# Chapter 200
The future had changed. Lee Hwan had been realizing this fact anew each time he opened his eyes these days.
It was partly because he was spending days free from threats from anyone, but mostly because he frequently woke up next to Taesung.
‘…Having so many rooms is meaningless, I guess.’
Lee Hwan gazed blankly at Taesung, who was sleeping while holding him tight. Knowing he would wake up at the slightest movement, Lee Hwan didn’t dare breathe heavily and quietly admired his face.
It’s embarrassing to think this, but he really didn’t get tired of looking at him no matter how much he did. Perhaps this guy unknowingly possessed a new skill stone. Something like human pheromones or enchantment.
“Haha.”
Finding his own thoughts ridiculous, Lee Hwan snorted out loud. Would his past self ever have imagined that he would wake up in Taesung’s arms and have such thoughts while looking at his face?
“…Are you awake?”
Taesung, who opened his eyes at the sound, was smiling as soon as he woke up, clearly pleased about something.
“No, go back to sleep.”
His smile was so languid that Lee Hwan pulled him into an embrace and patted him.
9 AM on a weekend morning. It was too early and precious a time to jump out of bed. Lee Hwan wriggled, moved down a bit, and buried his head in Taesung’s chest. The cozy smell and fluffy blanket covered up to his forehead.
A laughing sound traveled through his body. Lee Hwan liked it and let his body go limp.
Today again, he woke up with this guy. No matter what had happened the night before.
‘So, why did I sleep with this guy again last night?’
Lee Hwan wondered. Surely, when he went to bed the night before, he had been alone as usual. He didn’t even remember Taesung coming in and joining him in the middle of the night.
‘…I think I had some kind of dream though.’
But a memory that emerged from probing through a fog-like opacity. Near dawn, Lee Hwan had woken up gasping for breath, his whole body burning hot.
If that was the case, though he couldn’t recall it clearly, he must have had a nightmare again. A chronic condition acquired after regression.
The memories he once begged to remember now settled in his mind piece by piece on their own, selectively replaying as dreams, choosing only the most terrible ones.
Still, things had stabilized a lot now, becoming a rare event that might happen once a month, if that.
‘I wonder what content I dreamed of today.’
Among them, some were so lonely and terrifying that his heart would pound like a drum when he woke up. At those times, half-asleep and barely conscious, he would blindly seek out a warm place to burrow into.
And when he woke up in the morning, he would always find himself lying with Taesung.
Having slept so deeply that the night’s dream was hazy.
“That café we found yesterday, should we order breakfast delivery from there?”
Just then, Taesung asked while tapping the top of his head. Before Lee Hwan could ruminate on his nightmare, he stuck only his arm out from under the blanket, waving his hand to push Taesung away, and recalled the previous day.
‘The soufflé? Won’t it deflate when it’s delivered?’
‘Who knows.’
‘Then it’s not a soufflé pancake, just a regular pancake.’
‘We’ll find out if we order it. Want to eat it tomorrow?’
Oh, yes. I want to eat it. Got to have breakfast.
“Huaaaaeueuh…”
Lee Hwan threw off the blanket, stood up, and yawned long. Touching his hair, he found it sticking up like a bird’s nest, as expected.
He pulled the blanket up over Taesung’s face, covering it, and then hurriedly pressed and rubbed his own hair, trying his best to tame it.
As if he knew what Lee Hwan was doing, another laugh came from under the blanket.
“Let’s order. Big bro will pay.”
Lee Hwan pulled back the blanket and spoke with his now calmed hair, then leisurely left the room.
As soon as they received the delivery call, Taesung went downstairs, and Lee Hwan quickly cleared the dining table where writing utensils and notebooks were strewn about.
“Clearing” was an overstatement; he just pushed everything to the side.
When Taesung returned, he deliberately sat next to Lee Hwan. They could have sat facing each other to eat, but sometimes he did strange things like this.
Of course, Lee Hwan didn’t mind and placed cream and blueberry compote on the fluffy bread before devouring it in one bite. The large cut piece disappeared cleanly into his mouth without a trace.
“Mmm, mmm… it’s delicious. Hurry up and eat.”
Taesung, ignoring the urging, sat at an angle with his chin propped up, just watching Lee Hwan. He had an expression that suggested he was full even without eating.
However, Lee Hwan was someone who had wandered around with Taesung before the regression, truly starving. He knew well that unless humans could photosynthesize, if you don’t eat, you’re just fucking hungry until you do.
“If you don’t eat quickly, I’ll take some of your share.”
