IPERIML 2

Chapter 2

Bang! Bang!

Right on cue, a series of familiar, aggressive knocks shattered my train of thought.

Bang! Bang!

“Hey! Celesia!”

It was Tasha, my fellow maid. Tasha was a boar sub-species famous for a temper every bit as stiff and stubborn as her dark brown hair. At this point, I wasn’t even surprised by this exact routine playing out on day one of every regression.

CRACK!

Not content with just bashing the door with her fists, Tasha started kicking it violently. The wooden door groaned so hard it sounded like it was about to split in half.

If things played out like usual, she’d lose her temper completely, smash the door open, and wreck my whole room. And of course, cleaning up the mess would fall entirely on me.

“Hey!”

I hopped straight out of bed, strutted over, and yanked the door open. There stood Tasha, right leg cocked back to deliver another heavy kick.

“Why are you ignoring me when you’re inside?!”

“If you came to ask me to swap shifts today, I’ll do it. Just stop making such a racket.”

“What the… How did you know what I was gonna say? Wait, no—what’s with that attitude all of a sudden?”

I just gave a light shrug.

Originally, Celesia was a Chihuahua demon, absolute bottom-of-the-barrel tier among demonic beings. Literally anyone could push her around. On top of that, she was super timid, making her the ultimate pushover.

So seeing Celesia suddenly look her dead in the eye and talk back like it was no big deal clearly threw Tasha for a loop.

But honestly, what was I supposed to do about it? Pretending to change slowly so people around me could digest it was fine the first couple of times, but now? I couldn’t even be bothered.

“Not as bad as yours.”

“Hey!”

“Look, you don’t want to get caught in the crossfire since Lord Morckald’s in a foul mood today, right? That’s why you want to swap with me.”

“……”

“Quietly go back before I change my mind.”

Tasha huffed, snorting hot air out of her nose. Still, scared that I might take back my offer to swap shifts, she glared at me for a second before turning on her heel and stomping away.

Shortly after, I headed out too. Before I could put my plan into action, I needed to inspect Morckald’s sewing room thoroughly.

[Black Forest Region: Spinetree Spire]

My destination was a spire wrapped tightly in a thick cage of thorny trees.

Inside the tower, grotesque specimen jars filled with formalin and bizarre test subjects were displayed on every floor. Some carcasses were even hung up on meat hooks like a butcher shop. Wall after wall was lined neatly with all sorts of chemicals and raw materials.

[Boss Room: Morckald’s Sewing Room]

And right at the very end of it was the sewing room.

“Lord Morckald?”

“…Come in.”

As always, the place was an absolute trainwreck. Resting on a steel bed was the corpse of a demon, stitched together from all kinds of mismatched body parts.

It was horrifying. Glowing, vivid pink spheres were shoved into its eye sockets, complemented by sheep horns and tough, leathery skin. Nothing about it matched.

Stitch, stitch.

In front of the bed, Morckald was frantically sewing away like a manic conductor leading an orchestra.

I did my part, holding back the nausea from the putrid stench and terrifying sights while casually sweeping up the stray body parts scattered across the floor. I barely even bothered pretending to mop.

Just as I was finishing up…

“No, not this!”

Morckald suddenly flew into a rage. Angered that things weren’t going his way, he slammed the demon corpse he was working on straight into the floor.

“It’s not enough! This isn’t nearly enough to win the Breeding Tournament!”

His voice cracked into a sharp, grating screech that sounded like nails scraping on glass. Then, like a lunatic, he started gnawing on his fingernails before biting down on his own fingers.

Honestly, I was pretty pleased with this development.

Not only was this a pattern I’d seen countless times in the game, but with thousands of hours of playtime logged, I knew Morckald inside and out.

Morckald was naturally high-strung. When things went wrong, he panicked easily and got so hyper-focused on his frustration that he lost all awareness of his surroundings.

And right now was prime time.

I quietly slipped out the room.

“I need something new… Something special, a brand-new material!”

Even when Morckald finally snapped out of it later, he’d just assume the mess in the room was from his own temper tantrum.

In the meantime, I had a plan to execute.

Just to be clear, what I was setting up was the fastest shortcut to speedrun Chapter 1.

‘Though, that shortcut was designed for the actual player.’

Right now, I wasn’t the protagonist. I had no idea if a background extra like me could trigger the exact same game mechanics.

“Well, if it doesn’t work out, whatever.”

I wasn’t scared. Even if things went south and I died, the glass-fragile protagonist would kick the bucket anyway, dragging me back into another regression.

Besides, I knew my place. No matter how thoroughly I knew every guide and strategy, I was still just a low-tier extra who could get obliterated by a single flick of Morckald’s wrist. Reckless moves were out of the question.

So, sorry to the main lead, but before I could kill Morckald, I had to focus on making myself stronger first.

In Infinite Regression War, the standard path of Chapter 1 involved the protagonist getting ‘stitched up’ and modified by Morckald to get stronger. Fortunately, the developers hid alternative progression paths all over the place outside of that main route.

And that alternative route was exactly what I was targeting.

That’s why, as soon as morning broke, I rushed over to the waste disposal facility.

