WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 361

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Regression (9)

"I, I'm flying! A person is flying!"

"Whoaaaa!!!"

"Wait, wait! Don't get too close! There's poison in the swamp!"

"Poison? What are you—kuh!"

"Ah! Seriously!!! Bung-bung-ah, help me out!"

The other players and goblins cheered, watching me float and drift through the air. I'd told them not to fight and just wait, so they'd probably be fine for a little while. Choi Ji-won was down there too. No accidents should happen. As far as I remembered, the Goblin Shaman still had about a week left before natural death would take him anyway.

"Man, this still doesn't feel real."

"He's really a regressor...?"

"What is even going on right now? Can someone explain? I haven't really kept up with current events lately..."

"Look, mister. I think we just got lucky. Seems like that guy over there handled everything by himself."

Behind me, people chattered like I was some kind of monster.

"...Tch."

Meanwhile, I was concentrating so hard my whole body trembled.

For one thing, my mana reserves weren't nearly enough. I wasn't drawing on the Hero trait's boost from a massive crowd without limit like before, this was just me wringing what little mana I had left to force my body into the air. Compared to flying above the clouds back then, the fact that I could barely lift myself a hair off the ground now told the whole story.

And that wasn't even the worst of it. The poison swamp stretching in every direction was its own separate problem. Sure, I'd gotten absurdly strong since regressing, but taking damage still meant regressing, no exceptions. The instant that poison touched my lungs, I'd regress for certain, so I had to keep running the "mana filter" Ji-won had taught me the entire time.

On top of that, I also had to keep mana spread out around me to sense what happened once I got far enough away, which naturally sent the difficulty spiraling upward. I was pushing my mind about as hard as when I focused to regress all the way back to the Tutorial. (Not overexerting myself to the point of internal injury mattered a lot here too.)

It wasn't impossible, not by a long shot, so I kept flying somehow, but the limit was creeping closer by the second. The moment my concentration snapped, I'd drop straight into that bubbling poison swamp below.

"Nngh..."

My mana output kept destabilizing. Honestly, I don't think I'd ever pushed my mana this close to its absolute limit before. I'd heard from others that scraping mana down to the very bottom could make you cough blood, even pass out. I needed to finish before that happened.

"Huh?"

Despite all that worry, something shimmered far off in my field of view. The poison swamp, which had looked endless, thinned out gradually, giving way to a blue ocean, and beyond it, land.

Mountains. A city. Traces of civilization. Too far to make out clearly, but unmistakably the mark of another world. Maybe it was just rendered like the space beneath the Tutorial island, empty of any intelligent life at all. But even that would be enough. Just observing the traces of people who'd lived there could tell me plenty.

My mana was running out now, so reaching it was out of the question, but if I got more used to floating and flying like this, maybe someday I could actually get there...!

"?!"

Maybe I'd been too caught up in that hopeful future to react fast enough. Or maybe my edge had dulled with the limit closing in.

A beat late, but not too late. I managed to stop myself in midair. I closed my eyes and spread my senses, and it came through even more clearly.

A wall blocking the way ahead.

"...Blocked, huh."

I'd run into this kind of "invisible wall" plenty of times on other floors. The Tower itself worked under specific rules, specific worlds, specific conditions you had to meet before it let you through, so none of that ever felt out of place before.

So normally, I'd have just thought "ah, it's blocked" and moved on without a second thought. It happened all the time. It was a natural part of how things worked.

But.

"..."

I let my mana burst and tried my hardest to memorize the exact feel of this sensation.

Because somewhere in it, something felt familiar.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 0.]

"Fuck!!!"

"Status window!!!"

"Aaaaargh!!! A goblin!!! Emergency!!!"

While everyone danced their usual chaos, I stayed focused, tracing back through that sensation I'd felt.

That barrier...

'Familiar.'

Yeah, familiar was the right word for it. I'd felt that protective barrier's aura somewhere before. An archangel? Close, but no. The Heavenly Demon? The elder? Neither of those either. It wasn't a feeling I'd ever gotten off any enemy I'd faced. I'd definitely felt it somewhere, and pretty recently too...

"Ah."

I realized it. Where I'd felt it before, and why it felt so familiar.

