Chapter 108
Chapter 108
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Neoliberalism
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“Before diving into the story, allow me to explain two kinds of hell.”
Countless goblins had gathered in the street.
It wasn't a stadium, so the street was chaotic at first, but they swiftly aligned themselves into orderly rows and columns.
“The first is the hell of the West. Western hell is oriented toward repentance and salvation. Even if one falls into hell for their sins, they can still achieve salvation by repenting amid their suffering.”
Lucifer Company's dimensional transfer.
Baal's mention of turning fallen humans into demons.
The reason salvation is possible in Western hell stems from the grace and forgiveness of God the Creator—but the Creator Adam referenced was far removed from grace and forgiveness.
Judging from these clues, it seemed Western hell had undergone significant changes, but since it wasn't confirmed information, I chose not to mention it.
“The second is the hell of the East. Yes, this very place where you all work. The Buddhist hell that represents Eastern hell revolves around reincarnation and karma. Unless one repents or reduces their karmic burden through ascetic practices in life, all other sinners end up here.”
The goblins listened to my words with rapt attention.
I couldn't tell if it was because I held a high position or because it was a story they could enjoy while killing time on the clock without lifting a finger.
“Eastern hell pays no mind to the sinners' repentance. It determines the punishments and their durations based on the sinners' karma, carries them out, and then sends them back into the cycle of reincarnation once the allotted time expires—essentially functioning as a sort of purification facility.”
Eastern hell and Western hell were alike in that they made sinners suffer, but they differed in how one could escape.
“Western hell has no fixed term—instead, one can escape through repentance. Fail to repent, and it's eternal torment. In your hell, even repentance offers no escape. But whether they repent or not, once time passes, they're purified and reincarnated.”
This was precisely why my heart had felt so heavy.
“But you've changed. I saw the signs posted around here. Many of them stated that sincere repentance allows one to escape punishment—is that true?”
“…….”
No one answered.
“You there, Gold-672 Goblin—answer me. Do the sinners here get sent back to reincarnation once their fixed term expires?”
“Ah, yes! That's true!”
“And the same goes for sincere repentance, as written on the signs?”
“Uh, not immediate reincarnation, but the evil karma tied to that specific punishment gets erased.”
“Then repenting sincerely in other punishments would erase evil karma bit by bit as well. Eventually, they'd return to reincarnation even before their full term ends, correct?”
“Yes, that's right!”
This was precisely why my heart had felt so uncomfortable.
“But why aren't you making any effort to facilitate the sinners' repentance? I know you all work hard. However, sincere repentance doesn't magically emerge from torment. All pain does is drag out hollow echoes of self-justification—it only stirs up hatred and rage, pushing true repentance even further away.”
Eastern hell had changed.
It had abandoned its old harsh punitive stance in favor of a modern, user-friendly approach.
I'd learned during this inspection that they'd even introduced the concept of repentance, yet they hadn't built any systems to support it.
“But the Buddha said that practice is one's own responsibility, and salvation is one's own responsibility too!”
Gold-672 Goblin shouted in protest.
I couldn't help but sigh at the hell managers' ignorance of enlightenment.
“The Buddha taught: 'Be a lamp unto yourselves. Be a lamp unto the truth.' This indeed means seeking the truth through your own practice and effort. Yet before that, the Buddha recognized how sentient beings had lost their way and spread the Dharma to pave the path toward proper enlightenment. Do the sinners here even know that path?”
“…….”
“Answer me, Gold-672.”
“……Probably not.”
“Then how exactly are they supposed to repent? How are they supposed to attain enlightenment? Rebuking those who can't walk for not walking...”
At that moment, a massive goblin came barreling in, panting heavily.
“What the hell are you all doing!? Not working!”
This goblin was several times larger than the others. He locked eyes with me, froze in momentary panic, then promptly bowed his head.
“Greetings to the Provisional King!”
“Is the tea to your liking?”
The gathering had been broken up.
In its place, I'd been granted a private meeting in the break room with the massive goblin—the manager of this place.
“It's delicious. Thank you for the hospitality.”
“Hoho, us goblins don't know the first thing about tea, but we budgeted for it in case an honored guest ever dropped by.”
“May I have your name?”
“Yes, they call me Doeoksini.”
“Are you stationed here?”
“Coming up on five hundred years now.”
“I've seen the state of this hell. The modernization is a step in the right direction, but the complete lack of any systems for repentance left much to be desired.”
“Mm... well, that's...”
