The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 18

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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 18
Crack—
Bang!
When the saw had carved through more than two-thirds of her body, Litri’s true form could no longer hold and toppled backward.
[Hidden Mid-Boss Litri has been defeated. Bonus Points have been added.]
[Damage taken: 0. Bonus Points have been added.]
[You have acquired ‘2’ D-Rank Mana Stones.]
[You have acquired Litri’s Stigma.]
Litri was vanquished.
Bonus Points added for the takedown.
Bonus Points added again with zero damage taken, poison damage excluded.
A strong start.
And most importantly, the Stigma.
‘You only get these from clearing a Hidden Boss.’
When you defeated a Hidden Boss, it would drop a Stigma just like Litri had, and according to rumor, collecting all one hundred percent of them would grant you a Hidden Item as a reward.
In his past life, Seong-un had possessed only a single Stigma.
To awaken a Hidden Boss, you had to meet certain conditions, just as on Floor 2—and fulfilling those conditions had been extraordinarily difficult.
‘Whether I can gather them all remains to be seen.’
Since this was a lower floor, the difficulty of acquisition was relatively modest, which was why he’d obtained this one smoothly—but from here on, it would only grow harder.
The fortunate part was that he could even attempt it at all.
According to the Retrospect, Hidden Bosses were programmed to appear only to first-time Clear challengers, so Seong-un, who had already cleared and was now Climbing higher floors in his past life, had no opportunity to attempt them at all.
Compared to his previous life, the path to growth lay wide open.
Thud-thud—
As Litri’s true form perished, the black tendrils that had formed the Maze crumbled lifelessly to the ground.
The thick poisonous gas lingered still, but it lacked the strength to harm Seong-un, so he walked at leisure and emerged from the forest.
Hunting the Hidden Boss Litri was not the end.
Climbing Floor 2 was only just beginning.
* * *
Youseong.
Among those watching through that channel was Choi Hyeok, the Association chairman of South Korea.
“This makes no sense. Seong-un, what on earth are you?”
Choi Hyeok, who had watched every moment of Litri’s defeat from beginning to end without missing a single second, could not hide his astonishment.
According to the report from Jang Byeong-jun, Seong-un had brought along a rare elixir called Velos’ Tears.
An elixir that heightened resistance to poison.
Curious about how he would make use of it, Choi Hyeok had started watching—but what was this?
Seong-un had awakened a Hidden Mid-Boss that had never appeared before.
Moreover, he’d dispatched the boss without taking any considerable damage.
“The Bonus Points must be astronomical.”
To display such a performance right from the start.
-His preparation is insane;;
-Is that even human?
-Seriously, why didn’t anything show up when I climbed Floor 2?
-So how much Bonus Points has he racked up?
-How is that a beginner?
-When I was a beginner… I was just busy staying alive.
The emotions the viewers felt were not so very different from what Choi Hyeok felt.

‘Did he predict this?’
No.
At the time, Seong-un had requested over ten different weapons.
A saw had simply been among them.
Which meant that thorough preparation had made the smooth victory possible.
“A shame, though.”
If recording had been allowed, I could have reviewed it again and again to find the answer.
But recording with a smartphone would trigger a system penalty, so that was out of the question.
Even the Association chairman felt this frustration—how much more so the ordinary viewers.
“This is going to be impossible to quiet down.”
At the entrance to Floor 2, before even properly beginning, he’d cleared the Hidden Boss.
If the Climb proceeded without incident from here on, he would post an overwhelming record.
The entire world was already watching South Korea closely, and if these astonishing results continued, even the Association would struggle to provide much of a shield.
Yet the corners of Choi Hyeok’s mouth remained lifted, with no intention of falling.
* * *
The fairy Lapfane.
The inhabitants dwelling on Floor 2 were a race called Lapfane.
Though their appearance resembled humans, they were marked by insectoid features—dark irises and skin adorned with lush green leaves.
Unlike humans, they lived not in communities but independently, building homes within the Colossal Tree.
To meet Lapfane, one had to climb the Colossal Tree and visit their dwellings, yet most climbers bypassed them to avoid wasted effort.
The primary reason was that assisting them yielded no significant boost to Clear evaluation scores, and they frequently demanded absurd requests—making contact with them a general consensus waste of time.
However, reaching EX rank required passing through Lapfane without exception.
‘In my past life, I never went to see them.’
Later arrivals had no choice but to rely on guidebooks left behind by senior climbers who had begun their ascent first, and Seong-un was no different from the other latecomers.
‘If I’d obtained this memoir even a little earlier, things would have been different.’
Seong-un came to a halt before the Colossal Tree.
On the surface it appeared no different from an ordinary tree, but his Hyper Sense detected the tremendous Mana flowing through it.
‘A World Tree aberration.’
The ‘true’ World Tree was something he’d never seen in his past life, while he’d brushed past variants like this one several times.
He’d felt regret more than once—wondering if greater growth might have come from focusing on such an aberration—but there was no need for such regrets now.
Seong-un approached the tree and began climbing slowly.
-What’s he trying to do this time? lol
-Going through parts everyone usually skips?
-This is gonna take forever.
-Uh oh… can’t trust the guide anymore?
-Didn’t follow the guide and boom, Hidden Mid-Boss showed up, right?
-Yeah I burned the guide
-How do you burn a guide?
-It means they smashed their computer.
-That’s not it
His playstyle diverged entirely from the guidebook.
Yet the results were so overwhelmingly superior that climbers watching could not help but lose faith in the guide.
“Don’t dismiss the guidebook. The senior climbers made it for us later arrivals.”
Having climbed to a height equal to a six-story apartment, Seong-un took a brief rest, seated on a branch while making that remark.
-Wait, the guy telling us not to dismiss it is the one ignoring it the most lol
-The only one who can ignore it is me…… Something like that?
