I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 307

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

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The Distributor III

Allow me a moment to digress.

In my story, I’ve adopted the “Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint.”

Thanks to this, you, the readers, are exposed to fairly objective and relatively truthful information. I want to emphasize that I always strive to be honest with you, and I hope you appreciate my efforts. On the other hand, most people living in this world aren’t as fortunate as you.

To give you the most straightforward example, Awakeners almost always hide or distort their abilities when dealing with others.

For instance, Ji-won’s Mini-Map.

- Anonymous: Hey, sorry to bother you, but what were the conditions for the Operations Team Leader’s ability to activate again?

└ [NationalRoad] ForbiddenBooksManagementDivision17: Either physical contact, like brushing against their clothes, or maintaining eye contact for more than 3 seconds. One of the two must be met.

└ Anonymous: Thanks!!

└ [National Road] Officer: May I ask why you’re suddenly curious about such specific details?

└ Anonymous: Oops.

The above comment contained incorrect information. In reality, for Mini-Map to activate, all Ji-won needed was to have met the person at least once and to know their name—and “meeting” could take place either in real life or on SG Net.

Without even realizing it, the person who posted the question had already been detected by Ji-won.

But what about their name, you may ask? Well, Seo Gyu could find it out using his administrator privileges or the Saintess could figure it out and pass it along.

Next, let’s talk about Seo-rin’s Cursed Song Incantation.

“Holy shit! The Great Witch is singing!”

“Where could the totems be hidden? Find them! Destroy them quickly!”

You and I both know that Seo-rin’s Cursed Song Incantation activates simply by her singing. Others, however, don’t have that privilege.

Every time Seo-rin goes to war, she hides totems resembling African wooden dolls all over the battlefield, almost as if she’s deliberately baiting onlookers to deduce, Aha! The totems must remain intact for Cursed Song Incantation to activate.

“Guild Leader! We’ve destroyed two, but we can’t find the rest!”

“Keep looking! They must be nearby!”

Everyone fell for this simple bluff.

Whenever Cursed Song Incantation echoed across the battlefield, Seo-rin’s opponents would frantically search for the hidden “totems,” and by forcing them to waste time and manpower on a useless task, Seo-rin in turn gained the upper hand.

Deception. Camouflage. Distortion of information.

Struggling to survive just that little bit longer is the fate of all Awakeners, so twisting the true nature of their abilities is just the basics.

Now then. Why am I explaining such obviously common knowledge to you all over again?

“You must have been deeply saddened by not being able to hold a proper funeral for your friend. Don’t worry. I’ll use my ability to find some of their belongings for you at the very least.”

“R-really, Undertaker?”

“Of course. If you can provide me with your friend’s name, place of origin, and as much accurate personal information as possible, I’ll retrieve their belongings. If you can hold a modest funeral with them, the deceased won’t wander as a lost soul.”

“Oh! Thank you, Undertaker! Thank you! I’ll never forget this kindness!”

I, the Undertaker, have evolved into an even more complete, max-level professional Undertaker (Lv. 5).

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[Their name is Lee Eun-ju. Place of origin: Seoul. Last seen at Hapjeong Station subway exit.]

[After searching through Toad House, two individuals matching this information were found.]

[Judging by the bracelet on her wrist, it seems the first one is the correct match.]

It was the Saintess reporting in with the information I had asked her to pass along to me.

“Thank you. Please relay this to Ji-won.”

[Understood.]

A new process had been established.

→ First, I receive information about the missing person from their family. I also post a notice on SG Net that I’ll accept requests at any time.

→ The information is then sent (via the Saintess’s Telepathy) to the underground prison beneath the National Road Management Headquarters.

→ The second-hand shop Toad House searches for remains or belongings matching the missing person.

→ Do-hwa and Ha-yul create prosthetic limbs or other assistive devices that match the items found on Toad House.

→ The prosthetics are attached to a death row inmate. Snip!

→ The remains are delivered to the family, and a funeral is held. Problem solved!

