The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 2

The Only Regressor Who Protects Me – Episode 2 (2/221)

#Episode 2. World’s End (2)

Large supermarket, underground parking lot level 2.

Whoosh—.

The cigarette smoke escaping her lips scattered in the wind.

Since arriving here, Jin Jaehee had been staring intently at one place.

Then, a man talking on the phone noticed her and frowned.

“Huh…? What is this. Ha-. Seriously. Hey, hold on a second.”

The man loosened his tie a little and approached Jaehee.

The man shouted at Jaehee.

“Hey, miss! Let’s talk! Why are you sitting on someone else’s car hood and smoking? Huh? Do you know how much this car costs?”

Even with the man’s words, Jin Jaehee didn’t care and only stared at one place.

The man followed Jaehee and looked at that spot.

There was nothing where Jaehee was looking.

Only cars leaving the mart.

The man clicked his tongue.

“Huh-! Is this woman crazy?”

The man rolled up his sleeves.

Then, a tattoo that came down to his forearm was revealed.

And then he went closer to check her face.

At that moment, he was startled.

‘Uh… what. Is that a real sword?’

The man was surprised once by her weapon, and twice by her appearance.

A white hat and a white short-sleeved shirt.

Wide slacks.

A real sword worn at the waist.

And a cold impression, but also an overwhelming appearance.

You could believe she was a celebrity.

‘…Oh, so pretty. Is she filming a movie? No… but even if she’s filming a movie, why on someone else’s car…’

Pop.

At the moment when the man was stunned, Jin Jaehee threw the cigarette on the parking lot floor and looked at the man.

The moment their eyes met, the man’s heart began to pound like crazy.

Cigarette smoke was still coming out of Jin Jaehee’s mouth.

And Jin Jaehee said to the man.

“Go upstairs. If you want to live even a little longer.”

It was a cold tone, devoid of any emotion.

With those words, she got up from the hood.

“Yes…? No, what?”

Even with his question, Jin Jaehee headed towards the entrance without a word.

It was that moment.

[Nice to meet you…… @#$]

[Nice to meet you, Earthlings.]

[Administrator, K. Greetings.]

A blue notification window came into the man’s eyes.

And at that moment, black smoke rose along the outer wall of the parking lot.

The black smoke began to envelop the entire parking lot along the walls.

Unidentified black fog appeared from the parking lot entrance.

And notification windows continued to appear in the air.

[Excuse me, but first, I’ve prepared a few games to enhance your sense of reality.]

[You don’t want to do it?]

[No, no. You have to do it no matter what.]

[I’m going to release a few of my cute pets from now on, and these guys are a bit hungry. So be careful! If you tame them well, they can be good kids?]

[From now on, only 20 minutes. I’ll change you all in 20 minutes.]

[Shall we start?]

At that moment.

A swarm of children with green skin began to emerge from the black fog.

The man initially thought they were just children, but in fact, they were goblins that could only be seen in fantasy novels.

“Wh-what is that.”

The goblins at the place pointed to by the man’s trembling finger were holding small daggers.

And laughed grotesquely.

“Kee hee hee hee hee-!”

“Kehk kehk kehk kehk-!”

“Kyak kyak kyak kyak kyak kyak!”

And as one goblin jumped in.

Thump thump thump thump-!

Soon, the entire group of goblins began to pour into the parking lot.

“Uh… uh?”

“I-isn’t that dangerous?”

“Re-report it to the police!”

The people in the parking lot hesitated and stepped back.

While people were hesitating, the goblin horde continued to rush in.

At that time, the people in the car locked the doors.

“Kihik!”

Crash-!

But the goblins climbed onto the car and smashed the front windshield with wooden clubs.

The people inside were grabbed by the head by the goblins and dragged out.

“Ah, ah! L-let go-!”

“Kyaaak-! Honey!!”

Soon a gruesome sight unfolded.

“Kyak kyak kyak kyak kyak-!”

“Kukek kek kek, kyak kyak kyak!”

Crunch-! Squelch, crack crack-!

The goblins tore the man’s skin with their bare nails, exposing the bones, and chewed the flesh.

Their fingernails and toenails were on a different level of sharpness than those of humans.

To compare, they had the same shape as a shark’s teeth.

“Ah… ah! He-help me!”

The woman, who saw her husband being eaten, struggled to escape and tried to unfasten her seat belt.

But the woman remained tied to the seat belt, and her flesh was torn off alive.

And a piercing scream echoed through the parking lot.

“Kyaaaaah-!!!!!”

“Ugh… Ughaaaa!!!!”

