Chapter 32
"Extrasensory perception?"
Just like in the previous run, Gorgodio reacted.
"Yes! It's like... how should I put it, a vague sense of the presence of those horrid bastards! I survived that monster hospital with this ability! It'll be useful!"
"Did you really manifest a superpower? Understood! Let's go up together!"
"Hey, musclehead! Are you sure that's okay?"
"We're short-handed right now!"
"Well, that's true!"
Come to think of it, he'd kept making comments that sounded like they were short on manpower. Hold on. The nun talked about the True Ancestor last time, didn't she?
Was the fake Administration Bureau in the same situation, short on manpower because there were simply too many enemies to deal with? Whatever the case, it was fine. For now, it seemed I'd been accepted for that reason.
"Follow me!"
I immediately followed the two of them.
"Looks like the organization called the Administration Bureau is short on manpower!"
"Yeah! Very short! From what I can tell, you'd be perfect as a rookie!"
Quras said, continuing to scan left and right.
A rookie, huh.
Jaaldi had said the same thing.
"We usually recruit people who get caught up in strange phenomena and survive! But just looking at you, I can tell you'll make a fine rookie!"
"Let's finish this job first and then think about it!"
"Do that!"
To be honest, I still had no idea how capable this real Administration Bureau was.
In that situation, was joining as a rookie really the right choice?
Of course, whether it was right or wrong, joining would probably be better if I wanted information. There was still far too much I didn't know. All kinds of ghost stories were running rampant in this world, and the Administration Bureau was the organization that opposed them.
In a situation like this, being an ordinary individual was tantamount to being helpless. Hadn't I already faced the vampire, the fake Administration Bureau, the monster hospital, and the giant as an individual?
With my own strength alone, all I could do was use my regression ability to run away.
And if the real Administration Bureau were a useless organization, there was no way the world would still be this normal. At least, in all my life, I hadn't seen anything like a strange phenomenon before the vampire.
"So how's that superpower of yours doing now?!"
Gorgodio shouted in a mechanical voice.
"Above! Something's buzzing like crazy up there! Something seems to be coming down! Be careful! It's pretty strong!"
"Coming down?"
The warrior in mechanical armor turned toward the stairs and took up a combat stance. Quras stood behind him in a bizarre pose.
A brief moment passed.
ㅡDrip.
A creature covered in jutting bone spikes came down from above.
Please win!
If we lose again, I'll have no choice but to miss Manager Lee Do-hyung...!
"It's true! It really was!"
Gorgodio exclaimed in a mechanical voice.
"Hey, that's amazing!"
Quras shouted in surprise as well.
I felt a little embarrassed. It wasn't a superpower or anything; I'd merely used regression to tell them what I knew. Yet they were amazed because they thought I was genuinely psychic.
Still, one thing was certain.
This method would be highly effective for persuading agents.
ㅡBuuwoong!
The wings on the armor's back unfolded, and the boosters spewed fire. Last time, we'd begun after being ambushed, but this time we had the first strike.
ㅡKWAANG!
Gorgodio's fist, flying at blinding speed, slammed into the monster's body. It was truly an overwhelming blow. Unable to withstand the impact, the monster went flying and crashed into the stairs.
At the same time.
"Watch out!"
ㅡShraack!
Two tentacles bristling with bone spikes rapidly sprouted from the monster's body. Gorgodio in the previous run had been taken down by those. They'd grabbed both his arms and literally torn him apart along with his armor.
But this time, he wasn't alone.
ㅡSnap!
The moment Quras snapped his fingers, his light-green hair fluttered.
ㅡFwoooom!
A fiery explosion erupted halfway along one of the monster's tentacles, blasting it apart!
Holy shit!"
A superhuman who controls fire?!
"Mr. Quras, are you Roy Mustang or what?!"
"I've heard that a hundred times in my life!"
"Then do you wear that blue uniform too?!"
"Cut the crap, you punk! If you join as a rookie, watch yourself!"
ㅡBababoom!
Quras kept snapping his fingers without pause, causing explosions that blew apart the tentacles as they continued to sprout.
He looked like a conductor leading an orchestra.
But that's putting it nicely. If I described it exactly as it looked, he seemed more like someone flailing around in a panic after falling into the water.
Anyway, with Quras providing cover, Gorgodio completely obliterated the bone monster. Every time a threatening tentacle sprouted, Quras blew it apart, so this time we were actually able to win.
