WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell
Chapter 440
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That Man I
"Ah, right, Mister."
"Yeah?"
"I've had something I wanted to confess for a long time."
"...I see. Dok-seo. Sorry, but I don't see you as a romantic partner. Why don't we stay colleagues, like we always have?"
"Fuck, not that kind of confession! You crazy old freak!"
Me and Oh Dok-seo.
Current status: lifelong single.
0 confessions, 1 rejection, added to the record.
The regressor's story ended.
Instead, the world regressed to normal.
"Aren't you going back to Germany, old man?"
"Nah."
Still, just as every result has a cause, every cause has a result.
Now there were no anomalies and no void left to mock the law of causality.
Even if the awakeners quickly said goodbye to their memories of the "previous cycles," there was no way we got a perfect reset where everyone could say, "Nothing happened at all...!"
"I'm just going to study here."
"Huh?"
Emit Schopenhauer. The German-born Old Man Scho, whom mister called "old man," was the perfect example.
"My immediate goal is to get a degree at Sungkyunkwan[1] and earn a doctorate in Korean philosophy."
"...?"
"Research on the Analects has picked up even in the English-speaking world lately, yet discussion here is strangely slow. As a scholar, how could I not burn with righteous fury? Ah! I shall become the black-haired foreign scholar of Confucianism and bring benevolence back to this land!"
"...?"
The former Swordmaster, who inherited the surname of a famous German philosopher yet was always closer to iron than philosophy, had now entered the mystical world of Eastern thought.
Well, scholarship was probably just an excuse.
Personally, I thought it was a strategic choice to avoid loneliness.
Old Man Scho got dragged into bizarre incidents in a foreign country late in life.
He probably had many painful memories, but in the end, he also gained countless unexpected bonds.
No one would believe it, but one of those bonds was even a "daughter from a past life."
No wonder he did not want to leave.
"Dok-seo."
"Hm?"
On the other hand, someone had definitely left for good.
"Since that day, you haven't heard the voice of The Admin of the Infinite Metagame again?"
"Ah... yeah."
I tapped the old laptop.
I was cooling off in the cafe mister had just opened.
Honestly, I would be here even if it were not summer. Autumn too. Winter too. Spring too. Then summer again.
"Strangely enough, if I only write the main novel text, the inner cover appears on its own."
"Inner cover?"
"Yeah. It has the title, a subtitle, and the chapter number. At the bottom, it lists Shin Noa as the author name. Weird, right?"
"And no other authority shows up besides that?"
"Not so far."
Slurp. I sucked up the cafe mocha mister made for me through a straw.
Not cheap syrup, but the bittersweet taste of real chocolate sent a sharp rush of blood sugar from my tongue straight to my brain.
I was happy.
What else is happiness? This was happiness.
"So in the end, the very last authority left to the god that chose me as a Miko was just a pen name."
"...Yeah."
"What do you think, mister? This authority. I can remove it if I want to. I can ask the platform to edit it."
"Hm."
Mister rested his chin on his hand. Dressed as a barista, he stayed frozen in that pose for ten, twenty seconds without moving.
Normally, conversations between people have flow.
Humans embroidered this world through battles called language.
So silence, the absence of language, meant losing initiative over the world.
Silence was hard to endure.
You could call it the most direct form of Void.
For many people, silence was uncomfortable, awkward, hard to bear.
It was hard to fill the Void with meaningful words all the time, so people invented small talk.
But mister often did this. Even in the middle of a conversation, if someone asked him a question, he would go quiet like this without a care.
"Does that mean I don't make him uncomfortable?"
I hoped so.
Because I also loved this time, sipping cafe mocha and stealing glances at mister's profile while he sank into thought.
"Dok-seo."
"Yeah."
"What do you think is the hardest thing, almost impossible, for anomalies, especially Outer Gods?"
"Hm... love?"
"Close enough."
Mister chuckled.
It was the kind of smile that made the other person feel better without realizing it.
When I saw that smile, I sometimes thought maybe that was why he had [Kitchen Knife Resistance III] stuck to his gut, because he flashed it at anyone, anytime. Well, not my gut, so maybe not my problem.
