Ch.1Chapter 1. Villain Executioner (1)

December 2024, somewhere in Gyeonggi Province.

Late at night.

An alleyway lit only by fluorescent lights with no neon signs in sight.

“Huff, huff…!”

A young man was running through the alley, gasping for breath.

Though dressed in ordinary clothes—a t-shirt and jeans—what was unusual was that his entire body was covered in wounds that looked like they had been inflicted by a sharp blade.

And those wounds were increasing in real-time.

Thwack!

“Argh…!!”

The young man rolled on the ground.

Feeling a stinging sensation, he reached for his earlobe, and his hand came away covered in warm liquid.

“Ugh, aah…!”

It had been cut off.

The burning pain was more intense than any he had experienced in his life.

But he couldn’t just lie still in this pile of garbage.

“S-someone, help me!!”

Slash!

No sooner had he cried for help than the garbage bag beside him was cleanly cut in half.

The garbage spilling out resembled brain matter, and the young man swallowed hard, thinking it might foreshadow what would happen to his own head.

“Ugh, aaah…!”

He knew he shouldn’t scream.

But he couldn’t help it.

There.

“Where do you think you’re running to~”

Behind him, a woman in a black full-body suit approached, humming a tune.

Her face was covered with a mask, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and her hair completely concealed by a latex hood.

“If you surrender now, I’ll cut you cleanly in one go. Hmm? Or would you prefer to be sliced diagonally?”

The moment he heard her chilling voice, the man recalled a news story he had once glimpsed.

-…The powered villain [Pepper Cutter] is known for targeting men in their twenties….

Pepper Cutter.

The so-called “castrator.”

She wielded her power like a toy, lashing out with her whip before finally cutting off what men held most precious.

If caught by this woman, he would surely die.

He would be found as a corpse somewhere, his lower body soaked in blood.

“No!!! I don’t want to die!!”

The man was desperate.

“Hero! Please, someone help me!! Please!!”

“There’s no one like that around.”

Slash.

A whip flew toward the man’s neck.

Not an ordinary black whip, but one resembling a thorny rose stem.

This whip was the embodiment of Pepper Cutter’s power.

Normally, an ability to manipulate plant stems as whips might have earned her a name like “Rose Whip,” but the atrocities this woman committed as a villain had given her a much more horrifying moniker.

“No one’s coming to help you. Even if someone noticed the commotion, they won’t come out. They’re all keeping quiet.”

“Kuh, kuhuk…!”

“The moment someone reports to a hero, an alarm will sound, and I’ll go after whoever made that report first. Is anyone listening nearby? Just try reporting this. Man or woman, I’ll get you all.”

Pepper Cutter boldly threatened anyone who might be listening.

Though someone in the alley might notice the disturbance and report it, unfortunately, not just anyone could make such a report.

The moment a report is made, a danger alarm sounds loudly.

Pepper Cutter could easily find the reporter inside the building and kill them with her ability.

“Ohoho, shall we harvest now? Don’t worry. I’ll cut it off so quickly you won’t even feel pain.”

“S-stop…! Why are you doing this?!”

“Why? Do I need a reason? Haha, there is no reason.”

Pepper Cutter licked the handle of the whip in her hand.

“I have the power to kill people, and no one can legally stop me. Killing people with this power doesn’t affect my ‘real life’ at all. Get it?”

“You, don’t tell me…!”

“That’s right. I’m unregistered. I’m just an ordinary person who hasn’t been registered as a powered individual yet. I could be someone you passed by this morning, or someone living in the same city or country as you. Either way….”

Slash.

“You die here.”

“Kuh, kuhuk…!”

“And not just die. You’ll suffer until your last breath. Oh, why am I killing you like this?”

Pepper Cutter brought her face close to the young man’s and smiled broadly, removing her mask just enough for him to see.

“Just because. Because I want to. Because I want to cut off men’s parts and dismember them. What? Think it’s weird? Just think of it simply. A psychopath who awakened powers became a villain.”

“Ugh, kahak, huuk…!”

“Oh my, what’s wrong with you? Look at your wet pants. How disgusting, pissing yourself.”

Pepper Cutter stomped on the young man’s solar plexus with her boot.

“So unpleasant. Ugh, someone like you—”

Eeeeeeeee.

An alarm began to blare from behind.

[Villain alert! Villain alert! Hero requested immediately!!]

Irritated by the loud alarm, Pepper Cutter turned her head with an annoyed gesture.

“Haa, damn it. I said I’d kill anyone who—”

Beyond the alley.

