WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 253

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The regressor gets lost (7)

There are things you only feel after everything is over.

You do not notice while you're sitting in a chair, but the moment you stand up to go to the bathroom, your head spins and your lower back flares with pain.

Or you stop after a sudden sprint, and nausea rises while your whole body trembles.

Or the food is so good that you keep eating without thinking, and then your stomach feels like it's about to burst.

"Ugh..."

My situation was the same. Keeping 'Mana Filter' active nonstop while repeating regressions must have been far more exhausting than I thought. Just sitting here in a daze after returning to reality was enough to make my stomach churn.

It was like having to draw circles with your left hand all day while living normally. It is not exactly difficult, but if you keep doing it, overload hits sooner or later. Then once you are finally free, the recoil messes up your body.

"I'll... lie down for a bit."

"Take it easy. Want me to lie down with you?"

"That'd be nice."

I rested my head on a pillow and looked up at the ceiling. Only then did it really hit me that we were back. We escaped. We survived. We somehow cleared that poison-filled Floor I had feared so much.

Without the trait Girl's Cheer, I would have been trapped forever. Without Ji-won, same thing. If the King of the Maze had no family, I would have been trapped. If he had not handed over the throne, I would have been trapped. A miracle on top of another miracle. We were insanely lucky. There was no other way to explain it.

Then thinking about the maze brought up a question.

"No, seriously, how did you pull off a ten-minute clear?"

"Huh? When?"

"Right before I entered Floor 25. Last cycle. You cleared it in a little over ten minutes. How did you do that?"

"Ah."

Choi Ji-won said "ah" like she had not expected me to point that out. I had wondered about it the whole time. How had she cleared this Floor? How had she cleared that huge maze in ten minutes?

"This is kind of hard to explain in words. The maze is roughly shaped like this, and the things you have to bring back are roughly here, right?"

She pulled out her phone and started drawing in the memo app. From what I could tell, she was sketching a rough map of the maze.

"The layout bends the paths on purpose... it was designed to make your route as long as possible. Right?"

"Yeah. Right."

"So I thought about it a lot. Like, how do I do this..."

If you only looked at straight-line distance, maybe it barely worked, but because it was a maze, that time should have been impossible. Then Ji-won marked certain points with Xs.

"But the weird thing is, this wall and... here. Here. Then here and here. If you break only six walls, a straight route opens up. So I activated Heart of Lightning Flash and gathered the items while breaking walls as fast as I could."

"...What?"

"I worked out a route where I could move while breaking the fewest walls possible. A sword is not exactly a tool for breaking walls, but with mana, it somehow worked. I ran out of mana later and got poisoned... but I can still move even when poisoned."

"...That works?"

I had completely ruled out breaking walls. Ji-won did the opposite and studied the most efficient way to break them. She had Heart of Lightning Flash, a top-tier doping skill. She had her invincible sword, Bung-bung. She trusted her own strength. So she just bulldozed through it.

She ran faster, hit harder, and had more mana. If your abilities can support it, that might actually be the fastest method. She proved it.

"No, I saw you come out in ten minutes, so I thought you had some genius trick..."

From my side, I did not know what to call it. Disappointing? Sad? I thought Ji-won had found some clever strategy of her own, but hearing she just powered through it made me let out a long sigh.

"Wait, did you use my clear time as a clue?"

"Yeah."

"...Sorry. I did not think that far ahead. I was just trying to test whether Mana Filter could stay active even in extreme conditions, and I wanted to teach you the technique... I was in a rush..."

Ji-won kept apologizing, saying she had been short-sighted. I calmly explained how I had cleared Floor 25, and she kept nodding in amazement.

"Whoa. You could do that?"

"...I did not know either."

"Like you said, once you bring all the items back, the King of the Maze suddenly turns into a goblin. Kill him and you clear. But I never thought you'd flip that around and pass the throne to another goblin..."

"Then how did you think I'd clear it?"

Her words implied she thought I would clear it some other way.

Now that I thought about it, that made sense. Ji-won must have believed I could clear it, or she would not have sent me into Floor 25 so calmly. But once I went in, I was close to despair because I had no strategy. Which meant there was probably some method I had missed.

