Chapter 187 – Truth [Laughter]

Kim Yanggi.

In Siguk’s first life, that is, his life as a B-Rank Villain, he was Siguk’s employer and de facto boss, a man of influence who had even entered the political arena of South Korea.

He was also a legendary figure who transformed a small organization called Clover Faction, located in Garibong-dong, Guro-gu, into a nationwide violent organization and the YK Group, a legitimate mid-sized company in disguise.

For Siguk, he also became a textbook on a life path that would not fail in his regressed second life.

And for the sake of Siguk’s own successful second life, he met his fate at Siguk’s hands earlier than he actually should have.

That very Kim Yanggi, in the worldview of the first life where he died as a B-Rank Villain, and at a point in time over a century later, revealed himself as a monster with a human face.

“How…….”

Whether he heard Siguk’s mutter or not, Kim Yanggi, or the monster with his face, looked at Siguk and spoke while making a noisy flapping sound.

“There’s still someone left who knows my name? Even the old Druid lady didn’t know, I heard.”

It had become somewhat grotesque, but it was unmistakably Kim Yanggi’s voice and speech pattern.

Siguk immediately activated his All-Seeing Eye.

Information about Kim Yanggi entered his vision without omission.

‘A-Rank…… definitely closer to a monster than a Hunter. How on earth…….’

Siguk looked at Byeoli, who was tightly gripping his hand.

“Byeoli.”

“…….”

She just trembled violently, unable to answer.

Siguk held her two hands tightly and spoke.

“Uncle has some things to talk about with those monsters for a while, okay? During that time, Byeoli must hide very, very well. Understood?”

At those words, Byeoli nodded.

Siguk lightly tapped her cheek with his hand and sent her inside the building.

After confirming that Byeoli had become one with the darkness inside the building using her Assimilation Skill, Siguk slowly approached Kim Yanggi.

“Kim Yanggi.”

“Haven’t heard that in a long time. These things only call me Wang, they don’t even know how to call my name.”

Kim Yanggi laughed, pointing at other monsters with human faces using his hind legs.

They bowed their heads towards Kim Yanggi as if in awe.

“So, who might you be to know my name? It must be at least over 70 years since my name disappeared from history.”

Siguk looked at Kim Yanggi buzzing in the air 15 meters above and chuckled.

Instantly, the smile vanished from Kim Yanggi’s expression.

He frowned as if trying to remember something and scratched his head with his foreleg.

Finding that sight quite amusing, Siguk burst into laughter.

“Hahahahahaha!”

At the sight of him laughing with his back arched, the other Man-Faced Monsters and what appeared to be their offspring began to growl.

“Shut your traps, all of you!”

Kim Yanggi shouted roughly, flapping his wings violently.

In an instant, the insect-type monsters fell silent.

‘Still the same.’

Seeing that, Siguk laughed once more, recalling the image of Kim Yanggi berating Han Myeongho and Kang Bonggil.

At that laugh, Kim Yanggi’s expression contorted further.

“Hey. Young man.”

Kim Yanggi pointed at Siguk with his middle leg.

“What’s your name?”

The corner of Siguk’s mouth twisted up.

“Lee Siguk.”

Briefly, Siguk spat out his two-syllable name.

In that moment, Kim Yanggi’s eyes wavered.

“Did I hear wrong? What was that?”

“Lee. Si. Guk.”

As Siguk spoke with emphasis on each syllable, Kim Yanggi tightly closed his mouth again.

For a while, silence fell over the entrance plaza of Signiel Tower.

In that silence, the only thing audible was the flapping sound Kim Yanggi made.

“Well now…… I thought the world had gone completely mad, but isn’t this a bit excessive? What do you think? Siguk statue?”

Only after a long while did Kim Yanggi open his mouth.

Siguk grinned and replied.

“It’s incredibly strange, isn’t it. Chairman Kim Yanggi.”

“Hehehehehe.”

Kim Yanggi laughed and violently fluttered his wings.

For a moment, a strong wind blew, and all the monsters hunched over to block it.

“I said you could call me Hyung in private.”

“This isn’t a private place.”

“That’s true.”

Kim Yanggi grinned.

Only then could Siguk confirm it.

His teeth were too sharp and too numerous to be human.

“How did this happen? The statue definitely died, when was it… anyway, a hell of a long time ago, I heard he was killed by the Japanese.”

“I died. Definitely. Lonely and forlorn.”

“But how are you alive like this? And so much younger too?”

“And how about you, Chairman? Your face is the same, but the rest is completely…….”

“Ah, statue. Your head is still stuck in the 21st century, I see. Isn’t this Evolution?”

“Evolution?”

Kim Yanggi flew, tracing a figure-eight in the air.

“Mobility improved too.”

Kim Yanggi suddenly flew to an old, broken apartment 500 meters away and crashed into it.

Boom-!

With a tremendous roar, a hole appeared in the middle of the apartment, and the entire building began to collapse.

Kim Yanggi returned to his original spot.

“My body became hellishly tough too.”

Kim Yanggi shot a stinger towards Signiel Tower.

With a crash-! sound, the stinger pierced through the wall of Signiel Tower and exited from the other side.

“And I got a secret weapon.”

As he said this, Kim Yanggi grinned.

Watching that silently, amidst the glass fragments falling to his left and right, Siguk applauded.

“Impressive. But, doesn’t shooting that stinger kill you?”

“Do I look like just any bee? I’m a king bee now. It’ll grow back in about 15 minutes.”

“15 minutes…….”

“Anyway, Siguk statue, it seems you still haven’t answered my question.”

Siguk smiled and shifted his gaze from Kim Yanggi to the horde of monsters following him.

Among them, a particularly noticeable group, the mantis-human group, entered Siguk’s field of view.

