The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 25

#25. Unqualified as a Human (4)

Bang-!

A gunshot rang out.

My left ear rang momentarily.

Then blood gushed out, soaking the back of my neck and head.

Human blood was surprisingly warm.

Thud-.

Kwon Kyung-soo’s left arm was thrown onto my left shoulder from the recoil.

But it wasn’t me who fell.

Instead, Kwon Kyung-soo collapsed weakly to the side.

Thump! Splurt, pshooo.

I turned my head slightly to see blood gushing like a fountain from his temple.

He was holding a gun in his right hand, and his eyes were open as he died.

I wiped the blood from my right cheek with my hand.

He committed suicide.

He had put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

And right now, I had no thoughts.

Even though I almost died just a moment ago, I couldn’t feel any tension or anxiety.

I trudged forward.

More than the shock of him dying right behind me, I felt more regret for the two wasted bullets.

Thud-.

I sat down on a theater seat and covered my head.

I felt a little dizzy.

I touched my temple with my finger and looked at the dead Kwon Kyung-soo.

Blood was still flowing from his temple.

Behind him, brain matter was splattered on the floor.

As he said, I might really be a man fit for the end.

The world I lived in was originally hell, so even if the world has changed like this now, I don’t feel much.

Honestly, I don’t know.

Kwon Kyung-soo may have had a more outstanding character than me in the game, maybe even a character closer to justice, but.

Whether it was God’s joke or God’s choice.

“……”

The conclusion was this.

He couldn’t endure it and died, and I endured.

I leaned my head back and rested my body on the seat.

This is finally over.

I can finally get out of this damn shopping mall.

That’s enough.

I’ll leave all the stories and emotions I had here, and now I’m going to see my sister.

That’s all.

As I was resting like that for a while, a woman approached.

I squinted to see that it was Jin Jae-hee.

She carefully sat next to me and sighed a little.

As she sat down, I asked first.

“Are things like this going to continue in the future?”

“……Similar, but on a much larger scale. Honestly, I don’t know much about the Gyeonggi Province area.”

“……”

I covered my head with my other hand.

Jin Jae-hee asked me.

I felt her gaze as if she was looking back at me, but my gaze was only on Kwon Kyung-soo.

“What are you going to do now? What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to find my sister.”

“What if you can’t find her?”

At her question, I released the hand I was holding and looked at her.

Then I said again.

“I’ll find her. Even if it’s just her body.”

With those words, I put my hand back on my head.

Jin Jae-hee also said nothing.

* * *

Lee Joo-yeon stood there with a crossbow.

To be exact, she was frozen because the previous scenes were too shocking.

The arrow missed.

Honestly, it was a shame it missed, but a miss was a miss.

If Kwon Kyung-soo hadn’t committed suicide, everyone on Hong Team would have been dead.

Including herself and her sister, everyone here.

But Kwon Kyung-soo committed suicide, and we survived.

“……”

Lee Joo-yeon carefully put down the crossbow and breathed heavily.

Then Se-beom came over and wrapped his arms around Joo-yeon’s back.

“It’s okay, this is it.”

“……”

“We survived. Sis. Are you okay?”

“……Huh? Yeah…… Yeah. I’m…… okay.”

Joo-yeon rubbed her eyes with her hand and looked ahead.

There, Si-on was sitting on a movie theater seat.

Jae-hee approached him.

It was a composure that a person who had almost died just a moment ago couldn’t have.

If it had been her, she wouldn’t have been able to stand from the shock.

When Kwon Kyung-soo chose suicide, Joo-yeon’s heart sank.

Not from surprise, but from relief.

Joo-yeon recalled his last words.

This place is hell, and he’s just escaping hell.

As if that was the last choice he could make as a human.

Then what about us who are left behind.

Are we not human?

“……Sis.”

Se-beom shook Joo-yeon’s shoulder lightly, but Joo-yeon didn’t react.

Then Se-beom shook her shoulder more vigorously.

“Sis!”

“Uh…… Uh…… I’m listening.”

Only then did Joo-yeon raise her head slightly and look at her brother.

Se-beom frowned and said.

“Listening, my ass. Snap out of it. We have to go home now.”

“Yeah……”

“Ah, seriously!”

Joo-yeon lowered her head slightly and walked to the opposite seat, despite Se-beom’s shout.

