Not A Regressor - Chapter 59

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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 59
Heavy Rain (1)
[Typhoon Noru, currently moving northward through Japan, is expected to arrive in the Central Region around 8 PM today. Preparations for sudden heavy rainfall are necessary….]
Click.
[Recent news reports that Isabella Colgrande, known as the Saint of Rome, has been targeted in multiple assassination attempts….]
Click.
[The Association has officially announced the discharge of Black Lion and stated that all visitations and interviews will be refused for the time being….]
Click.
I stopped changing the channel and turned off the television.
‘Is there nothing about Valhalla Guild?’
An incident involving Lee Woo-hyuk, the Black Lion, should have been covered as breaking news, yet there was no mention of him anywhere.
It meant Valhalla Guild was keeping the matter hidden internally.
“…I suppose I should pay them a visit.”
I entered the Valhalla Guild building, which I had visited once before.
As I briefly surveyed the luxurious interior that resembled stepping into a five-star hotel, Park Chang-hyun appeared.
“Welcome.”
“How is Lee Woo-hyuk’s condition?”
….
Park Chang-hyun’s expression hardened rigidly.
He exhaled a deep sigh and shook his head.
“Fortunately, his life is not in danger, but… I cannot say his condition is good, even in the most optimistic terms.”
“Exactly what—”
“He has regained consciousness, at least. It was the Guild Master’s orders to contact Kwon O-jin.”
He was conscious.
The worst scenario had been avoided, but could I truly call that fortunate given the current circumstances?
“It would be best if you discussed the details directly with him.”
“Very well.”
I followed Park Chang-hyun.
Beep beep beep beep.
He entered a section I had not visited before and held a card against a blank wall.
-Whirrrr.
‘Such a space was hidden here?’
The wall slid smoothly to the side like some hidden treasure chamber within an ancient dungeon.
Instead of gleaming gold coins, I saw a fading life barely clinging to the threads of existence within the wall.
A treatment room filled with expensive medical equipment.
Light was seeping out from more than one location.
“…Was Lee Woo-hyuk not the only one who suffered this?”
“Correct.”
Park Chang-hyun nodded with a rigid expression.
“Everyone in Valhalla Guild except myself, who did not participate in the operation, fell victim to the Black Star Society.”
“….”
Kwon O-jin walked down the corridor with a bewildered expression.
From a dozen treatment rooms spaced at regular intervals, the distinctive medicinal smell of the hospital—one he’d grown sick of over the past ten days—wafted out.
“Any fatalities…?”
“None. Not yet, anyway.”
Park Chang-hyun lowered his head with a devastated expression.
The shoulders that had felt so reassuringly solid when standing against the demonic beasts now hung limply.
‘The entire Valhalla Guild was taken down.’
A guild that had just barely made it into South Korea’s top ten, despite its modest standing.
And with merely around twenty guild members at that.
The fact that Valhalla Guild—each of its members a skilled executive-class fighter from other guilds—had been overwhelmed so utterly was difficult to accept.
‘Was it Ashad Khan’s doing?’
He shook his head at the question that surfaced in his mind.
According to Yujin, Ashad Khan’s position within the Black Star Society was one rank higher—that of a mid-level administrative official.
If a single mid-level administrative official could have swept away the entire Valhalla Guild, the Black Star Society wouldn’t need to hide its identity and operate so covertly.
At that level, they could wage war against all of Seven Stars itself—so why would they bother concealing themselves?
‘I’ll find out once I hear it directly.’
He set aside his questions and moved forward.
Park Chang-hyun carefully knocked on the door of the treatment room located in the most secluded corner.
—Knock, knock.
“Brother. I’ve brought Kwon O-jin.”
“…Come in.”
A feeble voice came from beyond the door.
—Creak.
As the door opened, Lee Woo-hyuk’s figure came into view, lying on the bed.
“….”
Hollow eye sockets and sunken cheeks.
Eyes that seemed to have lost focus, wavering uncertainly.
Gone was the ferocious, lion-like aura that had once radiated from him.
What emanated now was a thick sense of defeat.
Like a toothless old lion nervously watching for other predators while circling dead prey—a poignant helplessness flowed from Lee Woo-hyuk.
‘What is this.’
What could have happened to transform a person so completely?
“…Ugh, cough! I’ve shown you an unsightly state.”
Lee Woo-hyuk laughed weakly, as if reading the emotion that had surfaced in Kwon O-jin’s eyes.
“What happened to you?”
“As you can… see. Ugh! We fought them, and I was shamefully defeated. Cough! Cough! And to think… it was just one person.”
His voice carried a note of self-mockery.
Lee Woo-hyuk coughed up blood-tinged sputum and bit his lip.
‘Just one person?’
Kwon O-jin’s mouth fell open in shock.
Could it be…
“…Was it Ashad Khan?”
“No. We did find him using the information you provided, but… he wasn’t the one who fought us.”
As I suspected.
It wasn’t Ashad Khan.
Then who on earth was it?
“Cheon Do-yoon.”
Lee Woo-hyuk continued in a low, hollow voice.
His eyes twitched as if recalling a terrible nightmare.
“That’s the name of the old man we fought… Ugh! They called him the ‘King of Owls.'”
“…”
My fists clenched.
I continued speaking with my hands squeezed tight.
“He was overwhelming… We couldn’t even fight properly—it was one-sided. Honestly, escaping alive felt like a miracle.”
He shook his head, his expression heavy with the weight of defeat.
━The King of Owls.
Kwon O-jin’s eyes narrowed slightly.
As I etched that ominous epithet into my mind, I recalled the Black Star stigma that Yujin had absorbed.
‘The Owl’s Nest stigma.’
