The Regressor Only Protects Me

Chapter 28. Beyond the Boundary (3)

Kang Sion had been inside the house for 30 minutes.

During that time, Jin Jae-hee sat on the stairs at the villa entrance, staying vigilant against monsters.

At the same time, she didn’t let her guard down against Players.

In a city where a complete ‘Monarch’ had not yet emerged, Players were potentially the greatest threat.

However, since the round had only just begun, Players wouldn’t recklessly reveal themselves.

So far, the only people she had seen were the group of four passing under the bridge earlier.

If they continued moving around so openly, that group wouldn’t survive the night.

Jin Jae-hee pulled a cigarette pack from her pocket.

Tap, tap.

She instinctively tapped the bottom of the pack against her palm before tearing off the plastic and taking out a cigarette.

Cigarettes were considered rare resources as the rounds progressed.

Thus, she had to smoke them freely while they were available and also collect them for Sion.

In the future, cigarettes would serve as ‘currency’ in this League.

When she flicked the lighter, she heard footsteps coming from inside the villa.

Jin Jae-hee recognized the sound of human footsteps.

Each person had their own distinct, habitual rhythm of walking.

It was a kind of unconscious habit that rarely changed.

Just by listening to the footsteps, she could tell it was Kang Sion.

The sound of his steps came up the stairs and gradually stopped.

Jin Jae-hee exhaled cigarette smoke, and Kang Sion naturally sat beside her.

Sion was breathing heavily, and his body was stained with blood.

Even without asking, she could guess what had happened inside.

It was Kang Sion who spoke first.

"…Just promise me one thing."

His voice was sorrowful.

Kang Sion was staring straight ahead.

To be precise, he was looking aimlessly in the direction his gaze fell.

Jin Jae-hee took another drag from her cigarette before responding.

"Okay."

Kang Sion gripped the kitchen knife in his hand tightly.

He clenched it so tightly that his hand began to tremble.

His emotions, thoughts, and profound sadness all resonated with Jin Jae-hee.

In a trembling voice, he continued speaking.

"…Just let me find my younger brother."

Jin Jae-hee still had the cigarette in her mouth as Kang Sion covered his face with one hand.

His voice quivered as he spoke.

"…Then, no matter what you want… anything… no, just… I want to be with my brother. That’s all I need."

It wasn’t easy to understand exactly what he was trying to say.

He was too shaken by the intense emotional shock to organize his thoughts clearly.

But after some contemplation, Jin Jae-hee grasped what Kang Sion was asking for.

Jin Jae-hee slightly lowered her head.

As she exhaled smoke between her legs, the smoke rose and momentarily obscured her vision.

The Kang Sion she had seen in her previous life.

And the Kang Sion now.

And herself, standing before him.

Jin Jae-hee felt a swirl of emotions, but her answer was already decided.

"Okay, I got it."

She tossed the half-smoked cigarette into the snow, where it sank deep into the white surface.

The burning cigarette melted the surrounding snow and burrowed further down.

Jin Jae-hee thought to herself.

The man sitting beside her likely wouldn’t realize.

In the end, what he wanted was the same as what she wanted.

 There was nothing to ask for, and anyway, they were fated to be together until the end.

That was how Jin Jae-hee would restore the world to its original state.

This wretched slaughter game, the otherworldly creatures disrupting the city, and the godlike beings beyond the laughing, joking Administrators—all of them would be obliterated.

In a world without them.

In that world, Kang Sion would watch his brother Junho go to college, just as he wished.

If they won the League, both of them could smile together.

They could truly smile.

For that, she was willing to sacrifice her wretched body at any time.

She had waited for so long.

The second chance was that precious, and Jin Jae-hee wasn’t about to let it slip away.

She turned her head to look toward the other side of the city, where the mountains lay.

A transparent barrier shimmered, enclosing the entire city.

The boundary of the second round.

An invisible iron cage.

I walked a little away from the building where my brother had disappeared.

Jin Jae-hee followed behind me.

Suddenly, I remembered the status windows I had seen inside the shopping mall.

I muttered quietly to summon the status window.

But nothing appeared.

"Probably because we don’t form a group yet. As you’ve noticed, the Monarch was chosen through selection in the first round, but from the second round onwards, it’s all about taking it by force."

I listened to Jin Jae-hee’s explanation as I walked ahead.

This meant my current situation didn’t meet the conditions of being part of a group.

Under those conditions, the interface that allowed efficient management of members wouldn’t be provided.

In any case, to find my brother, I had to go where he might be.

