Viper's Fang

The smell of a black stone.

From beyond the darkness, Hound's voice rumbled low. The Rat Merchant had gone rigid, barely breathing. I gripped the strap of my backpack tightly.

A narrow underground passage. Damp walls. Slime underfoot. The Rat Merchant was behind me, and Hound was in front.

Hound. The Black Dog’s hunting dog. One of the villains who had most relentlessly hounded the original protagonist in the early parts of Surviving as a Hero. His ability was simple. He smelled things. But that sense of smell didn’t refer only to ordinary body odor.

The scent of blood. The scent of sweat. The scent of fear. Traces of supernormal factors. Drug reactions. Even the faint lingering echoes left by special substances like sunspot stones. Hound could distinguish them all. He perceived the world more like a hunting dog than a human.

In the original story, he had chased Yoon Taeha with terrifying persistence, ultimately becoming the catalyst that helped Yoon Taeha grasp the first clue to his awakening. An early wall. A pursuer introduced to pressure the protagonist.

And now, that target was me.

The Rat Merchant mouthed the words: Back.

I gave the tiniest shake of my head. It was already too late to retreat. The fact that Hound had made it this far meant the other exits were likely already compromised. Black Dog was not an organization that ever sent just one man. Hound would find the path, and the rest would block the entrances. That was how they operated.

The moment I carelessly showed my back, that beast would charge through this narrow passage. I had to fight. Or more precisely—I had to stop him, even if only for a moment.

“Copycat.”

Hound spoke. He still hadn’t fully revealed himself, but his voice was drawing steadily closer.

“Your smell has changed.”

I didn’t answer. Hound sniffed loudly, drawing in the air.

“Blood. Dust. Mold. Cheap painkillers. The stench of a rat’s burrow.”

A brief silence.

“And……”

A wet laugh leaked out from the darkness.

“Someone else’s smell.”

Strength flooded into my fingertips.

“It’s mixed with something that isn’t yours.”

A chill ran down my spine. Hound couldn’t possibly know. Villain Manifestation. Past-life awareness. Original story knowledge. There was no way he could know those words. But he had sensed the wrongness through scent. The traces left by the remnants I had manifested. The Cowardly Thief’s Escape Route. The Swindler’s Joker Card. He was reading the negative informational scent those remnants had left inside me.

Hound laughed slowly.

“Copycat.”

He took one step closer from within the darkness.

“What did you swallow?”

The Rat Merchant cursed under his breath.

“Looks like I’ll have to charge extra for this.”

“You think this is the time to negotiate?” I muttered. The Rat Merchant looked at me with a pale face.

“It means I’ll bill you if we get out alive. If we get out alive.”

“Then get ready to move.”

“How am I supposed to get ready when I don’t even know what you’re going to do?”

I glanced sideways at the right wall. A rusted valve. Old pipes. I had noted the structure when we passed through earlier.

“When I grab him, turn the valve on the right wall.”

The Rat Merchant’s face crumpled instantly.

“Turning that will flood us with wastewater.”

“I need to block Hound’s nose.”

“Our noses will die too, you know?”

“Better than dying outright.”

The Rat Merchant stared at me for a moment. His eyes were filled with fear, but his calculations were fast. He quickly shifted his gaze toward the valve.

“I’ll say it once. If that bursts, I lose one of my safehouse routes.”

“Bill me if you survive.”

“Your tone today is really pissing me off.”

I slowly drew out the folding knife. It was a cheap blade. The edge was short and the handle light. Not a proper combat weapon—just the kind of thing a frightened subcontracted villain might carry for intimidation.

Facing Hound with this? Under normal judgment, it would be impossible. I also had a gun. But the passage was far too narrow. The moment I pulled it out and fired, Hound would drop low and charge. If I didn’t drop him with the first shot, it would be over. Besides, gunfire would summon the rest of Black Dog. The gun was a last resort.

What I needed first was the knife. And the ability.

A black sentence floated in the center of my vision.

I fixed my gaze on the third sentence. Viper’s Fang. The ability of an ambush-type villain who had driven Yoon Taeha to the brink of death several times in the early parts of the original story.

The Viper wasn’t a villain who struck his opponents with raw power. Knife tip. Fingernail. Tooth. A single small wound. Through that trivial opening, he would inject a neurotoxic supernormal factor, collapsing the target’s movements. There was no need to stab deeply. A light scratch was enough. Scratch the wrist and the fingers would stiffen. Scratch the thigh and the leg would grow sluggish. Touch the nape of the neck and breathing would become labored.

The ability itself was clear. It created paralytic poison at the fingertips or on a blade. Once a wound was made, the poison would enter. That was Viper’s Fang.

