Chapter 4 - The Regressor Is Too Weak (4)

“... Fuck.”

And here I’d thought I might last a little longer this time.

Just when I was about to learn something important about the ponytailed woman, I’d gone and regressed.

Rushing things had been my downfall. She’d looked touchy from the start. I probably should have taken my time getting to know her.

“Hello! You inferior humans, doing such a splendid job of wasting your lives! Lovely to meet you!”

But that was fine. I had plenty of chances.

All I had to do was escape this place before the endless regressions drove me insane.

On my last run, I’d literally done nothing but swing a sword.

Which meant that, if I put my mind to it and endured a little hunger, recreating the same situation wouldn’t be difficult.

“The system will explain the details, so... let the tutorial begin!”

The fairy dropped the weapons and vanished with a pop.

I picked up a random sword and found that holding it felt much more comfortable than before.

My stance felt reasonably balanced, too.

See? This was why people needed to learn.

WHOOSH!

I gave the sword a test swing. Its arc wasn’t exactly clean, but it wasn’t clumsy, either.

Satisfying. My efforts hadn’t been wasted.

“Excuse me...?”

A man cautiously tapped me on the shoulder.

“You look like you’ve handled a sword before. Could you teach us a little?”

Apparently my stance looked steady to other people, too. Satisfaction welled up from deep in my chest.

Despite how I felt, though, I slowly shook my head, keeping my expression grave.

“I’m sorry. I’m not skilled enough to teach anyone.”

Strictly speaking, I was telling the truth. I’d spent maybe ten hours swinging a sword, at most.

But that wasn’t how these people would see it.

“Oh, come on. We’ve all been dumped into this tower together. We need to help each other survive.”

The tutorial rules hadn’t been announced yet. Maybe that was why he was appealing to our shared humanity.

“Hmm...”

I pretended to think it over, then gave a small nod.

“All right. If it’s just the absolute basics, I can help.”

“Oh...”

“But I have a condition.”

“... A condition?”

I thrust out a finger, pointing straight at the thin jacket he was wearing.

“Your jacket. Give it to me.”

“... My jacket? Well, it’s warm here, so I was going to take it off anyway...”

Looking puzzled, he took off his jacket and handed it over.

“The rest of you, too.”

I collected clothes from five people in total.

This should be enough.

“Now, this is the basic stance. When you grip the sword, put whichever hand feels more comfortable in front...”

As promised, I did my sincere best to teach them, but the men tilted their heads in confusion.

In a way, that was only natural.

I didn’t know jack shit about swords myself.

One of the men approached, scratching his head.

“Um... Could you explain in a little more detai—”

“STATUS WINDOOOOOOW!”

“Huh?”

Right on cue, Status Window Guy shouted and drew everyone’s attention. I seized the opportunity to wrap jackets around both legs, both arms, and my neck.

Thank God I’d gone to bed without changing. My long sleeves and pants already covered a considerable amount of skin.

“... Oof.”

With clothes wound around my extremities and neck, I looked pretty bizarre. Off to one side, I could see Park Cheoljin, the firefighter, clicking his tongue as he looked at me.

He was probably thinking something like, Are there really this many morons among kids these days?

Of course, I couldn’t even hold a weapon like this. Running would be difficult, too. With jacket fabric stuffed inside my shoes, my feet were uncomfortable.

But that was fine. I was a regressor.

I carefully pushed through the grass and walked out of the clearing.

“Oh...”

The layers of clothing seemed to be working. There was no sign of a regression.

There was one problem, though... It was really fucking hot.

The grass put up serious resistance, so even walking took considerable effort. With my extremities wrapped up, my body heat had nowhere to escape.

And it was hot here to begin with.

In short, it was the perfect environment for my temperature to shoot up.

I felt beads of sweat roll down my forehead, but I couldn’t stop now.

I must have walked for about thirty minutes.

“Grrr... Kreeek...”

A faint cry came from somewhere in the tall grass.

It was a bizarre sound, like a little kid who smoked three packs a day clearing their throat...

“A goblin.”

That was unmistakably a goblin’s cry.

Just then, a message window appeared before my eyes.

<Tutorial Stage>

-Clear Condition 1: Swallow a ‘golden orb’ hidden somewhere in the forest to advance to the next stage. However, only 50 golden orbs exist.

-Clear Condition 2: Defeat the boss, the Goblin Shaman, to create a portal to the next stage.

As the second condition made clear, the boss was a Goblin Shaman.

