WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 235

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The regressor is brave? (3)

<Floor 24>
-Escape.

"..."

When did I regress? I slowly lowered my head and kept clenching and unclenching my hand. None of this felt real.

My mind was surprisingly clear. Just a moment ago, I really felt like I was possessed by something. Now, I am back again. It was like scarfing down insanely spicy tteokbokki, gasping for air, then somehow ending on a clean aftertaste.

Of course, being clear-headed did not mean I was truly okay. What I had just seen was still vivid in my mind.

"Huuuuuu..."

I let out a long breath. That ghost was terrifying. Seriously terrifying. I read somewhere that you should watch out for ghosts that laugh, and for the dancing ghost. Supposedly ghosts act opposite to how they were when alive.

But the woman I just saw was laughing while dancing.

In short, she was one ridiculously pissed-off ghost.

"Why the hell are you taking it out on me?"

If she was angry, she should have gone after the thing that made her angry. Why was she spinning my neck around and around and around? What did I do? People say women scatter their irritation everywhere when they are mad, but there should still be limits. That was one thing I liked about Ji-won, she was easygoing.

"...She is not coming over because she heard me cursing, right?"

I glared at the warped door for a second. It was quietly shut. A ghost barging into the starting point felt like bad manners, so I decided this place was safe.

-Flop.

I threw myself onto the cheap bed. I was scared out of my mind, but I still had things to do. My biggest strength was gathering information, making plans, and carrying them out through regression. Brute-forcing things with my body was not my style.

Thinking simply, three major questions came to mind.

First, what was the correct way to "escape"?

This floor did not give a detailed objective. It just said "escape." No mention of where, how, or when.

"I have to figure that out."

I could not take that at face value and think, "Do I just escape however?" After Floors 21 through 23, I had learned that the archangel running this floor loved word games.

Floor 21? It said survive. And yes, you could clear it by surviving. But behind that was a suffering girl.

Floor 22? It used an in-game setting, and it looked like all we had to do was turn in a submission, but underneath that was conflict among players over hidden pieces.

Floor 23 told us to eliminate the False Entity, then pulled the stunt of filling all ten slots with players. With this bastard, you had to assume there was always a twist.

"Escape, escape..."

A few ways to escape from a psychiatric hospital came to mind right away, but I did not have enough information yet, so I set that aside.

Second, why had my vision narrowed? Bluntly speaking, why had I gotten dumber?

Thinking back on what I did in the last run, it was very strange. The moment I stepped into the corridor, I wandered around in fear, then got taken out by the ghost and regressed. It was exactly what a generic horror game character would do, and that was what felt wrong.

"...If I fought, would I have won?"

First of all, I never even considered resisting. I had a sword at my waist, and I even had a magic scabbard that supplied weapons whenever I felt intense emotions, but I still did not think about fighting.

Was I just too scared? But when people get cornered, do they not at least flail and resist? Then what about mana? Why did I not use mana? Did I become an idiot the second I stepped into that corridor? If I stayed there too long, could it affect me even after regression? Was I getting stupid because all I did was climb and never rest?

When my imagination got as far as thinking that the ghost I had just seen might even regress because of "extreme fear," I shook my head and snapped out of it. That was too much.

Anyway, sticking only to clear facts, I had failed to even think about fighting. Maybe I was too terrified, or maybe it was the Tower's intention. If it was the Tower's intention, testing resistance by coating my body in mana might be worth trying, but it would probably fail.

Just like Floor 23.

"This bastard is trying to make us move the way he wants."

Most likely, it was set up so we could not resist. That was its style.

Then the trait I got on Floor 21 came to mind.

-Girl's Cheer [A]
-5 seconds before danger strikes, you can sense an ominous feeling. "Always be happy!"

On this floor, Girl's Cheer did not activate.

Even though it was A-grade.

Did that mean the ghost from earlier was not a threat? Or was it hinting at something else? Or was Girl's Cheer just a trash trait?

"Ugh, Areum-ssi."

After briefly imagining the girl from Floor 21 living happily, I decided to solve the last question in this run.

The third and final question.

"Here I go."

Could the walls in this space be broken?

