Not A Regressor - Chapter 383

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 383
Sisters (7)
The Forest was thick with an oppressive, stagnant humidity.
Following the mangled remains of a truck—so thoroughly shredded that its form was barely recognizable—I found him.
-I also have something I wish to ask of Cassia.
The Constellation of Serpens Constellation presented her with a single proposition.
-Kwon O-jin, was it? I would very much like for you to bring him to me.
-…Why does Kwon O-jin want to meet with me?
-Haha. Mere curiosity. I simply wish to see who this other master of Heukcheon is, the one ‘that person’ spoke of.
Cassia shook her head firmly at Mobius, who spoke with a gentle smile.
-I refuse.
-Is that so? How unfortunate.
Mobius shook his head regretfully and continued speaking.
-You have a younger sister named Isabella, don’t you? A truly beautiful child who resembles you closely.
-…Why are you suddenly bringing up Isabella?
-Who knows?
A chill ran through me at the sight of Mobius smiling with his eyes, his expression radiating warmth.
Cassia was far too intelligent not to recognize that he was now attempting coercion disguised as negotiation, using Isabella as leverage.
-Unfortunately, Bella and I don’t get along.
-Is that so? Then it doesn’t matter what happens to her?
-That is….
A sensation as though a massive serpent were coiling around her, constricting.
Cassia trailed off, her lips pressed tightly together.
-You’re quite a kind person, Cassia.
Mobius continued with an affable smile.
-Even though she took everything from you, you cannot bring yourself to hate her?
-What would you know about—
-The bonds of blood are truly remarkable. As a Constellation with no concept of kinship whatsoever, it’s an emotion I could never experience in a thousand lifetimes.
-….
Cassia clenched her fists with an anxious expression, staring into those eerie emerald eyes that gleamed with an unsettling light.
-I won’t let things go your way.
-How unfortunate. Even though you’re not my child, I had no wish to wound one who bears my stigma.
Mobius clicked his tongue lightly and slowly rose to his feet.
From the shadows emerged a pristine white serpent that filled the entire Forest.
And….

* * *
“Haa, haa! I can’t, Kwon O-jin.”
Cassia staggered toward Kwon O-jin, who stood locked in confrontation with Mobius, her breathing ragged and labored.
With an anxious expression, she grabbed and pulled at his arm.
“If you fight Mobius… you can’t.”
Cassia pleaded with me, her face twisted in anguish.
Whatever had happened the last time she fought him, her pallid expression as she tugged at my arm spoke volumes of dread.
“Hmm? Does Cassia have the right to say such things?”
Mobius regarded Cassia with an expression of mock bewilderment.
“Have you forgotten? It wasn’t I who brought him here—it was Cassia?”
“That, that was….”
Cassia’s shoulders flinched.
“It was entirely Cassia’s will to betray him and lure him here, was it not?”
“That’s because you took Bella…!”
“Because you had no choice but to protect Bella, is that it?”
Mobius smiled broadly and nodded.
“I see. So your sister was more precious to you than Kwon O-jin?”
“That, that’s not….”
“If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t have called him here. Or did you merely call him? Didn’t you tell me with your own lips that you would kill him with your own hands?”
The white serpent shrugged, a bitter sneer playing at the corners of his mouth.
“If that isn’t betrayal, what is?”
“….”
Cassia clamped her lips shut, rendered speechless.
Just as he said, even knowing Mobius was here, it was Cassia herself who had summoned Kwon O-jin.
“If I were Kwon O-jin, I would have felt quite slighted. I helped Cassia escape Heukcheon’s dominion, yet she sought to kill me.”
“I, I….”
Cassia retreated, her face drained of color.
Her grip on my arm went limp and fell away.
I glanced back at the retreating Cassia, let out a short laugh, and turned my gaze toward Mobius.
“I can’t stand listening to this gaslighting any longer.”
There was a limit to gaslighting. Did the very person who had kidnapped and extorted Isabella have the right to condemn Cassia now?
“Why is your tongue so long? Oh, because you’re a snake?”
“Hmm. Are you defending Cassia? How interesting. You’re certainly softer than that other one.”
“The soft one is your thick skull.”
I let out a curse that slipped unbidden from my lips and clicked my tongue in irritation.
“It’s not your place to judge whether Cassia was right or wrong—it’s mine.”
Strictly speaking, calling Cassia’s actions a “betrayal” was accurate.
Whether or not Isabella was being held hostage, the fact remained that Cassia had deceived me and lured me to where Mobius was.
‘She said she would kill me with her own hands?’
It wasn’t difficult to imagine what had driven Cassia to say such a thing.
‘She never truly intended to kill me.’
If she had meant to end my life, she wouldn’t have pressed the blade to my throat with such clumsy threats from the start—she would have simply slit it then and there.
But Cassia couldn’t do that.
She was incapable of it.
