Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Questioner IV
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Shin Noah
5
To an infinite regressor, the world can be likened to a bag of potato chips. Amidst the countless nitrogen fillers, one must unearth the rare potato chip resource.
In the same way, a regressor encounters exceptions now and then amid the endlessly repeating time. Like me in the 89th round.
"No way, Cheon Yo-hwa...?"
I swallowed the name of the potato chip. The student council president of Baekhwa Girls' High School. A necromancer who, alongside Dang Seo-rin's Three Thousand Worlds, was always mentioned when naming the strongest guilds on the Korean Peninsula. I hadn't expected to hear that child's name here.
-It is not limited to humans.
For some reason, this bag of snacks contained an unusually large amount of potato chips, as if by miracle.
-As I mentioned, the influence of aberrations does not discriminate between objects, plants, or animals.
-Think of aberrations as a kind of radiation.
-The 'Butterfly Effect' that the Questioner subjugated is also presumed to be an entity irradiated by this individual—by us apostles.
"Wait. The Butterfly Effect too?"
-Yes. It is the truth.
"......"
My brain entered a state of chaos.
As far as I knew from the 89th round, Cheon Yo-hwa was a necromancer. The malevolent student council president who occasionally inflicted [Bad Ending: Academy City ENDING] on the Korean Peninsula when bored.
And the Butterfly Effect was a morpho butterfly with manic-depressive disorder that scattered tornadoes everywhere, bored or not.
"...They're too dissimilar. What's the common point between Cheon Yo-hwa and the Butterfly Effect that makes you its infected body... I mean, so-called apostle?"
-It would be faster to show you directly.
"Directly? Show me what?"
The Fairy Lord extended a hand.
-This individual.
"......"
-I detect the Questioner's hesitation. Are you afraid? Will you not take it?
I sheathed my sword.
In moments like this, being a regressor was truly convenient. Even if this was an aberration's trap and I died, I could at least salvage the information that 'the Fairy Lord is an entity that can never be trusted, no matter what' and carry it to the next round.
"Fine. If it's a provocation, I'll accept. I don't know where you're taking me, but lead the way."
As I grasped the Fairy Lord's hand, the unpleasant squishiness of its liquid-formed body spread across my palm.
And in the next instant, I stood once more in the center of a pristine prison.
"--What?"
But the prison was not Cheongsong Prison. I couldn't tell exactly where it was. Iron bars and corridors stretched endlessly into the distance. No people were in sight.
"What is this...?"
Squelch. The Fairy Lord tightly gripped my hand, which had instinctively reached for the sword hilt.
-Do not let go of my hand under any circumstances.
-You will lose it.
Lose it? Lose what?
Before the words could fully form, blink. As my eyelids closed and opened once, the prison had become a hospital.
"......"
Though not a single patient or doctor was present, eerily clean hospital beds lined the corridor. Transparent IV lines draped over each bed like suspension bridges. The corridor was infinite.
Identical beds, identical IV lines hanging at the same angles, identical drips, stretching endlessly along the corridor of the same shade of stark white--.
Blink. A school. An abandoned wooden schoolhouse. The name Baekhwa pulsed. The sky was blood-red. Shattered glass windows, birch trees scratching their white bark with glass shards as they peered into the school's corridor. The school was impaled through its body by white skewers, a total wreck.
The angles and positions of the broken glass repeated every six meters. In each repeating section, old desks and wooden chairs lay scattered. The texture of the aged wood, the patches where moss dripped down, the tilt angles—all identical.
Blink. Swimming pool. The pungent smell of bleach. Pool lanes stretching to the horizon, a corridor of water.
Blink. Movie theater. It was dark. But strange. A normal movie theater wouldn't have wooden chairs as worn as those from an abandoned school. Nor would transparent IV lines drape over each seat. The prison scenery was playing in the theater. Iron bars. Corridor. Iron bars. Corridor. An empty prison with no inmates. The screen showed the prison, hospital, school, swimming pool in sequence, then the movie theater again, and within the screen's screen, within the eye's eye--.
Bli-nk.
The universe moved.