"Outer Gods. And highly powerful awakeners too, in the end, are beings that force their own definition of themselves onto others."
"Yeah. I know that."
"This is me. This is [me]. This is my song. Me, me, me... An anomaly is always shouting that and chanting it like a spell."
Mister said,
"But if there is something that exists only as a pen name, like The Admin of the Infinite Metagame, and if it allows others room to judge what it is, then wouldn't it be hard to call that an anomaly anymore?"
"Oh."
I blinked.
"So... The Admin of the Infinite Metagame disappeared and only left a pen name. You're saying that was actually giving up all its authority and opening itself to people?"
"At least that's how I see it."
Mister spoke while grinding coffee beans.
"We cannot know now whether the one who left the Iliad was truly named Homer. We do not even know whether one person wrote it or a group did. It is the same with the people who built Notre Dame Cathedral. We know who led the design sketches, but if you ask exactly who the architect was, it is hard to answer."
"Hmm..."
"There is no concrete self, but we assume there was one. Since that assumption rests entirely with others, that Outer God called The Admin of the Infinite Metagame was, in the end, no different from handing itself over to the humanity it once despised so much."
"..."
"Did he exist? What kind of being was he? Was he an anomaly? Or a human? Does it not matter either way? He said he was letting go, but was it really letting go?"
"..."
"All those judgments are now left open to the people who remain. At least, The Admin of the Infinite Metagame probably thought so."
I had heard something like that before.
So before I knew it, I asked back.
"Like how I did that to you, Mister?"
"..."
"You lived your own life and reached your own conclusion. But you left it to me to decide how to accept that conclusion. Isn't that exactly what you just said?"
"Yeah. Exactly the same."
Mister patted my head.
Truthfully, mister did not casually pat people's heads like this. Usually he tapped their shoulder to show friendliness.
Even so, with me he used the full pat-pat technique without holding back. Not because his favorability toward me hit MAX or anything.
It was just because I was an otaku.
"Our Dok-seo got a lot smarter."
"Hehehe."
I just liked this.
"But if someone lets go of themselves like that, can you really call that human?"
Part of me felt a little puzzled.
"Closer to a corpse than a human... Ah. Mister has me, though."
In the end, whether someone had another person by their side or not.
By that simple standard, could the anomaly that once lived in this laptop either collapse into a corpse or remain a person?
"...Hmm. So anomalies could only become human by abandoning themselves."
"'Abandoning' is too strong. Let's see. You do your best to live, but you do not monopolize the right to judge that life. You open that right to others too. That's more accurate."
"Needlessly long and pretentious. [Abandoning yourself], on the other hand, short and clean. That's the answer."
"Good grief, says the one calling herself a writer..."
"Ah, right."
I was enjoying the fragrant smell of coffee settling over my bangs like weeping willow branches when it suddenly came to me.
"Mister."
"Yeah?"
"I've had something I wanted to confess for a long time."
"...I see."
Mister's face suddenly turned grave.
"Dok-seo. Sorry, but I don't see you as a romantic partner. Why don't we stay colleagues, like we always have?"
"Fuck, not that kind of confession! You crazy old freak!"
I got goosebumps.
Not from the idea of dating mister, but from cold sweat at the thought of getting "nice boat"-ed by all the kitchen knives that were probably being sharpened right now.
That was not a joke.
"Good thing Ha-yul sorted that situation out, at least!"
Had it already been about a year?
The day after mister finally gave up the authority of awakening, made contact with Udumbara, and returned to being human, Lee Ha-yul pulled out a kitchen knife in the middle of the school field.
[Notice.]
[If anyone wishes to date Dad, whoever that may be, they must pass my test.]
For reference, Lee Ha-yul had also lost her abilities, so she could no longer send voice with aura or use housekeeper dolls as substitute vocal cords.
In one hand she held a kitchen knife. In the other, a sketchbook.
[The minimum conditions are as follows.]
Scratch, scratch.
Everyone was too dumbfounded to react, but also too chilled by the knife to rush her or shout recklessly.
And that brat Ha-yul, absurdly skilled, flipped the sketchbook one-handed.
[First, my existence must be approved.]
From somewhere, someone shouted, "I can do that!"
