Groaning in the Interrogation Room
“This is insane......”
Sweat poured down my forehead without pause. My fingertips trembled from the instant my skin had touched Yeon Jisu’s, the sensation clinging to me like a horrific hallucination.
'A regressor. No joke.'
The feeling of reality slipping away was dizzying. A regressor. That had been just another setting I used to read web novels to pass the time.
The moment I faced the unrealistic setup that was trending in the web novel world right in front of me, the first thought that flashed through my mind wasn’t about the extinction of humanity or the desperate future.
'I’m completely screwed.'
My primal survival instinct screamed warnings nonstop. Every regressor in those novels shared one trait: they never forgot anyone who messed with them or caused them pain. They remembered every grudge and repaid it mercilessly, no matter how many lives they regressed through.
And right before, what had I done to this regressor while she was tied to the chair?
'I grilled her with electricity. Without mercy, turning her into an electric Pika-chu cutlet, frying her properly...!'
The thought made my vision spin. The way I had laughed mockingly while feeding her electricity flashed before me, making me want to bite my tongue. Anyone looking at me would see pure regressor rage and revenge.
"Damn, I’m really screwed. How the hell do I get out of this...?"
A hollow groan escaped me in the silent interrogation room. If that woman failed this life and regressed again to her ninth, the very first person she would come for the moment the new cycle started would be me—my neck sliced open in one stroke. Even if I could read emotions, there was no way I could dodge the tentacles of a regressor who saw every future possibility.
I grabbed fistfuls of my hair and was about to collapse onto the floor, but I slammed my fist hard into my thigh instead and forced my mind back.
'Stay calm, Yoon Siwoo. You can’t scoop spilled water. The best I can do now is squeeze every last advantage from the cards I hold.'
I took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out, trying to calm the frantic beat of my heart.
I had ripped away from her just moments earlier because the sheer volume of information in her regressor memories and the fact of infinite regression had been too overwhelming. I had only skimmed the surface. I hadn’t seen the exact details of what would happen in the future.
'I have to know everything she knows if I’m going to survive this situation.'
I steeled myself and approached the unconscious Yeon Jisu again. She lay slumped over, body twitching from the agony of the electric torture. I swallowed hard, then placed my hand on her forehead once more, calmer and more deliberate than before.
This time I would examine her thoroughly—every one of her eight lives and the events still to come.
Crackle.
Mana once again merged into her mind. I closed my eyes and stepped carefully into the library at the center of her vast memories.
How long had it been?
"Haaaah......!"
I staggered out of her forehead like a fish pulled from water, breathing roughly. My legs gave out and I nearly collapsed, but I managed to stay upright.
I glanced at my watch. Two hours had passed since I dove into her memories. The massive mana drain and the mental strain of reading someone else’s mind had left every muscle screaming and my head pounding.
'This is crazy. The world really works like that.'
I walked unsteadily toward the interrogation room door. I had to get out of here and organize the jumbled information before it faded or my mind shattered.
Squeak—creak—
I opened the door and stepped into the corridor. The cool underground air hit me like a slap. The security team members who had been waiting earlier were gone—shift change. Only Park Cheoljin remained, standing guard silently in front of the interrogation room.
The sound of the door made him turn. He saw my face soaked in sweat and deathly pale, and his eyes widened.
“Siwoo, what the hell did you do in there? What happened with the interrogation? Mouth open?”
I shook my head weakly at Cheoljin’s gruff question.
“Haa, brother Cheoljin. I’ve never seen anything like that woman. No matter how I squeezed or shook her mind, she refused to admit even her own affiliation or purpose. She’d rather die than say it.”
I almost let the word “regressor” slip out. I quickly changed the subject and leaned against the wall. Cheoljin clicked his tongue and frowned.
“Your ability wasn’t enough either? You should have figured it out sooner, with all that torture you endured. So none of it worked out?”
“Hey, who do you think I am? I drove her to the point of passing out, pulled all the information I could, and roughly got the general idea of her purpose.”
“For real? What was the purpose?”
Cheoljin’s fierce face brightened and he stepped close. But I had no energy left to explain the complex information out loud. I also needed to decide exactly how much of the future memories I would reveal and how much I would hide.
I flashed a bright smile and waved at him.
