The Regressor's Ice Is Golden - Chapter 59

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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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059.

It looks unlucky, sure, but it’s true.
Usually, kids who do sports don’t have the luxury of worrying that much about their grades.
Conversely, kids who don’t do sports — well, they’re different.
There are plenty of athletic kids in this neighborhood, but their academic drive isn’t anything to scoff at either.
Naturally, they work hard to raise their own scores, but first-years don’t take midterms or finals, so every single performance assessment becomes that much more crucial.
That’s why this kind of mudslinging is even possible.
“Of course I know how precious your notebook is, but right now you’re drawing aggro from everyone because of it.”
People just don’t want to take losses, do they?
“Your notebook didn’t fly up to the heavens or sink into the earth — if worst comes to worst, just go ask at the Staff Room. You can’t squeeze the truth out of random people by hounding them.”
By this point, the others had come around.
“Seriously? You’re so damn annoying.”
“Man, if I don’t get an A-plus this time, my academy instructor’s gonna have my head.”
All around the classroom, each kid poured out their own complaints, fretting over their own losses.
Thanks to that, Cha Seo-hee, who hadn’t even gotten her hair up and had been torn apart, slumped back into her seat with a flushed face.
“……I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Don’t worry — after class we can look again.”
The kids who’d been helping Cha Seo-hee caught the hint and drifted back to their places.
Like that, the classroom fell into a lull.
At least I’d managed to shut them up.
‘Hope nothing else goes wrong.’
I glanced cautiously at Cha Seo-hee.
It’s not Cha Seo-hee I’m afraid of — it’s her parents.
Depending on how she reports this to them, the homeroom teacher’s stomach ulcers could flare up.
In the worst case, we could end up with a reprise of the school violence accusation mess from before I regressed.
But Cha Jin-hee just handed back the PE Uniform top and snorted.
“If it comes to it, I’ll say something on your behalf. There’s plenty of us here.”
“Think the kids would actually step up?”
“If it comes to it, I’ll call Park Ji-ho.”
“Seriously.”
Just the thought was enough to be grateful.
I gladly pulled the PE Uniform back on and lay down for more sleep.
According to what I heard later, the infamous notebook was found in her own locker.
Some speculated that someone had taken it and put it back — they seemed to be hinting at me, since I also do figure skating — but the whole thing was wrapped up with the general impression that Cha Seo-hee was just scatterbrained.

***

When I arrived at the Ice Rink, they were just finishing the ice maintenance.
With crowds of people who’d come to practice packed in, we found a decent spot and sat down.
“Your flip edge has been shaky again lately, so it’d be good to review the edge with Double Flip as the focus. Since we’re recording, try two doubles and one triple.”
“Yes.”
“You fell on the Salchow at the open trophy too, right? Your first triple ever was Salchow and Loop.”
Coach Park grumbled about how scary the changes in body composition were.
I gazed dully at the printed sheet.
It was the scoresheet from the last Asian Open Trophy.
‘The bonus points dropped a lot too.’
The GOE bonus points have five levels each, positive and negative.
The additional points you can earn range from zero to a maximum of 0.5 times the base.
If you get a GOE of +5 on a jump worth 10 Base Value points, you end up with 15 points.
Seven judges evaluate and award these bonus points at their discretion, and the average is added to the base score to give the final tally.
Originally I usually got 2s and 3s, with 4s thrown in regularly — but now it’s all 1s or 2s.
Even if they throw out the highest and lowest scores, what’s with all these 0s?
It’s not biased judging — all seven judges evaluating the same way leaves me nothing to say.
‘I really botched it bad.’
I sighed and folded up the scoresheet.
The ice maintenance was done, so I laced my Skates tight.
Everyone else was already up on the rink.
Coach Park clapped his hands sharply as he took the scoresheet with him.
“All right, so our target is the next competition, yes?”
“The Winter National Games preliminary round.”
“That’s right. Our goal is to boost the Bonus Points by 2 points, primarily.”
And to secure entry to the main competition beyond that.
The Winter National Games is a nationwide tournament held by the Korea Sports Association, not the Ice Sports Federation.
Athletes are selected from each province and city across the nation to compete in the main event at the end of February.
In essence it has the flavor of a regional championship, but due to infrastructure issues, it’s traditionally the case that Gyeonggi, Seoul, and Gangwon divide up the medals among themselves.
Especially in this region—even with plenty of young athletes training, figure skating is a weak sport, so there aren’t many quota spots to begin with.
“Anyway, since the preliminaries are easy pickings, we can take it easy then too—”
“Coach, let’s not say things like that.”
I spoke with a soft smile.
“We said the same thing at the Open Trophy and it went sideways, didn’t it?”
“Ah.”
Coach Park fell silent, merely nodding and pressing his lips shut.
In any case, we headed up onto the ice for practice.
The rink was familiarly cold, with ice that was appropriately firm.
“All right, but we’ve got work to do, haven’t we? Slump or not, what matters is posture and reflexes. It’s all about striking at the exact moment, pressing, tightening, and releasing.”
He made ice skating practice sound like butchering meat at a slaughterhouse.
I began today’s practice with an awkward laugh.
The Ina Bauer cutting across the ice, and the Double Axel.
The Double Axel posed no problem.
The issue was preserving the triple jumps without losing rotation.
We started checking things methodically from the easiest onward.
Toe Loop, Salchow, Loop…
Crash!
“Agh! Are you all right?!”
“Ungh…”
I clutched my ribs, my face twisted in pain.
“Want to take a break?”
“Huff, I’m fine.”
I was startled, but nothing was broken.
I simply couldn’t breathe for a moment from the impact.
Checking my status window, there didn’t seem to be any real damage.
I continued jumping—several triple attempts, then several more with double jumps.
I adjusted the position of my arms as they tucked in mid-air, repositioned my feet as well.
And the most important thing: the skating itself.
“You’re already good at it, but the better you are, the more worthwhile it is to practice well.”
“That’s true.”
I practiced five compulsory exercises five times each, and only then did I finally get a break.
My legs throbbed.
‘They need rest now.’
I massaged my legs vigorously.
Even if I couldn’t use the difficult program layout I’d employed during the Grand Prix Series, I still needed to raise my skill level to at least the point where I could land all five triple jump varieties.
That’s what our target is.
‘Short Program and Free Skating, both clean!’
If we can achieve that, barring any upsets like what happened at the Open Trophy, there’s a strong possibility I’ll easily secure entry to the Winter National Games preliminary round.
After all, junior skaters who can land consecutive triple jumps—and especially with a Lutz for the first jump—are genuinely rare.
Cha Seo-hee and I would just be sharing them one each.
‘Plenty of money there, so there’s no way we’re leaving.’
If it were TK, they might send just one daughter to Seoul for training, but that’s a ruthless place to begin with, so they probably wouldn’t go that far.
“Still, today’s condition was good, so that’s a relief. Should we push a bit harder tomorrow?”
“Yes. Thank you for your hard work.”
We packed up our things and headed home.
During the drive in Coach Park’s car, I took a detailed look at my status window for the first time in a long while.

