51. Gift (1)
Jin-woo continued to expand the size of the cheap subspace.
It was produced in large quantities in the Demon World, making it easy to obtain more of them. This was also what the players used as their inventory.
He recalled an old anecdote. While playing on the computer, his hands became itchy. Upon looking down on it, he saw cockroaches eating the dead skin cells of his hands.
He couldn’t express how he felt at the time.
It was unfair to subject only humans to such occurrences. He wanted to make others go through it as well.
That overwhelming fear!
‘Well, they’ll devour anything…’
Common cockroaches were omnivores, but they didn’t eat everything. Unlike them, the Cockroach clan could eat even artificial objects.
Se-yeon, studying their excrement, couldn’t help but feel excited upon finding out they contained great mana and nutrients.
Since it would be useful for developing ruined planets, Jin-woo began storing their feces in a separate subspace to hand over to her.
Of course, players handled planetary development, which was why they tricked them into thinking they were using special fertilizer.
In its own way, it was nature-friendly.
‘I’ll have to give them more food.’
Jin-woo bought all the cheap subspaces in the Demon World. It took a little while, but he didn’t mind.
He went straight to Earth afterward, aiming for the many wastes there. Although they were being dumped at the gate to decompose, they were creating much more than they could dispose of.
More importantly, the other Earth had no gates. That made them suffer from a serious garbage disposal problem.
‘I’ll solve their predicament as well this way. Two birds, one stone.’
Jin-woo contacted Richard for the first time in so long and moved to the United States, then waited calmly for him at his villa.
Richard was on every TV channel.
He was still only a presidential candidate, but people already treated him as if he had won. His opponents were nothing in his presence, after all.
Articles about him being elected by an overwhelming vote difference had appeared as well.
‘Well…’
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the president as a friend.
Everything was going great.
After he became a presidential candidate in the United States, his schedule grew quite hectic. Even so, he willingly canceled all of his appointments for Jin-woo.
He looked out the villa’s window as Richard arrived in a car along with his numerous bodyguards.
Entrepreneurs ran to Jin-woo as soon as they heard the news of his arrival, but he was far too busy to entertain them. He did feel a little sorry.
He decided to just give them compensation.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Richard bowed politely.
The entrepreneurs did as well. They looked far better than the last time he saw them.
Their health had been restored, and with the Devil backing them up, they had nothing to fear.
Except for one.
“What kind of garbage?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just need a little. Anything artificial is fine.”
“Okay. Please wait a moment.”
Richard and his entrepreneurs had a serious conversation about it.
What happened in the Middle East had already become a legend. In fact, its arrogant prince was now Richard’s greatest supporter.
Soon enough, they contacted and rented a waste treatment plant that collected mechanical waste such as computer motherboards. It was even rumored to be transporting illegal goods from abroad.
It was the perfect place to feed the Cockroach clan.
“Can I go right now?”
“Of course! We’ll guide the way!”
While Jin-woo got into Richard’s car in a relaxed manner, Richard couldn’t hide his anxiety.
All acts of the Devil were terrible. Even his movie used the slaughter and torture of human beings despite topping the box office.
This time, obviously, what he had in mind wasn’t normal either.
Perhaps he was going out to torment humans in earnest.
Richard and his entrepreneurs thought so, at least.
“We’re here.”
“Good.”
Jin-woo arrived at a company that illegally exported and imported mountains upon mountains of waste.
He opened the entrance to the subspace.
High-end subspaces caused stored items to disappear instantly, but cheap subspaces couldn’t do that to large volumes. Instead, they’d suck the items in like a vacuum cleaner.
It could be a fatal flaw, considering it would allow the things around it to enter its premises as well.
There was a reason why it was the economical alternative.
The cheap subspace soon devoured the trash in its vicinity, shocking Richard and the entrepreneurs.
But they didn’t tremble. They had seen far too much to waver now.
Jin-woo felt pretty good being able to feed the Cockroach clan and protect the environment simultaneously. While traveling through space, he realized there was no planet like Earth.
Even the beautiful Ion was nothing out of the ordinary compared to his home planet.
It wasn’t surprising that several villains coveted it.
“Well, this is going to take a while, isn’t it?”
Jin-woo took out a chair, sat down, and pulled out a comic book to pass the time.
“That’s amazing. So much waste…”
“Where are they going?”
Entrepreneurs whispered among themselves. Stepping a little closer to get a better look, one of them unknowingly came too close to it.
