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天寥化.

――A long time ago, when I first saw the characters of her name, I might have sensed an omen.

Heaven (天). Lonely (寥). To become (化).

Simply put, it means \'to become lonely.\'

It\'s a rather strange name to give to a beloved child, isn\'t it?

But \'寥\' (Yo) doesn\'t just mean \'lonely.\' It also means \'empty,\' \'void sky,\' \'quiet.\'

Have you ever seen writers use the word \'serene\' instead of just \'quiet\' in passages where merely saying \'quiet\' would suffice?

The \'寥\' in \'Yo-hwa\' (寂寥, serene) is the character in this child\'s name. If interpreted as \'to become serene\' rather than \'to become lonely,\' it doesn’t seem too strange.

Yes. If only interpreted that way.

Attention.

From here on, this is a secret I haven’t even told Cheon Yo-hwa, information known only to me in this world—a postscript-like TMI.

It’s purely my personal conjecture, so you may take it with a grain of salt. I’m merely sharing pieces I’ve gathered from various cycles.

First piece.

Everyone probably knows that I traveled to China with the Sword Marquess during the 108th cycle.

While the Sword Marquess was busy planting red flowers on Mount Hua, I wandered around the vicinity.

If I transcribe what I described at that time, it would go as follows.

――――――――――

The range of my anomaly hunts gradually expanded. It extended not only to Shaanxi but also to Henan.

‘Tutorial dungeons’ occurred globally, not just on the Korean Peninsula, but an epic-level dungeon happened to appear in Yingyang Town in Henan.

Adding to the chaos were Taoist cult terrorists, making it seem like the end of the world.

――――――――――

In Henan, there is a place called Dengfeng, famous for being the location of the Shaolin Temple.

A bit further west lies Yingyang Town.

Yeongyang Cheon Clan.

The ancestral home of Cheon Yo-hwa\'s family.

Second piece.

The Yeongyang Cheon Clan of Korea originated from a Ming Dynasty general who was dispatched to Korea during the Imjin War.

The general not only brought himself but also his family, who naturalized in Korea.

Most of their descendants perfectly adapted to local life without issues, but according to my hypothesis, a very small portion of the family continued to maintain their ‘traditional faith.’

The traditional faith of China is Taoism.

Laozi, the founder of Taoism, hailed from Huainan Province and was a native of Luyi County. Laozi is said to have worked in Luoyang, Henan, and authored the Tao Te Ching at Hangu Pass in Henan.

Yingyang Town, the hometown of the Cheon family, lies on the route between Luyi County and Hangu Pass.

The birthplace of Taoism. A region long under the influence of the faith.

However, at some point, the faith of Cheon Yo-hwa\'s lineage, who had moved to the Korean Peninsula, became corrupted.

Whether it was always like that or changed later, I do not know. There are no records.

They built a grand mansion in Sejong City with an area of 14,990 square meters. Hidden underground were religious facilities. They established Baekhwa Girls\' High School and enrolled the children of their faith.

Cheon Yo-hwa\'s father, the high priest of this cult, changed his daughter\'s surname from Cheon (千) to Cheon (天). To this family, their roots had already lost all meaning.

They called upon their own god.

Who they wanted to descend, I had no way of knowing. It might have been a mere scam by a cunning cult leader.

But in the end-times void, magic was not an illusion but a reality. Especially the magic performed by hundreds of people offering hundreds of children.

Some existence on the other side of the void heard their prayers and responded.

Thus, the Infinite Void arrived.

Third piece.

Serene and silent.

The Tao Te Ching contains such a phrase.

Before humans distinguished all things, before the forms and names of all things were created, before heaven and earth were clearly divided, the world existed.

Laozi called such a world ‘serene.’

The next phrase goes something like this.

‘I do not know its name.’

That serene world, the serenity of that world, was something that existed before all things took shape, and thus ‘has no name.’

Now.

