The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 3

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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 3. The Seventh Return (2)
The world inverted.
Gravity vanished, color drained away, sound ceased to exist. Song Ji-hu was plummeting through endless darkness.
And then, finally—
Thud.
When his feet touched ground, he stood in the heart of a dungeon reeking of blood.
“At last… I can finally break this damned cycle.”
The elation that surged from the depths of his being at the thought that he’d finally found a way to handle this accursed mental corruption was enough to consume his entire frame.
“A cave… is it?”
The walls glistened with dampness, and green moss grew from the ceiling. The air was so thick with the stench of rot that even Song Ji-hu couldn’t help but grimace.
“This makes it easier, at least.”
It seemed the mental landscape from his mental dive had taken on the shape of a dungeon as well.
And then—
“Aaaaagh—!”
When a scream echoed from a distance, Song Ji-hu sprinted toward the sound.
He traversed the cave, descended the stairs at its end, and arrived in a vast chamber where five corpses lay scattered across the floor.
Five hunters, to be precise.
They lay bleeding, gasping their final breaths, not yet dead.
And standing in their midst was Kim Su-bin.
Thwack.
As Song Ji-hu moved toward her, a translucent barrier materialized before him, blocking his path as if to deny him passage.
“Hurry… I have to hurry….”
Her trembling hands fumbled to cast a skill. Her voice wavered on the edge of sobs, and tears fell steadily to the ground.
“I can’t… I can’t….”
But no matter how hard she tried, no light emanated from her hands.
“Yoo-jin… please… please.”
The tank reached out, blood spilling from his lips.
Thud—but his arm only clawed at empty air before it fell limp to the ground with a soft thump.
“Ah… ah….”
Kim Su-bin’s eyes wavered. One by one, the other party members fell silent, their breaths ceasing.
“Aaaaaaaagh—!”
Kim Su-bin’s scream flooded the dungeon. Song Ji-hu watched the scene unfold, his face utterly expressionless.
‘So this is her trauma….’
In that moment, the dungeon walls began to warp.
Screech—screech—
The walls writhed as if alive, and something burst forth from them.
Shapes of people fashioned from black masses.
A sizzling sound escaped their forms as something dripped from their bodies to the floor, burning away with a crackling hiss.
“It’s your fault.”
The black masses pointed accusingly at Kim Su-bin.
“You killed me.”
The other corpses rose as well. All of them were blaming her.
“Murderer.”
“You killed us.”
Kim Su-bin crumpled to the ground, cradling her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry….”
Song Ji-hu’s fists clenched reflexively as he witnessed the Abyss Lord’s cruel sport, and he moved toward her once more—
Bang—!
—only to be hurled violently out of the dungeon.
“Ugh—”
Ejected from the dungeon, he skidded to a halt in the barren wasteland beyond. An iron barrier had been erected firmly across the gaping maw of the cave entrance, and from the rough ground beneath him, formless shapes began to writhe upward.
Gurgle—
What rose from the wasteland were amorphous masses of crimson-black. The remnants of guilt, fragments of trauma—they oozed forward without assuming any true form.
“Ah… I see. I don’t have the authority to venture in there yet, do I?”
Song Ji-hu raised a cheap, mass-produced blade he’d purchased for two hundred thousand won before coming here.
Whoosh.
The first mass extended like a tentacle, lashing toward Song Ji-hu’s leg.
He reflexively brought the sword down.
Clang.
“As expected. Physical force won’t work properly on this kind of opponent.”
The blade passed through the dark mass, but there was no resistance at all—like cutting through jelly.
“That’s right. Easy isn’t any fun. There’s a flavor to this too.”
She dodged the dark mass’s second and third attacks, retreating. Over a hundred years, surely she’d faced a spirit-realm or mental-realm monster at least once.
“Tch… back then I at least had attack skills… I’m not sure if this will work. And it’s only C-rank….”
Song Ji-hu gathered her power multiple times, gauging quantity and timing, then smiled faintly and activated the Mental Barrier skill.
