The Regressor Is Brave? (8)
I'd finished figuring out the situation. Floor 24 had been half-destroyed, and the angel in front of me was on the verge of being replaced. Sign Angel Anael could climb the ranks once again.
But what mattered most was something else.
"Floor 24 is wrecked! Destroyed, I tell you! Repent!"
"Um... Angel?"
"What is the meaning of this!"
"So... what exactly do you want me to do about it?"
"..."
"Sorry to be so brazen, but... is there really anything I can do for you?"
In other words, it's none of my business.
Some people are like this. The type who, when they're in trouble, when they're facing a crisis, call up a friend to whine. The type who shows tears and says, "I'm going through so much, I'm in so much trouble."
But if you think about it rationally, that doesn't help at all. Instead of whining to a friend, it's more efficient to put your mind to work and find a way out.
The current situation is no different.
"I, uh, I'm sorry. For wrecking the floor you worked so hard to design. And for making things difficult for you, Angel. But, well, there isn't anything I can do about it, right?"
"..."
"From the looks of it, the archangel in charge here is absent, which is how this happened... but that's not exactly something I can fix."
Now that I think about it, I'm getting annoyed. This angel seems like a bit of a dim one. What am I, that angel's boyfriend? Supposed to sympathize with her? What difference does it make if I repent?
"Huh?"
No. It might actually make a difference. If she had a recording of me repenting and apologizing, the severity of my punishment might be reduced. Could all that rambling have been an attempt to coax that out of me?
"Huu... It's a relief that you've repented."
In fact, the angel, who had been openly furious, calmed down in an instant and leaned her back against the wall. So that excessive anger up until now had been an act? It feels less like I was tricked and more like I'm just left with a sour taste.
"Then I'll assist with your clearance. Normally, the Status Window would handle the guidance, but since the process got a bit tangled, I'll issue your reward manually."
"Uh, okay."
As if she'd achieved her objective, the angel returned to a businesslike manner and took something from her chest.
"You may choose from among these."
The angel spread out three items, set in a row from left to right: a notebook, an eyeball, and a mask.
"These are objects modeled after the traits of the strange entities that exist within Floor 24... or rather, that used to exist here."
The angel picked up the notebook first.
"First, this notebook. If someone nearby tells a lie, its pages will catch fire. The effect works even if you tear out a page to use, but you must tear out a whole page at a time, and please note there are only ten pages total."
The design of the notebook the angel held out was exactly like an ordinary notebook. So much so that you wouldn't question it if it were sold at any stationery store. Someone who hadn't cleared Floor 24 wouldn't be able to suspect it was an item from the Tower.
"Next, this eyeball has the property of sticking to walls—like this."
The angel stuck the eyeball against the wall as if pressing on a piece of clay. The grotesque eyeball shifted left and right with a grinding sound, then melted into the wall and vanished. The material of the wall enveloped the eyeball like an eyelid.
"I just placed a small trace of my energy into that eye. If this eye discovers a stranger, it will do this."
The buried eyeball flashed open, veins bulging, and glared at me with eyes full of hatred—
—Pop!
It burst on its own.
"It explodes like this, and I receive a signal."
"Ooh..."
Like the notebook, this one also seemed incredibly useful.
"But what exactly is the standard for a 'stranger'?"
"It's based on the familiarity felt by the owner of the energy—that is, the mana user. The alarm triggers if someone you would personally consider a stranger appears."
So far it's been nothing but potions, Experience Elixirs, equipment, stuff like that, and now suddenly she's handing out useful objects like these? I had to make a conscious effort to keep the corners of my mouth from twitching upward.
"Lastly... this mask can alter your appearance for one hour. Would you like to try it on?"
"...Yep."
"Put on the mask, then simply imagine the form you desire. However, if the appearance is too far removed from your real body, there may be side effects."
"Hmm..."
Now that I had to think of someone, nobody came to mind. Who should I imagine? Ah, now that I think about it...
"Now, take a look."
The angel brought her hands together, then spread them wide, and a mirror-like shape shimmered into the air.
