The Regressor Only Protects Me

Chapter 6. Reunion (1)

Forty-five goblins…

Forty-six goblins…

Swish–slash!

The blade of the sword sliced clean through a goblin’s neck.

The goblin’s head spun in the air before hitting a mannequin and toppling over.

In the path she had walked, there were only three things left.

A goblin’s head.

A goblin’s torso.

And a human corpse.

Jae-hee walked through the spaces in between them.

Swish!

Jae-hee exclusively targeted and severed goblins’ necks.

In her past life, she had killed hundreds of goblins.

She had also slain thousands of monsters ranked higher than goblins.

Swordsmanship, rotations, movements, drawing techniques, vigilance, posture, counterattacks.

She had perfectly mastered how to cut and kill her enemies with certainty.

She had already reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

Jin Jae-hee pressed forward swiftly.

From the basement parking lot on the second floor to the sixth floor above ground.

She had killed every last monster she encountered.

Her entire body was already drenched in blood.

Her sword-wielding arm trembled slightly, and blood flowed from wounds on her legs where blades had grazed her.

Since her Player abilities had not yet been unlocked, her body at this stage was incomplete.

Even slightly dynamic movements took a considerable toll on her body.

But she couldn’t afford to rest.

Jae-hee looked toward the escalator.

Now, the seventh floor.

She had already expended quite a bit of stamina getting here.

There were still five floors of the shopping mall left.

“Phew…”

Jae-hee let out a sigh and turned toward the opposite store.

However, two people were already looking at her from that direction.

One of them had a familiar face.

‘…That’s right. That person started here with Sion as well.’

It was a somewhat welcome face.

Breathing heavily, Jae-hee turned away.

Knowing her past life, she could tell.

That familiar face wasn’t going to die here.

Because he was someone who would remain with Sion.

Of course, the person next to him would die, but that didn’t matter.

She turned her back and began ascending toward the seventh floor again.

Sixth floor, Sporting Goods Section.

“Gugh…! Ugh…”

With a sharp kick from Joo-yeon, the goblin’s face was completely crushed.

After dealing with the fallen goblin, Joo-yeon thought for a moment before kicking its corpse aside.

She then picked up a chocolate bar from behind the counter and tore open the wrapper.

Crunch.

It was a small snack prepared by the staff for children.

“Saebom, are you okay? You’re not hurt, right?”

Joo-yeon mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate as she turned to ask.

Nearby, her younger brother, Lee Saebom, was smashing a goblin’s head with a baseball bat.

Crunch! Crunch-!

The goblin slumped lifelessly, its breathing ceased.

After wiping the sweat off his forehead, Saebom turned to look at Joo-yeon.

Watching his older sister munching on a chocolate bar in the midst of all this chaos, Saebom frowned.

“…Noona. How can you even think of eating in a situation like this?”

“…Ah, here we go again with the nagging. Look, when you burn energy, you need to replenish your sugar, okay? Ugh, this is why people like you, who haven’t served in the military, just don’t get it. You’d understand if you’d gone on marches.”

Lee Joo-yeon was a former member of the 707th Special Missions Group.

Looking at his sister, Saebom pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh.

“…Seriously. We’re in a life-or-death situation, surrounded by corpses, and you’re casually eating a chocolate bar. Noona, why are you like this? Are you dumb?”

“…I’m not dumb. I’m pure. Pure.”

Joo-yeon glared at her younger brother while chewing on the chocolate bar.

That only made Saebom more exasperated.

“That’s exactly what people mean when they call you dumb. Ah, I’m going crazy. Are we even related by DNA?”

Saebom shook his head in disbelief as he walked past her.

Hearing her little brother’s words, Joo-yeon scowled.

Then, without hesitation, she kicked him in the butt.

Whack—thud!

“Is that something you say to your older sister?”

Saebom, showing no sign of being hurt, turned back to look at Joo-yeon.

“Yeah, it is.”

Joo-yeon frowned again and turned the corner.

There, a goblin that wasn’t entirely dead yet was trembling on the ground.

Without a second thought, she stomped on its face with her boot.

With every stomp, green blood splattered everywhere.

Watching this, Saebom took a deep breath and wiped his forehead.

He had to accept that the world had gone completely mad.

‘Damn it…’

Outside the window, a black fog obscured everything.

