There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 79

“…Not even a funny guy.”

“Your sense of humor is just low-class.”

Cassis de Millang, not knowing what Ryuseong meant when he said he wasn’t funny, just scoffed as if it were nothing. Ryuseong found himself unable to brush off Cassis de Millang’s attitude as he usually would with a, ‘A crazy guy can be like that.’ Had he unconsciously clenched his fists? The long wooden stick he had brought for kindling snapped in two. Snap.

Ryuseong silently threw the broken wood into the bonfire.

‘It’s not even funny…’

Fire calls forth light, but on the opposite side, it embraces shadow.

Because the bonfire was in the middle of the cave, Cassis de Millang and Ryuseong both had equally shining fronts and long shadows. When the flames swayed as if they would be extinguished by the wind, Ryuseong moved his position to block the wind with his back. Just then, Cassis de Millang fumbled with the pile of firewood with his pale white hands.

Ryuseong furrowed his brow. There was no way the roughly broken wood wouldn’t have sharp thorns on it. He was about to tell him to take his hands away, saying he would go pick some wildflowers for him to play with if he was bored. But Cassis de Millang, having picked out a decent long piece of firewood, awkwardly poked at the bonfire, found an ember, then picked some dry grass from the firewood pile and tossed it in.

When he poked at the dry grass, sparks flew up. It didn’t look like something learned from books or theory, but he succeeded in growing the bonfire quite well. However, Cassis de Millang’s face was merely placid, without a trace of pride. He even looked somewhat bored. It seemed as if he didn’t even think he had accomplished anything, but had just done it because it was something that had to be done.

Still, it was nice to see some red color on his pale complexion.

Around that time, Ryuseong realized that he was acting destructively. He also knew that the time had come to back off. But was it that even a glance was not allowed?

When he stared blankly, following his heart, Cassis de Millang lowered his eyebrows as if puzzled. He felt that the faint smile on his lips was like a mask. He thinks he wants to ruin that smiling face. He rested his elbows on his knees and supported his chin. He did not lower his gaze. He stared deeply. At his persistent gaze, at some point, you turned cold and deadpanned as if in contempt.

“Sorry, but I don’t do it in places like this.”

….

“Do what. Do you want to die.”

At that moment, Ryuseong had a premonition that he would probably never, in his entire life, be able to know what thoughts Cassis de Millang held in his head. As Ryuseong contorted his face in mutual contempt, only then did Cassis smile prettily, stroking his chest as if in relief.

“Thank goodness. You do have some common sense.”

“Hearing those words from you makes me feel miserable…”

Ryuseong became genuinely tired. He didn’t care about destruction or anything else; he just wished that Cassis de Millang would stop spouting nonsense. He pressed his palms firmly against his eyes and stood up, and Ryuseong’s shadow flickered like a giant panther and fell over Cassis de Millang. Cassis de Millang, reminded of the fact that he was an intimidating man, wondered if this was a dangerous situation. However…

Snap, crack. There was the sound of something breaking. Cassis de Millang’s hand, which had been holding the kindling, was now empty, the stick snatched away. Ryuseong threw the broken branch as food for the bonfire. Crackle, crackle, the vermilion sparks devoured the darkness.

Cassis de Millang immediately turned his head and thought that Ryuseong, who was now gazing at the cave’s exterior, was secretly hateful, but Ryuseong had no inkling of such a thing.

From Ryuseong’s perspective, it was natural. The vicinity was a colony of monsters. They had made an unspoken promise to avoid the blizzard in the cave until the sun came out, but it would be difficult to entrust the night watch to that characterless person, so it was right for him to endure. Cassis de Millang was precarious anyway, and despite that, he wouldn’t lean on anyone. He had to protect him when he could. Even if he was tired, he could stay up for two days straight. The next train station stop was in roughly 42 hours, so it wasn’t too difficult to predict that he could hold out until then.

But…

“Would I spit in my own face?”

If I told you that I was relieved just by that one phrase from you, would you laugh? Nothing had changed, and you probably didn’t say it with any deep meaning.

That I was comforted by such a trivial phrase.

It’s really not even funny.

I wasn’t sleepy, but Ryuseong, leaning against the cave wall, was sleeping well. I guess he was tired of being dragged around by his reckless lover.

I tiptoed over so as not to wake him, covered him with a blanket, and without needing to call it a night watch, I stayed up all night, appropriately circulating my energy. Normally, you need someone to watch over you when circulating energy, but given the circumstances, I did it in a simplified way. Originally, ‘energy circulation’ is a term from internal energy cultivation methods, but it’s not that different from mana circle circulation methods. Especially for someone like me who accumulates mana in the dantian instead of the heart, there’s even a debate in academic circles whether to call this energy circulation or mana circulation.

