The Tough Guy Hides the Villainess

002 – Bread Normalization

002 – Bread Normalization

What if I could go back in time?

What if I could go back to before my leg was ruined?

Hee hee hee—just thinking about it made my lower body tingle.

“Of course there are moments I want to go back to. Before I answer that question, though, I have a request. Take your shoes off. Is that… foreign style? “You don’t enter a house with your shoes on.”

Even if the world ends, you gotta keep what you gotta keep.

At my words, Seo Gaeul hesitated for a moment, then took off her shoes.

“Ugh, crap. Why is this house so damp? “My stockings are all wet.”

Swoosh-.

Eventually, Seo Gaeul took off her stockings, revealing her white feet.

Seeing a pretty young woman take off her stockings was a first, and my heart pounded. Are people’s feet really this white and pretty? It’s so stimulating.

Seo Gaeul gracefully lifted her discarded stockings like a snake shedding its skin and tossed them lightly into some container.

“This is a trash can, right?”

“No, it’s my cooking pot.”

“Oh? Anyway, you… You know that all abilities come from strong desires, right? My last awakened ability especially so. But I don’t have time to use this ability. Because I’m going to die soon.”

“Dying?”

“You look perfectly fine.”

Just when I thought she was really a strange woman, Seo Ga-eul added.

“If you can tame even that ferocious beast like a family member, I think it’s right to entrust my last ability and opportunity to you. If this were a gamble, it would be an all-in with a bad hand.”

“Entrust? What?”

“If you go back to the past, find me. And train me. But it won’t be easy. Even I think I was no pushover back then. So, even if you have to kidnap me, train me thoroughly.”

Kidnap?

She was truly a crazy woman.

If I were to sum up all the nonsense I heard today, is this it?

“So, you can send me back to the past, and if I go back, you want me to somehow kidnap you. Right? And forcefully train you?”

“Not train, but train!”

Same difference.

What a bluff that even a fool wouldn’t fall for.

But since she was a pretty woman, I thought if I kept agreeing with her, we might get along better. A calculating thought flashed in my mind.

Indeed, I am a genius.

Seo Ga-eul nodded as if impressed by me.

“Still, it’s good that you understand faster than I thought. I heard you dropped out of middle school. I did some research on you.”

“I’m the smartest among middle school dropouts. But why kidnap you? Can’t I just honestly tell you in the past and ask for your cooperation?”

“Cooperation? Absolutely not. I know myself well. And it’s better to keep it a secret from everyone. There was a traitor among humanity. I couldn’t figure out who it was, and that’s why I ended up like this.”

Swoosh-

Seo Ga-eul lifted her wet clothes.

Now I saw that there was a deep scar on her sleek abdomen, as if she had been stabbed by something.

“Ugh, that looks really painful. A traitor, huh? What a bad guy, to make someone end up like this.”

“I think so too. If I hadn’t been lazy with my training, things might have been different. So, you have to make an effort.”

If I get a lot of money, I should buy a lot of ramen.

And ketchup. And sausages too!

I was feeling good with such happy thoughts, but Seo Ga-eul ruined it.

“To be honest, I don’t have any money right now.”

“What? You said you wanted to hire me, but you don’t have money? Are you kidding me? You don’t even have food? If you don’t have money, at least give me some food!”

“I don’t have any food either. I used up everything sneaking out of the city to avoid the watchers’ eyes. I went through a lot to meet you.”

“So, you’re basically broke!”

No matter how pretty your face is.

Do you think I’m a pushover?

“The guys you’ve met so far might have done everything for you for free, but I’m not that easy.”

“Not that easy?”

Srrr-.

Seo Ga-eul squinted her eyes and looked around.

I quickly hid the swimsuit photo book that was hanging on the wall behind my back, and it seemed like I wasn’t caught because my movement was so perfect.

“Han Nam-jin, you don’t have a girlfriend, do you? You’ve never dated anyone, right?”

“What are you talking about? I was popular.”

“Really? Let’s say that’s true. The payment for this job is ‘soft and squishy’ twice. How about that?”

“What?”

Soft and squishy? What is that?

I didn’t know what it was, but it was a word that seemed to fry my brain.

Is it a word you learn in high school or college?

As a middle school dropout, I had no idea what that ‘soft and squishy’ was!

“Then I’ll send you to the past now. By the way, I can transfer my abilities to others. This is also a secret that no one knows, but I’ll give you the 《Emotion Stabilizer》 that helped me the most .”

Paaah-!

As Seo Ga-eul put her hand on my shoulder, my vision suddenly started to shine brightly.

I didn’t know what it was, but it was clear that something extraordinary was happening.

“Wait, hold on! Hey! I only accept payment in advance!”

Even if I didn’t know what ‘soft and squishy’ was, I had to get it in advance.

With that thought, I shouted desperately, but when I came to my senses, I was standing in the middle of an eight-lane crosswalk.

“What is this.”

“Ah, my phone-.”

Somehow, before me was a high school girl’s large behind, bent over picking up her phone, and to my right, a drunk driver in a truck was barreling towards us at insane speed.

Bwaaang-.

The driver’s blood alcohol content: 0.15%.

A level punishable by one to two years imprisonment or a fine of up to ten million won.

How do I know that? I wish I didn’t.

From noble mtl dot com

‘My leg was crushed here! Did I really go back to when I was 19?’