There were no windows here. I could not see outside. All that existed were yellowed walls. They looked like concrete, but honestly they did not seem that sturdy.

My hypothesis was that once I stepped into the corridor, my thinking narrowed. Fear crushed me, and I could no longer think normally.

Then what if I never went into the corridor at all? What if I smashed and smashed and smashed the walls from here, and reached somewhere outside the building?

A normal human could not do that, but I was not a normal human to begin with.

Neither was this place.

"Haaaa..."

I circulated my mana. A faint fog spread along the floor, and my heart throbbed ominously. I had invested 20 points in my Vitality stat, so it probably would not suddenly stop.

-Bzzzz.

The tip of my sword glowed white-hot and shook up and down, unable to contain the force. In my mind, I pictured a giant ice awl. If possible, I wanted to end this in one shot.

"...!"

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!!!

When it felt like enough, I fired the gathered force forward. It was not even full power. In game terms, it was like a normal finisher below a super ultimate. But the wall was so weak that it shattered instantly.

"Hoo."

Dust filled the air. How far had it punched through? I manipulated the fog on the floor and swept the dust away.

"...Huh?"

Then I had no choice but to gape.

What I saw was far too familiar.

I had fired my mana to the left. In corridor terms, that was the blocked direction. So there should have been nothing there, but beyond the wall was a hospital room.

Curtains, yellowed walls, six beds, a hospital room exactly like the one I had started in.

But my mana had not pierced just one wall. It pierced the next wall too. And the one after that. And the one after that.

"..."

What was there to say? They all looked exactly like my starting room.

As if space itself were repeating.

"That makes no sense."

If not right, then left. Up. Down. Diagonal. I broke walls in every direction I could imagine, and what appeared each time was the same room as the first one. By the time I had gone so far that I could barely remember where I started,

"Haa, haa, haa."

I accepted it. This was not a space ruled by normal physical laws.

A hospital could not possibly be this huge.

Every room even had a door, and when I opened one and looked outside, I saw the corridor from my memory. Then where did the corridor in that other room up there connect to?

Should I regress? No. I should keep breaking through in one direction. I should do as much as I can, and if that still fails, then I would regress.

"...Just a little."

But before that, just a little rest. Just a little.

I flopped onto an old bed and slowly closed my eyes. Drowsiness came rushing in. My body was sturdy anyway, so lying down for a moment was fine.

Just a little... just a little rest...

"...nim."

Murmuring voices.

"Ho... nim."

Giggling laughter.

"Jun-ho nim!"

"Huurk!"

I jolted upright and looked around. A nurse noona stood in front of me with a sigh. She glanced around, then spoke in a small voice.

"Jun-ho! I told you today is your regular checkup day. You cannot keep sleeping sprawled out like this. Hmm?"

"Ah, uh, I..."

"You never get it together. Hurry up. Exam Room 1. The doctor is waiting."

"...Yes, noona."

I got up from the bed slowly, but naturally. Grandmas and grandpas on the other beds were watching TV and laughing. The sunlight pouring in through the window was pleasantly warm.

"Hahaha, Yoo Jae-seok is the funniest these days."

"Not him, I like... what was his name again?"

Leaving the elders behind, I stepped into the corridor and naturally turned right. It was the route I took every day, so of course I knew it by heart. Other patients and nurses passed me by.

That was how I arrived at Exam Room 1.

Knock, knock, knock. I knocked and waited a moment, then heard a voice from inside telling me to come in.

"You are late."

It sounded like a scolding, but there was a faint smile on the doctor's lips. I sat down, shyly scratching the back of my head without offering an excuse. Being late was hardly a one-time thing for me.

"Since you are late... shall we continue from where we left off last time?"

The doctor slid open a drawer and pulled out a thick stack of documents.

"Uh... where did I leave off?"

"...One second. Ah, here it is. It ended at, 'After leaving behind the bizarre old man I met on Floor 15, President Michael Zetter of the Association came to find me...' Continue from there, please."

"Ah, right. So what happened with Michael Zetter was..."

"Yes, go on."

This place was a hospital.

A psychiatric hospital.

I was receiving mental treatment by telling the doctor about my delusions.

"Well, you see... the world was getting invaded."

The story I made up, about what happened in the "Tower."

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