Not A Regressor - Chapter 6

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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 6
The Stigma of Lyra (3)
“Two Whopper sets~ that’s 15,800 won! Will that be for takeout?”
“Yes, takeout.”
On my way back home.
I stopped by a nearby Hamburger Restaurant to order dinner.
‘Damn, why are hamburgers so expensive?’
My hand trembled like a severe alcoholic’s as I pulled bills from my wallet.
I could buy them frozen for 2,000 won each, yet here I was about to pay over three times that—my stomach felt like it might turn inside out.
“Your two Whopper sets are ready~!”
I turned away from the cashier’s bright smile and stepped forward.
I walked through a narrow alley lined with dilapidated, crumbling houses.
The acrid stench of mold and damp humidity assaulted my senses.
“Sigh.”
I looked up at the darkening sky and exhaled a short breath.
‘In the end, it’s all lies again.’
Suddenly, an old memory surfaced in my mind.
A memory from over fifteen years ago, from childhood.
Fragments of recollection that now felt strangely unfamiliar drifted through my consciousness.
-A lie? You’re saying it was a lie?
Around eight years old, maybe nine.
I’d once lied about a fire in the kitchen to mess with the Bald Director.
The image of the Bald Director’s face flushed crimson as he raged wildly.
Ojin burst into giggles and raised his middle finger at the director.
-You damn little brat!!
The director’s face contorted between red and purple as he clenched his fists and approached.
He was just an ordinary man in his forties afflicted with the trinity of diabetes, hypertension, and hair loss.
Yet when it came to throwing punches without leaving visible marks, even professionals would marvel at his skill.
Violence rained down like a downpour upon my curled form.
-Don’t you dare hit our Ojin, you bald bastard!!
A girl with reddish-brown hair flew forward like flames dancing in the wind.
Despite her delicate, doll-like appearance, the girl’s movements were as fierce and nimble as a beast’s.
But it was futile.
A girl barely ten years old couldn’t possibly withstand an adult’s violence.
-You two pair of brats!!!!
The Bald Director swung his fists savagely.
Ojin and the girl clung to each other, enduring the director’s furious assault.
“Nothing’s changed since I was young, it seems.”
I laughed bitterly and arrived home, walking through desolate streets as if ravaged by monster attacks.
-Creeeeak.
I pushed open the dilapidated door and took in the cramped interior—barely a hundred square feet of living space.
“Nngh…”
Had the sound of the door woken her from sleep?
A soft groan accompanied the creaking protest of the old bed beneath her shifting weight.
“I’m home.”
I tossed the hamburger onto the floor and kicked off my shoes.
“….”
A woman pushed back the blanket and sat up.
Hair the color of burning rust-red.
Like a ruby dragged through mud, she shone beautifully even in this moldy, decrepit dwelling.
Just awakened from sleep, she slowly turned her gaze toward me.
No.
‘Turned her gaze’ wasn’t the right expression.
Because—
“…You came?”
Her faded, pallid eyes reflected nothing at all.
Fumbling.
With clumsy movements, she pushed back the blanket.
Beneath it, a pair of pale white legs were revealed.
Where there should have been two, only the left one remained.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
I chuckled and nodded.
The rust-haired woman stared up at me intently,
“Since you’re here—hurry up and light me a cigarette.”
She grinned wickedly and extended two fingers in my direction.
At her languid gesture, as though summoning a servant, I let out a hollow laugh.
“Right off the bat with the nonsense.”
“Nonsense? You dare speak that way to someone with eyes like heaven?”
“Heaven’s eyes, my ass.”
“I heard that’s the trendy nickname these days.”
Is that so?
“Song Ha-eun’s heaven eyes….”
“Ugh, stop. You’re making me nauseous.”
“But you told me to say it.”
“Hahahaha!! Hearing it out loud kills the vibe, you idiot.”
Watching her unchanged self, I felt the corners of my mouth lift slightly.
