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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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“She really disappeared in a flash…”
“Whoa…”
After Ha-rin was enveloped in light and transported to the Pantheon of Myriad Ghosts, we blankly stared at the spot where she had vanished.
“I hope she returns safely…”
“Indeed.”
Hee-sun and Merhere worried about her.
I hoped Ha-rin would return with a newfound confidence.
One person lacking confidence in our team, Ye-won, was enough.
‘Ah-ram and Ha-rin are now stronger. The problem is the rest of us.’
To become even slightly stronger before the misfortune I saw came to pass, we had to hunt a Field Boss as soon as possible.
Defeating it would temporarily lift our level cap.
The problem was that we had no idea where a Field Boss would spawn.
It was frustrating not knowing how to trigger its appearance or where to find it.
Moreover, since we rarely left the supermarket, we weren’t familiar with the surrounding area.
I might have seemed like I had been all over the place, getting involved in various incidents, visiting the Black Market, going to the other dimension, and even traversing the dream world, but I hadn’t actually ventured far from this neighborhood.
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for those Demon Worshippers coming all the way here, we would have remained clueless about them as we stuck along the supermarket area while killing zombies.
‘I need to scout the surroundings… We’re too ignorant about what’s out there. What kind of creatures live nearby?’
The area around the supermarket we had settled in was now devoid of Named monsters, and most of the evolved individuals had moved on, so it could be considered peaceful around here.
Ordinary and special zombies were no longer a match for us. I could also handle any evolved zombies that appeared.
“Shall we explore the surrounding area?”
“Other neighborhoods?”
I nodded at Eun-ji’s question.
We had been staying in one place for too long. We needed to get out more.
Stagnant water rots, and a frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean.
“Yeah. To look for places where a Field Boss might appear.”
“We definitely need to defeat a Field Boss or whatever to level up…”
“You’re right, Master. The disaster will keep updating, and the zombies will keep getting stronger. If we stagnate, we’re finished.”
Everyone agreed to search for a Field Boss.
In this era, if you stopped getting stronger, you would be left behind and eventually devoured by stronger individuals.
If our levels stagnated, it would lead to our deaths.
“Yeah. And while we’re at it, we can crush any dangerous-looking individuals we encounter.”
“So… more slaves.”
Ha-young sighed uneasily and closed her eyes.
She seemed worried about the harem growing.
With eight members, she would have to wait a long time for her turn.
I wished I could use some kind of cloning technique, but with only one body and one penis, there was nothing I could do.
“Wait a moment. Before that… Hey! Kang Eun-jeong!”
“Yeah? What?”
“Bring Moon Geun-o.”
“Oh, alright. But don’t shout so loudly… You’ll scare me…”
“Hurry! Bring Moon Geun-o!!”
“Ugh… Damn it…”
We needed some information before we started exploring.
We knew almost nothing about the world outside our neighborhood.
Rather than blindly scouting, I intended to get a general overview of the surrounding area from Moon Geun-o to check if there were any other dangerous factions nearby.
It seemed the Our Heart Church members actively engaged in missionary-like activities, encouraging people to join the Central Association and expanding their territory, so he would know more about the local power dynamics than I did.
“Huh? You want to know the situation of the surrounding areas?”
“Yeah. Were there any other survivor groups besides you in this area?”
“Uh… Yes. Quite a few.”
“Quite a few?”
I hadn’t expected that there would be so many.
‘Ah… Well, we were tanking all the zombies…’
It made sense, considering that the zombie waves were a nightmare unique to us.
It felt a bit unfair that the other groups had a relatively easier time facing the disaster thanks to us.
No, it was incredibly unfair. I had to capture and enslave them all.
“Yes. There were quite a few until last week. Most of them seem to have been destroyed this week… but some groups have merged and become larger.”
“Do you have any detailed information about those groups? Tell me everything you know.”
If they had survived, it probably meant that they had several Hidden Class Awakened.
