Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 559

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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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559. In the Chaos (12)
Son Je-u’s name appearing here was unexpected.
I’d been curious all along about why the Dropouts were chasing Son Je-u so relentlessly, so my interest spiked at Ji Ye’s revelation. I pulled my chair closer and leaned in, prompting her to continue cautiously.
“Apparently, that passage was originally supposed to be used by the System’s people to escape after completing their mission? I only overheard it through a listening device earlier, so I’m not entirely certain….”
“…A listening device?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Whatever it was, she’d clearly had an exhausting day, but still….
A flicker of hardship and fatigue crossed Ji Ye’s face. I pretended not to notice and waited for her explanation.
“Anyway, it seems Son Je-u managed to obtain that key first. That’s why the Dropouts and the traitor are all scrambling to find him right now, and on top of that….”
“On top of that…?”
“The key apparently requires some kind of biometric recognition? Something like that…? In any case, Son Je-u is supposedly the only one who knows the key’s location and exactly how to use it.”
Wow, Son Je-u really pulled it off.
Somehow, Son Je-u had managed to obtain what was practically an invincible ring in the history of the Survival Program—his luck was genuinely remarkable, and I found myself silently applauding his fortune.
‘Honestly, if it had been some worthless artifact, I would’ve pretended to make a mistake and shot him first thing.’
What a shame.
Regretting the missed opportunity, I returned to the main point.
“But what if Son Je-u gets unlucky and dies? Then the key becomes unusable forever?”
“No, you could find the key again. But apparently the method is complicated? Anyway, I couldn’t quite catch that part, so I’m not sure about the details.”
Ji Ye trailed off with an apologetic expression, indicating that was the extent of what she’d learned.
But even this much was invaluable help, so I nodded in acknowledgment and gave her shoulder a reassuring pat.
“So regardless of whether we side with Void or not, our priority is finding and protecting Son Je-u first.”
“Yes, but I’ve been searching everywhere and can’t find him anywhere…. If he’s somehow been deceived by the traitor and switched sides, that would be catastrophic….”
“The traitor? Not the System’s people? If Son Je-u says he’s teaming up with Void, the traitor wouldn’t care, right?”
At my confused question, Ji Ye shook her head firmly.
“No. The traitor’s objective is to eliminate all of us and let only Void escape, so they’d kill Son Je-u immediately upon capture. They’d destroy the key too.”
“I see….”
So this three-way standoff had everyone pointing guns and blades at each other in perfect equilibrium.
I couldn’t help but marvel at Kwon Go-sa-jik’s audacity—orchestrating all of this without a single warning, forcing us to uncover everything ourselves on the ground.
‘In the previous timeline, were they really planning something this entertaining without me…?’
If I’d said yes when they asked me to join, would my twenty-nine have turned out differently?
Setting aside the now-meaningless hypotheticals, I slowly rose from my chair. As Ji Ye naturally lifted her gaze to follow mine, I asked her a question.
“So, what about you, Ji Ye?”
“Yes?”
“What do you want to do? Void? Or….”
“I’m definitely choosing Avoid.”
That was quite a decisive answer.
Given that she was from the national team, I suspected Ji Ye shared Nam Sa-ra’s sense of justice.
As I was considering this, Ji Ye lightly ran her hand over the laser rifle she’d charged earlier and answered.
“Using people—it’s hard the first time, but easy the second. I don’t believe that if we side with Void, they’ll actually let us leave peacefully.”
“….”
“I’d rather risk my life attempting an escape than become a fool who gets manipulated by an artificial intelligence twice.”
Ji Ye’s eyes burned with genuine determination as she spoke those words.
I couldn’t fathom why everyone was so deeply invested in this twisted game, but what mattered now was that Ji Ye’s ‘choice’ would determine my next move.
I nodded and rose from my seat.
“Alright then. Get up. Let’s go.”
“Huh? Where to?”
“We don’t have much time before I’m supposed to meet my brother and sister. If we want to find Zeus too, we need to start moving.”
“Do you know where Zeus is?”
