The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 28

Thirty minutes had passed since Kang Si-hyun went inside the house.

During that time, Jin Jae-hee sat on the steps at the entrance of the villa, guarding against monsters.

At the same time, she didn’t forget to be wary of Players.

In this city, where a complete ‘Monarch’ [a powerful, evolved monster] had not yet appeared, Players were the most dangerous.

However, since it was not long after the round had started, the Players would not readily reveal themselves.

So far, the only people she had seen were the group of four who had passed under the bridge earlier.

If they continued to show themselves like that, that group would not survive the night.

Jin Jae-hee took out a cigarette pack from her pocket.

Tuk, tuk.

She tapped the bottom of the cigarette pack against her palm, tore off the cellophane, and took one out to put in her mouth. It was a natural, practiced motion.

Cigarettes were a scarce resource as the rounds progressed.

So, she had to smoke as much as she could when they were available, and she also had to collect them for Si-hyun.

In the future, cigarettes would be used as ‘currency’ in this league.

As she lit her lighter, she heard footsteps from inside the villa.

Jin Jae-hee had a keen memory for the sound of people’s footsteps.

People have their own distinct footsteps.

It was a kind of habit, so it wouldn’t change unless they were conscious of it.

Jin Jae-hee could tell it was Kang Si-hyun just by listening to the sound of his footsteps.

The sound of footsteps came up the stairs and gradually stopped.

Jin Jae-hee exhaled cigarette smoke, and Kang Si-hyun sat down next to her.

Si-hyun was breathing heavily, and his body was stained with blood.

Without asking, she could tell what had happened inside.

Kang Si-hyun was the first to speak.

“…Just promise me one thing.”

His voice was mournful.

Kang Si-hyun was looking ahead.

To be exact, he was just looking in the direction his gaze was drawn to.

Jin Jae-hee took another puff of her cigarette and replied.

“Okay.”

Kang Si-hyun gripped the kitchen knife he was holding tightly.

He gripped it so tightly that his hand was shaking.

His emotions, thoughts, and deep sorrow were conveyed to Jin Jae-hee.

He continued, his voice trembling.

“…Just let me find my brother.”

Jin Jae-hee still had a cigarette in her mouth, and Kang Si-hyun covered his face with one hand.

Si-hyun’s voice was trembling.

“…Then whatever you want… everything… no. Just… I want to be with my brother. That’s all I need.”

It was difficult to understand what he wanted to say.

He was too shocked to organize his emotions and couldn’t express his words properly.

But after organizing her thoughts a little, Jin Jae-hee could understand what Kang Si-hyun wanted.

Jin Jae-hee lowered her head slightly.

As she exhaled cigarette smoke between her legs, the smoke rose and briefly obscured her vision.

Kang Si-hyun in her past life.

And the current Kang Si-hyun.

And herself in front of them.

Jin Jae-hee’s emotions became complicated. But her answer was already decided.

“Okay. I understand.”

She threw the half-smoked cigarette into the snow, and it plunged deep into the white snow.

The cigarette butt melted the surrounding snow and sank deeper.

Jin Jae-hee thought.

Perhaps the man next to her now would never know.

In the end, what he wanted was what she wanted. So there was no need to ask, and they were destined to be together until the end anyway.

That way, Jin Jae-hee would restore all the worlds to their original state.

This miserable slaughter game, the otherworldly creatures that disturbed the city, and even the distant divine beings beyond the administrators who laughed and enjoyed it, she would eliminate them all.

Our world without them.

In that world, Kang Si-hyun, as he wished, would be able to watch his younger brother Jun-ho go to college.

If we win the league, we can both smile.

We can truly smile.

For that, she could sacrifice her lowly body at any time.

She had waited a long time.

The second chance was that precious, and Jin Jae-hee didn’t want to miss it.

Jin Jae-hee turned her head and looked at the other side of the city, where the mountains were.

There, a transparent barrier rippled around the entire city.

The boundary of the second round.

An invisible iron cage.

* * *

I walked a little away from the building where my brother had disappeared.

Jin Jae-hee followed behind.

And suddenly, I remembered the status window I had seen inside the shopping mall.

I quietly called out the status window.

But nothing appeared.

