Chapter 132
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Eschatologist IV
Shin Noah
5
Let's talk about Old Man Sho.
Flashback. The distant past.
A very long time ago, during the 21st cycle, I once spread out a drinking spread on a sky-blue bridge and had a heart-to-heart talk with Old Man Sho while drunk.
"Yeonjang. What do you think will happen to the world after we die?"
"After we die?"
Old Man Sho and I were probably the only two regressors in this world.
Because of that, we sometimes excitedly chatted about 'topics that only regressors can truly immerse themselves in.' Just like now.
"Well... At the point when both of us die... I mean, wouldn't the world regress along with us when we regress? Time gets turned back."
"And if that's not the case?"
"Pardon?"
"It's possible that even after we die, this world continues on."
"No, then wouldn't that make no sense? We open our eyes right after dying. But how would the world be maintained?"
"Listen carefully."
The old regressor's argument was this:
――――――――――
A. [World After Bad Ending] Hypothesis.
Explanation: Even if a regressor dies, the world does not regress. Time continues until the universe meets its end.
Only after a perfect apocalypse arrives does the world 'rollback.' A server reset. However, for some reason, only the memories of Old Man Sho and me, the regressors, are preserved without being initialized.
――――――――――
"Ah... So subjectively we feel like we regained consciousness right after death, but objectively we wouldn't open our eyes until after the world has been destroyed?"
"Exactly. In this case, our ability would be closer to [Memory Preservation] rather than [Regression]. Since you, doctor, have perfect memory ability, it fits reasonably well, doesn't it?"
"Oh..."
"There's another hypothesis too."
――――――――――
B. [Parallel World] Hypothesis.
Explanation: When a regressor dies, the regressor's consciousness and memories are transferred to 'another parallel world.'
Even if it looks identical on the surface, the world we lived in before and the world we live in now are completely separate worlds.
It's just that the differences between the two worlds have not been observed by the regressors.
――――――――――
"If the parallel world hypothesis is correct, we might have to call our ability [World-line Migration]."
"That's truly a perspective I've never thought of before."
"That's because you, Yeonjang, go around without installing something called 'thoughts' inside that head of yours. You ignorant bastard. You really need to learn a thing or two. Calling socialists reds, constantly mocking German history, completely uncouth. You're disqualified as a human, disqualified in character, disqualified in nature."
"A surprise attack of slander here of all places...?"
"I support the parallel world hypothesis."
I blinked.
"Huh... Why?"
"Does it make sense that the entire world, time itself, regresses just because two human bastards died?"
Old Man Sho swirled his soju glass.
"It's much more plausible that just our two consciousnesses moved to another world. Don't you think?"
"Hmm."
Listening to Old Man Sho's words, I felt an inexplicable discomfort.
If 'turning back the world's time' was nonsense as Old Man Sho said, wouldn't 'moving an individual's ego and memories to another parallel world' be equally absurd?
Rather, assuming that countless parallel worlds exist might be theoretically more burdensome.
"Then the world we were originally in... all the 'parallel worlds' we've passed through so far have all been destroyed? We just keep moving to new worlds, leaving behind our hometowns that have already disappeared."
"Exactly! We think we're endlessly retrying, retrying to save the world... but in reality, all those countless worlds' humanity is already dead. Those monster bastards won."
Looking back now.
As drunk ramblings usually are, Old Man Sho's tirade lacked consistency.
Let's assume Old Man Sho truly believed in the [World After Bad Ending] or [Parallel World] hypotheses.
Then shouldn't he have cherished his own life even more?
If it wasn't simply turning back time through regression, if countless worlds really did meet their end,
Then Old Man Sho's and my lives carried a weight 'equivalent to the entire world.'
Because it would mean that every moment we fail, a world perishes.
Yet Old Man Sho soon went on permanent leave.
Why was that?
Did he trust me that much? A belief that even if he gave up, I alone would not give up?
Or was his lover far more precious to him than a world that had dumped its weight on the likes of us?
One world and one love. Between the two, was the latter inevitably heavier?
The drunk old man wobbled.
"This is truly a damn world, isn't it, Yeonjang. I really... really don't understand why such things happened. I don't understand."
