Not A Regressor - Chapter 310

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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 310
A Faded Promise (2)
A thick darkness descended like a curtain over the night.
On the rooftop of the fourth floor of the dilapidated Orphanage, two boys and a girl gazed up at the night sky.
“Ugh, that damned bald bastard. Why’d he have to hit me right in the eyes?”
The girl with rust-colored hair gently touched the bruised eyes of the scrawny boy.
The Orphanage Director usually avoided striking visible places like the face, but today his fury had gotten the better of him, and he’d laid hands on the boy’s face.
A dangerous spot that could easily have caused blindness.
“That bastard! I’m calling the police on him right now!”
“…You know it won’t help.”
The boy shook his head with a bitter expression.
They’d already reported to the police several times, but whether bribes had changed hands or not, the officers would conduct a perfunctory investigation and leave.
Even if he showed them the bruises around his eyes, they’d dismiss it as an injury from a fall.
“Acting all grown up, mocking children’s names like that!”
The girl, her anger far from subsiding, hissed and fumed as she hurled curse after curse at the Orphanage Director.
“I should have held back.”
“Held back? You did nothing wrong, Kwon O-jin!”
At the girl’s firm declaration, a faint smile appeared on the boy’s lips.
“Thanks to you stepping in, it wasn’t too bad.”
“Not too bad? Your eyes are completely swollen!”
“It would’ve been worse without you.”
The boy gently grasped the girl’s hand and continued.
“Thank you, noona.”
“Hmph! If you’re grateful, then heal up quickly!”
The girl lay down with her head resting on the boy’s thigh, gazing up at the night sky.
Brilliant starlight poured down like a blessing from the heavens, twinkling beautifully.
The boy, his eyes filled with the radiant stars, stroked the girl’s hair as she rested her head on his thigh.
As if caressing a precious treasure.
Carefully.
“Noona.”
“Hmm?”
The girl tilted her head and looked up at the boy.
The boy smiled faintly and continued.
“When we leave the Orphanage, let’s live together.”
“Huh? What? What did you say?”
“Let’s live together, the two of us.”
The girl’s mouth fell open as if she’d been struck by a hammer.
Her face flushed red like her hair color as she nodded her head.
“Y-yes. L-let’s live together.”
“Then I’ll protect you from that point on.”
The boy caressed the girl’s flushed cheeks, speaking as if swearing an oath.
The girl, who had been lying with her head on his thigh, suddenly sat up and let out a scoff.
“Pfft! How are you going to protect me?”
The girl placed both hands on her hips, laughing as if it were absurd.
“It’s the older sister’s job to protect her younger brother!”
“Is that so?”
“Of course! Where do you get off saying a younger brother protects his older sister?”
The boy burst into quiet laughter and nodded.
“Then I’ll help you so you can protect me.”
“Help me with what, exactly?”
The girl pulled at his cheeks with a hollow laugh.
The boy was far too thin and gaunt for her to simply accept such words of assistance.
“You little liar—every time you open your mouth, nothing but lies come out.”
The girl, who had been playfully tugging at his cheeks, soon turned away.
“We should head down soon. If we stay any longer, we’ll get caught.”
Watching the girl’s retreating figure, the boy murmured softly.
“It’s not a lie.”
Perhaps because his voice was so quiet.
The boy’s final murmur never reached the girl’s ears.

* * *
The tent swayed in the chilly wind that swept through the Narrow Gorge.
Kwon O-jin, opening his eyes, wriggled out of his sleeping bag like a caterpillar shedding its skin.
“I suppose talking about old times with her yesterday brought this dream on.”
A promise made long ago on the Orphanage Rooftop had surfaced in his dream.
A faded promise that she probably couldn’t even remember.
Kwon O-jin retraced his childhood memories and let out a quiet laugh.
‘I’ll help you so you can protect me,’ he’d said.
There had been no concrete plan or objective behind it.
It was merely an impulsive remark swept up in the moment.
“Now that I think about it, that was a lie too.”
Kwon O-jin shrugged his shoulders and stepped outside the tent.
