I Woke Up as the Villain

Geom-Gui wondered if he should heed his intuition’s warning and back down or eliminate the danger before it approached. In fact, the decision had already been made. As always, his choice was to take the bull by its horns rather than avoid it.

Five daggers from Geom-Gui’s Secret Warehouse flew into the air and headed to the warehouse. Jenny's bullets chased after the daggers but only managed to strike two. That was because Geom-Gui himself jumped into the air and swung his sword to deflect the other bullets. In the end, three daggers flew into the wooden warehouse.

"No!" Jin Yu-Ri shouted urgently. She ran toward the warehouse.

"Where do you think you’re going!" said Medusa. She brandished her hair to stop Yu-Ri, but Jenny’s bullet blocked her.

At the same time, Geom-Gui stiffened at the mana reaction from inside the wooden building.

‘Mana explosion?’

Geom-Gui had a gut feeling. He yelled, "Stay away, Medusa!"

Jenny fired at Medusa again. Confused and unsure of what was happening, Medusa started to defend herself with a rather vague expression. Then, the wooden warehouse was engulfed in light.

***

Choi Yu-Seong had one thought when he saw Hwang Ki-Chul, the B-rank Mana-Blocking skill player, fall to the ground helplessly as if he had been pushed.

‘I’m fucked.’

The mana reaction around Ye-Ryeong had seem to be calming down, but not anymore.

The mana reaction around Ye-Ryeong was no longer calming down like before. It began to agglomerate like crazy.

‘The moment the mana comes together, it’ll explode.’

Yu-Seong had two options. The first option was to run outside the wooden building as soon as possible. He would live, but Chae Ye-Ryeong would die. He had no time, so his instincts were telling him to run away without hesitation.

‘You want to live, right? Is there any reason to risk your life to protect Chae Ye-Ryeong?’ 

The issue was his rationale.

‘If I forsake Chae Ye-Ryeong here…’

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

Would he be able to bear the guilt of surviving alone? Faced with such questions, Yu-Seong’s instinct once again cried out.

‘But you have to survive first to worry about the future.’ 

Choi Yu-Seong fully agreed with his own instinct. He didn't want to die. How many crises had he gone through to get to this point? It would be very unfortunate to be caught up in a mana explosion that would inevitably take place in front of him.

Truthfully, Yu-Seong knew exactly what he wanted to do.

‘I want to live, but I want to save Chae Ye-Ryeong, too.’ 

But how? There was not much time left. At that moment, Yu-Seong recalled something and ran madly toward Chae Ye-Ryeong. Her mana was currently resonating with the mana stones. He wrapped her in his arms.

‘Please…say that it's not too late!’

The collision soon became an explosion.

When his vision momentarily turned white, the ring on Yu-Seong’s index finger, the one he never removed, also began emitting light.

***

The wooden warehouse was engulfed in a large explosion, and the shock wave shook the ground and spread everywhere. Choi Min-Seok watched the scene through binoculars from afar. His jaw dropped as he stumbled and almost fell in place, but he managed to regain his balance.

‘Oh, my goodness. Mana explosion?’

If he was not mistaken, Min-Seok had certainly just seen a mana explosion. Moreover, it had a fairly large range and an unusual power, so even a fairly talented hunter would have difficulty surviving if they had been inside the building. He also realized that Choi Yu-Seong had never come out of that wooden warehouse the entire time he had been observing it.

‘Is Yu-Seong dead?’

Choi Min-Seok smiled brightly for a while, but his expression soon crumpled.

‘Ugh, Father will hear about this soon!’

The situation had become bigger than Min-Seok thought. Now that this had happened, all traces of his involvement had to be erased.

"Damn it!" Choi Min-Seok cursed and looked at the D-rank professional chasers, who were as shocked as he was.

'I have to shut their mouths first.’ 

However, Choi Min-Seok wasn’t strong enough to do so. In other words, he had to escape with them for now.

"Let's run away."

At his words, the two chasers immediately headed toward the car they had driven in.

"No, not that one. Get in my car," said Min-Seok.

"Pardon?"

"What if we get caught running away with that shitty car? I'll buy you a new car, so just leave that here!" That’s what Min-Seok said, but truthfully, he was afraid the chasers would try to flee.

Fortunately, there were only two chasers, so it was not difficult for all of them to ride in a four-seater sedan.

"Let's go back to Seoul right away."

"Yes? Yes!"

Min-Seok’s driver had also been surprised by the explosion.

‘I’ll have to kill this guy, too.’ 

The driver didn’t know the details of what happened and who they were chasing. However, if Min-Seok were careless and left even a single clue behind, then Choi Woo-Jae would find it and come after him. That was why Min-Seok was determined that everyone in the car, besides himself, had to die.

‘As for Geom-Gui and Medusa…’

The ideal scenario would be for the villains to have been caught in the mana explosion and die. But if they survived, he would be able to buy their silence for a while.

‘If I have a chance, I should also kill those two.’ 

However, this was something to worry about a little later. The important thing right now was to get rid of the three people who were with him in the car. Min-Seok’s heart pounded as he kept his phone out of sight as he hired another B-rank contract black mercenary via text.