With that scream, everyone fled into the store on the opposite side.

The man who flaunted his tattoo also turned pale and started running away.

But only one person.

Only one person was walking in the opposite direction from the fleeing people.

The Regressor, Jin Jaehee.

She drew her sword.

Swish-.

‘After all, most of the building portals in Round 1 start underground.’

It was a fact she learned through regression.

Jin Jaehee followed Sion into this shopping mall.

Her primary goal of being assigned to the same ‘area’ as him was a success.

But this is a large shopping mall.

It wasn’t easy to find him in this large store with hundreds of people.

So the conclusion she came to was one.

‘Kill them all.’

It’s Gang Sion anyway.

There’s no way he’d die in Round 1.

And she starts from the 2nd basement floor and kills all the monsters in this building.

Then she just has to join up with Gang Sion.

Jaehee immediately beheaded the goblin that was running towards her.

Swoosh-! Slice!

The goblin’s head floated in the air and fell in an instant.

Jin Jaehee didn’t rest.

She walked towards the next goblin.

* * *

Bang!!!

The moment I saw it, I immediately closed the door.

And immediately locked it.

Click!

The man next to me shouted at me, dumbfounded.

“Wh-what is it?! Suddenly.”

“It smelled rotten.”

“Wh-what…?”

When I opened the door slightly, there was a strong smell of rot along with black smoke.

I didn’t know what the black smoke I had just seen was, but I knew that I shouldn’t get close to it.

There was no time to persuade the man.

“No, does that mean you can push people? You little punk.”

Thud!

The man grabbed my shoulder and pushed me against the wall.

He was a well-built man, and he began to threaten me with a frown.

“Ah, jeez. That’s why kids these days are no good? Huh? You have to have manners. Manners. Hey, did you go to the army?”

I let his words flow in one ear.

I recalled the moment of the smoke beyond the door.

It was black smoke.

It was attached to the wall, going up or down, and it was sparse.

It didn’t smell like burning, so it wasn’t smoke caused by a fire.

Since smoke is light, if it occurred above, it rises from top to bottom, and if it occurred below, it rises from bottom to top.

But what I saw beyond the door just now was occurring from the center of the wall.

It wasn’t a gas caused by a natural phenomenon, but an artificial gas.

The shape was also a bit strange.

It was something that was neither a complete gas nor a liquid.

‘…Damn it.’

To think that something like this would happen on a day like today.

My heart was pounding.

At the same time, the man kept shouting at me.

“Are you listening to me? Huh? This is all a problem with education. Education. Huh? No. How on earth are your parents educating you? Huh?!?!?”

“Shut up.”

I just blocked the mouth of the chattering man with my hand.

At that time, the shopping mall’s announcement sounded.

The man was startled and trembled.

[Dear customers, we are very sorry. There is currently a small commotion in the underground parking lot, so we ask that you please…….]

The citizens there looked around, bewildered by the announcement.

‘Commotion?’

They said there was a commotion in the underground parking lot.

Even the mart employees at the very back of the line seemed to be suddenly surprised, so it seemed like something that happened suddenly.

Thud-!

And at that moment, the lights in the large mart suddenly went out.

“Uh… uh?”

“Wh-what is it???”

“Someone turn on the lights!”

“Mom… I’m scared.”

“It’s okay. Hold on tight to Mom’s hand.”

Darkness came.

From then on, people began to waver.

People begin to feel fear through darkness.

I calmly turned on the flashlight on my phone.

Taat-!

With the light brightening, I looked at my phone.

Soon I had no choice but to frown.

“……?”

Out of service.

Out of service in 21st century Korea.

Even if I shook my phone back and forth, the signal did not change.

And what I realized that something was wrong was the moment I raised my head again.

“The phone doesn’t work?”

“Your phone doesn’t work either?”

“Yeah. What is it.”

“Hello? Hello? Mom, can’t you hear me?”

People were all looking at the light of their cell phones, as if they had made a promise.

Buzzing-.

At that time, my phone rang.

No, everyone’s phones there rang.

Ding-! Ding! Ding!

And simultaneous notification sounds.

Light poured out from the phone.

A hologram appeared before my eyes.

[Ah, right. Right. I forgot again. I didn’t send you our terms and conditions.]

The text was as light as if a child had written it.

I scrolled down on my phone.

[You are currently connected to Area 2.]

[Earthlings have been selected as ‘Cosmic Ecosystem Disruptors’ in accordance with the 87,439th United Space Federation Headquarters Summit.]

[In accordance with the summit, the number of Earthlings on Earth must be reduced.]