Let\'s reexamine the name of the student council president before us, Cheon Yo-hwa.

Interpreting it purely based on its superficial meaning, it translates to ‘to become serene,’ which could be taken to mean, ‘Oh, her parents hoped she would become a recluse when she grew up.’

However, the parents, especially her father, were high priests of a corrupted Taoist cult. They couldn’t have been ignorant of one of the most famous phrases from the Tao Te Ching.

Therefore, if you interpret the name Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化) knowing the root of \'寥,\' it becomes quite bizarre.

To become lonely.

To become serene.

The heaven. To become empty.

To lose its name.

Anonymous. Nameless. The serene sky with no form or name. Abandoning oneself and one’s true name, returning to a world where nothing is distinguished.

A play on words with her name.

…What a wicked curse it was.

Cheon Yo-hwa. An ominous resonance. Not a name to give a beloved child.

It was a name more fitting for a living offering to an evil god.

The more sinister truth is that the curse succeeded.

Far beyond the expectations of the one who cast it.

An Outer God-class anomaly full of forms yet formless. The Infinite Void and Hyakki Yagyo, the Night Parade of One Hundred Ghosts (百鬼夜行). Baekhwa (百話).

…Or, Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化).

She was the living offering, and Baekhwa Girls\' High School was the altar. Baekhwa Girls\' High School was the offering for her, and she was the altar for the god.

This is the answer I have deduced thus far.

Why the Outer God-class anomaly, the Infinite Void, had no choice but to descend upon Baekhwa Girls\' High—a regressor\'s annotation.

However.

The conclusion of this story was not mine.

“Thank you, ahjussi.”

Cheon Yo-hwa said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to overcome it alone. Even if I had won, I would have undoubtedly lost myself.”

Still, you saved 16 of your friends. Always. From the 1st cycle to the 117th, continuously.

Cheon Yo-hwa said.

“Even though it was an illusion, thank you for letting me meet my mother again. I was able to say the words I couldn’t before. The flight was fun. Thank you for showing me the sunset. The coffee you made was delicious.”

The only necromancer on the Korean Peninsula. The student council president of Baekhwa Girls\' High School. She started playing basketball out of rebellion against her family but genuinely came to enjoy it. When she escapes the prison of void, she wouldn’t even remember her original name and past. From the 1st cycle to the 117th, she had never once been called by her name. The living offering and altar of this Infinite Hell.

And someone who likes a slightly bitter, slightly sweet cream latte.

Cheon Yo-hwa said.

“――So, I can’t hand myself over to an anomaly like you.”

-......

“You are not me. You don’t know the vapor trails I passed through. You don’t know the name of the sunset I saw. You don’t know the feel of the coffee I like. You don’t know me. I’ve gone, am going, and will go beyond what you know.”

-......

“I am Cheon Yo-hwa (千謠話)*. I will sing a thousand stories. Do you think I’ll be satisfied with just a hundred stories? I will live ten times your volume, size, and color. Because—I am not alone. There are people who helped me. There are people I will help. So―― you, go back to your narrow glass sky. Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化).”

*千謠話 means a thousand folk tales, it’s a different interpretation of her name.

Blink. Clunk.

A snowstorm raged. There was no window. The table, the electric kettle on it, and the coffee cup were all engulfed in white snow.

The wheel of time turned.

From nirvana to samsara.

Zero steps left.

-Ah.

The Outer God, the Infinite Void, Baekhwa.

In the white world, Cheon Yo-hwa smiled. Though her lips didn’t move, the snowstorm shattered with sound.

-Oh, how beautiful this is―

The snowstorm rushed toward me like a tidal wave.

The moment I felt certain this was its final struggle, I drew my cane sword.

A longsword forged in a dwarven forge that no longer existed. Do-hwa.

A single stroke.

My ink-black wave split the Infinite Void’s white snowstorm.

For the Infinite Void, which had gathered almost all the data of the world, this \'sword\' was an unexpected irregular.