A low hum—
A faint silver barrier wrapped around her body. The moment the masses touched it, they sizzled and burned away.
“Hmm… well, if I attack, then that’s an attack skill.”
She threw herself between the crimson masses.
Each time they touched the mental barrier, they burned with a sound like cooking protein, and she cleaved the thought-fragments in half with a blade wrapped in her power.
Dozens seemed visible, but numbers like this posed no problem whatsoever.
A second life defined by violence. To break through that limit called B-rank, she’d fought until she was sick of it.
Instinctively, she cut and cut again. Those rushing at the sword’s angles, she crushed with her fists; the thought-fragments, she tore to shreds…
Around her, remnant thought-fragments scattered as ash, and the apocalyptic crimson sky transformed into a cloudless blue.
“Phew….”
She steadied her breath. A smile broke across her lips.
***
When Kim Su-bin returned to reality, she lay collapsed on the floor, breathing in ragged gasps.
“Hah… hah….”
Her body, which had been heaving with rough breath, was now shedding the crimson aura that had clung to it before. Not a complete cure, but at least the condition had regressed from middle stage to early stage.
‘I did it…!’
Setting aside even a hint of backlash, something hot surged up from her chest.
Exhilaration.
For the first time in her seventh life, genuine hope.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry….”
In a haze of consciousness, she murmured. The name of someone she’d wounded, no doubt.
‘Should I just leave her?’
But she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Emotions worn thin over decades.
“…Damn it. Consider yourself lucky.”
Song Ji-hu picked her up anyway, moved by a pang she couldn’t quite suppress. The nearest general hospital was a twenty-minute walk.
When she arrived at the emergency entrance, nurses rushed over.
“How did the patient….”
“I found her collapsed on the street.”
She pulled her hat lower.
“Are you her guardian?”
“No. Just a passerby.”
“Wait, could we get a contact—”
“I have urgent business.”
As she turned to leave the emergency room, a faint voice reached her.
“Thank… you….”
She turned back. Kim Su-bin was looking at her with a hazy gaze, about to lose consciousness but still trying hard to memorize her face, her hand weakly reaching out toward her.
Song Ji-hu left the hospital without answering.
Outside, she took a deep breath. Cold spring wind filled her lungs.
She pulled out the compass. The needle spun wildly again. Now she knew exactly what needed to be done.
She pulled out her phone from her pocket. On the screen was the Hunter Association Awakening Assessment booking page.
‘First, I need to officially become a Hunter.’
Faces from her previous life—dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands, tens of thousands—crumbling before the Abyss Lord, flashed rapidly through her mind.
***
Back at home, Song Ji-hu checked her physical condition after the mental dive.
“Phew— the mental fatigue is worse than the physical exhaustion.”
What was fortunate was that she was confident in her mental fortitude more than anyone else.
“As for the time….”
She then played back the video from the camera she’d installed.
“Hmm… the time ratio is ten to one. Same as a dungeon.”
Perhaps diving into another person’s mind was also treated as a dungeon of sorts.
“But… how do mental-realm skills develop?”
Song Ji-hu opened her skill window and discovered a new change, staring blankly at the screen.
“Huh… skills can evolve, not just branch?”
[Skill 1: Mental Detection – C-rank] – 1.5%
[Skill 2: Mental Barrier – C-rank] – 1.7%
[Skill 3: Residual Thought – Rank C] – 0.9%
[Skill 4: Thought Projection – Rank C] – 0.3%
[Skill 5: Mental Dive – Rank EX]
In this world, rank defined a person’s vessel, and it was common knowledge that skills didn’t grow—they were fixed at awakening.
Yet these percentages climbing like a level-up system—what was that supposed to mean?
‘What is this… does it mean I have to do more Mental Dives to save more people…?’
This seventh life had been nothing but one bewildering shock after another, from the moment of the first Mental Dive to this skill level-up.
“Right. Save Eun-seo Jin first, figure out the rest later.”
***
The lobby of the Seoul branch of the Hunter Association was always thick with mingled hope and dread.
