There was a man nad Emtt Schopenhauer.
“……”
Schopenhauer opened his eyes.
He did not, as one might expect, mutter sothing like “a strange ceiling.”
To be honest, among all who inherited that age-old tradition passed down since the Evangelion era, this German old man was the farthest removed.
“Have I regressed again.”
His murmur was so familiar, so well-worn, that it drifted like sharp smoke across the ceiling whose concrete pattern he had long since morized.
The wall clock read 13:58:33.
The old Baekje Hospital building.
While his wife was in Seoul attending so academic conference for several days, Schopenhauer had grown restless at the thought of staying quietly in the hotel —
For so strange reason, he felt that he had lost sothing in this land called Korea, and that he must find that missing thing sowhere.
It was a deeply peculiar feeling.
Schopenhauer was a man who lived by impulse.
Though age had reduced his testosterone, endless strength training and his own peculiar energy had eventually carried him to the edge of the Korean Peninsula.
Busan.
“Eh, I should’ve just stayed in Seoul.”
Grumbling, Schopenhauer pulled out his smartphone. Without even looking at the number, he dialed with his left hand, swiftly, from habit.
There was no need to check.
「Emtt? What’s going on with you?」
He never morized the numbers, but the motion had beco second nature after thousands of repetitions.
“I love you, Adele.”
「Huh?」
Modern smartphones were impressive — wasn’t it as if you could hear your wife’s face souring on the other end in real ti?
Schopenhauer laughed.
The life of a regressor — roughly ten minutes of existence, repeated forever.
Ti that had degraded not into a straight line, but into a wheel — a tiny hamster wheel.
This was the only mont in that hell where he could mix laughter with breath.
“What? Can’t I say I love you?”
「What? You’re not Emtt, right? The man who’s never once said that in his life suddenly starts? Did you pick up a French mistress or sothing?」
“The coffee here tastes like shit. I was drinking it and suddenly thought I wanted to brew you a decent cup.”
「I’d like that, but… you know I prefer tea.」
“Tea’s healthier, sure. But you can’t give up caffeine. No way. It tastes different when you’re working out.”
aningless talk.
No grand talk of the world ending, of monsters rampaging, of you and I soon dying.
No grand narrative at all.
「I know you love working out, but take it easy, okay? You ssed up your wrist last ti.」
“Injury’s just a badge of honor.”
「Ha! Get a few more badges like that and you’ll be a cripple, old man.」
That was good.
That was enough.
Schopenhauer glanced reflexively at the café’s wall clock. Whether it was so “youth aesthetic” or whatever, it was a red neon digital clock.
‘About ten seconds left.’
The red numbers that marked the dawn of life remaining before the only being he loved in this world t death.
“This won’t do.”
「What won’t?」
13:59:52.
“Next ti, I’m taking you to the fitness studio. You’ve got that turtle neck from sitting in your study all day.”
「Keep dreaming.」
13:59:59.
「I hate exercise.」
14:00:00.
“I love you, Adele.”
「……」
The end.
Schopenhauer closed his eyes. Firmly pressed the call end button. The left hand gripping the phone trembled slightly.
That tremor was likely the last heat left in the heart of a husband mourning his wife.
‘What should we talk about next ti?’
They had already shared too many stories. Yet there were people for whom the subject of the story did not matter.
Sothing that nullified all other existence —
Love. Love, love.
‘O God.’
A flower that greedily drank the wounds, experiences, and judgnts of a human life as nourishnt, and humbly blood toward the sun that had once shone upon its valley —
A crimson red spider lily.
‘Why, O Lord, do You grant such trials to re mortals?’
At the bottom of a barren valley, where nothing remained but a single red flower, the old man was dry.
‘Will there ever co a day when I grow weary of this love?’
He had never once thought his love insufficient.
For he had died. He was dying. He would die.
Emtt Schopenhauer could give up everything for the sixty seconds of conversation he shared with her.
‘Can this go on forever…?’
But the old man had seen too much to speak lightly of eternity.
To him, that “conversation with his wife” was no different from a resurrection ritual.
Because when the regressor died, his wife could live again. They could talk again.
In this world overflowing with awakening powers, absurdly, there was no [Resurrection], no [Ti Machine].
The only path was [Death].
For a regressor, death itself was the sole power capable of breaking through a world deed unconquerable.
‘Has that Undertaker still not given up?’
He didn’t know.
Holding his now-silent smartphone loosely in his left hand, Schopenhauer reached for a notepad.
Thinking of his comrade.
‘Was it the thousandth ti? The two-thousandth? Maybe over three thousand. By reason alone… he must have given up.’
Emtt Schopenhauer was afraid.
‘Most likely he’s been infected with Udumbara and has relinquished his regression power.’
‘Then this world, having lost all regressors, must be endlessly repeating June 17th…’
He was afraid to confirm it.
‘Even in his world, he couldn’t find a way to save it.’
He was afraid to face it.
‘Alone… there’s no way I can do anything. Not in this goddamn world of monsters.’
So he turned his back on the world.
To resurrect his wife, and to escape the tragedy of confirming his comrade’s fate, Emtt Schopenhauer imprisoned himself within a self-made “ten-minute world of eternal repetition.”
‘If this is humanity’s end… O God. Why did You create the world at all?’
Schopenhauer began brewing café au lait.
Because he wanted to believe — that his comrade might still not have given up, that there might yet be a trace of hope for salvation in the world.
He offered the scent of coffee to death.
‘Why…’
Then—
Drrrrrrrk.
He froze.
