# Chapter 159
## 11th hour
“That thing just now, isn’t it a penalty?”
The sharp question hit right on target. So it had come to this after all. Taesung’s face showed disappointment.
Though the cold voice felt like it was hollowing out his heart, he forced his drooping head up and tried to think. It’s okay. It wasn’t the first time his regression had been discovered. He couldn’t afford to be shaken. The interrogation that would follow was the real problem.
People cursing at him wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t worth paying attention to, so it didn’t even make an impact. Jade’s nagging was a regular occurrence, so while it was unpleasant, he was used to it.
But when Lee Hwan looked at him with a frozen face devoid of any warmth, it honestly hurt his heart. Lee Hwan had always been warm to him. Even though he had sensed this might happen, it still felt like being stabbed in the chest with a sharp knife.
Those cool eyes met his. Would it be ridiculous if, even in this situation, he found himself entranced by that light brown color?
How should he answer? He couldn’t honestly tell him everything in this situation, nor could he clumsily deceive him. If that lie was exposed, Lee Hwan wouldn’t want to see him for a long time.
Lee Hwan had always been weak to Taesung, but that didn’t mean he followed him without his own opinion. He was just endlessly generous toward him alone. He was a resolute person who was clear about his boundaries.
Thinking about that resoluteness being applied to himself now made it hard for Taesung to speak. He eventually averted his gaze and closed his eyes for a long moment.
A familiar chill ran down his spine. Even though he barely felt cold due to his ability, at some point he had begun to feel cold and numb inside, as if abandoned alone on the cement floor of a freezing basement. After falling out with Lee Hwan in the third attempt, he had felt endless chills ever since.
When he first heard that after turning forty, one had to count each year to answer their own age, he had dismissed it as nonsense. He thought a person couldn’t possibly forget such basic information.
But considering that by just the fourth attempt, some things had already started to become hazy, perhaps it had been true after all. A bitter taste seemed to spread in his mouth.
“I’m asking you. That thing, isn’t it a penalty?”
Taesung regained his focus at the cold voice. He couldn’t hesitate indefinitely with Lee Hwan in front of him.
In the end, he would have to say something. If he kept his mouth shut without sharing anything, Lee Hwan would eventually grow weary. What answer would satisfy him adequately without shocking him too much?
Taesung decided to first confirm Lee Hwan’s suspicion.
“…Yes. It’s a penalty.”
And before those questioning eyes, he drew a long breath. He needed to explain, at least roughly, how Lee Hwan had somehow gained new skills.
“Actually, we regressed once before.”
“What? What does that mean…!”
“It wasn’t a good return, so I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it.”
“……”
“I’m sorry.”
Half-truths flowed smoothly from his lips. He swallowed the raw story he couldn’t bear to tell as Lee Hwan’s eyes showed shock. Once again, a pain like having his insides carved out struck him. Taesung endured the agony as he looked at Lee Hwan.
‘This time, really… come find me.’
If the same voice kept echoing in his ears, was that a sign of mental illness? He felt his breath gradually becoming labored.
They say people with Alzheimer’s become fixated on specific moments from the past. While his case was somewhat different, Taesung’s moment was always fixed in the spring of 2022.
Because his precious person was tied there. Because no matter what he tried, he always returned to that place.
* ▦X Br▦▦ ▦ockwork (▦▦ Broken)
– Return▦ to ▦ fixed ▦▦ment.
– Us▦r and targ▦t must ▦oth be ▦▦▦▦▦.
– ! In▦ufficient ▦aterial.
☞ The target ▦▦ unable to pr▦▦▦de ▦▦terials
▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦
▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦
▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦▦
This was already the eighth time Taesung had regressed with Lee Hwan designated as the target. Taesung quietly stared at the skill window that crackled with static just from being opened, damaged beyond repair after repeated mutations.
* * *
Remembering that moment made Taesung wake up screaming even in his sleep. The end of the first regression, which he hadn’t been aware of. The feeling of life fading away in his arms was chillingly vivid.
The pulse that gradually slowed until it stopped. The hand that ceased to move. The body gradually losing its warmth…
He couldn’t let him disappear. He wanted to hold onto him by any means necessary. But all he could do was pull him into his embrace and try to warm his cooling body.
‘No. No. No. Please.’
Normal thinking was impossible. He had burned the entire district, killing all the pursuers in agony, so soon either the Management Bureau or Naru would come to capture him. He had also suffered severe burns himself and could no longer use his powers.
But none of that mattered. It had been pushed far outside his concern long ago. Lee Hwan, his precious person, had lost his life. He was gone forever. Right before his eyes, because of him. That fact alone tore at his heart and constricted his throat.
‘Please, please…’
It sounded like blood boiling in his throat. Groans escaped him as if his intestines were being torn out. The body he desperately caressed and embraced swayed lifelessly. Looking at the limp wrist, he endlessly shattered and scattered, falling deeply into an abyss.
