Regression
He had regressed. The wind sliced at his flesh.
“Damn it….”
Kim Jun was falling. The plunge that had begun on the 100th floor was a spiral of despair with no end in sight.
“So this is where it ends….”
At the top of the Tower, the farthest point humanity could ever reach, all that had waited for him was despair.
Almighty?
The being they had called the destroyer of worlds. With a single gesture, everything had come to an end.
The strongest hunter? An EX-class being?
How ridiculous.
Kim Jun gave a bitter smile. Only now did he understand how empty the title of humanity’s strongest truly was.
Before Almighty, he had been nothing more than a bug.
His decades of hard-won skill, the experience gained from countless battles, the power bought with his companions’ sacrifices.
All of it had collapsed in an instant.
Rumble—
The Tower was falling apart.
Kim Jun continued to drop helplessly.
“Cough!”
Even as he spat blood, he stared into the empty air. In the chaos where heaven and earth had been turned upside down, he prayed with all the desperation in his heart.
“Just once. If I could just have one more chance….”
Plummeting toward the ruined surface, he pleaded again and again.
If he were given even one more chance, he could stop the fall of the Earth. He could do it. He knew he could.
And so, in his final moments, even while his reason denied it, he clung to the thing he had secretly been begging for deep inside.
It didn’t matter whether it was God, fate, or a miracle. The man who had trusted only in his own strength all his life was kneeling before something greater than himself for the first time.
“Can’t you hear my voice…? Can’t you hear the people screaming?”
The shattered remains of the collapsing Tower were falling with him toward the ground. Beneath those enormous fragments, he could see countless people dying.
“M-Mom! Mom!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay….”
A child clutching the whole world in his arms, and a mother trembling as she covered that child’s ears.
“Ah, ah… I’m going to die….”
People who had given up as they watched huge meteor-like chunks of debris fall from the sky.
“Hoo~.”
People who simply lit another cigarette and waited for the end.
Everything is my fault. I couldn’t save them all.
Kim Jun cried out in anguish.
But no one answered.
Only the wind clawed at him as it rushed by, and the ground kept drawing closer.
So this is how it ends.
Kim Jun shut his eyes. He could do nothing now. Regret, rage, despair—none of it mattered anymore.
It was simply over.
But in that instant,
Something he could hear, and yet not hear.
Flash!
“Jun! Wake up!”
“Guild leader? What’s wrong with him?”
Someone was shaking his shoulders.
Kim Jun slowly opened his eyes.
A damp cave floor. Cold air. And faces staring down at him with worried expressions.
“Man, you really almost gave me a heart attack. Why did you suddenly pass out like that?”
Park Minsu. The tanker. A reliable shield who never lost his smile. A comrade who had once protected him and died on the 70th floor.
“Are you all right?”
Han Suin. The assassin. Quick and quiet, but with a warm heart; a comrade who had been found with her throat cut after a surprise attack by a villain on the 32nd floor.
“Oppa?”
Ryu Jia. The mage. The adorable youngest member who had followed him. A comrade who had created an escape route and sacrificed herself on the 80th floor, Dragon’s Plain.
“Why is Guild leader acting like this? He must have hit his head!”
Lee Seoyeon. The healer. The team’s gentle, caring mother figure. A comrade who had burned herself out while protecting him on the 95th floor.
Kim Jun braced a trembling hand against the ground. The cold, damp touch. The musty smell unique to caves. And the sound of dripping water somewhere in the distance.
This is… a Red Gate?
It was real. He had come back.
And not just anywhere, but to before everything had begun.
“Jun, want some water? You passed out right after drinking from that spring just now.”
Park Minsu held out a canteen.
Spring water?
Yes. Spring water.
Kim Jun turned and looked behind him. A huge stone statue had been carved into the cave wall.
The statue of a woman with a benevolent expression. From her eyes, drops of transparent liquid fell one by one, pooling into a small basin at the bottom.
He remembered it vividly. In his previous life, he had been curious and drunk that water, only to black out for a moment.
“Seriously, why would you drink something like that? You just gulped down some unknown liquid in a Gate.”
Park Minsu let out a sigh.
