Nymphs and the Hero of the Demon King's Castle! # 5
Villains.
That's the word for people who do bad things.
In my life, I'd seen plenty of them. My fellow 1st-generation classmate Ban Dongju was one, and so were the women of that villain organization hiding behind plague-doctor masks.
Humanity had never consisted solely of good people, and it had never consisted solely of kind, gentle ones, either. When holes tore open across the world and all manner of things came pouring through, I saw firsthand how people descended into chaos and how lawlessness ran rampant — so I'd never once been able to forget that truth.
Come to think of it, you could say that life means carrying at least one villain around inside your heart.
How should I put it? Inside me, there's a Light Haildo and a Dark Haildo, locked in an endless struggle for control of my body. Which of the two grows stronger? Whichever one I raise my hand for.
And that's why I always believed I had to be careful — had to make sure the villain's whisper inside my heart never grew too loud.
But most of the time, the villain's whisper won.
Cross the street against the light! It's faster!
Nobody's watching — just toss that scrap of paper on the ground!
Crank the AC to max! Global warming? Not my problem!
The villain inside my heart always went on and on about what would bring me the most pleasure and comfort.
I did my best to shut my ears to that whispering, and I figured most people lived their lives the same way.
In that sense, the nymphs I'd met were fascinating creatures. It was as though only good nymphs had ever taken up residence in their hearts, because they behaved accordingly.
Just look at Oinoi and Coris. How sweet and good-natured could you get?
If I said that out loud, Seo Yerim would snap, "Hey! Illinoi is a menace!" — but as far as I was concerned, Illinoi was just a little eccentric and fond of money. Not a bad nymph.
Granted, the nameless nymphs who'd lost their names sometimes did terrible things, but I considered that the rebound of a shock they'd had their reasons to suffer, and it deserved a certain amount of leniency.
However—.
What if there was a nymph who was simply bad?
What if a nymph existed in this world who was wickedness itself, a genuine bad seed?
"Muheheh! This one is Moralis, the Muddy Water Nymph…!"
A nymph with a fist clenched tight shouted those words. The Muddy Water Nymph, Moralis. That seemed to be her name — I didn't know what it meant, but it had a certain ring to it.
For a nymph supposedly being exploited against her will, she looked far too healthy and flushed with vigor.
"……"
That was when it happened.
I realized my body wasn't moving the way I told it to.
Now that I looked, Ma Wangjun had his index finger pressed to his forehead.
"You won't be able to move freely, Haildo."
He'd temporarily wrested control of my body away from me. Was this Ma Wangjun's ability? What on earth was he planning to do?
Just then, Moralis — small round fist squeezed tight — came toward me.
"Nymph Secret Art: Wild Beatdown…!"
Doodoo-doodoo-doodoo-doodoo—.
Moralis started wailing on me with everything she had.
Just as the sheer absurdity of the situation was making my head spin, the door burst open with a bang, and someone appeared, shouting:
"Aahh…! It is already too late, that it is…! If this goes on, the master of this house will be struck down by a Muddy Water Nymph until his heart clouds over like churning mud, and he will become a villain who loves stirring up trouble, that he will…!"
"We must save him at once, that we must…!"
Doodoo-doodoo-doodoo-doodoo-doodoo—.
The nymph's fists hammered into me. They didn't hurt, but I could tell they carried a very peculiar effect.
The 'Villain Haildo' inside me had started raising his voice again.
Post on the internet pretending you're not Haildo and praise yourself!
Downvote and report every post trash-talking Haildo!
Upvote every post criticizing Seo Yerim!
Paper straws are genuine garbage!
A while back, after I got hit by that parasitic creature, I'd held my head up high for a time and the 'Villain of Internet Mischief' inside me had gone quiet for a while. Now it was lifting its head again.
"Aaaaagh~!"
I tried desperately to keep the villain inside me from rearing up, but it swelled and throbbed within me like an itch I couldn't resist scratching.
Right at that moment, Ma Wangjun threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"How's it feel? Can't hold it back, can you? The sensation of becoming a bad person. The sensation of crossing the line. I can see the lines — all the pathetic lines drawn in the name of something called morality! Cross them, and we become stronger!"
From the look of it, Ma Wangjun had gone through the same experience I was having. Had he too been beaten down by this bizarre Muddy Water Nymph and handed the reins of his heart over to his inner villain?
"Oinoi…! If this continues, the master of the house will surely be contaminated by the Muddy Water of Disruption, that he will…! This Coris knows it to be so…!"
"This Oinoi thinks the same, that she does…! Those struck by a Muddy Water Nymph's Wild Beatdown become bad people, that is the way of it…! We must stop this at once, that we must…!"
Pap!
Pap!
I felt Oinoi and Coris rushing toward me.
"Double Punch, that it is…!"
"We must find our strength before his heart is completely steeped in mud, that we must…!"
The two of them balled up their little fists and began pummeling me with everything they had!
Doodoo-doodoo-doodoo—.
Doodoo-doodoo-doodoo—.
And then something astonishing happened.
Deep inside me, the good Haildo began to raise his voice again!
You shouldn't go around posting or upvoting slander about other people on the internet.
Paper straws really are garbage, though. That part's true.
"Hnnnngh!"
I barely managed to gather my wits. Then I shouted toward Keong-keong-i.
"Keong-keong-i! Rampage!"
━Keong-keong…!
Crash!
Keong-keong-i smashed through the window and launched himself at Ma Wangjun, slamming his little body into the man's head and shoulders and raking at him with his tail and forepaws in a wild, chaotic flurry of attacks.
Fudada-dadat!
"Tch, this striped rat bastard…!"
"Grrrr…!"
