The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 37

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 37
37.
The sky above the ruined wasteland—a city once, now utterly consumed by thorned vines.
At the heart of a world drenched entirely in violet light, a vast cradle drifts lazily through the air.
Seated within it, legs crossed, was a woman.
Snow-white hair, crimson eyes, and striking scarlet lines that extended from the corners of her eyes in a prolonged arc.
Something that resembled a human—yet was no human at all, but a calamity itself.
The Witch of Gluttony.
With eyes of endless longing, she gazed down upon the fallen humans below, and from the crevice of her cradle withdrew a pristine white fan, spreading it open.
Flutter, flutter.
Beyond the slowly dancing fan, she smiled with captivating allure, parting her lustrous crimson lips to speak in a low voice.
-How truly disappointing. You humans of this age. Do you not know how many chances I have granted you? And yet, to crumble here of all places…….
Snap.
She folded the fan in her hand, exhaled a final sigh, and continued.
-Aah…… that is enough. If this is the limit, then there is no need to see what comes next.
Slowly, the tip of the fan rose into the air.
At that very moment, all the magical force in the world began to pour toward it, drawn by the rules she had established.
Upon a building surrounded by thorned vines.
Ju Do-gyeom, who had been waiting for his opening, threw himself forward.
In an instant, crossing the breadth of the world, he drove his blade into the Witch of Gluttony’s forehead before she could even register her shock.
In that moment.
The witch, wearing a bright smile, spoke.
-Oho…… at last one…… worthy of expectation?
Immediately after, her form scattered into crimson butterflies, then coalesced anew somewhere in the void.
Ju Do-gyeom did not panic.
The Witch of Gluttony was a calamity.
He had never expected that a single blade through her forehead would be enough to kill her.
To be precise.
This entire scenario had unfolded precisely as planned.
The arch-mage of Britain.
‘Your turn, Vivienne.’
From directly behind the reformed Witch of Gluttony, she detonated the Grand Magic she had been preparing.
-……!!
The Witch of Gluttony, struck by the impact, plummeted from the shattered cradle to the ground below.
His allies, who had been concealing themselves and waiting, burst forth from all directions, tearing into the witch’s form with relentless fury.
From within that onslaught, the witch—transformed once more into crimson butterflies—laughed aloud.
-Ahahaha-! Yes, yes, that is the way! To break under merely this? You would have no right to call yourself anything at all!
“Silence, witch.”
Before her, as she reformed once again.
Ju Do-gyeom’s blade arrived, having anticipated her trajectory through pure instinct, and now swept through the air, trailing lightning in its wake.
Crash-!
The calamity that, alongside the Great Earth Dragon and the Demon King of Annihilation, had inflicted the greatest devastation upon mankind.
The hunt for the Witch of Gluttony had begun.
* * *
Time returned to the present.
Ju Do-gyeom stared directly at Lee Seo-ah, who was awkwardly waving a hand fan back and forth.
‘It is different.’
Unmistakably so.
Lee Seo-ah and the Witch of Gluttony were separate beings, that much was certain.
Then why did he see them overlapping?
As the confusion deepened.
“J-Ju Do-gyeom?”
Lee Seo-ah, already pale, went even paler, her body trembling.
Her eyes were wide with fear.
Ju Do-gyeom understood then.
‘Ah…….’
He had been unconsciously radiating a rather dense killing intent.
Why?
Because Lee Seo-ah resembled the Witch of Gluttony?
No.
‘……Cheonsal-seong.’
The question and its answer arrive in swift succession.
But that’s not what matters now.
Even as the thought crosses his mind, Ju Do-gyeom’s killing intent vanishes in an instant, and he bows his head.
“I’m sorry. Lee Seo-ah. I’ve been rude.”
“W-what happened…….”
“It’s an inexcusable mistake on my part.”
He rises from his seat and bows again, deeply and deliberately.
The tremor in Lee Seo-ah’s eyes steadies itself, her gaze settling into calm.
When she speaks, her voice is firm.
“It’s fine. I’m sure Ju Do-gyeom had your reasons.”
“I can’t deny that, but it hardly excuses what I did.”
Ju Do-gyeom lifts his head and meets Lee Seo-ah’s eyes.
In that gaze—which Lee Seo-ah has always known to be composed, and which even now she reads as composed—he glimpses something else entirely. Something she’s pretending to see as composure.
It was the first time.
The first time she’d sensed his calm as a mask.
What lay beneath it, she couldn’t say.
She still couldn’t see past the surface.
So Lee Seo-ah smiled and spoke.
“Really, it’s fine. You saved my life, after all.”
“…
….”
“And…
….”
Lee Seo-ah rose to her feet.
