Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Genetic Factor I
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Shin Noah
1
This time, let me try summing up my story comprehensively. I’m the one who provided wholehearted support to make Dang Seo-rin ascend as Korea’s strongest idol, the one who founded the National Highway Management Corps by monopolizing roads nationwide to control logistics, the one who created SG Net to seize power over public opinion and information, the one who debuted the constellation known as the “Librarian of the Great Library,” and the one who established the Library Society as a front organization—yep. That was all me.
Among the readers who’ve heard this far, some might start viewing me as an “infinitely omniscient and omnipotent mastermind.”
But that’s a misunderstanding. As I’ve emphasized repeatedly, my tale is closer to a chronicle of failures than triumphs. Naturally, I committed a staggering number of colossal blunders.
Let me introduce one particularly memorable episode from that mountain of screw-ups.
-Whooooooom!
By the way, folks.
This might come out of left field, but do you like *The Lord of the Rings*?
The *Lord of the Rings* I’m referring to here isn’t J.R.R. Tolkien’s original novel, but the trilogy adapted into films by director Peter Jackson in later years.
Among that trilogy, my all-time favorite is, naturally, the grand finale: *The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King* (2003).
And above all else, the battle scene where the cavalry of the human kingdom charges valiantly toward the orcs... that part known as the “Rohan cavalry charge” is my absolute top pick.
In the film, right before the humans and orcs collide, there’s a moment where each side steels their resolve.
-Form up, you maggots! Form up! Pikes forward! Archers to the rear!
-Forward! And fear no darkness! Arise! Arise, riders of Théoden!
-Death!
-Forward, sons of Eorl!
Oh, and obviously, the sections marked with ■ are out of respect for the fearsome Tolkien Foundation’s copyright. I, the Undertaker, am a man who strictly upholds copyright law despite appearances.
Anyway, the moment the human cavalry finally launches its charge, the Pelennor Fields echo with that shrill whoooooooom...
Man, really. Onomatopoeia has its limits as it is, but this horn blast is utterly impossible to convey in writing.
No crude string of letters like “whooom” can capture even 0.01% of that majestic sound effect.
I didn’t get around to watching the movie until long after the hype had died down. Before starting my regressor lifestyle, I had zero interest in cultural pursuits in general.
But.
“Wha-what in the world? Guild leader... You’ve never seen *The Lord of the Rings*? I-I don’t understand. What I mean is, like, why are you even alive? Why bother dragging out such a pointless existence...?”
After getting called out by Sim A-ryeon like that, I scraped together a Blu-ray somehow and watched it in my home theater setup.
-Whooooooom!
And I... was utterly hooked.
You could say I finally achieved enlightenment on the glory of cavalry charges. The instant those cavalry hooves mercilessly pulverized the orcs, my own heart got pulverized right along with them.
It was cycle 380.
An incident that unfolded during yet another “vacation cycle.”
2
“Cavalry.”
“...Pardon?”
“Let’s raise a cavalry.”
A hush fell over the meeting room.
Clink. Right on cue, No Do-ha, Commander of the National Highway Management Corps (this woman drinks whatever coffee is put in front of her, beans and variety be damned), set her cup down.
“What kind of nonsense is this...?”
“I’m saying let’s raise a cavalry. In a world where cars and motorcycles won’t even roll anymore, how long are we going to cling to those outdated rides? Isn’t it high time we desperately needed next-gen transport that thrives on weeds without needing a drop of oil fuel?”
“If we’re talking outdated, horses feel a hell of a lot more archaic than cars, don’t they...?”
“Eras change with the environment.”
For reference, whenever I push something in the regressor alliance, I never just talk. I hand out pre-prepared audiovisual materials and statistics.
“As you can see, thanks to the National Highway Management Corps’ growth, logistics flows between cities and guilds are picking up steam. But the oil stockpiles each city hoarded are depleting fast. It’s plain as day they’ll run dry within two years. Commander No Do-ha. We need to start countermeasures now.”
“If my memory rattling around in this skull of mine is correct, didn’t the Awakener Undertaker—you yourself—propose using gremlins to power cars just a little while ago...?”
“Gremlins are aberrations, no matter how you slice it. No amount of caution can prevent accidents entirely. That’s why we need a Plan B ready to pivot to at any moment.”
“Hmm. Sounds reasonable on the surface, but why does your face look so damn punchable...?”
That’s because a Buddha sees only Buddhas, and No Do-ha’s eyes see only No Do-ha.
