The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 47

#47. Anyang Station (3)

The strategy team returned to the police station immediately.

From the moment they faced the ogre, they were powerless.

Even after returning to the police station, Zion couldn’t shake off the shock.

Those monsters had bodies as huge as three elephants standing side by side. Though they had only one eye, their hands were large enough to hold a car.

“Killing them isn’t difficult. Just focus on attacking their legs. When they fall, climb on their backs and cut their necks,” Jaehee said to Zion, sitting on the opposite cot.

She spoke as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Zion glanced at her, then looked away, staring at his fingers.

The indoor temperature wasn’t warm, but the cold had subsided considerably.

It was warm enough that they no longer needed to wear padding indoors.

This was thanks to the workers maintaining a 24-hour combustion [burning fuel to generate heat].

Zion, who had been staring blankly at his fingernails, pulled out a dagger and said, “I’m not trying to kill them. We need to capture them. And there’s no reason to aim to kill them. It’s not like they’ve invaded the police station; we can just avoid the monsters.”

His fingernails were quite long.

Snip, snip.

He trimmed his nails little by little with a military dagger, continuing to speak to her.

“We need to think of a way to capture them.”

Jin Jaehee climbed completely onto the bed and leaned her back against the wall.

She seemed lost in thought, maintaining silence before answering him.

“Their weaknesses are their lower body and eyes. If we can target the ogre’s eyes, we should be able to neutralize them.”

“Neutralize?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. An ogre without eyes can’t do anything. It can’t move, it can’t hunt; it just does nothing, like a rock. And the only part that doesn’t regenerate is the eyes. That’s why they’re relatively easy to hunt. If you just attack their eyes, they’ll sit down and do nothing.”

Clip-clop-.

Zion continued to cut his nails with the dagger.

“The internal situation has been somewhat resolved, and now we need to produce results externally. The police station’s leadership wants to achieve new accomplishments.”

“Did they say something to you again?” Jaehee raised her voice slightly.

“They won’t have anything left anyway.”

Councilman Gil Inho and the police chief thought they were using Kang Zion, but Zion was using their power instead.

Everything was according to plan.

None of Zion’s actions deviated from the plan.

Jin Jaehee asked him as he trimmed his nails with the dagger, “What are you going to do with those people when you seize control of the police station?”

“……Well.”

Snip-!

Zion accidentally applied too much force and cut his finger.

Bright red blood trickled down his finger.

Suck.

Zion sucked on the fingertip.

Then, he answered nonchalantly, “I’m going to kill them all.”

He pressed the cut finger with a cloth that was next to him.

Then, following her lead, he leaned against the wall and raised his head.

Zion probably doesn’t realize how terrifying his expression looks to others when he raises his head and looks down like that.

Even if that’s not his intention.

Slanted and dark eyes, tired eyes as if he hasn’t slept in days, black hair without any dye.

And the downward gaze made even Jin Jaehee swallow hard.

Zion removed the cloth from his finger and finished speaking.

“……Except for the doctor.”

He was a person who left no loose ends.

* * *

From the day I discovered the ogre’s habitat, I headed to Anyang Station every day.

The strategy team reduced its size.

Until the main event, there was no need for them to go on the offensive.

Therefore, the only ones on the strategy team were me, Jin Jaehee, and Choi Myungjoon.

I was the only one observing.

Choi Myungjoon was the porter.

His bag was full of items needed for the investigation, and Choi Myungjoon, carrying it, kept puffing on cigarettes.

Jin Jaehee monitored Choi Myungjoon and the surrounding monsters or refined artifacts.

Then, when Choi Myungjoon asked what it was, Jin Jaehee coldly told him to ‘get lost’.

Meanwhile, time continued to flow.

I continued to watch the ogre’s actions.

The act of picking its nose, scratching its butt, defecating, turning over, playing with the corpses it picked up, eating the corpses, staring blankly at the sky for no reason, fighting with nepenthes [tropical pitcher plants], climbing the walls of Anyang Station and falling, and even observing scenes of some survivors passing by being helplessly eaten.

Everything comes from observation.

Results come from observation.

I’ve always lived that way.

Studying, school, manual labor.

For the first day or two, I quietly observe the people around me or grasp their way of thinking.