Because Do-hwa was a piece crafted for me by the workshop master in a different cycle.

A masterpiece made by the greatest blacksmith in the otherworld, taught by the greatest blacksmith in Samhan. Already a weapon like an anomaly in itself.

Even though it was my strongest weapon, I had not used Do-hwa in this cycle. Not even once. I kept it sheathed for this moment alone.

-――――

The snowstorm split and split again.

The being once called the Infinite Void couldn’t finish its sentence and was imprisoned in a glass prison.

The world\'s whiteness turned entirely into a snowstorm. The snowstorm transformed into white grains of sand.

The sand of the desert swirled and swirled, eventually settling into Cheon Yo-hwa’s palm.

An hourglass.

The world of glass walls filled only with white sand was held in Cheon Yo-hwa’s hand. The transparent barrier glimmered. A wheel made of two glass compartments.

The Infinite Void was confined within time.

“Ah.”

Cheon Yo-hwa looked up.

There was no fog. There was no red sky of the school ghost stories. No thorn-like birch forest, no shadow-laden peony flower hill.

The sky was red.

Not the red of anomalies but the red of reality. The color emitted by the sun hitting the earth\'s cornea. Sunset. Proof that this world was still alive and bleeding.

In the middle of the playground, Cheon Yo-hwa looked up at the sky, surrounded by 98 scattered hourglasses like petals. That was Cheon Yo-hwa’s Hyakki Yagyo. Her Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts.

(Congratu) Seo.,; University 2 Admitted! (lations)

Flap.

A tattered banner fluttered at the school gate. Beneath the flag that once honored civilization, the echo of the wind resounded.

“Yo-hwa!”

“Security guard ahjussi!”

The students of Baekhwa Girls\' High. The children saw us and waved. Their gestures splashed in the sunset.

It seemed quite a distant scene.

But it was not as far as the distance from nirvana to samsara.

“…Ahjussi.”

I looked at Cheon Yo-hwa’s profile. The sunset light brushed through her auburn hair.

“Come to think of it, I forgot to ask.”

“Ask anything.”

“Why did you come to save us?”

That was probably the final moment.

The moment I could decisively brainwash Cheon Yo-hwa, who awakened with the ability to brainwash others. The moment she received a name. The moment to determine the direction of her life.

It was absurd, but if I said, ‘I received an oracle to help you,’ Cheon Yo-hwa would have become a fervent believer. If I said, ‘The state won’t abandon you,’ she would have become the ultimate patriot.

She was ready to accept any answer and prepared to accept any direction.

I thought for a second, then returned the answers I had long thought of.

“Because you are useful to me.”

“…….”

“The Infinite Void was an anomaly I couldn’t defeat alone. I needed the help of a human selected as the shaman of the Infinite Void. The reason you could command the Hyakki Yagyo was that ‘Cheon Yo-hwa’ was somewhat identified with the Infinite Void. Recruiting you to subdue the Infinite Void was the best strategy given to me, in fact, the only strategy.”

“…I see.”

Cheon Yo-hwa’s expression lightened somewhat. She probably accepted my answer as a ‘setting’ for her life path.

“Yes, then――”

“And I was curious about how the worst tutorial dungeon in the history of the Korean Peninsula was created.”

“……?”

“I also wanted to thoroughly track the real nature of the fairies I had been dealing with for so long. I wanted to test if I could truly defeat an Outer God-class anomaly. Oh, and I was purely curious about what kind of person a crazy person who had completed self-brainwashing at Baekhwa Girls\' High School originally was.”

“Um, ahjussi? What are you talking about…?”

“Yo-hwa.”

I smiled.

“Finding reasons to live is good. That alone is already great. But I hope you live with as many reasons as possible, not just one.”

“…….”

