WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 311

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The regressor fights (30)

Time turning backward. The Heavenly Demon had witnessed a phenomenon like this exactly once before.

When a world gets absorbed into the Tower.

When a world on the verge of collapse got folded into the Tower as part of it, that apocalyptic world regressed back to the intact civilization it had once been. That was also the moment the Heavenly Demon's soul had been collected. That had been, without exaggeration, a miracle of the divine.

Afterward, the Heavenly Demon lost to an archangel. That incident had only deepened his contempt for the weak. A transcendent being could erase a world with a mere gesture. Could be crushed in an instant, like a bug flying through empty air. Once he'd truly felt his own neck resting on someone else's blade, the weak who wasted their lives without a second thought looked pathetic to him beyond words.

You.

"I am... I am..."

Do you not remember?

"I don't know... I'm Guntar... I'm Guntar..."

...This doesn't look like an act.

Of course, having "already experienced this event" didn't make it easier to adapt to, or easier to stay calm about. The very notion of time turning backward defied logic to begin with. Only a being that existed outside logic could do something that broke logic. The fact that such a being's fingerprints were on this at all left the Heavenly Demon disgusted. It felt like being reminded, over and over, that he was not the pinnacle.

There are many possibilities.

Disgust was disgust. The Heavenly Demon's soul began thinking furiously. Why had time returned to the past? What was the reason? No, the fact that time had returned wasn't the important part. What mattered was that he was aware of it happening.

Time turning backward? That could happen. This wasn't his first time getting swept into some massive vortex. What mattered was why he remembered it while the fake Guntar remembered nothing at all.

No, maybe it's just this one who doesn't know.

This one's soul was a fake one, planted by an angel. Maybe that was why he couldn't remember the past. Which meant there was a high chance this counted as a "special case."

In this bizarre situation, the Heavenly Demon...

decided to do nothing.

If everyone except the fake Guntar was aware that time had turned back, then moving carelessly would only poison things. But if the Heavenly Demon was the only one aware of this fact... then this had to be some scheme by the angels. He didn't know their intent, but he shouldn't act rashly.

Plenty of questions, plenty of things he wanted to confirm. But the Heavenly Demon simply waited. He knew the fake Guntar wouldn't cooperate, and he knew this was a moment that called for caution.

Three days passed like that.

"Come out, you pathetic garbage slaughterer Heavenly Demon!!!"

"Call out that worthless bastard Heavenly Demon!!!"

"Give us back Guntar!!!"

Voices from outside the room. Voices brimming with rage, hatred, and a sense of justice. It was identical to the voices in the Heavenly Demon's memory. Identical enough to raise goosebumps.

Go out there.

"It's, it's not because of you. I wanted to check for myself too."

Guntar rose to his feet, hesitating. The moment he stepped outside the room, the scene laid out before him felt strangely familiar. Beastmen hurling trash. One human wearing a smug expression. Even the android that pretended to stop them but seemed to have no real will to do so.

"F, fuck..."

"He swore!!!"

"Guntar just swore!!!"

The Heavenly Demon held back. Or rather, he tried to. Right up until a piece of trash grazed his ear and bounced off. Even knowing the angels' attention might be on him, the burning hatred was hard to suppress. Vermin. How dare they.

After that, everything played out identically. Beastmen charging with rope. Guntar sensing a threat. His body switching hands.

Could be pure coincidence. The Heavenly Demon moved exactly as he had before the time reversal. That was the most efficient movement, after all, the optimal answer he'd already worked out.

"Gack...!"

"Ugh..."

"Aaagh...!"

A minor wound. With nothing more than a small cut to his right arm, he'd subdued no fewer than seven beastmen. Movement bordering on a feat no ordinary person could imitate, the "correct answer" containing the essence of combat the Heavenly Demon had honed over a lifetime. The most perfect response possible given his current bodily condition.

His head spun again. His consciousness blacked out. Pain flared in his right arm, a mysterious light flashing before his eyes. And then... and then...

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

Back in the dark room again. Why? Again?

It was unfamiliar. This feeling of being manipulated like a puppet on someone else's palm. Except for his childhood and the moment his world was destroyed, the Heavenly Demon had always been the one holding the reins. Enemies had danced on the stage he built, and he was always the one looking down on it all, enjoying himself.

