Chapter 48
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Survivor Ⅰ
Shin No-a
1
Excuse me, but what feeling do you get when the words 'student council' or 'student council president' appear in creative works?
Why such an abrupt question out of nowhere?
Because it's a question relevant to this episode.
As I mentioned at the end of the previous episode, there are truly many eccentrics and oddballs in the martial world.
The person I'm introducing today is also an eccentric no less than the Sword Queen. In other words, a lunatic who boldly threw their three-syllable name into the ranks of 'Great Figures Who Illuminated the Korean Peninsula.'
In the distant past, the Republic of Korea filled their national pride with talk of having this or that soccer player, having this or that idol.
But even if civilization falls, history tends to progress. Now, people of each nation competed in levels of national pride based on how many magnificent Awakened they possessed, and in this new measure, the Korean Peninsula was by no means behind.
'A Great Witch who stays holed up in a train 365 days a year forcing her subordinates to wear cone hats,' 'His Excellency the Marquis who turned Huashan into Flower Mountain,' and so on.
It was truly a lineup that made one's chest swell with grandeur. Is this the actual state of the Korean Peninsula for real?
This land, which could be described as a veritable restaurant for lunatics—no, great figures—did not cease receiving blessings. There was another person I hadn't yet introduced.
Name, Cheon Yo-hwa.
Occupation, a multi-Awakened juggling multiple jobs, perhaps reflecting the trend that it's hard to make a living with just one profession these days.
First profession, high school student.
As the nation fell, public education fell with it, and suddenly children were relegated to the status of the unemployed, unable to select any of 'elementary student/middle school student/high school student' when registering for internet communities.
In that sense, Cheon Yo-hwa was one of the last remaining high school students on the Korean Peninsula. By grade level, probably around 6th year of high school or so.
This alone was an SSR-level rare profession in game terms, but the other professions were a bit more unique.
Second profession, Necromancer.
Cheon Yo-hwa was the one and only necromancer on the Korean Peninsula.
2
Speaking of high schools, 'school connections' no longer existed on the Korean Peninsula.
It couldn't be helped. So what if you graduated from some fancy university? Do monsters check academic credentials before eating people?
However, human systems don't change easily. If there's no bread, eat cake; if soccer players disappear, get national pride from Awakened—instantly, a new form of regionalism was installed in the place where school connections had been deleted.
"Hmm?"
One day, while wandering around the guild, I witnessed an appalling sight.
"Wow, really?"
"I, I'm telling you it's true. Ahaha."
Seo-gyu and Sim A-ryeon (the Goryejang villain) were eating lunch together at a cafeteria, laughing.
As everyone knows, Seo-gyu had anger management issues. Sim A-ryeon was a serious communication addict.
Both had some defects in their DNA for establishing intimate relationships with other Homo sapiens.
It was like a hippo and a crocodile amicably sipping oasis water side by side, and as a sensible person who witnessed a miracle, I couldn't help but feel intense curiosity.
"When did you two become friends?"
Blink, blink.
At the question from the Guild Master who was like the heavens, the two looked at each other.
"Oh. Us?"
"W, we were just friends……."
Are these two dating?
Two souls collided in my heart. The old-fogey energy that disapproves of workplace romance versus the old-fogey energy that wants to watch youngsters' romance with gleeful amusement.
"No, brother. Whatever you're thinking right now, it's absolutely not that……."
"Then how did you become friends?"
"What do you mean how?"
Seo-gyu said as if it were obvious.
"We're all 'Busan Station graduates,' aren't we."
"What."
Indeed.
These days, instead of checking school connections, Awakened distinguished themselves by which 'Void' they were in when they Awakened.
If I had to name it, perhaps Void Connection. Since it was related to location, this too was a form of regional connection.
Seo-gyu, Sim A-ryeon, me—all Awakened at Busan Station. The one whose name must not be spoken, the master of hypnosis and brainwashing, Mr. 'G' was also from Busan Station. Later, going up to the 555th iteration, Oh Dok-seo also joined the Busan Station Awakened family.
