Chapter 257: Outsiders
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 257: Outsiders
‘I open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.’
…or so I’d like to say.
In reality, a rather familiar white ceiling greets me, along with the tickle of antiseptic in my nostrils.
The scene is so exactly what I had expected before losing consciousness that I nearly burst out laughing. I sucked in my lips to reign in my emotions.
If I let out even a dry chuckle here, I’d pass out for sure. I had a feeling that even a tiny cough might cause my lungs to burst.
There’s no scientific basis for it. Just a feeling born of experience, you could say. After three years at a village school, even a dog recites poetry—and after being hospitalized three times, I can pretty much diagnose myself.
My body hurts as if it’s been tenderized with a hammer, but my mind is crystal clear.
‘Looks like the aftermath was handled properly.’
Unless this place where I opened my eyes is the afterlife disguised as a hospital, it means I was brought back to the Academy while I was unconscious.
Which means the Permush Subjugation War must have ended in success. It’s just an educated guess based on circumstantial evidence from someone who just woke up, but I decided to believe it.
It’s been a while since I was hospitalized, so I should take this opportunity to recover. Just as I was lost in these thoughts—
Slice, slice.
I heard the faint sound of a knife cutting something. It sounded like someone peeling fruit.
‘Who is it?’
I tried to roll my eyes to take a look. At that moment, the slicing stopped, followed by a sigh.
“Lie still.”
If it were just her voice, I might have hesitated. But that bizarre tone made it obvious who was sitting by my bedside. There was only one person who spoke in such clipped sentence endings.
‘Yoo Se-in.’
“What.”
‘……!?’
Crazy. Yoo Se-in dryly responded to the thoughts inside my head. Is she reading my mind or something?
“It’s not mind reading. And by now, you should’ve figured it out too. That I was the one communicating with you through the System all this time.”
What's with her suddenly? She isn't using her usual clipped internet slang—her tone is completely normal. In that same plain voice, Se-in continued.
“Anyway, if you have something to say, just think it in your head. I’ll go along with it.”
Right, let's ask this first.
“How did you get into my hospital room?”
“Publicly, you and I are distant cousins. When I told them I was family, they just let me in.”
“……”
They let her in just because she said she's family? Ridiculous.
As if reading my thoughts like a ghost, Se-in quickly added:
“It’s not that the Academy’s security system is lax. It’s just that our traits are that out of place in this world.”
“Traits? What traits?”
At my question, Se-in stopped cutting and kindly leaned her face in close. Close enough that I could feel her warm breath, our noses nearly touching. She tapped the beauty mark under her eye with her fingernail.
“Black eyes.”
Saying so, Se-in sat back down on the chair beside the bed. In the subdued atmosphere, she spoke again.
“Just lie down and listen. As you’ve probably guessed, I know you’re not someone from ‘this world.’”
Gasp.
I almost choked for a second. Se-in narrowed her eyes and tutted.
“Did your mind weaken along with your body? Why are you flinching at every little thing?”
“……”
“So... Ah, I forgot where I was.”
“A being from the outside.”
“Right, there. To cut to the chase, my situation is pretty similar to yours.”
Se-in paused mid-sentence to take a bite of an apple, letting out an exclamation of praise.
“Wow, this apple is ridiculously delicious. Guess people really do need to make it big in life, huh? Apples sent to a Seven Star are on a whole different level of quality. I’ve never seen apples that come with individual certificates of authenticity in my entire life! It’s so sweet. Literally melting in my mouth.”
So she was slicing it for herself, and from the apples sent to me, no less. And here I am, belonging to the Seori Kang clan, getting my apple poached right in front of my eyes. How humiliating.
“I’d give you some, but you can’t eat, right? Oh dear, what a waste. If we leave it like this, it’ll spoil, so as your distant relative, I have no choice but to eat it all for you...”
On top of that, her teasing is top-tier. A person who calls herself—and is called by others—a Saintess turns out to be a promising master thief. Not only that, she eats it with such an infuriating crunch, crunch.
