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Chapter 208

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The Opposite V

9

Kidnapping.

Naturally, kidnapping by humans and kidnapping by anomalies differ quite a bit.

If a human kidnaped you, you’d likely face the threat of losing your honor, wealth, or life.

But what if an anomaly kidnaps you?

Surprisingly, all of these might remain intact.

Anomalies don\'t engage in unnecessary actions.

If they were interested in your life, they would have killed you the moment you met, instead of going through the trouble of kidnapping.

When anomalies kidnap you, they target only one thing.

Your "humanity."

Here, humanity doesn\'t just refer to ethics and morals but also the fundamental logical structure hardwired into the Homo sapiens brain.

Q. What do you get when you add 1 to 1?

A. Of course, it\'s 2.

For example, even those who once exchanged such normal conversations might, after being kidnapped by a anomaly, answer:

Q. What do you get when you add 1 to 1?

A. The flesh was butchered to six hundred sixty, leaving only the limbs of one hundred ten. Ten is the form where 1 and 1 intersect, and when gathered into a hundred, it is the shape of two crossed human forearms. Thus, by aligning one hundred pairs of arms, this would be the correct answer.

After which, they would proceed to kill 100 people, including themselves, and display the 100 pairs of forearms.

If you express anger by saying, "How could you commit such monstrous acts!" it would be utterly meaningless to them.

A. Why are you suddenly angry?

Because to the responder, there\'s no difference between saying 1+1=2 and killing 100 people.

They would have slaughtered 100 people with the same ease as calculating a simple arithmetic problem.

They simply stated 1+1=2, so why you\'re angry or why you\'re making such a sad expression is something they can\'t comprehend at all.

It\'s hard to see them as human.

Communicating with them as a human being is impossible.

Thus, the kidnapping of humanity.

This is what I commonly refer to as being "bewitched" by an anomaly.

The tutorial fairy likely meant it in this exact sense.

"If everyone infected in reality were kidnapped... how many people would be here in the underworld?"

"Hoee. At least 2 million! And it\'s growing at an enormous rate even as we speak!"

I frowned.

"Wait. Wouldn\'t that surpass the population of the Korean Peninsula?"

"Exactly right! Not only are those infected by the virus in reality pulled in, but also people from their dreams, so we\'re easily going to exceed 10 million! It\'s a world population reversal!"

"Huh."

Ten million people, just like that.

I looked around at the vast emptiness that spread out from the center of Seoul Station.

If we define a place bewitched by an anomaly as a void, then this place was already vast enough to be called a great void.

A great void of this scale was truly rare.

For example, if an "apartment with 400 souls trapped" were sufficient as a single apartment anomaly, then to establish an "apartment with 40,000 souls trapped," additional concepts were necessary.

Something like "the desire for apartments among Koreans materialized," or "it was set against the backdrop of an actual apartment that drew that many applications." In fact, it was no longer an apartment anomaly but a large apartment complex anomaly.

These kinds of connections were needed for the great void to expand in size.

The largest void on Earth was centered on the western side of the Eurasian continent, where the "First World War" and "Second World War" served as connections to trap hundreds of millions of humans.

"What kind of method could drag in hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people? Could this place be defined as hell?"

"Hoee, not at all. It\'s quite the opposite..."

At that moment.

—Attention, everyone!

Someone suddenly shouted through a loudspeaker in the Seoul Station plaza.

It was a man who looked like he might have been doing street evangelism even before civilization collapsed. However, the words written on the front and back of his outerwear were slightly different.

[Goddess Heaven]

[Unbelief Hell]

His vest, patched with stickers, exuded an indescribable sense of realism.

—Attention, everyone! I\'m sorry to interrupt your busy lives! I had no choice but to grab the microphone to guide you to the correct way of living and true faith!

The middle-aged man shouted into the red megaphone.

—As you know, over there in hell, countless people! Unlike us, countless poor souls who have not yet been saved are groaning in endless cycles of life, endless cycles of repetition, and endless cycles of suffering! Everyone!

At this point, the realism surrounding the plaza\'s atmosphere suddenly reversed.

—...

—...

People walking through Seoul Station plaza all stopped and looked at the middle-aged man.

Those on the phone hung up. People looking at their smartphones turned them off. Those chatting with companions stopped talking.

The plaza became silent in an instant.

No one glared at the man with the megaphone in annoyance.

Most people looked at him with blank expressions, their eyes dark and heavy.

