I’m the Villain’s Constellation but I’m Broke

My mind felt blank. I had lost too much blood. Baek Tae-beom hurriedly supported me and pressed his hand against my wound to stop the bleeding. As I screamed involuntarily due to the pain worsening, I heard a soothing voice.

“It’s alright, it’s fine. Hyung. It’s gonna be fine… Where are the healers?”

“They say they’re on their way.”

“Hurry up!”

“Hyung, drink this. Okay? Just a little.”

The murmuring voices. Something flowing through my gaping lips. My blurry vision. A bitter liquid mixed with the blood pooled in my mouth. “Swallow it, Hyung, that’s it. Yes, Good job.” A quiet compliment whispers to my ear. Each time I opened my hazy eyes, I was met with the sight of my destroyed room. Ruined walls, floor littered with overturned furniture, a void created by long spurts of blood, and a sense of guilt.

People say words come to life. From the beginning, moving into dorm 666, an ominous number, must have been a mistake. Maybe this situation wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t. No, in the first place, my existence was a mistake. I tried to take hold of my mind in fear of losing it in the midst of the scorching pain that filled me.

‘Where did it all go wrong….’

When I first brought Kang Si-hoo to my dorm, everything was fine. We needed a place to talk, and my dorm was the only space where Baek Tae-beom and Kang Si-hoo could tolerate each other.

Baek Tae-beom suggested that we talk in his room, but I disagreed, so he couldn’t get his way.

Kang Si-hoo began to speak slyly.

“You live in a nice place?”

“Would you like to join Hansung, Kang Si-hoo-ssi?”

“Oh, no. Unfortunately, I am already part of another guild.”

The clumsy, nervous guy I first met was nowhere to be found, and Kang Si-hoo was now sitting lazily with his mask on. Baek Tae-beom spoke impatiently.

“What’s your true identity? What are you planning to do?”

“I told you. I’m interested in Hunter Choi Ga-hyun.”

“Do you think Hyung will be interested in you just because you’re saying that?”

“I guess perhaps? Don’t you say so?”

Kang Si-hoo spoke brazenly and looked at me. The two black dots on the white mask made me feel like I was making direct eye contact with him.

“First of all, I am interested in Hunter Kang Si-hoo….”

“Hyung!”

“Tae-beom-ah, I need you to be quiet.”

“How could you say that? You promised you’d be with me for the rest of your life!”

Did I? I almost agreed without realizing because Baek Tae-beom emphasized that he would be with me so much.

“I didn’t. And why are you saying that here? It’s not that kind of interest.”

“If it’s not that kind of interest, then what is it?”

“I’m interested in his constellation.”

Once I said those words, we seemed to have finally gotten down to business. Kang Si-hoo uncrossed his arms.

“I guess you aren’t interested in me. This is a bit sad~.”

“Then, shall I be interested in Hunter Kang Si-hoo? Should we discuss the fact that you committed the act of stalking in the name of your ‘interest’ in me, whilst under a different identity and a fake name?”

“…….”

Kang Si-hoo became silent for a moment.

“When have I ever stalked….”

“What should I call it then? What can you say about the insidious act of hiding your face underneath a mask?”

“Aren’t you talking a bit too harshly? Isn’t this too much?”

“I hope you’ll appreciate the fact that I haven’t made this a bigger problem than it is now, because I can contact the association right now and accuse Kang Si-hoo-ssi of what he’s done whilst under a fake identity.”

Kang Si-hoo looked back at me with his arms unfolded and his hands on his knees. Now, that’s a very good attitude for listening.

“What are you trying to do?”

“That’s what I want to ask you. What were you trying to do by coming here? I don’t think you came out here out of curiosity.”

I discreetly glanced at Baek Tae-beom. He had a somber look on his face, as if he would jump at Kang Si-hoo and bite him at any second.

“If you don’t want to talk, there is a method called force. There is an S-class hunter right here after all.”

“Are you threatening me now?”

“We have to be threatening, of course. A suspicious unknown individual fabricated his identity and even infiltrated a mission because he was interested in me.”

Well, he wasn’t an unknown individual. He was the protagonist of this world as far as my knowledge goes. Kang Si-hoo obediently raised both hands as if he had already lost.

“Okay, but, can you not make me to be such a heinous person?”

“If you take that mask off, I can try.”

“Anyway… Where should I start?”

Kang Si-hoo calmly turned around and spoke slowly, leaning back on the sofa.

“I am looking for someone.”

From there on out, I couldn’t help but feel perplexed. That was because not a single line in <The Fall of Another World> mentioned any sort of thing like that.

