Chapter 106
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Walker IV
Shin Noah
Even after that, the 'conquest' continued.
It was like a chaotic chess battle unfolding on the board.
Black was the anomaly. White was humanity.
However, unlike a normal match where the number of chess pieces was fixed, the Inunaki Tunnel possessed countless pieces.
That thing had devoured tunnels all across Japan. It meant it had monopolized all the terror and ghost stories intertwined with those locations. There were more than enough chess pieces to place on the board as numerous as the ghost stories themselves.
On the other hand, we humans had only 72 pawns. But I didn't grow impatient.
Anyway, my chess pieces were replenished with each iteration. Even if I failed this time, I just had to press the 'Continue' button to keep playing the game.
With more knowledge, with richer strategies.
[A reconnaissance team member has died.]
[All clear.]
[Advance.]
141st iteration, 142nd iteration, 143rd iteration, 144th iteration, 145th iteration.
Across a total of five iterations, I conquered the Inunaki Tunnel. Not that I invested all my time solely on the Inunaki Tunnel.
Leisurely. While also subjugating other anomalies, I merely consumed the 72 death-row inmates.
As the iterations accumulated, the mind game increasingly tilted in my favor. No more death-row inmates dying at the tunnel entrance. Fewer inmates getting enthralled by the graffiti.
The records of the mind game between the anomaly and me, the chess game notation, remained intact as strategy.
And so.
[Exit visually confirmed.]
[Mr. Undertaker. Death-row inmate #66 died approximately 20 meters from the exit. Just before death, the inmate turned around.]
I gripped the radio.
"Did he only turn around with absolutely no other unusual behavior?"
[Yes.]
"Then it seems the Orpheus myth has been mixed in. Seeing the cave exit and turning around, causing his lover to be dragged away and die... Myths often become strangely distorted when applied to anomalies."
[Ah.]
"We need to add to the strategy that you must absolutely never turn around once the exit becomes visible. Saintess, that death-row inmate was the last reconnaissance team member, correct?"
[Yes. There are no more available death-row inmates. Will you postpone it to the next iteration?]
I shook my head.
"No. If only 20 meters remain, I'll end this here. For the finale, it's right that those in charge of this operation go. To verify our strategy..."
I glanced back.
"And for the Council's dignity."
Yoo Ji-won, Man-yeok-myo, Heo Su-geom. The three Awakened were looking at me.
"Ji-won. You stay here and continue monitoring the map. You can just stare at the map, that's fine."
"Yes, Your Excellency. I will watch only the operational map without even blinking."
"No need to go that far. Anyway..."
I met eyes with the two magical girls. Various emotions were contained in their gazes.
Anxiety. That they might have left the subjugation almost entirely to the Korean Peninsula's Awakened.
Excitement. That the chance to deal the final blow to the anomaly that had tormented the Japanese archipelago endlessly might have finally arrived.
Sorrow and guilt.
These emotions didn't need explanation. Neither feelings toward us, nor feelings toward living humans.
"Let's go. Man-yeok-myo, Heo Su-geom."
"......"
"To avenge your comrades."
The eyes of the two grew cold.
Soon, the final reconnaissance team departed.
8
"In the 1st subjugation operation, we were careless in many ways."
Step. Step.
Human footsteps flowed down the tunnel's black walls like rainwater. Mud splattered on the magical girls' shoes.
"Well, it was quietly behaved without spitting out anomalies or anything if left alone. Compared to other anomalies that smash villages and cities into wreckage, it seemed weak, right?"
[Five of the shrines around Nagoya and Kyoto formed an alliance and organized the 1st subjugation force. Well, at that time, we never imagined it would be the '1st'.]
"My childhood friend was in that subjugation force."
[That person was also my close friend.]
Step.
Outside, the cicada cries shaking from distant hills were deafening, but inside the tunnel was an eerie silence.
Whenever footsteps echoed along the walls, bizarre graffiti writhed like fireflies. But no one cast their gaze at those patterns.
"Stars-guide-the-dawn."
As the darkness deepened, Man-yeok-myo lightly shook her umbrella. The outside of the umbrella glowed with a faint blue light.
It was magic. Word-segment magic, known as the world's only method of casting magic until the unparalleled witch Dang Seo-rin single-handedly developed spell-song chanting.
A magic that assembled words to manifest the caster's mental imagery, and a mage's caliber could be measured by how many word-segments they could weave together at once.
"After that, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th subjugation forces were organized, but the outcome was similar. Ah. Look at this."
