139) Chapter 20. Because I Hate Villains! (8)
I felt several emotions at once.
The very first emotion I felt was fear.
I’m still afraid of villains.
Maybe I could eventually adapt to fighting. Sparring isn’t an act of taking the other person’s life, so I could probably keep doing it over and over in the future.
But fighting villains is completely different.
The other side is genuinely trying to hurt me somehow.
It doesn’t end at simply injuring and subduing me. They truly want me to bleed. They truly want me to die.
I’ve had thoughts like that too.
The kids who bullied and isolated me. The kids who tried to isolate Soi and Chae-yi along with me. I wanted to do something to those kinds of people.
Maybe I even thought I wanted to kill them.
But I never intended to actually do such a thing. It’s not because others told me not to, or because it’s wrong.
It’s because I’m afraid.
Afraid of hurting people.
That’s why fights against villains can never be equal.
And then—
“You planning to drop the patients?”
The woman asked.
“Think that’ll be okay? If you let go, it looks like they’ll get seriously hurt.”
Because I’m an ability user.
Using my superpower like this supports the patients more securely than just helping them with my hands. If I endured the strain, I could even lift and carry the patients completely.
That was why all the patients assigned to me were people unable to walk on their own. Their bodies were floating entirely off the ground, and if I accidentally let go—
And if I did let go, who would move them?
“Walk. Other people are going to notice.”
The finger pressed against my side dug deeper into my flesh.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
How deep could that sharp pain go? What organs were beneath this skin? My lungs? If I got stabbed there, would I stop being able to breathe?
Even though I’m someone so afraid of living that I nearly quit school over it, at the same time I’m also terrified of dying.
The woman’s hand was hidden beneath the sleeve of her patient gown.
I walked slowly.
I tried quickly looking around for a chance to call for help, but everyone was running around frantically, so there didn’t seem to be any opening.
If Instructor Justina had at least been here, maybe she would’ve noticed, but she was outside searching for villains.
……Is this another future I changed? I don’t remember there being any mention in the original story about villains hiding among the patients.
“Tch.”
While we walked slowly, the woman clicked her tongue.
“What the hell are those idiots outside doing? Why are they so late?”
That muttered complaint let me understand the situation.
So there really were people outside too.
People cooperating with the ones inside to carry out some kind of scheme.
But something had happened to the outside group. Instructor Justina and the principal must’ve taken action after hearing my warning.
“…….”
But only one side had been stopped.
If the arsonists weren’t just one person but an entire group, then maybe some of them had been lying inside pretending to be patients all along.
To avoid getting caught.
“W-why are you doing this?”
“Shut up.”
When I tried to ask something, the woman’s finger dug deeper into my side. A small groan leaked out through my teeth.
It hurt.
The space between my ribs felt wet now.
Probably not just because of sweat anymore.
But even so, I couldn’t just stay still.
There might be more villains than just this woman.
As I slowly moved my invisible hands to safely lower the patients—
“Hey, do I look stupid to you?”
The woman asked.
“What are you planning to do after setting them down? The moment you put even one on the floor, this thing’s going straight in. It’ll probably hurt like hell. And if I angle it this way, your heart’s there too. Didn’t I mention I can control the length?”
“…….”
“What? You think I’ve never killed anyone before?”
The woman giggled.
“Actually, I have. I’ve already killed people. I may look like this, but I’m a cold-blooded person. I’ve even killed little brats way smaller than you.”
“……Little brats?”
“Ah, right, yeah. Turned one into a skewer together with some hero. I was just trying to vent my frustration a little, but he kept getting in the way.”
Huh?
The villain kept rambling.
Maybe she was trying to scare me, or maybe she’d genuinely gotten nostalgic.
Dragging me roughly with one hand, while with the other she kept pressing harder and harder between my ribs regardless of whether the blade dug deeper.
“Even in that situation, he kept trying to protect some useless little kid no matter what— Hey. Why’d you stop moving?”
My footsteps had stopped.
I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped walking.
“What are you doing?”
“That hero.”
My mouth moved.
Without me even realizing it.
Why?
I’m scared. It hurts. Honestly, just like she said, if she really stabbed my heart, I might die without even getting a chance for treatment.
People say if your heart gets damaged, the pain is unimaginable. That with a direct wound, your insides fill with blood bursting out internally, and you suffer horrifying agony until the moment you die.