I strongly doubt the authenticity of the religious organization Yoo Se-in belongs to. Their doctrine probably includes a commandment like ‘Thou shalt covet thy neighbor’s goods.’ Or maybe she’s just a delinquent, apostate Saintess.
“Stop messing around and keep talking.”
“Did becoming a Seven Star turn you into such a tyrannical guy? Why are you talking to me in a commanding tone?”
She hit the nail right on the head. Dammit, that stings.
“Well, it’s true I was teasing you on purpose, so I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, you and I stem from similar roots, but our details are different. In short, I’m an outsider from the outside world too. But my route was different from yours. After all, I was born here. And the worldline we crossed over from is different. Meaning the Earth you know and the Earth I lived on are different places. Parallel universes, or a multiverse, things like that.”
Worldlines, parallel universes, multiverse.
She rattles off terms that sound like they belong in superhero movies without batting an eye. It makes my head spin. Yet, despite the chaotic nature of the conversation, her tone remained perfectly calm—as if it were no big deal.
“...So Yoo Se-in, you were ‘reincarnated’?”
That was the conclusion I reached after organizing my thoughts for a moment. Munching on the apple, Se-in flicked her chin up casually.
“Yep. By Earth’s standards, that’s the right term. You’re ‘possession,’ I’m ‘reincarnation.’ Now then, here’s a quiz! If you and I, both having black eyes and black hair, represent possession and reincarnation—”
“What!? You don’t even have black hair in the first place!”
“Ah, this?”
Se-in ran her fingers through her waist-length silver hair.
“I regularly dye and bleach it. Black hair stands out way too much, you know? I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention. But my retinas are too thin to wear cosmetic contact lenses.”
Good lord, what an absurd back story. More importantly, if she didn't want to stand out, why did she talk in that weird clipped slang? Did she think she was acting like a normal teenager in her own way?
‘Wait, hold on.’
Just as suspicion began to cloud my eyes, Se-in quickly elaborated.
“Just in case, I was a woman before I reincarnated too. My face was identical to how I look now. I don’t remember my original age, though. Maybe due to the reincarnation, my past-life memories are hazy. The only difference I remember from my past life is that being born as a Saintess neutered my ‘romantic feelings’?”
“...Neutered.”
“Is that word a bit much to say in front of a guy? But there isn’t really a better term. ‘Excised’ sounds weird, and ‘surgically removed’ doesn’t quite capture the right vibe.”
Seeing her choice of words being so outrageous, it seems those feelings really have completely withered away.
“The conversation keeps sidetracking. Anyway, try answering my quiz. Possession and reincarnation. What’s left?”
Se-in urged for an answer.
Possession, reincarnation. Excluding these two, only one element remained. Few Koreans familiar with games and web novels wouldn't know it.
“Regression.”
“Correct, regression. Here’s one more quiz. Who is the person with black eyes and black hair besides you and me?”
I knew this one too.
“Balor Joaquin.”
“I love how quick on the uptake you are. That’s right. The Hero of the Origin who saved humanity 700 years ago. Balor Joaquin is a regressor. Strictly speaking, an ‘Infinite Regressor’ who repeatedly dies and revives until he saves this world.”
Having obediently gotten the answers right in a row, I listened quietly for now. Se-in’s eyes looked deep and dark, and I myself was so shocked that I couldn't find the words to respond.
“Unlike us, Balor Joaquin was born in this world. But being chosen by an Outer God makes him just like us. That’s why he’s a human with the same black eyes and black hair as us.”
Listening to Se-in’s explanation, a surge of disgust rose within me. Setting myself aside, she was saying that Boss—Balor Joaquin—keeps regressing until he saves the world. It irked me that an Outer God, or whoever the hell it was, bossed people around at their own whim. He was practically no different from a slave.
