WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 313

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The regressor fights (32)

Guntar staggered out of the room. Garbage flew through the air, and the familiar shouting rattled down the hallway.

"Get that trash slaughterer Heavenly Demon out here!!!"

"Bring out that Heavenly Demon bastard!!!"

"Give us back Guntar!!!"

Guntar scowled. It was because his own trauma had been jabbed at, but to the beastmen, that expression looked closer to a threat. The barrage of hurled garbage and curses grew even fiercer.

But Guntar did not yield. Head raised, teeth bared, eyes wide open. He spoke in a scraping voice.

"...What are you even saying."

"Heavenly Demon!!!"

"I really am... Guntar. Not that Heavenly Demon thing."

"...What?"

"There was just... something bad that happened. I was only resting because of it. Heavenly Demon, what are you even talking about."

"Huh?"

The cat beastman standing at the front went wide-eyed. Moments earlier, he had been the most enthusiastic garbage-thrower of them all.

"Wh, what's wrong?"

Another beastman elbowed him, pressing for an answer, and he stammered out a reply.

"His, his way of talking..."

"His way of talking?"

"It's back to normal."

The reason the cat beastman was so startled was simple. Guntar's speech pattern was strikingly close to the Guntar he remembered. The last time they'd met, Guntar had spoken in a stiff, blunt way that didn't suit him at all. Now, some of the finer details were a little off, but... it was quite close. A small change here and there could be chalked up to time passing, couldn't it?

Some might say the cat beastman fell for it a bit too easily, but beastmen as a species were naturally naive.

"What did you say?"

"Is it really, really Guntar?"

"Did his mind come back?"

The cat beastman's voice had been loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, and the group immediately stirred. Partly because the cat beastman was Guntar's old friend, and partly because he was the one who had lent credibility to the Asian man's claims that brought them all here.

"I swear... last time we saw him... his way of talking was off..."

"It's been a while. Friend."

"Y, you remember me?"

"Of course."

If Guntar had simply blurted out the cat beastman's name, they might have grown suspicious. But calling him "friend," just like he always used to, the way he'd always done it before... it really did feel like the old Guntar had come back.

A tear rolled down his cheek. Could it be, really...

Good. That's done.

Of course, this was all the Heavenly Demon's handiwork. The fake Guntar had simply been coached by the Heavenly Demon on how to act.

The Heavenly Demon had spent quite a long time with the real Guntar, and he had a solid grasp not just of Guntar's speech patterns but of most of his friendships too. It wasn't that the Heavenly Demon had taken any personal interest and asked around; it was that the chatterbox Guntar had rambled on about himself so much that the Heavenly Demon simply remembered it all.

In other words, the Heavenly Demon's own memories weren't all that different from Guntar's. As a result, the fake Guntar had managed to give a reasonably convincing impression of the old Guntar.

"Wait, if it's really Guntar, then..."

"Hmm..."

The suspicious glances that had been aimed at Guntar shifted entirely toward the Asian man. Under the full weight of everyone's stares, the Asian man did not look flustered in the least.

"Really?"

His face held nothing of the sort. Only a trace of joy and surprise filled his expression.

"So... do you have a way to verify this? Something about his memories?"

"I, I'll ask him..."

The cat beastman stepped forward and put a question to Guntar. Guntar seemed to hesitate for a moment, but managed to answer without a hitch, and after a few exchanges the cat beastman broke into a smile full of delight.

"It's really, really Guntar! His amnesia must be cured!"

"Is that true?"

"It's really Guntar?"

"Then... why did you call us here? You said you needed help, so we came, and..."

Just as the crowd's dissatisfied stares turned back toward the Asian man again.

"Didn't I say I had a way to cure Guntar?"

"..."

"And now, I've succeeded! See? I kept my word!"

"I, is that so?"

"I guess it kind of is..."

"Then why'd you tell us to bring rope and a stun gun?"

"Just in case they were needed! Better safe than sorry, and it's a good thing we didn't have to use them!"

"Hmm... fair point?"

But that suspicion eventually sank beneath the joy of Guntar's return. Beastmen were, on the whole, simple creatures, easily satisfied. The man's rhetoric and the strange atmosphere he carried probably helped too.

The reason they'd all gathered was for Guntar's sake. Beastmen naturally admired courage, and plenty of them held real affection for Guntar, who had carved out something of a legend for himself in the Colosseum. They'd come together because it seemed like that Guntar had become someone else, hoping to fix it. But if Guntar was cured now? Then there was no reason to fight, and no reason to be angry.

"I told you all from the start! Shock therapy, cursing him out, getting him angry, that it would work!"

"W, well, you did say that."

"So, Guntar's back then?"

"Should we call it a day?"

"Let's go eat something! All together! I've only ever heard Guntar's name, this is my first time actually seeing him!"

"Hahaha! Sounds good!"

