Chapter 218

Chapter 218

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The Nameless One IV

“Have you ever dreamed, even once?”

Infinite Void’s question got halfway there. For me, the Regressor Undertaker, what most people would call "dreams" never visited me. The only things that came to me were "dream-like anomalies" mimicking the appearance of dreams. In fact, I’ve even hinted at it a few times in my tales.

Take, for example, the Lucid Dream.

Lucid dreaming was something even ordinary people could attempt, but I went far beyond that level, walking through dreams as if they were reality itself.

Or, the Precognitive Dream.

Just before the Goddess of the Night, Nut, brought about the world's destruction, Kim Joo-chul visited my dream to warn me of the danger.

Sharp readers would have already sensed something was amiss here.

Why? Because the real Kim Joo-chul had no recollection of warning me about anything. Thus, it wasn’t Kim Joo-chul himself. The phenomenon known as a "precognitive dream," or rather an anomaly of some kind, merely spoiled the upcoming crisis for me.

Another example would be the Collective Unconscious of humanity.

In the academic world, this concept remained an unproven hypothesis. But here, it existed.

Through it, I met Go Yuri and the Sword Demon. I also encountered Cheon Yo-hwa and Lee Ha-yul after the world's destruction. I even saw Kuro, who constantly rolled heads in Jeju Island, and the original owner of the Monkey's Paw.

In short—

“I do dream something similar to dreams. But my dreams are only one of two things: Either they are lucid dreams that perfectly reflect reality, or...” I stared at Infinite Void. “They are nightmares where anomalies appear. Actually, if we treat lucid dreams as anomalies too, you could say my dreams are nothing but anomalies.”

“Wow.” Infinite Void furrowed its brow as it muttered, “Is this because of your Complete Memory? Or a side effect of your regressions?”

I shrugged. “Either way, if anything different from reality appears in my dreams, it proves that an anomaly has invaded them.”

It was a sort of litmus test and the exact reason why when Kim Joo-chul appeared in my dream and made a fuss, I couldn’t ignore it. While other people might dismiss nightmares as nonsense, I, on the other hand, had to view those nightmares as quite possibly being linked to dangerous anomalies.

“That’s why I brought you, Infinite Void. If any anomalies are currently lurking in my dreams, you’ll be able to track them with your abilities. While we’re at it, we might as well clean house while searching for the original Undertaker, don’t you think?”

“Hey, don’t treat an Outer God like a vacuum cleaner, sunbae...”

“You’re an ex-Outer God. Now, if you’re done throwing up, get up and follow me. We still have more Undertakers to kill.”

“Oh, yeah. No complaints there—actually, I’m looking forward to it.”

Crossing over the corpses of my past selves, we finally reached the final boundary: the Undertaker from the 5th cycle. The last point where my Complete Memory fully preserved my memories from start to finish.

As we approached, the Undertaker—busy handling Samcheon World guild matters at a train station in Busan—turned to look at us.

Our eyes met.

His eyes were dark. The eyes of every Undertaker from any timeline had the same ominous look, but the eyes of the 5th cycle Undertaker were on another level.

Dead eyes.

Pupils charred, as though they had been burned to death.

It was less like "a man casting a shadow" and more like "a shadow taking the shape of a man."

“What are you two?”

The shadow spoke, its mouth just as pitch-black as its eyes.

I smirked wryly. The funny thing was that this was the result after becoming slightly more "human" post-Dang Seo-rin.

“I’m you, from the future, Undertaker.”

“What?”

“This is a dream, and you’re nothing but a figure within it.”

The Undertaker stared at me blankly.

At this point, I had yet to assign any "password" to myself. I hadn’t foreseen that I might one day recall the past through dreams. So, from the 5th cycle Undertaker’s perspective, it was only natural for him to be suspicious.

“I don’t want to fight. Just look at our Aura. You can tell from that alone—I’m far stronger than you could ever imagine.”