Studying? Reading? It’s the same.

What the subject of the book is, what habits the teacher who teaches with that book has when teaching children, the type of questions asked, frequency, difficulty, and even their personality.

Even whether the teacher teaching me now is in a bad mood, a good mood, just teaching casually, whether listening to the teacher’s class is a waste of time, or whether it’s better to just study on my own.

I grasped everything and invested time.

In middle school.

People called me a genius.

I denied it.

I wasn’t as quick-witted as them, I didn’t have a good memory, and I didn’t understand mathematical formulas at a glance.

I just observed.

Equations, functions.

I found out through observation as well.

How equations solve numbers, how functions solve numbers.

Why the problem was asked this way, and what kind of solution is closest to the correct answer.

When there are three paths in front of me, which path is the fastest and safest.

For a day, two days, three days.

My observation continued for days.

And I wrote it all down in a small notebook without missing a thing.

-The lower body is weaker than the upper body, but there is no problem supporting the overall body.

-It goes hunting three times a day, hunting human corpses, creatures, and trees.

-It does not eat living creatures. It always kills them before eating.

-The eyes are round like human eyes, and there are blood vessels in the whites of the eyes.

-The eyelids that protect the eyes are so thick that you could believe they are thick leather armor.

-If there is a slight change in the eyes, it takes it seriously, stops its activity, and identifies the foreign substance in the eyes.

-It is not active at night.

-The color of the stool is dark yellow.

Before I knew it, the notebook was filled with observation logs about the monster.

* * *

Swish, swish, swish-.

Zion’s pen sound continued to echo.

His ogre observation log was not enough with just one notebook.

He observed with his eyes and immediately transferred it to paper.

He did the same actions in the same place, writing them down on paper.

As if that observation was not enough, Zion even observed the monster until night.

He needed to know what the monsters who lost their sight were doing.

Without that information, killing them was out of the question, and capturing them was close to impossible.

The four ogres moved again at dusk.

It was a new movement other than hunting or exploring the surroundings.

The ogres went into the collapsed Anyang Station.

They were going down to the Anyang Station underground shopping center in a line, one by one.

No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t make sense for the huge monsters to use that narrow place as a nest.

With their bodies, it was such a narrow space that they would have to crawl, let alone walk.

There must be a purpose.

Zion needed to know that purpose.

And today, he was about to leave the rooftop.

“Let’s go.”

Zion checked his equipment and grabbed the rooftop railing.

Choi Myungjoon, startled by his voice, came over and asked, “Hey, hey. Hyungnim [term of respect for an older brother or male friend]. Where are you going?”

“Underground shopping center.”

Zion was looking at the ground, and Choi Myungjoon, standing next to him, continued to ask, “There? Why? I clearly saw those monster bastards going in? No, observing until evening is okay because we’re on the rooftop anyway. But if those guys hit you in the head with their fists, you’ll turn into a tomato right away. Are you saying that knowing that, Hyungnim?”

“That’s why I’m going in.”

Zion checked the ground.

Snow was piled up to the second floor above ground.

It was difficult to just walk to the underground shopping center, so he had to go down the nearest underpass.

Zion called Jin Jaehee.

She came to him immediately.

“We’re going to enter through exit number 6. Get as close as possible to the building near the entrance where those guys went in, roughly……”

Zion checked his watch and said again.

“……We’ll observe until 3 AM. Is that too much?”

Zion asked her if it was too much for her to protect him from external threats, and Jaehee understood his intention.

But Jaehee nodded right away.

“Leave it to me.”

Zion nodded, confirming her intention.

He tightened his bag straps and retied his shoelaces tightly.

Since he was going into the monsters’ lair, he needed to be fully prepared.

Zion walked towards the rooftop door.

At that moment, Choi Myungjoon reached out to grab Zion’s shoulder.

“Wait, wait a minute! Hyungnim!”

Whoosh- Thwack!

At that moment, Jin Jaehee grabbed Choi Myungjoon’s hand, which was reaching out to Zion, and twisted it in the opposite direction.

Choi Myungjoon, completely caught off guard, screamed.

“Ugh……!”

“I told you not to do anything stupid…… I clearly told you……?”

Jin Jaehee was glaring at Choi Myungjoon as if she was going to kill him.