At this threat, Taesung finally picked up his fork. Even originally, with his S-class physique, he showed cost-effectiveness by turning a village into a fiery pit with just a glass of milk, but in Lee Hwan’s eyes, he was just a guy who skipped breakfast.
‘It’s fortunate that his skill disappeared, especially since he doesn’t eat well like that.’
Lee Hwan sipped his cool and sweet vanilla latte and sporadically recalled the eventful past eight months.
Yes, the future had definitely changed. The regression skill that tightly bound the two regression users had exhausted its power and shattered.
He heard that Taesung’s skill window, which had been constantly shaking and flickering just in the regression skill area, no longer showed any EX-class skills, traces of them, or noise.
That happened right when Naru began to crumble in earnest and Kang Dongying received his sentence.
The two of them guessed that when all connected strings were cut, the skill that had been barely hanging on finally disappeared completely.
From then on, Taesung stopped drinking the high-calorie shakes he used to have every morning. After that, he was always healthy without any special effort, just like before the regression. He didn’t look haggard even after staying up all night, and next to Lee Hwan, he smiled brightly as if all worldly worries had flown away.
‘I’ve been rid of my regression skill for a long time too, but why is my body still like this…’
While glad that Taesung was safe, Lee Hwan grumbled to himself as he took another bite of the soufflé cake.
To be fair, Lee Hwan was known for his poor cost-efficiency even before the regression. His Spatial Control ability was particularly energy-consuming, and there was a clear difference between B-class and S-class bodies.
Moreover, that damned amplification skill would arbitrarily add power whenever he used his ability or other skills, draining all the energy he had painstakingly accumulated.
‘Well, compared to the regression skill though…’
He couldn’t forget the times when his hair was dry and his nails split even though he ate well. The muscle loss was downright frightening. Lee Hwan shuddered and took another sip of his latte.
“There’s strawberry jam.”
“Oh, let’s have that too.”
“Just a moment.”
Of course, Taesung wasn’t entirely problem-free either, having randomly consumed many skills. Things like Wind Blade, Mud Night, or Light—skills that matched neither his disposition nor aptitude—whenever he used them, it occasionally overloaded his body.
How frightening it was to see him clutching his head with a pale face. Lee Hwan had grabbed Taesung by the collar and shook him, prohibiting all skills except the original Explosion and Whirlwind he already possessed.
It didn’t feel good knowing that Taesung had recklessly collected those skills probably because of him.
And that was setting aside the astronomical cost…
“Found it.”
Fortunately, things weren’t entirely ruined. As if to offer compensation for all they’d been through, thanks to the changed world, there were signs that even that problem would be somewhat resolved.
“That medicine, they say it’ll be commercialized by next year.”
Taesung spoke as he placed clumps of strawberry jam onto Lee Hwan’s plate.
“They said it would take at least 3 years, but it won’t even take 2 years?”
Lee Hwan’s eyes lit up as he gathered strawberries by poking them with his fork.
That medicine. An unfinished product they had been taking for a month already, volunteering for clinical trials despite potentially developing trauma from some kind of experiment at least three or four times, though the side effects were supposedly minimal.
A ‘Penalty Mitigator’ was in the development stage.
—This is revolutionary. Among the already scarce Awakened, about 10% of the workforce abandons their ability use due to penalties, and over 60% of people experience constraints in combat. When the product is commercialized, we will not only alleviate the suffering of the Awakened but also demonstrate extreme efficiency in all aspects.
He remembered a small voice of some foreign authority being dubbed over with quite impressive Korean during an interview.
Since it was a product that didn’t exist in the world before the regression, at first, he worried about what incident was about to happen.
However, fortunately or unfortunately, it seemed closer to a positive butterfly effect that occurred purely by chance.
With the entire Naru laboratory reduced to ruins, researchers flowed in large numbers to various companies and countries, and as several secrets leaked, there was great synergy with the stagnant penalty research “by mistake”…
As soon as the national research institute discovered substances related to penalty mitigation, companies from home and abroad rushed to express their support.
Naturally, the research and development speed instantly gained wings.
“It’s already close to a finished product now, but it needs to go through quite a long clinical trial and get approval.”
“Hmm.”
Slurp, Lee Hwan nodded as he sucked up the remaining latte without leaving a drop. Satisfaction gently filled his chest.
He had thought they might have to wait about 10 years, but the research was going even better than a candy in the mouth. Taesung alone already reported that after taking the medicine, using his skills only resulted in a slight throbbing in his temple area.
Lee Hwan had also benefited greatly from its effects. However, there had been an unexpected phenomenon when the concentration of his pheromones was significantly reduced.
‘Wait, um… am I being kidnapped right now…?’
