Chapter 99
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Savior A II
Shin Noah
True to my declaration to Noh Do-ha, from that day forward I went around being a "total piece of trash."
I kicked fairies for no reason and abused shop clerks. Badmouthing others whenever I had the chance was just the basics.
I even serialized a [Luxury Series to Enjoy at the End of the World] on SG Net, unleashing wide-range dickishness against all awakened ones on the Korean Peninsula. At first, I posted as 'Anonymous.' But I dropped subtle hints that it was a post by 'ZERO_SUGAR.'
- Anonymous: Breaking news! Evidence that ZERO_SUGAR = Luxury-sama.jpg
- ZERO_SUGAR: My. I've been caught.
Finally, I disguised it as an unintentional exposure of being the same person, putting the cherry on top.
I wore a smile of satisfaction.
At this level, anyone who saw it would call me sufficiently trashy...!
"Hmm... 6 points."
"...?"
Sim A-ryeon, who could be called an expert in this field, stared at the monitor beside me.
"If it were me, I wouldn't just make anonymous speculation about being the same person. I would keep changing IPs to post praise articles and comments about Luxury-sama. Vote manipulation goes without saying..."
"...!"
"The pinnacle of circlejerking is when you post nothing but shitposts but recommendations come pouring in, monopolizing the board's popular post list..."
"...!"
"You need to create a shitpost that can be called your signature, Guild Master. Honestly, the Luxury serial posts had too much effort put into them to be called shitposts... They're satisfying enough to feel vicarious satisfaction. That won't do. It has to be completely useless shitposts, where anyone can tell at a glance that it's manipulated recommendations for circlejerking. Beatboxing, singing songs, posting consistent posts no one cares about..."
"...!"
'In a group of three, there is always something to learn.'
They say when three people walk together, there is surely a teacher among them. I enshrined Sim A-ryeon as my teacher and was reborn as Apocalypse's piece of trash.
- Goryeojang: ZERO_SUGAR << if you like this bastard upvote lol
└Goryeojang: Starting with me lol
└Anonymous: you bastard you just upvoted
└Anonymous: you bastard you just upvoted
The Goryeojang circlejerk family (surprisingly, a group of followers existed who supported Sim A-ryeon as an SG Net named user) followed up with supporting fire.
If there's liking, there must be disliking for the world's balance to be maintained. Normal SG Net users started to detest me.
- [Samcheon] WitchTrialJudge: Why is Zero Sugar acting like this lately? Crazy?
- LiteratureGirl: Fuck, half the popular posts are circlejerking? SG Net is done for. Deleting account, peace.
└Anonymous: See you tomorrow!
- dolLHoUse: Oppa...
- [National Road] Historian: Seeing people who amount to nothing more than a handful clouding the entire board's waters isn't a pleasant sight.
- CookingQueen: Interesting.
Truly perfect results.
Now it was time for those infected with Savior Narrative Syndrome to come to their senses——
- [Baekhwa] HighSchoolSenior4thYear: Upvote lol
That time never came.
When Cheon Yo-hwa, the absolute leader of Baekhwa Girls' High School, pressed the recommend button, automatically hundreds of Baekhwa guild members' recommendations followed.
[Mr. Undertaker. I don't have much interest in SG Net activities.]
[But since you seemed to want to become a named user, I identified and exposed four awakened ones trying to slander you.]
[Please feel free to post with peace of mind.]
Why?
I asked Cheon Yo-hwa, who was slowly evolving from a koala to a sloth.
"Yo-hwa. Isn't my behavior trashy?"
"Huh? No. You sustained brain damage from overexerting yourself while saving us. Don't worry, Teacher! Even if everyone else in the world criticizes you, I never will!"
"...."
"We'll take responsibility for you for the rest of our lives!"
My pupils shook. Responsibility? For life? Students taking responsibility for their teacher? I'm pretty sure there was a gacha game similar to that before the apocalypse.
The tragedy didn't end there.
"Undertaker! I heard!"
Dang Seo-rin kicked open the door to my hideout.
"What?"
"Sorry! For not recognizing you...!"
Grab. Dang Seo-rin ran over like a character from a hot-blooded youth manga and fiercely hugged my shoulder.
I was flustered. Because Dang Seo-rin wasn't originally the type to do this kind of skinship.
"Not recognize me? What suddenly..."
"They said your brain got hurt while fighting anomalies! And that you were infected by a mental-type anomaly called Attention Seeker Syndrome...! Undertaker, why do you care so much about others without caring about yourself?"
"...Shit."
"Oh my! Anger management disorder anomaly too. I'm sorry, Undertaker. Was I too late? But don't worry. Even if you burn the whole world down, I'll be on your side until the end..."
I'm fucked.
"Wait, Dang Seo-rin. That's a misunderstanding. Exactly who fed you that fake news?"
"Hmm? The Constellations told me."
"...That's a lie. Think about it common-sensically, between the Constellations and me, which side is more trustworthy?"
