I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 416

The world perished.

It was the 2,230th destruction.

‘So this is the life Go Yuri has walked.’

Each time destruction was repeated, she was born as a different person, in a different position, as the child of a different family.

However, the scenery of destruction remained similar.

While Outer Gods sang songs, harvested screams, and in a world dampened by the rain and moisture rising from the underground, I blankly exhaled a single breath toward the gray sky.

“Ah, this isn’t easy… really.”

–Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

Slice. My neck was cut off by a monster.

A world where Returners did not yet exist, where even to exist, one had to still undergo the destruction of Hanghasa.

It was the ending of the ‘first round’ that had already been repeated for the 2,230th time.

Hình dạng

Returners and Reincarnators.

What is the biggest difference between the two?

As the Undertaker, the first witness in human history to have experienced both sides, I could answer confidently.

‘The boundary of the ego is blurry. For the Reincarnator.’

How should I express it?

For a Reincarnator, the boundary stone placed between “me” and “others” wobbled like transparent jelly.

“Uh, C–Commander…?”

“Yes. Ms. Shim Ah-ryeon.”

“Why are you treating me so kindly? I–I mean, thank you for bringing food. I really am thankful, but… why me?”

For instance, Shim Ah-ryeon right before me.

In that night of A Thousand and One Nights that already felt like a distant past—just as Go Yuri had told me in that exhibition hall—

I too had once experienced a “reincarnation,” born as Shim Ah-ryeon’s younger brother.

Was it because of that?

I couldn’t see Shim Ah-ryeon as a stranger.

“Hmm. It’s because you don’t feel like a stranger to me.”

“W–What?”

“Whenever I look at you, Ms. Shim Ah-ryeon, I feel at ease for some reason.”

Smile.

I smiled in order to convey my feeling as it was.

“U–Uh-heh… somehow that’s… embarrassing.”

Even while flustered, Shim Ah-ryeon nibbled away at the digestive biscuits I had secretly taken from the reserve storage, like a hamster.

She wasn’t the only one.

“All clear.”

The soldier who saluted me as I walked through the hallway of the underground bunker established on the Final Defense Line.

“Commander!”

The woman who cautiously approached me while I patrolled the civilian sector, trying to hand over even a single piece of fruit.

“We’ve completed preparations to launch the ship to Jeju Island. The moment you give the order, we can commence the operation. Sir.”

Even the officer of the Final Defense Line who sat across from me in the operations meeting.

‘All of them, my family.’

Others did not feel like others to me.

And the others, too, did not feel me as someone other.

‘Ah.’

That was right.

‘A Returner is ultimately an individual who endlessly relives his own single life.’

‘Whereas… a Reincarnator is someone who, each time, becomes another person and lives by mingling among others.’

There is a hypothesis.

There exists a personality A and a personality B. The two were originally separate humans.

But one day, personality A gains a strange ability — to be conceived at the exact same moment as B, to be born, to live under the same parents and same environment, to tread through the same life trajectory, to live along the exact same route.

Then, is A a different being from B? Or the same?

‘You can’t tell them apart.’

Reincarnators — and especially infinite reincarnators like Go Yuri — were beings like that.

Those who cannot be separated.

Each time they experienced reincarnation, their personalities changed. Their way of dealing with people changed too. It was only natural.

When even their DNA changed completely, how could they possibly maintain an identical personality?

They could only accept it.

That as they lived and died, they were gradually transforming—not into “me,” but into “us.”

Their existence as “red flesh.”

“…Ahaha. Indeed.”

The deepest part of the bunker.

I, who had already become the sole dictator of the Human Alliance and the commander of the Final Defense Line, muttered to myself in the solitary cell.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to become one. I was already one from the beginning. I’m merely returning to the state where I had always been one.”

Kuuuuuuung—!

At that moment, the underground shook.

The Outer God “Hecate” had unleashed a meteor shower across the night sky, bombarding the entire surface of Earth.

Feeling with my whole body the tremors that turned the planet literally into ashes—

I ended that life.

Hình dạng

Time of destruction passed.

‘Now, I can finally, truly understand Go Yuri’s thoughts.’

I had already undergone hundreds of thousands of reincarnations.

And amidst that, Go Yuri must have already realized faintly, with a degree of certainty—

‘I will inevitably turn into a monster someday.’

It was a constant.

How this world would ultimately end was still unknown — whether for humanity it would be a bad ending, a normal ending, or, beyond all hope, a happy one.

However, regardless of what path humanity took, the ending of Go Yuri—the Reincarnator who was both one person and all people—was already fixed.

