bookpower Chapter 242: Because I'm Used to Being the Villain (1)
Chapter 242: Because I'm Used to Being the Villain (1)
Translator: Dreamscribe
NorthernGrandDuke clenched her fist tightly as she approached the Dimension Gate. Ever since acquiring the Potential skill in a side story, she had stopped enjoying the side stories.
'Sion Academy was nice, but....'
It had been moving, and she had even shed a few tears.
She had learned a lot, and even felt as though her outlook on life had broadened. But compared to the main episodes of Arsilan Saga, something was missing.
The side stories felt like a flashy shell with a hollow core. They felt like staged theater. She could become the protagonist, she could drive the story forward, but once the ending came, that world would vanish like a mirage, leaving only emptiness behind.
Was it a scent?
Or a sensation?
The main episodes were completely different from the side stories.
'This is it.'
The vitality pressing in through the air.
The tension that shook her heart.
She could feel as though everything were truly happening for real. Only the main episodes could raise goosebumps on her skin and ignite the kind of passion that made her want to throw everything she had into it.
She glanced to her side.
Her comrades from the Northern Territory felt exactly the same. In their gleaming eyes, she could see the same thrill and excitement she felt.
FWOOSH!
A comrade who had been with her through all of Arsilan Saga raised the banner bearing the symbol of the Northern Territory.
When NorthernGrandDuke came to a stop, every Hero who followed her stopped as well.
The territory had grown massive.
And the number of those who followed her had grown too. The elite Northern Territory Army, led by Named Heroes, numbered twenty thousand strong. Its Territory Citizens were in the hundreds of thousands, and still growing by the day.
"Let's go."
At her quiet command, the Heroes hoisted the banner high. Whatever lay beyond, whatever enemies awaited, they would see the symbol of the Northern Territory first.
"Northern Territory Army!"
"Advance!"
STOMP!
NorthernGrandDuke's senior officers shouted loudly.
She smiled faintly at the roaring voices and stepped toward the Dimension Gate first. She was glad to be able to stand alongside them.
The moment she passed through the Dimension Gate, a space she had never seen before unfolded. The dimension Arsilan belonged to rapidly shrank away, and countless dimensions flashed past her.
"Sis, are those all dimensions?"
"Seems so. But...."
Unlike Arsilan, they were empty, and nothing could be seen inside them. They felt like bubbles destined to pop eventually. Perhaps those were dimensions that had already fallen to Erosion or to the Kalsus Dimensional Empire.
After a few more steps, countless dimensions streaked past like rays of light, and then light burst forth, flooding her vision. They had arrived at the destination the Sphere had provided coordinates for.
Emerging from the Dimension Gate, NorthernGrandDuke looked around.
"So this is...."
She knew at once.
This was another dimension.
"The air is really bad."
"Ugh! My throat's already scratchy."
The sky was black.
She had often seen skies stained black by Erosion, but this felt different.
Yes, it was polluted.
"Filthy" was the right word. Black smoke pouring from towers that seemed to pierce the heavens was contaminating the sky. Factories fitted with such towers were spread out widely all around. They were fouling everything, endlessly belching out ink-like soot.
NorthernGrandDuke reached down and grabbed a handful of soil from the ground.
A sticky, black substance clung to her hand. It felt like waste oil.
"Gravity is weak. About half of Arsilan's, I'd say."
"There's almost no mana in the atmosphere either."
"Unpleasant environment."
The Northern Heroes remarked as they surveyed their surroundings.
NorthernGrandDuke checked the situation.
"All our people made it through. The other Heroes...."
Along with the Heroes of the Northern Territory, a great many Heroes had entered the Dimension Gate together. She could see some Heroes from other territories and guilds, but not many. It seemed they had been scattered across several locations.
SHWIP!
A blue flower bloomed at NorthernGrandDuke's feet.
It was a different form from the Hero's Flower. Countless petals overlapped one another, shimmering with a soft blue glow.
[Dimensional Realm] Dimensional Flower
'Light, Darkness, Miracle, and Arsilan.'
