WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 162

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The regressor grows stronger (7)

"Hey, you think you're so tough? You really think that? Ah, damn it. You're seriously pissing me off."

"...You want to die?"

By the time Jun-ho and Ji-won arrived at the carriage, there was already a pair of players in the middle of a standoff.

"God, this is such crap. I can't even gouge out this worthless bastard's eyes."

One was a heavyset Asian man with bleached blond hair, bellowing at the top of his lungs and throwing a fit in all directions.

"..."

The other was a white skinhead staring him down with a look that could cut glass.

At first glance it seemed like the big guy was the one pressing the attack, but his body language told a different story. He was rattled, plain and simple, and with good reason—the skinhead's presence was anything but ordinary. Just the way he held his flail made it obvious he was no run-of-the-mill fighter.

"Oppa! Let's just go. What are you doing?"

The reason the big guy was still holding his ground despite all that was clearly the girlfriend watching from behind him.

"What are you looking at? What are you looking at? You half-breed piece of trash."

Right as the bluster-swallowed big guy was about to cross a line he couldn't take back,

"Hello everyone! Nice to meet you all."

Ji-won stepped forward and offered a greeting, and just like that, the charged atmosphere dissolved in an instant.

"Choi Ji-won? Is that really Choi Ji-won?"

"Wow. So Ji-won was on floor 13. I figured she'd be way higher up by now."

"...The manufactured hero showed up."

Whether people welcomed her warmly or looked at her with hostility as some kind of made-up idol, Ji-won was a celebrity, and her appearance alone was enough to flip the mood entirely.

"...Lucky you."

Still keeping up the bravado to the last, but clearly breathing a huge sigh of relief on the inside, the big guy turned and went back to his girlfriend.

"...No matter how I look at it, the guy's an idiot. What is he even confident about?"

The white skinhead shook his head like he couldn't make sense of it and drifted back toward the carriage. Jun-ho had sized things up well enough by now. The skinhead was a top-tier player, someone who had genuine confidence in his own ability. The big guy, on the other hand, was just an upper-mid-tier player who had climbed quickly without the skill to match.

That was the problem with this tower. If you were willing to compromise on rewards, you could move through the floors fast even without real ability. The end result was that skilled and unskilled players ended up mixed together on the same floor. Or maybe, Jun-ho thought, even that was intentional.

"Water's over that way, and food spawns inside the wooden crates here. I've been waiting three days so I've got the whole place mapped out."

"Thank you for letting us know."

Some players were cozying up to Ji-won, trying to get on her good side, while she took in their directions and looked around. Jun-ho, meanwhile, used the opening to go over the carriage from end to end, focused entirely on gathering information. The inside of the carriage was completely empty. There were no horses hitched to pull it, either. It was basically just a frame at this point.

A few players tried to ask what his relationship with Ji-won was, but he brushed them off with a vague "just colleagues." Announcing they were a couple would obviously do more harm than good.

"Is this the place? There doesn't seem to be anything else here."

While Jun-ho was still inspecting the carriage, the twentieth player finally arrived. At the same moment, the floating counter in the air changed to [20/20].

Swoosh!

The cloth draped over the carriage was pulled back, and a man with a striking, thick mustache stepped down onto the ground.

"Are you the adventurers who accepted the commission and came? One, two, three... twenty. Precisely right. You've arrived at just the right time."

"Wh-what?"

"There was no sign of anyone inside the carriage though?"

"And now there are even horses in front of it."

The mustached man paid no mind to the players' confusion and gave a brief glance around before nodding.

"Very well. You are no doubt already aware of the details of the commission, but I will explain one last time. Our carriage will be departing for Calada Village from this moment. Ah, I should mention in advance, I am aware of the distance. Two days at the fastest, three if it takes a little longer. It is not so far."

"...And where exactly is that?"

"The reason I have hired you adventurers nonetheless is that the goods inside this carriage are of great value. The carriage must not, absolutely must not be damaged. You must protect it with everything you have. Ah, the rearmost carriage is excluded. That one contains your food and water, so feel free to use it as you like."

Having rattled off the explanation in his unusual accent, the mustached man turned to go back inside the carriage.

"Mister! Hold on, stop!"

