Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Let's Deliver Merciless Death
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Jang Jojun approached the sobbing zombie. Keeping a safe distance in case it lunged at him suddenly, he drew his sword infused with Yang Ji-sang's power and pointed it at the creature.
'A crying zombie... A zombie that's crying...? It can't be a field boss, can it? What the hell is this?'
Jang Jojun couldn't shake the feeling that weird things kept happening to him and only him. Even when he was just minding his own business, something always cropped up or dragged him in. It was his cursed fate, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He decided to just accept it. There was no way to change it, so acceptance was his only option.
"Hey. What are you?"
"Hic... Y-yes...? Yes?"
"No... Why is a zombie talking like a person? Spill your identity, now!!!"
Suspecting it might be dangerous, Jang Jojun thrust his sword closer.
Attempting to talk to it was an adventure in itself. If it suddenly self-destructed mid-sob, he'd be in deep trouble. Part of him thought it might be better to just decapitate it right away.
Only after Jang Jojun's sword plunged into her shoulder did the zombie girl scream and answer his question.
"Kyaargh!!! It's!!! Because!! My class is weird!!"
"What...? You're an awakener?"
"Y-yes. Kyaaargh...!!"
Jang Jojun nodded as if it all made sense now, listening to the zombie girl's raspy scream.
He had wondered if this thing was some medium summoning a field boss or a new evolved zombie type he didn't know about.
But it was just a player with a rare class. Once he thought of it that way, it didn't seem so special.
'Well... We've got vampires and fallen angels as basics, and a headless dullahan walking around as a player... Of course there'd be an undead race player... Gotta think bigger. The world's full of all kinds of freaks.'
If his thinking got too rigid, he might get ambushed by some bizarre freak at any moment. Jang Jojun resolved to assume anything could happen in this insane world.
He'd already been tangled in way more weird incidents than most people. A dragon popping out right in front of him wouldn't even surprise him anymore.
'Come to think of it, why are all the strays I pick up inhuman one way or another?'
As he considered turning the zombie girl into a slave, Jang Jojun suddenly realized just how many non-humans were in his group.
Gang Hwa-young was a vampire, Han A-ram was half-human half-demon, and Merhere was a fallen angel. If even one more harem member turned non-human, more than half wouldn't be human anymore.
Not to mention the dullahan.
"Hey. You don't wanna die, right?"
"Sniff... Y-yes... Please... Please... I can't die like this... Please... Spare me... I have to get revenge... On those bastards!!! Who killed my mom!!! My dad!! I have to avenge them!!!!"
"Who told you to yell? Shut up!"
Jang Jojun yanked out the sword and kicked the zombie girl at the same time.
He held back just enough so he wouldn't shatter her if he kicked too hard.
"Guhk..."
"I don't care about your revenge or whatever. Choose. Submit to me and live. Or just die."
As he menaced her with the sword, the zombie girl Son Ha-eun thought to herself.
This guy was no different from the outlaws. Just another villain.
'No... Are there even any good people left in this world...?'
And then she realized it.
This filthy, disgusting world was now only inhabited by equally filthy, despicable humans.
Once she accepted that, she wanted to live even more. She'd become filthy and despicable too. Her body rotted as an undead, her guts had long spilled out. But she hadn't finished her revenge on the outlaws yet. She couldn't die like this.
'They became filthy and ugly like those bastards... Why do I have to die? That's not fair.'
She wanted to rip them all apart. That would make her happy. Zombie girl Son Ha-eun couldn't die here.
'I'm just bones with scraps of flesh clinging on now. Am I really any different from them, thrashing around for revenge in this state? I'm living just to kill someone too... I felt good when those bastards died.'
The moment a person decides to kill another and takes joy in their death, they're no different—just another sinner, the girl thought.
"I want to live."
Son Ha-eun bowed her head. She had to beg this man for her life to bide her time.
At the zombie girl's submission, Jang Jojun grinned and stamped the slave brand on her forehead.
Sizzle!!
"Khup...!"
Something bound her.
A massive force squeezed the zombie girl's soul.
"Heh heh heh. Picking up a lich off the street..."
Confirming her class, Jang Jojun smiled. She wasn't just bones yet, but her class was definitely lich.
Low level meant only two skills so far, but it was a class with excellent necromancer potential.
"Hey, Ha-eun."
"Y-yes...? How do you know my name..."
"It's right there plain as day. Repeat what you said earlier. Who killed your parents?"
