Regression is Too Much - Chapter 100

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 100

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The regressor is under maintenance (1)

I am not a hero. I am not some superman on a white horse who saves the world with an unshakeable spirit.

And yet, the reason I am trying so hard, forcing myself to save every single person…

It's because I still can. I do it simply because I am able to.

The life of each person with me on the 4th floor was no different than being held in the palm of my hand.

Someone dies, and someone survives based on my choices. So how could I give up just because it's hard?

I cannot tell the ones who die, ‘You died because I was having a hard time and didn’t give it my all’. As long as I have a conscience, it is impossible for me to spew such words.

Let's just face it head-on for now. Let's give it my best shot, mobilizing everything I have. The petty debate about whether to compromise or not can wait until after that. It won't be too late.

“Hoo…”

And for this grand plan, what I needed to do right now was incredibly clear.

“League… I should play some LoL first…”

First, I needed to rest deeply without a single thought in my head.

I felt it the entire time I was clearing the 4th floor. My current mental state was incredibly precarious.

Even though regressing makes it so that it never happened… The pressure of knowing someone could die because of my choice is greater than I could have imagined. They say people no longer look like people? The shock of death was still an exception.

I think I was beginning to understand why generals in a war don't see their soldiers as people.

The moment you realize the weight of your own choices, the human psyche rapidly deteriorates.

But in a way, this was also a good sign. It meant that even though I had become desensitized to others, I still had not crossed a certain line.

I am still human. I felt like I had just confirmed that.

“…The jungler doesn’t even have to play for us to win?”

For two days, I holed myself up in my studio apartment and only played games.

The news chattered on about the Tower all day long, and thousands of people were being abducted from all over the world every day, and player crimes were happening frequently… but despite all that, people's daily lives had not changed drastically. This is why the game companies were still operating.

-[Kim Jun-ho] Challenger 831 LP

“…This is so damn fun.”

The game, which I hadn't played in a while, was fun to an excessive degree.

At first, I wondered why everyone had gotten so bad, but it was only natural when I thought about it. My physical abilities had already far surpassed those of an ordinary person. There was no way the game would be difficult.

You ask what's fun about stomping on weaker players? A game is only fun when you win. It's not for nothing that people make alternate accounts.

After hitting the highest rank in just two days and patching up my mental state, I finally checked my phone.

-Choi Ji-won: Jun-ho nim. I saw you contacted me, are you feeling okay? I am about to enter Floor 4 soon. Our timing was a bit off. (4 days ago)

-Park Cheol-jin: Jun-ho gun. Did you clear the 3rd floor~? They made us do a 4000-piece puzzle in what they called a room of patience. (4 days ago)

I had received messages from my acquaintances, including Choi Ji-won and Park Cheol-jin.

-Ahn Gyeong-jun: I can't get in touch with my hyung… It's been over a week since he entered the Tower.

“…Shit.”

I gently put my phone into my pocket and immediately moved to the 1st floor. It was to check my clear rewards.

I walked up to the large box I had been ignoring and, Clunk, I roughly threw it open.

As soon as I opened the box, a message window appeared before my eyes.

1000 Points Reward: Lesser Potion x 10

3000 Points Reward: Weapon Exchange Ticket

6000 Points Reward: Custom Item Box (B~E) [Unique]

10000 Points Reward: Custom Trait Box (A~D) [Unique]

“…What's an exchange ticket now?”

A whole bunch of things I had never seen before popped up. A weapon exchange ticket? This isn't even a game.

But from this, I thought I could understand the direction the Tower wanted to take. This Tower wants us to save the otherworlders. That must be why they give out rewards. The more you try to save the otherworlders, the harder the difficulty will become. But even so, the difficulty of the 4th floor was abnormal. There must have been something I missed.

“That aside…”

I'll worry about it later. Now was the time to check the rewards.

When I picked up the ticket that said ‘Weapon Exchange Ticket’, a status window popped up and a list of selectable weapons scrolled down.

Since I don't use anything but swords anyway, I immediately chose a sword, and as soon as I did, a steel sword fell from thin air.

“Hmm…”

The quality was pretty decent. But it wasn't good enough to be called excellent. It was just a superior version of the weapons the Tower usually provides. As a 3000-point reward, I hadn't expected anything amazing.

Next up were the two ‘custom’ boxes.

There were two mint-colored boxes inside, and I couldn't tell which was which, so I just opened them at the same time.

-Transparent Gloves [B]

-Transparent leather gloves.

-Meditation [C]

-Calms the mind and provides time to reflect on oneself.

“Hmm…”

First, the Transparent Gloves were quite useful. Even with completely transparent gloves on, there was no significant difference in the feel of gripping a sword, but if I touched my hand, I could feel the stiff texture of the leather.

In fact, when you fight for a long time, the biggest problem is the skin on your palms. The palms are delicate and tear and split easily. That's why I fought with gloves on in the last regression, but then that reduces precision.

It was fortunate that the enemies on the 4th floor were much weaker than me, but if a situation arose where I had to fight a strong enemy for a long time, these Transparent Gloves would be a great help. No, they seemed like they would be quite useful on the 4th Floor right away.

Next was Meditation. This trait would be useful when training my mana. I tried it briefly and it felt like my mind was calmly sinking deep into water.

Perhaps because it was a ‘custom’ box, the results were quite satisfactory. Now, the last thing remaining was…

1st Place Contribution Reward: Lowest-Grade Subspace

-Size is 30cm x 30cm x 30cm.

