Not A Regressor - Chapter 392

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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 392
Fate-Reversing Star (5)
An awkward silence flowed like the Milky Way.
Kwon O-jin gazed at the Constellation woven from starlight and asked in a bewildered voice.
“What… did you just say?”
Eat him?
What kind of nonsensical rambling was that?
‘Wait.’
The word “eat” surely didn’t mean to chew and swallow in the literal sense of a meal.
And it certainly wasn’t a sexual innuendo.
Then.
There was only one possibility left, wasn’t there?
[You understand what I mean, don’t you?]
Yes.
I understood.
How could I not?
[With the Black Sky you possess… swallow this wretched Constellation for me.]
Polaris spoke in a tone that seemed as though her very personality had shifted.
“….”
Kwon O-jin’s expression hardened like stone.
As he kept his lips firmly sealed and continued his thoughts, he slowly began to open his mouth.
[P-Polaris!]
Vega flew over urgently and blocked Polaris’s path.
[I shall explain everything! The Black Heaven that my child possesses is different from the Heavenly Demon’s…!]
“Vega, wait.”
I shook my head while pulling at her shoulder.
Vega turned back to me with an agitated expression.
[What, what do you mean it’s fine? I’ll speak directly with Polaris, so you should…!]
“No, it’s fine. It seems Polaris already knows anyway.”
If she truly believed I was the Heavenly Demon who would destroy the world, she wouldn’t have asked me to swallow her Constellation.
No.
She wouldn’t have called me the “Fate-Reversing Star” in the first place.
[…Ah.]
Only then did Vega’s mind seem to cool somewhat, a faint exclamation escaping between her lips.
“How did you find out… wait, there’s no need to ask that, is there?”
The ability of the Ursa Minor stigma was to glimpse the future.
There was no need to ask how Polaris had discovered my true identity.
What mattered wasn’t the “how”.
“Since when did you know I possessed the Black Heaven?”
Starlight gleamed in eyes that had darkened like the Black Sky itself.
The Constellation made of starlight answered in a calm voice.
[From the moment I first met you. Or rather, to be precise… even before that.]
“….”
So I had been trying to hide something that was already completely exposed.
“Ha….”
A hollow laugh escaped, and a wave of crushing realization washed over me.
I gathered in the ‘Black Veil’ that had been spread around my body and asked.
“Why did you call me the Fate-Reversing Star even though you knew I was the master of Heukcheon?”
[Isn’t it simple?]
The starlight that composed Polaris’s form emitted a soft glow.
The gaze made of countless stars sparkled as if piercing through the soul itself.
[Because you are the ‘Fate-Reversing Star’ who can overturn the predetermined destiny.]
The Fate-Reversing Star.
A savior who ascends through time and rewrites the world’s destiny.
Vega had said something like that before.
‘The Fate-Reversing Star might not necessarily refer to a regressor.’
But there remained one unsolved mystery here.
“I’ve never traveled back through time, though?”
The decisive reason the actual Constellations had come to think ‘Fate-Reversing Star equals regressor’ was precisely because of that one phrase about traveling back through time.
And as far as I knew, the only beings who had ‘transcended time’ were Lee Shin-hyuk and the Heavenly Demon, and I didn’t fit either category.
In other words.
There was a logical contradiction in the claim that I was the Fate-Reversing Star from the beginning.
[But you embraced a Constellation that transcended time within Heukcheon.]
“…So you’re saying I became the Fate-Reversing Star by absorbing Lee Shin-hyuk’s stigma?”
I let out a bitter laugh with a hollow expression.
Right.
If I became the Fate-Reversing Star because I absorbed Lee Shin-hyuk’s stigma, there would be no logical contradiction.
‘But no matter how you look at it, does that even make sense?’
The Fate-Reversing Star couldn’t be something so simple that you could just peel it off like a sticker and claim it as yours.
I looked at Polaris with questioning eyes, but the answer that came from his mouth was different from what I expected.
[What do you think about destiny?]
“Destiny?”
Why was he suddenly talking about destiny?
“Well… isn’t it just referring to a predetermined future?”
From someone who didn’t particularly believe in destiny in the first place, the answer that could come out was painfully inadequate.
[I’m not asking for a definition of destiny. What I want to know is about the nature of destiny.]
“…What are you talking about?”
He sure had a way of twisting his words.
I cursed inwardly and furrowed my brow.
[Let me rephrase the question. Do you think you can change destiny?]
“If it couldn’t be changed, then the Fate-Reversing Star wouldn’t exist in the first place.”
[Then what do you think must be done to change fate?]
Irritation began to bubble up inside me.
“Did you call me here just to play these riddle games?”
I fixed Polaris with a sharp stare.
Polaris shook his head slightly and continued.
[Some say this of fate: just as a butterfly’s tiny wing-beat can spawn a typhoon, even the smallest action can alter destiny.]
“Well… I suppose that makes sense?”
I found myself agreeing with that perspective.
After all, if the future isn’t predetermined, then it’s only natural that it changes with each small action we take.
For example, imagine someone who always takes the right path one day decides to take the left instead and gets hit by a car, dying instantly.
That person’s action was small—merely directing their feet down a different road than usual.
Yet because of it, the fate of that person and everyone around them was completely overturned, wasn’t it?
‘Yes… exactly.’
