Chapter 132
Chapter 132
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Chapter 132 - 132. 몇 번
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Translator: crow
Chapter 132: How Many Times
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"Kim Jaeheon, your face looks awful."
Yoo Daon looked at me with concern.
"Of course it does. I'm worried."
That golden light like a sunset I'd seen back then, and the people melting away.
I had no idea why it had happened, and even if it occurred again, I couldn't clearly see a way to stop it.
But still.
"That's not the important thing right now."
Everything happens step by step, one at a time. Like climbing stairs.
Someday, we'll reach it.
"Don't worry too much!"
Yoo Daon smiled softly at me.
"And, since it's just the two of us..."
Her smile deepened.
"...Daon."
Before any weird thoughts could creep in, I opened my mouth, but Yoo Daon cut me off.
"It looks like I'll have to die over and over again. Everyone else is too dangerous."
"..."
Her unexpected words left me speechless for a moment.
She was right.
To carry out the plan we'd come up with, Yoo Daon would have to make the biggest sacrifice.
That's why I needed her consent. If not, I'd have to resort to Plan B.
And seeing my expression, Yoo Daon's smile deepened even more.
The image of her melting away flashed in my mind unbidden, making it so I couldn't look her straight in the eye.
"Right?"
Still smiling, she stared right at me.
"...Yes."
"I see."
"If you're uncomfortable with it, Daon..."
"No."
Before I could finish, Yoo Daon shook her head.
"I'm..."
Her smile was,
"...fine with that. More than fine."
It was similar to the smile I'd seen back then, but completely different.
*
"So in the end, it's just the two of us stopping him?"
"Yes."
After getting permission from the Branch Director, Yoo Daon and I stood in his office.
"Then what about Chaeyeon and Arin...?"
"They have separate tasks."
I recalled the day it snowed.
The incidents that started erupting one after another like they'd planned it, and everything that followed.
"We stop them first."
While the spikes are active, Song Arin and Eileen head to the Gangdong Branch to take down the fish.
Finally, the Branch Director and Jang Chaeyeon block the rain clouds.
In the meantime, we take him down.
"But will that be enough?"
Yoo Daon muttered uneasily.
"If it's too easy to block, he might not even act at all..."
"That could happen."
"Then what do we do?"
"Well, that's fine."
"Huh?"
Yoo Daon looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Buying time is a good thing."
"But..."
"But he won't hold back."
This was like a declaration of war to the regressor.
I know what you did, and I can block your plans at every key point.
How terrifying that must be.
Fear stems from the unknown and from reversals.
The dread that something lurking in the darkness might harm you, or the terror when a seemingly harmless creature suddenly turns on you to kill.
For him, this situation fulfilled both perfectly.
Fear restricts a person's choices.
He might retreat and bide his time, or he might push forward anyway to realize his plans.
"But he won't run."
The battle between regressors is like an infinite game where each knows the other's next move.
If someone appears who perfectly grasps the future you've mapped out, what would he do?
He must be the only one who knows the future and can act on it—realizing that's not true, what then?
"He'll try to resolve it before he gets used to it."
In a game where you grow infinitely stronger, the easiest way to beat your opponent is to crush them while they're still a newbie.
"So he'll want to eliminate the variable here no matter what."
The advantage of regression is overwhelming information warfare.
That means if the information is wrong, regression loses all meaning.
"So..."
"Yes, we just wait here for him to come."
"But how will he know it's us?"
"That's why I sent Chaeyeon and Arin."
HR Team members who show up like ghosts, solving incidents as if they knew all along.
This is a declaration of war.
I saw the future, so come fight me.
"And Daon, you're my bodyguard."
"Ah!"
Yoo Daon nodded as if she understood.
"Then I..."
"This part might be rough."
Was it really right to ask this of Yoo Daon?
I hesitated as I looked at her, and seeing my expression, she shook her head.
"It's fine."
"Daon."
"...This is what I'm best at."
Yoo Daon murmured softly, then smiled and raised both arms.
"So leave it to me!"
"...All right."
I took a deep breath and began explaining to Yoo Daon.
"Daon, you absolutely cannot beat that man."
"..."
He's got the answer key when it comes to combat. No matter that Yoo Daon can't die, he'll take her down over and over.
"But even if you can't win, you can kill him."
Their fight will be one of piling up bodies.
Him, using his future self as a sacrifice to return to the past.
And her, using her current self as a sacrifice to try again and again.
