The Regressor Strays (4)
The Maze King was a man of few words. No, perhaps 'uninterested' was more accurate.
He met my barrage of questions with stone silence, occasionally muttering 'You fool' as if annoyed, and only then reluctantly deigning to answer. His stance was clear: he'd already explained everything necessary, so why did I keep pestering him?
"Hey, talk to me. Is there really no way?"
But I couldn't just wait around. Time was running out. Just reaching him had taken forever, and with this man so uncooperative, frustration was eating me alive.
Choi Ji-won cleared it in ten minutes, so there had to be some kind of trick. Yet he showed no intention of telling me, and time kept ticking away.
Well, since I couldn't kill him... I guessed I'd have to experiment. Stabbing someone who wasn't resisting felt awful, but I didn't have a choice.
"Uh... I'm really going to stab you. I'll stab you, okay?"
"...A waste of effort."
"Ah, I really don't know what you're talking about. I'm just telling you."
I closed my eyes tight and plunged the sword deep into the man's chest. The Maze King let out a low groan, but still stared at my face with that same deadpan look.
"But... I stabbed his heart."
"I said it's a waste of effort."
"...Hoo. I didn't want to do this, either."
"..."
Only about three minutes remained. I was really, really sorry, but I couldn't help it.
I then proceeded to perform all manner of unspeakable experiments on the unresisting Maze King—things I'd rather not put into writing.
"...Why won't you die?"
"..."
No matter what I did, the Maze King would not die. If any part of his body was damaged, it reattached naturally after a moment. Even when life should have been impossible, he kept breathing and speaking just fine.
Have you ever seen a severed head speak? I guarantee you don't want to.
Regardless, within those three minutes I failed to 'eliminate' the Maze King. Wondering if I'd missed something, I went back and performed the same experiments all over again.
"...A waste of effort."
"Oh my god."
This man simply would not die, no matter what. Whether I froze him with mana, cut him with my sword, put him in a joint lock, or suffocated him... I can confidently say the psychic damage I sustained from the grotesque spectacle was far greater than any damage the Maze King actually took.
I even steeled myself and attempted to strike his 'soul'... but I couldn't touch the Maze King's soul at all. I could sense something was there, but striking it felt like punching a rubber balloon. No impact at all.
"...Was this not it?"
By then, I was getting anxious. Huh? Could it be there's no trick at all? What's going on? This is weird.
In the next cycle, I tried a brute-force approach, just in case. I ran around the maze at my absolute maximum speed, trying to gather the 'items.'
By the time regression came, I had barely managed to collect two of the five objects the Maze King had told me to retrieve—and that was despite having memorized the map roughly and using the fastest route.
If I ran at full speed, I might scrape together three or four... but I wasn't yet accustomed enough to the mana filter to go full speed, and even if I could, collecting all five was simply impossible. I now knew for sure: the brute-force approach wouldn't work.
So my next attempt was this.
"Goodbye."
-Crack!
"Guoooo..."
Along with a mournful death cry, the Minotaur's eyes rolled back. This time I didn't waste any time and went straight to the 'black space,' where I plunged my sword into the crown of the Minotaur that was barely sticking its head above ground.
With no arms or torso, the Minotaur looked at me with desperate eyes and pleaded, but a monster is still a monster. The only mercy I could offer was a painless death. Still, it probably passed on comfortably.
"...Huh."
The problem was, even after killing the Minotaur, I received no reward whatsoever. No message like 'Additional reward granted,' nothing. Not even an achievement level increase. My Status Window showed absolutely no change, and the Minotaur's corpse simply vanished beneath the black floor.
Honestly, this didn't seem normal. No matter how high players' levels had risen, a Minotaur was still a Minotaur. In a one-on-one fight, most players could never guarantee victory against such a monster—especially since they'd encounter it after considerable time had passed, their bodies already poisoned, nowhere near peak condition.
And yet, no reward at all? Not even an achievement level increase?
"...Is this a bug?"