“Huh? Huh?”
As the trash underneath him was into the subspace, he fell down. Going anywhere near the cheap subspace was a mistake.
His body rose and was sucked along with the garbage. The others tried to reach out to help, but they ended up being swallowed as well instead.
Richard suffered the same fate.
“Ugh!”
Immediately getting up from the pile of waste, he surveyed his surroundings. It was dark, but strangely enough, he could still see.
Underneath him felt like solid ground, though it was a little bumpy, and around him were waste and the entrepreneurs, who were pushing themselves up as well.
“Where are we?”
Richard tried to keep his composure, thinking this was nothing compared to when he went to the moon.
The entrepreneurs looked around anxiously.
Dudududud!
The floor rang.
Gulping and looking straight ahead, he found a huge figure approaching them at great speed.
“Oh god!”
“Aaaaaghhhhh!”
“S-save me!”
“Damn it!”
In front of a terrifying monstrosity, they had no other choice but to scream.
It was huge and disgusting. It looked like a demon.
No, they were convinced it was definitely a demon, and they were in hell.
Their kind was more terrifying than they had imagined.
Devouring the waste all over the subspace, it turned its attention to them and began to salivate.
“Keeek? Keeiek?”
Tentacles came out of the monster’s mouth and licked them.
“Oh god!”
“Eugh!”
As they cowered in fear, the colossal demon before them seemingly prepared to eat them all in one bite.
Dud!
The floor quaked at that moment, causing the waste below them to split up.
That made them realize they weren’t standing on solid ground.
They were standing on the demon’s nest.
“Please save me, o’ Devil!” Richard shouted. The entrepreneurs also began to pray earnestly.
“Argh!”
They now knew what hell was like.
Jin-woo, concentrating on reading his comic book, saw Richard and the entrepreneurs being sucked in.
“Ha…”
A low sigh flowed out.
He should have warned them in advance, but he didn’t think he needed to advise them not to do something that clearly shouldn’t be done. Jin-woo tried to get them out quickly, but cheap subspaces were slow when it came to sorting through items.
‘They’re friendly to living things, so it should be fine.’
The Cockroach clan thought all life forms were cute. They looked at other sentient beings the way humans looked at kittens.
After a short while, Richard and the entrepreneurs finally came out, their bodies covered with thick saliva.
Though it tasted horrible, the cockroaches’ saliva was full of nutrients, enough to make it the healthiest food.
Just applying it to one’s body would make their skin a lot better.
“W-w-waah!”
“Ughhh!”
They weren’t in good shape. Their health might have improved, but the mental damage they sustained seemed enormous.
“Sorry. I should have paid closer attention and warned you.” Jin-woo apologized sincerely.
“Oh, don’t worry about it.”
He gave them generous compensation nonetheless.
Feeling guilty upon receiving such gifts, they volunteered to help breed the demons themselves.
In the end, he received a present in return, but they had come too far to return it.
“Well, we’ve put everything in it. Are there more?”
“Oh, let me guide you.
“It would be better to wash up first.”
“Alright!”
Jin-woo continued feeding the Cockroach clan.
Richard and the entrepreneurs, in their minds, once again sold humanity to the Devil.
* * *
After some time passed, his subspace filled up to the brim, almost as if it was about to explode. Not even a small item could fit in it anymore.
There was no waste left in it, either. There were only the Cockroach clan and their egg nest.
With no more space and food, they began to hibernate. They could last for thousands of years in that state, proving their vitality to be truly incredible.
‘I don’t feel its weight.’
Rather, the subspace felt empty. Still, it housed cockroaches, making Jin-woo imagine they were in his pockets.
He wanted to get rid of them quickly.
Jin-woo returned to Dark Eye, immediately boarded a spaceship, and entered the Machine Emperor’s solar system.
‘It’s dark.’
It had changed the entirety of it to its liking.
Huge machines were visibly wrapped around its star, drawing energy directly from it.
With the light it emitted reduced, it ultimately rendered the Delox system uninhabitable.
The other systems and galaxies ruled by them would soon become like that as well.
‘I came at the right time.’
A fleet of gigantic machines emerged from planet Delox, which had become a part of the Machine Emperor. There were far more of them than during their Space Federation invasion.
Jin-woo got out of his spaceship and approached the Machine Emperor, easily sensing its power coming from the huge planet. A little bit of its sea remained, but everything else had been mechanized.
