{ Chapter 20 – Hybrid Villain }

– Creak.

“Aaaaaaaaah!!”

Along with the sound of twisting joints, the 'screams of heaven' resounded throughout the room.

“I’m glad it’s a soundproof house. I don’t have to bother about anything else.”

“Ugh, uh uh… uh…”

“But what are you doing? I didn't even break it all.”

It looked quite pitiful to see him trembling while holding his finger, but compared to the nail in Ariel’s heart when she saw his article, this was nothing more than a slight scratch.

– Whoops…!

“Ouch…”

Cheon Sang-myung, who finally broke his own finger to the end, sat down on the floor and started trembling.

“Now, focus again.”

My hypnosis was often interrupted by strong shocks.

“Hey, what do you want…?”

So to renew the hypnosis again, as I put my smartphone in front of his face again, Cheon Sang-myung asked a question while trembling.

“Break the rest of your fingers.”

“Ha, don’t do this! Don’t do this!”

In a low voice, I gave him a command, and as he struggled, I couldn't help but smile quietly at the sight of him grabbing his right middle finger.

Alert: Villainization in progress...

Reason: You tortured a human, not a monster!

“Well?”

At that very moment, a notification popped up in front of me.

“What else is this?”

As I came across a new feature I hadn't seen before, help started popping up in front of me, much like it had a few days ago.

If a system user commits an evil deed, the villainization proceeds automatically.

The level of the user increases as the villainization progresses, but the evil value also increases.

'So, it seemed to mean that the more evil deeds I would do in the future, the stronger I would become.'

'If it was added to the combo of ‘Physical Link’ and ‘Refining’ that I use, I think I will be able to use the maximum level of skill sooner or later.'

As I considered the potential benefits of this new advantage, I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction.

However, I also recognized the risks associated with allowing myself to be consumed by evil.

‘Don’t let the evil level increase.’

This was probably the reason why people felt impulsive when they do evil things.

Then, when I reached the point where I was able to withstand the maximum level of skill, I would have turned into a human garbage with no emotions.

But I had no intention of becoming that kind of person.

At least until Ariel grew up to become the greatest hero ever, and destroys all the monsters that killed Justia.

If all of those goals were achieved, it wouldn't really matter if I die at her hands.

'So, until then, I’ll have to keep myself.'

'But it’s hard…!'

“Help me!”

'So, how am I supposed to keep myself?'

'I don’t think it would be easy to solve it with just hypnosis.'

‘…Wait, maybe?’

As I was pondering while watching Cheon Sang-myung, who was wriggling like a bug, a good idea suddenly came to my mind.

There was a suitable lab rat right in front of me, so I would have to test the idea right away.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Uhhh… Uhhhh…”

As I approached Cheon Sang-myeong with such thoughts in mind, he suddenly began to bow his head as if all the tears and mucus had been drained.

“Huh, I was wrong. Please, please forgive me…”

“What did you do wrong?”

Upon hearing that, Sangmyung Cheon stopped bowing his head and began to blink his eyes.

“...”

“You don’t know?”

“Uh, that’s…”

“You don’t know, what did you do wrong?”

- aaaaa!!

Saying that I kicked his tattered hand, and he, who had been screaming, started talking to me in a trembling voice.

“I am very sorry for writing an offensive and offensive article…!!”

“ Now you know why?”

“yes?”

Then, when he hears my question, he put on a blank expression.

“It’s worse if you know it.”

“Kkeueek!!”

This was an invincible infinite loop that Himari was using on me right before we parted ways.

It was so painful when I was hit, I couldn't be this happy when I used it on others.

“Please give me a chance to make up for it!!”

“Well?”

“The article I wrote about Mr. Trauma… I’ll fix it right now!”

Wait a minute, but what was this again?

Could this guy even write an article about me?

“Ummm…”

After scratching my head for a moment at his unexpected remark, I quietly reached out my hand to him.

“ugh…!”

At that, Cheon Sang-myung closed his eyes tightly while being frozen.

– Ahaa…

“…uh?”

But as soon as the pain he felt in his hands began to subside, he stared looking puzzled.

Alert: Skill: recovery has been used!

Yes. What I used on him now was ‘Recovery’, a skill stolen from the Resurrection during the Academy incident.

Due to the extortion penalty, the level disappeared and it became a backward-compatible skill that I couldn’t even use on myself, but even if it rotted, it was quite effective in healing the wounds of others.

If so, why did I use the recovery skill on him now?

Alert: Villainization Stopped...

Reason: Healed an injured person!

This was exactly what I was aiming for.

“If I do a good job, the villainization will automatically stop or go down.”

I was really glad because If I could control the rate of villainization, I could use self-hypnosis to protect myself.

And on the subject of degrading me into a villain, if I did a good deed, I stopped being a villain and didn't get a penalty.

“Ah, thank you…?”

Cheon Sang-myung gave me thanks with a puzzled expression on his face.

“No, I just refilled it.”

“yes?”

“Since your fingers are fine, can you break them again?”

After doing evil, do good right away. And repeat it. until the balance was achieved.

– Creak…!

“Stop now!”

'Truly a complete hybrid villain...'

'What a genius idea this is.'

“Please, please, save me just once… I’m begging you…”

“……..”

I was happy alone, and Cheon Sang-myung started to sob in front of me.

“I wrote provocative articles to make money, to make money. But for the sake of my family, I had no choice but to do it.”

“……..”

