The Tales of an Infinite Regressor - Chapter 159

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

Chapter 159

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The Strategist XI

13

Have you ever heard of the term “sixth sense”?

Sixth sense. Literally, the sixth sense.

It’s something beyond the five senses that all humans have: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

Usually, people would question if such a sense even exists, but I truly possessed something that could be called a sixth sense.

It was a premonition about fate.

Perhaps it was because, as a regressor, I had lived far too long and experienced far too many events.

My ability to perceive the causality of events had developed excessively.

Not always, but occasionally, with just a single word or gesture, I could sense what would happen next.

Anyone who has fallen in love at first sight will understand what I mean.

A human life is like a bundle of threads woven together. One of those threads connecting you to the person right in front of you.

“――I’ll write your story, mister.”

This was one of those moments.

Oh Dokseo’s eyes were half-closed. The more her eyes closed, the shallower my breathing became.

“A story?”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying you want to seal the Alien God in a novel instead of a broadcast?”

“Yes.”

My voice wasn’t much different from usual.

But with each word exchanged between us, my consciousness, which had been far off in the back of my head, began to wrap around to the forefront.

I opened my mouth.

“Why?”

“Look. In the ‘broadcast’ format you chose, I’m just playing the role of a game character that follows your instructions. Everyone else, except for the Saintess, is nothing more than an NPC. So.”

Oh Dokseo pointed downward. There, the [The Admin of All-Play], who had turned into a white girl, clung to her feet.

“There’s some truth in the warning that the Alien God spat out. If you set yourself up as too much of a ‘superior being’ compared to other humans, one day, no, inevitably, you too will become a monstrous entity like the Alien God.”

“……”

“…I’m the same.”

Oh Dokseo gave a bitter smile.

“I’ve felt it the whole time talking with you, mister. If I had opposed you as the Alien God had planned… If the ‘Book Possessor’ and the ‘Regressor’ had fought… And if I had finally taken the protagonist’s position… I think I would have become a anomaly too.”

I remained silent.

Because that scenario was indeed one of the world destruction scenarios I had prepared in advance.

[Protagonist] anomaly.

Oh Dokseo defeats me and ascends to the position of the protagonist. Then she merges with the Alien God and receives all the clichés and ‘protagonist perks’ that only a protagonist can enjoy.

“Neither you nor I can afford to take too much of an upper hand. We’re too powerful. It’s not about the level of aura or anything like that. From the start, we’ve been given the positions of the Book Possessor and the Regressor.”

“……”

“Just by existing, we have the potential to define the world… the potential to become anomalies.”

That’s right.

– Be wary of anyone who fights anomalies. For in doing so, you may become a anomaly yourself. And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

This phrase, slightly altered from Nietzsche’s famous quote, was fitting for us.

Therefore.

“…I’ll become the writer who tells your story, mister. You know, there’s a genre called reportage literature, right? Reconstructing real events into a novel.”

“Hmm.”

“If I record your life with my own hands, you won’t fall into a higher dimension of anomaly than me. Because I’ll be your ‘writer.’”

And.

“And I’ll just be a narrator, following your life story… Yes. I think it’ll create a reasonably balanced relationship.”

“So, you’re saying we should chain each other down?”

“Oh, yeah! Exactly that!”

Oh Dokseo laughed heartily.

The sound of a human laugh was like a fountain shooting up in a square, briefly catching a sip of sunlight as it falls back down, sparkling.

I said,

“It’s not a bad idea. But doesn’t that make you, as the writer, a bit too powerful?”

“Hm? Does it? I think that since novels are ultimately evaluated by readers and the writer is bound by those evaluations, it’s not such a significant position. Isn’t it more like a priestess offering herself as a sacrifice to the people? But if you’re worried… Ah.”

Oh Dokseo lightly tapped the laptop with his palm.

“How about this? I’ll write the novel about you, but when it comes to the parts that mention me, you write those instead.”

“……”

“No matter how much you ask me to type about myself… Ugh. Absolutely not! It would be so embarrassing!”

Just imagining it seemed terrible, and Oh Dokseo shivered.

“So… I’ll write about you, and you’ll write about me. We’ll share our honest thoughts about how we felt at the time and so on.”

