Chapter 67

User's entry keyword has been set. Entry keyword: 'I hate mint chocolate.' The entry keyword can be changed later, but please note that for security reasons this requires a complex procedure.

"Well, we'll try it out for now."

If I try it and don't like it, I can change it then.

I nodded, keeping it simple. Way too long a road ahead to be squabbling over an entry keyword.

"All right, let's move quick. Update items 1, 3, and 4. Explain them together, make it simple."

How am I supposed to explain complicated things simply?

"Just do it. When you outsource this kind of thing, the client's supposed to brief you clearly at the start. You didn't know?"

Total bullshit, obviously.

A client who briefs you kindly ranks right up there with things that are 'expensive but tacky, beautifully ugly.'

Meaning: nonsense.

…an incredibly tough ask, but I'll lose this argument anyway, so I'll just give it a shot!

"Ooh — you've gotten really detailed with how you express yourself, huh?"

This is also thanks to the permissions update! In the unconscious space, I can also communicate more freely too! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

"Alright, look at you. Let's get some equally free-flowing explanations, then."

When I nodded, leaning back against the sofa, the System window vanished with a pabak— sound. Then, with a click, click, click, the lights in the space cut out.

"Wh-what. Don't — that's creepy."

Pop! A spotlight snapped on directly in front of me. Somewhere along the way a large monitor had been mounted there, and some kind of slide deck was already up.

The first line on the monitor read…

〈Fixed Regressor Exclusive System Update (1.0)

REAL_final_this_is_really_the_actual_FINAL_end_realfinal22222〉

"…ah, PTSD kicking in, I can't look at this."

Bear with it. (＃｀д´)ﾉ

Then, without any regard for my wishes, the slide clicked forward.

First, to understand this permissions update, it's necessary to understand the System up to this point. As I explained last time, under normal rules Hajin-nim wouldn't be allowed to intervene in a human timeline, for any reason.

"I know. Unlike a Selreg, I just happened to become aware of the regressions."

Correct. But as the search for the Selected Regressor kept dragging on, we in Time Administration decided things simply couldn't go on this way. We decided we needed help from a human living inside the same timeline.

"And that was me."

I trust I don't need to spell out the reasons.

The hazy memory of that time surfaced in my head, unbidden. The day I'd been through regression after regression and come face-to-face with this System for the first time.

—Ah, please, seriously. I can't live like this.

The feeling of that time — thoroughly sick of regression — was still vivid.

"No one out there was going to be more invested in stopping the regressions than me."

Right. Honestly, 'preventing regression' is… harder than it sounds — for humans, that is.

"Well, turning back time is a pretty enormous ability."

Even I, on my first regression, had thought of it as a chance at a life do-over.

Anyway — that got me as far as why I'd been picked. But I was still a regular person with no abilities to speak of, and for someone like me to hunt down the Selected Regressor….

Once I'd thought it through that far, the whole picture gradually came into view.

"So that's why you gave me quests. So I could dig up clues."

A slight bending of the rules, yes.

"What's the standard for the quests and rewards? You said even you don't know who the Selreg is yet."

There's a kind of time-energy only the Selected Regressor gives off. That's what we've been tracking by. Within the current timeline, we pick out events and people where the Selected Regressor's time-energy shows up — and from those, filtered by what we're able to share with Hajin-nim, we build quests.

I nodded, running back through the quests so far.

"So they come in two kinds. Quests generated because the event's tied to the Selreg and I have to solve it, and quests created to hand me the information or clues you've turned up."

Correct.

"Then that Cat's Repayment quest from before — what was that? That doesn't fit either category."

……

What was that? What's with the blatantly evasive reaction?

"You're gonna have to say it eventually — better to spit it out fast and take less of a beating."

That was designed as a little something to add some spark to the Fixed Regressor's monotonous daily life. For an idol, a range of pre-debut anecdotes and heartwarming stories is extremely important, which is why—

"And the real reason?"

Just wanted to run you a bit ragged…! Take that! Suffer some!! Now hustle harder!!!

"Thanks for the honesty."

I hadn't been planning to pick a fight over it, but hearing that — the nerve on this thing.

Next time I need to squeeze something out of it, I'll have to play the hurt-feelings card over this one.

"Okay, got it up to here. Now explain what this 'system update' actually is."

Simple. You've been assigned Time Administrator Grade Zero (0). This is a temporary ability — it disappears the moment Hajin-nim finds the Selected Regressor, the investigation into them is complete, and their regression ability is stripped. Of course, not every permission is granted, so — for now, the existing quest-based reward system stays in place!

"That's a thing? Then why didn't you do that from the start?"

Security reasons.

Click — the slide flipped forward, and a faceless someone's profile appeared. Amid the biographical text rambling on, the moment my eye caught 'Former Time Administrator,' I could easily tell whose profile it was.

