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

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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The Receiver X

I was dreaming.

Inside the dream, Go Yuri and I were amicably riding a tiny boat, so the very moment I saw it I realised at once that it had to be a dream.

'Ha, an impossible sight.'

I am the Undertaker. Believe it or not, I'm the sort of young man who actually listens when grown-ups warn him to steer clear of dangerous neighbourhoods.

'And what's with that oarsman?'

'She looks like the Saintess but has an eyepatch on, and that way of speaking… heavens. Could she be some bizarre hybrid of Dok-seo and the Saintess?'

'What a blasted dream.'

Just as I tried to swallow a dry laugh, my eyes flickered—not my physical eyes, but the eyes of my mind, blinking like a lamp.

'Wait. I have never experienced anything like this. Then is this scene… being spun inside my dream by some anomaly that slipped in?'

Because I possess [Complete Memory], a dream for me is either a replay of reality or the appearance of an anomaly, there is no third option.

A "trip with Go Yuri across a world drowned beneath the sea" was obviously not a replay of reality.

That memory did not exist inside me.

'…'

It did not. It was not. It had never been.

With every kind of negation—of being, of statement, of action—I peeled away the sight before my eyes.

That was what my head did.

'…Yet what is this feeling?'

My heart failed to follow suit.

The pounding would not quit.

'The outlines are bleaching ever whiter, or should I say they're drawing farther away?'

'The colour of the sea, the look on Go Yuri's face… I feel as though we were discussing something important.'

'Ah.'

Realisation moved slower than my heartbeat.

'I see.'

'So this is what it feels like to forget.'

The world faded at frightening speed.

The blue of the sea, the slime on the gunwale, the ripples raised by the oarsman, all of it turned white, like fine sand on a beach.

Yes.

I was forgetting something.

"…"

My stomach churned.

"Mr. Undertaker."

A voice rang out in the whitened world.

When I turned my head, the Saintess with long, sea-coloured hair stood there alone.

"Saintess?"

"Yes."

She was the only one in this white world. Thus, the spot where she stood felt like the very centre of existence.

"What is going on? Has an anomaly broken into my dream again? Or is an anomaly wearing your face to show me an illusion this time?"

"…"

The Saintess did not answer.

Instead she looked straight at me.

Somehow, she seemed sad.

"…Saintess?"

Sadness—an expression rare for one who almost never shows emotion.

While I stared in puzzlement, she exhaled a small, steadying breath.

Strange. If she needed a moment she could have frozen time with [Time Stop].

"…Mr. Undertaker, you are dying right now."

"Pardon?"

"Literally. Just as your life was about to end outside, I stopped the world so I could buy us a brief moment to speak."

Confusion washed over me.

Me, dying outside? It made no sense, after all—

"I hardly dropped dead out of nowhere. Moments ago I was simply drinking with Dang Seo-rin…"

Huh.

Her eyes saddened further.

"…The 999th world has already met its end. So has the 173rd. That's why the agreement you and Lady Hecate made—the promise—is beginning to carry itself out."

She murmured.

"This place is an interlude Lady Hecate and I barely carved out with our authority—a tiny gap between instants."

"Right, I was living in the 999th cycle. But the 173rd? That's already long finished."

"…"

And Hecate?

It was sudden. Of course I knew the name, she is a goddess of Greek myth.

But no being I knew bore that epithet.

Most epithets for Awakeners or anomalies were coined by me. It is not my habit to fling divine names about.

Names are basic spells. Grant someone a mighty name lightly and they may indeed grow too mighty.

The only goddess name I have ever borrowed is 'Nut'.

Thus, in the regressor's lifetime—in my lifetime—no character named Hecate existed.

I can swear that nowhere in all my memories has the word Hecate appeared.

"…You truly don't remember."

The Saintess reached out.

It was the first way humans ever found of bridging the gap between selves.

"But that's all right."

Jingle.

Somewhere a bell chimed.

She clasped both of my hands.

"Even if it's missing from your memory, the mark remains in your heart. If not today, you will recall it someday."

"…"

"Just as you found me again in this 999th cycle after being apart since the 267th."

My eyes widened.

Only then did I grasp the source of the bell.

"…!"

On the Saintess's wrist, which held my hand, hung an ornament she would never normally possess.

A silver bell.

The souvenir I always buy in the Busan Station concourse, across all cycles, only one Saintess has ever worn that bracelet.

I stared, dumbfounded.

Perhaps she read my gaze, for she formed a faint, unfamiliar smile.

"…I told you we'd meet again soon, didn't I?"

"…"

"You kept your promise, Mr. Undertaker. No matter how many cycles, no matter how long it took, you swore you would come to save me—"

Jingle.

Her words were replaced by the light ring of the bell.

I had drawn her into an embrace.

"…"

"I'm glad. Truly… glad."

A quiet sob fell in the white world.

Why I was about to die in the 999th world, why the Saintess had postponed that death, why the Saintess of the 267th cycle stood before me—

I did not know.

Nor did I need to.

Someone I had lost forever had returned. The luck of meeting her like this left me only gratitude.

Even once more—

I wanted to meet her.

"…"

Hesitant fingertips brushed my back.

