WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

________________

Chapter 309

──────

The regressor fights (28)

Right after regressing, I gave Choi Ji-won only the briefest explanation, then hid myself away like a dead man. I turned down every match the Colosseum tried to schedule for me, ate every meal in the privacy of a room, and refused to talk to anyone. I basically turned into a hikikomori who never left the house. Eventually I ran out of money, so Ji-won bought food and brought it to me, and the whole thing felt so much like a mother sliding a tray into her shut-in son's room that it depressed me a little.

"..."

Did I suddenly turn introverted? Did the shock of being betrayed by the Heavenly Demon break something in my head? Did some hidden loser instinct finally surface? None of that. This was an experiment.

The Heavenly Demon betrayed me. He stabbed me through the heart. In the process, I felt betrayal, pain, irritation, anger, all of it. Sure, I held it back as much as I could, but there was still a chance I'd felt "intense emotion" in that moment.

Honestly, I think I managed my emotions pretty well, and I figured the odds were low. But this wasn't the kind of situation where I could just shrug it off with "probably fine." If the Heavenly Demon really did retain his memories, that was a disaster. I had to be careful. Extremely careful.

So how would I even know if he'd regressed along with me or not?

"...Just watch and see."

If I didn't influence anything, the world should unfold exactly the same as before. Only Ji-won and I could influence it, since we existed outside the bonds of time. If I set us aside as the exception, then regressing to the past means the world unfolds identically. This is the law.

So if the future changed, it had to be the Heavenly Demon's doing. Something changes only because someone else influenced it, and there was no one besides the Heavenly Demon who could have influenced it.

Let's say I was the Heavenly Demon, and my memories carried over. How would I act?

"..."

First, he'd want to find me. He'd go looking for Kim Jun-ho. He killed me right before the regression happened, so the timing wasn't exactly subtle. There was a good chance he'd guess the regression traced back to me.

At the same time, he'd realize something. In the previous cycle, he hadn't done anything like that. He'd just been sitting there stuffing his face, and I'd walked right up to him on my own. Because of that, the Heavenly Demon wouldn't be able to act rashly.

"And regression is just broken to begin with."

On top of that, he'd start doubting himself. Why did he regress along with me? Was regression even a power one person should be allowed to hold? Was there no limit on how many times it could happen? His head would be spinning until it practically split open.

Either way, the Heavenly Demon had exactly two options. Realize I was a regressor and belatedly cooperate. Or decide to remove the obstacle that was the regressor. Whichever path he chose, I had no intention of cooperating with him.

So I decided to spend about three cycles investing in the Heavenly Demon. I'd change my behavior, alter my movements, and check whether "is this guy acting?" held up. That was how careful I needed to be, for the sake of what came next.

After that, I went dark for about three months, and the Heavenly Demon eventually slaughtered his way back to his original power. Judging by the terrifying aura I felt even from a distance, he'd restored his peak strength. Since he hadn't made any promise with me this time, he probably planned to kill off humans thoroughly before leaving the Tower.

"Hmm..."

It matched exactly what happened when I hadn't intervened at all. Still, I didn't know yet. I decided to watch a bit longer, then regressed.

"I intend to escape the Tower. So the situation you're worried about will not come to pass. Cooperate with me."

"How do you want me to cooperate?"

This time I approached the Heavenly Demon the same way and agreed to work with him. He recovered his power in exactly the same fashion, and along the way he told me about his past again. Just like before, it matched the Heavenly Demon I remembered, detail for detail.

At this point it didn't seem like he'd regressed, but just to be sure, I regressed one last time.

"Hmmmm..."

This time, when the Heavenly Demon set up a match against a player, I planted myself in the front row of the stands, crossed my arms, and glared at him the whole time. I let mana pour off me without restraint. He glanced my way now and then, clearly bothered, but in the end he focused on the player in front of him.

I never approached him even once, just glared from a distance, and the Heavenly Demon never once came near me. He reacted at first, but before long he was ignoring me completely, like I wasn't even worth a second glance. Three months passed like that, and once the Heavenly Demon had recovered all his strength, only then did I finally relax and regress.

"From the Heavenly Demon's perspective, even the cycle that 'originally' happened is a memory he never had."

