The Regressor Is Tired (8)
The Regressor Is Tired (8)
"Choi Ji-won. That's right, isn't it? I have a proposal. Let's wipe out the dwarf village. How about it?"
This was the worst-case scenario I had imagined. Players who'd held back until they couldn't stand it any longer, deciding to wipe out the dwarves.
"What did we do wrong? The moment we enter the Tower we face discrimination, persecution—aren't those bastards the ones pulling this crap? Should we just keep taking it?"
The man gestured with his chin toward the back, and about twenty players revealed themselves. Their clothes were dingy with dirt and dust, deep fatigue etched on their faces.
"...Felix?"
"..."
Among them stood the German player Felix, who averted his eyes from us, perhaps knowing exactly how immoral this was.
"I've gathered all the players on Floor 11. You can see the state they're in—they're all exhausted. Putting up with this senseless malice ends today."
The man continued, his confidence swelling.
"There are those who want to wipe out the dwarves entirely, but I think that's taking it too far. Still, we players have to seize control of the fortress. Would you entrust your lifeline to those insane dwarves? Hero of Floor 2, Choi Ji-won, if you stand with us, we can very easily..."
"Wait. Hold on."
Choi Ji-won's expression hardened, cutting him off.
"We just finished talking with the shopkeeper. Please try to calm down."
"...And they actually talked to you?"
"Yes."
After scanning the dense crowd of players, Choi Ji-won calmly recounted what the shopkeeper had told her.
"So you're saying we just have to wait three more days?"
"That's right."
"..."
The man hesitated, as if he hadn't expected the dwarves to have already talked to her. Then a woman who'd been watching from behind raised her voice.
"We can leave Floor 11? Fine. That's fine. But what about the rewards we aren't getting?"
"...I don't understand what you mean."
"The later floors—they're designed assuming we cleared Floor 11 properly, aren't they?"
"..."
Now it was Choi Ji-won who was at a loss for words.
She was right. The difficulty from Floor 12 onward is probably calibrated assuming we'd completed normal item farming here on Floor 11. Sturdy armor, sharp weapons, camping gear—that kind of thing.
"If we clear Floor 11 completely empty-handed, what kind of disadvantage will we face later? I'd like to take something with me."
As the woman said, if we simply 'cleared' Floor 11, it could snowball into a huge disadvantage down the line. For someone who has to prepare thoroughly because they can't see the future, that choice was unbearably risky.
"Exactly."
"We need at least a weapon. Right?"
Other players nodded in agreement with the woman's point.
"...Even so, violence is unacceptable."
"Why?"
"Because the passage stone is made by the dwarves. To be precise, by the shopkeeper."
"..."
As soon as Choi Ji-won brought up the passage stone, the murmuring among the players died down.
"Suppose, worst case, the dwarves stop making passage stones. We have one, so we'll clear it. Then the next group arrives, picks up a passage stone lying on the ground, and clears it. But what happens when the passage stones run out?
"...We just make them produce more. In the absolute worst case, torture—"
"Think they'll make them if we force them? The dwarves are stubborn as hell. They said they'd rather die than be oppressed."
Choi Ji-won had felt it during that conversation with the shopkeeper. Dwarves are as craftsman-stubborn as they come.
In fiction, dwarves might appear as slaves to dragons or humans... but they also appear as an obstinate race that can never truly be enslaved. And Floor 11 dwarves were clearly the latter.
"No matter what, we can't attack them."
"..."
With that firm declaration from Choi Ji-won, the opinion to wipe out the dwarves lost its force.
"Fuck. So what the hell do you want us to do?"
What rushed in to fill the silence was seething resentment.
"What did we do wrong? We get here and those fuckers start acting like assholes. We haven't done anything wrong, so why do we have to end up in this state? Isn't that right?"
"..."
"Why do we climb the Tower? Besides getting stronger, isn't it ultimately to save humanity? So why should we endure this kind of treatment? Why should we accept the disadvantage? Huh?!"
That was the crux of it. You couldn't simply blame these people. Because they really hadn't done anything wrong.
I understood that both players and dwarves felt wronged. The real offenders had vanished, leaving only the victims to loathe each other.
"...I'll hold back for now. There's no other choice..."
"Haaah. So we have to eat grass for three more days?"
Besides, the players hadn't completely lost their reason; they understood that waiting was the best option. The proof was how they barely managed to calm down and slumped to the ground.
"...Jun-ho."
"...Yeah."
"What do we do..."
Only then did Choi Ji-won look at me, her lower lip lightly bitten. She'd sympathized with both sides, so her worry would only deepen.
"First, we gather all the information we can... and regress."
Just as I was about to launch into a closed-door meeting with Choi Ji-won—
"...Choi Ji-won, I have something to confess."
"...?"
A haggard player tapped her twice on the shoulder.
Now what.
**
"I killed him."
Those were the first words out of the man's mouth once he'd led us to a secluded spot. He identified himself as Mason.
"This..."
Mason fumbled and pulled something from his pocket. At first I thought it was something bizarre, but a closer look revealed a vividly colored red mushroom with a bite mark taken out of it.
-Mad Clown's Smile [C+]
-A mushroom traditionally used in the manufacture of drugs. Contains the power of chaos, and is named because the eater laughs like a crazed clown.
"I really, really didn't do it on purpose..."
