The Regressor Trains (7)
The Regressor Trains (7)
After the cycle in which I resolved to gather information, I regressed three more times.
Which meant I cleared Floor 11 three more times, and each time I spent about five days camping out and posing as the Death God. Repeating the same thing is always painful. I might have gone crazy much sooner if Choi Ji-won hadn't been there.
Anyway, after all that time, the conclusion was stunning.
"I can't... do this anymore..."
The truth is, there was no great haul. The one thing I learned was that I'd been terribly arrogant to try gathering intelligence online.
In one cycle, Choi Ji-won even tried to make friends with the players on Floor 11 and extract information, but... the moment they returned to reality, they dropped off the map and cut contact completely. To be specific, the response was, "We can't give you information unless we become much closer." Which means you have to join their inner circle.
"..."
To a regressor, information is power. But what I'd forgotten was that, from the start, information is power for all humans. In web novels, protagonists who regress from the far future know every past event, but... real players aren't generous enough to hand out priceless information for free.
"Still, I did pick up a few useful tidbits..."
It wasn't that there was no harvest at all—just no huge haul. A few small things did turn up. First: the method players use to share information about other floors.
Isn't it forbidden to share information about floors you haven't reached yet? That's right. But the players who really put their heads together found their own solutions.
Number one: recording entry time and exit time. People who haven't climbed yet can infer the floor's difficulty from how long the advance party stayed on each floor. Still, since even the Association uses this method, it's fairly well known.
Number two: right after clearing a floor, leave a photo of yourself.
The Tower's filter is surprisingly thorough—it blocks perception of any behavior that could let you infer the task, like imitating a monster's appearance or mimicking its cries. But taking a photo of yourself immediately after clearing a floor, with no other action, was possible.
That's the point. You can deduce quite a lot from an injured player's appearance. Whether they were clawed, hit by a weapon, burned, frostbitten, and so on... Of course, if a wound was inflicted "on purpose," the injury vanishes like a ghost, so apparently only unintended wounds count.
"A German player named Felix told me. He saw a photo of a player with frostbite from Floor 10 and deduced it's a floor set in a cold region."
If I could get my hands on photos like that, I could use them very effectively. The problem is, to obtain them right now, you need connections, not money.
You might ask, why not just build connections?
Thanks to Choi Ji-won, that hasn't happened recently, but the experience of having someone I was close to not recognize me is truly, truly agonizing. Unless I'm going to get a whole new girlfriend every time... I should avoid getting too close to others.
Sigh. Why couldn't an "information guild" have sprung up? If a guild existed that would spoon-feed you info just for paying, I could endlessly wring it out by repeating regressions. Why doesn't reality have an information guild? I can't help but be disappointed.
Either way, the information-gathering attempt ended in failure. By nature, players spend considerable time inside the Tower, making their movements hard to track, and after the Death God's death, nobody talks about where they are or what they're doing. Even the head of the Player Association, Michael Jeter, has been elusive lately. Probably because of the fear that another assassin like the Death God might appear. After all, some ability like "can kill exactly one person" could pop up. (Perhaps the Death God's death is the very reason gathering information has become harder.)
In the end, after giving up on information gathering, I regressed and repeated the previous cycle. Cleared Floor 11, sought out the Death God, talked to him, then quickly returned to Korea. I slept well, filled my stomach, and equipped the various gear I'd obtained on Floor 11.
"So, we're going in at the same time?"
"Yeah."
I entered Floor 12 together with Choi Ji-won.
[Entering Floor 12.]
**
[Entering Floor 12.]
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw... a bed. A fairly modern-style bed at that. I was inside a fairly large room.
Not just a bed. A water purifier. A bookcase. A microwave. A wardrobe. Even a toilet. The white walls made the interior look a little like a hospital, but this room unmistakably carried the scent of modern civilization. It was the exact opposite of the fantasy backdrops so far. The steel armor I had on looked terribly out of place.
"Ji-won? Can you hear me?"
I raised my voice and called for Choi Ji-won, but there was no answer. What? Is this a solo floor? More than that, my voice had echoed out just now. Following that echo, I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
"...?"
When I opened the door and went out, what I saw was... a flickering light, a silent corridor, and five doors.
Four doors were on the same wall as the room I'd just left, and a single large door sat on the opposite wall.
"Ji-won?"
Calling for Choi Ji-won, I gingerly opened the door right next to mine. Inside was a room with the exact same interior as the one I'd been in. The only difference: no one was inside.
"Hmm..."
I sensed no sign of anyone. The only sound was my own "Hmm..."
After looking around for a moment, I approached the one door that was different in size—the large one.
"..."
I gently placed my palm on the door, and a message window appeared before my eyes.
[1/5]
"Hmm."
Apparently, this floor requires five people to gather before proceeding. Floors 3 and 4 were like that too. Is this another floor where we have to cooperate?
No, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. As we saw on Floor 11, the Archangel in charge of this floor is a bastard who incites division. Once five people gather, he might suddenly order us to have a battle royale.
Choi Ji-won... seems to have ended up separated from me. She entered Floor 12 a little before I did, and there must have been a room that already had four people.
If this floor is also the type to incite conflict between people, being separated from Choi Ji-won might actually be a blessing.
"Okay. Situation grasped."
After roughly sorting things out, I nodded and returned to the room I started in. I immediately took off the armor—"relatively" light but still pressing down on my shoulders—and lay down on the bed. There's nothing to do until the numbers are met anyway.
"Ahh, this is so comfortable."
Still lying on the bed, I stretched out my arm and grabbed a book from the bookcase. Hmm. It's a language I've never seen. It definitely belongs to a world close to modern civilization, but apparently not Earth. Thinking there might be a picture book, I flipped through various others, but I couldn't understand anything at all.
While I was wasting time browsing books, the previously empty microwave let out a "ding!" and its door opened on its own. I glanced inside and saw a warm spaghetti meal kit.
"Wow, they give us food too?"
Are they feeding us so we don't starve to death while waiting? Or... is even this part of the Tower's trial? Setting up a situation where you wait for other players, and the rewards change based on how I react...?
-Because it's a high floor and few climbers are expected, meals and amenities are provided.
A message window popped up with perfect timing. It seems my imagination was just imagination.
It makes sense—this is a top-tier floor, so others aren't going to pour in immediately. This kind of "floor that requires a certain number of people to start" inevitably involves a waiting period, and if it drags on, all sorts of problems could arise, right?
"...It doesn't taste good."
I took the spaghetti out of the microwave, twirled it around a fork, and stuffed it into my mouth. Honestly, it didn't taste good, but I can assure you it was a hundred times better than camping out on Floor 11. Back then I had to chew raw meat with a side of grass.
I'm glad the setting is modern civilization. I can wait comfortably for others to arrive. The only thing that worries me is the possibility of having to repeat this waiting process if I regress. Lately I've been feeling an unexplained fatigue, and I'm afraid my mental state might get worse.
No, let's not imagine things that haven't happened. Let's stay relaxed. They'll probably all come in about two days. Players from all over the world are gathering. So, should I take a nap first?
Resting my head on the soft pillow, I fell asleep. Even though I'd slept soundly before entering Floor 12, the mental fatigue I'd accumulated surpassed that, and I dozed off instantly. Up until that moment, I was harboring the thought, "This isn't so bad."
And so a week passed.
[1/5]
I was still alone on Floor 12.