Seed of Conflict (4)
“Your name.”
“Y-You, Yun Jaemin.”
“Age.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
The cameraman answered my questions obediently.
On the floor, two corpses rolled there with saws still clutched in their hands.
Of course, both of them were missing their heads.
“Where do you live?”
“I live in Gangnam, not far from here.”
“MBTI.”
“Huh?”
I met the eyes of the bastard, who had completely lost the ability to speak.
“You didn’t hear me?”
“A-ah… INFP.”
“Hesitate one more time, and I’ll kill you on the spot.”
I said it like a joke, but it wasn’t one.
Maybe I really did become someone else when I wore the purple mask.
Sharper.
Colder.
Crueler.
And right now, with my rage still burning, I felt capable of anything.
“S-Sorry! I’ll answer everything!”
Blood type, hobbies, special skills, even his shoe size—I drilled him on the petty details on purpose, just to keep my anger in check.
Yeah. I’m finally starting to calm down.
Once the rush faded, I got to the real questions.
“Who are you?”
“Th-The Dark Alliance.”
My brow furrowed on its own.
The Dark Alliance.
A nationwide gathering of villains.
A place where strong awakened ones gathered under awakened executives.
In particular, the boss of the Dark Alliance was said to be powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with an S-class hunter.
And then…
Without thinking, I pressed a hand to my chest.
A stab of pain shot through my heart.
Damn it.
A scene from my past life flashed through my mind.
One day, a woman came to see me.
She told me she was my younger brother’s wife.
“He was killed by a villain.”
The one who had killed my brother.
It had been the boss of the Dark Alliance.
“What’s your boss’s name?”
“Lee Kanghan. Boss Black Bear.”
“……”
I searched my memory.
My brother’s killer wasn’t Black Bear.
The Dark Alliance disappeared after the Police-Fire War.
That was because a new villain faction had attacked the existing alliance.
The old-school Black Bear died.
And someone new seized power.
That bastard rebuilt the nationwide villain alliance.
The so-called New Dark.
I thought about it for a moment.
Should I wipe out the entire nationwide villain alliance right now?
I shook my head.
In my last life, I had paid a private hunter to take revenge on my brother for me.
But that hunter had vanished with the money.
Part of it was because the bastard was a useless con man, but it was also because the leader of New Dark was a slippery ghost.
I’ll leave them alone for now.
Everything had its order.
After I finished the Police-Fire War.
Then I’ll wipe out the nationwide villain alliance.
Before I knew it, the corners of my mouth were curling up.
Ever since I’d decided to become a hero, there had been no end to the things I needed to do.
New goals kept appearing one after another.
That just means the world is crawling with trash.
Which was fine by me.
Living as the Purple Devil meant I could keep working without ever resting.
I continued the interrogation.
“What were you planning to do here?”
“W-We were filming a snuff film.”
Just as I’d suspected.
“After abducting women from clubs and filming them being killed…”
The bastard pointed at the camera lying on the floor.
“We only show it to the people who’ve joined our VVIP membership.”
Even in my last life, this had been information that never made it into the media.
“What do you get out of it?”
“The membership fees are pretty high, so we make a lot of money.”
“Just for money?”
“Not just that…”
The man stammered and kept glancing at me.
“Some of the membership members are important people too… So we film whatever fits their tastes, depending on the time.”
Film videos to suit their tastes.
I didn’t even want to know what kind of tastes those were.
Disgusting.
That much was clear now.
The Police-Fire War was connected to the villains.
But there was no way they could have pulled off something this brazen on their own.
The villains were running wild, doing whatever filthy thing they wanted, with the police as their backing.
I looked at the woman with pink hair.
She had passed out after witnessing me blow the villains’ heads apart.
“You’re kidnapping ordinary people in broad daylight? How do you plan to clean up after this?”
“There’s an awakened one in the alliance with trans abilities. We disguise her to look exactly like the kidnapped woman and send her out of the club. Then there’s no evidence left.”
Just like Jo Jeong-hwan disguised himself as the leader of Cheonyang-ji.
If an awakened one with trans abilities copied the pink-haired woman’s appearance and walked out of Red Moon, the CCTV footage would show her leaving perfectly clean.
It wouldn’t look like something that happened inside the club.
It would look like it happened outside.
So they’re making it look like a simple disappearance.
The villains inside Red Moon weren’t moving without thinking.
They were organized. Meticulous.
“Ughh.”
Then the woman tied to the table came to.
“...Hah.”
She sucked in a breath when she saw me.
Looking closer, she was wearing nothing but her underwear.
They’d probably stripped all her clothes off with the trans ability user.
I told the cameraman, “Take your clothes off.”
“Pardon?”
“Everything except your underwear.”
“A-ah, yes.”
The bastard tore off the T-shirt he was wearing.
White fabric unfurled in a long strip.
I walked over to the woman with pink hair.
She flinched and drew in on herself.
“It’s fine. Relax.”
I untied the rope binding her.
Then I wrapped her wounded arm with the white fabric to stop the bleeding.
That should do it.
The injury was serious, but it was still better than having the arm cut off.
“Ah…”
The woman’s mouth fell open.
I threw the cameraman’s long padded coat over her shoulders.
“Get out of here. Go straight to the police station and tell them exactly what these bastards did. Then go to a hospital and get treated.”
The corrupt police couldn’t be trusted, but if there was a real victim and real evidence, they couldn’t just ignore it outright.
I should contact the Gukbon Ilbo reporter too.
If I made this into a scandal through the news, the Dark Alliance would have no choice but to keep its head down for a while.
The pink-haired woman got to her feet.
She staggered toward the door, then looked back at me.
“...Thank you. Thank you so much.”
I nodded as I looked at her face, her makeup smeared and ruined by tears.
Then she hurried out into the hall.
That left four of us in the room.
Two of them were already cold corpses.
I looked at the cameraman.
“You...”
The bastard in his underwear dropped flat to the floor.
“P-Please. Spare me! Please!!”
“Relax. I’m not killing you.”
I smiled with endless benevolence.
“Not yet.”
XII
I arrived in front of Room 12.
The underwear guy assigned to guide me stood trembling at the door.
“What’s in here?”
“Th-this is, um…”
The underwear guy stumbled over his words.
I’ll find out when I go in.
Without hesitation, I kicked the door open and stepped inside.
A familiar face came into view.
Wearing a red dress with one thigh torn open, her hair tied high and stylish, was Director Bin.
“Oh? And who might you be?”
Director Bin tilted her head.
The room was simple.
It was shaped like a storeroom, pantry-style.
Several sturdy men were stacking something on the shelves.
Black powder wrapped in plastic.
Black Pearl.
What a goddamn nuisance.
I had just barely wiped it out in the Incheon Industrial Complex, and now it had popped up in Gangnam like a cockroach.
The production site for Black Pearl was Japan.
If I wanted to cut out the roots completely, I’d have to cross over there myself.
Hah. What a busy hero I am.
It just kept making work for me.
Director Bin glanced at the underwear guy.
“Jaemin? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be filming? This…”
She looked me up and down.
“Who’s this? We shouldn’t have any invited guests today.”
“No. That’s not it.”
The underwear guy looked to me for guidance.
Behind Director Bin, the men glared at me.
They wore tank tops and had the same tattoo inked across their shoulders.
The black butterfly insignia.
The symbol of the Dark Alliance.
“So you’re all part of the villain alliance?”
The bastards started whispering among themselves.
“Director Bin. What is that?”
“Doesn’t look like a VVIP to me.”
Director Bin lifted the corners of her red lips.
“Yeah. Looks like an uninvited guest.”
Then she pointed at the doorway with one sharp fingernail.
“Sir, ordinary people aren’t allowed in here. Please leave.”
“Director Bin.”
“Oh my. You know me?”
“What kind of filth have you been doing here?”
Director Bin let out a small laugh.
