Part 2: Regressor vs. Possessor
In a hospital room draped in deep darkness, a man in a patient’s gown sat perched on the edge of a stark white bed.
Ding—
A system window appeared before him.
System/ good mornin.
The man’s brow furrowed at the greeting, which had gotten both the spelling and spacing completely wrong. He stared at the system window with displeasure.
What is it scheming…
Normally, the system doesn’t speak to humans. It only displays the necessary information — for example, the contents of one’s own status window.
But for him, it was different. To be precise — for Seomun Hyeok of this particular run.
Name: Seomun Hyeok
Age: 30
Class: Attacker / Swordsman
Rank: S
Aliases: The Ruthless Hero, Runaway from the Cycle (5th Pilgrimage in Progress).
.
.
.
The man — Seomun Hyeok’s — gaze fixed on his last alias.
(5th Pilgrimage in Progress)
He was this dimension’s hero as recognized by the system, a figure who had experienced four deaths before returning to the past and was now living his fifth life.
In common parlance, he was a regressor — which meant he had foreknowledge of all the major events that would unfold over at least the next several years.
And yet…
The future has changed.
It was a first. The future twisting on its own without him having touched a thing. No — there had been a change in the system, so perhaps he couldn’t call it a first.
System/ tough luk^^
The system mocked him. Either way, it left him just as confused, so Seomun Hyeok waved his hand to dispel the system’s taunt and traced back over what had happened.
The gate that had appeared out of nowhere. The red dragon that had emerged from it. The unfamiliar man who had turned what should have been a defeat into a victory.
The special gate and the dragon weren’t supposed to appear for several more years.
A special gate that, the moment it formed, swallowed everything around it and then closed. In Seomun Hyeok’s memory, it wasn’t supposed to appear until about a year from now. Same with the dragon — the first time a dragon would appear as a boss monster was supposed to be roughly three years from now.
Why? Where did things suddenly diverge?
His expression hardened on its own. As he retraced where things had gone off course, his mind naturally replayed the battle with the dragon.
Don’t strike there.
When it inhales — aim for the inside.
Now!
What bothered him most was the unfamiliar figure whose name he didn’t even know. Seomun Hyeok thought about the moment that man had inserted himself into his fight.
He was definitely someone who had been dead.
He hadn’t been able to confirm it up close, but at the time, there had been no survivors in the dragon’s lair other than himself.
And yet, at the most critical moment — when someone’s help was desperately needed — a person had awakened and come to Seomun Hyeok’s aid.
The mysterious man had identified the dragon’s species at a glance and even knew how to bring it down.
Despite the fact that no dragon had appeared yet in this run, he had, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, drawn on knowledge that even Seomun Hyeok didn’t possess to help him.
What is he?
Could he possibly be a regressor like himself?
Whatever the case, he was no ordinary person. The information that man had possessed surpassed what Seomun Hyeok knew.
The fact that he was alive right now without having died was most likely also thanks to that man.
It was definitely an injury severe enough to kill me.
It had been right after he had cut off the dragon’s breath for good. He had collapsed from total physical exhaustion due to the wounds he had accumulated beforehand.
The moment his eyes had closed, he had instinctively known — this run was over here. He had felt a wave of weariness at the thought of having to prepare for even this kind of unexpected situation in the next run.
But he hadn’t died. When he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital room in a hunter hospital, and the chest that had been pierced by the dragon’s attack had healed shut, leaving a pure white scar. The same was true of his other wounds.
And then there’s this mana.
There was something else strange. When he had come to his senses, his mana stat had jumped sharply.
Mana: 99
His original mana stat had been 27. He was a swordsman, not a mage, so he hadn’t bothered raising his mana at this point in time.
Yet when he had woken up from unconsciousness, only his mana stat had risen.
99, no less. Even for him — a man who had repeated countless lifetimes and undergone all manner of training — the number 99 in a stat was something he had never seen before.
Beyond that, his eyes had inexplicably turned red, and the peculiarly slow pulse he felt from his heart was suspicious beyond measure.
He must have done something to me.
He needed to know exactly what that person was and what he had done to him.
System/ go find him. that gu y. quic kly
The system egged him on. After some deliberation, he finally picked up his phone.
Tap— tap tap— tap—
His fingers pressed a familiar number. It was the direct line of an information broker known as Dokkaebi — someone not yet famous in this run.
—…Hello? Who is this?
After a few rings, a strangely androgynous voice came through — impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman. Despite the other party’s guarded tone, Seomun Hyeok cut straight to the point of his call.
“I’m looking for someone. I only know their general appearance — is that possible?”
The man who had saved him. Who had kept him alive. He needed to find the variable that had appeared in his life for the first time in five runs.
