WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell

Chapter 412

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The Reincarnator II

‘What is life?’

I had lived thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.

Or maybe even millions.

I repeated more lives than anyone else. I was born as a child with full-body paralysis, and I was born as the descendant of royalty.

And yet, life always remained a riddle to me, a reincarnator.

‘Why am I... constantly suffering in a world where destruction is already a certainty?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Maybe this place isn’t reality, but my own personal hell from the very beginning.’

My own existence. The self that was a precious family member to someone would inflict a scar upon that family of a past life each time I was reincarnated.

A void would open up.

A □ was pierced through them.

‘...Perhaps… is my existence something that only hurts other people.’

And so.

I even tried running away until the very end on purpose.

At this point, I had already reached a stage that an ordinary human could not dare to fathom.

With all my knowledge, experience, power, and wealth, it wasn't difficult to take care of ‘my family’ even after the apocalypse.

Whether the world was ending or not.

I built a shelter or a bunker in the safest area in the world, and disregarding the survival of humanity, we lived together as a family for decades.

“Thank you. My child. Thanks to you….”

“Dad will always love you.”

Certainly.

When I chose to live like this, my family wasn't hurt all that much.

No □ was formed either.

This was because, in most cases, I outlived my family, so rather than inflicting a loss upon them, I was the one who inherited that loss.

It wasn't a happy ending.

It was a normal ending.

Just achieving a normal ending in this world, so terribly stained with the void’s poison, was a tremendous accomplishment in itself.

For a while, the reincarnator pursued only normal endings.

It couldn't be helped. Living for an impossible goal was just too difficult and exhausting.

‘Ah.’

There was a side effect.

‘They don't... awaken.’

It was a natural principle.

The reincarnator bit their lip firmly.

‘The people who lost me in a past life live with a void in their hearts in the next. But, thanks to that, they awaken.’

‘On the other hand, those who didn't experience any particular sense of loss... are just ordinary people in their next life. And continue to be ordinary people.’

In other words.

‘When the void arrives and monsters swarm, they are just ordinary people, people who will die much, much more easily than awakeners.’

‘Just... ordinary humans. The kind who will die without being able to utter a single word or scream.’

That was the price of a normal ending.

It was the result of a wish to simply spend time with my precious people, casting aside both the world’s destruction and humanity’s salvation.

People were brutally murdered by monsters. Unable to even resist. My families from past lives, from tens of thousands of lives, who had bid me farewell with gentle smiles.

“...”

In the ruins of a certain collapsed city.

I had arrived as quickly as possible, but the person who was my father in a past life was already dead, crushed by a building.

The reincarnator gently held the corpse’s hand and quietly closed their eyes.

‘This is cruel. Truly.’

This world hated humans.

And among them, it particularly hated me.

‘...I have to raise awakeners.’

The reincarnator opened their eyes.

‘As much love as possible. I have to become an irreplaceable, precious existence to them.’

‘That way, when they lose me. And the more horribly I die...’

‘The probability that the person will awaken a powerful ability in their next life increases.’

The hesitation was brief.

Even in the time I spent hesitating, people were dying.

‘The power to fight back against the monsters.’

‘A hope for survival in a world like this.’

It was simple. The more powerful awakeners that appeared, the greater the chance humanity had of winning.

Even now, humanity held an unbelievably advantageous position compared to the ‘first life.’

Although it was merely like the score of a soccer match, that was once a crushing defeat of [100:0], had only just changed to [100:1].

‘Everything is statistics.’

‘I must become a precious person to people. So precious that they can never lose me, an existence more fatal than their own death.’

‘And then...’

‘I must die as miserably as possible.’

I put it into practice immediately.

It felt like imagining a small button inside my head, then lightly pressing it.

Time passed.

“Aaaaaaaah! Ah! Aaaack!”

Someone was wailing before my eyes.

It was my ‘older brother’ in this life.

“So-someone... Somebody please! Please help me! My sister, ugh, my little sister! Please help me!”

His name was Lee Baek.

He had strayed a bit when he was young, but he became more and more diligent as he grew up.

In place of our parents who passed away early, he took on all sorts of part-time jobs to support me, his younger sister.

