The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 48

#48. Anyang Station: Underground Shopping Center (1)

The two descended the darkened stairwell from the rooftop, using a flashlight to illuminate their path.

Jaehee, following behind Sion, asked cautiously, her voice echoing through the stairwell.

“What are you going to do about Choi Myung-joon?”

Squeak-.

Sion remained silent until they reached the first floor, then opened the stairwell door and replied,

“He’s not a discardable piece. I’m training him.”

“Training?”

“Yeah.”

Sion carefully surveyed the situation outside the building.

Though there wasn’t much to see.

The entrance to the building was blocked by snow.

The heavily snow-covered first and second floors were dark, untouched by moonlight.

They relied solely on the flashlight.

However, upon facing the snow wall, Sion remembered the Nepenthes [a carnivorous plant] and turned off the flashlight.

Now, it was complete darkness.

They had to adapt to the darkness and rely on their senses.

Sion had memorized the distance from the window to the entrance of Subway Line 6.

He carefully opened the window and began digging through the snow.

The subway entrance was only five steps from the window.

“Will he really be trained just because you say so? In my opinion, Choi Myung-joon, that guy was just… acting as he pleased and selfish,” Jaehee said with a worried tone, watching Sion from behind.

Thud-.

As Sion dug out a certain part of the ground, the snow wall collapsed.

Sion looked into the collapsed snow.

It was wide enough to pass through comfortably by bending over.

Sion entered and replied,

“I know. He’s a difficult guy to handle.”

“Then? Are you just going to leave him be?”

Jaehee also dug through the snow next to him.

They moved a few steps surrounded by the snow wall and soon reached the subway entrance.

The subway entrance had a roof, so there was no snow on the stairs leading down.

It was just dark.

Sion took a deep breath and shone the flashlight down the subway stairs.

Now that they were out of the Nepenthes’ habitat, he turned the flashlight back on.

Frozen human corpses were scattered on the stairs, and the glass door at the entrance was shattered.

Several more corpses were visible inside.

Sion shone the flashlight on the corpses and said,

“No. I’m going to thoroughly crush him so he doesn’t dare to resist again. I expected it. I didn’t think Choi Myung-joon would immediately obey me just because I let him out of the detention center. That’s why I’ve been dragging him around even though he’s useless. Both I and Choi Myung-joon needed a trigger.”

“Ah….”

“If he still tries to attack me even in this situation, I’ll just abandon him. Let him freeze to death in the detention center. But that won’t happen.”

The two slowly descended the subway stairs.

It felt like walking into the mouth of a giant beast.

“Choi Myung-joon has a reason to survive no matter what. Just like me. No matter how miserable it is, he has a purpose to survive. That’s why he’ll eventually obey me. I’m the only one who can save him. Time will tell. He’ll bow down to me on his own. I guarantee it.”

Sion came down the stairs and turned the corner.

Something kept catching on Sion’s feet.

Shining the light on his feet, he saw frozen corpses piled up.

Sion shone the flashlight down the long underground shopping center corridor.

And when he faced it, Sion couldn’t help but frown.

“I think this is the right place.”

“…Yeah. It’s right. It’s the ogre’s food storage method.”

Jaehee approached him and looked at it.

At first, they thought it was a giant wall.

But it was a pile of frozen corpses stacked on top of each other.

The pile of corpses was stacked up to feel like a wall.

Ilbeonga Underground Shopping Center.

He wondered where the ogres, who spent all day collecting corpses, stored so many corpses.

Now the question was answered.

This was the ogre’s food storage warehouse.

* * *

‘How gruesome.’

I slowly walked towards the pile of corpses.

The expressions of the frozen humans were truly eerie.

When I shone the flashlight on the pale, frozen blue faces of the humans, nausea rose from my stomach.

Some may have been people who couldn’t escape from the underground shopping center, but most of them were food collected by the ogres.

Humans, who were once the masters of the Earth, had become the food of beasts.

The ogre’s loud snoring echoed from afar.

And almost simultaneously with the snoring, a notification window appeared in front of me.

[Dungeon: Ogre’s Food Storage]

The notification window appeared in front of me and soon faded away.

“Dungeon?”

“It’s a hidden quest in various parts of the city. Remember the artifact?”

“Ah, this? Open.”

I immediately summoned the orb at her words.

Whoosh-.

When I summoned the orb again, Jin Jaehee squinted her eyes and looked at it before answering.

“That’s right. That.”

It seemed difficult for her to manifest the artifact, but for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for me.

Jin Jaehee called this a natural talent, but honestly, I still don’t know what help this will be in battle.

It was just a small sphere.

It wasn’t sharp or explosive.

“While you were hurrying with the boiler work, I also confirmed something internally.”

“What is it?”

Jin Jaehee started looking for a way out in a different direction ahead of me.

Even if it was a small gap, it was just a small gap in the pile of frozen corpses.

“Players who have unlocked artifacts.”

“There were?”

“No. Fortunately, there weren’t.”

Fortunately?

I looked at her, questioning the word.

Jin Jaehee found a small gap leading to the opposite corridor.

Jin Jaehee squeezed her body through the gap first.

I squeezed my body through the gap following her.

I faced the pale, frozen face of the corpse right in front of my nose.

I tried my best not to look at it.

The small gap didn’t last long.

Soon, I was able to escape from the pile of corpses and face the wide underground shopping center corridor again.

The monster’s snoring continued to be heard from nearby.

“So, does that mean the number of selected players is small? After the second round starts, the surviving population of Korea will be less than 5 million. Calculating with that number, are there approximately 500 players currently alive?”

“It would be nice if that were the case, but no.”

Jin Jaehee, who was walking ahead, turned her head slightly and met my gaze.

“Selected players are chosen at the same time as the first round progresses. That is, about 5,500 people.”

“……”

“And unless they’re really unlucky, most of the selected players pass the first round. Because they were all selected.”

We were still walking through the dark underground shopping center.

Towards the direction where the monster’s snoring was heard.

“Anyway, the number will be larger than you think. And this dungeon. It’s a place where materials to enhance artifacts are hidden. It’ll be different from the alligator turtle last time. Field monsters and dungeon monsters are definitely different.”

The conclusion was that in order to enhance artifacts, you had to attack dungeons a lot.

To put it simply, achievement points are needed for the lord, and dungeon attacks are needed for the player.

And the key to dungeon attacks was killing monsters.

The snoring was loud.

Jin Jaehee stopped walking and held out her hand.

It was a signal to stop.

And I looked at the grotesque monster over her shoulder.

-Drrrrrrong! Kuwoong. Drrrrrrong! Kuwoong.

The monster’s huge belly moved up and down.

Around it were full of human bones, reminiscent of chicken bones that had been sucked clean.

This was the central hall of the underground shopping center.

Four ogres were fast asleep.

Jin Jaehee, who was looking at it, turned to me and said,

“It’s nothing for me to kill those guys right now. But your plan comes first, so decide. Should I get rid of them now? Or later?”

I looked at her once, then at the ogre again.

The grotesque monster’s breathing was terrifying just to listen to.

But the goal is capture, to catch them.

I took out paper and a pen from my pocket and said,

“Later.”

I will capture those monster guys.

Not kill them.

Jin Jaehee nodded her head right away at my words.

Agak.

Behind those words, she put a flashlight in her mouth.

Then she spat the flashlight out again and asked Jin Jaehee.

“Will the monsters react to the flashlight light?”

“No, the only thing that the monster reacts to is sunlight. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

Agak.

She put the flashlight in her mouth again.

I started writing down observations on the paper.

Detailed appearance, gestures, and actions of the monsters.

I wrote about the ogre thoroughly and persistently so that nothing was missing.

At that time, Jin Jaehee suddenly went out from the corner and started approaching the ogre.

I was surprised and just stared at her.

Bounce.

She first climbed onto the ogre’s forearm, then climbed onto its chest.

And she looked back at me from above.

Her voice echoed.