A man in a black suit held a smartphone displaying the villain alert screen.

Even his tie was black.

The only color he possessed was the golden light emanating from his “Goblin mask.”

“W-what…? N-no way?!”

Pepper Cutter’s voice immediately hardened.

“Y-you, how?! No, why are you here?!”

[A passing citizen spotted a villain. Didn’t they teach you in elementary school ethics class? Report criminals to the police and villains to heroes?]

“Y-you…!!”

Slash.

Pepper Cutter roughly withdrew her whip from the young man.

“You’re a villain too! And from The Syndicate…!”

[That’s precisely why I’m doing this. I can’t just ignore someone who kills people indiscriminately. Especially if they claim to be affiliated with our ‘Syndicate’.]

Click.

[I have no choice but to execute you.]

The masked man, Goblin, put his smartphone in his inner jacket pocket and revealed what he had been holding behind his back.

[Pepper Cutter. You have tarnished the name of The Syndicate. As the Syndicate’s executioner, I will now carry out your sentence.]

It was a baseball bat.

[The Syndicate doesn’t kill people indiscriminately. Even this young man will someday become a servant in the world The Syndicate will conquer.]

The bat, too refined in its blackness to be mere aluminum, resembling ebony, was studded with sharp golden thorns.

[All of humanity will become ‘taxpayers’ and ‘slaves’ to the ‘Chairman.’ You have been indiscriminately killing those who would have become the Chairman’s slaves, so your crime is severe.]

“You, you…! What are you planning to do with me?!”

[Execution as a villain. Execution as a member of society. It’s simple.]

Goblin held the bat in one hand, pointing it at Pepper Cutter.

[I’ve reported you, and now I’ll hand you over to the heroes.]

“You crazy bastard! Don’t you have any sense of loyalty between villains, between members of the same Syndicate?!”

[I am completely different from the kind of villain you imagine. And don’t put me on the same level as a villain like you. Because I am.]

With those words, Goblin’s figure vanished.

[An ‘executive’ of The Syndicate.]

THWACK!

Disappearing like an illusion, Goblin suddenly appeared beside Pepper Cutter and swung the bat at her side with full force.

“Kuhuk!!”

Pepper Cutter was instantly slammed into the wall.

The impact was so powerful that it left a human-shaped crack in the concrete wall, and red blood began to seep through the holes in the latex where the thorns had pierced Pepper Cutter’s waist.

[Execution doesn’t discriminate between men and women. Only children are exempt from this bat.]

“You, you…!”

[Don’t pretend it hurts. Your victims who were diced up suffered far more.]

Thwack.

Goblin struck downward with the bat again.

This time he hit Pepper Cutter’s leg with the part without thorns, but the impact was strong enough to crack the concrete floor.

[You will go to a powered individual prison. The Syndicate has no need to take someone like you and rehabilitate you.]

“Aaaagh…!!”

Goblin took Pepper Cutter’s sharp whip and wrapped it around her body.

The thorny stem whip that had cut and pierced countless men became a rope binding Pepper Cutter’s entire body, and Goblin raised his bat high again toward the fallen Pepper Cutter.

[Have you ever heard of a beating—]

“Stop!!”

Along with a sharp voice from afar, something quickly grazed past Goblin’s mask.

“Next time it’ll be the back of your head! This won’t end with just a warning!!”

It was a bullet.

The white sphere embedded in the wall was a magical bullet manifested through a power, and outside the alley stood a woman in a white uniform.

[A hero, I see.]

“That’s right! I am—”

[I still have things to do, but… well, fine. Since a hero has arrived, this passing villain will withdraw.]

Goblin secured the bat at his waist and pressed his mask firmly onto his face.

[Farewell.]

Flash!

With a sparkle of golden dust around Goblin, he vanished from the spot as if teleporting.

“Ah!”

The woman in the white uniform bit her lower lip and ground her teeth, then quickly approached the spot where Goblin had disappeared, holding her magical rifle.

“…This is ‘Snow White’. Reporting. Situation…resolved.”

-What happened?!

“…[Villain Executioner] Goblin has ‘executed’ Pepper Cutter.”

The woman, Snow White, clenched her teeth as she looked at Pepper Cutter bound by the whip.

“I’ll definitely catch you someday…! Goblin…!”

* * *

Nearby, in an alley.

“Tsk, just passing by and got caught up in something troublesome.”

The young man in the black suit with the Goblin mask removed his mask.

Soon his entire body began to sparkle with golden light, and then the young man—

“Transformation release.”

Became naked.