The Tales of an Infinite Regressor

Chapter 54 – Ruler I

[Translator – Jjsecus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

Chapter 54 – Ruler I

1

Today, let’s talk about the guild leader, Tang Seorin, from the Three Thousand Worlds.

But before that, let’s take a moment to dive into Three Thousand Worlds… Perhaps, living as a regressor allows you to see certain changes more clearly, like noticing details more than others.

For example, there’s the ‘change in language’.

If you’ve been following my stories, you’re probably already familiar with the changes in language.

One notable example is the term ‘monsters’. Initially referred to in English, these creatures, or sometimes even things that aren’t considered living beings, started being called ‘anomaly’, precisely because they were ‘weird’.

And you all know how ‘gate’ changed to ‘void’.

Up until now, I’ve avoided mentioning it to prevent confusion, but the term ‘awakened’ has also undergone quite a transformation.

Many people used to refer to them as ‘hunters’, then ‘transcendents’. Later on, the term ‘ascendants’ became more common. As time passed, there was a growing emphasis on what’s known as ‘awakened superiority’, a bizarre ideology. Those who wanted to draw a line between such pseudo-scientific ideas and reality tended to prefer the more neutral term ‘awakened’.

Why.

“Teacher Jang…”

Noh Doha would call me that.

It was more an expression of ‘I don’t see you as a transcendent or ascendant’ than a respectful title like ‘teacher’.

It was a secret I heard directly from someone in one of the runs. Truly a Noh Doha-like sense of cheekiness.

Anyway.

As language undergoes changes, there are still words that remain steadfast, unchanged despite the passage of time.

One such word is ‘guild’.

2

I don’t know who first started calling a ‘group of awakened individuals’ a guild.

It’s as if, in the subconscious collective of Koreans, the declaration “From now on, let’s call it a guild” naturally stuck.

Most awakened individuals joined guilds as if it were the obvious choice. Didn’t even that lunatic Geomho create a guild called the ‘Justice League’? (Although for a brief period in run 108, the guild membership briefly increased to two.)

Now, some might have a brief moment of doubt here.

What exactly does a guild do as a group?

Well, you might think like in RPGs, adventurers can go to the guild to receive quests? Depending on how well they complete quests, they can evolve through tiers like B, A, S, or even tiers like bronze, silver, gold?

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It’s just a crazy habit of East Asians, who have been indoctrinated into bureaucracy since ancient times, to even categorize social ranks in the private sector.

I can easily answer the question of what a guild is.

It’s just a gang.

“Guildmaster.”

“Yes?”

For example, in run 6, during the time I was deeply involved in Tang Seorin’s right-hand role in the Three Thousand Worlds, there was an incident like this.

“Last night, the members of the Cheonghae Guild went around all the bars in Namgu and caused trouble.”

“What?”

Tang Seorin, who had been blankly staring, snapped to attention.

“These kids dared to come up to the mainland while they were supposed to be on the island, eating seaweed or something. Do we have evidence?”

“Everything’s set up for the journey back. I told Director Yu to keep the mini-map on. Feel free to give the order to execute the operation at any time.”

“This is why I like the Vice Guild Leader.”

“Would you like to go directly?”

“Yeah, of course. Let’s finish this.”

Remember when I mentioned that it seems like I’ve only talked about good stories about Tang Seorin? If anyone from the Tang Seorin fan club is reading my story, I apologize. In reality, conversations like the one above were quite common in the Three Thousand Worlds guild office (train car).

The “Greatest Star Awakened Witch Idol Tang Seorin” from the Korean Peninsula, whom you’re familiar with, was just a creation that underwent significant historical distortion years later. I know this well from working as her manager-like profession for decades.

*Ding dong!*

As the bell rang, guild members poured out of the train.

Surprisingly, all over two hundred guild members were wearing tall hats. And that’s not all—each of them was carrying a broomstick.

It was a perfect example of our guild being utterly insane in this crazy world.

Tang Seorin ascended to the stage of history, like a principal standing on a podium. Everyone looked fondly at the sight of them all wearing tall hats.

