WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 237

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The regressor is brave? (5)

A protagonist wakes up in an unknown space. Even though he knows it is ominous, he has no choice but to move if he wants to escape. At some point, he runs into a terrifying monster and gets brutally killed...

Then, in the very next moment, he wakes up at that same starting point. Was that just a nightmare? Or did it really happen? He wipes the sweat off the back of his neck and moves again.

"Aaaagh!"

And again, he is brutally killed. And again, he wakes up. In that place where everything began.

Only then does he realize it. This place is a giant sand hell he cannot escape...

That kind of story gets used a lot in horror works. A protagonist trapped in a nightmare they cannot wake up from struggles through hell and finally escapes, or thinks they escaped only to realize it is still a dream.

Ah, for reference, I watch horror games and movies on YouTube. Playing them myself is too scary, but watching videos is fun.

Anyway, back to the point.

"Nightmare."

If this floor is designed like the works I know... then there is a high chance this place is a dreamscape. I have seen plenty of endings where someone smashes through every trial, finally escapes, and returns to reality. A positive version of "ah, fuck, it was a dream," I guess.

So then, how do you wake up from a dream? The first thing that comes to mind is obvious.

"...Suicide?"

Suicide.

A lot of works describe dying in a dream as the way back to reality. I have never killed myself in a lucid dream, so I do not know for sure, but people say the shock of dying wakes you up. So the first solution that comes to mind is suicide.

But I cannot just do it blindly, because there are also endings in the "you killed yourself and could never return" category. The kind where if you die inside the nightmare, your mind dies there too, and you become a permanent vegetable in reality.

What if I kill myself, my mind really dies, and that does not trigger Regression? Then it is checkmate. I have an absurd cheat ability called Regression, and my journey still ends right here.

I do not know whether suicide is the real answer or a trap. One thing is clear after comparing the risks. The right move is to clear Floor 24 the normal way.

If I choose suicide: instant clear or permanent death.

If I choose the standard route: it takes a long time, but I can clear it eventually.

If you had to pick one, anyone would choose the latter. Try to arrive thirty minutes early, and you might leave thirty years early instead.

"I've got my direction."

The next thing to test is the hallway.

I close my eyes and sink deep into my mind. Consciousness, then below that the subconscious, then far enough down to reach the soul.

I stand still as if meditating, and soon I can feel the outline of my soul. Back on Floor 23, when the mist was tightening around me, the situation was too urgent to use this. But with enough time like now, it is a trick I can pull off.

Though, if this is a dream, why can I feel my soul? Right, maybe this is something between dream and reality. Good thing I did not kill myself.

"Right foot... left foot..."

Keeping that awareness of my soul, I push only half my body outside the hospital room. Still nothing, so a little more. A little more. Then, the moment my whole body is exposed to the hallway.

"...!!!"

An aura packed with the emotion called fear crashes down on me from all directions...! I cannot even think about resisting, and I bolt straight back into the room.

"Wow."

Was it Floor 17? On that floor that tested mana, it felt like a very thin thread connected to my soul. Focus, gently cut the thread, done.

But that hallway... it feels like throwing myself into a swimming pool. I am shoving my body into a place full of force that directly affects the soul. It is like wildly slashing a sword in a pool. Nothing changes.

"...It's certain."

I am not imagining it. This is certain. The moment I leave this room, the range of my thinking shrinks massively. More precisely, I forget the very fact that I can resist. This floor is designed that way.

Fear comes from being unable to resist. It comes from being unable to respond. The moment you see it, you have to feel, "I need to run." That is fear.

But if a player goes out there, swings a weapon, and steamrolls everything? That is not horror. That is action-adventure. So the instant you leave this hospital room, you lose the driving force that lets you resist.

"I think I get it now."

It is the same in horror games. You run in panic, and at some point the ghost stops chasing you. You enter a safe zone, and then the player can finally breathe again. Sometimes the ghost disappears the moment you finish a specific interaction deep in the map. You do not win by fighting. You win by running.

The dancing ghost? Somewhere in one of the rooms connected to the hallway... there has to be an item that lets me escape that thing. There are a lot of rooms, but I can brute-force that search.

