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“……You fucking bastard, you know all this gets uploaded as video, right?”
The sarcastic words echoed throughout. Choi Jeongwook had planned to somehow persuade Doun when entering the tower today.
Records always remained when entering towers. Though videos weren’t recorded on training floors, entry records still remained. The newly added duel floors also recorded videos, so people would definitely rush to watch them.
Just like when the 44th floor conquest video was uploaded.
So he was confident he could persuade him. Wasn’t he the bastard who always watched people’s reactions?
However, seeing those eerily glowing blue eyes, he realized his calculations were wrong.
That bastard is serious.
Those glistening eyeballs and that face looking so calm as if completely unaffected by his words.
When things didn’t go as planned, Choi Jeongwook felt overwhelmed.
“You couldn’t have come in here without knowing that, could you?”
“……”
“Did you think I’d grovel to hyung like before?”
The smile hanging on those well-shaped lips was spine-chilling. Choi Jeongwook felt his hair stand on end. This wasn’t the Lee Doun he knew. The guy who used to speak politely was gone, and the voice speaking informally was unfamiliar.
Could that pushover bastard who always watched his reactions and never talked back have changed this much in just one year?
‘That bastard Slope corrupted him and now the kid’s gone crazy!’
Choi Jeongwook ground his teeth.
Slope. He had never liked him from the beginning. That loach-like bastard who ignored all the implicit rules of the hunter world, moved as he pleased, and disrupted the guild ecosystem had finally corrupted that pushover.
“Hyung said it yourself. I should take responsibility for my own actions.”
“Hey, that was……!”
“When I lost magic stones by using a skill wrong, I covered everything, and when someone got hurt, I paid for potions because they said I didn’t do my job as main dealer. You said everyone else does it this way. Fuck, but later I found out that wasn’t true, right?”
The mouth that had opened to retort snapped shut. No plausible excuse came to mind.
Since the bastard had already lost his mind, stimulating him further would only result in getting beaten more here, so he chose silence. His eyes wandered around dizzily, not knowing where to look.
“Bill me for the potions you’ll drink afterward. I’ll at least pay for that much.”
It was a tone like giving alms to a beggar. The humiliation of being thoroughly looked down upon was unbearable. A grinding sound leaked through his clenched teeth.
‘Damn it, fuck.’
Choi Jeongwook swung the wand in his hand hard and put strength in both legs. His eyes, already burst with blood vessels, throbbed. But he didn’t drink a potion.
The pain was terrifyingly awful, but he could somehow endure it. What he was aiming for was one thing: public opinion in the hunter world after the duel.
‘Fucking bastard. Let’s see if you can act like this even after the video is released.’
Korea was a society particularly harsh toward victims. If people who had been steeped in an atmosphere demanding only the complete and perfect innocence of victims belatedly learned of the violence of Magnetic, whom they had been sympathizing with?
[Chat┃Is it okay to beat someone up this badly just because you were exploited and gaslit a bit? What’s the difference between him and those thugs?ㅋㅋ;; (24)]
[Chat┃I supported Magnetic all this time but watching the duel video changed my mind a bit (38)]
[Chat┃That bastard’s getting his ass kicked, isn’t he? (19)]
The harder he beat him, the bigger the ripple effect would be. Knowing better than anyone how the Veritas bulletin board worked, he swallowed the laughter trying to burst out.
‘Even if I get beaten here, it’s break-even for me. It’ll hurt like hell though……’
Hiding his sinister thoughts, Choi Jeongwook let his shattered hand dangle and said.
“If you hate me that much, beat me until your anger is satisfied. Doun.”
Mercilessly assaulting an elder who had no will to fight. No matter how he thought about it, the situation was only turning favorable for him. Sure enough, that stupid Magnetic took the bait he had laid.
“I was planning to beat the shit out of you even without you saying that.”
As soon as the words ended, his body was slammed to the floor. Several ribs must have been broken as breathing became uncomfortable.
Wheeze, wheeze. Every time Choi Jeongwook breathed, air leaked through the gaps where his teeth had fallen out.
‘Is he planning to keep beating me with just his fists?’
This wasn’t right. At least they had come out to fight as hunter versus hunter, but getting hit only with fists without a single skill? He might not even be treated like a fellow hunter. Choi Jeongwook’s blood boiled at the thought.
“Urgh! Kugh……!”
However, Choi Jeongwook was too busy spitting blood from Doun’s fists to even think about picking up the wand that had fallen to the floor. The skill of hitting different parts while avoiding already beaten areas was spine-chilling, as if he had received coaching from someone.
“Do, Doun…… Hyung was, kugh, all, everything, all wrong.”