‘The worst Outer God.’

When the “red flesh” arrives someday, people will not feel disgust. They will not hold hostility either.

Rather, they will welcome it.

‘A longing for a lost being. A nostalgia for the happiest life. A fate far happier than this hellish world could ever offer…’

Such an ending.

‘The One (一者).’

Even though she clearly knew that such an ending awaited, the Reincarnator could not stop reincarnating.

‘Because the moment I stop, humanity loses its only remaining chance to oppose the monsters.’

Therefore—

‘If I separate my human self and my monstrous self beforehand, I might skillfully avoid the catastrophe already predetermined at the end.’

A vivid realization struck.

‘But how can I separate [Go Yuri as a human]?’

It was simple.

‘…If I could make it so that the memories I lived as a human, each and every sadness and step, could all be [remembered]…’

Perfect Memory Ability.

‘Then, by finding or creating such a person—letting them become one with me—to experience the life I’ve lived as me—’

The Undertaker.

“……”

One who is both himself and another.

“That’s right.”

A smile spread on my lips.

“This is what I’ve been doing.”

The process of the work.

Stage 1: Reincarnation.

Repeat reincarnation until humanity becomes strong enough to stand against the monsters, creating Awakeners in the process.

Stage 2: Corruption.

At this stage, Go Yuri already suffers irreversible side effects of reincarnation.

She collapses into red flesh and collects all her family members—becoming a single Outer God, the One (一者).

Stage 3: Elimination.

Spread the [Udumbara] virus upon Go Yuri in that state. Erase the power of reincarnation.

Furthermore, use [Time Seal] to erase the existence of Go Yuri herself from this world.

Stage 4: Replacement.

However, the memories and experiences Go Yuri lived as a human are fully transferred to the “Returner” — the Undertaker.

The Undertaker possesses Perfect Memory.

Even after billions upon billions of reincarnations, he can still retain and preserve his humanity.

Thus, the Returner who has experienced the entire life of the Reincarnator Go Yuri—

‘Can remain more human than Go Yuri herself. Even more human.’

Vrrr.

My shoulders trembled.

A light shiver.

‘From the being destined to become an Outer God to save humanity… I am stripping away the monstrous side, leaving only the human nature.’

As a rocket discards its boosters—

After removing the Void that drags humanity into hell, I will restore a world where humans can live as humans.

In that world, there will no longer be monsters.

Including the red flesh—the Reincarnator’s own end.

“Ah.”

What a magnificent plan.

What an— exquisite suicide.

‘Go Yuri and the Undertaker.’

‘The Undertaker and Go Yuri.’

Indeed—

‘The declaration to become one was no empty word.’

Now only one question remained.

‘After inheriting all of Go Yuri the Reincarnator’s memories and personality, and still continuing as the Undertaker the Returner, what kind of [me] will I be…’

In the world where humanity finally wins—how should I live?

“……”

I didn’t know.

I couldn’t know.

Even a Reincarnator and Returner who had lived countless lives had never lived a life “after the happy ending.”

An unexplored domain.

“…For now, I should focus on living through Go Yuri’s lifetimes.”

Even that was no easy task.

As I murmured to myself, once again, due to my failure to control variables, the surface was turned to ashes by Hecate.

The 93,248,578th death.

The 93,248,579th life.

‘What if I reverse the idea?’

Hecate was overwhelmingly powerful.

She commanded all the celestial bodies of the solar system as her limbs, and could at any moment summon meteor showers to strike down meteors. The power balance was utterly insane.

‘But as I am now, I can construct a strategy with much more flexible thinking.’

Because I had lived as Go Yuri.

Because I had been the very person who pondered most deeply on how to inherit her human self before becoming a monster, I could arrive at an idea.

‘I’ll deceive Hecate.’

If I deceive her—how?

‘Make her mistake herself for a human!’

A stunning reversal of thought.

If my other reincarnated selves had heard this, they’d have clapped their hands, saying, “Crazy. You’ve gone mad.”

‘Hecate is, in the end, a shooting star.’

‘So she reacts to human wishes. Let’s use that trait.’

‘Select one offering—someone who more than anyone else wants to live and die as a human.’

The offering.

Later, because of how it sounded, I’d start calling them a “shaman,” but honestly, “offering” was the more accurate expression.

‘Make that offering wish. To live as a human, and to die as a human—to pray that wish to the star in the sky—’

‘Wouldn’t that work?’

My heart thumped.

‘That terrifying Outer God—Hecate—would mistake herself for a mere human! She’d believe it herself!’

A sort of experiment.

