WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 275

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The regressor advances (1)

A regressor's life could certainly be called unique, but a regressor's companion led a life every bit as strange. At least, that was what Choi Ji-won believed.

"Shall we?"

"Let's go."

Choi Ji-won always watched Kim Jun-ho's expression right before he entered the Tower. When their hands gripped tight and resolve settled over his face, she memorized every small twitch of muscle.

Anticipation. Excitement. A trace of fear. Confidence, all at once. Faith. Then reluctance again. Contradictory emotions swirled together, but they all converged into a single impression: vitality. Yes, right before entering the Tower, Kim Jun-ho brimmed with life.

[You have entered Floor 27.]

But after barely the span of a blink...

"...Ah."

Kim Jun-ho's expression collapsed. Judging by his face, this wasn't a high regression count this time, his complexion hadn't gone completely dark, but more than half the vitality had already drained out of him.

She could infer a great deal from his expression alone. Right after a regression, Kim Jun-ho couldn't manage his face at all. By the time he spoke to her, he'd usually return to his normal expression, but immediately after regressing, his emotions showed through completely. Which meant she could read quite a lot from it.

His eyes weren't glazed over, so the regression count wasn't high.

He was staring blankly into space, so something had left a lingering impression.

His heart was beating slowly, so it hadn't ended happily either.

Something unpleasant had clearly happened. Things clearly hadn't gone smoothly. It seemed the situation hadn't unfolded the way he wanted.

'Bung-bung, do you happen to remember anything?'

'Nope.'

'Guess he deliberately chose not to keep the memory this time.'

If there was anything unusual about it, it was that no memory had been handed to Choi Ji-won at all. Normally around this point, a flood of memories that hadn't existed before would slam into her all at once, forcing her to switch with Bung-bung, who could handle it better. But this time there was nothing worth remembering, or he'd deliberately chosen not to retain the memory.

"Jun-ho?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You regressed?"

"Yeah. I've got the strategy figured out. I'll walk you through it slowly."

Kim Jun-ho composed his expression in an instant, cleared his throat, and stepped into the log cabin.

"Hello, everyone."

A little hurt, and a little curious, but...

"..."

For now, she simply followed along.

Floor 27 ended smoothly. The dark mage died in an instant. The other players celebrated, but Choi Ji-won wasn't particularly happy. How much effort had gone into pulling off this clear, and how many obstacles must there have been along the way?

[You have cleared Floor 27.]

Once they returned to reality, Kim Jun-ho started explaining. Hearing about her own actions, actions she herself had no memory of, from someone else's mouth... interesting, maybe. Strange, maybe. It stirred up an odd feeling in her.

"So... we caught that Ice Dragon thing, and you already drank the top-grade elixir that came as the reward?"

"Right. My Vitality stat went up by 30."

"But you figured saving the elixir mattered more than getting another one of those elixirs for yourself, so this time we just cleared it plain?"

"Yeah. My stats already went up either way, and I figured saving the elixir was better than boosting your stats a little more."

"Sure, elixirs matter, that's true. And we agreed... not to keep the memory this time?"

"Right, right. I felt bad wasting the elixir too, and you said you didn't want me to burn through my emotions..."

"Hmm... is that so?"

'Bung-bung, feels like there's a little lie mixed in there, doesn't it?'

'Probably.'

Choi Ji-won was Kim Jun-ho's lover. One of the people who'd watched him longest. Even ordinary couples who'd been together a long time learned to read each other's emotions, so there was no way Choi Ji-won's sharp instincts would miss this.

Kim Jun-ho was hiding something. He was holding something back. Probably something tied to the outcome of defeating the Ice Dragon. And something related to the dark mage too.

"Ugh, that was rough. My head's pounding."

"Should we take a break for a while, then?"

"Yeah, yeah. Works for me."

She could have dug into what he was hiding right there, but Choi Ji-won decided to let it go. She trusted that if it were truly important, Kim Jun-ho would tell her eventually, and she figured there was probably a reason he'd chosen not to keep the memory.

What Choi Ji-won valued most wasn't anything else, it was Kim Jun-ho's own mental strength. She trusted him. She believed that if they just kept going to the end, he would somehow find a way through this Tower.

"Want to check this place out? A friend sent it to me..."

"L-let's go tomorrow..."

For the world.

And for the lover he loved.

Like I'd already told Ji-won, the reward for defeating the dragon had been genuinely substantial. Fitting for an impossible achievement, my achievement level shot up considerably, and I'd even received an elixir that could raise a chosen stat by a full 30 points. I'd put it into Vitality, and it felt like I'd taken one more step toward being able to activate Heart of Eternal Winter.

