The Regressor Tunes Up (3)
The Regressor Tunes Up (3)
Fwip.
I turned the page.
<Floor 4 Survivor Report>
The beginning of the report was structured as a Q&A. Someone asks, and a Floor 4 survivor answers.
Q: What was your experience on Floor 4 like?
A1: It was horrible. I don't want to think about it again.
Q: Please elaborate on the "horrible" part.
A1: One fucking insane player violated an NPC woman, and the NPC faction immediately fought back. But since that fucking insane player was the strongest one on Floor 4, there was a bloody massacre. I'd never seen so many corpses in my life.
Q: What happened next? Don't monsters appear on Floor 4?
A1: The monsters swarmed us at dawn on Day 3. Everyone was asleep, so we didn't even know they'd broken in. The weak players couldn't respond and were slaughtered; only the very strong players survived. Even after barely making it through, the stench of blood in the castle was so thick it was a struggle to fall asleep.
"...Hm."
I'll say it again: we prepared extremely thoroughly.
Of course we sealed every gate in the castle walls, and in our spare time we scoured the entire castle, finding almost every hidden element. We practically licked the bowl clean.
But if we'd just spent two days in a daze like this person, with no preparations at all... we definitely would've taken catastrophic damage.
Q: What happened after that?
A1: Nearly all the players died on the first day. The ten of us who were left barricaded ourselves in a room inside the castle and held out. We managed to endure the remaining two days without much trouble.
Q: What about the NPCs? Do you know what happened to them?
A1: I don't know. I never left the room, so I can't say. I can't remember very well.
"Hmm..."
So because everyone summoned to the floor made zero preparations, they all got wiped out.
It's certainly one of the possible scenarios, but it's too extreme. And there's no information to be gained from it. Personally, I was hoping it would prove Ahn Gyeong-nam's hypothesis that "the attacks stop once the number of otherworlders equals the number of players."
Putting aside the disappointing Q&As, I flipped through the pages again. When about an hour had passed, I finally found a Q&A in the style I was looking for.
A8: We cooperated with the NPCs and decided to protect each other. We figured the NPCs wouldn't just be handed to us for nothing. I had a gut feeling it was directly tied to the reward.
Q: I'd like to hear more details.
A8: Didn't the tutorial emphasize "moral values"? I decided that the main value on Floor 4 must be cooperation.
"The logic isn't bad."
A8.
This one was pretty sharp. They didn't seem to think of doing construction to seal the walls completely, but they did their own kind of prep—drafting some players to scout around the castle and setting traps.
Just as I was reading through the report with growing interest—
A8: But my judgment was wrong. The value of Floor 4 is never something like "cooperation."
Suddenly, A8's tone turned aggressive.
Q: Wrong? I'd like to hear more.
A8: Floor 4's difficulty is too high. It's not a difficulty where you can survive while protecting the NPCs. The first wave on Day 3 was manageable, but the Day 4 wave was beyond what we could hold back.
Q: You may continue.
A8: On Day 5, we made the bold choice to abandon the NPCs. The difficulty immediately felt much easier. It was just a matter of everyone protecting themselves, so there was nothing hard about it.
"..."
A8. This person threw away the NPCs the instant the difficulty ramped up. Their reason for protecting people in the first place was a reward, so there was no reason to risk their life for them.
Right. So what happened next?
A8: But... with about four hours left on the clock, "them" appeared.
Q: Them?
A8: They were...
-The Q&A was halted as Survivor A8 complained of sudden dizziness.
"...What?"
It really cuts off right there. Even when I flip to the next page of the report, it just records the Q&A with A9.
"Hmm..."
Under the circumstances, the otherworlders were probably slaughtered indiscriminately. For ordinary people with no one to protect, surviving Floor 4 was a distant prospect.
And then, probably... the number of players and otherworlders became equal.
And the aforementioned "them" must have appeared.
"Ssssp..."
First, Ahn Gyeong-nam's theory was wrong. "So that you will realize death once more" was never a positive expression. There's no way something that leaves memories so horrifying that just recalling them makes you retch could be positive.
But the descriptions of "them" are lacking. That'll probably come up as I read further.
After organizing the acquired information in my head, I turned back to the report. But the following Q&As were just a series of ordinary accounts, not much different from the earlier ones.
