Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 255

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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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255. TOUCH HIGH! (7)
“Director, come in.”
Lee Do-ha swallowed his ragged breathing and stepped into the darkened Props Room.
Gently guiding the camera director—whose build was slightly smaller than his own—deeper inside, Lee Do-ha surveyed the Props Room before slipping toward the back where boxes were stacked and concealing himself.
“Shh. You need to stay quiet.”
His tense eyes and heightened alertness betrayed the gravity of the situation.
Do-ha checked the time on the watch strapped to his wrist.
Five minutes remained until the game ended.
‘Just five more minutes….’
Creeeeeak—
At that moment, the Props Room door swung open with a sound like something from a horror film.
Do-ha urgently shielded the watch’s light with his hand, his ears straining intently.
He heard footsteps approaching slowly.
“Butterfly, butterfly. Come flutter this way~♪”
An unnecessarily sweet melody shattered the silence of the Props Room.
Thump, thump.
The slow, leisurely gait drew steadily closer to Do-ha.
‘Should I wait hidden? Or should I time my escape? Or maybe….’
Thousands of simulations raced through Do-ha’s mind in rapid succession.
Meanwhile, whoever had entered the Props Room seemed to be slowly searching through it.
“Hopping and bouncing along, where do you go~♪”
The moment he noticed the nursery rhyme was oddly distorted—
The box shielding Do-ha was moved aside, and the suddenly illuminated Props Room flooded with light upon him.
Do-ha squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden glare, then opened them. As his vision adjusted to the brightness, the first thing that came into focus was…
“Found our destroyer right here~?”
“….”
…his same-aged friend Kang Ha-jin, smiling with a face like the grim reaper itself.
Lee Do-ha, now facing the most terrifying scenario he’d anticipated, swallowed hard.
* * *
Exactly one hour before the terror of same-aged hide-and-seek began.
The final mission of 【Three-Way Battle】—the strategic flag-pulling challenge—was proceeding quite successfully.
“Ha-ru, Ha-ru. Drive them this way! Drive them!”
“Do-ha hyung! Sanchez is heading that way right now!”
Though the Kairos Team had lost their fixed panel members during the opposing team’s seeker turn, leaving only three members, they were demonstrating incredible efficiency and teamwork.
“Ha-jin hyung, now!”
“Hey, Lee Do-ha! Grab him, grab him!”
“Got him—Ha-jin, you pull the flag.”
“Aaah! You guys! I’m your senior!”
“We’ll apologize through a challenge!”
As Lee Do-ha and Dan Ha-ru subdued one Winter Tail Team member, Ha-jin effortlessly pulled the flag. It was already the third elimination just five minutes into the seeker’s turn.
Ha-jin exhaled and brushed his bangs back.
“So how many are left now?”
“Three from Winter Tail Team, three from us, and two from Stormheader Team.”
“We’ve got about five minutes left, so let’s eliminate just one more. Once our turn as seekers ends, things get too dangerous.”
At Ha-jin’s words, Ha-ru and Do-ha nodded and quickly moved to the next location.
As the three walked through the hallway checking if anyone else was hiding, Dan Ha-ru asked Lee Do-ha a question.
“By the way, Do-ha, aren’t you doing your individual mission? The Saboteur should do the individual mission to have an advantage, right?”
“Ah, that. I made a deal.”
It was Ha-jin who answered Ha-ru’s question.
Ha-jin continued speaking while checking positions where people could hide well, focusing on areas where cameras were installed.
“Lee Do-ha won’t pull our flag, so he’s cooperating with us to win the team championship.”
“Ah, I see.”
Ha-ru nodded in understanding at Ha-jin’s words.
I recalled the additional rule the production team had mentioned before the race started.
-Ah, and…. When your turn as a seeker comes around, you can also remove the flag of someone on your team who is suspected of being the Saboteur. However, if that person is not actually the Saboteur, you could be eliminated in return, so please act carefully.
The rule was originally intended to make teams keep watch over who their Saboteur was, but it didn’t apply to the Kairos Team, whose Saboteur had already voluntarily farmed out.
Ha-jin’s supplementary explanation followed—how he had grabbed Lee Do-ha and started negotiations the moment he heard that rule.
“So Do-ha, you’re not the Saboteur anymore and you’re working with our team now?”
“Well, I never really wanted the individual championship prize anyway.”
