Not A Regressor - Chapter 25

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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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I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 25
A Night Without a Perpetrator (2)
Something.
It’s twisted.
Like machinery parts forced together, everything is misaligned.
‘What… what’s going on?’
Setting aside how he discovered the Safe House.
Suddenly throwing money around and abruptly asking where my brother is—none of it made sense.
“Wait, hold on!”
I reached out desperately to stop Lee Woo-hyuk.
—CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Trees thicker than an adult’s torso snapped and flew back violently.
Sword energy like a beast’s claws shot toward Yujin with savage intent.
“Damn!”
I stretched my arm out in urgency.
The stigma on my left chest blazed with light, and dozens of black feathers materialized in the air.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!!!
The sword strike swept through, effortlessly shattering the black feathers.
Yujin’s expression turned deathly pale.
‘He’s strong!’
The Black Lion Lee Woo-hyuk lived up to his reputation—a monster of martial prowess.
“Ugh!”
Yujin poured out black feathers to barely slow the sword strike, then rolled across the ground to create distance.
“Disappointing.”
Lee Woo-hyuk pursued Yujin with an expression as cold as frost.
“You dared target me with only this level of skill?”
Intense fury surged within me.
Thinking of how much Lee Shin-hyuk would suffer, already burdened by inferiority complex toward me, made me feel like I’d lose my mind.
‘Finally.’
A thread of hope had emerged.
I’d harbored the dream of returning to how things were.
━And now it was all shattered.
“What… what did you say?”
Yujin’s eyes widened in shock.
That he had targeted the Black Lion Lee Woo-hyuk.
What kind of nonsense was this?
‘Could it be.’
Yujin’s expression turned deathly pale.
There were far too many things that didn’t align.
Nothing made sense—neither the logic nor the flow.
That meant.
‘Someone is controlling the Black Lion.’
I couldn’t know who it was.
But I couldn’t think of any other possibility.
—Screech!!
“Cough!!”
The beast’s claws erupting from its fangs raked a long, vicious line across my chest and abdomen.
Flesh tore open and blood sprayed into the air.
“No, it’s a misunderstanding!!”
I cried out desperately.
“I, I didn’t do anything!!!”
“You didn’t do anything?”
Lee Woo-hyuk’s lips curved into a cold sneer.
Under normal circumstances, I might have lent an ear to such a pathetic excuse.
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
But not now.
—Screech!
“Aaaahhh!!”
My side was slashed open, and blood gushed forth in torrents.
‘Damn it all!’
Somehow, the Black Lion had become utterly convinced that I was the culprit.
‘This won’t do.’
I had no time to leisurely clear up this misunderstanding.
While I spoke, the enraged beast’s claws would shred me to pieces.
‘I have to escape!’
I couldn’t win in a direct fight against this opponent.
“Gasp! Gasp!”
I crossed both arms while breathing heavily.
There was only one chance.
I squeezed every ounce of mana from my body and poured my consciousness into the stigma.
I knew full well that no matter what desperate measures I took, I couldn’t even scratch this creature.
‘But if I can create even the smallest opening…!’
I still had one trump card hidden away for a moment like this.
—Screech! Whoosh!
“Ugh! Argh!!”
Even in that brief moment of concentration, the beast’s claws savagely tore into my body.
“Black Wing Scattering Blossoms!”
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!!!
I brought my crossed arms down in an X formation.
Dozens, hundreds of black feathers materialized along the trajectory and erupted forward in an explosive torrent.
“It’s useless.”
Instead, Lee Woo-hyuk stepped forward.
Black feathers shot forth, filling his entire field of vision.
It was a technique that appeared quite powerful, to be fair.
“But it’s all the same in the end.”
The Leo stigma blazed with intense light.
The gale flowing from the blade compressed to an extreme degree, transforming into the shape of a beast’s claw made of sword energy.
The beast’s claw collided with the cascade of black feathers.
-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!!!
The surrounding earth, rocks, and trees were shredded as if caught in a blender.
Billowing dust obscured his vision.
Lee Woo-hyuk lightly swung his blade to clear away the dust.
“Hah!!”
In the brief opening created while Lee Woo-hyuk dispersed the dust.
Yujin quickly drew a black dagger from his bosom.
And then.
-THUD!
Without hesitation, he stabbed his own body.
“…What?!”
Lee Woo-hyuk rushed toward Yujin in urgency.
But.
-FLUTTER-FLUTTER-FLUTTER!!
Yujin’s body instantly transformed into black feathers and vanished.
“Damn it!!!”
Lee Woo-hyuk bit his lip harshly.
“Where… where did he go?”
He looked frantically around, but couldn’t determine which direction his quarry had fled or what ability had been used.
‘I can’t let him escape.’
Grind.
The black lion gnashed its teeth ferociously.
‘He couldn’t have gotten outside the Mountain.’
For situations like this, I had requested assistance from the Association to establish an encirclement.
-BOOM!
With a sound like an explosion, the black lion charged through the darkened Forest.
* * *
FLUTTER-FLUTTER-FLUTTER!
Hundreds of black feathers slashed through the air.
Black feathers swirling together in one place began to transform into human form.
“Gasp! Gasp!”
Yujin, having returned to human form from the black feathers, planted his feet without pause to catch his breath.
Crack! Tap-tap-tap!!
I bolted through the Forest shrouded in darkness.
My breath came in ragged gasps, my vision swimming.
“Damn it!!!”
Where did it all go wrong?
Where did everything fall apart?
-Thud!
“Ugh!”
My body, snagged by tree roots, tumbled across the dirt.
Wounds tore open, blood pouring forth.
“Damn, damn it!”
