The Obsessive Regressor of The Academy

1. Dope Run

“You goddamn son of a b*tch!”

A voice, loud enough to shatter eardrums, erupted from the man’s throat. His face crimson, as if about to burst, he swung a fist at Asel.

*Thwack.* The dull thud echoed as Asel’s head snapped around. His center lost, his body plunged into the muddy water. Inside his mouth, a cut opened, leaving a bitter taste of blood.

He’d been struck on the cheek, but the world spun as if his jaw was dislocated. His head felt… wrong.

Or maybe it wasn’t just the punch.

Asel, his vision blurred, shifted his gaze to the pile of pure white powder spilled beside him.

A drug that induced hallucinations almost indistinguishable from reality and amplified magical power. Far inferior to what the nobles indulged in, but in this slum, it was a rare commodity, its price exorbitant.

And it was the cargo Asel had just upended. Right in front of the one who’d ordered it.

Of course, it was the man’s fault. If he hadn’t shoved Asel for the late delivery, the drug wouldn’t have spilled into the mud, rendering it useless. But that meant nothing to the man.

“Do you even know how expensive this is?! You little shit, you sonofab*tch!!”

The man roared, stomping on Asel as he lay on the ground. With each kick, fueled by the man’s immense weight, Asel felt his breath stolen. But the pain wasn’t too intense. Probably because he’d accidentally inhaled some of the spilled drug.

“….”

Asel narrowed his eyes, noticing the faint pain and foreign sensation coursing through him. Blood trickled from his clenched teeth, but his entire focus was on the hallucinatory effects of the drug.

A place called Earth. The image of a man born in South Korea, raised by ordinary parents, living an ordinary life, unfolded before him. The young man’s life, more dream than hallucination, etched itself deeply into Asel’s mind.

Sleeping on a bed under a soft blanket, instead of torn, moldy rags. Complaining about foods he’d never even taste in his own life, laughing and joking with people his own age.

“Die, you goddamn b*stard! Just die already!”

-What do you want to eat?

The voices of reality and hallucination overlapped.

One side of his vision was red. Blood from his head wound must have seeped into his eye. But the hallucination remained vivid. It unfolded rapidly, yet everything felt as real as if he were experiencing it firsthand.

Then, *plink.*

“…”

Rain began to fall in the hallucination. At the same time, raindrops splattered on his cheek. The young man in the hallucination pulled out an umbrella. While in reality…

“Asel!”

A familiar voice pierced through, shattering the hallucination.

Asel, his vision clearing slightly, turned his blurred gaze to the source of the voice. His only kin, Evelyn, was rushing towards him, a look of desperation on her face.

Come to think of it, this delivery was near home. She must have overheard the man’s shouting and guessed what was happening, then run out.

-Krrrrk!

Lightning flashed, followed moments later by a rumble of thunder. The world was momentarily bathed in blue light. The thin drizzle began to gather force, becoming a downpour.

“Stop it!”

Asel, lost in the dance of cobalt lightning splitting the storm clouds, didn’t notice Evelyn’s approach. She hammered on his back with a small fist, voice raw with fury.

“Stop it, you son of a b*tch! Leave my little brother alone!”

“Ha! So, the pests finally show. I was having a shit day anyway, might as well finish you here. Evelyn, I’ll break your limbs and sell you to a brothel.”

The man spun to face Evelyn, and a raw fear bloomed on her face. Seeing this, Asel strained, a low grunt escaping his throat as he forced his unresponsive body upright.

The hallucinations had faded, but the drug’s dulling effect lingered. With a shuddering effort, Asel lurched towards a jagged rock lying nearby. He scooped it up, channeled every ounce of his weight, and brought it crashing down on the man’s instep.

“aaargh! You b*stard!”

The man’s face contorted, a shriek of agony ripping from his throat as if his foot was being crushed .

His body momentarily buckled. Acute collapse triggered by extreme external shock. The telltale signs of withdrawal in an addict who hadn’t scored his fix. Ignoring the slurred curses spitting from the fallen man, Asel limped towards Evelyn.

Before she could speak, Asel cut her off.

“Sis, we gotta bolt.”

“What?”

“Run! Now!”

Asel grimaced and yanked Evelyn’s arm, dragging her upright. Comprehension dawned, and Evelyn tore off, running in the opposite direction from the downed man.

“Huff…huff…”

Asel followed. Thankfully, the man hadn’t stomped on his legs, so he could at least run.

Far enough away that the man’s shouts faded into the storm, Asel and Evelyn collapsed, gasping, against a half-destroyed dumpster. A stench rose from its depths, but both were too accustomed to such odors to care.

“Hoo… you okay?”

