I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

Recollection.

I always ponder on how I can be truthful to all of you.

To confess now, there was a rather pressing reason as to why I hired Oh Dok-seo as a "ghostwriter."

Was it solely to thwart the Infinite Metagame? That played a part, but it wasn't the only reason.

Fundamentally, I wasn't suited to write my own biography.

There was simply no other way for me to be.

From afar, a familiar silhouette of someone you know walks down the street. You hasten your steps and call out their name.

"Ah."

The person turns around.

"Undertaker. What a coincidence. Are you heading somewhere too?"

Everyday life. A normal reaction. An expected response.

But for someone with my [Perfect Memory], such occurrences never happen.

That person.

Their words overlap—“Ah,” “Vice-guild leader?” “Undertaker,” “I knew you were coming,” “Why are you so late?” “I’ve wondered since we first met… what is that cane?” “What a coincidence,” “Oh, it’s you? Sorry, I was just lost in thought,” “Why are you wearing those clothes again? I told you they’re too dull,” “You always seem to be in your barista outfit,” “Are you heading somewhere too?”

The person turns to look at me. Still walking, perhaps not having heard me. Smiling brightly. Blushing as they smile. Snickering as if in disbelief. Playfully nudging my side with an elbow. Folding their arms behind their back.

Now, past the 1,000th iteration.

There are over 1,000 versions of you.

"……."

Perfect Memory.

Coexistence of the past and present.

In front of a kaleidoscope of scenes, I, like an archaeologist, dust off the sands of the past and separate it from the present.

I grasp onto 'this iteration.'

How might I convey this feeling to you all?

I choose the most fitting apparition, aligning closest with the current context that had been continuing just moments before.

In a way, one could say I immerse myself in the 'self of this iteration' and perform.

It's so natural for me that explaining it can be quite complicated.

"……."

Once upon a time.

"Sir. Sorry, but this... It's unusable."

Oh Dok-seo spoke, holding up my manuscript.

Indeed, I never intended to solely entrust her with writing the novel. I planned to help considerably.

What she held was my rough draft.

"Why is it unusable?"

"Because... for every line there are a thousand overlapping dialogues. Moreover, from the novel's perspective, we're just starting the chapter for the 20th iteration, but there are dialogues that appear only after iteration 400. Readers can't follow that."

"But Dok-seo."

I said.

"This is the truth for me."

"……."

Oh Dok-seo's expression twisted.

"If my truthful world appears bizarre to you, then perhaps I have already fallen into the realm of the monstrous."

"……."

An extended silence ensued.

Oh Dok-seo took off her hat.

"...No."

She opened her laptop, uncrossed her fingers, and looked straight at me.

"That's not the case. You've merely awakened with the power of memory. You've just refused to give up and have gone through countless iterations, and to call that monstrous... I can't accept it."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I’ll edit for you."

Oh Dok-seo put on her glasses.

For some reason, she disliked showing her face with glasses to others, wearing them only when writing privately.

"You don’t need to lie to readers. Tell it as it is. In turn, I’ll edit in my own way—as much in order as possible."

"……."

"You mentioned that I'm a maiden of Worldly Pleasure as well as yours, right? Great. That’s what a maiden does. A mediator. Interprets and translates the words of the divine."

I constantly ponder on how I can be truthful to all of you.

"Let’s share the truth."

"……."

"Your truth is yours. I’ll be true to my own. Any clashes, any narrational errors that happen in between, I’ll take responsibility for."

That was my editor.

Oh Dok-seo's offered solution.

"But... it all makes sense now."

"Make sense of what?"

"I was curious about how you could follow the same route hundreds of times without ever growing weary, where that mental fortitude came from."

Oh Dok-seo curled a wry smile.

"From your perspective, the same route isn’t all that bad. Why? Because whenever people react the same, it’s convenient. You no longer have to separate 'this iteration from among hundreds of people.'"

"……."

"Of course, being human, you'd have moments of fatigue. That's when you create 'an iteration that absolutely can't overlap with others.' Either way, they share the trait of making reactions 'singular.'"

I nodded in agreement.

"But there's one problem."

"Huh? What's the problem?"

"You agreed to let me handle your narration."

"Ah-. Well. Just mimic the way I wrote the novel for my parts."

Oh Dok-seo shrugged.

