The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 63
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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 63
After Seong Un left, not long afterward, Seo Jae-pil appeared in front of the apartment’s main entrance.
“What’s this? Why is the atmosphere so tense?”
Seong Un had completed a Tower Climb at EX++ Grade.
Despite the broadcast exploding due to abnormal difficulty—an unprecedented catastrophe—his friend had set a record-breaking performance, so Jae-pil had come to share a drink in celebration, yet the mood felt far more austere than before.
“Seo Jae-pil? What brings you here?”
Jang Byung-jun, who had been issuing instructions to the security personnel, noticed Seo Jae-pil and approached quickly.
At his solemn expression, Jae-pil felt a flutter of unease, but he masked it and replied smoothly.
“I came to see Seong Un.”
“Ah, I see. Then shall we go inside?”
“Yes.”
Seo Jae-pil glanced at the grim-faced security personnel and entered the apartment building.
But Jang Byung-jun followed right behind him.
He rode the elevator together with him, accompanying him all the way to the unit where Seong Un was staying.
‘Why is he following me like this?’
With him clinging so closely, there was no way to avoid an awkward atmosphere.
“I apologize.”
When they arrived at the unit’s entrance, Jang Byung-jun suddenly offered an apology.
“I’m sorry? What do you mean?”
“The truth is, Seong Un isn’t here.”
“……You lied to me?”
“There were circumstances. You’ll understand once you go inside.”
With that, Jang Byung-jun turned and disappeared.
“What the hell?”
Left alone, Seo Jae-pil tilted his head in confusion, then pressed the doorbell—and immediately understood Byung-jun’s apology.
The one who opened the door was not Seong Un, but Lee Sang-hyun.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
They were complete strangers, so neither could possibly know the other.
“Ah, I’m Lee Sang-hyun, an alchemist.”
“Yes. I’m Seo Jae-pil of the Horus Guild.”
“I see… but what brings you here?”
“I’m a friend of the apartment’s owner.”
“Ah, well… this is awkward. He’s not home right now.”
Lee Sang-hyun’s expression grew troubled.
“Is something wrong with Seong Un?”
Rather than press further, Seo Jae-pil cut to the heart of the matter.
A complete stranger in the apartment while the owner’s away?
Normally he’d contact Seong Un to ask, but this was an Association-owned apartment.
And with security personnel stationed outside, how could an outsider have gotten inside?
“Well, actually……”
When Lee Sang-hyun finished his explanation, Seo Jae-pil glanced toward the master bedroom and asked quietly.
“So can he be saved?”
“I’m not sure.”
At the uncertain answer, Seo Jae-pil’s brow furrowed.
“Tell me the location.”
“Pardon?”
“Tell me.”
“……One moment.”
Lee Sang-hyun brought out a notebook and wrote down the location; Seo Jae-pil photographed it with his smartphone and immediately left the apartment.
* * *
Howon-dong, Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province.
The address Seong Un had discovered through Lee Sang-hyun.
‘Near Mangwolsa Station, then.’
He’d taken the subway to get here.
After exiting at Mangwolsa Station, he arrived at the entrance to Dobongsan National Park.
A sign at the entrance declared the area off-limits.
It wasn’t the Association blocking access—recently, a monster outbreak had devastated Dobongsan, so entry itself had been restricted.
‘So he deliberately chose this place.’
From the seventh-floor Tower Climb reward, Seong Un’s Hyper-sense had risen to Grade B.
Because of that, he could detect foreign mana layered across the national park—something other than nature’s own.
Whirrrr—
Then Han Geon-woo’s smartphone in his pocket vibrated.
A call with the caller ID blocked.
Truth be told, more than ten calls had come in during the subway ride here.
Yet Seong Un hadn’t answered a single one.
‘Persistent bastard.’
Seong Un picked up the first call that came through.
[Finally, you picked up.]
Through the smartphone came a familiar language.
‘Korean?’
He couldn’t be certain yet.
It could be a foreigner who spoke Korean fluently.
“Who is this?”
[Huh? That’s not Han Geon-woo’s voice.]
“I’m the Irregular you’re looking for.”
[That so? Can you prove it?]
