The First Regressor (2)

Space twisted.

The great ocean that had filled their view moments ago vanished without a trace, and in its place a dense thicket of verdant trees suddenly rose before their eyes.

They had entered the Tower.

“Whoa. So this is the inside of the Tower? You can't even compare it to the videos.”

“It never feels real on a screen anyway. So, who do you think the examiner will be?”

The freshly graduated climbers, still wet behind the ears from the Academy, clustered together and chattered. Confusion, nervousness, and anticipation — a whole spectrum of emotions played across their faces.

Eunho, however, could not wedge himself into any of those groups.

For one, there was no group that would have him; for another, his condition was far too poor for small talk.

…What is this?

His stomach churned.

Ever since he had passed through the entrance to the Tower, a sense of something sloshing deep inside him had kept creeping over him.

At its kindest, it felt like nausea. Less kindly, it felt as though his internal organs were thrashing about inside his body.

The unprecedented intensity of it made his head swim. And no wonder — even the shapes of things around him seemed to be slowly splintering apart.

“Hey. You okay?”

In that moment Arin stepped to his side and steadied him. The worry she could not hide was written all over her face as she took in his rapidly paling complexion.

“…My stomach feels like it's turning over.”

“Hold on. The medicine I packed… Found it. Try taking this.”

She pulled pills and a bottle of water from her bag and handed them over. Eunho took them and swallowed everything down.

Was the medicine too slow to work?

Barely a minute had passed since he took it, but his symptoms were severe enough that he couldn't help wishing for instant relief.

Hoping to settle his churning stomach, if only a little, Eunho closed his eyes. With his sight blocked, the sounds around him grew sharper.

“Look at that inferior loser. Clinging to Baek ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Arin like a leech, hoping she'll carry him through.”

“Right? A grown man and he's not even embarrassed?”

Sneering whispers drifted in from all around. At the center of that crowd, as always, stood the one who liked to pick quiet fights with him — Doochang, a guy whose name alone sounded like a bad joke.

Eunho paid it no mind.

He had no energy to waste on that kind of talk. With no way of knowing what was coming, he needed to conserve every scrap of strength he had.

“Ugh, look at his face. You think that bastard's passing the exam? Looks like we'll be hauling out one corpse.”

Arin, standing right beside him, apparently did not share his patience.

“Hey.”

Arin spun around, her brow knitting hard.

The ones who met her gaze seemed unable to say a word to her; they just curled their lips and rolled their eyes away.

Only one of them — the ringleader, the one who had his lackeys saying such things on his behalf — Doochang, waved at Arin with a friendly grin.

“Whoops. Arin, did you hear that? Sorry. The guys got a bit carried away. Cut them some slack, yeah? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠They've got foul mouths, but……”

“Want me to sew your mouths shut?”

Doochang's face froze at her blunt reply.

His head turned, and his glare landed on Eunho's back, still drawing careful breaths to steady his roiling stomach.

Is that woman's head a flower garden? The guy's going to die on his own anyway — why does she keep hovering around him? I figured I'd keep her around for the pretty face, that's all.

Tsk.

Clicking his tongue, Doochang let his eyes slide over Arin's body. Even hidden beneath her oversized clothes, her figure was impossible to conceal.

What does she even see in that bastard?

He had never understood it, even back at the Academy.

Himself, the top of the Warrior Department. And her, the top of the Holy Department.

Put those two side by side and what a picture they made.

Yet from their Academy days on, that woman had done nothing but fuss over that inferior student. Thanks to her, he had been left out in the cold like a duck's egg abandoned on the riverbank.

Doochang hated that fact.

His family was hardly wealthy, but he had never wanted for anything. His exceptional talent had shown itself early, and his family had poured everything into him for it.

Naturally, if he wanted something, he had to have it — only then did he feel at peace.

Well. That woman will figure it out soon enough. That bastard won't even pass the exam. He'll die right there.

Snickering to himself while wearing a pleasant smile on the surface, Doochang led his pack away.

Only after watching him vanish completely from view did Arin turn back and study Eunho with concern.

“You okay? Don't worry about what those bastards say. They don't know anything.”

He hadn't been paying attention.

More precisely, he hadn't had the luxury of it.

Even after the medicine, the nausea wouldn't subside. No — if anything it was worsening, until now it felt as if his organs themselves were shifting out of place.

If his muscles and skin were continents, and the blood flowing through him an ocean, then his organs would have to be the mantle.

And when the mantle moves, everything resting above it is affected. He was no exception.

─Thump.

─Thump!

His heart heaved violently, and the current of his blood accelerated all the more. He could feel the circulation coursing from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes with startling clarity.

Grrrrrumble─.

As if an earthquake had struck, his perception swayed and Eunho's body trembled in fine shudders.

“Are you─? Should I put holy power─ into─”

Her words cut off in fragments; he could no longer make out what she was trying to say.

“── ── ─.”

Soon even that was inaudible. The vibrations spilling from her vocal cords merely struck his skin and mucous membranes, shattering into scattered shards.

That was the moment.

In a world gone utterly silent, one sound still came through, unsilenced.

No — could that even be called a sound?

It would be better described as a sensation that pierced his mind and slammed down into his soul.

…What?

Even amid the dizziness, Eunho managed to pick apart the voice that had somehow reached him. A regressor? Baek Arin? What on earth was this supposed to mean?

No one was there to answer.

That was a fact only he knew, and besides, his surroundings had grown hectic in a different sense entirely.

“Th-the examiner is appearing!”

The cry rang out from someone's mouth. The novice climbers each looked up at the empty sky, and the air that had been exuding green, mirroring the dense foliage, suddenly rippled and clouded over in a hazy pallor.