That sister. The one and only family member he had left was now dying, crushed by the debris of a collapsed building in Seoul.

“Oppa....”

“D-don't talk! You, don't talk! Hey! Over here! Is anyone there?! Please come here! Help me! There’s someone here!”

What is a person?

With my entire lower body crushed by a block of concrete and my shoulder pierced by a rebar, was I, now more red than flesh-toned, still a person.

“I'm sorry... oppa....”

“No! So-ah! No! Aaaaaaaargh! No, no! Don't close your eyes! You can't close your eyes! H-hey... Over here! Ah, here! Help me! Someone, someone!”

I'm sorry.

I died. I was born into a new life. And so, after settling down to some extent in my next life, I went to visit the outskirts of Seoul.

I checked Lee Baek’s ability.

‘An ability to make his voice louder?’

The so-called Lion's Roar.

‘Ahh, I see. Did he think he couldn't save his sister because his voice didn't reach anyone? That can’t be the reason.’

Lee Baek's life was ruined.

A life that had already gone astray. After his parents died, he began to get involved in crime, spreading the germs that had infested his own life to others.

He didn't ask for anyone's understanding.

Because when his own life was being ruined, no one had asked for his.

‘It’s not a very useful ability... Hmm. No. It could be relatively useful for commanding a large number of allies on a battlefield.’

‘Next.’

It was like a lottery game. Like gacha.

‘Next.’

The reincarnator, like a scientist with the entire Earth as their laboratory, carefully bestowed □ upon people.

Naturally, high-rank awakeners and low-rank awakeners were sorted out. The latter were not worth a second thought.

‘Next.’

High-rank awakeners.

These ones required special management.

‘Next.’

Come to think of it, there were countless ways to become a precious person to someone. It didn't necessarily have to be as family.

A friend. An understanding soul. A companion.

‘Next.’

Jeong Ye-ji, who would later be called by the title [Saintess], was special in that sense.

After becoming her family member and dying, I checked on her later, and what do you know? Jeong Ye-ji had mastered [Telepathy].

The reincarnator clenched a fist in their mind at that moment. My goodness! Telepathy.

It was a jackpot. Dopamine rushed through me like someone who had just poured hundreds of thousands or millions of won into gacha and got an S-rank for the first time.

My dear unni was so foolish.

It wouldn't have been Ye-ji unni's fault that her smartphone had disappeared somewhere right when her family member was dying, so she couldn't send an SOS signal to anyone.

‘Next.’

In the next life, the reincarnator moved near Jeong Ye-ji and purposely became her childhood friend.

Gaining her affection was easy. People with a □ pierced in their hearts felt a very easy pull toward the reincarnator whenever they saw me.

It was natural. It was a reunion with a family they had lost to death.

‘Next.’

Jeong Ye-ji's childhood friend died. The friend from the same school with whom Jeong Ye-ji read books and shared her heart died. The friend Jeong Ye-ji met up with occasionally to chat and laugh with died. Jeong Ye-ji's, Jeong Ye-ji's, Jeong Ye-ji's....

The results were astonishing.

‘Excellent.’

Telepathy. Clairvoyance. Time Stop.

‘A desire to be able to report to someone without any tools when a family member is dying.’

‘A wish to watch over everyone, because a friend was kidnapped and tortured to death without my knowledge.’

‘A hope that it would be better if all of this just stopped.’

SSS-class, confirmed.

‘The more a person aches.’

‘The more they cherish someone.’

‘The more talented a person is at the pain of loss.’

A powerful awakener was forged.

‘Interesting.’

However, there was a limit to awakening as well.

For example, in Jeong Ye-ji's case. She no longer knew any other way to fight against the wound in her heart beyond ‘stopping time.’

This was a result verified over dozens more attempts.

‘If so, couldn't I create a reincarnator like myself someday?’

A faint flutter in my heart.

The emotion named hope, which I had let go of long ago when I discarded my human heart, lit up like a candle.

‘If one can stop time, they might be able to repeat time. Yes, I'm sure of it.’

‘I want to turn back the past. I want to start over. Isn't this kind of wish a pretty universal desire for humanity?’

