Chapter 84
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Accomplice II
Shin Noah
3
Aside from the secret of No Do-ha's taste for choking play being exposed, everything went smoothly according to plan.
Though SG Net got a bit noisy.
-Anonymous: Is it true there's no commander at the National Road Management Corps right now? For real?
-[National Road] Officer: For real. Our commander went on extended leave and isn't here.
└Anonymous: ?
└Anonymous: ?
└LiteratureGirl: That machine had a concept of vacation??
-[National Road] Officer: Yeah. So all the management officers were surprised too. As far as I know, since the National Road Management Corps was founded, there wasn't even a single holiday, let alone vacation. But this time, she cut a whopping 21-day leave and disappeared without saying anything.
└Anonymous: That human is truly unpredictable from head to toe. Seems like a real lunatic.
-Goryeojang: ?lol
└[National Road] Officer: What? Why?
└Goryeojang: You're saying she cut exactly 21 days of leave alone without saying anything and left? Did she disappear without a trace? lol
└[National Road] Officer: She did. Why?
└Goryeojang: lololololol
└[National Road] Officer: ?
-[Samcheon] WitchJudge: Hmm…….
"Hmm……."
Just as I read that far in the comments, No Do-ha actually hummed beside me in reality.
I folded my smartphone and returned from the virtual world to the real world.
"What's wrong?"
"…Nothing. This mineral is just fascinating. It's light. And hard. This is truly something that doesn't exist on Earth. Adamantsomething, was it……?"
"Adamantium. Be careful not to accidentally confuse it and call it Mithril, or there'll be big trouble."
"……? There's absolutely no similarity between those two words……."
No Do-ha took out her monocle and put it on.
Her left eye vision was particularly poor, but this was also a sort of personal routine. A sign that she was getting down to work in earnest.
Like soccer players sweeping the grass or praying to god as they run onto the field.
"Hmmm……."
No Do-ha wandered here and there around the mining village for a while, reflecting the sight of dwarves forging weapons in her monocle.
Clang, clang!
The dwarves mechanically struck weapons, and the moment a weapon was completed, they started the same work again. But the finished products didn't remain in reality, instead melting away into the air.
No Do-ha raised her hand and stroked the remnants of that air.
"Hmmmm……. A village where things disappear immediately after being made. But it seems I can learn blacksmithing skills just by watching……."
"How is it? Do you understand anything?"
"Well. Not particularly. You keep calling me a blacksmith and whatnot, but I'm just a prosthetics engineer… a mere assistive device maker. It's just troublesome if you suddenly demand I make weapons……."
Muttering to herself.
No Do-ha kept her eyes fixed on the dwarves while extending her right arm toward me.
I snatched a hammer and tongs from another dwarf's grip and handed them to her. No Do-ha's white fingers silently grasped the tools.
"Do you think I'm Doraemon? Making limbs is already demanding enough, but then make roads, organize and run the National Road Management Corps, balance the warlord guilds, sheesh. Do you think I'm some vending machine that spits something out when you stab a person……."
Clang.
No Do-ha mimicked the dwarves with sidelong glances. Clang, perhaps because the material was unfamiliar, the hammer slightly missed its mark.
"Hmm……."
The corners of No Do-ha's lips twitched. With her mouth firmly shut, she continued mimicking the dwarves for hours from beginning to end.
When night fell, a sword was held in No Do-ha's hand. A crudely formed shape with no balance whatsoever—a bastard sword.
But the silhouette illuminated by the night sky was undoubtedly a blade. No Do-ha's slender eyes, resembling moonlight, traced the curve of the sword. The material quality of her gaze was so sharp that if the two overlapped, the sword itself would seem to be carved away.
"Hmm. I don't really understand? I should start by copying something a bit more manageable like a hoe……."
From that day on, No Do-ha virtually stopped eating or sleeping as she imitated each and every dwarf.
Claaang-
I followed her like an assistant, carrying tools and supporting her. The two of us made a perfect pair.
"……."
