WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 176

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The regressor wanders (12)

"Toothbrush... underwear... Am I forgetting anything?"

"Your socks are here."

"Oh, thanks."

Ji-won went through her things, loading them into the large suitcase one by one.

"...I must have gotten used to it here."

She stopped mid-pack and jumped up onto my bed, burying her nose in the sheets and inhaling deeply.

"This is the smell I know now. This place feels like home."

"..."

I hadn't said it out loud either, but I'd grown used to the scent of her cosmetics. If she left, the emptiness would announce itself there first.

"You're really going?"

"I have to."

Right. Ji-won was preparing to leave my studio apartment. We'd realized my regression condition was intense emotion, and decided to part for a while so we wouldn't grow too used to each other.

The dates to fulfil the regression condition were done. All that remained was waiting for the monsters to appear, and since that was a full ten months away, this was us preparing to say goodbye.

"Jun-ho, I'm not going on holiday, you know. We both need to work hard at gathering information. You're not thinking of pulling this whole ten-month separation thing twice, are you? If we're doing it once, let's do it properly."

"Of course. I already have a plan ready. But... texting each other every once in a while would still be fine, right?"

"Once in a while should be fine, don't you think? Might even make things exciting, all that anticipation."

The plan was simple. Collect as much information as possible over ten months. For safety, we'd agreed not to climb the Tower, and each of us would do our best in our respective areas.

"Ah, done."

Zip.

The zipper caught. Ji-won's packing was done.

"Now I really have to go..."

She put on her shoes, then looked back and smiled.

Watching Ji-won head for the door with her things, I thought of a friend who'd once gotten blackout drunk, howling because his girlfriend had left to study abroad. That was probably how this felt. Knowing it wasn't forever. Knowing it was the right call. The ache being there regardless.

"...Why do you have that look on your face? You're making me go soft too."

"What's wrong with my face?"

"You look like a wet dog."

"...Wouldn't 'puppy' be the nicer way to put it?"

"No. Definitely not a puppy."

Ji-won finished putting on her shoes and spread her arms wide from the entryway. I walked to her. We held each other lightly, then a brief kiss.

Any longer and I'd ask her to stay. I made myself turn away.

"Well... see you in ten months."

"Yeah. I'll text you."

We parted ways. For the sake of a better future.

Ji-won's absence was enormous. Far bigger than I had expected.

Waking up alone felt strange. The apartment was cold and silent without another body in it, like a place I didn't know.

It wasn't words or conversations. Just the ambient noise a person makes by simply being alive in a space. Those sounds were gone, and my sharpened senses kept catching the absence, over and over.

Having someone and then not having them, the loneliness was unbearable. I took some comfort in knowing it was temporary. But underneath that was fear, the fear of what would happen if the regression with Ji-won ever got cut off. If that day came, would I actually lose it? Even now something felt like it was fraying at the edges.

Falling asleep alone was hard. When I tried drinking to take the edge off, my body wouldn't have it. Medication was useless too, for that matter. I was a body that couldn't even drink itself unconscious anymore.

Around that time I was sleeping roughly two hours every other day.

But people adapt. A week passed, then two, and living alone became manageable. There were even things to enjoy because I was alone.

Still, when I had to cook for myself, the gap Ji-won had left made itself known. Two billion won sat in my account, though, and delivery food these days was genuinely excellent. (Ji-won had insisted her father's inheritance was more than enough and refused to take any money from me.)

Once my body adjusted and my mind settled, my daily routine narrowed to lying in bed and staring at my phone. I went out occasionally, but home was where the vast majority of my time went.

On the surface, I was browsing for "information gathering." Underneath, I was turning the same things over and over, endlessly.

If years passed and Association President Michael Zetter suddenly lost his mind and decided to destroy the Earth, could I stop him? Even if it wasn't Zetter specifically, if someone of comparable strength went off the rails, did any means of stopping them exist?

Two scenarios. The first: Jun-ho and Ji-won, having foreseen the disaster through regression, move in and successfully suppress the player before it happens.

The second: the regression timing gets tangled in some unfortunate way, and Earth is destroyed before we can reach the threat. Or the player is simply too strong for us to beat, and the world ends anyway.

"The risk is too high."

No matter how I turned it, acting after the fact was already too late. The stronger individuals became, the more precarious humanity's fate would grow.

