The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 41

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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 41
41.
At the follow-up question, Lee Seo-ah’s eyes widened and her head tilted in confusion.
“No. There wasn’t anyone…….”
There wasn’t?
Was that right?
But there seemed to have been someone.
The fog in her mind was thickening.
—Crack!
A sound like something being swallowed echoed through her thoughts.
In the same instant.
Lee Seo-ah, feeling her mind suddenly clear, cried out.
“There was! There was an old man wearing a gray hood. Something felt sinister about him……, but I can’t remember his face. It was underground, and he was bundled up so thickly.”
“…….”
Ju Do-gyeom walked toward something without a word.
It was empty air—nothing at all.
Lee Seo-ah spoke.
“Yes, that’s right. It was exactly in that direction…….”
She hadn’t even finished speaking.
Whoosh—!
Ju Do-gyeom, his eyes glowing red, swung his Great Axe toward the empty space.
And then.
Screeeech—!
A sound like something tearing ripped through the entire basement.
Lee Seo-ah, startled, asked.
“W-wait. Was he still there the whole time?”
Ju Do-gyeom shook his head.
“No. What was here was a trace of presence…… or rather, something closer to a magical construct, it seems.”
“A magical…… construct?”
“You can just think of it as magic. Hmm…….”
Should he pursue?
He considered it, but the trail was far too faint.
More than anything, the very sensation of tearing through the magic had felt distant enough.
The chances of it turning into a frustratingly prolonged chase were high.
A sigh escaped him amid his deliberation.
“Hmm…….”
Ju Do-gyeom made his decision.
“Let’s set it aside for now.”
“There’s no need to pursue?”
“It’s fine.”
It would be a lie to say he felt no regret.
But it was also clearly true that it was fine.
At first, he’d missed it because the presence had been concealed so thoroughly.
But now that he’d read it once, there was no way it could hide the same way again next time.
‘I don’t know who it is, but…….’
Instinct struck him.
Perhaps this figure was the one who had revealed his Thousand Slayer Nature to Jin Woo-sung.
A turning point in the past he hadn’t anticipated.
If that were the case, then inevitably they would meet again.
Once the threads of altered fate had begun to entangle, it wouldn’t end with just one encounter.
So.
‘Next time.’
He would be certain to catch them.
Whoever it was.
Ju Do-gyeom made his vow in silence.
His gaze swept across the empty basement once more.
Though he examined it more carefully, he felt no further suspicious or unusual presence.
Instead, what he sensed was a thick Mana Barrier protecting the interior from without.
‘Mana Stones are stacked inside the walls to create it.’
In essence, this basement was no different from a Mana Stone mine.
If we dig into the wall, it means Mana Stones will come out.
He was certain that selling them would bring in a tremendous sum.
‘This part should work out well if I ask the chairman about it.’
After reaching that conclusion,
Ju Do-gyeom approached the dead Jin Woo-sung and began searching through his pockets.
“Is there… anything?” Lee Seo-ah asked from behind.
Ju Do-gyeom answered her.
“If this is difficult for you to watch, why don’t you head upstairs and rest? I can contact the chairman first if you’d like.”
“No. It’s fine.”
Lee Seo-ah spoke with firm resolve.
Ju Do-gyeom paid her no further mind, drawing from Jin Woo-sung’s pocket the object he’d been searching for.
‘A Magical Mobile Device.’
Its outward appearance was ordinary.
But it was no ordinary object.
In truth, it was a Mage Engineering tool housing an extraordinarily powerful magical formula.
Its exact function was this:
‘Untraceable by modern science. Even if tracked by magic, it evades through dummy generation.’
This was why no engineer in South Korea had been able to find this place where Jin Woo-sung had hidden himself.
Beyond that,
‘Reverse tracing, call interception — everything.’
Into this small object, literally staggering functionality was packed in its entirety.
And for good reason.
This Magical Mobile Device had once been a classified product created with American state funding, and by current standards it was the masterwork of Howard Graham, one of the top five Mage Engineers alongside Sun Woo-gyeol.
Moreover, the magical formula that went into it
‘was made by Vivienne,’ he’d been told.
So only three units had ever been produced.
Even then, and even now, the manufacturing cost was so astronomical that even America, the wealthiest nation on Earth, couldn’t justify continued production.
How Jin Woo-sung had obtained this device, Ju Do-gyeom had no idea.
And he didn’t particularly care to know.