“Fine. I’ll grant it’s somewhat plausible as a Plan B, but how exactly do you plan to raise horses...? We don’t have the spare land to expand pastures anymore...”
“No worries. I’m not about to ask the already swamped Sword Marquis to go stomping weed fields for me.”
“...Then how do you intend to raise them?”
No Do-ha’s head tilt was perfectly justified. In a world blanketed by the Void, even outwardly normal wild plants can spell disaster if eaten carelessly.
What happens if you feed anything willy-nilly? Whether human, animal, or plant—any living organism gets to taste the miracle of real-time genetic mutation.
First, white hairs creep in bit by bit on your scalp, then suddenly teeth sprout where hair should be. Truly a one-of-a-kind experience. Even Darwin, let alone Lamarck, if reborn in this era, would probably balk: “No, I didn’t wish for my theory to be proven *this* right...”
“Commander No Do-ha. We need to break free from the fixed notion of what a ‘horse’ is.”
“Huh? ...Ah, hold on. Just wait a second. That ominous vibe I always get whenever you start spouting pretentious bullshit is washing over me right now...”
“What is a horse? What is the essence of a horse, its Platonic Idea? Isn’t it simply an animal that a human can mount and gallop on?”
“Fuck.”
“I’m not after some mere horse knockoff. I want the true horse. The horse in itself—one humanity has never beheld. One unafraid even if the enemy thrusts pikes from a phalanx formation, with explosive instantaneous acceleration, capable of long-distance sprints, that hauls heavy loads on my behalf, gentle and obedient but only to me—ruthless to foes, doesn’t shit or piss much, and thrives on whatever scraps you feed it.”
“Fuck...”
“And to birth this horse, I’ll harness the Void. What do you think? My flawless plan. Doesn’t it make your heart pound?”
“My heart’s pounding, alright. It’s angina you caused. Too bad the medical dispute mediation center’s kaput, or I’d sue... Hey, Saintess dear? Can’t you rein this guy in...?”
The Saintess, who’d been quietly sipping her instant coffee up to that point, parted her lips. Her face utterly expressionless.
“Last week, Undertaker asked me for advice: wouldn’t a steampunk mobile fortress like *Howl’s Moving Castle* be cool?”
“...”
“Compared to a steampunk mobile fortress, a horse-Idea is at least semi-reasonable. Workshop Master No Do-ha. I advise you give up.”
A long sigh echoed through the meeting room.
“Fuck...”
I interpreted that as “This plan’s solid! Let’s greenlight it ASAP.”
The very next day, I set up a horse ranch in the plains around Daesan-myeon, north of Changwon in South Gyeongsang Province.
“The modern trend for civilized folk is returning to the land... no, returning to the ranch.”
Wearing a straw hat, I gazed out over the plain with feigned nonchalance. Even I had to admit it was prime real estate.
With Junnam Reservoir nearby, it was tailor-made for pastures—an absolute gem. Location-wise, unbeatable. Just a stone’s throw—if you tripped—from Busan, home to the National Highway Management Corps and Three Thousand Worlds headquarters.
‘Wandering the whole country through countless regressions has honed my eye for land to rival Grandmaster Muhak’s.’
My shoulders couldn’t help but puff up with pride.
Before civilization’s fall, it’d been prime farmland, but now most residents had fled, leaving weeds and scrub in charge.
Of course, genetics and biology in this era were downright mystical, so the catalog of weeds and scrub included a species officially dubbed “aberrations.”
-Gobgob.
-Slimeslime.
The aberrations native to the Daesan-myeon area came in two main flavors.
“Slimegoblins,” goblin-shaped but made of liquid slime, and “goblislimes,” slime-shaped but skinned like goblins. Per Library Society classification, both ranked below village-level threats.
No clue how such hybrids came to be, so asking’s pointless. Probably some goblin A one day eyed a slime’s plump belly and got ideas... or slime B found a goblin’s asshole comfy. Either way, the end product was pure evil.
-Gobuuuul!
-Slaaaaa!
Without a shred of hesitation, I wiped both rare species off the face of the earth in a mere two days. Post-apocalypse global dictionaries had conveniently axed “biodiversity,” so it was all nice and legal.
While poking around Changwon, I also tidied up the scrub with some aura sweeps.
-Ihiiiiiing! Hiiiing!
Next came a perfectly legal, utterly peaceful relocation op. I sailed to Jeju, rounded up horses munching grass and frolicking in fields, and crammed them into boats at the harbor.
Then rowed back and forth across the strait between the mainland and Jeju.
Oil? That’s for the elite.
No Do-ha had declared, “There’s not a single liter of oil to spare for your Animal Crossing reality DLC edition...” and handed over exactly 500ml of pitch-black heavy fuel in a beaker.
But what kind of man is the Undertaker? Wrapping my oars in aura, I churned the seas for a solid half-month and successfully relocated all 200 horses.
And that’s not all. I even crossed to Japan, threw down with the Magical Girl Council for some showboating, and airlifted four top-tier purebreds. They’d collaborated on past ventures with me, so they approved readily.
Of course, the Magical Girl Council didn’t loan me a ship, so I had to hand-canoe—no, oar—across the East Sea.
[Why go to such lengths....]
I ignored the Saintess’s mutterings, which cropped up now and then.
I hold the Saintess in high regard, you know. After relentless evangelizing, I finally got her to read *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* last week. But once she finished...
“...In the end, Sima Yi wins—so there’s no real lesson or moral, is there?”
That was her takeaway.
Heavens. She’s not a Shu simp (legit), not a Wei simp (pseudo), not even one of those Wu cult psychos—a Jin simp? Are we really the same species? The Saintess just doesn’t get the human heart.
[No, I’m not saying I like the Sima clan or anything; it’s just the ending... Never mind. Sorry. My mistake. Keep on with the horses.]
Hmph.
Bathed in a regressor’s love, support, and heaping helpings of Void-induced genetic mutations, the horses ballooned in size.
In a sane world, breeding foals and raising them to adulthood would take at least two to three years. But what kind of world is ours? One that throws a fit at Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time.
Thanks to this planetary-scale psychosis, my ranch (named “Idea Ranch”) saw extreme cases where foals rocketed to adulthood overnight.
Those were outliers, though; growth was mostly erratic over about half a year.
-Ihiiiiiing! Hing hing!
-Grrrrrr....
Under my devoted care, the horses unlocked the mysteries of evolution. I dubbed the whole endeavor the “Genetic Factor Operation”—“Factor Op” for short.
Onward, to the strongest horse!
To the swiftest!
To the ultimate!
In a way, evolution mirrors a regressor’s life: sifting optimal paths. Which makes me, the Undertaker, a bona fide Factor Op expert.
And so, half a year later.
“Results already...?”
“That’s right. Commander No Do-ha. I’m formally inviting you to my [Idea Ranch]. Come for an inspection tour.”
“Wow. Haven’t dreaded an invite this much in ages...”
“But this was officially submitted as B Plan at the alliance meeting, wasn’t it? As the designated meeting officer, don’t you have to verify it? Plus, holing up in Busan all the time isn’t healthy. Folks need to hit the open road now and then.”
“...”
“You’ll come, right?”
“...”
I’d even prepped a safari truck for the occasion.
Not just No Do-ha—I invited guildmates like Seo-gyu and Sim A-ryeon too. They get quietly miffed if I have fun without them.
“Ahh...! L-Leader’s always bragging about the ranch; I’ve been dying to see it! C-Can I sketch it and post on SG Net...?”
“Bro won’t shut up about some utopia paradise, so I’m curious too. If it’s all bro-made from scratch, it’s gotta be something, right?”
A-ryeon and Seo-gyu clambered into the back seats of the safari truck, chattering excitedly.
Apocalypses are lean on entertainment by nature. Humanity’s rediscovering the virtue of cherishing every little invite.
Meanwhile, shotgun-riding No Do-ha, true to her old-school roots, looked like death warmed over.
She buckled up the instant she sat, then whispered to me.
“Awakener Undertaker...”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s the Saintess...?”
“Oh, I invited her, but she caught a cold of all things. Said she’d come next time she’s free—such a shame.”
“...”
No Do-ha’s complexion drained further.
I fired up the beat-up old safari truck and slotted in a cassette tape for tunes. My driver’s impeccable playlist selection had the back seat in an uproar.
“Then let the inaugural public opening of Undertaker’s Idea Ranch commence—1st Safari Tour!”
“Waaah...”
“Ooooh!”
Vroooom!
The safari truck belched a mighty cloud of exhaust. I laid on the horn with gusto, and the pre-programmed blast erupted from the klaxon.
-Whooooooom!
Perfection.
As that horn—echo of humanity’s final stand on distant shores—rang out majestically once more, a murmur slipped from the passenger seat. Low volume. For my ears only.
“Fuck...”
Infinite Regressor Spills the Tea