Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 502

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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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502. A Butterfly’s Dream (1)
On the rooftop of an old apartment building, where fierce rain and wind howled relentlessly.
Thud, thud, thud―!
In that place—peaceful if one chose to see it that way, or the calm before a storm if one didn’t—someone stepped forward with grim determination etched across their face.
“….”
A monkey wrench held in one wool-gloved hand swayed with the man’s movements. He hurled the chunk of scrap metal he’d been holding in his other hand carelessly onto the rain-soaked ground.
Along with a splash, the object that clattered across the floor was the doorknob that had been firmly locking the rooftop entrance just moments before.
“Ah, seriously….”
The man in a black baseball cap and black raincoat muttered softly. A faint scar from childhood marked the end of his right eyebrow, which twitched with evident displeasure.
Black clothes, black shoes, black hat, black raincoat.
With the black Boston bag he’d set down briefly now slung over his shoulder, the man looked exactly like a ruthless criminal from a movie.
“Getting someone as good-natured as me this angry—that’s the hardest thing to do.”
The man’s low voice scattered and dissolved between the sounds of rain.
The rain continued to pour down like sharp iron bars, but the man walked straight through it as if indifferent to such trivial matters. His steps halted when he reached the railing at the edge of the rooftop.
“Good weather, perfect timing….”
He set the bag down carelessly, checked the time on his wristwatch, then gripped the railing and shook it with all his might.
Unlike the worn exterior of the old apartment, the railing appeared clean and sturdy, and it didn’t budge at all under his assault. The apartment management had recently done renovations instead of reconstruction, reinforcing various parts of the building.
“…This level of safety is sufficient.”
After confirming everything, the man exhaled sharply. A raindrop that had seeped under his cap’s brim traced past the mole beneath his right eye.
He methodically opened the bag and retrieved a long belt of unknown purpose along with various other items, setting them up exactly as he intended.
Once he finished setting everything up, he fastened the belt around his body and performed multiple checks. He’d also already donned a helmet and protective gear just in case.
“…Phew.”
Despite completing all preparations, tension still gripped him, and he exhaled sharply once more. Even though he’d run through the simulation several times, the assumption of “just in case” was always difficult to ignore.
“….”
The man gripped the railing with trembling hands….
No—Ha-jin looked up at the sky.
“Seriously, though.”
Ha-jin spat out each word deliberately, his voice heavy with suppressed anger.
As if issuing a warning to someone beyond that sky.
“Once I escape, everything’s over.”
With those words as his signal, Ha-jin quickly stepped back several paces, then nimbly vaulted over the railing.
Naturally, there was nothing behind the railing.
Ha-jin plummeted, his body suspended by nothing but a single safety belt.
In that critical moment of falling at insane speed through the void, Ha-jin screamed.
“I―!!! WANT TO GO BAAAAAACK!!!!!”
Even that anguished cry was swallowed by the downpour as Ha-jin turned his gaze upward toward the sky.
Though he’d never come close to it in his life, the sky seemed particularly distant today—and it held the very reason that had driven Ha-jin to commit this insane act.
Even as he fell, Ha-jin raised his middle finger toward the heavens.
“How does the sun shine so brightly when rain’s pouring down like this, you crazy bastards!? If you’re going to set things up, do it properly…!”
The rain that had poured down without ceasing since the moment Ha-jin opened his eyes in ‘this place’.
Yet when Ha-jin looked up at the sky, there were no dark clouds—only an unnaturally brilliant sun blazing overhead. Though it was heading toward dawn rather than night, the sky still retained that vivid, pale blue luminescence, which felt profoundly wrong.
The watch on Ha-jin’s wrist gleamed, revealing today’s date.
【20XX年 September 15th 23:59:57】
Today was Kairos’s debut day, and coincidentally, the very day Ha-jin had awakened as “twenty-nine Kang Ha-jin”.
And though the memory was hazy, it was likely the day Ha-jin had experienced his first regression.
【20XX年 September 15th 23:59:58】
As Ha-jin’s body plummeted at a sickening speed toward the building’s exterior wall, he instinctively curled into a protective ball. The terror of fractured ribs at minimum, death at worst, washed over him in a dizzying wave.
【20XX年 September 15th 23:59:59】
In that instant, something—a fragment of blue data—flickered across Ha-jin’s vision.
But before he could even reach for it, a vibration from his wristwatch announced the exact hour.
【20XX年 September 16th 00:00:00】
“God, please…!”
With that brief cry, Ha-jin vanished.
As if no one had ever been there at all.
The belt, the bag, even the doorknob Ha-jin had broken and thrown—nothing remained.
“…Damn it.”
Ha-jin opened his eyes again and exhaled a hollow sigh.
A dark room.
A small, cramped bed.
The sound of rain filtering through the silence of an empty house where no human presence lingered.
Kang Ha-jin sat alone once more in that suffocating little room.
The phone beside him glowed, displaying the current time.
【20XX年 September 15th 17:00:00】
Realizing the plan had failed, Ha-jin quietly clutched his head (though with enough restraint that no hair actually came loose) and muttered to himself.
“I really want to blow up the universe….”
The Nth day since awakening as “twenty-nine Kang Ha-jin” (I haven’t counted).
Ha-jin’s calendar remained eternally frozen on September 15th.
* * *
When did I first sense something was wrong?
‘I’m not in a coma, so where does someone exist who dreams three years’ worth of dreams?’
