Chapter 97
──────
The Answerer XI
Shin Noah
Cheon Yoh-hwa.
天寥化.
――Long ago, when I first saw those characters in that name, perhaps I already sensed an omen.
Heaven's Cheon. Desolate Yo. To become Hwa.
Simply interpreted, it means "to become desolate."
Isn't that quite strange for a name given to a beloved child?
But the character Yo (寥) didn't contain only the meaning of "desolation." It also meant "emptiness," "void sky," and "serene."
Have you perhaps seen writers who, in passages where simply writing "quiet" would suffice, deliberately dress it up as "jeok-yo" (寂寥) for flair?
That very Yo from jeok-yo was the character in this child's name. If interpreted not as "to become desolate" but as "to become serene," there was nothing particularly strange about it.
Yes. If interpreted only that way.
Attention.
From here onward is a secret I've never told even Cheon Yoh-hwa, information known only to me in this entire world, a kind of epilogue TMI.
Since this is merely my personal speculation, you may take it with a grain of salt. I will simply show you the fragments I've gathered from various cycles.
The first fragment.
I believe everyone knows well that in the 108th cycle, I went to China together with the Sword Empress old woman.
During the time when the Sword Empress was busy planting red flowers at Mt. Hua, I briefly explored the surroundings.
If I were to excerpt exactly what I described back then, it went like this:
――――――――――
The range of my monster hunting expeditions gradually expanded. It had extended beyond Shaanxi Province into Henan Province.
The "tutorial dungeons" were a phenomenon occurring not only on the Korean Peninsula but throughout the entire world, and of all places, an unprecedented-level dungeon had appeared in a place called Yingyang Town in Henan Province.
With Daoist cult terrorists getting involved on top of that, it was truly an apocalypse in itself.
――――――――――
There is a place called Dengfeng in Henan Province. It is famous as the city where the Shaolin Temple is located.
Going a little further west from there, you come to a town called Yingyang Town.
Yingyang Cheon clan.
That is the bon-gwan of the family Cheon Yoh-hwa belongs to.
The second fragment.
Originally, the Yingyang Cheon clan of Korea descended from a Ming dynasty general who was dispatched to Joseon during the Imjin War.
The general did not come alone but brought his entire family when he naturalized in Joseon.
While most of his descendants adapted perfectly to the local area and lived without incident, according to my hypothesis, an extremely small portion of the clan continued to maintain their "traditional faith."
China's orthodox faith is Daoism.
Laozi, who could be called the founder of Daoism, was from Henan Province, a native of Luyi County. Laozi is known to have worked in Luoyang, Henan Province and authored the Dao De Jing at Hangu Pass in Henan Province.
Yingyang Town, the hometown of the Cheon clan family, lies at the crossroads connecting Luyi County and Hangu Pass.
The birthplace of Daoism. A region long placed under the gravitational pull of faith.
However, at some point, among the Cheon clans who crossed over to the Korean Peninsula, only the faith of Cheon Yoh-hwa's family line became corrupted.
Whether it was so from the beginning or became so later, I cannot know. There are no records.
They built a grand mansion of 14,990 square meters in Sejong City. Hidden beneath it were religious facilities. They established Baekhwa Girls' High School and enrolled the children of their faith.
The father of Cheon Yoh-hwa, who served as the religious leader of the sect, changed his daughter's surname from Cheon (千) to Cheon (天). To this clan, their roots no longer held any meaning.
They called upon their own god.
I have no way of knowing what kind of god they wished to descend. Perhaps it was merely a cheap scam by a cult leader.
But in the apocalypse's void, sorcery was not illusion but reality. Especially the sorcery performed by hundreds of people offering hundreds of their children.
Something from beyond the void heard their prayers. It answered.
And thus the Infinite descended.
The third fragment.
Jeok-hye-yo-hye (寂兮寥兮).
Such a passage exists in the Dao De Jing.
Before humans distinguished all things, before the forms and names of all manner of objects were created, before heaven and earth could bear to separate, the world existed.
Laozi called such a world "jeok-yo."
Around the next passage, these words continue:
O-bu-ji-gi-myeong (吾不知其名).
