Not A Regressor - Chapter 385
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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 385
Interlude – Sisters (9)
“Don’t make a fuss. Just stay there and keep quiet.”
The moment I heard his gruff yet somehow warm words.
Thump.
A heavy explosion detonated in my chest, which was already pounding fiercely.
Endorphins surged like I’d swallowed a stimulant whole, and lightning struck through my mind.
If I had to compare the tremor I felt in that moment, it would be like a blind person who had lived their entire life in darkness seeing the world for the first time.
No.
Perhaps it was even greater than that.
“Ah… uh.”
I clutched my bursting chest and hunched over.
A distant memory surfaced—my mother’s voice echoing through a quiet hallway.
“At least that’s a relief. If Bella had been the same way, I would truly… sigh.”
The sound of my mother’s sigh, tinged with relief.
After that sigh, which had crushed my entire existence.
My life became as dark as a shadow cast beneath a shroud.
Cold, lonely, and solitary.
I pretended it was nothing.
But it was never truly nothing.
“Hic… hic.”
Loneliness is an incurable disease.
As time passes, it gradually erodes, rotting the soul from within.
Even when I was cast out from the family and left at the Hospital in Iceland.
Even when I wandered the Snowy Field, fleeing the demons that descended upon me.
Even when I became a puppet of the Heavenly Demon, killing those who stood in the way of his plans.
‘No one…’
No one was ever by my side.
My life was always lonely, endlessly sorrowful.
All I could do was carve away my heart as if cutting into my own flesh.
Repeating feeble excuses that I was fine alone, that I needed no one else.
But.
‘Kwon O-jin.’
There was a man who stepped into my life without hesitation.
A starlight that illuminated the dark, damp shadows.
For the first time in my life.
There was someone who stayed by my side.
“I don’t know.”
“…You don’t know?”
“Exactly. Even I don’t understand why I’m doing this.”
When asked why he protected her, he had answered clearly: “I don’t know.”
He told her that reasons didn’t matter.
‘Ah.’
She could understand.
She could feel it.
He was now willing to stake his life to protect her.
Not Isabella.
Only her, and her alone.
‘It’s warm.’
Her heart, frozen like the Snowy Field, began to thaw.
The brilliant starlight burning through the shadows drove away the loneliness that had consumed her soul.
“Haa, haa.”
Cassia gasped for breath as she struggled to her feet, swaying.
The internal injuries from her battle with Mobius made it nearly impossible to stand properly.
‘Now… I don’t want to lose this.’
Having tasted the warmth that human connection brought, the crushing internal injuries meant nothing to her.
All her eyes could see was Kwon O-jin standing against Mobius.
Especially when she saw blood flowing from his flank where the pale serpent was tearing into him, her chest burned with desperate urgency.
‘I… I have to protect Kwon O-jin.’
The warmth she had found in endless cold.
It made her more desperate than an oasis discovered in a barren desert.
“Hnngh.”
Thud.
Her legs tangled, and Cassia’s body rolled across the floor.
No matter how desperate she was, injuries this severe—deep enough that death would be no surprise—didn’t simply heal on their own.
Cassia bit her lip hard and crawled forward on the ground.
She crawled pathetically across the floor, desperate to reach where Kwon O-jin stood.
Then.
“Mm.”
Her eyes met Mobius’s.
Upon discovering her crawling toward him, Mobius smiled brightly.
“No, let’s stop here.”
Mobius shrugged and shook his head.
After his brief exchange with Kwon O-jin, he turned away without hesitation.
Just before his form vanished into the shadows.
-Cassia.
Mobius’s voice echoed through Cassia’s mind.
-You managed to get through this time… but will it truly end here?
The serpent’s tongue flicked against her ear.
-In his memories, there will always remain the memory of Cassia’s betrayal.
A chilling sensation spread throughout Cassia’s entire body.
Cassia will be abandoned. Like always.
Then you’ll come find me, Cassia.
Mobius said that and let out a quiet laugh.
The Snake’s voice that had been echoing in her mind disappeared.
“…ah.”
Cassia trembled with her pale, sickly face.
Mobius’s last words before he left filled her mind completely.
“I’m… going to be abandoned by Kwon O-jin.”
How could it not be natural when you think about it?
Just as the world doesn’t disappear when you close your eyes.
The memory of her betraying Kwon O-jin will never fade from his mind.
“If I were to be abandoned by Kwon O-jin…”
As always.
As it has always been.
Again.
Again, again, again, again, again.
In that relentless loneliness━
Are you okay?
At that time.
O-jin approached her with a worried expression.
“Ah, uh.”
Cassia, who had been backing away with a pale and exhausted expression, crawled toward Kwon O-jin on all fours.
My mind is filled only with the words Mobius left behind—words about being abandoned.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I-I don’t want to be abandoned anymore. I don’t want to be alone. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Clinging to his leg, Cassia pleaded desperately.