They had no idea about the situation outside or within, and monsters just kept pouring in.

Goblins, monsters that seemed straight out of a fantasy movie—or more specifically, out of The Lord of the Rings, which he’d watched as a child—had appeared in droves.

And those goblins were killing and eating humans.

The first priority was ensuring his and his sister’s safety.

In extreme situations, securing the right to survival always came first.

‘…We need to form a group.’

When there were external dangers, forming a group was human instinct.

And Lee Saebom was determined to follow that instinct.

He and Joo-yeon needed companions to face this ordeal together.

However, most people had been killed by the monsters, and the few survivors were either too scared to move or had gone insane and were trembling in a corner.

Just as Saebom grabbed his backpack and stood up, he heard footsteps.

At the same time, the screams of monsters echoed.

“Kyyaaaah!”

Thud!

It sounded like something heavy had fallen, and soon a woman appeared, walking toward the center of the area.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Shh, quiet!”

Saebom hushed Joo-yeon and crouched down to observe the woman.

The woman was holding a sword and effortlessly killed several goblins in one motion.

Then, she calmly walked forward.

Saebom thought as he watched her.

‘…It’s too natural. She doesn’t seem like someone who just encountered this situation today.’

She moved as if she had been doing this for a long time.

In this situation, such composure was almost impossible.

The woman glanced at Saebom and Joo-yeon before turning her body toward the seventh floor.

‘…Damn it.’

Click-click.

Saebom began biting his fingernails—a habit that surfaced whenever he was deep in thought.

He was conflicted.

The woman was dangerous.

At the same time, she was strong.

But Saebom’s deliberation didn’t last long.

“Follow her, Noona.”

“Huh? What? Wait—”

Saebom moved instinctively, as if drawn by some unseen force.

He and his sister weren’t the only ones; there was no one else in this mall who could adapt as quickly as she did.

And only those who could adapt would survive in this shopping mall.

Seventh floor, Children’s Section.

I looked at the woman.

The woman looked at me as well.

Her eyes were unfocused.

And from the faint sound of her labored breathing, I could tell she was exhausted.

But I couldn’t discern whether her gaze was fixed on me among all these people by coincidence.

Coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidence.

Every event and phenomenon has a cause, and there’s always a process leading to it.

If she had simply come down here and found people, she would have looked around or shown some sign of relief.

But the woman’s eyes were solely fixed on me.

As if she had known me for a very long time.

“Miss! Over here! Come quickly!”

Kwon Kyung-soo shouted at the woman.

The woman shifted her gaze toward Kyung-soo.

Then, slowly, she began approaching the barricade.

Crrrrrr…

The sound of her sword dragging along the shopping mall floor was sharp.

“Miss, are you… okay? Your body is covered in blood…!”

Kwon Kyung-soo looked at the blood-drenched state of the woman’s body and voiced his concern.

He reached out his hand to the woman.

It seemed he thought her body was too exhausted to climb over the barricade.

However, the woman leapt over the barricade and landed inside in one swift motion.

Her athletic abilities were remarkable.

Inside the barricade, she muttered under her breath.

“…Even if you’ve incapacitated a goblin, you must confirm it’s truly dead.”

Squish!

Suddenly, she stabbed her sword into the neck of a monster lying on the floor.

A nearby girl jumped back in shock, stumbling slightly.

I frowned at the sight.

The monster, which everyone assumed was dead, twitched violently before finally dying.

The woman went around stabbing the fallen monsters one by one.

Kwon Kyung-soo, who had been silently watching her, stepped forward and began helping her stab the monsters again.

At that moment.

A few monsters, which everyone believed were dead, began to rise slowly and charged at the people.

“Kyyaaaaah!!!”

“Screeeech!!!”

One monster lunged at a nearby man with its sharp claws extended.

The man panicked and stumbled backward.

And Jin Jae-hee swiftly raised her sword and cut down the two charging monsters in one stroke.

Their heads flew off.

The two severed heads rolled across the floor and stopped at a man’s feet.

“Ugh…! Blegh!”

The man, faced with the grisly sight, vomited.

Several others seemed unable to hold back the nausea churning in their stomachs.

“Goblins have exceptional regenerative abilities. You must sever their heads to completely neutralize them.”

The woman spoke as if she were muttering to herself.

She didn’t seem to be addressing anyone in particular, but for some reason, it felt like she was speaking directly to me.

