Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: Sleepwalker III
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Shin Noah
4
And so, in my first skirmish with the Meteor Shower, I received a results report titled “Total Wipeout.”
In truth, even calling it my “first skirmish” reflects a pretty human-centric mindset. From the Meteor Shower’s perspective, it was the third.
Since I’d already started writing the report, I might as well finish it. Though my 25th iteration self kicked the bucket before witnessing it firsthand, here’s what unfolded after the Meteor Shower crashed to the surface.
Flash—.
The starlight evaporates a narrow radius of dozens of kilometers—or as wide as two hundred—in an instant upon impact.
Evaporation, literally. A phenomenon impossible to describe with any other word.
-Kwaaaaaang!
Everything caught in the starlight’s range—humans, no, not just Homo sapiens, but animals, plants, and even most anomalies—turns to “ash” in a heartbeat.
The ash isn’t gray; it’s a pure, pristine white, beautifully fine.
If you rush to the site where the Meteor Shower first appeared, you’ll find the whole world reduced to a pile of gleaming white ash, with countless flakes drifting through the air like cherry blossoms. Quite the spectacle.
Of course, don’t be fooled by the beauty into getting close.
Step just one foot—or even a single finger—into the “Ash Territory,” and somehow, you burst into pristine white flames.
Yes, that’s a message for my 26th iteration self, you overly experimental idiot.
Thus, Gyeongsangnam-do Province on the Korean Peninsula was erased in one go, but unfortunately, the Meteor Shower’s rampage didn’t end there.
After the Peninsula came the Pacific’s Hawaii, Russia’s Ingria region, China, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and so on—the Meteor Shower went on a world tour, hitting them in sequence.
Naturally, each time, the world ends up riddled with holes like Swiss cheese from Tom and Jerry. Humanity’s habitable land shrinks accordingly.
The tour takes a total of 6 years.
Exactly 6 years after the first Meteor Shower hits the Peninsula, the entire globe amicably turns to ash piles.
For reference, in year 5, the Meteor Shower crashes into Seoul. At that point, not just the Peninsula but half of East Asia falls under the “Ash Territory.”
The Meteor Shower that killed me during my vacation-run convenience store iteration was this Seoul-bound one.
There are no exceptions to the apocalypse.
No matter how deep you dig bunkers underground or flee to sea on a rowboat, the day inevitably comes when Earth’s entire surface is blanketed in “Ash Territory.” Even the ocean turns white upon impact.
A beautiful death.
A bleached end.
A world of white.
“…….”
In my 27th iteration, I successfully escaped the Meteor Shower.
“Escaped” might be imprecise—“scouting to devise future strategies” is closer. In any case, all I had to do was slip out of its range, so my evasion wasn’t difficult.
Even at the cost of my base on the Peninsula, Dang Seo-rin, and countless connections turning to ash under the starlight, I meticulously gathered intel on that anomaly.
‘Endure for now.’
Something a regressor like me was used to.
It was around then that I started using “anomaly” instead of “monster.” Observing the Meteor Shower made me revise many preconceptions I’d held about monsters.
Of course, that didn’t lead to any miracle defeat of the Meteor Shower right away.
Because the Peninsula at that time was a bona fide hellfire peninsula.
“Immortal Flame! Eternal Bloom! Unyielding Palace!”
“Ah! You know the New Buddha! Everyone, just put flowers on your heads, and even if your limbs fly off, you can live!”
“Why bother with awakening? Just believe in the New Buddha, and you’ll truly attain eternal life!”
By year 7, Gyeongsangnam-do gets bombarded with “Meteor Showers,” and to top it off, the world tree Udumbara fully blooms.
And that’s not all. If you fail to properly seal Baekhwa Girls’ High School, our black mage junior Cheon Yo-hwa will giggle merrily and turn it into an “academy city.”
Honestly, even as a regressor, this felt like some serious bullshit.
A meteor strike rivaling a nuke, a doomsday cult strong enough to blanket East Asia, and a zombie city on top? What the hell? Just telling me to die quietly?
‘Endure.’
So I died quietly.
Yeah, for a regressor, dying is no big deal anyway.
‘A tide of change will come someday.’
In other words, I bided my time.
Sometimes dying to the Meteor Shower’s starlight bombardment, sometimes getting torn apart by the academy city’s million-strong zombie horde, refining strategies against the world’s apocalyptic flavors, lamenting the lack of a masterpiece to execute them, growing impatient, enduring, enduring again, and waiting.
Was it really possible to clear such brutally difficult stages—no, multiple stages?
I endured.
Maybe I should just shrug off my sense of duty like Old Man Show and focus on small pleasures? After all, no one knows better than me that no matter how many regressions, the world barely changes.
I endured.
Maybe spill everything to Dang Seo-rin.
I endured.
And then.
“The constellations don’t exist.”
Finally.
“The Saintess of National Salvation, the Conqueror of the Alps—they’re all characters I created alone.”
Splash.
A small ripple sounded in my world.
—The tide of change had arrived.
5
No matter how much the world tried to force a tragedy genre on me, I, the Undertaker, would never break.
If O Dok-seo heard me, she’d retort, “No, mister, that unbreaking spirit is precisely the key seasoning that makes tragedy delicious,” but I’d cleanly ignore the literary pervert otaku’s nitpicking.
Game Changer.
