**Chapter 24**
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**The Prophet Ⅰ**
**Shin Noah**
**1**
Let's talk about Odokseo—the frontrunner of nerd fashion, a hipster in training, and a terminal case of chuunibyou.
As mentioned in the previous episode, I first met this guy in the 555th iteration. No, actually, I'd seen his face long before that, but it was in the 555th iteration that I truly formed a "connection" with him.
At that time, I had returned to the Busan Station waiting room as usual.
'Bored.'
And at this point, I hadn't even picked up web novels as a hobby yet.
Even if I were the kind of optimist who'd place in the top ranks of an [Infinite Regressor Selection Contest for Most Positive Outlook on Life] across all creative works, facing the 555th starting point was bound to feel pretty drab.
Even the world's most amusing theme park would get tedious after 555 visits, right?
Moreover, Busan Station's waiting room was severely lacking in entertainment for a theme park. At best, the only highlight was Seo Gyu's thunderous "Fucking bastard!" shout.
There was one secret hidden in the waiting room, but I'll save that for later.
'...Should I try turning on Mind Reading?'
This time, I decided to add a little flavor.
[Mind Reading] was an ability I'd acquired in the 554th iteration. It allowed me to hear the inner thoughts of beings whose "rank" was lower than mine.
The criteria for "rank" was incredibly vague, and the ability itself was far from omnipotent, but it was worth using just for fun.
[Lee Jae-hee: My phone won't connect?]
[Uehara Shino: There are too many people. It's hard to breathe.]
The moment I activated Mind Reading, the psychology of everyone gathered in Busan Station rushed into my ears all at once. Among them were both familiar and relatively unfamiliar voices.
[Seo Gyu: Fuck, what kind of situation is this? This is bullshit.]
[Park Ye-dam: I need to contact the department head......]
[Lee Baek: What the? Where did everyone else go?]
[Go Yori: Oh҉҉ ra҉҈ra҉.]
[Jeong So-hee: Cult Leader? Cult Leader, where have you disappeared to?]
[Sim A-ryeon: Where is this? Who am I?]
[Kim Si-un: Mom.]
My head spun for a moment.
[Mind Reading] wasn't something I could use only on specific targets. The moment I activated the ability, all surface-level consciousness in the surroundings was converted into language and transmitted to me.
But it was bearable.
And my impression after using [Mind Reading] in Busan Station for the first time was......
'Nothing special.'
I only saw predictable, run-of-the-mill thoughts.
'Well. They're all familiar faces anyway.'
I had already grasped nearly everything about the original members of Busan Station. Their names, appearances, backgrounds, and even what abilities they would awaken later.
So whatever antics they pulled or thoughts they harbored, nothing was new. I'd reached the level where I could tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces, so [Mind Reading] was practically meaningless.
'Go Yori, who I thought might be different, couldn't be read after all.'
I really need to never get entangled with that kid.
I walked in the direction farthest from Go Yori. Then I leisurely bought a drink from a vending machine in one corner of the waiting room.
People around shot me disapproving looks, wondering 'What's with this composure in such an urgent situation?' But I didn't care.
Later on, even drinks like this would become incredibly precious. From their perspective, they'd just been summoned to the waiting room, but I'd returned to a world that wasn't yet ruined after 20 years.
"Aaah."
The Ssillong Tea I drank for the first time in ages tasted amazing. It was so good that I quickly downed one can and bought another. After polishing off 4 cans in a row, people looked at me in disbelief.
[Lee Jae-hee: ...What the? Drinking so deliciously.]
[Jeong So-hee: Ssillong Tea. That's blasphemous.]
[Park Ye-dam: The young fellow knows how to enjoy drinks.]
[Sim A-ryeon: Where is this? Who am I?]
[Lee Baek: Why is there one guy with such senile taste.]
Hmm. Lee Baek really hasn't changed since the 1st iteration either.
I listened again but found no particularly interesting consciousness. This was why [Mind Reading] was like a double-edged sword.
The moment you use it, you get excited wondering 'What kind of fun thoughts is everyone secretly having?' but once you actually check, you end up disappointed like 'Eh, nothing special.' So paradoxically, [Mind Reading] is most entertaining right before you use it.
It couldn't be helped. At this point, demanding novel ways of thinking from the original members was both my excessive greed and an absurd request―――.
[Odokseo: Wow. Busan Station waiting room. I saw this in a novel! Soon the tutorial fairy will appear and blow off some guy's head while yelling "Hey, fuck!"]
No, wait.
"Pfft!"
I sprayed the 5th Ssillong Tea I was drinking into the air. The sunset-colored Ssillong Tea dyed this world in twilight just like the image engraved on the can, and people who suddenly found themselves watching a sunset about 7 hours early freaked out.
[Lee Jae-hee: Ack! Gross!]
[Jeong So-hee: Disgusting. Ugly.]
[Park Ye-dam: Oh my, dirty bastard.]
[Sim A-ryeon: Where is this? Who am I?]
[Lee Baek: Fuck, dirty bastard.]
The original members, whose personalities, tendencies, backgrounds, political parties, and beliefs were all worlds apart and had always shown miraculous compatibility since the 1st iteration, surprisingly agreed on a grand unification. They achieved an accomplishment close to impossible, but that wasn't what mattered to me right now.
I turned my head so fast it made a whooshing sound.
[Odokseo: Let's see. It's hard to recognize since it was a novel with few illustrations...... Oh. But I recognize that guy. Lee Baek! Geum Tae-yang! Whoa. Because of that man, the waiting room strategy part gave me terminal cancer......]
There she was.
Odokseo. Throughout the long regression life up to the 555th iteration, always wearing an indifferent expression, someone who only ever showed a face that seemed strangely enlightened about the ways of the world. Her characteristics were fish eyes. Hoodie. Cap.
A victim who would die in Busan Station with a very high probability unless I intervened—for some reason, while still having dead eyes like fish eyes, she was surveying her surroundings with eyes that had just a tiny bit more life in them.
[Odokseo: Well, it's certain. This is the prologue part of the Omniscient Regressor's Perspective that I marathoned all night yesterday.]
Omniscient Regressor's Perspective? Prologue?
[Odokseo: Then what's my ability? Status window. Hey, status window. ...Status? Open? Ability window? Skill window? Wow. They don't even throw in a hologram piece even though they're supposedly following the latest trend? This is status window discrimination.]
Latest trend? What is she talking about?
"Hey, fuck! What kind of bullshit is that!"
"Hoi."
Gasp. I was so focused on Odokseo's thoughts that I failed to prevent Seo Gyu's head from exploding.
'Sorry! Seo Gyu!'
The 264th fairy secured a kill for the first time in ages. As blood sprayed in all directions, countless people including Sim A-ryeon screamed.
Of course, I only felt 'Wait, how long has it been?' rather than surprise.
[Odokseo: Oh. The tutorial head-exploding guy cliché, nice work. They follow all these outdated tropes but won't give me a status window?]
Odokseo was the same.
She showed no sign of bewilderment at all. Calling Seo Gyu not SG but "head-exploding guy" seemed a bit harsh, though.
[Odokseo: Well, anyway. The only important thing in the Busan Station part is how early you secure the spirit medicine hidden at Haeundae, that's all.]
How did she know about the spirit medicine at Haeundae?
[Odokseo: And the only Awakened worth watching in the waiting room stage is Uehara Shino? She's treated as trash tier now but later she awakens as a high-level alchemist and......]
How did she know that too?
[Odokseo: The opposite case from Uehara is Sim A-ryeon. She becomes useless later, but up to the prologue part, she's totally usable as a healer agent...... Oh, she's running away. Right. She was a coward.]
How did she know that too...... No. Sim A-ryeon becomes useless later?
If anything, right now is her lowest point, and once SGnet opens, she's talent that ascends saying "The world of NET is vast, isn't it?"
But there was no time to nitpick minor details. Like a Himalayan beehive where bright yellow honey never dries, Odokseo continued leaking juicy thoughts one after another.
[Odokseo: First, I need to work on Uehara Shino's affinity. Tsk. Original destruction, original protagonist destruction isn't my taste but...... It's a euncho setting without even a status window, right? This isn't the time to be picky about cold rice, warm rice, or fresh rice.]
