I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 313

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

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The Skeptic VI

The very first “He Who Must Not Be Named” was an Englishman who got taken down by some dropout. The second-generation successor of that title, however, was different.

Go Yuri appeared like a superstar, taking the world as her stage. And the moment she set foot upon it, she took everyone by storm.

My comrades and I were annihilated and, presumably, humankind itself went extinct.

In my epilogues, I’ve described it like this:

After that day, I never again contacted Go Yuri.

At the very least, the number of times we met face-to-face could be counted on one hand. We only interacted three, maybe four times at most over hundreds of cycles.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

Take special note of the phrase “the number of times we met face-to-face.”

In truth, I very rarely had a real-life fan meet-up with Go Yuri. Of course, in the unconscious realm of the dream-within-a-dream, I saw her fairly often, but that wasn’t reality. It was quite literally just a dream. You wouldn’t claim, “Wow, Mom! I just met this YouTuber in person!” just because you chatted with them on a livestream. (Although there were some folks who got reality and the virtual world all mixed up.)

Anyway, back to the point.

How to tell apart the “real Go Yuri” from the “Go Yuri in my dreams”? Surprisingly easy. You could figure it out just from how she addressed me.

First, the dream version of Go Yuri preferred calling me Guild Leader.

As you know, Dream Yuri was an illegal squatter in my unconscious, which meant she could peep at my memories anytime she pleased. Even the fact that she’d once been a member of the Undertaker’s guild—she learned that by sifting through my recollections.

The real one was different.

The real Go Yuri usually called me “Mr. Undertaker,” “Undertaker, sir,” or simply “Doc.” She had no sense whatsoever that we’d ever belonged to the same guild, so for her, that reality was never even on her radar.

Incidentally, her forms of address changed based on her level of affection for me. From least to most affectionate: Mr. Undertaker, Undertaker, sir, and then Doc.

An example would go like this:

“Huwa. How intriguing. To think you’re calling me exactly by my name.”

Her voice, friendly and gentle, drifted from behind me.

“Surely, for you, Undertaker, sir, this must be nearly the first time we’ve met. All we did was briefly lock eyes at Busan Station, right? But could it be that you’ve known me for longer?”

Yes.

What was there to hide?

This very moment in this cycle was one of those “three, maybe four times” where I actually met Go Yuri in person that I spoke of in that epilogue. A genuine, real-life fan meet-up for the first time in thousands of years.

I felt like I was about to lose my mind.

If worst comes to worst, I’ll just kill myself.

I swallowed hard, concentrating on the sensation of saliva sliding down my throat and on the graceful ripples of the Han River—where ant corpses drifted by.

I forced myself to stay calm.

“What’s so strange about it? You called me ‘Undertaker’ even though we’ve only just met, so we’re even.”

“Ahaha. Doc, you’re way too famous compared to someone like me. The gap in prestige feels even bigger than Guan Yu’s fame versus Bian Xi’s name value.”[1]

Wee-ooo! Wee-ooo! Wee-ooo!

In my head, a police siren was blaring nonstop.

Amazingly, even that siren was something Go Yuri, as an illusion in my mind, was mimicking with a sunny smile. The entire world had become Go Yuri.

This is dangerous.

Why? Why? We’d only exchanged two lines, so how had she instantly jumped multiple rungs up the affection-laced address ladder?

I struggled to remain calm.

“Heaven’s net is vast and wide, seeming loose yet letting nothing slip through... I have sources of information you know nothing about, so of course I’d be aware of an Awakener of your level.”

“Oh, the Tao Te Ching. That’s a passage discussing the Way of Heaven and Earth, right? You’ve been referencing the sky and ground repeatedly—is that on purpose?”

Spare me.

Please, just let me live.

“Ahaha. Also, there’s actually no way I could not know about you in the first place, Doc.”

“That’s a strange thing to say. Why’s that?”

“Because—”

Then, inexplicably, there was an instant of silence, maybe a decisecond of hesitation. It was so brief that unless you knew Go Yuri as intimately as I did, you’d never notice, but her lips gaped for a moment, as if glitching. Right after that, her voice resumed.

“Because—I’m a huge fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Gongsun Zan Edition, the serial novel posted every day on SG Net by the author Mudang, who does two chapters a day!”[2]

“...”

“Ehehe. I’ve never left a comment, but I follow every chapter and always click that recommend button! Even this morning.”

“...”

“Seriously, Mudang goes too far sometimes. In the author’s notes, he casually brags that he still has over 200 chapters in reserve. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the daily double updates, but from a reader’s viewpoint, that just makes you wish for five updates a day.”

“......”

Honestly... Maybe Go Yuri really was a good kid? Maybe there were unavoidable circumstances behind her driving me and my allies to our deaths back in the 88th cycle?

