WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 294

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The regressor fights (13)

"...The Heavenly Demon?"

"Yes."

"..."

Angel. Heaven. Sky. To command. It means one commanded by heaven, and here, "heaven" refers to the self-proclaimed god.

Heavenly Demon. Demon of heaven. Sky devil. Mara Papiyas. Pāpīyas. Originally the arch-enemy of the Buddha in Buddhist scripture, a terrifying deity who governs most of humanity's desires. Here too, "heaven" could reasonably be read as referring to god. Calling him a "demon god" wouldn't be wrong either.

So from a religious standpoint, the Heavenly Demon should be understood as a kind of rival force to the god who governs this Tower, and the conflict between angel and Heavenly Demon could symbolize the conflict between good and evil... but as a Korean, I had a much more familiar Heavenly Demon in mind.

"So... does he also use the Heavenly Demon Sovereign's Gaze?"

"Excuse me?"

Heavenly Demon Divine Technique. The true main character of web novels. In wuxia-flavored worlds, the moment a Heavenly Demon shows up, he's either the final boss, the protagonist's master, or the protagonist himself. Either way, the instant someone carries the title Heavenly Demon, he's guaranteed to rank in the top three in raw strength. It had solidified into something like a law of nature.

As someone who devoured that kind of web novel, the name "Heavenly Demon" carried a different weight for me. Was this what people meant by feeling intimidated? Was I already scared? Honestly, I'd considered the possibility that a Heavenly Demon could show up somewhere in this Tower. But I never expected him to turn up here. The Heavenly Demon, not satisfied with mere heaven, had advanced into outer space. A genuine Space Heavenly Demon.

No, no. Too early to panic. This place was set in space, wasn't it. How many times had I made the mistake of judging another species through narrow human eyes? A Heavenly Demon here didn't have to be the same as a Heavenly Demon there. The same word gets used with different meanings more often than people think. Too early to be scared.

"I need a detailed explanation."

So I straightened my back and demanded further explanation with a composed attitude, holding onto the faint hope that my instinct might be wrong.

And in situations like this, as always—

"The Heavenly Demon... is a vicious human who, several thousand years ago, wiped out the entire population of one planet... His crimes were truly monstrous, but the Archangel-nim valued his martial talent highly enough to collect and preserve only his soul..."

"..."

"His talent was extremely rare. Just by watching someone else's martial arts, he could make it his own... No, since he channeled his mana through his own self-created cultivation method, 'Heavenly Demon Divine Technique,' his performance was even more outstanding..."

My instinct had landed dead center. That thing over there really was the genuine Heavenly Demon.

"I don't know if I should say this, but what were you people even thinking, putting a bastard like that in here? You really think players stand a chance against a lunatic who ground up an entire planet and drank it down?"

"That... does have its own reasoning, actually..."

Jake's halo flickered unsteadily.

"To start... the beastman called Guntar was originally 'the man who inherited the Heavenly Demon's knowledge.'"

"...?"

"He wandered around chasing knowledge, and by chance discovered the 'Heavenly Demon's Cave.' With the knowledge he gained there, he was a young man who'd mastered as many as seventy-two martial arts to expert level..."

"So when he came to the Colosseum before..."

"Yes... he came to test out all seventy-two of those martial arts."

So, the young and lively Guntar had actually been the Heavenly Demon's heir.

"He was exploring an unclaimed planet and died from toxic gas poisoning."

An unlucky accident had taken his life.

"But since we happened to have the Heavenly Demon's soul on hand... and since the Heavenly Demon hates humans, he'd also serve as a check on players."

In other words, the body of the young man who was about to become the Heavenly Demon's heir now housed the original Heavenly Demon himself. A lunatic slaughterer who'd wiped out an entire planet was currently waiting in the Colosseum.

"Is that angel in charge of this out of his mind?"

"There was plenty of debate on our side too... but there was a safety measure in place, of sorts."

Jake gave his right hand a small wave, and the peculiar white light angels used formed the shape of shackles. Since this was a black space free of surveillance, it seemed he could use his authority freely here.

"To start... we layered a sane personality on top."

"What do you mean, a sane personality?"

"A bit rough around the edges, but reasonable enough... a personality fit for the Colosseum."

The angels knew that "the Heavenly Demon" was too strong a personality to belong in the Colosseum. That's why they'd overlaid a new personality on top of it.

"We roughly implanted the original Guntar's memories too... and since too much power would also cause problems, we stripped away a significant portion of the Heavenly Demon's talent as well... Of course we sealed away the Heavenly Demon's memories and personality. That's how a moderately strong Guntar was born."

"..."

Setting aside my discomfort at the idea of kneading around a single personality however they pleased, the angels' response itself was, on some level, understandable. They'd been trying to shape a reasonable outcome from the materials they had on hand.

"But a problem... came up..."

Of course, if it had gone perfectly, Guntar wouldn't have ended up like that.

"We succeeded in getting the personality to settle in place, at least... but an error occurred during the process of adjusting his memories..."

"Error?"

"To start, that individual's memories, including Guntar's, were completely wiped out... Probably due to a rejection reaction between body and soul, though the biggest reason is that our skill falls short of the Archangel-nim's."

First, the memories vanished. As a result, the new Guntar forgot even who he was.

"The precision with which Guntar executed his martial arts also came out duller than we intended..."