“Indeed. So, both of us will be the protagonist and the writer at the same time. It’s like connecting lifelines between mountain climbers to avoid falling into the abyss of anomaly.”

“Yeah. Isn’t it a good idea?”

“……”

I watched Oh Dokseo for a long time.

I wondered if this kid truly understood the weight of what she was saying.

Was she too excited by the idea that she could define the Alien God on her terms, and had she spoken too hastily about the course of her life?

Could there really be no danger of her contaminating me under the pretext of interpreting me?

Would she be able to keep her promise?

Doubts echoed in the valley of my mind, but I found the breeze of such suspicions rather refreshing and nodded. What if the promise wasn’t kept?

This kid was walking toward somewhere, and she was even smiling as she walked. That was enough.

“Alright, Oh Dokseo. I’ll entrust my interpretation to you.”

“Yeah. I’ll entrust mine to you too. …Ah. This is kind of embarrassing, though…”

Oh Dokseo cleared her throat awkwardly and then squatted down.

She looked down at the [The Admin of All-Play].

“Hey, god. You heard the conversation, right?”

– ……

“I’ll keep your request to keep Doctor Jang in check. But if you’re truly my god, respond to my answer.”

Oh Dokseo held the laptop screen in front of the Alien God’s face.

[ W h a t i s t h i s w o r l d ? ]

[ This world is a novel that ‘Oh Dokseo’ wrote, telling the story of the ‘Doctor Jang.’ ]

Tap, tap. Oh Dokseo tapped the screen with his long fingers.

“There. This is the world as I define it.”

– ……

“Well, I haven’t written anything yet, but I’ll start writing tomorrow. On this laptop. After all, since it takes the form of a novel, it’s also a creative work, right? It’s not a compromise that you should be too dissatisfied with.”

– ……, ……

“So, if you don’t want to fade into obscurity, then just shut up and write the Prologue for each chapter to show me. Got it, god?”

Crackle—!

At that moment, the white girl’s figure distorted and was sucked into the laptop screen.

Oh Dokseo flinched in surprise but didn’t drop the laptop from his hands.

First, the white girl, then the black sludge the Alien God had spilled, and finally, the pure white space itself—everything was swirling together and being sucked into Oh Dokseo’s laptop.

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

A little while later.

Like storm clouds clearing from the sky, the domain of the Alien God vanished completely from the world.

Just as the Endless Hell imprisoned the void within the hourglass, Oh Dokseo had sealed the [The Admin of All-Play] within his laptop.

“Huh?”

“Where… is this?”

In the hotel garden, which had been reduced to ruins, the magical girls began to open their eyes one by one.

Looking around at them, Oh Dokseo muttered with a grimace,

“If I ever have to write a novel about today, I’ll never describe the appearance of those magical girls…”

“It’s a coincidence. I agree with you. I already feel like we’ve brought in a remarkable writer.”

“Half of them aren’t even girls. Aren’t the awakened ones from Japan a bit unhinged?”

“At least for this particular turn, I’d say there might be more magical girls on the Korean Peninsula than in Japan.”

“The worst…”

Oh Dokseo shook her head in dismay and slipped the laptop into his backpack.

Then, she held out her hand to me.

“Anyway… I’m counting on you from now on, mister.”

“The feeling is mutual. By the way, I have a good idea since you’ll be writing a novel.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

That idea was to insert a 600-chapter parody of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms into the novel, which was later vetoed by Oh Dokseo, who had no knowledge of the subject.

We shook hands.

“By the way, although I’ve read plenty of novels, this will be my first time writing one. So you’ll have to help me a lot, okay?”

Oh Dokseo, who was holding my hand—the first reader and the final author of my story—was smiling brightly.

The Admin of All-Play.

Alias: Logout Game, Cliché, Muse, Hello-I’m-a-God, Omniscient Regressor’s Viewpoint, The Fourth Wall, Writer Syndrome.

Danger level: Lv.5 Alien God-Class (Alienation).

Subjugation complete.

14

There’s an epilogue.

It should be clear to all of you by now.

Yes. The very story I’m telling here, which Oh Dokseo is editing into a novel, is itself a ‘vessel that seals the Alien God.’

