Not A Regressor - Chapter 369

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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 369
Black Star Constellation (5)
“Hmm? Ahahaha! Everyone, don’t be alarmed! Koshiro and Yoko aren’t actually blood siblings!”
“Pardon?”
What on earth was he talking about?
As I looked at him with questioning eyes, Sakaki’s lips curled into a grin.
“There’s quite a story behind it. They’re not related by blood, but they’ve been siblings since childhood.”
“I see.”
I didn’t bother pressing him for details about that backstory.
It wouldn’t be useful to know anyway, and this wasn’t the time to worry about such things.
There was only one thing I needed to focus on right now.
“…What? Wag your tail?”
“Yelp.”
Ha-eun’s shoulders trembled slightly.
She let out an awkward cough.
“I-I didn’t expect this~”
“Sigh. Anyway….”
“I mean, when you say you have nothing but your own body, how can you blame me for misunderstanding!”
Well.
To be honest, it was a rather ambiguous choice of words.
“Let’s go.”
“Ugh. Got it.”
My group boarded the vehicle prepared by the Kuroshi Organization and headed toward the coastal beach where the Canis Major Constellation had first appeared.
A rural area that required traveling far beyond the paved roads.
We arrived at a quiet fishing village, following a path lined with open rice fields and the sounds of insects.
“Ugh.”
Before getting out of the car, Ha-eun let out a quiet groan and squeezed her eyes shut.
A horde of demonic beasts had appeared in a village of fewer than two hundred households.
And leading them was a Black Star Constellation that had inherited the power of the Heavenly Demon.
Even if national-level forces mobilized, it would be questionable whether they could fight. It wasn’t hard to imagine what tragic fate ordinary people without a single awakened one would have met.
“…Still, I have to go.”
Ha-eun took a deep breath and opened the car door.
Staying here wouldn’t change anything anyway.
Just as closing your eyes doesn’t make the world disappear, turning away because you don’t want to see something doesn’t change what has already happened.
“….”
“….”
Perhaps everyone had anticipated to some degree what tragedy might have befallen the village.
As my group got out of the car and headed toward the small fishing village, only heavy silence hung between us.
Even Sakaki and Koshiro, who usually loved to chatter away, kept their mouths firmly shut at this moment.
And in the village we arrived at.
“Well now, where are you folks from? It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen outsiders around these parts.”
An elderly man with sun-darkened skin regarded Kwon O-jin’s group with a bewildered expression.
A basket in his weathered hands, fish flopping about inside it.
Skin bronzed from years under the sun, yet a physique far too robust to belong to someone his age.
By any measure, he was nothing more than an ordinary fisherman from the countryside.
“…Huh? What?”
Ha-eun looked around in confusion, her expression bewildered.
A small Fishing Village that reeked of rural simplicity.
Villagers poked their heads out from between dilapidated, ramshackle houses, their curiosity piqued by the arrival of outsiders—a rare occurrence in these parts.
Sakaki, equally unprepared for such a situation, approached the fisherman with a dazed expression.
“Ahem! We’ve come from Kuroshi…”
“Kuroshi? Ha ha, that’s an amusing name, isn’t it?”
“…You mean to say you don’t know of Kuroshi?”
Sakaki stared at the fisherman with eyes wide in disbelief.
What was Kuroshi?
Though it had begun as nothing more than a yakuza organization, with Sakaki and Koshiro rising to the ranks of high-tier Awakeners, Kuroshi had become an organization wielding both the power and military might to effectively govern Japan itself.
“Hmm? Are they famous people? Ha ha. We’re just country folk out here, so we don’t know much about such things…”
The old man laughed with carefree indifference, shaking his head.
Kwon O-jin’s group exchanged glances and let out quiet chuckles.
“This isn’t quite what we expected.”
“It seems unlikely that the Kuroushi Organization attacked this village.”
Then what of the transport vehicle that had suddenly gone silent?
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask.”
“Well now, I’m just an ignorant old man, so I’m not sure I can help much.”
“Doesn’t a vehicle come through here once a week?”
“Oh? Ah! So that’s where it came from—that company’s vehicle?”
The old man let out a short exclamation, then narrowed his eyes at Sakaki with a rather fierce gaze.
“What are we supposed to do when it doesn’t show up for two whole days without a word? Huh? Do you know how many fish I’ve had to watch die because of this?”
“…”
“Either way, it’s that company’s responsibility for being late without notice, so we’d better get our promised payment!”
From the old man’s words, it appeared the villagers knew nothing of the vehicle that had gone silent.
Sakaki calmed the agitated fisherman and spoke with measured composure.
The information gleaned from their brief conversation was as follows:
1. A vehicle that regularly arrived each week to deliver necessary foodstuffs and supplies to the village and collect fish had failed to arrive this week.
2. Calls to the person in charge went unanswered, and inquiries to the company yielded only promises to look into it, with no answers forthcoming.
3. For the past two days, not a single beast had been heard—not even the cries of ordinary animals.
“Hmm… So where exactly are those bastards hiding?”
Ha-eun squinted as if her head ached.
“We’ll have to investigate that ourselves.”
