WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 258

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The regressor is troubled (5)

Before I get into what happened in reality, I want to talk about the reward I checked out on Floor 1.

"Oooh."

Back on Floor 1, there was clearly something new I hadn't seen before. A tiny red button sat in the corner of my vision.

It bugged me a little, so I thought, can I just get rid of it? And it actually vanished. Apparently the on-off function worked purely on will.

Anyway, I thought about pressing this red button.

-Entering.

"...Oooh."

I'd been moved into an empty gray space. Fundamentally, this place wasn't any different from "Floor 1," but I could reshape reality here however I imagined.

Imagine a building rising, and a building rose. Command a forest to grow, and a forest appeared.

I hadn't felt that odd sense of omnipotence in a while, so I lost track of time testing the features.

"Ah."

I'd been at it long enough that I nearly forgot I was supposed to meet Ji-won. Roughly thirty minutes had passed, by my estimate.

What excuse could I give? Say I'd fallen asleep for a bit? Or that an angel suddenly showed up? Whatever excuse I came up with, I knew none of them would properly explain being thirty minutes late.

"...Um, Ji-won-ah?"

So the moment I got back to reality, I approached Choi Ji-won in an extremely low posture, watching for her reaction.

"Hm? What?"

Choi Ji-won didn't look angry at all. She wasn't hinting at anything, and she wasn't putting on an act. She really wasn't angry.

"...Are you okay?"

"About what?"

"I was pretty late, wasn't I... sorry..."

"Late how?"

"Huh?"

Only then did Choi Ji-won sense something was off and press me.

"Thirty minutes? Only three minutes passed."

According to Choi Ji-won, only three minutes had passed in reality.

"No way."

That was when I finally realized what Floor 26's reward was.

"Time seems to flow slower in there."

Floor 26's reward was a space where time flowed slower, given to the player as a gift. They'd bragged it was an incredible reward, and it really was.

"I'm going to go test this out a bit."

"Hmm... then I'll go do that thing we talked about earlier."

After getting Ji-won's okay, I went straight back to Floor 1 and tested the gray space every which way. According to other players, some called it the "Training Chamber," others called it the "Room of Spirit and Time"... I decided to just call it the Training Chamber for convenience.

Anyway, this Training Chamber had a few unique rules.

First. There was a tenfold difference between the inside of the Training Chamber and reality. Ten seconds inside equaled one second outside. In other words, even spending the same amount of time, you could use it far more efficiently inside the Training Chamber.

And second, no matter what happened inside the Training Chamber, the physical body's condition never changed.

Your grip wouldn't tear. Drop your sword by accident and it wouldn't cut you. Even if you tried to hurt yourself on purpose, you wouldn't take any damage. Also, no matter how much mana you used, it refilled almost instantly. For someone training, that was an incredible advantage. It meant there was no risk of accidentally injuring yourself.

Of course, calling it a pure advantage wasn't quite right either, since no matter how hard you exercised, your muscles never got hurt, so there was no growth. Even if you strained your mana until your heart felt like it would rip apart, it had no real effect on your mana control ability. It felt like moving a puppet shaped like my body. "Growth" itself was completely excluded from the equation.

"...So it's telling me to practice technique 'only.'"

This space wasn't for physical growth. It was a space for honing technique. Even without any change to the body, using time ten times more efficiently was still an advantage on its own.

Or maybe not just me. Every player who'd cleared Floor 26 had this same function... which explained why the people I saw in the plaza carried themselves the way they did. It seemed like a player's strength would end up split cleanly into before Floor 26 and after Floor 26.

That was probably also why, before I regressed, they hadn't recognized Choi Ji-won. They had this honey pot of their own, so of course they'd casually dismiss anyone making a name for themselves on the lower floors.

Well, that kind of misunderstanding could be corrected with enough time. This space probably meant a lot to them too, but for me, someone who'd been fundamentally locked out of "training using mana," it opened up a whole new set of possibilities.

"I'll deal with this later."

Still, it wasn't something I needed to worry about right now.

"Ready?"

"Yeah. I got in touch. He said he'd see us on Floor 26."

The Association president. Michael Zetter. We were supposed to meet him.

Floor 26 was, in every sense, a sample specimen of a closed society. Both the entrance and exit were fixed, so there were no secrets here. Anyone reaching Floor 26 had to be among the absolute top tier, so everyone knew everyone. You could think of it as a kind of small country town.

"That's Michael Zetter and... Choi Ji-won."

"Who's the guy next to her?"

"Some guy named Jun-ho... his ability is..."

"Ahh."

So the meeting between Choi Ji-won and Michael Zetter wasn't a secret either. People would now view Choi Ji-won as firmly part of Zetter's faction. Well, we were going to regress anyway, so it didn't matter.

Anyway, to avoid unnecessary attention, we settled into a "cyberpunk" themed bar that Association players apparently used. A robot waiter set some suspicious-looking liquid down on the table.

"Zetter. Do you know why we asked for this meeting?"

"I've heard the gist of it. It's about Dok Su-hee, isn't it."

Michael Zetter answered without his expression changing a bit. So he'd known after all.

"First... let me apologize. I deceived you all without meaning to. I want to restore your trust."

He bowed his head, then went ahead and drained the mysterious drink on the table before continuing.

"At the time of our last meeting, I already knew about the incident Dok Su-hee caused. It's a sensitive matter, though, and you mentioned you were close with her. We were also caught off guard on our end, so I was reluctant to bring it up."

"Did you have any intention of hurting us?"

"None whatsoever. If anything, I'd say I've been acting for your sake."

Zetter answered calmly even to Choi Ji-won's somewhat sharp question.