‘Nothing seems out of place.’
Song Ha-eun.
The woman two years my senior who had been my only pillar of support through the hellish orphanage years.
The stubborn bond forged back then had persisted even after we left that place.
Precarious and clumsy, yet.
Vivid.
“There we go.”
I rolled up the receipt from the hamburger purchase and wedged it between her fingers.
Click.
I lit the lighter.
“Cough… hack! Hack! What, what is this?!”
“A cigarette.”
“This isn’t a cigarette, you bastard!”
Song Ha-eun hurled the burning receipt away and shouted.
I picked up the receipt that had fallen on the floor and rubbed out the flame.
“Take it easy. Don’t go damaging your body on top of everything else.”
“Heh. Even like this, I’m far healthier than you, you know?”
Song Ha-eun shrugged her shoulders and laughed with a smirk.
It wasn’t mere bravado.
In truth, she possessed a physique several times more robust than mine.
That made sense, after all—she was an Awakened User.
‘A half-baked one who couldn’t wield Stigma’s mana, but still.’
Even so, her physical specs far surpassed those of an ordinary person like me.
Or rather, to be precise.
‘They used to surpass mine.’
Things were different now.
I had become an Awakened User as well.
“I brought some food.”
“Oh, thanks. What’s on the menu today?”
“Hamburgers.”
“Hehe! That’s my guy! You know what’s up!”
Song Ha-eun laughed with evident satisfaction.
She loved hamburgers.
Not so much because they tasted good, but because they were convenient to eat while holding them.
For someone who couldn’t see, even using utensils was no simple matter.
-Crinkle.
I unwrapped the hamburger and offered it to her.
Nom.
Her small mouth bit into the hamburger.
“…Huh?”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
As if disbelieving, she took another bite, then another.
“What, what is this? Why is it so delicious?”
“Because I bought it from the restaurant instead of frozen.”
“…What?”
Song Ha-eun’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Are you hurt somewhere? Did a monster bash you in the head or something?”
Her voice trembled thinly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
A fleeting thought crossed my mind—was a hamburger set costing less than ten thousand won really worth such a reaction?—but when I reflected on my usual behavior, I could understand her astonishment.
“I came into some money.”
“…It’s not like you didn’t have money before and just didn’t buy it.”
She was right. My frugality had been extreme enough to call obsessive, but it wasn’t born from poverty.
True, I hadn’t earned much from my life-or-death work, but I’d made tens of millions of won in a single month before.
A hamburger set costing less than ten thousand won was something I could have eaten whenever I wanted.
‘Though I never had, until now.’
And yet.
The reason I’d scraped and saved so desperately was to accumulate every last won possible.
‘Because there’s something I absolutely must buy.’
I watched Song Ha-eun contentedly devouring her hamburger.
“You’ve got sauce on your mouth.”
“Oh, really?”
Song Ha-eun turned her head and thrust her chin forward.
“Go ahead, I grant you the honor of touching the lips of the illustrious Eun.”
“Well then.”
“How delightful.”
“I’m getting dizzy.”
I wiped the sauce from her mouth with a tissue.
“Hehe! Hey, what’s this called?”
“Whopper set.”
“Ooh! Truly the king of hamburgers!”
Song Ha-eun grinned with satisfaction.
“From now on, I’ll bring this instead of frozen ones.”
I took a bite of my own hamburger.
‘Damn, this is delicious.’
It was in a completely different league from the frozen hamburgers I usually ate.
It was good enough to make me want to cry my eyes out.
“….”
A strange silence descended.
Song Ha-eun’s piercing gaze fixed on me.
“Something happened to you, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded calmly.
“I became an Awakened User.”
“…!”
Splash.
The cola Song Ha-eun had been holding spilled across the floor.
* * *
Late at night.
Soft moonlight seeped through the window cracks.
“Phew. Finally, I have some time to myself.”
