Eschatologist I
Do you often have nightmares?
I have them frequently.
For example, one night in my dream, the Villain, OldManGoryeo completely subjugated Seo Gyu to his side, making him the tyrant of SG Net.
-OldManGoryeo: From now on, topics like the Three Kingdoms in SG Net will be banned 24/7…
-ZERO_SUGAR: What are you talking about, Ah-ryeon?
-OldManGoryeo: Ah, this resentment and grudge. As expected, guild leader’s trolling is the best. It’s so delicious. Guild leader is the ultimate gourmet spot…
-OldManGoryeo: From now on, I will stand in the sky…
Then, all SG Net members applauded the new administrator's decisive action.
Even the Saintess, who always logged in anonymously, and Noh Do-hwa, who rarely participated in the community, joined with their real names to praise OldManGoryeo.
What a horrible nightmare.
Even if the world forgave such a tragedy, I, the Undertaker, could not. After having this dream, I secretly added an extra shot of espresso to Sim Ah-ryeon’s café mocha the next day (Ah-ryeon was puzzled by the change in coffee taste).
There were other nightmares, less terrible but with a bit more realism.
-Teacher? Teacher…?
In that nightmare, I, the Undertaker, was already dead.
I couldn’t remember exactly how I died. Even with my ‘Complete Memory’, recalling the scenes of the dream was difficult. Perhaps if I bought a lucid dream from the Tutorial Fairies for a billion won, I might remember.
How did I die?
Was I betrayed and stabbed in the back? Was I killed by someone I trusted enough to let my guard down, even though I usually had my defensive aura active?
Or was I killed by an anomaly that my aura couldn’t affect?
Unlike others, I had over a thousand possible causes of death, making it impossible to pinpoint.
-Teacher, teacher. Teacher… Please wake up, teacher. Open your eyes...
In the dream, Cheon Yo-hwa was looking at my dead body.
Actually, “looking” wasn’t the right word. Her red eyes were so wet they looked like a car windshield in the rain, unable to see anything.
She knelt in front of my corpse, using her hands to trace my outline since her sight was gone.
It was fortunate she couldn’t see.
Since it was a dream, I experienced it in third person, as if I were having an out-of-body experience. The genre of that world was gore. There wasn’t a single intact part of my corpse.
-……
Cheon Yo-hwa soon realized this. Her hand stopped.
-Die.
And she repeated it.
-Die, die. Die. Die. Just die.
Crash, the sound of something breaking.
Then the scene in the dream changed abruptly.
Around Cheon Yo-hwa, something resembling the noise of an old TV twisted. White and black alternated rapidly, spreading out quickly.
‘Ah.’
The noise waves that spread from Cheon Yo-hwa engulfed an entire city, the Korean Peninsula, and then the whole world.
As the noise expanded, the world screamed. Between the screams, blood kept spurting.
Birch trees and spider lilies.
The color of the noise and the blood resembled what once bloomed at Baekwha Girls' High School.
Divine Realm.
The realm of the Outer God. When Cheon Yo-hwa, who had sealed herself as the priestess, wished for the world’s destruction, the Infinite Void enveloped the world in black, white, and red without hesitation.
‘Yo-hwa, no. Yo-hwa, don’t do it.’
Cheon Yo-hwa, who had imprisoned all the anomalies of the Hyakki Yagyo, displayed her dreadful power.
This exact situation was one of the “Bad Endings" I had anticipated.
The Outer God was dangerous. Sealing such a god, Cheon Yo-hwa always carried the risk of becoming an even more catastrophic disaster.
But Cheon Yo-hwa wasn’t weak. She was strong. Since the 117th cycle, I had rarely seen her mental breakdown while I was alive.
Yes. As long as I was ‘alive.’
What if I died?
What if I died before Cheon Yo-hwa, especially in a manner too humiliating for her to accept?
What would happen to the disciple to whom I had handed the graduation certificate myself?