"It doesn’t really matter if you bend the truth a bit regarding me, does it? After all, I'm merely an editor. By nature, I shouldn't be upfront in a novel."

"Indeed."

"I'm kind of like a jester in the Regression Alliance. I don’t have the desire to show readers my true self."

"Are you okay with that?"

"Yes. That’s what I want."

And so it was.

"I’ll never let you be labeled as something monstrous."

Oh Dok-seo’s eyes gleamed red.

"I’ve decided. In the novel I write, every episode title will end with 'ja' [meaning person/one who does]."

"Ja?"

"Yes. Human-ja (者). After all, this is a story of people, about one person meeting another."

"……."

I chuckled at her grand declaration.

"For something like that, you didn't follow it too closely."

"Huh?"

"Take 'dan-ja' (單子) for instance. Or 'gam-ja' (감자, potato). The former uses the character for son (子), and the latter isn’t even in Chinese characters."

Oh Dok-seo tilted her head.

And her lips parted.

"What do you mean?" "Ah, geez. That was a short story collection! Give me an exception!" "I've never written such an episode." "Gamja was a title with ‘si’ omitted from Gamjisha (Watcher). It was a pun for potato. So technically, I'm not wrong." "The character for 'son' is quite similar to the one for 'person,' isn't it?" "Sorry, sir." "I didn't quite catch that." "What did you mean?"

---TL NOTE: Yea... As you can see, I left the above translation as-is for you to decipher. Oh, also, about unique chapter/episode titles. Nope! You'll never getting that out of me! It's too complicated~---

……

I smiled.

"Nothing at all."

"Oh, honestly. You always mumble nonsense or talk to yourself like some protagonist wannabe, don't you?"

"……."

Recalling.

To me, recalling was the same as the present.

Life was always an epilogue.

――Each time I faced the Ten Legs.

There weren't just writhing tentacles; there were also visions of my comrades.

There was Dang Seo-rin, beheaded. Old Man Scho, with a chest pierced. Yu Ji-won, pushing me aside to die in my stead. In myriad ways, comrades who perished in various iterations fell at the ends of tentacles, beneath the grip of the Ten Legs.

"Under... taker..." "Doctor!" "Your Excellency," "Run!" "At least you must escape." "Hold the line!" "Please carry out my last wish." "We're annihilated." "Vice guild leader!" "Sorry" "For getting you involved." "Another failure?" "Defense line," "……." "I apologize" "Will you pass my message to my next self?”

This world harbored hatred for humanity.

Monstrosities defiled humans mercilessly.

Even the very act of dying was disgraced.

I couldn’t forget.

I couldn’t escape.

And I certainly couldn’t forgive.

6

Sim Ah-ryeon had seen through me.

The secret only Oh Dok-seo knew. Even the truth I first revealed to Oh Dok-seo was deduced by Sim Ah-ryeon on her own.

Astonishing as it was.

Perhaps because, deep down, a part of me thought, "Of course."

Sim Ah-ryeon consumed human emotions. Jokingly, I’d called her 'the bird that drinks aggro,' but the reality is closer to 'the bird that drinks emotions.'

Before Sim Ah-ryeon, every person stood bare, their true self revealed.

For example:

-Can I take a picture? Artist?

This seemingly innocent request from a spectator could have sounded entirely different to Sim Ah-ryeon's ears.

Depending on the emotions they held, the colors changed.

Was it pure fandom? A desire to brag to someone? Perhaps a covert intent to leak information by feigning a mistake on SGNet? Lust, perhaps.

Whatever it was, Sim Ah-ryeon 'felt it.'

Her intelligence wasn't low, so she could predict subsequent events based on the emotions she perceived.

Thus, she replied:

-Huh? No. I completely hate that...

-Huh?

-Huh?

Her response was mismatched.

A grating noise, a discordance occurred.

Between the world Sim Ah-ryeon perceived and the world people walked, there was a yawning gap, an unbridgeable chasm.

This was true even during conversations.

-Huu, it, it was really tight. Made me think of graduation exhibition deadlines. I haven't dreamed like that in a while, but back then, even the slightest bad condition had me dreaming about those nightmares...

Even while her counterpart appeared to be listening quietly, Sim Ah-ryeon saw their emotions 'react in real-time.'

