WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

________________

Chapter 267

──────

The regressor proves himself (7)

"...Well, fuck."

An empty, dark space. A space of pure nothingness. I looked left and right, and no matter how I looked at it, this was the inside of my own mind. I'd been hit by the dark mage's mental attack.

This is exactly why novels give the protagonist mental immunity in chapter one. I'd sprinted past two hundred chapters, and now the whole journey ends because I suddenly caught a mind-domination attack out of nowhere? How stupid would that be? Some random guy pops up, says "I'll kill your mind," and the protagonist's mind actually dies. How hollow would that feel? For the sake of plot integrity alone, resistance to mental attacks should be mandatory.

But this wasn't a novel, and I had no immunity to mind-type attacks. I wanted to cry. I did have a trait called Right Mindfulness, but apparently it couldn't stop something this direct.

"You..."

While I flailed around in a panic, a gloomy voice echoed from every direction. Like it was being piped in from speakers set into the ceiling, that trembling voice. It was the dark mage.

"You people... where did you crawl out from... what are you supposed to be... now, of all times...?!"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'now of all times'?"

"It's done. Too late. Once you're dragged in here, there's no hope for you."

The crimson hand I'd seen more than enough of appeared in the empty air again. Its ominous claws went for my throat, but I swatted it away, mana rising naturally through me.

"H-how?"

"Because this isn't my first time."

"...!"

I didn't know what it had been expecting, but I was already used to this kind of "mental space." Meaning its tricks wouldn't work on me. I smiled thinly, and the dark mage's voice went quiet for a moment.

"No choice, then."

Clunk. Clunk. The whole world shook. A giant dark mage's face emerged from beyond the horizon.

"W-what is..."

"I didn't want to do this either."

The wrinkled purple face drew closer and closer. I tried to flee backward as fast as I could, but its approach was far too quick.

"This is the end."

The dark mage's mouth stretched wide open. Inside that gaping mouth, a pitch-black abyss revealed its depths. With the illusion of wind blowing, my body began to get pulled in, little by little.

"Ah, ah...!!"

I struggled to resist with everything I had, but this wasn't reality, and my body no longer obeyed me.

"A human mind cannot endure this. Your body belongs to me now."

The instant I was fully swallowed into its mouth, those horrible lips closed shut.

"Aaaaaaargh!!!"

I screamed in unbearable agony...

"Huh."

No, I didn't.

"W-what is this?! This... what is going on?!"

I was the one who'd been eaten, but my body was completely fine. Honestly, the darkness looked the same as before, so I barely noticed a difference. The dark mage, on the other hand, looked thoroughly rattled.

"R-regression? Ruin? Archangels? The Tower? No way... this can't... this can't be real... you... you're...!!!"

"You can see my memories?"

"Kraaagh! Kraaaaaaagh!!!!"

It didn't answer. It just screamed in agony. Given that it had blurted out "regression," it had definitely seen into my memories, but instead of any question or answer, it just kept howling.

Wait... could this be it? The scenario where the enemy underestimates the protagonist, fires off a mental attack, and gets crushed instead under the weight of the regressor's lived experience? Where it tastes the thorny path I'd walked and its own mind gets destroyed in return?

"I knew it!"

Right, why doesn't a regressor need mental immunity skills? Because there's no need. A mind-domination attack? You think you understand the weight of a life?

Regret it. Savor every step of the regressor's path, and regret ever being born...!!!

I smiled darkly and waited for the dark mage to finish self-destructing on its own.

"Kraaaaagh..."

"..."

"Kreeeeeugh..."

But the thing looked more fine than expected. I couldn't actually see anything, being inside its mouth, but that was just the vibe I got.

"I... I failed..."

"Hey."

"The world... the world already..."

"..."

Honestly, the dark mage didn't seem crushed under the weight of my life at all. It seemed more like it was just shocked that this was the Tower and that it had failed here.

Wait, hadn't I lived a pretty rough life? Regressed a ton. Worked myself to the bone. Gotten thoroughly worn down more times than I could count. If you told a normal person to walk the road I'd walked, they'd absolutely lose it. But this thing's reaction was so lukewarm that I couldn't even enjoy my own victory.

"Why... why..."

"Hey!!!"

Even when I yelled, the dark mage didn't react at all. Right as I was getting irritated enough to snap "just die already if you're going to die"...

Whoosh.

"Huh?"

This time, the dark mage's memories started flowing into me instead.

"N-no..."

My vision shifted. Into the dark mage's point of view.

Some past moment, no telling when. Inside the dark mage's memory.
Two men talking in a dark space.

"You're saying contact's been lost?"

"Yeah."

Tok. Tok. Tok.

A staff tapped against the floor. Contact lost, huh.

"Any chance they ran?"

"No. We confirmed they entered the Tower."

"They could've just gone in and be hiding somewhere."

"..."

"...Hah."

The truth was already known. That person wasn't the type to do something like that.

