Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 359

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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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359. Jeju Island’s Blue Night (1)
“….”
“….”
“….”
“…sigh.”
Only deep sighs and silence hung between us. At least Kwon PD had fixated on sunset; if he’d insisted on a dawn flight, I would’ve nearly wept.
“Ha-jin, Yu Gun. Since our boarding time has been delayed, please wait here a bit longer before departing.”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
Despite our turbulent emotions, both of us—minds thoroughly marinated in capitalism—responded with crisp efficiency.
With time suddenly available, words came flooding back. The moment the Assistant Director left, I grabbed Lee Yu-gun’s shoulder as he buried his gaze in his phone, shaking him back and forth like a washing machine cycle.
“If you’d just… if you’d only trusted me! If you’d listened to me even once!”
“Ugh, my head’s ringing. Stop.”
Lee Yu-gun set his phone down with an air of reluctance, yet allowed himself to be shaken. He even went so far as to relax his body to make my shaking easier—a calculated move that showed he understood my psychology perfectly: I wouldn’t give up until he surrendered to it.
‘Somehow I feel like I’m losing?’
Sensing I was being played by someone a year younger, I loosened my grip slightly. The moment I did, he casually swayed his body on his own without me even shaking him, then stopped himself.
True to form for a main dancer, the way he controlled the intensity so his bangs would flutter just right was nothing short of artistry.
“…What are you doing?”
“…Ah, nothing.”
I released my grip entirely and watched with folded arms to see how far he’d take it, yet Lee Yu-gun remained oblivious, mechanically swaying while staring back down at his phone.
Exasperated, I spoke up. Only then did he look at me, awkwardly stopping his movements. But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that to him, I ranked the same as the youngest kids back at our house—and that stung my pride.
Perhaps it showed on my face, because just as I felt one eyebrow twitch involuntarily, Lee Yu-gun scratched his cheek with an embarrassed expression and offered an excuse.
“I mean, how was I supposed to know I’d do that? If you’d been in my position back then, you would’ve done the same thing, right?”
“So I’m an older brother with no faith in his younger brother… I’ve wasted my life.”
“But you haven’t exactly done anything trustworthy before, have you?”
“Now you’re being hurtful?”
“…Are you really hurt?”
“No, it’s just a conceptual expression. Let it go.”
“Then can I say one more hurtful thing?”
“…What is it.”
I clicked my tongue, and this time Lee Yu-gun added his words with an aggrieved tone.
“Honestly, if someone asked me to pick the shadier villain between you and Seo Tae-hyun, wouldn’t you have a higher probability than him even in your own mind…?”
“You little…?”
Right. The villain.
That cursed villain role was the root of all this chaos.
To explain this situation, I needed to rewind my memory to that fateful day.
The day when Lee Yu-gun and I fell helplessly into the hands of that demon, Seo Tae-hyun.
* * *
“Doesn’t something seem strange?”
“What?”
Just before the second round of partner matching came to an end.
That is, right before the announcement of Ju Eun-chan and Dan Ha-ru’s successful partner match, I—standing beside Lee Do-ha as we studied the whiteboard—raised a question I’d been harboring since the race began.
“About the penalty person. You said it’s someone who failed to make a correct partner match, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But looking at the current situation, there are already worlds where pairs are set, and structurally, one person inevitably gets left out. Or they’re divided into two, two, and three.”
“…That’s probably how it is?”
“But isn’t that unfair?”
Lee Do-ha, someone with sharp mental processing despite his lack of social awareness, nodded as if understanding exactly what I was getting at.
“You’re saying the Production Team deliberately narrowed the scope of who could be the penalty person? Since the penalty person would inevitably come from a team of three sharing the same world.”
“Exactly. But then again—would our Production Team really set rules that unfairly? When I think about it, it doesn’t really seem like they would….”
-Ah, yes. An announcement for you.
My contemplation about the “penalty person” had to stop there because of the ‘Ju Eun-chan and Dan Ha-ru partner success’ incident that followed.
Lee Do-ha also seemed to search for clues about it for a moment after hearing my theory, but once the final round started, he seemed too busy figuring out his own partner and quickly forgot about it.
I was the only one who harbored suspicion about this rule itself and went searching for hints.
“Hey, you two youngest ones.”
“Yes?”
“Give me a hint. Is there anything you can tell me?”
After wandering around for quite a while with nothing to show for it, I sought out Ju Eun-chan and Dan Ha-ru, who had finished their first match and were sitting at the Opening Location. Ju Eun-chan, who was apparently assembling some Lego set he’d found somewhere, showed signs of contemplation at my words.
“Hmm…. Actually, I ran straight here as soon as I saw it, so I don’t remember the other members well.”
“Okay, never mind.”
“Oh, but….”
“…?”
Just as I was about to turn away, seeing that there was nothing more to gain, Ju Eun-chan opened his mouth as if remembering something.
“I’m not sure if it’s because what we received was cut in half, but…. I don’t think Tae-hyun was there.”
“Seo Tae-hyun?”
“Yes. And you were only in a photo, with everything else cut off.”
“…Really?”
“At first I thought maybe it was cut in half and missing? But…. That picture-like thing seemed to be the last photo of you, so I wondered if the Production Team perhaps accidentally….”
“Eu―chan―!!!!!”
“Oh my.”
Ju Eun-chan, who had been innocently spilling suspicious details, was seized by the Production Director who came running in alarm, his mouth sealed shut as he was dragged away.
Setting aside the fact that he looked exactly like a mischievous cat being hauled away for causing trouble, clutching Lego in both hands as he was dragged off without understanding what was happening, the fact Ju Eun-chan had conveyed threw quite a large question mark at me.
