Chapter 185
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Regression
“What? What do you mean by that all of a sudden?”
“Honey, we died once. I'll explain later.”
Sarang asked what I meant by the sudden mention of regression.
‘This is about the right time, right?’
I grabbed the front door handle before the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong!
I quickly opened the door, and Yi Ha-yul, the hulking man, looked slightly startled.
“You're quick...”
“Hello? Yi Ha-yul?”
“...You've arrived. How do you know my name...?”
“You're the captain of the Special Task Force under the Fifth Overseer, leader of the Children of Dawn.”
“...How do you know that, and what about my position...?”
“And right now, you've been appointed as the interim branch chief of the Foundation's Korean branch.”
“So you are an entity after all. One that gathers information? Or reality manipulation?”
“You can say that right in front of me?”
Yi Ha-yul's eyes filled with wariness.
“Bluntly revealing information means you have no intention of hiding it. Are you planning to kill me?”
“No. Go check the Absolute Time Indicator at the lab right now. I'll explain the details after that.”
“Absolute Time Indicator? What does that mean?”
“You'll know when you see it.”
Yi Ha-yul, who had been eyeing me with distrust, vanished.
“We've regressed ten days before our deaths.”
‘So Lee Seung-hoon really died, and you've returned to the past?’
“Yeah. I still don't know if we moved to another parallel world or perfectly rewound time in the original world. We'll find out when Yi Ha-yul gets back.”
If there's no change in the Absolute Time Indicator, that means I died in the original world and came to a different parallel world.
If there is a change, that means I rewound time in the original world and returned to the past.
“More importantly, I need to figure out why we regressed.”
In that final moment, what I'd seen in the darkness was the flower of Paradise Lost.
“It was golden, the same color as the garden stained by my will and that of the good people. But I definitely handed that flower over to the shady merchant.”
‘Was there any change after that?’
“They said the flower no longer reacted to faith and changed color after I handed it over.”
‘Then the flower you gave away was just a shell, and the true form dwelled within you, Lee Seung-hoon?’
“That's where two questions come in.”
Why did it shed its shell and dwell in me?
Why does a mere fragment possess the power of regression, rewinding time?
‘Do you remember your contact with Adam in the past, Lee Seung-hoon?’
“I do. Remnants of him lingered in my soul, enough to create Gigachrist in Internet Hell...”
One hypothesis came to mind.
“I used all of Adam's remnants to create Gigachrist. No remnants are left in me anymore, but what if the contact with Adam and the time his remnants dwelled in me altered my soul?”
‘Your soul is still your own, Lee Seung-hoon, but it may have been influenced by Adam's scent, or some attribute like his light.’
“Whether it's light, energy, or scent, I might have become similar to Adam.”
And the flower of Paradise Lost is a fragment of one of the three glories the Creator made for Adam.
“It might have mistaken me for Adam and reacted, drawing out its original power.”
‘Paradise Lost originally creates the world that person desires and lets them enjoy it eternally. Has it weakened to the point where it sends them back to the past for the future they want?’
“Yeah, and it has a limited number of uses.”
At least, from what I saw, there's a limit of three times.
“There were three flowers on the stem. One withered and fell, so two are left now.”
‘Does it recover?’
“Who knows? That's something we'll have to test over time.”
Bang bang bang!
I opened the door to the urgent knocking.
Yi Ha-yul, panting heavily, stared at me with trembling eyes.
“Did you regress?”
Now we can talk.
“Yes.”
“What kind of future was it?”
“Everyone dies.”
I led Yi Ha-yul inside.
“Me, you, the Children of Dawn, all the people of Bucheon—everyone.”
“So the zoo is a trap.”
“Targeting the zoo is pointless. It's just a stage loaded with traps set by the enemy. The solution is to kill every beast on Earth.”
“It's possible.”
“Very possible.”
“All we need is a lethal virus that infects every animal except humans.”
“But high lethality reduces transmissibility, right?”
“We can make it dormant and activate all at once with a timer.”
The Foundation could end the world if it wanted to.
“There might be animals with anomalies that can cure the virus.”
“Then we physically grind them all to dust...”
“Since we're assuming we won't do it anyway, let's move on.”
I named the entity.
Entity name: Legion of Human-Faced Beasts.
Its rank: Apocalypse-class.
“Debates are fun, aren't they?”
“Fun? When we're facing apocalypse?”
“Humans can find love blooming on the battlefield and appreciate poetry in a mud pit.”
“...”
Once we shared information, answers came quickly.
“There are two types of entities with infectious properties.”
The first infects others from a main host, creating derivative entities.
The second is the virus itself as an entity, endlessly infecting, multiplying, and mutating to develop new anomalies.
“If it's the second type, we have no choice but to slaughter all beasts and restore them later. The ecosystem would be wrecked for about 50 years, but better than Earth's extinction.”
This guy keeps pushing for massacring the beasts.
Does he want to try it that badly?
“If it's the first type, we need to find the host. Usually, killing the host eliminates all derivatives.”
“Does it cure them? Or do they die with it?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
After the meeting, Yi Ha-yul left to investigate methods on the Foundation side.
[All beasts are potential entities. Ordinary conversation risks exposure, so be cautious.]
