I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 417

Clang—.

Infiltrated the cult. Adjusted the timeline so that the “Cheon Hwa–Yo Hwa” twins would be born.

After their birth, I periodically approached them and influenced their ways of thinking.

They functioned as sacrifices dedicated to the Outer God, yet longed to remain free human beings.

That route required 13,160 lives.

Clang—.

Separation of the Outer God’s Taeguk, complete.

The Outer God could no longer manifest either Its true form or Its power. The phenomenon of the Outer God becoming alienated from Its own self was briefly termed the Alienated God (疏外神).

That route required 214,734 lives.

Clang—creak.

Grasped the nature of the Outer God’s monster wave. An army that endlessly devoured death and expanded itself.

From this monstrosity, I separated, cut off, and isolated the “ability of constant recovery”—the so-called “Heal” ability—and conceived a new monstrosity called “Udumbara.”

That route required 3,478,238 lives.

“……”

I looked down at my own hands.

“Time is running short.”

One might ask how someone who is both a reincarnator and a teleporter could lack time, but it was the truth.

‘No matter how long it lasts, each new reincarnation is only about forty years. Usually between twenty and thirty years of life.’

‘Within just thirty years, I must reproduce in reality every single strategy I’ve discovered so far.’

There was such a thing as too much work.

‘On Monday, I have to infiltrate the cult and win the leader’s trust as a believer. On Tuesday, I need to head to Turkey to prepare groundwork so the Monster Wave and Udumbara can be separated…’

‘On Wednesday, it’s the twins Cheon Hwa and Yo Hwa’s tutoring session again. I must cancel Seo-gyu’s trip to Japan so he doesn’t get caught in that accident. Next Thursday, if I leave things as they are, Noh Doha will die in a car crash.’

And, and, and—

“I can’t save everyone.”

The butterfly effect of the optimal route.

Whenever I—or Go Yuri—chose a particular route, the world was affected in some way.

As a consequence, children who were born in other routes were never born in this one.

Like Jung Seo-ah.

“…I have to abandon what must be abandoned.”

I had to save what must be saved.

Thus, it was decided that the billions of beings who had once been born—or could have been born—on this earth would be erased from history.

“……”

And one day, when I faced the Monster Wave, I came upon a bizarre scene.

—Uhh… ahh… ahh… ahh… ahh…

—Soo-yeon unni! It’s me, unni!

—So you were there?

The Monster Wave was a mix of the dead.

And among them, I saw faces—faces of humans who, in this timeline, had never once been born—faces of siblings, relatives.

“Ah.”

A bitter smile touched my lips.

The eliminated candidates from the Ark of the Reincarnator made of time. The traces of past lives.

“So even they… appear as monstrosities.”

Somehow, I’d suspected it.

No wonder there were more monstrosities than living humans.

Now I saw it clearly—the lives that could not be born in the current world were becoming monstrosities.

“The more I repeat life, the more exponentially the number of souls falling into that procession of the dead will increase.”

And yet, if I stopped reincarnating, the odds of humanity’s victory would plummet.

What a hopeless game this was.

“Ah, damn it, this is a trash game! I quit!”

Whip!

A young girl threw her game console. In this reincarnation, she had become my sister.

Her name was Oh Dok Seo.

“Unni.”

I said gently,

“That console’s expensive, remember? Last time you threw it like that, it broke, and you regretted it so much.”

“I don’t care! It’s not fun!”

Little Oh Dok Seo threw a tantrum.

Inside, I laughed emptily.

‘To think I’d live to see the day I’m born as Oh Dok Seo’s little sister…’

Regardless of my thoughts, the work Go Yuri had once carried out continued on.

“Hey! Read this!”

Oh Dok Seo had talent—the talent for writing.

“Ah, damn it. Why does no one read it…!”

Oh Dok Seo had no talent—for selling what she wrote.

“Well, that’s because, unni, your stories always make the characters miserable, they only interact through twisted emotions, and even then, it doesn’t make them happy—in the end, they all just fall apart together, right?”

“T—that’s the flavor! That’s the point!”

“Guess readers don’t like that flavor.”

“Hee-ing.”

If Go Yuri hadn’t been born as her sister—

if the reincarnator had not existed in this world—

then Oh Dok Seo would have abandoned her dream of becoming a writer around the age of twenty.

Though she preferred dark, distorted works, she herself wasn’t gloomy.

Good social sense. Quick perception. Above all, the grit to see her tasks through to the end.

She would have found a job that suited her and simply lived on, reading stories matching her tastes—as a reader.

“But I like them. Your stories, unni.”

“Huh?”

“When I read your writing, it feels so transparent. Like looking at beautifully carved ice.”

“……”

But Oh Dok Seo’s life was twisted.

From the moment she met Go Yuri—the reincarnator—me—it was irreversibly altered.

“R-really? Then… should I try entering a contest?”

“Yes! Unni, I’ll help you—as your most reliable reader and editor!”

“O-oh… uh, yeah!”

Oh Dok Seo had a sister.

“Ah! This character, the Count—so good! Hmm, yes. It’s that kind of story exploring whether the cliché that a beautiful girl deserves salvation can remain ethically valid even when pushed to the extreme!”

“Ah, yeah. Right…”

Her sister was so kind, so bright, so intelligent—

and she understood every line Oh Dok Seo wrote, just as Oh Dok Seo intended, perhaps even deeper.

