The Regressor Agonizes (7)
The Regressor Agonizes (7)
"Ah, I forgot to mention this first. I'm sorry... for pushing for regression so abruptly."
Choi Ji-won bit her lower lip slightly and averted her gaze.
"I know that waiting a little longer without regressing is better for gathering information. The world is in a period of upheaval, and it's changing by the day."
"But even so, the reason I'm suggesting we regress..."
"...is because we... no, because I feel so powerless."
She showed me an internet article displayed on her phone screen.
- The 'Hero' Choi Ji-won: Let's learn more about her.
- [Special Feature] Choi Ji-won: Who is she?
- Korea's national power ranks 2nd in the world?! The US is shocked, and China is trembling...
"Everyone is counting on me."
Choi Ji-won rested her chin on Boongboong-yi on her shoulder and bowed her head.
"Normally, I liked this. It felt like being recognized. If anything, because people praised me, it made me work even harder."
"But now... is it because you've gotten weaker?"
"Right. I'm okay with not living up to expectations. But... I hate that even if a major incident happens, I can't do anything about it. Not when all these people are probably trusting only me."
Choi Ji-won enjoyed the gaze of others but wasn't buried by it. Thanks to her late father's teachings, she knew that the only thing she needed to be truly proud and upright about was her own conscience.
But in this situation... she just couldn't be upright with her own conscience.
"Even the tiger that appeared at Namsan... if you hadn't helped, I would have lost. If the current tiger is already like this, what about the other monsters that will appear later?"
"There's no guarantee they'll be stronger. Though there's no guarantee they'll be weaker either."
"Well, that's true, but... I just hate the situation itself where I have to stand by helplessly, unable to do anything."
"..."
Her own helplessness was one thing, but if new monsters appeared in Korea and Choi Ji-won failed to stop them... she'd be inundated with a massive amount of criticism. A bright light always casts a deep shadow, and somewhere out there were probably people who hated her. If she gave them an excuse, they'd jump at the chance and run wild.
"But after we regress, waiting another 10 months is pointless, isn't it? We can at least determine when and where the monsters will appear, but..."
"I want us to climb the Tower right after we regress."
"Right after?"
"Yeah. Right after. There's nothing going on in the early days of the regression cycle anyway, right?"
"...Aha."
I understood what she was trying to say.
"So... you want to climb the Tower as fast as possible, raise your weight class, and then come back to this point in time?"
"Exactly."
We already knew what was going to happen. We'd already figured out both the past and the future, and the only thing we were lacking was our own combat power.
We were so short on power that even if we regressed right now, we wouldn't be able to handle anything... Choi Ji-won wanted to make up for this lack of strength by climbing the Tower as fast as possible.
"Since you have your regression, it shouldn't take too long in terms of real-world time. Probably three months at most? By then... I should have the strength to kill the tiger that appeared at Namsan."
They said Michael Jeter, the association chairman, was currently hovering around the mid-30s floors. Compared to when we were climbing Floor 15, his floor count hadn't increased that much, but his strength was incomparable.
"We'll just climb up to Floor 30 and... then return to this point. Then I won't have to stand by helplessly like this. I can actively change the world. It would also reduce the time needed for repeated regressions."
"Definitely..."
Honestly, if you asked me to wait another 10 months right now, I wouldn't be confident. Repeating regressions in the Tower felt like replaying a game I knew, but repeating regressions in reality felt like going through the daily grind in the military. Controlling every single action to minimize variables would double the stress.
"...I think it's a good idea."
Watching the world change recently, it's true that I had also felt helpless. Or rather, it felt like I'd become a bystander. I had been leading everything up until now, but just being dragged around made me feel suffocated.
I no longer wanted to see news articles about people dying, or videos of grieving families sobbing on YouTube. I was done with heaving deep sighs from the guilt and helplessness that made my chest tight.
Yeah, let's climb the Tower again. Let's play along with the heavens' intention.
"First, we need to prepare."
So that I could stand tall in front of myself.
