The Regressor Plays the Game Too Well - Chapter 25

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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 25
Episode 25
A grotesque creature—an orc with six arms sprouting from its body.
No, a chimera.
How utterly repulsive.
Yet I regarded the beast with an icy gaze, unbothered.
Six arms?
It looks formidable.
And its sheer bulk—a towering four meters tall.
A powerful adversary indeed.
Heh, this one deserves my full strength!
“GROOOAAARRR!”
It sensed my intent.
Its roar thundered through the air with tremendous force.
Yes, now this is a worthy opponent.
With such thoughts, Jin-woo smiled bitterly to himself.
Perhaps it reacted to his demeanor?
The creature snarled and lunged forward with renewed fury.
An intruder in this dungeon must be slain by order of its creator!
It would kill with savage brutality!
Retribution upon the invader!
Judgment upon the plunderer who dares trespass!
Boom! Boom! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Once.
Twice.
The chimera rolled powerfully across the ground, then swung all six war hammers simultaneously with devastating coordination.
The hammers whirled in a dizzying blur.
Despite its grotesque form, the limbs moved in perfect synchronization without tangling, delivering a relentless assault.
But Jin-woo was no fool to simply endure such an onslaught.
“Blink.”
The word escaped in a hushed murmur.
The world shifted in an instant.
Though vertigo might have disoriented others, I had adapted swiftly.
And now I unleashed rapid fire.
Simultaneously activating Power Strike as well.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Ten rounds erupted in rapid succession.
Each bullet wrapped in brilliant white light.
Too swift to even perceive.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
A deafening explosion filled the cave.
A barrage that erupted in an instant.
The creature’s head didn’t remain intact after taking ten direct hits.
The evidence speaks for itself.
A message had appeared, after all.
[You have inflicted massive damage.]
[The Six-Armed Chimera has taken massive damage and fallen into the stunned state.]
[A critical hit has occurred.]
[The ‘Fatal Blow’ effect has been applied.]
The creature staggered, still dazed from the explosion.
Jin-woo shook his head as he watched it.
Ah, you are far too weak.
You are far too feeble to serve as a true test of my full power.
How sad.
How truly sad.
Crack!
The axe came down directly toward its head.
Needless to say, the chimera’s body split in two.
A clean bisection delivered upon a body already saturated with damage.
The chimera, now reduced to pulp, uttered no further sound.
Now it was merely a precious source of experience points.
A display of madness.
Well, no one was watching anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Oh, that’s right. I was being recorded.
Still, I didn’t say anything out loud.
‘It should be fine.’
Just as Jin-woo was entertaining this trivial concern.
A message appeared.
[You have gained experience points.]
[Level Up!]
[You have gained additional stat points!]
[You have reached Level 25.]
Level 25.
The level at which I should receive a new skill.
But what’s this?
Why haven’t I received it?
What’s going on? Give me my skill.
The message that should have appeared immediately did not.
For a moment, I wondered if it was a bug.
But that couldn’t be.
There couldn’t possibly be a bug in the Pantheon.
What is this?
Wait… could it be?
Fanfare blares!
A trumpet’s call echoes from somewhere.
And around me, pure white light descends like angel feathers, shimmering gently.
As if a celestial being were descending upon the world.
‘What… what is this?’
I was momentarily bewildered, but I knew exactly what phenomenon this was.
Without thinking, I swallowed hard and recalled it.
‘A Unique-grade skill effect?’
To be honest.
I never expected this.
To be frank, I obtained the hidden pieces because I’d regressed and already knew about them.
That’s how I got them.
Before regression, such occurrences were extraordinarily rare.
Unique-grade?
You’d be lucky to get one once a year, if that.
But it appears like this?
And as a level-up reward at that?
‘I thought I’d never have a connection with something like this.’
That’s what I genuinely believed.
I thought it only appeared on PanTube or to those deceptive PanTube streamers.
And now my luck is this good?
I’ve been chuckling about my luck throughout everything I’ve done so far.
But that was merely a butterfly effect from my own actions.
However, a skill obtained from this level-up reward is purely luck, isn’t it?
Look, I’ve only ever drawn Rare or Normal skills.
I didn’t expect anything this time either.
Gulp.
‘What… what will appear?’
Teleportation was originally a skill that became famous even at Unique-grade, after all.
Of course, I obtained it at Epic-grade.
In any case, that’s the kind of power a Unique-grade possesses.
A single Unique-grade skill alone won’t change everything.