"I do not know its name."
That jeok-yo world, that jeok-yo nature of the world, was something that had not yet taken form among all creation, and so it "had no name."
Now then.
Let us look once more at the student council president before our eyes, the name Cheon Yoh-hwa.
If we interpret only the outwardly revealed meaning, it becomes "to become serene," so one could convince oneself, "Ah, her parents must have wanted their daughter to become a hikikomori when she grows up."
But that parent, especially the father, was the high priest of a heretical sect that had corrupted from Daoism. There was no way he wouldn't know one of the most famous passages in the Dao De Jing.
So after knowing the origin of Yo (寥), if we interpret the name Cheon Yoh-hwa... it becomes extremely, strangely ominous.
To become desolate.
To become serene.
For the heavens to become void.
For the name to disappear.
Anonymity. Namelessness. Returning to that jeok-yo heaven where there is neither form nor name. Abandoning even oneself, abandoning even one's true name, returning to a world that distinguishes nothing.
A wordplay within the name.
...How vicious a sorcery this is.
Cheon Yoh-hwa (天寥化). An ominous resonance. It is by no means a name one could give to a beloved child.
I would rather say it's a name suited for a living sacrifice offered to an evil god.
The more terrible fact is, that sorcery succeeded.
Far beyond the casters' expectations.
The Estranged God that was filled with all forms yet was no different from having no form at all. The Infinite and the Night Parade of Hundred Demons. Baekhwa.
...Or, Cheon Yoh-hwa.
She was the living sacrifice, and Baekhwa Girls' High School was the altar. Baekhwa Girls' High School was a sacrifice for her alone, and she was an altar for the god.
This is the answer I have deduced so far.
It was the regressor's annotation on why the Estranged God called the Infinite had no choice but to descend specifically upon a place called Baekhwa Girls' High School.
However.
The conclusion of this story was not mine.
"Thank you, ajusshi."
Cheon Yoh-hwa said.
"Surely I wouldn't have been able to overcome this alone. Even if I had won, I certainly would have lost myself."
Even so, you saved 16 friends. Always. From the 1st cycle to the 117th, continuously.
Cheon Yoh-hwa said.
"Even though it was an illusion, thank you for letting me meet my mother again. I was able to convey the words I couldn't deliver. The airplane was fun. Thank you for showing me the sunset. The coffee you made for me. It was delicious."
The awakened one who was called the Korean Peninsula's only necromancer. The young lady who was Baekhwa Girls' High School's student council president. The one who started basketball out of rebellion against her family but came to truly love it. The one who, if she escaped the prison called the void, would not even remember her own original name and past, and so from the 1st to the 117th cycle, not even once was she called by name. The living sacrifice and altar of this infinite hell.
And the one who liked slightly bitter and slightly sweet cafe lattes.
Cheon Yoh-hwa said.
"――That's why, I can't hand myself over to the likes of a monster like you."
-......
"You are not me. You don't know the contrail I rode and passed through. You don't know the name of the sunset I saw. You don't know the sensation of the coffee I like. You don't know me. Because I've already gone to a place you don't know, I'm going, and I will go."
-......
"I am Cheon Yoh-hwa. I will sing a thousand stories. With my life, do you think I'd be satisfied with a hundred stories? I'll live with ten times your capacity, scale, and color. Because― I'm not alone. Yes. Someone who helped me exists. People I will help exist. So―― get lost to your narrow glass-colored sky. Cheon Yoh-hwa."
Blink. Rattle.
A snowstorm swirled. There was no glass window. The table, the electric kettle on the table, the coffee cup, all were swallowed by the white snowstorm.
The wheel of time moved.
From the other shore to this shore.
Forward, 0 steps.
-Ah.
The Estranged God, the Infinite, Baekhwa.
In the white world, Cheon Yoh-hwa smiled. Even though her lips didn't move, the snowstorm crumbled and made sound.
-How, could it be this beautiful――.
The snowstorm rushed toward this side like a tsunami.
The moment I was certain this was the final struggle, I drew my cane-sword.
A long sword refined in the dwarf's furnace that had already vanished. Do-ha.
