WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 108

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The regressor gets to work (3)

"That bastard. No, no. It's just a habit. Jun-ho-nim, he has to be a regressor. Am I wrong?"

On the fourth floor of the castle, inside a large room where construction had just finished.

A man was passionately arguing, his face flushed red. Pieces of the beef jerky he had been chewing on moments ago flew in every direction.

"You see this kind of stuff in webtoons all the time, right? The world has already ended once, and the strongest survivor at the end regresses to set things right... Eh? You know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Hey, man. Does that even make sense?"

"Does the Tower appearing make sense? Do status windows make sense? My friend, this whole situation is what makes the least sense. If we were going to debate what makes sense and what doesn't, we should have grabbed a goblin during the tutorial and asked it."

"Well, that's true..."

As the others began to look convinced, the man chattered on with even more excitement.

"When he was reinforcing the castle gate, everyone called him a lunatic, but I was thinking to myself, huh? This feels like he knows something, you know? That strange construction work on the second day probably had a purpose too. Thanks to that, I earned a ton of experience this time and raised my stats a bunch. Am I wrong?"

"...Didn't you call Jun-ho-nim a son of a bitch who should be torn to shreds on the second day?"

"When did I ever say that? This punk is trying to frame an innocent person, isn't he?"

The man raised his voice to hide his embarrassment.

It wasn't just this man, Kim Jun-ho was the hottest topic among all the humans on the 4th floor.

Was he just a lucky madman? Or was he truly a regressor, or perhaps a prophet? The general consensus seemed to be leaning towards him being a regressor.

However, the 'regressor' they were talking about was a little different from the real Kim Jun-ho.

Immense strength. A self-righteousness that crushed others with force. A cold attitude.

People naturally pictured him as 'the strongest one who regressed from the distant future to prevent ruin'. This was also why they didn't worry about things like, what if Kim Jun-ho regresses again?

"Jun-ho-nim!"

"...Yes?"

"I will work hard!!! For your reference, my name is..."

"...Okay."

As people's perceptions changed, their actions naturally changed as well. Kim Jun-ho now had support from the otherworlders that was comparable to the support for Baron George.

"Um... I have something to tell you... Would it be alright if I told you when we were alone?"

It even got to the point where an increasing number of female players were making subtle advances toward him.

When he was just a simple madman, they were horrified by him no matter how strong he was, but now that they thought of him as a regressor who had become cold due to a tragic past, he seemed quite decent.

"..."

Of course, Jun-ho himself was also extremely flustered, as this was the first time he had experienced such a situation. Although he had started to see people as 'NPCs who repeat set actions', anyone would be flustered if an NPC started acting unpredictably.

"...Still, it's a relief."

The 4th floor had started to flow in a strange way, but there was at least one advantage.

'Hey! Move the stones faster!'

"Have you not been to the military? You have no knack for this kind of work!"

"Let's finish this before the sun goes down!!!"

A sense of trust in Kim Jun-ho had blossomed among the people. As a result... the speed of the construction had become tremendously fast.

It was because they believed that this was by no means a pointless endeavor.

"I'll be blunt. It's impossible to block all the passages."

Baron George said, mumbling around something that resembled dried bread.

"No matter how much we've prepared in advance... construction isn't something that can be whipped up overnight. And more importantly, my mana supply is insufficient."

Mortar, which secured the stone fragments into a sturdy structure. That wasn't something that would normally dry in a day or two. In cold and snowy conditions like this, it would take even longer.

But Baron George's magic hardened it in an instant. In other words, if Baron George, the key to it all, ran out of mana, the construction could not continue.

"If I really squeeze out every last drop... I can probably block four places. But any more than that is impossible. This is the best I can do."

Just like in the previous regression, two of the passages had to be blocked by them directly. That was what Baron George was saying.

"That's more than enough."

One passage for me. The rest for the players.

I didn't think that 100 people would be unable to defend a single passage. The third day had been the crisis, but I was confident that the fourth day would be easy.    

In the dead of night. Just before the monsters began to climb over the castle walls.

"How is it? Are there any?"

-Hmm... I've looked around carefully, but it seems there are none.

I had asked Baron George to check if the 'stone-melting slimes' had appeared. We hadn't blocked the passages on the third day, but it was a 'just in case' kind of thing.

Fortunately, however, he said no slimes were in sight. This meant the blocked passages were absolutely safe.

