Chapter 380

Invasion (1)

A week after Michael Zetter left. I began preparing to move in earnest.

Shhhk.

I spread a large sheet of drawing paper across the table, pulled out a pen, and scrawled across it in one continuous stroke. I connected word to word like a spider's web, jotting down places and times as I remembered them.

"I've had a plan in mind for a while now."

The monster invasion of Earth wasn't something that struck out of nowhere. I'd known about this for a very long time, and I'd been vaguely preparing for it ever since.

It wasn't some concrete plan, or a manual of any kind. It was just a rough sketch of how I'd act, either "when the monsters eventually hit Earth" or "once I'm sufficiently prepared and want to move toward the future." Moments spent leaving every possibility open, mulling over the optimal move.

The biggest difference from my past planning was this: I wasn't moving because I "felt sufficiently prepared." I was moving out of necessity, the sense that I needed to check on the future right now.

Anyway, my plan went like this. First. Secure the full cooperation of Michael Zetter, the Player Association president.

"...Didn't you hate the idea of Zetter?"

Ji-won asked, tilting her head. She had a point. I'd been going on and on about disliking Zetter, and now here I was, laying the groundwork of my plan on the premise of his cooperation.

"Well... to make an excuse, back when I was building this plan, I didn't know Zetter was that kind of bast... no, that kind of person yet."

Either way, securing Zetter's cooperation really was the most important thing. He served as the representative for players, and he was close to the only human among players who actually held real power. To put together a proper framework, Zetter's help was indispensable.

"Actually, Jun-ho-ya. I think cooperating with Zetter is... fine, honestly."

Ji-won's reaction was surprisingly positive.

"Really? Didn't you say before that Dok Su-hee couldn't be trusted?"

"That was... partly because she was kind of like that back then. But the Dok Su-hee you told me about showed a different side too, right? People can change, it seems. Jun-ho, remember when you threatened and watched a few violent criminals before, using that Japanese kid?"

"...Yeah, I did that."

"They ended up not committing any crimes at all, right up to the future point, they didn't even leave their houses. You could say it was just fear of death, but staying like that for nearly a year... doesn't that count as some kind of change? That's how I see it. If someone's an irredeemable villain, sure, forget it, but if someone's standing at a crossroads... maybe you should push them in the right direction, Jun-ho. You're the regressor, after all."

She added that when human lives were on the line, you couldn't afford to pick and choose based on comfort. As she said, it would be ridiculous to exclude Zetter outright just because he'd done wrong in the past, not when human lives were at stake right now. The power and system he held were clearly necessary.

If anything, it would be more fitting for me, as a regressor, to use Zetter while also steering him away from straying down a bad path again. That would be the attitude of a proper regressor who looks ahead to the future by learning from the past, not some pathetic regressor clinging to petty grudges.

"I just have to stop him from doing anything stupid again. And Zetter will listen to me. He knows that's the efficient choice."

Zetter's cooperation really was unavoidable. To protect Earth safely, and to cut down the number of times I'd need to regress.

"Next is getting the cooperation of the other players."

There was a limit to what modern weapons could do against the monsters. The cooperation of players, especially the top-tier ones, was desperately needed. Monsters would erupt across the entire globe simultaneously. This wasn't a scale that one strong person could handle alone.

How had it gone in the future I'd lived through? When the future Zetter had stepped up, the results were mixed at best. There were several problems, but the biggest was that "Michael Zetter's prophecy couldn't be trusted," and on top of that, the proud, high-ranking rankers had refused out of sheer defiance. I'll say it again, a lot of the people who climb the Tower fast are broken in some way.

"This is where I think I'll need your help, Ji-won."

"Me?"

"Yeah. I'm going to use the weight of the name Choi Ji-won."

Hero of the Tower. Sword prodigy. Ponytailed angel. (That last one's just my personal opinion.)

At this point, Choi Ji-won's fame had reached the level where even ordinary people would go "ah, that player?" and among players, she was massively famous. Especially since it was known that changing Floor 2's structure had been her achievement, which made all of it only natural.

