The Tales of an Infinite Regressor - Chapter 163

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

Chapter 163

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Potato IV

6

Nietzsche once said:

“That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”

I found myself somewhat agreeing with him.

Especially at the moment when No Doha unleashed his signature move, the “Chokehold.” I couldn’t help but agree even more deeply.

Fortunately, the move missed. I was able to rush to the scene of the incident, a little stronger than before. I certainly wasn’t running away.

A brawl was in full swing at the scene.

“For our Constellation!”

“Punish those heretic bastards!”

A swarm of people.

Under the massive saintess Potato Robot Statue, which had become a famous landmark in Busan (a slight improvement from when Lotte’s trophy case was a local attraction), awakened beings were fiercely clashing.

The flags were varied.

Some bore the words [Great Library], others [Great Arcade], and others were adorned with sparkling creatures resembling Pokémon instead of letters. What the hell is that?

In any case, all the Constellations that the saintess represents had gathered in full force.

“You heretic bastards, who worship something that does nothing but sparkle when it dies, calling it Jesus!”

“How dare you! Our esteemed Mo Gwangseo Christ reclaimed Pyongyang and founded the Great Eastern Holy Empire! Your Succubus Constellation merely runs a baccarat table in a casino!”

“I’ve hated the Collector of All Anomalies since forever!”

The awakened beings who were shouting insults were actually among the more civil. The “real” ones were practicing the truth that a single punch was heavier than a thousand words.

The Confucian boy inside me trembled.

Since the death of Gung Ye, the founder of physiognomy, the Korean Peninsula had been a zone free of religious wars. What kind of madness was this?

“Saintess. Saintess, are you listening? Saintess. Please explain what’s going on here.”

[…….]

Usually, the Constellation would have replied instantly, but now there was only silence. Damn it.

With no other option, I entered the periphery of the brawl.

There, another saintess of the Korean Peninsula, Sim Aryeon, the shadow ruler of the Eastern Holy Empire, was diligently treating the wounded.

“Aryeon.”

“Oh, guild leader……”

Even as she replied to me, Sim Aryeon didn’t stop healing the injured.

I almost mistook her for Mother Teresa descending upon us. Could it be that Aryeon was the conscience of the Korean Peninsula?

“Seeing your face makes me feel a bit relieved. But didn’t you go to Pyongyang last week? Why are you in Busan again?”

“Huh? Well, those heretic bastards are acting up again, so of course, I had to come punish them and give them a taste of hellfire.”

What?

“I took the express route through the Inunaki Tunnel and brought the paladins with me. Some of them got eliminated along the way for breaking the rules, but it was an inevitable sacrifice in the holy war… They’ve gone to a better place…”

At Sim Aryeon’s words, the awakened beings around us all jumped up and shouted, “The saintess is absolutely right!” Damn it.

It turned out Sim Aryeon wasn’t participating in this event as a “Healer” but as a “Fanatic.” Not the conscience of the Korean Peninsula, but its tumor, was here.

I immediately knocked out all the Eastern Holy Paladins nearby. My standards for humanity were too high to tolerate their existence.

“Ah……”

“Aryeon. So, you came here to fight for the [Morning Star of the Second Coming] Constellation? These are elite soldiers from Pyongyang, right? Did you fight with them?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Are you crazy? You know that [Morning Star of the Second Coming] is a fake. How could you do such a stupid thing…”

“It’s not fake!”

Sim Aryeon shouted without stuttering even once.

I was startled by her fierce energy. Has Sim Aryeon, who harbors Professor Quirrell in her heart, overcome her stutter? Could it be that the saintess’s influence has spread?

“Sure, maybe it started as a fake… But! Guild Leader! Would the saintess’s heart, who wants to protect the Korean Peninsula’s security, also be fake?”

“Well… No, that’s not fake, but…”

“That’s exactly it!”

Bang!

Sim Aryeon slammed the head of an injured person as she passionately argued. The sound of a skull cracking echoed. It was an obvious case of medical malpractice.

“In the end, what determines truth and falsehood in this world is the purpose of the person! It’s in the background, not visible on the surface! Just like how I pretend to perform euthanasia for the greater good while swallowing my tears on SG Net…! Those with eyes that can see the truth, can see it!”

“……”

“[Morning Star of the Second Coming] isn’t fake. Nor is it the shiny thing hidden in the Pyongyang Palace. The true nature of the Morning Star is in my heart. It exists within me…”

“……”

“It doesn’t matter if the world calls it fake. No! Rather, it’s good…! I’m the only one who truly understands it. In a world full of fakes, only the Morning Star and I are real… Can you understand this sophisticated sentiment?”