[Kim Ha-seol]
Age: 13 years old (Born February 27th)
Height: 163cm
Weight: 45kg
Secondary Sexual Characteristics progression rate: 43%

Strength: B-
Stamina: B
Flexibility: B
Precision: C
Artistry: C-

Special Notes: Regressor, unwavering determination
Special Abilities:
[Biological Metronome] (D/Active)
[Self-Heating] (E/Active)
!Abnormal Status! Body transformation due to secondary sexual characteristics
GOE Points: 2

It would be nice to pick up another special ability, but I have no gacha tickets or points left.
Still, there’s something at this moment that amounts to a cheat key.
[Status Window Stats Reversion Ticket: 1 month prior (Single Use)]
I’m not entirely sure what “one month” means as a baseline, but roughly speaking, if it’s the same day from a month ago, that would be right after the sixth round of the Junior Grand Prix in Japan ended.
Right after the chaos with plantar fasciitis and equipment troubles.
But aside from that, it was a period when my stats were actually quite solid.
‘I only fell behind because I scraped through the Asian Open Trophy.’
Which meant I had just under a month to use this ticket.
Roughly four weeks, give or take.
And the Winter National Games qualifiers were about two weeks away.
So then?
‘I should use it.’
No matter how much my body adjusts, the better the quality of my performance, the more stable my entry into the competition will be.
More importantly, after the Winter National Games qualifiers, the Championship Trophy Rankings and the Grand Prix Final were only two weeks after that.
Before my stats drop any further due to abnormal status and body transformation, it might be wise to boost them preemptively.
The strategy was to preserve my stats however I could through permanent challenges until then.
After deliberating for a long time, I finally made my decision.
‘Use it.’
After that disaster at the Open Trophy, if there’s a straw to grasp, I should grab it gratefully.
I gazed softly out the window.
Streetlights swept across the murky sky.

***

When the Winter National Games qualifiers finally arrived, the weather was unusually crisp.
Well, not unusually—it was November now, so this was about the right time for it.
“Brrr, it’s cold.”
The college student, who’d raided a convenience store, darted her eyes around like a borrowed cat.
It had been a while since she visited this Ice Rink—Ha-seol’s home rink.
The college student had gotten pretty good at distinguishing between types of jumps by now, but honestly, she felt anxious.
‘I probably won’t see a Toe Loop.’
Truthfully, she’d watched the Asian Open Trophy broadcast once and hadn’t been able to stomach watching it again since.
Especially the Short Program—Ha-seol’s performance had been so disastrous.
The hate comments from back then haunted the college student’s dreams.
-Ah, she was just a flash in the pan, looks like it. They say once junior body changes kick in, it’s over, and honestly I’m surprised she even made Junior Grand Prix at all.
-Round 1 of the Junior Grand Prix was honestly way too hyped. Honestly, I’m not sure the qualifiers weren’t overhyped either. The Ice Sports Federation wouldn’t rig it, so she’s just finding her real level now.
-With that mental state, what can she do? Forget about the camera and just practice.
-This is exactly why sticking with just one coach is bad… I can’t tell if it’s Coach Park’s ambition or Kim Ha-seol’s greed.
To this, figure skating fans—the college student included—spared no harsh words for a middle schooler, but there was only so much they could do.
After all, figure skating was a sport, and Ha-seol had bombed that competition.
Anyway, the college student entered the Ice Rink and looked for a decent spot to sit……, a decent spot to…….
‘Why hasn’t this been taken down!’
The college student glared in frustration at the acrylic barrier installed around the Ice Rink fence.
It had been removed the last time she came.
In fact, it was taken off in most broadcast footage too.
A pillar blocking the view couldn’t be helped, but why did this one have to exist?
What really rankled was that the judges’ seating had been cleared away.
If you’re going to remove things, remove everything!
“Ugh, seriously!”
In the end, the university student gave up on getting a clear sightline and settled into a seat at the very bottom row.
Since it had come to this, she’d open her spiritual eye and see through the acrylic barrier!
And so the preliminaries for figure skating at the Winter National Games began.
The Regressor’s Ice 59
E-book Publication Date | 2026.06.05

Author | Corcarolli
Publishers | Huh Heung-beom, Park Gun-won
Published by | Poten

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

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260514092.0059
List 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 unauthorized reproduction, copying, distribution, or sharing without written consent from both parties is prohibited.

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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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