About 150 of them were clustered around a Man-Faced Monster, presumably the boss, with a quite pretty face and about 5 meters in size.

’60m? Or 80m?’

Siguk’s gaze returned to Kim Yanggi.

“Those mantises.”

“Huh?”

“Did you, by any chance, order them to kill the people at Gangnam Station?”

“I did. Some bastard killed the Queen Ant I cherished so much, so I had all the trash that came into contact with that bastard killed. Now that I think of it, I got a report that the bastard was here……”

Kim Yanggi stopped speaking.

Siguk sneered and spoke.

“Having become a bug…… it seems your intelligence has converged to that level too. Chairman Kim Yanggi.”

Kim Yanggi forced a smile.

“Wouldn’t it be more that I’ve gotten a bit old and senile?”

“You are old. If I remember correctly, Chairman Kim was born during the Yushin era.”

“Haven’t heard that in a long time.”

“Speaking of which, I met a very pleasant person on the way here.”

“Who might that be?”

“Lee Jungu. The grandson of Hong Minji, the girl I lived with briefly.”

“Ah. The grandson of that old bug. Hehehe.”

“But it turns out he’s my grandson too.”

“Did you have a hidden child?”

“I didn’t know either. Seems Minji just gave birth.”

“Haha. What a strange connection.”

“But he’s dead. Killed by those mantises.”

Kim Yanggi no longer answered.

The sneer also disappeared from Siguk’s face.

He looked at Kim Yanggi with a hardened expression.

At that coldly sunken gaze, Kim Yanggi tensed for a moment.

“I can let other things slide, but I absolutely cannot tolerate anyone touching my people.”

“……So. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll handle it my way.”

In that instant, Siguk vanished.

“Hey! Find him!”

Kim Yanggi shouted.

And immediately, a response came from one side.

“Kyaaaaaaaa-!”

The Man-Faced Monster, the leader of the mantis-humans, screamed.

The area where its heart should have been was gaping open.

Bang-!

Its scream stopped as its head exploded.

Crunch-!

In an instant, both its arms were torn off.

And then even that vanished from sight.

“Weapon secured.”

Siguk’s voice echoed chillingly in the air.

“Let’s start with Jungu’s revenge.”

And soon, a single invisible enemy began to slaughter what looked like at least 700 monsters.

August 27, 2033.

Nam Hanseok appealed to the public through a national address, calling for the protection of the revolutionary spirit.

The populace soon split into two factions.

Supporters of Nam Hanseok who advocated protecting the revolutionary spirit, and opponents who argued that the revolutionary spirit could not become a shield to cover the incompetence of political leaders.

Thus, the country was divided in two once again.

Especially at Gwanghwamun Square, the mecca of protests, the heat and confrontation were so intense that physical clashes frequently erupted here and there on a small scale.

“What on earth are the police doing? Shouldn’t they at least form human barriers between the protesters to prevent clashes!”

One senator harshly scolded the National Police Agency Commissioner summoned to the National Assembly.

“The Gwanghwamun protest falls under the jurisdiction of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Legally, there are limits to what this agency can do.”

The Commissioner gave a theoretical answer. Of course, he only received even harsher scolding from the senators.

As Nam Hanseok had said, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner stood by and watched the clashes between protesters.

He only formally stationed police forces nearby, and all they did towards the protesters was broadcast hollow warnings.

“There is concern about infringing upon the people’s legitimate rights, namely the constitutional right to freedom of assembly, and realistically, if we suppress the protests, it could cause problems for the police officers’ safety as well, so for the time being, we plan to trust the protesters’ self-regulating efforts, only intervening to prevent major clashes.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner answered media questions thrown at him in that manner, repeatedly confirming his lack of intent for a forceful crackdown on the protesters.

Of course, as he said, no self-regulation occurred regarding the protesters’ violence.

Rather, as time passed, the violence only grew stronger.

“Relics of the old era who tarnished the revolutionary spirit have dominated state affairs for the past three years. Hunter Lee Siguk, while serving as the National Policy Advisory Council Secretary-General, often told me. Even if leaders change through revolution, the corrupt old practices beneath them remain the same, so the world shows no signs of improving.”

In that situation, on September 10, Nam Hanseok once again incited people through another national address, name-dropping Siguk.

“You must complete the great revolution that was left unfinished three years ago.”

The media and parliament directed extremely sharp criticism towards him.

“For the Prime Minister to incite national division, does that make any sense!”

“He must be removed immediately!”

In the Senate, a motion of no confidence in the cabinet was submitted to the plenary session.

Major media outlets daily piled on criticism of Nam Hanseok, denouncing the incompetence of the cabinet he led.

“Counter-revolutionaries are running wild. The ones who must correct this are you, the people.”

As the knife drew gradually closer to his own neck, madness was added to Nam Hanseok’s incitement.

And to that madness, those he pointed to, those filled with nothing but anger and hatred, responded.

A group of masked individuals stormed into a media outlet that had poured out critical commentary about Nam Hanseok and carried out a terror attack.

In front of the house of the senator who led the no-confidence motion, about 300 protesters gathered daily, spewing all sorts of abuse and urging his retirement from politics.

For other senators who had publicly expressed support for the no-confidence motion, while protests didn’t erupt in front of their houses, incidents like severed cat heads being thrown into their houses in the middle of the night were repeated.

And then, on the morning of September 20, 2033, three days before the plenary session vote on the no-confidence motion, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and senator, Han Changmyeong, who was jogging by the Han River, was slashed to death by unidentified assailants.

<Today we have delivered severe judgment upon a dog who treated the people as dogs.>

A message from the terrorists, typed out and printed, was found on the dead Han Changmyeong’s body, soaked in his blood.

And that plunged the world into even greater chaos.