Chapter 128 |
Victim I I
“Who is this constellation anyway? It makes me so angry!”
Dang Seo-rin slammed her fist on the table.
We were in a sundae gukbap (blood sausage soup) restaurant in Busan. It was unlike Dang Seo-rin, who usually focused solely on eating, to rant about the ‘Collector of All Anomalies’ throughout the meal.
This was proof of how spectacularly successful our <Zero Requiem> project had been.
“Hmm. Well, it seems that constellation thinks of themselves as an administrator of an online game.”
“Ha. Running a game with such a nerdy attitude would make it fail in today’s world!”
“Well, reality is failing.”
“Ah... Seriously, it makes me so mad. Does he think the Korean Peninsula is his playground? I’ll make sure he regrets it someday.”
Even someone like her was this angry. Imagine how other awakeners felt.
I put aside my guilt towards Dang Seo-rin and quickly focused on manipulating the media.
Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’
Greetings, human awakeners active in Korea.
I’m surprised! I didn't expect you to defeat the Ten Legs, the apostle I ambitiously prepared, so easily. Should I say it's to be expected from the region that prides itself on being a nation of gamers? (Wink)
For such impressive people, I plan to release anomalies with even higher difficulty levels in the future.
Do you like… ‘hide and seek’?
I do. (Smile)
The next anomaly I’ll present to you is the World Tree Udumbara. If you can’t find it within the limited time, the entire Korean Peninsula, no, the entire world, will be engulfed by a zombie virus.
Shortly after the Ten Legs were exterminated, another new post went up on SG Net, causing an uproar.
-Anonymous: Seriously, why does this bastard keep showing up on the Korean Peninsula?
-[Yuldoguk] SwordMarquess: Oh! I cannot contain my lament at the villainy of this demonic outsider!
-[Baekwha] HighSchoolSenior: Hoeii (>_<);; I want to tie him up and slowly tear him apart with a nail clipper (>_<);;
-Anonymous: Am I the only one going crazy at that ‘wink’ nonsense??
-Cooking Queen: Interesting.
Only five people in the world knew that the ‘Collector of All Anomalies’ was a fabricated entity: myself, the Saintess, Noh Do-hwa, Yu Ji-won, and Sim Ah-ryeon.
Noh Do-hwa pouted.
“Sometimes I feel self-loathing, wondering if we really need to go this far... But, since the ‘Monster Wave’ deceived us first, we must respond to deception with deception...”
In any case, our media manipulation and <Zero Requiem> operation continued to progress smoothly.
From the beginning, I, the Undertaker, had memorized all the anomalies that would appear on the Korean Peninsula.
Their identities, gimmicks, and even the timing of their appearances.
Using this regressor’s knowledge cunningly, creating a new constellation as the ‘mastermind playing with the Korean Peninsula’ was a piece of cake.
If pre-apocalypse journalists saw this, they would have been moved, thinking, ‘Indeed, the essence of Korean media continues to be passed down to future generations even after the collapse of civilization!’
Ultimately, all the negative feelings of the people were directed towards the ‘Collector of All Anomalies.’ In other words, towards Sim Ah-ryeon.
Author: ‘Collector of All Anomalies’
Greetings, human awakeners active in Korea. (Smile)
Now, the awakeners would have a fit just seeing the expression (Smile).
-Anonymous: Again? He’s back?
-LiteraryGirl: What are the other constellations doing instead of catching that mastermind bastard?
An absolute evil.
Treating this apocalyptic struggle for survival as mere amusement. The tone of the mastermind, devoid of any dignity or intelligence.
…If the ‘Collector of All Anomalies’ had been a somewhat serious character, a cult might have formed worshiping this constellation.
Even if he caused the death of humanity, the power to freely unleash terrifying anomalies would have seemed enormous to mere mortals.
However, the ‘Collector of All Anomalies’ was too frivolous to be worshiped as an evil god.
In short, he lacked style.
Whether someone loved or hated humanity, the ‘Collector of All Anomalies’ exuded such a strong nerdy vibe that no one could respect him as a Constellation. Only hatred, resentment, and contempt poured out.
-Anonymous: Did you see the meteor shower scattering starlight corpses as it died?
└Anonymous: Yep, saw it. It was brutal.
└[NRMC] Officer: It was thanks to the Samcheon Guild Leader that we stopped it. If we hadn’t, the Gyeongsangnam-do area would have been completely devastated.
└Anonymous: Why do we keep getting these kinds of anomalies? I just want to beat up that collector bastard.
And so.
