I Woke Up as the Villain

"I've seen you appear on TV a few times. You know, when you held onto a vodka bottle and were taken out of the club in the morning, and when you suddenly ran up on top of someone else's car with a bat, and..." said Yu-Ri.

"Stop," said Choi Yu-Seong while watching the TV program with a rather strange expression. He cut Jin Yu-Ri off and tried to cool down his red face by shaking his hand, fanning himself.

"I'm not trying to make fun of you. I've always heard such bad news, but it feels so new to hear about your good stories too. I should buy a VOD (video on demand) and show it to my brother. I'm sure he’ll love it,” Yu-Ri said.

"I know what you mean, but... Wow, this is...” Even though he fanned himself rigorously, Yu-Seong’s red face did not cool down.

‘This just raises my reputation by too much.’

It was embarrassing to hear them commenting on his intelligent, calculated movement, excellent combat sense, and the evaluation saying that he would lead South Korea in the future. Most of all, he was compared to the Taegeuk attack team made by the Sword Master Chuck Jun-Hui. They even implicitly evaluated the pairing of him, Yu-Seong, and Kim Do-Jin above that attack team.

‘I have not a single thought of pairing up with Kim Do-Jin, but…’

Anyway, it felt strange to hear such a story.

"No way, are you embarrassed?"

"Uh..."

"Why’re you embarrassed all of a sudden? You've been hearing a lot of compliments in newspaper articles and social media comments, right?” Jin Yu-Ri asked.

"That's just in writing. It's my first time hearing people actually talk about me like that on TV,” Yu-Seong said.

“Ah…?"

"Oh, I'm really embarrassed. It's no joke,” said Yu-Seong. His face was completely heated. He buried his face into the cushion that was beside the couch in the living room. At this moment, he really couldn’t raise his head.

"You're especially cute today."

"Hush, Yu-Ri,” Yu-Seong said.

Then, there was the sound of cell phone vibrations ringing in quick succession. It sounded somewhat unusual and was similar to the sound when Yu-Seong was receiving a call.

Choi Yu-Seong, still red-faced, scoured his pocket, lifted his cell phone, and looked at the screen. It wasn't a phone call. When he looked at the top of the screen, he could see countless notifications.

‘What is this?’

Frustrated, Yu-Seong unlocked his cell phone. The first thing he saw was Choi Woo-Jae's message in the Coconut Talk.

- You're doing great. I'll send you some more pocket money. I also have set a schedule with Chairman Yoo. Be fully prepared.

Choi Yu-Seong couldn't hide his smile even though his face was still red. He immediately sent a reply saying, ‘Thank you so much.’ The problem was that the notifications were still continuing.

‘What the heck?’

- djas2356 started following you.

- Shin-999 started following you.

- lexkim started following you.

- ...started following you.

- ...started following you.

Perhaps it was because of the TV show, but his phone was suddenly going crazy with notifications of new followers on his social media.

‘But the show just ended…’

A quick look at tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w will leave you more fulfilled.

Actually, it was not difficult to figure out why there were suddenly so many followers. This was because a person with a profile picture of a fairly familiar face sent Yu-Seong a direct message on social media.

‘Kim Hyuk-Joon?’

It was Korea’s top celebrity hunter.

- Did you watch the show? I posted a link with your ID after I figured out that you are active on social media. I'll delete it right away if you are uncomfortable with it, so please send me a direct message. I'm rooting for you.

Kim Hyuk-Joon had sent quite a cautious message to Choi Yu-Seong. It seemed like he was trying to be careful since Yu-Seong was a member of a conglomerate family. That was the reason that Yu-Seong had a flood of new followers.

‘The Star Factor skill had…’

Yu-Seong's system interface window suddenly popped up in front of him with the word ‘*New’ flashing in gold next to the Star Star skill. He easily guessed what that meant.

‘The additional ability is unlocked!’

Did Kim Hyuk-Joon say that he would delete the link to the account he posted on Outstar if Choi Yu-Seong was uncomfortable?

‘There’s no way!’

Kim Hyuk-Joon, who was the best celebrity hunter in Korea, had 18 million followers on social media.

“I cannot thank you enough,” Yu-Seong shouted out loud. He quickly sent a reply to Kim Hyuk-Joon and immediately checked the flashing additional information of the Star Factor skill. He yelled, "Wow, this is awesome…!"

It was an admiration from the heart. Yu-Seong was extremely happy that he forgot how embarrassed he was by the compliments he got from the show ‘The Hunter's Night’.

***

The Guild Eclipse's small office was no longer empty. There were a lot of office supplies and partitions, and a lot of employees hired to work. When Kim Do-Jin came to work late morning in a rather comfortable outfit, the employees with surprised and envious looks stood up and greeted him.

"Hello," said one of the employees.

"You are late," said another employee.

"Don't worry about it and do your job," said Do-Jin. He waved, then entered the president's office.

It was the first time Do-Jin came to work in the morning since he lived mostly in the dungeon. It was not surprising that he received such attention from the employees, which he found somewhat uncomfortable.

Do-Jin did not actually pay too much attention to the employees. He was mostly preoccupied with his annoyance of going to work this afternoon for an interview.

‘I need to recover my strength as soon as possible and get revenge…’

Do-Jin once again recalled the name ‘Choi Woo-Jae’ that remained deep in his mind. Then, he checked his system interface window.

