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

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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The Receiver V

Go Yuri (高妖理).

When we come to discuss her, it is fair to say that even her name alone feels decidedly ominous.

Yu (妖): sinister yet enticing, seductive yet uncanny, a syllable that lures in demons, foretells an early death, and is therefore monstrous—yet, above all else, beautiful.

Go Yuri.

The logic that rules over eldritch anomalies.

…No normal parent would ever saddle a child with a name like that.

From the outset, Yu (妖) carries the nuance of dying young—of "perishing before one's time."

Who would gift their beloved child a character that screams ill fortune? One might as well cast a curse instead.

"Come to think of it."

"Ye—?"

"I've never once heard you talk about your family, Yuri."

While we were sailing toward our next destination, the [Morning Star of the Second Coming], I asked the question as casually as I could.

"Well. In times like these it's hard to imagine any family surviving intact, and frankly I have to wonder whether you ever truly had one."

"Ahaha."

Go Yuri, who had been peering past the horizon through a pair of binoculars, let out a faint laugh.

"Guild Leader does have a habit of tossing off remarks that dig right into a person's heart. You're awful."

"…I was insensitive. Sorry. So you did have a family?"

"Yes. I did. Quite a large one, actually."

A large family? The phrasing sounded odd.

Did she mean she'd had so many brothers and sisters that it was practically a clan?

'A bustling Go Yuri household—little brothers, big brothers, older sisters everywhere. They'd probably start by dropping a colony on Earth as a housewarming gift…'

Lost in silly thoughts for a moment, I stared blankly ahead, just as the bow of our dinghy sliced a clean line through the ocean.

The sea of this world, overflowing with Leviathan's blood, was eerily calm; the wake our little boat left behind was likely the only wave for miles.

"Guild Leader, do you remember your own family?"

"No. Not at all. I'm not sure I've mentioned it, but I'm suffering from a sort of amnesia."

"Oh dear. For their dutiful son who even made it into a top university to forget them… that's tragic."

My heart lurched.

"…Do you know what university I attended?"

"Ahaha, of course. If it weren't an elite school, do you honestly think the pseudo-aristocrats of Sejong would have hired you as their daughters' private tutor?"

"…"

On that point I too had long been puzzled.

'…Why on earth did the Cheon family choose someone like me, a complete nobody, as tutor to their daughters, their precious heirs?'

The gap in status was simply too large.

As became clear that summer I spent with Yu Ji-won when she was fourteen, my own family was anything but wealthy.

During my college years I'd lived alone in a tiny rental across from her hillside neighborhood, a seven-pyeong* room in a run-down multiplex.

* Roughly 23 m2.

I was probably covering the rent on my own, surviving on student loans.

'Meanwhile, Cheon Yo-hwa lived in a mansion sitting on 14,990 pyeong of land. The cult followers had an entire private community.'

** Roughly 49,524 m2.

'They even ran their own school corporation, grooming the next generation of believers.'

The class divide was obscene.

Even if the old me hadn't been penniless, it was impossible to imagine I'd had the connections to mingle with a provincial noble house.

Prestigious university or not, entrusting their treasured heirs' studies to some random "just a college student," and a male tutor at that—there was simply no reason.

'Something doesn't add up. I'm still missing a piece.'

A riddle unsolved.

"If Guild Leader can't remember his family—"

Go Yuri spoke again while my thoughts chased their tail.

"—then I can't talk about mine."

"Hmm? What does that mean?"

"If whatever I say makes you remember them, you'll just be sad. Either discover them yourself, or remain unaware forever, that's how it should be."

"…But I asked about your family, not mine."

Go Yuri offered no answer.

Still smiling gently, she lowered the binoculars.

"I think we've arrived!"

I turned my head, and the sea split like the miracle of Moses.

Just as in Exodus, the seabed gaped open. Down there, a massive structure showed off its majesty.

"…"

It was so familiar that for a moment my voice simply left me.

And no wonder.

"…Why is every other building in the world underwater, yet the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun[1] is perfectly intact?"

"This too must be the grace of the Supreme Dignity. Wow. Not even the Great Deluge dared swallow the North's holiest shrine!"

Even when the world was whole, that place alone would have been branded a nexus of anomalies and void. Fitting that the [Morning Star of the Second Coming] was waiting for me there.

[The Morning Star of the Second Coming].

Among all the Saintess's alt accounts, it had the most fanatical followers and by far the most convoluted lore.

