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Chapter 130

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Eschatologist II

3

One piece of advice I\'d like to give to those of you who will eventually read my biography: try to maintain good relations with the tutorial fairies whenever possible.

As an inexperienced regressor, I ended up entangled in a cycle of mutual hatred with them, cutting off heads and bashing in skulls. But there\'s no need for you to go down that same path.

"Heek, heek, heek. The operation to hunt down the counter-revolutionary guerillas hidden deep within your unconscious mind, Comrade Secretary, is starting now...!"

"Alright. I\'m counting on you."

The tutorial fairy was truly a useful anomaly. Its way of speaking was peculiar, and it had a history of grinding humans down through its tutorial process, but if you overlook that, didn\'t it still communicate with Homo sapiens?

As long as you don\'t start with something like, "What kind of bullshit is that, you fucking bastard?!" you can leave a good impression on the fairy. Actually, it\'s not just with fairies—such greetings should generally be avoided with anyone.

The fairies came running and surrounded me. I counted, and there were 64 of them gathered around.

"First, in order to enter the unconscious, it\'s essential to relax your mind and body and get some sleep!"

"Mm."

I lay down on the bed. The fairies took up positions as if preparing for a game of ring-around-the-rosy, holding my left and right hands.

Fairy-Fairy-(Me)-Fairy-Fairy.

If I were to draw it, it would look something like that.

On the left and right, 32 tutorial fairies were lined up.

"Now, we\'ll invite Comrade Secretary to the homeland of our fairies. If you have a song request, please let us know!"

"A song request?"

"Yes. A perfectly suitable and adorable lullaby is required to enter the realm of dreams! If you don\'t have a request, \'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star\' will be the default BGM!"

Due to some trauma related to a meteor shower, I requested "The Cradle Song" instead of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

The tutorial fairies held hands and swayed from side to side.

"Mom is in the island\'s shade—♪"

"Cutting off heads—♪"

"The baby is left alone— Pooping itself—♪"

Wait a minute. Were those the actual lyrics to "The Cradle Song"?

"ZZZ..."

Before I could question it, the fairies\' singing lifted me entirely and dropped me into sleep.

Blink.

When I opened my eyes, the scenery had changed. A moment ago, I was lying on a bed in the hideout, but now I found myself with my cheek resting on a café table in the old Baekje Hospital building.

Under the table was old Scho\'s corpse.

The fairies were still holding onto my hands. The eight formations that had been made up of 32 fairies each had been halved, leaving 16 fairies on either side.

"Oh...? Hey, this would be a perfect remedy for insomniacs. You know, Captain Noh Doha is always complaining about sleep deprivation; maybe if we sang this to him..."

"The sea is singing—♪"

"A song of doom—♪"

"ZZZ..."

I fell asleep again within the dream. As my consciousness grew faint, I had a thought.

Isn\'t this similar to something from the movie Inception?

Blink.

I repeated the process of falling asleep within dreams. Each time, my consciousness sank deeper into my unconscious, into deeper sleep.

From the hideout to the café, to Tang Seorin\'s VIP train car, to the Jamsu Bridge convenience store, to Baekhwa High School...

"Oh? Deputy-Guild Master, you――."

Sometimes, the characters in the dream would recognize me and widen their eyes.

In one particularly old timeline, Tang Seorin, who was the Guild Master at the time, was startled to see me.

But the lullaby never stopped.

"Cutting heads off—♪"

"Falling asleep—♪"

Deeper. Even deeper.

Dream within a dream.

It was a descent that no normal human could ever perceive, and even if they could dream, they would never remember it—a plunge into the abyss of the unconscious.

"――Senior?"

"Hyung."

"G-Guild Master..."

"Oppa."

It was an endless fall.

The relationships, memories, and essence that made me who I was as Doctor Jang gradually scattered and broke apart.

Like livestock being slaughtered at a butcher\'s shop. Like a wooden doll being carved away in a sculptor\'s hands.

"Humanity sleeps soundly—♪"

"Don\'t cry—♪"

"The baby\'s cry."

"Soul is shaking."

Blink.

With each descent into a deeper \'dream,\' the number of fairies decreased. 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2...

