A Few Things About the Nameless Hill

Reg pulled his rebuilt mobile home to a nameless hill overgrown with lily-of-the-valley, a relatively low peak opposite the Youkai Mountain. It was a place blooming beautifully with the flowers. So, so beautiful, Reg couldn’t find the words to describe it. Almost no one, neither human nor Youkai, came to this lovely spot.

The absence of human presence, even the scarcity of it, was something Reg truly enjoyed. Compared to bustling places, he preferred a quiet environment. Every time he sorted through his memories, Reg was reminded that he was destined to be a solitary, aloof person, one whom no one could truly understand. If he died once, everyone’s memory of him would gradually reset. If he died of old age, he would likely enter an infinite cycle of reincarnation, unable to be reborn until the moment of his next death… Reg genuinely feared this existential dread, this fear of the endless void.

Therefore, he had grown fond of appreciating scenery, wanting to record every beautiful moment in his mind to quell that inner anxiety. It should be beautiful after I pass away, shouldn’t it? Reg constantly reminded himself. As an adult who had lived two lives, Reg was actually very reserved. His social interactions were mostly superficial, cautious, and never deep. Otherwise, he could have signed a marriage contract with Marisa since childhood, though Marisa abandoning her home, claiming never to want to return, was perhaps a bit too dramatic.

Pushing his creaking mobile home, Reg cautiously traversed the somewhat desolate path on the nameless hill. The area was covered in brightly colored but potentially dangerous poisonous flowers, and the air was filled with a strange, sweet yet slightly bitter fragrance. The sunlight, too, seemed filtered, appearing somewhat pale and weak.

Reg looked up at the sky; the sun was nearly setting. He had stayed too long. If he didn’t hurry back, he might encounter a Youkai attack.

“I need to cross this area quickly…” Reg muttered, his eyes vigilantly scanning the swaying flower bushes around him. His bad luck constitution made him prone to trouble here—stepping on a poisonous thorn, suffering a pollen allergy, or even attracting lurking poisonous insects.

However, just as he focused on the ground, the wheel seemed to roll over something soft, causing a sudden jolt that nearly threw him off balance.

“Ugh!” Reg steadied himself, frowning as he looked back. There was nothing unusual under the wheel except for some flattened weeds. He bent down, carefully checking the wheel and the ground, his gaze eventually landing on the roots of a clump of dense poisonous lilies by the roadside. Something seemed to be stuck there.

Reg pushed aside the thorny flower stems, revealing a shabby, human-shaped doll. It wore tattered clothes, seemingly attacked by some other Youkai, and was scattered with injuries. It was about the length of his forearm, its face, which should have been beautiful, was now gray, covered in mud and grass clippings. One eye was hanging crookedly, half on its face, the other was completely gone. Its arms and legs were badly worn, and both arms seemed broken. Worse still, it was entangled in several tough vines, looking pathetically battered, as if it had been ruthlessly discarded here for a long time, eroded by the damp earth and plants.

“A doll? And a Tsukumogami on the verge of death? No, was it attacked by a Youkai? Why would this happen?” Reg was surprised. The nameless hill was rarely visited. Who would discard a doll here?

Looking at its ragged state, nestled alone beneath the flower roots, a surge of inexplicable sadness welled up in Reg’s heart. Such suffering shouldn’t be inflicted on a mere doll. So, after a moment’s consideration, he decided to try and save the doll, even if it might be highly poisonous. After all, he couldn’t hide his Samaritan nature; he had to maintain reverence for all beings. Furthermore, this doll looked lonely and carried visible injuries.

This feeling was somewhat similar to the sense of isolation and detachment he often felt, being out of sync with his surroundings. In Gensokyo, filled with Youkai and powerful beings, both he and this doll were, perhaps, anomalies in their own way.

“It must be awful to be abandoned here… and to suffer such an unwarranted disaster.” Reg spoke softly, as if confiding in the doll. He cautiously reached out, avoiding the prickly stems, and forcefully snapped the vines wrapped around the doll. In the process, his fingertip was accidentally nicked by a sharp dead branch. The wound healed quickly, in a short instant.

