Breakdown IX
After patrolling the school once with Cheon Yo-hwa, we reached a conclusion.
"This is... a peaceful world."
A world where humanity had not perished.
The 'Gates' of voids appeared here and there, but they were not as serious as in reality.
As the name suggested, the voids in this place looked like gateways. If left alone, 'monsters' would steadily emerge.
Conversely, if we succeeded in sealing the Gates, we could minimize the damage.
-Last time, a Gate appeared centered around Sadang Station in Seoul, right? It was rush hour, and the crowd was huge, so significant damage was expected. -This time, the 4th exploration team finally succeeded in clearing the Sadang Station Gate. Most of the missing people were rescued thanks to Dang Seo-rin, the team leader...
-Meanwhile, with 212 deaths, this incident has set a new record for Gate casualties, prompting demands for government accountability...
Newspapers, news, YouTube, and social media were filled with stories about Gates.
Civilization had not collapsed.
Humanity, which had endured typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, famines, and plagues since ancient times, had merely added 'Gates' as a new item on the list of disasters.
Humans still called themselves the rulers of all creation.
Some people feared Gates and monsters as signs of the apocalypse, but our perspective, having truly experienced 'the end,' was different.
"...I'm envious. If our world were only at this level."
"The cunning of the Infinite Void is evident in that it didn't show us a completely peaceful world."
"Why?"
"We already have trauma from anomalies. In an excessively peaceful world, we would only be conscious of our abnormality. We would be obsessed with the fear that the world could end at any moment. ...But here, monsters appear just at a manageable level. In this world, you and I can live as 'normal' people."
"Oh... Wow, such detail?"
"Yes. It’s an Outer God-class anomaly. It's not to be underestimated."
That was not all.
In a completely peaceful world, where anomalies didn't exist, Cheon Yo-hwa's and my awakened abilities would be no different from strange tumors.
But in a world where monsters existed?
The abilities, knowledge, and instincts we had accumulated would translate directly into accomplishments. Countless guilds would clamor to recruit us with countless handshakes.
"A world where we are not denied but rather infinitely affirmed, where we can climb to the top of the pyramid. And we could believe that our success is due to our own talents, efforts, and free will, not the grace of the Infinite Void. This place is a model garden designed solely for the two of us."
"......"
Cheon Yo-hwa's shoulders slumped.
"...It's scary, the nature of anomalies."
"Yes, it is. But on the flip side, it means we've pushed the Infinite Void to this extent."
Four steps. The distance from nirvana to samsara. Our steps traversing that infinite instant were not in vain.
The Infinite Void was undoubtedly collapsing.
Dang Seo-rin's journey. Noh Do-hwa's seclusion. The Saintess's contemplation. Each route, imbued with eternity, was trampled upon.
The illusions carefully selected by the Infinite Void, no matter how sweet, were denied by our will to return to reality.
"Yo-hwaaa!"
"Let's play basketball!"
Students from the playground looked our way, waving their hands.
Startled, Cheon Yo-hwa held her breath for a moment. After about three seconds, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Sorry! I'll skip today—"
Eh, eh—
The cicadas buzzed relentlessly, their wings emerging from the bark of the wisteria trees in summer. The leaves rustled against each other in the wind. On the school playground, the laughter of children and the cries of cicadas echoed.
"Are those your friends?"
"...Yes. Classmates and roommates."
A sigh flowed downward, too weak to reach the desert.
"Both of them died during the first week of the school ghost stories."
Cheon Yo-hwa tapped the ground with the tip of her shoe. Tap, tap. The weight of one person knocked on the Earth.
"Um, ahjussi. Suddenly, I have a thought. Well, I've had it before, but now I really want to ask. Why can't we stay here? I mean, it's not that I want to. I'm just genuinely curious. Isn't there nothing much if we go back?"
"......"
"Every time we go to the bathroom, we have to check for ghosts. We have to pick out every piece of meat to avoid eating human flesh. When we wake up, someone's always missing. From what you've told me, it's not just our school that's ruined, but the whole world. How can you decisively say we must return to reality?"
"Hmm."
"For instance... why don't we just invite everyone else to the Infinite Void? Then this place becomes reality. Or do you think a world that's not real has no value...?"
"No, that's not the reason."
"Then why?"
"My alias is Undertaker."
Cheon Yo-hwa looked at me.
"Just as you have the ability to manipulate targets, I have several abilities too. One of them is Time Seal... which I personally call a funeral."
"A funeral."
"I can make a person relive the happiest day of their life forever."
"......"
"To be precise, it's not even repetition. That person won't realize they're reliving the same day. This ability is why I got the name 'Undertaker.'"
The sound of cicadas from the trees, the bouncing of a basketball in the court, and the long honk of a truck beyond the school wall.
"Yo-hwa. Do you think there's no unhappiness in this world?"
"...No."
"Right. There is. A lot. Just yesterday, 212 people died while sealing a Gate. No matter how optimized the Infinite Void made this setting for us, it's still far from ensuring everyone's happiness."
The traffic light at the school gate flickered.
"The reason I don't entrust my life to the Infinite Void is very simple. It's a matter of comparative advantage. This world is just... not convincing enough to be the final hell."
"......"
If the world is hell, people live to find a level of hell they can accept. Until then, they can defer their lives.
After a long silence, Cheon Yo-hwa nodded.
"...I understand. Ahjussi, you're the final stop where people can always return."
"It turned out that way."
