The Regressor Trains (4)
The Regressor Trains (4)
"...I'm famous?"
"Yes. But before that, please come into my room first."
We had clearly come to decide the fate of the chuunibyou murderer Death God, but the topic suddenly shifted to my celebrity. The two of us entered Yūki's room with rather bemused expressions.
"Here, take a seat."
Yūki, who had offered us his bed, casually plopped himself down on the chair in front of his desk.
"The reason two celebrities came all the way from Korea to here... must be because you've realized I am 'Death God'..."
His expression abruptly hardened as he clasped both hands together and covered his mouth. It was a pose straight out of an anime villain.
"I have been expecting a day like today for a very long time."
He maintained a relaxed attitude, as if he had predicted this situation.
His tone was calm and his expression was cold. However, seeing his nostrils flaring, it looked like he was struggling to suppress his excitement. This bastard was putting on a show. When someone has chuunibyou, don't they tend to seriously prepare for scenarios that will never actually happen?
"..."
But since I didn't know what kind of erratic behavior he might exhibit if I exposed his posturing, I decided to just keep my mouth shut and listen. A person whose weakness has been provoked tends to react aggressively.
"Ordinary people think I leave no traces behind... but as expected, people of your caliber recognize the clues I've left. Excellent. Well, though it took longer than I anticipated."
Unaware of my inner thoughts, Yūki recited his prepared script while pretending to be composed. The reason I was certain he had a script was that Yūki's speaking speed kept increasing. You know how some people get so into reading a script that they don't notice they're speeding up? That was exactly Yūki right now.
"I do not yet know whether you have come to offer me assistance... or to judge me. However, I must say one thing."
He unclasped his hands and quickly drew a dagger from his desk drawer.
"You two. Are you not being too careless, considering you have entered the domain of 'Death God'?"
Wooong.
The moment dense mana surged from Yūki's body, his figure holding the dagger gradually blurred and then turned completely invisible.
"Wh-what?"
Choi Ji-won shot up from the bed. Even Boongboong-yi was bared, and she looked visibly startled. It was safe to say Choi Ji-won's detection ability was the best in the world, but it seemed she couldn't sense a thing.
"Haha, are you flustered? My voice also sounds like it's reverberating from the void, and you can't hear my breathing, can you? My trait's rank is S. Isn't it only natural?"
Death God's voice, trembling slightly with excitement, echoed from all directions. As he said, pinpointing his location from the source of the voice was impossible. Judging by Choi Ji-won's alarm, she couldn't sense his body heat or breathing either.
I could understand how this guy assassinated top-tier players. With this level of concealment ability, he could kill anyone. Players weren't immune to getting stabbed, after all.
"I believe the essence of the world ultimately depends on perception. How we perceive the world makes it take on substance. And right now, the person known as 'me', whom no one can perceive... could be considered to have vanished from reality. Existing, yet not existing..."
"...What are you doing there?"
But for some reason, I could distinctly feel his location.
"Haha, bluffing is useless."
"You. I think you're crouched under your desk right now?"
"?!"
The reason I could pinpoint Death God's location was simple. Mana.
Every player has mana. The moment you acquire the Status Window, you're given a base Mana stat of 10. Top-ranking players sometimes invest more into Mana to use their traits smoothly.
However, even the highest-ranking players don't fully understand or utilize mana. They just use the power of their Status Window to artificially manipulate mana according to their will.
Of course, I am different.
Baron Jorge of Floor 3 said that if you constantly maintain awareness of mana, you can naturally handle it. He claimed that mana is originally like a part of the body, so anyone can learn to control it over time.
And at this point in time, I am the human most accustomed to the unknown force called mana. Why? Because I've lived the longest thanks to regression.
Therefore, my mana detection ability had reached a level far superior to that of other players... and pinpointing Yūki, who was leaking mana from his entire body without having awakened to the power of mana, wasn't difficult at all.
If he had been somewhat accustomed to mana, he would have been able to suppress the residual energy emanating from his body. In fact, I couldn't sense his internal mana at all, so if Yūki had been accustomed to mana, I wouldn't have found his location.
But that was just a hypothetical.
"Come out."
"Th-that's impossible..."
"If you don't come out, I'll really kill you."
"Okay."
'Death God' Asai Yūki surrendered.
