Chapter 190 – The Longest Terror (4)
23. The Longest Terror (4)
‘Uh?’
I blinked my eyes. In front of my eyes was the me of just a few months ago. It was a reclusive lung itself. Stubborn hair, eye mucus that didn’t fall properly, a T-shirt that stretched to one side from wearing the same thing for a long time, and sweatpants full of lint. On top of that, a tired face, slightly bent shoulders, a small physique, and a stale atmosphere that can’t be hidden. It was quite embarrassing to see myself playing The Long Terror, the only game I had fun with, with no dreams or hopes.
‘Why are you showing up here and there? What the hell are you going to do?’
I was prepared to die from being crushed by the collapsing universe at any moment, but I was embarrassed when a familiar space appeared.
“You guys can never get rid of fear. But as for you guys… I can’t find any more fear.”
[The will of the warriors has been broken by the longest fear.]
[The warriors have been wiped out.]
“Ah fuck-foot shit game trash game lucky fuck game!”
[Would you like to create a new warrior corps?]
“Fuck you no!”
‘What.’
And watching me in the past swearing and clenching my fists and not being able to bring down the keyboard, watching the phrase “The Warriors have been wiped out” On the monitor, watching the horror bastard’s unlucky lines.
I was so embarrassed that deep fear was included in the feeling of shame.
‘Why? Why?’
It’s definitely the first time I’m in this situation. Seeing myself in front of me right now was not a situation where I could feel this much. I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling ‘the fear that something impossible would happen’ while watching me play the game.
“… Ah, the time is a bit ambiguous, so let’s play one more game and go to sleep.”
[Would you like to create a new warrior corps?]
“Sweep, to be honest, breaking District 3 with Nodes with this combination was a skill. Okay. Let’s do one more round. The first class failed, but I have to break it anyway…”
[Please select a difficulty level.]
“Of course.”
[You have selected ‘The Longest Terror’ difficulty level.]
[Do you want to skip the tutorial?]
[You chose to skip the tutorial.]
[After returning to Salem, move to the warrior training center.]
“This time, instead of Baheon, if there’s a good werewolf or reinforced human, let’s try it.”
I watched more, but couldn’t figure out why. It was just my normal appearance. It’s a dirty game with luck, so even I, who burned thousands of hours, had only a 10% win rate, which means there’s a 90% chance of seeing the annihilation ending, so it wasn’t that surprising.
But why, why
Looking at the corpses of the warriors in the monitor, did it make me cry this much? Why does my stomach feel stuffy and something boils when I see me repeatedly hitting the mouse and keyboard to skip the ending credits and prologue?
「You guys can never get rid of fear. But as for you guys… I can’t find any more fear.”
‘Ah…’
At some point, my body and posture, my posture in the past, and the situation in the monitor went back to the beginning.
And I realized some of the fear of the unknown I was feeling. And the fact that I only realized part of it inflated the fear of the rest of the unknown.
What you don’t know is medicine. If you didn’t know at all, if you didn’t realize at all. If I hadn’t realized it so vaguely.
Unless you had the intelligence to imagine multiple possibilities.
Fear of imagining ‘something that should never happen’, fear that this is not the first time that you have imagined it, fear that you have not found a way out of this place, fear that you have not found a way out of this place now I feel fear that I don’t even know how many times the process is, I feel fear at the thought that I’m not trapped indefinitely, but I’m already trapped close to infinity. I wouldn’t have felt any fear.
He covered his head. Then I thought it was not the right time, so I hurriedly searched the desk. I was looking for a pen and paper. But couldn’t find it When I looked closely at my cramped room, there were many things that were lacking. It was just a seemingly plausible implementation. I gave up on finding a pen and paper and started shaping the forearm with my fingernails.
「Repeat A」
“You guys can never get rid of fear. But as for you guys… I can’t find any more fear.”
[The will of the warriors has been broken by the longest fear.]
“… …”
My mind was blank.
Where are you? What’s the matter?
I blankly looked ahead and saw the me before I fell here. Compared to me now, I was really ashamed of myself wherever I put it. As always, while cursing at The Long Terror, I laughed out loud while watching my contradictory behavior.
‘What is this.’
My forearms were hot. The entire left forearm was red and there were fingernail marks in places. The only people here are me and the past me, but the two of us couldn’t influence each other.
As far as I can remember, there were no marks like this on my forearms before coming to this strange space. No, it was covered by clothes in the first place, when did I make such a mark on my bare arm?
I got goosebumps.
[The warriors have been wiped out.]
“Ah fuck-foot shit game trash game lucky fuck game!”
[Would you like to create a new warrior corps?]
“Fuck you no!”
The swearing I had spat out in the past was supposed to be so, but the phrase on the monitor looked particularly creepy.