Schopenhauer glanced sharply at his left hand, eyes widening as he saw the smartphone screen through gray pupils.
It was vibrating.
The smartphone. Buzzing.
[Adele]
Her smiling profile picture.
“……”
Bzzzzz, bzzzzt.
The vibration wouldn’t stop.
So used to making calls — but never once receiving one — the old man’s hair stood on end.
‘A call?’
From a wife who should have been swallowed by the void and long dead?
Then was this… a call from the underworld?
“……”
Should he answer it? Should he not?
He knew that sotis the monsters played tricks like this.
Though it was the first such event in thousands of regressions, wasn’t mocking humanity with “unexpected pranks” their true nature?
Maybe it was a ploy to toy with the heart of a man who had lost his beloved.
No — it had to be a trick.
“……”
And yet—
“…Hello?”
He couldn’t not answer.
The voice that ca from Schopenhauer’s lips was so thin it startled even him.
No trace of wit disguised for a pleasant conversation, no ingrained courage.
The old man’s voice was like that of a child who tried and failed to whistle.
「What the— you!」
Even her voice stopped short for a second.
「Why did you call and hang up on like that? Huh?」
It was strange.
He couldn’t breathe properly.
「You blurted out words you’ve never said in your life, then hang up— how could I not worry?」
“……”
「Hey. You’re not trying to kill yourself, right?」
At that, Schopenhauer barely managed to find his breath.
“No. No, I’m not.”
「Then why’d you do that?」
“I just…”
Both Emtt and Adele, long ago when they were much younger and still strangers, had once attempted suicide separately.
It wasn’t unusual. To him, the true universal language wasn’t music but suicide — the silent scream.
“No.”
So when his wife’s intuition pierced him, Schopenhauer had no choice but to look within.
‘I wasn’t planning to kill myself…’
Right.
“……”
He had died. He was dying. He would die.
Of all people, she would understand that story best — yet for so reason, it was unbearably difficult to tell her that story.
Sothing boiled in his throat.
The residue of life still left in his heart — more than he ever imagined remained.
「Where are you now?」
The one he loved had the ear to hear a voiceless scream.
“I’m in Busan.”
「Busan? That’s so far! Wait— hold on.」
“No… you have that conference, don’t you? You said you had to go. Is Seoul okay?”
「I don’t know. Sothing big’s happening here, but whatever. Should I take a train? Or a flight? Where in Busan exactly?」
Schopenhauer was afraid.
Could this be a dream?
He’d thought this many tis.
That he and his wife had never actually co to Korea. That they were in their ho in Germany.
That he’d gotten up late, walked into the living room, and there she was— his wife, who had said she was flying to Korea, sitting there eating breakfast.
—Adele. Why are you here? Didn’t you go to Korea? he’d ask.
—No, I missed my flight. I’ll go in a few days, she’d answer.
Then he’d cry and hug her. Thank God, Adele. Thank God you didn’t go. Thank God you didn’t go…
Those thoughts. That aching delusion.
Now that the delusion had returned to reality, Schopenhauer found himself unable to speak.
He should have coldly hung up, should have called her a monster.
But he couldn’t hang up.
“Be careful coming.”
That was all he could manage.
“Be careful on the way… Strange things are happening. Don’t help anyone else — just co to . Okay?”
「Okay. See you soon.」
Click.
The call ended.
“……”
Ti was up.
It was the mont of death.
14:09:45.
The clock that only repeated the past. The spiral of baroque that whispered soone’s epilogue forever, nearing its final line.
Before him sat the café au lait, a desperate attempt to mix a bit of human warmth into the endlessly repeating spiral.
14:09:55.
It was about ti to die.
If that comrade — the Undertaker — had truly not given up, then he would finish the tutorial dungeon within ten minutes and arrive here.
The ticking mont would decide whether Schopenhauer was the last regressor left in this world — or whether there were still two.
“……”
The future.
“……”
With this old hand holding nothing but a smartphone,
He had to decide the future.
‘Do I deserve that right?’
It was a question long past.
‘Do I have the strength?’
Also long past.
‘Do I want to?’
Whom did he want to wait for?
“……”
Schopenhauer waited for Adele.
She said she would co.
She was coming — and would co.
‘Ah…’
Because he could wait for one person, Schopenhauer could finally accept ti.
‘Was I alive, still…?’
Tick.
14:10:00.
The café door opened.
A familiar man’s silhouette.
“……”
“……”
He was a little sturdier than Schopenhauer rembered. A little more solid. Perhaps, sohow, a little more at ease.
He had thought this day might co soday, but facing it now, he couldn’t find words.
Maybe the man felt the sa.
He said nothing. Simply walked behind the counter, took out a barista’s apron, put it on, and began to brew coffee.
His movents were deft.
The way he stead the milk separately, the way he handled the tools — masterful. The “him” Schopenhauer rembered had never been this good.
Thud.
The man placed a cup of coffee on Schopenhauer’s table.
Café au lait.
“Please, sir.”
In German.
“……”
The man who had always spoken only Korean now addressed him in fluent, native-like German.
Ti had no form. Yet ti was a barista’s outfit, a German accent, the scent of café au lait.
Though it had no form, ti flowed, wrapping itself around every voice, every sll.
The old man took a sip of the coffee filled with ti.
“Ha.”
He laughed.
The man smiled, too.
“How is it?”
“Damn. Tastes fucking amazing.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
Listening to the laughter echo through the café like background music, Schopenhauer once more drank down ti.
It was a delicious cup of coffee.
—The one who had been his companion. End.
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