The city was vast.

There were too many buildings, roads, and alleys for one person to search alone.

Ultimately, I had to prioritize the places my brother might have gone.

Simply put, my brother likely wouldn’t have gone far from here.

And as long as the boundary existed, he had to be somewhere in this city.

The end of the first round varied by building.

According to Jin Jae-hee, a week-long round was quite lengthy.

Most rounds ended in two or three days.

That’s why K had intervened in the game.

But even so, the situation wasn’t entirely unfavorable.

"The second-round leadership belongs to those who’ve seized control of the streets."

I walked almost side by side with Jin Jae-hee.

We strolled down a snowy road with nothing on it—or rather, only abandoned cars lined up without any corpses in sight.

It felt like we were the only two people in this vast city.

Setting aside the eeriness of that feeling, we couldn’t rest our eyes for even a moment as we stayed on guard.

"The Players who started the first round on the streets will have an advantage in taking over the city. They’ll surround the people from buildings, either pulling them into their teams or killing them. They’ve probably already formed large factions."

After hearing her words, I walked a bit further and pointed to a stack of something on the opposite street.

"Is that what the result of territorial disputes looks like?"

"…You could say that."

A pyramid of human corpses had been stacked high.

It was piled so high that it nearly reached the height of the traffic lights.

Whoever had burned them, the bodies were so charred that their shapes were unrecognizable.

Some group around here must have incinerated those corpses.

"You have to choose—form a new faction to resist them or join their faction and bide your time."

"…."

Unlike the first round, the second round didn’t involve the Administrators directly intervening to select a ‘Monarch.’

The goal of the second round was simply to survive the winter.

To survive the winter, forming a group was inevitable.

Even though Jin Jae-hee possessed powers beyond human limits, it was uncertain whether she could face a group capable of stacking such a mound of corpses.

To ensure a definite outcome, I had to take deliberate steps.

Ultimately, my brother must have gone to a place where people were gathered.

If he had left the villa at the end of the first round four days ago—

The distance he could have traveled in four days.

And the crowd of people.

The state of the streets within Anyang City.

If I were my brother, where would I have gone?

If I were in my brother’s shoes, what would I do?

As I was lost in thought, Jin Jae-hee approached me and spoke quietly.

"Your body isn’t fully developed yet, so without a gun, you won’t have any means to fight back—whether it’s against humans or monsters."

"…"

She was right.

My current body was far weaker than that of an average adult male.

The last time I measured my height was during a part-time worker orientation and a physical exam at 19.

165 cm, 54 kg.

That was my physical condition.

I was still so weak that I couldn’t even protect my own body.

At that moment, Jin Jae-hee handed me something.

It was a self-defense stun gun.

When I pressed the button, it crackled with sparks.

"For some reason, this type of weapon isn’t a banned item, so I prepared one in advance. Take it. Also, artifact unlocking happens in a week. Until then, we need to secure a residence and establish safety."

I watched the crackling sparks as I listened to her.

"Once the artifacts are unlocked, I’ll make sure you become the strongest in this place. Honestly… I’m not sure about the second round, but the wider the boundaries grow, the stronger the monsters will become."

I examined the stun gun I had received.

It was a weapon perfectly suited for me.

With this stun gun, no matter how much my physical stats fell short, I could take someone down in one strike.

This was something she had prepared in advance, utilizing her advantage as a regressor.

But I found it a bit puzzling that she hadn’t handed it to me back at the shopping mall.

She must have approached me with an intent from the start—was she testing me?

Jin Jae-hee glanced around and spoke to me.

"Once we’ve secured a base, we’ll start training, even if the artifacts aren’t unlocked yet. No exceptions. So brace yourself."

I placed the stun gun in my padded jacket pocket and looked back at her.

She was scanning our surroundings.

For some reason, it felt like this was the first time I was properly seeing her.

It wasn’t until after confirming my brother’s whereabouts that I could take in the appearance of others.

Jin Jae-hee was wearing a thick gray military coat with a fur-lined hood pulled over her head.

Beneath the fur hat, her face featured long eyelashes, a high nose bridge, and rare brown eyes.

Her black hair peeked out from the hat and fell to her collarbone.

White breaths puffed out from between her pinkish lips as she spoke.

She wore jogger pants, which seemed to offer ample storage space.

Below that, she had long combat boots, designed for mobility.

Now that I observed her, I could see she was well-prepared for the League.

Perhaps noticing my gaze, Jin Jae-hee asked.

"Why?"

"…What’s your conclusion?"