Fifteen years passed.
[Mr. Undertaker.]
[A monster wave has been detected in North Korea. It's currently assumed to be moving south from the Gando region towards the Korean Peninsula’s interior.]
I nodded.
It had been a long time of enduring.
Who owns SG Net, the only information-sharing platform in this apocalypse? Me.
Who is the person who has alliances with constellations that people trust as the only reliable source of information? Me, the Undertaker.
At this moment, all information power on the Korean Peninsula was in my hands. Pre-apocalypse media outlets wasted this power on electing opposition or ruling party presidents, but― the works I created played in a far more high-dimensional realm than such pitiful political realities.
“Ah-ryeon.”
“Yes.”
“Have you practiced your singing a lot?”
“Yes, yes...! I got certified from the Great Witch of Samcheon World that I can graduate now...!”
“Excellent. Now, go. Go show the people.”
“......”
“Show them that healing was originally a noble's profession.”
“...! Yes, Guild leader...!”
There were omens. There were hints. There were foreshadowings.
I didn’t focus on this child for no reason when dealing with the ‘Logout Game.’
It was all for this moment.
Sim Ah-ryeon.
The person who would become the savior of the Korean Peninsula.
Formerly, the Villain, OldManGoryeo. Internet troll.
Alias, the Bird that Drinks Poison.
Ready to be deployed.
In this world, there were few problems that couldn’t be solved by overwhelming firepower.
Just as I had sliced through the Ten Legs with aura despite having little martial arts knowledge, the ‘Monster Wave’ had destroyed numerous countries with sheer numbers.
But I, the Undertaker, in my 217th cycle, would throw a cold and thrilling critique at this era soaked in the meta of overwhelming firepower.
Overwhelming firepower. It was nothing before ‘overwhelming healing power’.
“Hold them back! Don’t let them cross the Yalu River!”
“But, sir! There are countless anomalies! Even the visible ones number in the tens of thousands. How can we...?”
“Do not utter weak words! The Second Coming Jesus is watching over us! Even if we die, that will be the path for our ascension! God wills it! Amen!”
Yalu River Defense Line.
Not long ago, the Eastern Holy State had been immersed in its northern conquest. It must have been so much fun to simply loot the Manchuria that the Ten Legs had ravaged.
However, as Proverbs 13:11 says, wealth obtained dishonestly dwindles.
The believers of the Eastern Holy State were terrified by the endless black wave of anomalies.
In the DNA of the Korean people was a fear of ‘overwhelming attacks from the north.’ No matter how brainwashed a cultist was, it was not easy to overcome fear embedded in DNA with faith.
“Ca-Cardinal! The anomalies are trying to cross the river by piling up their corpses!”
“No! Stop them! If this place is breached, there’s only the Chongchon River and the Taedong River left!”
Just then.
[The Morning Star of the Second Coming takes pity on humanity and sends down his Saintess.]
The Resurrection Church believers fighting at the front looked up at the sky with wide eyes. The fighters who couldn’t even look up had their heads decapitated by the anomalies, seeing the sky from a closer view.
The Morning Star of the Second Coming? Isn’t that our church’s Jesus? He sent down the Saintess?
“Ah―――”
A single line of song pierced through the battlefield, soaked in black filth and red blood.
Step. Step.
Sim Ah-ryeon, our guild’s once nerdy child, walked across the battlefield with her hands neatly clasped.
Her voice was not as astonishing as Dang Seo-rin’s, who could make Chinese people marvel, Japanese people gasp, and Koreans kneel.
It was still far from reaching the level of the peninsula’s top idol.
But, Sim Ah-ryeon was Dang Seo-rin’s disciple.
More precisely, I made her a disciple. Dang Seo-rin had squeezed out her busy schedule to tutor Sim Ah-ryeon one-on-one.
For ten years!
So, while she might not be the peninsula’s top idol, she could be considered the top idol of Pyongyang. Sim Ah-ryeon, our healer, walked while singing a beautiful Latin Requiem (Sim Ah-ryeon didn’t know the meaning of the lyrics).
I secretly used aura to amplify Sim Ah-ryeon’s voice so that it echoed far beyond the horizon.
“Ah―― Ah――”
Then, a miracle happened.
A warrior who had been sent flying to heaven by an anomaly’s ‘split and die’ attack had his lower body regenerated.
“What?”
A person who had lost their arm saw it grow back.
A person whose foot had been crushed saw it reappear.
The half-bodies strewn across the battlefield regained their arms, legs, fingers, toes, eye sockets, and mouths.
