Not A Regressor - Chapter 56

—————
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 56
A Game with No Choice but to Win (3)
“Y-you’re saying he’s a suspect?”
The reporters cried out in bewildered shock.
“Silence.”
Choi Woo-jin’s eyes snapped open with a savage intensity as he spoke in a low, cutting tone.
━Eyes that seemed to strangle the very soul.
The gaze of a beast that had caught the scent of blood burned with chilling ferocity.
“H-hiii!”
“Ugh!”
The reporters trembled violently under the overwhelming pressure radiating from him.
Most of the journalists were ordinary people who hadn’t even awakened.
There was no way they could withstand the aura of Choi Woo-jin, known as the “War Hound” and counted among the top three within the Awakened Users Association.
“I will conduct an emergency investigation using the authority of a Special Investigator.”
Choi Woo-jin produced his Special Investigator credentials issued by the Association.
He examined each reporter with sharp, piercing eyes.
‘There are a few awakened ones here, but… none of particularly high caliber.’
Awakened users at most 2 or 3 stars.
And even those were few in number.
‘If there were an awakened user capable of deceiving my senses…’
Choi Woo-jin shook his head.
For anyone else, perhaps—but deceiving the senses of someone bearing the stigma of Canis Major was simply impossible.
“….”
Choi Woo-jin’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Ever since entering the press conference hall—no, from the moment he shook hands with Kwon O-jin—he had kept his stigma activated, vigilant of his surroundings.
‘I detected absolutely no sign of an ambush.’
Someone had injected poison into Kwon O-jin while evading the senses of someone providing close protection?
‘Impossible.’
Unless they were a high-tier awakened user of 9 stars or above, there was no way to deceive the senses of Canis Major and approach him.
Yet the possibility of a genuinely high-tier awakened user targeting Kwon O-jin was equally remote.
There was neither reason nor justification, and most of them were currently stationed at the “Demonic Realm,” humanity’s foremost frontier.
‘He didn’t consume or eat anything.’
Then.
‘Before meeting me… he was already poisoned.’
The only conclusion was that Kwon O-jin had been poisoned somewhere between leaving his home and arriving at Yeouido.
“Investigate the personal information and alibis of all the reporters.”
“Understood, sir!”
After delegating the task to his subordinate, Choi Woo-jin brought his nose close to the blood Kwon O-jin had spilled.
-Whoooooom!
The stigma of Canis Major engraved upon his left chest blazed brilliantly.
My senses exploded outward with amplified intensity.
Scents spanning hundreds, even thousands of kilometers flooded into his nostrils.
Yet these were no ordinary smells from everyday life.
‘The scent of mana.’
Any bearer of a stigma would inevitably emit such a scent, and I pursued it relentlessly.
“…As expected.”
Beyond the scent of the Lyra Constellation stigma emanating from Kwon O-jin, another odor assailed my nose.
An exceedingly faint trace of mana lingering in the air.
I followed the barely perceptible mana residue—so subtle that only I could have detected it.
“I’m leaving the scene in your hands.”
“Special Investigator, you’re…?”
“I have another investigation to pursue.”
Leaving my subordinates at the scene, I pursued the mana traces.
The faintly connected mana residue extended all the way to the car Kwon O-jin had arrived in.
‘So he was poisoned on the way here, just as I suspected.’
There was no way he could have been poisoned inside a moving vehicle.
Then that meant…
“Huh.”
I drew in a deep breath.
Like a sprinter at the starting line, I planted my hands on the ground and lifted my hips.
Normally, I would have taken a car.
‘There’s no time.’
If this happened before Kwon O-jin met with me, I had to move as quickly as possible.
Even now, the culprit was likely erasing their traces.
“Beast’s Stride.”
Blue light erupted in a violent burst.
The stigma’s mana enveloped my entire body,
-Kwaaang!
and I drove my feet into the ground with savage force.
-Thud thud thud thud thud thud!!!!
I tore down the road at such tremendous speed that the cars around me seemed to crawl like snails.
