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

Discord: https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

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

──────

The Counselor II

267.

To some, it might have been a simple sequence of numbers, but to me, the Undertaker, it was an invaluable identifier.

There in that eternally frozen world, the Saintess had confined an Outer God, and in doing so locked away any and all possibility of reuniting—at least for now.

There was only one exception: hanging a Silver Bell around my wrist and pressing my palm against the mirror to feel her 15°C warmth emanating from the other side.

It was the only connection left to us.

In my hand was the anthology of the Infinite Metagame’s side stories, including one such tale which described in delicate, if brief, prose how the Saintess of the 267th cycle endured nearly 2,000 years after halting time.

I won’t detail the content here. The manuscript contained far too much sensitive information for that.

“Dok-seo. Did you... Could you have seen it? In your hallucinations, what the Saintess went through in previous cycles?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed with a nod. “But it was hazy, like a dream. At first, it was pure torture. Voices that I couldn’t control banging and knocking away on my eardrums, like the worst kind of uninvited guest. But when I really stopped and focused, it turned out to be the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

“Yeah. The uninvited guest wasn’t them—it was me.”

I took the moment to hand over the laptop, and Dok-seo readily accepted it, hugging it tight to her chest.

“The visions were looping events from past cycles, just like a video auto-replaying after you get to the end of the recording, except that video has been privated and locked away from all viewers. But for some reason I don’t understand, I, an uninvited guest, managed to sneak a peek into those recordings.”

When I didn’t respond, she continued on.

“At first, it hurt to watch.”

Divine Illness.

The suffering of a Miko when possessed by a god.

“No matter how much I slept, I never felt rested. Awake or asleep, my muscles constantly ached, like I had the flu. It would move me to tears, too, watching the ghosts of the past. Probably because of how often you, mister, showed up in those tragedies.”

There was nothing to say.

“But like you said, it’s probably some kind of newly Awakened ability of mine, right? So I figured: ‘Fine, then. I’ll see it through to the end.’ I made up my mind that I was gonna take it all in, relive your story through those hallucinations—and then I wrote about them.”

That was when something miraculous occurred.

“Then the pain stopped.”

Dok-seo took tormenting visions and transformed them into the written word.

Writers are blacksmiths, born with hammers attached to all ten fingers. By relentlessly hammering the visions and voices into shape, straightening and bending them into written forms, they finally bowed their heads and orderly settled into pages.

“At least while I was writing, I was freed from the pain. Not that I got any sleep last night, though. After finishing it at dawn, I took a walk outside the tunnel and honestly? That was the first good breath of fresh air I’ve gotten in weeks.”

Slowly, carefully, I told her, “You’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah. And after completing this short story, I realized something else.”

Dok-seo closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, then exhaled it slowly over eight seconds.

The laptop screen flickered and—

“Dok-seo?”

When Dok-seo opened her eyes again to face me, I couldn’t help but furrow my brow, sensing some inexplicable dissonance.

“Mr. Undertaker.”

A static-like chill brushed the nape of my neck.

The person standing before me was Dok-seo, yet not. The angle of her eyebrows, the curve of her lips, her attire. It all pointed to her being Dok-seo and yet simultaneously...

“Ah.”n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“It’s been a while, Mr. Undertaker.”

The noise had escaped me before I could shut it away. Thoughts raced in my mind, flashing like a fast-forwarded signal.

“I never imagined this could happen,” not-Dok-seo said. “Do you recognize who I am?”

Relying on intuition and evidence, I ventured a guess.

“Saintess?”

Silence.

I tried again.

“Could you be the Saintess of the 267th cycle?”

“Yes.”

The figure wearing Dok-seo’s face smiled faintly—a smile so subtle that only someone with a deep connection to her might recognize it.

“Good to see you, Mr. Undertaker... It seems that this ability Dok-seo has Awakened can be described as ‘possession’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘empathy.’ It’s the ability to possess the protagonist of the side stories she has written.”

