I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 435

“Undertaker. Because the number of people we could bring at once was limited, a few got left out.”

Tap, the Saintess took a light step.

The ground of ash she stepped on was not an ordinary place. A subspace unfolded only according to my dream. According to my memories.

The false regressor’s divine domain.

“Still, we brought most—”

She faltered.

The Saintess stopped speaking.

Only now, with all her effort spent to change the plan on the fly and make it work, did the surrounding scenery finally register in her eyes.

“My goodness. This place is…”

“…”

She wasn’t the only one struck speechless.

The assault team members who had arrived in my domain at the same time as the Saintess — whether Dang Seo Rin, Iha Yul, whoever — all stood around gawking with dumbfounded faces.

Yoo Ji-won was the first to break the silence.

“Hmm. There are a lot of corpses.”

Next came Oh Dok Seo.

“L-lots of them? This isn’t just ‘a lot’! It’s… there’s only corpses here?!”

Oh Dok Seo’s expression was accurate.

The bottommost pit of the deepest unconscious.

This place, reached by descending stairs that used me as the medium, was smack in the center of a nightmare where corpses lay strewn beyond the horizon.

A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

No phrase could seem appropriate in a place with that feeling — if you insisted on naming it, only that sort of name would barely be allowable.

“Wow.”

Sim A-ryeon’s eyes glittered.

She had already sunk to her knees and was digging through the corpses. Even when blood collected under her fingernails she was delighted, like a child with dyed henna-stained palms.

“T-this… it looks exactly like me! It’s my face! But leaves are sprouting all over the face… I-I’ve become a world tree! Guildmaster!”

“Ugh.”

Dang Seo Rin made a face of disgust.

“Do you go out of your way to root around in that stuff because you like it?”

“W-what? This is the Guildmaster’s deepest heart, isn’t it? To find so many of my corpses there… doesn’t that feel good?”

“You’ve got awful tastes. Seriously!”

Indeed.

This divine domain — the Graveyard of Corpse-Mountains and Blood-Seas — essentially displayed the world as I perceived it.

Of those collapsed figures, not all were Sim A-ryeon.

The Saintess stood upon the Saintess’s own forearm, Dang Seo Rin’s heels pressed against Dang Seo Rin’s cheeks from stepping back, and at the edge of Yoo Ji-won’s sight hung Yoo Ji-won’s severed torso.

“Sis…?”

Amid that, Yo Hwa stared dazedly at the reinforcements newly arrived in this domain.

“Yes. Guten tag-. Meine Silvester?”

She smiled.

Cheon Hwa waved when she caught Yo Hwa’s gaze. With her other hand she still had a firm grip on mine.

“R-really my sister? So, the twins?”

“Yo Hwa. What is ‘real,’ really?”

“Huh?”

“To me, the person who truly exists in this world is my senpai here. Ah, of course you exist too! For convenience, for convenience.”

“…Okay?”

“In short, if someone is remembered by the true human he has — then that someone is also truly human. You know the trickle-down effect, little sister? That concept applies to humanity’s humanity too.”

“…”

“So you could say I’ve been doused by the trickle — or better yet, I stuck my mouth under the tap and guzzled the running water. I’m human among humans. Adam’s Eve. Final answer? Yeah— final answer!”

“…Ah. So that’s what kind of person she was.”

Yo Hwa’s face contained understanding, resignation, and a touch of contempt. Sisterly affection formed at turbo speed.

Not long after the family reunion, an earthquake rose from beyond the horizon of corpses.

Kuuuuuuuuung…!

All eyes of the assault team turned at once.

Kuuung, kuuuuuung…!

Corpses caught in the vibration scattered.

Some shot high into the sky and then—peculiarly—fell back down slowly.

Crunch! A corpse flew nearly to our feet and added one more body to the heap. Sim A-ryeon, who happened to be nearby, flinched.

“Eek!”

The movement beyond the horizon did not stop; corpses kept flying toward us.

Each of those corpses bore Go Yuri’s face mounted on them.

“…”

Mounted — literally taxidermied.

The corpses varied in sex and build.

Only the faces — in the places where each face should hold its own expression — the skin of Go Yuri’s face had been mounted.

It was the cruellest kind of prayer.

All the anonymous lives consumed by reincarnation murmured and chanted a single name like a sutra.

“Here they come.”

Someone murmured.

O o o o o o o…!

The horizon quivered, and from it a red flesh-mass surged up.

Its scale was immeasurable.

Even the sky, which had seemed endlessly vast, shrank into a cramped backdrop the moment the red flesh appeared; the land felt cramped.

