Regressor Instruction Manual

Chapter 1444. Continental War (24)

He looked like a creepy, crazy psychopath killing machine who seemed like he would never have a single friend.

"Commander."

— ...

It was absurd, but there was no other way to describe what I was seeing other than what I[1] had already said.

"Damn it, Commander..."

Honestly, even the word "psychopath" wasn't exactly apropos. However, I believed it was all because I only had Jung Jin-Ho as a reference when it came to talking about psychopaths and murderers, so I couldn't help but compare them.

At the very least, I remembered that Jung Jin-Ho had a goal behind his killings. It was a bit awkward to call him a killer who killed only for his pleasure, but he assigned great meaning to taking a life and had a tendency to explore his own emotions and curiosity.

I had no idea whether it was innate or learned, but he had a social life. At the very least, he could talk to someone. He wanted to form a group, a team composed of people similar to himself.

I still couldn't forget that bastard's mad laughter before he died.

‘Even Jung Jin-Ho would avoid him.’

“...”

‘He’d definitely fail the Brigade entrance test and never get in.’

For that insane killing machine, taking a life was neither a goal nor a means to achieve anything. He assigned no meaning at all to the act.

If he had been holding something other than a sword, or if he had been summoned somewhere other than here, he wouldn't have lived this kind of life at all.

As a comparison, Jung Jin-Ho would still be a psychopath and a killer even in the modern world, but this guy might not have. If young Jung Jin-Ho explored his curiosity by doing insane things like killing small animals, then that jerk would have simply looked at corpses with emotionless eyes and walked past them.

As a side note, our Hyun-Sung would cry and wail, saying the corpses looked pitiful and scary. Commander Jin would pretend it was nothing and act tough. Our Ha-Yan would shed large tears and bury the corpses.

Meanwhile, Park Deok-Gu would run around, trying to catch the culprit.

‘I can’t even imagine what... Hee-Ra noona would do...’

Of course, all those side scenarios were pointless talk. What mattered most right now was the guy sliding his sword back into its sheath, Ryu Han.

He was the First Pillar of the Republic and the First Seat of the Five Tiger Generals.

‘I thought the Republic’s First Pillar was irrelevant...’

I couldn’t help but think that way at the time. The Republic’s First Seat had disappeared at some point in the second life, and in the first life, he hadn’t really done anything noteworthy.

Of course, this could be just a misunderstanding born from the fact that I didn’t know everything that happened in the first life, but in reality, Kim Hyun-Sung never really talked much about the First Seat either.

Not during the Continental War nor during the Outer Gods War. Of course, I was at least aware that the First Seat was strong. The strangling noona, who was also one of the Five Tiger Generals, had once said that he was really strong.

‘But seriously, what good is being strong if you never show up?’

There was no information about him, and he never revealed himself. The temporary conclusion I came to was that he could be like the Templars, a shadow guarding the President’s family.

The President of the Republic wielded absolute power, yet even I had never met or seen that woman directly, so my assumption sounded the most reasonable.

It wasn’t that there had been no exchanges with her, but those gloomy Republic bastards paid insane attention to her security, so I simply assumed the Republic’s First Seat was basically her bodyguard.

‘He must’ve actually been wandering around...’

At least, that was how he looked in my eyes right now.

He wasn't moving like the President’s puppet; it seemed he could act on his own discretion. I couldn’t help but naturally wonder what someone of his level had been doing through both the first life and the second life, and what the hell he had been doing during the Outer Gods War when humanity had united as one to fight the Outer Gods.

‘Had he already been... eliminated back then, or had he committed suicide?’

Of course, I was grateful that he hadn’t shown up during the Continental War, but even now, he didn’t seem particularly willing to actively participate.

‘Had the Continental War caused a lot of divided opinions in both the first life and the second life?’

In truth, there was no need to keep guessing and speculating about this and that. The answer was always close by. The problem was that the "answer" close by wasn’t answering me.

"Commander Jin. Damn it, Commander."

— ...

"Commander Jin!"

—...

"Commander Jin, this is really urgent."

‘Did I mess something up again? What’s wrong with him?’

I reasonably assumed that he was angry upon seeing First Life Jin Cheong going berserk.

— What is it, Lee Ki-Young?

‘Thank God it wasn’t the case.’

"..."

— ...

"Um... have you been doing well?"

— If you’re planning to say something useless again...

"No, that is not it, I’m honestly curious. I was wondering what you’ve been up to lately... It’s been a while since I last saw you.'

— You should’ve already received my routes and plans through Lee Chang-Ryeol.

"I mean, hearing things through someone else and talking directly are different. Thinking about you struggling among the rotten commanders of the Republic, of course, I can’t help but worry. You’re not hard-carrying those guys there because they’re so useless, are you? They’re managing on their own, right?"

— I’m already trying to avoid influencing them as much as possible. Other than the tasks assigned to me, there’s nothing going on... As you know, the most important thing is to find a route for that group with the ridiculous name to make use of and move.

"Ah, I see. How are things on Sun Hee-Young’s side?"

— If you’re asking about Kim Hyun-Sung’s whereabouts... it seems they still can’t get a lead. I’m doing my best to search as well. For now, he doesn't seem to be in the Republic. It’s possible that he didn’t participate in this war.

"What would he be doing if he’s not fighting?"

— Who knows? Maybe he’s looking for the right time to step in. I’ve already ordered Belial to investigate mainly around the hexagram, so you just focus on doing your own work.

