Chapter 280

Discord: https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

◈ I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

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The Commentator II

“I hereby declare the First NRMC Awakener Fighting Tournament, the AwakenCup, open! Let the games begin!” I shouted into the mic.

The cheers of the crowd thundered through the Colosseum.

“Waaaaaah!”

Yes, a Colosseum.

After the Eastern Holy State was found, a Colosseum had appeared without prompting or warning near the Void outside Pyongyang.

Why a Colosseum, you ask? Who knows? Perhaps even the Anomalies acknowledged the Eastern Holy State as the true successor of Rome.

“Baekhwa! Baekhwa!”

“Samcheon World!”

“Whoa! Wahoo!”

Supporters from all over raised their banners and cheered with fervor.

Witches fired an endless stream of fireworks from their staves while the Baekhwa Girls’ High cheerleading squad hyped up the mood even further.

How could I, the Undertaker, not respond to such enthusiasm? With a higher energy than usual, I drove the mic forward.

“Yes, the monumental first AwakenCup! Color commentary will be handled by me, the Undertaker! And for your host—”

“Yeah so, before that, could you please explain why the NRMC Awakener Fighting Tournament is abbreviated as AwakenCup?”

“We have none other than NRMC Commander Noh Do-hwa! Everyone, give her a thunderous round of applause for coming all the way to Pyongyang Sacred City!”

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Damn it, this is insane...” Do-hwa muttered something more under her breath, but the complaints of a mediocre Awakener who couldn’t amplify her voice with Aura were drowned out by the cheers of the 80,000 spectators filling the Colosseum.

“All eyes are on the highly anticipated first match! The opening battle! Let’s see who the competitors are! First, from the blue corner! Entering now!”

“Ooooooh!”

The gate on the left side of the Colosseum opened, and in entered Yu Ji-won riding a dinosaur.

A Pachycephalosaurus. Also known as the head-butting dinosaur. This mighty creature served as the NRMC’s official warhorse. Its formal name was “Kongkongi.”

“What a shocker! Right from the start, the head-butting dinosaur makes its debut!”

“Uwaaaaaah!”

The citizens of Pyongyang Sacred City gazed in awe at Kongkongi’s pristine cranial health. It was clear everyone loved dinosaurs.

“The lead player of the first match! NRMC’s Operation Team Leader, Yu Ji-won! If you had to name the human with the highest kill count in the Korean Peninsula, she’d surely rank in the top two, if not, the top five! She’s NRMC’s psychopath! A murderer! Who dares stand in her way? Caster Noh Do-hwa, your thoughts?”

“Well... Considering this event is flying the National Road Management Corps banner, I’d like to personally rip the scalp off a certain commentator who just called our ace a psychopath...”

“Unfortunately, the Undertaker’s scalp is steel! Not even the Director of Intelligence could manage to crack it! Now, facing this fearsome axe-murdering psychopath from the red corner! Let’s welcome the next competitor!”

The gate on the right side of the Colosseum opened with a clank. Out came a group scattering flower petals. Walking with delicate steps as light as air across the floral carpet was none other than Sim Ah-ryeon.

She waved gracefully toward the audience, her smile as radiant as sunlight. The reaction was seismic—not from physical force but from sheer adoration.

“Waaaaaah!”

“It’s the Saintess!”

“Sain-tess, cham-pi-on! Sain-tess, cham-pi-on!”

“She smiled at me!”

“Eastern! Holy! Eastern! Holy!”

“Blast a path through that Busan bumpkin’s head with an ether storm!”

I shuddered. So this was the power of home-field advantage.

But what truly gave me chills was not the crowd’s enthusiasm—it was Sim Ah-ryeon’s serene expression. Hers was the kind of priceless smile you could frame and label as oh-so-truly divine.

“Yes, the red corner belongs to none other than the Saintess of the Eastern Holy State! The representative of the Mo Gwang-seo Church! Pyongyang Sacred City’s most beloved icon, the Northern Saintess—Sim! Ah! Ryeon!”

“Waaaaaaaah!”

“But a question for our host, Noh Do-hwa: As far as I know, Sim Ah-ryeon is a healer who specializes in regeneration. Do you think she can hold her own against the NRMC’s Operation Team Leader and Executioner, Yu Ji-won, in a one-on-one battle?”

