290 – The Regressor Fights (9)
“Hey!”
“He’s out!”
As I went out into the hallway to buy information, various species greeted me. Not only the water people, but also the alien species I had never seen before showed interest in me. They chatted with me as we walked.
Of course, let’s ignore the direction of their interest and the content of their words for now. Anyway, all I had to remember was that I had everyone’s attention.
Of course, some of the water people didn’t just talk to me, but took action. Since the water people are naturally short-tempered, they didn’t stop at just watching.
“Ah, Junho!”
The new water people who had been watching from afar, slyly rubbed their bodies against me as they got closer. I watched the angle of Choi Jiwon’s eyebrows change in real time as I quietly pushed her away.
“Junho, are you doing this because of that female?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“A strong male is supposed to be taken by an attractive female. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone with lots of feathers like me rather than a skinny girl like that?”
“Hey, hey.”
“Hehe. With this feather, you can come into my house. We can have a strong child, right?”
The new water spirit put a feather in my hair and left. While the other water spirits cheered, I glanced at Choi Ji-won.
“…”
“…”
Choi Ji-won held out with superhuman patience in order to maintain the concept of a ‘water spirit lover,’ but she couldn’t help but feel the tendons on her forehead. She looked at me with glaring eyes, as if she wanted to throw the feather away right away. In order to
prevent any more misfortunes, I quickly walked down the hallway. I ignored anyone who spoke to me or touched me, and only bought information. As soon as I returned to the room for the two of us, Choi Ji-won pulled out the feather and broke it in half.
“Jun-ho. I’m just saying this because I think it might be possible.”
“No, really, it’s not. You know that too.”
“No, right?”
“Then. Feathers are too much for me.”
The new water spirit is honestly too much. Feathers are physiologically difficult.
“Not feathers, just fur?”
“Rather, let’s check the information I bought.”
I manipulated the terminal to display the screen so that Jiwon could see it. These days, whenever a match is held at the arena, the stands are always full, and my name is always at the top of the betting amounts. The fight money is not small. The information on the ‘Massacre’ was so expensive that I had to spend more than half of the money I had saved up. It was like that even before he gained enough fame.
“I can’t believe that the information price gets more expensive as time passes.”
“… Junho?”
“It’s fortunate that I can buy it at this timing. If we go further into the future, the information itself will be abundant, but the price of the information may skyrocket to an unmanageable level.”
“Junho?”
The information sold at the arena was in the form of a paper book, despite being a file. You can’t feel the texture, but you can flip through the holograms with your hands. Of course, the paper book format is inconvenient for two people to look at, so I converted it to a regular file format. I guess you could call it a PDF style.
“Hey, look at this. “ The photo comes from the first page.”
“… Look where.”
Only then did Choi Ji-won focus on the terminal screen. As I said, there was a large photo attached to the first page of the report. A
bespectacled, scholar-like wolf-man. The guy in the photo was smiling brightly. I’ve become more discerning about mermaids these days, but he’s quite handsome. His eyes sparkle, his teeth are clean, and his ears are perked up, which makes him a target for many females.
I was secretly impressed, and immediately turned the information file to the next page.
“…”
“…”
Along with the description of ‘recent individual appearance,’ I saw a mermaid with a very, very dull appearance, unlike the mermaid in the previous chapter. His eyes were sunken, his fur had lost all its luster, and his eyes were shining brightly. What could have made this mermaid like this?
“… Let’s read it.”
I swallowed hard and turned the file. If you know your enemy, you’ll win every battle. Now is the time to understand the enemy.
**
– The name this entity registered in the arena is Guntar.
– Analysis results show that the registered entity name ‘Guntar’ means ‘naughty’ in the Suin language. It is assumed that an alias was used.
“Hmm.”
The report said. The name the guy registered is ‘Guntar’.
Guntar. Guntar. Since he said that it wasn’t his real name anyway, there was no need to worry. I naturally handed over the file.
– The entity Guntar was registered in the arena 1411 days ago.
– Its current record is 71 wins and 0 losses. During those 71 wins, he used different types of martial arts.
– It has a wide range of martial arts knowledge and skills, and has gained great popularity based on this. Its highest ranking is 51st.
“Wow.”
