Chapter 95
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Answer Breaker IX
Shin Noah
17
After patrolling the school once with Cheon Yoh-hwa, we reached a conclusion.
"This is... a peaceful world."
A world where humanity hasn't perished.
Voids called 'Gates' were occurring here and there, but they weren't as serious as in reality.
True to their name, the voids here all looked like gateways. If left alone, 'monsters' would crawl out in droves.
Conversely, if one succeeded in sealing the gates, damage could be minimized.
- Last time, Gates occurred centered around Sadang Station in Seoul, right? At the time, crowds were gathered during the morning commute, so significant casualties were expected...
- This time, the 4th Exploration Team finally succeeded in clearing the Sadang Station Gate. Exploration Team Leader Dang Seo-rin, who rescued most of the missing persons...
- Meanwhile, with 212 deaths, this incident has updated the record for Gate casualties in history, and voices calling for government responsibility...
Newspapers, news, YouTube, and SNS were plastered with stories about Gates day after day.
Civilization hadn't collapsed.
It was simply that 'Gates' had been briefly added to humanity's list of disasters that they had weathered since ancient times—typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, famines, epidemics.
Humans still proclaimed themselves the lords of all creation.
Some people feared Gates and monsters as signs of the apocalypse, but for us who had experienced true 'apocalypse' and returned, our impressions couldn't be more different.
"...I'm envious. I wish our world had been at this level too."
"The cunning of Mugan is revealed in the fact that it didn't show us a completely peaceful world."
"Huh? Why?"
"Trauma from strange entities already remains in our minds. In an overly peaceful world, we would only be conscious of the fact that we ourselves are abnormal. Obsessed with the compulsion that the world could end at any moment. ...But here, monsters appear at just a manageable level. In this world, even you and I can live as 'normal people.'"
"Ah... Wow, even that level of detail?"
"Yes. It's an Outer God-level anomaly. Not an easy opponent."
And that wasn't all.
In a completely peaceful world, a world where strange entities didn't exist at all, Cheon Yoh-hwa's and my awakened abilities would be no different from alien tumors.
But in a world where monsters actually exist?
The abilities, knowledge, and instincts we had built up all this time would translate directly into achievements. Countless handshake requests would pour in from all sorts of guilds trying to recruit us.
"A world where you can climb to the very top of the pyramid without being denied, instead being infinitely affirmed. A world where we can believe our success is not thanks bestowed by the anomaly called Mugan, but entirely due to our own talent, effort, and free will. This is a model garden designed solely for the two of us."
"...."
Cheon Yoh-hwa's shoulders hunched.
"...It's scary. What anomalies are."
"It is scary. But conversely, we've pushed Mugan that far."
Four steps. The distance from the other shore to this shore. Our strides traversing that infinite moment were by no means useless.
Mugan was undoubtedly collapsing.
Dang Seo-rin's journey. Noh Do-ha's seclusion. The Saintess's contemplation. The routes containing each of their eternities were trampled underfoot.
The illusions Mugan had carefully selected, no matter how sweet, were denied by our will to return to reality.
"Yoh-hwa! Let's play basketball together!"
Students in the distant athletic field waved their hands looking this way.
Hesitating. Cheon Yoh-hwa held her breath for a moment. Only after about 3 seconds passed did she make a hand megaphone and shout, "Sor-ry! I'm going to skip today-"
Eh, eh, eh-
Wings sprouting from the wisteria tree bark in summer cried fiercely. Leaves rustled against each other in the wind. In the school athletic field, that simulated sand desert, children's laughter and cicadas' cries resonated.
"Must be your friends."
"...Yes. Same class. Roommates."
A sigh flowed downward. It was a weak breath, insufficient to reach the desert.
"Both of them died in the first week of the school ghost stories."
Cheon Yoh-hwa tapped the athletic field with the tip of her shoe. Tap, tap. The weight of one human knocked on the earth.
"Mmmm. Old man. Just a thought that suddenly occurred to me. Well, actually I've wondered for a while but I'm asking now."
"You may speak."