"Hey, hey! Grab him!"

Three or four players rushed at the man to hold him back, but the mustached man threw them all off with superhuman strength and disappeared back inside the carriage.

"Come on, you at least have to take questions!"

One player, head practically steaming, yanked back the cloth covering the carriage the man had just ducked into.

"...Where did he go?"

The inside was packed solid with wooden crates. Not a gap wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

-Escort the carriage.

At the same moment a short, clean message window appeared before them. The players stared blankly at the words floating in the air.

"What, this is how it starts?"

"Just 'escort the carriage' with no other explanation..."

"Hey, hey. The carriage is moving. We have to follow it."

"Oh, for crying out loud."

The players were not even given time to feel cheated. The horses that had appeared out of nowhere at the front of the carriage shook their heads with a snort and began to pull.

"What is this, where is it going? Do the horses just go on their own?"

"Right? This is all very... sudden."

Most of the sentient beings that had appeared in the tower up to this point were residents who actually lived there. It felt like players crashing into someone else's home turf.

But the mustached man they had just seen was, in a genuine sense, like an NPC. He had materialized out of thin air, delivered his explanation in one breathless burst, and then vanished just as abruptly. It was no wonder the players were thrown off.

"Jun-ho."

Ji-won slipped quietly to his side.

"You know something, don't you? Be honest with me. Your expression looks strange right now."

"To be precise, I wouldn't say I know anything for certain, but I do know most of the possible outcomes."

Five carriages. Three days. Twenty people tasked with protecting them.

This was what you could call the classic escort mission. Honestly, it was the kind of scenario you saw so often in web novels it got old.

"In my estimation, there are roughly three conclusions you could draw from the current situation."

Jun-ho kept talking as they walked alongside the carriage, laying it out for Ji-won.

"First, the possibility that the carriage genuinely contains something valuable."

Whether it was the last survivor of a fallen kingdom, some sacred relic of a distant land, or a masterwork crafted by the greatest artisan of an age, the point was the same: the carriage actually holds something precious.

In that case, you only had two things to watch for: threats from outside and threats from within. There would naturally be raiders since there was something worth guarding, and you could count on at least one player who couldn't keep their hands off the crates out of sheer curiosity.

So as long as they kept the carriage completely and perfectly intact, it would count as a success. With himself and Ji-won here, that scenario was basically a free pass.

"Second. The possibility that they're not actually supposed to protect the carriage."

But you could twist it one step further: maybe whatever's inside is something terrible. Open one of the wooden crates out of curiosity, and a sealed monster wakes up. Something like that.

In that case, the raiders would likely turn out to be the good guys. They came to help purify whatever dark thing was inside, and the players, none the wiser, slaughter all of them. Well, that was another time-honored cliche.

"And the last one..."

"The last one?"

"The possibility that the carriage is full of nothing but junk."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The carriage was never the goal. We are."

Maybe there was nothing of value inside the carriage at all, and moving the players to Kallada Village was the point all along. The carriage reaches its destination, a horde of enemies appears, and it's one big 'gotcha,' with blades grinning in their direction.

"Well, there might be some absurd possibility I haven't thought of. The tower's explanation was too brief, so I think we should keep all options open."

"Hmm... it's kind of like a puzzle. On the surface it looks like a straightforward escort mission, but once you peel back the lid, all sorts of things are hiding underneath."

"That said, we don't need to overthink this."

"...?"

Ji-won looked at him with an expression that said: 'You just finished laying out a whole set of complicated possibilities, and now you're telling me not to overthink it?'

"It's just my guess, but I think completing the escort normally will be enough to clear it. If there is something hidden, we'll be shielded from ever knowing it existed."

"So you're saying, let's just clear it once and see?"

"Exactly."

He had no interest in spending regressions trying to crack some secret by slamming his head against it over and over. And the secret might not even exist.

Once they got back to reality, they could get information passed through the association. So for now, one clear was all they needed.

And really, with Kim Jun-ho and Choi Ji-won here, how could an escort mission possibly fail?

"Somehow I had a feeling this would be easy."

A floor full of tangled truths, the kind that showed up in tower-climbing stories all the time.

For a regressor, it was the easiest kind of floor there was.

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