Chapter 4: Time Ability (1)
“Who would’ve thought we’d find such a weapon here. That’s amazing.”
I fiddled with the newly acquired real sword, turning it this way and that.
Before my regression, it had a far worse grip and was heavier than the specially manufactured swords.
Still, among the weapons I could obtain right now, there was probably nothing better than this.
When I made a satisfied expression, Han Yeahee let out a small snort of laughter.
“Did you learn kendo too, by any chance?”
“Well, I learned something similar.”
“Wow, then with that, you could even cut down monsters…”
-kiiiieeek-!
Suddenly, the cries of monsters rang out.
The color drained from Han Yeahee’s face, and she froze in place.
I was just as startled.
Their cries sounded similar, yet subtly different.
Having received Zeus training, it was easy for me to tell them apart.
They were clearly response calls to a signal.
Why all of a sudden?
There hadn’t been anyone here.
I grabbed Han Yeahee’s wrist and rushed out of the kendo hall.
Her rapidly cooling body temperature transmitted through my hand.
There was no time to explain things to her.
In a place crawling with monsters, even a moment’s hesitation was a luxury.
“W, Woojin…!”
I quickly scanned the interior of the building.
Was there anywhere safe inside?
The response calls had leaked out from this building.
For now, it would actually be safer outside.
-wa-jang-chang!
At that moment, a Juggling leapt in through the second-floor windows.
Glass shards scattered violently.
I reflexively raised my arm to block them, but one shard scraped my cheek.
Immediately after, countless Jugglings smashed through the windows and poured into the building.
Even if they were lower-tier species, their physical abilities surpassed those of humans.
Clearing several meters was effortless for them.
“Keugh…!”
There was a Juggling right in front of my nose.
And the same behind me.
The monsters’ distinctive, nauseating body odor stabbed at my nostrils.
Han Yeahee covered her mouth and trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Her large, round eyes were filled with unbearable fear.
It wouldn’t have been strange if she fainted on the spot.
Seeing her desperately trying not to make a sound, I tightly squeezed her hand.
-kieeek!
Fortunately, the response calls stopped.
The monsters seemed to have lost their sense of direction as well.
Amidst those monsters, we stood still like statues.
Their large ears were pricked straight up.
It showed that their alertness had reached its peak.
At times like this, they reacted even to the smallest footstep.
Even swallowing dry saliva required caution.
If Han Yeahee couldn’t hold on and collapsed, at that very moment, I would be torn to shreds as well.
-kiiik!
Large ears reaching about my waist.
A long, thin tongue and sharp fangs.
Unable to endure it any longer, Han Yeahee squeezed her eyes shut.
That wasn’t a good choice.
When humans can’t see, their fear doubles.
At this rate, we would die.
Only then did I realize that saying I had overcome death was nothing but empty words.
I had fought monsters for 21 years. Yet I was still afraid.
And I was resentful.
Why I regressed, how I regressed.
I didn’t know any of that either.
All I knew was how hollow it felt to think I might throw away this newly regained chance at life.
Did I want to change the ending?
Did I want to avoid repeating the same process?
No.
I just wanted to live.
Because I knew death, I struggled all the more desperately.
If I died again, what would happen?
Would I be able to regress again?
If I were given one more chance, what should I do?
Wouldn’t the ending—being torn apart by monsters—be the same anyway?
In that instant, the bunker from before my regression came to mind.
I could feel the blood splattered everywhere and the damp air of that place.
I could see the faces of the teammates who had been with me until the very last moment.
And then.
Those weak thoughts vanished cleanly.
Team Zeus.
Humanity, whom the monsters feared.
The only force capable of standing against them.
It would take two more years before the team was formed.
Right now, I was the only human who had received Zeus training.
There were no comrades by my side, but my body and mind remembered the training.
So.
The ones who should be afraid weren’t me, but those bastards.
The ones who should be trembling weren’t me, but you.
My heart pounded rapidly.
Not from fear.
To be precise, it was excitement.