Ka ha ha ha ka ka ka ka—
The Infinite Void, released from its glass prison, laughed loudly.
The earth turned into a mass of black and white noise. The Outer God, assassinated by a regressor, finally returned and declared its ultimate victory.
Although it was just a dream, the laughter filling the universe felt too ominous to dismiss as mere mental triumph of the Outer God.
The requiem of the world’s end was laughter.
-Huh?
Then it happened. Cheon Yo-hwa (千謠話), who had swallowed Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化), stopped laughing.
Zzzz—
It stared at me. The black and white noise, the earth, the universe, the god who had isolated the world, was gazing directly at me.
-Not dead yet? Still?
That’s where my dream ended.
Similar nightmares repeated several times.
Cheon Yo-hwa wasn’t the only one appearing in my nightmares.
Each time, the protagonist changed. Dang Seo-rin, the Saintess, Lee Ha-yul, Sim Ah-ryeon...
Of course, a dream was just a dream. It was simple to dismiss it as ‘just an unpleasant dream.’ And I had indeed ignored it for a while.
“Hoei? A nightmare?”
But in the 205th cycle, I obtained information that the Tutorial Fairies were actually Baku, which changed my perspective.
I decided to take my nightmares more seriously.
“Yes. Dreams are your specialty. Could there be an ‘anomaly that parasitizes dreams’?”
“Hoeii. Of course!”
Fairy number 264 wiggled her hips.
“There are all sorts of anomalies in dreams, not just fairies!”
“All sorts?”
“Hoei. Since ancient times, humans have considered dreams another dimension. To describe the situation using the terms developed by Comrade Secretary-General, dreams are ‘an entirely different world from this one, but one we can enter or end up entering’!”
“…A void.”
“Hik-hik-hik. Correct! While some humans have never experienced the void, no human has never dreamed...! Humans are a pitiful race destined to experience the void called dreams from birth! And living in that ‘first void’ are us fairies...! A truly fundamental race! If there’s a reactionary trying to invade our rightful Lebensraum, we must punish them!”
“Hmm.”
Dreams could indeed be voids. No, they were voids.
Talking with the fairies, the experts in this area, convinced me of this. But I still had questions.
And I wasn’t the type to brood alone when I had questions.
I immediately sought out the advisor I trusted most and confided in them about my ‘nightmares.’
“Why am I the advisor?”
“Because you’ve never been the protagonist in my nightmares.”
“Hah...”
Noh Do-hwa, the Commander of the National Road Management Corps, cleaned her glasses. It didn’t really help much. The cleaning cloth itself was dirty from not being washed for so long.
I snapped my fingers, generating aura. Then I delicately cleaned the smudges from Noh Do-hwa’s glasses.
“You should use water instead of a cloth.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’m terribly busy. Hmph. If someone hadn’t burst into my office demanding psychological counseling, I might have had some free time...”
“Was it Ji-won? I’ll make sure to scold her later.”
“Do you have no conscience...?”
“Anyway, help me think about this. If this ‘nightmare’ is an anomaly, why does it keep showing me such dreams?”
“Hmm...”
Noh Do-hwa chewed on the tip of her pen.
“...Assuming this isn’t just an unpleasant dream created by your subconscious.”
“What kind of person do you think I am?”
“It must be trying to shake your mental state. While anomalies don’t have intelligence or reason, if we think of them as intelligent beings like humans, honestly, you must be an incomprehensible thorn in their side...”
“A thorn in their side?”
“Yes.”
Noh Do-hwa smirked.
“You know when and what anomalies will appear, and you’ve been using all sorts of bizarre methods to defeat them... What else could be more incomprehensible? There are only two ways to defeat you: overwhelming numbers or psychological attacks...”
“......”
“Overwhelming numbers. That’s the Monster Wave. According to you, that Holy Saintess thing will help us hold out for eight years, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then, there’s no other option. It has to try shaking your mental state. I’ve been meaning to point this out... Awakener Undertaker, you tend to view anomalies as overwhelmingly powerful enemies.”
