How To Raise Your Regressor

But hey, as they say, every war has collateral damage in the form of countless innocents. This is more like a squabble than a war, sure, but the only collateral damage is Lecia so we're all fine and dandy.

For now, let's assume that she's perfectly fine while simultaneously preparing to extract the remains of her body from that warehouse.

?There are two guys guarding the door.?

"Roger."

Neia seems to be doing her job properly. Noice

As expected, the entrance is being guarded.

Since there were two guys in front of the door, I hid in the bushes and masked my presence.

It's evening right now and the forest is thicc I mean thick, so I doubt they can see or sense me right now.

From the gap in the leaves, I could see that there indeed were two people guarding the door.

From their attire (i.e. their armour and weapons), their way of standing, the sharpness in their gaze, it was clear that they were quite strong.

The fact that there literally were bones strewed about at the sides of path leading to the door also helped.

This is just wow.

Why would they keep the bones though? Not only is it a weird aesthetic choice, it's also quite unhygienic.

I guess they are trying to prove that they have Big Ds, and also that anyone who approaches them will join those bones.

Nice.

Now, the door is 50 metres away from these bushes. Should I just dash in?

"Neia," I whispered. "Use the sensors to search through the building to see if you can find any suitable places where they might be holding Lecia."

Though in my experience, she would either be in the lowest basement or on the highest floor of this building.

?What exactly should I look for??

"People who seem to be tied up on chairs, lying on the ground unmoving. Anything which might suggest that that person is not here of his own volition."

That place will be my primary target.

Let's hope it's the top floor; children being locked up in dark basements is an overdone cliché, both in literature and in real life.

In their defence, though, hiding people in the basement is far easier as compared to the top floor.

?I've got two locations.?

Two, eh?

"Where are they?"

?One is at the top floor. It's a girl and she seems to be tied to a chair. The other is in the basement and lying on the ground, unconscious.?

"Or dead."

?…Unconscious.?

"As you wish."

If she wants to escape reality, who am I to stop her?

Anyway, the two targets are literally on the opposite vertical ends of the buildings. If I make a choice and it turns out to be wrong, breaking in to the second target will become much harder.

Well, not exactly hard. Nothing is hard for me, after all (aside from fat gay pedos).

The problem is that if my choice turns out to be wrong, the probability of Lecia's survival would lower by as much as 50%.

And that's because they'll hold her hostage and try to demand stupid things of me. At some point, saving her would become more trouble than its actually worth.

Which would be amusing but, you know, not ideal.

Thankfully, I have my latest creation with me. A creation which, in fact, happens to fit this situation's solution so perfectly that one might think it's some sort of plot armour or deus ex machina bullshit.

And that's because this situation was created specifically to test this new creation.

I let Lecia go out alone, I let her feel despair, I gave her false hope in the name of Azell, I killed everyone except the main culprit of the kidnapping and I let her be taken away even though I could have easily saved her only because I wanted to create a situation perfect enough for testing my newest creation. 𝘧r𝘦𝗲w𝘦𝚋𝐧o𝘷𝘦𝙡.co𝑚

In other words, Lecia is suffering solely because I want to conduct a small experiment.

Get finessed, Lecia. Consider this my payback for almost killing me (even though? didn't even remember anything about it until she reminded me).

Anyway, this is the perfect time to take out my invention and test it-

"Hey, did you hear something?" One of the guards suddenly muttered.

Shit.

"What are you talking about?" The other guard asked.

Yea, what the hell are you talking about, Guard A? Just do you damn job and ignore the protagonist hiding in the bushes aka moi.

"No, I'm sure that I heard something," Guard A scowled in my general direction.

Was I whispering that loudly?

"Really?" Guard B also scowled.

Wasn't Guard B supposed to brush off Guard A's suspicions by saying something like 'Must be your imagination' or some shit?

Damn, these guys are good. It's surprising to see guards who actually know how to do their damn job.

Wow.

"Should we check?" Guard A asked.

"Go ahead. I'll stay behind just in case," Guard B replied.

Oh, wow. Not only are they not ignoring their instincts, they are also doing things strategically.

The first guard will go ahead and check. The second one will stay behind to ensure that no one can sneak past behind their backs as well to immediately alert those inside in case something happened to the former.

They are taking the most tactical decisions they can take in this situation.

Wow, I'm proud of them.

Anyway, what should I do? Taking my gadget out would be far from a sane decision as they would swiftly destroy it.

Let's try negotiating.

And so, I stepped out of the bushes. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

?W-what are you doing!?? Neia exclaimed.

"Just wait and watch."

"Who are you?" Guard A asked me with a cold voice.

The Guard B behind him reached for his sword while also intensely glaring at me, as if to not miss any of my movements.

"Well, uh, hello there," I greeted them with a meek voice. "I-I got lost in the forest and came here. Can you tell me the way back home?"

"Got lost, eh?" Guard A smirked. "Don't worry, brother. We'll show you the way home."

As he said that, he took out his sword and started walking towards me.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Sorry, brother, but we can't let anyone leave after seeing this hideout."

Wut?

"H-hey, I-I won't tell anyone about this, okay? I just want to get home."

"Orders are orders, boy."

Woah, fuck. I didn't actually expect them to just come at me with their swords. How the hell am I supposed to negotiate now?

"Neia, prepare to fire."

?Roger.?

"I suggest that you stop where you are," I called out to Guard A. "If you don't, something bad might happen to you."

"Oh yeah? Are you going to punch with those stick like arms?" He chuckled.

Woah, rude.

"Neia, give them a warning shot, please."

"Ha! Would you look at him-"

The next moment, Guard A's head burst apart.

Um, wut?