A flower bloomed from the gathering of Arsilan's light and darkness.
It symbolizes the hope and miracle that bloom amidst despair.
Through the Dimensional Flower, one can travel between Arsilan and other dimensions. By combining Dimensional Realm achievement points, Arsilan gold, or rare materials, one can bloom a Dimensional Flower.
Even without installing a Dimension Gate, she could travel through the Dimensional Flower.
KWAAAAAA!
A sound came down from the sky.
Massive warships pushed through clouds that looked like black fog, revealing themselves.
"Cloak."
The instant the twenty thousand high-level Heroes heard her order, they moved. As they all channeled mana into their cloaks in unison, their forms blurred like mist.
"Sis, it looks like there's fighting over that way."
A Northern Hero who had been with her since Episode 1 pointed to an enormous factory in the distance.
KWAAAA!
Barely had the words left his mouth when the enormous factory in the distance exploded. Flames engulfed it as it burst apart, a spectacular sight. Warships could be seen landing near the scene.
"Judging by the scale of that blast, probably the Romance crew."
"There aren't many mages who can pull off magic like that."
"Just checked their stream, yep, it's them."
NorthernGrandDuke nodded.
"Looks like they started first. As expected, those guys have no patience."
"Heh heh heh."
"Haha."
As she smirked, everyone let out dark, chilling laughs.
"Scan the area."
A Hero pulled a rocket-shaped scanning tool from his Inventory. It was a mapping device invented by HandGenius.
FWEEEEEW!
The rocket soared into the sky, piercing the clouds and climbing high above. It hovered in the air for a moment, beginning to gather topographical data of the surroundings. The polluted atmosphere posed no real obstacle.
It linked with the Information Window, allowing her to check the data immediately.
"Hmm...."
NorthernGrandDuke's eyes widened.
This place was an enormous asteroid.
A massive device at the center of the asteroid was strengthening its gravity and generating a partial atmosphere. Resource mining was being carried out around the gigantic factories. Kalsus Dimensional Empire forces were stationed everywhere, and various equipment including warships could be seen.
Just within visual range from the asteroid where the Northern Territory Army had landed, there were more than ten other asteroids. The sun was so obscured by countless fragments and dust that its light only reached them faintly.
"The scale is unreal."
"This is what a main episode looks like!"
"Now I get why we can't see the other Heroes."
"I'll establish a communications network right away."
The Northern Heroes swiftly finished assessing the situation.
Was it because they were in another dimension?
When they connected to Arsilan Worlds, the entire forum was unstable, as if corrupted by static.
"Let's move."
NorthernGrandDuke led the Northern Territory Army toward the largest factory nearby. The factory's security was brutal. Armored soldiers could be seen patrolling its perimeter.
"They're not guarding the factory."
On closer inspection, they weren't protecting the factory, they were keeping watch over what was inside. NorthernGrandDuke and the Northern Heroes lowered their stances and approached.
Beyond the barbed wire, she could see slaves in shackles.
The slaves came in many shapes and forms.
There was a race with red jewels embedded in their foreheads, races with blue scales, races whose bodies gave off light. Beings of all kinds were holding pickaxes in forced labor or carrying the materials they had mined.
"Slaves..., huh."
NorthernGrandDuke recalled the footage from the Sphere.
Those armored soldiers had massacred the natives without mercy. They had taken a few as slaves and slaughtered all the rest, laughing as they did.
"Aaack! I, I'm sorry!"
THUD, THUD!
When a slave carrying materials collapsed from exhaustion, a soldier walked over and began stomping on him. The slave was a young boy. He must have been starving for a long time, reduced to nothing but skin and bone.
"I, I'll do it for him. I..., agh!"
Another slave nearby dropped to his knees and begged, but the soldier grabbed him by the hair, dragged him away, and kept beating him. She couldn't understand a word of their language, but she understood the situation perfectly well, more than enough.
KWABOOOM! KABOOM!
When explosions echoed from other factories, the soldiers poured out in droves. The other Heroes had begun their own operations.
One of the Northern Heroes briefly pulled up Haebyul's broadcast through his Information Window.
-those fucking bastards
-kill em all!
-seriously piece of shit scumbags
Just the chat alone told her everything.
"Let's get started too."
NorthernGrandDuke stood up. Her cloak dropped, and her form was revealed.
The soldiers spotted her and swarmed out in droves.
"Wh, what the hell is that."
"Kill her."
"Shoot her down."
TADATATA!
The soldiers leveled their guns and fired at her. But not a single bullet reached her. The mere act of gripping her two-handed axe produced a shield-like Aura that melted every round in the air.
SHWIP!
Behind her, the Northern Heroes dropped their cloaks and lined up in formation. The sudden appearance of twenty thousand Heroes threw the soldiers into confusion, and they faltered.
"Kill every last one, and rescue the captives."
CLACK!
The Northern Heroes drew their weapons. Auras of every color gathered around their blades, shimmering in the air like heat haze.
A low laughter rolled through the ranks.
Slaughter was not the exclusive privilege of those soldiers.
The brave warriors of Arsilan, who had annihilated countless monsters, stood here right now.
NorthernGrandDuke charged forward first. She hurled her two-handed axe ahead of her, and the axe carved through the ground, shredding every soldier in its path.
She leapt high into the air and stretched out her hand. The two-handed axe, having cut through the barbed wire and smashed through the factory wall, flew back into her hand like a boomerang.
NorthernGrandDuke gripped the two-handed axe as it returned and slammed it down into the ground.
KWAAAAAA!
Aura exploded outward, sweeping through the soldiers.
She looked at the empty suits of armor collapsed on the ground, then raised her axe high.
"Valhalla!"
At her cry, the Northern Heroes charged all at once toward the soldiers.
"Valhalla!"
"Valhalla!"
Several tanks rolled into view before the Northern Heroes, but.
KRUNCH!
One of the Northern Heroes latched onto a tank, jammed his hand through the armor plating, and detonated every ounce of his mana. The tank was torn cleanly in half and blown apart.
The one-sided slaughter had begun.
* * *
Jinwoo watched the asteroid field built in the Intermediate Dimension from General Gord's personal warship. Around a faintly glowing sun drifted asteroids formed from clustered debris.
The setting was that these were the end result of the Kalsus Dimensional Empire destroying everything and compressing only the usable resources. Slaves captured from various dimensions were kept alive under the bare minimum conditions and forced into brutal mining labor.
Once the mining was complete, the Dimensional Eraser would be triggered, wiping everything away.
'It would be nice if it were just a story from a setting I made up....'
Unfortunately, this was what the Kalsus Dimensional Empire actually did. They mined everything akin to the life imbued in the Dimensional Realm, accumulating tremendous power.
Countless Bubble Dimensions were proof of it.
Such lore wasn't laid out openly, but had to be pieced together through documents and records. That approach was far more interesting. When Heroes came across Kalsus Dimensional Empire books or records, they could use Arsilan's perfected 'Enlightenment System' to learn their language or knowledge in exchange for a price.
[Kill them all!]
[Don't leave a single one alive!]
[You motherfuckers! Die!]
The Heroes who had landed on the various asteroids saw the horrific mining sites and immediately attacked. Enormous factories exploded, and the Kalsus Dimensional Empire warships, tanks, and mobile fortresses Jinwoo had positioned were all ruthlessly blown to pieces.
The crew members watched and marveled.
"High-level Heroes really are strong."
"Around level 160, they can rip a tank apart with both hands...."
High-level Heroes armed with high-rank weapons were each a match for a large tank. The Heroes watched the soldiers retreating to their warships.
[They're running?]
[Bolting?]
As one Hero leapt into the air, a mage Hero cast wind-attribute magic. The Hero's body was launched forward at tremendous speed, reaching the warship in an instant. The ship's door was closing, and he slipped through just in time.
WOOOOOOM!
The warship's engines roared as it hurriedly took off. It shot up into the air, trying to escape the asteroid.
