# Chapter 39
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## The One Who Was a Watcher Ⅰ
### Shin Noah
**1**
After the previous episode where Kim Shi-eun went on a backpacking trip to Japan, some readers may have had questions.
They might have wondered if I had been reluctant to mention overseas locations all along.
Of course, there's a reasonable explanation for this as well.
It's quite obvious, really—my main base of operations is the Korean Peninsula.
While I occasionally went on expeditions to surrounding areas, I basically don't prefer overseas expeditions.
The reason? There's no Saintess there.
I'm not joking. If the Saintess, who always supports me, suddenly disappears, the dissonance is considerable. It's like a third-person top-view strategy simulation game suddenly turning into a first-person Souls-like action game.
I didn't bring the Saintess along when I went to China to subjugate the Butterfly Effect for no reason.
The Saintess occupies a larger portion of my regressor life than one might think.
I have no intention of singing praises like some Russian author with a Lolita complex—'Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul, Saint-ess.' She wouldn't like it either.
But if I had to form a hero party, I would first secure the Saintess unconditionally and then think about strategy. Memorize this if you don't know. Supporter-Saintess is a fixed pick.
"Mr. Undertaker."
"Yes?"
"Why must Mr. Koyori of the Satisfaction Guild never be observed with the Clairvoyance, no matter what happens?"
"Hmm..."
Since she was such important talent, naturally a guidebook called [Saintess User Manual] was attached to the folder in my mind.
I wasn't specially favoring only the Saintess; I had written separate guidebooks for all the members I considered as party members.
Most Awakened treated my 'guidebooks' as something rather creepy.
That was understandable. To me, it was all knowledge gained through blood and sweat investment, but from others' perspective, it was like some strange guy suddenly popping out shouting, 'Your ability actually gets stronger the more aggro you draw from people!'
Honestly, even I would have found it hard to believe.
"Koyori has mental contamination ability as a passive. It's top-tier. No matter how excellent someone's mental strength is, if they contact Koyori, they get unconditionally brainwashed."
"Ah... I see."
The Saintess never once doubted my guidebook.
Although she couldn't share memories with me, she shared records. The Saintess accepted my mere claims without hesitation as truth, and constructed strategies upon that truth.
Tap tap tap-
The Saintess organized information on her keyboard while talking with me.
"By any chance, did I previously suffer a mishap while observing Mr. Koyori with the Clairvoyance?"
"Yes. It was the 89th iteration."
"How did the incident proceed?"
"It happened so quickly that it's hard to know the detailed circumstances, but at that time, Koyori was a member of our party. Seo Gyu was probably brainwashed first. But Seo Gyu knows what the Saintess's ability is and where her home address is, doesn't he? Koyori would have approached the Saintess with that information. When I rushed there late, the Saintess was hanging from a towel rack, dead."
"Was it suicide?"
"Probably. More accurately, she was guided to commit suicide."
"..."
The Saintess rested her chin on her hand.
"Mr. Seo Gyu. Right. It's important to always keep Mr. Seo Gyu as a certain ally. Separately, I think it wouldn't be bad to dig into Mr. Koyori's identity to the end, with the resolve to discard this iteration..."
The Saintess checked my expression and nodded.
"...There's no need to take risks unnecessarily. Then, please tell me what other parts I should be careful about."
"There's nothing else beyond what I've told you so far."
That was the truth, and also a lie.
"I will resolve all remaining risk factors myself."
The typing sound stopped. The Saintess was tilting her head, looking at me.
"Mr. Undertaker."
"Yes."
"What happens to me if the risk factors are left alone?"
I fell silent for a moment.
There were some things I deliberately kept silent about. Stories about time seals were like that, and mentions of overseas also fell into this category. To explain those, I needed some preparation.
The fact that very rarely, when Awakened 'fall', they turn into monsters—I hadn't mentioned that until now either.
So I'll speak about it now.
About what happens when the Saintess falls—the so-called 'Executor Route'.
**2**
Since we met at a convenience store by some riverside and became aware of each other's existence, in every iteration, I trusted the Saintess and the Saintess trusted me.
