Chapter 17
──────
Internationalist III
Shin Noah
5
The heart is commonly likened to the mind, and the mind to fire.
The heart burns. The embers of the mind grow large.
But in my case, 'water' was often a more fitting expression.
After the 89th iteration was severed by the crimson flesh summoned by Go Yori, the well within my heart ran dry for some time.
A symptom commonly called burnout.
It was a slump that any regressor would eventually face while living through cycles.
"Total annihilation……."
"If Samcheon is gone, doesn't that mean Baekhwa is the only top-tier guild left in Korea?"
"No, those corpse boxes are a bit... I'm not even sure if they're a guild to begin with."
"They failed to subdue the Void anyway. I looked up at the night sky yesterday and it gave me chills."
After collecting Dang Seorin's remains, cremating them, and scattering them at sea, I returned to find awakeners whispering under the parasol outside the convenience store.
For some reason, their whispering sounded to me like an itching sound of water.
The sound of water was settling into a single object.
[This place has great coffee. Three Thousand Worlds, Dang Seorin]
A wine-colored ten thousand won bill.
I transferred the bill bearing Samcheon's Guild Master's signature into an acrylic case. Then I displayed it behind the convenience store counter, in the space where cigarettes were usually陈列.
As it was, supplies in the underground storeroom had started to run low recently. Among them, alcohol and cigarettes were the first to become scarce, so there was plenty of space to display the bills.
Naturally, customers could also view the exhibition whenever they passed by the counter.
One day, the Sword Empress old man raised his hand and pointed.
"Store owner. What kind of rare object is that? I can feel extraordinary energy from it."
"Ah, that? It's an autograph that the Samcheon Guild Master left behind before setting out to defeat the Meteor Shower."
"Hmm……."
The old man let out a low murmur and left the convenience store.
The next day. The Sword Empress old man bought a bottle of green makgeolli as usual and slapped a ten thousand won bill onto the counter.
"Store owner. This is an orchid I painted myself."
"Orchid? What orchid?"
"Look closely at the painting."
I looked.
Beyond King Sejong's sturdy shoulders, an orchid was indeed painted.
"……?"
Honestly, the painting skill was terrible. If Heungseon Daewongun had seen it, he would have raged that this wasn't an orchid but a pineapple leaf.
Still, he seemed to have put some effort into it, as the corner of the cabbage leaf had the signature [Sword Empress of Yuldo Kingdom] embedded like tiny print.
The Sword Empress seemed quite proud of his work and snorted loudly. His mustache, the only redeeming feature of his appearance, fluttered.
"Please hang it in your store like a folding screen."
"……."
Well, it didn't really matter.
I displayed the Sword Empress's bill without much thought.
But that seemed to have become a turning point.
Customers visiting my convenience store began holding out bills with their own signatures, one after another.
"Um, boss. I'm going as part of a raid team this time, and if it's not too much trouble, could you……."
"I'll come again next time! Please give me a 2+1 discount then!"
"Seriously, just one carton of cigarettes, please? Huh? Please."
When there was only Samcheon Guild Master's memento, people were cautious, but after the Sword Empress's bill was displayed, perhaps it suddenly seemed approachable.
The currency left by awakeners was diverse.
Old five thousand won bills, two dollar bills, East German marks (this was the most curious), yen, euros, pounds, Mongolian tugrik, Hong Kong dollars, Vietnamese dong, Philippine pesos, North Korean won, Indian rupees and Nepalese rupees…….
Before I knew it, the area behind my counter was filled with currency.
Every now and then, whenever I had time, I gazed quietly at the exhibition.
Each time a bill was placed like a brick into the cigarette display shelf with its hollow center, I felt as though the well within my heart was rising a little.
If life is ultimately a journey to leave behind a single photograph, then perhaps this would be my 90th portrait.
"Store Manager Comrade……."
"Hm?"
Fairy number 264 set down a box of Zero drinks. The expression visible beneath the Saemaul hat was extremely dejected.
"This box is the last of the Zero drinks too. Hooaek……."
"Is that so. What about alcohol?"
"Beer, soju, whiskey, wine, makgeolli, sake, regardless of type, even if we scraped everything together, only 50 bottles remain. The funding source for the revolution has dried up, and I have no face to show……."
It wasn't just alcohol. Stock for almost every category had run out.
There's no such thing as an oasis that never dries up.
But so what? Have you ever seen a tree refuse to cast shade because it feared it would eventually rot?
"Here."
I took out a precious Cheonha Jangsa sausage.
Perk up! Number 264's ears perked up at the sight of the sausage.
I learned this information during this iteration—for some reason I don't understand, the fairies absolutely loved this sausage.
"Aah! The sausage I thought was completely gone!"
"Eat it secretly from the others."
"Sure enough, the only person who thinks of me is Store Manager Comrade……!"
I patted number 264's head.
"Call everyone together and let's empty all the remaining alcohol."
"Yes! Comrade!"
I gathered the customers.
I could have simply invited awakeners by posting on an internet community, but unfortunately that was impossible.
[Cannot connect to the site.]
Seo Gyu's 'Hunter Community' had already closed some time ago.
Somewhere I didn't know, Seo Gyu had died.
Go Yori must have died too. Originally, she was a being who couldn't live without mimicking among people.
When the fairies personally went around gathering people, the party ended up with about a hundred participants. Not entirely satisfactory, but a number that could somewhat enjoy themselves with 50 bottles of alcohol.
'The Saint didn't come.'
The awakeners laughed, chattered, sang, and enjoyed themselves.
They too had separately hoarded supplies until the end, so the party wouldn't be lacking. Surprisingly, there was an awakener who brought 11 bottles of Château d'Yquem 1990, and she instantly ascended to become the greatest hero in human history.
The atmosphere reached its peak.
"Then shall we found a guild with everyone gathered here!"
"Ohh!"
"The final guild! To commemorate the guild's founding, let's sortie to raid the Meteor Shower gate after the end party tonight!"
"This isn't a guild, it's more like a mob……?"
The awakeners who had survived until now were either loners who hadn't joined guilds or outcasts who had been expelled from guilds due to some problems. Generally, people with troubled interpersonal relationships.
But as the final moment approached, they too came together to host a party. Well, the power of 11 bottles of Château d'Yquem must have exercised a great influence on that unity.
"Store Manager! Won't you come with us!"
I shook my head.
"There's still one customer I haven't said goodbye to. After you all leave, I'll follow along shortly."
"Ah, if only the store manager was here, I feel like we could hold out 30 more seconds. What a shame."
"Wouldn't 3 minutes be possible?"
"Come, come! Let's hurry up and join!"
People chuckled.
That night, the ceiling of the night sky was exceptionally high and boisterous.
6
Through long experience of the regression life, I now intuited that the end of the world had truly arrived.
The day after the Last Supper ended, I summoned all the fairy clerks to one place.
Forty little ones in Che Guevara t-shirts gathered together. I declared before them.
"Today is a holiday."
"Huek."
The fairies blinked their eyes.
"A holiday means days without labor?"
"Labor is a projection of human value, but holidays are acts of abandoning one's own value. It's an extremely anti-revolutionary concept."
"If I may speak out of turn, doesn't that depend on whether it's paid or unpaid leave?"
I chuckled and distributed one fifty thousand won bill to each fairy.
"Don't worry. It's paid leave."
All the bills had my signature on them.
[Secretary-General and Chairman and Store Manager of the 6th International.]
The fairies' eyes sparkled.
"Wow! Store Manager Comrade's handwritten signature!"
"Greatly moved!"
"We need to legislate putting this in frames and hanging them in every public office!"
"Sure, do as you please. Anyway, I'll watch the store alone today, so rest well and come back."
"Yes!"
The fairies raised red flags and marched off somewhere. And so I was left alone.
I was mopping the floor with a large mop in the quiet store.