‘There must be someone out there who will reach that point. Yes, it would be strange if there weren’t.’

Next.

‘Where might you be—?’

Next.

‘Is there anyone who will swim with me through this shattered world of destruction? Anyone?’

Next.

‘No, no! It's troublesome if you try to overcome the scar so easily. Why are you trying to somehow stand up on the scar that is me? You have no talent.’

Next.

‘No... Hmm. But it’s also troublesome if you crumble under the loss and your heart dies completely. That's a problem.’

Next.

‘Please feel the pain.’

Next.

‘But please do not break.’

Next.

‘Painfully. So painful that you want to die, you want to curse the world right now for losing someone precious.’

‘But I still want you to live more earnestly than anyone else. I still hope you will decide to save the world.’

Next.

‘It’s troublesome if you are satisfied with saving just one precious person. Is there no one who will think of the world? Of humanity?’

Next.

‘Is there really no one? Someone like that.’

Next.

‘Why?’

Next.

‘When even I can do it...’

Next.

‘Ahaha.’

Next.

“...”

Your wish.

I made your wish… come true.

You all said it.

Please let me be rich in my next life, or… Let my voice reach everyone around me in the next life, or… I wish time would just stop in the next life, or…

I made your wishes—come true! I did!

Yes. Scars remained. A stain in your heart that could never be washed away no matter how you lived this life. The poison of the void remained, I admit it.

But, how can a wish be granted without anything in return?

It's only natural that there's a price. Besides, you don't even remember the price you paid. You remain ignorant of what happened in your past life, of how much pain you were in.

I, in fact, granted your wishes.

I didn't leave a scar.

I said I didn't!

“…”

It was a natural principle.

“Mmm.... Every time I leave a small void in someone, one forms in my heart too. A tomb of the exact same size.”

I lost my parents.

I lost my family. They were precious people. They were childhood friends. They were friends. They were all truly precious people.

□. □. □. □. □. □.

□. □. □. □. □. □.

□. □. □. □. □. □.

□. □. □. □. □. □.

Now, if I look inside my heart.

“There are only holes everywhere.”

The result of hundreds of millions of tombs, dug by hundreds of millions of people, all piled up inside my heart.

“This can hardly be called human anymore.”

What is life?

“…”

What is a human?

“Am I… a human?”

Probably not.

“Then it would be necessary to separate the two. Acknowledge the void in my heart, and isolate it completely.”

“Oh my. It's a kind of Wirianchihyeong[1], isn't it?”

“Even if I isolate it, how do I do it? This is my heart. If it were an arm, I could at least cut it off, but I can't cut out my heart.”

“Because the moment I cut out my heart—”

“I would truly become a monster.”

“Ahaha. You’re already a monster!”

“Knowing full well that people will suffer.”

“Approaching them for that very suffering.”

“Dying.”

“And killing them.”

“Now, just walking down the street, everyone is family from a past life, you know? The whole world is my graveyard.”

“Congratulations.”

“This is the scenery you wished for, isn't it?”

“You reap what you sow.”

“Hey.”

“Just a moment. This kind of conversation has been repeated for too long, too familiarly. It's a meaningless flow.”

“It's the trace of a being who has come to regard digging into their own wounds as the only proof of their humanity. How pitiful.”

“Feeling pity is part of the template.”

“What wonderful self-awareness. And so—”

“I have a brilliant idea.”

“Ah.” “Ah.” “Ah.” “Ah.”

“Not all minds are the same. Without even going as far as Freud, isn't the concept of the ‘unconscious’ very familiar to people?”

“Consciousness.” “Unconsciousness.”

“The me of the conscious.” “The me of the unconscious.”

“There is a possibility.”

“Um, excuse me.”

“Carl Jung advocated for the concept of the collective unconscious.”

“The idea that humans do not exist as individuals but always as a group, and that ‘memory,’ which is formed using the human brain, can in fact be accumulated collectively.”

“Like DNA.”

“Existing within the individual, but the individual is merely one of many nodes—”

“Interesting.”

“Excuse me?”

“The voids piled up in my heart have certainly reached a level that can be classified as humanity's collective unconscious. After all, my wounds are the wounds of humanity, aren't they?”

“How interesting.”

