Chapter 206

Chapter 206

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The Antagonist III

We decided to leave the tombstone and return to reality for now. The Crystal Tombstone was ultimately a fantasy realm I had created, no matter how real it felt, so our preparations needed to be done some out in the real world.

Needless to say, Kim Joo-chul panicked.

“Mr. Undertaker! You can’t just leave us here like this. You must return. If you don’t, we will truly be—”

“I’ll return within a week at the latest. Please protect your wife and child and wait for me.”

“A week...” Joo-chul trembled as anxiety overwhelmed him.

After barely managing to calm him down, we escaped from the tombstone. The fresh air of the ruined football stadium greeted us. Unlike the fiery scene that consumed the entirety of Busan’s Seo-gu district inside the tombstone, the village in reality was quiet.

“I didn’t realize... So regressing can push a person’s mind to this extreme,” the Saintess murmured beside me, still holding my hand. “Kim Joo-chul and the citizens may have fallen into madness, but if we think rationally, it’s only been a thousand days. Not even three years have passed. And yet...”

She glanced at me.

I understood what she wanted to say. I’ve been a regressor for thousands of years, but I still seemed relatively sane.

I shrugged. “I repeat my life, but they’re stuck repeating just one day.”

“...Is that really the only reason?”

“Either way, we should get moving. Kim Joo-chul may be forgotten in reality, but I don’t want to leave him like this.”

“Ah, I agree.”

We wandered the full breadth of Busan. The objective was simple: to observe whether similar phenomena were occurring with the other people sealed inside Crystal Tombstones, like Kim Joo-chul.

The result?

I groaned. “They’re all infected.”

It wasn’t just Kim Joo-chul. I checked only 50 tombstones, but all 50 individuals were infected with the 24-hour Regression Virus.

There were around 500,000 Time Seals across the Korean Peninsula. All of them were most likely infected with the same bizarre phenomenon.

What’s more, after spending an entire day wandering Busan, I discovered something else.

“...Mr. Undertaker, it seems like this is affecting the people in reality as well.”

“Hmm.”

Just as she said.

Inside the dream realm of Kim Joo-chul’s tombstone, I had seen numerous ordinary citizens. Most of them had died or gone missing, but about one-tenth of them had survived the apocalypse and living in the Seo-gu district of Busan. These survivors, specifically the ordinary citizenry who appeared in Kim Joo-chul’s dream—strangely, their ‘sleep time’ had been steadily increasing.

“Hah, don’t even get me started. Lately, maybe because of the heat, I’ve been having some strange thoughts.”

I was able to get specific testimony from one of the survivors. He used to be a football player on the same team as Kim Joo-chul.

(Of course, he had no memory of Kim Joo-chul or the fact that he was trapped in a 24-hour loop inside his dream.)

“What do you mean by strange thoughts...?”

“Well... it’s hard to explain, but it’s like déjà vu? You know that feeling when you think you’ve gone through something before? Lately, I’ve been getting that feeling more and more.”

“......”

An abnormal symptom.

If only one person had experienced it, I would’ve dismissed it as heatstroke, but every survivor we found in Seo-gu complained of the same thing. Although the intensity of the feeling varied, they all reported experiencing some form of déjà vu.

All of these people had gone mad after being infected with the Regression Virus inside Kim Joo-chul’s dream.

“...Wait a moment.”

The Saintess’s expression darkened, more than I had ever seen before.

“Mr. Undertaker. Didn’t you say that over 500,000 people were sealed in time across the country?”

“That’s right.”

“...If all 500,000 of them were infected with the Regression Virus, and if every person who appeared in their dreams was also infected, and those symptoms are now showing up in reality...”

I nodded. “Yes. It won’t be long before the entire Korean Peninsula begins showing the same symptoms.”

A Regression Alliance was called immediately.

I explained to the members the influence this unidentified anomaly was having, writing it down on the blackboard.

[Identity of the Anomaly = Nut??]

Inside the Crystal Tombstones, the sealed people are experiencing a 24-hour regression.

Normally, their memories should reset every 24 hours, but for some reason, their memories are being preserved. This phenomenon is spreading to those around them too.