Since we were communicating in writing, I told him the truth plainly.
“With all sorts of anomalies arming human-faced beasts, wouldn't there be ones that read minds or watch from afar?”
“...”
He turned and left abruptly, seeming a bit miffed.
“Let's go too.”
‘Where to?’
I opened my wallet.
The ticket was still intact, unripped.
“To gather apocalypse survival tools.”
I tore the ticket and moved to the shady merchant's rare collection warehouse.
I grabbed the Apocalypse Survivor's Survival Kit and headed out.
‘I already know what it is, so I want to take other entities...’
But I need this now.
One of the items inside: the fortune cookie.
“I wonder if it'll give helpful advice this time.”
I opened the fortune cookie.
[Don't forget and remember the bond that is coming.]
The advice had changed.
From:
‘Don't forget and remember the bond that passed.’
To:
‘Don't forget and remember the bond that is coming.’
‘The previous advice was helpful too.’
The culprit behind all this—or the key to solving it—is someone I'm about to meet from now on.
‘Last time, I opened the fortune cookie the day after arriving at the office.’
The interval between now and the last opening is three days.
Excluding people passing by on the street, I can narrow down who I met in those three days.
The Children of Dawn, temporary agents of the Foundation's Korean branch.
Baal.
Over a hundred slightly more clients who visited the office.
‘Double that if I include passersby on the street.’
The Children of Dawn are unlikely.
Their unit was wiped out, leaving only two survivors.
‘If even that's bait to hide their identity, then so be it.’
Baal has no reason to antagonize me.
‘That leaves passersby on the street or office visitors.’
Who among them is connected to the incident?
“I'll head to the office starting tomorrow to find out.”
The strategy is simple.
On the day I go in, memorize every visitor's face.
When the visitors stop coming, open the fortune cookie and check if the advice changed.
“Argh! Fixer! Please do something about our mink!”
The next day, as soon as I arrived, tons of clients sought me out.
“Our mink is usually sweet and good, but lately it's been going berserk.”
Thinking back now, it might've been scouting.
‘Every visitor brought a pet.’
It was the same before regression, and a few days later, I couldn't use the quest ticket dispenser or equivalent exchange scale anymore—scouting followed by neutralizing my entities.
‘Even now, those two are unusable.’
Even after regressing, their conditions didn't reset.
Like a computer using cloud servers to store data, those two entities seem connected externally, escaping the regression's effects.
‘High chance the culprit is among the visitors.’
I took note of each person's face.
I especially marked those with suspicious behavior.
“Ugh, please treat our dormouse. The vet wants a million won—what the hell? How much could surgery cost for this tiny thing? Please do it for under fifty thousand.”
Shim Ha-seong, who brought a pet dormouse asking for regular illness treatment, not an anomaly.
“Our Yeppi's been shivering and not eating since yesterday. Vet couldn't find anything!”
Ryu Ji-woo, who brought a rabbit to check but kept side-eyeing the office like scouting every corner.
“Argh! Fixer! Take our cats! They have nowhere to go—it's heartbreaking! Winter's coming; they'll freeze!”
“I already have a cat.”
“Can't you take 27 more?”
“My place would get cramped.”
“I'll pay responsibility fees, fifty thousand per cat.”
Choi Jun-hee, who showed up with 27 stray cats.
“Hey! Where you going!”
“Meow!”
They chased the rampaging cats darting around the office.
That could be acting for scouting too.
“Phew, our dog bit someone yesterday. It's not the type to do that at all? Something's off. Please fix it.”
“Rottweiler, huh. A fierce breed, and you brought it without a leash or muzzle?”
“Our baby doesn't bite anyone! It's so sweet and gentle!”
Jeon In-woo, who brought a fierce dog all the way here without leash or muzzle.
There were a few other odd clients.
‘People's definitions of unsolvable cases vary, so not all who come are necessarily scouting.’
Still, pet owners really lack knowledge.
Not that I plan to condemn all pet owners.
“Isn't our Chorong adorable? I've raised her since I was a kid—fifteen years already. You know she's a total dummy, right? Dummies are the cutest. She's like my little sibling now.”
“Woof! Woof woof!”
People like that are few and far between.
“You have a wound on your hand? A bite mark?”
“Yeah, Chorong's a rescue with trauma from before. She bit me a bit back then. Badge of honor. Her teeth are all gone now; doesn't even hurt.”
“Woof woof woof!”
“Hehe! See? Totally fine! Old man Chorong! Told you it doesn't hurt!”
The person who let their hand get torn to soothe an abused rescue dog, never letting go.
“Our kid had kidney failure. Surgery fixed her up mostly—such a relief.”
The person who picked up a stray cat, paid for surgery, and nurtured it with love.
“Her name's Hamzzi. She's weak from recent surgery. Cost a lot, but Hamzzi's our Hamzzi—we had to. We'll cherish her till she reaches the sea of stars.”
The person loving a hamster with few years left more preciously than anything.
“Hmm.”
Most clients cherished their pets like this.
They came to me from afar because hospitals or trainers couldn't solve the anomalous symptoms.
‘116 visitors today.’
I opened the fortune cookie.
[Don't forget and remember the bond that passed.]
Among today's visitors.
The culprit is there.