The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 42

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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 42
EX++ Grade.
A performance of sheer dominance appeared—one that transcended even the word “extraordinary.”
[Wow, is this even real?]
-What’s EX++? This is ridiculous lol
└An Irregular’s running wild lol
└Keep climbing up.
└At this rate, they’ll catch up to Olympus.
└Isn’t Olympus clearing the 24th floor right now?
└The fact that this Irregular is Korean makes me so proud.
└Yeah, the envy only works if you moderate it. But this……
The Olympus Guild, clearing the 24th floor—the highest yet recorded on Earth.
Climbers marveled at such extraordinary speed.
Yet here was an Irregular posting results so overwhelming that even Olympus couldn’t hold a candle to them.
If this continued, wouldn’t they catch up to Olympus solo?
While some felt pride that this Irregular, receiving the world’s attention, shared their nationality, many harbored resentment.
[What really grinds me is they won’t reveal the rewards lol]
-Yeah they’re obviously hoarding gold by not broadcasting it. Seriously, you first-come-first-served gold hoarders, just reveal the rewards. What’s with all the EX Grade secrecy?
└Isn’t this already the third time? Floor 1, floor 2, floor 6.
└Three in a row without revealing—that’s honestly petty lol
└What, are we going to steal it or something? What harm is there in just disclosing it?
The Irregular disclosed only the clear rating, then ended the broadcast.
No amount of viewers begging for the rewards made any difference.
Yet there were those who pushed back against this stance.
[But wait, hundreds of thousands watched this broadcast—isn’t that a sensitive situation?]
-The rewards don’t have a lock on them anyway, and if someone wanted to, they could just take them lol
└Yeah, even with a lock protecting identity, it’s not like you get 100% protection.
└I live near the Association—I think I know who it is.
└The Association’s guards were escorting someone closely; that’s gotta be the Irregular.
└Look lol, even with the lock on, people already figured it out just watching what the Association does.
└Being careful is the right call.
As opinions clashed and threatened to escalate into argument, a sudden notification subdued the fervor.
[Despair will be strengthened in a designated Small Tower.]
[Failure to clear the tower within the time limit will incur a severe Penalty on surrounding cities.]
[There are no entry restrictions.]
[Upon successful clear, the enhancement will revert to its original state.]
The message meant it would designate one of the Small Towers currently scattered across each city.
Failure to clear the designated tower within the time limit would mean a Penalty falling upon the surrounding city.
[The location will not be disclosed.]
The rotten part? The location wasn’t being disclosed.
[What are they saying right now?]
-A Small Tower’s getting strengthened? This has never happened before.
└This is seriously messed up;; How are we supposed to find it if they don’t tell us where?
└So they’re just saying destroy every Small Tower, basically
└Are there still people risking their lives in Small Towers?
Not long ago, Small Towers had considerable demand.
An SS Grade Fortuitous Encounter had appeared in a Small Tower, after all.
But when nothing worthwhile showed up afterward, public interest gradually faded.
It would have made sense if they’d done this while interest was still there.
Why of all times, now?
[No idea. How likely is it that South Korea gets picked out of so many countries?]
-Just ignore it and watch—someone will probably handle it anyway
└Right lol. There’s no way it’d be South Korea of all places, right?
Belief becomes the knife that kills.
This time, the designated Small Tower would indeed be South Korea.
* * *
At that very moment.
Seong Un was also reading that message.
‘Now that I think about it, this is when it happened.’
That incident that had once devastated Jeju Island—and no other place.
At that time, Seong Un was not yet a Climber, and since Seoul and Jeju Island were quite far apart, he’d only encountered it through the media and didn’t remember the exact date.
But now, of all times.
“B-b-brother…….”
For the record, Seong Un wasn’t alone at home.
Upon hearing the momentous alert of an EX++ Grade achievement, Han Geon-u had rushed to Seong Un’s house as if he’d been waiting for exactly this and was now sobbing openly.
“Why are you crying like that?”