The blood that had soaked the ground returned to its owners and became flesh again.
As the wave of song spread from Sim Ah-ryeon, the injured and the half-bodies in its range were healed one by one.
Resurrection.
But it wasn’t just human lives that were resurrected. The green grass and colorful flowers, dirtied by the black filth, bloomed anew.
“Ah... Ah...”
Green regeneration.
The believers looked down at their hands. Hands that, just seconds ago, had exposed bones.
Someone unknowingly murmured.
“It’s a miracle...”
Indeed.
It was a miracle.
Even in this apocalypse filled with anomalies and awakeners, the sight of life being reborn with every step Sim Ah-ryeon took was profoundly moving.
The ‘Monster Wave’ tried to attack, but I quietly dealt with those nasty anomalies.
I, the Undertaker, was a person who valued manners. It was a courtesy for villains to stay quiet during magical girl transformation scenes.
“Saintess, she’s the Saintess...”
“Jesus has called Santa Maria!”
“Hallelujah! God wills it!”
The battle situation rapidly changed.
The Monster Wave was bewildered. It learned the lesson of empathy the hard way. No matter how much it killed and cut, the number of human heads seemed endless.
Humans were inherently a warrior race. As long as their heads weren’t chopped off, they could ‘start anew stronger,’ following the rules of the game.
For four straight nights.
In the battle at the Yalu River defense line, the 2,000 elite soldiers of the Eastern Holy State achieved an overwhelming victory against 200,000 monsters from the Monster Wave. It was a historic triumph.
“Uwoooo!”
“We won! We really won!”
“The Great Mo Gwang-seo Jesus Christ has not abandoned us humans! Long live Jesus! Long live the Saintess!”
“......”
Sim Ah-ryeon smiled.
It wasn’t that Ah-ryeon had learned to mimic Go Yuri. I had repeatedly told her, ‘You look fine as long as you keep your mouth shut, so please never open your mouth.’
As long as she wasn’t involved with online communities or the Logout Game, Ah-ryeon was generally a well-behaved child.
Her mysterious smile drew enthusiastic cheers from the Resurrection Church believers.
Once again, the genre of this world was, in fact, fantasy.
And according to the rules of the fantasy genre, the Holy Empire must have a Saintess.
Especially since there was already a Saintess in the south of Seoul, there must be another Saintess in Pyongyang in the north. That was the physical law of the Korean Peninsula.
Who could have foreseen it?
The Eastern Holy State’s Saintess.
Her name was Sim Ah-ryeon.
There is an epilogue.
Thanks to the success of <Zero Requiem>, another ocean-class anomaly, the Monster Wave, was safely dealt with.
However, this ‘dealing with’ couldn’t be called an ‘extermination.’ Beyond the Yalu River, monster waves continued to occur periodically.
Each time, Sim Ah-ryeon had to ride on my back to the Yalu River front to demonstrate her Saintess’s dignity.
“G-Guild leader. Did I do well? I did well, right? Praise me...”
“Yes. You were perfect. You did a great job. As expected of the world’s greatest healer. Ah-ryeon, you are a gem.”
“Hehe...”
Even if it was only a temporary solution, Sim Ah-ryeon consistently protected the Korean Peninsula as the ‘indestructible barrier of life’ in the north.
In the fifteenth year, in the sixteenth year, in the seventeenth year, in the eighteenth year, in the nineteenth year, in the twentieth year, in the twenty-first year, and in the twenty-second year.
Although, by the twenty-second year, her power had grown so strong that a ‘corruption phenomenon’ occurred... In reality, Sim Ah-ryeon had almost single-handedly defended the front for those eight years.
――As I dealt with the ‘Monster Wave’ this time, I was deeply troubled.
The Monster Wave, one of the mid-boss anomalies that had destroyed our world countless times, had caused many tragedies.
At first, I intended to write about those solemn deaths as I did with the ‘Ten Legs’ and ‘Meteor Shower.’
But when I thought of Sim Ah-ryeon, I changed my mind.
Despite receiving all kinds of hate and contempt from the awakeners, playing the Saintess against her will, and being summoned to the battlefield at least once a month, Sim Ah-ryeon never showed signs of struggle.
As her guild leader, I should sing of joy rather than tragedy.
Majesty, sorrow. At least while Sim Ah-ryeon was smiling, I didn’t want to paint such landscapes.
Because.
“Hehe... When we get back to the hideout, make me a café mocha, please... With lots of chocolate syrup...”
Because I had come to love her smile as much as she loved my coffee.
Footnotes:
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