NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
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The Hero
There are many mysteries in this world that remain unknown to me, but some I have deliberately left unsolved. Today, I'd like to touch upon one such chapter. Although it might seem abrupt, I want to start with this question: Do you like the fantasy genre?
I do. And while some may disagree, I personally think that if a fantasy story features a 'Saintess', then the 'Hero' profession should also appear. The two are like chocolate and mint—only when observed together at the same time, in the same place, do they make a complete dish.
But what if the proportions of these two ingredients are off? What if the ratio of chocolate to mint collapses from 1:1 to 1:3, or even accelerates to 1:81, or 1:729? Then it's no longer mint chocolate, but merely mint. And though I'm somewhat fond of mint chocolate, I detest mint. In that sense, the world I live in is a kind of failed dish.
"Excuse me? Can you hear me?"
“Uh...”
If you were walking down the street and saw people collapsed everywhere, and instead of stealing their wallets and maybe even their Adam's apples you feel an urge to help them, and if you still have enough goodness left in you to lightly tap them on the shoulder and tell them to wake up, especially if the place had been struck by a 'Gate incident' more than 13 years ago in the middle of a city on the Korean Peninsula. Then you might have about a 6% gacha chance of encountering this kind of reaction.
"Where am I...?"
"Ah, are you awake? Oh dear. Sir, you shouldn't be lying on the cold ground like this."
"This place... No way, is this Earth?"
Because I've seen it.
Just moments ago, the passerby who had been lying unconscious, completely dead to the world, suddenly sat up and looked around. It was miraculous, the sort of thing you'd see at the end of a subway line—or rather, the plaza outside it.
"Yes?"
"S-sir, do you happen to know what year it is?"
I answered, and then…
"It can't be. Twenty years have passed, and yet it's only been a year in reality...?"
His face lost all expression, and his eyes darted wildly, refusing to settle.
In the man's hand was a smartphone.
Now, if you were a normal person, you'd naturally get the sense that something was very wrong here and run away. Even if you've never encountered a madman in your life, a madman is like cow dung—you see one once, and you automatically go, "That's cow dung."
Unfortunately, having lived as a regressor for too long, my senses were slightly dulled. Instead of inputting "run away now" into my brain, I mistakenly typed "feel curious."
"Will you tell me what's going on?"
“I was just in a place called the Sintra continent, where magic and aura are real."
Those were some of the services newly implemented on the Earth server after the Gate incident, but I didn't make a big deal of that.
"Are you saying you experienced dimensional travel?"
"Yes, exactly. I was summoned there, received the title of Hero, and set out on a campaign to defeat the Demon King with my precious... my truly precious comrades."
The nostalgia and bitterness swirling around his stubble were too profound to dismiss as mere tall tales.
"Did you defeat the Demon King?"
"Ah, yes. Eventually... We had to sacrifice so much along the way, but somehow, we managed to subdue it."
"Huh."
If the person had indeed fallen into another dimension, fought on the battlefields for 20 years, and even coordinated attacks with his party members against formidable enemies, then he was the very definition of a 'veteran'.
And I, the Undertaker, desperately needed such Awakener veterans.
"But when they saw that I was about to die from a fatal injury, one of my team members, a priest and our mage, said, 'You mustn't die here, Hero...'" He sobbed. "Before I took my last breath, they sent me back to my original world."
Tears welled up in the man's eyes.
"I wanted to die with my comrades. How am I supposed to live on in a world without them...?"
His affection for his comrades was palpable.
I felt a faint glimmer of hope in my heart. Perhaps, by some fluke, I had stumbled upon a candidate for an epic warrior.
"I'm sorry to hear that. If it's not too much to ask, could you demonstrate some aura or magic while you're here?"
"What? Oh, yes, of course. I'm a Swordsman... Ugh?!" Suddenly, the man clutched his forehead, and the smartphone he'd been clutching tightly in his left hand tumbled to the ground. "Ahhh...?"
"Wait a minute. What's wrong? What happened?"
