WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 262

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The regressor proves himself (2)

Dark night. Snow flurries. The torches, our only real light source, threw a stark white against the falling snow. The face of the man who'd opened the door looked faintly strange, the firelight twisting its colors.

"Follow me, friends!"

He shouted it out with force, then marched ahead without even checking if anyone followed, the blond westerner. He nodded at the other westerners gathered in front of the log cabin, then started walking forward, brisk and certain, as if it were simply obvious we would follow.

Floor 27
- Help the warriors defeat the "dark mage under contract with a demon."

The message window rose right on cue. These bare-chested men in front of me didn't look like they could be the "black mage." They were warriors, plain and simple.

"It says to help the warriors... so I guess we follow them?"

"Seems right, but..."

The other players, glancing around uncertainly, got up from their seats and started following the men. Why did all of them go without shirts? Some kind of tradition?

"You there, woman! You've got the stance of a warrior!"

"If not for that strange scrap of cloth!"

The warriors, mid-walk, tossed jokes at the player in the bikini. She didn't seem to realize they were talking to her at first, standing there quietly, but suddenly looked embarrassed and swapped it for plain leather armor.

"...Why were you wearing a bikini in the first place?"

"It was a fantasy of mine, but here it's just, well..."

"...Strange woman."

"Excuse me?"

Maybe that broke the ice. Or maybe there was nothing else to do while walking.

"Since this seems to be a floor where we need to cooperate, let's introduce ourselves."

"Well, everyone probably knows Choi Ji-won. What's your name, the one next to her?"

"Kim Jun-ho."

"Hm. Korean?"

"Yeah."

"The two of us are from Italy..."

Introductions followed that I didn't care much about. I only remembered that the two men were from Italy, and the woman was from France. I'd heard France had plenty of otaku types, but I never expected one to show up in the Tower wearing bikini armor.

"Bold of you, honestly."

"No, but the transparent part still has defense value, you know? It's a strategy to make the enemy lower their guard..."

"Sure, sure. It definitely worked on me."

"Ugh! Seriously!"

While the two Italian men teased the French woman, the warriors walking ahead stopped in their tracks.

"We're here!"

The bare-chested man from before, who'd disappeared from view while leading the group, came back into sight. Behind him stood a sizable village built of logs. Torches burned between the snow-covered roofs, giving the scene a certain romantic charm.

"This is the village of us warriors! You must be exhausted, so rest well tonight. We depart tomorrow!"

"Ah, right."

We'd only just entered, so we weren't tired, but since he said to rest, we decided to rest. They assigned the whole group of players a single large log cabin, and soon women came in and set down food and drink before leaving.

The scene outside the window had a strongly Nordic feel overall. The men with their dull blond hair, walking around bare-chested like true men, packed with muscle. Occasionally a muscular woman went by with her top off too, and every time that happened, we all glanced at the French woman who'd worn the bikini.

"W-what!"

"Nothing."

Outside the window, children kicked around an animal skull as a toy. Men pounded their chests. Women chatted without a care despite their bare chests. It felt like we'd stepped into the primitive era.

"..."

I turned my gaze away and bit into the bread on the table. Or rather, I thought I bit into it.

Crack.

A sound came from the bread that bread should never make, and my teeth bounced off it, clacking together. This wasn't food fit for people to eat, was it? Just in case, I took a bite of the meat too, and a thick, gamey stench I'd never once felt in my life shot up through my nose and spread through my whole body.

"..."

"..."

Since we'd been given this as hospitality, we couldn't exactly complain about the taste, so we quietly set the food down. The other players who'd tasted it seemed to reach the same conclusion, leaving the food alone and continuing their small talk among themselves. They kept glancing at Choi Ji-won and trying to strike up conversation, clearly wanting to get friendly, but she answered in such a businesslike tone that they didn't get very far.

Bang!

The door opened again, and the blond man we'd first seen on Floor 27 came back in. Still no shirt.

"Um..."

"Call me Captain!"

"Right. Captain. So what do we do from here?"

The eyebrows of the man who called himself "Captain" twitched.

"What, you came here without even knowing what we're doing?"

"Yes."

"That's fine! I'll just tell you!"