If he called himself the King of Owls…
It wasn’t difficult to guess his true identity.
‘An executive of the Black Star Society.’
I’d been chasing a wildcat and stumbled upon a tiger instead.
A chilling sensation crawled down my spine.
‘I knew he was strong, but…’
To think he was strong enough to overwhelm the entire Valhalla Guild single-handedly.
Now I truly understood just how vast and terrible the power of the Black Star Society was.
‘Wait… was it not me who destroyed the world back then, but the Black Star Society?’
The question arose naturally.
Of course, without memories of my first regression, I couldn’t know exactly what had happened.
But I couldn’t imagine that an organization of such immense scale had no hand in the world’s destruction.
‘If the organization led by the Demon King was the Black Star Society… then that would mean I end up leading the Black Star Society.’
It was a future I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
‘Even if I tried to speculate, I’d need some clue.’
This was like being shown a blank canvas with a few dots and asked to guess what was drawn—how could I possibly know?
“Sigh.”
I exhaled deeply and cut off my thoughts.
“Could you tell me in detail what happened back then?”
“Yes.”
Lee Woo-hyuk nodded.
“Cough! Cough! Hack! Spit!”
He spat blood-tinged phlegm into a paper cup before opening his mouth to speak.
“Haa, haa… phew. We tracked them down based on the phone number Kwon O-jin gave us. It took quite some time, but… we managed to catch their trail.”
This much I already knew from Park Chang-hyun.
“The place where they were hiding was a branch of the Pandinius Guild. According to records, it’s listed as a warehouse, but… it was actually the hideout of the Black Star Society.”
Pandinius Guild.
That name again.
“Was that their headquarters?”
If Cheon Do-yoon had been there, it was possible it could have been their main base.
“No. It wasn’t the headquarters. It was merely a branch. Though, even as a branch, it was considerably larger in scale than what we found on Baekun Mountain before.”
In any case.
“Since we couldn’t gather any further information there, we decided to launch an assault. Ah, of course, we tried to contact Kwon O-jin as well.”
He must have heard that Kwon O-jin was lying in the ICU, poisoned.
There was no time to leisurely wait for his recovery.
“The plan went relatively smoothly. The ambush succeeded, and we managed to subdue most of them.”
“Was Ashad Khan there as well?”
“No. He appeared later. It wasn’t just him coming, though.”
So that’s where I encountered Cheon Do-yoon.
“At first, I thought it was fortunate—that we could capture a high-ranking executive of the Black Star Society. But… that was arrogance on my part.”
Cheon Do-yoon single-handedly wiped out the entire Valhalla Guild.
Overwhelmingly. Absolutely.
Without even properly raising a hand.
I was defeated.
“Haa.”
A deep sigh escaped.
The problem didn’t end there.
By some miracle, I managed to escape, but in doing so, I lost the trail of the Black Star Society we had finally caught.
“So there are no more clues to track them down?”
Unless Ashad Khan was a fool, he would have erased all information that could lead to his hideout being discovered.
It was reasonable to assume that all the information we had previously obtained was now useless.
“No, that’s not the case.”
“…It’s not?”
What clue could possibly remain in this situation?
“During the initial process of subduing them, I had an opportunity to speak with one Black Star Society member. He… possessed quite detailed information about the Black Star Society.”
“But in the end, you lost him, didn’t you?”
Though we found an organization member with inside information about the Black Star Society, the subdual failed due to Cheon Do-yoon’s arrival.
It’s difficult to expect cooperation from a criminal with their handcuffs removed.
“That’s true, but… this case is a bit different.”
Different?
“They approached us first, asking for cooperation.”
“…?”
So he hadn’t been captured and interrogated—they’d approached him first?
‘That means…’
Kwon O-jin’s eyes gleamed with sharp intensity.
Lee Woo-hyuk nodded slightly.
“Yes. He was a whistleblower. For some reason, he was part of the Black Star Society, but… he harbored a deep hatred for them.”
“….”
With a secretive criminal organization like the Black Star Society, such things were entirely plausible.
Even companies that appeared to be running smoothly often had rot festering within them—how much more so for criminal organizations that operated in the shadows?
“Is that why you called me?”
Now that I knew a whistleblower existed, I needed to make discreet contact and extract information about the Black Star Society.
It was obvious, really.
A member of Valhalla Guild couldn’t approach the whistleblower.
They’d be under the Black Star Society’s full scrutiny after this incident.
Besides, aside from Park Chang-hyun, everyone else was tied up.
“…Yes, that’s correct.”
Lee Woo-hyuk nodded, a faint look of surprise crossing his face.
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me.
“The whistleblower’s contact information.”
“….”
“Of course, I know I’m asking you to do something dangerous. But….”
Grind.
Lee Woo-hyuk’s teeth clenched savagely.
“If we let this opportunity slip away, we may lose our lead on them forever.”
The Black Star Society—the organization that had kidnapped and murdered his brother.
No matter how thoroughly defeated we’d been.
I couldn’t abandon the pursuit now.
“I’ll make sure the compensation is more than adequate.”
“Hmm.”
I narrowed my eyes, lost in thought.
It was an extraordinarily dangerous task, just as Lee Woo-hyuk said.
‘But I can’t afford to miss this opportunity either.’
The compensation aside.
Losing the lead on the Black Star Society was something I didn’t want either.
‘I need information.’
A few scattered dots on a blank white canvas.
A murky, unhelpful picture called the future.
To draw the ‘lines’ connecting those dots.
I needed to investigate the Black Star Society.
I need to investigate their plans, dig into them.
I need to expose everything down to the very bottom.
‘Because I am.’
No one else but me.
━’A Regressor.’
“Understood.”
Kwon O-jin accepted the document.
“I’ll take care of this.”

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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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