As if he'd committed a sin against us, Mason knelt, tears streaming down his face like chicken droppings.
"It was just out of simple curiosity... I took a bite of this mushroom my friend got from the forest..."
"And then?"
"When I came to out of the ecstasy... my body was covered in blood... and in front of me was a dead dwarf..."
Now not just tears but snot running, the man beat his head on the dirt floor and sobbed.
"At first I hid it because I was terrified... But... they say all this happened because of me... The guilt..."
"Hold on. Hold on."
I steadied Mason by the shoulder and forced his upper body up so our eyes met.
"Are you aware there were two murders?"
"...Yes."
"Which one were you involved in?"
"The first one..."
He looked at me as if wondering who the hell I was, but answered earnestly. However, if this man was the real culprit, things got a bit strange.
"From what the dwarves told me, there were people who rushed to spend money and leave right around the time of a murder. What about them?"
"Those people... I heard they obtained rare minerals and made a fortune..."
"So it was just a coincidence?"
"Yes..."
"..."
What the fuck. I cursed under my breath. That was just a coincidence? The real culprit is here?
No, it's too early to conclude this man is the real culprit.
"Why didn't you run away sooner?"
"...Guilt, but also I had no money."
"Didn't you loot the dwarf's belongings?"
"When I woke up, there was nothing... Neither the dwarf's belongings nor mine..."
"What the fuck."
This time I let the swear slip out aloud. It was too absurd.
I'm not sure how much of Mason's story I can believe... but assuming he told only the truth, there was a high probability this man had been used, too.
"Did anyone push you to eat that mushroom?"
"...Yes. A Chinese friend named Zhang Lei..."
"Oh for..."
I roughly scratched my head out of frustration, but the situation remained unchanged. On the slim chance, I reluctantly asked Mason.
"...So where did this Chinese guy go?"
"...He disappeared somewhere after the second murder..."
Ah.
"How the hell did you even make it this far."
"...My trait is S-rank..."
"..."
Frustration. A relentless onslaught of frustration; I could barely keep my thoughts in order.
Just because his trait is good, does that mean an idiot like this is allowed to make it all the way up here? Recently I'd seen a lot of forum posts whining about not getting a good trait, and in an instant I understood exactly how they felt.
"What do you plan to do now?"
"...I intend to turn myself in to the dwarves..."
"Go on, then."
"...Okay..."
Once the red-eyed, crying man had moved far enough away, Choi Ji-won and I let out deep sighs. If his story were true, the real dwarf-killer was someone else.
A rough picture emerged. Zhang Lei had figured out that Mason was a pushover. He happened to have a Mad Clown's Smile mushroom, and he'd also spotted a suitable prey. (Though it is a bit strange that a drug-component mushroom just happened to be available at the right time.)
Anyway, Zhang Lei had been waiting for his moment. He fed Mason the mushroom, murdered the dwarf, grabbed the valuables, and probably smeared blood all over Mason's groggy body.
When Mason woke up, he naturally assumed the mess was the result of his mushroom-induced frenzy. No wonder the evidence for the first murder had been so conveniently clear.
If this theory held, it seemed highly likely Zhang Lei had committed the second murder as well.
"Can we find this Zhang Lei bastard?"
"And do what if we find him?"
I shook my head at Choi Ji-won's question.
Go out to the real world and find the killer? And then what?
He's probably a player himself, and it's doubtful we could even track him down in reality, let alone have him admit to it.
I mean, he's not a grade-schooler—as if he'd just confess to being the bastard. In the first place, the fact that he's Chinese makes him hard to find. They've got their own internet, you know.
And even if we did find him, crushed him, and delivered a satisfying 'true education'...
That wouldn't do a thing to repair the ruined Floor 11. It'd be nothing but venting.
"Ugh, I'm tired."
This isn't your ordinary frustration. If there were a novel with that Mason as the protagonist, the comments section would already be flooded with people dropping it.
A so-called top-rank player gets toyed with by one psycho, and the snowball that rolled from it has resulted in a ruined Floor 11.
A deep emotional rift had already formed between the players and the dwarves, and getting Floor 11 to function normally again seemed far off.
Even if we explained the situation thoroughly to the dwarves, would their anger subside? No way.
In the end, it's still a fact that a player committed the crime.
A completely tangled mess.
A plan to solve this situation...
"...I think there might be a way."
"A way?"
"But Ji-won, you might end up suffering a bit."
Thinking it over, there was indeed one. But this method required Choi Ji-won's complete support. It was a method I'd rather not choose if I could help it, but... there were no other options.
"I'm fine with it. As long as it's not something seriously weird."
As confident as ever, Choi Ji-won shrugged her shoulders. Since she genuinely seemed okay, it'd probably be fine.
"Alright, my plan is simple. We'll force the dwarves and the players to stick together."
"Is that even possible?"
"I learned one thing in the military."
"...?"
"The easiest way to build comradeship among awkward peers..."
At school, at work, in the military. The fastest way for people to get close...
"Is if there's a common enemy."
That's right: bonding by badmouthing the people above you.
Yes.
With a common enemy, we could solve this situation. Faced with a crisis, they'd be forced to rub shoulders whether they liked it or not, and a sense of solidarity would develop.
But do we have a common enemy right now?
We don't.
If we don't have one...
Then we'll just have to make one.