"O-outlaws..."
"You mean the ones who eat human flesh and kill people indiscriminately?"
"Y-yes... That's them... How did you know, mister...?"
"You know where those bastards are, right?"
"Yes..."
"Guide me there later. I'll kill every last one, just like you want."
"W-wait... Their hideout has tons of outlaws... If we go now, we'll all die..."
"Whatever. Just watch later and laugh. I'll wipe them all out without leaving a single one."
Jang Jojun planned to strike first once he pinpointed their location.
'The outlaws Son Ha-eun's talking about must be the ones Moon Geun-oh mentioned... If they haven't taken down the field boss yet, better to handle them all at level 15.'
During the ambush on Our Heart Church last time, he'd learned one crucial thing.
In this world, if you knew the enemy's position, strike immediately without giving them time to prepare—wipe them out before they could react.
'Give them time, and they get stronger. Strike fast and clean when you can.'
Even if the world had turned game-like, other players weren't NPCs. They were real people like him, and they wouldn't stand around dumbly waiting to be attacked.
"Follow me for now."
"Yes... Understood."
Jang Jojun took the zombie girl Son Ha-eun and headed toward where the dullahan and Gang Hwa-young were.
He'd told them to leave survivors, so a few should be left. He'd get group info from them and check if they'd hunted the field boss.
If they'd already killed it and pulled ahead...
'Even then... I'll kill them all before they get any stronger, even if I have to push it.'
Jang Jojun was prepared to use up all of Totsmir's Blunderbuss from the dragon slayer if needed.
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"Kyaargh!!! What the hell is that guy!!!!"
"Shut up and run!!!"
Outlaws screamed as they fled.
Chasing them was the dullahan mounted on its skeleton horse.
"Rip... off heads!!!"
With that bizarre shout, the dullahan's massive greatsword swung mercilessly.
The dullahan had no intention of leaving survivors.
It just kept ranting about tearing off every head it saw, killing even those who could have lived.
Jang Jojun had said capture them, not kill them. But the dullahan, with its severely damaged intellect, reinterpreted the order as "kill them all."
"Uwaa!!!"
Boom!!!
Asphalt shattered, and the greatsword smashed into the torsos of two men running atop it. They crumpled like tofu.
The overwhelming mass of the greatsword, plus the acceleration from the charging skeleton horse, created absurd destructive power.
As the two were pulverized, chunks of broken asphalt and human remains sprayed forward, slamming into the legs and backs of the frantically fleeing outlaws.
"Kyaa!!!"
"Guhk!!"
Outlaws collapsed screaming.
The dullahan raised its sword to cleave down on three fallen ones, but a woman suddenly appeared, grabbed it, and hurled it backward.
"Kyaaah!! Must rip off heads!!!"
"Shut up, you crazy monster!"
As the dullahan flew back, the skeleton horse snorted and galloped after its master.
Soon, new death approached the three surviving outlaws.
"Hey, you lot. Don't wanna get smashed by that thing and die, right?"
It was a woman with white hair, red eyes, and decadent beauty.
"P-please... spare us... please!!"
One outlaw flattened himself on the ground, banging his head and begging.
Gang Hwa-young looked down at him and smiled.
She'd lost some intelligence awakening as a carnage vampire, but becoming Jang Jojun's slave restored it. Though her personality twisted a bit, and her sadistic nature surged stronger.
She felt an urge to toy with these three pathetic scum.
"How about this? You three kill each other until only one remains?"
Gang Hwa-young smiled, inciting them to mutual slaughter.
Jang Jojun was busy with his new toy, so she'd indulge her sadistic desires now.
"Kyaaargh!!!"
One immediately drew a kitchen knife from his belt and stabbed the outlaw beside him. Knife fights erupted. They slashed and stabbed with awls, desperately thrashing, praying for the others to die.
"Hahaha!!!"
The wicked woman sneered at the pathetic brawl of lowly thugs.
If you picked the cruelest woman in Jang Jojun's group, it'd probably be Gang Hwa-young.
Awakening as a human-eating vampire, she saw all humans—except her one and only master Jang Jojun—as livestock or worse.
"Kyaa... Die!! Die, you bastard!!!"
Crack!!
A wretched scream, followed by the sound of something breaking.
One outlaw's neck snapped, and he breathed his last.
"A. Aaaahhh!!!!"
