WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

________________

Chapter 226

──────

The regressor is mentally weak (5)

After I crushed them with force, I was acknowledged as a citizen.

"How about this?"

"Hmm..."

"Then what if we do this?"

"I don't think that would help either."

"Now that I think about it, you're right."

Of course, being acknowledged didn't change much. It just meant I could take part when people shared opinions and debated.

The discussion wasn't getting any more productive, either.

"Ah, my head is splitting."

"Hoo..."

We knew there were two monsters, and we were working under the assumption that those monsters were trying to trigger infighting. That meant we had to remember who said what. If we wanted to identify anyone suggesting false information or choices that would lead us to ruin, we had to organize everyone's statements, and it was a massive headache.

So while one person proposed something and another shot it down, over and over again,

"I have an idea."

A woman politely raised her hand and spoke.

"This is the Tower, yes, but I've played a lot of similar games. And from what I've seen... in one-on-one situations, monsters have the advantage over normal humans... but when all humans fight all monsters, the citizens win. No exceptions."

"Isn't that just because the game is balanced that way? You're talking about a game."

"Right. But in games like this, the moment one, maybe two or more humans die... things swing hard against the human side."

"...What's your point?"

"This only applies to game logic, but... I wanted to say the human side is strongest when everyone is alive. So I'd like to suggest this. How about we all move together as one group?"

"All of us together?"

"Yes. In these games, the monster side's basic strategy is usually to pick people off one by one. They lose if they fight all humans at once, so they split people up... then create one-on-one situations and eat them one by one."

"So to avoid getting picked off, we just stay grouped the whole time?"

"Yes."

"Is this from the game Among Us?"

"...Yes."

The moment someone named the game exactly, the woman blushed a little. She looked embarrassed about bringing up a game in such a serious atmosphere.

Still, what she said made sense. Even in games, it's the most intuitive strategy, and close to a guaranteed win.

"Who doesn't know that?"

It was such an obvious winning strategy that game designers always built counters for it.

"If we move together, sure, no one gets killed. But did you even read this properly earlier?"

<Floor 23>
-Find and kill two False Entities. They will target the climbers' lives.
-Every day that passes, one Penalty will be given to the climbers.
-Every day before sunset, there is a Daily Mission you must carry out. If any mission remains incomplete, a very severe penalty will be given.

"...Mission."

"Exactly. Mission."

From what we'd already discussed, everyone's missions were scattered all over the village. Which meant if we stayed clumped together, we'd inevitably run out of time before finishing all missions.

"It says 'very severe penalty' right there. I have zero intention of taking that. I've never even seen the Tower use wording like 'very severe.' We have to do the missions no matter what. I bet everyone else feels the same."

"...If all of us together isn't possible, then at least moving in pairs..."

"That sounds even worse than all of us moving together."

I opposed that idea too.

"Moving in twos is high risk, too. There are too many angles for mind games."

If two people moved together and only one came back, we'd obviously suspect the one who returned.

If I were a monster, I'd exploit that suspicion and just disappear without saying anything. A player whose partner vanished would be suspected as a monster one hundred percent.

Or the opposite. What if a monster shamelessly killed someone, came back, and started acting wronged? What if it dodged suspicion by exploiting that reverse psychology? Same result, still fatal.

"...Hmm."

"Hm."

So the discussion circled back to the same place again. We read each other's faces and waited for a usable idea.

"Wait."

"Yes?"

"Look at the sky. It's gotten darker than before."

"...We're out of time."

Time to choose. We couldn't stay here forever.

"...We have to split up."

"Yeah. The one who dies was weak."

No, there was never really a choice. Nobody here was irrational enough to accept a "very severe penalty," and we had failed to identify the monsters through conversation... so even if it was the worst option, we had to pick the only one left.

"...Let's survive."

"Worry about yourselves."

After one last exchange of glances, the players scattered in different directions.

...

I'd shown my strength earlier, so nobody was likely to ambush me...

Please, let everyone else be safe too.

"Hoo."

The mission itself wasn't hard. More precisely, it wasn't hard, just annoying.

The items needed to complete it were scattered everywhere, and the work itself was unfamiliar, so it took time. Even so, I burned mana and did my best to finish it. I actually finished faster than most people.

