I’m not a Regressor - Chapter 253: The Thousand Curse Dragon (5)

“Are you ready, Ha-eun?” Ohjin asked.

“Huh, yeah…” Ha-eun nodded, clearly unhappy.

Ohjin took a step back, lifted a towel to cover his nose, and shouted, “Fire!”

“Eugh…” Ha-eun shut her eyes as she threw the Dragon Bead in her hand deep into the manhole.

Fssshhhhh—!

The red Dragon Bead melted the floor and sank deep into the sewage, its condensed fire spreading throughout the network.

Rumble—!

The entire area shook as if an earthquake were happening.

“Wh-what?” Ha-eun shouted in surprise before looking down at her black, leather gloves. The explosion had been far greater than she expected it to be. Even taking the gloves into account, something was off.

“It’s because of the gas,” Ohjin explained.

“Gas?”

Ohjin nodded and offered her a handkerchief.

The filth had been sealed in the sewer for six years, so of course the methane gas would have also filled the sewage system—it was like a natural bomb that had been fermenting for six years. On top of that, Ha-eun threw the most powerful Dragon Bead she could make, so the explosion was incredibly powerful.

“Eugh!” Ha-eun gagged.

“Hurry up and cover your nose,” Ohjin said.

The exploding gas gave off such a disgusting odor that it could only be described as something created in the foulest reaches of hell.

“Eugh. th-this lady is dizzy.” Vega looked dizzy and climbed onto Ohjin’s shoulder, holding her nose as the terrible smell spread over the street.

“Grrrr, Arp—!” Still, she was faring far better than Riak, whose sense of smell was dozens of times better than a human’s. “Rookie!” he shouted, his expression paling like he could collapse at any moment. “Do something about this horrible smell!”

“Just wait and it’ll disappear,” Ohjin said,

“Ugh! How can you expect me to endure this?”

“I thought a warrior needed grit?”

“This a problem that can’t be solved with grit!” Riak tensed and complained. Though not as much as him, Isabella, Vega, and Ha-eun were also frowning while holding their noses.

Ohjin felt the need to comfort them. “If it gets too painful to bear, just think…” Everyone turned to look at him. “You might be having a hard time… but our enemy is having it even harder!” He smiled and looked down.

All that’d risen from the cracked ground was the gas—it wasn’t hard to figure out where the rest had gone. “No matter how hard it may be! No matter how painful it may be, it’s easy to endure if you imagine how much agony our enemy must be in!”

“What kind of comfort is that, you madman?” Ha-eun laughed at his ridiculousness. Well, it was a crazy thing to say. “You’re not wrong, though.” Seeing a hot bath may not have been enough to make a cold one comfortable, but you’d at least feel comfort from someone suffering the same situation, especially if it was a mortal enemy.

Grrrrr—!

As expected, a roar soon shook the ground. It wasn’t a Dragon Bead, either… something was desperately clawing its way out of the depths of the tunnels.

“Grrrraaaaa!”

Crash—!

A dark-purple-haired man covered in filth bolted out from the fissure in the ground like a mole. “Wh-what the?! What the hell is this? Eugh!” He desperately tried to shake the filth from his body.

“Hmm?” Ohjin frowned. The man certainly wasn’t a dragon, and just when he was wondering if Shinhyuk’s memories had somehow been wrong…

“Don’t worry. He’s just a monster morphed into a human form,” Vega said, glaring at the man. “Don’t you see the black horns on his forehead?”

“Oh, you’re right,” Ohjin muttered. Black horns, like the ones he’d seen in the picture, jutted from the man’s forehead. Of course, they were much smaller than when he was a dragon.

‘But what’s with those horns?’ Even in Shinhyuk’s memories, the dragon had no such horns on its forehead.

“Eugh! Did you guys do this?” The Thousand Curse Dragon roughly finished shaking himself off.

Ohjin didn’t have a chance to continue thinking about it. “How did you like our gift?

“Your gift?” the man asked.

“No, it’s nothing.” Ohjin chuckled and gave the man a closer look. Though the grime over his body was ugly, the man had a pretty handsome figure.

“I guess you usually go around in human form? Even after you put up such a fuss about us being trivial creatures?” Of course, she had never personally spoken to the Thousand Curse Dragon, but he clearly remembered what he had said on the broadcast as he slaughtered humans.

