WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 173

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The regressor wanders (9)

"If the climbers are the ones risking their lives... then the rest of humanity should risk theirs as well, for it to make any sense. Wouldn't you say?"

The elder smiled, clear and easy, a smile I had never seen from him through all my regressions.

"That said, since the rest of humanity does have a chance of being summoned to the Tower, you could argue they're putting their lives on the line just the same. In the end, isn't it a matter of perspective?"

He trailed off awkwardly and picked up his hammer, fiddling with the stone. Anyone who didn't know him would have let it pass. I had grown familiar enough with the elder to feel something was off.

"Could you explain that a bit more?"

"What is there to explain? I was simply speaking in general terms."

He must have known he had slipped, because no matter how many times I pressed him, nothing satisfying came back. People who accidentally show their hand always grow far more careful afterward.

Still, just grasping his way of thinking had been a tremendous gain. I had regression, after all, which meant I could face him again before he became careful.

The elder was hiding something significant. That conviction settled over me, and I chose to trust it.

From that point, I began conditioning myself. I despise humanity outside of players. I believe climbers are extraordinary. My views are the same as the elder's.

"You dislike how the rest of humanity seems to be riding on the backs of climbers? One shouldn't feel that too strongly."

At first my acting must have been rough, because the wall he had put up refused to come down. Shared views or not, I was a stranger to him, and he wasn't a man who trusted easily from a few words.

"So you dislike people... that happens. Spending some time alone tends to help."

But through repeated regressions, my understanding of the elder…

"You resent those who cleared the tutorial but won't climb the Tower? Ha, watching someone waste an opportunity has always been a hard thing to bear."

…grew.

"Diligence, yes. Diligence is the greatest talent of all. You know something."

Deeper.

"No companions? Hmm... why not make some, even now? You might regret it later."

The elder was lonely. He was alone, and it was eating at him.

"You shouldn't trust others too much. In the end, the only one you can trust is yourself."

And yet he didn't trust people.

"There are far more foolish people in this world than you'd expect. Thinking everyone is rational and reasonable is simply naive."

He liked talented people. Diligent people. On the other side of that, he despised anyone stupid and lazy.

"You think I'm something special? No, not at all. I'm just... a worn-out old man."

He hated himself.

What had begun as regression to understand Floor 15's exact structure had quietly become something else. The more regressions stacked up, the more I felt myself drawing closer to him.

As a person, the elder wasn't bad. Not to me. He liked jokes, he knew how to show consideration for others, and he was wise and thoughtful. The problem was the contempt, the outright hatred for anyone he considered beneath him.

What had made him this way? What had this man gone through, to design the Tower like this?

"Jun-ho."

"Yes?"

"Have we met before?"

Had the anguish inside me shown on my face? Out of nowhere, he was asking if we knew each other.

"...No? Where is that coming from?"

"It's just... you feel familiar to me somehow. Ha, listen to me. What a strange thing to say to a young man I've never met."

At some point, he stopped urging me to step through the blue portal. The conversations before each regression grew longer, and the way he looked at me shifted, little by little.

"Jun-ho... you're okay, right? You haven't gone off the deep end on me?"

"Of course not. I told you, I'm acting."

Ji-won had said I seemed off. But there was no stopping here. Just a little more, a little more effort, and I felt like I could finally piece together everything there was to know about Floor 15.

And then, one day, in the middle of all those regressions.

"Jun-ho."

"Yes?"

"It feels strange to say this when we've only just met, but... I sense a kinship with you."

"A kinship?"

"Like looking at my younger self, I think. That's the closest I can get to it."

The elder stopped tapping at the stone and looked at me steadily.

"But... that's precisely what I find so strange."

"What do you mean?"

"That distrust of yours toward people... it's not something you'd see from someone who's only made it to Floor 15. The Tower has only existed for about half a year. What could have made you like this?"

"I was betrayed. Simple as that. And I've met plenty of liars along the way."

"..."

He narrowed his eyes.

