The Night Is Too Dark (8)
The Night Is Too Dark (8)
"No... this is..."
"It's nothing..."
Baron Jorge smiled and insisted he was fine, but he looked absolutely terrible. Blood trickled steadily from the corner of his mouth.
How had it come to this? Why? How? My mind went blank, and I was on the verge of hyperventilating—
"The Elixir."
Right. The Elixir. The reward I'd earned on Floor 2. I hadn't used it yet. I could save him.
"Just... wait."
I shoved a trembling hand into my pocket and pulled out a small glass bottle. Sure, it was the lowest grade, but it was still an Elixir. For a wound like this—
"Huh?"
The antique-looking bottle was completely empty. The golden liquid that should have been inside was gone.
"..."
I looked closer. A hairline crack ran through the glass. The liquid must have leaked out through the gap.
"No..."
That strange, refreshing coolness I'd felt spreading through my chest during the battle. The way my fatigue had vanished, the sudden sharpness of my focus.
"No... No..."
The Elixir bottle must have shattered in the chaos of the fight. The liquid had soaked into me the whole time, steadily healing my body.
"I said no..."
It had helped me. But because of that, I couldn't save Baron Jorge now.
To be honest, I didn't care if every other resident died. I was planning to regress anyway. I felt pity for them, but they were strangers—I had no deeper attachment.
Baron Jorge, though—we had been through a great deal together. I'd tried not to get attached, but a bond had formed regardless. I'd promised to protect him. And now the man was dying right in front of me. The very thing I'd dreaded had come to pass.
"William. William Smith. You can heal, can't you? Do something! Someone is dying here!"
"...I'm sorry."
"Anything... just try something..."
I knew I was being irrational. William Smith was completely spent. He must have pushed his healing ability to the point where he couldn't even move.
Should I regress? Now, after coming all this way? But I need to see this through, don't I? Wouldn't it be better to endure? But am I really going to just let him die?
Tug.
Baron Jorge weakly grasped my hand as I stood there spiraling.
"...Jun-ho. There is... something... I must apologize... to you for..."
He forced each syllable out, his voice dry and fraying.
"That day... Day Three... at the entrance..."
I knew instantly what he was talking about.
The night of Day Three. The moment just before the monsters scaled the walls.
Baron Jorge and I had stood in the corridor, discussing future plans and talking about all sorts of things.
"Back then... I told a lie..."
Baron Jorge bit weakly at his pale, bloodless lips.
"The truth is... I said the monsters weren't... specifically targeting us..."
"..."
"...But they were... definitely targeting us. The territory residents... I could feel their stares..."
A single tear slid down from Baron Jorge's eye. His gaze was heavy with remorse.
"I'm so sorry... I was afraid you'd abandon us... afraid everyone would die... so I lied to you..."
Baron Jorge squeezed my hand one last time.
"Thank you... and... I'm sorry..."
With those words, his breathing stopped.
"...Ha."
I stood there, dumbfounded.
"I already knew... that much..."
**
-00:15:02
Sir Thomas covered the body with a cloth.
Baron Jorge had shoved one of his own territory residents out of harm's way and taken the mortal wound in their place. I finally understood why the otherworlders were so quiet. It was a silent tribute.
"...Is everyone in the corridor honoring the Baron?"
"...No. The rooms... are being used for other purposes."
"...Ah."
Over a hundred territory residents now filled the corridor. But put another way, that meant out of the initial three hundred, only a little over a hundred had survived.
When monsters died, they dissolved into motes of light. Otherworlders and players left corpses behind.
Where else would all those corpses be?
"..."
I had no choice but to join the silent vigil. What could I possibly say here? Any word from my mouth would sound like nothing but a grief-stricken sigh.
That we did relatively well? That I saved this many because of my actions?
Positive thinking like that was impossible. In this situation, there were no winners. Only the dead and those left behind to mourn them.
As I gritted my teeth and stared silently at the floor—
"Jun-ho."
I heard my name and slowly turned to look.
Baek Da-hye.
Her eyes were swollen and so red they looked ready to burst. She stood waiting for me at the door. A chunk of flesh had been gouged from her shoulder, but the wound had sealed over—William Smith must have gotten to her.
"Jun-ho."
She repeated my name. Her voice was hollow. As if something had been carved away not just from her shoulder, but from somewhere deep inside her.
But I was barely holding on myself. I wasn't in any state to talk to her.
"...Da-hye. I'm... I'm really struggling right now. Not now... maybe we can talk separately, back in the real world..."
"Jun-ho."
A sudden, terrible thought flooded through me. A chill crawled up my spine and seized the back of my neck.
"...No. Right?"
"..."
"Tell me it's not true."
"..."
"Ah."
**
Ahn Gyeong-nam lay on the floor. His expression was peaceful, but where his lower body should have been was eerily empty.
It wasn't just Ahn Gyeong-nam. Dozens of players lay sprawled across the room, covered with cloths.
"I wanted to tell you our story."
Baek Da-hye began to speak, her voice flat and lifeless.
"After you pushed back the monsters, Jun-ho, the players faced a dilemma."
Follow Kim Jun-ho now? Or stay here and hold the line?
If they stayed, survival was practically guaranteed. They'd held up well so far, and since Kim Jun-ho had culled the monster numbers, there probably wouldn't be another major assault. Supposedly there were winged monsters, but as long as they stayed indoors, holding them off wouldn't be hard.
