Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

Of course, I don’t intend to charge in recklessly. Just getting close can be fatal, as we saw with how it instantly swallowed Hound’s body.

[Mr. Cooper, can you draw its attention?]

Taika nodded at my words.

[But I still have difficulty properly grasping the ‘range’, so we’ll have to be careful.]

[It’s fine. I just have a few things to investigate. Just draw its attention.]

After finishing my conversation with Taika, I spoke to Han Seo-hyeon and Kim Jae-ho.

“I’m going to approach while he draws its attention. You two wait in a safe place for now.”

At my words, Han Seo-hyeon’s mouth fell open.

“I’m sorry, but are you insane?”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re saying you’re going to approach that thing alone!”

“Well, I said while he’s drawing its attention, right?”

“What if you get trampled like Hound just now!”

“Don’t worry, I’m confident I can dodge.”

Han Seo-hyeon bit his lip at my words. He seemed quite upset, but there was no time. I spoke to Kim Jae-ho:

“You keep Seo-hyeon safe in the meantime. Make sure he doesn’t get hurt at all.”

“Really! You’re jumping into a deathtrap yourself.”

I frowned at Han Seo-hyeon’s words.

“Han Seo-hyeon, I understand you’re worried, but I’m the leader among us. You saying that means you don’t trust me. Are you that doubtful of my abilities?”

I could control the wind. I could instantly create shields, or burrow into the ground to hide. No one here but me could even momentarily escape from that thing.

At my words, Han Seo-hyeon finally seemed to realize his mistake and hung his head low.

“…That’s not what I meant.”

Thinking I should talk to him about that attitude later, I moved forward.

“Maintain a 500m range.”

Hound was attacked within a 300m range earlier. 500m should be safe.

I asked Taika:

[How far can you use your talent?]

[Anywhere within my sight is fine.]

As expected, it’s ridiculously overpowered. All areas within sight are within range.

[When I approach, please attack starting from far away from me.]

[Understood!]

Taika saluted like a soldier and grinned. But the playful smile was brief, and instantly a fierce aura of magical power began to surge around Taika.

A kind of mana storm raged around his body.

It was an amount of mana unbelievable for a mere human body to possess.

—Is that really human?

We shouldn’t judge that man based on the sloppy appearance we’ve seen so far.

After all, he’s strong enough to be called America’s strongest, even humanity’s strongest.

I floated my body with wind and immediately kicked off the ground. My body shot out like a bullet. This was because I instantly dispersed even the air in front of my body, momentarily reducing friction resistance to zero.

An impossible instantaneous acceleration.

My body reached Yebrica in an instant.

Around the time its gaze reached me.

[Now.]

As if hearing my small whisper, a black center point appeared, distorting near Yebrica’s head.

Unlike before, he succeeded in creating a ‘center point’ in mid-air.

—As expected, a genius is a genius.

All I did was give a small piece of advice.

Even though he looked like he couldn’t understand at all when he first heard the advice.

In just one day, Taika Cooper succeeded in actually implementing my advice without proper practice.

“That’s insane.”

I let out a hollow laugh.

The space around the black point Taika created contracted. The sand around it began to be helplessly sucked towards that center point.

Yebrica twisted its entire body at the sudden attack. It seemed to have no time to pay attention to me approaching nearby.

The plan to draw its attention was a perfect success.

Taking advantage of that gap, I stole a handful of sand that made up Yebrica’s body.

—What are you trying to confirm?

“I need to know what properties this sand has.”

This is my first time seeing such a huge individual, but I know several monsters that form clusters like this. Typical examples are the Corpse Boomer made of gathered corpses, the Phantomos made of gathered spirits, and the Insect Bouquet made of gathered insect-type monsters.

They have the commonality of forming clusters, but the properties of these monsters are all different, and their methods of defeat are just as diverse.

In the case of the Corpse Boomer, the mass formed by the cluster itself is the main body. Therefore, damage to that cluster directly hits the main body. You could say it’s easier to defeat because it’s grown larger.

The Insect Bouquet only forms the shape of a cluster, but it’s not actually a cluster. That’s why you shouldn’t approach it thinking it’s a single entity. If you attack following the shape that looks like a school of fish, it will instantly scatter and rush in to exploit your openings.

The Phantomos, made of gathered spirits, is the trickiest. Under the control of a powerful spirit, the absorbed spirits, except for the real one forming the main body, are immune to any attack. In this case, finding the ‘real one’ is the top priority.

There are this many types of clusters that come to mind right away. The giant monster in front of us is ultimately just a cluster of sand. If we understand its form and chip away at its size, we should be able to attack the real weakness hidden inside.

So I need to find out the nature of this thing.

The sand in my hand wriggled as if wanting to return to the main body. It was the same even when I moved a little further away.

Then how about this? I applied force to my palm and crushed the sand. Even if it’s sand, it’s not impossible to crush. The sand that became fine powder no longer moved. Even when I opened my fist and scattered it in the air, it didn’t join the main body but just scattered in the wind.

“This is it.”

I roughly understand how to defeat it now.

Yebrica is similar to Phantomos. These sands are an illusion. No matter how much we attack these sands, it probably won’t deal any damage to the main body.

If we can just remove this sand and attack its main body, we should be able to catch Yebrica.

But the joy was short-lived.

“Yikes.”

Although most of its attention was focused on Taika, it seems I was also bothersome, lurking at its feet, as Yebrica began to counterattack towards me.

A band of sand stretched out towards me, a sand snake that separated from Yebrica’s body began to rush at me like a living creature. I floated my body in the air and barely avoided the sand.

But it’s not over just because it hit the ground.

The sand snake was just a decoy to draw my attention.

Once again, numerous shadows appeared above my body.

This time, sand feathers began to fall towards me from the air. It was an absurdly large number, impossible to avoid in my state of unbalance after dodging the sand snake.

Don’t underestimate it just because it’s sand feathers. Their tips are imbued with mana as sharp as glass shards.

It’s impossible to dodge all those countless feathers.

I drew out the mana from my bracelet and surrounded my body with an air barrier.

Ting, ting!

The feathers blocked by the air barrier fell to the ground.

Even though I defended with my highest output, the barrier shook.

I need to leave this place quickly before more feathers come flying. I gathered mana at my feet and ‘kicked’ the air.

This is a trick possible because the air is full of mana. Is it because we’re near a giant mana aggregate monster? Even though this isn’t inside a Gate, mana is abundant here right now.

Including the sand floating in the air, my whole body feels sticky.

With perfect timing, Taika’s gravity field activated again. This time it was the wing joint.

As a result of raising the ‘center point’ upwards following my advice. A huge hole appeared in the middle of the giant bird’s wing joint.

The sand gathered in the center fell as fine powder, as if ground in a blender. The sand collided with each other, turning into powder from the friction force.

I desperately widened the distance from Yebrica and shouted towards Taika.

[Mr. Cooper! Just keep doing that. We need to turn all that sand into powder!]

[Wow! That’s going to be an enormous task!]

Certainly, turning all the sand making up that giant bird’s body into powder is not an easy task.

But we have humanity’s strongest blender.

[Did I mention this? My favorite thing to do as a kid was playing with sand!]

—Blender. That sounds strangely like an insult.

‘In this situation, it’s a compliment.’

Perhaps it had endured as much as it could, the giant sand bird was now raising its body. Let’s confirm one more thing.

I arrived in front of Han Seo-hyeon and held out my fist to him.

“What is it?”

“Try infusing dark mana into the sand in my hand.”

“What?”

I’ve confirmed that if we physically turn it into powder, the sand loses its power.

Yebrica’s body appears to be made of giant sand. But to be precise, that’s not Yebrica’s body. It just looks like it’s composed as a body. Yebrica’s main body is probably buried in that sand.

So the method to defeat Yebrica is similar to Phantomos. Remove these fakes and find the real main body.

But these sands have substance. This is the difference from Phantomos.

These sands that make up Yebrica’s body were different from ordinary sand.

This sand, wriggling as if alive, can be considered a ‘monster’ in itself. Like tiny insects.

The method to defeat Insect Bouquet, made up of many small insects gathering together, is simple. Properly kill each of those small insects one by one.

But children with talents in charm or summoning would sometimes use methods to lure the insects making up the swarm and make them destroy each other.

Maybe this sand is similar.

If it’s possible to physically steal it, that is. You never know. It might be possible to steal control rights too.

Isn’t it the main specialty of necromancers to steal someone’s body and take control of it?

“Try infusing mana. Maybe you can take control of this sand.”

Han Seo-hyeon’s eyes lit up when he saw the sand wriggling in my fist.

“Open your palm.”

When I opened my palm, the sand inside immediately began to wriggle, trying to return to the main body. But only for a moment.

The sand touched by Han Seo-hyeon’s fingertips wriggled as if struck by lightning, then slowly began to accept Han Seo-hyeon’s mana and turn black. Following Han Seo-hyeon’s hand gesture, the sand slowly began to move to the back of his hand.

Jackpot.