The Wild Regressor Appears
I dodged the heavy weapon. I evaded the bladed weapon. I severed the skeleton’s neck. I crushed the skeleton’s skull. A heavy weapon smashed into my right eye. A blade buried itself in my thigh. My head throbbed violently. It felt as if my eyeballs would burst. My skin burned. Strength drained from my muscles. I had to endure. Gritting my teeth, I forced power into my limbs.
I was attacked again. And again. I defeated another skeleton. Then another. The more I fought, the worse the situation before my eyes seemed to become. Even the tremors in the ground grew stronger, as if my very will were shattering. When would this end? If this continued, I might actually die.
Clack, crunch—!!
“Ghh!”
Stamina and mental strength were exhausted. Even the senses I had relied on grew duller by the second. “Cough, cough!” Blood spilled from my mouth. I hadn’t even been struck in the stomach! As I fought endlessly and wondered why, one face surfaced in my mind—Lim Hana, who had openly blasted shock magic into my chest. The spell she fired must have damaged my bronchi. Reporting her to the police would land me in a juvenile detention center with no excuses. She was worse than Cheon Mari. There was no greater bitch.
At least there was one hopeful, positive thing. Thinking of Lim Hana gave me a little strength. Of course, most of that strength came from the sheer injustice of dying because of her. Part of me also wanted to protest and curse her out.
“Please, just a little more… If I climb a little higher, the rescue team should be there…”
Judging by how much time had passed, there was realistically no hope. It was nothing more than the desperate wish of someone abandoned. Even if it was blasphemous, I found myself hoping a Sword Master would come to help.
Time slipped by, again and again. After continuously slaughtering skeletons, I finally reached the next floor. Then, while climbing the stairs, I tripped. A wound opened on my forearm, but I couldn’t even scream. I had a mouth, yet I no longer moved. My mind was awake, but sleep crept over me. At the same time, strength left my entire body. I was so exhausted that my body refused to move. Even just breathing felt like I could suffocate at any moment.
“No… No…”
The skeletons would be chasing from behind. I couldn’t collapse here. I had to regain my senses and force strength back into my limbs. So I straightened my three grotesquely bent fingers.
“Hrk, graaah!!!”
Returning them to their original state was agony. Perhaps because I had inflicted it on myself, it ranked among the top five most horrific moments of my life. Damn it. There was nothing else to say.
Using my swollen hands to steady myself against the wall, I moved forward. I had discarded the magic lamp during the fight, so I relied on my senses to head for the next floor. Honestly, I didn’t believe hope waited there. Dozens of minutes—no, hours—had passed since I regained consciousness and started climbing. Yet the ruin seemed endlessly tall. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say there was no hope this time either.
If only the magic elevators I occasionally saw had worked, I wouldn’t have these worries. But they had been completely destroyed by the earthquake. What terrible luck. All of this was because of that damn drug addict, Lim Hana. A grade-schooler doing drugs was already culture shock, but learning it at the academy? Where exactly was this country headed, with so many Awakeners and mixed-bloods? Even though I was one of those Awakeners and mixed-bloods myself.
Given the situation, I even started suspecting that Lim Hana might have caused the earthquake herself. Her magical talent was among the best, after all. If some hidden power had suddenly awakened like in a B-grade movie, it wouldn’t be impossible. Cases of people suddenly gaining power and flying around weren’t unheard of in reality. The more I thought about it, the more plausible the ridiculous hypothesis became.
“Ugh… My head…”
I had probably lost too much blood and was starting to hallucinate and think nonsense. Still, I stopped right in front of the next floor.
“At least this time… there won’t be as many, right…?”
It was a wish with neither strength nor realism behind it. The floor would probably be crawling with skeletons like all the others. But perhaps the heavens had heard my plea. When I reached the next floor, not a single monster was in sight. Unlike the previous floors, there was even a door at the stairwell entrance. A door meant a lock. I could temporarily block the skeletons coming from below.
Without hesitation, I locked the door connecting to the stairwell. I slowly backed away, swallowing hard, then collapsed to the floor. A smile spread across my face without end.
Finally! Finally!!!
“I’m alive. Ha…”
I hadn’t completely escaped yet, but it felt like finding a mid-stage safe zone straight out of a game. Even if it was lacking, this was enough. As I let out a sigh of relief, all strength left my body. I flopped onto the floor. Though it was uneven stone, in my current state it felt like a luxury mattress. I even thought it would be nice to just give up on everything and sleep. So I closed my eyes, thinking it would only be for a moment—truly just a moment.
