Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 425

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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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425. A Horror Experience
Let’s Go on a
Trip! (2)
[Hello?]
This was nothing more than the youngest member of the writing staff typing through a remote control program.
[Nice to meet you.]
Look at this. A ghost, and yet every punctuation mark is perfectly placed.
The typing speed, the lack of typos—anyone could see this was the skilled handiwork of the youngest writer on staff.
[I mean no harm, I just….]
There’s a person behind those letters. Please. There’s a person, isn’t there? So why are you doing this, really?
I stared at the laptop screen without breathing until the final period was typed. In the study room with only Sanchez and me, the air was filled with nothing but the sound of our trembling breaths.
Of all times, the wind was howling fiercely. The sound of the window rattling against its frame amplified the terrifying atmosphere.
The cursor moved again.
[I just want to have a conversation.]
[Quietly.]
That was when I first sensed something was wrong.
Still refusing to look away from the laptop screen, I spoke to Sanchez, who stood beside me gripping my hand tightly.
“Hyung….”
“Huh…?”
“But….”
“…W-why, why what.”
“…Doesn’t it seem too quiet?”
The study door wasn’t even closed, yet the moment we fell silent, only the sound of wind remained.
There were at least ten people gathered in this dormitory besides us, and they’d set up all sorts of devices to make us scream and feel afraid…!
“Ha-jin, why, why are you like this….”
“No, that’s just it—I don’t want to be like this either…?”
In the dark study, Sanchez’s gaze and mine collided in midair, both filled with unease. Even now, not a single sound of human presence could be heard from beyond the study door.
“…!”
We bolted from our seats simultaneously and rushed out of the study. With a loud crash, notebooks and books on the desk clattered to the floor, but that wasn’t important now. Sanchez’s hands trembled so badly that he couldn’t even open the closed door properly, letting out a whimper.
“Come on, hyung, please…!”
After the ordeal of me grabbing Sanchez’s shaking hands and nearly breaking the door open, we finally escaped the eerie study. The moment we both grabbed the second-floor railing and checked below, we found only empty space—as if no one had ever been there from the beginning.
-Oh, don’t worry. We’ll make sure to plan things well so this album gets great promotion too.
The cheerful laughter of Touch High’s Main PD, who had spoken with such confidence, echoed like a phantom through the space.
Only then did I belatedly recall the subtitle of this Youth Praise album, and I buried my face in my hands.
【Case 02. And, No One】
“We’re screwed.”
This is absolutely ridiculous….
This diabolical concept that had stripped away even the group members—our psychological and physical safe haven—from two cowards like us: whose insane idea was this, really?
* * *
After searching every corner of the dormitory from the second-floor restroom to the first-floor boiler room and confirming that not a single person could be found, Sanchez and I spent approximately 18 minutes and 26 seconds in denial before obediently returning to the study.
Both of us were reluctant to move, so it took quite a long time just to get there, but we were both people with professional consciousness and occupational habits so deeply ingrained in our bones that we had no choice but to proceed with the broadcast recording without a hitch.
[I have no intention of bothering you for long.]
[All you need to do is find the answers to the three questions I pose.]
[If you bring me the correct answers, I’ll send you and all your friends back safely.]
After doing all those scary things, who would believe that the ghost isn’t actually that bad?
The rules of the game presented by The Entity—likely the club member who died a few years ago, as I’d heard from Dan Ha-ru earlier, or the cause of that member’s death (a setting the Youngest Member writer had imposed)—were simple.
-Find the answers to the three questions I pose before midnight.
-The group members are trapped in the Twin Abandoned Buildings near the dormitory (that place we saw on the way here!!!) along with hints about the three questions and their answers.
-If you fail to answer even one correctly, you cannot leave the building.
So from now on, we’ve been thrown into an absurd horror mystery where we have to rescue the members from the late-night abandoned building that the production team deliberately designed to be terrifying, while also figuring out the answers to the three questions this ghost poses.
[Then I wish you luck.]
With those words, the ghost (the Youngest Member writer) vanished once more.
And then—
Creeeeeak.
“Gaaaaahhhhh…!”