“Filth? What exactly are you talking about? Selling drugs to kids, filming videos, disposing of corpses, that sort of thing?”
“I knew it.”
I walked slowly toward the doorway.
Then I locked the door behind me.
“You should die too.”
The moment I finished speaking, Director Bin gave an order.
“Everyone, would you mind taking that mask off for me? I’m allergic to anyone who isn’t a handsome man. Let’s see that face, shall we?”
In the dark, cramped room, the vicious bastards with black butterfly tattoos closed in on me.
In their hands were sashimi knives, hatchets, and jackknives.
Weird.
Just a moment ago, my heart had been pounding.
And now I’m calm enough to laugh.
I hadn’t brought Heoksikdo, but it didn’t matter.
I drew White Revenge from my thigh.
At once, sashimi knives and hatchets came flying at me.
The woman in the snuff film had been torn apart by a saw.
If I want to return the victim’s pain in kind...
I didn’t deflect their weapons.
I sent White Revenge straight for their hands.
Thud. Thud.
Cleanly severed wrists dropped to the floor.
“Kkraaagh!!”
Too late, the screams burst out, and the villains collapsed and rolled across the floor.
The rest were no different.
A pure white blade sliced through the darkness.
This time, it took their ankles.
“Aaaagh!!!”
The men who had lost parts of their bodies thrashed on the floor.
“Oh?”
Director Bin rounded her lips and raised both hands.
She pulled a red hairpin from her hair.
Clang.
White Revenge knocked away the hairpin that had shot toward my face.
“……”
“……”
Just one exchange.
We had already measured each other’s ability.
She put mana into that hairpin.
If I hadn’t blocked it, it would have gone straight through my face.
She wasn’t like the others.
An awakened one.
Director Bin scowled.
“Who the hell are you? Are you with another villain faction? Who sent you?”
There were plenty of forces besides the Dark Alliance in this world.
Director Bin couldn’t pin down my identity.
“You don’t recognize me? That’s a shame.”
Choi Yongki, B-class hunter of the Dio Guild.
The call sign Typhon was famous nationwide.
Maybe it was time my original brand got some exposure too.
If I wanted to spread my notoriety...
“I’m the Purple Devil.”
“What? Who?”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. You’re dead anyway.”
Director Bin stepped back and spread both hands wide.
Silver hairpins materialized between her fingers.
“What a crazy bastard. You know who we are and you still...”
The razor-sharp needles came flying at me without mercy.
Even one hit would be fatal.
Instead of using an ability like Aura of the God from a defensive hero...
Ganro-ryu.
Crack-crack-clang!!!
A circle formed around me, and the hairpins were knocked away.
“Urk!”
“Hk!”
The bastards on the floor were struck by the stray hairpins and slumped over.
Director Bin, who had been tossing pins all over the place, panted for breath.
I didn’t miss the opening.
In an instant, I got behind her.
Then I pressed the edge of White Revenge against the back of her neck.
“W-Wait!!”
Director Bin said,
“What do you want? Money? How much do you need? I can give you whatever you want!”
Her tone had suddenly become polite.
“Money can solve most things.”
But there were things money couldn’t buy.
Love, friendship, happiness...
Not that kind of sweet talk.
“But I’m the kind of guy who can’t rest easy unless I clean up trash like you myself.”
“Y-You touch me and you’re dead! You think you’ll get away with it? I have connections with a Dark Alliance executive—!”
Blood burst from Director Bin’s throat like a fountain.
Her red dress spread out in a dramatic flare as she collapsed to the floor.
I turned my head.
The underwear guy had turned into a corner and was shaking like a leaf.
“...Please. Please spare me! I’ll do whatever you say.”
I brought White Revenge up to my face.
“I told you. Not yet.”
Then I wiped the blood from the blade with my purple mask.
“Red Moon is shut down as of today. Don’t show your face here for a while.”
I opened the locked door and started walking out.
“Oh, and tell your boss something for me. I’ll be sweeping all of you away soon enough.”