Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 301

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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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301. The Unexpected
No, I feel so wronged.
‘I didn’t even punch Ha-ru! I swear I didn’t!’
The indignation bubbled up unbidden, but no matter how I looked at it, the situation seemed to be my fault. I wisely kept my mouth shut and stupidly clutched at my bruised cheek when Lee Yu-gun, still half-asleep, grabbed me with a contorted expression and asked.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“…You’re seriously asking if I’m fine after watching me take a full-power punch to the mouth from that guy?”
“Your mouth’s not torn, so you’re fine…. Geez, ah! Ah, crazy. Thank god.”
Lee Yu-gun nodded vigorously despite insisting I was fine when I clearly wasn’t, then grabbed his head and collapsed onto the floor. Judging by Lee Do-ha’s reaction and this kid’s response, something serious had definitely happened while I was asleep.
I clutched my racing heart and timidly asked Lee Do-ha, who was still glaring at me.
“Uh, why. What is it. What happened, huh?”
“You died.”
“Y-you have to explain, I’ll beg, I’ll do anything, I’ll… w-what↗? What did you say?”
Lee Do-ha looked down at me with a face that had gone from cold to utterly frigid, speaking with finality. When Lee Yu-gun beside him nodded in agreement while tearing at his hair, a thunderous sound came from the stairs.
“…?”
“Who…. Who died…?”
It seemed Ha-ru, who had been following behind me and overheard the conversation, had collapsed on the stairs before even reaching the bottom, staring at us blankly.
The moment Lee Yu-gun saw Ha-ru, he reflexively started to get up and move toward him, but Lee Do-ha, standing before me like a stone monument, continued speaking in a voice devoid of all warmth, terrifyingly cold.
“Your heart stopped.”
Only then did I remember that temporary cardiac arrest was one of the side effects of the Unconscious Space.
Looking at the situation, it seemed dizziness wasn’t enough to handle it, so they’d dealt with it in one decisive blow.
‘Wait. I entered the Unconscious Space in the evening, and now it’s got to be at least 10 AM, so if I count sleeping and a day passing….’
I lowered my hand from my cheek and respectfully pressed my palms together. I straightened from the pathetic posture I’d collapsed into from being hit by Lee Do-ha and knelt down. With my head bowed low, I apologized to Lee Do-ha in a crawling voice.
“I… I’m sorry.”
I’d committed a sin worthy of death… no, wait. That’s not it….
Please execute me… no, that’s not it either.
‘Kim Thirteen, face down, arms and legs extended…!’
I’d said I’d take responsibility and handle it myself, you bastard!?
With no Seon Gwi-ja to save me anymore, truly irreversible consequences had fallen, and my head continued bowing endlessly toward the floor.
* * *
After my emotions settled, the story I heard through Lee Yu-gun was far more dramatic than I’d anticipated.
First, it was the morning of the third day of vacation. Never mind that a day had passed beyond my expectation—I couldn’t believe that when I opened my eyes, my entire vacation had vanished.
“After you, the hyungs, and Ha-ru all collapsed like that on the first evening, strange memories started flooding back to me and Do-ha hyung. Honestly, the first day was almost completely chaotic because of that….”
Lee Yu-gun spoke as if he still couldn’t believe it, occasionally wrapping his head in his hands and letting out small groans. Ha-ru, sitting beside him, visibly flinched at this, but it was Lee Do-ha, who had regained his composure, who spoke first.
“…That evening, after we laid you, the hyungs, and Si-woo hyung down and Yu-gun and I awakened, Kwon Wook hyung called. He said that when his vacation ended, he’d come pick us up, so we should turn off all our phones and stay inside the villa without going anywhere.”
“What was going on?”
“We didn’t have the capacity to ask about that then. Ha-jin, you said that before you guys woke up again, you’d do whatever it took to keep anyone from coming to this villa. So we just said we understood and turned off our phones. Kwon Wook hyung said he’d contact us separately through the villa’s landline.”
And then….
