The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 15

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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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Episode 15. First Gate (3)
“Switching out.”
As Song Ji-hu fell back, a waiting Hunter rushed frantically to take his position.
In the distance, a tattered flag stained with blood and soot hung limp from a shattered column.
The strongest surge of emotion emanated from that direction.
“Fall back gradually—toward the inside of the Castle Wall.”
“Suddenly inside the wall?”
It made no sense, yet all of them obeyed Song Ji-hu’s command, pulling their lines back slowly toward the interior.
“Tear down the Castle Wall entirely.”
“Exactly—at least share the plan with us…!”
Despite Yu Heon-sik’s frustrated cry, Eun Seo-jin and one of the mages brought the cracked Castle Wall down completely.
“Breathe…”
As the roar of the enemy’s fury echoed beyond the collapsed wall, all eyes fixed on Song Ji-hu.
“The Clear condition for this Dungeon isn’t exterminating the enemy.”
“Isn’t clearing a Dungeon accomplished by defeating a Boss Monster or eliminating all the monsters?”
Song Ji-hu nodded at Eun Seo-jin’s question.
“Most of the time, yes. Except for Special Gates. But think about it—if the goal were to eliminate all those enemies, could this Dungeon really be B-Rank?”
“Mm… certainly… if extermination were the goal. It would have to be S-Rank.”
Everyone nodded. Even if the Association raised it to A-Rank, the difficulty would still be merciless.
Despite all the enemies they’d killed, there was no sense that their numbers had diminished at all.
“Then… are you saying you know of another method, Song Ji-hu?”
At someone’s question, Song Ji-hu shrugged.
“At least it might be better than what we’re doing now.”
At that, Yu Heon-sik clenched his teeth and looked between the wall and Song Ji-hu repeatedly.
“Whatever that method is, I hope it works. What should we do?”
“Just hold the line. Until I return.”
“We’ll hold it. Somehow. I pray it’s the right way.”
Song Ji-hu nodded to Eun Seo-jin, then headed toward the Command Tent behind the rear Castle Wall.
“May I ask what this other method is?”
“The same way I saved you.”
At those words, Eun Seo-jin’s eyes widened.
“Then… you mean this is a Special Gate?”
“Probably. If my theory is correct.”
A Dungeon clearable only under special conditions like Mental Dive.
‘If that’s true, it means only I can clear this Dungeon.’
This life, which began with Mental Dive, had been nothing but startling and novel—as though this were his first life, not his seventh.
Flap—
As he entered the Command Tent, the Knight Commander looked up and regarded Song Ji-hu.
“What business have you here? I commanded all knights to the Castle Wall to hold back the enemy. Do you mock the Emperor’s solemn decree?”
Despite words that would draw a blade and sever his neck on the spot, the voice carried no anger, and the eyes fixed upon him were hollow and lifeless.
Song Ji-hu glanced once at the papers on the command table, then approached the commander.
Hum—!
The Compass in his pocket vibrated intensely.
“Keep watch over me, just in case.”
“Understood.”
Eun Seo-jin asked nothing. She nodded, planted her twin swords upright, and began to scan all directions vigilantly.
Song Ji-hu smiled faintly at her stance and drew near to the Knight Commander.
‘Mental Dive.’
The world inverted to black and white, vision twisting.
Darkness.
In darkness where even a single step ahead was invisible, only one sound echoed endlessly.
‘I must protect the Castle Gate.’
‘I must protect the Castle Gate.’
An infinite obsessive loop. Song Ji-hu walked toward the direction of that echo.
No direction felt certain, no sensation reached his feet, yet he was undeniably moving forward.
How far had he walked?
A faint shape appeared in the distance.
A knight kneeling with bowed head. His armor was cracked in places, and the sword he gripped was so rusted its form was scarcely distinguishable.
A soul trapped here for centuries, ceaselessly driving itself toward a single purpose.
‘I must… obey the Emperor’s decree…’
‘I cannot… I must not… surrender this gate….’
‘But… Your Majesty… why… do you not return… where are the reinforcements.’
Song Ji-hu stepped forward and spoke once more, his voice barely a whisper.
“The kingdom has already fallen.”
The echo cut off abruptly. The Knight Commander’s form shuddered.
