Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Operator I
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Shin Noah
1
The number of years I survive during each specific regression cycle varies wildly.
There are times when I die after just one day of regression, savoring a mayfly life. Other times, I grit my teeth and endure for over twenty years before freezing to death. There are cycles where I get skewered by alien tentacles in year nine, or hit by a meteor crashing into Earth in year seven, letting me experience the plight of the dinosaurs firsthand.
Even I, who received the regressor's perk, end up like this. How much worse must it be for everyone else?
Most awakeners couldn't last twenty years—hell, not even ten, five, or two. They all died off one by one.
If they had power, they died because of it. If they lacked power, they died for that very reason.
In a world hurtling toward destruction, the cause of death was whatever label you slapped on it. Daily life itself was the cause.
But there was one person who died faster than any other awakener.
One they called SG Guy.
Of course, "SG Guy" wasn't his real name.
It was just shorthand for "Fucking Bullshit Man," a nickname I came up with in my head.
I only learned SG Guy's real name during the 50th cycle.
2
The fastest dying man in the world.
That was the image I had of SG Guy.
If I were to recount his tale, I'd first need to describe the scene I see right after regressing.
"What, what's this? Where are we?"
"Huh? Busan Station? I was in the park just a moment ago..."
"Leader? Leader, where are you?"
Every time regression begins, I open my eyes in the Busan Station concourse.
Excluding me, 398 ordinary people have been forcibly summoned here. For reference, there were no rules to the summoning. There was even a Japanese guy dragged in from far-off Fukuoka.
As hundreds panic from the sudden event, something pops into existence in midair.
with a poof!
"Ahh, hello there, everyone!"
It was the so-called Tutorial Fairy.
A deformed character that looked like it had just leaped out of a 2D world into reality.
"Eh? The numbers are a bit low... Anyway, you must all be shocked to be summoned here so suddenly, right? But no need to worry! I'm your guide, here to kindly walk you through everything from the start!"
Sorry to say it, fairy, but that only made me more worried.
For starters, her speech pattern was idiotic. A person's manner of speaking is like ink printed from the printing press called their personality—if the ink is a total mess, it's reasonable to assume there's a serious problem with the printer.
An even graver issue was that the fairy was floating around in midair.
Human civilization hadn't matured enough to accept levitating alien lifeforms without any devices. As a result, screams of "Kyaaak!" erupted here and there in the concourse.
"Ah! It's okay, it's okay! Now, now. I'm here to explain everything to you! You've all received basic education, right? I'm the homeroom teacher for this class called the Busan Station Concourse! The harder you follow my words, the kinder I'll be to you. So, from now on..."
"You fucking bastard!"
Everyone froze.
A majestic lion's roar echoed through the hall.
"What kind of bullshit is that!"
Early twenties, maybe.
A guy with tattooed sleeves flexed his triceps while pointing furiously at the fairy.
That's right.
He was SG Guy, the Fucking Bullshit Man himself.
"Hoee...? Yup?"
"You fucking bastard! If you're dragging people here out of nowhere, you start with an apology, not flapping your mouth!"
SG Guy had lungs like a foghorn. The citizens around him instinctively stepped back.
The fairy even stuttered from the sheer ferocity of his outburst.
"No, hoee. That's not something I did. I'm just a lowly handler..."
"You fucking bastard!"
The fairy flinched.
By now, you've probably figured out why I started calling him SG Guy.
No matter what he said, he couldn't utter a single word without prefixing it with "fuck." The kind of savory diction only seasoned day laborers could master.
"Anyway, you're admitting you're the handler! Huh? No apology?"
"Nooo... I heard from the seniors that people like you are rare these days. That humans have gotten clever and won't fall for provocations..."
The fairy made a pouty face.
A notepad suddenly appeared in her hand. She flipped through the pages. "What was I supposed to do in a case like this?"
"Ah. Here it is."
"You fucking bastard! You ignoring me?"
"Hoi."
The fairy lightly swung her magic wand (which had also been summoned out of nowhere). SG Guy's head went boom with a pop.
"Happy now? Alright! Everyone, follow my lead!"
The fairy beamed. Like a kid expecting her prank to land perfectly.
