How To Raise Your Regressor

Chapter 163 - A Trap

The short beep told him that his request had been accepted, while the two long beeps after that told him how long he had to reach his assigned rendezvous point.

While this beep system was kind of weird, it was there to maintain anonymity; if Victor was ever caught whispering into a box, his captors at least wouldn't know what his words meant or what he had been told.

Not to mention that he had already been given instructions on how he should lie if he was ever caught.

They could not let anyone know who he was working with; for Their safety, obviously, but mostly for his.

The natives of this world would skin him alive if they ever knew who he was working with, after all.

Anyway, he had 2 hours to reach his destination. He would barely make it if he left right away.

So, he hurriedly stuffed the box in the hidden compartment and put the tile over it. The click that followed assured him that the compartment was locked and no one would be able to find or open it.

Well, even if they did, all they would see is a black box with a red button which let out a strange sound when the red button on it was pressed.

Swift as wind, he took off the ceremonial clothes he had worn to the party and put on his chainmail, above which he put on the leather armour.

After making sure that he had all his potions, weapons and the other basic stuff that one needed before raiding a dungeon, he left his Office.

"Ah, Guild Master… are you going somewhere?" His secretary asked him.

'Of course, I have to meet here,' he cursed in his heart.

"I have something to do," he flashed her a smile. "I'll leave the Guild in your hands."

"Ah, yes, sure, but where are you going?"

"I'll tell you after returning. Until then," he patted her shoulder and went past her.

"G-guild Master?!" She turned around to try to get some answers from him, but he was long gone by then.

Victor Novakovich was a Stealth Master (that's what he and the people who had witnessed his abilities said, anyway). He had the perfect set of abilities to spy on people when they were sleeping, or go past monsters unnoticed in a dungeon.

He left the Guildhouse and made his way towards the East city Gate with a slow jog.

Walking would have been more comfortable, obviously, but it was a luxury he could not afford. Arriving late would have severe repercussions.

Before long, he reached the huge ass city wall that surrounded the city.

15 metres tall and 2 metres wide, the city walls were constructed from concrete (courtesy of Earthlings) and were magically reinforced. It was rumoured that they were strong enough to survive a Dragon's tackle.

They probably weren't going to face a Dragon, but what this meant was that the wall was strong enough to stop the monsters of the forest outside from devouring the people of this city.

But because the forest was an important, irreplaceable in fact, source of resources, they couldn't just cut off the forest from the city.

That's why there were four entry points into the city, each in one of the four cardinal directions. Each entry point was guarded by guards.

Guards were situated at the top of the wall as well.

Victor wasn't going to use the East gate to leave the city; he didn't want to leave any record of him exiting this city.

So his only option was going over the wall.

Now, there was a distance of 50 metres between any two guards throughout the entire wall. Since Victor was a Stealth Master, going past them would be more than easy.

And he did just that. After making sure that there was no around to catch him red handed, he infused mana into his legs to increase his physical strength and leaped like he had never leaped before.

Within the blink of an eye, he was standing on top of the wall.

He looked to his left and right to ensure that the guards hadn't been alerted, then jumped down.

He had safely exited the city. All that was left was to go to Cascaded Memories, the 3-star dungeon that was directly under Blue Orca Guild's jurisdiction.

They had been the ones to discover and clear it, that's why its rights had been granted to them. In other words, no one could enter it, let alone raid it, without permission from the Guild.

And until now, Victor had not granted anyone permission to enter it.

Victor resumed his slow jog towards his destination; running was simply too tedious for him, and he wanted to conserve energy in case he encountered any monster.

Thankfully, his fears never came to pass. His journey to the dungeon was unhindered. He was 10 minutes early, in fact.

He did come upon a flock of monsters- he was in a motherfucking forest, after all- but they were too low levelled to notice the Stealth Master.

Now, in front of him lay the Cascaded Memories, the 3-star dungeon he had so painstakingly solo-cleared.