Man-yeok-myo pointed at the floor with the tip of her umbrella.
Japanese characters were engraved on the relatively mud-free concrete floor. Most were damaged, but some characters were decipherable.
-Die.
-No. I don't want to be here anymore. Where did everyone disappear to? Why leave only me behind, die. LCNA. 1199.
-I leave this for searchers or Council members who may come here in the future. First, absolutely do not walk in the center. Do not listen to sounds coming from the center, and if you sense a presence...
-Please save me.
When Man-yeok-myo lifted her umbrella, the letters on the floor sank back into eternal darkness.
"These are all traces of previous subjugation forces."
[This was Gamma Point, correct?]
"Yeah. We decided to leave markers like this in each relatively safe zone from the Inunaki Tunnel's erosion."
They too had tried to create strategies. Like me.
"But 'relatively safe areas' aren't 'completely safe areas.' The 4th subjugation force that trusted and followed these guidelines was annihilated."
"...Document contamination occurred."
"Precisely. This fucking bastard, it did nothing during the 3rd subjugation force but started playing tricks when the 4th force came."
It wasn't rare for anomalies from the void to mimic human language. Not just language, but voices, behaviors, and appearances were often copied.
Like now.
-Man-yeok-myo!
-Heo Su-geom? It's Heo Su-geom, right?
-So you really came to save us!
-Our disciple, how admirable. We always believed in you.
Heo Su-geom smiled coldly. Though mockery didn't flow from the mute girl's lips, that made the smile's temperature all the more vivid.
[Bullshit spouting from their asses.]
"People you know?"
[Yeah, comrades and teachers. Was the captain of the 4th subjugation force I mentioned. Said the lower half of the body was separated at Gamma Point, but fortunately the voice is intact.]
Step.
The magical girls walked without looking back.
Suddenly, the footsteps of the group felt like muted screams.
The anomaly deployed various trap cards, but there was no chance of us being deceived. The 'Inunaki Tunnel Conquest Strategy' recorded from entry #1 to #77 guided us to the exit.
The moment the exit's light began to visible from afar.
-Man-yeok-myo-oh-oh.
Suddenly! An arm thrust out from behind us. As if trying to embrace us.
A cute bracelet was on the wrist. The sleeve had frills too.
-What's wrong? Hurry, take my hand.
-Didn't you come to save us? The Council? Did headquarters abandon us?
-Let's go back together, Man-yeok-myo. No, Rika.
Cracks appeared on the magical girls' consistently cold faces.
-We promised to meet again when the first snow falls this year. At Mt. Yahiko.
"......"
-I still remember the promise I made with you, Rika.
Man-yeok-myo stopped walking.
Both she and I knew that turning around here would end everything.
But instead of deliberately recalling that information, I maintained silence. Heo Su-geom also didn't use telepathic magic.
"...Really, fucking hell."
A murmur flowed through the tunnel.
"That promise was already made 7 years ago. But damn it, we never even decided exactly what counts as first snow when you left for the subjugation force. Is snow falling in Hokkaido the first snow? Or does it have to snow in our village back then? That was seriously such a trash promise."
-......
"So when it snowed in Hokkaido, when it snowed in the village, when it snowed in your hometown, I went up Mt. Yahiko all three times combined. Suffered like a dog. And you weren't there any of those times. It was so cold I thought I'd freeze to death."
-......
"Yo. I wondered where and how the hell you died that not even a body scrap could be found- were you just seducing harmless humans in this shitty tunnel? Where did that promise to serve gods and protect people go? Fucking bastard. Really......"
I still couldn't forget the sight I saw then.
The 'hand' that had emerged behind us and merely waved through empty air had quietly taken Man-yeok-myo's hand.
Intertwining fingers.
-Sorry. Let's go back together.
"......"
-Rika.
Human sounds flowed down the tunnel's black walls like rainwater. The rain fell for a long time.
Step.
We walked.
The light drew closer. The moss stench and corpse stench tormenting our noses gradually gave way to the scent of grass. And when the muted screams transformed into cicada cries.
[We've arrived. Mr. Undertaker.]
We exited the tunnel.
Without exchanging particular words, without anyone going first, we turned around. The tunnel exit. On the signboard engraved with 'Inunaki,' a different name was now carved.
Sorojidani Tunnel.
The name this tunnel originally had before being possessed and devoured by the anomaly.
Beneath that name, hundreds, thousands of corpses were strewn across and beyond the tunnel.
