Ch.235Chapter 9. The Burning Human Farm (2)

Who would be the worst villain of all time?

Evaluations differ from person to person, but considering that even Dueoksini doesn’t make it into the top 10, the criteria for worst villain are stricter than one might think.

Since this aspect varies depending on the affected country or race, and people have different opinions, let’s change the conditions.

What if we limit it to currently living villains who have been active within the past three years?

Excluding villains like Dueoksini who are officially reported dead by the Syndicate or elsewhere, who are the 10 worst villains that could threaten the world right now?

Surprisingly, all of the top 10 are executives of “the Syndicate.”

More than half—no, 6 are definitely included.

The leader of the Syndicate holds the undisputed first place, followed by Hundun, Taotie, Qiongqi, and Taowu in succession.

With the Goblin joining them late last year, they’ve earned their notorious reputation as the worst villain organization.

When even one of them appears in an area, not just that region but the surrounding cities, the entire country, and all bordering nations go on high alert.

And now two of them have appeared?

And at the rumored “God’s Sanctuary” no less?

“HEROOOOO!!”

Setting aside why the two villains appeared, those whose lives were endangered by the villains’ destructive actions—the threat of bridge destruction—began desperately searching for heroes.

“S-save me!!”

A car was stranded between the severed sections of the bridge.

Inside were two doctors in white coats who tried to escape but quickly retreated to the car roof through the sunroof when the sides began to collapse.

“P-please save us!”

One might wonder why people in lab coats would enter the island, but from the outside, they just looked like ordinary researchers.

They’re civilians.

With their lives in danger from the villains’ violence, it’s only right that they should seek help from heroes.

Clunk.

The car slid sideways.

Pieces of concrete below were falling into the sea, and now the car itself was about to follow.

“Aaaahh!!”

“Stay still!”

A shadow appeared and lifted the car with ease.

The mid-size sedan rose more lightly than a sack of rice, held by a young man wearing the Hero Association uniform.

“W-who are you…?”

“Nguyen?!”

“This place is about to collapse! Swim or wait for the coast guard’s rescue!”

“W-wait, huuuuuuk!!”

Whoosh!!

Nguyen threw the car forcefully toward the direction of Phuket mainland.

The car flew in a gentle arc before falling toward the sea, with the two researchers landing even farther away.

They didn’t die.

They just swallowed some seawater and were now treading water in the open sea.

Soon, a coast guard boat rushed to their vicinity, and marines jumped in to rescue the two who had fallen into the sea.

“…Phew.”

Someone might criticize this as an excessively rough rescue later.

But there was no time to debate whether it was excessive or not.

“Hup!”

Nguyen made a great leap forward.

He covered about 50 meters in a single bound, and the bridge he jumped from immediately collapsed.

“All heroes focus on rescuing people first! I’m heading to the tollgate!”

“It’s dangerous, Nguyen! There’s gunfire inside!”

“I can handle getting shot!”

Nguyen ran toward the tollgate.

He set his ThaiWatch to live cam mode “as prepared” and soon discovered people collapsed at the tollgate checkpoint.

“Ch-children…?”

Nguyen felt a chill down his spine.

He had heard this was a possibility, but actually seeing it with his own eyes made his heart sink.

Were they all just unconscious?

No.

Bullet marks covering the floor.

Faint magical energy emanating from the fallen children.

And faces not officially registered with the Association.

Would they even show up as “alive” if someone checked their identities?

-Do your best as a hero.

Someone’s voice echoed in his mind.

It seemed contradictory that the very person who created this situation would say such a thing to him, but Nguyen decided to follow what the Goblin and Qiongqi had said, to follow what his heart told him to do.

“Discovered multiple unidentified powered minors! Heroes capable of rescue operations, proceed to the tollgate immediately!”

After giving instructions through ThaiWatch, Nguyen approached a child collapsed in front of him.

“Are you okay?!”

Their wrists and ankles were withered.

They all seemed malnourished and had unusually small builds.

However, they were all wearing military uniforms, and some children had guns in their hands—

“Ugh….”

“Are you conscious? Are you oka—”

“DIE!!!”

BANG!

As soon as the boy regained consciousness, he grabbed the gun beside him and fired.

“…….”

Nguyen was startled.

It was shocking enough that the boy had aimed directly at his eyes, but what followed was even more appalling.

“Die, die!!”

Bang, bang bang, bang bang.

The boy kept shooting, trying to kill Nguyen.

Unsure how to handle the boy’s actions, Nguyen simply continued catching the bullets with his hand.

“……Alerting all heroes.”

Click click.

No more bullets came out.

Only the empty clicking sound remained, and the crushed lead bullets fell hollowly to the floor.

“Multiple unidentified children inside the tollgate… They possess guns with live ammunition, so exercise caution when entering. And.”

BANG!

Nguyen slammed his fist next to the boy’s head.

