LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 168
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The Traveler III
The atmosphere was tense. Silent glares and psychological warfare ensued among the Undertakers. If anyone drew their sword, it would trigger a battle royale.
“Everyone, stay your swords.”
I, the most just and rightful original Undertaker, spoke up. The other fake Undertakers turned to look at me, some with mustaches, others as women.
- What? Are you asking to be killed first?
“No, upon deeper reflection, killing each other isn’t the best plan.”
- Why not?
- Are you scared?
“You know taunting won’t work. This is a well-laid trap. If we start a massacre, it will lead to a disaster.”
Some Undertakers tilted their heads.
- A disaster?
“Yes. Let me ask you all, do you know about the ‘Jar of Solitude’?”
Solitude.
It’s a famous curse, like an ancient form of a Pokémon battle. First, the shaman places venomous insects into a jar and seals it. The battle begins when the jar is closed, continuing until only one insect remains, having consumed all the others.[1]
- Who doesn’t know that?
“Listen. If we start killing each other, what happens? Naturally, the strongest Undertaker will survive.”
I spoke under their intense gazes.
“The moment that happens, we define this plane as a ‘Jar of Solitude.’ The last survivor would be labeled as a ‘bug’ or ‘vermin.’ You might wake up one day as a bug.”
Sighs echoed throughout the plane.
- That makes sense.
- It’s a dilemma!
- If the plane lands, anomalies will double. If we start killing each other, we become bugs. What should we do?
- Wait.
A female Undertaker raised her hand. Her appearance was a blend of Dang Seo-rin, Noh Do-hwa, and the Saintess. She wore a barista outfit like me and had already killed about 20 other Undertakers. She was formidable.
- I get that killing each other makes us the Jar of Solitude, but is turning into bugs that dangerous?
“Don’t you know the danger of bugs? Haven’t you seen the Giant Potato Robot Saintess statue in Busan?”
- Huh? Giant Potato... What?
Apparently, she didn’t know. I looked around disdainfully. Clearly, none of them knew.
“Let me explain. The Potato Robot Saintess is―”
A FEW MOMENTS LATER...
- That’s bullshit!!
- Unbelievable. That happened?
- My Saintess isn’t like that!
Chaos erupted among the Undertakers. Dang Seo-rins looked puzzled, wondering, “Who is the Saintess?” and “Who dared build such a statue in my Busan?”
Ignorance is bliss.
“Anyway, bugs are dangerous. The anomaly behind this plane likely has the power of a great god, perhaps even an Outer God.”
- I understand the danger of bugs...
- But what should we do then?
The female Undertaker asked.
“Simple. The curse of solitude relies on the insects killing each other. If the insects don’t fight and only one remains, the curse fails.”
- ......?
- Ah.
Some Undertakers blinked in confusion. It was surprising they managed to be regressors. But there were also perceptive ones.
The female Undertaker was among the latter.
- We need to commit suicide until one remains.
“What?”
My Dang Seo-rin looked shocked.
“Suicide? You all?”
- Yes. It’s the solution your Undertaker suggested. It selects the final survivor without fighting.
- Ah!
- Brilliant!
- A good strategy. This way, we avoid both the Outer God and the Jar of Solitude.
“No way... This is insane.”
Dang Seo-rin and the other Dang Seo-rins were dumbfounded, but the Undertakers exchanged knowing glances. Despite their different lives, appearances, and intelligence, one thing was constant.
The possibility that one day, they might turn into an anomaly.
If that day came, every Undertaker was ready to erase themselves to prevent disaster.
“From now on, we’ll determine who is the most capable Undertaker. Through strength, intellect, or any other means. The losers will...”
- Recognize their shortcomings and leave, passing the mantle to the winner.
“Exactly.”
- Reasonable.
An Undertaker spoke.
- But there’s one problem.
- I don’t mind leaving the rest to another Undertaker. After all, there’s always the next cycle.
- But what about Dang Seo-rin?
All eyes turned to the Dang Seo-rins.
- What will happen to them?
- If you plan to kill them after we’re gone, we won’t commit suicide.
The atmosphere grew tense.
But I shook my head.
“No need to worry.”