Blurring the boundary between the world and myself, I swallowed mana and quietly gazed beyond the rounded cave, and the dawn was not as blue as I had thought. It was just a white, hazy dusk, as if it were foggy, tinged with a strange greenish light.

‘Is it because of the forest nearby?’

I heard that the very reason the black foxes came to live here was that forest area. A black fog began to grow in the forest, which was already prone to fog, and the forest animals were corrupted. At first, it was known as a monster-haunted forest as civilians who visited the forest, like herbalists or lumberjacks, failed to return, but due to a lack of manpower, the forest was closed off and neglected, and in the meantime, their power gradually grew to the point where they were systematically hunting residential areas.

I heard that one village even tried to exterminate the black foxes using their young as bait, only to be completely annihilated, leading to several national subjugation attempts…

‘They all failed, they say.’

The black foxes were clever. No, they were more than clever. They achieved a hundred victories in a hundred battles with strategies like pushing their attackers off cliffs or cornering them, even without any individuals presumed to be Named among their group.

The theory that a separate command entity exists was dominant, as their movements were too organic to be considered a characteristic of a swarm entity. However, the black fog strangely did not spread outside the forest. A normal subjugation becomes urgent to prevent the black fog from spreading to the surroundings, but when the spread is halted by natural environmental factors like now, it is inevitably pushed down in the priority of subjugation.

That was the reason the black fox incident had not been resolved until now. Many people had to leave their homes, and those who could not leave the vicinity of the forest for reasons of money or otherwise trembled in fear day and night.

‘Since I can’t just start by taking down a Named at my level.’

It’s a hunting ground I carefully chose with the feeling of tackling the battle step by step. Cassis de Millang’s mana was still sharp-tongued, as if giving me advice, saying, ‘Hmph! You brat, get it right!’ rather than listening to my commands perfectly. There’s nothing particularly bothersome when I actually use magic… but it’s still not a smooth flow, so it bothers me. I feel like I could use it a little more naturally…

Enough with the idle thoughts. After circulating the mana circuit throughout my entire body, through the eight extraordinary meridians and even the fine vessels, I felt a warm heat on the crown of my head. What is this? Am I trying to open the Governor and Conception vessels? Unfortunately, my mana didn’t seem to have any intention of pushing too hard, as it gradually settled down and returned to my dantian. I was inwardly disappointed but also felt it was a natural result. After all, excessive greed can lead to death. The Governor and Conception vessels are ki meridians that must be opened to achieve a complete rebirth of the body, and no one my age has ever achieved a complete rebirth. Naturally. Even Cassis de Millang’s great-grandfather was a martial artist who had achieved a complete rebirth, so how could I.

‘In martial arts terms, I’m still only a supreme martial artist.’

When a master who has reached a high realm gains enlightenment, their body itself changes into a physique more suitable for practicing martial arts in order to digest that enlightenment. That is a complete rebirth. This was the very reason why my great-grandfather lived with the appearance of a boy.

Although I had possessed a genius who could breathe and live even after stuffing mana into his dantian, aiming for a complete rebirth when I was only at the peak was pushing it.

You have to be at least at the Hwagyeong stage to talk about changing your body.

I slowly exhaled and opened my eyes. But strangely, the warm state of the crown of my head didn’t change.

‘What is this? Do I have a fever?’

I tilted my head and rustled through my bag to find some medicine, and Ryuseong let out a groan, euk, through his clenched teeth and furrowed his brow. Is he about to wake up?

As I watched him quietly, he shot up, springing his upper body up. Look at that elasticity. Makes me want to touch his muscles. Regardless of whether I was staring at him as if licking him with greed, Ryuseong, still not fully back to his senses, looked at me in a daze.

“You…”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Did you ascend to heaven?”

I wanted to ask him where he had sold off his sanity. However, as Ryuseong slapped his own cheek, smack, and then tried to drag my arm out of the cave, I humbly decided to acknowledge that a level of madness beyond what could be resolved with a joke had seized him. I immediately scratched the tip of my finger with a mana-coated nail and squeezed out a drop of blood. I was about to fashion an ice hammer and smash Ryuseong’s head with it, but flash. Something reflected in the ice.

“…?”

For a moment, at the stunning brilliance, I thought I had gone bald. But it wasn’t that. It was…