A single flash.
My ink-colored waves cleaved the Infinite's white snowstorm.
To the Infinite that had been collecting almost all the world's data, only this 'sword' was an irregular it could not predict.
Because Do-ha was a work created for me by the Lord of the Secret Workshop in a cycle other than now.
A masterpiece created by the foremost blacksmith of the Three Hans, who learned from the foremost blacksmith of the other world. A weapon that was already no different from a monster in itself.
Despite being the strongest weapon I possessed, I hadn't used Do-ha in this cycle. Not even once. I hadn't even drawn it from its scabbard, saving it.
Solely for this moment.
-――――.
The snowstorm split and split again.
The being called the Infinite was imprisoned in a glass prison without finishing what it wanted to say.
All the white of the world turned into snowstorm. The snowstorm again turned into white sand grains.
The desert sands swirled and swirled, until they came to rest in Cheon Yoh-hwa's palm.
An hourglass.
A world of glass walls filled only with white sand was held in Cheon Yoh-hwa's hand. A transparent membrane sparkled. A wheel made of two glass chambers.
The Infinite, was processed into time.
"Ah."
Cheon Yoh-hwa looked up.
There was no fog. There was no blood-red sky of the school ghost story. There was no birch forest like thorny vines, no hill of spider lilies holding shadows.
The sky was red.
Not the red of monsters but the red of reality. The color the sun emits when it strikes Earth's cornea. Sunset. Proof that this world is still alive and bleeding.
In the center of the athletic field. Around Cheon Yoh-hwa, who looked up at the sky, 98 hourglasses were scattered like flower petals. That was Cheon Yoh-hwa's Night Parade of Hundred Demons.
(Congratulations) 2 students admitted to ■■ University! (Celebration)
Flutter.
A tattered banner swayed at the school gate. Under that flag that once celebrated civilization, the echo of the wind resonated.
"Yoh-hwa!"
"Ajusshi!"
They were the students of Baekhwa Girls' High School. The children discovered us and waved their hands. That hand gesture was striking the sunset water.
It was a scene that looked quite far away.
Even so, it wasn't as far as the distance from the other shore to this shore.
"...Ajusshi."
I turned to look at Cheon Yoh-hwa's profile. The sunset light slipped and combed through her crimson hair.
"Come to think of it, I forgot to ask."
"Ask me anything."
"Why did you come to save us?"
Perhaps that was the last moment.
The moment I could decisively brainwash Cheon Yoh-hwa, who was born with the ability to brainwash others. The moment of receiving a name. A station where one could determine the direction of life.
Ridiculous as it sounds, if I had said here, "I heard an oracle telling me to help you," Cheon Yoh-hwa would have become an intense believer. If I had said, "Because the nation doesn't abandon you," she would have become a patriot without equal.
She was ready to hear any answer, prepared to accept any direction.
I thought for about a second, and returned the answers I had been thinking of for a long time.
"Because you are useful to me."
"......"
"The Infinite was a monster I absolutely couldn't defeat alone. I needed the help of the human who was chosen as the Infinite's shrine maiden. The reason you, Yoh-hwa, could command the Night Parade of Hundred Demons was because your very existence 'Cheon Yoh-hwa' had become somewhat identified with the Infinite. Winning you over to subjugate the Infinite. That was the best strategy given to me, and virtually the only strategy."
"...I see."
Cheon Yoh-hwa's expression cleared somewhat. She probably just accepted my answer as a 'setting' regarding her life's course.
"Yes, then――"
"And because I was curious about exactly how the worst tutorial dungeon in Korean history was created."
"......?"
"And because I wanted to truly track down the truth of those fairies I've been sick of seeing all this time. Also because I wanted to test whether a Estranged God-level monster could really be defeated. Ah, and naturally, I was also purely curious about what kind of person some crazy person who had finished all her self-brainwashing at Baekhwa Girls' High School originally was."
"Um, ajusshi? What does that mean......"
"Yoh-hwa."
I smiled.
"Finding a reason to live in this world is good. That alone is already admirable. But I hope you live with not just one reason, but a few more reasons, if possible."
"......"
