Chapter 2: Regression
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 2: Regression
“Idiot.”
“Moron.”
The boys snickered as they each threw an insult my way.
The two boys, one dressed in blue and the other in red, looked so much alike it was like looking into a mirror.
They were twins.
A dazed murmur escaped my lips before I could stop it.
“...Is this a dream?”
At my words, the boy in blue shook his head slowly.
“Even a face full of water couldn't wake him up. The Colt of Yullang County is still drunk.”
It was a name I hadn't heard in a long time.
The Colt of Yullang County.
It was the nickname people had hounded me with ten years ago.
Hiccup.
A hiccup burst from my mouth.
I hadn't even touched a drop, yet I felt a hangover as if I’d been pickled in a wine vat. I couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening.
Just then, the boy in blue leaned down and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
Grip!
“Lord Song Jwa-baek of the Twin Fast Sabers of Honam is speaking to you. Are you still not sober?”
In that instant, my mind snapped into focus.
“Song Jwa-baek? Song Woo-hyeon?”
“Looks like you’re finally waking up. Don’t try to slink away by pretending to be drunk.”
“Yeah. Yeah. We, the Twin Fast Sabers of Honam, won the bet.”
Wow...
This was insane.
The boy in blue before me was Song Jwa-baek, the older of the twins.
And the boy in red, who chimed in with a slightly slow, dull tone, was the younger brother, Song Woo-hyeon.
It felt like a dream.
Even though it was ten years ago, I remembered this moment so vividly I could have painted it.
Jingle!
Song Jwa-baek grinned, shaking a red pouch in his other hand.
“I took this ahead of time just in case you tried to go back on your word. This will serve as vital funding for the Twin Fast Sabers of Honam’s debut into the martial world.”
“Yeah. Vital funding.”
Song Woo-hyeon repeated his brother’s words like an echo.
I couldn't understand what was going on.
I had definitely been stabbed by Moyong Su’s sword, and as those strange blue flames spread across my body, I had lost consciousness.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw the Black-White Twin Ghosts from their youth.
Aside from this period in time, they were people I had never even been able to speak to.
Wait, could it be...?
“What’s today’s date?”
“What kind of nonsense is—”
“I asked what the date is!”
Startled by my shouting, Song Jwa-baek frowned and muttered, “It’s the ninth day of the Month of Gyeyu, in the Year of Gapsul.”
Impossible.
If it was the Year of Gapsul, that was exactly ten years ago.
It was too vivid to be a dream. The pain from him gripping my hair was real, proving this wasn't a lie.
“Is it really... really the Month of Gyeyu in the Year of Gapsul?”
“No, what are you suddenly talking about? Did you think today was the Year of Gaphae or something? Did all that drinking rot your brain?”
He looked at me with an expression of utter incomprehension.
But even that obnoxious face of his was a welcome sight.
“Uh, hey. What are you doing? Are you crying?”
It was as he said. My eyes grew hot and my vision blurred.
I lunged forward and pulled Song Jwa-baek, who was still holding my hair, into a tight hug.
“Hey! Hey, is this crazy bastard out of his mind?”
“He seems crazy.”
Since he was still holding my hair, the hug caught him off guard and left him flustered.
But I didn't care.
I felt so good I could fly.
Everything—from being kidnapped by the Blood Cult and used as a spy to my eventual death—had vanished as if it had never happened.
I felt like bowing to the heavens in gratitude.
Push!
Song Jwa-baek shoved me away roughly.
But as I fell back from his push, laughter erupted from my throat.
“Hahahahahaha!”
I felt incredible.
The twins stared at me as if I were a lunatic, sprawled out on the floor and laughing like a madman.
I didn't care.
I had wanted to return to the past so badly.
I had missed even these days, when I was called the trash of my family and the Colt of Yullang County.
I will never, ever get involved with that damn Blood Cult again—
“...The ninth day... of the Month of Gyeyu?”
As I stopped laughing and muttered in a suddenly grave voice, the Song twins instinctively backed away.
I didn't care that they were whispering about me being truly insane.
What mattered was right now.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuck!”
At the coarse curse that tore from my throat, the two boys reached for the sabers at their waists.
Regardless, I scrambled to my feet.
I scanned my surroundings. No customers were visible on the first floor of the inn.
It was because the current time was the Hour of the Ox, late in the night.
“Damn it! A-Song? A-Song!”
I might wake the people on the second floor, but that didn't matter.
At my shout, a man in his early thirties with droopy eyes walked out from a corner of the inn, looking half-asleep.
“Young Master. You’ll wake everyone. Oh my goodness! Did you get caught in a rainstorm?”
He was the servant who had followed me when I was kicked out of my house.
He was my only loyal confidant, the one who had served me faithfully since I was a young troublemaker.
“A-Song. Where are my things?”
“They’re in the room on the second floor, sir.”
The moment I heard that, I rushed toward the stairs.
The twins, the self-proclaimed Twin Fast Sabers of Honam, blocked my path.
“Hey. Have you really lost it?”
“Yeah. Have you?”
I didn't have time to deal with them.
“Hah. Dammit... you guys... you might think I’m crazy, but you’d better pack your bags and run from this inn right now. If you don’t, for the rest of your lives, like dogs...”
I was about to say they might live like dogs, but their situation was a bit different from mine.
Regardless, I spoke as if I were trying to save their lives.
“Just run.”
“What are you talking about? Is this brat still drunk? I am Song Jwa-baek of the Twin Fast Sabers of Ho—”
Thwack!
“Urgh.”
He clutched his nose at my sudden punch.
“B-Brother! You bastard!”
Song Woo-hyeon, who was standing next to Jwa-baek, tried to draw his saber.
I quickly lunged and kicked his legs out from under him.
As he tumbled to the floor, I slammed my elbow into his stomach.
“Guegh!”
A sound like a dying pig escaped his throat.
“Y-Young Master.”
A-Song, the servant, stared at me with wide eyes.
It was understandable. At this age, even though I was from a prestigious martial family, I was a mere novice who didn't know martial arts, let alone basic brawling.
It was only natural for him to be shocked that I had taken down two boys who had actually studied martial arts.
It wasn't something to be proud of, though.
Even if I had only been third-rate back then, I had learned the basic external martial arts and combat techniques used by the warriors of the Blood Cult.
Even if my body wasn't what it used to be, I could easily take down these naive twins.
“You... you bastard... when did you learn martial arts?”
Song Jwa-baek asked with a cowed look, clutching his bleeding nose.
“Forget that! If you want to live like human beings, just get out of here!”
With those words, I sprinted up the stairs.
Overwhelmed by my momentum, the twins couldn't stop me and just stood there with bewildered expressions.
Reaching the second floor, I searched for the room.
“It’s on the left!” A-Song shouted from below.
Since it was something that happened ten years ago, I couldn't remember which room I had stayed in.
Following A-Song’s directions, I entered the room and found a leather dagger with blue thread wrapped around the hilt sitting on the bed next to my luggage.
“Ah...”
A gasp of emotion escaped my lips at the sight of the dagger.
I could have just run away, but the reason I came for this was because it was my mother’s final keepsake.
Losing this keepsake on that day had been my eternal regret.
I had to take it and run.
Reach!
I grabbed the dagger.
In that instant—
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!
“Gah!”
Startled by a piercing shriek that felt like it would tear my eardrums, I dropped the dagger.
My heart hammered at the bizarre occurrence that made my skin crawl.
I looked down at the dagger as if it were a monster.
Thinking it might have been a coincidence, I reached out to pick it up again.
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!
“Aaaagh!”
Terrified, I threw the dagger aside, keepsake or not.
It wasn't a ghost’s wail; I had no idea what that horrific screech was.
Huff, huff.
I broke into a cold sweat from the sheer creepiness of it. I hesitated, afraid that I would hear that screech again if I touched it.
Rip!
On a whim, I tore the bedsheet, folded it several times, and covered the dagger.
Then, I picked it up.
This time, there was no sound.
I didn't know what was happening, but I had to take it with me, even like this.
I hurried out of the room and ran down the stairs.
The two twins were still standing there.
“I told you to run!”
“My nose hasn't even stopped bleeding yet, you jerk! And what are you talking about? Why do we have to run?”
The older brother, Song Jwa-baek, asked back as if he couldn't understand at all.
Fine, I don't care anymore.
I was too busy trying to save my own skin; I didn't have the luxury of looking after these guys.
“Fine. Do whatever you want.”
“What?”
“Let’s go, A-Song. Hurry—”
Before I could finish my sentence, a scream echoed from outside the inn.
“Aaaagh!”
‘!!!’
The moment I heard that scream, my heart felt like it dropped into my stomach.
The joy of regressing ten years into the past had long since vanished.
Of all the times to return to, why did it have to be the one moment I never wanted to experience again, even if it meant death?
“W-What was that sound?”
Looking at the twins who were startled by the scream, I spoke with grim significance.
“...The Blood Cult.”
“Eek!”
The two brothers turned pale at my words.
The Blood Cult—the worst organization of the Evil Faction, boasting a reputation so wicked it could make a crying child stop in their tracks.
As members of a martial family, there was no way the twins didn't know of the Blood Cult.
“Dammit...”
A desperate voice escaped my lips.
Of all the days, why today?
The ninth day of the Month of Gyeyu, in the Year of Gapsul.
It was the very day I had been kidnapped by that cursed Blood Cult.