I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell
chapter-232

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The One Who Ignites I

As I mentioned briefly before, SG Net was the only internet community in the country. It wasn’t the only one in the world, though.

Was it because there were other Ubiquitous ability users like Seo Gyu on other continents? Not really. It was just that the world Seo Gyu had built wasn’t exactly vast.

“Hmm. No matter what I try, the internet speed doesn’t improve in remote areas, hyung...”

“Yeah, I know.”

Although Ubiquitous originally meant ‘existing everywhere at once,’ the truth was that Seo Gyu wasn’t that omnipotent. His coverage extended across the length of the Korean peninsula.

That’s it. Wi-Fi worked perfectly within that range.

You could get decent internet speeds in Shandong Peninsula in China and Kyushu in Japan, but beyond that, it slowed down drastically.

Sure, you could technically connect from the other side of the planet. Theoretically. But if you wanted to load a single post from the Uyuni Salt Flats, you’d be staring at a loading screen for over a year.

Though I had lost my memory, I, the Undertaker, was still a Korean at heart. And no one took internet speed more seriously than Koreans.

Over the course of countless regressions, I had repeatedly modified Seo Gyu’s abilities, trying to install a 5G network across the globe.

The result?

“I’m sorry, hyung. The Saintess can extend her Aura range just by training, but no matter what I do, I’m stuck in place...”

All of it failed. A complete disaster.

From the start, Seo Gyu’s growth was on a different track than the Saintess’s.

“No need to apologize. Instead of expanding internet range, you’ve been improving the community’s system capabilities.”

“Hmm. Still, it’s frustrating...”

Yeah. To use an analogy, as Seo Gyu leveled up, he unlocked features like Improved UI Design, Image Uploads, Video Uploads, and Opening Chat Rooms.

He wasn’t about quantity. He was all about quality.

I patted Seo Gyu on the shoulder. “Wisdom is finding balance between ambition and contentment. You and the Saintess may be on different paths, but both of you have incredible abilities. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Well... Alright.”

“Now, stop digging and come do some leg training with me.”

“Ah, sounds good! I’ll drag Ah-ryeon along with us!”

That day, Ah-ryeon lost 10 mL of tears in exchange for 1 gram of muscle.

This guild leader doesn’t tolerate those modern Awakeners who rely solely on Aura without developing their physical abilities.

To sum up, it was difficult to spread the grace of Ubiquitous to all of humanity, and as such, no foreign members ever appeared whenever SG Net. It was the reason I never mentioned them.

We had made a stopgap page to fill the gap.

[※Emergency Global Rescue Request※]

[Notice: You are seeing this page because you are accessing SG Net from outside the Korean peninsula.]

Report your situation.

When creating a post, avoid attaching images or videos. The smaller the file size, the better.

Do not turn off your phone until the loading screen disappears. If your device loses power during loading, your post will not be uploaded.

If you need to request help, be as specific as possible about the location and time.

We may not be able to respond to rescue requests from the Pacific Island Nations, Small Island Developing States, Oceania, North America, South America, or the British Isles. We apologize in advance.

Even if it seems too late, please describe your situation. It could serve as data for future generations.

This was the global emergency rescue page. In short, a 119 service for the planet.[1]

It was translated into every language I knew—English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and more.

Awakeners casually enjoying SG Net from within Korea couldn’t access this page. In fact, only a handful of people even knew it existed.

Maybe that’s why the posts were so sparse.

- Mongolia: If a person is smaller than a car wheel, they all die. (Posted 1 year ago)

- Italy: The plague is severe. (Posted 2 years ago)

- France: Shadows come whenever the church bells ring. They kill people. Their clothes look strange. (Posted 4 years ago)

- England: There’s been unending smoke in the sky for 5 years. The entire sky is black. Is it clear anywhere else? Atlantis has risen in the Atlantic Ocean. (Posted 4 years ago)

- Nepal: Too much snow is falling. (Posted 5 years ago)

- Palau: Kyaaa! I survived! My house is the only one left! (Posted 5 years ago)

New posts on the emergency page were extremely rare. Sometimes, it went silent for over a year.

There wasn’t much anyone could do. To access SG Net, you had to be an Awakener. On top of that, you had to somehow hear rumors about this mysterious website. You had to endure endless loading screens and also own a smartphone, but smartphones and other electronic devices were considered dangerous, tainted by Anomalies—practically ticking time bombs.

‘No wonder people can’t access it.’

Survivor groups around the world tended to react violently whenever they saw electronics, resembling modern-day Luddite movements.

Even if they learned about SG Net, they were likely to dismiss it with, “Isn’t that just a cursed site?”

It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

‘What a shame. If only the prophets didn’t blow up as soon as I regressed. They could have been natural allies for matters like this...’

Well, what could I do? Even in a ruined game, where my teammates bailed at the start, I had to carry the team.

Then one day, during my 669th cycle, something happened.

- Russia: I know a method for long-distance communication. (Posted 1 year ago) (NEW!)

A post unlike anything I’d ever seen before appeared on the emergency page.

A regressor needs patience. Even if it feels like the world isn’t changing and everything is repeating, a subtle wind of change will eventually blow.

That is, as long as you don’t give up.

- Russia: I know a method for long-distance communication. (Posted 1 year ago) (NEW!)

