This Villain is Soft - Chapter 30



Only Noblemtl

Episode 30

It was common in the old town for gas to be cut off and fires to break out in houses.

Joo-yeol told his younger brother that he was the type of kid who would never light a fire on his own, but no one listened to him seriously.

The child was not the negligent culprit who caused the fire, but the victim.

The culprit who could prove it was right in front of us.

Joo-yeol gritted his teeth as he pondered that fact.

Haon held onto his fist tightly, clenching it so tightly that it was shaking.

I wanted to hug Juyeol and comfort him right away, but I held back because I thought he would hate it.

Because I knew I didn’t have any particularly good feelings about it.

‘You shouldn’t bully a child who is already having a hard time.’

As I thought that and slowly tore down the mana curtain, Blue chattered.

[Haon. The guests have arrived! There are four police officers and two heroes.]

“… … !”

Haon hurriedly checked the condition of the plateau, grabbed a water jug ​​with his mana hook, and poured it on him.

“Plateau! Wake up!”

“Oh… … !”

Gowon opened his eyes wide and groaned in excruciating pain, but Haon ignored him and wiped his face with a towel.

There was nothing I could do about the bruise, but it looked a little cleaner after wiping the nosebleed.

And he quickly wiped away the blood that had splattered on Juyeol’s fist and cheek.

He was so angry that he had no time to look around, and he instinctively turned his head away when a wet hand suddenly started rubbing his cheek.

“What, what is it?”

“Hold still. I have to clean it quickly.”

Haon grabbed him by the collar and wiped his face until he was done.

As Ju-yeol, embarrassed, was awkwardly pushing his hand away, the sound of footsteps came.

“Ghost! What if you kill someone during a disciplinary action… …?”

Hero River, who entered the cafe shouting urgently, found the cozy space and Juyeol being held captive by Dr. Eun, and trailed off in confusion.

Clearly, we were called out to a report that a ghost was trying to kill a person who was embroidering, but this situation is… … .

“Okay.”

Haon muttered softly and took his hand away.

The traces of Joo-yeol beating Go-won mercilessly were almost completely erased. Now, it just looked like a few hits.

He frowned and rubbed his face at the warmth that had suddenly touched him and then disappeared. His hands were clean, without any residue.

“Dr. Eun. Get away from Ghost right now.”

River raised his voice in a sharp tone, wondering if he had misunderstood the sight.

“Ghost. Are you okay? What did Dr. Eun do?”

“… … ?”

Haon looked back with aggrieved eyes, but River simply aimed his taser gun at the mad scientist.

“I’ll protect you, so come here slowly.”

At that moment, Gowon, who was resting his chin on the floor, shouted.

“Over here! Over here! Arrest him!”

My pronunciation was slurred because my front teeth were out.

Joo-yeol fixed his dark gaze on Go-won and took a step back.

“Juyeol… … !”

“know.”

He pulled away from Ha-on’s hand, which was anxiously holding onto the hem of his clothes, and approached the arsonist.

Then he snatched the handcuffs the policeman was holding and put them on Gowon’s wrists himself. His jaw cracked as he suppressed so many impulses in a short period of time.

Gowon looked at him with a bewildered expression, then sat down and slowly walked towards the police.

The police grabbed Gowon by both arms and dragged him out of the lab.

Ha-on sighed in relief after confirming that Joo-yeol was no longer swinging his fists at Go-won.

Then I found a cell phone rolling around on the floor. It was Gowon’s.

Haon picked up the cell phone and was about to hand it straight to the police, but then stopped.

‘… … What is this?’

There was a message floating on the phone with the screen turned on.

“Deposit completed.”

It came a few minutes ago with caller ID blocked.

‘Is there anyone else who can send money to Gowon besides me? Who is it?’

As he furrowed his brows and focused his thoughts, someone roughly snatched Gowon’s cell phone away.

“You must not touch the suspect’s belongings without permission.”

It was River. The look in his eyes was completely different from when I first encountered him while digging for the Awakening Orb.

“Don’t you want to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings? I don’t know if it’s a misunderstanding or not.”

Haon apologized obediently, thinking that it was not a wrong statement.

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry.”

“… … ?”

River blinked with an expression that said he had heard something he shouldn’t have heard, then moved his feet. It was to hand Gowon’s cell phone to the police.

I looked back at Haon a few times, wondering if he was still doubting his ears.

Haon, who was quietly watching the scene, scratched his head with an uneasy feeling.