The stars' orbits had no order. Colors had no complements. The stars danced, stood on their heads, laughed tirelessly, then fell silent.
Since the laws ceased to function, time too released its grip on the world. Colors snatched the dripping fingers. Interlocked hands. Crimson-vermilion-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet-purple-navy-blue-green-yellow-scarlet-red. Interlocked hands. Hands of color grasped hands of color and danced a waltz. Vermilion stepped on blue's foot; red murdered vermilion. The Milky Way turned red.
Blink.
And so, stars were born only to be destroyed instantly upon formation; forms were created only to crumble immediately. Like bubbles. Everything in the world was bubbles. Soap bubbles scattered rainbow oil-slick camouflage under sunlight. Existence was bubbles; life was color.
Blink.
The universe closed and opened its eyelids once. Traffic light. The moment a red light shifted to green, like time briefly pausing its breath. An instant stop signal.
The starlight's colors, the planets' bubbles, the vermilion slain by red, the color arrangements that waltzed, the movie theater screen, the swimming pool's bleach smell, the school's wooden chairs, the birch trees' white bark and glass shards protruding into the corridor, the white hospital corridor, the prison's iron bars, the white and black crosswalks like carpets.
The entire universe.
Stared silently at me.
The universe stood across the traffic light crosswalk, staring at me. It opened its maw wide.
'Eye' 'Blink' 'Blin' 'K' 'Oh' 'See'.
Like choral members who had never rehearsed. Voices uniform neither in pitch nor timbre. Some like church bells, some like toilet water flushing, some like insects fluttering wings.
Those maw breaths were barely 'reconstituted' through the mouth of the Fairy Lord, who held my hand.
-Do not blink your eyes.
"......"
-The Questioner perceives this individual as the Fairy Lord. That is, the supreme aberration commanding all terminal entities. But strictly speaking, that perception is incorrect.
My ears felt like they would tear. No, my brain.
Every word whispered by that entire universe was pronounced with different vocal organs. 'Ter' 'mi' 'nal' 'en' 'ti' 'ties'. Wind chimes on a temple eave swaying in the breeze. A crow's scream as it dies to a falcon. Sounds and noises that should never form language did form language.
If I were not a regressor who had honed myself through countless cycles-- merely hearing that universe's 'voice' would destroy my brain. A visceral intuition surged with nausea.
It wasn't even an insult to humanity.
The world was being violated.
"If it's incorrect... then...?"
-Maintaining ego in this situation is an outlier beyond prediction.
-This individual, the 'Fairy Lord,' is an interpreter.
-A shaman.
-A priest. Pope.
-Terminal entity. Command role. Highest priest.
-But infinitely beneath the god.
-A prophet who silences in place of the speaking god, speaks in place of the silent god, sees in place of the blind god.
-The god harbors neither benevolence nor malice.
-Only random numbers exist. Rejoice. Your existences are equal.
-Kyaaaaaaa!
-There is no difference between a drop of bubble and the Himalayas in clouds. Laws are not superior to individuals. The ladder of forms has no hierarchy.
-This individual is merely a terminal born by chance. I am fortune, not misfortune, to you all. The Questioner need not harbor hostility toward me.
-We merely experiment. Just as we were made as experiments.
"......"
So.
I lifted my burning eyes and stared at the universe. So, that was the aberration.
Outsider God. Alienation. Level 5.
The most venomous among all voids. One of the seven supreme aberrations among all aberrations.
What I... what humanity must kill.
The enemy of this world.
"...It probably doesn't even have a separate name. That thing."
-Unnecessary.
-Whichever we designate is our god; whichever we do not is our god.
"Avici."
The Fairy Lord looked up at my face.
"Avici Hell. From now on, that thing's name is Avici."
I spat the words like blood. It was the utmost defiance I, from the 89th round who felt on the verge of being crushed by the void, could muster.
-As I said, designation is unnecessary.
"No, it's necessary for me. Because I will kill that blind god of mindless rape that violated our world without permission."
-......
