Chapter 5
The mad doctor's laboratory was a kind of enormous city and fortress.
Countless research buildings stood within the city, which was surrounded by walls, and Dr. Retort was the city's owner.
The old man called himself a scholar and forced everyone to call the city a ‘laboratory,’ but in reality, he was also its mayor and dictator.
Rex and Duke had merely been imprisoned in one of those research buildings.
The two men left Building S and headed for another research building instead of going straight to Dr. Retort.
[There must be people trapped somewhere else like we were. Let's free them.]
Rex's ability specialized in command.
Because of that, the more troops he secured—not just Duke—the more powerful he would become, exponentially.
In other words, Rex wanted to free people in the same predicament as he and Duke and fight alongside them.
Duke pondered those words.
‘Hmm··· Is he worried about our combat power?’
Duke was confident he could get them out of the laboratory even by himself.
‘What do you mean, get out? I could turn this laboratory into a valley and walk right out.’
But after thinking it over, Duke obediently followed Rex's suggestion.
There was no particular reason not to follow Rex's orders, either.
Besides, fighting in a group was much easier than fighting alone.
And···
‘In the end, things are proceeding much like the original.’
Part of him wanted to follow the original story's flow as closely as possible.
‘Rex originally escaped without me.’
The original Rex had not needed Duke.
He had built relationships with various test subjects while running errands throughout the research buildings, and once he had built up enough connections, he started a rebellion throughout the laboratory.
Although the test subjects who followed Rex were commonly called ‘failures,’ they succeeded in defeating the ‘successes’ through Rex's overwhelming command ability.
It was also an episode that demonstrated how monstrously overpowered Rex was, as he made up for the difference in individual combat power through command alone.
[They'll follow if I say you sent me.]
Rex reassured Duke that there would be no problem, since he had been preparing this even before Duke caused today's incident.
Duke gladly volunteered to be Rex's envoy and headed for another holding area.
[They should be on the other side of this iron door.]
They arrived at Building C, which housed the largest number of test subjects.
It was also where Rex often went to run food-distribution errands.
Duke silently nodded and gave the iron door a gentle push.
Naturally, it did not budge at all.
[It's useless. This place was built with riots in mind. I happened to confirm that there are siege bombs in the warehouse in Building D···]
Before Rex could finish typing, Duke raised the edge of his hand.
While Rex was wondering if Duke could really mean it, Duke brought his hand down in a quick-draw stance.
Rumble!
The enormous iron door, built to withstand siege weapons, split in half.
Rex's mouth fell open as wide as the iron door's.
‘Hmph. How about that.’
Duke desperately hid his pride and pretended to be nonchalant.
Rex was rendered speechless by Duke's passionate self-promotion aimed at his future superior.
‘He isn't even trying to hide his tier anymore.’
He could at least make an effort if he was hiding his level by pretending to be third tier.
At this point, Rex could not understand why Duke was hiding his tier at all.
‘What did he do in the past?’
Rex kept growing curious about Duke's past, but he suppressed his curiosity and presented their next objective.
[Let's gather our comrades now.]
*
Not long after Rex and Duke stormed Building C, the entire laboratory was thrown into chaos.
Through Duke, Rex proposed temporary contracts to various test subjects, creating an army of a little over 300 failures.
The average tier of the failures was the second or third tier.
They were more than strong enough to count as powerful people to ordinary citizens, but in this city, where even goblins could reach the fourth tier, they were no different from failures.
‘Hmm··· There aren't any heroes.’
Rex felt disappointed as he looked over the army of more than a hundred.
None of the failures who had signed contracts appeared to be special units known as ‘heroes.’
To use a mobile-game comparison, they were characters in the four- to five-star range.
Heroes were not simply a matter of strength or tier; they were a matter of talent and aptitude, making the criteria vague.
If one insisted on a standard, it was whether someone could become the protagonist of a story—that was the standard for a hero.
‘Well, heroes can be made, too.’
Many people awakened later in life after fulfilling certain quests or conditions, so Rex was not overly concerned.
Besides, after hiring an endgame-level hero like Duke, hoping for even more heaven-sent luck would be shameless.
Rex issued commands to the blue dots and the golden dot bearing Duke's face.
[Break through straight toward Building A!]
Soon, the group began an all-out charge.
‘Normally, we should proceed more cautiously···’
But with the monster unit called Duke present, there was no need to make things needlessly complicated.
After all, strategy and tactics had their proper applications.