The addition of a saintess with overwhelming awakening abilities completely overturned the battlefield, repeated dozens of times before.
[Found you. Mr. Undertaker.]
[Chungcheongnam-do. Asan. Onyang.]
World tree Udumbara, subjugation complete.
A regressor’s “knowledge” of the future combined with the saintess’s Clairvoyance “eyesight” in the present produced insane synergy.
Even setting aside her awakening ability, the saintess was a reliable partner.
We shared intel, planned operations, and systematically eliminated the elements turning this Peninsula into a fiery hell.
“But I have no idea how to handle the Meteor Shower. Starlight falling from the sky, with a forced sleep effect on people...”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”
I said.
“The only role Your Holiness needs to play now is prophecy.”
“...?”
The saintess tilted her head.
Soon after, a translucent message appeared to every awakener active on the Peninsula.
[‘Saintess of National Salvation’ issues a quest.]
“Huh?”
“What’s this?”
Awakeners tilted their heads and read the quest window.
The message read as follows.
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[Meteor Strike]
In 6 years, the ultra-grade anomaly ‘Meteor Shower’ will crash onto the Peninsula. The Meteor Shower will incinerate the entire southern Peninsula.
Survive the Meteor Shower’s threat.
-Reward: Survival
-Failure: Death
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A quest broadcast omnidirectionally to all awakeners on the Peninsula. Thanks to the saintess’s [Telepathy] ability, which could convey both voice and text.
Of course, the messages were sent under the name of the constellations, not hers.
“W-What? Death? Just straight-up dying?”
“Crazy. What kind of quest is this?”
“It’s gotta be fake... right?”
The awakeners fell into chaos.
Even I, a regressor, might’ve been fooled in a blink—the saintess impersonated the constellations flawlessly. Doubting the authenticity of a quest from them was incredibly hard. After all, who’d imagine some lunatic using [Clairvoyance], [Telepathy], and [Time Stop] simultaneously to mimic them?
Above all, this was where the saintess’s mastery in manipulating constellations—and her innate talent for inciting awakeners’ psyches—shone through.
“Anomaly? Meteor Shower? ...What’s that?”
“Nothing but ‘6 years from now,’ no other clues. How are we supposed to quest with this?”
“Anyone got solid info? Share with our guild, and we’ll reward you handsomely!”
The saintess didn’t reveal all the info from the start. She merely induced the awakeners to piece together clues on their own.
[‘Prime Minister of the Red Cloak’ secretly teaches that ‘anomaly’ is the constellations’ term for monsters.]
To an awakener particularly devoted to the constellations, she slipped the message as exclusive intel just for them.
[Chain quest toward ‘Meteor Strike’ activates!]
To select awakeners, she packaged Meteor Shower info like quests, revealing it stepwise.
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[Meteor Shower’s Identity] (2/4)
Investigations so far reveal the Meteor Shower is the culprit behind destroying countless worlds.
No one can escape ruin if its starlight touches the ground.
You are the only one who truly grasps the Meteor Shower’s danger.
──────────
The quest rewards to motivate them? All prepared by me.
From running my convenience store, I knew I could secure a hefty chunk of Korea’s remaining logistics if needed.
I stashed stolen goods in remote warehouses, then had the “constellations” tip off their locations as “event rewards.” Awakeners scrambled eagerly to loot them.
Later, with Cheon Yo-hwa joining our operation, the quests’ authenticity reached its climax.
“Ahh, the Meteor Shower...? Indeed. They drove my homeworld to ruin.”
“I’m just a mere refugee. I don’t know much about the Meteor Shower. But rumor has it... a song echoes through the night sky just before the starlight pours down.”
NPCs scripted by Cheon Yo-hwa on my orders.
Occasionally, delving into the Void’s depths led to villages of these NPCs, who claimed to be “refugees from a fallen otherworld.”
“A song? What song?”
“I know no more than that.”
“Damn, that feels like crucial info... but we’re stuck here.”
The NPCs had zombie-like melted flesh patches, and that visual shock lent credibility to their words. Strangers couldn’t help but see it as an omen of something dire.
About a year passed like that.
-Anonymous: Complete Compilation on Ultra-Grade Anomaly ‘Meteor Shower’.txt
-[Three Thousand]Witch Judge: On the ‘song’ consistently reported in Meteor Shower quests.
-Anonymous: Uploading all messages so far from constellations re: Meteor Shower.
An entire “Meteor Shower board” opened up on SG Net.
Here, awakeners not only compiled info voluntarily but actively debated strategies.
Believing they’d uncovered it through their own blood and sweat, they grew utterly convinced of the Meteor Shower’s arrival.
Sure, a few like Old Man Show might suspect the constellations’ true nature, but whatever.
With the saintess’s [Clairvoyance], [Telepathy], [Time Stop], Cheon Yo-hwa’s [NPC Creation], my regressor future knowledge, and sly logistics distribution, an unimpeachable “truth” emerged.
The result?
-Anonymous: Only 1 year till Meteor Shower hits—guilds should start joint training, no?
-Anonymous: Heard Three Thousand Worlds is already mustering alliance guilds periodically.
-Anonymous: Objectively, Dang Seo-rin’s the Peninsula’s hegemon...
└Anonymous: You wearing a dunce cap or what?
The Peninsula’s awakeners perfectly prepared to hunt the Meteor Shower.
Now it was the regressor’s time.
Infinite Regressor