Not A Regressor - Chapter 334

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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 334
Treasure Hunt (13)
After Deimos’s death.
The Golden Knights and the miners of the Underground City hastily began retreating out of the Mine Tunnel.
It was only natural, given that their linchpin—the Archduke—had fallen.
“Where do these bastards think they’re going?!”
“Lie down and die quietly!”
Of course, the decisive reason for their desperate retreat was the brilliant performance of Ha-eun and Isabella.
Ha-eun, wielding the trinity of power—the Dragon’s Visage, the Dragon’s Heart, and the Dragon God’s Soul—now possessed firepower rivaling an awakened being at the 11th Star, while Isabella, standing at the cusp of the 10th Star and gazing toward the 11th thanks to Kwon O-jin’s blood, had transcended into superhuman strength.
Against the combined assault of these two extraordinary women, the Golden Knights could only fall helplessly.
After all the miners from the Underground Cities had retreated.
Kwon O-jin’s party, having freed the captive Salamanders, decided to rest briefly within the now-empty Deimos’s Castle.
“Wow, there’s not a single thing here that isn’t gleaming.”
Ha-eun let out a short exclamation as she glanced around.
She approached Kwon O-jin, bundling up teacups and candlesticks made of gold.
“Hey, should we take some of this with us?”
“What would we do with it?”
“Sell it, of course! Doesn’t this stuff have Constellation mana infused in it?”
If we returned to Earth and sold the gold, we could obtain an astronomical fortune.
“Forget it. I don’t particularly need money.”
I had enough wealth to live comfortably without needing to sell gold.
“Wow… I never thought I’d hear you say money isn’t necessary. You, of all people.”
It was unimaginable compared to the days when I obsessively accumulated wealth.
“That was only because I was saving for you, sister.”
Now that Ha-eun had recovered, money was no longer necessary.
“Is… is that so?”
Ha-eun’s face flushed as she awkwardly scratched her cheek.
In the warm atmosphere between the two, Isabella quietly spoke up.
“Where is Cheon Gwon-seong?”
“He’s probably in his room.”
At the thought of Baek Moo-gang, my expression darkened.
“…Should we go check on him together?”
“Yeah. We should get some food soon anyway.”
Kwon O-jin, Ha-eun, and Isabella headed toward the room where Baek Moo-gang was staying.
“Heh, hehe.”
Baek Moo-gang sat smiling softly, clutching a worn letter envelope stained with fingerprints.
“Ah! The kind person! The kind person has arrived!”
Baek Moo-gang, who had been lying on the bed, sprang up, and Odo rushed over as well.
“How is your condition, sir?”
“My arm still doesn’t move well, but at least it doesn’t hurt!”
Baek Moo-gang raised the arm that had been trampled by Deimos, his face breaking into a radiant smile.
“That’s a relief.”
Kwon O-jin surveyed the room with a faint smile playing at his lips.
In the corner of the floor lay Deneb’s holy sword, cast aside and forgotten.
Seeing the sacred blade sprawled so pathetically across the ground, a hollow laugh escaped him.
‘So the holy sword wasn’t the treasure after all.’
That sense of wrongness he’d felt when Baek Moo-gang first saw the sword and cried out that it was his treasure—it all made sense now.
The gears that hadn’t quite meshed finally clicked into place.
‘I never needed the holy sword in the first place.’
What truly mattered to him wasn’t the sacred blade bestowed by the Constellation, but rather the worn, grimy letter envelope hidden within its hilt.
‘I never expected the hilt to be hollow.’
With an ordinary sword, the hilt would never be empty.
But Deneb’s holy sword had a hollow space inside the hilt specifically to accommodate the intricate enchantments carved into its interior.
‘If it weren’t for Deneb himself or the elder crafting it, I would never have known about the hollow space.’
When I tested the holy sword myself, it displayed such perfect weight and balance that there was no hint whatsoever of an empty cavity within the hilt.
As a divine artifact known as a holy sword, the weight and balance were likely finely calibrated to match its wielder.
“Elder, aren’t you going to get scolded by Deneb if you leave the holy sword like that?”
“Oh! Right, I forgot!”
Baek Moo-gang spun around and carefully placed the holy sword from the floor onto the bed.
“This is a secret, right? I shouldn’t tell Deneb about this?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Kwon O-jin chuckled softly and nodded in agreement.
Just as he was about to suggest they go get something to eat,
“Um… grandfather, can I ask you something?”
“Huh? Yeah, sure! Ask away!”
“That letter envelope…”
The worn, grimy envelope bearing the marks of countless touches held one detail that struck me as odd.
“Why… haven’t you opened it?”
The mouth of the envelope, stained with the fingerprints of years, remained sealed without any sign of ever having been opened.
“….”
Baek Moo-gang’s expression, which had been laughing cheerfully, hardened like stone.
After a moment of stillness, a faint smile emerged on his face.
A fragile, precarious smile—the kind that seemed it would shatter at the slightest touch.
“I… I did many bad things to her.”
So.
“She must be very angry with me.”
His voice trembled like that of a frightened animal.
The hand holding the unopened letter envelope quivered faintly.
Her final letter, left behind.
He had tried to open it countless times, but he could never bring himself to do it.
“There will be… unpleasant things written in there.”
