Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: Questioner I: Shin Noah 1
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Questioner I
Shin Noah
1
Let me say this upfront, but today’s episode will have a lot of Q&A-style lines, in other words, questions and answers.
With that in mind, let me toss out the first light question to all of you.
Q) Out of all the survivors on the Korean Peninsula, what’s the monster humans hate the most? (Difficulty: Lowest)
I once ran a poll on SG Net about this very question.
There were so many strong contenders, but if I list just the TOP 5:
1. The Lonely Gourmet. ‘Ten Tribes.’
2. Because of these guys, computers, electronics, all gadgets break, making life miserable. Nicknamed ‘Gremlins.’
3. No matter which road you take, they pop out at every fork and ask, “Save the right or the left?” and bullshit like that. ‘Trolley Dilemma.’
4. Can’t mention details, but some mysterious pink-haired entity whose name starts with ‘Go’ and ends with ‘ri.’ (I bullied Seo-gyu into nominating her, then rigged the votes.)
5. ‘Tutorial Fairies.’
After a four-day poll, the results were announced.
A) ‘Tutorial Fairies.’ - 82.7%
Candidate number 5 wins by a landslide!
Supporters hugged shoulders in joy, chanting praises in one voice.
-Anonymous: Fairies << Fucking asshole bastards.
-[Baekhwa] High School Senior: Hnggg……. Don’t tell scary stories, please! ㅠ_ㅠ;
-Anonymous: Fairy trait) When you first wake up after passing out, 95% chance some plush toy-looking thing is floating around. Looks cute on the outside. But who knew their hobby was harvesting human heads lol.
└Anonymous: Ah lol. Fuck, three years ago my boyfriend’s head flew off right in front of me lol.
-[Satisfaction] Cooking Queen: Interesting.
-Anonymous: In my Void, a fairy suddenly appeared and cast “Kill each other until 30 survivors left.”
-[Three Thousand] Historian: Other monsters are just dumb beasts you can’t even talk to, so you can at least understand them. Fairies seem like you can talk to them, which makes it even more infuriating. What the hell do they think humans are?
For reference, ‘Historian’ is Yoo Ji-won’s SG Net nickname. Yeah, whatever.
The key point here is that even a natural-born psychopath like Yoo Ji-won can’t contain her rage about Tutorial Fairies.
Some of you might be thinking, ‘Huh? Fairies are that bad?’ Since in my stories so far, the fairies have appeared pretty cute and cuddly.
But this is the perfect chance to correct that preconception. Fairies are total assholes.
Just think back to how our SG Guy, Seo-gyu, died.
Until I saved him in the 50th cycle, that poor guy got his head lopped off by Tutorial Fairies every single time.
Back in the days when we were all immature and clueless as Awakeners. When we didn’t even have a solid grasp of what monsters or Voids were. The fairies straight-up imprinted compressed trauma right into our brains.
“Hoe! There are still too many survivors. If this keeps up, the seniors will scold me for not thinning the ants at all……. Eit, I hate getting scolded, so no choice! Drop 50 Shadow Wild Dogs!”
“We’re giving you rice balls as quest rewards! But since you cheesed the clear, I have to cheat the reward too……. Here, take this sack of rice mixed with gravel and sand! Ahem. I studied history books before being dispatched here, so I know this is a Korean Peninsula specialty!”
“Hwaaa. O-one survivor left……. I failed to adjust the difficulty. Can’t avoid the seniors’ nagging……. B-but one-man army! Elite soldier! Clap clap clap! Fairy No. 264 sincerely wishes the sole survivor at Busan Station, Undertaker, the best of luck……!”
No wonder people’s eyes rolled back in madness.
Who’d like being treated like lab rats? Even rats wouldn’t prefer that.
And Homo sapiens were the lords of creation until just recently. Unable to accept the sudden change, curses and outbursts erupted everywhere.
Even I turned savage, like a violent game protagonist.
“I’ll definitely kill you all.”
“Hoe?”
Was that the 2nd cycle?
Before I had [Perfect Memory Ability], in a surge of endless hatred, I cursed at a fairy.
“Everything you did to us. Not just you, but your kin, and even the fairy boss ruling over you—I’ll find them all and get revenge, no matter what it takes.”
“Hoeek……. I have no idea what you mean.”
My memory’s probably wrong, and I said something else.
But I’m sure the fairy tilted its head with a dumb, innocent face.
“Bad humans who ignore the guide’s words get smacked!”
Thwack, a heavy thud, and my consciousness flatlined.
That’s when I learned the fairy dictionary definition of ‘smack’ is [noun: smashing the opponent’s skull to spill its contents].
Fairy assholes.
2
And so the regressor caught the naughty fairies and gave them a spanking—
How nice it’d be if I could sum it up like that, but sadly, Tutorial Fairies were vicious. Like level 70 guard NPCs in an RPG.
And I was weak. Well, precisely, I lacked combat skills.
Let me confess to you all……. Truth is, I, the Undertaker, was more of a supporter than a dealer or tank.
You can tell just from my abilities mentioned so far. [Perfect Memory Ability], [Time Seal]—none directly related to combat, right?
This was somewhat intentional.
Because our party had Old Man Show, a cheat-level Swordmaster born with the Heavenly Martial Body.
Leave combat to Old Man Show, and I handle all the support tricks. That was our blueprint. A perfect plan.
