The Regressor Is Too Weak (2)
The Regressor Is Too Weak (2)
"...Um. Does anyone want to voice an opinion? Or at least offer some constructive feedback? I'm willing to consider it positively, you know?"
The fairy was still prattling right above my head.
But I couldn't focus on a word it was saying.
'It said I regressed because I took damage.'
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]
That was the message I saw just before the regression.
The key word was "damage."
Before I regressed, the only damage I took was a tiny scratch from a blade of grass—a single bead of blood welling up.
In game terms, it was minor damage that wouldn't even cost 1 HP.
Yet the system recognized it as "damage," and I regressed to the moment I first entered the Tower.
But that could have been coincidence. I needed to experiment.
"..."
Keeping an eye on the fairy, I flicked my fingers hard against my palm.
Smack!
I hit hard enough for a sharp sting, but there was no sign of regression.
"Hmm..."
Seemed that didn't count as "damage."
Thwack!
This time, I slammed my fist into my forearm as hard as I could.
A numb sensation spread through my whole arm. Just as the skin started to redden—
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]
***
"Fuck! Where is this!"
"..."
Accompanied by the familiar voice of the bald man, I slowly pushed myself up from the dirt.
So, a blunt hit wouldn't trigger a regression unless someone really put their full strength into it.
That was a relief. At least I wasn't going to randomly regress because someone bumped my shoulder on the street.
But the experiment wasn't over.
I pinched the back of my hand hard with my nails.
"...No regression here either."
I pinched hard enough to leave red marks, and still nothing happened.
I sprang to my feet and plucked a blade of grass from the lush vegetation around me.
"..."
The thought of cutting myself with this sent an instinctive shiver down my spine.
That creepy sensation of a paper cut while reading a book.
The primal revulsion was strong, but I had no choice.
Shrrrik.
I drew the blade of grass firmly across the back of my hand.
"Ugh, fuck."
A visceral, skin-crawling sensation. Drops of blood welled up on the back of my hand.
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]
***
"Fuck! Where is this!"
With that, I'd more or less figured out the regression conditions. A blunt hit needed considerable force to trigger a regression, but the instant anything cut me—even a blade of grass rather than a weapon—I regressed.
"I'm fucked."
I racked my brain, but no matter how I thought about it, I was completely fucked.
Because the threshold for triggering a regression was far too low.
This wasn't something you could shrug off with, "Isn't frequent regression a good thing?"
Compare it to Death Regression.
Death Regressors usually have no attachment to their current timeline when they regress. Why? Because they were going to die anyway, so regressing is always a net gain.
But my situation is different.
Even when things are going exactly the way I want, one tiny mistake can force a regression.
If Death Regression is a well-trained thoroughbred racehorse, then I've climbed onto a wild mustang roaming an endless prairie.
"Hello! You lowly humans doing such a splendid job of wasting your lives! Nice to meet you!"
While I was lost in thought, the Tutorial Fairy made its appearance at precisely the right moment.
"...I'll just give the mandatory explanation and get it over with, okay? I hate doing this too, but it's procedure. Can't help it."
I let the fairy's well-worn explanation go in one ear and out the other.
"Sta-tus Win-doooooow!!!!!!"
"Status Window!"
"Sta-tus Win-dowww!"
This was the moment, with people shouting for their Status Windows all around me.
It was the point I had regressed to.
I got excited seeing the word "regression" in my Status Window, rushed out, and regressed because my ankle got cut by a blade of grass.
Even looking back on it, it was an absurdly stupid regression.
After the brief madness of everyone shouting "Status Window" died down,
the clearing lapsed back into a lull.
Here, my choice was to observe.
Information was always a precious resource for a Regressor.
I wanted to gather intel first rather than step forward actively.
From what I observed, the people fell into roughly three categories.
First: those who clustered together and talked to soothe their anxiety.
"My mom must be so worried..."
"I was in the middle of cooking... What if my house catches fire while I'm gone?"
Some shared stories about everyday life, not the Tower—maybe to escape reality.
"By the way, what's your trait?"
"...Nothing called a trait is showing up for me?"
"...Is that so?"
There were also shady characters subtly probing the person next to them.
The second group was hovering around the weapon pile in the center of the clearing.
"Hmm... I'd prefer a sword."
"Don't you know that's only good in novels? In real combat, you want a spear, no question."
People picked up weapons that caught their eye and fiddled with them this way and that.
"Whoa, why is this so heavy?"
"If you swing this wrong, you're gonna throw out your back."
Since modern people never had a chance to swing a weapon, their stances were hopelessly clumsy.
But these people were preparing to fight. They clearly understood that this place was the "Tower."
And the third and final group... were each doing their own thing.
Whump! Whump!
A man furiously scooping dirt with a shovel that had been mixed into the weapon pile.
Hwoong! Hwoong!
A woman mechanically repeating the motion of chopping down with a sword.
"Hmm... hmmmm..."
Even a man rummaging through the weapon pile as if searching for something.
All of them were doing strange things and wasting their energy.
Unable to resist my curiosity, I approached the person digging the ground.