But even while thinking all of that, my body refused to move.
Had I frozen from fear?
No, it wasn’t that.
There was another overwhelming emotion mixed together with the fear.
That emotion was anger.
Even among my hazy childhood memories, the memory of that day alone remained vivid.
The man holding me tightly, telling me it was okay.
The blood pouring over my body.
My tiny hands reaching out desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
Because that memory remained so vivid, even now I still can’t let myself be held in someone’s arms.
It’s honestly ridiculous.
That I could end up traumatized by a hug I wasn’t even forced into.
Uncle’s embrace had been warm. It felt safer than anywhere else in the world. I’d been afraid of leaving those arms.
What my mind remembers is only the blood pouring over me.
That iron-like smell.
That strangely tempered liquid that was neither lukewarm nor truly hot.
At the moment that should have been the safest in the world, what I felt was that red sensation.
That’s why even now, whenever someone hugs me, that image keeps resurfacing in my head.
In this world, superpowers aren’t like fingerprints. Multiple people can have the same ability.
So I thought maybe this ability just happened to overlap by coincidence.
But—
“Th-that hero… was it ‘Gale’?”
“What?”
The woman asked back.
“He didn’t die.”
I answered.
“He didn’t die.”
“What are you talking about? I’m telling you I killed him.”
As she said that, the woman anxiously glanced around.
The patients were simply floating in the air, and people were turning to look at us. I could hear several people calling my name.
But I just stood there, staring directly at the woman.
“Uncle lived.”
“Hey, no.”
“And the kid in his arms lived too.”
“Ah, sure, fine. Let’s say he lived. Now let’s just get outside first—”
“It was you, right?”
I quietly stared into the woman’s face as I spoke.
“The orphanage. It was you?”
“What.”
“Rua!”
The voices calling me grew louder.
It was Soi’s voice. I could hear Chae-yi too.
Both of them had been helping patients move, so had they come back inside because I was taking too long?
Ah, right. The patients.
I still had three of them with me.
Fear. Worry.
Those emotions brushed through my mind, but the one thought still dominating everything was only one thing.
Anger.
“You little bitch!”
The woman shouted after hearing Soi and Chae-yi calling for me.
A sharp pain erupted between my ribs.
Not just a shallow stabbing sensation at the surface, but something going very deep inside.
So apparently she hadn’t been bluffing.
“Huh?”
But then a confused sound escaped the woman’s mouth.
As if her hand wouldn’t come back out.
“Rua!?”
Soi screamed like she’d sensed something wrong. Chae-yi too, along with Hyeonji and Jinwoo, and probably several of the nearby kids as well.
“You— urgh!?”
The woman opened her mouth as though she was about to say something to me, then grabbed at her throat.
As if trying to claw something away from around her neck.
But the deeply sunken marks there were traces of something her hands couldn’t grasp.
Crack.
A horrible sound burst from the woman’s mouth, somewhere between a scream and something else.
All the nearby kids’ attention snapped toward us. Probably some teachers too. I could hear frantic footsteps running this way, but my eyes remained fixed only on the woman.
The pain between my ribs still throbbed.
Honestly, breathing was getting difficult, and my vision was blurry.
Crunch.
I twisted and yanked the woman’s hand away.
Maybe I hadn’t even needed to use that much force. After her elbow bent completely backwards, there wasn’t enough strength left in her arm to resist me anymore.
So it was this finger.
The finger bent in a direction fingers shouldn’t bend. Honestly, the direction probably didn’t matter much anymore. It had become one long blade-like structure, like those scissor hands from the movies.
Ah, so when it breaks, it returns to a normal human hand shape. It was mangled.
I could feel my clothes getting wet.
Something was pouring steadily from my side.
Ah.
I can’t pass out yet.
I still have to—
“Rua!”
Soi caught me as I collapsed and lowered me to the ground.
The woman who had been dangling helplessly in the air dropped limply.
Even when I tried to breathe in, it didn’t work properly.
It kept feeling like something was leaking out from my side.
Ah.
This might be… really bad.
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Author’s Note (A/N):
I’m sorry... Lately I’ve been having health problems, and for several days now I’ve basically felt like I’ve had stomach issues nonstop, so I haven’t been feeling well...
Only one chapter today ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
I’ll make sure to properly upload two chapters each over the weekend! Thank you as always for reading!