Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 532

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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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532. Entering the Eye of the Typhoon (4)
“Fine, then let’s set that aside for now….”
Though truthfully, it wasn’t something I could simply set aside, but what could I do when the country itself had called upon me?
Besides, he wasn’t even a new recruit—he’d soon be a sergeant—and we had far more pressing matters to discuss than dwelling on that.
‘I’m sorry, Bear. But when I regressed, I was a private first class. Honestly, wouldn’t sergeant be pretty sweet?’
I handed the tablet back to Ju Eun-chan, hoping that Lee Do-ha’s awakening hadn’t been triggered by experiencing the hellish nightmare of watching the discharge calculator’s numbers refuse to decrease. Then I recalled the names of those whose information I still couldn’t locate in the files. By then, the first course had already been served at the table, excluding the appetizers.
“Those people without names… you still haven’t found them, right?”
“…Yes. Not yet.”
A shadow instantly crossed Ju Eun-chan’s face as he realized who I was referring to. Despite the appetizing dishes arrayed on the table, neither of us could easily reach for our chopsticks.
“…Ha-ru will be okay, right?”
Unable to hold back any longer, Ju Eun-chan finally spoke that name aloud.
The name of that person—the beginning and root cause of everything—whom even I had been too afraid to mention freely since falling into this timeline.
I nodded with difficulty, only after a moment of hesitation.
“Yeah. He’ll be fine. Right now he’s not in rebellious mode—he’s in infinite positivity sunshine mode Dan Ha-ru.”
On that very night when Dan Ha-ru’s birthday ended in the original timeline.
The personality of Dan Ha-ru, which had been that of the Chosen Regressor, was completely annihilated. Though the temporal energy generated by that annihilation was being used to create this false timeline that the Returner had constructed, the annihilation itself had proceeded normally, or so I was told.
So the Dan Ha-ru existing in this timeline should be that ‘Sparkle’ we knew. That alone was my only hope.
“He’s a tough kid… he’ll hold on well until we find him. Let’s believe that.”
The reason searching for Dan Ha-ru was so difficult was because his timeline had been so thoroughly scrambled.
I’d been told it was set as the worst possible timeline for everyone, so I initially thought it might be around the time of the Orphanage Director’s death—someone we all cherished like family. But it turned out the Director had already passed away months ago, and the orphanage he’d run had been closed for quite some time.
I’d even asked Thirteen if he might have been caught in another vortex, but Thirteen said the temporal energy around Dan Ha-ru was far too faint for him to trace his whereabouts at all.
“For now, leave finding Ha-ru to me. It might actually be faster if I search on my end.”
“I’ll keep looking too. The sooner anyone finds him, the better.”
“…Alright then.”
Ju Eun-chan seemed deeply worried that his only younger sibling might be drifting alone somewhere on a remote island. I understood his concern well enough, so I simply nodded without pressing further.
Since Ju Eun-chan seemed like he’d only start eating once I did, I forced myself to pick up my chopsticks and pushed the exquisite dishes into my dry mouth. Seeing this, Ju Eun-chan also began to eat.
We finished our meal while exchanging casual conversation as if nothing had happened. First, I vividly recounted my experiences from the recent filming of In the Chaos, and Ju Eun-chan began explaining in detail how he’d been caught being tailed by Jeong Si-u and Lee Yu-gun.
Once the floodgates of conversation opened, the stories kept flowing endlessly.
Before long, we were left with only the final dessert course.
“Eun-chan.”
“Yes?”
“…The Executive Director still hasn’t been found either, right?”
“Ah… yes.”
At my words, Ju Eun-chan, who had been eating some kind of salted ice cream for dessert, suddenly set down his spoon solemnly. He wasn’t a sponge—his reactions came immediately to the slightest touch—so I let out a hollow laugh and quickly pressed the spoon back into his hand.
“Eat, eat. I didn’t mean to make you gloomy. I was just asking to confirm.”
“We’re searching hard… but his last known location was Seoul S Hospital a few years ago. Since his discharge from there, nothing has surfaced….”
“….”
“If his last location was a hospital, then the Executive Director probably….”
Even as a hypothesis, it seemed too difficult to voice aloud, so Ju Eun-chan hastily trailed off. Watching him pull a tissue and sniffle, it seemed his throat had suddenly tightened.
Even if it was just a hypothesis, Ju Eun-chan seemed to struggle to voice it out loud, his words trailing off abruptly. Watching him grab a tissue from beside him and sniffle, it seemed like his throat had tightened for a moment.
My throat, which I had managed to soothe with sweet ice cream, began to sting again as if thorns were sprouting from within, but I couldn’t let this tender soul see it, so I simply endured in silence.
“It probably will be. If it’s the worst timeline for the Executive Director, then inevitably….”
Blindness.
That event I had tried so desperately to prevent in the original timeline.
Thirteen said it might not be, and that he’d look into it further, but no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine a worse timeline than one where Ji Su-ho lost both his eyes.
“…I’ll handle it too. Let’s find a way somehow.”
If necessary, I’d give back all my time in return.
Even if it was a false timeline, I couldn’t leave Ji Su-ho trapped in darkness forever in this fake timeline of unknown duration. Thinking that I’d need to talk to Thirteen about this soon as well, I shoved the last remaining ice cream into my mouth.
“So, how about you? Is your treatment going well? Will you be able to resume activities?”
“Ah, yes. It seems it was aftereffects. I’m not completely better yet…. But like you said last time, I think I can return to my original condition before next year.”
“Good, that’s enough. Besides, I’ll be busy with ‘In the Chaos’ filming from this month for a couple of months anyway. Use that time to recover well. And bring the other members along.”
“Yes. Oh, but….”