But if they did that, the otherworlders would be annihilated. Once they moved to Floor 2, the otherworlders had no way to protect themselves. Maybe if Kim Jun-ho protected them—but judging by that roar at the end, he wasn't in his right mind right now.
"At that moment... this person argued that we should step up and protect them."
Baek Da-hye nodded toward one of the bodies. I recognized the face. The woman with the prominent chin—the one who'd argued so fiercely about why we should sacrifice ourselves for the otherworlders.
The same woman who'd insisted all the otherworlders should be abandoned had changed her mind at the very last moment.
Once the strong voices began to persuade them, the atmosphere shifted. The players kicked open the doors and moved toward Floor 2.
"The situation was bad. You temporarily cleared a path for us, Jun-ho, and that bought us time to move. But that was it. Monsters started pouring in from the other corridors."
They herded the otherworlders into the long, straight corridor and had players guard both ends. They made the best possible call at the critical moment.
"But..."
Blocking a narrow room entrance with a small group is different from blocking an entire corridor. A superhuman like Kim Jun-ho might manage it, but ordinary players couldn't withstand that kind of pressure.
A few terrified ones ran. After that, the ones who stayed couldn't even rotate shifts. They just gritted their teeth and held on. And that's how they died.
"The ones who died... were the ones who stayed until the end. There were probably more who ran. They're likely hiding somewhere right now. Just waiting for the clock to run out."
The ones who did the right thing died. The cowards who ran survived.
"Jun-ho, I think you made the right call. I think you did what had to be done."
This was the woman who'd consistently sympathized with the otherworlders. The one Ahn Gyeong-nam had gone on about, saying she was too soft-hearted.
"But... Gyeong-nam died protecting me. And now I don't know what's right or wrong anymore."
She stared down at Ahn Gyeong-nam with lifeless eyes.
"...I'm sorry."
This was my fault.
I was the one who'd pushed this reckless plan, convinced we had to protect the otherworlders.
Other people aren't regressors like me who've lived through dozens or hundreds of battles.
Other people aren't like me, someone who's only ever played on the hardest difficulty.
Other people don't climb the Tower with some grand, lofty goal driving them.
This was only Floor 4. Even if the tutorial was hell, no one's had enough time to fully temper their skills yet. I only looked competent by comparison because I'd compressed so much time into my loops.
"It's... my fault..."
Even without fully cooperating with my plan, they had done more than well enough—for ordinary people who'd only just reached Floor 4.
But because they were too kind, they had pushed themselves past their limits to protect the otherworlders. And died for it.
"..."
The moment I dropped my head, a message window materialized before my eyes.
-00:00:00
[Settlement]
[Player] 54 / 100
[NPC] 109 / 300 (No bonus due to major NPC survival failure)
-Penalty Applied (None)
-Rewards equivalent to 10,900 points will be distributed to all survivors.
-Additional special rewards will be given to the top contributors: [Kim Jun-ho] (1st), [Yun Jung-hyun] (2nd), [William Smith] (3rd).
[You have cleared Floor 4.]
When I slowly raised my head, I was on Floor 1. I wasn't even given the chance to be forgiven by Baek Da-hye.
Thud.
Floor 1 had taken the form of a luxury hotel room—the setting I'd configured it to last time. At the far end of the room, a large chest dropped down. The reward from Floor 4.
"..."
I couldn't bring myself to check it. I just collapsed onto the bed.
I steadied my breathing and let the tears fall silently. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Only after my eyes had swollen up did I finally start to plan for what came next.
Choices. Choices. Choices.
All this disaster was the result of my choices. Some were bad, some were good.
And people died. Because of the choices I made.
But I am a regressor. I have the chance to correct the wrong choices.
I can repeat life over and over until I finally produce the perfect answer I'm searching for.
Right. There's no need to apologize. I just have to fix it.
"..."
But... when do I stop? When will I be satisfied?
Do I absolutely have to clear Floor 4 perfectly?
Say I save Baron Jorge. Say I save Ahn Gyeong-nam. What about the rest? Do I have to save all of them?
The tutorial? The tutorial produced a perfect result. Floor 4 is different.
Floor 4 runs for five whole days. Repeating it just ten times is fifty days. A hundred times is five hundred days. And on top of that, people die. The toll on my mental state is enormous.
Do I really have to repeat this horrific experience and save every single one?
On Floors 2 and 3, I compromised—even if only a little.
On Floor 2, I didn't regress because I was afraid of meeting the Archangel again. On Floor 3, I didn't regress because I was afraid of what would happen if I saw Dok Su-hee again.
Compromise is comfortable.
To begin with, these people would have died helplessly without me. It's more accurate to say that more people survived because I got involved.
I did what I could. There's no need to push any further. Let's just... compromise. Decide on something reasonable.
"No."
I clenched my teeth. I recalled Ahn Gyeong-nam's body, seared into my memory. I recalled Baron Jorge, clutching my hand so tightly.
I recalled Choi Ji-won, smiling in the clearing of the tutorial.
"I'll do it."
This is different from Floors 2 and 3. People's lives are at stake. Letting this slide now would be no different from letting a crack form in my heart.
Even if I seem fine right now, I will definitely break someday—and this moment will be where it started. I can't compromise.
But saving everyone on this insane difficulty?
It's impossible. But I still have to do it.
"If I don't, who will?"
Because this is something only I can do.