I’m Not That Villain - Chapter 64



63 – Small War (4)

The simplest form of energy emission.

Gathering energy without any particular shape, and then…

Boom, the exhilarating explosion!

BOOM!

The body of the assailant who had lunged at me was thrown backward. After a few convulsions, it went limp.

The performance is reliable. I rested the shotgun on my shoulder.

There is a reason why things can be resolved so easily.

A gun. A weapon that is not much of a threat to those with supernatural abilities.

Many of them would rather just take a hit and kill meand charge recklessly. Every single one of the ten or so people I actually encountered did that.

But what can you do?

These are not ordinary bullets.

The fools who charged straight at me all had their bodies blown away. They rolled on the ground with the smoke and foamed at the mouth.

I blew out the smoke coming from the muzzle. I started to get hungry, so I moved even faster.

One shot at a time. Continuous firing is impossible. If it overheats, it must be cooled down, and the standard firing rate is about twice per minute at most.

A situation that becomes difficult if faced with multiple opponents.

But I was not alone.

Crunch!

The assailant who had been hiding in the darkness suddenly attacked and was crushed to the ground. Literally, his face was grabbed, and under Seol Yewon’s strength, his limbs were bent to a pitiful degree.

“Grkkk…”

The woman let out a sound that made you wonder if a human could make such a noise and then fainted. After seeing such scenes a few times, I also got used to it and could naturally turn my head away.

Seol Yewon, you know. She’s much tougher than she looks. She’s a bit scary. I should be careful not to make her angry.

“Mister. This way…”

Seol Yewon suddenly pulled me. As we squeezed into a narrow gap, a large number of people rushed past us at high speed.

“Where is the boss?”

“Lost him. He left the battlefield as the fight dragged on.”

“Find him first. Getting out of here is priority.”

“Not just the White Hands, others are swarming in too. Kill any pups that get close.”

From noble mtl dot com

Somehow, they felt like a kind you shouldn’t mess with.

Those four figures quickly flashed past. Only when the sound faded could I finally catch my breath.

“Ah, mister…are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

Truth is, I’m not okay.

The gap was already tight. Because two people forced their way in, we were pressed close together.

If it had just been simple pressing, I might’ve been okay, but…

The fact that something soft and squishy was pressed against my upper body was the problem.

“I’m, I’m sorry… I just felt like I shouldn’t meet their gaze…”

“Let’s just get out of here.”

I barely managed to get outside before the demon sealed within me could burst out. Any other situation, maybe, but not right now. Don’t think weird thoughts, just focus on finding people…

“…….”

Our eyes met.

With the woman who was rolling up the sleeve of the thug we’d taken down and drawing blood.

“…….”

“…….”

We stared at each other in silence for a long while.

“…Wh…what are you…doing…?”

“Ah.”

The woman made a sound. She looked down at the thug sprawled out like a corpse, then looked back at me.

Eyes that you couldn’t tell what they were thinking. The overall atmosphere was also languid, something…

The image of an unknowable person was strong.

Very much so.

“I’m drawing blood.”

“Pardon?”

“I need blood.”

“…….?”

No.

In this chaos, as if she were in another world, she was drawing blood?

“No, I mean, why are you…?”

“Because I need it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be running away?”

“Hmm.”

The woman tilted her head.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“You’re right.”

“…….?”

The woman’s gaze swept over me. Then it landed on the shotgun I was holding.

“…Special equipment?”

“Yes?”

“Improvised?”

“That’s correct, but…”

The woman’s eyes changed. From a look of indifference to one that seemed to have found what it was looking for, she yanked the blood collection device out of the stranger’s body.

“You…”

BoooM!!!

Suddenly, the floor shook. The same impact as before.

But this time, something was different.

The entire building shook violently as if it were about to collapse. It wasn’t just a simple tremor; the floor itself tilted as if it might cave in.

“Ugh?!”

It was no illusion.

It felt as if something had suddenly happened at the core, as if the space itself was being sucked in.

“Soyeon.”

Clack.

A woman suddenly appeared in the tilted floor. Moving silently, she gently embraced the nameless woman who was holding the blood collection device.

“That’s enough blood collection for now. You’ve already gathered plenty of blood, haven’t you? For the sake of the next step, it’s best to withdraw at this point.”

“…You’re right.”

The woman’s gaze brushed past me.

“…Next time.”

She whispered.

“I hope we can meet again next time.”

“Pardon?”

In an instant, the two of them vanished without a trace, as if they had never been there in the first place.

Am I dreaming? No, this isn’t the time to worry about that.

The entire building is warping. What on earth is this? Is it really going to collapse completely?

Even if I have a superhuman body, I’m not invincible! I need to find them quickly…!

“Lee Seo-jun.”

A familiar voice called out from afar. I urgently followed the voice through the tilting floor.

A girl was running towards me, almost flying over the building debris. In her arms, naturally, was a fully grown woman clinging to her.

Lily and Renata.

Perfect timing!

“Let’s get out of here!”

Without hesitation, I immediately changed direction towards the exit.

