The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 185

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Episode 185
185. TOP 10
The Seer had spoken.
In Round 11, I must seize whoever saves my life.
If I let them slip away, I won’t survive past Round 15.
‘No, this can’t be. How did I even survive?’
Christine quickly began to tout her own usefulness.
“Y-you don’t realize how valuable I am, do you? Haha, I can heal your wounds, and I can cast buffs that protect against status ailments and debuffs, and also….”
“None of that is something I need.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t take damage, so healing is unnecessary. My resistance to status ailments is already high. There’s no reason whatsoever to travel with a Priest.”
“….”
Admittedly, a Priest is an exceptional support for survival.
Healing differs fundamentally from first aid, and as rounds progress, status ailments and debuffs become as terrifying as anything else.
The necessity of a healer is something even I acknowledge as essential.
‘But only in the late stages.’
Once you reach level 60, a Priest learns resurrection magic.
Only then is it worthwhile to keep a healer around as insurance.
‘But right now, she’s utterly useless. Dead weight.’
Christine seemed to accept this fact, saying nothing and merely bowing her head.
No—reading her thoughts, she wasn’t discouraged so much as desperately searching for another way.
It was because of my prophecy that I must travel with Black Scythe.
‘Don’t worry, Christine. I have no reason to reject you.’
Unless I know how powerful the boss battle will be, a Priest capable of one additional resurrection is absolutely necessary.
But for now, I need to maintain distance under a plausible excuse.
“This round is a team battle where you earn points by killing the opposing team. You and I are clearly competitors from different regions and races. Do you really think we can cooperate under such circumstances? What about me would make you trust me?”
“…You saved me.”
“Save you twice and you’ll be asking me to marry you.”
“….”
“You trust me that easily? Even though we just met?”
In truth, what Christine trusted was the prophecy.
She clung to Black Scythe because the words said she could survive only by grasping a lifeline.
But after hearing Black Scythe’s counsel, her thoughts shifted.
‘This man is someone I can trust.’
In just a brief encounter, he understood her situation and hardships, offering guidance.
A man possessing not only strength but insight as well.
A lifeline that appeared sturdy on the surface—why would she have any reason not to cling to it?
“Yes… I trust you. I trust you.”
‘Damn it, this is maddening.’
Watching Christine desperately try to attach herself to me, I couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
‘Getting the Priest on my side is good. Good, but…’
She’s not useful right now.
I can clear most rounds alone.
And traveling solo puts my mind at ease.
‘I never thought that suspicious Christine would believe a prophecy so completely.’
Saving her life helped, but the real factor was winning her favor through advice at first impression.
The problem is I can’t use her until Round 15.
“I’ve said this repeatedly—we’re in different zones, so cooperation is impossible. There’s no way for us to help each other accumulate points. If you want help, survive this round first and think about it then.”
“So starting next round, I can follow you?”
‘She’s persistent. So persistent.’
I winced inwardly, but her desperation for survival was understandable.
“Yes. So first, survive this round. Instead of following me around, you need to earn points for the dead as well if you want to rank in the top tier, don’t you?”
Christine nodded at my reasonable words.
“Thank you for the advice. And for saving my life.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
I turned my back on her thanks and left without hesitation.
Leaving behind Christine’s disappointed gaze.
* * *
‘Finally got rid of her.’
I sighed in relief like I’d shaken off a clingy ex-girlfriend.
I opened the Quest progress window to check my points and remaining time.
[Korean Team Acquired Points: 733,270]
[Black Scythe’s Acquired Points: 13,240]
[Time Remaining Until Round End: 22:21:59]
Looking at the team points, we’d accumulated 700,000.
‘That’s roughly 700 people, so about 1,000 points per person.’
Nearly two hours and we’d only earned 1,000 points.
‘If a single one-hour normal Quest nets 1,000 points…’
The team’s performance was worse than expected.
‘Well, we still have 22 hours left.’
From what I knew, the survival cutline for Round 11 was 13 million points.
Over 24 hours, earning just 20,000 points per person would guarantee survival.
Of course, I had no intention of settling for mere survival.
‘Surpassing 13 million is nothing.’
Making both the team and my personal ranking first place.
That was my goal for this round.
I was confident.
A dramatic reversal would begin when roughly one hour remained on the clock.
‘Until then, I need to focus and accumulate points as much as possible.’
I couldn’t let troublemakers like Ma Gyeong-rok or the Triad find me.
To accomplish this, Ryu Min equipped the Doppelgänger’s ring.
[Please state the nickname you wish to change to.]
[Nicknames that already exist cannot be used.]
[However, the nicknames of the deceased may be used.]
Ryu Min selected a nickname that those around him wouldn’t recognize.
‘Lost Yak.’
[Your nickname has been changed from ‘Black Scythe’ to ‘Lost Yak’.]
Not only did I change my nickname, but I also donned an assassin’s mask and altered my face.
‘Just in case someone passes by and recognizes me.’
Both my nickname and my appearance.
I had become Lost Yak completely.
Now no one would be able to track me.
They would need to recall Lost Yak’s appearance and nickname.
‘If they use tracking while thinking of Black Scythe, it will show as non-existent.’
I would be treated as a dead person, but it didn’t matter much.
I could simply claim there was some rune that disrupted tracking and be done with it.
‘Since there’s no one chasing me, should I start grinding points in earnest now?’
I had already planned in my head which quests to tackle and in what order for maximum efficiency.
‘Amplification.’
Crackle, crackle—
I channeled electricity through my body and doubled my movement speed.
Whoosh—!
In an instant, Ryu Min vanished in a burst of light.
* * *
“Ugh, this is killing me.”