Victory!
"That was dangerous! Seriously! It's strong!"
An impassioned mechanical voice burst out.
"Haa...! If I'd let even one tentacle through, you'd be dead, musclehead!"
"Dead? I wouldn't die from one hit. Honestly, at this level, I could manage to beat it alone."
What bullshit!
Gorgodio, you bastard, you absolutely died in one hit!
What a fucking show-off!
Manager Lee Do-hyung really needs to come and beat the shit out of this bastard before he'll learn his lesson!
"Anyway. You're pretty useful, huh? That kind of extrasensory perception is exactly the ability the Administration Bureau wants."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I suppose that level of ability is why you made it back alive from that hospital."
"That hospital... it was hell itself. Even the Administration Bureau can't do anything about it?"
When I asked, fishing for information, Quras nodded.
"Cheongakmeri Hospital is an extremely dangerous place classified as an A-rank anomaly."
"A-rank!"
It was surprising, but after learning so much, I could accept the A-rank assessment itself. Manager Lee Do-hyung, who had been killed in one blow by the hospital director, was strong enough that even Sal-hyung, the powerful crusader, had acknowledged him as a formidable opponent.
"Then, Mr. Quras! How many of these monsters are there?!"
"Who knows? I don't know, but since the musclehead and I took one down, I'd say they're below B-rank. Maybe around C-rank."
This is an S-rank, world-ending disaster, you bastard.
You really don't know anything.
Facing that gap in information left me feeling strange.
It's called C-rank, but these monsters could come out by the dozens or hundreds.
"No time to dawdle. Let's go up right now."
"Let's go."
I went upstairs again with the two agents.
"Yo, aren't you sensing anything?"
"I'm not sure right now."
In fact, no such superpower existed at all. The bone monster I'd seen here was the last one. From now on, I'd make excuses about having used up too much mana and being unable to sense things clearly.
"Then we just kill whatever comes out."
A solemn mechanical voice.
Tentacles sprouted from the walls, ceiling, and floor. Gorgodio stomped on them and smashed them with his fists, blowing them all apart, while Quras kept snapping his fingers and burning them all to ash.
It was definitely more manageable.
After taking down one powerful monster, only small fry were coming out. At this rate, we should be able to reach the top floor without any problems.
As I thought that and climbed one more floor, the scenery changed.
"Hmm... I have a pretty clear feeling about this."
"Yeah, musclehead. I feel the same."
Green spheres had sprouted here and there across the floor like fruit.
I called them fruit, but they were about the size of exercise balls.
The two agents stepped forward and burst the exercise balls.
ㅡGush!
The sight of green bodily fluid bursting out was disgusting. And there were far too many of them. They seemed to be spread across the entire floor.
"We just have to crush all of these, right!"
"I agree."
Did they think these were important and decide to smash them all?
No, this wouldn't do.
The green spheres looked important, but they weren't the central core. What I'd seen was that wrinkled red sphere.
ㅡWham!
The agents steadily removed the exercise balls... but we didn't seem to have time for this.
We had to get to the top floor immediately. If we wasted time here, who knew what kind of monster might be produced upstairs and sent down?
All right.
Let's use the superpower again here.
"Agents! I can sense a stronger signal from above!"
"What?!"
"It's stronger than here! I have a really strong feeling that we shouldn't be breaking these! We need to deal with what's upstairs first!"
"Really?"
Was it because I'd already built up their goodwill?
"All right! Let's go up!"
Quras agreed.
"Wouldn't it be better to break these all first? We just need to do it as quickly as possible."
No, you bastard Gorgodio!
We don't have time for that!
This guy's kind of a troll...!
"Ggh...! Ah! The signal's getting stronger!"
I put on the performance of my life, clutching my head and sticking out my tongue. I even twisted my body around, making a huge spectacle of myself as if this were unquestionably an incredible reaction. Anyone watching would have thought I was some neighborhood mutt that had just been whacked on the head with a club on the hottest day of summer.
"Wait! Gorgodio! It looks like his extrasensory perception has picked up something incredibly powerful! We should deal with what's upstairs first!"
"Th-that's definitely what it looks like! Let's go!"
The two agents ran upstairs.
"Phew!"
It worked.
Controlling people is really hard.
Is this the hardship of being a regressor?
Explaining and persuading people about things I already knew was this difficult.