This isn’t a natural disaster or anything.

Why is life so hard!

. . .

Shortly after reuniting with Lily and Renata, getting out of the building itself wasn’t difficult.

The clothes we had painstakingly bought were all left behind, and we had to escape in our sauna outfits, but the fact that we survived that chaos was what mattered.

We dragged our exhausted bodies back home. I couldn’t just let Seol Yewon go like this, so I introduced her to my workshop where I lived.

“Th-this is… your workshop, mister?”

“It’s practically my home. There’s not much to see, but… I’ll give you a tour.”

I also transferred the exhausted Scarlett back into her cat body. She had worked hard as one of our few assets, and she immediately went into rest mode, saying she needed to organize her memory.

After giving Seol Yewon a rough tour of the house, I sat down at my workbench, leaving the women to wash up first.

I turned on the holographic screen to check the situation. Spa Land. The riot that had erupted there. The current state of affairs and…

The chaotic situation was continuously being uploaded to the internet in real-time.

“…Look at this…”

The important thing was that three organizations were involved in this incident.

One was Hundred Eye.

Another was the enforcement agency we had heard about endlessly.

The last one was the giant organization Back Hand, which operated Gangnam District and Spa Land.

It was a real gang war. This was no ordinary day.

I scrolled through the screen. Numerous casualties. The number of injured was so high that it was impossible to count, and it was written that the current tally was impossible.

There were numerous speculations on the community boards that this issue could lead to a full-scale conflict between the three organizations.

“Well, well.”

Why don’t all three just die together? I chuckled. And at the same time…

I stared blankly at my personal equipment, the ‘Orb,’ placed on the table.

“…….”

It’s an awkward structure to carry around. So, I couldn’t carry it this time either.

But that doesn’t mean I can give up on this structure itself. Inside that sphere, there are numerous tuning mechanisms, allowing me to shape my energy semi-permanently.

…But. But still.

I felt like I needed to create a proper self-defense tool separately.

This time, Seol Yewon was by my side, but if I had been alone, I might have died. I could have broken my cervical spine from the fall in the central square.

While steadily developing this orb for full-scale warfare…

Let’s try developing something like this wristwatch separately.

“…Mister. Are you okay?”

Seol Yewon, freshly washed, asked cautiously from behind me. I reached out to her as water dripped from her hair.

I busily moved the towel wrapped around her head to dry the remaining moisture.

“I’m fine.”

“…….”

“I’ve got another debt. Thank you, Yewon. For saving me.”

“……!”

Seol Yewon smiled bashfully.

“…Mister… I’ll always protect you… forever…”

That much is a bit…

It feels like overprotection.

. . .

“Uweeeek!!!”

Black Mamba clutched the toilet bowl and vomited with all his might. Small, compressed beads poured into it without pause.

But his stomach still felt bloated. Was it because he had eaten more than he thought?

He was in a state he had only experienced once before.

Indigestion.

His stomach felt so bloated that he thought he might go crazy.

“Shi…baaal…”

What made him even angrier was that he still hadn’t completely killed his opponent.

He slipped away like a loach. Just barely. He had definitely inflicted serious injuries, but…

He still hadn’t killed him for sure. It wasn’t because of that damn spatial distortion. He had taken that into account and used his power to devour everything…

Suddenly, a woman barged in. And her ability clashed with his, an ability he had never seen before.

And because of that, he lost both of them.

What the hell are they? They didn’t seem like ordinary enforcers.

“…Tch.”

Black Mamba leaned against the wall. He flushed the toilet and quietly looked up at the ceiling.

The special equipment he used to use was still somewhat effective. Thanks to it, he didn’t have to devour unnecessary things.

Accuracy correction for the target he wanted to devour. That was the power of his old special equipment.

But now he didn’t have it. It had broken down completely when he reached this position. That’s why he missed them this time too. If he had it, he could have killed both of them long ago.

He had once gone to find the craftsman to ask him to make the special equipment again…

But all he found was a closed shop door.

Old age. Death due to lifespan.

From the beginning, when we first met, he was an old man with not much time left, so in a way, it was inevitable.

People die. One way or another, they die.

…But I…

“I don’t want to die…”

Call it selfish. Call it whatever you want.

I don’t want to die. I absolutely don’t want to die. I didn’t crawl all the way up here, struggling, just to die.

So I will live. Even if I have to devour everyone who threatens me…

I will survive.

For myself alone.

“Hey.”

I called out to the person waiting outside the bathroom. He answered quietly.

“Yes, boss.”

“That plan from before. Speed it up. Issue the notice for recruiting partner workshops immediately.”

“Understood.”

“No qualifications required. Change it so that anyone who knows how to hammer can participate. What I care about is only ability. Purely ability…”

Black Mamba leaned his head against the wall with a thud.

“Distribute my blood, which I had pre-collected little by little, to everyone who supports me. The condition is to create my exclusive equipment. Tell them that the one who makes the equipment that pleases me the most will be entrusted with the partner workshop. But those who produce mediocre results…”

Black Mamba warned quietly.

“Write down that I will personally devour them.”