The fundamental aura radiating off that barrier was.

"Regression..."

Similar to the dizziness I felt during my own regression, just massively amplified.

Honestly, I'd known it all along. This power called Regression that I possessed wasn't given to me because I was amazing or admirable in some way. It was granted by a system called the status window, and there had to be some entity behind that status window who granted it. Most likely, with high probability, the god who made this Tower.

So it wasn't a stretch to say this power's source came from that god, and since this Tower was probably also that god's creation, it made sense the two would feel similar. If anything, it fit together perfectly.

"..."

Like when someone tells you "your family and everyone you love will die," and even though it's technically true, it still leaves you feeling awful, realizing that Regression was also a power granted by a god left a bad taste in my mouth. No, no. Let's think productively here.

Did the barrier only use a power similar to Regression in the Tutorial? Or was it the same on other floors too? Since I could already handle the power of Regression myself, was there some way to use that to break through it? Besides turning back time, was there some other way to travel between floors of the Tower? I didn't know, but it felt like I'd learned everything there was to learn from the Tutorial.

"Let's regress."

I quickly burst the mana inside me. Because it was really, truly time to leave the Tutorial now.

"Choi Ji-won-yang. Please listen to what I have to say starting now."

"Um, could you, back off a little?"

I quickly explained the situation to Choi Ji-won, who'd jumped in surprise when Bung-bung started talking to her.

"Hello there! Welcome to the wonderful process of wasting your li— Kuaaaack!!!"

"Wh, what was that!"

"The Tutorial's fairy is dead!!!"

"Ji-won-yang. Just say you did it. Tell them we have a plan."

"...Everyone, calm down! I subdued it!"

I handed Choi Ji-won the title of "Subduer of the Tutorial's Fairy" along the way, killing two birds with one stone.

"Um, could I get your name, by any chance?"

"...You don't need to know."

"Ah, got it..."

Also spreading the rumor that "there's a mysterious person around" while I was at it.

"Groaaaaaargh!!!"

"Hah!"

I made quick work of the Minotaur, said my goodbyes to the Goblin Shaman, and passed through the portal with a satisfied heart. Ah, right, come to think of it, this wasn't actually the end here.

"I will now measure the sins you have committed—"

"I didn't do anything... I just followed along..."

"I did curse a little, said the F word, but does that even count as a sin? I mean, honestly, who wouldn't curse a little in a situation that extreme..."

"...Get out."

After passing through the fake courtroom guarded by that overbearing angel Zeziel (Zeziel oddly kept avoiding eye contact with me),

-You have entered Floor 1.

I finally made it back to the now overly familiar Floor 1. Out of habit, I manipulated my mental imagery to conjure up a warm water bed and lay down gently on it. At this point, I could say I'd cleared the Tutorial according to plan. Missing out on the hidden piece stung a little, but I'd still picked up an important clue: some power similar to Regression governed the Tower itself.

But this was only the beginning. No time to lie around feeling satisfied.

"...Beds really are the best thing ever."

Well... not zero time. Just a little.

"Now then..."

From here on, I needed to move with real caution. My goals broke down into two main pieces. First, gain enough proper fame to make use of in an emergency, all without letting anyone catch on that I was a regressor. Second, clear the Tower as fast as possible in a way I could actually be satisfied with.

When I'd first laid out the plan, I'd assumed Ji-won would be able to help me, but with her memory not back yet, she wasn't much help for the moment. Well, it wasn't like I couldn't clear Floor 2 and Floor 3 without Choi Ji-won's help. The real problem was something else entirely.

Ever since I came back to the past, all through the Tutorial, and even now, there was one thing weighing on my mind. An incredibly important decision, and possibly an irreversible one too, which meant I had to choose carefully.

As I knew already, I'd successfully taken down the master of the city on Floor 2 and met the archangel who oversaw it. That meeting itself had gone smoothly enough, and afterward, the archangel had given me a ring.

Right, that ring I'd been planning to use. The ring that could erase a trait. The ring that guaranteed I wouldn't regress even if I died of old age someday.

An item worth grabbing no matter what, if I could get my hands on it.

"...To get it, I'd have to meet the archangel again."

That was exactly what troubled me.

Given my current state, was meeting the archangel really the right move?

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