366 – Regression (14)

The best way to avoid getting sick is, of course, prevention. Rather than going to the hospital after getting sick, maintaining regular lifestyle and eating habits is the shortcut to good health.

Similarly, the best way to protect a fortress with 200-odd people is to eliminate the monsters that will attack the fortress in advance.

“Is that even possible?”

But the vast majority of people live as they please, and only go to the hospital after they get sick. They know it’s good to live regularly, but it’s not easy in modern society, and with human willpower.

Likewise, most people can come up with the idea of ‘eliminating the monsters in advance’ but they can’t even think of trying to do it.

“Power.”

It’s obvious… it’s because they lack the power. It’s like saying, if you don’t have bread, eat cake, or if you study hard focusing on textbooks you can get a perfect score. It’s only meaningful for someone who can wipe out all the monsters with their power, for everyone else it’s just pie in the sky.

But what about someone who has enough power? Someone who can actually do it?

“There isn’t a better plan than this.”

Whether you can call this a plan or not… Anyway, wiping out the monsters in advance has its pros and cons.

First of all, the downside is, it robs players of their chance to grow. The five days spent in the 4th floor castle gives a ridiculous amount of experience, and a chance to forge themselves in extreme situations. In the future, if you ask players ‘When did you start trying so hard?’, most of them would say the 4th floor.

So, if I wipe out all the monsters completely, they’ll lose their chance to grow. It’s like depriving them of their chance to come to their senses. Me, deciding everything, weakening everyone in my selfish desire to save them all, that could be controversial.

“I still have to do it.”

But I remember. A woman who survived with hollow, empty eyes. A man who struggled to save people to the very last, only to be found as a cold corpse. Baron Jorge, veins bulging from his neck as he resisted.

If I don’t wipe out the monsters beforehand, someone will die and someone will live. I could brush it off as the law of nature, but the problem is I’m just too strong.

I get to choose. I can control who lives and who dies. So, if someone dies on the 4th floor, it will be my choice, and if someone lives, it will likewise be my choice.

It’s not like I’m short on time, and if I can save someone but don’t, it’s no different from killing them. For the sake of the right choice, and for my own peace of mind, I won’t worry about experience points. Though it’s not much of a trade, I’ll give them an elixir, so please forgive me.

Well, it’s not just ‘being able to do the right thing’ that’s good about this plan.

First of all, this plan perfectly fits the ‘hiding my identity’ that I’ve emphasized repeatedly. Honestly, every other plan inevitably leaves clues in some way.

Like before, persuading them to run away? That was possible because I ‘persuaded’ them while revealing my identity. If I put on a mask to hide my identity, then creepily ask them to follow, would they follow? Well…maybe they would. But that method is already what Choi Ji-won planned to use, and there could be issues with future connections.

Then, what about just killing all the monsters in the fortress? That’s not a very good idea either. First, the problem is that my weapon is a ‘sword.’

Even if I channel magic, at best, I can only slash through maybe three monsters at a time. No matter how much I swing my sword until my arms fall off, I’ll only be able to block one entrance. If a monster slips through the gaps in the fortress, like before, I won’t be able to handle it.

Therefore, to deal with all the monsters without any casualties, I have to use magic, but the problem is my magic is extremely unique. White smoke spreading everywhere, monsters’ bodies freezing, and a man floating in the air. How could that not get noticed? How could rumors not spread?

Well…maybe using it as a means to build a reputation as a ‘celestial being’ would be okay. Just let it be known that some mysterious man released a mist and killed all the monsters, and maybe it won’t reach the point where it’s known that that man is Kim Jun-ho.

But considering that this 4th floor was the place that greatly contributed to my identity being revealed in the past, I want to be extra cautious. If it’s an unavoidable situation, I’ll choose this plan, but if there’s a better alternative, I want to follow it, so to speak.

“And in that sense, this current plan is perfect.”

