The Regressor Plays the Game Too Well - Chapter 11

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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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Episode 11
Episode 11
In games, item grades truly make people laugh and cry.
Doesn’t everyone feel that way?
When a high-grade item drops, anyone would be thrilled—that’s the nature of item grades.
Skills work the same way, of course.
Especially Unique-grade items—those rank among the highest tiers.
Ahhh, just hearing about it is intoxicating.
At this point, wouldn’t I fetch tens of millions of won if I sold it?
Of course. We’re in the early days of the Pantheon.
The Pantheon’s infancy—what they call the Age of Global Upheaval.
A Unique-grade skill book?
The seller names the price.
Just thinking about it makes me want to devour three bowls of rice.
Seriously.
What? You’re asking if I’d sell it?
Am I out of my mind?
Of course not!
‘I have to use it myself!’
Sell something I get early on?
And a Unique-grade or higher at that?
That would be insane.
There are six item grades in total.
Normal, Rare, Hero, Unique, Epic, and Legendary.
The further down the list, the higher the grade, naturally.
Unique is the fourth tier.
From Epic onward, you might as well assume they never drop.
Unique is practically the highest grade you can realistically obtain.
Later on, maybe—but selling now would be genuinely pathetic.
The early days.
If you sell items now, you’d fetch far more than you would later on.
That’s appealing, sure.
Who wouldn’t want that?
Selling above market value.
Isn’t that just basic business sense?
But there’s something more important than that, you see.
‘I need to solidify my position in these early days.’
If it were Rare-grade, I might consider selling.
But Unique? Absolutely not.
Especially in the early days—a single Unique-grade item could grant me the power to become a ranker.
Am I insane?
I’ll use it.
Jin-woo recalled the Teleportation Mage Waygen as he thought this.
His reputation was certainly impressive.
He’d made the ranker list despite not being a complete newcomer.
That’s how different the presence of a Unique-grade item was.
Selling it for immediate profit would be genuinely foolish.
Of course, I knew that well.
I would never sell it.
I’d arrived.
A place with countless mines.
To anyone else, it would be indistinguishable, but to me, it was different.
Over nine years of experience as a veteran player!
I’d already memorized it all.
Definitely go this way and find that slightly pointed stone—there it is.
Then the mine covered in moss nearby.
Right there.
Found it right away, didn’t I?
I was able to locate it faster than expected.
Passing through the Beginner Village Hunting Grounds was actually more dangerous.
If anyone saw me heading to the mine, it would become troublesome.
The number of users had grown so much.
But they were adorable, honestly.
Look at the newbies running around trying to catch rabbits.
Nine years later, you’d never see such a sight.
It stirred something nostalgic in me.
I felt anew that I had returned.
The game itself felt fresh and vibrant.
What, you think I’m being old-fashioned? I can’t help it.
Anyway, let’s go in.
Just as Jin-woo was about to enter the mine, lost in unnecessary thoughts.
A message naturally appeared.
[You have discovered the Hidden Dungeon ‘Deep Mine of Green Forest’!]
[As a first-discovery reward, experience and drop rates increase by 2x upon clearing.]
[You have discovered a Hidden Dungeon.]
[The First Title ‘Capable Explorer’ activates.]
[Initial rewards increase by 50%.]
[Upon clearing, experience and drop rates increase by 3x.]
This is it!
This refreshing sensation, even without drinking soda.
This is perfect.
Let’s enter right now!
As I moved to step inside.
A warning message appeared.
[The dungeon you are attempting to enter is recommended for parties of 7 or more hunters at Level 10 or above.]
[Your current party does not meet the requirements.]
[Do you wish to enter anyway?]
Higher difficulty than I expected.
But that hardly mattered.
I could clear it alone without issue.
Wait?
Did Waygen, the Teleportation Mage, clear this solo as well?
No, that couldn’t be.
‘Even if he wasn’t an early pioneer, he was still an early-stage player—he would’ve known the dangers.’
Yet only Waygen’s name became known.
He must have partied with others, but only he became famous?
That’s obvious enough.
He betrayed his party.