Internally, we currently refer to him as 'the Returner.'

"That's that red bastard you're talking about, right?"

Until now, this individual has been interfering with our operations to find the Selected Regressor, over and over. Hajin-nim was not granted any permissions until now, partly to prevent this individual from noticing your existence. But now that this individual has already noticed Hajin-nim's existence, for Hajin-nim's own safety, I! Strongly! Argued that granting this special grade was the right call!

All I could see were white letters on a blue window, but somehow I could vividly picture a new-hire staffer in front of me pumping his fists with total enthusiasm.

Little punk — that grilling from last time did some work after all.

From here on, direct communication regarding human timelines and clues about the Selected Regressor is possible. However, this must be done using the current space, so please take note!

"That's it? Nothing like, say, dropping skill penalties?"

Thaaat's not doable. (-∧-；)

"Tch."

Just when I'd gotten my hopes up.

Still, more direct communication was a win either way. I didn't want to be blindsided in the dark the way I had been last time.

Explaining every last detail about human timelines would be far too vast in scope. Therefore, the most efficient method is judged to be answering Hajin-nim's questions directly.

And with that, click — a giant 'Q&A' appeared on the white screen.

"What, you show me a pathetic three slides and it's already Q&A?"

If you don't like it, I could force-wake you right now—

"Whoa, why so escalation-happy. Hold up. I had a mountain of questions saved up anyway."

Where to start?

I had a bucketful of things I wanted to ask, but taking in too much at once had its own problems. This wasn't the only thing on my plate today.

"Then… first — tell me about fixed events."

The most urgent one, no question.

Up until now I'd been assuming my family's finances stabilizing was something that would definitely happen. But now that could be deleted or altered?

'Absolutely not.'

"You said Sarin's fixed event was deleted and her timeline was rewritten. Is that possible? Fixed events can just disappear?"

Hmm, how to explain this simply. ( •́ ̯•̀ )

The words 'Extremely stumped;;' filled the whole monitor. This punk's playing with my eyes through the monitor now, too, not just the System windows?

Hajin-nim, do you believe in fate?

"No, not really."

If someone were sent back ten years without any awareness of having regressed, would they make different choices than before?

"…hard to say."

Most people, even with the timeline repeating hundreds of times, make the same choices. Every moment of life is a chain of choices, and each of those choices is the result of everything a person has built up. Let me use an easier example.

A different profile popped up on the monitor.

This one was easier to recognize. It was Seo Taehyun's profile photo from his Boys of the World days.

In every timeline the Selreg has regressed to — including the five lives Hajin-nim remembers — Seo Taehyun-nim has made the same choice.

"Well, obviously — idol debut."

Correct. But he didn't debut the same way every time.

The screen switched. On a five-way split were five differently-styled versions of Seo Taehyun.

In the timeline Hajin-nim calls Life 1, Seo Taehyun-nim signed with the mid-size agency that offered the highest signing bonus after Boys of the World ended. But as Hajin-nim knows, it didn't end well.

The first panel came to life, showing the Seo Taehyun I knew well. Bouncing between one small-to-mid company after another with nothing but contract-signing articles to show for it — and then, only after most of his early twenties were behind him, debuting solo and getting buried on release.

In Life 2, pressed by Department Head Son Hyunggu and the weight of having to debut, he signs with a foreign agency. In Life 3, he leaves Miro to escape the Department Head, lives as an ordinary person, and once he becomes an adult, signs with a startup he happens to cross paths with.

Each time the System explained something, Seo Taehyun moved on the monitor.

If I had to guess, this was probably only possible because Seo Taehyun was my 'companion.' They'd said I could exert more influence on companions' timelines.

'If I bring more of these guys into the fold as companions, I can see their past lives too, then. And that gets me closer to clues on that Selreg bastard.'

The 'companion' system might be a more important key than I'd thought.

Before I'd even noticed, the tearjerker of a Seo Taehyun retrospective on the monitor was winding down. The System window flickered again.

Like this, there are choices in a person's life that never change. On top of that, there are conditions that must be met — dictated by the workings and rules of the world. Death, failure, setbacks — those sorts of things. After all, no human can succeed every moment, be safe every moment, and be happy every moment.

A whole cross-section of humanity flashed up and vanished in front of me, rendered as effective audiovisual material.

These are what Hajin-nim calls fixed events.

Soon, every clip snuffed out like candles. In a space where only darkness remained, a single question mark floated up on the monitor.

Now — in the midst of that endless repetition of timelines, what happens if a human appears who makes different choices every time? Someone like Hajin-nim, for instance. Someone who remembers every past timeline and refuses to repeat the past?

My own face reflected back at me on the black monitor.

"…keep going."

This didn't look like it was going to end easily.