The Tale of an Infinite Regressor

< Chapter 8 >

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Determinist I

Shin Noah

1

When you think about the trio of protagonists in web novels—namely, regressors, possessors, and reincarnators—what do you think is their greatest nemesis?

Powerful monsters? The protagonist defeats them all anyway.

Stress? Trauma? Obsessions?

These aren’t exactly wrong answers. However, it’s hard to consider them unique adversaries to regressors alone. After all, stress is a common weakness among Homo sapiens, ranging from a 35-year-old unemployed person to the President of the United States at 60.

Baldness? How could you say such a thing?

The unexpected yet not surprising correct answer is… the ‘Butterfly Effect.’

-Could a butterfly flapping its wings in Beijing, China, cause a tornado on the other side of the Earth?

Butterfly Effect.

A theory stating that as initial conditions change, the magnitude of changes can become overwhelming over time.

I can say this confidently: the Butterfly Effect, a concept we’re all too familiar with, is indeed the villain among villains for regressors, an unavoidable arch-enemy on a narrow bridge, and the greatest foe under the heavens.

Oh, what a disaster!

How many regressors have perished due to the Butterfly Effect in (fictional) creations?

-I am a reader well-versed in all kinds of web novels, and I am an authority in the universe I’ve just entered, unmatched by anyone. According to my interpretation, to prevent the tragedy from unfolding, one must first rescue a maid who faces an absurd death early on… Huh? Why does saving the maid lead to an invasion by the Demon King?

-I kindly treated a child starving under the palace walls, and 10 years later, the crown prince proposes to me? I just wanted to live a peaceful life, now what am I supposed to do?

-Why, after solving all the quests that the original protagonist should have dealt with and monopolizing all the items and opportunities that the protagonist party should have joined, is the protagonist so weak? Oh dear, must I step in?

In the latter case, it’s more a matter of conscience and intellect than the Butterfly Effect.

For the trio of regression, possession, and reincarnation, in fantasy, modern fantasy, romance fantasy, and alternate history genres, there is nothing more dreadful than the Butterfly Effect.

Thus, today, as a highly skilled regressor, I, the Mortician, will tell a story of murdering the Butterfly Effect.

2

The first time I sensed something was amiss was around the 30th iteration.

“Hmm?”

Initially, it was just a slight sense of unease.

‘Did this café… always do business?’

Episode 8

Tutorial’s End and Six Months Later

I went to the old building of Baekje Hospital about six months after the tutorial had ended. It was indeed the building where Old Man Sho’s body had become part of the interior decoration on the rooftop.

I often think of this place and spend some time here.

However, in a café that should have had a “Closed for Business” sign, a man was operating it. What was going on?

For the first time across all iterations, I could not hide my bafflement.

“Excuse me…”

“Yes, welcome.”

The man smiled, belonging to the sort who invests 80% of his fashion and styling efforts into his beard.

“Is it alright for you to be open like this? The world is going into chaos.”

“Ah… Yes, it’s a mess. I was planning to flee to Japan, but just the other day a huge typhoon and tornado struck the Southern Sea, sinking all the escape ships.”

He sighed deeply.

This was news to me, having just arrived from Seoul to Busan.

“A typhoon occurred?”

“Yes, it did. Probably thousands have died. It’s chaotic at Busan Port. I thought about getting on a ship even though I paid a lot for a black-market ticket… The shipowner threatened to set sail in a week, and if I didn’t like it, too bad. Well, what can I do? Since there’s nothing else, I might as well run the shop for a week. Money doesn’t mean much anymore. Ha-ha.”

The manager laughed. I couldn’t.

‘There has never been a typhoon at this time before?’

I possess [Complete Memory], an ability that literally retains all past memories intact.

It’s thanks to this skill I acquired in the fifth iteration that I can share stories like this. I can recount every event I experienced in the 30th iteration and what I thought at the time.

Therefore, I could assert with 100% certainty.

‘…This is an abnormal situation.’

Again, it was six months after the tutorial ended that I arrived at the café during the 30th iteration.

This could be considered very early in the initial stages.

My actions in the very early stages were always similar. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that there had been virtually no change compared to the 29th or 28th iterations.

My actions hadn’t changed at all. Yet, in this iteration, a ‘typhoon’ had hit the Southern Sea.

‘What’s going on? What’s the cause?’

Every event has a cause.

As someone who strictly rejects perplexing theories like the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and adheres only to causal determinism, I find this situation exceedingly confusing.

“Excuse me, customer.”

“Yes?”

“I’m really sorry to say this, but if you’re not going to order something…”

“Ah, my apologies. I got lost in thought for a moment. Um, could I have a Café au lait, please?”

“Of course. That’ll be 59,500 won.”

“…….”

The Café au lait, a direct victim of apocalypse-driven inflation, tasted atrociously bad.

But what drove me even crazier happened in the next iteration, the 31st.

[Closed for personal reasons.]

When I went back to the café at a similar time, this time the “Closed for Business” sign was hanging there just like before.

“Huh.”

What the heck?

It was still too early to be flustered. Excluding whether the café was open or not, numerous other variables had occurred separately in various iterations.

“Ah? Saint, did you move?”

“What?”

“In the past iterations, you always lived in your residence in Yongsan.”

“Ah… It became a bit difficult to gather food for the fish. There’s someone in a nearby guild who also has an aquarium as a hobby. So, I moved closer to them.”

“…….”

Subtly, in the 47th iteration, the Saint had changed her residence.

