Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Accomplice III: Shin Noah
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The final resistance force included not only Awakeners but also a huge number of ordinary people, so Busan felt eerily like a ghost town right after they were swept away.
Even peeking out at the street with an "[Open for Business]" sign hanging up, not a single passerby could be seen. No Do-ha and I were just sitting on the bench in front of the workshop, taking in the scenery.
"……."
"……."
"Hmm. Care for some coffee, Workshop Master?"
"Oh. Sure. Coffee brewed by my assistant is good anytime……."
The silent streetscape didn't feel awkward at all.
In fact, the days we'd somehow kept up a facade of vibrancy and normalcy despite the end times—those had occasionally felt strangely out of place up until now.
Deserted streetlights.
A crosswalk with all its white stripes peeled off.
Deciduous street trees. The aurora of sunlight. Cicadas, not yet extinct, broadcasting their sirens in search of mates not yet extinct.
"It's summer……."
No Do-ha murmured as she sipped her café au lait, her breath rising like transparent smoke.
The world felt serene, as if it had finally reclaimed its true form.
At 9 a.m., 11 a.m., lunchtime. The menu was steak I'd cooked myself. Even by 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., not a single customer showed up at No Do-ha's workshop, which was always bustling as usual.
The sun set.
The eyelid of the night sky was sunset-colored.
A world that should have fallen asleep long ago had dozed fitfully through the past eight years, and now it was finally closing its eyes gently.
'Watching the end together like this, just the two of us... wouldn't be so bad.'
That was when it happened.
Amid the reclining sunset Buddha statue quietly nodding off, I suddenly heard footsteps by my ear.
My ears perked up.
"Well, guess it's time to close up shop now. Whew. Business was a total bust today. You must be thrilled to laze around like this... Hm? What's with that look, Assistant?"
"...Someone's coming this way."
"Oh...?"
Thud. The footsteps grew heavier. But they were odd. Thud—tap—thud—tap, like something was overlapping with the footprints.
It was the sound of a cane.
"Ah."
I stood from the bench to greet the customer. Sure enough, a familiar old man was hobbling around the intersection, using his cane to probe the summer air.
I hurried over and supported him.
"Grandpa! What brings you here today? Did you walk all the way from Bansong-dong?"
"Aigoo, my assistant lad's still in Busan, huh. Huh? Why're you still hanging around here? Aigoo, even Teacher No Do-ha's still here. What're you young folks planning to do, sticking around like this? Huh? What're you gonna...?"
"……."
When I helped him into the workshop, No Do-ha was already in her usual white doctor's coat from the workroom. She adjusted her monocle and held up the patient chart.
"You're Patient Shin Su-bin from Bansong-dong, right? What brings you in...?"
"Uh-huh. Nothin' much. Just, this, ankle brace has been squeaking since last week. It's gettin' old, y'see......"
"Hmm. You fiddled with it again even though it was uncomfortable, and now it's twisted. Didn't I tell you absolutely not to touch it? Do my words sound like a joke to you...?"
"No, aigoo, that's not—"
"And if the brace feels twisted, you should've come in for repairs right away. What kept you so busy that you dragged it out a whole week...?"
"Aigh, sorry 'bout that, Doc. I'm so sorry, what can I say. Uh-huh. How long'll it take? If it's gonna be a while, forget it."
"No, it'll be done in 10 minutes...."
No Do-ha pulled out her tools, tapped and tightened the misaligned parts of the brace, and repaired it. She bantered back and forth with the patient about idle chit-chat.
Just like always.
Clang—came the sound of a hammer.
"……."
I quietly slipped to the workshop entrance and checked outside.
A bizarre noise was creeping into the night sky being dragged down by the sunset.
Red spots twinkled like scars instead of starlight, and veins like pulsing blue arteries throbbed in place of the Milky Way.
The void-ification of the sky. No, beyond the sky—a celestial void phenomenon. Proof that the world's end was truly imminent.
'...Not good at all.'
Even the sunset was getting infected in real time. What had started as just crimson and yellow hues was gradually thickening with viscosity, like blood dripping from the pitch-black night sky.
If you imagined the sky as an experimental beaker with red solution being dropped in, it might make sense.
The void was turning into surfaces, light into mucus, clouds into blades, and the ground into a galaxy.
If you left powerful anomalies unchecked, they would mate and fuse on their own, clumping together.
Nut, the goddess of the night. An anomaly and void whose cause even I at this point couldn't deduce. It was one of those occasional world-end scenarios.
The night's embrace of this world was steadily devouring the city.
Soon, everything on the surface would fall into eternal sleep. At most, in less than 10 minutes.
"Workshop Master, it's about time—"
"Assistant."
I turned around. No Do-ha was coming out of the workroom with the patient.
Our eyes met.
A pair of black islands floating in the middle of a white ocean stared at me.
"Take Patient Shin Su-bin home."
"……."
A brief glance passed between us, conveying far more silence.
"Are your ears stuffed with iron spikes? Assistant. I said escort the patient home. Damn it. The roads are rough enough already—if he trips on the way, you gonna take responsibility...?"
"Yes. Got it."
"Good...."
No Do-ha smiled faintly, a soft wheeze.
"That's what I expect from my assistant...."
The old man kept insisting beside her—aigoo, I'm fine, I can go alone—but No Do-ha wouldn't budge.
I scooped up the old man lightly and started walking.
"Aigoo, I'm really fine. Teacher No Do-ha worries too much about her patients, it's too much... Ooooooh!"
The reason the old man suddenly switched to soprano by the end was, of course, because I'd unleashed my lightness skill.
The old man looked around with wide eyes. The streetscape was flying by in an instant. I flared my aura to protect the patient's body.
