288 – Regressor’s Fight (7)

When you repeat regression, a person’s emotions change a lot. To explain more clearly, you can say that your ‘priorities’ change.

“Hey, hey, hey. Is everything okay here? They say we get 500,000 won per person?”

“Huh? Why is that?”

“… Junho, you said you were a player, but you’re rich? Even when you were in high school…”

First, your sense of money becomes dull. Since your bank account is refilled with 2 billion won every time you regress, the priority of money as a material thing drops significantly. You don’t look at the price tag when paying for food or items. It’s not just about money. I adjusted the value of ‘Things affected by regression.’ lower. Money returns when it regresses. Items also regenerate when it regresses. Human lives… and relationships… regress

. The only exception is Choi Ji-won, and that’s why Ji-won is precious to me. It’s not that she’s not precious. It’s that she’s less precious.

On the other hand, there are things that have become more precious than before.

“Okay. I got some food for her, so I’ll give you some good information.”

“Huh, really???”

“… Aren’t you liking it too much?”

“Say it quickly.”

Information. Stats. Achievements. Things that remain in my head even after regressing. Things I can use when time goes back. Things that don’t disappear. I believe you know why without me having to explain.

This logic also applies to the enemies I face. The enemies I fear the least are the ones that are ‘easy to deal with if you know how to deal with them.’ Even if I lose now, they’re the types of enemies I can easily defeat if I regress.

On the other hand, the enemy you fear the most is ‘an enemy you can’t know no matter what you do’. The reason is the same. It’s because you know that your current defeat will last forever.

“uuu…”

If you think about it from that perspective, that waterman who goes around killing humans indiscriminately was floating somewhere between an unknown enemy and an enemy that would be easy if you knew them. It would be easy if you knew them, but there was no way to find out right away. The situation was truly difficult.

“I’d like to purchase information on that waterman.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Why, there’s that one. The one who goes around killing humans indiscriminately…”

“Oh, please wait a moment.”

“… Is this the right price?”

“Yes, that’s right, sir.”

“…”

This waterman (I don’t know his name) is currently the most popular celebrity in the largest arena in the universe, and he was said to be a guy who was making a fuss about buying information from all over the place. The price of the information, which was already expensive, kept getting inflated. It reached an outrageous price that I couldn’t even think of buying, even if I and Jiwon had saved up all the money.

“Human slaughterer!”

“Executioner!!!”

“Murder expert!!!”

The nicknames he gave her were all equally brutal. He didn’t just kill, but played around with various weapons and killed people, so people who hated him really hated him, but people who liked him really liked him. Negative attention was attention, but positive attention was added, so the price of information was high.

“Isn’t there a way to meet him in person?”

“Yes. He refuses all meetings.”

I had no choice but to meet him in person and talk to him, but this beast basically refuses all meetings. He refuses not only me, but also sponsors and other aliens. He

just locks himself in his room and picks out humans one by one. If that human refuses, he’ll be the next target. If they agree, he’ll fight. One by one, he takes the lives of the humans.

Naturally, the ‘humans’ were tense. This place wasn’t like Earth where humans were the majority, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a few of them. There were humans who had been modified into cyborgs, humans who used sci-fi style weapons, and those who were a mix of martial arts, fantasy, steampunk, etc. Their skin colors were also diverse, but the Suin were omnivorous and did not discriminate between human types.

“I’m going home. Oh, I mean, I’m withdrawing from the arena.”

“I’m sick… I’m sick… What the hell kind of match is this…”

“I, I’m not human? I’m a machine, a machine.”

Most of them ran away. The Suin’s attacks were brutal and their skills were overwhelming.

“You refused to be named?”

“Fuck, if we fight, we’ll die. What do you want me to do?”

Player was also among those who avoided him. The pride of being at the top, the pride of being a fighter. Those things had no value in the face of death.

“If I just kill him, I…”

“Hehe… The beast is weak…”

Of course, not everyone ran away. There were those who bravely accepted the beast’s designation. They pretended not to know on the outside, but the reason was money. If they just won. If they just survived. They were greedy because they thought they could become rich.