My god.

[My god.]

The Saintess in Seoul, observing this scene through Clairvoyance, let out a sigh identical to mine.

It was an uncanny coincidence.

https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

Side Story Creation. Possession. Empathy.

This was the newfound ability of our LiteraryGirl.

As demonstrated before our eyes, Dok-seo could “possess” the perspective of another character.

“Not just anyone, though.”

Of course, there were conditions.

“For one, I can only possess someone I’ve written about in a side story. And to write their story, their life has to flash through my mind like a vision.”

“Can you... tell me who else has appeared in your hallucinations besides the Saintess of the 267th cycle?”

“Sure.”

It turned out that figures like a far-future version of Dang Seo-rin or Cheon Yo-hwa, who contributed to defeating the Mastermind, had shown up in her visions. Quite a number of characters, actually.

“Unbelievable,” I exclaimed, unable to hide my astonishment. “How could this...? No, it’s impossible that previous-cycle figures could actually be possessed. Most likely, Dok-seo, you’re interpreting them in a way that recreates their personas.”

“Hmm. I mean, I guess so?”

“No, it must be so.”

This was undoubtedly the machination of the Admin of the Infinite Metagame. Having consumed the simulated universe of the Mastermind, the Admin must have gained a much higher “resolution” in analyzing the people around me.

As a result, the Admin’s Miko, Dok-seo, now had an elevated understanding of these characters. To the point where she could immerse herself in their roles without any sense of dissonance or self-doubt.

“But even so... The fidelity is astounding. Even I, who knew those people firsthand, could be deceived.”

“Right? Even during the possession, I lose myself in it and don’t remember being ‘Dok-seo.’ It’s like I’m dreaming the Saintess’s dreams. And, oh!” Dok-seo gushed. “Thanks to this, writing stories has become much easier! I can vividly feel what the characters—oops, I mean the people in your stories—felt. It’s so clear!”

She beamed.

“It feels like I could write stories forever!”

For the record, that was a lie.

Dok-seo’s dictionary defined “ongoing serialization” as a word that encompassed the past, present, and future tense. She had abandoned serialization, was abandoning it, and would continue to abandon it.

Even so, the astonishment lingered.

“Anyway, great job, Dok-seo,” I said.

“Heh.”

“This ability has countless potential uses. For now, there’s one experiment I need you to conduct immediately.”

“What is it?”

“Among the people in your visions, is Noh Do-hwa, the Director of the National Road Management Corps, one of them?”

She was. Specifically, the Noh Do-hwa of the 668th cycle, who had endured the Ice Age with me.

“I ask this with full sincerity, Dok-seo. By any means necessary, write a side story about the Noh Do-hwa of the 668th cycle. I’ll grant you anything you want.”

“Anything, huh? You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Deal.”

Dok-seo succeeded in writing IF Side Story: Noh Do-hwa of the 668th Cycle in a single night. Her speed was on par with Gevanni from Death Note.[1]

If only she’d write my story that fast. But that wasn’t the point here.

“Noh Do-hwa, Director of the National Road Management Corps!”

With Dok-seo in tow, I burst into the Corps Headquarters.

As usual, Do-hwa was sipping an energy drink (a luxury item) while leafing through documents. She glanced up at us and took her time responding.

“What is this? Just looking at the two of you makes my stomach churn. My esophagus is burning with the acid reflux...”

“We’ve discovered something amazing. So amazing that we couldn’t not share it with the ruler of the Korean Peninsula. We came all this way without hesitation.”

“Damn, this reeks of bad luck...”

Do-hwa instinctively reached for the security call button to have us thrown out.

Her intuition was as sharp as ever. Too bad it was useless since I obliterated the button with a burst of Aura, causing Do-hwa’s face to darken as if burdened with the weight of all the world’s evil.

Ignoring her despair, I shouted, “Dok-seo, transform!”