Kang Si-hoo’s parents were both dead and he had no relatives, so the only person he could be looking for was Baek Tae-beom. Tears almost came to my eyes when I thought of Kang Si-hoo attempting to reform Baek Tae-beom somehow.

(TL/N: reform as in “changing” Baek Tae-beom from a criminal to some good guy or whatever, and this means something like Kang Si-hoo trying to find Baek Tae-beom in order to try to reform him.)

I couldn’t believe a man like that was looking for someone. I couldn’t help but think we started on the wrong foot.

“What kind of person is this?”

“…My parents passed away a year and nine months ago, on the day when the First monster incident occurred.”

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy. I shut my mouth. I felt a strange sensation coming up my spine—I couldn’t breathe. Kang Si-hoo looked down at his feet and spoke in a slow voice.

“I remember it being strangely sunny that day. My father was driving the car, and suddenly, he got caught in a dungeon crack and our whole family got trapped inside a dungeon.”

“…….”

“There were a lot of people in the dungeon too. We tried to get out, but we couldn’t do anything because the entrance was blocked by monsters. People were killed, and the dungeon suddenly became a field of corpses.”

I thought I knew what this strange feeling was.

[The constellation ‘One Who Seeks to Avoid The Fall’ is synchronized with the body.]

“Me and my parents tried to survive, but… it was impossible. My parents were killed right in front of me, just like that. And you know what? As soon as my parents died, I awakened. My awakening was given to me as if it were compensation for my parents’ lives.”

He was obviously trying to push this down our throats.

Guilt-tripping.

“And there, I signed a contract with a constellation.”

I looked back up. It felt like our eyes met through the mask.

“That constellation told me. He wanted revenge too. He wanted revenge, just like me.”

“Revenge?”

At Baek Tae-beom’s automatic words, Kang Si-hoo laughed out loud.

(TL/N: Automatic as in reflexive)

“That’s what my constellation said. Apparently, the first monster incident was artificially caused by someone.”

“……!”

My heart thumped and sank.

“That constellation will help me with my revenge, and in return, I will help him with his revenge. And I will do as I was asked.”

I could feel my heart beating at a rapid rate. I slowly lowered my gaze to my feet. Heat rushed to my head, and I couldn’t concentrate. My ears turned deaf. My fingers grew cold.

“And with the help of that constellation, Choi Ga-hyun.”

Kang Si-hoo said, while looking straight at me.

“I found out that you were involved in it.”

“It can’t be, my Hyung d…!”

“Then, are you saying that my constellation is lying?”

Baek Tae-beom kept quiet as if he couldn’t speak. It can’t be, my Hyung died then… It looked like he wanted to spit out the words. It was not something he could just tell others. When Baek Tae-beom couldn’t say anything, Kang Si-hoo smiled and spoke to me.

“So, Choi Ga-hyun, I’m interested in you. What do you think?”

“…….”

“You know why it happened, don’t you?”

Of course. Half of it happened because of me. Due to Oh Kwon-hyuk’s skills, my death, which happened during the ‘original’ monster incident, was preceded by the death of Kang Si-hoo’s parents a bit sooner than the original novel’s timing.

(TL/N: basically Oh Kwon-hyuk’s skill accelerated Ga-hyun’s death which was supposed to happen during the ‘original’ first monster incident. As a result, the ‘original’ first monster incident was also accelerated in order for Ga-hyun’s death to happen, leading to the deaths of Kang Si-hoo’s parents)

It wasn’t supposed to happen from the beginning. It fell completely out of place. In the first place, Kang Si-hoo came to <The Tomb of the Awakened> not because his parents were involved, but because he came to meet me.

It was complicated. My mind felt complicated.

“Choi Ga-hyun.”

I lowered my head increasingly as Kang Si-hoo urged me to speak.

What would happen if I told him the truth? Would he try to kill me or will he try to kill Oh Kwon-hyuk? Kang Si-hoo was no longer the ‘original’ Kang Si-hoo I knew.

Thinking rationally about it made me calm down. I should no longer treat them as if I were dealing with the original characters in the novel. Kang Si-hoo, who had a sense of justice and tried to change the world, and Baek Tae-beom, who tried to destroy the world and get rid of it all, are not here.

“I–”

I looked up.

“I will talk to your constellation.”

“What?”

“I think we need to have a conversation.”

After staying silent for a while, Kang Si-hoo asked seriously.

“Are you crazy?”

“No.”

“But talking to my constellation? Since when did it become a convenient world where you can talk to other people’s constellations? Do you have some kind of private chat on your phone?”

Well, I do something similar.

I suddenly rose from my seat. Kang Si-hoo flinched and retreated at the momentum, while Baek Tae-beom looked at me worryingly.

“Well, I’ll be going.”

“Going? Where?”

“To see your constellation.”