There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 53

“Is someone going to have to die for you to call it a duel.”

“What an odd thing to say. That is the reality. If you delve into the history of the concept of a duel, it was the rule that one of the two had to die for it to end. The concept has been diluted in recent times, and it is now treated like an all-purpose buzzword that one can attach to anything if one wants to pretend it’s serious.”

He smiled, saying he wondered why he was playing the curator. Ryuseong also knew the history of the concept. But that wasn’t what he was trying to say.

Before Ryuseong could continue.

Cassis de Millan, with a seemingly innocent face, began his analysis of the previous battle.

“Perhaps, if Capone hadn’t been so hasty, she would have won.”

“Why do you think so.”

When the calm question returned, Cassis de Millan raised the corners of his mouth as always.

“Rather than thinking of ending it in one blow, if she had dragged the game out by running away in a base and petty manner, she might have provoked the hot-tempered Hae Yuna and snatched a refreshing victory. A mage who doesn’t even know how to act like a sneak, did she get so carried away with her hammer that she thought she was a close-range dealer? She killed her strengths and highlighted her weaknesses. How foolish.”

His attitude in evaluating his subordinate was businesslike.

However, his appearance was closer to apathy than cruelty, making him seem less like a master treating his servant coldly and more like a human looking at an object.

A gaze that seemed as if it didn’t regard people as the same kind of being.

As the world says, does he truly just handle all his subordinates like chess pieces?

But suddenly, the assassins wearing human-skin masks flashed through his mind, and at the end of this realization, Ryuseong found himself weakly concluding that perhaps Cassis de Millan had a reason he had to be that way.

Could it be that something exists that makes you sorrowful, and that is why you have become so venomous?

If I dared to say I wanted to know what made you that way, you would scoff, but.

“As for Ms. Hae Yuna, well. I wonder if there was really a need for her to get hurt, but she was excellent… However, it seems her soft-heartedness needs to be fixed somehow for her to become useful. The spirit of fair play was overflowing to the point where it was embarrassing to call it a duel. My goodness, when did the sanctity of the duel fall this low?”

Still, he wanted to ask.

“Are you not afraid of death?”

Cassis, who had been rattling off critiques like it was a battle analysis assignment, stopped his lips.

“What a ridiculous thing to say. What is this all of a sudden…”

“Have you never felt fear at its weight?”

“…”

Cassis de Millan frowned as if bewildered, but it was not a sudden question. It was a question that had been echoing ceaselessly inside Ryuseong ever since the assassination attempt.

Cassis de Millan is familiar with death. He is adept at having his life targeted by someone. And even at bringing someone to ruin.

If so, Cassis de Millan must have been aware of the weight of death.

‘Just as I am.’

Ryuseong was afraid that Cassis de Millan knew the weight of death and had still cast it aside with boredom. The weight of death is ultimately the weight of life, and Ryuseong had chosen a cumbersome life of not destroying people because he didn’t have the courage to embrace that weight.

He was afraid that he might have thrown it away like dust.

Afraid that Cassis de Millan had already become a human who regarded life as less than a speck of dust.

‘I am not condemning murder.’

Ryuseong, at least, had not often faced the danger of being killed by a person. Therefore, he thought he should not pass judgment on the killings Cassis de Millan committed in self-defense, having faced assassination attempts by people time and again.

But whether he recognized the weight of his actions was a separate concept.

A person should not be unafraid of death. A person should not fail to revere life. A person should live to live, not live to die.

However, Cassis de Millan was making a strange expression…

As if he had never heard such a question in his entire life.

“Afraid of death? Isn’t that what cowards say. Isn’t our future profession one where we must cross the line between life and death. I am not afraid.”

“Even if you are the one who dies?”

“Was killing the assassins such a big shock? If they are going to try to kill me, they must also be prepared to die at my hands.”

“I know.”

“That would mean that when I try to kill someone, I too must be prepared to die. So, if I must answer, then yes, if the moment comes when I must die, I will die willingly. If all the schemes I have prepared in order to live are shattered, doesn’t that mean my day to die has come?”

Cassis thought that Cassis de Millan would have said it like this. Of course, Jung Ian’s ego was saying something completely different.

‘…Can’t I just not die? Do I really have to say such scary things…?’

While Cassis de Millan, whose outside and inside were different, and Ryuseong sized each other up in endless silence.

“Then, is it my turn now? My heart is pounding, getting to fight a cute young lady.”

“Wow. I look forward to it, you cute young man.”

“…”

[Dietrich VS Shin Myohan]

The second match between the slick man and the woman who wouldn’t lose an inch in that department began.

