and these zombies are connected.”
“Huh? Glutton? Anyway, just watch a bit longer. Something amazing’s about to happen.”
Even as we spoke, the zombie didn’t stop its feeding.
“Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.”
Soon, the last remaining limb in the center—the right arm—fell away. Then the zombie stood upright like a matryoshka doll.
“……”
The zombie looked up at the night sky. Toward where the world tree stood. Its mouth slowly opened, and in an instant, a red flower bloomed from within.
The guild leaders gulped.
“Good lord.”
“Fuck, what……”
Someone muttered then.
“It’s just like cordyceps……”
A fungus that parasitizes a host and eventually sprouts mushrooms.
Except here it was a flower instead of a mushroom—and a breathtakingly beautiful red one at that.
The red flower used the zombie’s body as its pot. In the blink of an eye, it grew to the height of a single-story apartment. As if the flow of time had glitched. We stared wordlessly up at the flower’s tip.
*Pop.* It burst open like popcorn.
The red flower bloomed and withered in ten seconds, as if each was a full season. But unlike other trees, it didn’t drop its petals downward.
The guild leaders’ jaws dropped.
“Wha—what. That……”
“It’s going up?”
Not falling petals, but ascending ones.
The red flower seemed to belong to the sky, not the earth. They scattered not downward, but upward. Like a gentler breeze, gentler fireflies, gentler cherry blossoms.
And it wasn’t just here.
Countless red lights twinkled in the dark night sky. Far more delicate than starlight, yet far closer too. From abandoned buildings, empty lots, everywhere—red petals unfurled like a galaxy, ascending to the heavens.
“So beautiful……”
Someone murmured that too.
The world tree, having gathered all the red from the ground, grew even more lush. Its radiance was so brilliant that even starlight and moonlight had to hold their breath.
“Hmm.”
Old Man Show let out a groan.
I turned to look, and he wasn’t staring at the night sky but at the zombie, peering intently.
Gaunt flesh. No, less flesh and more like the long-necrotic bark of a tree. The human corpse, stripped of all its red, was now just a husk. Old Man Show tapped it with the scabbard of his sword, and the zombie-pot crumbled comically.
“Doctor.”
“…Yes, old timer.”
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to agree, but it was the correct diagnosis.
A boss-grade monster reappearing after the Ten Tribes were subjugated.
No, in truth, it had appeared before the Ten Tribes but hid its power for years, parasitizing hosts until finally revealing itself.
The world tree—specimen name ‘Udumbara’—had emerged.
4
Udumbara.
A legendary spirit flower in Buddhism. A phantom blossom that didn’t exist in reality.
But now it did.
There was no countering a legend that had descended to earth. It was even more dangerous than the Ten Tribes.
Above all, unlike the Ten Tribes, the Udumbara was incredibly cunning. It didn’t just parasitize hosts—it made the hosts welcome the parasite. It quietly expanded its influence that way before unleashing all its power at once.
The moment the Udumbara revealed itself, it was game over. Once enough hosts were infected for the red world tree to fully bloom, the world’s destruction was sealed.
“Oh dear, what do we do……”
“Indeed.”
Old Man Show and I huddled together, groaning.
For reference, this was now the 18th round. Wondering where the 17th went? Well……weeds sprouted from Old Man Show’s beard, and grass grew from my eyebrows.
Thinking it was our last shot, we gathered the entire guild alliance and hacked at the tree with axes, but it was no use. What could we do? Old Man Show and I neatly mixed poison into our soju glasses and toasted.
Even after Old Man Show went on vacation, we couldn’t devise a fundamental countermeasure against the Udumbara.
At best, we tried suppressing cults from spreading and restraining awakener supremacism?
It was like pissing in your pants in winter. We could control it domestically somehow, but overseas? Any measures only delayed the Udumbara’s bloom by a little.
But time passed, and in the 36th round.
“The constellations… don’t exist.”
“The Saintess of National Salvation and the Conqueror of the Alps—they’re all characters I made up alone.”
――Things changed in an instant once we met the Saintess.
A clue emerged for攻略 the seemingly impossible world tree.
From the rounds after forming a blood alliance with the Saintess, I seriously began subjugating the Udumbara. The core of the operation was the request I gave her.
“Saintess, from now on, please use [Clairvoyance] to closely monitor Jeju Island’s awakeners for a while.”
“Jeju Island?”
The Saintess tilted her head.
“Is there a reason?”
“Yes. If left alone, a cult called Shinbul Faith starts spreading in earnest from year three……”
I explained the zombie virus and the rise of Shinbul Faith, the resulting awakener supremacism and backlash of awakener hatred, and above all, the final flourish of the red world tree blooming.
The Saintess listened quietly from start to finish. Then she spoke softly.
“I see. I understand. You plan to find out who the first outbreak patient is.”
“Exactly.”
The identity of the first patient, unknown until now. The first domino that triggered the virus crisis.