This post was one such wind of change.

It came after I had successfully sealed away the Ice Age Anomaly completely. It led to the following conclusion:

‘In previous cycles, this person must have died during the Ice Age. But this time, they survived and were able to access SG Net.’

This was why a regressor had to meddle everywhere, spreading their influence like a professional busybody. If I hadn’t meddled to save SG Man during the tutorial, SG Net wouldn’t exist. If I hadn’t interfered to track down the troll villain on the forums, the Saintess of the North wouldn’t exist either.

That’s the life of a regressor. Even if 99% of your meddling leads to nothing, the remaining 1% will someday bring an abundant harvest.

And the new post on the emergency page was more than enough to ignite my professional meddling spirit.

Russia: I know a method for long-distance communication. (Posted 1 year ago)

A Chinese friend told me about this site. However, since it may be run by monsters, I will not disclose the specifics of the ‘long-distance communication method.’

If you truly offer ‘emergency rescue,’ come to Naryan-Mar (Нарьян-Ма́р).

When you see the city from afar, look for the most noticeable pillar.

If you cannot come, please remember that there were people living here.

From,

The Frozen City

As soon as I read it, my regressor instincts whispered.

‘This is probably real.’

There was no unnecessary self-explanation, no exaggeration—just the message they needed to convey. The tone was that of a typical survivor who had given up on hope but wasn’t too lazy to cast out a line just in case.

I immediately contacted the administrator.

“Seo Gyu, can you trace where this post was uploaded from? Is it really from Russia?”

“Oh, yes. Just a moment... Oh, it’s legit! Posted from way up north. Took 11 months to upload just one post, hyung.”

Eleven months.

In that time, the author could have easily perished, swallowed up by the Void. But I didn’t hesitate to pack my gear. Even if the author had died in those 11 months, I could always act faster in the next cycle.

“I’m heading to Russia for a bit.”

“...You’re the only person in the world who talks about casually ‘heading to Russia’ like that, hyung...”

And so, I set off for the north.

The name Naryan-Mar meant ‘Red City.’ As you might guess from the name, it was a planned city built during the Soviet era, initially as a coal mining settlement. Later, oil was discovered in the region, and it became quite the wealthy region.

Incidentally, Naryan-Mar was the 44th stop on the torch relay for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Even back then, I suspected that the curse of the number four had already taken root.

“Oh.”

After traversing the Void and approaching the far north, I immediately understood what the Russian survivor’s post meant.

- When you see the city from afar, look for the most noticeable pillar.

In the middle of the vast, snow-covered plain, where the horizon and sky blended into an endless white expanse, a dark column of smoke rose.

It was the “most noticeable pillar” mentioned in the post.

There were no signs of human life anywhere, but that column of smoke demanded attention, the only mark of civilization in the wasteland.

‘I can see it from so far away. Could the author still be alive after 11 months?’

I picked up the pace.

Surprisingly, it would take another 1,000 kilometers to reach the source of the smoke in the ‘Red City.’ For the smoke to be visible from this far away, it was likely that the column itself was part of the author’s ability.

As I approached the smoke, I saw a middle-aged man feeding reindeer nearby.

“Hmm?”

Sensing my presence, the man turned around. Surprise flickered across his snow-covered eyebrows.

The man quickly put down his feed bucket and pulled out a crossbow. He didn’t point it at me, though—just held it.

“Who’s there? Are you human?”

“I’m human,” I answered in Russian.

The man didn’t lower his guard. The reindeer continued to shuffle through the snow around us.

“Only things that aren’t human claim they are. There’s no one alive in the direction you came from.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. The Earth is round, after all. Unless, of course, you believe in the Flat Earth theory.”

“Flat Earth... What?”

“You posted on SG Net, didn’t you?”

The man’s hand, holding the crossbow, froze. “SG Net? You mean the internet site?”

“Yes. Your post began uploading a year ago and finished four days ago. I saw it and came here from the Korean peninsula.”

“Dear God... That site was real?” the man muttered in disbelief. “Wait a minute... You’re saying the post went up four days ago, and you came all the way from Korea in just four days?”

“That’s right.”

“No way. Do you expect me to believe that? It makes more sense to think that SG Net is cursed by monsters and that you’re one of their agents.”

“Hmm.”

I turned my back to him, showing him that I had no hostile intentions. Then, I drew my sword Do-hwa and slashed at the endless white landscape.

Rumble, rumble, rumble...!

The snowy ground split open. The long-buried earth beneath, hidden from the sun for years, was suddenly exposed to the light.

A clean, precise cut. A ten-centimeter-wide canyon stretched all the way to the horizon.

I sheathed Do-hwa, resting upon it like a staff, and turned back to face him.

The man had dropped his crossbow. Even the reindeer had scattered in panic.

“As you can see, I’m the strongest human alive.”

“......”

“I haven’t slept for four days to get here, so I’m a bit tired. May I come in?”

The man’s lips twitched, then he looked down at the crossbow half-buried in the snow. He picked it up and slung it over his back.

“...It seems I have an honored guest. Follow me.”

Once again, Aura solved everything.

If a problem still exists, maybe you’re just not using enough Aura.

Footnotes:

[1] The number to dial for emergency services in South Korea, like 911 in the US.