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i-bring-crack · 8 months

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[Deal with the Devil]

TLDR : Regressor! Cha Hae-In / E Rank Sung Jin-Woo

[Thirty-third Regression.]

Her eyes clear off the tears that have been piling up just now. Hae-In doesn’t spend her time crying anymore, just sobbing. In a few years, even the tears themselves would also dry up.

The phone watch rings again. At the same time. Same place. Same routine that she follows every single decade.

[The ■ wishes you good luck this time.]

[■ warns, you only have 50 turns left.]

Hae-In changes clothes, pulls up a mask and a cap before heading out. She doesn’t have to see this world for the next 10 years again.

This time–She thinks in a void of other sleepless thoughts as she vagabonds the streets—it will work out. The plan was working fine in the last timeline until Choi Jong-In died under a trap made by the Queen of Bugs.

[The Plague Monarch.]

If she can get him to evade all of those traps, then the next fight with the Dragon General: Eclipse will be far less risky to survive from. Then there are other things Hae-In wants to be careful of.

The Echo Forest.

The Chambers of Poison.

The Cannabis Fields.

She has a lot more to do after the war than she expected in her last regressions. Hae-In takes out the sword from the Guild’s armory and puts it inside her bag, placing the Juk-To in the sword’s holder instead. Zips it right up and counts the seconds before another person tries to come inside.

Hae-In’s smell and her constant knowledge of the future had kept her well versed in everyone’s actions, at least for the first two years. From slight movements to the bigger actions that could lead South Korea into a catastrophe. Her eyes and smell are as careful and aware of their surroundings as those of a cat.

The door closes, and another soon opens. No one knows what happened inside.

***

The red gate opens, cracks of lightning striking the earth and leaving cracks of mana all around them. She can feel the horrid mana coming out from the gate, her sense pick it up from memory even though she is standing in the subway now. Her body mentally prepares itself to bring the fight as Hae-In checks her armor again.

Gems of the Astir Orc tribe. She embedded her sword with some mana stones to gather more magic in any emergency case. The satchel by her waist has Nycro bandages. Velvet medicine from the Sparkling moons made by her mixing in the last materials she had. Everything was just dull work compared to what the proper army had, but she didn’t care, it was enough.

Leaning back in her chair, Hae-In smelled the surrounding air again. An atmosphere free from the polluting mana.

It’s 3 am.

No one is here.

Or so she thinks.

The doors open. Someone sits on the subway to the other side. Hae-In doesn’t move from her seat. The hearing heightens as the small set of footsteps enters the subway. The head tilts and freezes when he looks at her before going back to look around the place and quietly sit on the other side.

Passing by, she can smell something, but even her senses aren’t able to pick it up by much. Her nose wrinkles as she can feel the air change a little. Yet she can’t feel any hunters around this place. She also knows there wouldn’t be any kind of hunter coming here to begin with.

The subway moves again. Only when the train passes through the tunnel does she open her eyes and set her sight straight.

The pupils widen.

330 years is enough to tell her what kind of people are mentally prepared for the future. From a glance she can perceive those who will manage to survive through the apocalypse, or at least see the very end of it. Her mind doesn’t doubt it when she meets them. After all, she has seen the world’s strongest crumble and the weakest live through another awful day. She has seen the death of humans and monsters, killed by their own kind as well as herself.

This man, her eyes flash with a bright glowing iris as the mana around them rises and the boy still doesn’t notice her powerful presence around him...

He will be the first to die.

Maybe he has even died beforehand. She doesn’t remember seeing him in the past timelines, as well as hearing of any other non-awaken survive in the first three months. It takes a moment for her to notice then that the man —who could pass for a high-schooler— sitting at the front, is a hunter due to the tiniest of smells that her body almost misses for a normal human’s scent.

