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

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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The Receiver III

It was truly a beautiful day.

The birds were chirping, and the flowers were blooming.

On a day like this—

A brat styling herself Lü Bu really ought to be rattling off Pei Songzhi's[3] unabridged, fully annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms by heart.

"Hup!"

Streeetch—

She flung both arms high and gave a huge stretch; the crisp air felt as though it seeped right down to every muscle cell.

Where, exactly, was this freshness coming from?

Without doubt, from listening to a masterpiece of the century in Saintess-nim's ASMR voice.

"Go Yuri, our destination still isn't in sight?"

"No, Guild Lead— I mean, Captain! There's nothing but sea on every side."

"Hmm. We set the course exactly this way, so why is our progress so meagre?"

"Ahaha, sorry, Captain. I think you'll have to push the engine a little harder."

Just now we were travelling by boat.

Calling it a "boat," though, was generous, it was really only a dinghy.

The materials were a single palm tree, the lone bit of vegetation listed on the desert island, and the scrap metal the tide had coughed up.

I threw the dinghy together, painted it scarlet, and, as humanity's last invention, christened it "Red Hare."[4]

So we set out across the boundless ocean astride Red Hare.

Crossing the sea of a ruined world in a single craft, surely a fatal dose of romance.

"Good. Engine! Give us still more speed!"

"Eek!"

My part aboard was Captain.

Go Yuri, as navigator, was in charge of tracking the other Constellations' positions.

[The Monarch of the Crimson Horsesheds tears.]

For reference, Lü Bu was back there rowing like a fiend, serving as both ASMR and engine.

Thanks to her, Red Hare boasted tremendous speed. Never had Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms naval stat of "C" for Lü Bu looked more mistaken.

"By the way, Yuri—"

"Yes?"

"If we skip killing the Constellations this run and just move on to the next cycle, what happens?"

"Mm. It would make conquering Hecate feel pointless. We went to the trouble of sinking an Outer God, only to leave the fragments that took her influence untouched."

"A leftover-embers job, eh?"

"Ah. Nice metaphor."

Embryos of flame left alone soon grow as big as the original inferno.

"And… mm. This is only my guess, but if we're careless the Constellations might really come to exist."

"The Constellations come to exist for real?"

"Until now they were just parts Miss Saintess acted. But if we let the next cycle start like this—tada! Look, star-sign monsters actually peering down at the world have appeared."

"Mm."

My brow furrowed.

"That would be bad."

"Yes, decidedly bad—"

In the past I might have answered, "Eh? Constellations just help Awakeners level, so isn't that a gain?"—but not now.

If the world's genre turns into "Constellation-fic," the side-effects follow inevitably:

Why Constellations help Awakeners, how Awakeners can fall and become Constellations, the premise of beings watching this world like a livestream, and so forth…

In other words, the very cosmology of the universe warps.

Exactly as Go Yuri had warned—ignore it and we'd just breed a fresh Outer-God-class monster.

"Not to mention—"

"…Guan Yu[5] and Zhang Fei[6] sulked—hic—some bookworm pops out of nowhere—hng! Acting familiar with the Lord…so Lord Liu Bei soothed them, saying gasping 'Gaining Kongming is fish finding water….'"

Mutter mutter mutter.

A glance back showed the Hulao Pass grasshopper panting as she rowed Red Hare.

Her eyes were starting to look like dead fish, turning more water-type than earth-type.

'I can't let such half-baked Constellations run the world.'

A little while later—

"Ah! Captain! I can finally see it!"

Go Yuri waved both arms.

Beyond the horizon lay a vessel so huge Red Hare looked like an ant.

An enormous cruise ship floated there.

Humanity of the 999th cycle was extinct. A healthy cruise ship was itself a ghost story.

There was no need to wonder long who captained it.

As we drew near, a familiar telepathic message arrived.

[The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palaceinvites you.]

[Welcome to Earth's final paradise.]

A confession of ancient shame: once, I was deeply, hopelessly into Constellations.

Back before the 35th cycle.

Until then no Awakener worshipped them more ardently than I did… Old Man Scho watching me was aghast.

– Hey! Brat! I told you to stop hanging around those spirits or whatever and you're muttering to yourself again! That's addiction, do you hear? Addiction!