“Because they are overwhelmingly powerful.”
“Well, when it comes to ocean-class ones and Outer Gods, they can treat us humans like insects. Even the Ten Legs was despair-inducing before you grew stronger... But from the anomalies’ perspective, aren’t you a terrifying existence as well?”
“Hm.”
“So if I were an anomaly, I’d try breaking your mind. Showing you the destruction of the people you care about, one by one... It seems like a good strategy. What do you think?”
Indeed.
Noh Do-hwa’s analysis made sense.
Of course, as she emphasized, anomalies lacked human-like intelligence.
It was more reasonable to think that the ‘phenomenon threatening me’ occurred accidentally rather than the anomaly having a ‘purpose’ of breaking me.
However, whether the anomaly had a purpose or not, the fact remained that there was an anomaly trying to break my mind.
“Talking with you, Commander, helps me organize my thoughts. But still, it’s just a dream, isn’t it? Since it doesn’t seem to be affecting our reality much, let’s leave it be.”
“Hmph. As you wish. I’ll leave the anomalies to you, Awakener Undertaker. By the way, it’s good to know I’ve never appeared in those creepy nightmares...”
But after a few cycles, it became clear that our judgment was overly optimistic.
“Teacher!”
Thud, thud, thud.
Cheon Yo-hwa, a former basketball ace, came running. Even in the café hideout, 1,200 meters deep, small enough that running was unnecessary, Cheon Yo-hwa hurried to me.
As if I might disappear somewhere.
Cheon Yo-hwa sighed in relief only after reaching me.
“Ah... You’re safe. Thank goodness...”
“What’s wrong? Why do you look so upset?”
“...I’m sorry. I had a really unpleasant dream last night.”
“An unpleasant dream?”
The long regressor life had developed a keen sense in the back of my neck. As soon as I heard ‘unpleasant dream,’ my neck prickled with goosebumps.
“Yes. In the dream, something terrible happened to you. You did your best to help people, but no one appreciated it. I don’t remember well, but there was betrayal too...”
Of course.
My hunch was correct.
“So, I was really, really angry. The people around me suddenly felt inhuman, and if they weren’t human, I didn’t need to care for them... So.”
“You broke the seal of the Infinite Void.”
“Ah... Yes. Um, the Infinite Void covered the world, causing human extinction, but I felt nothing. I hated that feeling...”
Exactly.
There was something I hadn’t considered and that Commander Noh Do-hwa hadn’t noticed.
If the ‘nightmare’ was truly an anomaly, I wouldn’t be the only one experiencing it. Everyone having nightmares was being lured by the same anomaly.
I was an awakener with the Complete Memory ability, which allowed me to vaguely remember the nightmare. Most people simply forgot their nightmares.
I wasn’t too worried about my own mental state. I had various means to maintain my mental health.
But if others were affected?
The situation changed significantly.
As known, Dang Seo-rin, the Saintess, Cheon Yo-hwa, Sim Ah-ryeon, and others all had the potential to ‘fall’ and cause world destruction.
An anomaly that gnawed at their minds, even without their clear memory, needed to be treated with high caution.
I immediately moved to the casino.
“Fairy number 264.”
“Hoeiit. What is it, Comrade Secretary-General?”
“Gather as many available Baku as possible. Prepare for lucid dreaming. It’s time to raise the red flag again.”
“Hoek... We can gather about 90. But what enemy has appeared that requires a full assembly?”
I said.
“We need to crush the anomaly parasitizing humanity’s dreams.”
“Hoeii? As expected of the Comrade Secretary-General...!”
Thud. Fairy number 264 grabbed my hands with both of hers.
“Dreams are our rightful territory...! If it’s about punishing a reactionary taking over our ancestral lands, the Fairy Revolution Club will fully support you!”
The fairy shed tears of floral-scented joy.
It was the moment the first ever humanity(me)-anomaly(fairies) coalition was formed.
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