Finally, just one.

"Heekee."

Fairy No. 264. The very first tutorial fairy I ever met was holding both of my hands.

In the reality where it existed as a 2D deformed character, the fairy\'s expression could best be described as ;;.

"Heek! My goodness! You really worked hard!"

The fairy shook its head from side to side, and little drops of deformed sweat flew off.

"Comrade Secretary\'s unconscious mind is so solid, too solid!"

"...Is that so?"

"Heek! In all my long life as a nightmare, I\'ve never seen a human with such a structure in their unconscious! Comrade Secretary, you have no distinction between \'present\' and \'past.\' Everything exists right in front of you, and the capacity spans thousands of years! It\'s a structure that no mere mortal could withstand... Truly befitting of a Comrade Secretary who leads us with iron will!"

"Mm."

As a human, it was difficult for me to grasp the concept of an \'unconscious mind being solid.\'

I could only guess that my [Perfect Memory Ability] had given the fairies a hard time.

How should I put it?

Unlike others, my memories never faded. Except for those before the 4th regression, of course.

For me, it had been thousands of years since I\'d gotten used to these \'memories that seem to appear right in front of me.\'

It was also the reason old Scho envied me so deeply.

That old man’s life\'s tragedy was that his wife\'s face and voice were gradually fading from his memory.

There will be another opportunity to discuss this unique condition of mine in detail later.

"In any case, you’ve done well. Is this the bottom of my unconscious mind?"

"Heek, heek, heek. That\'s right! Reaching here would be impossible for anyone but highly skilled nightmares...! This is the ultimate achievement born from the heroic will of revolutionaries!"

I looked around.

The waiting room at Busan Station.

In a way, I felt it was truly like me. While I personally have a birthplace, the "regressor" Doctor Jang’s hometown could only be here.

My starting point. The weight of this waiting room, indistinguishable from reality, lingered somewhere in the air.

"This doesn’t feel like a dream at all."

"Of course not. This place isn\'t just a figment of Secretary Comrade\'s personal unconscious; it\'s essentially the \'collective unconscious of humanity.\' It\'s a phenomenon essential for human survival, like air or water... A reality before reality, a transcendental structure, a surreal place."

"The collective unconscious? That\'s Carl Jung\'s concept. You guys know about that?"

[PR/N: Carl’s concept of the collective unconscious, which can be thought of as structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among people, or patterns and reactions in the mind that all people have in common across the world.]

"Heheh. Thanks to Endless Hell, I got to access all human knowledge and had a crash course!"

"Ah."

"Anyway, you have to be really careful here, Secretary Comrade. What surrounds you isn\'t just physical reality, but the unconscious of humanity itself...!"

Even as she said that, the fairy didn\'t let go of my hand. Just like when the Fairy Lord gave us a brief glimpse of the realm of Endless Hell, this probably meant that this place was genuinely dangerous.

"In this place, the laws of time and space mean nothing!"

"Are you saying it\'s like a void?"

"It\'s not just like a void; it is the void itself!"

Some people talk faster when discussing something they\'re well-versed in, and it seemed the same was true for Fairy No. 264.

"In a way, dreams can be considered the first and greatest void that looms over every human being... The only reason we could use this waiting room as a base camp is because it\'s the place Secretary Comrade feels is the most familiar."

"A base camp, huh."

"Yes, so when we leave here, no matter what happens, you mustn\'t let go of my hand, Secretary Comrade! In case of emergency, to activate the emergency escape protocol..."

It was at that moment.

Tap-

A soft clicking of heels echoed through the waiting room. The sound of heels hitting the floor was far too loud. Like the sound of a village church bell.

Beyond the area where the fairy and I stood, the waiting room was obscured in darkness. So, the figure making the footsteps was revealed slowly, from the bottom up.

Tap-

Black loafer shoes. White stockings. A purple skirt that covered the calves below the knees. But with white lines that lightened the characteristic heavy feel of deep violet.

"Huh?"

Pink hair.

"How curious."

"...."

"Fancy meeting you here, Guildmaster?"

Koyori.

Koyori was smiling sweetly.

