Regressor Instruction Manual

Chapter 1418. Aina Peneloti (9)

“Are you... actually insane?!” I insulted him.

“Calm down and don't be shaken, Lee Ki-Young. It’s nothing but a trivial error,” Commander Jin said, reassuring me.

“You’re the one who looks the most shaken, though,” I pointed out.

“How absurd,” he commented.

I had no choice but to think that there was no one more agitated than this bastard. His eyes looked unusually anxious, and his voice no longer sounded as confident as before.

I looked closely at his face and saw beaded cold sweat trickling down behind his ear.

Naturally, I had to yell.

“Damn it! You’re telling me we can’t get out because there’s an error?! What the hell?! So if an error suddenly compresses this subspace, we both just die here? You think saying it’s a simple error fixes everything?

"I’m already going crazy from how suffocating this place is. What’s wrong with the cooling system anyway? It suddenly got hot here! Damn it!”

“...”

“What the hell?! You've been strutting around, acting like you’re so great and bragging about having basic skills and refined skills. You even spat your famous lines, but you don’t even have the basic skill of debugging?! What have you been doing all this time?” I continued.

“...”

“This is why people need to be humble. You put on all kinds of airs, but when it really matters, you fall flat on your face. You’re in no position to badmouth Kim Hyun-Sung. Come on, fix it already!” I complained.

“Damn it! I’m already working on it. And I told you this space isn’t complete yet. Damn it! This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been yapping like a deranged chihuahua next to me!” he yelled.

“I’ve never seen a mage who messes up a spell just because someone is a bit noisy next to them, except maybe those mages during the tutorial dungeon. What? Did you devolve into a primate? Even Park Deok-Gu wouldn't make a mistake like that if he were to somehow become a mage. Truly incredible. Absolutely incredible, sir,” I said sarcastically.

“Damn it! Does this look like an ordinary spell to you?! The problem is that of all things, it was you muttering a bunch of nonsense next to me. Damn it! You've been yapping and yapping. I usually don't make a mistake. Damn it,” he complained.

“Since you've made that mistake, then fix it! Damn it! What exactly are you doing right now?!” I questioned.

“It’s not that simple!” he shouted.

“But earlier, you said it was a trivial error,” I said.

‘This bastard is getting all worked up without a shred of shame.’

It was probably because we had to stay together in this cramped space. From his perspective, it was probably a situation worth fainting over. I couldn’t know exactly what kind of error he meant, but judging from how nervous he looked, it clearly wasn’t just a simple spell gone wrong.

It was only natural for me to think that something got tangled up somewhere in the coding. This entire space had to be built on an incredibly complicated formula to begin with.

It worked fine when he was the only one using it, and he had probably compressed the formula into a spell using some key activation words or something, but once the variable called Lee Ki-Young was added, everything changed.

Thinking about how rough the process of dragging me here was in the first place...

‘He rewrote the formula.’

I assumed this subspace was never designed to contain guests. While quarreling with Aina Peneloti, he had to have created a brand new spell that allowed one more person to enter the room, and in the end, the existing spell had to have caused issues with the new one.

Of course, he was probably confident that he could fix it—no, he was definitely confident that he could fix it. He made the formula himself, so adding a new function midway had to have seemed as easy as pie to him.

‘He realized it wasn’t working, didn’t he? It's not going so well.’

In the end, it was probably an accident caused by trusting his own brilliance too much.

Since there was a coding error somewhere in the middle of the formula, I had no idea how long it would take him to fix it. It was annoying for me, but it was just as annoying for him since he had to spend a long time here with me.

He couldn’t even be sure when this ordeal would end, so of course, it wasn't strange to see him acting like that.

‘But that’s his problem, not mine.’

Naturally, I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and threw it at him.

“I clearly told you not to touch anything, Lee Ki-Young! Damn it!” he yelled.

“Bring me food, you jerk! Damn it!” I yelled at him.

“What?!”

“Are you deaf?! Bring me food! You threw it away earlier, damn it!” I yelled at him.

“You... you lunatic!” he shouted.

“What did you just call me?!”

“What?”

“Whaaat?!”

“You... you... you...”

“WHAT?!”

A battle of wills began. Since we were going to fight, it was standard procedure to try to seize the upper hand.

I obviously had the justification on my side.

There was no reason to avoid a stare-down with him, nor was there any need to back down.

I had to be more confident. He knew he was in the wrong, so he had no choice but to retreat. As expected, it didn’t take long for him to quietly avert his gaze.

“Just wait a little,” he said, sounding sad.

“I’m going to shower, so set the table,” I instructed him.

“...”

“...”

‘He can glare at me all he wants.’

“And bring out some wine, too,” I added.

I obviously deserved this treatment. The only small problem was...

‘This jerk... is at a loss for words.’

It seemed this jerk had forgotten how to have a conversation. I couldn’t tell if he was sulking or if he just thought speaking would put him at a disadvantage, but the moment our eyes met, he'd look away in a hurry.

Even so, it wasn’t as if he had stopped doing what needed to be done.

Once I was done using the bathroom, he would go in right afterward to clean it. He even brought me three meals a day without fail, along with good-quality wine or the tea he liked to drink.

Then, he would pour his remaining time into fixing the subspace.

He looked so desperate that he even seemed a little pitiful.

‘He’s getting thinner by the day.’

I was honestly worried that he would end up dying from the stress at this rate.

