[Translator - Jjescus]
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Chapter 218
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The Unclaid IV
5
- Have you ever had a dream?
Endless Hell's counter-question was half right.
As Doctor Jang and regressor, the typical "dreams" that others experienced rarely visited .
What ca to were only imitations of dreams—‘dream-like anomalies.’
In fact, it’s been hinted at several tis in my stories.
――For instance, [Lucid Dreams].
Lucid dreaming was sothing that even ordinary people could attempt. But I had gone far beyond that, wandering through dreams as if they were reality.
――For instance, [Prophetic Dreams].
Before the goddess of the night, Nut, triggered the apocalypse, Kim Joocheol appeared in my dream to warn of the impending disaster.
Readers with sharp mories may already feel sothing is amiss here.
That’s because Kim Joocheol was unaware he ever did such a thing.
Therefore, it wasn’t actually Kim Joocheol. It was the phenonon of the "prophetic dream," or rather an anomaly, that spoiled the future crisis for .
――For instance, the concept of [Collective Unconscious].
In academic circles, the idea of a collective unconscious was still an unproven hypothesis.
But in this world, it existed.
Here, I encountered Koyori and the Sword Demon. I t Cheon Yohwa and Lee Hayul after the world’s end. I saw Kuro, who endlessly rolled his head on Jeju Island’s Seongsan Ilchulbong, and even the original owner of the monkey's paw.
In short.
"I do experience sothing similar to dreams. But my dreams are one of two things: either lucid dreams that replicate reality or…."
I glanced at Endless Hell.
"Nightmares where anomalies appear. In fact, if you consider lucid dreams as an anomaly, you could say my dreams are anomalies themselves."
"Wow. Is it because of your [Perfect mory] ability? Or maybe it's a side effect of [Regression]?"
Endless Hell muttered, furrowing her brow.
I shrugged.
"Whichever it is, if sothing different from reality appears in my dream, that alone proves an anomaly has invaded."
It's like a litmus test.
That’s why I couldn't ignore it when Kim Joocheol caused a fuss in my dream.
While others might dismiss a nightmare as a aningless bad dream, for , it was often linked to a dangerous anomaly.
"So, I brought you here, Endless Hell. If there are any anomalies leeching off my dreams, you should be able to track them down with your ability. It would be nice to clean up a bit while we search for the original Doctor Jang, don't you think?"
"Excuse . Could you not use an alien god as a vacuum cleaner, senior?"
"Forr alien god. Now that your nausea has passed, let's move on. Ti to go after my next death."
"Ah, yeah. No complaints here. Actually, I prefer it."
And so, after crossing over my corpses, we finally arrived at the final boundary.
Doctor Jang of the 5th tiline.
The last mont where my [Perfect mory] had completely gathered mories from beginning to end.
As we approached, Doctor Jang, who was conducting guild business for the Three Thousand Worlds Guild at the train station in Busan, turned to look at us.
Our eyes t.
-…….
Dark, brooding eyes.
Though Doctor Jang's eyes in any tiline were equally ominous, those of the 5th tiline's early phase were distinctly different.
Dead eyes.
Pupils scorched into oblivion.
Rather than saying "a person cast a shadow," it felt more like "the shadow had taken human form."
- Who are you?
The shadow spoke.
Its mouth, like its eyes, was engulfed in pitch-black darkness.
I let out a bitter laugh. It was astonishing to think that this was the more “human” version after having t Tang Seorin.
“I’m you, from the future.”
- What?
“This is a dream, and you are nothing more than a re character within it.”
-…….
Doctor Jang stared at us with a blank expression.
At this point in ti, I hadn't yet set a 'password.' I hadn’t anticipated that I might one day reflect on the past through dreams.
So, from Doctor Jang's 5th tiline perspective, it was only natural for him to be suspicious.
"I don't wish to engage in violence. But just from the sheer amount of aura, you should be able to tell. I am a strength beyond your comprehension."
-... What brings my future self here? Are you here to teach how to destroy my enemies and wipe out their entire clan?
“Pfft.”