‘It seems to have been hard at work.’
He smiled, satisfied by the ships around him.
Since the Machine Emperor itself was an Emperor, he couldn’t rule over the planets in its present state.
But its fleet was different.
Moving to the mechanical armada, he climbed on top of one of the battleships and imbued it with the power of domination, turning it black and causing tentacles to pop out of it.
The appendages then wrapped around the vessels next to them, turning them all into Jin-woo’s property.
Gulp!
Free food would always be delicious!
They looked a little terrifying, but it didn’t matter. They were all free anyway.
The mechanical planet began to shake. Its surface soon opened, revealing a gigantic lens-shaped eye. The Machine Emperor appeared very perplexed.
Descending on its surface as it turned into a full-fledged mechanism, the gravity it possessed became much stronger, but it had no effects on Jin-woo.
“It still has an atmosphere.” It seemed nothing more than a thin layer of smoke, but it was there.
The moment he landed, the planet’s ground opened up once more, and a huge machine popped out of it.
It looked like a shower hose but with a mechanical eye attached to its end.
“Thank you for the welcoming gift.” Jin-woo smiled as it fired a huge particle beam at him. With a wave of his hand, however, it all disappeared.
[Are you truly human? What’s your identity? How…]
The entire planet turned into a weapon aimed at him.
He didn’t want to destroy the Machine Emperor since it seemed quite useful. Hence, he prioritized weakening it instead.
He wanted to present the despair from Earth.
“Of course, I didn’t come empty-handed.”
Jin-woo opened his subspace.
“Here. A housewarming gift.”
A huge black space appeared in front, causing its mechanical eyes to look into it.
Dududud!
At that moment, Jin-woo completely blew its entrance up.
With its dark space ripped open, mountains upon mountains of cockroaches appeared.
Even he flinched a little at the sight of it.
It was terrifying enough to be considered a nightmare. Upon becoming an Emperor, he no longer had any reason to fear anything, but he still found the scene in front of him a bit scary.
[Life…?]
Although the Machine Emperor started with AI, it seemed to be capable of emotions.
The eggs fell from the mountain of giant cockroaches, hatching as they did. Even they were as large as bulls.
One of them came in front of Jin-woo.
“What?”
It tilted its head.
Whoever said all babies were cute was lying.
They began to gather around him. When he gestured them to go away, their antennae drooped.
“That’s… Well, why don’t you go eat the free food first?”
Their antennae stood back up as soon as they heard him, seemingly showcasing their delight.
Squirming in waves, they all mobilized to eat through the planet.
Squeak! Crunch! Squeak!
[Kee—! Eeeeee!]
As they chewed through everything in their path, they made their way to what seemed like wires beneath its surface, causing the planet to oscillate.
[Pain? I’m capable of suffering… Agh!]
That wasn’t just caused by being eaten alive. Rather, it was because they were decreasing its power.
If it had just stayed as an AI, it wouldn’t have been able to feel such agony.
Becoming an emperor was a mistake.
Feeling tormented for the first time in its life, it screamed loud enough for the entire planet to ring.
But the Cockroach clan couldn’t care any less. After eating the machines, they immediately started breeding, laying house-sized eggs all over the place.
‘Well… Is this too much?’ Jin-woo thought.
[There is plenty of food here! This mechanized planet is truly heaven!]
[The Cockroach clan swears everlasting loyalty to the Great Emperor!]
[The Cockroach Queen’s favorability has reached MAX!]
In the distance, he saw the figure of their gigantic leader looking down at him deeply.
“Ah, Great Emperor!” She called out cheerfully.
Jin-woo got goosebumps.
He wanted no part in this!
Flinching, he turned his gaze away.
“Well, I’ll get going now. Take good care of yourself… Get along well.”
He immediately left the planet.
The Machine Emperor didn’t just let him go, however. With the entire planet weaponized, it began to bombard him with particle beams once more.
But it couldn’t penetrate the Cockroach clan’s shells.
“This place is really nice to live in!” Said the queen.
Its ambient temperature was humid enough for them to be more active. Moreover, they also evolved to adapt to the Machine Emperor.
[Ahhhhhhhhhh!]
Its screams grew louder.
“Its crunchy texture just makes it taste even better!” The Queen’s roars became the epitome of terror for the Machine Emperor.
‘War is… ephemeral.’ Jin-woo thought, watching the Cockroach clan spread throughout the rest of the planet.
This was why peace was the best.
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