The Regressor Only Protects Me

Chapter 25. No Longer Human (4)

Taang-!

A single gunshot rang out.

My left ear momentarily buzzed.

Then, blood spurted out, soaking the back of my neck and the back of my head.

Human blood was incredibly warm.

Thunk-.

From the recoil, Kwon Kyung-soo’s left arm rested on my left shoulder.

But it wasn’t me who collapsed.

Instead, Kwon Kyung-soo fell helplessly to the side.

Thud! Splat, hiss.

I slightly turned my head to look, and blood was gushing like a fountain from his temple.

He held a gun in his right hand, his eyes wide open in death.

I wiped the blood off my right cheek with my hand.

He had committed suicide.

He had placed the muzzle of the gun against his temple and pulled the trigger.

And now, I had no thoughts.

Even though I had narrowly escaped death moments earlier, I didn’t feel a shred of tension or anxiety.

I trudged forward slowly.

The shock of him dying right behind me didn’t faze me as much as the wasted two bullets bothered me.

Flop-.

I sat in a theater seat and held my head.

I felt a little dizzy.

I pressed my temple with my fingers and looked at Kwon Kyung-soo, who lay dead.

Blood was still flowing from his temple.

Behind him, his brains had burst and scattered across the floor.

As he said, maybe I really was the man best suited for the end.

Perhaps the world I had lived in was already a hell, so even with the world changing like this, I felt no particular emotion.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure.

Kwon Kyung-soo might have been a character better suited to this game than I was, or maybe one closer to justice.

Whether it was God’s prank or God’s choice, I didn’t know.

“……”

The conclusion was this.

He couldn’t endure and died, while I endured and survived.

I leaned my head back, resting my body on the seat.

Finally, it was over.

I could finally leave this cursed shopping mall.

That was enough.

I would leave behind all the stories and emotions that happened here and go to meet my younger brother now.

That was all there was to it.

While I rested briefly, a woman approached me.

I squinted slightly to see, and it was Jin Jae-hee.

She cautiously sat next to me and sighed lightly.

As she sat down, I asked her first.

“Will things like this keep happening?”

“……Something similar, but on a much larger scale. Honestly, I don’t know about the Gyeonggi-do region.”

“……”

I held my head with my opposite hand.

Jin Jae-hee asked me a question.

I could feel her gaze as if she was looking at me, but my eyes were fixed solely on Kwon Kyung-soo.

“What are you going to do now? What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to find my brother.”

“What if you can’t find him?”

At her question, I released my hand from my head and looked at her.

Then I spoke again.

“I’ll find him. Even if it’s just his corpse.”

With those words, I rested my head on my hand again.

Jin Jae-hee didn’t say anything more.

Lee Joo-yeon stood there holding a crossbow.

To be precise, she was frozen in place, shocked by the preceding events.

Her arrow had missed.

Honestly, it was a shame how narrowly it missed, but a miss was a miss.

If Kwon Kyung-soo hadn’t chosen to end his life, everyone in the Red Team would have been doomed.

Everyone here, including herself and her younger brother.

But Kwon Kyung-soo killed himself, and we survived.

“……”

Lee Joo-yeon carefully lowered her crossbow and exhaled heavily.

Then, Sae-beom approached and hugged her back.

“It’s over now. That’s enough.”

“……”

“We survived, noona. Are you okay?”

“…Huh? Oh… yeah. I’m… okay.”

Lee Joo-yeon rubbed her eyes and looked ahead.

There, Sion was seated in a movie theater seat.

Jae-hee was approaching him.

It was a composure that someone who had just escaped death couldn’t possibly show.

If it had been her, she wouldn’t have even been able to stand from the shock.

When Kwon Kyung-soo chose to end his life, Joo-yeon felt her heart sink.

Not out of fear, but relief.

She remembered the last thing he said.

That this was hell, and he was merely escaping it.

As if it were the final choice left for him as a human.

If so, then what are we, the ones left behind?

Are we no longer human?

“Noona.”

Sae-beom lightly shook Joo-yeon’s shoulder, but she didn’t react.

So he shook her shoulder more firmly.

“Noona!”

“Huh… huh… I’m listening.”

Only then did Joo-yeon raise her head slightly to look at her younger brother.

Sae-beom frowned and said.

“You call this listening? Get it together. We need to go home now.”