“I’m ridiculously busy...” muttered Do-hwa, whose under-eye bags always screamed the word TIRED in capital letters. “Last week alone, I made 16 prosthetic arms and 22 prosthetic legs. Damn it. If I had worked at this pace back when I was a civil servant, I could’ve single-handedly managed all the national rehabilitation hospitals in the country...”

“Just make rough models of them. They’re not meant to be used by the wearer anyway—they’re just for selling on Toad House. I told you not to waste your craftsmanship on this.”

She sucked in a slow breath, visibly displeased. But soon, upon seeing the mountain of recycled documents piled on the table, she let out the breath in a long sigh. “Fine. I guess there’s no other choice. It’s annoying, but I’ll just make some sticks and attach them...”

Do-hwa had always custom-made assistive devices for each patient to ensure their comfort. Even if she just grabbed a random stick and a fishing hook to create a Captain Hook set, her Prosthetic Creation ability would work without issue. The fishing hook wouldn’t be useful for anything other than using Tinker Bell as bait, of course. It would only give the wearer the sensation of having a hand attached—practically useless, which would never satisfy a perfectionist like Do-hwa.

But Noh Do-hwa was a pragmatist before she was a perfectionist.

She fully accepted my black-and-white logic: “Why put effort into junk that’s just going to be handed over to monsters? Are you on their side or something?”

As a result...

“Alright. Next...”

“C-Commander! No, Your Commandership on High! I really don’t want to lose my arm! It hurts too much! I was wrong! I admit it! Please!”

“You’re delaying my off-time. Please note that there’s an inverse relationship between my off-time and your lifespan. Next...”

“Eeeek! Please spare me! Please!”

“Next...”

A mass-production system capable of handling hundreds of prosthetics a day was established.

Do-hwa was disheartened by this inhumane industrial revolution at first, but after attending a joint funeral for the families, her perspective seemed to change.

The first joint funeral, held in Busan, concluded with a solemn and somber mood in the air.

In a world ravaged by the apocalypse, it wasn’t easy for people to maintain their humanity. The Constellation System devised by the Saintess was essentially a temporary measure of support to prevent the collapse of humankind—like scaffolding at a construction site.

“How deeply saddened you must be.”

“Thank you...”

“Oh, my child! Why did you go down there? Why?!”

“Father, I’m sorry. I love you, Father.”

I was no different. Just as the Saintess cleverly twisted her Telepathy and Clairvoyance abilities to create the Constellation System, I used the Toad House Anomaly to establish the Funeral System.

Those who can properly say goodbye are better prepared to meet someone new. Humanity isn’t simply a noble virtue of any given individual—it arises from the ties two or more people form with each other. Thus, funerals—the ultimate farewell—are a ritual for the preservation of humanity.

After paying our respects to the departed, I was treated to a once-in-a-century rare event.

“Hmm,” Do-hwa hummed. Then out of the blue, she suggested, “Let’s take a walk...”

“Sure.”

Despite being the one to propose it, she barely said a word after we arrived at Haeundae’s sandy beach. The waves crashed, foaming at the edges where the Milky Way shimmered.

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Do-hwa’s pitch-black eyes were indistinguishable from the night sea reflecting the night sky.

Unlike me, who had mastered Aura, Do-hwa couldn’t go for over a week without sleep. Still, thanks to chugging the special alchemical energy drinks made by Uehara Shino of the Magical Girl Council, she had astronomically reduced her need for sleep relative to others.

Thus, it wasn’t until around 6 AM that she finally spoke.

“Making assistive devices for the living is my job, but I never imagined I’d be making them for the dead too. It never even occurred to me that I might be doing this one day...”

“Life never strays too far from the familiar, yet the unfamiliar still approaches with slow steps.”

“Hmm. I don’t want to dismiss it with just a saying...”

Do-hwa glanced at me.

She was one step closer to the sea than I was.

“Because this project is clearly the brainchild of the Awakener Undertaker—you.”

I stayed silent at that.

