The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 77

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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 77. The Harvest Festival (2)
Even at midday, LA’s sky hung low and ashen.
The stench of burning permeated the entire city—charred asphalt, the acrid reek of melting insulation, and beneath it all, the copper tang of blood.
In six lifetimes, he had grown sick of that smell. The smell of ruin.
With each step toward his destination, glass fragments crunched beneath his feet. The sirens wailing across the city had long since ceased to be sound—they were merely backdrop now.
They overlapped from every direction until it was impossible to tell where they came from, punctuated at intervals by gunfire.
“So, when do the Guild members arrive?”
“Not yet… It’ll take at least another half day.”
The plane carrying Eun Seo-jin and Yim Jae-hyuk was still crossing the Atlantic.
‘Which means I have to handle at least the Calamities in LA and Nevada within that half day.’
Until then, their fighting force was three. With Rick Wesley providing backup, four.
“How many years has it been since I’ve been in actual combat?”
Matsumoto Leo rose from his seat, working out his sore muscles from the intense exertion. It had been a long time.
“Your body will stiffen if you don’t keep moving. Even in a leadership role, you have to maintain your physical condition.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re a real expert.”
When he’d first been offered this position, Matsumoto had smiled bitterly. How long had it been since he’d stopped fighting? The only exception was when he’d entered the Gate recently to protect Ayase Haruka.
But now, there was something undeniable in the way his heart beat faster—and he found it wasn’t unwelcome.
Just then, the earset crackled to life.
“Wave at 6th Avenue Intersection. Thirty-plus individuals, mixed grades. Civilians confirmed.”
Rick Wesley’s voice came through the tactical earset, clear in pronunciation but strained.
“Acknowledged.”
Song Ji-hu flicked his fingers, and that was all the acknowledgment needed.
“I’ll guide the 6th Avenue team.”
“Copy that. Ollie, clear the three in front, then up to the roof.”
“Roger that, bro.”
Beyond the psychic link, nothing more was said. Ollie Barkley scaled the roof, and the three scattered in different directions—yet moved as one.
‘Psychic Sensing.’
As the Psychic Sensing spread outward, the positions of enemies within range began to form in his mind.
‘Thirty-two.’
Two more than Rick’s report—those hiding behind building rubble. The moment Song Ji-hu relayed their positions, Ollie Barkley’s Magical Bullets pierced through their skulls from the rooftop.
Crack!
“Targets eliminated. Keep pushing forward.”
Not a single shot wasted, not a single bullet missed. A few creatures slipped through, but Matsumoto Leo moved silently and cut them apart.
“Three o’clock. Three targets.”
“Far left position.”
The combat flowed like water—smooth, unbroken, seamless.
One American soldier, who had been laying down covering fire to buy civilians time to escape, let his finger slip from the trigger and stared in silence.
“Hey…! Why’d you stop shooting?”
“That… the masked person.”
“The one in back?”
His comrade tilted his head without lowering his rifle.
“Yeah. Doesn’t even look like he’s using any skills.”
“Must be a supporter.”
The soldier swallowed hard.
“No, that’s not it… Everyone seems to be watching him. Like they’re all aware of him.”
“Hmm… Maybe he’s the leader?”
“Something about him is… unsettling.”
Song Ji-hu felt their gaze on his back as he scanned the surroundings.
‘They keep coming from somewhere.’
Even after killing all thirty-two, new monsters registered at the edge of his Psychic Sensing.
Monsters being replenished continuously, like water from an endless well.
‘A Gate must have ruptured somewhere.’
With chaos this severe, it was certain they’d missed a Gate.
“Gate Rampage! One hundred meters east!”
The answer came before he’d even asked.
“Y-yeah… Rampage! Evacuate!”
“Damn it! Clear five hundred meters!”
Beyond the buildings, the Gate writhed grotesquely, swelling.
The Gate’s surface, which should have been purple, darkened to a sickly crimson, pulsing in and out as if taking breath, before ballooning tight like a balloon moments before rupture.
“Gate confirmed. It’s not a break—it’s a rampage.”
– We’re short on available Hunters!
“We’ll handle it ourselves.”
At Song Ji-hu’s nod, the other two quickly repositioned themselves in front of the Gate.
If a break is a bowl overflowing, then a rampage is the bowl itself tearing open from within.
Screeeee-screee-screeeech-
A sickening sound of space tearing rang out.
A massive fissure opened in the Gate, and pitch-black monsters poured through it. There were enough to turn one’s stomach.
It wasn’t a matter of one or ten. It was a tidal wave of monsters. An incomprehensible multitude of beasts that covered the roads and climbed the buildings.
And the direction that tidal wave was headed was the worst possible.
– Eastern line collapse! Defense perimeter breached! Wave advancing into uncleared sector!
– Ten minutes to civilian zone! Repeat: ten minutes to contact!
Rick Wesley’s radio was drowned out by screams. The command structure devoured itself in panic.
‘It must be urgent. If it’s bad enough to cause a Gate Rampage.’
In the midst of that roar, Song Ji-hu quietly reset the board. There was no hesitation. He simply found the faster, surer path.
‘Which means that Sovereign needs a fresh supply of souls that badly. ……Are you impatient too, then?’
A rampaging S-Rank Calamity and a Gate Rampage to boot. To others, it was a hopeless double disaster—but to Song Ji-hu’s eyes, it was only the reason why this had to be done.
‘Psychic Sensing.’
In that instant, in the City Center where the Calamity raged, something impossibly thin caught in his awareness.
Gossamer-thin. So fragile it seemed ready to snap, yet Song Ji-hu managed to catch hold of its tail—that emotion.
Pity.
Not the bloodlust of a mindless monster, not hunger, but a deep fragment of sorrow.