At the thought of killing them.
At the thought of becoming the predator instead of the prey.
My heart beat faster than ever.
I picked up the handmade spear Han Yeahee had been holding.
Very slowly.
And carefully.
At my movement, Han Yeahee opened her eyes.
Looking into her fear-filled eyes, I gave her a gentle smile.
Then I gestured for her to lower her body.
She nodded.
I threw the spear toward the opposite window.
-jjaeng-geurang!
-kiieeek!
The bastards charged like mad toward the sound.
In that gap, Han Yeahee pressed herself tightly against the side wall and lowered her posture.
-seureureuk!
From the wooden scabbard, the elegant real sword slid free.
The taut blade revealed its presence.
I spoke to Han Yeahee.
In my usual voice.
Without lowering the decibels at all.
“Go to the emergency stairs.”
“Huh?!”
Startled, she let out a voice that wasn’t quiet.
At that, the monsters began rushing toward us.
“Now.”
-kiieeek!
I swung the sword at the one charging first.
The sword path was drawn sharply, without the slightest wavering.
Its torso was cut cleanly in half.
The ones coming after it were the same.
They were nothing more than lower-tier species charging straight on in a narrow corridor.
There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in my relentless sword strikes.
Greenish blood stained my white dress shirt.
Feeling the familiar sensation in my hands after so long, the corners of my mouth rose naturally.
I pressed them without giving up my back.
The monsters hesitated for a moment.
Those things that had been rampaging as if it were their world just moments ago were now afraid.
These things, too, were nothing more than living creatures.
They felt the same emotions humans did.
“Trash like this.”
Watching them, a bitter sneer leaked out.
To think half the population had been massacred by things like these.
Humanity, which had boasted of cutting-edge science and military equipment, brought low by nothing more than these things.
-kiieeek!
They sent out a call for reinforcements.
This building would soon be packed full of Jugglings.
I knew it.
I knew that what made them frightening was their grotesque numbers.
But weren’t there more humans living on this Earth?
It was a country with a population of fifty million.
Even counting generously, the infiltrated Jugglings numbered only around one million.
With just some basic training, dealing with lower-tier species wasn’t difficult.
If humanity hadn’t been frightened and had responded proactively.
If they had gotten through the first invasion with minimal damage, the future would have been vastly different.
In the end, the outcome inside that bunker must have been due to a button that had been fastened wrong from the very beginning.
Just as we called them monsters.
From their perspective, humans were monsters too.
Different appearances, different smells, different environments.
We must have been monsters to each other.
Humanity panicked and fled, and they pursued.
That was how predator and prey were decided.
In the end, the key to victory and defeat hadn’t been the difference in technology or physical ability, but the mindset within.
“There’s a damn lot of them.”
Before I knew it, the number of Jugglings had increased exponentially.
Even my back was completely surrounded.
I knew I couldn’t make it out alive.
I had already known that the moment I drew the real sword.
It was just that dying without resistance felt unfair.
Just like back then, when I poured out every last bullet inside that narrow bunker.
Like that version of me who resisted so desperately.
“So it’s the same ending after all.”
If I could regress one more time.
If that kind of miracle came to me once again, how I should act next time was drawn vividly in my mind.
“I’ll take at least one more of you with me.”
As long as my legs were attached, I would move, and if my arms were attached, I would swing.
I would fight until the very, very end.
And I would let those bastards know.
That humanity was never weak.
At that moment, a strange exhilaration wrapped around my entire body.
I knew exactly what this sensation was.
That feeling you get after running around the drill field about a hundred laps.
When the breath that had risen to your throat suddenly stabilized, and your mood inexplicably lifted.
An explosion of adrenaline.
And at that moment.
Another miracle arrived.
[Checking heart rate.]
The watch on my left wrist emitted a blue light.
Soon, incomprehensible phrases unfolded before my eyes like a hologram.
[Conditions have been met.]
[Special ability, ‘Time Attack,’ has been activated.]
