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I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 397
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I had confidence in my acting.
Having already lived for tens of thousands of years, it was, if anything, harder not to accumulate experience in every kind of art, regardless of field.
With even a small trace of aura, I could change my voice.
By shaping aura and layering it over the facial muscles, it functioned as a temporary makeup technique — a kind of living human mask.
“Ha-yul, peekaboo! It’s Daddy.”
“……”
“It’s Jung Sang-guk. Daddy’s come to his senses. Daddy loves Hayul very much.”
“Die.”
My colleagues gave rave reviews to my genius acting skills!
Across the entire martial world, there was only one person who could dare to compete with me in this realm — Oh Dok Seo, who had once entered “VTuber mode” through [Extra Story Writing].
But that Oh Dok Seo — even she couldn’t act as someone who had been sealed in time, could she?
Empathizing with Cheon Hwa from the heart was impossible for her to begin with.
So yes — trash.
Naturally, the only great actor who could play Yo Hwa’s “lost twin sister” was me, the Undertaker.
Now, all that was left was for Yo Hwa, inside her dreams, to recall the precious days of childhood she spent affectionately with her sister, and regain the memories she had lost from the beginning — and that would be the end of it!
It should have been a perfect calculation.
“I hate you, Sis!”
“……”
“You ate the chocolate ice cream I put in the freezer again! We can only have one a day, but you copied me and ate mine too! I hate you! I really hate you!”
Before my eyes — to be exact, within the dream — the little Yo Hwa was shrieking “Piiieeek!” in protest.
Now, all I had to do was arch my brows regretfully, bow my head, and apologize affectionately to my lovely little sister.
If I only did that, then a reasonably “good memory” would be imprinted into Yo Hwa’s subconscious.
When she woke up later, even if she couldn’t remember the exact scenery of the dream, she would at least retain that faint feeling of “I built memories with someone like family.”
But—
“Oh, really? I actually really love my little sister.”
Having already achieved the ultimate unity between myself and Cheon Hwa through supreme acting skill, my tongue moved on its own.
“Because of you, I can eat two ice creams! I love you, Yo Hwa. But since I can never get enough of chocolate ice cream, I think it’d be nice if I had just three more little sisters like you!”
“Waaaahhhhhh!”
In the end, Yo Hwa burst into tears.
“I hate you, Sis! Die! Waaahhh! Sis, just die already!”
“What’s going on, Miss?!”
Crash! Thud! Hearing the cries, the maids of the Cheon household rushed in from outside the door.
Immediately, not only Yo Hwa but also Cheon Hwa entered an impromptu crying performance.
“H-hic, Cheon Hwa— Cheon Hwa hit me! She scolded me so badly!”
“Wh-what?!”
“N-no, I’m Yo Hwa! I’m Yo Hwa— but Sis took my name away— she stole my ice cream too…”
“Waaaaaahhh!”
“H-hic, uaaang, uwaaahhh!”
The maids’ eyes shook violently.
Once again — Cheon Hwa and Yo Hwa looked identical.
Of course, the family had prepared ways to distinguish the twins, such as dressing them in different clothes, but even from a young age, clever Cheon Hwa had exploited those methods, deliberately acting like the “younger sister.”
The result was—
“I… hic, I really am Yo Hwa… She’s the older sister… So why… why only me…”
Because her speech skills were inferior to her sister’s, Yo Hwa was inadvertently identified as the culprit and forced to raise both arms in the hallway.
Meanwhile, Cheon Hwa, who had slipped out from the maids’ watch like an eel, stood before her sister, mimicking her crying face in pantomime.
“I’m the older sister— so why is it only meee—”
“Waaaaahhh…”
“Huuueeeng—”
“Sis, I really, really hate you…!”
“Kyaahahahahah!”
Cheon Hwa burst into laughter, rolling back and forth across the hallway floor. She rolled so hard that there was no need to wipe the dust afterward.
The true personality of Cheon Hwa— or rather, the actor playing the child version of Cheon Hwa, me—
I, the Undertaker, tightly shut my eyes deep within my heart.
“This is supposed to be a good memory?”
You tricked me.
“Hoe-ehh. The current target’s codename ‘Yo Hwa’ shows an affection level toward Cheon Hwa of five, when converted to numerical form.”
Inside the dream of little Yo Hwa.
A large mansion in Sejong City. The twins’ birthplace.
Of course, all the scenery around us was merely part of the dream — a set created through collaboration with a tutorial fairy.
