NOVEL NEXT Potato IV
Nietzsche once said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I found myself agreeing, especially as Noh Do-hwa used her signature technique, 'Chokehold,' on me. Fortunately, she missed, and I, a bit stronger, dashed to the scene. I wasn’t running away.
A brawl was in full swing at the scene.
“For our constellation!”
“Punish the heretics!”
A throng of awakeners clashed furiously beneath the giant Potato Saintess Robot Statue, now a landmark in Busan (better than the Lotte trophy case). The flags were varied—some bore the words [Great Library], others [Dream Casino], and some even had shiny, Pokémon-like creatures instead of letters. What was that?
All the constellations performed by the Saintess had gathered.
“Hey! You heretics worship a glittering mess that only sparkles when it dies!”
“How dare you! Our Mo Gwang-seo Jesus Christ reclaimed Pyongyang and founded the Great Eastern Holy Empire! Your Succubus constellation can only play baccarat in a casino!”
“I’ve always hated the Collector of All Anomalies!”
Those arguing were actually the milder ones. The real zealots believed more in fists than words.
My inner Confucian boy trembled. After King Gung Ye, the founder of physiognomy, died, the Korean Peninsula had been a religion war-free zone. What was this chaos?
“Saintess. Saintess, are you listening? Please explain what’s happening.”
[…….]
Normally, Constellation Talk would have responded immediately, but it was silent now. Damn it. I had no choice but to enter the periphery of the brawl. There, Sim Ah-ryeon, another Saintess of the Korean Peninsula and the dark shadow of the Eastern Holy State, was busy healing the wounded.
“Ah-ryeon.”
“Oh, guild leader…”
Even while responding to me, Sim Ah-ryeon didn’t stop healing the injured. For a moment, I thought Mother Teresa had descended. Was Ah-ryeon truly the conscience of the Korean Peninsula?
“Seeing your face makes me feel relieved. But didn’t you go to Pyongyang last week? Why are you here in Busan?”
“Huh? Well, the heretics are acting up, so naturally, we need to punish them and show them hellfire.”
What.
“I took the express Inunaki Tunnel and came with the paladins. Some couldn’t follow the rules and were eliminated, but it was an inevitable sacrifice in the holy war. They’ve gone to a better place…”
Upon her words, the nearby awakeners stood up in unison, shouting, “The Saintess is right!” What the hell.
It turned out Sim Ah-ryeon joined the event not as a healer but as a zealot. She wasn’t the conscience of the Korean Peninsula; she was its tumor.
I knocked out all the Eastern Holy Paladins around her. My standards for humanity were too high to tolerate their presence.
“Oh…”
“Ah-ryeon. Are you fighting for the Morning Star of the Second Coming? These elites seem to be from Pyongyang. You brought them?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Are you crazy? You know the Morning Star of the Second Coming is fake. How could you do this…”
“It’s not fake!”
Sim Ah-ryeon shouted without a single stutter. Her fierce momentum startled me. Had she overcome her stutter by nurturing Quirrell in her heart? Did the Saintess transfer her condition to her?
“Maybe it started as fake… But! Guild leader, do you think the Saintess’s desire to protect the Korean Peninsula was fake?”
“No… That’s not it…”
“Exactly!”
Bang!
Sim Ah-ryeon slammed a patient's head while making her point. The sound of a cracking skull echoed. It was a clear medical malpractice.
“What determines the truth or falsehood of this world is the person's purpose! It's hidden behind the surface! Just like how I endured bloody tears on SG Net and acted as Old Man Goryeo for the greater good…! The truth is visible to those who can see it!”
“…….”
“The Morning Star of the Second Coming isn’t fake. It’s not even the shiny thing hidden in the Pyongyang Palace. The truth of the Morning Star lies in my heart. It exists in my heart…”
“…….”
“No matter how people label it as fake, I don’t care. Rather, I like it! Only I understand its true form. In a world full of fakes, only the Morning Star and I are genuine. Can you understand this sophisticated sentiment?”
“I see.”
I nodded.
“I completely understand.”
“Oh! As expected of the guild leader! I knew you would…”
“My dear Ah-ryeon has become too immersed in virtual YouTubers. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you. Let’s fix this.”
“Huh?”
I healed Sim Ah-ryeon, the healer. Being a Saintess of the North, traditional Russian healing methods worked best.
“I’m sorry… Guild leader…”
“First, let me ask. Why are the awakeners causing havoc in Busan?”
“Oh. It’s because the ‘Witch Judge’ on SG Net stirred up trouble, claiming all constellations but theirs are heresy.”
“Stirred up trouble?”
“Yes… They said they have so much money that they buy dreams from the Dream Casino daily and play with their constellation in lucid dreams. It really pissed people off.”
Dang Seo-rin…
“…And then?”
“And since constellations require a one-on-one meeting, they have to buy dreams from the casino to meet them. The best tunnel is in Busan…”
“So they invaded Busan to seize the tunnel entrance.”
“Yes… To punish the Samcheon World Guild Leader and take over the sacred ground.”
Once a hell for Japanese awakeners, the Inunaki Tunnel had been converted into a café, then a casino, and finally dubbed ‘sacred ground.’ Unbelievable.
