I'm Not Your Dad, I'm a Villain - Chapter 93

Chapter 93

Twisted Fate (1)

A steel hammer heavy enough to be burdensome for an adult man to wield.

But even if the weapon’s target used every trick in the book, its durability would still surpass that of an A-rank.

Swinging a blunt object with minimal superhuman strength repeatedly would never be enough to break the body.

-Whack!!

A punch alone was enough to demonstrate this.

Even a punch without any superhuman strength behind it.

“Why.”

Seeing him fall pathetically from such a feeble punch made a part of his heart heavy.

Why is this fight happening?

Even though he thought he could finally judge the great evil, he came to interrupt, and now he keeps falling so miserably.

“Why are you trying to fight a futile battle with that body?”

Yet, the sight of him struggling to stand up seemed as if he was asserting his righteousness.

A weakling who believes he isn’t wrong, charging into a hopeless fight. It felt like he was oppressing the weak with his strength.

“Was saving the children back then… just an act?”

The conflict intensified because he trusted him.

In a weak body, he had stood firm against a beast. He saw the heroic qualities in him.

“Does your daughter… Moa, know that you are this kind of person?”

He genuinely trusted the man who fought the beast to save a child.

He hoped that courage and sense of justice would be used somewhere other than the battlefield.

“Meaningless… my ass…”

Yet, he stood up again, his body in tatters.

He just kept repeating what he had always done.

If he could breathe, he would breathe. If he could move, he would move.

Even now, he was forcibly putting his broken arm back into its joint. The pain from the cracks couldn’t stop him.

“If you’re weak…”

Even though that struggle seemed pathetic and insignificant, Vanguard could only watch.

“If you’re weak, does that mean you shouldn’t stand on the battlefield?”

He too had been in the position of the weak.

The attitude made it seem as if it mocked his struggles, making him yearn for strength.

“…What?”

“If you have the time to talk nonsense.”

-Boom!!

“Shut up and come at me…!”

He slammed the hammer into the ground and approached him again.

But his body was already drained of power.

He could hardly lift the hammer in his grip, dragging it along the floor.

Yet, his eyes beneath the paper bag still gleamed with resolve.

‘This man…’

He couldn’t understand it.

No matter how he tried, his own experiences told him that this man’s actions were clearly wrong.

‘Does this man not realize that being weak is a sin?’

Yes, hadn’t he always felt it?

Grit alone could achieve nothing. It could protect nothing.

Even if he sacrificed himself, all he encountered were dead comrades and victims who died without salvation.

And to those left behind, a surviving warrior was just a target for resentment.

‘Being weak… means you don’t deserve to stand on the battlefield.’

Having felt it in his bones, he had always craved power.

He fought desperately to escape his weak nature.

‘Do you desire power?’

But it was much later that he realized the opportunity he barely grasped was indeed a deviation.

Coming to terms with the corruption involved in gaining that power, he couldn’t erase the fact that the man before him invalidated him.

A weak villain, with no strength, charging at a righteous man who reached out to deviation.

‘Even so, I… I…’

As he hesitated in his inner conflict, the hammer in the man’s hand reached Vanguard’s chest.

Realizing it too late, lost in thought.

But surely, it wouldn’t matter.

-Crack!!

Breaking that preconception, the hammer slammed into him, producing a crushing sound.

“…!?”

It wasn’t just because of the massive impact.

The pain following the noise.

The body being pushed back indicated that the attack was different from before.

Yes, his defense had been breached.

‘Why?’

As he felt the first pain and looked down at the bleeding spot from under the biker suit, he saw the blood slowly seeping out.

“No matter how sturdy, a human body is still just a body.”

As blood from the laceration soaked his waist, the man gripping the hammer spoke in a voice boiling with rage.

“If you keep hitting the same spot, it’s bound to break someday.”

‘This…!’

Realizing his mistake belatedly.

Indeed, his chest was still wounded from the riot in District D.

Recognizing that weakness, he had been targeting that vulnerable spot with the hammer.

“Even so, it’s just a small crack…!”

Feeling urgency, Vanguard leaped.

The man barely able to stand couldn’t possibly dodge his attack.

Look at him now. He’s barely managing to stand without staggering.

-Crunch!

But as the punch swung, what followed was an unexpected move.

The pivot of his broken leg twisted beyond human joint capabilities, narrowly dodging the attack.

-Whoosh!

And it didn’t stop there.

Returning to its original state, the pivot generated momentum, amplifying the hammer’s force, swinging it precisely at the target’s head.

-Bang!!

The moment the hammer hit his face with full force, Vanguard’s white mask shattered, pushing his head back.

The lens of the mask broke, and blood from the split forehead obscured his vision.

The pounding headache from his head.

The current blow had inflicted significant damage on him.

“…You’re pretty useless if you can’t kill even with such a large gap.”

“Argh!!”

As he staggered back from the shock, Vanguard’s twisted head barely turned towards him.