From that haze, a small humanoid figure dropped down.

“Greetings, humans, it is!”

Features carved like a doll's. The innocent guilelessness of a child. And yet — translucent wings no human could ever have.

The climbers' faces hardened the instant they took in the creature's appearance.

“A-A fairy……”

“Oh! You there, human. Quick on the uptake, it is! That's right. This fairy is not a lowly species like you lot, but a superior one, it is!”

Fairies.

The legendary species that had clinched a proud first place in the genre-fiction category of Duality: Beauty That Doesn't Match the Personality.

Since the Tower's appearance, countless forms of media had flooded the world, and once the products of imagination became reality, humanity had been obliged to face them with imagination in turn.

Much of the gathered intelligence was mere fantasy, but some of it turned out to match reality remarkably well. The information about fairies was among it.

“F-fuck…… aren't we all dead already?”

Before climbing to the first floor, entrants to the Tower were tested to see whether they even qualified as climbers. From a certain angle, you could call it the tutorial familiar from every genre staple out there.

Fairies plus tutorial? Wasn't that a formula long since proven?

“We're screwed……”

Laments were already leaking out from all sides.

What is this?

Eunho did not join the chorus of panic spreading around him. No — could not would be the more accurate word. Because there was a presence that caught his eye far more than the fairy that had appeared out of thin air.

-……Eunho? Really Eunho?! Haaaaaang! It's Eunho! You're alive! You're still aliiiive!!

A figure had suddenly appeared before his eyes.

A face he knew all too well.

How could he not? It was the spitting image of the childhood friend whose hand was even now resting on his back.

…Arin?

Eunho murmured half without thinking. It was an act born purely of instinct.

And yet this figure before him, apparently able to read minds, suddenly nodded.

So vigorously that her hair, streaming through the air, looked like the frontman of a rock band.

-Yes! Yes! It's me, Arin!

Wait… wait a second. Why should I believe you're Arin?

Eunho realized that at some point, the churning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in his gut had stopped.

Why? He set that question aside for the moment — first he had to sort out this apparition before him.

The girl who called herself Arin tilted her head, then asked him back a question of her own.

-Did you maybe not see the message earl— Oh! Right, Eunho, you don't have a status window, do you? Then you didn't hear the voice either? The Tower definitely responded, though?

Eunho racked his memory at her words. He didn't have to reach far — just moments ago.

…It did say a regressor would take root.

A regressor.

As a proud citizen of the great Republic of Korea, how could he not know?

This, too, was a staple element that had appeared in countless genre novels, just like fairies.

A real regressor?

The Tower does not lie. That was one truth humanity had uncovered over nearly half a century.

And yet Eunho's question still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠carried doubt.

I mean, honestly — she pops up out of nowhere, claims to be a regressor, and he's supposed to just swallow it?

Arin, floating in the air like some imaginary ghost in the shape of a person, gave a firm nod. A remarkably lifelike human figure, really.

-Right. It would be hard to believe at once. But it's the truth. I poured out every last bit of my power for this moment. To come meet you, Eunho.

Her gaze swept the surroundings.

Dense vegetation. A single figure floating in the air besides herself. The fairy.

As she took these in one by one, her expression steadily cooled. Opposite to her flighty manner from moments ago, she now looked like a mountain of solid ice.

-Judging by the situation, we're right before the exam. A fairy. Everything matches my memory. Eunho. Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. You. If things go on like this, you're going to die.

Death. At that word, Eunho's heart plummeted.

How could it not? Death was said to be fair to all, yet it was also the one thing everyone wanted to put off. Hadn't even Qin Shi Huang run his own grand project of hunting the elixir of immortality across three thousand li?

Die? Me?

-Yes. Well, not just you, exactly. Half the people here will die. By that fairy's hand.

What the hell.

Did she think she was some purple alien invading from outer space? Why was she suddenly talking about cutting the freshly admitted entrants in half?

Eunho's brow creased on its own.

-But don't worry! That's exactly why I came back to the past — to set it right!

The Tower-certified regressor (and his childhood friend), still floating in midair, let out a theatrical ahem and planted her hands on her hips.

Watching her, Eunho couldn't help asking on pure instinct.

How, exactly?

-Hm?

Do you have a way?

-A way… of course! A fairy like that? I could just flex my power right now and… just my power…… Huh?

A bad premonition.

Why did premonitions like this never miss?

As he lifted his head, the regressor's flustered expression was stamped onto his vision with painful clarity. Clearer than any high-resolution camera.

Dammit. Some things could stand to be a little less sharp, thanks……

Hold on. If you're a regressor, why didn't you go back into your own body? Why did you suddenly end up in mine?

-Th-that's…… I distinctly thought I was going back to the past! Which means obviously I should wake up in my own body — so why am I inside yours?!

You're asking me? Like I'd know.

Eunho forced down the thought rising in his throat and made his brain work. With someone even more flustered than him right in front of him, his own reason somehow felt like it was cooling off.

How should he frame this? Like his body's desperate struggle to contort its way out of the worst-case scenario.

The Tower doesn't lie. Which means the Arin in front of me is the real Arin from the future. Which means there's no lie mixed into what she says.

The fairy. The exam. And death for half the entrants — himself included.

As he ran through these one by one, Eunho suddenly caught a chilling sensation stirring within him.

This is… what is this?

Eunho's consciousness focused in on it.

In an instant he had plunged to the depths of his own awareness — and then he opened his eyes. He saw it: a faint yellow flame.

A flame cold as frost, yet somehow giving off a light soft and warm.

And at the same time, a voice reached his ears — reached his soul.