‘…….’
Song Ji-hu, who had suppressed that single thread of feeling flowing from the City Center, turned his gaze toward Ollie Barkley.
– Ollie, go wild. There’s no one within a hundred-meter radius. Leo, you’re with me—we head for the civilians.
Ten minutes. More than enough time to subdue them.
***
The remnant American forces who had retreated too slowly held their rifles over the barricade.
“Everyone… stay focused! Just fire! Fire everything we’ve got! Grenades, RPGs, whatever!”
They held their aim, but they knew it themselves better than anyone: rifle rounds meant little against that terrible wave of monsters.
The hands gripping the triggers drained of all color. Some soldiers trembled, unable even to close their eyes, sketching frantic crosses.
Then, above their heads, a metallic sound rang out.
Whirrrr-
The sound of a cylinder rotating. A sound from old western films. Yet never more welcome.
Ollie Barkley stood braced atop a half-collapsed overpass.
In his hand, a Revolver growled low.
Magical energy surged along the barrel. The air was sucked toward the muzzle with such force that the soldiers below felt their ears pop.
“Hell, I didn’t think I’d ever use this skill again.”
Ollie Barkley’s blood-smeared lips curled into a grin.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Psshhhhh-!
With a sound like air escaping, the light gathered at the muzzle fanned out in a spray and split the sky.
Booooom-boom-boom-boom-!
And immediately, the sound chased the light.
The Magical Bullet split into hundreds of streaks of brilliance in mid-air. Each ray of light bent its trajectory as if possessed of its own will, spreading like a net across the entire front of the monster tide.
Impact, impact, impact.
A chain of explosions merged into a single massive roar. The vanguard of the black tide evaporated without leaving even a trace of blood.
The second shot: the monsters’ waists severed cleanly.
The third shot: the tide was no longer a tide.
A few beasts did manage to slip through the gap, but before the soldiers could even pull their triggers, their necks had gone silent against the pavement.
Matsumoto Leo descended from somewhere, wiping his blade as he passed, and from the opposite direction, Song Ji-hu severed the last beast’s life without breaking stride.
“Holy….”
“We’re… alive.”
To Song Ji-hu’s ears came the breathless gasps of American soldiers in shock.
– Eastern line… Eastern line Clear! Civilian sector threat completely neutralized!
Before the radio’s screams transformed into cheers, less than half the ten-minute time limit had elapsed.
“Clear.”
Now the presence caught by Psychic Sensing came only from the City Center. The single largest, deepest, most sorrowful presence.
Jonathan Walker.
“Rick.”
Song Ji-hu called to Rick Wesley through his Earset.
“Let’s set the stage. Make it very wide.”
– The stage?
“S-Rank. If the stage is too narrow, there will be casualties. That wouldn’t be convenient for either of us.”
A brief silence. Rick Wesley asked nothing further, merely issuing orders.
“Bro, are you really sure about this? Your opponent is S-Rank. And one that’s become a Calamity.”
Ollie Barkley rose from the rubble where he’d been resting, his voice edged with concern.
Two S-Rank Hunters, and himself.
Their combined strength fell far short of what was needed to face a rampage S-Rank.
‘Still, it’s tight—but not impossible.’
Besides, Song Ji-hu had never intended to face this head-on anyway.
‘The goal isn’t to kill him. It’s to save him.’
Tight as it was, still.
“It’s enough. Don’t worry. Just move as I say. I’m not here to trade blows.”
“Mm… Well, you’ve always got a plan, bro. You even fix Mental Corruption.”
It was a blind faith—the kind only possible because Song Ji-hu had saved him once.
– We’ll clear the central six blocks in ten minutes. That’s given us some spare manpower.
In an instant, military forces and Hunters began cordoning off the six blocks around Jonathan Walker at the center.
“Let’s go.”
Led by Song Ji-hu, they all began walking slowly toward the center of the stage.
“Hunting a Calamity. That’s another line for the achievement list.”
“Ah-ah, bro’s friend. Hunting? It’s treatment.”
Ollie Barkley corrected Matsumoto Leo’s words, his eyes on Song Ji-hu.
“Right. We’re treating him. Not killing him.”
If they let him die, his soul would become a Sovereign’s meal without question.
“So, treatment it is. Jonathan…”
Of course, there was no certainty. Only the thinnest thread of possibility. But hadn’t that possibility been nonexistent mere moments ago?
“When he wakes up, I’ll have to throw a punch and ask him what the hell he was thinking.”
It sounded like a joke, but the tendons in Ollie Barkley’s gun hand—the one gripping the Revolver—stood taut beneath the skin.
No one here knew better than he did who his gun barrel would soon be aimed at.
The man he’d trained with, the man he’d rolled through Gates with, the man he’d deployed with across the world. Jonathan Walker.
Ollie Barkley had been able to rampage so freely precisely because Jonathan had held the front line steady.
“Jonathan…”
Song Ji-hu said nothing more. Empty words of comfort would ring hollow now.
At the center of the prepared stage, the dust cloud between the buildings toppled by missiles began to part slowly.
From within it, a massive form stirred and rose.
Standing well over two meters tall, his enormous frame was clad in a military uniform bearing the stars and stripes—now mutated, torn to tatters and hanging like rags across swollen, burgeoning muscle.
Black crystals bristled across his skin like thorns, and a vapor like poisonous steam rose from his entire body in shimmering waves.
Crrrruuughh—
From a mouth devoid of reason came a monstrous growl, and two eerie eyes gleamed with terrible light.
The same crimson as a pool of blood pooled on the floor.
The Seventh Returnee Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Production Date
: August 18, 2026
Publisher
: ACES Media Inc.
Editor-in-Chief
: 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 Inc. in accordance with the copyright holder’s contract.
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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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