“Hiss…” A faint sting transmitted. Reg didn’t pay much attention; his focus was entirely on the doll. Lately, my recovery power seems too strong. Can I just not die doing anything?

He brushed off the larger clumps of mud from the doll and gently picked it up. The doll was lighter and floppier than he expected.

“Don’t worry.” Reg looked at the doll’s crooked-eyed, filthy face. “Come back with me for now. Although I’m a bit unlucky, cleaning you up and stitching you back together shouldn’t be a problem. It’s better than staying alone in this desolate patch of flowers.” He felt as if the small doll could understand him and needed this comfort.

How ridiculous. It’s not like I’m going to run into another Youkai, right? Is the real me actually just a childish boy? Reg thought this to himself.

Reg temporarily placed the doll on a relatively clean and stable corner of the mobile home’s shelf, ensuring it wouldn’t roll off again. He dusted off his hands, ready to continue pushing the cart. His fingertip felt a faint, prickly sensation, unlike a typical cut. He attributed it to dirt and didn’t investigate further. His body’s immunity seemed to resist the toxin. Reg’s body was actually quite resilient, having built up resistance to various poisons through continuous dying. Or perhaps it was Tomie’s regeneration at work. Poisons were already difficult to overcome him.

The mobile home began to creak and move again, the wheels rolling over the soft soil of the nameless hill. In the corner, the battered doll lay quietly, its single, crooked button eye seemed to be staring blankly in the direction of Reg’s busy back. The breeze from the nameless hill swept by, lifting a few strands of mud-stained fluff from the doll’s body, while the intensely colored poisonous flowers surrounding them swayed silently.

“What a busybody human… If it were anyone else, I would have poisoned them to death by now! Darn it! Right, as soon as my injuries are healed, I’ll draw your poison out! And then, I’ll increase your lifespan a bit! Be grateful, human!”

A voice in her mind, carrying the immature tone of a young girl, passed through the doll. Medicine Melancholy couldn’t control her own toxins. She had always considered the nameless hill her home, and today, a human had brought her into some kind of box—she didn’t know what it was. It seems he intends to adopt me. Sitting on the shelf, Medicine felt a sense of peace. It was as if this person would genuinely care for her.

Reg gradually drove his mobile home to a relatively safe location before stopping and stepping inside.

Under the dim yellow light, Reg focused on repairing the worn-out Medicine doll. He had replaced her damaged clothes with clean plain cloth and was now carefully stitching a tear in the doll’s arm with a small curved needle and cotton thread. The workbench was scattered with wood shavings, carving knives, paint pots, and soft stuffing cotton. The air was filled with a colorless, odorless poison. But Reg simply wouldn’t die.

“This needs to be stitched up tighter…” Reg murmured, holding the fine thread, completely absorbed in his work. The prolonged bending and concentration made his breathing somewhat heavy.

Just then, a sudden, sharp pain violently clutched his heart! Bad luck—is it the toxin from the nameless hill this morning? No, those toxins are negligible to me. Did the bad luck magnify the poison for some unobservable reason again?

“Ugh!” Reg grunted, his body instantly stiffening. The feeling came without warning, as if an icy hand had brutally squeezed his heart muscle. The intense cramping made his vision go black, almost suffocating him. His powerful regeneration fought continuously against the toxins. It was residual poison, finally triggering the myocardial infarction he had always worried about, catalyzed by his bad luck.

Sweat immediately beaded on his forehead. “It hurts so much! This hurts more than being stabbed!” The severe pain and the intense sense of suffocation that followed caused his fingers, holding the needle and thread, to violently cramp and twitch uncontrollably. His skin even began to peel off; the toxin was corroding his dermis. It felt like fire…

Although the regeneration won, the small sewing needle slipped from his grasp and fell onto the workbench. Immediately, this uncontrollable spasm spread to his right hand, which he had been reaching toward the other end of the bench to grab a wire saw bow. This hand was suspended above a simple pressing mold he had previously made for shaping small wood carvings. The mold was like a miniature guillotine, consisting of two thick, heavy wooden blocks with a precise gap in between, holding a very sharp thin steel plate as the cutting edge. When powered on, it operated extremely fast and required careful, two-handed operation during normal use.

