From Today, I'm a Player

Chapter 204: Preparing for War Pt. 4

“So…” Lee Jun-Kyeong laughed at Ungnyeo as he asked, “Are you planning on playing the villain?”

“Yes,” Ungnyeo calmly answered. She thought that it would be necessary to have a villain, whether it be now or in the future as well.

Although they still had external enemies like Odin, she thought that it was still necessary to have someone to serve as an object for people’s rage through harsh decisions on the inside as well, bringing people together against a common foe.

“I’ve already been receiving hate.” She took a moment to swallow before she continued, “Many people have been saying that their families had died because of me. So…”

“You plan on playing the villain?”

“Yes. And you have to continue being everyone’s Hero as well.” There was conviction in her gaze. “I believe that when all of this is over, they’ll need someone to guide them. And…”

“You think that’s me?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“Yes.” Ungnyeo lowered her head as if ready to accept any reprimands as she responded, “I can afford to become the villain in order to make you a Hero.”

“...”

“I want you to be the one to lead everyone,” she said.

Although she had finished speaking, Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t answer.

“...”

Instead, his brow just furrowed in anger. Finally, he opened his mouth. “Are you saying that my opinion doesn’t matter?”

“Well…?”

“I have no desire to lead people. Politicians or whatever will probably handle that.”

“But…!” Ungnyeo interrupted Lee Jun-Kyeong.

“You already have an ideal world that you want. A world where, in the future, ordinary people wouldn’t be persecuted by Hunters and where everyone could live equally. But do you really think that people with the same ideals as you will be able to hold onto power?” she argued.

Ungnyeo was right.

“Politicians will lose their power, and even if there were people with the same ideals as you…”

“If you don’t have the mana to subdue everyone, then it won’t be possible,” Lee Jun-Kyeong finished.

“And even knowing that, you…! That’s why you have to become a real Hero in order to create the world that you want!”

Lee Jun-Kyeong looked at Ungnyeo. Everything she had said was right.

'A person with the same ideals as me.'

There couldn't have been many such people. Moreover, even if there was a strong enough Hunter with such ideals, there was still the possibility of corruption. Someone in that position still had the ability to dominate everyone.

In this world where Hunters had come into existence, strength was no different from absolute authority. This was a world where money and political influence all came from the tip of a sword.

“This is a world where falling to corruption is easy, and…” Ungnyeo continued to argue, and as she had said, unless he did everything himself, the world he had wanted may not come true.

“You’ve got something wrong,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said to her. His face was no longer full of anger. “I can be corrupted too. I could also end up wanting to rule the world too.”

“...”

Ungnyeo’s expression also stiffened as if she had the same concerns as well.

Lee Jun-Kyeong was a person not much different from anyone else. Moreover, he was a person that could quite possibly live a nearly immortal life just with the power he currently had.

Although he had returned to the past with an aversion toward the world of the future and rage against the Hunters, no one could really be certain that he wouldn’t end up rotting in the future after enough time had passed, becoming the very thing he hated after holding everything in his hands.

At the same time, it would be useless to cede this authority to someone else.

‘Because I’ll still have this power in my hands.’

Mana wouldn’t just disappear. At least up to that much was an obvious fact. Moreover, he was also just an ordinary person who could also fall as well.

“There’s also another thing, something that you misunderstood…”

Gulp.

Ungnyeo swallowed nervously once more and looked at Lee Jun-Kyeong.

“I have no intention of becoming a Hero that’s admired by everyone.”

“What…?”

“What I want for myself is…”

He had read through the book dozens of times. Although his current enemy was the Hero of that book, that was why Lee Jun-Kyeong could understand him a little. Also, the reason that he had loved that Hero so much was because their ideals were similar.

Lee Jun-Kyeong slowly opened his mouth, “To be a Devil.”

He didn’t want to be a Hero.

He would just use the fear that everyone had for him to carve the meaning of true fear on them all.

‘Everything would be equal before me…’

In that way, if anyone made the wrong choice, he would one day appear and carry out a sentence of death. However, even that would be of no use if he himself were to be corrupted. That was why Lee Jun-Kyeong already had something in mind.

“You can’t be…”

Ungnyeo began to speak as if she had noticed something, but Lee Jun-Kyeong quickly left her room as if he didn’t want to hear what she had to say. She looked at his back as he walked away, unable to say anything.

