Chapter 132 |
Eschatologist IV
Let's talk about Old Man Scho.
Flashback. A distant past.
In the distant past, during the 21st cycle, there was a time when Old Man Scho and I laid out a drinking session on a sky-blue bridge and had a heartfelt conversation while drunk.
“Embalmer, what do you think will happen to the world after we die?”
“After we die?”
Old Man Scho and I were probably the only two regressors in this world.
So occasionally, we would excitedly discuss topics that "only regressors could truly immerse themselves in." Just like now.
“Well. At the moment when the two of us die… wouldn’t the world also regress as we do? Time would be rewound.”
“What?”
“What if the world continues even after we die?”
“No, that wouldn’t make sense, would it? We die and immediately wake up. How could the world maintain itself?”
“Listen carefully.”
The old regressor’s theory was this:
A. [The World After the Bad Ending] Hypothesis.
Explanation: Even if the regressor dies, the world does not regress. Time continues until the universe ends. The world is "rolled back" only after complete annihilation. The server reset. However, for some reason, the memories of Old Man Scho and I, the regressors, are preserved without being reset.
“Oh… So, subjectively, we feel like we’ve woken up right after dying, but objectively, we only open our eyes after the world has ended?”
“Yes. In this case, our ability is closer to [Memory Preservation] rather than [Regression]. Given that you, as Undertaker, have the Complete Memory ability, doesn’t it fit well?”
“Oh…”
“There’s another hypothesis.”
B. [Parallel World] Hypothesis.
Explanation: When a regressor dies, their consciousness and memories are transferred to "another parallel world." Although the new world appears identical, it is entirely separate from the one previously lived in. The differences between the two worlds are simply unobservable to the regressors.
“If the parallel world hypothesis is correct, our ability might be called [World Line Transfer].”
“I’ve never thought of it from that perspective before.”
“That’s because you walk around without any thoughts in your head, you ignorant fool. You need to learn. You call socialists communists and mock German history; you're utterly uneducated. You are disqualified as a human, as a person, and in character.”
“Hey, what is with this sneak attack?”
“I support the parallel world hypothesis.”
I blinked.
“Uh… why?”
“Because does it make sense for the entire world and time itself to regress just because two humans die?”
Old Man Scho swirled his soju glass.
“It’s much more plausible that only our consciousnesses are transferred to another world, don’t you think?”
“Hmm.”
Listening to Old Man Scho, I felt an undefined unease.
If, as Old Man Scho said, "rewinding the world's time" was absurd, then "transferring an individual's self and memories to another parallel world" seemed equally preposterous.
On the contrary, assuming countless parallel worlds existed might be more theoretically burdensome.
“Then, in the original world where we were… all the parallel worlds we've passed through must have all perished? We're just wandering through new worlds after leaving our vanished homeland.”
“Exactly! We keep retrying to save the world, but in truth, all those humans are already dead. The anomalies won.”
Looking back now, as often happens with drunken ramblings, Old Man Scho’s impassioned speech lacked consistency.
If Old Man Scho truly believed in [The World After the Bad Ending] or [Parallel World], shouldn’t he have cherished his life even more?
If it wasn’t simply about rewinding time, and countless worlds had truly faced their end, the weight of our lives would be comparable to "the entire world."
Each time we failed, another world perished.
Yet, Old Man Scho was about to take a long vacation.
Why?
Did it mean he trusted me that much? Believed that even if he gave up, I wouldn’t?
Or was his lover much more precious to him than the world burdened upon us?
Between a world and a love, was the latter ultimately heavier?
Old Man Scho staggered.
“What a damn world it is, Embalmer. I really… really don’t understand why this happened. I don’t know.”
“Ah- old man. Let’s get up. If you sleep here, you’ll catch a cold. Geez, you always do this because you trust your Heavenly Martial Body too much.”
It was as if the old man in front of me, already burdened, was straining to shoulder even more weight like a Sherpa.
It was the double stance chosen by the captain of a sinking ship.
Stance A. He couldn’t afford to fail here. If he failed, the world would end.
Stance B. But even if he failed here, it couldn’t be helped. The ship carried too much cargo for a single human to bear.
That’s right.
Old Man Scho was undoubtedly pushing himself to be able to justify himself either way.
“I’m sorry, Doc… I’m s’rry…”
“No, what’s with a German old man suddenly mixing in a dialect? I’m going crazy. Should I just put you in a gas chamber?”
“You crazy, racist bastard…”
“That doesn’t work when a white man uses it on an Asian.”
In the 21st cycle, I was still young. I couldn’t grasp Old Man Scho’s psyche.
So, while supporting his drunken body, I couldn’t support his heart.
If I had had more experience, faced more anomalies, I would have told Old Man Scho back then.
In a calm voice.
‘Old man.’
‘Whether it’s [The World After the Bad Ending] or [Parallel World], it doesn’t matter whether they are true or false right now.’
‘Because all of them are void and anomalies.’
End of flashback.
Returning to the present, several thousand years later.
The reunion with Old Man Scho in the unconscious world was the worst.
“Ah. Guild leader, he’s been spotted.”
Go Yuri muttered, but there was no need for such a kind notification.
Old Man Scho was swinging a steel pipe wildly.
“…!”
The Swordmaster’s strike was faster than sound.
Have you ever seen a night sky adorned with a milky way as delicate as jewels?
You can see it every day if you visit the clean apocalypse without pollution or fine dust.
And you could see it in Old Man Scho’s aura.
Crash!
The ‘night sky’ colored aura charged in a straight line, slicing through the debris of buildings in its path.
