The Outcast Writer of a Martial Arts Visual Novel - Chapter 90: A New Encounter (3)

Was Tang Hwarin the heroine?

The reason I first approached Tang Hwarin after finding her wasn’t due to a purely primal instinct that compels me to chase after the heroine at all costs.

Defier of Heaven.

Should Tang Hwarin inquire about my identity, I would have to respond truthfully, as it’s only proper, unveiling my true identity and abilities, which I must keep secret.

The reason I first approached Tang Hwarin wasn’t because I lacked a girl to hang out with, like the insiders do, but because of my doubts regarding the abilities of the Defier of Heaven.

After all, friends who are insiders might think that way, but a guy like me wouldn’t approach with such a mindset, right?

Suddenly, I was reminded of a friend who’s an insider.

“Yun-ho, I broke up with my girlfriend, and I’m so distressed.”

“Idiot. I’m more distressed having to listen to your drunken complaints after answering your call in the middle of the night.”

“Ah. How can I live without her?”

“I’m living just fine without a girlfriend.”

“I’m envious of you!”

“Are you picking a fight with me now?”

If that friend, who found a new girlfriend just a week after breaking up, was going to call, he might as well not bother. Worrying about his girl problems was a losing battle.

Anyway, if my ability, named the Defier of Heaven, granted me the right to turn all original female characters into heroines, then it might be possible for Tang Hwarin too.

Conversely, if this ability didn’t apply to Tang Hwarin, even if I used my knowledge of the original work to temporarily twist her fate, she might still end up becoming a villainous character later on.

Does the ability of the Defier of Heaven truly apply to the female characters of the original work? Or was the Heavenly Death Star just a special case?

Becoming friends with the original character Tang Hwarin might allow me to find out.

‘The problem is how to get closer.’

Ha-ha, Miss. He-he, Sir. If I approached with a friendly demeanor and gradually engaged in conversation, how many lifetimes would it take to discover if Tang Hwarin is the heroine?

Even at the “Ha-ha, Miss” stage, the relationship could be severed.

It’s similar to a certain college freshman named Kang, who was thrilled to get the phone number of a girl he liked during a group project. He sent her a message with a fluttering heart but received no response that day, and only got a single ‘ㅇ’ the next day. He replied in real-time, only to receive another ‘ㅇ’ the following day, and then he finally understood the other person’s intentions.

I needed a way to quickly advance the relationship.

“I have a prepared scenario.”

The plan I had devised for when I encountered Tang Hwarin again.

My new scenario. My and Tang Hwarin’s point of connection.

Using it, I should be able to forge a relationship with her.

‘The problem is that I have to reveal a shocking truth.’

This time, my life wasn’t at risk, so there’s no need for extreme fabrications. What’s required instead was a concealed truth.

A truth that would astonish and unsettle her. Through that, we must become closer.

There’s no flower that blooms without being shaken, and even the poison butterfly must flutter a bit, right?

Tang Hwarin.

Let’s begin with shock therapy.

“The first thing Miss Hwarin should be curious about is not me, but the identity of the person who taught you the poison skills.”

The starting point should be to undermine the trust in the person she holds most dear.

With a relaxed smile, I diverted her attention towards someone else, suggesting that the person she trusted might not be as they seem.

“Uncle Tang Geoho? It seems there’s a misunderstanding. Uncle Tang Geoho is not a suspicious person. He’s been like a benefactor to me for over ten years.”

Tang Hwarin frowned as if she had heard an unpleasant accusation about her uncle.

Even knowing that she has been poisoned all this while.

Yes, suggesting she doubt someone who was like a father and martial arts teacher to her could upset her. After all, people believe what they want to believe.

That’s good.

To make the butterfly flutter, you have to start by making her distrust the wings she trusts the most.

“There’s an absolutely forbidden experiment in the Sichuan Tang Family. Do you know about it?”

I didn’t counter her opinion directly but smoothly transitioned with a question.

