Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: The One Who Was the Watcher I: Shin Noah
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39
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The One Who Was the Watcher I
Shin Noah
1
Some readers might have wondered after reading the part in the last episode where Kim Si-eun went on a backpacking trip to Japan.
They might have thought I've been somewhat reluctant to mention anything about overseas until now.
Of course, there's a perfectly good reason for that.
First off, and as obvious as it is, my main base of operations is the Korean Peninsula.
I do occasionally head out on expeditions to nearby areas, but I basically don't prefer overseas expeditions.
Reason? There's no Saintess there.
I'm not joking. If the Saintess, who always runs as my supporter, suddenly vanishes, the sense of incongruity is massive. It's like a third-person top-down strategy simulation game suddenly switching to a first-person soulslike action game.
That's why I didn't head to China to subjugate the Butterfly Effect without bringing the Saintess along.
The role the Saintess plays in my regressor life is far bigger than you'd imagine.
I have no intention of chanting praises like some Russian Lolita complex author: "Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul, Saint-ess." She'd hate it anyway.
But if I had to assemble a hero party, I'd absolutely recruit the Saintess first and then figure out the strategy. If you don't know, memorize this: Supporter-Saintess is a fixed pick.
"Undertaker."
"Yes?"
"Why must we absolutely never observe Go Yo-ri of the Satisfaction Guild with Clairvoyance, no matter what?"
"Hmm...."
As someone so vital to my operations, I naturally had a [Saintess Operation Manual] folder in my head.
It wasn't special treatment just for the Saintess either—I had separate operation manuals drafted for every member I considered part of my party.
Most Awakeners treated my "operation manuals" as something vaguely creepy.
It was understandable. To me, they were knowledge earned through blood and sweat, but to others, it was like some random guy popping out of nowhere yelling, "Your ability actually gets stronger the more you draw aggro from people!"
Honestly, even I'd have a hard time believing it.
"Go Yo-ri has a mental contamination ability as a passive. Top-tier stuff. No matter how strong someone's mental fortitude, contact with Go Yo-ri means inevitable brainwashing."
"Ah.... I see."
The Saintess never once doubted my operation manuals.
She couldn't share my memories, but she did share my records. She accepted every claim I made without hesitation as truth and built strategies atop that truth.
Tap-tap-tap-
The Saintess organized the info on her keyboard as she talked with me.
"By any chance, did I ever get in trouble before by observing Go Yo-ri with Clairvoyance?"
"Yes. Turn 89."
"How did things play out?"
"It happened so fast that the details are hard to pin down, but at the time, Go Yo-ri was a member of our party. Seo-gyu was probably brainwashed first. Seo-gyu knows what your abilities are and your home address, right? Go Yo-ri must have used that info to approach you. By the time I rushed over, I found you hanging from a towel rack, dead."
"Suicide?"
"Probably. More precisely, induced suicide."
"...."
The Saintess rested her chin on her hand.
"Seo-gyu. Yeah, we really need to keep Seo-gyu as a solid ally at all times. Separately from that, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to dig into Go Yo-ri's true nature right up to the end this turn, even if it means abandoning it...."
The Saintess checked my expression and nodded.
"...No need to take the risk. Then, tell me any other things I need to watch out for."
"There's nothing else beyond what I've already told you."
That was both truth and a lie.
"I'll handle all the remaining risk factors myself."
The typing stopped. The Saintess tilted her head, looking my way.
"Undertaker."
"Yes."
"What happens to me if you leave those risk factors alone?"
I fell silent for a moment.
There were a few things I intentionally kept silent about. Talks of Time Seals were one, and mentions of overseas were another. Telling those stories required some preparation.
The extremely rare case where Awakeners "fall" and turn into monsters—I hadn't mentioned that until now either.
So, I'll talk about it now.
The tale of what happens when the Saintess falls—so-called the "Executioner Route."
2
Ever since we met at a convenience store by the riverbank and learned of each other's existence, in every turn, I trusted the Saintess and she trusted me.
Having lost Old Man Show, I desperately needed a collaborator. The Saintess needed a warrior to compensate for her lack of combat prowess. Our alliance was inevitable.
[Ten Tribes subjugation complete. Good work, Undertaker. With this, most threat factors south of the Han River have been eliminated.]
At first, there were no problems.
[Udumbara.... Subjugation complete. If what you said is true, Undertaker, the flower blooming from that masked one's corpse would have covered the world. I think it's a terribly sad thing. Good work.]
Among the people I knew, the Saintess boasted peerless mental strength and survival skills.
She always survived until the day the world ended. She could live without interacting with others, without relying on force—her heart was strong.
[Meteor Shower subjugated. ...Now, the tragedy of countless Awakeners and civilians perishing overnight without knowing why won't happen again. I think it would have been impossible without you, Undertaker. You really worked hard.]
We safely passed the critical 7th-year hurdle when the Meteor Shower definitively appears.
Changes were detected starting from year 12.
"Undertaker."
"Hm? What's up?"
[A civilian massacre happened in Nampo, North Korea.]
The Saintess's Clairvoyance reached most of the Korean Peninsula. When limited to the peninsula, it wasn't an exaggeration to say we had unlimited vision.
"What? Civilian massacre? Where exactly? I'll go check."
[...No. I just found out now. The massacre is already mostly over. Estimated to have occurred from the morning of July 11 to now, July 13.]
But the Saintess's Clairvoyance only worked on "Awakeners." She couldn't observe everyone living on this land.
In other words, when civilians killed civilians, the Saintess was utterly powerless.
Murder. Massacre. Any crime between civilians—she always arrived one step late, observing only the aftermath of "incidents already concluded."
"Undertaker."
