Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 550

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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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550. In the Chaos (3)
I yanked the lever hard in the opposite direction, and with the sound of some mechanism activating, the entire building flooded with crimson light.
At the same moment, the water that had been rising slowly suddenly began to accelerate.
“Water! The water’s rising! It’s faster than before!?”
“That’s why I keep telling you not to touch random things…!”
Son Je-u, gripped by panic, turned to me with resentful eyes. His debut role was supposedly some “charming villain” nonsense, and his glare was genuinely menacing.
If I hadn’t debuted alongside those types—the ones with such brutally sharp features that you’d naturally hear “Are you in a bad mood just by opening your eyes?”—I probably would’ve been terrified, but as it stood, I’d grown somewhat accustomed to it.
‘Thanks, Ju Eun-chan. Your expressionless face has been instrumental in building my nerve.’
I wasn’t (entirely) sorry to Son Je-u, but in a place like this, any visible reaction was better than nothing. The Production Company wouldn’t waste expensive special effects on a useless mechanism just to save budget.
“Hey, over there…!”
Sure enough, Ji Ye, with her sharp eyes, spotted something and pointed. Following her finger, I saw that the wall which had been displaying Void’s bizarre emoticon now bore fresh white text.
【↑↑Look up↑↑】
“…?”
What was this—graffiti-like message written on a restroom wall?
Regardless, time was running out, so I obediently looked up as instructed. Sure enough, on the not-so-distant ceiling was….
【→ → Look to the right → →】
“Seriously?”
I’ll say it again: time was running out.
If not for that, I would’ve criticized this ridiculously childish hint-writer directly to the camera.
Since the water was already rising menacingly toward the last rung of the ladder, I had no choice but to obediently follow Void’s (or the Writer’s) instructions and look at the right wall.
【↓↓ Look down ↓↓】
“Yeah, naturally.”
After spinning around pointlessly and shifting my gaze, it all came back to that same wall with the lever.
And right below the text was that problematic lever itself!
‘Are you messing with me…?’
After going in circles, I was back at the lever, but it appeared no different than before.
“Wait, what? Were we baited?”
“It seems like a MacGuffin. Should we look for something else first?”
“We need to either stop the water or find a way out… Or is there any way to cut the power?”
Once everyone confirmed that the lever was a dead end, their voices filled with disappointment. They quickly began focusing on finding alternative solutions.
Only Son Je-u, Ji Ye, and I remained in front of the lever.
“What if we just push the lever back down? The water got faster after we pulled it up.”
Son Je-u fidgeted in front of me with a dissatisfied tone.
He clearly wanted to pull the lever himself, but since I had the height and build advantage, he couldn’t get past me.
It was somewhat annoying that he kept finding fault with everything I did, but since his approach wasn’t fundamentally wrong, I obediently pushed the lever back down as he suggested.
Of course, nothing changed.
“Since nothing happened even after pushing it back down, it seems like this lever has already served its purpose…?”
“…?”
“Oppa, what’s wrong?”
I was about to pull the lever again to definitively prove it was now useless, but the sensation of pulling it felt subtly different.
“…Why is there extra space here?”
“Extra space?”
Not sure how to describe it, I grabbed the lever I’d pushed down and pulled it back up, and the sensation was definitely different from before.
Before, it had risen smoothly without any resistance, but now there was a distinct click in the middle—a catching sensation. I tried aligning the lever to the center just in case, but nothing special happened.
“Must be my imagination…?”
The sensation was too ambiguous to be certain about, so I was examining the lever with a puzzled expression when Ji Ye, who had been studying it intently beside me, suddenly spoke in a startled voice.
“Oh, but… now that I look at it, this does move left and right too, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“See here? There’s space on the left and right sides too?”
After hearing that, I examined the lever hidden in the darkness more carefully and could indeed see a thin horizontal groove carved into the center of it. Testing it tentatively again, I confirmed that the lever moved in all four directions—up, down, left, and right—from the center point.
Of course, still nothing changed.
I turned to Son Je-u and asked.
“Did this move in all four directions before too?”
“Huh? …Oh, no. Before it only moved downward?”
Son Je-u, who had glared at me so intensely before but immediately backed off the moment I said something, stammered out his response.
Apparently feeling a bit embarrassed about retreating, when he answered again, he straightened his shoulders slightly and made sure to meet my eyes. Regardless, that wasn’t what mattered to me right now.
