Ch.26Episode 6. The First Turning Point (6)

“Who paid you off?”

First, I throw out information I already know to determine whether this guy is lying or not.

If he was lying, I planned to instill fear in him.

I needed to show him that lying would absolutely screw him over.

Villains don’t take the law seriously.

They have no fear of the sentences they’ll receive when they commit crimes.

They’re mentally ill individuals intoxicated by short-term pleasure, thinking they can just rot in prison if they get caught.

Since they feel neither fear nor guilt about becoming criminals, they don’t bat an eye at pressure that doesn’t directly harm them.

That’s the realization I came to after hunting villains for a month.

But I’ve maintained a certain “line” until now for my own purposes.

I believed I needed to keep watch to prevent them from becoming villains.

Naturally, I have no intention of crossing that line this time either.

Even with the Association President as my solid backing, killing someone would be impossible to cover up.

I might have to step down from my instructor position for excessive force. Though I find it frustrating that even villains are granted basic human rights, I’m not above the law either.

That’s why I was planning to draw a clear boundary now.

Just short of death.

Maintaining the precarious line of rights that a hero can assert.

A level that could be sufficiently covered by the Association President’s power would be ideal.

“You’d better not think about running away.”

I pointed at him with the dagger I’d taken from Yu Ari.

The male student’s gaze wavered when he saw the dagger. He seemed to be looking around.

Are there others nearby who could help him?

The original work provided minimal physical descriptions of villains, so it’s hard to tell.

“If you have others supporting you, call them now. The more heads we have, the closer to the truth we’ll get.”

“In-Instructor Yujin!”

“Shut up. Don’t put my name in your filthy mouth. If you speak out of turn again, I’ll cut your tongue out first.”

“In-Instructor, do you think you can get away with that? Even with a hero license, that’s—”

“I know. That it’s not allowed. But.”

Slash!

A speed that wasn’t even a split second.

Before his eyes could follow my movement, I approached and cut off his right index finger.

A beat later, seeing his finger fall to the ground, he screamed in terror.

“AAAAGH!! My hand!! My hand!!!”

“This is just an injury that occurred while we were fighting.”

“Wh-what…?”

“I’ll ask again. Who paid you off?”

His body starts trembling.

But it’s not enough yet. I need to instill more fear.

He needs to think he’ll die if he lies.

“You think that’ll make me talk?!”

I watch as he desperately tries to back away.

It’s commendable that he hasn’t lost his reason despite experiencing overwhelming power difference and pain. It means he’s that desperate.

But you’ve chosen the wrong path.

“How amusing.”

I smiled and picked up the severed finger.

Despite the grotesque scene of blood seeping from the finger, I felt surprisingly little emotion.

“You can run if you want. But this finger… if you don’t get it to a hospital immediately, you’ll never use it again.”

“What are you saying…!”

“I wonder if Akcheon would still use someone as incompetent as you if you’re physically crippled too.”

“What?”

He begins to show severe agitation when I mention Akcheon.

“I don’t know if you can’t understand or are pretending not to understand, but I’ll explain clearly.”

I approached him again and showed him the finger as I spoke.

“Just missing one finger is enough to end your recruitment.”

“You… do you know everything…!”

“So now you have two options.”

I spread my index and middle fingers with the hand holding the dagger.

“First, I cut off all ten of your fingers and you live as a disabled person for the rest of your life. Second, you lose all your fingers and then go to the person who paid you off, who’ll cut your throat too. Choose.”

The “Blade” who paid this guy doesn’t let those who fail their missions live. Even if they succeed, they might be allowed to live, but joining Akcheon would be impossible.

From the beginning, this guy, who wasn’t even an extra in the original work, had his forearm cut off and was abandoned by Akcheon.

“You psychopathic bastard…! No wonder you’re the instructor of the special class!”

“I don’t want to hear that from people like you.”

“Fuck!”

Finally unable to contain himself, he makes the wrong choice.

He pulls out a weapon hidden in his clothes and threatens me. I dodge by tilting my head and said:

“This world is crawling with psychopaths like you. It’s insane.”

A hopeful hero world?

What bullshit.

The work treats it lightly, so you might not realize.

In a world where random humans develop indiscriminate abilities, how could normal humans exist?

“The only way to adapt in such a crazy world is to become crazy yourself.”

“Die!!”

Slash!

His left index finger flies off.

“ARGH!!”