“Well... Yu Ji-won isn’t the type to care much about victory in such duels. Will winning benefit her more or will losing serve her better? That calculation will likely determine the outcome of this match...”

“Oh, I see! So Yu Ji-won could win if she wanted to! If she loses, it’s only because she let Sim Ah-ryeon win!”

“What?” a member of the audience cried. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Clearly, Noh Do-hwa is biased in favor of her NRMC colleagues!” I shouted cheerfully. “What do you think, people of Pyongyang Sacred City?”

“Booooo!”

“Resign! Resign!”

Noh Do-hwa wordlessly reached out to strangle me, but alas, her feeble grip was no match for my neck.

“So, will it be NRMC’s dagger or the Eastern Holy State’s Saintess? To find out, let the first match of the AwakenCup... begin!”

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The crowd’s roar filled the Colosseum as the gong struck.

Ji-won immediately charged forward.

“Oh?! Yu Ji-won rushes in without looking back as soon as the match starts!”

“She’s clearly aiming for the win. Hmm,” Do-hwa mused. “Well, considering that the Eastern Holy State is too far from Busan, she must’ve decided it has no bearing on her career trajectory.”

“So, Pyongyang Sacred City is worthless to the NRMC? Is that what you think as the Operations Team Leader? Is that the stance of the entire NRMC?”

“Do you want to die?”

“But—what’s this?” I widened my eyes in a show of shock. “Sim Ah-ryeon has offered her left arm without any resistance! Right from the initial clash, she’s lost part of her body! Can the red corner recover from this?!”

“Hmm. Does she trust in her regenerative abilities? But sustaining repeated injuries of this scale throughout the match—no matter how miraculous her recovery is—wouldn’t that eventually overwhelm even the Northern Saintess?”

“Yet she’s smiling! Sim Ah-ryeon is smiling as blood pours from her arm! Could it be that she has a trump card? Or is she just so used to practicing her smile that she cannot make another expression?!”

And then—

[Mr. Undertaker, a post has just gone up on SG Net.]

[I saw it in the pending tab. You should check it out immediately.]

Using the hand not holding the mic, I fumbled with my smartphone and logged into SG Net. Among the countless threads discussing the AwakenCup, one post had rocketed to the top of the trending page:

Collector of All Anomalies: Why the Northern Saintess = Villain OldManGoryeo, explained.

Pffft!

A flood of saliva—99% water, 1% sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate—sprayed from my mouth onto the mic. A professional term for this substance would be “spit.”

“What an unbelievable twist!” I shouted. “Just now, this commentator has received a shocking tip-off!”

“What tip-off?”

“On SG Net, a damning exposé by the notorious Constellation Collector of All Anomalies! It reveals that none other than Sim Ah-ryeon, the Northern Saintess herself, is secretly the infamous troll and attention-seeker known as OldManGoryeo!”

“What the actual—”

The Colosseum erupted in collective shock. Among Awakeners, the villain OldManGoryeo was practically a household name.

“That damned Constellation! Again with the lies!”

“But... The evidence in the post seems pretty solid...”

“Seriously? Could the Northern Saintess really be the villain OldManGoryeo?”

“Shut up, you liar!”

Here’s the shocking part: Most Constellations were managed by the Saintess of Yongsan in Seoul, but Collector of All Anomalies was uniquely under Sim Ah-ryeon’s jurisdiction.

That’s right. The exposé currently dominating SG Net? It was authored and uploaded by Sim Ah-ryeon herself, timed perfectly with the match.

“Sim Ah-ryeon, you...”

I shivered again. Ah-ryeon, you constantly push the boundaries of my understanding of humanity.

“Yu Ji-won appears rattled! She’s visibly disturbed! Though she continues alternating between daggers and longswords, cutting off Sim Ah-ryeon’s left arm, legs, and right arm...”

“It seems ineffective,” Noh Do-hwa muttered.

“As the caster points out! Sim Ah-ryeon’s limbs regenerate as soon as they’re severed! What is this?! Just what kind of regeneration power are we witnessing from the Northern Saintess, humanity’s hope holding the line at the Sinuiju front?!”

Ah-ryeon spoke softly in the ring, her lips forming unhurried words. “I can do this all day.”

