WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 324: The past (3)

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The President, intoxicated by that burning heat.

"Shut your mouth."

"..."

That single line from Zetter yanked the President's mind back to reality in an instant.

Michael Zetter was the embodiment of self-control. He might joke around, but he never spat out crude words, and he'd always shown the President nothing but proper respect.

And that Zetter, cursing at him?

"Let's assume the Book does have such a function."

Of course, this was all deliberate. Michael Zetter, thinking things through calmly in his slowed time, had decided he needed to shock the President back to his senses, even if it meant cursing.

"Let's assume that by actually using the Book, it becomes possible to prove the regressor's existence."

"..."

"To leave a small mark on a book that has reached the realm of the omniscient, the omnipotent, the divine... how great a sacrifice do you think that would require?"

"...If we pooled America's full strength, it might be possible."

"It might be. But that's only a possibility."

Even drunk, the President now understood what Zetter was getting at.

"Let's assume we scraped together every resource America has and doesn't have, offered it all to the Book, and actually managed to leave the mark. But what if there's no regressor?"

"..."

"Then America will have wasted every one of its resources on a small, utterly useless mark, and you, Mr. President, will have to put a pistol in your mouth and take responsibility. Do you think that makes any sense?"

"B-but, if the time traveler exists, that person is like a god..."

"If the time traveler really does exist, what do you plan to do after that?"

Even if the President's plan succeeded, that was a problem too.

"Say you prove their existence. What then?"

"..."

"Let's assume, with extraordinarily good luck, that a regressor really did exist. Let's say that even though we never actually left a mark, a mark still appeared in the spot we intended to leave it."

Zetter's words drove deep into the President's chest.

"What would that change? It would only prove one single fact: that a regressor exists. Would you have any way of knowing who the regressor is, or what their intentions are? Nothing but the self-satisfaction of having proven a god-like being's existence. Beyond that—"

"...That's enough."

Laughing with a hollow "heh," the President, unable to fight off his drunkenness, leaned his forehead against the table.

"I, I suppose... I was a bit drunk."

On alcohol. On power. On strength.

The President recognized that he'd misspoken. Zetter's words were right, a hundred times over, a thousand times over. What if he did as the President wanted, and no regressor existed? That would mean throwing America's future into the trash.

And what if a regressor did exist? Nothing would change even then. He'd only know that such a transcendent power existed, with nothing he could actually do about it. Would he prepare against that person? Or try to keep them in check somehow?

Someone who could see the future and could never be harmed was, in effect, a god. Knowing that such a person existed changed nothing. Which meant what the President had been about to attempt was pure self-satisfaction.

"...Forget what happened today."

"Yes."

The President's request to "forget it" carried a great deal packed inside it. Of course it meant he wanted his misspoken words forgotten, but it also carried his gratitude toward Michael Zetter, for reining him in when he'd started talking nonsense.

Zetter, for his part, had no wish to dig any deeper into this either. The President was doing more than well enough right now, and there was no one else fit to replace him. Zetter himself, with his emotions worn down to almost nothing, could always make efficient judgments, but it was only natural for an ordinary human to get drunk on power and do something foolish.

The two drank as though nothing had happened, and parted ways not long after. They carried on with their daily routines, just as always.

But there really was no going back to how things had been. From that incident on, the distance between the two of them grew, little by little. That was always how change worked.

It could never be undone again.

* * *

Again. About a week passed. Michael Zetter was deep into climbing the Tower. The Association was sailing smoothly, and America had settled into its place as master of the new order.

"Phew."

He'd just cleared Floor 14. Part of him wanted to keep climbing, but there was too much paperwork waiting for him. If he hadn't held the position of Association president, he probably would have been the one climbing highest among all humanity. Nothing to be done about it.

Knock knock.

"Come in."

Seated in his office chair, eyes fixed on a document, Zetter granted the visitor entry.

"?"

A tenth of a second later, he sensed something was off. The footsteps, the position of the knock on the door, none of it matched anyone he remembered.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Mahesh."

The one who opened the door and stepped in was an Indian man with a kind face. Looking a little tense, he calmly took the seat across from Zetter.

"...How did you get in here?"

"Maybe because you're so strong, the security here was surprisingly lax to begin with. Knowing the shift change time made it easy to slip in."

Timing the guard rotation. Easy to say, but obtaining that information in the first place was no small feat.

"I'll ask again."

And what Mahesh said was, in fact, entirely true.

"How did you get in here?"

Zetter needed no guards. Bullets, poison gas, maybe even a nuclear bomb—none of it could harm him. Snapping the neck of the man in front of him right now would have been easier than taking candy from a child.

Mahesh seemed to feel the pressure radiating off Zetter and swallowed hard, but that didn't stop him from saying what he'd come to say.

"I... possess a Prophecy trait."

