#003. Episode 3
Sss!
Hyper-regeneration, which had clearly been nothing more than a faint aura at first, was for some reason beginning to emanate a gradually stronger energy, as if evolving over time.
“An ability that strengthens traits?!”
He couldn’t help but be startled by the unexpected power.
Enhancement.
It was a power that even the original owner of this body had not known about.
No—if he were being precise, it was due to ignorance, so he should say that the boy had failed to properly grasp his own trait.
*‘A trait that enhances traits. Did something like this even exist?’*
He had met countless superhumans in the past, but he had never heard of an ability that enhanced traits.
*‘And to think it had this kind of effect!’*
He had assumed it would only provide slight pain relief since it was clearly just a minute amount of force, but what was this?
The hyper-regeneration, powered by a minuscule amount of force, had cleanly healed his recent wounds.
*‘I suppose if there’s something lost, there’s also something gained.’*
He had lost the physique and four traits that had once been called the “greatest talent,” but in exchange, he had obtained a mysterious power that enhanced traits.
*‘It’s not a completely hopeless situation.’*
It wasn’t optimism, either.
At best, it was enough to dream of possibility?
Still, one thing was certain: returning to the past where he had been called omnipotent would require harsh training and time.
*Creak—*
As he moved his body, loud screams erupted from between his joints.
In that brief moment of stretching, he retraced his memories.
Why he had been locked in this warehouse, and why he had been groaning in pain.
*‘What a dark school life.’*
He clicked his tongue at the memories that immediately surfaced.
He had suffered every bad thing one could experience at school: ostracism, threats, assault, extortion, and more.
There had been no need to force himself to recall it; that vivid hell had unfolded just moments ago.
Right here.
“Bastards!”
Sinyul gritted his teeth.
The assault in his memories was not on the level of ordinary school violence.
Acts of sheer sadism that one could not imagine being committed by children—no, not even by fellow human beings—had taken place.
Although he hadn’t experienced that situation directly, simply recalling the memories was enough to make his anger boil over.
*‘They’ll be back soon.’*
No matter how recklessly they acted, they would come to clean up the body.
So he waited.
Though they hadn’t touched him directly, it was to avenge the poor boy of the past.
How long had he waited like that?
*Clank!*
Finally, the door opened.
He quietly stared at the warehouse door as it swung open.
And he could see the vermin, less than beasts, who had led the promising seventeen-year-old boy to his death, entering.
“Oh!”
“Look at this. I told you he’d be up.”
“Fuck, he was lying there like a dead mouse, so I thought he was actually dead.”
Four students entered.
They were the perpetrators who had brutally beaten young Sinyul just moments ago.
*‘Minjun, Jeongwon, Ilu, Sangyeop.’*
They were classmates from Class 10, Grade 1, and the ones who had tormented young Sinyul the most.
“But look at this bastard?”
And Minjun, the most malicious among them, approached Sinyul.
*Crack!*
Cracking his knuckles as if preparing for a round.
“Hey!”
Minjun, having marched right up to him, glared.
“I told you to lower your eyes….”
But the next moment.
*Pow!*
His head snapped to the side from a fist flying at an unexpected angle.
“Shut your trap and come in.”
He still loathed villains.
Therefore, he had absolutely no intention of going easy on them just because they were young brats.
*
“Ha, haha?”
They say laughter comes when something is too absurd.
That was exactly Minjun’s current state.
*‘Did this bastard take something?’*
Because of everything so far, he was a guy who would piss himself just from making eye contact.
But today, as if he’d eaten something wrong, he had started spewing nonsense and was now staring straight at him.
“Ha! Fuck, this is so fucking absurd.”
At first, it was absurdity, but soon rage surged up.
“Hey, don’t stop me. I think I’ll have to kill this bastard today.”
Minjun rolled up his school uniform shirt and approached Sinyul.
“Oh! Are you going to show us something proper today?”
“Kikik. He’s properly pissed. That bastard’s dead today.”
Of course, his friends didn’t try to stop him.
Rather, they watched the act with eyes shining as if it were interesting.
More than anything, considering the school’s values—which placed individual combat prowess above all else—it was only natural.
The law of the jungle.
The strong could torment the weak, beat them, and even extort money from them.
