Chapter 468: Evolution (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 468: Evolution (2)
It seethes.
“Ugh… damn it!”
Every time the name Kim Do-jin struck the world, he felt his breath catch in his throat.
He didn’t know what the problem was.
Was Son Si-woo’s spirit so extraordinary that it could transform even his own body?
If not… did his original body hold some kind of incredible latent talent?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…!”
Either way, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
The former proved his incompetence, the latter, his foolishness.
He just couldn’t understand.
“How is this a fair trade?!”
Anyone could see it was an unfair exchange.
But he didn’t know.
He didn’t know that the standard by which equivalent exchange measured value was based on the subjective worth each party felt.
Son Si-woo had genuinely envied Kim Do-jin’s youth, and Kim Do-jin had envied Son Si-woo’s life.
Their interests had simply aligned.
No, in fact, Son Si-woo’s desire had been so much more desperate that he was the one who had to be saddled with a mountain of restrictions.
“While I’m going through hell just to recover my body, that bastard…!”
Every internet article that mentioned his name or showed his picture always featured a woman by his side.
All of them were stunningly attractive women, enough to make anyone drool.
And among them was even Shin Yu-jeong.
The very reason Kim Jeong-hun had bullied him, the one who had left a scar on his young heart with her looks of disgust.
The very woman he used to fantasize about, imagining himself becoming successful, making her his, and utterly dominating her after she had always looked down on him.
What had only been possible in his imagination, that man had made a reality.
And that made him even more frantic.
He had made no progress at all, while the other guy was soaring higher with each passing day.
“When the hell is this thing going to heal…!”
To achieve anything, he first had to heal his body.
But that was the hardest part.
The wounds were scars left by a power that had surpassed its limits.
It was deep, permanent damage—so severe that even the body’s original owner, a master in the study of the physical form, had given up and accepted it.
He had even joined hands with shady characters to somehow fix it, but even that wasn’t easy.
His recovery was agonizingly slow.
So slow that it was impossible to pinpoint a date for his full recovery.
And in the midst of it all, the man had appeared before him.
With a string of beautiful women in tow, no less.
The moment he saw it, a dark emotion surged from the depths of his heart.
It was a scorching, gloomy flame.
The name of that emotion, one that would burn not only him but everything around him to ash, was jealousy.
“I look forward to working with you.”
As the new Son Si-woo dazedly shook the hand Kim Do-jin offered, he saw it.
‘He’s shining.’
His life, once confined to a dark little room where the only light came from a powered-on monitor…
Was now shining so brilliantly that anyone would be too dazzled to open their eyes properly.
Overcome with envy, he thought.
‘I want it back.’
He wanted to make that life his own as well.
A vile flame of jealousy, so dark and murky its depths were impossible to fathom, coursed through his entire body.
* * *
A period of peace followed the major incident.
Time flowed on within it.
And in that time, my surroundings began to change, little by little.
Construction on the guild hideout began, based on the blueprints we had painstakingly created with the guild members.
The guild members, feeling they had little left to learn at the academy, all dedicated themselves to personal training or dungeon raids, striving for their own growth.
As A-rank Hunters, they were already in the top tier, second only to S-ranks, and could have afforded to slack off. But seeing them push themselves even harder, I also made a decision.
“…This should be a worthy investment.”
I decided to invest the remaining Elixir, left over from treating Baek Hyeon-a’s sister, Baek Hyeon-jin, in them.
A total of three drops of Elixir had been used to treat her.
The small bottle still contained about seven drops’ worth.
At first, I planned to gulp it all down myself without telling anyone… but I just couldn’t.
“…To be precise, it wouldn’t be of much use to me.”
I had learned something while treating Baek Hyeon-jin.
The Elixir, richly infused with the energy of life, was more effective for physical growth than for mana growth.
In other words, it wouldn't be very effective on this body, which I had already tuned to my liking.
So, after a moment of consideration, I came to a conclusion.
If the Elixir couldn’t help me grow, I would use it to strengthen the guild members who had my back.
The vetting process was complete.
Their potential for growth, their loyalty.
In the most crucial areas, they had all scored more than high enough.
Now, it was time to act.
“Everyone, gather around.”
They approached, their faces all showing clear signs of exhaustion.
“What’d you call us for?”
I answered the one who was questioning me as if to ask why I’d interrupted his perfectly good training session.
“Called you to give you a miracle potion, what else.”
“A miracle potion?!”
“All of a sudden?”
“Gasp…”
This was the second time I was giving them a miracle potion.
The first had been made using the hundred-year-old moon-viewing flower.
Having experienced significant growth back then, their eyes began to sparkle.
I took out a small bottle and showed it to them.
“This is the potion you’ll be drinking.”
“……”
“……”
Disappointment quickly clouded their faces.
Shin Yu-jeong, who had come closer, looked inside the bottle, and her lips trembled.
“Hey, there’s barely anything in there.”
“It looks like it wouldn’t be enough even for one person to drink…”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to tell us to kill each other for it now?!”