“I heard that you gave up so much because of me…… What am I supposed to say…….”
“It was just a kind of investment, that’s all.”
Seong Un had never intended to leave the country in the first place.
No matter what proposal they made, it couldn’t satisfy him anyway.
What good would money do if civilization collapsed?
The Association was more than sufficient for any items he needed while climbing.
Well, that was the surface reason.
‘If I’m going to invest, I should do it right.’
It wouldn’t do to leave an obstacle in place and have him fail to grow properly.
“……Yes. Then I will prove that this investment was indeed successful.”
Han Geon-u’s eyes brimmed with trust.
Where there had been a hint of resistance before, now there was nothing of the sort—only clarity.
Pleased by that look in his eyes, Seong Un rose to his feet and spoke.
“Then get up.”
“Yes? Where are we going?”
“I’ve climbed to the sixth floor, so I thought I’d take a trip to refresh myself.”
“A trip……?”
Han Geon-u tilted his head in confusion.
“What? Don’t you want to keep pace?”
“Not at all! If you say we’re going, I’ll follow you to hell itself!”
“As it should be.”
* * *
“You’re going to Jeju Island?”
“Yes.”
He’d prepared even Pammyeongro for the seventh-floor climb, yet Seong Un announced he was taking a trip to Jeju Island.
Choi Hyeok sensed something amiss and cleared the room of everyone else.
“This isn’t a simple vacation, is it?”
Seong Un nodded.
“The Climbers will have received a notification.”
“Yes.”
A message that Despair had been reinforced in a designated tower.
It said that if the tower wasn’t closed within a limited time, a severe Penalty would be imposed.
The problem was that there was no way to know which tower it was.
Since the exact location wasn’t disclosed, Climbers had to enter towers at random to find it, but how easy a task was that?
“I know where it is.”
“Ah, you do? How on earth did you……?”
Choi Hyeok’s eyes widened.
How could he possibly know?
“It’s thanks to the reward I received for the EX++ Grade.”
“Ah…… I see.”
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
EX++ Grade.
An unknown ranking, so the reward must be beyond imagination.
But then why wouldn’t he simply disclose the location and dedicate himself to the seventh-floor climb instead?
No matter how he thought about it, revealing the location and having Seong Un focus on the seventh floor would be far more efficient in every way.
“I don’t know the exact location. I’ll have to search in person.”
“Then please leave it to us. If it’s Jeju Island, it’s South Korea. Of course it’s the Association’s responsibility to handle it.”
“I’m also part of the Association, am I not?”
“That may be true, but…….”
“I’ll go myself.”
“Very well.”
Under Seong Un’s firm insistence, Choi Hyeok had no choice but to nod.
It wasn’t as though delaying the seventh-floor climb would cause immediate problems, and he wanted to respect Seong Un’s wishes.
“Thank you. Could you perhaps arrange for a security team to accompany me?”
“That won’t do.”
But this was one point Han Geon-u couldn’t concede.
Seong Un had climbed to the sixth floor, yes, but in terms of pure combat ability, he was still far from matching South Korea’s top rankers.
An escort team was essential.
“If an escort is attached, people’s attention will concentrate on us. And since a seal was placed on me, there are still those who don’t know my face, are there not?”
“That may be true, but…”
“I’d prefer to come and go quietly.”
What was to be done about this.
Irregular or not, it was dangerous for Seong Un to enter a tower with strengthened Despair alone.
Did they even know what difficulty level waited inside?
The tower could very well boast a difficulty that the still-underdeveloped Seong Un couldn’t possibly handle.
But when he pressed the point so firmly, it became impossible to refuse outright.
After deliberation, Choi Hyeok put forward an alternative.
“Would it not be acceptable to maintain an escort at a distance?”
Disperse the security personnel so they didn’t draw attention, position them throughout each zone, and ensure an immediate response if any problem arose for Seong Un.
Since there was no entry restriction, there would be no delay in intervention.
“That much is acceptable.”