“Oh my god! Oh! Oh! What the—!?”
At the same moment, a creaking sound came from the bookshelf behind us as a hidden door swung open. As a result, Sanchez and I let out another startled cry and tumbled from our chairs with a loud crash!
‘Do the production team have that much money?’
This was practically the equivalent of building an entire set.
I remembered that one crazy person who had actually built a real labyrinth at the company just to do an idol survival program. It seemed that to become a big shot who makes it to public broadcasting, you had to be willing to invest without hesitation at this level. I’m jealous, damn it.
“…S-should we, should we go?”
“We have to, we have to, right? We have to….”
“L-let’s go, hyung. In situations like this, the senior should go first….”
“Ah, what are you saying? I’m not that old-fashioned. It’s the virtue of our generation for the junior to lead the way….”
“No, no. What are you talking about? The old saying goes that you shouldn’t even step on your master’s shadow. I’ll be careful to follow without even stepping on the shadow of your shadow.”
“Teacher, no, Master. Please don’t say such things.”
“What are you saying, hyung, really.”
“From today on, I’ll regard you as my master.”
Do you want to ask if we really had the mental capacity to trade jokes at a time like this?
Sorry, but we’re being completely serious right now. Dead serious.
Even though I’ve regressed over a dozen times and live my life as a max-level person equipped with all sorts of fantasy keywords, I still didn’t have the audacity to live calling a senior who debuted around the time I was born my “master.”
“…Let’s just go together, senior. Holding each other’s hands tightly.”
“Yeah, let’s do that, Ha-jin. Let’s not betray each other.”
And it seemed Sanchez, who had called me his master despite being born around the time he debuted, felt the same way, so after a brief compromise, we ended up gripping each other’s shoulders firmly and proceeding together in this awkward companionship.
Even though this was only our second meeting, just listening to our conversation made it seem believable that we were comrades who had gone through life and death together at least a dozen times.
As we carefully made our way through the dark and dim secret passage, a staircase leading downward appeared.
Shining the flashlight at Sanchez’s feet to prepare for any unexpected dangers, we carefully descended, and a back path leading somewhere between the dark forest revealed itself plainly before us.
The production team had kindly installed soft lights densely along the back path, as if to say “come this way.”
We instinctively realized that the Twin Abandoned Buildings in question lay at the end of this path.
From this point on, camera directors began to appear slightly around us, and we could sense the presence of production staff members hiding to ensure we didn’t get hurt or fall into dangerous places, which eased our tension somewhat. We figured the missing members must have been moved to that abandoned building through this same path.
“Ha-jin, you’ll enter the building on the right. Sanchez, you’ll take the one on the left.”
“Hey, Seung-hee. You’re really going through with this?”
“Current time is 10:12. If you fail to find all members and escape by 12 o’clock, the mission is a failure.”
“You guys are really… just you wait. I mean it.”
When we arrived at the Twin Abandoned Buildings in question, a sub-PD who had been waiting nearby kindly distributed GoPros for the self-cam footage and guided us through the next course.
Sanchez, who had been glued to my side until moments ago, seemed to relax the instant he saw the familiar PD’s face, and he continued humming nervously all the way until he entered the abandoned building with the camera in hand.
“Ha-jin. Let’s make sure we….”
“Ahhh! No, don’t plant flags like that, seriously, please, I’m begging you.”
“W-what…?”
Sanchez’s attempt to offer some words of determination in front of the camera was thwarted by my flag-crushing intervention. Though he didn’t understand what flags meant, he watched me desperately pleading that it was absolutely forbidden, and he let out a hollow laugh.
Though the buildings looked identical on the surface, the entrances of the two structures connected by the Cloud Bridge Passage in the middle were surprisingly far apart. Sanchez and I put on watches that displayed the time, then stood side by side in front of our respective building entrances.
“…?”
The interior of the building visible through the transparent glass door was decorated with an atmosphere perfectly suited to test the limits of human courage—a perilous horror paradise.
I slowly unfastened the chain hanging on the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. At that moment, something that had been wedged above the door fell to the floor with a soft thud. Curious, I picked it up and saw something written in red letters on a stiff card.