Having lost the old man Sho, I desperately needed a collaborator. The Saintess also needed a warrior to fill her insufficient combat power. Our alliance was inevitable.
[Ten Clans subjugation, you've worked hard. Mr. Undertaker. With this, most of the threat factors existing south of the Han River have been removed.]
At first, there were no problems.
[Udumbara... subjugation complete. If what Mr. Undertaker said is true, the flowers that bloomed from that hat's corpse would have covered the whole world. I think that's a very sad thing. You've worked hard.]
Among the people I knew, the Saintess boasted outstanding mental strength and survivability.
She always survived until the day the world ended. In that she could live without interacting with others, in that she could live without relying on force, the Saintess's heart was strong.
[Meteor Shower, subjugation complete. ...Now the situation where countless Awakened and civilians are annihilated overnight without knowing why won't happen again. I think it would have been impossible without Mr. Undertaker. You've really worked hard.]
We safely passed the crisis point of the 7th year when the Meteor Shower definitively appears.
Changes were detected starting from the 12th year.
[Mr. Undertaker.]
"Hm? What is it?"
[A civilian massacre occurred in Nampo, North Korea.]
The Saintess's Clairvoyance reached most of the Korean Peninsula. Limited to the Korean Peninsula, it was no exaggeration to say we obtained unlimited vision.
"Eh? Civilian massacre? Exactly where? I'll go check."
[...No. I just found out too. The massacre is already almost over. The massacre is estimated to have occurred from the morning of July 11th to July 13th today.]
However, the Saintess's Clairvoyance only worked on 'Awakened'. The Saintess couldn't observe all the people living on this land.
In other words, in cases where a civilian killed a civilian, the Saintess was infinitely powerless.
Murder. Massacre. Whatever the crime, if it occurred among civilians, she always observed only 'the scene where the incident already ended' one step too late.
[Mr. Undertaker.]
[It seems my ability is strengthening little by little.]
The situation deteriorated a bit more.
"Ah, really? Normally, depending on the Awakened, abilities can grow or remain stagnant from the beginning, but it seems the Saintess's ability was the former. How far does the Clairvoyance reach now?"
[It's still tight, but based on when I'm in Seoul, I think it reaches to the edge of the Shandong Peninsula.]
"Wow. Amazing. Congratulations."
[...Yes. Thank you.]
"More importantly, have you thought about learning martial arts from me? The Saintess should exercise too. Not necessarily to build combat power, but training is essential even for health."
[I'll think about it. ...Thank you.]
Originally, the Saintess's ability developed slowly.
When the Korean Peninsula was swept away by the Ten Clans, when the world ended by the Udumbara, when the world collapsed by the Meteor Shower, the Saintess met death.
She died before her ability could grow.
But as iterations progressed, the Saintess's lifespan extended as well.
5 years, 7 years, 12 years, 15 years. The longer her time continued, the width of the world she could observe also increased by spans.
Above all, at this time, I was giving almost all the elixirs that had become useless to me to the Saintess. Because she was the most trustworthy ally.
[......]
As a result, the tragedy the Saintess had to endure also increased a bit more.
It was fine when limited to Korea.
Even if we couldn't care for all people, we created a social system called the National Road Management Bureau.
Furthermore, due to the existence of the Constellations, cases of Awakened committing serious deviations were rare, and even if they did, we could quickly notice thanks to the [Clairvoyance].
Large Korean guilds like Dang Seo-rin's Three Thousand Worlds were also cooperative with us.
However, beyond the sea was a different story.
We didn't have the capacity to worry about that far. Resources were insufficient. Before even discussing the shortage of supplies and manpower, simply the time of regressor me was absolutely insufficient.
For example, a round trip to Tianjin, China took at least a week no matter how quickly I estimated. That meant I would be absent from the Korean Peninsula for a week, and I would miss situations that could only be resolved if I responded.
[......]
The Saintess was wise. She deeply agreed with the proposition that all good starts from efficiently allocating resources.
Rather, the Saintess was considerate of me.
Just once, after mentioning the massacre that occurred in Nampo, North Korea, the Saintess never brought up tragedies outside the National Road Management Bureau's domain. She was concerned it might become a burden to me.