Then she sat there and curled up her legs.

Everyone was silent.

Everyone here seemed to be in a daze and not saying anything.

The situation was over, and everyone seemed a little excited at the thought of being able to go home.

The glasses guy was laughing to himself, 흐흐흐 [Heu heu heu – Korean onomatopoeia for laughter].

Joo-yeon looked at the glasses guy and thought he didn’t feel like a human.

No, she thought that everyone here could no longer be human.

“Se-beom.”

Joo-yeon called her brother while sitting down.

Se-beom, who was holding a cigarette in his mouth, looked at Joo-yeon.

Joo-yeon was silent for a while, then said.

“Never mind.”

Joo-yeon closed her eyes and thought.

In front of her, Se-beom was just frowning as if he was frustrated with his sister.

A moment of silence followed.

No one spoke.

But soon the silence ended.

The movie screen.

A small portal was created there.

A cheerful trumpet sound filled the theater, drawing everyone’s attention.

Bbam-ba-bam~!!!

Baby angels walked out of the portal in two rows.

The baby angel in the back row was holding a red flag.

And the administrator ‘K’ was walking in the middle of the procession.

Clap, clap, clap.

K walked slowly, clapping.

Two kings rose on either side of her.

[LOSER]

Hanging the loser sign around their necks.

The corpses of the two kings floated on the flag.

Like a public execution ground.

Before they knew it, Kwon Kyung-soo, who was dying on the floor, had disappeared without a trace.

The old man from Blue Team had his mouth open and his eyes closed, and his face was pale as if all the blood had drained from his body.

On the other hand, Kwon Kyung-soo had blood flowing from his temple, dripping onto the floor, and his face was still alive because he hadn’t been dead for long.

K, walking between them, shouted.

“It’s a really amazing dramatic result! Ah, congratulations, Hong Team. I was holding my breath watching the results at the end, thinking Hong Team was going to lose. But! My hunch was right. Congratulations, Si-on. You won.”

At that moment, a light formed on Si-on’s neck.

Soon a sign was hanging there.

[WINNER]

Si-on immediately took off the sign hanging around his neck and threw it on the floor.

K, who was watching the scene, covered her mouth and laughed.

“Puhuhuhu……! You’re so prickly. Don’t be like that. You guys have ‘at least’ survived, right? Enjoy the little party prepared by our management committee. Kids.”

At K’s words, the baby angels brought out a table.

Then they lined up the tables and put a pure white tablecloth on them.

The baby angels brought plates of various foods on their shoulders and placed them on the table in turn.

They set up plates, knives, and forks to match the number of survivors and poured wine into the wine glasses.

The appetizing smell of food began to cover the smell of blood.

Some survivors raised their heads and looked at the food.

But no one easily picked it up.

Then K took a green grape from the table and ate it.

“There’s no poison. And these foods are originally benefits outside of the regulations, so you can’t take them out of the building. I’ll clean it up in exactly 30 minutes. So. Why don’t you enjoy it now? Si-on.”

K only spoke to Si-on.

Even so, Si-on sat there and didn’t budge.

But the other survivors were different.

They hadn’t eaten a decent meal for days.

The first to rush was the glasses guy.

He picked up a chicken leg and began to shove it into his mouth ravenously.

As one person stepped forward, other survivors poured out like a flood.

They devoured the food on the table like pigs in a pen.

K watched the scene with a sinister smile.

“Ha-. They’re really no different from livestock. Are they really a harmful species that tried to challenge the universe? Is it delicious?”

K stroked the head of the glasses guy, who was burying his face in the soup, and asked.

The glasses guy nodded and shoved stir-fried dishes into his mouth with his hands.

Only then did Si-on ask.

“Get us out of here quickly. We won the game.”

“Yes. I will. But before that, there are some additional things left to explain about the rules of the game.”

“……Tell me quickly.”

“There’s no need to rush. After all, once you go outside, you’ll want to come back here.”

Si-on frowned.

“That’s my decision.”

“Hmm…… That’s true, but we can’t let you out yet because it’s still voting time in Area 2.”

K picked up a chicken leg and forced it into the mouth of a middle-aged man on the table.

The middle-aged man chewed on the chicken leg that came into his mouth without even knowing it was insulting.

K, who was watching the scene, laughed out loud.

Then she stroked the middle-aged man’s chin.

As if stroking a puppy.

