I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 433

I somehow managed to drag Oh Dok Seo out of her absurd misunderstanding.

It wasn’t an easy task.

That cheeky brat—she kept making that lewd expression, gripping the doorknob desperately as she resisted to the end.

“Hiiing… you’re so mean, mister…”

Only after I gave her a good flick to the forehead did the program called “Possessor Oh Dok Seo,” not “Reader Oh Dok Seo,” finally install itself in her head.

Oh Dok Seo grumbled as she woke up all the Awakeners who had fallen into group sleep mode deep within the Tower of Babel—

A moment later.

“Hyung-nim!”

The Awakeners poured out in a rush.

The one leading the front line was none other than our SG man, Seo-gyu.

“Fuck! Hyung-nim, thank you! Seriously, thank you so much!”

“Uh… why all of a sudden?”

“It came back to me! The memories of getting my neck cut off right after the tutorial started—dozens of times—it all flashed back at once!”

“Aha.”

The veins in Seo-gyu’s muscles twitched violently.

“Those fucking fairy bastards! If I’d been a combat-type Awakener, I’d have spent my entire life beating fairies to death, I swear to God!”

At those words, Yo Hwa, who had followed Oh Dok Seo all the way into the deepest layer of the Dream-within-a-Dream, reacted.

“Ah. Those fairies are all under my command now. Want to go one-on-one with me?”

“...No, ma’am. President.”

Seo-gyu deflated instantly, like a muscle losing its pump.

You could’ve cursed him for acting like a coward when he had such a great body, but the trauma from the zombie kingdom founded by Yo Hwa the Necromancer must’ve still been strong.

“Nyan! Undertaker!”

Thud-thud-thud-thud— a blonde magical girl with cat ears poking out of her head came running and dove toward my neck.

“Whoa now. Who do we have here?”

“Nyahaha!”

The sunflower bloom on the face of Manyeommyo, a member of the Magical Girl Council—the protector group of the Japanese Archipelago—was in full bloom.

“Really—really thank you, nya! I thought you were just some strange man I met at the entrance of the Inunaki Tunnel! But now I finally know—you saved my friend… You saved Younyang, nya!”

“Uh-huh.”

It was a bit awkward.

Everyone knew that Manyeommyo was a leading pro-Undertaker faction member in the Magical Girl Council.

But not once in any loop had she ever approached me so openly, so casually touching me like this.

Our relationship had always maintained a narrow gap somewhere between friendship and comradeship, a pleasant draft always blowing between us whenever we talked.

“Oh my.”

A soft laugh was heard.

The leader of the Magical Girl Council, the Grand Priestess, approached, covering her mouth with a fan.

The laughter just now had flowed down along the fold of that fan like stream water in a valley.

“Isn’t it only natural? What you once thought were chance encounters—all of them turn out to have been part of a grand design to save your one and only, irreplaceable childhood friend.”

“...Um.”

And before I knew it—there was Heuk Yogum too.

Originally fated to perish during the exploration of the Inunaki Tunnel, but her destiny had been altered from the 146th regression onward.

After that, she took up a pillar of the Council alongside her friend.

Like Seo-gyu, who had survived since the 50th regression, Heuk Yogum too was a survivor who had escaped the schedule of extinction.

“Thank… you.”

Bow.

Wearing her trademark mask marked with an X, she lowered her black hair and greeted me politely.

“I could never have imagined why the Inunaki Tunnel, classified as a special-grade yokai zone, disappeared before any proper exploration had even begun… I never imagined something like that had happened.”

[What a strange fate indeed!]

The swordless swordsman.

He chuckled through transmission magic, not his voice.

[When I went to sea with the Undertaker and we were attacked by aliens, even now, just remembering it makes my heart run cold!]

“Their weakness was water. When they touched it, they melted like whipped cream.”

[Aaah, I heard about it from Lady Oh Dok Seo. Ha! To think we met our ends in the middle of the sea against creatures weak to water—there’s no more foolish act than that.]

Tap.

The sword sheath, moved by telekinesis, lightly struck my forearm. It tickled.

[I had quite a few comrades I wanted to march alongside, but this is the Great Void. Only those capable of at least pulling their own weight were chosen for the expedition. I ask for your understanding.]

“There’s nothing for me to understand. Just coming here is enough for me to be grateful.”

[The Undertaker truly is a samurai who understands righteousness!]

After that, I exchanged camaraderie one by one with the rest of my comrades.

All were welcome faces—but some, I felt a particular emotion seeing again.

“Hey, Mr. Jang-san.”

“Oh, Uehara.”

“Um… was I useless after the early stages because I was just a B-rank Awakener?”

“Pfft.”

Sim Ah-ryun, who had been fidgeting nearby, burst out laughing openly.

Uehara Shino’s expression darkened.

“And even our manner of speech is similar. I stutter when I talk, and she also…”

“No, you only sound awkward when you speak Korean. Ah-ryun sounds awkward because humanity itself is awkward for her—there’s a dimensional difference, you see.”