Caught by a startled Song Ha-eun, I’d spent hours explaining this and that until suddenly it was already this late.
‘Well, it’s only natural she’d be so shocked.’
It would be strange if she weren’t alarmed—suddenly becoming an Awakened User, and moreover, an apostle of the North Star itself.
She’d been consumed by worry and anxiety, excitement and anticipation, bombarding me with questions for hours.
Of course, I couldn’t explain everything tangled up in this complicated situation right now.
‘…How could I possibly explain that I’m deceiving the Constellation by claiming to be a Regressor?’
As the situation settled somewhat, my head began to throb again.
“Let me organize this one step at a time.”
Oh Jin, who’d come to a nearby playground, sat on a creaking swing and closed his eyes gently.
‘First, this Black Heaven thing.’
That mysterious power which had consumed the Constellation Mark of Lyra that had been inscribed on Lee Shin-hyuk’s left chest.
‘…This was something I originally possessed.’
I couldn’t fathom why such an unknown power dwelled within me in the first place.
But one thing was certain—this Black Heaven was something I’d originally possessed, completely unrelated to ‘Lee Shin-hyuk’s Regression.’
If I hadn’t absorbed the Constellation Mark of Lyra with the power of Black Heaven, Vega wouldn’t have mistaken me for a Regressor in the first place.
‘And Vega believes that the being who possesses this Black Heaven will destroy the world in the future.’
Which would mean my future self destroys the world.
No matter how many times I thought about it, I couldn’t understand it at all.
‘What on earth happened to me in the first cycle?’
I’d thought this world was messed up, but I’d never once thought it would be good if everything was destroyed.
“This is… something I can’t figure out right now anyway, so let’s move on.”
The real problem was the fact that I possessed Black Heaven itself.
‘This absolutely must be hidden.’
No matter what happens, it cannot be exposed.
The moment Black Heaven’s identity is revealed, it will also expose that I’m actually a third party who absorbed a Regressor’s Constellation Mark, not a Regressor myself.
‘But wait, what exactly is this Black Heaven anyway?’
A power that absorbs Constellation Marks and makes them my own.
Despite having formed parties with many Awakened Users and taken action with them, I’d never heard of such a power existing.
Oh Jin checked the system window that only Awakened Users could see and tapped on the section labeled ‘Black Heaven.’
-Ding!
A blue message window appeared before my eyes.
[Innate Ability List]
【Black Heaven (黑天)】
1. Status: Single-Star Transformation
2. Characteristics
① Constellation Mark Absorption: Absorbs the magical power of constellation marks and stores it within the Black Heaven.
② Black Veil: Completely conceals the aura of the Black Heaven. This characteristic can also be used on possessed constellation marks.
③ Inheritance: Reads the records contained within constellation marks. Affected by the Black Heaven’s awakening stage.
3. Currently Possessed Constellation Marks
① Lyra Constellation Mark *Designated as the representative mark.
“Ugh.”
After confirming the message window that appeared before my eyes, I let out a low groan.
‘There’s nothing I can understand from just this.’
Right now, this was merely a summary of the Black Heaven’s functions.
It didn’t explain what the Black Heaven was or why it had manifested within me.
“Then let’s move past this for now.”
In the end, I set aside the question of ‘why is this happening to me’ for the moment.
After all, sitting here and worrying wouldn’t help me understand something I didn’t know.
‘Then again.’
What I needed to think about now was ‘what should I do moving forward’.
“A regressor, huh….”
The most pressing matter was how to appear more ‘like a regressor’ during my meeting with Vega a week from now.
‘Merely running my mouth has its limits.’
If I couldn’t even earn recognition for my abilities and skills, no amount of clever words would prevent suspicion from taking root.
‘To gain Vega’s acknowledgment.’
I needed to raise the ‘star level’ of the Lyra Constellation Mark faster, even if only slightly.
‘I need to reach at least 2-star within a week.’
For Awakened Users to advance to the next stage, two conditions were necessary.