Two solutions, then. The first—conquer the Tower from top to bottom before any other player could lay hands on civilization-shattering power.

And the second.

"..."

Kill the ones with the potential to destroy the world before it ever came to that. The elder's approach fell squarely into that second category.

Honestly, I had a deep, deep aversion to it. Who was I to decide which person deserved to die and which didn't? What right did I have to determine someone else's fate?

But the elder had once thought exactly as I did. He paid for it with everything. Before I spoke with him, I'd never have considered it. After hearing his story, the doubt dug deeper.

"Ji-won would..."

If I asked Ji-won, she'd refuse outright. She might be furious. Might say she was deeply disappointed in me. She'd take the gentler path even if it meant running regression over and over.

I didn't think her way was wrong. If anything, it was because she was so principled and decent that I'd managed to stay sane.

Still. A regressor always has to prepare for the worst. Guard against breaking down without actually breaking. Not go around killing carelessly, and yet still be ready to kill when it comes to that.

I wouldn't carry out the elder's method. But I would prepare myself to be capable of it.

"...In a broad sense, this counts as information gathering too."

World affairs — Ji-won could track those far better than I could. She had connections with the Association, and she was the kind of person every player in the world wanted to get close to.

My job was to investigate the players themselves. Their inclinations, their ideologies, their characters.

Not easy. Clearly not something one person could manage alone.

But among the people I knew, there was exactly one person who had argued the same as the elder: the ones who needed to die should be dealt with early.

"Azai Yuuki."

"That voice... Jun-ho-nim?"

"I can send you a plane ticket. Come to Korea."

Known to the world as dead, the Grim Reaper, Azai Yuuki.

For information gathering, there was no better partner.

The moment my call came through, Azai Yuuki dropped out of school and flew to Korea like he'd been waiting for it. He claimed he'd "explained it to his family in a way they could understand." What exactly that meant was anyone's guess.

"Who is it that needs to die?"

"...There's no one."

"Wh-what do you mean? You told me I had the makings of a hero, that you were preparing a role for me..."

Right. Come to think of it, I had said something about seeing heroic qualities in him. With my head spinning over Ji-won and the elder, I'd completely forgotten.

"...What I mean is, there's no one to kill right now. What needs to be done now is building our foundation. From here on, you're going to investigate top players from around the world for me."

"Top players, meaning..."

"Famous players. Strong players. Or if it's just a gut feeling, players you get a sense about. Look into them discreetly, then report back to me."

"Discreetly... you mean."

"That goes without saying."

"...Understood."

Yuuki nodded vigorously, face flushed. He was trying not to show it, but the thrill of a secret mission was written all over him.

"Then I'll start with the Japanese players I know best."

"Good. Report regularly."

The Grim Reaper left with his orders. I took out my phone and texted Kang Chan, asking if he'd want to grab a meal soon.

"...Might as well start with the ones I already know."

Starting with Kang Chan, I began arranging meeting after meeting with the players I knew. Daily check-in messages, time spent together, talking and laughing.

"Kim Jun-ho, have you ever thought about joining my guild?"

Kang Chan wanted me in, but I turned him down for now. His guild was growing smoothly without any help from me, and word was spreading that Chan was an extraordinary monster of a player.

Beyond him, there was Ahn Gyeong-nam, Ahn Gyeong-jun, Yoon Joong-hyun, Park Cheol-jin, and other Korean players I met through mutual connections. One meeting led to another. The Korean player community was larger than I'd realized.

Somewhere along the way I became the most well-connected person in the Korean scene. Once word got out that I was close with the rising Kang Chan, the number of people wanting to meet me multiplied fast. I wondered what would've happened if word had gotten out that I was Ji-won's boyfriend instead.

"Ah, Jun-ho hyung-nim! Hello!"

"Hey, I'm younger than you, why are you calling me hyung-nim."

"Ah, the stronger one is always hyung-nim. That's just how it works."

Days of building connections with Korean players, broken up by Yuuki's reports arriving at intervals, keeping me current on each player's profile. Days like these, on repeat, meant time passed quickly.

Before I knew it, five months had gone by. Half the ten months we'd agreed on.

"...Jun-ho. Do you have a minute to talk? I just wanted to catch up a bit."

Ji-won called.

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