Chapter 130
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Eschatologist II
Shin Noah
3
I strongly recommend to all of you who will someday read my biography.
Build good relationships with the tutorial fairies whenever possible.
I was an inexperienced regressor, so I built chains of hatred with the fairies—cutting each other's throcks and bursting heads—but there's no need for you to dip your feet into such carnage.
"Heh-heh-heh. This is the start of the operation to exterminate the reactionary guerrillas hiding deep within Secretary-General Comrade's unconscious brain folds...!"
"Alright. I'm counting on you."
The tutorial fairy was truly a decent kind of aberration. If you just overlooked their bizarre speech patterns and the part about grinding humans through tutorial ordeals, they could actually hold conversations with Homo sapiens!
As long as you don't slap them with "What kind of bullshit is that, you fucker!" right from the start, you can leave a good impression on the fairies. Actually, you should avoid that greeting even with humans.
The fairies came trotting over and surrounded me. I counted their numbers—64 of them had gathered.
"First, to enter the unconscious, you must relax your body and mind and get a deep sleep!"
"Hmm."
I lay down on the bed. Squeeze. The fairies formed a circle and grabbed my left and right hands from both sides.
Fairy-Fairy-(Me)-Fairy-Fairy.
Expressed as a diagram, it looked like above.
On the left and right sides, 32 tutorial fairies each were connected in a line.
"Then from now on, we invite Secretary-General Comrade to our fairies' hometown. If you have any song requests, please tell us!"
"Song request?"
"Hweh. To enter the Mare's territory, an appropriately adorable lullaby is necessary...! If there's no request, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' will be selected as the default BGM!"
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" had given me trauma from meteor showers, so I requested "Island House Baby."
Then the tutorial fairies held hands and swayed their shoulders side to side.
"Mother went to the island shade~♪"
"To cut some firewood~♪"
"Baby left all alone- took a big poop~♪"
Wait. Was "Island House Baby" those lyrics?
"ZZZ……."
Without even a moment to question it, the fairies' singing voices pulled me in entirely and plunged me into sleep.
Blink.
When I opened my eyes, the scenery had changed. Just moments ago I was clearly lying on a bed in the hideout, but now I was pressing the side of my face against a cafe table in the old Baekje Hospital building.
Under the table lay Old Man Sho's corpse.
The fairies were still tightly holding my hands. The Eight Gates Golden Lock Formation that had been composed of exactly 32/32 people had shrunk by exactly half to 16/16.
"Oh...? Hey, this would be an instant cure for insomnia patients. Nodo-ha, the Management Division Commander, keeps complaining about lack of sleep every day, so if we call them for this person......"
"The sea is call-ing~♪"
"The song of destructiooon~♪"
"ZZZ……."
I fell asleep again within the dream. Beyond my fading consciousness, I thought:
Didn't something similar appear in the movie "Inception"?
Blink.
After that, I repeatedly dreamed within dreams. Each time, my consciousness dove deeper into the unconscious, into deeper sleep.
From the hideout to the cafe, to Dang Seo-rin's VVIP train car, to the underwater bridge convenience store, to Baekhwa Girls' High School......
"Huh? Vice Guild Master, you――."
Sometimes characters in the dream recognized me and widened their eyes.
Dang Seo-rin, the "Guild Master" from a very long-ago iteration, was surprised to see me too.
But the lullaby didn't stop.
"Neck severed and slithering~♪"
"Faaalling asleeep~♪"
Deeper. Even deeper.
Dream within a dream.
To the bottomless abyss of the unconscious that normal humans could never perceive, and even if they dreamed, could never remember.
"――Senior?"
"Brother."
"I-It's the Guild Master......"
"Oppa."
It was an endless fall.
The relationships, memories, and essence that the human named Jang Ui-sa possessed gradually fell away and scattered into pieces.
Like a beast being butchered at a butcher shop. Like a wooden doll being carved away in a sculptor's palm.
"Humans sleep sound-ly~♪"
"And are sleepiing~♪"
"The baby's crying sound."
