The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 64

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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 64
Episode 64.
The praise was just that single sentence.
No padding, no exaggeration.
Yet Lee Seo-ah’s face brightened as if spring sunlight had spilled across it.
She tried to hide it, pressing her lips together, but couldn’t conceal the corners of her mouth creeping upward.
Her toes lifted slightly from the ground, then settled down without a sound.
From that posture, Lee Seo-ah asked,
“So… does that mean I’ve passed?”
Hearing the hope that dripped from her voice, Kim Han-ryul’s mouth moved before he could think.
“Yes… you’ve…”
Passed.
Those two words were about to leave his lips entirely.
“You’re still insufficient.”
Ju Do-gyeom cut in flatly.
Kim Han-ryul stared at him with a bewildered expression.
‘Even after seeing that magic?’
An entire pack of monsters had been erased.
That kind of power from someone only a few months in—most parties would come to blows trying to recruit her.
And yet insufficient.
Despite months of experience, he couldn’t quite grasp what the standard was.
But Lee Seo-ah was different.
She stiffened her own brightened face and gave a nod.
“… You’re right. I was too hasty.”
The words sounded half-directed at herself.
Ju Do-gyeom continued.
“From here to the exit portal. We go straight through.”
“… All the way to the portal?”
“Yes. And until you arrive, the two of us won’t help unless it’s a worst-case scenario.”
The test was simple in its content.
Opening a path.
Handling the monsters that came rushing.
Choosing direction, managing strength.
It all fell to Lee Seo-ah alone.
Reach the portal, and you pass.
If you don’t make it, there’s next time.
The test was as clear as it was merciless.
A newcomer alone, cutting through who knew how many hours of path across this vast field to reach the portal somewhere out there.
Even if the difficulty was comparatively low, it was still a C-Rank Dungeon.
Kim Han-ryul opened his mouth to say something.
That this was too much.
But the words never came.
He saw the anxiety lift from Lee Seo-ah’s face.
Lee Seo-ah looked down at her palms for a moment.
Two years spent in bed, four months of running to arrive here.
Half a step remained to the place she’d decided to stand beside him.
There was no reason to retreat now.
And slowly, she clenched her fists.
“I’ll give it a try.”
Her eyes, filled with resolve, turned toward the yellow field ahead.
Ju Do-gyeom nodded and gestured to Kim Han-ryul with his eyes.
Follow from behind.
Intervene only in worst-case scenarios.
Kim Han-ryul pouted his lips, but obediently stepped back half a pace.
And so the test began.
* * *
Flash—!
Light flooded the living room and vanished.
Three people returning from the dungeon.
The first to speak was Kim Han-ryul.
“Passed! I can’t deny it. You passed!”
Both hands shot up in the air.
In truth, Kim Han-ryul had been anxious throughout the test.
Every time monsters surged forward, his grip on the Flame Thrower wavered, and more than once he’d nearly stepped in.
Each time, Lee Seo-ah proved she didn’t need his help.
By the end, anxiety had given way to pure admiration.
“You’re incredible, Lee Seo-ah. Truly. I would’ve thrown in the towel halfway through.”
“……Thank you.”
Lee Seo-ah smiled, bowing respectfully.
Then Kim Han-ryul’s gaze turned toward Ju Do-gyeom.
A look that asked without words: What do you think?
Ju Do-gyeom nodded.
“You passed, too.”
The moment those words left his mouth.
Lee Seo-ah’s fists clenched tight.
“I’ll do well. From now on. Really.”
Her eyes glistened with emotion.
Two years spent lying in bed.
Days when she could wish for nothing but the ability to open her eyes.
From that end, she’d learned to walk again, to run again, to fight—and come this far.
Today’s passing felt like a reply to all of it.
Ju Do-gyeom observed her carefully.
More precisely, he was scrutinizing her.
She was doing her best to seem fine, but her condition wasn’t good.
Her already pale skin had turned ashen, and her lips were half-drained of color.
It had taken her an hour to find the return Portal in the Dungeon.
Had it gone on much longer, she would have collapsed.
Her Mana had hit bottom.
It was unavoidable.
She’d grown within the Mana Forest with support from a conglomerate family and her own knowledge, yet.
Lee Seo-ah was ultimately a Hunter who’d Awakened less than four months ago.
Compared to those like himself, who’d been at it for years, her foundation was naturally shallow.
And yet.
When you looked at it honestly, it was truly remarkable.
Ju Do-gyeom retraced that hour.
Early on, Lee Seo-ah had been bold.
Every monster that caught her eye, she’d open her jaws wide and swallow whole.
It was exhilarating, and her Mana leaked away like water.
The change came midway through.
She’d begun calculating her remaining Mana.
From then on, instead of deploying that enormous jaw all at once, she’d used it in measured portions.
Only on those that truly needed it, only as much as truly necessary.
She consumed the packs blocking her path, while merely exhaling the scent of hunger to drive off those that only pursued.
Near the end, she’d forgone magic altogether, avoiding combat through footwork and terrain.
Tactics no one had taught her—she’d discovered them herself, in the thick of battle.
There had been dangerous moments.
