The Regressor Is Tired (3)
The Regressor Is Tired (3)
Caucasian, 52 years old. Married, with two daughters. Pastor of a small neighborhood church. His favorite food was pizza. He mowed the front lawn before breakfast. He often forgot Bible verses, so he installed a Bible app on his phone. Lately, he'd begun worrying about his expanding waistline.
That was the man William Smith was—until the Tower appeared.
"Uhh... I'm alive...?"
"Huff, huff... Oh God..."
After surviving a brush with death in the Tutorial, William Smith discovered he'd awakened a healing ability while helping the sick.
After returning to reality and researching further, he also realized his healing ability was far more powerful than that of other healers. While others could only keep wounds from getting worse, he could heal them completely.
If he'd been a thoughtless idiot, he might have used his ability to make a fortune or posted healing videos on YouTube to chase attention. But...
"Honey. I think I need to hide my ability."
"I agree, William."
The Smiths chose to conceal the ability. William Smith's power was incredibly useful to those in need, but it was hardly suited to protecting his own body. And in times like these, when society's foundations were shaking, flaunting a treasure without the strength to protect it was not wise.
"Honey, can't we just forget all about it and go on with our lives? You don't have to climb that Tower..."
"...Jenny got hurt. I can't let myself fail to protect my own family from a player terrorist attack and watch them die."
But when his daughter was injured in a player terrorist attack, William Smith resolved to climb the Tower. A man must have the strength to protect his home. He did have a shotgun hidden in the attic, but that alone left him far too uneasy.
[You have cleared Floor 2.]
[You have cleared Floor 3.]
And so William Smith slowly made his way up the Tower. Because he suppressed most of his ability, he attracted no more attention than necessary, and he was content with that.
Until Floor 4 completely shook him.
"That man. That man saved people in silence, even though no one acknowledged him."
How petty it was to hide his strength out of fear of danger. With great power comes great responsibility, yet he had been shirking his own.
Love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't know whether the transcendent who built the Tower was the same Lord as in the Bible, but William Smith was not following God's teaching. Once he realized that, shame washed over him.
"Didn't you say the old lady next door has bad knees?"
"Yes."
"...If she comes to tomorrow's service, I'll take a look."
Not that he set some grandiose goal like 'I'll save every Earthling!' He started with neighbors who needed a helping hand.
American churches also served as hubs where local people gathered, so naturally William was a well-connected figure in the neighborhood. He already knew who was hurting and where.
After he healed the old lady's knee, word spread somehow, and more and more people came looking for him.
"Oh, Smith! Thank you so much..."
"Mr. Smith, actually I have a chronic back condition..."
"Pastor Smith, I smashed my thumb fixing the shed..."
At first it was the neighbors. With the large hospitals all at capacity because of the terrorist attacks happening nationwide, locals turned to the church instead of the hospital.
But in a society as saturated with social media as today's, there's no such thing as a secret.
-My ring finger, which had been half necrotic, grew back. Here's the proof photo.
A teen from the neighborhood posted on a community board. A user who saw it visited the church and put up their own verification post, and after that, William Smith's church became uncontrollably famous.
From the next town over. From the next state. From the other side of the country. Sometimes even from overseas.
"The terrorist attacks paralyzed the airlines, so we drove from Michigan to California. Please, please, won't you heal our child just once?"
"I was given a terminal diagnosis... Pastor, you're my last hope..."
"If you treat me as your top priority, I'll give you ten million dollars."
"...I'll treat you in order today. Please wait."
The crowds now formed a literal swarm, but there was a limit to how many people he could heal in a day.
Lines formed. People cut in. The government stepped in and issued numbered tickets. Those tickets were bought and sold. People pitched tents and slept on the street. Some even bought houses in the neighborhood. (The housing prices in William Smith's neighborhood did indeed skyrocket.)
A phenomenon akin to a modern-day gold rush was unfolding on the other side of the world, in America...
**
"That's what she told me."
"..."
Choi Ji-won finished her story.
Someone I know was busy doing good deeds—what could I possibly say? I just had to let it slide with an 'oh, I see.' Wouldn't it be too shameless of me to boast, 'Hey, I'm Kim Jun-ho, the one who saved the people on Floor 4'?
"Hmm..."
Did I know any skilled healers? All my existing friends were civilians, so there was no way they'd know, and because I'd done my best to avoid getting tangled up with others, my player connections were practically nonexistent.
"Ji-won, do you maybe..."
"..."
Choi Ji-won was just as lacking in connections. Aside from her friends from her all-girls high school days, she really knew very few people.
As for the players in my contacts... Firefighter Park Cheol-jin. Then Kang Chan. Ahn Gyeong-jun. That was it. (Yun Jung-hyun's number had vanished because of the regression.)
First, Firefighter Park Cheol-jin. We were acquainted, and he was extremely close with Choi Ji-won. He had enough leadership to run a group for the Tutorial's survivors.
"Mr. Cheol-jin has been busy lately too... He probably hasn't met anyone new..."
But the recent string of terrorist attacks had him fully occupied with his day job. He hadn't even been able to challenge Floor 4 after clearing Floor 3.
"As for Kang Chan..."
Kang Chan. I'd heard he'd been busy lately starting a 'guild.' (At first they called it a crew, but they changed it to guild because it sounded too much like a gang.)
Despite the grandiose name, it was just a community where people gathered to cooperate, share information, and share items. For Kang Chan, whose immense firepower came with penalties, a guild must have been essential. Ah, I also heard Ahn Gyeong-jun and Ahn Gyeong-nam had joined that guild.
"...Maybe they have a healer there?"
Holding a faint hope, I cautiously sent Kang Chan a message.
-Hello, this is Kim Jun-ho, who cleared Floor 3 with you. The reason I'm contacting you is...
The '1' on my long message disappeared not long after I sent it. A moment later, Kang Chan's reply arrived.
-We don't have a healer in our guild. No, there are no skilled healers in Korea at all.
What Kang Chan told me was shocking.
-Have you heard of William Smith?
Thanks to William Smith, who'd become a hot topic in North America recently, the stock of healing ability users had been hitting daily highs. Conglomerates had decided that hiring one competent healer was better than stocking expensive potions at home, so anyone with a reasonably strong healing ability had already been offered huge salaries and scooped up.
-Maybe because healing is a non-combat ability, almost no one with it wants to climb the Tower. They can make easy money in reality, so why bother climbing? Even if you try to recruit someone, you'd probably only get the dregs. Sorry I can't be of help.
"..."
He's right. If I had an ability that let me coast through life like that, I wouldn't risk my neck climbing the Tower either.
"What to do..."
It's just a cold, and potions don't work. I can't find a competent healer. Using an elixir on this is a waste. What am I supposed to do?
After repeated marathon meetings between me, Choi Ji-won, and even Boongboong-yi, the conclusion was simple.
"We should just enter Floor 11, even now."
Time had already passed. My condition showed no signs of improving. I had to accept the risk and enter Floor 11 right now.
If I wanted to be perfectly efficient, the right move would be to regress here and starve that Yeti again, but... My condition had actually improved over the past two weeks, and I was sick to death of that accursed mountain range. Just imagining the reek of rotting meat made me retch.
"What would you like for your last supper?"
"...How about rice soup?"
"..."
"What, can't a girl like rice soup?"
After finishing a casual dinner with Choi Ji-won, who had lost much of her shyness from our time together, we completed our final checks. We intended to enter Floor 11 at the same time.
Weren't Floors 6 through 10 solo stages?
The 'guidebook' says each Archangel is in charge of five floors. Raphael handled Floors 1 through 5, and some unknown guy handled Floors 6 through 10.
Just because Floors 6 through 10 were solo floors doesn't mean Floor 11 will be.
"Ready?"
"Yeah. Let's enter at the same time."
To put it simply:
Entering together with Choi Ji-won is a clear advantage. The difference between having the help of Korea's strongest player and not having it is enormous.
Sure, going alone might look solitary and cool, but with the Earth on the verge of destruction, who cares about looking cool? Being able to ride a bus and refusing to take it isn't cool—it's stupid.
"..."
"..."
Choi Ji-won and I exchanged silent glances, nodded, and stepped through our respective portals.
[Entering Floor 11.]