A charge command might appear crude at first glance, but if one's breakthrough power was overwhelming, it became the most efficient strategy.
Especially since they had a spearhead like Duke, a charge centered around him could actually minimize casualties.
Before long, Dr. Retort's army of successes clashed with Duke's army of failures.
The result was···
‘This is Duke. He wins the battle.’
In Rex's mind, Duke had long since become the cheat-level hero given to players during the tutorial to explain the controls.
The kind of hero who won even if you twisted every limb trying to make him lose.
(And the kind of hero mysteriously confiscated the moment the tutorial ended)
Rex shared screens showing various parts of the battlefield.
On the screen focused on Duke, a huge red bipedal lizard blocked his path.
Immediately afterward, a die appeared in the corner of the screen.
‘It's a one-on-one duel!’
When hero-level units clashed, an event occurred in which they fought one-on-one.
It was fairly important because the battlefield's morale rose or fell depending on the outcome.
‘The lizard was fifth tier··· I think.’
Rex had to rely on his memory because he could not inspect enemies beyond the screen.
After calculating, he ordered Duke to fight the lizard.
’65? Maybe higher.’
At Rex's command, Duke, who had fought barehanded until then, borrowed one of the soldiers' spare iron swords.
Soon, a twenty-four-sided die began rolling across Rex's screen.
Against the lizard, an attack check succeeded only if the roll was 20 or higher.
‘Time doesn't stop like it does in the game.’
While Rex was having that thought, the result appeared.
2.
It was a failure.
But Rex was not immediately disappointed.
What mattered was the sum of the hero's bonus and the die roll.
‘Duke's bonus is···’
+40
“Huh.”
While Rex was making that foolish sound, Duke's iron sword sliced through the lizard's neck.
Duke's one-man slaughter continued afterward as well.
Magic check. Critical success. The modified troll unit's heads exploded all at once.
Swordsmanship check. Critical success. The mithril golem was neatly diced into cubes.
Command check. Critical success. The soldiers who had been terrified upon encountering an eldritch became berserkers after hearing Duke's speech.
- “For our lord!!”
Rex failed to hear the final cry because he was focused on another screen.
Something strange seemed to have slipped in among the events, but Rex chalked it up to his imagination and nodded.
‘Ah, this is convenient.’
He regretted the time he had spent over the past month running errands while planning sabotage and guerrilla routes, but now that things had turned out this way, he felt relieved.
‘As expected, charging straight ahead beats twisting yourself into knots.’
Thankful for his encounter with the cheat-level hero called Duke, Rex walked into the breached research building.
***
We followed Rex's orders and headed deeper into the research building.
The test subjects who experienced Rex's ability for the first time were bewildered, but they soon grew accustomed to it and began praising him one after another.
“Could Lord Rex be some kind of messenger of God?”
“He's an iron man. An iron man.”
“He is truly superhuman··· no, an Übermensch.”
“Hoo··· An army formed through contracts··· Interesting.”
While the test subjects shared their various impressions, I looked toward the edge of my field of vision.
‘It seems like what those people are seeing is different from what I'm seeing.’
To me, Rex's orders and abilities appeared as the quest windows, minimap, UI, and so on that appeared when playing an ordinary FPS game.
Targets to destroy had red borders, targets to protect had green borders, and arrows showed the route to follow.
It looked like this.
But when I listened to the other soldiers, they said it felt as though something like fireflies was showing them the way and Rex's voice was echoing in their heads.
‘Maybe it's because I'm a reincarnator.’
Since there was a chance this difference could expose me as a reincarnator, I used the opportunity to familiarize myself with the differences whenever I had time.
Even while I investigated the differences, Rex's orders continued to come down.
I carried out every one of those orders and marveled at Rex's command ability.
‘Even if I were given an ability like that, I probably couldn't use it well.’
At a glance, Rex's ability looked overpowered, but it was closer to Rex himself—the pilot—being overpowered.
Reality was not a turn-based game.
The world did not wait for Rex to make a decision, and there was no pause function.
On top of that, he had to directly display and issue instructions for responses and weaknesses associated with each ability, not merely movement and attack commands, so the difficulty rose exponentially.
In other words, this overwhelming command ability was purely the result of Rex's own competence.
As I continued to marvel and rampage through the research building, before I knew it, only the bunker where Dr. Retort had fled remained.
The soldiers and I surrounded the doctor's bunker and waited for Rex.
Before long, Rex arrived in front of the bunker.
Nod.