Boss is my mentor and adoptive father. I had just been told that someone put a person like him on a hamster wheel and kept spinning him around. It made me feel sick. To put it bluntly: it fucking sucked.
Knitting my brows, I asked back:
“If that Outer God bastard is so almighty, why doesn’t he just do it himself? Why use you, me, or anyone else?”
“I know how you feel, but it can’t be helped. I admit the Outer God seems neglectful. But in the end, That Person had no choice but to appoint agents for the sake of the ‘entire worldline.’ I’m sure That Person would love to step in directly, but it’s not possible yet because the conditions haven’t been fully satisfied. I might sound like I’m defending him because I’m the Saintess of the Outer God, but that’s the truth.”
Despite my barbed tone, Se-in remained nonchalant.
“I can’t tell you any more than this. There’s a lot more I could say, but the price to pay for it is too high. We’re all just trying to survive here, right? Besides, it’s not like I know everything either. Honestly, even the stuff I just told you was only possible because you twisted the ‘destiny of this worldline’ so tremendously. In a good way, of course, not a bad one.”
Se-in picked up another slice of apple and stood up. Then, she leaned in extremely close to me. Planting her right knee and palm on the blanket, with her left leg and arm stretched out—a posture reminiscent of a cat stretching.
Right in front of my face, Se-in mouthed ‘ah.’ She poked my front teeth with a bite-sized piece of apple.
“Open wide. You’ve been fasting for three days, so it might give you indigestion, but you still need to eat to live. Skinny as a rail like this, will you even be able to function as a man? Eat up, if only for the sake of the girls fighting over you.”
When I hesitated, Se-in tilted her head.
Truth be told, after listening to her babble for so long, I had regained enough strength to wiggle around a bit.
However, I couldn't move. It was because this dense outsider senior had gotten way too close to her junior.
The senior’s display of affection toward her junior was way too much.
She murmured with a serious look on her face:
“Don’t even have the strength to move your jaw? Do I need to chew it for you and feed you like a bird...?”
I stretched my neck out like a turtle and bit down on the apple. I deliberately moved my jaw vigorously so she could see it clearly.
Only then did Se-in break out of her—unwittingly dangerous—cat-like posture. Placing her hands on her hips, she looked down at me with a satisfied gaze.
“Good, look at you eating well.”
Se-in pulled out some chunk of stone from her pocket and suddenly placed it on my chest. It was small in volume, but the pressure was far from light. Stepping away from the bed, she explained the stone.
“I heard you’ve been gathering magic stones to enhance your armament. Conveniently, the Templar Knights went to subjugate a Manticore a while ago and picked up a magic stone, so I stole it.”
“Is it really okay to steal something like that?”
Se-in shrugged her shoulders.
“Despite how I look, I’m the only Saintess in this world. Within the headquarters, my standing is right up there with His Holiness the Pope. If I ask for it, they should hand it over. Don’t misunderstand, though. I only stole it because asking was too much hassle.”
“...Who was it again that was calling me tyrannical earlier?”
“People are naturally two-faced. Especially cases like you and me. Our very existence is dual, isn’t it?”
She’s a smooth talker. Is it because her job is a Saintess? I found myself nodding along. Damn it, she convinced me.
“Since you’re giving it to me, I won’t decline.”
“Yeah, take it while I’m offering. If you refused, I was going to sell it on the black market.”
“What were you gonna use the money for?”
“Microtransactions in my games, obviously.”
As far as I’m concerned, she really is an apostate Saintess.
Having finished her business, Se-in paused briefly at the door before leaving. Then, out of nowhere, she said this to me:
“You’ve worked hard all this time.”
It was a single sentence packed with meaning.
Se-in had spent seventeen long years living in solitude as an outsider. Her loneliness must have been several times greater than mine, at the very least.
Hoping it would offer a small comfort to my outsider senior, this junior answered:
“You worked hard too.”
In that moment, a subtle curve formed on the lips of Se-in, who had always worn a sullen face.