[Therefore, through the extermination policy, all humans except for the necessary population will be disposed of from now on.]

[This is an inevitable legal area applied to all living things under the Cosmic Peace Constitution, and the Disruptors have no right to refuse.]

[Now, let’s select the players.]

[Each player is selected by the manager of the governing area.]

Server? Player? Connection……?

The phone screen doesn’t come up, and there’s no internet either.

Only this terms and conditions window.

And the word disposal.

The moment I realized something was wrong, the first thought I had was only one.

‘I have to go to my brother.’

The moment humans sense something dangerous, they prioritize what they need to take care of.

At this moment, I thought of my brother first.

My brother is now alone in a basement apartment.

If this is a city-wide power outage, Junho would surely be shivering alone in a basement room where the lights don’t even come on properly.

Of course, even thinking of it as a power outage was a very good thing.

This was clearly ‘terrorism’.

‘First…… let’s get out of the mall.’

But before I could even take any action, I heard a piercing scream from a middle-aged woman.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak-!!! Wh-what is that!”

Everyone there looked towards the source of the scream.

It was a window connected to the hallway.

The city outside the window was covered in black smoke.

And a huge eyeball was visible beyond the black fog, and a sound was heard from somewhere.

Goooooooong-.

A grotesque cry.

It was like the cry of a whale in the deep sea.

Only that eyeball was visible in the black fog that filled the surroundings.

Wink.

The eyeball was blinking and looking at the people inside the glass door.

As if it wanted to come inside this glass door at any moment, the eyeball stayed here for a long time and then disappeared.

The humans who faced that bizarre creature were instantly terrified.

The middle-aged woman’s scream echoed piercingly.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak-!!!”

With that scream, the panic began.

“Uwaaaah-! It’s a monster! It’s a, it’s a monster!!”

“Run away! Run awaaaaay-!!!”

“Uwaaaah……! Mom…… Momma.”

“Uwaaaaaaaaaak!!!!”

The store quickly turned into a scene of chaos.

The suddenly appearing existence of terror was enough to make people panic.

Everyone started running away in the opposite direction of the window.

I was the only one left in this place that was full of people.

I stood there and stared at the black fog.

I judged the reality I was facing as rationally as possible.

There was no need to run away like those citizens right now.

Because if that monster was trying to come inside, it would have come in a long time ago.

But the fact that it didn’t come in meant that it was blocked by something.

‘It moved…….’

The important thing is that the eyeball moved.

I focused my mind.

I closed my eyes and combined all the information I had obtained so far.

And I quickly grasped the reality I was facing.

The eyeball moved.

From east to west.

Like a fish swimming in the sea, the huge creature slowly began to disappear.

The movement of the eyeball was momentarily visible because of the smartphone light emitted from the hallway.

And the monster disappeared into the black fog.

This is the 7th floor above ground.

Was it a bird?

No, there’s no way a bird would have such big eyeballs.

‘A monster with a height of 7 floors, or…… a huge flying monster……?’

In the worst case, that black fog acts like water.

And monsters swimming in the black fog.

If the black fog in this place acts like deep seawater.

If the space filled with black fog is full of unknown monsters.

We humans will be delicious prey for them.

They have to reduce the number of Earthlings?

Out of service, so external support is impossible.

With this scale, it doesn’t fall under movie shooting, events, North Korean provocations, hidden cameras, or natural disasters.

In other words, this is the work of a being that transcends humans.

A disaster that cannot be resolved within the limits of human ability, whatever it may be.

All the notification windows that just came out were true.

The end of the Earth has begun by some alien life form.

That was my conclusion.

“Haa…….”

I grabbed my head.

My head throbbed because I had been concentrating for a long time.

When I thought this far, two questions remained.

The first was the player, and the second was the cosmic ecosystem disruptor.

We humans are both players and cosmic ecosystem disruptors.

What does that mean.

I couldn’t know it now.

I needed more information, and in order to find out the information, I had to survive first.

“Hoo…….”

My heart started pounding wildly.

I had to find a way to overcome this difficulty.

I checked my phone again to remember the time.

And I remembered the scenes in this area.

I took off my hat and quickly put my brother’s gift in my bag.

I rolled up my sweatpants that had fallen down so that they wouldn’t get in the way when I ran.

And I tied my shoelaces tightly again.

‘Hyung [Older brother]…… will definitely go to you. Just a little…… just a little more. Junho-ya.’

And I ran out at full speed to find another exit.

I will definitely return to my brother.

Even if the end of all this is the end of the world.

(To be continued in the next episode)