Once she regained her breath, Evelyn examined Asel’s swollen face. He started to say he was fine, but the fading drug laid bare the raw pain, twisting his features. Evelyn’s face crumpled.

“Ugh… it hurts, huh? Your fingers… a few of them are bent all wrong.”

“Better than losing them.”

Asel exhaled slowly.

In the slums, physical mutilation was commonplace. Some willingly sold pieces of themselves, others had them brutally stolen.

Compared to that, a few broken fingers were almost a blessing. Of course, it wasn’t just his fingers that were damaged, but he could bear it.

The ones who couldn’t had already died, screaming into the night.

“Should we go see Granny Healer?”

“That’ll cost us a week of food. And the deliveries came after two weeks.”

“But…”

“Nah. I’ll just tough it out with the painkillers I stashed away. It’ll heal on its own.”

Asel spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

There were clinics in the slums, but their prices were insane. A visit and medicine would leave you sucking on the dirty water at the ground for days. Better to endure with the painkillers he’d saved for a rainy day.

Acel thought as much, slipping a trembling hand inside his worn shirt. He then contorted his face.

“Ah, shit.”

The three painkillers he’d stashed there were undeniably crushed, now just powder swirling in his pocket. Some had even dissolved, sodden with rain. They must have been pulverized when that man roughed him up earlier.

Still, what could he do? He had to take what he could get.

Acel cursed inwardly, scraping together the gummy, dissolved powder and tossing it into his mouth.

A terrible bitterness coated his tongue. He longed to neutralize the taste with something else, but all that was here was filthy puddle water. Acel sighed deeply and rose unsteadily. Iblin followed, pushing herself up.

“Let’s go.”

“……Yeah.”

Acel and Iblin pushed back their rain-soaked hair and began walking aimlessly. The man now occupied the sewer entrance they called home, so returning was out of the question.

They’d have to find a new place. Fortunately, they’d scouted out a few potential spots, so they could focus their search there.

-Krrrr-THOOM!!

Just as he thought that and started moving, the sky flashed brightly, and a delayed rumble of thunder rolled low.

“…….”

Acel glanced briefly at the writhing lightning in the clouds, then continued on his way.

*

Iblin was ten and Acel was nine. Their parents, usually obsessed with demon worship, offered their children as sacrifices for a demon summoning ritual.

Human sacrifices, in other words. A ritual involving the living disembowelment and removal of organs and the heart.

Having learned of this, Iblin and Acel fled their home the day before the ritual, taking refuge in a slum far from their parents.

Fortunately, their parents didn’t bother looking for Iblin and Acel. Instead, a week later, the two discovered a newspaper detailing mass deaths and a failed attempt at a demon summoning ritual in their former village.

Three years passed like this. Iblin was now thirteen and Acel twelve.

To survive in the slums, they each started working.

Iblin found a job in a condom factory. The work involved making cheap condoms from animal carcasses left over after slaughter.

At first, she did nothing but gag all day and get beaten by the other workers. Now, she could make the devices with her eyes closed.

“Here’s your pay.”

The factory Iblin worked at paid daily wages. Even then, the wage was so low you couldn’t even buy a single fruit in the city.

But Iblin would smile whenever she received her money. Because sometimes, the factory owner, who had anger management issues, would slap her for smiling. On the following day, he would feel sorry and give her some more money. Still, it wasn’t much more.

Compared to Iblin, who held a legal but low-paying job, Acel earned more but his work was illegal.

A drug runner.

An occupation that made him an easy target for those who wanted to steal the drugs, and left him vulnerable to being beaten to death by addicts in the throes of withdrawal.

Furthermore, the power amplifying effects of the drugs were popular among twisted mages, so there were frequent cases of kidnapping by insane, drug-dependent magicians. This was why Iblin had begged Acel to quit as soon as she learned what he did.

But Ascel paid Evelyn no mind.

No matter how wretched the slum, in the end, coin held sway over the powerless. Evelyn had screamed at him countless times to stop after seeing Ascel return injured, but the sight of him offering a strained smile and pulling out a silver coin or two always silenced her.

And so time passed. Ascel became a notorious drug runner, while Evelyn established herself as a respected worker at the factory.

They earned more, yet the money vanished like sand after buying a few painkillers. Life remained impoverished.

Even their newly found dwelling wasn’t in good shape.

A derelict house crawling with rats and insects, filled with stench. Maggots wriggled from the moldy walls. The corpse of the house’s former owner, abandoned in the kitchen, had long since become a haven for vermin.

There was no cleaning it. Melted into the floor by narcotics, the body would remain there until it was either completely incinerated or reduced to bone.

Still, wasn’t it fortunate to have a roof and walls against the wind and rain?