“Isn’t it better to see up close than to hide and watch?”

“……”

I silently put the pen and paper I was holding into my inside pocket.

“Yeah.”

That was right.

According to her words and observations, the ogre does not move unless sunlight comes in.

Like a stone statue.

I quickly approached the ogre and tried to climb up, struggling.

But the monster’s forearm was more slippery and higher than I thought.

As I struggled without being able to climb up, Jin Jaehee came down again.

Then she came to my side and put her hand behind my back.

Jin Jaehee didn’t grab my back right away and asked me.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Only after getting my consent, Jin Jaehee put her hands in my armpits and hugged me.

She hugged me and jumped onto the ogre’s body in one go.

And then Jin Jaehee immediately took her hands off me.

I tried to keep my balance, spreading my arms like a person riding a tightrope.

Because the ogre’s skin was more slippery than I thought.

“Hoo-.”

Jin Jaehee nonchalantly took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth.

I was on the chest of a grotesque creature.

My body moved up and down regularly because of the ogre’s breathing.

Looking at it up close, it was really grotesque.

Is this how an ant would feel if it climbed onto a human body?

Anyway, it wasn’t a very good experience.

There was the smell of the ogre’s rot and the smell of cigarettes.

“Observe the eyes first. Because it’s the monster’s biggest weakness.”

Jin Jaehee pointed to the monster’s eyes with her other hand, exhaling cigarette smoke.

I turned my gaze in the direction she was pointing.

And I slowly came down from the chest and stepped on the neck.

The skin on the neck was weaker than I thought.

And I was able to approach the chin, passing the hill-like Adam’s apple.

Looking at the chin, it didn’t seem easy to climb up.

Then Jin Jaehee was already next to me again.

“Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to ask next time.”

“Okay.”

Jin Jaehee picked me up again and put me on the chin.

Jin Jaehee used all her strength, but it was me who was breathless.

I passed between the lips where the stench of rot vibrated, and passed the philtrum and nose.

The ogre was about the size of a 5-story building, and the monster’s eyes were so big that one eyeball took up half of its head.

I put the flashlight down again and took out my notebook.

Breath was exhaled between my lips every time I breathed.

Minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Even if I had hot packs that Jin Jaehee gave me attached to every corner of my body, the cold was still there.

But I had to do what I had to do.

“Until 3 a.m.”

“Okay.”

I took a breath and started writing again.

The observation continued for hours.

I didn’t forget to mark it with pictures.

I tapped the muscles around the monster’s eyes with my fingers and examined them.

It was bizarre.

I squatted down and shone the flashlight on the muscles around the eyes.

“……”

It was strange.

While the skin tissue of other parts had a shape like connecting regular hexagons, the skin tissue around the eyes was different.

It was smooth and there was no texture of the tissue.

It was like a membrane.

‘It looks weak.’

It was obvious because it was a weakness, but it looked weaker than I thought.

I grabbed the dagger.

The ogre cannot act without sunlight, so it will not move even with this much injury.

That’s what I thought.

Stab-! Trickle.

When I stabbed the dagger into the skin around the eyes, unlike other skin, blood came up thickly.

I touched the blood with my hand.

It was warm, smelled disgusting, and was sticky.

At that time, the digital watch rang.

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep.

It was a signal to announce 3 a.m.

It was time to go.

When the sun rises, the ogre will move again.

“……”

I raised my head to call Jin Jaehee without thinking.

But at that moment, my heart sank.

Whoosh-!

At that time, something huge flew towards me from the immediate left of my field of vision.

It was the monster’s huge palm.

It was so big that the sound of cutting through the wind was dull.

At that moment, I felt like time was flowing slowly.

‘Am I going to die……?’

As soon as I saw the monster’s palm, that word came to mind first, and the palm soon flew towards me.

Thud-.

But Jin Jaehee was faster.

Jin Jaehee pushed me off the ogre’s head, and the huge palm immediately struck her body.

Like a human’s palm swatting a mosquito in their sleep.

Smack-!!!!!!!!!!

(Continued in the next episode)