CHAPTER 377

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 377

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The Receiver VIII

[The Admin of the Infinite Metagame].

Once, she demoted this entire world to a mere “game,” re-classified every anomaly as a “monster,” and labeled Awakened folk “NPCs,” thereby securing near-invincibility for herself, that outcast god―

“Phaa. I’ve always wondered from inside the screen! Just how good is this thing they call chocolate cake? Every time that chewable miko ate it she’d sneer, ‘A clump of pixels like you will never taste this, pity,’ and my nerves would fray, fray, fray!”

…was now, in splendid Homo-sapiens form, munching cake.

For the record, I baked the dessert.

The instant we met she folded her fan with aristocratic grace and asked, “Might I trouble you for a sample of your culinary skill?” like some noble heiress placing an order.

Fortunately the Tower of Babel keeps a stock of ingredients.

I improvised a full course from what was left, and, as you see, she’s reaping happy hormones in overdose.

“Did the Librarian tease you like that?”

“Yes! Really. That plebeian, filth beyond the word ingratitude. Mmm—this chocolate, the faint bitterness followed by a brush of sweetness on the tongue—irresistible….”

“Sorry to cut into your gourmet discovery, but first things first.”

“Mm?”

“Your diction. That gaudy noble-lady lilt—where did it come from?”

A natural human question.

“To my memory you never had a Young-Lady trait. Even the character that became the template for ‘White Girl’ was technically a noble daughter, but she never spoke in that rootless style.”

“Hm.”

The Admin speared another bite of cake, head tilting in the same posture.

“I didn’t choose it because I like it. Partly the [Young-Lady] tag stuck on me, as you said, but mostly the chewable miko forced the trait.”

“What?”

“Please don’t make that face. What did she say… Ah—‘The old man lacks a noble-lady character; you’ll be perfect for it.’ Something like that.”

“…”

“She shoved a setting sheet not 5,700 but 57,000 characters long down my throat, as if training ChatGPT. If she had time for that circus, I’d rather she wrote even one more line of her novel.”

Dok-seo, Dok-seo! Dok-seo…

“By her logic, overlapping character traits are the worst catastrophe. Thus, I am catastrophe.”

“So in short it’s all the Librarian’s fault.”

“Well. Though until she met ‘someone,’ my miko’s psychosis wasn’t this far gone.”

The Admin’s eyes began to narrow at me, so I hurried topics.

“Constellations have materialized, but I didn’t expect you to remain. Why no message until now?”

“Oh my, forgotten already?”

Tap tap—after wiping her lips, the Admin lowered her lashes.

“To me, ‘Undertaker’ is always two people.”

“Ah.”

“Normally my miko would tag whichever is near her as the ‘real’ one, but the world has nicely ended. Two masters in one boat, I couldn’t tell which was genuine.”

“And now?”

“No.”

Her smile warped into resignation, like sneering at herself and me alike.

“For all I know you’re the pink entity. Or truly the Undertaker. I can’t decide, so I converse assuming you’re the real master.”

“…”

“If you’re fake and I miss it, apologies in advance. Because of me your chance to beat the pink entity will vanish forever, but please accept it as karma and be magnanimous.”

I frowned.

“Vanish forever? Explain.”

“Like this.”

Shrrk.

She extended claw-like nails and slit her own chest straight down.

No blood flew.

Inside, static hissed.

Grotesque enough, yet stranger still:

“……?”

I could read the static.

Once it would’ve been meaningless noise, now faint shapes formed.

Noise filling her torso… on closer look every flicker was a ‘letter.’

L A P O T W I R E K I D O B A S E L O T Y G R A L P O R E S Y N O T I K E R A B L W I N E D O R O S T L A K Y B E S I O N T E R I P A L Y N O K E D I T O L A R E S Y L A P O N O B L R E K I T S Y W I D O K E R A L Y S T N O T E P O R E D I L A K Y I N R O S E B A T I G R A L P O S Y N O K E L A R E B L W I T Y

Plop!

She thrust a hand into the typographic swarm, into her own chest.

“Hmmm. Ah, here?”