Bang, bang. The Captain pounded his chest, then abruptly threw open the window and pointed outside. A cold wind rushed in, snuffing out the candle inside the cabin.

"There! You see it!"

"...See what?"

"The mountain, the mountain!"

The Captain pointed off at the distant mountain with real enthusiasm. It was hard to make out in the dark, but its faint outline was visible.

"Our goal is simple! We go to where the black mage lurks, over there, and we kill him!"

"..."

"A simple task! Even a child could understand it! Ha ha ha!"

The Captain pulled a flint from his pants pocket and relit the candle. That was when the French woman, the one partial to bikini armor, raised her hand hesitantly.

"Um... can I ask something?"

"Go ahead!"

"When we first met you... didn't you ask if we were ready to die honorably?"

"That's right!"

"But if it's an easy task... why would we need to be ready to die..."

"I never said it was easy."

The Captain tilted his head, then slammed a hard piece of bread down on the table to break it apart and popped a piece into his mouth.

"You'll probably die. But you came anyway, knowing that, didn't you?"

"...?"

"It's an honorable death, so surely god will be satisfied too! Good for god, since we die honorably, and good for us, since after we die we get to eat and drink and enjoy ourselves as much as we want!"

This time the Captain grabbed a fistful of the reeking meat and devoured it greedily.

"And today's my last day as Captain! It's been rough, doing this tedious Captain job! I envy all of you! Getting to die the moment you arrive!"

"..."

"..."

Inside the cramped log cabin, only the sound of the Captain's chewing filled the air. Once he'd finished everything in his mouth, he let out a belch and walked back outside.

"I don't think he's in his right mind."

"Yeah, seems that way."

Only then did the players admit that these people were out of their minds.

"No, maybe it's not that they're crazy."

It was Choi Ji-won who said this.

"It just seemed like... they're not very bright. Like it's a different level of civilization or something."

Not the kind of insult modern society throws around, calling someone "uneducated." She meant it literally. Genuinely lacking education. The kind of thing you say when looking at savage people.

"Hm. True enough."

"It didn't feel like malice, more like... why can't they understand something this simple? That kind of feeling. Like their common sense is just different."

The other players nodded along readily to what Ji-won said.

"But doesn't something feel off?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just, this village."

Thinking it over carefully, though, this whole situation struck me as pretty strange.

"Ji-won's right. These people... seem kind of dim. Going shirtless in this cold, eating meat that reeks without a second thought, talking casually about walking off to die..."

As I said that, I tapped my knuckles against the glass window I sat beside.

"But the fact that people like this have a glass window in their log cabin... that's what really doesn't sit right with me."

"...!"

Exactly.

The way these men talked, the way they acted, all of it screamed savage. Not that I meant it as some kind of prejudice, but they genuinely behaved like people from a less civilized culture.

But then what was this log cabin? What was this glass window? Do you have any idea how much effort goes into making glass? Sure, the bread was hard as a rock, but making bread at all takes serious work. And where did they even get wheat in a place this cold? And the candles? This wasn't just crude animal fat, it was an actual candle.

Strange people. And a perfectly functional village. That gap kept nagging at my mind, refusing to let it settle.

"Maybe... they're cannibals who took over the village or something..."

"Doesn't quite seem like that, but... hm..."

The players' faces turned visibly grim, apparently thinking my point held some weight.

"But didn't the status window say to help the 'warriors'? There's no one around here who looks more like a warrior than these guys."

Floor 27
- Help the warriors defeat the "dark mage under contract with a demon."

Choi Ji-won pushed back on that again.

Whether you looked at the context or just their appearance, the "help" the status window meant was clearly meant for those men. Which meant we should treat them as allies, not enemies. But then where did this gap in civilization come from?

"..."

"..."

Help the warriors, deal with the black mage. What the "Captain" had said earlier was also about killing the black mage. Following them was clearly the right answer.

I understood that much, but some indefinable unease kept circling in my head. What was it. Why did it bother me.

While I turned it over, time slipped by. The darkness outside slowly gave way to light, and the ground, marked with footprints, filled back in under a fresh layer of snow.

Morning had come.

"You're up! Let's move out!"

The Captain pounded on the door and handed over a large hunk of meat.

"Eat on the way! It's delicious!"

"..."

Toward the mountain rising high in the distance.

The journey began.

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