Not A Regressor - Chapter 62

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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 62
Heavy Rain (4)
“Damn this rain!”
A curse spilled forth.
The owl wielding the chain scythe swung his arm.
The chain scythe carved through the air like a living serpent.
“I’ll crush you with sheer force!!”
The swordsman shouted.
The inevitable gap in pure strength that existed between a 4-star and a 6-star.
The assault aimed at him poured down toward Kwon O-jin.
“Rot in hell, you bastard!!”
Whoooosh!!
Black feathers wrapped around the chain scythe.
The scythe swelled to a size of five meters in an instant.
The massive scythe wrapped in black mana descended like a guillotine.
-Clang! Clang! Clang!
Kwon O-jin extended his right arm toward the scythe.
Three strands of wire coiled around the scythe.
“Hah.”
He drew a light breath.
And drove the pole harshly into the ground.
His body rocketed skyward as if vaulting with a pole.
“Wh—what?!”
Kwon O-jin, now airborne at a height of twenty meters, channeled powerful mana into his wire shooter.
Skreeeee!!
The wire snapped taut with a deafening sound.
Gripping the silver spear.
He descended.
“You cowardly rat! Can’t match me in strength, so you run away?!”
Then.
The sword-wielding owl took flight.
Black feathered wings fluttered savagely behind his back.
He rushed at the falling Kwon O-jin as if to shoot him down.
-Spin.
As if he had anticipated it.
Kwon O-jin twisted his body abruptly.
He spread his palm wide and concentrated his mana.
“Whether I can match you in strength or not—”
Dozens, hundreds of feathers composed of blue lightning materialized and swirled within his palm.
‘Thunderburst.’
The lightning feathers swept up in the explosion blooming across my palm shot out like bullets.
“Experience it firsthand before you speak.”
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!
As if a grenade had detonated, hundreds of feathers descended upon the owl.
“Ugh!”
The startled owl hastily swung his blade.
Following the sword path, black feathers clustered together to block the lightning feathers.
Or so I thought.
I thought I had blocked them.
“What insane power is this…!”
His mouth fell open at the destructive force.
The feathers of lightning tore through the black feathers and poured down upon him.
He hastily raised his blade to defend.
But it was already too late.
-Crackle-crackle-crackle!!
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!”
A terrible scream erupted.
Even as his entire body burned black, the owl’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“This… can’t… be…”
A voice laden with despair.
It wasn’t carelessness. It wasn’t a failure to squeeze out his full power.
He had used every ounce of his strength to block the lightning feathers.
‘Is this… the power of a 4-Star?’
He could understand being outmatched in technique.
He could accept falling short in skill.
But.
Why.
Why was he being overwhelmed so completely in a pure clash of raw power?
‘What… exactly… is that bastard?’
His consciousness flickered black amid the unanswered question.
“Hah.”
Kwon O-jin exhaled a breath that had grown slightly ragged.
Perhaps from pouring out so much mana at once—my entire body’s mana circuits burned hot.
‘Still, they’ve become far more resilient than before.’
After using Exceed.
Just as a muscle torn once becomes even more solid, the circuits through which mana flowed felt considerably tougher.
[You have acquired the skill《Lightning Buckshot Lv1》.]
[《Lightning Lv6》influences the proficiency of《Lightning Buckshot Lv1》skill.]
[《Lightning Buckshot Lv1》has risen to《Lightning Buckshot Lv3》!]
While I was lost in brief admiration, a blue message window appeared before my eyes.
It was interesting content, but.
‘Later.’
There was still one Owl left.
“H-hiccup!”
The Owl, who had been wielding the chain sickle violently, was engulfed in flames with a single strike and hiccupped as it stared at the corpse of the dead Owl.
“Y-you fraud bastard!!!”
“Huh?”
What’s with this bastard?
How did it figure out I’m a fraud?
“You weren’t a 4-Star after all!!”
It cried out with an expression of complete shock.
“…What was it saying.”
Pfft.
A hollow laugh escaped from Kwon O-jin’s lips.
I nodded with a leisurely expression.
“You’re only figuring that out now?”
“Y-yes, as expected!”
The Owl stumbled backward with a pale, sickly expression.
This bastard’s reaction is quite amusing.
‘Well, it’s a lie anyway.’
As the world knew.
I was still only a 4-Star.
“Well then, shall we wrap this up?”
Kwon O-jin twisted his lips into a smile and approached the last remaining Owl from Kan’s Owls.
“D-damn it!”
The Owl hurriedly turned and fled.
“Sir~ did you forget this?”
I lifted the wire shooter, which was firmly connected to the chain sickle the Owl possessed.
The taut wire bound the fleeing Owl securely in place.
“Ugh!”
It desperately tried to release the chain sickle.
-Crackle crackle crackle!!
“Aaaahhhhh!!”
But faster than that, a torrent of azure lightning engulfed the Owl.
With a harrowing scream, the Owl collapsed.
-Thud.
After finishing it off with certainty by thrusting the spear.
I turned my head toward Jang Seok-ho, who was staring at me with his mouth agape.
“J-just who are you exactly….”
Gasp gasp.
His mouth gaped like a goldfish’s, his words trailing off into silence.
The expression of someone who’d seen a ghost.
“Why are you standing there gawking?”
I tapped Jang Seok-ho’s shoulder and gestured toward the warehouse with my chin.
“Aren’t you going to rescue your son?”
“…Ah!”
Jang Seok-ho let out a sharp exclamation and bolted urgently toward the warehouse.
“Let me see.”
Before I chased after him, there was something I needed to do first.
I approached the corpses of the three owls.
‘The stigmas I’ve already absorbed.’
Still, I shouldn’t leave a single drop of mana contained within those stigmas uneaten.
