UnwillingEldritchHorrorofFortune
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Chapter 171 (Start of Volume 4): Confessions and Concerns
🕑 Added 2024-08-06 00:40:00 +0000 UTCTISMON NOTES: Hello again! So last chapter should end the 3rd volume before it becomes too bloated (it's gotta be book-sized to publish!), which means that we're on to Volume 4! I'll need to edit the last few chapters a bit first, add a proper epilogue as well, but I thought I'd write down the start of the next Volume first. This time we're back in Pandora and we're back with the Abyss gang! The fourth Trial's going to be a doozy! Cheers, and thanks for reading!
“There you are, Walter,” Vadeem waved as he saw me in the Guild lounge. “I was just about to get you myself, did you pass out on the toilet or something?”
“Sorry,” I muttered, “It must have been something I ate.”
He chuckled. “Then you must have ate something truly awful, what with us being supermen now.”
Goddamn stupid Doppelganger and his ridiculous excuses!
“Yeah…” I said with a nervous laugh, “Must have been.”
The big man gave me a wry grin and whispered, “Hey, if you have more of that stuff, let me have ‘em. I’ll sneak some in Noel’s meal the next time.”
Lady Awesome: I heard that, Vadumb! Don’t go corrupting my innocent little bro with your stupidity! I’ll have Yoona poison test everything you feed us from now on, so I hope your conscience can handle feeding her your rotten food!
“Ugh,” he grunted, rolling his eyes, “I forgot her stupid new abilities. Why’d they go and give her something like that?”
Right, all of the Abyss guild must have gotten some sweet rewards if they managed to clear that hellhole that the Director put them through. I’ll have to properly read through fake Walter’s reports later to see exactly what those rewards were, but there was nothing I could do for now.
Lady Awesome: Because everyone loves me! Also, hurry up and get over here, meeting’s about to start!
Walter’s Fine: We’ll be there in a minute. Sorry, everyone.
We met not in the underground, sketchy meeting room, but the normal one above ground this time. That made sense because when we entered the room, every other core member of the Abyss Guild had already taken their seats. I took one of the two remaining chairs while Vadeem did the same.
Jae-Hyun stood up and nodded a greeting to all of us. “Thank you for joining me right after the last Training Trial.”
“No worries,” Noel said with a shrug, “We figured it’d have to be important if you got us all here so quick.”
“It is,’ the leader continued, “And there are some… sensitive information that I feel I must share with you all. But first…”
Jae-Hyun took out a small blue stone out of his pocket and placed it on the table. With a flick of his finger, a visible stream of mana entered the thing, and I felt a tangible bubble of energy envelop the room, making my ears pop. Whatever barrier he erected, it was damned impressive, because even with my beefed-up Xollon senses, I couldn’t perceive anything past the dissipating ward.
“... a little bit of privacy,” he finished, “It’s…” The Regressor looked uncharacteristically nervous as he paused, and he took a deep breath before speaking again. “I have to confess something to everyone here, and I believe that it is long overdue at that. You’ve stuck with me through enough, and have followed my orders without question, and it is only fair that you should know the truth about myself.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“I’ve…” another pause as if he was looking for the right words to use. “I’ve told you how I have an ability to know and predict the Trials and other various other things here, but that isn’t the entire truth.”
Another pause, this time the Regressor was staring at each of us in turn, trying to judge if we were upset about this revelation. I think I can say for all of us that we honestly didn’t care about his half-truths. I mean, I was hiding a lot more, and I doubt Vadeem or Noel’s been completely forthcoming either.
“I know you might not believe me, or think that I am belittling you, but I say this with absolute sincerity. I could predict the trials not because of some ability, but because I have already lived through these same Trials.”
Everyone frowned but didn’t look too surprised or outraged. I was willing to bet that they’d all had their pet theories about Jae-Hyun’s apparent clairvoyance, and with all the insanity that we’ve encountered, traveling back in time honestly didn’t see that outrageous.
“So… you’re like, some kind of time traveler?” Noel asked, breaking the silence, “Man, I wish this was still back on Earth and you could have just told us the winning lottery tickets or what to invest in.”
“You’re… you’re not doubting me?”
“Boss,” Noel laughed, “We’ve all been kidnapped by extradimensional thingies, faced zombies and aliens and whatnot, do you honestly think that we’d be surprised by time travel? Like, you could tell us you were the Flying Spaghetti Monster and we would probably believe you… Wait, are you the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Please tell me you are!”
“Noel might normally be an idiot,” Vadeem added, “But she’s right this time. I mean, I had my own guesses, but time traveling’s not that strange all things considered.”
“Ditto,” I added quickly.
“No no, little bro,” Noel interrupted, “I asked if he’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster, not a Pokemon! Wait… Jae-Hyun, are you actually a poke-”
Vadeem grumbled, “No, Noel, that is not what Walter meant. Oh my god, how can you-”
Jae-Hyun I laughed, breaking the start of one of Noel and Vadeem’s play-fights. He started with a chuckle but before long, he was laughing like I’d never seen the man do. Hell, I didn’t think he could show any kind of extreme positive emotion at this point, but laugh he did.