‘Hello?’ ‘What is life?’ ‘Nice to meet you.’ ‘Ahaha.’ ‘Mother.’

With every ripple of the enormous tentacles, Go Yuri’s face, arms, legs, gestures — bits of flesh — showed waves across their surfaces. A temple made of meat sang hymns.

It was unintelligible muttering, but—

As the owner of this divine domain, the one who had tenfold songs woven from Hecate, I could hear them plainly.

‘Oh?’ ‘How many days left will there be when one thinks the sky is beautiful?’ ‘How coincidental.’ ‘Guildmaster.’ ‘Let’s become one.’ ‘Doctor?’ ‘One spear, one peach garden,’ ‘it is said.’ ‘even the road of conduct.’ ‘Only I can do it.’

Those murmurs carried little specific meaning.

They simply reflected that far more past reincarnators had piled up dead here than living present ones, so the subject of agency had inverted.

“Ugh…!”

“You, it’s too loud!”

“Everyone, cover your ears!”

Unlike me, the assault members who could not understand the Outer-God’s cries writhed in pain.

“Undertaker.”

The Saintess spoke urgently.

“We don’t know when ‘that’ will exercise its powers again. It seems even stronger.”

“It is not an illusion. Go Yuri and I are inseparable right now. If you enter my domain, Go Yuri strengthens as well.”

“…Did you enter according to the Undertaker’s plan, but do you have a countermeasure?”

“Of course I do.”

I smiled.

“Still don’t see it?”

“Huh?”

“It’s not only Go Yuri who gets stronger here. I know not only Go Yuri’s lives but all of yours, as well. For example, the Saintess who fell into the soulless shrine and was corrupted in some cycle.”

“…!”

The Saintess widened her eyes.

“Then…? Wait a second.”

She raised her hand and splayed her fingers.

“…This can’t be.”

After a moment, a rare look of horror clouded her face.

“It’s real. Even if time is stopped I don’t feel tired. Even if the opponent accelerates time we can probably still respond… that’s the feeling.”

“Aha—now you understand how senpai’s domain works!”

Cheon Hwa laughed with glee. She’d been buzzing with dopamine and overexcited for a while.

“Yes! As long as senpai permits it, in this domain everyone can display their peak abilities!”

“Peak….”

“Yes! Our senpai isn’t a support genius for nothing! She can even pull off tricks like this!”

Cheon Hwa finally released her interlocked fingers — and instead seized the twin’s hands, not mine, with both of hers.

“Huh?”

“Yo Hwa, don’t worry. After this operation, everyone will get an Udamvara detox shot and return to being human.”

“W-what… does that mean?”

“Mm, my little sister. This is our first and last stage where you can go wild without worrying about doing anything afterwards.”

Cheon Hwa’s eyes curved like a half-moon.

“O Great Taeguk.”

At that moment—

“O parent and mother of all things, and their child as well, descend now to this place.”

The world warped.

Among the corpse-mountains and blood-seas, only the corpses of the Cheon twins were drawn into a whirl as if the maelstrom surrounded them.

The corpses formed hands. A hand gripped another corpse’s hand, and a handless corpse twisted toes to play the role of a hand.

The corpses bloomed tirelessly like flowers. Body outlines and forms didn’t matter. Arms sprouted from bellies, faces vomited from chests.

“Ah.”

Yo Hwa’s eyes trembled.

If her own contours were like this, what could be expected of other things?

A power that mocks all boundaries. When the twins grasped a power that toys with all things, Yo Hwa could only convulse.

“This is…”

“The role originally assigned to our family.”

Cheon Hwa smiled faintly.

Originally, in early cycles Yo Hwa had gained renown as a necromancer.

The art of summoning and commanding life and death was, for the Taeguk line, the most basic achievement.

“One person can’t handle it, so only twin bodies can fully receive the descent of our ancient divinity. And that damn Outer-God bastard.”

“…”

“He ruined our lives, so who’s going to complain if we take advantage a little? Don’t worry. I’ll escort you through it all.”

“…Yes. Uh, okay. Please, sister.”

“All right. Shall I lightly jab our senior to say hello first?”

One of the corpses drew a knife.

That blade had been produced spontaneously from a corpse.

Puuuk! The corpse thrust the tip into the place where its heart should be, as if offering itself as a sacrificial vessel.

At the same moment a sacrifice willingly committed itself—

O o o o o o o…!

From a tendril of red flesh approaching from the horizon, a geyser of blood spurted.

The amount of blood rivaled a river; indeed the corpse-mountains were literally rivers of blood.

“Hmm.”

Cheon Hwa’s eyes narrowed.