By rough count, that’s a thousand days.
Even after a three-hour nap, I’d dream of Potter doing Mario and Rider doing a dance battle—and somehow, across a thousand days’ worth of content, every single day was vivid, complete with perfect worldbuilding, scenario, narrative structure, and coherent character interactions?
‘I’d rather say I was abducted by aliens and had my memory tampered with.’
Of course, I hadn’t recognized the strangeness of this situation from the beginning.
I’d only recently become aware that the same day was repeating itself.
‘And there were times when I repeated the cycle while forgetting that I’d even become aware of it….’
The pattern is always identical.
Whenever I regain consciousness, I always wake up in bed at 5 PM on September 15th.
I can no longer remember whether that first regression truly occurred on September 15th, but regardless, this ‘System’ seems to have set today as September 15th for some reason.
As a result, I’m experiencing the bizarre phenomenon of celebrating my tenth debut anniversary over ten times, when in reality I’m barely a three-year veteran.
“Look at how poorly the date is set up, seriously. That bastard Dol-ja’s world-building ability is just too sloppy.”
I rose slowly from my seat and made a beeline for the refrigerator in the living room.
The saying goes that someone who’s already chopped wood can chop it better the next time.
I knew from experiencing this infinite loop several times—first things first, even the most beautiful mountain loses its appeal on an empty stomach. My mind couldn’t function without food. And of all times, the reset was set for 5 PM, which only made me hungrier.
“Ugh… Bulgogi, short ribs, pork belly, tacos, intestines, tteokbokki, malatang, marinated crab…”
There were so many things I wanted to eat, yet all I could actually make was kimchi fried rice.
At least Dol-ja hadn’t managed to tamper with the refrigerator’s contents—Mother’s side dishes and the snacks Ha-won and Father had bought were still there.
I pulled out all the ingredients for what would be my twenty-seventh bowl of kimchi fried rice today and laid them on the table. Dumping everything into a large bowl and mixing it with gochujang was admittedly the easiest way, but I’d already eaten it that way thirty times and was getting a bit tired of it.
Or was it that I’d eaten kimchi fried rice thirty times total?
“Wow, even though I made it myself, this is genuinely Michelin-quality.”
I’d made it appetizingly—with a perfectly soft-boiled egg on top, sprinkled mozzarella cheese from the freezer, and pressed crispy rice crust into the pan.
The appetizing kimchi fried rice was plated on Mother’s cherished French porcelain bowl.
“Well then, now…”
The spam I’d scattered and fried left a faint red oil stain on the white bowl, but I didn’t care.
“Now…”
Everything would reset after midnight anyway.
“…”
After all, everything would reset after midnight…
“…Ah, intrusive thoughts again.”
I shook off the oppressive sensation pulling at my entire body as quickly as I could.
That movie was genuinely terrible. How could someone lock a person away and feed them only dumplings every day for ten years? I decided to reclassify that film as a horror movie from now on.
“Eat, Kang Ha-jin. You need to eat to do anything.”
As I took a big spoonful of the cheese-stretching kimchi fried rice, I pondered what I’d try next after finishing this.
Since everything reset after each day, what I’d done and hadn’t done so far depended entirely on my memory. Fortunately, I’d inherited a sharp mind, so I’d managed to continue this reckless ‘escape attempt’ without major issues so far.
“I feel like I’ve tried most unusual things by now. Is there anything I haven’t done yet? If only Ha-won were here, I could at least brainstorm with him…”
At the habitual mention of Ha-won’s name, I had to stop moving again.
My eyes naturally drifted toward the phone sitting on one side of the table.
“…I miss Ha-won. And Mother and Father.”
The phenomenon where no one answered—either the number didn’t exist or a stranger picked up—applied to family too. Whenever I called anyone in my contacts, they either didn’t answer or I got the signal for a non-existent number.
So if I assumed I’d been doing this for about a hundred days (I hadn’t counted exactly—I was afraid to), then I’d already been isolated and alone for over three months without speaking to anyone.
“…”
My gaze shifted from the phone toward the sink.
The kitchen knife I’d taken out to cut ingredients happened to enter my line of sight.
“…”
Suddenly, it felt as though a dark voice within me was whispering like this.
‘Why, you see that cliché all the time in movies. The only way to escape a fake reality is to die in that world.’
It was true that I’d never attempted anything involving my own life before.
The rooftop bungee jump last time had gone through thorough verification to guarantee minimal safety…
“…No, I can’t. Don’t fall for it, Kang Ha-jin.”
But I shook my head once more and brushed that thought away.
“Dangerous situations can’t keep repeating. If they do….”
They might become ‘fixed events’.
I must never forget that my mind is slowly fracturing from the infinite regression, teetering on the edge of madness.
Lying on the emergency staircase for three hours with a broken leg was a foolish mistake I’d made once—that was more than enough.
“If I just try a little more, I’ll find some way forward.”
I lifted my head again, steeling my resolve.
Directly across from where I sat, I could see the green entrance door that led out of this house.
“He will definitely… definitely come to rescue me.”
And above it, with an extremely faint transparency.
It still had holes scattered throughout like missing teeth, and it was so dim and blurry that unless I squinted my eyes, I might easily miss it.
Yet despite that, I could clearly see a fragment of the blue System window that undeniably existed.
[ ]
“Please come quickly, Kim Thirteen….”
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It was the only trace of Thirteen—the one who had saved me as I descended into madness from infinite regression.

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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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