"Just how long is this damn system going to keep teleporting me into gates?"
Jung Sik—so loyal he'd follow Sa Yoon to the grave—muttered as he drove. He was the best at complaining aloud. Sa Yoon's mind drifted back over the past month of living in hell.
He'd been forced to clear beginner gates. Because of that quest he hadn't had a single day's rest. It was an annoying quest, but he had no choice but to accept the title: The True Evil of Humanity. He could either accept the quest or reject it—there was no third option.
He'd been through this a time or two already, so he'd learned to cope.
Rather than waste his energy on fury, he focused on clearing the quests. The real problem was the system's "force-clear beginner gate" mechanic.
No matter how many new players from other guilds he killed, the monster kill count wouldn't rise. Even entering normal gates didn't help.
Only by slaying monsters in the designated beginner gates would the quest register as complete.
As the name suggests, beginner gates were accessible only to rookies. He had to clear three beginner gates in the opening phase—and after that he couldn't enter them again. The system forced him to keep moving and clearing gates.
There was nothing to do but accept it and move on.
He didn't have the power to oppose the system.
There had been times he was eating when he got pulled into a gate; once he'd been bathing when the gate took him.
"Damn this."
Sa Yoon frowned at the memory—embarrassing flashes of being teleported naked included. Jung Sik, looking drained, sighed. Of all the victims in Sa Yoon's wake, Jung Sik was the hardest hit.
Jung Sik was the only one who knew Sa Yoon was being puppeted by the system. He had to be the driver every time Sa Yoon was dragged into a gate, no matter the time or place.
Sa Yoon could have delegated the task, but he couldn't risk leaving any suspicious traces. So he simply gritted his teeth and drove. It was a special kind of torture.
Even today, Sa Yoon watched Jung Sik grip the wheel with a pale face.
But Jung Sik did more than drive.
He handled everything within the gang while Sa Yoon was absent. He had to explain Sa Yoon's disappearances and call emergency meetings. This routine had repeated for a month and a half. Jung Sik never once complained.
"I'll drive," Sa Yoon said, leaning back and closing his eyes.
He had no idea how long this would last.
It might be fine to have someone else take the hit, he thought—but he didn't want to leave any trace. Jung Sik drove in silence.
Despite the exhaustion of blind loyalty, Jung Sik seemed genuinely glad to help Sa Yoon. Kim Jung Sik—pure-hearted to a fault—wiped tears from the corner of his eyes and cheerfully declared the month of hell finally over.
"It's really over?"
"Yeah."
"That damn system won't pull this on us again, right? If it gives another quest, tell me beforehand. I'll get ready."
Sa Yoon's system paranoia had apparently rubbed off on Jung Sik. Seeing Jung Sik's weary expression made Sa Yoon realize just how cruel and vicious his system was.
He shrugged.
The system.
A supposedly holy entity that appears to the chosen and guides them with benevolence and righteousness.
That's the official definition the World Chosen Association handed out—but Sa Yoon's system was different.
Benevolence, my ass. It encouraged him to use every vile, despicable method to become a villain. Worse—it even rewarded cheating.
And Sa Yoon had played along. He didn't care about deceiving others. It proved he wasn't bound to ordinary ethics. The more people he killed, the crueller he became—and the more the system delighted in it.
There were times he couldn't even finish off enemies; now he wished they were stronger. Life had grown dull. He needed something exciting to jolt him. He'd been searching for that thrill for ten years. Eventually, he began to understand the heart of a villain.
"If there's nothing more interesting, then fine."
"Huh?" Jung Sik started at the voice. Sa Yoon closed his eyes and concentrated on the road as the engine hummed.
"Ah—hyung!"
"Ah, hyung?"
"…Uh, the seat's about to break."
"Then do you want me to break your spine instead of the seat?"
Sa Yoon found Jung Sik's possessiveness annoying. He'd learned to ignore it.
No matter how confident he was now, he hadn't always been this unhinged. He didn't kick chairs and curse people a decade ago. Back then he'd killed people over insults. Now the memory filled him with guilt and shame.
Those days felt distant. Sa Yoon turned his head and watched the landscape blur past the window.
The past stretched long. It had all started in January, ten years ago.
Back then Sa Yoon was a clumsy third-year middle schooler—naïve and awkward.
Ten years ago.
When the first gate opened on Sa Yoon's seventeenth birthday, the world slipped into chaos.
Without warning, strange spaces appeared, stirring curiosity and even primal instincts. Those who entered left a final message—"It's okay, I won't die"—and never returned.
The missing count climbed daily. The media broadcasted public fear. The government deployed troops to investigate.
People hoped the soldiers would bring back good news. The brutal truth: the soldiers who entered did not return.
All vanished. No survivors.
One scholar theorized the strange space was a portal to another world. Another called it a black hole, devouring anyone who stepped in.
Endless arguments sparked political turmoil. The strange spaces were named gates, and society slid into turmoil. Reports of soldiers disappearing after entering gates spread worldwide.
Task Force Doom was dispatched to the gate that opened in India.
Bloodied and missing a leg, Doom crawled back and delivered one final, blunt message to the world:
Hell.
Doom died right after that terse report.
The government and public erupted with rage. They demanded further military investigation. The curious and the greedy began entering gates.
Out poured monsters like something out of fantasy novels—grotesque in shape and terrifyingly powerful. Creatures of all forms attacked mankind.
Savage, cunning beasts took to the skies, and the world burned as if all-out war had broken out.
No—more accurately, it was war.
A fight for survival: humanity versus these sudden, alien creatures.
From that day, not a single day passed without wailing. Orphans multiplied. Even with the military deployed, they could not decisively halt the monsters.
Not even nuclear strikes were reliably lethal against them.
The human population plunged. Within a week of the gate disaster, ten percent of the world's people had died.
Desperate experts concluded humanity might be extinct within a month. Total annihilation seemed inevitable.
Then a sliver of hope emerged.
Despite intermittent wars and skirmishes, turning points appeared. A blue system window revealed itself to humanity.
The blue window—calling itself a system—granted people the power to fight back. Through it, the chosen harnessed abilities that made them almost no longer human.
Humanity pinned its hopes on them and counterattacked. The monsters, driven into corners across nations, were gradually eliminated through cooperation.
Twenty percent of the global population died, but against the odds, humanity won a costly victory.
While people celebrated, others lost hope.
Among them was Sa Yoon.
A system window—an existence offering hope to a few at the dawn of catastrophe—had appeared for Sa Yoon when gates erupted and chaos began.
But his system took a peculiar form.
"You have been chosen as the Demon of Humanity! Bring ruin to planet 9180, 'Earth,' as retaliation against the Chosen. (b ≧∇≦)b>"