WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 244

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The regressor is certain (3)

After chugging those insanely expensive potions like soft drinks, Choi Ji-won recovered.

"Jun-ho, can I think for a bit?"

"Uh, yeah."

Instead of explaining anything to me, she just gripped Bung-bung tightly and sank into thought.

"..."

"..."

Bung-bung vibrated every now and then, so they were clearly exchanging opinions, but I had no way of knowing what they were saying. It was maddening.

So what kind of floor is Floor 25? Is it meant for one person? Or multiple people? It seemed like poison was involved, so there was a high chance it was solo, but I still did not know.

And was Floor 25 not usually one of those easy floors where an archangel appears and you get a free clear? Ah, I guess that is not always true. Even on Floor 10, there was a Yeti instead of an angel. On Floor 15, there was an old man instead of an archangel. Not enough to generalize.

If it is poison, then I cannot clear it by ordinary means. So what exactly is Ji-won agonizing over right now? She does not look like someone despairing over an unsolvable problem. It looks more like she is forcing her way toward a tiny crack of hope.

"...Yes, unni. Can you talk right now?"

"..."

Soon, Choi Ji-won took out her phone and called someone. At first I could hear her talking, but then the call cut off abruptly. It looked like she was discussing Floor 25.

What am I supposed to do now?

Nothing. There is nothing I can do. So I waited.

I scrolled reels and shorts for a while, then flipped my phone over and lay down on the bed.

Endless waiting. At some point my legs started trembling without me noticing, so I sat up and checked the time. Only two hours had passed.

"Jun-ho."

"Uh, yeah?"

Right then, after finishing her call, Ji-won spoke first.

"Want to go on a date?"

"...To regress?"

"Yeah. I think we have to."

"Are you not open?"

"Yeah... A player carried out a terror attack and hid on the second floor of this building..."

"Damn..."

The famous restaurant we found online was closed. It had not taken direct damage, but the second floor of the same building had been attacked by a criminal player, so the area was sealed off.

Apparently, when the police and nearby players arrived, the player who had been robbing people escaped through a portal and hid. The police then locked down the building. If you enter through a first-floor portal, the exit spawns in the same location.

"These days, if you see someone missing an arm or an eye, be careful. I am saying this because you two look like my own kids."

"Ah, yes... thank you."

"All right."

In the end, we could not go to the restaurant we planned, so we took seats at a nearby cafe.

"So... do you think you figured anything out? Can I clear Floor 25?"

"..."

"Even if you cannot tell me Tower details, what are you planning now?"

"I will start with the key point, Jun-ho. I am planning to regress with you. A lot."

"..."

Choi Ji-won, who had stubbornly insisted we needed to reduce companion regressions, was now saying we needed to do a lot of them.

"If that is what you think, do you really think it is necessary? No exceptions?"

"...Yeah. It has to be done. I thought about it a lot, and I talked with other people too... this seems like the only way."

"..."

Has to be done, huh. Honestly, I was curious. Part of me wanted to just walk into Floor 25 right now.

"If that is what you think, then I trust you. More importantly, want to check this place out? How about here?"

But just like Ji-won trusts me when I speak, I decided to trust her when she spoke. No doubt, no second-guessing. I started preparing to regress with her.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 24.]

We cleared Floor 24 in an instant, and Choi Ji-won headed to Floor 25 again.

This time she came back in thirty minutes. She drank a bottle of potion, talked with Bung-bung about something all night, then...

"Jun-ho, want to go on a date?"

"...All right."

And once again, we regressed.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 24.]

"Jun-ho. Want to go on a date?"

"...All right."

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 24.]

"Jun-ho."

"Yeah."

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 24.]

I wiped sweat on the thigh of my pants. I traced the ceiling pattern like I was solving a maze. Oh, mold over there. I should clean that later.

"Jun-ho, in this cycle... I think I need to spend some time. Can you wait for me?"

"How long?"

"Maybe... a month?"

This was Choi Ji-won's house. I was lying on the living room sofa, staring at my phone. Two weeks had passed since that regression.

"Is there anything I can help with?"

"No. Just rest."

"...Okay."

It had been two weeks since Choi Ji-won locked herself in her room to work on something.