“You’re awake?”
Isabella, who had been preparing breakfast, approached him with a radiant smile.
“You woke up early?”
“Hehe. The early bird catches the worm, doesn’t it?”
Isabella smiled softly and gently pressed her lips against his.
Along with the soft sensation came a pleasant fragrance that tickled his nose.
“So my lips are the worm?”
“My, I’d better eat them up thoroughly so they don’t spread around the house.”
Isabella, who had pulled away for a moment, brazenly leaned in again, pressing her lips against mine.
After kissing once more, I pulled back and walked toward the campfire, glancing around.
“Where’s your sister?”
“She’s still sleeping.”
“I’ll wake her up.”
“Yes, then I’ll finish preparing breakfast.”
The kind of conversation a newlywed couple with a newborn child might have.
A sickeningly sweet atmosphere, like a scene from a melodrama, settled between us.
Of course, the fact that the person being woken wasn’t a child but another lover transformed it from a melodrama into a trashy morning soap opera.
“Sister, wake up.”
I stood in front of the tent and called out to Ha-eun.
Despite calling several more times, only the sound of steady, rhythmic breathing came from inside the tent—Ha-eun showed no signs of waking.
“I said wake up.”
With no choice, I entered the tent directly.
Ha-eun lay sleeping in a white t-shirt with her belly exposed and dolphin-patterned shorts.
She slept with her hand scratching her stomach, drool trickling from her mouth.
“Auntie, if you sleep like this, your mouth will get crooked.”
“Huh…?”
Ha-eun’s eyes fluttered open groggily.
Still half-asleep with a dazed expression, she wrapped around me like an octopus and pulled me into the sleeping bag.
“Hehehehe. O-jin…”
“Come on, I said wake up. What are you doing?”
“Just five more minutes~”
Like some kind of clingy lover, Ha-eun wrapped her long limbs around me and pressed her body firmly against mine.
I sighed helplessly and lay down beside her.
“You need to eat breakfast, so get up quickly.”
“Forget breakfast—I’ll just eat you instead.”
She answered in a sleepy voice while tightening her grip with her limbs.
“Mmm.”
Ha-eun bit my cheek and moved her mouth around.
Since she bit with her lips rather than her teeth, it didn’t hurt, but my entire cheek was instantly covered in saliva.
“…This sister of mine is really something.”
I pinched the flesh at her side and twisted with force.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
Ha-eun bolted upright as if struck by lightning, screaming.
I wiped my cheek with a tissue and got up from the sleeping bag.
“Are you awake now?”
“Geez… wake me up more gently next time.”
“If I don’t wake you up quickly, I feel like I’ll get eaten.”
I tidied Ha-eun’s disheveled hair and handed her the eye mask that had been left beside the sleeping bag.
As Ha-eun, blindfolded, stepped outside with me, Isabella gave a light wave.
“I’ve prepared a simple breakfast of fried eggs and spam.”
“Wow, you’ve become a true Korean.”
Ha-eun quickly took her seat and picked up a spoon.
She placed a slice of fried egg atop pristine white rice, paired it with a piece of spam, and took a bite.
A taste that naturally brought happiness bloomed across her palate.
“Mmm, this is it. This is the way. Breakfast should always be like this.”
“I was surprised at first when I heard you grill the spam before eating it.”
“It’s not common in foreign countries.”
“But once I tried it with rice, it was delicious.”
Had my tastes already adapted to Korean cuisine?
Isabella skillfully wielded her chopsticks, cutting the spam and eating it with her rice.
“If it weren’t for that kid’s backpack, we’d really be in trouble. We’d have been eating nothing but jerky every day.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Even here in the distant Demon Realm, the fact that we could enjoy meals as we did on Earth was entirely thanks to the spatial expansion backpack Kim Si-hu had created.
“Once you’re done eating, let’s get moving.”
After finishing our meal and packing up the tent, my group climbed onto Poppy’s back.
For reference, we’d given Poppy the corpse of a demon beast we’d caught nearby for breakfast.
