WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ The World Is Not a Game ◈
Chapter 20
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Hyeokjin nodded as he spoke. The breathing apparatus covering the lower half of his face hid part of his expression, but his eyes made it seem as though he was discovering something about himself through his own words.
Slowly raising his head to look at the shelter's metal ceiling, Hyeokjin continued in a calm voice.
"My life has been full of regrets. So many choices seemed fine when I made them, only for me to bitterly regret them later. For the seventeen years since I moved to the United States, regret over my bad choices has haunted me. I ran dungeons obsessively, determined never to make those choices again. Yes, I kept telling myself I wouldn't make another choice I'd regret."
Hyeokjin paused, then turned to Nikki.
She was looking down at him with a complicated expression. He gave her a bitter smile.
"I'm afraid that if I hesitate now, I'll regret it later. That this expedition will fail, and in my final moments, I'll think, 'I should've volunteered back then... We might have succeeded if I had...' I don't want to die feeling that same misery I've gone over and over for the past seventeen years. I want to feel that, at the very least, I did everything I could."
"...Ha. You have to be alive to regret anything. You're unbelievable."
After hearing his answer, Nikki dropped into a chair. She pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed in disbelief.
Hyeokjin gave her another bitter smile, then began reattaching the alchemy equipment he had set aside to his servo arms.
"If success were guaranteed without me, I wouldn't have volunteered for the delaying team. But there's no guarantee, so I have to step up. It's the choice that gives us a better chance of success, and one I won't regret later. My fear of future regret is stronger than my instinct to survive... Well, maybe that is brainwashing. But if this is brainwashing, it's not so bad."
With that, Hyeokjin returned his attention to his work.
An awkward silence hung in the room for several minutes. Then Nikki suddenly sprang to her feet and walked over to him.
Hyeokjin looked up at her unexpected approach. Frowning, she spoke.
"Hey, Vanilla. Do you remember when we first met?"
"...Of course. About fourteen years ago. It was my first expedition into a shadow world after I moved to the United States and received physical enhancement surgery and other operations from the US government. You were on that team. You'd gone through the S-rank mutation process, but you hadn't been promoted yet, so you were still an A-rank Closer."
"Right. We were such opposites even then. Our personalities, our attitudes. We didn't get along at all. We fought over our differences a lot at first, but we became friends after realizing we were in similar situations. Isn't there a saying about fellow sufferers sympathizing with each other? Even now, I find it amazing that we became friends."
"Yes, I agree. We really weren't a good match."
Hyeokjin nodded with a bitter smile as he remembered the past. Nikki gave a small chuckle and nodded too.
"Heh, right. At first, you just seemed like a lunatic. But as we went into dungeons together and I slowly got to know you, you reminded me of my younger sibling. The one I lost so young. Watching you struggle to do something beyond your power... I suppose I felt sorry for you. It hurt to watch."
"Ha! I'm about ten years older than you, and you saw me as a younger sibling? I must've been a real..."
Before Hyeokjin could finish his amused response, Nikki suddenly bent down and brought her face close to his.
Their faces were barely more than ten centimeters apart. Caught off guard, Hyeokjin tried to draw his head back, but Nikki reached out with both hands, gripped the sides of his head, and frowned.
"I think this every time I look at your face, but can't you take that breathing apparatus off for once?"
"No. As you know, I need this to..."
Before he could finish, her lips lightly touched his exposed forehead.
While Hyeokjin sat frozen in surprise, Nikki released his head and straightened up. She lightly tapped the spot she had kissed with her index finger and grinned.
"Fight like hell to stay alive. If I have time after we get the core, your big sister will come rescue you. Got it?"
Leaving Hyeokjin unable to say a word, she turned lightly and headed out of the workshop.
* * *
Two days passed, and the appointed time finally arrived.
Everyone gathered where the fabric of space grew thin. Before beginning the operation, Chuck looked around at the team with a stern expression.
"Does everyone have their equipment?"
In answer, everyone raised the large guns in their hands. These were warp energy-powered personal firearms designed for use against monsters. The thick, small explosive shells they fired fed into the guns through ammunition belts connected to the large packs on their backs.
They were weaker than the special abilities of S-rank Closers fighting in earnest, but their power was excellent for the amount of warp energy they consumed. Nothing was better for conserving strength.
Normally, no one would consider bringing such weapons into a dungeon, where the amount they could carry was limited. But thanks to their one-person support team, Hyeokjin, and the abundant resources all around them, they had been able to make guns and ammunition on-site and equip themselves.
Chuck slowly nodded at the team's confident response and continued.
"As I said before, once we start, the monsters will come out. We'll have to keep moving without a break. If anyone isn't feeling well, speak up now. We can give you more time."