– Oh, come on, old man. You just don't realise there's really a Constellation watching over us. Ms. Saintess of National Salvation genuinely exists.

– Pah. Rubbish! If transcendents guarding humanity existed the world wouldn't have gone to hell!

Scho, in the end, was right.

After swallowing the red pill that Constellations were only humans, an unspoken pact arose between the Saintess and me.

1. Whatever the other Awakeners thought, in front of Undertaker she would never pretend to be a Constellation.

2. Conversely, I would never nit-pick or mock the Constellations' settings and acting.

A gentleman's agreement, in short—

A pledge so the regressor and the Saintess could preserve each other's dignity.

Hence…I actually didn't know in detail what sort of appearance or speech Constellations like [Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace] or [Collector of All Anomalies] used when performing for other Awakeners.

Naturally: nothing compelled the Saintess to endure mortifying embarrassment by showing me her master-class in Constellation roleplay.

She wore a blank face around me every day. Still, the Saintess was human. She possessed that profoundly human emotion, "shame."

And then—

"Myo-ooong! Welcome-nya! Nice-to-meet-nya!"

Today, I witnessed the ghastly truth the Saintess had hidden with all her might from the regressor.

"First time seeing you face-to-face-nya! Undertaker-nya! I'm the Dream Demon-of-the-Grand-Pleasure-Palace-nya!"

"……"

"Ah, that look is scary-nya! Myo myo myo. By the way-nya, unless you defeat me with the concept called 'fun' I'll just keep reviving, so please refrain from pointless killing-nya!"

Boing, boing.

A mint-haired girl, a few years older than [The Monarch of the Crimson Horse] and strongly resembling the Saintess, had rabbit ears flopping atop her head.

I raised a hand.

"Time-out."

"Myoo?"

"I'll be back shortly. Wait right there."

I jumped off the liner and returned to the dinghy. On deck, Go Yuri and Lü Bu were boiling cup-ramen.

"Huh? Brother, back already? G-gasp, did you drop the enemy in a single instant?!"

"Since when was she like that."

"Eh?"

"Her. Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace… that crazy speech pattern. Since when?"

"Uh… always?"

Slurp. Devouring the last spicy beef bowl noodle on Earth, [The Monarch of the Crimson Horse] tilted her head.

"Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace, among us sisters she's 'Myomon.'"

"nya… mon…?"

"Yep. We sisters are concept-mad nut-cases, but she's the worst. Wahaha! Brother, do you see now why I want the rest dead?"

said Lü Bu Feng-xian.

I turned my gaze. Go Yuri was elegantly eating Earth's final Bean Paste Noodles (cup version) with chopsticks.

"This is a lie."

"Oh my."

"Myomon? If she'd been talking like that, no way I'd have missed it. SG Net would be buried in posts: 'Why does that Dream Demon talk like this?'"

"Ufufu."

Even while eating she never got a drop of black sauce on her lips; Yuri smiled demurely.

"Guild Leader, aren't you underestimating Miss Saintess?"

"What?"

"Whenever Miss Saintess talks to someone, she always first casts [Time Stop] and rehearses her lines."

"I know that."

"Right. That's how serious she is about her dignity."

Go Yuri's smile brightened.

"In other words…while you surf SG Net she can pop [Time Stop] and hide any posts she doesn't want you to see."

"What?!"

A shockwave burst in my brain.

What on earth was this pink monster spouting?

"Your IP and account name carry special restrictions. Mr. Seo Gyu or the Saintess can freely 'edit' every post or comment that shows up on your phone."

"Wh-wh-WHAT?!"

A second impact rocked me.

"F-from when?!"

"From the start."

Go Yuri drained even the broth, pressed her hands together and said, "Thanks for the food."

"There are 171 banned words on your account, starting with 'myo.' Mr. Seo Gyu couldn't refuse the Saintess's request, so you've always been looking at a censored SG-Net."

"………?!?!"

"And if anyone looked about to mention a Constellation trait around Mr. Undertaker, she just zapped them with telepathy and smoothed it over."

Impossible. Absurd.

I was certain my ID had admin powers, yet that too had been Seo-gyu's trick?

