How a Regressor Conquers the Tower of Urban Legends
Chapter 42
"..."
I had no idea what had happened.
I had definitely died and regressed.
But I didn't know why I'd died.
That was the first problem.
"...Why did I die?"
I didn't know.
Obviously, every death had a cause.
Cardiac arrest.
A broken neck.
Being eaten by monsters.
Whatever it was, death always came with a reason.
But...
"Why...?"
"?"
"...Stay there for a second."
I stopped the mascot, which tilted its head at me, and sank into thought.
There was only one thing I'd done just before dying.
I'd opened the notebook.
And then I died.
"..."
Did that make any sense?
If simply opening the notebook killed everyone, then nobody dragged into this place would've ever made it past Floor 9.
Was that the reason?
"..."
I had no idea.
Either way, it was time to try something I hadn't done yet.
And something I hadn't tried was...
I tucked the notebook into my clothes and stepped outside.
A dark room spread before me.
I couldn't see even an inch ahead.
The mascot followed behind me.
"Come to think of it, you said you knew about Floor 9, right?"
"!"
"Then can you help me understand what kind of place this is?"
"..."
The mascot thought for a moment.
Then it covered my eyes.
"What are you—"
It stood behind me, covering my eyes while waddling forward.
What was covering my eyes supposed to accomplish?
With that thought, I followed its lead.
Click!
A sound like a camera shutter rang out.
Then...
<Floor 9.>
The same announcement echoed in my ears.
I opened my eyes.
Somehow, I was standing in front of the Floor 9 elevator again.
"..."
What was the problem this time?
The click.
The notebook.
And the mascot.
"..."
"?"
"Wait."
I held out a hand toward the confused mascot.
From its perspective, I was probably behaving strangely.
From mine, I'd already regressed twice.
"..."
What was causing it?
I closed my eyes and opened them again, then waved my hands around.
At least waving my hands didn't seem to trigger regression.
"?"
The mascot tilted its head again.
Ignoring it, I looked around.
What was I missing?
No.
Forget missing something.
I simply had almost no information.
All I knew was that reading the notebook had killed me once.
And that I'd heard a clicking sound.
"..."
That was literally it.
This was driving me insane.
I dropped down onto the floor and looked around the elevator.
Let's organize what I knew.
[9. It absolutely never moves.]
Those were No. 9's words.
That much I remembered clearly.
It was the first time No. 9, who usually only wrote about dying, had left anything that looked like useful information.
What else was there?
"..."
Something else...
"The phone."
"?"
"The phone hasn't called."
"??"
I looked away from the confused mascot and continued thinking.
I'd been in a situation dangerous enough to kill me.
And yet the phone hadn't called.
"..."
I pulled out the flip phone and opened it.
Still nothing.
And the mascot had covered my eyes.
The mascot had said it knew Floor 9.
So why had it covered my eyes?
Was there something I wasn't supposed to see?
Or something I wasn't supposed to hear?
I needed to test it.
The clicking sound had still reached me through the headset.
Which meant, conversely, that the sound itself probably wasn't something that directly caused fatal mental contamination.
"..."
This was seriously difficult.
After thinking until my head hurt, I settled on the most reasonable approach.
I closed my eyes and covered my ears.
"Hold my shoulders."
"!"
Soft hands settled on my shoulders.
Once I confirmed the mascot had me, I spoke.
"Good. Now let's move forward."
We didn't need to talk anyway.
I only needed the mascot to guide me.
How long did we walk?
"..."
It felt long.
Which was strange.
The map room on Floor 0.5 had shown Floor 9 as a single small room.
There was no way it should be this large.
Still, I kept moving.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
"..."
Clunk.
My foot touched something.
I turned around.
"Huh?"
We had crossed the room.
The distance looked like roughly thirty steps.
The mascot was still holding my shoulders.
And I was now standing right in front of the elevator.
One more step and I could get inside.
Finally, I could leave.
But...
"Uh..."
"...?"
The mascot tilted its head at me.
I stared back.
"..."
Something felt wrong.
I remembered taking only three steps.
But looking back now, the room was around thirty steps long.
It felt like I'd skipped through time.
Or lost part of my memory.
As I tilted my head in confusion...
BZZZZ...
The phone rang.
Finally.
I answered immediately.
"Hello."
<Go back.>
"What?"
<Go back and start over.>
"..."
<Let me ask you something.>
The caller posed a question.
<What makes up a human being?>
"...What?"
<I asked what makes up a human being.>
"..."
What makes up a person?
"Well... bones and flesh, things like that."
<Then what makes you who you are?>
"...What?"
<Answer quickly.>
I listened to the calm voice through the phone and thought.
What made me me?