“I see.”

I nodded.

“I fully understand.”

“Ah! As expected of the Guild Leader! I knew you would understand…”

“You’ve become too immersed in virtual YouTubers, Aryeon. I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you. Now, you need to get some sense knocked into you.”

“Huh?”

I “healed” Sim Aryeon, who was a healer herself. Perhaps because she was a saintess from the North, the traditional Russian healing method worked well on her.

“I’m sorry… Guild Leader…”

“First, let me ask this. Why on earth are the awakened beings causing havoc in Busan right now?”

“Well… it started with the ‘Witch Hunter’ on SG Net, who stirred up trouble by saying that every Constellation except for their own is a heresy.”

“Stirred up trouble?”

“Yes… They boasted about having so much money that they buy dreams from the Dream Casino, claiming to hang out with their Constellation in lucid dreams… They drew massive aggro with their outrageous behavior.”

Tang Seorin.

“…And?”

“And, since you need to buy dreams from the casino to have a 1-on-1 meeting with your Constellation, everyone has to come to the Inunaki Tunnel. The tunnel in Busan is the best one…”

“So they’ve invaded Busan to seize control of the tunnel entrance.”

“Yes… To teach the leader of the Three Thousand Worlds Guild a lesson and to seize the Holy Land as well…”

The Inunaki Tunnel, which was once the hell of Japanese awakened beings, had been converted into a café, evolved into a casino, and finally received the title of “Holy Land.” Is this for real?

“I get the gist of it. But what about that flag with just Pokémon pictures and no letters? What’s that about?”

“Oh… those guys are cultists…”

“Cultists?”

“Yes… Not all the followers of the same Constellation worship it in the same way… They formed a separate alliance of awakened beings who worship their Constellations in the form of animals…”

“……”

“We call them the ‘Fluffy Alliance’…”

I was in despair.

At this moment, the awakened beings of the Korean Peninsula had forever lost the right to criticize the magical girls of the Japanese archipelago.

I walked step by step into the battlefield. My footsteps carried a deep shadow of solemn self-reproach.

“Doctor Jang!”

“The unbelieving Doctor Jang has appeared!”

“An unbeliever worse than a heretic!”

The Awakened Ones, who were in the midst of a holy war, shouted at me… No, wait a minute.

Come to think of it, is there any reason I should even bother calling them ‘Awakened Ones’?

Originally, ‘Awakened One’ meant a person who has ‘realized’ and ‘awakened.’ It was too positive a title to be given to these monkeys.

I raised my finger.

“Let’s cool our heads for a moment.”

And within 20 minutes, I had knocked out all the Awakened Ones.

If nothing else, I definitely did not want to describe this battle scene in detail. Absolutely not.

Not only do I not have the perverse inclination to derive pleasure from exposing my own disgrace, but above all, it was to protect the honor of others.

For now, I’ll simply note in a very calm tone that Tang Seorin and Cheon Yohwa were among the Awakened Ones who fainted at my hands.

Even the chronicler who recorded King Injo entering Namhansanseong probably didn’t feel as tragic as I do now.

“Have the seriously injured ones healed by this evening, Aryeon. Then I’ll let it go.”

“Yes…”

Leaving the cleanup to Sim Aryeon, I headed towards the mastermind behind all these events.

Boom!

My kick instantly smashed the entrance of the giant holy robot statue. The potato saintess nuns, who were inside tending to their work, screamed and scattered.

“Saintess~”

[Aaahhh!]

“Saintess! Where are you running to? Hm? Did you think you could escape by simply pressing the time-stop button?”

I laughed darkly.

“What a shame. I didn’t teach you the aura training technique this time around just in case. Even if you press it, you won’t be able to move much, will you?”

[Please calm down, Doctor Jang.]

The potato saintess nuns said urgently.

[We can still fix this. No, we are actually in the process of fixing it right now.]

[A minor error.]

[Within predicted range.]

[Please trust me…]

“It’s summer.”

[Yes?]

“And summer is the season for harvesting potatoes.”

I took something out from my coat. It was a pair of work gloves.

The robots screamed at the sight of the specialized potato-harvesting tool. I put on the gloves and destroyed the robots one by one as they appeared.

Then I carefully collected the potatoes and swept them into cardboard boxes. The boxes had the words “Sumi Potatoes” printed in large letters.

The potatoes screamed from within the boxes.