"In that case..."

All we had to do was for everyone to do their part well. There was no way that everyone else besides me would be unable to block a single passage.

But that complacent thought.

"Huh?"

It was shattered the very moment I cut down a lunging wolf.

"Grrrrr... Keeeek!!!"

It was fast.

It was sturdy.

It was sharp.

Even as I cut it with my sword, I felt a strong sense of wrongness. The monsters had gotten immensely stronger.

Of course, it wasn't strong enough to be a threat to me. If I focused my mind, it was an opponent I could deal with in a single breath.

The reason I couldn't push back the monsters in the last cycle wasn't because I lacked strength. It was because of the limitations of the sword as a weapon, which lacked the ability for mass destruction.

As long as I didn't lose focus and let my guard down, there was no way I'd get hurt. It might have been a different story if I didn't have the 'Hero' trait, but as I was now, I was a superhuman.

But I wasn't the only one here.

-Jun-ho-nim! This... is not easy! We have a steady stream of injured people!

Yoon Joong-hyun's urgent voice came through the communication magical tool.

-Damn it, and we went through all the trouble of setting up a rotation...

"First, put the strong ones at the front. It can't be helped. Have the weaker people fall back, and let the strong people take exclusive charge."

There might be some opposition, but in an emergency, there was no other choice. It was better for the strong people to struggle a bit more than to see someone die.

-Hey! Get to the front! Fight! What do you mean it's not your turn? It's an order from Jun-ho-nim, you bastard!

Joong-hyun immediately began to push the people forward.

For now, this was the best course of action. If a problem arose... there would be no choice but to regress.

And so, shaking off my distracting thoughts, I began to focus once again on the task of cutting down the monster in front of me.

After all, it would be putting the cart before the horse if I ended up regressing because I was too worried about everyone else.

The sun rose.

The inside of the castle, which had been filled with shouts and screams, became quiet once more.

"..."

The number of swords scattered on the ground was a staggering twenty. I had used up almost all the swords I had prepared. It was the result of using more force than necessary to cleave through the tough enemies.

"...Are you alright?"

Joong-hyun came trudging up from behind. He looked incomparably more exhausted than he had yesterday.

"I'm fine. What about the others?"

"It wasn't easy. The fighting itself was manageable, but their concentration..."

I immediately understood why Joong-hyun had such a bad expression.

In battle, even a single minor mistake could mean the difference between life and death. Naturally, you couldn’t afford to lower your guard for even a moment. The longer the fight dragged on, the more your fatigue would build—exponentially so.

The hormones secreted by your brain could help you endure for about three hours at most. After that, an unbearable irritation and annoyance would set in.

How do I know this so well? Because I had experienced it myself, of course.

"More importantly, what's the damage situation?"

"There are many with minor or serious injuries... but as expected, there isn't a single death. It's all thanks to you, Jun-ho-nim, and William-nim."

Joong-hyun congratulated me with a faint smile, despite the difficult situation.

That's a relief. So far, things are still going according to plan.

But... the difficulty this time was much higher than I had anticipated. On the fourth day of the last cycle, only slimes, hippos, and cats had been added. Overall, the monsters that appeared were ones that caught you off guard. The overall quality of the monsters hadn't increased like it had this time.

"...Strange."

I felt an unidentifiable sense of foreboding. Was it just my imagination? No, that couldn't be it.

"As soon as the players have finished resting, please tell them to assemble in front of the castle. I think we'll need to make additional preparations."

"Ah... is that so?"

"Yes. We can't stay as we are."

It might just be my imagination. But there was no harm in being extremely cautious. I decided I should try every preparation I could think of.

And so, I gathered the players and gave them a long speech on 'how to survive' that I had established in my own way.

If there was someone who used a sword, I would check their stance, and I helped the stronger ones further hone their practical combat senses by doing some light sparring with them.

I also berated the people who had become complacent, thinking 'he'll take care of it somehow' just because they were with a regressor.

"Everyone, you must never let your guard down. This is the Tower. You must always remember that."

As I spoke with a serious expression, the excited atmosphere among the players settled into a calm and heavy one. With this, there probably wouldn't be anyone who got taken out because they were careless.

"Hooo..."

I had finished all the preparations I could.

-8 : 45 : 11

The final night was approaching.

Footnotes:

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