Because neither Kwon O-jin nor her younger sister were beings she could abandon.
And so.
Therefore.
For that reason.
She chose to die instead.
If she pushed him relentlessly into a corner, only to meet an unexpected counterattack and perish.
If she failed, not by accident but by design.
Then she could save them both—Kwon O-jin and Isabella.
That must have been her reasoning.
Foolish and naive though it was.
Believing there was no other way.
She raised the curtain on a crude performance.
“Is that so? Then what of Kwon O-jin’s thoughts? Will you graciously overlook it, telling yourself you had no choice with your sister held hostage?”
“There’s no way.”
At Kwon O-jin’s firm shake of his head, Cassia’s shoulders trembled.
“Whatever the reason, what Cassia did this time cannot be forgiven.”
“Kwon O-jin…”
Cassia gazed at his retreating back with sorrowful eyes.
She knew well that what she had done was unforgivable.
But hearing Kwon O-jin speak the words ‘cannot be forgiven’ with his own lips made her heart plummet.
‘It hurts.’
A sharp, piercing pain as if an awl were boring through my chest.
Guilt and self-recrimination twisted together, strangling my throat.
‘I am.’
Just as he said.
What I have done is unforgivable.
It is something that should not be forgiven.
‘After all, I lied to Kwon O-jin.’
I concealed the truth that Isabella had been abducted by Mobius and lured him here.
I staged an elaborate performance, pretending I myself had kidnapped Isabella, and attacked him.
‘I have… betrayed Kwon O-jin.’
Days lived as a puppet, shrouded beneath dark, suffocating clouds.
He was the first to extend his hand to her, who had suffered a lifetime of bitter solitude and loneliness.
To the man who had given her a debt of gratitude she could never repay, I offered not warm thanks but a cold blade.
To even hope for forgiveness would be sacrilege.
And yet.
Even so….
“Kwon O-jin. Take Bella and leave this place.”
Cassia stepped forward in front of me, her gait unsteady.
She summoned black serpents while glaring at Mobius, who sat casually atop the Building Ruins.
Fighting Mobius—someone I couldn’t dare face even at full strength—with a body already dying was nothing short of suicide.
“But at least I can buy us some time.”
With grim resolve, I spread my shadow wide.
“Haha. Now you’re trying to protect him?”
Mobius let out a bitter laugh and shook his head.
“It’s too late for regrets. Just as closing your eyes doesn’t make the world disappear, changing your position now doesn’t alter the fact that you betrayed him.”
“I know.”
I harbored no illusions of forgiveness.
I understood this was merely self-gratification to ease the guilt churning within me.
But if my assistance could buy him even a moment to escape.
If this wretched existence—like a loathsome insect hiding in the shadows—could be of even the slightest help.
Then I would gladly offer this life.
“Buy time?”
“Yes. I won’t last long. You should hurry and….”
“Remarkable. Whether it’s the younger or older sister, both of you drive me absolutely mad.”
I’d had a similar situation with Isabella before.
Recalling when I was trapped in the Demon Realm, I clicked my tongue in frustration.
One step.
I moved forward and seized the back of Cassia’s neck.
“Kwon O-jin…? Kyaaah!”
Using wire, I bound her body, then roughly hurled her backward.
Cassia screamed as she tumbled across the ground with the unconscious Isabella.
“W-what are you doing?!”
“What do you think? You’re in the way of the fight, so I’m moving you back.”
I stood before Cassia with a displeased expression, furrowing my brow.
As if protecting her.
Cassia’s eyes trembled as she gazed at my broad back.
“You said you couldn’t forgive me earlier….”
“Yeah, I can’t forgive you.”
Especially not such a foolishly reckless act of throwing away your own life.
“So later, I’m going to scold you thoroughly.”
“…What?”
“Be prepared to get beaten until your backside turns red.”
I have some experience in that department, after all.
“….”
Cassia stared at me with an expression of utter bewilderment.
You’re telling me to be prepared to get beaten until my butt turns red?
“Kwon O-jin… are you an idiot?”
I was so exasperated that the words barely came out properly.
“I betrayed you! I used Bella as bait to lure you here!”
And that wasn’t all.
“I even hurt you!”
Ultimately, I had intended to kill him.
The attacks I unleashed to deceive him were saturated with the brutal mana of my stigma.
I had inflicted considerable wounds upon his body.
And yet.
He would fight against a Constellation to save someone like me?
Where in this world did such foolish nonsense exist?
“I know.”
“Then why…!”
“Well… you see.”
Kwon O-jin paused briefly to consider his words, then answered with an air of indifference.
“I don’t like the look of him.”
“…What?”
“Look at that bastard’s face—he screams con artist, doesn’t he?”
To others, he probably appeared as nothing more than a charming, handsome man.
But to my eyes, the sharp fangs concealed beneath that gentle smile were unmistakably visible.
“I hate con artists more than anything.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————