Even if we were handling most of the zombie waves, the disaster’s difficulty wasn’t drastically reduced.
Even ordinary classes like Warriors and Archers were struggling to survive now. So it was safe to assume that these groups had at least one or two Hidden Class individuals.
‘And among them, there would definitely be some who could pose a threat to me.’
I hadn’t even known that a Demonist was breeding in the neighboring area.
If I had left them alone, they would have gathered dozens of demon-possessed individuals and turned Seoul into their nest.
If our attack had been even a day later, we might have been annihilated while fighting against their mass-produced demon-possessed.
It was best to crush any potential threats while it was still early in the disaster.
‘There are all sorts of people out there… like Yang Ji-sang. Aside from combat abilities, there are definitely those who are dangerous because of their unique skills.’
The Wisp Warlock, who could become a spectral form even after death, was a good example.
If Siegfried hadn’t captured him quickly, that Yang Ji-sang bastard might have joined another survivor group and, out of resentment, leaked information about us in some kind of attempted revenge.
That would have been quite troublesome.
Surprise attacks from unknown enemies were always dangerous.
The thought of enemies knowing about us was chilling.
“Um… I heard of those criminals… They’re quite dangerous. They call themselves Bandits or Raiders or something, trying to sound cool, but they’re just a group of insane murderers. They kill people for fun. They have no purpose.”
“Really?”
A group of criminals? What was this…?
Were they escaped convicts?
“Yes. I heard they just… kill anyone they want, adults and children, and rape all the women…”
They were bastards.
It was one thing for me to rampage about, but it was terrifying and annoying when some unknown psychopaths were doing it instead.
Especially since they were killing people who could potentially become my slaves and contribute to my new nation… I couldn’t tolerate it.
“I also heard from another escapee that they… practice cannibalism… Ugh. It’s worse than you can imagine. It’s better to be a slave under your protection here, Master. They are living demons.”
It was a bit ironic to hear this from someone who worshipped demon-possessed individuals before.
“Ha… so there’s a group like that.”
“Yes. But they’re quite far away, so they don’t usually come here. They won’t come. They shouldn’t. Please.”
“We’ll see about that. They might come crawling here.”
Honestly, if they were that crazy, they would probably hunt humans for fun.
I would offer them all as sacrifices if I encountered them. Cannibals… It would be amusing to feed them to the evil gods.
“Hmm… Are there any other groups?”
“Um… There is… Ah!”
“What? What is it?”
“There’s that… Serious Raiders group or Focused Raiders or something… A bunch of kids.”
“Focused Raiders?”
“Yes. They tried to recruit us from the Central Association early on, but we refused… They’re all in their early to mid-twenties, and there are five of them. I don’t know much else, but they’re quite strong. They kept babbling about ‘raiding’ this world or something.”
“What can five people even do…”
Just as I was about to dismiss them, I realized that all five of them might be Hidden Class individuals, and some might even be as monstrous as me.
‘I almost let my guard down… I shouldn’t be careless.’
Carelessness was akin to death.
The things I dealt with carelessly or dismissed as trivial had a high probability of coming back to bite me later.
Moreover, if they all had special classes, I couldn’t underestimate them just because their numbers were small.
You never knew the outcome of a fight until you actually fought.
“Well, those are the two major groups that I know of… The rest are mostly small-fry. The Central Association was planning to deal with them, but… well, I ended up being captured like this.”
Moon Geun-o sighed while looking disappointed.
“Okay, I understand. Now go do your work. And don’t forget to write the sermon.”
“Yes! Understood! I’ll work hard!”
Moon Geun-o returned to the supermarket. I had placed him in the maintenance team for now, but I was planning to use his skills to hold religious gatherings for the survivors soon. As a form of stress relief.
Slaves also experienced stress. Regardless of my orders, they were susceptible to stress-induced hair loss and various stress-related illnesses.
Ordering them not to get sick wouldn’t prevent them from actually getting sick.
