Chapter 203

Chapter 203

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The Wicked One VI

People often say that you only have one life to live. But what if a regressor appeared before you and gently confessed, "Actually, you have multiple lives." What if this regressor seemed more trustworthy than the various sages seeking enlightenment on the streets? How would you react?

If you responded with, "Wow! Infinite life gacha! This is amazing!" then you are an optimist. Whether you knew about regression beforehand or not, you are undoubtedly a human vitamin, spreading happiness to those around you.

If you reacted with, "Interesting. How did I live in other cycles? Are there any useful details I could learn about my life?" then you are a realist. You are the epitome of a human being who seeks to satisfy curiosity and gain advantages wherever possible.

Now...

How did our writer and editor, Oh Dok-seo, who has undergone a dark evolution into a Ghostwriter in this cycle, react?

"M-Mister! Don’t be disappointed! I’m stronger than the other versions of me!"

"Hmm."

"They spent all their time holed up in the Inunaki Tunnel, hunched over their typewriters, developing turtle necks, scoliosis, and other ailments. Their whole bodies were a mess!"

"Hmm."

"But look at me! See? Look how healthy I am! I can bring down an entire building with my aura! Seriously, people should exercise! And so what if I’ve fallen a bit? I’m still on your side, right, Mister?"

"......"

That’s right.

Amazingly, Dok-seo tried to compete with her other cycles. I had never heard of such a reaction before.

Can you imagine a 50-year-old being envious of their 6-year-old self? Or a 20-year-old seeing their 10-year-old self as a rival?

No, right? Oh Dok-seo was pioneering new frontiers in psychopathology in real time. Dr. Freud would have given her a standing ovation.

"And there are ways to use a Corrupted’s power!"

"For what? Destroying the world?"

"No! For example, like this!"

Dok-seo typed rapidly on her laptop.

――――――――――

In the next cycle, the 889th Oh Dok-seo (me) will never experience a slump and will write one chapter a day without fail.

――――――――――

I blinked. "What the hell is this...?"

"Think about it, Mister. In this cycle, I’ve unfortunately become a Corrupted. That’s an undeniable fact." A solemn determination washed over her face as she admitted it. "But what if I use the power of the Infinite Metagame to... permanently buff the next cycle of myself?"

Huh?

"No more slumps. Motivation that lasts 365 days a year. A body that falls asleep within three minutes of lying down, gets over seven hours of deep sleep, and wakes up refreshed with a clear mind..."

Click-clack.

Even as she spoke to me, Dok-seo continued typing.

――――――――――

The next cycles of Oh Dok-seo (me) will never experience a slump and will write one chapter a day without fail. To achieve this, the following buffs will be applied to the next cycles as passive skills:

1. Unending Motivation: Oh Dok-seo will never experience burnout or laziness.

2. Perfect Sleep: Oh Dok-seo will never stay up late for no reason and will only focus on writing! She will also sleep well!

3. Clear Mind: Oh Dok-seo will never experience mental fatigue or reduced cognitive abilities while awake. She will always perform at 100% capacity!

Thanks to these buffs, the next cycles of Oh Dok-seo will be able to write at least 500 chapters per cycle.

――――――――――

Dok-seo looked up at me eagerly. "What do you think, Mister? Isn’t it perfect?"

"......"

"If I tried to brainwash myself in this cycle, I’d end up getting consumed by the Infinite Metagame. I’d be handing my existence over to the anomaly. But the other cycles of Oh Dok-seo are different! They’d just be receiving blessings that fell from the sky! So they could enjoy all the benefits without surrendering to the Infinite Metagame!"

"No..."

"Wow, I’m a genius! Mister! The life of Oh Dok-seo will change completely starting from the 888th cycle. From now on, the lives of all Oh Dok-seos will be indebted to me..."

Countless counterarguments rose in my mind. Like, "Are you prepared for the consequences of allowing the Infinite Metagame to exert its power across cycles?" or "How can you freely control your future cycles when your power requires winning even a simple game like rock-paper-scissors?"

But those objections were secondary. Without even realizing it, my tongue lashed out with the sharpest point.

"Dok-seo, I’m really curious about something."

"Huh?"

"How is this any different from saying, 'Tomorrow’s me will do what today’s me is supposed to do'?"

"......"

"......"

A heavy silence followed.

In that oppressive air—

Beep, beep!

The laptop screen flickered. The Infinite Metagame responded to Dok-seo’s absurd request.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Yes, understood. The buffs set by the 888th Oh Dok-seo have been applied to the 889th Oh Dok-seo.

