CH 49

The lounge bar Luna was actually one of the most famous places in the entire Itaewon. The only disadvantage was having to climb a fairly steep hill road to get there, but there were many other advantages to make the trip worth it.

First of all, it was built on the hillside and was eight-story high, so the scenery of downtown Itaewon could be seen at a glance when standing by the window. Also, the desserts and snacks were made by a patissier scouted from a five-star hotel in France, and the bartenders also consisted of handsome men and beautiful women.

Nevertheless, if one used the lounge and not the room, the price was not that expensive. It was great to take pictures to post on social media, and people were always excited and refreshed just from coming by and taking a look around. There were even rooms for VIPs, with interior designs that cost hundreds of millions won. Thus, there were inevitably many guests regardless of weekdays or weekends. It wasn’t for nothing that Kim Do-Jin tried to bring Choi Yu-Seong to Luna.

However, Mi-Na did not really care about how popular her store was. She did not open it to earn money. Itaewon had many foreigners, and most importantly, it was one of the places where foreign Villains usually hid in Korea.

‘Well, she’s just looking for Villains here.’

The store's growth was unexpected, and it was due to the enthusiastic work of the professional manager, who had been hired with a lot of money. Mi-Na did not put any direct energy, physically or mentally, into managing the lounge bar Luna. Nothing was that different even now, though she had to go to work almost every day as the owner unless things related to the Comet group or her family got too busy.

Most of the time, she played the part of a wallpaper and looked for Villains in the store or observed the outside world through the window to look for Villains in Itaewon.

‘Who would be today’s Wally?’

It was when Mi-Na sat on a window watching that she would think of ‘Where’s Wally?’, something that she used to enjoy as a child.

“Hey, Choi Yu-Seong and Kim Do-Jin are in the Frozen Pub right now!”

Mi-Na heard an unpleasant name.

“Those two are together?”

“I heard that it looks extraordinary when they both are together.”

“Any pictures?”

“I just received some from my friend… But, are you going?”

“Are you kidding? Of course!”

Rumors spread in an instant. The store full of guests was emptied at an unbelievable speed. The employees seemed bewildered by the unusual situation. However, despite looking out the window as if she was not interested, Mi-Na’s mind filled up with even more complicated thoughts than usual.

‘Choi Yu-Seong. That kid is here now?’

She remembered the request she had received on the phone from Choi Ji-Ho last night. She did not think that something might go wrong, but she was concerned about Yu-Seong somehow.

‘Should I go and see him? Just to see his face.’

Choi Mi-Na leaned against the window, nervously tapping a fairly high heel on the floor, and soon shook her head.

‘I can’t be bothered.’

Originally Yu-Seong was not the Wally she was looking for.

‘Is there any Villain standing out today?’

Mi-Na yawned while she looked out the window again.

***

Humans were indeed excellent at adapting. At first, Yu-Seong was not used to the gazes and interest pouring into the pub. Therefore, he couldn’t express his inner thoughts through conversation. However, as he had a conversation with Do-Jin, who was quite calm, he was able to easily bring up what he wanted to say. For example, the conversation was about such topics…

“Why are you making a guild suddenly?”

“There’s a woman who keeps asking me to make it.”

“A woman?”

At that moment, a name passed through Yu-Seong’s mind.

‘Baek Ah-Rin.’

Even in the original novel, Baek Ah-Rin had played a big role in getting Kim Do-Jin to create a guild. She would play a pivotal role among Do-Jin’s colleagues along with Baek Cheol in the future. Her potential was, of course, an EX-rank.

‘By the way, Baek Ah-Rin and Kim Do-Jin are already in contact?’

Time had flown faster than Yu-Seong thought. He felt like something was moving forward, but Yu-Seong did not take it too seriously since there was no big loss for him. Other than that, their conversation was not overly deep. It was just the process of getting to know each other slowly.

‘Because I should not poke too deep from the start.’

In the original novel, Do-Jin was depicted to have a rather deep grudge. As he didn’t think it would be easy to solve from the beginning, Yu-Seong tried to find the answer slowly rather than being impatient. And for that, his first step was to make Kim Do-Jin warm up to him so that he could be honest with him.

‘Somehow, I’ve come to this point where I need to get closer to Kim Do-Jin.’

The flow of the conversation became more and more comfortable as they had the same goal. When they finished drinking and went back out to the street to walk for a while, Yu-Seong came up with one thought.

‘If it wasn’t for the original novel, he might have been a really good friend…’

Yu-Seong had such a thought, but he shook his head vigorously to clear his head.

‘Let’s not forget. This guy is a reaper who would drive me to death if anything goes wrong.’

The conversation continued even while they were walking through the bustling Itaewon streets, which seemed to overflow with people even though it was already quite late at night.

“I actually thought you were quite a fool.”

“Is that a confession? It’s quite unpleasant.”

“It doesn’t matter because now I think differently.”

“No, it matters. Why did you come to befriend me if you thought I was a fool at first?”

“Because you have a lot of money.”

Of course, even though Yu-Seong knew Do-Jin’s real purpose, it seemed like a pretty plausible answer.

“You’re talking nonsense. I don’t know what you’re hiding inside, but I’ll trust that you’ll tell me someday.”