—Over there, in hell, countless souls still moan, unable to escape the eternal cycle of reincarnation! They are your acquaintances, your family members, and in a broader sense, they are also reflections of yourself! Let us pray for them! O Goddess!

—O Goddess!

The people who had been silent in the plaza suddenly shouted in unison.

The man with the megaphone waved his arms even more vigorously.

—O Goddess!

—O Goddess!

—Let us repent! As we repeat our lives and experience them over and over, hundreds, even thousands of times, let us repent the errors of our past selves! The errors of our acquaintances! The errors of our friends and families! We repent!

—We repent!

—Let us praise! Though we were covered in the sins that piled up over countless lives, and even if we forgot, the Goddess has continued to watch over us! Despite our filthy souls stained with sin, the Goddess has not given up on us! She has freed our souls from that hell and saved us! Let us praise her!

—We praise her!

—O Goddess!

—O Goddess!

The plaza was instantly filled with madness.

Fairy 264 squealed and hid behind me.

Even I hesitated momentarily, seeing the madness flicker in the people\'s eyes.

—Bow down, everyone! Worship!

The people in the plaza lay prostrate on the ground without hesitation. They didn’t care if their suits got dirty.

Among them was Kim Joocheol. He bowed his head on the ground with his wife.

—Face it! The self who lives in that eternal, repetitive hell, just like yesterday, just like the day before, just like a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago!

Then, something bizarre happened.

The asphalt-covered ground of the plaza suddenly turned "transparent" like glass.

Beneath the glass, scenes were displayed. Where Kim Joocheol bowed, there was an image of himself.

—Save me! Please get me out of here! I don\'t want to repeat another day!

But that wasn\'t all.

Everywhere the people bowed, images of themselves were being projected.

Upon closer inspection, there was also a familiar green head. It was Sim Aryeon.

Among them, the "scenery beyond the glass" that particularly caught my attention was the following:

—The National Road Management is an accomplice of hell that supports eternal repetition! They confine and isolate those of us trying to escape from the turn! They are the true devils!

—Devils! Devils! Devils!

In the video, a group of people was protesting in front of the National Road Management headquarters.

Yoo Jiwon and other management officers came out and mercilessly suppressed the protesters. The Babel Tower plaza was filled with screams.

It was truly a scene that could exist in reality.

I muttered.

“What are those images...?”

“Hoee. They are the real reality outside.”

The fairy peeked out from behind my shoulder.

“Comrade Secretary-General, look down.”

“Hmm?”

I looked.

To my surprise, there was also a "scene" playing beneath the transparent glass under my feet, just like everyone else.

The Doctor Jang on the other side of the glass was sleeping with his eyes closed. Surrounding him were Noh Doha and the Saintess, who sat beside him.

Noh Doha and the Saintess were conversing quietly, with me lying on the bed.

—Man, it\'s noisy outside...

—The protests are getting worse.

—Well, it’s not just regular people but also Awakened Ones who are all getting infected by that damned Regression Virus or whatever it is. I’ve heard that Three Thousand Worlds and Baekhwa are trying to suppress it, but honestly, it won’t last long…

—But I think things will get better once the Doctor Jang wakes up.

I was at a loss for words.

This wasn’t a scene that could exist in reality—it was reality itself.

“But for those who the Reverse World enchants, it’s the complete opposite.”

“…The opposite?”

“Yep! From their perspective, this is reality, and beyond the glass is the underworld—a hell!”

My eyes widened.

“What? How could they pull off such a trick…?”

“They’re pulling it off just fine! Or more precisely, the anomaly is trying its hardest to make it work!”

Fairy No. 264 explained.

The reason why they believe their ‘Reverse World’ is superior to my ‘Real World.’

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“For starters, there’s no war here, and civilization is intact! As I said, the population is almost catching up too!”

Civilization and environment.

“The other side is harsh to live in, an endless cycle of Regression in a hellish landscape! On the other hand, the Reverse World created by the anomaly remains stable, unaffected by Regression! It’s practically like reality!”

The flow of time.

“So, Comrade Secretary, this anomaly is defining your world as ‘hell.’ It’s a duel—a challenge to prove which one is reality and which one is hell!”

“……”

Indeed. I finally understood.

There wasn’t a fundamental difference from other anomalies.

Normally, anomalies create hell within reality. This one simply declared all of reality as hell.

And then――using the fairy’s term, it built a separate ‘Reverse World’ to secure its own domain.

This place is the living world, and that place is the underworld.