"Whoa."
The figure reflected there was Kang Chan himself. From his characteristic sharp features to his dangerous aura, it had been copied perfectly.
If there was one peculiar thing, it was that this wasn't the Kang Chan I'd seen in the future timeline, but rather the Kang Chan I'd gone through thick and thin with on Floor 3. It was clear that it copied not the person's exact appearance, but rather "the appearance I desired."
"The mask will shatter on its own once it has been used for an hour, so please exercise caution."
The mask I'd been wearing vanished the moment the angel took it in her hand, and a new mask immediately materialized in its place before me.
"The notebook. The eyeball. The mask. Which of the three do you want?"
"Hmm..."
To be honest, all three are useful. More precisely, they're not just useful inside the Tower—they're the kind of things that are far, far more useful outside it.
The notebook? It can catch someone telling a lie, so it's naturally great. It'd be perfect to use when interrogating someone.
The eyeball? It's good in reality and also good in the Tower. Sticking one in my studio apartment would give me peace of mind. It'd also be possible to use it to guard against a potential thief or intruder.
The mask... it would be at peak efficiency when I need to deceive someone. The best move would be to extract information using the mask, then regress. It's a useful object I could keep using over and over.
Still, if I absolutely had to choose...
"Hmm..."
First, I'd rule out the notebook. "Detecting lies" is certainly useful, but I have Choi Ji-won.
She can't detect lies per se, but she's extremely, extremely sensitive to the reactions the human body shows. She's practically a living lie detector with about 98% accuracy, and since we'll be acting together anyway, I have to see this notebook as having little real use.
Next, the eyeball. It's also extremely useful, that's a fact, but... it doesn't appeal to me at this moment.
An intruder in my studio apartment? First of all, the location of my apartment hasn't been exposed to the public. It's kept classified to some extent.
Of course, if the scale involved the Korean government or higher, they'd probably know my apartment's location... but they'd want to earn our favor, not pick a fight with us (at least, that's how it's been so far), so they haven't made any overt moves. If I'm not going to use it in the Tower, its priority gets pushed back.
But that last item, the mask... I could use it incredibly well both in reality and in the Tower. The applications are endless. If the mask doesn't seem that effective when I actually try it, I can always regress and pick something else.
"I'll take the mask."
"Understood."
The angel expressionlessly handed me the mask, then immediately opened a portal leading back to reality.
"..."
Her mouth stayed shut, but her eyes clearly said: "Get lost. Quickly." Fine, I'll get lost.
"Heh-heh..."
But next time, things will be different.
**
Right after I passed through the portal and returned to my studio apartment.
"How'd I clear it? Honestly, I... don't really know."
Choi Ji-won, wearing soft microfiber pajamas, shrugged her shoulders.
"I've never watched anything like a horror movie before. So maybe because of that, when I went outside, the whole atmosphere was... really weird."
"You... don't tell me."
"Yeah. So I just swapped with Boongboong-yi. I shut my eyes tight inside and waited, and Boongboong-yi told me it was cleared and to come out?"
"...That's seriously broken."
Maybe because Floor 23 and Floor 24 constantly use mental-type attacks, nothing can work on Boongboong-yi, who is fundamentally a sword. Even if Boongboong-yi is in the process of developing a human heart thanks to Choi Ji-won, its essence is still a sword. Stick a ghost right in front of a sword and ask, "Scared?"—there's no way it'll react.
"I just ignored them and walked through, and they let me pass. Can't you do that?"
"You think I can?"
Ignoring Boongboong-yi, who briefly popped out to rile me up, I laid out everything that had happened on Floor 24.
"...Is that really okay?"
"They said it wasn't. So I got kicked out. The archangel seemed to be absent too, so it probably won't be fixed for a while."
"..."
Choi Ji-won stared at me blankly for a moment, as if her brain had briefly short-circuited, then dismissed it with, "Serves the angels right."
"But next cycle, I think it might be okay not to use that method."
"Why?"
