Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

The good atmosphere I had created was short-lived. Kim Jae-ho still behaved like a ferocious wild animal.

For several days, I tried to become friendly with Kim Jae-ho, but all my attempts ended in failure.

He even tried to bite the hand that offered him food! After that, he charged at me so forcefully that the iron bars shook violently.

Wow, seriously?

I was rendered speechless by the shock for a while.

“This is why they say not to take in stray black-haired beasts?”

How on earth had we become close in the past?

‘Could it only have been possible through Seol Rok-jin’s brainwashing?’

Having thought that, I shook my head.

—Can’t you just use your ability?

“Then wouldn’t I be doing the same as that bastard? At least I don’t want to earn someone’s favor in that way.”

Kim Jae-ho was going to become my colleague. I didn’t want to start off our relationship like that.

—What a pointless stubbornness.

Although Ray clicked his tongue saying that, he did seem to respect my choice to some extent.

Having acquired the necessary equipment, I began the full-scale process of setting up the base.

The very first task was installing a water source. Without water, nothing could be done properly. Until now, I had been carefully rationing the 15L per day produced by the tent, but with two people, it became difficult to even bathe properly.

As time passed, my appearance was steadily approaching that of a homeless person.

Installing a water source was simple. I just needed to set up the pre-prepared artifact in a sunny spot.

Although it would consume an excessive amount of mana stones, I still had quite a decent stockpile of unminted mana stones, so it wasn’t a burden for now.

Of course, the maintenance costs amounting to millions of won per month would become a headache later on.

—You know, it would have been better to build the base near a river instead of in these remote mountains.

“But that wouldn’t have been very stylish, would it?”

Setting, you know? Setting. I had talked about darkness and whatnot, so having a base in an auspiciously located area blessed by the surrounding mountains and rivers just hits differently. It would lose its flair otherwise.

—I should have known from the moment you started wearing that mask.

Ray clicked his tongue. I pretended not to hear him and focused on the artifact. Before long, clear water began bubbling up. With this, my water worries were over.

I immediately took a shower first.

“Ah, I feel alive.”

Even if I couldn’t fully immerse myself like in a sauna, just washing off the grime that had accumulated on my body made me feel reborn.

“Do you want to bathe too?”

I asked Kim Jae-ho that just in case, but he didn’t respond.

“I suppose you’ll get angry if I pour water on you?”

—Can you even call that speaking?

At times like these, the fact that I couldn’t communicate with Kim Jae-ho felt so frustrating. No matter how many times I tried talking to him, he would just block his ears in the corner of the iron cage, refusing to even acknowledge my words.

“Hmm.”

I silently observed Kim Jae-ho’s behavior.

Even after Seol Rok-jin had scrambled his mind, some intelligence still remained within Kim Jae-ho. His mental age might have regressed to around seven years old, but he could still make rational judgments to some degree.

So even though he appeared to have lost all reason like a beast, somewhere deep inside, the human Kim Jae-ho must still exist.

After all, he was the one who had told me his name, Kim Jae-ho.

“Jae-ho-ya*.” (tl/n: -ya/-ah – used as a suffix for the vocative case when calling someone by his or her name, or a nickname, only when the person is younger or close. They also can be used for things or animals when the speaker treats them like human.)

At my call, his shoulders flinched.

“Forget it. Just eat your meal.”

Sweet-talking him would be pointless in his current state, so I would simply show through my actions.

Show him that I wasn’t his enemy, that I wouldn’t harm him.

After removing all the bat droppings from the cave, I began the task of leveling the cave floor, eliminating the uneven surfaces to create a foundation.

Of course, this too was no easy feat.

“Ueorr, I’m exhausted, so tired.”

One consolation was that the air circulation inside the cave was good, so the previously foul odors had dissipated quickly.

The humidity levels also seemed well-regulated, so I wouldn’t need to worry about additional ventilation.

Although I had stumbled upon this place by chance, it truly seemed optimal for establishing a base.

As I was indulging in some self-praise, Ray’s sharp voice rang inside my head.