“It’s probably because you’re not part of a group. As you heard, in the first round, the king was chosen by selection, but from the second round onwards, it’s by conquest.”

I listened to Jin Jae-hee’s words and walked ahead.

It meant that my current situation was not a condition that could be called a group.

Under those conditions, an interface that could efficiently control personnel was not provided.

In any case, to find my brother, I had to go to a place where he might be.

The city is vast.

There were many buildings, roads, and alleys for one person to search alone.

In the end, I had to think about where my brother might have gone first.

To put it simply, my brother couldn’t have gone far from here.

And as long as the boundary exists, he must be inside this city.

The end of the first round is different for each building.

According to Jin Jae-hee, a week was quite a long time.

Most of them ended in about 2 or 3 days.

That’s why K intervened in the game because he couldn’t stand it anymore.

But even so, the situation wasn’t that bad.

“The initiative in the second round lies with those who occupy the streets.”

I walked almost side by side with Jin Jae-hee.

I walked on this snowy road, where there was nothing, or rather, only abandoned cars lined up without any corpses.

I felt like we were the only two people in this big city.

Putting aside the strange feeling, we had no time to rest our eyes as we guarded against all sides.

“Players who started the first round on the streets will be more likely to occupy the city. They will surround people from the buildings and either bring them into their team or kill them. They may already have formed a large force.”

I listened to her words and walked a little, then pointed to something piled up on the opposite street and asked.

“Is that the result of the street territory fight?”

“…You could say that.”

The corpses of people were piled up like a pyramid.

They were piled up almost as high as the traffic lights.

All the corpses were burned, so they were unrecognizable.

The group of people who burned those corpses must be around here.

“You have to choose. Whether to form a new force and fight against them. Or to enter their force and look for an opportunity.”

“…”

Unlike the first round, the administrator did not directly intervene to select a ‘king’ in the second round.

The goal of the second round was simply to get through this winter.

To get through the winter, forming a group was inevitable.

No matter how much Jin Jae-hee had powers that transcended humans, it was questionable whether she could stand against a group that had piled up that many corpses.

For a certain result, I had to make a certain move.

As a result, my brother would have gone to a ‘place where people gather’.

If the time when the first round ended in the villa was 4 days ago from now.

The distance that can be traveled in 4 days.

And groups of people.

The street situation inside Anyang City.

Where would my brother have gone?

What would I do if I were in my brother’s shoes?

As I was thinking that, Jin Jae-hee came up to me and said casually.

“Your body is not yet complete, so you have no means to fight against the opponent unless you have a gun. Whether that opponent is human or monster.”

“…”

That was true.

My current body was weaker than any other adult male.

The last time I measured my height was during the daily worker education, when I was 19 years old for a physical examination.

165cm, 54kg.

That was my physical spec.

I was still too weak to protect my own body.

Then, Jin Jae-hee handed me something.

It was a self-defense electric shocker.

When I pressed the button, it sparked with a crackling sound.

“For some reason, these kinds of things are not prohibited items, so I prepared them in advance. Take it. And artifact activation is in a week. Until then, you need to create a residence to ensure safety.”

I listened to her words, looking at the crackling sparks.

“After the artifact is activated, I will definitely make you the strongest person here. Honestly… I don’t know about the second round, but the wider the boundary becomes, the stronger the monsters will become.”

I took the electric shocker and examined it.

It was indeed the perfect weapon for me.

Even if there is a big difference in physical specs, I can knock them out with one shot with this electric shocker.

She had prepared this in advance, using the advantage of being a returnee [someone who has experienced this situation before].

But it was a bit questionable that she didn’t hand it over at the shopping mall. She must have had the intention of approaching me from the beginning, so was she testing me?

Jin Jae-hee glanced around and said to me.

“Once a residence is secured, we will start training, even if it is a period when the artifact is not activated. I won’t be lenient. Be prepared.”

I put the electric shocker in my padding pocket and turned to look at her.

She was looking around.

For some reason, it felt like today was the first time I was seeing her properly.

It was because I had only noticed other people’s faces after confirming my brother’s whereabouts.

Jin Jae-hee was wearing a thick gray military jacket and had a fur-lined padding hat pulled down over her head.

