Chapter 208
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The Antagonist V
Abduction.
Naturally, being abducted by an anomaly is quite different from being kidnapped by a human.
When humans kidnap you, it’s usually your honor, wealth, or life that’s at risk. But an anomaly? Surprisingly, all of those things might just remain intact.
Anomalies don’t do anything outside of what’s necessary. If they were after your life, they would kill you on the spot, not bother going through the whole process of an abduction.
No, when an anomaly abducts you, there’s only one thing they’re after: your ‘humanity.’ And I’m not just talking about ethics and morality—it includes the logical structure built into the brain of every Homo sapien.
Q. What’s 1 + 1?A. Obviously, it’s 2.
Even those who answer that question normally, if abducted by an anomaly, may suddenly respond with:
Q. What’s 1 + 1?
A. Having slaughtered the flesh of 10, only 1 limb remains. Since a cross of 1 and 1 is X and X is 10, when two 10s join to form 100, align 100 crossed forearms and you’ll have your answer.[1]
Then, they proceed to murder 100 people, including themselves, displaying 100 pairs of forearms.
Being outraged at the fact that they could commit such monstrous acts would mean nothing to them.
A. Why are you getting angry all of a sudden?
Because in their mind, killing 100 people is no different from calculating 1 + 1 = 2. They slaughtered with the same nonchalance as doing simple math.
I just answered 1 + 1 = 2, so why are you upset? Why are you looking at me with such sadness?
They’d look at you with confusion.
They're no longer human.
They're incapable of human conversation.
Thus was the abduction of humanity.
This is what I usually refer to when I say someone has been ‘entranced’ by an anomaly. It was likely in this sense that the Tutorial Fairy used the word.
“If everyone infected in the real world has been abducted... how many people are here in this Inner World?”
“Hoek! At least two million! And the number’s skyrocketing in real-time!”
I frowned. “Wait, at this rate, it’ll surpass the population of the Peninsula.”
“That’s right! This place doesn't just contain the virus-infected people from reality, but even characters from their dreams! It’ll soon exceed ten million! Welcome to the Reversal World!”
“...Huh.”
Ten million.
I surveyed the vast emptiness that stretched around Seoul Station. If this place was the Void created by an anomaly, it wasn’t just any Void—it was a Great Void.
A Great Void of this scale was incredibly rare. For example, an anomaly like an “apartment trapping 400 souls” would only be a standard Apartment Anomaly. But if an apartment could hold 40,000 souls, additional concepts would be needed. Like, “This reflects the deep desire Koreans have for apartments,” or, “It’s based on a real apartment with that many pre-sale applications.” The anomaly wouldn't just be about the building, but the entire complex. Only then could a Great Void grow larger.
The largest Great Void on Earth was in the western part of Eurasia, where the concepts of World War I and World War II had been linked, trapping hundreds of millions of souls.
“How could it have pulled in millions? Did it declare this place a hell?”
“Hoek, not at all. If anything, it’s quite the opposite—”
“Everyone!”
Just then, a voice boomed from the plaza of Seoul Station. It was a man with a megaphone, dressed in an outfit that screamed street evangelist, much like those seen before the collapse of civilization. But there was something a bit off about the writing on his vest.
Goddess = Heaven!
No Goddess = Hell!
The stickers patched across his vest were disturbingly similar to reality.
“Everyone! I’m sorry to interrupt your busy lives! But I had no choice! I had to grab this stage to guide you toward true faith and a righteous life!”
The middle-aged man shouted into his red megaphone.
“As you know, many unfortunate souls are still trapped in hell! Unlike us, they have yet to be saved! They live lives of endless regression, endless cycles, endless suffering! Friends! Family!”
At this point, the sense of “reality” that had anchored this place suddenly and dramatically reversed.
“......”
“......”
Everyone in the plaza stopped moving and turned to stare at the man.
People on the phone hung up. Those looking at their smartphones turned them off. Even those chatting with companions fell silent.
The plaza was engulfed in eerie stillness. There wasn’t a single annoyed look directed at the man’s megaphone. Everyone stared at him blankly, with dark, hollow eyes.
“Across the Void, countless people still suffer in the inferno of eternal reincarnation! Those people are your friends! Your family! And, ultimately, they are a reflection of yourselves! Let us pray for them! Oh, Goddess!”
“Oh, Goddess!”