At this moment, due to the severe cramping and spasm of his fingers, Reg’s hand, suspended above the mold, suddenly lost control and directly pressed the start button. The thought of this pain was already agonizing!

Snap!

Without any defense, the tips of the four fingers of Reg’s spasming right hand, along with a small area at the front of his palm, were instantly and cleanly sliced off by the sharp mold edge!

Blood, in that instant, erupted from the neat, smooth cut surface like a long-suppressed spring!

Excruciating pain!

Far exceeding the heart pain, the agony of the nerve endings instantly overpowered the discomfort from the myocardial infarction, surging violently up Reg’s arm and into his brain! His vision went black, and his body swayed violently, nearly falling off the stool. He instinctively used his intact left hand to desperately clamp down on the profusely bleeding stump of his right hand, trying to stop the terrible hemorrhage. But blood still welled out through his fingers, quickly staining his sleeve and dripping onto the workbench scattered with wood shavings and tools, soaking into a patch of glaring deep red.

“Mph…!!!” The intense agony made him clench his teeth, a suppressed, bloody groan escaping his throat. Cold sweat soaked his back like a waterfall, and his face turned paper-white in the dim light.

Ultimately, this small mold created a tragic and absurd accident.

“Damn it, I just can’t get used to this! It hurts this much every time!”

“Aah!!!”

A piercing, distorted scream, full of extreme horror and disbelief, suddenly erupted from the small, being-repaired doll on the workbench! It was Medicine’s voice. Her crooked eye seemed to instantly widen, staring at the splashing blood, Reg’s instantly bloodless face, and the horrific stump of his hand. Her small body trembled violently, and a confusing, intensely poisonous deep purple mist uncontrollably burst forth from her broken body, instantly filling the entire narrow mobile home space like a surging tide!

“N-not me… it wasn’t me who did it… Aahhh!!! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!!!” Medicine’s screams twisted in the toxic mist, full of collapse and despair. The faint desire for gratitude and warmth she had just developed was instantly and completely crushed by the horrifying, bloody scene indirectly caused by her. It was replaced by uncontrolled toxicity and frantic screaming.

What have I done? Why did I do this? Why can’t I control my own poison? Just as she was about to rush out of the mobile home to escape everything, Reg’s left hand grabbed the doll.

Medicine’s scream tore through the air, and the deep purple toxic mist billowed, filling the small mobile home. Her small body trembled violently in Reg’s hand, struggling to break free and rush out.

“It’s alright, calm down first. This isn’t your poison, I’m actually a Youkai too.” Reg’s voice was low, hoarse from the pain and blood loss, yet carrying a sense of calm. Large amounts of blood continued to surge out between the fingers of his hand clutching his right arm, dripping onto the scattered cotton, wood shavings, and tools.

Reg felt an indescribable will—it seemed as if the blood wanted to generate a copy of himself, but a powerful spiritual force held them back. The blood that seemed ready to form a new body ceased its agitation. His face was pale, his lips trembling.

“I am the Youkai of Misfortune. If I don’t treat your injuries tonight, I might die tomorrow.” He tried to pull his lips into an expression of ‘it’s okay,’ but the intense pain twisted the smile into a grimace. “See, my body is quite tough. When this blood flows… it actually boosts my immunity.” He spoke haltingly, sounding like he was trying to convince Medicine, but even more so, trying to convince himself to accept yet another sudden injury.

“Really? Are you really okay? That’s great…” Medicine seemed to believe the man before her. She gazed quietly at Reg, her initial frantic bewilderment transforming into a present calm. Medicine’s small body stopped struggling in Reg’s blood-stained left hand, only trembling slightly. Her crooked eye stared unblinkingly at Reg’s pale face and the horrifying, continuously bleeding wound. Her voice was tearful, thin as a mosquito’s buzz. “It’s… it’s really not my poison? But… so much blood… you’ll die…”

Reg’s vision swam from the pain, and sweat mixed with blood flowed from his forehead. He recovered in an instant. Reg couldn’t immediately understand, only concluding that his physique had become stronger through dying. He forced himself to pull out an extremely awkward smile, his voice hoarse and intermittent.

“Can’t die. I have the 『Trading Allah’s Response』.”