However, due to the academy’s nature, murder was strictly regulated by school rules, so killing someone wasn’t common, but Minjun, whose anger had reached the tip of his head, didn’t even consider that.
“Die!”
*Stomp!*
Minjun stamped the ground and charged at Sinyul at high speed.
He was only a seventeen-year-old boy at best, but he emanated quite a fierce momentum.
Sinyul was exposed to his thick killing intent.
He didn’t say a word even as he watched Minjun approach.
Depending on how one looked at it, he might have seemed weak, unable to do anything just like before, but—
“Son of a bitch!”
Minjun cursed once more.
The same?
No, there was definitely something different from before.
He was looking straight at him with both eyes wide open.
A flat gaze that held no fear whatsoever.
That gaze, as if looking at a worthless existence—a bug—was more than enough to draw out the killing intent within Minjun’s heart.
“I said lower your eyes!”
*Whoosh!*
His fist drew a straight-line trajectory.
*Smack!*
“Huh?!”
But the dull thud he had expected didn’t ring out.
The victim, who had always only been on the receiving end, accurately blocked the perpetrator’s fist, backed by strong force, with his hand.
*‘Brat.’*
Although his physique had weakened, he possessed experience that had once reached the pinnacle.
Gaze, trembling of muscles, position of the foot—all of it was synthesized in an instant to predict the movement.
It was a prediction akin to precognition.
It was the eye of experience that only Sinyul, who had fought through countless battles, could demonstrate.
“Fuck!”
The flustered Minjun shifted his stance and attempted a kick, but—
“Too slow!”
A kick is a motion that takes considerable time to reach its target.
Sinyul moved to respond to that sloppy action with no preparation whatsoever.
*Tap!*
The moment he took a step, his body was already inside Minjun’s guard.
“!!!”
Just as Minjun’s eyes widened at the shockingly concise movement—
*Thwack!*
“Kuk!”
Sinyul’s fist struck his solar plexus dead on.
Minjun staggered back from the pain radiating from his abdomen.
But that wasn’t the end.
He took a wide step and closed the distance in one breath.
*Whoosh!*
He twisted his waist as far as it would go and thrust out his tightly clenched fist with all his might.
*Crunch!*
The optimal trajectory born from a perfect stance.
The fist of Sinyul, who had demonstrated a truly flawless motion, smashed Minjun’s nose.
“Keogheuk!”
With a short scream—
*Drip, drip!*
Blood dripped between his cupped hands.
“Bl… blood?”
More than the immediate pain, the rage of having been hit by Sinyul, whom he had treated like trash, was greater.
“Uraaaaah!”
The enraged Minjun howled.
“I’m gonna kill you, fuck! I’ll kill you!”
Anger blew away his reason, triggering a drastic transformation.
*Rip!*
His school uniform tore, revealing bulging muscles.
*‘So it’s Beastification.’*
Minjun’s trait was Beastification.
And the most common type at that: the werewolf form.
Of course, common didn’t mean weak.
Depending on how one grew a trait, it could demonstrate power beyond mediocrity.
“Wooo!”
A werewolf with bristling fur.
*Tatatat!*
Moving his elongated arms and muscularly developed legs, he charged at high speed.
“He really is nothing but a dog bastard.”
His impression was extremely simple.
Sinyul, who had witnessed the “Extreme” of werewolves in the past, felt no threat from this half-baked werewolf who had lost even his reason.
“Roar!”
Sharply jutting claws approached.
*Whoosh!*
But Minjun’s faster attack merely grazed past Sinyul’s side.
The subsequent attacks were the same.
He extended them without rest, but failed to touch Sinyul’s body by the slimmest margin.
*‘Neck, right shoulder, left cheek.’*
He had predicted the trajectory before the motion was even completed, allowing him to evade Minjun’s attacks with minimal movement.
And then—
*Snap!*
His fist, waiting for an opportunity, shot forward swiftly.
The moment Minjun sensed the attack heading for his face and tried to turn his head to evade it—
*Pow!*
The fist hidden behind the jab flew in and struck his nose once more.
But that couldn’t be the decisive blow.
The tough hide from Beastification protected Minjun from the impact.
“Keong!”
Without retreating, he quickly extended his arm.
He was certain it was an attack Sinyul wouldn’t expect, and he thought he would definitely land a hit, but—
*Whoosh!*
An uppercut from Sinyul, which had shifted direction from below before he knew it, deflected Minjun’s fist.
Minjun’s hand, its axis of force twisted, shot high into the air.
And Sinyul didn’t miss that moment.
*Thud.*
This time, a fist backed with slightly more force buried itself squarely into the furry Minjun’s solar plexus.
“Graaack!”
Minjun’s waist bent like a shrimp.
Still, he didn’t stop.
*Thud, thud-thud!*
Consecutive attacks began to ravage Minjun’s body.
“Keng, ke-keng!”
It was a bizarre phenomenon.
Minjun was clearly superior in physical strength, speed, and everything else, yet he couldn’t put up a proper resistance even once against Sinyul’s attacks; however, this bizarre phenomenon was, in a way, also a natural result.
Sinyul’s attacks were anything but simple.
Due to his psychological warfare, which mixed in feints appropriately, Minjun couldn’t distinguish which was real and which was fake.
The experience accumulated over a full decade of traversing battlefields akin to an Asura’s war zone was not something a brat who had just entered school could handle.
“Kuwuk!”
Signs of reaction began to appear from the continued attacks.
No matter how tough his hide was, there was no enduring attacks that landed dozens of times on the same spot.
*Crack!*
Sinyul’s fist, aiming for the opening, embedded itself straight into Minjun’s temple.
*Thud—* Minjun, who had lost his balance, finally collapsed.
His body, half-conscious, trembled uncontrollably, and he continuously foamed at the mouth.
“Minjun!”
“Fuck!”
Only then did the children realize the seriousness of the situation and began to rush in.
Though they had seen Minjun being beaten to a pulp, they believed in their numbers.
Moreover—
*Poof!*
The school uniforms of the charging children bulged as if about to burst.
There was no need to check to know that they had activated their Enhancement-type traits.
A trait that dramatically increased physical abilities, especially strength.
“Wooooh!”
The eyes of the children who let out bizarre cries turned white.
Along with horrifying muscular development, their reason flew away, and they indulged in destruction.
“Tch!”
He clicked his tongue at the crude transformation.
Other than when he had first started out as a hero, it had been a long time since he had seen such immature Enhancement-type traits.
*Whoosh!*
Fists and kicks backed by full force.
*‘They’re just putting everything into raw strength.’*
There was no way he would be hit by attacks with inaccurate targeting that simply relied on brute force.
*Crack!*
He struck their chins with precise counters.
The children collapsed helplessly.
They weren’t even strategically cooperating; reckless attacks rushing in blindly posed no threat whatsoever to a seasoned hero.
When a brief moment passed like that—
“Kkeueuk.”
“Keo, keok!”
Only Sinyul was standing inside the warehouse.
Minjun, already unconscious, and the remaining children were all sprawled on the floor, groaning in pain.
*Thud—*
And Sinyul approached the fallen children.
“You didn’t think it would end here, did you?”
They were the ones who had killed young Sinyul.
Besides, considering the over three months of torment after enrollment, stopping at this level was nonsense.
*Snap!*
He forcefully snapped their pinky fingers.
“Kuaaaak!”
A scream soon echoed out.
But that wasn’t the end.
*Snap, snap!*
He snapped the remaining four fingers as well.
“Kkeueuk, p-please….”
The kid whose Enhancement ability had worn off looked at Sinyul with pleading eyes.
“Just this much? Think about what you’ve done to me all this time. It’s not a matter of breaking fingers; it wouldn’t be enough even if I broke your necks.”
He formed a dry smile.
The moment they saw that demon-like smile, the children froze.
“I’ll make sure you know clearly what pain worse than death is.”
Saying so, he twisted an arm in the opposite direction.
*Crack!*
“Kkeuaaaaak!”
A terrible scream echoed throughout the warehouse.
But Sinyul didn’t stop there and continued the torture for revenge.
The Reborn Hero Has Become a Villain
Author: Ppappi
Publisher: Son Byeongtae
Published by: RS Media Co., Ltd.
Address: 503, Unit 201, 2nd Chunui Techno Park, 18 Bucheon-ro 198beon-gil, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Phone: 032-651-8576
E-mail: [email protected]
ISBN: 979-11-6949-170-9
All editing rights to the contents of this book belong to RS Media Co., Ltd. by contract with the author; therefore, unauthorized reproduction, modification, and distribution are prohibited.