The anomaly was deceiving people like that.

Reversal. Inversion. A shift in perspective.

“…A clever one, indeed. So, where exactly is this place? A dream? The unconscious world?”

“Not quite. While you did reach this place through a dream, it was just a similar experience!”

“A similar experience? …I see.”

I quickly deduced the answer.

“I get it. There’s an old myth that sometimes when people dream, they experience the underworld. It’s not that the underworld is inside the dream, but rather that dreams can occasionally connect you to the underworld for a brief moment. This place must possess the attributes of the underworld.”

“As expected of Comrade Secretary! That’s correct! Although the anomaly defines this place as the living world and that place as the underworld…”

It’s a complex and elaborate trap, no doubt.

However, I could now see a glimmer of a way to overcome it.

All that’s required is to prove which is reality and which is fantasy. I just need to reveal that the world I live in is the true reality.

“Everyone! Rejoice! Your heartfelt repentance has reached the goddess!”

A middle-aged man shouted.

“From now on, you no longer need to look down upon hell! Lift your heads! Raise your eyes! Look up to the sky and behold!”

The people who were prostrating in the square raised their upper bodies. Instinctively, I followed their gaze.

To the sky.

“The holy visage of the goddess!”

And I saw it.

――There was no sun in the sky.

Why didn’t I notice it sooner?

If I had to give a reason, it was because modern people aren’t in the habit of looking directly at the sun.

Additionally, given the angle of the sunlight, it seemed as if the sun was high in the sky, making it difficult to look up at it unless you tilted your head almost 90 degrees.

In short:

If sunlight is shining down from the sky, it’s only natural to assume the sun is there. That assumption held even for me, a regressor.

“……”

What occupied the place of the sun in the sky?

It was a gigantic eye.

Blink.

When the eye blinked slowly, very slowly, the world was momentarily cast in shadow.

Before I looked up, I thought the shadows were caused by clouds passing by, but I was mistaken.

Blink.

Light wasn’t pouring down from the sun; it was pouring down from the eye.

The massive black pupil at the center of the eye was constantly moving, darting this way and that.

It saw me.

“Watch out…!”

The moment the sun-eye, or the eye-sun, locked onto me, everyone in the square turned to stare at me as well.

-……

-……

The residents of this world, who hadn’t noticed me until now, were staring daggers at me.

The light that had been evenly shining on the world suddenly focused intensely on me.

The temperature around me skyrocketed in an instant, and my skin began to melt like candle wax.

“Emergency exit!”

The fairy frantically waved her magic wand.

In my vision, half of Fairy No. 264’s body exploded. But the fairy held onto her wand until the very end.

The next moment.

I was ejected from the dream.

10

“…Hey.”

What greeted me as I returned to reality was the face of a man who would undoubtedly win first place in a contest for “the face you least want to see first thing in the morning.”

“Hey, Doctor Jang. You alive? You didn’t croak, did you…?”

Otherwise known as Noh Doha.

Struggling to open my heavy eyelids, I first saw Noh Doha’s dark circles.

Noh Doha never cared much about fashion, but today he looked even stranger.

He was covered head to toe in what appeared to be chunks of flesh, which felt more like jelly than human tissue.

Upon closer inspection, the Saintess standing behind Noh Doha was also drenched in some sort of solid-liquid hybrid substance.

What in the world is this new fashion statement?—I was about to mock him when Noh Doha beat me to it.

“The fairy that sang you a lullaby and joined you on your dream journey just exploded. Half of its body blew up all of a sudden…”

“Oh.”

He wasn’t kidding.

I turned my head to the side, still lying in bed. Fairy No. 264 was still holding my hand tightly, but the other half of her body was gone.

“…Call Aryeon. These fairies are tough, so if we treat her quickly, she’ll survive.”

The Saintess nodded behind Noh Doha. She must have sent a message via [Telepathy] immediately.

As I adjusted my clothes, I asked:

“Chief Noh Doha. Are there protesters outside right now?”

“Hmm? Yes, there are. Team Leader Yoo quickly suppressed them, though… Curious, isn’t it? That you could hear the noise even while dreaming.”

I stroked my chin, lost in thought.

Seeing this, Noh Doha crookedly asked me a question of his own.

“Thanks to that fairy, we’ll have to redecorate this entire place. What on earth happened in the dream to cause this mess…?”

“Nyx, the Goddess of Night.”

I paused for a moment before answering.

“A forgotten god.”

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