I averted my eyes.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I examined someone else’s appearance like this.

As I took a step toward the road, Jin Jae-hee answered my question.

"We join a faction."

"A faction?"

"Yeah. It might not be ideal, but we lost most of our people in the first round. All that’s left is for us to join an established faction, kill the leader, and take over their group. To do that, we need to find a stable faction first… though that won’t be easy."

In summary, it was essentially about becoming like the ‘Black Team.’

Like Kwon Kyung-soo, who had hidden in our team during the last round and survived until the end.

We had been victims before, but this time we would infiltrate under their banner, seize an opportunity, and take over their faction.

It wasn’t a bad plan.

With just the two of us, we couldn’t find my brother or grow our own faction.

As I trudged through the snow, I said.

"Let’s align with the faction near Manan Police Station."

"Manan Police Station? Are you sure there’s a faction there?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know?"

Jin Jae-hee trailed behind me, asking questions.

Crunch, crunch.

Every step I took sank deep into the snow.

Pulling my foot out of the snow was harder than stepping forward.

"It’s simple logic. If you were in danger, what would you do?"

"…"

After some thought, Jin Jae-hee replied.

"Find the source of the danger and destroy it?"

At her absurd answer, I glanced back at her.

Jin Jae-hee blinked her eyes innocently, and I looked ahead again as I explained.

"Wrong. Think from the perspective of an ordinary civilian. The most common thing would be to head to a shelter. It’s actually written in disaster manuals to evacuate to shelters first."

On the opposite side of the street, I noticed a large hole in a building.

I peered into it.

It wasn’t a hole that a human could have made.

"So, you’re suggesting we head to a shelter?"

"A shelter could work, but I’m considering four things: a faction, safety, my brother’s whereabouts, and trust in the law."

"Trust in the law?"

"The belief that the law will protect them. In a crisis, civilians tend to believe the government will rescue them. In simple terms, they wait for rescue teams."

We reached the outer road of an apartment complex.

Inside the fenced complex, a few people were gathered.

They were collecting wood at a playground and lighting a fire.

I made eye contact with a few of them, but they showed no intention to attack.

I remained cautious as I passed by them.

Jin Jae-hee continued to follow behind me.

"In the end, during a disaster, most civilians on the streets would head to the nearest police station or military base rather than a shelter. Because of that trust in the law I mentioned."

"Right."

"For that reason, it’s highly likely that the Korean police maintained their government faction even after the first round ended."

"Right."

We walked toward a traffic light.

Out of habit, I stopped.

But I quickly reassessed the situation and crossed.

The traffic lights were no longer working.

Jin Jae-hee seemed to be pondering something, remaining silent for a moment.

To make it clearer, I summed it up in one sentence.

"The faction you mentioned earlier—the most organized, stable, and large-scale group is likely the one formed by the police."

"Ah."

Jin Jae-hee finally seemed to grasp it and let out a sound of realization.

"My brother is also likely to have headed there. Above all, their internal stability would be better than other factions. Honestly, if we joined a faction like Kim Dong-gil’s, we wouldn’t be able to function properly because of internal instability."

Ultimately, I was choosing the type of faction I most dreaded and despised.

If you thought about it, it was like choosing a faction led by someone like Kwon Kyung-soo.

Jin Jae-hee murmured.

"Amazing. How do you come up with things like this in such a short time? I’ve always wondered, in both the previous life and now."

"I just choose the most rational option… This way."

I turned into a desolate street.

Walking along the road, I turned into an alley.

The depth of the snow varied from street to street.

Some areas had snow up to my calves, while others reached my waist.

And there were even places with no snow at all.

On streets without snow, scattered human corpses lay instead.

The lack of snow meant that humans had been here.

The area I was walking on now had been cleared wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

I checked the rooftop of the building across the way and scanned the surroundings for movement again.

It was deathly quiet.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us.

Soon, I realized it wasn’t just my imagination.

A group of people emerged from the side of a commercial building.

Most of them were huddled together in fear, with only a few holding weapons.

Among them were police officers in uniform.

A middle-aged officer holding a pistol walked out slowly.

I knew from K that the pistol wouldn’t work.

The police had assumed leadership, protecting civilians under their care.

It was exactly as I had expected.

This was a faction formed by the police.

Unfortunately for them, I intended to use their faction.

And then take it over entirely—to find Junho.

The middle-aged officer aimed his pistol at me and spoke.

"Stop. Police. Drop your weapon."

I slowly raised both hands, but Jin Jae-hee didn’t.