His raw combat strength itself came out weaker than intended too, apparently. Because he was a being created purely through the angels' power, without the Archangel's help.

"But even half a success is still a success. We meant to send Guntar in as a stopgap and gather data from real combat, but—"

Usually, when a sentence ends in "but"—

"Because of the Empress... everything went sideways..."

—something negative tends to follow.

"We had no intention of letting Guntar and the Empress clash right away... We repeatedly stressed it to both the Empress and Guntar... that they must not fight..."

The check-up on Guntar's condition hadn't even finished yet. The angels, and the management, didn't want the two of them fighting, but there was no way the Empress would listen to that.

"Guntar was stubborn about it too... insisted on fighting no matter what..."

"Didn't you say you'd put in a sane personality?"

"That's exactly the problem, it made no sense... We'd clearly implanted a personality that valued self-preservation... and that's when we realized..."

The Heavenly Demon's soul rejected the artificial personality. It kept trying to shed clothes that didn't fit.

"That the Heavenly Demon's personality... kept trying to force its way through the cracks..."

"Heh."

"The original personality despaired at having no memories at all. Panicked. Lost all confidence in itself, and wandered lost..."

Well, of course. It was the personality of an ordinary person. If an ordinary person lost every memory, if they couldn't find a single clue about who they were, of course they'd fall apart.

"The Heavenly Demon's personality started prying into that gap. The existing personality resisted, but maybe because it was the original soul's personality, it kept getting pushed back."

"..."

"It reached its peak during the fight with the Empress. The Empress tried to kill Guntar, and the new personality handed over control to the Heavenly Demon in order to survive."

"Don't tell me the reason Guntar survived the fight with the Empress is..."

"How do you already know that?"

"Ah, well. Archangel Raphael told me."

"Ahh... that's right. The Heavenly Demon, having taken control, fought a fierce battle with the Empress, and the result ended in a draw. However, ever since then, whenever a fight breaks out, the Heavenly Demon's personality rises to the surface."

"..."

Normally the relatively sane personality stays in place, but the moment a fight breaks out, the Heavenly Demon's personality comes bursting out.

"The reason Guntar targets humans is also entirely to suppress the Heavenly Demon's urges as much as possible. The Heavenly Demon is consumed not only by hatred for humans, but also by hatred for us angels, who toyed with his personality however we pleased."

"Wait, no..."

"The Heavenly Demon's soul knows this place is the Tower... He also knows that climbers are companions to us angels..."

I couldn't agree that we were companions to angels, but at least the fact that the angel and the Heavenly Demon believed that mattered here.

"For now the original personality is holding on somehow... but in three months, the Heavenly Demon's consciousness will fully awaken."

"And what happens then?"

"Forget the Colosseum matches or anything else... he's likely to set out to kill every human that exists in the universe."

My thinking was a little different. The Heavenly Demon was aware this place was the Tower, and he knew players existed. So he'd probably stay here in the Colosseum... and kill every single player that showed up, one after another. If he had a working brain, that's exactly how he'd act.

"This is entirely our grave mistake. The soul-processing procedure was clumsy, and we let the Heavenly Demon loose in the Tower without even fully grasping what we'd produced... Now that he's already become part of the Tower, deep intervention is impossible at the level of mere angels like us... But this was never, ever our intention. Please believe that."

In other words. To summarize the situation.

First. Right now, Guntar isn't actually Guntar, he's a mental patient who mistakenly believes he's Guntar, and even that counts as the decent personality. Lurking beneath it is the human slaughterer, the Heavenly Demon. The Heavenly Demon's personality will awaken in three months.

Second. Even the Heavenly Demon's personality, freshly awakened, fought the number one human, the Empress, to a draw. As the Tutorial taught us, everyone needs an adjustment period. If he could go toe to toe with the Empress even while his personality and talent weren't fully intact, then the moment he fully awakens, no player at the current Floor 28 level stands a chance.

Third. Once the Heavenly Demon fully reclaims his power, there's a high chance he'll hunt exclusively for players. Because he hates the angels who did this to him.

And finally, fourth. Right now, there's very little the angels can do. At the very least, disposing of Guntar isn't an option.

Summarizing it like that, I understood.

Really. We were really screwed.

I might be able to clear this Floor on my own somehow. No, I probably could clear it, right up until the Heavenly Demon's personality awakens.

But after that? Once the Heavenly Demon fully awakens? What happens to the players?

"..."

"..."

The story wound down to a close, and only a cold silence wandered through this black space. I glared at the angel with a look that said, so what are you going to do now, and the angel glanced up at me timidly with a look that said, you said you'd help, didn't you.

"To start... is there no way to contact the Archangel?"

There was the simplest, easiest method available. The Archangel in charge of this place just had to come back. Really, all that mattered was returning before the three months passed and the Heavenly Demon fully awakened. Then the Heavenly Demon would vanish, Floor 28's difficulty would return to normal, and humanity could go back to climbing the Tower like before.

But what if the Archangel didn't come back? What if the Heavenly Demon fully awakened? That absolutely, absolutely could not be allowed to happen.

The Archangel had to come back. Even by force if necessary.

"That's exactly why I'm here."

Jake said it like it was a great question, flourishing his black hair and hip clothes for effect.

"There's exactly one way to reach the Archangel-nim, even indirectly."

The reason angel Jake had been approaching the players.

"Someone among the players just needs to get their hands on an Elixir."

There'd been an Elixir all along.

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