The Regressor Is Brave? (6)
I took one last moment to assess the situation. Mana reserves at roughly eighty percent. I hadn't rushed here, so I had plenty to spare. My sword wrist was still strong, and my will to fight was steady. I was technically still at the 'starting point.'
"Huff, huff."
The prolonged tension was starting to wind me. The female figure was still facing away, her body locked in a grotesque dance. The sharp crack and snap of her joints echoed with terrible clarity.
"Now."
I released my mana low to the floor, and a circular mist spread outward with me at the center. The haze crept forward silently, stopping just before it could touch the ghostly thing. A little short. I had to move.
I took one step over the threshold between the patient room and the corridor. Then another. The thing was now within the reach of my Cold Energy. My mana slithered across the floor and brushed against its body.
And then—
-Clunk.
Exposed to my Cold Energy, the ghost froze for an instant. The body that had been bending and snapping at mad angles went completely rigid.
"Fwoooooh..."
This was it. The opening. I kept my mana focused on restricting its movements while channeling power into my sword. I was aiming for the head. I'd blow its skull apart.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Maybe it was the distance. To deliver a lethal sword strike across this gap, I needed a long moment to concentrate. The ghost still wasn't moving.
Four seconds. Five seconds. Six seconds.
The ghost's head gave a grinding creeeak and turned a full 180 degrees. With its back still facing me, it rotated only its head to stare. A wide grin stretched across its mouth, and its eyes were unfocused, pointing in different directions.
Seven seconds.
My mana-charged sword was a moment from lashing out—
Tiktiktik, tik-ti-ti-tik!!!
—when the ghost started charging at me, its movements a horrible stutter, freezing and lurching forward like a wind-up doll with a broken spring!
"Woah-ah-ahhh!"
A normal fast-forwarded charge would have been terrifying enough, but the way it stopped and started in jagged bursts was far worse. The sheer incomprehensibility of it, the grotesque wrongness, jabbed at my deepest instincts!
It can resist my mana that much? On the first encounter? My hands trembled, but I couldn't back down. That would just send me back to square one. I had to fight.
"D-Die!"
I swung my sword while screaming like a third-rate villain trying to defy the protagonist. But unlike that amateurish yell, the mana surging from the blade was vicious. It was a sharp sword aura that froze the air, froze the very space, and tore at flesh.
-Whish!
"...!!!"
But the ghost scuttling down the corridor flipped in a full circle, dodged my strike, then latched onto the ceiling and began crawling! It was an impossible display of agility for something supposedly exposed to my Cold Energy!
Panic set in, and I began firing mana wildly in every direction, but the ghost blurred left and right in a way no living creature should, easily evading my attacks. The distance I had maintained vanished in an instant.
Why is it so fast? Wait, I knew it could flicker in and out, but was that actually just raw speed all along?
That ear-splitting grin wasn't just a smile. Was it the composure of a master? Born from a strongman's leisure, a disdain for the struggle, and an absolute confidence in its own existence?
It wasn't just running at me—it was dancing, twisting and bending its body mid-charge. The sophistication of that movement was indescribable. I should have realized it when I saw it running upside down on the ceiling. My perception was too slow.
-Slaaash!
The ghost violently shook its dangling arm, bare bone visible in its flesh. A stream of blood shot toward me, cutting through the air. The blood froze mid-flight under my mana's chill, but even frozen, the spraying shards were a lethal threat.
Crack! Instead of making a large dodge, I swung my right elbow and smashed the incoming frozen blood. I was trusting the dwarf-forged armor. I didn't want to expose an opening.
-Ssssssiiik.
But maybe that was all it needed. The ghost's grin widened impossibly, bigger than anything I'd seen before, and it leapt from the ceiling just as it stopped running. It fluttered toward me like paper blown by the wind, dancing with an unpredictable, sweeping motion—up, down, left, right.
"Aaaargh!!!"
I channeled mana into my sword and locked eyes with the thing, my own gaze wide open. I had to cut it. I had to cut it. This one strike would split it in half. I'd kill the ghost here and return to reality.