His back, weighed down by the weight of the world, looked so lonely. It was almost as if it was hinting at his end.

***

“I knew if it was you, you would do something like that.” A voice came to Lee Jun-Kyeong while he was walking down the street.

“Did you eavesdrop?” Lee Jun-Kyeong answered a little coldly.

Zeus had appeared, looking over at him with a smile on his face.

“Do you really have nothing else to do?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“Yes.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t even think of scoffing at Zeus’ extremely blunt response.

“What do you think there is for me to do here? Jeong In-Chang and Won-Hwa have taken all those kids who wanted to be Sponsored out hunting, and Heracles and the other kids are, well…”

“What about Athena?” Lee Jun-Kyeong had asked a slightly uncomfortable question, but Zeus smirked and navigated past it well.

“What, are you really going to pretend you don’t know?”

Eventually, Lee Jun-Kyeong surrendered and finally shook his head.

“I knew you didn’t want to be a Hero, but to think you would want to be a Devil. Have you read too many s or something?”

Despite Zeus' ridicule, Lee Jun-Kyeong's face was calm. Rather, it ended up being Zeus who was shocked. “Wait, are you being serious?”

Lee Jun-Kyeong soundlessly nodded as Zeus laughed in disbelief. “You’ve gone insane, haven’t you? You actually meant a devil?”

On the contrary, however, Lee Jun-Kyeong responded seriously to the laughing Zeus, “Have you forgotten who our enemy is?”

"The Demon King…”

“To catch the Demon King, I have to become a Devil.”[1]

There was conviction in Lee Jun-Kyeong's resolute voice.

“However, obtaining the power of a Devil in order to catch a Demon King and earning the name Devil through your actions is a little different.”

“...”

“You really have absolutely no intention of becoming a Hero. Even though it would be possible if it’s you.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong turned his head away and started walking again.

“I mean, I did recognize it when you dealt with the Hunters who followed Odin. You have a conviction within you. Moreover, you even have the strength and will to keep to them as well.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong snapped, “It’s not something that I wanted.”

“Yeah, yeah. Indeed.”

Zeus continued to mutter to himself as if he was thinking out loud, and Lee Jun-Kyeong ignored it and continued to walk away.

“Wait…” However, he had no choice but to stop at Zeus’ next words. “Are you planning on dying once everything is sorted out?”

“...!”

“You’re thinking about going to hide in a remote place somewhere after engraving the meaning of fear on people and committing suicide. People won’t know if you’re dead, and because they wouldn’t know when you would come back, that would make the closest thing to an ideal world or whatever. That’s your plan, right?”

Zeus was right.

‘I can fall too.’

That was why those who had too much power to be allowed to fall had to disappear. This was his plan to change the future.

“That’s just the last resort.” But, as Lee Jun-Kyeong had just said, that was his last resort.

“So you want that too then.”

“...”

“What Odin had wanted.” Zeus shrugged his shoulders as he spoke. “To kill the Sponsors, and…”

“I want to completely remove a Hunter’s strength. To return things to the original world.” Lee Jun-Kyeong finished Zeus' words.

Zeus whispered like a demon in turn, “Is that really the right choice? Just because it's a world where Hunters don’t rule…”

His whispering voice firmly embedded itself into Lee Jun-Kyeong’s brain. “Are things really any different?”

***

The next day, the empty lot that had been used as a plaza was noisy.

“What’s happening?”

"I don't know!"

People started to gather in the plaza for the unusual situation, speaking amongst themselves about what was going on.

“Are we finally founding a country?”

“What do you mean founding a nation? No matter how amazing the Underdog is, don’t you think that’s a little crazy?”

“It’s not, Underdog. Call him Lord Underdog you idiot.”

"I hope it's about expelling that witch from here."

People gathered in the square, chatting with each other.

“But, why are things so quiet?”

.

The closer the people got to the plaza, the more they felt things were strange. It would be natural for things to be noisy because there were already people gathered in the square.

“Really…just what’s going…?!”

However, those who saw the sight of the square couldn’t help but be silent.

“What is that…”

They were all aghast.

"Kya!!!"

Finally, the screams. In the plaza, a tree had appeared all of a sudden out of nowhere.

“It’s a corpse!”

“Aren’t they the ones who had been exiled?”