"How did I think you'd clear it? You mentioned the 'Black Space' earlier, right? Quite a lot of players have found that place."

"Yeah, and?"

Other players knew about the Black Space too? I thought it was some secret area only I knew. Hearing that everyone knew it made me feel strangely bitter.

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I found the Black Space by focusing on mana. Anyone who reaches Floor 25 is a top-tier player with talent and mana control. Of course other players would find it too.

Ji-won continued.

"If you try to force the King of the Maze into that place... his immortality gets half undone. Not completely, just a little over half. I did not test it myself, but it came from an acquaintance of an older player I met on Floor 23."

"...Yeah. I tried that too."

So someone besides me had tried that perverted method. The world really was big, and full of people who did weird things.

"The problem is, if immortality is only half undone, the King of the Maze still does not die..."

"Still does not die?"

"But in that state, they say if you bring only two 'items,' the King of the Maze dies. I heard this method takes around twenty minutes, so I thought you'd clear it that way."

"...What?"

So grinding the King of the Maze against the Black Space to weaken immortality was the same... but in that state, two items were enough?

If you optimized really, really hard... collecting two items itself would take ten minutes. Going back to the King of the Maze and rubbing him against the Black Space would take five. Returning to the starting point would take five. Time-wise, it was possible...

...

The idea of removing only half his immortality and then clearing it head-on... that was a way of thinking I had never reached. It was surprising, and kind of fun.

"Still, whatever... we cleared it, so it's fine. Right?"

"Right, right."

"...Should we rest now?"

"Shall we?"

We looked at each other and smiled. It was a little awkward, and a little warm. After laughing for a long while, I buried my face in the pillow and wrapped my arm around Ji-won's shoulder.

"Thank you."

"Me too."

I fell asleep almost instantly, and when I woke up, the arm that had been under her head was resting neatly on my stomach. She had probably moved it so it would not go numb and trigger a regression.

"Whoa."

The reward from Floor 25 was, unexpectedly, an incredibly useful item.

-Transformation Ring [Enhanced]
-While wearing this ring, you can change the form of your clothing. The appearance changes, but the material and properties do not.
-Enhanced so properties can change too.

Using this Transformation Ring was very simple.

First, touch the clothes you normally wear while wearing the ring. I touched my pajamas.

Second, put on armor.

Third, pour mana into the ring, and the armor changed into the shape of pajamas. Even the soft texture stayed the same, but when I scraped it with a blade, it did not even get nicked.

Like a cosmetic item sold in a game, it let you freely wear whatever you wanted while keeping your defense.

Of course, something this useful was a limited perk for some people. If you tried this with a ring that did not have [Enhanced], they said it turned into stiff, angular armor shaped like pajamas. So clearing Floor 25 quickly really did matter.

It was useful for more than appearance too. Armor was not comfortable, and it restricted movement, so this was pure upside. You could even make your opponent lower their guard.

"How do I look?"

Ji-won had also switched back to the pants-and-dress-shirt look she used in the Tutorial. Jeans and a dress shirt were not practical... but she looked pretty, so it worked. If it looked good, that was enough. (Of course she'd change before going to Floor 26.)

"If an item like this exists, why were players at official events always wearing armor?"

"Maybe to make people drop their guard. And to manage their public image."

"That makes sense."

We took about a week to sort our rewards and let our bodies and minds rest. I did dream about the King of the Maze drenched in blood, but even if I felt a bit sorry, we had done it by mutual agreement, so I decided to let it go. (I still woke up in a panic.)

After that, we ate good food, slept as much as we wanted, went on dates, played games, and did everything we wanted.

Then it was time to regress.

Time to move forward.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 25.]

Clearing a Floor I had already cleared was not hard. If that Floor was a maze, even more so.

I quickly cleared Floor 25, then

"Let's go."

entered Floor 26 right away.

-You have entered Floor 26.

And the moment we stepped in, we met again.

"...Anael?"

"Jun-ho-nim! It is an honor to see you again!"

Anael, the placard angel who had been waiting for us on Floor 26.

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