The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 59

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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 59. Upon the Spider Web (1)
“The one who spun the web… is coming directly.”
Haruka’s warning settled over the treatment room like a chill.
“A spider web… You mean it wasn’t just Mental Corruption?”
Leo didn’t answer her directly; instead, his gaze remained fixed on Song Ji-hu.
“We need to prepare.”
After the first treatment, Haruka still heard multiple voices around Song Ji-hu, but now she could distinguish them and was gradually reclaiming her Oracle Sense.
Because of that, she couldn’t ignore what she sensed. Song Ji-hu gave Leo a brief explanation of what he hadn’t yet grasped.
“Good to know, anyway. Just think of it as one of the things pulling the Abyss from behind.”
“They’re… involved in Mental Corruption too, is that it?”
The expressions of everyone gathered in the treatment room hardened at once.
“We’ll talk details later, if we get the chance.”
“I’ll look into it myself.”
Song Ji-hu’s eyes grew calm and steady. One of the Sovereign’s Apostles. A master of information warfare, the kind who severed people from others and left them isolated from the unseen places.
‘In my past life, that bastard got me more than once.’
Song Ji-hu traced his fingers across the surface of the Compass. If he could obtain even a fragment of this one, as he had with the Shepherd and the Gardener, that would be enough.
Song Ji-hu steeled himself quietly.
Unlike the first external treatment, this second Mental Dive was closer to root-level healing.
He would have to descend into the deepest core of Ayase Haruka’s consciousness and tear away the spider web that suffocated her abilities entirely.
The deeper he went, the greater the danger. As he descended further into the depths, Song Ji-hu himself would be exposed more deeply to a flood of falsehood. One misstep, and neither of them might return.
“Then… let’s prepare.”
But Song Ji-hu did not hesitate. If he didn’t pull out the root, Ayase Haruka’s peace would be nothing but borrowed time.
‘And besides… Haruka’s condition isn’t stable either.’
After the first Mental Dive, the trembling at her fingertips had grown perceptible as she found stability beside Song Ji-hu.
Those creatures always sought workarounds when their usual methods failed. Ayase Haruka, knowing this, seemed caught between tension and fear at once.
Haruka reached out quietly and gripped Song Ji-hu’s sleeve.
“This time… it’s deeper, isn’t it?”
“Yes. So this time, I mean to see it through to the end.”
Song Ji-hu nodded briefly. At those words, the trembling in Ayase Haruka visibly subsided.
“Steel yourself.”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
Even in a flood of lies, Song Ji-hu’s words were among the few truths she could trust.
“Mental Barrier.”
Once he had wrapped the barrier around her, Matsumoto Leo stepped to the window in place of Yoon Young-su to guard Song Ji-hu. He seemed nervous, swallowing dryly again and again.
“I’m counting on you.”
If Song Ji-hu fell, so would Ayase Haruka. And with them, the matter with the Abyss itself.
Somehow they had become a community, and as such, Song Ji-hu was now someone he would have to protect no matter what came.
Song Ji-hu placed his hand over Haruka’s and closed his eyes. He felt her trembling through his fingertips.
The thought of facing the spider filled his chest with a quickened beat.
‘Mental Dive.’
It was time to create yet another variable.
***
When his eyes opened, Song Ji-hu stood at the entrance of the Shrine, at the far end of the familiar Torii Corridor.
Song Ji-hu passed through the fractured entrance and descended deeper.
Into the Inner Sanctum of the severed Oracle Shrine, into its deepest darkness.
“It’s sticky.”
With each step, the light vanished and the air grew humid. And everything was spider web.
With every footfall, black silk clung to the soles of his feet, then broke away.
Screeeee—
A viscous substance crawled up along the underside of his shoe, trying to coil around his ankle before sloughing off. In the air hung the reek of something decayed.
“The contamination is severe. It might be binding far more strongly than I expected.”
From ceiling to floor, sticky black threads filled the space in dense, tangled profusion.
“Hmm…”
If this were trauma scattered naturally along cracks, the grain would be rough and the pattern irregular.
But here, as if measured by a ruler, the threads were woven at consistent intervals and directions.
“Considerable care went into this.”
Calculated precisely, designed methodically to bring Ayase Haruka under their control.
From each strand of the web, the maker’s vicious malice seeped through.
“It’s strange, though…”
Honestly, even without such elaborate measures, there would be many ways to kill Hunters.
“Why resort to such tedious methods? Eun Seo-jin, Ollie Barkley, Ayase Haruka.”
The question itself was an answer. These Hunters were being deliberately broken, which meant effort was being invested for a reason.
“I’ll have to look into it once I’m out.”
In this life, since acquiring Mental Dive, Song Ji-hu had been learning far more than he’d expected.
The existence of the Collector, for one. And the fact that even S-Rank Hunters warranted this level of effort.
“I’d like to sever it all at once, but…”
Song Ji-hu began untying the knots of the Spider Web one by one.
He separated her genuine memories from the false. Cut away the threads of lies, restored the truth to its proper place. It was a series of exquisite, delicate operations.
“This one… leave as is. This one… is fabricated.”
Thought Projection and Residual Thoughts alike. The moment he caught a single thread on his fingertip, he felt the grain of memory wound within it.
The genuine ones carried warmth or lukewarmness; the false ones were cold and smooth. Song Ji-hu traced the temperature difference emanating from each memory, dividing the knots one by one.
His Mental Realm Ability operated with a precision he’d never achieved before.
