WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 369

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Regression (17)

"Achoo!"

Out on the fortress's outer edge, the wind cut like knives. Torches hung here and there, but they weren't nearly enough to chase off cold that rattled teeth.

"Ah, shit, seriously..."

"Quit cursing."

"You think I wouldn't curse right now? Shit. Damn it. This is bullshit."

A player kicked the innocent castle wall, venting his frustration on it.

"I mean, come on, what's the point of standing watch in this weather? Nothing's even coming out."

"...Yeah, fair point."

The player trying to calm him down shook his head like he understood completely.

Today marked the third day since Floor 4 had begun. Yoon Joong-hyun, William Smith, and the other players who'd stepped up as leaders had put together some kind of order, and under that order, watch duty had been assigned.

"Survival, my ass. Are we supposed to survive by freezing? I'm gonna freeze to death out here. Shit, why'd it have to be tonight..."

Nothing had happened in three days, and on top of that, watch duty fell at night instead of during the relatively mild daytime, so complaints were bound to surface. Add to that the fact that the players, tense as they'd been at first, were slowly starting to relax. It didn't help that Kim Jun-ho, the one who used to keep everyone in line, wasn't around this time.

"Nothing inside the fortress, nothing outside it either. Unless the reward only shows up if we kill each other, does 'survive' even mean anything here?"

"...Hey, shut up."

"No, seriously, think about it..."

"I said shut up. Someone's coming."

A presence stirred near the fortress. A group approached, faces tight with tension. Even the player who'd been complaining picked up on the strange mood and clamped his mouth shut.

"...Gyeong-jun-ssi. Are you sure?"

"Yes. According to my trait, 'Analysis Complete'... something's coming from over there."

Ahn Gyeong-jun, one of the group, gave a nod, and Yoon Joong-hyun, who'd taken on the role of leader among the players, signaled. A moment later, one player conjured a massive fireball.

"Fire it that way."

The huge fireball flew off, and the darkness lit up bit by bit as it went.

"Wh, what is that..."

Nothing in particular showed itself until the fireball's glow reached it. All that came into view were eyes. Eyes. Eyes. Eyes... countless eyes.

Eyes glinting with madness. Eyes brimming with bloodlust. Eyes so wound up with excitement that blood streamed down from them.

"...Wake every player up."

Yoon Joong-hyun ground his teeth without meaning to.

"Monsters... a swarm of monsters is coming."

That was what "survive" on Floor 4 had actually meant.

The fortress right now looked a lot different from when Kim Jun-ho had been there.

Without an overwhelmingly strong presence like him around, cohesion was weak, and because of that, the players couldn't be properly organized.

With no organization, clashes with the otherworlder group had broken out more than once (they'd been mistaken for NPCs), and at this point it would've been a relief if the two sides just avoided pointing swords at each other, let alone cooperating.

"How are the otherworlders doing?"

"Uh... the NPCs... apparently they're off doing their own thing, separately."

"Understood."

Of course they weren't stupid, so they'd probably lend a hand with the defense, but expecting all-out help was out of the question. Which meant the full-scale battle would have to rest entirely on the players' shoulders. And without a regressor around, nobody had been able to repair the fortress walls either, so blocking the entrance was its own separate headache.

"Damn, this is gonna rake in experience points like crazy."

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"...The weapon feels heavier than usual today."

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"...Haah."

"Whew."

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"..."

"..."

The closer the monsters' footsteps got, the closer that vibration crept toward the tips of their feet, the quieter the fortress grew in return.

Gulp.

Someone's swallow rang out, loud.

Extreme tension gripped everyone. The torches in their hands trembled. They'd figured something might show up eventually. But not one of them had ever imagined this much of a monster horde charging in with this much force.

The first real threat to life they'd felt since the Tutorial. That sensation of a cold blade pressed under the throat. Blood draining from the head, heart pounding, a ringing in the ears drowning out sound, and somehow the field of vision narrowing. If there hadn't been someone standing behind them, they would've run. Didn't want to die. Mom, Dad... someone, someone help—

"Get a grip!!!"

A voice rang out, shaking the fortress to its bones.

"Focus. If you don't focus... everyone dies."

Humans are creatures easily swayed. Even in the grip of death closing in from every direction, they can steady themselves again through the sheer force of someone else's will.