D, maybe E. she can’t think of many hunters who will be weak enough to get hurt as much over a raid. He doesn't seem like the type to even do it for fun either or a risk-taker that learned his lesson the hard way. The man had his shoes burnt, a cheap pair bandaged over time and time again. Street lights disappeared from time to time like a flickering bulb inside a moving train. His eyes slowly moved to look at the pants, in some parts stitched up, in others the dirt still tainted on it. His body leaned closer to the side, almost falling before flinching and coming back up again.

Hae-In kept her eyes slightly closed so as to not let the man think he had seen him. Her hair resting on the side of the cushioned cloak. She still got a good grasp of the rest of his clothes. Rags of white and a blue jacket left with deep holes while his skin remained intact. Either his clothes are horrible or there was a healer around to help him get out of trouble.

It could be both.

¡Clink!

Hae-In stood up in the middle of the train, her head still covered by the mask and the blue hat. Before she grabbed something from the satchel and handed it over to the seat of the boy.

She didn’t need this anyways.

“Ah… I—”

“Keep it.”

His eyes finally met her’s, a pair of gray with a hint of more darkness, due to the night, widening as he moved to look at the dagger and then at her. “But this…”

She didn’t care for what he would say anymore, hours and days are counted. She had no more time to waste around like this. With her bags inside, she walked out of the subway and the young man was left there to ponder over the sight of the new dagger.

Their meeting would remain silent until the apocalypse reached the borders of South Korea.

***

“Sir, was this a good idea?”

Go Gun-Hee could feel his heart stumble, the sickness overwhelming him as he looked on at the remaining corpses of the S rank hunters, all except three people who had walked out of there alive. The fourth raid was a massive success, just as she had known it to be so, but by bringing Min Byung-Gyu and Choi Jong-In alive, as well as letting Goto escape, it was good enough.

She didn’t care anymore at the sight of Jong-In and Byung-gyu holding back their tears. In her fifth regression, she had broken down when all of them had died except her. In the twelfth, she had chosen to stay back and let them all escape. None of them survived.

Gun-Hee quietly watched them. His lips turn into a frown and a sigh escapes him again, the acid lumps of his stomach take a hold of his heavy heart. Tears grow on everyone’s eyes except hers.

On her 20th regression, she had learned to fake the cries for the news and outlets as they talked about the destruction of Jeju, and how she ‘wished it could have been her' instead of everyone else’. She doesn’t care anymore, sorrows are long gone. Hae-In is the first to walk out of there even as Gun-Hee tries to call her back, asking—

“There are gates that have yet to be closed. I won’t attend the funerals either. I have work to do.”

—the same things as always, to the point she had memorized her answer.

“She must really be going through it, too.” Jong-In tries to take away the attention, as he had done for these past few months. He is just as quick to notice her attitude change by a wide margin as he had been in the other timelines. Neither of them says it, but they are thankful for each other’s quickwittedness.

***

"¡AGH!"

The monster pushes her to the ground, it tears away one of her fingers, coughing up the blood from her chest, she suddenly sprints away and looks back at the cut of her finger. In a cave nearby made from an apartment’s rubble she burrows inside and takes out a bandage from her waist. easily tearing it down and cutting off the blood circulation from her finger.

Out of nowhere, an earthquake found its place around her, and she quickly grabbed her sword before jumping away from the collapsing building.

Now outside of the place, she could see the giant banging his hands as he lost the ability to see and was trying to find her so as to eat her whole.

That was how Hae-In had almost lost a leg were it not for her shielding her body with the sword, and from the recoil of that pressure as Hae-in held most of her force in one hand, a finger was sliced off instead.

Hae-In looks around the place quickly, more giants are out there to hunt her down, she needs a tunnel, a safescape, a burrow. Her eyes quickly land on a certain destroyed school burned up in flames.

The ground shatters as Hae-In breaks into another tunnel. These escape routes were once made for students during a dungeon break, now all of it was littered with human remains and the casual hunter crying among them or hoping not to die. Hae-In wrapped the handkerchief around her face. The small footsteps run through the bloody floor before debris falls on her.By the look of it, there must have been some people alive before they were found out… Lizards? or maybe the people had gone crazy and killed themselves. Everything here seems like a bloody waste, beasts would have eaten the leftover skin, lizards would have looted all the trays of food and clothes here. Whatever happened here, she had been late to save them, again. Hae-In takes leap after leap to avoid it all, her eyes scanning the last remains of visible light before the entire hall collapses.

Little more, just a little more—

She falls on her step, slipping in the blood of a middle schooler, falling hands first on the corpses of the youths as the rocks smash her face. Hae-In takes another jump as the rocks fall to the ground. Her hands just barely make it to the light, the even ground.

Gardens, paradise, shelter. Four fingers stretching out to the rubble only to end up grazing the floor.

Again. It was time to repeat this world again. She will hit the ground, shatter her skull and let her soul return back to another lost decade. The 34th Regression will start soon, waking up by the same clock, on the same bed. It's been so long since she had a good night sleep, should she just stay in there a little more before it's all destroyed—

"Ah!"

Two bandaged hands held out her arm. Small debris crumbles as the person holding her hand almost falls to the ends of the earth too. Hae-In looked back at the guy as he grunted and breathed heavy chunks of air in order to pull her back.

Once she could see the platform close enough for her other fingers to reach, she pulled herself off and let the guy take a break as she stood on even ground.

His eyes widened like those of a rabbit when they met hers.

"..."

"Thanks." Hae-In soon got up from where she almost died, in an instant she was back to her normal routine, with a cool headed expression and a rough voice. There was not much time to hang around here anyways.

"W-wait—" The guy tried to grab a hold of her but she moved with such simple ease that he almost tripped on his own feet before jolting on to the cuff of her sleeves.

Hae-In turned her head around.

"I... thank you."

Her head tilted to the side.

"Do I know you?"

The man felt quiet before shaking his head and grabbing the dagger on his waist.

"I... some time ago you—" He took a deep breath. "You gave me this a long time ago. Although you probably don't remember and I– I wanted to thank you since."

Hae-In looked at the dagger with frowned eyebrows, still trying to remember when she gave away that dagger.

"Can I go with you?"

Her lips moved into a frown. "There is a refuge for Hunters in the North. You can reach it through the sewage tunnels." They are the last place where the magic beasts would appear. They were also the only place that one could seek refuge. Most underwater monsters weren't big enough to begin with or wouldn't have a capable means to survive in those places. If the man was smart enough to survive through these three years, then she wouldn't doubt that he would be fine going through the canals in a week and finding his own help there.

"The lines made by the A and S rankers will guide you."

Choi Jong-In should be there too. Alongside Byung-Gu, those two could hold out the fort between Korea all the way to China for a good amount of time. So long as the ant king didn't destroy them.

Hae-In turned around to leave again.

"You aren't going to the fort?"

"No."

"Wait wait!" This time he launched on to her arm as if he was just witnessing a suicide plan in his very own eyes. Hae-In wasn't planning to die right away, obviously, but he didn't know that. She didn't want to think much of the thoughts that were running through his mind either as he noticed as he paled upon seeing the cuts and bruises that surrounded her. The bandages almost showed even deeper wounds that would make the man gag.

"¡Why?!"

"...I have to do some things."

"Ah…"

The man pulled her again, this time Hae-In didn't hide the frown that was forming on her face.

"T-Then can I– Can I go with you."

"You can't."

"But it'll be dangerous to go alone…" To whoever she was going to. But she also wasn't someone who would be easily killed by magic beasts like him. If there was any place in this world that was the safest to be in, it would be next to her, next to an S rank.

Hae-In looked at the time of her watch, the long arduous journey that was about to come when she stepped outside of the tunnels. She, somewhat, understood why he wanted to latch on to someone here. In her first Regression she did almost everything to make sure every person in this world survived. The second Regression she simply hid away and let the world rot. Coming back to those times, someone as desperate to survive would also be yearning for the comfort of not dying alone.

She grabbed the man, clenching his shoulders and pulling him close so as to smell the mana that he emitted.