—What’s this all of a sudden?
“I’ll pay whatever the fee is.”
—…Yes, it’s possible. Could you describe their appearance for me?
Without his noticing, the corner of Seomun Hyeok’s mouth had curved up slightly.
Three days had passed since Haram fell to Earth. In that time — short if you called it short, long if you called it long — he had lost control of his body to Pyo Haram’s memories twice.
“S-Samchon! Nosebleed! You’re having a nosebleed!”
“It’s… fine. Samchon is… fine, so… you need to go to kindergarten. Let me get you food first…”
The first time had been the very morning after he became Pyo Haram. The child had been nudging him awake, telling him it was time to head to kindergarten soon.
He had assumed the dizziness was from not sleeping until late — but then his nose suddenly stung and blood came pouring out. At the same moment, old memories spread through his mind.
A baby that cried at all hours, and Pyo Haram screaming beside it to just stop already. The memory of him coming to his senses late, apologizing, and sobbing alongside the baby.
The child’s face as she begged him to come to the parents’ observation day at kindergarten. Pyo Haram saying he couldn’t because he had to work, and the memory of the child’s bright face slowly crumpling into disappointment.
The memory of a dungeon raid taking far longer than expected, leaving him away from home for two whole days. The memory of Pyo Haram, helpless and unable to do anything but listen, as the kindergarten teacher suggested it might be better to send Sua to an orphanage.
He had loved Sua — but there were times he found her a burden, and moments when he thought of her as a weight dropped onto his life without his asking.
Perhaps because of that. In those memories, he was always riddled with guilt whenever he faced Sua.
That must have been why. The body of Pyo Haram, which had seized control with only a handful of memories, had cooked ramen for the child and filled her stomach first — even as blood dripped freely from its nose.
Thanks to that, at least I learned how to use fire without magic…
Haram’s brow pinched. He had been about to run a hand through his hair when he suddenly noticed his palm — covered in blood.
“Ah.”
The second time he had lost control of his body was just now. This time, too, the memories themselves hadn’t been particularly significant, and there hadn’t been many of them.
At most, the memory of going to interview at a mid-tier guild and being rejected. The memory of water leaking into the house during the rainy season and spending the whole night wiping down the floor. The memory of being driven by desperation into dangerous dungeons over and over again because he had no money.
They had been nothing more than unremarkable fragments of memory — and yet this time, for some reason, it didn’t end with just a nosebleed. His chest had tightened, and then blood came surging back up his throat.
In the midst of all that, Haram had lost control of his body — and while coughing up blood, the body had washed a pile of accumulated dishes and folded the blanket that had been left spread out for three straight days.
After that, it had been in the middle of opening a window to air out the room that he had finally reclaimed control of his body just now.
“Damn it all…”
The old blanket, now ruined by his own blood, came into view. The window and the sink counter, smeared with bloody handprints.
Haram’s face twisted into something frightening. He pulled his sleeve down to wipe his damp mouth, then curled his hand into a tight fist.
He was pretending otherwise, but his shoulders were trembling faintly.
I can’t go on living like this, like a useless wreck.
Fury rose up in him. The options left to him were few.
To sit back and do nothing until he lost complete control of his body.
Or to shed every last attachment to this life and die before that could happen.
Or to track down the man whose face he knew but whose name he didn’t — the man who now possessed the Dragon Heart — and take back what he had given.
The last option is the one I like best.
The problem was where and how he was supposed to find that man. Haram dug through his memory and tried to recall the man he had seen in the dragon’s lair.
That bastard who took my Dragon Heart!
It had, of course, been his own hands that passed the Dragon Heart to the man — but three days of anxiety and exhaustion had left him not entirely in his right mind.
In other words, he was in a state bordering on diminished mental capacity.
Knock knock!
Someone came calling at the home of this barely-coherent archmage. The timing was unfortunate. For the visitor as much as for Haram.
Knock knock knock!
The sound persisted even when ignored, and Haram stopped his tangled thoughts. As he whipped around to look at the front door, irritation and a glint of something unhinged flickered in his eyes.
He stormed over to the door with heavy footsteps, wrenched it open, and shouted.
“Who the hell is it, making all this racket?!”
“…Pyo Haram?”
“…Huh?”
There’s a saying in Korea — speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
Standing on the other side of the flung-open door was the devil himself. Haram narrowed his eyes and jabbed a finger at the devil — no, the visitor standing at his door.
“You — Dragon Heart thief!”
The one who had come calling on a barely-coherent archmage in the grip of paranoid delusions was none other than Seomun Hyeok.
The man who had taken the Dragon Heart and survived.
