The Inquisitor IV
To an infinite regressor, the world could be compared to a bag of potato chips. Among the countless amounts of nitrogen, you have to dig out the rare potato chips.
Similarly, a regressor occasionally encounters exceptions within the endlessly repeating time. Just like I did in the 89th cycle.
"No way, Cheon Yo-hwa…."
I swallowed the name of the potato chip. The president of Baekhwa High School’s student council. The necromancer who, alongside Dang Seo-rin’s Samcheon, is often cited as one of the most powerful guilds on the Korean Peninsula. I never expected to hear her name here.
-It’s not just humans.
By some miracle, this bag of chips had a few more chips than usual.
-As I mentioned, the influence of anomalies affects objects and plants indiscriminately.
-Think of anomalies as a type of radiation.
-The “Butterfly Effect” that you presumably exterminated was also one of our apostles, an entity contaminated by us.
“Wait a minute. Even the Butterfly Effect?”
-Yes. It’s the truth.
“……”
My brain was in a state of confusion.
As far as the 89th cycle me knew, Cheon Yo-hwa was a necromancer. The malevolent student council president who occasionally treated the Korean Peninsula to a [Bad Ending: Academy City ENDING].
And the Butterfly Effect was a schizophrenic butterfly that scattered tornadoes everywhere, even when it wasn’t bored.
“…They’re too different. What do Cheon Yo-hwa and the Butterfly Effect have in common to be your infected… or so-called apostles?”
-It’s faster to show you directly.
“Directly? Show what?”
The Fairy King extended its hand.
-This entity.
“……”
-I detect hesitation. Are you afraid? Will you not grasp it?
I sheathed my sword.
Being a regressor was convenient in times like this. Even if it was a trap set by an anomaly and I died, I could carry the information that "the Fairy King is absolutely untrustworthy" to the next cycle.
“Fine. If it’s a provocation, I’ll accept it. I don’t know where you’re taking me, but lead the way.”
When I grabbed the Fairy King’s hand, the unpleasant, squishy feeling of its liquid body spread across my palm.
And in the next moment, I stood in the middle of a prison, completely clean and intact.
“――What?”
But this prison wasn’t Cheongsong Prison. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was. Iron bars and hallways extended endlessly beyond my line of sight. There were no people.
“What on earth is this…?”
The Fairy King grabbed my hand tightly as I instinctively reached for my sword.
-Do not let go of my hand.
-You will lose it.
Lose what?
Before the words could be uttered, blink. When I closed and opened my eyes, the prison had turned into a hospital.
“……”
The hallway was lined with oddly clean hospital beds, despite the lack of any patients or doctors. Transparent IV tubes hung from each bed like suspension bridges. The corridor was infinite.
Identical hospital beds, identical IV tubes, identical angles of hanging infusion lines, all in the same shade of white, stretched endlessly down the corridor.
Blink. The school was an old, wooden, abandoned building. The school name Baekhwa shimmered. The sky was blood red. Broken windows, birch trees with white bark protruding into the hallway through the shattered glass. The school was impaled by white stakes, a mess.
The angles and positions of the broken glass repeated every six meters. Each repeated section had old desks and wooden chairs scattered about. The old wooden surfaces, moss-covered and sloping, were all identical.
Blink. A swimming pool. The strong smell of chlorine. Swimming lanes extended to the horizon, a water-filled corridor.
Blink. A movie theater. It was dark. But it was strange. No ordinary theater had such old, wooden chairs like those from an abandoned school. Transparent IV tubes hung from each chair. The screen displayed scenes of a prison. Iron bars. Hallways. Iron bars. Hallways. An empty prison. The theater screen alternated between scenes of the prison, hospital, school, and swimming pool, then back to the theater screen, the eyes within the eyes.
Blink.
The universe moved.
There were no rules in the movement of the stars. No complementary colors in the hues. The stars danced, stood on their heads, laughed without exhaustion, and fell silent.
