The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 61

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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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Chapter 61
Episode 61.
A beautiful woman emerged from the darkness and stood beneath the dim lights of the parking garage.
She had the typical East Asian features—high cheekbones, sharp eyes.
Yet her hair, unlike a Korean’s, held a faint golden hue.
Atop it rested an ornate hanbok.
The formal dress seemed wholly out of place in the underground parking garage at night, and yet somehow, when she wore it, the concrete became a stage.
Every step, every gesture, carried elegance.
A gentle smile played at the corners of her mouth.
She was exactly as she appeared in the Korean media.
Geomhwa—Sword Flower.
A flower that wields a blade.
Few people in the world lived up to their names quite so perfectly.
Her presence was completely controlled.
As befitted an S-rank Hunter, even the whisper of her breathing gave nothing away.
Had Ju Do-gyeom not cultivated the Cheonji Muguk Singong and sharpened his senses accordingly, he might well have missed her entirely.
The woman spoke, her expression one of surprise.
“How did you sense me? I planned to simply watch from the shadows and slip away quietly.”
Her voice carried unconcealed admiration.
And in the next instant.
Whoosh—!
Her figure vanished from sight.
A far richer fragrance of peonies reached Ju Do-gyeom’s nose.
She now stood to his left.
Mo Ran-hee, having drawn close, stood watching him.
She spoke.
“You’re not startled. Most people would be startled…….”
“…….”
Ju Do-gyeom remained silent.
A flicker of disappointment crossed Mo Ran-hee’s face.
But it was only for a moment.
She continued speaking, her expression still suffused with ease and confidence.
“When I moved, you didn’t fail to follow me. You simply chose not to. Because you knew I held no killing intent. Isn’t that right?”
“…….”
“You won’t deny it.”
There was something oddly delighted in her voice.
Ju Do-gyeom met her gaze directly.
She smiled with her eyes and stepped back slightly as she continued.
“Don’t be so tense. We’re not enemies, after all. Besides, I’d rather not be disliked by you.”
Friendly words.
A friendly smile.
A friendly distance.
Ju Do-gyeom trusted none of it.
Not that it mattered.
According to public record, she was the chairman of Cheonha, the nation’s leading Hunter enterprise.
One of the two pillars supporting modern Korea—an S-rank Hunter.
But the truth was different. Far different.
A member of the global villain organization that had operated in the shadows from this era until just before humanity’s extinction—an era Ju Do-gyeom knew from his past life.
Sak-Wol.
She was one of its founding members.
This meeting had come sooner than expected.
The future he now inhabited bore little resemblance to the one he’d known, and yet nothing felt strange anymore.
He simply sat in quiet contemplation.
‘Why has she come?’
The same reason as before?
That doesn’t add up.
The NeuTube video may have made him well-known, but it’s not yet at a level that would draw the attention of an organization like Sak-Wol.
‘Has she learned that I killed Jin U-seong?’
If so, she couldn’t be certain yet.
The Taeseong Group wouldn’t be careless enough to let that slip easily.
Still, suspicion was within reach.
His thoughts tilted that direction, but he kept his face blank.
Prepared to strike back at any moment, he studied every detail of Mo Ran-hee’s expression with calm precision.
It was true that she held the advantage in raw Ability Stats.
He wasn’t about to let his guard slip and pay for it.
If he did, his fallen comrades from before the regression would laugh at him from their graves.
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes grew cold and distant.
Mo Ran-hee, meeting that gaze, wore an expression of hurt.
“I’m serious, though…….”
“Drop the preamble. What’s a Cheonha executive doing here at this hour, looking for some rookie Hunter like me?”
“You’re really something. So cold.”
She pouted, an expression so youthful it made her age impossible to guess.
In fact, she was not particularly old.
It was simply her position and title that lent her gravitas.
Ju Do-gyeom paid no mind to that.
The Mo Ran-hee of his past life had been the same.
Kindness that seemed boundless and unknowable.
Closeness, tenderness, and disarming familiarity.
When he’d finally understood what lay beneath, he’d been quite startled.
Mo Ran-hee let out a long sigh.
“Ugh…… I came all this way thinking I’d at least pitch a guild recruitment offer. Doesn’t look like today’s the day for it, though?”
“I’ll tell you upfront—I have no intention of joining a guild.”
“That’s just how you feel right now, though.”
Despite her words, the shrug of her shoulders held no lingering attachment.
Like someone who’d asked a question she already knew the answer to.