“Everyone! The new capital of South Korea is now Busan Metropolitan City, declared right here!”

“Wooow!”

“Jung-Sang-Guk! Jung-Sang-Guk!”

By the 71st iteration, the mayor of Busan had seized control of the political situation on the Korean peninsula. I was astounded.

That mayor was originally supposed to flee to Fukuoka, Japan, to establish a second provisional government. (He was a model family man who even carefully planned his escape with his second family.)

Moreover, a mid-boss-level monster that should have crossed into North Korea suddenly fell in love with democracy and decided to defect again, or a meteor shower that was supposed to fall in Gyeongsangnam-do ended up in Jeollanam-do, among other absurd happenings.

“No.”

I felt utterly perplexed.

“This is going to complicate predicting the future.”

Although in most iterations, causality proceeded ‘normally’ without anything unusual, occasionally, complete chaos erupted out of nowhere.

“I will explain later. Saint, is it possible to track the path of the typhoon off the coast of Incheon and trace its origin as much as possible?”

[It might be a bit difficult, but I’ll give it a try. We’ll see where the typhoon has caused damage.]

“Just a moment,” the Saint whispered.

She must have brought up a map. Shortly after, the Saint had scanned the cities adjacent to the Yellow Sea and reported.

[Hmm… The range is too wide to be certain, Mr. Mortician. Please bear in mind that this is merely a conjecture.]

“That’s fine. Where is it?”

[China. It’s Beijing.]

Beijing, China. The tornado.

“Ah.”

At that moment, I felt as if I somehow understood the identity of this tornado.

3

-Could a butterfly flapping its wings in Beijing cause a tornado on the opposite side of the earth?

A phrase that succinctly expresses the butterfly effect.

Originally, the phrase was ‘Brazil’, not ‘Beijing’. An interesting fact is that even this original statement was a slogan invented later on.

When a meteorologist first presented the concept of the butterfly effect at a conference, it was a ‘seagull’ that was mentioned, not a ‘butterfly’. Naturally, there was no mention of Brazil or a typhoon.

This alone clearly shows how much the apparitions that appear in this world carelessly disregard human history.

Apparitions possess a literary sensibility that does not concern itself with factual accuracy.

Of course, someone with a strict scientific and deterministic view like mine might ask:

-Why did the butterfly effect occur in Beijing instead of Brazil?

-The theory of the butterfly effect is initially about how small initial values can lead to vastly different outcomes over time, so why does it start shooting gusts all around from the beginning?

I don’t know.

Really. I don’t.

Apparitions fundamentally have no interest in human curiosity or argument.

According to the sensibility of apparitions, such questions are not ‘sexy’.

From my insights gained over many iterations as a regressor, these creatures are basically no different from ‘AI art’.

From the perspective of apparitions, our long human history, common sense, and scholarship are nothing more than ‘prompt input values’.

Just as AI art would consider a human with two or three legs equally a normal Homo sapiens, apparitions, who are egalitarians, make no racial distinctions between Chinese and Brazilians.

The concept of the ‘butterfly effect’, which was part of past human scholarship, was also actively reinterpreted by the end of the century.

‘An entity that causes storms without being fixed to the flow of cause and effect!’

If one were to describe it, it might be called a tornado launcher.

Thanks to the “Butterfly Effect,” it had acquired an identity similar to North Korea’s missiles. It was a categorical imperative that it would launch missiles whenever it was bored, yet where the missiles flew was always subject to change based on whims.

In the 30th iteration, it curved southwards towards Japan, submerging fleeing ships. By the 82nd iteration, it had landed off the coast of Incheon, dousing refugees with a baptism of water.

Was that all? From the 83rd to the 85th iteration, it drifted towards Mongolia, India, and Siberia respectively.

If a Major League scout had seen this, they would have fallen head over heels and thrust a contract in front of it for its diverse pitches.

Ultimately, it was rare for a tornado to strike the Korean peninsula directly. It’s no wonder that I, marked 100% Korea, found it hard to notice.

“…Truly a dangerous entity.”

Crunch. The Saint crunched a potato chip.

Surprisingly, the Saint was eating potato chips not from a bag but from a Lock & Lock plastic lunch box. This meant even snacks were portioned and stored in the fridge, indicating that she was not in her right mind.

Furthermore, she was picking up potato chips with chopsticks, not fingers. Did she lack human emotions?

The hikikomori, Saint, said.

“Just by name, the Butterfly Effect, but in reality, it’s an unpredictable variable and a random number. Wouldn’t that diminish the greatest advantage of a regressor?”

“That’s accurate. A bigger problem is that it’s difficult to pinpoint this anomaly’s location.”

“Pardon?”

“Think about it, Saint. If the tornado’s direction changes with every iteration, the launching point might also vary. Anyway, it’s definitely in Beijing, but how big is Beijing?”

“Ah…”

Only then did the Saint seem to understand, nodding her head.

“It’s a tough task.”

“Yes. If the anomaly were as big as Cthulhu, maybe, but since it hasn’t been caught by my intelligence network so far, it’s probably small. Finding this anomaly within Beijing is like looking for a scale in a sandbox.”

“That makes sense. You’re right.”

“That’s right. It’s nearly impossible for me alone. Unless there’s a genius ability user who can share the sight of all Awakeners.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…I’ll accompany you to Beijing.”

“Oh dear. There’s no need for that. My, if the Saint helps, it would indeed feel like having an army of thousands.”

“…”

The hikikomori Saint’s thrilling overseas trip, confirmed!