“Could you swap shifts with me for just a week?” I begged the worker on duty straight out of the gate, hunching my shoulders to make myself look as small and timid as possible. “I figured if I’m assigned here for a while, Tasha won’t come nagging me to swap shifts like she did yesterday…”

“Ah, right, I heard about yesterday’s commotion. Man, I’d love to swap, whether it’s for a day or a week!”

The moment Tasha’s name came up, the worker patted my shoulder with a look of pity—though that was as far as his sympathy went. He couldn’t even hide the grin spreading across his face at my offer to swap.

Maybe he was worried I’d change my mind once I saw the horrific interior, because…

“Ahem. Well then, I’ll be counting on you for a bit!”

The second he unlocked the door, he turned around and sprinted away as fast as his legs could carry him.

To be fair, the sight definitely warranted that reaction.

True to its name as a waste facility, the room was overflowing with all kinds of trash, including ruined materials that had washed down straight from the sewing room. It was on a whole different level compared to the pixelated graphics I used to look at through a screen.

Holding my breath, I stepped inside.

[Hidden Room: Waste Disposal Facility]

• Drop Rates:

  • Trash: 90%

  • Recyclable Trash: 9.9%

  • High-Grade Material: 0.1% ※ Available salvageable materials vary daily based on the previous day’s experiments. ※ WARNING! Do not get caught trespassing by the facility manager!

Great news.

The fact that the entry notification popped up just like in the game meant that even as an extra, I could use this method.

Normally, you could grab hidden items in this place based on a set probability. The catch? The drop rate for high-grade materials was a abysmal 0.1%. On top of that, you had to sneak in through a door left open by a worker without getting caught.

Between scanning for the item you wanted and constantly keeping an eye out for guards, it was infamous among players for causing massive eye strain and a ridiculously high failure rate.

Except for me right now…

“I literally just have to focus on the treasure hunt.”

None of those restrictions applied to me. For the next week, I was the manager of this waste disposal facility.

Being an extra definitely had its perks. If a human tried to do anything in the Demon Realm, they’d draw eyes instantly, and roaming around freely was out of the question.

“Ugh, this smell is insane…”

Gagging uncontrollably, I quickly put on a hazmat suit and heavy gloves.

After that, it was smooth sailing. Having done this hundreds of times in the game, I sorted through everything at lightning speed—combustibles, compost, monster feed, and so on.

[Acquired: Severed Nerve Bundle!] [Acquired: Corroded Metal Skeleton!] [Acquired: Broken Mechanical Eye!]

Still, the gap between reality and the game was massive. Even with the protective gear on, the damp, sticky fluids felt revolting. The stench cut right through my mask, stabbing deep into my lungs with every breath I took.

“Whew…”

But what choice did I have?

Yesterday, among the corpse parts Morckald slammed onto the floor while screaming about how useless they were for the tournament, there was that item.

Two vivid pink spheres that didn’t just catch light like fine glass, but practically flashed like neon pink fireflies.

They were known as the Eyes of the Mind-Sight Dragon.

It was the eye of a rare magical beast that broke the fundamental rule of the world—allowing the user not only to see another person’s mana, but to read its flow entirely.

[Acquired: Congealed Fat Lump!] [Acquired: Worn Heart Valve!]

Still, skipping lunch to carefully dig through piles of trash in a dark, filthy room meant nothing if the thing I actually wanted didn’t drop.

Then again, beggars can’t be choosers.

The moment my fingernails scraped against a piece of metallic debris, I felt something long and thin sitting right next to it. It was a small syringe.

[Acquired: Used Syringe (35% Anesthetic Solution Remaining)]

I quickly pocketed the syringe. Getting stronger was great and all, but undergoing ‘that process’ was definitely going to involve a world of pain. I planned to use this when the time came.

Now that the ice was broken, it was only a matter of pulling out the rest of the chain. That just meant I was finally reaching the bottom of the waste pile.

And just as expected…

[Acquired High-Grade Material: Eyes of the Mind-Sight Dragon!]

My fingers wrapped around two solid spheres. Though they looked completely ordinary under all the sludge, the status window confirmed their identity without fail.

“Oh…”

But there was no time to celebrate. Finding the ingredients meant nothing if I didn’t have the tool to cook them with. I still had to find that tool.

“It should be right around here…”

It was the thinnest, flimsiest item in the pool, and it always showed up at the very end.

That’s why I focused even harder. Even as the sky turned dark, I skipped stepping out or taking a break, slaving away all day until…

“…Found it!”

Finally, at the very bottom of the waste heap—right off the filth-stained floor—I pulled something out.

[Acquired High-Grade Material: Morckald’s Bone Needle!]

It was Morckald’s Bone Needle (Forest+).

True to its name, it was a specialized needle Morckald crafted by pulling out and carving one of his own bones.

“Time to get started.”

To double-check, I picked up the needle alongside the eye spheres.

[Activating Stitching Circuit…]

As if waiting for this exact moment, a mirror and a status window popped up right in front of my eyes, just like in the game.

[Generating Stitching Path]

• Stitch along the red dotted line!

• Total Sections: 7

• Thread the needle in sync with the pulse!

Over my reflected eyes in the mirror, a red dotted line appeared, glowing with red dots that pulsed at steady intervals.

Yup. This was basically a rhythm game.