“I’ll go. Next time I’ll set up an appointment before I come. Let’s see each other with smiling faces.”
Mo Ran-hee looked as though she’d said all there was to say.
Yet she didn’t turn to leave immediately.
For just a moment.
A brief moment, she gazed quietly at Ju Do-gyeom’s face.
It was the look of someone searching for something.
Or perhaps comparing something to something else.
Before Ju Do-gyeom could ask the meaning of that stare, she spoke.
She opened her mouth.
“You know…….”
“……?”
“No, never mind.”
After leaving that cryptic remark, Mo Ran-hee’s lips curved into a bittersweet smile, and she turned away.
Ju Do-gyeom watched her receding figure in silence.
That was when it happened.
“Oh, that’s right.”
Mo Ran-hee stopped and turned her head back.
“Don’t worry about Jin U-seong anymore. I dropped a bomb on those curious friends of his. They won’t have time to care about him for a while.”
“……What do you mean by that?”
Through that brief tense silence, Mo Ran-hee’s laughter drifted in.
“You really don’t know? Well, either way, it’s pure goodwill, so don’t suspect me. Really, I’m going. Goodbye.”
Whoosh.
With those words, Mo Ran-hee’s figure vanished.
The other presence that had lingered near her was gone as well.
Ju Do-gyeom entered his home.
* * *
Once inside, Ju Do-gyeom sat on the sofa and closed his eyes.
‘Mo Ran-hee.’
In his past life, he’d actually met her quite often.
From around the time he began to make a name for himself as a Hunter in Korea, she had frequently sought him out.
It had been similar then, too.
Kindness without explanation.
Gestures of growing close.
A smile that seemed to ask for nothing.
It was only later that he’d understood.
All of it had been groundwork to scout her into Sak-Wol.
After learning that, he’d kept his distance.
Growing on his own, until he could handle an organization like Sak-Wol.
Then the Dungeon Eruption happened.
The world everyone had known collapsed.
He met Mo Ran-hee again after somehow surviving that world and building considerable power.
The time when the name Musin was gradually coming to represent him.
The woman that day was no longer the president of Cheonha.
She revealed her identity without hesitation as a member of Sak-Wol, standing alongside her colleagues.
And when she saw Ju Do-gyeom, she spoke briefly with a cold gaze.
-What a waste. You’ve been exposed.
The blade came flying moments later.
No greeting, no declaration of intent.
A single slash aimed at his throat, her face still wearing the smile from just before.
In that instant, Ju Do-gyeom understood.
That was her true face.
His survival came not from luck but from skill.
By then, Ju Do-gyeom had already cultivated more than enough ability to stand against her.
After exchanging blades with him several times, Mo Ran-hee withdrew without hesitation, as though nothing had happened.
She’d been smiling right until the end then too.
Which made her all the more inscrutable.
Afterward, his struggle with Sak-Wol had lasted a long time.
Individually their threat was insufficient compared to Jin U-seong, who wielded Cheonsal-seong, but as an organization they posed far greater danger.
Naturally.
He’d lost allies in the fighting.
He’d settled old debts.
And he’d clashed with Mo Ran-hee quite a number of times.
Unfortunately, neither had ever decisively defeated the other.
Then one day.
Word came that Mo Ran-hee was dead.
He never learned the full story.
Rumor had it she’d been killed by the lord of Sak-Wol, but he had neither means nor desire to confirm it.
As far as Ju Do-gyeom was concerned, one enemy had simply ceased to exist.
And then, after the return.
Today, he’d met that Mo Ran-hee again.
Still wearing a face he couldn’t read.
And then.
‘She acted as if she knew about the Jin U-seong incident.’
Ju Do-gyeom calmly reviewed what had transpired.
He was certain.
Mo Ran-hee did not yet know that he had killed Jin U-seong.
Everything she’d rattled on about so knowingly was nothing but a probe.
Ju Do-gyeom had shown no reaction, and Mo Ran-hee had failed to obtain confirmation.
So was everything she’d said a lie?
Not necessarily.
Good lies should be about seventy percent truth.
That’s how the remaining thirty percent survives.
‘A bomb falling on whoever was searching for me — that much is probably real.’
Good news, in other words.
It meant his vigilance toward Jin U-seong’s faction and toward Taeseong Group’s Ju Ui-do could be lowered by a step.
As for her showing him goodwill in that context — that was likely no falsehood either.
Hidden motives existed, but goodwill was genuine truth.
A decision crystallized.
‘It would be best to maintain shallow cooperation, feigning ignorance.’
