The Thug Hides the Villainess

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029 – The Villains That the Hero is Obsessed With #4

“Hanam-jjin! Look at this! It’s a collapsed house!”

With a rush, Baek-Yeoul, my chubby friend, dashed into the dilapidated house that looked like it would fall apart any second.

“Where are those bad guys! Are they here? Here? Where are they!”

Rustle-rustle.

She opened the cupboard, pulled out an old cup, and giggled, clearly not in her right mind.

Sneaking in without knowing what might pop out felt just like a raccoon desperately digging through a field after days of starvation.

Lately, seeing Baek-Yeoul gave me a somewhat dizzy feeling.

This kind of kid is bound to get into trouble someday.

In times like this, I have to step in.

“Hey, Baek-Yeoul, when I was in elementary school, an upperclassman suddenly tried to mug me. It happened in an alleyway like this one between empty houses.”

“What do you mean out of the blue?”

“That guy asked me, ‘Hey, do you have money?’—and I said I did. Then he said, ‘Give it all to me.’ So, I just casually replied, ‘Yes.'”

Back then, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a carrot knife.

Folding carrot knife.

“I named the knife ‘Nanatsuyoru.’ I swung it at the upperclassman.”

“…A carrot knife?”

“I was crazy back then. And now, I’m a high school student. So now, no elementary school kids dare come near me.”

“Wait, what are you talking about while looking through empty houses?”

“The important thing is that an elementary school kid needs to have something like ‘Nanatsuyoru’ to stand up to a high schooler. You’re an elementary school kid, and the bad guys you’re searching for are high schoolers.”

“…So, you’re saying it would be reckless for me to confront the bad guys, and I should remember this incident is just an ‘investigation’ and not a ‘subjugation’? You were worried about me.”

Baek-Yeoul scratched her pink head, as if she understood my intentions. But that wasn’t what I meant at all. She didn’t comprehend the lesson in my story.

“The point is, to defeat a high schooler, we need to find our ‘Nanatsuyoru.’ Look at this table leg. If I break it, it could be used as a weapon like a baseball bat, right?”

Crack!

I kicked the table, breaking it. I yanked the leg off like pulling a chicken leg from a samgyetang, and the rusty nail stuck in it looked perfect as a weapon.

Swish-swish.

It felt good to swing it around.

“Hitting someone with this would surely give Buddha’s grandma tetanus. If we’re going to investigate, we should find some useful tools. Keep in mind that humans are tool-using animals.”

“To…tools! I see! Got it, Hanam-jjin!”

Only then did Baek-Yeoul’s eyes sparkle with a solid determination, as if she finally understood me.

She still had a long way to go to become a useful recycler, but there seemed to be some potential budding in her?

However, there was still something that had been bothering me from earlier.

“Hey, Baek-Yeoul, I’ve been curious since earlier, but what does ‘Hanam-jjin’ even mean?”

“Th-that?”

Baek-Yeoul blushed and stammered, wriggling like a caterpillar trying to get into a cocoon, looking more anxious than them.

Probably because she realized her actions were embarrassing.

“You can’t just change someone’s name casually. I have my name, Hanam-jin, given to me by my parents. It’s rude to call me anything else, Baek-Yeoul.”

Scrunch.

Baek-Yeoul frowned.

“Hey, while that may be true, you can’t say that! You called me chubby first! You were the one who called me that!”

“But you ARE chubby.”

“I’m NOT chubby! I’m Baek-Yeoul!”

“What does ‘Yeoul’ even mean? Or is it pure Korean without any hanja, meaning ‘stream’?”

“…Huh? What was that…”

“See, it totally fits that you’re chubby.”

“No, I’m not! You’re ‘Hanam-jjin’ then! That’s enough! Got it? And while we’re investigating, I’ll handle it, so you just take a back seat!”

Swoosh.

Baek-Yeoul seemed to chatter a bit too much before grabbing a frying pan nearby. It looked sturdy and very usable.

“Oh, that frying pan looks good.”

“Right? This will be my ‘Unlucky Stick!’ My weapon!”

“‘Unlucky Stick’? Sounds like the name of a trot singer who excels in night events.”

“Hit it, and you’ll be unlucky! So, ‘Unlucky Stick!'”

No, that’s not a stick; it’s a frying pan.

Shouldn’t it be called the ‘Unlucky Frying Pan’?

Baek-Yeoul was looking stranger the more I saw her.

Anyway, that’s how our morning investigation wrapped up.

What we gained was that Baek-Yeoul got her ‘Unlucky Stick’?

Honestly, even I found the ‘Unlucky Stick’ to be somewhat tempting.

The more usable tools, the better.

That’s why I became interested in the ‘Artifacts’ at Yeongsa High School’s treasure exhibition.

Artifacts infused with concepts! Just having one would be incredibly convenient and reassuring.

As I was thinking this and decided it was time for lunch, I was about to contact everyone when a man called out to us.

“Hey, kids, wait a second!”

It was a man dressed in a very old denim jacket and jeans. He was splattered with paint everywhere, and his scruffy beard made him look both like a homeless man and somewhat suspicious.

# # #

“Hey, kids, wait up!”

Swish.

Baek-Yeoul started to display her ‘Unlucky Stick’ defensively at the man’s shout.

The man soon laughed heartily.

