The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 97

Guerilla Warfare (3)

One by one, bodies piled up.

On the marble stairs, men and women alike fell.

Bright red blood splattered against the emergency exit signs.

In the open space at the center of the stairwell, reaching down to the second basement level, their blood poured down like a waterfall.

The warriors, drenched in blood, gasped for air.

Gas spewed from fire extinguishers, mixing with screams and shouts.

A chaotic heap of corpses accumulated.

They resembled a pile of discarded clothes.

Within that pile, many awaited death, their eyes barely flickering.

Meanwhile, Man-gyeong’s barricade couldn’t indefinitely hold back the onrushing warriors.

The soldiers slowly retreated.

From the 5.5th floor to the 6.5th floor, then to the 7.5th floor.

Man-gyeong’s defensive line gradually fell back.

However, each retreat came at a heavy price for the warriors.

Kim Jung-eun, the commander of Doan, could only watch as his subordinates paid that price.

“Ugh…! Aaaargh!!!”

Kim Jung-eun fled the apartment complex as if his life depended on it.

As he fled, Man-gyeong didn’t let the warriors escape easily.

Man-gyeong’s subjugation force used ‘pulleys’ to descend. [A system of ropes and wheels used for controlled descent.]

These pulleys allowed movement only from upper to lower floors, controlled by operators above.

It was similar to rappelling used by special police forces.

Man-gyeong’s elite squad, led by Choi Myung-joon, began hunting warriors as soon as they reached the lower floors.

They smeared their faces with black charcoal and drew their swords.

Sseueung-.

The warriors of Doan, hardened by countless battles against various factions?

The veterans of numerous fights?

None of that mattered.

The moment they faced Man-gyeong’s elite squad….

“Aaaaargh-!!!”

“Aaaack!!!”

…the warriors simply died, one by one.

Swish-! Thud! Crack…! Clench!

Each thrust of the elite squad’s swords brought another warrior down.

A combat style precisely targeting the enemy’s weaknesses, taught by Choi Myung-joon.

Stab the neck, immediately move to stab the stomach, then immediately move to stab the thigh and groin.

Stab, stab, and stab again.

No slashing.

Only stabbing.

The elite squad killed the warriors with incredible speed and overwhelming lethality.

The elite squad was a combat unit specialized in ‘narrow terrain’ since their days at the police station.

Now, the momentum of the battle had completely shifted to Man-gyeong.

“Hah… hah… huff…!”

Thud-!

Kim Jung-eun, after running for a while, tripped over a corpse.

His left cheek was torn, and his head was spinning, but he managed to lift himself.

The sight he faced left him speechless.

The dark apartment complex.

Screams echoing from all directions.

Warriors throwing themselves out of the windows.

Above them, countless of Man-gyeong’s bolts raining down.

Warriors helplessly struck by the bolts, dying.

Warriors supporting the bleeding, exiting the complex.

Kim Jung-eun could do nothing, even as he watched them from right in front.

Nothing at all, really nothing at all.

The one-sided battle continued for a full three hours.

Unable to bear the sight of their powerless commander, the warriors of Doan began to retreat on their own.

* * *

I raised my head and gazed at the horizon beyond the city.

It seemed the long night was ending.

The red sun was rising.

I turned my gaze from there and scanned the complex again.

Crows had already flown in from all over, pecking at the corpses of the dead warriors.

From fresh eyeballs to exposed flesh.

A subordinate’s voice was heard.

“The enemies are retreating, they say. We have won.”

I was still sitting precariously on the edge of the rooftop, surveying the complex.

Won, huh.

“Victory…”

I turned my head to look at the subordinate.

The company commander, aware of my gaze, shrank back.

He looked like he had just come from battle.

His body was stained with blood.

I pointed to Beomgye, their base on the opposite side of the Anyangcheon Stream [a local river], and said.

“…Do you see it?”

The subordinate’s eyes followed my finger, and I continued.

“Until we seize that place… don’t call it a victory. They will come again. Prepare for the second defense.”

We can’t let our guard down until we unify Anyang.

We will continue this ugly battle.

Ugly, so ugly.

We must fight desperately against those who seek to enslave us and those who wield weapons, crazed with pleasure.

We can only survive by fighting and winning.

The subordinate said.

“What should we do with the prisoners?”

At the word ‘prisoners,’ I organized the thoughts I had been mulling over for a long time.

It’s not just them who are ugly. We, who fight back, resemble them too.

We have been making weapons in a frenzy and killing them without a shred of remorse.