After returning to the campfire, I waited for the others to come back. Every time one person returned, I relaxed a little more. When everyone finally returned in one piece, I let out a sigh of relief. It looked like day one would pass without incident.

"Anyone hurt?"

"Everyone looks fine."

"What if one of us got replaced by a monster? That person's already dead and..."

"If it can fool us at that level, we're doomed anyway, so let's stay calm."

The sky was much darker than before, but no message window appeared, so sunset probably hadn't come yet. That meant we'd successfully avoided the severe penalty.

"So what now?"

"First, we check the Penalty we get... then wait for the next mission."

"I think we should sleep while we can. What about night watch?"

The village infrastructure was fully intact, so each person could've used their own room.

"Let's just bring the beds out and sleep together. No point taking extra risk."

"Sounds good."

It seemed more reasonable to give up a little privacy and sleep together than to wake up to a corpse in the morning.

So we carried beds out from nearby buildings and arranged them in a circle around the campfire. (We were superhuman, so we could sleep even in the cold.) Then we set an order for night watch.

"Then... let's rest while we can."

"Yep."

I sank into a soft bed. The ominous sky had turned completely black now, but that deep black looked cleaner and cooler than daytime. Honestly, it didn't feel much different from a normal night sky.

...

...

The moment I lay down, I realized it. I was pretty exhausted. Physically I was fine, but mentally I was under heavy stress. It made sense. Everyone except me felt like an enemy.

"Still, this is a relief."

A voice came from the bed beside me. A female player stared at the sky and murmured, almost like she was talking to herself.

"What's a relief?"

"While climbing the Tower... I've seen so many fucking bastards. Backstabbing is standard. One bastard even tried to jump me at night... and there was this guy who did something obviously wrong, then shamelessly asked what the problem was. You know the type, people you can't reason with."

"...Well, people like that are everywhere."

"Even so, I'm glad people here at least talk like humans. Doesn't look like we have complete idiots, and no total personality trainwrecks either... It's proof, right? The monsters can't make a move. Because we're not giving them openings."

"...Yeah. That's true."

Usually, when five people gather, one of them is trash. But we had eight here, and no trolls.

"Maybe it's because there are two monsters balancing the numbers. Monsters are already enough trouble. If we also had lunatics, we'd be screwed."

"We did get lucky."

"Haha."

A few players chuckled softly.

Yeah. These people could at least be reasoned with. If we kept discussing like this without losing our heads... we could clear Floor 23 in one shot, with no casualties.

"We're clearing this, no matter what."

"Yeah."

A floor that could definitely be cleared, as long as rational people gathered and kept making rational decisions.

Maybe I should have realized it right then.

[Night has fallen.]

This was not the outcome the Tower wanted.

[A Penalty has been applied.]

"?"

When I regained consciousness, nothing below my neck would move. No, that phrasing is slightly off. It wasn't that I couldn't move below my neck. I couldn't feel anything below it at all, as if that part was gone. I tried to move, but it felt like there was no body to move in the first place.

...

The moment I reflexively tried to raise mana, I realized this wasn't reality. There was no mana to raise. I wanted to let out a hollow laugh at how absurd this was, but I didn't even have a tongue. Were only my eyes and brain floating in empty space?

-Bzzzt.

A small TV sat in front of me. I had no eyelids to blink, no muscles to turn my gaze. I was being forced to watch it.

'Ha. I get it.'

At that moment, I grasped what this penalty was. That TV was going to play something shocking. Probably to shake my mind apart. Maybe it would show my future downfall, or me getting torn apart by monsters disguised as players. Maybe they interpreted the keyword "courage" as the ability to face fear.

But I'd already gone through a similar gimmick on Floor 3, so all I could do was snort.

'They must think a regressor's mind is a joke.'

'Come.'

Try tearing me to pieces. Boil me alive. Do whatever you want... I'd endure it. I'd already crossed too many brutal battlefields to be shaken by cheap tricks like this.

I steeled my resolve and tightened my mind. Until the very moment the TV started, I wasn't nervous at all.

But there was one thing I had overlooked.

'...Huh?'

What I feared the most, what I wanted to see the least, wasn't myself suffering.

'...Ah.'

It was watching Ji-won suffer, while I could do nothing but watch.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried