The Regressor Is a Cloud (9)
The Regressor Is a Cloud (9)
The four climbers who entered Floors 3-5 split into pairs and set out to conquer the trial.
"...Phew, that was rough."
"...Good work."
And now, after defeating the clay puppet, Kang Chan and Ahn Gyeong-jun had arrived at a strange, mine-like chamber.
They were waiting for Kim Jun-ho and Dok Su-hee.
"The other room... seems to be taking a while."
"...Yeah."
The pairing of the shy Ahn Gyeong-jun and the taciturn Kang Chan had seemed almost absurd at first, but fighting the trial back-to-back had kindled an unlikely camaraderie between them.
Call it the suspension-bridge effect. These two, who couldn't have been more different, had somehow grown comfortable with each other.
"Heh, by the way, do you remember what that voice said earlier?"
"...Voice?"
"Yeah. The voice we heard when we first entered."
"...Ah."
The solemn voice had declared:
[Drink from the cup of shared blood, and look straight into your comrade's eyes. Fully understand the comrade whose shoulders you lean on. Then the true trial shall begin.]
"So we've become blood-brothers? Though it was our souls that fought..."
Ahn Gyeong-jun grinned.
"...Ha."
Kang Chan's mouth also quirked up, just barely.
"Weren't we already comrades?"
"Ha, haha... Is that so?"
The mood was harmonious. Ahn Gyeong-jun, shy by nature but talkative once he relaxed, chattered on, while Kang Chan listened quietly and nodded.
Some time passed like that.
Step. Step.
"Oh, I think they're coming."
Footsteps echoed from deep in the cave passage. Had Kim Jun-ho and Dok Su-hee finally cleared their trial? Ahn Gyeong-jun moved to go greet them.
"...Wait."
Kang Chan stopped him.
"Wh-why?"
"...There's only one set of footsteps."
Step. Step.
Kang Chan was right.
The footsteps they heard belonged to one person. But there should have been two.
"..."
"..."
Ahn Gyeong-jun's broad smile hardened. His nose had caught it now too.
The bitter, metallic, cloying scent of blood.
Step. Step. Step.
At last, the footsteps stopped.
"..."
Wooooooosh!
Kang Chan flared his killing intent to its limit.
The reason was plain.
Kim Jun-ho stood there, head bowed. His hair had turned reddish—no, it wasn't just his hair.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
Blood was caked beneath his fingernails. His leather armor was saturated and blackened. His entire body was dyed crimson.
"...What about Dok Su-hee?"
Only then did Kim Jun-ho raise his head.
A smile tinged with madness stretched across his mouth. Chilling and wide.
"...She's here."
He thrust something red and white toward Kang Chan.
"I only brought the essential parts."
It was Dok Su-hee's severed right hand.
"Ugh, fuck!"
I shot upright, swearing.
Right. This place was the familiar stone chamber, and what I'd just witnessed was yet another nightmare the Tower had shown me.
"Haa, haa..."
The Tower must have figured out that ordinary horrors no longer make me flinch. Lately, it had taken to showing me versions of myself breaking down.
It seemed to understand that what I feared most was my sanity shattering and crossing a river I couldn't return from.
Honestly, I can't say the idea of simply cutting off a wrist and using it never crossed my mind... but I can't shake the feeling that it's just wrong. It's way too psycho.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
I turned my head and looked down at Dok Su-hee, who was crying.
Part of me wants to kill her. Forgiving her after she stabbed me in the back at the very last moment is the kind of thing only a saint could do. I'm an extremely ordinary person, and if anything, I'm the petty type. You can't expect me to brush it off like some great hero going, 'It happens!'
Good thing I'm a regressor... If I weren't, the other three would have been utterly helpless. We would've risked our lives and suffered like hell on Floor 3 without even getting the reward. Dok Su-hee has to pay a fitting price.
"..."
But does that justify killing her?
Do I even have the right to judge someone for something that hasn't happened yet? Besides, Dok Su-hee didn't try to kill us; she intended to subdue us.
My head was a mess. The Kim Jun-ho screaming 'Kill her!' and the Kim Jun-ho going 'Hey, hey, killing is a bit much...' were at war inside me.
"Brother... I'm sorry..."
"Mm..."
After agonizing over it again and again, I made up my mind.
"...Su-hee. Please get up."
"Huh, ah?"
"May I ask you something?"
Emotional appeal or not...
First, I'll decide after I hear her out.
**
"Wipe your sweat..."
"...Thank you."
Sitting across from Dok Su-hee in the awkward atmosphere, I decided to speak first.
"...Did something happen in the tutorial?"
I got straight to the point.
"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but earlier when you were distressed, I heard you saying things like 'Brother, I'm sorry,' 'tutorial,' 'Shaman'..."
I hadn't actually said 'tutorial, Shaman,' but I took an educated guess. Because I'd seen something before I regressed.
"..."
Dok Su-hee didn't answer. It'd be strange if she just spilled everything right away.
Guess I'll have to try again.
"Do you happen... to know the tutorial boss, the Goblin Shaman?"
"...! How do you know that?"
That got a reaction. Her eyes went wide.
How did I know? Because I saw you use the Goblin Shaman's protective barrier.
"...I also... there..."
But I kept my thoughts hidden and let my words trail off in a somber tone.
Maybe it's because I've regressed so many times, but my acting feels completely natural now.
"...Jun-ho..."
Dok Su-hee's gaze grew wistful. I didn't miss the opening and pressed on.
"...Could you... tell me your story...? When I was struggling... talking about it helped me a lot..."
I implied that I, too, had just dreamed a nightmare of the tutorial.
"..."