“No idea. We’ll have to search for him starting now.”
I shrugged and unfolded the blueprint that lay on the desk.
Then, using a red pen, I prioritized marking the CCTV blind spots where Son Je-u might be hiding.
“I’ve been staring at the CCTV feeds until my eyes hurt, and I haven’t seen Zeus or even his shadow. So if we check these areas first, we might find some clues.”
“I’ve already explored the entire First Floor, so it would be better to start from the Second Floor. The Basement has the Dropouts’ base, so it’s difficult to access easily….”
“Alright then. Let’s head to the Second Floor first. We were planning to meet my sister and brother there anyway.”
“Yes.”
The moment our next steps were decided, Ji Ye quickly stood up and gathered her belongings.
I handed her a spare researcher’s uniform and an employee ID from the locker room, along with a walkie-talkie from my waist and a flashlight.
While Ji Ye was adjusting her outfit, I approached the backup power supply I’d connected earlier and pulled the cord. I made sure to completely destroy the end so it couldn’t be used again.
Every machine in the Security Room came to an abrupt halt.
[System Notification: Oh no! What a waste….]
‘Better to make it unusable for everyone than let it fall into the enemy team’s hands.’
By then, Ji Ye, who had finished her preparations, retrieved the laser rifle she’d left charging at the outlet.
With the patrol pattern having sent all the security robots to the Basement, now was the perfect opportunity to explore the Research Facility.
“Ready? Shall we go?”
“Yes. …Oh, brother.”
“Hmm?”
Just as I was opening the Security Room door with the laser gun in hand, Ji Ye suddenly grabbed me.
I turned around, and Ji Ye asked carefully.
“Who do you think the traitor is?”
Excluding me, Ji Ye, and the Dropouts team, there were only three people who had survived so far.
Nam Sa-ra, Ha Tae-jin, and one person from Sa-bin’s group who had been separated early and whose whereabouts were unknown.
Nam Sa-ra had been with me the entire time, so she wasn’t a suspect. That left only two possibilities….
-…Right. Then you and Sara search first. I’ll just take a quick look around here to see if there’s anyone else.
-Brother, you said there were no other people around?
-Yeah, there was a Restricted Area behind there, but there were too many security robots, so I couldn’t check it out.
-If you run into him, at least go easy on him for my sake. He’s not someone who’s completely unreasonable.
The only person who had the time to act independently and who had been lenient with Son Je-u, the key to this entire situation.
Ha Tae-jin’s face flashed through my mind for a moment, but I shook my head and played dumb.
“I’m not sure. Let’s find Zeus first.”
“…Okay.”
When I opened the Security Room door, the relatively bright light from the Research Facility hallway streamed in powerfully.
There wasn’t even the slightest smile lingering at the corners of my mouth as I adjusted my glasses.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that same moment.
While Kang Ha-jin was enduring grueling hours at the In the Chaos filming site where two weeks felt like a single day, our small baby king cat Ju Eun-chan was embarking on quite the adventure himself….
“Phew….”
Eun-chan, dressed neatly, drew in a deep breath and exhaled.
With his hands full of a fruit basket and a bouquet of flowers, the nervous energy radiating from him made him look, at first glance, like a prospective groom heading to ask his family’s blessing for marriage.
Hair grown long enough to brush the nape of his neck and eyes sharp enough to kill. The fact that he was standing in front of South Korea’s largest university hospital was somewhat of an error….
But that’s what it looked like on the surface, at least.
‘Ha-jin told me not to bother visiting….’
Eun-chan’s palms, holding the fruit basket, grew slick with sweat.
Worried it might become a problem, he quickly set the basket down on the ground and carefully wiped his hands and the basket’s handle with the handkerchief he always carried with him.
He still felt some tension and anxiety in places where large crowds gathered, but he couldn’t keep waiting quietly under his older brothers’ overprotection forever.
With Yoo Gun having gone to Jeju Island, he wanted to find something he could do himself.
“…Alright, let’s go.”
