Chapter 82 – Questioner IV

[Proofreader – Gun]

Chapter 82 – Questioner IV

5

For an infinite regressor, the world can be likened to a bag of potato chips. Amongst countless nitrogen, one must unearth the rare resource—the potato chips.

Similarly, a regressor encounters exceptions in the endlessly repeating time, just like the me of the 89th round.

“No way, Cheon Yohwa...”

I swallowed the name of the potato chip. The president of Baekhwa High School. Alongside Tang Seorin’s Three Thousand Worlds, she was a necromancer, always mentioned when listing the most powerful guilds on the Korean Peninsula. I never expected to hear her name here.

– It’s not just humans.

For some miraculous reason, this bag of chips had a higher quantity.

– As I mentioned, the influence of the monstrosity extends to objects, plants, and animals alike.

– Think of the monstrosity as a form of radiation.

– The ‘Butterfly Effect’ you are presumed to have hunted was also an apostle of this entity, irradiated by us.

“Wait a minute. Even the Butterfly Effect?”

– Correct. That is the truth.

“...”

My mind fell into chaos.

In the 89th round, Cheon Yohwa was a necromancer. A malevolent student council president who occasionally brought the [Bad Ending: Academy City ENDING] to the Korean Peninsula when bored.

And the Butterfly Effect was a psychotically unstable morpho butterfly that spread tornadoes everywhere, regardless of its mood.

“...They’re so different. What’s the commonality between Cheon Yohwa and the Butterfly Effect that makes them your infected... I mean, so-called apostles?”

– It’s faster to show you directly.

“Directly? Show me what?”

The Fairy Lord extended a hand.

– This entity.

“...”

– I sense your hesitation. Are you afraid? Won’t you grasp it?

I sheathed my sword.

Being a regressor was convenient at times like this. Even if this turned out to be a monstrosity’s trap and I ended up dead, I could at least carry the information “the Fairy Lord is utterly untrustworthy” to the next round.

“Fine. If it’s a provocation, I’ll accept. I don’t know where you’re taking me, but go ahead and guide me.”

As I took the Fairy Lord’s hand, an unpleasant, squishy sensation of the liquid body spread across my palm.

And in the next moment, I found myself standing in the middle of a clean, intact prison.

“What...?”

But it wasn’t Cheongsong Prison. I couldn’t pinpoint where it was. The iron bars and hallways extended endlessly out of sight. No people were around.

“What is this...?”

Squish. The Fairy Lord gripped my hand tightly as it automatically moved towards my sword hilt.

– Do not let go of my hand under any circumstances.

– Or you will lose.

Lose? What?

Before those words fully registered, blink. As I closed and opened my eyelids once, the prison had transformed into a hospital.

“...”

Despite there being no patients or doctors, the beds in the hallway were bizarrely clean. Transparent IV lines hung from each bed like suspension bridge cables. The corridor seemed infinite.

Identical hospital beds, identical IV lines hung at identical angles, the hallway in the same pristine white hue, stretched endlessly――.

Blink. The school turned into an abandoned wooden building. The name Baekhwa fluttered. The sky was bright red. Shattered windows, birch trees scraping their white bark on the glass shards, poking through the windows into the school’s hallway. The school was impaled on a white spike, its body in shambles.

The angles and positions of the broken glass shards repeated every six meters. In each repeating section, old desks and wooden chairs were scattered. Even the moss-covered wood, the sagging spots, and the tilted angles were all identical.

Blink.

A swimming pool. The intense smell of chlorine. Swimming pool lanes stretching to the horizon, the water forming a corridor.

Blink.

A movie theater. It was dark. But it was odd. A regular movie theater wouldn’t have such worn-out wooden chairs like those from an abandoned school. Nor would it have IV lines dangling from each chair.

The theater was showing scenes of a prison. Bars. Hallways. Bars. Hallways. An empty prison. The screen in the theater displayed a prison, a hospital, a school, a swimming pool, and then the theater again. The screen within the screen, the eye within the eye――.

Blink.

The universe moved.

The stars’ movements had no pattern. The colors had no complements. The stars danced, stood on their heads, laughed tirelessly, and then grew silent.