In truth, the elder wasn't wrong about a single thing. A man in his twenties, viewing everything darkly, drowning in distrust of people, and yet charging up the Tower with everything he had. No matter how you looked at it, something didn't add up.

This was the wall I kept hitting, no matter how many regressions I ran. Building empathy to close the distance was one thing. But genuine empathy, real and unperformed, was its own kind of problem.

In the end, what I settled on was mixing a small lie into a mostly true story.

"In the Tutorial, I was betrayed by the Goblin Shaman. Every person I tried to protect starved to death. I lost companions who had fought through the hardship alongside me, and I had to clear the Tutorial alone."

The betrayal by the Goblin Shaman.

"On Floor 2, there were people who forced others to suffer for their own gain. By blocking the path."

The thugs who blocked the way on Floor 2.

"On Floor 3, a companion I trusted stabbed me in the back. At the very last moment, she stepped forward and tried to claim all the rewards for herself."

Dok Su-hee, trying to take everything on Floor 3.

Beyond that, I laid out story after story, all the people I had encountered on Floors 4, 11, 12, and 13, and how watching them had worn my faith in people down.

I left out the regressions, but none of the stories were false. Actually, the elder's philosophy had always been dormant somewhere inside me. I resented the helpless players who only dragged everyone back. I resented the people who didn't help, who treated players as content to be consumed. I resented the ones who stayed on Floor 1 indefinitely, satisfied with whatever trait they had picked up. I resented the people who couldn't see how badly I wanted to help. Maybe the reason the elder listened was because he could hear it, the truth underneath everything I said.

Without Ji-won... I might have become just like this old man. The thought came and went, quiet.

"..."

"..."

When my long story ended, silence settled over the mountain summit. We sat looking up at the dark sky, not a word between us.

What broke it was a single remark from the elder, close to a lament.

"You've had terrible luck. The kind of things most people would struggle to go through even once, you've had them piling up one after another."

"I think so too."

"Why did you tell me all of this?"

He had been gazing up at the lone sun hanging against that dark sky. Now he lowered his eyes to me. The reason was obvious. To learn what I needed about Floor 15, to prepare for what was coming, to understand what this man intended.

"...I don't know."

That had been true at first. Now, though... I wasn't sure. The truth was, I had already worked it out. The statues on Floor 15 would take form as monsters and descend on Earth. Knowing what I knew about this man, that was exactly how he would have designed the floor. If all I had needed was the information, there was no reason to keep regressing.

The reason I had opened up to him anyway was probably because I genuinely felt something for this old man.

"I have... always cleared the Tower in the direction that saves as many people as possible. There are people I disliked, people I resented, but... they were still human. I thought saving them was what it meant to do my part."

"..."

"But sometimes... I resent people. I don't want to save them. Even knowing that crossing a line once means there's no coming back, I just want to act on my own feelings."

I had already said the same thing to Ji-won once. She had asked me, "Wouldn't you regret it afterward, if you actually went through with that?"

"People feel that way sometimes."

The elder didn't push back. He nodded and agreed.

"Watching others do foolish things, it's only human to feel that way. When everyone is suffering together and one person is only out for themselves... the thought comes naturally. That person deserves to die. It just surfaces on its own."

He pressed his left hand against the ground. The moment his palm touched the stone floor.

Thrum.

The world... pulsed. I couldn't tell exactly what had changed, but something had. I was sure of it.

"But... you mustn't. Go down that road and you'll end up a foolish old man like me."

Trickle. A thin line of blood ran from the elder's nose. I tried to ask if he was alright, but my body wouldn't move and my voice wouldn't come.

"I thought... I could carry everything alone. That I was the one who would save everyone. The hero. I was wrong. Jun-ho... I don't want you to tread the same path I did."

Without so much as a glance my way, he wiped the blood away and rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Where do you think the Tower's inhabitants came from? The goblins, the orcs, the humans, the elves, the dwarves... where did they all come from? Have you ever thought about it?"

"..."

"We are..."

He closed his eyes slowly, those eyes that had been gazing up at the sky, and said.

"survivors of a world that was destroyed because it couldn't climb the Tower to the end."

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