It also serves as a weight to hold down both me, Doctor Jang, and Oh Dokseo.

The real-time act of you reading and evaluating this story is what suppresses various strange phenomena.

I, Doctor Jang, consider all humans who subjugate anomalies to be comrades (even the High Priestess of the Magical Girls’ Council), so of course, you too are my comrades.

I’m grateful to Oh Dokseo for connecting us in this way.

“Mister, we have a problem…”

And so, Oh Dokseo, having realized the genius of literature that danced down from the heavens, proclaimed, “God has made me write this novel! But now I am the god, Oh Dokseo, who has become the writer!”—yet such a happy ending did not occur.

In fact, it was closer to the opposite.

“I can’t write…”

“You can’t write? Why?”

“It just feels like everything I write is terrible.”

Oh no.

Oh Dokseo, who used to look down on all creative works as a reader, turned into the weakest of the weak the moment she started typing on the laptop keyboard.

Sipping the coffee I made, Oh Dokseo mumbled gloomily.

“Before bed, I resolve to write tomorrow, but as soon as I wake up, turn on the laptop, and see the blank screen, my fingers go blank too…”

“Why don’t you just write like you just described? You’re pretty good at speaking.”

“Ugh! It’s not that easy!”

It wasn’t entirely Oh Dokseo’s fault.

As it turned out later, when Oh Dokseo defined herself as a ‘writer,’ the [The Admin of All-Play] also treated her as such.

In short, all the chronic diseases that afflict writers clung to Oh Dokseo too.

[My writing sucks syndrome], [Remake syndrome], [Endless revision syndrome], [Drifting syndrome], [It’s all because I lack experience syndrome], [Why do I keep changing my desktop background syndrome], [Unexpected family issues causing delays syndrome], [Editor’s mistake causing late uploads syndrome], [Simple depression syndrome], [Constantly procrastinating by clicking around SGNet syndrome]…

Truly, the lord of all diseases!

The very essence of the ‘writer’s’ idea, which drags every disease in the world, was forced upon Oh Dokseo.

“This isn’t it!”

Bang! Oh Dokseo would throw the laptop to the ground whenever she got the chance. However, since it was the relic of an Alien God, the laptop didn’t get a single scratch.

“Oh Dokseo, you proudly declared that you would write a novel, but 60 days have passed, and you haven’t even completed a prologue…”

“What do you know about the struggles of a creator!”

I knew all too well. By this point, I had already stockpiled 100 chapters of the Three Kingdoms parody (writing two simple chapters a day).

Fortunately, the ‘The Admin of All-Play’ laptop preserved the work across cycles.

So, even if only 6 chapters were completed in this cycle, those 6 chapters would carry over to the next.

Of course, from Oh Dokseo’s perspective, who was cursed by the Alien God whenever she typed, it felt like receiving both the disease and the cure at once, which understandably made him furious.

“Being a writer is such agony…”

“Try discussing pain with an infinite regressor.”

“I can’t live like this on my own. Ah! Yes! mister! Let’s ask the Alien God to spread these diseases to all the other writers, not just me!”

“What?”

“If I’m going down, everyone should go down with me… That way, the world is fair and just, right?”

I voiced my opposition, but Oh Dokseo stubbornly pushed forward with spreading the infection.

That day, a storm swept through SGNet’s novel serialization board.

Readers spewed blood as one by one, the novels they had been enjoying suddenly announced hiatuses.

So, if any of you writers out there ever open your computer and think, ‘Damn it, why do I feel so unwilling to write today?’ please blame Oh Oh Dokseo for that. It’s the Alien God’s curse.

“Mister! Finally, I’ve finished the first chapter!”

Thanks to Oh Dokseo’s relentless effort, two long years after the Alien God was subjugated, she finally showed me his first prologue.

“Look at this! Ah, don’t mind me! I’ll just watch you reading from behind!”

“Alright.”

Let’s see what we’ve got here.

I took a sip of my café au lait with one hand and moved the mouse cursor with the other.

Click. The first sentence of the blank notepad file began like this:

――――――――――

Infinite regression.

There is a genre by that name.

――――――――――

– The Strategist. End.

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]