240 – Are Regressors Brave? (8)
The situation has been assessed. The 24th floor was half destroyed, and the angel in front of me was in danger of being replaced. Sign angel Anael can raise the level again.
But the most important thing is.
“The 24th floor is ruined! It’s ruined! “Reflect!”
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“That… “Angel?”
“Why are you doing that?”
“So… “What are you going to do with me?”
“… “
“I’m sorry for coming out so shamelessly… Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
It’s none of my business.
There are people like that among people. When something big happens or you’re in a crisis, you’re the type of person who calls your friends and whines. The type of person who cries because I am having such a hard time and because something big has happened to me.
But when you think about it rationally, this doesn’t help at all. When you’re whining to that friend, it’s more efficient to work hard and figure out a way out.
The current situation is the same.
“Well, I’m sorry. For destroying the floor you worked so hard to design. And for causing trouble to the angel. But, well, there’s nothing I can do, right?”
“… “
“Looking at it, it seems like this happened because there was no archangel in charge here… There’s nothing I can do about that.”
Thinking about it makes me angry. This angel seems a bit stupid. Am I your boyfriend? Can you sympathize? What will change if I reflect?
“Huh?”
No. It might change. If there is a recording of me reflecting and apologizing, the level of punishment may be weakened. Could it be that the hesitation and hesitation also induced that?
“Whoa… “I’m glad you reflected.”
In fact, the angel, who had been furious, calmed down in an instant and leaned his back against the wall. Are you saying that the reason you were so angry so far was because of your acting? He feels more embarrassed than deceived.
“Then, let me help you clear it. Originally, this was supposed to be guided by the status window, but the process was a little complicated, so we will be paying compensation manually.”
“Uh, yes.”
As if the goal had been achieved, the angel returned to his businesslike attitude and took something out of his arms.
“You can choose from these.”
The things the angel took out, in order from the left, were a notebook, an eyeball, and a mask.
“These things exist on the 24th floor… No, they are items that imitate the characteristics of existing monsters.”
The angel who picks up the notebook first.
“First of all, if there are people around this notebook who lie, the pages of this notebook will burn. “Tearing the pages can be effective, but please note that you have to tear the entire page, and there are only 10 pages in total.”
The design of the notebook held out by the angel is the same as a regular notebook. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was sold at a stationery store somewhere. Anyone who hasn’t beaten the 24th floor will have no doubt that this is an item from the tower.
“Next, these eyes, like this. It has the property of sticking to the wall.”
An angel who sticks his eyeballs to the wall as if they were glued to clay. The disgusting eyeballs moved left and right, then immediately melted into the wall and disappeared. The material of the wall covers the eyeballs like eyelids.
“I just put a little bit of my energy into those eyes. This is what happens when these eyes spot a stranger.”
Buried eyes flash! He opened up, his feet bloodshot, and glared at me with eyes full of hatred.
-Pow!
I exploded on my own.
“It explodes like this, and I get a signal.”
“Oh oh… “
Like the notebook, this also seems incredibly useful.
“But what is the standard for a ‘stranger’?”
“It is based on the intimacy felt by the owner of energy, that is, the user of magic power. “If someone you consider to be a stranger, an alarm goes off.”
Until now, they’ve always given you potions, experience elixirs, equipment, things like that, and then suddenly they give you useful things like this? I had to try desperately to keep the corners of my mouth from getting out of control.
“Finally… This mask allows you to change your appearance for 1 hour. Would you like to try it?”
“… Yes.”
“After wearing the mask, imagine how you want to look. Instead, if the gap with the real body is too great, there may be side effects.”
“Uhm… “
When I ask him to think, nothing comes to mind. Who comes to mind? Ah, now that I think about it…
“Now, let’s take a look.”
When the angel brings his hands together and spreads them wide, a mirror-like image appears in the air.
“Wow.”
The image of myself reflected there is strong praise itself. From its unique fierce appearance to its dangerous atmosphere, it was copied exactly.
What’s unique is that it’s not the Kang Chan I saw from the future, but the Kang Chan that we had fun with on the third floor. I clearly felt that I was copying ‘the appearance I wanted’ rather than just copying the person’s appearance.
“The mask will break on its own after one hour of use, so please use it with caution.”
The mask I was wearing disappeared in an instant when the angel held it in his hand, and a new mask was immediately created and placed in front of him.
“Notebook. Eyeball. Mask. Which of the three do you want?”
“Uhm… “
To be honest, all three are useful. To be precise, it is not useful within the ‘tower’. These are the kinds of things that are much, much more useful outside of the tower.
Notebook? You can catch someone lying, which is always good. It’s best to use when you have to interrogate someone.
Eyeball? This is good both in reality and at the top. It will be reassuring to have one attached to your room. It is also possible to prevent unexpected thieves or intruders.
The mask… It is most effective when there is a need to deceive someone. It would be best to dig up information through that mask and then return. It is a useful item that can be used over and over again.
Still, if I had to choose…
“Uhm… “
First of all, notebooks are excluded. ‘Detecting lies’ is very useful, but I have Choi Ji-won.
Although she does not detect lies per se, she is very, very sensitive to the reactions of the human body. It’s like a living lie detector with an accuracy of about 98%, but since we all act together anyway, this notebook shouldn’t be of much use.
Next, the eyeballs. It’s true that this is incredibly useful, but… I’m not that attracted to it right now.
There’s an intruder in your room? First of all, the location of the room itself was not exposed to the public. A certain level of confidentiality is maintained.
Of course, if the scale goes to the Korean government or higher, they will know the location of my living room… They only want to buy if they want to win our favor, and they don’t want to fight (so far ), so there hasn’t been much of a touch. If it is not used in the tower, it is given priority.