“Damn.” Ji-won gritted her teeth. Though she was among my most outstanding disciples, her Aura reserves were finite. Unlike me, she didn’t possess a nearly infinite supply.

“And... the mood has shifted.” Do-hwa’s tone turned reflective. “From an objective perspective, Yu Ji-won is mercilessly butchering Sim Ah-ryeon’s limbs over and over. But even for Awakeners desensitized to brutality, this isn’t a pleasant sight.”

“Oh no! Are you saying...?”

“Today, Sim Ah-ryeon is dressed in her pristine Saintess robes, wearing an unbroken, serene smile. From her past deeds to the current spectacle, she can’t help but appear as the embodiment of goodness...”

“And this paragon of virtue, the Saintess who strides onto battlefields to heal soldiers, is being mercilessly slaughtered by the NRMC’s resident psychopath?!”

“Exactly. Sports tournaments are, after all, entertainment. They thrive on emotions, on sympathy and hostility. Sim Ah-ryeon seems to grasp this fundamental truth...”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Incredible! The crowd is now showering Yu Ji-won with boos and jeers!”

And so they were.

“Boooooo!”

“Trash! Trash! Trash!”

“Disgrace to the NRMC!”

“Flash photography is going off in the stands! Spectators are deliberately turning on their flashes while taking photos!”

“It’s likely an attempt to upload these revolting images to SG Net and expose the true nature of Yu Ji-won!”

“Though Pyongyang Sacred City is outside NRMC jurisdiction, SG Net is global! Nationwide!”

“Yu Ji-won’s expression is priceless...”

“Could the Awakeners of the Eastern Holy State have drained the city’s remaining electricity to charge their phones for this very moment?!”

“Meanwhile, the NRMC routinely issues warnings about energy conservation. This is ironic on so many levels...”

“And look!” I stood abruptly. “Yu Ji-won has dropped to her knees on the red sands of the Colosseum!”

“This tournament has a special rule. When a competitor admits defeat, they must kneel and bow to the ground. Otherwise, the match remains unresolved, a rule established by some idiot sitting right next to me...”

“In professional terms, this is called dogeza![1] The magical girls from Japan, invited as guests to this tournament, are stunned! Could they have ever expected to witness such a masterfully executed a dogeza on the Korean Peninsula?!”

“Yu Ji-won’s forehead is pressed against the ground...”

“GG!”

The Colosseum exploded into cheers.

“Against all odds! In a match thought to have no chance of victory, Sim Ah-ryeon, the Saintess of the North, Pyongyang’s hero, takes the win for the first round!”

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Great Saintess! Great Saintess!”

“Sim Ah-ryeon, cham-pi-on!”

“Pyongyang Sacred City is the Eastern Jerusalem, the Eastern Rome! As prophesied by the Mo Gwang-seo Church!”

As I watched the ecstatic crowd, I pondered a question: Was revealing her hidden identity on SG Net, kept secret for so long, worth it just to win this otherwise meaningless match?

Ah-ryeon.

Ah-ryeon!

Even now, I can’t understand you.

Like moths before Zhuge Liang, so too does my understanding pale before your true madness, Ah-ryeon. Before your authentic lunacy, all my mischief as a guild leader seems but a flicker of counterfeit folly.

“The cleanup of the arena will be handled by Jung So-hee, the Awakener from the Gangwon branch of the Church of Unhappiness!”

“Look at that! The rainwater is washing away the blood on the arena grounds. Well, all of it is Sim Ah-ryeon’s blood...”

“For those concerned about content ratings, fear not! The Colosseum is currently under a wide-area illusion spell, which alters the blood’s color and applies automatic mosaics to any gruesome injuries! Rest assured!”

“What a useless form of censorship. What’s even the point in this day and age...?”

“There’s always a reason! Now then, let’s move on to the second match! Competitors, please make your way to the stage!”

One by one, the matches progressed.

At one point, the arena became momentarily quiet before erupting in deafening cheers at the arrival of the next competitors.

The blue corner: Dang Seo-rin.

The red corner: Cheon Yo-hwa.

This was it—the highlight of the tournament.

Footnotes:

[1] Dogeza (土下座) is an element of traditional Japanese etiquette which involves kneeling directly on the ground and bowing to prostrate oneself while touching one's head to the floor. It is used to show deference to a person of higher status, as a deep apology or to express the desire for a favor from said person.

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