Five Time Regressor Walks the King’s Path - Chapter 10
Chapter 10
And with those words, Sword Queen disappeared.
After she vanished, I walked straight through the field and returned to the orphanage.
The knights were coming tomorrow.
That meant I had to figure out how to resolve the witch’s grievance before then.
‘I was right. I should’ve chased away that old man.’
But there was still a chance.
All I had to do was to follow the person coming to pick up the adopted child.
With that being said, I waited silently among the children.
“Now, everyone. Today, Tonian is meeting his new parents.”
They’re here.
After waiting and waiting, the time had come for the fifth child to leave.
The witch’s mouth was smiling, but something about her eyes looked sad.
I saw Tonian off with the other children.
The one who came to pick up Tonian was a woman in her mid-thirties.
With a smile, she took Tonian’s hand and left the orphanage. I parted from the group and shadowed the two.
After walking for a long time, the woman and Tonian, with skewers in each hand, entered a building.
The woman was introducing the place to Tonian, explaining that it was her home. The child followed without any wariness.
‘Let’s see.’
Right after Tonian went inside, I checked the windows of the building.
The first floor didn’t have any windows, but the second floor did.
Utilizing my mana, I searched for an empty room. When nobody was watching, I leaped and crawled to the window like a certain spidery superhero. I broke the window and entered the building. The interior was plain.
I explored with my sharpened hearing, and soon was able to hear footsteps that sounded smaller than others.
A child’s footsteps were lighter than an adult’s.
There was only one child in this building, so that helped.
‘Basement.’
I was sure they said it was a demon summoning ritual.
Thinking that they sure didn’t pick a place outside my expectations, I looked for a way to the basement.
All of a sudden, the sound of Tonian’s footsteps became a bit unstable.
I was sure even the kid started to feel something was off.
Following the footsteps, I found a way down to the basement. In front of the entrance to the basement, two men were chatting.
They looked like guards, but they were small fries, so I simply acted like a lost child.
“What the… Hey, why is there a child here?”
“Huh? Isn’t he the kid Sir Descartes brought?”
“What are you talking about? That kid went in earlier.”
The two must have felt something wrong, but one of them approached me, brushing off the uncertainty.
“Hey, kid. I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t a place you should be in.”
And the moment he was right in front of me, I smacked him on the back of his head.
I held back a lot of my strength, but the guard’s head was still drilling a hole in the floor. He was knocked out with a single blow.
I spoke with a clenched fist.
“How dare you treat me like a child. You low-life scum.”
Of course, still in a child’s body.
“Huh? Uh, uhh.”
A second after the other guard made eye contact with me, he was knocked out the same way.
After lightly subduing the two guards, I opened the door and began to slowly descend the stairs.
Come to think of it, there was no reason for me to hide my identity in this place since the witch can’t find out.
They must’ve created this path especially for me, because the way down to the basement was straight, which allowed me to drill every guard to the floor on sight.
If I were them, I would’ve made the passage complicated. At least more than what I was seeing now.
“Ahk!”
A man who was close to pissing himself saw me, falling back on his butt.
He must have been terrified to see me punching holes in the wall using the heads of the guards.
It was evident from his expression that he’d lost all will to fight.
‘There’s no need to even deal with small fry like him.’
I had that thought, turning my body around…
When I noticed a sword flying toward my chest.
The blade was covered with aura, and the one who threw the sword at me was smiling.
In my own world, where time seemed to have stopped, I stared at him long and hard.
‘This guy…’
Who was it?
“Seems like a skill that changes your face.”
Seeing that he was using aura, it was clear the person was a regressor.
But why would a regressor target me…
“This bastard.”
My eyes narrowed to slits.
BONG!
The second the blade made contact with me, a weird sound resonated throughout the room.
“Wh—”
The aura sword could not pierce the aura wrapped around my body and bounced off.
In other words, it meant the difference in power between me and that guy was comparable to the distance between heaven and earth.
At that moment, something engulfed my body.
‘Gravity.’
Was this the D-rank skill, Gravitational Field?
Amidst the heavy pressure that tried to weigh my body down, I scratched my head, feeling unimpressed.
“Hey, you. What are you doing?”
The regressor’s eyes widened.
“Fuck.”
He cursed and tried to run away with the Gravitational Field still activated, so I concentrated my mana into my toes.
BANG!
Soon after, the scream along with a ringing sound echoed through the basement. He was slammed head first into the floor, plunging through the ground.
The guy’s body shook and he stubbornly raised his arm to use Gravitational Field.
“EUAAK!”
I broke his arm before he could make a move.
With his arm grotesquely bent in a way it shouldn’t bend, he let out a muffled scream. His face twisted in a mixture of pain, disbelief, and fear.
As if he didn’t expect me to go this far.
“You’re a Yashin, yeah?”
My deep voice was layered with aura.
In an instant, my voice bound him, and the regressor’s face turned blue as if he was choking.
I watched him with my crazed, glinting eyes and pulled his hair with my aura-covered hand.
And just like a mask, the skin on his head seemingly melted away and ripped off. He then collapsed.
The skill couldn’t withstand my aura.
I recognized the guy who had just collapsed.
Though he became a child under the influence of the Constellation, his face remained the same.
One of the former Yashin elite.
Designated name, Heretic.
That guy was here.
“Heretic, long time no see.”
“Lightning… Emperor.”
I could hear him spitting the name out through clenched teeth.
Perhaps it was because he was acquainted with me in the past, but his face was even more contorted.
“How did you get that kind of power…?”
“Where is Yashin?”
Ignoring his insignificant question, I pressed his head further into the ground.
The boy struggled in my hold and shouted.
“You think I’ll tell you? You?!”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
Hearing Heretic’s response, I took my hand off his head.
