WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 177

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The regressor wanders (13)

"How have you been?"

"Oh, me? Fine, I guess. What about you?"

"I haven't been doing well. Guess you were perfectly fine without me."

"...Hey."

"Ahaha, you know I'm joking."

The phone sat on the desk in speaker mode, and Ji-won's voice drifted out of it. Hearing her, a smile came to my face without my trying, but there was something faintly strange about it too, something that felt unreal, like a sound I hadn't heard in too long and couldn't quite place. Layered. Complicated.

Honestly, it was a little awkward.

"You've been playing games nonstop without me, haven't you?"

"What? How did you know that?"

"I caught your username once when you were playing, from behind your shoulder. Looked it up out of curiosity a few times."

But the more the conversation went on.

"The other day I was so hungry I ordered delivery food for ten people, and they sent ten pairs of chopsticks. Made me feel kind of awful about myself."

"You're a player, you eat a lot. What's the problem?"

"Still... it made me feel bad."

"Never mind that. Tell me more about those clothes you mentioned in your message."

The awkwardness and tangled feelings dissolved like snow, and what remained was nothing but warmth. Small talk, nothing more than catching up on nothing in particular, yet at some point a smile had settled onto my face and stayed there. People are creatures who take comfort in having someone to share their lives with. Creatures for whom even the most pointless chatter is enough to bleed the tension out of their shoulders. I felt mine go and sank back pleasantly into the chair.

"No, listen, it was genuinely absurd."

"He actually said that? You're sure?"

"I don't know. His voice was too quiet to hear clearly."

Meeting the Korean players had always been something like wearing a mask. A performance of Kim Jun-ho, the enigmatic powerhouse they'd built up in their heads. Measured humility, measured confidence, measured wit, with just enough mystery and distance held in reserve at all times. That was what kept them from treating me carelessly, what kept the rumors running in a favorable direction, and what brought more information my way.

But this call with Ji-won had none of that. No pretense, no performance. Just a call with my closest friend and the person I loved. Of course it felt good.

"So then what did he say?"

"I ran into some of my old high school friends the other day, and..."

"Did you see this video? There's this animal called a Pallas's cat..."

"Oh, and I'm planning to change my number soon. I'll probably keep using it after the regression, so memorize it now."

Worthless talk. Every bit of it. But five months of it had piled up into something enormous, and the sun had long since faded from the window, darkness settling outside.

"We're going to be on the phone until tomorrow at this rate."

"Right. My phone is burning up."

The time had come, finally, to say what we'd actually called to say. I felt a pang of reluctance, but the pang itself felt like proof of what we had, and that made it easy to bear.

"Let me go first."

Still on the call, I sent a document from my desktop over to Ji-won.

"This is a list of Korean players worth keeping an eye on."

"Oh, hold on. Let me read through it."

I could picture her clearly, sitting at her own desk, typing away, pulling up what I'd sent. A quiet exclamation drifted through the speaker.

"...Wow."

"This is really detailed. Where did you even get all this?"

"I have my ways."

The document was the product of two things—intelligence I had gathered through my wide network of contacts, and what the 'Grim Reaper' Azai Yuuki had brought in. Yuuki had declared, in his own words, that this time he would handle everything with absolute precision. Trusting a self-assured middle schooler completely was its own kind of absurdity.

So what I had focused on was cross-checking the data Yuuki had gathered against players I already knew firsthand.

"You said you wanted only confirmed information, so the confirmed items are listed here at the top. Anything I couldn't verify is at the bottom."

"Hmm."

The results were fairly satisfying. The details on Kang Chan, Ahn Gyeong-jun, and even Ji-won herself had matched up reasonably well. The unverified section had its share of garbage, but a surprising number of entries had turned out to be accurate.

"There's apparently a rumor going around that you and I are in a relationship?"

"Even on the deep web it gets treated as tabloid gossip, but... information is information, so I included it."

In my honest assessment, the quality of the intelligence was exceptional. Hard to believe it had been compiled by someone who once accidentally killed an innocent person.

"Did you put all of this together yourself? The quality is genuinely impressive."

"In truth, it was obtained by blackmailing a number of professional information brokers. I bought information as a pretense, then caught them by the collar."

"..."

"I found a use for the trash, so they should be grateful. I paid them generously too."

The method was less than clean. I let it go.

