I’m not a Regressor

“Graaaaa!!”

Six Ant-horns simultaneously jumped out of the bush.

Judging by the two that were much larger than the others, it seemed that there were ‘Elders’ amongst them.

“Hmpf.”

He took a quick breath in and added strength to the spear within his grasp, focusing his mind towards his left chest.

—Owooong!

The blue light of the stigma blazed up.

A powerful strength spread across his body.

“Grrrr!”

One elder Ant-horn sharply raced across from the left.

His body moved naturally according to the spearmanship inherited by Lee Shinhyuk.

Crack!—

“Grreeeeegh!!”

After he shoved the spear’s shaft inside the Ant-horn’s face, the Ant-horn tried to use its sharp chin to break the shaft.

“You dare!”

Crunch!—

He bent the shaft while simultaneously using the heel of his foot to stomp down on the Ant-horn’s head.

The Ant-horn’s shell that had been unscathed after taking a hit by a bullet was completely crushed with a simple kick.

‘Good.’

His body felt as light as a feather.

The muscles all over his body wriggled like they were breathing.

“Graaak!”

He easily dodged the Ant-horn that tried to strike from behind by lowering his body and then grabbed onto the Ant-horn's back legs that were flying past his head.

“Grk?!”

The Ant-horn struggled as if he was shocked.

“Hmpf!”

He threw the Ant-horn he was holding towards the herd.

Grrrakkkk!—

The Ant-horn that flew away like a cannon hit the other Ant-horns and tumbled across the floor.

‘As expected, my body specs alone put me in a different realm compared to normal 1-Star Awakeners.

An Ant-horn’s average weight was approximately 80kg.

It wasn’t an easy task to one-handedly throw something that was the weight of two rice sacks like a cannon without being an Awakener of Taurus—especially if you were nothing but a 1-Star Awakener.

‘My body specs aren’t the only monstrous thing.’

The real strength of the stigma of Lyra revealed itself when he activated it with his mana.

Bzz, Bzzzzt!—

Powerful rays of light scattered out of his left chest while blue lightning arced across his body.

“…Is it too early for me to replicate what I did back then?’

When Vega had granted him her blessing…

Different from back then when it looked like a blue lightning storm that would sweep the surroundings away, the current lightning around his body was but a tiny spark, like a three-day starved pikachu using thunderbolt.

“Tch.”

You couldn’t expect much from the first attempt.

He didn’t come to this place to see if he could amplify his lightning like he had when he received the blessing in the first place.

“Grrrrr!”

“Graaaaah!”

The tangled Ant-horns let out an eerie shriek full of fury while charging towards him.

‘Let’s leave the miscellaneous thoughts for later.’

Now was the time to focus on combat.

He fiercely jabbed out his spear, following Lee Shinhyuk’s movements that were engraved onto his brain.

* * *

Inside the forest filled with sticky humidity.

On the vacant lot created by burnt woodlands where Ant-horn corpses had been burnt to a crisp.

A reeking stench pricked his nose.

“Kya, just how much is all of this?”

Ohjin rummaged through the corpses and put the starstones he harvested into his sack.

The palm-sized sack was hefty.

It was the kind of hefty that made the side of his lips go up.

‘Will this rack me around $800?’

Around three hours of hunting for $800.

Without a party, there wasn’t even a need to split up the money.

It made him feel hollow about how he had been risking his life while performing a shit show to earn $200-300 a day.

“This is why everyone’s going crazy about becoming an Awakener.”

He had heard on the news that in order to be selected by a celestial, people would gather up and head to the gate that leads to the sanctum to say their prayers every day.

He could now slightly understand their feelings.

‘Although if you look at the fatality rate of Awakeners, it isn’t purely good.’

‘Well, whatever.’

There was a saying that money was more important than the price of life.

“Anyways… the saying that real combat is the best in raising proficiency was definitely true.”

Bzz, Bzzzzt!—

Ohjin’s eyes shined as he made lightning easily at the tip of his fingers.

In just three hours, controlling lightning with his stigma became quite natural to him.

‘I’m not sure if I’m fast or if everyone else is capable of doing this much.’

Since there were no other Awakeners that possessed the stigma of Lyra, he couldn’t make any accurate comparisons.

He changed the form of the lightning on the tip of his fingers into a ball and rolled it around his body.

‘Well, I’ll figure it out sooner or later.’

Ohjin himself was not aware of this, but if he had joined another party, their eyes would probably have popped out in astonishment.

Usually, the higher the ‘league’ of a stigma, the more difficult it would be to raise the proficiency in compensation for their mighty power.

Even an apostle of the 12 Zodiac would take years to develop their stigmas, but for him, who was an apostle of one of the North Stars, to use his stigma naturally in mere hours completely defied common sense.

—However.

He defied that common sense.

Without even realizing that he was a unique existence.

“Well then.”

Narrowing his eyes, Ohjin took a look at his surroundings.

He refrained from placing the spear back in its sheathe and decided to keep his grasp on it.

“The Ant-horns' movements are definitely strange.”

Unlike the usual herds with one Elder in charge, the herds of Ant-horns he had bumped into today had two or more Elders moving together.

In other words, it meant that there was an ‘upper species’ that presided over the Elder Ant-horns.

“The problem is that I don’t know where that guy is…”

He tried to find it directly, but it seemed like another method was necessary.

“It’s a relief I brought this just in case.”

Ohjin opened the zipper on his sling bag and took out a square blood pack.

It was one of his ‘business tools’, a very useful item that he used to act injured.

‘Although it isn’t human blood, but pig blood.’

‘It probably won’t be a problem since Ant-horns aren’t picky between humans and animals.’

Splash!—

After tearing open the blood pack and spraying it over the floor, he hid his presence above a nearby tree.

Rustle, Rustle, Rustle!—

‘Nice.’

A short moment after spraying the blood, together with the sound of bushes shaking, he could see the herd of Ant-horns flock in.

They numbered around 20.

And in the middle—

‘Found him.’

—there was a black-shelled Ant-horn with the build of a tiger.

You could tell with one glance that it was distinctively different from the other red-shelled Ant-horns.

As the association had predicted, a mutant appeared.

‘Let’s finish this quickly.’

No matter how powerful the stigma of Lyra was, facing over 20 monsters in a prolonged battle was difficult.

Blitzkrieg.

He needed to eliminate the mutant in at least three minutes.

“Fuu.”

Standing up above the tree, he took in a sharp breath.

Thump.

An electrifying thrill spread from his spine as his heart pulsated.

The stigma engraved on his left chest started to spew out light.

Bzzt!—

Blazing blue lightning.

And then—

‘…huh?’

—as if dark clouds had covered up the sky, his sight was suddenly drowned in darkness.

The only thing he could see through the deep dark was the figure of the mutant Ant-horn.

‘Was this place always this dark?’

He didn’t know.

His body moved before he could continue his thoughts.

Crunch!—

Kicking off the tree, he soared upwards.

With the weight of his entire body, he pointed the spear’s blade towards the ground.

Crackle!!!—

The lightning intertwined with the spear’s blade.

Unlike before, the blue lightning that fluttered like flames had a jet-black darkness mixed within it.

* * *

* * *

[ 《 Thunder Fall Lv 1 》 is activated.]

R

U

M

B

L

E

!

!

!

The thunder spear fell down like a comet.

Piercing through the back of the mutant Ant-horn, the spear dug into the ground.

The stench of flesh burning wafted.

“Huh? What?”

‘One blow?’

‘It really died in one blow?’

Even if it was a sudden ambush, Ohjin, who hadn’t imagined that the ‘Mutant’ Ant-horn would die immediately, was very shocked.

“Grreeen!!”

“Grhaag!”

After the mutant had died, the surrounding Ant-horns fell into confusion and spun round and round on the spot until they turned their bodies to flee.

“Oh, hey! Wait!!”

Ohjin, who hadn't thought that the Ant-horn herd would dissolve this easily, shouted out in a rush without having the time to chase after the fleeing Ant-horns.

“If you’re going to run, spit out your starstones first, you fucks!!!”

One starstone out of an Ant-horn was approximately $20.

It was precious money that could be used to buy as many as 3 Whopper sets.

“Fuck!”

Grab!—

He tried to pluck the spear out of the ground to give chase, but it wasn’t easy to pull out, as the spear was stuck so deep into the ground.

Eventually.

“Hah…”

Ohjin let out a deep sigh and gave up on the chase.

‘It’s unfortunate, but whatever, I’ve got the mutant anyway.’

As mutants weren’t a common appearance, the starstone of a mutant was worth a minimum of $1000.

“Hehehe.”

Just thinking about it made his laughter come out.

As he turned his body to harvest the starstone,

Zap!!—

“Argh!”

An electrifying feeling could be felt from his left chest.

After hurriedly lowering his head, he could see the stigma of Lyra scattering out powerful lights.

‘Huh? Is this possibly…’

Gleaaam!—

Next to the stigma that was scattering out lights, one flick was drawn.

-Ring!

[‘Stigma of Lyra’ has been promoted to 2-Star!]

A blue message box appeared in front of his eyes together with the sound of clear bells.

“Hah.”

A short chuckle of absurdity flowed out of Ohjin’s mouth.

To think that he would reach 2-Star in not a week, but a single day.

‘Does this make sense?’

He predicted that he would promote quickly, as his stigma was overwhelming with mana, but he didn’t imagine that he would be able to reach 2-Star in a single day.

“There’s no way I’ll reach 3-Star by the end of the week, right?”

If that were the case, there would be no need to deceive or rack up his brain anymore.

Because reaching 3-Star within a week was something that was seriously impossible without being an actual Regressor.