- ......?
“Once you’re gone, Dang Seo-rin will be alone.”
I held Dang Seo-rin’s hand tightly. She glanced at me, but I focused on the Undertakers.
“But Dang Seo-rin didn’t just want to travel. She wanted to travel ‘with me.’”
- ......
“Once you’re gone, the Dang Seo-rins will disappear naturally. Trust me.”
Silence fell.
Then, one of them spoke.
- I believe you, 107.
He was also me.
Parallel worlds. Possible worlds. Multiverses.
Leibniz, the philosopher who fought with Newton over calculus, first proposed these concepts.
A less-known concept is the ‘best of all possible worlds.’
- Our world is the best among all possible worlds, and thus the only one that exists.
Why do we live in this particular world and not another?
Why is our world the way it is?
- Because our universe is better than any other.
The best of all possible worlds.[2]
Other worlds have something fundamentally wrong. Physics might break down, or unimaginable evil might occur.
Even if our world feels awful, it’s the only one without a cosmic failure.
- I lost.
And so, we Undertakers began the task of determining the ‘best world.’
- You’re one step ahead of me. Using the Saintess’s telepathy and the possibility of falling into the solitude trap, you thought of it first. I should step back.
The 113th Undertaker accepted his fate calmly.
He held the hand of the 113th Dang Seo-rin.
- Sorry, Dang Seo-rin. We have to postpone our trip. I’m really sorry.
- It’s okay. Just being with you was enough.
Then, a shocking scene unfolded.
The 113th Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin embraced and kissed.
“Ugh.”
“Hmph.”
Both the original Dang Seo-rin and I were taken aback. Seeing someone who looked like me kiss someone who looked like her was surreal.
- Huh?
The real shock was yet to come.
Of the 100+ passengers, only we were surprised.
- What’s so shocking?
- Right? It’s just a kiss.
Indeed, the other Undertakers and Dang Seo-rins weren’t fazed at all.
The real shock was that all the Undertakers and Dang Seo-rins were couples, except us.
“Unbelievable.”
“Oh my god.”
This plane was a group couple’s trip.
The other Undertakers and Dang Seo-rins planned overseas trips to celebrate anniversaries.
Except for us.
My head hurt. How could this happen?
- Actually, we’re the ones surprised...
- Really, you two aren’t a couple? THE Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin?
- Why? Why aren’t you dating?
They couldn’t understand why we weren’t together.
- If you’re not dating, why are you traveling together?
“Um, well...”
“I just wanted to travel,” the original Dang Seo-rin said. “I suggested the trip, and we left two days later.”
- Two days? And you just went to Uyuni Desert without being a couple?
“Yeah. Any problem?”
- Huh...
The Undertakers and Dang Seo-rins looked at us like we were the weird ones.
- Aren’t you the odd ones?
We didn’t answer that question.
Despite this minor incident, the task of determining the ‘best world’ continued smoothly.
Each test was different.
- I challenge you with the sword, 107. If you’re stronger, I’ll concede this life to you.
Sometimes, it was about strength.
- Ultimately, knowledge is key for a regressor. Let’s compete in knowledge, 107. How to grow allies, how to defeat anomalies.
Sometimes, it was about intellect.
- Even with a sharp sword and a brilliant mind, losing your sanity means falling to anomalies. How long can you maintain your sense of self, 107?
Sometimes, it was about mental strength.
- I don’t plan to drag this out. It’s all about luck. Let’s flip a coin, 107. Heads or tails?
Sometimes, it was just luck.
- Was Jiang Wei’s continuous Northern Expeditions in Three Kingdoms justified?
Sometimes, it was just about the Three Kingdoms... Was that really okay? Dang Seo-rin looked ready to kill him.
Anyway.
About 50 Undertakers challenged me in their own ways.
I won all those challenges.
In the end, no Undertaker was stronger than me. It was bittersweet but also a source of pride.
- In the end, determining the best world was my task.
The female Undertaker smiled sadly.
All other regressors accepted their end. She was the last remaining ‘me.’
- I thought I lived my best, but even that wasn’t the best.
The female Undertaker challenged me to a game of Go.
