How To Use Regressors

7 – Episode 7 – The Returnee (Part 1)

“…..”

“Hey, hurry up and get lost! Do you want to die?”

“…. Oppa.”

“Darn it… What the hell am I supposed to do?”

No matter how much they thought about it, there seemed to be no way out. Fight? Against those four? Fighting in this situation would be nothing short of suicidal.

As I hesitated, Yurim tightly closed her eyes and spoke.

“… Oppa, leave me behind. Instead… please take care of Yuhyeon.”

“Nuna! What are you talking about…! Hyung, right?!”

“…..”

‘Just… leave me and go. Then… I can survive safely. I can also save Yuhyeon…’

It hasn’t been long since we met. It can be thought of as merely using each other on a chessboard.

After all, we can gather our useful comrades again. It is clearly a foolish choice to gamble on this unfavorable situation.

However, without even realizing it, words completely different from my thoughts came out of my mouth.

“… Everyone, prepare to fight. Be the most cautious of those shooting arrows. Yuhyeon, you have a dagger too, right? Nuna and you, just hold on for now. If the situation improves, help me a bit.”

When it seemed like I intended to fight, the person holding an axe sneered.

“Hah… you’re going to fight with this? Hey, give up on this pathetic sense of justice. You’ll regret it later.”

Ignoring his words, I spoke.

“I’ll charge at them first. Follow me closely. We’ll somehow avoid the arrows!”

“Oppa!”

“Yoonseong hyung!”

As soon as I finished speaking, I charged at those guys. I heard someone calling me from behind, but I ignored it. I needed to focus on the fight right now.

“The leader can wait; first, deal with the bastard holding an axe in front.”

There’s a considerable difference between having a profession and not having one. I had to deal with the guy without a profession first and save my magic for when I would face the one who looked like the leader.

“This guy!”

The guy in front swung his axe. It was a slow and clumsy move, but the problem was that I wasn’t skilled in combat either. I blocked the axe with my shield and aimed for his torso with my mace.

“You bastard!”

He narrowly rolled aside. The other two guys had gone to deal with the kids, and the leader, with a profession, attacked me from the side.

Thunk!

“Argh!”

Perhaps his strength stat was higher than mine, as even though I blocked with my shield, I was still pushed back a little.

“Damn it!”

I was overwhelmed, trying to handle the two of them at once.

Amid blocking and attacking a few times, I heard a scream from the direction where the kids were fighting.

“Aaaaah! It’s this woman!”

“Die! Die, you filthy bastards!”

Perhaps Yurim managed to successfully avoid the attacks of the guy shooting arrows and stabbed another guy with a dagger.

In the midst of a quick glance, a fierce attack flew towards my leg. I narrowly blocked it with my shield.

“Oh… Oh… Shit…!”

Seeing me gasping for breath and struggling, the captain smirked and spoke with a sneer.

“Heh… I admit it. You block and dodge well, but how long can you hold out? Are you relying on those brats?”

“Damn it…!”

Swish–

“Aaah!”

While blocking the ax guy’s attack with my shield, the captain’s sword swiftly sliced through my arm, which was holding a mace.

“Ughhh…”

“You son of a bitch! You’re dead!”

Whack!

Due to the pain, I dropped the mace, and the ax guy kicked me, causing me to fall over.

“Snap…!”

“Huhuhu… you retarded bastard. Wait for me there, I’ll be back.”

“Kuh…”

Sending him towards the kids was not an option.

Slowly, I gathered my magical power and uttered the words.

“Fire… rise… in… flames.”

I could feel the magic draining from my body. The axe-wielder hadn’t anticipated my ability to use magic, and his eyes widened as he took the full force of the spell.

“Aaaah! Ughhhhh!”

He danced around like a burning insect.

“This guy…!”

“Crack…!”

The leader climbed on top of me, starting to strangle me. These guys didn’t seem to have much camaraderie, but when I retaliated, they felt repulsed.

“End my suffering…!”