During that time, I had done nothing. If I got hungry, I ate. If I got sleepy, I slept. If I got bored, I looked at my phone. It was the textbook life of an unemployed bum, and physically, sure, it was comfortable.

"Haah."

But mentally, I was so uncomfortable I could not even put it into words. This excessive comfort kept tormenting me.

Fine, let me admit it.

I felt suffocated. I just hated this ignorance.

Normally, people do not know what is coming, and that is natural. One day your stocks can explode and make you rich overnight, or you can go in for a routine checkup and hear you have cancer. You can confess, sure they will obviously say yes, only to get rejected. You can spend big money to watch a game live, then your team gets obliterated.

Do people who die in traffic accidents that day know they are going to die? Of course not.

But I am different. I always moved with knowledge of the future. I would shut my eyes, throw myself into hardship, then move step by step using information about what came next. That is why this ignorance felt especially suffocating.

"...No, that is not it."

No. After thinking it over, it was a little different. It was not ignorance itself that suffocated me. It was being in a situation where I could do nothing.

As long as I had Regression, I could always act proactively. Maybe not in the first cycle, but after that, I always took the lead. I crushed crises. I broke through situations that felt like pure bullshit.

But what about now?

I can do nothing except watch Choi Ji-won, trust her, and wait. That felt unbearably suffocating, and I felt sorry too.

How many times had I trashed novels where the protagonist just gets dragged around instead of acting? And now I was exactly that. Lying around like an unemployed bum, waiting for my girlfriend to handle everything. A textbook kept man. I wanted to die.

No, this was not my fault. And it was not Choi Ji-won's fault either.

"Those fucking angel bastards."

The problem was the archangels who designed this Tower, and this garbage Regression ability that sends me back from one hit. It was not our fault. Do not mistake the enemy.

Wait. I chose to trust her, so I would wait to the end. Even if it was suffocating... I would wait a little longer.

Like a princess waiting for her prince, I prayed time would pass quickly.

One day, two days, a week, a month...

"Mail delivery?"

"Yes. It came from the United States."

"...Huh."

Around one month after regressing, a letter arrived from the U.S. The sender was unexpectedly Michael Zetter.

- Ms. Ji-won, and Mr. Jun-ho. This is Michael Zetter, president of the Association. It is difficult to contact you directly, so I am sending this letter.

- We are doing our best to reclaim the Association and stop human sacrifice. The resistance is stronger than expected, but I believe we can finish before the monster invasion begins.

- I checked the message you sent. Unfortunately, Miss Su-hee has not returned yet. We are also waiting for her to come back from the Tower.

- Mr. Jun-ho and Ms. Ji-won, I trust you are still focused on climbing the Tower. On behalf of humanity, thank you. I will remember your devotion. I will repay it.

- Let us all do our best in our own places.
Sincerely,
Michael Zetter

In short, he could not contact us directly, he was working hard, and we should keep climbing the Tower hard too.

"...Like we are doing this because we do not want to climb."

Michael Zetter probably sent this as a simple check-in, but it was not like we were avoiding climbing because we felt lazy. I literally could not enter, so what was I supposed to do?

I folded the letter carefully and went back to the internet. The U.S. was in a silent war, people were getting dragged into the Tower in broad daylight, and players were committing terror attacks, but the world still turned.

People still went to work. The internet still worked. Businesses still existed. A world that had not yet broken far outside the framework of ordinary human society.
What would happen if I told them monsters were coming soon?
Nobody knew about the collapse waiting ahead.
They were planting apple trees, unaware a meteor was about to fall.
Then again, even if they knew, would it change anything? What could an ordinary civilian do with that knowledge? At best, buy a personal bunker or stock supplies. Even then, one dragon breath and it would all melt anyway.
Humans are tiny in the face of natural-scale disasters. Maybe not knowing is better than living in fear every day.

"Ah."

Suddenly I realized they were not all that different from me.
We were the same in one way. Neither side could do anything right now.

A month and a half had passed since we regressed.

"Jun-ho, can you come here for a second?"

"Are you done?"

"Yeah."

Choi Ji-won.

Her long isolation was finally over.

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