Original destruction? Original protagonist destruction?
As I mentioned before, at this time I knew nothing about web novels. The very person who would missionary that hobby to me was right there—that bookworm. Naturally, the words that bookworm muttered internally only sounded like alien language to my ears.
[Odokseo: But Uehara Shino is only 2nd priority anyway.]
[Odokseo: If I had to pick just one most important person here, no matter what anyone says, it's that man.]
At that moment, Odokseo turned to look my way.
I detected the movement of her gaze in advance and quickly turned my head away. So, completely unaware that I'd been watching, the bookworm stared intently in my direction.
[Odokseo: There he is.]
[Odokseo: The protagonist of this world. Codename: Undertaker.]
?
[Odokseo: More handsome than I thought...... No, wait, was the cover illustration better? Hmm. Is the real thing better? Hard to tell. Well, he's ambiguously similar to the cover like that.]
??
[Odokseo: But don't be fooled by the face. That's right. The Undertaker is a protagonist who has already experienced regression countless times. Ruthless and cold-blooded.]
[Odokseo: He lives only with hatred for monsters, a typical regressor who lives because he can't die...... Especially since he lost Dang Seo-rin to the Ten Clans in the previous iteration, his anger toward the world is probably maxed out right now.]
[Odokseo: Just a crazy bastard, a crazy bastard. If he sees even the slightest suspicious sign, he might kill me immediately. Better handle with caution.]
???
Blood and tears... hatred... anger, what?
Sorry, but who is that person?
In the first place, Dang Seo-rin didn't die to the Ten Clans in the previous iteration. The Ten Clans only felt like a wall of wailing briefly in the early stages; by around the 20th iteration, they were water rockets I could cut down in 5 minutes.
Is this kid perhaps......
'Does she know about my past self?'
That's when it happened.
[Odokseo: Hey, mister over there.]
"Hey, mister over there."
Mind reading and actual voice overlapped.
Odokseo's index finger pointed at me. By now, only about ten people remained in Busan Station, and everyone except me was huddled together in one place.
"Mister, come here too. That fairy bastard made a blood fountain so everyone ran away, but we should at least stick together, right? Don't you think?"
"The 264th has done nothing wrong! The seniors passed down incorrect guidelines! If anything, the 264th is a pitiful victim......"
"Ah, shut it and close your trap. The adults are trying to have a conversation here, so where do you get off butting in?"
"Eek."
At the center of the survivor group, Odokseo puffed out her chest proudly as if she were the leader.
While everyone feared the fairy, she alone stood her ground and confronted it—this must have left a deep impression on the survivors. In fact, the 264th fairy had truly only acted according to the manual and had no malice toward humans (except for the bourgeoisie), so it quickly withered.
"So? Mister, are you coming over here? Or not?"
"......"
Odokseo muttered. That is, with her inner voice.
[Odokseo: Come on. Fuck, please just come. Without you everyone dies! I get that you lost your first love and Dang Seo-rin who you served as the only guild master also died and the monsters are shitty and the world is shitty but please just save us!]
Honestly, I didn't understand half of what this kid was saying, and I had no idea how she came to misunderstand things this way.
But one thing was certain.
'If I follow this kid around, this iteration seems like it'll be a blast?'
Not just the impulse for entertainment, but there was another reason—she might be useful for defeating some kind of bizarre entity...... but let's talk about that much later.
Anyway.
I recalled the old me—very old, from literally over a thousand years ago. What expression I wore back then, what gaze I had, what tone I used.
"...I won't follow you."
Was it something like this? Right? Seems right.
In all my long regressor life, this was my first time acting as myself. It felt quite novel.
"However, I shall observe you."
"Ah. Well, do whatever."
Odokseo snorted as if it was nothing.
After farming silver bells from the souvenir shop, I immediately read Odokseo's mind.
[Odokseo: Wow, fuck. Is that voice for real? It's terrifying...... Hmm. But without the protagonist, even getting out of Busan Station is close to impossible...... I have to do the affinity work by any means necessary.]
Hmm.
She really was an interesting one.
*An infinite regressor telling a story.*