Right... now!
-Hwaaaaack!!!
A ferocious slash erupted from my blade. The wall split open, the corridor split open, the air split open. But—
"...Huh?"
The ghost was gone. It had vanished at some point.
"...Damn it!"
I realized my mistake in a flash. The split second I attacked, the moment my own arm blocked my field of vision, the thing satisfied its condition: 'escaping my line of sight.'
Could it be... from the beginning, this ghost wasn't aiming for my body? Its goal was simply to obstruct my vision?
"Not yet...!"
It couldn't end here. I whipped my body backward while simultaneously erupting Cold Energy in all directions. Now that I was cornered, it was time to bring out the secret weapon I'd only ever imagined—
"..."
But the ghost wasn't behind me either. Not on the ceiling, not on the floor, not even inside the room I hadn't checked.
A draft blew in from somewhere, making the ropes on the ceiling sway.
I stood there, dazed for a moment, then let out a long sigh and started moving forward again, smashing through the wall.
That was just the first hurdle.
**
I had no real sense of time, but so far, the corridor had turned twelve times. The important part was that every single turn was to the right. In a normal hallway, four right turns would bring you back to the start, but this space broke that rule.
Was the space itself the only strange thing? Not at all. As if it couldn't stand the sight of someone simply walking past, the corridor spat out incomprehensible monstrosities at regular intervals.
The first thing I encountered was "A Notebook That Tells Only the Truth." On its very first page was a drawing of my body in silhouette, and the next page read: "He who does not speak the truth shall burn."
I flipped to another page. It read: "If you must kill either your friend or your lover, whom will you kill?" At the same time, apparitions of Choi Ji-won and a friend from my high school days stared down at me from thin air with blank expressions. The construct seemed clear to me: if I chose honestly, I would take psychological damage; if I lied, my body would burn.
The next thing I met was a door that required a certain amount of blood to open. The massive door blocking the passage pulsed like a living creature. Looking closely, I could see engorged veins bulging across its surface, and in several spots, shapes resembling human faces were locked in silent screams.
A note stated that I had to offer at least three liters of blood to pass. What the door would do with that blood remained a mystery.
The last thing I saw was a glossy-faced monster that crawled on all fours. It stalked me from a great distance, obsessively picking up strands of my fallen hair. The moment it gathered exactly ten strands, it charged to peel the skin off my body.
A closer look revealed that the hide draped over this creature was not its own. It wore the skin of another human being upside down, with the face positioned on the back of its head, which made it appear faceless from the front. I guessed the ten strands of hair had some manner of sorcerous significance, meeting a trigger condition that sent it charging to flay me.
"Phew."
If you've been paying attention, you might have noticed the past tense in my descriptions.
That's right. I cut them all down with my sword. With overwhelming mana and an unwavering mind.
The notebook that demanded I tell the truth? I ripped it to shreds. The moment I tore it in half, a strange, soul-like entity burst out from inside, but I froze it solid with my mana. Physical attacks didn't work on it, but it seemed it couldn't resist mana, and the soul vanished.
I cut the living door apart too. When I split it in two, a flood of blood burst from the crack, but it froze over before it could touch me. I passed through only after confirming the kill.
The flaying monster? It was quite agile, but once exposed to my Cold Energy, it was little more than a snack. Honestly, the only reason I even identified it as a "flaying monster" was because I had already killed it.
After death, its outer skin separated from its body. The core of the body looked like a writhing mass of black larvae. I blasted it with Cold Energy at full power and froze the entire clump. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any, so I'd call that a complete kill.
So, there you have it.
The weak, strange entities on Floor 24 weren't strong enough to fight me. With my mana restrictions lifted, I was basically an overpowered character. A powerhouse comparable to when my Hero Trait was fully stacked and active. Shabby little ghosts like these couldn't block my path.
The monsters in this horror game are scary only to helpless victims. What can they possibly do against a sword-wielding superhuman?
"Who could possibly stop me?"
I smirked as I walked. Unless it's that Dancing Ghost... no one can touch me.