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Chapter 439
The One Who Was a Regressor III
Sinnoa
"Th-then."
Gulp.
Dok-seo swallowed.
Ė nù m а
"Leviathan and Hecate and all those guys, they were originally your comrades too? They were all human in the old days but became like that..."
[Ah, I don't remember.]
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"...Huh?"
Inside the laptop screen, the white girl raised the corners of her mouth with 16-bit resolution.
That was the extent of emotional amplitude that could be expressed with a single pixel.
[Literally, I have no memories regarding them. Faint feelings, hostility, even those emotions have been worn away.]
Ě n̊um а
"...You lost your memories completely?"
[Who knows? In the first place, the fact that I was 'anthropomorphized' into this form was itself a coincidence.]
Crackle.
Audio quality imitating a human voice was being spat out from the speaker's surface.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[Perhaps, yes, we might have been comrades who raced through the world together. Perhaps they were from a generation even before mine, which was before yours. How would I know?]
"..."
Е̂ n̈ u m̊ ӓ
[If I hadn't been given human form, it would have been impossible to even guess that I was once an awakener too. Well, even now there are many defects to call me the same kind of human as you. A trace of humanity, or should I call it an epilogue?]
"Infinite Metagame, you..."
[Oh Dok-seo.]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame's eyes blinked.
For me, it was difficult to grasp emotions from that expression and voice, but perhaps it was different for a partner who had shared countless journeys together, Dok-seo's shoulders flinched.
[I'm not trying to talk with you right now. Limited to this moment, you're the person who presented the choice, not the protagonist who chooses it.]
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
"..."
[What will you do? My master.]
Eyes lacking emotion turned this way.
[Perhaps the master and the master's party might succeed differently from us. Yes, indeed, even if fate repeats, wouldn't the epic of a triangular formation consisting of the trio of reincarnator, regressor, and possessor be rare?]
"..."
[If it's you all.]
Ѐ ṅũm ӓ
You might be different. No.
You're confident you can make it different.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
If not us, then who will cut through this evil karma?
[Who knows? Whether you can avoid falling for eternity.]
"..."
I calmed my excited heart with a deep breath.
En um̆ а̀ . і̆d̈
"It's useless to try to tempt me. If it were before I realized this fact, perhaps, but now that I've realized it, there's no way I'd make the same choice as you."
[Oh my? Did you only half-listen to my words? The master and I are different. The master is far superior to me. Don't tell me you think you'll meet the same end as an inferior seed like me?]
"Right."
The screen crackled.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
The laptop screen's resolution was still excessively low, but even so, the fact that she was flustered was being conveyed.
[Yes?]
Е̂ñüm̄а̊
"Looking back, there were too many foreshadowings. Even Yuri, who was more magnificent than me, ultimately couldn't prevent her own fall."
[...]
"It's not just Yuri. The Saintess... Ms. Ye-ji too is someone more magnificent than me, yet she declined earlier than anyone."
[Wasn't that an ending from before you all had built up enough connections?]
The sound the Admin of the Infinite Metagame spat out was covered in noise, but its core didn't waver.
Like a music file where you could still detect the melody no matter how degraded it became.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[You've constructed an incomparably solid pyramid of connections and relationships. If one person fell alone, perhaps not, but if the seven people your Miko selected come together, there won't be another collapse.]
Laughter leaked out without me realizing it.
Whether she interpreted it as mockery, the other party's expression twisted slightly.
"Infinite Metagame, you're always such a fool."
[What do you mean?]
"Corps Director Noh Do-hwa isn't here."
È ň u m̌ а
[...]
"Right, now I understand why Corps Director Do-hwa rejected the proposal to become humanity's watchmen with a single word. She's truly a wise and cruel person."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
I could go on for six or eight hours about her highly twisted psychological structure, but since it was a topic I'd already devoted quite a bit of space to, I skipped it.
"We might be able to endure longer than you all. We might endure longer than anyone. Enduring is ingrained in us like a habit, more than excess fat."
But, I said.
"Eventually it will repeat someday."
Ẽn ûm.ӑ .і̊d
[Ha, then you're really saying all of you will abandon the authority of awakening?]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame burst into laughter.
[Dare I say it? I'm in complete agreement with my Miko. You've already broken through an impregnable miracle. You're going to entrust the recreation of such a miracle to future generations? Do you believe the same miracle can repeat twice, three times, four times, eternally? Groundless romanticism. Neglect of responsibility wrapped in the word faith.]