"My mind... My, my memories. I can't remember! The 20 years I spent on the continent of Sintra, the journeys I shared with my comrades, my love, it's all fading... No, nooo!"
For the record, I never mix in hyperbole when telling a story. So when the man with the stubble suddenly grabbed his head with both hands and dramatically reenacted Munch's The Scream
in 3D right in front of me, it was all part of an emotionally charged documentary."Um, sir?"
“......”
"Hello?"
I waved my hand in front of him, but the man stood there, dazed for a long while.
I picked up the smartphone that had fallen to the ground.
"Hmm?"
The smartphone was still powered on, and it happened to be logged into a community website exclusively for Awakeners.
We'll talk about this community later. What's important now is the content of the post displayed on the man's smartphone screen.
---
Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World."
Hero.
If you are reading this post, you must have safely returned home.
We, no, our world, knew that you would have painful memories, yet you sacrificed yourself to protect us.
Seeing you suffer after losing your comrades in the final battle with the Demon King, we decided to erase your memories and send you back to your original world.
You may curse us for being selfish.
But, we didn't want to see you in pain.
Goodbye.
P.S. Sorry, Hero. Our magic was imperfect, so you might feel as though you have lost some memories.
---
I felt like a college student who had accidentally left the fridge door open earlier that day and only realized it when I went to microwave some frozen pizza late at night.
At that moment, murmuring came from beside me.
“...Huh?"
The man...
"Why am I crying?"
Despite his efforts to mask it with laughter, his lips twisted oddly as he cried.
"Why are these tears? I hate it. It's like I've lost something precious..."
“......”
Quietly, I handed him the smartphone and walked away silently, not looking back, with the skilled steps of an experienced regressor.
And thus, I safely distanced myself from the madman, but unfortunately, the madmen did not wish to distance themselves from me.
"Huh? This place is...?"
“I'm not Kim Jun-young from Anyang! I am Namgung Muncheong, the foremost disciple of the Namgung clan!"
“Please take me back to that world again... Huh, why am I crying?"
Shit.
This was the first time I witnessed such a phenomenon, in the 118th run.
Since then, whether it was regression, possession, or reincarnation, I often encountered returnees in various cycles, always showing the same reaction. This so-called 'Returnee Syndrome' was a disastrous party short for 'Reincarnation and Regression.'
I, the Undertaker, have seen a lot over the years, but this was a uniquely flavorful scene.
"Goodness."
After dozens of cycles—as in, once enough data had accumulated—I finally realized that this was not just a hidden camera prank by one or two madmen, but a serious societal phenomenon.
It was a 'Hero Syndrome', a type of monster that interferes with the mind.
"A monster?"
Thus, in the 161st run, I immediately set about devising a strategy. After hearing about the 'Hero Syndrome', the Saintess, who had always been my consultant, asked, "Can a monster exist without a physical body, Mr. Undertaker?"
"It's possible, yes." I nodded the affirmative. "Those not bound by physical laws or material form are even more dangerous. That's why it's more appropriate to call them 'strange phenomena' rather than monsters."
"Indeed. A 'Hero Syndrome'... A monster, no, a strange phenomenon that exists in the form of a mental illness."
A drop of disquiet bled into her emotionless voice. By the way, this person had strong shut-in tendencies and stayed inside all day. The sound of bubbling water from the living-room aquariums had long since flowed into the ambiance of the Saintess's house. It was a regular, forgettable part of the decor for me now.
"All right, then how should we subdue this strange phenomenon? If it doesn't have a physical body, we can't kill it."
"Well, in such cases, we cannot use orthodox methods and instead must turn to the unorthodox. In short, we game the system."
I wasn't even sure if it needed to be subdued, honestly.
The Saintess tilted her head. "We game what?"
I unlocked the smartphone. "Do you see this post?"
"Yes? Ah, it says clicking on this will... uh huh."
"All the patients with Hero Syndrome we've found so far had collapsed and had this post open. It seems the phenomenon spreads its 'infection' through this viral post."
