Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 509

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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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509. How to Awaken from a Butterfly’s Dream (3)
Of all the days for the Chosen Regressor’s personality to dissolve, that bastard Dol-ja used Dan Ha-ru’s temporal energy to corrupt the timeline and fled. And he did it using only the timelines connected to people related to Dan Ha-ru.
There’s no way all of this could be a ‘clever coincidence’—which meant that conniving bastard had calculated and exploited even this.
‘This damn weak bastard….’
I’d never thought that simply catching him by luck would be enough to finish off the villain, but still, being played this thoroughly left a bitter taste in my mouth.
[System Alert: Please, calm down, Kang Ha-jin…!]
[System Alert: The System says the explanation isn’t finished yet and flutters about frantically! ＼(●o○;)ノ]
My eyebrows twitched as I remained in a foul mood, and Thirteen panicked, waving his hands to stop me.
Sorry, but I haven’t done anything yet.
‘That guy really does see people too sporadically sometimes.’
With that thought, I nodded again and leaned my body back against the sofa.
But my eyebrows, still raised at that crooked angle, showed no sign of returning to normal.
“So, what’s the silver lining and the dark cloud?”
[System Alert: As mentioned, thanks to the Chosen Regressor’s idol activities, far more timelines became entangled in this incident than expected.]
“That’s not a silver lining at all.”
[System Alert: O-of course, it’s regrettable that more timelines were caught up in the accident…!]
[System Alert: But thanks to that, the possibility of restoring this ‘false timeline’ back to its original state has increased dramatically!]
With a beep, the slide that appeared showed tangled, wavy lines in different colors stretching across it in complex patterns.
At the very end, a yellow line with the cheerful, smiling face of Sparkle attached to it gleamed brightly. While all the other lines interfered with and crossed each other, tracing their trajectories, Sparkle’s line alone remained curled in a perfect circle, untouched by any other line.
[System Alert: If the Chosen Regressor’s timeline had remained isolated like this originally, we would never have been able to locate the timeline of the One Who Returns and the Chosen Regressor.]
[System Alert: Or even if we had found it, we wouldn’t have been able to locate the ‘original trajectory,’ and we would have had to reset everything.]
Beep.
The slide advanced once more.
Sparkle’s timeline, which had been curled in a lonely circle like an isolated island, extended further and became intertwined with several other timelines. Where the lines crossed, white dots sparkled as if marking stations.
[System Alert: But not anymore. Many timelines are now overlapping, creating intersection points, which makes it far easier to restore the trajectory.]
[System Alert: It’s like checkpoints have been created!]
“What does that mean…?”
[System Alert: Once we resolve a few matters, we can restore everything to ‘how it was.’ You’ll return to exactly January 1st, when you briefly fell asleep as ‘Kairos Kang Ha-jin’!]
Driving a nail through tangled thread.
The very strategy I’d thought I was being exploited for by that bastard Dol-ja had actually played its part, at least in part.
“….”
There is hope.
At the words that we could return to ‘how it was,’ my fists clenched without my realizing it.
[System Alert: You don’t realize how tremendous an Achievement this is! This is all a result of your hard work! Truly… if another timeline inversion occurred and we had to reconstruct everything ‘again,’ I would never sleep as a Time Management Authority member!]
[System Alert: Of course, we don’t sleep in the first place, but that’s just a figure of speech!]
[System Notification: The system is impressed with your Achievement! (✧(*,,ÒㅅÓ,,)✧)]
Thirteen, seeming even more excited than I was, chattered away noisily with his typing again. There’s no sound, yet somehow it feels so loud. Must be my imagination.
Feeling my ears ache for no reason, I tugged at my earlobe, then suddenly seized by a question, I clasped my hands together again.
“Wait, ‘again’? Has something like this happened before?”
[System Alert: Oh.]
You’re making sounds like ‘ugh’—how pathetic.
I’ll need to teach you how to maintain a poker face when struck by the truth.
“And you said it earlier, didn’t you? That this is Dol-ja’s dream. What does that mean? This ‘butterfly’s dream’ business?”
Minor details like worldbuilding wouldn’t matter if I could return to my original state, but given how thoroughly I’m entangled in this relentless fantasy world, it was better to know what I needed to know.
I fixed Thirteen with a look that demanded complete honesty from start to finish. The manager fidgeted with the system window before speaking carefully.
[System Alert: Hmm… This isn’t particularly connected to the Chosen Regressor, so I wasn’t planning to explain it…]
[System Alert: In fact, ‘The One Who Returns’—that is, the ‘will’—has closed or damaged timelines several times before. As I mentioned briefly earlier.]