“Wow. That’s kind of touching….”
“Hey, hey. Someone’s over there.”
Ha-jin, who had been listening to Do-ha and Ha-ru’s casual conversation, stopped walking.
At the end of the hallway Ha-jin pointed to, Sanchez from Stormheader Team and the youngest member were carefully walking along with staff members.
“Should we catch them?”
“Wait. We only have about three minutes left in our seeker turn, right? Who’s the next seeker?”
“Winter Tail. Stormheader is second, and we’re last.”
“Okay, then let’s go right now.”
With Ha-jin’s signal-like words, the three began sprinting down the hallway at fierce speed.
Proving his epithet of “Baby Rabbit Warrior,” Dan Ha-ru shot out first at bullet-like speed, and Ha-jin and Do-ha also raced down the hallway at a speed that didn’t fall behind.
From far away, Sanchez and Hui-an from Stormheader also showed surprised reactions upon spotting the Kairos members.
“Wait, wait! Kairos, wait!”
“Senior, there’s no ‘wait’ in entertainment variety shows.”
“You guys are going to regret this!?”
Eventually, as a standoff formed in the narrow hallway, Sanchez shouted urgently and gestured something to Hui-an behind him. Then Hui-an fumbled and pulled out a small card from his pocket, showing it.
“We have an item! If you try to pull our flags, we’ll use our defense right!”
The card labeled 【Flag Defense Right】 was one of the ‘mission-helpful items’ the production team had mentioned beforehand.
It was an item that granted a one-time counter right to pull a flag against the seeker trying to pull your flag, and Ha-jin himself had a track record of defeating (?) one Winter Tail member this way earlier.
“What should we do?”
At Do-ha’s question, Ha-jin thought for a moment.
Two minutes remained.
‘Neither of them are particularly strong types, so if we play our cards right, we might be able to catch them….’
While I was deliberating, it was Ha-ru who made the decision first.
“Let’s just go, hyungs.”
“Just? You want to leave?”
“We don’t have much time left anyway. Winter Tail’s seniors will be moving soon, so I think it’s better if we just hide quickly.”
“Well, that’s true, but….”
Ha-jin thought Ha-ru had a point, but glanced sideways at the opposing team.
‘Those guys again?’
It was Stormheader’s youngest member again.
There was clearly something going on between our youngest and him, but since I couldn’t figure out what kind of situation it was, it was starting to get on my nerves.
However, as I was already deliberating, the time for the seeker’s turn was coming to an end.
Ha-jin reluctantly nodded.
“…Alright then. Let’s call a truce this time. We’ll each go our separate ways.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
In the end, the two teams carefully passed each other while remaining wary.
As we searched for places to hide again, an announcement rang out that the seeker was changing.
“If we bunch up together, it’s dangerous, so let’s scatter and hide separately, then meet back here when it’s our turn to be seekers.”
“Yes! Hyungs, you absolutely can’t get caught!”
“Dan Ha-ru, you absolutely can’t cause any accidents. Shin-na, control your strength, please.”
“See you later, everyone.”
The three of us parted ways at the crossroads and each searched for places to hide our bodies.
Ha-jin, wandering through various corners of the empty broadcast station, was also searching for a place to evade people’s eyes.
‘There should be a studio somewhere around here….’
Reviving memories from visits long ago (though I’m not sure if that’s the right way to describe it), I turned the corner. Then, right before my eyes, I saw the Winter Tail Leader drinking water from a water cooler.
“Oh no, I’m done for―!”
“Whoa whoa whoa―!? Ha-jin junior!!!”
The moment our eyes met, I sprinted back the way I’d come.
Behind me came the sound of strange laughter—”Ahahahaha!”—and the Winter Tail Leader chasing after me. He’d been pushing the madman concept since earlier, and I was starting to think this guy really was abnormally strange.
“Ha-jin junior!!! Stop right there!!!!!”
“Senior, if you were in my position, would you stop―!?”
I checked the time while deftly dodging the Leader’s gestures. The Winter Tail Leader was already breathing so hard he was coughing.
“No, huff, phew, why are you, so good at running…?”
“I, back in the day, oh man, ran a bit…. Geez, I’m dying….”
I too was breathing heavily enough to brace my knees, but I remained alert, ready to bolt at any moment depending on the Leader’s stance.
After catching my breath for a moment, I demonstrated my specialty once more.
