Chapter 154

“Uh?”

“Huh?”

Before the other players could even react properly, the elevator doors slid shut. What mattered now was cleanup. The three stragglers could probably be handled easily… so I just had to convince the short-haired girl?

Vrrrrrm.

The elevator kept moving, indifferent to my internal debate. After a short while, the doors began to open slowly. But before the black mannequin holding a club could even rise to its feet.

Shwick! Thwack!

The Dwarf-made sword I threw struck the mannequin right in the crown of its head, and before the elevator doors could fully open, they shut again. Should I not be tossing around high-end swords like that? Who cares—I’m going to regress anyway. One of the perks of being a regressor: no need to conserve your gear.

Wait—what if the other players attack me? Should I go back and retrieve that sword?

Vrrrrrm.

But before I could act, the elevator started moving again. Sure, I nailed the test speedrun… but I lost my sword. Damn it. I should’ve just taken it out quietly instead of showing off.

About 30 seconds later, sword or no sword, the elevator doors opened again—and four players stood there with rather strange expressions on their faces, waiting for me.

“I mean, seriously? Choosing difficulty level 1?”

“What the hell are you trying to pull?”

At first glance, they seemed pissed, but their expressions were more… complicated. Maybe they had a shred of conscience left. Looked like they realized they weren’t in any position to blame me.

“Look, aren’t you guys the ones who can’t even pull your own weight right now? Hm? And you think you have the right to raise your voice?”

“…”

They’d already seen that I outclassed them in power, and to be honest, they weren’t exactly saints either. Asking me to “help just a little~” because they figured they couldn’t clear the stage themselves? That’s straight-up crazy.

“Wait, doesn’t this mean… we’re all gonna die?”

“Yeah, we’re all dead if this keeps up…”

Their tone had dropped noticeably, voices filled with regret. They clearly understood the situation: fail the test, and it’s game over.

“Who said failing the test means death?”

“…What?”

“I’m saying… It’s not necessarily the end.”

<12th Floor>

Pass a total of three rounds of “tests.” Each person can only participate once each round. If the final test is failed, no rewards will be granted.

All rewards are distributed individually after clearing the 12th floor.

“If all of us pick [1] difficulty, we can survive. We just won’t get the rewards if we fail the test. Nowhere does it say we’ll die.”

All I had to do was explain the loophole I’d discovered. What if I’m wrong? What if failing the test does mean death? Then I’ll just regress again. Right now, I have to trust that my theory’s right.

“We can still live even if we fail the test?”

“If that’s true…”

Hearing my explanation, the man with the noticeable mole and the acne guy visibly relaxed. Seems like they’d been trying to figure out a way to survive from the start.

“But… if we fail the final test, we lose all the rewards…”

The glasses girl, on the other hand, still seemed hung up on it. It was true—if we failed the last test, no rewards would be granted. That meant the loot from the first and second rounds would be wiped too.​

“So you’re going to carry the rest of us, is that it?”

“…Fine.”

But that too could be dealt with by simply reminding her how shameless she was being. Seriously, are you in any position to argue with me?

Of course, there was one person here completely free of blame.

“…What about me?”

The short-haired woman. She had done her fair share without issue, never once tried to dump the responsibility on me, and didn’t cause any trouble. Sure, even with her help, we probably wouldn’t have cleared the test… but from her perspective, this must feel unfair.

Honestly, I didn’t owe her anything. But still—

“Here, take this.”

“What is it? El… huh?”

“It’s rare. Just keep it for now.”

​For smoother progress ahead, I gave her a precious elixir—one that I hoped she’d keep safe until I regressed again.

“Alright, let’s look on the bright side. We almost all died here, but at least we made it out alive, yeah?”

“…Got it.”

Whether my words worked or not, the players began entering the elevator one by one. If things went completely south from here… the last person might have to take on all the remaining numbers alone and be forced into [126].

​

[1]

​

But whether it was luck or fate, the number input never glitched out, even up to the final person. When the short-haired woman finally stepped in, the elevator panel showed total remaining points as:

[125]

“…”

“…”

Was that a simple test failure? Or… was it some kind of hidden clear condition? I swallowed hard without even realizing it.

