The Foolish Villain Failed to Recognize the Fraudulent Protagonist (3)
Five minutes had passed. The classroom, which had been noisy for a while, gradually fell silent before the iron door slowly creaked open.
'Ah, the aunt might be startled if she sees Cal and Jack.'
Joyeon checked on Kim Eunhye, worried she might scream and run away at the sight of them. Fortunately, whether from relief at having survived or sheer exhaustion from crying, she had simply fallen asleep.
Clack.
"Master, I have completed your orders."
Rattle.
"I have extinguished the lives of all the insects."
"Good work. Return to your graves."
Cal and Jack bowed respectfully to Joyeon before sinking into the ground and vanishing.
Joyeon made his way back to the center of the lobby, where the Pale Beast's corpse still lay untouched.
"Gunshots rang out, and at least ten minutes have passed. The fact that no one has come yet... means they don't care at all."
Plenty of people carried guns, and gunfire was common enough that others on different floors must have heard it. They simply assumed the Pale Beast on the fifth floor had fired, never imagining he might be dead.
"Still, just in case... Jack, hide the body somewhere out of sight. Clean up the blood as much as possible too. There should be cleaning supplies in the restroom."
-As you command.
'This side's taken care of. Now what?'
Even if they paid little attention to one another, disappearing for more than a day would surely prompt someone to investigate. He would have to face dozens of pistols—and one mage whose abilities remained unknown.
His followers wouldn't fall to mere handguns, but Joyeon himself was another matter. His Bone Armor had limits against bullets, and the enemy's numbers were overwhelming. He had briefly considered guerrilla tactics with a small force, but if the enemies used the slaves as shields, he would be completely cornered.
"I need to increase my undead."
Joyeon ultimately concluded that he had to recruit new followers.
"Excluding the Pale Beast, of course... Corpses... How can I obtain more bodies..."
Ding!
"Huh? A ding?"
[Soul Harvest activated.]
"What? Soul Harvest? What's it harvesting?"
Soul Harvest was Joyeon's passive magic that activated whenever a living being died atop his Death Aura.
"...Morion Roach?"
Joyeon returned to the classroom filled with insect corpses. The interior was a chaotic mess of roach bodies strewn across the entire room. Using Soul's Eye, he confirmed that most of the Morion Roach corpses had already had their souls harvested.
'Wait... If I harvest all the souls now...'
"Stop! Stop for a second! Halt the harvest!"
[Harvest terminated.]
"Aah~ I just had a brilliant idea..."
Joyeon's Abyssal Pit That Raises the Dead required lingering souls to function. If Soul Harvest extracted them completely, he would no longer be able to turn the corpses into his followers.
Joyeon used Soul's Eye to thoroughly search the classroom for any remaining Morion Roaches that still possessed souls. Then—
"Huh? This is..."
****
The next day. 3 a.m.
A time of silence when everyone had fallen asleep beneath thick clouds that obscured even the moonlight.
Skitter...
Modern University. College of Engineering.
A pigsty transformed into a miniature hell by Kim Changkyung and his rotten ilk, where cunning, luck, and greed intertwined.
Skitter-skitter...
A space that had remained an unchanging playground for trash for nearly a month.
Skitter-skitter-skitter-skitter...
No one yet realized that a massive movement was stirring within.
****
Twentieth floor of the College of Engineering.
This floor served as personal quarters for members of the Modern University hideout. In front of one particular classroom stood Kim Changkyung and two other men.
"How is it? Does she seem asleep?"
"I don't hear any sound, Boss."
One man pressed his ear against the iron door, listening intently. The occupant of that classroom was, of course, Tiasia.
"She said she drank the 'sleeping pill,' so shouldn't it be fine?"
"Still, we can't be sure with a mage. Of course, Hans gave us his word that she wouldn't notice, but there's always the chance something goes wrong."
Three men had come to the room of a woman who had taken a sleeping pill and fallen asleep. Naturally, they weren't here out of any kindhearted concern for her unfamiliar sleeping arrangements.
"Boss, honestly, I'm surprised. I didn't think you'd decide to deal with her today."
"Exactly. Wouldn't it be better to observe the situation a bit longer and see if she could become a real comrade?"
"No. Her combat ability is impressive, but she's far too impulsive. We have no idea what might happen. It's safest to eliminate her tonight while she's under the effects of the sleeping pill."
Whenever a new comrade joined Kim Changkyung's Modern University hideout, a culling always followed. Under the pretext of greeting the boss, newcomers were offered barley tea laced with sleeping pills. Over the following days, their dispositions were assessed—those deemed acceptable were welcomed as comrades, while the rest were quietly eliminated after another dose.