"The soul wavers."
Blink.
Each time I entered a 'dream' one layer below, the number of fairies decreased. 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2......
Finally, 1.
"Hwehh."
Fairy 264. The tutorial fairy I had first met in my life was holding both my hands.
In reality, the fairy sculpted as a 2D deformed character alone made an expression that could be precisely described as >_<);;
"Heeek...... Oh my! Completely, completely exhausting!"
Shake shake! As the fairy shook its head back and forth, deformed sweat droplets scattered.
"Secretary-General Comrade's unconscious, it's so tough it's way too tough!"
...Is that so?
"Heek. In my long Mare life, I've never seen a human with this kind of unconscious structure! Secretary-General Comrade, there's absolutely no distinction between 'present' and 'past.' Everything is manifest right before your eyes, and the volume spans thousands of years! A structure that a mere mortal absolutely cannot withstand......! Truly worthy of the Steel Secretary-General who leads us!"
"Hmm."
As a human, it was hard for me to understand the impression that my 'unconscious is tough.'
I could only guess that the fairies were struggling because of my [Perfect Memory Ability].
How should I express this?
Unlike other people, my memories didn't blur. Except for memories before the 4th iteration.
From my perspective, thousands of years had already passed like this, so 'memories that truly seem visible before my eyes' were actually familiar to me.
This was also the reason Old Man Sho had genuinely envied me.
That old bastard, his lifelong regret was that his wife's face and voice were gradually blurring.
I'll have another chance to mention this unique symptom of mine later.
"Anyway, good work. So is this the bottom of my unconscious?"
"Heh-heh-heh. That's right! Unless you're a highly skilled Mare like us, reaching this far is truly impossible......! It's an over-achievement project realized by the heroic will of revolutionary heroes!"
I looked around.
Busan Station waiting room.
In a way, I felt it was quite like me. My personal birthplace might be elsewhere, but for the 'regressor' Jang Ui-sa, there was no other hometown than this.
My origin. The substantial presence no different from reality flowed somewhere in the void of the waiting room.
"It doesn't feel like a dream at all."
"Naturally. This place isn't merely Secretary-General Comrade's personal unconscious—it's virtually 'humanity's collective unconscious.' It's a phenomenon essential to human survival like air or water...... Reality before reality, a transcendental structure, it's hyper-reality."
"Collective unconscious? That's Carl Jung's concept. You knew about that too?"
"Heh-heh-heh. Thanks to Mugan, we accessed all of humanity's knowledge and received crash-course tutoring!"
"Ah."
"Anyway, you must be very careful here, Secretary-General Comrade. What surrounds you now isn't simple physical reality but humanity's unconscious itself......!"
While saying that, the fairy didn't let go of my hand. Just like when the Fairy Lord briefly showed me Mugan's domain, this must mean it's truly dangerous here.
"In this place, the laws of time and space have no meaning!"
"Does that mean it's no different from the Void?"
"Not just no different—it IS the Void itself!"
There are people who talk fast when discussing something they know well, and Fairy 264 seemed to be that type.
"In a sense, dreams can be called the first Great Void that descends upon all humans......! Thankfully, this waiting room could serve as a base camp because it's the 'most intimate place' that Secretary-General Comrade thinks of."
"Base camp."
"Yes, so if you leave this place, you must never let go of my hand no matter what happens! Secretary-General Comrade. To activate the emergency escape protocol when necess......"
That was when it happened.
Tap-
A quiet sound of heels echoed through the waiting room. For the noise of heels striking the floor, it was excessively high. Like the church bell in a village.
Beyond the radius where the fairy and I stood, the waiting room was obscured in darkness. So the figure of the one making the footsteps was also slowly revealed from the bottom up.
Tap-
Black loafers. White stockings. A purple skirt covering below the knees to the calves. Yet the white pinstripes lightly reduced the heavy weight characteristic of deep purple.
"Huh?"
Pink hair.
"How curious."
"......"
"To meet in a place like this, Guild Master?"
