The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 2

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

Episode 2. The Seventh Return (1)
…the smell of mold.
Song Ji-hu opened his eyes. The studio apartment reeked of dampness. He staggered to his feet and stood before a small mirror hanging on the wall.
Twenty-seven years old, an unremarkable face. But his gray eyes still carried the memory of six circles of hell.
Song Ji-hu stared at his reflection—at the powerless man he had been—and in that same instant, feeling the presence of the compass settle deep in his soul, one corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest smile.
“This time, I’ll tear out your heart and see it through to the end.”
Song Ji-hu reached for his phone on the table with mechanical precision. The screen lit up, and the same numbers appeared as always.
[March 9, 2033. 6:23 A.M.]
“Just as it was.”
Without emotion, he opened his memo app and began recording the future, as he always did.
– March 12: Lottery – operating funds.
– March 14: Hospital massacre due to late-stage mental corruption rampage of Hunters.
– March 21: Incheon C-rank Gate (A-rank mutation – all casualties)
His fingers did not stop moving. The six returns had not always unfolded identically, but there were always events that never changed.
‘Change every method from before.’
Song Ji-hu flexed his stiffened hands and touched the compass in his breast. The cold, solid metal was unmistakable.
He drew the soul revolver from his pocket and opened the cylinder. Six empty chambers stared back at him.
“…so this is truly the end.”
Even though the last round had been spent, he pulled the trigger out of habit, but it would not budge. It was the response he had expected.
The revolver, now stripped of its bullets, was nothing more than a worn keepsake.
There was no path back. This life was his last.
Strangely, he felt no fear.
‘Because now I have the compass as a variable.’
Song Ji-hu spent nearly an hour putting things in order, then changed his clothes. He washed his face, threw on an old jacket, and grabbed his wallet.
The reversion had drained his energy, and as always, his stomach began crying out for food at this hour.
***
“Welcome.”
Arriving at the convenience store near his apartment, Song Ji-hu moved between the shelves, grabbing cup noodles, triangular kimbap, a sandwich, a lunch box, and an energy drink.
“The first thing to do is raise funds.”
Muttering under his breath, he picked up a lottery ticket before heading to the counter and marked the same numbers he always chose.
‘3, 17, 29, 41, 43, 45. Bonus: 12.’
All he needed was enough money to change his immediate circumstances. The rest would follow naturally—selling information, altering the future—money would come in time.
“That comes to 4,800 won.”
After paying for the food and tucking the lottery ticket away, Song Ji-hu poured water into his noodles and pulled out his phone to check his memo app.
“I need to handle the hospital problem first… but which approach? Maybe the classic terror threat would work best.”
While waiting for the noodles to cook, he began searching for news about the hospital, wondering if anything had changed.
In his previous lives, the hospital incident alone had killed hundreds of Hunters.
[The Hunter-specialized hospital in Seoul holds 2,500 Hunters. An incurable disease with no cure, and a destabilized Korean security situation.]
[S-rank Hunter Eun Seo-jin has confined herself for three years; the internal erosion continues.]
[After the “Guangzhou Catastrophe” three years ago. Eleven S-rank Hunters worldwide have reached the rampage threshold.]
[The conditions of Hunters worsen with each passing day; the only countermeasure is America’s Emilia Jones’s mental corruption delay.]
When a Hunter’s contamination reaches 100, they rampage.
A C-rank rampage becomes an incident; an A-rank rampage becomes a disaster. But the moment an S-rank rampages, the world strips them of their rank and gives them a new name.
Catastrophe.
Three years ago, after a rampaging S-rank erased Guangzhou from the map in half a day, the term had been cemented.
And now, in this hospital, twenty-five hundred candidates for that catastrophe were locked away.
‘Eun Seo-jin… in my previous returns, there was nothing I could do about her, so I didn’t even bother thinking about it.’
Song Ji-hu paused mid-thought and stared intently at the name Eun Seo-jin.
“Now there’s nothing I can’t do.”
