“Kgh, kuhaaak!”
“Reaper Shi Haiyan. The worst slaughterer in Chinese—no, in world history.”
“(Wait! Wait!)”
“Because of you, cooperation between China and Korea completely collapsed.”
Han Woo-hyun recited the words with deep contempt.
In truth, the allied raid party between Korea and China, which had nearly succeeded, had collapsed because of the Chinese villains led by her.
Even if it was something that had not happened yet, the moment he saw that face, hatred could not help rising within him.
“(I was wrong! It was a mistake! I only···)”
In any case, he had unfolded a barrier with [Holy Ground], so Li Haoran could not hear his words.
“(Wait...!)”
And since he knew Shi Haiyan did not understand Korean, he simply said what he had wanted to say and tightened his grip.
―GRIND!
Along with that, a thick killing intent surged up.
Should I just kill her?
··
No.
That would be nothing more than one-sided emotional discharge.
“...[Light-Sealing Sword].”
What happened before his regression belonged before his regression. It was only the past.
Even if most World of Yggdrasill players were villains, they were not ideological evildoers.
They were merely petty, twisted, pathological shut-ins.
In other words, before they grew drunk on their power and fell into corruption.
If they were proactively trained and controlled properly.
They could be tamed, and there was value in doing so.
“Stay still.”
"H-hiiiik!"
Shi Haiyan’s dizzyingly beautiful face distorted, soaked in fear.
It seemed she had misunderstood those words as him saying he would kill her.
“(Into dark···!!)”
“No.”
Even though he could not speak Chinese, Han Woo-hyun could predict the skill she would use.
A structural diagram drawing her body into tempering through a higher dimension. The flow and manifestation of Force were plain to see.
Because it was the omen of her trying to use the invulnerability skill every class possessed.
It did not matter.
―Crackle.
―Crack!
Han Woo-hyun injected the Force he had gathered in his grasp straight into her head.
―Wooooong.
And with delicate operation, he immediately focused the Force on her pineal gland.
The source of every player ability.
The Force that had emerged from Shi Haiyan’s pineal gland and attempted to turn her body into a spiritual form of dark energy tangled with Han Woo-hyun’s Force and creaked.
“Keh, kehaaak! Kyaak!”
“Do not exaggerate.”
When Force clashed inside her brain, Shi Haiyan’s eyes rolled back as if seizing.
It was fine. A player’s body was transcendentally powerful.
She would not die from this much. Her head would only hurt a little.
―CRACK.
At last, a pleasant sensation of distortion climbed up to his fingertips.
He felt the Dark Warlock’s invulnerability skill, [Into Darkness], being canceled.
Shi Haiyan’s face, which had been contorted in pain, filled with shock.
“(My invulnerability skill was canceled? Impossible···)”
“Your struggle is over. Now sleep.”
―THUNK.
Han Woo-hyun drove wedges of light throughout her entire body, then drove the final wedge forcefully into the back of her neck.
―THUNK!
Medulla oblongata—Pons. A region of the brain that governed the body’s unconscious metabolism.
―Slide.
Her eyes closed unnaturally. In this state, she would probably sleep for at least twelve hours.
“It is over, Zhang Zihao, Li Haoran. Come!”
―Tap tap tap.
―Tap tap tap.
After confirming that much, he dismantled [Holy Ground] and shouted loudly, and the two quickly appeared.
"Huh."
"Ho."
And both Zhang Zihao and Li Haoran looked quite surprised.
“To think there are almost no wounds, and the building was barely damaged during combat. That is an extraordinarily delicate skill, Guild Leader.”
“(Remarkable···.)”
"That is basic."
Han Woo-hyun did not react to their astonishment.
For the time being, each and every step he took would be surprising to them, so there was no need to make them swing between joy and worry over it.
―Whip!
He roughly threw the unconscious Shi Haiyan to Zhang Zihao.
“Ugh···!”
“Li Haoran, I leave her to you. Can you persuade her?”
“Of course. Leave it to me.”
Before Han Woo-hyun’s regression, the Chinese Villain Players whose sins were far too deep had all been executed by Li Haoran.
However, the gray-area players who were neither villains nor heroes had eventually entered beneath Li Haoran.
With Li Haoran’s leadership, even if Shi Haiyan did not obey, he would at least be able to make her stay quietly within the guild for the time being.
That was enough.