The Regressor wiped the tears off his face and smiled. “Thank you, everyone, I mean it. I thought-”
“You thought what,” Vadeem snorted, “That we’d all leave? Jae-Hyun, you’ve done all of us solid so far, your decisions, no matter how they were formed, made us the strongest guild in the Main Stage, and you’ve always had our best interests at heart. I think it goes without saying that we honestly don’t care if you’re some kind of time-traveling wizard.”
Noel gave the Regressor a genuine smile this time. “You’re still the boss, boss, so don’t think you can go pushing extra chores on the rest of us just cause you came from the future!”
“Thank you…”
Marcus, who had been silently watching the whole time, clapped his hands and ended our little sympathy session. “Now as lovely as those revelations are, I think that our Guild Master had other matters to discuss aside from his temporal nature.”
“True that,” I muttered, before frowning, “Wait, you never told us your thoughts on this.”
“My thoughts?” Marcus replied, clearly confused, “I hardly think my thoughts matter here.”
“You are still a part of this guild,” I replied, “I think your thoughts are worth considering.”
What I didn’t say out loud was that I was worried he would be secretly pissed and sent his creepy bloat flies after us in our sleep. I still couldn’t believe that I still found the man disturbing even after almost destroying an entire universe.
The priest shrugged. “Jae-Hyun is still the leader of this guild, and I have pledged my services to his cause. What abilities he has or has not is not important, and so, my opinions of him remain the same.”
Muscle A: Same here.
Muscle E: What she said!
“Then I guess that’s settled!” Yoona, the last person to talk, said, “I told you this would happen. You still have severe trust issues, but at least this is a step in the right direction.”
“Wait wait,” Noel added, “If you’re from the future, then you gotta tell me how I turned out! It must have been super awesome, right?”
Jae-Hyun winced, and that reaction was really the only thing the rest of us needed to see to understand what the answer to Noel’s question was.
“I’ll… I’ll fill each of you in on what happened later, in private,” he said, “Some things shouldn’t be shared in public like this.”
Even Noel didn’t answer back with a joke here. It was clear that some things really were better left unsaid.
The Regressor cleared his throat and continued, his voice returning to the same stoic determined tone, “Anyway, part of this meeting was about my nature, but that is only a part of today’s agenda. What’s more important is the state of affairs in Pandora and its people.”
I winced and muttered, “Or more like lack of people…”
I thought my quip was unnecessary but the Regressor just looked my way and nodded.
“It is as Walter says,” he said, “After the Training, the number of combatants we have left is concerning.”
“Do we know exactly how many survived?” Vadeem asked.
“1811.”
“Ah…” I couldn’t help but say, “That’s uh… that’s a lot lower than I thought.”
“It’s a lot lower than anyone could have imagined,” Jae-Hyun corrected, “But those are the cards we’re dealt.”
Noel put her hands up. “Wait, but the ones who did make it out should be super mega powerful though! Just look at all the cool stuff we got from clearing the training!”
“Most of those benefits were because we came in first,” Jae-Hyun explained, “But you are still correct. It is true that the surviving Aspirants are stronger than the norm, significantly so, even, but the lack of numbers is the main concern. I know I’ve said that I come from the future, but it seems that this timeline has started to deviate drastically from the one I was from, no doubt because of what I’ve done here. Events that should have come much later happened sooner, and entire scenarios have occurred that I’ve never seen before, like the change in Admin.”
Jae-Hyun paused to collect himself, but looked oddly defeated. “What I’m trying to say is that my abilities to read the future might not be all that it’s cut out to be. It’s growing unreliable.”
“Eh,” I said, “It’s not like knowing exactly what’s going to happen is all that you bring to the table. You know more about this strange Ascension thing better than all of us, and you know how these Trials operate, even if you can’t tell us exactly what’s going to happen in each one.”
“Walter is correct,” Marcus added, “Your insight alone is of immense help. Often times I find knowing everything to be more burdensome than knowing little. Humans need spontaneity to grow, and we can’t have that if we know everything that God has in store for us.”
“Thank you, Marcus, Walter,” Jae-Hyun replied with a tired smile, “But this time, I really wish that I was wrong about the next Trial.” He gave another tired sigh. “But I don’t think that will be the case.”
Yoona frowned. “Why not?”
Her brother took a sip of water before continuing. “Because the changes that have occurred so far were due to my existence and actions; it has all been localized to Pandora and its people,” Jae-Hyun explained, “But the fourth Trial, the Trial that kick starts the Main Stage proper, involves every city-state and every Human Aspirant. Unless I’ve derailed the timeline to the limits, it means that we’ll have the same fourth Trial as everyone else.”
“And that’s bad because…?” I asked for everyone’s sake.
Jae-Hyun took a deep breath in and out. “Because the purpose of the fourth Trial is to test the abilities of the city-states and their ability to manage their members, and we will be competing with the rest of the Aspirants as a collective.”
We all nodded, all of us understanding why having such few people left would put us at a major disadvantage, no matter how beefed up the survivors were, but Jae-Hyun wasn’t done yet.
He looked at each of us grimly. “It is bad because the five lowest-scoring city-states will be destroyed without fail.”
“Oh…” Noel stuttered, “That’s uh, that’s not good, boss.”
“No shit, Noel,” Vadeem grunted, “That’s not good at all.”
