I Possessed The Villain In a Hunter Novel And It Fits Me Perfectly

Maybe because my mind had been blocked off, I did not dream. By the time I woke up again, my condition was much better than before.

As soon as I got up, I opened the Status Window.

Name: Seo Jehyun

Age: 25

Rank: B → C (temporary decline)

Titles: Transcender of Space-Time

Seed of the Great Apocalypse

One Who ■■s ■■

Main Skills: ■■ ■■(EX), Mental Strength(S), Mimic(S), Agitation(A)

Growth Limit: EX

The blacked-out Skill caught my eye.

’The Skill I usurped from Kwon Taehan....’

The blacking-out was meaningless now. I knew what Skill it was.

The next thing that stood out was the rank readjustment. It had only dropped by one rank, but the difference between B-rank and C-rank was larger than expected.

’Temporary? How long is that supposed to be, fuck.’

But there was no meaning in picking a fight over that now. Still, it felt like there had been something else too.

’Physical abnormality?’

I got up from my seat and looked myself over here and there to identify the part of my body with the problem. There was no obvious issue with my arms and legs, where problems would be easiest to notice, nor with my vision.

’What is it?’

’Was it just going to pass?’

At that moment, a sharp sting ran through my arm. Reflexively, I rolled up my sleeve, and there was a pattern I had not seen in a long time. The pattern wrapping around my entire right arm began in the shape of a snowflake and was flashing brightly as it spread over my arm.

’Did Im Haekyung see this?’

I briefly suspected it, but since there were no signs my sleeve had been rolled up, I decided to ignore it for now. I roughly scrubbed my face with the towel left on the table beside the sofa and looked for Im Haekyung.

“Guild Master.”

Judging from the fact that Haekyung was not in the living room, probably in the bedroom.

I knocked on the door of the room where I guessed Im Haekyung would be.

Knock knock.

There was no response. Surely Haekyung had not just left me like this and gone to sleep? Only then, at that suddenly very reasonable suspicion, did I check the time.

It was a little past four in the morning.

’What? It’s morning.’

That was enough time to be awake.

Besides, I wanted to wash up first because the blood I had coughed up earlier felt disgusting. Washing itself was not something I needed permission for, but the problem was what I would wear afterward.

Without hesitation, I threw the bastard’s bedroom door open. The dark room was quiet. That did not mean Im Haekyung was absent, and as expected, the bastard was fast asleep on his own.

Lying there with the blanket neatly pulled over himself and his eyes closed, the bastard looked excessively well-behaved.

’Is this bastard pretending to sleep?’

The fact that Haekyung had even changed clothes and properly gone to sleep was so absurd it almost made me laugh. Haekyung had practically knocked me unconscious to put me to sleep, then washed up, changed clothes, gone into the bedroom, and gone to sleep?

I stood by Im Haekyung’s bedside and silently looked down at the bastard.

A moment later, perhaps sensing my presence, the corner of Im Haekyung’s eye twitched. Intending to wake Haekyung up completely, I called out,

“Guild Master.”

“.......”

“Guild Master, wake up.”

What the fuck?

Instead of waking up, Im Haekyung only furrowed the brow slightly. My patience was beginning to disappear, so without hesitation I grabbed the bastard’s shoulder and shook it.

“Guild Master.”

“.......”

“Haekyung, wake up already.”

“.......”

“Hey.”

Only then did the bastard slowly open the eyes. Maybe because of those densely bleached white eyelashes, the process of Haekyung opening the eyes looked like an exaggerated slow-motion scene.

Im Haekyung belatedly focused and glanced up at me before falling silent as if at a loss for words.

“.......”

“.......”

After several seconds of silence, the bastard pushed the blanket aside, sat up, and looked at me as though this was absurd.

“Mm, Jehyun.... Did the first thing I saw after waking up really have to be... this?”

What kind of bullshit was that?

The voice, lower than usual from just waking up, carried fatigue. Im Haekyung roughly combed back the disheveled hair with a hand and said,

“Did you look in the mirror?”

“No.”

“Go over there and look. There’s a bathroom.”

At Im Haekyung pointing toward the bathroom inside the room, I obediently moved. The moment I opened the door, I immediately understood what the bastard meant from the reflection in the mirror.

Probably because of the blood I had coughed up from the penalty earlier, my entire face was a mess. With blood smeared all over my shirt too, I looked less like someone who had killed a person and more like someone who had rolled around in blood itself.

’That can happen.’

I looked back at Im Haekyung and said calmly,

“Looks normal to me.”

“Then go outside looking like that. Some innocent citizen will definitely report you.”

“You don’t look like the type, Guild Master, but you’re weaker-hearted than I expected.”

“What time is it?”

Not even answering me.

“Seven.”

“I see....”

Seeing the pitch-dark view outside, the bastard made a dumbfounded expression before checking the time personally instead of responding further.

4:12.

Im Haekyung looked at the time, slowly dragged a hand down the face, then asked,

“Do you perhaps not know how to read a clock?”

“I do.”

“Then why did you wake me this early?”

“Because I woke up.”

“.......”

I woke up, so I woke Haekyung up too. Was there some problem with that?

A faint irritation appeared on Im Haekyung’s face. Getting out of bed, the bastard continued trying to smooth down the messy hair while speaking.