"So the question I need to ask myself is if I want to give up and rest. But... I'm fine. I'm not tired yet."
Our eyes met.
The sunset embraced the desert. Orange was the color of sand mixed with red. Cheon Yo-hwa's hair also held the scent of the desert and the aroma of oranges.
"Tell me what to do, ahjussi."
I followed the strategy the Saintess suggested on the moon.
――Seize control of the Hyakki Yagyo, consisting of 100 ghosts, from the Infinite Void.
If we could implement this strategy, the power of the Infinite Void, descended as the leader of 100 ghosts, would be significantly weakened.
"For this plan, Yo-hwa, you need to brainwash all of the ghosts of the Hyakki Yagyo, one by one."
"Brainwashing anomalies."
"Yes. No matter how long it takes. The ultimate goal is to make the ghosts follow you, not the Infinite Void."
"Yes, I'll try."
I captured and threw the suicide ghost to her. I tied a rope around its neck and hung it from the ceiling to prevent it from banging its head on the floor.
Cheon Yo-hwa secluded herself in the student council room, like closed-door training, living alone with the ghost.
Brainwashing an anomaly.
It had never happened in any of the cycles, but I was confident. Cheon Yo-hwa could do it.
A day, two days, three days, a week passed, but Cheon Yo-hwa couldn't brainwash the ghost.
The smell of decay from the ghost permeated the student council room. Cups of instant noodles, cans, and the trash Cheon Yo-hwa left while being reclusive piled up in a corner.
"It's okay."
Cheon Yo-hwa's eyes glistened like those of a madwoman.
"I think I can do it. It's summer vacation anyway... I want to focus for a while, so you don't need to clean up."
While Korea's only necromancer continued her closed-door training, I briefly traveled around the country.
In Busan, Mayor Jung, a professional traitor, conducted his official duties as usual.
His hidden daughter, the Puppeteer Lee Ha-yul, graduated early and joined a large guild.
Dang Seo-rin led an exploration team with her three younger siblings. I saw Dang Seo-rin's family, whom I had only heard about, from a distance.
At Hongik University, Sim Ah-ryeon, having no friends to eat with, was slurping shoyu ramen (with lots of bean sprouts) alone at a ramen shop.
Noh Do-hwa walked out of the rehabilitation hospital's prosthetics center right on time for her shift to end.
In Yongsan, the Saintess stayed home all day except for her daily evening walks.
A world where humans still called themselves the rulers of all creation, not anomalies.
...Even a certain old man from Germany, visiting Korea for his wife's academic lecture, was still alive.
"Excuse me. Do you know where the auditorium listed here is?"
Old Man Scho.
The elderly man in a casual suit asked me in English in the middle of Seoul National University.
Seeing Old Man Scho's intact head rather than a Dullahan was quite a sight after so long.
I was torn between wanting to punch his bearded chin and just giving him a hearty hug.
"...You can ask in German, sir."
"Oh? Well, I didn't realize a young man like you spoke our language so fluently! Did my English sound too German?"
"I majored in German language and literature, so I have some German friends. I was just heading to that auditorium myself, so follow me."
"Oh, thank you. My wife is giving a lecture here today. Do you know her? Adele Schopenhauer..."
"Wow. I was actually on my way to her lecture."
"Oh! What a coincidence!"
That day, I met Old Man Scho's wife at Seoul National University's cultural center. I had seen her in photos before, but this was the first time I saw her in person.
Seeing Old Man Scho's face, smiling brightly as he hugged his wife after her lecture, was also a first.
So this is what he was like.
It was a good proof that when the Infinite Void created illusions, it didn't just use my personal memories but also its accumulated data about the world.
"By the way, Adele. While I was lost here, a kind young man guided me... Huh? Strange. He was just with me a moment ago―"
Without a word, I left a route there and returned to the school.
No one doubted my presence. Thanks to Cheon Yo-hwa's 'settings,' I was perceived as a long-time guard at Baekhwa Girls' High School.
So when I set foot on the wooden corridor of the old school building, the world flipped without any warning.
"......!"
Airborne. My position was at the top of the old school building.
I immediately spread my aura in all directions. Other awakeners might have been appalled at the waste, but for an infinitely regressing former supporter without combat skills, this was a perfectly rational strategy.
Gray waves surged in the air.
Echolocation. My senses, honed over centuries, specialized in perceiving the contours of objects with aura. Like a dolphin navigating with ultrasound.
In that fall, I sensed something wrong. At that moment, I locked eyes with Cheon Yo-hwa, who happened to be at the window.
Cheon Yo-hwa was smiling.
"――"
Her lips moved.
'Stop.'
The sky flipped again. The floating sensation vanished, and my feet were suddenly on the old school's corridor.
Cheon Yo-hwa smiled before me. She was holding an hourglass with something inside it.
Squirm—
It was a ghost. A tiny ghost, with a rope around its neck, dangled inside the glass.
An hourglass. I was secretly impressed. Could there be a more fitting prison to confine ghosts?
Trapping the world in her grasp. Plunging a barren sandpile into a whirlpool of time, entirely under her control.
The sunset shining through the corridor windows struck the hourglass's glass.
Like showing off or tormenting a new pet, the student council president of the school ghost stories playfully shook the hourglass.
"How is it? Ahjussi."
"The hourglass is impressive. Can I touch it?"
"Ah-hah—yes!"
The first instance of humanity enslaving an anomaly.
By the end of summer vacation, Cheon Yo-hwa had successfully subjugated 43 ghosts in total.
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