That final slope before the Portal.
When three Reaper Mantises simultaneously raised their scythes and descended, Kim Han-ryul couldn’t hold back—he manifested the Flame Thrower and stepped forward.
Ju Do-gyeom silently gripped his shoulder, holding him back.
Not yet.
Not the worst.
And that judgment had proven right.
Lee Seo-ah opened one final jaw with the dregs of her Mana, swallowed the one in front, slipped her body between the remaining two, and dove through the Portal.
The Lee Seo-ah of the opening moments and the Lee Seo-ah of the closing—over the course of that one-hour test—might as well have been different Hunters.
Witch of Gluttony.
The title lived up to her.
In terms of sheer power, she already rivaled any respectable C-Rank Hunter.
The fact that she’d pulled off such control with such meager Mana spoke volumes.
Of course, that sense of operation, and the mental fortitude to stand there calm and smiling even on the brink of collapse—
Those came not from her Job, but from Lee Seo-ah herself.
A distant memory flickered through his mind.
His previous life.
The first team Ju Do-gyeom had ever formed had ended in betrayal.
Blades from trusted teammates at his back, driven into a Demonic Energy Erosion Zone.
For a long time after that, he hadn’t formed another team.
It was, in its own way, a kind of PTSD.
In that light, this new team in his second life.
The members he’d gathered—Lee Seo-ah and Kim Han-ryul—suited him perfectly.
At the very least, he felt certain they wouldn’t stab him in the back.
A trustworthy teammate in a dungeon is worth more than anything else.
Especially for the next dungeon he had in mind.
‘If we’re going to the Doppelgänger Hotel, we need that even more.’
Having settled his thoughts, Ju Do-gyeom smiled faintly and extended his hand.
“I look forward to working with you.”
Lee Seo-ah gazed at that hand for a moment.
Then, instead of taking it immediately, she opened her mouth.
“Then, since we’re on the same team now, please speak informally with me too.”
A brief silence.
Ju Do-gyeom nodded.
“I will, Seo-ah.”
Seo-ah.
Her name without the honorific rang unfamiliar in her ears.
Something in her chest tingled.
In truth, she’d wanted more.
‘……I wish he’d call me by name more warmly, something like Seo-ah—with affection.’
There had been a time she’d fumbled through asking him to call her Seo-ah, only to let it drop awkwardly.
Compared to then, today was a great step forward.
She understood now that pushing further would be unreasonable.
Today, she’d settle for this.
There was no harm in saving her appetite for more and indulging it later.
Lee Seo-ah grasped his extended hand with both of hers.
“I look forward to working with you, team leader.”
“You can speak comfortably too.”
“I’m most comfortable this way.”
A radiant smile.
Ju Do-gyeom accepted it with a nod.
Kim Han-ryul, who had been observing from the side, finally spoke up.
“……Wait. I feel like I got cheated somehow.”
“What is it.”
“You’ve been speaking informally to me since the day we met, team leader.”
“Have I.”
“You have! What’s with this difference in treatment?”
“……That’s probably because I was more at ease.”
“…….”
Kim Han-ryul fell silent.
His expression of protest froze awkwardly mid-thought.
“……Tch. You certainly know how to talk.”
Kim Han-ryul turned his head away, looking not entirely displeased.
Lee Seo-ah’s eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of him.
‘So he’s been speaking informally to him from the start.’
That meant he felt at ease with him.
The remark gnawed at her in an odd way, but Lee Seo-ah kept her smile in place.
Today was a day of success, after all.
Small matters of rank could wait to be sorted out later.
* * *
Lee Seo-ah didn’t linger long before heading home.
“I’ll leave first today. Next time, I’ll stay long enough to have dinner too.”
“Please do.”
The farewell in the entrance hall was brief.
Though she’d kept up appearances until the end, it was inevitable—she’d reached her limit.
His stride through the Entrance Hall was half a pace slower than when he’d arrived.
Fortunately, the Taeseong Group’s secretarial staff was waiting in front of the complex.
After the Jin U-seong incident, her security detail had grown considerably tighter—discreet but comprehensive.
She would return without incident.
With only the two of them left in the Living Room,
Kim Han-ryul, sprawled across the sofa, gazed up at the ceiling and spoke.
“……Is this the wall of talent?”
His expression betrayed a sudden onset of despair.
“I mean, seriously—isn’t she incredible? A few months into being a Hunter and she’s got that kind of power? If her Mana reserves were just a bit deeper, she’d have fought better than me today. At her age, I was sitting in an office tapping away at spreadsheets.”
“You’re no less impressive.”
Ju Do-gyeom answered matter-of-factly.
It wasn’t empty flattery.
Super rookie.
Supernova.
By now, the internet was already calling Kim Han-ryul a first-rate Hunter.
Looking purely at the scale of his growth over these past few months, he was no less impressive than Lee Seo-ah.
He just didn’t see it himself.
Or rather, he saw it, but the brilliant newcomer right in front of him had made him forget it for a moment.
“I don’t care about that—I’m envious. I’m jealous. I’m resentful!”
Kim Han-ryul rolled across the sofa.