"Why can't we stay here? No, it's not that I want to do that. I'm asking purely out of genuine curiosity. Just... there's nothing much waiting if we go back, right?"
"...."
"Every time I go to the bathroom, I have to check for ghosts. To avoid eating human flesh, I have to pick out each piece of meat. When I wake up, someone's always disappeared. From what you've said, old man, it's not just our school that was ruined, but the whole world collapsed... How can you speak so firmly about returning to reality?"
"Hmm."
"For example... how about inviting not just us but everyone else into Mugan too? Then this place becomes reality. Or maybe you think a world that isn't truthful has no value..."
"No. That's not the reason."
"Then?"
"My alias is Undertaker."
Cheon Yoh-hwa looked this way.
"Just as you have the ability to brainwash targets, I have a few abilities too. One of them is time sealing... personally, I also call it a funeral."
"Funeral."
"I can make a person repeat eternally the day they felt happiest."
"...."
"Strictly speaking, it's not even repetition. The person doesn't realize that their day is endlessly regenerating. This ability is why I earned the name Undertaker."
The sound of cicadas in the trees, the sound of a ball bouncing on the basketball court, and beyond the school wall, some truck blowing its horn loudly—beeeeep.
"Yoh-hwa. Is there no misfortune in this world?"
"...No."
"Right. There would be. A lot. Yesterday alone, 212 casualties occurred while sealing a Gate. No matter how much Mugan created settings optimized for us, this is still far from happiness for all humans."
At the crosswalk in front of the school gate, the traffic light blinked on and off.
"The reason I don't entrust my life to Mugan is truly simple. It's a matter of comparative advantage. This world is a bit... lacking in persuasiveness to accept as the final hell."
"...."
If the world is hell, people ultimately live to find the hell they can accept. Until then, people can defer their lives.
After a long silence, Cheon Yoh-hwa nodded.
"...Yes. I understand. You're a terminus where people can return at any time, old man."
"That's how it ended up."
"Then the question I ultimately have to ask myself is whether I want to give up and rest now... Mm. It's fine. I'm not tired yet."
Our gazes crossed.
The sunset embraced the desert. Orange was a color mixed with sand and red. Cheon Yoh-hwa's hair also held half the scent of desert and half the scent of orange.
"Please tell me what I need to do, old man."
18
I carried out exactly the strategy the Saintess had presented on the surface of the moon.
—Seizing control of the Night Parade of Hundred Demons, Baek-hwa (Hundred Tales), consisting of 100 ghosts, from Mugan.
If this strategy could be executed, Mugan's power descended as 100 ghosts would undoubtedly be greatly weakened.
"For this operation, Yoh-hwa, you must brainwash all of Baek-hwa's ghosts, one by one."
"Brainwash the anomalies."
"Yes. No matter how long it takes. The only requirement is to make the ghosts follow you instead of Mugan in the end."
"Okay, I'll try."
I captured the knock-knock-knock ghost and tossed it over. I put a rope around its neck and hung it from the ceiling so it couldn't ram its head into the floor.
Cheon Yoh-hwa holed up in the student council room like closed-door training, beginning to stay alone with the ghost.
Brainwashing an anomaly, not a human.
Something that hadn't occurred even once throughout all the cycles, but I was certain. Cheon Yoh-hwa could do it.
One day, two days, three days, a week passed, and Cheon Yoh-hwa still hadn't brainwashed the ghost.
The stench the ghost emitted filled the student council room with rot. Cup noodles, cans, and trash Cheon Yoh-hwa had eaten and discarded while secluding herself also piled up in one corner of the room.
"I'm fine."
Cheon Yoh-hwa's eyes gleamed like a madperson.
"I think I can do it. It's summer break anyway... I want to concentrate alone for a while, so you don't need to clean."
While the Korean Peninsula's only necromancer repeatedly trained behind closed doors, I briefly traveled around the country.
In Busan, Mayor Jeong, the professional traitor, was conducting administration as if nothing had happened.
The puppeteer Lee Ha-yul, the mayor's hidden daughter, had graduated early and joined a large guild.