“Yeah…”

“Ugh, seriously!”

Even at Sae-beom’s outburst, Joo-yeon merely bowed her head slightly and walked to the opposite seat.

She sat down there and pulled her legs together.

Everyone fell silent.

Everyone here seemed too exhausted to speak.

The situation had ended, and they seemed faintly excited at the thought of finally going home.

The bespectacled man was chuckling softly to himself.

Joo-yeon looked at him and thought he didn’t seem human anymore.

No, she thought none of them here could still be considered human.

“Sae-beom.”

Still seated, Joo-yeon called out to her brother.

Sae-beom, with a cigarette in his mouth, turned to look at her.

Joo-yeon was silent for a moment before finally speaking.

“Never mind.”

She closed her eyes and thought.

In front of her, Sae-beom simply frowned in frustration at his sister.

A brief silence followed.

No one spoke.

But the silence didn’t last long.

On the movie theater screen.

A small portal formed there.

To draw everyone’s attention, cheerful trumpet sounds filled the theater.

Ba-bam~!

The cherubs appeared, walking out of the portal in two rows.

The cherub at the back carried a red flag.

And in the center of the procession, Administrator ‘K’ walked forward.

Clap, clap, clap.

K clapped slowly as she walked.

On either side of her, two kings floated.

[LOSER]

The sign reading “Loser” hung around their necks.

On the flag, the corpses of the two kings were displayed.

Like an execution on public display.

At some point, Kwon Kyung-soo’s dying body had completely vanished.

The elderly man from the Blue Team had his mouth open and eyes closed; his pale face suggested he had lost all his blood.

On the other hand, Kwon Kyung-soo’s blood was still dripping from his temple, pooling beneath his chin. He looked as if he had died only moments ago.

Walking between the two corpses, K shouted.

“What a dramatic outcome! Oh, congratulations, Red Team. I was on the edge of my seat, thinking the Red Team would lose at the end. But! My intuition was right after all. Congratulations, Sion. You’ve won.”

At that moment, a light formed around Sion’s neck.

A placard soon appeared.

[WINNER]

Sion immediately removed the placard from his neck and threw it to the ground.

Watching him, K covered her mouth and laughed.

“Pfft…! How prickly. Don’t be like that. At least you all survived, didn’t you? Enjoy the little party we’ve prepared for you. Kids.”

At K’s words, the cherubs brought out tables.

They lined them up and spread pristine white tablecloths over them.

The cherubs carried plates loaded with food on their shoulders and began placing them on the table one by one.

Plates, knives, and forks were set up for the number of survivors, and wine was poured into glasses.

The appetizing aroma of the food began to overpower the stench of blood.

Some survivors raised their heads and looked at the food.

However, none of them reached for it easily.

Seeing this, K plucked a single green grape from the table and ate it.

“There’s no poison. Also, these dishes are a bonus outside the regulations, so you can’t take them out of the building. They’ll be cleared exactly 30 minutes later. So why not enjoy them now? Sion.”

K directed her words solely at Sion.

Even so, Sion remained seated, unmoving.

But the other survivors were different.

It had been days since they last ate proper food.

The first to rush forward was the bespectacled man.

He grabbed a chicken leg and began stuffing it into his mouth greedily.

Once one person stepped forward, the rest of the survivors surged like a flood.

Like pigs at a feeding trough, they devoured the food on the table with frantic urgency.

Watching them, K smirked sinisterly.

“Ha. Truly no different from livestock. Are you really the hazardous species that dared to challenge the universe? Is it delicious?”

K stroked the head of the bespectacled man as he buried his face in a bowl of soup and asked.

The man nodded, shoving stir-fried food into his mouth with his hands.

At that moment, Sion spoke.

“Let us out of here. We’ve won the game.”

“Yes, of course. But before that, there are additional rules of the game to explain.”

“…Then get on with it.”

“There’s no need to rush. Once you’re out, you might wish to come back here.”

Sion frowned.

“I’ll decide that for myself.”

“Hm… true enough. But since it’s still voting time for Area 2, I can’t let you leave just yet.”

K grabbed a chicken leg from the table and forced it into the mouth of a middle-aged man.

The man, oblivious to the insult, chewed on the chicken leg as it entered his mouth.

Watching this, K burst into laughter.

Then, she caressed the man’s chin.

As if petting a dog.

“Adorable. Truly adorable.”