The face inside the fur hat had long eyelashes, a high nose, and rare brown eyes.

Black hair stuck out from under the hat and fell to her collarbone, and white breath continued to puff out from between her pinkish lips whenever she spoke, and her pants seemed to be jogger pants with storage space secured.

Below that, she was wearing long boots that covered her ankles.

It was to ensure mobility.

Looking at it now, it was clear that she had come fully prepared for the league.

Noticing my gaze, Jin Jae-hee asked.

“Why?”

“…What’s the conclusion?”

I turned my eyes away.

I couldn’t even remember when I had looked at someone else’s appearance like this.

As I took a step towards the road, Jin Jae-hee answered my question.

“We’re going under a force.”

“A force?”

“Yeah. Honestly, I don’t want to, but we lost most of our people in the first round. All we have left is to enter an existing force, kill the king, and take over that force. To do that, we need to find a stable force, but… it won’t be easy.”

In summary, it was to become like the ‘Black Team’ after all.

Like Kwon Kyung-soo, who hid in our team and survived until the end in the last round.

We were deceived before, but this time we would infiltrate their ranks, look for an opportunity, and then take over the force.

It wasn’t a bad plan.

With just two people, we couldn’t find my brother or grow our force right away.

I trudged through the snow and said.

“Let’s stick to the force near the Manan Police Station.”

“Near the Manan Police Station…? Are you sure there’s a force there?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Jin Jae-hee followed behind me and asked.

Pook. Pook.

Each step sank deeply.

It was harder to pull my foot out of the snow than to step into it.

“It’s a simple principle. If you were in danger, how would you have acted?”

“…”

Jin Jae-hee hesitated for a moment and then answered.

“Find the source of the crisis and destroy it?”

At the absurd answer, I turned to look at her once.

Jin Jae-hee was just blinking her eyes, and I looked forward again and explained.

“Wrong. I’m telling you to think from the perspective of an ordinary citizen. The most common thing to think of is a shelter. In fact, the disaster manual also says to evacuate to a shelter first.”

There was a large hole in the opposite building.

I looked into it.

It was not a hole that humans could have made.

“Are you saying we should go to a shelter?”

“A shelter would be good, but. What I’m considering are four things. Force. Safety. My brother’s whereabouts. And faith in the law.”

“Faith in the law?”

“The belief that the law will protect them. In any case, citizens have the belief that the state will save them when they are in danger. To put it simply, they will wait for the rescue team.”

Now I came to the outer road of the apartment complex.

There were several people inside the apartment complex connected by iron bars.

They were gathering wood in the playground and lighting a fire, and I made eye contact with a few of them, but they didn’t show any signs of aggression.

I also guarded against them and passed by.

Jin Jae-hee was still following behind me.

“In the end, when a disaster occurs, most of the citizens on the streets will look for a nearby police station or military unit rather than a shelter. Because of the faith in the law I mentioned earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“For that reason, if they are the Korean police, there is a high possibility that they will maintain government power even after the first round is over.”

“Yeah.”

I walked to the traffic lights.

I stopped habitually.

But soon I realized the situation again and crossed.

The traffic lights were no longer lit.

Jin Jae-hee seemed to be thinking a little and was silent.

I summarized it in one sentence for easy understanding.

“The force you mentioned earlier. The most orderly, stable, and large-scale group is ultimately the force created by the police.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Jin Jae-hee realize and make a sound.

“There’s a high probability that your brother went there too. Above all, internal stability will be better than other forces. Honestly, if we go under a force like Kim Dong-gil’s, we won’t be able to work properly because of internal instability.”

In the end, I was choosing the force that I was most worried about and hated.

Come to think of it, it was like choosing a force led by someone like Kwon Kyung-soo.

Jin Jae-hee muttered.

“Amazing. How do you come up with that in such a short time? I’ve always wondered. In my past life too. And now too.”

“I’m just choosing the most rational case… This way.”

I turned into the desolate street.

I moved along the road and entered an alley.

The depth of the snow was different on each street.

Some places went up to my calves, but some places went up to my navel.

Also, there were places where there was no snow at all.

On the streets without snow, the corpses of humans were sparsely scattered instead.

The fact that the snow was cleared meant that this place had been touched by human hands.