The Regressor Is Panicked (11)
The Regressor Is Panicked (11)
"So many I can't even count..."
Even the howling wind seemed to hold its breath.
"...Huh? Huh?"
"Wh-what did you say?"
The people who heard me fell into panic.
"Why aren't you people coming? Isn't it all over?"
"So what do we do now?"
Meanwhile, those who'd been farther away and had less of a grasp on the situation were taking it easy, cracking jokes.
"Mr. Jung-hyun. Mr. Smith. First, gather everyone and make them aware of the situation. I'll leave the otherworlders to Baron Jorge."
"And what will you do, Mr. Jun-ho..."
"I have things to think over. We need to gather the people first."
"Understood."
Yun Jung-hyun and William Smith, their jaws clenched, ran off to gather the people, while Baron Jorge hurriedly moved below the castle wall.
"..."
And my gaze was fixed on the horde of monsters surging in from beyond the darkness.
"Did we already fail?"
A swarm of monsters so vast that counting them was meaningless. I had to abandon any thought of fighting and winning right from the start.
But if the true objective of Floor 4 was to endure that wave head-on... then I must have missed something, and I can only conclude that we already failed.
Or was the whole purpose of Floor 4 to survive by escaping through the portal? A hellish difficulty where only five out of a hundred people could survive from the very beginning?
No, that probably wasn't it. It's still only Floor 4. I couldn't imagine the floors being that absurdly difficult this early on.
"If that's the case..."
For now, I had no choice but to give it everything I had. Even if I ended up regressing, I would gather every scrap of available combat power and resist to the end.
If it truly proved impossible, then after regressing, I could take the portal and clear it quickly, then go online and look up the experiences of others. That would be the most rational course of action.
"Everyone has gathered."
I heard Yun Jung-hyun calling me. I turned my head to check behind me and saw hundreds of people gathered in the wide courtyard, all looking up at me.
"Is it true that m-monsters are swarming in?"
"Are you certain?"
Terrified voices burst out from all over. I imagined this was how people would react to hearing news that a nuclear missile was headed for Seoul.
"...It's true. Monsters in numbers that could almost be called a wave are flooding toward this place."
"...Oh my god."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
Despair settled over the crowd. Some people did doubt whether I was telling the truth, but I figured if they thought about it for just a moment, they would realize I had no reason whatsoever to lie.
"...So. What do you plan to do now?"
The same surly-looking man from before asked.
"I assume you have some kind of idea, which is why you've stood before everyone so confidently. If there were truly no answer, you'd have gone off to hide long ago."
"That's correct. I intend... to resist to the very end."
I turned my eyes from the people and took in the high castle walls around us.
"By any chance, does anyone here possess a trait useful for mass slaughter? A wide-area attack, for example..."
Everyone's gaze turned to the woman with the protruding chin, but she simply shook her head lightly.
"...My trait is powerful, but I can't use it many times. I pushed myself too hard earlier, so two times at most is probably my limit."
She had a valid point.
"In that case, does anyone possess a ranged weapon, like a bow?"
"The Tower only gives out melee weapons. Where the hell would we get a bow?"
That was also true.
Unlike the towers in other fantasy settings, all the weapons granted by the Tower so far had been melee weapons. That meant no bows, crossbows, or anything of the sort had ever been distributed.
"Right. I anticipated that would be the case."
I turned my head again and looked down upon the people in the courtyard.
"That is why I believe the best course is to boldly abandon the walls."
"Wh-why abandon them?"
"Because they're too wide."
The castle wall. Under normal circumstances, it would have been our most reliable defensive barrier.
But castle walls are fundamentally meant for human-to-human combat. To stand against a near-endless horde of monsters like this, the area they covered was simply far too large.
If the walls held the monsters back, then great. But if the monsters had the ability to break through, we had no ability to stop them.
"With no ranged weapons and no mass-killing trait, trying to hold the walls seems impossible. Even if we could repel the monsters climbing up, the moment one person tires out and their line is breached, it means annihilation for everyone."
"Then..."
"We hold out inside the castle."
Narrow corridors. A small number of entrances. It was perfect for a defensive siege. After all, the most important thing when fighting a larger force is to narrow the front line.
"Thanks to the narrow corridors, we won't be surrounded. We only have to defend what's in front of us. If we can plug up all the passages into the castle interior, we can survive."
There were six passages leading into the castle in total. Baron Jorge had hurriedly blocked three of them today.
"Lord Baron. The barricade work. Can you still manage it at this point?"
"...I can't say how fast the monsters are, but at most, one more location. I am far too exhausted from the day's labor."
"That's more than enough."
If we blocked a total of four locations, that would leave two passages open.
"What you all have to do is simple. Rotate with one another and block just one passage. And survive until the very end. That will be enough."