Having witnessed the grim fate of their fellow potatoes, the potato saintess nuns desperately tried to flee. But what use was it?

My farming skills had already reached an enlightened level from traveling with the Sword Maiden. With just a few swings of the sickle, the potatoes were helplessly harvested. It was a bountiful crop.

[Something is wrong.]

[We definitely discovered a way to make all humans happy.]

[Why, then, are humans not satisfied with a happy life and instead seek to exclude others?]

[We did nothing wrong.]

[Do they value others’ misery more than their own happiness? Why? Why?]

[Unfathomable.]

[The world is flawed.]

Typical villain monologue.

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

If you only focus on the dialogue, it sounds like the final boss making a heroic exit, but it wasn’t very convincing to have potatoes pointing out the errors of the world and humanity.

[What will you do now?]

[We are prepared for the fate of a failed revolutionary.]

[We are finally free from labor!]

[Doctor Jang. Are you planning to turn us into French fries?]

[Wouldn’t it feel like enjoying a hot spring if we were submerged in potato soup?]

[At least I won’t have to listen to that witch’s all-night lectures on the aesthetics of railroads anymore!]

[Please spare me, Doctor Jang. You can fry all the other potatoes, but how about doing a Three Kingdoms reading study with me?]

I was tempted by the last potato saintess’s suggestion but managed to keep my expression in check.

Right. It was because monkeys fell for such devilish whispers that the Korean Peninsula has become a mess today.

If even I, Doctor Jang, were to regress into a monkey, the 8-million-year journey of primate evolution would be in vain. A ‘regression’ of just one person, myself, was enough.

“Enough.”

The potatoes in the dozens of boxes instantly fell silent.

“I won’t turn you into French fries. But I won’t just leave you be, either. Let’s start by checking this. Are these all the potatoes?”

[Yes.]

[Except for the one sent into exile to Jeju Island, everyone is here.]

“Exile? To Jeju Island? What’s… No, never mind.”

I’ll deal with the Jeju potato later.

For now, I handled the task at hand.

“Listen carefully. From now on, I will turn you back into a person.”

[Turn us back?]

[How?]

[Wasn’t it true that no cure had been found to return me from a potato state to a human?]

“That was the case.”

But who am I?

It’s been almost three years since the saintess turned into a potato.

As a specialist in the paranormal, of course, I had come up with a strategy.

7

In fact, there was no need to even call it a strategy. It was really simple.

“Now. Close your eyes, saintess… No, that’s right. You don’t have any eyes to close, so it’s fine.”

Sizzle—

I sprayed something toward the potatoes.

It was none other than insect repellent.

The very thing mosquitoes go crazy for in the summer.

The potatoes shuddered as they were hit by the mosquito spray.

But the screams didn’t last long.

Soon, the potatoes began to pop, pop, and disappear. Then, wrapped in a bright aura, they started to take human form.

The saintess, with a bewildered look, stared down at her palms.

“As expected. Just as I thought. Congratulations on returning to Homo sapien after three years.”

“Doctor Jang, what on earth…?”

“A transformation.”

“Transformation?”

“Yes, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.”

There was a famous novel by that title.

I recited the opening line of The Metamorphosis.

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he was transformed into a monstrous insect in his bed.

The saintess nodded. She must have been well aware since she even had the complete works of Kafka in her Yongsan residence.

“When I first turned into a potato, I wondered if this situation was similar to Kafka’s novel. But in the end, I failed to find any significant similarities.”

“Hmm. In fact, there are many similarities.”

The first reason.

The protagonist in The Metamorphosis is named Gregor Samsa. And if you squint and look closely at “Samsa”…

No way. It looks exactly like “potato” (gamja in Korean).

“Pardon?”

The saintess was bewildered.

“Are you saying you turned into a potato because the characters looked similar? How can something so illogical…?”

“Anomalies don’t follow logical connections; they follow morphological ones. To them, a whale is not a mammal but a fish.”

Of course, such a simple wordplay wouldn’t easily cause a human to turn into a potato (though it’s not impossible).

The second reason.

“Saintess, do you remember the testimony you gave me during the early stages of your transformation into a potato?”

“I’m sorry, but what testimony are you referring to…?”

Times like these made my perfect memory truly convenient.

Let’s recall for a moment. That day, while discussing why someone would turn into a potato, we had this conversation.

‘What’s the cause? Did you break any taboos?’

‘No. Except that a few days ago, while I was taking a walk, a bug flew into my eye, which hurt a little.’