The game, where AI surpassed human champions, was a fitting test for a regressor’s memory.
I remembered countless Go games from many cycles. To me, Go was just a game of memory.
She challenged who could better utilize their memory.
- Well played.
“Well learned.”
I won by half a point with White.
- Sorry, Dang Seo-rin. We have to postpone our Oxford trip.
- It’s fine. We can always go ‘next time.’
The female Undertaker’s Dang Seo-rin smiled.
- Are you sure you’re okay with this?
- Yes. It was a fair result. Knowing that another ‘me’ is striving just as hard is a huge gain. I won’t lose next time.
- You just lost.
- I mean in the future.
The female Undertaker held her Dang Seo-rin’s hand.
Then she looked at me and smiled.
- I leave this world to you, 107. We’ll never meet again. If I’m human, I’ll buy the Saintess sunglasses when I return.
The female Undertaker’s body was enveloped in aura.
That was the final moment of the ‘Undertaker.’
There’s an epilogue.
Originally, our travel plan was to transit through Spain to South America. But after all the Undertakers left, the plane reached its destination.
The Uyuni Salt Flats.
The brightest mirror on Earth.
- Ah.
The plane landed softly on the water.
There was no vibration.
The plane’s wings cut through the transparent surface of the desert. Water trails stretched behind the plane.
Some Dang Seo-rins remained. Some followed their Undertakers in death, while others stayed by their bodies.
The door of the pilotless plane opened, letting the sunset reflect on the water into the cabin.
- Beautiful.
- Yeah, it’s beautiful.
- Now I see why I wanted to come here.
- Why is the world so beautiful just from a reflection...?
The Dang Seo-rins couldn’t continue.
As soon as the sunset touched them, they turned into white salt and crumbled instantly.
The white dust scattered in the desert wind.
Not just the Dang Seo-rins. The Undertakers’ bodies, the broken seats, even the plane’s structure crumbled into white salt.[3]
Like flower petals.
In the end, only Dang Seo-rin and I remained in the middle of the desert lake.
“......”
“......”
Dang Seo-rin stared blankly at the dance of white petals. Each petal reflected the red of the sunset, and the reflection mirrored back to the horizon.
In a world where everything repeated, only our hands’ warmth was real.
Much later, Dang Seo-rin murmured, “What was that anomaly, Undertaker?”
“That...”
“I don’t need that kind of answer.”
“Hmm.”
I looked at the salt desert made of Dang Seo-rins and Undertakers’ remains.
“There are many reasons, but I think it was due to the ‘Uyuni Desert’ itself.”
Dang Seo-rin tilted her head. Her reflection in the water followed.
“Here? Why?”
“When the surface fills with water, it becomes a huge mirror. You know mirrors are the most dangerous objects in the void. We aimed for Uyuni Desert but ended up in the ‘Mirror World.’”
“Ah.”
“The plane is a means of travel ‘somewhere other than here.’ Our plane momentarily traveled to the Mirror World.”
“Right... That makes sense.”
Splash.
Dang Seo-rin stirred the water with her foot. Her smile reflected in the splashes.
“So my Undertaker is the best Undertaker, right?”
I didn’t answer that question.
“This place is really wonderful. Thank you, Undertaker.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But how do we get back to Korea? The plane just melted.”
“......”
I couldn’t answer that question.
I’ll just write that it took at least three months to cross the Pacific Ocean on foot.
Footnotes:
[1] Mugo or Ko-dok, literally “jar/curse of poison,” is a type of magic in which poisonous insects are sealed in a jar to kill each other until only the deadliest is left standing. Depending on how the word is spelled (and the magic is crafted), the term may also refer to a single entity harassing a particular target to death in the form of a grudge curse called “solitude.”
[2] “If the creator of the world is an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving being, then why does evil exist?” In an attempt to solve the problem of evil as stated, Leibniz argued that our world is the greatest good that could possibly exist. For instance, there might be a world in which every human being is inherently good but has no free will, which would be a lesser world than ours.
[3] In Abrahamic traditions, to fade away into salt is the fate of one who was guilty of evil or even simply of a person who wavered in their conviction and was, thus, deemed unworthy of being saved.