“Right. That refugee isn’t angry.”
Evil said something completely different from James’s worry and his eyes lit up like a child who discovered a new toy.
“Do you understand? How can he not be angry in this situation? He almost died at the hands of someone who was deliberately stimulating his trauma and playing with him, but he’s not angry. It’s the same just now. ‘He still seems bored.’ There was no emotion in those words at all. No anger, no humiliation. He didn’t say those words to make me feel bad. Living in that shit country must have made one corner of his brain completely idiotic. Something very interesting has appeared.”
“……”
Interesting?
James’s shoulders trembled with dissonance. It was because the fact that the expression “interesting” came from Evil’s mouth evoked dissonance. It was the first time Evil expressed something living as interesting.
Come to think of it, there was one more time recently when he felt similar dissonance. On Cheche’s first day of work, before they met each other yet. Evil had said while looking down out the window.
‘Unlike how he looks, that one’s an idiot. Fucking hilarious.’
Thinking about it now, it was a very strange thing to say. Those words…
“Give me that.”
James, who had been recalling that time, suddenly came to his senses. Evil pointed with his chin at the tablet James was holding. James couldn’t follow Evil’s train of thought. But unlike his head, his body reflexively followed the command.
Articles related to the assault rumors were still up on the tablet screen. Swipe, swipe, Evil, who was quickly skimming through articles by scrolling down with his finger, let out a sneer.
“‘We must protect the refugee’? What bullshit.”
Evil read one of many article titles and threw down the tablet. James quickly picked up what Evil threw and used this opportunity to try again to send him on a hospital visit.
“Many people are worried about Cheche-ssi’s well-being. Just one photo of a hospital visit could be an opportunity to turn misfortune into fortune.”
“Idiot, this isn’t worry, they’re excited. Can’t you tell the difference?”
Sure enough, Evil sneered coldly.
“It’s not just anyone, but me, an SSS multi-user, who hit the refugee brat, so they’re more excited. They’re masturbating among themselves saying we must protect the refugee and such. It’s porn, porn.”
“No way…”
“Just looking at the photos, they made the kid look like a skeleton. The background is all collapsed buildings. The articles are all manipulated like shit. Fuck. Even if they manipulated it with old programs, they wouldn’t have done it like this.”
James looked down at the screen on the tablet. The photo that Evil was cursing while expressing as “manipulation” was very familiar.
“Evil-nim, is this your first time seeing this photo? It’s not manipulated, it’s that photo that became the reason Cheche-ssi became known in our country.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t know?”
James couldn’t believe it and without realizing it looked at Evil with an incredulous gaze. The photo Evil expressed as manipulation was exactly that photo the Alcity war correspondent who Cheche saved had posted on SNS.
The opportunity that made Tar’s young hero known to the entire world.
Not knowing what was published as big as a door panel on the main page of all kinds of media, lacking common sense too much…
“Hey, lower your eyes. You’re being arrogant.”
“I apologize.”
“Give it to me again.”
“Pardon? Ah, yes.”
James quickly handed over the tablet before a situation where Evil commanded again could occur.
Cheche, younger than now, was looking at the camera in front of a collapsed building wearing clothes that had become rags, all torn apart. Lips caked with blood, dry tan arms and legs, a bleeding forehead torn open. His ashen hair was a mess with dust, and his golden eyes looking at the camera contained nothing.
“This photo is famous?”
“Yes, they say it’s innocence blooming in war. He has such a pretty appearance. He looks poignant too. It’s also an appearance that overturns prejudice toward refugees.”
“What fucking trash… all refugees are like this.”
While spitting out curses, Evil even skimmed through other articles James had pulled up as reference materials. Not satisfied with that, he even showed himself searching Cheche’s name on a portal site.
99% of articles related to Cheche had this photo as the main image.
Recently, Cheche had gone to press conferences several times with a clean face without any injuries, wearing neat clothing chosen by the Endem family, but there were only three articles that featured photos of that proper appearance.
“…I told you it’s porn.”
Evil sneered and threw down the tablet again.
***
Evil, who seemed to have taken an interest in Cheche, ultimately didn’t head to the hospital where Cheche was admitted. With pressure from above and below, only the secretaries were dying.
While the secretaries were becoming haggard by the minute, an incident occurred. A massive wildfire broke out in the western region of K-City. Naturally, an emergency request came to Alcity’s Aura User Center, the largest on the continent. It was a request to dispatch Motioners and Soulers, and the adapter side decided to dispatch three A-rank adapters and one S-rank adapter, while the User Center decided to dispatch three A-rank Soulers and five S-rank Motioners. However, it was clear these would be insufficient.
The K-City side wanted Evil Endem’s support, but he himself flatly refused. The reason was this:
“It’s annoying and I need to level up.”
Even when the Center director came in person and pleaded, and the Adapter Association president bowed his head and requested, he didn’t move, so ultimately only twelve people headed there without Evil.
The flames weren’t controlled even after a day passed. K-City’s wildfire, affected by northeast winds, crossed the border overnight and invaded J-City, many casualties occurred, and property damage reached astronomical levels. After the K-City government and Alcity government officially pleaded when they could no longer stand by, Evil decided to take those expensive steps.
On the private jet, Evil only played games with a bored face and his legs crossed. Capricious, he went back and forth between this game and that game, and when he got bored with them all, he browsed websites. James couldn’t even rest on the jet, anxiously worrying that Evil might suddenly change his mind.
Evil arrived at the scene twenty-five hours after the K-City massive wildfire occurred.
The first thing he did after arriving wasn’t suppressing the wildfire but an interview with journalists from around the world positioned behind the barricade.
“Making such a fuss, but having time for an interview means it’s not urgent.”
At Evil’s sneer, not only James but all the K-City disaster officials couldn’t open their mouths.
When Evil stood on the platform, camera shutters attacked. When the journalist who received the first question assignment asked why he only came after a day had passed, Evil answered with a sneer.
“I wanted to come right when it hit exactly fifty, but they fucking die so easily.”
That interview was broadcast live to the entire world, and at first people didn’t understand what that meant. Less than ten minutes after making that statement, two injured people receiving treatment died, bringing the death toll to fifty, and only then did they understand the meaning. In a wealthy republic like K-City, reaching fifty wildfire accident deaths was a very high number, and it meant this was a disaster situation worthy of being recorded.
Firefighters, rescue workers, journalists, soldiers—everyone wanted to criticize Evil’s inhumanity, but no one could speak carelessly to him. He was scum of humanity and trash, but his ability was like a messiah come to save the world.
Motioners can move objects and materialize aura. The Motioners dispatched first lifted fire hoses with aura to spray water to places that couldn’t be reached before, rescued animals trapped in flames unable to evacuate, and carved down rough mountain roads so fire trucks could pass.
That alone was a great help, but Evil was more than that.
He created an invisible wall with aura to block strong winds and confined the flames inside the wall so they wouldn’t spread further. Not only that, while blocking the wind, he also moved fallen tree trunks or animal carcasses to one place at the same time.
If it weren’t for Evil, the damage from the wildfire spreading on the wind might have increased hundreds or thousands of times. By calculation, it was a fire of a scale that would burn for ten days and nights. Although his character was no different from a devil, it proved the fact that his ability alone was absolutely necessary for the world.
When the flames were controlled to some extent, Evil came down to the ground without delay. The most dangerous period had passed, but it was still far from being completely suppressed, so all the officials were flustered.
“Evil User-nim, why are you coming down already?”
“Because I feel like it.”
Evil giving that answer had an extremely bored face.
Because Evil finished earlier than expected, the private jet wasn’t in a prepared state.
“I apologize. The aircraft isn’t ready yet…”
“Anyway, can’t do anything with these idiots.”
When an official said trembling in fear that they had to wait for a moment, Evil of course poured out verbal abuse. He pulled up a chair and sat in the camp at the scene where firefighters and Aura Users were risking their lives suppressing the fire. He didn’t care even though numerous cameras were filming him.
The game he finished leveling up had now become dull too. Internet surfing was also sick of. Evil viewed the scenery still full of smoke because embers hadn’t gone out yet with no emotion.
Boring and tedious.
Everything was.
It was when he was just boredly waiting for the private jet to be prepared that the back became noisy.
“If you could solve it this easily, you could have come a little earlier!”
There was no way that cry didn’t reach Evil’s ears.