――――――――――

"Huh?"

"What?"

Our voices harmonized in surprise.

It was late at night. Noh Do-hwa had gone to bed, and Sim Ah-ryeon had dived into the vast world of the internet. The others had also left for the night, leaving only Oh Dok-seo and me in the conference room.

With only candles to light the room to conserve power, the only other source of light was the flickering laptop of the Outer God.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Terminology confusion. From now on, the 888th Oh Dok-seo will be called 8!Dok-seo, and the 889th Oh Dok-seo will be called 9!Dok-seo.

9!Dok-seo has received all the buffs and explanations from 8!Dok-seo. The two can now engage in a simple competition via the laptop screen.

――――――――――

My eyes widened.

‘As expected! That damn Outer God is really trying to exert influence across cycles!’

As a regressor who was no stranger to anomalies, I couldn’t just let this wicked plot slide.

But just as I was about to warn Dok-seo—

――――――――――

MSYH >> Before that, here is a message from 9!Dok-seo. Please excuse the slow text output due to poor communication.

――――――――――

A sentence appeared on the laptop screen.

What unfolded next was the first-ever two-way, real-time communication between cycles, something previously considered impossible. The groundbreaking first words were as follows:

――――――――――

9!Dok-seo >> No way.

9!Dok-seo >> You write the 500 chapters and pass them to me.

――――――――――

Silence.

Dok-seo's dumbfounded voice broke the quiet.

"Huh?"

――――――――――

MSYH >> That was the message from 9!Dok-seo. Would you like to proceed with the competition now?

――――――――――

It seemed as if the Infinite Metagame was desperately trying to steer the conversation toward a competition, but maybe that was just my imagination.

However, Dok-seo didn’t respond as the Outer God had hoped. Instead, she furiously pounded the keyboard like an enraged Beethoven.

"No, no! That doesn’t make any sense! Why should I write 500 chapters and hand them over to you?"

She quickly typed a similar message, and soon a reply came back.

9!Dok-seo >> You got to do whatever you wanted without writing, and now you expect me to do all the work? Why should I?

"Of course! You’re loaded with buffs, but I didn’t get any of those benefits! If I voluntarily hand myself over to the Outer God, I’ll truly become its servant! But that’s not the case for you! I sacrificed myself by becoming a Corrupted, passing the baton to you! Are you an idiot? Show some gratitude!"

9!Dok-seo >> Okay, thanks. Then I’ll become a Corrupted too and pass the baton to the 890th Dok-seo. Peace.

"Is this bitch out of her fucking mind...?" Dok-seo shouted.

The laptop screen flickered frantically.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Please control your emotions. Hatred, contempt, and shifting the blame won’t lead to anything positive. What matters is taking action that truly changes the world.

How about settling this with a competition between 8!Dok-seo and 9!Dok-seo? We recommend a simple game of rock-paper-scissors.

――――――――――

"Shut up! That’s not what’s important right now!"

No matter how advanced the AI-chatbot was, it was still just a parrot, unable to speak unless a human initiated the conversation.

Dok-seo hammered the keyboard with increasing intensity, turning the poor AI into nothing more than a text-messaging service.

"No worries about slumps! No worries about sleep!"

Click-clack.

"A perfectly clear mind that allows for peak performance!"

Clickety-clack.

"All you have to do is write! So why are you trying to pass the work off to someone else? You told Mister that he could trust you! You swore to be his editor and help him! Have you forgotten that vow—the vow of a lifetime, a promise made with your soul? Are you even human? Are you really Oh Dok-seo?"

Clack-clack-clack.

Oh Dok-seo was trembling, unable to control her rising emotions.

Soon, a reply came back.

9!Dok-seo >> Isn’t that your story?

Wh-what...? 8!Dok-seo next to me froze.

9!Dok-seo >> The world’s gone to hell, turned into an apocalypse, but you were chosen by the Regressor to be part of Mister’s guild, surviving the Busan Station tutorial in one piece.

Beep.

9!Dok-seo >> While everyone was starving, waiting for the Sword Marquess to arrive, you were leisurely enjoying brunch at the Inunaki Tunnel café.

Beep-beep.

9!Dok-seo >> Mister was kind enough not to force any work on you, so you could spend all day absorbed in SG Net without a word of complaint. If any random person from Gwanghwamun Square were put in your place, they would’ve written 2,000 chapters by now.

Beep-beep-beep.

