How a Regressor Conquers the Tower of Urban Legends
Chapter 46
I'd never heard ice cracking up close before.
At best, I'd only heard it through television speakers when documentaries talked about environmental destruction.
Now I realized it was much louder than I'd imagined.
"...Phew."
This place really had everything.
Was Floor 10 supposed to be some kind of homage to every floor I'd already cleared?
Standing in this absurd cold, all I could do was sigh in disbelief.
"Let's hurry."
"!"
Everyone who'd written in the notebook had said the same thing.
Move quickly.
If they were all telling me to hurry, there had to be a reason.
I exhaled and started walking.
The mascot followed carefully while holding my arm.
"You won't slip, right?"
"!"
What exactly was this mascot made of for it to nod that confidently?
The mascots I knew normally offered neither proper insulation nor cooling.
But this one was different.
It had endured places hot enough to dry people to death.
Places cold enough to freeze them.
It had gone through ruins over and over again.
And somehow it was still soft, fluffy, and smelled strangely comforting.
Someday, I really needed to ask how it maintained itself.
Not that it would probably answer.
I stopped letting my thoughts wander and looked ahead.
The room was enormous.
Its structure reminded me of Floor 6.
Most of the walls were cracked or outright broken, looking as though they could collapse at any moment.
And the cold...
"This is colder than winter military training."
I'd thought the coldest experience of my life had ended back then.
I quickened my pace.
We'd only been crossing the frozen floor for a short while when...
THUD.
A heavy sound came from far away.
"We should move faster."
"!"
We broke into a run.
Maybe because of the brutal cold, no matter how hard I ran, I didn't sweat.
But...
THUD!
Something kept coming toward us.
I couldn't tell what it was.
And honestly, I didn't particularly want to know.
I kept recalling the route in my head as we ran.
Then...
THUD!
The sound was suddenly much closer.
"?!?!"
"Stop pushing! I know!"
The mascot shoved me from behind.
I hurried even faster.
Then...
"...!"
A wall blocked our path.
It was different from the walls we'd passed so far.
Not a normal partition inside a building.
A wall made entirely of ice.
Someone had blocked the route.
So this was what No. 149 had meant.
Don't rely on the map.
Use it only as a reference.
"Nothing ever goes smoothly in my life...!"
I didn't even have time to complain.
That sound was getting closer.
I had no choice but to run.
I continuously recalculated the route in my head.
If this way was blocked, where could we go?
Could we cut through somewhere else?
Or—
"...!"
The pounding grew even louder.
Now that I listened carefully, it didn't sound like footsteps.
More like something breaking.
As though something were smashing its way toward us.
Before I could reach a conclusion, the mascot pulled out the camera.
Then it spun around and started hammering the shutter.
Click! Click! Click!
Something behind us abruptly stopped.
"...!!!"
"I'm moving!"
With the rapid clicking behind me, I sprinted.
Not long after, a stairwell appeared.
"...!"
I practically slid inside and crawled through the entrance.
Before I could even turn around, the mascot slammed the door shut.
And in that brief gap before it closed...
"...?"
I saw one enormous mannequin hand.
Covered in frost.
Reaching toward me.
There was nothing especially unusual about the mannequin itself.
It looked like the kind you'd see in any department store.
If I had to point out one difference...
Its other hand was missing.
As if someone had torn it off.
I've seen that somewhere before.
Before I could finish the thought...
THUD!
The mannequin and I locked eyes.
It didn't have eyes.
Or a nose.
Or a mouth.
Yet somehow, I could still feel it staring directly at me.
Even after the door closed, I remained rooted in place.
"!!!"
"Ah. Right."
I had a bad feeling.
"..."
The mascot seemed to think the same thing.
It pulled something out.
The Mannequin's Hand.
An item that was extremely useful...
But always brought some kind of terrible consequence to its owner.
"..."
"..."
The mascot and I stared at each other.
Then, as though we'd silently agreed, it carefully tucked the Mannequin's Hand back inside its clothes.
We didn't need words.
I remembered No. 149's entry.
[149. Also, that thing keeps moving around like it's searching for something.]
[149. I don't know what it's looking for, but why the hell is it searching us? I want to smash this whole place apart.]
"...I think I know what it's looking for."
"...!"
For a moment, I considered returning the hand.
But then I remembered what the caller had told me.
That it would have plenty of uses.
And it had indeed saved me when things were at their worst.
Usually, those situations still ended with me dying.
But if I thought of it as one more opportunity to gather information in an otherwise hopeless situation, it was invaluable.
More importantly, I didn't see any real benefit in reopening this door and leaving the hand behind.