"......"
[......]
Most of the corpses wore the magical girls' splendid attire. But the dresses were rotting from the corpse poison's black mud and the ravages of time.
Before a corpse missing one arm, Man-yeok-myo knelt.
I later learned that Man-yeok-myo was originally assigned to the 1st subjugation force but survived by being assigned to wait outside the tunnel.
Anomaly Inunaki Tunnel.
Alias: River of Three Crossings, Hell Gallery, Orpheus's Underworld Path
Danger Level: Lv.3 Continent-class
Conquest complete.
9
Afterword, first.
On the Japanese archipelago, all tunnels returned to normal one by one, but for some reason, only the undersea tunnel crossing the Korea Strait remained intact.
Of course, 'intact' meant it could only be used by strictly following the strategy. All the dangers the Inunaki Tunnel anomaly originally possessed remained in the undersea tunnel.
Nodo-ha frowned.
"Strange. Since the undersea tunnel was originally a virtual structure, it should have disappeared......"
"Well. I don't know either. Even as an anomaly specialist, I don't know everything."
"Hmm......"
Nodo-ha grimaced while looking at the undersea tunnel peeking its head out of the waters off Busan.
"Well, if anything, it's not bad to think of it as gaining one more means of interacting with that side......"
The story related to this undersea tunnel will be told in the very next episode.
10
Afterword, second.
After the 145th iteration, I decided to visit the Japanese archipelago once as early as possible.
The purpose was simple. To subjugate the Inunaki Tunnel before the Council suffered numerous casualties.
Of course, there was also the purpose of farming my precious ghost camera.
Thus, 146th iteration. After obtaining the camera and arriving at the Inunaki Tunnel, a familiar presence approached from afar.
"Huh? There was a visitor?"
It was Man-yeok-myo.
A slightly younger, slightly more immature face than the previous iteration.
So instead of an umbrella, something else was connected to Man-yeok-myo's hand.
"What should I do, Yo? The Great Shrine Maiden ordered us to block the tunnel entrance."
"Just warning them to back off should be enough, right?"
"Yeah, but that person has an amazing aura at first glance...... Ah. They seem to have noticed us."
"Step back, it's dangerous. Rika."
I raised both hands to show no hostile intent and approached.
A magical girl with pitch-black hair contrasting with Man-yeok-myo's golden hair was staring this way.
"Who are you? Never seen your face. Not a villager, right? This area is off-limits to civilians starting today. Missing persons reports have come in."
"An Awakened from Korea."
"Korea...? Why come here from Korea?"
Hmm.
Distrust and wariness filled the other's eyes. But I, the Undertaker, was a regressor skilled in socializing.
About 4 minutes of conversation and 4 bags of snacks passed between us.
"Delicious!"
"Chocolate for the first time in dozens of days... Not fake chocolate but the genuine quality felt in the cacao's rich flavor......"
"Ah, melting..."
"So are we friends now?"
"Yeah! Tomodachi!"
The magical girls diligently wrapped sacred ropes around the tunnel entrance. Then, repeatedly emphasizing that I absolutely must not enter, they leisurely departed.
The sun was setting. I watched the scene of the two holding hands and walking away for quite a long time.
"...Should I take a picture."
Click.
At that moment, my taking out the ghost camera and photographing the Inunaki Tunnel was purely on a whim.
Perhaps I wanted to preserve this moment as a memento?
Along with a buzzing sound, the photo developed. Since this was before the Inunaki Tunnel had devoured all of Japan's tunnels, the photo was considerably calmer than before.
There were no magical girls' corpses, nor were limbs or heads unpleasantly displayed.
Just the stone wall blocking the tunnel entrance.
There, bright red letters were written.
-Come back soon. It's already the 7th time.
I froze for a moment with the camera raised.
Cicadas were crying in the cedar forest.
...It wasn't because it pretended as if the anomaly knew I was repeatedly regressing.
Such pretense could be established with just the ability to show hallucinations of 'what the opponent fears.' An anomaly with high-level illusion abilities like the Inunaki Tunnel could certainly do that.
The problem was elsewhere.
I first encountered the Inunaki Tunnel in the 141st iteration. 142nd, 143rd, 144th, 145th...... Finally, in the 146th iteration, I came to face the tunnel again.
Altogether '6 times.'
But the Inunaki Tunnel welcomed me saying it was already the '7th time' we met.
Where on earth did that remaining 1 time disappear to?
- Walker. End.
An infinite regressor telling a story.