**
If you knew you were scheduled to regress exactly one year into the past, what would you do?
Back when there was no Tower and monsters hadn't appeared, I often fantasized about this. And my fantasy always led to cryptocurrency. Because there's nothing better for making a lot of money.
Buy this coin here. Sell that coin there. Make a fortune, tens or hundreds of billions of won, using massive leverage. Buy a house, give back to the people around me, and completely free myself from the shackles of labor to enjoy life.
What I was doing now wasn't much different.
"Timing-wise, is India first? Or Japan?"
"This site says India is first... but this one here says Japan is about 30 minutes faster."
"Hmm... I have a friend in Japan, and he says it seems like Japan is first."
"You had a friend in Japan?"
"More like an acquaintance. Anyway, Japan is first."
The most important thing to track was the timing of the monsters' appearances. Figuring out when, where, and what kind of monsters would appear, and how threatening they were was the top priority. That way, we could deal with them properly later.
"Ugh... my head hurts."
"Hang in there."
Since my memories were highly likely to blur through the repeated regression process, memorization was mostly left to Choi Ji-won. While she scrutinized the summarized charts, clutching her head, I read a separate document.
"..."
This was the list of S-rank and A-rank players provided by the Association. Given that Choi Ji-won was ranked 2nd right now, one could infer that pure combat power and ranking weren't strictly correlated, but having your name on this list meant you were worth paying attention to in some way. Whether you had a good family, a solid political standing, or were just strong.
The primary goal was to memorize their faces, and for those whose abilities had been revealed, to memorize their abilities.
The secondary goal was to memorize the things they'd done or the point at which they became strong.
There were so many careless people in the world, and quite a few of them bragged about when and how they became strong. They probably let their guard down because they thought it was already the past, unaware that a regressor existed.
However, since most of those events happened inside the Tower, I couldn't perceive the content itself. So I decided to make a gamble.
"...I wonder if this will work."
What was displayed on my phone screen was a post written by a French player detailing how he became stronger. Because it was a fortuitous encounter obtained on Floor 15 or higher, the content was invisible to me.
I stared intently at this picture, trying to memorize it as accurately as possible. My intention was that once I cleared the corresponding floor later, the memory of this picture might change as well.
The probability was low. It was nothing more than a shot in the dark.
"Ugh..."
"..."
Those two tasks were what I officially did. Lastly, while carefully gauging Choi Ji-won's mood, I read the report sent by the Death God.
The disposal of the people listed in the report sent by the Death God, Asai Yūki... was temporarily suspended. No, to be precise, it was suspended except for two people. One was a guy who had raped dozens of men and women and was living comfortably, and the other was a thrill-killer who, around the time the wolf appeared in the US, killed people while disguising it as the work of a monster.
Their commonality was that they were human trash with no hope of rehabilitation. And their abilities weren't particularly outstanding. I could deal with them without worry because I was certain that killing these two wouldn't cause any future variables.
But... I wouldn't kill them right away. First, I'd let the Death God scare them and watch to see if their behavior changed.
Do people change? Are there those who change, and those who absolutely never do? Ultimately, the clash between the old man's and Choi Ji-won's ideologies comes down to this.
So what I was trying to do was a kind of experiment. If the Death God pushed them to the very brink of death but stopped at a warning... if I made them swear never to do it again and left them alone... would they change, or would their true nature remain the same? I'd use this as a reference for the future.
What about the rest of the vicious criminals? For now, I intended to just have the Death God leave a note in their homes saying 'We are watching.' If I did that, they'd probably lie low for a while after we regress. Some of their crimes were ambiguous, and some were simply too talented. I'd decide after watching how those first two acted.
Anyway, after eating, sleeping, and organizing the necessary information for about two weeks, I finished all preparations for regression.
"You're not going straight into Floor 16, right?"
"Yeah. Let's go to Floor 16 after at least having a talk with Michael Jeter."
"Okay."
A brief kiss. While feeling each other's warmth, I took out Boongboong-yi and cut my finger.
It was time to climb the Tower again.
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 15.]