As the laws ceased to function, time also released its grip on the world. The colors grabbed the falling fingers. Interlaced hands. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, purple, navy, cyan, lime, gold, crimson. Interlaced fingers. The hands of color held the hands of color and danced in a circular motion. Orange stepped on blue’s foot, red killed orange. The Milky Way turned red.
Blink.
And thus, stars were born and destroyed immediately, forms were created and collapsed as soon as they appeared. Like bubbles. Everything in the world was a bubble. Soap bubbles, like those that shimmer with rainbow colors in the sunlight, were rampant. Existence was bubbles, life was color.
Blink.
The universe blinked. A traffic light. As the red light turned to green, time took a breath, a momentary pause.
The colors of the starlight, the bubbles of the planets, the orange killed by red, the dancing color arrays, the theater screen, the chlorine smell of the swimming pool, the wooden chairs of the school, the birch bark protruding into the hallway through shattered glass, the white hospital corridor, the iron bars of the prison, the zebra crossing where black and white interlaced like a carpet.
The entire universe.
Was staring blankly at me.
The universe stood on the other side of the traffic light, staring at me. They opened their mouths wide.
‘Eyes’ ‘Blink’ ‘Gaze’ ‘Watch’.
Like a choir that had never practiced. Voices with inconsistent pitches and tones. Some sounded like church bells, some like water flushing in a toilet, some like insects flapping their wings.
The breath from those mouths barely, through the mouth of the Fairy King holding my hand, ‘reconstituted’ itself.
-Do not blink.
“……”
-You perceive this entity as the Fairy King, the highest anomaly commanding all terminal entities, but strictly speaking, that perception is incorrect.
It felt like my ears were tearing apart. No, my brain.
Every word whispered by the entire universe had a different vocal apparatus. ‘Ter’ ‘mi’ ‘nal’ ‘en’ ‘ti’ ‘ty’. The sound of wind chimes hanging from a temple eave, the scream of a crow being killed by a hawk. Sounds that should not form language and noises that should not form words did.
If I weren’t a regressor who had honed myself over countless cycles― just listening to the ‘words’ of that universe would have destroyed my brain, a fierce intuition surged with nausea.
It wasn’t even a sound insulting humanity.
The world was being violated.
“Incorrect, you say…?”
-Maintaining your identity in this situation is beyond expectations.
-This entity, the ‘Fairy King,’ is an interpreter.
-A priestess.
-A priest. A pope.
-A terminal entity. Command role. Highest priest.
-But far below the god.
-Speaking for a silent god, seeing for a blind god.
-The god has no benevolence or malevolence.
-Only randomness. Rejoice. Your existence is equal.
-Scream.
-There is no difference between a drop of bubble and the Himalayas in the clouds. Laws are not superior to individuals. There is no hierarchy on the ladder of form.
-This entity is merely a terminal born by chance. I am fortune, not misfortune, for you. You need not bear malice towards me.
-We merely experiment. As we were created for experimentation.
“……”
I stared at the universe with eyes that felt like they would burn. So, that was an anomaly.
Outer God-class. Level 5.
The most toxic of all voids. One of the seven most powerful anomalies, the Seven Outer Gods.
The one I… humanity must kill.
The enemy of this world.
“…It doesn’t even have a name. That thing.”
-Unnecessary.
-What we indicate is our god, and what we do not indicate is also our god.
“Infinite Void.”
The Fairy King looked up at me.
“Infinite Hell. Its name is now Infinite Void.”
I spat out like blood. That was the maximum resistance the me of the 89th cycle, who felt like he would be crushed by the void at any moment, could muster.
-As I said, names are unnecessary.
“No, it’s necessary for me. Because I will kill that blind god who has violated our world without permission.”
-……
“Everything in the world has boundaries to protect its distinctions, but you mix everything, leaving no gap between anything. Things become impermanent, existence melts away, making it truly hell. Hence, it is the Hell of No Intervals. You plunder, take, and violate the laws of the world, making it also the Hell of Violations.”
