Even the Villain Has a Story

Dark-Haired Beast (7)

Sayun had forgotten since the Yongho Guild did so many thoughtless things, but he didn’t bring Geonjoo here to take him on a tour of the guild by carrying him around like a key-chain.

He had brought Geonjoo along to see his skills, so when Sayun threw one of the guild members at him, he was willing to see what would happen.

“…What are you doing?”

“I told you to subdue them yourself.”

“This guy?”

“That’s right.”

“…I’m not a judge.”

“What?”

“I’ll give it a try.”

‘Did you think I didn’t hear you just because you’re so evasive?’ Sayun raised his eyebrows as he watched Geonjoo, who was seemingly belittling his S-Class hearing, subdue the rest of the guild members. He hesitated when he saw the fallen guild member, but he started an easy fight only after the guild member regained his senses. He had a knack for making things more difficult for himself. Sayun tried to figure out his next move, but an ugly face came into his field of view.

“No matter how strong you are, you…”

“Isn’t that too cliche?”

“Heuk!”

“What kind of third-rate villain from a martial arts story are you? At least have some skill before talking nonsense. Is Chunbok’s eye for people so terrible that they dare call someone like you a hunter?”

When Sayun tried to watch Geonjoo, the Yongho Guild started asking for his attention. Sayun broke the wrist of a guild member who ran at him with a knife, because trying to win against first place was so embarrassing that he just dismissed it as a dog’s bark.

“Argh!”

Hell, Sayun didn’t even break his bone, but the guy was pretending it hurt. He grabbed the guild member’s shoulder with his free hand and grasped it tightly. A cracking sound was heard, and a scream erupted from the mouth of the guild member he had just captured. Sayun caused an injury worthy of the amount of screaming he heard just a few moments ago, then pushed the trembling person on the floor with a broken shoulder bone.

The man who was shoved to the ground grabbed his shoulder and groaned. One of the other guild members who were watching them with a stiff expression stepped forward. 

Sayun turned to face the hunter, who was more determined than the others, and used his Genius Eyes skill.

<Go Changin’s Status Window>

Age: 28

Gender: Male

Rank: A-Class

Alignment: ‘The One Who Follows With Devotion’

Titles: ‘Winner of a Martial Arts Tournament (A)’, ‘The Vanguard of the Martyrs (A)’…

.

.

.

Out of all the members of the Yongho Guild, at least one of them was quite good, and he had a pretty decent status window. It would be such a disappointment to leave a skilled person in a guild made out of old people. Except for the fact that he tried to rebel against Sayun, there would’ve been nothing wrong with taking him as a member of the Night Rats, so Sayun came to a conclusion.

“I’ll take you with me.”

“What?”

“Oh, why did you come out? Even if you were to hide, I would’ve taken you anyway. As an A-Class, I guess you knew what you could do.”

“How…”

“Is there any point in asking the leader of an information guild that?”

Sayun smirked as the person looked at him as if he didn’t know his own rank. He found out that information through ‘Genius Eyes’, but there was nothing wrong with that. If he texted Kyungjin, an information file about Changin would arrive within a minute.

Sayun responded leisurely while looking at the person gulping nervously, before shifting his gaze towards Geonjoo. First of all, Sayun was quite proud to see Geonjoo subdue the guild members and tie them up as instructed.

It would’ve been more entertaining if he saw him fight with his own eyes. Sayun swallowed his disappointment and intentionally let a couple more guild members rush towards Geonjoo, who was almost done with his job. How could a young rookie fight so casually?

After he gave Geonjoo more work, Changin clenched his fists as if he had made up his mind. It said he was the winner of a martial arts competition, and he seemed quite confident in his physical strength. 

As he clenched his fists, a strong gust of wind passed by Sayun’s head. Whether a sword or a fist was stronger, there was nothing much to compare when it came to awakeners.

Whatever it was, it would be quite mean. No matter how sharp and good a sword was, it couldn’t properly injure a high rank awakener.

And in this fight, the one with the higher rank was, of course, Sayun.

Sayun tilted his head to avoid the consequences of Changin’s fists, then took a step forward. One, two, three. Everytime he took a step closer, Changin looked at Sayun as if he’d seen a ghost.

Whenever he attacked, Sayun dodged it easily, boasting his SS-Class agility stat, so it wasn’t impossible to not understand the reason behind Changin’s expression.

How absurd it must’ve been. 

For an enemy to disappear and reappear right before his eyes.

Despite the obvious overwhelming disadvantage, Changin was still persistently fighting and not giving up. Maybe it was because the guild members behind him were calling him the team leader, so Sayun raised his lips into a smile as he watched Changin confronting him with a responsible look on his face, then moved behind him.

‘As expected, I should take him.’

It would be a good idea to create a team specialising in martial arts and make him the team leader. 

After the dozens of attacks that Changin threw in vain, Sayun raised his hand and struck his opponent’s neck with a chop. It made a dull sound that Sayun didn’t even think it would make, and Changin coughed up blood.