Outwardly, that account wore the face of Mo Gwang-seo: the kind of middle-aged Korean man you'd get if you asked an image generator for "middle-aged Korean male" and clicked refresh a dozen times.

More precisely, it was an anomaly that merely borrowed the "shape of Mo Gwang-seo."

Well, this palace was practically a mummy dungeon to rival the Pyramids. Like building, like owner.

"Welcome, Undertaker."

So I could hardly help being startled.

"To greet you not with Clairvoyance but with my own eyes is a first. I've long wished to meet you."

"…Uh. Ms. Saintess?"

Seated upon the throne was, by anyone's eyes, the Saintess as she might have looked at ten.

The problem was her speech.

"That title refers either to my poor mother or, in another sense, a pitiable daughter. I am no Saintess."

Unlike the equally child-sized [Monarch of the Crimson Horse], the Constellation before me was remarkably composed.

My head spun.

"First off, where is Mo Gwang-seo?"

"Who knows? I do not. When the Great Deluge came and the world sank, I awoke with my siblings—yet Mo Gwang-seo was already gone."

"…"

"But you spoke down to my other sisters, and now you use honorifics with me."

"Well, yes. I always used proper honorifics with the real Ms. Saintess. As for the knock-off and Bunny Ears… recognizing them as the Saintess would only demean her, so I refrained."

"Ha-ha."

[The Morning Star of the Second Coming] laughed.

Somehow the laughter brimmed with authority, but coming from a child half the throne's height, the dissonance was wild.

"The sisters may feel slighted. Each of them carries one aspect of Mother."

"That's something we'll need to ask the Saintess herself later."

"Hmm? A fair point."

She stroked her chin.

"You do try to listen to others. Even as a regressor, you still respect people. I admire that."

A meaningful smile.

"Of course, no matter how hard you listen, there are some whose words you can never be sure you've truly heard."

"What do you mean?"

"That being. The one you call by your own chosen name. Whatever it says, you can never be certain those words are truly its will—an absolute anomaly."

Go Yuri.

"Why does that being appear to you as a woman with pink hair—an appearance that belongs to no one in this world?"

"…"

Once again, I alone had come inside. Go Yuri was still outside, tying the dinghy.

"The simplest answer," she continued,

"is that your type is pink-haired girls—ones who laugh easily, sit demurely, can debate the Three Kingdoms, play janggu, and cheer for Shu. If that's your ideal, it makes sense."

"My tastes are perfectly ordinary."

"Well, that's a debate for another time, but something about its appearance is too odd to be mere preference."

The Constellation narrowed her eyes.

"If that being could change at will, then at least once it should've shown someone else's face—Dang Seo-rin's, say. Don't you think?"

"You plan to have Oh Dok-seo steal a peek at the side story someday, right? No comment."

"And yet you say it has kept the exact same face since before the fifth run. So very peculiar."

A fair point.

"If someone else could draw your greatest affection, shouldn't its face have changed to them at least once?"

"It's not the only strange part."

There were couples in this world.

To the lonely that might feel cruel, but 'people who love each other' do exist.

"For such a person, Go Yuri should look exactly like their lover. At the very least, someone should see her as a real-world celebrity. Yet…"

"There is none."

The Constellation spoke with certainty.

"No one ever mistakes that being for anyone who truly exists."

For example—

It was awkward to admit, but whether anyone liked it or not, the person Sim Ah-ryeon 'loves most in the world' is me, the Undertaker.

I won't label that feeling. Ah-ryeon's mind isn't easily caged by a single word.

"…To Ah-ryeon, Go Yuri ought to look exactly like me—or at least resemble me. Yet Ah-ryeon never confuses the two of us."

Click. She nodded.

"The same with Yu Ji-won. Even if she can't recognize faces, if that being could turn into whoever best draws her affection, it would have become you."

"But Go Yuri never managed to become me."

"Indeed. We must conclude she lacks that power."

Why?

Of course, one exception exists.

As mentioned, the [Admin of the Infinite Metagame] claims Go Yuri looks like me—the Undertaker.

…Utterly baffling.

"Therefore,"

The Constellation hopped down from the throne.

"Before I die by your hand, I will risk everything to see that being."

"…"

"Until now I avoided looking for fear of being brainwashed. But I'll die anyway—so on my sisters' behalf I'll witness it myself, and then die."

She fixed me with her gaze.

"So that my final words, my dying scream, might leave some clue to its identity."

"…It will probably do no good."

I shook my head.

"Go Yuri's brainwashing even affects language. Whatever you try to say will reach me already censored."