The hallway flipped into a festival mood in an instant. The androids hurried to clear away the garbage littering the floor, and instead of curses, bright smiles and laughter filled the air.

"Ha, haha..."

The fake Guntar laughed. It felt like he had truly become the real Guntar, like he'd overcome one of his own traumas. Yeah, I really am the real Guntar. Everyone's confirming it. This brief happiness would likely come back around as an even bigger trauma later, but for now, at least, Guntar was savoring the joy.

Meanwhile, without even realizing it himself, the Heavenly Demon watching from within...

...smiled.

His soul smiled too, just now. Not the cruel smirk he usually wore, not the mockery he reserved for a struggling enemy. Just a pure smile, born from the joy of having overcome something.

A sense of accomplishment. It had truly been a long time since the Heavenly Demon had felt that. For most of his long existence, victory had simply been a given. Losing to the Archangel had been an exception. To the Heavenly Demon, winning was the baseline assumption he walked in with; what mattered far more was how he won.

But now was different. He had lost. He had been forced into regression again and again, and to overcome it, he'd had no choice but to bend his own pride.

He had sacrificed his pride. But he had finally been able to win. He had finally been able to change the future. Just for now, he did not hate the disgusting weaklings, nor the fake Guntar interfering at every turn. The joy he felt shone that brightly, that purely.

But did the Heavenly Demon realize it? That because he had grown so overjoyed, the trigger condition of "intense emotion" had failed to activate this cycle.

Because of that, the Heavenly Demon's memory would not carry over, and a certain regressor had been thrown into deep confusion.

And as a result... that regressor had made up his mind about something significant.

"I'm so glad your madness has been cured! Guntar-ssi!"

Smack!

A hand slammed down on his back, hard enough to nearly split the fur. The afterimage of a smile still lingering on the Heavenly Demon's soul twisted instantly into confusion. It had come right after he'd been drowning in that thick sense of accomplishment, and with control of the body having shifted over to the fake Guntar, he hadn't been able to react in time.

His back. That insane Asian man had just hit the Heavenly Demon's back with a full swing.

Was it intentional? Hard to say. It landed somewhere on the line between playful joke and genuine intent, right at that fuzzy border. About as far as the "gruff Colosseum tough guy" persona could push a hand without crossing a line. His expression looked about the same as always too. It didn't seem like he'd been trying to trigger the Heavenly Demon's regression on purpose.

Then... just a simple joke? Because of that human's simple joke, right now, the very first time the Heavenly Demon had ever bent his pride, was it going to trigger a regression? Really?

Blazing fury. A thick bloodlust. Because of that insane human, how dare he, right now...

Of course, the order of cause and effect was wrong. It wasn't that the slap to the back caused the regression; time was rewinding after the slap landed. But there was no way for the Heavenly Demon to know that.

Consciousness blurred. Consciousness blurred, but the Heavenly Demon's fury alone stayed knotted tight in his chest.

That bastard... I will kill him no matter what.

Setting aside his fury at the Asian man, the Heavenly Demon repeated the same behavior afterward. Bending his pride wasn't an act befitting the dignity of "the Heavenly Demon," but he had come to accept that this situation was exceptional enough that pride simply couldn't be afforded.

He had also come to realize, after some careful thought, that he could simply do it again if it failed. He didn't know how long this power would keep him bound, but it didn't seem like it would vanish anytime soon.

The Heavenly Demon no longer regressed every three days. He wasn't wounded by the thugs in the hallway anymore, wasn't sent back to the past. He came to be recognized as one of the strongest fighters in the Colosseum, earning the respect of the other beastmen.

But that didn't mean every problem had been solved. The insane Asian man kept insisting that his madness might flare up again at any time, so another beastman always had to stay by his side. As a result, the Heavenly Demon always had to coach the fake Guntar through everything. The limited ways to reclaim his strength were also a problem. The Heavenly Demon could only regain his strength through fighting, but the trouble was that he had to keep performing as Guntar even while fighting.

Once he'd reclaimed enough strength, he could drop the act, but for now, that was out of reach. There had already been a time he fought too much like "the Heavenly Demon" and triggered a regression. Still, that was fine. Bit by bit, little by little, an answer for adapting to this insane situation seemed to be coming into view.

Play the part of Guntar appropriately, reclaim his strength, escape the Tower. The Heavenly Demon could see the answer now. The answer to escaping the Tower.

If nonviolence is what you want from me, then fine, I'll happily play along.

Of course, the Heavenly Demon himself mistakenly believed this was the angels' intention. Not that the mistake itself mattered much. Sentient beings tend to misread things however they please, after all.

What mattered here was that the Heavenly Demon had grown used to regression. He'd started treating it as more and more of a given, and had begun thinking about how to make use of it.

"Looks like the Heavenly Demon's started gathering information too."

"I mean, a proper regressor's supposed to gather information, right? So it's not like I'm the weird one."

Every bit of it was going exactly according to the "real" regressor's plan.

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