"It'll be tough, but... what you need to do is kill him as many times as possible."
"Uh, can I even kill him?"
"More precisely, the other Daons will kill him."
The current Yoo Daon will just keep losing.
But the past Yoo Daons must have caught him off guard and taken him down.
"And the reason for that is..."
"Ah. I get it, no need to say it."
Yoo Daon smiled at me.
"I know that feeling all too well."
"...Got it."
I nodded slowly.
"Then you'll hide, Jaeheon?"
"No, more like preparing for the next step."
"Ah, you don't need me for that?"
"I do, but..."
By the time he gets past Yoo Daon, he'll have neutralized her somehow for sure.
"Should be about then."
As always, I'm the one who lands the finishing blow.
"Got it."
Yoo Daon nodded.
"Well then..."
"Yeah, see you later."
Yoo Daon headed up the stairs, leaving me alone in the cold basement.
-Shraaah!
I opened the manual.
[Manual for Office Workers]
PO - Containment Objects
1. Containment Objects primarily refer to entities that defy human common sense.
2. This includes various laws, encompassing scientific common sense, and measures not so much the degree of danger but how much it deviates from common sense.
3. Because of that...
Time passed.
*
"..."
Yoo Daon sat alone in a chair in the Branch Director's office.
Would he really come here?
No, don't doubt it.
She closed her eyes and sniffed. A familiar scent tickled her nose.
Cheap cosmetics smell.
No, old cosmetics.
When she was in the hospital, she never used the isolation room.
Her room ended up unsanitary, and tons of people visited the bed next to hers or below.
Of course, no one stayed longer than she did.
She met a lot of people that way, and learned to judge them by their scents.
And this scent was...
"Grandma's cosmetics."
Yoo Daon muttered to herself and began scanning the surroundings.
The Branch Director.
She didn't have much connection to him.
But that man did.
-Rain poured outside.
And sounds of something colliding, commotion.
But all those noises meant nothing to Yoo Daon.
With the sounds of destruction as background music, she swayed in her seat, staring at the door.
-Creeeak...
The door opened, and a man appeared.
The man from the bus.
Tired-looking, with a faint impression.
-Bang!
Before Yoo Daon could even raise her hand, sharp pain stabbed her forehead, snapping her head back.
'Daon will keep losing.'
The man's words replayed automatically in her mind.
So that's what he meant.
Finally understanding as she kicked off the chair and rolled away,
-Bang!
"Kyaa!"
A bullet lodged in her thigh.
Ignoring it, she stood, drew her awl,
-Thud!
And was sent flying backward by something charging in, slamming into the wall.
Variable.
Her bones snapped into place with gruesome cracks—sounds no human body should make—but she ignored it, gripped the awl, and charged.
This is why.
'Fear.'
Yoo Daon swung the awl at the man while watching his expression.
He twisted away minimally, reading her trajectory, and met her eyes.
No words were exchanged.
But she knew.
Death comes with pain.
Especially death by injury.
They say you get numb to pain after a long time, but the pain leading to death doesn't numb that easily.
She knew that better than anyone, having died so many times.
-Swoosh!
Yoo Daon swung the awl endlessly, and the man dodged while putting bullets or blade holes in her body.
When her arm tendons snapped, she used her legs; when her Achilles snapped, she crawled and stabbed his instep with the awl.
I've died at least 40 times by now.
Her brow furrowed in pain as her dazed mind wandered.
But she knew.
This was a war of attrition.
A mental attrition war.
That's probably why he said it to her.
Many deaths wear a person down.
And what she had to give him was...
"Even with Butterfly's Dream, you're so damn persistent...!"
The man shuddered and yelled.
His voice carried exasperation and a hint of fear.
"Hey."
As if he didn't want to hear it, he shot her forehead.
Her head snapped back, then forward again,
"How many times have you died?"
"Shut up."
Hearing his voice, a bright smile lit Yoo Daon's face, and the man's expression grew uglier.
*
[Manual for Office Workers]
[KL - Correlation Between Mental State and Abilities]
Thud. I closed the manual with a snap.
"You, remember that."
The manual said nothing.
"Forget it. What's the point of telling you? Next time you do this, I'm really tossing you in water."
I grumbled half-heartedly and looked up.
-Click.
As always, I pulled out my pistol and got ready.
There was so much to figure out.
Countless groups, and that golden light from the sky.
I had no intention of losing.