Chapter 197
“First of all, let me ask you, did you feel like it got darker around you, or did you feel like there was no light at all?”
“What? Uh, well, first of all, I pride myself on having very good night vision but it was pitch black, I couldn’t see anything!”
“You couldn’t see anything?”
“Yeah! Nothing, really, I thought I was going blind!”
Latte shudders as she recounts the memory.
“That’s right, you were blind.”
“I was blind?”
“Yeah, you were working at the cafe, so you didn’t have any enchantments on you, so you were exposed to black magic right away.”
And, as far as I knew, there was only one person who could have casually walked into the Academy at this time of year and done this.
“Dark Spirit. He must have made a move.”
“Ah, if it’s Dark Spirit, it must be him, the villain…… who they say no one knows the identity of, who no one has ever seen face to face and survived!”
Latte jumps up and down when she realizes that the person who blinded her was actually Dark Spirit.
The reaction was so powerful that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I see. I guess he was famous in Niflheim too?”
“Uh, not just famous! He’s a man on the verge of legend, and when I was in Niflheim, the rumors about him were overwhelming!”
‘Dark Spirit. There is not a single person who has seen his face, for they are all dead.’
“Dark Spirit does not exist in the world, for he has never been ‘seen’.
“There are only two things left in the path of Dark Spirit: blood and darkness. Nothing else exists.
“See, now you know what a scary villain he is!”
Latte says, as if telling a horror story to a child.
Complete with the “scary, scary, scary!” afterward.
“Yeah, he’s the kind of villain that people are scared of.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“Then why do you think people are scared of a guy no one’s ever seen before?
Latte’s eyes widened as if she’d never thought of such a thing.
“What? Why would anyone be scared of a guy no one’s ever seen…… eh? Why would anyone be scared of a guy no one’s ever seen…… eh? What is it?”
“Yeah, that’s right, because the unknown always brings fear. But, on the flip side, if…….”
──I mean, if you know who it is, it’s not scary at all.
* * *
In a remote cabin in Gangwon Province a man dressed in pitch-black attire was preparing the weapons for the mission as usual.
-Gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee, gee.
As he carefully sharpened the blade of his black dagger, he suddenly looked up and saw a stack of papers on his desk.
An anonymous request that arrived on his cell phone last night along with 50 million credits.
[Café located inside the Seoul Hero Academy. Ransack the vault of ‘Cielo Notturno’]
Although he was entering the dangerous area of the Seoul Hero Academy alone, it wasn’t a hit job, but a request to retrieve an item.
Figuring that he wouldn’t have to fight in it, and that 50 million credits would be enough to open a regular cafe, not an academy facility, he succeeded in opening the vault as requested.
And out of that vault came those papers.
-Thud.
Putting down the dagger he was holding, he slowly walked over to the table and picked up the documents.
“…….”
He wondered what this could possibly be.
He’d been doing this for years and never touched a client’s property, but for some reason, this one gave him a strange experience.
He used a drug that blinded the staff at the café, as well as all the rodents in the area.
But
‘My eyes……! Thief!’
In a situation that would have caused a normal person to collapse in panic, the cafe staff tried to kill him with the bread knife she was holding.
‘It was no accident.’
How can someone swing a bread knife at a person in a situation when they can’t see anything, be called a casual cafe worker?
Of course, he had left in a hurry because he was afraid that a bloodbath inside the academy would escalate, but it was still a strong shock to him.
His life has just been threatened.
“Whoa…….”
He dropped the papers he was holding on the table and sat back down.
The only reason he had survived this long was because he followed two rules.
The first was to never show his true colors to anyone and the second was not to be curious about his clients’ requests since the price of unnecessary curiosity could be death.
Perhaps he could stick to those principles this time.
Returning to his seat, he resumed his work on the weapon.
-Dengrrr.
“……Hmm?”
The sound of something falling makes him turn his head.
It’s a hut in the mountains, so it’s not uncommon for nearby rocks to be knocked down by animals or the wind but what had just rolled into his cabin was not a rock, but a translucent blue orb.
“This is crazy───”
-Kaaaahhhh!!!
With a tremendous roar, flashes of light rained down, and a huge explosion and flames engulfed the place he was in.
The roof collapses, the walls crumble, and the shape of what was just a hut is transformed into an abandoned house.
“Eek……! Crunch!”
Amidst the rubble, Dark Spirit crawls out.
His clothes are riddled with wounds from the explosion, as if he hadn’t been completely shielded from the impact.