“It’s too complicated to explain right now. I’ll finish cleaning it up and submit a proper statement tomorrow. Just wait a bit longer~ I’m at my limit, mana almost gone.”
“Hey! At least tell me the core part of it...!”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, brother Cheoljin! Rest well!”
I bowed to him, pretending not to hear his urgent call, and hurried out of the corridor in front of the interrogation room.
I took the elevator to the surface and headed straight to the staff quarters assigned to me on the research institute grounds.
The moment I entered my room I kicked off my shoes and headed for the desk.
I turned on my laptop, yanked the LAN cable behind the main unit, and cut off the internet. Even inside the institute network, what I was about to write had to stay completely sealed—the fate of the world itself was at stake.
I opened the Word program and began typing the memory fragments I had pulled from Yeon Jisu’s mind.
Tap, tap-tap.
Only the sound of keys echoed in the quiet room. I recorded the shocking scenes I had seen. No fatigue or hunger registered. I just had to write down everything I had witnessed so I could rest easy.
I stayed up all night, barely managing to finish typing as faint dawn light crept in through the window.
“Whew......”
I lowered my shaking hand and scrolled through every line on the laptop screen. The memories from the future and the things Yeon Jisu had learned after eight regressions were all neatly organized there.
The single most critical and despairing piece of information was this:
Humanity was heading toward extinction right now. If we continued as we were, it would happen within about ten years. Yeon Jisu had been fighting desperately to stop it, sacrificing herself again and again.
And the root cause of the world’s end? Mana itself—seeping into Earth’s atmosphere.
No one—even Yeon Jisu after eight regressions—had figured out exactly what it was or how the trigger worked. But the signs were clear. At some point the mana in the air crossed a critical threshold and began invading every living being’s mind on Earth. Humans, animals, everything. A bizarre phenomenon where rationality was devoured by an unknown entity.
“So the word ‘corruption’ came up when I read her memory? Hmm... I don’t get it.”
I muttered and scrolled down the notebook. There, at the bottom, I found the reason Yeon Jisu had infiltrated the institute.
She had entered the Superpower Research Institute to steal a specific artifact it possessed. The Fragment of the Abyss. At first glance it looked like a high-efficiency mana stone, but it amplified mana in the atmosphere geometrically while slowly corrupting everything nearby.
In her earlier memories, the institute’s higher-ups had studied the fragment without realizing its true danger. The result? Every staff member in the research institute had gradually been corrupted by it and become slaves to the unknown entity.
Yeon Jisu had infiltrated alone to stop that tragedy and safely retrieve the fragment.
'This is insane... We were just holding a time bomb the whole time.'
I did a dry mouth wash and stared at the monitor. In the future visions I had seen, the institute staff slowly corrupted by whatever it was and attacking humans around them had been grotesque.
And the most shocking part? In that future scene... my own figure existed.
The future version of me described in Yeon Jisu’s memories wasn’t just some security team member. When she tried to recover the fragment she faced a powerful enemy. Among them, the most annoying and threatening had been the future Yoon Siwoo.
'Yeah, that’s why she didn’t recognize me instantly when we met today.'
The current me and the future me in her memories were completely different. Appearance, body, even the changes over time... but the biggest difference was my hair.
I read the future version of me I had written at the bottom of my notebook and grabbed my thick hair with trembling fingers.
In the memory, the future Yoon Siwoo standing in front of the ruined research institute was a powerful enemy. His head was completely bald—every single hair gone, leaving only a hollow center. He looked like Heihachi from Tekken.
“What the hell is this! I’m... I’m bald! This can’t be! Hahaha!”
The sudden absurd dry joke came out with a forced laugh. The thought of losing all my hair right now seemed even more cosmic horror than the coming apocalypse. How could this dense, healthy hairline turn into a barren desert?
I picked up the hand mirror and nervously checked my forehead line.
“No, that must be from being corrupted by the fragment. I can’t be bald......”
I tried to deny reality and set the mirror down, then turned back to the screen.
Even setting aside the shock of baldness, the future me had been terrifyingly strong. She had been a puppet controlled by unknown power, but even Yeon Jisu after all her regressions had struggled against her.
The future me had dodged every attack by Yeon Jisu almost perfectly, like she could see the future, and landed deadly blows. My ability had evolved in the future. Just like seeing the future, she countered so smoothly that no amount of physical enhancement could keep up.