“Unni, I also love how you describe scenery in your stories! Hmm… it’s like the objects are alive, squirming like tendrils.”

“T-tendrils?”

“Yes. The characters seem dead, while the objects seem alive. That contrast adds flavor to the reading experience!”

“Ohh… y-you really get it.”

Her sister was so considerate that she turned every experimental “technique” Oh Dok Seo tried—whether conscious or not—into solid “craft.”

It was the simplest advice to a reincarnator and regressor—

but enough to sharpen a child’s pen beyond measure.

Oh Dok Seo failed her first contest.

But there were five hundred readers in the world who sincerely regretted her loss.

She achieved that at just fourteen.

“Unni, if you change this sentence like this, won’t it sound even better?”

“Ooh! You’re right! Wow, my sister’s the best editor in the world.”

“Your writing is beautiful, unni. I can’t help but look closer each time.”

“Yo-yo-you even talk pretty! Wow, seriously, how did such a lovely sister get born into my family? Other people’s siblings aren’t like this at all. I’m a chosen one…”

“Ahaha.”

Oh Dok Seo’s talent began to bloom.

Oh Dok Seo became happy.

In this timeline—out of billions of lives where her flower never bloomed—it finally blossomed under the care of a reincarnator-regressor.

Oh Dok Seo became happy.

Her works were published. The decay embedded in her writing was poison, but humanity’s stomach had always loved poison—opium, mercury—it consumed it as if it were medicine.

She became famous in an instant.

After all, what kind of insane combination was this? A high school girl author and her little sister as her editor.

No sane journalist could resist hyping that up.

And those few journalists with enough conscience to worry that the girls were being overexposed were rewarded with single-digit view counts that day.

“Author-nim!”

“Praise me more.”

“Great writer!”

“More.”

“The grace and blessing of humankind in this age—greater than Shakespeare himself—our Grand Author Oh Dok Seo!”

“Ehehe.”

Oh Dok Seo gained countless readers.

Among them were three who could truly be called villains—her obsessed fans.

They were originally strangers, with no reason to meet.

Yet by someone’s design—by some manipulated “route”—they did meet.

And they realized they could share their evil.

“Huh?”

Evil was quick.

If evil had not moved so quickly, the world might never have become like this.

“Sis…?”

She lacked a sense of danger.

Because someone very close—someone who had always been with her—had whispered softly to her.

“Y-you’re… lying, right?”

The three formed a criminal group and raided the author’s house.

But “coincidentally,” the author wasn’t home.

And “coincidentally,” her younger sister—the beautiful one who had been celebrated by every news outlet as the author’s dearest sibling, editor, and childhood companion—was at home.

A bit of coercion. Resistance. Argument. Humiliation.

Provocations that seemed to pierce through all three criminals’ psyches and subconscious. They lost control.

And thus, Oh Dok Seo lost her sister.

“……”

Oh Dok Seo lost her only editor. Her younger teacher. Her friend. Her family who always played with her when new games were released.

She lost the first reader to ever read her writing.

Lost—to the anonymous readers of the outside world who had once made her happy.

“……”

Oh Dok Seo would have gone silent forever.

But her resentment was too complicated. She couldn’t hate novels themselves—because the person most precious to her was also tied to those novels.

She resented her readers.

But she couldn’t wholly hate them either—because her most precious one had been a reader too.

She didn’t want to write.

But only while writing could she feel her sister’s trace left behind in her words.

Oh Dok Seo’s soul tore apart.

And in that torn soul, a void was born.

A valley-like gap.

This world was made of wind, and humans were all cliffs—each dangling from the edge. And when the wind blew, the crushed rockfaces screamed their own cries.

Those cries were called Awakenings (覺聲).

“Hey. You.”

“……?”

To Oh Dok Seo, writing was a wound.

And she came to believe that only through wounds could one meet a true human being.

The reason was simple.

“You’re… my sister, aren’t you?”

“……”

Because her most precious being had always existed not in her present life, but within the lines of an afterword long since passed.

“How…?”

“I can read it, you know. It’s absurd, but when I read it, somehow I know it really happened.”

Even though they had never met in this life, the girl in front of me stared at me with conviction.

“Who are you?”

“……”

Go Yuri had been taken aback.

And I was startled as well.

‘Didn’t Oh Dok Seo used to read my biography as fiction?

But… she said at first, she read Go Yuri’s story instead?’

I asked myself why—then suddenly realized.

‘Ah.’

Play of All Phenomena.

The Alienated God that had slipped into Oh Dok Seo’s soul through the rift.

‘From the start, that Play of All Phenomena admitted it couldn’t distinguish between Go Yuri and me.’

A chill crept up my neck.

‘Just like me, now—’

‘I am Go Yuri—and at the same time—’

‘I am the Undertaker who inherited humanity within Go Yuri’s dream.’

Then, of course—

‘Oh Dok Seo can read not only the Undertaker’s story, but also Go Yuri’s—earlier than anyone, like a prophet.’

Not yet.

Oh Dok Seo’s foresight was still slow.

The Oh Dok Seo staring at me now could only “read” the one timeline where we had once been family.

‘But… once enough time passes—’

She will be able to read all of this as a story.

No—

She will one day seal all of this, in the form of a story.