He feared her final words to him would be filled with hatred.
He feared their shared life together would be denied.
“That’s why… I can’t open it.”
Baek Moo-gang curled his body inward, clutching the letter envelope to his chest.
“….”
Ha-eun gazed at Baek Moo-gang with sorrowful eyes, unable to offer him even a word of comfort.
Not only Ha-eun, but Kwon O-jin and Isabella in the room also couldn’t bring themselves to console Baek Moo-gang.
They had no way of knowing what words were written inside that letter.
Kwon O-jin exhaled a deep sigh, his gaze fixed on the letter trembling in Baek Moo-gang’s hands.
‘He said he cared for her alone for five years.’
Baek Moo-gang’s wife had died just before the First Rift appeared on Earth.
In other words, it was before Baek Moo-gang had become one of Deneb’s Apostles.
Because his wife was infertile and they had no children between them, she had cared for Baek Moo-gang—afflicted with dementia—all by herself.
‘And then she fell ill and died before him.’
It was a story that left a bitter taste in one’s mouth just hearing it.
“Ah, s-sir, dinner is ready. Would you like to eat first? I made your favorite dumplings too.”
“Wow! Dumplings! I want to eat dumplings!”
It was Isabella who broke the awkward silence that had lingered.
Baek Moo-gang nodded with a bright smile, as if he hadn’t withdrawn into himself moments before.
“Mmm-mmm. Hehe. Dumplings taste good!”
“Eat slowly, please.”
After the meal ended like that.
Kwon O-jin’s party dispersed into spare rooms throughout the castle, each spending time alone.
“Sigh.”
Returning to his room, I exhaled a sigh and sat by the window.
Since the castle was built inside a mountain, all that was visible beyond the window was dull granite.
“….”
But why was it?
The image of Baek Moo-gang, terrified while clutching that letter, wouldn’t fade easily from my mind.
Knock, knock.
A cautious knocking sound came from the door.
I opened the door thinking it might be Ha-eun or Isabella, but unexpectedly, it was Baek Moo-gang standing before it.
“What brings you here?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
A favor?
“This.”
Baek Moo-gang held out the letter envelope in his hand to me.
“…Could you read it instead of me?”
Baek Moo-gang looked at me with trembling eyes.
Kwon O-jin accepted the envelope carefully and asked.
“Wasn’t it something you weren’t supposed to open?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Baek Moo-gang nodded with sorrowful eyes.
“I’ve thought about it a lot, alone.”
After losing the treasure.
How much I regretted it.
I was terrified that I might never know the last words she left behind.
“I have to look.”
If I didn’t look this time, I had no idea when I might lose the treasure again.
“But… I’m a little scared.”
“So you’re asking me to look instead?”
“Yeah. You’re a good person, someone I can trust.”
“But I can’t read Chinese…”
Conversation was possible with a translation device.
But I couldn’t read the written characters.
“My wife is Korean. She didn’t know Chinese characters well either, so the letter should be written in Korean.”
“…Is that so?”
Kwon O-jin looked down at the worn envelope in his hand.
Why was it?
Even though it should contain just a single light letter, the envelope felt impossibly heavy.
“Understood.”
Thinking of how many times Baek Moo-gang must have deliberated before asking me to look instead, I couldn’t refuse the request.
“Y-yeah. I’m counting on you.”
Baek Moo-gang stepped back and gazed at me with a tense expression.
I carefully opened the envelope.
A single sheet of paper, neatly folded, emerged from within.
On paper as pure white as a snowy field.
The rigid text read: “Divorce Agreement.”
“….”
A sensation of suffocation.
I bit my lip as I read the words written on the letter—or rather, the document.
“Did your wife hand you this letter directly?”
“Huh? No. My wife went out and collapsed. She never woke up again.”
“Then this letter…”
“It was in her pocket.”
In other words.
This was never a ‘letter’ to begin with.
“….”
It wasn’t something I couldn’t understand.
Caring for a husband afflicted with dementia for years was never an easy task.
If she had suffered such financial hardship that she dragged her ailing body to work, it must have been nothing short of hellish.
No matter how much one loves their spouse, there are things in this world that cannot be resolved by love alone.
She must have been tormented.
She must have suffered.
She must have wanted to abandon everything and flee.
‘Because this world contains only problems that cannot be solved through endurance.’
The world is not a movie.
Life is not a drama.
Only a handful of people possessed the strength to rise again while steadfastly enduring endless pain and despair.
“What, what does it say?”
Baek Moo-gang, his eyes squeezed shut, asked in a trembling voice.
Kwon O-jin gazed down at the document in his hand and answered softly.
“It says that she was happy to have met you.”
I ran my hand across the document and used Transformation.
Dark clouds swept across the written words, erasing them and creating new characters in their place.
“Really? Is it really true?!”
Baek Moo-gang’s eyes snapped open as he snatched the letter from my hands.
“He, hehe.”
A single transparent tear rolled down the creases of his weathered eyes.
He clutched the letter he had never been able to read before close to his chest.
“Thank goodness… hehe, truly… truly thank goodness.”
Watching Baek Moo-gang sob, I smiled bitterly.
“…Yes, thank goodness.”
Truth is too bitter, so sometimes a lie serves as seasoning.

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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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