Chapter 66
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The Sleepwalker IV
Shin Noah
6
I could have ended the Ten Clans with a single stroke.
I had mastered the aura of starlight, called Sword Gang (劍罡), a miracle originally permitted only to the Sword Star (劍星) in this world.
And yet, I did not finish off the Ten Clans in one turn for the most part. Troublesome and annoying as it was, I made sure to establish the "Korean Peninsula Awakened Union" and dragged them to the battlefield against the Ten Clans.
"It's been a long time, Director-nim. I hope you've been well?"
"Oh my, Director-nim! How are you!"
Because, to use a slightly ridiculous expression, the Awakened needed an 'awakening.'
On the battlefield, I showed them cleanly through actual combat—without needing to lecture at all—how powerful the Ten Clans were, and how wrong their arrogance had been in thinking themselves like transcendent beings.
It is the fate of Homo sapiens to truly know whether something is shit or bean paste only after tasting it.
Only after waging bloody battles to the death against the Ten Clans did Korea's Awakened reach the realization: 'Ah, if we don't organize a union in advance, we'll all die together when an A-grade anomaly appears.'
To this, my stratagem was added.
"Long time no see. Have you all been well?"
"Of course. We've been well!"
"Getting used to aura, I assume?"
"Hahaha. Well, that's... still not quite...."
It was the advertisement: 'Free advanced aura application lessons exclusively for Awakened who join the union.'
Even with civilization destroyed, the passion for education was etched into the Korean people's DNA. The words 'advanced,' 'learning,' and 'special tutoring' paralyzed their brains.
From the start, many Awakened had intuitively realized how useful aura was through battles with the Ten Clans. The Ten Clans' tentacles were tougher than the toughest squid legs in the world, and blades without aura's luster infused into them could barely make a dent.
"Director-nim!"
"Director-nim, there's a part where I've been completely stuck in my training lately...."
In other words, the Korean Peninsula Awakened Union had a character somewhat like a sect that served me as their grandmaster.
Originally, the old man Sho had performed this role, but that gentleman retired....
Of course, the Awakened were all lunatics. Scum who knew their masters like dogs were a dime a dozen.
That was why, even as I taught them aura techniques, I deliberately demanded nothing in return.
Guild management? Why would I interfere with that? Your guild is yours, so handle it yourself. Tuition? Oh, forget about that, just suck the sweet essence from my techniques. Yes. Go ahead and take this too and that too, take everything including my liver and gallbladder. It's fine. I need nothing.
In the apocalypse, such behavior was perfect for being treated as a pushover.
But what if that pushover casually crossed voids overflowing with anomalies, traveled from city to city, dismantled Ten Clan heads like deboned chicken when they couldn't even lift a finger, received the favor of Constellations, and even flaunted friendships with guild masters and National Road Management Commanders across the Three Thousand Worlds?
Even Awakened who selectively allowed reason in and out of their skulls had no choice but to contemplate further the definition of 'pushover.'
-Teacher, when on earth can we repay this debt?
-Yes. I could collect payment from you anytime, but I deliberately won't, and I'll continue this way. So just receive more aura training suited to you. You'll overcome crises of death thanks to these techniques and solidify your authority as a guild master, but you'll give me nothing and just wipe your mouth clean, and the fact that you wiped your mouth will be known to you, me, our comrade Dang Seo-rin, No Do-ha, and everyone else.
-Teacher! No, Brother! Please!
The so-called 'Super Eul' phenomenon.
To exaggerate a bit, if I came forward with some appropriate justification and muttered, 'Hmm, lately it seems the Incheon guild masters are muddying Korea's waters quite a bit...' the guild masters gathered here would have to lead all their forces and wreak havoc, saying 'The Grandmaster orders us to crush the Incheon guilds!'
The Meteor Shower subjugation battle wasn't just some appropriate justification—the entire fate of Korea hung in the balance. The guild masters who had received something from me naturally had to come running with their tails between their legs.
"You're popular as always. You too."
After filming a hearty handshake session and returning, Dang Seo-rin greeted me with a resigned expression.
"You could just settle in one city, but you're always wandering around the country everywhere. I can't tell if you're sincere or insincere...."