My heart skipped a beat.

My aura fluctuated more rapidly than my pulse. As I gathered my aura throughout my body and was about to decapitate Koyori instantly...

"―Huh?"

Poof!

The weight of the hand holding mine suddenly lightened. I turned to look, and the fairy\'s head had been completely torn off.

Thud, thud, thud. The fairy\'s flesh hit the floor, as if a song was missing its beat.

The arm of Fairy No. 264, which was in my hand, drooped limply, swaying once, twice, thrice, before finally going still.

Instant death.

The dream demon, who had more power in dreams than in reality, was instantly killed within that very dream.

"...."

"Oh, I\'m sorry. But I was so happy to see the Guildmaster again after so long that I couldn\'t help myself... I\'m really sorry―."

There was no room for discussion.

I instantly gathered my aura and leaped forward.

I passed by Koyori, and as I did, I felt the sensation of her neck exploding against my sword cane. The sound of an explosion, rather than a slicing, followed a step later with a bang.

I\'ve grown a lot since the Ten Clans War. I didn\'t even think to say something like "Did I get her?" or check if she was dead, I just kept running.

In short, I was running away as fast as I could.

"―Aha."

And yet, before I even ran 300 meters, Koyori was right in front of me again.

Thud!

I crashed into her head-on, and Koyori fell backward.

Koyori rubbed her nose, giving a wry smile.

"Ouch, ouch... I\'m sorry, Guildmaster. I wasn\'t looking ahead. Ahaha. I\'m a bit clumsy, you know."

"...."

I immediately shot my aura upward.

The inverted bolt of lightning pierced through the ceiling of Busan Station. The sky was visible. I gathered my aura in my feet and launched myself into the air.

Void stepping.

A technique only someone who has honed their aura to the extreme, like me, could perform at this point.

"The weather is lovely."

Koyori was sitting on a cloud.

"...."

"It feels a little clearer up here in the sky than on the ground, as long as you avoid the void, doesn\'t it? Ah. Guildmaster, would you like some pu-erh tea?"

Using the cloud as a bench, Koyori swung her legs back and forth. Next to her, a thermos and tea cups were prepared.

I immediately canceled the void step and let myself fall.

Boom!

I dug with all my might when I hit the ground. I dug into the ground, deeper underground.

I was a drill, and our drill was one to pierce the underground.

"Oh, look at me. Guildmaster prefers Ceylon tea over pu-erh tea."

Koyori, who had been buried 600 meters underground, was unearthed. She smiled brightly while holding Ceylon tea in both hands.

"...."

"Oh, were we playing hide-and-seek just now? So... was I \'it\'? Guildmaster, found you. Ahaha. Is this how you play? It\'s a bit embarrassing since I haven\'t played hide-and-seek since I was a child."

Oh, God, Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Mo Gwangseo, and Jesus Christ! Please!

I had no choice. I activated the final emergency escape protocol 552-71, "Jeokbyeokga Pansori."

[PR/N: Jeokbyeokga is one of the five surviving stories of the Korean pansori storytelling tradition.]

"A sudden gust of wind, whoosh! The sound of the wind is loud, Zhou Yu hurriedly climbed onto the tall tower, whoosh whoosh whoosh, looked at the flags..."

"Hohoho♪ The Azure Dragon and Vermilion Bird towers flank the White Tiger and Black Tortoise, and the Northwestern wind, whoosh whoosh whoosh, rises up and in an instant, the Southeastern wind is born, the tower creaks, thud, the flagpole rolls, thud thud thud♪"

"..."

"Ah, the thunderous roar made Zhou Yu\'s guts drop in fear♪"

Thud-

Koyori, having somehow obtained a janggu (traditional Korean drum), struck the center of the drum with skillful ease. Her rendition of Jeokbyeokga was as masterful as mine, which I\'d learned from a professional pansori singer during a vacation round.

"Oh. Guildmaster, aren\'t you going to keep singing? I practiced a lot to sing this with you..."

"...."

Koyori\'s eyebrows drooped sadly.

At that moment, I had to face the cold, harsh truth.

Indeed.

I was screwed.

And not just a little. I was screwed a lot.