There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 104

Ryuseong had one question.

‘The form of the boss mob I faced.’

…It was a factor Cassis de Millang was unaware of, but Ryuseong was generally a person quick to grasp situations.

Therefore, after building the barracks, Ryuseong checked the faces of the people around him while making a hot meal to deliver to Cassis. If someone’s trauma were to become enormous and take on a human form, there would be no way to distinguish between a real human and a trauma monster.

Before regressing, Ryuseong had witnessed quite a few human deaths because of that very problem. Some of those who died then might have been innocent. Some would have definitely been specters. But no one wants to know the truth.

That is why Ryuseong had said he would guard the very last line.

Generally, the last line of a raid team is one of the most dangerous positions. In a normal monster ‘hunt,’ the front line might be the most dangerous, but in a specter raid, the back line is as dangerous as the front line. This is because, unlike monsters, specters or named ones have the intelligence to use strategy and tactics.

It means they can use a strategy like a rear ambush.

From that moment on, facing a specter beyond a monster is war. That’s why the raid commander, who didn’t know Ryuseong well, didn’t entrust the last line to the young-looking Ryuseong. It was common sense not to assign a major role to a greenhorn during a war, and he had abided by common sense. However, as the number of surviving raid team members gradually decreased, Ryuseong naturally acquired the commander’s armband, and the first thing Ryuseong, who then stood at the back line, did was this.

‘To confirm whether the comrades we had considered traumas and killed ourselves were human or specter.’

Usually, they don’t confirm. If you confirm every single one, you’ll go mad. But Ryuseong had been mad since he walked the wasteland as a child, and so Ryuseong saw it. Sometimes they were human, and sometimes they were specters. We had to make a choice. I know. But Ryuseong decided not to kill people. Because.

…Because they might not be the enemy.

This world is so cruel that it mixes up allies and enemies in a confusing jumble. So Ryuseong decided that he, at least, would never kill a human-looking person, a being whose identity as a specter or a person was uncertain, and that he, of all people, wished for them to please live. Please live. Live.

He wanted to say, and mostly failed.

After all, killing is easier than saving.

Still, from some point on, comrades who knew that Ryuseong was a pacifist always finished the job for him. Then Ryuseong, out of habit, would check if ‘it’ had been a person or a specter. Even when everyone told him not to, the habit didn’t die easily. To pierce the flesh and scan the entrails, to grasp the hilt of the sword with the same fingers that had distinguished the realm of specters from that of humans, and to take steps, drip, drip, soaked in blood…

That was Ryuseong’s life after graduating from the academy.

That’s why there was something he couldn’t understand even more.

‘There was no human among the raid forces who looked like that.’

Nor did it make sense to say it was a trauma created by civilians who had been trapped here from the start. If that were the case, a dungeon break would have occurred long ago. It was that level of trauma, that kind of specter, and it was a <Named>.

Just thinking about it again sent a shiver down his spine.

‘To the point where I doubt what I saw…’

Ryuseong fell silent, checking the blood seeping wetly through the bandages wrapped under his clothes.

And he replayed the scene he had witnessed.

‘Pitch-black eyes. Snow-white skin. Pitch-black hair.’

A blood-soaked floor. Amidst the half-eaten chunks of meat, it was smiling.

‘No, did it really?’

His memory was unclear. But what was certain was that it had a bewitching, curved eye-smile. The pale aesthetic formed by pitch-black eyelashes, blood-red stained lips, and slightly protruding canines. He was a man who, though thin, was solid, but appeared lanky from wearing a big-sized shirt. Frighteningly captivating and beautifully eerie, it seemed to cast a shadow with its mere existence despite there being no shadows in the pouring light, so what kind of presence would it exude when cloaked in darkness? It was a realm that Ryuseong couldn’t even comprehend.

But…

‘There is no one who looks like that in here.’

However, there is someone in here who has that kind of atmosphere.

“…”

Ryuseong slowly turned his head and looked at Cassis de Millang.

And he shut his lips.

“Aigoo, how cute. Yes. Was that it? Were you hungry? Are you happy now that I’m giving you food?”

“Hee!”

“Say, ‘I love you, hyung-nim.’ Hmm? Hurry. ‘I love you, hyung-nim.'”

“…That’s enough. ‘It’ can’t speak.”

Ryuseong forced his voice out with difficulty. At that, Cassis de Millang, in complete contrast to the sweet look in his eyes when he saw the young and terrible monster, audaciously turned the tables.

“Why are you discouraging our child?”

“…What kind of bullshit is that. Why would something like that be…”

“Hoh… You said you would take responsibility for me, yet it was all a lie. This is a capital offense. No. Should I have you stuffed and mounted? Drive nails into your joints and keep you breathing…”

“What I meant was that something like ‘this’ can’t be our child.”

“I gave birth to him, though.”