A blade-like wind sliced across my cheek.
Following the faintly connected mana traces, I raced toward Incheon, where Kwon O-jin’s residence lay.
“Hah, hah.”
After running for roughly twenty minutes,
I arrived near Kwon O-jin’s house, my breathing slightly ragged.
‘Does that fool really live in a place like this?’
I had naturally assumed that with his recent rise to fame as an Awakened User, he would be living somewhere far more upscale.
“…This is practically ruins.”
Had this area suffered a monster attack nine years ago—or was it eight years now that the year had changed?
It was a neighborhood so dilapidated that one could scarcely believe anyone lived there.
As I walked between half-collapsed buildings.
‘Found it.’
I discovered a location where traces of mana had grown dense.
“The attack happened here.”
So covert that the victim wouldn’t even realize they’d been poisoned.
“…Indeed.”
Choi Woo-jin, examining the surroundings, clicked his tongue.
‘There was a reason for attacking here.’
Not a single CCTV camera was visible in this place.
A location optimized for ambush.
“…Kwon O-jin supposedly lost consciousness and has been recuperating at home.”
Which meant the perpetrator had been lying in wait near his residence from the start, waiting for him to leave.
“….”
A premeditated ambush.
Yet the questions hadn’t entirely vanished.
‘Why wait for him to leave the house?’
If they were going to ambush him, it would have been wiser to do so during the past week when he was unconscious.
“…What if someone was at the house?”
Now that I think about it, I’d heard something about that.
There was a woman living with him.
‘Song Ha-eun, wasn’t it?’
Choi Woo-jin contacted the Association to verify information about her.
‘Lost her powers five years ago in an accident, but recently recovered them.’
There was also a record of her participating in recent monster subjugation operations and earning considerable merit.
“A 7-star awakener of the Lyra Constellation.”
Of course.
There was a reason the perpetrator waited outside.
‘They knew Song Ha-eun was with him.’
That’s why they waited for Kwon O-jin to leave the house alone.
To silently eliminate Kwon O-jin, who had only just regained consciousness and hadn’t fully recovered.
“The reason is… obvious.”
Choi Woo-jin’s eyes gleamed sharply.
The covert relationship between Pandinius Guild and Choi Jong-chul that Kwon O-jin had tried to reveal at the press conference.
‘Because Kwon O-jin possessed the evidence.’
If that were the case, the perpetrator would naturally be—
“No. I can’t jump to conclusions yet.”
He was a Special Investigator who had imprisoned countless criminals.
He couldn’t identify the perpetrator based on suspicion alone without concrete evidence.
‘I need proof.’
Choi Woo-jin drew upon the stigma’s mana with even greater intensity.
Irrefutable physical evidence.
He was the awakened user most specialized in finding it.
‘The culprit’s traces are… over there.’
He traced the mana’s residue past the spot where the two had crossed paths.
The culprit had attempted to conceal their mana as discreetly as possible, but they could not deceive the senses of Choi Woo-jin, a 7-star awakened user of the Canis Major constellation.
-Thud, thud.
Choi Woo-jin followed the traces of mana with each step.
The mana traces led to an eco bag abandoned in the middle of an alley.
More precisely, it was the green liquid smeared on the end of the eco bag.
The scent was identical to the one I had detected from Kwon O-jin’s blood.
“They bumped into him naturally while carrying the bag, then smeared the poison on it.”
If that were the case, it made sense that Kwon O-jin hadn’t even realized he had been ‘poisoned.’
He couldn’t have anticipated that a person he’d bumped into on the street was carrying a poison-tainted bag.
“…There are no traces at all from here onward.”
Choi Woo-jin furrowed his brow and surveyed the surroundings.
Beyond the abandoned eco bag, he sensed no mana traces whatsoever.
No scent, no footprints.
The culprit had vanished from this place as if evaporating.
‘What method did they use?’
He couldn’t determine that much.
-Click.
Choi Woo-jin carefully extended his hand toward the green liquid smeared on the eco bag’s end.