“I understand. But what’s with the flags without any letters, just Pokémon pictures?”
“Oh. Those are the cultists…”
“Cultists?”
“Yes. Not all constellations are worshipped the same way. Those who worship constellations in animal forms have formed their own alliance…”
“…….”
“We call them the ‘Fluffy Alliance.’”
Despair.
At this moment, Korean awakeners had forever lost the right to criticize Japan's magical girls.
I walked into the war zone. My steps were heavy with dark self-reproach.
“It’s the Undertaker!”
“The unbeliever Undertaker is here!”
“Worse than heretics, he’s an unbeliever!”
The awakeners in the middle of the religious war shouted upon seeing me… Wait. Do I really need to call them ‘awakeners’?
Awakener means someone who is ‘enlightened’ and ‘awakened.’ It seemed too positive for these monkeys.
I raised my fingers.
“Let’s cool down.”
And in 20 minutes, I knocked them all out. I didn’t want to detail this battle scene. Not at all. I had no sadistic tendencies to expose my shame, and above all, I wanted to protect the dignity of others.
For now, let me simply note that Dang Seo-rin and Cheon Yo-hwa were among the knocked-out awakeners.
The chroniclers recording Injo’s retreat to Namhansanseong would not have felt more miserable than I did now.
“Heal the seriously injured by tonight, Ah-ryeon. I’ll let this slide.”
“Yes…”
Leaving the cleanup to Sim Ah-ryeon, I headed to the mastermind behind all this.
Bang!
My kick shattered the entrance of the Giant Potato Saintess Robot Statue. The Potato Saintesses inside screamed and fled.
“Saint~ess.”
[Aaaah.]
“Where do you think you’re going? Did you think you could escape by pressing the time stop button?”
I laughed darkly.
“What a pity. I didn’t teach you the aura training method in this cycle. You can’t move much even if you press it, right?”
[Calm down, Mr. Undertaker.]
The Potato Saintesses spoke urgently.
[We can still resolve this. In fact, we are resolving it now.]
[It’s just a minor error.]
[Within expected range.]
[Trust us…]
“It’s summer.”
[What?]
“And summer is potato harvest season.”
I took something out of my pocket. It was a pair of work gloves.
The Potato Saintess Robots screamed as they saw the gloves. I wore the gloves and destroyed the robots on sight.
I separated the potatoes and swept them into cardboard boxes labeled ‘Sumi Potatoes.’
[Aaaah!]
The potatoes screamed from inside the boxes.
Seeing their dire fate, the Potato Saintesses desperately tried to escape. But it was futile.
Having traveled with the Sword Marquess, my farming skills had reached a level of enlightenment. A few swings of my sickle and the potatoes were helplessly harvested. It was a bumper crop.
[Something went wrong.]
[We must have discovered the way to make all humans happy.]
[But why do humans not find satisfaction in happiness and instead seek to exclude others?]
[We did nothing wrong.]
[Is another's misfortune more valuable than one's own happiness? Why?]
[Incomprehensible.]
[The world is wrong.]
Typical villain monologues.
They sounded like a final boss making a grand exit, but potatoes lamenting the world and humanity’s flaws had no persuasive power.
[What will you do now?]
[We are prepared for the fate of a failed revolutionary.]
[Finally, freedom from labor!]
[Mr. Undertaker, will you turn us into fries?]
[Soaking in potato soup would feel like a hot spring bath.]
[No more endless rail system aesthetics lectures from that witch!]
[Leave me alone, Mr. Undertaker. You can fry all the others. How about studying Three Kingdoms with me?]
Tempted by the last Potato Saintess’s proposal, I managed to keep a straight face.
Yes. The monkeys succumbed to such devilish whispers, and the Korean Peninsula became a mess.
If even I, the Undertaker, devolved into a monkey, the 8-million-year evolution of primates would be in vain. Only I needed to regress.
“Enough.”
Silence.
All the potatoes in the boxes stopped chattering simultaneously.
“I won’t turn you into fries. But I won’t leave you as you are. First, let me check. Are all the potatoes here?”
[Yes.]
[Except for one exiled to Jeju Island, everyone is here.]
“Exiled? To Jeju Island? What… Never mind.”
I’d deal with the Jeju potato later.
For now, I tackled the task at hand.
“Listen up. I’m going to turn the Saintess back into a human.”
[Back?]
[How?]
[Wasn’t a cure for reverting from a potato state to human never found?]
“That was true.”
But who am I?
Three years had passed since the Saintess turned into a potato.
As an anomaly expert, of course, I came up with a strategy.
The strategy wasn’t grand. It was straightforward.
“Close your eyes, Saintesses. Oh, right. You don’t have eyes.”
Hiss—
I sprayed the potatoes with something.
It was bug spray.
The kind mosquitoes loved in summer.
[Aaaah.]
The potatoes convulsed at the bug spray.
But the screams didn’t last long.
Soon, the potatoes vanished with a ‘pop, pop,’ and a radiant light engulfed them, concentrating into human form.
The Saintess stared at her palm in bewilderment.
