I Woke Up as the Villain

Ghost’s Invisibility lifted after his death, so his limp body could be seen collapsing vainly to the floor. Kim Do-Jin looked at the figure with indifferent eyes and snorted.

Crakakack-! 

At that moment, with the sound of glass cracking, the quiet surroundings began to get noisy. It was unexpected, but Do-Jin could quickly guess what had happened after looking around. He drew a smile on his lips.

‘…So, you didn’t run away. Choi Yu-Seong.’ 

Do-Jin did not know what Yu-Seong did, but it was clear that Yu-Seong had solved a problem that he had been unaware of.

‘As expected, you did not disappoint me.’ 

The more Do-Jin thought about Yu-Seong, the more he liked him. Yu-Seong’s every behavior was so favorable that, as time went by, Do-Jin’s desire to possess him increased.

‘The problem is that he’s a more blessed guy than he looks, so it won’t be easy.’ 

With his burning eyes, Kim Do-Jin could see the figures crossing the night sky through the broken cracks. None of them had come to find him, because he didn’t have any colleagues yet. In other words, it meant that all of those guys were Choi Yu-Seong’s supporters.

‘Already, there are quite a few competitors. How hard.’ 

Do-Jin had to meddle between them and win Yu-Seong’s tricky heart. Moreover, Do-Jin was planning to kill Choi Yu-Seong’s father, Choi Woo-Jae. There were too many obstacles in the way, but still, Do-Jin thought it couldn’t be helped.

‘Because I already want him.’ 

Do-Jin had strong self-esteem and a greedy personality, so he was only satisfied upon getting his hands on what he had desired. He would use any means necessary to achieve that. It was no exaggeration to say that, thanks to this determination and personality trait, he had survived on the Aliode Continent and had even defeated that world’s Demon King.

‘Well, it can’t be helped.’ 

The harder the treasure was to obtain, the more attractive it would be. Do-Jin’s eyes were filled with longing.

***

In a green meadow, there was a rabbit running. No—it was a strange human running around in a rabbit mask. Choi Yu-Seong had no choice but to wonder about the very bizarre scene.

‘What is that?’ 

The question popped up just for a moment. The person wearing the rabbit mask skipped across the meadow as if flying. Then, the person lifted a blood-dripping claymore and said, “Die.”

“…What?” After Yu-Seong first answered, a huge claymore fell over his head and he screamed out in fear, “Aargh-!”

Yu-Seong opened his eyes wide and shook his head while waving his arms in the air. Jin Do-Yoon, who was watching him from the side, opened his mouth to ask, “Are you okay?”

“Did you have a nightmare?” asked Yu-Ri who was on the other side.

When Yu-Ri quickly brought a wet towel and wiped his sweaty forehead, Yu-Seong realized that the bizarre and terrible scene was a dream. He breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Oh well, a mysterious human wearing a rabbit mask and wielding a claymore? There's no way such a person exists…’

There was. Yu-Seong widened his eyes as he recalled the rabbit mask he last saw before losing consciousness. Then, he murmured, “Oh my gosh. Choi Mi-Na.”

“Huh?” At the sudden mention of such a dangerous name, both Jin siblings simultaneously looked at Yu-Seong and asked.

‘Come to think of it, these two don’t know about her.’

Mi-Na wearing a rabbit mask and working in the Special Police Force was a well-kept secret that very few people know about. Therefore, the two would naturally be surprised when Yu-Seong suddenly brought up the name of Choi Mi-Na, who was the family’s most mysterious person.

“No, nothing. It’s just that Mi-Na noo-nim appeared in my dream.”

As always, half of the lies had to be true.

“The Second Lady suddenly appeared in your dream?” Jin Yu-Ri asked with a suspicious gaze.

“Yeah, really. Anyway, what happened? I…” Yu-Seong’s gaze first drifted to his right foot, which was raised on the bed with a splint as support. As he looked at it, he could feel the pain again.

“Fortunately, it broke cleanly, so they said it wasn’t difficult to fix it up. The same goes for other injuries. The most severe thing was the bleeding… But since you opened your eyes safely, it should be okay.”

“Hmm…”

Come to think of it, his shoulders and the rest of his body were wrapped in bandages. It would be accurate to say that his limbs were entirely injured in many different places. Yu-Seong let out a bitter smile inwardly. Even thinking about it again, him surviving that situation itself was really based on luck.

‘Because I met the Slaughterer Queen…’ 

The Slaughterer Queen, Rachel, was even caught in a certain madness and tried to kill him at the end. To be exact, he would have ended up being kidnapped and murdered. Anyway, he had now escaped from that crisis.

Yu-Seong breathed a sigh of relief. “So, I’m alive.”

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Now that he recalled the crisis of that time, Yu-Seong knew that it had been real life and not a mere dream. That had been a moment of exceedingly great danger that was incomparable to any danger he had ever experienced before.

“It’s because the opponent was Demon King Worshipers who even had a Barrier Scroll. What made it worse … The Slaughterer Queen.”

Yu-Ri bit her lower lip as if she could understand it, and nodded. “I wasn’t very helpful this time either.”

On the other hand, Do-Yoon looked so upset while he clenched his fists.

Although she didn’t express it, perhaps Yu-Ri was also feeling miserable.

Yu-Seong smiled and shook his head at the two. “It’s not either of your fault. It's too big a variable, whether it's the Devil Worshiper or the Barrier Scroll.”