It's far more reasonable to see this as a 'bug' than as something intentional. This is the 'black space,' a place you're not supposed to go normally, so it makes sense that no reward was granted.
Fine, that makes sense. So no reward, and I just wasted my time.
"...Hoo."
I sighed and chewed on my cheek again. There had to be... something.
[You have taken damage.]
[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 25.]
***
The regressions repeated. There wasn't a single cycle where I didn't give it my all. Every single one was spent setting a goal and running myself ragged to achieve it.
I hadn't memorized the entire maze, but I did memorize the path to the Maze King. I could now reach him within five minutes. It didn't make me happy. Not after all the time I'd wasted.
Ah, there was a small accomplishment. Through repeated regressions, I finally understood the Maze King's behavioral logic.
This bastard only answers questions he deems 'worth answering' by his own standards. You could call it arbitrary, but he's a king, so I just roll with it.
Once I understood that rule, I threw several questions at him that I thought would hit the core, and each time the Maze King answered willingly.
"So why do I need to collect those things in order to kill you?"
"I am... undying. I have been so since birth. Therefore, by gathering those ingredients and performing a shamanic ritual—lowering the very essence of my existence—you will, in effect, be killing me."
"Then, if you die, will an exit appear? Like in the Tutorial?"
"..."
Sometimes the Maze King would fall silent like that and draw a line. It was almost always when I asked about 'what would happen next'—in other words, questions about the future.
It didn't seem like he was unwilling to tell me; it was probably that he physically couldn't speak.
Either way, I managed to get quite a bit of information...
"So... this does seem to be the Tutorial Island's underground... and the Maze King committed some mistake against God, which resulted in the whole world being cursed..."
The story goes that the Maze King was originally a ruler of a world, immortal, a wise monarch—but after some misstep against God, his world fell into ruin, and he himself was trapped in the Tower to receive eternal punishment. A pretty dull story, honestly.
The problem is, it wasn't particularly useful information. Nice-to-know background lore, nothing more.
I still hadn't found the answer to the question, 'How do I clear this floor?' I'd tried just about every approach I could think of, even some truly outlandish stunts that bordered on madness, and every single one had failed.
"..."
When I first entered Floor 25, I'd been relaxed. While searching for a solution, I grew annoyed and angry. Now I was scared. I was genuinely afraid that I might never get out of here.
Floor 25 eats up a lot of mental energy. It demands constant concentration on mana at every single moment. 'Rest' in the truest sense is impossible.
The moments right after regressing were also a problem. Because of the poison, the instant I regressed, I had to plug my nose before even inhaling, completely empty my lungs, and then create the mana filter. It wasn't a difficult maneuver, but every time it chewed away at my nerves.
It's not like I was about to go insane or that madness had consumed me. I was just... exhausted. And tired.
"No... seriously, how did she do it..."
Choi Ji-won. How on earth did she clear this floor in ten minutes? What did she do?
Why wasn't something clicking for me? What was I doing wrong?
How. How did Choi Ji-won do it? What method did she use?
"I wish someone would kill the Maze King for me."
Could the Minotaur kill him? I feel like if it stomped him—bang—that might do it.
Could I force the Minotaur out of the black space and carefully lure it to where the Maze King is? If I grabbed its horns and pulled it up, would it come out?
"..."
Wait.
The Minotaur?
"..."
A terrifying idea came to me. To be honest, it might actually work.
If I couldn't eliminate the Maze King by conventional means...
Then I supposed I had no choice but to try something unconventional.
**
"Hey."
"..."
The Maze King heard my voice and shifted only his eyes to glare at me.
"Uh... do you absolutely have to stay here? Can you go outside?"
As if the question were unexpected, the Maze King's eyebrows twitched slightly. Had I piqued his interest? He answered kindly.
"...It doesn't matter, but the ritual to free me can only be performed here..."
"Then it's fine. Want to follow me for a moment?"
If he could leave here... then this might just be possible. It was the last resort I'd come up with.
"Uh, there's this god-awful place I want to show you."
Let's put the Maze King into the forbidden 'black space' and see if he survives that.