“Where’s his brother?”
[Still safe. As long as you come quietly, Han Geon-woo’s brother will stay that way.]
“Where do I go?”
[I’ll send you the location to this phone. Show up there. Got it? If anyone else finds out, the brother dies.]
The call cut off.
“Shall we get started?”
Seong Un stepped into the national park.
He’d walked maybe five minutes or so.
“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry, but you can’t go in here.”
Two men appeared descending from ahead.
They blocked Seong Un’s path with practiced smiles on their faces.
“Why not? I came here to climb.”
“Didn’t you see the sign outside? Please turn back.”
“Ah, so when would I be able to climb again?”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t give you the details.”
“I see.”
Thud!
Seong Un nodded, then drove his fist into the man’s abdomen.
Caught off guard, the man took the blow full force—his level was low enough that he folded in half and flew backward.
Foam flecked his lips as he convulsed, and his companion’s eyes flashed with rage at Seong Un.
“You bastard! What the hell are you doing!”
“What does it look like? Putting down a criminal.”
“What?”
Seong Un reached into his Inventory and drew out the SS-rank Rakshasa, gripping it in his hand.
“Shit……!”
At the sight of the clearly dangerous weapon, the man’s face went ashen and he spun to run.
‘That one’s low level too.’
Seong Un chased after the fleeing man and drove the short dagger between his shoulder blades, piercing his heart.
“Gahhh!”
The man convulsed, then blood gushed from his mouth as he collapsed.
‘Clean.’
Leonis spoke, a note of surprise in his voice.
‘Looks that way, doesn’t it?’
Getting blood on your hands wasn’t the right choice.
Yet to survive, you had to stain them.
That process layered upon itself, dulling the edges with each repetition.
Honestly, blood spattered from the dagger to his hands, chest, and face—it barely registered as noteworthy anymore.
‘No, that’s not quite it.’
Leonis wore just as much blood on his own hands from countless kills.
What surprised him was simply that Seong Un displayed a composure so unshakeable you’d never believe he was a beginner.
‘Is that so? Then let’s find out who these bastards are first.’
Seong Un rifled through the dead man’s pockets and found a wallet.
Inside was an ID and business cards from a guild—a guild printed in a language he’d never heard before.
“Ah, so they weren’t Korean?”
They were men whose fluency was so perfect that it easily deceived one into thinking they were Korean.
One might overlook a single case.
But the one on the phone and these men here—even after just a brief exchange, there was almost no sense of foreignness.
Their appearance itself was purely Korean.
‘Could it be an Artifact?’
Seong Un searched the corpse’s entire body methodically.
In doing so, he discovered patches affixed to the roof of the mouth and behind the ears.
‘As I thought.’
An Artifact that warps one’s appearance and language to suit the country. Appearance & Language Modifier.
The patches on the roof of the mouth and behind the ears formed a set, and since they were quite expensive, almost no one used them unless they had considerable wealth.
The transformation adjusted to the country based on one’s original face, so if the basic foundation was poor, the resulting appearance would be correspondingly flawed.
If it improved one’s looks, demand would have been substantial despite the high price.
‘But it’s already been developed.’
He remembered this coming out later.
It hadn’t been made public yet.
Clearly, it was already being used actively in underground circles.
Crack—
At the sound of a twig snapping, Seong Un’s head turned.
“Eeek!”
The man who had been lodged in the tree was about to flee when his eyes met Seong Un’s, and he froze on the spot.
“Come here if you don’t want to die.”
Seong Un crooked his finger, and the man hesitated for a moment before shuffling forward reluctantly.
Thump—
The moment he came within striking distance, Seong Un drove his short dagger mercilessly into the man’s chest.
“Gasp!”
The man coughed blood and stared at Seong Un with eyes full of resentment.
Hadn’t he said he wouldn’t kill if the man came closer?
Seong Un smiled thinly and leaned close to the man’s ear, whispering softly.
“Never trust people carelessly. Especially not strangers.”
“You bastard… cough!”
The man could say no more and expired shortly after.
Having disposed of the two men, Seong Un pulled out an Artifact and cleaned the blood from it thoroughly.
