The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 20

## 20. Guilt (1)

“Cough! Cough…!”

I coughed twice, my body failing to support me.

Lee Se-beom rushed to my side, steadying me.

“Hey! Are you okay?!”

“Haa… Haa….”

Leaning on him, I looked ahead, my vision swimming.

But I could clearly see Jin Jae-hee finishing off the remaining Blue Team soldiers.

Thank goodness.

If it weren’t for her, our Red Team would have… Ugh…

Suddenly, my vision went black.

My consciousness slipped away as if the film had been cut.

Joo-yeon, gun in hand, quickly approached and began tending to my wound.

I gasped for breath, a tingling sensation as if my lungs weren’t getting enough oxygen.

I felt a chill.

“Se-beom, lay him down. Put something soft on the floor.”

“Okay.”

“Hurry!”

“I’m trying!”

Se-beom quickly moved, covering the floor with clothes before gently laying me down.

Only the dark ceiling was visible.

And the worried faces of Lee Se-beom and Lee Joo-yeon.

Joo-yeon examined my condition, touching me here and there.

Then, she turned to Se-beom.

“It’s shock. Secure his airway.”

At her words, Se-beom lifted my neck.

“Sss… Haa… Haa!”

Only then could I breathe properly and begin to grasp the situation.

Joo-yeon looked at my wound, her expression troubled.

Se-beom asked Joo-yeon.

“Noona [term of endearment used by a younger male to an older female], what should we do?”

“…We, we need to take the knife out.”

Lee Joo-yeon was talking about the knife still lodged in my thigh.

Frankly, I could breathe, but it was becoming difficult to even hear their voices.

Lee Se-beom reached for the knife.

Lee Joo-yeon stopped him.

“Wait. If the knife hit an artery, he could die from excessive bleeding the moment you take it out.”

“Then what should we do?!”

“Leaving it in isn’t good either because of the bleeding. Eventually, we… we have to take the knife out…!”

“What are we supposed to do!”

Lee Se-beom’s voice was laced with anger.

Lee Joo-yeon closed her eyes tightly and shouted.

“I… I don’t know either! I’m not a doctor! All I know is first aid I learned in the military.”

“You have to do something! Or we’ll die!”

“What…?”

Joo-yeon looked back at Se-beom, surprised.

Se-beom shouted, his anger rising.

“The rule! Did you forget?! If the king dies, we all die too!”

“That’s… not the problem. Se-beom, you…”

“Cough!”

My cough cut off their conversation.

Joo-yeon knew she couldn’t delay any longer. She leaned close to my face and whispered.

“Don’t lose consciousness. Keep breathing and don’t let go of the tension in your body. I’ll do my best to do something, so hold on no matter what. Until the moment I let go.”

“Hee, hoo… Heuk…!”

I nodded twice.

Now I could barely hear their voices.

I focused on holding onto my mind, just as she’d instructed.

Lee Joo-yeon asked Lee Se-beom for something, and he instantly ran off.

Lee Joo-yeon stayed by my side, gripping my hand tightly.

I returned her grip with all my strength.

Honestly, I was terrified.

The fear of never seeing my younger sibling again was greater than the fear of death itself.

But I would survive.

No matter what.

After a while, Lee Se-beom returned, breathless, and handed over the items.

I saw the object, but my vision was too blurry to make it out clearly.

Soon, Lee Se-beom grabbed the handle of the knife.

Each tremor of his hand sent waves of unbearable pain through me.

Joo-yeon raised her finger and began counting down.

Three… Two… One.

In that instant, Lee Se-beom yanked the knife out in one swift motion.

A scream erupted from my throat, an unintentional, instinctive reaction.

“Aaaaaaack!”

Lee Joo-yeon immediately pressed a clean rag she’d found somewhere firmly against the wound.

As if that wasn’t enough, she wrapped the blood-soaked clothes tightly around the area closest to my body, creating a makeshift tourniquet.

She pulled it with all her might.

Kkuuooooh-!

Lee Se-beom handed Lee Joo-yeon a needle and blue thread.

