The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 52

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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 52. Rest (1)
Song Ji-hu emerged last, his complexion as pale as blank paper. It was the price of pushing his mental strength to its absolute limit.
“Ah… agh…!”
At the sight of the three returning from battle, Ryu Jin hopped nervously from foot to foot, unable to decide what to do, while Yoon Young-su quickly unscrewed a Healing Potion and handed it to Song Ji-hu.
“You’ve done well.”
The moment Song Ji-hu drank the potion, the nosebleed that had been dripping steadily onto the floor ceased, but the pallor that had drained his face showed no sign of returning to normal.
“Unh…”
Im Jae-hyeok lay sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily.
Song Ji-hu’s legs wavered slightly as they touched the floor. His body felt so heavy that collapse seemed imminent.
Yet no trace of pain showed in Song Ji-hu’s expression. Throughout all those moments, he had never let his suffering show on his face.
A leader who falters makes his comrades anxious—so with a composed face, he dropped into a chair and swallowed the remaining potion. It was a habit born of necessity.
“We should all take some rest.”
Eun Seo-jin approached naturally and stood a step behind him, ready to steady him at any moment should he waver—but in a way that would never be noticed.
It was Eun Seo-jin’s way of looking after him.
“There was quite a battle in there, it seems. If we encounter situations like this again, wouldn’t it be better to recruit more party members?”
Yoon Young-su’s voice trembled slightly.
“That does seem wise. To be honest, going in with no information at all felt a bit reckless.”
He was overjoyed by the unexpected harvest, yet he couldn’t deny that luck had played its part this time.
It was fortunate the Collector had been weaker in combat than the other Apostles. If it had been something like the Butcher, they might have been forced to flee for their lives.
“But that thing over there…”
Ryu Jin’s gaze turned toward the baggage they’d left half-abandoned as they exited the Gate.
“Oh, that. Right. Let’s check it out. Can we make items from it?”
“Here, this too.”
As Im Jae-hyeok and Eun Seo-jin produced items they’d brought along, Ryu Jin instinctively began his appraisal.
“Guardian Core… Blessing of Purification… they’re all items I’ve never seen before.”
And there were more besides those two. Everything they’d picked up just in case.
“Wow… these are all items of a style I’ve never encountered.”
Armor of a design seen nowhere else, and Treasures gleaming with an otherworldly luster.
“Indeed. Items of this style… I’ve never seen them even during my time at the Hunter Association. Not at auction either.”
Song Ji-hu let out a hollow laugh watching Im Jae-hyeok and Eun Seo-jin producing item after item.
“When did you even collect all these?”
“Items were scattered on the ground. How could we ignore them? Any Hunter who enters a Dungeon would do the same.”
Song Ji-hu withdrew the Treasure Fragments he’d stored in his Inventory and laid them all out.
“Hah-hahaha—”
All three who had cleared the Dungeon together burst into laughter simultaneously.
Yoon Young-su’s eyes swept rapidly across the items scattered on the floor.
‘If all these become the Guild’s assets…’
His mind raced through the prices of Dungeon items he’d occasionally seen at auction.
‘Right. Aligning myself with this man was the right call.’
He didn’t know what had happened inside, but not only had they survived combat—they’d brought back an armful of spoils.
“Once we set aside what Ryu Jin needs, I’ll look into sales channels.”
Even as Yoon Young-su spoke, Ryu Jin’s full attention was fixed on the items Eun Seo-jin and Im Jae-hyeok had handed over.
“This is… I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Particularly the Guardian Core embedded in Im Jae-hyeok’s shield. Ideas sparked in his mind like fireworks, cascading endlessly.
For someone who had lived his whole life before steel and fire, it was almost instinct.
And the Gate began to close slowly. The glow faded, and the passage to the dead world vanished completely.
“Let’s move it for now. We can sort everything once we’re back.”
Song Ji-hu rose and gave the order. Though he might have been lost in the elation of having killed the Collector and escaped from a Gate of unknown origin, he moved straight to the next task at hand.
“Yes? Yes!”
Yoon Young-su nodded frantically and gathered the spoils together with the others.
“We got more than I expected.”
Eun Seo-jin’s remark drew a brief nod from Song Ji-hu.
“The harvest… was far larger than anticipated.”
Song Ji-hu murmured quietly. The Collector had been the greatest unknown variable even in the 7th Regression—a life brimming with unpredictable moments.
‘I don’t know how much the future I knew will change because of this.’
Events would unfold as they must, and slaying a single Apostle mattered more than worrying over such variables.
‘One. And then another.’
Song Ji-hu twisted a corner of his mouth upward, counting the remaining Apostles as he fingered the Compass he carried close to his chest.
***
A space where not a single ray of light reached—nothing but Darkness.
Neither up nor down. No walls, no floor—just endless black void. Five forms flickered dimly into view.
The shapes wavered like shadows, insubstantial, yet their presence weighed heavy.
One appeared as a Shepherd, crook-staff in hand.
Another took the form of a Gardener, thorned vines coiling around it.
A third descended as a Spider, countless legs dangling beneath.
The fourth wore the vestments of a Priest.
And the fifth loomed vast as a mountain—the Butcher.
Each kept its true body in its own lair, yet here their thoughts gathered in Darkness, coalescing into the blurred outlines of Mental Entities meeting.
