The Regressor Is Too Strong (5)
The Regressor Is Too Strong (5)
Seven in the morning—the time everyone agreed was morning and when working people began their day. The villagers were bustling too, apparently following the same rhythm.
"Choi Ji-won? What are you doing here?"
"Waiting."
But the scene at the village entrance—a cluster of people in a standoff—clashed with the crisp morning air. Especially since every one of them wore gleaming armor and carried weapons at their waists or on their backs.
"Hey, don't come any closer."
"Stop right there."
Two people blocked the entrance: a man and a woman. Their armor and equipment had gotten a bit grimy.
The reason was simple: they'd tried to physically barricade the Exchange entrance. They'd hurriedly hauled over a huge chunk of metal, hoping to create a barrier that even most superhumans couldn't breach. After all that effort, they'd blocked the Exchange entrance—only for a message to flash: [Installations obstructing village passage cannot be installed]. The metal chunk was unceremoniously relocated outside the village. In short, they'd worked themselves ragged for nothing.
"Why are you telling us to stay out?"
"What is this?"
The people trying to enter the village, on the other hand, looked worse, not better. They'd run here chugging potions just to move as fast as possible and had been tossed around in absurd cold—no one could call them fine with a straight face. Yet large smiles hung on their lips, and each clutched a glass bottle filled with shimmering liquid.
"Didn't we meet earlier? We had a rough time in the snowfields, so we're a little cold. Could you step aside for a moment? We're desperate for a hot bath."
At first, those trying to enter attempted to act. They approached like they knew nothing, like cold and hungry cats, trying to slip into the village.
"You've already been found out."
"...Oh dear."
The man—no, Kim Jun-ho—pulled out a Friend Addition Ticket from his coat, and they clicked their tongues and backed off. The freebie attempt had failed. They'd been completely exposed.
"Tch..."
"Damn..."
"Hey, no reason to be scared. They can't do anything to us anyway."
Some people instinctively recoiled at Choi Ji-won's cold, hard expression, but a few crafty ones stepped forward instead. They had something to fall back on even if a fight broke out.
"Hold on. I have a proposal."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Our submission window closes in four hours. Then we get our rewards and leave this place."
"..."
"Could you wait until then?"
Glances darted through the crowd. The unexpectedly reasonable offer seemed to give them pause.
"I'm out."
"Me too. Since we're already getting a free ride, waiting a bit longer won't matter much."
"Yeah. I don't want to get on Choi Ji-won's bad side over this. Who knows? We might run into her again."
People began to back away one by one, then peeled off in a rush. About five remained.
"You aren't leaving?"
"I've seen someone submit a Hidden Piece before."
Ominous smirks spread across the faces of those who stayed.
"Hidden Pieces all get special treatment. The initial rarity rank is absurdly high, but once the actual submission finishes, the rank plummets fast. I figure the system set it up that way so there's no way to consistently score S-rank or higher."
The man added that if party members found one together and submitted simultaneously, the rank didn't seem to drop nearly as much.
"...What's your point?"
"I'm saying if we all submit together now, the rarity drops just a little and we'd each get something around S-rank. But once your submission window closes, the rarity will completely tank. Why do you think we haven't used the Hidden Pieces the advance party discovered? There's an SSS-rank relic right under this floor. If I submitted it now, I wouldn't even get C-rank."
The man tapped the ground with his heel. True enough—if you could submit an already-discovered Hidden Piece late and still get a high rank, then Floor 22 wouldn't function as a "trial" in the first place. Anyone and their dog could just submit a previously found SSS-rank item and call it a day.
"Wait, that's how it works?"
"Seriously?"
Most players hadn't even known that failing to submit simultaneously meant taking a loss, and they promptly stepped forward. Greed had swallowed their fear of Choi Ji-won.
Now the players who'd backed off were the minority, and the ones closing in had become the majority.
"Hey, but is this right? When I checked both of them with the Talisman, the colors were red as hell... Aren't they insanely strong?"
"Shut up, man. Because of the crime judgement—"
"Because of the crime judgement, were you about to say that if you commit violence, you can't enter the village?"
Choi Ji-won cut the man off. She and Kim Jun-ho had also considered the possibility of a violence penalty and had actually gathered information by walking around the village.
"It turns out that if you harm another person, you're barred from entering the village for 72 hours. The auction timer stops, too."
"Right, you've done your homework. So step aside. You have no way to stop us."
"But what happens if you die here? Just curious."
"...You get sent to a place called the mine, do hard labor for a week, and then they let you go."
"Can't you also pay to revive instantly? That's what I heard in the village. You hid that detail, hoping to catch us off guard?"
"Then why ask if you already know?"
"Only one reason."
The moment Choi Ji-won's eyes sharpened—
"Stalling for time."
—BANG!
Kim Jun-ho, who'd been quietly listening from the rear, dropped low and slammed his palm into the ground.
The pure white mana that erupted from his fingertips spread across the ground like a spiderweb, racing so fast it was nearly impossible to react in time.
"Shit!"
"Fuck!"
