The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 393

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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 17
17. The Summons
Though the summons came without warning, the Seeds harbored no resentment.
They understood well that following their commander was a way of honoring Deorant.
But more than anything else.
“Is this the place?”
The Seeds were bored.
So bored that the summons came as a welcome relief.
“Have they arrived?”
“Greetings. Are you Arkizar, our commander?”
“I am.”
“What brings you to gather us? What urgent matter is this?”
“I’ll explain once everyone has assembled.”
Seeds scattered across the globe converged at a single location.
They tracked the frequency signal Arkizar emitted and soon arrived in the mountains of South Korea.
“Well, is everyone here?”
Arkizar counted heads and nodded slightly upon seeing ten individuals, including himself.
Originally, twelve Seeds had been dispatched, including two who were now dead, but this was fortunate enough.
‘Had luck not favored us, even this many wouldn’t have gathered.’
Black Scythe, hunting not only Hosts but Seeds as well.
There was no time to waste in devising countermeasures against him.
Yet the Seeds, unaware of the gravity of the situation, remained composed.
Some seemed curious as to why they’d been summoned.
Arkizar felt compelled to speak and opened his mouth.
“First, I thank you for gathering despite the sudden notice. I’ve called you here for a singular purpose—to address a grave threat to our existence.”
“A threat to us? What do you mean?”
“Since arriving on this land, have any of you sensed the signal of a Host?”
At Arkizar’s question, the Seeds were seized by confusion.
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t sensed a Host’s signal.”
“I felt one last time, but it disappeared quickly.”
“I don’t sense anything now.”
“Perhaps they’re too far away for the signal to reach.”
“That is not the case.”
Arkizar shook his head with resolute conviction.
“The reason no Host signals are detected in the vicinity is because they are all dead.”
“Dead?”
“How can a Host possibly die?”
“Did some inferior being destroy itself?”
Various theories emerged, yet none approached the truth.
Unable to bear it further, Arkizar sighed and spoke.
“There exists a human by the name of Black Scythe.”
“Black Scythe?”
“He hunts Hosts across the entire world and is even scheming to kill our Seeds. Two Seeds named Voluark and Lucainu have already fallen victim to him.”
Though he spoke with a bitter tone, none of the Seeds believed Arkizar’s words.
“What could a mere human possibly do?”
“The exaggeration is excessive.”
“Listen, Arkizar. We may have time to spare, but we don’t have time to listen to your nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. I was fighting him until just moments ago and barely escaped death.”
“A Sovereign defeated by a human?”
“He’s writing fiction now.”
Despite speaking the truth, the nine Seeds refused to believe him.
Arkizar’s claims sounded far too absurd to them.
“I understand your disbelief. But there is not a shred of falsehood in my words. Black Scythe is a Player, yet possesses power beyond imagination. He can create Spacetime Rifts and move at the speed of light.”
“Even if we’re bored, is it entertaining to gather us here and speak falsehoods as if they were truth?”
“If you’re looking for someone to listen to your hollow delusions, perhaps visit a hospital. I hear humans have institutions where they gather the mentally ill.”
The Seeds mocked Arkizar without exception.
Unlike the Hosts, they possessed intelligence, which was precisely why they refused to believe Arkizar’s words.
They doubted and distrusted him, and some Seeds even suspected it was a trap.
Arkizar’s face flushed with bewilderment at their refusal to believe him.
“I spoke only truth to you all, so why…”
As Arkizar sighed while muttering self-deprecating words.
“There are things people cannot believe unless they see them with their own eyes.”
“…!”
At the sudden voice of a third party, their heads snapped upward.
“I-it’s Black Scythe!”
Ryu Min descended from the sky with black wings unfurled, resembling the Grim Reaper himself.
To the other Seeds, he looked like some sort of raven-human hybrid.
“What is that?”
“Are those wings on his back?”
“Didn’t Arkizar just call him Black Scythe?”
“That creature is Black Scythe? The one who hunted Hosts?”
“Was it all a fabricated story?”
Judging from Arkizar’s trembling reaction, it didn’t appear to be a lie.
Toward the Seeds who still cast suspicious glances, Ryu Min smiled.
It was the smile of the Grim Reaper.
“When words won’t convince, drastic measures are required.”
Snap!
As he snapped his fingers, the surrounding environment was swallowed by darkness.
“What!?”
“Why did it suddenly become night…”
“That’s not it! We’re completely cut off from the outside world!”
“Now that I think about it, this is a spacetime realm, isn’t it?”
“Why are we in the Spacetime Rift…?”
In that moment, the Seeds recalled something.
Arkizar’s claims, which they had dismissed as nonsensical ravings.
“N-now that you mention it, Black Scythe said he could open the Spacetime Rift.”
“Then, could it really be that bastard…?”
The Seeds, having grasped where they were trapped, fixed their attention on one man.
It was Black Scythe—the human who stood alone with an unshaken, composed smile.
“See? I told you talking about it a hundred times wouldn’t help. It’s better to let you experience it directly like this, don’t you think? Right, Arkizar?”
“…You knew my name too?”
“Of course. Did you think I wouldn’t? I released you in the first place to draw in the other Seeds.”
“Wh-what…?”
Only then did Arkizar understand.
That he had been playing in the palm of Black Scythe’s hand.
“So you deliberately let me go? It wasn’t because you lacked energy to break the barrier?”
“Powers don’t require energy to begin with. Even if they did, the Tera I possess would be more than sufficient.”
“Tera? A human possessing Tera…?”
Tera—an energy that only gods possessed—he held it?
That meant despite his human scent, he was no different from a god.
Arkizar’s face drained of all color.
‘M-maybe I’ll die here….’
“Not maybe.”
Arkizar flinched in surprise at the response, as if his thoughts had been read.
But what came next was far more terrifying.
“You will all die here.”
It was a death sentence, as if spoken by the Grim Reaper himself.