"Ah- Old man. Get up already. If you sleep in a place like this, your mouth will go crooked. Sigh, really. This guy keeps doing this every day, trusting only his Heavenly Martial Body."
...As if, the old man before my eyes was like a sherpa desperately trying to load an even heavier burden onto his already heavy shoulders.
It was a double expedient chosen by the captain of an increasingly sinking ship.
Expedient A: He cannot run aground here. Because if he fails, the world will perish.
Expedient B: But even if he runs aground here, it can't be helped. Because this ship is loaded with far too much cargo for just one human to bear.
That's right.
Old Man Sho was undoubtedly driving himself into a corner so he could make excuses either way.
"I'm sorry, Yeonjang... I'm sorry..."
"No, what's with this German old man now having dialect mixed into his diction. Going crazy. Should I just throw you in a gas chamber?"
"You crazy... racist bastard..."
"I told you, that frame doesn't work when a white person uses it on a yellow person!"
I was still young in the 21st cycle. I couldn't catch on to Old Man Sho's psychology.
So even while supporting the body of the drunk Old Man Sho, I couldn't support his heart.
If I had accumulated a bit more experience. If I had gone through a few more anomalies, I would have told the Old Man Sho of that time.
With a cold voice.
'Old man.'
'Whether it's [World After Bad Ending] or [Parallel World], whether it's truth or falsehood, that doesn't matter right now.'
'Because all of those would be emptiness, would be anomalies.'
6
End of flashback.
Let's turn the viewpoint back thousands of years again.
The reunion with Old Man Sho in the unconscious world was the worst.
"Ah. Guild Master, you've been spotted."
Goyori muttered, but there wasn't even a need to kindly inform me.
Old Man Sho's strike, swinging a pipe arbitrarily, was rapidly approaching.
"...!"
A Sword Master's strike was faster than sound.
Have you ever seen a night sky where the Milky Way is etched like faint jewels?
If you come to Clean-Apocalypse, free of pollution and fine dust, you can see it every day.
And you can witness it in Old Man Sho's aura too.
Kwarrrrrr!
The 'night sky-colored' aura rushed in a straight line, cutting in half the building debris in its path as if they were nuisances.
The decisive reason Old Man Sho came to be called the Sword Star. Because his blade contained the Milky Way and starlight.
The roar of the collapsing buildings echoed several beats slower than Old Man Sho's attack.
Only after I barely drew Doha and deflected Old Man Sho's strike did that tremendous aftermath hit my hearing.
"Crazy...?"
My hands were tingling, and my whole body shook. My entire senses screamed vomit.
Just one strike.
In the 261st cycle, my heart dropped from receiving just a single attack. For someone like me who makes a living off aura rather than martial arts, it felt like MP instantly getting cut in half.
Seo Gyu's soul suddenly possessed me. Words cursing him for cheating automatically spilled from my mouth.
"Fuck, you weren't normally this strong!"
"..."
"No matter how this is emptiness and you're an anomaly, the original is just an old man who's been no-show since the 25th cycle. Is it right to be this strong?"
Old Man Sho was expressionless. Probably because when he degenerated into an anomaly, his facial muscles degenerated along with his tiny brain wrinkles.
-..., ..., ....
Old Man Sho's lips constantly moved, muttering something.
Thanks to spending time with Lee Ha-yul, my lip-reading skills had advanced greatly. Even from a distance, I could roughly decode what Old Man Sho was pronouncing. Germans had been somewhat weak in the field of 'eavesdropping' since World War II anyway.
The surveillance results were this:
-Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele.
This crazy bastard.
The Sword Demon raised the pipe again.
The energy felt from the old man's fingertips made the goosebumps on my neck cry cock-a-doodle-doo in unison. At this rate, I'd end up on the old man's dinner table tonight as regressor chicken.
"Huh."
At that moment, I came up with a brilliant idea.
I grabbed Goyori, who was standing next to me in spectator mode, and put her in front.
"Huh?"
"Yori, let's be friends!"
The forbidden technique passed down in the Korean peninsula since ancient times. The Friend Shield.
If I rashly fled here, there was a risk that the corrupted regressor, the anomaly 'Emmet Schopenhauer,' would chase after me.