“Crack… Gasp… Gargh…!”

‘Out of… breath…’

As my throat tightened, I slowly glanced towards the kids.

‘Surely… there’s no way I can win this…’

“Aaaah!”

“Sister!”

“Damn it, this guy’s really annoying. Damn bastard. Hey, what am I gonna do about the wound on my arm? Huh?”

“Don’t touch my sister!”

“Aren’t you leaving? You little brat?!”

Gasp—

“Kkuheuk… Ugh… Sister…”

“Ugh…. Damn brat.”

The man who stabbed Yurim’s arm grabbed a handful of her hair and lifted her head.

“Expect it. It’s going to be very interesting. How dare you stab my arm?”

A desperate situation. There seemed to be no way out. I could feel my consciousness fading gradually.

“Aaargh!”

Suddenly, a light began to emanate from Yuhyun’s body. It resembled the light from when she transformed, but the light coming from Yuhyun seemed even more intense.

“What? What’s going on?”

At the same time, Yurim, who was nearby, started to be bathed in a white light, and her wounds began to heal gradually.

The guy sensed something was off and yelled, “Just kill these bastards, all of them!”

As they rushed towards Yoo Hyun, a woman’s voice was heard from somewhere, “Who’s going to kill whom?”

******

In the end, there was no response from Jo Chan-ho’s mouth. Meeting Jo Chan-ho in this round was already a stroke of great luck since he was one of the guys to be killed as a top priority.

He only screamed and cursed until his fingers and toes were all cut off. I felt it in the first round as well, but this guy was different from an ordinary person. Just as a human being, he sent shivers down my spine.

“You stubborn son of a bitch… won’t answer until the end.”

I didn’t have high hopes for him to answer anyway. I just sighed at the thought of how long it would take to find Yoon Sung-ee in this forest.

“I need to find her as soon as possible. Things could take a turn for the worse.”

Whatever the reason for starting over, it was to prevent him, the one who had died because of me, from dying again.

“At least, if I find Jo Chan-ho’s footsteps and go back, something will come out.”

So, I found Jo Chan-ho’s footsteps, as well as the footprints of several people who seemed to have fled in various directions, and the corpses devoured by monsters.

It was unfortunate for the people eaten by the monsters, but right now, my main concern wasn’t those corpses.

“Excluding Jo Chan-ho and the victim’s traces, there are two directions. One is where one person fled, and the other is where three people fled.”

The direction we were running, I think, is the same direction Yunseong ran to. He mentioned in the previous chapter that he was with two siblings during the tutorial.

We hastily began to follow the trail.

After some time of following the trail, what I saw could only be described as a traumatic sight.

******

“Who’s killing who?”

Perhaps due to the sudden voice of another person, instead of rushing forward, we turned our heads in the direction where the voice came from. The owner of the voice was a woman holding a dagger.

“What…?”

The guy who had his hands around my throat discovered the woman and began to panic, releasing his grip to catch his breath.

“Cough… Cough… Cough…”

“Who are you? Did you come here alone?”

The guys tried to talk to the woman, but she remained silent after her initial words.

She just gazed at the man who had pinned me down with a very menacing expression.

“I’m asking you, damn it! Who are you?”

With an icy expression, the woman finally spoke.

“….. Who am I? I’m the one who came to kill all of you.”

As soon as I spoke, the woman began to approach me in the direction I was in, at a remarkably fast pace. The commanding man who had been choking me until just now was greatly taken aback by the speed at which the woman was charging toward him.

“What, what is this?!”

Splat —

“Huh?”

In an instant, the commanding man’s head detached from his body and fell to the ground. Immediately after, blood gushed from the body that had lost its head.

Puhaahaaack —

Thud thud thud thud.

The woman flipped her blood-soaked hair and remained still for a moment.

“Hee-hee-heek…! What the, what the hell was that just now!”

The other two men seemed to feel a sense of terror at their leader’s inexplicable death.

“What the hell… just now… What on earth?”

Even I began to tremble at the recent turn of events.