In reality, reaching 2-Star in and of itself was an unbelievable speed.

‘Since achieving 2-Star is something that usually takes six months.’

Even though the majority of the reasons it took so long was because they had insufficient mana, it was still an astonishing speed, even taking that into account.

“2-Star, huh.”

He lightly swung his spear.

Fwoosh! Fwish!!—

Although he was only slightly swinging his spear around, the sound of air tearing apart echoed.

He could feel that his body was unquestionably one step more powerful and agile compared to when he was a 1-Star.

‘Good.’

‘The results are more than enough for today.’

“I should hurry up my harvest and return back.”

He headed towards the corpse of the mutant while humming, thinking if he should order a Guinness Whopper instead of a regular Whopper later that day.

Rustle—

The bushes nearby shook.

‘Huh? There’s no way those bastards that fled are insane enough to come back with their own feet.’

Grasping his spear, he narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, woah. Isn’t that shell black?”

Two intimidating-looking men walked out of the bushes.

He could see the swollen muscles gaping through the gaps of their worn-out armor.

“Wow, even if it’s an Ant-horn, to be able to hunt a mutant by yourself. You’re not the average Awakener, are you?”

“We’re 3-Star apostles of the Hunting Dogs, nice to meet you~”

The two of them approached Ohjin with friendly laughter, opposite of what their appearances portrayed.

Ohjin’s eyes narrowed.

‘These fuckers.’

It was clear that they weren’t approaching him with good intentions.

Honestly, you could call it prejudice, but if you weren't a robber and possessed a face that looked like it had been ground on asphalt like them, that was a crime in its own way.

‘There’s no way 3-Star Awakeners would come to this low-ranked dungeon… unless they came here looking for the mutant.’

If that was the case, there was no way they would sit still and let Ohjin, who was harvesting the mutant’s corpse, go.

Awakeners turning into robbers with a simple flip of a hand was quite common.

“Hmm…”

One of the men that had approached bent his torso down to take a sniff.

His appearance looked like that of a hunting dog chasing down its prey.

“Phew, he must have used enormous amounts of mana to hunt this mutant.”

“Hehe. Shouldn’t he be quite exhausted?”

“Right? It’s not like a 4 or 5-Star Awakener would come here.”

The two of them murmured to each other in a low voice.

‘I know what you’re talking about, even without hearing it, you dumbasses.’

‘Tch.’

“Now that I think about it, it's a bit strange. You know we swept through an Ant-horn herd from all the way ov~er there? Are you sure you didn’t pick off the one that ran away?”

“Aha, is that what happened? This… this can’t be left alone, can it?”

The both of them smirked while taking out their swords.

‘As expected.’

They were robbing fucks.

‘…This can’t be helped.’

Ohjin let out a sigh and quickly got on his knees.

“I-I apologize! I didn’t even know that happened!!”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Looking at the appearance of Ohjin, who had knelt down without a second of hesitation, left the two men surprised.

Whatever the case, Ohjin rubbed both of his hands together while prostrating on the ground.

“I-I’ll hand it over!!!”

“Kyahahaha!! Well, aren't you a youth that’s quick to understand!”

One of the men exploded out in laughter and started moving his feet.

Just when he started to approach the collapsed corpse of the mutant behind Ohjin—

“Ah, I’m not saying that I’ll hand that over.”

He grasped his spear and violently stabbed the back of the man.

Destroying his armor, the sharp spear pierced his body.

“Khyuk! Kyuk!!”

“I’m saying that I’ll hand you over next to your dead mother’s side.”

“Fuck!”

The other man charged while hastily swinging his sword.

He spun the spear that had pierced the man and blocked the sword.

The man who had become a human kebab shield let out a scream.

“Uh, Uuhhh?”

Slice!—

Was it because he couldn’t stop the inertia from the swing? He ended up slicing the head of his partner into two.

“W-What are you doing!!!”

Ohjin, who watched the unbelievable scene with his wide-open eyes, let out a scream!

“You killed your partner!!”

“H-Holy shit!!”

“What would your dead mother think if she saw your appearance right now!!!!”

“Shut the fuck up!! My mom’s living completely fine; stop talking bullshit!!”

“Don’t lie!!!”

He roared out fiercely!

“I saw your mother pass away with my very own eyes; why do you keep insisting on lying!!!”

“No, what the fuck are you talking about!! She’s alive!!!”

“Take in the reality!!”

“Take what in, you crazy son of a bitch!!”

“Your mother has passed away!! She’s no longer in this world!!!”

T/n : Constellation ‘the Hunting Dogs’ is ‘Canes Venatici’ which is Latin for ‘hunting dogs’!

Burger King X Guinness (Alcohol Brand) Whoppers are a thing in South Korea. Black Whoppers that taste good.

Rubbing both hands together has a similar meaning to begging for forgiveness in South Korea.

Note: Translator’s notes and/or references can be included either right before or right after the final Discord link section