But I’m Jin-woo, aren’t I?
I had complete confidence.
Right now I’m whining that I can’t test the skill immediately.
But if I get it, I’d be incredibly grateful.
For now my specs are already overkill, so that’s possible.
How long will that even work?
The moment I hit level 50, I’ll start falling behind.
A Unique skill in that situation?
I’m incredibly grateful.
‘I wish it were an offensive skill.’
A rapid-fire magical attack skill would be nice too.
It’s quite useful at range.
But there’s still something I’m lacking.
Anything but a mobility skill would be fine.
Right now I have ‘Charge’ attached to my sword, and more importantly, ‘Teleport’—the pinnacle of utility.
With this mobility skill alone, I can manage at least until level 100.
An offensive skill would be so good.
If not that, then something that synergizes with Bloodsucking or Accumulation!
Please!
‘If things stay like this, Bloodsucking and Accumulation feel kind of wasted.’
I wish a skill that could utilize those would appear.
Tsk.
But that doesn’t work on my whim, does it?
Sigh.
It’s best not to expect anything from this.
But you know, right?
Even as I say that, I’m anticipating it all.
What kind of Unique-grade skill will appear.
Just as my anticipation reached its peak.
A brilliant white light exploded in a dazzling effect, and my eyes shut involuntarily.
Then a message appeared.
Ding!
[The effect of the First Title ‘Sole Existence’ has activated.]
[Unique-grade probability increases.]
[You have acquired the Unique skill ‘Berserker’.]
“Huh?”
Wait?
What?
“Huh? Wh-what?!”
I was so shocked I looked again and cried out.
No, I really did see that right?
That… that can’t be?
No, really?
Blink, blink.
I repeated closing and opening my eyes.
I’ve done everything I could, yet nothing’s changed.
Is this really it?
*gulp*
“Berserker?”
I must be losing it if I’m muttering to myself about something so absurd.
Wait, do I do that often?
Anyway, that’s not what matters right now.
I opened my skill window to verify if this was real.
And there it was, plain as day—Berserker.
I suspected it might be a different Berserker than the one I knew, but it was the real deal.
『Berserker』
*Grade: Unique
*Level: 1
→Unleashes explosive power.
→Decreases health by 1% per second while active
→Cooldown: 1 hour
“Heh.”
It actually came through.
A skill that pairs perfectly with Reservoir and Bloodsucking.
‘With Berserker, is the Vampire King Valen combo half-complete?’
The top-ranked hunter known as the Vampire King, who primarily wielded Bloodsucking.
Valen.
The combo that made him truly legendary was this very one.
Reservoir, Bloodsucking, and Berserker.
Naturally, by raising Reservoir to a considerable level, one accumulates health through Bloodsucking.
Then, supplementary skills maintain that health pool.
Valen had coated himself primarily with skills bearing regeneration effects.
Well, the Regenerating Root Breastplate would handle much of that role.
In any case, the most crucial element of this combo is the Berserker skill itself.
‘The most vital skill of all.’
Other skills are easy to obtain because they’re lower grades.
But Berserker is different.
It’s Unique grade.
But if I could acquire it?
I’d have an absurdly broken combo.
Maintain Berserker by consuming the health stored in Reservoir, then replenish it through regeneration and Bloodsucking.
This would allow me to use Berserker almost indefinitely without depleting my health.
A truly ridiculous combo.
But… should I even have this?
Jin-woo paused, contemplating that very question.
‘If I take this, what happens to Valen?’
I pondered for a moment, but did it really matter?
Someone of Valen’s caliber would discover something similar even without this.
He wasn’t just any ranker—he was among the absolute elite, consistently maintaining a position within the top ten.
Besides, my own circumstances were far too pressing to spare concern for others.
With that rationalization, I dismissed the worry.
Instead, a different concern surfaced.
‘This should make things even easier.’
Honestly, the hidden boss in this Dungeon?
I wasn’t particularly worried about it.
Though I knew nothing of its patterns, hadn’t I already experienced such unknowns through Argon?
Even a hidden boss couldn’t match me at my current level.
But Parson, that eccentric alchemist from Felsia, was a different matter entirely.
Incredibly powerful, you ask?
That’s where it gets murky.
‘Troublesome would be more accurate than strong.’
I already knew his patterns well enough.
He summoned multiple chimeras and wielded various dark incantations.
All of it with multiple arms.
That’s precisely what made Parson such a nuisance.