Considering the order of the novel progression in the first place, this was too severe a crisis to already appear. This was because the novel [Modern Master Returns] was close to a genre where the munchkin main character actively showed great performance. Thus, difficult things that could not be handled easily shouldn’t have come quickly.

However, this world, which was Yu-Seong’s reality, was different from the novel. If so, then what could he do?

“Don’t blame yourself too much, guys. I survived anyway. And this is a really rare situation. Let’s just assume that I was unluckily struck by lightning while walking on the street. Haha.” Yu-Seong smiled as brightly as possible and comforted the two.

“I’m looking for a Barrier Master that we can hire through Jenny. That’s because we don’t want the same thing to happen again from now on,” said Yu-Ri.

It wouldn’t be easy. As mentioned, there were only around ten Barrier Masters even after searching all over the world. Also, they did not externally reveal their identities. This was because there were so many people who wanted to secure them due to their useful abilities.

Of course, Yu-Seong, being a complete reader of the original novel, knew one of those Barrier Masters. He was already in the process to hire him in preparation for a time like this.

‘Yoo Jin-Hyuk.’ 

Yu-Ri would have no idea that the person she was looking for at Yu-Seong’s request was a Barrier Master. Of course, Yu-Seong could not say that they were already looking for the Barrier Master. Otherwise, he would surpass the accepted level of foresight and become a complete prophet. It was best for Yu-Seong to soothe Yu-Ri within appropriate boundaries for now because he was not confident in handling that aftermath.

“Don’t rush too much. They’re not easy people to find and they’ll show up when the time comes.”

“…” Instead of answering, Jin Yu-Ri smiled.

Yu-Seong knew that Yu-Ri was stubborn and wouldn’t easily back down even if she answered. Therefore, he simply changed the topic of the conversation rather than persuading her. Turning to Do-Yoon, who still looked quite gloomy, he asked, “So, can you tell me the situation in detail?”

“A person named Myo from the Special Police Force brought you to us, saying that there’s no time to delay as the opponent was the Slaughterer Queen…” said Do-Yoon.

“Then?” asked Yu-Seong.

“I ran straight to the hospital to save you, young master.” Do-Yoon looked perplexed, suggesting that he didn’t know anything about the situation at the time. Perhaps he was distracted by the thought that Yu-Seong had been in an emergency.

“Thanks, you saved my life.”

In any case, if the treatment had been delayed, Yu-Seong could have faced health complications. Fortunately, his condition seemed to have no problems as long as he recovered well. That alone explained how reasonable Do-Yoon’s action had been.

“I was not there, but I can summarize what had happened. First of all, it’s been half a month since you woke up, young master,” said Do-Yoon.

“What…? So, what’s the date today?”

“To be exact, it is January 3rd, 2030.”

“Oh my…”

That meant Yu-Seong was no longer twenty years old. He also blew away Christmas–the biggest event at the end of the year–in vain. In fact, none of these were very important.

‘My goal was to achieve D-rank before I turned twenty-one!’ 

When he woke up, Yu-Seong automatically aged upon the arrival of a new year. Unlike levels and ranks that stagnated without his effort, age had an unreasonable summation rule that went up on its own over time.

“And a lot of the people from the Special Police Force were dispatched beside Myo, who saved you, young master. According to the news, it was such a mess. Several buildings were destroyed and quite a few people were injured. Many people are still hospitalized because of that incident,” revealed Do-Yoon.

Fortunately, there were no casualties thanks to the quick reaction of the Player Association’s hunters who had been stationed at the site and the Special Police Force’s members who had been dispatched on time.

‘Indeed, it’s the Slaughterer Queen.’ 

No matter how strong Mi-Na was, Rachel was too strong to make a 1:1 match. It had been a situation where problems had inevitably occurred after fighting for quite a long time. The most important things here were two things:

“As a result, the Slaughterer Queen ran away. No matter how strong she was, she couldn’t handle three from the Special Police Force alone.”

“Who was dispatched with Myo?”

“I heard they were the Inn [1]and Hae [2].”

“Tiger and pig, huh…”

Rachel was missed despite the dispatch of Inn, who was in the top five in terms of force alone among the Twelve Zodiac of the Special Police Force, and Hae, who even had a lot of miscellaneous abilities though his force was somewhat lacking, alongside Myo.

Likewise, Yu-Seong had to admit that Rachel was certainly a monster.

“Although they are still tracking her, it’s said there’s a high possibility that she has already left the country. It’ll probably be hard to move for a while. Since it became known that the Slaughterer Queen–the S-rank hunter–belongs to Demon King Worshiper, the World Player Association has designated her as a Disturbance grade Villain,” explained Yu-Ri.

“Ah…”

Yu-Seong realized that Rachel had not yet been designated as a Villain until just before this point. This incident had changed her from a dangerous person with some experience as a war mercenary into a Villain at once. It had originally been scheduled to happen, but it could be said that the time has been moved forward somewhat.

‘By the way, Disturbance grade… Is it just below the Catastrophe?’ 

Among Villains, the especially powerful and dangerous beings were graded separately to increase the risk figure and to focus on pursuing them. And up to this point, the maximum realm that human Villains could reach–rather than the powerful beings from another world like demons–was the Disturbance grade. Of course, this common sense would soon be broken.

What was important was that Rachel, the Slaughterer Queen had acquired the worst danger level for Villains at the moment. This had led to considerable restrictions on her movement.

‘Fortunately, I won’t have to worry about her for a while.’

1. Sign of the tiger, the third sign of the Chinese zodiac ☜

2. Sign of the pig, the twelfth sign of the Chinese zodiac ☜