“If a single drop of rain can make a person decide to die, a single line of music can give them a reason to live. When helping someone, try to create several reasons instead of just one. Gain. Goal. Curiosity. Self-examination. Simple amusement. Curiosity. Those thousand reasons can be reasons to kill someone and at the same time reasons to keep you alive.”

That was exactly what Cheon Yo-hwa had declared to the Infinite Void.

Even if it is the truth, a person always needs someone else to tell them the same thing, but in a different way, to be convinced of their own words.

Click.

I opened the trunk and took out the neatly stored file.

“That’s…”

“A gift. You can consider it a dungeon clear reward. Originally, the tutorial fairy would take care of it, but I got rid of the person in charge here. Here.”

Words were written in neat handwriting on high-quality paper rarely seen in this era. It was my handwriting.

I took out a brush pen, added a few words, and handed it to Cheon Yo-hwa.

――――――――――

[Graduation Certificate]

Name: Cheon Yo-hwa (千謠話)

This person has completed the full three-year high school curriculum and demonstrated outstanding academic ability, hereby awarded this graduation certificate.

――――――――――

“…….”

Cheon Yo-hwa accepted the diploma with both hands and looked down at it. Her shadow standing still sank into the playground floor.

The name section, left blank until just now, gleamed like a bright shadow.

“Congratulations on your graduation, Yo-hwa.”

Describing Cheon Yo-hwa’s reactions in detail at this point would be unkind.

I just want to note that it\'s perfectly normal for a high school student to cry during a graduation ceremony.

Boss battle.

Anomaly Infinite Void.

Aliases: Infinite Hell, School Ghost Stories, Hyakki Yagyo, Night Parade of One Hundred Ghosts, Baekhwa (百話), Baekhwa (白化), Forbidden Four Characters, Heraclitus’ Wreath, Backrooms, Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化).

Threat Level: Lv.5 Outer God-class

Subjugation complete.

There is an epilogue.

Actually, there are many epilogues. The stories related to the Infinite Void are numerous, but those stories can be saved for later.

Today, I’ll briefly describe an event that happened not long after the ‘graduation ceremony.’

It was while I was walking down the corridor of the National Road Management Corps headquarters.

“Ah! Teacher!”

An energetic voice came from behind, followed by rapid footsteps.

When I turned around, the former basketball team ace quickly closed the distance and skidded to a stop, playfully saluting.

“Yo-hwa. What brings you to the Management Corps?”

“Hehe— I thought it was time for our guild to be recognized for its exclusive control over Sejong City. I’m on my way back from a meeting with the director!”

“I see.”

Incidentally, Cheon Yo-hwa was still wearing her white sailor uniform. Not only Cheon Yo-hwa, but the entire Baekhwa Guild... the group formed by Baekhwa Girls\' High School graduates all wore it.

Well, uniforms have always been effective in fostering a sense of solidarity among members. There was no reason to abandon the powerful identity of ‘Baekhwa Girls\' High.’

Or maybe it’s just like how Dang Seo-rin was obsessed with her witch cosplay, and Noh Do-hwa was hooked on the uniform cosplay. Magic-related awakeners tended to have strong fetishes.

I tilted my head.

“But why call me ‘teacher’? Why not ‘ahjussi’ as usual?”

“Hehe… You’re someone who was born before me and experienced more than me, right? So I want to call you teacher out of respect! Why? Don’t you like it?”

“No, I don’t dislike it. It’s just a bit strange to switch from being a security guard to a teacher all of a sudden.”

“Haha. What are you talking about? You even gave me a diploma!”

Cheon Yo-hwa put her hands behind her back and looked up at me. The smile on her face was distinctly different from the expressions of the \'Cheon Yo-hwa\' from before the 117th cycle.

A lively and cheerful smile.

“Please take care of me from now on!”

I couldn’t object to Cheon Yo-hwa changing her title for me. Because, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.

“――My teacher!”

This was the story of the time it took for the title of ‘sunbae’ to turn into ‘teacher.’

Footnotes:

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