Endless Hell chuckled beside . I applied pressure to my interlocked fingers, and she quickly apologized, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, senior!"
I turned back to Doctor Jang. He slightly furrowed his brow.
"Doctor Jang of the 5th tiline. I have sothing to ask you. Do you recall when you first t Tang Seorin in the 4th tiline?"
- Tang Seorin?
"Yes. From your perspective, it was only a few years ago. And now you've mastered the [Perfect mory] ability. By all logic, those mories should be clearly stored and easily recalled in your mind."
-…….
Doctor Jang opened his mouth, then closed it.
It was as if he opened the drawer of his mory to retrieve sothing obvious, only to find nothing there, repeatedly opening and closing it in disbelief.
-… Why?
For the first ti, a faint emotion appeared on the usually expressionless face of the 5th tiline’s Doctor Jang.
Confusion. Bewildernt.
- I definitely t Tang Seorin. As you said, it wasn't that long ago. And yet… the mory is… strangely blurred.
“……”
As I thought.
I sighed inwardly.
Until now, I’d believed that perhaps my mories had naturally faded over the course of hundreds or thousands of years. But the fact that even Doctor Jang of the 5th tiline couldn’t clearly rember was bizarre.
- This makes no sense. It’s impossible. The day I t Tang Seorin, my life undeniably hit a turning point. There’s no way this mory could be so… faded…
Slice.
With a single strike, I severed Doctor Jang’s head. The mont it fell, the entire scenery of the 5th tiline’s dream collapsed.
In the complete darkness, I asked.
“Endless Hell. You still don't sense any anomalies in this dream?”
"None. I've scanned from the 250th tiline to the 5th, and there's nothing. Just your overwhelming presence, senior."
"So, the possibility that an anomaly tampered with my mories is extrely low."
"Yep."
That leaves only one conclusion.
"...I’ve co up with a hypothesis about why my mories before the 4th turn are so vague."
"Oh? What is it? Tell !"
"[Ti Seal]."
A long sigh escaped my mouth.
"I too have lost the mories of the people erased by the [Ti Seal]."
6
As you all know, when soone gets hit by a [Ti Seal], their mory completely disappears from the world.
Their existence itself is erased.
Except for one person, the one who used the [Ti Seal], —Doctor Jang.
"But what if the reason I alone escaped the oblivion of their existence was... the side effect of my [Perfect mory Ability]?"
"Huh?"
Endless Hell blinked.
"What do you an, senior?"
"People who are erased by the [Ti Seal] completely disappear. I was no exception. But by chance, since I was given the [Perfect mory Ability], the two abilities clashed."
"...Oh!"
A skill that erases existence, [Ti Seal].
A skill that rembers existence forever, [Perfect mory Ability].
The two abilities I have are perfectly contradictory.
"As a result of the clash between the two abilities, a strange outco occurred. All the people on earth forgot the ones erased by the [Ti Seal]—."
"Except for one person, you, senior, rembered them!"
That's right.
Thus, the morial Tombstones were established.
Until now, I thought the morial Tombstones were a unique feature of the [Ti Seal].
But in fact, it's quite the opposite.
The [Perfect mory Ability] forcibly revealed the locations of the missing people that the [Ti Seal] desperately wanted to keep hidden.
"Now that I think about it."
I sighed once again.
"It always seed strange why the tombstones were shaped like crystals. The shape is a bit out of place, isn’t it? But if you think about it... 'mory' is the act of reflecting oneself. In other words, it’s a 'mirror.'"
"So it's not really a crystal, but actually…."
"It was a mirror. The tombstones were made out of mirrors, not crystals."
[Translator - Jjescus]
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"Ah-ha," Endless Hell said.
"Then you didn't see the morial Tombstones from the start, senior. Originally, you were just like everyone else. You couldn't rember the people who were erased by the [Ti Seal] at all."
"Exactly."
"But in the 5th turn, ta-da! You happened to gain the [Perfect mory Ability]. From then on, you started to see the morial Tombstones!"
I nodded.