The damage was nothing to write home about, but against someone like Ma Wangjun who relied on a Channeled Skill, it was a highly effective form of interference. For the record, a Channeled Skill was one that put the user into a state of concentration while active, preventing them from taking any other action.
Ma Wangjun pressing his index finger to his forehead was exactly that situation.
"Tch. Moralis! Weren't we supposed to avoid acting personally unless absolutely necessary? If you cause an incident, the media will hound us about it for months! It'll be a nightmare!"
His technique broken by Keong-keong-i's assault, Ma Wangjun clicked his tongue. At that, the mud-haired nymph Moralis let out a wicked, silken laugh — muheheh.
"Muheheh, is the master of the island a fool…? Before any of that, we simply steep him in muddy water, make him one of us, and then nothing that happens on this island ever happened at all, that is how it works!"
So that was it.
No wonder this island was controlled so tightly that nothing occurring here ever leaked to the outside. These people were using some means to turn the business moguls and celebrities who came visiting into their own pawns!
"Lee Jina! Yu Ari! Are you two conscious?! We have to escape this island or take these people down!"
I shouted as loud as I could. Jina and Ari stirred as though waking from a trance, loosening their wrists and rolling their shoulders with sounds of relief.
"I can move now!"
"Ma Wangjun seems able to interfere with people's minds and disrupt their control over their own bodies! It's similar to the ability Kim Hyeseong had back when he was a B-Ranker known as the Comet!"
I'd already gotten a rough grasp of Ma Wangjun's power myself. Mind-manipulation types were an absolute nightmare to fight.
But their shared weakness was that they generally lacked any direct means of defense against a strong, concentrated barrage of force — which meant it was best to invest overwhelming firepower right out of the gate.
I spoke to Keong-keong-i.
"Keong-keong-i! Gale Keong-keong Slash!"
Ssss—
Empowered by my mana, Keong-keong-i bristled his fur with a growl and leapt into the air. Just as his tail came whipping down toward Ma Wangjun's skull, as it always did—
Vuuuuuum—!
With an eerie hum, Keong-keong-i's attack froze in midair. It was as if an invisible barrier or shield had been thrown up in the empty air.
"That's a Kinetic Shield!"
Having watched Lee Jeonghun — Korea's finest telekinesis user — in action many times, I grasped the situation at once. Ma Wangjun had blocked Keong-keong-i's strike with telekinesis?
At the same time, a question nagged at me. Wasn't Ma Wangjun supposed to be a mind-manipulation awakener? Telekinesis was a matter-manipulation power.
"It's common knowledge that an awakener's mana trait governs only a single lineage of ability."
I furrowed my brow, racking my brain to piece the situation together as fast as I could. One attribute per awakener. That was the rule of the world. Seo Yerim handled flame and heat; Cha Yura handled ice and cold — that was the regulation, rooted in the nature of the mana inside each awakener's body.
"Surprised? Quoting common sense in this day and age. How very like an old-fogy awakener, Haildo — you can't even see where the times are going. Shall I show you something even more fun? Dark Flames of the Demon King—."
Fwargh, fwaaargh—!
As Ma Wangjun clenched his fist, red will-o'-the-wisp flames began to rise and drift around him. They resembled the fireballs that pyrokinetics typically wielded.
"A combustion ability too?"
An awakener wielding three abilities at once? Did such a thing even exist? No — more important than pondering that was finding a way to dodge, block, or nullify the man's attacks!
I called out to Jina.
"Jina! Disruption!"
"You don't have to tell me!"
Swoosh.
Lee Jina pressed her index finger to her own temple. In that very instant, Ma Wangjun cried out in alarm.
"What the — what is this — this is Lee Seona's—?!"
KWAAANG!
BANG!
The two will-o'-wisp flames floating beside Ma Wangjun's head detonated in a massive explosion.
Watching it unfold, I clenched my fist in triumph.
"So you can use multiple abilities, but that means you've got just as many weak points! And you went and showed me the pyrokinetic's classic flaw — emotional agitation!"
Back in my eternal D-Rank days, while Seo Yerim tormented and attacked me, I would constantly run imaginary fights against her in my head — battles I won with style and flair. Why, it was the same kind of simulation as fantasizing about suddenly defeating the classroom bully and rescuing the most popular girl in school, thereby becoming popular yourself.
In that spirit, my head was stuffed with a respectable archive of simulations for fighting pyrokinetics — which meant Ma Wangjun had dug his own grave.
"Ngh — Haildo, you son of a—!"
Soot-blackened, Ma Wangjun hacked and coughed up black phlegm. Watching him, I thought coldly:
"Unlike every other pyrokinetic, it seems you don't have fire resistance."
"Boss!"
"Are you all right, Boss!"
The black suits rushed toward Ma Wangjun, who'd been caught in the blast. At the same time, I could feel other organization members — awakeners, by the look of them — closing in on this position with weapons drawn.
We were hopelessly outnumbered. Seizing the chaos, I pointed at the hole the explosion had blown in the wall and shouted:
"We're getting out of here, now!"
Our stealthily hidden ghost spider, Kwang-kwangi, would have captured every second of this on camera. If all of it spread to the outside world, public opinion would become a colossal fist and hammer this Ma Wangjun's paradise island without mercy. And then a strike team led by S-Ranker Cha Yura would come crashing down on the island!
"Ari, you get out and call the support team! Get everyone evacuated!"
I'd decided it was best to send Ari — retired from active duty — off this island first. She stared back at me, visibly flustered.
"But what about you, Senior…?!"
"I'll deal with Ma Wangjun here. I know exactly what men like him will try next. He's a coward — so he's definitely going to run. Someone has to buy time."
All criminals are cowards. Fearful men who never trusted themselves to fight fair and win within a fair system. I intended to face him myself and make absolutely sure he didn't slip away.