The situation had changed. On the stage called time, he was the dancing puppet, and some unknown transcendent being was surely enjoying the sight of him. Truly... unfamiliar.

Time flowed again. The Heavenly Demon decided to act a little differently this time. He would move first, gather information. He wanted to analyze the cause of the situation that had befallen him.

"Get lost..."

Move.

"I'm... I'm the owner of this body... I won't move on some order from a piece of trash like you..."

The fake Guntar interfered. He'd expected it, but facing it directly still left him disgusted beyond words.

They're coming to kidnap you soon.

"Ha, hah... who? Me? I'm Guntar. This is the deepest part of the Colosseum dorms."

The fake Guntar himself didn't believe he was really Guntar, and yet whenever anyone provoked him, he'd scream fiercely, "I am the real Guntar." As if saying it might actually turn him into the real thing.

The Heavenly Demon had no choice but to wait. Until they came.

"Come out, you pathetic garbage slaughterer Heavenly Demon!!!"

"Call out that worthless bastard Heavenly Demon!!!"

"Give us back Guntar!!!"

Until they threw their trash, and control of the body passed over.

"Restrain him!"

"Let's go!"

Beastmen charging from seven directions. The exact scene from his memory, but this time, the Heavenly Demon's response was different.

"R, run!!!"

"Catch him!!!"

Instead of responding directly, he took a step back. A major concession, for someone like the Heavenly Demon.

There was a reason the Heavenly Demon, a bundle of pride, made that concession. The dark room was, so to speak, his home ground, and the beastmen he lured inside were subdued in an instant. Throats slit, joints twisted, bones broken, half of them dead and the other half out of the fight.

"Hm."

The one difference was that the Heavenly Demon didn't regress this time. What could the difference be? Why had time turned back before, but this time he stood there perfectly fine? No time to ponder it. More beastmen were pouring in.

"You're a rat in a jar!"

"Nowhere left to run! Surround him!"

"Careful not to hit each other!"

Around twenty beastmen closed in roughly, gripping rope and stun guns. This was exactly why he hadn't fled into the room earlier. In the long run, it only meant less room to maneuver.

"Mere vermin. How dare you."

Of course, the Heavenly Demon never once entertained the thought of losing. It might take a little time, but there was no way he'd lose.

A "perfect victory" was impossible. The enemy numbers were too high, and he couldn't properly use mana in this state. He might take a wound or two.

But this body wasn't the weak body of a human, it was the sturdy body of a beastman. The quality of muscle fiber, the recovery rate, all incomparably superior. A light wound would heal within seconds. By birthright alone, beastmen were the kind of thing that made humans look like nothing.

"...Hmm."

A light wound? Doubtful. Not likely. Steadying his mind, the Heavenly Demon prepared for battle. First, he'd crush the beastman directly ahead. Collapse the encirclement, fake an escape outward, then kill the beastmen rushing in with a single blow each. The plan was reckless, one might say.

"Aaagh!"

"Ugh..."

The Heavenly Demon had the strength to carry out that reckless plan. He was well accustomed to trampling the weak, and his grasp of combat was on an entirely different plane from theirs. For an ordinary man, this would be arrogance and recklessness, but for a genius, it was simply confidence.

Twenty beastmen. All active fighters who ground it out in the Colosseum. People who made their living by the blade, in their own way, yet now every one of them lay sprawled on the floor.

Wounds? He had one. A thin cut lingered at the Heavenly Demon's waist. Left behind when a beastman holding rope, thinking he had him subdued, thrashed out a claw in desperation. A wound that would heal in a few seconds.

Twenty against him, and all they'd managed was one small scratch. And even that scratch only happened because he had no mana to work with. Fighting handicapped from the start and still crushing every skull. A truly great victory. The dignity of one who reigns.

But again. His consciousness. Slowly. Grows dim.

The Heavenly Demon glared wide-eyed, doing everything he could to resist.

But he couldn't stop his consciousness from blacking out.

The dark room.

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

The fake Guntar muttering to himself. A scene familiar enough now to be tiresome.

The third regression already. Once or twice could be coincidence. Three times, four times, beyond that, it could never be coincidence.

A common thread. Every phenomenon that had happened so far shared one common thread. One easy thread even a child could spot.

...What exactly do you people want.

Again, the Heavenly Demon had to admit it. He didn't know the details, didn't know the reason.

But now, his body had become one that regressed to the past the moment it took a wound.

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