“Ah, yeah. I remember that.”
[System Alert: As you can imagine, closing and opening timelines spanning hundreds of billions of years in an instant isn’t as simple as it sounds.]
[System Alert: Of course, the humans involved would never even know such a thing happened, but objectively speaking, it’s an event of massive scale. Making it ‘completely as if it never occurred’ is impossible.]
Billions of years of human history flashed across the screen. Even the Time Management Authority couldn’t manipulate that much time like flipping through a comic book.
I understood that much.
[System Alert: And what’s used in such cases is precisely ‘dreams’.]
[System Alert: All the moments when time opens and closes are processed as someone’s ‘dream’. When that happens, everything becomes simple.]
[System Alert: The ‘event’ occurred, but it has no impact on ‘time’. Once the dreamer awakens, the event naturally fades into their unconscious and ceases to exist. As if nothing ever happened.]
It’s a somewhat complex explanation.
Thirteen fidgeted with the system window, unnecessarily changing the subject. I tapped the sofa armrest a couple of times and opened my mouth.
“So…”
[System Alert: ….]
Tap, tap, tap.
The fingers that had been moving gracefully came to a stop.
I condensed what I’d understood into my own interpretation and spoke it aloud.
“So basically, this whole ‘it was all a dream’ development was actually a world-ending deus ex machina?”
[System Alert: Ah, please, seriously.]
[System Alert: (ノдヽ)=33 ]
I knew that would be the reaction.
Thirteen responded exactly as expected, and I let out a soft laugh before adding a comment.
“I’ve been doing this for years—why do you age so dramatically every time?”
[System Alert: I hate that I can never refute Kang Ha-jin’s flippant, otaku-like analogies…]
“Deal with it.”
I lightly dismissed the unusually whiny Thirteen.
What could he do about it? Since the Chosen Regressor is now fixed as me in this lifetime, it was healthier for him to get used to this level of banter.
“But I really do understand now. You’re saying all these ‘false timelines’ that have occurred are being treated as Dol-ja’s dream? So when all this ends and we return to the original timeline, everything that happened here becomes my dream—the one I’m having while sleeping in the van on January 1st.”
[System Alert: Correct! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ – ˵ ) ✧]
“Yeah, well. It’s certainly a convenient method, as you say.”
I roughly understood this butterfly’s dream explanation now. It also made sense why Thirteen said at first that this could be my dream or it might not be.
“But is that really okay? Treating something like a universal explosion as just some ordinary person’s dream feels a bit…”
[System Alert: You don’t need to worry about that at all!]
[System Alert: There’s no place with infinite potential and possibility quite like the human unconscious.]
….
[System Notification: It truly is…! There is nothing as boundless as human imagination.]
[System Notification: The System is confident in the Time Management Authority’s experience this time! ★⌒(●ゝω・)ｂ]
“Well… fine.”
There was nothing more to say when a being who managed time itself spoke with such certainty. As I nodded reluctantly, Thirteen stared at me intently (through an emoticon in the system window) and added quietly.
[System Notification: So, please believe in the universe that Kang Ha-jin carries within you.]
“…?”
[System Notification: Sometimes, God sends an entire universe within a single person’s life.]
“…What, suddenly? When you say sentimental things like that, it feels weird. It puts me in a strange mood.”
[System Notification: Endure it. ☆～（ゝ。∂）]
“Anyway, that guy just keeps picking up more and more strange habits….”
From our first meeting until now, I shook my head at Thirteen’s tendency to learn only in these kinds of matters.
In any case, it seemed I’d heard all the necessary information by now. The PowerPoint presentation Thirteen had prepared also seemed to have ended, disappearing along with the text 【Thank you :)】.
“Well, fine. So?”
I crossed my arms again and tilted my chin.
“What do I do now? If you’re going to give me a Quest, hand it over quickly. I’ve been cooped up inside all day, and I’m getting restless. Really restless.”
Three years as a fixed regressor—I recited the expected Quest.
With my legs crossed, I tapped my thighs rhythmically, roughly imagining the scenario ahead.
‘So now I’ll be gathering time energy to return to the original timeline, and simultaneously performing various Quests to free the Group Members and myself from this tedious infinite loop….’
[System Notification: There is none.]
What?
[System Notification: What the Chosen Regressor must do to return to the original timeline is….]
[System Notification: Nothing at all.]
…What is this guy saying now?

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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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