A Regressor's Bucket List Chapter 94

‘A gift?’

At U-jin's inscrutable remark, Loxy once again reviewed the situation unfolding before her eyes.

Although she couldn't grasp the full context, there were several clear facts she could glean from their brief conversation.

That U-jin, in his 1st regression, had belonged to a group called the 'Suicide Squad'.

That, at this point in the timeline, the Suicide Squad had been annihilated by the Demon King.

And that U-jin was the sole survivor.

Piecing these together, just as there was a contradiction in the Demon King's earlier mention of a gift, it was highly probable that the 'gift' U-jin had prepared was also not a gift in the true sense of the word.

If one were to summarize the current situation in a single phrase, it could be described as 'a hero, whose comrades were all slaughtered by the Demon King, has come to the Demon King's Palace'.

In this situation, the word 'gift' was merely a wrapping or a metaphor. When rationally deconstructing its inherent essence…

Whatever it was, what U-jin was about to offer the Demon King could only have the nature of 'revenge'.

Gulp—

At that moment, Loxy knew instinctively.

The part that would follow was the most crucial point of this dream, a scene she had to remember with certainty.

『…A gift? That is certainly an intriguing story.』

Muttering with interest at U-jin's words, the Demon King looked down at the ascending U-jin and urged him on.

『What is it? This gift you have prepared for Us.』

Pfft—

『Well, it’s nothing much.』

Raising the corners of his mouth, U-jin parted the front of his clothes and answered.

『The ‘Demon King Hunt Project’…….』

『…….』

『I wonder if you’ve heard of it.』

A moment of silence fell.

『…….』

『…….』

…There was no way he could have heard of it.

To begin with, no one living in the Demon King's Territory would have ever even conceived of, let alone uttered, the unfamiliar combination of the words 'Demon King' and 'Hunt'.

It was a combination of words so shocking that it wouldn't be an exaggeration to define it as 'the most blasphemous phrase' one could speak within the Demon King's Territory.

Unless one's guts were on the outside, there was no way they could utter it so openly within the Demon King's Territory, and in front of the Demon King himself at that.

So, naturally, there was no way the Demon King could have heard such a thing.

『…That too is an interesting phrase.』

However.

Separate from the unfamiliarity the phrase brought, Loxy thought the Demon King would have no trouble discerning its meaning.

The reason was simple.

Even if the combination of words itself was something he had never heard before, the one who could best understand the sense in which U-jin said it…

And where that phrase originated from, was none other than the Demon King himself.

‘…The Constellation Hunt.’

It seemed the Order had decided to call the war between the Order's Allied Forces and the Demon King's Alliance Forces the 'War against Demons', but the Demon King's side's official name for it was the 'Constellation Hunt'.

To drag down and annihilate the Constellations who sat enthroned on high, believing without a doubt that they would live for eternity.

That act, once thought impossible, was the very cause that had united the scattered Magical Beasts, who had been fending for themselves, to form the current massive Demon King's Alliance Forces with the Demon King at its head.

It was the ultimate goal the Demon King Alliance desired, and the very method by which they had devoured the continent until now.

‘…This is the end.’

At U-jin's mention of the 'Demon King Hunt', Loxy faintly realized that this memory dream was depicting the moments just before U-jin's regression.

If he truly believed he could accomplish it at that point in time, there would have been no need to say such a thing in front of the Demon King.

From the moment he chose to confess it to the man himself, U-jin's survival in that timeline was as good as impossible.

‘…….’

If her thoughts were correct.

The commencement of the 'Demon King Hunt Project' that U-jin had just spoken of was not something that happened in that timeline.

It was a declaration of his 2nd Regression.

『Hurry and show Us.』

『…….』

『We are truly curious as well. About this ‘Demon King Hunt’ you speak of.』

Of course, the Demon King, unaware of U-jin's regression, had no way of knowing this.

He seemed to think that the 'Demon King Hunt Project' U-jin spoke of was not a concrete plan, but merely nonsensical prattle born from the anger of losing his comrades.

Seueuk—

As if the Demon King's attitude was within his expectations, U-jin let out a smirk and pulled a necklace from inside his parted clothes.

The necklace had a rather peculiar appearance.

At the center of the corded string hung a flat, dark purple, stone tablet-like object, and this tablet-esque thing was densely engraved with unidentifiable characters.

『Watch closely.』

『…….』

『This will likely be the first and last time you see it with your own eyes.』

Grin—

U-jin's gaze, which had been on the Demon King for a moment as if in warning, dropped back down to the stone tablet in his hand.

‘…….’

In that instant, Loxy felt a sense of inexplicable dread.

Even though she couldn't understand what U-jin had just said to the Demon King, it was an instinctual feeling.

It was of the same nature as the unknown anxiety she felt when she first entered this dream space, but it was more fundamental and primal.

