The Novel’s Villain

59. Underworld Conquerors (2)

Pirithous traveled with Theseus in the past, creating many legends. There weren’t many warriors who could stand against him. He showed quite a heroic appearance, but he and his friend looked like garbage in Jin-woo’s eyes.

The twin swordsman thought so too.

His eyes shone sharply.

Most of the myths he knew were true.

Hades and Persephone were even watching their battle. Although their history itself was different from what he learned, the major events were all real.

“You’re a kidnapper.” He said.

Pirithous and Theseus kidnapped Helen when she was still just a child, imprisoning her in a castle. All because Theseus wanted her to be his wife. Regardless, he was a clear accomplice to the crime.

Yakayot was an elementary school teacher. For him, all children had to be protected from such trash.

Persephone looked at his beam swords bewilderingly, barely managing to maintain her composure. She didn’t know what they were, but they shouldn’t be capable of withstanding against one of Hephaestus’s creations. However, the battle’s outcome completely differed from what she had imagined.

“Behold, the might of the great gods!”

Rumble!

Pirithous raised his sword, causing bolts of lightning to strike and be absorbed into its blade.

Persephone clenched her fists upon witnessing the scene. She paid Hephaestus quite a hefty sum to have that weapon made, using up nearly all of her personal and the underworld’s money. However, she still had a long way to go from paying all the installment fees.

Nevertheless, her sacrifice proved worth it. He seemed to have mastered wielding the godly weapon.

The lightning it produced would frighten anyone who bore witness to it. It was, after all, the most powerful element since Zeus, Olympus’s supreme god, wielded it himself.

Still, Yakayot wasn’t afraid. That much was evident in his expression, which remained blank as he stared at the scene.

Lowing his beam swords slowly, he took a deep breath.

“I don’t believe in gods.”

Crackle!

The ground burst into flames as soon as they hit it, clouds of smoke rising from them. This arena was made out of the underworld’s hardest mineral, and its floor was the most reinforced. Even so, the beam swords melted it like ice cream under the sun.

Pirithous swung his sword, thinking its lightning strikes would burn his opponent. However, all he cut through was the air.

Whik!

Thinking his earlier demonstration had caused Yakayot to cower in fear, he realized a tad too late that his target had positioned himself right behind him.

Pirithous stiffened.

Yakayot slowly rose from his lowered posture and pressed his beam swords’ buttons, causing the brilliant lights they emitted to disappear. As they did, Pirithous’s sword split apart. No blood gushed from his body since they burned everything down.

He looked down.

“How is this possible…”

He lost.

Pirithous’s body fell forward as Yakayot stared at him indifferently.

“All I believe in is the dreams of children.” He said, turning away from him and going out of the arena.

Persephone’s face flushed with astonishment. Her jaw dropped open, and her hands trembled.

‘Ah, I haven’t even fully paid for that yet… There’s still a lot left I have to pay in installments…’

Her mind blanked out.

On the other hand, Hades jumped up and clenched his fists, his stomach churning out of sheer happiness.

“That’s it! Whoo!”

“It’s too early to rejoice. This event’s not over yet.”

Persephone smiled faintly, the corners of her lips twitching violently. Pirithous was the second strongest warrior she prepared. She sent him out first to take the lead early on, but Yakayot defeated him in an instant.

She couldn’t even make excuses for how her combatant lost. After all, he had been equipped with a weapon already borderline overpowered, having been crafted by none other than Hephaestus himself.

Much to her dismay, even that had been torn in half.

The match went on quickly.

Unlike Persephone, who decided to change the order of her warriors again, the Underworld Conquerors were quite relaxed. They picked who’d go next through rock, paper, scissors.

Strawberry Underwear went up to the stadium, but he didn’t unsheathe any weapons.

Whirlik! Whik! puck!

Bare-handed, he rolled on the floor, dodging his opponent’s attacks while positioning himself right in front of him. Putting him within his striking distance, he clasped his hands together.

“Devour him, Realm of Destruction!”

“Gasp!”

He struck his target so swiftly each swing of his fists left behind several afterimages.