“I can enter this place because I am an office worker, but my family in Korea is still not able to enter the artificial island…”

It looked pretty grim.

“It means that I had no choice but to buy tickets for the children…”

“Well?”

“Sometimes unexpectedly, when a victim comes out, they also remitted the compensation money steadily… I’m at least conscientious…”

“I hear and saw it.”

Hearing that, I nodded with a reasonable expression on my face, and then kindly bent his arm at 90 degrees.

“…Billion! Ughhhh.”

Then, unable to scream properly, Cheon Sang-myeong fell on the floor and began to had seizures.

As I approached him, I quietly smiled and whispered.

“I fixed it, so I’m a conscientious villain, right?”

“F*ck…”

I did it according to the logic he said, but he cursed at me.

Unfortunately, none of these people's words work for me.

“Mr. Cheon Sang-myung, everyone has a story.”

That was why I always said this when I met people like him.

“Your hero can be someone’s villain, and your villain can be someone’s hero.”

“what…”

“You maybe be a hero to your family, but a villain to your victims.”

I had never seen anyone who had properly refuted that statement.

“……..”

“It’s the same thing.”

“……..”

“I’m just a villain to you.”

Justification for justification. Sophistry for sophistry.

Because I returned what he did.

“Uh, uh…”

As if he had managed to realize that, Cheon Sang-myeong started looking at me with eyes full of fear.

Yes, this was it. These eyes, which had completely lost their will to resist, were bent. I just wanted these eyes.

“Chun Sang-myung.”

It was because he was in a really appropriate state to use my special move ‘Common Sense Change’.

“Let’s do one interview.”

'There was a saying that people could not change, and I disagree with that statement.'

“And there, you’re also putting stuff you ‘intentionally’ omitted.”

“Ah… uh…”

They could be changed so well.

“This time, you are going to use positives, not negatives. You know?”

But, since I got my hands on the influential journalist Cheon Sang-myung, I thought I could start slowly.

My last and most important goal...

Revenge from the Lumia gang.

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A few hours later, at Ariel’s house:

“Ugh…”

Ariel woke up after tossing and turning in bed, sweating, and picking up her smartphone.

“Three in the morning…”

Her older sister crawled up to her, covered in blood; It was a nightmare she always had these days.

“…ugh.”

She stared blankly at the time for a moment and then started to rummage through her smartphone, wishing she had slept.

“…….”

She searched the community as she always does, and typed her name in the search bar.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there were no new posts.

All she could think of was the texts that had just turned blue after reading them.

Ariel saw that and quickly pressed back.

Then, with a smile, she started searching for her name on the Hero Network this time.

But in reality, it was a pointless action.

There was no news from the community as well, but there was no way that an article related to her would have been published at such a late hour.

It was just to divert her nerves before the words she had seen come back to her mind.

“…uh?”

However, her eyes, which had been silently scrolling down, opened wide.

[Interview with Survivors of the Area 17 Incident… What Justia Left Us]

And after a while, she pressed the article uploaded an hour ago with a trembling heart.

“……..”

After that, there was silence for some time.

“Thanks to me… someone survived.”

The content of the article was simple.

An interview with a survivor who was being manipulated by Trauma in a sane state, but only managed to save his life with the intervention of a girl.

And underneath it, there was a picture of her facing Trauma, standing with him back on the street.

[It is said that superheroes always have an archenemy that suits them.]

The last sentence of the article came into her eyes as she scrolled down while looking at the photo with trembling eyes.

[If that is true, we may be witnessing the birth of a new hero worthy of a supervillain. ]

A sincere smile lingered on Ariel’s lips, who had been silently looking at the last phrase for a while.

“…hehehehe.”

She rolled around and laughed for a while, then quietly captured the article’s screen.

[Gseok089: She looks so cute because she resembles Justia]

[Pdra: lol lol]

Even after capturing the screen, all the comments had already been posted dozens of times-

‘Sister, I’ll do my best.’

-she started reading the article over and over again and smiled like a fool, but she closed her eyes with a relaxed expression after a long time and muttered to herself.

‘Let's be sure to become the best hero.’

Then, all of a sudden, she turned serious.

‘Because I’m sure I will get revenge…’

She brushed her teeth while remembering Trauma for a moment, and soon fell asleep again.

“Ummm…”

Fortunately, the last thing she thought of was an interview with a survivor who saved her life and comments on the article.

“Hehe…”

That day, Ariel was able to sleep soundly after a long time.

“……..”

And Kang Ha-neul, who secretly watched it with the help of Pandora’s drone from the rooftop of a distant building-

“Pandora, thank you for today.”

[ Pandora: I almost died. Take responsibility ]

-smiled and left quietly.

[ Pandora: As promised, up to 4 episodes of the game. ]

“ah.”

[ Pandora: We won’t sleep until tomorrow night. ]

Realizing that the time to fulfill the contract with Pandora was approaching, I quietly shook my head.

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Meanwhile at that time.

“What happened, the hell…”

In her office, Lee Se-ah was tying her hair up.

“…I’ve never seen a future where Lumia is a woman.”

Then she got up from her seat with her eyes shining quietly.

“Maybe, has it changed? The future?”

Before long, she walked to the middle of the room.

“…maybe, maybe not.”

The true child of prophecy who had lent her Lumia her name for a while, said.

Her eyes gleamed in deep blue.

“……..”

And after a few minutes.

“……..uh?”

A cold sweat began to form on Lee Se-ah’s forehead.