342 – Catastrophe (3)

I was halfway to giving up, so I decided to think about it, albeit belatedly. So, am I going to live like this for the rest of my life? Am I going to live with my name and face being exposed, and being cursed at by strangers? But that doesn’t mean I’m going to use my power to become a tyrant, so I definitely had to take some action.

However, the situation is quite complicated. It takes at least three days to clear the 29th floor, and the president started his work on the second day. He sacrificed people while I was still in the tower, so I couldn’t stop him by normal means.

“…”

Offering people to books. I don’t understand Jeter, who offered up all Americans, but I also don’t understand the president who put them in books as criminals. Even if they are criminals, there are different degrees, and some of them are wronged. But is there a reason to offer them to books just because they are morally weaker than others? Is there a reason to be deprived of the afterlife?

He was out of his mind… and out of his mind seemed to be the best explanation. As far as I could tell, the president in the White House was out of his mind. He was waiting for me with that confident smile on his face, and it seemed like he really expected me to say, “Thank you!”

“I’m also mentally and physically weak.”

I am barely able to hold on to my senses now thanks to your support. I am not in a sane state. There is no reason to let you off easy just because you are mentally unstable. I will repay this debt.

Well, let’s move on from that for now. What we need to focus on now is how we’re going to overcome this situation.

“Eventually, you have to touch people.”

There are three major variables that I think of: Michael Jeter, the president, and the warrior. If you can’t influence these three, the future won’t change.

The easiest one to get to is the warrior. The reason it takes 3 days to clear the 29th floor is because the warrior only gives you credit once a day.

Isn’t that the rule of the tower? If they’re that strong, there must be a way to twist the rules of the tower. In the first place, I felt that there wasn’t much difference between the strength of the archangel and the strength of the warrior. They must have some kind of contract, so they’re just playing around in the tower. If I had to compare, the warrior is much stronger than the ‘old man’ on the 15th floor.

So if I tell you honestly what’s going on and negotiate with the warrior…

“ah.”

Only then did I discover the contradiction in my words.

“Contradiction? What contradiction?”

“Will the warrior believe what I say?”

If I had the overflowing power I have now, the warrior might believe me. There would be room for him to sit at the negotiating table.

But why did you want to negotiate with Yongsarang in the first place? Wasn’t it to prevent my personal information from being spread?

If I were to say, ‘This is what will happen’ while I have no power, would the hero believe me? I don’t know his deadly secret, and I don’t think the hero would trust people so easily.

So, it is literally a contradiction to negotiate in that you need power to sit at the negotiating table, but you are trying to negotiate in order to avoid the situation where you gain that power.

“If there is any information… that will make the warrior believe.”

In that case, it might be possible to attack the warrior. But it’s not possible right now. So for now, let’s pass on the warrior.

“Next is Jitonde.”

Next up is Michael Jeter. Judging from what he said to us and his attitude, he was likely to cooperate with whatever we said. He recognizes that what he did was wrong, and I highly value his will to fix it. That’s because the shit he’s done before is so big.

“Jitter is also a problem…”

Instead, Jeter has his own problems. The first problem is that Michael Jeter couldn’t find the president’s location (I know now. I was looking at the entire globe at first), and the second problem is that there is no way to communicate with him.

There is only one way to provide information. You have to do joint regression. But joint regression with jitter?

It is not only that I do not trust Jeter himself, but the problem is that the condition for regression is ’emotion’. Michael Jeter’s emotions are so diluted that it is impossible to do a joint regression… Jeter is also not helpful.

Ultimately, the law of elimination leaves us with only one choice.

“He’s the president…”

He is now in the White House, smiling, waiting for my call. If it is possible to return with him, this problem can be solved. This is the only solution.

“But this is also impossible right now.”

“Uh, why?”

“Look at my condition.”

I am in a very unstable state right now. I could get so angry while talking to the president that I could kill him. I can’t even move in the first place. Just look at the broken bed. What kind of conversation is this guy having?

