The Regressor Makes an Effort (9)
The Regressor Makes an Effort (9)
The café was quiet save for the soft music. Choi Ji-won had been struck speechless.
"...Excuse me?"
"I'm a regressor."
"..."
How would someone react if a person they knew came to them for advice about their hardships, then suddenly claimed to be a regressor? I wasn't sure. Flabbergasted, probably?
But Choi Ji-won's reaction was more intense than I'd expected.
"Are you out of your damn mind?"
"...What?"
"Do I look like I'm joking around? I came here to talk, and what do I get? A regressor? I call you 'Jun-ho' all polite, so you must think you're some big shot, huh?"
Choi Ji-won's response was far icier than I'd anticipated. She glared at me, her expression completely blank, her eyes frozen.
It was a look reminiscent enough to trigger PTSD from the Tutorial. Right—I'd regressed plenty of times back then after getting slapped around by that exact expression on Choi Ji-won's face. Seeing it again after so long felt almost novel.
And I had a guess why she'd suddenly lashed out.
"Are you Boongboong-yi, by any chance?"
"...What?"
"I thought so."
The main culprit who'd made me regress countless times in the Tutorial was Boongboong-yi. I'd suspected as much. The way she spoke had grown so much more animated that I'd hesitated for a moment, but the real Choi Ji-won would never act like this.
"No, you, how did..."
Boongboong-yi stammered, trailing off. Seemingly flustered, the creature fidgeted, then retreated into hiding as if at a loss for words. That meant Choi Ji-won's consciousness had returned.
"How... did you know?"
Choi Ji-won looked just as shocked. She hadn't told me about Boongboong-yi on Floor 2, so it wasn't strange for her to be thrown off—someone who shouldn't know her secret did.
"I told you. I'm a regressor."
"...That wasn't a joke?"
"It wasn't. Let me explain everything, from the beginning."
I cleared my throat and slowly laid out everything that had happened so far.
"We first met in the Tutorial."
Choosing Choi Ji-won in the Tutorial's clearing to learn swordsmanship.
Getting sliced up by Boongboong-yi countless times whenever I tried to lie.
Encountering the Goblin Shaman and having everything go wrong the moment we were sold out by them.
The moment our regression was confirmed and we shared our true feelings. The time I spent with a friend who genuinely cheered for me.
"You remember Floor 2, right? We cleared it together and moved on to Floor 3."
Resisting Floor 2's unjust structure and struggling with everything I had.
Waiting for Choi Ji-won to arrive and finally liberating the City Master.
"We separated on Floor 3, didn't we?"
Meeting new people on Floor 3.
Repeating regressions to break through the Arrow Trap.
And at the very end, getting backstabbed by Dok Su-hee and blowing her arm off in return.
"Floor 4 felt the hardest. It was cold, long, and people died..."
The information I'd gathered after countless regressions on this Floor 4.
Including the fact that I had to choose one: saving the people there or persuading Choi Ji-won.
"Ahh, I'm thirsty."
After laying out a story that would fill at least a hundred and ten episodes if turned into a novel, I took a sip of my Frappuccino to wet my throat.
"Well?"
"...Well, what?"
"Your thoughts."
"..."
Sluuurp.
Choi Ji-won drank her iced Americano instead of answering right away. After a brief pause, her lips parted.
"I believe you about the regression. But I don't know."
"..."
"I just... don't know."
My story was one she didn't know. Her own story was one she didn't know. It wasn't as if my suddenly telling her all this could make her feel close to me. She simply understood it as, 'I see.'
"There are plenty of things I could say lightly. You must have had a hard time, you're amazing, you're cool, and so on... But I don't think any of that would be sincere."
Choi Ji-won didn't offer the sort of clichéd words anyone could say. Just as I'd approached this seriously, she intended to answer seriously.
"Actually, I'm curious. What makes you tell me this story? And what makes you bring up what happened on Floor 4?"
Choi Ji-won pulled Boongboong-yi from her bag and gently stroked it. The café worker's eyes widened for a second, but the owner seemed used to the sight and stopped the worker from calling the police.
"In the Tutorial... we were really close, weren't we?"
"We were."
"Then you should know what I'm going to say."
That was true. The Choi Ji-won I knew would never welcome a situation where I gave up on the people right in front of me to come help her. And the practical concerns were just as substantial.