Ryuseong’s head began to ache.

“When did you give birth. No, where did you give birth from… No. That’s not it.”

Pressing the side of his head, Ryuseong declared.

“Cassis de Millang, ‘that thing’ is just a lump of my trauma.”

“…”

“It’s not alive. Don’t dote on it. To completely finish this dungeon that has burst open, we have to kill all the boss monsters scattered in various places, and ‘this’ is one of them.”

“What difference is there between knowing that and giving it love?”

Cassis de Millang spoke as if he didn’t understand, but Ryuseong didn’t understand his words either.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what is the reason I shouldn’t pour my love into it?”

“I told you. Because if you love something you have to kill anyway, only your heart will get hurt. So don’t do it…”

At that moment, Cassis laughed.

“Ahahahat! No, haha, what I mean is…”

As any trauma would.

“…I was asking why you assume that one cannot kill the one they love…”

With a smile so terribly beautiful it was spine-chilling.

[Hello, my dear Mr. Ryuseong…? I’m happy to meet you. So…]

He said.

[Please die.]

I wondered what Ryuseong was talking about. Like. Why can’t you kill someone if you love them? Isn’t that a really strange thing to say? You can still kill them even if you love them. Right?

No, am I the only one who thinks so? Is everyone’s head in the clouds? Do you all live in the world of Romeo and Juliet? Do you, like, sing serenades under a balcony and do that whole ‘if we can’t be together, let’s die together’ bullshit?

‘Ahem, hem.’

Sorry, was that a bit harsh? But I’m fucking serious.

‘Hey. Business over love, you piece of shit!’

Isn’t it perfectly possible to stab your spouse to death if you don’t get along after getting married and living together? I’m not saying it’s right, but, I mean, there are people like that in the world, right? And Cassis de Millang is a villain, right? So of course, he should be able to kill someone even if he loves them, no? Am I the only one who thinks so?

‘No way! Everyone probably thinks so!’

In my opinion, Ryuseong was the one lost in a fantasy. Yup, yup. Cassis de Millang has always been this kind of bastard. You’re the idiot for not knowing that. You fool.

Anyway, as I was about to unleash more sarcasm on Ryuseong, Ivan Karpin, who had disappeared between the couple, finally acquired what is known as <Presence>!

“Uh, excuse me! Instead of this, how about we gather our allies?”

“Oh? That’s a good idea. Why didn’t you say so until now?”

“I kept… I kept, kept saying… No, it’s fine. More importantly, I think it would be good to find and gather my unit members and the hunters who were gathered nearby. In any case, we need the manpower to do a raid.”

Ryuseong made a ‘is that so?’ face. But shit, Ryuseong, you have to remember that you’re the protagonist who rolled around in a 13-volume hardcore dark fantasy series. Normal humans fight together in teams. Got it?

So we had Ivan Karpin cast a detection spell. Oh, right. I’m probably much better at magic than that soldier over there, so why didn’t I do it?

“I’ve already shed so much blood, and you want me to use blood magic again?”

“…Then Mr. Ryuseong can.”

“I am still an academy student.”

“Is Mr. Ryuseong in a position to be saying such things?”

“Yes, I’m only good at swordsmanship, I’m terrible at magic.”

“Are you insane?”

“Should I show you my report card?”

Well, since Ryuseong’s power source is Ki, it’s natural that his score for magic, which uses mana, is zero. Ivan Karpin, too, was probably just using the word magic as a placeholder, expecting us to understand he meant a detection spell. But this series of conversations made Ivan Karpin lose his will to talk. In the end, he resorted to casting the detection spell himself…

‘Heheh. The plan to slowly chip away at the mana of a non-ally has succeeded without a hitch…!’

You might wonder what good that would do.

But anyway, Ivan Karpin was good at casting detection spells.

Good enough to gather all the surviving ‘combat power.’

‘This should be enough, right?’

Cassis de Millang questioned the surviving hunters and soldiers. In summary, the questions were like this.

Yo, why did only you guys survive?

What’d you see? Did you see the boss mob?

How did you get out alive?

Of course, the words that actually came out of his mouth were a little more gentle and delicate. At least, that’s what Cassis de Millang thought.

However, the soldier burst into tears.

“There was something so terrifying in there. It was, it was…! Ah, if I had known something like that existed, I would have had my legs cut off to get discharged…!”

Cassis thought this was troublesome. What should I do, this guy is having a seizure? Would he really calm down if I cut off his legs? Just kidding, though. Anyway, what should I do… he thought.

“That monster revealed its name to be Jeong Ian…!”

“Oops.”

Cassis thought this was truly troublesome.

‘I did expect that I would show up, but still.’

Surely Ryuseong hasn’t met ‘me’ in the meantime, right?

‘Nah, no way. The dungeon is so big.’

I’ll have to plan our movements so we never meet from now on. Right?