I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 332

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: LiteraryGirl

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

Chapter 332

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The Self-Immolator I

Q: There’s an old saying that “people can’t be fixed once they’re broken.” Do you agree?

A: Yu Ji-won breaks that rule.

As shown in the previous story, throughout my long life as a regressor, there’s been no one who’s shown more dramatic growth as a character than Yu Ji-won.

Then again, perhaps I’m being too regressor-centric in my thinking.

“Good morning, Mr. Matiz.”

In truth, Ji-won hadn’t changed at all. She simply kept a landscape painting from her 14th summer, displayed deep inside her heart, exactly as always. The one who had actually changed was me, and since I had gone from being “Your Excellency the Undertaker” to “Mr. Matiz,” her attitude toward me also changed.

Yes, surely nothing else has changed...

“Mr. Matiz, did you sleep well last night?”

“Uh... Yeah.”

“That’s a relief. I recall you used to suffer from bouts of insomnia in the old days, but it seems to have fully cleared now. Here’s some chamomile tea I picked up. I’ll brew you a cup at night if you’re ever feeling lonely.”

“O-oh. Th-thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Even putting aside the fact that I didn’t realize I’d ever had insomnia, I had good reason to respond so awkwardly. After all, the location where Ji-won was speaking to me was none other than a conference room dedicated to our Regression Alliance in the National Road Management Corps main headquarters. In short, she was openly flaunting her rapport with me right in front of Noh Do-hwa, Seo Gyu, Cheon Yo-hwa, Sim Ah-ryeon, Lee Ha-yul, Oh Dok-seo, and the rest.

“Um, Teacher,” Yo-hwa called with a bright smile. “I’ve been a little curious for a while now. Why does the Operations Team Leader over there call you ‘Mr. Matiz’ anyway?”

“Ah, well, you see, Yo-hwa... Actually—”

“It’s nothing special.” Cutting off my reply, Ji-won answered, “Doesn’t the president of Baekhwa Girls’ High also refrain from using the alias ‘Undertaker’ when addressing you, choosing to call you ‘Teacher’ instead?”

“Sure, but I didn’t ask you.”

Yo-hwa’s interjection was ignored. “It’s exactly the same reason.”

“Eh?”

“The title the president gave you implies a sense of exclusive personal connection. It proudly displays a relationship that outsiders can never intrude upon,” Ji-won reasoned calmly. “It’s the same with me. You could say that in a way, I share the same sentiment as the president. Oh, though she is seven years late in forming her connection compared to me, of course. That’s the only difference.”

Yo-hwa smiled with her eyes. “Huh. Guess the team leader and I have similar personalities even though she’s a bit older. Hey, Team Leader, should I start calling you unnie?”

“That won’t be necessary. Since Awakeners no longer age anyway, you’d be stuck calling me ‘unnie’ forever, and that might feel a bit unfair to you.”

“Aw, why? Once someone’s your unnie, she’s your unnie for life. Team Leader, I never thought you’d worry about something like that.”

“Hmm. Actually, you have a point. You’ll never bridge that seven-year gap.”

The temperature in the conference room dropped. Do-hwa began wiping her glasses, Seo Gyu muttered something under his breath about SG Net being full of trolls while fiddling with his smartphone, Ha-yul suddenly started repairing her maid-doll, and Ah-ryeon had already been dozing off for a while.

“OMG! Hey, Mister! This is nuts!”

Only Dok-seo was whispering in my ear with shining eyes.

“I never imagined there’d be a rivalry angle between Yo-hwa unnie and Ji-won unnie! But now that I see it, it kinda works, huh? The two of them look like they’re hogging all the darkness in the world—you know, instead of all the light. It’s a real feast for the eyes.”

“You... No, forget it. You’re the reason I can still breathe, Dok-seo.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Of course it is. You have boundless imagination, so it’s no wonder the Admin of the Infinite Metagame picked you to be its miko.”

“Th-thank you?”

“Sure.”

Although, after she’d handed over every ounce of her strength to being that miko, she ended up beating fans senseless at a meet-and-greet... No one, not even the Anomalies, could have predicted the sheer power of a chuunibyou otaku’s imagination.

Do-hwa chose that moment to interrupt, placing her glasses back on. “All right, then. If you’re all done with whatever that was, let’s get back to the meeting...”

Both Yo-hwa and Ji-won quietly resumed their seats. In our alliance, disregarding Do-hwa’s authority was never acceptable, no matter what the situation.

Dark circles hung under Do-hwa’s eyes like weeping willow branches.

“As you all know, we recently discovered that many Anomalies, including the Ten Legs, can be eradicated via a proper funeral rite. But given that the number of Hollow roaming around out there is greater than the remaining living population, we can’t take care of every single body ourselves...”