“Your king fled and died in the attempt. The castle has been taken. The enemies you fought to hold back consumed the world. The battle is over.”
Darkness rippled, and the Knight Commander’s rusted sword clattered.
“You have fulfilled your duty with unflinching loyalty.”
Song Ji-hu spoke his consolation without ceremony.
“You may lower your blade now.”
Silence fell. After a long time had passed, the Knight Commander lifted his head.
‘Is it truly so.’
The Knight Commander’s hollow eye sockets turned toward Song Ji-hu. In the gaze of the phantom who had held this post for centuries, there was no wariness, no enmity.
Only exhaustion.
A bone-deep weariness, crushed beneath a duty with no end in sight.
‘Is it truly so. My task… is it truly finished.’
Song Ji-hu nodded.
“Yes. Though you crumbled, you never opened this gate. You fulfilled your orders to the end with perfect loyalty.”
Song Ji-hu added one final word, like a period to a sentence.
“You were a noble Knight until the last.”
The Knight Commander’s body trembled violently.
Something began to fill those hollow eye sockets.
‘Ah, ah… ah….’
Wooooosh—!
Centuries of longing fulfilled at last, the Knight Commander’s voice, cracked from disuse, overflowed with liberation as he began to scatter in a shower of white light.
Peace had found him after centuries.
***
The moment the enemy that had been rushing forward suddenly halted, a Hunter’s sword swept through empty air.
“What?”
The Hunters engaged in battle with the enemies pouring over the ruined Castle Wall felt the wrongness at once.
“Stay alert!”
It was not only the enemies. The knights beside them, swinging swords, the knights ahead holding shields against the onslaught—
All of them stood motionless, like puppets with severed strings.
“Why did they all stop?”
Hunters with dented armor, Hunters bleeding, even mages sitting on the ground with depleted mana, wringing out every last drop of power they could muster—
All of them stood breathing hard, watching the stillness with wariness.
“Is it a trap?”
“Don’t know… Don’t let your guard down.”
Everyone was watching all sides carefully.
Whoosh—
Golden particles bloomed from the phantom Knight nearest to them.
Slowly, the Knight turned his head to look at the sword he had never released for centuries.
And very gradually, he began to open his fingers one by one.
Clang—
The sword fell to the ground. The same sound echoed across the Castle Wall.
At the same time, the compulsion to defend this place began to fade by degrees.
Fear no longer gripped them.
And the Knights began to scatter into particles of light.
Shhhhhh—
And the endless tide of enemies, like a sandcastle crumbling, began to collapse and fade to ash.
Every Hunter’s mouth fell open at the sight.
“Ah….”
Someone let out a final gasp of wonder. The blood-red sky split down the middle, pouring forth blinding white light.
[Dungeon Clear]
The system message appeared in every Hunter’s vision.
“It’s over?”
“We… won?”
“Really? The Clear condition wasn’t actually to defeat every enemy?”
At the same moment, one name filled every mind.
“Did Song Ji-hu succeed?”
“Move out.”
Yu Heon-sik led the Hunters in the direction Song Ji-hu had gone, breaking into a run.
“How on earth did you manage that?!”
Yu Heon-sik hurled the question at Song Ji-hu in urgent tones. They’d held the line as instructed, and then suddenly the Dungeon had Cleared.
Song Ji-hu dabbed away the nosebleed that wouldn’t stop, answering with quiet steadiness.
“I simply granted the Knights their wish.”
“Their… wish?”
Yu Heon-sik tilted his head, the words making no sense to him.
“That was the Clear condition?”
“Yes.”
Yu Heon-sik fell silent, words failing him.
“It’s a Special Gate, of sorts. The objective wasn’t to eliminate enemies. Of course, you can still Clear by killing them all, but…”
Song Ji-hu shrugged. The Hunters nearby who had overheard the exchange wore blank expressions.
“What exactly is he?”
The way he’d executed every step—so naturally, so fluidly.
The moment they entered the Dungeon, he’d blocked the debuffs with a Mental Barrier, taken the front line and swung his blade, called orders, pierced the Dungeon’s core, and achieved the Clear.
The way the Hunters who’d fought alongside him looked at Song Ji-hu had shifted.
‘This man—he’s simply built differently.’