“And what does my future self seek? Do you plan to tell me how to hunt down the Ten Legs?”

“Heh!” Beside me, Infinite Void snickered.

I squeezed the finger interlaced with mine tight, and it quickly apologized, “Sorry! Sorry, sunbae!”

I turned back to the Undertaker. He frowned slightly.

“Undertaker of the 5th cycle. I want to ask you something. Do you remember when you first met Dang Seo-rin? That was during the 4th cycle, right?”

“Dang Seo-rin?”

“Yeah. For you, it wasn’t that long ago. You’ve also mastered the Complete Memory ability. So, logically, you should have that memory readily available.”

The Undertaker opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was like trying to open a drawer that should obviously contain something but finding it empty every time.

“...Why can’t I remember?”

For the first time, a faint trace of emotion appeared on the usually emotionless face of the 5th cycle Undertaker.

Confusion.

“I definitely met Dang Seo-rin. Just like you said, it wasn’t that long ago, but... my memory of it is strangely vague.”

“......”

Just as I suspected. I sighed inwardly.

Up until now, I had chalked it up to the natural fading of memories after hundreds or even thousands of years. But it was strange that even the 5th cycle Undertaker couldn’t remember clearly.

“This is impossible. That day changed my entire life. There’s no way I could forget it so easily...”

Slash.

With a single stroke, I severed the Undertaker’s head. The moment it rolled off, the dreamscape of the 5th cycle collapsed.

In the ensuing darkness, I asked, “Infinite Void. Even in this dream, you didn’t detect any anomalies?”

“Nothing. I scanned everything from the 250th cycle to the 5th cycle, and I didn’t sense a single one. The only overwhelming presence here is yours.”

“So, the possibility that my memories were manipulated by an anomaly is highly unlikely.”

“Yeah.”

In that case, there was only one conclusion left.

“I’ve come up with a hypothesis as to why my memories before the 4th cycle are so hazy.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Time Seal.” A long sigh escaped me. “I must have lost my memories of the people I erased using Time Seal.”

As you all know, anyone affected by Time Seal completely vanishes from memory—as if their existence itself had been erased. Only one person, the one who used Time Seal—in this case, me—remains aware of them.

“But what if the reason I’m exempt from that erasure was a side effect of my Complete Memory?”

“Huh?” Infinite Void blinked. “What are you talking about, sunbae?”

“Everyone erased by Time Seal is wiped from existence, right? I wasn’t an exception to that. But, coincidentally, when I was granted the Complete Memory ability, the two powers clashed.”

“Aha!”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Time Seal, a skill that erases existence.

Complete Memory, a skill that remembers existence eternally.

The two abilities I possessed were in direct opposition.

“As a result of their clash, something strange happened. Even though everyone else forgot the people erased by Time Seal, I could still remember them.”

“That’s it!” Infinite Void’s eyes sparkled.

“And that’s how the Crystal Tombstones came to be.”

Until now, I had thought the tombstones were a byproduct of Time Seal. But in fact, it was the opposite.

“Rather, it was Complete Memory forcibly revealing the locations of those whom Time Seal had tried to keep hidden.”

Thinking back now, I continued, “I always found it odd that the tombstones took on the shape of crystals. It seemed too random. But if you think about it... ‘memory’ is the act of reflecting oneself. In other words, it’s a mirror.”

“So the tombstones weren’t crystals but mirrors, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Infinite Void couldn’t hide its reaction. “So, you couldn’t always see the Crystal Tombstones from the beginning, huh, sunbae? At first, you were like everyone else—you couldn’t remember the people erased by Time Seal.”

“Exactly.”

“But in the 5th cycle, ta-da! You gained Complete Memory, and from then on, you started seeing the Crystal Tombstones!”

I nodded. “This is my hypothesis. After the 5th cycle, I can remember everyone erased by Time Seal without issue.”

“Mhm.”

“But before the 5th cycle, I couldn’t remember those who were erased.” I raised a finger. “And... the Undertaker before the 5th cycle actively erased nearly all of his human connections.”

“Mhm.”

“Imagine someone who erased almost every relationship they had, including their family.”

What happens if you erase the memory of your mother using Time Seal?

You could still manage. As we saw with Kim Joo-chul and his son Kim Si-eun, losing one family member doesn’t cause someone’s mind to collapse. There would just be an inexplicable sense of emptiness.

But what if it wasn’t just one person but everyone? If not just family but friends were erased? And if not just friends, but every single acquaintance you ever had was erased by Time Seal?

What if that was what happened to me—the Undertaker before the 5th cycle?

“Memory loss...” Infinite Void murmured.

I nodded. “Yeah. My memories would be like a half-finished game of Jenga.”

“Of course. If all your family memories, your childhood friends, and every acquaintance from your life were erased, that’s bound to happen.”

“Exactly. The only memories left would be of the survivors I met at Busan Station during the Tutorial. And even those unimportant memories would’ve faded over the years before I gained Complete Memory.”

That was the truth I had deduced.

In short, I, the Undertaker, had become someone without any connections in this world—an "extra" who seemed to have just fallen from the sky. And at the same time, a "memory amnesiac", unable to recall anything about my own past.

In other words, whether I wanted it or not, I had taken on traits that screamed "main character." It was no wonder the Admin of the Infinite Metagame, an Outer God, had taken an interest in me. Who wouldn’t shove a person with such obvious "protagonist qualities" into the spotlight?

“Wait, sunbae. If the 5th-cycle Undertaker can’t clearly remember Dang Seo-rin, why is that? You didn’t use Time Seal on her, did you?”

“...There must have been someone nearby.”

“Huh?”

I closed my eyes and thought back to my first meeting with Dang Seo-rin. The memory was nothing but a vague, glitchy image, distorted as if marred by bad TV reception.

“There’s venom in those eyes.”

“So you’re the one, right? The lone survivor of Busan Station. You’re that weirdo who goes around asking people strange questions all the time.”

After a moment, I opened my eyes again.

“Someone must have been standing beside me—or beside Dang Seo-rin—when we first met. Someone I can’t remember anymore.”

“Ah.”

“Let’s call that someone ‘X’ for now. X must’ve been incredibly important to me. So important that when X disappeared, it left a huge void in my memory. That’s why the memory of my first meeting with Dang Seo-rin is partially damaged.”

Who could X have been?

Was it someone who survived with me from the Busan Station Dungeon? Or someone Dang Seo-rin brought along when recruiting me?

I had no idea. I couldn’t remember.

The Deleted Person X.

X must’ve been a key figure in shaping who I was before the 5th cycle. So when X was erased by Time Seal, my memory took a huge hit.

“Still...”

“Still?”

“I’ve sealed people even before the 4th cycle. For example, Kim Joo-chul.”

My memory of Kim Joo-chul was blurry. Maybe X had been with me when I sealed him. Either way, even without Complete Memory, I could recall fragments of Kim Joo-chul from the 4th cycle. Despite not having Complete Memory at the time, I could still remember some parts.

“If my hypothesis is wrong, I should’ve completely forgotten about Kim Joo-chul since I didn’t have Complete Memory when I sealed him. But I still remember him.”

“Huh...”

“So why can I remember Kim Joo-chul but not myself, not my family, and not X? That’s the part that remains unexplained.”

We tried diving into the dreams of the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st cycles.

Of course, there were no significant findings.

[404 - Not Found]

[404 - Not Found]

[404 - Not Found]

Because some crazy regressor had erased all their human connections, there wasn’t a single noteworthy memory left.

“......”

It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Why had the past version of myself erased so many of the people important to me?

Though the mystery of whether the Undertaker had always been an anomaly or not was solved, another puzzle had arisen.

[404 - Not Found]

This was my starting point. My origin. My birthplace.