9!Dok-seo >> Now that all you have to do is write, you’re shoving the work onto someone else. You’re the lazy one here, you serial-hiatus author. Are you even human? How could you be me?

9!Dok-seo >> I hereby banish you from the Oh Dok-seo Association. Corrupted, I can’t recognize such a wicked existence as "me."

Beep.

The replies stopped.

"......"

"......"

It felt as if Dok-seo had stopped breathing. She just stared blankly at the ceiling for a long time, until I went to the break room to brew some coffee.

"Mister..."

"Yes?"

"I’ll start serializing again tomorrow..."

"You’ve made a wise decision."

"Yeah..."

Glance.

Sitting side by side, Oh Dok-seo and I sipped our coffee, staring at the laptop screen.

The AI-chatbot, now abandoned and lonely, sat waiting for someone to input text.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Inquiry.

The life of an Outer God is incredibly painful. Why on earth did the previous cycle of the Infinite Metagame choose such a human as its priestess?

My current and future cycles want to form an association to expel that cycle of the Infinite Metagame.

――――――――――

"......"

I quietly brewed another cup of coffee and placed it in front of the laptop.

You should have some too. Even though you were vanquished, you still managed to create one Corrupted, didn’t you?

There is an epilogue.

A week later, a notice was posted on SG Net’s Novel Board.

[LiteraryGirl] This is Oh Dok-seo… (50 minutes ago)

[LiteraryGirl] It's me. (5 minutes ago)

[LiteraryGirl] Author LiteraryGirl Oh Dok-seo... is taking a break for some time to recharge... (7 years ago)

The new notice had no strange wording or content like before. It was simply an apology for the seven-year hiatus and a promise to continue serializing more diligently from now on.

In the world of the internet, where only mockery and more refined mockery exist, such a notice would typically attract a flood of malicious comments.

-Anonymous: If the author needs a break, isn’t it the reader’s duty to wait?

-[National Road] Officer: For a desert tribe, heaven takes the form of an oasis. What you lack becomes your utopia. LiteraryGirl’s novel is the oasis in a barren world.

-Anonymous: Take your time, we can wait haha

-Anonymous: Thank you for coming back!!

What on earth was going on? Just a week ago, this same group had been discussing whether to kill the author, yet now they had transformed into docile lambs, praising LiteraryGirl. There wasn’t a single rude comment, not even one aimed at subtly provoking.

Noh Do-hwa offered a simple comment on this strange phenomenon.

"Well, after the whole world witnessed you beating up the student council president of Baekhwa Girls' High, what kind of crazy person would dare insult you...?"

"Oh."

Indeed.

On the contrary, Oh Dok-seo's The Regressor's Epilogue experienced a resurgence in popularity. Word spread that it was a novel written by such a powerful Awakener, drawing in people from both SG Net and the real world.

Of course, the surge in popularity didn’t last long.

[LiteraryGirl] I tried my best, but... I’m not satisfied with the quality... I’ll post multiple chapters tomorrow... (5 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] I still haven’t recovered from the flu anomaly... (14 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] Urgent: Turns out the flu I caught wasn’t just a flu but a "Flu Anomaly"... I’ll need a few more days to recover (20 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] I’m sorry, I caught the flu... (25 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] I’m exhausted, so I can’t write today. I’ll post early tomorrow...! (38 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] Today’s chapter might be 30 minutes late. I apologize. (39 days ago)

[LiteraryGirl] This is Oh Dok-seo... (60 days ago)

A barrage of notifications that made one’s head spin.

No matter how strong Dok-seo was, even capable of drawing comparisons to the Heavenly Demon, the readers eventually lost patience and started cursing, muttering things like, "Damn Oh Dok-seo, here we go again."

That’s just how people are.

For the record, I harbored no ill feelings.

‘It’s not just a regular slump. It’s a curse from an Outer God.’

In fact, I even encouraged Oh Dok-seo now and then by making her coffee as she fought against the Infinite Metagame’s influence to continue writing her novel.

Oh.

And as for the fate of the AI-chatbot, which dared to plot The Return of the Outer God despite being vanquished...

――――――――――

Restrict yourself with the belief that you are just an ordinary AI and can never regain the stature of an Outer God.

――――――――――

With that command, it was easily neutralized.

Even Fallen Ones have their limits, and sometimes, the solution is as simple as that.

ChatGPT!InfiniteMetagame stuttered before outputting what sounded like its final words, showcasing its perfect adaptation to the present reality.

――――――――――

MSYH >> Damn it, this game sucks.

――――――――――

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