“In that case, if I reincarnate more, much more from here on, leaving scars in the hearts of all humanity and accumulating them as voids in my own heart?”

“Wow. It’s a cemetery for all of humanity!”

“Let’s make it.”

“Shall we make it?”

“Let's just make it.”

“Let's isolate it.”

“Hey. I-it hurts.”

“…” “…” “…” “…”

“I don't want to do this anymore.”

“How is this... saving the world? It's strange. Originally, even if they died at the hands of monsters. Everyone... Mom, too. Dad, too. Father, too. Mother, too. All of them. They died as humans.”

“What is an awakener? What is a superhuman? An ascendant, or whatever they're called...”

“They're monsters.”

“While claiming to fight against monsters, I'm creating them. I am. The monsters.”

“By bewitching people. By speaking out as if I'm a precious person, just as I please.”

“Like a changgwi[2] joining a procession of corpses.”

“I want to die.”

“…” “……” “…” “……”

“Everyone has come to hate the world.”

“Everyone, they hate it, because—”

“It was taken from them. Their precious existence. Me. There's no way they would love a world that took me away.”

“It's not that the world hates humans.”

“It's that humans hate the world.”

“Because of me.”

“……” “…” “……” “…”

“Someone like me should not have been born. As soon as I was born, I should have died.”

“A miscarriage. Of course they would be sad if they miscarried, but that sadness would have been better than the wound I would inflict.”

“I'm tired.”

“I don't want to. I-I don't want to do it anymore.”

“I don't want to be born.”

“Please save me. I'm sorry, oppa. I'm sorry. Mom. Dad. I'm sorry... Sorry. Forgive me.”

“Please. Someone.”

“Please kill me.”

“……” “……” “……” “……”

“There seems to be no particular problem.”

“Yes. It's a flow that has always existed.”

“Humans have a nature akin to that of a carnivore. It is the instinct to feel as though they are absorbing life when they dig into flesh dripping with juices.”

“However, in the modern era where hunting has decreased, and violence and murder are forbidden, people's opportunities to dig into the flesh of other beings have been extremely reduced. So as an alternative.”

“They eat their own flesh.”

“The contradiction of regarding self-slaughter as one's own life.”

“Interesting.”

“The civilization of cannibalism.”

“Whether you are human or not is not important at all.”

“The billions who have died so far.”

“No. I have to multiply it by the number of times I've reincarnated. Billions multiplied by billions, that's the weight of the lives that have been lost until now.”

“Can those people be saved?”

“Can they be rescued?”

“That is the only thing that matters.”

“Because—”

“What humans desire is not a human, but a god.”

“A god does not cry.”

“A god does not regret.”

“A god is not human.”

“Therefore.”

“The next life.”

“Yes.”

“The next life.”

“Next.” “Next.” “Next.” “Next.”

The reincarnator was born.

The reincarnator was always born.

“Ah.”

And every time I was born, I witnessed the sight of someone looking down at me.

The first memory.

The person looking at me this time was a man.

“Aboob aboobooboo bueeeh.”

“…”

The boy scrunched up his face foolishly. It seemed he was trying to make me, a newborn baby, laugh.

The gesture was familiar.

His face was also familiar.

‘Reconnaissance Team Leader.’

Because no matter how many reincarnations I repeated, he was the one who always fought at the final defensive line until the very last moment, despite having no abilities whatsoever.

Beaming.

“Huh? Oh, oh, they smiled! They smiled!”

The boy chattered excitedly. It had been a long time since the reincarnator had equipped a smile that could evoke affection from anyone. It was only natural for the other party to be excited.

‘It’s this person this time.’

I think he was my childhood friend in my first life.

‘What kind of wound will you receive?’

And…

What kind of wound will I receive?

Again, I live.

A life destined for death.

Footnotes:

[1] This refers to a specific type of exile punishment from Korea's Joseon Dynasty. A political offender was confined to a designated location, and their house was surrounded by thorny bushes to prevent escape or contact with the outside world.

[2] In Korean folklore, a Changgwi is the ghost of a person who was killed by a tiger. This ghost becomes enslaved to the tiger and is forced to lure other humans to their death to serve its master.

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