“Who… are you?” The man glared at Ohjin. He didn’t know who Ohjin was, but it was clear that he was the culprit. His vertically-slit amber eyes burned with anger. “How dare you smear me, Barbatos, with filth…!”

“Hey, are you talking about yourself in the third person?” He sounded like a little kid.

“Shut up!”

Crash—!

Barbatos stomped and raged, seeming to cool down a bit when he turned to look at the others. “Hmm?” His gaze stopped on Ha-eun after scanning past Isabella, Vega, and Riak. “You…” Barbatos narrowed his eyes and smirked. “You’re the one who gave me such a hard time back then.” His gaze was as insidious as a snake flicking its tongue.

Ha-eun’s expression stiffened.

“Hmm. How did you lift the blinding curse?” Barbatos tilted his head and slowly looked Ha-eun up and down. The curse he had put on her at the time was not a light one that would naturally fade as time passed. “I hoped you would struggle in the darkness until I found you again,” Barbatos muttered before frowning.

“…”

Six years prior, he remembered invading a human city with his army. Back then, he’d been forced to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of Awakeners. Even though he’d fought dozens or hundreds of them, he couldn’t forget that red-haired woman.

-Go to hell, you lizard bastard!

She’s never given in to his curses and kept rushing in. He remembered her eyes glistening with a fire-like fighting spirit. “Haha. Are you afraid of me?” Barbatos stretched out his tongue at her. Her eyes didn’t contain the same fighting spirit as back then. No more proof than that was needed to know she was feeling ‘horror’ when looking at him.

He didn’t need to think much about where that fear originated from, either. “You must have been quite distressed amidst your blindness.”

“Shut up,” she said. He was disguised as a human, but she vividly recalled her memories of that day and the nightmare she’d lived through—the despair of being trapped in unquenchable darkness.

“Hahaha! Did you come all this way to get revenge?” Barbatos burst into laughter.

* * *

* * *

An eerie light shone in his slitted amber eyes. “I admit, you’re very bold, but… you chose the wrong opponent. His body glistened purple as dark mana leaked out. “I, Barbatos, will lock you in eternal darkness again, you wench.” His dreadful laugh reverberated as his purple hair shimmered in the wind.

Ohjin just looked at him and said, “Hey, your mouth smells like shit.”

“…”

Crack—

A thick blood vessel throbbed on Barbatos’s forehead as he stared at Ohjin, who dared to fearlessly face off against a dragon. “You insolent human…!” As the Thousand Curse Dragon, his self-esteem was sky-high since he could cast a thousand different curses and was even trusted by the Demon Realm’s king. Still, he couldn’t deny that he’d scampered from his nest while covered in sewage.

“Thank you for remembering her.” Ohjin grabbed Ha-eun’s trembling shoulder and pulled her back so he could stand in front of her. “If you had forgotten… we couldn’t have even gotten revenge.” He looked somewhat apathetic as a blue flame burned in his eyes.

“Hmph. What revenge would three mere humans, a beast, and a fly manage?” Barbatos asked.

“Did you call this lady a fly?” Vega exclaimed in fury. Blue lightning began to buzz around her body. “How can a lowly lizard say such a thing to this lady…!”

“Wait a minute, Vega.” Ohjin stopped her from rushing forward. First, he had to check how strong their opponent was. ‘Did they say he was weak in close combat?’ Of course, that meant engaging in melee would be most efficient, and Ohjin was the best when it came to that.

Ohjin smirked as he turned to Riak. “Beast, are you ready?”

“Oh, I can rip that cheeky lizard’s snout apart at any time.” Riak’s eyes glowed fiercely as he morphed into his werewolf form.

“Count to three, and then let’s go at the same time.” Ohjin lowered his stance.

Riak’s leg muscles swelled, and blue lightning flashed over his silver fur.

“Hehe! Come whenever you want!” Barbatos spread his arms wide with an arrogant smile on his face as he burned with a purple light while clusters of powerful curses formed around him.

“Let’s start, Riak!” Ohjin shouted, exchanging glances with the werewolf and nodding.

“I’m ready, rookie!”

“One…!!!”

Crash—!

Ohjin used Exceed and rushed forward in a bolt of blue lightning.

Bzzzzzt—!

Barbatos’s aquiline nose took the full impact of Ohjin’s lightning-imbued fist right when he was in the middle of casting a curse.