Chapter 2: The Boy Who Should Never Have Become a Villain

Four years before Yoo Hee-ro successfully conquered the X-Gate, Sung Ji-woo had witnessed the wretched fate of both himself and the world, only to open his eyes again—this time as a high school student, nine years younger than his real age.

After agonizing for a long time over this absurd situation, he finally came to a conclusion.

He had regressed.

And not just at any point—but to the exact moment before humanity, no, before the Earth itself, was destroyed.

Someone had deliberately tampered with the core inside the Gate. The result was, quite literally, a nuclear explosion. Unfortunately, Sung Ji-woo—summoned by the government to help stop the villain—had been inside that very Gate when it happened.

He had been around the 60th floor. The explosion had occurred on the 120th. In the final instant, he saw light scatter in every direction. He never even heard the sound—it was slower than the light, after all.

As his body was torn apart by the brilliance, Sung Ji-woo left behind a single, vulgar epitaph.

“f*ck. That’s one hell of a dazzling way to go.”

He’d thought that would be the end—that he’d vanish without a trace, dust scattered through the cosmos.

[SYSTEM: You have fulfilled the special quest condition <Regression>. System Lock has been released.]

“What?”

The fact that he could open his eyes again was shocking enough. But the real surprise was that this wasn’t the afterlife. It was the world of the living.

And before his eyes, a translucent blue window appeared out of thin air.

He had seen the destruction of Earth with his own two eyes—well, not quite, since those eyes had burned away before the end.

Still, Sung Ji-woo could clearly see the bizarre letters floating above the dorm room ceiling.

[Welcome, Supporter Sung Ji-woo. I am SYSTEM 056, your guide to <A Wise Regression Life>.]

“System? Regression Life?”

The words were unfamiliar. He repeated them aloud, but they only sounded more alien the more he spoke.

[<Congratulation> The first Regressor in a hundred years! <Celebration>]

[Regressors are those who defy the flow of time—humans chosen to step into the realm of the divine.
Returned to the moment of fate, a Regressor may now carve a new life, unlike before.]

The messages scrolled past whether he read them or not. A few phrases flashed by, catching his eye.

Chosen human. Moment of fate. A different life.

“What the hell is all this supposed to mean?”

He directed the question at the system window, but no response came.

Instead, a new screen appeared, shimmering faintly. At the bottom, a single button blinked: <Confirm>.

It seemed to be telling him to press it after reading. Suspicious but curious, Sung Ji-woo began to read the text aloud.

<Profile>

『Name: Sung Ji-woo
Age: 19
Ability Attribute: Light, ??? (Locked due to insufficient stats)
Title: Guardian of Light, ??? (Locked due to insufficient stats)
Rank: ??? (Currently Unavailable)
Class: (Former) Hunter (Supporter)』

It was supposedly his profile, but only part of it was correct. His name, the “Light” attribute, and his position as a Supporter—all accurate. The rest was either incorrect or utterly incomprehensible.

Why were there question marks everywhere? And why did it say his rank was “unavailable,” when he was clearly an A-rank Hunter?

But the biggest issue of all—

“Nineteen?”

His age. He was twenty-eight. At least he had been, before the world ended.

“Nineteen, my ass.”

[You, who have entered a new world, have received the ‘Blessing of God.’
The System you see is one of those blessings.
Accept your new fate, and enjoy the fortune bestowed upon you.]

“What kind of holy bullshit is this supposed to be!?”

Finally losing his temper, Sung Ji-woo shouted. His scalp tingled as hot blood rushed to his head—it was like his chronic low blood pressure had been cured by rage alone.

But the System, which had babbled so freely before, suddenly went silent.

No, it didn’t just shut up—it disappeared completely, as if it had never existed.

“What the hell is going on…”

Zzzzt. Zzzzzzt.

A familiar static hum filled the air. Then came the school wake-up song, broadcast throughout the dorms to rouse sleepy students.

The melody stirred something deep within him, his body reacting instinctively, heart pounding.

Only then did Sung Ji-woo realize where he was.

His old dorm room.

A single bed. A small dresser. A wardrobe by the wall, a desk beside it—exactly as he remembered.

He climbed down from the narrow dorm bed.

At that moment, the vanished System window reappeared before his eyes.

[Quest: Save the World. (Condition: Not yet fulfilled)]

The bold letters glared at him like a divine commandment. Sung Ji-woo frowned and muttered under his breath.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. How the hell am I supposed to save the world?”

The world had already perished once. Hundreds of professional Hunters hadn’t been able to stop it.