"It's something we worried about before, too. Breaking a floor early by altering it... it's basically robbing people of a chance to grow, right? Floor 24 is on the easier side, so is there really a need to take that opportunity away?"
"Hmm..."
She's not wrong.
I might have cleared Floor 24 in a bizarre way, but normally, you could clear Floor 24 within about twenty regressions. As long as you don't give up, you can always just start over.
But if I alter Floor 24 and steal the experience of other players? Unless it's an incredibly dangerous floor, is there really any need to do that on this one, too? She definitely has a point.
"Okay. I'll do as you say, Ji-won."
"Thank you, Jun-ho."
"Instead, let's watch a horror movie tonight."
"...Eh."
That night, I fell asleep watching a horror movie with Choi Ji-won.
"Hyaaahk!"
Ji-won's scream was pretty cute.
**
Actually, even if Choi Ji-won hadn't suggested it, I'd already been planning to choose a different method in the next cycle. Because breaking through the walls to clear Floor 24 was too slow, and inefficient besides.
So, what was I going to do about it? I'd already cleared Floor 24, so naturally, I should breeze through it in an instant, shouldn't I?
After confirming that Choi Ji-won was asleep, I pulled out an unused phone and contacted the Death God.
-Death God. Have you cleared Floor 24? I need information.
-No. I haven't been able to clear it. But I can connect you with someone who has.
-Is this person trustworthy?
-They're from "our side." They can be trusted.
The nickname of the person the Death God introduced me to was "Shadow." Judging from their profile picture being a caricature of a character in a school uniform, they seemed like someone who never grew out of their chuunibyou phase.
-You can enter through this link.
-Thanks.
-It's my honor to be of help to the "Immortal Sage." By any chance, do you like "Shinsengumi"?
"What's that about."
The person called "Shadow" wasn't normal, but the link they sent me was the real deal.
An internet wiki titled <Ghost Wiki>. At first glance, it looks like a site just compiling famous urban legends, but if you go to a special page only visible to players, it's a site that catalogs detailed information about the ghosts appearing on Floor 24.
"Oh, ooh..."
Generally, players at the upper ranks or higher don't release information. Not only is it pointless to chatter about floors you've already cleared, but the information itself usually circulates only inside their inner circles. This is the opposite of how information about the first ten floors, full of random riff-raff, is widely spread.
So why is there a considerable amount of information stored on this "Ghost Wiki"? It's because many players took an interest in these bizarre beings that don't exist in reality. The number of people who contributed to the wiki itself isn't small, and each of their experience accounts is vivid.
"Whoa... Ghosts, huh... What a crazy bastard."
Absentmindedly, I began formulating a plan as I read through the wiki pages.
After the corridor first turns right, there's a large mirror in the fourth patient room. If you show this to the Dancing Ghost, the ghost will flee.
The Living Door will open if you take an anatomy model from the room that looks like a lab and put it in. It turns out the internal organs inside the anatomy model were actual human organs.
For the skinning ghost, you just need to scatter the hairs from the wig in the examination room. The creature mistakes them and then disappears on its own.
On top of that, strategies for numerous other strange entities I hadn't seen were meticulously recorded on this wiki, and I crammed them all into my head as I calculated the most efficient route.
"First, grab the anatomy model as soon as I enter... then find the teddy bear in the patient room across the way, and then..."
To put it in terms, it was a speedrun done with a guide.
"I'll have this wrapped up in an hour."
On puzzle-type floors, regression is god, and I am invincible.
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 24.]
***
Right after regressing, I moved without hesitation according to the plan I'd laid out.
"...Huh?"
And in that instant, I felt something was off. Even though my fighting spirit had been removed, even though my mana was gone, even though my head had become dull—a sense of wrongness so vast it swallowed all of that.
On Floor 24... there were barely any ghosts. More precisely, the ones that had been blocking the corridor were gone.
The woman who danced with a smile, too.
The book that would burst into flames if you lied, too.
The door that moved on its own, too.
The monster that peeled the skin from heads, too.
Not a single one of them appeared.
"...What is this."
As if it had always been that way from the start.