"Why? I did settle. All of Seoul's Gangnam is my turf. You're not ignoring Gangnam land prices now, are you?"
"There's nothing there now except your guild building."
"That's called buying at the bottom. When civilization starts rebuilding, my life as Director Jang will be remembered forever as a legendary real estate story."
Dang Seo-rin snorted.
"So you have no intention of settling down at all? No thought of dating anyone? I know quite a few people who like you."
"Dating is a bit...."
Anyway, for the Meteor Shower to arrive, the sunset had to fall.
Each holding a broom, we chatted here and there while waiting for night. Why everyone was holding a broom? Well. You'll find out soon enough.
Tense atmosphere in the air.
To deliberately shave away the calluses of that atmosphere, dirty jokes and personal gossip flowed softly through the military encampment.
Maintaining daily life to ignore the extraordinary was wisdom humanity had learned long ago.
"Why? Are you impotent or something?"
"I just don't interest myself in dating. Honestly, my mental age is about 1000 years old. No matter what, I can't go around dating children, can I?"
"Pfft. What are you saying."
Not just Dang Seo-rin and me, but all the Awakened exchanged silly jokes.
It was natural. The Meteor Shower falling over Gyeongsangnam-do province corresponded to my 7th year of regression.
Among the elite soldiers gathered here in the Gimhae Plains, there was not a single person who hadn't crossed the wall of life and death dozens of times.
Everyone knew bone-deep how important it was to regulate mental intensity right before battle.
"Honestly, I really can't imagine Big Brother dating anyone."
"Y-yeah. On the surface he seems perfectly normal, but he strangely has the face of someone who'll live alone forever. The Guild Master is exactly that, that kind of feeling."
If this were after the 50th iteration, SG Man Seo Gyu and the Goryeojang villain Sim A-ryeon would have joined this banter.
"Heh. More importantly, you should worry about whoever he dates.... 70% of conversations between lovers would be about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 20% about Chu-Han Contention, and the remaining 10% about Water Margin. Who could endure that...? Even a thousand-year love would grow cold...."
If this were after the 55th iteration, National Road Management Commander No Do-ha would have sipped ginger tea while breathing out hot breath and equally hot poison.
"Ahaha. I also sometimes think I wish Senior would stop talking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms! Honestly, I don't even know why that's fun. Oh, but the scene where Dong Zhuo burns Luoyang was fun!"
If this were after the 109th iteration, Baekhwa Girls' High School Student Council President Cheon Yo-hwa would have smiled brightly and added damage.
"...."
[....]
Lee Ha-yul and the Saintess would always have been quiet.
After that, throughout my life reaching the 1183rd iteration, allies sometimes increased and sometimes decreased.
But today is the 42nd iteration.
Our blood alliance is not yet complete, and so I intend to depict the battle from the most rugged and fierce iteration.
"―――, ――."
"―. ―――. …."
"…. ….., ……."
The voices of countless people disappeared.
Above the sky, only the breath of Dang Seo-rin and me rose as white smoke.
Two people's worth of breath turned red.
My companion through time murmured.
"True. I'm not interested in dating either."
The sunset sank from the sky.
A pleasant tension seeped through my entire body.
[――It's coming.]
The Saintess's quiet murmur.
In that instant, the world's crimson blazed even redder.
It was like a flame, like a massive fire ring.
The center of the sky, the zenith, burned bright red, while the edges turned blue, black, pitch black, quietly staining.
The flame moved as if alive. The bright red sunset glow in the center continuously breathed out toward the blue-black night sky at the periphery, and in reverse, breathed in.
The sky—the world was breathing with sunset glow and starlight.
"Dang Seo-rin."
"Yeah. I know."
Dang Seo-rin had already begun her spellcasting incantation.
How much time passed after song flowed from her lips?
Suddenly, the darkness at the sky's edge swallowed the entire ceiling of heaven in an instant. The whole world darkened as if there had never been a sunset.
Night sky.
That was not a physical or celestial change. As if a mother quietly covered her child's eyes with her palm, the entire world was momentarily veiled by something.
"...It's here."
"Fuck. It was real."
Murmuring.