“I wouldn’t know. I carry the blood of the Sichuan Tang Family, but I wasn’t raised by them.”

I know. I threw that out to arouse curiosity.

“Poison human creation. It’s an experiment banned by the Sichuan Tang Family due to the numerous live experiments and victims it produces. Are you familiar with poison humans?”

“Roughly. I’ve been learning the martial arts of the Sichuan Tang Family.”

Poison humans.

Humans who, after raising their resistance to poison to the extreme, can store or generate poison in their bodies. In another world, it’s also considered a dark evolution of poison skills.

Although it’s a realm that anyone from the Sichuan Tang Family might once covet, poison humans were absolutely forbidden there.

Humans were not inherently toxic. Regardless of resistance, consuming a strong poison would kill a person.

Especially since the martial world was already paranoid about unexplained deaths, ‘It’s the Sichuan Tang Family again, isn’t it?’ They wouldn’t permit experiments that sacrifice people.

However, there were always those who did what they were told not to.

“There were those within the Sichuan Tang gates who violated rules and secretly conducted poison human experiments. Even with the risk of death upon discovery, their twisted passion knew no surrender, and when it became impossible to conduct experiments within the Sichuan Tang Family, they devised a plan.”

“What plan?”

“If they conducted experiments on ordinary people outside the Sichuan Tang Family, they’d face public outrage and even government pursuit! What to do? Ah! Use bastard children who are born with resistance to poison, less likely to die during poison human creation, and neglected by the family so less monitored!”

I declared this with the tone of a scholar who had just had a great epiphany, pointing at Tang Hwarin at the end.

The bastard of the Sichuan Tang Family. A victim of poison human creation.

That’s Tang Hwarin.

“Uncle Tang Geoho… was he really trying to make me into a poison human?”

Her green eyes trembled with anxiety.

“Purple hair and green eyes. It’s easy to recognize a bastard heavily inheriting the Sichuan Tang Family’s blood. Slowly turning such a child into a poison human while acting as a father and a teacher.”

“Stop talking nonsense! Uncle wouldn’t do that!”

Tang Hwarin bared her teeth in fierce anger.

This reaction was expected. Even in the original work, she trusted him and continued her poison human training even as her body was falling apart. Later, she shook from the betrayal upon learning the whole truth.

“Didn’t you see more than enough evidence at the Sung Family estate?”

I looked at her coldly, as if nothing really made her suspicious.

“Ah, uncle couldn’t possibly.”

Faced with my cold gaze, Tang Hwarin seemed to recall suspicious things, her eyes trembling.

She knew the truth.

The martial arts manual for creating poison humans, the drugs for it, and herself having grown up consuming them for ten years.

She just wanted to deny it.

How could she accept that the person who cared for her was actually the main culprit driving her to misery?

But to move on to the next step, she had to accept this fact.

“Poison hands, poison claws. You must know there’s a method of infiltrating poison into one’s hands or fingernails over a long period to use powerful poison skills.”

The seed of doubt had been planted in her, and she was desperately trying to prevent it from sprouting.

Then, I must water the seed of anxiety myself to make it sprout.

“I know. What about it?”

“To become a poison human, one must consume poison to increase resistance and transform their body into a vessel for poison. During this process, the vessel’s color changes as a side effect, just like parts of the body discoloring from learning poison hands or poison claws.”

I carefully touched my forearm or chin, not looking directly at her out of consideration. She would immediately understand what that meant.

“Are the symptoms on my body evidence of being a poison human?”

“The first symptom starts with skin discoloration. Soon, constant pain due to the consumed poison follows. Then, as poison resistance increases, the pain subsides for a while. But poison humans misunderstand this. They think the person from the Sichuan Tang Family who gave them the drug is making them pain-free. ‘They’re my benefactor.’ That’s the misunderstanding.”

“…. Right. I thought that way.”

She swallowed her voice and reluctantly agreed with my words.

She had no choice but to agree. It’s part of the original setting, after all.