Seong Un decided to concede at this point.
He’d never intended to shake off the escort team anyway.
“Thank you for your consideration. Then, what about this?”
Choi Hyeok showed Seong Un a glass vial filled with black liquid.
It was Pammyeongro.
“What is this…?”
Seong Un’s eyes widened slightly.
At that reaction, Choi Hyeok tilted his head.
“Do you know what this is?”
“No… It just looked unsettling.”
“Ah, there’s nothing strange about it. It’s called Pammyeongro, and I prepared it beforehand since it seemed necessary for climbing the seventh floor.”
“Thank you.”
Seong Un took the Pammyeongro.
“If anything happens, please contact me anytime. I’ll be on standby twenty-four hours.”
At those words, Seong Un let out a hollow laugh.
“You should sleep.”
“It’s fine. I can manage without sleep for a few days easily enough.”
“That’s unnecessary concern.”
“Yes. So please be careful.”
* * *
Upon leaving the Association, Seong Un immediately boarded a flight to Jeju Island with Han Geon-u.
“This is my first time flying, hyung!”
Han Geon-u, seated in business class, gazed out the window with a flushed, delighted face, beaming like a child.
“How about your brother?”
“Ah, he’s probably studying hard right now. Thanks to you, he’s even receiving support from the Association—I can’t tell you how fortunate that is.”
Han Geon-u’s desire to become famous as quickly as possible included money as a factor.
Their father had abandoned the household long ago, and their mother, who had raised the two sons alone, had passed away from illness.
Though he was still young himself, he took on responsibility for his much younger brother, starting to earn money instead of entering high school.
Because of this, travel had been nothing but a luxury for Han Geon-u.
“Right. You said your brother’s good at studying, unlike you?”
“Yes. He’s quite brilliant. He’s never scored below third tier, not even attending a single academy.”
“Smart kid.”
Now he understood why Han Geon-u wanted to enroll his brother in an academy first.
Despite the emergence of towers, supplementary education in South Korea remained robust.
‘The broader one’s experience, the better the skills one can acquire.’
It wasn’t entirely unrelated either.
There were indeed many cases of those in medicine or science acquiring skills related to their fields.
“By the way, why are those people sitting in economy?”
Seong Un and Han Geon-u were in business class.
Meanwhile, the security personnel, including Jang Byeong-jun, had boarded in economy.
“No point in moving around together.”
“Mm?”
The boy tilted his head, not quite understanding.
Seong Un, unwilling to bother with a lengthy explanation, reached for the blindfold beside him and put it on.
“In any case, I’ll sleep well, so wake me when we arrive.”
“Yes, sir!”
Han Geon-u’s booming reply drew attention toward him.
Despite wearing the blindfold thanks to his heightened senses, Seong Un felt many eyes upon him, but he paid it no mind and sank into thought.
‘The Golden Tower, then….’
The Tower of Despair—currently driving the planet toward ruin.
And the Miracle Tower, which he’d entered after achieving EX Grade in rapid succession.
He’d thought those two were all that existed, yet a new tower had surfaced.
And in his past life, he’d never once heard of this tower.
[Golden Tower Entry Ticket]
-Type: Consumable
-Grade: ???
-Can be used from fragments that have lost their function.
-Difficulty adjusts according to Despair level.
The Golden Tower Entry Ticket.
To use this ticket, one had to enter fragments—meaning Small Towers—and succeed in climbing.
‘Entering a Small Tower with reinforced Despair is the right call.’
A Small Tower with reinforced Despair.
Since it said the difficulty adjusts according to Despair level, using it in that caliber of Small Tower would yield far more valuable rewards.
An Unprecedented Returner Devours Towers (Serialized)
Author | Yeon-i-yo
Publisher | Kim Ju-hyeong
Publishing House | J-Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing | Han Jae-hyeok
Address | Suite 401, Ace Techno Tower 8, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (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. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the express permission of the publisher and author.
Violations of this provision may result in civil and criminal 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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