As if she had just been hit by an arrow, her eyes opened wide and she pulled away with an amused look on her face. The other was just as confused and a bit embarrassed by her closeness as well but only the flushed face was shown.

"Who— What's your name and rank?"

"Sung Jin-Woo. E rank!"

An E rank.

Alive.

What a miracle.

What a curse as well.

Hae-In couldn’t possibly think of any way he could have easily survived through all of this, especially when E ranks were the first to be killed during this war. Neither does she think it would be easy for her to take care of him, as lucky as he has been all his life. However if he were to just be left here…

No, Jong-In, Byung-Gu, even Jin-Chul would be a better safer choice for him. Hae-In had as many enemies as she had wounds. He would be in danger. Both of them will.

"I can cook! And I can help you out with your wounds!"

She blinked, the guy didn't say anything else and simply lowered his head again.

"You will be safer anywhere without me."

"...Maybe." It was a hard take, she was the one who knew best actually, just from a mere glance he could already tell the many battles she survived, even her smallest cut on her face would have been lethal for him. "But at least it's better to have someone to help you out, right? I won't try to be a burden… This time… Please… You can just throw me out whenever you wish but please I—"

I don't want to be alone anymore.

***

Sung Jin-Woo, an E rank, about 25 years old when the apocalypse descended, since then he doesn't remember how many days have passed since then. Maybe he is 28 now then, but Hae-In doesn't care to tell him, it's nothing of importance since they will all die either way. Anyways the man apparently has had an awful life even before the apocalypse began and he awakened as an E rank. Since Hae-In had forgotten how to talk to people in so long, Jin-Woo would offer up to fill in that space with his own talks. With that is how she came to know a lot more about him than what that feeble body of his let to be known.

For starters, she had guessed he was just awfully lucky and probably a rich man’s son, as he was one of the people that survived his catastrophe inside that school. Now she got to hear that he was there to guard that school since one of her sister’s friends and him were the only hunters out there. But slowly, the food became scarce and other people began to kill each other for what little was left. aAt the end he was the only one alive because he ran away to another building nearby and ate what the other beasts left.

Before all of this though, he was a hunter, a man nicknamed the weakest hunter of all mankind. He was useless everywhere he went and would constantly get hurt trying to make ends meet. The only reason he did this for? His sickly mother, now dead, and his sister in highschool, now dead too.

The rest of his family had never been a part of his life, and his father, he was just a man that got stuck inside a gate 10, no, 13 years ago.

“After that, why did you keep surviving?”

“...That’s quite a hard question to ask someone Hunter-nim.”

Before she could apologize, the young man got to her

“... Why do you still live here too?”

Hae-In became speechless, not because she didn't have an answer, but because such a reason wouldn't be believed.

“It's the same reason too Hunter-nim, why I keep living.”

Back to the present, Jin-Woo stopped at the sight of some mana infused plants, making Hae-In also stop her tracks as soon as his faint smell was nowhere to be seen from him.

"These plants aren't all that tasty at first but they help clean away any toxins inside a Werecat's meat."

"How do you know that?"

Jin-Woo turned his eyes away from the long leaves that grew on these new trees, all filled with a wave of pure mana around them, their colors fragmenting into a clear emerald and glassy blue.

He smiled. "I saw some smaller beasts wrap the intestines of a dead jackal once." Then he tried to cut some of those leaves with the dagger Hae-In once gave him. It was his now, he seemed to have made it truly his. "I admit, I was scared of it at first, but I was really hungry and I didn't know what else to do, so I wiped the blood very thoroughly and then grabbed some fire from outside."

Hae-In took a few of Jin-Woo's leaves from his hands, wrapping them in a cylinder shape to make more space for other things.

"It's actually quite tasty. If there was some salt right now it would taste like a normal steak."

"Hm." She could guess in the next Regression she could compare them so as to see if Jin-Woo was right about that. For now, they just gathered all the food around here. Who knows if the next day everything would be taken by other magical beasts. Now was the best time to hoard as much as one could.