Then he tossed the corpses aside and moved on.
* * *
At that moment.
‘I’m going to die…’
Han Jin-woo lay bound with rope around his arms and legs, unable to move an inch.
He wanted to scream, but tape was wrapped tightly around his mouth, making even that impossible.
“Hey, don’t move.”
At the low-pitched voice, Han Jin-woo’s body trembled.
Two men stood guard over him.
Any attempt to move, and they issued warnings like that.
An Awakened One who had progressed considerably through the Tower Climb and a Non-Awakened had an overwhelming difference in physical strength—even a light strike could result in fatal injury.
‘I need to pee so badly!’
The problem was that he hadn’t been allowed to use the bathroom once.
His bladder felt ready to burst at any moment, yet these men merely kept warning him, making this absolutely unbearable.
Han Jin-woo unknowingly began wiggling his toes.
“What? This bastard’s still moving?”
One of the guards, seeing this, approached Han Jin-woo with a menacing expression.
“Hey, you can’t kill him.”
The other guard restrained him.
“He won’t listen. These punks only understand violence.”
“And if he dies from it? You’re taking responsibility?”
Splash—
“What? Did this bastard just piss himself?”
“Damn, disgusting.”
Han Jin-woo’s pants were soaked as he reached his limit.
‘Ah…’
Han Jin-woo hung his head toward the ground in utter despair.
At this age, the shame of soiling himself was acute, yet simultaneously a relief washed over him—liberation from the agony that had felt like death itself—and with it came the full force of disbelief at what had just transpired.
“Intruder!”
Just then, an urgent shout rang out from beyond the walls.
“Intruder?”
“Damn it, grab that bastard!”
“You do it.”
“You want me to lay hands on that filthy thing?”
“What the hell? I can’t, but you can?”
Perhaps because of the soiling, the two guards kept pushing Han Jin-woo back and forth between them, bickering.
“What are you doing? Get him out of here, now!”
Their quarrel was cut short by another’s intervention.
“Goddamn it, you haul him out.”
“Then we can leave right away.”
The two of them shoved Han Jin-woo onto him.
“Christ, you idiots.”
He too grimaced at the sight of Han Jin-woo, but time was pressing, and with obvious reluctance he hoisted the boy across his shoulder.
* * *
Thud—
“Ugh!”
Seong Un methodically eliminated each new arrival.
‘Weaker than I expected.’
Having completed the Climb of the seventh floor, his Level had risen to fifty-five.
Even accounting for that, these thugs’ caliber was far too low.
What possessed them to attempt something this reckless?
Bang—!
‘!’
A bullet tore through the air at Seong Un.
His Hyper-sense picked it up, and he reflexively twisted his head aside; the fired round streaked past and punctured clean through a tree.
Not an ordinary bullet—a Mana bullet.
‘Watching from a distance, then.’
‘Yes. They would have sensed your presence the moment you entered.’
From the entrance, he’d felt an alien pulse of Mana.
Whoever had prepared this with such care wouldn’t overlook the intrusion of an outsider so lightly.
Seong Un hurried to take cover behind a nearby boulder, tracking the angle from which the shot had come.
Bang—!
Another round came whistling in, and he ducked low.
‘They don’t mean to kill me.’
‘That appears to be the case.’
Seong Un and Leonis’s thoughts aligned.
If death truly were the intent, the sniper should have fired during their engagement.
But shooting only after the confrontation had ended pointed to something else—a warning, a signal that they were being watched.
‘What’s your move?’
‘We push through.’
Disparate Mana signatures flickered in pockets all around them.
That was when it happened.
Whoosh—!
Something shot through the air, but not at Seong Un—it flew toward the direction the bullet had come from.
“Ack!”
A sharp cry followed, confirming a clean hit.
‘Backup already?’
Seong Un’s brow furrowed.
He’d explicitly told them to stand by until support was called.
Yet the figure that emerged from the shadows was none other than Seo Jae-pil.
“You all right?”
“What are you doing here?”
The Greatest Returnee Consumes the Tower (Serialized)
Author │ Yeon-i-yo
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Publishing House │ J. P. Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
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, and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this provision 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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