The Regressor's Ice Is Golden - Chapter 55

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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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055.

She returned to the Waiting Room, but neither of them dared speak.
The skater and her coach exchanged nervous glances, both afraid to break the silence.
“Coach?”
“Don’t say anything yet. Just… don’t.”
Coach Park pressed his fingers hard against his temples, breathing slowly.
“Let’s stay calm for now. We’ll identify where the mistakes happened and why, then fix them. Understood?”
“…Yes.”
Kim Ha-seol watched silently as Coach Park pulled out his iPad.
The first jump appeared on the screen.
“Let’s start with the Lutz Double. Your toe pick seemed to catch a little late.”
“Yes, yes.”
Ha-seol covered her mouth with her palm.
As if holding something back.
“I released the edge too quickly on the backward glide. I did tap with my toe before losing the inside edge completely, but by then I’d already lost too much rotational power.”
“And at that point, the Connected Loop would’ve been impossible.”
“Right.”
So instead of the Loop, which would have required immediate rotation, she’d switched to a Toe Loop.
There would have been time to adjust her position briefly after landing.
But because the first jump itself was so unstable, completing three rotations became out of reach.
In the end, the Triple Toe Loop didn’t complete its full rotation and she fell.
“The Flip came out, too—it was a Lipper, though, so that’s just something we keep correcting. The real problem is—”
The last jump. The third one.
The only double-rotation combination in her program and a required element.
“The Double Axel—why did you fall on that? You haven’t fallen on it since you landed it for your technical grade.”
“…”
The Double Axel is the final mountain a skater must clear before attempting triple jumps.
It’s the bare minimum requirement for Novice skaters hoping to advance to Junior level.
So by the time skaters reach Junior or Senior level, falls on it are genuinely rare.
If you had to pinpoint why this disaster happened—
“I think I actually over-rotated it.”
Ha-seol looked down at the iPad quietly.
“Because the first jump fell apart, I was so terrified of messing up again that I threw too much power into it.”
“You panicked.”
“Probably.”
Beyond that, the Flying Sit Spin—which she’d also rarely made mistakes on—had landed on the wrong edge, making it hard to maintain rotation, and the Step Sequence had lost a level when she botched one Loop turn in the middle.
Coach Park sighed and pressed his palm against his forehead.
Well, anyway, the competition was over and there was nothing we could do about it now.
The real issue was—
“Coach, I have the Free Skate tomorrow—”
“Don’t say another word. Not now.”
He couldn’t let her drag this shattered mental state into tomorrow.
What was a teacher supposed to tell his student in a moment like this?
“Ha-seol, let’s think about why we came here in the first place.”
“…To earn Ranking Points and get used to a new venue.”
“Exactly. This isn’t a competition that will dramatically impact your season record.”
Besides, the truly important competitions were elsewhere.
The President’s Cup qualifying tournament, the National Championships, and the Grand Prix Final.
“You know how good technology is these days. All the competition footage gets uploaded, and since you understand what went wrong, you can fix it. Get your head back on. Tomorrow during run-through, we’ll go through it calmly and carefully.”
Coach Park quickly put a reassuring arm around his student’s shoulders.
“Days like this happen sometimes. Let’s just work harder at tomorrow’s Free Skate.”
Instead of answering, Ha-seol nodded slowly.
Her face was no longer as pale as it had been moments before.
And so Coach Park could regain his composure.
At least until the run-through the next day.
But Ha-seol, demoted to the third group, failed to find her form during warm-up and when her turn came.

“Want some water?”
“Yes.”
I drained the water Coach Park had poured for me, though immediately I regretted it—drinking this much was going to be a problem.
“You all right?”
“Yes, fine.”
Even with the water inside me, my insides felt like they were burning away.
Every jump I attempted right now was failing miserably.
Whatever curse had settled on me, I was falling or stepping out more than sixty percent of the time.
“Forget the landing for now. Let’s see if you’re getting the full rotation. Stay aware of your edge, time it right.”
“Yes.”
I pushed back out onto the ice, though steadying myself proved difficult.
I desperately needed one last straw to cling to.
‘Status Window.’

[Kim Ha-seol]
Age: 13 years old (Born April 23)
Height: 162cm
Weight: 45kg
Secondary Sexual Characteristics Progress: 42%

Muscular Strength: B−
Stamina: C+
Flexibility: B
Precision: C
Artistry: C+

My overall stats had dropped significantly again.
My weight was down slightly, but not enough to compensate for the stamina loss.
Not that I’d been slacking on conditioning either.
My artistry could be blamed on mental collapse, but my precision had fallen to an alarming degree.
And I had a pretty strong suspicion about what was causing it.

[Secondary Sexual Characteristics Progress: 42%]

‘I’m losing my mind.’
Logically speaking, it was just ordinary physical development.
But when did the season start? And now this happens? No, that’s not fair.
‘Bodies are bodies. That’s just how they work.’
Nature doesn’t care about human intentions.
This was always going to happen—it’s just happening now.
I fell through a Lutz or two, stepped out of a Flip, and managed to land a few Loops and Axels.
I felt the warming-up skaters stealing glances at me.
To be fair, if someone who used to be in the top group suddenly drops out and shows up here, I’d find it weird too.
Anyway, the third group’s warm-up ended, and the official run-through began.
My turn was… first again, goddammit.
I almost cried when they drew the order.
But the announcement system didn’t care about any skater’s feelings, and I took my position in the center of the ice.
The other skaters were still practicing in their various corners.
‘Well, it’s just a conservative program anyway.’
The Connected Loop and Euler Flip are both cut from this layout.
It should be easy to skate through… if I can even do that.
The majestic strains of Turandot filled the Ice Rink.
My body followed the choreography it remembered, gradually building speed, swinging my arms, creating shapes.
For the first jump: Triple Lutz followed by Triple Toe Loop.
I bit down hard on my lip and drove the pick into the ice.
Crack—!
My body sprang into the air and landed back on the ice.
But my timing was still off, and I couldn’t complete the full rotation on the Triple Toe Loop.
“Ugh.”
I barely managed to stick it on two feet and continued into the next sequence.
So the next jump was a solo Triple Flip.
I’d kept my edge, but this time I hadn’t completed enough rotations.
The Flying Sit Spin right after barely scraped together the required level.
In a real competition, it was questionable whether I’d even get positive bonus points.
For the last jump of the first half, I landed a Triple Loop and a Salchow, both cleanly.
Then came the Choreography Sequence.
The choreography exploded into motion, racing brilliantly across the entire ice with speed and power.
I was dancing, working hard—but I couldn’t even tell if I was doing it right anymore.
After the Choreography Sequence ended, there were more jumps in the second half.
A triple combination: Triple Lutz into Double Toe Loop, followed by a Double Loop.
I landed the Double Toe smoothly and immediately pulled into the rotation.
Then my balance shattered.
‘Oh.’
The instant I realized I’d fallen, I scrambled back up.
I hadn’t finished all my elements yet.
Even if I botched the rest, I wanted to give everything until the very end.
That’s pride.
“Ha… ha….”
After struggling through the remaining jumps and spins, the run-through finally ended.
Another skater immediately began their run-through prep, and I went to find Coach Park.
“…Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.”
A profound exhaustion had settled over me.
A sensation I’d forgotten for months now weighed down my mind like concrete.
It was so heavy that I could barely keep my melting body upright.
That was the most I could manage.

