Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 408

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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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408. Pushing a Tiger Off a Cliff (7)
Kang Ha-jin watched Yoo Gun soar effortlessly onto the stage, his feet treading across the dancers’ hands and backs.
It’s begun—our Death Match
Yoo Gun landed safely after his high aerial leap, his first breath remarkably composed. Lowering his posture into a crouch, he made natural eye contact with the audience in front of the stage, completely unbothered by the cameras.
Sarin’s Etiquette had fewer spectators, but the distance between stage and audience was intimate. With the platform height modest, Yoo Gun’s expressions and gestures in his lowered stance came across with striking clarity.
Do or Die,
And feel this vibe
More cautious than ever, yet more exhilarated than ever.
Yoo Gun, his tone pitched slightly higher than usual, kept his steps flowing with unbridled energy. The audience naturally caught the fever as his hands swept across his chest in light, rhythmic motions.
Staking everything on each step
The weight of my footfalls
In that moment, Ha-jin recalled a conversation from days past.
-Do-ha.
-…?
The day Do-ha first received his injury diagnosis at the hospital.
Ha-jin had been about to return to the Company with Kwon Wook, but he changed his mind and headed to the treatment room where Do-ha was. There was something he needed to confirm with the person involved before arranging alternatives.
-Your part.
-Yeah.
-We just have Yoo Gun do it, right?
We just have him do it, right?
So it wasn’t quite an ordinary question—it had a different character entirely.
Not ‘Should I have him do it?’
Not ‘Can I have him do it?’
Not ‘What if I have him do it?’
But ‘We just have him do it, right?’
It was as if he were saying, ‘We’re going to have him do it anyway, and you were thinking the same thing, weren’t you?’ seeking reconfirmation.
-Yeah.
Yet Lee Do-ha nodded immediately.
His expression suggested he found it absurd that Ha-jin would even phrase it as a question, that he’d walked all the way to the treatment room to ask something so obvious.
So Kang Ha-jin nodded along with him, equally indifferent.
-Figured as much. Rest well, Bear.
-Yeah.
The conversation ended there.
And from that point on, as everyone knew, Kang Ha-jin pushed Yoo Gun toward the cliff’s edge and shoved him off.
No, let me correct that.
Kang Ha-jin simply gave Yoo Gun a few more lines. He never once thought it would pressure him, mentally or physically.
‘Who else would do it?’
It was true that Yoo Gun’s live performance skills lagged slightly behind the other members.
Even during recordings, he seemed to struggle more than the others with accepting direction and finding the ‘flavor’ of his parts.
Though a rapper, he still lacked the courage to write his own lyrics, and without Do-ha’s guide, he couldn’t even deliver a well-written lyric sheet on first sight.
In a way, it was only natural.
Lee Yu-gun had only been rapping seriously for just over a year—he was a rookie through and through.
And that meant something else entirely―.
‘In just a year of learning, he’s already accomplished that much.’
Regardless of what he thought himself, Lee Yu-gun was treading the path of a diligent honor student, growing steadily. The only reason it wasn’t obvious was that everyone around him was a madman who’d poured years into this craft.
Just as Kim Won-ho had once felt defeat watching other trainees at Miro Maze,
just as Lee Do-ha had despaired upon hearing Seo Tae-il’s singing, sensing an insurmountable wall,
just as Seo Tae-hyun had felt the limits of his own abilities surrounded by tall, muscular guys at Boy Heaven.
We are an ascension beyond imagination
But as always, you cannot measure your own height by the height of the fence alone.
Take a frog, for instance.
It thinks it’s just a tiny thing that can’t even jump over a well, but what if it turns out to be one of those super-jumping frogs from those arcade games?
Sure, my jumping power is pretty pathetic, but what if instead I had incredible adhesive grip on my feet and could climb walls like some kind of gecko?
What if I suddenly had a tongue so absurdly long I could hook it over the fence like a grappling hook—what then?
This is the symbol of success
The vision beyond
Because this was a band live arrangement version different from the original MR, Do-ha’s part—which had originally focused on slow, heavy bass—was now reinterpreted as a buildup section that rushed toward the highlight.
The moment one person began delivering the part that two had originally shared, the atmosphere became unstoppable in its escalation.
Yu-gun deliberately held his breath as little as possible, pushing the lyrics out in long, relentless bursts. With his higher register compared to Do-ha, each syllable he articulated made the tempo feel even faster.
It was a section where you could feel Yu-gun’s effort in perfectly copying even Lee Do-ha’s distinctive pronunciation and intonation.
In truth, this alone could be called a quite successful substitution.
‘Really?’
Was it?
Kang Ha-jin questioned himself with doubt.
Then, for the first time in ages, I pulled up a skill window buried at the very bottom of the System tab. The stat window called 【Behold with the Dragon’s Eye】, which displayed idol abilities as numerical values, took a while to load as it updated information that hadn’t been refreshed in nearly a year.
After a brief buffering, Ha-jin could confirm Yu-gun’s new stat window.
[Lee Yu-gun (Affiliation: Miro)]
Vocal: C+
Rap: B+
Dance: S
Expression: A-
Charm: B+
Special: Copy & Paste (B)
-With a certain probability, completely assimilates the target of your focus
Appeal Point:
‘Still, twelve ships remain’
-Sense of responsibility, perseverance, intense focus
A stat window that gleamed incomparably brighter than before now appeared anew.
The only change was the disappearance of stat decreases caused by debuffs, yet that alone meant Yu-gun was already achieving dazzling progress. The ‘Rap’ stat that hadn’t existed before was now freshly updated, and a B+ was quite respectable for a first assessment.
‘Really?’
Yet even now, Ha-jin questioned himself.
Or rather, though Yu Gun couldn’t hear it, he was asking the question of the man on stage who was earnestly filling in Do-ha’s absence.
‘Are you satisfied?’
Just by getting through Lee Do-ha’s part without incident—are you truly satisfied with that?
The moment that question mark hung in the air.
“Huh? Yu Gun hyung…?”
Yu Gun, who had been standing in that spot the entire time executing only light point movements, suddenly shifted his trajectory and stepped into the formation among the backup dancers. Without hesitation, he launched into the choreography with the same intensity as the dancers—no, with even greater ferocity.
He must have wanted my downfall.
Wake up. Stop fantasizing.
Yu Gun’s body plummeted toward the floor in perfect unison with the dancers, all at the same angle.
Using his solid core, he fell as though gliding, caught himself with his wrists, and pushed off the ground to spring back up. The choreography originally called for both hands to drive the movement, but with a microphone gripped in one hand, Yu Gun executed the motion with just one, as if he didn’t need that kind of momentum at all.
In the process, the microphone clattered slightly, adding an unplanned touch of raw authenticity to the moment.
“Is he insane…?”
What needed to be understood at this point was that the original owner of this part was none other than Lee Do-ha.
Lee Do-ha was the best rapper in Kairos, but simultaneously one of the members who danced the worst. Ha-jin and Yu Gun had devised a strategy with the choreographer and performance director to compensate for his weakness—utilizing backup dancers.
Tall and imposing, Lee Do-ha would stand at center, commanding presence through minimal gestures alone, while the surrounding backup dancers performed the most intense and explosive choreography throughout the entire song, maximizing the contrast.
And when dancers weren’t available, the members would perform this section’s choreography instead, elevating Kairos’s overall performance level through this strategic approach.
“Why is he so fired up today?”
In short, this wasn’t choreography designed with live performance in mind.
Yet Yu Gun did it anyway.
He knew this was the final section, that once it ended, he wouldn’t be holding a microphone again, and that knowledge drove him to commit this act.
This is my critique of your fantasy,
Come at me, Fight Sign!
Yu Gun’s voice, breathless as never before, sounded all the more violent for it, and thus all the more electrifying, as he unleashed the final lyric with everything he had. If it had been the original Do-ha, he would have delivered those words with diminished energy, like bidding adios.
And even as he sang those lyrics, he was executing choreography that felt absolutely relentless.
Yu Gun didn’t miss even the brief moment when the dancers dispersed and the members returned, holding the audience’s gaze with his own energy. As his flashy final turn landed, Si-woo’s refreshing chorus burst forth once more.
We could get it all!
We’ll have it all, everything.
The audience erupted in unreserved cheers toward Yu Gun, who gripped the microphone as if embodying those very lyrics. The band playing behind them seemed to draw energy from Yu Gun’s fervor, delivering an even more spirited performance.
The heat filling the studio was so intense it was impossible to believe this was the opening stage of a newly debuted idol group.
[System Alert: Stat change detected.]
And in that moment, a familiar blue window appeared before Ha-jin’s eyes, who had been watching Yu Gun with admiring intensity, bearing new information.
[System Alert: Skill 【Gaze of the Dragon】 is inputting new information….]
[System Alert: Inputting….]
[System Alert: Inputting….]
[System Alert: Lee Yu Gun’s Special Stats are being updated.]
Ha-jin hadn’t been hoping for an awakening, but it seemed their genius tyrannosaurus was cracking open some kind of shell. He checked the stat window without much thought, assuming at most that Rap or Expression had leveled up a stage or two.
Special: Copy & Paste (B)
-With a certain probability, completely makes the subject of your immersion your own
But the change detected was in an item he had never anticipated.
The contents of the special ability section in Yoo Gun’s stat window, which had been trailing on endlessly, were cleanly erased. Then, as if someone were typing on a typewriter, new characters appeared one by one, updating in real time. Ha-jin managed his gaze carefully to avoid being caught by the camera, but found himself helplessly drawn to watching those characters materialize.
Special: Be Mine (S)
And the moment all the characters were complete, Kang Ha-jin could no longer suppress the laughter that threatened to spill out.
[Lee Yu-gun (Affiliation: Miro)]
Vocals: C+
Rap: A- (▲)
Dance: S
Expression: A+ (▲)
Charisma: A+ (▲)
Special: Be Mine (S)
-Depending on immersion level, the target resonates with you
Appeal Points:
‘Still, twelve ships remain’
-Sense of responsibility, perseverance, intense immersion
Our human copy machine, the young lamb, had finally become ready to create his own new sequence.

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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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