The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 384

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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 – Side Story, Episode 8
8. I’ve Returned
A sprawling Large Department Store teeming with crowds.
On a weekend when three times the usual number of people flowed through its corridors.
“Huh?”
A Security Guard’s eyes caught sight of an elderly man.
“Look over there.”
“What? Is that lunatic serious?”
An old man without a single thread of clothing was walking into the department store.
Clearly not in his right mind.
Citizens who happened upon the sight shrieked and scattered in all directions.
“Excuse me! Grandfather! You can’t walk around without clothes!”
“You could be arrested for indecent exposure! Do you understand? Please get dressed immediately!”
The two Security Guards’ shouts fell on deaf ears.
The old man didn’t even spare them a glance.
I’d thought only his mind was broken, but it seemed his hearing was gone too.
One Security Guard sighed and spoke to his colleague.
“Call the police first.”
“Got it.”
Just as he was about to remove his jacket to cover the man’s decency.
Thunk!
“Huh?”
In the blink of an eye, a long black skewer-like object pierced through his chest.
Slurp, slurp—
As his life force was drained through the skewer.
Thud—
One Security Guard instantly became a mummy and collapsed.
“Gasp! What the—!?”
“Kyaaaaaah!”
The witness’s scream drew everyone’s attention at once.
The Cult Leader savored the bioenergy he’d drained from the Security Guard without a care.
“This barely registers on my palate.”
“What… gack!”
The remaining Security Guard’s chest was pierced by the skewer as well.
As it sucked him dry like a straw, his skin shriveled and the guard died instantly.
“H-help!”
“It’s a monster!”
A monster.
Under normal circumstances, no one would have heeded such a cry—something that belonged only to science fiction.
But this generation had experienced it.
Eighteen billion people had been captured because of Angel, and I’d experienced the absurdity of wielding superhuman abilities under the name of Player.
Because of that, citizens weren’t particularly unfamiliar with the word “monster.”
Though that didn’t mean they’d accepted the existence of monsters.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“It’s a monster!”
“Everyone run!”
As people scattered in all directions, the Cult Leader’s lips curled upward with satisfaction.
“Your response is quite swift. But I can’t let my prey escape.”
The Cult Leader inflated his body, preparing to unleash his attack.
Those black raindrops that had melted thousands of people.
But.
“What are you doing?”
“…!”
At the voice of a third party, the Cult Leader halted his attempt.
Turning his head sharply, he saw a human standing with arms crossed, watching leisurely.
‘When did that bastard appear?’
The Cult Leader had definitely kept all the humans around within his perception range.
He’d been reading every movement of those fleeing.
Yet suddenly, a human appeared as if dropping from the sky.
“Why are you stripping naked like that? Are you a pervert?”
“Who are you?”
“I asked first, you monster bastard.”
‘Bastard?’
The word “bastard” was clearly used as an insult in this world.
‘This human dares to curse at me without fear?’
The Cult Leader let out a hollow laugh.
“Have you lost your mind? Or do you wish to die….”
“Hey, at least put something on, would you? It’s rather unsightly.”
That the creature wasn’t even wearing underwear might look awkward to him, but it wasn’t his concern.
He could simply kill him right here and be done with it.
“Die.”
Black droplets sprouted from the Cult Leader’s palm.
Pap pap pap pap pap!
What shot out like bullets was more than enough to dissolve a single human.
However.
“Hmm…?”
Ting ting ting ting!
The opponent easily blocked it with a black barrier.
The deflected droplets melted the floor with a sizzling sound.
“So you’re shooting corrosive liquid… I can’t even imagine how many people you’ve killed with that.”
“You… what exactly are you?”
“Would you understand if I told you?”
A weapon suddenly materialized in the opponent’s grasp.
“You’re about to die anyway.”
It was a massive scythe.