Lee Do-ha, who seemed to be recalling yesterday, washed his face with his hands and rubbed the back of his neck. With a face clearly maxed out on stress, he continued with difficulty.
“After that, I finished up the tasks you’d asked for. I contacted the Executive Director to inform him of the situation, and I contacted Eun-chan hyung’s family to let them know that Eun-chan could stay with his hyung until his vacation ended….”
“….”
“Ah. I called Won-ho too, and he seemed fine. It doesn’t look like he went through anything like we did. Eun-chan said there’s nothing unusual with him either.”
Fortunately, Ju Eun-chan and Kim Won-ho hadn’t undergone awakening.
Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate remained unclear, but based on my experience as a veteran returner, it seemed to lean toward the fortunate side.
During the Quest completion window earlier, The Returner said his ability to interfere with timelines had been drastically reduced, so it seemed like an indirect result showing that bastard’s range of attack on us had narrowed.
I noticed that Lee Do-ha’s account still contained no mention of Seo Tae-hyun, which bothered me somewhat, but I decided to listen calmly to the rest of what Lee Do-ha had to say. Given how much had happened over these three days, I figured he’d explain everything properly on his own.
…It absolutely wasn’t because I was afraid to interrupt and ask questions in the middle of his explanation. Really, truly.
“So I thought we just had to wait for you and Ha-ru to wake up… but starting last night, you suddenly developed a fever and started bleeding from your nose, and bruises began appearing all over your body.”
Oh my god. Me?
Passing out like that and suddenly running a fever with nosebleeds—even someone like me, immune to this genre, found it no different from a horror movie.
I startled and examined my arms and legs, but my body was clean without a single contusion. Then Yoo Gun, who had been listening to Lee Do-ha’s words beside me, opened his mouth with uncharacteristic excitement, as if annoyed just thinking about it again.
“Seriously…. Do you know how scared I was? Your body was burning hot, but when I took your temperature it was normal, and when I tried to call 119, this hyung absolutely refused. Nothing happened, but suddenly bruises appeared all over your body and you started coughing up blood…!”
“…Coughing up blood? Me?”
“I really thought you were dying!? Awakening or whatever, I almost threw you in the emergency room and nearly checked myself into a psychiatric hospital!”
“…I’m sorry. I didn’t expect this either….”
“And then you suddenly got better again. The bruises just disappeared? Your color came back, right after you coughed up blood! Your complexion even improved! That alone was enough to make me pass out, but then at dawn you suddenly stopped breathing and drove me crazy…!”
Bruises suddenly appeared on my body, then I coughed up blood, the bruises disappeared, and my color returned…?
Pondering those symptoms, I recalled one of the side effect candidates that headquarters had presented for me to choose from.
【1. Hemoptysis (clearing blocked meridians within the body to aid in recovery of vital energy)】
That’s it, you damn bastards…!
The cardiac arrest that followed must have been referring to that cardiac arrest with no abnormalities to life and health.
‘I’m not letting headquarters and Kim Thirteen off easy….’
I’d put Jeong Si-u to sleep to avoid triggering his trauma, but I’d nearly implanted a similar trauma in the others.
I resolved that I’d tell Kim Thirteen about these incidents later and make sure he either erased their memories or applied mental care. As I made this vow, Yoo Gun rubbed his cold, stiff hands together and continued speaking.
“Thank goodness you came back quickly, really… Do you know how terrified we were?”
“….”
“You said to trust only you, and here you are, a total con artist….”
Yoo Gun, who had been complaining indignantly, finally seemed to find some relief, and with an uncharacteristic trembling voice, he wiped away tears.
It must have been terrifying to suddenly have to accept this surreal situation, and then to watch someone cough up blood right before your eyes and even suffer cardiac arrest, all while unable to report it to a hospital and having to spend the whole day like that….
‘Even I would go crazy and jump out of my skin hearing this, so I have nothing to say.’
Only Yoo Gun’s trembling breathing echoed through the suddenly quiet living room. Lee Do-ha seemed to have it a bit easier since he’d received mental care, but this guy hadn’t. The fact that he was still keeping his eyes open and functioning was remarkable in itself.