“Exactly. That was way too reckless. It’s not like the Guild leader to do something like that.”
Lee Seoyeon was worried too.
Kim Jun slowly stood. His legs didn’t have much strength, but something else mattered more.
“What day is it?”
“April 15! Jun, are you really okay?”
April 15.
Three days before the Tower appeared in his previous life.
It had been right after he cleared this Red Gate and stepped outside that he had seen the massive Tower rise from the ground.
This time will be different. This time….
He didn’t know why he had regressed, but one thing was certain: this time, he could change everything.
Right before he regressed, he had been EX-class. The strongest hunter in human history had returned to being an S-class.
But it didn’t matter. His experience and knowledge, along with every memory of the future, still remained.
“I think we should do this without Jun this time. We’ll be fine on our own, honestly.”
Kim Jun looked at him. His younger brother-in-all-but-blood, the one who had followed him to the very top after the Tower appeared.
The man who had saved him and died on the 70th floor.
“Minsu.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“W-what is this? Something really bad is happening, isn’t it?”
Park Minsu panicked. That was the last thing he would ever expect from the usually taciturn Kim Jun.
Kim Jun looked in turn at Han Suin, Lee Seoyeon, and the rest of his companions. They were all people who had sacrificed themselves for him.
This time is different. This time, I’ll protect you all. Every last one of you.
Making that vow to himself, Kim Jun walked deeper into the cave.
“Where are you going?”
“To kill the boss.”
“The boss? We haven’t even finished exploring yet. This place is way bigger than we thought.”
“It’s fine. I know where it is.”
At the very deepest part of the cave, there was a huge chamber.
There, he knew, would be the Red Gate’s boss monster: the Guardian of the Ruins.
An S-class boss monster. In his previous life, he had had to butcher his way through every monster in the passageways just to get there, so it had been a difficult fight. But Kim Jun knew a hidden route.
It had taken him two full days to explore this Lost Ruins Red Gate, and fearing that another Gate like this might appear again in the future, he had drawn a map.
After an hour of dodging traps and monsters and taking the shortest path possible—
“This way.”
Kim Jun pointed to a narrow crack in the cave wall. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a fissure.
“Jun, can you even fit through there?”
“Just trust me and follow.”
“No, I’m asking if my body can fit….”
“Ah.”
Park Minsu looked down at his own massive build. Almost two meters tall, with a body packed with trained muscle. Getting stuck in doorways was an almost regular occurrence for him.
“…If you get in, it’ll widen.”
“Hey!”
After forcing themselves through the narrow gap, they were surprised to find a wide passage. Ancient characters had been engraved into the walls, and the floor was so clean it didn’t have a speck of dust on it.
“Whoa, this really is the boss room?”
After one hour and ten minutes, they arrived at the boss room. It was a vast circular chamber, and at its center knelt a giant wearing golden armor.
Along both walls, dozens of stone soldiers stood in a line. Each held a sword and bowed its head, looking as though it had died standing there.
“Grrr….”
The Guardian lifted its head. Through the slit of its helm, only empty darkness could be seen.
“Who goes there…? Who dares trespass upon these ruins?”
A low, eerie groan rolled through the chamber. Just as the Guardian began to rise, the sound of stone cracking echoed from all around the walls.
Crack—
“Jun! On your side!”
What had seemed to be statues all began tumbling down in a rush.
Kim Jun and his companions immediately formed up.
“Kuaaaah! Here! Over here!”
Tank Park Minsu let out a thunderous roar and drew the monsters together in one place. Blocking their sword strikes with his enormous shield, he created a perfect wall.
"Inferno!"
⟨ Inferno ⟩
A massive pillar of fire erupted from the tips of Ryu Jia’s fingers. With a mage’s wide-area attack, she swept away the stone soldiers in a single stroke.
Slash—
Shh-shh-shh-shh—!
“…”
The monsters that survived the blast crashed to the floor with daggers buried in their backs.
“Guild leader!”
Lee Seoyeon reached out toward Kim Jun. Warm light enveloped him, and a shield plus a movement-speed buff were applied at once.
Clang—
Kim Jun drew his sword.
Step, step.
And walked.
Staring at the boss before him, he advanced with his greatsword in hand.