“The bastard of the Tang Family thinks they’re suffering from an incurable disease. They dedicate more to martial arts or consume the drugs given by the person from the Sichuan Tang Family because it somewhat reduces the pain, unknowingly dedicating themselves to training as a poison human.”

“Is uncle really…”

Tang Hwarin couldn’t handle the flood of emotions from the unfolding events and closed her eyes.

Good. The first step has been passed.

I revealed the truth about the person she solely relied on, shaking her heart. But this was just about losing trust in one person.

Now, it was time to shake her entire life to its core.

“Training in poison skills and consuming poison to build resistance. During this process, 90% die.”

I informed her of the perilous training she had undergone.

“…”

Perhaps due to the difficult reality and the realization that she nearly lost her life, Tang Hwarin tightly shut her eyes once more.

I observed her in silence.

I could surmise the extent to which the process of becoming a poison human had advanced in Tang Hwarin’s body.

Her skin had not yet been marred. She was likely still in the phase of building resistance to poison and forming a vessel to contain it.

Whether she was the heroine or not, it’s a situation where her tragic fate could still be averted.

I opened my mouth to inform her of the subsequent process.

“Once the vessel is formed, poison humans create a poison core within their bodies. At this stage, the remaining 10% die.”

“What?”

Tang Hwarin’s eyes widened in shock as she looked back at me. 90% die, and then the remaining 10% die. This meant everyone involved in the poison human experiment perished.

“Historically, there have been only a handful of instances where poison humans were successfully created. They are attempting that insane act in hopes of replicating those few miracles.”

Madmen treading a path drenched in blood for a mere illusion.

A scientist claiming to establish a colony on Mars seems more realistic and futuristic in comparison.

“Everyone ends up dying?”

Tang Hwarin whispered in disbelief.

The training in poison skills she underwent to survive and escape pain was, in reality, a journey towards death.

A truth that negated life itself. No one could remain unaffected after hearing it.

Tang Hwarin looked at her body with a pale face, unable to believe it.

I silently watched her until the shock had somewhat diminished.

“What exactly are you? How do you know all this?”

Having regained some of her composure, Tang Hwarin looked at me with furrowed brows and a skeptical gaze.

I was prepared.

Now was the time to harvest the seeds I had planted.

“Do you know what happens when the poison core is formed in the completed vessel?”

I began, with a hint of anger in my gaze.

“I don’t know.”

“The body melts down. The poison core causes constant, excruciating pain as the intestines sever. Poison flows out of the body like dust, disintegrating everything around. You die slowly, in agony.”

Tang Hwarin survived all the processes of becoming a poison human like a miracle, becoming an imperfect poison human.

Her nickname in the original work was Dokjeop (Poison Butterfly).

Wasn’t it ironic? Her skin, disfigured and hideous, and yet she, a villainous character, was given a nickname that implied a beautiful woman using poison.

In the original work, Poison Butterfly was both a nickname and a derogatory term for Tang Hwarin. Like dust fluttering from the wings of a butterfly, poison dust constantly flows out of her body.

“So, how do you know all this?”

Frustrated, she yelled at me.

It’s clear her mental state was shattered.

I looked around the room once more. The messy room and her, with overdue room charges.

I was not sure how things turned out, but it meant she had no one to rely on directly at the moment.

And I told her that the only person she could trust was actually the cause of her misery.

I told her that the martial arts she trained her whole life were, in fact, leading her to misery.

In a situation where she couldn’t trust anyone and her life itself was negated.

What if someone she could rely on suddenly appeared?

“Because you’re not the first.”

A man who knew the truth about poison humans.

“Not the first?”

“I know someone who was deceived by the Sichuan Tang Family, suffered all their life, and then melted away into a handful of poison water.”

A person who empathized and shared her anger.

Someone with a reason to reach out to her.

“Who is that?”

“My Inseparable Friend. The deceased was my closest friend.”

If a man who lost someone just like her appeared before her…

Tang Hwarin, you would want to grasp my hand, wouldn’t you?