Chapter 113: You're Not Ready Yet (3)
Chapter 113: You're Not Ready Yet (3)
Chapter 113: You're Not Ready Yet (3)
Villains didn’t consider the circumstances of heroes.
Even when heroes were eating, using the restroom, laying down sick, having a wedding, or even during their college entrance exams, villains caused accidents and wreaked havoc.
In the case of vile villains everyone hated, there were ones who provoked heroes undergoing family tragedies, engaging in destructive acts.
Eventually killed by an infuriated hero, the villain’s goal was to have heroes kill someone, anyone, be it a villain or not, so the villain left the world laughing.
-Still, isn’t it too much to bother someone who’s lost a family member?
-Would those who care about such things commit villainous acts?
There were villains who possessed their philosophies, but there were also numerous villains who discarded morals and acted on their whims in the world.
Like villains who captured innocent people to reveal the identities of heroes living in secrecy.
Or villains who, after figuring out the hero’s identity, approached their surroundings and brought destruction to their acquaintances, isolating the hero mentally.
Such wickedness naturally led to execution, and I, as the Goblin, had met numerous such individuals.
And I killed them all.
I once captured a villain who, failing to draw me out, killed all the hostages he took.
Once, a guy showed up at a house I saved and fired a shotgun as a gift for the Goblin, so I pierced holes throughout his body.
Through such incidents and accidents, today’s Goblin came to be.
Now, people of the underworld knew.
That the Goblin was not a hero.
That provoking the Goblin would unconditionally bring a pain worse than death.
I had proven myself as the Goblin for over half a year.
But Yumir was different.
[Let’s take a break here.]
“Is this…that place?”
Solar Platina, who had gotten off the bike, stood before a cliff, removing her mask and hood.
[Do you want to reveal your face so much?]
“No one’s watching here. How about you also reveal your face?”
[Sorry, but the Goblin reveals his face…]
“In front of a loved one. Right?”
[You know well.]
Yumir stuck out her tongue at me, and I created a bench by hitting the bat.
“Did you use the power to create anything with the bat to bring that, the bike?”
[Appearing with a bike suddenly is common for a rider. It’s not particularly strange.]
It was only possible because it was a special custom-made bike of Yi Maemangryang.
[There are those who create ropes made of mana from thin air, let alone a bike.]
“It’s always fascinating. How can you create such sophisticated machinery?”
[If you join the pledge, not only a bike but also vehicles and houses will be provided.]
“Wow, you are proposing to recruit me instantly. Are you an insurance planner?”
[For hero Solar Platina’s life, there’s no more certain insurance than the pledge, Yi Maemangryang, especially when the hero is no longer a hero.]
One usually didn’t know the value of insurance until they needed it.
[Today, you purified the frog demon. You have snatched his ability from him.]
“Yes, this.”
Yumir floated a sphere in the air, which she had been holding tightly; it was a sphere wrapped in golden magic.
“Body transformation. Especially specialized in elongating the body.”
[You can understand that?]
“Even if I didn’t use it, the principle entered my head since I took it. If I absorb this into my body, I could use it as proficiently as the demon did…”
Yumir clearly frowned and shook her head.
“I don’t want to use it. I’m already slender and satisfied with my body. How about you, Goblin?”
[I’m also fully satisfied. Rather, it’s a body that doesn’t need to envy others.]
“As an ability user?”
[Even if not an ability user.]
I was satisfied with the body of the Goblin, of Do Ji-hwan.
I had developed this body for the past six months – now, I needed to add a few more months to that – and I was very proud of it.
[Lucky you’re satisfied with your body. Dissatisfaction with one’s body is the easiest trigger for an ability user’s rampage.]
That was not a joke.
The ability enclosed in the gold sphere by Yumir had its owner turned into a demon, filled with all sorts of self-loathing stemming from an ‘ugly face.’
Abilities were just abilities; not every man with abilities surpassed 180 cm in height, and not every woman became beautiful.
Sometimes, when God created a child with abilities, it seemed as if He said, ‘You probably need to live with at least this ability,’ and granted it.
[For ability users, even plastic surgery is difficult. They need to infuse the scalpel with power, or there should be a plastic surgeon who is an ability user; it’s not easy. Just live as you are.]
“Wasn’t there an ability user who specialized in plastic surgery?”
[He became a villain. He changed everything to his liking. Seeking ultimate beauty.]
“The Goblin broke his clay pot?”
[I took a flight to the middle of the Atlantic due to a request to kill him and shaped him up quite nicely with the Goblin’s Bat.]