It was a needle and thread used for mending clothes.

Lee Joo-yeon said something to Se-beom, and he took hold of my right hand.

With both hands now free, Lee Joo-yeon began to suture the wound.

She swallowed hard, repeatedly piercing the needle through my flesh, pulling it taut, and tying it off.

After that, everything became a blur.

It was like watching a movie while half-asleep.

Their figures were visible, but my mind couldn’t process anything.

I was only aware of the ceiling, Lee Joo-yeon, Lee Se-beom, and the faint tremors running through my body.

After what felt like an eternity, Lee Se-beom released my hand, and I finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

* * *

“Gaaaaack… Aaaack… Puhuhu…!”

Kim Dong-gil tried to spit out phlegm but burst into laughter.

He didn’t even flinch as the blade pressed against his neck.

Jin Jae-hee frowned and slashed his right shoulder in one swift motion.

Seogeok! Ppusyut.

Blood gushed from the wound.

Kim Dong-gil laughed again.

“My stomach is pierced… What’s going to change… if you cut just one shoulder…? Stupid… bastard….”

His words were slurred and pathetic.

Jin Jae-hee retracted her sword.

“I can make it more painful. From fingernails to teeth, and if you just ask, I can even pluck out your eyeballs. You won’t need your ears either.”

Seueuk-.

Jin Jae-hee knelt, meeting Kim Dong-gil’s eyes.

Kim Dong-gil trembled but stared back defiantly.

“You must be in a lot of pain right now. I know. You probably just want to die quickly, to the point where you want to beg me to kill you.”

Jin Jae-hee’s tone was as cold as ice.

She spoke without emotion.

“I’ve cut down a lot of people. Really a lot of people. So I also know how to kill someone instantly, without pain… From here to here.”

Jin Jae-hee gently traced her finger across Kim Dong-gil’s neck.

“If you strike the loosest part of the neck bone with a blade, this connected part, you can die without pain. This is the last mercy I’ll give you.”

Kim Dong-gil stared blankly at Jin Jae-hee, then laughed again.

He spat.

“Tweh.”

His thick, bloody phlegm landed on Jae-hee’s right cheek.

It trickled down her face.

Jin Jae-hee remained unfazed.

“…How many people’s intestines, blood, and saliva do you think I’ve had on this face so far? Did you think you could provoke me with just some spit?”

Jin Jae-hee sheathed her sword and grabbed a dagger lying on the floor.

“I’ll cut off your ears first.”

“…You look like an idiot.”

“From the beginning, the king cannot be changed… And if you, who have been acting like a king until now, are not the king… Did you hide it on purpose to screw with us? It’s only a matter of time anyway.”

Jin Jae-hee continued to question him, but Kim Dong-gil remained silent.

Kim Dong-gil thought to himself.

If he couldn’t be at the top, no one could.

For him, there were only two possible outcomes.

Everyone lives, or everyone dies.

In the end, he chose the latter.

Jin Jae-hee, about to cut off his ears, stopped abruptly.

Even for Jae-hee, who was living her second life, the scene was unbelievably bizarre and irrational.

“Eungeueukgieueueueuk…!”

Kim Dong-gil was sticking out his tongue.

He was biting it, drawing blood.

His lower jaw moved violently, and his eyes were bloodshot, staring at Jin Jae-hee as if he wanted to kill her.

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards.

Wuduk!

He severed his tongue.

His pupils rolled back, and he died.

Jin Jae-hee was powerless in the face of his self-destruction.

She simply removed the knife from his ear.

* * *

The war between the Blue Team and the Red Team was over.

The Red Team had suffered heavy casualties.

Out of 32 people, only 12 survived.

But the Blue Team was completely wiped out.

Without exception, even those who were trembling from injuries were annihilated.

The Red Team had won, but they remained silent.

“Ugh… I killed someone… I killed someone… Ah….”

“Uwek! Eoeoweuk!”

Most of them were vomiting, while others sat in despair, sobbing.

Lee Joo-yeon and Lee Se-beom were tending to Si-on.

Most of them were consumed by guilt.