“Senior. Let’s make a deal.”
“A deal…?”
I was deploying my signature skill—the kind of smooth talk that could sell refrigerators even at the North Pole.
“If you let me go now, I’ll make sure to catch you when it’s our team’s turn to be seekers later. You know we’re the last seekers, right?”
“If I eliminate you now, wouldn’t our team’s chances of winning just get higher?”
“No, sir. Your team still has a saboteur among you, doesn’t it? From what I can tell, that saboteur definitely has something going on. Instead, when it’s our turn to be ‘it,’ I’ll eliminate whoever you suspect of being the saboteur.”
“….”
“And I’ll get the members together today, film seven takes of your solo song challenge, and upload it right away.”
“….”
“And if our team wins today, I’ll give you my prize.”
“Huh? You’d go that far?”
“I really want to win today.”
A lie.
The Kang Ha-jin from before filming—the one who’d said winning was worthless—had been left far behind at the North Pole, while Ha-jin continued the negotiation with a convincing tone.
“No, and this isn’t the time for that anyway. We need to take down Stormheader, sir. They have the flag defense item right now, so no one can touch them easily.”
“Oh, they have an item?”
“Yes. What if we join forces, defeat Stormheader, and then settle things between us?”
At Ha-jin’s scheming proposal, the Winter Tail Leader, who had been pondering, broke into a wide smile and shook his head.
“No. I’m just going to eliminate Ha-jin right here.”
“Tch. That didn’t work.”
“You won’t be able to escape, will you? Everything’s blocked behind you.”
Just as the Winter Tail Leader said, Ha-jin was surrounded by stairs and walls.
Ha-jin, who had briefly assessed his escape options, grinned.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.”
“…?”
“Even though I look like this, I was called the Wall-Vaulter in our survival program.”
And while his opponent was off guard, Ha-jin pushed hard off the ground and leaped, clearing the stair railing in one bound.
Landing safely on the lower floor, Ha-jin quickly fled again.
“Director! I’ll be hiding over by the lobby, so follow me quickly!”
Ha-jin, thoughtfully looking after even the camera director, made his escape while essentially filming his own spy thriller. The staff members attached to Ha-jin scrambled down the stairs after him.
Left alone in an instant, the Winter Tail Leader’s face fell into a hollow smile. Beneath that smile lay a hint of envy, resentment, and jealousy.
“He really is something….”
Is this how you end up eating from the same pot as guys like Endway?
Thinking only to himself, the Winter Tail Leader turned to find his next target.
* * *
In the end, the flag tag game’s final victor was the Kairos Team.
When a Winter Tail member tried to eliminate Stormheader but was countered by the defense item, leaving the score at 2:2:3, internal discord broke out within Stormheader.
-Hui-an, you’re really not the saboteur?
-I’m not, sir!
-You’re really not?
-I’m not… wait!?
Sanchez suspected Hui-an of being the saboteur and removed his flag, but when it was revealed that Hui-an wasn’t the saboteur, Sanchez was eliminated instead.
Thanks to the opposing team’s self-destruction, when it became Kairos Team’s turn to be “it,” the three of them could join forces and quickly eliminate the remaining survivors.
“Today’s three-way match champion is Kairos Team!”
“Yesssss!”
“It’s really amazing that the Saboteur was revealed first and Kairos still managed to win.”
As the cast members applauded, the Kairos team members savored their victory with satisfied expressions.
Just as they were about to wrap up with a joke about how the real hero of this victory was the farming-out strategy, the production team continued speaking.
“Well, but. Today’s race doesn’t end here.”
“…?”
The production team spoke with solemn voices.
“From now on, the Kairos Team will proceed with a ‘Saboteur Hunt’ to determine the team’s ultimate champion.”
The Kairos team members stirred with confusion.
“A Saboteur Hunt…?”
“But we already found them?”
“We already found the Saboteur…?”
“Wait, is ‘found’ even the right word to use here?”
The cast members murmured among themselves, looking toward the production team.
The Main Writer clutched his forehead as if struck by a headache, while the Main PD chuckled good-naturedly and spoke.
“Heh heh, well… how do we handle this…?”
Huh…?
At that sight, Ha-jin scratched the back of his neck with an “oh boy” expression.
It seemed the Saboteur Lee Do-ha had truly destroyed the broadcast’s structure.

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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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