The Regressor Is Panicked (8)
The Regressor Is Panicked (8)
The room was dim, lit only by a single torch.
"...But what if monsters come out from inside the castle? Why did you destroy the drawbridge?"
"Snow is already piling up in the moat. That means the drawbridge is useless. And I plan to leave the smallest gate intact. It's narrow, but passable."
"Hmm... Understood. Were there any players doing anything reckless? I saw there were women among the territory residents earlier..."
"There were none. In a situation where you might die at any moment, it's a relief that no one is wasting time on foolishness."
"Well, then..."
I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck.
The reason I had come all the way here was simple.
"I want to learn how to handle mana."
I had decided to learn the art of controlling mana from Baron Jorge.
"Hmm... where should I begin."
Baron Jorge gently stroked his long beard.
"First, let's start with this. Can you feel mana?"
"...Yes."
In the past, a noble on Floor 2 had guided the mana in my body. With his help, I had barely managed to activate Flash Step and subdue the City Master.
Since then, I've felt something swirling inside me. I can't control it, but I can feel it.
"Hmph."
Baron Jorge nodded, then stepped behind me and slowly placed a hand on my back.
"Ugh..."
Something flowed in from his palm and I felt it meet the mana within my body.
"..."
The inside of my body tickled. It stung a little, yet felt oddly refreshing, like peeling off a scab. An unfamiliar sensation, but not a bad one.
"Hoo, that should do it."
Baron Jorge stepped back as he finished concentrating, wiping the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead.
"...What did you do?"
As far as I could tell, nothing had changed. My physical state was the same, and the mana inside me showed no sign of moving.
"It means I've found the cause of the problem. But before that, let me ask you something. Don't you people wield powers called traits?"
"...Right?"
"Even those fundamentally use mana. Yet you players activate traits without any trouble. How do you do it?"
"...Thanks to the Status Window."
I gave a brief explanation of what the Status Window was and what it did.
"So, basically, traits registered in the Status Window can be activated almost instinctively if you just try."
"...Then why do you want to handle mana?"
"I have a bit of an unusual trait."
The methods for using Flash Step and Heart of Lightning had, strangely enough, been hammered into my head, but they didn't activate freely like other people's traits. Maybe it was because they were S-rank traits and therefore special. Or maybe traits acquired externally, rather than those granted by default, all worked this way.
"...Fine. That would explain it. The phenomenon you're experiencing is a common symptom among the children of the nouveau riche in my world."
Baron Jorge began his story as he stroked his beard.
Whether because the value of their land skyrocketed, or a merchant venture struck it big. No matter the world, the newly rich exist everywhere.
"When a commoner earns a lot of money... first, they indulge in luxury. They buy expensive houses, throw money around in gambling halls, and indulge in drink and women."
But people inevitably grow tired of luxury. And some are simply not suited for that kind of wild living. For those people, the next place to spend money was obvious.
"They seek to buy status."
First, they buy a remote territory. Buying territory doesn't make you a count or a baron and induct you into the peerage. You merely become a nominal 'honorary knight,' taking a seat at the lowest end of noble society. Nothing more than a fake noble, all pretense.
But there was indeed a way to become a real noble. It was possible if you distinguished yourself in battle and caught the eye of the nobility.
"And after that... it's common to scrape together every last coin and feed spiritual medicine to the children."
The children of the nouveau riche inherit the dream of becoming 'real nobles' and are fed all sorts of spiritual medicine from childhood. It wasn't rare for a snot-nosed six-year-old to possess more mana than a knight who'd spent a lifetime on the battlefield.
"...And what does that have to do with me?"
"Mana is, in the end, a part of the body. What's difficult is accumulating mana through combat or mana breathing. Once you have mana, there's no real need to learn how to handle it... you just naturally can."
But if you come to possess too much mana through artificial means, you lose control over the mana itself. It merely exists within your body, and you lose the ability to wield it.
The fact that Earthlings had never possessed mana in the first place probably also plays a role.
"The ideal method would be to slowly increase your mana while maintaining control... but I'd say it's already too late for you."
"..."
So the amount of mana I'd raised through stats was too great to control.
"So what's the solution?"
But seeing how confident he looked, there was clearly a solution. A doctor wouldn't make that kind of expression in front of a terminally ill patient.