"Hunter-nim."

"Hm?" Hae-In didn't look at him, she was busy turning her mana into a light that would let her see which eggs had an edible substance to them and which were entirely empty.

"Do you think that one could tame a magic beast?"

Her stare was as cold as the ice from South Korea’s mainland that never escaped to the outer reaches. "They aren't dogs, Sung."

"I know but—"

"They will kill you when they grow up."

His own face seemed like that of a wet puppy, it would be a miracle if he managed to actually tame one. Although, everything he does is already a surprise, Hae-In probably wouldn't find it odd if all the sudden he wanted to take care of a small werewolf out there. Still, it was better to not take a risk like that.

The rest of the day was spent in silence as Jin-Woo gathered all the things in his backpack and put the yolk of the babies inside a vase, it was better than carrying those shells after all.

"...How have you been?"

Hae-In tilted her head as they both sat down on a broken home. The building nearby was a maze of broken metals and floors that were held by the last firmament of the walls. Only tiny beasts would walk around here, those that would only be a terror to someone like Jin-Woo, and roaches to Hae-In.

"I mean if your wounds are fine now." Jin-Woo said as he showed an awkward smile.

"They are fine now."

"Oh. That's good. We still have more of the paste so if you want to use more of it so that your wound can heal faster…"

"It's alright." Hae-In pulled out the sword from her waist instead and took off some of her armor to lean next to a destroyed cushion. Jin-Woo on the other hand grabbed a small coat made from a werewolf's skin. He then wrapped his body around it and headed over to her side.

The closeness was more for survival means than anything else, although Jin-Woo easily had grown to like in less than a day as he would finally feel a deep wave of mana that doesn't threaten him in the least. Instead of the aura hunting him down like the chills of a rabbit hopping the fangs of a wolf don't eat him away, he felt secured. He felt as though the wolf had come to care for him instead and could now lay next to him with any problems.

Still, Jin-Woo didn't try to touch even the smallest graze of her fingers, and he was fine with that. It would be too selfish of him to try and get close, to try and hold her hand as she sleeps so that his nightmares fade away. Even when they were in the same room, trying to bandage up his wounds and callously working on other things for the day, he felt as though his presence was too much. A burden. Always a burden since the first day his father died.

Gently, he covered himself with the gift of his savior and glanced back at her one last time.

"Why don't you use the cape as a sheet?"

"It's inconvenient." Hae-In had muttered to him the first few days. He kept trying again and again tso that she could be the most comfortable out of the two while sleeping, but she shook her head in disapproval everytime. Three excuses always came when he asked why.

"It hinders my movement." In the case that any beast would attack, but Jin-Woo didn't believe it really since he was fine getting up quickly inside the wolf's skin.

"This place is hot." It was hard to attest it since Hae-In did have half a point. During the day the weather would be so hot that even the places were not able to dissipate from all that heat. However in the night it was quite cold.

"My body can resist these weathers" Ah. Well she was an S rank. It still didn't mean Jin-Woo felt bad about her not using the wolf skin instead, especially when they were heading to the north, and the poles would likely have extended their snow to long distances. Or maybe have banished completely. There was also the cold air that came from Seoul.

Looking towards the length of her shoulders and measuring the distance of her neck to her legs, Jin-Woo thought that, maybe, he could do something to help her with that place.

Then something else caught his eyes and deprived him of any sleep instantly.

"Your head."

Hae-In looked at the ruined cushions and put one on her head before looking back at him. As if asking if this what made his eyes go wide like those of a rabbit. Jin-Woo had a hard time speak instead, swallowing some of his saliva and then jumping straight to where the backpack was.

“What…” Hae-In touched her head, the long fingers running through her putrid, cut short hair, and discovering something among the dust, dirt and blood that piled up.

“oh.”

The metallic smell and constant punctures to her face was something she was used to, so sometimes she would end up not noticing some of her wounds around her body unless another person pointed it out to her about it or she knew it when it was too late.

