The Crazy Villain Regains His Sanity - Chapter 30

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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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Episode 30

The day of the Level Test arrived.
I woke as usual, stretched, and prepared breakfast. It was merely a procedure to confirm my abilities, but Yun Hui, seated across from me, seemed half-absent from the world.

“This devil of a man being Level 8—good grief.”

Ever since she’d heard the news at the Hometown House, she’d been reacting like this without fail.

“Is it really that surprising?”
“Isn’t it strange that you’re so calm? And of all things—Level 8!”

Her voice had been ringing out since morning.

“Honestly, if you wanted it badly enough, you could rake in money by the handful. Not that money’s the real issue. You could have anything you’d ever ask for, right? The respect of other Awakeners would just be the cherry on top—and the attention.”

More than any of that, I was interested in the Arrest Immunity Privilege. That’s when things would really begin in earnest.

“When I hit Level 8, what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean, what about me?”
“If attention pours in on me, you’ll get noticed too.”

There were several reasons Yun Hui would draw attention besides me.
Being affiliated with the Holy Guild, for one. The way she was already standing out through her abilities, for another.
Though she calls herself ultra-ultra-pretty, she really is beautiful—in time, she might draw more interest than I do.

“I’ll just enjoy it. Since being from the Holy Guild already gets me plenty of attention, I might as well ride your coattails for once. It’s not like male idols are going to be trying to impress me, is it?”

Her ambitions were ambitious indeed. Though I doubt it’ll happen that way.

“Wake up.”
“Huh-huh.”

She doesn’t seem to be hearing me.

“Do well on your Level Test. Even if you fail, you’ve always got my support, so don’t get discouraged. You’ve got this!”
“Thanks.”

Armed with Yun Hui’s encouragement, I arrived at the Korean Awakener Central Center, located in Seoul Jongno. It’s where National Guild Alliance conferences are held, where Awakeners exchange with foreign counterparts, and where all manner of events are hosted.
I met Jung Da-hyeon at the main entrance.

“Junho.”
“Da-hyeon.”
……

Jung Da-hyeon stares at me intently. There’s a look of displeasure on her face. I wonder what I’ve done wrong, then recall her earlier request to be treated more casually.

“I’m still not used to it. I’ll make an effort to adjust gradually.”
“All right.”

Jung Da-hyeon and I headed inside.

“For a Level 8 assessment, we evaluate how you manipulate your Force and your Force Mobilization Capacity. There are minimum standards, you see.”

Force Manipulation and Force Mobilization were the areas I felt most confident about. The Level 8 Test seemed no different from the earlier assessments.
At least, not until I heard what came next.

“And you’ll be facing a Level 7 Awakener, so the restraint process is what matters.”
“Which part is important?”
“It’s better not to inflict any wounds.”
“Pardon?”

I stopped walking without realizing it. I doubted what I’d just heard. In my mind, restraint meant death. At best, even being generous, it meant serious injury.
Was I supposed to break limbs the usual way to restrain someone and then spray recovery medicine? My head spun.
Jung Da-hyeon was startled by my shocked reaction.

“If… if they get wounded?”

I’d barely managed to soften the question of what happens if I kill them.

“That’s the Second Test. Among those who passed the First Test, no one has ever failed the Second Test.”
“…….”

When I asked why such a test existed, I was told that overwhelming strength and the ability to control one’s output were both evaluated components of the examination.
Killing ten Level 7 Awakeners would actually be easier for me.
At my serious expression, Jung Da-hyeon grew flustered.

“I’m sure you can do well, Choi Junho. Um, somehow it’ll work out, won’t it?”
“We’ll have to try.”

This evaluation might be the most difficult obstacle of my life.

* * *

The Level 8 evaluation was conducted with only government officials, the candidate’s acquaintances, and invited observers present.
The invited observers typically included personnel from the candidate’s affiliated guild and foreign dignitaries for certification. Despite not being affiliated with any guild, Choi Junho had nominated the Holy Guild.
As the foreign observer, the United States—a long-standing ally and one that had been watching Choi Junho for some time—sent an observer delegation.
From the Holy Guild’s side came Lee Se-hui, who could be called their face to the world, and

“I thought I should keep an eye on this Choi Junho at some point, and here I am seeing him at a Level 8 evaluation site—how remarkable.”

Baek Gun-seo, a Level 8 superhuman and member of the Holy Guild who went by the epithet Black Dragon, participated as well.
Having risen from the retainer class of the Seonseong family, Baek Gun-seo was a Holy Guild man through and through. His contributions to the Holy Guild had been so substantial that prevailing opinion credited him as the reason the Holy Guild existed as it did today.
Privately, he was sworn brother to the Chairman of the Holy Group and was called uncle by Lee Se-hui.

