Chapter 84
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Villains Protecting the Protagonist (2)
Trait-type.
One in ten million, or so the rumors went.
But that statistic only applied to those officially registered as Trait-type Awakeners, so the true number remained unknown.
With such rarity, research was naturally lacking, and what was known about Trait-types was extremely limited.
If one had to sum up Trait-types in a single phrase, they were superpowers among superpowers.
After Awakeners appeared, superpowers had become everyday rather than mystical, but Trait-types were still classified as enigmas.
Powers that worked miracles, defying categorization into standard skill lineages.
Some said you could summon a roulette wheel out of thin air, complete with a table and a full Korean meal set.
Others claimed you could accumulate pain from blows and generate gold equal to that suffering.
Still more insisted that carrying today's lucky item from your horoscope granted immortality, impervious to any injury.
Trait-types were bizarre, with effects varying wildly.
That was why they were perennial subjects of study, yet so little was truly known that rumors circulated half as truth.
Trait-types were talents manifesting desired phenomena as skills, born from those mentally cornered or obsessed with anomalies.
No, they were blessings granted to those chosen by mana.
All that was bullshit—it was just pure luck.
“Gasp!?”
And Yeo Bit was a Trait-type Awakener fitting the third rumor.
‘W-what did I just see!?’
It was an utterly abrupt awakening. No, she'd awakened at fifteen, gaining her current purple hair and eyes.
But not every Awakener gained skills or grew stronger, so she had lived as an ordinary student leading a normal life.
Until this very moment.
“A skill that lets me see the future…….”
Skills were like extensions of one's body, so their effects were intuitively known without explanation.
The future Yeo Bit had seen was one after bragging about her newfound luck to her friend.
[Help! Please spare me!]
[This is the girl? The one who can see the future? Perfect. You'll work for our organization from now on.]
[As long as you use your skill properly, you won't get hurt.]
She was a close enough friend to call bosom buddy.
But that friend blabbed about the skill everywhere, making Yeo Bit a target for a villain group.
She was kidnapped in an instant, confined to a basement, raised like livestock, and forced to use her skill for them—that future had Yeo Bit fleeing school.
Graduation? When her remaining life would be spent as a slave in a pitch-black basement, who cared about graduating.
Returning home, she slowly examined her skill.
“There are two ways to see the future.”
One was a conscious method.
This allowed glimpses up to a month ahead, with no range limit.
She could see America's future a month from now while sitting, or focus on a specific individual—highly versatile.
“And the other is…… passive.”
The other activated automatically.
Its trigger: facing a crossroads that opened a new future tied to her own well-being.
“It triggered right after awakening for that reason.”
This far surpassed the prior method.
She could see literal decades into the future.
What threatened her well-being, from start to finish, flooded her mind in one second.
Like watching a WhyTube video titled [Movie Review - Spoilers Included].
It extracted and delivered summaries in a stream, imprinting them indelibly, as if granting momentary eidetic memory.
“Sigh, what now?”
Yeo Bit let out a deep sigh.
Living ordinarily meant no incidents. Indeed, deciding on normalcy kept the passive dormant.
“Should I really live normally with this insane power?”
But the moment she considered using her future-sight, the passive fired, showing countless futures.
In one, her skill was exposed, villains hunted her relentlessly, and she was torn limb from limb amid cries of “If I can't have it, no one will!”
In another, Korea's secret agents dosed her with drugs, saying “Miss Yeo Bit, it won't hurt,” brainwashing her into a government puppet.
In yet another, a mad scientist cackled, “Heh heh, preserving the body just lets her run. All I need is the brain,” sawed open her skull, extracted it, and turned her into a prophetic machine in a jar.
Even without passive, a skill reading futures a month ahead, regardless of distance, was one nations would seize regardless of rights.
Living normally avoided crises. But Yeo Bit didn't choose that.
“Don't make me laugh! I want to use this power to rake in easy money and live cozy and lazy! Why should I settle for normal!”
She was faithful to her desires.
She knew using the power invited grim futures, but also which paths avoided them.
“Only one way.”
After dozens, hundreds, thousands of trials, the method was……
“Becoming a villain, huh.”
Becoming a villain.
Unlike enslavement to nations or guilds.
A world where raw power guaranteed self-protection!
“Since I've decided, let's go all in.”
First up: fundraising to build a villain organization.
Making money was easy. Preview lotto numbers or spot stocks surging in a month via skill.
“Hmm, about 5 billion won earned.”
Just vanish now?
