Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

‘Why am I so good at this?’

Eddie thought as he looked at the notebook in front of him. The craftsmanship was impressive enough to amaze even himself.

At first, when he heard he had to make his own textbook for the lesson, he thought it was nonsense, but as he made it, he got hooked. He got more excited as the result turned out better than expected.

Though he introduced himself as a man who’s good at everything, he was worried since it was something he had never done before today, but the worry ended up unfounded.

Eddie’s textbook was that amazing.

The alphabet drawn on the first page that appeared as soon as he opened the notebook was the part Eddie particularly liked.

He drew pictures matching words starting with that alphabet next to the large written alphabets, and despite using only a black pen, it looked quite stylish thanks to the uniquely round handwriting and drawing style.

The following pages were just as amazing as the previous page.

Unlike others who actively used colored pencils, colored paper, and stickers, Eddie filled the empty spaces using only a black pen, which rather gave it an antique charm.

It was like looking at a fairy tale book that might appear in a classic movie.

‘I drew it, but this is quite, hmm, pretty cool.’

As the number of completed pages increased, Eddie’s pride gradually grew.

It was when he was looking over the textbook he made again after finishing the first chapter.

A shadow fell over Eddie’s head.

Eddie was startled and fell backwards when he looked up to check the owner of the shadow.

[Wh-what is it!]

Kim Jae-ho with a fierce expression was glaring at the textbook Eddie had drawn.

Surely he’s not trying to tear up my book out of jealousy for the amazing skills he can’t match?

Maybe because he had been badly beaten by Kim Jae-ho before. Only such negative thoughts came to mind.

Kim Jae-ho reached his hand towards the textbook Eddie made.

[J-just look with your eyes!]

Eddie’s desperate words, of course, didn’t reach Kim Jae-ho. When Eddie was about to hurriedly take out his phone from his pocket to turn on the translator as he watched the textbook go into Kim Jae-ho’s hands:

“This is cool!”

Kim Jae-ho said to Eddie with sparkling eyes. Eddie’s head tilted at the words full of goodwill that anyone could hear.

[Is that… praise just now?]

“Yeah, it’s incredibly cool!”

No translator was needed. Kim Jae-ho’s eyes shining like stars were clearly shouting ‘You’re amazing!’ for anyone to see. Eddie rubbed the tip of his nose with his finger in satisfaction.

[I’m kind of good at everything. Haha! I guess it looks cool even to an ignorant guy like you? Huh? It’s amazing, right?]

While those two were creating a warm atmosphere, there was a cold gaze watching them from not too far away.

Han Seo-hyeon who crumpled the colored paper in his hand bit his lip hard.

“This is well drawn too! And this!”

The more Kim Jae-ho’s praise continued, the redder and bluer Han Seo-hyeon’s face became.

Well, Kim Jae-ho’s impression of the textbook Han Seo-hyeon made earlier was ‘This is badly drawn!’

When Han Seo-hyeon’s face crumpled at those words, he blurted out as if to smooth things over, ‘No, it’s, it’s well drawn! The puppy is well drawn!’, but what Han Seo-hyeon drew wasn’t a puppy but a lion, so Kim Jae-ho’s words only rubbed salt in the wound.

Kim Jae-ho who only left wounds on Han Seo-hyeon like that is now only giving praise to that guy’s textbook?

‘How great could that guy’s textbook be!’

Han Seo-hyeon moved his steps towards the living room where Kim Jae-ho and Eddie were, pretending to go get water. Han Seo-hyeon who peeked at Eddie’s textbook while hiding behind Kim Jae-ho had to feel a deep sense of defeat.

Even at a glance, it was much better than the textbook he made!

Han Seo-hyeon who entered the room with water got angry looking at his own textbook that had become a mess with stickers and colored paper plastered all over.

“Damn it!”

He had to make something cooler than that guy somehow! He didn’t want to lose to that guy of all people.

“I think I spent twice as much on materials. How come!”

