Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious

Chapter 122: Chapter 43

The training hall was silent, save for the rhythmic creaking of the cedar beams under the mountain wind.

Seijirou sat in a perfect seiza posture, the fabric of his white Gi settled sharply against his frame.

Across from him, Shirohara Ichibei sat with his eyes narrowed, his gaze traveling over the boy—no, the man—before him.

If before, Seijirou look so uncertain and chaotic, now the air around Seijirou felt calm, almost still, like the eye of a hurricane.

“You have the look of someone who has finally stopped running from himself,” Ichibei rumbled, his voice filled with a rare, grudging respect. “The uncertainty that clouded your Ki before… the hesitation of a soul that didn’t know where it belonged… it’s gone. You’ve returned from the Void with eyes that see the end of the road.”

Seijirou offered a small, tranquil smile. “Is that so? I suppose I just finally realized that I’m the only one who gets to decide where my path leads.”

Ichibei stood up, his movements fluid and deceptively slow as the Ki of a Grandmaster began to coil around his limbs like ancient, mountain frost. “Talk is cheap, boy. A soul can claim many things in the dark. Stand up, let me see the convictions hidden from your ki.”

“Very well. I also wanted to see just how far apart I am from the pinnacle of this world.” Seijirou rose, taking a deep breath.

He didn’t rush his movements, instead he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Then, he closed his eyes, plunging his consciousness deep into the newly forged core of his being.

There, in the center of his spirit, sat his Origin…

[The Seeker]

This is a truth forged from the intersection of two lives.

This wasn’t the curiosity of a scholar or the greed of a collector.

It was a primal, unyielding hunger for a conclusion that justifies his journey; a future that proves his suffering wasn’t meaningless.

It was a need rooted in the longing for a world where the girls didn’t cry, where his friends weren’t broken, and where a villain wasn’t forced to play a tragic part.

[I must pursue a happy ending, no matter how far or how long I must go]

That is the core truth of his origin. His relentless desire to find ways to change the fate of those who experienced tragedy.

This Origin awakened because he realized he can’t accept tragedy as the natural order.

He needs proof that happiness exists somewhere—and if the world won’t give it, he will carve it out.

Seijirou snapped his eyes open.

Instantly, the atmosphere in the training hall fractured.

A brilliant, dense aura of silver laced with threads of pure, molten gold erupted from his body.

It didn’t flicker like it had before, now it burned with the intensity of a star.

This was no longer an unrefined and ’hollow’ Ki, but a Ki refined by a conceptual truth—a power that sought to find the path that will bridge the gap between “what it is” and “what I want it to be”.

“So that is your truth,” Ichibei said, his eyes widening as he felt the sheer pressure of Seijirou’s aura.

“Yeah,” Seijirou smiled.

The old man took a combat stance, his Ki flaring to match the boy’s. “The Seeker… Is it?”

Seijirou raised an eyebrow, “How’d you know?”

“My Origin is ’The Veil Breaker’, which allows me to discern ’truths’ and catch a glimpse of ’hidden knowledge’.”

“I’m going to assume because of that origin you learned Acupuncture since it makes it easier to see through a body’s pressure points and weaknesses, right?”

“Indeed.” Ichibei nodded, “And for you…The Seeker, huh. That is a dangerous path, Kageyama. You’re essentially telling the world its laws aren’t good enough for you.”

“They aren’t,” Seijirou replied. “Anyway, enough talk, let us start.”

He didn’t wait for the old man to strike.

He shifted his weight, and the floorboards beneath him groaned. In an instant, the golden-silver aura condensed around his legs and arms, glowing so bright it blurred his form.

Ichibei narrowed his eyes, before throwing a palm strike that carried the weight of the entire mountain.

But as his hand approached, Seijirou didn’t retreat. He leaned into the strike, his silver-gold Ki spiraling around his arm like a drill.

“The road to the ending I’m searching,” Seijirou whispered, “starts through you, old man!”

The two Ki signatures collided in the center of the hall, creating a shockwave that blew out the paper screens and sent a ripple of power through the entire estate.

The collision of their Ki sent a physical shockwave through the hall, the wooden floorboards splintering under their feet.

Ichibei’s palm strike met Seijirou’s forearm, but the impact did not scatter Seijirou’s energy.

Instead, his silver-gold aura acted with, utilising one of the attributes given to his Ki through the awakening of his Origin; Trajectory Fixation.

This attribute made it so his Ki always moves like arrows, lines, and paths, always traveling toward something.

With that, Seijirou’s Ki, instead of scattering, actually locked onto the line of Ichibei’s arm, channeling Seijirou’s force directly into the old man’s center of gravity like a guided arrow.

