The world was always noisy.
Noisy enough that it would not be strange if I disappeared at any moment.
“Did you hear? Dollmaker Sa Ujin caused trouble again.”
“Tsk. What is the point of being S-Rank when the person is trash?”
Hunters again, ruining the taste of my drink. Well, it was about time that perverted b×stard started making a scene again. I had come out to the outskirts because I did not want to hear that kind of talk, but it seemed impossible to avoid it completely.
“Mister. One more bottle.”
“I am not selling you any more.”
“I have money.”
“You do not look like you have much life left. How many bottles are stacked in front of you right now?”
Cute green bottles were gathered neatly before me. It was not as though there were that many.
“There are only a few.”
“Fifteen.”
His eyes and voice regarded me as though I were an alcoholic. I could not simply let such an insult to my honor pass.
I rubbed the spilled liquor on the floor with my finger and drew the letter D.
“Mister, I may look like this, but I am D-Rank. You should not compare my alcohol tolerance to that of the people living around here.”
“D-Rank or not, how many days have you come to this place this week?”
Ah, a memory test? I was good at these.
“Three days.”
“What day is it today?”
“Wednesday.”
THWACK!
“Argh!”
The owner struck my head with his knuckles and shouted.
“You have come every day this week, you little b×stard!”
I was fairly accustomed to pain, but no matter how many times I experienced it, I could not get used to being hit by that man. How did he make it hurt so precisely? Was that the wisdom that came with age?
Instead of soju, the owner handed me a similarly colored lemon-lime soda.
“You are not getting anything else today. To begin with, you are too young to be living in a neighborhood like this. How old are you? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-five.”
“You have a young face. In any case, at twenty-five, you can still do anything you want. Is it not far too early to give up on life and do nothing but drink yourself senseless?”
They were kind words. Every word was right.
There was only one assumption that ruined them.
The assumption that the ending could change, whether I gave up or did something.
“Mister.”
“What?”
“Buy shares in the Sugyeong Guild.”
“What? Hey, hey, where are you going? You will ruin your stomach if you do nothing but drink, you little shit! I will give you food for free, so eat before you leave!”
I left the bar and raised my head.
The winter wind slapped pleasantly against my cheeks, and my mind gradually cleared.
“Ah, I wish I could have stayed drunk for just six more minutes.”
Then I heard voices behind me.
“What is that b×stard talking about?”
“How would I know? Why would you try to understand a drunk? Hey, kid. Come here. List every skill you have. If I catch you hiding one… Hey, what are you doing?”
I lightly toyed with the hand of the larger man who had picked a fight with me.
“Hey, you crazy b×stard! What the hell are you doing?”
The man struck my cheek with all his strength, and my frail body rolled across the ground like a broken branch.
I should have stayed drunk for six more minutes. It was more comfortable when all sensation disappeared and I could even forget pain.
Mulling over that small regret, I took a knife from my pocket.
And then……
SLASH!
Blood poured from my neck.
“W-What, are you insane? That b×stard slit his own throat!”
“Hey, run! F×ck, I have never seen such a lunatic before!”
It was fascinating.
I had grown accustomed to the pain of my throat being cut and my breath fading away, but why could I not get used to the bar owner’s knuckle raps?
“Thath wha…… cough, I com'h here…….”
(That was why…… I came here…….)
I opened the hand that had been touching the man earlier. A transparent glove gleamed with a faintly cloudy white light.
[Clown’s Hand (E)]
: In use — Kim Pil-doo
The Clown Series.
Each part had a slightly different effect, but the ability of the most worthless piece, the ‘Hand,’ was simple.
It perfectly duplicated the hand of anyone it touched.
Even their fingerprints.
“Kim Pil-doo, cough, what a name…… cough, hack…….”
Good. I had smeared the brute’s fingerprints all over this knife, so the preparations were complete. That dog-like b×stard who always tried to beat me whenever I wanted to rest. This time, he could take a beating from the law’s cudgel himself.
And so, I cheerfully completed my 102nd revenge today as well.
I dragged myself over and collapsed in front of the restaurant run by the man who had spat on the forty-fifth iteration of me.
Our foul-mouthed but kind bar owner should not have to dispose of a corpse as well.
I had framed him, and I had finished preparing to bring bad luck upon the restaurant. Now, die peacefully.
.
.
.
[Death has been confirmed.]
[Someone has used the skill “(Unknown)” (EX).]
[Returning to the designated point in time.]
.
.
.
“That f×cking familiar ceiling.”
I even cleanly delivered the kind of line that only appeared in generic light novels.
That completed the regression routine.
“Already the 7,201st iteration. Maybe I should go out for a drink today to celebrate my 7,200th death.”
Neither my abilities nor my skills had anything to do with regression, so I had no idea why I had ended up like this.
Of course, I had tried many different things throughout my maddeningly numerous lives.
There had been times when I experienced incredible growth. There had been times when I lived comfortably without thinking about anything. There had been times when I used every ability I had to secure a prosperous life.
Buying shares. Buying lottery tickets.
The standard things regressors did in novels.
But none of those endings had been good. I died, and everything I had wanted crumbled apart.
After dying and returning to this house to start over from the beginning several thousand times, I grew tired of everything. Everything became bothersome, and I chose to become a wreck who did nothing but drink.