Whoops!

The frictional heat caused his hands to burst into flames as his muscles expanded and repeatedly contracted, resulting in a sharp rise in his temperature.

As soon as he stopped and lowered his arms, his opponent flew back and crashed into the wall.

“The darkness within you… I’ve burned it all to ashes.” His low voice resounded. His body’s temperature had risen so significantly normal avatars would’ve melted away at this point, but the Strawberry underwear was far from normal.

Clank! Sizzle!

The veil covering his nipples opened, allowing smoke to billow out.

Startled by the dirty sight, Persephone jumped up. Unable to determine how to react in this situation, she turned her gaze to Jin-woo.

“What’s that?”

“… A cooling system.”

“A cooling… system?”

That was the easiest way to describe it. Rather than just being a nipple cover, it doubled as a cooler. Strawberry Underwear became a top ranker after wearing it in Dark Eye.

His Realm of Destruction burned both him and his opponent at the same time, but he perfectly overcame that flaw using that equipment!

Persephone staggeringly sat down.

The heat emanating from his physique was so hot she could feel it from afar.

He truly did look like he needed to cool down, but did he need to do it that way?

“Let’s proceed, then. My next combatant is Garius, the Spear of Light! Chiron himself has recognized his spearmanship, which he used to fight against a hundred warriors alone!”

Garius entered the arena, holding a shining spear. On the contrary, his opponent, Flower Garden Retiree, stepped into the ring with only a shabby-looking poisoned dagger.

Persephone smirked.

“Hahaha! This is already my fighter’s victory based on their weapons alone! Your soldier’s dagger won’t be able to withstand Garius’s spear!”

She had just witnessed Strawberry Underwear beating down a warrior of hers to a pulp with nothing but his fists, but she seemed to have already forgotten about it.

Logically speaking, she wasn’t wrong. There was no way daggers could fight against spears.

Even Hades’s face was dyed with tension.

“J-Jin-woo, will everything be okay?”

“Not exactly.”

Garius wouldn’t be.

“I, Garius, appointed by Chiron as the Spear of Light, will be your opponent!”

Chiron taught many heroes.

Flower Garden Retiree changed his glasses into a tinted one, covering his eyes.

“There are a lot of weeds and pests in my flower garden.”

Spreading the hems of his robe, he revealed multiple daggers strapped onto his body. As for the one he was holding, it was far too big to even be called a dagger.

Garius snorted.

“No matter how many weapons you have, you’re no match against the Spear of Light.”

“I thought about it. How can we get rid of weeds and pests at the same time?”

He threw the dagger in his hand upwards, allowing it to free fall from the sky. However, it didn’t hit the ground. Instead, it emitted a blue light from its tip and stopped in mid-air.

It wasn’t just one. All the daggers attached to him also flew into the air and reacted similarly.

Garius was perplexed.

“What’s happening?”

“This is the answer I’ve come up with. With this, I’ll be able to get rid of them all at once.”

The name of his weapon was Insect Killer.

When Flower Garden Retiree spread out his hands, his daggers danced around in the air.

“Haaaa!”

Garius swung his spear and charged, but the floating weapons all over the arena intercepted him with such speeds it was no different from firing beams of light at him.

The flowing curve they left behind was quite beautiful, perfectly contrasting the bloodshed they could cause.

“Arghh!!”

The daggers penetrated his body, causing his armor to explode and his grip on his spear to loosen.

“Hey, stop… I surrender!”

“What a hideous sight… You’ve become no different from a bug that has lost its wings.”

With a snap of his fingers, the daggers released a shockwave strong enough to push Garius out of the arena. Still dumbfounded, the referee declared Flower Garden Retiree victorious.

While Persephone was stunned by the unbelievable turn of events, Hades looked at Jin-woo with excitement.

“Hey, what the hell was that?”

“They’re daggers with small mana engines, allowing them to fly freely and respond to mana.”

“I don’t quite understand, but that was amazing!”

It was a cutting-edge, technological masterpiece from the Sci-Fi World.

