This Villain is Soft - Chapter 71



Only Noblemtl

Episode 71

“Ugh─.”

Joo-yeol sat up, taking a deep breath.

He sat in the recliner and rubbed his forehead, which was soaked with cold sweat. His head was pounding as if it was going to split open.

“again…….”

Joo-yeol muttered, wiping his pale face.

“Do it again.”

“ghost.”

The counselor looked embarrassed.

After learning that there was something suspicious about his brother’s death, Juyeol visited the counseling room at headquarters every day.

The counselor sitting next to Juyeol was an awakened person with hypnotic abilities.

Usually, the job is to help heroes or important witnesses recall their memories clearly to solve cases.

“Your complexion is really bad. You should rest for today.”

But looking back at traumatic memories vividly every day is nothing short of torture.

Joo-yeol was abusing his body and mind.

“I think I just saw something.”

“It must be hard for you to be hypnotized like this every day─.”

“I’ll do it again!”

Joo-yeol shouted, holding his head in his hands. It was reckless.

The startled counselor sighed as he recalled Hunter’s words to do whatever he wanted.

Joo-yeol’s condition was becoming increasingly dangerous as he became more and more sensitive to continuous hypnosis.

I heard he’d been wandering the streets of the old town since he was little, so I thought maybe he should’ve been sent to school instead of being made into a hero.

She placed her hand on his forehead as his breathing calmed down somewhat.

“You go back to the place you want, at the time you want. Look around you.”

At the same time, a fiery flame spread before my eyes. The acrid smoke seemed to choke my throat.

A rat hole-like house where I lived with my younger brother.

Still, it was a shelter that blocked rain and bullets.

My brother’s grave.

Joo-yeol held back his anger and looked through the window into the burning house.

Just like I did 10 years ago.

‘Ugh… … .’

It was hard to look at my brother’s blackened corpse, even though I knew it was just a memory.

Every time my heart pounded, a sharp headache would stab me in the head, so I had to grit my teeth.

There was definitely something alien.

What was Halo hoping to gain by belatedly killing the child who was once a test subject?

This might be a clue to finding out what on earth was behind my brother’s death.

Even as I rolled my eyes, the image of my brother’s death, still dark at the edge of my vision, became clearer and clearer.

A suffocating feeling rose to the tip of my throat, and I gasped for breath, trying to find something to breathe.

‘What was it? There was something strange. Hurry up… … .’

Then, a lightning bolt flashed in my head.

“You come back to reality.”

I opened my eyes with a start, hearing a voice coming from the air.

Before he could regain his sense of reality, Juyeol fell out of the recliner.

[You need to come to your senses!]

I bent down and shook off the mechanical hamster that was trying to support me.

It was only after I threw up my stomach in the trash can the counselor handed me that I came to my senses.

Now I see that my nose is dripping. I figured that the counselor must have woken me up because I was bleeding.

“Ghost. This really won’t do. Don’t come here again this week. Even if the Hunter gave you permission─”

Joo-yeol couldn’t hear the counselor’s words. He sweated coldly and recalled the scene in his memory.

Thud. Thud.

A throbbing headache pounded in my head, in time with my pulse.

Thud. Thud.

Flames and smoke billowing out of control.

Thud. Thud.

Inside the house as seen through the window.

Thud. Thud.

My brother’s body lying inside.

thud.

‘The house is filled with smoke… … and you can clearly see the body?’

Joo-yeol, who had figured out the identity of the discomfort, stared at the glass window like a rusty machine. The counselor’s back and the bookshelf were dimly reflected.

His pupils trembled unsteadily.

Ten years ago, when I looked into the window of my house, my face was not reflected.

The mirror next to my brother’s body also showed nothing.

Whatever you saw through the window was probably a hallucination.

For example, an optical illusion created by a halo using light.

* * *

“If it can’t be done, then know that it can’t be done.”

“What the hell is the problem!”

At Hunter’s sigh-filled reply, Juyeol slammed his fist against the desk, his tendons bulging out.

He stormed out of the consulting room and ran straight to Hunter’s office.

The body I saw through the window was definitely my brother, but after the fire died down, all I could see was charred ash that was too black to be identified.