“Cute, cute.”

“Voting time?”

Si-on looked at the scene and asked again.

“Yes. Every day from 00:00 to 01:00. An hour of voting. Well, you don’t need to know that. Now, let me explain. Once the explanation is roughly over, I think I can send you out into the field.”

K looked at the clock that appeared as a hologram and answered.

Soon the movie screen lit up.

“Now, let’s start the full explanation of the game. Leave the livestock alone. Do you want to eat?”

K, who was already sitting in the chair next to Si-on, handed him popcorn.

Si-on ignored her and looked at the screen.

K smiled a little at Si-on and threw popcorn into her mouth.

“Start, kids.”

At her words, the baby angels who were serving entered the screen in turn.

A contract made up of strange letters was visible.

K, who was looking at the contract side by side, said.

“From now on, the world will be one field. So, a chessboard. You guys are chess pieces. What you’ve done so far is just a demo. Now, the ‘king’ will not be selected, but will be won. Next.”

When K instructed to turn the screen, the baby angels naturally turned the page.

The format was PPT [PowerPoint presentation].

But I couldn’t figure out what it contained.

The only thing I could recognize was the picture.

“I’ll tell you the most important winning conditions. It’s simple. Only the harmful species that meet the ‘winning conditions’ that continue until the final round can survive. If you don’t meet even one of them, you can’t survive. Next.”

The page turned.

The people who were eating the food on the table also raised their heads and looked at the screen.

But it was only for a moment, and they turned their eyes back to the food and devoured it.

The next page was a small animation.

There were two people, one red and one blue.

And soon the red man cut off the blue man’s neck.

The blue man’s head rolled out of the screen.

Soon the red man cheered with his arms wide open, and the boundaries that defined them widened.

“You will be proceeding through rounds through boundaries. Simply put, in the order of buildings, roads, cities, regions, and continents.”

The world beyond the border was another world.

It was a world that I had never been able to face before.

The red people walked into that world.

“From now on, you will encounter strange worlds that you have never encountered before, and that you could not even imagine. As the boundaries widen…… the wider it gets.”

Various bizarre-looking monsters appeared on the screen as shadows.

Folding people in half and eating them.

Or carrying hundreds of people and crossing continents or flying in the sky.

Even 연가시 [Yeongasi – horsehair worm]-like monsters that parasitize people.

That’s how the red people in the screen died.

“In the end, you’re proving it. Whether you are a living being that should survive. You are proving why you should survive. Not instinct, but really human! Yes? Prove your value as an intelligent life form. Don’t be led by instinct like those things.”

K said, referring to the Hong Team survivors who were addicted to gluttony.

Crunch-.

Before she knew it, she had emptied a whole bag of popcorn.

When K put down the popcorn bag, the bag disappeared naturally.

K rubbed her hands together and got up from her seat.

“I believe that Si-on and you will do well. Because. Because I’m the player I’ve been eyeing. Hehe.”

Toc, toc.

K walked forward and stood in front of the people who were still ravenously eating.

And after watching them for a while, she turned her head and looked at Si-on and Jae-hee.

To be exact, Lee Joo-yeon, Lee Se-beom, and one unknown student who were looking at the PPT next to them.

She said with a faint smile.

“Shall we go now. It’s time.”

Tak-!

K snapped her fingers.

At that moment, the heads of all the survivors who were eating on the table flew off.

Like fireworks.

The six heads jumped up into the air and then rolled back onto the table.

Thud, thud.

The glasses guy’s head rolled around and was mixed with 갈비 [Galbi – Korean BBQ short ribs] sauce.

He still had meat in his mouth.

“Out of the total population of 7.8 billion, 2 billion are 1st round survivors. You are the ones who have broken through the 1/4 survival rate. You have earned the right to advance to the 2nd round. Then welcome.”

Thump-!

At that moment, the screen split in half.

To be exact, the entrance to the main hall on the 1st floor was unfolded in front of them.

Only then did Si-on get up from his seat.

Then the black smoke that was filling the main hall in front of him began to recede.

It was the black smoke that had trapped us in the shopping mall.

Light poured in through the gap.

How many days has it been since we’ve seen light?

People were busy covering their eyes with their hands from the sudden light.

But Si-on opened his eyes immediately.

Squeak-.

The door to the main hall opened and fresh air from outside rushed in.