I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I'm Just Telling Stories@Shin Noah
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I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I'm Just Telling Stories
Episode 1
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Companion Ⅰ
Shin Noah
1
Infinite Regression.
There exists a genre by that name.
It refers to a phenomenon where the protagonist, upon experiencing death, returns to a state before their demise and endlessly challenges obstacles. This is called "infinite regression."
Naturally, the protagonist overcomes any ordeal, no matter how treacherous. After all, they simply need to keep challenging until they succeed.
Whether it's a fate that should have ended in a bad ending changing to a happy ending, or the protagonist miraculously saving a supporting heroine who was supposed to die from an incurable disease——.
Infinite regression is nothing short of a cheat key that brings all tragedies to an end.
However, speaking as someone who has experienced it firsthand, the infinite regression depicted in various novels is nothing more than shoddy propaganda.
Much like those cram schools that only hang banners with the names of students who got into prestigious universities.
"Fuck. This isn't going to work, is it?"
I set down my cane-sword.
Regression, 1183rd iteration.
The world had perished again. The capable succeed, the incapable fail. I belonged to the incapable. I had no choice but to finally admit the fact that no matter how much I struggled, I could not prevent the world's destruction.
This is not a story of success, but a story of failure.
It is merely an aftermath tale of someone who, despite possessing the ability of infinite regression, ultimately could not prevent destruction on their own and finally let themselves go.
2
First, what must be noted is the human mentality. In other words, mental fortitude always has an expiration date.
No matter how fine a person may appear on the outside, as regressions repeat, something invisible inevitably breaks.
The old man Schopenhauer, whom I will soon speak of, was a representative example.
"My direct ancestor was a very famous philosopher."
'Old Man Sho' often boasted about his family lineage.
I too had heard of Schopenhauer or whatever his name was. But honestly, unlike his ancestor, Old Man Sho was a man who had nothing to do with philosophy.
"What are those muscles of yours? Exercise a bit, will you? Exercise."
Despite being a sixty-year-old man, his entire body was composed of muscle.
Old Man Sho, who was more intimate with iron itself rather than philosophy, always emphasized the importance of exercise.
"No, but when we regress, all those muscles disappear anyway......"
"Weight training is a habit. Habits don't disappear."
Old Man Sho spoke solemnly.
Now I possess an ability that preserves muscles and internal energy even when returning to the past, commonly called the [Continue] skill, but back then I was merely a greenhorn who had experienced barely 10 regressions. So it was quite difficult for me to empathize with Old Man Sho's philosophy.
Nationality, generation, tastes, beliefs, political inclinations—in every aspect, Old Man Sho and I were opposites. We truly had absolutely nothing in common.
Nevertheless, there was exactly one reason why we always traveled together.
"Tsk. This iteration is a bust too."
"I agree."
Infinite regression.
Indeed. Old Man Sho and I were regressors who possessed the same ability.
For some reason, in the world I lived in, there wasn't just one regressor—there were two. Considering that in most creative works infinite regression is granted to only one person, this was quite unusual.
"Ah, damn. It's over. It's over. That monster can't be killed."
"Then what should we do?"
"I'll go first, so you come later. While I hold that bastard off, you escape and struggle until the very end. Then, well, won't we see a way in the next iteration?"
"Fuck. The old man always leaves the difficult parts to me......"
"Hey now! 'Fuck' indeed! There's proper order between old and young, you brat!"
Old Man Sho, who invoked 'jang-yu-yu-seo' with perfect Korean pronunciation, was funnily enough a German person.
I first met Old Man Sho in the 6th regression. At that time, he only knew how to say 'Hello' in Korean.
But as soon as he learned that another infinite regressor like himself existed, Old Man Sho threw himself into studying Korean.
7th regression, 8th regression—as the regressions progressed, his Korean skills improved by leaps and bounds. Eventually, by around the 10th regression, he became better at Korean than me.
How good? He could read the [Analects of Confucius] in Korean, not German.
"Old man, your passion is truly impressive."
"You brat! It's not passion, it's habit! It's because you're so stubborn about not learning German that I learned instead! Good grief. You've even mastered perfect memory ability, so why on earth don't you study? It is said, 'Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?' How can someone so much younger than me be so lazy about learning! Hah! Tsk tsk......"
"......"
I felt he might have learned a bit too well.
Anyway, thanks to Old Man Sho installing K-boomer energy along with the Korean language in his brain, our communication became drastically easier.
Wasn't this a situation where there were not one but two infinite regressors, each already a cheat key on their own?
Sometimes I sacrificed myself, sometimes Old Man Sho sacrificed himself, and we gradually wrote up a walkthrough for this world.
"We did it! We actually did it!"
When we subjugated the monster 'Ten-Legs' that no one had been able to defeat for a full 10 iterations, both of us cheered.
After blowing off that hateful giant-mop tentacle head, Old Man Sho even threw down his sword and rushed at me.
"Oh my! Doctor! Thank you! It's all thanks to you! If I were alone, I couldn't have made it this far!"
Old Man Sho laughed like a child.