‘Anyway, Choi Yu-Seong is dead.’ 

There were too many issues for Min-Seok to be happy with that result.

'Father can never… no, no one can ever know that I’m involved in this.’ 

Choi Min-Seok was in agony, sweating in his seat.

***

Jin Yu-Ri had been directly caught up in the mana explosion. She rolled on the floor with blood all over her body.

"Yu-Ri!" With a pale face, Jenny quickly tried to approach Jin Yu-Ri. However, before she could reach her, Yu-Ri kicked off the floor and got back up. Yu-Ri started running toward the warehouse. Unfortunately, her wounds were too severe. She took less than ten steps before dropping to the floor again.

Jenny reached out her arms and quickly helped Yu-Ri up. "Are you okay?"

Yu-Ri’s usually neat hair was now scattered all over the place. Although she appeared to be bleeding from many areas, she didn’t seem to feel any pain. She simply murmured, "Yu-Seong oppa...Yu-Seong oppa is in there.”

Jenny had to swallow the words that popped into her head.

‘He was inside.’ 

It was highly likely that Choi Yu-Seong wouldn’t be inside anymore. Even an A-rank Physical hunter would be unable to survive such a powerful mana explosion and would have turned to dust.

There was no way a person as smart as Yu-Ri didn’t know that. However, she wanted to believe that Choi Yu-Seong was still alive. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being dead.

"The boss would have escaped safely. Your injury is also serious, so let's take a break first..."

"Ahhhhhh-!"

Even before Jenny finished talking, a monstrous howl rang out and shook the surroundings. She turned toward the sound even as she continued to support Yu-Ri when she couldn’t bear her own weight.

It was Geom-Gui. He wore his demon mask as he screamed in the middle of the field with a dying woman in his arms. She was covered in blood.

Medusa had tried to defend against Jenny’s bullet but had failed to react in time due to the mana explosion. As a result, two mana bullets had struck her, and unfortunately for Medusa, one of the bullets had pierced her temple. Naturally, even an A-rank hunter could not survive if their brain was hit.

His white clothes were covered with Medusa's dark red blood. Geom-Gui shook his head as he wailed, "Ah... No. This is not real. Wake up! Wake up, Kim Hee-Yeon!"

Kim Hee-Yeon seemed to be Medusa's real name. Even after she died, Geom-Gui continued screaming in disbelief.

Jin Yu-Ri's empty gaze slowly turned toward Geom-Gui. Then, she said, "Jenny."

"...Yes?"

"Gun."

"What?"

"I'm going to kill him." After giving that simple answer, Jin Yu-Ri pulled out the pistol that Jenny had on her waist and unhesitantly fired at Geom-Gui.

Click, click!

"There are no bullets. Yu-Ri. Calm down."

Click, click, click, click, click, click...!

Jin Yu-Ri pulled on the trigger crazily and cried out with tears in her eyes, "Bullets! Give me the bullets, Jenny!"

"I used up all the bullets I brought. And if you kill him, we'll never know who's behind this attack.”

After listening to what Jenny had to say, Yu-Ri, who appeared to have lost her reason, regained some light in her eyes. She muttered, "The one behind the attack?”

"There’s no way that they came here for no reason. There must be someone behind him,” said Jenny.

“...” Jin Yu-Ri put down the gun without saying a word. Then, she said, "You're right, Jenny. This revenge wouldn’t be enough."

"...I agree with that, you bitch," said Geom-Gui coldly.

After screaming out his pain and denial one last time, he looked up blankly at the blue sky. He wiped the blood flowing from Medusa’s temple with his fingers and painted a line under the black pupils of his white demon mask. Then, he slowly rose to carefully place Medusa’s dead body on the ground.

Jenny grabbed her gun as she pushed Jin Yu-Ri behind her.

As the aura of red mana began to fluctuate like crazy around him, Geom-Gui said, "Until now, I have never killed anyone out of resentment.”

It seemed like bloody tears were flowing down the white demon mask as Geom-Gui muttered, "This is the first time that I am so angry that I just want to kill someone…”

Five daggers suddenly appeared and shot at Jenny, flying through the air. Subsequently, Geom-Gui's sword stretched long and approached quickly too.

Jenny frowned as she fired a pistol and deflected all the daggers. This was a close-distance fight, so it was not advantageous for her.

'But if I back off... Yu-Ri would be in danger.' 

Even if she had put her life on the line, Jenny had to defend her position. She had no choice. Noticing that Geom-Gui was just around the corner, she held two pistols upside down, like tonfas, and started her defense.

Kagak-gak!

The grinding of iron could be heard as a sword emitting red mana and a gun containing blue mana collided. Soon, there was a strong bloody odor.

Jenny looked at Geom-Gui’s creepy eyes and pulled the trigger. Fire spouted out from the tip of the gun and tore at Geom-Gui’s ears. When she was eventually overpowered, she was thrown into the air.

‘Oh, no…!’

Jenny gasped once Geom-Gui turned to look at Yu-Ri. From the start, his target was Jin Yu-Ri. But then, both Geom-Gui and Jenny’s eyes turned to look in the direction Yu-Ri was staring at blankly.

A figure could be seen right above the wide rice field.