From the enormous volume of player data gathered this way, I had filtered down to only verified intelligence, narrowed it to Korean players, and double-checked everything myself before sending it to Ji-won. What remained was a clean, precise document. It would prove just as useful after the regression.

"The Korean players worth keeping close tabs on are Kang Chan, Ahn Gyeong-jun, and... Ji Hyeon-bin? Who's this?"

"Apparently a new face who's been making waves lately. The details are in the back."

"Alright. I'll read through it properly later. My turn?"

"Actually, one more thing first."

I sent Ji-won a photo of the ring I had received from the archangel Raphael on Floor 2.

"This is... the ring you mentioned getting on Floor 2, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I tried using the Scroll of Appraisal on it, and it actually worked."

Following the elder's advice, I had used the Scroll of Appraisal on the ring. What it revealed had been genuinely shocking.

-Ring of Natural Order

-If you destroy the ring while earnestly wishing for it, you can delete one trait from any target you choose.

"...It deletes any trait? Just like that?"

"I haven't tested it. But it's not going to give a fake result."

"Wow."

Ji-won understood what the ring truly meant. This ring would be my insurance.

"With this... I can rest easy even after we clear the Tower."

The fear that had always sat somewhere at the back of my mind. The fear that when I finally grew old and died, Regression might pull me back again. The fear of having to live forever, of never being allowed to stop.

This ring had the power to take that fear away. It could give me a quiet future.

It could delete Regression.

"...Jun-ho, I'm so glad."

"Yeah. So am I."

"I really am. I'm so, so glad..."

She had heard me talk about that fear before, which was why she was sniffling now, saying it over and over. My own eyes had gone red when I first read the ring's description, so I sat with her quietly and waited for her to settle.

"Just a second. Let me wash my face."

Ji-won's turn. She came back composed and sent over a document just as dense as mine.

"This one is from Michael Zetter's side... this is Germany... this one's Russia... and this one I got from Yoon Joong-hyun, the Player Association head."

"What is all of this?"

"Basic player profiles, I guess? Not as detailed as what you sent, but there are photos and estimated floor levels. The Association apparently treats these as valuable assets."

Where I had gone deep on Korean players, Ji-won had gone broad on top-tier players around the world.

"Players whose abilities are known are at the front, and the ones who are deliberately vague about it or hiding it are at the back. Worth spending some time later memorizing names and faces. Read it when you get a chance. I still have a few more things."

"There's more?"

"Yeah. So... this is a plan from the Association president, Michael Zetter. A blueprint, you could call it."

The next document Ji-won sent was packed with detailed information about how the Player Association intended to reform going forward. Plans for a newly established Academy, along with legal groundwork for players to formally replace each nation's defense capabilities.

"He said that if rankings are introduced, I'm more or less earmarked for second place at the S rank."

"Second? Then first would be... Michael Zetter."

"Right. Honestly, I'm a bit lukewarm about it. I've been away from the Tower for a while, and there's no denying I've fallen behind."

"...That's fair."

What Ji-won had just said applied to me too. While everyone else was climbing, I'd been out here doing nothing. The sense of falling behind was hard to shake.

"I said the same thing to Michael Zetter, and he told me that rankings will always have a political dimension and to just ignore it. He asked whether we were going to have players fight each other directly to set the rankings."

"...Couldn't they just go by floor number?"

"Then Michael Zetter can't be first."

"Ah."

"Last thing... a proposal came in from the Player Association."

She hesitated.

"What kind of proposal? You already talked about Michael Zetter."

"No, not from Zetter directly. This is from the Player Association acting together with the US government."

"...The US government?"

"Yeah. I even had a call with the American president. Apparently they're conducting some kind of research that could change the world, and they need my help. He said quite a few players are already cooperating."

"...Somehow hearing 'the president' makes it feel unreal."

"He mentioned there's a book that holds all the truths of this world, and they're studying it now. It's all still vague, more of a feeler than anything concrete. I'll need to look into the details more."

"Even just this is more than enough."

"You think so? Thank you. You've worked hard too, Jun-ho."

The exchange finished, and small talk filled the space again. We confirmed, in our quiet way, that what was between us hadn't changed, and agreed that there was still a lot more to find out.

"Five months left now."

"I can't decide whether to be afraid that monsters are coming... or happy that I'll get to see you."

"Just be both. See you soon."

"Yeah. I'll be waiting."

The exchange was done.

Time began to move again.

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