Run, find the counter, move forward again. Even if I get caught and die to the ghost, it is fine. Information stays. Repeat this process enough times and I can escape. That is certain. This is Floor 24's intention. Now that I have figured out the direction, clearing is possible as long as I invest enough time.

Yeah, guaranteed clear. Do not get swept away by fear. Keep hope that I can clear it. Use my head calmly and find the only escape route. This is right. This is... right, but.

"..."

Then why is this dark, ugly desire crawling up from one corner of my heart?

Do I really have to clear it this way? Is this truly the only method?

This is not reality, so my limiters are off. I can use much more power than usual with no risk of triggering Regression. That dancing woman is scary as hell, sure, but if we fight head-on, it feels like I could win. That crazy doctor too, feels like I could just cut him down with my sword. Do I really have to go the long way around?

If I go out into the hallway, I lose the will to fight. If I stay in this safe room, nothing changes. Break the wall, and it only repeats the same room. Is there no new option between those choices?

Neither black nor white, but something in between... a new... third path...

In between...

"In between?"

Then suddenly.

An idea hit me.

Yellowed walls. A warped door. I open it, poke only my head into the hallway, and look around. If I draw it roughly, it looks like this.

"Then from here..."

The left side is a blocked wall. My guess is touching that wall will not lead to anything good. Even if there is a hidden piece there, the odds are high something equally terrifying is sleeping with it.

Then what about the right? At the end of the long hallway, the path bends right again. A route I have already taken, terrain I already know. A familiar hallway. If I follow that path, I will meet the dancing woman.

Also, the hallway does not have only hospital rooms. There are plenty of other rooms too. If I search those, an item to escape the dancing ghost should appear. Just a guess, but still.

But what if... I break the right wall of the room I am in?

-Bang!

Just like before, an identical hospital room appears.

The key here is the hallway.

If I leave this copied room, it connects to the starting point of the hallway. I clearly moved one room to the right from the original room, yet somehow it still connects to the start of the hallway. Up, down, same thing. If I break walls and move, the result is exactly the same every time. Total spatial distortion, a supernatural phenomenon.

But what if I create an environment where this "mystery" cannot happen at all? Meaning... I completely break the wall connected to the hallway.

Without even considering cases where my body might be strained, I blast out as much mana as possible and destroy the wall. Not just the section connected to the hallway, I also break the part where the copied room and hallway connect.

"...Oh ho."

The result is surprising.

The place that should have held a "copied room" originally has some bizarre lab there. There is a huge human body model too. It looks exactly like a place where something would jump out. But now that spot is replaced by a copied hospital room.

When I completely remove the wall and make "spatial distortion" impossible, the copied room simply occupies that place instead. I am not even sure it will work, but thankfully, it does.

On top of that, this space gets treated as a "starting point room," so I feel no mental pressure here. I can use mana just fine. I still have the will to fight. I can draw my sword too.

If you have seen this much, you already know what I am about to do.

Connect copied room after copied room, keep connecting them, keep tearing down walls linked to the hallway...

"Just you wait."

I am going all the way to the end.

Far away, I see the silhouette of a woman with messy hair. In a windowless hallway, under flickering fluorescent lights, she dances while laughing as if her mouth were ripped open. Just looking at her sends chills all over my skin.

The moment I look away from her, even for a second, she will vanish and start following behind me. Then if I turn around? She will sprint at me across the ceiling, rat-a-tat-tat-tat, and twist my neck around.

"Hey."

But this time my situation is different. I have a weapon in hand, and my mana can move normally. That is because I am still judged to be inside the "starting point."

Every right-side wall along the hallway I came through is torn open. Copied rooms repeat, and I reached this point by pushing straight ahead like I was digging a tunnel.

Even while mechanically breaking walls with mana, I do not take my eyes off her. I blink one eye, then the other, keeping my field of view active. Maybe the dancing ghost has a condition where she can only get behind you after disappearing from sight, because she is still dancing.

Little by little, I get closer to the ghost. Even with intense mana use, there is no risk of Regression.

"You, just wait right there."

Let's see who wins if we fight.

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