**
"I'm sorry. I dared to test you. But I swear, I had no intention of harming you. Please believe me."
Yūki knelt politely on the floor. At first he looked genuinely flustered, but now his expression had transformed into something like, 'Yes, I expect at least this much from you.' No, who the hell are you to think so highly of me?
Well, at any rate, the environment for conversation was finally established. Choi Ji-won and I, with our arms crossed, looked down at the kneeling Yūki.
"China's Zhang Lei. Did you kill him?"
"Yes. I killed him."
"Why?"
"Because he was someone who deserved to die."
Yūki's shoulders, which had been deeply hunched, slowly began to straighten. It was like watching an engineering student at a drinking party when a topic he knows comes up.
"Are you someone qualified to judge?"
"No. But he was clearly someone who was better off dead."
Yūki tilted his head as if he genuinely didn't understand what was wrong.
"The vicious criminals I killed are superlegal entities that cannot be stopped by the laws of current humanity. If no one stops these scoundrels who have slipped through the cracks of the law, it would ultimately result in more victims."
"Don't use difficult words on purpose."
"Okay."
I blocked Yūki's attempt to show off with complicated words again and let out a deep sigh—because his words weren't completely wrong.
If Death God hadn't killed Zhang Lei... as he said, there would have been more victims in the future. You could see it as saving dozens or hundreds of future civilians by killing one person.
"Fine, I partly agree that there are bastards who deserve to die. But according to my investigation, among the people you killed, there were also completely innocent people and some who were ambiguously evil. How do you explain that?"
"That is... an unavoidable sacrifice."
Yūki furrowed his brow. This bastard, was he getting annoyed at me now?
"In the first place, crimes committed by players are cunning. Since they use their abilities to commit crimes, there's no direct physical evidence left, and all that remains are low-reliability rumors. You can't obtain proper information unless you resort to torture."
"...So you just start torturing them right away?"
"As I said, it's an unavoidable sacrifice. If I can save a thousand innocent people by killing ten, I will gladly do so."
"..."
Still on his knees, Yūki's eyes glinted dangerously.
From the conversation so far... this guy is definitely not stupid. Considering his age, it's safe to say he's extremely intelligent.
But maybe because of his chuunibyou, his ideology is too radical. Gladly kill ten to save a thousand? Could he still say that if he were the one dying? Can the dying do so willingly?
"I don't... intend to deny your activities outright, especially at a time like this. But I still can't shake the feeling that it's too excessive. And you are too young."
"No, why doesn't someone of your caliber understand? Are you testing me? My resolve is steadfast. There's no need for that."
Yūki thumped his chest in frustration. Seeing that, my own irritation shot up.
"Someone of my caliber? Ha, right. Good one. You said you knew me? What exactly do you think you know about me?"
"Aren't you a dark hero who operates in the shadows?"
"..."
The expression was a bit cringy, but I was surprised because it was more accurate than I expected. The trait 'Hero' actually existed in my Status Window.
"You save people, and I kill people... weren't we a yin-and-yang combo active in the darkness? So I'm really disappointed that you're acting this way, Jun-ho. In the first place, the reason I started acting as 'Death God' was because I saw you..."
"No, no, what do you mean?"
"I practiced torture techniques day and night, scouring gore sites. I polished my dagger technique until my hands blistered, and I've snuck into airplane cargo holds many times without proper sleep. Yet, yet you don't understand how I feel...!"
He said he started his activities after seeing me? Wasn't his first murder about a month and a half ago? At that time, I was still shuffling between Floor 4 and Floor 5?
"Ugh, snff...!"
Yūki started shedding tears. It was hard to believe this was the same person who had tortured and murdered countless people. No, what the hell is this?
"Wait. Wait a second. So, why exactly am I famous? How did you come to know about me?"
"...That is because of the Elixir."
"Elixir?"
I obtained an Elixir a total of two times. Once on Floor 2, once on Floor 4. So what about it?
"How did you obtain the Elixir on Floor 4?"
"...By saving everyone and getting the 50,000-point reward."
"..."
"Ah."
The point reward is given to all players who clear Floor 4.
And I saved every living being that entered Floor 4. Naturally, that included the 99 players other than myself.
In other words.
"Fuck."
Because of me alone, 99 lowest-grade Elixirs had been released onto the market.