-Only items obtained from the Tower can be stored.

“…A subspace?”

The first thing that came to mind was Dok Su-hee, who betrayed me on the 3rd floor. They're giving an inventory as a 1st place contribution reward? Then what does that make Su-hee, who went around bragging that her trait was SSS-grade?

With a slight suspicion, I picked up the small, coin-sized scrap of paper, and the complex pattern drawn on it seeped into my fingernail.

The method for using the subspace was simple. If I focused my mind, a subspace portal that I couldn't see but could feel would open.

As a test, I brought the potion given as a reward close to it, and the lesser potion was slowly sucked into the subspace.

“Hmm.”

After a brief test, I found that the subspace was a perfectly inferior version of an inventory.

First, the speed at which the subspace opens is damn slow. The speed of putting items in and taking them out is also slow. Items could only enter and exit from right above my fingernail, and since I had to concentrate a fair amount, it seemed it would be difficult to use during combat.

Compared to Su-hee, who handled her inventory with complete freedom, the performance was so poor I felt sorry for even making the comparison.

But even so, it is quite useful. I failed to save Baron George just because the Elixir bottle broke. I am satisfied with just having a safe storage space.

To sum it up… the rewards for the 4th floor were satisfying, and at the same time, unpleasant.

First, the rewards, true to the word ‘custom’, were all helpful and neatly provided. I wasn’t given a trash trait that was S-grade in name only, like ‘Heart of Lightning Flash’. The Meditation trait would probably be dozens of times more useful than Heart of Lightning Flash.

And the reason it was unpleasant… was because of the way the items were given.

“…Do they think this is some kind of game?”

There is a status window, and abilities are given. That alone made it feel enough like a game, but now they are saying they will give rewards like in a game as well.

It feels like a child is playing a prank. Here, you like games, right? I tried to create a similar environment. But if you die, you actually die.

Do those bastards think this is a joke?

“Hoo…”

I used the ‘Meditation’ trait to calm my boiling heart, then returned to my studio apartment and turned on the computer. This proved that the Meditation trait was more useful than Heart of Lightning Flash.

As I mentioned earlier, there is surely something I missed about the 4th floor. The difficulty of the 4th floor I went through was clearly abnormal. Was it like this for others too? I lack information.

The most important thing for a regressor is information. Information is the very reason a regressor has an advantage.

At this point, there were largely two ways for me to get information about the 4th floor.

First, wait for Choi Ji-won, who seems to have entered the 4th floor now. Second, find information on the internet.

And naturally, I intended to do both.

With familiar hand movements, I pulled up three or four famous community sites and quickly read through the posts.

“Umm…”

The number of posts about the 4th floor was remarkably small. It was a huge contrast to the large number of posts about the 2nd and 3rd floors.

The few posts that did describe Floor 4 didn't have detailed descriptions, but only abstract expressions like ‘painful’ or ‘scary’. No one described what happened on the 4th floor. No, there is one.

But that one post seems to be from someone who cleared the 4th floor with me. This means it has no substance.

“…I guess I'll have to write a post myself.”

Tap tap tap tap.

I wrote the post and waited a moment, and comments were posted in an instant.

-You want to write a post about that place?

-Are you a psychopath?

-Dumbass lol. Don't feed the troll.

“…”

The reaction was incredibly intense. As if I had poked a beehive that shouldn't be poked.

I wrote a few more question posts after that, but I was treated as a troll or blocked, as no more comments were posted.

“No, but…”

Right, it makes sense to have trauma if you cleared the 4th floor. Unlike the 2nd or 3rd floors where you could survive cleanly, the environment of the 4th floor was extremely harsh, and it was a floor where victims were inevitable.

But at this rate, there's no way to get information. I need to know what the 4th floor was like for other people to be able to make a plan.

“Should I try searching foreign sites?”

I clicked my tongue, and just as I was about to search through foreign community sites.

Diring.

A direct message arrived.

-Why are you curious about the 4th floor?

A message from an anonymous user. A truly provocative tone. The credibility plummeted through the floor.

But I was not in a position to be picky right now. Tap tap tap tap. I sent a reply immediately.

-I want to gather information.

-Why are you gathering information? It's not like you're going back in, and it's not like you can tell anyone.

-I have my reasons.

-Really? Then I can help you. I've secured dozens of related testimonies.

“Hmm.”

I don't trust internet communities. People tend to spew whatever they want when they don't have to take responsibility.

-Instead, I want to talk face to face. The place is xx xx cafe in Naegok-dong. Tomorrow at 2 PM. How about it?

On top of that, they didn't want to tell me online, but wanted to talk face to face. At this point, I should be suspicious of organ trafficking.

“Hmmmm…”

If I regress right now, what do I lose?

First, I lose the chance to hear Choi Ji-won's experience. Also, I lose the chance to train my mana steadily. The fact that my mind and body are still exhausted and I don't really want to meet people is a bonus.

“…Let's just go.”

However, I decided to take the risk.

Come to think of it, there is a hidden portal in the castle. Even if I happen to regress, I can return to reality right away.

And so a day passed, and the moment I arrived at the promised cafe.

“…Joong-hyun nim?”

“…Jun-ho nim?”

Yoon Joong-hyun was waiting for me, dressed in a neat suit.

Author Note:

Chapter 100...

Thank you always for reading...

(I'll really try to pick up the tempo from the next chapter... As for multiple chapters... I apologize... I will try to serialize diligently...)

Footnotes: