Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

Every door we opened in the corridor was a jackpot. The problem is it’s a jackpot in a bad sense, not a good one.

Behind the first door we opened were resting gang members. We quickly subdued them and opened the next door.

What was there was a huge laboratory, no, a drug manufacturing facility.

As I had guessed from the smell outside, they were producing drugs here. The room lined with flasks and various heating devices resembled a laboratory. With such technology and ability, they should use their skills for better things.

Those who looked like drug technicians immediately raised their hands and surrendered as soon as they saw us. Unlike the other gang members who tried to shoot us on sight.

I subdued them, tied them up and corralled them in one place.

It’s foolish to judge people by appearances alone, but the people here seemed different from the gang members outside.

How should I put it, they looked much more like ‘model students’.

‘It means they brought in properly educated guys.’

In fact, quite specialized knowledge was needed to make drugs. Especially for high-quality drugs.

If those model students are as skilled as they look, the level of drugs here must be quite high too.

‘Can you analyze drugs too?’

—Huh? How could I analyze something that’s not an artifact?

At those words, I rubbed the drugs I had dabbed on my finger onto my pants.

—Is it okay to rub that on your pants?

‘I can’t rub it on my tongue, can I?’

—Well, that’s true.

I narrowed my eyes and examined the facility, but there was nothing particularly noticeable. I don’t know anything about drugs so I have nothing more to say.

At that moment, one of the men sitting on the floor asked me:

[Wh-what do you want?]

Ah, right. I can just ask directly. I knocked everyone out on the way here, so I forgot those people have mouths too.

—Oh my.

‘Ahem. In the first place, the other guys didn’t give me a chance to talk to them.’

But the guy in front of me is different. Is this what they call an educated gentleman? It was admirable how he was trying to find a way to survive even in this situation.

—Somehow it feels like you’re being sarcastic…

Ignoring Ray’s words, I knelt down on the floor and met the guy’s eyes.

[What were you doing here?]

[You can see for yourself, we were making drugs.]

The man’s voice was completely drained of strength. Is the prickly tone his original personality?

[I’m looking for someone. Was a woman brought here after being kidnapped?]

At my words, the man narrowed his eyes.

[I haven’t heard of any woman coming. Besides, we usually stay here…]

[Do you know of any space where they might take a kidnapped awakener?]

I looked straight into the man’s eyes and said:

[You must have seen and heard things while working here. Think carefully. Maybe if you tell me something helpful, I might let you live?]

At my words, fear began to settle in the man’s eyes. With a pale face, the man’s lips moved and he opened his mouth as if remembering something.

[If it’s a place where they might take an awakener, there’s only one place.]

[Where?]

[It’s not in this building…]

I was able to get an address from the guy. Han Seo-hyeon wrote down the address I dictated.

“Do you know where it is?”

“Roughly.”

Han Seo-hyeon who entered the address in his smartphone nodded.

[I gave you the information you wanted, so p-please, just my life…]

I didn’t give any answer to the guy’s words. As if guessing his fate from my expression, the guy started screaming loudly.

[Why! You said you’d let me live, you said you’d let me live!]

I had no choice but to knock him out.

—What are you planning to do?

They’re guys who make and distribute drugs. Even if we let them live here, they’ll just do the same thing somewhere else.

“Seo-hyeon and Jae-ho, search the surroundings a bit.”

“What about you, Boss?”

“I’ll take care of this place and come out.”

At my words, Han Seo-hyeon looked straight at my face and said:

“You don’t need to handle it alone, Boss.”

It was a face that knew what I was trying to do. He’s grown up too much. I patted Han Seo-hyeon’s shoulder and said:

“It’s because we need to quickly find anything suspicious here before leaving.”

At my words, Han Seo-hyeon narrowed his eyes and went out of the room.

And I…

Dealt with the bad guys in my own way. I dealt with the guys in other rooms the same way and came back out to the corridor.

“Boss! Come over here!”

Where Han Seo-hyeon called me, there was an enormous amount of drugs piled up.

“Wow…”

The amount of drugs neatly wrapped in paper seemed to be at least a few hundred kilograms, no, a few tons. This amount would be enough to turn several million people into drug addicts. If these drugs were released to the market, that is.

—My goodness, they made so much.

‘Should I say the timing is good? It seems we discovered it right before distribution.’

If we had been just a few days late, these drugs would have been distributed to the market as is.

—What were they planning to do with so many drugs?

‘Are they going to make soup with drugs, or cook rice?’

—Really, such a large amount…

You mean people will use it? That’s right. All these many drugs really get consumed. Isn’t that chilling enough?

‘I saw that although the population decreased after the Gates, drug consumption itself increased. There are quite a few people whose lives were ruined after the Gates.’

As I always said, densely populated Korea is in a slightly better situation.

Many countries including the United States lost vast territories and citizens to the Gate incidents. The United States is still maintaining its position as the most powerful country in the world, but…

‘Even the strongest country can’t solve everything.’

It’s not for nothing that I said even the king can’t save the people from poverty. Even the United States couldn’t solve its citizens’ poverty.

There were always poor people, sick people, people with nowhere to go in places hidden from the light.

‘They say the gap between the rich and poor is worse than ever now.’

It’s a world where talented awakener can earn billions from one Gate conquest, but ordinary people can’t escape poverty no matter how hard they try.

In this world where you buy your safety with money, the poor lived in the most dangerous places and couldn’t even properly protect their own lives.

Those living in death lands where they could die at any time clung to drugs even just to forget that reality.

‘So yes, it’s understandable that such a large amount would be distributed.’

—Hey.

‘What?’

—…About the drug business, should you keep doing it?

At those words, I closed my mouth.

—Your past self might not have had a choice. Right, you couldn’t make proper money then. But now you can make profit from conquering Gates, and gambling, right. You make plenty of money from gambling that you’re good at!

It’s a tone that really dislikes me having a hand in the drug business. Well, seeing something like this in front of you would certainly be shocking.

‘I’ll think about it for now.’

Han Seo-hyeon asked me as I was looking around at the drugs:

“What should we do with this?”

“We have to get rid of it all.”

When the government seizes drugs, they usually dispose of them through incineration. There are cases of disposing drugs through hydrolysis or dilution methods, but that’s too troublesome.

“It would be better to move it outside and dispose of it, but…”

Going to the first basement floor is an extremely difficult task. So we should deal with it here as much as possible.

“Are you going to set fire here?”

Han Seo-hyeon was horrified when he heard my plan.

“I think it’s possible if we control it well so the fire doesn’t spread to the surroundings…”

“Setting a fire, a fire in this narrow place.”

“In an emergency, you can just cover it with sand to put out the fire, right?”

“…Let’s do it when we leave. In case the fire spreads.”

“Okay.”

We decided to deal with the drugs on our way out. Before leaving this place for the last time, we decided to check all the rooms in the corridor.

“There’s something here.”

Where Kim Jae-ho called us to, there were slot machines like the ones we saw in the casino lined up. The slot machines here looked broken. What’s the reason for gathering old and broken slot machines in one place?

“Maybe they just put them here because they’re broken?”

At Han Seo-hyeon’s words, I shook my head.

“There’s no reason to do that. Think about it. How hard it was for us to come from the first basement floor to the second. The elevator doesn’t even come here.”

“Ah, that’s right.”

Going through all that troublesome process just to store broken machines?

“It’s a more plausible explanation that there’s something in these slot machines.”

“They look like normal slot machines from the outside though.”

“The inside could be special, not the outside.”

And I have the all-purpose Ray who can analyze artifacts. He failed to analyze drugs, but this is his specialty…

—There does seem to be something. Try disassembling it first. There’s something interfering with the flow of my magic power so I can’t examine the inside.

At those words, I started disassembling the slot machine.

Bang!

“Y-you said you’d disassemble it…”

“This is faster.”

I who smashed the slot machine with a magic-infused fist started removing the outer parts of the slot machine. The inside was composed of various parts and electronic circuits.

‘There’s nothing particularly special…’

Just as I was about to say that, I immediately reached inside the slot machine at the flow of magic power I felt from inside.

What I pulled out from inside was an artifact only about half the size of my palm.

An artifact.

=====

Perception Reduction Circuit / B-grade

—–

Installation type / Auxiliary

Applies a confused state to the user.

=====

The system window’s explanation was concise, but the contents were not. From the item’s name to the content.

‘An artifact was installed in the slot machine?’

I smashed the slot machine next to it too and pulled out the mana circuit from inside. Kim Jae-ho and Han Seo-hyeon who were watching my actions intently followed me and smashed the surrounding slot machines, pulling out the same artifacts from all of them.

“What is this?”

“Artifacts were installed in the slot machines.”

I explained the situation to Kim Jae-ho and Han Seo-hyeon.

‘It means people weren’t just addicted to slot machines. They made it even harder to escape using artifacts.’

To think they would do this to gambling which is already highly addictive…

“Machines in casinos shouldn’t have things like this installed, right?”

“That’s right.”

I collected all the artifacts.

“Let’s get out of here for now.”

We’ve examined everything we could examine here, and the conclusion I’ve drawn from that is one.

‘It seems the guys running this casino aren’t worth letting live, don’t you think?’

—Ahem, well…

Even Ray is saying this much, so the answer is clear.

‘I want to meet the owner of this casino quickly.’