Just as I never became the Heavenly Demon because Lee Shin-hyuk died.
[No, fate doesn’t change so easily.]
Polaris shook his head and continued.
[Did you not say it yourself? That fate is a ‘predetermined future’?]
He raised a hand made of starlight and slowly moved his arm from left to right.
A line of starlight traced perfectly straight along the path of his fingertips.
[Fate is not a line stretching straight ahead.]
This time he swept his hand downward.
A cascade of starlight poured down like a waterfall.
[Fate is like a Rapid Current pouring down fiercely.]
“…What are you trying to say?”
[Do you truly believe that throwing a small stone into a pouring Rapid Current would change its flow?]
“….”
Now I was beginning to understand what Polaris was getting at.
“You’re saying that fate doesn’t change easily, right?”
[Precisely.]
“Then why twist such a simple thing into all these convoluted metaphors?”
What, are you Socrates or something?
[Sometimes appropriate metaphors are necessary to grasp a concept accurately.]
“To me, it just sounds like pretentious nonsense.”
Well, fine.
I understand what you’re trying to say.
But.
“At least my own fate has changed completely from my previous life?”
And it’s not just my fate that’s changed.
Ha-eun’s fate, Vega’s fate, Isabella’s fate, Cassia’s fate—
No.
Perhaps even the fate of the world itself.
With each of his actions, hadn’t he traced a trajectory entirely different from his previous life?
[That is why I call you the Fate-Reversing Star.]
“Ah….”
Only now did my initial question and its answer connect.
Why Polaris had called me the Fate-Reversing Star.
“So… I’m called the Fate-Reversing Star because I changed fate?”
[Indeed.]
Whether I had traveled back through time or not was never the point.
Because I changed what could not be changed.
Because I twisted the torrential Rapid Current that poured forth.
A being that defies the principles of heaven and the natural order—I had earned the right to be called the Fate-Reversing Star.
‘I had it backwards.’
I did not change fate because I was the Fate-Reversing Star.
I became the Fate-Reversing Star because I changed a fate that could not be changed.
“So that’s why you’re asking me to absorb your Constellation into Heukcheon?”
[Now you’re being formal with me?]
“I’ve confirmed you mean no harm.”
[There’s no need to be formal with me.]
Polaris continued in a voice heavy with gloom.
[After all, I am but a wretched Constellation capable only of watching the flowing current of fate.]
“….”
Had he described himself earlier as bound to the Rapid Current of fate?
“…Are you bound by the constraints of Divine Law?”
[No. What binds me is far worse than that.]
Polaris shook his head with a bitter gleam in his eyes.
[The divine gave me eyes to see the future, yet took away the limbs to change it.]
A voice filled with deep self-loathing and guilt.
Though his face was hidden behind the starlight, it was not difficult to imagine what his expression must be.
[Even then, I could only remain bound here and watch fate flow past.]
“…Even then?”
[You know it too, do you not? That the world was already destroyed once in the distant past by Heukcheon.]
The Grave of Stars that I visited with Vega.
A destruction that occurred in an age so distant that even the current Constellations do not remember it.
From my perspective, it was merely talk of dinosaur extinction, but the weight of those words was immeasurable.
“Could it be… you’ve been trapped in this Well since then?”
[Yes.]
How much distant sorrow must be melted into that simple affirmation of ‘yes’.
[Watching the world be destroyed and reborn anew… I have continued to wait.]
Across an incomprehensible expanse of eons.
Like Prometheus bound to the rocky mountain.
I pleaded desperately, yearned miserably, cursed my own helplessness.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
[For someone to change this future.]
For a being who could shield me from the endless despair and suffering unfolding before my eyes.
[Even as I fractured my crumbling mind into countless pieces, I continued waiting for a being who could alter fate.]
But no one.
Not a single soul.
[No being capable of changing the predetermined fate ever appeared.]
And yet.
Then one day.
[You… appeared.]
A single radiant starlight shining brilliantly within the Black Sky.
The Fate-Reversing Star that defies destiny itself.
[Now the time has come to place a period on this endless waiting.]
With those words, Polaris let out a faint laugh.
“….”
Knowing everything yet being unable to change anything.
Having no choice but to silently witness the approaching annihilation.
As Kwon O-jin, I could scarcely imagine how deeply such despair must have consumed Polaris.
“I understand.”
I raised my tone of speech again.
Though Polaris had said there was no need for formality, I could not help but show reverence for the immeasurable weight of the life Polaris had endured.
“I will place a period on the story of Ursa Minor’s star for you.”
When I first heard this, I thought it an absurd proposal.
I could not help but feel that way.
All I had witnessed was Polaris worn and eroded by an incomprehensible span of time.
To the point of even asking for death.
I did not dare imagine how much unfathomable despair Polaris had endured.
I could not know, and even if I could, there would be no way for me to console them.
‘All I can do now.’
Is to bring closure to their long story.
To place a period on a life filled only with despair, regret, sighs, and self-reproach.
[…Thank you.]
The tone of voice changed again.
I do not know whether this quiet manner of speech was Polaris’s true voice, or if the solemn tone was.
Perhaps I never will know.
The true Polaris had already worn away and crumbled into dust across the vast expanse of time.
“Then, I shall begin.”
Black clouds of essence flowed from Kwon O-jin’s body, enveloping the Constellation of Ursa Minor.

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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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