A body more battered than his, still coming at him.

His form, an almost reanimated corpse, still advancing towards him.

‘How…’

Already, there wasn’t an unscathed part of his body, and his injuries were severe enough to require a long recovery.

A body barely managing to move.

Yet, his relentless charge evoked madness beyond mere determination.

‘What on earth is driving this man to such lengths?’

Does he really think he can win?

No, just grasping the chance of victory wouldn’t drive him to such lengths.

He would see it through to the end once he started.

To him, that was all that mattered.

Regardless of victory or defeat, life or death, as long as he was alive, he would keep coming.

‘Fighting him half-heartedly… will never end.’

The moment strength returned to his restrained fist.

-Boom!!

The hammer slammed into Vanguard’s body again, but unlike before, the guard who threw caution to the wind perfectly blocked the attack.

But this time, he wouldn’t deflect it lightly.

The shock absorbed by his arm responded to another ‘gift’, circulating within, creating a torrent of physical force.

-Crack!

The red lightning that began to illuminate the dark warehouse as the power within him boiled over, and his other hand aimed at his target.

Then he swung.

-Bang!!!

Releasing a massive force through his fist, it burst forward, ready to crush everything in its path.

Reflect Armor. The ability to absorb the impact taken by his body, amplify it through superhuman strength, and release it back out.

The greater the absorbed impact, the more powerful the force, and Vanguard had stored all the impacts taken in his hardened body.

Even the hammer blows that couldn’t pierce his shell accumulated considerable power.

-Rumble, thud!

As the shock spread, everything in the warehouse collapsed, leaving only silence where he stood.

But even so, the carnage remained.

Blood, flesh, and everything that made up a human body scattered throughout the warehouse, creating a scene disgusting to those without the stomach for it.

“Ugh…”

Seeing that, Vanguard put his hand to his mouth, feeling nauseous.

Yes, it was his doing.

The weakling who desperately charged at him.

A man who denied his existence, brought down by his own hand.

“I am…”

Why?

He had defeated many villains with his own hands and accepted it all without emotion.

But this massacre, right now, he couldn’t just brush off.

Was this really the right thing to do?

Taking down the weakling who desperately charged at him, just because it was hard to face him.

‘Then you tell me. Can the only child who survived from thousands, tens of thousands of children who died without knowing anything, and fled from heroes chasing them, into the depths of evil…’

‘And having grown up understanding and adapting to evil… would that child repent what they did wrong?’

At least, like that woman.

That man might have had a reason for choosing such a path.

Listening to such stories might be part of his role.

“…I am not wrong.”

But regretting the past would only hinder the future.

Especially if the one in question was a villain.

Even if not, he had to accept it that way.

“I am, for justice…”

Comforting himself, Vanguard quietly turned his back on the warehouse.

And that was when the anomaly occurred.

-Crack.

The sound of flesh tearing.

Feeling a chill down his spine, Vanguard’s legs froze in place.

Something happened behind him. The man whose body was shattered was doing something.

-Crack, crack.

But he couldn’t immediately turn around to respond.

With his breath held, the only thing he could do was slowly turn his stiff neck to look behind him.

-Sssst, creak.

The eerie sounds of friction reached his ears. Pieces of flesh scattered around started to come together, forming a shape he had never seen in his life.

Even with the strongest regenerative power, all his body parts were completely separated.

Even if gifts operate separately from medical death, the previous attack made it impossible for even an S-rank regenerator to heal immediately.

It should have just fused together without consciousness, eventually running out of strength and turning into a corpse.

“What is that…”

Yet, his body was slowly regenerating.

No, was that phenomenon truly regeneration?

-Thump, thump.

A heart rising from the center of the warehouse.

Even having lost all its body parts, it was still beating.

Sending pulses through black threads extending from it.

-Squish, squish.

The flesh pieces connected by those threads began to pulse in sync, sticking together.

As if trying to form the original body.

-Creak!

No, it was far from returning to its original state.

It was just haphazardly attaching to the nearest flesh. The threads connecting the chunks pulsated intensely, almost in revolt.

The rapidly swelling, unidentified mass grew larger, soon filling the room.

“What on earth is happening…?”

What formed at the end was a shadow that barely resembled a human shape.

Though the dark warehouse admitted no light, the silhouette was a transcendent presence.

A phenomenon beyond understanding.

But Vanguard instinctively felt one thing.

Something dormant within the man’s body had awakened in response to his death.

Even though it had lost its human form, it seemed determined to keep his existence in this world.

***

And still, under the moonlit sky.

“Boss. It’s me.”

As he sat on the bed, gazing out the window, a voice came from beyond the door of his hotel room.

Gray Anatomy.

His loyal third retainer, who often bared his fangs at other retainers due to his fierce loyalty.

“…Come in.”

But the voice that called him was as calm as ever.

Even if he had harmed someone he cherished.

Because compared to what he had done, it couldn’t truly be called a ‘sin.’

End of Chapter