It had been the same when he’d killed the Jin Woo-sung of the past.
‘There’s no real need to understand such things.’
In any case, owning it would likely open up many uses.
So he planned to transfer the number and use it himself.
‘When I meet Vivienne later…’
An upgrade might be possible, wouldn’t it?
After all, Sun Woo-gyeol was still alive in this era.
With that thought came another:
‘It really is a profitable venture.’
Killing Jin Woo-sung on top of acquiring a Magical Mobile Device that, in modern information warfare, could hardly be called anything less than a magical artifact.
Just this much made his head nod repeatedly…
‘But what’s this?’
A flicker of interest crossed Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes as he continued to search Jin Woo-sung’s corpse.
It was because of an object he’d found in a pocket inside the leather jacket.
‘…Jin Woo-sung had this?’
This was far more than just a profitable venture.
“…A jackpot,” he murmured.
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing.”
At Lee Seo-ah’s question, Ju Do-gyeom shook his head, though he couldn’t hide the smile that played at the corners of his mouth.
* * *
On a jagged rock jutting up from the Wilderness of the Gray Zone, beyond the urban sprawl,
an old man in a gray hood, eyes closed as he sat, coughed up blood-flecked phlegm.
“Hack—!”
The lined corners of his mouth trembled sharply, then fell heavy.
Two heavy words emerged from that mouth:
“Indeed… the God of War…”
The thought that rose in his mind was:
‘The name is not unearned.’
Even if he’d only just acquired the Thousand Slayer Nature, and the time it had been in his possession was so brief, to slay an immortal like Jin Woo-sung in a single strike, leaving only traces of dispersal, and from this distance — merely watching from hiding — to inflict damage upon himself through such a display of death? The mastery was stunning.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
‘I kept telling myself it couldn’t be…’
The one who’d stolen the Thousand Slayer Nature—which was originally Woo-sung’s—really was that God of War.
There was no room for doubt anymore.
Unless it was the God of War he knew, no one else could wield such a monstrous power with such ease.
To be honest, at first he’d been uncertain.
The name Do-gyeom wasn’t common, but it wasn’t exclusive to the God of War either.
Most of all—
‘The God of War at this point in time hadn’t become a Hunter yet.’
Had he learned this through prophecy?
No.
The old man had never been a prophet.
‘Before my return, the God of War didn’t begin Hunter activities until more than four years from now…’
A Regressor.
Like Do-gyeom, a man who’d lived in the future and returned.
The old man—no, Baek Nak-won had retraced his memories countless times.
It was right.
‘More than six years still remain before the God of War comes to prominence.’
Then why had the God of War, Do-gyeom, appeared in that place?
Stranger still, while his specs themselves didn’t seem fully matured, the skills and abilities he possessed were far from ordinary.
Not only did he carry the Thousand Slayer Nature that had originally been Woo-sung’s, but rare and precious skills like Death Postponement and the Leaf of the Life Tree kept surfacing one after another.
‘As if he’d anticipated this exact situation from the start…’
But was such a thing possible?
There was no denying the God of War was a monster among the very first of mankind, but meticulous preparation and systematic conquest wasn’t his style.
That was the specialty of Vivienne, his former ally.
The original Do-gyeom was quite the opposite.
An element of unpredictability that shattered even an opponent’s carefully laid preparations.
An endless surge of will and fighting spirit that seemed to know no limits.
He was like the incarnation of martial prowess itself, which was why the epithet God of War suited him so well.
Yet that God of War had set the board and lured his opponent to death.
Baek Nak-won shook his head sharply.
‘It’s a delusion.’
It couldn’t be.
It was he who had set this board.
He who had prepared Woo-sung ahead of schedule.
He who had found Do-gyeom and dealt with the crisis he’d caused.
If Do-gyeom had truly orchestrated all of this, then he himself would be nothing more than a chess piece—but this was impossible in every practical sense.
‘Do-gyeom doesn’t know of my existence.’
The existence of Baek Nak-won had been completely erased from all human memory and every record in the world.
It was what he’d wanted.
To obtain the future he desired.
How could such a man be used as a chess piece?
Even if Do-gyeom were a Regressor like himself, it would be impossible.
‘Wait. The God of War as a Regressor?’
The thought struck him suddenly.
But he shook his head at once.