A scene I’d replayed countless times in my dreams.

The difference is this.

「Name: Kim Manduk

Status: 《Drunk》 – Completely wasted. Unconscious.”

「Name: Baek Yeoul

Status: 《Suspicious》 – Suspects that the man behind her is peeking at her butt while she picks up her phone.」

Strange characters appeared before my eyes.

Is this the effect of that 《Emotional Insight》 thing?

Anyway, through a truly bizarre process, I’ve returned to the spring of my 19th year, a turning point in my life. Five seconds before a drunk driving accident.

Last time, I was too confident in my ‘strength,’ trying to pull the high school girl and leap in the opposite direction, which caused a problem.

The high school girl I had my arms around screamed, “You pervert!” causing a ruckus, making me lose my balance and fall, my left ankle crunching under the truck’s wheel.

How much I regretted that day.

But now!

A second chance has presented itself!

“Get out of my life, you heavy-bottomed b*tch!!!”

Bang-!

I kicked the high school girl’s butt with all my might.

“Eeeeek!”

Launched like a soccer ball, she flew across the crosswalk.

Startled by the sight, the truck driver slammed on the brakes, crashing into a nearby tree.

Screeeech-Crrruuunch-!

“… What! An accident! “An accident!”

“Call 119! 119!”

“Yeoul! Are you okay! Yeoul! Hey! What the hell are you doing! Manager Kim! What are you doing!? Catch that guy!”

“Kya-haha! This is it! This is it! I finally kicked that butt!”

Doom-chit-doom-chit-!

Like a player who scored a goal in the World Cup, I shook my hips back and forth and then ran away with all my might, leaving the street behind.

# # #

The world ended when I turned 20.

Now, it’s the spring of my 19th year.

I trembled with emotion as I looked at the still-standing buildings and the cars bustling below them.

The world hasn’t ended yet─.

“The cars are spewing exhaust with murderous vigor, people are walking around smoking cigarettes carelessly! Even the ajummas are feeding the cats recklessly!”

Seeing the cat moms roaming the neighborhood, I couldn’t hold back my tears of joy.

Drip-drip-!

What a beautiful sight this is!

Since the world ended, the cats had all been eaten by hungry people and were nowhere to be seen!

“I totally love cat moms!”

Keep bringing in lots of stray cats!

So there will be plenty to eat later!

No, wait.

The one I truly want to dedicate my burning love to is someone else.

“Seo Ga-eul, my goddess! My light! From now on, any insult to Seo Ga-eul is an insult to me.”

I thought she was just a pretty-faced psycho with delusions.

But she actually sent someone back to the past!

Thanks to her, I kept my legs healthy and got to smell the fresh exhaust fumes.

Most importantly, the best thing was ‘home.’

The old country house my parents left me when they passed away.

In this backward neighborhood, where the population had decreased due to low birth rates and there was no hope for redevelopment, not even foreign workers looking for cheap rooms came here, my old house stood.

“And in my left pocket, I always have the house key.”

Jingle.

Where else in this world is there a house without a door lock?

Right here!

I passed through the alley where trash was carelessly thrown and opened the yard gate to enter the house.

The living room with a wooden floor, where an old flat-screen TV and family photos were hung.

And instead of the broken air conditioner, the fan that had been running all summer and the school uniform I hadn’t worn since the first year of high school caught my eye.

Click-. Whirrr-.

I pulled the string of the wall-mounted fan to turn it on, but my legs gave out, and I plopped down.

Just by pulling a single string, such a cool breeze came out!

“This is life.”

When I went to the kitchen, there was a box of ‘Jjin Ramen’.

Was General Guan Yu, who went to the water park, as happy as I am now?

“It’s a ramen party!”

Like a possessed person, I filled the pot with water and excitedly boiled it.

I felt like I had forgotten something.

Did I put too little ketchup?

No. What I forgot was─.

“─Seo Ga-eul.”

Seo Ga-eul herself had asked me to kidnap her.

I’ve done errands for money many times, but being asked to kidnap oneself was one of the most bizarre requests.

In terms of bizarreness, it was on par with the request from Mr. Kim Jang-dong, the perennial section chief, to tie him up with a rope and whip him.

Anyway, I turned on the computer that was naturally working and searched for ‘Seo Ga-eul’.

“An awakening that suddenly manifested 7 years ago. The birth of a new human race?”

“Seo Ga-eul of the Seonam Group also tested positive, making her the 1193rd awakened person in Korea─”

“The government is preparing measures for the genetic mutation that manifests in adolescents─.”

Even back then, Seo Ga-eul was famous.

“She was the same age as me?”

But despite being the same age, the orphan Han Nam-jin living in an old country house and the princess of a conglomerate family, Seo Ga-eul, were as different as different species.

The difference between a stray cat euthanized for being ugly and a purebred cat that even rich families would take in? Honestly, it’s more than that.

“How do you kidnap such a girl?”

It’s a headache.

Should I just ignore it completely?

“But this world will end someday. And to prevent the world from completely collapsing, Seo Ga-eul said she had to train hard. In other words….”

If I want to live happily ever after, I have to kidnap Seo Ga-eul and train her as a warrior.

Can I do it?

Honestly, I felt a surge of confidence that I could.

After all, I’m the guy who tamed that vicious monster ‘Yingying’, right?

“But first, today is a ramen party!”