Ability users, unlike ordinary people, couldn’t even adjust their appearances.
Some accepted what had been given to them and lived on, but there were also those who resented their genes.
[Basic dissatisfaction with oneself can be a trivial trigger for corruption. Ability users are troublesome beings. They can run wild from a bit of dissatisfaction.]
Even if someone seemed quite alright, this ‘alrightness’ was just relative.
[Be careful, Solar Platina. You might not have any complaints about yourself, but others might have complaints about you.]
“Jealousy.”
[Yes. It’s the emotion that ability users need to be most cautious of, to stay far away from.]
This was what they learned from a young age.
Not only jealousy but other negative emotions as well; ability users especially needed to be more cautious.
[Someone stronger than me, someone more handsome and prettier than me. Someone who possesses what I can’t have. Someone with more fame than me. Demons start whispering when you feel jealousy and envy towards such individuals.]
“So… isn’t that dangerous?”
Yumir pointed her finger at me.
“If I start desiring what the Goblin has, the Goblin will turn me into a demon.”
[I have no intention of corrupting you to the extent of becoming a demon.]
“Then do you intend to corrupt me to the extent of becoming a villain?”
[I want a picture painted black on a white canvas, not a paper soaked in black water.]
“And can the Goblin control such things effectively?”
[I wouldn’t have proposed it if I wasn’t confident.]
“That’s impressive.”
Yumir turned her back to me with a bright smile.
“Goblin. Did you think I would kill a villain who doesn’t consider my circumstances?”
[I thought that someday you might not be able to hold back and lose your rationality.]
Indeed, she was the one who dropped a meteor on Earth in anger at the end.
She chose extinction with humanity due to stress-induced self-destruction. I thought that killing a villain out of anger was quite possible for her.
[Aren’t you angry? It seemed like it was a good time.]
“Honestly, when the villain alert rang, I was really angry. Ha, really. Should I step forward? Should I just ignore the alert and go with the mood? Can’t someone else step forward and do it sufficiently? That’s what I thought.”
[Everyone thinks that.]
“But when I arrived, it was a situation where I had to step forward. So, I stepped forward. I didn’t kill the villain who turned into a demon.”
[Didn’t want to kill?]
“I seriously contemplated killing. As with Ermina, I thought maybe it would be better to kill rather than wonder how to live after losing the abilities.”
Yumir extended her hand towards the sphere, clenching and unclenching her fist.
“But so far, the choices I’ve made have always been correct. Not killing people. And if I can return those who have become demons back to humans, then I’ll do my best to do so.”
[The reason you revealed yourself when attacking the restaurant was also because of that.]
“Yes. Even if people found out about my ability, I thought of returning those turning into…those who had turned into demons back from being demons. While hiding my identity.”
Phaat.
The seal of the sphere was released.
“I might be angry for a while, but I’m fine now. I could protect the futures of others instead of having my time stolen. I saved two people, didn’t I? Haha.”
Solar Platina saved two people.
A-class hero Fire Knuckle and his girlfriend.
“If I can change someone’s life by sparing some time, I’d willingly step forward. …Of course, when possible.”
[There’s one more.]
“Yes?”
[The kid who shot the arrow.]
He shot an arrow to save his companion, but that arrow could have killed a hostage.
[If it weren’t for you, that child would live his whole life with the trauma of having killed an innocent person. You made the right choice, and I respect you for that. So.]
I lifted the Goblin’s Bat beside Yumir and aimed it at the ability extracted from the demon.
[Let me show you something interesting. If you are the one who takes…]
The ultimate technique using the Goblin’s Bat.
[I am the one who executes.]
Kaa???ang!
[This ability is no exception.]
Body manipulation series, the ability to extend and shrink the length of the body.
[The corrupt ability extracted from the demon is just a byproduct of the demon.]
The ability taken from the demon vanished into a light cluster.
[Solar Platina. Do you know? Jealousy, the ugliness of those who can’t have.]
Now, no one can have this ability.
And no one would awaken the ability extracted from the demon using that.
At least for this ability.
[There are people who research demons in this world. Whether they forcibly turn villains into demons or catch and confine them. And extract from them. The seeds of the demons. And…]
Now.
The whole world would start looking for Yumir.
[The power to grant demon abilities to non-ability users, ‘Heart of the Demon.’]
Because, using Yumir’s ability, even ordinary people could become ability users.
[The whole world will start looking for you.]
Because those who were not born as ability users also desired abilities.