"If a single drop of falling rain can make a person decide to die, then likewise, a single strand of music can become a reason to live. Even when helping someone, rather than helping for one reason, create multiple reasons. Profit. Goals. Curiosity. Self-testing. Simple amusement. Curiosity. Those thousand reasons are reasons that can kill a person, and at the same time, reasons that will let you live."
Those were exactly the same words Cheon Yoh-hwa had declared to the Infinite.
Even if it is truth, for a person to convince themselves of their own words, they always needed another person to speak those words in exactly the same way, but differently.
Rattle.
I opened my trunk and took out a document folder I had specially kept clean.
"That is......"
"It's a gift. You could also call it a dungeon clear reward. Originally, the tutorial fairy would give this, but I eliminated the person in charge here. Here."
In characters neat and tidy on high-quality paper rare to see in this era. My handwriting.
I took out a fountain pen, added a few characters, and handed it to Cheon Yoh-hwa.
――――――――――
[Graduation Certificate]
Name: Cheon Yoh-hwa
The above person has completed the entire three-year high school curriculum and demonstrated outstanding learning ability, and is hereby awarded this graduation certificate.
――――――――――
"......"
Cheon Yoh-hwa accepted the graduation certificate with both hands and looked down at it. Her shadow, standing still, settled onto the athletic field floor.
The name field that had been left blank and was just filled in was smooth like a bright shade.
"Congratulations on your graduation, Yoh-hwa."
I'll refrain from describing in detail what kind of reaction Cheon Yoh-hwa showed there.
I simply want to note the fact that a high school student crying at graduation is an entirely ordinary everyday scene.
Boss battle.
Monster Infinite.
Aliases: Infinite Hell, School Ghost Story, Night Parade of Hundred Demons, Baekhwa, White Transformation, Four-Character Taboo, Heraclitus's Wreath, White Room, Cheon Yoh-hwa
Danger Level: Lv.5 Estranged God
Subjugation complete.
20
There is an epilogue.
No, in fact, there are many epilogues. The stories related to the Infinite are not one or two. But those stories can always be put off for later.
Today, I will briefly describe what happened not long after the "graduation ceremony" ended.
I was walking through the corridor of the National Management Bureau headquarters.
"Ah! Teacher!"
From behind, a lively voice called out, followed by the sound of running footsteps― thap thap thap thap.
When I turned around, the former basketball club ace had instantly closed the distance and screeched to a halt. And then she playfully saluted.
"Yoh-hwa. What brings you to the Management Bureau?"
"Ahaha― I figured it's about time our guild's exclusive dominance in Sejong City gets recognized! I just came from a meeting with the Bureau Chief!"
"I see."
For reference, Cheon Yoh-hwa was still wearing the white sailor uniform. Not just Cheon Yoh-hwa, but the entire group called the Baekhwa Guild― composed of graduates from Baekhwa Girls' High School― was the same.
Well, uniforms have long been an effective method for building solidarity among members. There's no reason to abandon the powerful identity of "Baekhwa Girls' High School" now.
Or maybe, like Dang Seo-rin's obsession with witch cosplay, she might have gotten hooked on runaway uniform cosplay. Awakeners in the magic category are known to have particularly strong fixations.
I tilted my head.
"But 'Teacher'? Why not call me 'ajusshi' as usual?"
"Hehe...... You were born before me and have much more experience than I do, right? So I want to call you 'Teacher' with respect! Why? Do you dislike it?"
"No, I don't dislike it. It's just that suddenly changing from security guard to teacher feels a bit strange, that's all."
"Ahahaha. What are you saying? You gave me a graduation certificate!"
Cheon Yoh-hwa put her hands behind her back and looked up at me slightly. The smile etched on her face was distinctly different from the expressions the pre-117th cycle 'Cheon Yoh-hwa' used to wear.
A smile full of life and liveliness.
"I'll keep counting on you from now on too!"
I couldn't object to Cheon Yoh-hwa's change in title after all. Because, as I said at the beginning of this episode.
"――My teacher!"
This was a story about the time it took for the title of senior to change into the title of teacher.
- The Answerer. Fin.
An infinite regressor telling stories.