"Hah? Obviously the Constellations."
"...Actually, things like Constellations don't exist. It's all a masquerade ball manipulated by one person."
"Ah."
Dang Seo-rin's eyes softened. She stood on tiptoe and stroked my bangs.
"I see. Mm-hm. You're right. The Constellations are all lies... Don't worry. There's nothing to worry about..."
This is crazy.
The back of my head went cold. Weren't Cheon Yo-hwa, the Saintess, and Dang Seo-rin the most powerful awakened lineup on the Korean Peninsula?
To think all three simultaneously caught Savior Narrative Syndrome, it was no exaggeration to say half the Korean Peninsula's power had fallen to the anomaly.
The other half—Noh Do-ha and I—went into another emergency meeting.
"Management Bureau Chief. We're fucked."
"Crazy..."
Noh Do-ha moaned, then suddenly widened her eyes.
"Wait, thinking about it, aren't you the only one who's fucked? I have no problem at all..."
"Hey."
"Think about it coolly, Undertaker awakened one... What's the harm to us from this rescue or whatever anomaly virus spreading? Powerful awakened ones just rely on you mentally a bit, but they were already doing that secretly anyway. Who dies? Does material damage occur? Do I get tired? No. Hmm, the more I say it, the more I think I don't need to be involved in this problem..."
"And if you get infected by the anomaly too, you'll come crying and clinging to me saying 'You were the world's savior all along'?"
"What the fuck...?"
"You know I have [Perfect Memory Ability], right? I swear here and now, if you don't help me, someday I'll definitely practice my art skills and be able to draw at hyperrealism level, like literally photograph level."
"Drawing...?"
"Yes. I'll draw you clinging to me extremely realistically. The title will be something like [Noh Do-ha Worshiping the Savior]. I'll print that picture in ultra-high definition and permanently pin it on SG Net. Forever. In every iteration."
"No, fuck, what is that, you bastard...?"
BANG BANG BANG!
The conference room door shook violently. Through the steel door designed to withstand nuclear explosions, people's voices could somehow be heard vividly.
- Teacher! Please open the door!
- Brother! Are you there, brother! It's me, Seo-gyu! I used my administrator privileges to make all your posts popular!
- Oh no... The Guild Master must be afraid to come out into the world. He received too many wounds, his mind has collapsed... This wasn't a sacrifice one person could bear from the start...
- Oppa. It's me, Ha-yul. Sorry. When you asked me to install an unbreakable security system from outside, I should have noticed. I regret it so much.
- We were wrong, Undertaker. Sorry. So please, can't you smile once more like before? Hm?
Goosebumps rose.
It was horror itself.
I'm confessing sincerely, but there hasn't been a time in the last few hundred years when anomalies were this scary. Scarier than Mugan.
I muttered seriously.
"Is suicide the answer?"
"Oh. That's a splendid method. I'd like to say 'Please go ahead and kill yourself,' but... Can you guarantee Savior Narrative Syndrome won't occur starting from the next iteration? Are you going to kill yourself every time this anomaly appears...?"
"Cowardly hitting me with facts."
"Come up with some countermeasure somehow. I don't want the iteration I'm currently living in to perish because of this fucking bullshit anomaly. You're an anomaly expert, aren't you..."
CRASH! The steel door shook like paper.
I spoke urgently.
"Management Bureau Chief, how about this?"
"Spout whatever bullshit you want..."
"We set it up so that the reason I helped those people was because I had ulterior and sinister motives. In other words, I approached them with lecherous intentions. So if it's revealed that what they thought was 'salvation' was just a misunderstanding and actually nothing more than my selfish desires, the premise of the Savior Syndrome itself would be destroyed. How about it? I just came up with it on the spot, but isn't it really perfect?"
"Don't do that, you fucking bastard..."
"...?"
"Just don't do it if I tell you not to. Fuck. Do you want to see the Korean Peninsula go to ruin? I said spout bullshit but you're really spouting any random nonsense, you crazy bastard..."
If this were the 555th iteration—that is, after meeting Oh Dok-seo and getting into web novels—I would have been able to analyze the current situation cool-headedly.
...This anomaly that started as just 'Savior Syndrome' triggered guilt in the surrounding characters because I did 'strange things I didn't do before.'
Especially hiding in Noh Do-ha's secret bunker was the worst move.
The plot of 'a protagonist who suffered mental wounds shuts themselves in their room' activated, deepening the guilt of surrounding characters, and the 'salvation' narrative eventually deteriorated into a 'regret, obsession, ruin' genre.
If I chose 'suicide' here, it would be even worse.
Perhaps this anomaly might even transcend my regression ability and develop into a maximum guilt narrative where 'the protagonist died from sacrificing themselves for us.' My life's genre would drift into ruin, and the worst anomaly in history that couldn't be defeated even with regression ability would be born...
In short, this anomaly's true identity wasn't 'Savior Syndrome.'
'Cliché.' That was the anomaly's true identity.