“For the first time, I feel a sense of fulfillment. Huh. I never felt any sense of fulfillment in life—not when I became the head of the National Road Management Division, or when I built the nationwide road network, or when I captured vicious criminals and threw them into the underground prison...”

I knew.

In a way, she was similar to the Saintess.

She was driven purely by her sense of duty. The rational judgment that if no one else could do it, she had to take up the mantle. That was the steel structure that made up Do-hwa’s heart.

“But strangely, making assistive devices for the missing and retrieving their remains gives me a sense of fulfillment...”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. In the end, I’m just a prosthetic maker...”

A brief silence washed over us, buoyed only by the sound of the waves.

“I wish life could always be like this.”

A murmur, carried by the night sea.

“It’s nothing grand. You can block pain with Aura or whatever, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then just take Ah-ryeon with you, and you can regenerate arms or legs. Ask people if they’ve lost anyone. I’ll just toss on some metal sticks I have lying around, and that’ll be enough...”

“Shall we go together?” I impulsively suggested. “Since the next cycle is the 710th, it’s a good time for a vacation round. If you want, we can leave the National Road Management Division to fend for itself and just wander around with three or four people.”

Do-hwa’s gaze lingered on my face. After the waves crashed three times and her lips twitched four times, she finally spoke.

“Later.”

“Later?”

“Yes. A little later...”

Then with a rustle of sand, Do-hwa stepped past me and said as if drifting away, “It’s about time Jagalchi Market opens. Let’s grab a drink and head to work...”

“Ah, sounds good. Red wine is actually one of the world’s top 10 superfoods, you know.”

“You’re talking nonsense again...”

Before leaving the shore, I glanced back at the sea one last time.

In the footprints Do-hwa left on the sandy beach, a small dawn had pooled.

There is a short epilogue.

Exactly 16 years later.

“Hey, Awakener Undertaker. I heard the Monster Wave is coming, so I came up to the rooftop...”

“Yeah.”

“Those corpses must be the lost souls...”

“Correct. Judging by their faces, they mostly came from beyond the Himalayas or the Ural Mountains. All that effort traveling around holding funerals paid off.”

“Those flying building chunks must be the City Eaters you told me about, right?”

“City Devourers.”

“Sure. Anyway, let’s assume we know all those. But...” Do-hwa pointed into the distance. “What the hell are those damn things...?”

The person responsible for lowering the average dignity of the Korean language with every curse, National Road Management Division Commander Noh, pointed in the direction where “those damn things” were rolling around.

Have you ever seen a tumbleweed in a Western movie? Imagine a bunch of tangled roots rolling around on the ground, like a downgraded version of a steel scrubber.

Now imagine that but 100,000 times bigger.

An Anomaly resembling a tumbleweed was approaching as part of the Monster Wave.

- Clank, thud. Clank, screech.

“Hmm. It’s just a bunch of steel rods tangled together, moving— Or rather, barely rolling around.”

“No way...?”

“Yes. They’re the prosthetic devices you made, Commander Noh. I wondered where all those assistive devices collected by Toad House went. Turns out, they got eaten by the Monster Wave and came along with it.”

Silence.

“But honestly, they’re shoddy. The Prosthetic Creation ability isn’t physically dangerous, after all. Thanks to that, the Monster Wave’s power seems to have weakened.”

Of course, the weakening effect was still minimal. This was our first round of using Toad House. We were just getting started, so as the cycles progressed and our know-how accumulated, it was clear the Monster Wave would grow weaker.

We’ll revisit this in later cycles, but ultimately, we achieved the great feat of weakening the Monster Wave’s strength by over 50%.

However, in accordance with the Law of Equivalent Exchange, those strange chopstick-like steel scrubber monsters also grew increasingly massive.

Later, people gathered at the final defense line would look up at the colossal steel scrubber and panic, asking, “What the hell is that damn thing?”

“Thank you, Commander Noh. To honor this brilliant achievement, the newly discovered monster shall be named the Noh Do-hwa Monster—”

I was choked.