WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 146

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The regressor is training (7)

Three more regressions followed the cycle where I decided to gather information.

It meant that I cleared floor 11 three times, and it also meant I slept rough for about 5 days playing the Grim Reaper thrice. Repeating the same things over and over always felt painful. I realized that during each repitition. Without Ji-won, I might have gone crazy long ago.

Anyway, as a result of investing quite a lot of time like that, a truly astonishing conclusion was reached.

"I... can't do this anymore..."

Really, there had been no major gains. I did learn one piece of information—I had been quite arrogant to try gathering information through the internet.

In one cycle, Ji-won even tried to get close to the players on floor 11 and extract information from them... but the moment they returned to reality, contact was cut off like magic. To be precise, the response that came back was 'unless you become much closer to us, we can't give you information.' It meant we had to join their inner circle.

"..."

For a regressor, information is power. But what I had overlooked was that information was power for all humans in the first place. In web novels, protagonists who regress from the distant future know everything that happened in the past... but real-world players weren't generous enough to share valuable information for free.

"Still, we did get a few fairly useful pieces of information..."

It wasn't that there were no gains, there were just small ones. 

First, the method players used to share information about other floors. Can't information about floors you haven't climbed yet be shared? That's right. But players who worked their brains hard found their own solutions.

First. Recording entry and exit times. People who hadn't climbed the Tower yet could infer the difficulty based on how long the advance party stayed on each floor. This was also a method the Association used, so it was safe to say it was relatively well known.

And second. Right after clearing a floor, taking a photo of yourself.

The Tower's filtering was quite thorough, blocking all actions that could allow one to infer the content of the Tower's challenges, such as imitating the appearance of monsters on each floor with your body or mimicking their cries, making them imperceptible. However, if you simply took a photo of yourself without taking any action right after clearing the Tower, that was possible.

This was the point. Quite a lot of information could be inferred from the appearance of injured players. Whether they were scratched by claws, hit by weapons, had burns, frostbite, and so on... Of course, in cases where wounds were inflicted 'on purpose,' the affected areas mysteriously wouldn't show up, so it seemed only unintentional wounds were recognized.

"Felix, a player from Germany, told me. He saw a photo of a player with frostbite on floor 10 and inferred that floor 10 was set in a cold region."

If I could get photos like that, I could use them quite effectively. The problem was that right now, getting photos like that required connections, not money.

Can't I just make connections? Although there hadn't been such cases recently thanks to Ji-won, the experience of people who were close to me not recognizing me was truly, truly painful. Unless I was going to make another girlfriend... I should avoid getting too close to other people.

Ha, why isn't there something like an 'information guild'? If there was a guild that would just give you information for money, I could infinitely exploit information through repeated regressions. Why doesn't an information guild exist in reality? I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Anyway, information gathering ended in failure. Due to the nature of players spending quite a bit of time inside the Tower, it was difficult to track their movements, and after the Grim Reaper's 'death,' everyone stopped talking about where they were and what they were doing. Even Player Association president Michael Zetter's whereabouts were currently obscure. It seemed to be due to fear that another assassin like the Grim Reaper might appear. To put it bluntly, an ability that 'can kill just one specific person' could pop up. (The difficulty in gathering information might be because of the Grim Reaper's death.)

In the end, I gave up on information gathering and after regressing, repeated the previous cycle. I cleared floor 11, visited the Grim Reaper to talk with him, then quickly returned to Korea. I slept well, filled my stomach properly, put on various equipment obtained from floor 11, and then...

"So we're entering at the same time?"

"Yeah."

I entered floor 12 together with Ji-won.

[Entering floor 12.]

[Entering floor 12.]

What I saw the moment I opened my eyes was... a bed. A fairly modern-style bed at that. I was in a fairly large room.