And if there was a Goblin Shaman, there had to be ordinary goblins, too.

So this would be my first real fight. Against a goblin.

The time had come to prove that all my sweat hadn’t been for nothing.

I smoothly drew my sword...

Drew...

“Oh.”

I hadn’t brought my sword.

To be precise, I’d tossed it on the ground while wrapping myself in clothes and left it there.

All I had were my cloth-wrapped Doraemon fists.

“...”

Fighting right now probably wouldn’t be wise.

I tried to carefully skirt around the cries and keep going, but...

“Kreeee!”

“Aaaaagh!”

Something leaped out of the grass! Fuck!

Something lunging at me with sharp teeth bared.

“Fuck off!”

I instinctively swung my fist and struck whatever had jumped out at me.

The clothes kept me from feeling the impact, but I managed to knock it away.

“Kreek! Kweeeek!”

The grass was green, and so was its body. That was why I’d been slow to notice it.

A goblin.

Seeing one in real life for the first time, I found it far more disgusting and creepy than I’d expected.

Its skin was wrinkled all over, blood and unidentified scraps of flesh clung to its teeth, and its eyes were full of malice...

“Die!”

I stomped hard on the fallen goblin’s chest.

CRUNCH!

“Kreeeeee!”

Its ribs shattered with a sound like snapping sorghum stalks.

The goblin twitched once or twice, then went still.

“... Is it dead?”

I cautiously prodded it with my toe, but it didn’t so much as stir.

At that moment, motes of light shimmered into being in midair and began gathering above the goblin’s head.

“...”

The light formed a small regular hexagon, then vanished in a flash.

A tiny wooden box remained where it had been.

I awkwardly picked up the box with my cloth-wrapped hands. God, this was inconvenient.

“Bleh. Bleeeh.”

I somehow managed to get the box open with my tongue, revealing...

“... Lip balm?”

It was cheap lip balm.

Was it because the goblin had been so weak? Or were monster drops always like this?

I was staring at the lip balm, thoroughly unimpressed, when...

“Kreeeeee!”

Another goblin sprang out of the grass. Had it heard me killing the first one and come running?

“Too slow!”

This time, I dodged its teeth with a little more finesse, but...

“Kreek!”

“Keeheeheehek!”

To my surprise, there was another one behind it this time. They’d surrounded me.

I twisted as hard as I could, trying to dodge the second attack, too, but...

SLASH!

I couldn’t stop its nails from slicing my side.

“Oh.”

[You have taken damage.]

[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]

* * *

I tried again with a sword.

I’d been better off fighting with my fists.

Controlling a sword with Doraemon hands was just too difficult.

[You have taken damage.]

[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]

* * *

This time, I decided to gather some companions before heading out.

I explained that I was wrapped in clothes because I was allergic to grass. They seemed to just barely buy it.

Of course, the result was the same.

There was no way to fend off six goblins attacking at once without a scratch.

[You have taken damage.]

[Regressing to the moment you first entered Floor 0.]

* * *

“Fuck! Fuuuuuuck!”

Goblins were weak.

Weaker than five-year-old children.

Their bones were fragile, and they had no weapons. All they had were teeth and nails, and even those weren’t particularly sharp.

They were literally perfect tutorial monsters. Any adult with the will to fight could stomp them flat.

But to me, they felt like a mountain-sized wall.

Goblins were tenacious.

They struggled until their dying breath and devised their own plans to ambush people.

Goblins were numerous.

They attacked from every direction. Winning without taking a single hit was impossible.

Goblins were small.

The tall grass made it hard to notice them until the moment they attacked.

But those were all just excuses.

There was only one real reason.

I wasn’t strong enough to win without getting hurt.

Honestly, without Regression, I could have made it through this patch of grass easily.

I could have just laughed it off with, “A little scratch like this? I’m fine.”

The whole problem was this absurdly overzealous Regression.

Because of it, I couldn’t even escape this clearing—the tutorial for the tutorial.

“...”

I had two options.

First: keep throwing myself into the goblin-infested grass.

If I tried, tried again, and kept on trying, I’d succeed eventually.

But there was a critical problem with that.

It was difficult to use a sword against the goblins.

Not only did I have to wrap myself in clothes, but the tall grass also hampered my movements.

It was the worst possible environment for getting used to a sword.

Which left option two.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

My gaze turned toward the ponytailed woman, who was steadily swinging her sword.

Find some way—any way—to get close to her.

A Word from the Author (Afterword)

Thank you for reading!

Read Next Chapter