Chapter 99

“No, this, uh…”

“It’s alright…”

Baron Jorge, with a smile on his face, insisted he’s fine despite his completely disheveled appearance. A stream of blood was still trickling down from his mouth.

How did it come to this? Why? How? My mind went blank and my breath started to quicken.

“Elixir.”

Yes. Elixir. There was an elixir. The reward from the second floor. I hadn’t used it yet. I could still save him.

“Just a moment, please wait a moment.”

With trembling hands, I reached into my pocket and took out a small glass bottle. Yes, even though it’s the lowest grade, it’s still an elixir. This kind of wound...

“What?”

The ornate glass bottle was empty. The golden liquid that should have been inside was nowhere to be found.

“…”

Looking closely, I noticed a crack in the bottle. The liquid must have leaked out through the crack.

“No way…”

That cool sensation I felt during the battle. The feeling of fatigue leaving my body while my focus increased.

“No… no…”

The elixir bottle must have broken during the fierce battle. The elixir had been steadily leaking out, healing my body.

“No, this can’t be…”

It had certainly been helpful. But because of it, I couldn’t save Baron Jorge now.

To be blunt, it didn’t matter if the other otherworlders all died. I was planning to go back anyway. I felt pity for them, but they were essentially strangers to me, and I had no deeper feelings for them.

But Baron Jorge... we had been through a lot together. Even though I tried not to get attached, a bond had formed. I had promised to protect him. And now, that person was dying right in front of me. The situation I had feared the most had become reality.

“W-William. William Smith. You can use your healing power, can’t you? What are you doing? Someone’s dying right now.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Do something… anything…”

I knew I was being unreasonable. William Smith was utterly exhausted. He had probably used his healing abilities to the point where he couldn’t move anymore.

Should I turn back? After coming this far? I need to see this through to the end, don’t I? Should I just let him die?

Tap.

Baron Jorge gently grasped my tormented hand.

“…Jun-ho. I have… something to apologize for….”

He spoke in a strained voice, each word squeezed out with great effort.

“That day… on the third night… at the entrance…”

I immediately knew what he was talking about.

The third night. Just before the monsters breached the walls.

Baron Jorge and I had discussed various things in the corridor, including our future plans.

“That time… I lied…”

Baron Jorge’s lips, pale as a sheet, moved with difficulty.

“I said the monsters didn’t particularly target us…”

“…”

“…But they were definitely targeting us… the otherworlders… I could feel their eyes on us…”

A single tear rolled down from Baron Jorge’s eye. His gaze was filled with regret.

“I’m sorry… I was afraid you’d abandon us… that all my people would die… so I lied to you…”

With those final words, he gripped my hand tightly.

“Thank you… and I’m sorry…”

And then he stopped breathing.

‘That’s what you wanted to say?’

“…Ha.”

It was absurd.

“I knew that… all along…”

***

-00:15:02

Sir Thomas covered the body with a cloth.

Baron Jorge had pushed his endangered subjects aside and took the injury himself. Now I understood why the otherworlders had been so quiet. It was a moment of silence.

“…Are all of you standing in the hallway to honor the Baron?”

“…No. We are using the rooms for other purposes.”

“…I see.”

Currently, the hallway is filled with over a hundred otherworlders. But that means, out of the original three hundred or so, only a hundred have survived.

When monsters die, they turn into clusters of light. But otherworlders and players leave behind bodies.

Where could all those bodies be?

“…”

I could only join the silent procession. What could I possibly say in this situation? If I opened my mouth, only sighs filled with sorrow would come out.

Didn’t we do well? Wasn’t it because of my efforts that we managed to save this many?

Such positive thinking is impossible. In this situation, there are no winners and losers. There are only losers and more tragic losers.

As I gritted my teeth and stared silently at the floor.

“Jun-ho.”

A voice calling my name made me slowly turn around.

Baek Da-hye.

Baek Da-hye, whose eyes were so swollen and red they looked like they might burst, was waiting for me by the door. Her shoulder had a chunk missing, and though it had healed, it was clear William Smith had done something to treat it only temporarily.

“Jun-ho.”

She repeated my name, her voice hollow. It wasn’t just her shoulder; it felt as if something inside her had been carved out.

But I was struggling too. I wasn’t in a position to have a conversation with her right now.

“…Da-hye, I... I’m really struggling right now. Maybe not right now, but can we contact each other separately in the real world…”

“Jun-ho.”

Suddenly, a foreboding thought overwhelmed me. A chilling sensation crawled up my spine and gripped the back of my neck tightly.

“…No, right?”

“…”

“Please tell me it’s not true.”

“…”

“Ah.”

Da-hye’s silence was deafening. Her downcast eyes and the absence of a response filled me with dread. It was as if the weight of the world had come crashing down all at once. I could feel my heart sinking, and the grim reality of the situation became undeniable.

***

The man with glasses lay on the floor. His expression was peaceful, but the space where his lower body should have been was empty.

It wasn’t just the man with glasses. Dozens of players lay sprawled on the floor, covered with cloth.

“I wanted to tell you our story.”

Baek Da-hye began speaking calmly.

“After you pushed back the monsters, the players were conflicted.”

