Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 446

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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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446. The Truth (3)
Time.
It is sand, a spring mechanism, gears, and waves.
Never grasped by hand, yet eternally present,
No one can see its end, yet for some it has not even begun.
And yet, still.
Forever existing, merely flowing without purpose.
[….]
Here, in a place that is nothing and nowhere.
There exists one who manages that very time.
[….]
He exists.
No, he does not exist.
The second hand of a clock must possess no will whatsoever.
Yet, he opened his eyes.
He lifted his head and opened his mouth.
I do not know what path my current actions will lead me down, but I felt no fear. Since I had never truly existed to begin with, even my own dissolution felt meaningless.
[…The One Who Returns has begun to move.]
Time Management Authority No. 12.
‘The One Who Returns’—also called ‘that thing’—was currently trapped within a Time Fracture.
He had suspected that the moment ‘that thing’ was captured, ‘deletion’ would be executed immediately, but reality proved otherwise. The sheer volume of temporal energy that The One Who Returns had condensed and stored using the Chosen Regressor was far too immense.
Though ‘The One Who Returns’ had caused the temporal axis to collapse, ironically, this vast timeline was being sustained by the temporal energy he himself had accumulated in his attempt to become human.
If he were not dealt with, the timeline would face endless threats, yet the moment he was deleted, the timeline would be unable to withstand the sudden surge of temporal energy and would explode.
[Now you must provide an answer.]
Time Management Authority No. 13.
‘That thing’—now more accustomed to calling itself Thirteen—posed a question to the Entity.
The last time he had asked the Entity for truth, it had deferred its answer, claiming the time was not yet right. Then it had left him with an order to carefully monitor The One Who Returns trapped within the Time Fracture.
Time Management Authority No. 13, Kim Thirteen, had thought during that endless expanse of time.
Thought and thought again.
As his friend and master had done, so did he.
Even if it were to bring about his own dissolution, he did so.
And so, if he could thereby safely protect his friend and his world, he resolved to do so.
Thus now, having become half-human in form, he posed a question to the ‘Entity’.
“Is The One Who Returns… you?”
It was a conclusion reached after considerable deliberation.
How The One Who Returns, once merely a Time Manager, had gained power enough to shake the timeline itself,
And how ‘he’—my superior existence who governs all of this time—could not easily filter out such impurities and had to rely on the help of the human Kang Ha-jin.
How I, ordered as a Time Manager to find The One Who Returns and stop him, ultimately failed to properly detect him and repeatedly lost him or fell victim to him.
“Is he… another version of you?”
If ‘he’ is ‘he’…
That would explain it—if the beginning and the end were one and the same.
[…You are a gear.]
The Entity resonates.
Neither smiling nor weeping, neither angry nor flustered.
That one who moves as quietly as the minute hand of a clock—he turns his gaze inward upon himself.
[A gear, and yet you’ve made such a resolve.]
Words spoken while observing the self that had half-formed into human shape.
Time Management Authority No. 13 answered with unflinching confidence.
“Even if I fade away as things stand, I accept it. But I must ask—why do you simply watch over him? Why have you done nothing to prevent matters from reaching this point?”
[…Is that your conclusion?]
“It is.”
[There exists no one who manages time. Therefore, do not think, do not question.]
[The longer your question marks persist, the more human you become. Yet that is not right. In the end, you will vanish without even the memory that you ever existed.]
“I do not care.”
Time Management Authority No. 13 shook his head firmly.
He had resolved this from the moment he posed that first question. He could not have lacked such resolve.
[Fulfill your duty as a Time Management Authority.]
[Time merely flows. Certain things simply occur. Just as the clock’s hands stopping does not halt the passage of time itself.]
[Close your eyes and seal your ears.]
[My command to you was merely to apprehend the One Who Returns. The truth of the matter, the significance of existence—none of it concerns you.]
The Entity spoke with serene authority.
Or perhaps it was gently soothing him.
Perhaps it was attempting persuasion with some force,
And perhaps it bore the shadow of profound sorrow.
Yet the more Thirteen heard such words, the more his resolve paradoxically solidified.
“You truly intend to leave him be? Even if he uses what he has wrought to threaten this entire timeline?”
Thirteen’s voice rose.
He was angry now.
“This is our doing. It was made possible by your wager. Kang Ha-jin, Dan Ha-ru, and his family and friends—! They must not suffer any longer because of him.”
Close your eyes and seal your ears.
It was not merely an instruction to hear truth with clouded perception.
It was a command to cease thought, to halt cognition, to stop questioning, and become once more a cog within the clockwork.