The previously silent crowd suddenly roared in unison.
The man waved his arms even more fervently.
“Oh, Goddesssss!”
“Oh, Goddess!”
“Repent! As we live through cycle after cycle, hundreds, thousands of times over, we fall into the delusion that we will be saved! That the world will be redeemed! But we must repent for our sins, for the sins of our friends, family, and selves!”
“Repent!”
“Praise her! The only thing piling up in this endless life is our growing sins. Even if we forget, the Goddess continues to watch over us! Our filthy souls, they are stained with sin. Yet the Goddess, in her mercy, never gave up on us! She has pulled us out of hell and returned us to this world! Praise her!”
“Praise her!”
“Oh, Goddessss!”
“Oh, Goddess!”
The entire plaza descended into madness.
Fairy No. 264 let out a quiet hoek and hid behind me. Even I hesitated for a moment as I saw the frenzied eyes of the crowd.
“Bow down, all of you! Worship her!”
Without a second of hesitation, the crowd in the plaza dropped to the ground. Not a single one of them cared that their suits got dirty.
Kim Joo-chul was among them. He and his wife bowed low to the ground.
“Confront it! As you did yesterday, as you did the day before, as you did a hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago! See your reflection in this eternal hell!”
And then something bizarre happened. The asphalt ground of the plaza turned transparent—like glass. Beneath the glass, scenes began to play. In the place where Kim Joo-chul bowed, the scene was of Kim Joo-chul himself.
“Save me! Please, just let me out of here! I can’t keep reliving this day anymore!”
It wasn’t just him. Wherever the crowd bowed, each of them saw a vision of themselves beneath the glass.
And among them, I noticed a familiar green-haired figure—it was Sim Ah-ryeon.
The scene beneath the glass that caught and held my attention, however, was the following:
“The National Road Management Corps are the lackeys of hell! They want to trap us in this endless regression! They’re the true demons!”
“Demons! Demons! Demons!”
In the scene, a group of protesters gathered in front of the National Road Management Corps headquarters, screaming their chants. Yu Ji-won and her team came out and brutally suppressed them. The Tower of Babel Plaza was filled with screams.
A scene that could have easily been from reality.
I muttered to myself, “What are these scenes?”
“Hoek. They’re from the real world.” The fairy peeked over my shoulder. “Comrade Secretary, look beneath your feet.”
“Huh?”
I looked down, and to my surprise, just like the others, there was a glass panel beneath me displaying a ‘scene.’
The Undertaker on the other side was sleeping with his eyes closed. Surrounding him were Noh Do-hwa and the Saintess, sitting nearby. While I lay in bed, they were talking softly.
“Damn. It’s noisy outside...”
“The protests are getting worse.”
“Well, not surprising. Even the Awakeners are infected with this so-called Regressor Virus. Samcheon and Baekhwa mentioned trying to suppress it, but I don’t think it’ll last long...”
“I still believe everything will be fine once Undertaker wakes up.”
I was speechless. This wasn’t just a scene that could exist in reality—it was reality itself.
Then Fairy No. 24 revealed, “But for those humans entranced by this Inner World, it’s the opposite.”
“...The opposite?”
“Hoek! Yes! Here is the real world, and beyond the glass is the afterlife—their hell!”
My eyes shot wide. “What? How could they be fooled like that...?”
“Hoek! It works! To be more precise, the anomaly is actively pushing that narrative!”
Fairy number 264 continued to explain.
The reason they believed their Inner World was superior to my reality.
“First of all, there’s no war here, and civilization is still intact! And like I said, the population here is about to surpass yours!”
Civilization and environment.
“That side is a harsh world, an eternal regression hell. But this Inner World created by the anomaly exists without regression! It continues on like a normal reality!”
The flow of time.
“So, Comrade Secretary, this anomaly has declared your world a ‘hell.’ It’s a challenge to see which world is the true reality and which is the hellscape!”
“......”
I finally understood.
In the end, this anomaly was no different from others in its essence. Anomalies typically create hell within reality, but this one had simply named reality itself as hell. And just like that, it had constructed its own Inner World, claiming it as its territory.
This place was the world of the living, and that place was the afterlife. The anomaly was entrancing people with that narrative.
Reversal. Inversion. A change in perception.
Reluctantly, I admitted, “...Clever bastard. So, where is this, exactly? Is it a dream? The unconscious?”