And in the center of them all, the sixth seat—the place that should have been occupied—lay empty.
“The Collector is dead.”
Voices echoed from all directions.
“The Collector? But that one isn’t here.”
“That’s right. Where was it again? That place where those persistent ones dwelt. It hadn’t come back because it said there was still something it hadn’t collected there.”
“Could there have been a human left in that place capable of killing the Collector? As I recall, we’d wiped out the seed of all intelligent life.”
A crack had formed in the balance that was meant to be eternal. The remaining five instinctively turned away from the void.
“That worthless hunk of scrap metal.”
A colossal form growled. It was the Butcher.
“All it knew was taking. Whoever killed it—we find them and tear them apart the same way, and that’s the end of it.”
“Mind your tongue, Butcher.”
The Priest’s form interjected with a composed voice.
“That too was an Apostle whom the Lord has taken. To regard its death lightly is disrespect toward the Lord.”
“The Lord? The Lord sleeps even now.”
The Butcher let out a contemptuous laugh, bellowing toward the other Apostles.
“Your sermons might have held sway when he was awake. But that isn’t the case now, is it, Priest? Will you try issuing commands with that clever tongue of yours?”
The Priest’s form trembled. Angered though it was, the words held truth, leaving no ground for rebuttal.
Of course, pride was another matter entirely.
“Surely when the Lord is absent, someone must unite the voices as one?”
The Priest’s words unleashed a vivid crimson bloodlust from the Butcher’s enormous form. The Priest did not yield, bristling with its own aura in turn.
Harmony had long since shattered. In the Darkness, the two Apostles churned their power as though collision were imminent.
“You’re not suggesting that’s you, are you? Charlatan that you are.”
This would have been unthinkable had the Abyss Lord been awake. But now, with no one to restrain them, they moved against each other’s throats without check.
“Not a word worth hearing from one whose mind is murder through and through.”
“What did you—!”
With the Abyss Lord still dormant, the remaining five were nothing but five beasts, each possessed of disparate desires and greed.
The Collector’s death had merely torn that rift wider.
Then, from a corner of the Darkness, two forms that had been trembling faintly forced out their words with effort.
“This isn’t the time for us to be fighting among ourselves.”
It was the Shepherd and the Gardener.
“The Collector’s death isn’t the real problem. We were targeted too.”
The Shepherd’s outline, which guides souls to the Abyss Lord, wavered precariously, uncharacteristically unstable.
One of its hands had vanished, and its entire form trembled with a faint, sickly luminescence.
“We were struck down by some unknown Hunter. That bastard ripped out every offering we’d carefully cultivated, every Fragment we’d buried deep.”
“The Gardener and I—that’s why we’re like this.”
The Gardener’s voice seethes with bitter hatred. Its thorned vines twisted savagely in the Darkness like serpents.
“Even the Dungeon we’d so painstakingly tended was left in ruins. As though that creature knew all our methods.”
“Relentless. Cunning.”
At those words, the Spider’s countless eyes gleamed in the Darkness as they fixed upon the two.
“At this juncture, there exists something capable of wounding us? And furthermore…”
A single thread of the Spider’s thought stretched thin as a web.
“A Hunter who wounded the Shepherd and Gardener. And the one who killed the Collector. Is that not far too coincidental?”
The words carried no absolute certainty. They still did not know who had killed the Collector.
It could be the same being, or an entirely different one.
“We do not yet know who killed the Collector.”
“Either way, it’s become troublesome. If it’s the same one, it’s a threat. If it’s someone different, that’s a disaster in its own right.”
The Spider gathered its thoughts and pressed on.
“The Lord’s awakening is still far distant. The souls we require are incalculably short.”
In that instant, the space fell silent.
“Useless wretches. The very ones who serve the most vital function…!”
The Butcher spewed venom at the two who should have been drawing souls to him, now wounded and worthless.
“We must gather souls with utmost haste.”
Once the Lord awakened, everything would be resolved. The fractured harmony, the vanished allies, the bothersome Hunter—all of it would be swept away in a single stroke.
“So what do you propose? Look at the state they’re in.”
The Butcher growled again. There was the possibility that the mysterious Hunter who had taken the Collector’s life was somewhere else, targeting another Apostle’s neck. The situation demanded consideration.
“Should we just sit here counting souls and meekly wait for him to decide who he’ll strike next?”
“That’s not the plan. We move, but not blindly. First, we need to identify who he is.”
The Priest spoke slowly.
“The one who killed the Collector. The one who wounded the Shepherd and the Gardener. We need to find out who that is.”
That was the most critical task at present. The greatest threat to them was whoever had orchestrated those two incidents.
“A blade swung in ignorance of the enemy cuts only empty air. Until we understand what he’s after, how much he knows—we don’t make a reckless move.”
The Butcher struck the ground once in displeasure, but in the end offered no rebuttal. The other forms, sensing agreement, withdrew their presence one by one.
It was the moment when all their interests aligned.
“…Find him. Uncover what he is.”
With those words from the Spider.
Five forms melted one by one into the Darkness and dispersed.
A 7th Regression Returner Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Date of Production
: July 21, 2026
Publisher
: Aces Media Co., Ltd.
Editor
: Aces Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by Aces Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication may result in legal liability.
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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