Come to think of it, a shack shared with a corpse was probably better than an open sewer. Ascel thought, tossing bug-infested firewood onto the bonfire.

Firewood torn from the walls.

“Cough, cough.”

Just then, Evelyn emerged from the kitchen. Seeing the blazing fire, she wrapped the cloth around her shoulders tighter and approached the flames. Ascel smirked at the sight.

“Cold?”

“Yeah… I’ve been cold every day lately. And I keep coughing, and my chest feels tight.”

“Is it a cold?”

“Maybe, *kheum*. My head and throat hurt too…”

Evelyn said, burying her face in her knees. Then, in a muffled voice, she spoke.

“Are you alright? You got rained on too.”

“I’m fine. It stings a little where I’m broken, but I can manage.”

“That’s good, cough…! *Huu*, I can’t go to work for days, what is this…”

“It’s alright. We can still buy food with the money we’ve saved, right?”

“I guess…?”

Evelyn replied weakly, sighed, and tossed a nearby crawling insect into the flames.

“Any offers?”

She meant drug runs. Ascel didn’t bother with a lie.

“No. Seems like I should rest for a while. I’m sick, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s right. If you go to work now, the hospital bill might be even bigger, huh?”

“We can just not go to the hospital.”

“Will you say that when you’re dying too?”

Ascel chuckled at Evelyn’s joke. Evelyn returned the smile, wrapping the blanket tighter around her. Her eyes drooped downward as she did.

A chill was setting in, sharper than before. Her eyes burned like embers, and her eyelids felt heavy, stubbornly trying to close. Her body was cold, yet her head throbbed with heat. Each cough sent a jolt of pain through her chest. This was more than just a simple cold.

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

“Got any good stories?”

“Good stories?”

Asel hummed, a thoughtful sound, and began to ponder. Then, as if something had sparked in his mind, he looked at Evelyn with what he probably considered a serious expression.

“I think I’ve remembered my past life.”

“Are you crazy?”

The reply was immediate. Asel avoided Evelyn’s icy gaze and grumbled.

“I’m serious.”

Weeks ago, when he’d taken those drugs and hallucinated…

Back then, he’d thought it was just a trip, but not anymore. Asel was now convinced that the visions he’d seen were fragments of a previous existence.

It was an instinct, almost. Even now, after all this time, he hadn’t forgotten a single detail of what he’d witnessed.

But Evelyn didn’t believe him. No one would.

It wasn’t like she was some chosen saint, touched by the divine. A past life? Really? Evelyn tapped her presumptuous brother on the forehead with her finger, then rose to her feet.

“I’m tired, going to sleep first. You come too, when you’re ready.”

“Okay. Sleep well.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Evelyn lightly kissed Asel on the forehead, then settled down in a corner to sleep. Asel watched her for a moment, then continued to feed the dying embers of the campfire with more firewood, thinking.

‘I might have remembered my past life, but nothing seems to have changed.’

He’d felt and seen glimpses of his life then, but there was no immediate shift.

His sense of self hadn’t wavered, nor was he consumed by the memories of the past. The only change, perhaps, was that he felt a little smarter. Though even that could just be his imagination.

“…Haa.”

Having run through his thoughts, Asel sighed deeply and stopped thinking.

There was no point dwelling on it, not when it led nowhere. Besides, his memories of that past life weren’t even complete. Parts were missing, and the overall narrative felt disjointed. Like watching a play, almost.

In any case, holding onto them wouldn’t be of much use to him now. Asel cleared his head of pointless thoughts, then covered himself with a cloth he’d tossed nearby and lay down.

The fire would burn out on its own. These flames, fed by rotten wood, were quick to die without constant attention. Asel paid no heed to the flickering fire beside him and drifted off to sleep.

And so came the next day.

As expected, the campfire was cold. The weather was brighter than he had anticipated, and he felt better than yesterday.

Asel stretched, arching his back, and walked towards Evelyn, who was still asleep. He gently shook her.

“Evelyn.”

“…….”

Silence answered him. A strange feeling prickled at Asel, and his face hardened.

“Sis?”

“…….”

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

Still, no reply.

A shiver of dread ran through Asel. He pressed his fingers to Evelyn’s pulse, but life had not yet fled. If anything, her breaths were ragged and shallow. Her face burned crimson, and her forehead felt as though it might spontaneously combust. This was far too severe for a simple cold.

“……Ah.”

As Asel’s expression slowly soured, a forgotten name of a disease surfaced from the depths of his past life.

Pain in the chest, throat, and head. A cough. Relentless chills. The very sickness he had suffered from, mirroring Evelyn’s present state.

Pneumonia.