Hanging from the tree were the bodies of Odin’s exiled followers. That wasn’t all.

"Please…”

"Help me…”

Hunters were kneeling in front of the tree.

Although they had sinned by following Odin, they were those who had escaped the fate of being banished. These hunters were trembling on their knees with their hands and feet tied.

“Please…”

The people couldn’t keep their mouths shut at this shocking sight: corpses hanging from the tree and the Hunters kneeling before them.

“How savage…”

“Just…what is this…”

It was such a brutal scene.

“Is this the Joseon Dynasty or something?”[2]

“This is horrifying…it’s definitely the work of that witch.”

“This…”

People seemed shocked to see the corpses of those they had agreed to banish. They knew that people had died because they had wanted them to. It was something everyone understood. But seeing it in person had a completely different feeling.

“We’re murderers…”

“What are you saying? They all deserved to die!”

“But what about those people who are tied up?”

“You don’t think it’s…”

As the people made a fuss again, someone began to approach the square.

Step.

Noticing him, the people parted like the Red Sea to give way.

Step.

The quiet sound of the footsteps overwhelmed everyone. Finally, the owner of the footsteps reached the plaza.

“Lord Underdog!”

“Underdog!”

“Ahhh!!”

They, who had been shocked until just now, cheered, forgetting everything. It was their god. Lee Jun-Kyeong stood in the square.

One of the old men standing in the front row called out to him, “Look at this! Someone has to have done such a cruel thing!”

“It’s clearly the work of the witch!”

“The culprit must be found and punished immediately.”

These people, who had insisted on banishing the criminals even though it was certain that they would have died, were loudly demanding for Lee Jun-Kyeong to punish the witch, Ungnyeo. However, the words that came out of his mouth were the exact opposite of their expectations.

“I did this.”

"Pardon…?”

“Wh…what did you say?!”

“I found the corpses that have been strung up, and I was the one to chain those bastards up.”

“...”

Silence fell over the square again.

“Their sentence was a deferred banishment, right? Well, I changed my mind a bit.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong’s words drove fear into the onlookers’ minds.

Squelch!

A harsh cutting sound rang through the square.

Splat!

The rushing fountain of blood quickly spread throughout the crowd, and the square quickly exploded into screams.

“Kya!!!!”

Amidst the screams and chaos, someone rushed forward and smacked Lee Jun-Kyeong across the cheek.

Smack!

“Ungnyeo…”

"You…what is this...!”

As Ungnyeo began to shout at him, Lee Jun-Kyeong slowly walked past her and away from the square. With flushed cheeks, the people remembered once more the fear they had of Lee Jun-Kyeong, which had been a fear that had turned to awe. They all bowed their heads and trembled, not even daring to hint at any eye contact.

Drip. Drip.

The blood flowing from the tip of Lee Jun-Kyeong's spear soaked the ground.

***

“How was it? Don’t you think there are so many things you can do once you learn magic?” Merlin said to Lee Jun-Kyeong with a slightly excited expression.

“It really did…it really did seem real,” Lee Jun-Kyeong replied as he fastened Merlin’s Necklace around her neck.

What had happened in the square had all been an illusion.

‘Although Ungnyeo hasn’t seemed to have noticed it yet…’

Lee Jun-Kyeong stopped himself. Most people hadn’t seemed to have noticed.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I did that?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked Merlin, wondering if she was curious.

Merlin simply smiled faintly.

“You must have had your reasons. It’s not like you really killed anyone, anyway, and you must have had some reason or another for doing something like that,” she said offhandedly.

“So, magic…”

Arthur, who had been quiet by her side, intervened, “No! I told you, you have to learn swordsmanship!”

Since the atmosphere was about to become overheated again, Lee Jun-Kyeong interjected, having no intention of putting up with their argument any longer, “As I said before… I will learn both. Let's start right now. We don't have much time.”

Things would have to start now.

“I will try my best to learn as much as I can before the war begins.”

1. The literal Korean terms are Demon King and Demon God. It’s an expression of hierarchy. ????

2. After the Strife of Princes in Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, King Taejong, a very staunch monarchist, in an effort to scare the populous into accepting the kingdom’s absolute monarchy status rather than any shared power with ministers, frequently displayed shows of power by hanging people, mostly his rivals and anyone he deemed a threat. ????