“What was that speed just now? Was that even humanly possible?”

Though not as strong as Jo Chan-ho, the guy who was their leader was quite powerful compared to the people I had encountered so far. I couldn’t have imagined he would die so senselessly.

The woman knelt down on one knee in front of me and looked at me with a complex expression, saying something.

“Just wait a moment…”

After finishing her sentence, the woman began to move slowly in the direction where the two men were.

“Hey, just hold on!”

One of the men, holding a bludgeon, urgently spoke as he saw the woman stop in response to his words.

“Hey… we were ordered by the leader. There’s no point in fighting each other, right? Let’s just…go. We’ll leave the provisions behind. Okay? Let’s just go our separate ways…!”

The woman responded expressionlessly.

“…Don’t think of it as something complicated. You’ve messed with someone you shouldn’t have. And you haven’t fulfilled the request of the people asking for you to spare them, have you?”

“You…you crazy person! Don’t come any closer!”

The man grabbed Yurim’s neck and spoke.

“Ah!”

“You idiot! If you come any closer, I’ll snap this woman’s neck! Put down your weapon!”

“Noona…! Don’t do it! Please don’t…!”

“…Are you trying to take a hostage now? Do you think you can survive that way?”

“Damn it, then are you going to kill me?! Huh? You fucking bitch! Why don’t we test it out! Which one of us will kill the other faster, huh? Will you kill me, or will I snap this woman’s neck?! Huh?!”

The woman wiped her face with her hand, as if tired.

“Hmm… alright. I can’t let go of my weapon for my own safety, but I’ll just stand still and raise the spear instead. How about that?”

“Well, whatever! Just don’t come any closer!”

The two men cautiously stepped back, keeping an eye on the woman’s movements.

Then, in an instant, it happened. The woman swung her arm with all her might, and the spear flew directly into the man’s face.

Thunk!

The man who had been impaled by the spear in the face crumpled, and Yurim remained seated in shock.

“W-What…?!”

The archer who had been retreating alongside the fallen man seemed dumbfounded as his comrade was impaled by the flying spear.

The woman who had thrown the spear approached the remaining man directly. The archer tried to react, but he was already too late, either due to confusion or hesitation. The woman lifted the man’s shirt.

“Crack!… Ugh… Bleeeaaargh!”

“Quiet.”

Swoosh!

“Urggh… G-gag…!”

As the woman picked up the spear and thrust it into the man’s throat, he thrashed like a fish impaled on a hook, until he finally stopped breathing.

“Gah… Ugh… Hrrkk…!”

Yurim seemed to realize that if she had moved just a little bit more, her face would have been pierced by the window, and her face turned pale as she began to take heavy breaths.

Yuhyun immediately ran to Yurim and sobbed.

“Sister! Are you okay?!… Sob… Huuu… Hoooo…”

“Uh, yeah… I’m fine… Stop crying, you dummy…”

“Sob… Waaah… It’s because of me that sister…”

Leaving the siblings hugging each other behind, I limped towards the woman and expressed my gratitude.

“Cough… Thank you. If it weren’t for you, we would all be dead. I truly appreciate it. I don’t know how to repay this kindness…”

‘I must bow down before this woman.’

Judging from the battle situation just moments ago, I should never have annoyed this woman. Even if it’s just a simple fact, one guy died from my magic, but this woman killed the other three in an instant by herself.

‘She’s on another level.’

It felt like I was looking at an Irregular. Cho Chanho or that woman from earlier were strong, but this woman was in a different class altogether. Frankly, even if Yuhyun, Yurim, and I were all to team up against her, I couldn’t picture us winning in my mind.

“I don’t know what kind of words of gratitude I should offer… if you’d like, I will give you all the food we have. Thank you once again.”

Anyway, if this woman wanted to, she could take away our food and even our lives in a matter of seconds. It would be a shame to lose the food, but it wasn’t comparable to the value of our lives.

While verbally expressing my gratitude, I checked the woman’s status window.