The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 32

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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 32. Incheon Gate (5)
Eun Seo-jin’s team, Marcus’s team. And the stragglers Song Ji-hu had brought in himself.
Thirty people scattered throughout the Labyrinth now stood in a single place, not one missing.
……
Only the sound of ragged breathing being steadied filled the silence; no one dared speak easily.
“How is this… possible…?”
“Thirty-three people…? Those who went in first, all of them… made it back alive?”
After a long silence, astonishment spilled out from all sides at once.
“Full survival? In this chaos?”
After they scattered, the radios had been dead from the start, and the walls on every side had moved like madness, intent on killing them.
Eun Seo-jin had appeared from somewhere and they moved as he said. Marcus had bellowed orders and they ran.
But when they came to their senses, they were here.
Coincidence? Miracle? Absolutely not.
All eyes turned toward Song Ji-hu. Everyone had said they were moving as Song Ji-hu commanded.
But Song Ji-hu himself, the architect of this staggering miracle, kept his gaze fixed not on his assembled comrades but on something in the center of the gathering.
The heart of collapsed stone ruins.
A man stood bracing with a shield. Behind him, two hunters lay sprawled and motionless.
“Jimmy!”
Marcus started to rush toward the hunter behind the man, but the hunter holding the shield before them drove it hard into the ground, cutting off his path.
Bang!
Standing before them, using his own body as a shield to protect those behind.
“Im… Jae-hyeok.”
“Ugh…! Haa, haa…!”
His condition was terrible. Dark veins bulged grotesquely up the thick forearms gripping the shield.
His eye sockets were stained blood-red, and dark crimson cracks crawling down his neck were consuming his skin.
Even as the toxic miasma of the A-rank Dungeon gnawed at his mind in real time, past the breaking point.
Im Jae-hyeok did not lower his shield.
“Haa… ha….”
His breathing was ragged as if about to split, and one knee trembled as if it might touch the ground.
“I… can’t. I’m… holding it… here!”
Blood-tinged foam bubbled at his mouth.
Song Ji-hu’s footsteps faltered as he approached Im Jae-hyeok.
A bitter smile spread across Ji-hu’s lips, his jaw clenched tight.
‘Hyeok….’
That figure had never changed across six lifetimes.
A man who stood willingly before others to save them, even in the mire where the world crumbled and comrades betrayed.
And each time, that damned selflessness made him bleed while he still raised his shield with willing hands.
‘Never. I will never let you die.’
Song Ji-hu approached Im Jae-hyeok carefully.
Im Jae-hyeok drew a shaky breath and slowly raised his head. His wavering eyes looked up at the unfamiliar hunter before him.
“Who… who are… you.”
Im Jae-hyeok gazed at the ash-gray eyes of the man who had come before him.
Song Ji-hu forcibly suppressed the emotion surging up from deep within.
And without a word, he reached out his hand toward Im Jae-hyeok.
Whoosh!
A silver mana far deeper than any Mental Barrier he had yet unleashed poured down upon Im Jae-hyeok.
“Ah, ah….”
The whispers burrowing in from all sides ceased in unison.
The alien sensation clawing through his mind subsided, the black veins rising over his skin began to sink slowly, and clarity returned to eyes that had turned a murky red. The contamination receded.
At the same time, Song Ji-hu felt Im Jae-hyeok’s emotion.
The despair that no one would come, and yet the loneliness of hoping desperately that at least one person might come to save him.
Feeling the thoughts emanating from Im Jae-hyeok, Song Ji-hu slowly bent his knees to meet his eyes at the same level.
“I’m taking over now.”
Song Ji-hu’s low, steady voice rang through the air.
“You held on well. You can rest now.”
Im Jae-hyeok’s eyes wavered.
His trembling lips tried to form words, but from his parched and cracked throat came no proper sound.
Song Ji-hu placed his hand over the hands gripping Im Jae-hyeok’s shield.
Thought Projection
He conveyed not through cumbersome language, but through emotion.
It’s fine. We’ll help you. And you can rest now.
The moment Song Ji-hu’s reassurance reached Im Jae-hyeok.
A thick tear rolled down Im Jae-hyeok’s cheek from his wide-open eyes.
The grip on the hand holding the Shield began to loosen.
His rigid fingers unfurled one by one, and the Shield tilted slowly.
Clang—! Thud!
The Shield fell to the ground with a heavy sound.
“Thank… you….”
With those words, Im Jae-hyeok’s eyes closed. Song Ji-hu caught his falling body.
He lowered Im Jae-hyeok carefully to the floor, then turned to look back.
“Healing, please.”
“Ah, yes. Yes!”
Song Ji-hu finally released the breath he’d been holding in a long exhale.
‘I held on.’
Though they hadn’t cleared this Dungeon yet, at least he hadn’t been forced to witness the horrifying ending of watching his friend die before his very eyes.
***
Once the situation had been somewhat settled and everyone had gathered around Song Ji-hu, he surveyed those assembled.
Total headcount: thirty-three.
Of those, six were combat-ineffective due to shock-induced unconsciousness or injuries. Combat-effective personnel: twenty-seven.
“The combat-ineffective Hunters and three escorts will remain here.”
“With twenty-four, will we be able to clear the Boss Room?”
“Yes, we will have more than enough.”
An A-rank Irregular Dungeon. At the entrance to the Boss Room of the Labyrinth, a C-rank Hunter was issuing commands, overshadowing USAA’s elite and S-rank Hunters alike. An incongruous sight.
“Once we clear the Boss Room, the Labyrinth will disappear anyway. The personnel waiting here will return to safety as well.”
No one voiced objection to Ji-hu’s words, but neither was there an absence of dissatisfaction.