‘A bug in your eye?’

‘Yes, it was just a gnat. Other than that minor incident, I really can’t think of any reason.’

According to that testimony.

Right before she transformed into a potato, the saintess had a bug briefly fly into her eye, causing a minor injury.

At first glance, it seemed insignificant, but that testimony held the crucial clue.

“As you know, saintess, you are the Watcher of the Korean Peninsula. You constantly monitor the Awakened to prevent any serious crimes.”

“Yes, that’s correct. But why…?”

“Look closely at the word Watcher.”

I carved the Chinese characters into the floor with the tip of my sword.

[TL/N: Characters for better understanding of what the doctor is trying to say.]

Watcher: 監視者.

Watch (監), see (視), person (者).

“In the middle of these characters, the one for ‘see’ (視) contains the meaning ‘eye’ (目). Now, think about it. Not long ago, while taking a walk, a gnat flew in and injured your eye, right?”

“Ah.”

“Exactly.”

Scrape, scrape.

I erased part of the characters on the floor with my sword. The three-character word became two characters.

Watch■er 監■者.

“Ta-da. The moment your eye got hurt, you transformed from a Watcher into a potato.”

“No… That can’t be…”

“To make matters worse, the fact that your eye was injured by a bug connected it directly to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. When the Watcher of the Korean Peninsula had their eye injured by a bug, the ‘Metamorphosis’ monstrosity likely targeted and attacked you.”

Indeed.

This was the cause of the Great Potato saintess Incident.

For those of you sharp readers, you may recall the title of the first episode where I introduced the saintess character.

The episode was titled none other than “Watcher.”

It was a title carefully chosen with this very incident in mind.

“Since the gnat that transmitted the ‘Metamorphosis’ monstrosity to the saintess was an insect, simply spraying insecticide should have been enough to repel it. That’s why you came back after being hit with mosquito spray.”

“Anomalies really can exist anywhere and infect anyone, can’t they?”

“The world is a place where you can be caught off guard at any moment. So from now on, please wear sunglasses or glasses when you go for walks. The fate of the Korean Peninsula depends on the health of your eyes, as this incident has proven.”

The saintess pressed her lips together.

Then she whispered softly,

“Yes…”

The end of the resolution.

8.

There is an epilogue.

As previously mentioned, among the Potato saintess, there was one exiled to Jeju Island.

Since even a single potato can be cultivated infinitely, I crossed over to Jeju Island to capture the potato.

[Has the situation been resolved?]

Surprisingly, the potato’s identification number was No. 264.

It was the revolutionary potato with the red headband who had led the resistance to attack the original saintess.

Potato No. 264 surprisingly surrendered quietly.

The potato in my shoulder bag suddenly muttered,

[Perhaps I wanted to become a plant after all.]

“Pardon?”

[Animals can move, you see. They can interfere with phenomena, with the world.]

[On the other hand, plants cannot. More accurately, even if they want to, they can’t.]

I blinked.

“So you’re saying that you wanted to become a plant instead. Is that correct?”

[Yes.]

It was late summer. The wide-open shoreline was covered with white waves, intertwined like a tangled vine.

[Perhaps deep in my unconscious mind, I wanted to run away from everything that angered and hurt me, to escape, and to become someone who could passively accept everything.]

So perhaps I turned into a plant― the saintess added.

Indeed.

I couldn’t rule out that possibility.

The theory that the monstrosity exploited a subconscious desire for plants within the saintess’ mind seemed plausible.

However, this theory had a flaw, and thus I countered it.

“Well, I suppose you might have had such feelings. But didn’t you try to do something for the world even after you turned into a potato?”

[…]

“You couldn’t just stay still even after becoming a plant. In the end, you were the most human-like human when you were a human, and even as a potato, you were the least potato-like potato.”

I didn’t think that was such a negative conclusion.

In the long life of a regressor, having a constant anchor was necessary. The saintess, who always maintained ‘herself,’ was someone I was grateful for.

“No matter what you transform into, it won’t be of any use. In the end, your essence remains your own.”

[…]

For a while, only the sound of waves crashing intertwined like vines around us.

[Thank you, Doctor Jang.]

And with that, I became the first human to receive thanks from a potato, which seems like a good point to wrap up this episode.

Just one more thing: At the time of this chapter, a flowerpot was decorated in the space where I lived, and a single potato with fresh green sprouts was placed in it.

And this potato particularly liked it when I watered it with coffee, a fact I should document in my usual, matter-of-fact tone.

-Potato. The End.

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]