“Oh, I hit you harder than intended.”

Well, it seemed like he had failed to control his strength more than once today. Sayun spoke casually while looking at the unconscious Changin with a ridiculous look in his eyes, and then grabbed him with one arm. He supported him by pressing a hand against his stomach, preventing him from falling over, and then lifted his unconscious body over his shoulder.

The bewildered guild members looked at Sayun as they would at a demon, as if asking what they were going to do with their team leader. Sayun huffed out a laugh at their fierce confidence and thought that it would be a waste to spend any more time there, so he froze the ground to keep them in place.

When he turned his head, he saw that Geonjoo had defeated a total of six hunters, including the additional ones that Sayun had sent his way. There were beads of sweat on his forehead as he had struggled quite a bit. It seemed to have been a struggle for him, who had just awakened, to deal with six experienced hunters.

As evidence of that, there was blood flowing down his arm, as well as on the back of his hand. It seemed that he allowed them to hit him three times at best. Sayun clicked his tongue and then opened his mouth.

“Come here, pretty boy.”

Being a little too loyal to Sayun’s order to subdue the guild members, Geonjoo, who had untied the six hunters, responded to his call immediately. Raising his head, he frowned when he found Sayun with a person over his shoulder.

“Did you kill him?”

“What do you think I am? I’m going to take him with us, so I knocked him out.”

“You’re taking him?”

“I think he would be pretty useful.”

Sayun would surely be able to use him after a few training sessions.

Other times, he would’ve left this to Jongsik and walk away, but unfortunately, Jongsik was still dealing with most of the Yongho Guild’s manpower, so he had yet to return to his side. So, what else could he do? Rather than throwing Changin to the frail-looking Han Geonjoo, it was easier for Sayun to carry him himself.

He wasn’t that heavy anyway.

Finally, Sayun looked at the six hunters which Geonjoo suppressed. Although they were all unconscious, they were still breathing properly.

“You spared them.”

“…You didn’t tell me to kill them.”

“I was just checking, why are you so nervous? Are you scared?”

It was pretty funny. Sayun teased Geonjoo who was gently lowering his still tail and then kept walking, since taking their lives wasn’t needed.

The result was more satisfactory than he had expected, and he was walking with pleased steps.

Although there was a little gap, Han Geonjoo’s skills were on the good side if he considered his lack of accumulated experience, and the newly acquired sla–, no, the team leader, Changin, was also quite good. On top of that, Sayun thought he made the right decision to bring Geonjoo along, who was already in high spirits because he wasn’t killed back at the torture chamber.

‘What did I say, Jongsik? If you listen to me, you can eat rice cakes while laying down*. I was right.’

tl/n: equivalent to ‘it’s a piece of cake’

He hummed as he recalled that Jongsik wasn’t even with them. Since the Yongho Guild itself was a guild with lower classes, compared to others, there had been few guild members running towards them to prevent Sayun from leaving.

Sayun passed most of his opponents to Geonjoo with the excuse that he couldn’t use one arm because he was holding Changin as well as subduing 15 others, and he was able to confirm the skill level of the rookie to some extent.

It may have been different from dealing with monsters and fighting more than one person, but Han Geonjoo had great fighting senses in one-on-one fights.

He’s ‘The One Who is Revered Throughout Heaven and Earth’. Each movement he made out of instinct instead of experience was pretty good.

“Next time, you can send me B-Classes too.”

Sayun deliberately thought about Han Geonjoo’s safety and only let him deal with awakeners below C-Class. Now that he fully checked how Han Geonjoo dealt with those weaker than him, he’d have to check how he dealt with those of the same class. Geonjoo gave Sayun the side eye, as if he was a teacher making him do ten different assignments.

Unfortunately, however, the Yongho Guild’s support was slowly running out, and there were no new hunters who appeared up to when they arrived at the guild leader’s office. Sayun, who regretted not being able to hand over some B-Class awakeners to Geonjoo, glanced towards him again.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I think you need more combat experience. Do you want to fight me?”

“Oh, looks like the guild leader’s office is over there.”

Geonjoo calmly ignored the proposal Sayun made, naturally changing the topic. At that shameless behaviour, Sayun let out a gasp.

He was excited, but if he were to fail to control his power while fighting with Geonjoo, it would be no different from filming a dark comedy that couldn’t be watched without shedding tears, so he complied with the change of topic.

Anyway, the more important thing now was the merger with the Yongho Guild. 

Sayun checked out the unnecessarily grandiose guild office room, then lifted one leg and kicked open the wooden door.

The huge door cracked with a loud bang. Sayun stepped on the pieces of wood scattered in all directions as he walked inside, finding a man in his 40s sitting on a chair and looking towards the door with a shocked expression, before closing his eyes.

“Hello, Chunbok.”

‘It’s been a while.’

Sayun said Chunbok’s name as if he were dealing with an old friend he hadn’t met in over 10 years.

“Kwon Sayun…”

At the angry tone of voice, Sayun smiled and wriggled his fingers in the form of a wave.