#345

Away in the distance, a dark mass was slowly swaying as it approached.

‘…Is that Erebo’s real body?’

The insect had the upper part of the World Tree fused into his back, and every time he moved, the eggs growing all over his body would hatch dozens of newborn special entities.

Bang! Baaang!

Every step the insect took sent goosebumps across Seo Jun-Ho’s skin. It sent a chill down his spine, and his breathing couldn’t help but grow ragged.

‘He’s strong.’

He gave off a powerful aura that Seo Jun-Ho had never felt before in his whole life. Erebo could likely do this because he had devoured the World Tree, a Transcendent.

“Ugh, my head hurts. How are we supposed to kill something like that—wait, what are you doing?” Skaya asked, surprised. She had noticed that Seo Jun-Ho was about to stab his own heart.

“Keen Intuition is telling me that I probably won’t be able to regress again if that guy kills me.”

“…Come on. Holy fucking shit, this is gonna be hard as hell,” Skaya cursed, gnashing her teeth a little, “You can’t die yet, though.”

“What?”

“You said you’ve never met his true self before. You’re gonna need information about him if we’re going to clear this Floor, aren’t you?”

“But I told you, I won’t be able to regress if he kills—” Seo Jun-Ho trailed off as his eyes went wide. He belatedly realized what Skaya was trying to say.

“It has been a while since you’ve had a good idea, nerd.” Rahmadat grinned wide, showing his teeth. He rolled his shoulders and started stretching before muttering quietly, almost to himself, “You have to fight alone again starting tomorrow, so leave this one to us just this once…”

“We’ll gather as much information about him as we can, and we’re going to hand it over to you, so don’t worry and just run away.”

“I will do my best to assist the Heroes.”

Rahmadat, Gilberto, and even Cha Si-Eun were telling him to run away. They would lay down their lives to get information and send it to him. As such, he should run away.

“I should use everything I have been saving up until now, too,” Skaya remarked. She sighed and snapped her fingers. A giant hexagram manifested over the city. At that, hundreds of insects crawling over the city walls exploded.

“We won’t be able to hold out for long,” she said. “Maybe around thirty minutes? Run away as far as possible until then. I’ll write out the stuff and send it to you.”

“…”

The dagger seemed like it would pierce Seo Jun-Ho’s chest at any moment, but it slowly retracted.

He couldn’t waste their sacrifice.

Above all, he absolutely needed information about Erebo if he wanted to clear the 4th Floor.

Seo Jun-Ho met each of his friends’ eyes and forced his heavy lips apart. “I’m counting on you.”

‘Please die in my stead.’

It was a cruel request, but they simply smiled cheerfully, like idiots.

***

Seo Jun-Ho received a message 30 minutes and 7 seconds later.

“Contractor, hurry!”

Ice shot out from the Frost Queen’s hands, freezing the cockroaches. While she fought, Seo Jun-Ho quickly looked through the message.

‘There it is.’

His friends had laid down their lives to obtain information about Erebo’s real body. He stared at the message with heated eyes.

Erebo’s exoskeleton is extremely tough. Not even magic nor a sword aura could put a dent in it.

The World Tree got smaller over time, which means he’s still digesting it.

Two very powerful ‘special entities’ are protecting his head (likely protecting his weak spot).

The message contained nothing but three lines, and his friends, along with Cha Si-Eun had to die in vain for these lines.

“…I won’t forget your sacrifice.”

Seo Jun-Ho read the text over and over again, committing it to memory. Afterward, he hurriedly raised his dagger.

“Contractor!”

“…!”

Seo Jun-Ho whipped around. In the distance, something was approaching him at breakneck speed.

‘Erebo can’t move that fast considering his size.’

There were two monsters approaching him.

Keen Intuition quickly warned him.

– They’re the two special entities protecting Erebo’s head! If they kill you…

He would most likely be unable to regress.

Without even a moment’s hesitation, Seo Jun-Ho stabbed his own chest.