As those of you with keen eyes might have noticed, I was bantering to myself—intentionally, truly clinging to life. After all, laughter can lighten gravity. To resist Go Yuri’s magnetism, which drew all things toward her, I had no choice but to cast off weight.

“Let’s get to the main point.”

Contrary to my frantic mental state, my outward tone and expression were heavy as lead.

“If you came here just because you’re a fan, then I refuse this meeting,” I continued. “I don’t play favorites with any particular reader.”

“Eh? But aren’t you the author on SG Net who’s banned the most readers?”

“Wait, how did you know about that...? A ban isn’t some sign of affection, it’s an expression of disregard. Besides, there’s no way I can see those brats who sneer that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is just out-of-touch boomer content to be real readers.”

“But isn’t your definition of a true reader someone who got started with Romance, dived into the historical records, yet still appreciates the grandeur of the fictional story, thus keeping both romance and realism alive?”

“So what?”

“That’s too high a bar!”

“Huh. Well, that’s how masterpieces are. Readers pick books, but masterpieces pick their readers right back. You lot who can’t appreciate the splendor of the Three Kingdoms—”

Ah.

...

“You lot...?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Let’s get to the main point.”

“Oh? Heh.”

Laughter trickled out.

Ah-ha-ha.

The “ah,” the “ha,” and the final “ha” in that laughter each had different intensities. They grew sharper and grew closer.

Right behind me.

Not even four inches away, a rosy laugh sank softly along with her breath.

“How fascinating.”

The fine hairs on my neck stood on end.

Her exhalation was so dense that her voice didn’t exactly resonate through the air, it melted into my skin. A breath with a texture reminiscent of dripping candle wax.

It wrapped around my neck from behind.

If someone else had actually grabbed and squeezed my throat, it might have been easier to breathe. Even then, I didn’t turn around.

“Understood. It’s a shame we can’t talk face to face, but—just as you said, Doc—I’ll get straight to the point.”

She whispered.

“This past winter and spring were unusually dry. The same goes for last year, the year before that, and the year before that. We’ve had a constant drought.”

“...”

“Nature only seems slow to humans, but it still cycles along at its own measured pace. A poor harvest always brings consequences.”

A whisper.

“Which is why this summer, there’s going to be a typhoon, an incredibly powerful one.”

“...Could you talk from a bit farther away?”

“I am far enough. Really.”

“That’s a lie. You’re practically whispering right in my ear.”

“I never lie. If you doubt me, why not check with your own eyes?”

I took another deep breath. Again.

During those two twenty-second inhalations, there was no sound from behind me—only a breath, faintly mixed with laughter like the scent of apples, clinging to my neck, my back, my spine, and my waist. At first, her breath merely pressed lightly against my neck, but like fingers counting upward, it gradually coiled around my entire body. Now, I could feel Go Yuri’s every inhalation across my skin. It was getting hard to distinguish my breathing from hers.

The edges of my existence were starting to blur.

“If it’s a powerful typhoon...”

My voice remained the only thing clearly separated, so I clung to it—word by word, sentence by sentence—like a lifeline on a cliff.

Calmly.

“A sea serpent that causes monsoons and floods... Are you talking about Leviathan?”

“Oh? You knew about that too?”

“As I said, I have an information network you know nothing about.”

The Super Monsoon Anomaly, Leviathan. It was an Anomaly once purged by constructing an Ark.

“That’s amazing! As expected of you, Doc. Then maybe you’ve also guessed that the dragon is still getting bigger?”

“You’re telling me it keeps growing?”

“Yes.”

Haaah, Go Yuri sighed.

Her breath coursed through me like electricity, from the crown of my head all the way down my spine. I barely kept my balance.

“Frankly, I’m really curious about what’s going on too. Under normal circumstances, it shouldn’t be able to grow this huge. Fascinating, right?”

“......”

Those words brought an old memory to mind—a distant scene from the past.

In the 687th cycle, while we were suppressing the Mastermind, Cheon Yo-hwa ascended until her fist alone swelled to the size of the entire Earth. At that time, the whole world was drowned in bloody waters.

That blood flood was indiscriminate, submerging the domain of humanity and the Void of Anomalies alike. Just when it seemed as if Cheon Yo-hwa would crush the Earth for good, an Anomaly burst forth from the center of that crimson sea.

- Gr҉ oo҉... oo҉... Gru҉... oo҉...!

Leviathan.

Even as all the other Anomalies were swallowed up by the Infinite Void’s ocean of blood, Leviathan alone struggled until the bitter end. And though Cheon Yo-hwa destroyed Leviathan’s entire body with a single flick of her hand...

At that time, Cheon Yo-hwa had devoured both the Infinite Void and the Mastermind, two types of Outer Gods. She was an Anomaly of unprecedented power—strong enough to rewrite even my past. And yet, Leviathan still fought back.