Besides ‘Eunhaon’, who else would benefit from calling Gowon to Korea even if it meant giving him money?

‘I’m worried. If I try to copy Gowon’s cell phone right now, I’ll just be misunderstood like River said, right?’

Maybe there’s something else going on behind Gowon’s confession.

It was just a suspicion, but this was not his own business, it was Joo-yeol’s business. It was something he had been harboring anger about for ten years.

So if there really was something more to the case, he had to know.

“Juyeol. Just now… … .”

But when Ha-on looked back at Ju-yeol, his heart suddenly pounded.

“… … Is this how it ends?”

Before his anger had even subsided, a sense of emptiness crept into his face, distorting it painfully.

The specter of the fire that had tormented him for ten years had passed, leaving behind a lingering aftertaste.

Ha-on bit his trembling lips and stood there as if nailed to the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Ju-yeol that there was something uncomfortable about this incident.

For fear that his heart, scarred by the burns, would freeze before it could recover.

I’m afraid it might just prolong his suffering.

“It ends like this… … .”

“… … .”

In the end, Ha-on, unable to say a word, could only watch blankly as Ju-yeol staggered out of the lab.

The upgraded helmet, which I had dropped at some point, was rolling around near the entrance.

Haon sank to the ground, recalling his expression.

It was an expression I knew all too well. An expression I had seen many times during the war.

It was also the expression that once covered the faces of me and ‘Juyeol’.

I remembered the little hand of a child that was growing cold under the rubble of a building.

A sobbing voice escaped from between her lips.

“Blue.”

[Yes, haon.]

“Blue… … .”

[Yes, I’m here!]

“… … Blue.”

The lab was filled with the sound of sobbing behind a shaky voice.

Haon had nightmares all night and couldn’t sleep.

* * *

“weird.”

Ha-on, rubbing his tired eyes, quietly looked at Joo-yeol’s appearance on the monitor.

He was already a stranger without his harness on.

As Gowon had hoped, the trial was held quickly. The bereaved family member, Joo-yeol, also appeared in a black suit instead of a hero uniform.

Haondo also wanted to go as an observer, but Eunhaon said that he couldn’t even set foot in the court unless it was a trial directly related to what he did in court.

‘I’m worried about Juyeol, but I can’t do anything.’

In the end, there was no choice but to hack the court’s CCTV.

The trial was conducted in a format that everyone knew, and Gowon seemed comfortable, only slightly observing Joo-yeol’s expression.

That was so annoying that Ha-on thought he should have let Ju-yeol hit him a few more times.

Even the fact that the plateau seemed comfortable was because there was a corner of belief that the result was overly lenient.

He was sentenced to five years in prison, taking into account the fact that he returned to Korea to confess to a crime he committed 10 years ago, the thick letter of reflection he had prepared in advance, and his claim that he did not know there were people in the building.

“What nonsense is this!”

As Ha-on jumped up and screamed, Ju-yeol ran towards Go-won.

He was holding a knife in his hand that had come out of nowhere, and the heroes sitting on either side of him were barely able to catch him.

After that it was chaos.

It was only a matter of time before Gowon was imprisoned at the Kwonyoung Rehabilitation Center.

It was a rehabilitation center in name only, but in reality it was a prison.

Kwon Young-shi was a place known for being dangerous even in this world with a high crime rate.

Close to the docks and airport, with highways stretching out in all directions, and large casinos and auction houses.

It had all the elements for money laundering, smuggling, and black markets to thrive, and with the police also taking precautions, it was only natural that criminals would flock there.

Among them, there were more than a few who escaped or were attacked while being transferred to prisons in other regions, so they decided to build a prison in Gwonyeong.

It was common for citizens to oppose the facility, saying it was an abomination that would lower land prices.

After a long debate, a huge facility was built under the name of a rehabilitation center, but no one knew that it was a prison.

When Gowon was being transported there, the police were more wary of ghosts that might pop out from anywhere than Gowon himself.

But the fever didn’t appear even after several days.

He never came to the lab, and we didn’t hear any news of him wiping out crime anywhere.

Every time Haon tried to contact her, her phone was turned off.

I thought about it every day, whether I should go look for him or not, but I never actually did it.

Because I knew full well that Juyeol didn’t even consider me as a friend.

Haon’s job was set.

It was a series of days of searching for the Awakening Orb, tracking down ‘Galaxy On’s’ cell phone, studying the dimensional gate, and being consumed by nightmares.