If those ashes weren’t my brother’s body.

If it was all a hallucination, then what on earth was Hyesung… … .

“It’s possible that he didn’t die that day, but was taken back as a test subject. Let me meet the scientists who participated in the human experiment.”

Joo-yeol clenched his fists and continued speaking in a trembling voice.

“It’s been ten years already, so he may be dead, but even so, shouldn’t we know how he died?”

The hunter looked at him intently and opened his mouth.

“The scientists who participated in that experiment are no longer around. There is no data.”

“Are you saying that he went abroad?”

“They say that right before we started investigating in earnest, they all died at the hands of Halo.”

“… … What?”

“It was Halo who first discovered the laboratory and reported it.”

“… … !”

The pale face of Juyeol was filled with confusion. There were so many things he couldn’t understand.

* * *

It was a familiar nightmare.

“Run quickly! Don’t look back!”

The terrorists’ magical devices dug into the people’s feet.

Haon tried to move the protective shield under people’s feet and install a large net under the bridge.

But this time too, the dreamer tried to block only the mana attacks as usual, even though he knew what was going to happen.

‘Please… … !’

Boom! Bang! KookooKookoo─.

Half of the bridge collapsed, taking countless people with it.

Haon stood there dumbfounded and sobbed.

‘When on earth will it be…?’

As I repeated the horrible yet familiar scene, a morning that I thought would never come came.

Haon blinked his eyes, lost in a haze and an indescribable haze.

My mind, which was not clear, seemed to be somewhere else, and the helplessness of the dream still covered me like a blanket.

Haon thought as he slowly came to his senses.

‘How could I have saved it?’

Although he was unable to save anyone because his body was still moving according to his predetermined dream, Haon tried to find a way to save them as if it were inertia.

It was natural for Haon. He lived in that kind of world.

It was definitely like that, but as each day passed, I became more and more tired.

‘Could I have saved it?’

Haon stretched his stiff body and looked at the back of his hand.

56.

About five of them will be terrorists, and the remaining 50… … .

The screams of people falling under the bridge rang in my ears.

Haon closed his eyes tightly and tried to think only of reality.

‘Today is the day I meet Juyeol.’

Since they said they would inspect the headquarters every week for a month, I decided to cooperate with them for now.

After I finished getting ready to go out and went down to the first floor, Nova was waiting for me again today.

“Good morning, honey.”

He gently kissed Ha-on’s cheek and gave him something to eat.

“Honey, it’s getting later and later when you come down in the morning. Are you feeling unwell?”

“Um. No. It’s okay.”

In the morning, Nova would come to pick me up at the lab. She was very enthusiastic, as if it was her job to help me until I reached District 1 of the old city.

“I’ll come down a little earlier tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you rushing me? You can come down later. My boss.”

“Are you going to keep calling me that?”

Haon still felt unfamiliar and strange when he heard the word ‘boss’.

He asked the people in District 1 to call him ‘Doctor’ rather than ‘Boss’, but Nova consistently called him ‘Boss’.

“Which do you like more, ‘Honey’ or ‘Boss’?”

“You can just call me by my name.”

Nova opened her eyes wide as if she had heard something unexpected.

Then he opened his mouth and muttered softly.

“… … Haon.”

When Haon nodded with a smile as if to say that it was exactly that, he moved his mouth again as if possessed.

“Haon-ah.”

“Yes, Nova.”

Nova, who had been staring at Haon, who was responding with a bright smile, lowered his gaze.

“Nova?”

“……babe.”

“Why are you here again?”

And when Haon met her eyes again, she smiled very beautifully.

“Why, darling? After all, if you hear the boss’s name often, you’ll get used to the position, right? Right? My boss.”

“Hey. Just do as you please.”

Haon, who had been grumbling, suddenly had an idea and silently put the fruit in his mouth.

‘When you call my name, do you think of ‘Eunhaon’?’

Nova still wanted to kiss me on the cheek when we greeted each other, and seemed uncomfortable with the name ‘Haon’.

‘Your face is slightly red. You might be holding back tears.’

Haon, who thought that his guess was correct, decided to leave him alone for now, no matter what he called him.