“I should be going now.”
“Ah…….”
“Not because I’m upset—it’s consideration. Days like today, I think you should rest.”
“……Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
She speaks those final words in a voice steady as iron, then turns toward the entryway, her footsteps light.
But then she paused.
Just for a moment.
She stopped mid-step, turned back, and looked at Ju Do-gyeom.
“Ju Do-gyeom.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t apologize so much. Hehe…….”
That last laugh—it was pure Lee Seo-ah, just as she always was.
* * *
The apartment, emptied of Lee Seo-ah.
Ju Do-gyeom settles onto the sofa, crossing his legs into a meditative posture.
He activates Cheon-gyeol Ki-gong.
On Earth, he can only accumulate the faintest traces of Inner Force, but for clearing his mind and ordering his thoughts, there is no better method.
In that state, he retraces his reasoning.
‘Is Lee Seo-ah the Witch of Gluttony?’
No.
And yet—she resembles her.
At first he hadn’t recognized it, but the moment his past memories grew clear, he could be certain.
If Lee Seo-ah’s hair turned white, if her subtle makeup deepened into harsh crimson—
That would be the Witch of Gluttony.
He’d had another thought, too.
‘The original Lee Seo-ah died of Magia Sickness.’
Afterward, for reasons unknown, she became a Calamity.
Whether she retained the memories of Lee Seo-ah, or whether they were lost—he cannot know.
But one thing is certain.
The Lee Seo-ah before him now is not the Witch of Gluttony.
Absolutely not.
Yet why does he keep making the same mistake?
‘The Divided Heart Technique.’
To unravel it completely, he examines his own state with unflinching clarity.
Cheonsal-seong appeared docile.
Or rather, he seemed that way.
On the surface, all was quiet.
But beneath lay something altogether different.
A roiling darkness.
Deep in the recesses of his mind, a thing that squirmed as if restraining its own delight.
It danced through minute convulsions, one after another.
The moment Ju Do-gyeom perceived him completely.
—Screeeee-!
A sound echoed through his skull as if heard from within.
Cheonsal-seong, who had been feigning docility, suddenly erupted across every surface of his being.
As though reveling in his own rage.
Sneering at it.
‘So well you played the gentle mask.’
Cheonsal-seong.
This man’s mind-devouring madness was more treacherous than he’d anticipated.
Ju Do-gyeom did not yield to the provocation.
But neither did he ignore it.
He simply smiled, cold as winter frost.
Then, without hesitation.
Thrust—!
He drove his finger into his own temple.
—…!!
Cheonsal-seong’s madness trembled as if seized by agony.
Through that movement, Ju Do-gyeom materialized the madness’s presence within his mind’s eye—a thing like ethereal force given shape.
And with the hooked tip of his index finger, he pressed and crushed that conjured form into nothingness.
Whoosh—!
Along with a sensation of clarity flooding his skull, the madness that had been tickling at his mind vanished.
Or rather, it felt as though it had.
Ju Do-gyeom knew the truth.
‘As long as I carry Cheonsal-seong within me.’
This madness would continue to resurface again and again.
Even if he killed it, it would resurrect countless times over.
And it would never grow weaker.
Only ever swelling larger and larger.
In such circumstances, regrettably, forcible suppression like this was no true answer.
‘This is only a temporary effect.’
It was, in essence, anesthesia.
The real solution was singular.
‘…I must preserve myself wholly intact.’
I must not lose the human heart within me.
A difficult thing.
He was a Regressor.
He knew the despair that awaited.
He bore the burden of that knowledge.
To carry it, he could not forget the terrible future he remembered.
Vengeance, rage, resentment.
All of it nestled in his heart.
Without being swept away by them, he had to push forward toward another future—this one.
Ju Do-gyeom understood himself.
‘Regrettably, this is not something I alone can endure.’
He was certain that he was not the strong man his companions had hoped for.
When duty stood before him.
He had moved forward simply because he was there.
It was mere circumstance that he had come to occupy that position.
Above all, if he grew arrogant and was consumed by Cheonsal-seong, no greater calamity could befall them.
‘I cannot allow the tail to wag the dog.’
Ju Do-gyeom withdrew his finger from his temple.
Blood streaming down his face, he collapsed backward onto the sofa.
“Haah….”
His breath came in heavy gasps.
His consciousness was growing murky.
The names of those he’d met in this world, and those he would yet meet, flashed through his mind in succession.
‘Kim Han-ryul, Lee Young-sik, Lee Seo-ah, Vivienne, Dang Ho…….’
He had to protect them all.
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes slowly closed.
* * *
In the Underground Parking Lot, Lee Seo-ah climbed into the driver’s seat of the black sedan she’d parked there.
