The Novel’s Villain

57. Myth (2)

Jin-woo admired Bread Jam.

‘He’s more like a religious pseudo-leader than a broadcaster.’

He had become the center of power of the shopping center, which had become much more populated because of Jin-woo.

After all, every time he roamed around looking for a Black Hound base, he got rid of the zombies, keeping their base’s perimeter safe.

In the past, their faction often rescued one or two survivors every now and then. Now, however, the survivors themselves had started coming in large numbers, bringing their own network of people.

What he found strange was that even after killing so many zombies, they still appeared around their territory.

Their numbers were small, but if left alone, they increased quickly.

Still, it was much safer than before.

[Hello, we are at the J.S. Shopping Center. We’ve secured the area here. We also have food, water, and medicine to treat the virus.]

Bread Jam did a radio broadcast by himself.

With the zombies gone, they were able to secure even more basic necessities. There were large amounts of them in each building, which Jin-woo would’ve normally found strange.

But it wasn’t just pure luck.

Most of them were purchased by Bread Jam with tears in his eyes using the money he borrowed from Jin-woo.

Bread Jam was quite generous.

Since he came, everything had gone well and become safe. As a natural reaction, people began to follow him.

Even those suffering from zombie bites found it miraculous that he could stop them from turning into one of them.

When asked about it, Bread Jam always told them that he had developed the immunity needed to eradicate it and used it to create a cure after deep research and extraction.

But no one really believed it. Still, what was important was that there was now a cure for it.

‘This is difficult.’

While Jin-woo was trying to pinpoint the Black Hound base on a map, Bread Jam sneakily approached him.

“Great Emperor.”

“Yes?”

“It’s not dangerous anymore, is it?”

Bread Jam had witnessed how the Marauders operated. Since he was broadcasting their location to bring in survivors, it was only natural to be worried.

Rachel was the one that suggested such a move. She and the leader argued about it since the latter advocated for safety, while the former was more idealistic. However, when Bread Jam joined her side, the leader was left with no choice but to back down.

‘Seriously, this guy…’

Since they shared the same room, Rachel often expressed her dark feelings to him to her heart’s content. However, he sided with her purely because she was pretty.

Rachel, on the other hand, had genuine respect for him.

They weren’t in a cartoon or anime, but she kept getting injured whenever he was with her, ultimately leading him to misunderstand her intentions.

For her, he was no more than a saint enduring for the sake of the people.

“How are you?”

“I feel elated, Great Emperor. Even if I die now, I won’t have any regrets. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this luxury back on Earth.”

“Are you still popular?”

“… Yes, but there are a lot of downsides to it. I’ve seen the sun only a few times, and… Every time I meet women, they tell me, ‘You’re ugly, you idiot.’ That seems to be the latest trend.”

Bread Jam was no saint.

He was just a pervert on the loose under the name of Lee Jae-mi.

Rachel approached him.

“So this is where you were.”

“Oh, Rachel.”

“I told you not to overdo it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m just a little out of breath. Hehehe…”

Rachel embraced him, rubbing his cheeks against her chest. He pretended to hate it, but deep down, he loved it.

Based on appearance alone, it was understandable why Rachel kept doing it. He looked pitiful, stimulating her protective instincts.

Unfortunately, she was unaware he was just a pervert deep down.

[Lee Jae-mi(Bread Jam)’s title has been updated.]

*[C] Poor perverted pseudo-saint

Rachel grabbed his hand and led them to their room.

Bread Jam devised a plan to return to his original form and confess to her, but he didn’t know if it’d work out. It was as if he was filming a rom-com in the World of Death.

‘He should just be happy with what he has right now.’ Jin-woo sighed.

The Emperor who ruled this place was interested in Bread Jam. However, he hadn’t noticed his energy yet, perhaps because he was weaker than he expected.

Still, this situation developed in a direction different from what the Emperor hoped.

Bread Jam was steadily attracting aggression through radio broadcasts, the reach of which Jin-woo directly amplified. They could probably be received from anywhere in the USA now.

‘At this point, they’ll come to me themselves.’

Finding the Black Hounds proved difficult, so he made them come to him instead. He used Bread Jam to bait them out, but there was no need to worry. Currently, he wouldn’t die so easily.