They had used this method on a party containing both modern humans and mages a month ago. The very party that had included Kim Eunhye.
Dangerous individuals were disposed of immediately and used as monster bait, while the powerless were enslaved. Kim Changkyung had judged Tiasia to be the most dangerous person he had encountered thus far. That was why he chose to act without further observation.
His ability to detect danger and assess situations was certainly exceptional—enough to have built the Modern University hideout.
Clang...
Thud...
With a faint noise, the iron door opened. Inside the classroom was a crudely made bed, upon which Tiasia lay neatly asleep. The three men approached cautiously, checking her condition.
She appeared to be sleeping soundly, yet she still wore the same outfit she had arrived in on her first day at the university.
"Haa... What a waste. A woman like this... you could never meet someone like her again in your lifetime."
"Lives are on the line. In the end, nothing is more valuable than your own life."
"Isn't it uncomfortable? She's sleeping with the mask still on."
"...Boss, can't we at least do it once before killing her?"
One of the men finally couldn't hold back and pleaded with Kim Changkyung, captivated by Tiasia's statue-like beauty.
"If she wakes up, your head will fly off. Do you really want that? What she drank was a sleeping pill. The moment she wakes up, it's over. You saw that ridiculous power on the nineteenth floor yourself."
"Ugh..."
"Th-then... couldn't we at least take off the mask? Aren't you curious too, Boss?"
The other man lowered the bar significantly with his request. Kim Changkyung had been about to flatly refuse, but after a moment's hesitation—fearing discord if he continued issuing such coercive orders—he nodded.
"Let's remove the mask. It doesn't look too difficult to take off anyway."
At Kim Changkyung's permission, the men cheered quietly and reached for Tiasia's mask with the utmost care.
"Hehe... Let's get a good look at that pretty face..."
The man's face stiffened as he lifted the mask covering half of Tiasia's face.
"U-urk~!"
He suddenly began to vomit.
"Wh-what are you doing...! If you make noise like that...!"
"You vermin are desperate to die. Even if you weren't, Master would make sure to kill you properly."
A chill ran down Kim Changkyung's spine at the beautiful woman's voice. He hadn't expected her to actually wake up.
Kim Changkyung hurriedly turned to face Tiasia, the owner of the voice, scrambling for an excuse.
"T-Tiasia. You were simply so beautiful that we..."
Kim Changkyung's face also turned deathly pale the moment he saw her face.
"Is that so? Am I beautiful? Truly?"
Tiasia smiled brightly at Kim Changkyung.
"Y-your face...!"
"Is my face beautiful? So that's your preference?"
Tiasia possessed flawless white skin and perfectly balanced features that left anyone who saw her breathless. Yet the face hidden beneath the mask reminded everyone once again that she was a zombie. Sunken, dried-out eyes and rotting, festering skin. Two utterly contradictory sights coexisted on her face—something no living person could ever possess.
"Do you still wish to embrace me?"
Tiasia's beautiful smile twisted into something grotesque when combined with her hideous face. Kim Changkyung and his men were too stunned to react to her macabre joke.
Seeing the men frozen stiff, Tiasia wiped the expression from her face and called upon her comrades in the grave.
"Ron, May. Restrain them."
Ron and May, who had been watching from below, rose swiftly from the ground.
"H-huh, skeletons?!"
Still reeling from shock, the men tried to scream at the sudden appearance of the skeletons emerging from the floor.
'We need to subdue them before they can scream.'
'Yes!'
Having already discussed their plan through mental communication, Ron and May grabbed the men's heads with their bony hands and slammed them to the ground.
Thud!
A skilled professional could have knocked them out with a single strike to the back of the neck, but as a knight and a maid respectively, Ron and May judged that attempting such a technique might backfire if the targets didn't lose consciousness, so they chose this method instead.
'They might be dead.'
May expressed concern over her first attempt at such violent action.
"It's fine. We already caught the ringleader anyway."
While Ron and May subdued the men, Tiasia had also grabbed Kim Changkyung by the throat and pinned him down.
"D-do you really think you'll get away with this...?!
"That doesn't sound like something you should be saying. Three men came to ambush a woman sleeping alone. Don't worry. Now that you've seen us, your death is inevitable."
"Kgh...! You know how many comrades I have here...! Even if you kill me, you won't be safe...!"
"That..."
Skitter-skitter-skitter!
A sound that would instinctively make any modern human's skin crawl echoed through the air. Both Tiasia and Kim Changkyung turned toward the source simultaneously. Kim Changkyung's face grew even paler upon seeing what made the noise, while a bright smile bloomed across Tiasia's face.
"It seems my master has already finished preparing to clean up this place."