The Regressed Magic Swordsman Devours the North - Chapter 15
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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 15. Red Fangs (4)
Sion moved with sharp precision, chambering his round as he drove into Jepren’s blind spot.
And then.
The decisive moment.
Bang!
He drove a bullet into the careless Jepren’s back.
“Ugh!”
Yet Jepren, struck full-on by the specially crafted shotgun, was barely wounded.
He didn’t seem to handle Mana with any particular finesse, but his physical toughness had already transcended what could be called human.
‘He’s strong.’
Sion glanced at Louis, Brindol, and Bill. Talented Knights. But reaching Jepren in his current state seemed out of their grasp.
For that reason, Sion pressed Jepren all the harder.
“Where are you looking! Pathetic wretch! So you murdered all your subordinates and lived alone!”
“……Shut your mouth. Incompetent bloodline that spawned hell.”
Jepren’s expression twisted. But he didn’t move rashly.
He understood it instinctively: if he allowed himself to be baited into pursuit, a Knight’s blade would prove far more lethal than a shotgun.
His face seemed to voice the thought.
‘Chasing him is exactly what he wants.’
So Sion kept the shotgun leveled at Jepren, maintaining the taut, shimmering tension between them.
‘Look at this bastard—he won’t take the bait.’
Meanwhile, Louis, Brindol, and Bill steadied themselves and reformed their line. Aura blazed along their blades.
“Be careful. He’s fast. He’s strong.”
Louis called out the warning, and the other two Knights nodded. Seeing this, Jepren laughed with ease and goaded the Knights.
“Damn. Knights as craven as this? No wonder you amount to nothing. Protecting justice means……!”
Bang!
Sion fired at Jepren mid-speech.
“Shut your mouth. You’re not even human anymore.”
Blood vessels burst across Jepren’s brow. Sion etched the sight into his memory.
‘He falls for provocation.’
Bullets were scarce, but in a fight like this, supporting fire with gun and tongue could methodically wear down the enemy’s resolve.
And in that particular art, none could match Sion.
“Jepren. You are strong. Comparable to an Intermediate Knight. Yet you will never truly reach that rank. Do you know why?”
“……What are you getting at.”
Sion smirked.
“Because Knights are noble beings. You are no such thing—just a mongrel.”
Anger deepened across Jepren’s face. He couldn’t refute it. It was the truth. But truth, after all, burned worst of all.
“You are no Knight. Merely a tangled mongrel. All you do is swing a Greatsword fast and brutishly. There’s no end to your gaps and flaws. Pathetic, really. You abandoned a pure body, mixed yourself into this and that, and still amount to this much.”
In truth, Jepren’s openings were starkly visible to Sion. It was simply that the Junior Knights, whose Swordsmanship had not yet matured, could not yet perceive them.
“……Halfwit worm. Courting death.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to come. Mongrel. Are you afraid of a halfwit? Need a moment to visit the latrine? Bad luck. You won’t get that chance.”
“Fine! Drop dead!”
With a sharp crack, Jepren leaped forward. Not at the Knights—at Sion.
No matter how threatening a Knight’s blade might be, it was better than leaving Sion’s tongue and gun unmolested.
Of course, Sion was no one to simply take the blow. He fired at the incoming Jepren and swiftly dodged away.
Crack! Boom!
“……!?”
“Mongrel! Can’t you even catch a halfwit!”
Sion was faster than Jepren had anticipated. And so began a pursuit between the two of them.
In that moment.
Louis Daiken cried out.
“Bill! Hold him! Brindol! I press the opening with you!”
Brindol and Bill understood at once who had given those orders.
Sion Karsen.
A presence that naturally commanded the battle’s flow.
‘Is this even possible? Truly, even in decay, does a Grand Duke’s house remain?’
And so the four-on-one battle raged. The Knights pierced Jepren’s openings and swung their blades, while Jepren pursued Sion and fought the Knights.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clash! Bang! Crash!
As the Knights’ assault grew fierce, Jepren tried to refocus on them. But right on cue, bullets came whistling.
Bang!
“Gahhhhh!”
Jepren was bewildered. He’d had the battle won. How had it come to this? And.
‘That gun and those bullets belong to a captain, but were there really this many rounds? I thought I only had to hold out a few more shots. Where do they keep coming from?’
Sion Karsen. The one who killed the Hashman brothers and exposed the Red Fangs to the world. Damned bastard.