The digger was a man in his forties who looked like an ordinary office worker—wearing, or rather, having previously worn a suit.
His dress pants must have annoyed him, because he'd already torn them off into shorts, and his jacket was half-buried in the dirt with only the sleeves poking out.
Whump! Whump!
The man was diligently digging with his shirtsleeves rolled up.
"Excuse me."
I spoke cautiously.
The man paused his digging, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and shifted his gaze to me.
"...What."
A curt answer came back, but I paid it no mind.
"Why... are you digging this ground?"
"None of your business."
The man seemed extremely wary of me.
"...Understood."
I backed off obediently, but I thought I had a decent guess at what was going through his head.
Hidden Pieces.
It seemed the crowd in the third group had read far too many web novels or webtoons and were hunting for hidden pieces right from the start.
Maybe treasure was buried under the ground at the tutorial starting point, or swinging a sword a hundred thousand times in the tutorial would grant a skill... or a legendary weapon sat among an ordinary-looking weapon pile.
By any reasonable measure, it was pointless nonsense, but I had no desire to stop them.
If any of them actually found something, I could just regress and take it for myself.
I settled back down next to the group of people conversing.
The Tutorial Fairy had mentioned a "system" earlier.
I figured I'd wait until something happened.
I had no watch, so I couldn't tell the exact time, but after what felt like about ten minutes—
<Notice. The rules of the Tutorial Stage will now be announced.>
A semi-transparent message window appeared before my eyes.
"Wh-what's this?"
"...A notice?"
Judging from others' reactions, I wasn't the only one seeing it.
I turned my focus back to the message in front of me.
<Tutorial Stage>
-Clear Condition 1: Swallow a "Golden Orb" hidden somewhere in the forest to advance to the next stage. However, only 50 Golden Orbs exist.
-Clear Condition 2: Defeat the Boss, Goblin Shaman, and a portal allowing passage to the next stage will appear.
"Hmm..."
Even at a glance, there were well over fifty people in the clearing. The Tower was forcing a binary choice on everyone.
Would they combine their strength and defeat the Goblin Shaman, or would they use the Golden Orbs to each seek their own survival?
Normally, someone would step up around now and say, "Let's all work together to defeat the boss!"
Maybe everyone here was too self-interested, because no one suggested pooling their strength.
"...Should we stick together?"
"Hey, you look like you can handle yourself. Let's team up. What do you say?"
They were too scared to hunt the Goblin Shaman, but they still needed to find Golden Orbs. In the end, people were looking for allies brave enough to venture forth on their behalf.
"Um... if you don't have a team..."
I received a handful of recruitment offers myself, but—
"...I'm sorry."
I had no choice but to refuse them all.
After all, I couldn't even leave the clearing thanks to the underbrush.
And so, everyone left the clearing to seek their own way—except the older folks in denial about the system's existence, the cowards who had no stomach to fight in the first place, and a handful of eccentrics.
"..."
Hwoong! Hwoong!
Only then did I pick up a sword and quietly station myself next to the woman still chopping down with her blade.
Earlier, I'd seen her swing her sword threateningly at a man who tried to recruit her into a party. Speaking to her needlessly would be a minus.
"..."
The woman glanced at me once, then ignored me and kept swinging her sword.
An oriental beauty with a black ponytail tied up with a cord that suited her perfectly. The fact that she was pretty had absolutely nothing to do with my decision, of course.
Hwoong!
"Urgh..."
I steeled myself and took a swing, but maybe my form was wrong—my shoulder felt like it was about to dislocate.
A sword was far heavier than I'd imagined. And controlling the direction of the cut was no simple feat either.
But I had to get used to the sword.
If I didn't grow stronger, I'd be stuck repeating the tutorial forever, endlessly regressing.
The Tower, as I knew it, was a place where the weak couldn't survive.
My body kept regressing. It was my mind that had to become familiar with the sword.
Hwoong! Hwoong!
I will definitely become a hero.
Definitely.
**
I wasn't sure how much time had passed. Judging by the sun about to set, it hadn't been short.
"Hoooh."
I'd swung the sword until my hands trembled. I barely stopped before my palms could blister and trigger a regression.
Hwoong! Hwoong!
As if she never got tired, the ponytailed woman was still swinging her sword.
"Whoa."
Looking at her like this, she really was beautiful. A straight nose bridge... and that mole under her eye was sexy...
Glare!
As if sensing my gaze sweeping over her face, the woman turned her head and shot me a glare.
"..."
A Regressor must always have a goal.
And I had just set my first monumental goal.
Befriend that woman, and learn swordsmanship from her.
Getting stronger was a given, and the view was a perk. This is what you call killing two birds with one stone.
Whump! Whump!
Hwoong! Hwoong!
As I stood there, using the sound of digging and sword-swinging as ASMR while setting my own personal goal—
"Kyaaaaaaaah!"
Somewhere in the distance, I heard a human shriek torn from someone's throat.
I might not recognize much else, but that particular voice was unforgettable. It was the bald man who cursed every time I regressed.
"...Fuck."
Someone had died.