Ju Do-gyeom watched him and let out a small laugh.
He didn’t dislike it.
Kim Han-ryul was honest about his feelings.
And he didn’t express that honesty in any twisted or strange way.
This time was no different.
Even as he expressed such amazement and envy,
it was Kim Han-ryul who had been the first to cry out his approval—before Ju Do-gyeom himself.
Jealousy was jealousy, acknowledgment was acknowledgment.
That’s who Kim Han-ryul was.
After rolling around for some time,
Ju Do-gyeom finally opened his mouth.
“Enough. Go rest. You’ll need to head to a Dungeon soon.”
“I’m really upset.”
“……And?”
“Make me dinner.”
When Kim Han-ryul lifted his head, his eyes gleamed like those of a starving cat.
These were not the eyes of someone who’d been rolling around moments before, looking like the world had collapsed.
Ju Do-gyeom held his gaze for a moment, then rose from his seat.
“……Fine.”
It was nothing.
As team leader, it was something he could easily do.
“Yes! Something with broth today!”
Behind his retreating back toward the Kitchen, that supposedly upset voice followed him eagerly.
And shortly after,
Kim Han-ryul, seated at the Dining Table, closed his eyes the moment he sipped the hot broth.
“Ahhh…… I feel alive again.”
“You said you were upset.”
“Being upset and being hungry are two different things.”
With that confident answer, his spoon moved busily.
Then, suddenly, Kim Han-ryul asked a question.
“By the way, Team Lead. I’m genuinely curious about this.”
“Go ahead.”
“How far do you think Lee Seo-ah will go? You’d see it, wouldn’t you?”
Ju Do-gyeom’s spoon paused briefly.
How far.
He knew the answer to that more precisely than anyone.
He had seen directly—the existence that painted the world in violet.
Of course, it was not an answer he could speak aloud.
“……I can’t see where the ceiling is.”
“Wow, you say that so casually. That’s scary, really scary.”
Even as he spoke, Kim Han-ryul didn’t set down his spoon, asking instead.
“But give me that same assessment. How far do you think I’ll grow?”
“You already know.”
“……What? What do I know?”
“Just eat your rice.”
“Come on, really! You’re killing me with curiosity!”
Kim Han-ryul made a show of complaint, yet his face was bright with excitement as he finished his meal.
That day, Kim Han-ryul emptied two bowls of rice.
Between spoonfuls, he alternated between “I admit, it’s really impressive” and “Ah, my stomach hurts—give me more rice.”
Jealousy and envy, it seemed, were best digested with a full belly.
Behind Ju Do-gyeom as he washed the dishes, something like humming had begun to drift from his lips.
* * *
Over the next ten days or so, several things happened.
First, people from the Taeseong Group came to collect the Young Yak Dragon By-Product, and word arrived that the craftsman had begun processing it.
Next, the three who had become a proper team gathered and conducted joint training.
It was to synchronize their movements.
And today.
Before the three reassembled in the living room, Ju Do-gyeom spoke.
“The dungeon we’re entering this time is called the Doppelgänger Hotel.”
Silence fell for a moment.
Lee Seo-ah blinked.
Kim Han-ryul doubted his own ears.
It was Kim Han-ryul, as expected, who broke the silence first.
“……Wait. That place is ranked third worst dungeon by the Hunter Community!”
“So it is.”
Ju Do-gyeom’s tone was matter-of-fact.
So matter-of-fact that it only deepened Kim Han-ryul’s disbelief.
“Listen. I said third, not thirtieth, team leader?”
“I’m aware.”
“……Right, you wouldn’t have missed that, would you?”
As always, words began to fail him.
Lee Seo-ah spoke quietly then.
“If the team leader says we go, then perhaps we should simply follow, shouldn’t we?”
“What?”
“We’re a team. Even if the team leader’s orders don’t make sense to us, we should move in one direction together, I think.”
True to form for a chaebol heiress with actual business management experience—her mindset was thoroughly corporate.
Kim Han-ryul understood her logic.
Still, a reflexive protest tumbled out of him unbidden.
“No, come on, Lee Seo-ah. Think clearly for a moment. If you knew what kind of place that is, you wouldn’t talk like that—I mean, that place is……”
“It’s the team leader’s order.”
Her tone was absolute.
Not a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
Kim Han-ryul stared at those eyes for a moment, then slowly turned his gaze toward Ju Do-gyeom.
“……Can I revoke her acceptance into the team?”
“Too late.”
“……”
“And by the rule of majority vote, our next dungeon is hereby decided to be the Doppelgänger Hotel.”
“You do whatever you want anyway, majority vote or not?”
“True.”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear that!”
Kim Han-ryul’s voice rose sharply.
Ju Do-gyeom ignored him and extended his hand forward.
Lee Seo-ah placed her hand over his without hesitation.
Kim Han-ryul’s sigh deepened.
“Ugh…… honestly……”
Even as he grumbled.
His hand, inevitably, was the last to rest on top.
Three hands layered together.
And so the pact of the three was sealed.
The new team’s first deployment: one of the darkest dungeons that made Hunters shudder.
It was the Doppelgänger Hotel.

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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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