Flower Garden Retiree had slain countless monsters and players with it in the New World. The bodies he buried in his fields were the reason why there were so many bugs all over them.

“Ugh…”

Unlike Hades, who was smiling brightly, Persephone was almost on the verge of crying.

“Not yet… It’s not over yet!” She claimed, forcefully lifting her spirits up.

The next match was between Theseus and the One-Handed Swordsman. However, even if her chosen hero could defeat Jin-woo’s subordinate here, she still had to win all the remaining matches.

Theseus was one of the greatest heroes in the World of Gods, which was why she treated him as her ace. However, she could no longer think of him as such after witnessing how powerful his previous soldiers’ opponents were.

Theseus, armed with a sword, charged in and fully maximized his excellent swordsmanship.

Bump!

One-Handed Swordsman grabbed Theseus’s wrist the moment he came within his arm’s reach. He struggled to escape, but his opponent didn’t budge.

“I heard from Strawberry Underwear.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You kidnapped and imprisoned a child.”

“Well, that’s because I love her…”

“Love?” One-Handed Swordsman’s muscles expanded. He bashed Theseus against the ground mercilessly, causing him to sway like a puppet with broken threads.

Quang! Quang!

Still, Theseus did not lose consciousness. Since he was a hero, his mental strength had been fortified and hardened endlessly.

Whik!

One-Handed Swordsman threw him into the air, reaching quite a height into the sky before he began falling. He then launched himself off the ground, meeting him and grabbing his waist midway.

Fhewwww!

Coating his own body with mana, he piledrove Theseus onto the ground with such great speed he pierced through it. A thick dust cloud rose soon after, covering the crater the impact of their crash created.

“Your head’s useless, so I broke it for you.”

When the dust dissipated, Theseus’s head was still stuck in the ground. Persephone despaired.

One-Handed Swordsman looked at him coldly.

“That’s a crime, not love. You’re just a pervert with a sword, but don’t worry. You’ll have time to reflect on yourself. In hell, that is.”

As he descended from the arena, Theseus’s allies frantically approached and retrieved his body.

Hades laughed so hard his jaws got dislocated again. On the other hand, tears welled up in Persephone’s resentful eyes.

Jumping up from her seat, she gathered her wits together then turned her gaze to the two gods with her.

“I propose a great battle worth multiple points!”

“Do you mean a fight between leaders?” Hades shook his head. “I just need one more point to claim my victory. Why should I accept your proposal?”

“If you win… I’ll give you and that foreign god the operating rights of the underworld and whatever else you want.”

Hades thought about it.

This was an opportunity to get revenge on Persephone.

He turned his gaze to Jin-woo.

“I’ll leave the decision to you.”

“Hmm…”

Jin-woo looked at Persephone with the Magic Eye of Information.

[S+] Persephone

The beautiful wife of Hades, the god of the underworld, and daughter of Demeter.

Meeting Hades, she fell in love with him at first sight. That led her to knock him out while opening the underworld’s gates and coming in it with him.

She has been trying to get his attention since the first night she got there, but Hades has done nothing but avoid her. This ultimately made her think that if she takes all he has, he’ll be left with no choice but to look at him.

Unique Traits:

[S+] Unrequited Love

For love, she does not care what means or methods she has to use.

If the target of her feelings doesn’t notice it, it backfires. Persephone has a history of stealing Zeus’ lightning and gifting it to Hades. However, this only terrifies him, thinking of it as a threat to make him hand over his operating rights to the underworld.

Jin-woo tilted his head in confusion.

‘This is…’

She was just fighting desperately for love.

There seemed to be a huge misunderstanding between them.

“I accept your offer.”

The reason behind his decision was simple: it sounded fun.

Persephone smiled, causing Hades to flinch.

“Then we’ll start the match after a short break. Excuse me.”

Persephone rose gracefully and disappeared from sight.

* * *

Persephone returned to her room and rummaged through her items, pulling out a dimensional gold coin. Standing in front of her old phone, she slipped it into the coin slot and dialed a number.

It rang.

[Ah! If it isn’t Persephone, my lovely daughter!]