And so, she shifted her gaze.

“Awakener Seo Gyu...?”

“Oh, right!” Seo Gyu said, holding up his smartphone in his right hand. “Based on the last meeting, we’ve created a brand new Missing Persons Board on SG Net.”

Thanks to the weight training I’d taught him, his shoulders and triceps looked especially robust. Incidentally, Seo Gyu had set up an outdoor gym on Haeundae Beach, which boasted around 40 active members. Even in the apocalypse, some folks apparently just couldn’t give up the iron.

“The Missing Persons Board has memorial portraits drawn by Ah-ryeon, and we’ve made the search function super user-friendly, so family members can find it any time.”

The delicate tension among the alliance members ebbed, and the meeting moved along.

“Oh, right. Guild Leader Undertaker...”

“Yes?”

“We’ve gotten another letter from that monk guy, what’s his name, Seok-hwa, I think? He says he plans to lead his fellow monks and believers in a ‘Trans-Korean Joint Funeral Service.’ What should we do...?”

“Hmm.”

“To me, it just sounds like a fancy way of committing mass suicide...”

Anyway, there it was. The “Seok-hwa” they just mentioned in passing—his Buddhist name—was the protagonist of this story. Sure, Do-hwa and I kept calling him a “dodgy monk” or a “renegade monk,” but plenty of folks out there respected him as the Venerable Seok-hwa.

While his name has only just appeared in this narrative, you might already be well acquainted with who he is. Where did he first show up, you ask?

“This is the might of the New Buddha!”

“If you believe in the New Buddha, you’ll be freed from every affliction and suffering, and granted a new body to live on in a brand-new world!”

It all goes back to the Udumbara story. He was the main instigator behind that pseudo-religion worshiping the Anomaly virus as a savior, aka the New Buddha Church.

“Immortal life through living flame! Eternal life in the floral realm!”

That man was none other than the renegade monk Seok-hwa.

The existence of a regressor in this world was not a blessing for everyone. While fortunes bloomed for Ji-won, there would always be others whose destiny was twisted beyond repair. The renegade monk Seok-hwa was one of those cases.

Up until around my 10th run, this ex-monk practically reigned with unlimited power. If you have a good memory, you might recall a conversation between Seo-rin and me in a very early cycle.

“Hah. These ‘flower guys’ are driving us to our wits’ end.”

“Right? In a world as hellish as this, it’s not surprising that people cling to a cult. The Neo Budhha Rebellion didn’t happen for no reason.”

We both sighed.

Even back then, Seo-rin enjoyed absolute dominance over Busan, yet not even she could get a handle on the New Buddha Church. The best she could do was avoid conflict by offering them massive gifts.

Still, let’s be honest: In an apocalypse, “donations” are basically bribes or tributes. We offered them valuables to purchase peace. In other words, if someone like Seo-rin, the ruler of Busan, had to deliver tributes under the guise of “offerings,” that should show how enormous the New Buddha Church’s influence used to be.

“Oh, come on now, dear Ms. Dang Seo-rin. Although you don’t yet enjoy the Buddha’s grace, you devote yourself to saving the Middle Ages. Why would We of the Flowers treat you poorly?”

Back then, Seok-hwa would smirk slyly, savoring the hierarchy of power between us.

He had every reason to be so cocky. After all, while we only controlled Busan, the New Buddha Church had extended its reach across the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese archipelago, and even mainland China. Even the dispatch of volunteer troops from Japan depended on the New Buddha Church, or more precisely, on Seok-hwa’s approval.

Whenever Seok-hwa held a rally, even in that mad apocalypse, tens of thousands of believers gathered, cheering wildly.

“People! What does “your overlord” mean? It is the flower blossoming on your very heads!”

“Waaaaaah!”

“Immortal life! Eternal flowering!”

However, all that changed drastically in the 41st run.

“Undertaker.”

The first impact.

“I found it.”

“In South Chungcheong Province, Asan. The Onyang region.”

That’s right. Everything shifted the moment the Saintess discovered the source of the Udumbara virus. From that point on, the downfall of renegade monk Seok-hwa, who had once ruled the Korean Peninsula, became inevitable.

Now then, do you remember how the New Buddha Church spread so quickly in the first place? Because people believed that if you had a flower blooming on your head, you could survive even if your limbs were cut off. Problem was, once the source of the Udumbara virus was eliminated, it became obvious that the New Buddha Church was just a cult with flashy speeches and decent organizational skills—nothing more, nothing less. And in the cutthroat world of apocalypse-era cults, that didn’t stand out much at all.

This land was like a poison jar for pseudo-religions. Only those that survived the infinite competition in hell had any shot at going global.