“Hello, everyone.”

“Yes, Grand Witch!”

“The brats from the Blue Sea Guild were partying at the tavern we’re protecting last night. They have a lot of money. They even went up to the 16th round of drinks. It seems like living in the Blue Sea is good these days. But they didn’t say anything to us, their neighbors. It’s frustrating, isn’t it?”

“We should kill them!”

Someone shouted. It was Yoo Jiwon, my subordinate and the biggest windbag on the Korean Peninsula.

Tang Seorin blinked as if taken aback by the unexpected suggestion.

“Hmm… I hadn’t thought about that aspect, but now that I hear your thoughts, I suddenly have an epiphany. Yes, that’s a really good suggestion. Let’s kill them.”

“Hooray!”

Clad in black hats and capes, the Three Thousand Worlds guild members marched through the city.

Aren’t they ashamed to act like this as adults? Well, some of them aren’t even adults, but even if we make exceptions for them, it’s still embarrassing. But if you say that in front of Tang Seorin, you’re dead.

The opposing guild members, who unexpectedly found themselves under attack, were horrified.

“Damn it! It’s the Witch Guild!”

“Three Thousand Worlds!”

“The Witch Guild is attacking! The crazy witches are here!”

“Three Thousand Worlds, you say? Bring it on!”

No one paid attention to Tang Seorin’s words. In fact, hardly anyone remembered the guild name Three Thousand Worlds. They just knew them as the Busan Witch Guild.

And the specialty of the Witch Guild was hunting witches. As times changed and civilization advanced from the medieval era to the present, the trend shifted from witches being hunted to witches hunting.

“P-please spare us…”

After three hours of combat, the Blue Sea Guild, based in Busan Yeongdo, was annihilated.

Thump!

[Translator – Jjsecus]

[Proofreader – Gun]

Tang Seorin, with a grim expression, tapped the head of the opposing guild leader with the end of her broomstick.

“Hey.”

The stiff bristles of the broomstick poked the Blue Sea Guild leader’s eyes.

“Ah… aah…”

“Why did you raid the wallets of the ordinary folks who are just trying to make a living before even a day had passed? We didn’t want to fight you. But the merchants asked us for help, huh? We can’t just ignore the pleas of the neighborhood people. Why make people uncomfortable?”

“I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry… Please spare us…”

“Let’s play a witch game. If you sink after being thrown into the water, you’re innocent. If you float to the surface, you’re guilty. Got it?”

“You son of a b*tch! You crazy lunatic! Are you even human after doing that!”

“Hey, what’s up? We’ve got a new acquisition,” I exclaimed.

“Acquisition?”

“Hmm?”

Again, as I mentioned before, modern times are more advanced than medieval times. Instead of the past where they tied rocks or iron blocks to ankles, we introduced the latest invention, ‘concrete climbing shoes.’

Undersea mountains, or rather, there were many mountains under the sea when you think about it. Concrete shoes were inventions that allowed humanity to conquer underwater mountains.

Shortly after, bubbles bubbled up in the sea off Busan.

I nodded my head.

“He’s not floating up. Guildmaster.”

“He’s innocent.”

Tang Seorin lifted the tall hat and pressed it firmly against her chest.

Then, she lowered her head with a sad expression, eyebrows furrowed.

“This too is a tragedy of war. Let us all mourn.”

“All bow.”

Following Tang Seorin’s lead, all two hundred guild members bowed.

Our guild didn’t just deal with water magic. We also had fire magic that brought the scent of burning wood, time magic that made every second of a futile day feel real, healing magic that gave a hot stone path massage effect by heating it up… and so on.

As a guild led by Tang Seorin, who was proficient in all types of magic, the Three Thousand Worlds never discriminated between white and black magic and loved all four elements equally.

In the crazy world, the Three Thousand Worlds Guild was even crazier, especially with Tang Seorin leading the charge. It was good evidence that she was crazy.

Well then.

Even from this short story, I believe you can understand why I asserted that the guild was a ‘gang.’

