The Tough Guy Hides the Villainess

Every man has at least one experience he can never forget.

For example, like a late-night movie you accidentally watched as a child.

The movie I saw was titled “Complete Education”.

It was about a man who kidnapped a beautiful woman, and somehow they ended up falling in love.

“I can’t forget it because it was the first adult movie I watched. But there’s one thing I just couldn’t understand.”

Why did the kidnapper and the victim fall in love?

“Later, I found out it’s something called Scorpion CD-ROM. It’s a psychological phenomenon where the hostage sympathizes with the kidnapper and starts defending and siding with them. Pretty smart of me, huh?”

“It’s Stockholm Syndrome, you idiot! And aren’t you going to untie me? Do you even know who I am? Hurry up and untie this, right nowoooooo!”

Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle.

The sight of a woman tied up tightly in chains, struggling in a dark basement, was quite amusing.

“You bastard kidnapper! Do you know what will happen if my dad catches you? He’ll lock you up in a secluded mountain cabin where no one will ever find you and cut off your toes and fingers, one centimeter at a time!”

Anyway, I guess that was just a movie.

There’s no such thing as love between a hostage and a kidnapper in this world.

If anyone tried to argue otherwise, I’d punch them in the head.

“So, Ga-eul, I’m going to leave the food here, so eat it on your own. And if you need to go to the bathroom, I left a cola bottle over there. If it’s something bigger─.”

“Yaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!”

“Okay, okay. Do what you need to do. I’m leaving now, because someone will freak out if I’m late.”

Thud—!

After closing the heavy iron door, I finally let out a sigh of relief.

Yeah.

I’m the kidnapper who kidnapped Seo Ga-eul, the only daughter of the chairman of Seonam Group, the world’s richest conglomerate.

But how did things end up like this?

# # #

The world practically ended the year I turned twenty.

It sounds like the start of some novel, but it actually happened.

There were no signs or warnings.

One day, the sky opened up, and monsters burst out, completely wrecking the world.

Of course, humans are stubborn survivors.

Just like how some people continue to scrape by in the slums despite extreme poverty, people didn’t lose hope even in the apocalypse and fought back against the monsters.

With superpowers and magic.

People called those with such abilities “heroes”, and the ones who performed the best were revered as “Supernova”.

Supernova, shining brightly even in a world where the sun had sunk into darkness.

Then, what about me?

I was digging through the trash.

“Oh! A fan!”

I found a slightly broken fan among the junk.

The exterior looked mostly fine, so if I could get it to run, it might still work.

And right next to it was a packet of ramen.

“It’s only been expired for a year?”

Finding both a fan and ramen at the same time, today was a lucky day.

If word spread that I had a fan at home, maybe some pretty girls would confess their love to me.

That’s the kind of world we live in.

“Ying-ying! Big brother’s home!”

Dragging my aching leg, I returned home, feeling a bit relieved.

Though home was just a makeshift shelter made of iron frames, wooden planks, and metal sheets near the dump, having a place of my own in this ruined world was something truly remarkable.

“How long has it been since I’ve had ramen?”

With a bubbling broth, if I add a drop of the magical ingredient, ketchup, voilà!

Ketchup ramen complete.

“Now this is real ramen.”

Slurp, slurp.

After finishing the ramen in no time, a satisfied smile appeared on my face.

But soon, my stomach growled loudly, and I felt a little down.

‘When was the last time I ate to my heart’s content? I can’t even remember. Should I eat my emergency food?’

Slyly—.

I glanced at the hamster cage in the corner of the house where my “emergency food” was wriggling while nibbling on a few strands of ramen I had given it.

It was a round, blue creature the size of a baseball.

━Gyyiiiing.

“Eh, forget it. Even if I ate that, it wouldn’t fill me up.”

I might as well sleep.

Flopping onto the floor, which was covered with a tattered but somewhat soft carpet, I looked up through the hole in the ceiling, where starlight trickled in.

It would have been quite romantic, like something out of an Alphonse Daudet novel, if it weren’t for the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears.

Still, today I had a fan.

A machine that makes a cool breeze in the sweltering summer?

Now that’s real superpower and magic.

“I’m actually pretty fortunate. I’m full, I have a house, and I even have a fan, so I’m probably in the top 30 percent of society. In this world, I must be the ultimate catch, right?”

Clank, clank, hisssss—.

“The fan just broke, so I guess I’m in the top 47 percent? Still, being in the upper half isn’t too bad.”

━Gyyiiiing.

Whoooosh—.

Just then, without warning, it started raining, and water began to drip from the ceiling.

“No wonder my injured knee kept aching.”

Whenever it seemed like rain was coming, my left leg, which I injured in an accident when I was nineteen, would throb, keeping me awake, just like tonight.

I wondered how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t hurt my leg that day.

Would I have been called a Supernova?

If I had awakened, I’d be living it up, popular with the ladies.

Growl—.

I was hungry, but I couldn’t sleep.

Above all, I felt a deep sense of loneliness.

It had been so long since I’d had a real conversation with someone.

“I don’t care who it is, I just wish someone were here with me. Preferably a pretty girl. While I’m at it, I’d like her to have a nice personality and a large chest. Oh, and be rich and a good cook too─.”

Knock, knock, knock—.

Just as I was making my wish, someone knocked on the door from outside.

─I heard Han Nam-jin lives in this old incinerator.