In the end, we have come this far because we are all ugly.

Becoming even more ugly will be the power to advance to the next round.

I, who lead Man-gyeong, will become even more ugly as a ruler. So ugly that they won’t dare to covet us.

When they see my actions, my face, everything about me, it will make their knees buckle and give them goosebumps.

That way, we will keep those bastards from even approaching.

Having made that decision, I opened my mouth.

“…Hang them all by the windows, without exception. So they can see them well. We need to break their morale.”

The subordinate hesitated for a moment, then spoke again.

“Among them are the old and… those who have no will to fight…”

“Without exception.”

I glared at him and emphasized again.

“…Without exception. Understood?”

Then he was silent for a moment, averted his gaze, and then bowed his head and answered.

“…I will obey.”

* * *

Bisan, Doan’s base.

Kim Jung-eun, who had fled from Pamian Apartment, slumped down and gasped for breath with a blank expression.

His hands trembled.

He slowly turned his head and looked at the apartment complex across the Anyangcheon Stream.

From morning till noon.

The screams of his subordinates echoed across the Anyangcheon Stream to Doan’s base here.

Kim Jung-eun covered his head at their painful screams.

It wasn’t because of guilt for not protecting his subordinates.

It was because of the despair of not having achieved anything.

Kim Jung-eun cautiously asked a subordinate beside him.

“How many… died…?”

“…I, I don’t know. About 3,800 warriors have returned…”

“What…?”

Kim Jung-eun looked at his subordinate in surprise.

They lost 2,200 men in the first battle.

Kim Jung himself knew best what this meant.

The subordinate cautiously asked Kim Jung.

“Shall I… report it?”

Then Kim Jung-eun burst into anger.

“Report? Hey, you… Haa… Report? Why report? To whom?”

“I was thinking we should request reinforcements from the lord…”

“Shut up! Are you kidding me? Why should I report that you guys can’t fight? Huh?!!”

Kim Jung’s pupils were shaking wildly as he shouted.

He had to prevent the report at all costs.

Because Park Ji-soo’s anger meant execution.

Doan’s execution system was truly brutal, and Kim Jung-eun didn’t want to face such an end.

He had to produce results here, no matter what.

“Ugh… ugh…! Treacherous bastards.”

Man-gyeong’s soldiers were definitely on a different level from the Uiwang forces he had faced before.

They were leading the battle intelligently.

Originally, he would have set up defensive forces based on the apartment walls, but Man-gyeong instead turned the inside of the apartment into a fortress and went on the defensive.

It was like a swamp; once you fell in, you couldn’t get out.

The ruthless attacks of those bastards that Kim Jung faced were so terrifying that his hands and feet trembled.

However, it was also impossible to bypass Bisan-dong and directly attack Man-gyeong.

Because Park Ji-soo’s order to Kim Jung was ‘Seize Bisan.’

Even if he bypassed it, it would be like giving his rear to them.

If that happened, Man-gyeong’s forces and the forces stationed in Pamian would launch a pincer attack, and Kim Jung’s forces would be helpless.

From Doan’s perspective, they had to seize the Pamian apartment complex, Bisan, without fail.

Kim Jung-eun had to devise a plan to break through Man-gyeong’s barricades.

‘I have to do it… I have to do it… I have to do it here…!’

Thus, his foolish actions began.

He personally showed what happens when a stupid person becomes a commander.

* * *

Smooth supply and well-trained soldiers.

However, the warriors of Doan, exposed to an unfamiliar combat environment, were bound to be at a disadvantage.

To enter the apartment complex, they had to endure Man-gyeong’s barrage of attacks starting from the Anyangcheon Stream.

Even if they endured that, crossed the stream, and entered the apartment complex, it was the same.

They couldn’t break through Man-gyeong’s barricades built inside the apartment.

Even if they somehow managed to break through the barricade defending the 6th floor, the situation didn’t change.

If they barely passed the 6th floor, they now had to face the defensive forces stationed on the 7th floor.

If they passed the 7th floor, then the 8th floor, after the 8th floor, the 9th floor… 10th floor… 11th floor….

From the 9th floor to the 22nd floor, they had to pass a total of 14 defensive positions in order to seize ‘one building’ of the apartment complex.

Was that all?

There were a total of 36 buildings in the apartment complex.

To put it simply, there were 648 defensive positions built in Bisan.

648 defensive positions.

A defensive position as dense as a spider web, far more solid than the Great Wall of China, the Maginot Line of France [a pre-World War II defensive fortification], or the Nakdong River defense line [a key defensive line during the Korean War].