“…?”
The kid, who had been nodding as if everything was going smoothly, hesitated as if something was bothering him. Wondering what it was, I made eye contact, and after deliberating for a while, Ju Eun-chan shook his head and flashed a bright smile.
“…It’s nothing. I’ll tell you once I’m more certain.”
“Well… okay. But if you need help, try telling your older brother first rather than me. That’ll be faster in many ways.”
“Um… yes! I’ll definitely tell you too though.”
The kid inside that shell was definitely our nineteen-year-old Ju Eun-chan, but this brat was getting older and kept showing signs of maturity.
When we returned to the original timeline, I’d need to make sure nineteen-year-old Eun-chan could live as a nineteen-year-old, so I’d have to push Thirteen to handle these memories somehow.
I gestured for Ju Eun-chan to finish his ice cream quickly and gave him a brief briefing about the upcoming schedule.
“First, let’s leave Si-woo and Lee Yu-gun alone for now…. Let’s go meet Lee Do-ha soon. While we’re at it, bring Seo Tae-hyun along.”
“You’re going to meet both of them at once?”
“Wouldn’t that be better? When you go to Gangwon Province, you have to cover it all at once. I know from experience.”
And coincidentally, all those ‘times’ were the same purpose, catching the same guy, the same situation.
‘If you’re going to cause trouble, do it anywhere but Gangwon Province, you cute and refreshing cherry of a brat….’
Here he was, inviting me to that Gangwon Province again (by now I’d memorized the route to the Pension so well I could drive without GPS).
I decided that whenever I caught him, regardless of the reason, I’d give him exactly one flick on the forehead. Honestly, even one was being generous considering the circumstances.
“Oh, but… are you okay?”
“Huh? Me? Why?”
“I saw an article. About you appearing in ‘In the Chaos’… the reactions weren’t very good….”
Wondering why he was suddenly worried about me, the answer that came back was incredibly touching.
Look at this, everyone. Our little baby king black cat turned twenty-seven and now he’s even monitoring articles and caring about public opinion.
Normally he would have stubbornly said, “Anyway, you’ll do well, so those reactions don’t matter at all.” But not anymore.
‘If you asked which is easier for social life, obviously it’s now….’
Still, I wished our house’s baby would remain that stubborn little kid who said, “Eun-chan doesn’t know” again.
“Chan.”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever seen me take on something I couldn’t handle?”
“Yes.”
“….”
“…Sometimes?”
“…Think about it carefully. The scale is big, but we’ve mostly handled the damage control, haven’t we?”
I correct myself.
My Eun-chan is still the same stubborn second-youngest member who sent all sense of social awareness beyond Gangwon Cheolsan—a real do-your-own-thing type. That guy hasn’t changed one bit in how he gives those blunt answers to strange questions. Ha ha.
As I laughed hollowly, Ju Eun-chan continued speaking with a sheepish grin, as if admitting his joke.
“Well, actually, I wasn’t really worried about those articles. Since you’ll do well anyway, I figured they’d all disappear once the broadcast starts.”
See? My character analysis was spot on.
I was about to nod approvingly at Ju Eun-chan’s response matching my prediction exactly, when he looked at me with genuine concern in his eyes.
“More than that… since you monitor everything so carefully anyway, you’ll keep seeing those posts until the broadcast airs… I was just wondering if you’re really okay with that.”
Good heavens, Joo Eun-seok.
How on earth did you raise this kid?
Over the past decade, instead of just growing up well, didn’t he come back as a Saint incarnate?
There was a reason Joo Eun-seok had become so devoted to his younger sibling.
“Eun-chan….”
“That’s too much pressure, hyung.”
I held both of Ju Eun-chan’s hands tightly, my eyes glistening with emotion, and he, as if used to this, maintained his iron wall of composure with his mouth while gently returning my grip.
Still wearing that moved expression, I pulled out my phone from my pocket. When I opened the messenger app, several article links from Kwon Myung-eun appeared along with their thumbnails.
【Studio A_Kwon Myung-eun Senior ‖ Scheduled for release this evening】
【Studio A_Kwon Myung-eun Senior ‖ But I think I worded it pretty well lol】
Checking Kwon Myung-eun’s message, which seemed noticeably more level-headed since our conversation at the gamjatang restaurant, I showed Ju Eun-chan the article page directly. As he picked up my phone with a “what’s this?” expression, I simply shrugged at him.
“Read it. That’s the countermeasure I prepared for you.”
“…?”
Ju Eun-chan’s face filled with question marks as he read aloud the article title that had come up in the chat.
“Seo Tae-il’s man, Kang Ha-jin. Becomes KTBC’s man… ‘In the Chaos’ appearance officially confirmed…?”
“You need to read the one below that too.”
“…?”
Ju Eun-chan’s gaze moved down to the lower part of the phone.
After reading the title of the article Kwon Myung-eun had sent right after my appearance confirmation article, he placed the phone on the table and alternated his gaze between me and the article title. At his expression that seemed to ask “what on earth is this?”, I glanced down to confirm the problematic article title once more.
【’In the Chaos’ PD Kwon Myung-eun, “Using connections if you have them? That’s how you should use them”… Clarified stance on ‘parachute casting’】
‘The wording seems a bit less provocative than I’d hoped, but this is good enough….’
Looking contentedly at the article title I’d selected, I made a flower-cup shape with both hands toward Ju Eun-chan. Then I made the cutest expression that would annoy him most in the world and blinked my eyes.
“How’s that? Should I become the incarnation of aggro this life?”
Come on, you bastards.
I will drive you insane.
This was the audacity of a former PD from a ruined agency with nothing left to lose—Yeon Ban-in’s true nature.

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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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