More importantly, in the 687th cycle, Leviathan was noticeably larger than before. Each of the dragon’s scales had turned into a human eyeball, covering its entire body in hundreds of billions of eyes.

I frowned. I had assumed it had gained power because the Earth flooded and triggered a great deluge—amplifying Leviathan’s water affinity, but... could there be another cause?

In this cycle, there hadn’t been any major flooding, so why was Go Yuri suddenly hinting that “Leviathan has grown bigger”?

Questions piled up, perplexing me even further.

“Even if Leviathan is getting bigger,” I began cautiously, “I already have a countermeasure.”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yes. If I see Leviathan getting close to the Korean Peninsula, I plan to plaster the beaches with the Chinese character for ‘tiger’ (虎).”

“Ahhh? Wow! Wow!” Go Yuri clapped her hands in delight. “So you already knew about that tactic! This time I’m truly surprised. As expected of you, Doc. You’re amazing!”

It’s the strategy you taught me in the past.

I bit back the words that almost slipped off my tongue.

Now that I think about it, both back then and now, Go Yuri had always been strangely... entangled with Leviathan. When she led the Ark and hunted down Leviathan in person, didn’t she appear near the end like some illusion, delivering the final blow?

A case where Go Yuri didn’t just advise me but personally subdued another Anomaly...

From my perspective—from what I had witnessed with my own eyes—that had been the only time.

So why? Leviathan was an ocean-class threat, sure, but there was no obvious reason for Go Yuri to treat it with such special attention. Did they share some sort of similarity? Some reason I was missing?

“But, Doc. Unfortunately, you can’t quell Mr. Dragon using just that method this summer.”

In the midst of my doubts multiplying like germs, Go Yuri dropped a thunderbolt.

“What?”

“He’s grown too enormous. Even at this very moment, he’s still getting bigger.”

Go Yuri smiled sweetly.

My body, already synchronized to her breathing, felt each subtle vibration of her laughter.

“I’m sure you know, Doc, but even predators usually just growl when they run into each other. They don’t actually fight.”

“...Because both sides know they’d just get hurt.”

“Right. So you can scare off a predator just by roaring at it.”

She playfully mimicked a tiger’s roar.

Roooar!

“But like I said, the drought has dragged on for too long.”

“...”

“If a predator gets hungry enough, even if it has to bleed, it’ll go out hunting to tear off a mouthful of flesh.”

I had no idea what she was implying.

Go Yuri leaned in with infinite gentleness, the way a kid might secretly share answers with their partner during a test.

“I call him Mr. Dragon, but you, Doc... You call him Leviathan.”

“...”

“Leviathan. Besides the Bible, there’s something else that name brings to mind, right?”

Leviathan.

From the original language of the Protestant Bible, it’s rendered as Līvyāṯān. And in English, simply Leviathan.

By coincidence, there was a famous book that used that exact same name.

Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, wrote a work titled Leviathan.[3] That work was also where the phrase “the war of all against all” appeared—a line many people encounter at least once in their studies.

In Leviathan, Hobbes discussed many topics: rights, natural law, government, and so on. I read it not only in Korean translation but also in modern English, and with my Complete Memory, I could naturally recall what the original book cover of Leviathan looked like.

Leviathan was a dragon. However, on Hobbes's cover, Leviathan was depicted as a king wearing a crown—a biblical threat, a monster used as a metaphor for the nation’s emblem.

Leviathan was so enormous, so gargantuan in size, that it could oversee the world from beyond the horizon. And, although it might not be apparent from afar, if you studied that cover closely...

At first, those tiny, scattered details looked just like “scales of armor” draped over a king. In reality, however, the armor was made up of countless humans.

Each and every one of those people’s heads was turned toward the onlooker, as if each was an “eyeball” staring right at me.

“...”

A sea dragon composed of countless eyeballs.

From ancient times, ruling over the waters has been the sacred prerogative of the emperor.

“Ah. Looks like you’ve figured it out?”

“...”

“Mr. Dragon is starving, so he’s a bit upset. And he wants to find out who’s been leaving him so hungry.”

Leviathan.

There was another name for it. The State.

An Anomaly that had swelled to colossal proportions along the regressor’s timeline was now on its way here.

Footnotes:

[1] In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yi easily defeats and kills Bian Xi when the latter plotted to ambush him.

[2] Mudang is the phonetic spelling of ZERO_SUGAR in Korean.

[3] In Thomas Hobbes' political treatise, Leviathan (1651), the monster Leviathan symbolizes the state, a powerful centralized authorty meant to prevent social collapse. The book's famous concept of the "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes) was meant to highlight the necessity of absolute governance to suppress human conflict.