The players with good reflexes who'd kept their tension taut managed to leap far back and evade the ominous attack, but the majority couldn't respond and were left completely exposed.
"Haha, this is even better!"
"The second those bastards die, we head straight to the Exchange to submit. Hell, isn't this gonna net us SS-rank?"
No—some players looked like they'd taken the hit on purpose. Commit a crime near the village, and the guards would be dispatched. While the guards were busy with those two, the plan was to revive instantly and bolt straight to the Exchange. Thanks to the money they'd saved up doing "hard labor" over a long stay, they had more than enough for an instant revival.
Even if they died right now, time was on their side. No—they wanted to die right now.
"Hahaha!"
"Haha!"
Or so they thought.
"Huh...?"
No matter how long they waited, the guards showed no sign of moving. In the first place, committing a crime was supposed to give your body a red outline.
And above all... their bodies wouldn't move.
"That actually worked?"
Kim Jun-ho stared at his own handiwork with a look of amazement. He'd tried to exploit the enhanced mana control he'd developed alongside the game system's rule that "it's only an attack if you take damage"—a technique designed to incapacitate the human body without inflicting harm. He hadn't actually expected it to succeed.
"Guh, gahk..."
"A-are you okay?"
"Potion, potion..."
"Here, drink this."
"Huff, huff, huff... my heart stopped for a second..."
Still, the mana consumption was immense and required intense concentration, so using it in real combat clearly had a long way to go. The strain on his body was no joke, either.
"Can't really use this..."
From Kim Jun-ho's perspective, the technique placed a massive burden on his body, demanded enough focus to make his nose bleed, and carried the huge risk of immobilizing himself, too.
"What, what is this..."
"..."
But to the players on the receiving end, this was absurdity beyond belief. Sure, the opponent was strong, but they were clearly high-ranking players themselves. If a little nosebleed and some mana use let you freeze twenty other high-ranking players at once, you'd do it a hundred times, a thousand times. This was... this was outright broken.
"No, there's still an answer."
"What?"
"We detonate our mana."
As high-rankers themselves, they didn't give up.
"This energy coating our bodies—it's mana. If we forcefully expel our mana, we can break out."
He wasn't wrong. Right now they'd been caught completely off guard, but this attack was an area-of-effect technique. With enough focus, it could be broken.
Their bodies had been coated in cold mana like tanghulu. The coating had seized up their muscles, freezing them in place. If they violently erupted their own mana from within, they could shatter it.
"I'd advise against that."
But Choi Ji-won shook her head as if she'd even anticipated this.
"Look around you."
"...What do you mean?"
"Aren't you all packed a little too close together?"
"...Oh, hell."
Yes, they could break the coating and regain control of their paralyzed bodies. But they'd clustered up pretty tightly to put up a united front, and...
"If you break the paralysis, you'll become criminals, won't you?"
The mana they violently expelled to break free would hit the other players right next to them. That was obviously violence, and it would trigger a crime judgement.
"..."
Even if they regained freedom of movement, becoming criminals unable to receive rewards made it pointless. And if they just sat here frozen, they'd lose the rewards all the same.
"What about you lot?"
"...We're done."
The ones with quick reflexes who'd dodged the attack. And the ones who'd hung back from the start. Both groups raised their palms and retreated. Their opponents might still have a hidden card... and the fighting power of that man—Choi Ji-won's companion—was far beyond what they'd imagined. Belated as it was, not making an enemy of them now seemed wise.
"Ha, haha."
A smile crept onto Kim Jun-ho's trembling lips.
"I'm pretty damn good."
A perfect victory.
**
"Jun-ho, you worked hard."
"Ji-won, you too..."
When we returned to reality, my body felt refreshed, but my mind was wrecked. That was what happened when you used mana at "full power" for the first time ever. I'd also chugged potions like water for the first time. It came from fighting a war of attrition—something I rarely experienced, because I always had to end fights quickly. This was the longest battle I'd had since Floor 4.
"The reward is... oh."
I cracked open the reward box and found a hefty supply of potions along with a single ruggedly designed helmet.
- Rebel's Helmet [A+]
- Grants significant resistance to all mental-type attacks.
"Ooh..."
Good. Mental-type attacks were something a regressor had to be wary of.
"..."
But... disappointing. For one thing, it was an S+ reward and I'd only gotten an A+ item. For another, SSS-rank rewards existed, yet I'd only received S+.
"Ji-won. Since it's come to this, doesn't it only make sense to walk out with SSS-rank to break even? They said the advance party actually got SSS rewards."
Choi Ji-won and I both had a way to get SSS-rank rewards. Find two SSS-rank Hidden Pieces and submit them simultaneously. Finding them... well, I'd manage it somehow by repeating regressions.
"Good rewards would be nice... but is it doable? There's a limit to blocking with force like we did this time..."
On top of that, trying to snag two SSS-ranks would bring serious interference from other players. Just getting one had caused this much chaos. Trying to eat two at once... wouldn't be easy.
"It's doable."
Of course, I said it wouldn't be easy—not that I thought it was impossible.
"Let's try it this way."
I had a pretty decent plan.