The Fairy King, the fairies――the red light of the traffic light, the stars, the colors, the dance, the theater screen, the school, the hospital, the prison――stared intently at me.
There was a phrase in Laozi’s Tao Te Ching: 寂兮寥兮.
Silent and Solitary.
Before humans distinguished all things, the world existed without division, a world so quiet because no sound or noise was meaningful, was described as ‘tranquil.’
Originally, such a world was void and could not be named.
I named that void.
Pointed at it with a human finger.
-Infinite Void.
-Infinite Hell.
-A proper name.
-An improper name.
-It is also a randomness.
-I can now guess why the pink-haired entity showed peculiar behavior.
A thousand layers of laughter split.
For a moment, the smell of chlorine from the swimming pool wafted. It was the breath exhaled by this universe’s Backrooms.
-I will experiment on you, Undertaker.
The Fairy King… no, ‘Infinite Void’ released my hand.
At that moment, the traffic light’s color turned bright blue. Not green or yellow, but sapphire blue, like the wings of a Morpho butterfly. An incomprehensible color.
The presence of Infinite Void surged towards me. Crossing the white-painted crosswalk, traversing the swimming pool, thundering down the hallway, trampling time and tearing space.
In that instant, I lost consciousness.
“Guild leader?”
A voice called out.
“Are you okay, guild leader? Are you awake?”
“Uh… hmm, where am I?”
“Cheongsong Prison. Or rather, what used to be Cheongsong Prison. You said you were going to have a conversation with the fairies.”
“Ah.”
As I came to and looked around, Go Yuri was supporting my head on her lap amidst the rubble of the collapsed building.
Smiling.
Go Yuri looked down at me and smiled.
“Did the conversation go well?”
“The conversation… I’m not sure. I think I saw something, but I can’t remember well…”
“Ah, I see. Hmm, this is a bit concerning. How should I…?”
Go Yuri muttered, tapping her chin with her index finger, showing a hint of concern.
I could only look up at her with my still foggy mind.
“…Right. Do you still remember promising to take me with you next time you go down to Busan?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I remember.”
“Great. Since I stepped aside quietly, a small concession like this seems fair.”
“……?”
“Relax your body for a moment, guild leader. Take a deep breath- exhale. Like that. Yes, good job! You’ve been caught in several explosions, so your body and mind must be tense without you realizing it.”
Pat, pat.
Go Yuri’s hand gently stroked the back of my head. Even though it was simply a gesture of touching my hair, my mind cleared up surprisingly quickly.
Most importantly, the memory of observing ‘Infinite Void’ surged back like a flood.
“Ah…”
“Seems like you’re feeling better. That’s a relief.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it feeling better, but my memory… no, it’s nothing. Anyway, you took care of me while I was out. Thanks, Yuri.”
Despite having named one of the most powerful anomalies in this world, the identity of the being in front of me remained unknown. She helped me up with a gentle pull and smiled brightly.
“Guild leader, are you happy right now?”
“Huh? Well, at least I’m not unhappy.”
“Then I’m happy too, guild leader.”
It was an exceptionally beautiful smile as always.
There’s a very short epilogue.
“Seo Gyu, I’m actually a regressor, and you’ve had your head blown off by the tutorial fairies at least 50 times. But in a past cycle, I discovered an anomaly that seems to be the boss of the fairies. It’s called Infinite Void, a terrifying entity that can kill most people just by being observed. How would you like to deal with it?”
“You’re saying there’s such a fucked-up bastard? Of course, I need to personally take revenge!”
I took him there.
“Hey, you fucking asshole! You blew my head――ahhhhh!”
Boom! As soon as our SG man stepped into the void of Infinite Void, his head exploded, just like the aliens in Tim Burton’s movie Mars Attacks!
“Hmm.”
…It seemed humanity was still far from exacting vengeance.
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