Chapter 79 |
The Inquisitor I
Let me preface this by saying that today’s episode contains a lot of questions and answers, a sort of Q&A format.
In that spirit, I’ll start by tossing a question to all of you.
Q) What is the most hated anomaly among all the survivors on the Korean Peninsula? (Difficulty: Lowest)
Once, we conducted a survey on this very question on SG Net.
There were many strong candidates, but the top 5 were as follows:
1. The 'Ten Legs.'
2. Because it wrecked all electronics and made life hell. Known as 'Gremlin.'
3. Always popping up at crossroads asking, “Save the right or the left?” ‘Trolley Dilemma.’
5. The 'Tutorial Fairy.'
The results of the four-day survey were announced.
A) The 'Tutorial Fairy.' - 82.7%
Candidate number 5 won with an overwhelming majority!
Supporters embraced in joy and collectively praised the winner.
-Anonymous: Those fucking fairies.
-[Baekwha] SixthGrader: Uwaaah… Please don’t talk about scary things! ㅠ_ㅠ);;
-Anonymous: Fairies special trait) When you first wake up, there’s a 95% chance a doll-like figure is floating above you. They look cute, but who knew their hobby was harvesting human heads?
└Anonymous: Ha, three years ago my boyfriend’s head flew off right in front of me.
-[Satisfaction] CookingQueen: Fascinating.
-Anonymous: In the void I was in, a fairy showed up and ordered us to kill each other until only 30 survivors remained.
-[Samcheon] Officer: Other anomalies don’t even communicate, so you can kind of understand them. But fairies act like they can communicate, which makes them even more infuriating. What do they think humans are?
By the way, 'Officer' is Yu Ji-won’s nickname on SG Net. Just for the record.
The important fact here is that even a born psychopath like Yu Ji-won couldn’t hide her anger when it came to the Tutorial Fairy.
Some of you might think, “Huh? Are fairies really that bad?” given that in my stories, fairies have appeared quite cute and charming.
But it’s time to correct that misconception. Fairies are bastards.
Just remember how our SG Man Seo Gyu died.
Until I saved him in the 50th cycle, he was always decapitated by the Tutorial Fairy.
Back when we were all still immature and naive as awakeners, when the concepts of anomalies and voids weren’t well-defined, fairies unceremoniously embedded us with real, compressed trauma in our minds.
“Gah! There are still too many survivors. If this keeps up, I’ll get scolded by my seniors for not thinning the herd properly… Eh, I hate getting scolded, so I have no choice! Dropping 50 shadow hounds!”
“As a quest reward, I’ll give you rice! But since you cheated to clear the quest, I’ll have to cheat the reward too… Here, take this sack of rice mixed with pebbles and sand! Hehe. Before being dispatched here, I studied history and learned this is a specialty of the Korean Peninsula!”
“Hwaaa. Only one survivor left… I failed to balance the difficulty. My seniors will definitely give me a beating… Still, you’re a one-man army! Totally elite! Clap clap clap! Fairy number 264 sincerely wishes good luck to the sole survivor at Busan Station, Undertaker…”
How could people not lose their minds?
Who would like being treated like lab rats? Even the rats wouldn’t prefer it.
Especially Homo sapiens, who had been lording over all creatures as the dominant species until recently. Unable to accept the sudden change in their situation, curses and intense reactions erupted everywhere.
I too transformed into a violent game protagonist.
“I will kill you all.”
“Gah?”
That was in the 2nd cycle.
Back when I didn’t have [Complete Memory], I once cursed a fairy out of sheer, overwhelming hatred.
“What you did to us. I will find not just you, but your kin and your superiors, and I will exact my revenge, no matter what.”
“Gah… I don’t understand…”
My memory might be faulty, but the fairy likely looked at me with a puzzled, innocent expression back then too.
“Bad humans who ignore the guide’s words get punished!”
With a dull thud, my consciousness was severed.
It was the moment I learned that in fairy language, ‘punishment’ means [the act of smashing someone’s skull to the point of spilling its contents outside].
Fairy bastards.
So the regressor caught and punished the evil fairies—
If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, Tutorial Fairies were fierce. They were like level 70 guards in an RPG.
And I was a newbie. Well, to be precise, I lacked combat-related skills.
I confess to you… actually, as an Undertaker, I was more of a supporter than a dealer or a tank.
This was evident from my abilities like [Complete Memory] and [Time Seal], which were all non-combat skills.
This was partly intentional.
Because we had Old Man Scho, a historically unrivaled Swordmaster with the Heavenly Martial Body.
The plan was for Old Man Scho to handle the combat while I, as a supporter, handled all the miscellaneous tasks. It was a perfect blueprint. A flawless plan.
Q) But what happens when the sole dealer suddenly leaves the party? What’s the appropriate expression for this situation?
A) “Damn it.”
I was in despair.
Suddenly, my skill tree, packed with support skills, became the hallmark of a ruined character, and my life genre shifted dramatically towards #regret #despair #obsession. Typically, in web novels, a hero party with a runaway member faces a tragic end.