Go Yori.
Go Yori was smiling brightly.
My heart lurched.
My aura fluctuated faster than my pulse. The moment I raised aura throughout my entire body to behead Go Yori in one stroke.
"Hwet?"
Boom!
The weight holding my left hand rapidly decreased. When I looked to the side, the fairy's head had been completely torn off from its body.
Patter. Pieces of fairy flesh fell to the floor belatedly, like a song with missed beats.
Fairy 264's forearm that I held drooped powerlessly, swaying. Once, twice, three times the forearm rode a seesaw and finally settled.
Instant death.
A Mare that wields power greater in dreams than in reality had been instantly slaughtered within that very dream.
"......"
"Ah, I'm sorry. But it's been so long since I've seen Guild Master that I got a bit too happy...... I'm truly sorry——"
No hesitation.
I raised my aura with full force. I kicked off the ground.
I passed Go Yori, and the sensation of her neck exploding from my single stroke traveled through my staff-sword to my hand. A sound closer to an explosion than a cut—bang—followed one step late.
Compared to the Ten Clans Battle, I had grown much. I didn't even say things like "Did I get him?" out loud, didn't even check if I'd gotten him—just fled exactly as I was.
In other words, I ran for my life with my tail between my legs.
"——Ahaha."
And despite not even running 300 meters, I faced Go Yori again right in front of me.
Thud!
Colliding head-on, Go Yori fell flat on her back.
Go Yori rubbed her nose with a rueful smile.
"Ow, ah...... I'm sorry, Guild Master. I wasn't looking ahead so I...... Ahaha. I'm a bit clumsy, you know."
"......"
I immediately shot aura upward.
A reversed lightning bolt pierced through the ceiling of Busan Station. Sky appeared. I gathered aura in my soles and kicked off the spot.
Void Treading.
At this point, it was a technique only I, who had trained aura to the极限, could demonstrate.
"The weather is really nice."
Go Yori was sitting on a cloud.
"......"
"If you're careful of the Void, doesn't the sky feel a bit clearer than the ground? Ah. Guild Master, would you like some pu-erh tea?"
Using the cloud as a bench, Go Yori swung her feet in turn. A thermos and teacups were even prepared at her side.
I immediately released Void Treading and plummeted. Crash! The moment I collided with the ground, I dug into the earth with all my might. Into the ground, underground.
I was a drill, and our drill was a drill that would pierce the underground.
"Really. Look at me. Guild Master preferred Ceylon tea over pu-erh tea."
Go Yori was excavated from 600 meters underground. Holding Ceylon tea in both hands, smiling brightly.
"......"
"Ah. We're playing hide-and-seek right now, correct? Then...... was I the seeker? Guild Master, found-you. Ahaha. Is this how you play? It's my first time playing hide-and-seek since I was little, so I'm a bit embarrassed."
God, Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Guangse, Jesus Christ! Please!
There was no choice. I activated the final emergency escape protocol 552-71, 'Red Cliff Song Pansori.'
"Suddenly a fierce wind rumbles! The wind sound is tumultuous, Zhou Yu hurriedly beat the flag on the general's table, and looking at the flag......"
"Oh my♪ Azure Dragon and Vermilion Bird, the two horns responding to White Tiger and Black Tortoise, northwest to southeast, in the hour of Snake, a great southeast wind rises, the horns creak♪ wiggle♪ the flagpole tumbles too♪"
"......"
"Aah, rising like thunder, Zhou Yu sees this sight and his gallbladder falls out♪"
Thump-
I don't know where she got a janggu drum from, but Go Yori struck the drumhead skillfully. It was as excellent a performance as mine—I had once received professional training in Red Cliff Song from a pansori singer during a vacation iteration.
"Huh. Guild Master, aren't you going to keep singing? I practiced a lot to sing this with you......"
"......"
The corners of Go Yori's eyebrows drooped downward.
Only then was I forced to face the cold, hard fact.
That's right.
I was fucked.
And quite severely at that.