[TIME : 23:59:59]
That screen I had continued to wonder about ever since my regression.
The [TIME] inside the watch began decreasing second by second.
Why all of a sudden?
Time Attack? What the hell was that?
What had been activated?
My head was a mess.
But without even a moment to think, the bastards bared their fangs.
Huh?
But that was strange.
Why had their movements slowed down?
As if I were watching a slow-motion video, they were approaching very slowly.
I had already memorized their behavior patterns.
In my past experience, there had never been a time when they moved that slowly.
From their ears twitching energetically to the detailed movements of their legs kicking off the ground, I could see everything clearly.
What kind of situation was this….
No, wait a second.
What if it wasn’t that they had slowed down, but that I had sped up?
I checked the watch again and chewed over the phrases.
Time Attack.
It meant clearing a mission in the shortest possible time.
If that was the case, had I really become faster?
Before my head could finish judging, my body reacted first.
Moving my body as I had trained, I cut down six of them in an instant.
And then I could be sure.
I had become faster.
No, rather than that, the expression that time itself had been divided fit better.
Exactly by a factor of one-tenth.
One second for them felt like ten seconds to me.
Along with a dumbfounded dry laugh, this thought crossed my mind.
I could survive.
[TIME : 23:59:41]
No, I had to survive.
The same space, different time.
It felt as if I had become a god.
I quickly adapted to the alien sensation and grew even bolder.
As if being sucked into the monsters’ embrace, I burrowed inside and steadily cut them down one by one.
No matter how much Zeus training I had received, doing something like this was practically suicide.
Without the ability of Time Attack, it would have been absolutely impossible.
“Woojin…?”
Han Yeahee stood far away with her mouth hanging open.
She was shocked by movements that utterly transcended human limits.
“Hurry and open the emergency exit door!”
“Ah, yes!”
[TIME : 23:56:32]
About four minutes since Time Attack had activated.
I realized the fatal drawback of this ability.
That was the extreme consumption of stamina.
In exchange for living ten times the time, it seemed my stamina was being consumed just as fast.
Otherwise, there was no way it could be this exhausting.
“Huh… huff….”
Even after being discharged, I had kept exercising regularly.
And yet, in less than five minutes, my breath had climbed right up to my throat.
Even if I had a god’s power, I was still nothing more than a human.
My stamina had limits, but their numbers were endless.
To survive, we had to get out of here and enter another building.
Director Lee and Assistant Manager Gu, those cancerous bastards, were none of my concern.
“I think the door’s locked! It won’t open!”
What?!
At that moment, words like a bolt from the blue reached my ears.
There were two emergency exits in the building, left and right.
The one we came down was on the left, but the one we were trying to escape through was on the right.
“Of all times….”
It was at least 50 meters to the opposite emergency exit.
Could I break through to there?
No matter how I thought about it, the odds of success were slim.
“W, what do we do?!”
“Stay right there!”
I backed up little by little and approached Han Yeahee.
If the door wouldn’t open, then breaking it would do.
The nearby monsters had already entered this building.
If we could just get outside, there would be a way.
But then.
-tuk-!
Was it because it couldn’t withstand my speed?
Or was its durability weak to begin with?
“Woojin!”
The real sword broke.
It felt like even that threadlike hope had been severed.
With a hollow feeling, I stared at the blade that had fallen to the ground.
An outstanding body and even a special ability.
For a brief moment, I thought I had everything.
I believed I could live.
And yet, with a single sword breaking, everything fell apart.
-kwajik-!
“Kyaaaak!”
A monster bit into my shoulder.
I heard Han Yeahee’s scream.
Even so, I felt no pain.
I was simply dumbfounded.
Something trivial had grabbed my ankle.
My lifeless gaze remained fixed on the broken sword.
“Fuck….”
My left leg was bitten.
My right arm as well.
Finally, even my neck.
Just before death, it feels as if life itself is being sucked out.
I was feeling that shitty sensation for the second time.
-kwajijik-!
My eyes closed naturally.