At first, it was just words to stimulate Doun’s guilt. But gradually, he wanted to escape this terrible assault. Sincerity began to mix into what had been fake apologies. Honestly, it was impossible to even gauge how much he had been beaten.
All Choi Jeongwook could do was get beaten helplessly. At first, there had been calculations to turn public sympathy toward himself, but now it was different.
‘It fucking hurts……! Crazy bastard.’
That shitty system. He thought it would automatically process defeat by now after being one-sidedly beaten like this, but the hologram showed no signs of appearing.
Moreover, this duel used the priority nomination right, so there wasn’t even a time limit. In the end, it meant he had to keep getting beaten indefinitely unless that bastard beat him nearly to death or he forfeited.
‘Fuck. If I kneel and beg pathetically, maybe he’ll pity me. That bastard must have some lingering affection……’
Choi Jeongwook squirmed his rag-like body. As he tried to kneel as a last resort, Doun, who had been beating him as if venting all his resentment, hesitated for a moment.
“Haah……”
Choi Jeongwook, frightened by the deep exhale, mumbled with heavily slurred pronunciation.
“……Do, Doun.”
With several teeth missing, his pronunciation was terrible. He could get better by drinking a potion, but it was inevitably awkward to have someone with a swollen face looking up at him.
“Jeongwook hyung. Do you know something?”
Doun asked with cold eyes. Choi Jeongwook swallowed his curses.
‘What are you suddenly asking if I know, you fucking bastard. Do you want to lecture me or something??’
He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud and remained silent as if telling him to keep talking.
“Hyung…… you were the first person I took to our family’s memorial hall.”
Choi Jeongwook’s swollen cheek twitched at the unexpected words. He recalled the past when he hadn’t known Doun for long.
Twenty-three-year-old Lee Doun had a much more youthful face than now. His skin was so white that he wondered if a guy’s skin could be that good, and with even his down not yet fallen out, he had thought he was a well-raised rich family’s young master until then.
One day, he looked deathly pale and pathetic, seeming in poor condition, so when asked what was wrong, he glanced around nervously and said it was because his family’s memorial day was approaching. Honestly, Choi Jeongwook had been quite flustered.
He had thought he was some elegant young master, but it turned out he was an orphan bastard who had grown up eating scraps at relatives’ houses from a young age. When he casually offered to accompany him to pay respects, the clueless pushover bastard said yes and took him all the way to the memorial hall.
After going to the memorial hall once, he could clearly feel that Doun relied on him more. Even though they weren’t blood-related and were complete strangers, he called him “hyung, hyung” and followed him more than real brothers.
‘Why is he bringing that up now?’
Choi Jeongwook showed his discomfort openly and rolled his eyes.
“Hyung was only thinking of using me anyway, but like an idiot, I didn’t know that and took you there.”
“……”
“I told my family inside that you were a hyung I thought of as family, a grateful person who was really good to me……”
The last voice, unable to finish, faded away indistinctly. He might have swallowed his words midway to hide his trembling voice. Choi Jeongwook swallowed blood-mixed saliva with difficulty and remained silent.
“Well, the bastard who got used is the idiot. Isn’t that right? Jeongwook hyung.”
Doun’s face as he muttered mockingly was strangely hard to see clearly. It was probably because of his eyelids that were so swollen that even blinking caused pain. Choi Jeongwook opened his mouth that wouldn’t move well and muttered.
“Doun. Hyung is…… really sorry.”
“……”
“Sincerely, I shouldn’t have done that to you……”
Choi Jeongwook, putting strength into his trembling hands and raising his upper body, bowed his head deeply. His head rang as if it would fall off, but all he wanted at this moment was one thing.
‘Lee Doun, you persistent fucking bastard. If I’ve been beaten up this much for you, forgive me now. What more do you want?’
If the ‘hyung who once lived like family’ that he had said with his own mouth had begged this much, he should forgive him. Thinking this, he waited for this fucking duel to end. Then he heard the voice of the bastard who had been catching his breath.
“You should have said that earlier.”
“……”
“If you had, I would have tried harder to really forgive hyung.”
Choi Jeongwook’s complexion, who had been staring only at the floor, darkened. It sounded like he was saying he couldn’t forgive him.
“I will never forgive hyung. Even thinking of dead Sehwan, I can’t forgive hyung. No, I won’t.”
His bowed head was forcibly lifted. Choi Jeongwook’s flustered gaze turned downward. Doun had grabbed his collar and pulled him up.
“This fucking bastard until the end……”
“I knew you’d say that. I imagined hyung’s repentant appearance until my head would burst, but it never properly came to mind even once.”
Along with incomprehensible words, his head turned. Choi Jeongwook thought he might really get beaten nearly to death at this rate.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