"Don't tell me……. Busan Station isn't treated like some prestigious university among Awakened, is it?"
"Why not? Of course it receives that treatment. Brother. We're number one in Void Connection."
"……."
I was shocked.
No, you brats would all die within three weeks at Busan Station without me, either from disaster or in a monster's belly!
Actually, until the 3rd iteration, all Busan Station graduates died. Even Seo-gyu, the fastest man, recorded 50 deaths by the 50th iteration—the shortest escape time on record.
These little runts… a prestigious university?
"Hey, you wet-behind-the-ears brats. What the hell is Void Connection! If you have time to judge that, spend it on aura training instead of putting on airs."
"Why does the young Guild Master have such an old-soul quality to every word……."
"Right. I, it's strange. If not for that, you'd probably be really popular……."
Even when the Guild Master who was like the heavens was scolding them, they looked indifferent.
The expression 'Ah, the old man's doing this again.'
My head was spinning and my breath was catching. I'm an infinite regressor. Destined to save the world (or not). Am I supposed to be treated like this?
"Um, Guild Master……. But I think judging Void Connection is natural."
"What do you mean? A-ryeon, A-ryeon, A-ryeon?"
"……."
Sim A-ryeon's expression changed to 'Ah, the old man is awkwardly following old catchphrases again,' but after receiving my glare, she quickly shrank.
"W, when you first fall into the Void, it's really scary……? Phones don't work, monsters pop out left and right. People are dying left and right……. Void Connection means they're comrades who suffered together through the same hell. So wouldn't you f, feel deep emotions……?"
"Hmm."
"I think all other guilds would feel the same way, not just ours……."
Now that I heard it, Sim A-ryeon's logic wasn't absurd.
"I didn't suffer though?"
"……."
"What? Got something to say, A-ryeon?"
"No, Guild Master……."
I said it as a joke, but my words were sincere. This was the decisive reason I couldn't empathize with such trendy Void Connection nonsense.
Right. I didn't feel like I suffered in the same place, at the same time, as these kids.
I suffered with that old man Sho.
To me, the Void wasn't 'Busan Station' but this 'world' itself.
Challenge, die, regress, challenge again. A dungeon I tried to somehow clear by repeating countless processes.
So I couldn't help but feel strong camaraderie only with Old Man Sho, who had the same regression coin as me.
Of course, such camaraderie no longer existed. When the hell is this old geezer going to give up his vacation and come back? Should I just punch him?
"Just out of curiosity, what's the most famous origin among Awakened?"
"Huh? Busan Station."
"No, besides that."
"Besides that? Hmm……."
Sim A-ryeon groaned before opening her mouth.
"…Then I guess, Baekhwa Girls' High……?"
"Ah."
Baekhwa Girls' High.
Baekhwa Girls' High School.
There was a private school with such a name.
Perhaps some of you might have heard the school's name. Whenever posts like 'List of Schools with the Prettiest Uniforms in Korea' went up on internet communities, Baekhwa Girls' High was mentioned at a fairly high probability.
I don't know objectively if the uniforms are really pretty. I have no interest in uniform-type clothing.
But I could admit that objectively, they were unique.
The uniforms here were traditional sailor suits, rare in Korea.
-Our uniform's ribbon is Baekhwa's pride!
That such not-even-funny words were passed down between seniors and juniors for generations was truly a bizarre tradition.
While this uniform style still showed its presence as active wear in neighboring Japan, despite being a naval uniform, the sailor suit trend couldn't even cross the Korea Strait.
Nevertheless, the reason Baekhwa Girls' High adopted J-uniforms (strictly speaking, Britain was the original) was surprisingly simple.
The school itself was just built during the 1920s Japanese colonial period.