What the fairy hadn't accounted for was the average sensitivity of the people gathered here. In other words, morality or ethics.
"Hieeek!"
The star of that hilarious scream was Sim A-ryeon (I know the names of every survivor in the Busan Station concourse). Bad luck—she'd been right next to SG Guy and was now drenched head to toe in his blood.
"P-person died...! A person! Eek, he's dead! Hiiik! A person... died...!"
This one bolted faster than anyone else the moment she got splattered, splashing blood and guts everywhere with wet sloshes.
That grotesque sight snapped everyone back to reality.
"Kyaaaaak!"
"M-murder! It's murder!"
"Run awaaaay!"
Nearly four hundred people stampeded after Sim A-ryeon.
The fairy reached out with "Ah," "Hey," "Don't go there," "Wait," but that pose only fueled the terror.
In mere seconds, only about ten people, including me, remained in the concourse.
"......"
"Uh......"
The fairy pouted again.
"The guidelines were wrong! It said if I make an example out of one, everyone quiets down!"
SG Guy's headless corpse lay lonely on the concourse floor.
So I slip away alone to the souvenir shop to farm my exclusive item, the silver bell.
There. Now you all understand why I didn't know SG Guy's real name.
The typical "extra executed for defying the Tutorial Fairy" in novels.
That was SG Guy's true identity.
3
To be honest, I hadn't felt any particular emotion toward SG Guy until now.
In every cycle, SG Guy flipped off the fairy.
As regressions piled up and my life's paths diverged wildly, the first event—"SG Guy dies to the fairy"—always occurred unchanged.
'...What if I save that guy?'
So it wasn't strange that curiosity suddenly struck me.
'Yeah. Let's save him.'
Who knows?
Maybe when awakened, he'd turn out to be the teleporter Old Man Show had longed for all those years.
For reference, I was the type to indulge curiosity easily. It wasn't always like this, but endless regressions warped my personality that way.
And so, in the 50th cycle, I resolved to satisfy my curiosity.
"Ahh, hello there, everyone! Eh? The numbers are a bit low... Anyway, you must all be shocked to be summoned here so suddenly, right? But—"
But the truly shocked one was the fairy.
Simple reason: I'd kicked off the floor and closed the distance to her face in an instant.
"Hoee?"
My shadow fell over the fairy's dumbfounded face.
I wasn't particularly sorry.
Before she could even fully close her eyelids, my burly palm seized her head.
I circulated qi through my hand once.
A playful pop echoed. The sound of the fairy's tiny head bursting. Quite an ironic end for the one who'd always exploded human heads.
"Huh?"
"What just happened......"
People murmured, staring at me as I landed with a thud.
It had been a fight lasting a mere instant.
This early in the regression, no witnesses could have properly tracked the clash between me and the fairy.
Oh, and for reference, I pulverized not just the head but the entire body. Most people probably only registered that "a tiny creature appeared in midair and suddenly vanished."
"Huh?"
Even SG Guy, mouth agape to unleash his roar, could only let out a dazed noise from that open maw.
I approached him and greeted politely.
"Hello."
"Y-Yes? Ah, hello sir?"
For the first time, I heard words from SG Guy other than "Hey, you fucking bastard."
A historic moment in its own right.
4
As expected, SG Guy was a true man's man.
"Who might you be, sir?"
The honorific "sir."
He clung to his pride and grit without dropping formality.
But after witnessing me slice through the monsters appearing at Busan Station in one stroke, "sir" became "you," and by the time I'd beheaded over fifty, it turned to "......"
Finally, after clearing the gate, his address took a more dramatic turn.
"Um...... Big Bro?"
"Yes."
SG Guy timidly gauged my mood.
"Y-You seemed amazing taking down those monsters, so why bring a guy like me along......"
"Two answers. The truth, which you won't believe, and a lie, which you will. Which do you want?"
"Huh? Well...... the truth, of course?"
"I'm a regressor, on my 50th loop of this world. Every time, you died in the concourse. I got curious about who you really are, so this time I'm saving you and traveling together for a while."
"Yeees......?"
SG Guy's face, a mix of respect and fear, crumpled instantly. Like his facial muscles were screaming, "What the hell, you weeaboo?"