He normally wouldn't have done something so reckless (only an idiot raided a dungeon alone), but those were his instructions which he couldn't go against.

Besides, it wasn't a normal dungeon.

He still remembered his surprise when he first entered the dungeon and saw what actually was in it.

Anyway, after making sure that no one was around (this guy was simply too paranoid), he activated the Seal which barred entry into the dungeon.

The Seal recognised his mana signature and granted him entry.

After taking a deep breath to prepare himself, he entered the dungeon.

An uncanny silence hung over the cave, and there was nary a monster in sight. Thankfully, the mana crystals embedded in the walls of the dungeon provided him with ample light.

After walking in the straight cave for some time, he came upon a simple-looking, wooden door on his left.

He put his hand on the door and chanted, "We must die and become as Gods."

Following his words, the door glowed with an azure hue and opened up with a creak.

The inside was completely dark. He could not see a single thing, but he had been here enough times to know that this darkness was but an illusion.

As he stepped in, the door closed behind him.

The moment it did, the darkness surrounding him suddenly faded away, and what appeared in front of was a large, cylindrical glass tube.

The glass was filled with a strange, green liquid, and floating within that liquid was a meaty aberration.

It was a monster, and it wasn't the only one here.

Tubes upon tubes lined up the huge ass hall Victor was in. All were filled with that green liquid and had a monster floating inside it. If he had to take an educated guess, there were more than ten thousand of these tubes here.

This was a motherfucking monster factory.

"You're here," a feminine voice called out to him before he could get lost.

The voice came from somewhere behind those glass tubes, but he couldn't see from whom.

His meeting with Them had always been like this.

"Why did you want to meet us?" A male voice came from behind those tubes.

"…" Victor gulped, "I've been bound by a non-disclosure agreement. It will destroy my soul and erase my existence if I even mutter a word about what I want to tell you."

"Erasure of existence?" The woman muttered in a bemused tone. "Let me check."

As she said that, a torrent of golden mana rushed towards him and enveloped him. After a moment, Victor felt something invading his very 'existence'.

It was a very disgusting feeling, as if the juice extracted from a cum sock that was being used daily for 70 years without being washed even once was being poured into every pore of his body.

Yikes.

He almost subconsciously rejected this invasion, but stopped himself at the last moment and let it continue.

The disgusting feeling continued for some moment, then it receded just as quickly as it had come. With it went the feeling of invasion.

"You were right," the woman chuckled. "You were under such a contract."

"Someone was able to create a contract that could destroy a soul and erase one's existence as punishment?" The man was puzzled.

Something like this should be impossible.

'It's nothing compared to what he had created…' Victor sighed in his heart.

"And what has… 'he' created, Victor?" The man asked.

'Reading my mind is cheating, okay?!' He lamented.

"The contract-"

"It has already been removed from your soul. Speak freely," the woman reassured him.

"Okay," he nodded and took a deep breath. "The method to create an Artificial Elixir has been discovered."

The moment he said so, a blood curdling chill descended on the room. It didn't even take Victor a second to start trembling in dread.

"…Give us more details," the woman asked.

"I just came from a meeting. A guy- someone who I don't know- presented the Artificial Elixir to us."

"Are you sure it was an Elixir?"

"He cut his own body into pieces and used the Elixir on himself to prove that it was the genuine thing."

"Hmm, continue."

"About 50 members had been invited to this… Seminar; that's what that guy called it, anyway. By the end of that meeting- ding!" Before Victor could finish, a strange bell like voice came out of his mouth.

Before anyone could make a sense of what was happening, Victor's eyes rolled back, as if he had gone unconscious, but he remained standing.

"Ding dong," an unfamiliar voice came from his mouth. "I told you that you have to keep this a secret, didn't I? Why can't people follow simple instructions? Sed. Anyway, hello there," Victor, with the white of his eyes showing and a creepy smile on his face, tilted his head and looked straight towards where the woman was.

"!!"