“It’s deplorable that even among Awakeners, there exists a hierarchy of ranks…”

For reference, Uehara Shino was a supporter of the Japanese Communist Party. I imagine she’d get along splendidly with that old German philosopher.

Everyone had gathered around me, sharing what might be their final recollections.

“……”

In the distance, I saw Lee Baek leaning against a wall.

Lee Baek. The Lion’s Roar Awakener.

In Go Yuri’s timeline, he had been a reliable leader—a sort of prequel version of the National Highway Supervisor.

But in my regressions, he had always been the “early-stage tutorial cancer character.”

“……”

He nodded when he met my eyes.

He didn’t have the face to come shake my hand or apologize in person.

But still, I could see his resolve—the will to take part in the final subjugation battle and see it through.

‘A good expression.’

I smiled faintly.

‘Can a man really change this much just by recalling the memories of another regression?’

How much time had passed?

The noise of small talk and laughter eventually softened into the quiet of mutual understanding.

“Ah-. Aaah, mic test.”

Oh Dok Seo grabbed a megaphone, cutting through the loose air that had been floating like a balloon handled by a child for hours.

“So! Did everyone get enough time to catch up? Ah. I’m not a pervert like that Undertaker old man over there, so I can’t do weird tricks like simultaneous foreign-language translation. Just do your best to translate for each other, okay?”

Laughter swept through the crowd.

“Hmm.”

Then suddenly, Oh Dok Seo made a strange expression.

“Now that I see everyone gathered like this, I suddenly realize what a truly great person I am.”

“?”

Hooks popped up over the heads of the expedition members.

“Born as the protagonist, yet spending hundreds of regressions taking care of all these extras one by one—seriously, is there anyone else like me?”

“?”

“This world owes its existence to my goodwill. I hope that even when the Great Void is subjugated and memories start to fade, none of you forget that it was through my impartial affection toward all of you that this gathering became possible.”

“……”

Silence.

“What the hell is that manic dropout babbling about?”

Someone couldn’t hold back anymore and shouted.

“Hey! Literature girl! The image of you turning evil and beating up your readers is still burned into my brain, and now you’re preaching goodwill? GOODWILL?!”

“You bastard! Aren’t you the one who used the ridiculous pen name ‘Non-literature Boy’ to write fanfics about Captain Noh Doha? You changed pen names, didn’t you?!”

“Booo!”

“You said you couldn’t speak foreign languages, then why the hell did you use MSYH GPT to translate and upload your works! Did you want us to suffer too?!”

“E-even the view counts were always lower than mine. If I’d ghostwritten for Guildmaster, we’d have finished the regressions within 500 loops. That’s just a fact…”

“There’s a rumor that the random ‘Cheon Hwa x Yo Hwa yuri short story’ posted anonymously on SG Net during the 806th regression was actually your work!”

“If you had time to post that crap, you should’ve been writing the main story! The main story!”

Truly, a storm of jeers.

Oh Dok Seo just smirked and adjusted her cap.

Zero damage taken. She looked completely unbothered.

I didn’t need to open her skull to know exactly what was rolling around inside her head.

‘If I drive both fans and haters insane, doesn’t that mean I’m a superstar?!’ — she was definitely thinking something like that. I’d bet my entire fortune on it.

“Life is suffering. If being beaten by the ignorant babble of the masses is the writer’s fate, then I shall say in that lowly heaven—I loved my life as a writer…”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“You’re the reason we suffered, you lunatic!”

“But now, it’s time to bring closure to the tale of draft Go Yuri, revision Undertaker, and editor Oh Dok Seo! Let’s go, my beloved readers!”

Even though people threw rotten tomatoes and eggs at her, none of them hit. Oh Dok Seo didn’t flinch, just walked on steadily.

The reason was simple. Having reached the realm of the Great Immortal, her [Absolute Defense] bounced every projectile away.

At this point, Oh Dok Seo was invincible.

“My god…”

Dang Seo Rin, right beside me, let out a stunned laugh.

“The final subjugation battle—she might be the first person in human history to ruin the motivational speech this badly…”

“She probably thinks she looks incredibly cool right now.”

“How did the baton of saving the world end up in the hands of someone like her?”

“Well.”

I smiled.

“Maybe because she’s better than anyone at loving both herself and the world.”

“……”

“Let’s go, Dang Seo Rin. We can’t let your last concert be ruined.”

“Yeah.”

Step.

I took a step.

Step.

Dang Seo Rin took a step. Sim Ah-ryun, Lee Ha-yul, and Cheon Hwa took steps.

Step.

Jung Ye-ji took a step. Yoo Ji-won took a step. Noh Doha took a step.

Seo-gyu, Lee Baek, Manyeommyo, the Grand Priestess, Heuk Yogum, and the Swordless Swordsman took steps.

Step.

With Dang Seo Rin’s step, the night sky of Utopia hung above.

With Sim Ah-ryun’s step, the udumbara blooming at the edge of the world swayed.

With Lee Ha-yul’s step, the puppet strings weaving humanity’s final arks knotted tight.

With Cheon Hwa’s step, the white birch bark gleamed. With Jung Ye-ji’s step, the white stillness of frozen time spread.