Multiple arms.
What? Didn’t I just face an opponent with multiple arms?
Fool! How are those two even comparable?
For a dark sorcerer like Parson, multiple arms meant multiple means of forming incantations simultaneously.
Of course, given his limited achievement level, he could only cast three dark spells at once.
But that alone was sufficient power for a boss.
‘Multiple spells raining down in an instant—that’s genuinely troublesome to handle.’
Even Tensor, my errand boy, had needed several attempts.
Only after countless tries did he finally clear it.
Through that struggle, I learned the attack pattern.
Each of his arms moved differently when casting spells.
And when using multiple spells simultaneously, he could only cast the same spell.
In the first phase, anyway.
‘Later, when he grows enraged in the second phase, his body strengthens as well.’
A mage whose physical form grows stronger too?
Absurd.
I’d need to employ some cunning.
Though for a boss, that’s acceptable.
For these reasons, I anticipated that defeating him would prove somewhat troublesome.
After all, I lacked a suitable offensive skill.
I possessed an excellent all-around buff skill, but using a strength buff with it meant I couldn’t ignore the enemy’s magical attack power.
So when facing that creature, I had no choice but to rely on a magical buff to utilize Dispel.
But then—ta-da.
It appeared!
‘This is insane.’
A combo from Valen, the Vampire King?
Yeah, I can’t resist this.
Maintaining it continuously would be difficult at first, but if I use an axe?
Everything changes.
Heh, with a bit of luck, I could maintain it for ten minutes?
The only drawback is that I don’t have an axe mastery skill.
‘I’ll need to learn axe mastery.’
Not right now, though.
I need to catch Parson first.
What? Clear one more quest before leaving?
No, that’s not it.
Once I defeat all the mobs here, Parson will definitely appear anyway.
It happened that way in the previous quests too.
“I’ll use it right now!”
With that declaration, I activated the skill immediately.
The skill I would use was, of course…
‘Berserker.’
A deep, resonant boom echoed through me.
A terrifying impact, as if my heart had sunk into the abyss.
Simultaneously, crimson wisps like heat shimmer erupted from my entire body.
“Haaah, shhhhh.”
As I exhaled, the red shimmer burst forth even more violently.
No—it looked more like vapor, like mist itself.
Was this depicting my life force evaporating?
As long as it looked cool, that’s what mattered.
Performance?
That goes without saying.
Thump, thump.
Footsteps echoing from quite a distance away.
Even though I couldn’t see that far with my eyes, just how massive must something be for its footsteps to reach me from this distance?
But I paid it no mind.
Was it because of teleportation?
No, I wouldn’t use teleportation this time.
I needed to test pure Berserker alone!
Whoosh! ROOOAAARRR!
A wind as fierce as a tempest, howling through the air.
Or rather, I was cleaving through the still atmosphere itself.
How fast must one move to produce such a sound?
Formidable power, indeed.
A glance at the ground where I’d launched revealed a massive crater.
If I exaggerated slightly, it resembled the impact of a meteorite—smaller than my fist, perhaps, but not by much.
And that formidable power was being replicated directly through my velocity.
‘This is making me a bit dizzy.’
My vision had shifted before without issue.
But moving this rapidly left me slightly disoriented.
Likely due to the sudden surge in my stats.
I’d grow accustomed to it with continued use.
Still, it was starting to come into view.
Whatever the distance, even at such tremendous speed, a single leap proved insufficient.
Well, that made sense.
I was still only level 25, after all.
Even with Berserker active, such a feat remained beyond my reach.
So then, shall I attempt another leap?
Crash!
Perhaps because I’d adapted better this time.
The leap was far more controlled.
And before the six-armed Chimera could even react.
My axe came down in a devastating arc.
Simultaneously, the sound of thunder crashing down.
A sharp crack.
That was all it took.
[Massive damage dealt.]
[Critical hit triggered.]
[Fatal Stroke effect applied.]
[Experience acquired.]
Thud.
The Chimera collapsed without even a death cry, its body going limp.
Jin-woo gazed down at the fallen creature and smiled wickedly, murmuring to himself.
“I’m coming for you now.”
The moment Jin-woo spoke those words.
Parson, who was heading into the Cave, shuddered involuntarily.
An inexplicable chill ran through him.
Yet he never suspected for a moment that it stemmed from Jin-woo.
He simply thought,
“Hehehehe! My long-cherished dream is finally coming true!”
I was merely indulging in a futile dream.

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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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