The Tough Guy Hides the Villainess - Chapter 115



115 – It’s Time for Heroes! # 1

115 – It’s Time for Heroes! # 1

Throb, throb-.

Wang Ja-hyun couldn’t stop focusing on the throbbing at the top of his head.

‘Is my skull cracked?’

His head kept hurting from being hit by the old man’s rock-like fist.

The old man wasn’t even an awakened one, yet his fighting skills were amazing.

‘That old man, he seemed to know Han Nam-jin.’

Whatever it was, he wasn’t an ordinary human.

If he could learn combat skills from him, Wang Ja-hyun could become more famous than he is now.

The minimum goal was to become stronger than Han Nam-jin.

Thinking that, Wang Ja-hyun returned to the hospital.

After a light examination, the boy headed to the room next to the single room where he had been hospitalized.

「Kim Mori」

It was the name of the patient living next door.

When Wang Ja-hyun’s father, Chairman Wang, came to visit with some girls, he had nervously shouted and driven them away. He was a very irritable patient.

Knock, knock-.

When Wang Ja-hyun knocked on the hospital room door, there was a sound of movement from inside.

━─What taste─.

“What taste?”

Clunk, creak-.

As he opened the door and entered, a half-naked girl snapped at him.

“Don’t come in! I’m changing clothes! You pervert!”

“Kim Mori, what do you think I would see from you?”

Hmph-.

Wang Ja-hyun snorted and roughly kicked the wheelchair placed at the entrance of the hospital room.

His eyes turned to the girl who was hastily changing into a plain hospital gown.

She was a girl with a prim bob haircut.

It wasn’t for style, but simply cut short for easy maintenance.

Except for her prim eyes, her face was fairly pretty, but a scar running from the lower left jaw to the bridge of her nose marred her beauty.

Most importantly, the student Kim Mori had a leg disability.

A few years ago, she had a serious motorcycle accident and was told she would never walk again.

From noble mtl dot com

Originally, it would have been the age of a high school senior.

At an age when one should be running around and learning how to dress up prettily, patient Kim Mori had already spent several years in the hospital, making her personality sharp and hysterical.

However, Wang Ja-hyun somehow became friends with the girl in the next room.

Perhaps it was the sense of camaraderie between those who had suffered great wounds.

Or the fellowship of twisted individuals.

“Here, eat this.”

Wang Ja-hyun handed a bag of dried fruit to Kim Mori.

Dried mango.

Patient Kim Mori took it, opened the window, and placed one on the windowsill.

“What are you doing?”

When Wang Ja-hyun asked, Kim Mori replied.

“To give it to the squirrel.”

“What squirrel?”

“Sometimes a squirrel comes to that tree you can see from here. It’s huge. It’s like a dog. I even named it. I call it Bark-Bark.”

Where in the world is there a squirrel as big as a dog?

Wang Ja-hyun squinted as she examined the branches visible from Kim Mori’s hospital room window.

“Isn’t that a chipmunk, not a squirrel?”

“Hey, do you think I don’t know the difference between a chipmunk and a squirrel? I chased after squirrels and chipmunks so much at the orphanage. It’s a squirrel. A squirrel as big as a dog! It even barks like a dog!”

Kim Mori’s words were becoming increasingly strange.

At that moment, Wang Ja-hyun discovered a glass jar on Kim Mori’s desk. Feeling uneasy about the leaves inside, Wang Ja-hyun immediately sniffed it.

The sour smell of sweat wafted from the leaves, sending a chill down my spine.

“This is ‘Witch Grass.’ Kim Mori, where did you get this?”

“That? Some older girls gave it to me. They said it was from some rehab center. Something like Abraxas. They left a business card. They said they could make me walk again. Bullshit, right?”

I had never heard of anything called Abraxas, but I remembered this grass vividly because of the commotion at the inauguration ceremony of the suppression squad.

It’s the ‘Witch Cult.’

Why did those wicked women approach the patient Kim Mori?

Wang Ja-hyun put the glass bottle in his pocket and said,

“If those women come back, don’t even talk to them. They’re part of a cult.”

“What are you saying? Who are you to tell me what to do? Are you my boyfriend? Do you like me?”

Half-joking, half-mocking, and half-self-loathing.

Feeling the complex emotions in Kim Mori’s voice, Wang Ja-hyun answered honestly.

“Is it wrong if I like you?”

“I’m crippled. I’ll never walk again. My personality is completely messed up.”

“That’s true.”

“Wow─.”

Kim Mori’s eyebrows furrowed at the blunt acknowledgment.

She said to Wang Ja-hyun,

“Then grant me one wish. If you do, I might consider dating you. There’s a guy named Geum Tae-sung at your school, right? He’s been bothering me, so teach him a lesson. You’re good at that kind of thing.”

Geum Tae-sung from Class D.

Wang Ja-hyun recalled the boy who was part of the ‘No Leftovers Day’ group.

He was once considered a great prospect.

Wang Ja-hyun had once thought of Geum Tae-sung, not Han Nam-jin, as his rival and had subtly kept him in check.

But after meeting Han Nam-jin, Geum Tae-sung didn’t matter anymore….

“It’s because of him that I have to lie in this hospital room. You have to avenge me. Warn him never to approach me again.”

Hoo-.

Kim Mori tried to put strength into his legs.

They wouldn’t move.

It was only natural that his eyes were drawn to the business card of “Abraxas.”

If only he could move his legs again, he would rely on any strange cult.

# # #

“So, he just did that!”

Late evening.

Bangdaengi was making a fuss under the moonlight.

His voice was so loud that it was hard to understand what he was explaining.

To summarize:

“So, Seo Ga-eul was talking to some women in a place called the ‘Treatment Ward,’ and then he went crazy and started attacking people. It was a complete mess, right?”

“Right! The women were running away, and Seo Ga-eul kept chasing them! I tried to chase after him, but he was running too fast. I lost him.”

“What about Yoo Yeoreum?”

“She went home because it was late.”

What a complete disaster!

I shouldn’t have made the girls do this.

Under Bbangdaengi’s guidance, I infiltrated the so-called “treatment ward” under the cover of darkness.

It was a rehabilitation center, a sanatorium run by some foundation called Abrak-something, but to put it simply, it was one of the facilities of the “Witch Cult.”

However, it looked quite like a legitimate research facility.

White walls, sleek wards, women in white coats bustling around—it had a distinctly futuristic feel to it.

Who would have thought such a facility existed beneath the “Eden Farm.”

The greenhouses and fields above were just a facade.

It reminded me of Hugi’s bunker.

“Did you check number 5?”

“No significant improvement. But number 10 is responding well. Her vision has almost fully returned. How about sample number 9?”

“Failed. Sleeps all day.”

I was hiding in a corner, eavesdropping on the conversation of the women in white coats, unsure if they were doctors or researchers.

Bbangdaengi nudged my side and whispered.

“There are a lot of patients here. And they’re treating people with some strange drugs, conducting experiments similar to artificially creating Awakened ones!”

Was this place an experimental lab where they used special ingredients extracted from “Witch’s Grass” and “Blood Rose” to artificially create Awakened ones from sick women?

The rehabilitation center was just an excuse; they needed samples (humans).

It was truly an unethical place.

“Still, I don’t think Seo Ga-eul would get so angry as to attack people.”

“…Maybe it’s because of her mother? Seo Ga-eul’s mother also suffered from an incurable disease and passed away. She was sick even before I was born. She was a really good person. That’s why experimenting on patients didn’t feel like someone else’s problem to her.”

Did Seo Ga-eul’s mother suffer from an incurable disease?

I remembered that Seo Do-cheol, who was the real power in the southwest, had conducted experiments on children at the “orphanage.”

The same orphanage where Yoo Yeoreum and Kim Mari lived.

The reason Seo Do-cheol conducted experiments and research there was to delve into ‘artificial awakening’ to cure his wife’s incurable disease─.

It wasn’t strange to think that way.

Thinking that way makes the relationship between Seo Ga-eul and Yoo Yeoreum delicate.

Did Yoo Yeoreum become a victim for the sake of Seo Ga-eul’s sick mother?

Whatever it was, the important thing now is to follow Seo Ga-eul.

How do I find Seo Ga-eul in this underground facility, which is as vast as Huh Gi’s bunker?

While I was pondering that, Baek Yeoul took out the wolf spider Keongkeongi from her bag.

“Keongkeongi, do you remember Seo Ga-eul’s scent? If you don’t remember, bark ‘keongkeong,’ and if you do, meow ‘hioong.’”

━Hioong…!

“Find out where Seo Ga-eul went!”

Hop-hop-.

Sssssk-.

Keongkeongi, moving its eight legs busily, headed somewhere.

Soon, a spiral staircase leading deeper underground appeared.

‘Why is this facility so big?’

Huh Gi’s bunker was built by himself.

It was impressive for something built alone, but there were still clumsy aspects in the finishing touches.

However, the huge underground facility looked like it was built by professional architects, no matter who saw it.

To build such a structure, secretive work would never do; one would need permission from the city hall, district office, or at least a government agency.

But there was something strange—everywhere, there were remnants as if bombs had exploded, leaving debris scattered.

They looked like fresh scars.

‘Did Seo Ga-eul attack?’

When I arrived underground, I discovered a massive tank under dim lighting, filled with dozens of stones.

The tank was surrounded by an old, rough metal frame, and its surface was covered with faint stains and rust marks, resembling traces of old experiments.

The nearby walls were entangled with various complex pipes and cables like a spider’s web, and the air was filled with a unique smell, a mix of disinfectant and oil.

You know those suspicious labs and tanks in games or movies where they cultivate biological weapons? It had exactly that kind of atmosphere. It must be a similar place in reality.

“Han Nam-jin, those stones─.”

“Yes. They are ‘Concept Stones’.”

Suspicious Concept Stones in the tank.

A nameplate labeled ‘Strawberry’ was attached.

Could it be the Concept Stone of a strawberry?

“Manager Kim, it’s all done, so let’s start the work again.”

“Yes. I thought I was going to die. What a sudden disaster─. Some crazy girl went on a rampage.”

“Isn’t she a ‘Witch’s Herb’ addict? Anyway, those ‘Witch Cult’ folks, they should stop spreading drugs.”

Juaap-.

I saw people extracting the liquid from the tank and putting it into containers.

Some of their faces were familiar to me.

“Those guys, they are Nam Bada’s followers.”

I don’t know their names, but they were the awakened bodyguards of Nambada.

What does it mean for such people to be in this underground?

Come to think of it, didn’t they say that Nambada was conducting experiments on the awakened in collaboration with the Yudogwan councilor?

It feels like the puzzle pieces are clicking into place.

‘The security is tight. If Seo Ga-eul headed this way, there’s a high chance she got caught. The story about a crazy girl rampaging must be about Seo Ga-eul.’

Does she think she’s some kind of captured princess?

Seo Ga-eul, sometimes she causes such troublesome situations.

That’s why she’s so cute!

I just want to bite her all over!

When I see her again, I’ll definitely bite her ear!

For now, I decided to hide in the corner and eavesdrop on people’s conversations a bit more.

“There are a lot of broken laboratories. There won’t be any problems with the “Special Concept Stone,” right? If something goes wrong with that, both the manager and I won’t just lose our jobs!”

“That thing, man! It’s stored in Level 0 zone! Even a nuclear missile wouldn’t damage it, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

The “Special Concept Stone” stored in a place that would remain intact even if a nuclear missile fell on it.

I became very interested in what it was.

In a situation where I’m about to fight the “Red King,” I feel like it could be very helpful to me, who needs intense power and level-ups.

Perfect timing!

Is it thanks to the newly acquired “Luck”?

My clumsy goddess of luck, Bbangdaengi, asked.

“Han Nam-jin, what should we do? There are too many people. It looks difficult to find Seo Ga-eul like this. There’s a limit to hiding. There are surveillance cameras everywhere!”

Bbangdaengi seemed to be worried, but the method was simple.

“Come here!”

I shouted as I rounded the corner.

A flustered Bbangdaengi.

“Hey! Hanamjin!”

“From now on, it’s the time of the hero Hanamjin! Bring me cola, women, and Seogaul!”

There’s nothing as effective as a head-on breakthrough.

Going around in circles isn’t my style.

“Intruder!”

“Intruder!”

“Damn it, how many times are we going to have intruders in one day!”

“But isn’t that Hanamjin?”

“Hanamjin is dead! What are you talking about!”

Clank, clank-!

Clank-!

Guns aimed at me from all directions.

I could sense through “emotion” that the guards wouldn’t hesitate to shoot at me. That must mean the secrecy of this facility is crucial.

Even for me, guns are a bit scary.

It’s not like the bullets in those chambers are blanks.

Of course, if I were alone, I could have dealt with the armed guards somehow, but Bbangdaengi was behind me.

Getting shot in the buttocks?

Who knows how his “bad luck” will play out.

Who could have predicted that a ricocheted bullet would hit such an unfortunate spot and blow up the research facility?

At this point, there’s no choice but to play the cards we have!

“By the way, I’m the grandson of President Nam Tae-gun. If you shoot me, you won’t get away with it either.”