NOVEL NEXT Chapter 119
The Brainwasher I
I don’t particularly like aphorisms or maxims.
Being impressed by a saying is akin to admiring a photograph of a beautiful landscape rather than experiencing the scenery firsthand.
For those who have visited that landscape, it may hold commemorative value, but for others, it’s just a fake antique used for interior decoration in their home.
However, there is one Nietzsche aphorism that I find useful even for a pragmatist:
- He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
This truly is the ultimate guide for hitchhikers traveling through the end times, isn’t it?
To make it a bit more practical, you can tweak the latter part slightly:
- If you gaze long enough at Go Yuri, Go Yuri will also gaze back into you.
Her personal color is pink.
Her Pokémon type is Psychic.
Her special skills are a soft smile for everyone and a brainwashing hypnosis beam.
If she had appeared as a Kadabra in the first-generation Pokémon anime, she would have gained a cult following among children, but unfortunately, she was reincarnated in reality, causing me a headache.
What I want to convey to you is that I, the Undertaker, put in a tremendous amount of effort to seal away this Pokémon.
‘What if I don’t look directly at her and take a picture? Wouldn’t that reveal Go Yuri’s true form?’
Click.
I committed the audacious act of secretly photographing Go Yuri. It was a move that risked my life.
The act of photographing itself was successful, but the result was disappointing. The performance difference between a standard camera lens and my retina was negligible.
In short, the photo showed the same pink hair, the same soft smile. Hmm. Somehow, the photo seemed inferior to the real thing.
When I realized, ‘Hmm, the photo is worse than the real thing,’ I knew I had already fallen under a weak hypnosis. A chill ran down my spine, and I immediately burned the photo.
Failure.
‘What if someone else takes the picture?’
I had Yu Ji-won, whose life wasn’t particularly precious to me, take the picture. The result was the same. Yu Ji-won returned unharmed.
Failure².
For the record, these tests were never conducted in the same cycle.
Regarding Go Yuri, research had to be conducted more cautiously than handling a nuclear bomb. Naturally, all tests had to be conducted in different cycles.
‘What if I record her voice with a recorder――?’
Failure.
‘…Wait. What if I use a spirit camera?’
It was a clever idea.
By this time, I had received an instant spirit camera from the Magical Girl Association as a reward for defeating the Inunaki Tunnel.
Click.
I had high expectations for this test. The spirit camera was a precious artifact. There couldn’t be a more suitable item to reveal Go Yuri’s true nature.
Then it happened.
Whirrr……
A strange noise started coming from the spirit camera, which was developing the photo normally.
Rrring! Clang! Clang-clang-clang! Clang-clang-clang!
It was the sound of a telephone. Or perhaps, the loud noise of a red fire alarm button being pressed.
Clunk! The camera jerked on its own, and the next moment, it spewed smoke as if a fire had broken out inside.
Then it stopped.
“……”
Goosebumps rose on my skin.
“What’s the matter?”
What was even more chilling was that Go Yuri had approached before I even noticed.
She was right in front of me.
Go Yuri tilted her head and bent down, looking up at me from below.
“Huh. You look familiar... Oh, wait, weren't you the one at Busan Station waiting room? Um, your name was definitely... Undertaker. Yes, Mr. Undertaker, right?”
“……”
“Wow! What a coincidence to see you here! Ah, but the object in your hand keeps emitting smoke. Is it alright? Something seems…”
Go Yuri smiled brightly.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
Damn.
It was foolish to trust such a camera. No matter how powerful a treasure it was, how powerful could it be if it came from a group cosplaying as magical girls?
But a regressor is a profession that establishes countermeasures even for such contingencies. I immediately activated Protocol 552-71.
“An unexpected storm is roaring! The wind sounds noisily, and Zhou Yu urgently descends onto the terrace, looking at the banners!”
“…Huh?”
“Oh ho! As the Azure Dragon and Vermilion Bird flank the White Tiger and Black Tortoise to the northwest, a great southeast wind rises with a roar! Crash! The drum board spins! Ah, like thunder, Zhou Yu’s heart falls at the sight!”
“Uh, wait... What?”
“Heavens! Ah! Why did you birth me and Kongming together! Woo woo woo! Wooo!”
“……”
I danced like a madman, running toward the horizon. The dignity, character, and everything else I had built up over a thousand years as a regressor were all thrown into the mud.
The original name of Protocol 552-71 was “Singing the Song of Red Cliff.” Or acting crazy.
For the record, I was good at singing Pansori.
I was even better at acting crazy.
Indeed, even the world’s greatest curiosity monster, Go Yuri, didn’t pursue a human failure. Dobby was free, and I escaped.
And I never approached within 30 kilometers of Go Yuri in that cycle.
Failure.
――Go Yuri was indeed a dangerous existence.
As the founder and mastermind of the Library Society, I had a hard time resisting the urge to add [Go Yuri-class] to the end of the danger lineup [Village-class - Polis-Class - Continent-class - Ocean-class - Outer God-class].
My business partner and National Road Management Corps Chief Noh Do-hwa, with whom I consulted whenever I had such thoughts, maintained a calm expression in the operations room.
“From my perspective, you seem more dangerous…”
“Hmm.”
