The Regressor Endures (1)
The Regressor Endures (1)
United States.
A hotel built near a desert.
"Did it work?"
"Yeah. I acted like I already knew everything, so he spilled the details without much fuss. He did ask how I knew, and I told him Michael Jeter filled me in."
"Good. But since that's technically a lie... we'll have to clean out the warehouse and regress right away. No time to sort through items. Let's just chug down all the elixirs."
"That alone is more than enough."
After reviewing the plan one last time, we took the rented car and headed into the vast desert. Calling it a desert was generous—it looked closer to a wasteland. Not as sandy as the Egyptian desert, with the ground carrying a reddish hue.
The rattling car eventually left the paved road, and at one point we had to change a tire after running over a cactus. Since we were heading off the beaten path, this level of trouble was expected.
"Is this the place?"
"Yeah. Just a little farther on foot."
"Then..."
When we finally reached a spot about 30 kilometers from the objective, Choi Ji-won and I put on the gloves and masks we had prepared and got out of the car.
"They said there's no security... but better to be sure."
"Yeah. I don't trust everything that guy said."
There was no way America's secret warehouse had zero guards. We advanced carefully from a distance, watching for hidden people or the glint of a lens.
"...Looks like it wasn't a lie."
The person who gave Choi Ji-won the information wasn't a liar—there was no sign of anyone outside. Honestly, I'd expected soldiers on standby, but there was nobody.
We pushed through the stinging, sand-laden wind (we'd put on goggles to keep the sand out) and kept moving forward, eventually arriving at the "entrance" Choi Ji-won had mentioned.
"...How would anyone find this?"
Without prior intel, it would have been impossible to discover. The entrance, hidden under the sand, looked like a random steel plate from a distance. It wasn't much different from the other junk you see scattered around any desert.
I carefully brushed off the sand, and the hidden entrance came into full view.
"Ugh..."
It definitely gave off an abandoned vibe. The steel was rusted all over, most of the white-painted lettering had worn away, and the door hung slightly ajar. Wait, is it okay for a secret warehouse entrance to just hang open like that? Sand's blowing right in.
"This is definitely the place, right?"
"According to the intel, yes..."
"Okay."
There was no way two bunkers existed in this wide desert. Regression was already guaranteed anyway, so the only option was to go inside.
"It's cleaner than I thought inside."
"...Isn't it dirty?"
"No, it's that meme... never mind."
"What? What is it?"
"Nothing. Let's focus now."
I descended the stairs one step at a time, keeping a sharp eye on every direction. This wasn't some ordinary storage unit. This was the US government's secret warehouse. It would be weirder if there weren't traps. I mean, what if a mine went off and killed me here? Was I supposed to file a complaint?
"Hoo..."
Clang. Clang. Clang.
My footsteps echoed on the old metal staircase, repeating over and over until the long descent ended. The stairway gave way to an underground corridor.
The lights were on in the narrow hallway. In a decrepit bunker like this, working lights were a good sign. Electricity meant someone was maintaining the place, which confirmed we had come to the right spot.
"...But it's in pretty rough shape."
However, many of the lights were burned out, and most of the rest flickered. Instead of reassuring me, they gave the place a creepy atmosphere. Had the intel been wrong? Or did we stumble into a different bunker right next to the one we were looking for? It was too late to turn back now, so I stewed in anxiety.
"For now... let's stay as sharp as possible."
"Got it."
I moved through the old bunker with my senses focused to their limit. As I went, I realized the space was too narrow to be called a bunker. It was more apt to call it an underground secret base. A bunker usually has a wide, open interior, but this place was a maze of cramped corridors connecting various rooms.
"Hmm..."
The rooms I passed had nothing special inside. There was a cot, a desk, and a small locker. The facilities looked like they were built for military personnel—similar to the naval living quarters I'd once seen in a documentary.
"Ah, let's go left here."
"What about the right?"
"There are traces of people on the left. See how the dust on the floor isn't even? People have already walked through here."
"...You can sense that?"