“Everyone! Seek your salvation in Paradise! The Buddha originally declared that this world is Hell itself.”

Even so, Seok-hwa refused to give up.

“It is because we live in Hell without realizing it that the Maitreya Buddha has bestowed upon us renewed suffering. As in earlier times, if we train ourselves and find enlightenment, only then can we enjoy glory in the afterlife. Namu Amida Butsu. A crisis is truly an opportunity. Attain enlightenment, my friends!”

“Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.”

He had about 500 to 800 followers left. Compared to the prime days when he dominated East Asia, it was pitiful. He was hardly a bottom-of-the-barrel case, though. In actuality, 500 believers might even seem mountainous to a self-identified cult leader who barely had ten. In the cutthroat cult scene, hundreds of zealots was still no small feat.

In another world, Seok-hwa might have been content with that. Sadly, it turned out that he just wasn’t destined to stay on top.

“Brothers and sisters! I, your shepherd, shall forge the way for you!”

“Our president is the best!”

“Mo Gwang-seo! Mo Gwang-seo!”

Then came the second impact.

Mo Gwang-seo Jesus Christ descended upon the “Eastern Jerusalem.”

“The president has resurrected!”

“It’s the Second Coming, a miracle of rebirth!”

In a land where other cults mostly boasted “miracles” in name only, Mo Gwang-seo literally performed showstopping miracles hundreds or thousands of times. It was no wonder a huge shift in the pseudo-religion power scene took place.

“Hey, they say that Jesus guy, Mo Gwang-seo, was it? He just keeps shining and reviving no matter how many times you kill him.”

“Doesn’t our monk have anything flashy like that?”

“Nothing, other than that shiny head of his.”

That day, Seok-hwa lost four-fifths of his faithful. Yet he pressed on.

“No! Do not be fooled by something as heretical and absurd as resurrection! The truth we must focus on is cultivating our own minds, not indulging in flashy supernatural nonsense! Attain enlightenment! Enlightenment!”

“Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.”

Still, Seok-hwa retained a die-hard core of about 100 to 150 followers.

He was now well and truly in the mid-tier bracket, but in the world of apocalypse cults, having a hundred people was nothing to scoff at. Again, there were plenty of pitiful wannabe cult leaders out there who didn’t even have ten. Maybe he’d even become the king of the mid-tiers.

But even so, it seemed Seok-hwa was not fated for a royal path.

“Saintess. So that’s the Saintess...”

“They say Jesus has called upon Santa Maria!”

And the third impact was none other than our unstoppable superstar, Sim Ah-ryeon.

“Uwooooooh!”

“Hallelujah! The Lord beckons!”

Ah-ryeon was basically a “walking Udumbara”—the perfect upper-tier replacement for the New Buddha Church. Everywhere she went, flowers bloomed, and the injured were healed. She was even gorgeous (provided she kept quiet, washed her hair regularly, avoided using her smartphone, and wore something nice).

Seok-hwa’s last remaining 100 followers took a good, long look back at their monk.

“What about our monk...?”

“He doesn’t really have a sparkly anything, aside from that shiny head.”

“He can’t even heal people who are on the verge of death.”

“So what can he actually do?”

That day, Seok-hwa lost nine-tenths of his last faithful, ending up with barely a dozen left. Those final dozen were truly devoted, because in a world where an “un-killable fake Jesus” and a “(fake) saintess who can heal people for free” were walking around, anyone who still chose Seok-hwa had to be at least a little fanatical.

Thus, at last, Seok-hwa truly hit rock bottom. Even though later runs saw humanity with higher survival rates and better quality of life overall, ironically, the renegade monk’s fate just got more and more miserable.

“Ahhh! Look who’s here!”

Perhaps that was why when I stopped by his place in the 802nd cycle, the sight of him running out barefoot to greet me had a strange feeling welling up in my chest.

“Well, if it isn’t the esteemed Guild Leader Undertaker! Oh ho ho! It’s such an honor to have a noble guest in this humble abode!”

Back in his heyday, he lived in a luxurious temple as grand as a palace. But here, in the 802nd cycle, Seok-hwa was occupying a shabby hermitage. No more throngs of envoys delivering tributes from every guild leader. Now he just had an empty yard where dust blew around.

His behavior toward me reflected that gap in status. In the old days, he would never have bowed and scrambled like this.

“I heard you’re planning some sort of cross-country funeral procession,” I said. “I came to discuss it.”

“Ohhh, yes indeed! That’s exactly right! Actually—come in, come in! I can’t let an honored guest stand outside! Right this way, Undertaker! Please, follow me. Oh ho ho.”

What can I say?

In front of me stood the man whose life had plummeted to rock bottom purely because of me—because of the existence of a regressor.