I didn’t necessarily agree with Noh Do-hwa’s point, but I adjusted the strategy.
“As I mentioned, ‘She Who Must Not Be Named’ is dangerous to all humans, not just me. Everyone projects their ideal type onto her, so no matter how emotionally detached I am, I can’t help but fall for her.”
“Damn. I don’t even know where to start tackling this... First, was your ideal type pink hair…?”
“That’s a trivial issue, Chief. But by addressing the above issue, we can form the following hypothesis. If someone has no emotions at all, they might be safe from ‘She Who Must Not Be Named,’ right?”
“Hmm? A person with no emotions? Does such a person exist…?”
“More precisely, it should be someone who has their feelings of affection for others, in other words, the ability to like someone, suppressed. Go Yuri’s perception manipulation starts from there.”
“……”
“……”
We turned our heads almost simultaneously.
“Hmm?”
Scratch, scratch.
There, the operations control officer of the National Road Management Corps, Yu Ji-won, was carving wood with a knife. She was carving pieces to use on the chessboard [Mini Map].
“Why are you looking at me?”
The high-intelligence psychopath tilted her head.
Yu Ji-won.
Her personal color is silver.
Her Pokémon type… who cares. Anyway, she’s a psychopath. Investing much time to explain her would be a waste of life.
Comparing her to Go Yuri, there was nothing she could win in except appearance.
As unrealistic as it seems, Yu Ji-won was incredibly beautiful. It was just an objective truth I couldn’t distort.
Among the awakeners in Korea, the two rivals for top appearance were Go Yuri and Yu Ji-won. This land had no hope.
That’s right. I always assigned Yu Ji-won to monitor Go Yuri.
On the map of Korea spread out in the operations room, a black bishop (♝) with the word “Go Yuri” engraved on it was always moving around.
“Ji-won, you need to contact ‘She Who Must Not Be Named.’ Naturally, you must never let her know I sent you. Most importantly, if I sense even a hint that you’re brainwashed, I will isolate you immediately.”
“Hmm...”
Yu Ji-won stroked her chin. To stroke her chin in front of someone else and go “Hmm” was such an obvious sign of a psychopath that it was chilling.
“Your Excellency, I have a condition.”
“What condition?”
“When you move to the next cycle, please get me something.”
This was the sound of a born maniac.
If Yu Ji-won were an ordinary psychopath,
‘Huh? The next cycle’s me? That’s a completely different person from me now, isn’t it? I’ll pursue my current happiness.’
‘I’ll live for myself now.’
That’s how she would have thought, but no. Our psychopath had extraordinary brain patterns.
‘Hmm. If that person (Undertaker) causes the world to regress, no matter how hard I work to accumulate wealth and power, it would all disappear with one click of regression, wouldn’t it?’
‘Why should my power and safety disappear because of a click bug?’
‘But I can’t kill the regressor.’
‘Therefore, I must cling to the regressor.’
‘In other words… I must negotiate with the regressor to pass more power and information to the next cycle’s me. Then, even more in the next cycle. If I continue to inherit the legacy…’
‘The ultimate victory will be mine.’
‘I will now go all-in on the regressor coin.’
This was the outrageous thought process she had reached.
How do I know this? Because she told me directly.
Now, I am confident that no further explanation is needed as to why I consider this good-looking maniac to be insane. At least, I have never seen a character in any work of fiction involving infinite regression with such a brain flow.
Reality always easily triumphs over fiction.
“Ji-won.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Do you even have an idea how many times I’ve heard that from you?”
“No. But your statement just now reassures me that I’m sane in any cycle. It’s comforting.”
“I think we need to replace the word ‘sane’ with something else…”
“Hmm. Intelligent? Reasonable? Clever?”
“It’s like the exact opposites of all those words fit perfectly.”
“……?”
In the end, I had to make another promise to Yu Ji-won. For the record, she’s ranked at a depth of 1,000 meters in my cafe’s system.
She started at 100 meters.
I don’t need to explain how she crawled from 100 meters to 1,000 meters. I’ll just add that I’m very good at keeping promises.
I dispatched Yu Ji-won and followed her. Of course, maintaining a strict distance of hundreds of meters.
Go Yuri was running a soup kitchen in Daejeon. She distributed food twice a day, morning and evening, in exchange for some labor from ordinary people.
I watched the scene through binoculars. Seeing Go Yuri smiling brightly while wearing an apron, my teeth couldn’t help but chatter.
The apron even had Chinese characters on it.
Three Kingdoms (三國志).
‘Scary! Go Yuri!’
I shuddered.
‘Even in such a moment, you try to bewitch my mind! Do you think I would feel any affection for you just because of that?’
Moreover, the apron was not blue or red, but green, the symbol of the Shu Han.
Truly formidable brainwashing!
My hands trembled. Forcing the binoculars aside, I saw our ultimate weapon of the National Road Management Corps, the silver-haired psychopath, walking steadily.
And――
“…….”
“…….”
The two entities met.
The one who absolutely creates affection and the one who absolutely does not feel affection.
In other words… a contradiction!
Just their contact alone seemed to break the laws of the universe and insult social ethics, creating a meeting that should never have happened in proper history due to a bizarre twist of fate (me).
My heart swelled involuntarily.
Footnotes:
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