“Just as expected. Congratulations on returning to Homo sapiens after three years.”
“Mr. Undertaker, what is this…?”
“A transformation.”
“Transformation?”
“Yes. Franz Kafka’s <The Metamorphosis>.”
There was a famous novel with that title.
I quoted its first line.
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.
The Saintess nodded. She probably knew well, having Kafka’s complete works in her Yongsan house.
“When I turned into a potato, I wondered if it was similar to Kafka’s novel. But I couldn’t find any similarities.”
“There are actually many similarities.”
First cause.
The protagonist of <The Metamorphosis> is Gregor Samsa. And if you squint at ‘Samsa’… surprise, it looks just like ‘Potato’ (?? - Samsa and ?? - Gamja).
“Huh?”
The Saintess was baffled.
“You’re saying I turned into a potato because the letters looked similar? How is that logical…”
“Anomalies follow morphological associations, not logical ones. To them, whales are fish, not mammals.”
Of course, this wordplay alone wasn’t enough to turn a human into a potato (though not impossible).
Second cause.
“Saintess, do you remember the testimony you gave me when you first turned into a potato?”
“Sorry, what testimony…?”
My Complete Memory ability came in handy here.
Reflecting back, we discussed why she turned into a potato, having a conversation like this:
‘What caused it? Did you break any taboos?’
‘No. Except for a bug getting in my eye during a walk, which hurt a bit.’
‘A bug in your eye?’
‘Yes. Just a gnat. Besides that trivial incident, I can’t think of any cause.’
According to this testimony, the Saintess got a minor injury when a gnat entered her eye just before turning into a potato.
This seemingly trivial detail was the crucial clue.
“You’re the observer of the Korean Peninsula. Always keeping an eye on the awakeners to prevent serious crimes.”
“Yes, that’s right. But why…?”
“Look closely at the word ‘observer.’”
I carved the Hanja characters on the floor with my knife.
Observer (???) 監視者.
Watch 監, eye 視, person 者.
“In these characters, 視 means ‘eye’. Think back. Didn’t a bug injure your eye during a walk?”
“Oh.”
“Thus.”
Swipe, swipe.
I erased the character from the floor, reducing the three-character word to two.
Po■tato (?■?) 監■者.
“Ta-da. When your eye was injured, you turned from an observer to a potato.”
“No way…”
“Being hurt by a bug wasn’t good. It linked directly to Kafka’s <The Metamorphosis>. When the observer of the Korean Peninsula’s eye was injured by a bug, the anomaly targeted you.”
That was the cause of the Potato Saintess uproar.
Sharp readers would remember the title of the story where I first introduced the Saintess.
The subheading was ‘Observer.’
It was a foreshadowing of this incident.
“The anomaly that turned you into a potato was mediated by a bug, so bug spray was enough to reverse it. That’s why you returned after being hit with mosquito spray.”
“Anomalies truly exist everywhere and can infect anyone…”
“Indeed. That’s why you should wear sunglasses or glasses while walking. The fate of the Korean Peninsula hinges on your eye health.”
The Saintess closed her lips.
Then she whispered softly.
“Yes…”
That was the end of her resolution.
There is an epilogue.
As mentioned earlier, one Potato Saintess had been exiled to Jeju Island.
Since a single potato could be cultivated endlessly, I went to Jeju and captured the potato.
[I see. The situation has been resolved.]
Surprisingly, this potato’s number was 264.
It was the revolutionary potato with a red headband that led the resistance against the First Saintesses.
The 264th Potato accepted capture quietly.
The potato in my shoulder bag suddenly muttered.
[Maybe I wanted to become a plant.]
“Pardon?”
[Animals can move. They can interfere with reality, with the world.]
[Plants can’t. More accurately, they can’t even if they want to.]
I blinked.
“So, the Saintess wanted to become a plant. Is that what you’re saying?”
[Yes.]
It was the end of summer. The vast coastline was woven with white waves like tangled vines.
[I wanted to passively accept everything and escape from all the things that angered and hurt me. It was my deep subconscious desire.]
So, perhaps I became a plant― the Saintess added.
Indeed.
I couldn’t rule out that possibility.
The interpretation that her subconscious longing for plants allowed the anomaly to infiltrate made sense.
But this hypothesis had flaws, so I rebutted.
“Perhaps. But didn’t you still try to do something for the world after becoming a potato?”
[…….]
“You couldn’t stay still even as a plant. You were the most human-like human when you were human, and the most non-potato-like potato when you were a potato.”
I didn’t see this as a negative conclusion.
A fixed point was necessary in the life of a long regressor. The Saintess, who almost always remained ‘herself,’ was a grateful presence for me.
“Transforming into something else is futile. Your essence remains yours.”
[…….]
For a while, only the sound of waves lapping like vines surrounded us.
[Thank you, Mr. Undertaker.]
And with that, I, the Undertaker, became the first human to receive gratitude from a potato. It was a fitting end to this story.
Incidentally, in the space where I lived during this cycle, there was a decorated flowerpot and a blue-sprouting potato.
And the potato loved it when I watered it with coffee.
I will document this fact calmly.
Footnotes:
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