In the backstage where the flow of time mixed and twisted, I whispered with fairy No. 264.
“I see. So the maximum affection level is ten.”
“Hoeht, no? It’s a hundred.”
“……”
“For reference, an affection level of five is even lower than that of a total stranger. Hoe-eehh, the sibling love of humans is really terrifying.”
“Ugh.”
I scratched my head. Of course, my current appearance was fixed as Cheon Hwa.
“This is strange. From what I felt, the Cheon Yo Hwa sisters were supposed to be closer than anyone in the world. So why, in childhood, did they act like they were desperate to kill each other…”
“Comrade Secretary-General, then wouldn’t it be fine to just perform the ‘ideal big sister’ and show it to her, ga-yo?”
“No.”
With a plop, I sat down cross-legged — a posture no proper young lady of a noble house would ever take.
A perfect model of a delinquent noblewoman.
I frowned deeply and muttered irritably.
“If I do that, instead of properly patching the hole in Yo Hwa’s heart, I’ll just be covering it up with another lie. It has to be restored as close to the true history as possible for Yo Hwa’s mental state to stabilize.”
“Hoe-eeeh. We fairies can just eat Cheon-ha Sausage and become happy, but the human mind is so complicated…”
“On that point, I agree.”
I looked around.
“Truly, it’s hard to tell what’s right in front of you.”
At first glance, the mansion seemed fixed.
But if I sharpened all my senses, the story changed.
“The young ladies, again…”
“Madam has died! It’s an assassination!”
“Police! Don’t move! We received a report of a murder here.”
“Aren’t our young ladies just the cutest?”
Whispering. Murmuring.
Shadow-like illusions ceaselessly crossed the hallways and gardens. Bang! Somewhere a gunshot rang out in broad daylight, while nearby, parishioners casually chatted.
Everything was jumbled together — time and space intermingled.
“Ts-tsk.”
I clicked my tongue.
“This is why I never liked entering other people’s dreams to look into the past. It’s practically the same as a void.”
“Hoe-ehh! Actually, Comrade Secretary-General’s dreams are unusually clean!”
The fairy hopped excitedly.
“Almost every human except the Secretary-General dreams of their pasts like this!”
“I knew that already.”
Whether one possessed perfect memory or not — that alone twisted dreams of the past into chaos.
Facts tangled back and forth, timelines melted into mush.
Not a metaphor — it truly was a void.
Even if I want to shape the dream as I wish, the situation doesn’t allow it.
If the tutorial fairies hadn’t been assisting, it would have been impossible to maintain even this level of order.
Just keeping the two characters, the Cheon Hwa I’m playing and the young Yo Hwa, stable and self-consistent was an achievement bordering on magic.
As for the other characters? All melted into the toxin of emptiness.
For instance, even the maids who had come rushing earlier to stop our quarrel—
“Ah-, ah-, ma-, ma-, ma-, ma-am.”
“So cute, both of you are so cute, I just want to nibble you.”
“Sometimes I can’t tell who’s who. So last night, I secretly peeled off the little lady’s fingernail. Now I’ll never confuse them again.”
The maids’ faces melted like candle wax.
The wax kept moving, forming human eyes, then drooping again into sagging flesh.
It hadn’t started just now.
Even earlier, when Yo Hwa and I had fought over chocolate ice cream, the maids had looked the same.
Only Yo Hwa, unable to sense the unnaturalness, had simply quarreled with her sister like a child.
…So my hypothesis was correct — there’s a hole in Yo Hwa’s past. That’s why the closer we approach it, the more emptiness spreads.
But one question remained.
Is it only Yo Hwa’s past that’s corroded by this void-toxin? Or are the other comrades of the Regression Alliance affected as well…
At that moment—
Thud!
Footsteps so heavy that the entire wooden corridor shook.
The maids, who until then had been chattering like shadows, all straightened their backs at once and lined up neatly along both sides of the hall.
The fairy trembled violently.
“Hoe-eeeh. It’s coming again!”
“……”
I twitched an eyebrow, unfolded my legs, and stood up, adopting a demure posture —
just like a daughter from an impeccable noble family.
Thud! Thunk, thud!
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
Before I knew it, fairy No. 264 had vanished, leaving only “Cheon Hwa” — me — at the end of the corridor.
I lowered my head.
Thud.
The source of the footsteps stopped in front of me, casting a shadow.
“Oho! Cheon Hwa! My proud daughter!”
I bowed even deeper.