If I were to summarize the common threads from the survivors' testimonies...
First: Players who suffered devastating losses in the first wave on Day 3 took no major damage afterward. Those who barely survived Day 3 mostly made it through to Day 5.
Second: Everyone who tried to protect the otherworlders either gave up at the last minute or compromised by saving only a few. And they reported seeing "them." Everyone described it differently, but they all had one thing in common: abstract descriptions of a horrific spectacle.
Third: People who didn't prepare didn't feel much of a difficulty shift, but people who did prepare experienced a drastic change in difficulty.
Fourth: People who cleared Floor 4 vowed never to protect an NPC again.
The important one here is the third. The fact that the moment you prepare, the difficulty changes is noteworthy.
In this cycle, we poured all sorts of effort into construction—barricading the castle wall gates and sealing the entrance. But the monsters melted through the blocked entrance as if mocking us, and a winged monster even showed up.
In short, monsters appeared that directly countered our efforts. It was the same for others.
If you prepare for the monsters in advance, the next day brings monsters designed to neutralize that preparation. No single countermeasure lasted more than a day.
But it holds for one day. That's the crucial point.
If we hadn't known, we'd just trust our preparations and hunker down complacently, but now that we're aware, we just need to devise new countermeasures. This was incredibly useful information.
"Hoo."
Maybe from reading too much text, my mind felt a little fatigued. But there was still a long way to go in the report. After rubbing my forehead for a moment, I started reading again.
Even if the content so far had been repetitive, there was every chance something noteworthy could appear in the latter half.
So I read, and read, and read some more.
The respondent code names ticked past A20, A30, A40, and finally reached A60.
"...Huh?"
The sound escaped my lips before I knew it.
A61: We had no choice. I'm sorry to Count Julius, but we did our best. I'm sorry we couldn't protect him and his territory residents, but we couldn't just die to save them.
"...Who's Count Julius?"
A name I'd never heard before. There was someone like that? A hidden piece?
Q: Please elaborate.
A61: We abandoned Count Julius and his territory residents. But he was the one who lied first. From the very moment he was summoned, he never stopped bluffing. That he was a great mage, that all his territory residents were trained soldiers, that his knights could split mountains...
Q: Was that not true?
A61: Absolutely not. His territory residents were all farmers. The trained soldiers didn't even number twenty.
"...What the hell is this?"
"From the very moment he was summoned." His soldiers. His knights.
An ominous suspicion crossed my mind, and my hands flew to flip through the report manically. The keywords I searched for were titles: baron, count, and the like.
"...Good lord."
The result was shocking.
Count Julius. Marquess Yungtel. Viscount Gorbachev. Baron Irving.
The otherworldly nobles mentioned in the report all had different names. Their described appearances were different, too. Their personalities were all over the place.
"...Baron Jorge..."
Was never mentioned. Not even once. This could only mean one thing.
The tutorial's Goblin Shaman revives even when they die. He revives as many times as the tutorial repeats, and dies just as many.
Efforts to save the Goblin Shaman are meaningless. Even if he survives once, he'll die again anyway. Even if he dies once, he'll revive again anyway. He's a being completely bound to the Tower.
But... Baron Jorge isn't like that. The nobles summoned to Floor 4 aren't summoned again. They aren't repeating existences—they're singular, solitary beings.
That means the otherworlders aren't just part of the scenery prepared for Floor 4. It means that they, too, are living beings truly struggling to survive. It means they aren't NPCs you can just casually throw away.
"..."
Realizing that sent a heavy weight settling onto my chest. I had one more reason to save Baron Jorge and his territory residents. The responsibility weighing on my shoulders grew heavier as well.
"Get a grip."
No. Nothing changes. I just need to save them all. The right thing to do with my time is to gather information.
I was just forcing my eyes open again, trying to read the report slowly, when—
Ring ring ring.
"...What?"
The sound of music shattered my concentration. My phone lit up, blaring its ringtone. I was about to just turn it off so I could finish the report.
"..."
[Choi Ji-won]
When I saw the name on the screen, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Click.
As if possessed, I pressed the call button, and a voice came through the phone.
"Jun-ho... can I see you right now?"
Choi Ji-won's voice was trembling.