"It's simple. Just keep your awareness on the mana. If you couldn't sense mana, you would have needed my help, but didn't you say you can already feel it?"
"...What?"
"Sit down, take slow, deep breaths, and meditate. As you inhale and exhale, feel the pulsing flow of mana. Given enough time, at some point, the mana will begin to move."
"..."
Baron Jorge's solution was simple. Just keep feeling the mana. Then it would naturally move.
"...That is simple."
Now I understood why the baron had hesitated during our deal. It was such a trivial piece of advice that his conscience had pricked him.
"Still, I have no intention of breaking my promise."
"...Thank you."
But the answers to complicated problems are often surprisingly simple. I smiled faintly, imagining a future where I freely wielded mana.
**
The second day dawned.
"Did anything happen during the night?"
"No. Not even a single wild animal passed by."
We had gone to the trouble of setting up a watch, but nothing happened at all.
The snow was still falling thickly, the sky was blue, and the mountain was high.
"...We'll proceed with the same routine as yesterday. But let's pick about ten guards for when we work on the walls. We don't know what might pop out today."
The castle was peaceful, but to me, that peace felt even more unsettling. Still, that didn't change the day's work.
"Move the stones!"
We were still filling the gate.
"I found a hidden room on the first floor. There were a few books inside... Ahn Gyeong-nam is deciphering them."
We explored the castle.
"Get out of the way! Rock coming down!"
We were demolishing the fourth floor.
Everything flowed just as it did yesterday. There was no threat to survival, and people's moods were gradually loosening up.
"...No, wait, is something really supposed to show up?"
"Floor 2 was a freebie too... isn't Floor 4 the same? So far, the otherworlders have been the biggest threat."
"...What if the otherworlders suddenly stab us in the back?"
With no immediate crisis, people's imaginations ran wild in the worst direction. For now, it was just subtle whispering, but who knew what would happen later.
"Hey, where did that Liu Huang asshole go?"
"Yeah, where..."
Also, having spent over a day on Floor 4, I had begun to grasp the problems with this castle.
The corridors were narrow, there were many small rooms, and the paths tangled together like a maze.
In short, communication between people was extremely, extremely difficult. Finding one person took considerable effort, and swift exchanges of opinions were impossible.
"Ugh, seriously..."
I tried to check whether all 100 players were all right, but it wasn't easy. There was no space where all 100 could gather except the courtyard in front of the castle.
I was kicking the hard-frozen ground in frustration.
"Ahem, ahem."
At the sound of someone clearing their throat, I turned to see Baron Jorge standing there with his knight, Thomas.
"...There's something I need to show you. Can you follow me for a moment?"
"Sure."
There was a lot to do, but I decided to follow without a word.
Because Baron Jorge's expression was frozen colder than I had ever seen it.
**
"You were aware that we were dismantling the fourth floor, weren't you?"
Baron Jorge spoke as he climbed the stairs. He was tearing apart the entire fourth floor to use it to fill the gate.
"...I've lived my whole life in castles and visited the castles of other nobles many times. This is not a castle. It's closer to a fortress."
There were no windows. The corridors were extremely narrow too. Naturally, there was no ventilation, and the interior was terribly damp. It was hard to imagine anyone actually living in such a place.
"I've rambled on long enough."
The place Baron Jorge brought me to was a remote corner of the fourth floor. The ceiling had already been torn off, and snowflakes were drifting in.
Tap.
Baron Jorge pointed at something with his fingertip.
"Look."
He was pointing at an old wall. There were marks of hammer blows, pieces torn away here and there.
"...This is."
But if it were an ordinary wall, Baron Jorge wouldn't have brought me here. Behind the old wall was another, with a narrow gap between them.
If it were just a gap, there'd be no problem...
"..."
A gap that seemed ordinary at first glance. Inside that small space, a familiar blue portal was shimmering.
Ding! A message window appeared before my eyes just in time.
[Wonderful Achievement Notifier!]
-You have discovered a hidden escape route.
-Passing through the portal before you will clear Floor 4. (5 people remaining)
My mouth opened slightly, and I whispered.
"...We'll hide it."
"I thought the same."
Baron Jorge nodded in agreement.
...Leaving aside the various conflicts this portal would cause, I felt a small twinge of fear.
Four days left. What in the world was coming that they'd hide something like this?
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