Tap. Tap. I bounded off collapsed building walls or streetlights.
'Taking Patient to his Bansong-dong home as fast as possible... then racing back to the workshop. It'll be tight—about 5 minutes. If I'm lucky, I might make it just before the world ends... No, but the void's arrival time at the workshop's location is the variable.'
"Young man."
In the middle of bounding along with lightness skill, the old man suddenly spoke from my arms.
"Yes?"
"Set me down here."
I blinked. To get him home, I still needed at least 4 more minutes.
"No, Grandpa. I'll see you there."
"Aigoo, enough. Enough already. House important? The road home's what's important. Brace is good as new now, so I wanna walk the last stretch on my own two feet."
"Ah."
"I've lived my whole life in this neighborhood. My old elementary school was right around here—the road home was always this one. Back and forth for decades. That's me. Didn't wanna die cooped up in the house today, so I walked out... and nobody's around. But I never expected Teacher No Do-ha to still be at the workshop. Really. She's a deep thinker, that one."
"……."
"Thanks, young man. You're worried about Teacher No Do-ha, right? Then this road ain't yours. Let's each go our own way."
I set the old man down on the downhill slope of the hill path. He went aigoo—aigoo—, probing the asphalt with his cane.
It was the one-lane road No Do-ha had personally funded to pave in Busan long ago.
Leaning about thirty percent of his weight on the cane, the old man waved me off.
"I'm good—now hurry back."
"...Thank you."
"No need for thanks. I'm the grateful one...."
Aigoo—tap, aigoo—he dragged the sound like a shadow down the hill path.
Cicadas cried out. But from beyond the concrete jungle, their cries shrank bit by bit—one inch, two, three—fading away.
It was closing in.
The night of the world.
"See you next time, Grandpa."
I bowed my head, then turned around. And moved faster than when I'd carried the old man.
The rooftop of the workshop.
When I first started working here, it was just a two-story building, but after eight years of expansions and renovations, 'Doha Workshop' had risen to five stories. On the roof of the top floor, coated in that uniquely Korean green waterproof paint with zero interior design sense whatsoever.
"Oh...."
No Do-ha stood there blankly, holding a wine bottle and corkscrew.
Tap. As I landed on the roof like a butterfly, No Do-ha looked at me as if it were the most natural thing. Even though it was the first time using lightness skill in front of her.
"You're back quicker than I expected. You properly escorted Patient Shin Su-bin home, right...?"
"The grandpa said he wanted to walk the last stretch on his own feet. No choice but to set him down."
"Ah. Hmm. Didn't think of that...."
Pop—the cork came out of the wine bottle.
No Do-ha flung the corkscrew and cork over the rooftop railing.
"A glass...?"
"If it's from the Workshop Master's collection, count me in."
"Hmm."
Drip—red liquid trickled down the glass, thick and viscous like the wine-colored sunset staining the current sky.
"Cheers. To... whatever, really...."
"Cheers."
Clink.
The glasses rang out crisply. The wine glasses filled with red liquid looked just like brocade pouch flowers dangling in the void.
We gazed at the city's sky side by side over our wine glasses. With the sky itself turning transparent like glass, it felt like glass-within-glass.
Now, five minutes to the end. Six at most.
"Assistant."
"Yes."
"I can actually make weapons...."
I looked at No Do-ha. She wasn't looking my way.
"Pardon?"
"Weapons. Gear? Y'know, that stuff. In those games old guys play, characters get weapons and get stronger, right...? As you know, my ability is [making body parts swapped with components feel just like your own body], but hmm. It actually applies perfectly to other equipment too...."
"……!"
My eyes widened.
Right. Human limbs are the original tools and extensions. So, if No Do-ha crafted something like a sword or spear—an extension of the arm?
"Man-Sword Unity...!"
"...? What're you talking about...?"
"Oh. Uh. Nothing... Just, anyway, that's amazing."
Conveying my admiration to someone utterly unconnected to subculture—a pure, natural-born loner (she hasn't even seen a single Marvel movie)—was tough.
"...Why hide an ability like that, Workshop Master? You're a born blacksmith. Dang Seo-rin would've been scouting you, Cheon Yo-hwa courting you, warlords tripping over themselves to court your favor."
"Hmph. I just explained why. If word got out I could craft badass weapons, don't you see how those Awakener bastards would get even more annoyingly clingy...?"
"Ah."
"But if I'd known the world was ending like this, I should've made one for at least one person. Not like they'd spread rumors...."
"……."
The sky turned red.
Then, like the blade of a guillotine dropping, pitch-black night poured down after it. Arteries and veins stretched across the entire sky, wriggling in imitation of the Milky Way's glow.
"...Then make one for me next time."
"Hmm. Sure, whatever. It's a huge pain. But since we're dying anyway, I can handle that much hassle now...."
"You promise."
"Yeah. If I don't wanna, throw a tantrum and make me...."
Clang—
From the far side of the rooftop, near the intersection's traffic light, something shattered. Like steel crumpling.
It sounded almost comically playful, but the result wasn't funny. Everything across from the traffic light—every "scenery"—was swallowed by the night sky.
Clang, claaang. Clang—
Crosswalks and buildings sank one by one into the night's void. Building tops sliced off like bitten apples.
300 meters, 250, 180, 120. In an instant. From all directions, the pitch-black night sky greedily devoured space, encroaching upon us.
The world's embrace had narrowed to barely hold just our two breaths.
"Assistant."
"Yes."
"Thank you—."
Crash.
The last sound was No Do-ha's wine glass—or maybe mine—bitten and shattered by the night sky's teeth.
A crescent moon gleamed on the glass.
And the world closed its eyes.
Infinite Regressor Tells His Tale