# Chapter 82
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Questioner IV
Shin Noah
## 5
To an Infinite Regressor, the world can be compared to a bag of potato chips. Among countless nitrogen, one must excavate the rare resource—the chips themselves.
Similarly, a regressor occasionally encounters exceptions within the endlessly repeating time. Just like me in the 89th iteration.
"No way, Cheon Yohwa..."
I swallowed the name of the potato chip. Student Council President of Baekhwa Girls' High School. A necromancer always mentioned alongside Dang Seo-rin's Three Thousand Worlds when listing the strongest guilds on the Korean Peninsula. I never expected to hear that child's name here.
—It is not only humans.
But perhaps some miracle occurred, for this bag of snacks contained a generous portion of chips.
—As I have mentioned, the influence of the Strange does not discriminate between objects, plants, or animals.
—Think of the Strange as a kind of radiation.
—The 'Butterfly Effect' that the Questioner is presumed to have subjugated is also one of this entity's apostles, an individual irradiated by us.
"Wait. The Butterfly Effect too?"
—That is correct. It is the truth.
"...."
My brain fell into a state of confusion.
As far as I knew in the 89th iteration, Cheon Yohwa was a necromancer. A wicked student council president who would occasionally serve up [Bad Ending: Academy City ENDING] to the Korean Peninsula whenever she got bored.
And the Butterfly Effect was a mentally unstable Morpho butterfly that scattered tornadoes in every direction even when she wasn't bored.
"...It's too heterogeneous. What commonality do Cheon Yohwa and the Butterfly Effect share that makes them your infected... or rather, so-called apostles?"
—It would be faster to show you directly.
"Directly? Show me what?"
The Fairy Lord extended its hand.
—This entity.
"...."
—I detected the Questioner's hesitation. Are you afraid? Will you not accept?
I sheathed my sword.
At times like this, being a regressor was truly convenient. Even if this was a trap set by the Strange and I ended up dying, I could at least salvage the information that 'the Fairy Lord is absolutely not to be trusted' and carry it to the next iteration.
"Very well. If this is a provocation, I accept it. I don't know where you're taking me, but go ahead and guide me."
As I took the Fairy Lord's hand, the unpleasant squishiness of its liquid-formed body spread across my palm.
And in the next moment, I was standing in the middle of a prison, clean and pristine once more.
"—What?"
But the prison was not Cheongsong Prison. I couldn't tell exactly where it was. There were simply iron bars and corridors stretching endlessly beyond the reach of my sight. No people were visible.
"What on earth is this..."
Squish. The Fairy Lord firmly grabbed my hand before it could instinctively reach for my sword hilt.
—Never let go of my hand.
—You will become lost.
Lost? Lost what?
Before the word could even be pronounced, blink. As I closed my eyelids once and opened them, the prison had transformed into a hospital.
"...."
Despite not a single patient or doctor being present, eerily clean hospital beds lined the corridor. From each bed, transparent IV lines hung like suspension bridges. The corridor was infinite.
Hospital beds of identical appearance, IV stands of identical appearance, fluid lines hanging at identical angles, all along a corridor of identical whiteness, endlessly—
Blink. The school was a wooden abandoned building. The school name 'Baekhwa' swayed. The sky was bright red. Broken windows, birch trees extending their white bark into the school corridor, scratched by glass fragments. The school was pierced through by white skewers, its entire body in tatters.
The angles and positions of the broken glass fragments repeated at 6-meter intervals. In each repeating section, old desks and wooden chairs were scattered. The weathered flesh of that old wood, the parts where moss grew and slid down, the tilted angles were all identical as well.
Blink. A swimming pool. An overwhelming scent of bleach. Pool rails extending to the horizon, a corridor of water.
Blink. A movie theater. It was dark. But strange. Ordinary movie theaters didn't have old wooden chairs arranged like those in an abandoned school. Transparent IV fluid lines didn't hang from each chair. On the movie theater screen, prison scenery was being shown. Iron bars. Corridors. Iron bars. Corridors. A prison with no one incarcerated. On the theater screen, prison, hospital, school, swimming pool appeared in sequence, then the theater itself was shown—a screen within a screen, an eye within an eye—
Bli-nk.
The universe moved.
There was no law to the movement of stars. There was no complementary color to their colors. Stars danced, stood on their heads, laughed incessantly without showing signs of fatigue, then fell silent.