Baekhwa Girls' High boasted quite a long history. And like most such schools, it was treated as a 'prestigious school' by graduates, but to outside students, it occupied an extremely subtle position, giving them the impression 'Hmm, is that all?'
In short, except for the sailor suit uniforms and operating a dormitory system, it was ordinary humanities high school A, common throughout Korea.
At such an ordinary school, a school where seniors advised not to enter the dormitory even though one existed, with a number of prestigious university entrants somewhat short compared to its long history, so banners like '(Congratulating) Seoul U Acceptance So-and-so' hung even more noisily and passionately during CSAT season on the granite school gate, on an endlessly ordinary lunch, in the middle of the school grounds.
-Huh? Why won't the gate open?
-The security guard…… isn't here either. Let's tell a teacher.
The Void arrived.
-Huh?
-Wait. The teachers aren't here either?
-What's going on……?
The gate closed.
It was a typical closed-type Void.
The closure period was not typical. Baekhwa Girls' High's gate didn't open for 11 months.
That year, Baekhwa Girls' High produced zero CSAT acceptances.
3
What tragedy the students of Baekhwa Girls' High experienced in a closed environment lasting nearly a year, I couldn't know.
I was an outsider.
All I could find out were 'numbers' observed from outside.
Approximately 750 enrolled students.
After 11 months, survivors, 19.
After 12 months, survivors, 17. 2 suicides.
"Ah, actually it wasn't exactly 11 months, it was a bit longer!"
Quite some time later, I had the chance to speak with survivors, and I'll write here exactly what that child testified.
"Longer?"
"Ye-ep. You know how the flow of time, like, the speed changes sometimes? And space transforms all randomly. Ahaha. Our school must have been that kind of case!"
The survivor's face speaking like that showed no creases. I had heard somewhere that when people accept misfortune, there are ways of accepting it with the face and ways of accepting it with the heart.
"Then in your perception……. Exactly how long were you trapped in the school?"
"Ah, 4 years!"
Some would call this tragedy.
About 750 people trapped, only 19 survived and returned, and among them, 2 more committed suicide.
But I dare call it an 'achievement.'
In the 3rd iteration where I first cleared Busan Station, there was only one survivor—me. There were plenty of cases where everyone trapped in the Void was wiped out.
That ordinary high school students, in a jar of isolation completely cut off from the outside world, endured 11 months, or 4 years, and a double-digit number survived—wouldn't that be closer to a miracle?
"Hey, a miracle? Funeral Director Senior, you're overdramatizing it-"
And at the center of every miracle, there was a protagonist.
In this case, the one and only necromancer on the Korean Peninsula, praised as the first in the world, the Awakened we're focusing on today—Cheon Yo-hwa—was that protagonist.
"Alright! Baekhwa Girls' High! Fighting!"
"Fighting-!"
The 17 survivors tightly banded together around Cheon Yo-hwa.
…No, more objectively, more strictly speaking, the above description should be revised.
Cheon Yo-hwa made the 17 survivors band together around her.
I'll have a day to mention this in another episode, but Cheon Yo-hwa had such talent.
Interpersonal skills. Organization formation skills. Techniques for reading human psychology and using it. Techniques for breaking down walls around people's hearts. Techniques for choosing appropriate space and time. Mediation skills. Techniques for resolving internal organizational conflicts, and projecting unresolved conflicts outward.
Cheon Yo-hwa used all these abilities adeptly as if receiving a divine possession from some moment.
As a result.
"President."
"Student Council President."
"Cheon Yo-hwa Student Council President."
To the survivors of Baekhwa Girls' High, 'Baekhwa' was no longer simply the name of their alma mater.
It was both school connection and regional connection. Following recent trends, it was Void Connection, and perhaps thicker than blood ties.
Over the course of 4 years, Cheon Yo-hwa secured 17 Awakened who would throw their lives away on the roadside if it was for her.
And together with them, she emerged into the world.
Infinite Regressor Telling Stories