So I decided to manage the slaves’ mental health every weekend.
First, I considered a sex matching system.
I would allow adult men and women to have sex with whomever they desired.
Of course, my women were excluded. They could only have sex with me.
I meant the other female slaves who weren’t my women, the ones with flaws on their faces, bodies, or whatever.
It would be perfect to pair them up with virile men. Nothing was better for stress relief than sex.
‘Since they’re my slaves, they won’t get pregnant. And they have nothing else to do, so they might as well have sex.’
I planned to relieve the sexual frustration of the young men and women this way. For those who desired religion, I would appoint Moon Geun-o as the pastor and have him deify me, holding religious gatherings that doubled as brainwashing sessions.
Faith was the easiest form of escapism, and collective fanaticism was a direct path to stress relief.
I would utilize that.
‘Well, that’s assuming there won’t be a zombie wave next week… and we can maintain the number of slaves…’
I had discarded the choker, so I hoped next Monday would pass peacefully…
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Meanwhile, among the Serious Raiders.
“Hmm… So who’s going to wear this?”
Yoon Ji-ho, the 25-year-old bespectacled Recorder, asked the group.
“Wait a minute. Are you seriously thinking of wearing that?”
Cha Ji-tae, the 23-year-old Healer and the youngest of the group, exclaimed fearfully.
“What choice do we have? Someone has to wear it to figure out its hidden effects.”
Lee Sun-jae, the leader and the Magic Swordsman, flicked Cha Ji-tae’s forehead and replied.
The five men then discussed who would wear the choker.
“I’m not wearing that gay-ass thing even if I die. Spit.”
“Same here. Everyone doesn’t want to wear it, so why are you making a fuss? Are you on your period or something since you’re a Vampire?”
“You son of a bitch!”
Finally, tired of the bickering, Koo Kyo-han the Porter and Kim Ki-sung the Blood Warrior, who had refused to wear the choker, grabbed each other by the collars and started fighting.
Koo Kyo-han didn’t like Kim Ki-sung, who had spoken informally to him from the start while claiming he was born earlier in the year.
Kim Ki-sung simply disliked the burly Koo Kyo-han.
“Stop! Stop it. Let’s just decide fairly with rock-paper-scissors. No objections, right?”
In the end, they decided to take turns in wearing the choker for four hours each based on the order determined by rock-paper-scissors as Lee Sun-jae suggested.
As a result, Kim Ki-sung, the white-haired, red-eyed Blood Warrior, was the first to wear the choker.
“Whoa, you bastard… Don’t you look totally gay right now?”
Koo Kyo-han wrinkled his nose and pointed at Kim Ki-sung.
“Y-you son of a bitch…”
“Hahahaha!!!! Hey! Ki-sung!! Hahahaha!!! Your face is hilarious!!!”
“Don’t make fun of me. You’re next.”
“Ah… Right.”
Thus, they took turns wearing the choker.
“This… Doesn’t it make you feel incredibly depressed when you wear it?”
“You’re right. It makes you… irritable.”
“And doesn’t it make you strangely dizzy?”
“My shoulders feel heavy too. Should we just throw this away?”
Lee Sun-jae tried to remove the choker from his neck.
But Yoon Ji-ho, the bespectacled man, stopped him.
“Wait. There’s a reaction.”
“What reaction?”
“The flow of magic… is abnormal. It’s absorbing our magic power. It’s an item that activates by absorbing the wearer’s magic power. Something is about to happen.”
Yoon Ji-ho, who had seen something with his Mana Eye, spoke.
Since his words were almost always accurate, everyone obediently wore the choker without complaint.
About four hours later.
The choker ripped apart, and a dark, ominous figure appeared before them.
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T/N – Okay, does the MC really not know that his roach summon got off-ed by this party? It was already established that he feels it when his summons die. I call BS. Also, this choker incident will definitely not backfire on him. 🙄
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
