WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 320: The regressor... (4)

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After regressing.

"...Wait, seriously?"

"..."

"It's real."

Choi Ji-won fell silent, her expression grim, after hearing everything I told her. An unprecedented situation, something neither of us had ever anticipated.

What exactly was this pain, that it followed me even after regressing. And why wasn't regression triggering despite the pain. And what had the Hero thought of me, to slice off my head without a word of warning.

None of it made sense, and there was little to base a judgment on.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"For now... let's wait until tomorrow."

Having a headache didn't exactly give me anything to act on. So I went through the exact same routine as the previous cycle, and the Hero, once again acting annoyed, approved us anyway. The complete opposite of the murderous attitude he'd shown yesterday.

"Weird."

Why was that? The pain I felt hadn't changed at all, so why had the Hero's attitude gone back to normal? No, wait, why had his attitude changed in the first place? Right. There had to be some connection.

The more I thought about it, the more certain it became.

It made sense to assume there was some connection between the anomaly happening in my body and the Hero's shifting attitude. Whatever illness or similar phenomenon I'd caught must have triggered disgust in the Hero, or set off some kind of alarm. I didn't know the details, though.

"...The Hero."

The Hero knew something.

* * *

The next evening. When that familiar pain started up again, I signaled to Ji-won and headed for the central tent.

Once again, there was no soldier guarding it. When I focused on the soul, that presence had also vanished at some point.

If I walked straight in like this, my head would get cut off again. I couldn't make the same mistake twice.

—Thud.

First, I dropped my sword on the ground. I dropped it outside the tent, but the Hero would have already noticed by then regardless. After that, I raised both hands, palms forward. A universally understood posture for "I have no intention of fighting."

"Whew."

Still in this posture, I walked step by step into the tent. The pain and dizziness were still there, but I gritted through it on willpower alone.

There was no one inside the tent. But I stopped as if someone was there, and spoke in a trembling voice.

"Hero-nim."

At first, there was no answer.

"...I'd like to talk."

But I was certain the Hero was watching, and somehow it felt like I could sense his presence, so I stood there quietly and waited for him.

"..."

As if answering my expectation, the Hero materialized out of thin air. His expression, unlike during the day, was set hard.

"My body's in a strange state. It's been like this since a moment ago. I've always been naturally healthy, so I can't make sense of being this sick."

To keep him from doing anything rash, I poured out my business all at once. Even with my body aching and my head throbbing, my mouth kept flowing smoothly.

"Could you possibly help me? Or if that's not possible, even a little advice. Why I'm like this, what I should do going forward. Even a simple word would help."

"..."

The Hero didn't answer, still staring me down. I got the feeling he was reading me somehow.

"Even a small bit of help would matter."

The Hero gave no response, but I treated even his silence as progress and kept asking for help. Roughly a minute passed like that.

"So..."

"You really... don't know."

Finally, the Hero reacted. He frowned as if he couldn't understand. No, seriously, I really don't know.

"I really don't know, that's why I'm asking you to tell me."

"...Heh."

He exhaled, then stared straight into my eyes. There was a pressure behind that gaze beyond anything visible, and I nearly shrank back for a moment.

"...What."

But I stood tall, squaring my shoulders and meeting his gaze. I was trembling badly enough to look somewhat pitiful, but I tried to seem as steady as possible.

"Still don't get it, even now?"

"...?"

What was he hinting at. My head was too dizzy to think straight. Only the obsessive need to get some kind of information was driving my body forward.

"Forget it."

The Hero suddenly backed away, sinking into that same chair.

"I don't want to get tangled up in something annoying. I'll approve you again tomorrow, so hurry up and get lost."

"No, I'll get lost, sure, but at least give me some kind of advice..."

"Wait."

The Hero said, shaking his head.

"If you wait, time will solve it. You'll probably be the first to understand it, actually."

He said that, then waved his hand. In sync with the gesture, my body was pushed... no, it wasn't, it just wobbled slightly.

"...Walk yourself out."

"..."