The 『Trading Allah’s Response』 was an all-purpose artifact. Legend had it that by paying a certain price, any wish could be granted. Reg had “borrowed” it from Kourin. When he was young, Reg, along with Marisa, had stayed at the antique shop, Kourindou, of Kourin, whose age was unknown. He was quite familiar with the owner. He had originally thought he was the destined protagonist, but after dying nearly 20,000 times, Reg had sobered up considerably. What legitimate protagonist dies every day! Reg died at least three times a day. If it weren’t for the pain sensors, he felt he would become numb.

Today’s pain was particularly intense, likely a combination of heart paralysis, toxin, and mechanical cutting. He immediately spent all the wealth he had requested from Akyuu yesterday. Reg felt his fingers gradually reconnecting and quickly used his left hand to switch off the machine, preventing further injury. The heart paralysis in his body vanished without a trace, and a scent of money instantly wafted away from him. Reg felt the terror of being a “funded fighter,” only able to shake his head helplessly and silently accept the price.

“Shall I fix your body for you? If you’re willing to stay here, I can give you a home. You just need to eat a little cotton, right?” Reg emanated a gentle aura, stroking the cute doll. Having a Tsukumogami like this in his home wouldn’t be bad.

“But… I can’t control the poison in my body… if anyone touches me, they’ll instantly turn into a corpse…” Medicine lowered her head, seemingly troubled. Her eyes seemed to hold longing but were forcefully suppressed because of her own toxicity.

“Hey! Small problem! As long as you’re not a glutton like Reimu, I can help you.” Reg placed Medicine on his palm and slowly began to stitch up the holes in her body. With the help of his maxed-out sewing skill, her clothes were instantly repaired, looking completely new, without any sign of being tattered. Instantly, her eyes were restored as well.

“Ah! How did that happen?” Medicine was astonished, covering her other eye. Her eyes suddenly becoming better felt like a miracle. But the problem… Medicine realized that the poison in her body was still uncontrollable, and she lowered her head in frustration again. What use is it if my body is repaired? As long as the poison exists, I can’t be accepted by others.

“Ooh! So fragrant!” Reg acted as if he were touching a fumo doll, sniffing Medicine’s hair with his nose, thanks to his technique.

“Hentai!” Medicine was slightly resistant, beginning to struggle. After a symbolic struggle, she offered no further resistance. But suddenly, she noticed that the poison in her body was no longer agitating, and she could only allow Reg to do so out of shame.

Right! I’m just… I’m just repaying a kindness… Medicine seemed to decide she wouldn’t be abandoned again and happily accepted her new owner…

In the middle of the night, Reg’s body nerves compelled him to walk towards the chair. Unbeknownst to him, a swing-like object began to hang from the sky, looping around his neck. Click… his neck was snapped, and his leg kicked over a lamp, causing a raging fire to consume the entire mobile home. Tomie’s ability loses some effect when exposed to fire. Reg experienced a hallucination, which led to his death.

“Didn’t I get rid of the virus?” he thought in his final moments.

【All-capable】：“Welcome back, Oh, my god! I thought you couldn’t die now! I didn’t expect you could still die from contact with fire?”

【ordinary person】：“I don’t know! If this keeps up, I feel like I’m going to go crazy… Having only the memories of death and loneliness, and lacking these self-entertaining experiences, my entire personality will break down.”

【All-capable】：“Oh dear, you won’t split. The ability for perfect mental restoration is one of our defining traits, after all. The original body has become an Outer God, hasn’t it?”

【ordinary person】：“I think you’re fake. Stop talking nonsense and give me a useless evasion skill. Give me the guaranteed-hit Black Slash! Doesn’t 24 times damage beat everything that defies it?”

After sending the message, Reg lay lazily on the ground again. This place was dark, yet he seemed able to touch himself. Give me some poison resistance, he thought, I can’t be too lonely.

Was that person really me? Could it be a setting I just made up in my head?

【All-capable】：“Please, infinite-duration evasion and percentage damage are the most awesome, okay! Stop constantly praising that Black Slash! Man, you’re happy now in a world where battle strength doesn’t stack! You’re basically half-immortal now; you just sealed away your memories and don’t know it. If you think you’re uncomfortable and will die, it triggers the timeline rewind too.”