The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 31

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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 31
31.
There was no getting around it.
First, there was the matter of a Direct Divine Blessing.
He’d heard of such things before.
Many Hunters with sacred-related jobs experienced it, or so he’d been told.
But it had never happened to Ju Do-gyeom.
Before the regression and now alike, his job classification bore no connection to divinity whatsoever—his skills had developed along entirely different lines.
Then there was Job Promotion, or evolution.
Ju Do-gyeom had experienced that as well.
In his past life, he had begun as a Martial Artist and ascended to Martial Master—that transformation was precisely this process at work.
Naturally, it had not been easy.
Most job-related skills required a minimum proficiency of Level 6 or higher.
Some demanded Level 8 before the change could occur.
And yet it had happened.
Despite his job skills remaining far below the necessary threshold.
Ju Do-gyeom regarded the statue once more.
The Statue of Goddess of Abundance.
A faint Divine Power dwells within it.
Nothing had changed.
Even when he traced it with his senses, the result was the same.
The Divine Power that had blazed forth so intensely, if only for a moment, now seemed like a phantom.
On impulse, Ju Do-gyeom placed his hand upon the statue.
The Goddess of Abundance is pleased.
“……?”
He withdrew his hand.
The Statue of Goddess of Abundance.
Once, the Goddess of Abundance dwelt here.
The description had changed.
A flicker of intrigue crossed Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes.
Gods.
He could not deny their existence.
As he’d noted, many Hunters borrowed divine power in their work.
But had gods always been this actively engaged in their will?
He had no way of knowing.
As he’d said before, in his past life he’d been called a Martial Master, yet he’d had no connection whatsoever to divinity or the divine.
Abel.
One of the Final Twelve, though that alone hardly captured it.
He was better known by another name: the Saint—a middle-aged man of that epithet.
If anyone would have answers, it would be him.
The only problem was that Ju Do-gyeom and he had never had extensive conversations.
It wasn’t that they disliked each other.
Quite the opposite, actually.
There was a quality to their interaction—a sense of reading each other’s thoughts without need for words.
Vivienne had remarked more than once that the two of them were remarkably alike.
Though Ju Do-gyeom had never found that observation particularly pleasant.
Still, Abel likely felt the same way.
Words or no words, that was the sense he carried.
At any rate.
He would have to meet with Abel.
There was no one better positioned to provide information on matters divine.
Abel, at this very moment, was already regarded as an S-Rank Hunter—one of humanity’s strongest assets.
Wait, no.
If he needed counsel on Divine Power, there was one other person he could turn to.
But.
There was no real point of contact with that person.
No, Abel was the right choice.
Besides, their paths would intersect naturally enough.
The Saint, Abel.
Abel Clemang, full name.
He was French, and in a few months’ time, an item of Ju Do-gyeom’s that would go up for auction.
The Invisible Spear and the Tangible Form were both being held in the French Museum.
‘Originally, I’d only meant to ask this chairman for the item.’
But now, a plan to visit France in person had taken shape as a bonus.
Once he’d sorted through all the details of this bewildering situation, another thought followed.
‘Wait—then why didn’t Dang Ho receive the god’s blessing?’
By his reckoning, the person who’d returned the Statue of Goddess of Abundance to its place was undoubtedly Dang Ho.
Yet he’d said nothing about it at all.
It was too significant a detail to overlook, even if one chalked it up to carelessness.
More than that—
none of Dang Ho’s martial arts contained any line imbued with Divine Power.
It was possible he simply hadn’t used them because they were useless, but that seemed extraordinarily unlikely.
This was a blessing potent enough to elevate an entire Job Promotion, after all.
“Hmm….”
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes drifted back toward the statue once more.
He placed his hand against it.
This time, no response came back.
Like the shifted information, the true goddess of abundance had vanished entirely.
Which left only one remaining hypothesis.
‘Dang Ho never received a blessing of Divine Power at all.’
Then why had he?
As the question began to loop again, he shook his head.
‘I’ll settle it in France.’
There was no finding answers right now, after all.
