How a Regressor Conquers the Tower of Urban Legends
Chapter 58
I squeezed my eyes shut.
The role-play.
And the youngest child.
One thing was certain.
The mascot had died protecting me.
I didn't know exactly how it had protected me before dying, but...
"Damn it."
The mascot had been given some kind of role and task.
And it had failed.
Naturally, the people before it had failed too.
Then, rather than pass the responsibility to the second child, the mascot had chosen to save me instead.
Good.
I roughly understood now.
For a moment, I considered simply leaving through the elevator.
But I immediately shook my head and looked away.
This could still be fixed.
And even if it couldn't...
"..."
I suppressed the negative thoughts and carefully looked around.
A dark house with all the lights off.
Headless corpses lying on the floor.
I forced down the nausea rising in my throat and decided to search the rooms.
The thought of regressing crossed my mind.
But...
"Not yet."
Right.
Not yet.
I didn't even know whether this was over or not.
And even if it had already ended, I couldn't just regress without doing anything.
"..."
At the very least, I should prepare.
I went into the kitchen and carefully picked up a kitchen knife.
Ah, damn it.
Didn't the shop sell something like an easy way to die?
I sighed quietly and decided to inspect the apartment first.
Let's start with the layout.
I already had a rough idea, but still.
There were four rooms in total.
The room I'd been in, plus three others.
Judging from how normal homes were arranged, one would probably be the parents' bedroom.
The other rooms would belong to whoever had been assigned the remaining roles.
Then...
"I'll start with the master bedroom."
I muttered and walked through the darkness.
I still didn't know why any of this had happened.
So I needed to gather as much information as possible.
Did this creepy house seriously not even have working lights?
I flicked the switches several times.
Click. Click.
Nothing happened.
In the end, I had no choice but to rely on my eyes after they'd adjusted to the darkness.
Not long after, I found notes similar to the one in my room.
The only difference was that there were two of them.
[Your role is Mother.]
[As one of the parents, you have a duty to protect your family!]
[Discuss the situation with Father.]
[Your assigned task is as follows.]
[Prevent yourself from appearing in the family portrait.]
[Find the camera and destroy it.]
[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]
[Your role is Father.]
[As one of the parents, you have a duty to protect your family!]
[Discuss the situation with Mother.]
[Find the photographer and stop them.]
[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]
"..."
I narrowed my eyes and tried to make out the blacked-out text.
Nothing.
"Damn."
No helping it.
For now, I'd memorize what I could and move on.
I left the master bedroom and entered the closest room.
The moment I opened the door, the metallic smell of blood hit me.
"Haah..."
I covered my nose and looked around.
Strangely enough, despite the smell, the room itself was clean.
There wasn't even a drop of blood anywhere.
"..."
Its layout was similar to the youngest child's room I'd been in.
I carefully searched it.
Soon enough, I found another note.
[Your role is the second child.]
[Wait. The eldest child will make a choice for you.]
[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]
[Unfortunately, the eldest child chose someone else and placed you in the family portrait.]
"..."
So this person had died without even getting a chance?
"Haah."
All right.
Let's organize this.
No matter what, everyone had a role.
I didn't know exactly what the eldest child's task had been, but the parents' objective was to stop the family portrait from being completed.
Meaning the moment the family portrait existed, the first line of defense had already failed.
The father's role was to stop the photographer.
The mother's role was to destroy the camera.
If they failed, the baton passed to the eldest child.
Was it simply that difficult?
Or...
I carefully opened the notebook.
[24. Do not sympathize.]
[24. We cannot know whether the things with us are human or not.]
[24. Therefore, focus on surviving first.]
[24. I believe anyone who has reached this point will manage well enough, but even so, I wish to tell you this again.]
[24. Always be careful.]
There had to be a reason No. 24 had written that.
Why?
"..."
I didn't know.
Was there anything else I needed to organize?
Better search a little more.
I returned to the living room.
"Ugh..."
The sight of the headless corpses made cold sweat run down my back.
The nausea I'd barely suppressed came surging back.
"Haah..."
I couldn't stop over something like this.
I punched my trembling thigh to steady myself, then walked toward the camera.
In the end, the problem was the camera.
And the photographer.
But the photographer was nowhere to be seen.
So first, I needed to inspect the camera.
"..."
It looked exactly like before.
An old Polaroid camera.
Nothing else seemed particularly unusual about it.
"What good is looking if I don't know anything?"
I picked it up and examined it from every angle.
Still nothing.
"..."
I stared at it for a moment, then looked toward the elevator.
The doors were still open.
Its unusually eerie white light spilled into the room.
I carefully raised the kitchen knife.
Where should I stab?
Would driving it hard into my throat like a stake work?
What if I messed up and didn't die?
The mascot wasn't here to help me this time.
Still...
I had to do it.
My hand trembled as I aimed the knife at my neck.
I breathed out slowly and tightened my grip—