“Hey, you X [expletive]…… B [expletive]. It’s not doing anything stupid, I’m just grabbing him for a second. Let go!”

Squeeze…….

Instead of letting go at his shout, Jin Jaehee twisted it even more.

Zion, hearing Choi Myungjoon’s scream, was about to grab the rooftop doorknob but turned around.

“Let him go.”

At Zion’s words, Jin Jaehee immediately let go of Choi Myungjoon.

Choi Myungjoon got away from her and muttered, “Ah, Xbal [expletive]. She’s damn fast.”

Choi Myungjoon grumbled and carefully rotated his swollen wrist.

Kang Zion took a step towards him.

Then, in a low, dry voice, he asked Choi Myungjoon, “Is there a problem?”

“There’s a problem…… There are fucking many problems…… Hyungnim…… Ah. My wrist.”

Choi Myungjoon frowned as if his wrist still hurt and looked at Zion.

Zion wasn’t making any expression.

“Hyungnim. There’s something you’re mistaken about…… You clearly said that I would be useful to you.”

Zion didn’t answer.

“But Hyungnim. I can’t beat those big monsters either. Huh? It’s not like I’m a UFC world champion. No, even the world champion can’t beat that.”

Zion still didn’t answer.

“Going into the underground shopping center is clearly a suicide mission, but you’re asking me to go in with you? You’ll die if you just go in. Hyungnim. Do you know the Colossal Titan? The anime I used to watch when I was young. Ah, damn it. We’re going to end up just like that? Hyungnim. You…… I’m grateful that you got me out of jail to protect you. Huh?”

Choi Myungjoon sighed heavily as if he was frustrated and continued to speak.

Even so, he didn’t look Zion in the eye.

Even Choi Myungjoon, who had lived his whole life in the fighting scene, couldn’t look Zion in the eye.

That’s how fierce and sharp Zion’s eyes were.

The emotions Choi Myungjoon had now were normal.

What Zion was trying to do now was the same as committing suicide.

Even if he was a former gangster who had lived his whole life in a fighting scene where steel pipes and wooden sticks were wielded, he couldn’t help but feel fear about the death right in front of him.

But there was one thing Choi Myungjoon was seriously mistaken about.

“I know. You can’t beat those monsters.”

Zion took another step towards him.

“I also know that you’re a weak punk.”

Zion took another step towards him.

Now Choi Myungjoon had no choice but to meet Zion’s eyes.

Because Zion was looking up at him right in front of him.

“Did I get you out of jail to protect me? The mental strength, willpower, and the innate body that you maintained even though you were locked up for so long. You’re a porter. A strongman. I judged you as the strongest labor force and got you out of there. Do you understand? Protect you? You protect me?”

“…….”

Choi Myungjoon’s pupils shook.

On the other hand, Kang Zion’s pupils didn’t shake at all.

“You can’t protect me. Don’t be mistaken.”

Hearing those words, Choi Myungjoon was speechless and blankly stared at Jin Jaehee.

She had an appearance that didn’t offer any reassurance.

She didn’t have any muscles, she didn’t have a gun, all she did was wear a sword, but she was receiving his trust.

Choi Myungjoon couldn’t understand.

Leaving Choi Myungjoon standing blankly, Zion sighed briefly and said, “You go back to jail now.”

“Hyungnim……?”

“If you don’t follow my words, I don’t need you. And don’t ever touch my body again. I can’t forgive even one finger. Do you understand?”

With those words, Zion walked towards the rooftop door.

“Hyungnim. No, that’s Hyungnim.”

Zion took a few steps and turned back to Choi Myungjoon and said, “Ah, yeah. You can run away now. But…… Is there anywhere to go besides jail? The outside will be full of monsters.”

“……That’s Hyungnim! I’m sorry……!”

Zion turned coldly in front of Choi Myungjoon and walked towards the rooftop door.

Jin Jaehee followed him.

When Choi Myungjoon tried to follow Zion, Jin Jaehee glanced back, grabbed the sword hilt, and threatened him.

“If you follow me, I’ll cut you.”

Choi Myungjoon froze at her cold voice.

Squeak…… Thud!

The rooftop door closed, and Choi Myungjoon knelt down on the spot.

He let out a rough breath.

(To be continued in the next episode)