After one month, the guild’s system and status would be so completely solidified that no one could covet it.
Han Woo-hyun stated the next target.
“Next. We go to Chongqing.”
The villain monarchs who had ruled China.
Psychopaths who, for now, were nothing more than weak shut-ins, little better than children with great strength.
Human Body Sculptor Hu Wei.
Frenzied One Li Zhixiong.
Human-Flesh Butcher Wang Chen.
Brain-Eating Immortal Huangfu Xian.
Mad Slaughter King Zhuge Ling.
Trash who were famous after Reaper Shi Haiyan and who had not merely refused to help the boss raids, but had actively interfered with them.
This time would be different.
He would make them all obey.
Of course, there were heroes as well. Noble figures who had to be invited respectfully.
Sacred Immortal Hua Zifeng.
Guardian Sword Liu Xiaolin.
Joyous Maiden Yang Yuanxin.
Those who had protected Li Haoran until the very end before Han Woo-hyun’s regression.
They were important as well. No, in some ways, they were even more important than the villains.
Because they would serve as the line that kept the Villain Players who entered the guild from running wild.
“We will meet them all before the night is over.”
“The person in Chongqing is a Dragonmancer. That is a mage-line class, so if we use [Dimensional Gate] together, movement will be faster.”
“Good. Let us hurry.”
Han Woo-hyun, Zhang Zihao, and Li Haoran moved again.
“(We are a guild. An alliance of all players.)”
“(I can’t believe this···. It hasn’t even been three hours since I changed like this, and an organization has already been formed?)”
“[Inventory].”
They repeated the same process once more.
“(These items and this level··· they’re real, they’re real! You’re really saying you’ll recruit me as an executive?)”
“(Will you join?)”
“(Good! There are friends in the room next door too. Their levels are lower than mine, but they should be useful enough!)”
“I like that.”
Han Woo-hyun smiled darkly.
Their numbers increased, and they moved again.
-[Dimensional Gate]
Shanghai.
Guangzhou.
Shenzhen.
Tianjin.
Chengdu.
Wuhan.
Nanjing.
Xi’an.
And finally, Hong Kong.
―Slide.
"···!!"
"···!"
"···?!"
Leaving the murmuring noise behind him.
Han Woo-hyun checked the faces of the gathered players one by one for the last time.
The strongest rankers of the Chinese server.
And, since the friends who had lived near them had also been gathered along the way.
He once more engraved into his eyes the roughly one hundred players who would become the founding members of the China branch.
"Tch."
However··· not everything had gone according to plan.
“To think we ended up missing one.”
“I will track him. Even if I cannot catch him, I will continue relaying information.”
“He is such a dangerous bastard that you must absolutely never take your eyes off him.”
“I will do my best.”
Even with Li Haoran’s confident answer, Han Woo-hyun gave a bitter smile.
Astonishingly, five of the six future Villain Players had already recognized their abilities from dawn and tried to test them.
―Stop moving.
“(What are you? Are you a player too?)”
Fortunately, he had been able to stop them before they crossed the line.
Two of them resisted and were subdued, but two could be persuaded with words.
However, the Brain-Eating Immortal Huangfu Xian.
The mad Taoist who, before Han Woo-hyun’s regression, discovered that it was possible to level up by extracting and eating players’ pineal glands.
That bastard had been quietly sitting wrapped in a blanket.
“(Huangfu Xian.)”
“(...A player? Like me.)”
“Wait, Li Haoran. Step back.”
Something about it had not felt right, so Han Woo-hyun had tried to step forward and talk to him directly instead of Li Haoran.
Then Huangfu Xian silently gauged the situation before quickly fleeing.
Since his class was Taoist, it seemed he had prepared dimensional movement in advance using [Ink Painting].
Because it was an escape skill that combined an invulnerability skill and a movement skill, even Han Woo-hyun could not stop him.
“Do not worry too much over that one man.”
Li Haoran, who had been watching Han Woo-hyun seem concerned, spoke.
“I do not know what your recruitment standards are. However, everyone you decided to recruit is famous among players, whether in a good sense or a bad one.”
“(First, let’s announce the guild’s existence and start enrollment.)”
“(I’ll try gathering my party and guild members too.)”
“(This is exciting.)”
“(We were trolls, but if those bastards wake up, they’ll probably accept too.)”
“(That’s right! The Guild Leader’s proposal is objectively believable, and the conditions are good.)”