Subtle emotions flickered in their glances.
‘Can we really trust this C-rank with all our lives?’
‘He’s a mental support specialist—aren’t we relying on him too much?’
‘Why are we taking orders from a C-rank?’
It was natural.
When lives hung in the balance, no one wanted to entrust their fate to someone they hadn’t yet built sufficient trust with.
But at the same time, there was an undeniable truth.
Without the Mental Barrier, not a single person would have been able to stand unharmed in this Labyrinth.
And when they’d lost their way in the Labyrinth, it was Song Ji-hu who found the path. It was Song Ji-hu who gathered everyone in one place.
‘And why are USAA and Eun Seo-jin just standing quietly behind him?’
Most of all, with the entire flow of this space now revolving around Song Ji-hu, voicing complaints was far from easy.
Song Ji-hu, of course, was well aware of this atmosphere.
‘They have no choice but to keep quiet and follow. I’ve set the stage accordingly.’
Everything—entering the Labyrinth, rescuing the stragglers himself, uniting the team—had been buildup for this moment.
Creating a focal point people could lean on when their lives were at stake.
‘The Labyrinth’s boss should appear according to pattern….’
Song Ji-hu turned his attention to analyzing the boss.
‘Even if the pattern started as the third sequence, I’ve disrupted it with my intervention?’
But the situation was now completely tangled. The moment Song Ji-hu entered, the Labyrinth’s system itself flashed ERROR. He couldn’t predict what boss would appear.
‘Best case: a single boss emerges. Worst case: multiple bosses.’
A thin smile crossed Song Ji-hu’s lips.
“We’ll determine the boss’s identity after we enter. However, we’ll go with a versatile formation so we can respond to any boss that appears.”
And he divided the twenty-four into four groups.
“Tank squad, close-range damage squad, ranged attack squad, and a rear support squad that includes healers and supporters.”
Without knowing the boss’s identity, the most classical formation was best.
“Hunter Eun Seo-jin will be the core of the close-range squad. Marcus, please take charge of the ranged dealers.”
“Understood.”
“Yes, Sir. No problem.”
Eun Seo-jin answered curtly and began checking his Twin Swords.
“And I will….”
Song Ji-hu positioned himself in the support squad, maintaining the Mental Barrier and serving as the raid commander through the Mental Link.
“Are you ready?”
…….
No one answered. But no one objected either.
Each gripped their weapon tighter, tightened the straps of their Shield, and silently took their positions in formation according to Song Ji-hu’s direction.
A flawless command structure. That was answer enough.
“Moving out.”
With all preparations complete, the expedition descended into the heart of the Labyrinth at Song Ji-hu’s command.
A stone gate began to creak open, its surface rippling with an unusually blood-red aura that bled forth into the air.
“Ugh… what is that energy…!”
The tank-class Hunters holding their shields at the front gritted their teeth.
“Everyone stay sharp. This is an A-rank Irregular Dungeon boss.”
The pressure seeping through the gap in the stone gate was fiercer than anything they’d encountered while traversing the Labyrinth.
It wasn’t merely the prickling of goosebumps across skin—an alien force seeped through the narrow crack in the partially opened gate, penetrating to the very marrow.
Song Ji-hu stood at the vanguard of the stone gate, meeting the pressure head-on, while twenty-three Hunters behind him raised their weapons in unison.
Griiiiind—
The stone gate’s movement halted. Beyond it lay only darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow light itself.
“Then, shall we proceed?”
***
Contrary to expectation, the boss was not waiting the moment the stone gate opened—instead, a strikingly long corridor stretched before them.
Darkness so thick that no end was visible. No matter how far their lights reached, the beams could not penetrate more than three meters before being swallowed by the gloom.
The darkness itself seemed to devour light like a living creature consuming its prey.
“…Ungh….”
One of the frontmost Hunters groaned, rubbing his temples.
The darkness was not merely blocking their vision.
As if all the whispers they’d endured in the Labyrinth had been concentrated into this place, the moment they entered the corridor, an unending torrent of whispers—a constant gnawing at their sanity—clung adhesively to their eardrums.
“If there hadn’t been a Mental Barrier…”
“We would’ve gone mad right at the entrance….”
The Hunters swallowed hard and wet their lips. Even for an A-rank Irregular, the concentration of this Toxic Miasma far exceeded reason.
Song Ji-hu’s brow narrowed.
‘The concentration is too dense.’
Compared to the figures in the reports he’d analyzed so far, this was abnormal. The Mental Corruption readings should have easily exceeded double digits.
‘I need to account for the worst possible variable.’
As tension hung in the air, the end of the corridor came into view. The moment they saw what lay beyond the darkness.
‘Just as I thought.’
Song Ji-hu nodded calmly.
An immense circular cavern, its ceiling lost in the darkness above.
The walls were densely studded with structures of mingled white and blue, while the floor bore inscriptions of mysterious glyphs—the same characters they’d seen on the Labyrinth’s gates.
And at the center stood an altar, around which three forms waited.
Not one boss, but three bosses were simultaneously summoned and present.
“What… what is that… Are those all bosses?”
The color drained from the Hunters’ faces. Even a single A-rank Irregular boss demanded they be prepared for annihilation; never had they heard of three appearing simultaneously.
But Song Ji-hu remained unflustered.
Once the Pattern had twisted, he had already calculated the worst-case scenario: all the bosses that should have appeared one at a time erupting forth at once.
The generic composition he’d arranged before entering the Boss Room was precisely his insurance for this moment.
His defenses were sufficient.
The 7th Regression Collector of Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Publication Date
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
: Aesis Media Co., Ltd.
Editor-in-Chief
: Aesis Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
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UCI
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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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