This was the decisive reason why Old Man Scho was called the Sword Star. Because his blade contained the Milky Way and starlight.
The rumble from the collapsing buildings echoed several beats slower than Old Man Scho’s attack.
Only after I barely parried Old Man Scho’s strike with Do-hwa did the enormous aftershock hit my ears.
“Crazy…?”
My hand tingled, and my whole body shook. My entire sense of touch vomited.
Just one strike.
In the 261st cycle, my heart pounded just by blocking a single attack. For someone like me, who lived on aura rather than martial arts, it felt like my MP had halved in an instant.
Suddenly, Seo Gyu’s spirit possessed me. The words, ‘You fucking cheat, stop using hacks,’ spilled from my mouth.
“Damn, you weren’t this strong before!”
“……”
“No matter how much this is the void and you are an anomaly, the original you didn’t show up after the 25th cycle. How can you be this strong?”
Old Man Scho was expressionless. Perhaps, as he fell into anomaly, his small brain wrinkles and facial muscles degenerated together.
-……, ……, …….
Old Man Scho’s lips kept moving, muttering something continuously.
Thanks to spending time with Lee Ha-yul, my lip-reading skills were highly developed. Even from a distance, I could roughly decipher what Old Man Scho was muttering. After all, Germans have been somewhat weak in the field of eavesdropping since World War II.
The eavesdropping result was this:
-Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele.
This madman.
The Sword Demon raised his steel pipe again.
The aura emanating from the old man’s fingertips gave me chills. It felt like I might end up as the Regressor Chicken on the old man’s dinner table tonight.
“Ha.”
At that moment, I had a brilliant idea. I grabbed Go Yuri, who was idly watching.
“Huh?”
“Yuri, let’s be friends!”
The forbidden technique passed down in Korea. The Friend Shield.
Trying to escape hastily could risk the pursuit of this fallen regressor, the anomaly known as ‘Emit Schopenhauer.’
Then, wouldn’t it be better to aim for mutual destruction?
As the guardian of human civilization, I always respected the Code of Hammurabi. An eye for an eye. An anomaly for an anomaly. No-show for Go Yuri.
If I could eliminate even one of the regressor anomaly or the brainwashing beam anomaly, it would be a gain for me! How could I care about the means and methods?
“...…”
Hesitation.
Old Man Scho, who had been poised to launch an all-out assault, paused.
I clenched my fist in my mind.
Even Old Man Scho couldn’t help but hesitate in front of the brainwashing beam. Even I, who rolled to the 261st cycle, had no countermeasures and could only avoid it, so how could an old man boast so arrogantly?
“Hmm… Guild leader?”
“What? I’m busy now. Don’t talk to me.”
“But I think I should tell you this.”
Go Yuri, reduced to a human shield in my left hand, spoke hesitantly.
“As you know, I am perceived as the most ideal type of person the opponent would be most attracted to, right? So… to that old man who has met his end, who do you think I look like?”
“……”
Ah.
-Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele, Adele.
The ‘night sky’ spread around Old Man Scho.
In line with the latest trends, it was like domain expansion. Considering the old man’s age, it was a unique barrier.
Old Man Scho’s tremendous aura stretched from his toes, staining the ground and the sky. Suddenly, a night sky appeared in the ruins of the city at midday.
Killing intent surpassing sword aura.
The martial talent originally possessed by Emit Schopenhauer. The extreme of that potential.
Even in reality, during his prime, I had never witnessed such a lofty transcendental state unfolding there.
“If he were in his right mind, he wouldn’t confuse his beloved wife with me… But having fallen this far and lost his reason in this ‘end’ state, hmm. I’m in a difficult position…”
“Release your brainwashing technique!”
“Haha, guild leader. That’s passive; I can’t control it. But this is serious. It’s like seeing his beloved wife captured by a kidnapper. Ah, although I’m glad to have become friends with you.”
I immediately threw Go Yuri far, far away.
“Huh?”
Go Yuri flew like a missile. It would be great if she exploded at the end, staying true to her origins.
Naturally, the attention of the no-show anomaly shifted from me to the Yuri missile. The romanticist old man threw away the steel pipe and ran toward Go Yuri.
That was the only timing given to me.
I bolted immediately. The protagonist of an infinite regression series must never miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
-Adeleeeeeeeee!
Rumble. Crash. The city was being destroyed in real-time.
I heard Old Man Scho’s desperate cries in the distance, but I didn’t care.
Please live happily together.
-Adele.
At that moment, I sensed a presence beside me.
There was no time to look back. Slash! Something sliced through my protective aura like tofu and reached my neck.
‘Ah.’
I fell forward while still running.
My head floated up, and I barely managed to glance to the side.
Old Man Scho, who I thought I had distanced myself from, was running beside me. His hand was covered in blood.
A close-range strike. My head was severed by a single chop.
Go Yuri was captured by his side. She looked at me—or more precisely, at my head—and gave a bitter smile.
Sensation vanished. Sound and consciousness rapidly faded.
It was rather fortunate. Even if I had lived a bit longer, I would only have witnessed Old Man Scho kissing Adelyuri in a romance scene.
I wanted to at least move my mouth.
‘No, this is really too much.’
Simultaneously, I felt like I had returned to the early cycles of the regressor’s childhood.
Back then, I didn’t have to face the apocalypse alone. The most reliable dealer’s back was always in front of me.
See? Old Man Scho’s potential was indeed extraordinary.
If we could fully blossom this tremendous talent, not in a bad ending but in reality, old man. We could definitely save this “damned world”.
Thud. My consciousness fell to the bottom.
The sensation of death was not much different from a dream.
Everything faded to black.
Footnotes:
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