The rift in the sky widened steadily, and a return portal materialized, leading directly to the Safe Zone.
“Everyone prepare to return! Wounded first!”
Following Song Ji-hu’s commands to the last, the Hunters made their way toward the portal.
Song Ji-hu entered last, and Eun Seo-jin followed half a step behind him.
***
His vision whitened, then cleared as he arrived at the Safe Zone before the Gate. Turning back, he watched the blue portal of the completed Gate contracting.
“All personnel accounted for. Clear time: one hour fifty-nine minutes. Quite swift.”
“Swift?! We nearly got wiped out!”
Yun Young-su, who had been waiting in the Safe Zone, confirmed that every Hunter who had entered initially had returned, then stepped outside the Gate.
“B-Rank Gate, the Fortress of the Silent Sentinel—Clear confirmed. Let’s head out.”
As they exited the Gate and confirmed its closure, Yun Young-su began collecting Body Cameras per protocol.
“Thank you for your hard work. I’ll retrieve your Body Cameras.”
As he collected equipment from the Hunters in turn, Yun Young-su began checking the internal footage casually.
“Were there any unusual circumstances inside the Dungeon?”
The first Hunter spoke up abruptly.
“Unusual? This Song Ji-hu Hunter—what exactly is he? Some kind of secret weapon the Association raised?”
A second Hunter, organizing equipment nearby, chimed in.
“Fighting from the front line with a blade like that—it was insane. Who’d believe a C-Rank was moving that smoothly in a Dungeon on their first run? And in a B-Rank at that.”
“Why are you leaving that out? Midway through the battle, when we lost our bearings, he stepped up and reorganized the formation, issuing commands. He used the gaps in the crumbled Castle Wall to set up a narrow chokepoint with two-man front line rotation. Thanks to that, we managed our stamina and held the line.”
Yun Young-su’s hand slowed as he collected the Body Camera and noted the contents.
“Is that… all?”
“All? The Dungeon Clear itself was done by Song Ji-hu. The Association needs to get its act together. It wasn’t about exterminating enemies—it was a Special Gate.”
Yu Heon-sik cut in, his voice still tinged with disbelief.
“A Special Gate?”
“I don’t know the details, but Song Ji-hu and Eun Seo-jin went in together and Cleared it.”
Yun Young-su swallowed hard and questioned the other Hunters as well.
Their answers were unanimous. Leadership. Combat ability. Dungeon analysis. Even the versatility of mental-type skills. Song Ji-hu wasn’t an ordinary Hunter.
If one or two said it, you could dismiss it as exaggeration. But when every member of the raid team spoke in unison, saying the same thing—that was fact untainted by falsehood.
“Finally, I’ll need to measure your Mental Contamination Levels.”
Yun Young-su drew out a portable measuring device.
“Anyone experiencing symptoms of Mental Contamination must speak up without delay.”
This was the most dreaded moment. The Hunters steadied themselves and stepped before Yun Young-su.
“Huh…?”
“What’s wrong? Something amiss?”
“No, just a moment—the device seems to be malfunctioning.”
Yun Young-su brought out a backup device and measured again, but tilted his head at the unchanging numbers.
[Mental Contamination Level: 13%]
[Mental Contamination Level: 25%]
“This… this can’t be right.”
“For heaven’s sake, what’s going on?”
Yun Young-su showed the Hunters the data he’d measured before and the current readings.
“What? It went down?”
“Mental Contamination decreased? That doesn’t… make sense?”
“Yeah, mine stayed the same.”
A Hunter never emerged from a Dungeon without experiencing an increase in Mental Contamination Level. Yet some of them—however minute—had actually seen theirs decrease.
And that was after clearing a B-Rank Dungeon.
“This is insane!”
“Mine went down! Absolutely insane! Down by a full point!”
The Hunters shouted and cheered, each voice layering over the last.
‘Mental Contamination Level accumulates. It never decreases. That was gospel.’
Yun Young-su’s fingers trembled as he tapped the tablet screen.
‘This isn’t something a report can contain.’
Song Ji-hu’s abilities were plainly more than what was known.
7th Return Regression Collector of Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Date of Publication
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
: Acesis Media Co., Ltd.
Editor-in-Chief
: Acesis Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
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UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260709064

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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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