Although I purposely brought up slightly provocative runs, the guild’s main source of income was protection fees. We carefully collected taxes from people doing business in the city, working people, and evacuees.

It couldn’t be helped. The miraculous fantasy of monsters dropping gold coins after being subjugated didn’t exist in reality.

There was no dreamy superconductor energy source ‘Mana stone’ that could replace oil.

The only useful items dropped by monsters were probably just meat? But setting up a butcher shop in the guild was somewhat inadequate. People didn’t prefer monster meat, and sometimes it contained things like radiation, etc.

In the end, the guild had no choice but to milk ‘protection fees’ from people. In fact, all guilds nationwide, no, all guilds worldwide were the same.

The real difference came next. That is, how the concept of ‘protection’ was interpreted.

“The essence of the world is the struggle of man against man, and man is the most terrifying beast. Protecting humans, for humans, by humans, is the most necessary measure for humanity at present.”

Those who adopted such an answer sank deeply into their sofas. It was also the ruling ideology chosen by the overwhelming majority of macho men.

“Aren’t monsters scarier than humans?”

About 4% of the extremely small number of cowards had different thoughts.

“Even though they’re humans, we should start with the monsters.”

“What’s the point of catching them when nothing good comes out of it?”

“Why not? Busan is falling.”

Tang Seorin designated the 1st of each month as the deadline for protection fees. And whenever the end of the month approached, she led the guild members to the void outside Busan to subjugate it before returning.

It wasn’t just hunting. Tang Seorin made sure to capture the dying moments of monsters on camera, and at least one was captured alive and brought back to Busan.

And in front of the citizens of Busan, the Grand Witch proved that her magic was not limited to humans.

-Gwweeeeaaak!

Having tasted fire magic, water magic, time magic, and healing magic in sequence, the monster, with its limbs tightly bound, offered its thanks.

“Make them suffer more! More! More!”

“That’s our Three Thousand Worlds Guild Master. She really knows how to have fun.”

This magic show became so popular that it turned into a source of pride for the citizens of Busan and a famous attraction for the city.

Surprisingly, when we collected protection fees the day after or even two days after an execution, the payment rates significantly increased. The general sentiment among the citizens seemed to be, ‘They gave us an entertaining show, so we should pay the entry fee.’ Even when the National Tax Service of South Korea was fully operational, they didn’t see such high rates of honest taxpayers.

“Guild Master… are you a genius?”

“Yes. You can keep complimenting me.”

“If it weren’t for the pointy hats, you’d be in the history books.”

“Do you want to die?”

Just as Tang Seorin predicted, it wasn’t long before Busan naturally fell into the embrace of the Three Thousand Worlds.

As the situation evolved, some humanists had to reconsider their political philosophies.

“Now that I think about it, monsters are scarier than humans.”

“Exactly. At least you can talk to humans. You can’t negotiate with monsters.”

“I can’t believe it took me so long to realize this obvious truth! I feel ashamed of myself!”

True to the early adopter spirit of the Korean people, the guild leaders across the peninsula didn’t hesitate to follow Tang Seorin’s example.

Whether out of local patriotism or a lust for power, guild leaders switched their primary role to hunters. Those who failed in their new vocation naturally faded away and weren’t even worth mentioning.

However, none could match Tang Seorin’s ‘magic show.’

Who else would dare to display magic that involved severing a monster’s limbs (which were actually more than just four) and then reattaching them in mid-air?

“Why are our local executions so boring?”

“Down in Busan, they have fire magic, water magic, and more.”

“Ha, there’s nothing like the original.”

In a world where the internet and movie theaters had collapsed, monster executions were an irresistible spectacle. More and more people started moving to Busan.

Tang Seorin’s protection fees for Busan citizens were extremely reasonable, which also fueled the migration trend.

It was around this time that our Grand Witch, Lady Tang Seorin, began to entertain some strange ideas. Of course, she was always a bit eccentric, but now her thoughts were becoming ‘a bit more unusual.’

[Translator – Jjsecus]

[Proofreader – Gun]