The Tales of an Infinite Regressor - Chapter 216

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

w

Chapter 216

──────

The Unclaimed ⅠⅠ

The first turn of Doctor Jang, which I don’t even remember.

For convenience, let’s call this version the Original Doctor Jang, Doctor Jang: The Beginning, or Doctor Jang the First.

“Teacher, isn’t it actually more grandiose, even though you said it was for convenience?”

The person who complained had orange hair in a ponytail, dressed in a white sailor uniform, and was wearing Jordan basketball shoes.

Why hide it? The special VIP invited for the Original Doctor Jang Hidden Picture Project was Cheon Yohwa, the student council president of Baekhwa High School.

“Anyway, I desperately need your help to assemble the Original Doctor Jang, Yohwa. To be precise, I need Endless Hell’s assistance.”

“Ugh.”

Cheon Yohwa made a clear expression of dislike. Despite her facial muscles being so honest, it was a strange trait of hers that it never really hurt anyone’s feelings.

“Endless Hell? Why?”

“The Original Doctor Jang that appears in other people’s dreams has, well, low resolution, so to speak.”

I took Cheon Yohwa and visited several dreams.

Then, I showed her the “blurry silhouette” presumed to be the Original Doctor Jang.

“Oh. It’s true. What is this? It’s like a really old, unrestored black-and-white photo.”

“Right?”

“Yes! But even with such crude quality, it’s clearly super cute! Teacher, you used to wear a fur hat when you were little. Wow. Wow!”

Cheon Yohwa, who had been slightly put off by the mention of Endless Hell, brightened up immediately upon seeing a glimpse of my childhood.

She got all excited, making a fuss while examining my silhouette from every angle.

I cleared my throat.

“…So far, we’ve found a total of 13 dreams featuring the Original Doctor Jang. This one shows the youngest version. The Original Doctor Jang in these dreams is generally from a pre-college age group.”

“Ugh. Look at this chubby cheek! It’s really too cute! Teacher, can’t you record videos in dreams to keep them?”

“Are you planning to tease Tang Seorin? Please hold back.”

“Che.”

Cheon Yohwa’s cheeks puffed up like a hamster.

“Anyway, could you call Endless Hell for a moment? I plan to restore the resolution based on the data Endless Hell has compiled in this world.”

“Umm… I don’t like the idea of loosening that guy’s leash even a little, but… If it’s to see Teacher’s childhood… Okay, just a moment!”

Cheon Yohwa closed her eyes.

Then, swish—.

The hair tie holding her ponytail loosened, and her orange hair cascaded down.

Blink.

Her eyes, now revealed through the strands of hair, had lost the boundary between the pupil and the iris. Only a dark red hue remained, staring back at me.

“Hello, Senior?”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of the crimson well.

“It’s been a while. Did you miss me?”

“It has been a while. Let’s not pretend to be close.”

“Oh, but it’s not me holding hands, Senior.”

Indeed.

Whether in the void or in dreams, it was better for companions to hold hands so they wouldn’t get lost.

I snorted and let go of the hand. Endless Hell, who had been sealed inside Cheon Yohwa’s form, shrugged her shoulders.

“You’re so cold. I was formed based on this girl’s personality because of your scheme, you know? It hurts to be treated like this by someone you like.”

“Thank you. I’ll make sure to show more indifference. Now, getting to the point—do you know why you’ve been summoned?”

“Yeah. I’ve been watching.”

Endless Hell lightly tapped his lips.

“But—it’s hard for me to exert my powers fully, considering the seals you’ve put on me: [Doppelgänger], [Split Personality], and [Weakened Ally]. That’s three, right?”

“You deserve it.”

“Hey. [Split Personality] was completely your strategy, Senior. You demoted me to just a second personality by giving this girl a new name. Only you could think of such a wicked tactic.”

“…”

“Not that I’m dissatisfied with my current state. They say it’s better to be dumb than smart to be happy, right? Self-awareness is kind of fun.”

