The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 6

#6. Reunion (1)

Forty-five…

Forty-six…

Swoosh!

The blade sliced through the goblin’s neck.

The goblin’s head spun in the air before hitting a mannequin and falling.

Only three things remained where she had passed.

The goblin’s head.

The goblin’s torso.

And a human corpse.

Jaehee walked through them.

Swoosh!

Jaehee only severed the goblins’ necks.

In her past life, she had killed hundreds of goblins.

She had also killed thousands of monsters of a higher class than goblins.

The feel of the sword, the rotation, the movement, the draw, the guard, the stance, the counterattack.

She perfectly knew how to cut to ensure the enemy’s death.

As a swordswoman, she had already reached her peak.

Jin Jaehee moved quickly.

From the second basement parking lot to the sixth floor above ground.

She killed all the remaining monsters without missing a single one.

Her whole body was already stained with blood.

The arm holding the sword trembled slightly, and blood flowed from the cuts on her legs.

Since her player abilities had not yet been unlocked, her body was not yet in perfect condition.

Even a little dynamic movement put a lot of strain on her body.

But she couldn’t rest.

Jaehee looked towards the escalator.

Now, the 7th floor.

It had taken quite a bit of stamina to get here.

There were 5 floors of the shopping mall left.

“Hoo…”

Jaehee took a breath and headed towards the store on the opposite side.

But there were already two people looking at her.

One of them was a familiar face.

‘…That’s right. That person also started here with Sion.’

A somewhat welcome face.

Jaehee turned around, breathing heavily.

Knowing her past life, she knew.

The familiar face would not die here.

Because he was with Sion.

Of course, the person next to him would die, but she didn’t care.

She turned around and started climbing back to the 7th floor.

* * *

6th floor, sports specialty store.

“Kkweeeck…! Eeeck…”

The goblin’s face was completely crushed by Jooyeon’s kick.

Leaving the fallen goblin behind, Jooyeon pondered for a moment before kicking the corpse away.

Then, she picked up the chocolate bar from inside the counter and tore open the wrapper.

Crunch.

It was a small snack for the children prepared by the staff.

“Sebeom-ah. Are you okay?”

Jooyeon mumbled with the chocolate bar in her mouth and looked to the side.

There, her younger brother, Lee Sebeom, was smashing a goblin’s head with a baseball bat.

Squish! Squish-!

The goblin limped powerlessly and stopped breathing.

Then, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at Jooyeon.

Seeing his sister with a chocolate bar in her mouth in this chaos, Lee Sebeom frowned.

“…Noona [older sister – a Korean term of endearment]. How can you eat that in this situation?”

“…Ah, here comes the nagging again. You need to replenish your sugar when you use up your energy, okay? Tsk, that’s why you don’t know, being a military-dodger. You should have experienced a march.”

Lee Jooyeon was a former soldier from the 707th Special Mission Battalion [an elite special forces unit of the South Korean Army].

Looking at such a sister, Lee Sebeom sighed, holding his forehead.

“…No. How can you be leisurely eating a chocolate bar when lives are at stake and there are corpses everywhere? Noona. Why are you so… out of it?”

“…Not out of it. Pure. Pure.”

Lee Jooyeon chewed on the chocolate bar in her mouth and glared at her brother.

Then, Lee Sebeom got even more annoyed.

“That’s what you call being out of it! Haa-. I’m going crazy. Really, are we even the same DNA?”

Sebeom shook his head and passed Jooyeon.

Jooyeon frowned at her younger brother’s ‘bastard’ words.

Then, she kicked him in the butt.

Whack- Thud!

“Is that how you talk to your sister?”

Sebeom turned to Jooyeon without showing any pain.

“Yeah. That’s how I talk.”

Jooyeon frowned once and turned to the opposite corner.

There, a goblin that wasn’t completely dead was twitching.

Without hesitation, Jooyeon stomped on the monster’s face with her work boots.

Each time she stomped, green blood splattered everywhere.

Sebeom, who was watching the scene, took a steady breath and held his forehead.

Sebeom now had to admit that the world was going crazy.

‘Damn it….’

He couldn’t see anything outside the window because of the black fog.

He didn’t know the situation outside or inside, and only monsters were rushing in.

