Hero-nim (Complete)
CRASH—!!!
The door that had been blocking his path flew off its hinges after being slammed into by Cheon Seong’s irritated fist.
And the horrific scene that appeared.
“What the hell kind of bastard are you…”
As the door tumbled aside and revealed the inside, Cheon Seong’s annoyed face vanished, leaving only pure emptiness in its place. No trace remained.
A face stripped of even the mask of irritation, revealing true emotionless void.
The true anger of Cheon Seong, the dark side of him that had always been hidden, was now laid bare before everyone.
It was as if the specimen case of an insect—yet the size was fully dozens of times larger.
And inside that case, instead of an actual insect specimen, stood a person.
“Specimen of a different species…”
Crunch
“This is making me quite angry too.”
A pair of male and female different-species beings were lined up like proud trophies, all decorated in the room as if they were insect specimens.
No matter how unrelated these people were to me, was their fate truly supposed to end like this, pinned to a human board?
Was it fair for these young children’s lives to be ended so abruptly?
Even if I had no emotions, I still possessed the bare minimum of morals.
I would kill anyone who interfered with me, yet when it came to ending the lives of children aged three to five, even I felt a slight unease.
But this fellow showed not a shred of guilt—murdering the children and turning their corpses into specimens, desecrating them to the very end.
THUD—!
Cheon Seong flicked his fingers. The pinned corpses inside the cases erupted in flames.
It took quite some time for the corpses to burn completely, as if they had been specially treated beforehand.
Thud
Thud
Thud
After the corpses had burned away and faded, Cheon Seong walked silently, tapping each case once, touching every single one of them, then flicked his fingers again to activate teleportation.
“Y-Young Hero-nim! Blood on your hand!”
The teleportation carried the cases away. Nepira, watching from behind the silent Cheon Seong, ran over after touching the broken cases. Her palm was cut, blood flowing freely.
Tap
Tap
“W-We need to treat it right away…!”
CRASH—!
“No need.”
While Nepira frantically grabbed his hand, insisting they had to treat the wound, Cheon Seong brushed her hand away. White mana flowed from his body and gathered on his bleeding palm.
The flesh split open and blood flowed, but the wound closed and healed instantly. The bleeding stopped completely.
“Let’s go.”
“N-No? But you were going to catch the president…”
“There’s none.”
“What? That’s…”
Nepira asked in bewilderment as Cheon Seong tried to leave without killing the president. His simple answer left a question mark hovering over her head.
Looking at Nepira staring blankly at him, Cheon Seong swept his hand across the wall of the room and said,
“The president of VC Pharmaceuticals has already fled and is gone.”
The moment he entered the room, Cheon Seong could sense with his detection that no president was present.
There was barely any life response in the room.
‘There’s an accomplice here.’
The president of VC Pharmaceuticals, as far as I knew, was an obese, fat old man in his eighty-eighth year this year.
Even if he knew I had come bursting in, I couldn’t imagine him fleeing in that fat body.
So either he had the ability to teleport, or there was an accomplice with a hiding ability far beyond what I could detect.
But teleportation was one of the highest-level magics, known to be usable across the world by less than a hundred people. It was extremely rare.
So the most likely was that he had hiding ability…
“Huu… We’ll think about that later. Nepira, you’re going to live in the place I’ll take you.”
“Ah… Yes. Hero-nim.”
Cheon Seong, mentally drained, left the matter of the president’s accomplice for later and decided to quickly send Nepira and prepare her new living space so he could return easily.
Tap
Cheon Seong approached Nepira, lightly touched her, and said,
“Go first and tell your partner that an ally has been sent.”
“N-No? Th-The…”
Before Nepira could finish, Cheon Seong activated teleportation. He looked toward the camera watching him from inside the room, revealing only one eye, and said,
“Wash your neck and wait. Next time, I will kill you in the most painful way possible.”
THUD—!
THUD—!
Cheon Seong flicked his fingers twice. His body vanished.