They were sorely mistaken.
No one adhered to the guidebook more faithfully than I do.
Unable to explain it all away, Seong-un rose and resumed climbing the tree.
“Don’t come up!”
Whoosh!
An arrow shot toward Seong-un from above, accompanied by a sharp voice.
With his Hyper Sense fixed on the surroundings, Seong-un shifted to a nearby branch and dodged the arrow.
He lifted his gaze toward the canopy.
Though obscured by thick foliage, he sensed the flow of Mana from that direction.
‘Issuing a warning, are they.’
Seong-un drew the dagger he’d recovered from Litri and hurled it with force.
Crack!
The dagger embedded itself precisely in the branch where the figure stood.
“Eek!”
A startled shriek escaped them.
Frightened this easily?
“Block me again and I’ll fell this entire tree.”
Seong-un spoke the threat while caressing the tree trunk.
“No, no! Please don’t! That’s absolutely out of the question!”
“Then stay quiet. Interfere even once more and I’ll cut it down without hesitation.”
“Tch…….”
Did the threat work?
No more danger signals emanated from the figure.
Yet caution remained necessary.
Seong-un climbed while keeping his attention on the figure and the surrounding area.
“Sniff…….”
As the distance between them closed, a soft sniffling sound reached his ears.
Seong-un executed a light jump from the climbing path and landed atop a branch.
“Hey.”
Flinch!
Lapfane, who had been crouching in place, trembled violently.
As Seong-un parted the leaves with his hand, he could make out Lapfane’s appearance—a child of about ten years old.
[NPC Information]
-Nickname: Dante
-Floor 2 Lapfane Elder
His name was Dante.
And he was the leader of the forest fairies, the Lapfane.
Though to be fair, calling him an elder was a stretch.
The Lapfane lived independently, so the title of elder held little meaning.
And if a child this young was truly an elder, there was even less reason to follow him.
“Ah, so you were the elder.”
The moment Seong-un mentioned the elder, Dante rushed at him as if he’d been waiting for it.
“An opening!”
Ah, so that was his plan—to knock him off balance.
But such a transparent trick wouldn’t work.
Crack!
Seong-un seized Dante’s throat and subdued him with ease.
“Hack! Kh—!”
As Dante struggled to break free, Seong-un’s grip tightened, and tears and saliva began streaming from Dante’s eyes and mouth.
Even as the audience’s sentiment plummeted at this harsh treatment of a child, Seong-un didn’t blink.
‘This isn’t a game.’
The Tower had made that clear.
Victory must be seized from the Elite Legion.
This meant more than simply solving their grievances and hunting monsters to climb higher.
Of course, the Lapfane lurking on Floor 2 weren’t the Elite Legion themselves.
The legions that needed to be eliminated would truly emerge from Floor 30 onward.
‘And this Dante is nothing but a pawn of Arth, who dwells on this floor.’
Arth.
The first Elite Legion one would encounter upon reaching Floor 30.
Not a Transcendent Being, but one of those creatures that had shackled humanity for a full five years in his past life.
And the Dante before him now was Arth himself.
The reason Arth was on Floor 2 instead of Floor 30 was because they controlled the lower floors.
Floor 1 was sealed as the starting town and couldn’t be infiltrated, but from Floor 2 onward, they mingled with the native races and monitored the climbers.
Crunch—
Then, unable to endure further, bones and muscles began twisting within Dante’s body, and he started to swell.
Only then did Seong-un release his grip and step back slightly.
Yet Dante’s transformation continued.
When his bloated form deflated like a punctured balloon, he took on the appearance of an adult man.
“You were deliberately disguising yourself as a child?”
Seong-un feigned ignorance in his reply.
“…Insolent human. You dared strike me, knowing I am an elder?”
Dante furrowed his brow and rubbed his throat.
Clearly the pain of maintaining his disguise had been unbearable.
“Who was trying to kill whom first?”
“…So why did you come up here?”
Dante fell silent for a moment, then shifted his demeanor and attempted conversation.
Unlike his childish form, the current Dante showed no hostility whatsoever.
‘He won’t reveal himself easily,’ Seong-un thought.
Their role was to monitor climbers from a distance, not to engage them directly.
“I was just curious.”
Dante tilted his head.
“Curious about what?”
“What happens if you kill the leader of the Lapfane.”
Normally, the condition to Clear Floor 2 was to pass through the vast Maze beyond this point and subjugate the boss.
By the Maze’s difficulty alone, it was considered low-tier, but the boss’s power was considerable—without poison resistance, climbers faced a high risk of death.
In fact, among the vanguard who had climbed without any prior information, a significant number had perished.
-What?
-Attacking an NPC?
—It’s not impossible, but… wouldn’t I get penalized for doing something like that?
—The madmen already experimented with it. Why would you want to test it again?
The climbers watching reacted with open disdain at Seong-un’s remark.
“Ha? You’re a funny one. No matter how much we claim to be pacifists, we’re not so weak as to tolerate this kind of humiliation without fighting back.”
Dante opened his eyes menacingly and drew a sword.
‘He’s tense.’
There was no helping it.
Perhaps no one had ever charged at him so recklessly before.
And yet Seong-un was different from them in one crucial way.
‘The poison keeps attacking me.’
It was when he’d brushed aside the leaves and spotted Dante.
A microscopic poison so faint he could barely sense it with his Hyper Sense was seeping into his respiratory system with each breath, beginning to eat away at his body.
But what could he do about it?
‘It won’t be enough to stop me.’
Seong-un’s lips curled upward slowly.
An Unparalleled Regressor Devours the Tower (Serial)
Author │ Yeon I-yo
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Ace Techno Tower 8th, Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Yeon I-yo 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and the author.
Violations of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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