"Just stick to the plan. Watch the shift timing, and in theory, everyone survives. Don't think about anything else. Just think about surviving, all of us together. We can do this."

Yoon Joong-hyun's words didn't make the fear vanish. The tension didn't disappear.

But one thing was certain: a spark had lit in everyone's eyes. Negative emotion can sometimes become fuel to move on. These people were ready to fight.

"Here they come."

The footsteps drew closer. Howls rang out nearby. They were coming. The things were swarming in. The monster horde filling every inch of vision, bodies piling over bodies, surging over the fortress walls, finally rushing straight for the entrance!!!

"...Huh?"

"Ah?"

But something... something was off. That wasn't a charge. It looked more like things just rolling around. There really was bloodlust and blood spraying everywhere, sure. But the targets weren't... human.

What the players faced wasn't a monster wave with eyes reddened for human blood.

"Kerrrrrk!!!"

"Kuoooo!!!"

"Waaaaooong!!!"

"Th, they're... fighting each other...?"

It was a monster horde clawing, tearing, and killing each other in complete chaos.

"Whoa!!! This is... this is pretty slick!"

"Th, that's enough!"

"If I press this one and this one at the same time... whoo!"

"No!!!"

Night of the third day. Eom Hong-jun and I were still holed up in the angels' secret base.

Eom Hong-jun was busy having the time of his life fiddling with the machine. (Turned out the machine had a function that let you watch a distant location. Thanks to that, we could see the fortress directly.) I just sat off to the side, quietly observing it.

"Look at this! People are holding them off! No, wait, they're straight up happy about it! Said the experience points are overflowing!"

"Th, that's enough..."

"If I do this here..."

"Aaaaaah!"

This wasn't the first or second time Eom Hong-jun had pulled something like this, and every single time, the junior angel gave a satisfyingly dramatic reaction. Watching that only fired Eom Hong-jun up more, and he kept working the machine with enthusiasm. Three days now, and the two of them just kept repeating the same routine, never getting tired of it.

What was I doing this whole time, you ask? Nothing much, honestly. Ate, slept, watched the two of them. Shouldn't I be digging information out of the angel? That had been the plan at first, but thinking it through, it didn't seem worth it.

The senior angel would clearly refuse to answer anything I asked, and the junior one didn't look like it actually knew much of anything either way. With the outcome that predictable, what was the point of trying.

Sure, if this had been early in my regressions, I would've tried all kinds of things just to pry something loose. But by now, I'd moved on to a more refined approach.

"Hmm..."

What I'd spent the last three days focused on was observing the angels' machine. Not just watching it, either, I opened my soul fully and poured mana into concentrating on it.

First off, I confirmed the angels' machine ran on neither mana nor spiritual force but on divine power. And that its nature was unlike any power I'd encountered before.

So it'd be fair to say the last three days had really been spent observing "divine power" itself more than the machine. It was almost absurd, after regressing this many times, that there was still something left for me to learn.

Still, three days of investment had actually produced results.

"Alright, pressing this one now!"

Every time Eom Hong-jun pressed a button on that machine, a small amount of divine power leaked out into the sky. That leaked divine power rose higher and higher, past the point of visibility, climbing and climbing until at some point it vanished completely.

Groooooar!!!

"Look at this! The wolf monster's got eight legs now!"

"I, its own legs are tripping it up! Put it back the way it was!"

"But this is fun!"

The divine power that had risen into the sky came crashing back down, generating or transforming monsters in the process. What stood out was that the divine power rising into the sky was minuscule in quantity, but the divine power that came crashing back down carried an enormous wave of force.

Watching the way that button worked, and the difference in the amount of divine power involved, I managed to form a hypothesis.

That machine was just a signal transmitter, and somewhere up in that sky, there was something receiving the signal and actually "exercising" the divine power directly.

An archangel isn't a god (a slightly strange way to put it, admittedly), and it can't step in on every single thing. Angels aren't weak, but they're not strong enough to intervene in ways that twist the world itself.

So then... how were the other floors being maintained? Every time a player entered, it was essentially like a small world being created. How was something like that managed?

"...Honestly, kind of pretty."

I watched the divine power surge into the sky and focused hard, trying to analyze the pattern.

If the other floors ran on a similar system.

If I could replicate that divine power pattern myself.

And if there was some way for an individual like me to interfere with the Tower's system.

"..."

Then maybe, just maybe, I could find the answer to every question I'd ever had.

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