After deliberating endlessly, Dok Su-hee...
"...Okay."
...finally opened her mouth.
**
"...You know there's a hidden boss in the tutorial, right?"
"I've seen it. The Minotaur."
"...We killed it."
She explained that the tutorial that had summoned her and her older brother had contained an unusual number of powerful people.
"They were all strong, kind... capable... amazing people."
Ordinarily, tutorials tend toward survival of the fittest and every person for themselves, but this particular tutorial was different.
"Fifty of us gathered. Let's hunt the boss, they said. The mood was to all survive together, not fight tooth and nail over the golden beads."
Even the weakest among them had a B-rank trait. Truly the elite of the elite. Finding golden beads and escaping the tutorial would have been easy for them. But despite that, they didn't escape. Those fifty or so heroes, both capable and responsible, chose to defeat the Minotaur and save everyone, even if it meant sacrifices.
So the seal was broken, and one monster clashed against fifty humans.
"...It was a bloody battle."
Of those fifty, thirty died. The nineteen others were either gravely injured or lost limbs. Dok Su-hee, who had focused on support, was the only one left completely unscathed.
"But still, we won. We survived. We could smile."
...Until the Goblin Shaman left only their staff behind and threw themselves into the swamp.
"...We searched the island thoroughly. We found a golden bead in a corpse's clothes—one they hadn't been able to swallow."
Many people, one bead. Staying on the island meant certain starvation. They were forced to choose who would survive.
"And the one they chose at that moment was..."
"Yes. Me."
We're all badly injured. Your trait has the highest potential. You're the youngest. Because they were such admirable people, they yielded their chance to survive to Dok Su-hee.
But no matter how saintly they were... they must have been afraid of a meaningless death. They must have wanted to believe they had helped in some way.
"...They told me: You'll clear this tower for sure. Your trait is useful, so you can do it. We believe in you."
They wished for their own deaths to hold meaning, and they left their will to Dok Su-hee.
And that will... became a crushing weight pressing down on her shoulders.
"...Ever since then, I have nightmares every night... I'm terrified of falling asleep... Maybe I should have died there instead..."
Unable to go on, Dok Su-hee wept. She had been summoned to the tutorial with her older brother. And that older brother probably...
"..."
Setting aside what Dok Su-hee had done, pity welled up inside me. Because I had been through a similar situation.
"...I went through the same thing."
"..."
"After the Goblin Shaman committed suicide in the swamp with the golden bead... I had to leave my most precious friend behind in the tutorial and escape."
That day, the day the Goblin Shaman betrayed us.
In the tutorial clearing as the sun slowly set.
I lost the first person who had understood me, my companion, my friend.
"...That wound still stings."
"..."
"But... I'm still trying. Because if I give up, that sacrifice would become meaningless."
This was my heartfelt truth, without a shred of a lie.
The Choi Ji-won I saw that day has already vanished from this world. The Choi Ji-won here now is a different Choi Ji-won.
And my friend Choi Ji-won told me: You can do it, so keep moving forward.
...Regression is torment, but I keep moving forward. For the friend I can no longer see.
"...You're incredible."
Dok Su-hee, tears streaming down her face, nodded quietly.
"I... pretend to be fine on the outside, but inside I'm rotting away. But you, Jun-ho... I can feel that you've overcome it, and that seems so incredible. Because I... I... can't..."
This wasn't the cold demeanor she'd shown at first.
Nor was it the lively front she'd maintained so far.
Having revealed her true, wounded, tormented self, Dok Su-hee smiled at me.
"..."
Slowly, emotions began to flow from Dok Su-hee.
-Awe [C] >>> Awe [A]
-Your trait has evolved.
-Awe [A]
-Praise to your greatness. Fear of the incomprehensible.
-You can use a downgraded version of the trait of a target affected by Awe, limited to one use.
-Dok Su-hee: Inventory (SSS) → Synthesis/Explosion (B-)
"..."
SSS-rank, huh. Thanks to that, the Awe trait evolved.
More importantly, this was the first time in a while I'd felt emotional transference. I could sense that she genuinely regarded me as someone great.
"...Jun-ho."
After wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Dok Su-hee looked me straight in the eye.
"Floor 3 reward. If it's distributed and not individual... I want to take it all. Please invest in me. So that I can clear this tower."
"..."
"I believe you, of all people, will understand. No, maybe no one but you can understand me. If I break here, then the people who died for me will have died for nothing."
I hesitated to answer. The two Kim Jun-hos in my head were fighting more fiercely than ever. They'd now moved to ground-fighting.
"And... I have a way to subdue Ahn Gyeong-jun and Kang Chan. For Kang Chan, if I use the Goblin Shaman's staff from the tutorial..."
"...?"
...Until Dok Su-hee said something strange.
"Uh..."
"Yes? What?"
"Why subdue...?"
"Because I need to monopolize the reward. Those two are great people, sure... but I can use the reward far more valuably. You, of all people, should understand, Jun-ho?"
"Ah..."
"My trait rank is higher... I'm smart... I'm responsible... Besides, it's for the greater good, so they should understand... I wouldn't kill them or anything..."
"..."
Choosing my words carefully, I had no choice but to offer a principled solution.
"Don't subdue them. I'll persuade them. Don't do anything rash. Understood?"
"...Yes."
After a long silence, Dok Su-hee nodded.
'This is a bit...'
'I told you she was a crazy bitch, you idiot.'
The two Kim Jun-hos in my head, who had been exchanging submission holds, stopped fighting.
Because the eyes Dok Su-hee had just revealed, her true nature laid bare, were brimming with deep madness.
"...Let's go."
And I was finally able to make a decision regarding Dok Su-hee.