‘Impossible. Spatio-temporal Regression is the domain of gods and demons. No matter how much he’s called the God of War, no matter how he was humanity’s strongest—’
Even with a Grand Archmage of comparable power at his side.
‘It cannot be done.’
And if he had accomplished it, even Do-gyeom would have to be forgotten.
Like himself.
Left with no one’s memory.
That was the contract.
But he remembered Do-gyeom.
This contradiction was what confounded him.
‘Then how in the world…’
Should he capture Do-gyeom and interrogate him?
His head fell.
Do-gyeom was an essential role in the future he envisioned.
‘The same was true for Woo-sung, but…’
Now that he’d lost him, if he lost Do-gyeom as well?
‘…the plan will crumble to nothing.’
The very fact that I’ve regressed would become meaningless.
But that’s beside the point.
The moment I thought about capturing Ju Do-gyeom, cold sweat trickled down my chin unbidden.
Baek Nak-won acknowledged it then.
‘I’m afraid.’
Ju Do-gyeom, who appeared to be merely a C-rank Hunter at best.
And yet he terrified him.
Could everything he’d seen truly be all there was?
The Thousand Slayer Nature, Death Postponement, the Leaf of the Life Tree.
What if there was something more hidden beneath?
Especially if one considered that the man concealing all of this was Ju Do-gyeom himself—the future Calamity Hunter, the God of War of the unexpected…
“Tsk.”
Baek Nak-won clicked his tongue and rose from his seat.
It wasn’t that he wouldn’t try.
He was admitting that, for now, it was impossible.
In his field of vision, a horde of monsters had begun closing in from all sides.
It was common enough.
In the Gray Zone, a human who simply stood still was the finest quarry of all.
But this time, the scale was considerable.
Hundreds of monsters of various kinds.
Among them, a fair number of large-sized creatures—trolls, ogres, and the like.
Yet Baek Nak-won paid them no mind.
He simply walked forward, his thoughts continuing.
‘If I’m truly to capture the God of War, I’ll need preparation several times greater than what I have now…’
That’s something I can only attempt then.
At the same time, he struck the ground with the staff he’d been leaning on.
It happened at once.
The entire horde of monsters blocking his path was swallowed up by a black shadow that erupted from somewhere, vanishing in an instant.
Silence returned to the surroundings.
Baek Nak-won continued walking forward, his thoughts persisting.
‘But… what about that woman?’
Lee Seo-ah, the daughter of a conglomerate, who had shattered the Illusion Magic he himself had deployed.
‘I understand she was supposed to die, but the God of War let her live…’
Curiosity continued to surge within him.
Enough to make him want to turn his steps toward Seoul at any moment.
But he refrained.
Though he hated to admit it again and again.
He was afraid of Ju Do-gyeom, the God of War.
To the point where even prying into his surroundings felt like a burden.
Yet this, too, would be the last time.
Back then, he hadn’t known his opponent was Ju Do-gyeom, so his preparations had been shoddy.
‘When I see him next…’
He would return to Seoul far more thoroughly prepared.
‘No matter how much of a God of War you are, there is no escape from what I have devised.’
Baek Nak-won walked onward with this resolve.
The moment his figure reached some point in the Wilderness, it vanished completely, swallowed by darkness.
It was a time when the sun shone bright.
* * *
The following morning.
Kim Han-yul, who had finally learned Ju Do-gyeom’s home address through a text message, paid him a visit.
“Kim Han…”
Before Ju Do-gyeom could finish speaking as he unlocked the door via intercom and stepped into the living room,
Kim Han-yul came rushing in, waving a bundle of newspapers in his hand.
“Team Lead! This isn’t the time—the country’s in chaos.”
Then, before he could say anything else, he approached the dining table and spread out the papers he was holding wide.
[Danger Rank A+ Villain Jin Woo-sung Eliminated! It Was an Individual Hunter, Not the Association!]
[Who Is the Hunter Who Caught the Immortal That the Association Couldn’t Catch for Years?]
[Taesong Group Officially Announces Guild Business Venture. Goal: Expel All Villains Like Jin Woo-sung from South Korean Soil. Is the New Guild President Candidate the Problem-Solver Hunter in the Jin Woo-sung Incident?]
[Hunter Association Chairman Noh Beom-seok Expresses Deep Regret and Sympathy Over the Jin Woo-sung Crisis. Plans to Deliver a Certificate of Commendation and Reward to the Hunter Who Fortunately Caught Him.]
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes narrowed.

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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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