One flick was for teleportation, the other was the trigger he had set the moment he arrived here.
BOOM!!—BOOM!!—KWA-BOOM!!!
The explosion magic he had carved in the moment he came here activated.
The camera was swept away by the flames of the explosion. Only the explosion that destroyed the underground research facility of VC Pharmaceuticals remained.
The next day, the news spread across Korea: the largest pharmaceutical company in the country, VC Pharmaceuticals, had conducted human experiments on different-species beings.
.
.
.
.
.
After teleporting away, my destination was Imir’s research lab.
“Excuse me, my business partner?”
Imir, who had been standing right there as usual for teleportation, greeted me with a smile.
Of course, it wasn’t a happy smile.
“Hello, Imir.”
Zap
A clear cross appeared on Imir’s forehead at the sight of Cheon Seong acting completely normal, as if nothing had happened.
“What now? Hello? Annnng?! You crazy bastard! What the hell do you mean just casually saying hello and passing out?!”
“Just a greeting, what’s the big deal.”
“If it were me, I’d be furious at you for accepting my greeting!!”
Imir’s face flushed red like a goblin, changing colors rapidly as he pointed at Nepira watching them blankly from behind and shouted,
“Who the hell is that young lady?! And you said you were going to her place—why did you come to my research lab?!”
“You already know that too—why are you asking?”
“You fucking bastard! Knowing already makes it a problem! Is my research lab some kind of motel?! A motel?! Why did I just nonchalantly say I’d let her live here?!”
As Imir said, the reason I sent Nepira here was so she could live in his research lab.
After all, Nepira was the only successful specimen from VC Pharmaceuticals’ experiments, an immortal being no arrogant lizard could touch. I couldn’t leave her anywhere else.
That was why his research lab was the perfect place.
“If it’s in your lab, no one else will find out. So, consider it me helping a neighbor in need.”
“Ah, I see… Well, I’d say that if you’re crazy! This is my research lab! Not a motel! And what kind of neighborly help is this?! You’re just a robber who didn’t even carry a knife!!”
“I have a fist instead of a knife?”
“You’re fucking joking at a time like this!!!!”
I knew Imir would react exactly like this. He hated having anyone in his space more than anything.
Up until now, I had come and gone to his lab without him saying a word, because he had given up on stopping me. But letting me leave quickly was also one of the reasons.
But even I knew that bringing anyone to live in Imir’s space would be extremely unpleasant for him. Unless I gave him a proper reason, it would completely ruin our relationship.
So what I had to do was not persuade Imir, but make him accept Nepira here.
“Imir.”
“Why! Call me that, you crazy bastard!!”
No matter how angry I was, since I had already done so much, Imir at least answered.
But that was also because he was angry with me. He complained about Nepira’s existence.
“That woman over there is the only successful specimen from VC Pharmaceuticals’ experiments, and she’s an immortal.”
“What? VC Pharmaceuticals? Those guys are still doing such crap, or worse, you’re saying that girl is one of their successful specimens? And immortal? That dizzy young lady?”
Imir’s disbelieving expression made me show the result instead of just words.
“Nepira. I’ll kill you without pain.”
“Hey, why are you saying you’re going to kill her right in front of the victim—!”
“As you wish, Hero-nim.”
“Fuck, am I actually insane?”
Imir stared at Cheon Seong as if he were joking about killing her, but before he could finish, Nepira said she was fine with it.
She answered while taking off her shirt, worried that blood might splash on Cheon Seong’s shirt.
“It’s fine if I die.”
Imir, in this situation, seriously wondered if he was the weird one here.
Cheon Seong walked past him, covered his hand with mana, and said,
“Where would you like it? The neck? Or the heart…”
“Shut up.”
Lifting her neck and spreading her arms, asking where, Cheon Seong told her to be quiet and swung his hand at her pure, white neck.
Scang
Nepira’s neck was cleanly sliced off in one stroke by Cheon Seong’s hand blade. A moment later, her cut neck and body rejoined as if the severed parts were children.