With firm resolve, Eun-chan picked up the fruit basket again and walked forward with determination.
Since he’d been here once before, finding his way wasn’t particularly difficult.
“Was it here…?”
The hospital smell, saturated with disinfectant, never felt pleasant no matter when he encountered it.
Eun-chan, who had once spent quite a long time in a hospital like this, unconsciously furrowed his brow at the memory.
But that wasn’t really because of himself—it was compassion for someone else who existed in that memory.
-I… lost my father when I was nineteen. Right beside me.
-He suffered greatly.
Someone for whom a hospital that saves lives had become imprinted as a space of eternal death.
Remembering his group member who, by fate’s cruel joke, had ended up living as if trapped in that hospital again, Eun-chan steeled himself once more and walked toward the Hospital Ward desk. The Nurse who spotted Eun-chan looked up to greet him.
“Hello, what brings you here?”
“Ah, I… came to visit someone. Room 1103.”
“Which patient? If you made an appointment beforehand, a guardian needs to come out and receive confirmation.”
“Ah, well….”
“…Ju Eun-chan?”
A voice Eun-chan knew well, yet far sharper now—fractured and parched.
Called by his name in a cutting tone he’d never heard before, Eun-chan responded immediately. Turning his head toward the source of the voice, he saw the figure who had willingly drawn him to this place.
“What are you doing here?”
A pale hand brushing back disheveled, faded brown curled hair,
Skin as white and clean as snow, a face with no sharp angles, soft in every line, eyebrows appropriately dark despite the absence of makeup, and eyes large and deep.
Long, delicate eyelashes framing those eyes, a nose carved as if chiseled, thin and translucent lips.
That divine beauty Ha-jin never tired of praising had, somewhere along the way, gained the depth of maturity, reaching a realm of beauty that could hardly be overstated.
Though the eyes looking at Eun-chan held not even a hint of warmth, he was unmistakably their eldest brother and Kairos’s proud visual main vocalist, Jeong Si-u.
“Ah, well….”
The sudden confrontation with Si-woo made Eun-chan swallow hard without realizing it.
Jeong Si-u’s gaze—cold and dismissive, regarding him neither as a younger sibling nor as a group member—was far more vicious and cutting than he’d anticipated. Even when Si-woo had fought with Ha-jin before, consumed by rage from head to toe, his expression had never been this terrifying.
‘I’ve never seen Si-woo make a face like that before.’
But truthfully, none of that mattered.
Si-woo being frightening didn’t make him any less Si-woo.
The real reason Eun-chan felt estranged from Si-woo in this moment lay elsewhere.
“I….”
With eyes grown cold and distant, Si-woo parted his chapped lips.
His hoarse voice carried a contempt bordering on murderous intent.
“I’m pretty sure I made myself clear back then.”
“….”
“I said I never wanted to see you or the others again.”
A form of address that seemed destined never to be heard again in a lifetime—yet it flowed from Jeong Si-u’s mouth.
A chill ran down Eun-chan’s spine, and he bit his lower lip hard in secret, his mind drifting back to when Ha-jin had asked him to investigate the group members’ backgrounds.
-Hyung, but what’s that number you wrote down next to this?
-Their ages. You need them if you’re going to find their information.
-But… why is it different from what I know?
-No, this is right. It’s verified information from the internet.
As Eun-chan hesitated, Si-woo took another step closer.
The eye level between the two, once nearly equal, had tilted drastically to one side due to Eun-chan’s overwhelming growth. Of course, Jeong Si-u paid no mind to such things, his demeanor still looking down upon Eun-chan as he spoke with chilling precision.
“Why do you keep failing to understand? It’s irritating.”
Jeong Si-u, twenty-six years old.
The youngest member of Kairos, the same age as Dan Ha-ru.
No contact since withdrawing from the group due to internal conflict and his father’s deteriorating health.
“S-sorry… no, I mean. My apologies. Ha, ha, ha….”
Looking at the eldest brother who had, by a twist of fate, become his younger sibling, Eun-chan offered an awkward smile.

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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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