‘There.’

When he sensed the familiar sensation of a sharp blade piercing into his heart, relief washed over him.

“…!”

However, just as he felt relieved, the special entities pulled the dagger out. At some point, they had reached him all the way here.

‘What? Why are they taking it out?’

He stared with confusion at the humanoid insects in front of him.

Fwoosh!

The other special entity approached him from behind and drenched his body with a cold liquid.

“This is…”

It was a healing potion, and he quickly recovered at an insane rate.

They weren’t going to let him die.

‘Shit, I have to die right now!’

In a panic, Seo Jun-Ho tried to slice his neck with his hand, but the hand itself was severed.

At an impossible speed, at that…

‘Fuck, now that I think about it, I didn’t reach a hundred percent Overclocking output in this regression.’

His arms and legs were quickly bound, and the monsters picked him up before they started to fly somewhere.

Watchguard of Darkness surged from his body and tore the restraints apart. He fell to the ground, and what he had done bought him enough time to scream…

“Froooost!”

“Forgive me!”

Slice!

His head flew into the air, and his consciousness quickly faded…

“…”

Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes flashed open, and he quickly scanned his surroundings.

“Huff, huff.”

He was currently floating in the air. More accurately, he was floating above the river.

“Huh? Huh?” The Frost Queen looked around, deeply flustered. They appeared to have returned to the newly-created Save Point instead of the hotel in the first city.

“Don’t be surprised.”

Seo Jun-Ho calmly retrieved the diary from his Inventory.

[#104]

[#106]

‘As I thought…’

The 105th page didn’t regenerate. However, he had failed to consider the creation of a new saved data for the 106th regression.

“Ah! A new saved data was created for the 106th regression… That surprised me…”

“If I die one more time, I’ll start over at the hotel.”

After ripping out the 106th page, Seo Jun-Ho quickly stabbed his chest.

– W-wait!

Keen Intuition quickly called out, but the blade had already reached Seo Jun-Ho’s heart.

‘…Well, I suppose I can just hear what he had to say after I regress again.’

Once again, his consciousness drowned in darkness.

***

“Every day at 6 am, the city neatly initializes itself like that.”

Seo Jun-Ho felt a weird sense of deja-vu. It was the same sense of deja-vu he felt whenever he went through this same situation again.

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m tired.’

He was surprised by his own thought. ‘I’m… tired?’

Just how long had it been since he let his emotions get the better of him and complained?

Once the rest of the party went down to their own respective rooms, he snorted and approached the Frost Queen.

“Hm? Contractor, you look happy today, unlike usual,” she said.

“You’re right. I wonder… Did I die in a satisfying way or something?

Right, how had he died?

Seo Jun-Ho opened the diary.

[#104]

Once again, I just barely missed Erebo.

If I fight him with my mental, physical, and magical energy intact, I think I could easily finish him off.

I have to find a way to do that.

“Geez, what’s with that? It’s the same as usual.”

However, why did he feel so refreshed today? He was even having all these emotional thoughts he usually wouldn’t have.

“Huh?” Just then, Seo Jun-Ho noticed something, and he tilted his head.

‘The diary… was ripped?’

After the 104th page, the next two pages were torn.

Seo Jun-Ho turned pale and he quickly counted the number of remaining pages.

“…Holy shit.”

He was right. The number of pages left in the diary had actually decreased by two.

‘Why are they torn?’

He turned his head, looking shell-shocked. “Frost, did you rip these out by chance?”

“Do you believe me to be mad? Why would I?”

“…Right? No sane person would rip this perfectly good diary,” he agreed.

Moreover, he usually kept the diary safely in his Inventory. In other words, the only person who could have ripped the diary was himself.

‘But I didn’t do that…’

Seo Jun-Ho fell deep into thought. Eventually, he realized that he needed someone else’s advice. “At times like this… Skaya is the only person I can ask.”

“It annoys me, but I agree that she is the only person you can talk to,” the Frost Queen said, as she thought of the same thing.