Thirteen, who had been a Time Management Authority, stood ready to return into those gears at any moment. It was his life, his existence—there was no sorrow or fear in it. Rather, he even hoped for the day when all would normalize, when he could live again as a manager of time.
Yet if, because he was a manager of time, he must simply watch all of this unfold,
If he must wait like the dead for time to pass without doing anything for these humans he loved and cherished so dearly,
“Then answer me. Tell me the truth of all that has transpired.”
…Then instead,
He would become human.
[…Very well.]
After a long silence, the Entity opened its mouth with great effort.
A positive answer is hopeful. Thirteen waited for what came next, prepared even for his own dissolution. At last, he had gained the opportunity to reach the ‘truth’.
[I see….]
Pandora’s box slowly opens its lid.
[You, once again….]
[Once again, you arrive at such a conclusion.]
“…Once again?”
If only a handful of hope remained at the very bottom of the opened box.
The Entity—’he’—who was time and universe yet simultaneously nothing at all, groaned quietly.
* * *
This is a story of one who was the primordial hand of the clock.
-Tend to time.
From the moment he existed, his role was singular.
To carefully tend to all the time in which countless lives bloomed and withered.
Yet time proved far more intricate than imagined—not the simple linear flow humans perceived, like yesterday and today, tomorrow and the day after.
-(Well) tend to the time (of all living things).
The Divine would sometimes place an entire universe within a single person’s lifetime.
From the moment of birth, they could become anything, dream anything, love anything.
Within their boundless minds, remarkable stories sometimes took shape, science fiction beyond imagination unfolded, and sharp wisdom in discovering and studying the world’s hidden rules would spring forth.
Every moment of their lives was a succession of choices,
and those choices led to consequences,
and those consequences became the cause of something else,
and that cause ultimately became another choice laid before them.
‘Life’ was both blessing and freedom granted by the Divine, responsibility and right, duty they must bear and role they must accept.
All things simply ‘occurred’, and they became nourishment for another life, accumulating and flowing like falling grains of sand.
Infinitely, and fleetingly.
-(Without interference, well) tend to the (infinite) time (of all living things).
Infinity was, simultaneously, the same as non-existence.
Though humanity possessed millions of years of history, and the universe held even longer, to a newborn born around the year 2918, that time held no meaning or value. What mattered to him was only the time ahead in which he would be born and live.
So time, the universe, the world itself—all were quite simple.
It was a single person’s life.
Someone’s birth was the birth of a universe,
and someone’s death was the closing of a world’s door.
It was a tremendous thing, yet simultaneously, it was nothing remarkable.
It was also why he who presided over all time could not lay hands upon the natural laws of human birth, aging, sickness, and death.
– (Of all living things that are)
(born and perish)
(infinite) time (without interference)
(endlessly repeating)
(well) tend to.
For a very long time.
No—shorter than the blink of an eye.
He watched humanity’s time unfold in silence, allowing it to flow as it would.
Humans loved endlessly.
And endlessly despised one another.
While some universes became stars, others became blades,
and while some worlds chased their own goodness, others pursued only their own precedence.
Infinite universes—selfish, unjust, yet beautiful and radiant—were born and died in every moment. Time simply flowed, pooled, stagnated, and simultaneously overflowed.
– (To all life that is born and dies)
(Transient)
(infinite) time (without interference)
(endlessly repeating)
(well) tend it. (Forever)
The moment when the clock hand’s movement—which had only observed that endless repetition and cycle—slowed by the faintest degree was truly instantaneous.
-Forever.
He suddenly felt weary.
-Forever?
How long must I repeat this?
A question mark that should never have been raised corroded the gears.
-What purpose do their trivial lives serve within this vast cosmos?
Humans endlessly repeated the same mistakes.
They envied their friends, betrayed their lovers, abandoned their families, and mocked others.
They squandered the worlds given to them, ignored the weight of worlds given to others, and foolishly clung to desires without understanding that the time flowing away had an end.
[In the end….]
[In the end, they are merely grains of sand on a beach.]
No matter how vast or great a person might be, they are but a tiny trace before time itself.
They were far too arrogant. Prideful and cruel.
They were but a ‘moment’ that would vanish without leaving a trace of existence the instant he closed this book, yet they enjoyed and lived with ‘life’—something he could never possess no matter how desperately he desired it. He could not comprehend it.
Too many possibilities opened and closed.
He began to feel those opportunities were being wasted.
– (To all life that is born and dies) (transient) (infinite) time (without interference) (endlessly repeating) (well) tend it. (Forever)
The clock hand that had turned endlessly refused to move of its own accord.
The universe stopped, and the world closed.
[You are not worthy of those opportunities.]
It was the Time Management Authority’s first derailment.

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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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