[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 238: The Organ Recipient III
3
As I ntioned before, I, Doctor Jang, didn’t dream in the ordinary sense.
In other words, if I did dream, it ant that at least one anomaly had interfered.
The dream I had the day after barely preventing the “Angel’s Descent” incident in Pyongyang was the sa.
"Hello, Guild Master."
"……."
"Oh dear. If you look at with that expression, it really hurts my feelings, you know?"
The pink-haired Voldemort, who should normally be residing deep in my subconscious, was smiling brightly.
Right in front of .
I barely suppressed a scream.
“…Koyori, please, I beg you, can you at least change your appearance next ti? I'm going to end up with a pink-hair trauma."
"Haha. I'm sorry. That's beyond my control… After all, this is the appearance you hold the most affection for, Guild Master. You’ll have to change yourself first."
"Don't lie. I've never seen anyone with a face like yours, and I’ve never had a particular fetish for pink hair."
"Yes. It's really quite a mystery. Maybe we were connected in a past life?"
“Lovely. If this is how we are in this life, then my past life must have been ruined too.”
I looked around.
The space within the dream didn’t usually hold much aning, but right now, it seed rather significant. I was sitting on an old village bus, of all places.
The faint sll of rubber.
Koyori sat neatly across from on the opposite seat. We were facing each other, only about a ter apart.
“What’s the matter? It’s rare for you to show up in my dreams without warning.”
“Really? 'Show up'? That choice of words really wounds …”
Koyori sighed softly, pressing a hand to her cheek.
“When Aryeon calls you 'Guild Master' so sweetly, you're always so kind. By the way, I was actually the first guild mber to call you that, you know?”
“You’ve been expelled for a long ti. Stick to the point.”
“I didn’t just ‘show up,’ Guild Master. You called here.”
I swallowed hard.
“…Bus 44. Was it an anomaly tied to you?”
“That’s an amusing nickna. You always give the anomalies nas, don’t you, Guild Master?”
Koyori covered her mouth, laughing. The sound, which could be described as a soft “chuckle,” didn’t co from her direction.
The laughter was faintly coming from the bus's speakers, mixed with static.
A crackling noise, followed by a chuckle. Ahahaha—crackling, crackling—chuckle.
“You know, I actually think I deserve a complint. If I hadn’t shown up in your dream tonight, you would have encountered it in reality instead. Oh, would you have preferred that?”
“…No, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“You’re very welco!”
Ssssssh.
Red paint was sared across the window behind Koyori. The crescent-shaped crimson mark dripped like blood down the glass.
“Did you know? Giving sothing a na… While it can an ‘trapping an entity within letters,’ as you intend, it can also an ‘naming a child.’”
“…….”
“There are now very few words in this world that haven’t passed over your tongue, Guild Master. Father of all things. Mother of all anomalies. Do you realize you’re getting closer to such a position?”
“…Not at all.”
To be honest, I hadn’t predicted it.
But after hearing Koyori—or more precisely, the reflection of Koyori from my subconscious—whisper those words, I realized.
Indeed. It was a valid point.
When I gazed into the void, the void also gazed back at . An unchanging truth.
“Not all anomalies appear at the point of your regression. In fact, the vast majority go unnoticed. But by then, in your mind, ‘countless anomalies have already been nad.’”
“…It’s like their mont of birth, then.”
“Yes. You recognize, think about, and na anomalies earlier than anyone else in the world.”
Shhh, Koyori placed a finger over her lips.
“Calling sothing by its na—that alone is enough to initiate one form of magic. Each ti you regress, you’re naming every anomaly in the entire universe.”
Crackle!
The speaker sparked with noise.
-Co forth, Ten-Clans, Yuseong, star of nothingness, the puppeteer of The Admin of All-Play, Bus 44. Co forth.
“…….”
“So you see, anomalies are unconsciously drawn to you. It’s like, well… as cute as it sounds, it’s like a child searching for their parents. Of course, whether they like their parents or not depends on the anomaly.”
“Thanks for the advice. I’ll be careful from now on.”
-Ahahahahahahahahaha.
“…….”
I closed my mouth. Instinctively, I understood the aning behind the mocking laughter from the speaker.
With [Perfect mory], I couldn’t forget an anomaly once I recognized it.
All the naming was already done. So how exactly could I ‘be careful’ from now on?
“Have you ever felt this way?”
Koyori covered her mouth as she spoke.
Though she was clearly sitting a ter away, her voice sohow echoed right in my ear.
“You feel like you're barely moving forward, but the ground beneath you is entirely a swamp, and instead of progressing, you’re sinking deeper with each step…”
Her hand covered her mouth so I couldn’t even be sure if she was moving her lips.
The sticky, molten voice lingered in my ear like lted candy in the sumr heat.
“Maybe the regression isn’t a reset button after all. What if instead of saving the world, you’re scraping away at the edges with your fingernails, dragging it down?”
“…….”
“There’s one solution. One strategy to reach the ending, Guild Master.”
I blinked my eyes slowly.
In the next mont, the bus, once occupied by only Koyori and , was now full.
All the passengers had my face—the face of Doctor Jang.
With utterly expressionless faces, the “Doctor Jangs” sat in various poses, each in their own seat. None of them seed to care about Koyori or .
“When you wake up from this dream—”
Whisper.
“Take Bus 44, Guild Master.”
“…….”
“Of course, I’m not telling you to board it right away. After you’ve sufficiently trained the Saintess, ask her a favor. Stop ti [Ti Freeze], then kindly ask if she can give the entire world a little cut in their guts.”
Whisper. Whisper.
“Then, when ti resus, you board the bus without delay. From the outside, Saint Aryeon will keep healing you continuously.”
Tada…
Koyori whispered softly in my ear.