Whoosh—
The blade quickly drank in flames along the line of Kim Jun’s fingertips.
“Come.”
“You arrogant—”
The Guardian fully rose and hoisted its massive axe.
Its body, nearly five meters tall, radiated oppressive power, and ancient mana seeped through the gaps in its golden armor, making the air tremble.
“Pay the price.”
Bang—!
The axe slammed into the floor, and a massive shockwave burst outward in all directions. Kim Jun had already left that spot.
As expected.
It was exactly as he remembered from his previous life. The Guardian’s patterns, the timing of its attacks, all of it.
Whiiish—!
The axe swept horizontally. Kim Jun dropped low and slid under it, all while raising his greatsword overhead.
The instant the axe blade passed over his head—
Slash!
The fire-wreathed greatsword bit into the gap at the left shoulder joint of the Guardian, and the flame began burning its way through the inside.
“Graaah! How dare a human! Just you wait, I’ll—”
“Planning to move on to phase two? Sorry, but I’m not letting you.”
In his previous life, this so-called Guardian had stubbornly revived across a total of five phases.
Every time he thought it was dead, it rose again and drove the raid team into despair. Because of that brutal fight, he had spent days recovering from his injuries even after the Tower opened.
This time, he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Not to his comrades, and not to himself. They needed to climb the Tower as soon as possible.
“Oh, was it five times?”
“H-how…?”
He wouldn’t give it a chance.
Thud.
Kim Jun drove the greatsword deeper and focused all his mana into the blade. Even if his head spun, even if his body swayed, it didn’t matter.
I’ll finish this in one blow, before it can transform.
“I-it’s impossible! Who are you? How do you know all my—”
The Guardian shrieked in terror. But Kim Jun didn’t even give it time to finish.
Burst.
Whoosh—
Whoosh—
BOOOOM—!
[Guardian of the Ruins defeated.]
[Hidden clear completed.]
[Additional rewards will be granted.]
...
[Key of the Ruins acquired.]
...
[An entrance has been created.]
“Oh! It’s cracking! Did he break it?”
“Red Gate cleared! Get the breaking news out now!”
The area outside the Red Gate was in an uproar.
Reporters thrust their cameras forward, soldiers shouted into their radios, and onlookers buzzed with disbelief.
The Red Gate no one had dared touch.
Everyone had avoided it because it was clearly a dungeon of at least S-class difficulty, and even the major guilds had turned their backs on it.
And yet a guild of only five people had cleared it.
As always.
“Th-there they are! Guild leader!”
“Hunter Kim Jun! What was it like inside?”
“It was a Red Gate, and you cleared it in just two hours! How do you feel?”
Amid the flood of questions, Kim Jun and his companions walked out.
Han Guild.
Korea’s fifth-ranked guild. Just five members. But every one of them was an S-class hunter—an elite team in every sense.
“Why do you think the other major guilds didn’t participate?” a reporter asked bluntly.
“Gates appear all over the country. Besides, Red Gates are dangerous. I’m sure they had their reasons.”
Kim Jun answered calmly.
“But Han Guild is always the one to take on these dangerous Gates, aren’t you?”
“Haha….”
That was true.
Sudden Gates, Gates that had turned into disasters, Red Gates that no one wanted to touch. No matter how much extra pay the Hunters Association offered, there were always places everyone else avoided and Han Guild took on alone.
“Will you be donating half of today’s earnings again?”
“Yes. I think we are what we are today because of them.”
Before information about Gates and hunters had even been properly established, Han Guild had never hesitated to support the hunters who had fought against the unknown.
Back when there was no system, no information—only the first generation of hunters who had gone to the front lines with nothing but their lives on the line.
The safe hunter system of today had been built on their sacrifices.
That was why the reporters kept elevating Han Guild and pumping out articles that tore the other guilds down.
That side got the clicks, after all.
Good small guilds versus selfish giant guilds. It was a tired setup, but the public loved stories like that.
“All right, all right, now questions for this Park Minsu!” the reporters laughed. “Hahaha!”
As the cameras swarmed Park Minsu, Kim Jun quietly stepped back.
Three days.
Without realizing it, he looked in the direction of Yeouido.
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