Jepren couldn’t understand it. Was Sion Karsen truly such a fool?
Doubt bloomed in his mind.
As the battle wore on, Sion and the knights methodically chipped away at Jepren’s strength.
But Jepren wasn’t taking it lying down either.
‘At this rate, I’ll lose.’
So.
“……All or nothing.”
Jepren released his Greatsword from his grip.
Hisssss—shhhhh—
Blue vapor erupted from his body. His Mana was running wild. Everyone present who saw that blue haze understood at once.
Jepren was tapping into power beyond his limits. If they could just withstand this one assault, victory would be theirs.
But holding the line proved far harder than it sounded.
Whoosh.
In an instant, Jepren vanished before their eyes.
“Where are you looking?”
“……!”
Jepren materialized behind Brindol and drove his fist forward.
Crash!
Brindol flew backward and slammed into the Factory wall. Louis and Bill tried to support him, but Jepren was already gone from sight.
Bang!
Bill’s head drove into the ground.
“Bill!”
Bill didn’t answer Louis’s cry. He’d been knocked unconscious. Louis stared at the sight in despair.
‘Both of them down in a single blow.’
There was no hope left——
Then. A prickling sensation. The hairs on his entire body stood on end. He snapped his head around and saw Jepren’s fist coming at him.
But Louis resisted to the end. Drawing on his inborn talent, he raised his blade and deflected Jepren’s attack at an angle.
Crash!
The impact still shook him, and his stance crumbled. Just as Jepren moved to finish it.
Bang!
Sion fired a bullet. A hot impact struck Jepren’s back.
“……Right. You’re still here.”
Jepren looked toward Sion. But the spot where the bullet had struck seemed off somehow.
Whoooosh—
Fire engulfed his body.
“……!”
In truth, Sion had stopped using actual bullets three shots ago.
He’d drawn Mana from the Magic Circle to create flame, compressed its form to the absolute limit, and fired it as a Flame Sphere.
“What is this…….”
Thuck. While Jepren reeled in shock, Louis drove his blade through the man’s throat. His strike was imbued with Aura.
“……Ack. Hack——”
Jepren clamped one hand over his bleeding neck to stem the flow, then kicked Louis away.
Crash!
“Ugh!”
Louis flew backward and slammed into the wall, the stone cracking beneath him. He didn’t lose consciousness, but he was shaken. He’d pierced the man’s throat, yet Jepren moved like that. Was he even human?
Then.
Slice—
Jepren’s shoulder joint was severed, and blood sprayed. Scarlet flames erupted from the wound.
Whoooosh—
Sion Karsen had drawn his blade. Jepren clutched at his neck and thrashed his limbs, but Sion Karsen flowed past his attacks like water, raining sword strikes down on his joints.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
Whoooosh—
Flames erupted from each joint he struck. It was an unbelievable sight—hard to imagine this was the same formidable foe that three Junior Knights couldn’t overcome.
Sion handled him almost effortlessly.
“You filthy……!”
Jepren snarled with rage, but Sion didn’t stop. It looked as though he were tearing Jepren’s joints to shreds.
Hisssss—shhhhh—
Soon the steam pouring from Jepren’s body began to thin. His movements locked rigid, stiff as metal.
Crack!
Sion had completely shattered Jepren’s joints. The man collapsed to his knees, helpless.
“This… impossible….”
“It’s possible.”
Sion cut off his words with blunt finality, then brought his fist down hard on the man’s skull.
Thud!
“…Ugh!”
Jepren lost consciousness.
Louis stood motionless, staring at the scene unfolding before him. What was that? What did I just witness? Was that really Sion Karsen?
The whole thing felt surreal—impossibly so.
Sion Karsen hadn’t merely defeated Jepren; he’d captured him alive. And without a scratch on himself.
Meanwhile, Sion remained composed. He simply moved to Brindol and Bill, administering Recovery Potions to bring them back to consciousness.
Soon the knights regained their senses and took in what had happened.
Jepren lay completely incapacitated, unconscious.
“What was that? Did I just dream all of that?”
“…I couldn’t agree more.”
“Louis. What’s going on? This isn’t what you were telling us before.”
“I don’t know either.”
Louis’s mind was chaos itself. The question of how kept rising to the surface, but with it came a memory—words spoken to him long ago.
—No matter how carefully you look, you can’t see everything in a person’s movements. So you have to go, ask questions, listen, and search for the truth yourself.
