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Chapter 221
Chapter 221
Chapter 221
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The Slanderer III
Rejuvenation.
A phenomenon where an old master, upon reaching the peak of enlightenment, reverts back to their childhood or prime years.
It's also a state that every StarCraft gamer desperately dreams of when their Mutalisk control slips, resulting in a massacre at the hands of filthy marines.
From Gilgamesh, the Demon King of the West, to Qin Shi Huang, the Overlord of the Central Plains, very few did not yearn for this state.
Thus, the first individual to achieve this milestone on the Earth server was none other than...
"Hm? Why have you summoned me?"The Marquess of the Yudolguk Duchy, the Sword Marquess.
You may recall, in a previous cycle where I used the Monkey's Paw, this old man succeeded in evolving into Rebirth-mon.
A true monster of possibilities.
Of course, I no longer rely on the Monkey's Paw.
However, having learned that the Sword Marquess had an upgrade available, why wouldn’t I use this knowledge?
“Marquess, please listen closely. The boundary between night and day is merely a temporary distinction made by humans, nothing more than a fleeting glimmer in the ceaseless flow of time...”
And so on.
This passage came from the 590th run, when the Sword Marquess experienced rebirth. It was, in essence, his guide to enlightenment.
Unsurprisingly, as I recited the exact steps without a single mistake, the Sword Marquess's expression grew increasingly mystified.
"Now, Marquess-mon! Evolve!"
“What are you babbling about, Undertaker?”
It didn’t work.
Was it not enough?
Even the 360 captives observing us from the sidelines began to stir.
“Boo! Boo!”
“You kidnap people and use force to threaten them, now what kind of nonsense are you spouting?!”
“The world probably doesn’t know this about the Undertaker, but I had a hunch from the start!”
But I didn’t give up.
In Korean education, pre-study and repetition are key. I still had a long way to go with the regressor's lessons.
I glanced at Ji-won, and with a single look, I silenced the noisy crowd. Then, I immediately drew my sword.
“Sir, watch closely.”
“Hm?”
I began the Sword Dance.
This wasn't a dance I invented. Long ago, during a flower-viewing trip to Mount Hua, the Sword Marquess had performed this very dance at the peak. I was now faithfully recreating it.
The Sword Marquess was visibly taken aback.
“Th-that’s...?”
“Do you feel it?”
“I feel it! I can feel it! Oh! How is the essence of Mount Hua embedded in the tip of your blade?!”
“Now that you feel it, listen once more. The boundary between night and day is merely...”
I recited the Sword Marquess's enlightenment aloud while simultaneously demonstrating it with my body. You wouldn’t find a professor like this anywhere else.
In other words, from a third-party perspective, I must have looked like a lunatic swinging a sword and muttering incomprehensible gibberish. Even the captives were now staring at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Ooooh...”
When the Sword Dance ended, the Sword Marquess clapped his hands, his beard quivering.
“Truly, a marvelous Sword Dance! It was like the plum blossoms blooming on Mount Hua, like the mist enveloping those blossoms, and like a lone ship cutting through that mist! How curious! Should I call this ship Sambo-taegam’s treasure boat or perhaps Admiral Yi’s Turtle Ship?”
“So, do you feel like you're about to rejuvenate?”
“Eh? Rejuvenate? That, I’m not so sure about...”
Still not enough.
Even more boos erupted from the captives in the audience, but I paid them no mind.
I snapped my fingers.
At my signal, Yu Ji-won, who had been on standby, began unloading dozens of televisions from the truck.
A total of 130 CRT TVs.
The TVs surrounded the Sword Marquess like a miniature Stonehenge.
“Ji-won, turn them on.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
Chiiiick!
Despite not being plugged in, the TVs flickered on, filled with static. As expected—they were all cursed televisions. Each screen replayed degraded footage of my Sword Dance, which I had recorded beforehand.
The boundary between night and day, ehehehe!
Merely a temporary, hehe, distinction!
The cycle of the endless ring... the principle...
Kukekekekekeck.
By the way, the dance being shown wasn’t actually me—it was ghosts mimicking my movements.
Getting those spirits out of the well to reenact my dance had been quite the hassle. If you looked closely, you could probably sense the sorrow and resentment on their faces, brought on by their forced eviction.
“Wh-what’s happening...?”
Sensing that something was amiss, even the Sword Marquess, who was notoriously eccentric, began to grow wary. The captives, who had been jeering from the sidelines, slowly quieted down.
“What in the world are you doing, Undertaker?”
“Do not question it. Feel it. Embrace the sensation and flow as it is, Marquess.”
“Embrace it?” The Sword Marquess looked around, bewildered. “What am I supposed to embrace in a scene where ghosts are twisting their joints backward and muttering curses?!”
“Here, use this.”
I handed him a pair of earphones. Connected to an MP3 player, of course, with a cursed audio file stored within.
As soon as the Sword Marquess put the earphones on, the Heart Sutra began playing in a robotic, monotone voice.
The boundary between night and day is but a fleeting human distinction, flowing through the endless stream of time.
“......”
“Oh, and don’t turn up the volume too much. Just think of it as listening to MC Square. You know MC Square, right?”
“Hm... Um...”
“So, how about it? Do you feel like you’re about to rejuvenate?”
“I can’t even comprehend half the words you’re saying, Undertaker...”
Still not enough.
The 360 captives muttered discontentedly, their faces beginning to droop.
“I knew it. I knew this would happen.”
“I knew from the moment he started with this rejuvenation nonsense...”
“You think bringing out cursed TVs to scare us will work? I’ve known this would happen all along...”
Even though their voices had lost some strength, the captives still clung to their refrain of “I knew this would happen.”
But I wasn’t discouraged at all.
“Ji-won.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Bring Ha-yul and Dok-seo.”
“At once.”
With Ji-won’s help, the two little sisters, Lee Ha-yul and Oh Dok-seo, were promptly brought in.
Ha-yul’s face was gaunt. She had been diligently practicing the choreography, more earnestly than a K-pop idol trainee.
“Ha-yul, have you mastered it?”
[Oppa, please die.]
“Well done. That’s the spirit.”
[......]
"Now, show this old man your dance skills as we discussed."
Ha-yul spun threads from her fingertips, attaching them to the joints of the Sword Marquess. These threads, sticky and elastic like spider silk, quickly connected to his limbs.
"Wh-what's going on? What is this?"
The Sword Marquess was flustered, but he couldn’t stop Ha-yul. Though she might appear fragile, there were very few Awakeners who could defeat her in a one-on-one fight.
“Ji-won, cue the music.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Dok-seo, go.”
“Okay.”
Dok-seo coolly flipped her hat backward. It was a fashion that only women over 190 cm with a certain level of physique could pull off, and the gleam of her gold necklace sparkled brightly against her shirt.
“Yeah, Alliance of the Regressors. Yo yo, here we go, fucking psychopaths. Freestyle, real quick. Esketit.”
As Ji-won provided a smooth beat, alternating between on-beat and syncopated rhythms, Dok-seo grasped the mic.
“The boundary between night and day, yo! It’s just a human’s fleeting division! Yo, tick, crackle, tick, yo, in the ceaseless flow of time, it flashes briefly, yo...”
Her rap was laced with static and distortion, a side effect of the cursed microphone. Electronic devices, after all, were not exempt from being haunted by ghosts. Yet, Dok-seo, the purist of this era’s rap scene, turned the wails of the specters into part of her performance.
Meanwhile, Ha-yul manipulated the puppet strings, forcing the Sword Marquess to move as she pleased.
"Guh... Guhhh?! My joints—?"
To be clear, Ha-yul had perfectly mastered the Sword Dance I had demonstrated earlier. So now, by controlling the Sword Marquess like a puppet, she could make him perform the Dance of Enlightenment against his will.
This was the ultimate strategy of a regressor: If you can't reach enlightenment on your own, then just force-feed it to them at 300% concentration!
"Hrrgh! Aaagh! My knees! My shoulders! My back feels like it’s going to snap!”
I called in Ah-ryeon. She crouched next to the Sword Marquess and healed his joints whenever they creaked under the strain.
“Ugh! Aaack!”
“If you scream... it’ll hurt more.”
Even when his spine cracked once, there was no problem at all. Ah-ryeon smiled innocently as she healed him, her expression almost childlike.
That’s right.
How much abuse had we suffered at the hands of this Sword Marquess in the past, all because he was the only one capable of alleviating the famine? My comrades, bearing deep grudges, happily cooperated in this operation.
(The only exception was the Saintess, who vetoed the use of Telepathy, forcing us to use the MP3 player instead.)
“Hrrrrgh!”
I watched the Sword Marquess’s agonized cries fade into the background and turned to face the 360 captives. They had gone pale, observing our actions in stunned silence.
In summary:
I knew this would happen...
Kugegegegek.
As cursed TVs displayed phantasmal figures reciting the Sutra of Enlightenment, dancing to my recorded Sword Dance, and ghosts flailed to the rhythm, the spectacle unfolded like an exorcism ritual gone wrong.
Meanwhile, Dok-seo was spitting her cursed rhymes.
“Yo, the duality of day and night! The day is still the day, the night’s still the night, tick crack, they shine with their own beauty, yooo!”