Dang Seo-rin led an exploration team with her three younger siblings. I could see the faces of Dang Seo-rin's family that I had only heard about in stories, even if from afar.
At Hongik University, Sim A-ryeon was conquering shoyu ramen (extra bean sprouts) at a ramen shop alone, having no friends to eat with.
At the rehabilitation hospital's prosthetics center, Noh Do-ha walked out right at quitting time.
In Yongsan, the Saintess stayed home all day except for a once-daily evening walk.
A world where anomalies didn't exist, and humans still called themselves the lords of all creation.
...An old man who had come to Korea to visit following his wife's academic lecture from Germany was also alive and well.
"Excuse me. Do you happen to know where the auditorium written here is?"
Old man Sho.
An old man dressed in casual formalwear asked me a question in English right in the middle of Seoul National University.
It had truly been a long time since I'd seen old man Sho with his head properly placed on his neck, not as a Dullahan.
I was seized by contradictory desires—the urge to punch that bearded jaw and the urge to embrace his shoulders warmly.
"...You can ask in German, sir."
"Oh my. I didn't realize there was a young person who spoke our language so fluently! Did my German accent show through in my English that much?"
"I majored in German language and literature, so I have some German friends. I was actually heading to this auditorium myself, so please follow me."
"Oh my, thank you. My wife is giving a lecture here today. Do you happen to know her? Adele Schopenhauer..."
"Wow, I was actually going to her lecture too."
"Oh! What a connection!"
That day, I saw the face of old man Sho's wife at the Seoul National University Cultural Center. I had seen her in photos several times, but never in person.
Old man Sho's face, brightly smiling and embracing his wife after the lecture ended, was also something I was seeing for the first time, naturally.
So this was what kind of person he was.
This was good evidence that when Mugan created illusions, it not only misappropriated my personal memories but also used its own data accumulated about the world.
"By the way, Adele. I was lost here and a kind young man guided me... Hm? What? That's strange. He was right here with me until just now—"
I silently left a route there and returned to school.
No one suspected my entry. Thanks to being 'set' by Cheon Yoh-hwa as a security guard who had worked at Baek-hwa Girls' High School for a long time.
Thus, the moment I stepped onto the wooden corridor of the old school building, the world flipped upside down without any warning.
"...!"
Midair. The location was the top of the old school building.
I immediately spread aura in all directions. Another awakened would have been appalled at such waste, but for a former support-type infinite regressor with no combat skills who had to make do with aura, this was an extremely rational tactic.
Gray waves rippled through the void.
Echolocation. My senses, after hundreds of years of refinement, had become specialized in perceiving object outlines through aura. Like a dolphin using ultrasound to grasp surrounding terrain.
Something abnormal was detected in my senses. While falling through the void, my eyes happened to meet Cheon Yoh-hwa's, who was standing at a building window.
Cheon Yoh-hwa was smiling.
"——."
Cheon Yoh-hwa's lips moved.
'Stop.'
The sky flipped once more. The sensation of floating in the air evaporated, and before I knew it, my feet were stepping on the old school building's corridor.
Before my eyes, Cheon Yoh-hwa smiled. She was holding an hourglass with both hands, and something was inside the glass timepiece.
Wriggle—
It was a ghost. A ghost that had become infinitely tiny was dangling by a rope around its neck inside the hourglass.
An hourglass. I inwardly admired it. Could there be a more appropriate spell than that as a prison to seal and confine ghosts?
Enclosing the world and placing it in one's grasp. Pouring a vortex of time onto mere barren sand, while keeping it entirely within one's control.
The sunset shining through the corridor window struck the hourglass's glass.
As if showing off a newly acquired pet, or perhaps abusing it, the student council president of the school ghost stories playfully shook the hourglass and spoke.
"How is it? Old man."
"The timepiece is nice. Can I touch it?"
"Ahaha- Yes!"
The first ghost taming in human history.
By the time summer break ended, Cheon Yoh-hwa had succeeded in subjugating a total of 43 ghost entities.