They were truly vicious. Some of the Spider Web threads had woven Haruka’s genuine and false memories so tightly together that he couldn’t cut them carelessly.
With each knot of falsehood coming undone, the contours of Ayase Haruka—swallowed by darkness—gradually regained their original light.
It was when he’d unraveled the knots to a certain point.
Screeeee—
The entire Spider Web trembled all at once, pulling taut toward a single direction.
The creature had noticed an intruder in its domain.
“…So you’ve come.”
Song Ji-hu’s expression hardened, and from beyond the pitch-black darkness of the Psychic-type realm, something slid down along the Spider Web like silk.
The motion was utterly natural, as if descending from the ceiling of its own house. Gripping a single thread with its body, it lowered itself to meet Song Ji-hu’s gaze.
That’s right. This was the Spider’s garden—a hunting ground and parlor woven from threads the creature had spun with its own hands.
“It’s troublesome when visitors lay hands on another’s garden.”
Despite its name, the Spider wore the form of a tidily dressed human.
Impeccably suited, bearing a gentle smile. An ordinary gentleman you might encounter anywhere.
“My, what a noisy visitor in someone else’s home. Your manners are lacking, I see. When the homeowner asks your purpose, you ought to answer. And disrupting teatime, no less. I don’t entertain guests at this hour.”
Yet behind that smooth human facade, dozens of eyes and limbs rippled grotesquely, overlapping.
“Interrupting my tea, at that. Most inconsiderate.”
Ordinarily, the Spider masqueraded as a perfect human, blending seamlessly into the world. Who would suspect that behind that gently smiling face lurked dozens of eyes and limbs?
“That’s far too dated.”
It seemed that in its own stronghold, the creature felt no need to wear the human disguise so flawlessly.
“Top hats and monocles, waistcoats—when’s the last time anyone dressed like that?”
“Ah, so you’re the sort of savage with no appreciation for fashion or romance.”
His words were one thing, but his tone was far too smooth, too kind, too courteous.
“And here I was, listening to a non-human prattle about humanity. That’s rather amusing, isn’t it?”
This one who dared unravel the Spider Web it had painstakingly woven. Displeasure flooded in, mingled with a trace of curiosity.
The Spider didn’t yet know who Song Ji-hu was. But which Guild he belonged to, what abilities he possessed, who’d sent him—the Spider was confident it could extract all of that from just a few words of conversation.
“So then, who are you? Where do you hail from, and what manner of person would have the audacity to mar my work?”
But the same held true for Song Ji-hu.
‘Teatime, formal dress, and the timing.’
The creature’s speech patterns had betrayed its location.
‘Seems like we’re in England.’
Song Ji-hu drew out the Compass.
Shhiiing—
The awakened Compass exhaled a cool blue radiance into the darkness.
The entire space, blanketed in Spider Web, seemed to flinch and shrink back before the Compass’s gleam.
“Hmm… there’s something familiar about this.”
The Spider’s overlapping eyes narrowed like a serpent’s.
Song Ji-hu moved first. There was no idle banter to share with an Apostle. After all, it was a mere servant of the Sovereign that had tormented him for over a century.
Whatever the Spider demanded, whatever deal it sought, Song Ji-hu’s answer remained singular. Only the blade.
Claaang—!
The Compass’s unfolding blade severed the bundle of Spider Web beneath the creature’s feet in one swift motion.
“…So you’re the uncivilized sort who doesn’t bother with words.”
“Funny, hearing that from an animal.”
Screeeee—!
Then an impossible phenomenon unfolded. Wherever the Spider Web touched the Compass, it burned pristine white, crumbling to ash.
White flames raced along the threads. From one strand to the next, then to the next.
Fwoooosh—
The incinerated Spider Web scattered into powder through the air like dust.
“What…?”
The Spider’s web had always possessed a peculiar property—no matter how many strands were severed, fresh ones would weave themselves back into place. It was the creature’s confidence, and the cornerstone of its hunt.
Snap one thread, and ten new ones emerged to ensnare prey ever more tightly in the trap.
“That… sword.”
Yet where the Compass touched, the web could not regenerate.
“Troublesome.”
For the first time, a fracture appeared in the Spider’s composure. Unlike the Collector, this creature was remarkably quick to assess a situation.
“…Where did you obtain such a thing.”
The Spider had no knowledge of such a weapon. No intelligence on it. A blade that rendered the Sovereign’s authority meaningless, that prevented an Apostle’s regeneration—it was impossible.
Even the Spider, meeting a natural predator for the first time, felt its soft voice harden and freeze.
“Yes, yes… I understand now.”
The web split into dozens of strands. Its specialty—illusion and clone confusion.
Dozens of spiders surrounded Song Ji-hu.
“So it was you.”
“So it was you.”
“So it was you.”
Identical voices poured from all directions, completely obliterating his sense of spatial orientation.
Dozens of shadows circled Song Ji-hu with identical strides.
Not a single footfall could be heard. The same smile, the same posture, the same monocle. The creature had deliberately erased every clue that might distinguish the real body from the rest.
‘Any ordinary Hunter would collapse here.’
Bewildered by not knowing which was real, they would fall victim to poison launching from behind. That was how the Spider had hunted so many formidable prey.
But Song Ji-hu—
“Your technique is so transparent I’m fighting back a yawn.”
He already knew the Spider’s methods.
Had known them, in fact, until he was sick of them.
A Seventh Returnee Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Created
: July 21, 2026
Publisher
: Acesis Media Corp.
Editor
: 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 Corp. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and the contents may not be used in any form or manner without permission from the publisher and 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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