While Han Seo-hyeon was agonizing with a deep sense of defeat in his room like that, Cha Song-jin was tearing at his hair in his room for a different reason.

Whether Eddie’s textbook was amazing or not, whether Han Seo-hyeon felt defeated by it or not. Cha Song-jin didn’t care at all.

Why? Because a much bigger anguish was placed before Cha Song-jin.

“What on earth am I supposed to write!”

The subject itself that Kang Yi-sin assigned was the problem.

Morality!

If you search for morality on the internet, the definition that comes up is ‘The principles humans should follow or desirable standards of behavior’.

‘Does it make sense to live following desirable standards of behavior in a villain group in the first place!’

It’s a fact you keep forgetting while being here, but Weltschmerz is a villain organization. It means it’s a gathering of people who can commit crimes as much as needed.

Cha Song-jin clearly remembered the crimes committed under Weltschmerz’s name.

It’s unbelievable seeing Kang Yi-sin being nagged by Han Seo-hyeon for carelessly eating popcorn on the bed, but Kang Yi-sin was a terrible criminal.

‘He’s a murderer who’s killed at least dozens of people so far…’

Though there were times he was falsely accused as Kang Yi-sin said, there were many crimes Weltschmerz actually committed.

For example, the assassination of Assemblyman Kim.

Though all the photos spread in the media were mosaiced, everyone knew how horrific the corpse was when discovered.

They say he was tortured for hours and hours. The blood smell wouldn’t leave the office that was the murder scene even after days. The psychometry ability user who examined the scene even fainted at the site…

Anyway, Kang Yi-sin was that kind of person, and he was a man who didn’t particularly make excuses for what he had done.

-It was necessary.

That was all he said.

Han Seo-hyeon and Kim Jae-ho under Kang Yi-sin weren’t very ethical people either. Han Seo-hyeon was a necromancer who used dead people like tools, and Kim Jae-ho was no different from a murder weapon who would do anything if Kang Yi-sin ordered.

‘I don’t understand why he wants to teach morality to kids like this.’ That was Cha Song-jin’s honest feeling.

Isn’t it better to just leave them alone to use as he wants?

If Kang Yi-sin was really a bad guy, there’d be no reason to do this.

That was the problem. That Kang Yi-sin was ambiguously a good guy.

-You’re a good person. There’s no one more suitable than you to talk about what’s right and wrong, what shouldn’t be done. Even if it’s just very basic things, you can just say what you think is right.

-But that, you guys are villains…

-Yeah, we’ve killed some people. I know it’s bad. Still, you need to know it’s bad while doing it.

He shouldn’t have fallen for those words!

He nodded without realizing at that eloquence then, but now that he actually had to teach, he was at a loss.

‘What on earth am I supposed to write!’

Hitting people is bad, ah! But it’s okay if they’re bad guys.

Stealing other people’s things is bad, but it’s okay if it’s from bad guys!

He couldn’t write like this.

‘Should I be glad he at least intends to call bad things bad.’

Kang Yi-sin was, if anything, a conviction criminal.

Rather than a criminal who commits crimes for pleasure or financial gain, he’s more the type who commits crimes due to some belief of his own.

But conviction criminals are bad too. Yes, they’re bad.

‘But I can’t tell people who like that guy that their boss is a terribly bad person… No, is that what he wants? W-wouldn’t I get k-killed if I did that?’

Cha Song-jin tore at his hair in the small room.

But soon that worry ended too.

“I don’t know.”

For now, let’s just write something whether it turns out good or bad.

What Weltschmerz has done are crimes.

They are bad deeds.

They are deeds the world cannot accept.

Kang Yi-sin told him to teach that bad things are bad, and Cha Song-jin was going to try doing that for now.

‘I should have had the textbook checked beforehand…’

Whatever happens after having the textbook checked will happen under Kang Yi-sin’s permission, so it should be fine, right?

Yeah, let’s make that guy take responsibility.