“Yes, Father— I mean, Cult Leader.”
The master of this great mansion.
A dictator of a large Taoist-based cult rarely seen in Korea.
According to the records, he worshipped two minor gods — Mugan and Heukmak — and was the very culprit who had summoned them into the real world.
More precisely, this was how Yo Hwa’s memory remembered her father —
a shape formed from a child’s fear.
“Hey now, ‘Cult Leader’? Even you calling me that makes your father sad, Cheon Hwa.”
“Yes. Understood, Father.”
“Hmph! You’re grown now — how long will you appeal to mere blood ties instead of taking your place as successor to the Order! Today, I’ll take the rod myself in the Discipline Room!”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Cult Leader.”
His words were inconsistent, incoherent — but I was used to it.
That’s how voids are.
At times like this, you mustn’t let the opponent seize the initiative in conversation. No matter how flustered, you had to stay confident.
“I was reading the scriptures with Yo Hwa earlier. She misinterpreted a passage, so as her older sister, I scolded her a little. She should be reflecting now.”
“……”
Crackle— crack.
The shadow on the floor wavered, stretching long enough to reach the opposite ceiling.
“Ooh, Yo Hwa, you say? Yes, that child has always been slower than you.”
“Who gave you permission! How dare you two touch the sacred scriptureeeek!”
“You reviewed the section I taught you last time? How commendable. Truly my daughter — always making me proud.”
“Contaminated! Contaminated! The offerings for the Taeguk have been tainted and must be purified!”
“……”
I didn’t bother to reply.
Somewhere inside, I felt absurd — what kind of memory was being planted into such a young child? — but as a specialist in the void, I quietly waited for the right timing.
“So, which passage were you studying?”
Immediately, I opened my mouth — it was the question I’d been waiting for.
“‘The name that can be named is not the eternal name.’
It means that the things we designate have no inherent names; a name is always a temporary label.”
“……”
“Yo Hwa understood it that way. But I reminded her that you, Cult Leader, gave us the same name ‘Cheon Yo Hwa,’ and pointed out that not only the names of objects, but even her own name, Yo Hwa, is an illusion.”
Crackle, crackle.
“Oohh…”
“So then, embarrassed, Yo Hwa reflected on herself, saying one must look within before speaking of other things, and she volunteered to take punishment.”
“Excellent!”
At the roar of “Father,” the paper doors lining the hallway trembled.
“Yes! Cheon Hwa, your words are truly right!
The scriptures are precious only to those who accept them as their own story.
To those who treat them merely as another’s writings, they are nothing but garbage cast upon the ground.”
“My daughters, you two were destined from birth to accept our scriptures as your very own story.”
“Ahh! What a great blessing! Truly, Heaven and Earth themselves protect us! Do-beop-jayeon-ira!”
Beyond the melting candle-wax cheeks, the maids’ mouths moved in unison.
“Do-beop-jayeon-ira.”
“Our living Holy Body, my daughter, the successor of the Order, the savior of all people — how wise she is! Never neglect your cultivation, my daughter!”
“Yes, Cult Leader.”
“Wahahahahaha! Ha ha ha ha!”
Thud. Thud, thud.
Footsteps and laughter faded into the distance.
The maids, as if it were natural, followed behind the Cult Leader in perfect rhythm.
“……”
The past — before the button of world destruction had been pressed.
Beyond the walls of the vast mansion, ordinary modern people were surely living their everyday lives, yet the Cheon Yo Hwa twins were already dwelling in a broken miniature garden.
So, is this the time when the ‘private tutor,’ meaning me, came to teach the sisters?
There was time enough.
With the tutorial fairy’s assistance, I could stretch dream-time indefinitely.
Originally, I entered only to treat Yo Hwa’s psyche… but if I’m lucky, I might discover clues about the past.
And that wasn’t all.
Step. Step. Step.
There was one more set of footsteps following the cult leader and his followers.
Small, quiet steps — steady, containing a sense of life, unlike the residents of the void.
When I lifted my head, our eyes met.
“……”
“……”
We both bowed our heads silently, at the same time, without knowing who started first.
The other person kept a gentle smile and walked away with graceful steps.
So familiar.
So terribly familiar that it hurt.
As I gazed at that retreating back, I whispered in my heart.
“Go Yori.”
Except for the twin sisters, the only third person within this mansion full of void-corroded illusions who retained her form completely.
In the empty hallway, my quiet murmur spilled out.
“Why… why are you here, at this time, in this place?”
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