“Dad.”

[Yes, it is I! How’s your life in the underworld?]

“Well, same old, same old. Did the number of my step-mothers increase again?”

[Hehehehe… Hmmm, daughter, do you need some pocket money?]

Persephone’s voice was cold.

“I don’t need pocket money. I need help.”

[Is that so? Tell me all that you want! Your dad will take care of it for you!]

“Let Hercules come here.”

[Huh? Hercules is a bit busy… Oh, when?]

Persephone’s eyes lit up.

“Right now!”

[Ah, that’s unfortunate. How about I send you the power of lightning instead?]

“Should I keep the fact that you touched a priestess a secret or not?”

[I didn’t do any of the sorts! Anyway, give me a moment…]

Tick!

Persephone hung up the phone with a remorseful smile. Hercules was half-human. His body disappeared when he ascended to godhood, but he still spent some time being human.

He should be able to participate if she insisted a bit.

‘The real battle starts now!’

Persephone regained her confidence.

Who could stand up to Hercules, the greatest hero to ever exist?

It was a dirty way to win, but that didn’t matter to her.

‘Hades…’

After seeing him after so long, he now looked much cooler than before. Unlike Zeus, he didn’t reveal much of his presence. That modest and gentle appearance of his was what she liked about him best.

Slurp!

Wiping her drool, she made her way back to the arena gracefully, finding Hades talking to the foreign god with a bright smile.

“After giving her a necklace as a gift, I discovered the happy ending route. I was finally able to make her happy.”

“Really? So the necklace was the answer?”

“Yup. We’re collecting memories right now… It’s pretty hard.”

Their conversation startled her.

‘Which girl…’

Fire enveloped her eyes. Feeling her presence, Hades coughed violently and vomited blood.

“P-Persephone. You’ve returned.”

Due to his fear of her, he felt like his heart was being ripped into pieces when he saw death emanating from her.

Jin-woo looked at her.

“Who’s your player?”

“He’ll be here soon. You should look forward to it.”

As soon as she said that, dark clouds appeared over the stadium. That rarely ever happened in the underworld.

After all, that meant there was an external intervention.

Aww!

Powerful lightning struck the floor of the stadium, zapping down a man with an overwhelming physique. His size was much larger than that of One-Handed Swordsman. In fact, he looked like a giant.

Noticing him, Hades was startled.

“H-Hercules! This is cheating! He’s a god!”

“He is half-human. He passes the qualifications, although barely!”

“That’s…”

Persephone smiled at him, then looked at Jin-woo.

“My combatant is Hercules, the greatest hero ever created by the World of Gods.”

Jin-woo looked at him with the Magic Eyes of Information.

[SS] Hercules

Hercules, son of Zeus and Alcmene, is a hero with superhuman strength. He used to be a demigod, but his physical form disappeared after his death, allowing him to ascend to godhood. When he was born, Hera tried to kill him, but they are on good terms now.

Though he’s just like them, he feels skeptical about his oversized and chaotic family.

None of the Underworld Conquerors could match him. Persephone was right to use him.

“Well, let me introduce my fighter, then.”

“Is there a hero who can defeat Hercules?”

Jin-woo nodded.

‘I’ll have to go.’

Fortunately, he brought Kim Gun-joo with him. It didn’t matter what happened. With him as his insurance, he was bound to win. Moreover, since his opponent resulted in using underhanded tactics, he no longer had any reason to hesitate.

“I’ll be taking my leave here.”

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“I remember I have things to do. Don’t worry, I’ll send you my fighter soon.”

Jin-woo went down to the bottom of the stadium, leaving Persephone and Hades alone. Hades rolled his eyes anxiously.

A heavy silence fell on them.

As soon as he left the premises of the arena, he immediately logged into his avatar.

‘It’s been a while.’

It certainly had been a long time since he connected to Kim Gun-joo. His rank had risen significantly, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable to use anymore.

When Kim Gun-joo appeared, the Underworld Conquerors split up, clearing a path in the middle for him to enter.

As he walked into the arena, Hercules looked down at him.