## Chapter 23 – (7)
A weapon like a baseball bat.
In other words, blunt weapons were one of the types that didn’t require any special technique in the first place.
Just swinging its heavy weight with all your might was threatening enough.
That’s why I was curious about what would happen if it was combined with a weapon skill.
So, I swung it in the air first.
In that instant, I realized.
I could swing this heavy bat quickly and accurately.
That was all, but it was enough.
The feeling of my body’s center of gravity starting from my toes, going through my legs, pelvis, and then my waist, and finally being transmitted to the end of the bat, was almost addictive.
Baseball players are said to know whether they’ve hit a home run the moment they hit the ball.
Now I felt like I knew what that meant.
If someone were hit by this swing right now, they would fly away like a ball.
It would be a home run.
“Hoo. Let’s go.”
I packed the baseball bat in my bag and got on the subway.
My appearance was different from usual.
I was wearing the full-body armor I bought from the black market, so I looked like a race car driver.
Even so, people didn’t even pay much attention.
A world with heroes and villains was indeed something else.
I headed towards the location where he was supposed to be.
Just because the Scorpion gang had disappeared didn’t mean the villain would live honestly, and now Scorpion was running a loan shark business with the remnants of the Scorpion gang.
That fact was fortunate for me.
If he had changed his mind and was living a good life, it would have been difficult for even me to fight him.
Well, if that were the case, I wouldn’t have even received such a request.
Screech.
“Gasp.”
When I was almost at the office where he was supposed to be, I suddenly saw a car stopping in front of the office and hid myself.
Two burly men got out of the stopped car.
“Hey, aren’t you getting out?”
“Is this crazy bitch out of her mind?”
Inside the car, a woman who looked like she was just turning twenty was trembling, and the men were shouting at her.
The woman, wearing a dress that looked like it belonged at a year-end awards ceremony, with her cleavage clearly visible, looked very timid, unlike her outfit.
Her spirit was completely broken, and her trembling appearance was even pitiful.
“You wrote in the contract that if you didn’t have money, you would pay with your body.”
“I, I was definitely going to borrow money to pay it back, but my credit rating dropped, so I couldn’t borrow money from the bank, and the interest rates were too high…”
“Aish, yak yak.”
As if frustrated, one of the men grabbed the woman’s arm and tried to forcibly drag her out.
Watching this was enough.
I already knew through the information that they were running a loan shark business that was close to fraud.
So, there was no hesitation.
I took a deep breath and confidently approached them.
“Hey, you there.”
“Huh?”
One of them pointed at me, seeing me approaching in obviously suspicious clothes, but the other was too busy dragging the woman out to react.
And my bat… no, the baseball bat, played its part.
The bat, swung lightly, accurately struck the man’s shin who was holding the woman.
Clang.
A clear sound rang out, followed by a dirty scream.
“Kkeuaaaaaack!”
The man grabbed his leg and collapsed.
“This bastard!”
The other man took something out of his pocket and charged, but I reflexively swung the bat towards the quickly swinging hand.
Clang.
It was a strange thing.
I was able to accurately hit the hand that flew towards me in an instant.
This must be the power of the weapon skill.
“Keueup…”
They say that if it hurts too much, you can’t even scream.
The man who was hit in the hand was turning red in the face because he was holding his breath due to the excessive pain.
Unable to even scream, he grabbed his hand and collapsed to the floor.
I turned my eyes away when I saw one of his fingers bent in the wrong direction.
They were bastards who deserved it, but it was a sight that was painful just to look at.
And then I saw something that the man had dropped.
It was a knife.
A small pocket knife about the length of a finger, but enough to threaten a person’s life.
“…Get lost.”
When I raised the bat as if I was going to hit them one more time, the men limped and ran away in agony.
“Th, thank you.”
“Close the door and lock it. They’ll be here soon.”
The timid-looking woman greeted me, but there was no time for a peaceful conversation.
The man who was hit in the shin screamed so loudly that Scorpion and his subordinates must have heard the screams.
It wouldn’t be strange if a battle broke out at any moment.
The woman nodded her head vigorously at my words, closed the car door, and pressed the lock button.
His loan shark office was on the 3rd floor of this building.