‘Did the Production Team really make an omission? That can’t be.’
When preparing something like this, these were people obsessed with details more than anyone else—I couldn’t imagine they’d commit the insane act of omitting a member from the most important and massive virtual casting hint.
Two out of seven had already passed, and since Jeong Si-u and Lee Yu-gun were confirmed not to be partners, the number of possibilities was drastically reduced.
In this situation, if someone had to become a sudden mutation….
‘Then the probability that it’s Seo Tae-hyun increases.’
No clues had emerged yet about the role Seo Tae-hyun was playing. What if his ‘role’ was one that would become the variable to overturn the race?
-The second partner match has been completed.
-The ‘Four Heavenly Kings of Terror’ world capsule is no longer available for boarding.
“Oh my god.”
In the meantime, Lee Do-ha and Jeong Si-u had successfully matched as partners.
Now all that remained were me, Lee Yu-gun, and the problematic Seo Tae-hyun.
‘What could Seo Tae-hyun’s role be?’
And more importantly than that was the question of who exactly had been cast to play the role of ‘Seo Tae-hyun’.
If I was playing ‘Seo Tae-hyun’ and Seo Tae-hyun was playing ‘Kang Ha-jin’, then I needed to uncover the details of ‘Seo Tae-hyun’s’ role faster than anyone else. Especially now, with Lee Yu-gun shepherding Seo Tae-hyun around—the same Seo Tae-hyun who had been rolling around the Opening Location with zero motivation until just moments ago—information had become even more urgent.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry…. Just one clue, just one….”
I tore through the Set like a madman, searching for any hint.
Though the Group Members had already combed through it for nearly an hour, leaving me with frequent dead ends, I hadn’t come up completely empty.
“…Oh, there it is!”
While rummaging through the Set and opening every drawer I could find, I discovered a particularly suspicious locker. It was locked with meticulous care, so I grabbed a nearby costume pin used for securing props and picked it open—inside lay a remarkably suspicious notebook, sitting there alone.
It looked like a major clue, and it seemed likely there had been a mission to obtain the key to this lock, but since time was running short, I left the cleanup to the Production Director and hurriedly opened the notebook.
【X Month, X Day. The Diary of ‘Me’】
Inside what I thought was a notebook lay someone’s diary.
Drawing on my old web novel reading skills, I skimmed through it diagonally at a decent pace, and it didn’t take long before I could pinpoint exactly whose diary this was.
【Everyone but me gets a happy ending】
【Why must I always be lonely?】
【I wish they’d just left me alone, but I appear in every story. I have to exist so that the protagonists’ happiness shines brighter.】
A character who appears in every story, can never achieve a happy ending, and must exist to make the protagonists’ happiness stand out?
【I don’t need all this talk of destiny.】
【From now on, I’ll steal your roles and find my own happiness.】
“…Looks like there’s a villain among us.”
I know this. I’ve seen this development plenty of times in romance fantasy novels.
So basically, the villain is trying to steal the protagonist’s role right now and board the capsule. Given the circumstances, from the mysterious accident at the Opening to the memory loss, the odds were high that this person was the mastermind.
Wondering if there might be additional clues, I flipped to the back pages, and there it was—on the profile page at the very end of the notebook, ‘My’ personal information was written in bold.
【NAME: Seo Tae-hyun】
【Motto: I will always exist as myself.】
A villain trying to steal someone else’s role, Seo Tae-hyun’s photograph that wasn’t on the virtual casting board, and a motto about always existing as oneself.
“…So Seo Tae-hyun is ‘Seo Tae-hyun’ and I’m ‘Kang Ha-jin’.”
Now that I’d uncovered the truth that was impossible to ignore, I jumped to my feet and bolted outside. I immediately went to find Lee Yu-gun, who was with Seo Tae-hyun, but whatever Seo Tae-hyun had said to convince him, Lee Yu-gun was already firmly convinced that our roles had been switched.
“Hey, no! I’m telling you it’s not true! I’m Kang Ha-jin and he’s the bad guy! If you board with him, we’re all finished!”
“But I already saw the virtual casting board that Seo Tae-hyun found? He said Seo Tae-hyun was cast as ‘Kang Ha-jin’!”
“What? Hey, that doesn’t make sense. No! I’m telling you it’s not true! Seo Tae-hyun, I, I…! That sneaky bastard!”
When he mentioned seeing the virtual casting board, I too had a moment of doubt, but now that I knew Seo Tae-hyun was a villain who had come deliberately to steal the role, I couldn’t trust any evidence he’d found.
“Don’t trust him! That guy probably faked his despair about not finding any clues earlier—it was all an act!”
“You’re better at acting than I am, so I can’t believe you.”
“This is driving me crazy, seriously.”
But as everyone knows, despite my inexplicable distrust, Lee Yu-gun ultimately boarded the capsule with Seo Tae-hyun.
-Please state your names and roles.
“Ju Eun-chan. Rank 2.”
“Wait, what was I again? I know Ha-jin is my older brother, but what role did he take?”
“The male lead’s first love.”
“Oh, right, right.”
And naturally, the result was….
-Please tell us your name and character role.
“…Seo Tae-hyun.”
“…?”
“My role is….”
“Hey, what are you….”
“‘The villain who came to steal the happy ending.'”
It was the victory of the mischievous Seo Tae-hyun, who flashed a bright smile and drew a V-sign with his fingers.
In an instant, Seo Tae-hyun wiped away the innocent, clueless expression he’d been wearing and broke into a grin, while Lee Yu-gun stared at him as if he’d seen a ghost.
The moment a screenshot capturing the standoff between the two was edited into thousands of variations and spread across social media.

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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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