"Everything I do is for the sake of all players, and for the entire world. I hope you'll believe that."

"Is it true that you have absolutely nothing to do with what Su-hee did on Floor 26?"

This time I was the one asking.

"I can't say I have absolutely nothing to do with it. But I never gave her any order."

"What exactly is that Escape Contract the player from the United States Government pushed on us? Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes, I know. Though I'm also bound by an agreement not to disclose its contents. I'll just say this much, it's a contract made with the US president."

"There's a war going on right now. Why would you have made a contract with the president?"

"It was made before the war started."

"You joined Floor 26 relatively recently, didn't you? How did you get hold of the contract?"

"We purchased the 'Escape Contract' that the Empress sold."

"So where is Su-hee right now?"

"Inside the Tower. We don't know her exact whereabouts either."

"Does what happened this time have anything to do with the 'mask' obtained on Floor 24? Whether Su-hee was deceived, or she deceived someone else."

"Not as far as I know."

"That medal you gave us. Why'd you give it to us? Be honest. Was there some kind of trick to it?"

"It was given out of pure goodwill. There was no trick involved."

Including some fairly rude questions, I kept firing off question after question like a machine gun, and Zetter kept answering. My questions were aggressive, and his answers were textbook.

"All right, last question."

Choi Ji-won said, tilting her head to one side.

"I can detect the subtle signs someone shows when they're lying. Changes in heart rate, pore dilation, pupil changes, that kind of thing. No matter how skilled a player is, they can't control those physiological responses."

"..."

"But during your last visit, you showed no sign of lying at all. And yet you still deceived us with a 'white lie.' On our end, we can't help but suspect your intentions. Did you know about this ability of mine beforehand?"

"No. I had no idea."

Michael Zetter shook his head.

"And as for the 'response' you're talking about... because of a side effect of my trait, those kinds of physiological reactions are much weaker in me than in others. Unless I'm feeling something truly intense, it doesn't show on the outside."

"...When you brought up the war, I did detect a tense response."

"That's how tense I was."

"Hmm..."

"I have no intention of harming any of you. If anything, I consider all of you humanity's insurance policy."

Zetter took another sip of the drink the robot waiter had brought.

"If something happens to me, someone will need to conquer this Tower, won't they. I want to earn your goodwill. I hope you'll believe me. What happened with Su-hee-yang... is my fault, for not preventing it in advance. But the idea that I gave the order is a complete misunderstanding."

It had simply been an unfortunate accident. Dok Su-hee couldn't even be reached by the Association anymore. She hadn't meant to harm any other players on Floor 26, he explained, and then Michael Zetter got up from his seat, saying he had to go soon.

"I'm rooting for all of you."

Showing us goodwill right to the end.

After Zetter left.

"Hmm."

Choi Ji-won pulled out the page from the "notebook" she'd secretly hidden in her clothes.

"It's fine."

"Right."

The notebook from Floor 24 that caught fire when someone nearby was lying. She'd traded a "mask," also obtainable on Floor 24, with another player for it, prepared just before this meeting.

We hadn't wanted to suspect Michael Zetter, but we didn't fully trust him either.

"Looks like he wasn't lying..."

Zetter hadn't lied. He hadn't deceived us. Sure, there was a chance he'd deceived us by "only mentioning the parts that were partially true," but even accounting for that, Michael Zetter's goodwill was real. In the parts where he said he didn't know Dok Su-hee's whereabouts and said he trusted us, there wasn't even room for that kind of trick.

"Still, just in case... let's keep that medal far away somewhere. Throwing it away feels excessive, though."

"I've got an unused warehouse in Gangwon-do. Want to leave it there?"

"...Are you rich?"

"Didn't you know?"

Anyway, that wrapped things up.

Let's just not get tangled up with Dok Su-hee anymore. Let's just give up on her. It looked like something in her had gone wrong.

People change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It just so happened she'd changed for the worse.

I had Ji-won anyway.

Dok Su-hee or whatever, for now, let's just focus on climbing the Tower.

The deepest part of the Association building. The most secretive space, one whose existence was known to no one below the level of the US president. A blue portal opened there, and Michael Zetter walked out.

"..."

He sat down in a chair that had clearly seen use. This room, shaped like an office, reflected Michael Zetter's tastes exactly. A desk, a chair, a computer, only the truly necessary things.

Except for the pile of elixirs stacked against one wall.

"Did the meeting wrap up well, President?"

Mahesh, the Indian ability user known for "short-term, highly interpretable future prediction," or sometimes called a "prophecy" ability, respectfully set a report down in front of Michael Zetter. Judging from the cover, it looked like a calculation of the damage taken from the war with the United States Government, and the numbers were nowhere near as large as they could have been.

"You're asking if it wrapped up well."

Zetter set the report down. He rummaged through his own clothes and placed a single sheet of paper on the desk.

His steady gaze stared into empty space. No, he was staring into the future.

Within a year, monsters would descend on Earth. If it really was the monsters from Floor 15 coming down on Earth, then no matter how hard Zetter tried, there would be unavoidable sacrifices.

It wasn't just Floor 15. Other floors could carry gimmicks that affected Earth too, and if no one conquered the Tower... humanity would go extinct.

He wanted to prevent that kind of catastrophe more than anything. This "war" happening right now was all groundwork laid to reduce the damage from that future. People were dying and getting hurt, but... it couldn't be helped. This was the most efficient method. This was the best he could do.

"I did my best."

Yes. His best.

It wasn't a lie that Zetter moved for the sake of humanity. He was a man who'd gotten this far on responsibility alone. Back in his student days, during his time as a soldier, and now, even as Association president...

We call someone a hero when they're ready to sacrifice themselves for others.

And Zetter was a hero.

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