* * *
Ryu Min blocked the attack by erecting a barrier using darkness runes, then fixed his gaze on his opponent.
‘So this is one of them. A seed that Deorant planted across the worldlines.’
It was obvious at a glance.
Where else could such an abomination have emerged in a world where the Survival Game had ended?
‘It appears human on the surface, but I can tell. This creature is a monstrosity created by external forces.’
It wasn’t difficult to discern that it was parasitizing a human body as a host, dominating their mind, and reading their memories.
I possessed the rune of inner truth, after all.
‘It came here solely to eliminate humans.’
Finding it quickly using the speed-of-light rune was fortunate.
Any later, and the people in the Department Store would have been slaughtered.
‘Reading its thoughts, it seems to have already killed thousands before arriving here.’
I couldn’t allow further casualties.
Ryu Min drew Thanatos’s Black Scythe.
As I took my stance and faced off against it, a cry erupted from behind.
“Hey? Look at that person.”
“Is he going to fight that monster?”
“Wait. That scythe is…!?”
“It’s the Black Scythe!”
“The Black Scythe has come back to life!”
Black Scythe, who survived until the very end of the Survival Game, was a celebrity wherever he went.
People could recognize him just by seeing his signature scythe.
Though they could never have imagined he’d crossed over from another worldline.
‘This is getting complicated…’
It didn’t matter that people recognized me.
The problem was they didn’t realize the danger of the situation.
‘This is a real crisis. There’s no time for spectating.’
Whether Ryu Min’s thoughts reached them or not, the people didn’t flee—they watched calmly.
“Hehehehe.”
As the crowd drew closer, the Cult Leader grinned wickedly and inflated his body.
Then came a torrent of spraying black liquid.
Splortch!
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Sizzzzzzle!
“My face!”
Those who couldn’t evade the liquid screamed and collapsed.
Fortunately, it hadn’t happened yet.
It was something that would occur seven seconds in the future, as seen through the rune of foresight.
‘I have to stop him right now. Otherwise, people will suffer the same fate from that liquid as I just witnessed.’
In moments like this, there was only one answer.
‘Throw him into the Spacetime Rift.’
Ryu Min immediately opened a spacetime portal and stepped through alongside the creature.
Complete separation from the mortal realm was the best way to protect the people.
“Wh—?!”
In the midst of his body swelling.
The Cult Leader panicked upon finding himself in a space resembling the Abyss Dungeon.
“This is… the Spacetime Rift?”
In an instant, he was trapped in a four-dimensional space where time didn’t flow.
He could never escape unless Ryu Min released him.
“How did this… Did you drag me here, you bastard?”
“Who else would have?”
“How can a mere human possess such power…?”
“Do I still look like a mere human to you?”
As I advanced with an ominous aura, my scythe leveled at him, tension flickered across the Cult Leader’s expression unlike before.
“You… your true identity…?”
“Better not to know.”
Instead of answering, Ryu Min swung the scythe.
Clang!
The Cult Leader instantly hardened the black liquid into a shield-like barrier to block it.
Clang! Clang! Crash!
I swung several more times, but he defended surprisingly well.
But that wouldn’t last long.
A smile played at my lips.
“I’ve gauged your defense… now let’s see your reflexes.”
“What?”
In a flash of light, the Cult Leader’s head severed like lightning.
Thud.
I thought it was over, but his body continued moving—he wasn’t dead yet.
“He can’t react to a certain speed, but since he survived decapitation, his vitality is stubborn. Then…”
Lightning crackled and sparked in my grip.
“What happens if I fry him with electricity?”
“W-wait…!”
Bzzzzzzzzt!
Magical damage based on absurdly high stats in the tens of billions erupted through the lightning rune.
In an instant, the Cult Leader’s corpse blackened as if seared by flames, and all movement ceased.
‘Is he dead?’
With no movement and no thoughts to sense, he appeared to be completely annihilated.
Judging it safe now, I dissolved the spacetime barrier.
“Oh? He appeared!”
“Black Scythe has appeared!”
“What about that monster from before…?”
“Seems like it’s been dealt with?”
As the crowd murmured, Ryu Min gazed at the System Message floating at the edge of his vision.
[Hero’s Rune Stack: 100/100]
[All stats increase by 100 due to Hero’s Rune effect.]
[You can use ‘Hero’s Protection’ by consuming 100 stacks.]
‘The Hero’s Rune stack has accumulated.’
The Hero’s Rune stack accumulates each time I save a person.
By killing the Cult Leader just now, I’d saved over a hundred citizens, so the meter had maxed out.
‘Perfect. I was worried about leaving Ryu Won alone anyway.’
If I cast Hero’s Protection on my younger brother, it would trigger invincibility in times of danger, allowing me to pursue seed removal with greater peace of mind.
‘The police have arrived. No point in staying any longer.’
Watching the distant police, I unfurled my wings of darkness behind my back.
Flutter—
“Whoa!?”
“Black Scythe! Where are you going!”
Leaving the citizens’ cries behind, I soared high into the sky.

* * *
Silence locked within the Home.
My sudden appearance left Ryu Won in confusion.
‘My brother… was alive.’
I had certainly placed my brother’s body in the funeral home.
I had even scattered what remained of him—reduced to ashes and bone dust—into the Sea with my own hands.
‘But how…?’
If the body had been buried, I might have believed in a miraculous return, but the corpse had been cremated.
There was no possible way for him to come back.
‘Could it be that I’m seeing an illusion…?’
Wasn’t there a saying about such things?
When death approaches, memories from one’s life flash past like a lantern show.
Could I be seeing a hallucination born from my longing for my brother, in a similar vein?
‘Right, how could my cremated brother come back alive.’
Ryu Won touched his still-tingling neck and sighed.
But soon he brushed it aside and quietly threw the rope into the trash.
‘I won’t commit suicide.’
A mindset completely transformed from before.
It was thanks to nothing other than my brother’s phantom that this was possible.
That the living must live, no matter how difficult.
From my brother’s words that he would never forgive me if I died, Ryu Won drew courage.
The courage to navigate this world without my brother.
“I was shortsighted, brother. To think I’d give up on life just because you’re gone….”
Only sixteen years old.
Too young to abandon life.
My brother in Heaven would never permit such a thing.
“My brother clung to life so desperately, crossing through countless crises and brushes with death… and here I am, ready to give up just because he’s gone, throwing tantrums and being pathetic….”
A deep sigh escaped from Ryu Won’s lips.
“I’m an idiot.”
“You’re only realizing that now?”
“…!!!”
His head snapped around at the voice from behind.
A voice he could never forget, a voice he longed to hear.
“B-brother…?”
“Won.”
As Ryu Min approached, Ryu Won exhibited strange behavior.
He shook his head vigorously and blinked several times.
He seemed to be confirming whether he was truly seeing something real and not an illusion.
“…Why won’t you disappear? You should be a phantom…?”
“I’m not a phantom.”
I smiled reassuringly at him.
“I’ve really come back.”

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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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