“Wow. Then everyone in the world will beco the Guild Master! A heaven for regressors! Following ‘The Wise and Ingenious,’ we’ll have a new species: the Regressionist!”
“……”
“Hahaha. If the scale of the world is too overwhelming, even one or two people would be fine. Guild Master, you often miss Schopenhauer, but perhaps making companions is easier than you think.”
It’s about becoming one.
Koyori said that.
“What do you think, Guild Master?”
“Indeed. It’s a strategy I never considered. I’ll think about it.”
“You’re lying.”
“……”
Thud—
The village bus moved. The engine rumbled as it started heading sowhere.
Through the window, the scenery flashed by too quickly. Day and night kept changing without pause, casting constant shadows over Koyori.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
“No matter where you go or what your destination is, Guild Master, I will support you. I will be with you always. But you've already passed quite a few stops.”
“……”
“Please, just don’t forget that.”
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The vibration of the village bus transford into the rumbling of a subway train, and the interior of the bus stretched out to the sides. The lights flickered. The “Doctor Jangs” sitting in the seats were torn apart, their bodies splitting and bursting.
Then I woke up.
“……”
“Huh.”
In front of was Sim Aryeon. She was peeking at , startled when I opened my eyes.
“You, you’re awake...”
“How about your Saint duties?”
“I just finished! As you instructed, I covered it up as traces of angels descending with the blessing of Christ in Mo Gwangseo, and we turned it into a holy site.”
“Good. My dear Aryeon, you’ve worked hard.”
“Hehe. P-praise more.”
Sim Aryeon bead brightly.
For so reason, Koyori overlapped with that smile.
I wasn’t confusing the two people.
It was just that Koyori’s advice from the dream ca back to without thinking.
—Guild Master, you recognize the anomalies earlier and more profoundly than anyone else, na them, and give them aning.
Because of that, Koyori warned that I might beco the “parent” of the anomalies.
But will I really?
What I thought of imdiately after my regression wasn’t just the anomalies.
I thought about the people I couldn’t save in previous turns, I saw Seo Gyu, whose head was about to be chopped off as soon as I opened my eyes, and I noticed Sim Aryeon trembling in the corner.
‘Do I value human smiles over the annihilation of anomalies?’
The answer was YES.
It might have been different in the early stages of regression, but now the answer was always a resounding “Yes.”
As long as this answer encircles my heart like a sail filled by the wind, I will never lose my way, no matter which sea I cross.
“My dear Aryeon is the best.”
“Hehe…”
In the vast sea, I stroked the head of the one who beca the wind to guide .
In my hand, the wind smiled brightly.
4
There is an epilogue.
“Let’s draw a bus route map.”
When I returned to Busan, I presented this idea in a eting. Noh Doha tilted his head.
“A bus route map...?”
“Yes. The organs of passengers on Village Bus No. 44 are randomly transferred with no order. This likely happens because there’s no set route for the bus.”
I sketched a route map on the blackboard.
ⓞHwang Seoyoung’s Pancreas (54, Busan) – ⓞKim Jincheol’s Cornea (11, Sejong) – ⓞNamgung Hiyoung’s Lung (37, Pohang) – ⓞPark Daram’s Kidney (21, Busan)…
It looked like a typical bus route map, except for the peculiar nas of the stops.
“We prepare a list of patients who will receive organs in this order. Volunteers can choose their ‘stops,’ deciding who will receive their organs after they die.”
“Oh…”
“Family, friends, acquaintances, or even soone they’ve t by chance. Either way, they’re choosing who will receive their organs after death.”
In the apocalypse, the number of suicides was very high. The reasons to leave often outweighed the reasons to stay.
Even those people were willing to donate their organs if it ant benefiting the ones left behind.
When you board the bus, most ordinary people die instantly, feeling no pain. This allows for quick, easy, and precise organ donation without complex procedures.
“Not only suicide victims, but also elderly people might want to donate their organs. The village bus appears everywhere, so anyone can access it.”
“Hmm…”
The term “donation” might make it seem like an act born purely from kindness, but I saw it as an efficient distribution of resources.
The apocalypse was harsh.
Even the bodies of the dead had value, and we had to make use of everything.
Although Village Bus No. 44 had fatal flaws, it was still worth using if we could avoid anomalies like Mo Gwangseo Christ.
After listening to my presentation, Noh Doha twisted his lips.
“Well, wouldn’t that be good...?”
The “Bus Route Map” and “Stop List” were distributed nationwide.
If changes needed to be made to the route map, updates were uploaded to SGNet first. Then, guilds across the country altered the nas of the stops for the general public to see.
Occasionally, incidents occurred where innocent people were forcibly pushed onto the bus, but such mishaps were usually detected in advance by the Saintess.
After that day, I occasionally saw elderly people sitting under bus stop signs while walking around.
These elderly people always held crumpled pieces of paper in their hands, with the nas of the stops where they would leave their traces written on them.
They would sit, glancing around, waiting for the bus to arrive—reading their mos every now and then.
Before long, the Village Bus No. 44 would appear like a mirage in front of the sign.
The elderly would grasp their notes in one hand, using the other to prop themselves up with a cane as they boarded the bus.
The green village bus would disappear sowhere, leaving behind the sll of exhaust.
“……”
Leaving behind sothing for soone else, even as they abandon life.
Perhaps the lightness of the cane that the elderly used to board the bus carried within it the reason I always chose humans over anomalies.
Isn’t humanity encapsulated at the tip of that cane?
‘Koyori, the day I accept your proposal will never co.’
After all, the endpoint of any individual might simply be a stop where soone takes a brief rest.
That’s why I hoped.
That, like the elderly, I could live not as the final destination for many, but simply as a stopover in the lives of others.
—Organ Recipient. End.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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