Doeoksini's explanation, after eyeing me cautiously for a good long while, was utterly absurd.
“We don't know what we're supposed to do. We just used the support from above to spruce up the exterior and make it look decent.”
“...You don't know how?”
“Well, the higher-ups keep yapping about peaceful policies, reeducationism, innovative punishment paradigms, and all that jazz, but none of it makes a lick of sense to us. We did manage to overhaul things into their current form using the provided support, but they didn't give us any guidelines on how to actually run the place.”
He showed me a single official document.
[To our esteemed goblin colleagues: As we welcome the new millennium and witness seismic shifts in the era, the time has come to infuse change into the customs and environment of hell... (excerpted).]
[We intend to safeguard the autonomy of hell. The headquarters will provide support going forward, but all other matters shall be left to your discretion.]
[However, please adhere to the following:]
[1. Introduction of reeducationism. Left to your autonomy.]
[2. Upon repentance, deletion of evil karma. Left to your autonomy.]
[3. Modernization of hell. Support provided, but specifics left to your autonomy.]
[4. Modernization of punishments. Support provided, but specifics left to your autonomy.]
[Inspections shall be conducted every 50 years, with evaluations based on compliance. Facilities falling short of standards will face penalties—please make every effort.]
[King of Bright Light (Seal)]
The specter of neoliberalism lingered alive in hell.
No wonder something had felt off.
'The hell train was part of the neoliberal experiment too.' They'd introduced privatization and autonomy to shrink the government, but without any of the necessary groundwork—which meant problems were inevitable. In the end, the issues plaguing Internet Hell weren't the goblins' fault. It was the fallout from top-down desk policies recklessly implementing whatever sounded good on paper.
“How many years has it been since Internet Hell was created?”
“48 years now.”
“You haven't been evaluated yet, then.”
“No... We want to comply with what's in the document, but we have no clue how to go about it.”
“I understand. They're ordering us to handle things autonomously, but if it doesn't suit the higher-ups' tastes, all the blame falls on the underlings. So no one dares try anything substantial, and even routine operations grind to a halt.”
“That's exactly it!”
Doeoksini, clearly harboring a mountain of frustrations, poured it all out.
“For thousands of years, they told us to torment the sinners—and now they come around preaching reeducationism? What the hell are we supposed to do!? If you've got orders, give us specifics—or don't just dump the problem in our laps and tell us to figure it out! We can't do jack if we don't know what's what! Honestly, they probably don't have a solution either and are just passing the buck!”
There was no faulting them. But reforming things by meeting the Ten Kings myself was no easy feat either. 'In the end, I'm just the Provisional King—and even that's not set in stone.' I had no idea where I'd end up after death. Eastern hell was merely one uncertain option—not a certainty.
“Out of curiosity, what are the Provisional King's powers?”
“You can intervene in all aspects of administration, personnel, and operations during inspections.”
“Then let me ask one thing: Are these unrealistic laws that defy the laws of physics something you created?”
“Yes, they're phenomena generated by the machine provided from above.”
I followed Doeoksini somewhere. The place resembled the engine room of the hell train—a vast, shadowy expanse.
“This is the machine we acquired for hell's modernization: the WK-Reality Virtual Implementation Device.”
“The WK-Reality Virtual Implementation Device?”
The enormous glass-domed apparatus was packed inside with countless semiconductors, pipes, and unidentified components. It resembled a colossal mechanical brain, with various cables snaking out from the dome and connecting to computers, VR gear, keyboards, printers, and more.
“We goblins aren't exactly internet experts, you know? Their world changes by the second. So we used this machine to manifest the sins humans commit and their mental frameworks into tangible reality as punishments.”
“No wonder the punishments and environments felt so much like internet memes—it's all because of this.”
If a standard VR setup imposed reality onto the virtual... This machine imposed the virtual—memes, trends, vibes—onto reality. 'There's the mark.' I spotted it at the very top of the glass dome. 『WK-Reality Virtual Implementation Device』 Doeoksini led me to the control area for operating the machine.
“If you're thinking of introducing new punishments or systems to Internet Hell, you can test them out through these.”
The controls were no different from an ordinary computer. Search for what you wanted, print it out, and a new stadium would automatically appear in Internet Hell—or a new law would take effect.
“That said, the size of the stadium depends on human belief. Things humans pour a lot of attention into become large, vivid stadiums and laws. But if few believe, it either prints poorly or not at all.”
“That's memes for you.”
“Oh, and you absolutely mustn't use this.”