“What… She’s really immortal? How did the VC bastards make something like this… Hey, are you okay?”
Imir approached Cheon Seong after confirming her immortality, asking if he was fine with his severely distorted face.
“…Fine. Don’t worry.”
Those words carried no trace of the usual playful tone, only cold, honest sincerity. Imir silently looked up at Cheon Seong.
The cold silence filled the research lab. The distortion on his face disappeared. True Cheon Seong sighed and apologized to Imir.
“Huu… Sorry for the rough words. There were circumstances.”
“Ha! Did you even know how to apologize?”
Imir laughed playfully, accepting the sincere apology from Cheon Seong.
“…..”
“…..”
Again, a quiet silence fell, and Nepira quietly watched the two of them.
“Haa… So what exactly do you want to say? That you want me to experiment on her so she can live here?”
In the silence, Imir was the one who spoke first.
“That’s correct, but no overly cruel experiments. Even if she seems used to death, she’s probably just pretending.”
“You crazy bastard, do you think I’m an idiot? Confirming immortality doesn’t have to be by killing. And if there are any precautions, tell me now. Don’t come back later spouting more nonsense.”
His words carried the same familiarity as always, so Cheon Seong smiled faintly and explained what Nepira had endured at VC Pharmaceuticals.
He described how she was sold by her parents at a young age, subjected to all kinds of experiments, and finally forced to fight other specimens to create loneliness.
Imir clicked his tongue.
“Even those bastards are human? That’s really fucking depressing.”
“Yeah, they are humans too.”
Startle
“Hey, just how far… No. Fuck, there’s no point in asking—I won’t tell you anything anyway. So your point is…?”
Imir tried to ask who the hell this guy was, but seeing Cheon Seong simply smiling without a word, he gave up. He summarized everything Cheon Seong had asked so far.
“Experiment her, but not too cruelly. Instead, let her live in my research lab. And…”
“Also, create fake identification for Nepira, and delete all information about her from VC Pharmaceuticals.”
“You fucking idiot, I already know that. And I haven’t finished speaking yet, so don’t interrupt.”
At Imir’s words, Cheon Seong shrugged his shoulders, looking far too adorable, and Imir sighed heavily before continuing.
“And you’re okay with me deleting the footage of you at VC Pharmaceuticals today…”
CHUCK!
“No, that’s all you need to do—wait, why the fuck do I have to make my girlfriend able to live a normal social life?! If you’re going to do it, do it yourself!!”
“She’s not my girlfriend. And I have other things I need to do, so no.”
“You fucking bastard. Taking care of other girlfriends is what that is!”
The first three were annoying but doable. Immortal beings were fascinating to Imir.
But the last one was impossible, even for Imir.
“I know you’re a hikikomori, but still, try it first…”
“I’m clearly saying it! I’m not a hikikomori! I just don’t like going outside and prefer staying inside to research!!”
Cheon Seong thought that was exactly what a hikikomori was, but he said to take it at face value since the person denied it.
“Not that I’m saying to take it at face value! Fuck! Do whatever you want! But if something goes wrong with the results, I’ll kill you for complaining later!”
“I won’t complain, so don’t worry.”
Cheon Seong answered that there would be no need.
Whatever happened, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Cheon Seong thought that, told Imir he was leaving, placed the mithril down, and teleported away.
Imir, picking up the mithril that had fallen where Cheon Seong vanished, muttered,
“Annoying, but he did help.”
Chuckle
“So her name is Nepira, huh? Since VC bastards might recognize that name, let’s make a fake one.”
Nepira was about to say there would be many who didn’t know her real name, but Imir was too excited and seriously thinking about a name, so she stopped speaking.
“Nabira… How about Nabira? I chose it to be as close as possible to her real name.”
This was the name a friend who had already left gave her, leaving traces of that friendship to her new relationship with me.
Nepira… No, Nabira now. She found it deeply pleasing.