***

Before I could even process how the run-through went, lunchtime rolled around.
Being in a foreign country didn’t mean anything tasted particularly special.
I just heated up the Instant Curry Rice I’d brought from Korea and ate it.
I mean, what would I do if I ate something wrong and got food poisoning?
“Wow, you brought something delicious? I should’ve packed curry too.”
“Would you like some?”
“No, no, don’t worry about it.”
Lee Ji-su waved a hand and pulled out her own food first.
Choi Ji-hwan was already seated, munching away.
Why were people who’d already finished awards ceremony still hanging around?
They’d just booked everyone’s flights at the same time, that’s all.
Coach Park and the other coaches were eating separately, by the way.
Apparently they’d split off the younger athletes to let us hang out together.
“At least we have people to talk to for the Gala Show—Ji-hwan was such a bore.”
“Senior, really…”
The way they were laughing and joking rubbed me the wrong way.
I just ate my rice quietly.
Whether I liked them or not, they were senior athletes.
“How’s the new equipment? Getting used to it?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
Too fine, in fact—that was the problem.
There’s no way the agency would’ve dug up cheap garbage equipment with all the experience they have.
Which meant only one conclusion: my skills had dropped off a cliff.
My throat felt tight, so I poured some water and drank.
“Senior, hypothetically…”
“Mm?”
“Could you bomb a competition… even if your body’s fine and you’re thinking clearly?”
The two senior skaters exchanged a quiet glance.
They’d probably heard about me botching the Short Program.
Even if they were complete strangers, the federation officials would’ve spread the news.
Lee Ji-su let out a bitter laugh first.
“Well, what can you do? A competition isn’t run by skaters alone. There are areas completely beyond our control.”
“For example?”
“When I was in Junior. I competed at this incredibly warm Ice Rink, and there was actually water pooling in a thin layer on the ice.”
So if you fell or did a knee slide, your leggings would be soaked through.
Beyond that, the Ice Rink was at high altitude where the air was thin, so you’d get winded easily, and there were times the judges favored certain skaters in a way that cost you Bonus Points, things like that.
“And then there’s puberty. In Novice, you’re small and light, so the better your results, the easier it is to become overconfident in your own sense of your body. I was like that too. But that sense changes slowly.”
Which is exactly why you need to focus even harder on fundamentals, but it’s not easy when your pride’s wounded and it feels boring.
I nodded slowly and mixed my curry rice.
“So how did you manage it? It’s not like you can avoid it.”
“Ah, this is kind of hard to explain. Well… I’m not exactly gifted with words.”
Choi Ji-hwan, who’d been listening quietly, spoke up softly.
“I think you shouldn’t overthink things.”
……?
At my junior’s bewildered look—or rather, the look that said “what is this, you pretentious jerk”—Choi Ji-hwan hesitated before adding more.
“What I mean is, you have to accept and understand that you’re changing. Usually what happens is… people try to slow their weight gain by eating way too little, right?”
“Right, yeah. I’ve heard of people who don’t eat because they’re scared they won’t be able to jump, and end up with eating disorders. But if you’re training, you have to eat something.”
Figure skaters peak young, and inevitably face a period of rapid growth.
But it’s not like you die when you retire, and if you don’t take care of what your body needs right now?
Even barely making it to Senior, you’ll struggle to keep up.
“Looking back now, I wish I hadn’t just blindly cut weight. I should’ve done more strength training.”
I nodded slowly.
“So you’re saying… don’t try to block the wave—ride it?”
“Yeah, exactly that! You’re really smart.”
“I picked that up somewhere, haha…”
The two seniors, having dispensed their wisdom, drifted off to find their own groups.
For a while, I sat with the empty bowl in front of me.
‘Don’t try to block it. Ride it.’
I didn’t truly understand what those words meant until after the competition was over.
The Returner’s Ice: Episode 55
E-book release date | 2026.06.05

Author | Corcarolli
Publisher | Heo Heung-beom, Park Geon-won
Published by | Potenc

Address | [04783] 10th Floor, 8 Yeonmujang 11-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Phone | 02-6320-8500
Fax | 02-6320-8585

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260514092.0055
Price | 100 won

ⓒ Corcarolli 2026

This e-book is protected under copyright law.
This e-book has been published under contract with the author and may not be reproduced, distributed, or shared in whole or in part without written consent from both parties.

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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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