Doeoksini shoved the VR gear aside.
“The internet's an ocean of information, so diving in through this gets you crushed under the weight of it all—you lose your sense of self. We didn't figure it out until after three victims.”
“You lose your sense of self?”
“Well, it does let you process information too, but there's no need to go that far...”
“I'll use it.”
“No, it's dangerous!”
“It's fine. Hand it over.”
When you've got a good tool, the right thing to do is use it. Doeoksini fretted behind me, but I had faith in myself. 'When it comes to my sense of self, I've got nothing to worry about.' I donned all the VR equipment and flipped the power switch. My mind was abruptly sucked away somewhere, and I soon realized it was the ocean of the internet. 'A flood of information.' Endless data bore down on me. As Doeoksini had warned, any ordinary being would have crumbled here, unable to preserve their sense of self.
“But not me.”
The notebook in my mind, where I'd chronicled my life. Thanks to it, I held onto my identity and swam freely through the internet's depths. 'What internet meme could guide these sinners onto the straight and narrow?' Truth be told, I already had something in mind. A meme I'd stumbled across while browsing internet communities in anticipation of coming here.
“Found it.”
But it was a fresh meme, nowhere near as prominent as the trending ones—its scale was minuscule.
“A storm in a teacup, huh.”
Still, I couldn't think of any meme better suited to reforming sinners and setting them on the right path. 'It said I could manipulate the information directly, right?' What if I fused it with other data? Just then, an odd incongruity pierced through the vague oppression weighing on my chest. 'This isn't just frustration with hell's current state.' Something I couldn't detect from the outside. Only after becoming one piece of data amid the info sea, blending with the rest, did I finally pinpoint the anomaly—and reached for it. The VR machine's controls let me extract the stifling sensation from my chest. What emerged was a fist-sized orb of white light. 'This sensation—Adam?' The light felt exactly like the first time I'd encountered Adam. 'Residue from when the Reverse Heaven Cross restored my altered data to normal.' Adam's power was the power of the Creator—God. What if I combined this with the meme? Could I boost it enough to make it printable?
“If you're the culprit intensifying this oppression, it means even you lament the environment where sinners can't repent. In that case, I'll merge you with this one.”
It was the power of creation. If wielded well, I could even strengthen myself with it—but I had no desire to.
“My coffers are already overflowing, so I'll bestow it upon others.”
I fused the discovered meme with Adam's residue. The data form refused to solidify, turning to sludge instead, so I had to shape it myself. 'The original meme... and Adam.' I molded it after the imposing Adam I'd witnessed. I blended in the original meme's visual traits as well. 'Adam's power is the Creator's—and the Creator's other progeny is Jesus Christ. A trinity of sorts.' Somehow, another form had melted into it too, but it fit the theme of repentance perfectly, so I leaned into that direction.
“It's finished.”
I printed the completed product through the VR interface. I'd hoped to manifest it as a law rather than a stadium—to spawn multiples—but with only one trace of Adam's residue embedded in me, that wasn't possible.
“Still, this is a win. Now there's a law enabling sinners to repent sincerely and return to reincarnation.”
Even in the real world, the goal for criminals is repentance and reform. But we can't accept it.
“Because we can't tell if it's genuine.”
The human heart is impossible to peer into. That's why reeducationism draws so much opposition, fueling cries for harsh punishment.
“Even though harsh punishment hinders resocialization far more and spikes recidivism rates.”
But what if we could truly reform criminals? What if someone utterly irrefutable aided in their redemption?
“What a shame. If I could make one more to take back to reality...”
Ah. 'Hang on—is it okay to create a Western-inspired entity in Eastern hell?'
『Hey!』 A sinner in Internet Hell. Yoon Siwoo couldn't believe his eyes. 『Good morning, Yoon-shithead!』 The instant his soul, shredded by punishment, reformed... A giant loomed before him. 『What're you staring at? Gawk at empty air like that, and the other folks'll think you're nuts! You already look like a Crazy Boy as is—better straighten up your act!』 His sole garment: a single tattered rag fashioned into panties. Yet he stood over three meters tall, his body clad in intimidating muscles carved from marble. A chiseled jaw. Shoulders broad as a doorway. 『Look at me, losing my mind already! Yoon-shithead! This is our first meet-up, right? I haven't even introduced myself!』 The giant extended a hand. Right in the center of his palm: a scar like from a nail. 『Name's Giga-Christ.』 Blood trickled down from the crown of thorns atop his head. 『I descended to save lost little sheep like you!』