Yes, in the summer when I was twenty-five years old.
I was trapped in this dreadful heat, with my death held hostage.
DING!
A message appeared before my eyes, accompanied by an unexpected notification sound.
[Someone has used the skill “(Unknown)” (EX).]
Huh?
That skill had never activated except when I died.
I opened my status window to find an answer, but the notification window answered me first.
[Skill use has been canceled.]
[This skill cannot be used.]
[The skill “(Unknown)” (EX) is being released.]
[The final regression begins.]
The status window finally opened before my stunned eyes.
=====
Name: Kang Seon
Rank: D (DD)
Ability: “Rapid Reading” (D)
Skill: “Mimicry” (???)
Special State: 7,201st Iteration (End).
=====
“…Wow.”
My rank, ability, and skill at the point of regression were all unchanged.
It was also natural that the number of iterations in my Special State had increased by one to match the number of times I had died.
“…F×ck….”
But there was one difference.
Even someone who had studied as poorly as I had in school could recognize the character there.
End.
Skill canceled, skill released, and end.
Even an idiot could understand what that meant.
“…Heh. Hehehe! Hahaha!! Freedom, freedom! I am free!!”
How terrible those years had been.
I could not die even when I wanted to, and even after I died, I could not die.
The only advantage of that damned regression was being able to visit the person who had killed me afterward and spout nonsense such as, “Did you think killing me once would actually kill me?”
“DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING!!”
I spent the next two and a half hours singing songs of revolution, freedom, and liberation at the top of my lungs. Only after someone began throwing stones at my bedroom window did I finally sit down.
Now, it was time to consider a truly delightful problem.
“Ah. This is so exciting. How should I die?”
How should I die so that, once I reached the afterlife, I could meet the people who had killed me and whom I had killed throughout 7,200 lives, smile at them, and say, “I have lived a life filled with resurrections”?
To think I could consider death with such excitement after thousands of lives.
People truly were creatures driven by deadlines.
KNOCK, KNOCK.
As I was seriously pondering the matter, someone knocked on my door and interrupted my deep thoughts.
Who was it? I had been in the middle of a profound contemplation on how to decorate my final life.
I had even thought as far as filling tomato juice with generous amounts of minced garlic and seeking out a Vampire Lord.
“I do not know who you are, I do not read newspapers, I never want to get involved with religion again, and I do not have a job or any intention of getting one.”
I was going to die soon anyway. I was an unemployed man unconcerned about money, with nothing in this world to fear.
In response to my cheerful voice, the other person replied with irritating timidity.
“Um…… excuse me……. Do you…… happen to have any unnecessary skills……?”
Skills? No, I did not. The skill that had been clinging to me so f×cking stubbornly had already been taken away by someone.
I intended to answer that way and ignore the person at the door, but then I realized that the voice was familiar and threw the door open.
“Oh, you…….”
Long black hair fell to her lower back, and her brilliant golden eyes were the color of lemons. She was slim, but the curves of her body were clearly visible. A delicate beauty was a fitting description for the woman who stood before my door, nervously watching my reaction.
And she was someone I knew.
“Um, um…… would you sell me a skill……?”
She was someone to whom I owed a great deal in several lives.
She was also someone whose path diverged drastically depending on what I did.
I had seen various names used for her over countless lives, but with a few rare exceptions, they generally fell into two categories.
‘Skill Master,’ or ‘Trash Can.’
A person could possess a total of ten skills.
Once all ten slots were filled, there were only two paths they could choose.
They could develop the skills they already had, or they could spend a great deal of money to ‘sell’ a skill to someone else.
Normally, in a transaction, the buyer paid and the seller received money. This case was different. In order to make room in their skill window, people paid someone else to take an unwanted skill off their hands.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they were ‘buying a space for a skill.’
Once one had grown to a certain level, the presence or absence of a single skill could decide life and death. People who wanted to get rid of skills that were neither useful nor useless were everywhere.
Fortunately, there were no non-Awakened people in this world, but quite a few people lived without much interest in skills or the life of a Hunter.
Whenever they needed money, such people had ten ways to obtain quick cash. Yu Danyeong, the woman standing before me, was one of them.
While I was wandering through my memories, Yu Danyeong cautiously spoke to me once more.
“……Excuse me, are you all right? You look out of it……. I-I have medicine. Would you like one? Of course, it is absolutely not anything strange! It is only some medicine I keep on hand, so…….”
- Wake up, Mr. Kang Seon! I will make you a skill now, so take this and run. No one but you can defeat !
Beyond that gentle face, the image of a woman stronger than anyone else flashed through my mind.
She was a woman with the potential to become ‘the greatest Hunter’ if she were given even the slightest opportunity. At the same time, she was a good person who never committed evil.
I desperately wanted to die immediately, but I thought it would be all right to spare enough time to repay her kindness.
“Excuse me.”
“Y-Yes……?”
“Want to try working with me? Hunter work.”
Yu Danyeong repeatedly parted her lips as she looked at me with an expression that asked whether she had heard correctly.
Mm, good, good. No matter how kind someone was, they needed enough sense to be suspicious. It would be far more dangerous if she simply accepted the offer without question……
“I-I think you are very sick……. Should I call an ambulance……?”
“……”
Mm.
To hell with repaying a favor. Should I just bite my tongue and die right here?