“For now, I’ll tell the villagers to evacuate.”
Sakaki stepped forward as the representative and warned the villagers that they needed to leave this place immediately.
The villagers, who had initially protested about leaving their homes, fell silent the moment they saw Kuroushi Organization Members pouring out of the vehicles.
Most of the village residents were fishermen who had spent their entire lives in this rural area, and the sudden arrival of yakuza in crisp black suits left them with no choice but to comply obediently.
“Boss! We’ve made contact with the Transport Company that has a contract with this village!”
“Good. Have you located the position of the missing vehicle?”
“No, sir. The company has been searching for two days without any contact, so they filed a missing persons report.”
So the company’s missing persons report had somehow reached the Kuroshi Organization.
“Hmm. I have no idea where they’re hiding.”
Sakaki scratched his short-cropped hair and furrowed his brow.
Kwon O-jin turned his head toward Vega, who was perched on his shoulder, and asked.
“Vega, do you sense any aura from the Black Star Constellation?”
[Hmm. I’ve been trying to search since earlier, but I don’t feel any particularly unpleasant aura.]
“What about you, Regulus?”
[Hmm. I’m not sure either.]
Regulus, standing rigidly on Lee Woo-hyuk’s shoulder and keenly surveying the surroundings, shook his head with a short sigh.
[Grrr! You insolent seahorse bastard! Don’t cower like a rat—come out! Come out and face Aldebaran in combat!]
Aldebaran launched himself from Sakaki’s shoulder, his voice ringing out sharply.
Of course.
There was no response.
‘The fact that we can’t sense any presence of the Black Star Constellation despite having three Constellations here, even if they’re in proxy forms…’
Either they were far away from this area.
Or.
‘They’ve used a veil.’
If they used the power of Heukcheon to conceal their aura, they could hide from the Constellations’ perception.
“Tsk.”
Kwon O-jin clicked his tongue lightly and turned his head toward Sakaki.
“Let’s head to the Coastal Beach where the video was first recorded.”
“Understood.”
Since they now knew the attackers hadn’t assaulted the village, there was nothing more to gain by staying here.
Kwon O-jin’s group got back into the vehicle and headed toward the Coastal Beach where the original video had been recorded.
The distance was roughly fifteen minutes by car.
Considering this was an unpaved road where vehicles had difficulty passing, it wasn’t particularly far from the village.
“Here it is.”
“Yes.”
Click.
After getting out of the car, Kwon O-jin activated Canis Major Constellation and surveyed the surroundings.
On the muddy mudflat that resembled the western coast of South Korea, he could see wide footprints as if someone had stepped down wearing flippers.
Squelch.
“Ugh, this damn mud goes up to my knees.”
Ha-eun, who had followed Kwon O-jin onto the mudflat, grimaced and looked down at her legs sinking into the mud.
If I had known the mudflat would be this deep, I would have brought boots. But I never imagined we’d venture this far into the Mudflat, so there hadn’t been time to prepare.
“That’s strange.”
Lee Woo-hyuk, who had been examining the footprints beside Kwon O-jin, furrowed his brow as he spoke.
“Strange? What do you mean?”
“Look at these footprints here. There’s no sign of any attempt to conceal or hide them whatsoever.”
Lee Woo-hyuk pointed to the clearly imprinted footprints.
True to his words, they were bold footprints with no intention of concealment whatsoever.
Ha-eun, who had been listening quietly to Lee Woo-hyuk’s explanation, tilted her head while crossing her arms.
“Well, what’s so strange about that? Maybe they just gave up hiding because there were so many of them?”
“No, if that were the case, they wouldn’t be hiding like this right now.”
If they had no intention of concealing their footprints from the start.
Then hiding in silence like this made no sense.
They hadn’t even attacked the Village, which was only a few kilometers away.
“….”
An unpleasant, clammy sensation crawled down his spine.
Kwon O-jin gazed down at the mudflat that reached his knees, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Then.
‘Wait.’
Something felt oddly out of place.
“…Sakaki. Could I see that footage you recorded earlier once more?”
Kwon O-jin, who had been quietly observing the loudly imprinted footprints of the demonic beasts, turned his head toward Sakaki.
“Ah, of course.”
“Thank you.”
Taking the tablet from Sakaki, Kwon O-jin slowly reviewed the footage again.
A desolate Coastal Beach with no one around.
A black Dimensional Rift opening, pouring out horse-headed demonic beasts.
And even Anselladus, the Canis Major Constellation.
The footage was shot from the exact same angle as where Kwon O-jin now stood, except for the absence of the demonic beasts and the Constellation.
But one thing.
There was one difference from the footage.
“Damn it.”
A rough curse escaped Kwon O-jin’s lips.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not there.”
“What do you mean it’s not—”
“The Mudflat.”
The clammy Mudflat where his feet sank up to his knees with each step.
But what appeared in the footage was not a mudflat, but a pristine sandy beach.
For it to be explained as a tidal difference, the current time differed by less than thirty minutes from when the footage was recorded.
And.
Crrrrrunch!
The mudflat that had been squelching beneath us began to undulate like waves.

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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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