The problem was that what came with it wasn’t just the ability.

I muttered quietly.

“Viper’s Fang.”

My fingertips instantly grew cold. No—it wasn’t just my fingertips. My blood cooled. My breathing thinned. It felt as if my heartbeat was slowing. A dark blue liquid beaded at the tip of the folding knife’s blade. At first it looked like ink, then it spread with a dark green sheen. It carried a fishy yet sweet scent. The poison on the blade trembled thinly, as if alive.

It was no illusion. It was real toxic supernormal remnant created by the ability. If it cut, it would enter. If it entered, it would stop them. It might even kill.

And then the memories flooded in. They weren’t mine.

A dark room. Bound wrists. A small candle flame. Neatly arranged bottles on the table, each containing a different colored poison. Someone was crying. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, child or adult. The memory was hazy. But the sound of that crying was vivid.

Please, spare me.

The voice begged. Yet the “me” inside the memory felt nothing. No pity. No anger. No guilt. Instead, there was curiosity. How many minutes until paralysis set in? In what order would the skin change color? When would the heart begin beating irregularly? Would the lips turn blue, or dry black?

The emotion was so cold it raised goosebumps. I clenched my teeth. These weren’t my memories. But they were already inside me.

The owner of the memory hadn’t killed out of anger or impulse. He had killed as if recording data. As if observing. That made it even more horrifying. His emotions were empty, and in that emptiness there was only a terrible, piercing focus.

Hound’s footsteps stopped. A silhouette appeared beyond the darkness. He was tall but held a low stance. His back was slightly hunched, and a thick metal collar encircled his neck. The lower half of his face was covered by a black mask, but the eyes above it gleamed like a beast’s.

He looked at me. Or more precisely, at my knife.

“What’s that smell?”

I didn’t answer. Answering felt like it would disrupt my breathing. The Viper’s memory whispered. Wait. A snake does not strike first. Let the opponent come close. A single bite is enough.

Hound tilted his head.

“Copycat. You don’t have a trick like that.”

He was right. Copycat’s known supernormal ability was imitation. A pathetic power that merely copied movements. There was no ability to coat a blade in poison. Suspicion rose in Hound’s eyes. And greed as well.

He knew I had the sunspot stone. Therefore, he was likely to assume my sudden change was because of it. Good. Let him misunderstand that much.

I held the knife low.

“Stop right there.”

Hound’s eyes narrowed.

“Copycat’s giving orders now.”

“Take one more step and you’ll get bitten.”

“Is that the knife’s smell?” Hound laughed slowly. “Or is it the smell of the stone in your bag?”

I didn’t answer. Hound seemed to interpret my silence differently. His shoulders dropped. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was the stance of a beast right before it pounced.

“Fine.”

Hound said.

“Then let’s take an arm first.”

He kicked off the floor. The narrow passage shrank in an instant. It was beast-like speed. I couldn’t even follow Hound’s movements with my eyes. Simply obtaining a remnant manifestation didn’t dramatically increase physical ability. Viper’s Fang was the power to create poison, not to strengthen the body.

But the Viper’s memory knew. There was no need to keep up with a fast opponent. You only needed to decide where to bite.

Hound’s hand aimed for my collar. I didn’t try to dodge. Instead of stepping back, I twisted my body slightly. Hound’s hand brushed the nape of my neck. A claw-like sensation scraped my skin. At the same time, I slashed upward with the knife.

Swish.

Hound reacted instantly. He was truly fast. He pulled his arm back to avoid the blade. It looked like a perfect dodge. But it wasn’t. The tip of the knife had grazed the inside of his wrist ever so lightly. A line so faint it was barely a wound. A single drop of red blood welled up. Dark blue poison seeped into that blood.

Like ink spreading across wet paper, a dark hue spread beneath the skin. Right after—

Hound grabbed my throat.

Bang!

My back slammed into the wall. My breath was cut off. Hound’s face came right up to mine.

“Is that all?” he growled. “You picked up one stone and thought you’d become something?”

I couldn’t answer. My throat was seized, cutting off my air. Hound’s grip was powerful. His fingers dug into my neck. My toes lifted slightly off the ground. My vision shook and my lungs screamed for air. But I was looking at his wrist. A single drop of blood. The skin around it was turning dark blue.

Hound’s fingers suddenly stiffened. They didn’t stop completely, but the strength loosened. The muscles from wrist to elbow convulsed for a brief moment. The poison had entered.

Hound’s eyebrows twitched.

“……What did you put in there?”

His grip loosened for an instant. In that gap, I drove my knee into his abdomen. It didn’t land cleanly, but his grip loosened further and I dropped to the floor.

“Rat Merchant!”

My voice came out hoarse. The Rat Merchant was already moving. He grabbed the rusted valve on the right wall with both hands and turned it.

Creaaaaak.

The old metal screamed. Hound whipped his head around.

“You damn rat!”

The Rat Merchant’s face was terrified, but his hands didn’t stop.

“If I lose one route because of this, it’s your fault, you son of a bitch!”

The valve turned completely. The next moment, black water poured from the ceiling pipes.

Splash!

A horrific stench engulfed the passage. The smell of rotten water, filth, and old sewage exploded all at once. It was pungent enough to paralyze the nose. Hound let out a pained growl. To him, scent was both sense and weapon. And now the entire narrow passage was filled with stench.

Just as the Rat Merchant had said. It was good for running.

I snatched up the pistol that had fallen to the floor. It had slipped from my waistband during the earlier impact. Hound was down on one knee. The combination of poison and stench had slowed his movements. But he wasn’t collapsing. As expected of Hound. A low manifestation rate poison couldn’t fully suppress him.

I raised the muzzle. Hound’s head was in sight. If I fired now, I could hit him. One shot might end it. At the very least, it would stop the pursuit. My finger rested on the trigger.

At that moment, the Viper’s memory surged again. The dark room. The bound person. Fingers slowly stiffening. Lips turning blue. And the emotion the “me” in the memory had felt. Satisfaction. Cold satisfaction at watching a resisting life slow down.

Shoot. The Viper’s memory whispered. No. Don’t shoot. Killing could be quick. But it was far better to watch them die slowly. Eliminate any chance of them rising again. Watch until their breath stops.

I felt my finger stiffen. I had to shoot. I shouldn’t shoot. Killing him would be safe. The moment I killed, I would cross a line. Hound was a villain. He had come to kill me. Even so, pulling the trigger was my choice.

In Kang Doyun’s memories there was the sensation of having shot people. But that was this body’s past. The choice to pull the trigger now was mine.

“Copycat!” the Rat Merchant shouted. “Run before that bastard gets up again!”

That cry pulled me back. I lowered the muzzle slightly from Hound’s head.

Bang!

The gunshot tore through the narrow passage. The bullet grazed Hound’s thigh and embedded in the concrete behind him. Stone fragments flew and Hound’s body reflexively buckled. I hadn’t killed him. But I had stopped his movement. That was enough. For now.

I immediately turned. The Rat Merchant took the lead and ran.

“This way!”

We sprinted past the passage where black water poured, heading for the iron door. The ground was slippery. I nearly fell several times but never stopped. From behind, Hound’s voice rang out.

“Copycat!”

It was a voice shredded by rage.

“I’ve memorized your scent!”

It wasn’t a threat. It was a declaration.

“No matter where you hide, I’ll find you!”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the strength to. Beyond the iron door was an even narrower passage. The Rat Merchant, being small, slipped through quickly, but I had to contort my tall, thin frame to fit. My shoulder slammed into the wall. My glasses slid down. My hooded zip-up was ruined with filth and blood. Still, I ran.

Only after running for a long while did the Rat Merchant stop. We emerged into what looked like a small storage room behind an abandoned shopping center. The moment we pushed open the door and stepped outside, cold night air rushed into my lungs. I leaned against the wall and slid down.

“Haa…… haa……”

My breath felt like it was tearing apart. Handprints from Hound’s grip remained on my neck. My wrist was swollen and my shoulder throbbed. Perhaps because of the Viper’s Fang I had just used, my fingertips were numb. The dark blue poison that had beaded on the blade was already gone. All that remained was the cold at my fingertips and the memory clinging to my mind.

The dark room. The bound person. The hand choosing poison as if conducting an experiment. I closed my eyes. It wouldn’t disappear. The memory wasn’t mine, yet the sensations were too vivid. It felt like I could remember that person’s final breaths. The coldness of feeling no emotion while watching someone die had lodged itself inside my chest like a shard of ice.

“I feel like throwing up,” I muttered. The Rat Merchant looked at me with a disgusted face.

“I’m the one who should be throwing up.”

“You got splashed with wastewater too.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

The Rat Merchant stared at the knife in my hand. It had already returned to being an ordinary cheap blade. But what he had seen was surely the dark blue poison that had beaded on its edge.

“What the hell did you feed Hound on his wrist just now?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“That’s not the problem.”

The Rat Merchant swallowed dryly.

“That Hound actually stopped. From a scratch on your knife.”

I folded the knife. The blade had returned to being an ordinary cheap knife. But the poison would remain in Hound’s wrist. At least for a while.