Impossible for me alone, but with my regression ability combined with the Saintess’s [Clairvoyance], it was feasible.
“This round, Jeju Island. Next, South Gyeongsang Province. Then North Gyeongsang, South Jeolla, North Jeolla…… Like this, each round we’ll focus on one region across the country. Sweeping from south to north. Then――”
“We’ll eventually witness the moment the first patient emerges.”
The Saintess nodded.
“Got it. I’ve been using [Clairvoyance] mainly on prominent awakeners like you, Undertaker. But if I push a little…… It’s impossible to monitor every awakener in Korea in real time, but one region at a time. Somehow.”
“Shall I assign Yoo Ji-won to assist?”
“No. It’s fine.”
The Saintess clasped her hands and closed her eyes in prayer.
“I can handle it alone.”
I didn’t know exactly how she monitored so many awakeners back then. It was a ‘secret’ she never revealed.
I could only guess she collaborated with awakeners working for the Korean government (or its remnants) or figures like No Do-ha.
I entrusted the quest to the Saintess and, on my end, eliminated the cult leaders who played the key role in establishing Shinbul Faith. Even without them, similar faiths would arise, but it bought at least one to two extra years.
Thus, in the 36th round.
“Not Jeju Island.”
37th round.
“No first patient in South Gyeongsang Province.”
38th, 39th, 40th rounds.
Finally, in the 41st round.
“…Found it.”
The Saintess opened her eyes.
“South Chungcheong Province. Asan. Onyang.”
More precisely, an old inn in Onyang.
Once moderately prosperous, it had declined when the city center shifted. Backed against sidewalks overrun by weeds rather than people, the inn was rotting precariously.
No sign of life from the inn. The dull beige paint flaked off in patches.
In room 202 on the second floor of the dilapidated building, with nothing worth looting, lay a mother and child, dead.
“……”
The child’s corpse looked as if it had just closed its eyes moments ago, perfectly preserved.
Discovering this place was nearly miraculous. A resident center worker who was an awakener had patrolled homes and lodgings intensively in case any residents hadn’t evacuated (perhaps the Saintess had impersonated a constellation to make use of him).
The moment the center worker found the bodies, the Saintess witnessed the same scene.
The worker moved on to the next patrol spot without much thought. It was a time when saving living residents was burden enough. But the Saintess’s gaze lingered, leading me here today.
There was a reason my moniker was ‘Undertaker.’
“Hmm.”
The mother leaned against the wall, clutching the child tightly. The child was a newborn infant. And atop the mother’s shoulder, tiny red flowers had bloomed—like springtime ferns.
The child wore prayer beads slightly larger than its wrist. It wasn’t hard to imagine whose they were or who had put them on. I pondered briefly the mother’s feelings as she placed her own beads on her child.
Did she hope, as she crossed to the other shore, that her own child alone would not fall to hell?
I stood there blankly, gazing at the scene before me like a lay Buddhist facing a Buddha statue.
[Undertaker.]
The Saintess spoke via telepathy. Unlike with other awakeners, she didn’t act as a constellation with me. She used her own voice directly.
I nodded.
“I know. Don’t worry.”
I channeled aura into my sword and swung. In the cramped single room too small to call worldly, a few red flowers scattered.
The Udumbara—a flower of illusion.
5
There’s no epilogue to this tale.
But from that day on, one more task was added to my schedule at the start of each round.
Pick up Seo-gyu and Sim A-ryeon at Busan Station. Head to Baekje Hospital building for Old Man Show’s café au lait. Contact the Saintess to form an alliance. And come up to Chungcheong Province to see the red flowers.
I learned later, but no matter how many regressions, saving the mother and child was impossible. By the time the gate incident hit Seoul, they were already dead.
Cause of death: starvation.
The world’s misfortunes were always in season.
“Haa……”
Sometimes, due to slight delays in my schedule, I’d arrive at the inn days late. By then, the fern-sized Udumbara would have grown like a small cherry tree.
“Wow, it’s so pretty……”
Every round, I’d bring a different companion for flower viewing. In the 96th round, it was Sim A-ryeon.
“Is this really the monster you mentioned, Guild Leader? The one we need to list as continental threat level on SG Net……”
“Yes.”
“It’s, um, such a mysterious sight. Makes me want to paint it.”
Not just talk—she actually brought an easel here and set it up. As she took out her paints, she said, “Ah.”
“So what kind of flower is that, Guild Leader……?”
A flower that’s destroyed the world countless times.
Instead of saying that, I brushed aside a flower branch and replied.
“It’s a flower that blooms once every season I die.”
“Whoa.”
Sim A-ryeon admired my refined expression.
“Chuunibyou……”
“……”
“A guild leader your age with chuunibyou is a bit……”
Hmm.
Next time I hang out with her, only haunted spots from now on.
- Lay Buddhist. End.