Chapter 5

RP: Vara • TL: Kim • PR: Whee

“Come to think of it, when I was young, I hated villains who pretended to have a story and acted pitifully.”

“Yeah?”

Jongsik replied to Sayun, who was quietly recalling old memories. Sayun thought for a while whether to praise Jongsik or not for replying to every single thing he said. In the end, he chose to ignore him.

“That’s why people have to be careful with their words.”

There was a saying that life doesn’t go the way you’d think, and it seemed to be true. The future Sayun had imagined when he was in highschool was becoming a civil servant and living a decent life, but when he grew up, he realised that he had become a crazy villain. 

That villain with a story which he hated when he was young.

He laughed in vain, thinking that his fate was also miserable. While recalling the past he definitely didn’t miss, too ambiguous to call it a memory, the car stopped in the parking lot.

Sayun got out of the car, took off his unpleasant clothing stained with blood, and handed it to Jongsik, who was following him after parking the car.

“Do you do laundry?”

“This?”

Sayun hated the natural question. Jongsik followed Sayun and looked at the robe over his arm, nodding without noticing anything. His expression was so innocent.

“Yes.”

“…Jongsik, are we beggars?”

“But this is a D-Class robe.”

“If there’s E-class blood on it, then it’s E-class. I used a low class one so I can throw it away, so just throw it away.”

Jongsik glanced down at the robe with lingering eyes as he clicked his tongue and shook his head at the speed of a crawling turtle. Sayun looked at him with an unbelievable expression and opened his mouth.

“Are you going to use it again by secretly washing it?”

“…!”

The honest man’s shoulders trembled at the question Sayun threw out in doubt. Sayun swallowed a smirk and grabbed the end of the robe tightly.

“How did you become a Night Rat executive?”

“You ordered it.” 

tl/n: again, jongsik is using formal speech here but… no equivalent in english so i’m just leaving it as a note.

“Don’t go anywhere calling yourself a Night Rat. You’ll embarrass me.”

Is there any top guild that cleans and reuses D-class robes anywhere in the world?

Even the Night Rats Guild wasn’t just any top guild.

Although they stayed in the shadows and didn’t receive official rankings, the amount of money they earned would be among the best in the world.

Sayun shook his head. He couldn’t believe that an executive of such a guild would want such poor quality robes.

In any case, Jongsik was gentle and kind.

It would be nice to work as much as he could, but his heart was very weak. The thrifty and frugal nature of Jongsik’s self-interest was also a problem. He was about to wash off the clothes of a hostile guild.

Sayun looked with a pathetic expression at Jongsik, who looked just like a clunky gangster on the outside, but with a soft personality that made one think of a teddy bear on the inside, and waved his hand.

It meant that he was tired.

“Alright, alright. You can wash it and reuse it, it’s up to you. What happened with the Yongho Guild?”

tl/n: 용호 (yongho) means “the dragon and the tiger” or just simply “dragon tiger”. You can look up the meaning since it’ll be a very long tl note if i add everything here. I’ll keep it as ‘yongho guild’ since it sounds better.

“Sunjae left.”

“Report.”

“Since he hasn’t come back yet, there is a high possibility that things haven’t worked out or he’s stuck there. Shall we take a look at the kids?” 

Sayun frowned at Jongsik’s question. It was the Yongho Guild who kept a close eye on Sayun when he met with the guild leader, Chunbok, three months ago and talked about the merger because he had accumulated debts and didn’t pay them back. Sayun ignored the opportunity and gave him time to organise the guild, and Chunbok took care to clean it up for three months, but in the end, Sayun changed his mind. 

It was a mistake to show sympathy because Sayun felt sorry for putting him on the spot.

That was a reason why people shouldn’t be flexible and soft. At least in situations where making a decision is needed, he had to learn to be inflexible.

Chunbok’s unlucky face came to mind, making his impression even worse.

If he’s not capable of anything, that means he’s not strong enough.

Yongho was a guild with no help whatsoever.

“Call him and if Chunbok won’t bend, I will go there myself.”

“Brother, although, looking at Baekryong Chunbok…”

“Baekryong who? He’s very caught up with the concept. Tell him to reveal his real name. Is he that embarrassed?”

“His real name is Park Chunbok, brother.”

“That’s right, Park Chunbok.”

It was hard for Sayun to understand why Chunbok gave traditional nicknames such as ‘Baekryong’ or ‘Cheongryong’. He must be 40 years old. Was he still that childish? The guild’s name was Yongho, and it had the sensibility of men of that age.

tl/n: 백룡(baekryong) means white dragon. 청룡 (cheongryong) means blue dragon.

Anyway, Yongho’s members were muttering that they were tired of Chunbok’s naming sense. So Jongsik, who was listening to them, started an argument by saying that his brother also had a similar naming sense. Sayun looked down on him before boarding the elevator.

“I’ll get going. You should check the gate clearing period in Area A again, then bring the kids and report it.”

Since there was nothing to do, it seemed that Jongsik wanted to keep arguing so Sayun just gave him a job to do instead. Sayun brushed Jongsik off with his hand and pressed the top floor button, leaning on the elevator’s walls. It was the moment when he got off the elevator that he heard a mechanical sound.

Bzzt-bzzt.

Suddenly, the cellphone he had tucked into the back pocket of his pants rang. It was a message saying that the A-Class gate, which was aimed at the gate black market held in Ulsan, was sold. Since it was a deal that Sayun knew would be made, he put the phone back into his pocket without much thought. Soon after, a familiar notification sound reached Sayun’s ears.

Ding!

<Achieved ‘True Evil of Mankind has 1,000 Gates’! We will give you 1,000 Karma as a reward.>

— Current Karma: 999,789

<Congratulations! 1,800 quests for the true evil of mankind have been completed! As compensation, ‘Status Window’ is provided. (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b>

“…What?”

The quest notification that Sayun had forgotten about was somewhat understandable, but it wasn’t the same for the system window that followed. As Sayun read the strange message, he leaned his upper body closer to the blue window.

The status window.

It was a symbol of hunters to the point where it was considered the second most prominent feature of the system, and Sayun had not seen it for 10 years.

Not a year or two, but 10 whole years.

Others had never seen this happen when they awakened. For Sayun, it was natural. No matter how many times he said ‘status window’, the system didn’t show it to him.

Sayun resented the system which seems to have dumped his sense of respect into the River Styx, and there were many times when he was jealous of ordinary hunters. As the situation has continued for several years, the system betrayed his expectations that he’d be able to get a status window at some point.

Sayun was suspicious when he heard that he would finally have one.

“They’re not scamming me again.”

In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for Sayun to fall victim to the system’s vile tactics. Again, there may be a cowardly trick hiding somewhere, so Sayun read the blue window with eyes full of disbelief.

His sense of bad luck, which usually turned on red lights in his mind, was quiet today. Sayun raised his hand and pursed his lips, the corners of his mouth twitching a little.

It would be his gain if he got a status window.

Although he was somewhat reluctant to say that his opponent was the system, there was definitely something unusual about not giving him the status window for 10 years.

Sayun, full of confidence, brushed his hand over the blue window.

<You have received the status window.>

<Congratulations! You have acquired the status window. The true evil of mankind doesn’t see the ordinary status window. Say ‘status window’! (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b>

‘You don’t see the ordinary status window.’

A phrase, similar to what he had expected, came out and he smiled.

Sayun didn’t want to check the status window for the first time in front of an elevator so he entered his apartment, washed up, and sat down on the bed with a little reverence. Just like last time, he was worried that a monster would pop out while receiving the reward, so he tensed his body so he could be prepared for various attacks.

He couldn’t stop being vigilant until he received his reward.

“Status window.”

A long, vertical window appeared in front of him as he said those words.

<Kwon Sayun’s Status Window>

Age: 26

Gender: Male

Grade: S-Class

Alignment: ‘True Evil of Mankind’, ‘Resistance (Disabled)’

Titles: ‘The One the Gods Watch (?)’, ‘Maybe I am a Descendant of the Gods (?)’, ‘The Follower of the Evil Spirit (?)’, ‘Head of the Night Rats (?)’, ‘The Light Dragon Killer (S)’, ‘Boss (S)’, ‘Master of Frost (SSS)’…

Skills: [Communication (A+)], [Shared (S)], [Verdictive (A)], [Assassination (SS)], [Corruption (B)], [Fraud (SS)], [Frenzy (B)], [Curse (SS)], [Frost (SS)], [Inducing Fear (S)], [Stealth (S+)], [Speech (SS)], [Shapeless Dagger (SS)], [Shield (A)]…

Exclusive Skill: [Sound of the Spirit (S)]

Unopened Skill: Exclusive Skill [Genius Eyes (L)]

Privileges: ‘Mankind’s worst genius (Natural Disaster?)’, ‘To you who will be most unhappy (L)’, ‘Forced execution (?)’, ‘Even the demons cry (A)’, ‘Survival of the fittest (S)’, ‘Master of surprise (S)’, ‘Cold resistance (SSS)’…

— Abilities

Strength: S+ (SS)

Agility: SS (SSS)

Stamina: S (SS+)

Luck: A- (F-)

— Others

Karma: 999,789

Fame: 10,390,091 (Notorious)

There was so much information that it was impossible to capture it all at a glance. The status window was so long that Sayun had to scroll three times.

When the skill acquisition window popped up, other than the memorised skills, unfamiliar things could be visible. It felt as if he was spying on someone else’s status window.

With a subtle expression on his face, Sayun quickly regained his composure and began to memorise the things written on the blue window. He didn’t know when that dog-like system would delete the status window, so he had to memorise as much as he could while he could still see it.

He was memorising information with all his heart and soul due to the deep distrust he had into the system.

Eyes that were reading everything suddenly stopped. Sayun, who checked the part he was trying to pass inadvertently with his eyes, tilted his head. Strange and unfamiliar letters caught his attention.