Chapter 141
Chapter 141
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 141
Chapter Title: Lucky Man III
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Shin Noah
4
Luck hadn’t run out yet.
Even as Reverse-Great Wall fended off the endless waves pouring in from the continent in an infinite defense game, “serendipities” kept coming one after another.
[Undertaker. We’ve confirmed that the “pink entity” you warned us about last time has moved to Kyushu in Japan.]
Go Yo-ri, the regressor’s greatest foe and a master of gaslighting, had voluntarily peaced out and defected on her own.
Unprecedented good news. From my position, I felt like handing her a fat relocation bonus.
And that wasn’t all.
[No Status Window anomalies have appeared.]
“Yes?”
[We focused our observations on the date and location you told us, but no one saw a Status Window.]
“……”
[This is probably another effect of the “Monkey’s Paw,” right?]
And that wasn’t all².
Luck wasn’t unfolding only in physical space. Even in online communities, my fortune showed no signs of stopping.
In short, the novel serialization board on SG Net had kicked off a Romance of the Three Kingdoms parody craze.
-吕布 Hides His Dad (★9.9)
-Ten Attendants General (★8.7)
-[Alternate History] Ordered to Advance on a Northern Expedition, Wake Up and It’s Han-Chung Instead of North Korea?! (★9.2)
-The Three Brothers Always Shared the Same Blanket [19+ Full Version] (★9.8)
-Possessed on Day One as Zhang Kai, Who Killed Cao Cao’s Father (★9.9)
-Possessed as a Yellow Turban Rebel, But Why Do I Have Das Kapital in My Hand? (★9.6)
No matter where you looked on the board, the top ranks were plastered with Three Kingdoms parodies.
These days, Romance of the Three Kingdoms was totally YOUNG and MZ content.
It wasn’t just the novel board. Even the free board—the main body of SG Net—was flooded with Three Kingdoms bait, no cooldown in sight.
-Anonymous: Thought Three Kingdoms was boomer-only content, but after novels, Romance, and Records, nothing beats it.
-Anonymous: How epic was Ma Su’s mountain climb? Forming a China hiking team to experience it firsthand. Align your guild vacations and let’s go. Sorry, but since overseas is dangerous, only depth 600m+ accepted. DM if interested!
-dolLHOuse: What’s wrong with SG Net lately? Everyone getting trifocals fitted as a group?
└Anonymous: Lmao there’s still a full-HP noob who hasn’t read Three Kingdoms?
└dolLHOuse: I have.
└Anonymous: Then where’s your fanbase?
└dolLHOuse: Anyone but big-ears. They all end up in the Oho Sixteen Kingdoms ending anyway, right? Commoners.
└Anonymous: Blocked.
-[Three Thousand] Witch Judge: The night sky looks pretty today. Is this how Chancellor gazing at stars from Ojangwon felt?
-Goryeo Jang: Fuck, I wanna bury all these idiots here in coffins;;
-[National Highway] Historian: Weekly meetup in Busan reading original Records of the Three Kingdoms and discussing. (4/6)
Before I knew it, I’d spent six straight hours glued to my smartphone, lost in community bliss.
“Gasp.”
A shiver ran through me.
I was always nagging A-ryeon to quit her internet shut-in life.
Yet here I was, finally grasping the true joy of communities in my 590th regression.
‘Is this the Monkey’s Paw’s true power?’
I couldn’t tear my fingers away from SG Net.
It was like the screen had been smeared with master-crafted honey just for me, Undertaker!
“Urk. Scary, Monkey’s Paw! A mere mortal would’ve fallen for its allure long ago!”
“……”
Ha-yul, passing through the living room, shot me a pitiful look—like a dutiful little sister eyeing her deadbeat brother—before vanishing.
Right.
In the 590th round, I was fully immersed in the life of a cult leader (hope edition).
The world bent to my will!
Every venture I touched progressed miraculously, and troubles beyond my capacity never even arose.
But I wasn’t a cult leader.
I was an ordinary citizen who preferred subways over limos. So I could guess my fate’s next stop—“Ruin”—without checking the route map.
The 7th year was here.
The 10-year debt due date for the luck backlash I’d begged the Monkey’s Paw to postpone was fast approaching.
‘Suicide?’
I needed a drastic decision.
The “extreme choice” was relatable to anyone who’d lived seven years as a debtor. For a regressor like me, it wasn’t even that extreme.
If I just messaged, “Wow, thanks to Luck Total Sum for the sweet ride this round^^ Off to the next one, bye~……” and left the chat, wouldn’t I safely escape that future debt mountain?
Hated leaving this Three Kingdoms paradise, but a regressor knows when to shelve personal greed.
“Ah…… I don’t recommend that, sir.”
Another expert thought differently.
“Why?”
“Hmm. It’d probably make things worse?”
Cheon Yo-hwa gave a wry smile after hearing my dilemma.
Why spill such a private worry to her? Among our crew, excluding me, she was the resident “anomaly expert.”
As everyone knew, Cheon Yo-hwa had sealed Mugeon in an hourglass.
Counting school ghost stories, she carried a whopping 100 Pokémon in her pocket.
Other trainers would sue her for exceeding the possession limit.
Luckily, this world wasn’t about locking up masochistic beasts and pitting them in coliseums. But precisely because of that, the anomalies loathed their warden.
In short, the Baekhwa anomalies, led by Mugeon, plotted rebellion whenever they could.
