Chapter 84
Chapter 84
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 84
Chapter Title: Accomplice II
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Shin Noah
3
Excluding the secret that No Do-ha's taste was choking play getting exposed, everything proceeded smoothly according to plan.
SG Net had gotten a bit noisy, though.
-Anonymous: Wait, the National Highway Management Corps doesn't have a leader right now? For real?
-[National Highway] Historian: For real. Our leader is on long-term leave and isn't around.
└Anonymous: ?
└Anonymous: ?
└Literary Girl: That machine had the concept of vacation??
-[National Highway] Historian: Yeah. Even the Corps members were shocked. As far as I know, since the National Highway Management Corps was founded, there wasn't even a single day off, let alone vacation. But this time, she boldly took 21 days of long-term leave and just vanished without a word.
└Anonymous: That woman is utterly unpredictable from head to toe. She's a total lunatic.
-Goryeo Jang: ?ㅋ
└[National Highway] Historian: What? Why?
└Goryeo Jang: She just cut out alone with a 21-day vacation slip without saying a word? Did she disappear without a trace by any chance?ㅋㅋ
└[National Highway] Historian: Yeah. Why?
└Goryeo Jang: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└[National Highway] Historian: ?
-[Three Thousand] Witch Trial Judge: Hm……
“Hm……”
Right as I read the comments up to that point, No Do-ha let out a hum right beside me in real life.
I folded my smartphone and returned from the virtual world to reality.
“Why is that?”
“…No. It's just that this ore is fascinating. It's light. And sturdy. This really is something that doesn't exist on Earth. What was it, Ada-something……?”
“Adamantium. Be careful not to mistakenly call it mithril, or it'll be a big problem.”
“…? There's not even a hint of similarity between the two words……”
No Do-ha took out her monocle and put it on.
Her left eye had particularly poor vision, but it was also a personal ritual of hers. A sign that she was about to get seriously to work.
Like soccer players brushing the grass as they run onto the field or praying to the heavens.
“Hmm……”
No Do-ha wandered around the mining village for a long while, reflecting the sight of the dwarves crafting weapons through her lens.
Clang, claaang!
The dwarves hammered at the armaments mechanically, and the moment they were complete, they began the exact same process again. But the finished products didn't remain in reality—they melted away into the air.
No Do-ha raised her hand and caressed the remnants in the air.
“Hmmmmm… A village where even crafted items vanish right away. Still, I think I can learn the blacksmithing skills just by watching……”
“What do you think? Do you get anything?”
“Well. Not really. You keep calling me a blacksmith or whatever, but I'm just a prosthetics engineer… an auxiliary equipment maker. Even if you suddenly demand I make weapons, it'd be troubling……”
Mumbling to herself.
No Do-ha kept her gaze fixed on the dwarves while extending her right arm toward me.
I snatched a hammer and tongs from another dwarf's grip and handed them over. Her pale fingers silently gripped the tools.
“What do you take me for, a Doraemon? Making limbs is already tough enough, but remake them, organize and run the National Highway Management Corps, balance the warlord guilds—fuck. Do you think I'm some vending machine that spits out stuff when you poke me……”
Clang.
No Do-ha glanced sideways and imitated the dwarf. Clang—the hammer slipped slightly because the material was unfamiliar.
“Hmm……”
The corners of No Do-ha's lips twitched. She clamped her mouth shut and mimicked the dwarves from start to finish, for several hours straight.
By nightfall, there was a sword in No Do-ha's hand. It was crudely shaped, completely unbalanced—a junk blade.
But the outline illuminated by the night sky was unmistakably that of a single sword. No Do-ha's slender eyes, reminiscent of moonlight, traced the blade's curve. Her gaze was so sharp that if overlapped with the sword, it seemed the blade might be shaved away instead.
“Hm. Not sure. Maybe I should start imitating something simpler, like a hoe……”
From that day on, No Do-ha barely ate or slept as she mimicked each dwarf one by one.
Claaaang—
I followed her around like an assistant, holding tools and supporting her. Our chemistry was perfect.
“……”
The dwarves' shadows, stagnant in place of the humans who had fled from the anomalies.
The mines of a declining mining village.
In a village empty save for the two of us, only the clang-clang of metal echoed eternally.
It was only natural for such thoughts to arise.
Hundreds of years ago.
The one and only time No Do-ha had called me not by "Awakener Undertaker," but by another title.
4
“I want to work as an assistant in the workshop master’s workshop. Please hire me.”
“Hmm……”
It was the 53rd round.
Up to that point in my regressor life, the National Highway Management Corps had never been founded. It existed only as a paper plan stored in the palace of memories in my mind.
Around that time, I was searching for talent suited for the "head of a quasi-governmental organization." In other words, the position of the greatest powerholder on the Korean Peninsula.
Dang Seo-rin… was the first candidate that came to mind, but that was a last resort. It might be favoritism, but I didn't want to burden her with more shackles here.
I… could do it too. But I had to run across the front lines plugging the anomalies. It was hard for Xiang Yu to also serve as Xiao He.
The conditions were four.
-One uncorrupted by lust for power. In other words, mental strength or personality.
-One who knew how to wield power. In other words, competence or instinct.
-One who pursued practical benefit as a dynamic system of the collective, not arithmetic aggregate of individuals for public good. In other words, conviction or philosophy.
-One who stepped onto untrodden paths. In other words, courage or boldness.
Conditions bordering on the impossible in reality.
But "bordering" wasn't "completely," and countless turns had bridged that gap between "impossible" and "near-impossible" for me.
