Regression is Too Much - Chapter 281

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

________________

Chapter 281

──────

The regressor advances (7)

Back at my studio apartment.

"It really seems like Zetter's pinning a lot of hope on us."

"Yeah."

"Jun-ho."

"Hm?"

"Since it's come to this, want to rest a bit longer? We're not that far from Floor 30 anyway."

I knew it was pretty immature of me, but...

"Really?"

I couldn't help feeling happy about it.

This was Choi Ji-won's place. My studio apartment was honestly too cramped for two people, so we'd moved here on the logic that her place suited proper rest better.

"No, Bung-bung! This is way too salty! What, you think this is fine?"

Ji-won was cooking in the kitchen. She'd claimed she was going to try some stew she saw on YouTube, but it looked like she and Bung-bung weren't seeing eye to eye. If it were me, I'd have just ignored the sword's opinion and cooked anyway. What does a sword know.

"Hmm..."

Meanwhile, I was scrolling through an online community. Partly to gather information, partly just because it was fun. Lying down with my phone always made time fly. The fastest information tended to show up on these forums too, which was one of the reasons I kept checking. Justifiable and fun at the same time. No reason not to.

"Ji-won. Your wifi's good."

"Yeah?"

"Mine's always slow. Yours is fast."

"Maybe because I barely use it? No, Bung-bung!"

I turned my eyes back to my phone. The community was talking about all sorts of things as usual, but the proportion of posts about the 'Tower' and 'players' had grown a lot.

-Recent idol update...jpg

-Live from Seoul Station and it's really messed up

-I want to get summoned to the Tutorial too

-Any players here? Does the Tutorial ever run longer than two weeks?

"Hm."

I tapped that last post gently.

-My mother suddenly went missing, and from the circumstances it looks like she got summoned to the Tutorial. How long does this Tutorial thing usually last? Is it normal for it to take this long?

-[Link] According to the stats, a week is the cutoff.

-Or she could just be holed up on Floor 1, I guess... though this comment probably won't even reach her.

-She's probably dead.

"Tsk."

The original poster never responded to the comment. Not exactly a pleasant read, so I clicked into a different post right away.

-I wish I could get summoned to the Tutorial too, get a trait, do YouTube and streaming, live the good life. With a trait, even this garbage life of mine might work out.

-This kind of guy dies first for sure

-Nah, might actually backstab his way to survival

-Can I get sued for mixing in Tower stuff while I'm trash-talking this guy? He can't even see it anyway

-A lawyer-turned-prosecutor sues you and a judge-turned-player sentences you to prison

"...Tch."

Seeing posts like this made Revulsion well up in me without meaning to. I knew there was nothing to be done about it, but I still clicked my tongue reflexively.

Right now, somewhere, players were risking their lives climbing the Tower. Someone like Michael Zetter had wrecked himself completely for it. But ordinary people... didn't know that fight. Couldn't know it. So they only saw the traits, the end product of that struggle, and spouted nonsense like "I wish I got summoned to the Tower."

I used to imagine wishing I didn't have the Regression trait too. I used to cry out, why does it have to be me. I don't think that way anymore. If I hadn't had Regression, none of the bonds I now knew would exist.

"Or maybe not. If it's Regression, maybe it's not complete nonsense."

Honestly, if it were Regression specifically, I bet plenty of people would volunteer to enter the Tower. It was that good a trait, the one everyone wished for. A near-invincible trait that let you fix past mistakes and peek at the truth of the future, wasn't it?

"Almost done! Wait a bit!"

"Okay, got it."

A good smell was starting to drift over. I should put my phone down soon. I tapped one last post.

-Reasons I think there's no such thing as a regressor...eu

"What do you mean there's no such thing, there is one."

Muttering that to myself, I read through the post.

-Honestly, if someone had a broken trait like Regression, shouldn't they have cleared the Tower ages ago? If I got regressed, I'd probably clear the Tower within six months and be rolling around with hot girls. The fact that it's still not cleared means there's no regressor.

-Or there is one, just incompetent

-You know how it goes in novels, if you have Regression and can't clear it within ten tries, you're just trash. Everyone else only gets one life and this guy repeats it ten times and still can't come in first? How pathetic is that?

"..."

I badly wanted to type "why don't you try it," but figured this guy had probably never even set foot in the Tower and had no idea how Regression actually worked. Ignorance breeds courage, they say.

"Ugh, that's irritating."