Go Yuri—and I—had feared most of all the ending where we became a monster.

So it was only natural to try an experiment in making a monster human.

“Who would be the most suitable offering?”

Go Yuri thought.

‘…….’

I, the Undertaker living Go Yuri’s life, already guessed the project’s conclusion.

“The desire to live as a human—it’s a very peculiar one. Ordinary people rarely feel such a wish. Hmm. When do people become possessed by such a strange desire…?”

It would be when their humanity was violated.

“So they’d have to die miserably at the hands of a monster.”

And not instantly either.

“Preferably slowly. Yes. So that they can fully realize just how humiliating a death they’re meeting—slowly.”

Dying alone wouldn’t be enough.

“Ah, and their family must die in the same way. Because people often feel greater rage when their family suffers than when they themselves do.”

The candidate for the offering had to be someone radiant in humanity.

“They must be someone who lives with the most harmonious family. I’ll remember this point for future reincarnations. If I see an opening, I’ll attempt it.”

……

“Hmm, this one’s a bit…”

……

“This one too. Failed. I guess human hearts tend to desire power and revenge rather than wanting to remain human.”

……

“Ah.”

……

“Found her.”

Dang Seo Rin.

“Her taste… Harry Potter? Perfect. Especially since Hecate’s manifested form resembles a witch. Hmm. The compatibility seems good!”

I see.

“Now let’s set up the plan. In the next reincarnation, I’ll aim to be born as the youngest child in her family, and open that route.”

So that’s what it was.

“I’m confident when it comes to dying miserably. But whether Hecate will fall for the trap according to my plan—questionable—”

Time passed.

“Success!”

Go Yuri exclaimed.

“Success… success! Unbelievable. I… I did it! Ahhh, ahhh! I! I! Hecate! The cursed Outer God of the night sky! The ruin disguised as the granter of mankind’s wishes! I—ahhhhh!”

Go Yuri wept.

“I did it, everyone. Mom. Dad. Everyone! I… no, never mind. From now on, to make sure this miraculous route can be reproduced again, I have to study the methodology even more thoroughly.”

Dang Seo Rin was already a dead being. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The minor Outer God I knew as “Nut” was nothing but fragments of the shattered Hecate.

The living hell where every time humans consciously or unconsciously made a wish, the night sky unfolded and meteor showers fell—that no longer existed.

Now only once every seven years, or at shortest once a year, meteors of the Void occasionally fell to Earth.

Compared to the hell Hecate had created, those periodic meteor “drops” here and there were nothing.

“Ah. Hmm… indeed. It was essential that her family ran a flower shop. Right. A fulfilled family dream creates an even more ideal and harmonious setting. This is something I can always manipulate secretly.”

Time passed.

“When Dang Seo Rin has at least two younger siblings, her wish becomes the strongest. A sense of responsibility as an older sister? I’m not sure… but fixing that too.”

Time passed.

“—Done.”

Time passed.

“June 15th. The family of Dang Seo Rin, who runs a flower shop in Busan, will be annihilated. The family members will be as they are. Dang Seo Rin will die last. …Beautiful.”

The Reincarnator carved the route.

“From now on, no matter who I’m born as, or what life I live, this ‘June 15th’ incident must absolutely occur.”

Dang Seo Rin’s death was confirmed.

“……”

The Reincarnator—Go Yuri—felt a faint unease.

It wasn’t guilt toward Dang Seo Rin.

Feelings of apology were like wallpaper that had always been pasted across her heart anyway.

“Ah.”

Rather than that—

“No matter who I reincarnate as now, I must absolutely preserve every timeline related to Dang Seo Rin?”

The route was fixed.

The Reincarnator’s schedule, which had practically been free, was now bound by slight restrictions, like a weak chain.

Just as a certain Returner’s schedule calendar had once been completely filled for seven years straight.

That was the sense of incongruity.

“…Hmm. Well, if it prevents Hecate’s hell, it’s a price worth paying.”

The Reincarnator regarded the light chains on her wrists and ankles not as obstacles—

But rather as medals of honor, proof of the great feat of having shredded the Outer God Hecate.

And then—

“……”

Splash—.

Go Yuri looked down at her feet.

Leather boots.

She knew full well that what looked like puddles were actually the blood of an Outer God. She hated even a single splash of muddy water touching her, so she always wore leather boots.

“Leviathan…”

Looking at her reflection in the puddle, Go Yuri—my lips—murmured.

“Perhaps this one, too, can be offered up in the same way?”

Clang. Click.

Somewhere, the sound of chains could be heard.