Ichibei’s eyes widened as he felt his own momentum turned against him.

He pulled back, his feet skidding across the wood, and immediately unleashed a rapid succession of acupuncture strikes aimed at Seijirou’s pressure points.

Each strike was a blur of lethal precision, where one solid hit would literally knock down an elephant.

But Seijirou moved to meet them, and every time his aura made contact with Ichibei’s hands, another attribute of his Ki was activated, Memory Imprint.

It basically allows his Ki to “remember” what it touched; each contact makes him better at reading intention, patterns, and emotional residue.

This is an attribute obtained so that he will learn from his mistakes and reached his desired destination.

The silver-gold Ki tasted the vibration of Ichibei’s muscles and recorded the flow of his Spirit Circuits.

Seijirou’s mind processed the data instantly, and by the fifth exchange, Seijirou stopped looking at Ichibei’s hands and started moving based on the “shadow” of intent the old man left behind.

Seijirou stepped into Ichibei’s guard, his Ki forming a sharp, golden line from his elbow to his fist.

He thrust his hand forward, his energy fixing onto a path that bypassed Ichibei’s defensive posture.

Ichibei grunted, forced to exert a massive burst of his own Ki to deflect the blow.

The sheer density of Seijirou’s aura forced the Grandmaster to take three steps back.

The old man’s sleeves were shredded, and a faint red mark appeared on his chest where Seijirou’s Ki had grazed him.

“… Impressive, your Ki can actually help you learn my moves and seek the most efficient way to counter,” Ichibei observed, his breathing heavy. “It seems like I underestimated you, young man.”

“Heh, a Seeker doesn’t just look for the end,” Seijirou said, his voice level. “He maps the terrain as he goes, so that he may never go back to the wrong place he’s been before. And now, I’ve already memorized the rhythm of your heart, your breathing, your gait, even every twitch of your muscles.”

“Is that so? Then come, let me see.”

Seijirou lunged again.

This time, his Ki didn’t just coat his body; it projected forward in thin, crystalline lines, his ki’s Trajectory Paths already predicting Ichibei’s next three possible movements.

Seijirou followed the most efficient path, his speed doubling as his body aligned with the fixed trajectory of his aura.

He delivered a palm strike to Ichibei’s stomach.

The silver-gold Ki punched through the Grandmaster’s defensive layer, the Memory Imprint instantly searching for the most vulnerable node in Ichibei’s circuit.

Seijirou expected the old man to be sent flying, but he frowned when Ichibei remained completely still.

Without hesitation, he jumped back, his brows furrowed as he observed the old man, who look as if he didn’t just received a full power strike from Seijirou.

“…Hey, are you serious? That’s my full power you know, can’t you at least take three steps back?”

Ichibei ignored him and touched the area where Seijirou had just punched, where traces of his Ki still remained.

He then raised his head to stare at Seijirou in satisfaction,”Ten percent.”

“…what?” Seijirou blinked.

Ichibei laughed, flicking away the traces of Seijirou’s Ki. “Ten percent. At my current state, that is how strong you currently are. Ten percent of my power. Don’t be discouraged though, ten percent of my power is enough for you to wreck havoc in the supernatural world, as long as you don’t provoke those old monsters.”

Seijirou stared at him for a moment before he retracted his aura, and instantly the silver-gold light vanished back into his skin.

“Ten percent? You’re not joking are you? I’d say about fifty percent.”

“No. I’m not joking. I didn’t even use my Ki Attributes, my advanced acupuncture techniques, and advanced Ki techniques. After all, I was merely testing you, and this wouldn’t even be a test if I completely thrash you around like a ragdoll.”

Only ten percent? Seijirou couldn’t help but frown at that. That’s still far from enough.

“By the way, Retsu is about as strong as me, so you better work hard if you actually want to be in a relationship with her.”

“Huh?” Seijirou blinked.

Ichibei narrowed his eyes, “What do you mean ’huh?’. I’m warning you, if you dare play around with Retsu’s feelings, she’s gonna hunt you no matter where you are in the corner of this earth.”

“Ah, no… I mean,” Seijirou scratched the back of his head, before he bowed. “Grandfather, the rice has already been cooked, so please give us your blessings.”

Heh. So what if you’re some Grandmaster? I slept with your granddaughter! And she enjoyed it!

“You bastard!” Ichibei’s Ki flared up, “You two aren’t even in a relationship, much less married! And you dared defile my granddaughter!?”

Crap! I messed up!

With that, his Ki immediately bursts out of his body and he bolted out of the training hall.

“Get back here!”

With that, the estate descended into chaos as a young man run away while being chased by an angry grandfather.