Among the survivors, no one had escaped without stabbing someone.

The only surviving middle school girl from the Red Team held a knife, silently staring at the corpses.

The corpses were friends from the neighboring school, people she had met here and formed a connection with.

The bodies of her friends were slashed with knives, their eyes wide open in death.

The girl asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“What… what happens to us now?”

She wasn’t asking anyone in particular.

She just hoped someone would answer.

But there were no more ‘adults’ here, as defined by society.

They were just weak beings.

No one answered the girl’s question. They simply sobbed or clutched their heads in anguish.

At that moment, a commotion erupted in one corner of the warehouse.

“Hiiiik! S, save me! Save me!!!”

A Blue Team member who had been pretending to be dead in the pile of corpses had been discovered.

Kwon Kyung-soo stood before him.

The man appeared to be in his forties and was uninjured.

He grabbed Kwon Kyung-soo’s pants and begged.

“Please save me, please save me…! Please save me! I, I, I have a middle school daughter. I, I have.”

Kwon Kyung-soo couldn’t bring himself to meet the man’s eyes.

He closed his eyes tightly, avoiding his gaze.

The man cried even harder.

“W, w, we shouldn’t do this… Huh? We’re the same people from the Republic of Korea [South Korea]. Really… Does it have to be like this? Huh??? Heoeong.”

The man began to cry like a child.

He sobbed as if he were a child begging his parents for a toy.

“Heoeong! Heoeoeong… Please… Please…!”

Kwon Kyung-soo thought, his eyes still closed.

Did they really need to fight this much?

The situation was over anyway.

Wasn’t that right?

Kwon Kyung-soo reached out to help the man up.

Just then, Jin Jae-hee approached the man.

Blood dripped from her sword.

Sensing her murderous intent, Kwon Kyung-soo blocked her path.

“Wait a minute! Do we really need to kill an opponent who has already lost the will to fight?”

“Will? Until a moment ago, he was filled with murderous intent. Did you forget? If the situation were reversed, that man would have held a knife to your neck.”

“But that didn’t happen. This is the reality now. Any more unnecessary killings…”

“Unnecessary killings?”

The air grew heavy with Jin Jae-hee’s rebuttal.

She took another step closer to Kwon Kyung-soo.

“Don’t pretend to be nice. You killed someone just a moment ago, didn’t you? Did you kill them because you had no choice? And this is an unnecessary killing?”

“Ah… Ah….”

Kwon Kyung-soo’s face paled.

He remembered the recent events.

Jin Jae-hee had single-handedly cut down dozens of Blue Team members.

Kwon Kyung-soo had witnessed it all.

The woman before him was a being beyond human.

He couldn’t help but feel fear.

Jin Jae-hee pressed her advantage.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just trying to relieve your guilt.”

“……”

Kwon Kyung-soo was powerless against her words.

He couldn’t offer any answers or excuses.

Jin Jae-hee wiped the blood from the corner of her lips with the back of her hand and continued.

“If you understand, get out of the way. I’ll do the killing.”

Jin Jae-hee moved to pass him.

In that moment…

Tak-!

Kwon Kyung-soo grabbed Jin Jae-hee’s hand.

Jin Jae-hee stopped and glared at him.

“Okay. I won’t make excuses that it was an unavoidable murder. I won’t make excuses even if it’s to relieve my guilt. It’s just… it’s just not okay anymore. No more killing. I can’t allow it!”

“…Take your childish hero act somewhere else. Let go of my hand. Or I’ll cut you.”

“I can’t let go. Cut off my hand instead.”

“You think I can’t?”

Jin Jae-hee clicked her tongue.

It would be easy to break free.

Jin Jae-hee tried to wrench her hand away.

She was prepared to cut off Kwon Kyung-soo’s arm.

But at that moment, a figure emerged who silenced everyone.

Puk!

“Keuheok! Eoeoeulk… Kak…!”

Turning to look, they saw the Blue Team man with a knife protruding from his neck, trembling.

The person who had stabbed him was none other than the surviving middle school girl from the Red Team.