‘Hmm, hmm. That’s the virtue of a boss. If I say everything is done on your boss’s orders, they won’t have anything to say to me. …R-right?’

It should be fine since they’re kids who at least somewhat listen to Kang Yi-sin’s words.

Just as he was absorbed in making the textbook like that. The outside became noisy.

It’s not even time to eat yet? Feeling strange, Cha Song-jin got up and opened the door.

“I’m telling you we need to go right now.”

“The boss told us to stay here.”

Han Seo-hyeon and Kim Jae-ho were confronting each other, and the atmosphere looked serious at a glance.

“What’s going on?”

At Cha Song-jin’s words, Han Seo-hyeon frowned.

“The boss’s condition has worsened.”

“What do you mean his condition has worsened?”

“It seems he’s lost consciousness. His life energy decreased greatly for a moment…”

Han Seo-hyeon who said that added with a terrifying expression:

“And he’s continuing to move in that state. Moving while unconscious, isn’t someone kidnapping our boss?”

“W-wait, how do you know that? Ah, did you put a tracker on him?”

Even if you’re worried about the boss, is it okay to track him in real-time like that? At Cha Song-jin’s concern for Kang Yi-sin’s privacy, Han Seo-hyeon got irritated first.

“Is that important right now? Our boss might be getting kidnapped while unconscious!”

Han Seo-hyeon who got angry like that pulled out a staff from midair. The sight of space distorting and the staff coming out was amazing no matter how many times you saw it.

Ah, this isn’t the time to be impressed.

Cha Song-jin quickly opened his mouth.

“But, the boss told us to stay here.”

Before going to take care of business, Kang Yi-sin ordered them to stay inside.

That’s probably why Kim Jae-ho, who follows Kang Yi-sin’s orders well, was blocking Han Seo-hyeon.

“What if something really happened?”

Han Seo-hyeon’s face was full of worry.

“But he’s the boss, how could something happen…”

Cha Song-jin who said that without thinking suddenly recalled Kang Yi-sin’s face unconscious and covered in blood. Come to think of it, though we call him boss, he’s just a 22-year-old kid.

Moreover, where Kang Yi-sin went was a casino! What if he met another criminal organization in there and got attacked?

“We sh-should go look for him?”

At Cha Song-jin’s words that changed in an instant like flipping a palm, Kim Jae-ho frowned and said:

“But the boss told us to stay here.”

Kim Jae-ho was still bound by Kang Yi-sin’s order. Han Seo-hyeon looked at Kim Jae-ho like that and calmly continued:

“Do you trust the boss?”

“Yeah, I trust him.”

Kim Jae-ho tilted his head at Han Seo-hyeon’s question. It was a face wondering why such an obvious question came out.

“Right, I trust the boss too. If nothing’s wrong, the boss will always keep his promises to us. But what if something happened to the boss and he can’t come here? You almost lost the boss not long ago too.”

At those words, Kim Jae-ho’s face became serious.

“The boss might need our help right now.”

“But he told us to stay here…”

“And if we save the boss, how happy would he be? He’d praise us a lot, right? There were scenes like that in the manga you read too, where everyone was so happy when the protagonist saved the hostage captured by the villain.”

“Oh.”

At those words, Kim Jae-ho’s expression changed.

“What if the boss isn’t in danger?”

“Then we can just sneak back. If we sneak back, the boss won’t know anything. We can say we were here the whole time and won’t get scolded.”

Should I not stop them from blatantly lying like this? Maybe because he was nominally an morality teacher, Cha Song-jin had no choice but to agree that there was no more perfect plan than this.

It was absolutely not because he was afraid he would become Cha Song-jin who ‘was’ if he didn’t agree.

[So what are you all talking about?]

Eddie was looking at him with an innocent face not knowing anything.

“We should take that too, right?”

At Han Seo-hyeon’s words, Cha Song-jin sighed.

His head hurt at the thought of summarizing this long story.

Cha Song-jin decided to summarize this whole situation in one sentence.

[The boss has been captured.]