No wonder Cheon Yo-hwa stress-ate tteokbokki at the school snack shop daily.
The Saintess too—she and I—we awakeners grew stronger, but closer to corruption. An inevitable fate.
“Things get worse?”
“Yes. My guess, though.”
“Hmm. Last I checked, the Monkey’s Paw never noticed regressions. It couldn’t even grant Kuro regression powers. Just close my eyes and regress—the debt vanishes, right?”
“Haha. But because of that Kuro guy, the Monkey’s Paw jumped from one person to affecting the whole world?”
“……”
“Wish-makers seem like they’re parasitizing the Monkey’s Paw anomaly. But I see it the opposite. The Paw’s the parasite.”
“Parasitizing humans?”
“Yes!”
Cheon Yo-hwa clapped.
Despite the serious talk, she looked thrilled to share with me.
Makes sense. Battling outer-god-tier anomalies for control 365 days a year, I was a precious convo partner.
Few humans could empathize with anomaly terror like us.
“Think about it, sir. The Monkey’s Paw can’t grow on its own. Someone has to wish, giving it an excuse to amplify its power via that wish.”
“Hoo.”
“For the Paw, Kuro must’ve been a godsend. A plain wish would’ve kept it mediocre. But Kuro’s ‘high-level wish’ elevated the Paw too!”
“So if I, a regressor, bail with ‘eh, I’ll just regress’……”
“The Paw might surpass regression, gaining control over luck and misfortune. Pure speculation.”
“Hm.”
“So no suicide. Plus, I don’t wanna see you go. Hehe……”
Logical.
By that logic, even I—Undertaker, who’d criticized Kuro’s folly—was just as foolish.
‘Ordinary luck’ vs. ‘590th regressor luck’—different leagues.
Look at this round’s scale.
Dementia-ridden Sword Marquis got a youth potion.
Summoned Meteor Shower to the East Sea way early, timed a UFO crash perfectly.
Spawned a Black Great Wall north of the peninsula—impossible otherwise.
The Paw could now dish out serendipities at that level.
By library society metrics, it was ocean-class threat.
‘Am I kinda fucked?’
Alertness crept in.
Had to resolve this before misfortune hit full force.
“I think you gotta survive this round super, super tenaciously.”
“Why’s that?”
“If you die without enduring luck-equivalent misfortune, that ‘unpaid misfortune’ might carry over to the next round?”
“Hm……”
I rubbed my chin.
Chatting with Cheon Yo-hwa tickled my brain somehow.
‘Wait. Something good’s on the tip of my tongue……?’
I hadn’t pinned the “good idea” yet. That’s for next episode.
But the direction was set.
“Then, per you, I gotta get as unlucky as possible from now on.”
“Haha…… Y-Yes. But cherry-picking misfortunes isn’t up to us. Tricky.”
“No, there’s a way. A brilliantly clever one.”
“Huh? Really?”
I nodded.
Dead serious, I said,
“Yo-hwa.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ever heard of the ‘Hated Pill’?”
“……?”
5
The ‘Hated Pill.’
A genre—or meme, really.
Cheon Yo-hwa tilted her head like it was new. Natural. Origin was across the sea, next neighborhood over.
Some say Japan lacks creativity, originality.
-Tonkatsu? Just cutlet remix?
-Japanese curry? Indian curry Japanified?
Prejudice.
Remove the [All Ages] filter from your cornea, witness Fuji-level creativity erupting from the archipelago.
They even gender-swapped Three Kingdoms chars for ‘TS Three Kingdoms,’ aka Romance Festival abominations.
Plus unmentionables from various scandals.
Only ancient Greece rivaled that creativity. (Greeks impregnated their chief god’s thigh, cross-dressed history’s most invincible hero.)
Anyway.
‘Hated Pill’—peak island fever creativity.
-Eat this, favorability reverses!
-Reverses?
-Yes. Everyone who liked you—family, all—hates you equally. Literal ‘Hated Pill.’
-…?
-People subtly fond of you? Faces flip, cursing you to die quick! Don’t worry, haters stay hating.
-Why put that in a story?
-Cuz it has expiration.
-……??
-Post-expiry, they regret. Seeing wrecked protag from their curses: What did I do to my fave? How could I say that……?
-What’s the point?
-Duh? Side chars wronging protag then regretting—peak yandere torment fuel?
-……???
Building misery over dozens chapters? Inefficient practically.
Efficiency-obsessed moderns slap #regret #obsession #torment tags ASAP.
That tool: ‘Hated Pill.’
Instant 3-min misfortune jjajangmyeon by Japanese.
Favorability reversal drug. Eat, get unlucky.
How’d niche foreign genre reach me, Undertaker? Uh……
Reminder: 590th round tale.
560th-ish, I devoured all webnovels, speedran author marathons.
Explanation over.
“So ingest ‘Hated Pill,’ induce ‘misfortune’ deliberately, escape Luck Total Sum curse?”
“You got it.”
“Uncle’s totally lost it, huh.”
Prime webnovel spreader to me, sole crewmate knowing ‘Hated Pill’ via otaku cred.
O Dok-seo nodded.
“Great idea. My protagonist uncle shines. Let’s test now!”
P.S. O Dok-seo loved torment tales.
“But where to farm Hated Pill? No [All-Regression History] entry.”
“Hey now, Dok-seo. Ginseng from Joseon, queue from Qing. Obvious hunting ground for Hated Pill, no?”
“Ah.”
Right.
We set sail for the ‘origin’ at once.