I glanced back frantically, but sensed no one pursuing.
‘Did I… succeed?’
Click.
As tension drained away, crushing exhaustion flooded in.
“Haa, haa!”
My heart thundered as if it might burst.
My trembling legs refused to obey.
“Ugh.”
Yujin clutched at his wounds, groaning.
My body was battered beyond recognition, and I’d squandered the precious sacred relic I’d hoarded so carefully.
‘Still.’
A smile of relief bloomed across my lips.
I clenched my fist.
‘I made it.’
I’d succeeded in escaping that mad beast.
“Why… why did this have to happen?”
But that was all.
I’d barely saved my life, yet lost everything else.
My subordinates, any chance to recover from this disaster.
“Damn, damn, damn!!”
I tore at my hair, spewing vicious curses.
I’d lost not only the Black Star’s sacred relic but the Safe House and all my subordinates as well.
And I’d been utterly played by some nameless someone.
“What… what do I do?”
My mind burned white with panic.
Even if I returned alive, Cheon Do-yoon would kill me.
“…”
Yujin gnawed at my lips.
‘Ashad Khan.’
I despised asking that bastard for help—despised it enough to die—but I couldn’t actually afford to die.
I had to swallow my pride and beg him for assistance.
“Damn it.”
As I muttered the curse and reached for my smartphone.
—Rustle.
“W-who’s there?!”
Yujin spun around urgently toward the source of the sound.
Standing in the direction the noise came from was—
“What are you doing here….”
The con artist who’d sold me a counterfeit sacred relic.
That worthless scoundrel was walking toward me right now.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough time. You’re a complete mess.”
O-jin looked down at Yujin crouched on the ground, his shoulders shaking with snickering laughter.
“What in the world is happening….”
Yujin’s eyes widened as the questions continued to pile up.
“…Wait.”
He pressed his forehead with a bewildered expression.
“No… surely not.”
—A chill ran through my entire body.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin.
The sensation of puzzle pieces that seemed completely incompatible suddenly clicking into place.
The sound of misaligned gears finally meshing together and turning.
‘Could it all… be orchestrated by that bastard?’
The situation had been too urgent before for me to think it through.
But looking back, there was no one else who could have known about the Safe House.
Two of his subordinates had already fallen to me, after all.
“Ah… ah.”
I had anticipated the possibility that the Safe House would be discovered.
But I’d thought it didn’t matter.
I’d thought it was meaningless.
Because it wasn’t me being hunted—it was that bastard.
I was the strong one.
He was the weak one.
‘And yet.’
Clearly.
That’s how it was.
That’s how it had to be.
So why.
Why is this weakling—this creature that exists only to be trampled—looking down at me?
“Do you understand now?”
A gentle voice reached my ears.
I lifted my head, my body trembling violently.
“Why I’m here.”
“━KYAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”
Crash!!
Yujin shrieked like a man seized by convulsions, lashing out with his feet.
I wrung out the last vestiges of my magical power to conjure black feathers.
“Oh my, still got plenty of fight in you.”
Clang! Clang clang!
I deflected the black feathers hurtling toward my vital points with a shameless smile.
“You know, it’d be better if you didn’t move so violently?”
I crouched low and swept my spear across the ground in a vicious arc.
“Ugh!”
Yujin retreated lightly and evaded the attack, but immediately clutched at his chest wound with a grimace.
The wound Lee Woo-hyuk had inflicted reopened, blood trickling down.
“See? I told you not moving would be better.”
I let out a contemptuous laugh.
“You… you bastard…”
“So why’d you do it?”
Tsk tsk.
I shook my head, clicking my tongue.
“What happens when you carelessly touch the Black Lion?”
“What… what?”
“Ugh. Playing dumb again.”
“I’m not playing dumb, you son of a bitch!!!”
Yujin’s anguished cry echoed out.
“You!! You orchestrated all of this!!”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
I shrugged my shoulders with shameless innocence.
“You did it all, didn’t you?”
Truth was irrelevant anyway.
Not once.
Had it ever mattered.
What always mattered was not the truth itself, but what appeared to be the truth.
“Kidnapping Lee Woo-hyuk’s older brother and blackmailing him—that was all the Black Star Society’s doing, wasn’t it?”
“You… you damned bastard!!!!!”
“Puhehehehe!!!”
I burst into vulgar laughter and kicked Yujin’s abdomen brutally.
“Hack!!”
I pressed my foot down firmly on his chest as he lay sprawled on the ground.
“I have quite a few questions for you all. Won’t you tell me?”
“…What, did you say?”
Yujin looked up at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
“Ha, hahahaha!!”
He immediately burst into raucous laughter, his face twisting into a savage grimace.
“Is this how you extracted information about the Safe House?”
I was so astounded that words failed me.
“Kack, ptui!!”
He spat a thick glob of phlegm toward my leg, which was still pressing down on his chest.
“I have no information to share with you, you deceitful bastard.”
No matter how thoroughly he had deceived me and brought me to this state, I had no intention of divulging anything about the Black Star Society.
Nothing else mattered.
“No matter what you do, you won’t get me to talk.”
Because my loyalty to the Black Star was genuine.
“Is that so? Then there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“…What?”
Yujin lifted his head, looking up at me.
Our eyes met—his dark gaze staring down at me.
“━Huh?”
Why was it?
Surely tonight the sky had been overflowing with countless stars.
A brilliant Milky Way had adorned the heavens.
‘Why is it like this?’
All I could see now was a black sky devoid of even a single glimmer of light.
“Then, from now on.”
I grasped one of Yujin’s fingers in my hand,
“Don’t say another word.”
I smiled brightly.

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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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