Unlike Shin Myohan, who is a firm shaman and martial artist, Dietrich is, if one had to classify him, a triangular human who possesses the identities of a martial artist, a mage, and a shaman (con artist) all at once. The reason Shin Myohan is also a martial artist is because the god she serves is a general god, but the reason Dietrich is triangular is simply because he has a personality that gets bored easily.

Since he was young, he learned various weapons like the spear, fist, sword, mace, and sickle before getting bored.

Then, the weapon he finally settled on was the bow, because he liked the idea of being called a hidden hero just by hitting a few shots while hiding quietly in the back. Of course, that was something that only happened in movies, and real archers were different, but anyway, he believed it was possible when he was young.

The reason he studied magic quite deeply was because he found building muscle to be a bother.

He researched whether permanent enhancement was possible, not just temporarily strengthening the body to increase muscle strength, but he was so horrified when he was told to come to graduate school for his thesis on cell division that he quit his research. But well, until then, he had been looking into all sorts of tricks because he sincerely didn’t want to build muscle.

The reason he also has a bit of a shaman identity is similarly because he made a contract with the wind spirit sealed in his family’s artifact, which was also the result of a failed attempt to find a trick to shoot arrows more easily.

So, Dietrich built muscle, handled multiple weapons, learned magic, and contracted a spirit, becoming a jack-of-all-trades. For reference, unlike in games, in reality, it is more advantageous for one person to have many abilities.

Just as this current match showed.

—Tinkle!

How many exchanges had passed? Every time she swung her sword, the three bells attached to the end clashed sharply. Her blade sliced through all the arrows and advanced, but in the blind spot created by the flying arrows, the wind spirit popped out and grabbed Shin Myohan’s ankle.

By the time she regained her center of gravity and sliced the spirit with her sword, Dietrich’s instep, having already executed a splendid high kick, was aimed at Shin Myohan’s throat.

Dietrich, stopping just before impact, wrinkled his nose and smiled.

“Haha. Since we don’t have much of a conflict, I think it would be good to stop here, don’t you?”

“Yes, I think so too. I lost.”

With that, the match was decided. Dietrich lowered his foot, and Shin Myohan stored her sword in her subspace.

Dietrich was about to give himself a toast for ending the fight so easily without even breaking a sweat and finishing it like a gentleman, but his complexion changed after he saw a talisman fly from Shin Myohan’s robes and burst into flames in mid-air.

“This is…?”

“I’m not going to use it now. It’s better to burn one that’s already been activated.”

“…”

Hmm, what kind of effect did that talisman have? From the brief glimpse he got, it seemed to contain curses and various other incredible Chinese characters…

Now that he thought about it, getting on a shaman’s bad side was truly something he wanted to avoid. Dietrich decided to send a toast not to anything else, but to his own worldly wisdom for quickly ending the situation before the talisman could be used.

Now, only one fight remained.

“I paid back the mess you made, Capone. You’re welcome, right?”

“Just shut up and die. Shove your face in a dish of water. Smother yourself to death in your pillowcase.”

As Dietrich giggled and taunted Capone, Capone growled like a wounded beast. Logan, paying no mind to their squabble, rose gracefully and stepped forward.

“Come out, prince of a ruined nation.”

Dragging out the aggro from hell with just a single phrase.

Dietrich and Capone stopped fighting and fixed their gazes straight ahead. Hae Yuna shot up in a huff, and Shin Myohan lowered her eyebrows. It was the same for every member of Daehan who knew that the Estebans were the vanguards in trying to carve up the ruined Korean peninsula, so as a matter of course, Ryuseong could not remain still. He clenched his fists, almost gritting his teeth, and.

‘Is that bastard Logan insane?’

Others might not know, but Cassis de Millan’s soul was also weeping tears of blood. He was so frustrated that he wanted to flip a double bird with all his heart but couldn’t. However, Lee Hyang himself replied calmly.

“Right. Unlike some who pathetically leave their class system half-intact, in the proud nation of Daehan, democracy won. Isn’t that right?”

Contrary to his wholesome answer, Lee Hyang took out his smoking pipe, lit the tip with his fingers, took a deep drag, and then, fwhoo, blew it out in the shape of a doughnut.

And then he said this.

“But you need to handle that mouth of yours more prettily. If you’re so desperate to bite and tear at anything that isn’t your master, you’ll need some correction to become socialized, won’t you. Fuck, what kind of home training did you fucking receive to be acting like that?”

Suddenly, Cassis de Millan became curious about something.

Which is stronger, the ruined nation diss or the family diss?