Perhaps my action was not what he was expecting. He didn’t waste the opportunity and immediately escaped from me, while I showed him a bitter smile.
“My guess is… Someone will see me clearing the Floor with tremendous speed. That person will then report to Yashin, which would lead to an assassination order. About right, no?”
“If you know, why let me go?”
“Because that ‘someone’ is you.”
I tiled my head and side-eyed him, speaking with a dark smile.
“Go report… to Yashin.”
And I put a hand on my chest.
“That I will conquer Crown Road. Go ahead and try to stop me. But if you fail to do so…”
Aura rose up from my hand, and Heretic flinched from seeing the sparks fly.
It was because he knew how much highly-concentrated mana was put into creating aura.
“…You will die by my hands. You felt it first-hand, so you should know, right?”
These words were a declaration of war against Yashin.
‘Come at me anytime.’
Was what I was saying.
Heretic’s eyes fired up seeing my confidence.
“I’ll make sure to have you take those words to your grave.”
And with that, Heretic disappeared.
B-rank skill, Teleport.
Skills ranking from F through E could be obtained by challenging Floors, but skills above those could not be obtained through Floors alone.
Each skill had its own criteria, and only when the criteria were met could a skill be obtained.
“Deliver my message well.”
But that didn’t matter to me.
Whether they came with an SSS-rank skill that only Emperor had, or even something higher.
Because they won’t be able to defeat me now.
I turned my head and placed my hand against the final door.
Right as the door opened, allowing me to see inside, I saw the wrinkly man with his arms stretched out to the sky, muttering. Tonian was lying on a magic circle drawn with blood.
“£ €=£{÷` °£¶¶_¢ ×|=€ <€ = € { ¢.”
The old man didn’t even notice me and continued to act like a crazy bitch, mumbling something no human could utter.
Finally, he looked up to the ceiling with his eyes popping open.
“Oh, OOOH! Oh Lord Demon, please devour this sacrifice and murder the first prince in cold blood!”
What he got was a kick to his back.
“Then first, let’s switch up the sacrifice. Why don’t you lay there instead?”
“Euuah?!”
After getting kicked by me, the old man fell flat on the magic circle. He looked very surprised at my unexpected appearance.
However, as if his back went out, he stayed down, laying there while shouting at me.
“How dare you! What in the world are you doing?! Do you even know who I am?!”
While he was busy screaming his old head off, I walked right past him and busied myself getting Tonian out of the magic circle.
As soon as the magic circle started to turn red, the old man raised his head and tried to get out of the magic circle.
Freeze.
But even that action was stopped by me.
I piggybacked Tonian and stayed standing up in front of the oldie with an amused smile, and he copied me by putting a confused smile on his face.
After my hand drove his arm into the ground where the magic circle was engraved, he couldn’t help but let out a scream.
“If you want to sacrifice others, shouldn’t you offer yourself first?”
“Y-You, you! Is there anyone out there?! Catch this bastard! Quickly catch this evil spirit wearing the mask of a child!”
Of course, there wasn’t anyone coming to his rescue.
All of them had their faces buried in the ground or the wall.
The old man knew now that he was in the deepest shit he could possibly get sunk into.
Reddish hands rose above the glowing magic circle and crabbed the old man’s legs and arms.
He immediately caught on and struggled all his might.
“No! NO! Wait! I said wait! I am no sacri—!”
And in an instant, he was sucked into the floor, only leaving behind an echo of his scream.
I watched from the side, and feeling a different energy, I immediately looked up. There stood a man with a translucent body and a dark red cloak.
Two horns protruded up from his head.
The strange being slowly opened his closed eyes and spoke.
“Human, tell me your wish.”
The demon who appeared after the old man’s sacrifice asked.
Rubbing my chin at the unexpected request, I replied.
“Clearing Crown Road.”
“……What is that?”
Tsk.
“Then increase the number of wishes to 100.”
“I cannot. You get only one wish.”
Tsk Tsk.
“Send me back to Earth.”
“What is Earth?”
“Fucking useless ass piece of dogshit.”
When I spoke my honest thoughts, the demon frowned.
“If you make fun of me once more, your life will be in jeopardy.”
“Fine, okay. Then except for that shriveled old man, return the four children he sacrificed before.”
Hearing my wish, the demon narrowed his eyes.
He started stroking his chin.
“What a strange wish. This is the first time someone ever wished to return the previously offered sacrifices.”
“So you can, or you can’t? Just give me an answer.”
“Hmm, well, since their souls are in my possession, it is possible to return them. However, it is impossible without exchanging for another soul.”
At the word “soul”, I was awed.
An unintentional harvest. I pointed toward the stairs.
“There are a lot of people out cold over there. What about them?”
“……Mm, I suppose that can work. Although the price of a child’s soul is priceless, souls corrupted by lust are also worth a fortune. I will make this exchange.”
“You are a useful guy.”
Except for the fact that he was a demon, we spoke the same language.
Soon enough, the demon’s body began to spit out children one after another.
As I said in the beginning, there were four children, those who had been used as a sacrifice.
“The exchange is complete.”
“Wait, hang on.”
Seeing as the demon was going to disappear immediately after, I raised my hand and stopped him in his tracks.
He sent a questioning look in my direction.
“You still haven’t granted that old man’s wish yet.”
“What are you talking about? Wasn’t the wish to bring the children back to life?”
I clicked my tongue at his obliviousness.
“No. That was an exchange. Even you, with your own mouth, said this was an ‘exchange’, right? In that case, that means we only made a fair trade. But the old man’s wish that was proposed in advance didn’t come true, correct?”
“That…”
“I’m sure a demon like you isn’t trying to take your share and scurry away, yeah?”
He looked at me as if it was his first time seeing a guy like me.
“So, properly grant me a wish.”