Seo Jun-Ho quickly found his way to Skaya and showed her the diary.

“You used to worry that you’ll become unemployed after clearing the floors, but I don’t think you need to worry anymore. You should write a novel,” Skaya remarked.

“It’s not a novel.”

“Maybe someone from a mental hospital could write a better one.”

“I’m not joking either.” Seo Jun-Ho slapped his forehead. Now that he thought about it, she always reacted like this if he went to her first before telling the rest of the party about the regressions.

In that case, there was no reason to keep going around in circles like this.

“I’ve always had this conversation with you before,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Back then, you told me a secret, and you told me to tell you this next time if you won’t believe me.”

“Uh-huh.” Skaya snorted and leaned against the door of her room. “Okay, I’ll bite. Tell me, then. What amazing secret did the previous Skaya tell you?”

“You still like Deok-Gu.”

“…”

Skaya’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not true. Why would I like that bald old man? Don’t just guess randomly.”

“It’s not. You definitely said that to me. You said you’d find a youthening potion while climbing the Floors and force Deok-Gu to drink it and—Mmph! Mmph!”

“A-a-are you crazy? Why are you saying that here?!” Skaya quickly covered his mouth in a panic and looked around the hallway just in case someone else heard him.

Bang!

She then slammed Seo Jun-Ho against the wall and growled like a cat. “Be honest with your noona. Who did you hear that from?”

“Puah! I told you. You told me yourself.”

“…”

Skaya chewed on her lower lip. Indeed, it was something she had been keeping only to herself. She had never told anyone else about it.

“Sigh, fine. I’ll believe you about the regression thing.”

After that, it didn’t take long…

“So, in other words, you’ve died 104 times and this is your 105th regression, but the next two pages have been ripped out?” she clarified.

“Yeah. This is the first time something like this happened.”

“I’m surprised that your mind is still intact.” Skaya pointed out.

“That’s thanks to Hero’s Mind. I’ve always had a pretty strong mind, you see.”

“Don’t be narcissistic.” Skaya thought for a moment before saying, “It’s possible… That you actually did rip it out yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, look. The 105th and 106th regressions should appear on the pages that had been ripped out, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I think you already went through them.”

Seo Jun-Ho frowned. “What? But I didn’t.”

“You did, you just don’t remember.” Skaya explained in a way that he could understand. “If we assume that each page contains saved data, the most recent page would contain the latest data.”

“That’s right…Wait. Then that means…?”

“It’s just a theory, but I think something irreversible happened in the 105th and 106th regressions. And to fix it, you decided to rip out the diary pages and go back. Hm, I think it was a smart solution, actually. Maybe I gave you that advice in the future.”

So he had ripped out a page to delete the saved data.

That could have happened…

“But just what kind of problem did I encounter that I decided to rip out the pages?” he asked.

“It’s obvious. A Save Point was created in the worst-case scenario. Wouldn’t that be it?”

“I see…”

Skaya was pissing him off, but she was still the Archmage. No one could beat her in a battle of intelligence.

“Wait, so the fact that I don’t remember the 105th and 106th regressions means…”

“That all the data is erased if you rip out a page, including your memories,” she concluded.

“Shit.” Seo Jun-Ho groaned quietly. If a Save Point had been created, it likely meant that he had killed Erebo’s clone.

‘If I knew how to kill him, things would go more smoothly.’

He clicked his tongue and nodded. “Still, what a relief. I’m relieved that I know that I managed to kill him in this regression and the next.”

“Shouldn’t you be able to do what you have been doing?” Skaya pointed out.

“You’re probably right. In my previous regression, I almost killed Erebo, you see.” Seo Jun-Ho pounded on his chest, full of confidence. “I’ll be able to kill him for real this time. As I thought, I was going in the right direction.”

‘Just you wait, Erebo!’

But after dying 50 more times, Seo Jun-Ho finally realized that something was wrong.