Kwon Kyung-soo, standing nearby, asked her a question.

“Y-you’re saying these are goblins, right? The kind you’d only see in fantasy novels?”

“Yeah.”

Her voice lacked energy.

She didn’t seem to have any will to say more.

Her expression, unmoving like that of a mannequin or robot, didn’t show the emotions of a normal person.

And yet, she was extraordinarily beautiful, and her calm demeanor was unlike that of any ordinary individual.

The fear or psychological instability one would naturally experience under such circumstances was entirely absent from her.

The Uncanny Valley Theory.

It’s the idea that when humans see something resembling a human, their affinity for it increases as the resemblance grows—until a certain point, where it instead causes discomfort.

Looking at her, I felt discomfort rather than affinity.

I scrutinized her closely.

No, it was closer to surveillance.

Minutes passed.

I was still gripping the mop handle, observing the woman.

Eventually, she dealt the final blow to the last remaining goblin-like monster.

Squish–!

Green blood splattered in all directions.

Finally, silence descended.

The woman, now drenched in goblin blood, was breathing heavily.

Then, she turned back.

Toward the people.

The woman plopped down in one corner of the barricade and brushed her sweat- and blood-soaked hair out of her face.

Her calmness in action.

Her familiarity with killing.

Everything about her seemed natural.

I didn’t know how many floors she had climbed up from, but it was as if she had decided this place was her destination, settling here on the seventh floor.

I approached her slightly.

“You seem to know a lot about these monsters.”

I was probing her.

Above all, her actions didn’t make any sense to me.

In a life-or-death situation, her behavior might have appeared altruistic to others, but I needed to understand it on a deeper level.

Perhaps she wasn’t even human, like K, but instead something else that had existed before this tutorial began.

“I’ve just experienced it before.”

Her answer was straightforward and succinct.

And yet, her response was strange.

Experienced it?

I moved a little closer and asked again.

“What floor did you come from?”

Since she wasn’t using honorifics, I quickly dropped the formalities as well.

She didn’t seem to care.

“The second basement floor.”

“From there to here?”

“Yeah.”

The woman pulled a cigarette from her inner pocket and stuck it in her mouth.

Click, click.

She flicked the lighter several times, but it wouldn’t catch.

After shaking the lighter two or three times, she finally lit the cigarette.

If someone with her level of adaptability stayed with us, along with Kwon Kyung-soo, she could become a valuable ally.

However, one thing concerned me—she was carrying a real sword.

A real sword.

In South Korea, unless you were in a specific profession, it was an unusual weapon to possess.

The woman had a real sword inside a shopping mall.

And she wielded it with absolute mastery.

In terms of combat strength, she was an incredible asset at the moment.

But what she was thinking and what her goals were—I couldn’t tell.

If her goals conflicted with mine…

I wouldn’t hesitate to draw my gun.

But her next words left me certain.

Still holding her cigarette in her mouth, she spoke to me cautiously.

“About your younger brother… I actually tried to find him, but I couldn’t.”

The woman was speaking to me.

I had no idea what her words truly meant.

Even though I had only met her today, the fact that she said she had ‘tried’ to find my brother bothered me.

Did that mean she had known something like this would happen all along?

That thought made my chest tighten as if it were sinking.

This woman—she knew about my younger brother.

And she had brought it up first.

The woman set down the bag she had been carrying and began taking out its contents.

Among them were knives and some simple medical supplies.

After showing these items to me, she continued speaking.

“Take these. We’ll be dealing with humans here, not monsters.”

At that moment, a student cautiously approached the woman and asked her a question.

“D-dealing with other people… What do you mean by that?”

The student’s voice trembled, and everyone in the area focused their attention on the woman.

The woman zipped up her bag, glanced at the ceiling, and spoke.

“It means killing them. So that we don’t die.”

Ominous words.

And as she said those words, the woman slowly turned her head.

“…!”

“Gasp…!”

Everyone seemed shocked by my actions.

The woman turned her head just enough to glance at her temple.

Click—clack.

I pulled the hammer of the gun back.

A single bullet was chambered.

Still, I kept my gun aimed at her temple and asked.

“My brother, you said?”

In the cold, tense atmosphere, the woman raised her eyes to look at me.

I placed my finger on the trigger and asked again.

“How do you know I have a brother?”