"And even if you came to tell me this yourself... there's no guarantee I could save everyone, is there? I don't have the 'Hero' trait you mentioned, or a Curiosity trait, or an Awe trait... and above all, you'd have no certainty that this is the right path, because you said you've been going around in circles."
"..."
"It means the probability is low."
Choi Ji-won recited back the very problems I'd considered. Her expression was utterly bleak.
Choi Ji-won's strengths were swordsmanship, combat sense, physical ability, and sensing ability, more or less. She shared my weakness against large-scale slaughter. This meant she had poor compatibility with Floor 4.
"So, we're back to square one... what is the reason you told me this story?"
"..."
The reason I'd revealed myself as a regressor to her.
The reason I'd wanted to meet her again and talk.
"I wanted to know."
"...Know what?"
"I wanted to know how I feel about you."
I'd wanted to see how I'd react while talking to her.
It had been so long since I'd seen Choi Ji-won, because I'd spent so much time on Floor 4. What emotions would I feel looking at her? How would I treat her? I wanted to figure that out.
Telling her about my past had been as much a talk aimed at myself as it was at her. By looking back on the past, I was tracing over the road I'd walked.
And the emotion I felt as I talked... was sorrow.
Sorrow that I hadn't been able to wrap up Floor 2 and Floor 3 perfectly.
Sorrow at a situation where I had to choose between the people of Floor 4 and Choi Ji-won.
Sorrow that the Choi Ji-won in front of me was clearly different from the one in my memories.
Sorrow that she, who once gazed at lofty ideals, now discussed the impossible.
Sorrow that she'd faced death and had been broken by it.
Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't precious to me. Even if she had no memories of it and we'd become somewhat awkward, she was still a companion climbing the Tower. She was a talent who would lead the world.
Still... we weren't friends anymore.
She called me 'Jun-ho,' and I called her 'Ji-won.' Business partners. That was exactly the extent of our distance. I'd merely reconfirmed it.
"I'm sorry."
"..."
"For being rude... I'm sorry."
The Choi Ji-won from the clearing and the one before me were different people. We weren't close now.
What could be a more obnoxious act than projecting another person onto someone else? I'd been massively rude.
I rose from my seat, gave a deep bow of apology, and moved to leave the café. I'd train my mana sufficiently and then regress.
"Hoo."
With this, I'd roughly sorted out my feelings. Once I regressed, I'd give up on Choi Ji-won.
Actually, wasn't perfectly conquering Floor 4 a remarkable achievement in itself? This wasn't a compromise. How could it be a compromise when it was impossible from the start?
I shouldn't cling to the impossible; I needed to look forward and move ahead.
I completely let go of my feelings toward Choi Ji-won.
"Wait."
—Or at least, I nearly did.
"...?"
"Sit down."
With hollow eyes, Choi Ji-won grabbed my wrist. Her grip was strong enough that if she'd squeezed much harder, I might have regressed.
"Wh-why are you doing this?"
"In the end, aren't you sad right now because the 'Choi Ji-won of the Tutorial' and the 'Choi Ji-won of today' are too different?"
"...To put it in extreme terms, yes."
"How are the two of us different?"
"..."
A lot of words came to mind, but none of them burst out smoothly—it was like a crowd of people jammed into a narrow entrance.
The differences between the current Choi Ji-won and the one from back then. If I really went through the list, there were truly countless things. The most basic level of familiarity was different, for one. But if I had to sum it up in a single sentence, the Choi Ji-won of the Tutorial had been a brilliantly shining hero.
Someone I could look up to, follow, and respect. That's who Choi Ji-won had been to me.
But now, that perception had faded a lot. Part of it was that I'd grown stronger, but also because the current Choi Ji-won was in the middle of tasting bitter failure and anguish.
Because of the gap between the past Choi Ji-won I'd idealized and the real one before me, the sense of dissonance had only worsened. Maybe part of the reason was that the past Choi Ji-won had grown far too large in my own heart.
"So in other words..."
Just as I tried to explain this properly in words, my eyes met Choi Ji-won's.
"Tell me. Clearly."
Was it simple curiosity? Or wounded pride? Perhaps both.
The moment I looked into Choi Ji-won's eyes, where complex emotions swirled, I couldn't help but stop talking.
"What sort of person is the Choi Ji-won you remember?"
Because, in her eyes, a light had slowly begun to glint.