Flames erupted from the hull, and the ship tilted to the side. The hull split open and soldiers were flung out. Losing all balance, the warship spun wildly through the air before slamming into the ground.
KWABOOOOM!
It exploded on impact, shattering into pieces.
From within the flames, the Hero who had boarded the ship walked out. In his hand, he held the captain's helmet.
"That Hero's level 190, right?"
"Haha, this is gonna be fun."
"Heh heh! But we're going to have even more fun."
Displays of every asteroid and countless live streams floated in front of the crew members. They had once envied the Heroes who got to enjoy Arsilan Saga, but not anymore. They had been cast in a role that was even more fun.
Their hearts raced wondering when the deployment order would come.
Their bodies itched to move.
Across the asteroids, factory after factory was destroyed, and the soldiers he had prepared were being burned through fast.
On one asteroid, he could see a cluster of Named Heroes gathered together. A vast coalition that was rare even within Arsilan had unusually assembled in one place.
Jinwoo peered in closely.
They were streaming, and when he added up the viewer counts of them all, it came to hundreds of millions.
[Helby Fan Club found an empty asteroid. Said the environment's decent and there aren't any enemies.]
[Then it would be best to move people there. After that, we contact Lord Leon and find a way to get them back to Arsilan.]
At Jamshik's words, NorthernGrandDuke immediately formed a plan.
LifeHunter nodded and pointed to a massive warship off in the distance.
[There's an abandoned warship past that ridge. We should make use of it.]
[Yes, hyung-nim! Then I'll reach out to the Heroes nearby!]
Jamshik sent messages to the representatives of the guilds and territories on the same asteroid.
Behind him stood many people who had been enslaved. All of them were frail, their faces pale as though they might collapse at any moment.
The Heroes on the same asteroid began leading the rescued captives toward the location Jamshik had designated.
Jinwoo smirked.
'They're just Bio-Golems.'
"Ignis, you deploy to that side."
"Wooo! Alright!"
Ignis pumped his fist with delight.
"And the rest of you, scatter and head to the asteroids. You know what to do, right?"
"Heh heh, of course."
"I'll be a total trash villain, I swear!"
The crew members were brimming with enthusiasm and passion.
SNAP!
The crew members saluted Jinwoo, boarded the small ships inside General Gord's personal warship, and flew out.
Jinwoo kept his eyes on Ignis's location through the Information Window.
NorthernGrandDuke and LifeHunter were leading the rescued captives toward the large warship at the front of the column. Just as they reached the ship, something flashed in the sky.
SHOOOOOM! KRAKOOM!
A capsule painted the black sky with flame and crashed down right in front of the Heroes.
The capsule opened, and Ignis rose from inside.
Ignis was enormous.
The armor he wore was wreathed in blazing flames, and the blood coating his great spear evaporated into crimson steam.
A killing intent derived from Dragon Fear bore down on the surroundings.
[Urk?!]
[Hm....]
NorthernGrandDuke, LifeHunter, and every Hero present stiffened.
[I, is that a boss?]
[Holy shit....]
[Dude looks insanely strong.]
-look at that aura omg
-sudden final boss appearance....
-looks way stronger than Erosion?
He radiated such overwhelming presence that calling him the final boss wouldn't be out of place. Even Jamshik's stream chat momentarily froze.
Ignis raised his spear and leveled it at the Heroes.
[How dare you lay hands on what belongs to General Gord..., you ignorant worms. I shall grant you mercy. End yourselves.]
His voice was like magma. Even though his language should have been unintelligible, it overlapped with Arsilan's common tongue, as if simultaneously translated.
Jamshik swallowed hard and tried Appraisal.
[???] General Gord's Executioner
??? ????
The Appraisal didn't work properly. All he could glean was that this was General Gord's Executioner. Ignis had given them a brief window, but of course, none of the Heroes took their own lives.
[I shall kill you slowly, in agony.]
When Ignis thrust his spear forward, an enormous blast of flame erupted outward and swept over the Heroes.
[Gugh!]
[My barrier....]
[This has to be at least B-rank!]