The file contained an image of Guntar reaching out to a fallen human. It seemed like he was helping up a loser after winning. Judging by his cool smile and his sparkling glasses, he didn’t seem to have any ill will toward humans until this point.
“There’s a reason he carries so many weapons in his bag.”
Jiwon’s words were right. If he had a wide range of weapons at his disposal, it would be advantageous to carry them all.
“But is this possible?”
At the same time, he had doubts. Is it possible for one person to learn 71 types of martial arts? If he had 71 wins in the arena… that would mean his proficiency was above a certain level. Even though the natural lifespan of a water creature is said to be longer than that of a human, I know that it’s only about twice as long as a human’s. And Guntar was clearly young.
“Is this an ability?”
“Let’s read more first.”
– Individual Guntar returned to his home planet 1,344 days ago. The arena management made a certain offer, but the individual refused.
-The contract that was made later was to have a match at the arena once a year.
-The individual Guntar would come to the arena every year, have a match, and return to their home planet, repeating this process.
“Hmm.”
Attached to the file was a photo of Guntar smiling after defeating a tentacle-shaped alien. Up until now, the content was ordinary. I turned the page again.
-■■ days ago. Guntar attacked the individual ‘Emperor’. They declared that they would fight for their lives.
“What?”
-The cause was determined to be that dozens of people were killed by ‘Emperor’. Many were from Guntar’s home planet.
-The management advised the individual ‘Emperor’ to ignore it, but the Emperor immediately requested a match.
-The match was made private by the management’s decision. (The video cannot be viewed.)
-The individual ‘Guntar’ was defeated.
“…”
“…”
That was the end of the file. Although it was information that I had paid a lot of money for, a lot of information was omitted.
Why was the match made private? How did Guntar lose? The emperor who killed all the losers, so why did Guntar survive? Why did the surviving Guntar… end up like that? There was so little information.
“I feel disgusting.”
But I could tell this much. The emperor had a huge stake in the reason why the murderer became like that. The
‘Emperor’ who was ranked number one was a crazy woman. At the same time, she said that she wouldn’t start a fight unless you provoked her. The fact that reality was flowing smoothly was proof of that.
Does her mercy only extend to fellow players? Or is it that the beastmen are not humanoid and thus escape the Emperor’s boundaries? I don’t know. If I ever meet the Emperor, I’ll ask him then.
I got an important clue.
“The death of the beastmen from the home planet.”
The transformation of the ‘prankster’ into the ‘murderer’ is related to the death of his own kind.
**
If you say, ‘No, then you didn’t think about asking the other beastmen?’ I did. I did it a long time ago. I already tried it in the previous round.
“Are you a werewolf?”
“But?”
“Do you know the famous ‘slaughterer’ these days?”
In the previous episode, I searched for ‘werewolf beastmen’ who were active in the arena. I caught them and kept asking them if they knew anything.
They all gave similar answers.
“Hey, human. Your skin is yellow, right?”
“… Please say yellow.”
“Anyway, roughly speaking, yellow. White. Black. Since you have yellow skin, don’t you know all the guys with yellow skin? Are they all from the same hometown? How can you not know this when you can speak the beastman language?”
“…”
That’s right. This is the largest arena in the universe. In such a place, to assume that we know each other just because we’re both werewolf beastmen? It’s an ignorant remark on the level of ‘Don’t Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans know each other?’ That’s why
I failed miserably in the previous episode. I didn’t get any useful information at all.
“Oh, Junho. What’s going on?”
“Well, I have a favor to ask.”
This episode is different. I was popular as a weirdo among the beastmen. I had their support.
In addition, I had an additional clue. The ‘wolf beastman’ wasn’t important. The important thing was that we were beastmen from the same hometown. (This was also a step that could be reached through inference, but in the previous round, I lacked understanding of beastmen. I didn’t know that they valued hometown.)
With their massive support, I went around asking for information from beastmen.
After about two days,
“I… am from there.” I
was able to find a beastman from the same hometown as Guntar. It wasn’t a wolf beastman. It was a cat beastman. Coincidentally, he was a beastman I had fought before. Maybe I had given him jelly.
“Can you tell me more?”
“… As far as I know.”
This reveals the true nature of the ‘slaughterer’.