The previous rounds had lasted at most ten hours.
A manageable duration for enduring physiological needs like sleep and hunger.
But Round 11’s twenty-four hours was grueling to withstand.
“How much time is left?”
“Four hours.”
“What… still four hours remaining?”
“I’m dying of hunger, seriously.”
“I’m going crazy from sleepiness.”
Jo Yong-ho’s mercenaries were in agony.
They had been running around for roughly twenty hours grinding points, so exhaustion was inevitable.
“Even though we’re over level forty-five, why are we running out of stamina?”
“Right? We’re superhumans who’ve transcended humanity.”
“How should I know?”
Even superhumans who could shatter walls and dodge bullets were powerless against hunger and drowsiness.
It was a natural phenomenon for creatures with physical bodies, though they had forgotten it while intoxicated by the power of being a player.
“Boss! Can’t we just take a short break? We’re going to die at this rate.”
“That’s right. Just thirty minutes of sleep, please. We’re only human.”
Jo Yong-ho barked at the mercenaries’ whining, telling them to stop spouting nonsense.
“Our survival is on the line and you want to sleep? Your physical bodies are already resting in the real world, and you want to sleep here in the Other World too? You might never wake up if you do that.”
“Still, people need sleep, don’t they?”
“Just hold on for four more hours. We’re almost there. If we give our all until the end, we survive and the team survives.”
“Isn’t this level of effort already enough?”
“Haven’t we each earned an average of 20,000 points?”
Thanks to Jo Yong-ho’s group pushing through without rest, they had each accumulated 20,000 points in twenty hours.
It was certainly a substantial figure, but there was still no room for complacency.
“We have no benchmark to compare against. We don’t know if we’ve earned a lot or just a little.”
“I think we’re in first place. We really did our absolute best.”
“That’s right. We earned without stopping—it would be strange if we weren’t in first.”
“That’s something we can’t know. So we have no choice but to keep moving.”
His teammates sighed at that, but Jo Yong-ho himself was confident that at this level, they would at least place in the middle ranks.
Because they had worked hard.
Because thirty mercenaries, including himself, had earned points without stopping.
“I wish we could at least see the interim standings…”
That was when it happened.
Exactly when the four-hour countdown reached zero, a message appeared.
[Four hours remain until the end of the current round.]
[We will now reveal the rankings and TOP 10 for this sector.]
【Sector Point Calculation Results】
1st Place. C3-ECHNA003 China (28,031,020 points)
2nd Place. C3-EBRA004 Brazil (27,712,410 points)
3rd Place. C3-EMXA003 Mexico (27,444,030 points)
4th Place. C3-EINDA001 India (26,991,150 points)
5th Place. C3-ECHNA005 China (26,896,020 points)
…
…
10th Place. C3-EJPNA002 Japan (25,558,180 points)
It was absurd that China had two teams in the TOP 10, but there was something even more shocking.
[Your team (C3-ESKA001 Korean Team) has 11,219,170 points, placing you 92nd out of 190 total sectors.]
“What?”
“We’re only in 92nd place?”
To survive, they needed to place in the top 95.
If things went wrong, their ranking could slip below the cutoff line.
“How is this possible? We worked so hard!”
Someone must have been slacking off—the team’s points were far lower than expected.
“Why are the rankings for neighboring China and Japan so high?”
“The team sizes should be similar at around 700 members per team, right?”
“Damn it, they’re obviously just killing members from other teams as they go. It nets more points that way.”
“Yeah, just look at China in first place. They’ve already accumulated 28 million points, which means they earned 40,000 points per person. That doesn’t make sense.”
“They definitely must have killed everyone they came across, quests or otherwise.”
Killing a few people earned far more points than grinding through quests.
The mercenaries felt deflated, as if all their efforts had been wasted.
“Listen, everyone. At least we can still survive. Let’s push a bit harder. If we’re not careful, we’ll fall below the cutoff line.”
Jo Yong-ho calmed his agitated team and insisted they had no choice but to keep trying.
‘If I don’t earn points, not only will my teammates here die, but Black Scythe will too.’
With that thought, Jo Yong-ho and the mercenaries moved their bodies, determined to earn even a few more points.
There was no time to waste if they wanted to make a final push during the remaining hours.
* * *
“This is frustrating.”
Ryu Min muttered with dissatisfaction as he glanced at the Korean Team’s ranking that had just appeared.
“We’re barely hanging on by our fingernails. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened without me.”
Even with top-tier rankers on the Korean Team, the points were far too low.
‘It wasn’t this low at the beginning. We were in the middle tier back then.’
But ever since I stopped Ma Gyeong-rok and Ju Sung-tak from committing murder, the team’s points had plummeted.
‘I know it, but I can’t help feeling bitter about it. The fact that we can’t climb the ranks without murder.’
Grinding through quests legitimately only earned pocket change.
That’s probably why the Angels wanted to watch humans slaughter each other and cannibalize their own ranks.
But points could be earned through more than just murder.
There was still one final reversal left.
‘With one reversal, I’ll shoot straight to first place. Both personal and team rankings.’
I was confident for a reason.
The final reversal—the last chance for the lower-ranked teams—was none other than ‘gambling’.
‘And the only way to win that gamble is with Thousand-Mile Eyes.’
When there was one hour left on the timer, a message would appear.
Until then, I would quietly accumulate bullets by completing quests.
As I methodically gathered points with that thought in mind, a message materialized before me.
The moment had arrived.
[One hour remains until the current round ends.]
[A special event is opening: the Gambling House.]
[At the Gambling House, you can multiply your points up to 200 times.]
[Note: The location of the Gambling House is undisclosed.]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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