I still didn't fully understand the situation, but I trudged out of the tent.

"...Wait, he says."

Either way, this settled the direction going forward.

* * *

The sun rises even over a battlefield. The birdsong that should have accompanied it was absent, but the disciplined bustle of the soldiers filled in for it instead.

"Nnngh..."

I hadn't slept a wink all night. Neither had Choi Ji-won, who'd stayed by my side nursing me. We just trembled in bed, waiting for the sun to rise.

"How is it now?"

"...Still not good."

As time passed, the mysterious pain only grew worse. And it wasn't just the pain intensifying. Several symptoms I couldn't make sense of started piling up too.

First, my senses ran wild uncontrollably. Sometimes it felt like my body had shrunk to nothing, sometimes it felt like I'd grown as huge as a giant. Like someone was playfully kneading and squeezing my whole body.

My vision wasn't normal either. Blind, then seeing again, sometimes looking down at everything from the sky, sometimes stuck to the ground like an ant, and at one point I could see straight through a person's soul.

My physical body itself just kept trembling in bed. Only my senses were being warped endlessly. I couldn't make plans like usual, couldn't think things through. Enduring it was the absolute limit.

Even so... it was daytime now. We'd made it to "the next day." Which meant we could escape Floor 29.

Does escaping actually change anything, you ask? It opens up possibilities.

"Just like I said earlier, we go straight to Floor 26."

Choi Ji-won explained it calmly, step by step. This plan was hers, and even with my dulled brain, it sounded reasonable.

First, clear Floor 29. Then enter Floor 26, and use the "contribution ranking" we'd accumulated so far to search for a way to heal my body. If we found no answers there either, we'd cross to America and visit the healer, William Smith. The Elixir hadn't worked, but another player's ability might do something different.

The Hero had told me to wait, but wasn't it better to wait while doing something, rather than just waiting idly?

"There'll probably be something on Floor 26?"

"Even if we burn through all our accumulated contribution ranking, we just need to find the cause of this pain. Once we know the reason, we can just use contribution ranking again after regressing."

"...Yeah, you're right, Ji-won."

There was still hope left. My body wasn't obeying me, but I believed things would still be okay.

"...Ngh."

My feet kept missing their footing, so it was hard even to walk, so Choi Ji-won supported me as we left the base. I hit my limit near the entrance and had to rest, and not long after, Choi Ji-won set a dying mole monster down in front of me.

"Can you stab it with your sword? Want help?"

"...I'll do it."

I forced myself to lift my sword and stabbed the mole monster. I failed to control my strength, and the blade pierced clean through the monster and drove deep into the ground. It went so deep that only the hilt stuck out above the monster's body. I must have gripped it too tightly too, since the hilt had a crack running through it.

"S-should I pull it out?"

"...No. We don't need it anymore."

Leaving the sword behind, I trudged back toward the interior of the base. Toward the tent where the Hero waited.

"Approved."

A voice echoed from far away.

"Jun-ho?"

"The Hero says I'm approved."

"Ah, really? I didn't hear anything..."

I hadn't even entered the tent, yet the Hero acknowledged me. I wasn't sure if that was really enough, but according to Ji-won, the status window had displayed the message "You have met the conditions." (My own status window was completely dead by now.)

Turning my head with great effort, I saw a blue portal had formed at the base's exit direction. Invisible to other players' eyes, a blue portal meant only for us.

"...Shall we go, Ji-won?"

"H-huh? Where?"

"...There's a portal over there."

"Ah, really?"

Ji-won looked pretty rattled too, unable to fully collect herself. I pointed the direction, and Ji-won supported me as we moved toward the portal.

"I'll see you on Floor 26. You can go straight there from Floor 1. Can you make it there on your own?"

"...I'll try."

I broke away from Ji-won's support and staggered unsteadily through the blue portal.

Up until this point, I had only worried about my own body. I wondered what all this was, wondered what I needed to do to get better.

You have cleared Floor 29.

Not knowing what waited ahead.

Footnotes:

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