I sighed.

“Gathering data on my childhood should be interesting even for an alien god like you. So, please cooperate.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Sure, I’ll help.”

A surprisingly straightforward agreement.

Endless Hell, who had been fiddling with his lips, casually touched the fur hat of the Original Doctor Jang.

Bzzzzzzzzzz—

The surroundings were instantly engulfed in noise.

The faces of passersby walking past the supermarket, the size of streetlights lining the road, all began to distort. Fine blood vessels sprouted from the tree trunks.

“Hold on a moment—ugh. I didn’t have this much trouble when I used to boss around the dream demons. It’s all because of someone, you know?”

“Shall I make it more difficult?”

“No, thanks. Ah, done. This is the limit.”

With that, the surrounding scenery became vividly detailed, almost like reality.

Except, the colors seemed a bit off. It felt as though a brownish filter had been applied.

The once vague silhouette of the young Doctor Jang was now crystal clear.

“…”

It was the face of an ordinary child.

Aside from the somewhat large and peculiar fur hat, there was almost nothing remarkable about this little boy. An elementary school-aged boy.

He had no inkling that a fate spanning thousands, perhaps millions, of years would soon befall him.

“…Is this really me?”

“Who knows? The dream demons said so. They must have checked your real name and identity, right?”

“Hmm.”

“If you really doubt it, you could let me access the dream demons’ data for a bit. I can check it for you.”

I ignored the nonsense.

“More importantly.”

“Hmm?”

“This boy is holding hands with a woman while walking. It seems like my family, probably my mother.”

The little boy was cheerfully walking, holding his mother’s hand. So I intended to check the mother’s face right after identifying the appearance of the Original Doctor Jang.

That was my intention, but—

“Why can’t I see her face?”

There was no face.

More precisely, the ‘noise’ that Endless Hell had spread to restore the dream’s resolution was somehow not disappearing from the mother’s face.

In the midst of the noise, the words [404 – Not Found] were displayed. Probably something Endless Hell had written.

“Huh?”

Hearing my question, Endless Hell tilted her head.

She had already perched himself on the roadside fence, swinging her legs back and forth.

“Are you asking because you’re genuinely curious, Senior? You had a hunch, didn’t you?”

“…”

“They disappeared due to a [Time Seal]. That person. There’s no data on them. Actually, their entire outfit should also be covered in noise, but I roughly patched it together using Photoshop.”

I see.

I wasn’t particularly disappointed. There’s no reason to mourn the loss of a memory that no longer exists.

“Alright. Then let’s move on to the next dream.”

“Sure thing, Senior.”

Using Endless Hell, I continued progressing toward the original Doctor Jang.

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

w

Not only the 13 dreams I had already discovered, but I also uncovered new dreams by identifying new characters within the successfully restored dreams.

In the beginning, the original Doctor Jang was just an extra who passed by in front of a store in the dream, nothing more, nothing less.

However, as I traced each relationship in the dream, the original Doctor Jang began to take a ‘closer position’ to the main character in the dream.

From ‘a customer who came to the store with friends and had a hamburger’ → ‘a kid who played in the snow together in the same apartment’ → ‘a student in the neighboring class when they were a third-grade homeroom teacher’ → ‘a relationship where they weren’t close friends, but sometimes hung out together as a friend of a friend’…

However…

“Huh?”

Just as I was about to move the relationship step from ‘friend of a friend’ to ‘close friend,’ Endless Hell abruptly stopped as if it had hit something.

“Senior. This part has been deleted too.”

“By deleted… do you mean… [Time Sealed]?”

“Yeah. Look, your high school friend.”

The friend walking home from school alongside the original Doctor Jang was covered in noise, just like my mother.

This time, unlike my mother, both the face and the entire body were distorted with noise, as if Endless Hell had skipped the effort of preserving it.