He concentrated his focus and read the stigma’s mana contained within the poison.
They had attempted to conceal it.
But he could sense it.
━The faintly lingering mana of the Scorpio constellation stigma.
“Just as I thought. There was no twist.”
His eyes gleamed fiercely.
Unlike other stigmas, awakened users bearing the Scorpio constellation stigma were almost invariably affiliated with Pandinius Guild.
Especially a skilled operative capable of conducting such a discreet ambush—there was no one else to consider but Pandinius Guild.
With both circumstantial and physical evidence in hand.
He could no longer suspend judgment.
“The culprit was━ Pandinius Guild.”
Choi Woo-jin spoke with absolute certainty.
* * *
The intensive care unit of a hospital located in Yeouido.
Surrounded by expensive medical equipment crafted using mana stones, I slowly opened my eyes.
‘Damn. This hurts like hell.’
The poison used had been potent enough to dissolve portions of my internal organs, so the agony was excruciating.
‘At least I need to do this much to feel satisfied.’
I smiled faintly while wearing the oxygen mask.
I reached out and picked up the smartphone resting on the table.
I navigated to the news tab and checked the latest articles.
[Nae-rang Kwon O-jin Collapses Coughing Blood During Press Conference… ‘Shocking’]
[Culprit the Pandinius Guild? ‘Traces of Scorpio Constellation Stigma’ Found at Scene]
[Nae-rang Transported to Hyesung Hospital Coughing Blood… ‘Would Have Lost His Life If We Were Minutes Late,’ Doctors Testify.]
[What Is the Connection Between Nae-rang, the Pandinius Guild, and Choi Jong-chul?]
Every article from the headlines onward was filled with coverage of this incident.
“They found the traces quite well, it seems.”
I smiled deeply while reading the articles.
‘Honestly, I was a bit worried they wouldn’t find them.’
Choi Woo-jin.
Just as the rumors suggested, he was an Awakened User with exceptional investigative skills.
‘Let me check what people are saying about this.’
I accessed the famous community site I had visited before.
[Ro Yujin : Breaking))) The Current Status of ‘That’ Guild That Attempted to Poison Nae-rang]
They’re denying involvement again lol
┗JeriM: Hahahahahahahaha you crazy bastards
┗Dirt Spoon : ??? : Traces of the Scorpio Constellation Stigma were indeed found at the scene, but this matter has no connection to us whatsoever.
“Wow, being that shameless seems to be a talent too;”
┗Venti is Female : So was the previous incident also caused by Pandinius?
“Then why would he try to poison you for nothing? It’s obvious he’s got something to feel guilty about lol”
┗Jeremy : The Starlight Lake Guild must be so wronged fr fr They got bitten by these insane bastards
Public opinion was boiling over.
All the arrows of criticism that had been directed at the Starlight Lake Guild were now pointing at the Pandinius Guild.
‘Now they can’t even deny it.’
Public opinion had already turned against them.
A dead end.
Could there be a more fitting word to describe the situation the Pandinius Guild now found itself in?
Of course, even in this situation, they seemed to be trying to wriggle out of it by claiming they had nothing to do with it.
‘Go ahead and struggle all you want.’
After all, this was something they couldn’t refute without knowing about the Black Heaven.
Traces of the Scorpio Constellation Stigma had been found at the actual crime scene—what could they possibly do about that?
The Pandinius Guild would now face suspicion not only for the poisoning attempt but also for everything that happened during the subjugation operation.
‘Now I just need to lie here comfortably and get free meals.’
There was no need to step forward and make a fuss.
The top ten guilds that had been taking arrows of public criticism would personally tear those bastards to shreds.
‘I should send my sister a few messages so she doesn’t worry.’
Though she doesn’t know about the Black Heaven either.
He likely suspected that I had orchestrated this entire situation.
“Yawn.”
Kwon O-jin let out a long, languid yawn.
He set his smartphone on the table and reclined leisurely on the bed.
“That’s what happens when you commit fraud so carelessly.”
I told you.
This is a game I was destined to win.

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