"...Let's go."
"!"
I had a feeling.
That mannequin wasn't something we'd see only once.
I sighed quietly and opened the notebook.
[150. The mannequin on Floor 4 appears to be searching for a hand.]
[150. The map itself isn't very reliable. Like the others said, memorize it, but don't blindly trust it.]
[150. Don't try to return the hand. Just escape. As always, this place doesn't behave the way we expect.]
"...Good."
That should be enough.
I was about to close the notebook when...
"...?"
New writing appeared.
[151. It's cold, but there's nothing here?]
[151. Maybe something was here up until No. 150.]
[151. There's nothing now.]
[151. Did No. 150 go looking for whatever it wanted?]
[152. Then maybe he went to find the hand.]
[152. But why would he suddenly go get a hand?]
[152. Or maybe not...? Well, as long as it worked...]
"What?"
Why was this appearing now?
I stared at the notebook in confusion.
Then I noticed writing near the top of the page.
<As a reward for an outstanding participant, fragments of the future will be shown.>
<Do not peer too deeply into the future.>
<The future is something you create, not something you follow.>
Something I create, not follow?
I narrowed my eyes and thought.
I roughly understood what it meant.
Too much information probably wasn't good for me.
So this was the reward the elevator had mentioned.
I'd been wondering why nothing had appeared yet.
"Is this actually useful?"
I muttered.
Still, I continued reading.
[153. After thinking about it carefully, this building feels like the reverse of the other floors.]
[153. Reverse might not be the right word. Maybe opposite.]
[153. The starting point was the same as Floor 1, but this place feels like Floor 2.]
[153. Then maybe the next floor will resemble the beach from Floor 3?]
[153. I'll head down.]
"..."
Would the next floor really be the opposite of Floor 3?
Let's keep reading.
The next floor...
I flipped the page.
[9. There are a lot of trees. I'm going to die.]
"..."
Trees?
A chill ran through me.
My memories involving trees were still very much alive.
There were a lot of trees.
I quickly checked the next entries.
"..."
[11. It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully.]
[24. It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully.]
Cold sweat ran down my back.
Cultivate the trees beautifully?
My memories of Floor 3 surfaced.
I knew exactly what choice I'd made to escape those trees.
I frantically flipped through the notebook.
Someone had to have written something different.
There was no way everyone had been wiped out here.
[77. It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully.]
...
[109. It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully.]
...
[149. It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully.]
Even though everyone had normally written in their own voice...
[151. Why is everyone acting so weird?]
[151. No. 150 too. Everyone ahead of me is strange.]
[151. I'm moving forward for now...]
[151. There are so many trees.]
[151. Be careful of the trees.]
[151. I think the trees are whispering something.]
[151. I escaped!]
[151. No. 150's method helped.]
My method?
What did I write?
Tell me.
[152. Something's weird.]
[152. Why is there nothing written here?]
[152. "It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully"?]
[152. Did everyone die? Or is this floor just like this?]
[152. I'm going in for now.]
[152. Ah, No. 150 left a note. Not in the notebook.]
[152. I never would've thought of this method.]
[152. All right. I'll try it.]
[152. I got through by doing what No. 150 said.]
[153. I never would've thought of this either.]
[153. How many lives does this guy have to come up with something like this?]
[153. It was a good idea. Moving forward while destroying the entire forest.]
[154. "Don't look at the trees, look at the forest." I guess that isn't wrong.]
[154. But it's not easy. This seems to be the floor with the most deaths since Floor 1.]
[154. "It is important to cultivate the trees beautifully."]
[154. So that's what you focused on.]
"..."
I snapped the notebook shut.
Everything after that said more or less the same thing.
They'd passed using the method I'd left behind.
The problem was...
"What did I even write...?"
"?"
I had absolutely no idea.
What I was looking at was a future that I would create.
The result was already there.
But I knew nothing about the process that led to it.
In the end, all I could do was think.
First...
My answer was apparently to destroy the forest.
Second...
I'd left the answer somewhere in the forest, not in the notebook.
How was I supposed to leave an answer inside the forest?
And finally...
"Don't look at the trees. Look at the forest... while cultivating it beautifully."
Those were the three clues.
How could I look at the forest instead of individual trees...
While still satisfying the fundamental condition of making the forest beautiful?
"...No way."
"...?"
"I think... I have a rough idea."
I calmly answered the mascot's curious look and stood up.
I had a hypothesis.
Now all that remained was putting it into action.
"?!"
"What?"
The mascot recoiled in shock when it heard my plan.
Then its whole body began trembling.