“Hoek, not quite. You reached this place through a dream, but dreams are just a similar experience!”
“A similar experience...?” With a flash of insight, I deduced, “I see, so that’s it. There’s an old myth that people can sometimes glimpse the afterlife through their dreams. The afterlife doesn’t actually exist in dreams, but it can be momentarily accessed through them. This place must have the properties of the afterlife.”
“As expected of Comrade Secretary! Hoek! Of course, the anomaly considers this the real world and the other side the afterlife...”
A cleverly designed trap, no doubt. However, I finally caught a glimpse of the strategy.
It was a simple matter of proving which was the real world and which was the illusion. I just had to reveal that the world I lived in was reality.
“Friends! Rejoice! Your heartfelt repentance has reached the Goddess!” the middle-aged man shouted. “Today, you no longer need to gaze into hell! Lift your heads! Raise your eyes! Behold the sky above you!”
The people lying in the plaza raised their upper bodies. Instinctively, I followed their gaze to the sky.
“Behold the sacred presence of the Goddess!”
And I saw it.
There was no sun. How had I not noticed?
If I had to explain myself, I’d probably have to say because modern people rarely look up at the sun. What’s more, judging by the angle of the light, the sun must have been directly overhead, making it difficult to see unless I tilted my head almost 90 degrees.
In other words, even I had assumed that because light was shining from above, what’s in the sky must be a sun.
“......”
What actually hung in its place was no sun.
It was a massive eye.
Blink.
The eye blinked, and ever so slowly, for just that moment, the light of the world dimmed.
Before I looked up, I’d assumed what kept casting us into shadow were clouds. But I was wrong.
Blink.
From that enormous eye came its light—or rather, its gaze—cast down upon us. The pitch-black pupil at its center never rested, constantly shifting.
It found me.
“Hoek! Danger...!”
The moment the Eye of the Sun—no, the Sun of the Eye—fixed its gaze on me, everyone in the plaza turned their head toward me as well.
“......”
“......”
The residents of this Inner World, who hadn’t noticed me until now, suddenly stared at me with piercing gazes.
Even the light from the eye above focused all its attention on me.
The temperature around me skyrocketed, and my skin began to melt like wax.
“Emergency escape, hoek!”
The fairy frantically waved her wand. Half of Fairy No. 264’s body exploded right in front of me, but the fairy held onto her wand until the end.
In the next instant, I was forcefully ejected from the dream.
“...Hey.”
What greeted me back in reality was a face that could win first place in a contest for The Face You Least Want to See When You Wake Up.
“Hey, Undertaker, are you alright? You’re not dead, are you...?”
Also known as Noh Do-hwa.
I struggled to lift my eyelids, and the first thing I saw was her dark circles. Do-hwa was never one to care much about her appearance, but today she looked the worse for wear. She was covered in something that looked like chunks of flesh from head to toe, though it looked to be more like the consistency of jelly than human skin.
Behind her, the Saintess was similarly drenched in a strange, semi-solid substance.
I was about to make a sarcastic comment about their fashion choices, but Do-hwa cut me off first.
“The fairy that sang you a lullaby and took you on a dream trip just exploded. Out of nowhere, half of its body burst apart...”
“Ah.” So it was true.
From where I lay in bed, I turned my head. Fairy No. 264 was still holding my hand, but half of its body had vanished.
“Call Ah-ryeon. These fairies are tough, and if we heal it quickly, it’ll survive.”
Behind Do-hwa, the Saintess nodded. She probably sent a message using Telepathy.
As I straightened my clothes, I asked, “Noh Do-hwa, is there a protest happening outside right now?”
“Hmm? Yes. Ji-won put it down right away, but... That’s strange. You heard the noise even while dreaming?”
I rested my chin on my hand, deep in thought.
This time, it was Do-hwa who asked me a question, a scowl on her face. “Because of that fairy, we’ll have to redecorate this place. What the hell happened in that dream to cause all this...?”
“The Goddess of the Night, Nut.” I paused for a moment, then added, “It’s an Outer God.”
Footnotes:
[1] The “logic” here goes like this: 2 is expressed in binary as 10. The last 1 standing after slaughtering all those people is you. 1 and 1 crossed looks like the roman numeral X for 10. 10 x 10 (aka 10^2) = 100. So the anomaly needs to take 100 more lives, including the abductee’s, in order to reach “2.”
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