Chapter 119

The Brainwasher I

I don’t particularly like aphorisms or maxims.

Being impressed by a saying is akin to admiring a photograph of a beautiful landscape rather than experiencing the scenery firsthand.

For those who have visited that landscape, it may hold commemorative value, but for others, it’s just a fake antique used for interior decoration in their home.

However, there is one Nietzsche aphorism that I find useful even for a pragmatist:

- He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

This truly is the ultimate guide for hitchhikers traveling through the end times, isn’t it?

To make it a bit more practical, you can tweak the latter part slightly:

- If you gaze long enough at Go Yuri, Go Yuri will also gaze back into you.

Go Yuri.

Her personal color is pink.

Her Pokémon type is Psychic.

Her special skills are a soft smile for everyone and a brainwashing hypnosis beam.

If she had appeared as a Kadabra in the first-generation Pokémon anime, she would have gained a cult following among children, but unfortunately, she was reincarnated in reality, causing me a headache.

What I want to convey to you is that I, the Undertaker, put in a tremendous amount of effort to seal away this Pokémon.

‘What if I don’t look directly at her and take a picture? Wouldn’t that reveal Go Yuri’s true form?’

Click.

I committed the audacious act of secretly photographing Go Yuri. It was a move that risked my life.

The act of photographing itself was successful, but the result was disappointing. The performance difference between a standard camera lens and my retina was negligible.

In short, the photo showed the same pink hair, the same soft smile. Hmm. Somehow, the photo seemed inferior to the real thing.

When I realized, ‘Hmm, the photo is worse than the real thing,’ I knew I had already fallen under a weak hypnosis. A chill ran down my spine, and I immediately burned the photo.

Failure.

‘What if someone else takes the picture?’

I had Yu Ji-won, whose life wasn’t particularly precious to me, take the picture. The result was the same. Yu Ji-won returned unharmed.

Failure2.

For the record, these tests were never conducted in the same cycle.

Regarding Go Yuri, research had to be conducted more cautiously than handling a nuclear bomb. Naturally, all tests had to be conducted in different cycles.Finnd new chapters at novelhall.com

‘What if I record her voice with a recorder――?’

Failure.

‘...Wait. What if I use a spirit camera?’

It was a clever idea.

By this time, I had received an instant spirit camera from the Magical Girl Association as a reward for defeating the Inunaki Tunnel.

Click.

I had high expectations for this test. The spirit camera was a precious artifact. There couldn’t be a more suitable item to reveal Go Yuri’s true nature.

Then it happened.

Whirrr......

A strange noise started coming from the spirit camera, which was developing the photo normally.

Rrring! Clang! Clang-clang-clang! Clang-clang-clang!

It was the sound of a telephone. Or perhaps, the loud noise of a red fire alarm button being pressed.

Clunk! The camera jerked on its own, and the next moment, it spewed smoke as if a fire had broken out inside.

Then it stopped.

“......”

Goosebumps rose on my skin.

“What’s the matter?”

What was even more chilling was that Go Yuri had approached before I even noticed.

She was right in front of me.

Go Yuri tilted her head and bent down, looking up at me from below.

“Huh. You look familiar... Oh, wait, weren't you the one at Busan Station waiting room? Um, your name was definitely... Undertaker. Yes, Mr. Undertaker, right?”

“......”

“Wow! What a coincidence to see you here! Ah, but the object in your hand keeps emitting smoke. Is it alright? Something seems...”

“When you move to the next cycle, please get me something.”

This was the sound of a born maniac.

If Yu Ji-won were an ordinary psychopath,

‘Huh? The next cycle’s me? That’s a completely different person from me now, isn’t it? I’ll pursue my current happiness.’

‘I’ll live for myself now.’

That’s how she would have thought, but no. Our psychopath had extraordinary brain patterns.

‘Hmm. If that person (Undertaker) causes the world to regress, no matter how hard I work to accumulate wealth and power, it would all disappear with one click of regression, wouldn’t it?’

‘Why should my power and safety disappear because of a click bug?’

‘But I can’t kill the regressor.’

‘Therefore, I must cling to the regressor.’

‘In other words... I must negotiate with the regressor to pass more power and information to the next cycle’s me. Then, even more in the next cycle. If I continue to inherit the legacy...’

‘The ultimate victory will be mine.’

‘I will now go all-in on the regressor coin.’

This was the outrageous thought process she had reached.

How do I know this? Because she told me directly.

Now, I am confident that no further explanation is needed as to why I consider this good-looking maniac to be insane. At least, I have never seen a character in any work of fiction involving infinite regression with such a brain flow.

Reality always easily triumphs over fiction.

“Ji-won.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Do you even have an idea how many times I’ve heard that from you?”

“No. But your statement just now reassures me that I’m sane in any cycle. It’s comforting.”

“I think we need to replace the word ‘sane’ with something else...”

“Hmm. Intelligent? Reasonable? Clever?”

“It’s like the exact opposites of all those words fit perfectly.”

“......?”

In the end, I had to make another promise to Yu Ji-won. For the record, she’s ranked at a depth of 1,000 meters in my cafe’s system.

She started at 100 meters.

I don’t need to explain how she crawled from 100 meters to 1,000 meters. I’ll just add that I’m very good at keeping promises.

I dispatched Yu Ji-won and followed her. Of course, maintaining a strict distance of hundreds of meters.

Go Yuri was running a soup kitchen in Daejeon. She distributed food twice a day, morning and evening, in exchange for some labor from ordinary people.

I watched the scene through binoculars. Seeing Go Yuri smiling brightly while wearing an apron, my teeth couldn’t help but chatter.

The apron even had Chinese characters on it.

Three Kingdoms (三國志).

‘Scary! Go Yuri!’

I shuddered.

‘Even in such a moment, you try to bewitch my mind! Do you think I would feel any affection for you just because of that?’

Moreover, the apron was not blue or red, but green, the symbol of the Shu Han.

Truly formidable brainwashing!

My hands trembled. Forcing the binoculars aside, I saw our ultimate weapon of the National Road Management Corps, the silver-haired psychopath, walking steadily.

And――

“.......”

“.......”

The two entities met.

The one who absolutely creates affection and the one who absolutely does not feel affection.

In other words... a contradiction!

Just their contact alone seemed to break the laws of the universe and insult social ethics, creating a meeting that should never have happened in proper history due to a bizarre twist of fate (me).

My heart swelled involuntarily.

Footnotes:

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