WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 310

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The regressor fights (29)

Guntar shut himself in the dark corner of the room. He refused all contact and sank into himself.

You're fake.

No.

An artificial soul made by angels.

Get lost.

The thing occupying Guntar's body is disgusting.

...No, I'm not.

Guntar. Heavenly Demon. Guntar. Heavenly Demon.

Am I Guntar? Or, like that voice scolding him from inside kept saying, am I really... an artificial soul? He didn't know. His memories were faint, and he had no confidence they even belonged to him.

Confidence. Self. Trust. Feeling. The sense of trusting yourself. Right now, Guntar had none of that. He couldn't trust himself. Every action starts from a foundation of self-trust. Which meant Guntar couldn't do anything at all.

Kill the weak insect. Human, if possible.

...No.

Step aside. I'll do it. Request it from Colosseum Management.

...I said no.

Do it.

...Fine. Just this once.

With his mind this shaken, holding back the Heavenly Demon's urges was hard. He had to fight. Because of the record he'd built up in the Colosseum before, the Colosseum had been giving Guntar some leeway. Soon... he'd have to fight.

Just endure until then. Stuff food in his mouth, hole up in this dark little room, and wait. Wait until he felt certain about himself. Wait until he could trust himself. Gnaw on a chicken leg, drink something strong, sleep. Once he fought one match, that Heavenly Demon bastard would probably quiet down again. This body belonged to him. Any goodwill shown here was strictly his to give.

The Heavenly Demon's voice was still bearable. Going outside terrified him. Right now... he just wanted to wait in this warm little nest. He knew he shouldn't, but the fear of himself and the dread of the outside outweighed any sense of urgency.

Get out here!!!

Like a beast. Not a beastman, a wild animal. Eat, sleep. Eat, sleep. Until the drone came to call him. Just pass the time.

Get out here, you garbage slaughterer Heavenly Demon!!!

The Colosseum had scheduled his match for three days out. Had one day passed? Two? Not much left. If he just kept curling up like this and waited it out...

Call that pathetic bastard Heavenly Demon out here!!!

Give Guntar back!!!

"..."

The Heavenly Demon inside him asked what this noise was. What was going on.

This was the deepest part of the residence the Colosseum had arranged. Anyone without clearance was blocked at the entrance, and even with clearance, only a handful of people could get this far.

"..."

The confusion lasted only a moment. Hot energy rose up from Guntar's chest. This was... anger. Irritation. Contempt.

I'll kill every last one of them.

The Heavenly Demon... was genuinely furious.

Pushed by the Heavenly Demon's prodding, Guntar stepped out of the room. It wasn't purely because "the Heavenly Demon told him to." Guntar himself was curious too. This place wasn't supposed to allow this kind of noise in the first place.

"What... is this..."

The source of the noise was simple enough. A whole crowd of beastmen, one human mixed in among them, had occupied the space in front of Guntar's door. Several androids had tried to hold them back, but they'd been shoved aside by the beastmen's strength. No, wait, were they even really trying to stop them?

Thud.

"Give him back!!!"

A piece of trash landed at Guntar's feet as he stood there in shock. One became two, then turned into a downpour. A paper wrapper bounced off his ear.

Beyond the crowd of beastmen, a single human screamed at him.

"Garbage Heavenly Demon, occupying Guntar's body!"

"Boo!! Go die!!!"

"Freak Heavenly Demon! Give Guntar his body back!!!"

What showed on their faces was glee. Madness. Delight. Moral superiority. Inside, the Heavenly Demon caught on immediately. These people believed without a shred of doubt that they stood for justice, and that the Heavenly Demon had been cast as an absolute, irredeemable evil. (Not that it was wrong, exactly, if you asked, but that was beside the point of how it felt.)

Stone-throwing, they used to call it. These people were clearly drunk on the safety of insulting the Heavenly Demon from a distance. Insects. In his prime, the Heavenly Demon could have torn these weak insects limb from limb with a flick of his hand, and yet here they were, daring this.

The Heavenly Demon was furious, but Guntar himself was angry too. Not at them, though. His anger was aimed at himself, weak and memory-less, unable to stand here and confidently declare, I am not the Heavenly Demon. I am Guntar.

"You, you f-fucking... fuck..."

"He swore!!!"

"Guntar just swore!!!"

"Guntar, who never even knew how to curse!!!"

A cat beastman stepped forward at the front. His eyes burned with a sense of mission.

"Guntar doesn't talk like that! You must be that garbage Heavenly Demon! Give Guntar's body back!!!"

"Wh, what?"

Guntar was thrown into deep confusion. Just as he'd been asking himself, Am I really Guntar?, someone who seemed to actually know the real Guntar declared that Guntar wouldn't act this way. That shook him badly. The main reason he hadn't wanted to come outside was that, deep down, he'd feared exactly this.

Someone who knew Guntar declaring, "You're not Guntar." Then who was he? Who was he... really...

I want to kill them all.