Jin-woo went to Alex. There were quite a lot of people with him today.

They all looked delighted, perhaps due to their newfound hope of the zombie apocalypse coming to an end.

However, an increase in population meant new problems were bound to arise. The leader’s concerns deepened.

‘They’ll figure it out.’

There was absolutely no need for Jin-woo to intervene.

Looking at the people with the Magic Eye of Information, a suspicious-looking man caught his attention.

[F+] Black Hound Intelligence Agent

An intelligence agent whose physical abilities have been greatly improved by a biological experiment. Though dispatched by his superior to gather information about the saint, he also carries an enhanced virus that will infect the entire shopping center. Once it does, he plans to abduct the saint.

Black Hound didn’t just send one man. Rather, they deployed a wide range of young women and middle-aged men. To test Bread Jam’s ability, they also deliberately beat their own member half to death and even made a zombie bite him.

He was also injected with a new virus.

‘It’s not just any virus either.’

Unlike the one that caused the apocalypse, this one turned those it had infected into beings stronger than zombies. Since there seemed to be a way to control it, it wouldn’t be wrong to consider it a biological weapon.

He didn’t even think they’d be crazy enough to turn the entire shopping center into a laboratory.

Things were becoming a little more interesting.

Jin-woo identified all of them as he moved the cooking ingredients they found in an abandoned building, though it was really just some of the supplies Bread Jam bought from him.

The leader approached him with a serious expression. His days’ worth of sleep deprivation was noticeable from the dark circles around his eyes.

“Can I assign a newcomer to be your cooking assistant?”

“For as long as it’ll help you. Oh, if possible, send me this person.”

“Hmm. Alright.”

He assigned the recent recruits to different tasks based on the system he made that would allow him to monitor them while using them as a labor force. In doing so, the leader fixed all the problems Bread Jam created.

‘His characteristics have changed, but his tendency to team-kill is still there.”

Jin-woo laughed bitterly.

With Jerry leaving his post to become Jae-mi’s follower, he was given a new cooking assistant.

“Should I put this here?” The Black Hound intelligence agent from a while ago asked.

“Yes.”

Jin-woo cooked with a smile. There were a lot of dishes to be made, but he didn’t find it difficult at all since this was one of his hobbies. Moreover, since the ingredients were fresh, he found this task even easier to do.

The spy approached him in a friendly manner.

“Can the saint perform real miracles?”

“That’s what the people say.”

“Have you ever seen it happen in person?”

Perhaps thinking he was just an ordinary cook, he blatantly gathered information from him.

Jin-woo meekly told him all he knew, making the spy grin inwardly and think his task was so easy it couldn’t even be called a mission.

For an elite agent, he was great at being a cooking assistant. He didn’t have any trouble cooking at all.

However, now that the food was ready, Jin-woo didn’t need him anymore.

He looked at the Black Hound informant.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“A secret?”

“Yes. Nobody knows about this.”

The spy’s eyes flashed as he moved towards the door.

There were many dangerous objects such as knives in the kitchen, which was why its doors were heavily reinforced and equipped with a powerful lock.

Click! Clunk!

Closing the door and locking it down, Jin-woo smiled at his cooking assistant, the sudden change in atmosphere perplexing him a little.

“The saint is actually…”

“Yes?”

“A man.”

The spy’s expression darkened.

“Haha! That’s quite the weird joke.”

He saw her before entering the kitchen. There was no way that was true.

Jin-woo laughed along with him but soon abruptly stopped.

Silence dominated the room.

“Now that I’ve told you a secret, you need to tell me one in return.”

“What?”

“The Black Hounds… Where are they located?”

Shock!

As soon as he heard his organization’s name, the intelligence agent grabbed a nearby knife and assumed a fighting stance.

His reaction speed far surpassed ordinary humans, which was probably the result of the experiment he underwent. Still, he was only ranked F+.

“How did you find out?”

Jin-woo merely smiled at him in silence, causing him to feel terribly anxious. He threw his knife at him.

“Huh?” He uttered, confused. His weapon was nowhere to be found.

“Argh! M-my arm!”

Jin-woo now held his arm, having been neatly cut off from his body. In its hand was the knife he was looking for.

He looked at it curiously. Blood didn’t come out of it, which he determined was a result of the agent’s biological modification.

He put it in the trash can. Unfortunately for his opponent, he was in no mood to play.

“It’s nice that you’re clean.”

At the very least, he didn’t bleed all over the place unnecessarily.

The spy couldn’t even resist.

“Now that it’s come to this…”

He tried to take the virus out of his pocket, but Jin-woo had already stolen it. He didn’t even see how he did.

[D+] Enhanced Virus

A virus that strengthens whoever it infects. However, it has the side effect of causing their physique to swell due to hyperactive cell proliferation.

Jin-woo could feel an Emperor’s energy from the virus stored in a glass vial. That was probably why it was ranked quite high.

Now that he had taken his gift, he began extracting information from him using the fastest and most effective method he knew.

He played classical music and turned the radio’s volume on max. He then took out torture devices from his subspace and put on white gloves. They were in a kitchen, after all. Hygienic conduct had to be observed at all times.

“Aaaaaghhhh!”

Amid such a peaceful atmosphere, he was able to extract all the information he needed.

* * *

Bread Jam headed to the bathroom after dinner.

However, intelligence agents quickly surrounded him when he did, covering his mouth and attempting to inject something into his neck.

“Hmm!”

Immediately releasing his power, he grabbed the arm holding the syringe and flipped the entire person over, bashing his back against the floor.

The female spy next to him panicked, giving him the gap he needed to land a punch on her chin.

Crisp!

Her jaw shattered as she collapsed.

Bread Jam felt shocked.

“I killed a person…”

When his enemies staggered in desperation, he came back to his senses. He clenched his fists instinctively.

“Don’t move!”

Bam! Puck!

“Die, you bastard!”

Puck! Bam! Wam!

They could barely move by the time he was done beating them up. He sweated profusely.

“Whew…” Bread Jam sighed in relief, wiping away his cold sweat.

He no longer felt guilty for killing someone.

* * *

The spies were tough.

Jin-woo knew that best, considering he just extracted information from one in the kitchen. Approaching the others, he set fire to them before they could get up again.

He admired Bread Jam’s brutality.

He targeted parts of the agents’ bodies that would cause them the most pain. As a result, they drowned in so much agony they couldn’t even scream.

What made the whole thing scarier was that it wasn’t even his intention.

“You beat them up quite mercilessly.”

“Hey, have you been watching? Who are these people?”

“I think they’re the ones behind the zombie apocalypse.”

Zombies that kept appearing no matter how many of them were killed.

The Emperor’s energy.

This USA-like location.

He had many questions, but he thought he’d get answers to all of them if he visited the Black Hounds in person.

“Make sure you clean everything thoroughly.”

“Huh?”

“There’s one in the kitchen fridge as well. Don’t forget to take care of him.”

“Huh? What?”

Jin-woo sneaked out of the shopping center. He wanted Bread Jam to tell the leader about the situation, but he thought differently.

Bread Jam woke up early in the morning in a state of anxiety to sneak out a shovel out of the tool room and secretly drag plastic-wrapped corpses into the garden behind the shopping center.

Grr! Shhhh!

As he tended to the task Jin-woo gave him, heavy rain began to pour. He covered himself with black plastic instead of a raincoat to avoid getting wet.

Digging through the ground, he used his Holy Power to hasten the process.

Rumble!

Lightning struck behind him, illuminating his surroundings as he buried the bodies with trembling hands.

‘Mother, your son has become a woman… And, as if that’s not enough, a criminal as well…’

The sensation of murdering people… He couldn’t remove it from his mind.

Bread Jam tried to calm himself down, but his expression only darkened. In this state, nobody would even think he was a saint that preached the word of God every day.

Returning to his room, Bread Jam opened the beer he had secretly hidden.

“Ugh…”

Drinking such beverages after work certainly tasted sweet.

It made him feel refreshed.

* * *

Jin-woo moved to the Black Hound’s stronghold.

He had no trouble finding it since he got extremely accurate information from their very own spy. It was indeed far, but distance wasn’t an issue for him.

He passed through the city and crossed a vast wasteland in an instant.

“Hmm?”

He found a gigantic wall right at the end of it.