“Copycat.” The Rat Merchant spoke carefully. “Did you open that stone?”

“I didn’t.”

“I said I was an information broker, not a blind man.” His voice sharpened. “I can tell whether imitation and what you just did are the same ability or not.”

I looked at him. The Rat Merchant was afraid. But at the same time, he was greedy. He was an information broker. He knew my change had become information. Copycat’s supernormal ability had changed. It might be because of the sunspot stone. Or perhaps there had been a hidden ability all along. Either way, it was expensive information.

I slowly raised the pistol and aimed it at the Rat Merchant’s chest. His mouth snapped shut immediately.

“If you took the money, keep your mouth shut.”

His eyes darted back and forth between the muzzle and my face. I lowered the muzzle slightly. Not at his heart—his stomach. A place where a hit wouldn’t kill him instantly. He knew that made it even more frightening.

“Does my story look like something worth selling?”

The Rat Merchant didn’t answer. Not answering was the answer. I didn’t put my finger on the trigger. There was no need.

“Before you sell it, do the math. Whether you’ll still be alive to spend that money.”

The Rat Merchant stared at me, frozen. After a few seconds, he slowly raised both hands.

“I don’t sell trade information.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I didn’t ask you to believe it.” His voice was trembling, but he hadn’t completely collapsed. “But the calculation is done. If I sell your information ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now, I’ll get money. But before I can even count it, Black Dog, Hound, or maybe even you will come find me.”

“Accurate.”

“So I won’t sell it. At least not right now.”

He was pointlessly honest. Strangely, that made him a little more trustworthy. I lowered the gun. Only then did the Rat Merchant let out a long breath.

“Today is really weird.” He spoke quietly. “You weren’t this scary of a bastard before.”

I knew that too. I wasn’t originally this kind of person. Not the me from my past life, nor the Copycat inside Kang Doyun’s memories. The problem was that even I didn’t know what the current me was becoming.

The more I used a villain’s power, the more the villain’s emotions and memories remained inside me. They weren’t tools. They were traces. If repeated, they became marks. If the marks accumulated, they became a path. One day I might mistake that path for my own thoughts.

That fact terrified me. But I didn’t have the luxury of being afraid right now. I pushed off the wall and stood up.

“Safehouse?”

The Rat Merchant glanced once at the spot where the gun muzzle had been, then turned his head.

“Right ahead. It won’t hold for more than forty-eight hours.”

“Because of Hound?”

“Because of Hound, because of Black Dog, because of the black stone you’re carrying, and also because of that disgusting poison you just showed.”

He pointed to a narrow staircase behind the abandoned shopping center.

“Get in. While you can still walk.”

Descending the narrow stairs behind the abandoned shopping center brought us to an underground storage room. The door was old, but a new lock had been installed inside. When the Rat Merchant inserted the key and turned it, there was a click and the door opened.

Inside wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. There was a lot of dust, but it was dry. There was one old sofa, a small table, several bottles of water, and a box of emergency rations. One wall had a ventilation duct, and on the opposite side was a low emergency passage that a person could crawl through.

The Rat Merchant said, “I’ll contact the appraiser. Doctor Seon only moves after three in the morning. Rest here until then.”

I checked my watch. 1:40 a.m. Less than two hours left.

“And.” The Rat Merchant paused at the doorway. “Not killing Hound just now is going to come back to bite you hard later.”

I looked at him. The Rat Merchant was serious.

“At the bottom here, you can’t bite halfway. If you bite, you have to snap the neck. Especially with bastards like Hound. That guy never gives up.”

“I know.”

“You knew and still left him alive?”

I couldn’t answer right away. Why had I left him alive? Because I didn’t want to kill a person? Because I didn’t want to cross that line yet? Or because the Viper’s memory had been too vivid, and my instincts had told me not to act according to that impulse?

The answer was complicated. So I said briefly, “I’ll decide that.”

The Rat Merchant narrowed his eyes.

“What?”

“Whether to kill or not.”

The Rat Merchant looked like he couldn’t understand me. That was fine. I didn’t completely understand it either. But one thing was clear. If I started obeying the whispers of Villain Manifestation telling me to kill, it would be the end. There would come a time when I had to kill. Probably it was inevitable. But even then, I had to decide with my own hand. Not with borrowed emotions. With my own judgment.

The Rat Merchant watched me for a moment, then shrugged.

“You live complicated.”

“Living simply would get me killed first.”

“That’s true too.”

Before closing the door, he said, “I’ll contact you in thirty minutes. Until then, change your clothes, bandage your wounds, and get your head straight. If Doctor Seon sees your current state, he’ll treat you more like a test subject than a patient.”

