WeTried Translations
Translator: ZEROSUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Regression is Too Much
Chapter 116
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The regressor gets to work (11)
Like a new recruit just out of basic training, I was so busy indulging in the sweet pleasures of society that a week flew by in a flash. I had always set goals for myself and ran myself ragged trying to achieve them. Because of that, I found that even just lying in bed was enjoyable.
When I really thought about it, this was how the world was always supposed to be. Working, eating, playing, sleeping. It wasn't a place where people were torn apart by monster attacks, or where you had to swing a sword until your head throbbed with stress. I was realizing that fact anew.
“Hoo.”
Anyway, time flowed on and on, and when the day of the appointment finally arrived, I found myself standing in front of Ji-won's house. It wouldn't have mattered if I had just ignored the promise and regressed, but I felt bad for being so stubborn last time, so I decided to play along with her for the day.
“You’re here.”
“Yeah.”
Being a man, I couldn’t help but scan Ji-won's outfit. Her trademark ponytail was there as always, and she was wearing slightly fitted jeans with a white oversized short-sleeve shirt, untucked. It was the same outfit she wore during the Tutorial. I wondered if she did it on purpose.
Regardless of the complex thoughts swirling in my mind, Ji-won seemed no different than usual. It looked like she had managed to shake off the brutal failure of the 4th floor to some extent over the past week.
“Did you have lunch? Let’s eat first. I’m hungry.”
Ji-won tilted her head as if to tell me to follow. As I let her lead me down the street, we soon arrived in front of a barbecue restaurant.
“…Meat? For lunch?”
“What. Got a problem?”
With a slight smirk, Ji-won walked straight into the restaurant. Feeling awkward just standing at the door, I followed her inside.
“The aprons… here they are. Here, sit down. I’ll order.”
With a natural movement, she pulled out two aprons, then called over one of the restaurant ladies and started ordering.
“Imo[1]! We’ll have five servings of pork belly, five servings of pork neck, and some pork rind too, ah, what’s this? A new item? We’ll have this as well.”
“Ji-won, aren't you eating too much these days? And who’s the young man with you? Could he be…”
“Ah! Imo!”
After some bickering with the restaurant owner, Ji-won cleared her throat with a cough and put on her apron.
“You want soybean paste stew? How many bowls of rice? I’m paying, so order as much as you want. I was the one who asked to meet today.”
“…You’re really surprising.”
“What is?”
“You just don’t look the type.”
My first impression of Ji-won was… cold. Aloof. Her gaze was sharp.
Seeing Ji-won, who fit the image of a ‘cold city woman’ perfectly, ordering meat so casually felt a bit strange. It seemed like she would be more suited to a restaurant, twirling pasta on a fork.
“I like pasta too. Vongole pasta. But pasta doesn’t really fill you up. And you feel self-conscious ordering a lot. Ah, the meat is here.”
Ji-won, holding the wooden platter piled high with meat, suddenly shot me a sharp glare.
“Hey. I came to a barbecue place for your sake, and what? You say it doesn’t suit me? Should we just go to a pasta place? Tteokbokki? Mala xiang guo?”
“Ah, I get it. I’m sorry.”
“This won’t do. I was going to pay, but I think we should just split it.”
Ji-won grumbled as she picked up the meat with a pair of tongs.
Sizzle.
The meat on the grill made a sound that made my mouth water just hearing it. In contrast, our conversation came to a sudden halt. Although we had been talking casually, we were, in essence, still people with some distance between us. The moment we became aware of that fact, an untimely silence fell.
“…”
“…”
The silent grilling continued for a short while.
“Should we start eating? I think it’s cooked.”
“Uh, oh. Sure.”
A quiet meal began. The sound of the news from the TV on the wall. The sound of the old fan spinning around. The sound of a phone call from the kitchen. The sound of cars passing by the open door. The only thing missing was the sound of our conversation.
I felt like I had to say something, but I didn't know what to talk about. I didn't even know why she had asked to meet today in the first place. What was I supposed to do?
“What did you do before the Tower appeared?”
While I was pondering, Ji-won broke the silence.
“Me? I was just… going to school.”
“Oh, really? What school?”
She rested her chin on her hand, showing interest. The memory of asking her about school in the Tutorial and being repeatedly cut down for it slowly resurfaced. Ugh, why am I shivering?
“I almost went to Korea University, you know. The Department of Physical Education said they’d scout me as a student with special talent.”
Regardless of my groaning from PTSD, Choi Ji-won continued the conversation. Wait, Korea University?
“…Korea University? For real?”
“Yeah. It was shortly after my father passed away, so I turned it down. Still, I wonder about it sometimes. What it would feel like to be a university student.”
She picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks while still resting her chin on her hand and placed it on my rice, then picked up a piece for herself.
“I came from a girls’ high school, so… I don't have any guy friends at all. All the men I know are middle-aged. They say you make a lot of friends in university, right?”
Ji-won said, munching on a piece of pork neck.
Come to think of it, this woman, she was only 20 years old. I had completely forgotten because of her characteristic strength and cold appearance.
Wait, does that mean I was having a battle of wills with a 20-year-old girl? I felt so pathetic that I just shoved meat into my mouth.
“Wait, wait. Let’s talk instead of just eating.”
But Ji-won still seemed to have a lot of questions, as the conversation continued on.