It wasn’t easy to retreat, blocked by that defensive position.

Even if they went down the stairs, they were met with a hail of enemy arrows, and they couldn’t go up the stairs of the apartment where the enemy was gathered.

Even if they barely made it outside, bolts and arrows rained down from all the apartment windows. They couldn’t withstand the pouring hail of Man-gyeong’s arrows.

They also used other methods.

Doan also had catapults for siege warfare, though not as many as Man-gyeong.

However, the accuracy and range of the catapults they fired were significantly inferior, and even if they hit, they couldn’t completely destroy the concrete structure of the apartment.

It was also impossible to blow up the entire apartment with explosives because they were prohibited by the system.

It was also impossible to bring a lot of dirt and pile it up to climb.

They tried to break through the stair barricades using long spears and all sorts of weapons, but this was also impossible.

From the first attack until now.

Over the past three days, Kim Jung-eun had used countless methods, but none of them worked.

And each time, he fell into despair.

‘It can’t be…! It can’t be…! It can’t be…! It can’t be…! It can’t be…! It can’t be…!!!’

Kim Jung-eun had fought in countless battles so far, but this was the first time he had encountered such a situation.

It was as if he was being played in the hands of the enemy commander.

No matter what method he used, Man-gyeong’s lord anticipated and responded to everything.

“…”

Kim Jung’s forces, who had set out to conquer Bisan with great fanfare, now numbered only 1,893 men.

Approximately 4,000 warriors had been taken prisoner or killed.

Despondent, Kim Jung-eun silently looked up at the Pamian apartment complex from their base across the Anyangcheon Stream.

The apartment complex, which he used to come and go from like eating a meal in the original world, now looked like a giant gate to hell.

No, that was a kind of turret.

It didn’t move, but it was the greatest strategic weapon of the apocalypse, armed to the teeth in all directions.

To compare it to modern times, it was comparable to an aircraft carrier.

Most of all, what he feared most was Park Ji-soo, who would blame him for his defeat, rather than the defeat itself.

“Kyaaaaack…! Kahack…! Cough!”

A woman’s scream echoed from the distant sky.

Man-gyeong’s soldiers were executing the warriors by hanging them from the window frames at regular intervals every day.

Thanks to this, there had never been a time when the screams of the warriors were not heard on this battlefield.

As Zion intended, the screams were instilling fear in the warriors of Doan.

The same was true for Commander Kim Jung.

Kim Jung-eun cautiously asked in a fearful tone.

“H, how many have we killed so far…?”

If many of Doan’s warriors had died, then many of Man-gyeong’s soldiers must have died as well.

But the subordinate’s words were truly shocking.

“What has been confirmed is, 104… men.”

Both the subordinate who spoke the number and Kim Jung who heard it couldn’t help but be surprised.

While more than 4,000 of their allies were dying, only 104 enemies had died.

This was the eyewitness account of the warriors, so duplicate cases witnessed by individual warriors were not counted.

It was a crushing defeat.

“Ugh… no… no…!”

Kim Jung-eun covered his head in fear.

Historically, there was no general who had recorded such a great defeat.

The moment Park Ji-soo knew this, he thought he would not survive.

His tongue was parched, and his head was spinning.

It was then.

Kim Jung-eun gradually raised his head at the crackling sound coming from somewhere.

There, the warriors of Doan were lighting a fire in a drum.

It was to boil water.

Sparks flew out little by little.

The sparks that flew onto the paper box nearby scorched it black.

Some warriors stomped on the paper box to put out the embers.

Kim Jung’s mind flashed at the sight. He had come up with a clever plan.

“…Fire. Yes, fire.”

Thump-!

Kim Jung-eun approached the fire as if possessed and stared at it.

His subordinate approached him worriedly.

“Commander…?”

Kim Jung-eun looked at the burning flames and then looked at the apartment complex on the opposite side.

The corners of Kim Jung’s mouth twitched.

“We can just set it on fire…? Y, the smoke goes up.”

Kim Jung-eun turned to look at his subordinate.

At his eerie smile, the subordinate trembled and stepped back.

“That bastard…! That lord of Man-gyeong, that son of a bitch, wouldn’t know we’d set it on fire, would he? Right? Wow-! Am I a genius?? Hey, set it all on fire. Oil, yes, gather the oil! Quickly!”

He then grinned, revealing all his teeth.

“I’m going to make them all roasted pigs. Hehehe.”

(Continued in the next episode)