【Question One.】
【Who is ‘I’?】
The youngest writer.
But if I answered like this, I’d get cursed out everywhere for being a fool who couldn’t maintain immersion in the broadcast setting and broke character.
But if I don’t engage in this kind of meta-awareness, I can’t endure it, seriously?
‘If you’re so frustrated, why don’t you debut and film a horror special yourselves…!’
Driven mad by fear, I now hurled a grand middle finger at the imaginary trolls who didn’t even exist. Gripping the paper tightly in my hand, I slowly pushed the door open. With an unpleasant sound, the heavy glass door pulled me into its space.
To answer this question and find the members who would willingly bear both my answer and my fear (becoming my shield and my emotional anchor), I slowly stepped into that darkness.
* * *
My first objective was naturally to find the members.
Being alone was just too, too terrifying. I’d been startled so many times that now even looking in the mirror in the restroom would make me nearly faint at the sight of my own reflection.
“Please… let me find the fearless ones first.”
Kairos had never done a courage test like this before, so there was no official ranking of who had the biggest or smallest nerve.
‘But honestly, I think all our members except me are probably fearless….’
I slowly walked down the hallway, mentally going through each of our group members one by one.
‘Jeong Si-u… seems like he’d find it more fun to scare me than to be scared himself.’
Disqualified.
Jeong Si-u is disqualified.
Even if I find Jeong Si-u, I’m not taking him with me. I’ll just lock him up and bring him along at the very end.
‘Lee Do-ha? Lee Do-ha definitely seems like the type who wouldn’t get scared easily.’
Even when that commotion happened at the dormitory earlier, he seemed quiet. His whole appeal point is literally ‘a strong heart,’ right?
Yeah. Lee Do-ha is approved.
I quietly added Lee Do-ha to the top of my rescue priority list.
‘Seo Tae-hyun… when I saw him pull back that curtain earlier, he seemed fearless….’
But thinking about how he worries a lot and overthinks things normally, he might actually get scared….
Or not? Maybe his professional awareness of being filmed is overriding his instincts?
Looking at his appearance alone, he seemed like the most fearful among us, but those types often have surprisingly strong spirits and don’t get scared easily by things like this….
‘Hmm, Seo Tae-hyun on hold.’
Bang, bang, bang!
“What, what is it?”
Just as I was trying to remove our home’s cherry-red gangster—difficult to characterize—from my mental list, a loud noise suddenly erupted from beside me. Wondering what else might appear, I turned with my guard completely up, only to find muffled sounds leaking faintly from inside a firmly locked door.
-#@@*#!)$$?~…!!!
Whatever it was, the noise made it clear that someone inside was shouting something. Assuming it was one of the group members, I tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside—the doorknob wouldn’t turn, just clicking uselessly.
“Looks like I need to find a key somewhere….”
Curious about what was happening inside, I knocked on the door and tried to communicate with whoever was in there, but they didn’t seem to hear me—only that incomprehensible noise continued.
Wondering if there was another way, I stepped back and examined the area around the door and wall. Fortunately, when I turned the corner I’d just passed, I spotted a window connected to the room.
“Alright.”
I lightly pushed aside the cumbersome drawer-like thing blocking the window, and through the half-open blinds, the interior of the room came into view. Shielding my eyes with my hand as I peered inside, the first thing I discovered was….
-Wow, seriously, please! Ahhhhh! What, what do I do! What am I supposed to do! What do you want me to do!
Under red lighting, Lee Yu-gun—his lanky frame well over 180 centimeters—was perched on top of a drawer, screaming at the top of his lungs with his body folded neatly.
There was nothing beneath his feet, no grotesque doll or person waiting in ambush. Yet Lee Yu-gun, trembling alone in fear, his body curled up tight, let out another vicious scream.
-Ahhh, if Kang Ha-jin doesn’t come soon, I’m going three days without eating…!!!!!
…Should I just leave him and go?
Today too, the delinquent Lee Yu-gun—living as a two-faced housewife who doesn’t play according to his appearance—had delivered me a devastatingly hopeless revelation about his true courage.

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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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