‘C-rank, level 60.’

Others who saw it would think this was a surprising increase of the level, but Do-Jin wasn’t satisfied by the result.

‘I haven't regained even half of the power that I had when I was in the Aliod continent yet.’ 

Maybe that was the reason why Choi Yu-Seong's name had greatly piqued Do-Jin’s interest these days. At first, Yu-Seong was a person to use and throw away. Then, at some point, he became a person that Do-Jin wanted to have on his side. Now, he felt a little different.

‘It's... It's not a pleasant feeling, but…’

It wasn’t something unpleasant. These days, even when Do-Jin thought of the name “Choi Yu-Seong”, he was overwhelmed with the desire to go to the dungeon and become even stronger. This was just like how he thought of Choi Woo-Jae as motivation to train. The problem was that Kim Do-Jin did not know exactly what this feeling was.

'I thought I'd mastered a lot of emotions over 50 years, but I really can't figure it out.’ 

It was an ‘unknown’ feeling. The word ‘unknown’ was one that Do-Jin hadn't experienced in a long time, and this made him feel a bit uncomfortable.

‘It's a feeling that I don't need.’ 

Kim Do-Jin lightly shook off that thought and reached out to a few resumes that were on the desk. He checked the faces of the people that he was supposed to interview today. When someone knocked on the closed door of the president's office, he said with a frown, "Come in."

A male employee in his 20s carefully opened the door. With a somewhat red face, the employee rambled some words. "Well, I mean, boss, we've got a visitor just now…”

"Speak directly."

"...The visitor wants to see how strong you are, boss.”

In the male employee’s following summary, Kim Do-Jin smiled and stood up from his seat without hesitation. He commented, “Nice to hear it concisely.”

A perfect guest had come when Do-Jin was already annoyed by the strange unpleasant feeling.

***

Kim Do-Jin and Baek Ah-Rin, the current two super rookies who represented each gender in Korea, had set up a guild. It was a plausible story. However, there were quite a few people who didn’t view it in a good way. For example, the top ten guild’s executives who worked hard to recruit the two, or the figures of the conglomerates, were some of the unhappy ones. Therefore, it was expected that there would be a person to come and pick a fight with them at least once. Though, even if they did, Do-Jin thought that they wouldn't cross certain lines.

‘Since it’s hard to hear good things if a person who is an S-rank or higher comes and picks a fight at the guild where the president is only a C-rank hunter.’ 

In other words, they wouldn’t be able to directly take action in a situation like that. They might somehow hurt Do-Jin, but they would quickly turn into a laughing stock for the public. After all, they could be seen as bullying the weak.

Therefore, Do-Jin thought those big shots would only send a couple of B-rank hunters to simply threaten him.

"But..." said the employee.

Kim Do-Jin's eyebrows wiggled heavily when he saw a group of funny-looking people blocking the office’s entrance as soon as he left the president's office.

“I'm Cha Sun-Wook," said the man who looked like the head of the party.

‘Cha Sun-Wook…’

Kim Do-Jin tried to recall the name several times in his head but smiled subtly. "Never heard of you.”

"Well, I’m not as famous as you or the vice president here. I may not look like much, but I’m‥"

"You would be about A-rank.”

Cha Sun-Wook’s words were cut off since his skills were revealed at once. He scratched his cheek and muttered, "How did you know that? Is it a skill?"

"I don't think there's any reason for me to answer," said Do-Jin.

Cha Sun-Wook smirked at Kim Do-Jin's words, shrugged, and nodded. Do-Jin felt that the vibe of the conversation was strangely different from what he first thought. He tilted his head and pointed out, "You don’t seem to have come here to pick a fight.”

"Half right, half wrong. Didn't your staff tell you?" Cha Sun-Wook looked at the young employee who was partially hiding right behind Kim Do-Jin.

"I've heard that you wanted to see how strong I am," said Do-Jin.

"That's right. Your company is planning to set up a team of hunters these days, right?”

Cha Sun-Wook wasn’t completely wrong, since the interview that Kim Do-Jin had to do when he came to work today was to find a hunter team member to go to the dungeon with. If it wasn’t about that, he wouldn’t even have come to work in the first place.

In fact, the team was not necessary for Kim Do-Jin, who was targeting the sixth-rank dungeon so far. However, it would be a little different from the 7th rank dungeon, since it was said the difficulty increased in an instant. It was as if the difficulty went over a wall.

‘If I regain a little more strength and do my best, I’ll still be able to clear it, but it would be a little easier with a strong enough team member.’

Kim Do-Jin clearly had a strong maverick character, but that didn't mean that he completely ignored the positives of having colleagues. He was so sure that it would have taken more than 10 years if he were alone, toppling the demon king on the Aliod continent.

In conclusion, in Kim Do-Jin's opinion, it was not a bad thing to keep a supporter by his side as long as the supporter was capable of chasing him.

"So what?" asked Do-Jin.

"I'll be straightforward. My friends and I all want to join the Eclipse Guild."

At Cha Sun-Wook's words, Kim Do-Jin looked closely at the people behind Sun-Wook. They came in groups like some kind of bullies, but their vibes were not normal.

‘All of them are at least B-rank.' 

There were a few more A-rank hunters mixed in, excluding Cha Sun-Wook. No matter the fact that the super rookie made the guild, they were not people to enter these newly-formed small companies. There must be a story.