WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

Chapter 186

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The regressor reflects (1)

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A rhythm I knew by now. I drew a long breath and began climbing, one step at a time, up the black mountain.

That darkness blanketing the sky, swallowing everything like outer space, was it really because the atmosphere had been stripped away? And the sea of magma stretching in every direction, were those the remnants left behind by a meteor's impact?

At first, I'd thought this place was designed purely for atmosphere. Climbing it now, knowing everything I knew, the feeling was entirely different.

"Who are you?"

"Just... well. You know, don't you?"

"Heh heh. That I do. You're a climber, and I'm a guide. That's enough."

The old man laughed, easy and unhurried. There was something I'd been wanting to ask him, though.

The monsters that had appeared in the real world varied wildly in strength.

The dragon that had devastated New York deserved every superlative thrown at it, but the giant chicken that had appeared in Europe looked so pathetically weak that even present-me could probably take it down. The tiger at Namsan fell somewhere between the two.

More than numbers alone, some deeper rule was at work. I was burning to ask the elder about it, but...

"I'll take this one as my reward."

"Good. A fine choice."

Asking an elder whose memory had been reset would get me nowhere. And I wanted to respect the will of a man who had chosen to wipe himself clean.

There was so much else I wanted to ask him, too. I was still buried in uncertainty.

Whether he believed a person could change. Whether he believed there were lines that had to be held. Whether he believed the direction I was trying to move in was right.

Every bit of it was mine to wrestle with alone. Anything else would make it meaningless.

Even if I ended up walking the same road as the elder, it had to be my choice. Even if I walked Ji-won's road instead, it still had to be my choice. That way, failure would be my fault, and so would success. It wouldn't do to go down in flames and then have the nerve to blame a worn-out old man for it.

"Well then, farewell."

"Heh heh. Polite young man. Go well."

I gave him a proper bow, one last farewell, and stepped out of Floor 15.

There was no staying here forever.

It was time to move forward.

Delivering instructions to the Grim Reaper. Checking in with the people around me. Talking with Michael Zetter.

The last two I had already done before. And the regressor's specialty was doing things twice.

For an active regressor, it wasn't unlike acting. Retracing the same steps as the previous cycle, keeping variables to a minimum, it was much like following a script word for word.

What do you do when you can't remember a part? You improvise on the spot. Acting out what I imagined my past self would have done, there was something of method acting in that.

"...Ugh."

Unlike me, Ji-won was clearly struggling to find her footing. Even during the conversation with Michael Zetter, she kept fidgeting.

"Sitting through something you already know... and having to listen seriously on top of that... it's harder than I expected..."

She'd get used to it soon enough. Patience was one of the core virtues of any regressor.

Anyway. We moved quickly, finished our preparations, and got ourselves ready to climb Floor 16.

Armor. Check.

Weapon. Check.

Physical condition. Check.

Anything could come charging at us the moment we stepped through, so we went in with our nerves drawn tight.

"Let's go."

I opened the familiar portal and stepped toward the unknown.

To grow stronger.

[Entering Floor 16.]

Leaves fell.

Not one or two. A rain of autumn leaves, beautiful and unhurried. Alongside it, the sound of wind through the trees, that long sighing rustle, settled something deep inside.

"Ji-won?"

"Right here."

I confirmed she was standing just beside me, then began to take stock of our surroundings in earnest.

A forest. The season looked like autumn.

Trees blazing in gorgeous shades of orange swayed in every direction, and underfoot a shallow carpet of fallen leaves whispered softly with each step, a gentle sound that tickled the ear.

But more than the leaves, what stopped me was the sight straight ahead. Stone steps, tightly packed, rising up to a temple entrance.

"...A Buddhist temple?"

Not the other kind of temple. A proper Buddhist temple, the sort where monks lived, with a dirt floor and a tiled roof and wooden columns.

"Feels a bit out of nowhere."

She'd taken the words right out of my mouth. Honestly, it was. Everything up to this point had been built on a Western foundation, a fantasy foundation to be precise. And now, suddenly, a Buddhist temple.