Hence, from Sim Ah-ryeon's perspective, there was no such being as a 'truly listening, silent interlocutor.'

Rather, it went like this:

-Huu, (Curiosity. Why the sigh?) it, it was really tight. (Curiosity. What was tight?) Made me think of graduation exhibition deadlines. (Puzzlement. Graduation exhibition?) I haven't dreamed like that in a while, back then even a slight drop in condition (Condition?) would lead to nightmares about exhibitions...

Thus, she stammered inevitably.

Because the emotions kept counter-questioning. Kept reacting. Too fast.

To that rhythm, Sim Ah-ryeon was swept along, always adjusting and rephrasing.

Now one puzzle might make sense.

Q. Why doesn't Sim Ah-ryeon stutter when she’s playing the Northern Saintess?

A. Because there's no need to genuinely respond to the other. It’s not about 'conversation'; it’s about fulfilling the role given to her.

Essentially, it was similar.

For someone like me, with Perfect Memory, and for Sim Ah-ryeon, living by consuming emotions, both were disconnected from the world.

...People might criticize Sim Ah-ryeon for not washing her hair or for being dirty.

Yet I bet Sim Ah-ryeon wishes to ask the opposite.

‘You’re the ones leaking emotions all over the place, aren’t you?’

Washing hair and dressing neatly.

Those are fundamentally ways to 'look good for others,' to hide faults from their gaze.

None of that matters in front of Sim Ah-ryeon. Regardless of who it was, they were essentially walking around exposed, bare.

Different values.

Different perspectives.

So it’s no wonder Sim Ah-ryeon was the one to discern my deepest secret.

We were of a kind.

"Heheh..."

Shhhh.

Sitting turned away from me as I combed her hair, Sim Ah-ryeon chuckled softly.

"I... I like this..."

I didn’t ask what she meant.

Her response that she liked the emotion of camaraderie I felt towards her.

Unlike those bound by words and sentences, for us, language was always secondary.

"When did you notice?"

"Ah. Um. Because, guild leader... In all cases, you never seem to feel any lust."

"?"

This time, her answer caught me off guard.

"Lust?"

"Yes... isn’t it strange? So I thought about it. When you view others, seeing layers of corpses instead... you can't possibly feel lust."

"……."

"Because you’re normal."

A wry smile surfaced.

In front of this child, hiding anything was truly difficult.

As a result, the nature of me, hidden under the guise of genre novel conventions—besides my penchant for 'soliloquy'—the cliché of the 'asexual protagonist' was also seen through.

"People, they are really strange, aren't they?"

"Please try to understand them."

"Yeah. But, isn't it just a matter of simple imagination? To remember everything completely. Then, how would the world appear? To drink emotions. Then, what would happen... Oh, it's very simple."

Sim Ah-ryeon leaned the back of her head against my chest.

"You're the only guild leader who did that."

"...And I only responded to you this way. They are truly wonderful images. Thank you."

"Hehehe."

"But Ah-ryeon, people often don't understand unless you tell them." ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel※fire.net

"Even though you knew, guild leader?"

"That’s because…”

“Others aren’t really necessary.”

Sim Ah-ryeon looked up at me.

"I’m happy. Guild Leader."

"……."

"The exhibition... I’m glad it’s been so long since we held one. But after seeing my paintings, they just worship me, don't they? Umm. So you as the guild leader... It doesn’t matter if I can never draw again, right?"

"That's right."

“Yes.”

The combing stopped.

It wasn't because I stopped. Sim Ah-ryeon had completely leaned on me, making it impossible for me to continue combing her hair.

"There’s no need to try and fill the hole in my heart, guild leader. It's... it's alright."

From below my chin, Sim Ah-ryon looked up at me.

"I have a void in my heart... Have memories of losing someone. The guild leader doesn't love me because of that."

"……."

"You love me because you're you. It doesn't matter if I can’t draw or if I cause trouble... Regardless. Just as I stay true to myself with you."

Sim Ah-ryeon raised both her arms and wrapped them around my neck, resting her head on my chest.

"Honestly, besides us, no one else may truly understand this exhibition... But..."

A quiet night in the exhibition hall.

Under frames stained with strange anomalies, amidst the gallery filled with countless deaths I have witnessed.

Sim Ah-ryeon smiled.

"I think it's truly beautiful."