The First Regressor (1)

Burning trees. Acrid smoke. And thick, clotted blood.

Everything in sight was red. It was as if an entire world had been left to steep in blood.

Everyone was saying it was over. Some turned their eyes desperately away from a reality they couldn't bring themselves to accept, and every so often you'd spot one of them forcing a cheerful front.

I knew. I knew those people weren't wrong.

After all, even I — standing right here at the front of it all — could see no way to turn this situation around. Not the slightest one.

And yet there I stood. The reason was nothing special. It was because everyone called me 'Hope.'

The moment the broadcast went live, every eye in the world snapped toward me. Just as that one viewer had said, my viewer count came surging upward as if the entire planet were cheering me on.

Feeling all of it settle over me, I closed my eyes.

'Seed of hope.'

The 'hope' of more than half of everyone left alive on Earth came flowing into me. A size as tiny as a seed had, before anyone noticed, put out a sprout and grown into a tree. And upon that tree, a single fruit had formed.

I closed my hand around the fruit.

"Everyone."

My voice rode the broadcast out to the world. The chat window that had been roaring with noise only moments before went still in an instant, hanging on every movement of my lips.

I flashed them a bright smile and delivered my verdict, low and clear.

"I've turned it over and over in my mind, but no matter how I look at it, no answer comes. So — I'm going to go find the answer in the past!"

Countless hooks came flying at me. Paying them no mind, I sank my teeth into the fruit.

Crunch! A crisp sound, like biting clean into an apple.

A heartbeat later, light flared.

The same scenery. The same lines. And the identical ending.

A dream he had every single day — a nightmare that had lately begun surfacing so often it was getting downright sickening.

"……Cadet."

A faint voice tickled at the edge of his hearing. A discordant note threaded into the dreamscape; the scene blurred for a moment, and then the world before his eyes sank into darkness.

He still remembered how badly it had rattled him, the first time it happened. But by now, he knew what it meant. Time to wake up.

"Cadet Baek Eunhoooo!!"

Baek Eunho's eyes snapped open at a voice that bored into his ears like a lion's roar. Seriously, though — had that man boiled down and eaten a train whistle or something? It was loud enough to leave his ears ringing.

Eunho lifted his head, brow furrowed. Glaring down at him was a middle-aged man, eyes narrowed to slits.

A towering frame, and a face that read less as human than as ape — and among apes, something a shade closer to gorilla. No use pretending otherwise: this was the instructor put in charge of us. The only reason for the 'us' was that the man didn't teach Baek Eunho alone — he was one of the Academy's faculty, responsible for cadets many.

"When is that rot-riddled brain of yours going to get fixed, huh?! And you still have the nerve to call yourself a cadet of Deungcheon Academy?!"

Not like he'd asked to be one. Eunho clicked his tongue inwardly and swallowed the retort.

Awakeners were, as a matter of course, obligated to attend the Academy. It was discipline mandated by the state.

'Well, thanks to that, a parentless orphan eats well and lives comfortably, at least.'

Ever since the thing called the 'Tower' had appeared, the gulf between rich and poor — already grotesque — had only yawned wider, or so they said. These were the days when 'a dragon rising from a ditch' had been reduced to a tacky joke.

In a world like that, being an orphan without parents was no different from being born without legs. You couldn't stand on your own, let alone walk.

Awakeners, however, were a slightly different story.

Because they had to climb the Tower, every nation bent over backwards to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠care for its awakeners, granting them a soft life with food, clothing, and shelter all guaranteed — like this one.

Of course, the moment they graduated, they'd be hauled off to the Tower like steers driven to the slaughterhouse.

'And as of tomorrow, this life is over.'

And tomorrow was precisely that day — the day he walked to the slaughter. The road ahead already looked like nothing but fog.

'Come to think of it, why am I having that nightmare so often these days?'

Every time he drifted off, the same nightmare played out: bursting artillery, people dying, and last of all, the figure of a single person wreathed in a swirl of light.

He couldn't make out the figure's shape, yet for some reason, Eunho felt a faint déjà vu toward that silhouette. You might even call it familiarity.

'At first I thought it was something special, and it actually put me in a good mood.'

Fat chance! The idle fantasy got cut off at the root, swift as a blade.

"Huh? There's no change in your data at all? I don't sense any mana, and no trait's being detected either. Nothing's changed."

He'd gone in for his re-awakening assessment giddy as could be, half-convinced he'd become the protagonist of some novel — and that was the verdict that came back.

