The Academy Regressor is Obsessed

“You fucking bastard!”

A voice loud enough to burst eardrums erupted from the man’s mouth. His face flushed red as if about to explode, and he swung his fist towards Asel.

With a dull thud, Asel’s head turned. His body lost balance and fell into the muddy water. The inside of his mouth tore, and he tasted the bitterness of blood.

Though he was hit on the cheek, the world spun as if his jaw had been dislocated. His head felt strange.

No, maybe it wasn’t because he was hit.

Asel shifted his blurry gaze to the pile of white powder spilled beside him.

A drug that causes hallucinations similar to reality and amplifies magical power when consumed. While far inferior to what nobles enjoy, it was a rare and quite expensive commodity in this slum, difficult to obtain.

And it was also the item Asel had spilled while transporting. Right in front of the person who ordered the delivery.

Of course, the fault lay with the man. If he hadn’t pushed Asel for being late with the delivery, the drugs wouldn’t have spilled into the muddy water, becoming entirely unusable. But the man didn’t care about such things.

“Do you know how expensive this is?! You fucking little shit!”

The man shouted and stomped on the fallen Asel. With each kick carrying the man’s heavy weight, Asel felt like his breath was being cut off. But the pain wasn’t too severe. Probably due to accidentally ingesting some of the spilled drugs.

“……”

Asel narrowed his eyes, feeling the faint pain and foreign sensation in his body. Blood flowed from between his clenched teeth, but all his senses were focused on the hallucinatory symptoms caused by the drug.

A place called Earth. The image of a man born in South Korea, growing up under ordinary parents and living an ordinary life, unfolded before his eyes. The life of the young man, which felt more like a dream than a hallucination, was deeply etched into Asel’s mind.

Instead of sleeping on torn and moldy rags, he sleeps on a soft bed covered with a warm blanket. He complains about disliking food he’ll never be able to taste in his lifetime, and laughs and jokes around with people his own age.

“Die, you fucking bastard! Just die!”
-Is there anything you want to eat?

The voices from reality and hallucination are heard simultaneously.

One side of his vision is red. Blood from his head must have gotten into his eye. But the hallucination remains clear. Though flowing by quickly, everything feels as vivid as if he had experienced it directly.

Then, plop.

“……”

It rains in the hallucination. At the same time, a drop of water falls on his cheek in reality. The young man in the hallucination takes out an umbrella. Meanwhile, in reality…

“Asel!”

Along with a familiar voice, the hallucination disappeared.

Asel shifted his blurry gaze towards the source of the voice. His only blood relative, Evelyn, was running towards him urgently.

Come to think of it, was this delivery area near home? She must have guessed what was happening from the man’s voice and rushed out.

-Rumble!

The sky flashed, and soon after, thunder roared. The world was momentarily tinged blue. The thin rain started to gain strength.

“Stop it!”

As Asel stared entranced at the blue lightning flashing between the dark clouds, Evelyn, who had already arrived nearby, shouted loudly while hitting the man’s back with her small hands.

“I said stop it, you bastard! Stop hitting my brother!”
“Ha! Right, you vermin. I was already pissed off, so let’s just die here. Evelyn, I’ll cut off all your limbs and sell you to a brothel.”

The man said this as he turned towards Evelyn. Fear settled on Evelyn’s face, unable to hide it. Seeing this, Asel groaned and barely managed to raise his body that wouldn’t move well.

The hallucinatory symptoms had disappeared, but the pain-relieving effect still remained. Asel forcibly moved his creaking body, picked up a sharp stone lying nearby, and struck the man’s instep with all his weight.

“Aaargh! You fucking!”

The man screamed in pain, his face contorted as if his instep was being crushed.

The strength suddenly drained from the man’s body. Acute exhaustion and seizure due to external shock above a certain level. It was a typical withdrawal symptom of an addict who couldn’t take drugs. Ignoring the curses the fallen man was spitting out, Asel limped towards Evelyn.

Before Evelyn could say anything seeing his condition, Asel spoke first.

“Sis, let’s run.”
“What?”
“I said let’s run. Quickly!”

Asel frowned and forcibly pulled Evelyn up by her hand. Finally understanding Asel’s words, Evelyn started running in the opposite direction of the fallen man.

“Huff… huff…”

Asel also ran after her. Fortunately, the man hadn’t focused on kicking his legs, so he could still run away.

They ran until the shouting man’s voice became faint. Asel and Evelyn sat down, leaning against a half-broken trash can, breathing heavily. A foul odor wafted from the trash can, but both Asel and Evelyn were already accustomed to this level of stench.

“Whew… Are you okay?”