“It’s not as though you’ve never shown interest in a man before, Se-hui.”
“People will misunderstand if you say things like that.”
“It’s about the right age for you to take an interest in one.”
“Ugh, you’re not even listening.”

Baek Gun-seo’s smile faded as he gazed down at the evaluation site.

“Still, the rumors I’ve heard about him aren’t ordinary. They say his temperament is quite fierce as well. The fact that he’s only recently emerged means there’s much that remains uncovered.”
“Yes, but his actual strength is genuine. His younger sister has tremendous talent too.”
“Yun Hui, wasn’t it? I’ve heard of her. A sibling pair with real talent, it seems.”
“Please do keep an eye on them occasionally. Once they get some momentum, they’ll grow formidably.”
“Very well.”

Since Baek Gun-seo was not one to speak carelessly, Lee Se-hui’s expression brightened. Just then, she spotted Jung Da-hyeon coming back after seeing off Choi Junho and raised her hand.

“Da-hyeon, over here!”

As she approached, she exchanged a glance with Lee Se-hui before bowing her head in greeting to Baek Gun-seo.

“Hello, sir.”
“It’s been a while, Da-hyeon. You’ve been training hard. You’ve grown considerably. Still, do keep in touch more often. I nearly forgot your face.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re trying to forge your own path, and I can’t stand in the way of that. But Holy Guild is your home too, so don’t hesitate to visit whenever you like.”
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t nag me like that. You should’ve come to see me first.”
“Wouldn’t that look a bit presumptuous?”

At Baek Gun-seo’s words, Lee Se-hui and Jung Da-hyeon burst into laughter.
The warm atmosphere of their conversation shattered the moment another guest arrived.

“Over there.”

Lee Se-hui pointed toward a group of foreigners approaching from the distance—the American observers who had come to watch today. All three sets of eyes fixed on the blonde woman leading the delegation.

“Anna Christine.”

A headhunting specialist who possessed both a lovely appearance and a sensual figure, she made a profession of enchanting male Awakeners.
She had not only beauty but also flawless scheming to back it up.
Anna Christine greeted Lee Se-hui with a smile, speaking in English.

“Hi, Princess Lee. How have you been?”
“I’m doing well, Anna. I didn’t expect you to come in person.”
“Of course I had to. It’s a historic moment.”
“You’re not thinking of anything else, are you?”
“Who knows? What kind of thoughts are you referring to?”

Lee Se-hui stared directly into the eyes of Anna Christine, who smiled meaningfully. Anna Christine did not look away. Sparks flew between them.
The tense standoff came to an end with an announcement that the measurement was about to begin.

“We’ll observe from a bit closer. Excuse us.”

Anna Christine bowed her head slightly and withdrew with her team. Lee Se-hui watched their retreating figures silently and muttered to herself.

“That left a bad taste.”
“Mine too.”
“Well now, shouldn’t we be focused on more pressing matters? Anna Christine’s reach is not to be underestimated.”

Baek Gun-seo’s concern was evident.
Especially for young men, Anna Christine’s beauty was lethal. Choi Junho was in his mid-twenties—an age when blood runs hot. There was a real danger that the newly emerged Level 8 Awakener could be spirited away to America.
Anna Christine’s epithet was the Succubus. She earned the name for good reason. One moment of carelessness and she could have you enthralled.
But Lee Se-hui’s reaction was not what Baek Gun-seo had expected.

“Uncle, do you know what one of the most pointless worries in the world is? Worrying that Choi Junho might fall for a woman.”
“What?”
“You’ll see what kind of person he is.”

Lee Se-hui smiled wistfully, recalling the moment when her confidence in her own beauty had soared to the heavens only to plummet into the sewers overnight. Choi Junho was fair to everyone. What she had experienced, Anna Christine would experience too.
Time would tell.
Moments later, the Level 8 measurement began.

* * *

The first test in the Level 8 measurement was Force Manipulation.

[We will now begin the Force Manipulation Test.]

With the announcement, five blue stones the size of ping-pong balls appeared before me.
Opposing-Force Magic Stones.
They were stones that held Force within them, but they had the property of repelling anything that came into contact with Force. Like the same poles of a magnet repelling each other, Force exerts a reciprocal repulsive force against them.
They are often used for Force detection, and hunters also employ them as distance-maintenance tools for ranged attacks, using the repulsive force of opposition to keep enemies at bay.

[You will pass if you strike the Opposing-Force Magic Stone with Force within the five-minute time limit.]

They claimed they’d assess Force Manipulation, but a subtle trap lay concealed within. They wanted to observe not just the initial impact, but also the trajectory prediction and recoil calculations that followed. It meant they’d be watching whether I could control those variables as well.
I had to handle Force like an extension of my own body, and keep the space in which the Opposing-Force Magic Stone moved under my command. It demanded quite a few things.
But this is supposed to be difficult?
I find it easy.
Whether it’s the Opposing-Force Magic Stone or pushing back Force, all that matters in the end is reaction time.
With overwhelming speed that transcends even that, and occupying the shortest path, it becomes the easiest thing in the world.

[Beginning measurement.]

The moment I heard those words, I triggered a Mine and fired it at the Opposing-Force Magic Stone.
The clear condition was simple.
As long as I was fast enough that the stone couldn’t react.

Thunk! Crack! Thunk!

In an instant, five Opposing-Force Magic Stones were struck by the Mine and rolled across the floor. The timer was frozen at 4:59.
Just one second had elapsed. It seemed my reaction was a bit dull—probably because there was no threat to my life.

[You have passed. Congratulations. The next test will be a Force Mobilization Capacity measurement.]

The next test measured Force quantity, which split into two main categories. First was proving the minimum amount of Force a Level 8 initiate had to possess.
If you failed to meet this standard, you’d be judged incapable of sustaining combat as a Level 8 initiate and wouldn’t receive Level 8 certification.
The second was Force Mobilization Capacity—measuring how much Force you could deploy in a brief moment. You could call it an output test.
Only by meeting the minimum output standard could you be judged capable of wielding Level 8 power.
What lay before me was a Monster Heart, completely drained and hollow.
It was sized to correspond to Hazard Level 7, and filling it completely would mean I’d surpassed the ceiling of Level 7. How long it took would also determine the output standard.

[Beginning measurement.]

I moved my Force and pushed it all at once into the Monster Heart.

Beep-beep-beep-beep!

In an instant it surpassed 70%, and a loud alarm blared. It broke through 80%, then 90%, and I succeeded in filling it to 100%. I stopped deploying Force, but the excess that had been crammed in caused a fracture in the Monster Heart, shattering it completely.

Crack!

I reached my hand toward the rampaging Force as the vessel broke apart. The Force that had been about to spiral out of control came under my command, made one smooth loop, and dissipated through my fingertips.

[Error detected! Error detected!]

The alert sounded, and murmurs broke out. They’d begun discussing what had just happened.
The reason was simple.
My Force quantity was greater than expected, and my output was strong as well. Having consumed so much blood, it had turned vicious. The Monster Heart was simply too fragile to withstand it.

[You have passed. Congratulations.]

Shortly after, word came that I’d passed, and I had now cleared both events.
I had passed the First Test.

* * *

A measurement test that difficulties had been anticipated for.
Though Choi Junho was predicted to be Level 8, Baek Gun-seo had expected the First Test measurement not to be easy.
As if to mock such expectations, Choi Junho passed with ease.

“I can hardly believe it.”

Baek Gun-seo, watching from the sidelines, recalled a previous measurement and his expression clouded with bewilderment.

“An Opposing-Force Magic Stone in a single second? How fast would you have to be…?”

He himself had taken the full five minutes just to handle those five stones.
But what came next was even more startling.
When the Monster Heart shattered under the force, Baek Gun-seo shook his head in disbelief.

“Moving such an absurdly enormous quantity with such ease. Looking at Force Mobilization Capacity alone, he’s already at Level 8 standard.”

Volume, speed, destructive power—all of it was top tier. To encounter such talent now, of all times.
If he were to face Choi Junho, what would happen?
It wouldn’t be easy. The thought consumed his mind entirely. The appearance of a monster.
His initial skepticism from before the measurement had long since vanished.
The Second Test began shortly after.

“Ham Ik-chul.”

Selecting an opponent for the Level 8 Second Test involves fierce underground competition. The reason is that combat experience with a Level 8 serves as crucial nourishment for reaching higher realms.
For this reason, most are chosen from the same guild or pushed forward by the government.
Ham Ik-chul was the second-in-command of the incoming Awakener Security Office and was considered a leading candidate for Level 8 given his relatively young age—early forties.
He wielded a Gift called Magic Bullet, using it as a gun for superior ranged attacks, while compensating for close-range weakness as a Martial Arts master of the twelfth rank.
The battle lasted a full five minutes.
Baek Gun-seo, observing it, furrowed his brow.

“Insane.”

* * *

The Second Test ranked among the five most difficult battles of my life.
Subdue an opponent without wounding him.
Where in this world is there combat without injury?
For someone like me—best at killing—this was a catastrophe, an ordeal. Not hurting someone was an impossibly difficult demand.
I concentrated harder than ever, afraid that a single blow would prove fatal.
Whenever I found an opening, I avoided striking and instead detonated Mines at odd angles instead. One death averted.
Five minutes that felt longer than an eternity crawled by.
Despite being able to kill Ham Ik-chul twenty-seven times over those five minutes, I succeeded in wounding him not once and extracted his surrender.
Completely dazed, he bowed his head in utter defeat.
He left his respects and withdrew, utterly devoid of vitality. Still, it’s better to have survived.
A moment later, an announcement chimed through the space.

[You have passed. Congratulations.]

Now it was over.
I understood why people said Level 8 measurement was difficult.
Killing is, after all, the easy part.
While waiting for the remaining procedures to conclude, a group of foreign observers approached me.
A woman at the front of the group flashed a bright smile and raised her hand toward me.

“Hi.”

* * *

For Anna Christine, the emergence of a new Level 8 was nothing particularly novel. Nations worldwide concentrate resources on cultivating Level 8 Awakeners, and several emerge each year.
In her profession, she had encountered the world’s finest Awakeners. Thus, words like “genius” or “monster” had long since lost their luster.
But this time was different. She found herself unable to escape the tremor that engulfed her entire body.

“…Wow.”

Anna Christine, who had let out the exclamation, shook her head. The afterglow of moments ago still hadn’t faded.
The Awakener born today was extraordinary. He was only in his mid-twenties. Youth meant possibility. Possibility meant growth and exceptional skill.
The sheer number of cases Choi Junho had resolved in such a short time was staggering. With a 100% success rate, the volume of cases translated directly into combat experience.
Especially in the last assessment, the combat power he demonstrated was fierce enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
Level 8 in his twenties with abundant combat experience? And on top of that, the sense of justice to firmly suppress villains?
Even Hollywood films would be mocked for lacking plausibility if they were made this way.

‘There’s nothing more to say. He’s the catch of a lifetime—one that’ll never come around again in my career.’

The only obstacle was that Choi Junho belonged to a government agency, and now that he’d reached Level 8, the South Korean government held negotiation rights for the next three years.
Yet what was remarkable was that even after three years passed, Choi Junho would still be only twenty-eight years old—twenty-seven by American reckoning. It was a talent of impossible, record-breaking caliber. Even if he wasted three years without signing with the government, his value would remain at an all-time high.
Anna Christine believed in the saying that the heart leaves a seal.
To achieve that, she needed to steal Choi Junho’s heart completely.
If he came to feel willing to work with her, the South Korean government would have no choice but to release him.
Despite America’s vast territory being infamous among Awakeners as a brutal hunting ground, the treatment offered was world-class. She was confident enough to convince him.
Persuasion was her strongest suit.
Having finished her calculations, she stretched her body and flashed a confident smile. The cleavage emphasized between her black two-piece suit, her slender waist, her voluptuous curves, and her long, elegant legs were her pride—the ultimate weapon that had captivated countless male Awakeners.

“Hi.”

As she drew near, Choi Junho’s appearance became clear.
His features were so refined that had he not been Level 8, one might have mistaken him for an actor. The more one looked, the more attractive and handsome he appeared.

“Junho! Congratulations on reaching Level 8. I wish blessings upon your future.”

At a distance where their bodies nearly touched, almost breath to breath, she whispered close to him.
Sweet perfume mingled with feminine pheromones. Add to that the luxuriant blonde hair men admired and a curvaceous figure that exuded sex appeal.
She teased him with what was barely visible—then stepped back and gazed intently at Choi Junho’s face.
Normally, by this point, ninety-nine out of a hundred men would have succumbed.
She had expected him to be the hundredth—the one who crossed the line entirely—but seeing Choi Junho’s furrowed brow, she sensed an odd current.

“Um, Junho?”
“If you’ve come to Korea, you should speak Korean.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It doesn’t seem like you’re cursing, so I’ll let it slide.”

Choi Junho clicked his tongue lightly, turned away, and walked off.

…….

For the first time in her life, Anna Christine was left speechless by such cold dismissal.
Lee Se-hui, who had watched the entire scene unfold, clutched her stomach in laughter.

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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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