"Prophecy?"

"Call it limited foresight, maybe. That foresight led me here. It told me to find the strongest man. There was room for debate over who the strongest human was, but the strongest man—that was clearly you."

Mahesh, the Indian man who identified himself as a prophecy user, said his trait had guided him to Zetter.

"I want to help you. I believe that's the way I can contribute to humanity."

"..."

A stranger showing up out of nowhere. An almost unbelievably overpowered trait. An opportunity too tempting to pass up.

Most people would have hesitated.

"Fine."

Zetter swallowed it whole. Partly because he was confident he could handle it, and partly because he'd been feeling a certain lack lately.

He'd been keenly aware of a shortage of strength. Not a shortage in his own personal power. A shortage of influence.

As the President's case had shown, humans were unstable. People could change on a dime depending on circumstance. What if some leader somewhere suddenly snapped and launched a nuclear missile? Or some player who'd lost their mind carried out a mass-casualty attack?

Zetter would win if he fought them, but if everything except Zetter got destroyed in the process, the victory meant nothing. Zetter considered himself the strongest, but there were limits to what one person alone could accomplish.

Feeling the need for a proper organization, Zetter took Mahesh's hand. That was the beginning of Alpha, the private group Zetter built.

"Go to Cambodia now. Exactly 2:13, downstream on this river."

"Understood."

Mahesh could detect the locations of players whose talents were going to waste, and Zetter would go find them, wherever they were being persecuted, and play the hero. Recruiting them was that easy.

"Th-thank you! Thank you so much for saving me!"

A Long-range Teleportation user.

"...Your name. Tell me. Thanks."

An animal shapeshifter.

"H-how did you find my secret base... heh heh heh... you're the Player Association president, aren't you? Nice. This is getting interesting."

Someone who could turn their body into an electrical signal and hack into computers.

And then.

"My ability is... Inventory."

That was also when Dok Su-hee, still a high school girl, joined. Players with all kinds of deadly abilities gathered under Michael Zetter's name.

"These are the special forces members who'll help with your training."

Players belonging to Alpha received professional training. Beyond helping them use their abilities more effectively, they built up knowledge in hand-to-hand combat, infiltration, and the art of pulling information out of a conversation—knowledge that would put many a professional to shame. Naturally, they used items pulled from America's national treasury like water.

"Hey! That ice cream's mine!"

"You've got tons in your Inventory. Give me some."

"I don't have any!"

The training period itself was short, but the bonds between the members grew tight in that time. Their skill shot up vertically too, of course.

Once training was roughly finished, Alpha's members split into two broad groups.

"Items gained from climbing the Tower go into the shared warehouse. We'll pool our resources in one place and direct them where they're needed most."

Those who actively climbed the Tower and collected items.

"What should we do?"

"You'll carry out missions in the real world."

And those who exercised influence in reality. Zetter's goal was world peace, and the world had more than enough seeds of trouble threatening that peace.

"This one's a vicious rapist. He has a trait that lets him transform into objects. Find him."

"What do we do once we find him?"

Once again.

"Kill him."

Zetter, in those days, had no emotion left in him.

* * *

All of this happened within just two and a half months. Two and a half months since the First Tutorial occurred. It was around the time Mahesh had just cleared Floor 15 and discovered the statues' "timer," and around when Kim Jun-ho was shivering on the snowy mountain of Floor 10.

"I'm calling a meeting. Gather."

By this point, the American President had, for all practical purposes, taken the seat of master of Earth. Simply attending a meeting he chaired was now seen as a mark of power in itself, and his intervening in other nations' policies was recognized not as an insult, but as a right. Only two and a half months had passed, yet the Book's influence had already grown that vast.

At the same time, Zetter had claimed an unshakable position as leader among the players. There had been a bit of "intervention" in shaping public opinion, that much was true, but the results Zetter earned through his own effort were undeniable.

Frankly speaking, Zetter didn't like the President's methods. He was trying to build a world for players, so what did it matter to consolidate political footing?

The President felt the same way. From a ruler's perspective, Zetter gathering up players with dangerous abilities felt threatening enough on its own. The moment the blade Zetter was sharpening turned toward the President's throat, he had to assume he was already a dead man.

In other words, each viewed the other as a thorn in his side. Neither found the other agreeable.

And yet the two maintained a cooperative relationship. Neither ever crossed into the other's territory, and each did his best in his own position.

The reason was obvious. Their goals were the same. Maintaining order for humanity. And peace for the world.

Zetter believed things would stay this way indefinitely. Each respecting the other's authority, neither interfering with the other, both protecting the world. Not quite an alliance, more like a business partnership, one he believed would continue on into the future.

"Association President."

"What is it, Mahesh?"

"I think you need to see this."

"...An Elixir?"

So it seemed.

Footnotes:

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