Now the outlaws had become what they made captured survivors into: mere playthings. Their lives were spent for Gang Hwa-young's amusement.
The sanctity of life?
Human dignity?
Human rights, morality, equality, humanity—all those ideals were now the property of the strong.
Evil villains get devoured by stronger villains, and even those get buried by the coming catastrophe.
This was ruin.
This was disaster.
"Kuhk..."
Only one of the three outlaws survived.
The survivor laughed.
He couldn't stop grinning at the joy of outlasting his former comrades by snuffing them out.
Other people's lives? He hadn't cared since the world fell apart.
Stepping on others to survive one more day was enough.
Of course, he hadn't always been like this.
He was once an ordinary guy.
Just another young man.
Just another office worker.
Just another average citizen.
The world had made him this way.
After countless worthless deaths, he'd adapted.
He'd realized no one's life mattered except his own.
Anyway, Gang Hwa-young smiled at the lone survivor.
"Happy to survive?"
"Y-yes... Heh heh... Heh heh heh... Yeah...!"
"Pathetic scum."
Gang Hwa-young stomped on the bleeding man's head. His body was covered in wounds, red blood dripping steadily.
Of course, she had no interest in his disgusting blood. Now she craved only her master's sweet blood.
'I survived... Again... I'm alive again... Lucky... Heh heh heh heh...'
Crushed under her sneaker, the outlaw was still glad the monster before him wasn't killing him.
This woman had obliterated a zombie horde with a gesture. Surviving her meant he was pretty lucky, he thought.
As he basked in dumb joy, Jang Jojun approached.
"Hwa-young, one left?"
"Ah... Oppa... Well..."
"You killed them all for fun again, huh?"
"No... That headless freak already..."
"Seemed like at least three were alive?"
"Y-yeah... I told them to kill each other..."
Gang Hwa-young couldn't lie to her master.
Just looking into his eyes made the truth spill out.
"I told you to leave more alive."
"S-sorry..."
"You'll get punished when we get back."
"Yesss... Sounds good..."
Truth be told, Jang Jojun didn't care how many outlaws survived.
He'd already captured one who knew their location.
He just needed an excuse to "punish" Gang Hwa-young legitimately.
"Hey."
"Hic... Y-yes! Yes!!"
"Spill everything you know. Hideout location, everything. All of it."
Afterward, Jang Jojun slave-branded the outlaw to prevent lies, then extracted their hideout's location, number of awakeners inside, and info on hidden classes in the group.
"S-so... you'll let me live now...?"
Once he'd gotten all the info, Jang Jojun melted the outlaw's head with Corrupted Touch before he could finish.
"Kyaargh!!!!!"
"Acceptable."
Jang Jojun grimaced at the foul smell. He'd offered the man to Kashnax.
[Damp...]
Only after hearing Kashnax's gloomy tasting note did Jang Jojun release the melted head.
"Hwa-young, let's head back."
"Yesss!"
Jang Jojun postponed the original goals: field boss hunt and tracking the raid party's four-man team.
The outlaws hadn't hunted the field boss yet. They were desperately searching for it now. Perfect time to crush them.
'And hidden classes... six of them...'
The outlaws, aka the Bandit Gang, had more hidden classes than the Spear of God folks who'd raided his mart or the Our Heart Church group. Even more than the raid party's four-man team.
'Need full preparation.'
Numerically superior and high quality too.
'Tomorrow... When I can summon Ebony Cockroach, hit them hard...'
Most enemies could be handled by Ebony Cockroach.
The problem was the six hidden classes.
'Blade Master, Possession Warrior, Barbarian, Rogue, Sharpshooter, Beast Tamer. Another barbarian there too... Is it one of the easier special classes to get...?'
Pondering the other barbarian class out there, Jang Jojun thought about their leader—the man with the class matching the group's name.
'Bandit Lee Chan-seong. Expert with guns and daggers...'
The bastards were on Jang Jojun's radar.
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Meanwhile, at the Sports Center where the outlaws held sway.
A pile of charred corpses—countless victims turned into the outlaws' playthings—twitched.
Wriggle...
The agony and grudges of countless souls gathered into one.
One of the three ways to summon a field boss had just activated at the Sports Center.
Soon, an unkillable monster would crawl out of that corpse pile.
Then the surrounding area would become its domain.
Of course, no one here realized it.
They just carried on with their usual filthy, depraved fun.
No one noticed the twitching corpse pile.
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