Shadows of dwarves that had remained stuck in place instead of the humans who had fled from monsters.
A mine of a mining village that had fallen into decline.
In a village with no one else, just the two of us, only the sound of metal—clang clang—rang out eternally.
Naturally, it was bound to come to mind.
Hundreds of years ago.
The time when No Do-ha had uniquely called me by a title other than 'Funeral Director Awakened.'
4
"I'd like to get a job as an assistant in the Workshop Master's workshop. Please hire me."
"Hmm……."
It was the 53rd round.
Until then, in my regressor life, an organization called the National Road Management Corps had never been founded. It merely existed as a paper plan stored in the palace of my memories.
Around this time, I was searching for talent worthy of the position of 'head of a quasi-government organization.' In other words, someone befitting the position of the most powerful person on the Korean Peninsula.
Dang Seo-rin… was the first candidate that came to mind, but that was a last resort. Whether it was my bias or not, I didn't want to impose more restrictions on Dang Seo-rin here.
I… was also a possibility. But I had to run around the front lines blocking monsters. It was difficult for a general to also serve as a minister of logistics.
There were four conditions.
-Someone not corrupted by desire for power. In other words, mental strength or character.
-Someone who knew how to wield power while meeting that criterion. In other words, competence or instinct.
-Someone who pursued practical benefit as a dynamic system of the whole rather than public interest as an arithmetic aggregate of individuals. In other words, conviction or philosophy.
-Someone who took steps on a path no one else had walked. In other words, courage or daring.
Conditions that were realistically close to impossible.
But 'close to impossible' didn't mean entirely impossible, and countless hours allowed me to cross the gap between 'impossible' and 'close to impossible.'
Test commenced.
-Wow, Funeral Director! Aren't we the top family on the Korean Peninsula now? Let's show those Incheon guys a lesson…….
-What? Connect roads all the way to Seoul? Why on earth would we do that? If we waste energy paving roads, we're just doing other guilds a favor…….
-Hey, Doctor. Sorry, but can't you rest a bit? You're so good that this hyung's authority is dropping a lot. Just take a vacation for a while and come back, and I'll…….
Eliminated. Deferred. Eliminated.
Countless candidates were proposed and excluded. I became the acquaintance, colleague, friend, and partner of each candidate, spending at least 5 years, sometimes as long as 10 years together.
I gave them power and stole power. I bestowed honor and trampled honor. If that was insufficient, I observed human character from multiple angles even if it meant going through additional rounds.
The head of the National Road Management Corps I envisioned was a position requiring that much observation.
I swept through the people living on the Korean Peninsula one by one like a massive tidal wave, gradually raising the water level, and finally arrived at a certain narrow alley.
"An assistant. It's true that we're always short-handed at our workshop……. But why? Heh. Looking at your build, you have the physiognomy of someone who could join another guild and live well……?"
No Do-ha.
She was a woman suited to being an island.
If not for being a regressor, she was the type of human I would never have met in my entire life.
She was already famous for custom-making prosthetics to replace the limbs people had lost. I had also been indebted to her several times in other rounds.
But this was the first time I'd tried to establish a close relationship beyond customer and shop owner.
I bowed my head.
"My father had difficulty with his legs his entire life. I want to have a job that can be even a little helpful to people who have trouble moving around."
"Ah. Your father……?"
"He passed away."
It was a lie.
"To monsters."
"Hmm……."
No Do-ha's humming had a similar resonance whether then or now. A vibration that seemed to tap and probe a person to trace their outline.
Like a bat casting nets with ultrasound to perceive objects.
"Well, then I'd think revenge against monsters would be better than helping others……."
"……."
"Then again, urging someone to give up revenge is just as presumptuous as urging them to devote themselves to revenge—both are equally ridiculous situations. Very well. If you don't mind being a temporary apprentice, feel free to try as you please……?"
She was a woman who would live even if it meant creating islands in a world that wasn't one.
The net No Do-ha had spread across her world wasn't wide, but it was that much more dense.
