I get it now that I’m in pain.
These things from the otherworld are germs or viruses.
If not that, then mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes carrying malaria pathogens.
Or maybe Japanese encephalitis mosquitoes.
So, I can’t underestimate them.
If I get bitten or fail to block them, I could get seriously sick or even die.
Right?
[Gah, gaaah!]
After capturing it in my grip, I just shook it.
When you catch a mosquito in your palm and shake it, it passes out, right?
Given its size, it feels more like a rat than a mosquito.
It’s about the size of a dung fly, I think.
And its reactions are sharp.
After shaking it once and opening my palm, it’s staggering, unable to even think of escaping.
“What kind of vermin would scare me by harassing me? Bugs are gross and dirty, so I avoid catching them because it’s a hassle.”
[V-vermin?]
“Yeah, vermin.”
[Gaaaaaaah!]
Mosquitoes are usually just annoying, so I swat them.
But in the summer, when I’m trying to sleep and they buzz around my ears, waking me up, and I can’t see them, or they dodge my clapping hands, zipping around, or they’ve already bitten me all over and are circling for another taste of blood,
I douse them with F-Killa to make them drunk, then rip off their sneaky proboscis with my nail, tear off their wings, and let them spin on the floor as revenge.
So, I started the execution.
Dismemberment.
“It’s not dying. Pretty tough.”
I pulled off a couple of parts expecting it to come apart easily, but I hear thoughts of pain.
[Spare me, spare me, please, I beg you!]
Spare it?
Have you ever seen a human feel pity for a bug?
I’m not a psychopath who tortures for fun.
But with a mosquito, it’s beyond annoyance—I want to dismantle it and make it suffer.
It leaves behind itching and sleep disruption, so there’s resentment.
Let alone with this unprecedented pain—how could I not hold a grudge?
“Your world probably didn’t spare people who talked like that, so don’t give me nonsense. Where should I dismantle next?”
But then,
<The opponent has requested surrender. Will you accept?>
<Taming is possible based on the opponent’s level and your charisma.>
“What? Cough. Ugh.”
Why am I coughing up blood with this body ache and indigestion?
I can’t pin down the symptoms.
Seeing the blood, I was about to rip off the necromancer’s remaining leg,
but urgent thoughts come through.
[You’ll see my sincerity. Please spare me. You should see that you can make me your subordinate. Only those with the will to submit through surrender and enough strength to dominate can use it.]
Is that so?
I wasn’t planning on showing mercy, but if there’s a benefit, it’s worth hearing out.
Of course, I don’t really want to spare a monster wearing what looks like human skin.
“What would I use you for if I spared you?”
[I-I’ll bring you corpses.]
“What?”
This bastard caused all this mess because of corpses, and it still hasn’t learned…
My expression must’ve looked bad because the necromancer hurriedly added,
[I can control corpses under your command and raise your level through them.]
“The tiny corpses you summoned—thousands of them—didn’t raise my level much even after granting them rest.”
[A-and I can help you level up by consuming corpses. Especially if they’re giant corpses.]
This is insane.
Eat corpses to level up?
“Just die.”
As I went to dismantle it again, the ghoul necromancer urgently shouted,
[If you take me as your subordinate, you’ll surely awaken dark magic. Don’t you want magic power?]
Dark magic, huh.
According to the Swordmaster’s thoughts, neither their humans nor ours naturally have magic.
But those with affinity for demons can unlock a magic stat.
The red mage is one such case.
Like a warrior defeated for lack of tanks lamenting, “If only we had tanks,” their humanity went extinct without magic, so they were obsessed with it.
That obsession led demons to lure strong humans to their side with magic as bait.
And it seems they’re using it as a bargaining chip here.
“Oh? Then use that precious magic to escape my grip.”
[…Spare me.]
“What do you want to do by living?”
I was about to kill it without asking,
but there were gaps in the Swordmaster’s information, so I asked.
[I just want to serve a strong master with all my heart.]
“Then why didn’t you serve me earlier?”
[…]
Look at it not answering.
“No, anyway, you didn’t come here to serve me, right? What’s your dream? Why did you come here? What’s your original purpose?”
I was irritated from feeling unwell, but I tried to coax it gently.
I was curious how much it’d spill.
Asking about someone’s dream—well, their career path—was my job.
[I wanted to perform necromancy with giant corpses.]
“Honest, huh.”
[Pain speaks truth. I’ve lived in submission. I can submit.]
“To the Queen of Nightmares, right?”
I recall what the Swordmaster’s thoughts said about her clan.
They didn’t directly contribute to humanity’s extinction in that world.
That’s why several human specters lingered around her.
The Swordmaster was one of them.
[This loyalty can be compelled. Her influence doesn’t reach here, so take me as your subordinate and free me from this pain, please.]
“Your corpse-manipulating skills don’t exactly look appealing.”
[I haven’t particularly harmed people. Please.]
“You say that while wearing that kind of skin?”
I can’t zoom in again.
It’s too gross even for me.
[It was just an experiment.]
“Hey, people associate their own death with desecrated corpses, so they don’t like seeing them defiled. There are rules to prevent that, but your specialty is defiling corpses.”
[I didn’t know about such rules.]
Man.
It really wants to live.