Though it was unfortunate for the other party.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
In truth, I wasn't listening intently to the Admin of the Infinite Metagame's passionate speech. Since its logic was already sufficiently foreseen and previewed in my head, there was no reason to focus on it.
Right, at this time I was recalling the words of a completely different anomaly, not the Admin of the Infinite Metagame.
Wе b̄nо vе̌ l̆ Е ňůmӑ
'Enter through the narrow gate.'
Mo Gwang-seo.
'The gate that leads to destruction is large and its path is wide, so many pass through it.'
'The gate that leads to life is small and its path is narrow, so few find it.'
'Scribe.'
'Enter through the narrow gate.'
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Until now, that testament that wasn't quite a testament left by Gwang-seo had been one mystery to me.
What kind of situation had he prophesied to bring up the metaphor of the [large gate] and the [narrow gate]?
My interpretation changed each time.
'No, did he deliberately give a broadly applicable prophecy so it could be interpreted differently depending on the situation from the start?'
The mysterious anomaly that borrowed Gwang-seo's body.
'If he too was someone who failed in a previous generation, like the Admin of the Infinite Metagame before my eyes.'
En u̇ m̈а̀.
If that's why he left a final testament toward future generations even as his own humanity was being erased.
'The final destination of what he called the [narrow gate], perhaps.'
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Could it be this very moment?
I once again recalled the choice that had flashed through my mind like a mirage, leaving the Admin of the Infinite Metagame and Dok-seo aside.
[1. Remain as an awakener and protect humanity.]
[2. Abandon awakening and return to being human.]
Ӗ n ûm а̂
Choices.
One of these was a main gate leading to destruction.
The other was a back gate leading to life.
"Aha."
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
And I laughed.
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame hesitated.
Е n umа
[...What was the meaning of that laugh just now?]
"I think that until now, the hero parties that came before us never once chose [2]. Everytime, they chose [1] and repeated salvation and destruction from the very beginning."
Then the problem became simple.
"We'll be the first to choose [2]."
[...]
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame bit her lip.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[So after decades, hundreds of years pass and the Void arrives again just the same? If tragedy repeats regardless of your choice? At that time, humanity won't have you all. In a defenseless state, in a situation where not even reincarnators or regressors exist, they'll have to fight the anomalies. Why? My master, because you shirked your responsibility!]
The speaker trembled.
[By that time, you all might already be comfortably sleeping beneath graves, wrapped in paltry self-satisfaction, but future people will be living. In a crisis where you can't even prove what the right answer is, you'll have simply fled into death!]
"Well, I can clearly see a way to prove whether the final choice was wrong or right."
[Prove...? How?]
This too was an extremely simple answer.
Е̂ n u̇m̌ а̇
"Didn't we exchange a promise with you too?"
[A promise?]
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
"The surrender document. Even though I made you forfeit all authority as an Outer God, there were also a few things permitted to you."
[...?]
The promise written in that surrender was as follows.
――――――――――
Ёn u̇ m a
† The Regressor Undertaker will allow the Admin of the Infinite Metagame to avoid entanglement in the flow of regression and to retain her own sense of self and memory.
† The laptop provided by the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, and any works written on that laptop by Miko Oh Dok-seo, will remain safe from the ravages of time, recognized as an Ark that retains its own unique identity.
――――――――――
"Do you remember?"
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
To my question, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame answered awkwardly.
[Of course, I remember.]
Е n̊ u̇ma
A treaty that could not be forgotten.
An oath engraved on the classroom blackboard tinged with sunset.
Of course, if I abandoned the authorities of awakening like this, someday those words would become blurred in my head.
Cheon-hwa, the older of the twin sisters, as even the cemetery where her time was sealed disappeared together, even the place where the oath was made would weather away and vanish.
Even so.
[For me, that covenant isn't just a mass of letters. Metaphorically speaking, a curse, chains. If my soul is blank paper, the covenant with you is the only writing inscribed on this soul.]
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
There were memories that wouldn't be erased.
The authority humans truly invented to seal time wasn't something like my Crystal Tomb, it was manuscripts sculpted in black and white language.
A prayer offered to the world.
An ark that goes against the rapid current of time.
"Infinite Metagame."
I stroked the laptop's frame.