As laws ceased to function, time let go of the world. Colors caught the drooping fingers. Interlocked hands. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, crimson, scarlet, burgundy. Interlocked hands.

Colors danced together in a round. Orange stepped on blue’s foot, red killed orange. The Milky Way turned red.

Blink.

Thus, stars were born and destroyed immediately, forms created and collapsed as soon as they formed. Like bubbles.

Everything in the world was bubbles. Soap bubbles in sunlight gleaming with rainbow-colored oil. Existence was bubbles, life was color.

To that void, I gave a name.

I pointed with a human finger.

– Endless.

– Endless Hell.

– It is the correct name.

– It is an incorrect name.

– This, too, is a form of randomness.

– I can speculate why the pink entity showed unusual behavior.

The sound of ten thousand layers of laughter split.

For a moment, the smell of chlorine from the pool wafted. It was the breath of this universe’s backrooms.

– I will experiment on you, Doctor Jang.

Thud, the Fairy Lord... No. ‘Endless’ let go of my hand.

At that moment, the traffic light’s glow also turned a new shade of azure blue, like the wings of a Morpho butterfly, neither green nor yellow, an inexplicable color.

The presence of Endless surged towards me. Passing through a freshly painted pedestrian bridge, crossing a swimming pool, echoing down corridors, trampling time and tearing through space.

In that instant, I lost consciousness.

6

“Guild Master?”

A voice reached me.

“Are you okay, Guild Master? Are you back with us?”

“Um... hmm, where am I?”

“Cheongsong Penitentiary. More precisely, where Cheongsong Penitentiary ‘used to be.’ You mentioned having a conversation with fairies.”

“Ah.”

As I regained my senses and looked around, Koyori was gently supporting my head amidst the rubble of a collapsed building.

She smiled.

“Did the conversation conclude well?”

“Conversation... well. I think I saw something, but my memory is... vague.”

“Ah, indeed. Well, this is a bit troubling. Let me think...”

Koyori muttered while touching her chin with her index finger, a sign of contemplation. My mind was still fuzzy as I looked up at Koyori.

“...I see. Do you still remember your promise to accompany me next time you go down to Busan?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I remember.”

“Well, since you graciously stepped aside earlier, it’s only fair to reciprocate.”

“...?”

“Relax your body for a moment, Guild Master. Take a deep breath—yes. Exhale. That’s it. Well done! You’ve been through multiple explosions, knowingly or unknowingly tensing up your body and mind.”

A stroke.

Koyori’s touch gently massaged the back of my head. Though it was a simple act of affection, it strangely cleared my mind little by little.

Most importantly, memories of ‘Endless,’ which I had observed just a while ago, returned like a flood.

“Ah...”

“Yeah. Looks like your condition is improving. That’s a relief.”

“Condition, you say? Should I call it that? My memory... no, it’s nothing. Anyway, thank you for taking care of me while I was out of it, Koyori.”

Despite being someone who named one of the most powerful monstrosities in this world, I still couldn’t grasp the true nature of the entity before me, who took my hand and gently—lifted me up.

And then she grinned.

“Guild Master, are you happy right now?”

“Huh? Um, yeah. At least not unhappy.”

“Then I’m happy too. Guild Master.”

As always, her smile was incredibly beautiful.

7

There’s a very short anecdote.

“Seo Gyu, I’m actually a regressor, but I’ve had my head blown off by those fairy bosses at least fifty times in tutorials. But last time, I found a monstrosity that stands against the fairy leaders? Endless, yeah. Just watching it is enough to make most people bite the dust. Anyway, that bastard owes you... well, roughly fifty lifetimes of grudges. What do you want to do about it?”

“What, there’s such a fucking bastard? Hyungnim. Obviously, I have to go and take revenge with my own hands!”

He brought him over.

“Hey, you fucking bastard! Did you blow off my headddddd?”

Pewww-!

As soon as we stepped into the emptiness of Endless, our SG’s head exploded like the alien heads in director Tim Burton’s movie “Mars Attacks!”

“Hmm.”

...It seemed like repaying humanity’s enemy was still a long way off.

– Questioner. The End.

[Proofreader – Gun]