I felt a bit deflated. The 35th cycle, when I met the Saintess, was a turning point, and afterward I'd occasionally revealed my regressor status.
Yet no one except her had ever believed me. Why was that?
"Actually, I'm a member of Special Forces Team 5, prepped by the NIS for crises like this. Requesting your cooperation."
"Ah, I see."
"Apologies for the late introduction. My code name is Undertaker. And you are?"
"Seo-gyu, Big Bro. Call me casual."
"Alright?"
Seo-gyu. That was SG Guy's real name.
On my journey to avert world destruction, I learned how vital "companions" were. Later, I actively scouted and assembled promising A-rank awakener candidates.
The 50th cycle was no different. I partied with Seo-gyu and gradually recruited more members.
Having grasped through countless cycles how to maximize their abilities, my party members grew explosively day by day.
"...Looks like I have no talent, Big Bro."
Seo-gyu couldn't enjoy such regressor perks.
Naturally. Surviving the tutorial and partying with me were firsts for him.
I didn't even know what power he'd awaken.
No way to provide one-on-one tutoring.
"Ah, fuck. Everyone else grows fine, why not me......"
From Seo-gyu's view, he'd feel like a hopelessly untalented student.
His comrades were all A-rank prospects, monstrous geniuses. Inevitably, self-loathing set in.
But I knew exactly how to handle this.
"Saintess."
"Yes?"
"Send Seo-gyu a message."
The Saintess of National Salvation.
Time to deploy my secret legendary Pokémon.
At my request, she'd occasionally message party members—scolding or cheering them.
['The Lord of the Red Horse' is convinced your talent is real!]
['The Conqueror of the Alps' dispels your doubts.]
Of course, I had full intel on my party members: family ties, education, past traumas, specialties, etc.
All that fed to the Saintess. She provided psychological counseling based on top-tier personal data.
Legally, it'd be a privacy violation warranting punishment, but post-apocalypse, data protection laws lost bite. Truth be told, they weren't well-enforced even before.
Plus, the Saintess was an S-rank awakener with "Clairvoyance."
Add my leaks, and party members fully bought into the existence of voyeuristic constellations watching their every move.
And now those constellations competed to vouch for their talents?
"...I'll train hard and definitely awaken my power!"
Even Seo-gyu had no choice but to ignite his will.
My two-man, three-role strategy with the Saintess was flawless.
To objections of brainwashing or gaslighting, I plead the fifth.
Soon enough, late one night, Seo-gyu sought me out alone. Deadly serious expression.
"Um, Big Bro."
"What's up?"
"I think I awakened last night."
Finally!
Anticipation swelled within me.
The tutorial's sacrificial lamb. The man who'd exited stage first in all fifty regressions.
What power would he have?
Jackpot? Dud? Either way, it'd satisfy my curiosity—no major disappointment expected.
I shook his hand.
"Congrats. I knew you'd pull through someday."
"Th-thank you. All thanks to you, Big Bro."
"So, what power?"
"Ah. Well...... F-Fuck, how do I explain this."
Seo-gyu's hand in mine lacked strength.
His expression was subtle. Despite achieving the longed-for awakening, he didn't seem thrilled.
'A dud after all.'
Seeing his face, I folded one layer of expectation in my mind. Top-tier powers didn't drop like candy anyway.
"What is it? Spit it out straight."
"No, it's hard to explain in words...... Big Bro, you carry a phone, right? Mind taking a look?"
"My phone?"
"Yeah."
Puzzled but compliant, I pulled out my smartphone.
It was dead. Half a year since the gate incident, most comms were trashed.
Phones, internet, radios, radar—everything contaminated by anomalies.
"Turn on the internet and connect to the address I tell you."
"Hm......?"
Then I witnessed something astonishing.
The internet, which should have been impossible, connected.
Amazed after so long, I fiddled with the phone.
Internet still showed offline, other apps dead. But the site per Seo-gyu's instructions worked fine.
"This is......?"
It was a bulletin board-style site.
Design straight out of ancient PC comms era—primitive as hell.
Seo-gyu spoke, embarrassed like showing childhood drawings.
"Th-This is my awakened power. Site management."