Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 174

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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174. Penalty (5)
The world flickered in pristine white before fading into complete whiteness, and when I opened my eyes again.
-So… I signed the contract today.
I was sitting on the familiar swing at the Neighborhood Playground.
‘What the hell?’
Had I returned? Been regressed again?
To assess the situation, I looked around and stood up from the swing. That’s when Kim Won-ho’s voice called out to me from the phone.
-Hyung? Are you listening?
“Uh, yeah… Hey, Won-ho. Sorry, but can we talk later? Something urgent just came up.”
-What are you talking about, hyung. That’s not it.
If I’d truly been regressed, I needed to find Dan Ha-ru first. As I tried to end the call with that thought, Kim Won-ho responded with something incomprehensible, his voice distorting like it was being torn apart.
-Good thing. You’ll do well. Lime’s a decent company anyway. …or so I should say.
“…What?”
[Retry!]
And then the flickering again.
When I opened my eyes shortly after.
-So… I signed the contract today.
I was sitting on the swing once more.
* * *
After the same sequence repeated about five times, I had to accept that I was trapped in some kind of wretched loop.
‘Ticket numbers, whatever—I’m definitely killing that bastard Returner.’
I’d tried everything to escape this loop, but no matter what I did, the moment [Retry!] appeared, I’d find myself back on this swing. At this point, there was no denying this wasn’t a normal regression like before—it was the Returner’s game.
[Retry!]
Back on the swing again, I didn’t hesitate to hang up on Kim Won-ho and spoke into the empty air.
“Hey. Cut the pathetic crap and show yourself.”
[Retry!]
“If you thought you could break my mind with this, I’d have been done for long ago. Stop screwing around and come out.”
[Retry!]
“Fine, whatever. If all you want is to swing around here with me for the rest of your life, then go ahead.”
He probably expected me to break down crying, begging to be let out. Fat chance.
I planted myself firmly on the swing, deciding not to care whether this bastard reset things a hundred times or not. Suddenly, countless [Retry!] messages flooded my vision.
“Nope, not working.”
Go ahead and try all you want, you son of a bitch. You think I’m falling for your tricks?
I’d already experienced infinite loops thoroughly during the Lee Yu-gun incident last time. And since this wasn’t even reality, I had no reason to fear this bastard.
After a long silence with no reaction from me, a new window finally appeared above the bright red [Retry!] messages.
[Dolja’s Quest]
Content: Don’t interfere with me.
Acceptance Reward: Return to the real world.
“Lol.”
The moment I saw that bastard Returner’s quest, I flipped him the bird without hesitation.
The world flipped upside down once more.
But this time, it wasn’t the tedious swing at the Neighborhood Playground.
I found myself viewing the empty Neighborhood Playground from a distance, like a spectator camera.
“…Park Sang-yul?”
The small Neighborhood Playground where I could now recite every scratch etched into every piece of equipment.
Only one person moved within that vast Playground.
It was the neighborhood kid Park Sang-yul—not me.
Given that he looked identical to the day I’d met him, the timeline seemed correct… but why wasn’t I there?
As I puzzled over this, the young Park Sang-yul, waiting alone for his sister, climbed energetically onto the slide. The moment I wondered what this meant—
“This is insane…!”
Park Sang-yul, climbing the steps with determination, lost his footing and plummeted from the tall structure. I wanted nothing more than to rush forward and catch the falling child, but I couldn’t move—as if bound by invisible chains.
Unable to bear watching the child fall, I squeezed my eyes shut. Through the darkness, brilliant red text seared itself into my vision once more.
[Dol-ja’s Quest]
Content: Don’t interfere with me.
Acceptance Reward: Return to reality.
Quest Rejection Consequence:
-Timeline deletion: ‘Kang Ha-jin who was with Park Sang-yul’.
“…Ah, this psychotic bastard.”
I heard the sound of my rationality snapping, but I forced myself to maintain composure.
Hold it together, Ha-jin. If you break here, you’re playing right into his game.
But noticing that the first blow had landed, Dol-ja began threatening me relentlessly with the same method.
[Dol-ja’s Quest]
Content: Don’t interfere with me.
Acceptance Reward: Return to reality.
Quest Rejection Consequence:
-Timeline deletion: ‘Kang Ha-jin who was with Park Sang-yul’.
-Timeline deletion: ‘Park Sang-ah who safely met Park Sang-yul after school’.
-Timeline deletion: ‘Kim Won-ho who transferred to Lime Entertainment’.
…
The bastard Dol-ja kept multiplying his hostages endlessly.
Now endless illusions and hallucinations began layering before my eyes.
Park Sang-ah screaming as she arrived at the Playground and saw her injured brother.
Kim Won-ho, eliminated from the finals, wandering aimlessly and searching for part-time work like some future I’d once glimpsed.
The mounting penalties eventually condensed into a single sentence.
-Timeline deletion: ‘Chosen Regressor Kang Ha-jin’.
My mind flooded with countless thoughts in an instant.
Was this a bluff? Or a threat he could actually execute?
Did Dol-ja possess such power?