"Want one more bombshell?"

"T-there's worse? Don't. My sanity won't hold."

"Even though you finally learnt all this in the 999th cycle, once the run ends you'll lose the memories under Miss Dang Seorin's contract, and fall right back into eternal ignorance ♪~"

"Gyaaaaa!"

I screamed.

"Gyaaaaaaa!"

I kept screaming as I bounded from Red Hare onto the cruise ship.

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Myo-ong?! Eep—why scream in my face-nya? In Mother's memories you were more serious and dandy, like Tom Ford Oud Wood—unexpected-nya…"

"I'm the surprised one! 'Unexpected' doesn't begin to cover it!"

"I don't understand-nya…"

I crumpled to my knees.

"A lie. A lie. Yes. That treacherous pink thing brain-washed me to slander the Saintess…"

"Ah, that-nya!"

Flap. The Dream Demon's rabbit ears twitched, alive.

"The being near you-nya. Why travel with something so terrifying-nya?"

"…Terrifying? Lü Bu—your sister—follows her fine, doesn't she?"

"That's what's strange-nya!"

The Dream Demon darted her eyes around, then lowered her voice.

"Originally [The Monarch of the Crimson Horse] went out precisely to intercept that being-nya. [The Collector of All Anomalies] planned to back her if needed nya. Yet they both lost all hostility so naturally nya."

"Mm."

That was Go Yuri's nature.

One was compelled to feel unconditional goodwill toward her.

Across the regressor's long life only two people broke the rule: Yu Ji-won, whose face no-one could recognise, and Hecate, whose voice sounded like static.

"Yuri herself probably can't control the power. Anyway she's cooperative now, so no need to worry too—"

"Really nya?"

Blink—Dream Demon's eyelids and rabbit ears leaned toward me.

"Undertaker-nya, how can you be so sure-nya?"

"Ah. Explaining it all is long, but I picked up a limited-time artefact. While I have it, Yuri's brain-washing can't touch me."

"Let me see it nya?"

"Of course."

I slipped a hand into my pocket.

The black hair-tie—Cheon Yo-hwa's keepsake, left when she sacrificed herself, descending the stairs of the unconscious world—

"Hmm?"

The hair-tie.

"…?"

It should be here.

I remembered tucking it in my inner pocket so I wouldn't lose it.

"…"

It wasn't.

I rifled every pocket. Apart from the silver bell my fingers touched nothing.

A chill sliced through my brain.

'Wait. Come to think…'

Cheon Yo-hwa's memento was forged in the unconscious world, not in reality.

If this is no longer the 173th cycle but reality fixed as the 999th cycle, naturally her keepsake must vanish.

Such a simple fact—

'…I hadn't realised until now.'

As though forgetting felt natural.

Even though I'd long known that "real-world Go Yuri" and "unconscious-world Go Yuri" were different.

"…"

I fell silent.

The rabbit ears in front of me flopped.

"Do you truly believe that being is your ally nya?"

Footnotes:

[1]Xu Shu, courtesy nameYuanzhi, originally namedXu Fu, was a Chinese politician of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of China. He was born in the late Eastern Han dynasty and used to be a vigilante swordsman in his early life.

[2]Zhuge Liang, also commonly known by his courtesy nameKongming, was a Chinese statesman, strategist, and inventor who lived through the end of the Eastern Han dynasty and the early Three Kingdoms period of China.

[3]Pei Songzhi, courtesy nameShiqi, was a Chinese historian and politician who lived in the late Eastern Jin dynasty and the Liu Song dynasty. His ancestral home was in Wenxi County, Shanxi, but he moved to the Jiangnan region later.

[4] TheRed HareorChi Tuwas a famous horse owned by the warlord Lü Bu, who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China.

[5]Guan Yu, courtesy nameYunchang, was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. Along with Zhang Fei, he shared a brotherly relationship with Liu Bei and accompanied him on most of his early exploits.

[6]Zhang Fei, courtesy nameYide, was a Chinese military general and politician serving under the warlord Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han dynasty and early Three Kingdoms period of China. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, who were among the earliest to join Liu Bei, shared a brotherly relationship with their lord and accompanied him on most of his early exploits.

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