Chapter 379

Regression (26)

Choi Ji-won's living room. She and I sat on the couch, watching the clock. Fifty-eight seconds. Fifty-nine. The instant it hit exactly sixty.

Vrrrmm.

A low hum rippled through the quiet living room. Space itself warped, and a blue portal opened. It looked similar to the ones in the Tower, but blurrier, less stable.

"Hello."

Stepping out of it was a blond, muscular Caucasian man with dull-colored hair. The embodiment of expressionless efficiency.

"Michael Zetter. Pleased to meet you, Choi Ji-won-yang. And."

His emotionless eyes turned toward me. A short silence followed.

"I said I'd live pretending not to know, but I'm sorry, Jun-ho-nim."

Michael Zetter greeted us.

The scene felt like déjà vu. I think our first meeting with him had gone something like this too. Just like now, we'd given him the coordinates to the house, and Michael Zetter, having used someone with a flash step ability to get here, had offered the same stiff greeting.

Vrrrmm.

But that wasn't the end of it. The portal rippled again, and an uneasy-looking Indian man crept out of it, hesitant. That had to be the prophet, Mahesh.

"I called him here because I needed him. Would it be alright if he sat in?"

"...Sit down. Let's hear the reason first."

"Very well."

We moved and settled naturally at the dining table. Mahesh, watching for cues, couldn't decide what to do with himself, and ended up quietly taking a seat behind Michael Zetter. I was pretty sure I'd heard he was supposed to be a reliable man, so why was he acting like that?

Setting that small question aside, I was the one who spoke first.

"I'm fairly sure I said I didn't want any interference."

"You did."

Zetter admitted it readily.

"I fully understand that reaching out to you like this, right now, is bound to provoke you."

If an ordinary person said something like that, you'd probably think, is he trying to needle me on purpose? But Michael Zetter wasn't the type for that.

"It was urgent enough that I had no choice but to contact you. I'll get straight to the point. There are two main reasons I reached out."

Zetter gave a small signal, and Mahesh, who'd been standing behind him like a stone statue, cleared his throat and stepped forward slightly.

"Th, that would be..."

"...Just say it. No need to act like you're on trial."

"Y, yes."

Mahesh glanced at me for a moment, then seemed to steady his nerves, and spoke in a clearer voice.

"You... you probably already heard this from Zetter-nim, but I foresaw that a great crisis would arrive ten months from now. I formed a hypothesis that the statues on Floor 15 would descend upon reality... and I heard that Jun-ho-nim has a similar ability. Is it true? That an invasion is coming to Earth?"

"...Yes."

"I see... In any case, what I do, this 'prophecy,' isn't something clear-cut or precise. It's closer to receiving a certain feeling. And the scope of my prophecy is limited to myself, in the sense of whether I personally face a crisis, so it's not something you can fully trust either."

Having said that, Mahesh wiped the sweat off his forehead for a moment.

"When I felt the crisis that would hit Earth ten months from now... I was truly terrified. Cold sweat ran down my body, I felt like I wanted to hide somewhere, and I got so dizzy my head was spinning..."

Mahesh wiped his forehead again. Looking at him now, the amount of sweat wasn't normal. His whole body trembled faintly, and his eyes were hollow, like someone who hadn't slept all night.

"But yesterday... what I felt yesterday was a shock beyond comparison to that. The Association president told me I'd tried to kill myself. I don't remember the act itself, but the terrible sensation I felt at the time... it was, quite literally, destructive enough to make me regret being born."

Mahesh, driven to the very edge of death, had barely survived thanks to Michael Zetter, and had relayed what he'd sensed as his "prophecy."

"You did well, Mahesh. Go on back first. Get some rest."

"Yes, sir..."

With that, Mahesh passed through the portal and vanished, and Zetter finally got down to business.

"By my judgment, Mahesh's new prophecy seemed related to you, Jun-ho-nim."

"...Why."

"Because the future you told me about didn't include anything like this. Who else besides you could create a variable on the scale of the entire Earth?"

Right after, Zetter pressed both hands flat on the table and looked me straight in the eye.