It was probably that witch noona from Samcheon World. Or maybe not? Hmm. For that person's honor, I will not identify her.
[That is not all.]
Lee Ha-yul's blank expression was perfectly dignified.
[Next, the existence of Oh Dok-seo must also be allowed.]
[Even if not in the same house as me, they must adopt an owl who visits Dad whenever she gets bored and whose average wake-up time is 4 p.m.]
The uproar on the field dropped in an instant.
Ah, and now that we're here, let me expose this in the true spirit of journalism. The owner of that earlier shout had the real name Dang Seo-rin.
A once-in-a-generation tyrant who inspected Busan and held execution shows in the plaza without even a vote. History may fail to remember, but I, reporter Oh Dok-seo, record only the truth here.
[It does not end here.]
[The existence called Sim Ah-ryeon will always waste her life on SNS in Dad's house, or in his room, with a smartphone, occasionally laughing to herself for no reason.]
[You must acknowledge and tolerate that this will probably continue forever until she dies.]
Silence.
Now not even breathing could be heard on the field.
Everyone's gaze snapped to one side.
Sim Ah-ryeon was eating cold pizza from last night's party, the slices we failed to finish, tilting her head with a "?"
I did not even need to read that anomaly's thoughts.
"Why are they making such a fuss over obvious facts like this is brand-new news?" It was probably something like that.
[These are the basic conditions.]
Lee Ha-yul said.
[I absolutely oppose any person who cannot satisfy and carry out these conditions engaging in officially sharing love with Dad.]
What was official love? Isn't love supposed to be private?
Once again, question marks floated over everyone's heads on the field.
But Lady Lee Ha-yul's expressionless face did not crack at all.
Then again, for the legendary father slayer who killed her biological father not once but thousands of times, why would random people's stares matter?
[If you want to conquer the general, fire at the horse first, that is what they said.]
[Dad is a three-horse carriage.]
Flip. The final sketchbook page turned.
[Now.]
[I am one corner of the three-horse carriage, and the weakest of the Three Heavenly Kings.]
[Try persuading me first, you fools.]
...No one could possibly persuade her in that wrecked atmosphere.
"I am fine with that."
No. To be exact, there was one person who did try.
The same person who ranked right alongside Lee Ha-yul and Yu Ji-won for blank-faced silence in our Regression Alliance. The Saintess, Jeong Ye-ji.
Everyone stared at the Saintess in shock.
Of course, the Saintess had the nerve to ignore ordinary people's stares at will. She did not blink once.
"Anyway, through all four seasons, twenty-four hours a day, no, subjectively for much longer than that, I monitored every one of your movements."
"So now, talk of approval and permission. I had recognized your existences from the start."
"Honestly, nothing changes."
...!
That was surprisingly plausible!?
[Okay.]
Lee Ha-yul nodded as if she accepted the Saintess's logic.
She put down the kitchen knife, took out crayons, and scribbled on the sketchbook. That was proof enough.
[But is distant "surveillance" truly the same as the "real practice" of living together in one space?]
"...?"
[I wish to ask whether they are the same or different.]
Cohabitation began.
Not with mister, obviously.
It meant the three-person unit of Lee Ha-yul, me (Oh Dok-seo), and Sim Ah-ryeon moved into Saintess noona's house and lived together.
A week later.
"I'm sorry."
Saintess noona's face looked wrecked.
"I... trusted only those blurred memories from my past life. I was too arrogant."
"Next time. After I build a little more courage, and a little more patience... I will try again."
"Mr. Undertaker, what kind of battle have you been fighting all this time... No. It's nothing. Yes."
"Please leave my house immediately."
"Especially Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon."
Saintess, surrendered!
Footnotes:
[1] Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU or Seongdae, Korean: 성균관대학교; Hanja: 成均館大學校) is a private research university with campuses in Seoul and Suwon, South Korea. The institution traces its origins to the historic Sungkyunkwan founded in 1398 in central Seoul. As the foremost educational institution during the Joseon period, it was governed by the great code of the state administration with royal assent. By a resolution of the Progressive Intellectuals and Confucian scholars, it was restructured as a comprehensive university in the mid-20th century, and has since greatly expanded its academic offerings.
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