I awkwardly sat down beside Yoo Gun and patted his shoulder, then, though it felt a bit awkward, I held him in an uncomfortable embrace.
“Hey, I’m sorry, okay? No, I didn’t expect this to blow up this big either. You must have worried so much. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry, Yoo Gun.”
“Don’t make me do something like this again…. I’d rather we all passed out together, damn it….”
“This won’t happen again. Ah, really, it was an unavoidable situation. I can’t explain everything, but anyway, things worked out well now. We just need to resolve everything else. That’s all. Okay? I’m sorry, man.”
As I fumbled through my apologies to Yoo Gun, I noticed Dan Ha-ru sitting across from me hanging his head low and fidgeting with his hands. It seemed like he felt responsible for all of this.
In the midst of all this, I didn’t have the energy to comfort the now-dejected Sparkle, so I was trying to calm Yoo Gun first when Lee Do-ha, seeing Dan Ha-ru like that, silently extended his hand toward him.
“…?”
“…Ha-ru, you….”
Lee Do-ha’s large hand covered the small, trembling hand of Dan Ha-ru all at once. When Dan Ha-ru startled like a frightened rabbit and looked up, Lee Do-ha asked him in his usual calm voice.
“Are you okay, Ha-ru?”
“Me…? Really…?”
“Yeah. Ha-jin gave me a rough rundown. Just the basics, though.”
“….”
“Are you okay now?”
At Do-ha’s calm question, Ha-ru bit down hard on his lips and nodded vigorously, his eyes wide open as if swearing he would never cry. Then Do-ha’s gaze naturally shifted toward me.
“….”
“….”
Faced with that expression—as if asking “what about you?”—I simply nodded slightly without stopping my hand from patting Yoo Gun’s back. Do-ha watched me and slowly exhaled a long breath.
“…Alright. That’s good enough for now, at least.”
Yoo Gun, despite being taller than me, had been leaning awkwardly against me and sobbing, but now seemed to have calmed down somewhat. He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve and sat up. Even so, I caught how his gaze quickly swept over Ha-ru—his younger sibling—with concern.
It seemed they’d had quite a difficult day, but I still felt confident that leaving these two together had been the right choice.
“And….”
Once the tears had subsided somewhat, Do-ha spoke again.
“Next is about Tae-hyun.”
Do-ha seemed to deliberate on how to convey this, then silently stood up and went into one of the First Floor Rooms. A moment later, when Do-ha returned to the Living Room, he was carrying the laptop he’d brought for work.
“I think it’s better if you see this directly.”
At Do-ha’s words, Yoo Gun let out an irritated sigh from beside me. From that reaction, it seemed something serious had indeed happened with Seo Tae-hyun.
As I waited in some tension, Do-ha soon searched for something on the laptop and turned the screen toward Ha-ru and me.
“This is….”
“An article about Tae-hyun that broke this morning.”
The first thing that caught my eye was a large photo of Seo Tae-hyun plastered across the screen.
It was a pictorial shoot from a special White Day collaboration with a cosmetics brand on March 14th from not long ago, and it was so aggressively emphasizing “Cherry Boy” that everything was tinted pink—it hurt to look at.
“Yesterday, a post went up exposing vote manipulation in Boy’s Supremacy Season 1. Tae-hyun got dragged into it, of course.”
I’d anticipated this much.
I’d been anxious ever since they announced Boy’s Supremacy Season 2 would be coming.
I actually felt relieved and let out a sigh of reassurance.
“That much is manageable. Seo Tae-hyun will be shocked, sure, but he didn’t even debut because of that, and he’s actually the victim here, so if we just handle the publicity properly….”
“No.”
“…?”
Do-ha cut me off decisively. Confused, I scrolled up to read the actual article.
Then an article headline that was hard to believe came into view.
【’Calculated Success’… Was Kairos’s Seo Tae-hyun a Beneficiary of the ‘Boy’s Supremacy Manipulation’ Scandal?】
“Tae-hyun is on the perpetrator’s side.”

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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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