Chapter 223

Chapter 223

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The Explosive One II

‘There was a person in Japan who called out the Undertaker's name and then self-destructed!’

What in the world had happened?

On the surface, it made no sense. The mysterious woman (who I'll refer to as "Y" from now on) and I were separated by an insurmountable physical distance. I had been pulled into the Tutorial Dungeon in Busan, while the stage where Great Priestess and Y were located was in Kyoto. Even if we took it as a straight line, we were 600 kilometers apart.

How could a complete stranger, a Japanese person I didn’t even know, call out the name of Undertaker as they self-destructed?

“Couldn’t they have been an acquaintance of yours?”

Surprisingly, Noh Do-hwa, who regularly forced me to attend swimming lessons, showed interest in this curious mystery.

“An acquaintance, huh? Well, I managed to obtain degraded data through the Tutorial Fairies, but I have no memory of this person as they describe them.”

“Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean they weren’t an acquaintance. Didn’t you say your memory from ages 1 to 20 was completely erased? You have terrible memory, right?”

“Oh.”

“There are quite a few Koreans who have relatives or acquaintances in Japan. It wouldn’t be strange if you had one or two as well...”

It was an opinion I hadn’t considered.

As Noh Do-hwa said, my childhood was like Schrödinger’s box. Until I opened it, anyone could have been an acquaintance.

But soon enough, I was shaking my head. “...No, I don’t think that’s likely.”

The words “Why not?” appeared in Do-hwa’s eyes as she floated in the pool.

“All the people close to me, whether family or friends, have been placed under Time Seal. That would leave only those weak connections, mere acquaintances. It’d be strange for someone like that to scream my name in their final moments.”

“Ah. Hmm. That’s true...”

Thus, I discarded the theory that it was someone from my past.

Do-hwa seemed to lose interest and began to swim gracefully like a dolphin across the pool. Her elegant backstroke made her look so relaxed.

She had no idea that once her stamina improved just a little more, I planned to convert these swimming lessons into personal training (PT) sessions as part of my five-year project to turn Do-hwa into a proper person.

“...? Undertaker. Just now, were you thinking of something really irritating?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, shit. You totally were. Hey, hey. What kind of crap are you scheming this time...?”

“I’m telling you, you’re mistaken.”

I feigned ignorance.

Anyway.

Compared to the [*Noh Do-hwa Five-Year Human Transformation Project~], which would require every dirty trick in the book to succeed, the answer to Y’s mystery appeared sooner and much more easily than expected.

“Huh? A person whose head exploded as soon as the Void arrival began in Japan?”

The person holding the key to this answer was Oh Dok-seo.

Do-hwa and I had told her about our swimming lessons, to which she’d responded with excitement, “What? Swimming? Private lessons? Is there some hidden spicy drama going on between you and the National Road Management Corps commander?”

But upon arriving and seeing it was just swimming, she sulked, complaining, “Ugh, is it seriously just regular swimming lessons...?”

However, her ears perked up once she overheard our conversation.

“It’s them, from the prologue. The fake protagonist.”

“......?”

“......?”

Prologue? Fake protagonist?

Once again, the eternal 7th-grader Dok-seo spoke in her own strange language, causing question marks to appear over both my and Do-hwa’s heads.

Dok-seo’s expression twisted in frustration like the problem was that we were being dense. “It’s from my Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint. The same thing happens in the prologue, just like what you’re describing.”

This was turning out to be quite the odd coincidence. Someone who had fallen into the same Tutorial Dungeon as the Great Priestess had also appeared in Oh Dok-seo’s ORV?

“Does it explain why their head exploded so suddenly in that novel?”

“Of course.” Dok-seo’s tone was casual as she said, “That person was a real Prophet.”

Until now, I hadn’t asked Dok-seo much about the contents of her ORV.

The reason was simple.

Unlike the autobiography that Dok-seo had written and edited about my life, ORV was originally written by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame. In other words, it was a cursed, corrupted artifact created by the Outer God.

‘If I read Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint and gain insight into myself from the 1st to the 4th cycle, it would be like handing over the power to define Undertaker to the Outer God.’

That was exactly the kind of twisted scheme the Admin of the Infinite Metagame would come up with.

Of course, it was possible that the Admin had written the truth out of the goodness of their heart. But my suspicion of anything related to the Outer Gods was as high as the fear the German army felt during World War II about the supposedly invincible French army. You always had to prepare for the worst.

If you need a reference on what happens when you don’t account for the worst-case scenario, consider the Monkey’s Paw story.

Still, from what Dok-seo told me, the part about the mysterious woman Y seemed relatively safe from the curse.

“So, in Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, you don’t show up as the main character right away.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

“Yeah. In the prologue, there’s someone completely different from you, tricking the readers into thinking they’re the protagonist.”

A fake protagonist.

It wasn’t a trope that appeared often, but when it did, it surprised readers.

