Chapter 174

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The Diver VI

My inner Munch screamed in agony.

‘Go Yuri? Why? Why Go Yuri?’

For context, I hadn’t seen the real “Go Yuri” in millennia—2,112 years to be precise. It had been so long that even the people of Silla had rebuilt their nation and seen it fall twice. The Egyptians had had enough time to look at the pyramids they themselves had built and wonder, “Who could have constructed such magnificent structures?”

Just remaining composed enough to school my facial muscles took superhuman patience.

“Guild leader, your lips are trembling.”

“...I’ve heard a lot about you.” I immediately switched to method acting. Go Yuri? Who was that? I was merely a small café owner running a business near the Inunaki Tunnel. And Yu Ji-won’s spirit was protecting me.

“Go Yuri,” I greeted finally, “I heard you usually operate out of Daejeon. What brings you to Busan, and so unexpectedly?”

“Ah, um...”

“Given how often we see each other on SG Net, I’d love to accommodate you, but this is not the right time nor place. If you can’t provide a satisfactory explanation, we’ll have to follow protocol.”

Go Yuri’s eyes fixed on me. Her left hand lifted, reaching for me.

“Oh, I see.”

Then, she stopped.

Whatever “Oh, I see” meant, I didn’t want to know, nor could I even if I did. Any knowledge I believed I had almost certainly found its roots in brainwashing by Go Yuri.

“I’m sorry, guild leader.” When I remained silent, Go Yuri retracted her hand, then bowed her head as I desperately tried to maintain doublethink. Her smile was as delicate and troublesome as the shade of a wisteria vine. “Honestly, I didn’t intend to intrude on your hospitality.”

“Then why...”

“Believe it or not, I simply woke up and found myself here.”

“......”

“At first, I was very confused. I had been busy helping the refugees from Busan, and then suddenly, I was here.”

It was hard to dismiss her explanation offhand, and not just because of her trustworthy demeanor and words. Knowing the truth was in and of itself inherently impossible. Unlike the relatively friendly ‘unconscious Go Yuri,’ the ‘real Go Yuri’ sitting in front of me felt somewhat rougher. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how or why; it was just a sense honed from living too long as a regressor.

“So, you’re saying you have no particular purpose for your visit? If that’s the case, we’ll arrange for you to stay here until the super monsoon is dealt with. You might find the accommodations suboptimal, but please understand our situation.”

“No, that’s not it.” Go Yuri smiled and waved her hand. “Guild leader, you’re so quick to have your say. Do you always rush to conclusions?”

“......”

“You’re right. This isn’t the best time or place, but I must admit to feeling a tad wronged.”

“Wronged?”

“Yes. After all, I’m not the only one here who ‘shouldn’t be’ in this time and place, am I?”

I swallowed hard. The super monsoon wasn’t supposed to strike the Korean Peninsula. The “Bathtub Effect” shouldn’t have occurred. I caused it. The ark shouldn’t exist here. Using puppet strings to tie up a typhoon wasn’t supposed to be part of our strategy. Everything about the current situation was something that shouldn’t be. Was Go Yuri pointing that out?

“I can’t say I know why I ended up here, but isn’t that the same for the whole of the human race? They don’t know why they were born, yet they still strive to find their purpose.”

“That is a rather abstract discussion,” I managed.

“I know what I need to do here. I realized it quite immediately upon my arrival.”

Slowly, a water bug crawled up Go Yuri’s long index finger. Its tail flicked, creating small bubbles that popped near Go Yuri’s mouth. She looked at the bug on her finger as if it were a cute little bird. Despite sitting underwater, her voice was steady and her hair remained in place. Even as the ark shook with the typhoon’s waves, her posture never wavered. Her aura control must have been refined to an extremely fine-tuned state. Or perhaps it wasn’t just aura...

“Guild leader, you intend to hunt a dragon, right?”

A dragon. I immediately understood that she meant the super monsoon anomaly.

“When you hunt the dragon, take me with you,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll undoubtedly be of help.”

“...What if I said I couldn’t suddenly include an outsider to Busan in our well-prepared operation?”

“Oh dear. In that case, I might just become a Busan citizen.”

“......”

“I’ve always been a fan of Lotte!”[1]

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

The operation to hunt the super monsoon, codenamed ‘Typhoon Hunt,’ was carried out as follows:

National Road Management agents ran around explaining the plan.

“In an hour, the arks will start shaking violently!”

“Everyone, please go to your assigned seats and fasten your seat belts! Even Awakeners must not unbuckle their belts!”

Seats in the isolation areas of the arks had been prepared in advance for the turbulent currents. These seats were like upgraded airplane seats. Unfortunately, the “upgrade” wasn’t a bump in quality from economy- to business-class. Instead, it was a bondage-style upgrade with waist belts, chest belts, and leg belts designed to secure people firmly in place.

“Awakeners, hold onto the strings!”

“Orders will be given through the strings in real time! When you receive an order, inject as much aura into the strings as you can without exhausting yourself!”

Ha-yul’s puppet strings were distributed to each passenger strapped into the bondage seats. These strings extended from the bulkhead of Ark No. 1 to its bow statue and further connected to the bow statues of the other arks. The 12-ark fleet was linked together by these strings, resembling the nerve tendrils of the protoss’ Khala from Starcraft. Any reader familiar with Starcraft might sense autumn approaching with this setup of arks and Khala.[2]

In the operation control room, Yu Ji-won reported, “Sir, all Awakeners are seated.” On her Mini-Map, thousands of Awakeners were displayed, so small that most were represented by tiny, two-centimeter chess pieces. Even the Saintess’s Clairvoyance was almost useless in the storm, leaving us reliant on Ji-won’s Mini-Map for managing this large-scale operation.

