WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 163

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The regressor grows stronger (8)

Clop. Clop. Clop.

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

The horses walked along at an easy pace, unbothered by the scorching sun.

"..."

"..."

Twenty players marched in formation around them. Not a word passed between them. It wasn't because of the heat, either. They simply had nothing to say.

A short while ago, at Ji-won's suggestion, the players had settled on a plan: "Escort the carriage as-is, and adapt when the situation changes." Following that, they had been walking alongside the carriage the whole time, but...

"Nothing coming?"

"Ngh..."

For roughly three hours, absolutely nothing happened. Literally "nothing" changed. The sun still beat down mercilessly, tiny grains of dirt kept pelting their eyeballs until they were rubbing them raw, and the horses kept walking at the exact same pace.

The rhythmic crunch, crunch, crunch of everyone's footsteps fell into such a steady pattern that it felt almost hypnotic. Who am I? Where am I?

"Now, now. This is exactly when we can't let our guard down. Ambushes by nature strike when you're at your most relaxed, when the most openings are showing. That man said three days at most, so we need to stay..."

"We know, dumbass."

"..."

One player who loved to hear himself talk tried to launch into a lecture, only to get immediately shut down by the skinhead. It was all obvious stuff. An ambushing force would of course pick the moment the most openings appeared.

Everyone already knew that, which was why they were keeping their mouths shut and just walking. But even knowing it, the tension inevitably started to slip away.

"..."

Watching the other players, Jun-ho also kept his mouth shut and focused on walking. In his case, he was worried he had raised too many flags.

Saying "easy, easy" right before a floor started was practically the equivalent of pulling out a family photo on the way to a battlefield. Floor 11 had been easy in terms of difficulty too, but the situation had spiraled regardless, and right now, things could go sideways just as easily. He needed to stay on guard.

And yet somehow... his vigilance kept dissolving. He felt like he could just sprawl out inside the carriage and still clear the floor. His head understood the risk, but his gut kept urging him to take it easy.

"Stop."

"Huh?"

"I said stop. Move again and I'll cut you."

"..."

Ji-won caught a player trying to sneak a peek under the carriage's cover while everyone else was distracted.

"We agreed not to touch the carriages, didn't we? So what exactly are you trying to pull?"

"No, I just... I was bored..."

"There won't be a next time."

The reason Jun-ho could afford to let his guard slip was simple. One of Ji-won's greatest strengths was her detection ability.

Even back in the Tutorial, she had been aware of everything happening across that entire clearing. Now that she was even stronger, it went without saying. Ji-won had a read on every single player here, every move they made. If anyone tried anything stupid, she would catch it instantly.

"...I'm sorry."

"..."

The other players who had privately been itching to see what was inside the carriages quietly shelved those thoughts the moment they saw how fast Ji-won moved. This was... not happening. Not someone they could challenge. So those rumors about her facing the Grim Reaper head-on at Floor 11 and absolutely crushing him weren't just talk after all.

The moment the players swallowed hard, realizing the gap in strength,

"Something's over there."

"Something's coming!"

A player at the front banged on his armor with both fists, screaming at the top of his lungs.

A dust cloud in the distance. Through the approaching haze, several dark shapes were visible.

"...Cows?"

A herd of black cattle with curved horns. They were charging toward the carriage at an incredible speed.

"Mooo, moooo!"

These were clearly no ordinary cattle, either, their eyes were flushed red and drool streamed from their mouths as they stampeded. Their cries were bizarrely distorted too. Whatever had gotten into them, something had driven them into a frenzy. They had probably been sent by whoever was targeting the carriage.

"Around a hundred of them?"

"That's no joke..."

Compared to the monster waves on floor 4, the number was laughably small. But there was something uniquely oppressive about a hundred massive bodies barreling straight at you with murder in their eyes.

"Can't we just steer around them? Anyone know how to handle horses?"

"It's useless. These horses completely ignore us."

One player had tried to wrangle the horses and reroute the carriage, but the horses paid the players no mind whatsoever and just kept walking straight ahead. In other words, if things continued like this, a head-on collision between the herd and the carriage was inevitable.

"...So what do we do?"

"Damn it..."

"Just block the herd," one might say, but the players were all hesitating. A one-on-one with a single cow would be easy enough for any upper-mid-tier player, let alone a top-tier one. But the sheer number created a pressure that made everyone freeze up. If things went wrong, trying to take the cows on could mean getting trampled to death.

"Excuse me."

This was Jun-ho's moment. He released the mana he had been holding back, letting it flow out in a subtle current, and charged toward the herd with confident strides.

"Wha, whoa!"

"Mister! Watch out! You'll get killed!"

