[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Chapter 360: Between Good Karma and Bad Karma (1)
-Huff.
-Huh...?
The sudden action by Yeongwoo made the members of Squad 023 flinch in unison.
Then, one of them cautiously spoke.
-Yeongwoo...?
Aldo, the second son of the Shelbir royal family, hesitantly called Yeongwoo's name.
-Could it be... Yeongwoo?
It finally dawned on him.
The only person in their squad with an overwhelming amount of negative karma, rumored to have come from Earth, was none other than Jeong Yeongwoo.
“Yeah, damn it! I’m the most evil person in this room!”
As Yeongwoo introduced himself, he brandished his demonic sword Bastard at everyone in the room.
The other three squad members pressed themselves against the walls, their eyes wide with shock.
-Yo... Yeongwoo, was it? Let’s calm down for now.
Amana, the Guardian of Sacred Planet Patrol, spoke in a trembling voice, her beak slightly quivering.
Yeongwoo’s face, already brimming with anger, twisted further, now fully resembling a villain.
“Do I look like I can calm down right now? All three squadmates I’m about to head into battle with are saints! This is ridiculous!”
It was a problematic situation no matter how you looked at it.
Judging by the attitudes of the other three squad members and their “overwhelming” positive karma levels, it was clear they had no aptitude for the battlefield.
Sure, on their home planets, being virtuous might have earned them the status of sages, but on a battlefield, they were utterly useless.
‘These guys must have been the biggest rejects out of the 200 squads. Normally, they would’ve been scattered among teams as deadweight. But because of my insane negative karma, they’re all lumped together with me.’
Still, wasn’t this his own karma coming back to bite him?
If he hadn’t accumulated so much negative karma, he wouldn’t have been assigned to a squad like this in the first place.
“Ha...”
And it wasn’t like he could beat them up just because they were too virtuous.
Yeongwoo felt an overwhelming sense of despair.
“I have to fight with these people in the promotion grounds?”
Yeongwoo muttered in frustration, prompting Amana to speak up in a slightly irritated tone.
-You’re being exceedingly rude.
“What did you just say?”
Already enraged, Yeongwoo pointed Bastard at Amana, but she swung the hammer in her hand to deflect the blade.
Clang!
-Do you even understand why we’re here? Everyone in this room is a planetary guardian. We’re more than capable of protecting ourselves.
Amana’s brilliant plumage shook violently as she spoke, causing Aldo to nervously coil himself even tighter.
At that moment, Yeongwoo’s expression changed.
“Exactly, Amana! This is it!”
He suddenly approached Amana with a strange glint in his eye, excitement bubbling over.
-W-What?
“Just do what you did just now in the promotion grounds! As soon as you see an enemy, bash their heads in with your hammer!”
Amana’s expression twisted in alarm, and she frantically waved her hands.
-W-What are you talking about? Our patrols...
Amana’s stiff plumage suddenly drooped.
-We follow a non-lethal doctrine.
Non-lethal.
A principle of refraining from taking lives.
To someone like Yeongwoo, preparing for the chaos of the promotion grounds, there was no scarier phrase.
“What the hell?! Then why are you even here?!”
Outraged, Yeongwoo tried to grab Amana by the collar, but a nearby golem, panicking, intervened and stood between them.
-P-Please, calm down!
Even in this chaos, the golem’s voice was filled with such kindness that it only made Yeongwoo even more furious.
“Don’t tell me you’re all non-lethal too, huh?”
Eyes blazing, Yeongwoo shot a glare at the other two squadmates.
The golem hesitated, glancing at Aldo as if to defer the question.
Aldo, too, stammered.
-We... We are advocates of peace...
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
Yeongwoo nearly threw his demonic sword Bastard to the ground in frustration but barely stopped himself in time.
He couldn’t risk damaging the national treasure bestowed upon him by the chairman.
Instead, he considered throwing the item in his left hand—a sacred artifact of the Red Foot Brothers—but hesitated again.
“What are you going to do in the promotion grounds, huh? Wave your hands at enemies swinging swords and tell them to stop?”
“Hey, Golem! What’s your name?”
-Ta... T-Taru, from Pigot...
“Okay, Taru. As the villain here, it’ll only make me look worse if I lose my temper with you, so I’d rather not. But!”
Whoosh!
Unable to hold back, Yeongwooo thrust Bastard in Taru’s face.
“How the hell are three of you—Caramel the Giver, Owl the Pacifist, and Taru the Polite Golem—going to make it into the top 10%, huh?”
-......
-......
-Umm...
As the three extraterrestrials failed to give any response, Yeongwooo let out a deep sigh.
“Don’t you people believe in having a plan?”
Of course, they weren’t people.
“Sigh.”
Yeongwooo gazed at the three dejected extraterrestrials as if they were utterly pathetic.
“I don’t know about you, but my planet is under constant invasion from powerful forces. And tomorrow, I need to pay off a debt of 1.2 billion. So forgive me if I’m a bit short on patience.”
Click!
Yeongwooo sheathed Bastard at his waist, and Amana looked at him in shock.
-What are you plotting this time?
It seemed that Amana’s distrust of Earthlings was already starting to take root.
“What do you mean? It’s obvious we won’t get much out of this team, so we’ll just have to loot the others.”
As Yeongwooo said this, he turned his gaze upward to the hovering Vito.
“How long until we’re deployed to the promotion hall?”
Immediately, the floor of the waiting room turned transparent, revealing a distant island far below.
“Are you kidding me?”
They had been floating above some planet this whole time.
—Deployment to the promotion hall will occur in 12 seconds.
“What?”
—In approximately 11 seconds, the waiting room will be dropped as a whole, and you can adjust your drop zone using the displayed device.
At that moment, a holographic map appeared in the center of the group of four.
It was identical to the promotion hall map they had seen earlier, with one difference:
Beep, beep, beep, beep!
Numbers from 1 to 50 began to light up sequentially on the map.
“This...”
The format and interface were all too familiar.
Yeongwooo instantly realized what this was.
The drop zones of the 50 groups were being marked in real time.
‘Damn it, this is just like that game.’
The moment Yeongwooo thought he understood the test’s format, he drew his sword again.
Shwing!
“Top 10%? No. I have to be first. There must be special rewards for being at the top.”
Yeongwooo licked his lips greedily, and Amana recoiled in horror.
Meanwhile, Vito announced the test’s imminent start.
—Five seconds until the waiting room is dropped.
Click!
Outside the walls of the waiting room, the sound of locks disengaging echoed.
Aldo grabbed onto the bench tightly, and Taru hurriedly returned to his seat and sat down.
As for Yeongwooo—
“Everyone, there’s a reason villains exist in this universe.”
With a maniacal grin, he pointed to the zone with the most numbers on the map.
Tap!
[023]
The number 023 was added to the densely packed central-west region of the promotion hall.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have made this choice.”
-Are you insane? That area’s swarming with other groups!
Seeing the drop zone selected for Team 023, Amana’s face twisted with fear, and Yeongwooo delivered his line as if he had been waiting for this moment.
“Pacifism? Sure, I respect it. But shouldn’t you respect me as well?”
-...?
“I’m a performance-based guy. If necessary, I’ll take care of three times the work.”
-...No, that’s not—
As Amana groaned in near despair, the waiting room of the doomed Team 023 began its descent.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]