She’d deliberately chosen to go alone, without a driver or bodyguard.
She hadn’t wanted to burden the company’s people with her personal errands.
Of course, her father, Chairman Lee Young-sik, had worried about it in various ways.
But in the end, she’d managed to secure this arrangement by emphasizing that the route ran between the uppermost levels of the Green Zone and the Blue Zone, and that while the sedan appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary vehicle on the surface, it was in fact equipped with various scientific technologies and magitech systems.
Though she suspected her father might have pretended to agree while secretly having someone follow her anyway.
‘But there’s nothing I can do about that.’
She started the engine.
“Sigh…….”
A heavy breath escaped her.
It wasn’t her father’s overprotectiveness that bothered her.
She hadn’t even thought of it as overprotection to begin with.
She’d spent the last two years lying in a hospital bed.
And knowing how unstable this world was, how uncertain its future remained, she understood his concern.
It was perfectly reasonable.
“Ugh…….”
The engine hummed.
Yet as she drove out of the parking lot, another sigh slipped from her lips unbidden.
And the reason for it was unmistakably Ju Do-gyeom.
The sudden change she’d witnessed in him twice today alone.
The first time had been somewhat unclear, but the second time had been unmistakable.
‘Did I make some kind of mistake?’
It didn’t seem like it.
But what was that look in Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes?
As if he were facing an enemy right before him…….
‘……If I really were his enemy, he wouldn’t have saved me.’
Ju Do-gyeom.
A name that had been filling her mind lately.
She didn’t know why.
It had been that way from the moment she opened her eyes and heard his name from her father’s lips.
It would be easier if she could justify it as rational attraction, something she could be certain of.
To be honest, Ju Do-gyeom’s appearance and presence weren’t her type at all.
Not that he was unattractive, but there was something about him.
‘He’s too heavy.’
As if he were carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.
It made him seem difficult to approach.
Yet at the same time, there was something about his bearing that stirred a strange pity in her.
It was ridiculous.
To feel sympathy for the man who’d saved her life?
But when she thought about it.
That emotion kept drawing her back toward Ju Do-gyeom.
“The more I look at him, the more handsome he seems…….”
The murmur escaped her lips.
Lee Seo-ah’s face flushed crimson, and she shook her head vigorously.
“This girl. What am I saying. Even if I’m alone.”
The traffic light turned red just then.
Lee Seo-ah reached for the bag sitting on the passenger seat.
She pulled out a file from inside it.
A wave of regret washed over her.
“I should have handed this over too, but I forgot.”
A stock outlook file.
She was certain it would be quite useful.
“Sigh…….”
Still, he said he’d call me again next time.
The thought sent a foolish smile creeping across her lips.
“……I must be insane.”
Laughing at the prospect of seeing that man again—the one who’d looked at her as though he meant to kill her?
‘What happened to my head after all that pain?’
She was beginning to turn serious when it happened.
The traffic light shifted from red to green.
It wasn’t yet late enough in the evening, so pedestrians still moved through the streets in fair numbers.
Lee Seo-ah scanned them once more, slowly, then pressed the accelerator.
It came immediately after.
Crash!
A tremendous impact rocked the car, crumpling the long hood as the rear wheels lifted high off the ground.
Lee Seo-ah’s eyes went wide with shock.
Beyond the window—still unbroken thanks to the magitech reinforcement—
A man in a black leather jacket, his expression fierce and predatory, came into view.
“Peek-a-boo!”
He grinned brightly and reached his hand inside.
Shatter!
The magitech glass shattered like ordinary glass.
“Ahhhhh!”
“C-call the police! We need to call the police right now!”
Screams and cries tangled together from the crowd.
The man paid them no mind, seizing Lee Seo-ah by the collar as she fought to stay conscious and escape, then dragged her bodily out of the wreckage.
Gasp!
Before the now-ashen Lee Seo-ah—
The man gripping her throat by the neck spun her around to see her face clearly, then spoke.
“That’s right. My golden goblin……though you’re far too pretty for that. How about I call you my golden princess instead?”
Thud.
As the playful man released his grip, Lee Seo-ah’s body tumbled onto the crumpled hood.
“Cough, cough……!”
Lee Seo-ah lifted her head, her eyes flashing daggers.
“I don’t know who you are…….”
Before she could finish—
“Jin Woo-seong.”
The man answered.
Lee Seo-ah’s eyes widened.
She had heard that name before.
Jin Woo-seong, his face bright and cheerful, brought his hand down hard against the back of her neck.
As consciousness began to fade—
She heard his voice once more.
“You’ve been kidnapped.”
After that, everything went dark.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————