The Regressor's Notebook – Episode 9
Endex (1)
A cypress forest twenty minutes on foot from Endex. With clear mountains and a stream behind it, and the cityscape spread out before it, there stands one particularly luxurious villa.
A dwelling of roughly a hundred pyeong, built with pocket money by five people who had grown up together since childhood. Too spacious to be a hideout, too open to be a secret room.
“My dream is——to be a Guardian Knight of Libra.”
In the living room there, a man was doing an impression in a deeply lowered voice.
“Kwahahaha—! Wow, I’m dying laughing because of that guy.”
With reddish-brown long hair and a large body reminiscent of a moon bear—the eldest son of the Trachsil family, ‘Kane Trachsil.’
“But isn’t that bastard a loyal subject? Raised in a Libra orphanage on Libra’s money~ A Guardian Knight of Libra. That’s a killer story.”
This time, it was the blond pretty boy lying in a hammock, ‘Esher Dread.’
“Loyal my ass. He’s a fucking nuisance. Those kinds of guys actually hurt Libra’s image.”
The mana stone family Trachsil, which controls dozens of mana stone mines across the continent, and the Dread conglomerate, ranked fifty-second in the Edsilla business world.
Young masters raised in the utmost privilege.
“Hey! I thought he looked better than before!”
Of course, she couldn’t compare to Raye, whose family itself was enormously wealthy.
Raye, the treasured only daughter of Hilton, crossed her arms as she recalled Sion.
“Sion shaved his head completely... Something’s different about him. I guess he had special training during the break.”
“...Pfft!”
“What kind of special training could that vermin have done?”
At those words, Esher quietly twisted his lips, and Kane wore a face full of scorn, simply dismissing it, when—
—Rustle.
Footsteps as silent as snowflakes falling.
“...What are you talking about?”
A softly rising voice.
The three turned to look at the same time.
The railing of the second-floor staircase.
Golden hair holding a white light draped down, and luxury artifacts like rings, bracelets, and necklaces rippled like small waves.
“Must be fun. I can hear the laughter ringing everywhere.”
Elise Petra.
The daughter of the Petra medical family, undoubtedly at the extreme end even in Endex, where all kinds of talents and the wealthy gather.
“Elli~ Are you done studying~?”
“Move.”
Raye ran to try to hug her but was stopped, and Esher raised himself from the hammock.
“Ah. It’s nothing much. That friend Sion was doing comedy today. ‘My dream is to be a Guardian Knight of Libra,’ kehehet.”
“Is that funny?”
Elise asked coldly. Esher immediately shut his mouth.
Raye coughed hem-hem.
“Right. What are you guys laughing about anyway? Laughing so loudly? It’s boring, boring~”
Esher scratched the back of his neck and made an excuse.
“Ah, yeah. Th-that. Sorry. You hate that loser bastard, right? I just—”
“What makes you say I hate anyone?”
For a moment, Elise’s expression stiffened slightly. Esher flinched, his shoulders trembling.
He had touched a sore spot by mistake.
Elise hated Sion, that loser. So much that she didn’t want anyone to know she hated him. No, so much that she wouldn’t even acknowledge her own feelings of hatred.
“Why would I hate a vagrant like that?”
Fortunately, she cut it off without much reaction and trudged to the coffee machine. Esher glanced at her and let out a sigh of relief.
“Elli. Pour me one too.”
Elise handed the coffee she had just poured to Raye.
“Thank you~”
“But why did that retard apply for the College Board without graduating? Does he really think he can go to university or something?”
Kane muttered as if he were genuinely curious.
“Don’t concern yourself with it.”
Elise replied, tapping the floor with the tips of her slippers.
“He’ll disappear soon anyway. He might get hurt or die. Dozens of people die every year during the College Board.”
It was quite a brutal remark. Kane coughed ahem, and Raye sipped her coffee without a thought.
“Elli, this coffee is delicious. You bought a good coffee machine, right? Right?”
“Rather than that, wouldn’t it be better to study instead of worrying about strange things?”
Throwing a rebuke, Elise climbed the stairs again with her cup.
“Let’s study together~”
Raye followed her, and Esher and Kane stared blankly at their retreating figures.
“...Sigh.”
Truly, a friend who grows more dazzlingly beautiful with each passing day.
Even if her personality is something else.
“Hey Kane. Hasn’t Elise changed a lot since her dad became the head of the clinic?”
Esher asked, and Kane answered.
“She’s always been like that, dumbass?”
“Ah, fuck off.”
* * *
Endex. One week before the semester starts.
I wandered around the school grounds, picking up odds and ends and discarded furniture. Chairs, drawers, desks—if they were even slightly intact, I brought them all to my temporary dwelling and disassembled them.
—The skill I’ll introduce today is ‘Curved Wave.’ The Curved Wave technique is a finishing method for wood in curved forms...
I borrowed all the necessary tools from Old Man Veltos, and made full use of the woodworking skills I learned on Ubitiy.
I dismantled and reprocessed broken desks and door panels to make a bed frame, built a fireplace with discarded bricks, heat insulators, and sandy soil from the back mountain, and tore off wooden tiles from the old building to make desks and chairs.
There was a sense of accomplishment, but I was happiest when I found an intact mattress at the recycling center.
Because a mattress is something I can’t make with my current skills.
Thanks to that, my temporary dwelling became roughly livable.
A bed pieced together like a patchwork from materials of different colors and textures, a fireplace serving as a boiler with firewood for fuel, and only chairs and desks, but well.
The rent is free, so this much is more than I could ask for.
Ah right, I also got a new phone. I only had fifty ren in my possession, but I paid it all in installments.
Thus, housing and communication were solved, but a bigger problem than that was food.
Crazed hunger.
I am a body that wouldn’t be satisfied even eating six meals a day.
At first I considered hunting mountain beasts, but gave up. Tracking, hunting, butchering, preparing, grilling... I felt like I’d starve to death in the process.
So I turned my attention to job postings.
Among them, the highest-paying hourly wage was at a successful BBQ restaurant near Endex.
I ran straight there and had an interview.
“It seems like it might be a bit hard for you. You’re so skinny. Do you know how much work there is at our place?”
The work was miscellaneous tasks besides washing dishes.
The owner seemed doubtful, but I spoke with overflowing confidence.
“So what?”
“...Huh?”
“Just give me lots of food instead.”
The owner hired me, saying I was full of spirit.
The work was actually quite a lot.
Tremendously so.
Hundreds of dishes and countless grill plates poured in every hour, but for me, it was extremely easy.
There was no need to even utilize Luksido.
There is nothing I haven’t done, and among them, manual labor, dishwashing, and such are at a master level beyond expert.
“Nothing special.”
7 PM. I shrugged while sipping chocolate milk.
It was peak time with many customers, but the kitchen, or at least the sink, was relaxed.
Why?
Because I’m a human dishwasher.
“I’m going to throw out the trash.”
“...Huh? Ah, ah, yeah. Go ahead.”
The owner, who had been watching me work from a corner of the kitchen, answered blankly.
I went outside holding food waste bags in both hands.
As I was throwing the bags into the trash can, suddenly.
“Oh, what. Isn’t that Sion?”
A somewhat familiar voice called out to me. I turned to look.
It was Elise’s gang.
Kane, Esher, Raye, and Elise.
A kind of golden-spoon cartel formed by the most famous and admired people in Endex.
“Ew, the smell. What are you doing there?”
Kane asked, wrinkling his nose.
He treated me as if he had seen me just yesterday.
That’s why I felt even more awkward.
Not only was I unaccustomed to their younger faces, but it had been years since I spoke to them face to face.
“I asked what you’re doing, bastard.”
Kane asked menacingly.
I answered shortly.
“I’m working, you fucking bastard. Are you blind, you retarded mountain pig?”
“...Wh-what? Hey, what did you just—”
“Pfft.”
Kane blinked in confusion, and Raye couldn’t hold back her laughter.
The blond Esher spoke with a grin.
“Wow~ Sion, you’ve gotten quite the mouth since I last saw you? The apron and food waste suit you well. Keep doing that job. Forget the College Board.”
That bastard Esher is still as rude and disgusting as ever, then and now. The way he ranks people and ignores them, his slimy face like a gigolo, all of it.
“...”
But the coldest and most unpleasant gaze among them was, as expected——‘Elise.’
Elise Petra.
She is sending contempt toward me. As much as the food waste I just threw away, no, she finds me far dirtier. My very existence.
“Th-that fucking bastard. Hey. What did you just say? Fucking bastard? Mo-mountain pig?!”
Kane, his face bright red, stomped a step forward.
“Hey! Don’t touch Sion!”
But suddenly, Raye intervened.
“Sion is working hard, and instead of helping, you’re picking a fight! Come on, hurry! Let’s go somewhere else!”
With her teeth clenched and an extremely determined face, she grabbed and pulled her entire group at once.
Why is she acting like that again?
Esher pointed at the restaurant sign as if bewildered.
“No, hey, we came here to eat meat—”
“Hurry! We can eat somewhere else! I’ll treat you!”
Why that crazy woman is pretending to be kind... I think I might finally know.
Is she my Manito?
“You, you fucking Sion, hey. If I see you later, you’re dead.”
“Kane, why is your mouth so dirty!”
“Prepare to get beaten, huh?!”
To Kane, who retreated while pointing at me until the end, I showed him my middle finger.
—No, that son of a bitch!
Ignoring the exploding Kane, I returned to the kitchen.
“Guys. Look at this too. It’s incredibly clean. Can you believe this was done by hand? I don’t expect this level from you guys, but...”
The owner was educating the staff using the dishes I had cleaned.
* * *
11 PM.
“...At this rate, when will I save money?”
Having returned to my temporary dwelling, I sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at the night sky outside the window.
“There’s nothing to do either.”
Seniors including Elise’s gang must be terribly busy carrying out elite mana training and physical training curriculums at famous dojos or academies.
There are probably quite a few who have already completed their magic body.
They must also be freely wielding Mana Formulas.
I’m not.
The magic body that anyone with some talent in this field eventually awakens to, sooner or later—I can’t even accept it.
Because of dantian cancer.
Similarly, I can’t manifest Mana Formulas... but actually, Mana Formulas aren’t purely because of the dantian cancer.
First of all, I lacked mana talent itself, and I was also terrible at studying.
To materialize Mana Formulas, one must essentially master the academic discipline called ‘Magic Studies,’ but I was practically a magic dunce.
If I hadn’t cheated using the 「Notebook」, I would have been expelled long ago.
Anyway, my priority right now is unconditionally money. I have to survive first.
“...”
I looked at the sword leaning crookedly in the corner of the wall.
The Ascal Sword.
Steel mixed with ground runes—a famed sword made of rune steel.
Before the regression, that was my surgery fee. Even selling it in a hurry, I got fifty thousand ren.
I won’t do that in this life. Selling my roots for disposal—never.
“...Aren’t there any puzzles or something?”
I suddenly thought of the puzzle the old man had brought.
Where does the old man get those kinds of jobs from. I’m just curious...
“Wait.”
My mind flashed in an instant. I jumped up from the bed.
Endex.
Endex Magic High School.
This is a school attended by young masters and ladies with no economic sense, who pay seven hundred ren just to complete a mere eight-thousand-piece puzzle.
On the other hand, before the regression, I was a driver, a delivery man, a cleaner, a detective, and a porter.
“...This might work.”
I can do anything they ask.
If they just pay.