His fist sank into the concrete floor, and only then did the boy stop resisting.

“For now, arrest them all.”

[Understood! Everyone, AAAAHHHH!!]

“!!”

Hearing the agent’s scream from outside, Nguyen’s heart sank again.

“W-what’s happening?!”

[T-the island!!]

“What about the island?!”

[The island is burning!! There’s a dark red barrier around the island!!!]

“…….”

Perhaps.

This was the signal.

A barrier not only prevents those outside from entering but also stops those inside from escaping.

“…For now!!”

Nguyen shouted into his ThaiWatch.

“Let’s secure these children first!!”

One of the hero principles:

Deal with and resolve the immediate danger first.

As a hero, Nguyen simply follows his mission and beliefs.

* * *

Phuket is an island.

It’s a fairly large island connected to the mainland by a long bridge, making it essentially part of the mainland, similar to Ganghwa Island.

And like other islands, it’s surrounded by several smaller islands.

General Jeokrang and Laplace, those who swallowed this country’s darkness, created a horrific facility on a place accessible by bridge from Phuket.

A human farm.

Children who obeyed became soldiers; those who didn’t were turned into mana powder.

And that’s only for children born with “powers.”

What about ordinary people brought to the island and children born there?

[How terrible.]

After spreading a wall of fire around the entire island with Qiongqi’s flames, all sorts of people began emerging.

Like when you spray bug repellent in an abandoned house overseas and all kinds of insects come crawling out, shadows of all sorts of creatures emerged.

They weren’t people.

Most couldn’t be considered human because they hadn’t been treated as such.

“Aaaahh!”

“W-what’s happening?!”

“F-fire?! Fire?! Impossible! Where did these flames come from…!”

People wearing orange clothes top and bottom came rushing out.

They looked like inmates in American prisons.

The most peculiar thing was that none of those who rushed out had hair on their heads.

Someone once said:

If you want to inflict the greatest shame on modern people, the easiest way is to shave their heads.

Just removing all the hair from their heads makes humans feel tremendous shame.

[This gives me chills.]

And I almost unconsciously unleashed my power when I saw the markings on their heads.

Not only were their heads shaved, but they had symbols and numbers like AF-139 or UC-230 branded on their heads.

Even livestock on farms have names, yet these people had their heads shaved, their names taken away, replaced with codes that were laser-branded onto their heads like they weren’t even labels but part of their identity.

[This is terrible.]

They shouldn’t be coming out.

Thump, thump.

I’m not the only one angry.

Qiongqi dwelling within me is also erupting with rage.

Since I’m in the middle of performing large-scale magic, I have no way to shout out.

“L-let’s get out of here! Kids, hurry!!”

Just as I was about to raise my power to incinerate the entire island, the men with codes on their heads gestured toward the inside.

Soon, “children” wearing the same orange clothes came out, looking around with terrified expressions.

“W-what’s happening?! We shouldn’t be out here!”

“We’ll die inside if we stay! Damn, I don’t know what’s going—huk?!”

Those trapped inside looked up.

Though I was watching from quite high up with my wings spread, they seemed to see me somewhat.

“It’s the Goblin!!”

“Flames and wings…? That’s the Goblin?”

“He’s come to kill those bastards! Over here! Goblin! Here, there are bad people everywhere!!”

The coded slaves waved frantically at me in the sky.

With faces that looked as if they’d been liberated from slavery, they smiled brightly.

And then.

BOOM!

Suddenly an explosion occurred.

Without any warning, a small explosion happened, and people turned their heads toward it.

“Huh….”

The slave who had first come outside…

His head was gone.

* * *

“…….”

The purple-haired man, Laplace, mechanically tapped on his tablet with an expressionless face.

“……Tsk.”

Laplace frowned as he pressed on each individual with flashing red status windows.

“If I’d known this would happen, I would have created a batch delete function. Damn it, damn it.”

Click, click, click.

Though the sound effects were just button presses, with each popup button press, status windows disappeared one by one.

Even those marked with codes instead of names simply had [Eliminated] written beside them with a line drawn through.

“Ah, shit. The ones who went outside… Wait, why isn’t it working? Why isn’t the signal registering?”

“Laplace sir!!”

“Oh, Hyangdan. Why isn’t this working?”

“Your island, sir!!”

“……?”

On the TV.

The island known as God’s Sanctuary was covered by a dome of dark red flames.

It looked like a cover designed to prevent any being from escaping.

“…What on earth is that? Am I seeing things wrong?”

Laplace shook his head vigorously as he alternated between looking at the tablet screen, which had completely stopped updating, and the dome of flames on the TV.

“Don’t tell me someone’s created a barrier around the island using powers?”

And then.

“No, no! Contact General Jeokrang immediately! Stop the bombi—”

BOOM!

Something flying in a parabolic arc hit the flame barrier, causing a massive explosion.