“Aaack!”

Lee Min-Chan was about to scream, but Kang Yoon-Soo rained down punch after punch on his mouth. His lips were ripped open and blood poured out, and his front teeth were smashed in by Kang Yoon-Soo. Kang Yoon-Soo’s punches were very efficient in inflicting pain; every punch inflicted such excruciating pain on Lee Min-Chan that he could not scream, and instead, he could only whimper and moan.

“Eu… ukk…”

Kang Yoon-Soo did not stop punching Lee Min-Chan. The reason why he was assaulting Lee Min-Chan to such an extent was not because of some self-righteous just cause, however.

‘If I didn’t do this, Shaneth would have died.’ Shaneth had been killed in this inn the first time he had met Lee Min-Chan. That was why Kang Yoon-Soo had relentlessly killed Lee Min-Chan every time he met him, and this life was no exception.

“Spare… Spare me!” Lee Min-Chan pleaded, his face bloodied. Kang Yoon-Soo merely raised his greatsword without any hesitation, and Lee Min-Chan’s face turned pale white. “Do… Do you really plan to kill me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“Someone is coming,” Shaneth said as she looked outside the door.

The person who had come up was none other than the innkeeper. “I don’t want to intrude, but can you please keep it down? You seem to be having fun, but we can hear it all the way downstairs,” he complained.

“I’m sorry, we were trying to catch an insect and caused a ruckus.” Shaneth apologized to the innkeeper while sticking her head out of the door.

The moment the innkeeper headed down, Lee Min-Chan got up and made a run for the door with a scream. “Aaaaaack!”

Shaneth tried to stop him, but he took out a dagger and tried to stab her. She easily avoided the dagger, but it left an opening that he used to bolt out of the door and escape. She tried to go after him, but Kang Yoon-Soo grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. He said, “I’ll go alone.”

“Do you really plan to kill him? You just plan to catch him and hand him over to the investigators, right?” Shaneth asked nervously.

“Yeah,” Kang Yoon-Soo answered…

Of course, he was lying.

***

“That son of a, that son of a, that son of a bitch, I’ll kill him,” Lee Min-Chan mumbled to himself while covering his bloodied face. The glass shards embedded in his face hurt terribly. He slowly pulled out each shard one by one while trembling and cursing. It was difficult to pull each shard out by himself, and each one caused immense pain. “That son of a bitch. I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him like a dog!”

His parents had never hit him. Kang Yoon-Soo was the first person in his life to have beaten him nearly to death.

“That asshole.” Lee Min-Chan stomped as he cursed Kang Yoon-Soo under his breath. The pedestrians around him looked at him in a strange way, but he did not care at all because of his anger. The youth looked around at the pedestrians around him and thought, ‘Fuck! I have to relieve my stress today. I’ll kill anyone and everyone!’

He decided to pay no heed to the investigators after him, and started to look for his prey. He found a girl walking around with a basket full of apples; she was not that pretty, but she was not half bad. ‘It’s that bitch’s unlucky day. Heh.’

It was his first time seeing the girl, but he looked at her as if she were his nemesis. He caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder from behind, saying, “Hey.”

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“You don’t have to know. Come here,” he replied as he manhandled her into an alley.

“Ouch! Why are you doing this to me!?” The girl was stricken with fear and could not resist against him.

Lee Min-Chan raised his right hand once they were in the dark alley.

[Do you wish to manipulate Hanna the apple vendor?]

[The skill will activate if you recite the activation phrase embedded deep within the mind of the target.]

[The spell for Hanna is ‘I heard your parents abandoned you, and that’s why you have to sell apples?’.]

[The manipulation skill is more effective on emotional and weak-willed people.]

[On the other hand, the skill will be less effective on less emotional or older people.]

“I heard your parents abandoned you, and that's why you have to… Euk!” Just as Lee Min-Chan was reciting the spell, he suddenly felt a blunt force strike the back of his head. The force that hit him was so strong that his eyeballs almost fell out. He turned around and glared at the person who had hit him, but saw that it was Kang Yoon-Soo.

“What?! Fuck! How did you find me?” Lee Min-Chan started to retreat backward. However, Kang Yoon-Soo lifted his greatsword and started to walk toward him. The man’s gaze, as emotionless as a puppet, gave Lee Min-Chan chills, and the darkness of the alley amplified his fears.

Lee Min-Chan had not even sensed him, but how had the man found him here? What was his purpose? While he was thinking, however, the man suddenly spoke.

“To kill you,” Kang Yoon-Soo said. Again, he spoke as if he could read minds, making cold sweat run down Lee Min-Chan’s back. He lightly swung his greatsword, and a bloody line formed on Lee Min-Chan’s neck.

“Heo… Heok!” Lee Min-Chan gasped as he lowered his hand. He stopped his attempt to manipulate the girl and ran away. “Go away! I said get away from me!” he exclaimed, filled with fear. The pain inflicted by Kang Yoon-Soo had cemented itself in his memory like a traumatic experience.

Soon afterward, he was covered in sweat and left out of breath. “Haaa…! Haaa…!” He panted, stopping for a while to catch his breath before looking back.

He saw a man walking toward him from behind—it was Kang Yoon-Soo.

“Aaaack!” he screamed as he ran away, and the people around him looked at him as if he were crazy. The man wielding the greatsword looked even scarier and creepier to him now.

“Don’t come! Don’t come closer!” Lee Min-Chan exclaimed in terror, running into a narrow alley.

However, Kang Yoon-Soo was at the end of that alley, as if they had agreed to meet there. “You’re late, as always,” he said.

“Aaaaaaaack! I’ll manipulate you!” Lee Min-Chan glared at him and raised his right hand. He gathered all of his mana and prepared to unleash the most powerful manipulation skill he had ever used. However, a message popped up on his device.

[The target’s mind contains 20,004 years’ worth of memories.]

[It would be impossible to manipulate the target even if you mastered the skill.]

“What…?” Lee Min-Chan was stricken with fear, and he fell on his butt. ‘His mind is 20,004 years old…? How long has he lived? Is he even a person…!?’  he thought in disbelief. “You! What the hell are you? Are you even human?!” he asked the man.

However, Kang Yoon-Soo did not reply, and just silently approached him. At the very moment Lee Min-Chan was about to turn around and run away, he hit the back of Lee Min-Chan’s head with the blunt side of his greatsword.

Pukeok!

Lee Min-Chan’s vision turned dark.