The captives looked as if they were teetering on the edge of insanity. Ha-yul was continuing to manipulate the Sword Marquess, forcing him to dance.
The old man’s joints creaked under the strain, and whenever they did, Ah-ryeon would gleefully heal him.
“Argh! Aaaaaagh!”
The dance was filled with the deepest mysteries of Mount Hua’s Sect Leader's Sword Dance, and the dancer was none other than the Marquess of the Sirland Duchy.
Even the tiniest sliver of conscience would struggle to accept the absurdity of such a scenario.
- ......
- ......
For the grand finale:
After performing the Sword Dance for over 30 minutes, the Sword Marquess, drenched in sweat, suddenly widened his eyes.
“H-huh? This technique... I... I think I remember it... but also don’t...”
At that moment, a faint scent of plum blossoms began to waft from the Sword Marquess's body.
I clenched my fist triumphantly.
“It’s here!”
Though, it was slightly different from the 590th run’s pure plum blossom scent. Back then, it was 100% natural, a true plum blossom fragrance, whereas now, it felt like an artificially synthesized one, the kind that might harm your lungs after long exposure.
The energy he exuded now, once entirely righteous, had somehow developed a slightly Demonic Cult-like aura.
Still, it was only one step away from perfection.
The Sword Marquess, teetering on the edge of enlightenment, continued to dance (courtesy of Ha-yul’s control).
I quickly pulled out my smartphone. “Sword Marquess.”
“Hrrgh, wh-what is it...?”
“Take a look at this.” I held up my smartphone screen, which was logged into SG Net and displaying a particular post.
Anonymous: [SYSTEM] Click this post to transport to《Another World》. (Views: 2)
It was the infamous Hero Syndrome!
And not just any Hero Syndrome post. It was a rare find, uncovered by the National Road Management Corps using death row prisoners, tagged with #MartialArts #MountHua #Regression.
The death row inmate who clicked on the post claimed to have been reincarnated as the second son of the Namgung Family, ascended to the rank of Sword God, and participated in the War of Orthodox Faction and the Demonic Cult. Though he lost his memories just 30 seconds after clicking, muttering “Why are my eyes tearing up?”, the experience was genuine.
This was the final piece of the puzzle, carefully handpicked for this moment by yours truly, the Undertaker.
“Take hold, Sword Marquess.”
“Hrrgh...?”
“Grasp the final piece that leads to your enlightenment!”
At that, Ha-yul manipulated the strings, guiding the Sword Marquess's hand to the screen.
Click.
The post opened, and—
―There was light.
Blossoms of plum trees burst forth around the fake Greek temple.
A scent unknown to modern humans—the scent of true plum blossoms, or something akin to the combined fragrance of roses and cherries—filled the air.
The light receded.
The wrinkled old man was gone.
In his place stood a gray-haired boy, his head bowed in silence.
“Hmm.”
I nodded with satisfaction.
Success!
Rejuvenation!
I turned to the 360 captives who had witnessed this entire event unfold. Then I asked softly, "Well? Is this your first time seeing rejuvenation?"
- ......
“Even now, do you still think you knew this would happen?”
- ......
The 360 captives trembled violently.
- I... I...
- I didn’t see this coming, you crazy bastard!
- Who the hell could predict something like this?!
“Aaaaaargh!”
- We know nothing! We cannot know anything! We are doomed to ignorance, bound by fate to never comprehend! Life is suffering, and we are nothing but cast-offs thrown into the world... I didn’t know!
- I can’t slander this... I can’t slander this!
- Hikyaaaaaaaah!
Shudder!
The 360 captives convulsed in unison, collapsing onto their sides. Faint souls, like exorcised spirits, fled from their bodies and vanished into the distant forest.
The Forest Friends had returned home.
[Mr. Undertaker.]
[Across the Korean Peninsula, ghostly apparitions have been seen fleeing from people's bodies and vanishing into thin air.]
I glanced back at my comrades who had participated in the operation and gave them a thumbs-up.
Among them, Ah-ryeon smiled the brightest and exclaimed, “You’re amazing, guild leader! The best!”
The expert on slanderous spirits, otherwise known as the Witch Hunt or Internet Specters, had been defeated.
Mission Complete!
There is a small epilogue.
“Congratulations on your great success, Sword Marquess.”
“Hm.”
“How do you feel now?”
“I feel good. My mind is clear, and the world seems different. At first, I couldn’t understand what in the world you were doing, Undertaker. But now, I see that all these hardships were for my sake. But now... Just now...”
“Now?”
“Now I just want to beat you up, Undertaker.”
“Oh.”
I knew this would happen.
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