The plan is simple. First, as soon as I come to my senses, I run toward the direction the monsters are coming from. Flying would be faster, but I can’t fully utilize my ‘hero’ traits, so I have to manage my magic. It’s not an infinite resource.

If I keep running, sooner or later, I’ll encounter the monsters. At least I can reach their source, and my judgment will change there.

If there’s a portal or something that the monsters are popping out of, I can destroy it, and if the monsters are just appearing, I’ll just kill them as I see them. The important thing is that my ‘chill’ can exert absolute power against enemies without magic.

“And if I freeze the back of their necks, around the cervical vertebrae…”

Living things will inevitably suffer nerve damage and die. So, if I can spread my magic widely while moving, I can kill every monster within my magic’s reach. They have no means to resist the chill.

It sounds like a big deal, but it’s just a simple plan to run to the monsters’ spawn point beforehand and kill them all before they reach the fortress.

Of course, it’s not a perfect plan. A monster far stronger than I anticipate might pop out, forcing me to use more mana than I’d like. Or I could get exhausted and fail to kill all the monsters. So, it’s not a plan that’s ‘guaranteed’ to succeed.

But the potential payoff is just too tempting. I get to conceal my fighting abilities from everyone, and at the same time, save all the humans on the 4th floor. Isn’t this exactly the kind of plan that suits a munchkin like me, returning like this?

“Executing it is…well, you just do it.”

After all, I can just go back to before I entered the tower. If things go sideways, I can just make adjustments. But there’s one thing nagging at me here.

“…Fluctuation.”

The monsters on the 4th floor don’t come out at a fixed rate. If we defend well, stronger and more numerous monsters will come rushing in. But if we suffer heavy losses against the monsters, the level of the next day’s monster wave stays roughly the same.

In other words, it’s a ‘fluctuating difficulty’. Thinking about it a little, you realize there’s something strange about it.

“The monsters come from beyond the horizon.”

Monsters don’t just appear out of thin air. They swarm from somewhere far away, almost out of sight. That’s why I was able to lead all the humans on the 4th floor to safety, and why the citadel remained secure until the third night.

But think about it. If we defend well against the third day’s attack, the fourth day’s attack becomes even stronger. But if it takes three days for them to reach the citadel, then the fourth day’s attack should have started on the second day. Doesn’t that seem off?

How could they know how well the players on the 4th floor are defending, to send out the monsters ahead of time? I’ve had similar questions before, so I plan to confirm it this time.

While I’m at it, I’ll save people, and cause a little chaos.

“Let’s go.”

This… will be a stepping stone for the future.

[Entering the 4th floor.]

Snowflakes graze my face. If I had felt a sensation of ‘coldness’ in the past, now I feel a strange warmth instead. Probably because of the chill that’s already sunk deep into my bones.

But other than that, everything is identical to my memory. The chilly sunlight, the dilapidated citadel, and the other people looking at me…

“?”

For some reason, everyone is staring at me. The timing should be roughly the same though? No… what is it? Even if it wasn’t accurate to the minute, I timed it precisely. It’s not like I came in late and am the only one on the 4th floor, there are quite a few people here, so the timing itself isn’t off.

But… why? What butterfly effect, what variable led to this? Why is everyone staring at me? When I first came to the fourth floor, no one spoke to me besides Yoon Junghyun, right?

“…It’s real?”

“What is it?”

“What’s this?”

“Move, move!”

Amidst the murmuring, a man came rushing towards me, panting.

“That’s him! It’s him! I just knew it!!”

He grabbed my hands and jumped up and down, like he’d found a fifty thousand won bill on the ground.

I’d definitely seen his face somewhere before, definitely… definitely…

“Ah.”

I remembered.

“Um… Hong Jun?”

“Huh? How do you know my name?”

Back when I was intensely exploring the fourth floor, there was a man who kept disappearing and never returning. Or more precisely, a man who survived the monsters while climbing the mountain.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The reason everyone was staring at me, it was clearly because of this guy.

An explanation is needed.