Some Awakened stirred at phenomena impossible to understand with common sense. The tension they had barely suppressed through thorough briefings and strategy guides, through skillful jokes, instantly surfaced.
Some Awakened clenched their fists at the appearance of the anomaly whose existence had been predicted for six years.
In an era where transmission towers and streetlights had all closed their eyes, only the eyes of elite soldiers emitted a dim light. They looked up at the night sky in thoroughly planned formations.
[The 'Saintess of National Salvation' makes an announcement.]
[Special-grade anomaly 'Meteor Shower' appears over the Korean Peninsula.]
Flash-
The darkness of the night sky spat out infinitely condensed starlight. It was as if some giant had playfully poked the sky's balloon with scales.
But the result was by no means playful.
"It's starlight!"
"The strategy guide was really right...?"
"My god. That's no shooting star. An anomaly that controls the entire sky."
Originally, the Meteor Shower would stay overhead for a full six hours starting now.
However, through observation across many iterations, the Meteor Shower wasn't simply doing runway walking—no, Milky Way walking—in the night sky during those six hours, asking people to watch how pretty its starlight was for free.
In truth, over those six hours, it was slowly casting a 'spell' on humans on the ground.
Calling it hypnosis was fine, and calling it brainwashing was acceptable. The point was, the more humans looked up at that night sky starlight, the stronger the Meteor Shower became.
[The 'Saintess of National Salvation' advises non-combatants to avoid looking at the night sky as much as possible.]
Therefore, in this boss battle, what mattered most above all was cooperation and lightning warfare.
Rather than waiting calmly for the Meteor Shower to gather enough power to fall, we targeted its weakest moment.
In other words, settling things in the early phase was my strategy guide.
"Ah――."
For that strategy, Dang Seo-rin opened fire first.
First melody, repetition. Second melody, expansion.
A song always used in large-scale battles filled the plains.
This alone was enough for allies within the song's reach to receive backup from Dang Seo-rin's magic. But for this battle, we had prepared completely.
-...Zzzzt, ...ah....
Radios were installed without exception on the combat team's chest or waist. Items prepared solely for this day's battle. A base station had even been constructed nearby.
A technique possible because as a regressor, I knew exactly where the battlefield would be.
This was proof that for this battle, we had concentrated all the scraps and remnants of civilization.
It would have been convenient if simply transmitting Dang Seo-rin's song through radios made each one amplify the magic, but such a lucky cheat didn't occur. So one more song had to be added.
"Ah――ah, ah――."
Third melody, Medium.
A magic that made pre-designated substances resonate with Dang Seo-rin's song like a kind of mirror.
Naturally, the radios distributed to Awakened were all designated as 'mediums.' Since designating them as mediums required another magic, Dang Seo-rin had pre-cast magic on the radios whenever she had time.
This work alone took three years total.
And the equipment Dang Seo-rin had designated as 'mediums' wasn't just cheap radios.
Finally, the most important main spell incantation we had prepared, that Dang Seo-rin put into action, resonated.
"Ah ah―― ah ahh―――."
Fourth melody, Flight.
The fourth song swept through the sky once and then endlessly whipped into a da capo through [Repetition].
Grip.
The 900 Awakened gathered at Gimhae Plains, among them the 700 selected for the combat team, put strength in their hands as promised in advance.
Their fists, every single one without exception, held brooms.
"It's a bit late to point this out now... but was the broom really the best choice?"
"Yeah. Of course."
Dang Seo-rin, now relaxed after finishing the fourth melody, answered. She had an expression asking why I'd ask something so strange.
"For a witch to fly into the sky, there's nothing but a broom."
Tap. Dang Seo-rin kicked the dirt ground with familiar footwork. Perhaps from repeating it thousands, tens of thousands of times until it was ingrained in her body. The Grand Witch's pose was relaxed and elegant.
Fluttter—from her small body, a black cape three times larger fluttered like a flag.
I snorted. Then spoke into the radio.
"All units, commence sortie."
That was the signal.
700 Awakened of the Union simultaneously pushed off from the plains and soared into the night sky.
Boss battle.
Continent-grade danger level.
Meteor Shower (流星雨).
Battle commence.
Phase 1, Take Off.