In truth, from the 6th to the 10th regression, though we had formed a cooperative relationship, somewhere in our hearts we were wary of each other. In a world where doom was at hand, trusting another person was difficult.
Both I and Old Man Sho. We had witnessed too much to easily believe in someone.
But the moment this white-haired German boomer hugged me while smiling brightly, I felt the last vestige of wariness between us melt away without a trace.
I looked into Old Man Sho's gray eyes. I could tell he felt the same emotion as I did.
Indeed. We were pilots who had crash-landed at the end of the century, and though we couldn't say we were born on the same land, we were comrades who had unfolded our fragile parachutes and jumped toward the same landing point.
After that day, many things became unimportant between us. Nationality, generation, tastes, beliefs, political inclinations—such things lost their inherent gravity.
In the atmosphere where gravity had faded, we became much lighter.
"To be honest, getting used to this regression thing is quite difficult."
Old Man Sho openly showed me his human side. In other words, what would be called a 'weakness' in a doomed world.
When morning came, we would put coffee in a thermos or carry bottles of soju and go to an empty cafe (there were many shops where the baristas had fled because the world had ended) and have small conversations.
"Why?"
"When we regress, don't we open our eyes on June 17th? But the moment one minute passes after regression, my wife dies."
"Excuse me?"
Old Man Sho's words were as follows.
June 17th, 13:59. That day was the starting point of our regression. But unfortunately, around June 17th, 14:00, a Gate would open in Seoul, Korea, and everything south of the Han River would be annihilated at once.
Unlike the two of us who had avoided the disaster by being in Busan that day, Old Man Sho's wife had been participating in an academic conference in Seoul.
"One minute. Just one minute."
Old Man Sho downed his soju.
"My wife was conducting an event in the auditorium then. It was a gathering of many famous scientists."
"Even if you warn them that a Gate is opening...... they wouldn't be able to escape."
"Right."
It was a catastrophe where all of Seoul was reduced to ruins in an instant. Even if Old Man Sho called immediately after regression and told them to evacuate right away, it was physically impossible to avoid the tragedy.
"Even if I call, she doesn't pick up right away. When there's an important event, that person sets their phone to silent mode...... I always had to call three times in a row for her to answer."
"......"
"Then there's no time either. I can barely convey that I love her, then a boom sounds from the sky, and the call cuts off. 10 seconds. I can hear my wife's voice for only about 10 seconds......"
"What about other family members?"
"None. I only have my wife."
Old Man Sho murmured.
Real name, Emmet Schopenhauer. Alias, Swordmaster.
I thought I understood why he was so obsessed with gaining such powerful strength.
As the iterations progressed, Old Man Sho's alcohol tolerance increased. The old man who drank soju in the 9th regression and said 'This isn't alcohol' was drinking three bottles of soju on the spot by around the 19th regression.
"Even if I drink like I'm dying, as long as I regress, my liver resets, so isn't it a gain? Hehehe......"
Though he said that, Old Man Sho's complexion was not bright.
At this point, we—he—had endured about 120 years of time combined across the regressions.
In contrast, the time he had conversed with his wife was merely about 120 seconds.
The old man's journey of crossing a desert to drink a single sip of water was becoming increasingly harsh.
"There must be a teleportation ability user somewhere."
At some point, Old Man Sho's purpose began to change.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean a teleportation ability user. If we can just save that person, we can rush to my wife the moment regression starts."
"No...... Old man. Even if there is a teleportation ability user somewhere in the world, how would you meet them within one minute? Even you and I have to wait 30 minutes after regression to gather."
"......"
Old Man Sho fell silent.
I could tell even that was not a silence of affirmation.
The companion who had tried to prevent destruction with me for 100 years fell deeper and deeper into strange thoughts. He muttered incessantly.
"If we find resurrection magic, wouldn't we be able to bring dead people back to life?"
"If I become able to copy other people's abilities, and obtain teleportation and telepathy abilities, surely I could solve all problems within one minute."
"It's possible. It will definitely be possible."
It was like a collapsing sandcastle.
The peak of the collapse was the 23rd regression.
As soon as regression began, I followed the same route as usual. After clearing the dungeon-fied Busan Station within 30 minutes, I moved to our pre-arranged location. It was a hideout we had discovered in previous iterations.
"Huh? Old man? Old man, you're not here?"
There was no one in the underground training center. I couldn't even find traces of anyone having entered.
"......"
Feeling an ominous premonition, I immediately moved.
My starting point was Busan Station. Old Man Sho's was the old Baekje Hospital building.
Passing through the elementary school that had been broken in half by a monster's rampage, I entered the old hospital building. The people had already evacuated, so no one was there.
Old Man Sho was dead on the rooftop.
"......"
It wasn't murder.
Originally, there were no dangerous elements at the starting point that could kill Old Man Sho. Monsters. Humans. Even me.
The only one who could kill him was himself.
Old Man Sho's corpse had no head. Instead, his body was intact. He was tightly clutching a smartphone in his left hand.
"Crazy."
I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I'm Just Telling Stories