“He seems like the type.”

“He is. That’s why I hate him more.”

The door closed. Click. The lock engaged.

Once I was alone, the tension eased a little. I collapsed onto the sofa. It felt like my body would simply fall apart. But I couldn’t sleep yet. I had to treat my wounds first. Next to the emergency ration box was an old first-aid kit. I didn’t know if the Rat Merchant had prepared it or if it had been there originally. Inside were disinfectant, bandages, painkillers, needle and thread, and a few supernormal suppression patches.

I poured disinfectant onto my palm.

“Ugh……”

It felt like the wound was burning. Thanks to the pain, my mind cleared a little. I roughly bandaged the wounds on my palm, arm, and shoulder. There was nothing I could do about the marks on my neck. By tomorrow they would be deep purple bruises.

I changed my clothes too. In the corner of the storage room were gray work clothes and a black long-sleeved shirt. The size was a little small, but wearable. I stuffed the filth- and blood-soaked hooded zip-up into a plastic bag and tied it shut. I took off my glasses and wiped the lenses. There was a crack in one side of the round lenses.

There was no mirror, but I could roughly imagine my current appearance. Messy curly hair. Eyes that looked languid but crushed by fatigue. A tall, thin body. Handprints left on my neck. A villain who looked like a suspicious scholar.

Kang Doyun. Copycat.

I put my glasses back on. Then I took the sunspot stone storage box out of my backpack. A black metal box. A red sun emblem. The box still held a faint heat. When I brought my palm close, my skin prickled.

“Because of you, things turned out like this.”

Of course, it wasn’t only the sunspot stone’s fault. The moment I twisted the flow of the original story, everything began to go awry. In the original, the protagonist had experienced the first incident without the sunspot stone. Black Dog had begun to move due to internal betrayal and the loss of goods. The Association would investigate the whereabouts of illegal supernormal items. Hound had memorized my scent. And I had awakened Villain Manifestation.

It had already become a different world from the existing Surviving as a Hero.

I didn’t open the sunspot stone storage box. Instead, I placed it on the table and turned on the smartphone. It was the device the Rat Merchant had given me. Internet access was restricted, but I could still view news and some black market bulletin boards.

The news of the Guro Abandoned Factory explosion was spreading quickly. Official news was cautious.

In contrast, the black market bulletin boards were far more blatant.

I scrolled down and stopped. A new post had gone up.

Capture preferred. It must be because of the sunspot stone. They wanted to confirm whether I had opened the box and what I knew. Lethal force permitted. It meant they could kill me if I ran.

I set the smartphone down.

“That was fast.”

Black Dog wasn’t an organization that would move this aggressively over a single subcontracted villain. It meant the sunspot stone was that important. Or perhaps the backer who had entrusted the stone was pressuring Black Dog.

In the original story, these details hadn’t been covered in depth. Surviving as a Hero had been a story centered on the original protagonist. Why Copycat had been carrying the sunspot stone. What had happened inside Black Dog. Where the item had come from—none of it had been deeply explored in the early parts.

But in reality, every backstory was alive. And I had been thrust into the middle of it.

At that moment, a message from the Rat Merchant appeared on the smartphone.

I narrowed my eyes. Rookie hero. Yoon Taeha.

The Rat Merchant’s message continued.

A moment later, an image arrived. The resolution was poor. It looked like a screenshot of the Association’s tip bulletin board. The post title was simple.

I stopped moving my finger. The body of the post was short.

I stared at the screen for a long time. Yoon Taeha didn’t know my number. He hadn’t identified me specifically. He had simply left a message on the public tip channel, and the black market guys were spreading it around like an interesting spectacle.

Even so, it was a very Yoon Taeha-like action. He didn’t know the identity of the sunspot stone. He didn’t know it was supposed to be his own opportunity. He didn’t know why I had run. He had simply come looking for me with the clues he had seen or heard at the scene and his stubborn belief that he had to save people.

It was exactly the kind of behavior the original protagonist would show. Which made it all the more troublesome. Villains could be deceived. Black Dog could be avoided or bitten. The Association could be hidden from. But good people were difficult. Especially when that goodness was aimed at me.

I turned off the screen.

“Sorry, but.”

I couldn’t hand it over right now. The sunspot stone was my lifeline. And perhaps the only key that would let me survive in this world headed for destruction.

At that moment the smartphone rang again. It was the Rat Merchant once more.

I narrowed my eyes. He’s coming himself? That wasn’t good news. The Rat Merchant’s next message followed.

I looked at the sunspot stone storage box on the table. The red sun emblem blinked slowly. As if it already knew the answer.