"Let's go together!"
I followed them upstairs as well.
The moment I stepped inside, I knew this was the top floor.
It was the same scenery I'd seen on the flower's top floor before my regression. The entire floor had transformed into vivid red flesh and pieces of entrails, and at its center, a wrinkled red sphere pulsed as it remained connected to tentacles.
ㅡBoom!
ㅡKWAANG!
The two agents were already fighting the tentacle monsters constantly sprouting from the floor. More precisely, they were destroying them as soon as they emerged.
"These bastards! They just keep coming!"
"Ha! We'd have been in serious trouble if we'd wasted more time downstairs!"
It was a relief that they'd finally realized that.
"Agents! That! That red thing! It looks really important!"
"Even I can tell by looking! But it keeps regenerating!"
"What?!"
"Look!"
ㅡBoom!
The moment Quras snapped his fingers, the sphere exploded.
But.
ㅡGush!
In less than three seconds, new tissue welled up and puffed out, completely regenerating.
As expected, it regenerated endlessly.
That's why the world ended in every run.
"Looks like it's the kind of entity that can't be destroyed by ordinary means! We need greater firepower!"
"Greater firepower...!"
"You! Go downstairs right now! I'll give you my phone, so go down and call for reinforcements!"
"You want me to go down alone?"
"Yes! We'll hold out here as long as we can!"
No.
Having the two of them buy time here wasn't a good choice. The tentacle monsters were still being produced, and Gorgodio was rampaging around, but I'd already witnessed his limits.
Quras couldn't keep snapping his fingers forever, either.
They'd both die before reinforcements arrived.
"We have to end it here."
Having come this far, there was no reason to carry this into the next run. No matter what happened, I'd finish it in this run.
ㅡSwish!
I took off the bag I was carrying.
Then I pulled a box out of it.
It was a box I hadn't seen in a very long time.
I'd always ended up losing it amid all the things that happened.
"Hey! You! That's...!"
"It's the medicine I got prescribed at Cheongakmeri Hospital! I'm going to make that bastard take it!"
"What kind of nonsense is that?!"
"I know it's not normal medicine! But you never know! Maybe it'll 'cure' that monster! Mr. Quras! Clear me a path! I'm going in!"
"Hey!"
ㅡBoom!
Immediately afterward, the tentacles sprouting in front of me exploded and disappeared.
Nice support from Quras.
I ran forward, clutching the box.
The only thing I could see as I sprinted was the wrinkled red sphere directly ahead of me.
Countless memories brushed past me.
Apocalypse?
Tell it to piss off now.
The time had come to end everything!
"Aaaaaaaah!"
I pushed the exploding tentacles out of my field of vision and opened the box, revealing extremely disgusting chunks of flesh writhing inside.
"Mr. Quras! Blow this bastard up for me!"
ㅡBoom!
The red sphere exploded.
I saw a tiny piece of flesh begin to swell. I plunged my hand into the box, clenched it tightly like I was playing a claw machine, and shoved it into the exposed tissue!
ㅡRip!
Immediately afterward, the red sphere swallowed the medicine and finished regenerating.
"Fall back!"
Gorgodio destroyed the tentacle reaching for me with a stylish kick, then grabbed me and threw me toward Quras.
The moment Quras caught me.
ㅡRumble!
The entire floor shook violently.
And then.
ㅡShla-ra-ra-rak!
The tentacles writhed wildly, then suddenly stopped dead, as if time itself had frozen...!
It worked!
The medicine worked!
"Uh, uh-oh! Agents! I have a bad feeling about this! Let's evacuate for now!"
"Let's get out!"
ㅡSquirm!
A strange movement.
At the same time.
ㅡFwoooom!
The entire floor began to explode!
It was a horrifying sight, like a whale carcass exploding!
"Gorgodiooooo!!!"
"Hold on tight!"
Gorgodio flew toward us with his boosters engaged and grabbed us with both arms. Then, while holding us, he twisted his body and drove an incredible kick into the wall.
ㅡKWAANG!
We broke through the wall and came outside.
While we were airborne, I could see it.
ㅡRumble!
The building collapsing below us.
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ㅡDing.
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[You stopped the descent of the 'Descendant of the Singing Star' ahead of schedule.]
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[You gained 5,000 points as a reward.]
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[You resolved it for the first time.]
[The status window's features have been unlocked as a reward.]
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What?