Ju Do-gyeom closed his thoughts and opened his mouth.
“I’m returning.”
The Dungeon had yielded everything there was to obtain.
The Marquis of Borderland’s Fortress, now occupied.
From that world, Ju Do-gyeom vanished completely.
* * *
When Ju Do-gyeom arrived home, he was startled.
“Snooooore—!”
There was Kim Han-ryul, freshly showered and fluffy-haired, sprawled across his bed with her head thrown back, snoring away.
“Urrrrgh…! You’re killing me, boss. Seriously.”
She was even sleep-talking.
He understood, though.
She must have been exhausted.
She’d spent days inside the Dungeon, and it hadn’t exactly been a leisurely schedule.
That was part of why he’d sent her back first.
She’d been running on a spike of adrenaline, but the strain had been plainly visible in her eyes.
Still, even so—
“Your own place is right there, and you’re sleeping at someone else’s house?”
He let out an exasperated laugh and turned away, only to notice the state of the room.
“…Why did you clean, for god’s sake?”
Even the pile of dishes he’d left to wash after getting back had been completely cleared.
That wasn’t all.
On top of the gas range sat a clay pot—from somewhere he had no idea—simmering with a bubbling kimchi stew.
For a moment, an image from old Korean folklore sprang to mind.
‘The Grateful Bride?’
But for that to be the case, she shouldn’t still be here in the house, should she?
He turned his head back.
That instant, Kim Han-ryul cried out.
“Yes, sir!”
Ju Do-gyeom was startled, but she didn’t wake.
“Hehe…… Boss…… yes, sir.”
Still sleep-talking, Kim Han-ryul murmured on.
Ju Do-gyeom couldn’t help but smile.
A quiet murmur escaped his lips.
“Your loyalty is excessive.”
He’d met Kim Han-ryul back then by pure, literal chance.
He’d never imagined Kim Han-ryul being there at that moment.
Bringing her in as a team member had been just as unplanned.
It fell outside his calculations, but he had to admit it.
Her abilities exceeded his expectations.
But beyond all that, above everything else.
She was an exceptional colleague.
This wasn’t about the practical help he’d mentioned earlier.
So was there some small joy in this?
That wasn’t bad, certainly, but it was something more.
The Heavenly Murderous Star.
Only now, looking back, did Ju Do-gyeom admit it to himself.
The more he recalled the past, dwelling on the pain and anger of the years behind him, awakening his sense of responsibility, the more violently the star raged within him.
It blazed ever fiercer.
His patience, his perseverance, the ring of mental resistance he wore, the objective perception he’d cultivated through Divided Mind—these kept it from erupting outward, but if he continued down this path, it was painfully clear he would never reach anything positive.
Yet that grinding madness had quieted the moment he saw Kim Han-ryul’s absurd sleep-talking.
Far faster and easier than when he’d consciously tried to restrain it himself.
‘Perhaps……’
The deepest root of his sense of responsibility stemmed from the deaths of his colleagues.
So of course the thought came naturally: she was an exceptional colleague.
It meant their partnership worked better than he’d anticipated.
‘I never expected to find something like this……’
Should he thank her for sleeping in someone else’s house unbidden?
Ju Do-gyeom let out a quiet laugh and shook his head, moving toward the kitchen.
He retrieved a clean spoon and dipped it into the kimchi stew Kim Han-ryul had prepared.
She’d made it recently—the broth still steamed with considerable heat.
He blew on the spoon gently and brought it carefully to his lips.
Then he nodded blankly, set the spoon down, and dumped the entire remaining stew into the food waste bin.
A complex question formed in his mind.
‘Did she add concentrated poison?’
……That couldn’t be.
The taste was simply atrocious—his stomach had simply revolted.
Ju Do-gyeom pressed a hand to his queasy stomach and sank into the corner of the room.
Fatigue caught up with him too, and his eyes grew heavy.
‘Just a short rest.’
Then he’d get up and make a fresh batch of kimchi stew.
No point letting her misunderstand.
Of course.
‘……I should tell her never to cook again.’
Darkness claimed his thoughts.