In a space as vivid as reality, only the part where the friend was standing appeared unnaturally, with the message:

[404 – Not Found]

This meant the original Doctor Jang was not actually walking home with a friend.

To others, it would look like he was laughing and talking to himself while staring at ‘empty space.’

“Hmm.”

“…”

“For some reason, I have a feeling I know what’s going to happen next.”

The same thing kept happening.

No matter my route, I could get as close as ‘friend of a friend,’ ‘acquaintance of an acquaintance,’ ‘neighbor’s neighbor,’ but every time I tried to take the final step, a [404] error occurred.

No matter how meticulously I restored the dream or traced the relationships, the result didn’t change. In the end, the original Doctor Jang was always seen laughing into ’empty space.’

In other words…

“Wow. Senior, you really went all out to erase the people around you, huh? How did you do that?”

It was impossible to approach the original Doctor Jang beyond a certain boundary.

He had no family. No relatives. No friends. No acquaintances.

Only traces of human relationships that could barely be classified as ‘extras’ remained, like vestigial organs.

To turn that around— it also meant that from the perspective of the people in this world, the original Doctor Jang was nothing more than an extra.

No connections.

No ties.

An unconnected person.

It wasn’t just in the legal sense of being unconnected. Objectively speaking, the ‘1st-turn Doctor Jang’ was excluded from the network of human relationships on Earth.

It was impressive how perfectly he could be an ‘extra’ to this extent.

“Ah, I see. No wonder I couldn’t do much to you when I was the alien god.”

In the hospital hallway.

Cheon Yowha was leaning against the wall in a hallway where patients were sparsely scattered.

It was assumed to be the workplace where my biological mother worked. Of course, it didn’t provide much information.

I had deduced that my mother’s job was a nurse, but even here, I was blocked by a [404] error.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was the anomaly that managed all the data, right? But compared to other humans, Senior practically has no data. So from my perspective, it’s hard to calculate your behavior patterns.”

“Hmm.”

“On top of that, the weapon you carry around… was it called Doha? It gives off a similar vibe. Really, it’s a bad match. Isn’t this kind of cheating?”

I stood next to Endless Hell in the hospital hallway, folding my arms and murmuring.

“…Something is odd.”

“Huh? What is?”

“If they were this thorough in erasing the people around me with [Time Seals], then there should be crystal tombstones related to them scattered around.”

“Crystal tombstones… Ah, the ones that only Senior can see and can’t be entered without your permission?”

I nodded.

“I’ve searched through almost all the crystal tombstones in the Korean Peninsula, but I didn’t find a single tombstone belonging to my family, friends, or acquaintances. Isn’t that strange? Considering I’ve searched this much, at least one should have appeared by now.”

“Hmm…”

“And the fact that I have no memories from before the 4th turn is also strange. Even if I had [Time Sealed] my mother, I should still retain memories of her.”

“It was thousands of years ago, wasn’t it? Isn’t it natural to forget?”

“It’s not natural.”

I manipulated the aura like ink, scribbling words in the air.

“I gained [Perfect Memory] in the 4th turn. And at that point, I probably hadn’t completely forgotten about my mother yet. Not much time had passed.”

“That’s true, right?”

“Then the memories I had at that point should have been locked in by [Perfect Memory]. Memories like my mother’s face, for example. Memories of my family.”

I furrowed my brow.

“Unless they were trivial memories, it doesn’t make sense to have completely forgotten such important memories.”

“…Huh?”

Endless Hell’s eyes glinted with a look of realization.

“…Hey, you’re right? In the current timeline, it’s just something from thousands of years ago, but in the 4th turn, it was only a few years ago, right? No matter how bad human memory is, it’s impossible to forget about family and friends completely…”

“It’s impossible.”

My eyes narrowed.

“There’s a reason why the 1st turn of the Doctor Jang, as a regressor, has been completely erased.”

[Translator – Jjescus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

w