After all, the compass had said it would purify the source of contamination when it was engraved upon his soul.
Besides, not all S-ranks were created equal. Eun Seo-jin was among the very best of them.
If everything had been identical to his previous six returns, he could have afforded to move more leisurely.
But now, with so many new variables, he had to act quickly.
‘Six days… tight, but enough.’
If he could save Eun Seo-jin, she would be invaluable to his journey ahead.
‘Even if it means putting myself in her debt….’
First, to save Eun Seo-jin, he needed to understand exactly what the compass could do.
***
With his stomach satisfied, Song Ji-hu returned to his studio apartment and sat cross-legged on the floor.
“First, awakening.”
Others believed awakening was mere chance—a miracle that struck in moments of mortal peril or overwhelming emotion. But Song Ji-hu knew the method to force open the doors of the self for awakening.
He knew how to pry apart the gates of his own consciousness by will alone.
“Huh—”
With a shallow breath, his awareness sank into the deepest abyss of his inner self. Every external sense dissolved, until only the silence of the soul’s core remained.
‘The self is the soul’s center. The source of all power.’
He steadied his breathing and drove his consciousness deeper still.
Physical sensation dimmed. The cold kiss of the floor, the winter air seeping through the window crack—nothing reached him now.
Only the inner world existed.
And then—
A deep resonance thrummed through him.
The sensation of the soul’s gate opening.
A searing current of energy coursed up his spine, burning through his entire body.
When he opened his eyes slowly, a translucent window materialized at the edge of his vision.
[Congratulations on your awakening]
[Measuring grade….]
B-rank close-quarters dealer. The same result, unchanged across six awakenings.
But then—
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Measurement impossible]
“…What?”
Song Ji-hu’s gaze wavered. He’d never seen such a message before.
[Warning: The Compass has begun interfering.]
The system window flashed like a warning light, and new text appeared—something he’d never witnessed before.
[Name: Song Ji-hu]
[Level: 1]
[Series: Mental (—)]
[Skill 1: Mental Detection – C-rank]
[Skill 2: Mental Barrier – C-rank]
[Skill 3: Residual Thought – C-rank]
[Skill 4: Thought Projection – C-rank]
[Skill 5: Mental Dive – EX-rank]
A hollow laugh escaped Song Ji-hu’s lips as he stared at the window.
“Mental series… out of nowhere?”
He clenched his fist, but felt no change in physical strength. Instead, the world began to look different.
The fear of the sleeping man in the adjacent room beyond the wall. The anxiety of the woman walking down the hall. The hidden layer of the world that had been invisible now washed over him like a physical sense.
“Heh… nothing but variables from the start.”
The compass in his pocket vibrated hotly, as if in answer.
Deep within his pupils, reflected in the mirror before him, a faint silver aura swirled like a galaxy—the mark of a Mental-series hunter.
“Mental Dive?”
Song Ji-hu slowly read through the description of the [Mental Dive] skill in the window.
[Mental Dive – EX-rank]
– Directly enter the target’s mental world to explore their inner self.
– Locate and purify the source of mental corruption.
– Risk increases proportionally to the target’s rank and degree of mental corruption.
– Failure to purify causes direct damage to the caster’s soul.
“So that’s how it works… if I’m reading this right, a C-rank diving into an S-rank mind would be suicide, but…”
Song Ji-hu exhaled deeply after reading the skill description. It read like a warning not to attempt it.
‘But this is the only answer.’
First, he needed to understand how Mental Dive actually worked. He opened his laptop and logged into the hunter community.
Specifically, he entered the forum where hunters suffering from mental corruption gathered.
Those who’d lost comrades in dungeons, witnessed unspeakable horrors, or danced on the edge of death itself.
It was no exaggeration to say that ninety-nine percent of combat-class hunters existed in the early stages of mental corruption.
[The nightmares won’t stop. Please help me.]
[My hands shake whenever I see a dungeon.]
[I… I killed them. My party members….]
