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

Discord: https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

◈ I’m an Infinite Regressor, But I’ve Got Stories to Tell

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The Distributor I

Before civilization collapsed, back when the name "Republic of Korea" felt much more natural than the term "Korean Peninsula," people would make remarks like this:

“Hey, no matter what, Korea is still a pretty livable country, right? Go to Africa and you'll realize how good Korea is.”

There were several valid reasons for this.

The level of public safety that allowed people to walk the streets at night without worry, infrastructure reliable enough that power outages weren't a concern, convenience stores so close that you could go out in slippers even in the middle of winter (though not in every city), and so on...

And among these, there was one undeniably overwhelming advantage.

“Please leave the new package outside. We will pick it up soon.”

It was the delivery and logistics service.

At some point, Koreans began to believe that if you ordered something before midnight, your goods should obviously arrive by the next morning, right? This belief even included the expectation of balking at 3,000 won fees for delivery. Because really, who did they think could afford such exorbitant fees?

As a result, delivery in this land was miraculously "fast" and "free." It was like alchemy in its own right.

Unfortunately, after the apocalypse arrived, this large-scale magic circle collapsed. However, since public safety, infrastructure, and convenience stores all went down together, its end wasn't too lonely.

"Hyung."

Or at least, that's what I thought.

"Huh? What is it?"

"You know those ads that pop up at exactly 4:44:44 in the morning? The ones from those ridiculous curse sites," Seo Gyu said.

The curse site ads referred to a series of posts that would pop up out of the blue on SG Net. As Seo Gyu mentioned, they were usually uploaded at 4:44:44 AM.

If you visited SG Net at that time, you'd see something like this:

- Anonymous: ♠♠Amazing Shopping Mall♠♠ Sign up now for 1-on-1 consultation with the owner $$ 100% refund guaranteed @@@

- Drowning: ☆Global☆Royal☆Renaissance☆ Bitcoin▶▶Stock Info 1-time reading experience☜☜ Free

LeydteuqhTog7IKs656MIOyLnOyytCDtjJTslYTsmpQg7L2UIOyeiOyWtOyalCDri6TsnYzrgqAg7JWE7LmoIDfsi5zquYzsp4Ag67Cw7IahIOqwgOuKpQ==

- Anonymous: Promotion: I tried this free online lecture, and it was really helpful lol

These sorts of posts would maddeningly flood the board, appearing all at once in less than a second, totaling about 200 posts in all.

Needless to say, it was best practice to never click on them carelessly. They weren't posted by humans, and if a non-expert tried it at home and accessed them, they could easily fall under a curse without even realizing it.

"Hey,” I called, getting Seo Gyu’s attention again. “Why are you bringing this up?"

"The Saintess has been sensing something strange lately."

Our response to these mindless ad bombardments was very simple: we just temporarily blocked SG Net and left everything to the Saintess. Even if the posts ambushed the site in less than a second, the Saintess had the Time Stop ability. It took her even less time to stop time and delete the posts with her admin privileges.

We could have assigned Seo Gyu to handle it, but...

Sorry, I just can't trust him when it comes to anything related to mental manipulation. I haven't forgotten how he sold out the guild to Go Yuri in the past.

"Something strange?" I repeated.

"Yeah. There’ve been these comments that keep showing up on the ad posts, and for this past month, one of them keeps coming up and won’t disappear."

"Hmm."

"Here, look." He reached over and handed me a note he’d handwritten, and on it, was the comment transcribed in his scrawling penmanship.

- Toad House: Used discount: For sale. Delivery next morning. http://...

While the note ended in an unfamiliar website address, nothing about it or the rest of the comment was particularly suspicious.

I tilted my head. "Why is this a problem?"

"Well. I'm not entirely sure myself. You should hear the rest directly from the Saintess..."

Right.

I excused myself and headed to the Inunaki Tunnel. As soon as I did, a telepathic message came through, as if someone had been eavesdropping on our conversation.

[Several things about the comment from the user Toad House stand out as suspicious.]

I didn't find the sudden conversation strange and continued walking, slipping easily in the rhythm of our talk as I asked, "Suspicious things like what?"

[First, it's too ordinary to be a comment from an Anomaly. Most of the ad posts that appear at 4 AM are either written by AI with that disconnected, meandering sort of writing style, or they actively try to lure people in. But this comment doesn't even specify what's being sold.]

True. "Couldn’t they be trying to make people curious?"

[Yes. However, the comment was posted too consistently and has never once changed,] the Saintess said evenly. [Ad posts that don't get any views on SG Net usually struggle to be more provocative and eye-catching. Despite that, the comment from Toad House remained unchanged. Even though it was first observed six months ago.]

"Hmm."

[In other words, an Anomaly that can maintain itself without devouring or enchanting humans. It may be on the more dangerous side than most.]

As I walked along, the exit to the Inunaki Tunnel soon came into view. On the stone wall blocking the end of the tunnel, graffiti was scrawled in Japanese.

The paint is too rough.

Supply human blood or replace the paint.

I bit my fingertip and wrote “OK” in blood, and the graffiti in Inunaki slowly faded away on its own.

https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

Jumping over the stone wall put me at the tunnel entrance where the Saintess was waiting, leaning against the wall. She was wearing her usual, well-worn hoodie, with the hood pulled down low.

"Good morning, Saintess."

"Yes, good morning, Mr. Undertaker." She brushed the edges of her bangs away with the tip of her finger. "The day before yesterday, I found the Toad House ad suspicious, so I asked Yu Ji-won to check it out. I told her to go to the website address in the comment."

"Ah, I see."

Yu Ji-won had faced Go Yuri and remained completely sane. When it came to Anomalies related to mental manipulation, she was almost invincible in terms of immunity. In situations like this, where the level of danger was unclear, she was my most reliable ally.