Trying to weasel out here.
“If there were people in your world, that wouldn’t hold. Humans pass down generations and are raised, so they honor and remember the dead. Was your world so devoid of morals?”
[Your point makes sense, but from what I’ve seen, such rules vanished in that world. I know of parents and children, but abandoning each other was common. They even ate each other for lack of food.]
“Hmm.”
That’s fair.
In that tiny-world, after levels appeared, humanity, lacking magic, was hunted to extinction.
Hunted before their population could grow, their civilization seems to have collapsed.
That’s just the Swordmaster’s personal perspective, but that’s the gist.
“In that sense, you living here as my subordinate would be pretty inappropriate.”
[Ugh, damn it, no choice then.]
“Cursing now?”
[You’re not going to spare me, are you?]
“I was considering using you as a subordinate, but if you don’t want…”
[S-sorry! Please spare me!]
Quick attitude shift.
“Alright, hold on. Ugh.”
I stood up, but my body’s not great.
[I’ll definitely bring proper corpses to offer. Gah! W-what’s this?]
I held a lighter to the pledging necromancer.
It caught fire, and the rest of its body started burning.
“Being my subordinate means entrusting your life and death to me, right? So I decided to kill you.”
[Gaaah! Aaaah! T-this, ugh!]
“It’s burning well.”
I torched the necromancer with a lighter confiscated from a student.
Seeing it still begging for mercy after losing an arm and a leg, it must have regeneration.
Most wouldn’t think of serving someone who dismembered them.
So, its loyalty is either fake, or it’s claiming it won’t hold a grudge for losing limbs.
Beyond human emotions, would a living being bow to someone who harmed them?
Does that make sense?
Since my body aches, I might’ve spared a reasonable opponent, but the resentment is boiling.
That means there’s a high chance it’s hiding a bigger scheme.
I saw that scheme clearly with the corpse explosions from gathered bodies.
Is this how you treat an enemy? [I’ll take revenge! I swear, I swear I’ll take revenge!]
“Vermin like you?”
It’s screaming through thoughts, as expected.
When a person’s sick, they can’t use their body properly, and it doesn’t move as they want, so they get irritable.
If the cause isn’t their own poor health but someone else’s fault, the resentment matches the loss of control.
The freedom to use my body as I wish is what life is about.
In the womb, you want to get out; in the cradle, you want to crawl; as a kid, you want to run; at work, you want to lie down; when resting, you want to move; when old, you want to be healthy so pain doesn’t limit your body’s freedom.
I can’t help but rage at these gates and otherworld beings that created this environment and took that away.
So,
“I’ll kill them all.”
The ghoul necromancer caught fire, but its small size kept the flames from growing strong.
Soon, no thoughts came through, and it burned to a crisp.
<regeneration rises to lv40>
<super regeneration rises to lv5>
<Level reaches 94>
I gained a level by eliminating the ghoul necromancer.
No new skills this time, but my existing skills leveled up.
“Will I really survive even if I get cut?”
I don’t want to get sliced or broken, but it’s fascinating.
The necromancer must’ve had high regeneration and super regeneration skills.
With those skills leveling up, the recovery clock in front of me has drastically reduced time.
My stamina recovers more, feeling lighter.
Another message appeared.
<You can acquire dark magic. Would you like to take it?>
“Dark magic? I’d get it anyway.”
They say humans can’t naturally have magic.
My magic stat is 0.
But you can unlock it through demon affinity or hunting for dark magic, or fairy/spirit affinity or hunting for regular magic.
If I make the fairy’s flower bloom, I’d get regular magic.
The difference is dark magic grows twice as fast, but uncontrolled, it warps the body into something demonic.
The red mage is an example.
Fairy magic grows slowly but has no side effects.
I thought for a moment, but the Fairy’s Flower Bud was waving its leaves like arms.
“Welcome it? Against it? Against? No? You don’t like it?”
When I asked if it was against it, it shook its leaves vigorously.
“Then is it okay to do it?”
When I asked positively, the bud drooped as if heavy.
“Alright, I won’t.”
I wasn’t planning on taking dark magic anyway.
It’d probably just let me make zombie corpses, right?
<Thank you +100>
The Fairy’s Flower Bud twists its body happily.
It wraps its stem with its two leaves, really twisting.
“Man, is it that great—cough.”
I was fondly watching the pot when another cough burst out.
“Cough, cough. Ugh. Killing it doesn’t cure the disease?”
I still have a day of recovery time and pain left.
The burned corpse catches my eye.
I thought I’d gotten revenge, but the pain makes me angry again.
It’s probably not regenerating after being burned, but just in case?
To vent my anger, I pounded the burned corpse into dust.
Didn’t King Yeonsangun execute his vassals, burn them, and grind their bones to scatter in the air?
When I read history, I wondered why he went that far.
But I get it now, Your Majesty.
“Die and die again, a hundred times, until your bones turn to dust, whether you have a soul or not.”
I hummed a sijo that came to mind.
But out of nowhere,
<super regeneration rises to lv6>
“????”
The skill level went up.
What?
Just in case, I kept pounding, and
<super regeneration rises to lv7>
<regeneration rises to lv41>
Wait, grinding a monster corpse raises my skills?