‘Why is this guy so on edge? Did something bad happen?’

I wanted to snap back at him, but I had questions, so I had to be careful.

‘He did say they were tutorial comrades.’

There was no way they wouldn’t know each other, at the very least. He clearly had his own circumstances. I didn’t know what happened, but if he were to be stubborn and refuse to talk about it, everything would be for nothing.

"I really have something I’m curious about."

— ...

"I think the First Seat is here right now."

— ...

"Say something. I’m telling you he’s here. Right now, he’s close to our unit. Did you really not know?"

— ...

‘Of course, he wouldn’t know. Even First Life Commander Jin had no idea. How would he know?’

— So what exactly do you want me to do about it?

"What do you mean? I’m saying that bastard is nearby. Because of that killing machine, everything here is getting messed up, and we’re stuck. We need to keep moving fast, so we won't get pinned down here, but at this rate, we’re going to be stuck here.

"The plan with the Bishop-level priests is dead in the water, and the Imperial Army has been wiped out. If Ryu Han spots us, everyone here will die. Sung Ji-Hoon or whatever won't last even a few seconds. Actually, since we’re on the topic, how is he even that strong?"

— ...

"In all my life, I have never seen a monster like him. And from the way people are talking, they say he was your tutorial comrade... Do you have any information about him?"

— Not really. We didn’t really have a connection.

"How come the First Seat and the Second Seat don't have a connection with each other? If you were tutorial comrades, wouldn't you know something about him?"

— It’s true that we worked together inside the tutorial dungeon, but I’m not lying when I say that there was no real connection between us.

"In the dungeon, he carried you, right? And you just tagged along behind him."

— Absurd. He did nothing, and it was I who led the raid group.

"..."

— Anyway, the monsters in the tutorial are beings that an ordinary adult can deal with without much difficulty, so they’re not hard to deal with.

‘He’s still as annoying as ever.’

— Unless you’re talking about idiots who panic ahead of time or waste their energy doing pointless things... and just so you know, we cleared it in record time with the highest number of survivors as well.

"You mean within the Republic, right?"

— ...

"..."

— If you’re asking whether that was without his contribution, I would have to shake my head...

‘He’s just looking down on him.’

— I’ll tell you this. At first, he wasn’t any different from the others.

"What? He was scared?"

— He wasn’t scared. It would be more accurate to say he looked like he really didn’t care about anything.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

— Just as I said, he looked like someone who wouldn’t really care even if he died there. His actions matched it, too. He had no will to live, no desire to achieve anything, no fear that made him want to run, and no curiosity or urge to explore the unknown. He had nothing at all.

— Lee Ki-Young, didn’t you just say you saw him too? It will be easier to understand if you just think of him as not very different from how he is now.

"I kind of get what you mean, but for someone who supposedly has no will to live, he’s doing pretty well."

— He’s a guy that you can’t read at all. Even that empty head of his must have something going on in it. I’ll be honest. I don’t even think of him as a human being.

‘This jerk... He’s being harsh.’

— He’s incapable of feeling anything. It must be congenital. It’s not just that talking doesn’t work; it’s the kind of case where it’s outright impossible. You can’t read anything from his eyes. His voice is the same. It wasn’t a short period of time, but from the tutorial dungeon onward, even when I occasionally ran into him... I never felt or saw anything from him.

— He’s just hollow. At least, when I last saw him, I remember he wasn’t much different—wait, no, I don’t even need to mention the last time I saw him. There’s no way he'd change.

‘Knowing Commander Jin’s personality, he probably said all of that right to his face.’

— Still, he’s not just a genius. You can just call him a monster. You never thought about coaxing him a bit and using him? You already treat people like chess pieces anyway. Where would you ever find a better piece than him? He doesn’t think for himself, and if you just give orders, he’ll slice up your enemies on his own.

"I’ll say three things. First, the one who sees humans as chess pieces isn’t me, it’s you. Secondly, in the end, the ones who fight wars aren’t chess pieces, but humans. Thirdly and lastly, machines eventually break.

"I have no hobby of using something when I have no way of knowing when it will fail."

"Why are you suddenly acting like you care so much about humans? Honestly speaking, there must be a whole truckload of soldiers who died because of you, and it’s still happening right now," I added.

— What can you expect from something that’s just an empty shell moving around?

‘He’s looking down on him again.’

— It’s true that he's not bad. He even got the empty title of First Seat of the Republic, and he has been building up a certain reputation. As you said, it’s hard to deny that he’s strong. That’s if we’re talking pure combat power...

"I thought he was stronger than you, Commander Jin."

— How absurd.

‘He’s not looking down on him this time.’

— Things like the First Seat and Second Seat are all just shells. They’re simply positions granted by the President. They’re not a way to measure who’s stronger and who’s not. And...

"..."

— And... I don’t particularly think that the idiot next to you, the Holy Sword Hero, Sung Ji-Hoon, is weaker than Ryu Han.

"..."

— What I mean is that there’s no need for you to already be scared or whine.

‘What the hell is this guy even talking about?’

"Are you blind?"

Right on cue, the face I least wanted to see poked out from inside the tent.

“I... can’t sleep... C-can you hurry up and come inside?” Sung Ji-Hoon asked.

‘I really feel like beating him up tonight.’

1. Lee Ki-Young’s POV ☜