Not only is this happening inside the tombstones, but it’s also starting to appear in reality. The affected people in reality are feeling a strong sense of déjà vu, as if things are repeating.

After hearing the explanation, Noh Do-hwa frowned. “What the fuck? So now we’re dealing with a plague that spreads through dreams, turning everyone into half-assed regressors?”

“I can’t say for sure,” I said calmly. “I suspect that several anomalies have overlapped. I’d like to ask you all—have you recently been feeling an unusually strong sense of déjà vu?”

The members exchanged glances. Seo Gyu spoke first.

“Now that you mention it... While eating breakfast this morning, I suddenly thought, ‘I’ve definitely seen this exact scene before,’ hyung.”

“I... I had the same experience.” Sim Ah-ryeon hesitated as she spoke. “Remember when the guild master asked me to draw that, um, Infinite Metagame? The one with the blue butterfly painting? While I was drawing it, I thought, ‘Wait, haven’t I drawn this exact same thing before...?’”

“I’ve had similar experiences as well,” Yu Ji-won agreed. “I brushed it off as a trick of the mind, but if it’s due to the anomaly, it makes sense. Honestly, even this very meeting room feels oddly familiar.”

Of course. I had sealed about 500,000 people in time, so it was more likely than not that Seo Gyu, Sim Ah-ryeon, and Yu Ji-won had appeared briefly in someone’s dream.

“It's probable that this anomaly is a combination of several concepts. For instance, it seems that ‘Valhalla’ is involved.”

“Valhalla? As in, the place where warriors go to die, only to kill and die again in the afterlife?”

“Precisely.”

Valhalla, one of the afterlives.

In Valhalla, the souls of the invited warriors kill and die each morning, only to be resurrected by evening.

“The concept of a ‘day repeating endlessly’ aligns closely with Valhalla.”

“Hmm...”

“I suspect this anomaly has the ability to manipulate the concept of the afterlife. Hell, oblivion... wherever the souls that disappear from reality gather.”

Tap, tap.

I continued explaining, writing on the blackboard. “When I seal people in time, they vanish from the world entirely. In a way, the inside of the Crystal Tombstones isn’t much different from the afterlife. At least, that’s how this anomaly sees it.”

“...So, you’re saying this anomaly is corrupting your tombstones?”

I confirmed the Saintess’s words. “Exactly. To be more precise, its ultimate goal is probably to corrupt me.”

“...You, Mr. Undertaker.”

“Think about it. What people experience inside the Crystal Tombstones is essentially a ‘miniature version’ of what I go through. I’m a regressor, and though their experience only lasts 24 hours, they’re regressing too. I don’t like making this comparison, but...”

I tapped the blackboard again, adding more words.

[Undertaker = Outer God]

Regression ability, Perfect memory ability

[Kim Joo-chul and other Sealed Ones = Apostles]

Regression ability (24 hours), Memory ability

I turned to face them.

“If things go wrong, this could become the new hierarchy.”

The Saintess’s eyes widened. “The Undertaker as an Outer God, and the Apostles being targeted first...”

“Yes. Of course, I’m not actually saying I’m an Outer God. I’m just explaining how the anomaly seems to perceive me.”

It was a classic strategy—kill the minions to weaken the boss.

“To make this work, the anomaly must make me and the Apostles as similar as possible. The biggest difference between me and Kim Joo-chul, for instance, is...”

“...Memory.”

“Exactly. I know I’m regressing and I remember everything perfectly through my Complete Memory. But Kim Joo-chul, until now, didn’t even realize he was repeating the same day over and over.”

So, the anomaly forcefully molded him in my image and designated Kim Joo-chul as my avatar. Not just Kim Joo-chul either—500,000 Time Sealers were now being compelled to resemble me. If it managed to push all 500,000 of them under its control or subject them to unbearable torment...

“It could land a blow on me as well.”

“......”

“I believe that’s what the anomaly is trying to achieve. Well, this is still just speculation, of course.”

The room fell silent.

Breaking the stillness, Noh Do-hwa tilted her chin in thought. “In short, this anomaly is trying to take you down, huh?”

“Yes. Whether it’s intentional or not, the result is the same—it’s targeting me.”

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