“They are influential people, so they will be able to gather subordinate guild members faster than expected, and control should be easy.”
Han Woo-hyun also accepted Li Haoran’s words.
He was now the head of an organization.
Not merely the head of an organization, but the only guild leader who could stop the world’s destruction.
It was neither desirable nor possible for him to concern himself with every last thing one by one.
“You are right. You are now China’s administrator. I leave it to you.”
“I have not yet forgotten the first order you gave me.”
Li Haoran once again smiled with madness.
“The Chinese Communist Youth League. I never thought I would return there, but I will start there and climb up over the Communist Party. Very quickly.”
That madness and ambition were extremely reliable.
“First, occupy China’s ten largest cities···”
“The player positions we will demand from the Communist Party are···”
“The most important thing is the defense of factories, ports, and major corporations···”
“Accept the useful ones, handle the dangerous ones···”
“Only we are the world’s sole player guild···”
Han Woo-hyun delivered more specific instructions on this and that.
And at the very end, a reward as well.
“It is a Gold Ingot. Ten kilograms. In yuan, it is worth roughly five million.”
“Five million··· yuan?”
Li Haoran was shocked.
It was far too large an amount for him, a poor man from a rural village, to face directly.
“But this will be difficult to use immediately. I will give you yuan as well. Take it.”
He added the four million yuan he had exchanged at the gold shop.
“Distribute it appropriately to those below you and use it where necessary.”
No matter how outstanding Li Haoran’s political skill was, his foundation at the moment was bound to be weak.
Therefore, Han Woo-hyun, as the guild leader, had to guarantee his authority.
Not merely through trust, but materially as well.
Naturally, awe and greed appeared in the eyes of the players watching that sight.
“You will have many places to spend it if you are establishing an organization, so there is no need to be frugal. We have plenty of money.”
“Guild Leader··· you truly continue to surprise me. Judging by how it came from Inventory, it appears to be a game item, but how did you prepare even this···?”
“You could have such a suspicion. Do not worry. It is true that it is an item, but at the same time, it is also real gold with a purity of 99.999%.”
At those words, Li Haoran frowned for a moment, then soon fell into thought.
"...I understand the Guild Leader’s intent as well. The guild has gold. A very great deal of it.”
Han Woo-hyun smiled once more.
As expected, Li Haoran was clever. More than he had anticipated.
“Can you predict what I want?”
“If it is to be used as funds, its source must be laundered. For smooth handling and investment, various measures beyond that will also be needed. I will look into my classmates who work in banking and finance.”
Li Haoran had been the vice chairman of the Communist Youth League at Tsinghua University and the top graduate of the economics department.
Although he had now fallen into a room-bound game-addicted shut-in.
Now that he had ability and backing, he could reestablish connections with successful seniors and classmates.
“That alone will not be enough to use and grow the Gold Ingots through extralegal channels. You also have a friend working at a casino, do you not? Look into jewelry workshops through that side as well.”
“A casino? Jewelry?”
“And China still has a rigid economic and social structure. We will create paper companies on the Singapore side as well.”
“What?”
“Through Singapore, via Hong Kong and Macau, we will design the flow so the funds ultimately enter Korea. You prepare the establishment of trading companies on the Hong Kong and Macau side.”
On Li Haoran’s face, a question beyond shock and close to fear appeared.
“Guild Leader··· with that level, you must have only eaten and played games. How do you know so much about money laundering···”
“Neither of us knows much. We need to hire experts. I only set the direction.”
"...Correct. That was a trivial question. I will follow.”
Only after that could Han Woo-hyun finally leave China in peace.
―Crunch.
―Crunch.
On the Hong Kong coast, there was a mooncake shop that made them in the traditional Teochew way, using pork fat and peanuts.
The shop owner’s impression looked stubborn enough to trust, so Han Woo-hyun bought one mooncake to replenish his strength.
A nutty richness and umami. A proper sweetness that was not greasy at all.
Higher quality than expected. This was quite good.
―Gulp.
“I caught my breath, so I should hurry.”
The current time was six in the morning.
It was not late, but there was little time left before Java, the capital island of Indonesia, sank.
Indonesia, the Philippines, and finally Singapore.
Thinking of his next destinations, Han Woo-hyun stepped toward the south.
―SPLASH.
It was time to meet the rankers of the Southeast Asian server.