Since the profession of Hunter had emerged, this massive building had been a stage for life-changing fortune to some, and a grinding workplace to others.
For Song Ji-hu, it was merely the starting point of a seventh repetition—though now, at last, it would be a starting point that differed from before.
“Next, Song Ji-hu. Please enter the measurement chamber.”
He stepped into the center of the circular platform with measured calm.
“Stay still. Keep your eyes fixed on the crystal in front of you.”
The blue scanning light that cascaded from the ceiling no longer stirred anything in him.
Whirrrrr—
A strange sensation swept across his entire body as the results began to print out.
“Ah… Spirit-type?”
The examiner’s voice carried clear bewilderment at the scan results. Beyond the glass, researchers in the observation room began to murmur urgently.
“We’ll… proceed with additional testing.”
In an age where spiritual contamination ran rampant, a Spirit-type awakener was the rarest gift and the most desperately needed. The examiner’s voice trembled faintly.
“Your… eyes. Let me examine your pupils. Look at the lens directly ahead, please.”
A new device magnified Song Ji-hu’s iris. On the monitor, silver light shattered like stardust, luminous and fluid.
“Definitely Spirit-type. Rank… C. What skills do you possess?”
Song Ji-hu answered without hesitation.
“Mental Barrier and Spirit Detection.”
He kept quiet about Residual Thought, Thought Projection, and Mental Dive. There was no need to reveal everything, no reason to.
The rest would serve their purpose better held in reserve—revealed at the right moment to raise his market value and shift circumstances to his advantage.
“Mental… Barrier, you said? How does that skill function?”
“It generates a thin protective membrane that resists spiritual attacks and emotional manipulation.”
“Good heavens!”
The examiner’s eyes widened. His expression alone was enough to convey the true value of such a skill.
In an age where spiritual corruption gnawed at humanity itself, a Spirit-type who could defend himself was a strategic asset unto itself.
“I must request a skill manifestation. Would you be willing to unfold your barrier?”
At the examiner’s request, Song Ji-hu smiled slightly and focused with ease.
Vwummm—
A faint silver membrane enveloped the examiner’s body, not his own. Output at roughly sixty percent of maximum capacity.
“And you can already project it onto others!”
The researchers in the observation room gasped audibly.
“The stability is… frankly unbelievable for a Rank C skill.”
The examiner jotted something rapidly onto his tablet, then suppressed his excitement and spoke in the most formal tone he could manage.
“Hunter Song Ji-hu. Your final rank is hereby determined to be C.”
Then, meeting his gaze, the examiner leaned in and whispered very quietly.
“That Mental Barrier alone—many guilds will want you for it. And if you’re interested, I could put you in touch with some quite excellent large guilds.”
“I’m grateful, but I’ve already given this some thought.”
Song Ji-hu simply smiled warmly and shook his head.
“In that case, you’re free to go. Your Hunter’s License will arrive on your phone within three days, so do make sure to check for it.”
The moment the door opened and he left the examination room, he was immediately surrounded by people waiting just outside.
‘As expected.’
He’d revealed the Mental Barrier skill precisely because he’d anticipated this. He knew roughly how test results leaked to the outside world.
“Hunter Song Ji-hu! The Ironwall Guild offers you Korea’s finest treatment!”
“We at Dawn Guild will provide a signing bonus of a billion won—”
“What! Merely a billion? Hunter, the Black Heaven Guild knows your true value!”
Business cards rained down like snow as extravagant offers flew through the cacophony of noise.
Had this Song Ji-hu been someone who’d never regressed, he likely would have panicked in such chaos.
But this Song Ji-hu knew exactly where he needed to go amid this confusion. He spoke low but loud enough for all to hear.
“I’ll look things over and contact you shortly.”
Now, spread the news far and wide, carry it on swift wings.
The seventh-return regressor collects calamities.
Author
: Song Tan
Production Date
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
: Aces Media Co., Ltd.
Editor
: Aces Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by Aces Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,
and no part of its contents may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.
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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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