– You have cleared all tests. However, you failed the final test.

– As a penalty, no rewards will be granted.

– 12th floor cleared.

“Whew…”

“We… we’re alive.”

A glowing blue portal formed in the center of the room. Luckily, my theory turned out to be correct.

“Alright then, I’m heading out.”

Without waiting for the others’ reactions, I stepped straight into the glowing blue portal. This lab-like interior was seriously driving me crazy. I needed to get back home—now.

After quickly passing through two more portals, I finally found myself back in my familiar studio apartment. Now that I noticed it, even the air tasted different. A little musty, maybe, but it had that comforting, lived-in scent. Yeah… this is it.

Wait—where’s Ji-won?

Her presence was scattered around the apartment—slippers by the door, a half-read book on the table—but she herself was nowhere in sight. I froze in place, slightly alarmed.

Beep-beep-beep-beep.

The door lock buzzed from the front entrance.

“…You’re back!”

Holding a convenience store bag in one hand and her trusty ‘Bung-bung’ in the other, Choi Ji-won’s eyes went wide when she saw me. She must’ve thought it was an intruder—her sword was already halfway out, just in case.

“Jun-ho!”

She carefully leaned Bung-bung against the wall, then ran straight into my arms. God, I missed this. Her warmth, her scent—everything.

“What happened? Why did it take you so long? I was so worried…”

“Well…”

She smelled freshly showered, a soft floral scent clinging to her. Her complexion was a bit pale and tired, but she looked clean, her clothes neat and tidy.

Thank God. I was afraid she’d been suffering too much while I was gone, but she seemed better than I expected. Not completely fine, sure—but not shattered either. The moment that relief hit me, my eyelids grew heavy.

“There’s… there’s a lot I need to tell you. But can we talk after a nap? You seem like you’re doing okay, so…”

“Y-Yeah, of course. Sleep. Rest.”

Still holding her close, I laid down on the bed. The warmth of being back in the everyday world, the familiar scent of my pillow, the soft blanket… The buzzing in my brain from all the stress finally went quiet.

“…I kept this place in shape ’cause I never knew when you’d come back, you idiot…”

And with that, I fell into a deep sleep.

***

Two days after clearing the 12th floor…

Ji-won and I didn’t talk about anything heavy—we just focused on resting. We ate delicious food, went out to see fun things, and bought strange trinkets on the street. There’s a difference between lazy rest and intentional rest. We did the latter. We rested hard. So much so that those two days felt like they flew by.

After repeating the same survival cycle in a cramped space for so long, simply spending time with someone I loved made me happy. This… this was life.

“God, I finally feel human again.”

Once I felt like my mind and body had fully calmed down, I finally opened up about everything that had happened on the 12th floor. How it took eleven whole days before someone else joined the stage. How we suffered endlessly because of one liar. How we eventually thought of the option to “escape”—and how that path had brought me back here.

Ji-won listened intently, nodding again and again, her eyes full of empathy and understanding.

When I finally reached the end of my story—a tale both long and short—she looked at me with eyes slightly tinged red.

“…You’ve been through so much.”

As she gently wrapped her arms around me, I closed my eyes and savored the warmth of her embrace. I felt… happy.

“Jun-ho.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I have a gift for you.”

Wiping away a stray tear, Choi Ji-won pulled out her phone and began typing quickly with a series of soft clicks. A few moments later, her phone began to ring. The caller ID read: ‘The Association’.

“While you were gone, I started thinking—what could I do to help?”

She held out the ringing phone toward me, swaying it gently side to side with a little grin.

“So I went ahead and negotiated up to the point where I’d become an Association-affiliated player. Just far enough that I could back out clean if I needed to.”

“…No way.”

“Yup.”

Then she looked at me tenderly.

“You needed intel, didn’t you?”

Thanks to the groundwork Ji-won laid while I was gone, we now had a way to exploit the Association for information, over and over again, through each regression.

– – End of Chapter ––

 

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