"I'll ask just this one thing. Is the current situation within the regressor's control? Are we, is Earth, is humanity... safe? Just tell me that much."

"...I don't know."

There was no way I could answer that. I didn't know either. It was a situation I hadn't gone through yet.

Still, there was one thing I could promise.

"But it will become safe."

Right now I knew nothing. I couldn't be certain what would happen to Earth, what the future held.

But one thing I could be certain of was that I wouldn't give up. However many regressions it took, whatever the cost, I intended to make sure Earth fended off the monsters without harm. Just like I always had.

"...Understood. If you ever need my help, please say so at any time. Mahesh said he got a similar feeling from his prophecy as he did with me."

Michael Zetter nodded readily at that. His attitude, as always, looked steady and reliable.

"..."

I disliked Michael Zetter. Unfortunate past or not, he'd caused me clear harm. He'd spread my personal information without even asking my opinion. He was the culprit behind all the suffering I'd gone through. On top of that, he was a madman who'd offered up Americans' souls, their very lives, to the Book. Even if it had all become undone now, I remembered clearly what he'd done.

But Zetter's help... if I had it, it would genuinely make a huge difference. The part Mahesh had prophesied was probably exactly what I'd been agonizing over.

The monster created because of me wasn't the real problem. Before that, the chaos about to hit Earth was the problem.

The monster that would appear because of me wouldn't show up for another year. But before that, there were the other players who'd entered Floor 15. Every time one of them entered, a statue was created, and those statues would become monsters and invade Earth.

That invasion had completely overturned Earth. People died, buildings collapsed, blood and screams and chaos ran rampant.

No government had been able to prepare perfectly for the monster invasion. Some players had taken measures in advance, but it amounted to little more than pissing on frostbite. Players around the world had done their best to eliminate the monsters, but there were too few strong players and too many places that needed help.

Korea and the US had been among the countries that handled the first invasion relatively well. I'd heard that in one European country, tens of thousands died because its strongest player happened to be inside the Tower at the time. Even if you tried to excuse it as unavoidable, you couldn't just look away, since the reason those monsters appeared in the first place was the players.

My goal was to prevent all of that, the sacrifice, the chaos, the deaths. I'd made that resolution a very long time ago. Someday, once I gained the strength, and once I'd made up my mind, I would stop it, I'd carved that into the depths of my heart. Circumstances had forced me forward into the future whether I liked it or not, but that resolution itself was still just as vivid.

But if I wanted to protect the entire Earth by myself... in the end, there were plenty of difficulties. I was strong, sure, but I only had one body, and I held no power to move the order of the world. Choi Ji-won was still in the process of building fame and influence, not yet at a stage where she could wield political power either.

In that situation, if I accepted Michael Zetter's help... if his power and authority combined with my regression... it would clearly be a huge help in preventing the massive catastrophe set to hit in ten and a half months. It would probably cut the number of regressions I'd need by more than half.

What should I do. I disliked Zetter, but shouldn't I save people regardless? While I kept piling worry on worry, Zetter checked his watch and quietly rose from his seat.

"I'm out of time, so I'll be heading out now. I believe my role was fulfilled by relaying Mahesh's words. I'm truly sorry for contacting you like this. I won't reach out first again going forward. Then, I'll take my leave..."

Right then, a portal opened in midair, and just as Zetter was about to pass through it and return to America, something occurred to me, and I stopped him.

"Wait, didn't you say there were two reasons when you first came?"

"...Ah."

Zetter stood there expressionless for a moment, then answered curtly.

"That... I'll tell you once the invasion has been stopped. It's not an urgent matter right now."

Right after, Zetter passed through the portal and vanished. Silence returned to the living room, which had been noisy the whole time.

"...Haah."

My chest felt strangely tight, so I opened the window, and saw a dull, overcast sky.

"Looks like it might rain."

Ji-won said it plainly, like it was nothing.

I could see dark clouds approaching. Raindrops began to fall, one or two at a time. Some people prepared umbrellas, others just walked on through the rain.

A storm was coming. Could we get through it?

I closed the window again. There was a lot to prepare for.