To me, it was standard practice that the Heavenly Demon would recover his power after three months. But to a Heavenly Demon who retained his memories, that event had never happened. It was a memory that didn't exist. No matter how "naturally" he tried to act, there was no way to perfectly imitate a version of himself he didn't remember being. Not unless he could erase his own memories.

"...Can he even erase ordinary memories like that?"

No. Nothing had suggested that. And whether an erased memory would come back through regression was anyone's guess. I could set that possibility aside.

Either way, once I'd confirmed the Heavenly Demon had no memories, I called Ji-won back in. She'd stayed apart from me for the last three cycles to eliminate variables, so she looked genuinely relieved to be back.

We caught up, reunited properly, took care of a few things, and then I told Choi Ji-won everything that had happened with the Heavenly Demon.

"The Heavenly Demon has restraints... and he's holding back his real strength..."

"I see..."

Ji-won nodded along as she listened, then suddenly frowned.

"But Jun-ho... if what you're saying is true, aren't we in serious trouble?"

"Yeah."

"We can't cooperate with him. We can't beat him in a fight either. So what are you planning to do...?"

She was right. I couldn't beat the Heavenly Demon in combat. I couldn't cooperate with him either. And I couldn't just leave him behind and walk away.

He was an obstacle too dangerous to touch and too dangerous to leave alone. I knew what needed to happen, but there was no path forward that anyone could actually take. A truly hopeless situation, you'd think.

"No."

Still, there was one thing working in my favor.

"Information advantage."

I'd studied the Heavenly Demon. I understood him now. I knew what kind of person he was, what history he carried, what kind of character he had. It looked like I was standing at the edge of a cliff, but I could see a clear path forward.

I couldn't fight him. I couldn't run from him either.

But... maybe I could kill him.

"How?"

"Using Bung-bung's method."

I hadn't just been sitting around doing nothing while keeping watch on the Heavenly Demon. I'd been busy building a plan, running through every possibility I could imagine.

And out of all that, this was what surfaced. The plan with the highest chance of working, the highest odds of success. A refined version of Bung-bung's original plan.

Bung-bung's plan, the one we'd called impossible before. Had anything actually changed since then?

Yes. I'd gathered every scrap of information about the Heavenly Demon, learned exactly how he grew stronger. The ability itself didn't matter much. What mattered was that I now understood the man behind the Heavenly Demon.

"First off... the Heavenly Demon is arrogant. And he's got a short fuse."

"A short fuse?"

"Yeah. Whenever some 'insect' by his standards gets on his nerves, he starts leaking killing intent."

A rotten personality was good news. It meant satisfying the "intense emotion" threshold for regression would be that much easier.

"And the Heavenly Demon has serious pride. Self-love, maybe you'd call it. He can stomach people insulting 'Guntar,' but he can't stand anyone insulting 'the Heavenly Demon.'"

On top of that, the Heavenly Demon thought remarkably highly of himself. He loved the version of himself pushed to its absolute limit. A trait that made sense on its own, sure, but with him it went to an extreme.

"The reason Bung-bung's plan was so hard was because it was too easy for him to figure out that Kim Jun-ho was the one behind the regression."

In the end, to fool the Heavenly Demon, I couldn't let him find out I was fooling him. But regression required both sides to feel intense emotion toward each other. I could manage my own end fine, but keeping it hidden from him was the hard part.

But if the Heavenly Demon had a rotten temper, that problem could be solved. I could bury the truth under enough smoke screens to make it work.

On top of that, I'd heard his backstory. I'd studied his history in real detail. With that... I could actually play with the Heavenly Demon's emotions.

"It's a high-risk plan, no question."

If it failed, the Heavenly Demon would come out of it knowing I was a regressor. I might even... actually get sealed for real. That kind of risk was real.

But without this, I couldn't see any way to beat him. There was no path to victory. That was how strong the Heavenly Demon was.

Regression had let me fight without real risk, always. While everyone else bet their one and only life on dangerous gambles, I'd been watching safely from behind, out of harm's way.

Now. Now was the moment I had to take on some risk myself. Right now, this instant... was when I had to gamble.

The core of the plan was simple. Exploit the information gap as much as possible. As much as humanly possible.

So I could say it. I could dare to declare it.

Heavenly Demon.

"You get a taste of it too."

You're the regressor now.

Let me show you exactly how much regression is too much.

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