“I’ll think about it when the time comes.”

“Bullshit.”

Was it because of alcohol? Or maybe it was because there was a change of heart? Yu-Seong was already talking quite comfortably with Do-Jin. Even though he was surprised to admit it himself, Do-Jin also seemed to feel the same way about Yu-Seong.

Do-Jin looked at Yu-Seong with surprised eyes and soon hardened his face. His silent and deep black eyes looked straight at Yu-Seong as if to see right through him. Then, Do-Jin’s red lips slightly twisted into a crooked smile. “…It would be nice if you weren’t a Choi.”

At the end of those words, a heavy, strange, short silence passed between the two.

“Why are you upsetting the mood? Do you have any grudge against the Choi family?” Yu-Seong tried to calm the vibe down with an awkward smile.

‘This is dangerous.’

He crossed the line spontaneously.

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

‘How crazy. Why do I always make mistakes while things go well like this?’

Yu-Seong continued to smile awkwardly to calm his pounding heart. On the other hand, Do-Jin did not loosen his stuffed face. His two dark eyes looked darker than the night.

A question suddenly passed through Yu-Seong’s mind as he was trying to get out of this situation.

‘…Why is it so quiet?’

Yu-Seong couldn’t feel the crowd around him anymore. Although they entered a somewhat deserted road, there was always a crowd passing by from time to time until a minute ago. However, all of the sudden, the crowd had disappeared.

Do-Jin, still having a stiff look on his face, reached out to the air. Then, a phenomenon appeared where space seemed to have collapsed.

‘Subspace!’

Yu-Seong recognized which skills Do-Jin had performed at a glance. As the name suggested, the Subspace skill, used to create one’s own secret space, was an ability created for the main character Kim Do-Jin’s convenience. It was so that he could be equipped at any time even though he was occasionally unarmed.

‘By now, since he would be about C-Rank, this should be a space about thirty-six square feet large?’

Later, when he would become beyond the S rank, Do-Jin would store food, water, and other supplies, as well as installable bunkers purchased from the dimensional merchants in the subspace. In any case, Do-Jin did not show his subspace ability recklessly except for his supporters. As much as it was not visible to others, it would be fatal if more people didn't know about it.

Choi Woo-Jae was also caught off guard when he saw Kim Do-Jin unarmed and was killed by a weapon he took out from the subspace.

Looking at this skill right in front of his eyes, Yu-Seong felt somehow shameful.

‘Oh, that looks so cool. Though, what a shame.’

Yu-Seong desired to duplicate this skill. Even if there was a limit to the number of uses, subspace ability would be quite useful. The problem was that Kim Do-Jin’s subspace skill was a C-rank skill as mentioned and was not a skill that could be obtained by Yu-Seong’s Eye of Replication, which was only an E-rank. And in fact, there was a separate fact that he had to focus on now.

Do-Jin did not show his subspace skill unless it was to his supporters. To be precise, there was one more exception.

‘He just shows it to his enemy who would be killed by him anyway.’

Of course, he won’t kill someone just by swearing once. Moreover, Do-Jin seemed to want to get along with Yu-Seong… At least Yu-Seong felt this was real. However, the road was quiet with no one else around.

Do-Jin–with a stuffed face–drew a sword and pointed it at Yu-Seong.

“Why are you suddenly acting so scary?” Yu-Seong asked. He looked directly at Do-Jin. The momentum seemed to rise from the tip of Do-Jin’s sharply forged sword. Yu-Seong’s Adam’s apple, the sword’s target, greatly trembled.

“Choi Yu-Seong, trust me.”

The cool winter wind passed between the two.

‘Hey, you nutcase. What kind of madman would trust you while being pointed with a sword?’

Yu-Seong swallowed what he wanted to say quite heavily as a silver light flashed in front of him.

‘That was really fast.’

It wasn’t a matter of believing or not in the first place. It could be seen obviously, but he couldn’t see the shape perfectly. A silver flash passed right next to Yu-Seong’s neck and dug into the air. The gap between them was so close as a sheet of paper.

“Hup…!”

Along with the voice of someone swallowing air, there was a long tearing sound. At that moment, Yu-Seong used Wind Control to create an illusion and flew himself sideways. A disorganized human figure, as if popped out of old television, leaned back and stabbed the heart of the illusion with a hidden blade rising from the tip of his toes. If Yu-Seong was still there, he would have died immediately without knowing anything.

“That was a quick response,” said Do-Jin after licking his lips with the tip of his tongue. He cut off the toes of an unidentified figure–who split Yu-Seong’s illusion in half–just before.

In that short time, the opponent who seemed to be counterattacking in a precarious position completely hid his appearance. Then, there was silence.

Yu-Seong frowned at the sticky yet stinging sensation felt from his left hand, and swept the side of his neck.

‘Blood.’

Yu-Seong’s palms were stained with dark red. This was because Do-Jin’s sword that narrowly passed him actually injured his neck as well.

“You told me to trust you, you jerk.” Yu-Seong tried not to swear, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Ah, slipped,” Do-Jin said calmly and looked around with a cold gaze. Although it could not be seen, he must be convinced that the person who had attacked him was still here. Then, Do-Jin suddenly ran toward somewhere and swung his sword again.