60. "Because I'm a Regressor."
“Because I'm a regressor.”
Explain? Explain what?
“Ivy.”
Was she angry? No, it wasn't anger.
I'd seen that expression, heard that tone, that voice before.
Which made it all the more horrifying.
Self-loathing, sorrow, regret... Emotions my mother—back when her mind was still intact—had shown me as a child.
His attitude, his words, stabbed sharply at my heart.
It was a misunderstanding. I had to tell her it was all a misunderstanding.
Han Ye-seo was crying.
“You... we're friends, right? Why rely on something like this? Were we not people you could lean on?”
...Ah.
It felt strange.
Truly strange.
Someone else was worrying about me. Someone else was shedding tears for me. Someone else was... for me...
A sensation I'd felt once, long ago, sometime after I was born.
A little... I missed it.
Perfect, unyielding beings. That's what the story's protagonist, the heroine, was supposed to be.
For a fake, trash like me, my worth was far too low to warrant such tears.
My vision blurred.
I tried to hold it back, but I couldn't.
Tears spilled out.
“Ah, aaah...”
The dam broke. I couldn't hold it.
My flimsy mask shattered.
I didn't even understand why I was crying. Something I couldn't contain. Something was coming.
That vague, hazy sensation lingered faintly.
Ja-an approached me. Or rather, I was approaching Ja-an.
I buried my face in his chest.
“Save me... please, just save me, rescue me...”
The words were jumbled, but they seemed enough to seek solace from another.
Ja-an held me just like that, stroking my hair silently for a long while without a word.
.
.
.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to see nothing.
I shut my ears too. I didn't want to hear anything.
Yet my nose and mouth kept drawing in and exhaling air, working desperately to stay alive.
It had nothing to do with my will.
No matter how painless, no matter how faint the sensations, biting my tongue to die was psychologically too much.
Yeah. It was too much.
I'd pretended to be fine even as parts of my body were crushed, burst, died, sliced—over and over.
Even though I was never fine.
In the end, I was a frail human who couldn't even kill herself without a simple syringe.
I questioned everything I'd done so far.
How had I endured such things so casually?
All the pain I'd suppressed for so long came crashing down at once.
It's unfair. Why me, of all people? I didn't do anything wrong. Why?
I'd heard gods reward the good and punish the wicked. Most religions say that.
Why would such a curse befall someone like me, who'd never done anything bad in my life?
No matter how I thought about it, there was only one answer.
No, two.
Because I was the child of a criminal. The child of a criminal is a criminal too, so I deserve punishment.
The other reason: I was a bystander. I took neither my mother's side nor my father's.
That's why, even up to the moment my mother died and my father went to prison, I could just sit blankly on the floor, staring expressionless at the door.
I helped no one.
I couldn't save anyone, not even myself. I just sat there, waiting for salvation.
Until now, I'd thought I'd taken the initiative, accomplished something.
That I could be useful in this world.
But this was the conclusion, the ending.
Everything happened because of me.
Events that wouldn't have occurred—or that Ivy Lane would have stopped—in the original story.
Gangbuk's breach, the barrier breaking, new variables appearing that never existed before—all because of me.
If I weren't here, everything would have proceeded normally.
But I can't disappear.
I'm here. Even if I try to vanish, to die, I just return to that damned checkpoint, the starting point.
Until when?
No end in sight.
I have to remember 400 deaths. Yeah. I have to remember them.
But at this rate, when?
So far from the goal.
13 people. Only 13 now.
'An easy way...'
There was one method. But I didn't want to do it.
To become a hero, I first had to abandon becoming one.
Most heroes didn't set out to be heroes.
They simply followed their hearts, reached out where they could, and voices called them heroes. That's how they became them.
Could I do that too?
'No way.'
Yeah. No matter how I looked at it, impossible.
Normal paths, righteous ways, ideals—all luxuries I couldn't afford.
I was trash, realized it too late, and no amount of regret could gather what was already spilled.
Now, it wasn't regret. It was penance.
Yeah. I'm a sinner.
Have been from the start, and will be forever.
It's unfair. Unfair enough to drive me mad. Why must I go through this alone?
Why only me?
Of all people?
Looking around, so many lived unscathed despite far worse sins.
I merely watched. Took no sides. Chose neutrality because I didn't want to fight.
If that's a sin, fine.
But why don't those who killed directly, who fought directly, get punished?
I, the neutral bystander, get cursed for watching.
Cursed for having no parents.
Lived that way my whole life, got thrown into another world,
clung to the vain hope of becoming a hero,
chased that light without knowing it was flame that would burn my wings to ash!
Why can you all still soar with two wings, stand firm on two feet?
So many shameless people.
I can't face myself squarely, but I can face those worse than me.
'...The problem is I'm on humanity's side. A regressor gets infinite chances. 0.1% becomes 100%.'
The principal's words sounded like he wanted me as an enemy.
If he wishes it, could I become one?
Kill people I know, academy students, teachers, everyone... until only Ja-an and I remain.
What would I say then, looking at his face?
Definitely easy.
399 academy students, the principal, staff, teachers...
Plus me, inside Ivy Lane's body. Exactly 400.
Find a way to kill myself in Ivy Lane's body, remember 400 deaths—what's left for me?
Memories of witnessing 400 deaths firsthand, vain hopes, charred wing remnants, and dying pathetically in a studio apartment with no powers? A long time passed.
I opened my eyes.
My dorm ceiling. A familiar sight.
Two presences beside me.
I didn't need to turn to know they were Ja-an and Han Ye-seo.
“......”
“You're awake!”
Han Ye-seo, oblivious, shouted my wake-up news to Ja-an at full volume.
Honestly, it was embarrassing.
Ja-an sidled over and sat on my bed.
“Hey.”
I couldn't hold back and called out. “...Yeah?”
“You didn't sit on the bed in the clothes you wore outside, right?”
“No.”
“...Then it's fine.”
“Pfft...”
I heard Ja-an stifling a laugh, so I irritably turned my head away.
Still lying down, I ended up looking up at his face.
Sure enough, he was holding back a grin.
Even though it wasn't a laughing matter.
“Why're you laughing?”
“In a situation like this, you're still worrying about the bed—it feels so you.”
“And you're laughing in a situation like this?”
“Dunno. Guess I take after you.”
When did this guy get so casual with lines like that?
It really pissed me off.
Han Ye-seo raised her hand.
“Yeah.”
“So, what's with these two syringes?”
“Meds.”
I gave up. I just wanted to be honest.
I planned to jab the black syringe into myself and return to the checkpoint if they spotted an opening, but still, I wanted to be straight with them.
Han Ye-seo asked again.
“What kind?”
“One's for my mental illness, the other's for suicide.”
“...What?!”
Han Ye-seo shrieked.
Strictly speaking, the mental illness med wasn't a lie.
My hallucinations and auditory ones fell squarely under mental illness, and the syringe knocked me out, trading drug addiction for banishing them—in a nutshell.
Amplifying pleasure or regenerating senses? Side effects.
...Excuses. I know.
'Don't wanna talk about it.'
That was the real truth.
Fortunately, Han Ye-seo's focus was on the black syringe, the suicide one. Ja-an's too.
From his gaze, a sliver of suspicion lingered on the clear one, but he'd let it slide for now.
Han Ye-seo spoke again.
“Why on earth?!”
“Because I'm a regressor.”
Ah, I said it. Whatever, they'd forget after I hit the checkpoint.
Still, it felt refreshingly unburdened.
Being honest did.
Are you prepared to start over from the beginning? It felt like someone was asking.