But my eyes closed on their own. My body had begun putting itself to sleep. I couldn’t resist. Just as I was about to escape the pain for a short while—
Rumble!
The ground trembled. A sound so dreadful it had no equal. Dust falling from the ceiling. Those three things alone banished all sleep. I forced my body up and moved to a corner. Something might fall from above, and the floor could collapse at any moment. In the end, even after finding a place to rest, actually resting was impossible.
After a brief moment of lament, I searched for something to wet my throat. Fortunately, there was a spherical vending machine in the corner. A vending machine without electricity? How mysterious. Yet it felt familiar. I examined it slowly.
[Do not hit the vending machine!]
[Hitting it for no reason may trigger the defensive magic!]
Whoever installed it wasn’t completely thoughtless. It only accepted cash and rejected anything internet-related like credit cards. I pulled out a bill from my pocket, inserted it, and pressed a button. A drink rolled out. Though it hadn’t been long since I last drank, it felt like sweet rain falling in a parched desert. I opened the lid, opened my mouth, and poured the drink in. It was the first time I realized a beverage could taste this good.
Still not enough. I inserted more bills and bought additional drinks. I kept pouring them down my throat. Of course, I didn’t drink everything. I set two aside and rubbed them against my injured left fingers. The area that had hurt even from vibration now felt noticeably better, perhaps because of the cold. Of course, moving the joints or tendons was still difficult.
“If I could use magic, I would have chilled it long ago.”
Judging from the weather and temperature, this country mainly taught ice-element magic. By middle school, most students could use magic to soothe injuries. Unfortunately, I had no talent in that area, so even that was beyond me. In the end, I could only endure the pain until it swelled up before giving emergency treatment. It was something others wouldn’t have to experience. Aside from supernatural abilities, it endlessly reminded me how little talent I had for the hunter path. The conclusion I reached while drinking was that coming to Hunter Middle School had been a mistake. At least if I had gone to a regular middle school, none of this would have happened. Naturally, Lim Hana and this whole mess wouldn’t have occurred either. Lim Hana could do drugs on her own, I could study on my own, and Cheon Mari… she would figure something out. But thinking about it again, Lim Hana seemed like an absolute piece of trash. After all, she had done this to someone who had helped her from elementary school all the way through middle school.
“Once I get out of here, I won’t let her off.”
It was probably my new life goal. After tearing my clothes to bind my wounds, I stood up while repeating that goal to myself. Contrary to my confident rise, however, I couldn’t move my feet.
“……Ah, shit.”
Standing in front of the locked door was a single skeleton. A massive one. In games, it would have been classified as D-rank or C-rank. Only now did I understand why hunters couldn’t clear the gate quickly.
“Ah……”
I had dealt with the others somehow, but this one would definitely kill me. I would die for sure. I frantically looked around. It was a desperate struggle to escape, and I almost succeeded in finding a passage—
BOOM—!
The door burst open with a single punch. The giant skeleton slowly stepped out, its heavy body leaning forward. I had to run immediately. I sprinted toward the stairs leading upward. But it quickly tore the door apart and slammed it into the stairwell. The entrance was so deeply and messily embedded that pulling it out seemed impossible. In shock, I turned my head. The giant skeleton was cracking its large knuckles several times. Since I had rested in the safe zone, only one thing remained— a fight to the death against the mid-boss.
“Of all times……”
I drew my dagger. The giant skeleton slowly approached. As its fist moved, my feet moved as well. Thus began a battle with no chance of victory—
BOOM!!!
A dull impact. Something crashed from the sky to the ground. I felt like I was being swept up in it. Reflexively, I closed my eyes. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed in heavy silence and stillness. No footsteps could be heard, which felt strange. It was as if the world had stopped breathing. Amid the pervasive silence, I slowly lowered the hand I had raised. What appeared before me was completely unexpected.
The giant skeleton, crushed into pieces. Standing atop it was a villain.
“Oho, so the gatekeeper guarding the hidden items crawled all the way up here? This is a first.”
A voice that sounded rough yet alluring. Platinum short hair that seemed to devour even faint divinity. Blood-red eyes that revealed a life marked by death. Skin as if woven from the souls of the pure and innocent. Though only a middle schooler, her appearance made it impossible to imagine what heights she would reach when fully grown. A figure so perfect it was as if the greatest artisans had been tortured to sculpt it. And then—
“Hmm~ Don’t tell me you all came all the way up here to beg this beautiful, pure, and righteous me to save you?”
Arrogance to match her chest.
“Cheon Mari?”
The wild regressor had appeared.