—Someone’s coming!

It wasn’t just Ray who had sensed that presence.

Kim Jae-ho, who had been lying in the iron cage, had also awoken and was now growling from the corner. I slowly turned my head.

“Eh.”

And I was taken aback.

Standing before me was a child wearing a hunter academy uniform. In fact, I could barely recognize it as a uniform, tattered and filthy to the point of being unrecognizable, as if the wearer had been through quite an ordeal.

With shaggy hair obscuring most of the face, only the plump, peach-fuzzed cheeks revealed that he was indeed a student.

And therein lay the problem.

Why had an academy student come here?

No, the more accurate question was, ‘how’ had he come here?

At that moment, the ‘student’ spoke to me.

“I finally found you.”

His voice was hoarse and cracked. At those words, I furrowed my brow. ‘Finally found me,’ he said?

“You know my brother, don’t you?”

Fortunately, the subsequent words from them were quite polite. But a brother? What brother?

“Your brother…”

Just as I was about to ask who their brother was, a name flashed through my mind.

The ‘brother’ they mentioned had to be Han Jo-hee. This kid was Han Seo-hyeon, Han Jo-hee’s younger brother.

And the moment I realized that, I drew in all the mana from my body.

Right now, Han Seo-hyeon must view me as the enemy who had killed his brother!

While I had no intention of fighting this child, if he had come here to avenge his brother, I couldn’t just let him do as he pleased either.

What had he said? An A-rank potential awakener skilled in dark magic? As an academy student, his combat prowess would likely be 3-Circles at most, but could I really survive a direct confrontation? Or should I strike first while he seemed to be caught off guard?

As various thoughts raced through my mind, Han Seo-hyeon spoke to me.

“I know you’re not the one who killed my brother.”

Caught off guard by those unexpected words, my eyes widened.

“What?”

“I know.”

How? The entire world had condemned me as the culprit in that murder case. With the evidence and testimony, even I would have believed I was the perpetrator.

“How do you know that?”

In response to my bewildered question, Han Seo-hyeon bit his lip and drew in his mana. Unlike other ability users whose pupils would glow when activating their powers, Han Seo-hyeon’s pupils darkened even further instead.

At a glance, it didn’t even seem like he was using any talent at all.

But after accepting Ray, I had become far more sensitive to the movements of mana, so it didn’t escape my notice.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not planning to attack. Didn’t you ask how I knew? I’m just going to show you the answer.”

A black magic circle began forming in front of Han Seo-hyeon.

A black magic circle – the dark mana spread through the air like black ink dispersing in water, and from there, a single skull emerged.

He had summoned a skeleton.

Han Seo-hyeon wavered unsteadily, his body swaying. It was only natural. While summoning might seem simple, it consumed immense amounts of mana and mental energy. And necromancy, which dealt with the realm of death, was even more taxing.

To summon a skeleton from thin air without any medium.

It was a talent befitting the description ‘insane.’

“A necromancer, I see.”

“Yes.”

“By the way, I don’t understand why you summoned that skeleton.”

Wait, this – when he said he didn’t plan to fight but then summoned a clattering skeleton, how could that be interpreted as anything but an intent to battle?

“It’s my brother.”

At those words, my mouth fell open.

“Th-that’s Jo-hee?”

I inwardly apologized for referring to it as a ‘clattering skeleton’…

Seeing my stunned expression, he quickly explained:

“I had no choice. To read his memories, I needed to contract with him somehow. And I couldn’t just, just scatter my brother like that.”

Having become a skeleton, it could no longer be called Han Jo-hee.

Turning a deceased family member into an undead was a taboo act in our Confucian country, no, in most countries around the world.

But even so, Han Seo-hyeon must have had his reasons for crossing this line.

“The reason you revived your brother was…”

“To find the true culprit, of course.”

I gulped hard.

The expression on Han Seo-hyeon’s face as he spoke those words seemed like he might collapse at any moment. To the boy who looked on the verge of crumpling, I asked with a sigh:

“Have you eaten? Or gotten any sleep?”

