WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 182

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The regressor agonizes (4)

My working theory on the conditions for companion regression is as follows.

First. I must feel an intense emotion toward a given target.

Second. In that same cycle, the target must also feel an intense emotion toward me.

Third. After the regression, all memories from every cycle in which 'I' felt those emotions are injected into the target.

This was essentially big data, accumulated through the regressions Ji-won and I had run together. It might not be perfectly accurate, but I was confident the broad shape of it was right.

And if this theory held... Su-hee had, in all likelihood, recovered the memories of the cycle in which she had betrayed me.

To lay out the timeline: Su-hee betrayed me, I felt 'Anger,' and the memories were stored there.

Then, in a later cycle, I listened to Su-hee's story and triggered the Awe trait, satisfying the condition for her to feel those intense emotions. After I blew off her arm, the guilt hit me too. My own emotions would have crossed the threshold.

In other words, Su-hee must have regressed alongside me the first time I regressed after entering Floor 4. How far back had I gone that time? I couldn't remember clearly, but at minimum it had been around three days.

"..."

But with only three days of regression, and only a single instance of it at that, would Su-hee really be able to figure out that the regression had originated with me? There was probably a fair amount of circumstantial evidence, but I didn't think it would be enough to be certain.

"This watch. What are you trying to say?"

There was no reason to hand over information first. With that, the whole situation came into focus.

"Hmm. Are you pretending not to know?"

My silence must have read as information in itself. Su-hee narrowed her eyes, her right hand still tapping against my watch.

"Fine. I'll show my cards first."

A warm cup of coffee appeared on the table in front of me. Pulled straight from her Inventory, most likely.

"Why don't you drink while we talk?"

"...I don't drink coffee."

"Is that so?"

She shrugged and began.

"Honestly, at first I didn't suspect anything. I just thought, my plan got read. I'm being punished for it. That was all."

"And then?"

"And then after clearing Floor 3... ah, I was unconscious at the time, by the way. Anyway, after clearing Floor 3 and returning to reality... I was staring at where my arm used to be, sitting with the pain, and then... time reversed?"

Her right hand shot toward my wrist. I pulled my arm away before it could land. My reflexes were faster, at least. If she ambushed me, would she still have a shot?

"At first I thought maybe I'd gotten a regression ability. Then I seriously wondered if I'd gone crazy. Scenes I'd never lived through started surfacing, me betraying Jun-ho oppa. But no matter how I thought about it... you showed too many tells on Floor 3. You didn't look like someone experiencing it for the first time."

"..."

She was right. In the first room I'd predicted the wolves' appearance. I'd led the way through the mirror maze, and I'd physically forced my body through the needle traps. Yes, thinking back on it, Su-hee being certain I was a regressor made complete sense.

"And apparently you were quite active on Floor 4 as well... suspicion became certainty. Everyone surviving Floor 4 on their very first run? That doesn't add up. If it wasn't your first time, it does. Probably a regression ability with a limited number of uses, or a time limit. And under certain conditions, other people can regress alongside you."

"..."

"And judging from your reaction just now... I can tell the companion regression wasn't intentional on your part. At first I thought you'd deliberately regressed me and were watching how I reacted. Too bad."

"So what is it you actually want?"

From what she was saying, she clearly hadn't worked out the contact condition, or the exact regression point. Fair enough, knowing that much would have been impossible. I leaned in close, threateningly, and stared her down.

"I'm not here to fight, oppa."

She spread both palms and stepped back a little.

"As I said before, I want you to take me on as a companion. The me on Floor 3 was foolish. I was completely consumed by the idea that I had to climb the Tower to the top, that monopolizing the rewards was the only way there. The ability really is that good, after all. Now I can do things like this."

Tang. A metallic ping off the glass table. A pistol sat on the surface where nothing had been a moment before.

"But... there are a lot of strong people in the world. Abilities better than mine, too. Like regression."

"...So?"

"As I said on Floor 3, I want to climb all the way to the top. Monopolizing rewards was just part of getting there."

"..."

"But what if you had the cooperation of someone who regresses with you? Together, couldn't we make it all the way up? The reason I didn't reach out until now... I wanted to prove I could be the best companion you'd ever have. This arm is that proof."

She lifted her right arm toward me. The one that had been severed.

"I bought an elixir at auction. And you know the Player Association president? I'm on his direct team now. Michael recognized the potential of my ability. If companion regression is possible more than once, I'm confident I'm the best companion there is. The applications for the Inventory ability are truly limitless."

Her colorless eyes swirled with contradictions: affection and hatred, envy and inferiority, self-love and self-destruction all tangled together. Su-hee was unhinged.

If I stirred any emotion strong enough right now, she would almost certainly meet the regression conditions. I steadied myself and sank deeper into the chair.

"I'll think about it."

"...That's all?"

"Yeah. So go, then."

"...Alright. I've said everything I wanted to say."

One last look at me, and she left. The pink watch was still clasped around my wrist.

"Is it over?"

"...Were you listening?"

"No. It didn't feel right."

A moment later, Kang Chan and Ji-won came in. I turned to Chan right away.

"Hey, Chan. Su-hee betrayed you too, didn't she? Why were you traveling with her?"

"The reason. At first it was at the association president's request. He said he wanted help dealing with the monsters appearing in Korea."

Chan looked down at the cold, untouched coffee. The pistol Su-hee had summoned was already gone.

"But spending time with her, I started thinking she'd grown up a lot. Humbled herself, I should say."

"..."

"I'm not the type to give traitors second chances... but she's just a high school student. That was my thinking."

According to Chan, Su-hee had genuinely changed. She sometimes muttered strange things to herself, but was fundamentally diligent and far more polite than before. Whether that change was a performance or something real, though, was another matter entirely.

"...Hah."

Su-hee's regression. This was an enormous variable.

There was, in fact, a clean solution.

Kill Su-hee and enter Floor 16. That would lock the past in place, and she would be gone from this world permanently. Nothing left to agonize over.

"...Hah."

But I wasn't sure. Killing a girl who was showing real change now, that sat wrong with me. A traitor, yes, but one who was currently showing me goodwill.

The elder would have killed her. Ji-won would have tried to reform her. I was standing at a fork in the road.

"Jun-ho, what's wrong?"

"This... I'll explain in a bit."

The real problem, though, wasn't Su-hee alone. My eyes were already reaching further out, toward a much more distant future.

Could I climb this Tower without fighting anyone? Without letting myself feel anything toward anyone?

Not a chance.

Given the malice baked into the foundations of this Tower, that dark and viscous design threading through everything, I would inevitably, inevitably feel something for someone. Hatred, love, anything at all.

And if the kind of person I despised enough were to regress alongside me, the ending waiting on the other side of that would be grim. People like that would use the returned time in the worst ways anyone could imagine.

"..."

I had always thought regression was too lenient. Given such a broken ability, clearing the Tower was definitely, definitely possible. I'd even treated it as a constant, a given, and had focused instead on whether I would come out the other side intact. That was how much potential regression carried.

But if even my negative emotions could trigger a regression... the calculation changed entirely. Not just the people I loved, but villains could regress with me too. That possibility cast a long shadow over every future I had imagined.

There was a solution. A very simple one. I could make myself numb.

Betrayed by someone, stabbed, trolled endlessly, even after killing someone with my own hands, I'd feel nothing. No hatred. No guilt. Just the whole world, held at a dry, even distance.

Distance Ji-won. Distance my companions. Everyone. Climb the Tower alone.

Just one sacrifice. Me.

"...Why does it have to be me."

Like the worn-out regressor I had always tried so hard not to become.

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