“Ahhh! Aahhh!!!”

“Just save me! I’ll give you both the elixir and the martial arts!!!”

None of them ended well. The beast did not stop. It seemed as if he would erase the human race from this arena.

“Eeeeeeeee…”

If the 28th floor were a game, this guy would definitely be the boss. Overwhelming skills. A splendid performance. And on top of that, there was information hidden behind a veil. If he could just defeat this guy, this floor would definitely progress smoothly. He

didn’t have enough money to buy the information. Why not ask someone else who had the information? The information from the arena was ‘digitally locked’, so it was impossible to hear it from someone else. The only way to know was to buy it yourself.

Can’t we make more money? That’s the second problem.

“Junho… I… can’t get into a fight…”

“You too…?”

In order to make money, we had to fight first, but Choi Ji-won and I were having the same problem as that Su-in. The guys we had to deal with were overly scared.

I thought we were acting weak, controlling our strength, and setting up various traps. But for some reason, everyone was avoiding us.

“Hey, hey! Where are you going! You said you’re sick! You said you’re sick and can’t fight! Why are you drinking right now?” The

fish-man woman ran away from Choi Ji-won, who was screaming.

“No, this isn’t right. There’s no way we’d get caught…”

Even if my acting was awkward, Choi Ji-won’s acting couldn’t have been awkward. It was obvious that Boong-Boong was in charge of management and supervision.

As I was feeling uncomfortable, at one moment I realized something terrifying.

“Ji-won.”

“Huh?”

“What if we buy our information…?”

A strange situation where I buy my own information. The information price of me and Choi Ji-won was excessively expensive for information of 10,000 people, and I could barely buy it after emptying all my money.

The result was the worst.

– Choi Ji-won and Kim Jun-ho seem to be close individuals.

– Analysis of muscle movement and magical power process shows that they are saving a considerable amount of strength.

– In particular, the ‘Kim Jun-ho’ individual hardly uses magical power during battle. Be careful.

– The ‘Choi Ji-won’ individual…

“…”

“…”

The arena was completely nailed down. We are hiding our strength. Be careful.

I had forgotten for a moment. This is a SF setting, and even if we don’t know the depth of my characteristics or strength, these guys can send drones to the surface. Since they are officially labeled as ‘guys hiding their strength’ by the arena, there would be no one stupid enough to fight us.

“No, but… That beastman slayer… fights every once in a while, right?”

“Because they’re popular and there’s a lot of betting.”

That guy makes money. If he fights and wins, if he survives, he can make a lot of money. The fight money alone must be astronomical.

“But we don’t make money…”

On the other hand, we’re not that famous. We feel like we’re skilled players known only to those in the know. We act like we’re controlling our strength. What does that mean? It means we don’t make money. There were plenty of tastier targets for those fools who were after money.

“We’re low in rank… There’s no reason for the top rankers to fight us.”

Does that mean the top rankers would fight us? No.

The timing was really bad. Normally, if you sent a message to a top ranker who was just playing around to fight, they’d probably fight. If the top rankers didn’t fight for a certain period of time, their scores would drop, and because of that, those who were just trying to maintain their ranking would intentionally pick weaker guys to fight. Maybe if it were normal, they could’ve gotten a good opportunity.

“Because of the Emperor.”

But right now, everyone is on edge trying to usurp the Emperor’s top spot. They’re competing for the title of number one. Rather than fighting the weak who give them less points, they’re desperate to eat the strong who are just as strong as them to raise their rankings. They don’t care about us, the underdogs.

“To summarize.”

So, if we were to coolly summarize the current situation,

“This round is a failure.”

There was no answer. The situation was too complicated. The only solution was to wait until the beastman slayer pointed at us. No one knew when that would be.

“To return?”

“Yeah.”

There was a better way. The key was to somehow connect with that crazy beastman. Whether it was for good or for bad. They had to be connected in some way.

“How?”

“I’m going to come up with a concept.”

So I.

“Should I go with the concept of liking Suin so much?”

I’ll make it so that he can’t help but be interested.