And then... and then...

"..."

Honestly, I felt unsettled. The ending of Floor 27 hadn't sat well with me at all.

Maybe I'd been hoping for some kind of satisfying, cathartic ending of my own. Some part of me had probably imagined the dark mage as an unsung hero, the world saved through his sacrifice, and at the very end, the dark mage repenting and apologizing to the Captain... that kind of beautiful resolution.

But reality had been genuinely filthy. The dark mage had been raised like livestock by his own ancestor. Whether from luck or skill, he'd survived and killed that ancestor, but he'd become a madman who turned that same hatred back on his own clan. The Captain's group had been the dark mage's clan... and his sacrificial lambs.

A man who'd sacrificed himself for the world, while at the same time finding pleasure in torturing the souls of his own bloodline... should I praise his resolve? Or condemn him as history's worst madman? I felt sick at myself for even briefly thinking, "Maybe the dark mage wasn't at fault. Maybe he wasn't wrong." But then again, was it entirely his fault either?

In the end, the Captain remained purely a victim, and the dark mage became a victim turned perpetrator. Was it the fault of the family and the world that made the dark mage this way? Or was he simply born a madman? And what about the souls offered to the demon? What were they supposed to do about any of this?

I didn't particularly want to share this ugly aftertaste of a story with Ji-won. That was probably the feeling behind it. Choi Ji-won herself had said something like, "The battle experience with the dragon doesn't seem to have helped much," so my guilt was a little lighter too.

And at the same time, I realized something. There were stories in this world better left unknown. If I hadn't dug all the way to the bottom of this one, I could have just been the good-hearted hero who defeated the wicked dark mage and saved the Captain. Now that I knew the truth... I didn't know. My mouth just tasted bitter.

"Grim Reaper."

"Yes."

"What happened to those two people I told you to 'watch'?"

The thought crossed my mind, so I reached out to Grim Reaper. Ji-won had stepped out to the bathroom.

Back in the past, I'd once told Grim Reaper to keep an eye on two particular villains. I'd had warnings delivered to them, then told him to watch how they behaved afterward. From a future vantage point, they hadn't caused any real trouble.

"No notable movement. They're maintaining only minimal social activity."

"Good. Thanks."

"Not at all. It's an honor."

The future hadn't changed. The two villains had shown no movement after my warning. It struck me, suddenly, to wonder what all of this had even been for.

"Ha."

I'd gotten the reward. I'd grown stronger. If I weighed whether Floor 27 had been a gain or a loss, it was clearly a gain.

And yet it still nagged at me. Left a bitter taste. The guy I'd thought was a villain with a tragic backstory turned out to be a madman, and the dragon had killed itself before I could get any information out of it. Genuinely... hollow. Should I try to keep the dragon from dying next time? Even that felt like a rotten thing to attempt.

"Ah."

I finally understood. What exactly it was that left me feeling this uncomfortable.

What the dark mage did had clearly benefited the world. Even though he failed, on the scale of the entire world, he'd been a hero. That much I could say without hesitation.

But looked at as an individual, he was garbage. A psychopath. A madman. Even the "helpful actions" he took could just as easily be read as nothing more than a whim.

I think I'd wrestled with this same question before. I still didn't know how to feel about a "villain who helps." There's a saying, a necessary evil. Evil that does good. Garbage that keeps social order intact.

Since he did end up being useful, should I just leave people like that alone? Or should I give up on them entirely? The souls sacrificed to the demon, fundamentally, had done nothing wrong at all. Their only crime was being born into the wrong bloodline. It was unjust.

There was no way to wave off their suffering as "for the sake of the world." My body rejected the idea outright. But what if the world stood on the verge of ruin? What if the only remaining option was sacrificing innocent people to buy time? What choice was I supposed to make then?

"Ugh. Fuck."

Who was I to agonize over something this huge... except I was a regressor. If it were my own sacrifice, I'd throw myself in without hesitation, it was just one body, my own. But weighing someone else's sacrifice on a scale wasn't a decision that was mine to make.

I was sighing, caught deep in thought after thought, when...

"Tch. Don't curse."

"Uh, yeah. Sorry."

Ji-won, back from wherever she'd gone, smacked her palm lightly over my mouth. She glared at me for a moment, then held up her phone screen to show me.

"Here. What do you think?"

"Hm? What is it?"

An event that hadn't happened in the previous cycle.

"Cheol-jin ajusshi's asking if we want to grab a drink sometime. What do you think?"

A message had come in from Park Cheol-jin, the firefighter, a bond forged back in the Tutorial.

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