With Yoo Ji-won’s step, seawater surged. With Noh Doha’s step, the roads that connected all the lonely cities of this world stretched ahead.

Step.

All the ends humanity had endured—and the deaths it could not—were carved into each of those footsteps.

The screams that had split into thousands, tens of thousands, billions of discordant notes—

With my step at the front, every footstep and the shadow of its sound became one connected line.

A route.

The one and only.

“Mister.”

We decided to call that lonely path “time.”

“That’s the main body of the Dream-within-a-Dream.”

The direction Oh Dok Seo pointed.

There stood a monument of glass, split into thousands, tens of thousands of shards—

a transparent tombstone like a mirror, standing tall like a fortress.

On every glass facet was carved an image of Go Yuri.

“…The Tomb of Time’s Seal.”

“Yes. Maybe you could even call it a higher-tier version of your own ability. Except that, while you sealed others, Go Yuri sealed herself.”

“I’ve explored the Dream-within-a-Dream a few times. But I’ve never seen such a massive tombstone before.”

“Right.”

Oh Dok Seo nodded.

“That mirror cemetery—the kaleidoscope holding billions of Go Yuris—will vanish exactly at 2:00 PM, June 17th. By outer-world time standards… hmm. In about 19 seconds from now.”

“……”

“The outer-world’s White Night and this Dream-within-a-Dream’s tomb are linked. Burning every clue that might lead to the truth of reincarnated Go Yuri’s identity.”

“What happens if we break that?”

That was when—

“[The Fallen Reincarnator] descends.”

It wasn’t Oh Dok Seo’s voice.

I turned my head.

Oh Dok Seo, seemingly unable to hear that voice, was still muttering her own answer, but all my attention was drawn to what lay ahead.

“Guildmaster.”

There was Go Yuri.

A vision visible only to me.

“…I hadn’t seen you since we entered the Dream-within-a-Dream. So you were here.”

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention. I was forcibly pulled to where I was meant to be.”

“……”

“The [red flesh] you sometimes saw, Guildmaster—that’s a corrupted remnant of me. But it’s a very, very weakened form.”

“Weakened?”

I couldn’t help but ask back.

“That thing?”

“Yes. I may look like this, but I’m someone who accumulated the karma of an outer god in a human body. If I unleash the lifetimes and abilities of billions all at once—

then of course, even the lesser gods would collapse completely.”

“……”

“Except for one tiny drawback—that the world I wanted to protect would collapse with me.”

Go Yuri stroked the slick, mirror-like surface of the tombstone.

“Through countless ages, I sealed away my own powers, one by one.”

“That’s…”

The words felt too familiar.

Go Yuri smiled brightly.

“Yes. Just like how you restrain your aura, Guildmaster.”

“……”

“In other words, each fragment of this mirror holds a remnant organ equivalent to the auras you’ve sealed away.”

My mouth closed on its own.

“The traces of me struggling to remain human. The remnants of the powers I once placed my hope in. If I hadn’t let them go—if I’d clung to them to the end—they would’ve run rampant and led to my corruption.”

“……”

“The total sum of every bad-ending route.”

Go Yuri turned toward me.

No—not just me.

Oh Dok Seo, standing beside me.

The members of the Regression Alliance.

The hundreds of Awakeners forming ranks behind us.

“If you can truly destroy the ‘corpse’ that bursts out when this tomb is opened,

then perhaps this time, I can finally return to being human.”

“……”

“But—can you?”

The “humanity of the past”—she—

looked at us, “the humanity of the present,” and smiled faintly.

“The remnants of me sleeping in this tombstone have no humanity left. Naturally. I scraped together what little was left and passed it all to my outer self.”

“…Truly a monster, then.”

“Yes. A poor being who forever laments a world and a humanity she can never save, having even abandoned herself. A requiem.”

Go Yuri folded her hands neatly over her abdomen.

“So this is the final Rubicon, Guildmaster. If you’re going to turn back, this is your last chance.”

“……”

“No one knew this tomb existed anyway. Once the White Night bursts, it’ll vanish without a trace, eternally. You could just go back—

drop by this Dream-within-a-Dream sometimes through the fairies,

sip on the memories of previous regressions like nectar,

and live cherishing your bonds.”

“And you won’t be there.”

Go Yuri’s eyebrows lowered.

“I already consider it a full life, just being left in your memories, Guildmaster. Still.”

“Sorry, but…”

I gripped Oh Dok Seo’s shoulder.

“The one who inherited our place seems to think differently.”

“……”

“Mr. Sho.”

Step.

Emmet Schopenhauer stepped forward. Quietly.

In his hand was a nameless sword.

“Yes. You called?”

“Cut it down.”

There was no need for further words.

One sword.

In a speed too fast for the eye to follow, Emmet Schopenhauer drew his blade—

and slightly slower than the trajectory of his cut, the crystal tomb slid apart.

“――Ah.”

Go Yuri, too, was cut along with the tomb.

A fine crack ran across her delicate smile.

“Truly… such hopelessly greedy people—”

And then.

Through the shattered mirrors, red flesh burst out.

The long nightmare of humanity began.