And that disaster had all begun with a single person—the worst villain in history.

There was no way an A-rank Hunter like him could stop someone like that.

“I’m not even a damage dealer…”

As stated earlier, his role was Supporter—a position that made solo survival nearly impossible. He didn’t hate it, but the job came with plenty of bitterness and frustration.

The villain had specifically targeted the X-Gate—a massive Gate that had appeared in Korea seventy years ago. No one had ever cleared it. It had become a global headache.

Each Gate contained multiple dungeon floors. Clearing them all and destroying the Gate’s core the right way meant success. Destroy it the wrong way—or mishandle the core—and it exploded immediately.

And the bigger the Gate, the bigger the explosion.

The X-Gate was colossal, even by global standards. That was why the Korean government had poured everything into conquering it, even forcing Hunters into the expedition.

Then, one day, a single villain had declared he would “destroy the world,” and entered the X-Gate alone.

At first, most dismissed him. No way he’ll make it. He went in alone, right?

But the government sensed danger. They mobilized every Hunter they could.

Sung Ji-woo was among them.

The mission: stop the villain from reaching the 120th floor—by any means necessary.

They didn’t even expect to clear the Gate. Just eliminate the bastard first.

Hunters believed the villain would be caught long before then—maybe around the 40th floor.

But he mocked them all. He cleared floor after floor at inhuman speed, and five years later, detonated the core.

At the time, Sung Ji-woo had been on the 60th floor—leading a strike team of ten veteran Hunters. They had fought tooth and nail for five years just to get that far.

Only two teams in history had ever reached that depth. Now, including them and the villain, there were four. But none had left any trace behind.

Of course, the villain must have died first—he had triggered the blast himself.

Sung Ji-woo sat on the bed, struggling to piece together his fragmented memories. They were like shards—disjointed, out of order. He remembered what had happened, but not the finer details.

Then again, after spending five years trapped inside a dungeon, forgetting a few things was probably normal.

The wake-up music played twice more, then faded out. It was already time for classes.

Warm sunlight streamed through the window, and he could hear the lively chatter of students outside.

After years trapped underground, the world outside looked impossibly bright, painfully peaceful.

If he really had returned to age nineteen… then there were about nine years left before the end.

“How the hell do I stop a villain I don’t even know?”

Even if he reentered the Gate, he doubted he could stop it. He knew how to clear sixty floors—but the remaining sixty? That was suicide.

The only realistic option was to stop the villain before he ever decided to destroy the world.

Considering the timeline—and the System’s choice to send him back exactly four years before the event—it wasn’t hard to guess what it wanted him to do.

The problem was… he knew nothing about the villain.

Even when the Association had issued the wanted notice, all they’d had was a single photograph.

No name, no history—just that face.

He remembered the frustration clearly. He and his team had cursed the Association for giving them nothing to work with.

“Well… he did have the kind of face too handsome to be a villain.”

Ridiculously good-looking—almost unreal. Even after all this time, Sung Ji-woo could still recall the photo vividly.

Hunters had even complained to the Association:

“Why’d you airbrush a wanted photo?”

To which the Association replied,

“That is the unedited original.”

The Hunters had erupted, swearing to hunt down that “model-looking bastard” themselves. Sung Ji-woo, though, had just thought—

‘A guy that pretty actually exists? I’d like to see him once.’

And after regressing… he did.

In the most absurd way possible.

“Um… hello, Senior.”

The would-be villain greeted him shyly, peeking up at him with wide eyes.

He was just eighteen—baby-faced, cheeks still soft with youth.

Sung Ji-woo was speechless.

Who could have imagined that the villain he’d hunted for five years would turn out to be his own school junior? Just one year younger, studying in the same department.

His face was a little rounder than in the future, but the resemblance was undeniable. The foundation was exactly the same.

Give it a few years of growth, and this kid would become that villain.

Right now, though, he looked—well—cute. If nineteen-year-old Sung Ji-woo had seen him like this, he’d probably have called him the “adorable junior.”

The boy tilted his head, confused by his senior’s blank stare. Worry creased his delicate features—and maybe, just a hint of fear.

The yellow name tag on his crisp white shirt caught the sunlight. And for a brief moment, Sung Ji-woo could almost hear it chirp like a baby chick.

That was the moment when the villain’s identity—the one neither the Association nor the government had ever revealed—was finally laid bare.

‘Yoo Hee-ro.’

A name that didn’t suit a villain in the slightest.

Sung Ji-woo couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.