Then wouldn't it be worth aiming for mutual destruction?
As a guardian of human civilization, I always respected the Code of Hammurabi. An eye for an eye. An anomaly for an anomaly. For Old Sho, Goyori.
If I could subdue even one of the regressor anomaly or the brainwashing beam anomaly, it was profit for me! How could I quibble over means and methods?
"..."
Hesitated.
Old Man Sho, who had been positioning himself as if to unleash a barrage at any moment, stopped.
I clenched my fist in my heart.
As expected, even Old Man Sho had to hesitate before the brainwashing hypnosis beam. Even I, who had rolled through to the 261st cycle, could only barely avoid it with no countermeasure, so how could a green young old man show off?
"Hmm... Guild Master?"
"What? I'm busy right now. Don't talk to me."
"But I think it would be better to tell you."
Goyori, captured in my left hand and reduced to a human shield, spoke as if troubled.
"As Guild Master knows, I'm perceived as the ideal type that the other person would be most attracted to, right? Then... to that grandfather who reached that ending, who would 'I' appear as?"
"..."
Ah.
-AdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdeleAdele.
The 'night sky' spread out centered on Old Man Sho.
To use the latest trend as a metaphor, domain expansion. Considering the old man's age, it was an inherent barrier.
Old Man Sho's tremendous aura extended from his feet, dyeing the earth and the sky. Then, suddenly, the night sky arrived in the middle of the day in the city that had fallen into ruins.
Killing intent transcending sword energy.
The martial talent that the human named Emmet Schopenhauer originally possessed. The extreme of that potential.
A realm of a distant transcendent that I had never witnessed even when Old Man Sho was in his prime in the original reality was unfolding there.
"If he were maintaining his sanity normally, he wouldn't equate his beloved wife with me... but having degenerated that much and lost his reason in that 'ending' state, hmm. I'm in a difficult position too..."
"Undo your brainwashing technique!"
"Ahaha, come on, Guild Master. That's passive so I can't do anything about it. More importantly, this is big trouble. This is no different from the appearance of his beloved wife being held captive by a kidnapper. Ah, of course, thanks to that, it's nice that I became friends with Guild Master."
I immediately threw Goyori far into the sky, as far as possible.
"Huh? Ah-"
Goyori flew well like a missile, perhaps because her place of origin was North Korea. It would be nice if she were faithful to her origin even up to the final explosion.
Naturally, the corrupted Old Sho's gaze also shifted from me to the Yori-missile. The legendary romanticist old man threw down the pipe and ran toward Goyori.
The only timing given to me.
I immediately fled. The protagonist of an infinite regression story must never miss the one and only opportunity.
-Adeleeeeeee!
Rumble. Boom. The city was destroyed in real time.
Old Man Sho's passionate scream echoed from far behind, but it wasn't my concern.
Please, you two live happily togeth――.
-Adele.
At that moment, I felt a presence beside me.
There was no time to turn around. Sseok! Something cut through my protective qi barrier like tofu and dropped my head.
'Ah.'
I fell forward at the speed I was running.
As my head soared into the air, I barely managed to look to the side.
Old Man Sho, who I thought I had thrown far away, was already right beside me, running 'alongside' me. Blood was on his hand.
A strike from point-blank range. My neck had been severed with a single hand blade.
Goyori was held under Old Man Sho's arm. She looked at me, or more precisely, at my head's escape act, and gave a bitter smile.
Sensation disappeared. Sound, consciousness, rapidly faded away.
It was rather fortunate. If I lived a bit longer here, wouldn't I just see a romance scene of Old Man Sho kissing Adele-yori?
I wanted to open my mouth.
'No, this is really too much.'
At the same time, I felt like I had returned to the early cycles of long ago, the childhood of a regressor.
Back then, I didn't have to run alone toward destruction. Because the back of the most reliable dealer was always before my eyes.
See. Old Man Sho's potential was indeed historic level.
If that outrageous talent could fully bloom, if it could fully bloom even in reality rather than in a bad ending like this, old man. The two of us would definitely――.
Thud, there my consciousness rolled to the bottom.
The sensation of death was not greatly different between dream and reality.
Blackout.