“……”
Who do they take me for, some psycho from a misty village?
I asked the group, who were dismissing it because of the small quantity.
“Did it not occur to you that it might be such an incredible potion that this amount is more than enough?”
“Oh, that’s true.”
“But is there really a potion like that?”
“I heard there aren’t many liquid-type miracle potions in the first place…”
The atmosphere was slowly ripening.
They were starting to wonder about the identity of the liquid in the bottle.
Amidst it all, only one person, Seo-yeon, recognized what it was.
“Don’t tell me… is that what I think it is?”
She knew.
She knew that I had received an Elixir from the Saintess as a reward for taking the lead in wiping out the Church of Light.
When I nodded, Seo-yeon’s jaw dropped.
Seeing her uncharacteristically intense reaction, the others’ curiosity reached its peak.
“So what is it? What’s making Seo-yeon-sunbae so shocked?”
The chicks chirped as they huddled together.
Without further delay, I opened my mouth to satisfy their curiosity.
“Elixir.”
“……?”
Exactly three seconds after question marks appeared on their faces.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Shin Yu-jeong, Im Na-eun, and Elena.
The screams of the three women blended in perfect harmony and shot outwards.
* * *
Yoon Myung-ho’s trial was swift and anticlimactic.
His crimes were so blatantly obvious there was no need to argue right from wrong.
“Yoon Myung-ho, you are sentenced to death.”
The sentence handed down to him was, naturally, the highest the court could give: the death penalty.
However, executions had been halted for a long time.
Now a death row inmate, Yoon Myung-ho was incarcerated in a special correctional facility located in Cheongsong-gun, North Gyeongsang Province.
That’s right.
The very place that was once infamous as Cheongsong Prison.
Of course, its reputation had faded somewhat after it was converted into a special prison for the Awakened, but it was by no means an easy place.
This was a place where only those with the gravest of sins were gathered.
A place where heinous criminals, having cast aside any notion of remorse, ran rampant almost daily.
For Yoon Myung-ho, life there became extremely agonizing.
“Brain Washer? He’s an S-rank villain!”
Everyone recognized him and took an interest.
At first, it was simple curiosity, but it soon twisted into malice and descended upon him.
Thwack!
“Guh…!”
A fist flew out of nowhere, and Yoon Myung-ho collapsed, letting out a pained groan.
The other criminals surrounded him and began to mock him.
“What the hell is this guy.”
“He’s a total fucking pushover, isn’t he?”
“That’s what you get from bastards who rely on mana.”
He was similar to a mage.
He had neglected physical growth and focused solely on increasing his mana.
But in this prison, the use of mana was restricted.
In other words, he was nothing more than a pitiful rabbit or deer thrown into a lion’s den.
“You sons of bitches…!”
The infamy of an S-rank villain protected him for a mere three days.
After that, Yoon Myung-ho was reduced to nothing more than a common lackey.
He had tried to fight back at first, but each attempt was met with even greater violence.
And so, covered in bruises, he chose to submit.
‘I just have to endure for now.’
At the same time, he sharpened the blade of revenge within him again and again.
‘An opening will definitely appear.’
Isn’t it said that mistakes are inevitable in war?
No matter how meticulously things were managed, it was still run by people.
He believed without a doubt that if he endured and endured, a small crack would eventually form.
‘A single moment is enough.’
A fleeting instant that others could do nothing with was more than enough time for him.
Enough time to subdue the prisoners who ran wild relying only on their physical bodies, their mana suppressed.
And enough time to deal with the guards who managed them.
“Hey, you fucker! Can’t you even give a proper shoulder massage?”
“This frustrating piece of shit. He’s not an S-rank villain, he’s a reject. A total reject.”
“Kekekek! I like that! The Reject Villain!”
“Hey, from now on, you’re the Reject. Got it?”
All sorts of ridicule and contempt.
“Why aren’t you answering!”
Thwack!
And violence.
He was enduring each grueling day, engraving every word, every punch, into his heart.
It happened during yard time, when he was once again the victim of their hazing, being forced to run all over the prison yard.
Thump!
The dormant energy pulsed.
It was faint, and so brief it vanished in the blink of an eye.
Yoon Myung-ho reached out and seized that moment everyone else had missed.
He immediately delved into the minds of everyone in the yard and engraved a single proposition.
“You are all… my slaves.”
In that instant, everyone’s movements froze.
The only sound was the thump-thump-thump of the balls that had been cheerfully bounced and kicked just moments before, now rolling away.
He lifted his head, which was always bowed, and issued a command to them all.
“Now, everyone, gather here.”
Criminals, guards.
Their eyes clouded by a turbid energy, they all gathered around him, regardless of their status.
Seeing this, it began to boil within him once more.
That feeling of omnipotence, as if he could bring the entire world to its knees.
“Kukuku… Kuhahahahat—!”
The maniacal laughter of the heinous criminal, who had regained his limbs, echoed thunderously throughout the entire prison.