The one saving grace?
'Yeon Jisu never figured out the exact mechanism of my true ability.'
In her memories the future Yoon Siwoo was only remembered as a hairless guy who dodged attacks and stabbed at weak spots. She had only guarded against him through experience, never realizing my real powers—emotion reading and memory reading. If she had completely analyzed my abilities she would have planned the infiltration far more carefully.
“Whew, at least my throat feels less tight.”
I ran a hand over my chest and leaned back in the chair.
I then carefully reviewed Yeon Jisu’s infiltration plan for this life. She had based her move on the fact that I was not here.
'Damn, the information she got was from a month ago.'
I had just transferred from the front lines and joined the security team here exactly a month ago. That meant Yeon Jisu had entered with information from before my arrival. If she had known I was already here, she would have approached far more carefully.
'So my very existence has become a butterfly effect that ruined her plan.'
I understood everything and picked up the blank statement form beside the laptop. I rolled a pen on the desk and fell into deep thought about how to write it.
First, the fact that I had read every memory fragment of Yeon Jisu’s and that she was a regressor were secrets I had to take to the grave. Writing something like that in the statement would be seen as the ramblings of a lunatic, and if the higher-ups believed it they would try to run a live experiment on a regressor’s abilities—ruining everything.
But I couldn’t just leave the Fragment of the Abyss here. I had to stop that cursed fragment from slowly corrupting the staff and turning them into bald-headed slaves to an unknown entity.
I chewed my lip for a moment, mentally assembled the sentences, then grabbed the pen and started writing the statement as fast as I could.
Once I finished filling the form I stood up and stretched. My spine cracked loudly from the night’s stiffness.
I carried the completed statement outside. Outside the window the morning sun was already rising. I took a deep breath of cool morning air, pulled out the walkie-talkie at my waist, and set the frequency.
“Ah, ah. Brother Cheoljin. It’s Siwoo. Where are you right now?”
A crackling voice immediately answered.
“Hm? Siwoo? I’m currently patrolling the central lobby on the first floor.”
“Got it. I’ll be there soon.”
I hurried toward the first-floor lobby. When I arrived, I spotted Cheoljin’s back in the distance monitoring the security guards.
“Brother Cheoljin! Good morning!”
As I approached and greeted him, Cheoljin turned and grinned.
“Oh, Siwoo. How’s the body?”
“Haha, I’d like to say it’s fine, but getting beaten up by a physical enhancement user isn’t easy to recover from. Even with treatment, my bones are still sore.”
Cheoljin nodded heavily, understanding my complaint.
“You would. I’m surprised you lasted against a body-enhancement user like that. You really took a beating.”
“Hey, I got my pay’s worth. Oh, and here’s the statement I mentioned yesterday. I finished sorting it.”
I handed him the statement I had tucked under my arm. Cheoljin took it with his thick hand, frowned, and slowly read the contents I had written.
His expression grew grimmer until he finally looked up at me seriously.
“Siwoo. Is this real? It says the intruder was after the Fragment of the Abyss, a dangerous substance that causes mental corruption?”
“Yes. The information I got yesterday after torturing her that way was definitely true. She held out until she was barely conscious and I still managed to force the details out. The emotions I read then seemed genuine. It’s safer for the institute if we report this to the higher-ups and stop all experiments on the fragment for now.”
Cheoljin nodded firmly at my clear logic.
“Got it. I’ll send this straight to the director and head researcher. Better to double-check the bridge before crossing it.”
Cheoljin tucked the statement under his arm and patted my shoulder.
“You did a lot of work yesterday, so take today off and rest properly. As team leader I’m giving you a special vacation for the whole day.”
“Oh! Thank you, brother Cheoljin! I’ll see you tomorrow!”
I smiled brightly and bowed 90 degrees. Cheoljin waved his hand and headed toward the elevator to report the statement.
I watched his back disappear around the corner. Whether that small pebble I had thrown would actually stop the institute’s disaster was unknown. At least it had stopped the worst-case scenario.
But deeper inside me, burning with urgency, was a far more important goal than saving the world from extinction. I gently ran my fingers through my precious thick hair and made a firm promise to the empty air.
'No matter what else happens, I have to make sure to take hair-growth medicine every single day without fail.'