Maybe it's because I'm petty, but the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. Should I just go track him down? But what would I even do once I found him. Scare him a little, probably. Not like I could even find him anyway.

Other people's reactions were just stress, plain and simple. I wondered how Choi Ji-won handled this kind of pressure. Right, just let it go. It wasn't even attention directed at me specifically, I was just irritated by one sentence: "a regressor would probably be incompetent."

"It's done!"

"Coming."

I walked into the kitchen, and a rich brown stew was giving off a delicious smell. I could tell just by looking. This would be good.

"Isn't the portion a little big, though?"

"I, uh, messed up the seasoning a bit."

"Ah."

So the portion kept growing as she adjusted. Players eat a lot anyway, so a bigger portion wasn't really a problem.

"Thanks for the meal."

Clink, clink. We chatted about this and that while eating the stew Ji-won made, some of it plain, some dipped in bread. The broth was rich, but the meat was really tender too.

"Ji-won."

I paused mid-bite and slipped in a question.

"Hm?"

"Doesn't it weigh on you, all the attention from people?"

"It does."

Choi Ji-won gave a small laugh.

"But they're strangers. It's fine."

"...You're really something."

I get stressed over one internet post, and Choi Ji-won can just brush it off like that. That's Choi Ji-won for you.

"I think I'm pretty lucky."

"...Out of nowhere?"

"Not out of nowhere. It's something I think about a lot. Lucky as a person, and lucky as a regressor too."

The regressors I'd seen in fiction had it far more brutal than this.

I never ran into an enemy I couldn't beat no matter how many times I repeated the world.

I never had to taste the horrific death of someone close to me.

I did suffer the pain of the person I loved looking at me like a stranger... but I overcame it.

My mind never broke under a weight of karma I couldn't bear.

If there were such a thing as the regressor industry, my case would be counted among the easiest. Other regressors would probably look at me and feel envious.

"But you, Jun-ho... your threshold for regressing is really low, isn't it? You regress from the slightest brush."

"That barely happens these days anyway. That was only in the early days. And besides, I've got an incredibly strong, amazing girlfriend, don't I? In fiction they never put a cheat-tier person like you next to the protagonist. And I've gotten incredibly strong myself too."

"Pfft, what is that."

"No, really. For someone like me, my work-life balance is actually pretty excellent."

Not work exactly, since this wasn't a job. Regression-life balance, maybe. Anyway, I had it pretty good. Now that I'd grown strong enough, the absurd regressions had dropped off. No more despairing over lacking strength. If someone wrote a novel about my story, you could say the genre had shifted into overpowered-protagonist fiction.

"I'm just... lucky. There are so many good people around me. No, there are just too many incredible people in this world. I'm grateful that society still holds together."

"Hmm... is that so?"

"Yeah."

What if Choi Ji-won had been a massive psychopath? Or if that Ranking 1st Empress had a hobby of massacring people? If Michael Zetter had turned his mind toward something evil?

Humanity would have taken a devastating blow. Maybe survivable, but never something they could recover from. I was grateful the strongest people on Earth turned out to be good ones. Grateful there wasn't some terrifying villain in this world. Grateful that Choi Ji-won, one of those very people, was my girlfriend.

"We agreed we'd climb up to Floor 30, then prepare for the catastrophe."

"Right?"

"Memorize monster locations... figure out their weaknesses. Spread guides. There'll be a lot to do. Might need to regress plenty of times."

Already, the weight of it pressed down on my shoulders. But.

"Still, why doesn't it feel like we're going to fail?"

With Ji-won by my side, I couldn't picture myself ever giving up.

There'd be mistakes. I'd have to regress. But... someday, we'd overcome it. I had so many good people around me, and as long as I didn't give up, we'd win.

"Clear Floor 30. Hold back the monsters. Climb the Tower again... just repeating that, I feel like someday I'll be standing at the summit."

"That's what training's always been like. Just repeating the same thing every day, and before you know it, you've climbed higher without realizing."

"Guess I'll just climb the Tower like that, then. We've already been through every kind of unfair setup there is to be thrown at us, haven't we?"

"Pfft, true. So true."

"I realized it at the drinking gathering yesterday. Just... trying to protect the people around me is enough to keep my mind steady."

I think I'm lucky. I was just a lucky person, plain and simple. Lucky with my trait. Lucky with the people around me. Lucky in every other way too.

More than anything. I was a happy person. Only now did I realize that. And I was grateful for it again.

"I love you."

"Me too."

The night before we regressed.

We savored each other fully.

We were happy.