WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 285

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The regressor fights (4)

I don't know if it's my place to say this, but I think I've lived a far more comfortable and happy life than most regressors. I explained why a long time ago, so I'll skip that part.

Anyway, because of that, the usual regressor package, distrust of humans, hatred of humans, and at the same time, the tendency to give infinite trust to anyone who's earned it once, hit me a lot less hard. Unlike regressors who lose all hope in every living thing except themselves and settle into cynicism, I still got tense every time I met someone new.

I put that long-windedly, but it just means I watched this guy with my eyes wide open.

"Hey. My arm's about to fall off. Mind grabbing it?"

Slouchy stance. Glinting gold teeth. A tongue flicking into view now and then. A sleazy grin fixed on his mouth. Anyone would look at him and think, bad news. Never mind prejudice, he just looked like that.

"Picked out another person, huh."

"Ngh."

It didn't seem to be some narrow-minded human-only bias, either, because the other creatures passing by clicked their tongues too. Contempt in their eyes. (Probably.) If I had to interpret it, it read something like, ah, there he goes again.

"Yes. Kim Jun-ho."

"Unusual name. And this lovely lady beside you?"

"..."

"...Guess she's a bit touchy."

Which was exactly why I found this Jake character suspicious. Too textbook. Not some regressor instinct or anything, just a hipster-ish contrarian streak flaring up in me.

Like how a student gets suspicious of a class president who's a little too well-behaved. Like how parents get suspicious when a kid suddenly starts acting like a model child. I felt the same suspicion toward this Jake guy.

"Get lost. While I'm still asking nicely."

"Whoa, whoa. Calm down. I'm not that kind of guy."

Ji-won, meanwhile, glared at Jake with something beyond hostility, a kind of outright disgust, ice cold. She'd said before that she disliked thug-looking men, and right now she was showing off that dislike with her whole heart.

"Jun-ho, let's just go."

"Hey, just hear me out. It's not gonna cost you anything either."

"Hmm..."

Sorry to Ji-won, but.

"We'll just listen."

I found myself wanting to hear a little more.

The walk didn't take long. There was a break room nearby, that was all it took. Which meant, since we headed for a break room, Jake was also a registered fighter here in the Colosseum.

"Whew... mind if I grab a drink first?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Great. One sec."

While Jake was gone.

"Jun-ho. I looked into it a bit, and this guy's got a bad reputation."

Ji-won said, showing me her device.

"His nickname's Newbie Lover. People say they've seen him deliberately targeting newbies more than once."

"Then why is it lover instead of hunter?"

"That's his own claim. Says he's just giving them useful advice. And more importantly, that guy's been..."

"..."

"...Ugh. Fine. I get that we have to talk to him to gather info. Just wanted you to know."

"Of course."

Around then, Jake came back. Three cans of coffee in his hand.

"You two like coffee?"

"We don't drink coffee. Right, Jun-ho?"

"Uh, yeah."

Not that I didn't drink it, I just wasn't a huge fan, but I read the room and nodded along.

"That so? Shame."

He said that, then pulled two bottles of water out of his back pocket.

"Figured that might be the case, so good thing I brought water too."

"..."

"..."

The gap between Ji-won's eyebrows narrowed, and I squinted. What was this guy's deal. What was he even after.

"You both look like you're in a bad mood, so I'll get straight to the point. That work for you?"

Ssk.

Jake popped his can of coffee, took a small sip, and set it back down.

"To get right to it, I watched the footage of your fights. From the one where you two both forfeited at the same time, to your very first match. Oh, not through any illegal channel. Anyone can watch it if they pay, it's just that not many people bother tracking down every single newbie's footage like I do."

He shrugged, then took another tiny sip from his can. It looked less like drinking and more like barely touching his lips to it, though somehow the slurping sound was loud each time.

"So what, you saw potential and came to stomp us out?"

"Whoa, whoa. I came to make a proposal. No need to take it that way."

Ji-won snapped, sharp. Jake raised his palms.

"As you can probably tell, I make my living here. Fight money is my income, my pension, my bonus, all in one. I've been grinding it out here a good long while. If there's one thing I've got plenty of, it's experience."

Another sip. By now even I was curious just when this guy would finish his can of coffee.

"Way I see it, you two are the kind who climb fast. So-called monsters. Irregulars. Strong types. But you're short on time spent in this Colosseum. That's the gap I can fill. Starting with information."

Jake turned his back slightly, so Ji-won couldn't see.

"There's a 'technique' to raising your score too, you know."