"I heard Ji-won took a day off yesterday, so I wondered what was going on,” I added. “Turns out she stayed up until 4 AM, so she wasn’t in any state to be working."

"Yes. According to her testimony, when she clicked the link in the comment, she was taken to a website."

The Saintess pulled out a notepad from her hoodie pocket.

"This is the website screen I recreated based on her description. I tried to recreate it as closely as possible."

I glanced it over. The Saintess's drawing skills, while not on the level of OldManGoryeo’s, were still nothing to scoff at.

"This design..."

Thanks to that, I could easily recognize it.

"Isn't this an online shopping mall?" I asked.

It was a website logo that poorly imitated the platform known for its crack-of-dawn delivery service, something most Koreans would have encountered. At the top of the screen was a title.

Toad House: Specialized in Used Goods

Give us something new, and we'll give you something old.

I furrowed my brow.

"The username comes from a children's nursery rhyme. But the phrase written here is the opposite of the lyrics."

"Yes. That's right."

This was also a game that any Korean would know, a song sung while playing in the dirt at playgrounds.

- Toad, Toad.

- Give me a new house, and I'll give you an old one.[1]

The key was to create a mound of dirt on the back of your hand and then see how skillfully you could pull your hand out. Sometimes, the great masters in their craft could pull their hands out even after tunneling through the mound. The geographical environment also played a key role, as success depended on how much moisture was in the soil.

One might call it the first exposure to civil engineering for children on the Korean Peninsula.

"So, hmm...” I hummed in thought. “Let me guess. Is this an Anomaly where you buy some used product, place an order, and it gets delivered?"

"Both Yu Ji-won and I thought the same."

The Saintess took the notepad back and burned it with a lighter, a mark of her true professionalism. Even though we had several layers of security measures in place for safety, when dealing with items related to Anomalies, we always had to be extra cautious.

"Early this morning, I contacted Team Leader Noh Do-hwa and conducted an experiment with an Awakened death row inmate,” she said. “I lent her a smartphone and ordered her to access Toad House."

"Hmm."

"I told her to pick any item and place an order, but... in the end, all that appeared was a message saying that payment had failed and nothing happened."

"So that's why you came to me."

"Yes."

This was the advantage of having capable colleagues like the Saintess, Yu Ji-won, Noh Do-hwa, Seo Gyu, and others. Instead of having to give them step-by-step instructions, they handled tasks within their areas of expertise on their own. Only when they couldn't resolve something would they report it to me.

"I understand the situation. Were there any signs of mental contamination in the death row inmate?" I asked.

"I tested 16 other death row inmates, but none of them complained of headaches or hallucinations."

"Hmm. Then it's safe to assume it's harmless for now. Moreover, even after going through the trouble of placing an order, instead of luring people in, it rejected the payment..."

There was something more.

My intuition as an old regressor was whispering warnings to me.

The Saintess noticed and said, "I think there might be a special condition required to trade products on the Toad House shopping mall. Do you have any ideas, Mr. Undertaker?"

"Wait a moment."

I pulled up a mental image of the comment Seo Gyu showed me and accessed Toad House directly on my smartphone.

Whoosh.

Numerous products were on display. Although the website's text was occasionally broken, the product names and photos were easy to recognize.

[Park Sang-hyun's Left Hand]

[Origin: Pocheon]

The product image showed a severed human hand. The fingers looked awkward, as if drawn by AI.

'Park Sang-hyun from Pocheon... Is that the Park Sang-hyun I know? He died not long ago in this cycle.'

We weren't particularly close, but I had briefly met him while exterminating the National Tax Service Comprehensive Income Tax Anomaly.

I hesitated, lost in thought, then said, "Anomalies always have rules... In this case, the name Toad House itself is probably the clue."

First, I tried singing.

I sang the short nursery rhyme, "Toad, Toad. Give me a new house, and I'll give you an old one," and then pressed the payment button.

My smartphone vibrated.

[Payment failed.]

That method didn't work.

I paused to think, then crouched down and started gathering dirt.

"Mr. Undertaker?"

"If singing alone isn't enough, I have no choice but to try playing in the dirt."

I made a mound of dirt large enough to cover my entire left hand and sang the nursery rhyme.

"Toad, Toad. Give me a new house, and I'll give you an old one."

My smartphone, placed on top of the mound, vibrated with a beep.

[Payment failed.]

Still no luck.

So then.

"Toad, Toad. Give me an old house, and I'll give you a new one—"

Suddenly, I felt a severing pain in my left hand under the mound.

It was a familiar pain.

I frowned and pulled my hand away—and found myself grimly surprised to find there was no hand left to pull away.

My entire left hand was gone from the wrist down.

Blood dripped from the mound. The Saintess, who had been crouching beside me, raised her eyebrows.

"Ah."

"It seems I've discovered how to use the shopping mall."

I used my Aura to stop the bleeding.

The next morning, after spending the night writing a Three Kingdoms parody novel, I received a message.

[Delivery completed.]

[1 box of fresh delivery items has been delivered.]

"Hmm."

I stepped out of my room in the Inunaki Tunnel. A delivery box was sitting in the hallway of the hideout.

As I had guessed, opening the box revealed someone's left hand, carefully packaged and delivered.

I turned to the Saintess, who was sharing my vision.

"The 'used products' sold at Toad House are the bodies or belongings of dead people. In other words, relics."

[...]

"And if you provide the same body part or item, it seems to exchange them in a one-to-one barter."

The Toad House shopping mall was a communal graveyard where the corpses and relics of the dead were stored.

Footnotes:

[1] This is the nursery rhyme Go Yuri sings at the end of the Diver arc in chapter 178.