"We've spent the past week getting ourselves ready for today. We'd be idiots if we couldn't even manage that!"
Everyone nodded at the answer from the Closer wearing silver gauntlets.
Once the broad plan had been decided, they had sorted and distributed the supplies Hyeokjin had made while getting themselves into the best possible condition.
As combat professionals, they were all in peak form.
After confirming one last time that everyone was ready, Chuck gave Nikki a grim nod.
With permission granted, Nikki took a deep breath and released black mist from her body. The mist soon formed a large arched gate roughly three meters high.
"All right, we're going in!"
At Chuck's forceful shout, the group charged at full speed into the gate's dark interior.
* * *
Black slime bubbled up, then surged like a seething swarm of insects.
Before the monster could even take shape, the Closers' firearms roared and blasted it apart... But even after that fearsome firepower shattered its form, the black slime scattered all around kept gathering, endlessly rebuilding it.
While the other Closers concentrated their fire to delay the monster's formation, Nikki worked up a sweat opening a dimensional gate to another three-dimensional cross section.
"Nikki! How much longer? I've even used up all my small bombs!"
"Just... Just a little longer..."
"Argh, this is driving me crazy! I'd rather just beat the crap out of them with my fists..."
"Just take my magazine! We don't know what else might happen. Save your strength!"
The silver-gauntleted Closer threw aside an empty pack and was about to charge at the forming monsters. A nearby Closer kicked a pack on the ground over to the impatient fighter.
The silver-gauntleted Closer glared at the fresh pack for a moment, looking ready to boil over, then irritably slung it on, connected the ammunition belt to the gun, and resumed firing.
'We're still all right... but this isn't good.'
Watching the commotion ahead, Hyeokjin shouldered a fresh pack and connected its ammunition belt.
Plans usually became little more than scraps of paper once events began to unfold.
While they were planning, Nikki had told the others that she would be able to make immediate leaps between three-dimensional cross sections. But after about two leaps, she had changed her answer.
"An unknown spatial interference field has appeared. I think each leap will take a dozen or so seconds."
They were being delayed far more than expected. Fortunately, it was still within the margin of error they had allowed for, but things were clearly much harder than they had first anticipated.
"All right! It's ready!"
"Move!"
The arched gate of mist was finally complete. The moment Nikki announced it was ready, Chuck shouted, and the Closers quickly backed toward it while pouring out gunfire.
Waiting beside the gate, Nikki pulled fresh packs and support supplies from subspace and threw them toward her approaching teammates. The Closers swiftly caught the supplies, replenished their stocks, and disappeared through the gate.
Kieeeeeaaaagh!!!
As the team vanished into another space and the gunfire weakened, the boiling slime finally took complete form.
S-rank monsters.
The huge beasts, each capable of fighting four or five S-rank Closers at once, fixed their gleaming eyes on Nikki and lunged.
After making sure the last person had gone through, Nikki raised her middle finger at the charging S-rank beasts. Then she pressed the detonator for the bombs she had scattered nearby and jumped through the gate.
And then...
"What? Why is it so quiet here?"
As soon as she emerged, Nikki quickly dumped more supplies onto the ground and looked around.
On each of their four spatial leaps so far, the first thing she had seen after passing through the gate was her teammates firing wildly to delay the formation of monsters.
But this time was different.
Her teammates stood in silence, holding their breath, with their guns aimed in every direction. Their surroundings were peaceful too.
Whatever the reason, there was clearly no fighting. She gave up on waiting for an answer and immediately focused on opening another gate.
Before long...
"They're coming! Not S-rank! A- to B-rank! There are loads of them!"
Dhanush, who was responsible for wide-area detection, sensed the monsters and shouted a warning. The noisy gunfire began again.
But this time, things were different. Hordes of monsters emerged directly through the slime on the ground. Unlike before, there were no S-rank monsters, only A- to B-rank ones. They also formed so quickly that they seemed to spring out fully formed.
"FUCK!"
Bullets had worked against the monsters while they were forming, but against A- and B-rank monsters, they weren't nearly as effective.
As waves of monsters pushed through the gunfire, the melee Closers cursed, threw aside their firearms, and charged out to stop them head-on. The ranged ability users also emptied their explosive shells in an instant, then quickly fell back and unleashed a barrage of their own special abilities.
"Damn it! Where did these low-rank monsters come from? They form so fast that they're even harder to deal with!"
"This is good news! The dungeon's defense mechanism has started observing our reactions and adapting! I'll wipe them out all at once, so everyone on the melee team, strengthen your barriers as much as possible! The other ranged fighters, support the melee team!"
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