The Motive Behind the Vile Plot Is Absurd
Guild Leader Baek Hyeong-won's reply came back.
Click. Click.
The shutters snapped in a steady rhythm. On set, Seomun Ye-jin cycled through expression after expression — a warm smile, a face full of mischief, a look steeped in quiet melancholy — giving the photographer everything he asked for.
The outfit she wore was a women's racing suit, and a revealing one at that. The top was sleeveless, leaving her arms completely bare, and while the bottoms technically covered her lower half, they barely qualified as pants. A cutout at the chest offered a glimpse of cleavage, and the zipper nestled between her breasts sat just low enough to stir an almost irresistible urge to pull it down.
For all that, this was apparently standard attire for female hunters — a design that traced its origins back to racing-girl outfits.
Looks a little sloppy for an active hunter, though.
Seomun Ye-jin had talent well beyond her years. With a proper teacher, her skill would climb in no time. Two days ago, a few pieces of advice I had tossed out in passing had been enough to push her to A-class level, and she would reach SSS-class just as easily. If anything, the original novel had undersold her. The version of her who started at SS-class and only later grew into SSS-class had been growing slowly — far more slowly than her actual talent warranted.
The shoot went on. And then something began to grate against my senses.
They're headed this way.
Three somethings, to be precise.
Baek Hyeong-won. Kim Yu-jeong. And Baek Seo-jin.
This life's parents, who had sold me off to a villain — and my little brother, the original protagonist of this world.
They're coming here because of me, no doubt.
A fifteen-year-old SSS-class mana awakener with no parents and no connections. From the perspective of any guild in Korea, he was a prize worth recruiting.
So Baekho Guild had moved first, ahead of the other top ten. It was probably a coincidence that they had beaten the others to the punch. To me, it was a thoroughly unamusing one.
Approaching me directly would not have been easy, so they had used Seomun Ye-jin's trip to Seoul for a hunter-magazine photoshoot as their opening — and now here they were, walking onto the set.
"Pardon the intrusion."
They arrived sooner than anyone could have prepared for. Five years ago, this same man had grovelled on his knees before the SSS-class villain So Gang-seok. The contrast was almost impressive. Now he strode in with his chin high, flashing an ID that named him an SS-class hunter and Guild Leader of Baekho Guild, looking every bit the commanding figure he pretended to be.
"Ah — what brings you here?"
The Guild Leader of a top-ten guild, barging onto a magazine photoshoot. Naturally, everyone on set went rigid, watching Baek Hyeong-won's face for cues. Everyone except the two of us, that is.
The lady's tense, all right — just for a different reason.
Seomun Ye-jin flicked a glance at me, then back at the couple, worry written plainly across her face. She knew these were the parents who had sold me to a villain. What she was afraid of was that I would not be able to keep my temper.
"Whoa~ You're so pretty!"
A young boy's voice cut through the tension. Baek Seo-jin — my little brother, the original protagonist of this world — was staring at Seomun Ye-jin in open admiration.
If any other child his age had said it, she probably would have laughed and thanked him. But Seomun Ye-jin knew that Baek Hyeong-won and Kim Yu-jeong had sacrificed me for this boy's sake. Her face went stiff, and she said nothing at all.
Baek Hyeong-won and Kim Yu-jeong, however, doted on their son past the point of reason. The instant Baek Seo-jin took an interest in Seomun Ye-jin, their original purpose — approaching me — dropped to a distant second, and both of them turned their eyes on her instead. It was a look so repulsive, so thoroughly unpleasant, that I nearly put my hands on them then and there.
"So. You're Seomun Ye-jin, is that right?"
Baek Hyeong-won addressed her in that arrogant tone of his, walking toward her as if he had every right to call her name. I did not stay still. I stepped forward and put myself between them.
"That's far enough. Don't come any closer to her."
Protecting Seomun Ye-jin was my job. But more than that — if those people laid a hand on her, I was not sure I would be able to hold back enough to take my revenge properly. I might simply explode.
"You're Kim Ho-jun, then?"
Baek Hyeong-won talked down to me from the first word, as if we had known each other for years. Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it, I no longer had any reason to show him courtesy. Convenient, actually.
"Yeah. That's right. I'm Kim Ho-jun."
Baek Hyeong-won's face twisted at the informal reply. Kim Yu-jeong sent me a look of open distaste. Baek Seo-jin just stared, startled that I had not used honorifics.
"You've got no manners."
"You're the one who started talking down to me. Don't lecture me about manners."
I gave Baek Hyeong-won a cold, thin smile. This man had sold me to villains, and five years later he was still living happily, without so much as a flicker of guilt. Calling him a bastard would have been an insult to bastards. He did not seem to appreciate being told so.
"Even an SSS-class hunter — a brat like you has some nerve. Having power doesn't mean you understand how the world works. You'd do well to watch yourself."
Baek Hyeong-won issued his warning. I found it hilarious. This was the same man who had grovelled in terror before an SSS-class villain and offered up his own eldest son to save his skin — and now a fifteen-year-old boy who had merely awakened SSS-class mana looked like easy prey?
"Watch myself? So you're saying you'll hurt me. If you're going to barge in here without a word and start threatening people, that makes you a villain."
"What did you say?"
With a man like this, the only answer was to come at him like a lunatic. I could not lay hands on him here, not properly — but a little contest of presence would do just fine.
"They said you were in league with the SSS-class villain So Gang-seok. Looks like that was true. I may not have an official hunter's license yet, but I still have the right to defend myself from a villain who threatens me."
A low rumble rolled through the air as I gathered my presence and hurled it at Baek Hyeong-won.
"Ghk— ghhh?!"
I had only pressed him with an SSS-class aura, so Baek Hyeong-won, being SS-class himself, did not drop on the spot. But he staggered, straining against it, cold sweat standing out clearly on his face.
Confused murmurs rippled through the people gathered on set. I almost felt sorry for them. What a mess to get caught in, all because a family of villains had decided to crash a photoshoot.
Seomun Ye-jin made no move to stop me. She simply watched. In any other situation she might have stepped in and told me that was enough. But she knew what I held against Baek Hyeong-won, and she stayed out of it on purpose.
"Stop. Stop this at once."
Which meant the one who finally spoke up was Kim Yu-jeong. No one else was going to, so she stepped forward with her teeth clenched and issued her command. I ignored her completely.
And why should I?
Why would I take orders from that woman? I disregarded her and poured more pressure onto Baek Hyeong-won.
"Ghhhh!"
Cold sweat was running down his face in earnest now. Kim Yu-jeong raised her voice again.
"I told you to stop!"
I turned my head and looked at her.
"And who are you to talk down to me, lady?"
"What?"
"When have you ever even met me, that you get to use that tone and bark orders? Are you a villain too?"
I let killing intent bleed into the words. Kim Yu-jeong's face went white with fear.
Baek Hyeong-won and Kim Yu-jeong had spent so long being deferred to at Baekho Guild that they had walked in here, taken one look at an SSS-class mana awakener they had never met, and decided that because he was young, they could talk down to him and treat him like a subordinate. A child, they had figured. Flash a little persuasion, throw some adult wisdom at him, and even if he was stronger than they were, they could still put him to work.
But an SSS-class mana awakener was not something you treated that way — not even if it had been someone other than me.
Blinded by their own arrogance.
They had grovelled for their lives in front of an SSS-class villain, and yet they looked down on an SSS-class mana awakener for being young. That was the kind of arrogance that had let them do what they did to me for Baek Seo-jin's sake and feel not a single pang of conscience afterward.
"Don't talk to my mom like that!"
The moment I called Kim Yu-jeong a villain the same way I had her husband, Baek Seo-jin shouted and stepped forward. Some people might have found it admirable — an eleven-year-old boy standing up to protect his parents. To me, it was nothing but pathetic and disgusting. Even if Baek Seo-jin spent the rest of his life doing good deeds, he would only ever look loathsome to me.
"Ah. Right. Baek Seo-jin, was it?"
"Y-yeah!"
He nodded, but he knew perfectly well he was facing someone he could not possibly fight. Tension pulled his small frame tight, and cold sweat beaded on his skin. Kim Yu-jeong shifted as if to put her own body between us.
"Quite devoted to your son, I see."
"Of course I am! An orphan like you wouldn't understand!"
She did not even hesitate before taking that shot. A faint ripple of shock passed through the people around us.
"That's crossing the line."
Seomun Ye-jin, standing behind me, was an orphan who had lost both her parents. There was something almost novel about the situation — my own birth parents, calling me an orphan to my face. It was so grotesque that a fuck rose unbidden in the back of my throat. Almost entertaining, in its way.