The Crazy Villain Regains His Sanity - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28

The Mouth-Sealer. That bastard’s alias lingers forever.
I introduced the name just once because of O Jong-yeop, and now look—it won’t die.
I’ll have to bill him for that later.
Regardless of how I answered, Berserker already had his conviction locked in place.

“Could be me. Could not be me.”
“So I should just believe whatever suits you?”
“Wasn’t that always the case?”
……

Berserker fell silent, staring at me with unblinking eyes, before he asked his question.

“Which is stronger—the Mouth-Sealer or the Head Breaker?”

Talking in circles with this lunatic.
He showed no sign of letting this go.

“Ask me after your skull gets shattered.”
“I still remember that moment when you erased Big Ten.”

Berserker’s eyes gleamed.

“There was only killing intent born to annihilate the enemy. Pure drive toward death—and in that purity, I glimpsed the Moment of Stars.”

The Moment of Stars—perhaps it’s nothing but a hallucination visible only to the insane.
Since I can’t see it, I must not be mad.

“Send me a photograph when you get there.”

I’m sure smartphones work in the afterlife.
Berserker was originally known as a Seeker of the Sword—even during his Hunter days, he walked an unconventional path.
Opinions still divided on why he became a villain.
Some said he turned to complete his own blade; others claimed excessive training broke his mind, though only a quarter-turn rather than a full reversal. A few whispered that his pursuit to unlock a Gift twisted in a different direction entirely.
That last one’s a lie. In my past life, I killed Berserker myself and saw exactly what Gift he possessed.
Regardless, Berserker spoke of the “Moment of Stars” as he had defined it.

“The Moment of Stars is when I become omnipotent. Everything I see makes me whole. Those fragments gather, and the pinnacle I pursue becomes complete. My will reaches perfection.”

Hearing that, I understood.
Just mad rambling from a lunatic.
I actually bent my ear to interpret this nonsense. I should’ve known better. You don’t associate with the insane.

“Let me ask you something now. Why did you join the League?”
“I heard the Mouth-Sealer came from the League.”
“Who told you that?”
“The Puppeteer.”
“And you believed that?”
“I figured I’d find out when we met.”

Does he think the League is some revolving door you can just walk through whenever you feel like it.

“This conversation will only exhaust me more. Let’s end it.”

I raised my sword, and the madness that had colored his eyes receded. A lunatic returning to his default state is still a lunatic, though.

“Come then, Mal Soja.”

* * *

Berserker had asked me whether Head Breaker or Mal Soja was the stronger of the two, but I had no particular thoughts on the matter.
Whether it was Head Breaker with bare hands or Mal Soja with a sword, both were me—Choi Jun-ho. It was only a preference in method: shattering an enemy’s skull with my fists or cleaving them with steel, depending on the day’s mood. There was no fundamental difference in strength.

“Does going mad make your skull harder?”

A body tempered like steel, a presence as stubborn as his temperament—even if Mine had penetrated such defenses, it weakened the impact and mitigated the shock, making it difficult to inflict serious damage.
If I accumulated damage continuously, I could eventually neutralize him, but then I’d be fighting the madman for four straight days.
Four straight days with a lunatic. It was appalling.
Berserker allowed me several attacks, but he merely shuddered under the blows and endured without taking a serious hit. If anything, Mine seemed to have made him sharper—his eyes burned with increasing intensity.
Did Mine have such an effect?
I found myself wondering what would happen if he fought Franz and that old man. Beethoven had joked that he was Austrian before Beethoven immediately hurled Mine at me.

“Kuh!”

In close combat, it was Berserker who was pushed into a corner. He had no choice but to swing his sword to drive me back, and I—who had matched blades with him thoroughly in my past life—dodged his strikes with ease while landing Mine accurately.
I approached Berserker once more, reaching out with my hand, then drew my fingers together. It was a thread so thin it couldn’t cut even a single blade of grass, much less a person, yet that gossamer existence of the thread made Gift Slash activatable.

“……!”

Berserker, who had braced for Mine, panicked for the first time and threw his head back. The force blade that grazed past him sheared his hair clean off, sending it fluttering down like snow.
When he raised his head again, a crimson line appeared across his forehead, and blood began to trickle down.

“Hehehehe! Pain only reminds me that I’m alive. And a dual Gift at that? That attack just now—it could have driven me to a Moment of Stars……!”
“Madman.”

But Berserker’s expression turned serious for the first time.

“Before we end this duel, let me set one thing straight. I am not insane.”
“You are.”
“Then does that mean you’re not in your right mind either?”
“I’m sane.”
“So am I. Mal Soja, you are not mad, and neither am I. We simply see the world from a different direction. Rather, it is the world that fails to understand us.”
“…….”
“Surely you felt that moment too.”

How did the same sentiments I felt working as a Hunter for the government come out of this man’s mouth?

“What we needed was the existence of someone who could understand us. We were never understood, and because they refused to try, they called me Berserker—nothing more.”
“Crude reasoning, but true enough.”

To be honest, neither Mal Soja nor Head Breaker sat well with me as an epithet.
They sounded like villain names. Why would they pin a villain’s epithet on someone who hunted villains? There had to be something more dignified.

“I have nowhere to return. You do. That is the only difference between us.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m normal?”
“I simply wanted to tell you what I think.”

He spoke only truths, the kind that made me want to reform him and take him with me.
But I had to take his Gift, so I gave up on the idea.

“You’ve said your last words? Then let’s finish this.”

* * *

In the moment their collision erupted, Berserker felt it: he could not touch Mal Soja.
It was a despair made manifest—a strength that fit the word perfectly. He moved like a puppet jerking on strings, this way and that, allowing himself to be maneuvered until finally the opening came for an attack.
The Gift known as Mine was the most vicious attack he’d encountered yet, and the Slash the sharpest.
But what astonished him most was the combat experience on display.
The precision of tempo and timing—as if he’d waged a lifetime of battles.
From start to finish, he had moved exactly as the man desired.

‘A wall. So this is what I must overcome to look toward higher ground.’

Yet the wall before him was insurmountable.
What level had the man reached? And what landscape did he see from where he stood? His own inadequacy in not even being able to fathom it filled him with shame.
He claimed to pursue the Path of the Martial Way, yet how woefully short he fell.
He struggled with every ounce of desperation, but could not strip even a shred of composure from his opponent.

“Hah!”

The attacks accelerated to a speed incomparable to anything before.
He swallowed his breath and unleashed thirty blade strikes in rapid succession without breathing, but the man flowed through them like a fish gliding through water—all of it flawless. Then he seized the blade and tore it away.
He tried to push back with the half-broken sword, but the hand that appeared before his eyes shot past his neck and clamped down on his collarbone.

Crack!

“Argh!”

Through the agony of his collarbone shattering like sand, he roared and threw a headbutt, but the man slipped aside like a ghost and methodically crushed his right shoulder, his forearm, his wrist.
His entire arm was destroyed in the span of a single blink.
He tried to force out the Mine ravaging through his arm, but a force carrying far greater toxicity raged freely and shattered everything to pieces.

“Heh-heh-heh!”

Berserker switched the blade to his left hand, and even through the merciless pain, a bitter laugh escaped him. The world had gone yellow, but the strength displayed by Mouth-Killer was a revelation—a new world entirely.
He wanted to experience more of that strength. That overwhelming force capable of obliterating everything in existence. The Epithet “Mouth-Killer” truly suited him—the strongest, most fearsome Hunter alive.
What world did the man see? Could he himself ever reach such heights? He wanted to see it. Even if he had to tear out the man’s eyes, he wanted to capture that world within his own gaze.
Berserker did not let his will break. His yearning to bridge that gap the man had reached only intensified—a hunger so fierce he would gladly die trying.
But as his left wrist twisted and the blade fell from his grip, his elbow fractured and bent the wrong way. A casual kick charged with Mine struck his leg, and it went dead—his mobility gone.
He had become a scarecrow, defenseless before the man’s onslaught. Then Mouth-Killer’s hand pierced his chest.

“Aaaah!”

As his heart ruptured, the entire world flooded with red. In that final fragile moment of consciousness, Berserker gathered what little strength remained and manifested his Gift.
Complete Recovery.
His Gift alone—known to no one else in this world, his trump card.
His shattered heart was restored, and all the wounds across his body healed perfectly.
His condition was optimal.
Even Mouth-Killer would not have anticipated his death and resurrection.
That moment was his chance to kill the man. Cowardly, perhaps—but destiny nonetheless.
He would kill Mouth-Killer and claim the Moment of Stars.
But standing before him, fully recovered, was Mouth-Killer’s expressionless face.
The man was not careless at all.
As if he had foreseen it all.

“Complete Recovery.”
“How did you—”

In that instant, his heart seized with shock. But even that thought was cut short when the hand plunged into his chest again.

“I wanted to say this. Berserker.”
“…”
“Your Gift is incredible.”

Crack!

* * *

“Stubborn bastard.”

I shoved the crumbling corpse of Berserker aside and consumed the blood drawn from the spot closest to his heart.
Blood Consumption began to decipher the Complete Recovery embedded in Berserker’s blood.
A Gift was like a fingerprint inscribed in blood. Blood Consumption copied that fingerprint and transferred it into my own blood.
As I felt the new Gift being etched into my body, I deleted the existing Pain Reduction Gift. Pain Reduction helped mitigate suffering during combat and sustained my fighting power, but it was nothing compared to Complete Recovery.

Zing!

A sharp headache flooded in. A familiar pain. It reminded me that this agony was the process through which I gained strength.
Blood Species became the strongest by selecting only the best among countless Gifts.
I still don’t know why I went mad. Among the most plausible theories was that I’d consumed far too many Gifts.
I wondered if the sheer abundance of Gifts in my blood had collided and run wild, poisoning my mind.
Even the mad Blood Species eventually discarded Gifts he didn’t need, keeping only what mattered. I saw that as an act of survival instinct at work.
While lost in thought, the copying of Complete Recovery finished. Now, even if my heart shattered, even if my throat were cut, I could be revived as long as a shred of will remained.
Complete Recovery was a spare life. There was reason enough to have killed the troublesome Berserker for it.
But that aside.

“Hey. Why are you still alive?”
“…….”
“Open your eyes. If you don’t, I’ll kill you again.”

At my warning, Berserker—who had been lying still, playing dead—opened his eyes.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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