“You all go to Yeongsa High, right? My son studies there. When I see you, it reminds me of my son and daughter, so I just wanted to say, don’t go rummaging through the empty houses around here.”

Now that I looked, the man had a cart filled with junk piled high.

He seemed to be on my level? A scent of an expert emanated from him.

So this area is his turf, and rookie students shouldn’t snoop around—perhaps that’s what he intended to say.

“I’ve seen some suspicious people wandering around this neighborhood recently. So if you guys keep going through the empty houses, you might get hurt.”

Suspicious people, huh?

Instantly, my interest piqued.

“Sir, where did you see those suspicious people? What made them seem suspicious?”

“Sir? I’m not that old. But anyway, they were obviously suspicious. They had wild-colored hair and were wandering around in the dead of night. I can tell they don’t belong to this neighborhood.”

Considering he was hauling that large cart around, I was inclined to trust the old man’s judgment. If he said someone was suspicious, they likely were.

“Can you tell me exactly where you saw them?”

“That is…”

He seemed to hesitate for some reason.

At that moment, Chang-sik and Deok-soon approached us.

“…….”

“…….”

Deok-soon and Chang-sik looked somewhat surprised by the shabby old man’s appearance.

The old man also glanced at us as if he was about to say something, then advised, “You all be careful not to get hurt. Leave here quickly before it gets dark,” and he struggled up the uphill road with his cart.

Creak, creak.

Pulling a cart loaded with scrap from a dumpster up a steep incline must be tough even for an adult male. Deok-soon let out a small murmur watching him.

“That looks really hard… should we help him?”

The old man soon bent down at a nearby dumpster and began fishing out usable items.

He didn’t care about getting dirty and shone with excitement as if the junk were treasure, while only Chang-sik turned his gaze away.

I whispered just enough for Chang-sik to hear me.

“Chang-sik, is that your father?”

“…!”

Chang-sik looked shocked.

Baek-Yeoul and Deok-soon also seemed surprised, remaining silent and observant.

Finally, Chang-sik exhaled a deep sigh.

“I guess my friend is right. Honestly… I was embarrassed to say anything. Isn’t he doing something dirty and messy? I can’t believe we meet here… I hope I didn’t say anything weird to you…”

“Chang-sik, do you know what a hero is?”

“…Hero? Are you talking about graduates from Yeongsa High?”

“In my opinion, a hero is someone who steps up to do what others least want to do. In that regard, your father deserves to be called a hero.”

“……”

“Moreover, he’s giving new opportunities to resources that would otherwise be abandoned and wasted, right? Your father is a big-hearted person. We should aspire to be like him.”

The wisdom of the old man was on par with Seoga-eul’s in the future.

Honestly, I’d say he was slightly below Seoga-eul—

But still, if I could compare him to Seoga-eul in my heart, that man was truly extraordinary.

A silver medal is still impressive.

“……”

Chang-sik seemed to ponder deeply over my words, shifting his gaze here and there. Then, as if making a big decision, he clenched his fist and shouted.

“…Dad!”

Dash!

Chang-sik sprinted up the steep hill in one go.

He easily pushed his father’s heavy cart up to the top.

“━─.”

“─.”

They appeared to be talking about something afterward, but I couldn’t catch the content.

“Sorry! Did everyone wait long!”

As Chang-sik came back down, his face was smudged all over with dust. But unlike before, the worries and anxieties seemed to have been thoroughly washed away, replacing his expression with brightness.

“My dad gave me money for dinner. I’ll treat everyone tonight. And he also said to absolutely avoid that abandoned factory in Zone 3.”

He gave us money for dinner? Awesome, that’s one less thing to worry about!

And to avoid going near Zone 3?

There must be a reason for not going. It’s probably his concern for his son.

The old man must know that Chang-sik is an awakened one, yet he still worried…

“Something must be there near the abandoned factory in Zone 3—”

“Could it be villains…!?”

Baek-Yeoul, displaying fast understanding this time, figured it out quickly.

The information we had been searching for came from Chang-sik’s father.

“How fortunate.”

“Isn’t it all thanks to me?”

Baek-Yeoul puffed her chest out proudly.

Honestly, she hadn’t done anything at all.

We headed towards the abandoned factory in Zone 3 before the sun went down.

Just as I thought about how the grandeur and forlornness of the rusty buildings reminded me of some of Ovid’s verses, I noticed a strange figure lurking outside the factory complex.

“Isn’t that a mantis?”

“Sa Ma-jun. Wang Ja-hyeon’s goon!”

Just as Baek-Yeoul said, he was Sa Ma-jun, Wang Ja-hyeon’s lackey.

Why was he here?

As I pondered this bizarre situation, a man with long hair dyed bright red, like an outdated rocker, burst out of the factory, threw an arm around Sa Ma-jun’s shoulders, and dragged him away somewhere.

Everyone fell silent, puzzled about who that man could be—

Suddenly, a long-buried memory flashed like lightning in my mind.

“That person is Yeomra.”

“My friend, you mean Yeomra, the arsonist from N Mart, Yeom Hoon? If that’s the case…”

The one who caused my parents’ deaths.

The elite fugitive, Yeom Hoon! I never expected to meet him here today!

“Guys, it seems we have to cancel the reconnaissance mission.”

Subjugation! It’s definitely time for subjugation!

I’ll absolutely make sure to put an end to that scoundrel!