“Roger!”

Dok-seo, clutching her laptop, struck a Kamen Rider pose. The laptop screen flashed, and in the next moment, the weariness of a civil servant possessed her face.

“......?”

“......?”

Noh Do-hwa tilted her head. Dok-seo-as-Do-hwa mirrored her.

“The fuck is this?”

“The fuck is this?”

“......”

“......”

“No, but really—what the fuck is this?”

“No, but really—what the fuck is this?”

“......”

“......”

The two Noh Do-hwas turned their gazes toward me.

Spreading my arms wide, I exclaimed, “Two Noh Do-hwas! Korea is victorious!”

“......”

“......”

“And that’s not all.”

I quickly turned off the office lights. Dok-seo’s hoodie gleamed with a fluorescent glow.

“Behold! Glow-in-the-dark Noh Do-hwa!”

Even the gleam in their eyes sparkled.

“You insane, fucking lunatic―”

“You insane, fucking lunatic―”

I almost died.

But it was a sight worth risking death for.

This moment would forever be etched in the deepest part of my heart, a jewel-like memory that would sparkle whenever despair threatened to overwhelm me.

[Is that all?]

“Of course not, Saintess. For your reference, glow-in-the-dark Cheon Yo-hwa, glow-in-the-dark Dang Seo-rin, and glow-in-the-dark Yu Ji-won are also in the works. It’s only a pity that implementing a glow-in-the-dark Go Yuri proves challenging.”

[That’s quite enough...]

Incidentally, Seo Gyu’s reaction was priceless too. Pairing up two people with anger management issues resulted in an escalating cacophony of screaming, a spectacle worth savoring.

What’s the point in hiding it?

I was utterly hooked on this “possession game” with Dok-seo.

It wasn’t just about creating doppelgangers to mess with our allies, though that was undeniably part of the fun. That was merely a secondary amusement. No, the true essence of Side Story Creation lay elsewhere.

“Seo-rin.”

“Yeah?”

“Lately, the public safety in Busan has been deteriorating. I believe it’s a side effect of the influx of outsiders. I wanted to ask how you would handle this situation.”

The answer lay in consultation.

While my allies were already competent, certain cycles stood out with extraordinary individuals who had fully bloomed into their potential.

For instance, the Dang Seo-rin of the 173rd cycle was one such case.

During that cycle, she had Fallen and become a judge, transforming Busan into a utopia.

Though it didn’t end happily, her experience maintaining and governing a city was invaluable. Being able to consult with such a ruler at any time was a tremendous boon to me.

The ultimate brainstorming partner, wasn’t she?

And it wasn’t just her.

The Saintess of the 267th cycle, the Infinite Void from the 688th cycle, and countless others—figures I thought I would never converse with again—became accessible through Dok-seo’s Side Story Creation.

My consultations with these wise allies grew longer and more frequent. There were even days when I abandoned eating and drinking to immerse myself in dialogue with them.

Time passed in this manner.

[Mr. Undertaker.]

“Yes?”

[Shouldn’t you step outside every now and then?]

[No matter how enjoyable it is to converse with ‘me’ or ‘others,’ it’s been over a week since you’ve holed up in the tunnel. That seems... unusual.]

Wait.

A week? Has it really been that long?

“You’re right. I’ve gone overboard. I’ll just have a quick chat with you, Saintess, and then head out.”

[You said the exact same thing yesterday.]

“But Saintess, there’s no one else―”

[Mr. Undertaker.]

The telepathic voice of the Saintess was laden with sorrow.

[No offense, but seeing you like this reminds me of a washed-up internet streamer or a V-tuber addict.]

“...”

[Please, just go outside and get some fresh air.]

Undertaker, confirmed to be addicted to Dok-seo!

Footnotes:

[1] In Death Note, Gevanni is tasked with replicating the death-list notebook of an incredibly prolific user, and doing so in one night.