“I-I wasn’t trying to lie. I didn’t mean to hurt you. …Ah, I’m n-not trying to make excuses! I’m sorry! I was wrong! I, I…”
She tightened her grip around her legs with her arms and stammered out incoherent words.
“….”
When Kwon O-jin looked down at Cassia, he squinted his eyes.
No matter how you looked at it, Cassia’s condition was clearly not normal right now.
“Please… forgive me. I’m begging you.”
Cassia, who had slipped from Kwon O-jin’s arms, lay flat on the floor and bowed her head as if to kiss the top of his foot.
Stop.
Kwon O-jin grabbed Cassia’s shoulders and pulled her up from the floor where she was lying face down.
Tear-stained emerald eyes turned toward him.
Like something that would shatter if touched carelessly anywhere.
Kwon O-jin opened his eyes narrowly and asked.
“What did you hear from that guy?”
“…!”
I felt Cassia’s shoulders tremble slightly.
‘So that was it.’
She had withdrawn far too meekly for my liking.
I clicked my tongue and twisted my expression in displeasure.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing at all….”
“If you don’t speak now, don’t bother trying to see me again.”
“That, that’s—!”
Cassia’s head snapped up, her expression turning desperate.
“That I would be… abandoned.”
“Abandoned?”
“Yes. That you would never… forgive me.”
“….”
I let out a hollow laugh, my expression one of utter bewilderment.
Honestly, I couldn’t fathom why Cassia clung to me so desperately.
“Please don’t… abandon me.”
Though in truth, I’d never held her in the first place.
I gazed down at Cassia, who clutched at my pant leg with such urgency, and exhaled a deep sigh.
‘What exactly did I do to warrant this level of obsession?’
Right.
I had freed her from the Heavenly Demon’s control, which forced her to commit massacres against her will.
In the Demon Realm, I’d even helped her prevent the Heavenly Demon’s seal from breaking on her own.
This time, I’d simply overlooked her striking me from behind to save her sister, and rescued her from death….
‘Wait. What?’
I’d done far more than I realized.
“O, Kwon O-jin…?”
Cassia looked up at me with an anxious expression, her silence stretching on.
I gazed into her eyes, brimming with apprehension, and swallowed hard.
‘Even so, this state of hers is far from normal.’
Her obsession with me likely stemmed from her past as well.
A life spent waiting for death day by day, afflicted with an incurable disease that twisted every muscle and bone in her body.
Even born into the noble house of Colgrand… or rather, precisely because she was born into such a house, her despair must have been all the greater.
‘And it only worsened as Isabella grew.’
An elder sister cursed with an incurable disease, and a younger sister blessed with natural talent.
Even a house cat would have known which of them would bear the name of Colgrand.
‘In such circumstances….’
Had there ever been even a single person who truly stood by her side?
“….”
I had Ha-eun.
Because I had Ha-eun from childhood, I never once felt truly alone.
But what about Cassia?
Could such a person have existed for a girl trapped in that cramped wheelchair, waiting for the death that would soon arrive?
“…Sigh.”
Right.
Now I understood why Cassia had become so obsessed with me.
All that remained was my choice.
‘Accept or reject.’
The answer had been decided the moment I stood before Mobius in her stead.
“Do you hope I’ll forgive you?”
“Yes, yes! I’ll do anything you command, Kwon O-jin! So please….”
Cassia nodded frantically.
My lips curved upward in a smirk.
“Then you’ll have to accept the ‘punishment’ I mentioned earlier, won’t you?”
I asked in a deliberately playful tone to calm Cassia, whose expression had grown as desperate as if a blade hung over her throat.
“The punishment you mentioned….”
“Your backside.”
“Eh… y-your backside?”
Cassia’s eyes widened in shock, her expression bewildered.
Whether this counted as fortunate or not, the fragile expression that seemed ready to shatter at my slightest word had vanished, replaced entirely by astonishment.
“I-if it’s your command, Kwon O-jin.”
Cassia’s cheeks flushed crimson as she awkwardly turned and presented her backside toward me.
Though even with her backside offered, the flowing black dress concealed everything from proper view.
“Should I remove the dress too?”
“No, that’s not really necessary….”
“But it’s a punishment.”
Unlike when she had carelessly lifted her dress moments before, Cassia now grasped the hem with both hands, her expression flooded with shame as she slowly raised it.
Her pristine white skin and the black lace panties that framed it began to reveal their alluring contours.
“Mm.”
Perhaps Mobius had arranged something, for the moment he vanished, Isabella—who had been unconscious—stirred and groggily rose.
“Where am I….”
Isabella’s eyes, as they scanned the surroundings, fell upon Cassia with her dress raised toward me and my figure standing close behind her.
“…Is this a dream?”
Isabella rubbed her eyes and shook her head slowly.
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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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