Choi Ji-won's sharp senses were a huge help in navigating this maze-like underground space. She collected the smallest clues—the dust on the floor, the state of the walls—and guided me forward. If I had come alone, I probably would have wasted the whole day fumbling around. As expected of Choi Ji-won.
How long had we walked? Just as I felt the mask on my face growing damp from my maxed-out concentration.
"...Huh?"
Choi Ji-won opened a locker she had flagged as suspicious, and inside we found a secret passage leading to another space.
The path so far had been a narrow, rusty tunnel reeking of metal. This new place was a modern space with white tiles and bright lighting. It had the atmosphere of a laboratory. Even part of the ceiling was made of glass, revealing complex machinery above.
"Nice."
It looked suspicious to anyone. I felt a surge of certainty that we had come to the right place, accompanied by a fresh wave of anxiety about whatever lay ahead. This was America's secret warehouse. It wouldn't have been strange to find an entire army division on standby, or even Michael Jeter himself waiting for us.
"...There's no one here."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. I even used mana to check. There's really nothing."
But the conclusion Choi Ji-won came to after concentrating was genuinely shocking. According to her keen senses... the only living people in this modern space were her and me.
"Is this a trap?"
"What kind of trap?"
"...Good question. What kind of trap?"
I took an uneasy step inside. I was half-biting the inside of my cheek, ready to regress instantly if things took a weird turn. Choi Ji-won and I cautiously explored the wide, white space.
"...Why is there nothing here?"
Incredibly—and I mean incredibly—we found nothing. Not just an absence of people, but no sign of the treasures or elixirs that were supposedly here.
The rusty bunker at the entrance. The long maze-like path leading in. The modern interior at the end. It was like a horror game that started in a dilapidated house and ended in the laboratory that caused all the evil—except there was nothing at the end. It was clearly strange.
"For now... this place is definitely something the US had a hand in. The lights are on. It's clear we didn't come to the wrong place."
I pulled off the uncomfortable mask, now damp with sweat, and looked up at the glass ceiling revealing the incomprehensible machinery. The single fact that power was on made one thing obvious: the US had intended to do something here.
"So why is there nothing here?"
"I think... it's some kind of butterfly effect."
"Butterfly effect?"
"Yeah."
A cliché that appears often in regression stories: the Butterfly Effect.
It refers to the phenomenon where a small, seemingly insignificant action I take without thinking ends up influencing the future and returning as a massive change. There was no other way to explain this situation except the butterfly effect.
"In other words, up until the point where we saw the future with the monster invasion, the US had been using this place as its warehouse. It must have been packed with elixirs and items."
But time passed after that. I stayed on Floor 16 to train my martial arts, confirmed my mana on Floor 17, explored a murim world on Floor 18 to obtain Spiritual Medicine, and wrote a book on Floor 19 to validate my martial arts.
"...Looking at it now, we didn't really do much."
"Yeah."
If you set aside the regressions and only count the final successful cycle... the time we spent in the Tower wasn't very long, and we didn't do that many things. Yet, some change must have occurred during all those minor processes, ultimately leading to the disappearance of the warehouse.
"Hrm..."
There were no other possible explanations. The conclusion was locked in as "a result of the butterfly effect," but I had no idea about the process that led to it. What in the world could make a warehouse vanish overnight? Why was all the construction finished, but the items and security personnel were nowhere to be seen?
"...This doesn't sit right."
"...Hmm... should I contact the association insider who gave me the info? He might know something."
"No, even if we contact him, let's do it after we regress. Calling him right now would be way too suspicious."
"Got it."
There was nothing more we could learn from our immediate surroundings, so we shuffled out of the space and sat down on an old cot.
"Should we just regress now? It'd be a pain if we go all the way back to the city, get caught for having been here, and get interrogated. This future is already set anyway. We can gather information after we return to the past. No rush."
"Yeah, I think you're right. Are you going to regress right now?"
"Yeah. That's the plan."
Having made up my mind, I lightly bit the inside of my cheek, and a familiar wave of dizziness engulfed my head.
I didn't know it at the time.
The true meaning of this empty bunker.