Just then, the agents who’d been sent out returned. The three executive fugitives had been captured alive.
The support squad arrived as well. They set about cleaning up the scene, while Sion Karsen knelt with his hand pressed to the floor, eyes closed.
“What’s he doing now?”
“You still don’t know?”
“…It’s Mana Sensing.”
“What?”
“What are you talking about? Mana Sensing?”
Louis nodded. The knights caught themselves mid-laugh, realizing this was no jest.
“Let’s go.”
Louis Daiken.
Brindol Riugen.
Bill Holtzman.
The three knights approached Sion together.
The light in their eyes had changed entirely since before the operation began.
Bow.
All three knights bent at the waist and lowered their heads.
“What are you doing?”
“Thanks to you, we lived. Sion.”
A knight bowing was never a light decision.
It came only in two circumstances: when swearing allegiance, or when receiving a life-saving debt of gratitude. And now, what they offered Sion was the latter.
Sion watched their salute in silence. The feeling was strange and new.
Before the Regression, he had leaned on the hollow name of Karsen. Not even leaning properly—wavering uncertainly in its shadow. The respect he had failed to receive then had come full circle, returning to him at last.
Sion opened his mouth slowly.
“You don’t need to thank me. If I’d fought Jepren one-on-one, I would have lost. So this is the result you created by standing your ground against a powerful enemy instead of running.”
Sion spoke with conviction, his voice steady and clear.
“Though I’m not yet a Knight in the formal sense, my father once told me that Knights are noble beings. Raw power may be a characteristic of a Knight, but it is not the whole of what a Knight is.
The bearing to endlessly hone your martial skill and never falter before an opponent stronger than yourself—that is what it means to be a Knight.”
In truth, Sion believed this. Without magic, the fight would have been difficult; he could only have won because of these men.
But the knights could not possibly know what lay in Sion’s heart. All they felt was a profound resonance within themselves.
“Forgive us. We have misunderstood you all this time.”
“We see you now, truly. Sion.”
“…I too was in error about you.”
The knights suddenly apologized to Sion. He watched them in silence for a moment, then turned his head away abruptly. A thought had crossed his mind.
‘Arrogant bastards. How much have you dismissed me these past weeks?’
Of course, he wasn’t displeased.
Not really. If anything, he was rather satisfied.
***
While the agents were busy processing the scene,
I conducted a thorough sweep of the Red Fangs’ main stronghold using Mana Sensing.
Thump, thump—
My heart was racing again. Was it always like this? It hadn’t been before. I didn’t know anymore.
After all that searching, I’d finally uncovered their secret location.
Click-click—
I triggered several mechanisms that opened the entrance to the underground passage, then descended with the agents.
A vast research facility emerged before us. The corpses of the dead lay scattered throughout, subjected to various forms of experimentation—but there were no living hostages.
“Research on implanting Mana Engines into human bodies… How vile.”
I cursed softly, then surveyed the facility. The research methods, however, were remarkably crude.
‘Nothing viable could ever come from research like this.’
As I continued the investigation, I discovered a single journal.
『J-76_Vengeance Log.』
“…….”
I opened the journal. It began with a harrowing account of how Jepren—once a shepherd boy in the remote villages of the Northern Frontier, known then as Jepren—had been transformed into an experimental subject.
Masked men had burst in without warning, brutally murdering his mother and father, beating him and his younger brother until they were nearly dead, then dragging them away. He had cooperated actively with the experiments to protect his brother, until the day he encountered his sibling’s lifeless, cold corpse.
Curses against the researchers.
Vengeance against a particular organization.
The need for strength to bring them down—all of it recorded in harsh, raw language.
Jepren.
He was no puppet of Post Iron. Rather, he was someone who despised them—a test subject who had escaped from their grasp.
A wretched human who had become a villain to take vengeance against a great evil.
Thud.
I closed the journal.
And set it down on the desk.
“There is no forgiveness. However—”
To prevent the extinction of mankind.
To destroy the absolute evil known as the Demon King.
‘I will claim the vengeance.’
The strength. The authority.
The Inspection Bureau Special Investigation Division.
The conditions for establishing the division.
‘The Golden Star Assembly’ was within reach.
The Returning Demon Swordsman Devours the Northern Frontier
Author
: Bang Sim
Publication Date
: June 16, 2026
Publisher
: (주)Acesmedia
Editor
: Acesmedia Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Email
: [email protected]
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No part of this work may be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and author.
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UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260615032
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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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