Fishing around, she pinched letters between finger and thumb.

“Found them.”

Six letters:

O T P A P L

They wriggled on the tabletop.

She skewered and rearranged them:

L A P T O P

Lined up, they tore with a rip—shraaak!—and a laptop sat there.

The bound item I receive each time I restart at Busan Station.

She beamed.

“Here, detestable master. A laptop that survives regression… my personal ark. With this—”

“Incredible. You just turned letters into a thing?”

Blink.

Head tilt steeper.

“Pardon?”

“What you did just now.”

“Er… master, are you saying you could actually see it?”

“……?”

My turn to tilt.

“Of course.”

“What exactly did you see?”

“You slit your chest, letters writhed, you plucked the three reading ‘laptop.’”

“…”

Her face hardened; she had meant to unveil the laptop, yet now propped her chin, grave.

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“…‘Sudden’ better suits you, master. Even with the chewable miko gone, me wearing a perfect human shell is odd.”

“…?”

“Regressor, my detestable master.”

She fixed her stare.

“The authority you glimpsed isn’t something human eyes parse easily.”

“I still don’t follow.”

“…That my true body is letters, that you casually perceived it—that alone is bizarre.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Odd, no? You never had such power.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmph. You don’t grasp the weight yet. Fine, let’s do a test.”

She reached in again, drew out nine letters, stretched them:

W H I T E G I R L

Chin on hand, she smiled.

“Go on, poke around.”

“Poke?”

“If you truly see them, you can touch them.”

“…”

“Prove it.”

Easy enough. I pressed a finger on “W H I T E G I R L.”

Twitch! Letters jerked, the Admin’s shoulders quivered.

Watching, I kneaded ink from ‘W’ and ‘G,’ reshaping:

B L O N D E G I R L

At once the letters leapt up the Admin’s body—arm, shoulder, neck, cheeks, hair—like cockroaches.

“Ah?”

Where they burrowed her hair whiteness turned gold.

“…Not a lie, then.”

She sighed, twirling new, fuller golden hair.

A weary smile.

“Congratulations, detestable master.”

“…”

“You’ve become a monster’s monster.”

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How did I acquire this absurd—no, in your words—‘authority’?

I parked the puzzle.

“That riddle can wait, we have another issue,” the Admin said, tapping the laptop.

“The others say when the 999th run ends, you forget everything from this one. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Any workaround?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a contract—with Hecate, with Nut.”

“Oh my.”

“Try to record anything about Hecate and it counts as breach. Directly or indirectly, there’s no loophole.”

Even if one existed, breaking contract was unthinkable.

She laughed behind her fan.

“Understood. But… information unrelated to Hecate, without any mention of the 173rd run, but only events of the 999th—what happens then?”

Snap—the fan closed.

“If it concerns the pink entity alone, could we not leave clues inside my laptop?”

I almost sprang up.

“Information on Go Yuri!”

“Yes. To me, data on that pink entity equals ‘data on the Undertaker.’ It fits the laptop just fine.”

Ohoho.

“As you know, that laptop preserves the Undertaker’s chronicle across runs. Therefore we can stock it with pink-entity intel.”

“…!”

A spark in my head.

‘Right… she can’t tell me from Yuri, so she can record Yuri perfectly!’

Brilliant.

Details of Dang Seo-rin were too bound to the contract, but—

Clues on Go Yuri from the 999th cycle could reach my next self.

“Of course, the contract might wipe everything anyway.”

“It’s still worth trying.”

“And one more safety measure…”

Click.

She powered on the laptop.

It should have nothing installed save text files on my chronicle. Less software means, fewer authorities for her.

Yet—

“To keep the 999th-run data safe, shall we add a safeguard?”

The once-empty desktop showed a single unfamiliar file:

“Library Society.”

While my eyes widened, she continued, smiling like a debutante seasoned in intrigue.

“Any Constellation we miss this run devolves into a true anomaly, correct? Then—”

“…we turn that to our advantage.”

“Indeed. The Great Library floods daily with hundreds of data items.”

“In that ocean we’ll scatter the clues to defeating the pink entity. The hints which you found this cycle.”

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