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

Chapter 264

discord: https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

◈ i’m an infinite regressor, but i’ve got stories to tell

the murderer i

the eradication of the mastermind.

thanks to this incident, my life as a regressor saw quite a few subtle changes. if i had to choose the most representative change, well... i’d say it’s the addition of the ability to write side stories for oh dok-seo.

but today’s episode isn’t about that kind of change. let’s focus on something more physical this time.

what’s there to hesitate about?

at last, i—no, we—could communicate with survivors beyond the himalayas and the ural mountains.

that said, it took an enormous amount of time to establish signal fires across the globe.

preliminary research. charting the optimal signal fire routes. identifying cities and villages where survivors gathered. understanding the dispositions of each base leader. exploring ways to seek cooperation. building connections to establish a baseline of trust...

though i had visited famous cities like istanbul several times before, a simple drop by was altogether different from the enormous task of linking every single base together.

what other choice did i have? i had to embark on a world tour, bit by bit, over multiple cycles, scraping together information as i went along.

and a world tour meant—

[you called me, oppa.]

peek.

lee ha-yul, the travel ghost, poked her head out.

she flipped through a sketchbook she had prepared in advance.

[↓↓ my wish list ↓↓]

[the city of love, paris.]

[the city of human catapults, prague.]

[the city of romance, rome.]

[the city of water, venice.]

[the city of fashion, milan.]

[the city of gastronomy, palermo.]

[the city of philosophy, athens...]

the list went on and on.

wait a minute—weren’t there too many italian cities on the list? did my ha-yul really want to visit italy that badly?

flip-flip.

ha-yul kept turning the pages of her sketchbook with a seriousness that never waned.

[if this is gonna be a work of fiction like dok-seo’s novel, then you should for sure plan a spinoff.]

[the story of a puppeteer traveling the world with the infinite regressor ← could totally work as a standalone, long-form side story.]

[a sprinkle of travel in an apocalypse evokes timeless emotions.]

[has the era finally arrived?]

[the era of me.]

“......”

it seemed my ha-yul, who had recently been devouring dok-seo’s novels, had suddenly developed a craving for screen time.

to be fair, ha-yul spent more time with me than anyone else. compared to dang seo-rin or cheon yo-hwa, who were busy managing their guilds, ha-yul clung to me like gum every single day.

however, ha-yul was a greedy little rascal.

what do i mean by that?

despite becoming proficient enough in aura manipulation to communicate effectively, ha-yul stubbornly insisted on using morse code, sign language, and sketches to communicate. when i asked her why one day, she replied:

[oppa. people these days have become too accustomed to effortless communication, forgetting the value of human connection.]

[language, voice, conversation—these miracles were never granted to them so easily.]

[because of constant demands for communication, paradoxically, the modern person’s thresholds for meaningful interaction has skyrocketed.]

[i strive not to become addicted to the dopamine of communication. this is my ongoing effort.]

[i hope you, too, can appreciate the miracle that is dialogue, oppa.]

in simpler terms, it was peak chuunibyou.

i had encountered countless similar spectacles. for example, dok-seo would seize every opportunity to proclaim, “only emotional exchanges through novels count as true communication. everything else is fake.”

so, does that mean people who don’t list novel-reading as a hobby are incapable of communication? i couldn’t make sense of it. all i could conclude was that there was a reason ha-yul and dok-seo were such close friends.

“by the way, ha-yul,” i began. “even if we travel together this time, it’s really far, so we can’t use a yogurt cart. we’ll have to make the trip quick since we can’t be away for too long.”

“......”

“......”

spinoff: supporting character joins the cast!

this marked the historic moment when the infamous "oldmangoryeo villain" herself climbed aboard the jige, a device synonymous with the goryeo dynasty.

during our travels, ha-yul muttered her complaints.

[ah-ryeon unnie is too gloomy. she’s just upset because my world travel diary on sg net became popular, and now she wants to copy me for clout.]

“h-ha-yul, isn’t that a bit egotistical? clout-chasing? why would i waste my time on something so meaningless, so unproductive? don’t forget, i’m already a literary giant whose average views are 2.6 times higher than the so-called literarygirl.”

[wow. no way.]

[seriously.]

[hah.]

[if that’s how we’re measuring things, my travel diary gets twice your views, ah-ryeon unnie.]

“well... that’s because it’s the free-for-all board. obviously, there’s way more traffic than on the serialized fiction board. if i were posting there, my views would be at least five times higher!”

[legendary.]

don’t misunderstand. these two were indeed the same awakeners who, during the 687th cycle, fought in the final defense of humanity. one died heroically on the frontlines, and the other held the rear, tirelessly healing the wounded until succumbing to corruption.

this was precisely why it was crucial to separate the person from their work—the literary giant. the oldmangoryeo, the awakener from their private life.

human beings were like trees. with time, growth rings accumulated, layering one over the other. branches extended in different directions.

was oldmangoryeo, sg net’s eternal mischief-maker, the trunk of this tree? or was the northern saintess of the final defense, a central figure in the final defense line, its true core?

personally, i believed there was no point in discussing which was which. both were just branches.

the trunk was always the same—the living, breathing human standing in front of me. this human liked café mochas, spoke with a stutter, and often laughed awkwardly.

“oh... oh?” ah-ryeon suddenly stretched an arm over my shoulder, pointing somewhere. “guild leader. over there...”

there was no need for her to point. even before she noticed, i had already detected the anomaly in my field of vision.

“yes. it’s a railroad.”

“a railroad... do you think it’s dangerous?”

as soon as the railroad came into view, ah-ryeon immediately assumed it was dangerous. her assumption wasn’t without merit.

in this ruined world, railroads almost always heralded a specific menace: the trolley dilemma.

the trolley dilemma was a kind of grotesque, ethical horror scenario.

q: please make a choice. the selected individuals will die!

a: five violent criminals.

b: one con artist.

the setup revolved around choosing whom to save and whom to kill, a quintessential moral dilemma.

naturally, in the real world, there weren’t lunatic serial killers tying people to railroad tracks to force such choices. it was entirely a thought experiment—a fictional problem used to spark philosophical debates.

but when had anomalies ever bothered themselves with nuances like human logic? these creatures brought the trolley dilemma into reality in the most horrifyingly literal way imaginable.

“please! save us! i beg you!”

“h-heeelp! i don’t want to die!”

and sure enough, people were writhing and struggling, tied up along the tracks.

this was nothing new. the trolley dilemma appeared frequently and indiscriminately—be it in the korean peninsula or elsewhere. it was practically an anomaly cliché. the methods to counter it were well-documented, and the process of eliminating it was straightforward. truthfully, it wasn’t even one of the harder anomalies to subdue.

but then—

“oh... oh my?”

“......”

“hmm.”

even so, ah-ryeon, ha-yul, and i found ourselves pausing in unison.

for professional awakeners like us—each deeply accustomed to dealing with anomalies—this hesitation was unnatural. reality, however, had a knack for surpassing even the wildest expectations.

“g-guild leader.”

“yes?”

“those people on the tracks... they’re being tied up by other people.”

“it appears my eyes are seeing the same thing as yours.”

who could have foreseen such a sight?

the ones actively binding the victims weren’t anomalies at all. they were fellow humans. ordinary, unmistakably human beings.

more than that, they weren’t just a few. it was an entire group—a throng of hundreds—all working diligently to tie people up.

footnotes:

[1] a jige is a traditional korean carrying frame.