Chapter 215

Chapter 215

Chapter 215

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The Nameless One I

Novels are different from illustrations.

At first glance, this might sound like an obvious statement, but to me, the distinction is surprisingly significant.

For example, Lee Ha-yul. She lived with me in the Inunaki Tunnel, which I had converted into my hideout. Except during vacation rounds, she was almost always there. Compared to the other members, her attendance rate was truly overwhelming.

「Ah, I’m sorry, Hyung. I have thalassophobia, so living deep inside the Inunaki Tunnel is a bit... If something bursts in there, I'd drown right away, right?」

Seo Gyu usually stayed close to the headquarters of the National Road Management Corps.

「I... I am the Queen of the Eastern Holy State.」

Sim Ah-ryeon worked mostly as the Saintess of the North, so she didn’t come to the hideout as often.

Oh Dok-seo was a rookie who joined after the 555th cycle, and lacked seniority.

But Lee Ha-yul, she consistently claimed the best spot in the hideout, no matter the time. Yet, despite this, she didn’t appear much in my stories. Why?

There was a sad reason for that.

I present to you...

"...Ah, this coffee is quite delicious."

"Isn’t it? I blended three of the Saintess's favorite instant coffees and added exactly one spoonful of cinnamon. This is her favorite brew."

"...Hey, Mr. Undertaker, if you’ve reached that level, shouldn’t we stop calling it 'instant' coffee? Well, it does taste good."

Let's say this conversation took place between the Saintess and me at the hideout’s café, 1,200 meters underground.

But this is a novel. If we strip away the filters of a novel and depict things more visually, the truth would look like this:

"...Ah, this coffee is quite delicious."

"Isn’t it?"

(Beside me, Ha-yul silently lifted two coffee packs like twin swords. Image: Lee Ha-yul holding up two coffee packs like a warrior.)

"I blended three of the Saintess's favorite instant coffees and added exactly one spoonful of cinnamon. This is her favorite brew."

(Image: Lee Ha-yul playfully slapping my back with the coffee packs, as if she were part of the jazz band from Whiplash.)

"...Hey, Mr. Undertaker, if you’ve reached that level, shouldn’t we stop calling it 'instant' coffee?"

(Image: Lee Ha-yul failing to control her Aura, causing the coffee pack to explode, spilling its contents all over my barista uniform.)

"Well, it still tastes good."

(Image: Me holding Lee Ha-yul’s head as she struggles like a mischievous kid.)

See how different the scene is?

That’s right.

As you all probably know, Ha-yul was born with a speech impediment. Normally, she traveled with her maid doll to voice her words. However, when it was just the two of us—especially when she was messing with me—she would ditch the maid and perform her ‘silent protests’. Though I hadn’t described it, Ha-yul was usually next to me in the hideout, pulling pranks about 80% of the time.

Why did she leave the maid behind when it was just the two of us?

‘Ouch! Ouch, oppa, my skull! It’s in danger!’

This girl could use her Aura to write on my back in real time. And since I had exceptional skills in reading Aura, I could easily interpret what she wanted to say.

"You’ll be fine."

‘Ah! No violence! No violence!’

"...You and Ha-yul seem really close. Almost like siblings with a big age gap."

Anyway.

Ha-yul was always forcing my readers to play a game of Spot the Difference.

Her methods of communication with me were diverse: writing on my back, vibrating her Aura to make her sound like a voiceroid, tapping Morse code into my palm...

And then, after receiving a thorough scalp massage from me, she would scurry behind the Saintess and pull out her sketchbook.

She... had a point.

To find any clues about my family, I’d have to inspect every single Crystal Tombstone in Korea.

How many tombstones had I buried? At least 500,000. Who knows how many I couldn’t keep track of?

"It’s definitely going to be tough."

"Yes, unfortunately."

[Ex] [pla] [na] [tion]

At that moment, our discussion ended with Ha-yul's ridiculous placard still lingering. I had no intention of doing a Regressor version of In Search of Lost Time, so the idea was naturally shelved.[1]

Until the 267th cycle, that is.

As I’ve mentioned before, I mobilized every fairy in my arsenal to find any trace of the Saintess in the 267th cycle. I sent out the baku to scour the dreams of every survivor in Korea. Yet in the end, there was no sign of the 267th Saintess.

"Hoeeek."

However, I stumbled upon an entirely unexpected puzzle piece instead.

"I-isn’t this the Secretary General?"

"Hm?"

"Look over there, in that person's dream, up on the hill. The figure walking past the supermarket!"

Fairy No. 264 invited me into someone's dream. It belonged to a 50-something woman I didn’t recognize.

"...I can see it, but so what? Isn’t that just a mother and child walking side by side?"

"The kid looks oddly similar to the Secretary General!"

"What?"

The dream revealed a vague silhouette that, according to the fairy, resembled me.

"Come on, it's way too blurry. You can barely make out their face. How could you say whether he looks like me?"

"Hoek, but the baku's instincts are telling me! The dark aura! That shadow, black as ink! Those dead fish-like eyes! The stomp of someone who resents the world, pounding the ground! That’s definitely you, Secretary General... Gyaaaah! My skull! It's being crushed!"

"First of all, it's ‘sense,’ not ‘instinct.’"

"V-violence is bad! No purging, please!"

I gave the fairy a scalp massage, frowning as I observed the dream. In the distance, a mother and child walked, barely noticeable at the edge of the dream’s awareness.

‘That kid is supposed to be me?’

The child looked like they were around elementary school age.

I felt no connection to them at all.

I brushed off the fairy’s hunch, but similar reports kept trickling in over time.

"Secretary General! Look at this middle school graduation ceremony!"

"Where?"

"There! About 20 meters away from the dreamer, look at the crowd of students! There’s a figure that just barely flashes by over someone’s shoulder! It has to be the Secretary General from the past!"

I strained my vision, sharpening my Aura to its extreme limit—the kind of limit only the most refined Awakener like me could reach—just to catch a flicker of the silhouette.

I muttered in disbelief, "...This really is like a game of Where's Waldo. Only five thousand times harder."

Still, if the fairies were right, one thing was clear. The past I thought I'd lost forever, the memories before the 4th cycle, especially the original Undertaker from the 1st cycle...

There were fragments of it, hidden within these dreams.

Perhaps I wasn’t a monster born suddenly in the 4th cycle.

And now, I had been handed a clue to piece together that lost puzzle.

Footnotes:

[1] In Search of Lost Time is a novel by French author Marcel Proust. In it, the narrator walks through memories of his younger years, often through moments of “involuntary memory” where something in his everyday life sparks a memory from childhood.

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