"If you make the request directly, Ji-won... they'll have a hard time ignoring it. They'll be curious too."

Compared to Michael Zetter, known for fighting with overwhelming physical specs, information about Choi Ji-won remained relatively veiled. All that was known was that she used a sword and was incredibly strong. Nobody but me knew just how strong she really was.

"But even if I talk to them... will people who wouldn't even listen to Zetter suddenly turn cooperative?"

"Yeah. They will."

If it was just talking, they might not listen. But if I stepped in, it'd be different.

"This is exactly what I did in the future."

I roughly knew what abilities each of them had. I knew their futures. As I skimmed the list I'd written on paper from memory, I ran through the list of "carrots" I could offer them.

For example, the top-ranked Russian player currently had a traitor among their companions, and they were already aware of it themselves. If I leaked a clue about the traitor to them.

Or, for the ability user who controlled flames, if I told them information about a powerful item about to hit the black market.

They might question the source of the information Choi Ji-won provided. They might feel resistance to a sudden request. But if the information I gave was specific, and it scratched exactly the itch they'd been dealing with... I could secure enough cooperation.

"There's also the method of getting the Hero trait and forcing them into submission with power, but..."

That kind of coercive approach couldn't last long. The monsters wouldn't just appear for one day and be done. Every time a player entered Floor 15, a monster would invade Earth a year later. If I swung around power like that right now, it wouldn't end well.

Either way, if I could convince the other players that maintaining the current social order benefited them, that saving as many people as possible benefited the entire player community, it would work out.

"That takes care of the players, and..."

Finally, I needed to secure the government's cooperation.

Really, it was the players who stopped the monsters. Nukes, missiles, they worked on weak monsters, but the truly strong ones would just dodge them outright, so there wasn't much use. So why did I need the government's cooperation?

In the end, controlling the citizens, the overwhelming majority of ordinary people, required the government's cooperation. Evacuating and protecting them in an organized way required the government to exercise its power.

When the monsters first appeared, the government had never dealt with a situation like it before, so all they'd done was parrot "evacuate" over and over, and the confusion that followed had made the damage worse. Even if I couldn't tell them exactly what would happen, I at least had to make sure they could draft a manual for similar situations, and run evacuation drills.

"I think it'd work if Zetter talked to the US President..."

The problem was that neither the President nor Zetter were reliable. I'd have them monitored separately (using Japan's Grim Reaper freeloader kid would work), and Choi Ji-won could handle shaping public opinion.

Players are wonderful, they're working hard climbing the Tower, we're on humanity's side... Choi Ji-won was perfectly suited, inside and out, for building that kind of image. The obstacle here was the handful of bastards committing crimes.

"That's where I step in."

The masked hero act I'd always talked about before. Now was the time. The perfect plan, one that would gather strength through the Hero trait, lower the crime rate, and fill up my own self-esteem, all at once.

"What do you think."

Get the players' cooperation. Turn public opinion to our side, and get the government, starting with the US President, prepared.

Above all, if the regressor who could see the future provided information in advance, exactly what monster, what weaknesses it had, where it would appear.

"Doesn't it seem doable?"

I didn't think I could stop the invasion perfectly, completely. Still, instead of the invasion turning into an ocean of tears, ending it at the level of "that was really close, but thank god," a sigh of relief instead of grief... didn't that seem possible?

Honestly, this was the first time I'd tried to shape a situation on the scale of the entire Earth. At most I'd tried to change things within a single floor, but this was closer to bending the entire Earth to my will. I'd never done it before, and I couldn't be confident I'd do it well.

But that was fine. It always had been. Every time I faced something for the first time, it was hard. Unfamiliar. I took damage and regressed.

But I was standing here now. If it doesn't work, keep going until it does. It's only a matter of how long the process takes. As long as my resolve doesn't break, I don't lose.

"Let's do this."

Success was already guaranteed.