‘The amount of magical power contained in the constellation mark and the skill in handling it.’
I didn’t need to worry about the former.
‘I have more than enough magical power.’
Currently, I had received constellation marks from both the first-loop Vega and the second-loop Vega.
If anything, I had so much magical power it was becoming a problem.
“…Then.”
If I could only improve my skill in handling constellation marks, I could advance much faster than other Awakened Users.
“I should visit the Gate again tomorrow.”
Was it two years ago? Three years ago?
An Awakened User I’d partnered with once said that there was no faster way to improve one’s skill in handling constellation marks than actual combat.
Indeed, the high-ranking Awakened Users who achieved explosive growth all frequented Gates regularly.
‘Then I should probably get some sleep.’
Creak.
After rising from the swing, I left the desolate Playground.
“Hm?”
While heading home and checking my smartphone, one article caught my eye.
[An anomaly has been reported at the 1-star Gate located in Incheon Shinheung District, where more than twenty Anthornes have been sighted moving in packs… with casualties mounting.]
It was the same Gate he had visited today.
[The Awakened Users Association has cautioned that a ‘mutant’ variant may have appeared, and advises refraining from entering the Gate for the time being.]
“…A mutant, then.”
Oh Jin’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘I didn’t spot anything like a mutant back then.’
Perhaps it was something I overlooked.
But there had been no time to concern myself with mutants or anything else.
‘…Could I take it down?’
A mutant variant of a monster—something that appeared with vanishingly rare odds.
Depending on circumstances, they could occasionally be weaker than their original forms, but generally speaking, mutant specimens possessed far greater power than their base counterparts.
A monster that a freshly awakened 1-star Awakened User could never hope to challenge.
‘But.’
I was no ordinary 1-star Awakened User.
Even the apostles of the Zodiac Twelve Palaces possessed martial prowess several times greater than those of other Constellations from the moment of their awakening, yet I was an apostle of the ‘Polaris’—a Constellation that even the Zodiac Twelve Palaces could not dare rival.
Indeed, I had just today single-handedly slaughtered dozens upon dozens of Anthornes.
Of course, I had received Vega’s assistance along the way—
‘Even before receiving her blessing, I would have been more than capable of handling them.’
I had even thought it almost too easy.
And that was when I possessed only the stigma of Vega from the ‘first cycle’ that Lee Shin-hyuk had carried.
Now that I had received the stigma of Vega from the ‘second cycle’ as well, it required no deliberation that things would be far more manageable.
“Very well.”
After a moment’s contemplation, I nodded calmly to myself.
My destination for tomorrow had been decided.
* * *
The next day.
I made my way to the place where I had first met Lee Shin-hyuk.
“I’m a 2-star Awakened User of Pyxis! Anyone interested in forming a party?!”
“I’m a 2-star Awakened User of Canis Major! Heading out to hunt mutants!”
As I arrived at the Gate, clamorous voices reached my ears.
‘Quite a crowd.’
Despite the Association’s advisory to refrain from entering, far more Awakened Users were gathered before the Gate than usual.
‘The cores from mutant variants fetch considerably higher prices, don’t they?’
It seemed they were gathered for the same purpose as I—to hunt mutants.
“Hmm….”
I paused and fell into thought.
‘Should I form a party?’
Now that I had become a true Awakened User, I no longer needed to resort to the humiliating spectacles of before.
‘…No.’
After a moment’s further deliberation, I shook my head quietly.
I’m confident enough to handle mutants on my own anyway.
If I formed a party, I’d have to split the earnings, and besides, it would be difficult to gain proper real combat experience.
“Alright then, let’s go.”
I entered the Gate and headed toward the location where I’d encountered the Anthorne swarm yesterday.
A dim forest path.
Sticky humidity clung to the air unpleasantly.
—Rustle.
The sound of undergrowth stirring.
‘They’re coming.’
I gripped the spear on my back and lowered my stance.

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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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