Because laws had ceased their conduct, time too had released its hold on the world. Colors snatched up the fingers that had let go. Interlaced fingers. Red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet-purple-navy-blue-teal-green-yellow-crimson-red. Hand in hand. Hands of color grasped hands of color and whirled in a round dance. Orange stepped on blue's foot, red murdered orange. The Milky Way turned red.
Blink.
And so, stars were born and destroyed the instant they were born, shapes formed and collapsed the moment they formed. Like bubbles. Everything in the world was bubbles. Soap bubbles flaunted protective colors of rainbow oil hues as if bathed in sunlight. Existence was bubbles, life was color.
Blink.
The universe closed its eyelids once and opened them. A traffic light. That moment when a red light was about to change to green, as if time had briefly lost its breath. A momentary stop signal.
The color of starlight, the bubbles of planets, orange murdered by red, the array of colors dancing the round dance, the movie theater screen, the bleach smell of the swimming pool, the wooden chairs of the school, the white flesh and glass fragments of birch trees protruding into the corridor, the white hospital corridor, the iron bars of the prison, the crosswalk where white and black interwove like a carpet.
The entire universe.
Was gazing, steadily, in my direction.
The universe stood on the opposite side of the traffic light crosswalk, looking at me. They opened their maws wide.
'Eye' 'Blink' 'Blink' 'Oh' 'Time'.
Like a choir that had never practiced together. Voices with inconsistent pitch and timbre. Some like church bells, some like water flushing down a toilet, some like the sound of insects flapping their wings.
The breath from those maws was barely, through the mouth of the Fairy Lord holding my hand, 'reconstructed.'
—Do not blink your eyes.
"...."
—The Questioner perceives this entity as the Fairy Lord. That is, as the supreme Strange that commands all terminal entities, but strictly speaking, that perception is incorrect.
My ears felt like they would tear. No, my brain.
Every word that entire universe whispered was pronounced through different vocal organs for each word. 'Ter' 'mi' 'nal' 'Strange' 'enti' 'ties'. The sound of wind chimes hanging from temple eaves swaying in the wind. The scream of a crow being killed by a hawk. Sounds and noises that should not form language formed language.
If I were not a regressor who had carved myself through countless time—a fierce intuition surged up along with nausea, telling me that merely hearing that universe's 'voice' would destroy my brain.
It wasn't even a sound that insulted humanity.
The world was being ravaged.
"If it's incorrect... then?"
—To maintain one's sense of self in this situation is a case beyond predicted parameters.
—This entity, 'Fairy Lord,' is an interpreter.
—Shrine maiden.
—Priest. Pope.
—Terminal entity. Commanding role. Highest-ranking priest.
—But infinitely lower than god.
—A prophet who silences on behalf of a speaking god, speaks on behalf of a silent god, sees on behalf of a blind god.
—God has neither good will nor malice.
—There is only randomness. Rejoice. Your existences are equal.
—Kya aaa aaa aaa aaa ak!
—There is no difference between a single drop of foam and the Himalayas in the clouds. Laws are not superior to individuals. There is no height on the ladder of forms.
—This entity is merely a terminal that happened to be born by chance. I am fortune, not misfortune, to you, and the Questioner has no need to harbor hostility toward me.
—We simply experiment. Just like the experiments we were created to be.
"...."
So.
I raised my burning eyes and looked at the universe. So, that was the Strange.
Alienation God. Level 5.
The most toxic void among all voids. One facet of the seven Alienation Gods, the most powerful Stranges among all Stranges.
What I... what humanity must kill.
The enemy of this world.
"...It probably doesn't even have a separate name. That thing."
—Unnecessary.
—Whatever it points to is our god, and whatever it does not point to is also our god.
"Mugan."
The Fairy Lord looked up at my face.
"Avici Hell. That thing's name is, from now on, Mugan."
I spoke as if vomiting blood. That was the maximum resistance the me of the 89th iteration could offer, feeling as if I would be crushed by the void at any moment.
—As I said, designation is unnecessary.
"No, I need it. Because I am going to kill that blind god who violated our world without permission."
—......
"In this world, each thing has distinctions that protect their own boundaries, yet you mix everything together so there are no gaps between all things. Things become impermanent and existence melts away—it can rightly be called hell. Therefore, it is the Hell of Incessancy. You plunder and steal and chaotically violate the laws that clearly exist in the world, so it is also Mugan."