“What do you usually do to relax?”
“Do you know this YouTube channel? It’s really funny.”
“You ask if I have Instagram? Why would I do that?”
“MBTI? I’ve only ever done kendo, so I don’t know much about things like that. What is it?”
“Swords? You want to talk about swords while we’re eating?”
“But do you really regress just by being grazed? We… probably shouldn’t test it.”
“Oh, we’re out of meat.”
As we chatted about personal odds and ends, the meat was gone in no time.
“Should we order more?”
“No. Let’s go. Imo, the bill please!”
“Okay~! Aigo, please take good care of our Ji-won~”
“Ah! Imo!”
After paying, Ji-won picked up the bag containing Bung-bung and headed out of the shop.
“Jun-ho, do you play games?”
“Games? I live for them. Are we going to a PC bang?”
I never thought Ji-won would play games too. Just as a bright smile was about to spread across my face.
“No, are you an otaku? I meant let's go to an arcade. Follow me.”
Shaking her head, Ji-won let out a deep sigh. Geez, I didn't know you meant those kinds of games.
And so we arrived at an arcade.
“Should we start with the basketball game?”
“Sounds good.”
When we put money in the machine, basketballs came rolling out. I grabbed one haphazardly and tossed it cleanly, and it went straight in. Ji-won and I mechanically repeated shot after shot, and in the end, we were able to set a new arcade record.
“Hmmph…”
“Hmm…”
It’s not fun. It’s damn boring.
We had been repeating life-or-death battles in the Tower where every second counted until just a while ago, so what was so hard about putting a ball in a hoop? It was only slightly more difficult than lying down and eating cake.
“This isn't working. Come on out.”
It seemed Ji-won felt the same way, as this time she led me outside the arcade.
“Let’s do this.”
“…This?”
She was pointing at a punching machine. The machine looked quite old, its mitt worn and tattered.
“Hey, isn’t this thing going to break if we hit it?”
Even though we had only just cleared the 4th floor, our physical abilities already far surpassed those of an ordinary person. If I put my mind to it, breaking this machine would be no problem at all.
“No, that would be no fun. Here, look at the score.”
Ji-won tapped the scoreboard, which read 000.
“Let’s say the person who gets the score to exactly 777 wins. How about it?”
“Oh, that’s not bad.”
Matching the score exactly would be much harder than just breaking the machine. Alright, I'll beat Ji-won here.
“Huh?”
“Pfft.”
But the result was my crushing defeat. While I was getting ambiguous scores like 600 or 900, Choi Ji-won stayed in the 700s the whole time and eventually succeeded in hitting 777.
“Your physical control is still pretty clumsy, huh?”
“…Tch.”
My body had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to the achievement levels I gained on the 3rd and 4th floors. Plus, my physical abilities changed completely when the Hero trait activated, so I wasn’t used to my current state.
“You lost the bet, so you’re buying ice cream.”
“Should we go to a convenience store?”
“…Are you kidding me?”
By the time we finished eating ice cream at the franchise that boasted 31 flavors, the sun was beginning to set.
“…”
“…”
We walked down the street in silence. The orange sunset glowed behind Ji-won's back. Yes, just like that time in the Tutorial.
The realization of it made my chest ache.
“Ji-won.”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you want to meet today?”
The time I spent with Ji-won was fun. We had some surprisingly overlapping hobbies, and we got along well. Besides, Ji-won is ridiculously pretty.
But the closer I got to her, the heavier a corner of my heart became. An uncomfortable feeling grew steadily.
“I’m going to regress anyway. I told you, right? That I would shorten the time it takes to clear as much as possible.”
“...”
Ji-won readjusted the bag containing Bung-bung. After carefully choosing her words, she finally gave her answer.
“I was just… curious too. I told you that I talked about my father to you in the Tutorial, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s a story I’ve never told anyone myself. My close friends know, of course, but I’ve never had a conversation on that topic. It’s that sensitive, and that secret a story.”
“…”
“What did I see in you to tell you something like that? I just don’t get it. Was it because I was on the verge of death? But you said there were Golden Marbles.”
“That’s right.”
“What did I trust in the man I met for the first time in the Tutorial to tell him my most secret story? That’s what I was curious about. I thought if I spent time with you, I might find the answer.”
Ji-won stopped walking and turned around to look straight at me. She squinted slightly as the sunset light shone directly on her.
“Is that a good enough answer?”
“…Yeah.”
But there was still something I was curious about.
“So, what do you think after spending the day together? Why do you think you told me that story?”
Just as I had been observing Ji-won today, she would have been observing me. To my question asking for her findings.
“I’m not sure yet.”
A small laugh escaped Choi Ji-won’s lips.
“So come out next week too. To the front of my house.”
“Uh, um…”
“You have plenty of time anyway, right? If you regress, you’re back at the 4th floor. Don’t you need to train and build up your mana before then to create new possibilities? You said you already know the perfect clear method.”
“…Right.”
She wasn't wrong.
Because she wasn't wrong, I had no choice but to nod.
While turning away from the pain in my chest.
Footnotes:
[1] A familiar way to address a middle-aged woman, especially the owner or a worker at a restaurant. It literally means "aunt" on the mother's side, but its use here is similar to calling a friendly neighborhood diner owner by a familiar, respectful title.
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