"My hypothesis is this. Since the 5th turn, I can rember the people erased by the [Ti Seal] without any problems."
"Uh-huh."
"But when it cos to the people erased before the 5th turn, I also have no mory of them."
At this point, I held up a finger.
"And I… in the turns before the 5th, Doctor Jang was very actively erasing his personal relationships."
"Uh-huh."
"Now, imagine soone who has lost almost all of their personal relationships, including their family."
For example, what would happen if the mory of your mother was erased by the [Ti Seal]?
It wouldn’t be so bad. As we can see from football player Kim Joocheol and his son Kim Sieun, losing one family mber doesn't imdiately shatter a person's psyche.
You just feel an inexplicable void.
But what if it wasn't just one person—but the mory of all your family mbers that was erased?
What if not just family, but even friends were erased?
What if not just friends, but all your close acquaintances were erased by the [Ti Seal]?
If I, Doctor Jang before the 5th turn, was put in such a situation?
"Amnesia...!"
Endless Hell exclaid.
I nodded.
"Exactly. It’s like a ga of Jenga where half the pieces have been removed."
"That’s true. If you lose most of your childhood mories of family, and the mories of friends from your youth, and then all the acquaintances from later on, that’s what would happen."
"Exactly. So the only mories left would be trivial ones, like survivors I t during the Busan Station tutorial. And people from relationships that weren’t all that important."
And those trivial mories would naturally fade over the years before I acquired the [Perfect mory Ability].
That’s the truth I’ve deduced.
In short, Doctor Jang before the 5th turn was soone without any connections in the world, soone who appeared as if they’d fallen out of the sky—a re ‘extra’—and—
At the sa ti, soone who couldn’t recall anything about their past—a ‘person with amnesia.’
Whether I wanted it or not, I had beco a character with an overly obvious ‘main character trait.’
...No wonder the alien god [The Admin of All-Play] had taken an interest in . With traits like these, it was like being forcibly pushed into the role of the protagonist.
"Wait a minute, senior. Then why does the 5th turn's Doctor Jang struggle to rember Tang Seorin? You didn’t use the [Ti Seal] on her."
"...Soone must have been nearby."
"Huh?"
I closed my eyes.
And I recalled. The mory of the first ti I t Tang Seorin.
Faint, vague, with static as if seen through poor-quality reception.
—There’s a dangerous glint in your eyes.
—You’re the one, right? The only survivor from Busan Station. The strange person who keeps going around asking people weird questions.
After a mont, I opened my eyes.
"...When I first t Tang Seorin, there must have been 'soone' standing beside or beside her, soone I can’t rember now."
"Oh."
"Let’s call that person X for now. X was probably soone extrely important to . Important enough that if they disappeared, it would leave a huge gap in my mory. So… even the data of my first eting with Tang Seorin was partially damaged."
Who could it have been?
Was it soone who survived and escaped the dungeon of Busan Station with ? Or soone Tang Seorin brought along when she recruited ?
I couldn’t tell.
I couldn’t rember.
The ‘erased person X.’
X must have been a key figure in shaping the version of before the 5th turn, and when X was erased by the [Ti Seal], my mory took a heavy blow.
"But…."
"But?"
"In my mories, there are so people I erased in the 4th turn. Like football player Kim Joocheol."
Although my mory of Kim Joocheol was blurry, it was still there. Maybe X was with when I erased Kim Joocheol.
In any case, even without the [Perfect mory Ability], I was able to rember a little about the people I erased in the 4th turn.
“If my hypothesis were wrong, I should have completely forgotten about Kim Joocheol. He was sealed when I didn’t have [Perfect mory]. But I still rember him.”
“Hee...”
“Why is it that I can recall Kim Joocheol, but I can’t rember myself, my family, or X at all? This part remains unexplained.”
We even tried entering the dreams of the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st rounds.
Of course, there wasn’t much progress.
[404 - Not Found]
[404 - Not Found]
[404 - Not Found]
Because of a crazy regressor who erased all of their relationships, not even a single aningful mory was left behind.
“......”
A bitter taste lingered in my mouth.
Why did my past self seal away so many of the people dear to ?
The question of whether Doctor Jang was originally an anomaly or not had been clearly answered, but another mystery had surfaced.
[404 - Not Found]
This is my starting point. The origin. The birthplace.
――The void spreading out in the outer world might sohow be defeated.
But will the day co when I can cross over the void that has settled inside ?
I silently watched the point of origin, covered with error ssages, for a long ti.
* * *
There’s an epilogue.
“Ah! Wait a mont, senior.”
As I was about to leave the dream, Endless Hell grabbed my collar.
I looked at her with a gaze that asked what she was trying to pull, and Endless Hell imitated Cheon Yohwa's laughter, going “Ahaha.”
“No, no. Don’t look at like that. You know, even though I’m an anomaly, an alien god, you’ve been pretty kind to , right?”
“That’s only because you’re sharing a body with Yohwa. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have shown any rcy.”
“Ah! Well! I’ve been living through days of torture and abuse in Cheon Yohwa’s head, so your attitude was quite touching to !”
I frowned. What nonsense.
Sure, Endless Hell might have felt touched. Sothing like, ‘It’s a situation where I should feel touched, so I will, and I’ll react by doing one of these three standard poses.’
I shook my head to clear the thoughts and asked.
“So?”
“So, I’ve prepared a small gift.”
With a pose of “Ahem,” Cheon Yohwa snapped her fingers.
Suddenly, the scenery, which had been covered in [404], turned into a hospital corridor.
It was the place we had just visited in the dream.
“…Isn’t this the hospital where my mother supposedly worked?”
“Yes! That’s right. While you were moving on to other dreams, I was analyzing data by compiling all the dreams together.”
“Hmm.”
I didn’t bother to nitpick.
After all, in this “hidden picture search” project, Endless Hell and I were in a give-and-take relationship. We had a contract to exchange what we needed from each other.
“Thanks to that… I was able to restore this!”
Creak.
Endless Hell opened the door to the hospital room.
My presud mother’s workplace was in obstetrics. Unlike her son, who would beco known as the Undertaker, my mother had a profession in the field of bringing life into the world.
Inside the room, my presud mother, her whole body covered in noise, lay diagonally on a hospital bed――.
In her arms, she cradled a newborn baby.
“That’s you, senior.”
“…….”
“Probably.”
Ahaha, Endless Hell laughed.
“It’s not certain. You erased your relationships so thoroughly. But based on the data, this woman is most likely your mother, and the baby is around your age at the ti.”
“…You restored this?”
“Yes, didn’t I do well?”
The presud mother perford no actions. She was simply holding the baby.
It was impossible to restore what kind of movents she had made at the ti.
The sa was true for the newborn.
I felt no sense of realization that this was . The baby’s face was also small and distorted by noise.
“......”
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but watch the image of the mother and child for a long ti.
“Indeed.”
I thought of Busan Station.
“No matter how much my mory is covered by [404], that place can’t be my starting point.”
I realized sothing anew.
Even if there is a blank space in my mories of the origin, how does that disrupt the fact that I am human?
No one rembers the mont they are born.
Even if there is a gap at the starting point of mory, it was clear that I, Doctor Jang, am human.
The scene unfolding before my eyes, the ‘hidden picture’ uncovered from the regressor’s life, was proving that fact.
“How do you feel? Do you like it?”
I looked at Endless Hell.
Endless Hell was striking the “proud” pose. It was as precise as the automatic poses taken by idle characters in a ga. Even the rhythm of her feet tapping the floor, ‘tok, tok,’ with no margin of error, was flawless as she waited for my reaction.
But for so reason, this didn’t bother as much as it had before.
I said what I had to say.
“Thank you.”
Endless Hell grinned.
“So, senior, how about reconsidering and allowing to take control and command of the tutorial fairies for being such a considerate junior?”
Instead of answering, I handed her a piece of paper.
Endless Hell took the paper, which had “No” written on it, chewed it with a pout, and spat it out.
Epilogue. End.
[Translator - Jjescus]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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