That was optimal.
An encounter sooner than expected.
There was no need to panic or be swept along.
Rather, using this move was precisely what Ju Do-gyeom had always done.
‘Though…….’
How to put it.
Just before the final moment.
There was something about the look in Mo Ran-hee’s eyes as she regarded him that unsettled him.
It was a sorrow too deep to be mere performance, wasn’t it?
‘This is exactly why I hated meeting her so quickly.’
In this respect, at least, she was still skilled.
Ju Do-gyeom clicked his tongue, shook his head, and pushed the thought away.
He set aside his worries about a future that wasn’t unfolding as expected.
As he’d said.
‘Always the same way.’
If you’re at the eye of the storm, you simply move forward from the center.
Having ordered his thoughts, Ju Do-gyeom picked up his phone one last time and opened his mailbox.
Vivian Ashcroft.
Still unread.
“…….”
Ju Do-gyeom closed the mailbox without much hesitation.
* * *
The night breeze was cool and crisp.
Having left the Villa Complex, Mo Ran-hee walked along humming a soft tune.
Light and airy steps.
The hem of her hanbok fluttered in the night air.
The man following behind her spoke carefully.
“You seem to be in good spirits.”
“Ah, does it show?”
“Yes. You appear to be in very good spirits.”
Cha Si-heon, who had been waiting outside following her instructions as both her escort and a member of her Dungeon team, was tilting his head in confusion.
Why?
To be honest, it made no sense.
Just some rookie Hunter who’d appeared in one NeuTube video.
And yet the representative of Cheonha came in person to scout him.
The head of personnel, the chief scout—they were all waiting in standby.
That alone was beyond comprehension, but there was so much more that defied explanation.
First, what Mo Ran-hee had done before this meeting.
She’d sent word to every major guild in Korea.
-The man in the video recently uploaded to NeuTube. I will be taking him. I’m reaching out first to ensure there are no complications. Thank you for your understanding.
It was a courteous message, but everyone understood.
The five major guilds of Korea.
People commonly grouped them together that way, but Cheonha was in a different league.
Beyond having an S-rank Hunter as its president—something it shared only with the Korean Hunters Association—the overall caliber of its guild members was substantially higher.
The president of such a guild had put her personal name on the line, making her interest in Ju Do-gyeom unmistakable.
She’d even thrown in a subtle threat about avoiding complications.
And now she was reaching out to Ju Do-gyeom?
The presidents of the five major guilds.
Most of them elderly figures from an older generation, they had understood.
-Perhaps we might glimpse Dohwa instead of merely Geomhwa.
So they swallowed their pride.
There was no other choice.
When the people at the top stepped back, the guilds below had to follow suit.
A meeting arranged at such great cost.
When asked how her conversation with Ju Do-gyeom had gone, the answer that came back was this:
-He turned me down.
Her face had looked quite sad then.
But afterwards, Mo Ran-hee had laughed.
And now, as her own expression had suggested, she seemed delighted.
Quite delighted, in fact.
Cha Si-heon, who had watched Mo Ran-hee for a long time, couldn’t help but know.
That smile.
It wasn’t something she manufactured.
It wasn’t a smile meant to conceal anger either.
A smile that emerged only when she was genuinely happy.
Cha Si-heon could say it with certainty.
‘Ten years in his service, and yet…….’
It’s rare to see such an expression on her face.
In fact, it might be the first time.
Normally, when such a look crossed Mo Ran-hee’s features, it would fade just as quickly, returning to her usual composure.
The confusion and shock couldn’t help but be profound.
But did contemplation yield answers?
If asked, the answer was no.
Her head shook of its own accord.
Mo Ran-hee, who had finished her evening walk with a smile, climbed into the waiting car.
A soft murmur escaped her lips.
“Hmm…… so he lives in a place like this.”
She leaned back against the seat and gazed out the window at Ju Do-gyeom’s apartment complex.
She placed her fingertips lightly against the glass.
Beyond the pane.
Above it, the face she’d just encountered seemed to overlay itself in her mind.
An expression that appeared indifferent.
Mo Ran-hee traced it, adding a hint of gruffness to his features.
Then she narrowed the height slightly.
She added softer cheeks as well.
And then.
From the depths of a distant memory.
There appeared before her the image of a boy who had approached her as she crouched before a trash can.
“Heh heh heh…….”
A laugh spilled out.
Much had changed.
‘Yet he remains the same.’
Gripped by that sentiment.
The laughter came unbidden, flowing forth without her knowledge.

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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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