"Haah." The sigh slipped out of him unbidden. He couldn't have hidden the turmoil if he'd tried.

As noted, he had no mana. Word was that no awakened being in history had ever failed to handle mana — and he had managed that most difficult of feats.

Fuck's sake. And it wasn't even a good thing, at that.

'No trait. No mana. How am I supposed to survive in the Tower?'

Not climbing was not on the menu. So long as the regulations stood — every awakened person, regardless of sex, was required ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to attend the Academy and enter the Tower upon graduation.

Human rights? With humanity's survival hanging in the balance this very moment, did anyone honestly believe there'd be fools left to quibble over that?

The instant he refused to climb and ran, what awaited him was the life of a fugitive with an entire nation on his heels.

"Cadet Baek Eunho. Is my class that displeasing to you? What's with the sighing."

The instructor's voice again — and with it, the snickering laughter of the other cadets.

An ordinary day, the same as always, slipped on by. The kind of day that, come tomorrow, he would likely never feel again.

The next day arrived. Nothing so much as happened — no waking up to find his mana awakened, novel-style. Nothing at all.

Just an ordinary day, an ordinary state. What was that, you ask? His mood was at rock bottom right now, that's what.

Eunho forced his scowl flat by sheer will and gazed toward the entrance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the Tower. The Tower had descended into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and Deungcheon Academy had been built directly in front of it.

Which meant this was the view waiting for you the instant you stepped out of the dormitory. Absolutely fatal to one's mood.

"You've all been through a great deal. As of today, you too are full-fledged Climbers in your own right. Take pride in that fact. Of course, I'm sure some of you don't deserve the title."

One: the view that hit you the second you got up — the Tower. Two: the instructor's thuggish scowl.

How was anyone's mood supposed to survive that? He was no bodhisattva.

The instructor breezily ignored Eunho's mood entirely and pressed on with the final lesson.

"I've taught you all there is to teach. But given the occasion, I'll leave you with just one last word of advice. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Do not overestimate yourselves. You are not the remarkable figures you imagine yourselves to be. But neither should you shrink back. Whatever you lack can simply be filled in. You are unrefined ore — which means no one, not a single soul, knows what lies within."

With those parting words, the Academy's graduating class received their certificates of graduation, every last one of them. At any ordinary university there would at least have been mortarboards to toss; here, there was nothing of the sort. What they received instead — not that it was any substitute — was a handful of small coins. Coins, they were called: the currency spent inside the Tower.

Eunho flicked one of his new coins into the air and trailed after the others walking ahead. It was then that someone drew up alongside him.

Baek Arin. The genius who had battled him tooth and nail for the Academy's top seat, and his childhood friend to boot. The two of them had come up through the same orphanage, so they'd always ended up trailing around together.

"Hey."

"What."

"You… you doing okay?"

At Arin's question, Eunho stole a glance her way. Her face stayed pointed straight ahead, but every so often her eyes slid back toward him. She was pretending otherwise, but the worry showed plain as day.

Eunho looked at her a beat, then shrugged.

"What, exactly, would I not be fine about?"

"…Right. Tell me if anything comes up."

"That you worrying about me or something?"

The moment Eunho asked with a quiet snicker, the rims of Arin's ears flared scarlet.

"Wh-who's worried about you!"

Arin barked the words, then quickened her pace and slipped through the Tower's entrance. If it's not, then it's not. What was all the shouting for, then?

Eunho smacked his lips and faced forward.

'Unrefined ore, huh.'

Maybe because the wait in line was so tedious? The instructor's parting words drifted back to him unbidden.

'Huh. Who knew the guy had a decent line in him after all.'

This, from a man who on any given day looked like the gorilla's first cousin.

Ah — though naturally, none of it applied to him.

For the other kids, 'unrefined ore' — a gem in the rough, a jewel before the cutting and polishing. For him, the same word had probably meant nothing more than a plain, round stone. The kind that gets kicked around from place to place.

Leaving his self-mocking laugh behind him, his turn arrived before he knew it.

He tipped his head back, and the Tower's full majesty rose before him, stretching upward without end.

Befitting that stature, the gate before him bore engravings luxurious yet never excessive.

The entrance stood flung wide open, steeped in antiquity — and to Eunho, it looked for all the world like the gaping maw of hell.

Gulp. Eunho swallowed past a dry throat and set his foot forward. Brilliant light closed around him.

It was time to head for the slaughterhouse.

. . .