Test commencement.
-Hey, Undertaker! Aren't we the top family on the Korean Peninsula now? Show those Incheon bastards a lesson…
-What? Connect roads all the way to Seoul? Why the hell would we do that? If we waste strength paving roads, we're just doing other guilds a favor…
-Doctor. Sorry, but can you take a break? You're too good, so this big bro's silver tongue is wearing thin. Just go on vacation for a bit and come back, I'll…
Fail. On hold. Fail.
Countless candidates were considered and eliminated. I personally became their acquaintance, colleague, friend, partner, spending at least 5 years, up to 10, with each.
I bestowed power and stole it away. Granted honor and crushed it. If that wasn't enough, even crossing rounds, I observed their character from every angle.
Because the leader of the National Highway Management Corps I envisioned required such scrutiny.
Like a massive tsunami, I swept over everyone living on the Korean Peninsula one by one, gradually raising the intensity, until I finally arrived at a remote back alley.
"An assistant, huh. It's true our workshop always needs hands… But really? Hm. Looking at your build, you seem like you'd thrive in any guild, living well……”
No Do-ha.
She was a woman suited to an island.
If she weren't a regressor, she was the type of person I'd never encounter in my lifetime.
She was already famous for custom-making prosthetics to replace limbs lost to anomalies. In other rounds, I'd relied on her services a few times myself.
But building a close relationship beyond customer and shopkeeper—this was the first.
I bowed my head.
"My father had leg problems his whole life. I want a job that helps those who have trouble moving, even a little."
"Ah. Your father……?"
"He passed away."
A lie.
"To an anomaly."
"Hmm……”
No Do-ha's hum carried the same resonance then as now. A vibration like tapping people with sound waves to outline them.
Like a bat using echolocation to grasp objects.
"Well, then wouldn't revenge on the anomalies be better than helping others……?"
“……”
"Well, true—urging someone to abandon revenge is overstepping, just like goading them into it is laughable. Alright. If temporary apprenticeship is fine, go ahead and do as you like……?"
If this world weren't an island, she'd create one to live on.
The net No Do-ha cast over her world wasn't wide, but it was dense.
She hauled up everything that entered or slipped through, grasped it one by one, and decided.
You could tell just from how she treated the other apprentices in her workshop, excluding me.
"Don't come starting tomorrow……”
"Yes?"
"That's what getting fired means. Did you stuff iron rods in your ears? Making me repeat myself a ton. Want me to pull them out……?"
"No, no. Workshop Master! Wait a sec!"
The fired employee had greeted a customer who'd lost a leg with, at lunch, "That young punk loses one limb and acts like the world's over, sigh, fuck, in this world healthy folks are rare."
The fired employee cried, but no one helped. Labor protection? Labor laws? Such Western-smelling words didn't exist in the Land of Propriety and Rites of the East.
"Oh, elder! With snow falling and roads rough, how did you make it here? Have some hot bottled coffee and rest."
"No, this is too precious. Thank you……”
And I was an ultra-specialized anti-elder weapon that even the Korean Peninsula's top lunatic Sword Marquis called "little brother." Naturally, serving the workshop's main customers—the elderly—posed no issue.
To No Do-ha, who likely had "senior discount" engraved inside her skull, I must have seemed an ideal talent.
"Undertaker Apprentice."
"Undertaker Employee."
"Undertaker Staff."
"Workshop Assistant."
Each time my title changed, the workshop master's employee list underwent a purge.
Once No Do-ha realized she no longer needed to lower her standards, she awakened as a true bourgeois. Tedious tasks like manpower management, customer relations, faction control within the organization, profit improvement—she dumped half of them on me.
"Assistant."
8 years.
The time it took for the six-syllable "Undertaker Apprentice" to shorten to the two-syllable "Assistant."
Trimming just one character every two years—truly a personality hard to get close to.
"Yes, Workshop Master."
"Doesn't the assistant evacuate? Heard the northern cities are getting eaten by anomalies one by one, heading south……”
"Workshop Master, where would we evacuate from Busan?"
"Japan or China. Or further south to Southeast Asia. Well, the world's always got infinite places to run……”
"Sigh, you think those are safe? I'm good."
It wasn't just me.
Each apocalypse, I noticed surprisingly many who "never ran till the end," across every round.
No Do-ha was no exception.
"Heard the news? Three Thousand Worlds is forming a last-ditch suicide squad for a counterattack."
"Hmm. Think it'll succeed……?"
"Doubt it. The problem is, even success has no guarantee. Once anomalies form a 'Monster Wave,' it's already over."
"Oh?"
"Anomalies aren't particularly friendly with each other. Their types and personalities differ. But them mixing into legions means incompatible types and personalities were purged, fused like a single organism. No, even organism is misleading. It's… a mass of cancer cells. Bugs of the world. Even if we defend Busan this time, the anomalies will keep spreading bugs everywhere without purpose."
"Hmm……”
No Do-ha smiled with her eyes.
"Why?"
"No reason. Sometimes… I think the assistant really knows a lot."
“……”
"Well. Doesn't matter……”
The next day, the Korean Peninsula's last-ditch desperate squad was swallowed by the anomaly tsunami.
"Assistant."
"Yes."
"What're you doing? It's 8, door still shut. Think you're senior now so you can slack? Need help writing a resignation……?"
"No, no. Workshop Master."
Click.
I flipped the sign on the glass door from [Closed] to [Opened].
On the day the Korean Peninsula's final city fell.
No Do-ha's workshop opened for business today as well.