Among the countless cries for help, his gaze fixed on one post.
Posted by Butterfly92. Upload date: three days ago.
[…Five people died because of me. I survived. Why did only I survive? Every night their faces curse me. Please, someone kill me… I can’t bear to face them anymore…]
Most of the comments were words of comfort, but what caught Song Ji-hu’s attention was the location information at the bottom of the post.
I’m currently near an abandoned factory close to Tanhyeon in Paju City.
‘The final sanctuary of the mentally corrupted.’
Song Ji-hu closed his laptop without hesitation and stood up.
***
2 PM. A slum near Tanhyeon in Paju City.
Twenty years ago, when Gates appeared, the world changed. A new class called Hunters emerged, and wealth and power were redistributed around them.
But beneath that lay the abandoned.
Those who survived the dungeons but whose minds were shattered. Those afflicted by mental corruption, cast out from society. Places like this slum were where they gathered.
Abandoned factories, collapsed buildings, discarded containers. Trash littered the streets, and the air reeked of decay.
Song Ji-hu drew out the compass from his breast pocket, still trembling finely.
The moment he arrived, the needle began spinning wildly, displaying all manner of information before his eyes.
Song Ji-hu began walking slowly in the direction marked on the community post. He passed through narrow alleys, squeezed between crumbling brick walls, and finally arrived before a dilapidated container.
Faint light seeped through the gap in the container’s door.
When he activated Mental Detection, he sensed a woman’s presence within, saturated with despair.
His lips curved upward coldly. He’d found the right place.
Knock, knock, knock—
Movement came from inside. Then, moments later, the door creaked open.
A woman’s face appeared through the gap.
Late twenties, ashen-faced. Her hair was disheveled, dark circles etched beneath her eyes. But what caught his attention most was her pupils.
Empty. As if her soul had been hollowed out.
And beyond that, there was the typical symptom of mental corruption—physical mutation.
“Please… go away… I can’t… I can’t do this again…”
She muttered while staring down at her own hands. An iridescent glow seeped from her fingertips.
“Iridescent light… a Healer?”
The needle, spinning like a thing possessed, stopped precisely on her, and a window appeared.
[Target Detected]
[Mental Corruption Level: 74% (Intermediate Stage)]
[Mental Dive Risk: D]
Toward the woman looking up at him with frightened eyes, Song Ji-hu reached out his hand without a word.
“No! Don’t come closer! I might…”
She tried to back away, seized by the fear that she might harm someone else again, but Song Ji-hu had already seized her wrist.
“I’ve come to help.”
“Help…?”
The woman let out a mocking, anguished moan.
“Ah… finally…”
The interior of the container was filled with nothing but mysterious medicine bottles. After closing the container door securely, Song Ji-hu set up a recording phone.
“Please, make it painless.”
At Kim Su-bin’s plea, Song Ji-hu shook his head.
“First—I didn’t come here to kill you.”
Song Ji-hu’s voice was cold and firm. Without witnessing it directly, there was no way to know whether the mistake stemmed from mental corruption, panic, or intention.
“Then, why?”
“What’s your name?”
“…Kim Su-bin.”
“Kim Su-bin, I’m going to treat you starting now.”
“Treat? Is that even… possible?”
“I don’t know. This is my first time. But you have nothing left to lose anyway, don’t you?”
At the cruel truth, Kim Su-bin’s head sank. Just as Song Ji-hu said, all that remained before her was to lose control and meet death.
She whispered in a trembling voice.
“…Please do it.”
Song Ji-hu nodded and extended his hand. The moment Kim Su-bin grasped his ice-cold hand.
A strange sensation, as if something were connecting, swept through Song Ji-hu’s entire body.
“Entry.”
“Krraaagh—!”
The world twisted along with Kim Su-bin’s scream.
The 7th-Time Returner Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Created
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
ACESIS Media Co., Ltd.
Publisher
: ACESIS Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by ACESIS Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
No part of this content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from our company and the author.
This e-book is protected under copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260709064

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