"So the setting this time around is wuxia, maybe."

In other tower-climbing novels, things often started as fantasy and then shifted to wuxia somewhere along the way, so I decided to keep an open mind. It wasn't as if dwarves and elves and orcs were the only valid inhabitants of a world like this. Plenty of interesting stories mixed both.

"Shall we go up?"

Not many players had made it this far yet, so we had the stone steps to ourselves. This temple would probably be swarming with people later. If Michael's plan went through, there might even be a queue just to get up the stairs.

We climbed slowly, all the way to the top. The temple entrance stood before us, its doors slightly ajar. Not locked. We could just walk in.

I pushed the wooden door open carefully, and the full temple came into view. First, a wide central courtyard of packed earth, or perhaps central open space was the better term. Either way, the broad expanse was the first thing I noticed, and around it a row of temple buildings sat nestled close together. Over in one corner stood a stone pagoda of some kind, and narrow side paths led to other buildings beyond. I was no expert on temples, but this one was extraordinarily large.

What dominated everything else, though, was the thick, tall rock placed at the center of the compound. A massive stone bearing scattered marks and gouges across its surface, it had a strangeness to it all its own, the kind that made you wonder what it was doing there.

"...It's Choi Ji-won."

"It really is. If she's only just arriving now, she must be at a lower floor than I expected."

Westerners in East Asian robes passed by, muttering as they clocked Ji-won. The language they were speaking marked them as players, dressed in floor-issued clothing. They wouldn't have failed to get armor on Floor 11, so they had probably just changed for comfort.

<Floor 16>

-Wound the stone at the center of the temple to clear.

A message window floated into view as we were taking in the scenery. Wound the stone to clear?

"...Isn't this a bit too easy?"

In ten months they would be calling us washed, but right now, Ji-won and I were serious players. And the clear condition was just to scratch this rock? Something felt off.

"Should I go first?"

"No, I'll do it. Watch."

Right. If there were floors that punished you unfairly, there had to be floors that rewarded you just as unfairly. I rolled my shoulders loose and walked toward the rock with full confidence.

The deepest mark already cut into the stone was... there. Something had driven a spear through it hard. About the depth of one knuckle on a pinky finger.

"I'll go deeper than that."

Grip tight on the sword. One steady breath. Every muscle in my body went loose.

"Hup!"

Simple. And honest. All the force went exactly where I needed it. I called myself a swordsman now, and this blow carried everything I had built across cycle after cycle of regression.

Clang!

The massive rock knocked it aside like it was nothing. The recoil nearly cut my palm, and would have, if not for the Transparent Gloves.

"..."

"..."

We stood there in an awkward silence, glancing at each other with identical looks of embarrassment. Why hadn't it cut?

"What is a human being?"

A clear, high voice made both of us flinch. It came from above.

At the very top of the great rock. At some point, an angel had been sitting there in meditation, eyes closed.

"What makes humans different from beasts? What is it that makes a human... human?"

The angel spoke without moving from the lotus position. The voice was close to a child's, but there was something strangely ancient threaded through it.

"The archangel who designed this floor found the answer in training. So then, what is training?"

Still cross-legged, the angel descended from the top of the rock, smooth and unhurried, almost as if sliding down.

"Training is a battle with oneself. It is the process of tempering your existence, grinding it down, honing it sharp. The patience that process demands. The sense of purpose. And the growth that follows. Those are what prove, clearly and unmistakably, that a human is human."

The angel's eyes opened slowly, turning to look at Ji-won. Where pupils should have been, light bled out instead.

"This rock is not simply a rock. It is... Jun-ho-nim?"

The light vanished from those eyes in an instant. In its place, an angel stood wide-eyed with shock, springing to its feet.

"It is Jun-ho-nim, isn't it!"

"...Anael?"

All that composed, dignified posturing, and this angel was...

Anael, the placard angel I had saved back on Floor 2.

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