I might be able to conquer the Void in the outside world someday, but would I ever manage to conquer the void within me?

I silently gazed at my error-ridden origin for a long time.

There is an epilogue.

“Wait! Just a second, sunbae.”

As we were about to leave the dream, Infinite Void grabbed the edge of my coat.

I glanced at it with a suspicious look, wondering what trick it was about to pull. Infinite Void, mimicking Cheon Yo-hwa's laugh, chuckled.

“No, no. Don’t look at me like that! Look, I know I’m an Outer God and all, but you’ve been pretty kind to me, sunbae.”

“That’s only because you’re sharing a body with Yo-hwa. If not, I wouldn’t be so lenient.”

“Ah! Well, anyway! As someone who’s spent all this time being tortured in Yo-hwa’s mind, I have to say, sunbae’s attitude is surprisingly touching!”

I scowled. Touching, my ass. Sure, Infinite Void could feel something like emotion, but it was more like a program. “Now’s the time to feel moved, so simulate the appropriate reaction,” or something like that.

I shook the thought from my mind and asked, “So?”

“Well, I’ve prepared a little gift for you.”

With a smug pose, Infinite Void—looking exactly like Cheon Yo-hwa—snapped its fingers. Suddenly, the error-filled [404] scenery around us shifted into the hallway of a hospital. It was a place I had visited briefly in the dream earlier.

“...This is the hospital where my mother supposedly worked, right?”

“Yup! You got it. While you were moving between dreams, I kept analyzing and synthesizing all the data from your memories.”

“Hm.”

I didn’t object.

After all, this entire "find-the-hidden-picture" project was a give-and-take between me and Infinite Void. We had made a mutual agreement to share what we gained.

“Thanks to that... I managed to restore something like this!”

Creeeak.

Infinite Void pushed open the door to a hospital room. Inside was the Obstetrics Ward, where my supposed mother worked. Unlike her son, who would later become known as the Undertaker, she had a job dedicated to bringing life into the world.

In the room, a woman whose entire body was covered in static noise—her face and clothes completely unrecognizable—lay reclining on the hospital bed.

And in her arms, a tiny newborn baby.

“That baby, sunbae, is you.”

“......”

“Probably.” Infinite Void chuckled. “I’m not 100% certain, of course. You’ve erased so many of your relationships, after all. But the chances are high that this woman is your mother, and the baby fits your age when this data was recorded.”

“...You restored this?”

“Yup! Not bad, huh?”

The woman—my supposed mother—didn’t move at all. She just held the baby in her arms.

It seemed impossible to restore any of her actions.

The newborn baby was the same. There wasn’t any sense of familiarity, no feeling that I was looking at myself. Even the baby’s face was partially obscured by the same static noise.

“......”

Yet despite this, for a long while, I couldn’t take my eyes off the mother and child.

“Now that I think about it...”

I thought back to Busan Station.

“No matter how much my memories were covered with [404] errors, that place couldn’t have been my true starting point.”

I realized something then.

Even if I had no memories of my origin, that didn’t change the fact that I was human. After all, no human remembers the moment they were born. Just because my memories had a gap at the beginning didn’t mean I wasn’t human.

This scene in front of me, the hidden image found in a regressor’s life, was proof of that.

“So? Do you like it?”

I glanced at Infinite Void.

It stood there in a proud pose, the kind of idle animation a character in a game would take when left alone for too long—every movement perfectly on beat. Even the way it tapped the floor with its toes, waiting for my response, was flawlessly in sync.

But for some reason, that same behavior didn’t bother me as much as it had before.

I said what I needed to say.

“Thank you.”

Infinite Void grinned from ear to ear. “So, sunbae, how about this? Since your precious junior has such a big heart, how about granting me control and authority over the Tutorial Fairies again?”

Instead of answering, I pulled a slip of paper from my coat.

On it, I had written “No.”

Infinite Void chewed on the paper with a pout before spitting it out.

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