Not just a bed. There was a water purifier, bookshelves, a microwave, a wardrobe and even a toilet. The white walls made the interior look a bit like a hospital, and this room clearly had the scent of modern civilization. It was the complete opposite of everything so far having been fantasy settings. The steel armor I was currently wearing looked incredibly out of place in this scenery.

"Ji-won? Can you hear me?"

I raised my voice to call for Ji-won, but no answer came back. What's this? Was it a floor you progress through alone? More than that, my voice just echoed outside. I followed that echo, opened the door, and headed outside the room.

"...?"

When I opened the door and came out, what I saw was... flickering lights, a quiet corridor and five doors.

Four doors were on the same wall as the room I'd come from, and one large door was placed on the opposite wall.

"Ji-won?"

While calling for Ji-won, I gently opened the door right next to the room I'd come from. Inside, I saw a room with the same interior as the one I'd just been in. The difference was that there was no one there.

"Hmm..."

I couldn't feel any sign of people. The only sound was me going "hmm..." I looked around for a moment, then approached the only door with a different size—the large door.

"..."

The moment I gently placed my palm on the door, a message window appeared before my eyes.

[1/5]

"Hmm."

It seemed this floor required five people to gather before it could proceed. Floors 3 and 4 had been like this too. Was this another floor where we had to join forces?

No. I shouldn't jump to conclusions. As floor 11 showed, the archangel in charge of this floor was one who induced division among people. They could suddenly tell us to have a battle royale after five people gathered.

Ji-won was... probably separated from me. Ji-won had entered floor 12 just slightly before me, and there must have been a room with exactly four people at that time. If this floor also induced conflict between people, being separated from Ji-won might actually be a good thing.

"Okay. Assessment complete."

After roughly organizing the situation, I nodded and returned to the room where I'd first started. I immediately took off the armor that was 'relatively' light but still pressed heavily on my shoulders, and lay down on the bed. There was nothing to do until the number of people was filled anyway.

"Ooh, it's soft."

While lying on the bed, I stretched out my arm and grabbed a book from the bookshelf. Hmm. A language I'd never seen before. It seemed certain this was a world close to modern civilization, but apparently not Earth. Thinking there might be books with pictures, I flipped through various other books, but there wasn't really anything I could understand.

While wasting time looking at books like that, the microwave that had been empty made a ding sound and its door opened by itself. When I turned my head slightly to check inside, I saw a hot spaghetti meal kit.

"Wow, they give us food too?"

Were they giving us food so we wouldn't starve to death while waiting? Or... was this actually part of the Tower's trials? Creating a 'situation where you wait for other players' and having the Tower's rewards vary depending on my reaction...?

-As it has been determined that there are few climbers due to this being a high-tier floor, meals and convenience facilities are provided.

A message window appeared with good timing. It seemed my imagination was just imagination. Well, it was a top-tier floor, so other people wouldn't enter right away. For floors like this that 'require a certain number of people to start,' there was inevitably waiting time, and if that time got long, various problems could arise, couldn't they?

"...It doesn't taste good."

I took the spaghetti out of the microwave, rolled it around a fork, and stuffed my mouth full. Honestly speaking, it didn't taste good, but I could confidently say it was a hundred times, a thousand times better than when I was sleeping rough on floor 11. Back then I had to eat raw meat and chew on grass as side dishes.

I was fortunate the setting was modern civilization. At this rate, it seemed I could comfortably wait for other people to enter. The one thing I was worried about was that I might have to repeat the waiting process when I regress. I've been feeling unexplained fatigue lately, and I wonder if my mental state might worsen like this.

No, let's not imagine things that haven't happened. Let's find some peace. Everyone will enter in about two days. Players from all over the world are gathering. Then, should I sleep first?

Resting my head on the soft pillow, I fell straight into sleep. Even though I'd slept well before entering floor 12, the fatigue accumulated in my mind was greater than that, so I fell asleep in an instant. Up until this point, I still held the thought 'this isn't so bad?' in my heart.

And so a week passed.

[1/5]

On floor 12, I was still alone.

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