Q) But the one and only dealer deserts the party. What’s the fitting line for this situation?
A) “Fuck.”
I despaired.
Suddenly, my skill tree full of support techs turned into trash-tier remnants, and my life’s genre swerved into a #regret #despair #obsession abyss with flashy drifts. In this webnovel industry, no hero party hit rock bottom harder after a deserter.
Old Man Show, you asshole.
What was left by my side now? The regressor’s privilege. In other words, overflowing time like no one else. Only excess time.
And there lay my escape.
‘Internal energy!’
A ray of brilliant light shone on me, the time billionaire Bill Gates.
‘To survive from now on, I have no choice but to grind internal energy blindly!’
That’s right.
Depending on culture or person, called ‘aura,’ ‘aura,’ ‘demonic energy,’ etc., but everyone agrees—if you infuse it into a kitchen knife, it cuts fruit beautifully.
This mysterious energy was like shit: the longer it stays in your body, the stronger it gets.
That’s why wuxia genres pass down the term ‘jiazi’—
60 years equals one jiazi. A martial artist with one jiazi (60 years) of internal energy stored in their body was duly respected as a master.
A setting perfectly reflecting East Asians’ taste for ranking by age.
And who am I, the Undertaker? Not bragging, but around the 30th cycle, I shattered humanity’s lifespan records daily.
Plus, I had the [Continue] skill, preserving muscles and internal energy even after regression.
In other words?
“Hey, fairy. Got a gift for you.”
“Hoe? A gift? What is it, you gloomy human?”
“Smack.”
“Eh?”
Thwack! Whoooosh—!
The Tutorial Fairy’s head launched into the air at its tilted angle.
Any Pyongyang missile enthusiast witnessing it would’ve clapped in envy at the thrust.
“Aah.”
Finally, the day I one-shot a fairy for the first time, I shed tears of emotion, unworthy of my age.
How long was this humiliation and oppression!
The regressor, evolved from muscle pig to internal energy pig, was truly powerful. No longer satisfied with Busan Station, I roamed Voids nationwide, harvesting fairy heads diligently.
“It’s the Undertaker! The Undertaker’s here!”
“Hieeek? Mad fairy hunter!”
“Everyone run! If that human catches you, we all lose our heads together!”
“Flee! Flee! FLEEE!”
Fancy combat skills? Flashy martial arts? Didn’t need them.
With 5 jiazi, 10 jiazi, 20 jiazi of internal energy, almost nothing was impossible. (Not quite.)
As they say, advanced basic attacks are indistinguishable from combat skills.
The Tutorial Fairies couldn’t handle my straightforward aura-stuffed punches, no techniques needed.
“Wh-why are you tormenting us like this! Filthy human! Vicious human! What did we fairies even do……!”
“Hm. Well, you haven’t done much. At worst, discrimination, gaslighting, threats, imprisonment, torture, murder, genocide?”
“We could win a lawsuit!”
What court is that, huh.
“Anyway, all this is slander! Defamation! We just followed the lord’s orders to help you inferior humans adapt to the Void as fast as possible! You should be grateful……! Right! Grateful!”
“Oh my. Do all imperialists spout the same crap regardless of history or race? Hm? Wait, lord?”
I paused while boiling fairy broth. Big news.
“Hey, you guys have a lord?”
“Gasp! Of course!”
The fairy, bound tight with rope over the cauldron, raised its head defiantly and barked.
“Any society, members must cede natural rights, and that’s the fairies’ collective will! Our lord, as proxy of that will, holds the sole legitimate rule! Ignorant humans wouldn’t get it!”
“……?”
At the time, I didn’t know, but fairy society was split between republicans and royalists. This one was a diehard monarchist.
But so what? I always respected others’ politics as a cultured man.
So I ignored the fairy’s philosophy, slapped its cheeks a few times.
“Gyaaak? Gyaak! Gyaaak!”
“Hey. Who’re you yelling at? Hey, fairy mister. Don’t you see this cauldron boiling furiously? Huh? I’ll brew you into broth and serve your kin a bowl each.”
“Hieeek? What barbarism! Call the Fairy Rights Committee!”
“Don’t wanna swim in the Jordan? Answer quietly. So, your boss—the one who ordered you to run Tutorials on humans—separate leader or what?”
“Hiek! Boss?! Watch your mouth! Call him His Majesty the Lord with respect and worship, human!”
“Okay. Then that guy’s the culprit who wrecked the world.”
“Hoe? What’re you……”
“Hey, how do I check out that Fairy Lord’s face?”
“How? You human, with that vulgar mug, wanna meet the great Fairy Lord? Hickhickhick!”
For reference, that bizarre onomatopoeia was the fairies’ unique laugh. For real. They go hickhick.
“Sorry, but impossible!”
“Hmm.”
“The Lord is transcendent! The sole free will uniting us! No reason for him to descend to this filthy earth and get dusty……!”
“Really? Even if I turn you into fairy stew?”
“Hickhick! Even if you kill this specimen, slaughter every fairy dispatched to the Peninsula! The Fairy Lord will NEVER descend before lowly human eyes!”
“Yeah? Let’s test that.”
“……?”
Time passed. I, the Undertaker, apocalypse internal energy pig, returned after grinding exactly 10 more jiazi of energy through regressions.
And I captured every last Tutorial Fairy on the Peninsula (101 in total).
Infinite Regressor Tells Stories