"Dead, then."

"Probably."

"..."

Tok. Tok. Tok.

The dark mage mulled it over. He knew nothing about the Tower. He had no idea what kind of battles the climbers were fighting up there.

"Frustrating."

He'd never been summoned to the Tutorial. He'd never been given the chance to climb the Tower. Which meant he couldn't get detailed information, and he couldn't grow strong the way the others had. All he could do was support from the rear, working off secondhand information.

"We need more time. Until her disciple grows strong enough to reseal the Ice Dragon... we need time."

Tok. Tok. Tok.

The Ice Dragon sealed in the north. Ever since some madwoman climbing the Tower had half broken the seal chasing "power," the already freezing weather had turned uninhabitable. Proof that the Ice Dragon's seal was nearly gone.

There had been a climber who could keep the seal barely holding, but that climber seemed to have died inside the Tower. There was a disciple with a similar trait, apparently, but growing strong enough would take time.

"So that's why you finally came to me."

"...Yes. We need help. You're the only one who can make a pact with a demon. Hold the seal for just two weeks."

"...Heh heh."

A dark mage. And among dark mages, one the Tower had never chosen.

The scorn and contempt he'd endured over the years still sat piled in a corner of his heart. He didn't like this either, sending someone he'd barely kept a relationship with, with not even a word of apology, just a one-sided "help us."

"Fine. I'll make a pact with a demon. I happen to have a specimen suited for sealing, so I can delay the Ice Dragon's seal."

"...Is it possible? We can't openly offer up citizens. Public sentiment is already ugly."

"Right. You don't need to provide anyone. Instead, I need a ward."

"A ward?"

"You know, the kind where time flows slowly inside. The kind you can make into an item."

The dark mage moved his staff, and a human appeared, submerged in a strange glass tank.

"This is a human I improved myself. Stupid, but strong-willed regardless, with good fertility and toughness. Fast growth is a bonus."

"You can't be serious."

The man's mouth fell open in shock.

"...A ward isn't meant to be used on living creatures."

"Normal methods can't satisfy the sacrifice quota. To keep the seal holding... you'd need to offer around five hundred people a day. There's no way that's possible right now."

What the dark mage intended to do was simple.

"Raise them inside the ward. Then kill them. That satisfies the sacrifice. That's all there is to it."

If there weren't enough people to offer the demon, then just grow more to offer.

"...There isn't enough of a power source to sustain the ward. Especially if it needs to interact with the outside."

"I'll be the power source."

The dark mage said it flatly.

"The more sacrifices offered, the more my own life force burns away... but this body's gone through so much modification that vitality itself is never in short supply. I should be able to hold out for about two weeks of real time."

"...No telling how many years it'll be inside."

"I'll just do some research while I wait. Prepare a proper shelter and enough food in the north."

The dark mage, declaring he would burn his own body away. At the same time, declaring he would kill the human he himself had improved.

The man seemed unable to decide whether to feel grateful or disgusted.

"...Understood. I'll pass it along."

He nodded, trying his best not to show anything on his face. He wasn't in a position to be picky.

The man left. The dark mage was left alone in his quarters.

"..."

He looked at his reflection in the tank. A handsome face looked back. Since childhood, people had always said his looks, at least, were striking. How had it come to this? To survive, that was how.

He'd thrown away conscience, or morality, or whatever you wanted to call it, a long time ago, for the sake of living. He'd thrown away any desire to live a normal life a long time ago too. All he wanted was to extend his life. And to reach the end of black magic.

But what he was about to do had nothing to do with reaching the end of black magic. If anything, it would end his life. Completely.

What would those climbing the Tower think of this? Would they be grateful? Or would they be glad that the trash he'd always been had finally been of some use to the world? If he had to choose, he hoped for the former.

"Maybe... what I wanted all along was..."

Recognition.

Maybe it was other people's recognition.

Tok.

The staff tapped the floor.

Fifteen hundred years passed inside the ward.

Back to reality.

"Kraaagh..."

"Uuungh..."

"..."

Inside a dark cave. Two shapes rolled across the floor.

"No way... no way... the world..."

One was the dark mage. Its robe had been completely stripped away, its grotesquely warped body fully exposed. The dark mage kept muttering that this couldn't be, clutching its head, rolling from side to side on the ground.

And the other one was.

"Cut the crap... acting like the victim when you're the one who started this..."

Kim Jun-ho. Choi Ji-won's companion. He, too, was gritting his teeth, eyes unfocused. His mouth kept spilling out incoherent groans, and his body lay sprawled out like a newborn's.

"...What exactly is going on here."

"No idea."

A clear double knockout. No winner. Two losers rolling on the floor. Two weak men crushed under the weight of each other's lives.

But this fight had been one against five from the start...

"Should we kill the dark mage? It can't move."

"That... might affect the man too. Let's wait a little and see."

"See?"

"Then kill it."

"Got it."

Could mutual destruction count as a win too...?

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried