I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 432

“Heuuu……”

Was my face, dripping with cold sweat, that much of a spectacle?

Noh Doha gave a short laugh, like someone who had just come back from a pyramid trip with her friends and said, ‘Hm, so that’s all?’

“In any case, the choice is yours. This was simply the method that Oh Dok Seo suggested. You’re not obliged to follow it……”

“Then I’ll refuse it with all my strength!”

“Well, suit yourself. Though personally, I was curious to see what kind of shitshow you’d put on……”

Noh Doha put down her tools.

I swallowed hard. To her, that gesture probably just meant she was done working, but to me—who saw that doll as something like ‘the Undertaker’s android prototype No. 2’—it felt like I had barely escaped being drowned in cement.

“……”

“……”

Once the hammering stopped, the very core of this dream-within-a-dream went deathly quiet.

4 A.M. The kind of hour when you step out to buy something from a convenience store, and there isn’t a single car or person in the intersection—the moment when even the night sky seems to hold its breath.

Like that time when I stood in the middle of a crosswalk that kept flashing red and green for no one at all, a white silence stretched between us.

“What are you thinking so deeply about?”

“Why don’t you try guessing…….”

“Let’s see.”

I traced the black letters over the white manuscript of silence.

“You must be feeling joy.”

“Joy? Hoh. Me, you say……?”

“Yes. Commander Noh Doha has always separated her past selves from her current self. Always.”

“……”

Noh Doha glanced sideways at me.

Regardless, I straightened the silent manuscript before me.

“But now, at this very final moment, all the memories of your past and the destinies of your future have been handed to you. You have finally crossed the torrent of time that could never be crossed.”

“……”

“Now you can freely look down upon every version of yourself from every previous loop. The you standing here at this moment has achieved the ultimate victory. So yes, in your own way, you are rejoicing.”

“Huh.”

A nasal sound slipped from Noh Doha’s lips.

“What a disgusting bastard……”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Believe it or not, I’m in a pretty good mood right now……”

I could tell that much just by looking at her.

There was no way that Noh Doha, of all people, would have taken part in some ridiculous ‘Undertaker Project’ just because Oh Dok Seo asked her to, without any reason.

Even without mockery (which, for Noh Doha, was practically normal communication), the mere fact that she was teasing me so lightly meant her satisfaction level was well above 70%.

“I mourn for my past selves. I mean, for tens of thousands of years, all I did was work, work, work. Nothing but memories of being buried in paperwork……”

“Haha.”

“At least being here in this strange place keeps the memories vivid. But when everything’s over, it’ll all blur away……”

“Oh Dok Seo said that?”

“Yes. That’s why, she said, we have to share our retrospection before the conquest ends, not after. Once the dream-within-a-dream is eradicated, even the memories piled up like residue here will fade away……”

Indeed.

This very magic, where everyone recalled their previous loops, was a byproduct of the dream-within-a-dream—no different from the void toxin in essence.

If the main body, the Void, was conquered, the byproduct would naturally vanish as well.

—Woof!

From the entrance of the Tower of Babel, a large dog came running.

Noh Doha knelt down in a practiced motion and petted the massive Maltese.

Pant pant pant.

Its tail wagged.

Behind it, more pets shuffled forward.

One puppy’s front and back legs were uneven and trembling; a cat with three tails swished them like whips.

“There, there……”

Hundreds of pets.

All of them creatures of a broken world—missing limbs, bodies that didn’t fit right.

They were the pets I had once given her, the ones she had raised, and the ones we had buried together in past loops.

Each one, after receiving even a single stroke from Noh Doha’s hand, melted away into ashes.

“……”

A short while later, only white ashes fluttered across the plaza of the Tower of Babel.

Noh Doha brushed the ashes off her doctor’s coat and rose to her feet.

“Undertaker.”

“Yes. Speak, Commander.”

“Every time I killed you, you never resisted. You accepted death. Why?”

“Because I was the one who dragged your life into this place.”

The same answer as always.

But the strata beneath that answer had changed.

“For my destiny, Go Yuri arranged nearly everything. Nearly everything. But she did not foresee that you would become this important in my plan.”

“……”

“Yes. You too awakened because of Go Yuri—a crack opened in your heart because of her. But your ability isn’t anything great. Prosthetic Fabrication? Hardly fit for a protagonist, not even for a supporting role.”

Meaning—

“You didn’t join this story because of Go Yuri. You carried all this suffering because of me. The false regressor.”

“……”

“So I bear responsibility. Others may not, but you alone have every right to kill me as many times as you wish.”

Noh Doha’s lips curled upward.

“Even now?”

“……”

“If I say I don’t like this ending—that the path you and Oh Dok Seo built doesn’t suit me—and I refuse it, what then?”

She stepped closer.

“Still……?”

Her thin fingers closed around my throat.

Through the black leather glove came a faint pressure.

“Will you still let yourself be killed?”

I smiled.

“I’ll accept it. But you won’t kill me.”

“Oh?”

Behind her monocle, her eyes gleamed with curiosity.

“And why is that? Do you think my affection for you has maxed out so much that it prevents me from killing? That would be a serious miscalculation……”

“It’s not that.”

As I answered, I thought—

Why did Oh Dok Seo place Noh Doha at the final station?

She herself said it was because of her Void affinity, but Oh Dok Seo had always pushed that absurd ‘Old Captain couple’ nonsense since long ago.

As always, Oh Dok Seo had given her a choice.

“Even if you kill me now, we’ll meet again. Here. Again. In the next round.”

“……”

“And if you kill me again then, it still won’t be a ‘new choice’ for you. You’ll just be repeating what your past self did before. And you……”

“And I?”

“Hate nothing more than becoming a copy of yourself.”

“……”

“How long will you keep killing me? A thousand times? Ten thousand? But one day, it will end. And at the very end, you will choose to let me live. The one who remains in this world will be the version who made that final choice—not the you standing before me now.”

“……”

“Only by sparing me here will you become the one, unique victor—the human freed from the curse of regression. Noh Doha. Therefore, you can never kill me.”

“……”

Slowly—

Her leather-gloved fingers loosened and drew away.

“To think you’d actually pull it off.”

Her voice, escaping between her lips, was closer to a curse than admiration.

“To say you’d save the world, and actually do it. Truly, remarkable.”

“I couldn’t have done it alone. It was possible only because Go Yuri came before me, and Oh Dok Seo came after.”

“……Anyone who bets and loses must accept the price.”

Noh Doha removed her monocle.

“I won’t say this twice, so listen carefully……”

Thunk. The folded monocle fell and rolled across the ashes.

A soft crunch followed—a whimper from the lens as her shoe crushed it.

She stripped off her gloves.

“This is your victory, Undertaker.”

“……”

“And my defeat.”

Then she took my hand.

The back of my hand felt cool as she brought it close to her pale forehead.

“You were right, and I was wrong. You were careful, and I was reckless. My scorn came too early for the final harvest.”

Grip.

Because her head was lowered, I couldn’t see her face.

But her hands spoke for her—hands scarred from years of hammering and handling tools.

“I pay my respects for everything you’ve accomplished. Even if my memory fades, the fact that you exist will never be erased from my heart.”

Emotion pulsed through her calloused fingers.

“Win, Undertaker.”

Humiliation.

“Seize your victory.”

Disgrace.

“You, who have walked this far, are worthy of it.”

Yet even while accepting defeat as defeat and honoring victory as victory—

She bore the shame of the loser, and turned that same weight into glory for the winner.

“May fortune be with you.”

If somewhere else—at the end of some other forgotten route—the roles of victor and loser had been reversed,

She would have done and said the same thing there too.

“I’m sorry for killing you so many times.”

If a human voice could hold color—

“Instead, one wish.”

Then her breath would be dripping with the crimson chill of blood.

“Whatever you wish for. Even if it tears apart my soul, I will grant you one wish.”

A brief silence.

“All right. A wish. I have one.”

“……What is it?”

“After this is over, you should run for president.”

“You f***ing bastard. Do you really want to die?”

The sincerity in her outburst was undeniable.

I scratched my head.

“Hm. You’ve ruled organizations on a continental scale for tens of thousands of years. Isn’t wasting such talent a national loss?”

“Seriously? That’s your wish?”

“I’m joking. There are limits to how much you can refuse to let someone retire. Someone like you, Ms. Noh Doha, should finally lay down her official duties.”

I bent down and picked up the gloves.

Then I pressed them gently back into her hands, smiling faintly.

“Let’s not live too far apart.”

“……”

“We don’t have to be too close, but there’s no need to be too far either. When walking down a street under the evening glow… when you take a little detour on your way home… somewhere you can call and meet without having to dress up specially……”

When it rains there, it rains here too.

When waves crash there, they crash here too.

When the sun is gentle, the same gentle light casts its shadow upon you.

“I hope you’ll be there.”

If a sunset is beautiful to someone, it’s because the paths beneath that red light sometimes lead to a neighbor’s home.

In the west of my sunset, I needed your house to face the same direction.

“Will you, Ms. Noh Doha?”

“……”

Noh Doha pressed her lips together.

A long silence.

Words from her heart steeped there until they rose slowly to her throat.

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“I will, Undertaker.”

Immediately—

“Mister!”

Creak!

A door appeared out of nowhere, and Oh Dok Seo burst through it, panting hard.

“Haah, I brought everyone! Every last one!”

Beyond the door, I could glimpse Old Man Sho and all the people I’d met on the previous floors.

“I hurried as best I could, but time flowed differently, so I don’t know if I made it in time—huh.”

Oh Dok Seo, still gasping, froze.

Her eyes landed exactly on the scene of me fitting Noh Doha’s gloves onto her hands.

“Huuuuuhhhhhh!”

She covered her mouth in shock.

“The—The Old Captain Couple?!”

“……”

“S-sorry! Mister! I was so dense! Oh god, I should just go die. Damn it, stupid Oh Dok Seo! Idiot Dok Seo! I’ll come back in 3—no, 30 minutes! No, 3 hours!”

“……”

“Wait—won’t that use up the whole time limit? Eh, whatever! The world’s been destroyed a few hundred million times already, one more won’t hurt! Have a nice time!”

Thud.

The door shut.

“Ah!”

Then reopened.

“D-don’t mind me! Of course, I’ll see what happened here later in the manuscript anyway! But really, don’t mind me! I respect privacy, you know! You trust me, right? Okay bye!”

Thud.

The door shut again.

“……”

“……”

If the door hadn’t opened again just then, it would’ve taken us over three hours to clear up the misunderstanding, and the subjugation mission would’ve been postponed to the next loop.

It was a miracle it wasn’t.