Should they follow Kim Jun-ho? Or should they stay and hold their ground?

If they stayed, survival was almost certain. They had held out well so far, and with Kim Jun-ho reducing the number of monsters, there would be no major threats in the immediate future. Even with winged monsters, as long as they were indoors, it wouldn’t be difficult to fend them off.

But if they stayed... the otherworlders would be massacred. After moving to the second floor, they had no means of protection. If Kim Jun-ho protected them, it might be different, but judging by the final screams they heard, he was not in his right mind.

“At that moment... S-she insisted that we step up and help.”

Baek Da-hye gestured towards one of the bodies. It was a familiar face. The woman with the protruding jaw who had argued that they should not sacrifice themselves for the otherworlders.

The woman who had insisted on abandoning all the otherworlders had changed her mind at the very last moment.

When a strong advocate took the lead, the mood shifted. The players burst out of their rooms and headed for the second floor.

“The situation wasn’t good. Although you had cleared a path temporarily, that was it. Monsters began flooding through the remaining corridors.”

They herded the otherworlders into a straight corridor and the players guarded both ends. They made the best decision they could in a crisis.

“But…”

Blocking the entrance to a narrow room and blocking a single corridor were different matters. Unless they were terrifyingly powerful like Kim Jun-ho, the average players couldn’t withstand the pressure.

After some of the frightened ones fled, those who remained had to grit their teeth and endure without any chance of support. And so they died.

“Those who died... they were the ones who stayed until the end. There are probably more who ran away. They’re likely hiding somewhere, waiting for the time to pass.”

The people who did the right thing died. The cowards who ran away survived.

“I think you made the right decision, Jun-ho. I believe you did what you had to do.”

She was the woman who had consistently shown sympathy for the otherworlders. The same woman whom the man with glasses had always emphasized had a soft heart.

“But... Kyung Nam died trying to protect me. Now, I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.”

This woman, with dead eyes, was quietly looking down at the man with glasses.

“...I’m sorry.”

It’s my fault.

I pushed an unreasonable plan, thinking that we had to protect the otherworlders.

These people weren’t regressors like me who had experienced tens or hundreds of battles.

These people didn’t deliberately choose the hardest difficulties to overcome like I did.

These people didn’t have grand goals of climbing the tower like I did.

This was only the fourth floor. While the tutorial was hellish, it was still too early for people to be sufficiently skilled. I was only relatively adept because I had used my regressions more effectively.

“It’s… my fault…”

Even if they hadn’t cooperated with my plan, these people did exceptionally well for regular individuals who had just reached the fourth floor.

But they were so kind-hearted that they overextended themselves to protect the otherworlders. And they died for it.

“...”

As I hung my head low, a message window appeared before my eyes.

00:00:00

As I slowly lifted my bowed head, I found myself back on the 1st floor. I wasn’t even given the chance to properly ask for Baek Da-hye’s forgiveness.

Thud.

The first floor was transformed into the form of a luxury hotel room I had temporarily set up, and a large chest lay on the other side of the room.

It must be the reward for clearing the 4th floor.

“…”

I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it. I collapsed onto the bed.

Taking slow breaths, I quietly began to cry.

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

When my eyes were finally swollen from crying, I started to plan my next steps.

Choices. Choices. Choices.

All this devastation was the result of my choices. Some were wrong, and some were right.

Ultimately, people died. Because of my choices.

But I am a regressor. I have the opportunity to correct my wrong choices.

By repeating the floor over and over again, I can eventually derive the perfect solution I desire.

Yes, there’s no need to apologize. I can set things right.

“…”

But… When will I stop? When will I be satisfied?

Do I really need to perfectly clear the 4th floor?

Let’s say I save Baron Jorge. Let’s say I save the man with glasses. But what about the others? Do I really need to save everyone?

The tutorial? I achieved perfect results in the tutorial. But the 4th floor is different from the tutorial.

The 4th floor lasts five days. Repeating it ten times means fifty days. Repeating it a hundred times means five hundred days. And if people die… The negative impact on my mental state is immense.

Do I have to go through these horrific experiences repeatedly to save all these people?

I made small compromises on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

I didn’t regress on the 2nd floor because I was afraid to meet the archangel again, and on the 3rd floor, I didn’t regress because I feared what would happen if I saw Dok Su-Hee again.

Compromise is easy.

These people would have died pointlessly if it weren’t for me. It’s right to think that my involvement allowed more of them to survive.

I’ve done enough. There’s no need to push myself further. Let’s just compromise reasonably.

“No.”

I clenched my teeth. The thought of the man with glasses’ body I just saw. The thought of Baron Jorge, who had held my hand tightly. And… And thinking of Choi Ji-won, who smiled in the vacant lot during the tutorial, I decided.

“I have to.”

This is different from the 2nd and 3rd floors. This is a matter of human lives. Just glossing over this now is akin to creating a small crack in my conscience.

Even if I seem fine now, I will undoubtedly break down someday from this moment on. I can’t compromise.

Of course, saving everyone on this insanely difficult floor seems… Impossible.

But I have to do it.

“If not me, then who?”

Because it’s something only I can do.

– – – End of Chapter – – -

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