"We have a countermeasure."

"A countermeasure?"

"In this world, and across all your cycles, only now does it become possible."

She covered her right eye.

"As you see, I'll watch using Clairvoyance only with my left eye."

"……?"

"And at the same moment, my sister, the [Understanding of Anguish], will watch using only her right eye."

She grinned.

"And we'll share our visions."

"W-wait. That means—"

"In my left eye I'll see 'the being as viewed by Morning Star,' and in my right eye 'the being as viewed by Understanding of Anguish.'"

"…!"

My own eyes widened.

"So the Go Yuri who always shows just one face might appear in several forms at once?"

"Exactly."

"If the contradiction cracks, we might glimpse its true face."

"But aren't you sisters all fragments of the Saintess? Won't you see the same ideal?"

"We share an origin, but each of us has her own taste. A simple example: little Lü Bu is fascinated by your backside, while I prefer firm thighs—I'd like to try a lap pillow."

"Excuse me?"

"We're mirrors shattered by Hecate, both the Saintess and not. If we perceived that pink-haired being identically, then we'd collapse into 'one Saintess.'"

Something sounded off, but as if nothing odd had been said, she continued.

"So while someone else's vision might overlap, ours never will. Because the moment it does…"

"…the paradox Hecate built would crumble, Mr. Undertaker."

The voice was not mine.

From behind a massive pillar stepped another figure—her face that of the Saintess, but perhaps ten years older.

"And you are…?"

"Please call me [The Understanding of Anguish]."

Her ankle-length hair swayed as she spoke in a near whisper.

"And there's no need to learn more. I'm only here for this operation."

She strode forward and, without hesitation, clasped my right hand.

As I blinked, [Understanding of Anguish] looked up at me with steady eyes.

"Mr. Undertaker knows that sufficiently enhanced clairvoyance can be shared."

"…Ah."

Indeed—cycle 107, when the Saintess first fell, she'd briefly shown me her third-person sight.

"So I'll project what I see with this right eye into your view," she said.

[The Morning Star of the Second Coming] took my left hand.

"And I'll overlay what I see with my left eye," she added.

They spoke in unison.

"We'll show you."

"We'll overlay them."

"Human eyes are first-person, but our Clairvoyance is third-person."

"With two angles, the pink-haired being's single face should blur."

"A trick possible only in a run with multiple clairvoyants, as monstrous as us!"

"This might be the last chance to see that being."

"It'll likely lash out, try to ruin us—but, Mr. Undertaker, we want you to look."

Identical faces, identical eyes, living along different timelines… they looked up at me together.

"Someday."

"So that even that being can be conquered."

"…"

For a long while I said nothing.

My lips were sealed, but my heart pounded madly.

I could see Go Yuri.

In this run where the Saintess was broken into Constellations—in this bizarre post-calamity epilogue born of Hecate—I might at last witness Go Yuri's real face.

Yet—

Would she want that?

Everyone has a face they choose to show.

If I tear away her unknown visage, would that not bring her sorrow?

That worry weighed on me.

– Ms. Dang Seo-rin killed the me outside.

Her words on that bench in the unconscious realm resurfaced.

– Thanks to that, even if only briefly, I've been able to move a bit more freely.

"…"

Go Yuri is not one.

The Go Yuri in reality, in the unconscious, the one I see, the one Sim Ah-ryeon sees, the one the Constellations see—they are all different.

A kaleidoscope of glass shards.

But has she ever wished for this?

Always forced to wear countless faces, never once her true one—could she really welcome that?

Is this truly the right state for her?

"…All right."

With effort, I spoke.

"I have no idea what will happen, but… I'll accept your plan."

Grip.Fingers tightened around mine.

"Then,"

"Please close your eyes."

The point of no return.

When Cheon Yo-hwa kissed me in the Classroom of Four Seasons. When Yu Ji-won called me "Mr. Matiz." When Dang Seo-rin bound my heart with eternal magic.

That instinct—that certainty—enfolded me once more.

If I take one more step—

I will tread a road with no way back.

"…"

I shut my eyes.

Darkness filled my vision.

Then, alternating by my left and right ears, the Constellations counted.

"We'll count to three."

"Do not open them."

"One."

"Two—"

"Three."

And then—

Go Yuri appeared before my eyes.

Footnotes:

[1] TheKumsusan Palace of the Sun, formerly the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, is a building near the northeast corner of the city of Pyongyang that serves as the mausoleum for Kim Il Sung, the first Supreme Leader.

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