“Directions…?”
I quickly repositioned the lever back to the center.
Then I aligned the lever according to the directions written in white letters on the red wall from before.
‘Since the first one started with the right lever pointing to the left wall…. Left, up, right, down.’
I’d solved directional locks like this before at escape room cafes.
There was no way Kwon Go-sa-jik, crazy as he was, would leave meaningless scribbles on such an expensive device. Confident in that reasoning, I pulled the lever down one final time.
Then the entirely red lighting changed to green with a cheerful ‘ding!’ sound effect.
It was a positive signal.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
“Gasp, what, what now!?”
But positive was positive, and terrifying was terrifying.
Startled by the sudden change, I gripped the lever tightly without meaning to. Despite barely applying any force, the lever spun around like a doorknob.
As a result, the wall the lever was attached to actually detached like a real door—a bonus surprise.
“Uuuuuaaaaaaaaaah!”
“What! What is this!? Why are you screaming when you’re the one who did it!?”
“But it’s so amazing!!”
“Yeeeek!?”
At my scream, Son Je-u let out a bewildered squeak.
The way he stared with those baffled eyes was unmistakably the expression of ‘what kind of crazy is this?’, and it seemed he didn’t know my character well since we hadn’t overlapped during the last shoot.
“What, did you discover something?”
“Seems like it.”
“Then hurry down, what are you doing!?”
As we made a commotion, everyone soon gathered around.
The water had already surged past the final rung of the ladder, and given the circumstances, this passage seemed to be the only way out. I was in no position to be picky about what lay beyond this slide. If I delayed any longer, we’d genuinely end up with the worst possible outcome—everyone retiring the moment the broadcast started.
As I hurried to cross the passage, Son Je-u, who had been fidgeting anxiously the whole time, timidly blocked my path and raised an objection.
“W-wait, wait just a moment! There could be something underneath here! Before we just, just rush in, shouldn’t we at least do a safety check…?!”
“Zeus. You’re twenty-seven, right? I’m your senior. So listen to what I say.”
“Huh? Oh, w-well, yes, but….”
“Are you scared?”
“What?”
“Then get in. Now.”
“Huh? N-no, aaahhhhh―!”
In the end, I overpowered the stammering Son Je-u with sheer force and shoved him into the passage first. Without time to resist (though safely enough), his screams echoed from inside the slide for quite a while.
‘Looks like this slide is pretty long.’
Well, we’d climbed high, so the descent would take a while.
After confirming that Son Je-u had (presumably) made it down safely, I gestured to the others with the most harmless expression I could muster.
“Shall we go?”
“Y-yes, I suppose….”
One by one, everyone else crossed the passage and took the slide.
To make sure the water didn’t overflow into the passage, I stayed behind last, secured the door properly, then mounted the slide myself.
“Everyone’s down, right? I’m coming now?”
I called out once more to make sure I wouldn’t collide with anyone ahead, but no one answered—they’d apparently all already gone through.
‘Well, as long as no one tells me to stop.’
Without hesitation, I rode the slide and descended. The smooth, slick surface sent me accelerating rapidly down the passage.
As I passed the grip cams mounted along the way, thinking ‘whoever has to retrieve these things is in for a nightmare,’ I gradually saw light appearing below.
“Whoa, this is crazy fast…!”
When I shot out of the passage exit at that insane speed, practically launched into the air, what greeted my eyes was….
“Hey, is everyone okay? This speed is insane…wait….”
With a metallic click, the barrel of a gun filled with the stench of steel dominated my vision.
Whether they were actual robots or people in costume, the NPCs surrounding the passage entrance were aiming their guns at me warily.
I reflexively raised both hands in surrender, and beyond the robots (or extras dressed as them), I could see my other teammates being held captive.
-Intruder detected.
A mechanically distorted voice emanated from what appeared to be the leader robot.
I quickly scanned my surroundings with my eyes, and the set before me was perfectly suited to the title ‘Abandoned Secret Research Facility.’
‘So, to sum it up roughly: this is a secret research facility scheduled for demolition in twelve hours, we somehow got trapped here, we need to find a way out from inside, these guys are probably guards or something similar, and also….’
-Protocol Red is activated.
-Eliminating intruder.
“Seriously?”
Looks like I’m done for.
At Kwon Go-sa-jik, who had written such a brutal scenario, my silent scream of anguish echoed inside my mouth.

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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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