* * *
The problem was, Ju Do-gyeom fell into deep sleep as well.
A whole day passed.
When he woke, Kim Han-ryul—who’d been sleep-talking—had vanished.
The abandoned stone pot and the food waste bin had both been cleaned up.
Ju Do-gyeom moved to contact her first.
But.
Kim Han-ryul – ……I’m sorry. I tried tasting it, realized it wasn’t going to work, and threw it out. My stomach was in such bad shape I just collapsed onto the bed and left everything like that. My apologies, sir.
Kim Han-ryul’s message had already arrived.
Ju Do-gyeom deliberated over how to respond, then sent a message.
Ju Do-gyeom – From now on, I’ll handle all the cooking.
The reply came immediately.
Kim Han-ryul – Roger that. I’m sorry, no—thank you. Sir.
It was a minor incident.
* * *
Since the age of Monsters and Hunters began, the world had changed in many ways.
The most prominent change was the overpopulation of designated cities.
For South Korea, it was Seoul.
For Japan, Tokyo and Osaka.
For China, Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, and beyond.
There were two main reasons.
The first issue was an unexpectedly frequent phenomenon: Dungeon Breaks.
Dungeons had no physical entrance on Earth.
And when someone entered, a generated world would appear.
At first, everyone understood it only that way.
But it wasn’t.
As Hunters multiplied and Dungeons were cleared, no entrance to any Dungeon existed on Earth’s surface—
yet they still appeared.
Monsters.
They invaded Earth from beyond the Gates that had been created.
No one understood the reason, nor did anyone have a solution.
And this phenomenon grew progressively worse as time passed.
Which was how the future Ju Do-gyeom knew came to pass.
Beyond Dungeon Break—Dungeon Eruption.
An era where monsters burst forth like a fountain, in the most literal sense.
Mana exploded, and Earth transformed into an environment indistinguishable from a Dungeon itself. The worst possible future.
The present age had not yet reached such a desperate point, but Dungeon Breaks were already a mounting headache for every nation.
And layered atop this threat came something far more catastrophic: uncontrollable Hunter Awakenings.
Anyone who entered a Dungeon awakened as a Hunter.
Superhuman beings with extraordinary abilities—powers that had never existed on Earth before—were being born in the blink of an eye.
This Dungeon System recognized no distinction between good and evil.
It made no distinction between the poor and the rich.
And so, inevitably, they arose.
Those who wielded their newfound power with no regard for morality or restraint, doing exactly as they pleased.
The birth of Villains.
Every nation began classifying these Villains with ratings, much like Hunter Ranks.
From S down to F.
These Danger Ratings necessarily differed from the Villain’s actual Hunter Rank.
Few Villains openly publicized their true Hunter Rank to the world—only those desperate for attention.
In any case.
Under this system of Danger Ratings, the individual who had received the highest classification in South Korea was unmistakable.
Jin Woo-sung, the Immortal.
A Villain rated Danger A+, and outside the Red Zone.
King of the lawless wastelands teeming with monsters—the outer world also called the Grey Zone.
He had just emerged from the Dungeon known as the Cannibal Ghost’s Mansion.
His subordinates, who had been awaiting his return, were just beginning to bow their heads deeply and speak—
“Congratulations—”
Before the words could even finish.
“Gasp—!”
An elderly man beside them, dressed in a deep grey robe, let out a scream.
The startled subordinates turned their heads.
At some point Jin Woo-sung had moved; now his hand was clamped around the old man’s throat.
His face twisted into something as terrible and ferocious as a demon.
The subordinates quickly lowered their gazes.
They all knew.
In this state, to meet Jin Woo-sung’s eyes was death.
Certain death.
Even if the old man were someone Jin Woo-sung normally held dear, it made no difference.
And.
The elderly man looked up at Jin Woo-sung with legs giving way beneath him, his complexion ashen and his eyes wide with terror.
Jin Woo-sung gazed down at him with eyes as piercing and cold as a vicious wolf, a twisted smile spreading across his lips as he spoke.
“My Heavenly Murderous Star has vanished. Prophet.”

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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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