Han Nam-jin?

That’s my name.

I was about to open the door, but suddenly, suspicion arose.

The voice outside was a thin, feminine one.

No woman would have any reason to come looking for me.

“Who’s there?”

─I have something urgent to discuss. Could you open the door?

It was a clear, pleasant voice that would make nine out of ten sleepy people perk up.

After thinking it over, I eventually gave in to my male instincts.

With a voice this pretty, I wondered how much prettier her face would be.

# # #

Clunk—.

When I opened the crude iron door, a woman stood there, getting soaked by the rain, looking straight at me.

Gasp—

I felt like my breath caught for a moment.

She was the most beautiful woman I had seen since the world ended.

Her black hair and red, cat-like eyes were striking.

There was a long scar under her left eye, but who cares about that?

“I’m Han Nam-jin. Why are you here?”

Had she heard about the fan I picked up and come to apply to be my girlfriend?

Damn!

That fan’s already broken!

While I was flustered, the woman walked straight into my house without taking off her shoes and looked around.

“I know the world has become harsher compared to before, but your situation seems especially dire. How can you live in a place like this dump? The magic energy density is practically dungeon level─.”

The woman, about to say something, closed her mouth.

She pulled out a long katana from her waist.

Srrrrng—!

“A monster…!?”

The reason she drew her sword wasn’t because she was some crazy psychopath, but because she had spotted the slime monster I had trapped in a hamster cage in the corner of my house.

━Ying-ying-ying—.

Ying-ying, my blue slime the size of a hamster.

One of the few creatures I could talk to and my emergency food.

“Han Nam-jin! Move! There’s a monster in your house!”

“Wait a minute! Ying-ying may be a monster, but it’s a good monster!”

“I’m warning you. There’s no such thing as a good monster. If a monster shows kindness to humans, it’s only trying to deceive them for greater harm. Now move! I’m going to kill it!”

“What? Kill it? Hey, you crazy bitch! Are your ears clogged with cement? Ying-ying is a good monster!”

“…What!? What did you say about cement…!?”

The woman’s eyebrows furrowed deeply.

A scowling beauty was still beautiful in its own way.

In my case, I might even prefer that to a smiling face.

But that’s not what mattered right now!

“I was going to treat you with respect because you’re pretty, but how old are you? You look younger than me! And you didn’t even take off your shoes in someone else’s house!”

“…….”

As Ying-ying trembled inside the cage and the woman glared at it, a tense atmosphere filled my cramped home.

Finally, the woman’s lips parted slightly.

“You said it’s a good monster. Can you prove it?”

“Prove it?”

I took Ying-ying out of the small hamster cage and placed it on my palm.

“Look! It’s well-behaved, right?”

“…….”

“It even dances when I sing. Want to see? If you tie me up and lock me away, we’ll sail down the river for 200 miles, Butterfree! Farfetch’d! Home of the birds~. No matter how much they insist it’s their land, a horde of crocodiles will emerge, a horde of crocodiles!”

━Ying-ying-ya-ying.

Doom-chit, doom-chit—.

Ying-ying started dancing in rhythm with my singing, wriggling its slimy body, and I couldn’t help but smile as I got into the song, delighted to have someone listening to me.

“How’s that?”

“…That’s weird.”

“Monsters are supposed to be weird. Don’t you know that?”

“I don’t mean the monster! I’m talking about your song!”

After glaring suspiciously at me and Ying-ying for a while, the woman finally sheathed her sword at her waist and flicked her wet hair back.

The smell of her shampoo was quite pleasant.

“I heard rumors about a man who tamed a monster, so I came to check it out. It seems I came to the right place. How did you tame it? Monsters usually harbor only malice towards humans. Do you have a special method?”

Did I tame Ying-ying?

I just found it while scavenging through the trash.

If I had to guess about a method, there was only one thing that came to mind.

“Maybe because I’m really good at singing?”

“That’s definitely not it!”

“Then, it must be because I’m great at cooking ketchup ramen.”

“Ketchup what? Anyway, Han Nam-jin, I came because I’ve heard the rumors. People say you’ll do anything if paid. I have a request for you.”

As she looked me up and down, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

She was a customer, after all.

“So, you didn’t come here for the fan?”

“What fan?”

“Forget it! Anyway, I don’t do just anything for money. I have my pride, you know? Ever heard the saying, ‘Without pride, a man is as good as dead?’”

“For the record, I can give you as much as you want.”

“Well, pride doesn’t exactly put food on the table. I’ve always been a practical person.”

“…I’m glad we understand each other. Just so you know, I’m not some suspicious person. My name is Seo Ga-eul. I used to be pretty famous. Have you heard of me?”

“Seo Ga-eul?”

To be honest, I was so stunned by how beautiful she was that I felt light-headed.

The women around me usually just gave me cold, distant looks when I tried to talk to them.

As my muddled memories tried to process the name, a connection suddenly clicked.

“Could you be the Supernova? The one with multiple abilities?”

“That’s right. Supernova. That’s what they used to call me. They also called me the Worst Bitch.”

What the hell?

First, she shows up out of nowhere and draws a sword, and now she’s calling herself the worst bitch?

Was she actually a psychopath?

She was beautiful, though.

While I was thinking that, Seo Ga-eul asked me a question.

“Have you ever regretted something in your life? What would you do if you could go back in time?”