The panicked shouts of the other players reached his ears, but he ignored them and focused on the mana inside his body. Honestly speaking, completely freezing a creature as large as a cow was no easy task. Freezing all one hundred of them was out of the question.

"The knee joint height is... about here?"

But what if he targeted a specific area instead of freezing the whole body? And just five of them, rather than the entire herd?

Whooom.

As he gathered chill at the tip of his sword, the blade vibrated and produced a strange sound. He condensed his mana to a manageable level, one that wouldn't strain his body, and then,

"Hah!"

He swung the chill-packed sword low and wide. The cold burst outward in a crescent arc. Between the heat and the chill dispersing as it spread, it didn't carry a tremendous amount of force, but...

Crack.

"Moo-ogh?"

"Mooooo!"

The thin sheet of cold struck the knee joints of the cattle running at the front, and legs that had been sprinting at full tilt naturally buckled. When your joints suddenly stiffen up mid-stride, there's no staying upright.

Three or so cows at the front of the charge lost their balance and toppled.

"Mooooo!"

"Mooo!"

The rest of the herd behind them tripped over the fallen cattle and went tumbling in a chain reaction, like dominoes. The sounds of bones snapping, bodies colliding, and things shattering rang out as loud as a traffic accident.

In the end, only about five cows made it through still running. Even those were quickly dispatched by the other players, who had been too stunned to move until that point.

"Well, damn."

This was precisely what made cold mana so overpowered. Unless you knew about it in advance, you were guaranteed to get caught by it at least once. And getting hit by the chill, having a body part seize up? In the world of superhumans, where fights were decided in increments of 0.01 seconds, having an important body part go rigid meant you might as well be dead.

If he had to name a weakness... it got tricky when an opponent was cautious. Outstanding fighters adapted to the chill quickly. If Jun-ho couldn't seize the advantage on his first move, then the longer the fight dragged on, the worse things got for him. That was exactly why he had lost to the [70] difficulty mannequin.

But against a herd of mindless, charging cattle, he could handle them without breaking much of a sweat. The fact that tightly packed groups charging in a line were extremely vulnerable to having the leaders tripped up from a distance also worked heavily in his favor.

"...Who is that guy?"

"...Ji-won's companion, supposedly."

"God damn."

Jun-ho basked in the shower of attention and strolled back toward the carriage. When he regressed to actually clear floor 13, he planned to keep a low profile. So he needed to enjoy the spotlight while he could.

"Alright, everyone, quit standing around. Let's clear away the dead cattle. If any are still alive, put them out of their misery."

Ji-won took the lead, giving Jun-ho a pat on the shoulder as she passed. He fired back a smile that said, "See? I can hold my own when it counts."

"...That's kind of creepy."

"...?"

Apparently, it looked a little off to Ji-won.

After the cattle, the carriage encountered no major threats and moved along smoothly. Walking without end, day turned to night.

"Oh, the horses stopped."

"Guess even they rest at night. Looks like we camp here."

The players began preparing to settle in for the night. There were twenty individual sleeping bags in the last carriage, so they could sleep inside those. Someone gathered dry grass from around the area and a player with a fire-related trait lit it up. It wasn't exactly cozy, but it was bearable.

"Hold on. There's something we haven't decided yet."

Just as everyone was about to lie down and drift off, one player spoke up. A black man with a prominent scar across his eye.

"We need to set up a watch rotation. There could be raids at night, too."

"Mm, that's true... a night watch is necessary."

Night watch duty was essential when camping in the field. The man's suggestion was perfectly sound, but hidden behind it was a darker motive.

If someone wanted to secretly check inside the carriage, night was the perfect opportunity. They had confirmed that Ji-won's detection and physical abilities were off the charts, but... sleep was a different story. Sharp senses? Then he just had to be even stealthier. Ji-won might be overwhelmingly powerful, but the other players were superhumans in their own right. With the help of their traits, sneaking around and pilfering items from the carriage would be a piece of cake.

And since they had been told to "escort" these carriages, whatever was inside had to be something valuable. If he could skim a nice haul off the top, growing strong enough to rival Ji-won wasn't just a pipe dream... or so his hidden reasoning went.

But Ji-won shook her head at the seemingly reasonable suggestion.

"No, a watch rotation isn't necessary."

"...What do you mean?"

"I'll stand watch alone. If you don't trust me, you're welcome to join me."

"...Alone, the whole night?"

"Yes."

"But then... what about tomorrow morning? Once it's daytime, the carriage will start moving again..."

"I'll be fine."

Ji-won's trait, Sword and Soul as One. The sword gains a human heart, and the human gains the sword's resilience.

"I'm confident in my stamina. Three days without sleep is nothing."

Ji-won's stamina was, quite literally, like steel.

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