WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 209

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The regressor endures (6)

I decided to save the mysterious girl, Areum, but too many things were bothering me right away.

First was her identity. What exactly was she that the government was personally searching for her? What made them want her back badly enough to shatter her legs with sniper fire? Even if I asked her directly, I probably would not get a satisfying answer. That was something I would have to investigate myself.

The second thing I had to consider was whether they had really tried to kill me.

At first, I thought they were absolutely after my life. But after I calmed down and thought it through, if their real goal had been murder, they would have aimed for my head. If a bullet went through your forehead, you would not be moving at all.

Considering I twisted my body and got hit in the shoulder, they had probably aimed for my collarbone. It is essential for using your arm, and a hit there is serious, but it is not a great place to shoot if you want someone dead. So my earlier guess was wrong. They had not tried to kill me while sparing Areum.

"This is weird in its own way."

I had not assumed the sniper wanted me dead for no reason. Logically, there was no reason to keep me alive. If they were ready to fire guns in Korea, killing me would have been easier to clean up than leaving me alive. There was no reason at all to spare me.

"I definitely touched something I wasn't supposed to."

After considering all of this, I was sure I had accidentally triggered something wrong. A sniper showing up was not normal progression, and it was probably not what the Tower intended either.

Why? Simple. The moment heavy firearms like that showed up, Floor 21 became far too difficult.

Let's bring back the average Player A from before. Decent level, decent martial skills, decent mana, decently strong.

Could that guy survive a sniper? Could he have saved Areum in that fight?

Impossible. Absolutely impossible. At this point, barely anyone could dodge or endure gunfire in the first place. "Can't you just watch the muzzle and dodge?" Set that aside. If a reckless player boosted mana, zigzagged like crazy, and there was only one enemy with a gun, maybe they could avoid getting hit. But I am talking about bullets.

A bullet travels at roughly 400 meters per second. Sound travels at roughly 340 meters per second. The bullet reaches you before the sound does. That means reacting to the sound is impossible. For reference, 400 meters per second is 1,440 kilometers per hour. Fast enough to picture easily.

If bullets are faster than sound, you have to spot them with your eyes to react. That is already close to impossible, and when I got sniped, it was deep night. You can throw out the option of seeing it and dodging.

In other words, anyone other than me would have failed too. Unless I had triggered something wrong, there was no way this kind of brutal difficulty should appear, especially not before even a full day had passed.

So either running to the mountain itself was the problem, or I did something during that process that I absolutely should not have done.

"I want to know the standard strategy first..."

How did other players clear Floor 21? I honestly wanted to grab someone and ask.

The best method would be to endure seven days first, escape Floor 21, return to reality, and then check other people's strategy records. Sure, some people probably gave up and waited out seven days doing nothing, but plenty of others would have searched for a solution like I did. Some of them might have succeeded.

But to clear it that way, I would have to abandon one innocent girl first. I would have to send her back to the lab that hated her so much.

"That is not happening."

Some things can be compromised, and some cannot. This was one of the latter. First I save Areum, no matter what, then I think about the rest.

"Okay."

I was done sorting out my thoughts. Time to act.

"Ugh..."

I immediately took off the cumbersome armor and tossed it into a nearby patch of grass. Going to the mountain seemed to be the trigger last cycle, so this time I planned to stay in the city.

"First..."

I had to make money.

The way I chose to make money was plain old manual labor. More precisely, construction day labor.

I learned something while trying to make money this time. You cannot just do day labor because you feel like it. Usually there are agencies that place workers, you have to show up at dawn and wait, and your identity has to be at least somewhat verified.

"What the hell is this guy? What? You want to work? Cut the bullshit and get lost. You think this is a playground? I'll call the cops."

So yes, walking onto a construction site with no ID was pure nuisance behavior. I had shown up around ten in the morning, when work was already in full swing, and they said they could not take in someone with unknown identity anyway because worker rosters are filled out before the shift starts.

"Should I move this?"

"Hey! Don't touch that careles... huh, huh?"

When I lifted four 40-kilogram cement bags, the foreman in a safety helmet slowly opened his mouth.

"Foreman, should I call the cop... uh..."

"...Hey. What's your name?"

"Kim Jun-ho."

"Ah, fuck... This isn't how it's supposed to go... wait here. I'll go work something out."

The foreman disappeared for a moment, then came back and said I could work. He shoved a safety helmet and an old vest into my hands and started giving instructions. Construction is usually brutal labor, but with my superhuman body, it was not that hard.

So I finished a workload that normally took five grown men by myself, and the shift ended much earlier than expected. In my hand was a thick envelope with 300,000 won inside.

"Uh... you coming tomorrow too?"

"No. But if I can come, I'll contact you."

"Mm, right, right. I'll give you my number, so if you want work, call me."

"Ah, I don't have a phone..."

"Hey, if you're gonna work, you work with me, got it? If you go somewhere else, you're dead, seriously. I paid you well today too."

"I know, I know..."

After smoothing things over, I headed to a clothing store first. I did not need stylish clothes. I bought a comfortable tracksuit set that would not stand out. Now people would stop staring at me like I was weird. They would just think, oh, a jobless shut-in stepped outside today.

"Do you have a room?"

"Yes~"

I headed to the cheapest-looking motel nearby, and thankfully they had a room. That night, I got to sleep on a soft bed. Even a little cash made life much easier.

Then the next morning, I realized one terrifying fact.

"...This is bad."

I had moved too far from where I first met Areum. It was 8:30 now. Thirty minutes left. If I sprinted at full speed, I could make it in time, but if I ran beyond human limits, I would draw too much attention.

"...Taxi."

In the end, I made up my mind and flagged down a taxi to the riverside. It was just about 9:00 now. From here, ten minutes of running would get me near the bridge where I had met Areum. I was about to move without delay, then...

"Help... please help me, oppa..."

I froze when I saw Areum limping toward me from far away.

"...The location changed?"

This was still far from where we had met. Time-wise, she could not have run all the way here either. Then how was she here, right now?

Last cycle, me running into Areum had not been simple luck.

There might have been another cause behind it.

"Why did you come here?"

"I just... felt like I had to... It's my first time seeing you, oppa, but somehow... you feel familiar."

"...I see."

After quick introductions, I carried Areum on my back and kept walking. I had a lot I wanted to ask, but she still did not seem settled, so I held back. We were not close yet, and she probably would not open up completely anyway. We needed to break the ice first.

"Here, put this on."

"Ah, it's hard to breathe..."

"Bear with it for now."

I made her wear a mask I bought at a convenience store, then kept walking with her on my back. This gave her a natural reason to keep her head down, and even if someone checked CCTV, her face would not be visible.

Wouldn't the police focus on routes children might take? Sure, if we were heading toward places a child would normally go.

If they were tracking Areum with some kind of biochip radar, then running was pointless from the start. But if humans were narrowing us down through investigation, there was plenty of room for psychological misdirection.

There is a saying: if you want to hide a tree, hide it in a forest. So I prioritized one type of place, somewhere that if I were a cop, I would never, ever check first. One place came to mind.

A place where a child and a grown adult together would not look strange.

A place in the middle of Seoul, yet one step removed from both police eyes and public attention.

A place where no one would expect a wanted little girl to be.

"It's an amusement park."

"Wow...!!"

We arrived at the amusement park in Jamsil.

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