* * *
“Cough…”
As Arkizar spewed dark liquid, I pointed a finger at his head.
Without a word.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
I unleashed a high-voltage current that incinerated him completely.
“That makes all ten of them.”
I surveyed the surrounding landscape as if admiring a painting.
Remnants of Seeds lay scattered everywhere.
Charred black.
“That’s twelve if I count the ones I caught before.”
Twelve Seeds and three hundred Hosts.
That was the tally I’d racked up over the past few days, combing through the entire world like searching for lice.
‘I’ve prevented the World Line collapse. At least in this one.’
A weight had lifted, but only partially.
Deorant, the God of Dimensions, was still in the process of scattering Seeds and Hosts across various World Lines.
Whoosh—
Deactivating the Spacetime barrier, I moved at light speed and arrived at my Younger Brother’s home in an instant.
“Ah! You startled me, Big Brother!”
“I’ve finished everything.”
“Finished? You mean you’ve eliminated all the Hosts and Seeds?”
“Yes. You don’t need to worry about World Line collapse anymore. As for Deorant—if he returns, that’s another story. But judging by his silence, he doesn’t know. If he did, he would’ve shown himself by now.”
“That’s wonderful!”
Ryu Won was delighted at the news that all the monsters had been eliminated, as if it were his own victory.
“You’ve worked so hard, Big Brother! You’ve saved the world again. You’re truly amazing!”
“It’s nothing to make a fuss over.”
“The monsters are all gone now. So what comes next?”
“What else? I need to move to the World Lines where Deorant might be. If there are Seeds and Hosts there, I’ll have to stop them.”
“Ah…”
The energy drained from Ryu Won’s voice.
There was no reason for his brother to stay now that his work was done.
Ryu Won only realized this now.
He’d forgotten while spending time with his brother as usual.
Even though the Black Scythe before him was no longer the Black Scythe of old.
Understanding his brother’s feelings, I placed a hand on Ryu Won’s shoulder.
“Don’t be too disappointed. I’ll visit again once everything is settled.”
“Really?”
“Really. Have I ever broken a promise? Once all is done, I’ll definitely return to this World Line. I don’t want to be a bad brother who leaves his Younger Brother alone.”
With that reassurance, a small smile bloomed on Ryu Won’s face.
“Do you know where to look for Deorant?”
“I don’t know. But I recognize his face.”
“How? You said you’d never met him.”
“I still know it. I read his past.”
Before killing Arkizar, Ryu Min had glimpsed his past.
Through [Rewind], one of the functions of the transcendent system Elcis.
“It has a function that rewinds a target’s past like rewinding a tape. I used it to watch that monster conversing with Deorant.”
“What did he look like? Since he’s a god, did he look like a ghost?”
“No. He had a human form. An old man, Grandfather. A real old man.”
The Deorant that Ryu Min saw was an elderly figure with a long white beard like an immortal sage.
Afterward, I attempted to track him down using his face and name, but it proved futile.
Being a being that transcended humanity, he couldn’t be found.
I couldn’t pinpoint his location either.
‘This is turning into a needle-in-a-haystack search across the entire World Line.’
Another seemingly impossible task had fallen upon me, yet I didn’t lose heart.
At least there had been progress.
‘I’ve prevented the World Line’s collapse and gained insight into the Seeds and Hosts.’
Moreover, hadn’t I come to know Deorant’s face?
‘With this information, I’ll move faster in the next World Line.’
Though whether Deorant will even be there remains uncertain.
“However long it takes, stay well until I return. And don’t do anything foolish like tying a rope around your neck again.”
“Come on, I won’t. I know you’re coming back.”
“How do you know when I’ll return?”
“….”
True, given the grave responsibility of stopping a god of dimensions, time could stretch indefinitely.
Especially since I’d have to traverse countless World Lines.
“That said, it might not take long. As I mentioned, time flows differently across all World Lines. Even if I spend countless ages hunting down Deorant, only days might have passed here.”
“I see….”
“Don’t just wait for me—do something. The world hasn’t ended just because 1.8 billion died.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Over six billion humans still inhabited this world, and Ryu Won had to continue living here.
My advice made him think seriously.
“Think carefully about what you want to do. Don’t dwell on pointless thoughts like before.”
“I understand, brother. I’ve come to my senses now. Ending my life is truly something I can’t do.”
“Good. Then let’s part ways.”
“Wait. Which World Line will you go to this time?”
At that question, Ryu Min found himself deliberating.
“Hmm….”
And then I decided.
‘Should I go there?’
Only in my mind.
“I’m leaving.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s a secret.”
With those words, Ryu Min invoked the power of time itself.
He vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.
“Brother?”
Left alone, Ryu Won called out, but no answer came.
“So he really did leave.”
Though disappointed, the world didn’t feel like it was crumbling as it once had.
I had no doubt he would return someday.
“Brother, you need to come back soon.”
Ryu Won murmured this to himself, rising with determination before heading back toward the bedroom.
Sleep was calling to him desperately.

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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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