The Fairy Lord, the fairies—the red blinking of traffic lights, stars, colors, round dances, movie theater screens, schools, hospitals, prisons—all gazed intently at me.
In Laozi's Tao Te Ching, there is a phrase: 'Jeok-heui-ryo-heui' (寂兮寥兮).
Silent. Lonely.
Before humans distinguished all things, the world existed without division—a world so quiet without any sound or noise or meaning that it was called 'jeok-ryo' (silent and desolate).
'Obu-ji-gi-myeong' (吾不知其名). Such a world was originally void, so it could not be named.
Into that void, I gave a name.
I pointed with a human finger.
—Mugan.
—Avici Hell.
—A correct name.
—An incorrect name.
—This too is one random number.
—We can hypothesize the reason for the pink individual's anomalous behavior.
Ten million layers of laughter split apart.
For a moment, the scent of bleach from the swimming pool wafted through. It was the breath exhaled by this universe's Backrooms.
—We will experiment on you. Undertaker.
Release. The Fairy Lord... no. 'Mugan' let go of my hand.
Simultaneously, the traffic light's glow turned deep blue. Not green or yellow, but a sapphire blue like the wings of a Morpho butterfly. A color of unknown meaning.
Mugan's existence surged toward me. Crossing the whitewashed crosswalk, crossing the swimming pool, pounding through corridors, trampling time and tearing apart space.
In that instant, I lost consciousness.
## 6
"Guild Master?"
A voice called out.
"Are you alright, Guild Master? Can you hear me?"
"Mmm... Umm, where is this?"
"Cheongsong Prison. More precisely, 'the place that was' Cheongsong Prison. You said you were going to talk with the fairies."
"Ah."
Coming to my senses and looking around, Go Yori was supporting my head on her knees amidst the rubble of the collapsed building.
Beaming.
Go Yori looked down at me and smiled.
"Did the conversation go well?"
"Conversation... I'm not sure. I definitely saw something, but the memory is..."
"Aah. I see. Hmm, this is a bit concerning. How should I handle this..."
Go Yori murmured, resting her chin on her index finger. She seemed to be pondering something.
My head was still foggy, and I could only look up at Go Yori.
"...I see. You still remember the promise we made to travel together the next time you go down to Busan, right?"
"Hm? Oh, well. I remember that."
"I suppose. Since you quietly cleared the path, it's only fair I receive this much concession."
"......?"
"Just relax your body for a moment, Guild Master. Take a deep breath—and exhale. Yes. Just like that. Yes. Good job! You must have been caught in multiple explosions, after all. Your body and mind were probably tense without you realizing it."
Stroke.
Go Yori's hand caressed the back of my head. It was simply a gesture of stroking my hair, yet strangely my mind became clearer and clearer.
Most decisively, the memory of 'Mugan' I had just observed came flooding back like a tide.
"Ah..."
"Yes. Looks like your condition has recovered. That's a relief."
"Condition, or perhaps memory... No, never mind. Anyway, it seems you took care of me while I was unconscious. Thank you, Yori."
I had named one of the most powerful Stranges in this world, but the being before me, whose true name I still could not know, took my hand and heaved me up with an "Up we go—"
And then smiled brightly.
"Guild Master. Are you happy right now?"
"Hm? Well, yes. At least I'm not unhappy."
"Then I'm happy too, Guild Master."
It was, as always, an incredibly beautiful smile.
## 7
There is a very brief epilogue.
"Seo Gyu, I'm actually a regressor, and your head has been blown off by the tutorial fairy at least 50 times. But in the iteration before last, I discovered a Strange that's essentially the boss of the fairies. It's called Mugan, and just looking at it is enough to kill most people—it's a terrifying entity. But anyway, that thing is the object of your three-lifetime grudge... no, roughly a fifty-lifetime grudge. What do you want to do?"
"No way, such a fucking bastard exists? Hyung-nim. Obviously, I need to go take revenge with my own hands!"
So I took him there.
"Hey, you fucking bastard! You're the one who blew my head—aaargh!"
Boom—! The moment we stepped into Mugan's void, our SG Nam's head exploded. You know, like the aliens in Tim Burton's film [Mars Attacks].
"Hmm."
...It seemed we still had a long way to go before avenging humanity's enemy.
—Questioner. End.
The Infinite Regressor tells a story.