It was an old and dilapidated commercial building. The 1st and 2nd floors were empty, so it seemed unlikely that innocent people would get caught up in it.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but I felt an eerie aura from the entrance.
1st floor, 2nd floor.
And 3rd floor.
“Euh, euaaaa!”
With a scream, I used the bat to deflect the weapon of one of the guys who was ambushing me.
Surprisingly, what the guy was swinging was a bat.
However, unlike the villain’s bat with an iron core, it was an ordinary wooden bat.
The guy’s bat, which collided with my bat, shattered with a cracking sound and turned into pieces of wood.
The expression on the guy’s face, who had lost his weapon, was filled with despair.
I kicked the guy in the stomach, who didn’t even think of resisting.
It was the first time I had attacked directly with my body, but obtaining the Strength skill was quite effective. The guy who was kicked flew all the way to the wall and collided with it, then fainted.
It was a power that even I hadn’t expected.
For a moment, I almost offered an apology.
“He’s not Scorpion either.”
Actually, I thought Scorpion would rush out as soon as he heard the scream.
The investigation file said that he was impatient and had a violent personality.
Either the investigation was wrong, or his personality had changed.
I looked around the 3rd floor and stood in front of a door.
It was a door that you had to push.
“…”
He would be inside this door.
Someone was waiting for me to open the door, preparing an ambush.
It was just a hunch.
If an impatient person was bothering to hold back, wouldn’t it be to set up an ambush?
That’s why I kicked the door with all my strength, remembering the kick from earlier.
Thump!
The door of the old commercial building couldn’t withstand my kick.
Someone was hit and fell down as the door opened coolly.
“Shit!”
A man who was preparing an ambush fell over and cursed harshly.
But he immediately got up and took a stance.
“This bastard…!”
I could tell as soon as I saw him.
The man in front of me was Kim Scorpion, the target.
He glared at me and took a stance, then his body turned slightly blue.
His ability was to harden his whole body.
That’s why he didn’t use any special weapons.
His hardened hands and feet were deadly weapons.
Scorpion, who was slowly walking towards me, suddenly threw a punch quickly.
Of course, I tried to block it with the bat I was holding, but—
Ting—
All I could do was block it with a sound that didn’t seem like a fist and a baseball bat had collided.
The impact was transmitted from the bat to my hand, and my palm was tingling.
“What is this!”
The other side seemed just as flustered, as he shook his fist while getting angry.
It seemed like there was no need to control my strength against this opponent.
Before the opponent could attack again, I took a stance first and swung with all my might.
Whoosh.
Seeing the bat swung with the sound of cutting through the wind, the guy raised his guard.
Crack.
The bat and his arm collided.
But unlike before, this time I heard a refreshing sound I had never heard before.
Suddenly, I had a thought.
‘Home run…’
Contrary to the tension, Scorpion fell to the floor too easily.
The synergy between Weapon Mastery at level 3 and Strength was amazing.
Scorpion, whose arm that was blocking his head, as well as his head, had been impacted, collapsed from his knees and fainted.
[You have completed the hidden quest.]
[Win the battle against the villain.]
[You have acquired the Appraisal of Bastion LV.1 skill.]
[Appraisal of Bastion is now LV.2.]
“Oh.”
I couldn’t help but exclaim as the level of the skill I relied on the most rose.
And I really felt that the battle was over.
The tension in my body was released, and the pain belatedly came to my stiff body.
I hadn’t been hit even once, but my body was overloaded because I had moved it too violently.
I was glad that the villain was my first opponent.
Hitting a person with a baseball bat originally required considerable courage.
However, because they were villains, just seeing what they had done was enough to eliminate that hesitation.
“…Shall I search around a bit?”
I searched his office as if I was farming.
The original purpose was not to subdue him, but to get the 50 million won.
So I searched the office. And I was able to find it.
A safe that looked suspicious at first glance.
I wanted to open it, but there was no way to open it.
So, in the end, I relied on the bat once again.
…In conclusion, the safe was strong.
It was stronger than Scorpion, and stronger than my baseball bat.
“…”
After hitting it repeatedly with all my might, only the iron core that was embedded in the baseball bat was in my hand.
So, for now, I carried it out with the safe intact.
Hoping that there would be 50 million won in here.