“…Ugh!”
Then, when the familiar ceiling came into view, Taesung wiped his sweat-soaked hair and felt deep relief. He had been so feverish that his tears had dried up long ago, making the stinging sensation in his eyes actually welcome.
But soon he fell into grief, at the fact that while what had just happened was all a dream, it wasn’t something that had never actually occurred.
After calming down, the memories that naturally surfaced were of what happened next. The first regression that began with the deceased Lee Hwan designated as the target.
[War$! Not a su&table targ%t, power component$♤ ▦▦&–]
[—-reducing function.]
.
.
.
He was relieved to learn that someone who had already died could be designated as a target, but the subsequent changes to the skill were ominous.
However, Taesung had no other options left. Even if he returned to that moment again, he would bring Lee Hwan back to the past. That was what the regression skill had been used for in the first place.
Ding!
[Restoring damaged skill by reducing functionality.]
[New! You have acquired a new skill.]
* EX Fixed Clockwork
Taesung couldn’t choose the regression date. No matter what time he desired, he endlessly returned to the morning of March 8, 2022.
Coincidentally, that was the moment Lee Hwan first regressed. When he rushed to Lee Hwan’s house, disoriented, Lee Hwan, who had lost all his memories, smiled happily.
Saying he knew Taesung would come looking for him. Saying he was glad Taesung was safe.
After embracing and crying, Taesung brought him home, fed him delicious food, and when color returned to his soft cheeks, had him lie down with his head on Taesung’s lap.
He found animal programs on TV and ran his fingers through Lee Hwan’s hair. It was the past and future he had longed for throughout those wandering years.
However, what happened afterward was always unexpected and correspondingly close to tragedy. All those moments remained deep in his memory, eventually becoming another source of nightmares.
1st attempt. Lee Hwan, who quickly joined the attack team, visited a gate to eliminate composite monsters. Although the monsters that appeared were A-class, they lived separately from each other, so there wouldn’t be much danger as long as aggro wasn’t pulled.
But the situation changed rapidly during combat. Monsters that should have been far apart gathered together, their eyes blazing as they charged madly. In the end, one person died, three were seriously injured, and the rest received counseling therapy for a long time.
Lee Hwan barely survived, but became the most severely injured person. When he came out of the operating room, nothing remained below his right shoulder. His spine had been completely severed, making movement impossible, and the damage to his lungs was so extensive that he had to constantly wear a respirator.
He found out later. That Lee Hwan had obtained two skill stones in the previous regression. That one of the penalties was a pheromone that extremely stimulated monsters, and tragically, it was a near-passive skill that couldn’t even be controlled.
It was information that Lee Hwan, who had lost all his memories, couldn’t possibly have known. In contrast, Taesung, who remembered everything, had been at odds with him throughout the previous regression and failed to notice the existence of the penalty.
Lee Hwan spent most of his days on a hospital bed. Initially, he smiled, saying he was fortunate to be alive, but gradually lost his light. To ignite fire in his life, Taesung visited the hospital room every day and whispered:
‘I’ve found a way to restore your body. You’ll be able to move like before soon. So don’t worry, just think of it as taking a good rest for once and wait for me.’
Then he rampaged through gates like a madman. To achieve the completion of the “causality” with an unknown purpose and regress once more.
2nd attempt. When Lee Hwan suddenly said he had gained a skill, Taesung pretended to be surprised.
He took him to an E-class gate that wasn’t even worth being a post-dinner dessert to try out the skill, and was naturally able to make him aware of the penalty. It was always troublesome to stop him. After all, he couldn’t speak about certain events or information from before the regression.
Lee Hwan gave up on joining the company. Instead, after deliberating between the Association and the Management Bureau, he became a civil servant mainly in charge of combat against humans.
Then, while digging for information to stop the monster wave, he died in battle near a suddenly overflowing gate. Despite the fact that the gate had never overflowed in previous regressions.
He died protecting fifteen civilians, was awarded a medal and posthumously promoted two ranks.
It was before all the pieces of causality that had changed from previous attempts were collected. One evening after returning from work, what greeted Taesung was the 7 o’clock news with Lee Hwan’s photo in the upper right corner.
From that moment until the next regression, he was half-mad in a world left alone.
3rd attempt. Taesung abruptly prevented Lee Hwan from joining the company. He also prevented him from getting jobs at other companies or the Management Bureau. He set fire to Lee Hwan’s neighborhood to merge their homes, and afterward naturally prevented him from going out.
Lee Hwan was initially bewildered, then tried to understand Taesung, then was shocked, then discouraged, and finally protested. When it was revealed that it was Taesung who had set fire to the neighborhood and blocked his employment path, he blatantly broke all the windows and left the house.
Afterward, he disappeared somewhere unfindable, until Taesung discovered he had attached himself to Kang Dongha. And that under that bastard’s direction, he was handling dangerous tasks.
Taesung captured Lee Hwan and confined him in a villa.
