Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

Wearing only tattered pants and being completely bare-chested, he looked just like one of the miners working here. Covered in so much dust that his face was unrecognizable, it seemed he had really been worked to the bone.

I relaxed my posture. If he was a miner, he was at least on my side. It wasn’t good that he had seen my face, but still, he wasn’t an enemy, at least. Perhaps if I politely asked him to conceal my identity…

“You, you’re Kang, Kang Yi-sin?”

My thoughts came to an abrupt halt at that voice.

“Han Jo-hee?”

Shockingly, this vagrant was someone I knew.

“How, how did you end up here?”

Han Jo-hee’s appearance looked so dreadful that it wouldn’t be surprising if he dropped dead on the spot.

Damn it, I had warned him to be wary of Im Hyeon-su, but he still ended up coming to this place. Then again, what fault did Han Jo-hee have? He must have been in such dire financial straits.

I wiped my face.

I didn’t know whether meeting someone I knew here was a good thing or a bad thing. Han Jo-hee glanced between me and the corpse before shutting his mouth. The bluish tinge on his sickly complexion didn’t seem to be solely from mana poisoning.

Looking at my bloodstained hands and the corpse, I let out a wry laugh.

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

I had smiled to reassure him, but Han Jo-hee’s face only grew paler.

Why was that?

“Looking at your current state, ah, never mind.”

Hey, mister. Why did you just trail off like that? For a moment, I felt irritated by Ray’s tone, but putting Han Jo-hee at ease was more important right now.

“Well, I’m on the side of the people who were brought here. These bad guys here are my enemies, you see.”

Saying that, I wiped the blood off the dagger. It was a poor explanation, but I couldn’t reveal my entire plan to him. Han Jo-hee nodded his head with an uneasy expression, but at least he seemed to accept that I wasn’t an enemy.

“How long have you been here?”

“One week.”

At those words, I inwardly clicked my tongue.

—He actually managed to survive until now.

As Ray said, Han Jo-hee had already reached his limit. Even if I got him out of here, the mana that had seeped into his body would cause his organs to fail, and he would soon die.

Han Jo-hee was already a dead man walking.

At my gaze, Han Jo-hee quietly lowered his eyes.

“Haha, I should have listened to you.”

What could I say to those words? No matter what I said, I couldn’t console Han Jo-hee.

With a bitter smile, Han Jo-hee asked me, “Why did you come here?”

“Do I need a reason to deal with bad guys?”

I deflected his question like that. No matter how well I knew him, I had no reason to reveal my information. Especially since my face had already been exposed.

As I dragged the corpse into a crevice between the rocks, I asked Han Jo-hee, “By any chance, do you know when the last person came in here?”

With an even paler face, Han Jo-hee answered me, “About five days ago.”

Damn. Their conditions must all be terrible then. Even if they got out of here, at best they might last a week.

“Do you know how many guards there are?”

“There were four.”

“So two are left now.”

Excluding the one guarding the outside entrance that I had dealt with on my way in, I had taken down two, leaving two remaining.

Since I had prevented them from contacting each other by radio, they wouldn’t know I had entered. But the problem was that there might be others who had heard the commotion, like Han Jo-hee. Biting my lip at the sounds of movement coming from beyond the hill, my thoughts turned to the mask.

I had brought it specifically in case of situations like this, but it had been absurdly shattered.

As I was pondering that, Han Jo-hee spoke up, “Were you trying to conceal your identity?”

“Well, yeah. It wouldn’t be good if it was exposed, you know.”

I shrugged my shoulders, gesturing towards the corpse I had hidden behind the boulder.

“So stay here. I’ll cover for you.”

“You can do that?”

“If it can help.”

Han Jo-hee approached the miners who had come over the hill first. I pulled my hood down low and watched that scene. I had worried he might change his mind and attack me, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.

At Han Jo-hee’s words, all the miners seemed to relax, dropping their shoulders, with some even tossing aside the pickaxes in their hands. Han Jo-hee gestured towards me, as if telling me not to worry about this place.

I hadn’t expected this kind of help. In any case, it had worked out well.

I had about 50% of my mana remaining.

Moving forward, I would only be able to use elemental charges two or three more times at most.

Two guards remained.

Could I pull this off?

Gritting my teeth, I stood up.

From my waist, I took out a potion vial and drank it down.

Unlike top-grade potions that instantly healed wounds, I still felt sore all over, but it was better than nothing.

—Just because your ribs are broken, you’re acting all tough. Back in my day, we powered through things like that with sheer willpower.

“Heh, I thought you didn’t have any memories.”

At Ray’s words, I let out a hollow laugh. And yet, seeing it surreptitiously enhance my body’s recovery with mana, it seemed Ray was still concerned about me to some extent.

—The remaining ones shouldn’t be much trouble.

I could only hope so.

* * *

Fortunately, as Ray had said, the remaining two weren’t much trouble at all.

One was blatantly sleeping on the job, and I cut off the final one’s windpipe while he was too flustered to properly use his abilities.

And these were supposed to be hunters?

What was the point of being born with a talent if you didn’t bother to cultivate it?

I spat on the ground. While it was understandable that they had grown complacent from only bullying the weak instead of properly conquering gates as true hunters, it still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Perhaps it reminded me of my previous life, where I had suffered hardship for lacking any talent.

“Haah.”

After bandaging my wounds, I rose from the spot.

Now it was time to collect my share.

