The Status Window Is Too Unfriendly (3)
The Status Window Is Too Unfriendly (3)
Have you ever played the game MapleStory?
That game forces you to kill a certain number of monsters for daily quests or events, but they can't be just any monsters.
They have to be monsters within a certain range of your own level. The slang term for them is "level-range monsters."
It's a measure to prevent you from slaughtering monsters that are too weak to easily snag rewards...
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
[The difference in rank between you and the monster is too extreme. You cannot gain experience points.]
Is it just me, or does seeing this message remind you of that game?
"...Haa."
If I were to make a rough guess... the word 'disparity' written in the message window is deeply troubling.
The Tower must have judged that a bastard like me, who possesses an EX-rank Skill, is an absurdly overpowered character.
In truth, that judgment might not be wrong.
Someday, after a very long time has passed, I might become a monster that no one dares to approach.
The sheer fact that I can infinitely regress likely elevated my existence by dozens of stages.
But from my current perspective, this is nothing short of an outrage.
How many goblins have I killed?
How hard did I push through the underbrush?
I put in the effort, and yet, just because I have a cheat skill, I can't even use the Stat Window that everyone else has, and I can't even gain levels?
From my point of view, there's no other word for it but bullshit.
Since I confirmed my Achievement Level persists through regression, I could have gotten much stronger much more easily if I could just earn regular levels.
It seems whoever gave me this regression ability doesn't want me to take the easy path.
After letting out a sigh, I turned my gaze to Anchovy.
When he mentioned getting food from killing a strong goblin, a disturbing thought had crossed my mind.
"Anchovy."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me everything you got from killing that large goblin."
"Uh... a golden orb... and experience points..."
"And?"
"Ah, we got a pack of 500ml water bottles, a can, and two big boxes of chocolate bars. I used most of them to feed the goblins I dominated, so there isn't much left... do you want what's remaining?"
"...You got chocolate bars?"
"Yeah!"
Chocolate bars. He said chocolate bars. Plus a pack of water.
This is a set of supplies I've seen a lot before.
To be precise, it's what I often saw when I was holed up in the clearing doing nothing like a bum.
"...Hmm."
Choi Ji-won, who just swings her sword in the corner of the clearing, has senses so sharp she seems to see everything around her.
Would someone like that fail to detect the presence of a particularly strong monster?
From killing quite a few goblins myself, I know those bastards occasionally drop food, but more often they drop useless junk.
Yet Choi Ji-won always brought back high-quality food, and packaged at that.
If...
If all this time, Choi Ji-won has been specifically targeting and defeating only strong monsters, and all the food she brought to the clearing came from killing them...
Choi Ji-won would have obtained countless golden orbs in every cycle.
And the problem is, I'm only learning this fact now.
"..."
That meant she had been hiding the golden orbs even after getting them.
**
"You really have nothing to do with this murder case?"
"No, sir. Nothing."
"Good. Keep working hard."
I'd extracted all the useful info I could, so I let Anchovy go.
I'd also uncovered a secret of the Status Window.
And I'd gained a new trait—good, yet somehow terrible.
And I'd figured out how to get golden orbs.
I've gained a lot this cycle. Of course, I had no intention of regressing as things were.
The most critical pieces of information I need to discover through repeated regressions fall into three main categories.
First: how to secure golden orbs and their locations.
Second: the boss's location.
Third: the location of the Minotaur that killed me.
Among these, I've figured out the first. The exact locations—that data will accumulate as I repeat regressions.
As time passes and I rack up enough cycles, I might even pinpoint all 50 golden orb locations.
And as for why I'm curious about the Minotaur's location... the reason is simple.
The Minotaur is truly, truly strong.
It's so incredibly, insanely powerful that even Choi Ji-won, who boasts unrivaled strength from obtaining a broken cheat trait, can't guarantee victory against it.
Anyone who's read a few web novels would have caught on by now.
This bastard. It reeks of a hidden boss.
A monster appearing in the Tutorial that's so strong it feels like it wasn't designed to be beaten.
The protagonist, having regressed from the future, uses bizarre techniques to barely manage a takedown and reaps the precious, never-before-discovered rewards.
My goal is the same.
Someday, once I've become strong enough, wouldn't it be possible to defeat the Minotaur?
If the day ever comes when I pass the Tutorial Stage, it will be after I've killed the Minotaur.
One prerequisite for that is figuring out the Minotaur's location beforehand.
Since I'm in a position where a single hit makes me regress, camping out in the clearing for a week until it shows up is inefficient.
It's better for me to constantly seek it out and bash my head against it myself.
And the final thing I need to know is the boss's location—which is exactly what I'm moving to find right now.
"Hmm... it really is incredibly wide here."
No matter how much I say other people's business isn't my job, I'm not a cold-blooded bastard who feels nothing watching people die.
As a regressor, if I can just pinpoint the boss's location first, defeating it is ultimately just a matter of time.
If there's a way to save everyone, wouldn't it be heartless to just move on to the next stage alone?
Of course, I'll filter out the ones who are rotten to the core, like that punk I just killed... but anyway, I'm willing to defeat the boss, open the portal, and save everyone.
"Tch..."
Had I walked in a straight line for about two hours?
The same repeating pattern of grass, trees, rocks; grass, trees.
There was no sign of any suspicious cave or primitive hut where a boss might be.
What changed was the smell.
A faint, rotten fish odor wafted from somewhere.
I'll say it again: this terrain is close to a jungle.
A sudden rotten fish smell in a jungle? It felt a little out of place.
"...Might as well check it out?"
If you find something strange, it's common sense to go confirm it in person.
I followed the stench of rotting fish, and after walking a bit further, I finally arrived at my destination.
"Hmm..."
The seemingly endless background of grass and trees had vanished.
Sprawled out before my eyes was a marsh so vast I couldn't see the end of it.
Even turning my head side to side only confirmed how unbelievably wide this marsh was.
I've never seen a marsh this big in my life. It felt almost like looking at the sea.
Common sense says it's impossible for a marsh to form this broadly... but this is the Tower.
Based on what I see, it seems the tutorial zone is like an island largely surrounded by a marsh.
I suppose it wouldn't make sense for the playable area to stretch on endlessly without limits—it is the Tower, after all.
This marsh seems like the Tower's polite way of marking, 'Don't cross here. Just play inside, pal.'
Of course, I can't deny I had the fleeting thought: what if I ignore the marsh and keep going forward, suddenly hit the Tower's wall, inspect the bricks carefully, and a hidden piece pops out?
"...This is a no-go."
I didn't feel the slightest urge to dip a toe into that ominous, violet swamp—the unsettling bubbles that occasionally rose, the mere sight of it, made me feel ill.
No, it just screams poisonous. You can't even see a trace of life.
It looks like if you tossed a little squirrel in there, only its bones would come floating back up after a while.
No matter how much I can regress, thrusting my body into that thing is a hard pass.
It's close to suicide, no questions asked.
"...Alright, let's check somewhere else now."
Since I came all this way, walking along the outskirts seems like a good idea.
Being the outermost edge, the boss could be nearby.
Like pushing mobs off a cliff in a game, maybe I could lure the boss into the swamp and win without a real fight.
"Okay, then..."
The moment I muttered to myself and tried to move my feet, I felt a faintly fishy yet bitter taste spreading in my lungs.
It's a familiar taste, and a familiar scent.
This is... the taste of blood.
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]
***
"...Fuck."
I didn't know just smelling poison could cause a regression.
Seriously... I feel so damn wronged.