Meanwhile, the Heavenly Demon burned with murderous intent. Ever since this started, that name, Heavenly Demon, kept getting saddled with pathetic labels like insect and garbage. This wasn't a natural situation. There had to be someone orchestrating it. A fierce urge rose in him, wanting to peel their skin off strip by strip, to pull out their fingernails one by one with care. How long had it been since he'd suffered treatment like this, ever since he'd attained enlightenment?

Of course, the Heavenly Demon remained perfectly rational. Even with his insides burning, even with murderous intent overflowing, he was a man who knew how to hold back. Right now he needed to grasp the situation. He'd kept his head down all this time to hide from the angels the fact that the Heavenly Demon had regained consciousness. But now people were openly calling for the garbage Heavenly Demon to come out? At this point, the angels had surely noticed. The situation had changed. Even if he ended up drawing blood, he needed to know where he stood before he moved.

Find out who's behind this.

...Why should I.

Don't you see them, persecuting you like some criminal?

...That's not what I'm curious about. I just want to know what's going on. Not because of you.

Move.

"Who put you up to this."

Guntar growled the question once his exchange with the Heavenly Demon inside settled. The beastmen surrounding him kept jeering without answering at first, but the moment one human stepped forward, they fell eerily silent.

"I'm the one behind this."

An East Asian man with an easy smile. The Heavenly Demon's sharp senses caught immediately that this man was a trained warrior. Fairly strong, and he still resorted to a stunt like this?

There's probably no proof of anything. If I just deny it...

No.

Guntar's weak reasoning murmured, Can't I just claim I'm Guntar? Say I've lost my memory? But the Heavenly Demon's pride wouldn't allow it. The Heavenly Demon was the Heavenly Demon in any situation. He didn't hide himself.

We could just let this slide.

I said no.

Why?

This Venerable One is the Heavenly Demon, wherever he stands.

I'm... Guntar. Not some Heavenly Demon. You're the one squatting in someone else's room. So calling me the Heavenly Demon, that's just wrong.

You idiot.

Guntar had started arguing with the Heavenly Demon inside his own head. Naturally, that internal fight was invisible and inaudible to everyone else. From the outside, he just looked like he was standing there, frozen.

"Restrain him!"

"Let's go!"

"Chaaaarge!!!"

The beastmen seized the opening and rushed Guntar. They carried sturdy-looking handcuffs and ropes, closing the distance in one burst. Maybe because they were Colosseum fighters themselves, their movements were quick and efficient. Footwork worthy of the word warrior.

You keep saying it's my fault for losing my temper...

Look ahead.

Huh?

Unfortunately, that movement was "threatening" enough that Guntar's reason felt a flash of danger, and that sense of crisis triggered the Heavenly Demon's consciousness to surface. A sickly yellow grin spread across the wolf's mouth.

One from the right. Two from the left. A beastman charging in from the front but with his weight sunk low. Three from above. Attacks flying in from a full seven directions, but to the Heavenly Demon's eyes, it was riddled with holes like an old fishing net.

Slash!

"Not dodging?!"

Ignore the right. Trust the beastman's regeneration, sacrifice the arm. It'll heal in ten seconds anyway.

Slice!

"Kkuh..."

A sharp dagger cut down the two on the left. The dagger at his hip was already drawn, cleanly slicing across both their throats. Even if they survived, they were out of the fight for good.

"Borrowing this."

While the wounded beastmen clutched their throats with both hands, he snatched the rope. The instant it was in his grip, he cracked it like a whip, binding the three attackers in the air all at once.

Bwaam!

He slammed the bound beastmen into the ground, then used the recoil to jump and dodge a tackle coming from the front.

Crack!

"Guh...!"

The moment he landed, he stomped hard into the back of the beastman who'd tried to tackle him. Now only six fallen beastmen remained, along with the human on the right, watching helplessly.

Whip-crack!

"Gukh..."

No need for another weapon. He snapped the rope hard against the beastman's side, and the beastman dropped unconscious instantly. Small fry like these could be handled with nothing but a dagger and a rope.

"You're next."

He gripped the dagger again and glared at the human standing in front of him. Plenty of beastmen still remained, but among them, this human was the strongest. An opponent worth recovering strength against. This was his chance to restore his power properly while also raising his share of control over the soul, shoving the whining fake Guntar into a corner for good. After that, after that...

"?"

His consciousness blacked out. The pain in his right arm was strangely vivid. Like the world falling asleep... everything... and then... and then...

And then.

"I'm... the real Guntar..."

When he came to, he was back in the dark room from before. The fake Guntar sat there muttering something, soaked in gloom, and the Heavenly Demon's soul had been shoved back into the corner. The control he'd clawed back bit by bit during that brief fight had evaporated somewhere along the way.

This situation. It felt familiar. Two days ago, maybe three.

This was. Like. Time had rewound.

Today's date.

...Why do you want that.

Move.

...It's right there on the device. Whatever I see, you see too.

It was almost impossible to believe, but.

...What kind of madness is this.

The Heavenly Demon admitted it.

He had gone back in time.

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