“Grrrowl!”
Poppy, having finished a satisfying meal, let out a pleased cry and kicked forward with vigor.
We wandered through the narrow gorge for several more hours.
“Kwon O-jin, look over there.”
Ha-eun, still atop Poppy’s back, pointed her finger ahead.
All I could see where she was pointing was dull gray stone—nothing else.
“I don’t see anything.”
“What? What are you talking about? There’s something like a firefly floating right there.”
“What?”
I tilted my head and summoned the stigma of the Canis Major Constellation, but still, all I could see was dull gray stone.
“I still don’t see anything.”
“Wait.”
Ha-eun kicked off from Poppy’s back and jumped down.
She approached the stone and pointed toward it.
“You really don’t see anything?”
“No, I just see rocks.”
“…What is this?”
Ha-eun tilted her head and reached toward the blue luminescence hovering around the stone.
The blue light, drifting like a fairy of light, startled at Ha-eun’s approach and began to flutter away.
“Oh, it ran away.”
“Is it only visible to you?”
“It seems that way.”
Ha-eun reached behind her head and unfastened the blindfold.
If she could see but Kwon O-jin couldn’t, the cause was likely the ‘Dragon’s Eye’ she possessed.
“Wow.”
A soft exclamation escaped Ha-eun’s lips.
Before removing the blindfold, the scattered blue luminescence had been sparse, but now it filled the entire surroundings.
“Let’s head that way.”
There was a place where the light clusters flowed like a stream of water.
“Wait. First, let’s determine if it’s dangerous or—”
“It’s not dangerous.”
Ha-eun spoke with absolute certainty.
“I’m not sure exactly what this is, but I can tell it’s not dangerous.”
“Hmm.”
Perhaps possessing the Dragon’s Eye meant sensing things differently.
Kwon O-jin decided to follow the light clusters that only Ha-eun could see.
After walking for some time, I stopped.
“…This is…”
A structure carved out as if an entire massive gorge had been hollowed away.
A city of such overwhelming grandeur spread before my eyes that my jaw dropped at its majestic scale.
‘Is this the Draconian Kingdom?’
Indeed, it was a city that lived up to its name as the kingdom of dragons—magnificent enough to make one’s heart race just by looking at it.
“That must be the Draconian Kingdom.”
“Huh? What? This was the path to the kingdom?”
Ha-eun’s expression turned bewildered as she suddenly arrived at their destination after merely following the blue light clusters.
Kwon O-jin nodded and continued.
“A city this massive couldn’t have been hidden from view at a distance… It must have been concealed by some kind of barrier. And you found it instantly with your Dragon’s Eye.”
The veil that had been hiding the Dragon-race’s kingdom was torn away so easily by Ha-eun’s Dragon’s Eye that it was almost laughable.
“What, what? My eyes are pretty amazing, huh?”
Ha-eun touched the corner of her left eye with a bewildered expression.
Grotesque veins spread like roots around her eye.
A reptilian pupil split vertically, radiating an intense, piercing gaze.
“Let’s observe from outside for now.”
Even though we’d found the kingdom, we couldn’t simply rush in unprepared.
Just as with the Beast-human Tribe, they might show hostility toward humans.
“Wait here for a moment. I’ll go up and take a look at the interior of the city.”
The Sacred Wall surrounding the city’s outskirts blocked the view from here.
Whoosh!
Using the wire shooter to climb onto a nearby cliff face, Kwon O-jin jumped high while consecutively activating Brilliant Radiance.
“…What is this?”
My expression hardened as I gazed down at the city, channeling the power of Canis Major Constellation’s stigma.
What met my eyes was a kingdom so devastatingly destroyed it could pass for ruins.
The Dragon-race were nowhere to be found, and what appeared to be a horde of Demon Race wandered throughout the Ruined City.
“Damn it.”
Kwon O-jin’s expression twisted into something savage.
‘Have I arrived too late?’
The Draconian Kingdom, which I had struggled so hard to locate, had already been annihilated by the Demon Race.

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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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