One famous example of this was the Three Kingdoms Masterpiece, where the legendary Romance of the Three Kingdoms told the story of Jia Xu.

“I don’t care about Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Anyway, as soon as the prologue starts, people get summoned into the Tutorial Dungeon, including the fake protagonist.”

Do-hwa, who had been listening with her head out of the water, snickered.

“In the end, you managed to wipe out six incredibly powerful Awakeners, each of whom could have saved a nation, without even lifting a finger. As expected of Undertaker. Even your seedlings are different from the rest of us anomalies-in-the-making.”

“That’s slander.” I shrugged. “Those six were probably candidates the Admin was evaluating for who to make their Miko. The Admin had been targeting me from the start. They must have carefully selected the top six candidates, each with the potential to Awaken prophetic abilities capable of opposing a regressor.”

But as an anomaly, the Admin didn’t account for human limitations. The Awakeners, overwhelmed by visions that were too vivid, chose death over becoming involved with me.

“And so, the Admin simplified the prophecy and showed it to Oh Dok-seo in a form her brain could handle, filtering out the overwhelming realism. The result was Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, written as a novel.”

“Oh! That actually makes sense, Mister!”

“Hmph...”

Of course, this theory had its flaws, but escaping Do-hwa’s slander was more important at the moment.

Anyway, the ones at fault were the anomalies.

From the perspective of the six prophets who were tragically sacrificed, wasn’t it a more honorable death to be caught in the Outer God’s scheme than to die after countless failed attempts to save the world like I had?

There is an epilogue.

As I said earlier, I didn’t trust the Outer Gods. So, when I entered the next cycle, I made sure to visit the Tutorial Dungeon in Kyoto, where the Great Priestess had said Y had perished. Even if ORV contained some truths, there would be parts the Admin deliberately twisted for their benefit.

For example—

‘No matter how much pain Y felt from her prophecy, there were at least 30 seconds between the time she started to self-destruct and the moment she actually exploded.’

Thirty seconds.

That may seem short, but it’s still quite a bit of time.

For an Awakener who successfully foresaw my destiny as a regressor, those 30 seconds would have felt even longer.

‘Wouldn’t she have left some kind of trace?’

A dying message, if you will.

Prophets, especially someone like Y, who had the determination to try to save the world, must have left some kind of message for me. Something like “stay strong” or “I’m sorry.” If she was more spiteful, maybe “die.” At the very least, even a curse would have sufficed.

‘This must be the place.’

Sneaking past the Great Priestess, who still lacked the power she would later gain through her contract with the Nine-Tailed Fox, I arrived at the site of Y’s death.

The scene was surprisingly well-preserved.

“Oh.”

Even the corpse was intact. Aside from the upper half of her body being pixelated [Mosaic] [Mosaic].

Of course, witnessing someone’s head explode would leave anyone traumatized, which explained why no one had approached the area. Back when Seo Gyu died in the Busan Station concourse, everyone had been too terrified to stick around.

“Let’s see...”

Sure enough, it didn’t take long to find what appeared to be a message left by Y. It was written in her own blood, which had likely come from her clawing at her scalp, and it read:

S U

I tilted my head in confusion.

‘SU? Is that some kind of code?’

It was impossible to decipher.

Perhaps Y had intended to write more letters, but in the end, unable to endure the pain, she had died before finishing her message.

‘SU... SU... Hmm. Let’s assume it’s a short word or phrase. What words start with SU...’

I tried to think from her perspective.

She would have known she had little time left. She would have known that the agony would soon claim her life. So the message she left for me would have had to be brief but deeply meaningful.

In other words...

‘A prophecy about my fate.’

Would I, as a regressor, ultimately save the world or fail to do so? That was the core issue.

Even though I still didn’t have the answer, the Prophet who had glimpsed the future could have provided it.

With that in mind, I came up with three possible interpretations for “SU.”

1 SUCCESS: You will succeed. Keep going.

2 SUICIDE: You will fail. You should kill yourself immediately.

3 SUKI: I love you! I’m your fan!

4 SUCK YOU: Seo Gyu is the culprit.

I eliminated the last option—it was too absurd.

The third possibility was also unlikely. There was no reason to write it in the alphabet, as I could understand Japanese.

That left options one and two. There was no clear evidence for either.

“Hmm.”

So, the choice between 1 and 2 was a matter of personal taste.

I bit my finger lightly.

Using the blood from my fingertip as ink and my finger as a brush, I added to Y’s word—the “prophecy,” or “final message,” she had left behind.

S U C C E S S

I gave Y’s headless corpse a proper burial, holding a small funeral for her. And then, with a lighter heart, I left.

Ultimately, how we choose to interpret a prophecy is up to us, isn’t it?

Footnotes:

[1] Prometheus is the Greek god of forethought, best known for gifting fire to humanity.

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