The Protagonists Are Murdered by Me

‘It wouldn’t be easy.’

Such thoughts crossed my mind

‘Did he regress to this point?’

The plot clearly stated that Adonen had a regression skill. So, I thought this mission would be over once I killed him. But, I overlooked some crucial facts. Which is, there were so many different kinds of ‘regression’ in the world.

<Please be careful.>

<The protagonist ‘Regression’ is estimated to be an infinite loop type.>

‘….Loop?’

<It means that even if he died, he will survive by turning back the time indefinitely.>

‘What!?’

I could feel my face hardened while Adonen walked towards me as he waved his sword.

So that was the reason why he bravely blocked the streets and picked fights with everyone around. He was searching for a strong warrior to kill him and then he would regress and use ‘Swordsmanship robbing’ to take away their ability.

Adonen would take their Swordsmanship after getting killed over and over again.

The fact that one could steal someone’s swordsmanship in this world where swords were everything, it was akin to becoming a predator of the predator.

‘So it’s the infinite loop….’

<Infinite Loop is also a popular topic these days.>

<Haven’t you heard of it?>

‘I have…. It’s the black hole of love, right?’

<That was a movie from more than half century ago…>

Recently, I studied quite hard about trends and cliche, such as regression, reincarnation, possession and many other genres because the protagonist that I’ve hunted seemed to follow those trends.

I couldn’t follow the trends in my youth, because not long after I enrolled in middle school, I awakened as a hunter and moved to the battlefield for 16 years. In those years, I spent all my time either in a dungeon or in the gym except when I was sleeping. So I couldn’t read all these genres because I didn’t have enough time to watch movies or read novels.

Of course, all those words were nothing but excuses.

Had I been a little more careful and took my time to observe him, I would’ve known that his regression ability was an infinite loop type.

This was obviously my mistake. All my life I’ve been acting like a cornered rat trying to fight desperately against a cat who tried to eat me. But for the first time ever, I felt like I’m the cat. I forgot the fact that the cat wasn’t the only one out there but there were also wolves and tigers.

<It’s alright.>

<Unlike infinite loops in movies or novels, infinite loops in reality always have weaknesses.>

<You just need to find that weakness.>

‘…You are right. Thank you. But, I feel like you become much kinder these days. Why is that?’

<I was always kind.>

As I stood still, Adonen spoke.

“What, you’re not coming? Come to think of it, it’s weird. Do you hold any grudge against me? I wonder why you killed me in such a hurry.”

Despite his questioning I didn’t feel the need to give him any answer and let him know that I had the memory from the point before the regression.

“What kind of bullshit are you saying?”

“Hm… Nevermind then. It seems like the reason you killed me wasn’t because I was blocking the way.”

Adonen rushed in as soon as he finished talking. Out of reflex, I almost raised the ether blade to fight him.

‘Will he analyze my trajectory if I swing my sword?’

I couldn’t completely stop myself from using the ether blade. However, I had many weapons in my arsenal to cover up the need of using a sword.

Fwoosh!

“What the hell?”

Using magic, I made the ground as slippery as an ice by reducing its friction point. Because of that, Adonen who charged towards me slipped and fell down.

And then, I took out some grenades from my inventory and raised my hand towards the air. The grenades in my hand started to scatter and floated around me.

My wind magic wasn’t strong enough yet, it could only move the lightest grenade. But that was enough.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Boom!!!

I pulled the pin and threw the grenades towards Adonen one by one. I tried to use every single one of it as strategically as possible. No matter how much power a single grenade had, it wouldn’t have enough damage to kill a level-51 enemy.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The grenades exploded in sucesion. The continuous explosion blocked the paths between Adonen and me. And then, I took out my mega shooter from my inventory and jumped.

The ‘jumping trampoline’ magic casted on the ground by the flower pot was helping me to jump even higher. As soon as I landed on one of the building’s roofs, I took an aim at Adonen and pulled the mega shooter’s trigger. It wasn’t possible to continuously shoot with the mega shooter, I only have 3 shots.

“This crazy….”

I wouldn’t be able to kill Adonen with a mega shooter alone. In the first place, I didn’t like the fact that I had to do all this troublesome stuff when I could kill him with a few swings of ether blades. But still, it was better than being robbed by his skill.

At times like this, I felt really fortunate that I had magic and science besides swordsmanship.

I loaded a ‘shield breaker’ bullet on the mega shooter and shot.

Fwoosh!!

Boom!!!

“Keuk.”

The ‘Shield breaker’ bullet disperse the mana around Adonen’s body as soon as it hits. The scattered mana would soon regain their shape, but that small gap was enough.

I rushed toward Adonen to strike at that gap.

Seuk!

Adonen’s forehead was marked with a ‘Ether Radiant’ symbol.

I forced him to lay on his back by kicking his abdomen and pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

A new message came to my mind together with the loud gunfire.

Jiing!

[Current date: Imperial Calendar, February 18, Year 712 Current time: 19:13]

[…..The world line starts to twist.]

[Skill ‘Protagonist Hunter Lv. 3’ is activated to detect changes in the world line.]

[The Protagonist Adonen invokes the skill ‘Designated Return (URS)’ and returns to 11 hours and 1 minutes ago.]

[Current date: Imperial Calendar, February 18, Year 712 Current time: 8:13…]

Jijik!

[Current date: Imperial Calendar, February 18, Year 712 Current time: 19:14]

[Moving to A74 world line.]

At the very least, he’s dead.

However, I later came to know that it was not the right move.

[The protagonist, Adonen, activates ‘Swordsmanship robbing(SS)’ Skill.]

[The Swordsmanship robbing (SS): Analyzes and identifies the swordsmanship of the person who kills him and makes it his own.]

[Progress: 2.80%]

Even though I didn’t even use the ether blade, Adonen progress still went up albeit slightly.

In addition…

[Protagonist Adonen has invoked ‘pattern analysis (A)’ Skill.]

[His body will slowly adapt to the enemy’s attack.]

It seemed like Adonen’s ‘Pattern analysis’ skill wasn’t limited to swordsmanship but also worked on other attacks.

“Hu… I didn’t know that you’ll use some magic. But, now that I’m aware of it, I’ll steal it too! Now die!”

The protagonist came at me again.

I fought him with the same kind of weapon I used before. I killed him again.

[Moving to A75 world line]