Regression is Too Much - Chapter 180

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 180

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The regressor agonizes (2)

Outside Choi Ji-won's house, the street had already taken on that wrong kind of quiet.

"Mom, can't I stay out a little longer?"

"Jimin, come on, let's get inside."

A child tugging innocently at her parent, and a mother dragging her along with a face drained of color. Mothers picked up on rumors faster than anyone these days. Word had gotten out that monsters had appeared.

"The car..."

"Get in for now. But we probably won't make it all the way to where we're going."

Even as I started the engine, that uneasy feeling wouldn't leave me.

"Move, you bastards!"

"Get out of the way! Move!"

My instinct proved right. The closer we got to Namsan, the more the roads stopped functioning. Traffic backed up and speed dropped, and when speed dropped, a few people started abandoning their cars, and those few abandoned cars made the roads completely impassable, which pushed everyone else to do the same. A vicious cycle, repeating itself.

"Let's get out now. We'll run. There's no time."

"..."

Ji-won was visibly restless watching it all, but my chest just grew heavier.

This moment was precious. I had waited ten months for it. Gathering as much information as possible was the rational call.

But Ji-won wanted to save people. Asking her whether she absolutely had to fight instead of gathering data was pointless. That was who she was.

"..."

I didn't want to see Ji-won get hurt. Or worse.

"Ji-won."

"Yeah?"

"If something happens and you get badly hurt... I'll regress. So please, please be careful."

"...Got it."

She gave a nod as she ran. I had her word, at least, but the unease refused to go away.

We ran toward Namsan, doubt gnawing at every step, until our pace slowed on its own.

"..."

We had arrived. A tiger was somewhere close. The thick smell of blood in the air was proof enough.

Walking slowly toward the source of it, Ji-won and I both went stiff.

"...Oh."

A residential neighborhood near Namsan. It had everything a Seoul neighborhood was supposed to have.

Trees lining the road, cars parked and still, tall utility poles, familiar low-rise apartment buildings, and.

"Damn..."

Bodies. Mangled, torn-apart bodies strewn everywhere, like a careless child had soaked paper in water and flung it against walls to play. Most were unrecognizable masses of blood and flesh. The ones that still had any shape at all wore expressions of sheer terror and agony, carved into their faces.

Crushed and warped cars. Half-demolished buildings. Blood running down the gutters.

"Ugh..."

I gagged before I could stop myself. Death wasn't new to me. But every death I had witnessed before happened inside the Tower. A crisis removed from the world I knew.

Death had moved into the streets. That alone was enough to turn my stomach. A young man who looked like a college student, only his upper half remaining. A middle-aged woman in hiking clothes. A police badge glinting somewhere in the crushed remains.

"If I had... if I had gotten here just a little sooner..."

Ji-won murmured to herself, pale. She was right. If we had arrived earlier, this might have been stoppable. I was the one who had gone around saying that once monsters appeared, you couldn't save everyone, but... standing in front of this, I couldn't bring myself to say anything like that now.

"ROOAARR!!!"

What snapped us out of our stupor was a massive roar from the direction of Namsan. A sharp, prickling presence scraped across my skin at the same moment.

"...Someone's fighting it."

"Let's go."

Forcing ourselves to look past the bodies scattered everywhere, we sprinted full speed toward Namsan, and finally came face to face with the giant tiger Ji-won had told me about.

"Grrrr..."

The hiking trail was destroyed. Trees splintered, earth torn up, bloodstains covering every surface. Near the top of those ruined stone steps, a massive tiger crouched low, baring its teeth.

Bigger than the white Porter truck we had passed on the way here. Golden light streamed from its eyes in thick beams, and that alone told me this was no ordinary oversized animal.

"Hah... hah... hah..."

"Anyone badly hurt, fall back..."

The tiger was squared off against about twenty players, and not one of them looked unscathed. The one saving grace, if you could call it that, was that the tiger had taken quite a few deep wounds of its own.

Scattered among the bodies were plenty wearing dwarven armor. Whether for the reward or for the people, more than a few players had thrown themselves at that tiger and died for it.

"Oh, Jun-ho hyung-nim?"

"Choi Ji-won, it's Choi Ji-won!"

Still locked in their standoff, the players let out small, relieved cheers at the sight of us.

Faces I remembered. People I had crossed paths with once or twice along the way. A few belonged to Kang Chan's guild. The rest were players people had called promising.

"That tiger has some kind of short-range teleportation!"

"It can also go briefly invisible. Be careful!"