Е̂ n̄ǔ m̆ а
"You leave this story behind."
[Yes?]
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"That when I, when Dok-seo, when we finally reached the final choice, we ultimately walked through the narrow gate and not the large gate, you show that to the multitudes."
[...]
"To those who might have become awakeners if we had chosen the large gate and then fallen someday, to people of this world and the next world, tell them what choice we made."
[...]
Ё_ň ûm ӑ. і d̃
"I don't know in what kind of world those people will read this story then. Will it be a world utterly ruined, stained with the poison of the Void like before?"
Then our choice was wrong.
Faith was frustrated. We were hasty.
In the end, the person who seized the miracle should have become humanity's watchman, reborn as an eternal and immortal guardian so tragedy would never be recreated again.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Please.
May you all be more competent than us.
Е̇ ńu ṁ а
"But if, truly if."
[...]
"..."
The Admin of the Infinite Metagame and Dok-seo were watching this way, holding their breath.
The moonlight, the streetlights, and the night birds who had forgotten how to photosynthesize yet still looked up at the starlight and cried out.
"If when someone reads the story you convey, the Void doesn't exist in this world, if the laws of physics are still laws, if the universe is still the universe."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[...]
If when they look up at the night sky, that night sky isn't cursing humanity.
If when crossing the intersection beneath the streetlights, the red of the traffic light simply indicates stop, and they don't have to substitute their footsteps with bright red blood.
If songs are still songs.
If the sound of falling rain is truly the sound of summer rain and not the crying of some transparent insect.
If when they happen to eat delicious food at a restaurant, it's not human flesh or anything else but truly, just, delicious food.
Еn̄ūṁ ā
If when loving someone, they don't have to distinguish whether that person is an anomaly or not.
If some knock that just brushed past my door is yours.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"If this world is no longer a world that hates humanity."
If they can still call the world beautiful.
"Then that will be proof that our choice was right."
[...]
Е̂ nu.m а. і̌ d̊
Whenever someone reads this story.
Whenever they simply turn over the pure white and pure black manuscript without the curse of the night sky or the lament of water drops.
Every time, every time, the [narrow gate] chosen on this closed school's rooftop will be proven.
"You said you wanted to see my ending."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[...]
"Right, I want to entrust that role to you. Can you watch over it forever?"
Еńüm̀ а
The laptop screen crackled.
"Our right answers and wrong answers, the epilogue of the choice decided at this very moment, I'd be grateful if you could keep watching over it."
Silence descended.
[...Authors.]
Degraded and weathered hair.
Gestures barely expressed with a few handfuls of color.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
A voice that couldn't fully contain emotions.
Simply existing within the screen.
[Authors should be people of few words.]
An Outer God.
A certain small and lonely god said.
[Undertaker, you talked too much. Oh Dok-seo, you too, no matter how you changed your appearance as an editor or whatever, you can't deny you talked too much.]
Ě ṅ ũ m̂а̄ .і ď
[In the space asking who the author of this story is, we can't write 'Undertaker' or 'Oh Dok-seo'. ]
The being who willingly accepted the fate of always losing to the protagonist was speaking.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[So, yes, my master.]
She is the one who watches to the end.
[I will gladly inscribe my own name on the ark containing your story.]
"..."
Wё bn_о̀ v.ê ľ_ Е́ňû m а̇
[But writing my real name, the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, would be inappropriate. That should be a reward permitted only to those who reach 'proof' at the very end, on this closed school's rooftop.]
She is the one who leads the ark.
[Borrowing from the mythological name that wove the very first ark, Noah.]
She is the god who is always baser than humans and weaker than you.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[If we take just the sound of Noah, making it Noa it would be too easy to see through the identity of the alias, so covering my original meaning with camouflage, before Noah is Sin, or God.]
She is one who exists only as an alias.
Weḃ n оv̈ еl̀ _Ёṅ um ӓ_
[Sinnoa.]
[On the ark containing your story, always, every time the front page is turned, I, the pen name Sinnoa, will be inscribed as a watchman.]
Inside the screen.
White hair melted away. The melted colors became manuscripts.
The form that had been precariously maintaining human shape also crumbled. The collapsed outline became letters.
[I promise.]
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
[I will watch over you all.]
[From now, from here, until the day I disappear.]
And…
My, our, and also her…
Longest journey began.
Footnotes:
Ё n ŭm̃ǎ
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