[His basic attack is B-rank? Insane....]
[Th, the fire, it won't g, go out!]
The Heroes, their bodies wrapped in fire, began to slowly burn. NorthernGrandDuke raised her two-handed axe and glared at Ignis.
[We'll take him.]
[At last, prey worth hunting. Jamshik, get the rescued to that warship. The other Heroes will be here soon.]
NorthernGrandDuke and LifeHunter pointed their weapons at Ignis. The Northern Territory Army and the Dark Hunters swiftly surrounded him. So many Heroes closed in that they packed the space around Ignis shoulder to shoulder.
[Yes! I'll get them out safely!]
Jamshik, together with Heroes from other guilds, led the rescued toward the large warship.
Ignis, even as he watched all this unfold, simply stood still.
He looked far too at ease.
[Struggle, then. Worms.]
When Ignis raised his spear, thousands of fireballs floated up around him. Each one of them was B-rank or higher.
KWAGAGAGAGA!
The moment they slammed into the Heroes, flames roared skyward. NorthernGrandDuke and LifeHunter burst through the flames and charged in. Ignis lightly deflected their strikes and swatted them both back in a single motion.
Jinwoo wore a satisfied smile.
"Ignis is pretty impressive."
Wielding a dragon's might and magic with seamless ease, he was putting on a superb villain performance. Fitting, perhaps, for the strongest being in Arsilan outside of Jinwoo, Ella, and Helby.
Jinwoo began watching intently.
The tip of Ignis's spear pierced through a Northern Hero's chest.
KWAAAA!
The Hero exploded on the spot, turning the surroundings into a field of flame. The Heroes' attacks couldn't penetrate the armor. Even water-attribute magic evaporated before it could reach him.
Ignis: How am I doing? Am I pulling it off?
Jinwoo: Good. Push harder. Drain every bit of strength from them.
Ignis: Got it!
Unable to press their attack, the Heroes held their ground against Ignis. They were buying time for the rescued captives to board the warship. Ignis let out a low laugh and extended his hand.
WHOOSH!
Three of those who had been running toward the warship were yanked violently toward Ignis and lifted into the air. They were among the rescued captives.
[No fucking way.]
[What the....]
Seeing the stunned expressions of the Heroes, Ignis planted his spear into the ground and leisurely snapped his fingers.
[Aaaaah!]
[Gwaaaah!]
[S, save me.... Aack!]
Flames rose from the soles of their feet and slowly consumed their bodies.
NorthernGrandDuke, LifeHunter, and every Hero on the scene were horrified by the gruesome sight.
Like someone slowly burning an insect to death with a lighter, he was executing them for enjoyment.
[You bastard...!]
[...Grrr!]
NorthernGrandDuke and LifeHunter seethed. The Heroes ground their teeth. Ignis grinned at them as if to put his cruelty on display.
[This is the only value worthless creatures have. These screams, this smell of burning flesh. Is this not a truly magnificent performance?]
Ignis turned his head and glanced toward the large warship.
At that, NorthernGrandDuke, LifeHunter, and the other Heroes unleashed a barrage of attacks. The rescued captives had nearly all boarded the warship, and the Heroes from other locations were now joining them.
Haebyul and the Romance Heroes had arrived too.
True to their reputation, they had rescued a great many people.
When the warship somehow managed to lift off, everyone finally let themselves breathe.
The time had come.
Jinwoo moved General Gord's personal warship into position at precisely the right moment. The enormous warship that split the sky as it emerged was even larger than the one carrying the rescued captives.
Jinwoo grinned.
This was the moment he had been waiting for.
CHAK-CLACK!
A massive gun barrel extended from General Gord's personal warship and leveled itself at the large warship.
[N, no way....]
[He can't!]
[No!]
-wait what's he doing?
-fuck!
-no way right?
The Heroes screamed, and the chat erupted.
He wouldn't really fire, would he?
There are so many people on board, he can't really fire, right?
Right?
As if he could hear their thoughts.
CLICK!
Jinwoo pressed the fire button, with all the casualness in the world.