Old Man Scho, you bastard.
What was left for me now? The exclusive domain of a regressor. Time. An abundance of time.
That was the escape route.
‘Inner energy!’
A ray of hope shone on me, the Bill Gates of time.
‘To survive, I must amass inner energy!’
Yes.
Depending on culture or person, it was called ‘Aura,’ ‘Qi,’ ‘Yoki,’ etc., but in any case, everyone agreed that if you imbued it in a kitchen knife, you’d get praised for cutting fruit beautifully.
This mystical energy, like excrement, grew stronger the longer it stayed in the body.
In martial arts, a ‘Gapja’ was 60 years. A martial artist with 1 Gapja (60 years) of inner energy was revered.
It reflected the East Asian preference for ranking by age.
And who am I, the Undertaker? Not to brag, but by the 30th cycle, I was a man who had been breaking the human lifespan record day by day.
Moreover, I had the [Resume] skill that preserved my muscles and inner energy even through regressions.
In short?
“Hey, fairy. I’ve got a gift for you.”
“Gah? A gift? What is it, dreary human?”
“Punishment.”
“Huh?”
Thunk! Wheeeeeew-!
The Tutorial Fairy’s head was sent flying into the air at a perfect angle.
Had a missile enthusiast in Pyongyang seen it, they would’ve clapped in envy at the propulsion.
“Ah.”
The day I first cut down a fairy with a single stroke, I, unable to contain my emotions, wept openly.
What a long and grueling time of humiliation and oppression it had been!
Having evolved from a muscle freak into an inner-energy freak, the regressor was indeed powerful. I became dissatisfied with merely Busan Station, traveling across voids nationwide, harvesting fairy heads.
“It’s the Undertaker! The Undertaker has appeared!”
“Eeeek? Crazy fairy hunter!”
“Everyone run! If that human bastard catches you, it’s decapitation for you and me both!”
“Run! Run! Ruuuun!”
Superb combat skills? Fancy martial arts? Who needs those?
With 5 Gapjas, 10 Gapjas, or 20 Gapjas of inner energy, there’s not much you can’t do in this world. (Though there are exceptions.)
As the saying goes, highly developed basic attacks are indistinguishable from combat skills.
Without any special techniques, just persistently infusing aura, my brute force meta overwhelmed the Tutorial Fairies.
“Why are you tormenting us like this! Dirty human! Vicious human! What have we fairies ever done…!”
“Hmm. True, you haven’t done much. Let’s see, aside from discrimination, gaslighting, threats, imprisonment, torture, murder, genocide?”
“We could win a lawsuit against you!”
In which court?
“Anyway, this is all slander! Defamation! We were merely following our sovereign’s orders to help you inferior humans adapt to the void as quickly as possible! We should be thanked…! Yes, we should be thanked!”
“Sure. Why do all imperialists say the same things regardless of history or race? Hmm? Wait, sovereign?”
I paused my boiling fairy broth. This was big news.
“Hey, you have a sovereign?”
“Gah! Of course!”
Tied up tightly above the cauldron, the fairy raised its head stiffly and retorted.
“Every society must cede its natural rights, and this is the common will of fairies! Our monarch is the only legitimate ruler as our representative! Stupid humans wouldn’t understand!”
“...?”
I didn’t know it at the time, but fairy society was divided into republicans and royalists. This fairy was a staunch royalist.
But what did it matter? I always respected my opponent’s political leanings.
So, I ignored the fairy’s political philosophy and slapped its cheeks several times.
“Gah? Gak! Gah!”
“Hey. Where do you get off shouting? Look, Fairy. See this cauldron boiling here? Huh? I’ll use you to make broth and share it with your kin.”
“Eeeek? This is barbaric! Call the Fairy Rights Commission!”
“Answer my questions quietly if you don’t want to take a dip. Now. Do you have a leader who ordered you to conduct these tutorials on humans?”
“Gah! Leader? Watch your words! Address him with respect and reverence as our sovereign, human!”
“Okay. So they’re the one responsible for ruining the world like this.”
“Gah? What are you talking about…”
“I want to see the Fairy King’s face. How do I do that?”
“Face? Do you, a lowly human, intend to meet the great Fairy King with that vulgar face? Hikhikhik!”
For reference, that weird sound was the fairies’ unique laugh. No, really. They laugh like ‘hikhik.’
“Too bad, but that’s impossible!”
“Hmm.”
“Our sovereign is a transcendent being! The sole free will that unites us! There’s no reason for him to descend to this wretched earth and get covered in dust…!”
“Really? What if I make you into fairy soup?”
“Hikhik! Even if you kill me, even if you wipe out all the fairies dispatched to Korea, the Fairy King will never descend before a lowly human!”
“Okay? Then let’s test that.”
“…?”
Time passed. I, the Undertaker, the inner-energy freak of the apocalypse, returned with exactly 10 more Gapjas of inner energy after several regressions.
And I captured all the Tutorial Fairies remaining in Korea (101 in total).
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
Comments 2