Jingle, the glass door opened.
"Welcome, customer."
"……."
It was the Saint.
She was also the last customer I had been waiting for.
She quietly looked around the store. Here and there on the display shelves were gaps like missing teeth. On those shelves, [Temporarily out of stock - Please wait for restocking] signs were attached.
The Saint murmured.
"Restocking is very delayed."
"Yes. I keep urging the headquarters, but it seems quite difficult."
"…I see."
The Saint didn't offer any rebuttal to my words and simply nodded in acceptance.
The apocalypse pressing right before our noses.
Even in this situation, the Saint didn't die. This wasn't only true for this iteration. Almost always—indeed, I could say 'invariably'—the Saint survived until the final day.
It was a little different from an attachment to life.
She was imposing upon herself an obligation toward life.
"Could you make me a cup of coffee?"
"Understood."
I brought out the last remaining beans, milk, and sugar, and made the coffee as similar to bag coffee as possible.
This way, the store owner personally making coffee was how we at the 6th International treated our regular customers.
Naturally, we could offer this service to our store's first regular customer.
"……."
"……."
While drinking the coffee, the Saint said nothing. She simply gazed with pitch-black eyes at the space behind the counter, at the store's display shelves, at the outside through the glass window.
In particular, her gaze lingered on the bill cases for a long time.
"I enjoyed it. Here, the payment."
What the Saint held out was a fifty thousand won bill.
"You don't need to give change. I'll come again next time."
On the back of the bill was written [Your first customer.]
That day was the last time an awakener visited the convenience store.
In the middle of the night, I closed the store and came out to the Han River.
The Milky Way was spread across the night sky. Red light. Green light. Purple light. The Milky Way opened like long-torn lips, and within it, countless stars twinkled as if about to pour down at any moment.
In reality, they did pour down.
The gate that the guild alliance including Samcheon had tried desperately to somehow seal had now completely opened, spilling a disaster made of starlight onto the earth.
An event that invariably occurred in Gyeongsangnam-do in the 7th year of regression, and in Seoul in the 12th year. Commonly called Meteor Strike.
"This iteration is a Meteor ending."
I sat on the riverbank embankment and looked up at the sky.
If I wanted to avoid that and survive, I could, but surviving alone wouldn't give me anything to do in this iteration.
There were countless things to do in the next iteration.
'Not a bad vacation.'
I opened my smartphone.
While waiting for the stars to fall, I flipped through the photos saved on my phone.
Originally, I didn't have a habit of taking photos. More accurately, the habit disappeared while living as a regressor. Photos were objects that preserved memories, but for me, photos couldn't fulfill that role.
However, even knowing they would disappear, I couldn't help but take these photos.
[This place has great coffee. 三千世界, Dang Seorin]
[Sword Empress of Yuldo Kingdom]
[Thanks to you, I had a good time. Lee Ju-ho.]
[Sincere thanks. But no matter how I think about it, the store name and employee uniforms are strange. Store Manager, are you perhaps from the Red Army Faction? Uehara Shino.]
[Going on a school field trip! Baekhwa Girls' High School ♡ Our love forever eternal - by 天寥化]
[The way here is so inconvenient. I thought I was going to die carrying wine bottles. - NDH]
[6th International, fighting! - Shim A-ryeon]
[If only you sold cigarettes by the carton, you would've been the GOAT……. Y]
.
.
.
[Your first customer.]
The corners of my lips rose without my realizing.
Why I accepted the life of a regressor, who I wanted to help, why I wanted to help—the volume of those reasons filled my heart more clearly than ever before.
Twelve years was apparently a sufficient amount of time to supply the drinking water needed for a regressor's life.
Of course, if a hundred years passed like this, I'd have to take another vacation.
'Wait. But isn't the Meteor ending a bit old-fashioned?'
The whole world was filled with starlight.
The time of regression.
On this day, I retired from being a convenience store store manager of the 12th year and returned to duty as a regressor.
- Internationalist. End.
A regressor who tells stories.