‘Black Heaven.’
Gurgle, gurgle.
Black mist extended from my fingertips, creeping across the floor to engulf the stigmas inscribed on the left chests of the owls.
-Ding!
[Your proficiency with this stigma is high.]
[Absorbing additional mana from the stigma.]
Perhaps it was because I’d recently acquired a new skill using Thunder Wing.
I felt the dense mana contained within the owls’ stigmas flowing into my body.
“Haa.”
The exhilarating sensation of mana filling my body.
A warm, comforting thrill like soaking in a hot bath awakened each and every cell.
‘Even half of a 6-star is still 6-star, I suppose.’
The amount of mana flowing in was considerable.
“Excellent.”
Satisfied, I lifted the corners of my mouth and chased after Jang Seok-ho, who had already entered the warehouse.
-Creak.
Despite its relatively intact exterior.
The interior of the warehouse was so rusted that it was obvious at a glance it had been abandoned.
“Hyun-woo!! Hyun-woooo!!!”
Jang Seok-ho rushed through the warehouse interior, calling out his son’s name desperately.
No answer came back.
“He must be underground.”
From the photograph sent to Jang Seok-ho, the boy was confined in the underground.
“Got it!”
Jang Seok-ho nodded and found the entrance leading underground.
Because the factory interior was so desolate, finding the entrance to the underground wasn’t difficult.
“Hmm.”
Upon descending underground, I saw a maze of tangled corridors and rooms packed tightly together.
Looking at the map attached beside the staircase, I could see the Underground extended down three levels—finding what I sought would take considerable time.
“We should split up and search.”
“Ah, got it! Then I’ll search from the third level and work my way up!”
He must have reasoned that the lowest level was the most likely hiding place.
Jang Seok-ho shouted that he’d search from below, then descended the staircase.
‘Then I’ll start from the first level.’
Creak.
I opened the doors one by one.
Most rooms were either empty or scattered with miscellaneous tools and equipment.
‘Where could they be holding them?’
I’d even activated my Hunting Hound stigma.
But the only human scent I detected was Jang Seok-ho’s.
Could they have hidden the hostages somewhere else entirely?
It was certainly plausible—I’d deliberately released Jang Seok-ho, after all.
‘Still, I need to search everywhere.’
One by one, methodically.
I opened another door.
“Hmm?”
As I searched for Jang Seok-ho’s son, opening door after door.
I found a room with a rusted box sitting in the corner.
The box was roughly three meters in size.
“….”
For some reason.
A sickening sensation crawled across my skin, as if insects were burrowing beneath it.
Thud, thud.
I walked toward the rusted box.
—Crack!
I wrenched the lock open with brute force, then.
Slowly opened the box.
What filled the box was.
“…Ah.”
━Pure white bone ash.
“….”
I closed my eyes tightly.
In truth.
I’d sensed it from the moment Jang Seok-ho showed me his son’s photograph.
-Why a photograph at all?
A phone call with his son would have been far more effective in pressuring him.
Even a video would have been more impactful.
Why.
Did they use these crude, blurry photographs as bait—images so poorly captured that you couldn’t even distinguish who was in them?
“…Damn it.”
Yes.
I knew from the beginning.
I just pretended otherwise.
I hoped it wasn’t true.
I wanted to believe it wasn’t.
But in the end, that sticky dread that had been crawling down my spine took shape—bleached white bones resting inside a rusted box.
‘Why… did they kill them?’
Keeping them alive would have been more efficient.
They could have made them follow the Black Star Society more effectively.
Why? Why? Why?
Questions piled upon questions without end.
There were too many possible answers to choose from.
Perhaps the guards had been negligent, or the captives had attempted suicide.
‘If it’s neither of those…’
They were so thoroughly ‘broken’ that survival was impossible.
“….”
In that moment, the face of the Orphanage Director flashed through my mind.
That man who had swung his fists mercilessly at children.
There were many reasons for his violence.
But the emotion beneath it was always singular.
Pleasure.
That pure, crystalline mass of feeling that came from trampling the weak—so utterly uncomplicated and vivid.
—Creak.
I closed the lid of the rusted box.
I rose to my feet and stepped outside.
“Hah, hah!”
I could see Jang Seok-ho climbing the stairs, breathing heavily.
“I searched everywhere downstairs, but there’s nothing!”
Of course there wouldn’t be.
“It looks like it’s hidden on the first floor!”
No.
“Huh… I thought this floor had an unusual number of rooms. So it was here.”
No.
“Hyun-woo!! Hyun-woo!! Answer me! Hyun-woo!!”
That’s not it.
It’s not.
Your son is already…
“I’ve searched this place thoroughly.”
“I, is that so? Then Hyun-woo must have…”
“There was nothing.”
No one on this floor.
It felt like sharp thorns were pricking my tongue.
“━There was no one on this level.”
I answered through gritted teeth, my fists clenched so tightly that the tendons stood out.
“Ah….”
Jang Seok-ho’s expression darkened with profound disappointment.
“It seems those bastards must have taken Hyun-woo somewhere else.”
“That’s quite likely.”
“Sigh. Now what are we supposed to do….”
It was just as Jang Seok-ho dropped his shoulders and released a heavy sigh.
-Thud.
A faint footstep echoed in my ears.
“…!”
Kwon O-jin grabbed Jang Seok-ho and urgently pulled open the nearest door, slipping inside.
“What’s going on… mmph!”
I covered Jang Seok-ho’s mouth.
I brought my index finger to my lips.
In the silence where even breathing thundered like a storm.
I opened my mouth in a whisper.
“…Someone just entered the Factory.”
A viscous sense of dread.
Crept down my spine once more.

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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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