"An infection that's gone viral? My goodness. Jokes from the COVID era have become reality." The Saintess paused, lost in thought again, then suddenly raised her head. "Does that mean I'm infected now?"
"No, this post is just nonsense I posted anonymously on the community. It's merely an imitation of the real one, rest assured."
"Ah."
Seeing the Saintess's relief, I smiled faintly. "However, this nonsense post actually contains a shortcut to combat the mental type of strange phenomenon."
"...?"
From that day on, posts began popping up incessantly on the Awakener-only community board.
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 56)
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 17)
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 34)
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 11)
The same nonsensical, incessant posts with the same title kept appearing on loop. Such was the power of macros.
Members of the online community were, of course, baffled.
- Anonymous: What's this?
- [Samcheon] Officer: What's going on?
- Anonymous: damn, what's with this concept?
Initially, members clicked on the posts to see what the fuss was about, which is why some posts got over 50 views.
But the steady stream of posts, each with content that never changed, quickly became something to avoid.
- LiteraryGirl: Seriously, this is so boring. Who keeps posting this crap? It's neither fun nor moving.
- [Baekwha] SixthGrader: hooooh 😭😭
- dolLHoUse: Childish.
- Anonymous: What are the Constellations doing? Why don't they delete these posts?
└ [Samcheon] WitchJudge: Maybe the Constellations don't see it as worth deleting. It happens often.
└ Anonymous: sigh...
- ZERO_SUGAR: why don't you just set up a keyword block for yourselves...? i blocked it and now i see nothing; it's really nice ^^
- Anonymous: Blocked.
The views dropped to 10, then to 6, and eventually to 3.
Finally, the views on the flood of posts fell to 0.
Occasionally, one of the view counts would show a 1, but with the macros continuously posting, eventually, all community members set "Another World" as a blocked word.
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 0)
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 0)
A beautiful array of zeros.
The Saintess, who was observing the community with me, remarked upon the achievement with reluctant admiration.
"Of course. You didn't even need to exterminate the strange phenomenon itself; simply eliminating exposure to it achieves the same effect as a 'subjugation'."
"Correct. A physical-type strange phenomenon can approach us at will, but one without a body loses its power simply because there are no people aware of it."
"Certainly an effective method. It's simple yet skilled handling, befitting of a regressor."
"Thank you."
Originally, only Awakeners could post in this community. However, we had to consider the possibility that the strange phenomenon could weasel their way into the community and interfere there using some cunning tricks.
But now, no matter how the phenomenon tries to post, it won't affect the members at all.
Well, perhaps a member might unblock it for fun and coincidentally click on one of the hundreds of constant posts, and maybe, just maybe, that post might contain the real 'Hero Syndrome' virus, breaking through the 1/100 odds.
Even if a victim did emerge, though, it would be no different than a tragic plane crash. No matter how many times I regress, I can't control all probabilities.
After all, even if infected, it wouldn't cause widespread harm.
Thus, I, the Undertaker, had safely sealed another strange phenomenon.
"But... Mr. Undertaker."
"Hmm?"
"What if it's not a mental illness, but real? What if those who have seen the post really did move to another dimension, face life-threatening situations, and were then returned to the real world thanks to their comrades?"
"The probability of that is low."
Low, I would say. Practically close to 0%, really.
"Why is that?"
"It’s just a simple deduction. All those people claim they only spent about 20 years journeying, caught the Demon King, saved the world, and all that. I know from experience that saving the world takes far more than 20 years."
"Ah..."
"Besides, even if by the rarest of rare chances another dimension exists, it's not my concern. Shouldn't we focus all our efforts on managing our own world?"
The Saintess seemed convinced by my logic and nodded calmly. "Certainly. You're right."
I sipped my café au lait and turned my attention back to the board.
- Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Clicking this post will transport you to "Another World." (Views: 0)
Even without running macros, the newly generated post displayed zero views.
And probably would forever.
Footnotes:
[1]
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Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried