Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

Thud, the man’s body fell forward.

As expected, the electric attribute was the best for incapacitating people. As I shoved the man’s heavy body further into the gate while he groaned, Ray threw out a remark.

—He believed your words that easily?

“His mental fortitude was just that lacking. There were actually people skimming off the mana stones here too.”

To dare lay their hands on Seol Rok-jin’s possessions. They simply didn’t yet understand how terrifying Seol Rok-jin could be, to make such a mistake.

“When there are sore spots to prick at, it’s only natural for one’s thinking to become shortsighted.”

Even lies required technique. By seizing on their weaknesses and shaking them up, they wouldn’t have the leeway to doubt me.

After dragging the man’s body fully into the gate, I took off the backpack I had been carrying. An ordinary miner would probably take out a pickaxe or something here, but what I took out was different.

—You’re planning to kill everyone here?

“They were all going to die anyway, even if it wasn’t by my hand.”

Once Seol Rok-jin learned of the embezzlement, he would have made everyone here pay with their lives.

Wearing a bag that allowed me to carry potions on my waist, I calmly refilled them. They could become my second life, so I had to take good care of them. And in my hand was a sharp dagger about the length of my palm.

Despite its appearance, it was crafted from processed monster bones, sturdy enough to withstand considerable impacts. I had paid 30 million won for this single dagger.

And this 30 million won dagger’s first task was to pierce the throat of the man lying before me.

Phuook, the sharp dagger penetrated through the skin and severed the man’s carotid artery. Phusshh, blood splattered onto my face. I wiped it off with the back of my hand.

Warm.

This was my first killing since returning to this life.

I feel nothing.

Well, maybe not quite.

—Your hand.

Heeding Ray’s words, I saw that my hand was trembling uncontrollably.

“Hah.”

Even though it was something I had done countless times before, for some reason…

I muttered that, but it felt like the unpleasant sensation of the dagger piercing through flesh still lingered on my fingertips.

This was a sensation I could never seem to get used to. Come to think of it, it had been a while since I had soiled my hands like this.

The trembling didn’t last long. My soul must have become so numb and calloused. I wiped the man’s blood off on my pants.

From now on, I had to stay fully alert.

The ones I would face next wouldn’t be as easy to deal with as this one.

This gate’s terrain was rocky. Unlike the previous gate I had worked at where I would end up drenched in sweat, it was good that I wouldn’t here, but on the flip side, there was a lack of terrain features to conceal my body.

In this barren rocky area devoid of trees or grass, my location would be completely exposed.

The enemies were at least C-rank hunters. Approaching them directly would be tantamount to suicide.

From my backpack, I took out the cloak I had prepared and draped it over my outer clothes. As soon as I wore the cloak, it began camouflaging itself to blend with the surroundings.

—Oh, this is…

“Made from the skin of a Mimic Lizard.”

With the hide of the mid-tier Mimic Lizard monster, I could make a camouflage robe like this. If there were no places to conceal my body, I would simply camouflage myself. While it might be noticeable up close, no one would be scrutinizing the background that intently.

In fact, I had spent most of my money to purchase this cloak. Although it could only be used about three times at most, it was still better than entering this place teeming with enemies without any cover, which would be suicidal.

I also wore a mask to conceal my face.

It was just a cheap smiling mask I had casually picked up from a stationery store. With it being a regular stationery store purchase, the durability wouldn’t be great, but since it wasn’t meant for defensive purposes, it would suffice.

—What’s that for?

“I can’t exactly kill everyone here, can I?”

—But you said you were planning to kill them all earlier.

“That was just referring to the bad guys working here. I have no intention of killing the ones who were forcibly brought here too.”

While they were foolish enough to be deceived into coming here, which was a crime in itself, it wasn’t a crime deserving of death in a place like this.

With my entire body meticulously concealed, I followed the trail of footprints on the ground.

With each step, the memories became clearer. Memories I had already erased long ago, no, wanted to erase.

In my previous life, I had come here solely after being told I could earn bigger money. The unsettling smile on the man’s face as he watched me enter the gate had bothered me, but at the time, I had only felt excitement.

No matter how illegal the gate was, I had thought that ‘I’ would be able to safely escape from here.

How naive and foolish a thought that had been.

After not walking too far, the problematic mining site came into view. As soon as I heard the clanging sounds of pickaxes striking rock, I immediately went prone on the hill. Raising my binoculars to my eyes, I surveyed the scene.

—My, a hellscape if there ever was one.

While there were environments where mana stones were buried in soft earth, there were also cases like this where the mana stones were embedded in rock. The purity was better on this side, but the mining conditions were far worse.

The sight of naked men mining the rocks below while under the watchful glares of the guards truly looked no different from hell, as Ray had said.

—They wouldn’t even treat slaves like this.

“Worse than slaves. At least slaves aren’t treated as disposable. The workers here are disposable. If they just keel over and die while being worked like that, that’s the end of it.”

—Disposable?

“So they can’t let anyone who experienced this place out into the world and reveal what happened.”

In other words, they had no intention of ever letting them leave alive.

Which was why they didn’t bother treating the mana poisoning, simply working them to death here.

‘First, I’ll deal with the guards.’

Having set up a trap that would emit a sound when triggered behind the hill, I carefully slid down the slope below.

Hiding behind a nearby boulder, I pressed the button. From the trap I had set, a voice rang out.

[He, help me!]

A young girl’s voice that should have been impossible to hear in this place.

“What was that sound?”