He wiggled a finger lewdly where Ji-won couldn't see it. Of course, she caught it anyway, and her expression turned even colder.

"..."

And from where I stood, that gesture just now felt pretty deliberately put on too. Something about it seemed off, awkward. For now I nodded, telling him to keep talking.

"And more than anything else. I've got a piece of secret information nobody else has. If we build a cooperative relationship, and you two don't tell anyone... I might just share it."

"Favors with no strings attached exist somewhere, sure, but we're not the type to hand those out. And you don't exactly look like a saint to me either."

"No strings? Why not? I told you. I make my living here."

He tapped his device and pulled up his recent record.

"This is my record. Last 20 matches. 20 wins. Riding the best win streak of my career, if I do say so myself. Sure, in a Colosseum this big there are as many good fighters as there are stars in the sky, but a 20-win streak is still nothing to sneeze at. A record I can put to good use going forward too."

"...Hmm. So?"

"I've been deliberately climbing slow. That way I can rack up all sorts of side income, and more importantly, keep the odds low of running into someone way out of my league. But then, ta-da?"

He spread his palm wide and pointed at the two of us.

"Here's someone way out of my league. Two of them, even. If I run into these two, I'm losing for sure, right? My streak's over, right? Oh no. Might even die, might I."

"..."

"Get what I'm saying now? This is win-win. I give you information. In exchange, you two avoid the time slots when I'm fighting. I've got a good eye for people. Your type climbs the rankings insanely fast. You could rack up ten fights a day, easy. I just don't want to get caught up in that."

Fair enough, honestly. Made sense. Managing his own career, avoiding irregulars. Give up information he can spare right now, get something practical in return.

"Fine. Let's cooperate."

"Great, glad we understand each other. Here, mind adding me on your device?"

"So what's this information, exactly?"

"Information? Ah, right, so..."

Jake checked that the break room was empty, then lowered his voice.

"If you save up enough money... and also climb into the upper ranks, you can meet the 'management' of this Colosseum."

"Management?"

"Shh. Keep it down. Anyway... if you pay the management enough..."

What came next was pretty shocking.

"You can get the legendary healing potion. The Elixir."

Elixir. The supreme healing elixir, capable of reviving even a dying dragon. You could get that on this floor?

Ji-won, beside me, nodded. Only then did it click for me.

Why so many players had stayed on this floor.

Why they'd raced for first place. Why they kept fighting hard even after clearing rank 100. What their goal had been. Their goal must have been the Elixir. They must have stayed on Floor 28, fighting tooth and nail, just to get it.

"So, Jake."

"Yeah?"

"What are you?"

And at the same moment, I was sure of it.

Showing up out of nowhere, offering information that helps me. Kind, despite how he looked. And knew a lot too. In games, characters like this usually get chalked up as helper NPCs.

An ordinary player would have shrugged it off. Ah, guess this guy's giving me a helpful quest. Guess that's how the Tower's designed. But I felt something off underneath it all.

"First off, it doesn't add up that he watches every single newbie's footage."

The bald guy back in the waiting room had said registered fighters probably numbered a million. If the scale's that big, the number of new registrants pouring into this Colosseum every day would be enormous too. And he watches every single one of them, one by one?

"And there's way too much of a put-on vibe in how he acts. And more than that, Ji-won?"

"Yeah. He didn't lie."

"That's the weirdest part. That the Elixir thing wasn't a lie."

I had my own human lie detector, Choi Ji-won. The reason she'd shown such a fierce, gut-level rejection at first wasn't just his looks. It was because that guy had been lying.

"But right around when he brought up the Elixir, your eyes changed, Ji-won. Which means that part's true..."

A man whose every word was a lie, except the one piece of information about the Elixir turned out to be genuine? That meant intent. He was trying to steer our actions.

So then, what exactly was this man. What was the source of this unease I kept feeling. Inside the Tower, what kind of thing could just casually toss out information about the Elixir out of nowhere...

Some intuition struck me like lightning.

Right. This guy wasn't a Newbie Lover. He had to be a Player Lover. Deliberately approaching players, leaking information about the Elixir on purpose. That had to be it.

Handing over information while ignoring the existing order isn't a role an ordinary NPC gets to play. And I knew exactly what kind of being in this Tower gets to play that role. If I'm wrong, well, so be it.

"Hey. You're an angel, aren't you?"

Jake's body flinched. That unusually baggy outfit of his suddenly caught my eye.

"Take your clothes off."

Let's see those wings.

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