With the mana stones yet to be taken outside, they were piled up here and there. I took out a compression bag and scooped up all the mana stones in sight. Just what I had gathered was probably worth billions of won.

Even after filling all my pockets, there were still plenty of mana stones left over. I should distribute those to the others. It might be insufficient compensation for their impending deaths, but I still needed to give them something. In Han Jo-hee’s case, he even had a younger brother.

I also rummaged through the corpses and living quarters of those bastards to collect any artifacts. Most were low-grade, but there was one usable item.

—They even had something like this.

“They must have been using it communally.”

An artifact called a ‘shelter’ that could create a completely isolated safe zone. Spatial manipulation artifacts were astronomically expensive.

It was an essential artifact for gate conquests, but not many teams even carried one due to the cost.

It seemed they had kept it for emergencies, but thanks to that, I had stumbled upon a windfall. I should sell this in the black market.

“Now I need to remove the gate maintenance device.”

—You mean the one maintaining this gate?

“Yes. While it wouldn’t work on high-rank gates, it’s effective enough for these lower-rank gates. Thanks to that, they were able to thoroughly exploit this dimension’s resources.”

—A dimensional rift is meant to collapse once it has served its purpose. To think they stopped that collapse. The humans of this world are quite something.

The moment I removed the gate maintenance device, I could feel the flow of mana within the gate change.

In an hour or two, this place would collapse.

I needed to get out before then.

I headed towards the area where Han Jo-hee had been. I had asked him to gather the people, but I didn’t know if he had properly done so.

After not walking too far, I spotted Han Jo-hee and a group of people.

Pulling my hood down low, I approached Han Jo-hee.

Behind Han Jo-hee, about fifteen people were gathered. I could also see people who must have fled here after the commotion I had caused earlier.

“Did you gather everyone?”

“Yeah.”

Including Han Jo-hee, there were a total of fifteen people. There had definitely been more than fifteen who had been brought here initially. While alive, none of them seemed to be in good condition.

It was only natural for people who had worked in a place like this without any mana poisoning filters.Even if they got out of here, it would be difficult for them to function normally moving forward.

“First, tell them to take the mana stones over there.”

I handed the bundled mana stones I had pre-packaged to the people.

‘But even these could be poison to them.’

Even if they took the mana stones out, without proper buyers lined up, they could end up being a poison to these people. But after all this hardship, I couldn’t have them leave empty-handed either.

With a complicated expression, Han Jo-hee looked at me and said, “Thank you, I won’t ask about your circumstances. Just getting me out of this hell is more than enough.”

I handed Han Jo-hee a pouch of mana stones.

“This is…”

“What you and the others mined. You should at least take your share, hyung.”

“But I’ll be dead soon anyway.”

I couldn’t refute those words. Han Jo-hee would indeed die soon.

Of course, there were methods to treat mana poisoning, but those methods were prohibitively expensive to the point of being outrageous, and the effects were minimal at best. At most, they could only halt the current symptoms, with no hope of a complete cure.

It was a method Han Jo-hee, who had come here to earn even a single extra won, would be unable to utilize.

But he should still take the mana stones.

“You came here because of your younger brother, didn’t you?”

Unlike me, who had ended up here due to an inferiority complex towards Jeong Ho-san, Han Jo-hee had come to this place for his younger brother. It was a sacrifice for his family. No matter how it had turned out, I didn’t want to dismiss that fact.

It wasn’t often you encountered someone who cherished their family so much.

Confirming that the people had taken the mana stones, I spoke, “Let’s all get out of here.”

“Thank you, I really don’t know what to say to you.”

“If you’re thankful, just tell people I died here. That I was here but failed to escape in time.”

At my words, Han Jo-hee blinked his eyes.

“Tell them you died?”

“I’ve made enemies with the ones operating this place, you see.”

“Ah.”

“Please tell the others the same. I have circumstances where I can’t let my identity be exposed.”

“…After sharing the mana stones and even saving our lives, that’s all you want in return? There’s a more definitive way to do that, you know.”

Han Jo-hee was aware of it too.

—If you really want to conceal your identity, it would be more certain to just kill them all and silence them.

That to truly keep this a secret, there was no need to spare their lives like this. Killing them and silencing them would be far safer.

Well, yes, but. Then wouldn’t I be no different from the truly bad guys?

‘I won’t become like that man, Seol Rok-jin.’

My previous life of playing the villain had been enough. I didn’t want to become like those monsters who had discarded even their humanity while making excuses about efficiency and whatnot.

Turning back, Han Jo-hee relayed my request to the others.

“Will that really be enough?”

The people asked me, and I nodded.

“Just tell them you all escaped from here through your own efforts.”

“Who would believe that?”

“What does it matter? This gate will be closing soon anyway.”

Once the gate closed, this entire space would disappear completely. All evidence would vanish.

“Thank you.”

“Really, thank you. I thought I was going to rot away trapped in there for sure.”

“I won’t forget this debt.”

At the people’s grateful words, I awkwardly averted my gaze.

While I was familiar with resentment, this kind of gratitude was something I still couldn’t adapt to. I hadn’t even fully saved them. In the end, all the people here would die within the month anyway.

In any case, leaving their heavy gratitude behind, I turned to leave.

There was some commotion as the people screamed upon seeing the corpses near the gate entrance, but well. Those were just the bad guys, so it was fine, right?

Alright, now to open the gate and leave for freedom.

I opened the door and stepped through.

And then…

I encountered an unexpected situation.