"B-but aren't there two passages? If we only block one..."
One player asked with a confused expression. Yun Jung-hyun, who was standing next to him, tapped him on the shoulder to cut him off.
"Can't you feel it?"
"...Feel what?"
"Ha, honestly."
Glancing up at me, Yun Jung-hyun let out a hollow laugh.
"I didn't exactly reveal my full strength either... but I never imagined it was this much of a difference."
That smile was a tangled mix of astonishment, inferiority, and relief.
"Mr. Jung-hyun is right. I will block one passage by myself."
Looking down at Yun Jung-hyun, I smiled lightly.
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
[The Hero Trait effect activates!]
"Alone."
**
-54 : 10 : 41
Even without shooting off flares this time, the horde of monsters was visible from the wall. It was dark, but there was no missing a mass of that sheer scale. The remaining distance felt like about ten kilometers.
Rumble...
The ground shook, and an eerie chorus echoed that blended all kinds of breathing, howling, and screaming. It was the sort of sound that felt like it could give you a mental illness just by listening.
"It makes me wonder if we spotted this monster horde remarkably early. If this were anyone else's Floor 4, they'd probably have been asleep, only waking up in a complete panic just now..."
Ahn Gyeong-nam cracked a joke as he looked down at the monster army. But seeing how deathly pale his face was, the forced bravado was painfully obvious.
"Grrrrr!"
"Whoa, whoa!"
As if proving my prediction true, the moment he heard the sound of an animal growling from somewhere, he went into a panic and fell over in a miserable heap.
While Ahn Gyeong-nam scrambled to his feet and brushed off his rear, I looked down from the wall to see a lone Wolf growling below. Given the sheer number of them, it seemed some individuals had outrun the main pack.
"That... where is the person who launched the flares earlier?"
Seeing that Wolf gave me the idea that an experiment was in order, so I looked for the one player on Floor 4 capable of ranged attacks.
"Here."
The woman with the protruding chin walked out at my words.
"...What was your name?"
"Lee Mi-ju."
It felt a bit off to keep calling her the "woman with the protruding chin" every time, so I made a note of her name.
"Alright, Miss Mi-ju. Could you possibly launch one of those fireballs at that Wolf down there?"
"..."
"I'm aware it's a heavy burden. But it's necessary. Please."
"...Fine."
Lee Mi-ju nodded, then focused her mind and produced a fireball the size of a human head.
"Hup!"
The ball of flame flew toward the Wolf that was snarling right below the castle wall. Just as the fiercely hurtling fireball was about to hit the Wolf.
Whoosh!
"Ah!"
With an agile movement, the Wolf dodged the fireball. Lee Mi-ju let out a regretful sigh.
Boom!
"Kreeeeek!"
A small Goblin standing right behind the Wolf took the fireball head-on and went up in a blaze of glory.
"...My apologies."
"No need to apologize. The goal was to hit any one of them anyway."
I'd only aimed for the Wolf because it had caught my eye; my actual objective was simply to 'kill one monster.'
I nodded at Lee Mi-ju as if to say it was fine, then shifted my gaze and looked down at the Goblin.
The Goblin, still on fire, writhed violently before going limp on the ground, apparently having breathed its last breath.
"Ah, damn."
Seeing the corpse immediately turn into a Light Cluster and disperse into the air, I couldn't help but click my tongue.
If the corpses remained, we could have used the monster bodies themselves as barriers. We could even have plugged the passageways tight with corpses and held a siege. It would have been unsanitary, but not fatal enough to kill us in three days.
But the Goblin turned into light the instant it died. That meant using corpses was impossible.
Well, fine. It was just a "would've been nice" option anyway.
About thirty minutes passed after that.
"..."
Now I could see the expressions on the Orcs running in the vanguard. I could see the Wolves charging forward, drool streaming from their mouths. I could see for the first time a purplish, octopus-like creature.
The common factor was that they were all charging with their eyes rolled back. There wasn't a hint of the intelligence that had been in the Goblin Shaman's eyes; they all charged the castle as if they had been reduced to nothing but beasts.
"Haha."
My entire field of vision was filled with monsters. This sight, my whole view blanketed with monsters, resonated with even my emotionally barren heart, and I felt a sudden urge to capture it in a photograph.
Or wait, would an ordinary person have felt the urge to run away?
After letting out a hollow laugh, I slowly climbed down from the castle wall and headed for the passage I had agreed to take responsibility for.
While crossing the courtyard like that.
Kwooooooong!
With a deafening roar, the castle wall began to shake madly.
"Kwoooooooh!!!"
"Kruuuuuaaarrgh!"
"Kwaaarrrgh!"
The cries of the monsters erupted as if in a twisted harmony.
At last, the wave of death crashed against the castle walls.