In the midst of all this, monsters that looked like they came straight out of a fantasy movie, or more precisely, the monsters from *The Lord of the Rings* that he had watched as a child, were pouring out in droves.

And those goblins were killing and eating humans.

First of all, he had to ensure the safety of his sister and himself.

In extreme situations, guaranteeing the right to survival was the top priority for humans.

‘…We need to form a group.’

When there is danger outside, forming a group is a human instinct.

And Lee Sebeom was faithful to that instinct.

Lee Sebeom and Lee Jooyeon needed companions to overcome this adversity together.

However, most people had died at the hands of the monsters, and some of the survivors had gone crazy and were just trembling in the corner.

It was the moment when Sebeom put on his bag and got up from his seat.

He heard footsteps.

At the same time, he heard the screams of monsters.

“Kyaaaaak!”

Thud!

As soon as he heard something falling, a woman was walking from the center.

“Hey, what are you doing.”

“Shh, shush! Be quiet.”

Lee Sebeom silenced Jooyeon and crouched down to examine the woman.

The woman was holding a sword and had killed several goblins in an instant.

And she walked forward calmly.

Sebeom thought about the woman.

‘…She’s too calm. I can’t believe she’s someone who’s facing this kind of thing for the first time today.’

She was as calm as someone who had been doing this for a long time.

In this situation, such composure was impossible.

The woman looked back at Sebeom and Jooyeon, then turned and headed to the 7th floor.

‘…Damn it.’

Tteudeuk- [onomatopoeia for tearing].

Sebeom bit his fingernails.

It was a habit he had when he was worried.

Lee Sebeom was conflicted.

She is dangerous.

At the same time, she was strong.

But Sebeom’s worries didn’t last long.

“Follow me, Noona.”

“Huh? Huh?”

Lee Sebeom moved as his instincts led him.

Like the siblings, there would be no one here who showed that level of adaptation.

And only those people will survive in this shopping mall.

* * *

7th floor, children’s specialty store.

I looked at the woman.

The woman was also looking at me.

There was no focus in the woman’s eyes.

And I could tell that she was exhausted from the faint panting I could hear.

However, I couldn’t tell if that woman’s gaze was fixed on me among all these people.

Coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidence.

Every event has a reason and a consequence.

If she had simply come down here and found people, she would have looked around or given a look of relief.

But the woman was only staring at me.

As if she had known me for a long time.

“Miss! Come in here! Hurry!”

Kwon Kyungsoo shouted at the woman.

The woman looked back at Kwon Kyungsoo.

And slowly approached the barricade.

Geugeugeugeug……. [onomatopoeia for a dragging sound]

The sound of her blade dragging on the shopping mall floor was sharp.

“Miss. A-Are you okay? Blood…!”

Kwon Kyungsoo was worried about the blood all over the woman’s body.

He reached out to the woman.

He seemed to have judged that she would not be able to cross the barricade because she was exhausted.

But the woman climbed onto the barricade in an instant and crossed over.

It was amazing athletic ability.

Inside the barricade, she muttered.

“…Even if you neutralize a goblin, you must make sure it’s dead.”

Pook! [onomatopoeia for stabbing]

Suddenly, she stabbed the monster’s neck with her sword.

A girl nearby was startled and hesitated a little.

I frowned at the sight.

The monster, which I thought was definitely dead, twitched and died.

The woman stabbed the fallen monsters one by one.

Kwon Kyungsoo, who had been watching the scene, stepped forward and started helping the woman stab the monsters again.

At that moment.

Several monsters, who were thought to be dead, slowly got up and rushed at the people.

“Kyaaaaak!!!”

“Kkieeeeck!!!”

The monster rushed at a man nearby, pointing its sharp claws.

The man seemed flustered and stepped back.

And Jin Jaehee drew her sword and cut down the two rushing monsters in an instant.

The heads were severed.

The two fallen heads rolled and stopped in front of a man.

“Ugh…! Uweek!”

The man who faced it vomited.

Some others couldn’t bear the burning inside.

“Goblins have excellent regenerative abilities, so you can only completely neutralize them by cutting off their heads.”

The woman muttered.

The woman wasn’t specifying anyone, but for some reason, it felt like she was talking to me.