A feeling so concentrated that it felt more fitting to call it horror rather than anxiety.

If this wasn't a dream, and if she had actually been present beside U-jin, a dense horror assailed her, so strong that she would have wanted to stop him, even without knowing what he was about to do.

‘…I have to get out.’

It went without saying, but it was impossible for Loxy to stop whatever U-jin was doing here.

The events unfolding before Loxy's eyes were merely a memory dream of U-jin's past experiences.

And she was in a position where she could only passively receive the information as it unfolded.

『…….』

And so.

The strange tension, formed along with U-jin's incomprehensible words, reached its peak in the silence.

Simultaneously, U-jin's mouth, which had been looking down at the stone tablet, opened.

『■ŒºÞþ■■øijĿ…….』

…It was a form of speech that Loxy could not comprehend at all.

Seeing his gaze fixed on the stone tablet, it wasn't hard to guess that U-jin was reading the ancient characters engraved there.

But despite listening with her full attention, Loxy could not understand the words that came out of U-jin's mouth at all.

…However.

She could only intuit that the inexplicable horror she had felt earlier stemmed from those very indecipherable characters U-jin chanted.

『■ŒºÞþ■■øijĿ…….』

U-jin's second mumble soon followed.

With it, Loxy became aware of her heart pounding like crazy.

She couldn't clearly distinguish whether it was her own or U-jin's.

But one thing was clear beyond any doubt: she herself was being shaken by the immense horror approaching before her.

The blasphemous mutterings bursting from U-jin's mouth were summoning something unknown to this place.

『…You bastard, right now…!! Will you not stop this instant!!!』

The Demon King, as if he knew something, shouted urgently and approached U-jin.

Woong— Woooong—

The stone tablet on the necklace clutched in U-jin's hand was emitting an unpleasant red light and vibrating madly.

Gush—

『Keoheok…….』

Suddenly, blood burst from U-jin's mouth.

But that was no longer important to Loxy.

Nor was the fact that her vision was darkening and narrowing, unable to focus.

Jjeojeok—

Nor the fine crack that suddenly appeared on the stone tablet.

None of it was important.

Rather.

‘…I have to get out.’

The assault of an indescribable horror.

The image of a bizarre entity that flashed before her eyes the moment U-jin chanted the characters.

To be more precise,

Grotesque, monstrous, colossal, distant, and steeped in madness.

Because of that immeasurable, unknown being U-jin was summoning, a primal horror was encroaching from the depths of her subconscious, completely shattering her normal thought processes.

『Ugeugeugeugeugeugeuk—.』

Watching the Demon King approach U-jin with a grotesque sound, like the neck bones of a living pig being snapped backward, Loxy was certain.

If she heard the third mumble that would follow.

‘Right now, from here—.’

It wouldn't end with just gazing at a single scene in a dream.

It wouldn't be something she could escape by simply denying the memory.

It wouldn't end with just peeking into a midnight dream.

Her soul would be torn to shreds by the mere act of witnessing its existence, and she would be forced to join its madness.

She would be unable to maintain her sanity even in reality.

Terrified by the coercion of that distant horror, she might even fail to escape and spend eternity praising the blasphemous thing in this dream.

『■Œº…….』

U-jin's lips parted.

And with the nauseating sensation of bulging tentacle-like things emerging from beneath the approaching Demon King's black mist, slimily wrapping around Loxy's brain, the invading tentacles scraping the grooves of her cerebral cortex with a gurgling sound.

Flash—

“Heok… Haa… Heok… Keollock… Heok.”

Crumpling to the ground, Loxy coughed up a handful of blood as she gasped for breath.

Her wildly darting focus slowly found its place, and her madly pounding heart gradually slowed its beat.

‘…….’

Gasping for air, she felt her own body.

After confirming that she had escaped U-jin's dream, Loxy sprawled out on the floor in the shape of a large ‘大’.

Flop—

And she thought.

How on earth could she describe what she had just experienced?

‘…A dream?’

Shake shake—

‘No.’

It wasn't something that could be summarized with such a short word.

She could swear it.

That experience she just had was not of this world, and it was something that should never exist.

It was, quite literally, otherworldly.

If her escape from U-jin's memory dream had been even a little late, if she had heard U-jin's third mumble, she would have, without a shred of exaggeration, died or gone mad.

‘…….’

It was a monstrous something that one was not even permitted to recall.

Something that evoked a horror so profound that even knowing U-jin was the only one who could explain the awe-inspiring thing, she had no desire to ask him about it tomorrow morning.

The only thing Loxy could say about that unknown entity…

Was to helplessly spit out the word that most blatantly expressed the sense of horror she felt during that unbelievable dream and her adamant will to never experience it again.

…So.

“…Fuck.”