While Heidi was doing her own sort of training, Kimsung sat on the rocks nearby, watching its history. He saw the faces of several hundred people as they passed the ridge overlooking the ice rink. He watched them silently as they took photos, as they set blankets to have picnics, as they shared moments happily.
It reminded him of his past resets. For the first fifty or so, he was happy. He wasn't an overachiever and was content with just being around F-ranked or E-ranked. Sometimes he formed a good group that got him all the way to D-rank, even C-rank!
Those were the times he liked most. Sure, he died in terrible ways, but they were resets he would be truly content with staying in. It was his 117th reset, and the last five hadn't been good.
Reset 112 was the very first reset in which he achieved Z-rank, and he died of betrayal almost immediately after.
Reset 113 was the second reset he achieved Z-rank in, and he died to the demon queen.
Reset 114 was strange, as he was killed by a strange bird in the lands of what used to be Persia while on his way to the Simurgh. He did not know what it was, but it was reminiscent of a crane.
Reset 115 was different because he had challenged the Demon of Truth in China and lost horribly, despite using his skill as best as he could.
Reset 116 was the third reset he became a Z-rank in, and he considered it to be among the best of his resets so far. He had successfully made it to Z-rank, married Anastasiya, and befriended the mourning Demon Queen. He truly united the world, until that man appeared.
Kimsung shivered. He still remembered how horrible the first week of the war against that man had been. All of Europe was wiped out from a single attack, and the Middle East was conquered within hours, despite obviously being given time to prepare for that monster's arrival.
And to add insult to injury, in their first true clash, Kimsung was beaten by the man's finger. Not his blade, not his leg, not his arm, not his foot, and not even his first, but his finger. A single poke was all it took, and it nearly killed him. It was called the darkest day in the global alliance's history, being defeated not by a monster, but by one of their own.
He had only survived that day because of Jamal and Armando, who had luckily intervened before that monster landed the killing blow. However, he did not survive the next attempt, when all of human and demon kind banded together to kill the threat of extinction that was the Achilles of America.
All it took was a strike, and hundreds of millions, all across the world, were wiped out, with the only survivors being those of SS-rank or above. Shortly after, they were hunted down like rats, until only the Z-ranks were left, and Achilles 1v10'ed them in under three days.
Kimsung frowned. He did not know what he could do to kill Achilles this time around, even when he was with them almost every day. After Keido had told Kimsung about Achilles' defense, Kimsung had scrapped all of his previous ideas to kill the man. Bullets would clearly prove ineffective against him, as would most items unenchanted with specific runes meant to counter defensive abilities.
Perhaps… No, that idea wouldn't work. The thing required for it wouldn't work with him without reason or a clear benefit presented for the service.
What he had to focus on was preventing Achilles from finding a certain blade. That was something he couldn't allow at any cost, or he'd possibly remember who Kimsung is.
Unbeknownst to Kimsung, both Keido and Heidi knew that somehow, Achilles was able to remember the regressor slowly but surely, until thousands of resets later, when he fully remembered all that Kimsung had done.
Luckily for Kimsung, this was not that reset, or else he'd have already been killed, regardless of whatever experience he had in fighting. Achilles' barriers would have made it impossible to escape him at any distance.
Kimsung decided not to focus on his internal issues, and instead focus on raising the Tier of his skill. He had begun doing it quite a while ago, but he hasn't made any headway so far. One of the flaws of his innate regression ability was that he never brought back his full mind. If he had brought his full, Z-rank mind with him to the past, Kimsung would've died from the extreme influx of information.
It was a way to balance such an ability and to protect his mind from breaking under the weight of it.
If he had regressed with all the information about his abilities, then perhaps he'd be ahead of Achilles by now. But he wasn't, therefore, he needed to relearn it slowly, or else it'd become something else.
The reason he needed to be careful when developing his abilities was because of how his choices affected the process. If he did not train something a certain way, it would not come to the result he'd always come to for his abilities. That was especially bad because any other ability after that would be completely new and unpredictable. Kimsung had noticed that the more time he spent on something he'd done in his previous life, the more his memories of it returned, helping him even more.
For instance, when he had pursued Anastasiya in his previous resets, he always had the information about her from past resets to rely on, but if he instead pursued another woman, he wouldn't remember any of it. The process was basically a maze, and with every right turn he made, he'd find another piece of its map, if that made sense.
Therefore, he placed a lot of importance on actually training his abilities to ensure the next ability is what he needs to continue successfully.