Han Seo-hyeon shook his head slightly.

“Let’s talk after you’ve had something to eat.”

In any case, we had both realized we weren’t enemies, so there was plenty of time to converse.

* * *

“Greurr.”

As we headed towards the tent, Han Seo-hyeon noticed Kim Jae-ho trapped in the iron cage and looked at me.

“Th-that is, a misunderstanding.”

Was it just my imagination, or did his gaze towards me suddenly turn as cold as if looking at garbage?

At my explanation, Han Seo-hyeon’s face hardened.

“So to compensate for a lack of labor, you resorted to human trafficking and purchased a mentally unsound human slave?”

That was quite a summary.

“R-rescue! It was a rescue! If not for me, he would have ended up with an abusive owner and suffered terribly, you see? Right, right?”

I didn’t know why I was desperately explaining myself to this high school student.

—Yet he turned his own brother into a skeleton! Isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

‘Still, let’s not bring that up.’

Considering how desperate Han Seo-hyeon must have been to resort to such measures, I couldn’t bring myself to even mention that part.

The more I talked about Kim Jae-ho, the deeper I felt I was sinking, so it was better to change the subject.

After having Han Seo-hyeon take a seat, I first handed him some bread. Receiving the bread and water, Han Seo-hyeon began devouring it ravenously. Just how long had he gone without food? I watched him with a heavy heart.

Once Han Seo-hyeon had finished eating, I asked him:

 “So what did you manage to find out?”

At my question, Han Seo-hyeon shook his head with a troubled expression.

“Perhaps because I contracted with a skeleton, the quality of information wasn’t good. I did manage to identify the face of the one who tortured my brother before his death. But that’s about it.”

Han Seo-hyeon’s expression seemed conflicted as he spoke those words.

“You came to me…”

“Because I felt you might know who the culprit is.”

I pondered. Of course, I knew. But the problem was that the moment I revealed that information, Han Seo-hyeon would become involved in my affairs. If I intended to send him away, it would be better not to tell him anything and just placate him instead.

Having a necromancer like Han Seo-hyeon on my side would be tremendously helpful, but he was still a minor.

Since he attended the academy, he couldn’t be more than nineteen at most. But looking at his face, he seemed even younger – just a scrawny kid who had shot up in height.

While I understood the feelings that drove him to turn his own brother into a skeleton for the sake of revenge, that was precisely why I hesitated.

Han Jo-hee’s wish had been for his brother to be happy.

The siblings’ happiness had been trampled long ago, but was it right for me to drag him into this as well?

“In any case, I have nowhere else to go.”

As if reading my thoughts, Han Seo-hyeon threw those words out.

“I even turned my brother into that state.”

“You had no choice, did you?”

“But I still shouldn’t have done that, should I? Out of a desire for revenge, I killed my only brother a second time, the brother who had sacrificed his life for me.”

The voice of Han Seo-hyeon as he spoke those words sounded so hoarse.

“What do you want to do?”

“I have to find the culprit. I have to avenge what happened.”

At that answer, I tightly shut my eyes.

I had no choice.

Even if I tried to drive away this kid, the life of a child who had experienced such trauma couldn’t possibly return to normal. I told Han Seo-hyeon:

“Someone once said, don’t think about revenge for the dead. The greatest revenge is to live happily.”

At my words, Han Seo-hyeon’s eyes turned cold.

“If you’re going to tell me to give up on revenge…”

“I think that’s bullshit.”

Han Seo-hyeon blinked at my words.

“Who can claim to understand the dead? And honestly, why should I care? I’m the one who’s alive, aren’t I? I’m the one who can’t bear it any longer, for whom every day is a living hell. Telling me not to seek revenge, for whose sake is that? Isn’t that right?”

I too had wanted to take revenge on Seol Rok-jin my entire life.

If I could have, I would have done so.

That was why I decided to extend my hand to Han Seo-hyeon.

“Let me ask you one thing. Are you truly, ‘definitely’ certain you can do it?”