Not a trace of doubt on any of their faces that Ji-won and I would sort this out.

"Where's Kang Chan?"

"Chan hyung is on a business trip to Daejeon, so... he probably won't make it back for a while. We have to handle it ourselves."

"..."

In practical terms, Chan was currently Korea's strongest. The country wasn't large enough to produce a deep pool of elite players, and among those it had, Ji-won and I had fallen behind by not climbing the Tower. The rest of them, honestly, wouldn't be much help.

If I had known it would come to this, I should have had Ji-won keep climbing on her own. Too greedy about collecting information. Too fixated on the safe path. Damn, what an idiot.

"Jun-ho, could you step back a little? So you don't get hurt."

While I was busy blaming myself, Ji-won was already preparing to fight. She planted Bung-bung in the ground and smoothed her ponytail, eyes fixed on the tiger.

The tiger mirrored her, pacing slowly, watching just as steadily. Neither of them let their gaze drift from the other for even a second.

"...Heart of Lightning Flash."

The moment Ji-won gripped Bung-bung with both hands, fully ready, blue sparks began jumping across her body.

Crack!!!

A thunderous boom, and both figures vanished. If I hadn't coated my eyes in mana, I would have missed the movement entirely.

"D-do you not need to help her?"

"I need to protect all of you."

In that split second, I had caught Ji-won blocking the tiger's jaws with her sword while kicking it in the midsection at the same time. She had probably done it on purpose to push the tiger away from me.

I didn't want to worry her either, so I stood back and watched. Getting dragged in and triggering a regression for nothing, there was no worse thing I could do.

"How's it going?"

"Ji-won's winning."

I coated my eyes in mana and watched carefully.

She was pressing the tiger hard, not giving it an inch. Not a single one of its attacks had landed, and the wounds across its hide were multiplying. Every blow it threw missed by the narrowest margin, to the point where it looked almost rehearsed, like Ji-won had choreographed every exchange in advance. Each flash of blue lightning drew a howl of pain from the tiger, and drops of blood clung to the tip of her sword.

But as the minutes passed, something about the balance began to shift.

"...Ji-won is getting pushed back."

The tiger was covered in wounds. Ji-won was, comparatively, still in one piece. And yet, reading the flow of the fight, it was Ji-won being slowly driven back.

The reason was obvious. Stamina.

Ji-won was pushing her body well past its limits through Heart of Lightning Flash. Two personalities splitting the burden helped, but sustaining lightning through every inch of her body had a cost, and it was showing.

The tiger had raw vitality and regeneration driving it, and it was fighting with everything it had. Ji-won tiring by degrees, the tiger pushing forward on pure instinct. At this rate... Ji-won would lose.

"I have to step in."

The risk was worth taking here. Better to take a wound and regress than to watch Ji-won go down.

"Wha... whoa..."

"Is that... mist?"

I slowly drew up the cold inside me. Mist began seeping from my body as my heartbeat slowed. Feeling the chill spread through every limb, I plunged into the fight.

"Grrrr."

"Jun-ho?"

The tiger cut a sideways glance at me. Ji-won looked thrown off, clearly wondering why I was there. My interruption broke the momentum of the fight for just a moment.

Even if it meant a regression... I was going to kill that tiger first. Achievement levels might go up. New traits could appear. Realizations could come from the fight.

But beyond all of that... a monster that had killed people that brutally, that had pushed Ji-won this far. Putting it down was the only way I was going to feel right about any of this.

"Here I go."

A stinging pain flared through me as my heartbeat slowed even further. Moving at full capacity while bracing for regression, I had five to ten seconds, at most. Finish it within that window.

"Hah."

The breath I exhaled froze and glittered in the air. At the same moment, heat stirred near my hip. From the scabbard I had taken on Floor 3, a sword was forming.

The scabbard that reads my emotions and shapes the blade to match. What I was feeling right now was anger.

Cold wrapped around the hot blade. This would be enough. One strike.

Left knee bent, gaze fixed on the tiger's throat. Drawing stance.

Full force, I drew...

Boom!!!

A thunderclap before I could move. The ground shook. Light burst.

Like a bomb had gone off. Ringing flooded my ears and a thick cloud of dirt swallowed the air around me, blinding everything.

"Wh-what."

What was that? Did the tiger do something? It hadn't moved, though...

I pushed out a hard burst of cold, and the dust dispersed, returning my vision. What it revealed was.

"..."

Ji-won, catching her breath, standing with a stunned look on her face.