“What about the positions of the arks?” I questioned.

“They’re spread out far enough. Even if the currents get rough, the chance of collisions are very low.”

“Good.”

I looked around to Noah, Dang Seo-rin, Sim Ah-ryeon, Lee Ha-yul, Yu Ji-won, and our unexpected guest, Go Yuri. Everyone but the last illegal immigrant was exhausted. However, their eyes still shone with determination. For this ‘Typhoon Hunt’ to be a success, none of them could be absent.

“Then, let’s begin.”

“...Are you sure about this, Undertaker?” Dang Seo-rin looked at me with concern. “You said the super monsoon would disappear if we held out for another 30 days. Why not just wait?”

“If we wait, it will return next summer, and we’ll be back on the ark.”

“......”

“Don’t worry, Dang Seo-rin. This might not be comforting, but I’ve already lost my limbs multiple times.”

“That’s not comforting at all.” Dang Seo-rin shook her head with an exasperated look, a face I had grown to like. “Okay. Then... Shall I sing?”

“Please.”

Dang Seo-rin gently plucked the puppet strings and parted her lips.

“Ah――”

Her song flowed out, a chant. The first and second verses always involved ‘repetition’ and ‘playback,’ laying the foundation for her archmagic. The following spell was unique.

“――Ah―Ah―Ah―”

The spell was ‘Sense Amplification.’ It heightened human senses to their extreme limits—think the comic book cliché of bullets moving slowly enough to see with the naked eyes. However, it came with a downside: a keen awareness of one’s heartbeat, blood flow, and the activity of internal organs. This made it more of a debuff than a buff for most Awakeners. Hence, Dang Seo-rin only cast ‘Sense Amplification’ on me.

With a pulse, my senses expanded infinitely.

My five senses at their base had already been sharpened to superhuman levels. With Dang Seo-rin’s support, I could now feel every wave crashing against the bulkhead as if it were crashing directly onto my heart.

“Good... Ji-won.”

“Yes.”

“Cut them off.”

“Excuse me, sir?” someone cried.

Slash.

Without hesitation, Yu Ji-won drew her sword and cut the fingers off both hands. Of course, they weren’t her own fingers; they were mine. All ten of my fingers, left and right, were neatly severed. Excruciating pain surged through me, but I mastered it skillfully.

‘What if I screamed like General Guan Yu did?’[3]

The curiosity was intense, but the fear of losing my honor was greater. I decided to satisfy this curiosity in the next cycle.

Without a single groan, I spoke calmly. “Director Noah. Now.”

Noah sighed deeply but approached me to start her work. She attached prosthetics to my severed fingers, each designed to resemble my own fingers. Thanks to Noah’s awakened abilities, these “fingers” felt as if they had always been a part of me. I moved them freely, without any sense of loss.

And these fingers were connected to puppet strings.

They had been designed that way from the start, like Spider-Man’s fingers. The puppet strings extended from each fingertip, connecting to Ark No. 1 and linking further to the entire 12-ark fleet navigating through the typhoon.

“I’ll heal you now, guild leader!”

Sim Ah-ryeon quickly approached and cast a healing spell on me, adhering the prosthetic fingers perfectly to my flesh. The moment my nerves connected with the puppet strings, my “eyes” opened.

“......!”

How could I describe this feeling?

I saw the sea. I heard it. I felt it. My nerves extended through the puppet strings to every corner of the ark. The strings stretched beyond the ark, flowing through the currents and waves. I sensed the exact positions and movements of all 12 arks. I knew their directions and the roughness of the sea they navigated.

‘Ah.’

If a rider trained from childhood could achieve unity with their horse, then my current state was ‘man-ship unity.’ I tested the strings by channeling aura through them, feeling the ark surge forward.

- What’s happening?

- Maybe just some waves.

- Wave detected. Wave detected.

I heard the voices of those inside the ark, surprised by the sudden movement. I even sensed the aura of an Awakener urgently transmitting Morse code. Everything was under my control. The omnipotence seeped in as I effortlessly commanded the massive vessels with a flick of my fingers.

Go Yuri watched me silently, smiling. Her gaze, like licking ice cream with her eyes, was unnerving. In ordinary times, I would have been disturbed, but now I had to focus on controlling the arks.

I turned to the operation control room and declared, “I’ve succeeded in controlling the arks.”

Cheers erupted around me. Noah, in particular, muttered, “Crazy bastard...” with a bewildered smile. I smiled back.

“Let’s hunt this typhoon.”

It was time to end the summer.

Footnotes:

[1] Lotte is one of Korea’s largest food conglomerates.

[2] In the military sci-fi franchise Starcraft, Khala is a religion and communal, psionic link between a race called the protoss. It became a catalyst for war when a malevolent actor used it to assume control of the protoss in an attempt to break the cycle of the universe and escape the Void. During one of the decisive battles toward the end of the war, the link connecting the protoss fleets was temporarily severed, allowing their worldships to launch a successful surprise attack on the opposing army.

[3] In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, General Guan Yu was shot through the arm with an arrow, leading to an injury that continued to pain him whenever there was a heavy downpour. He is said to have gone through the painful surgery required to correct it while still playing games and drinking with his men.

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