Tempting, but settling for 5 billion with this power was cowardice.
“Fine, villain it is—full throttle.”
Much happened after.
Overconfidence from successes nearly exposed her to villains.
The government branded her a stock manipulator, slapping a bounty before she even formed her group.
Using passive, she recruited loyal underlings who wouldn't betray her.
“Phew, finally made it here.”
A saga that could fill a web novel to 1,000 chapters plus side stories.
Through perils even prophecy struggled against, Yeo Bit built Thousand Gold Star, growing it to the underworld's second-most influential force.
“Heh heh, time to live easy.”
Sinking into the plush boss chair, she relaxed in the languid air.
Lately, passive stayed quiet, and no villains dared touch them.
Nothing but smooth roads ahead.
“Been a while—TV time? Oh, what? Choi Yu-ra has a boyfriend?”
So she thought.
“Fuck!?”
Until seeing Yoo Jun-hyuk on TV.
His face triggered the passive instantly.
“No way, I was finally gonna live easy!”
Futures unfolded in her mind.
Yoo Jun-hyuk's cafe obliterated in a bomb attack.
Villains ambushing him on the street.
The bus he boarded for a trip exploding.
Like the villains she'd just handled, unregistered lunatics from the Hero Association database; foreign villains; even agents from nations coveting Korea's fall.
“They're all stark raving mad.”
Yet in every future, Yoo Jun-hyuk survived.
Sometimes via artifacts from Choi Yu-ra.
Sometimes her senses pulled him from danger beforehand.
Other times, the Millennium Guild Master intervened personally, or the whole guild mobilized.
Once, even a bizarre force beyond her foresight let him repel attackers.
But only Yoo Jun-hyuk emerged unscathed.
Strangers uninvolved died in the crossfire.
It wasn't just terrorism. To manipulate Choi Yu-ra via him, his acquaintances were kidnapped, tortured, killed.
[It's because of me. If not for me…….]
In those horrors, Yoo Jun-hyuk changed.
As if craving peace was sin, he grew haggard, obsessed.
[This can't go on. It can't…….]
Resolving something.
In every future, staring into a mirror, Yoo Jun-hyuk declared:
[Until every villain vanishes from this world, I will kill my own emotions.]
At those words, his dying expression turned emotionless.
[From now on, everything I do is righteous.]
Gazing into the mirror, he murmured like self-hypnosis.
[Until all villains are eradicated, I will never stop.]
Three vows.
Post-vows, all futures converged.
Villains vanished one by one; threatening factions crumbled or turned inexplicably benevolent, fixated on good deeds.
Global conflicts ceased; all hailed peace.
In that world, future Yeo Bit fled endlessly from something.
[Everyone has potential to become villains. It's emotions. Emotions breed greed, desires, turning people villainous. Thus…….]
Foresight let future Yeo Bit evade via foresight, but endings always caught her.
[Humans need no emotions. Erase them all, and villains cease.]
Yoo Jun-hyuk gazed down emotionlessly.
He reached out, and at his touch……
Everything ended.
“Haah, one future down…… but plenty more to go.”
A world where all humans were stripped of emotions.
No emotions, no conflicts; sans gates, no threats—a mechanical world.
But was that human living?
Just a flawless program, no different from extinction.
“As expected, handling them reduces extinction futures bit by bit.”
Staring blankly at Yoo Jun-hyuk's photo onscreen, Yeo Bit sneered.
Just when she'd thought easy street, fate dumped world-saving on her lap.
“One more year of this, and no one should bother him, right?”
Butterfly effect: resolving this trimmed Yoo Jun-hyuk's world-ending futures.
From 75,689 variants.
Now 74,258—slightly fewer.
“Who'd have thought a villain ends up guarding a Hunter's boyfriend.”
Hoping such futures vanished soon.
As Yeo Bit toiled, eyes closed, scanning futures, Yoo Jun-hyuk finished settling up and left the cafe.
“Phew, wonder if today's chapter dropped.”
Lately, pondering web novel clichés like the top three tired tropes.
He'd gotten hooked on currently serializing web novels.
“As expected in this fantastical world, slice-of-life is trending.”
After binging latest chapters of his faves, he likened his life to a web novel.
“Web novel trait: if the protagonist has special powers, the world picks on him even at rest, dragging in incidents.”
Then he laughed.
“But reality's reality. In a web novel, I'd be swept into drama by now. So peaceful.”
His serene daily life.
Maintained by a villain's blood, sweat, and tears—laughter born of ignorance.