“I wanted to erase [Teleport] first because it would be the most annoying, but the wrong thing got erased?”

“Teleport belonged to the Go Yuri who remained in reality, not to that flesh mass,” I said.

“How did you erase an Outer-God’s ability?”

“Well, it’s a sensory thing and hard to explain, but Go Yuri-sensei simulated a reincarnator who’d awakened teleportation, then I overlaid a scenario where I stab and kill that simulated Go Yuri with a sword.”

“…The principle is the same as a drawing board.”

“One more.”

Puuuk! Around the Cheon twins, the corpses dancing the circle simultaneously drew blades and sacrificed themselves.

O o o o o o o…!

Three of the tendrils of the red flesh melted down like candle wax. The fundamental origin of the blood that had poured onto the land was that the tendrils had died that way.

“What we just killed were [Sound Sealing], [Memory Reading], [Sensory Contamination]. How’s that, senpai? Sick, right?”

“Now I understand why Go Yuri tried so hard to split the Taeguk into Mastermind and Hidden Curtain.”

“Right, right. The final boss wasn’t those flesh lumps but originally our twins—”

Perussseuss!

The corpses that had been neatly dancing suddenly had their chests split open. Their hearts burst and they collapsed.

By eye it was six hundred of them.

“…Hm.”

Cheon Hwa’s confident smile turned vague.

“Uh, Go Yuri’s reacting a bit strongly? Running the simulation is tough.”

“Did you, by mistake, in the simulation have three Go Yuris killed and as a result six hundred of you were killed in return?” 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

“A mistake, a mistake! It’s just that we’re still not accustomed to handling the Taeguk so a small mishap happened. Ah, the more powerful abilities are concentrated among the later reincarnations so it’s tough—”

Thud. Thud thud!

Even as she spoke, the dancing corpses kept ripping open their chests. The speed of cardiac incision was alarming; Cheon Hwa flinched.

“Ah, shit! You’re leaving it all to us and goofing off? What is the assault team doing! Healers, heal! Hurry!”

“Uh, ugh.”

Sim A-ryeon replied in her usual spaced-out voice.

“I’ve never healed the dead before… this is my first time…”

What unfurled from the tips of her fingers was not at all like normal.

Sssllik—.

From the twin corpses buried in the Graveyard of Corpse-Mountains, flowers bloomed where their heads hung down. From split chests and burst hearts, blossoms sprang.

Soon the bank was lined with flowers from the Other Shore, and the reddened corpses rose again and — holding hands — joined the eternal circle dance.

“Ooh!”

Cheon Hwa cried out.

“As expected, Sim A-ryeon! Our party’s top oddity and top healer! I trusted you!”

“Being praised by someone I just met… gives me no emotions at all…”

“Anyway, with this the perpetual-motion engine is complete! Come on, without dragging this out let’s take apart Go Yuri’s powers—”

Then.

From the red flesh that had lain across the horizon, a tendril shot out and slammed into the dancing ring.

“Ek.”

Godspeed.

The twins had no time to react.

The corpse-circle that had seemed like it could continue forever was halved in an instant.

Even that was because I had stepped in quickly and sliced away the tendril of red flesh that had aimed for “this spot.”

If I hadn’t acted, the tendril would have struck not the periphery but the center of the circle — and covered the Cheon twins.

“Senpai.”

“You were too flashy. The opponent is the most sublime and cruel Outer-God. I know the rush of dopamine from winning a 0.1% gamble, but if you’re careless you’ll be down in one hit.”

No sooner had I finished than tens of thousands of tendrils started flying in rapid succession. This time not one but tens of thousands.

[Me.]

Most of them were slaughtered mid-course.

[Sorry, nullification-type abilities.]

Still tens of thousands of tendrils remained.

That’s when Noh Doha gripped my hand, but I didn’t need to take another step.

Kwarrrrrrrr!

The tidal wave of tendrils that seemed ready to sweep us away slammed into an invisible wall and exploded.

As the tendrils shattered the spurting blood did not flow toward our allies.

The transparent walls, like a car window in a torrential downpour, became smeared with liquid.

“Phew.”

A girl with crimson hair as red as blood passed by my side and took a step forward.

She glanced at us — a look that said she was certain she existed in life at the most flattering angle.

“You.”

With a disdainful face worthy of slapping Dazai Osamu’s cheek and snapping Edgar Allan Poe’s jaw, she said:

“Tenma (Heavenly Demon), descend.”

“…”

The literature girl’s prime.

A.K.A. the writer who beats up readers.

“Sick. Confirmed.”

The rebirth of the ugliest one.