She was someone who would haul everything up, determine what came in and what was let out, and decide only after grasping each thing individually.
This could be seen just from how she treated the other apprentices in No Do-ha's workshop, excluding me.
"Don't come in starting tomorrow……."
"What?"
"It means you're fired. Did you pour cement in your ear canals? You make me repeat the same thing endlessly. Shall I pull out the cement for you……?"
"Ah, no. Workshop Master! Wait a moment!"
The fired employee was someone who, after attending to a customer who had lost a leg, had muttered at lunchtime, 'Some young punk lost one limb and makes a face like he's lost the whole world, tsk, in a world like this where able-bodied men are rare.'
The fired employee cried, but no one helped. Worker protection? Labor standards act? Such Western-sounding words didn't exist in this Eastern land of courtesy.
"Oh my, elder! The snow made the roads difficult, how did you manage to come all this way? Here, have some warm coffee in a bag."
"Oh my, this is precious. Thank you……."
And I was a super-grade anti-elderly combat weapon who had even extracted sounds of deference from the Korean Peninsula's number one lunatic Sword Empress. Naturally, there was no problem at all in serving the elderly, who were the workshop's main customers.
If one could crack open her skull and look inside, No Do-ha, who would likely have the four characters 'Respect for Elders' embedded within, must have seen me as a truly desirable talent.
"Funeral Director Apprentice."
"Funeral Director Employee."
"Director Employee."
"Director Assistant."
Every time the title for me changed once, No Do-ha's workshop employee roster also underwent a turnover.
Having realized she 'no longer needed to lower her standards,' No Do-ha awakened as a true bourgeois. She had offloaded half of all the troublesome tasks—personnel management, customer management, internal faction management, profit improvement—onto me.
"Assistant."
8 years.
That was the time it took for the 6-syllable title 'Funeral Director Apprentice' to shrink to the 2-syllable 'Assistant.'
Since it took 2 years to drop just 1 letter each time, she truly was a difficult personality to get close to.
"Yes, Workshop Master."
"Assistant, aren't you going to evacuate? You know, all the northern cities are being eaten by monsters one by one, and they're gradually coming down……."
"Really, Workshop Master. Where else would we evacuate from Busan?"
"Japan, or China. Or even further down to Southeast Asia. Well, places to flee are always infinite in this world……."
"Ha, you think those places are fine? I'll pass."
I wasn't the only unusual one.
Whenever facing destruction, I felt this—there were surprisingly many people who 'didn't flee until the end' in every round.
No Do-ha was no exception.
"Did you hear the news? They say Three Thousand Worlds is forming a final desperate corps and launching a counterattack."
"Hmm. Do you think it will succeed……?"
"It'll be difficult. The problem is that even if they succeed, there's no guarantee. The moment the monsters formed a 'Monster Wave,' it was already over."
"Oh?"
"Monsters aren't particularly close to each other. Their types and personalities are fundamentally different. But for them to mix and form a legion means that incompatible types and personalities were all excluded, and they fused together like a single lifeform. No, even 'lifeform' is a misleading term. They're just… a mass of cancer cells. A bug in the world. Even if Busan is defended this time, the monsters will continue, continue, spreading bugs in all directions without any purpose or consciousness."
"Hmm……."
No Do-ha smiled with her eyes.
"Why do you do that?"
"No. Sometimes……. I think the Assistant really knows a lot."
"……."
"Well. It doesn't particularly matter, though……."
The next day, the desperate corps that the Korean Peninsula had squeezed out as its last hope was swallowed by the monsters surging like a tidal wave.
"Assistant."
"Yes."
"What are you doing? It's 8 o'clock and you're not opening the door. What is this, are you acting out now that you're the senior? Shall I help you write your resignation……?"
"No, no. Workshop Master."
Click.
I flipped the sign hanging on the glass door from [Closed] to [Opened].
On the day the Korean Peninsula's last city perished.
Today too, No Do-ha's Workshop opened for business.