Even while screaming, he doesn’t stop threatening me.

Left middle finger. Right middle finger. Left ring finger.

Only after three more fingers are cut off does he drop the dagger and scream.

“AAAAH!”

Thud!

I struck the noisy guy’s abdomen.

“Guhk!”

“Quiet.”

I grabbed his head and threw him against a tree. His waist bent as he hit the tree. He fell face-first onto the ground limply.

“Now, it’s story time. If you don’t answer, I’ll split your hand in half. You’d better answer well.”

As I looked down at him with his face planted on the ground saying nothing, I stabbed the back of his hand with the knife.

“AAAAGH!!”

“Answer.”

Squelch!

Blood spurts up as I twist the dagger.

“AAAAH—!”

He tries to grab his hand while screaming, but with most of his fingers cut off, he couldn’t even properly grasp the dagger pinning him down.

“Answer.”

“Uuugh…”

Stab!

“GYAAAH!!”

“Answer.”

“It hurts! Save me! Please save me… please…”

“Good. Now it seems you’re in the mood to talk.”

I smiled and whispered in his ear.

“Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Now, who paid you off?”

* * *

I turned off my phone’s voice recorder.

In the end, I only got information I already knew.

As expected, it was impossible to get information from someone who hadn’t even joined Akcheon yet.

I sighed involuntarily, having gained so little despite the performance I put on.

Just as I was about to speak to Yu Ari, who was staring blankly at me, people in white clothes appeared behind us, panting.

It was the school nurse and security team I had notified before coming here.

“Huff! Huff! Instructor! An emergency patient has—AAAH! What is this?!”

The security team members following the nurse also gaped in shock.

They couldn’t hide their horror at the sight of the severed fingers, the blood splattered around me, and the fingers scattered on the ground due to the significant bleeding.

“Treat him and hand him over to the academy security team. That guy was paid off by Akcheon.”

“What? Oh, Akcheon?”

“I tried to restrain him, but he resisted too fiercely, so I had no choice but to use my blade.”

Thud.

I dropped the blood-stained dagger on the ground.

I wonder if I’m lying too smoothly, but I need at least some excuse.

“In-Instructor Yujin… This is excessive force no matter how you look at it. You won’t be able to avoid disciplinary action for this.”

A security team member said to me with a frown.

“Disciplinary action…”

I acknowledge it.

I definitely feel like I went too far. There’s no denying I acted on impulse in the heat of the moment.

But I’m certain the Akcheon bastards are watching this scene from somewhere in hiding.

This is both a performance and a warning for them.

A message I’m sending to them.

To show them what happens when they mess with my students, I needed to demonstrate at least this much.

“Be thankful no one died. I could have cut off each of his joints and dismembered him.”

Their faces filled with dismay as they watched me speak such cruel words so calmly.

“But I held back because I’m a hero and an instructor.”

“E-Even so, this is…!”

“Isn’t it great to be a villain? Protected by the law. Heroes can’t kill villains, but villains can kill heroes. It’s not easy to claim self-defense or receive compensation.”

It seems better than South Korea in that other world, but still far from developed countries.

The author is unnecessarily adding historical accuracy to this stuff.

“Well, I understand why such laws exist. If heroes could freely kill villains, they’d just be legal villains themselves.”

“…”

“But I’ll make sure no one touches my students. No one. Even if it’s the Association President.”

I make my intentions clear.

I’ll be questioned for this, but they’ll understand.

The justification of an instructor protecting their students.

The justification of a hero subduing a villain who infiltrated the academy.

With these two justifications.

“I’ll leave the cleanup to you. I’ll report what happened later. Right now, my student seems frightened.”

I pointed at Yu Ari, who was standing there blankly. The security team members looked at me uncomfortably.

“I need to take care of my student now.”

“But…”

“I won’t run away.”

Saying that, I played the recording I’d made on my phone for him.

“Keep this. I’ll come in for questioning once my student is calm.”

Their ears perked up at the desperate voice of the male student coming from the recorder.

“Yu Ari.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Let’s go.”

I smiled and extended my hand, then tried to withdraw it when I saw the blood on it. However, Yu Ari grabbed it before I could pull back.

“There’s… blood on it.”

“I-It’s okay… It’s okay.”

Yu Ari held my hand firmly with both of hers and murmured.

“I see.”

I awkwardly scratched my head and left the scene with Yu Ari.