After catching her breath sufficiently, Evelyn spoke, looking at Asel’s swollen face. Asel was about to say he was fine, but his face contorted due to the pain he felt as the drug’s effects gradually wore off. Seeing this reaction, Evelyn made a tearful face.

“Ow… Does it hurt? Your fingers… some are bent.”
“What can we do? It’s better than being cut off.”

Asel said this and exhaled a long breath.

Physical defects are very common in the slums. Some people voluntarily cut off parts of their bodies to sell, and many were robbed by others.

Thinking about it that way, having a few broken fingers was relatively fortunate. Of course, it wasn’t just fingers that were broken, but it was still bearable.

Those who couldn’t bear it had already died screaming.

“Do you want to go to the doctor grandma?”
“If we go there, we’ll have to starve for a week. Today’s delivery was the first in two weeks, you know.”
“But still…”
“It’s fine. I’ll just take the painkillers we bought before and endure it. It’ll heal on its own.”

Asel muttered this while spitting out the blood pooled in his mouth.

There are hospitals in the slums, but the cost is so insanely high that if you go for treatment and get medicine, you have to survive for days drinking only the dirty water pooled on the ground. It’s better to just endure with the painkillers bought and saved from before.

Asel thought this as he put his trembling hand inside his worn shirt. Then his face contorted.

“Ah, fuck.”

The three painkiller pills he had definitely put in his pocket were all pulverized and rolling around. Some had even dissolved in the rainwater. The painkillers must have been crushed when he was beaten by that man earlier.

But what can he do? He has to eat this at least.

Asel inwardly cursed as he scraped together the sticky, melted painkiller powder and poured it into his mouth.

A terrible bitter taste lingered on his tongue. He wanted to neutralize it with other food, but all that was here was dirty muddy water. Asel sighed deeply and staggered to his feet. Evelyn stood up following him.

“Let’s go.”
“…Okay.”

Asel and Evelyn began walking aimlessly, pushing back their rain-soaked hair. They couldn’t go to the sewer entrance they had been using as home, as that man lived nearby.

So they had no choice but to find a new place to stay. Fortunately, they had a few potential residences in mind from before, so they could focus on checking those out.

-Rumble!!

As they thought this and started moving, the sky flashed brightly, and a low thunder rumbled belatedly.

“……”

Asel stared at the clouds writhing with lightning for a moment, then moved on.

The year Evelyn was 10 and Asel was 9. Their parents, who were usually obsessed with demon worship, chose their own children as sacrifices for a demon summoning ritual.

In other words, they were living sacrifices. A ritual where the stomach is cut open while alive and the organs and heart are pulled out.

Realizing this, Evelyn and Asel left home the day before the ritual and settled in a slum far away from their parents.

Fortunately, their parents didn’t particularly look for Evelyn and Asel. Instead, a week later, the two discovered a newspaper reporting a large-scale death incident and an attempted demon summoning ritual in the village where they used to live.

Three years have passed since then. Evelyn is now 13 and Asel is 12.

To survive in the slums, both of them started working.

Evelyn got a job at a contraceptive factory. It was a job making cheap condoms from animal carcasses left after slaughter.

When she first started working, she spent all day retching and getting beaten by other employees. Now she can make the tools even with her eyes closed.

“Here’s your daily wage.”

The factory where Evelyn works pays daily wages. Even so, it’s an amount that can’t even buy a single fruit in the city.

But Evelyn smiled every time she received money. Sometimes the factory owner, who has anger management issues, would slap her for smiling, but the next day he would often give her a little more money saying he was sorry. Even that wasn’t much.

Compared to Evelyn, who does legal work but earns little, Asel does illegal work that pays more.

A drug courier.

It’s a job where you’re likely to be targeted by those after drugs and easily beaten to death by severely addicted drug addicts.

Moreover, the magic amplification effect of drugs is popular among twisted magicians, so it’s common to be kidnapped by crazy magicians dependent on drugs. That’s why Evelyn tried to dissuade Asel as soon as she heard about his job.

But Asel didn’t listen to Evelyn.

No matter how trashy the slums were, money was still important for the powerless. Evelyn shouted at Asel to quit several times when she saw him return injured, but she eventually closed her mouth when Asel pulled out one or two silver coins with a strained smile.

Time passed like that. Asel eventually became a renowned drug courier, and Evelyn became a well-known skilled worker at the factory.

They earned more money, but it was like sand that disappeared after buying a few painkillers. Life was still impoverished.

The new residence they found wasn’t in great condition either.

An abandoned house full of rats, insects, and stench. Maggots crawling out of moldy walls. The corpse of the house’s owner left in the kitchen had long since become a haven for insects.

They couldn’t clean it up. The corpse, melted by drugs and fused with the floor, would remain there until it became a skeleton unless completely burned.

Still, it’s fortunate to have a roof and walls to shelter from wind and rain.

Thinking about it carefully, living with a corpse in a shack seems better than an open sewer. Asel thought this as he threw insect-infested firewood into the bonfire.

The firewood was partially torn from the walls.

“Cough, cough.”

Just then, Evelyn walked out from the kitchen. She wrapped the cloth on her shoulder tighter and approached the blazing bonfire. Asel chuckled seeing this.

“Cold?”
“Yeah… It’s been cold every day lately. I keep coughing, and my chest feels tight.”
“A cold?”
“Seems like it, ugh. My head and throat hurt too…”

Evelyn said this and buried her face in her knees. Then she spoke in a muffled voice.

“Are you okay? We got rained on together.”
“I’m fine. The broken parts sting a bit, but I can bear it.”
“That’s good, cough…! Ugh, I haven’t been able to go to work for days, what is this…”
“It’s okay. We can still buy food with the money we’ve saved.”
“Is that so…?”

Evelyn, who responded weakly, sighed and picked up a nearby crawling insect to throw into the flames.

“No jobs came in?”

She was talking about drug transportation. Asel didn’t bother to lie.

“None. Seems like I’ll have to rest for a while. I’m sick too.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s right. If you go to work now, you might end up with more hospital bills, right?”
“We just won’t go to the hospital.”
“Will you say that even when you’re dying?”

Asel burst out laughing at Evelyn’s joke. Evelyn laughed back and wrapped her blanket tighter. As she did so, she lowered the corners of her eyes.

The chill she felt was getting worse. Her eyes felt like they were burning, and her eyelids kept closing. Her body was cold but her head was hot. Every time she coughed, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. It felt strange to call it just a simple cold.

But she didn’t show it. Evelyn had no intention of worrying Asel. So she forced a smile.

“Got any interesting stories?”
“Interesting stories?”

Asel hummed and started thinking deeply. Then, as if something came to mind, he looked at Evelyn with a somewhat serious expression and said,

“I think I’ve realized my past life.”
“Are you crazy?”

It was an immediate response. Asel grumbled, avoiding Evelyn’s coldly fixed gaze.

“It’s true.”

A few weeks ago, when he had hallucinations after taking drugs.

He thought it was just a hallucination then, but not now. Asel was convinced that what he saw then was from his past life.

It was close to instinct. Even after quite some time had passed, he hadn’t forgotten anything he saw then.

But Evelyn didn’t believe Asel’s words. Anyone would have been the same.

It’s not like he’s some saint chosen by God. What past life? Evelyn tapped Asel’s forehead with her finger and got up from her seat.

“I’m tired, so I’m going to bed first. You should go to sleep soon too.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Yeah, you too.”

Evelyn lightly kissed Asel’s forehead and went to lie down in a corner. Asel watched her for a moment, then continued to throw firewood into the bonfire while thinking.

‘I realized my past life, but it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.’

His life in his past life. Although he roughly felt and saw those things, there was no immediate change he could feel.

His sense of self wasn’t shaken, nor was he buried in memories of his past life. The only change, if any, was that his head seemed a bit sharper. Even this might be an illusion.

“…Haa.”

After continuing his thoughts for a while, Asel sighed deeply and stopped thinking.

There’s no point in worrying about it right now, it won’t lead to any answers. The memories of his past life aren’t even clear to begin with. Many parts are missing, and the overall flow is strange. It’s like watching some kind of play.

Anyway, it probably wouldn’t be of much help in his current life. Asel cleanly shook off his random thoughts, then covered himself with a cloth thrown nearby and lay down.

The bonfire will go out on its own. The flames fed with rotten firewood often go out quickly if not regularly fed with wood. Asel went to sleep quickly, not minding the fire burning beside him.

The next day.

As expected, the bonfire had gone out. The weather was brighter than expected, and his physical condition seemed better than yesterday.

Asel stretched and approached Evelyn, who was still lying down. He gently shook her body.

“Sis.”
“……”

No answer. Asel sensed something was wrong and his face hardened.

“Sis?”
“……”
“Wake up. Sis, just wake up for a moment.”

Still, there was no answer.

Asel checked Evelyn’s pulse with a sinking feeling, but her breath hadn’t stopped. Rather, her breathing was rough. Her face was red, and her forehead was burning hot as if it would burst into flames at any moment. The symptoms were too severe to be just a simple cold.

“…Ah.”

As Asel’s expression began to sour, a disease name he had seen in his past life came to mind.