“What the hell is this…….?”
Just then, a sound that shouldn’t have been there began to enter his ears.
Mmmm- mmmm- mmmm- mmmm- mmmm- mmmm- mmmm- mmmm.
“Hya. You’re holding out? So Dark Spirit is Dark Spirit after all? That’s amazing.”
He had a look of disbelief on his face as the man walked out, clapping his hands as if he meant it.
“Hey, how the hell did you get here……when it was supposed to be a place no one knew about?”
“Huh? This place? Alas, I found it while taking a forest bath. Would you believe me if I told you?”
I gritted my teeth and slowly looked at the man in front of me as I realized that he had been smiling at me since the beginning.
Neatly trimmed hair, a cold face and red eyes and a black suit.
My mind began to spin rapidly and there was only one other person I knew looked like this.
“The heir to the Corleone……Eugene Han Corleone.”
“You guessed it. You’ve been researching me, haven’t you?”
Even though he was smiling, Dark Pill felt his blood run cold. His eyes were cold, as if he was looking at a worm crawling on the ground.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, you have to leave now.”
Eugene reached into his pocket and pulled out a translucent orb once more, waving it around as if he wanted a closer look.
“This is like a portable bomb, I honestly didn’t expect it to be this powerful, I’m sorry if it hurt you.”
In Eugene’s hand was a portable strategic weapon that An Byeong-hun had recently created as a prototype.
“Boss. You have to be really careful when you throw this, because an ordinary Awakened it’s a one-hit kill.
It was enough to make even a half-awakened Mad Scientist believe in it.
In a way, it was only natural that a building of this size would be destroyed.
“Hmm, it seems like it’s still dangerous, so let’s give it another shot.”
Saying that, Eugene lightly rolled the bomb with a nonchalant gesture.
──────!!!
It meant a secondary explosion.
A gust of wind whipped by Eugene’s side as he held on to the door to avoid being carried away in the aftermath.
“How about this time?”
Eugene pokes his head out and takes another look at the situation inside.
The room is still scorched from the explosion earlier.
“Kaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
He yells, and around him is a tattered, jet-black field of defensive magic.
Eugene finally sighed and stepped inside.
“I’ve used everything I brought with me, but it can’t be helped. From now on, I’ll just have to use my body.”
Eugene walked inside with his hands clasped in front of him.
At the same time.
“Gotcha!”
He shouts, reaching out for Eugene at the same time.
“Abyss Blind.”
The signature technique of Dark Spirit that takes away the target’s vision.
Although it was one of the most basic black magic, it was the kind of thing that could have drastically different effects depending on the user.
And that magic is…….
“Are you done?”
“What is this…….?”
Eugene stared at Dark Spirit, only to realize that it didn’t work at all.
“By now you’re probably wondering how I managed to walk all the way here with traps all around, and how your magic didn’t work.”
Eugene’s answer was very simple.
“I ate something good before I came here.”
“You fucking asshole……!”
Dark Spirit rolled his eyes, thinking he was joking and Eugene looked at him curiously.
“Well, you look like that, so I guess you didn’t want anyone to see your face.”
Dark Spirit’s face was now visible through the torn mask of the explosion.
Distorted eyes, sagging skin, and an ashen face, the usual side effects of black magic.
“Shut up!”
The man’s face crumpled even more at the humiliation of showing his face, and he lunged at Eugene, picking up the dagger that had fallen to the ground.
“Abyss Blind!!!”
Once again, he cast his magic at Eugene. This time, however, Eugene shrugs as if nothing happens.
“Your magic. None of it works.”
“Ugh!”
He tries to bring his dagger down on Eugene, though his movements seem awkward due to the shock of the explosion earlier.
But
“Daggers are scary, so let’s put them down.”
Eugene shot the dagger with the pistol in his hand, sending it flying into the distance.
“Why, why, why, why, why!”
Dark Spirit had his pride.
He was a warmage and a warlock. He had traveled to and from the battlefields, binding and paralyzing his enemies with black magic, striking them down with hand-to-hand combat and weapons.
He was a black magic specialist who had crossed countless battle lines and overcome rivers of corpses.
No matter how strong the enemy was, he had always lost his life to his black magic and martial arts skills.
“Why can’t my black magic work, is it because you’re wearing a holy object?”
That’s why it didn’t make sense.
Why couldn’t his own magic work, and the answer was──
“Huh? How do you know?”
“……what?”
“That I have a holy object.”
Eugene replied, pulling a pair of chopsticks from his bosom.