“Voting time?”

Sion asked again as he watched her.

“Yes. From midnight to 1 a.m. every day. A one-hour voting period. Not that you need to worry about it. Now, let me explain. Once the explanation is over, you’ll be sent into the field.”

K answered while glancing at a hologram clock that appeared.

Soon, the movie theater screen lit up.

“Now, let’s officially begin explaining the game. Forget about the livestock. Want some popcorn?”

K, now seated next to Sion, offered him some popcorn.

Sion ignored her and stared at the screen.

Seeing this, K smiled slightly and tossed a popcorn piece into her mouth.

“Start it up, kids.”

At her words, the cherubs who had been serving stepped into the screen one by one.

A contract written in strange characters appeared.

Looking at the contract, K spoke.

“From now on, the world will become a single field. In other words, a chessboard. You are the chess pieces. Everything so far was just a trial version. From now on, the ‘king’ will not be selected but seized. Next.”

At K’s command, the cherubs naturally flipped the screen to the next page.

The format resembled a PowerPoint presentation.

However, the content was incomprehensible.

The only recognizable part was the illustrations.

“I’ll explain the most important victory condition. It’s simple. Only the hazardous species that meet the ‘victory condition’ continuing to the final round will survive. If you fail to meet even one, you will not survive. Next.”

The page turned.

Those gorging themselves on food at the table finally raised their heads to look at the screen.

But it was only momentary; they soon returned to their food, devouring it again.

The next page showed a short animation.

Two figures were depicted, one in red and the other in blue.

Soon, the red figure beheaded the blue one.

The blue figure’s head rolled off the screen.

The red figure then spread its arms in celebration, and the boundary defining them expanded.

“You will proceed through the rounds via boundaries. To put it simply: building, road, city, region, and continent.”

Beyond the boundaries lay another world.

A world unlike anything encountered before.

The red figures stepped into that world.

“From now on, you will face a strange and unimaginable world you’ve never encountered before. The more the boundaries expand… the more surreal it will become.”

Monsters of grotesque forms appeared as shadows on the screen.

Some folded people in half to eat them.

Others carried hundreds of people, traversing continents or flying through the sky.

There were also parasitic creatures like threadworms living off humans.

The red figures on the screen perished one by one.

“In the end, it’s about proving yourself. Whether you’re truly a lifeform that deserves to survive. Prove why you must survive. Not by instinct, but as a true human! Yes? Prove your worth as intelligent beings. Don’t be led by instinct like those creatures.”

K directed her words at the Red Team survivors consumed by gluttony.

Crunch-.

At some point, she had emptied an entire bucket of popcorn.

When K placed the empty bucket down, it disappeared naturally.

Rubbing her hands together, K rose from her seat.

“I believe you, Sion, and the others will do well. Why? Because you’re the players I personally selected. Heh.”

Tap, tap.

K walked forward, standing before those still devouring their meals.

She watched them briefly, then turned her head to look at Sion and Jae-hee.

Specifically, at Lee Joo-yeon, Lee Sae-beom, and an unnamed student watching the presentation.

With a faint smile, she spoke.

“Shall we go now? It’s time.”

Snap-!

K snapped her fingers.

In that instant, the heads of all the survivors at the table exploded.

Like fireworks.

The heads of six people shot into the air, then fell back onto the table.

Thud, thud, thud.

The bespectacled man’s head rolled into a plate of ribs, mingling with the sauce.

His mouth still held a piece of meat.

“Out of the world’s total population of 7.8 billion, the survivors of Round 1 number 2 billion. You have beaten odds of 25% to qualify for Round 2. Welcome.”

Clang-!

At that moment, the screen split in half.

Specifically, the main hall entrance on the first floor appeared ahead.

Sion finally stood up.

Before him, the black smoke filling the main hall began to dissipate.

It was the black smoke that had trapped us in the mall.

Light streamed in through the clearing smoke.

How many days had it been since we’d seen sunlight?

The sudden brightness made people shield their eyes with their hands.

But Sion opened his eyes right away.

Screech-.

The main hall doors opened, and fresh air poured in.

Standing with her back to the cool breeze, K smiled brightly at Sion and said.

“The theme for Round 2 is winter.”

Sion fixed his gaze forward.

At the scene before him, his pupils shook wildly.

He slowly took a step outside.

Behind him, four others followed.