Kwon Kyungsoo, who was next to her, asked her.

“Y-You’re fighting goblins, after all. Like something out of a novel. Right?”

“Yeah.”

There was no strength in the woman’s words.

She also didn’t seem to have the will to speak again.

Her expression did not change, as if she were a mannequin or a robot, not moving according to human will.

She had such a beautiful appearance, and her composure was different from that of any ordinary person.

Fear or mental anxiety, which anyone would naturally experience, could not be found in her.

The uncanny valley [a hypothesis in aesthetics which holds that when features look and act almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among some observers].

A theory that when humans see a non-human being, the higher the similarity between it and humans, the higher the favorability, but when it reaches a certain level, it rather feels unpleasant.

I was feeling unpleasant looking at her.

I watched her closely.

No, it was closer to surveillance.

Several minutes passed.

I was still holding the mop and watching the woman.

Then, the woman finally cut off the breath of the last remaining monster called a goblin.

Pook-! [onomatopoeia for stabbing]

Green blood splattered everywhere.

Finally, silence came.

The woman was covered in goblin blood, and her breathing was a little rough.

Then she came back again.

To where the people were.

The woman slumped down on one side of the barricade and was brushing her hair, which was covered in blood and sweat.

Composure in action.

Familiarity with killing.

Everything was natural.

I don’t know which floor she came up from, but as if this was the final destination, the woman came up to the 7th floor and stayed here.

I went a little closer.

“You know a lot. About monsters.”

I was testing her.

Above all, the actions she showed didn’t make sense.

In a situation where ‘life’ was at stake, the woman’s actions could be seen as a saving action, but I had to read a higher level of thought.

Perhaps the woman felt like a non-human being like K before this tutorial started.

“I’ve just experienced it.”

The woman’s answer was simple and clear.

That answer was also strange.

Experience.

I went a little closer and asked again.

“Which floor did you come from?”

Since she didn’t use honorifics, I quickly dropped the formalities [stopped using honorifics].

She didn’t care either.

“Basement 2.”

“From there to here?”

“Yeah.”

The woman took out a cigarette from her inside pocket and put one in her mouth.

Chik, chik [sound of a lighter].

She tried to light the lighter a few times, but it didn’t work well.

The woman shook the lighter a few times with her hand and then lit the cigarette.

If I were to be with someone with this level of adaptability, she could be a good companion along with Kwon Kyungsoo.

One concern was that the woman was wearing a real sword.

Real sword.

In Korea, it is an unusual weapon to have unless you are in a specific profession.

The woman had a real sword inside the shopping mall.

And she could wield that real sword freely.

For now, she was a considerable force just by looking at her combat power.

But I didn’t know what she was thinking.

Or what purpose she had.

If it was contrary to my purpose.

I would take out my gun without hesitation.

But I was convinced by her next words.

The woman said to me carefully, with a cigarette in her mouth.

“Your brother. I tried to find him, but I couldn’t.”

The woman was talking to me.

I couldn’t fully understand what that meant to me.

Even though I met the woman for the first time today, I was bothered by the fact that she ‘tried’ to find my brother.

Then does that mean she knew this kind of thing was going to happen?

With those thoughts, my heart seemed to sink.

The woman in front of me knows my brother.

Besides, she mentioned my brother first.

The woman put down the bag she was carrying and took out the knives in the bag.

There were also simple medical supplies among them.

The woman, who showed them to me, continued.

“Keep them. We’re going to be fighting humans, not monsters, here.”

Then a student approached the woman and asked carefully.

“Y-You have to fight other people… What does that mean?”

The student’s voice was trembling, and everyone here was paying attention to the woman.

The woman closed the bag and looked at the ceiling and said.

“It means killing. So we don’t die.”

Meaningful words.

And the woman who said those words carefully turned her head.

“…!”

“Gasp…!”

Everyone was surprised by my actions.

The woman only turned her head and looked at her temple.

Deureuk- [sound of a hammer being cocked]. Click.

I pulled the hammer.

A bullet was loaded.

I was still pointing a gun at her temple and asked.

“Brother?”

In the cold and calm atmosphere, the woman raised her eyes and looked at me.

I put my finger on the trigger and asked again.

“How do you know I have a brother?”

(To be continued in the next episode)