For a moment…

the hands that had paddled empty air now held me.

"…Ah."

A soft murmur seeped from the Saintess.

Neither of us could see the other's face.

She was probably closing her eyes, embracing the only darkness allowed in this whiteness, seeking human warmth.

I too asked in the white darkness.

"Was it hard?"

"…I was all right. It was only a moment. I closed my eyes. In this place where time is stopped I simply waited."

"Truly?"

"…To be honest, I felt a little. From the 999th world onward time began to move again for some reason, so through Lady Hecate's eyes I could faintly sense you."

"I missed you."

"Yes. I… missed you too."

The sob shook loose.

But the Saintess swallowed.

"I'm sorry. I want to talk more… spend more time, but our reprieve is brief."

"What do you mean?"

"There is much you won't understand. You have lost much. Yet the sacrifice wasn't meaningless. Mr. Undertaker, you achieved something tremendous."

Steadily, as if stitching each word, she went on.

"Don't worry. Don't be sad. Now it's not your turn but your comrades'. One day Oh Dok-seo will definitely witness 'this very moment'."

"The Dok-seo…"

I understood at once.

[Side Story Creation]—the power to revisit any part of my chronicle at will.

In game terms, a [Replay Room].

"Either way, you will not remember this moment. That is the contract."

"I understand."

I did not know what had happened, could not even guess what the 'contract' meant.

But I was not omniscient. I could not be omnipotent. It was fine not to bear and grasp everything myself.

I had comrades.

"You truly did well, Mr. Undertaker. I too will shrug off the shackles of this frozen world and return to the regressor's timeline like any ordinary person."

"…"

"But first, there's something we must do."

She stepped back.

"One last chance remains."

This was not a farewell. Without caring who moved first, we squeezed each other's hands.

"A chance?"

"Because you gathered my shards so diligently, because Lady Hecate freed herself… I am now stronger than ever, almost beyond precedent."

She added, though I barely understood, that only by relinquishing this power would Hecate's sacrifice gain meaning, likely words meant for Dok-seo.

"Oh, and I was busy cleaning up Lü Bu because you forgot to wrap her up."

"Lü Bu?"

At my reaction she smiled faintly.

"Thanks to that I could use an immensely reinforced [Time Stop] to create this interlude—and even a variant of the Utopia."

"…"

"The same goes for [Telepathy], Mr. Undertaker."

Her eyes locked on mine.

"With my current power I can—just once—overstep time and space and leave a 'message' for someone."

My jaw dropped.

"…Incredible. If true, that power is colossal."

"It is true," she said firmly.

"Not only to the future. I can send [Telepathy] to the past as well, to the days before you ever began life as a regressor."

"…"

"Using this chance is the final quest of cycle 999. This one-and-only chance, this miracle… I want to decide with you how to use it."

Why, I wondered.

It was a crucial choice and an extravagant gift, practically an extra sheet of canvas.

I ought to have pondered deeply, yet the moment she spoke, the destination flashed into my mind—instinctive.

"…"

"…"

I looked at the Saintess.

She looked at me.

Wordless. I felt sure she had reached exactly the same thought.

"Saintess, do you remember?"

I smiled.

"When you were still acting as a 'Constellation' to me—wearing the mask of the [Saintess of National Salvation]—when I travelled up to Seoul for our first meeting."

"Yes."

"Back then I asked you similar questions every time."

The oldest memory:

– I would like to ask about the Constellations first.

The 36th cycle.

When I discovered the [Saintess of National Salvation] was actually human, I asked why she acted as a Constellation.

– What exactly are Constellations? Are they real transcendents? Are you their agent, Ms. Saintess?

Those were days when I was far less experienced.

Before our relationship became what it is now, we had that conversation.

– Constellations… do not exist.

– They don't exist?

– Yes. The Saintess of National Salvation, the Conqueror of the Alps—they are all characters I created on my own.

– Why would you do such a thing?

Then she answered.

– I awakened about twenty days ago.

An Awakening earlier than others.

– Since then my hair changed colour, and in my dreams monsters appeared in nightmares, too vivid to shrug off as illusion.

She went further.

– I don't know why, but I was convinced it would truly come to pass. So I asked myself what I could do. Not stockpiling cans or bottles of water, but something only I could accomplish.

Looking back, isn't it odd?

I didn't see it then, but afterwards I came to know her nature.

The Saintess is never drawn to superstition, never favours irrational impulses.

She is almost always calm.

Would someone like that, because of a few vivid dreams, sincerely believe in the end of the world and prepare for it?

"It was now."

"…Yes. Probably."

"It was now."

The Saintess was no prophet.

Nor a fanatic.

For a rational person to truly believe in the apocalypse, convincing dreams alone are nowhere near enough.

Even so, she began acting as a Constellation.

She formed a plan.

Executed it.

Met me.

Stood here now.

Had there been no reason—had she dismissed the dreams, formed no plan, taken no action, and thus not been watching someone in the Busan Station concourse when the Void arrived, had we failed to cross nine-hundred-ninety-nine wheels—

this moment could not exist.

"I'll send [Telepathy]."

I will pass on a message among the stars—

"To the Saintess of the past."

—To you, before you even knew you were made of starlight.

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