“So right now, like I said… I’m going to take a period of adjustment. You tell the president. Through Jitters or whatever.”

“Uh, um… Okay.”

Now that the situation was more or less sorted out, I headed straight to the first floor.

Being able to move is a priority.

**

A week has passed. Time passes ten times slower in the training room on the first floor, so it feels like 70 days have passed for me.

The thing I focused on the most during the past time was ‘how to calm down.’ Moving my body itself was fine after two weeks, so there was no problem. But whenever I got a chance, my magic would run wild, so calming it down was the most urgent task.

If I just lay still in bed, it doesn’t matter. Instead, if I move, or my emotions waver, the magic responds to it… It’s not like a rainstorm, it’s like a storm, and it affects reality, so even if I try to go back to reality, I can’t.

I thought there was no other way, so I looked for answers through support and the internet. As a result, what I chose was ‘meditation’.

I sat on a mat like a monk and meditated day and night, and surprisingly, my magic power gradually subsided. Jiwon used to sing that cultivating the mind was more important than training the body, but I didn’t know that it was true.

So today, I sat in a daze and continued meditating as usual. As anyone who has meditated knows, if you sit without doing anything, all sorts of distracting thoughts will clutter your mind. The goal of meditation is to get rid of all of that, but today, for some reason, I couldn’t concentrate at all. Should I say that my mind wasn’t empty?

“It’s stuffy.”

When I read web novels, I would feel frustrated when the main character was dragged around here and there. No, the main character should have the fun of taking the lead. What if he gets swayed by other people’s nonsense?

But when I actually put myself in the protagonist’s shoes, I understood that there was nothing I could do. I wanted to throw everything away, get angry, and slaughter them all. But the guy called reason said, “Hey, that’s not right,” and tackled everything.

There, deep in my heart, the evil self is tempting me, saying, ‘Let’s take this opportunity to completely destroy everything and just have you dominate.’ In fact, it’s not impossible. If I show my strength here, those who doubted me will eventually believe in me, and the power of my already strong hero trait will become even stronger, and if all the people of Earth fall under the influence of my hero trait, I will literally become the ruler. Emperor? Jeter? Or an unknown strongman whose name I don’t know yet? Fighting should be done with equal measures, but I’m different now.

Yes, I might have had bad intentions. I might have become a monster, seeking revenge on Jeter and the President. If only one person had not been there.

Choi Ji-won. She was the final brake for me. I couldn’t bear to do it when I thought she would be disappointed in me. She was my conscience.

“Phew.”

Let’s calm down. It seems like my mental state has gotten a lot worse. When I see you having strange thoughts.

It’s understandable since I’ve been stuck on the empty first floor all this time. Now that I’ve gotten used to the magic and can move my body on its own, it’s time to try something a little different.

“Junho, how about this?”

It was around this time that Jiwon Choi suggested a different training method to me.

**

At first, I was reluctant to go back to reality. Because if I lost focus even a little, I could hear other people’s voices vividly.

“…Junho?”

“huh?”

“good?”

“…huh.”

This is now Africa. I was passionately touching a wild lion. At first, the lion was being a bit timid, but now he was accepting my touch obediently.

There are studies that show that touching animals is good for your mental health. But touching a puppy or something like that doesn’t stimulate me anymore.

Accordingly, what Choi Ji-won suggested was to go around and touch wild animals. Lions, monkeys, tigers, elephants, etc…

“How is it? Do you think it’s helping you practice?”

“… It’s surprisingly difficult.”

While I had to touch the animals gently so that they wouldn’t die, I also had to calm my magic so that the wild animals, which were sensitive, wouldn’t get startled and run away. Plus, since I liked touching the fluffy fur, it felt calming. (It was a bonus that I had to concentrate so as not to hear the humans on Earth chattering.

“Ugh…”

It’s soft. It’s soft. It’s addictive.

I continued to pet the lion with a light smile, and after enough time had passed.

“I think I’m almost ready now.”

“huh.”

Jiwon used her cell phone to contact Jitter.

Now it’s time to go see the President.