In stark contrast, I felt bloated and heavy every single day.

‘Damn, I’m full. He’s pretty good.’

The ridiculous thing was that he himself wasn’t eating; I had already taken the bedroom, so he looked like he was catnapping on the sofa, and even then, he barely slept.

Whenever the window he kept open like a TV stopped working, he would mutter “damn” and go back to work.

There was barely any progress, so it wasn’t surprising that he was growing more anxious; he was behaving in a way that didn’t suit "Commander Jin" at all. Even so, he answered my questions without fail.

For example...

“Have you already explained our situation to the others?”

“I already told them, so don’t worry.”

Or...

“What’s tomorrow’s menu?”

“Mapo tofu.”

“We had that yesterday. Make something else.”

“Dongpo pork.”

Or...

“Is it... going well?”

“Don’t worry.”

“Anything I have to know?”

“The window might stop functioning. It’ll be inconvenient, but bear with it.”

Our conversations were like that. There was nothing to complain about since he left me alone, and things were comfortable enough for me, but I felt that a drastic measure was needed.

It really felt like this guy could end up keeling over, so I had to do something.

‘I should at least sing him the Cheer Up, Dad song.’

The change began the next morning, and it started with a simple breakfast.

It was Jin Cheong’s gently simmering egg soup.

It was better to just serve it to him rather than try to make a big deal out of it.

“Here’s your breakfast,” I said.

“Wh-what?”

“I said here’s your breakfast,” I repeated.

“...”

“You haven’t eaten in ages,” I said.

“...”

“Should we play a quick game of chess after we eat?” I suggested.

‘Look at this bastard nodding.’

He never said it out loud, but I knew things had been hard on him. It even felt like the mental pressure was making his work go worse, so I figured it was right to give him at least a bit of breathing room.

“And show me what you’re working on. Who knows, maybe I can help,” I requested.

“I’ll handle it myself. It’s built with the formulas I use, so it will not be easy for you to understand. And...” Commander Jin paused.

“Yes?”

“It’s slowly getting fixed, so you don’t need to be so anxious,” he reassured me.

As expected, this bastard would only work efficiently whenever he was being treated properly. Bit by bit, arrogance and confidence began filling his eyes again, and his anxious face was slowly disappearing. His rapid shift in attitude was almost baffling; after wasting so much time, he was now acting as if he could solve everything at any moment.

After I let him win a game of chess, he became even more full of himself.

“You’ve improved quite a bit, too,” he complimented.

“Ah, damn it!” I shouted.

“Hahaha... hahahahaha,” he laughed.

“No, damn it, play it again. What was that bishop, damn it?!” I shouted.

“Your field of vision is still narrow. As I always say, charging in blindly is not the answer,” he said.

“Ah, how did you know?! That was totally—”

“Wasn’t it obvious? It was a move that showed your hand completely. You struggled more than expected for someone like you, but in the end, there’s an unavoidable gap in skill between us. You see? This is what happens when you challenge me,” he interrupted me.

“Damn it! One more game!” I demanded.

“Unfortunately, I have no time. I’m already pressed for time with the work,” he said.

‘He’s getting more and more full of himself. It’s annoying, but it can’t be helped.’

Soon, I saw him throwing himself back into work. Just a few days ago, he was crouching in a corner fiddling with something, but now, magic circles stood out clearly around him. He was putting on a show. The way he showed me how hard he was working was almost bewildering.

He stood ramrod straight. It had always been excessively proper to begin with, but his gestures and movements now carried a strange sense of discipline.

It was like he was shrouded with exaggeration—no, it looked like the word "exaggeration" itself was taking over his mind.

Watching him dismantle formulas that had remained unsolved until now wasn’t just astonishing but downright disorienting. It was to the point that it was hard to understand how he was unraveling them so quickly.

He was different from Jung Ha-Yan. In Ha-Yan's case, she wouldn't understand and solve such formulas; she instinctively knew the correct answer to them, so there was no need for her to understand them. She just had to solve them.

However, Commander Jin wasn’t like that. He was undeniably the type of person who could be called a genius, but he accepted magic as an academic discipline. That was why the scene unfolding before me right now was so surprising.

The speed at which he was solving the formulas was almost as speedy as Ha-Yan's.

Soon, I heard him say, “Get ready.”

“What?” I asked.

“It seems to be more or less finished,” Commander Jin informed.

“This fast?” I questioned.

“It was a small issue,” he said.

So what was all that struggling until now then?

“Well... that just means it wasn’t that big of a deal,” he added.

He really was a shameless show-off.

When we entered this place, it felt like being sucked in, but now, it felt as if something was spitting us out. Contrary to how confident he sounded, I still felt dizzy and exhausted, and just as I was coming to my senses, someone lifted me up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Shh.”

Instead of answering, he turned his gaze somewhere else.

I naturally followed his eyes and saw a familiar figure.

“...”

“...”

“Pastel?”

However, she was no longer the Lady Pastel I knew.

The scar running long across her face, cutting over her left eye, stood out to me at once. To make matters worse, the light in that eye had faded away, making it blind. She was a little taller than before, and instead of a flowing dress, she wore gear that looked like something a mercenary would wear.

‘What happened... overnight?’

No, not overnight. She wasn’t the only thing that had changed. The surrounding scenery had changed as well.

By the time I realized that at least several years had to have passed, Pastel asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“...”

“Did that disgusting Paint send you here?” she asked.