Genre literature had reached a point where even avoiding, twisting, and subverting clichés had become established as clichés.
Even my tantrum trying to change the salvation narrative was a cliché, making it a much more difficult anomaly to conquer than I initially thought.
Fortunately, thanks to Noh Do-ha stopping the suicide, I was able to avoid the worst bad ending.
'What should I do? Is making myself look like trash useless? But I can't actually kill innocent people or commit evil deeds.'
For reference, even if the current me actually committed 'evil deeds,' the situation wouldn't improve—only the side effects would worsen. That's a delicious development in ruin fiction.
'What on earth should I do...'
KWAAAAANG!
Finally, the steel door crumpled. Through the gap of the Abyss, faces I knew reached out their hands.
"Teacher." "Brother." "Guild Master..." "Oppa." "Undertaker."
Noh Do-ha was startled.
"Do something quickly. Except for the bullshit solution you proposed earlier..."
"Ah."
At that moment, inspiration like lightning struck my mind.
It was heavenly luck.
Something a salvation narrative protagonist would absolutely never do. Not only that, something not established in any work in the world, therefore something that could never be considered a cliché.
Without giving the impression of 'suddenly becoming a different person' to the surrounding characters, yet inherently unlikeable in itself... One of the characteristics I've kept for a long time.
A 'strategy' like a miracle existed for me, exactly one.
CRACK!
The steel door completely crumpled like a cookie, and the exit was fully exposed.
People approached zombie-like, swaying. Yes. The Korean Peninsula's last bastion, the National Road Management Bureau's underground bunker, had finally fallen.
Nevertheless, I didn't back down. I stood tall before those savior zombies like a general at the Battle of Changban.
And I shouted.
"Who wants to talk about [Romance of the Three Kingdoms] with me!"
Stop.
The savior zombies hesitated.
"What if Wei Yan's Ziwu Valley strategy had been accepted by Zhuge Liang? What if Ma Su hadn't climbed the mountain? What if Liu Bei hadn't lost at the Battle of Yiling?"
"...."
"Was Jiang Wei's Northern Expedition truly justified? Was Liu Shan really a foolish ruler? Surely no one here defends Cao Cao, right? The Xuzhou Massacre is an unforgivable great crime!"
"...."
Hesitate. Hesitate.
The savior zombies stepped away from me one by one. My eyes widened.
It worked! It actually worked!
I shouted even more loudly and approached the savior zombies.
"Listen! Shu Han alone is Ji Han, the legitimate government that inherited the Han Dynasty! Wei supporters are psychopaths, and Wu supporters are just mentally ill attention seekers!"
"...."
"Cao Cao massacred the people of Xuzhou claiming his father was killed, but in Wan, he coveted a widow and caused his own son's death! What kind of hypocrisy is this! With that, the unprecedented sociopath Cao Pi ascended to the throne, bringing tragedy——Cao Cao is truly the great enemy of the world and a sinner whose head should be smashed with stones! Dang Seo-rin!"
"Uh, um?"
"Let's talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms!"
"That... sorry. Something big happened in our guild. Actually, I came to see the Management Bureau Chief because of that. You look busy though. I'll come later."
"Yo-hwa!"
"Y-yes?"
"Want to talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"
"——Sorry, sunbae! I have a basketball appointment with the kids in a bit! I'll head out first!"
"Ha-yul! Seo-gyu! A-ryeon! You guys like Romance of the Three Kingdoms too, right? Let's go to Gisan this weekend and enjoy a Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical tour to find out why Ma Su tried to climb the mountain!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
Dash. Starting with Sim A-ryeon's scream—famous as a scream hotspot since the 1st iteration—the savior zombies fled.
The Savior Narrative anomaly had been vanquished.
Only Noh Do-ha and I remained in the conference room.
"...."
"...."
I looked back at Noh Do-ha.
Noh Do-ha's expression was—how should I put this—making a face that couldn't be described in words.
Pitifulness. Relief. Contempt. Annoyance. Disbelief. Pity. Irritation. Compassion. Hatred.
An extremely subtle and delicate mixture of emotions that could only be conveyed to others if I mastered hyperrealistic painting techniques and drew it.
"...Management Bureau Chief."
"Yeees..."
"Would you like to talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms with me?"
Silence.
Noh Do-ha moved her lips.
"...Fine. Whatever."
"...."
"I'll do it for you..."
I confess, honestly that answer hurt more than anything else. End.
4
Afterword.
"—That's what happened in the 126th iteration. Management Bureau Chief Noh Do-ha. That's why I bring up Romance of the Three Kingdoms whenever I have the chance. It's absolutely not because my tastes have aged, but solely as a preventive measure to protect the peace of the Korean Peninsula and the safety of the world by bringing up Romance of the Three Kingdoms bait whenever possible. That's the only way to prevent Savior Narrative Syndrome. What do you think? Can you recognize my noble spirit of sacrifice?"
"Bullshit."
- Savior A. Fin.
An Infinite Regressor Telling Stories