[It seems my ability is gradually strengthening.]
Things worsened a bit more.
"Oh, really? Abilities can grow further depending on the Awakener, or stay static from the start—looks like yours is the former. How far does Clairvoyance reach now?"
[Still precarious, but based on me being in Seoul, it seems to reach the tip of the Shandong Peninsula.]
"Wow. Impressive. Congratulations."
[...Yes. Thank you.]
"More importantly, have you considered learning martial arts from me yet? You need to exercise, Saintess. Not just to build combat power, but for health—training is essential."
[I'll think about it. ...Thanks.]
Originally, the Saintess's ability developed slowly.
When the Ten Tribes swept the peninsula, when the Udumbara ended the world, when the Meteor Shower collapsed everything, the Saintess met her death.
She died before her ability could fully grow.
But as turns progressed, the Saintess's lifespan extended.
5 years, 7 years, 12 years, 15 years. The longer her time stretched, the wider the world she could observe grew, inch by inch.
Above all, at this point, I was funneling nearly all the spirit medicines that were useless to me to the Saintess. She was my most reliable ally.
[.......]
As a result, the tragedies she had to bear also increased.
It was fine when limited to Korea.
Even if we couldn't care for everyone, we had the social system called the National Highway Management Corps.
Moreover, the Constellations' existence made serious deviations by Awakeners rare, and if they happened, Clairvoyance caught them quickly.
Large Korean guilds like Dang Seo-rin's Three Thousand Worlds were cooperative with us too.
But beyond the seas, it was different.
We didn't have the bandwidth to care. Resources were short. Even before debating lack of supplies or manpower, my time as a regressor was absolutely insufficient.
For example, a round trip to Tianjin, China, took at least a week even conservatively. Meaning the peninsula would be without me for that week, and I'd inevitably miss incidents only I could handle.
[.......]
The Saintess was wise. She deeply agreed with the premise that all good stems from efficiently allocating resources.
She even considered my feelings.
Just once, after mentioning the Nampo massacre, she never brought up tragedies outside the National Highway Management Corps's domain again. Out of worry it might burden me.
But her silence didn't stop the killings.
[.......]
Thanks to us subjugating the Milky Way, countless lives were saved domestically and abroad. But what survivors did with their lives was their own affair—and cases of one life taking another were commonplace.
We could have turned a blind eye.
If we'd cut it off, there'd have been no issue.
But the Saintess never stopped "observing."
If the world shrank by as much as she ignored, maybe—but that never happened.
As long as the world existed there, as long as someone died without even a scream, the Saintess wanted at least she to remember that death.
Poison.
Poison dripped one drop at a time into her heart.
[.......]
The Saintess's heart was strong.
The capacity of time that heart could hold was 16 years.
3
Crash-
A sound like glass shattering echoed through the rundown playground.
A playground once in the middle of an apartment complex. Now the buildings were demolished, mere remnants yearning for old housing prices, but the half-ruined debris still rang echoes well enough.
It wasn't actually glass breaking.
It was metal clashing against metal—or more precisely, Aura colliding with Aura.
"Wow."
I deflected the hand axe the Saintess threw with my sword and let out a gasp of admiration.
"Impressive. Not just Aura, but innate talent in martial arts too."
"...Thank you. Still a long way to go."
"No, no. Compared to me, you're practically a Heavenly Martial Body. I'm proficient in Aura cultivation, but talentless in actual skill. If I'd had even half your martial talent, I'd have saved the world by now."
It wasn't entirely flattery.
Truth was, my martial arts talent was near zero. In wuxia terms, I was the type who brute-forced with internal energy piled high into Aura strikes. Even that only stabilized from turn 10 onward when my skills persisted through regressions.
"And your Aura being transparent is fascinating. How is transparent Aura even possible?"
"......"
Above all, the Saintess's Aura had no presence.
Utterly colorless and odorless. Purely transparent.
When they clashed—crash-, zing-, it sounded just like glass shattering—so her mental image was probably a "mirror." It suited her perfectly.
"Anyway, that's it for today. Good work."
"Good work, Undertaker."
"If you achieved this much in just a year, in 3 or 5 years, you could run the frontlines in my place. So why'd someone this skilled avoid training all this time?"
"Moving my body isn't a hobby."
"Has the hobby changed now?"
"...Yes."
I felt inwardly proud.
'The perennial hikikomori Saintess changes when she wants to.'
Though it took a whopping 16 years for the change to happen. But so what? Across my entire regressor life, this was the first time the Saintess learned martial arts.
I handed her a towel and said,
"Saintess, any separate plans for today?"
"......"
"Saintess? Saintess."
"...Ah."
The Saintess blinked.
It had been happening frequently lately.
She'd always had a vibe of observing the world from one step removed, but nowadays that aura felt thicker? Even mid-conversation, she'd suddenly zone out, staring vacantly into space.
"Are you okay?"
That dazed expression suited her oddly well—aesthetically flawless—but I worried if something was wrong with her health.
If the Saintess fell ill, No Do-ha would immediately chew me out. The Saintess's Clairvoyance was too crucial for running the National Highway Management Corps.
"Yes, I'm fine.... Sorry. What did you say?"
"Any plans to head out somewhere today?"
"No."
The Saintess answered immediately.
"None."
"Good. Security's been rough lately, hasn't it? I'm sure you handle it fine, Saintess, but please be careful. You overdo it sometimes."
"...You know me well, Undertaker."
"Of course. We've known each other for years."
The Saintess took the towel from me and wiped her face.
At the time, I thought she was just lowering her head to wipe sweat.
Looking back now, maybe she used the towel to naturally avoid my gaze.
"Thanks always, Undertaker."