But that last mask… Can be very useful both in reality and in the tower. The ways to use it are endless. If you try the mask yourself and find it not effective, you can go back and choose something else.
“I will do it with a mask.”
“I understand.”
The angel expressionlessly handed me the mask and immediately opened a portal to reality.
“… “
Although he did not open his mouth, the words’Get out of here quickly’can be read in his eyes. Okay, I’ll go away.
“Ugh… “
But next time will be different.
**
Immediately after passing through the portal and returning to my room.
“How did you wake up? I am… Actually, I don’t know.”
Choi Ji-won, wearing soft microfiber pajamas, shrugs her shoulders.
“I’ve never seen a scary movie or anything like that. I guess that’s why, when I came out, it felt really… The atmosphere… “It was strange.”
“You, no way.”
“Huh. So I just switched with Bungbung. “I closed my eyes and waited inside, and Bungbung woke up and told me to come out?”
“… It’s a real scam.”
Maybe it’s because the 23rd and 24th floors often use mental attacks, but nothing seems to work on Bungbung, who was born as a swordsman. Even though Bungbung is developing a human mind thanks to Choi Ji-won, his essence is a sword. Even if you point a ghost at a sword and say, ‘Are you scared?’ There is no way there will be a response.
“I just ignored it and passed by, right? “Can’t you?”
“I wonder if it will work.”
I ignored the bug that came out and scratched my insides for a moment, and told the story of what happened on the 24th floor.
“… Is that okay?”
“They said it couldn’t be done. So I got kicked out. It looks like the Archangel is also absent, so it probably won’t be fixed for a while.”
“… “
Choi Ji-won looked at me blankly, as if her brain had stopped momentarily, and she dismissed it by saying, ‘Angels look good.’
“But in the next episode, I think it would be okay not to use that method.”
“Why?”
“It’s something we’ve thought about before, but breaking the layer in advance by deforming it… You’re robbing people of the opportunity to grow. “It’s easy to get to the 24th floor, so there’s no need to take the opportunity, right?”
“Uhm… “
It’s not wrong.
I am the only one who beat the 24th floor in a strange way. Normally, I would be able to beat the 24th floor within about 20 regressions. As long as you don’t give up, you can just start again.
But by modifying the 24th floor, am I taking away other players’ experience? I don’t know if it’s an extremely dangerous floor, but is there really a need to do that on this floor? It certainly makes sense.
“Okay. “Jiwon will do as you say.”
“Thank you, Junho.”
“Let’s watch a horror movie tonight instead.”
“… “
That night, I fell asleep watching a horror movie with Choi Ji-won.
“Huh!”
Jiwon’s scream was quite cute.
**
In fact, even if Choi Ji-won didn’t suggest it, I was planning to take a different approach in the next episode. The method of breaking the 24th floor by destroying the wall was too slow and inefficient.
So, what are you going to do? I’ve already beaten the 24th floor, so of course I have to eat it raw right away.
After confirming that Choi Ji-won was asleep, I took out my unused cell phone and contacted the envoy.
-Reaper. Did you clear the 24th floor? Information is needed.
-No. Failed to clear. However, we can connect you with someone who has cleared it.
-Is this person trustworthy?
-I am from ‘this side’. You can trust it.
The nickname of the guy introduced by the reaper was’Shadow.’Judging by his profile photo His His being a caricature of a character wearing a suit, he seemed like a guy who never got out of middle school.
-You can go to this link.
-Thank you.
-I am truly honored to be of help to ‘Sinseon’. Do you like ‘Shinsengumi’?
“What are you saying?”
The guy called ‘Shadow’ wasn’t normal, but the link he sent was a real joke.
An Internet wiki titled 〈Ghost Wiki〉. At first glance, it seems like a site that just collects famous ghost stories, but if you go to a separate page that only players can see, it turns out that it is a site that provides detailed information about the ghosts that appear on the 24th floor.
“Oh, oh…”
Generally, players above the top level do not unlock information. Not only is it meaningless to argue about the stories of those who have already awakened, but the information itself was circulated within their own inner circle. The information on the 1st to 10th floors, where there are many people, is contrary to what is widely spread.
But why is so much information stored in this ‘ghost wiki’? This is because there were many players who were interested in strange beings that did not exist in reality. There are more than one person who participated in the wiki itself, and each person’s experience is vivid.
“Hey… With ghosts… “He’s crazy, isn’t he?”
I frantically read the wiki page and started making a plan.
When the hallway first turns to the right, there is a large mirror in the fourth hospital room. If you show this to the dancing ghost, the ghost will run away.
The living door opens when a human body model is brought into a room with a laboratory-like atmosphere. In fact, the internal organs contained in the human body model were real internal organs.
The skinning ghost can shed the hair from the wig in the treatment room. Anyone who misunderstands the hair of the wig will disappear on its own.
In addition, this wiki had detailed strategies for defeating numerous monsters that I had not seen, and I put them all in my head and calculated the most efficient route.
“As soon as I entered, I first picked up a human body model… Then, after finding the teddy bear in the hospital room across the street… “
To use an analogy, this is a speedrun based on the strategy.
“I’ll have a blast in an hour.”
In the puzzle world, regression is god and I am invincible.
[You have suffered damage.]
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[It returns to the moment when you first entered the 24th floor.]
***
Immediately after returning. I moved according to the plan without hesitation.
“… Huh?”
And immediately, I felt a sense of discomfort. Even though the fighting spirit was removed, even though the magic power was gone, and even though the mind became stupid, there was a huge sense of discomfort that covered everything.
On the 24th floor… There were few ghosts. To be exact, the guys blocking the hallway are gone.
A woman smiling and dancing.
A book that will be burned if you lie.
A living door.
Even the monster that peels off the head.
None of them appeared.
“… “What is this?”
Just like it was from the beginning.