Quite the scoundrel, wasn’t he?
I thought I’d feel guilty about taking someone else’s loot, but I needn’t bother with such pangs of conscience.
What? Did I have them before?
Silence!
“Ahem.”
Well then, let’s go feast on what awaits inside.
Once I accepted the warning message, I stepped into the dungeon interior.
[Deep Mine of Green Forest]
→Most mines lack trees or vegetation.
→That’s only natural for rocky terrain.
→But this place is different. This mine, overgrown with verdant forest, is somehow peculiar.
→It’s not merely trees that flourish here.
→Particularly in this mine, miners have been disappearing at an unusual rate.
→Discover the cause and eliminate all threats.
A mundane dungeon objective.
For a Hidden Dungeon, the narrative was rather sparse.
Not that it mattered.
It grants a Unique Skill, after all!
The story?
What does a thin narrative matter?
The rewards are substantial!
“Let’s go!”
Let’s do this with full force!
With that thought, I surged forward at incredible speed.
Tree roots suddenly erupted from the ground.
I dodged them without hesitation.
I wasn’t weak enough to fall for such an obvious trap.
I jumped to evade.
But that was actually a disadvantageous move.
In mid-air, there was nowhere to escape.
The tree roots surged toward me as I hung suspended in the air.
The roots moved with terrifying speed.
But of course, I had a plan.
‘Magic Barrier.’
Magic Barrier.
One might think it’s merely a simple defensive technique, but its effectiveness depends entirely on how the user wields it.
I materialized this simple defensive skill in mid-air and used it as a platform to propel myself forward.
Whoosh!
I launched myself higher, and as the roots missed their mark, I swung my sword down at them.
In an instant, two roots were severed and crashed to the ground.
And then, finally, the creature revealed itself.
It was Trute, a tree-type monster.
A creature that resembled a tree trunk.
It manipulated roots to attack, but typically remained hidden until its roots took damage—only then would it expose itself.
Of course, I already knew all of this.
“Grraaaagh!”
Watching the creature cry out in pain, I couldn’t help but smirk.
It looked rather amusing, actually.
Should I finish this?
With that thought, I hurled myself forward.
My overwhelming stats manifested as devastating speed.
Seeing this, Trute tried to retreat backward, but it couldn’t.
The Magic Barrier I had created earlier.
I had deliberately lured it here.
To prevent its escape.
What choice remained?
Whoooosh!
It rapidly uprooted its tendrils and thrust them forward to pierce me.
I sidestepped lightly, and where escape was impossible, I swung my blade to sever the attack.
Since the roots were part of its body, Trute suffered damage.
Was it really this foolish?
As the creature thrashed in agony, I cut it down without mercy.
A critical strike materialized before the creature faded away in a hollow gray hue.
Unfortunately, with nothing left to butcher, the corpse vanished as well.
I’d anticipated as much, but it was still disappointing.
As for items…
‘Nothing.’
With a drop rate tripled, and yet not a single item fell. Unbelievable.
Trute truly lived up to its reputation as a pauper monster.
Trute was originally famous for being a pauper monster, after all.
What could one possibly obtain from such a dungeon?
Well, that’s precisely why a Unique Skill Book drops in the treasure chamber at the dungeon’s end.
In truth, that alone was sufficient.
More than sufficient, even!
Yet my conscience, battered as it was, couldn’t help but wear a disappointed expression.
“Tsk, let’s just clear this quickly.”
The experience points were decent enough, at least.
Though now that I’d surpassed Level 10, the honeyed experience gains had dried up, which was regrettable.
‘Shall I move on?’
A dungeon run was all about speed, after all!
* * *
‘Hmm, the next Hidden Piece is an item found in the field, isn’t it?’
Already obtained a Unique Skill Book?
No, I haven’t even laid eyes on the boss yet.
To be precise, I’m resting just outside the Boss Room.
Yet my mind was already wandering to the next Hidden Piece.
Reviewing?
No, it’s more like… when a glutton eats while already thinking of the next meal.
Exactly that.
Greed was driving me forward.
Or perhaps my conscience had simply shattered?
Either way.