However, even if she fell silent, the killing didn't stop.
[......]
Thanks to us subjugating the Galaxy, countless people both domestic and abroad saved their lives. But what to do with the surviving lives was each person's own business, and cases of taking other lives with those lives were commonplace.
If only we had looked away.
If only we had cut it off, there would have been no problem.
But the Saintess never stopped 'observing.'
Unless the world shrank as much as she turned away. Such a thing didn't happen.
As long as the world existed there, and as long as someone died without even screaming, the Saintess wanted to remember that death, if only she herself could.
Poison.
Poison accumulated drop by drop in her heart.
[......]
The Saintess's heart was strong.
The capacity of time that heart could accept was 16 years.
**3**
Clang-
A sound like glass breaking spread through an old playground.
A playground that used to be located in the middle of an apartment complex. Now the apartment buildings were demolished, merely longing for housing prices of the distant past, but even with the half-destroyed debris, the echo rang well enough.
Actually, it wasn't the sound of glass breaking.
It was the sound of iron clashing against iron, more precisely, the noise of aura colliding with aura.
"Wow."
I admired after deflecting the hand axe the Saintess threw with my sword.
"That's amazing. You not only have aura but also have a natural talent for martial arts."
"...Thank you. I still lack much though."
"No, no. Compared to me, you're practically a heaven-sent martial body. I've reached mastery in aura training, but I have no martial talent. If I had martial talent like the Saintess, I would have saved the world long ago."
That wasn't entirely empty words.
Actually, my talent for martial arts was close to zero. To use a martial arts analogy, I was the type who just continuously accumulated internal energy and brutally beat enemies with ki. Even this was a level I barely achieved because my skills were preserved even after regression starting from the 10th iteration.
"Your aura is also transparent, which is fascinating. No, really, how can there be transparent aura?"
"......"
Above all, the Saintess's aura had no sense of presence.
Literally colorless and odorless. Transparent, clear aura.
Seeing how it made noises exactly like glass breaking—clang, claaang—when colliding, the Saintess's mental image was probably 'mirror.' It was a form of aura that truly suited her well.
"Anyway, that's it for today. You've worked hard."
"You've worked hard, Mr. Undertaker."
"If you've achieved this level of accomplishment in one year, in 3 or 5 years, you'll be able to run around the battlefield instead of me. But why did someone who does this well refuse training until now?"
"Moving my body wasn't my taste."
"Has your taste changed now?"
"...Yes."
I was inwardly proud.
'So even the eternal shut-in Saintess can change when she does.'
Even though it took a whopping 16 years for the change to occur. But what did it matter? Throughout my regression life, this was the first time the Saintess learned martial arts like this.
I handed a towel to the Saintess and said,
"Saintess, do you have any separate schedule today?"
"......"
"Saintess? Saintess."
"...Ah."
The Saintess blinked.
It was something that happened frequently these days.
Originally, the Saintess had a strong atmosphere of observing everything while staying one step back from the world, but should I say that air had become a bit thicker lately? Cases where she suddenly stared blankly into space even during conversations like now were frequent.
"Are you okay?"
That blank expression also strangely suited the Saintess, so there was no problem aesthetically, but I was worried if something was wrong with her health.
If the Saintess collapsed, Noh Do-ha would immediately try to twist my intestines. The Saintess's Clairvoyance was too important in running the National Road Management Bureau.
"Yes, I'm okay... I'm sorry. What did you say just now?"
"By any chance, do you have somewhere to go or something to do today?"
"No."
The Saintess answered immediately.
"There isn't."
"That's a relief. The public order has gotten a bit worse lately, hasn't it? The Saintess will handle it well on her own, but please be careful. You sometimes overdo it, Saintess."
"...Mr. Undertaker knows me well."
"Of course. I've watched you for years."
The Saintess received the towel from me and wiped her face.
At this time, I just thought she was bowing her head to wipe sweat.
Looking back now, perhaps she naturally avoided my gaze using the towel.
"Thank you always. Mr. Undertaker."
Infinite Regressor Telling Stories