"In the world, things are distinguished and guard their boundaries, but you mix everything, leaving no gaps between all things. Things become impermanent, existence melts away—it is truly hell. Thus, Avici Hell. You plunder, steal, and promiscuously rape the laws that clearly exist in the world, so also Avici of chaos and violation."
The Fairy Lord, the fairies—the traffic light's red blinks, stars, colors, waltzes, movie theater screen, school, hospital, prison—stared piercingly at me.
Laozi's Tao Te Ching had a phrase: silent and desolate.
Silent stillness. Desolate loneliness.
Before humans distinguished all things, the world existed undivided, utterly silent and meaningless, described as 'silent desolation.'
I know not its name. That primal world was void, nameless.
To that void, I gave a name.
Pointed with a human finger.
-Avici.
-Avici Hell.
-A correct name.
-An incorrect name.
-This too is a random number.
-I can conjecture why the pink entity exhibited anomalous behavior.
A thousand layers of laughter cracked open.
For an instant, the swimming pool's bleach scent wafted. The breath of this universe's Backrooms.
-We will experiment on you, Undertaker.
Plop, the Fairy Lord.... no. 'Avici' released my hand.
Simultaneously, the traffic light turned sapphire blue—not green or yellow, but like the wings of a morpho butterfly. A color of unknowable meaning.
Avici's existence surged toward me. Crossing the stark white crosswalk, traversing the swimming pool, thundering down the corridor, trampling time, tearing space.
In that instant, I lost consciousness.
6
"Guild Master?"
A voice called out.
"Are you okay, Guild Master? Are you coming to?"
"Mm.... Ugh, where is this?"
"Cheongsong Prison. Or more precisely, what used to be Cheongsong Prison. You said you were going to talk with the fairies."
"Ah."
Regaining my senses, I looked around. Go Yo-ri was cradling my head in her lap amid the rubble of the collapsed building.
She beamed.
"Did the conversation go well?"
"Conversation.... Well. I feel like I saw something, but the memory is hazy...."
"Aah. I see. Hmm, this is a bit tricky. What should I do....?"
Go Yo-ri muttered, finger on her chin. She seemed genuinely troubled at a glance.
My mind still foggy, I could only look up at her.
"...Right. If you have business in Busan next time, you promised to move with me—do you still remember that?"
"Yeah? Oh, yeah. I remember."
"Well. Since it stepped aside peacefully, accepting this much concession seems fair."
"......?"
"Relax your body for a moment, Guild Master. Deep breath in—yes. Exhale. Like that. Good. Well done! You've been caught in several explosions, after all. Your body and mind must be tense without you realizing."
She stroked.
Go Yo-ri's hand gently caressed the back of my head. Though just petting my hair, my mind miraculously cleared bit by bit.
Above all, the memory of the 'Avici' I had observed moments ago flooded back.
"Ah...."
"Yes. Your condition's recovered, looks like. Glad to hear it."
"Condition or memory.... No, never mind. Anyway, looks like you took care of me while I was out. Thanks, Yo-ri."
I had named one of the world's most powerful aberrations, yet the being before me—whose true name I still couldn't grasp—took my hand and pulled me up with a firm "Up you go."
And beamed.
"Guild Master. Are you happy right now?"
"Huh? Yeah, I guess. At least not unhappy."
"Then I'm happy too, Guild Master."
It was her usual, utterly beautiful smile.
7
A very brief epilogue.
"Seo-gyu. Truth is, I'm a regressor, and you've had your head exploded by the Tutorial Fairy at least 50 times. But in the round before last, I found an aberration countering the fairies' boss. Avici, they call it—just watching it kills most people stone dead, a real monster. Anyway, it's the guy behind about fifty lifetimes' worth of your grudges... what do you want to do about it?"
"What? There's a motherfucking bastard like that? Bro, obviously I gotta go avenge myself with my own hands!"
I took him there.
"Hey, you fucking bastard! You the one who explod my heAAAAAAAAGH?"
Boom-! The moment our SG Guy stepped into Avici's void, his head exploded. Like the alien heads in Tim Burton's [Mars Attacks!].
"Hmm."
...Seemed like avenging humanity was still a ways off.
- Questioner. End.