The next Hidden Piece would come from a field monster.
More precisely, a field boss.
And that wasn’t all I’d gain from it, either.
‘A Boss Title that dungeon bosses don’t grant, but field bosses do!’
A mob that carries a Hidden Piece also grants a Title?
This was a true windfall!
Magnificent.
Wait, but I’ve defeated a dungeon boss—why didn’t it grant a Boss Title, yet a field boss would?
Ugh! Haven’t you played the Pantheon!?
Right, you might not have.
The answer is simple.
‘There are only field bosses in the Beginner Village.’
Would there really be true bosses in the dungeons of the Beginner Village?
Everyone would be wiped out?
Most of the bosses currently in the Beginner Village dungeons should be considered elite monsters.
Named monsters, essentially.
There’s only one creature in the Beginner Village that could truly be called a boss.
The regenerating Orc Karan in the field.
They said it was a hybrid of troll and orc.
So it’s an orc with a troll’s regenerative ability.
An orc alone is already a fairly powerful monster in the Beginner Village, and it has a troll’s regeneration on top of that?
It’s perfect as a boss!
I’d like to hunt it down right now, but it’s not feasible at the moment.
‘Even with a transfer, it would be difficult to hunt it immediately.’
The skills I currently have are the magical barrier from an item and Charge.
Along with two others, the skills I originally possessed are.
Butchery, Sprint, Basic Swordsmanship, and Power Strike.
Wait?
I feel like I’m forgetting something?
‘Oh!’
I had forgotten about the skill I obtained as a Level 10 reward.
I received so many things back then.
I couldn’t check it because messages were pouring out chaotically.
Besides, the other things were so important.
And with stats like mine, skills are trivial.
Still, it’s better to have something than nothing.
So I opened the skill window, and what do I see?
『Consecutive Strike』
*Grade: Rare
*Level: 1
→Each successful consecutive attack increases attack power and attack speed by 0.5%
‘Consecutive Strike?’
This is a much better skill than I expected?
No way!
Attack power and attack speed increase by 0.5% with every successful consecutive attack?
This is genuinely a good skill.
Maybe it’s because it’s Rare? The numbers are a bit modest, though.
But the fact that it can stack is significant.
There is a downside, though.
The effect immediately resets if the consecutive attacks are interrupted.
But even so, it’s quite impressive!
So why didn’t I feel the difference, you ask?
Well, when you just stab anything and everything, they all go “ugh” and die—how am I supposed to feel the improvement?
Feeling it would actually be strange.
I wasn’t even using consecutive attacks.
Anyway!
‘With this, I should be more than capable of taking down a field boss, right?’
I had my doubts about whether the Unique Skill ‘Blink’ alone would be enough.
But with ‘Consecutive Strike’ as well.
It should be sufficient.
No, more than sufficient.
I’ve truly acquired an excellent skill.
This is among the finest Rare-tier skills out there.
‘Time to hunt down the boss.’
Let me first check the one I’m about to face.
I need to understand Blink’s performance before I can decide whether to take it down or not.
Though honestly, with Blink, I can practically guarantee victory.
With that thought, I headed toward the Boss Room.
Or should I call it the Elite Monster Chamber?
Either way, I made my way there.
I had already defeated all the Trute in the dungeon.
Only the boss remained.
Ding!
[This is the Boss Room.]
[Will you enter?]
*Once you enter, you cannot leave until the boss is defeated.
Of course I’m entering.
And so I stepped into the Boss Room.
The Beginner Village dungeon’s boss is mocked as merely an Elite Monster.
But it’s still formidable.
One careless mistake and I could die.
That would be such a waste.
I’d lose all the initial rewards.
I have to clear it in one shot, naturally.
I won’t let my guard down.
Though it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Well, obviously. With Consecutive Strike, how could I lose?
That would be like never playing a game before.
As I entered with those thoughts, I couldn’t help but gasp at the sheer size of the creature before me.
It looked to be about five meters tall.
Its name alone was Giant Trute, after all.
“Hmm.”
This would be the perfect opportunity to use Consecutive Strike.
Let me unleash it without restraint!

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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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