"That would be... my sense of self."
<Correct. And what is that sense of self made from?>
"A soul?"
<Something simpler than that.>
"..."
Why was he suddenly playing twenty questions with me?
I frowned and thought harder.
Then answered.
"Well... what makes me who I am would be my experiences... and my body."
<Correct.>
"...So?"
<What's your name?>
"That's—"
I confidently opened my mouth to answer.
Then...
"..."
I closed it again.
I couldn't remember.
<Your age?>
"..."
<What's the earliest thing you remember?>
"I... uh..."
<Quickly.>
"I got into an elevator on my way home from work and ended up here..."
<Exactly.>
"..."
I remembered everything.
Falling into this godforsaken building.
Clearing Floor 1.
Meeting the mascot.
Finding the phone.
Everything I'd done to survive.
All of it remained.
There was only one thing I couldn't remember.
Anything from before I entered this place.
<You're still yourself. You keep thinking, keep questioning, and keep trying to find answers.>
"..."
<But those are your traits. They aren't you.>
"..."
<There are plenty of people in the world who constantly think, question, and work hard. Nobody calls that an identity.>
"...That's true."
My personality wasn't what defined my existence.
What made me who I was...
Was my experience.
Experience came from what I'd lived through.
And what I'd lived through became records inside me.
<Go back. If you step into that elevator now, you'll cross over as you are.>
"..."
I understood.
I also understood why I kept regressing.
I closed my eyes.
"?!"
Even with my eyes shut, I could feel the mascot's startled movements.
Ignoring it, I kept walking and reached out.
My hand touched something.
Round.
And large.
The instant I thought that...
<Floor 9.>
The announcement echoed in my ears.
I opened my eyes.
"...?"
"I figured it out."
I calmly answered the mascot's bewildered gaze and looked around.
Now I understood why I had regressed.
Death was relative.
Some people might define death as the end of the body.
Cardiac arrest.
Others might go further and call the destruction of the soul true death.
I knew the trigger for my regression was death.
But I'd never once wondered what my ability actually considered death.
Apparently...
My regression treated losing my memories as a kind of death too.
Good.
Then let's assume losing enough memories triggers regression.
But I still hadn't clearly thought about the exact condition.
Maybe losing a certain amount of memory triggered it.
Or perhaps losing a specific kind of memory did.
That seemed more likely.
Sometimes I regressed immediately.
Sometimes I didn't.
Difficult.
I'll set that aside for now.
Let's focus on Floor 9.
Floor 9 was small.
Roughly thirty steps across.
And through some unknown mechanism, it stole memories.
I didn't yet know exactly how, but there were two broad possibilities.
First possibility.
The floor itself erased memories.
That was plausible.
Before I stepped into the exit elevator, every memory connected to my personal identity had already vanished.
I just didn't know which memories it targeted.
Second possibility.
Some unidentified object was doing it.
I carefully recalled everything I'd learned.
Every regression on Floor 9 seemed tied to one thing.
[9. It absolutely never moves.]
No. 9's first note.
The sound I'd heard while walking with my eyes closed.
Click.
And finally...
The thing I'd touched after turning around.
Round.
"..."
In other words...
The moment I gained information about something that was round, unmoving, and made a clicking sound, I lost memories and regressed.
I still didn't understand why remembering that much wasn't currently triggering regression.
But...
"Let's read it one more time."
"?"
I ignored the mascot's confused reaction and muttered to myself.
The people in the notebook had probably gone through something similar.
Then what exactly had they written to help me?
There was a high chance reading further would trigger another regression.
But if I kept attempting this floor without understanding anything, I'd only keep regressing over and over anyway.
Don't forget.
My regressions weren't infinite.
The existence of a remaining count meant I was not someone who could regress endlessly.
I had to conserve every single one.
Use them carefully.
Then...
"...Hup!"
I squeezed my eyes shut once, opened them, and opened the notebook.
[9. It absolutely never moves.]
No. 9's words entered my vision.
I didn't regress.
[11. I just walked inside. There's nothing here?]
[11. Ah.]
No regression.
[24. I understand now. Everyone, do not think. Do not reason. Just go.]
[24. I am from somewhere. I don't know where, but I am from somewhere. You must remember your roots.]
[24. I am from somewhere.]
Still no regression.
...
[77. I forgot my name.]
[77. Fortunately, I haven't forgotten anything that happened inside this place.]
[77. But something was interesting. What was it again? That thing over there. It was glass. It might be easier to break than I expected.]
<Floor 9.>
The dry announcement echoed.
I had regressed.
"?"
The mascot tilted its head as I stood up.
I looked at it and spoke.
"Let's go."
I had a rough idea now.
I knew how to solve it.