When you play The Long Terror, it’s a phrase you see like eating, but why? Just one of many failed editions?
My left forearm throbbed even more. I don’t remember anything, but it felt like there was a hole in it. One day, living in the world suddenly became so fucked up that I drank too much and fell asleep. It feels like my memory has been blown away here and there, but I am aware of the fact that I have been blown away.
‘Fear bastard.’
I tried to ignore the fear that consumed both my body and my mind, and I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to figure out the source of the current situation.
From simple.
This phenomenon was caused by the skill used by the fear bastard, officially named ‘The Longest Fear’.
Current symptoms.
A short period of time is repeated. I’m sure I’m seeing it for the first time, but I’m guessing from the feeling of not seeing it for the first time and the marks on my forearm, but rather than a regression, it seems like my memory has been reset.
Breakthrough.
Assuming the guess is correct, why was the memory reset? And what conditions are necessary for a reset to fail?
‘…’
My body shuddered. How much time has passed Just now, the me of the past, who had muttered something while hitting the mouse and keyboard, suddenly returned to cursing at the game again.
‘Now… Did the memories continue?’
Confusion mingled with fear. In order to overcome this situation, I eventually had to find something in the past me or that screen, but the repeating section was short. Before I could see anything, I swept over.
‘It feels like my memory is reset when I find out something.’
I couldn’t explain it otherwise.
‘… How many times should I repeat it?’
In the end, I had no choice but to hit it with my body. I didn’t expect how many times I would have to hear the scolding of The Long Terror, but I stared at the monitor, hoping that my sanity wouldn’t wear out before then.
「You guys can never get rid of fear. But as for you guys… I can’t find any more fear.”
‘… Ah?’
**
[The warriors have been wiped out.]
“Ah fuck-foot shit game trash game lucky fuck game!”
[Would you like to create a new warrior corps?]
“Fuck you no!”
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that phrase and heard that curse word.
A hundred times? Or a thousand times?
The space was still my old studio, and time was still repeating that short section.
I’m still stuck here Judging by the increase in unknown scars on my body, I could only guess that I had figured out something.
I was being buried. No, maybe it has already been buried.
At the very beginning, I thought that the emotions I was feeling at the time when I couldn’t be sure were definitely different from the emotions I’m feeling now.
Now I was just filled with the thought of getting out of here.
I was sick of the curse words I spat out in the past, and just looking at the phrases that the will of the warriors was broken by fear and the words that the warriors were wiped out made me feel like I was going to be traumatized.
Still, there was no progress at all. Otherwise, I might have gone crazy or given up and sat there blankly.
‘The horror bastard, the fucking bastard.’
In order not to forget my hostility towards the fear bastard, I continued to look at the monitor while muttering double curses on purpose. If the phrase of annihilation hadn’t covered the screen, if the dungeon hadn’t been dark, and if the dreadnought’s gigantic body hadn’t taken up a lot of screen space, I would have eaten rice cakes even after observing the warriors.
‘…’
But I thought that maybe I was already aware of it and denied it.
It’s very faint, but blurry.
There was the lead woman lying face down with her limbs bizarrely bent and a greatsword driven through her abdomen.
The woman behind him with her face turned to her back and her eyes gouged out.
A woman in a robe with all of her fingernails pulled out, her twisted fingers holding a piece of her something smashed, her teeth and face crushed.
Then there was the body of a man, a bounty hunter to be exact, staring at the bodies of those women in vain.
‘It’s a horror thing. Not true. It’s an illusion.’
I tried to deny it, but strictly speaking there was no way I could tell for myself whether what I was seeing was true or not. How much is true and how much is illusion, how much is my whole idea and not contaminated.
I was the final version of the frog in the well. I was alone, without the companions I had always been with, and there was no one to take me out and no one to tell me the truth.
Maybe the last time, the last time, the hundredth time ago, I came this far and reset. Forget and find out, forget and find out again. It seemed like I couldn’t go any further this time. I only had to take one more step, but I was afraid of that front.
‘Maybe there’s something I haven’t discovered.’
I rolled my eyes again. Anyway, if you stay still like this, time will go back by itself. Hearing harsh curses again, watching the resounding screen, he will once again fall deeper into the swamp of fear he built himself and struggle. A swamp that the more you struggle to get out, the deeper you fall.
‘I, I… I have to get out of here… Colleagues… For what… Until when…’
I will take the last step next time. It was the time when he left nail marks on his red and red forearms, saying, “Let’s not forget this promise.”
“You guys can never get rid of fear.”
Awesome-
“All. But as for you guys… No more fear”
Awesome-
“I can’t find it.”
‘… Huh?’
There was an incontinence on one side of the wall of the 5.5 pyeong one room, which was a dark swamp itself.