The guard immediately reacted. Not an adult’s voice, but a child’s. As I had said earlier, when there were sore spots to prick at, one’s thinking became shortsighted.

Instead of contacting his colleagues through the radio, the guard immediately ran up the hill towards the source of the sound.

I carefully moved to a spot out of the guard’s line of sight.

“What the, damn it.”

Realizing it had all been a crude speaker, the guard’s face contorted. But just as he was about to open his mouth, having grasped that this was all a trap to lure him out, I had already reached him and plunged the dagger into his throat.

“Kuk.”

The man clutched at his throat, an expression of disbelief on his face.

But no matter how tightly he gripped his neck, there was no stopping the flow of blood gushing out. With his carotid artery and trachea severed in one strike, the man collapsed sideways without even a chance to cry out properly.

No matter how formidable a hunter, reacting to such an ambush wasn’t easy.

Easily dealt with for someone around the 4-Circle level, unless they were a superhuman above the 6-Circle.

Another one down like that. I dragged the man’s body to a large boulder in the corner and hid it there, letting out a breath.

—That makes two now.

The mining sites here were scattered around. Naturally, the guards overseeing each site were quite far apart from each other, so as long as I properly concealed this body, I should be able to deal with the rest in a similar manner.

I had to.

“Hey, did you check that out?”

At the voice coming from beyond the hill, I immediately went prone on the ground.

This was an unexpected development?

Fortunately, the man didn’t seem to have noticed me hidden behind the boulder. But he had spotted the bloodstains on the ground.

“Wh, what is this?!”

The man immediately took out the radio on his waist. Just as he was about to speak into it, I rushed at him.

Tap tap, I moved as quickly as I could across the ground, but it still took time to reach the man, allowing him to react to my ambush.

“Kuk!”

The dagger I had thrown struck the man’s forearm. While I had managed to land a decent hit, the problem was that I hadn’t been able to take him down in one strike.

Tossing aside the dagger embedded in his forearm, the man drew out his mana.

Seeing his pupils glow blue, I grit my teeth.

Most blue-eyed awakeners were of the physical enhancement type. Sure enough, his muscles visibly bulged before my eyes.

‘Damn it, I chose the wrong target.’

Although I had trained my body to a decent extent, having slacked off during my time at the academy had made me soft, and my body, lacking any innate physical talent, was no match for his strength.

In an instant, I was seized and slammed to the ground by the man. Kweek, my back colliding with the rocky floor sent searing pain through my entire body, as if it would shatter.

In that moment, the only consolation was that I had managed to snatch the radio from his hand. Tossing it away, I had at least prevented other reinforcements from getting involved.

Okay, that took care of others interfering.

“Who are you? Who sent you here?”

“Phut.”

Spitting out a bloody glob of spit, I spoke.

“You think I’ll obediently answer if you ask?”

—You’re not really in a position to be running your mouth like that.

As Ray said, I was no match for this man.

Even after obtaining Ray and gaining the ability to freely wield mana’s attributes, my physical specs still paled in comparison to his.

But that was only if I recklessly engaged him head-on in his own style of combat.

From my waist, I took out a potion vial.

“You physical enhancement types, you only believe in the sturdiness of your own bodies.”

My old buddy Jeong Ho-san had an incredible A-rank potential in the physical enhancement talent. How many times did you think I had clashed with him to improve my skills?

Even for the physical enhancement types who hardened their bodies, there were still openings to exploit.

Especially for a low-rank one like this man before me.

I threw the potion vial onto the ground, shattering it. Instantly, thick smoke enveloped the area. Just as the ‘enhancement’ part implied, the man immediately sensed my movements through the smokescreen and pursued me.

But this was exactly what I had been aiming for.

I immediately threw another potion vial at the man.

This time, an acidic potion.

“Aaaarrghhh!”

Drenched in a venom more potent than hydrochloric acid, the man began screaming.

In that moment, seizing his opening, I immediately plunged my fingers into his eyes. Ughh, the sensation of his eyeballs bursting was utterly vile.

“No matter how much of a physical enhancement type, there are limits to what you can enhance as weakpoints.”

“Guaaaaahhh!”

Wailing, the man grabbed onto me and flung me around violently. Unable to withstand his immense strength, my body went flying and crashed into the ground. This time, I slammed into a boulder as I was flung away.

“Damn it, damn it.”

My ribs, which had only just mended, were shattered again. Kkeuk. With the ribs Ray had just helped begin healing now completely broken, I let out a groan as I clutched my side.

“My eyes! My, my eyes, you, damn, bastard!”

Having lost both eyes, the man crawled around on the ground, shrieking.

Damn it, at this rate, even without the radio, he would be alerting the entire area that something was happening with all his screaming.

I fed the howling man an electric charge. Only after his body collapsed could I finally sit down and catch my breath.

But not for long. Staggering to my feet, I picked up the dagger from the ground and plunged it into the man’s neck.

“Huck, hukkk.”

—Brutal.

“But effective, isn’t it?”

Back in the academy, I had been called excessively brutal in my methods. Only those with overwhelming power could afford to hold back. To defeat such powerful beings, this was the only way.

In the end, I was the one who survived.

My entire body ached from the beating I had taken.

“Ungh.”

No matter how fast an awakener’s body recovered, if I kept getting tossed around like this every day, my body wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

Just this place, I’ll deal with just this place. Then I’ll rest for a while.

“Damn it.”

Picking up the mask that had been shattered by the man’s fist, I let out a sigh. I hadn’t brought any spares.

Then I felt a gaze watching me from above.