Hae-In turned to Jin-Woo who was already coming close but didn't try to touch her or the wounds unless she let him.

“It's fine.”

Jin-Woo formed a face of disgust as she kept touching the wound, trying to get a feel for the magnitude of it.

“Stop touching it, hunter-nim, it will get infected.” He tried holding back from taking her arm away and raising his voice, his nerves wishing to jump straight to her aid. Maybe he should. “Please stop touching it.”

“No.” She saw the man had almost the same attitude of caring for medical treatment as Byung-Gyu, however, this really wasn't much, and she didn't want him to still look at her like that. “Really, it's fine.” His muscles relaxed when she started speaking in a softer voice than normal, only for his stress to come back again as she finished her sentence.

“I can just peel my skin off when we get to the base. Healer Han would be able to take of this–”

“Hunter Cha, please take this seriously!”

Cha blinked at the sudden outcry.

“Last time it was the same thing!.. I let it go because you did eventually heal with no infections–but what if we don't find them there!? What if no one can heal you the next day!?” Tears almost fell from his face.

The place suddenly became cold as Jin-Woo realized what he had just done. Yell, once, twice. His hands trembled alongside his lips but those eyes didn't take their gaze away from her own.

Hae-In looked at the blood in her hand, wet and sticky, now that it reached her neck and she focused her senses, she could feel the sensation of it similar to a wall leak. Jin-Woo didn't move from his spot.

The hunter closed her eyes for a long time before opening them and turning to the other side, her face invisible from Jin-Woo’s angle.

“Do what you wish.”

“Hunter Cha…”

“You can bandage me.” It doesn't matter either way. As long as he's the one that doesn't get it, then its fine.

Unlike her, he isn't trapped forever in this hellfire.

As Hae-In closed her eyes, Jin-Woo’s careful hands, filled with so many cuts and wrapped bandages everywhere, started to work on her head, softly shifting the strand of blonde away from her wound.

“This will be done quickly. I promise.”

***

“You came back. You actually managed to come back.”

Jong-In no longer had any flare in his eyes, one of his arms was still holding an orb and the other…

“Min Byung-Gyu is dead.” He said as soon as he noticed Hae-In’s eyes trail towards his left side.

“Ah.”

“Han Se-Mi is still recovering so you can't ask for her healing either.”

“Recovering from?” Her dead eyes met him again.

“That big Ice Elf wiped half of our group out. We couldn't reach Russia in time.”

“Ah.”

It was all she knew what to say. It truly irritated him.

“By the way, what is up with that dagger?”

For a second, Jong-In almost saw her eyes tremble before going back to that numb state.

“Nothing. “

It couldn't be nothing.

“Is everyone here?”

“Yes–”

“Alright let's go.”

“Go where?” Jong-In stopped her from going to the back door, his anger piling up again. “The blocks are filled with monsters! All our escape routes are closed! Where the hell do you think we can even go anymore!? No one is safe anymore, no place is free from those fucking silver wings and monsters fighting each other and killing us in the middle of it!! So WHERE ELSE CAN WE GO?!?!”

“The ocean is clear.” Hae-In’s tone was somewhat dazed and deep.

“There is that fucking demon of an ant out there–”

“No.”

His voice fell in disbelief. “...No?” Could it be that he has been killed by a passing giant? No, even then he was stronger than most of them. So “How…”

“I killed him.” She was almost about to choke on her words.

“Wh..what.. How..” When none of them managed to win, when almost 15 S rankers appeared on that raid and none of them managed to…

Her eyes were back on the dagger.

And he was quick to understand that expression again, the same one she had when she had to make a choice between saving Jong-In or Yoon-Ho.

You had to sacrifice someone again.

#HELLO ANGST #yeah this p robably has a part two who knowssss #cha hae in #solo leveling #solo leveling au #regressor cha hae in au #'people be going though shit'#the fic #choi jong in #baek yoon ho #min byung gyu #sung jin woo #jinhae #angsty jinhae #possible hinted choibaek who knows really

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