“You have no idea how tightly your mind is sealed off, Jehyun.”

“Right.”

“Just pulling out a portion of it consumed an enormous amount of mana. There weren’t only one or two restrictions placed on it either, and while trying not to touch those as much as possible, I released what had been suppressed.... No, never mind. You wouldn’t understand anyway, would you?”

Muttering the explanation as if talking to himself, Im Haekyung abruptly stopped midway. After looking me up and down, the bastard said calmly,

“I don’t really expect comprehension or... anything like that from you, Jehyun, so it’s fine.”

This bastard?

At the way Haekyung was practically treating me like an idiot, a hollow laugh escaped me.

“I understood too. You’re saying it was difficult, aren’t you?”

“Yes.... That was a very appropriate summary.”

’Hmm.’

More importantly, just what kind of method had this bastard used to restore my mind?

“It consumed a considerable amount of mana. No matter how I am, would I really be sleeping here like this in front of you otherwise, Jehyun? I need to preserve my stamina too.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“.......”

“You were sleeping great. Wouldn’t wake up no matter how much I tried.”

“Yes.... I slept well. But did you perhaps say ‘hey’ earlier? I think I heard it in my sleep.”

Wouldn’t wake up, but heard that?

I answered calmly.

“No.”

“.......”

Im Haekyung waved a hand dismissively with a face that clearly did not believe me at all. After staring briefly at the bastard’s hand, I asked,

“Why did it consume so much mana?”

“.......”

At my question, Im Haekyung sat silently on the bed and stared directly at me.

A moment later, the bastard opened the mouth.

“Your memories are layered over each other countless times, Jehyun. And each one has been sunk down one by one from the bottom upward. All the gaps between them are filled with restrictions.... Honestly, after seeing how extreme your pain response was last time, I tried to improve that part somehow, but....”

“Right.”

“To give the conclusion first, it’s impossible. It’s not a problem with my skill. The Mental Suppression can only be undone by forcibly breaking through the restrictions. And the reaction from lifting those restrictions manifests directly in the body.”

After saying that, Im Haekyung pointed at my face with a finger.

I rubbed the dried blood near my chin away with the back of my hand and nodded.

“Still, I gained something from it.”

Gained something?

Resting a hand against the bed and leaning back slightly, Im Haekyung slowly looked me over.

“Jehyun, I’ve always... been curious about the Cataclysm. Why did the world change like this? And I always thought there had to be a reason for it. Or if not that, then at least a purpose.”

“.......”

“I know far more than you think, Jehyun. I make assumptions, and at the same time infer things... gradually approaching the correct answer. Through an inductive method, perhaps? I try to understand the purpose behind this Cataclysm through recurring patterns.”

As Haekyung said that, the corners of the mouth lifted smoothly.

“It isn’t always purely rational. There’s an instinctive aspect to it. For example, when it comes to mana, I’m practically the maximum possible result. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means it would be difficult for any human to possess more mana than me.”

Im Haekyung spoke about being close to the limits of humanity as though it were nothing at all.

“It’s certainty. I’m sensitive to mana, and because of that, no matter who I look at... I know they’re lacking compared to me.”

“Right.”

“But you’re the exception, Jehyun.”

When I shifted my gaze toward the finger pointing at me, Im Haekyung obediently lowered the hand.

“You withstand demonic power, and at times you even reproduce Skills close to S-rank. Your own rank is low, yet saying it’s merely because your Skill rank happens to be high and allows you to copy other people’s Skills doesn’t explain the quality of the implementation itself. My Mental Domination isn’t something just anyone can use.”

“.......”

“And when you used my Skill... I vaguely realized it then. Back then, I had only sensed something indistinct, but now I think I can say it with certainty.”

What exactly?

Interlocking the fingers around the knees, Im Haekyung spoke with a smiling face.

“You are connected to the Cataclysm, Jehyun.”

“.......”

“I wasn’t sure whether the mental restrictions placed on you had been done by an individual or an organization, but that wasn’t it. Even if every decent S-rank mental-type Hunter worked together, they still couldn’t do something like this....”

The soft scattering laughter somehow sounded pleased. I thought I understood why Im Haekyung was laughing. It was probably the catharsis that came from the certainty of having figured something out.

I did not particularly want to admit it, but in the end, Im Haekyung and I were somewhat similar in the way we thought.

I spoke first.

“So what you’re saying is that a god did it? You didn’t seem related to religion.”

“Must a higher existence necessarily be called a ‘god’? The only people who call something a god are believers.”

“.......”

“Acknowledging an existence and believing in it are separate matters, Jehyun....”

The corners of Im Haekyung’s eyes curved upward. However, the bastard’s words did not end there.

“And I never said I was certain a god did it.”

What kind of bullshit was this now?

“Didn’t you say even S-rank mental-type Hunters couldn’t do it?”

“I did. I said even every ‘decent’ S-rank mental-type Hunter working together couldn’t do it.”

“.......”

“So there are two possible conclusions.”

Two? I frowned without understanding, and the bastard kindly explained in a gentle tone.

“Either a god did it....”

“.......”

“Or I did.”

Im Haekyung calmly said something completely impossible.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m not a ‘decent’ S-rank mental-type Hunter, Jehyun.”