Jin-woo looked at it with the Magic Eye of Information.

[C] Wailing Wall

A place where only those who have bribed the one in charge of death can enter. To overcome the Wailing Wall, one would have to offer the wealth, honor, and power they’ve enjoyed during their lifetime.

Jin-woo pondered about it for a moment. This was the World of Death. Based on the word “lifetime,” it meant this place was the underworld.

That was just a rough guess, though.

‘Well, Hades has been mentioned.’

He was quite familiar with that name. After all, Hades was the god of the dead and the ruler of the underworld.

Chuck!

Jinwoo climbed up the Wailing Wall. Black Hound’s soldiers were guarding it, but he easily got rid of them. What lay before it was different from the usual ruined city view of this dimension.

Jin-woo couldn’t help but admire the gorgeous city for a while.

The streets were full of people wearing revealing clothes, but they didn’t seem to mind.

It was an earthly paradise, a haven with good food and drinks.

He could see couples chatting in swimming pools with artificial waves and a man popping champagne and sprinkling it all over them.

He recognized him.

‘DJ Jack?’

Jack was a DJ so famous that even Jin-woo knew of him.

He was a former gangster and drug addict. Discovered that he had taken part in gunfights and killed seven people, he was given the death penalty.

Such a guy was now enjoying himself in a festival.

Jin-Woo descended on the other side of the Wailing Wall.

When he reached the ground, women in bikinis approached him as if tempting him. He liked the sticky vibe, but he currently felt pretty bad.

He looked at his surroundings with the Magic Eye of Information.

[A] U.S.A’s First Heaven

If everyone can reach it, can it truly be called heaven?

A happy paradise awaits you!

We are offering access to it at an affordable price, so please pay a lot of attention.

*1 Billion Won: Preserve memory! As beautiful as it is!

*10 Billion Won: Heavenly Worker ID

*100 Billion Won: Heavenly Citizenship

*Article 1: Heavenly Certificate of Nobility (Join the Black Hounds!)

…

Special Offers:

*Company and real estate delegations.

*Top-of-the-line products.

…

There were various menus.

Jin-woo’s expression wrinkled.

This Earth was similar to his Earth.

However, he didn’t expect it to be invaded in this way.

‘The afterlife…’

There was no explicit mention of it in the original story. Hence, it shouldn’t exist. This place was nothing but an absurdity.

“Let’s proceed with the auction!”

A host appeared next to DJ Jack.

Chained little children came up on the stage.

They were the ones Jin-woo gave chocolates to.

“We prepared these especially for those who have quite unique tastes! Those who have a Certificate of Nobility can enjoy them first.”

“This one’s pretty good.”

“Hehehe.”

No matter how Jin-woo looked at them, they displayed no sense of guilt or shame.

Turning his attention to the center of a city, he found a building so tall it looked like it was piercing through the sky.

The Black Hound Headquarters.

‘I’m glad I came here.’

If he hadn’t come here, he probably wouldn’t have known about the underworld.

Jin-woo’s goal was clear.

It was only proper for the underworld to be ruled by the Great Emperor, was it not?

‘I’ll have to clean up this place first.’

Jin-woo climbed up the Wailing Wall again and looked at the wasteland. He thought about bringing zombies in, but that didn’t seem helpful.

Black Hound’s army was pretty decent. Zombies would be no match against them. There were also monsters roaming under the Wailing Wall. Created through biological experiments, they were far stronger than them.

‘It’s strange that people still have physical bodies in the afterlife, though.’

Was it the work of the being named Hades?

Jin-woo looked at the city, thinking he had to turn their event into a Blood Festival.

He remembered something he had put in his subspace so long ago he completely forgot about it until now.

If zombies didn’t work, he just needed to deploy something stronger, something that had no equal.

“I didn’t think I’d be using them again.”

Jiangshis appeared right beside him.

“Leave those children alone.”

Plump!

They began jumping in place.

“Wipe the rest out.”

The jiangshis jumped down.

Jin-woo took out popcorn and beer from his subspace and sat down on the floor, the Wailing Wall providing such a high vantage view it made the scene even enjoyable to watch.

“W-what’s happening?”

“Arghh!”

“Oh my god!”

The Blood Festival had begun.