After all, he was the one who granted Dan Ha-ru the authority of infinite regression.
And hadn’t Thirteen once told me that when all this ended, I’d have to choose whether to delete or preserve the personality of the ‘Chosen Regressor’?
Vaguely recalling the Time Management Authority’s powers that Thirteen had once explained to me, I glared at the red Quest window floating before my eyes.
‘Stay calm, Kang Ha-jin. Nothing has happened yet.’
This is merely an illusion.
Even as I thought this, I felt the blood draining from my body.
I decided to try speaking to the Returner first, hoping to extract some information.
“Hey, you pathetic bastard.”
No, this was picking a fight.
My mental state was far too unstable for what was supposed to be an attempt at dialogue.
Without hesitation, I let my delinquent mood show through completely, and with a reckless abandon, I began openly provoking him.
“Are you hiding behind text again because you’re afraid of getting torn apart by words like last time? How typical of a system. You lack the confidence to win fairly, so you resort to threatening people with this garbage every day.”
I spoke with venom in my voice, but the red letters before me remained unmoved, floating exactly as they were. Yet I did not stop my provocation.
“Erase it, you bastard. Do you think I’m scared? I already know Dan Ha-ru is the Chosen Regressor, and I’ve figured out roughly what you’re scheming. If I disappear, Thirteen said he’d chase you to the ends of the universe and beat you to death. Frankly, if anyone disappears, it’s not Kang Ha-jin—it’s me. I don’t care one bit, you son of a bitch.”
I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore, but the words just poured out of my mouth.
Meanwhile, I was mentally assembling fragments of information like puzzle pieces. I recalled the things most likely to provoke a reaction from this Returner bastard and considered the current situation.
“You’re doing this to become human, aren’t you? You got tired of living as a Time Management Authority and envied the human world? But I heard Time Management Authorities can’t take on any form of life. So what’s your plan?”
Then, for the first time, the empty space trembled slightly.
I noticed a brief glitch in the graphics above the red letters, and realizing this was my chance to shake that bastard, I spoke recklessly.
“I don’t know how you plan to become human, but to become human, you’d have to abandon your Time Management Authority powers, right? But if you’re not a Time Management Authority anymore, you wouldn’t have the ability to delete my timeline or act so arbitrarily like this. What’s the deal? What are you then? Or rather, how did you give Dan Ha-ru the regression authority in the first place?”
Now that I thought about it, my first meeting with this bastard had felt similar.
He hadn’t said he would ‘give me regression’—instead, he’d said something like he would ‘borrow the timeline of that Chosen Regressor for a bit.’
‘Wait. I think I’m starting to understand something.’
The senseless filibuster I’d started to provoke a reaction from the Returner was somehow taking shape. I maintained a poker face with all the acting prowess my S-rank expressiveness afforded me, hiding my confusion.
Countless thoughts swirled through my mind, and the space rippled.
Even as nausea threatened to overwhelm me, I braced my legs to keep from losing my footing and collapsing.
“At least, I’m certain you’re afraid of me meeting the Chosen Regressor.”
The space had filled with darkness.
Floating in that vast, hollow emptiness was the worst feeling imaginable.
“Yet you can’t launch a direct attack that would harm me. Why? You manipulate time, yet you always leave gaps somewhere.”
I thought of Dan Ha-ru.
Dan Ha-ru repeated regression because he was unhappy.
The more he regressed, the more unhappy he became, and unable to bear the immense weight of regression, he completely separated his original personality from his regressor personality.
But after meeting me, Dan Ha-ru developed lingering attachments to this timeline, which became a major obstacle in the Returner’s plans.
The Returner would want Dan Ha-ru to remain eternally lonely and miserable.
Only then would Dan Ha-ru continue regressing endlessly, creating countless severed timelines, and with each regression, the gap between his original and regressor personalities would widen.
As I reached that conclusion, a massive picture suddenly became clear in my mind.
“You’re planning to steal Dan Ha-ru’s body.”
In that instant, the entire space shattered.
[As expected.]
[You’re too dangerous to leave as you are.]
And once again, I was pulled into another space.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, I saw a ceiling that was more familiar than that tedious Playground, yet somehow foreign all the same.
“…This place.”
Brilliant sunlight streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows that would force me awake at dawn, and walls adorned with wallpaper in my favorite accent color, neat and pristine.
I lay sprawled across a small, narrow rectangular bed.
“…Our House.”
More precisely, it was Our House as it would be several years from now, after we moved.
Returned to that unforgettable day at twenty-nine, I scrambled to my feet.
The moment I tried to assess what had happened, I saw someone standing on the opposite side of the room.
“Dan Ha-ru?”
Dan Ha-ru, with his thin, luminous hair, approached me dressed in a white shirt and black trousers.
But when I saw his transparent amber eyes gleaming red, I knew it was Dan Ha-ru and yet not Dan Ha-ru.
“Hello?”
“…How cheerful, you absolute lunatic.”
So now we’ve moved beyond regression to possession?
My teeth ground together at this absurd turn of events.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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