With Rex watching, I tore down the bunker wall with the carefree feeling of unwrapping a package.
‘Please reveal yourself~’
With that silly thought, I came face-to-face with the doctor trembling in fear inside the bunker.
Beside the doctor and his disciples, I saw a familiar face.
It was the guildmaster of the human-trafficking guild.
Apparently, a rebellion had broken out while he was renewing his trade contract with the doctor, so he had fled here.
‘Talk about being in the right place at the right time.’
I had planned to find him and deal with him later once I got out of here, but this saved me the trouble.
Perhaps the guildmaster had not learned that I was at the head of the rebels, because he berated the doctor.
“Professor! Do something!”
“I'm not a professor, I'm a doctor!”
What was he talking about? The man had been expelled from the mage tower and did not even have a degree.
Perhaps he still had not given up, because the guildmaster drew his musket pistol and aimed it at the rebels.
Was he an idiot, or had fear paralyzed his reason?
What did he think a pistol could do against enemies who had torn through the bunker wall?
It would not be a bad idea to let him pull the trigger, realize reality, and fall into despair, but···
‘I can't let a stray bullet hit someone else.’
I used telekinesis to take the pistol away.
“Huh!”
The guildmaster stretched out his hand piteously toward the pistol that had left his grasp.
He was horrified when he saw the flying pistol land in my hand.
“D-Duke!”
The doctor standing beside the guildmaster was horrified as well.
Apparently, the report that I was at the head of the rebels had never made it through.
‘Well, I did kill every single person who could have reported it.’
I had jammed and completely neutralized the communication magic, and I had not even allowed the messengers to escape.
Only then did the doctor's group realize the situation and fall silent.
Rex and the test subjects glared at them with fervent hatred.
“Because of you, my little sister···!”
“You ended up desecrating even my death, Doctor.”
“I never wanted to become stronger this way!”
Each of them described their experiences of being experimented on by the doctor and hurled words of resentment at him.
But the doctor's attitude was utterly defiant.
“I fed you useless people and opened up your potential. What was wrong with my great cause?!”
The test subjects grew heated at the doctor's shameless attitude.
Apparently well aware of his impending end, the doctor hurled contemptuous curses at Rex and the soldiers as though provoking them.
Several soldiers' hands trembled around the swords they held.
Even so, they did not cut off the doctor's head out of respect for Rex and Duke, the overall commanders of this army.
The soldiers restrained their emotions as much as possible because they believed that only Rex and Duke had the authority to execute the doctor here.
At that moment, I carried out the action I had considered before entering the bunker.
Crack.
“Aaaah!!”
The doctor's right wrist, which he had thrust into his pocket, twisted around.
Along with it, the magical device inside his pocket fell to the floor.
It was a transmitting and receiving magical device with a red switch.
“What's that···”
“I sensed a strange energy in the ley line beneath the city. So this is what you were plotting.”
At my words, the soldiers who knew earth magic examined the ground below.
And then···
- “It's true!”
- “What?”
- “You can't sense it unless you concentrate, but there's a faint presence. I wouldn't have known either if Lord Duke hadn't told me.”
- “Is that really true?”
- “I used to be a geologist in my hometown.”
As I eavesdropped on the soldiers' conversation, I restrained the corners of my mouth, which kept trying to rise toward the heavens.
The truth was, I did not know much about it either.
I had detection abilities, but this sort of detection was not my area of expertise.
The only reason I had noticed it was that the scene had been so shocking in the original story that I remembered it.
‘In the original story, Rex succeeds in his rebellion and defeats the doctor as well.’
Rex succeeded in defeating the doctor thanks to months of sabotage and guerrilla warfare.
But the doctor activated a self-destruct spell installed in the ley line, claiming that he would go together with the test subjects···
‘Every test subject except Rex is wiped out.’
The test subjects, who genuinely regarded Rex as their benefactor, were wiped out while evacuating him.
Thus, the first unit Rex ever commanded met the worst possible ending: total annihilation.
‘There's no need to saddle the kid with paranoia, too.’
After that incident, the mental illness called paranoia was added to Rex's list.
Naturally, I had no intention of simply watching that happen.
I was an extreme devotee of happy endings, after all···
‘The goal of this laboratory arc is for everyone to survive.’
That was why I destroyed the doctor's self-destruct button.
I had deliberately stopped it at the last possible moment because that was more dramatic.
Just then, as I had intended, admiring gazes struck the back of my head.
‘Oh, I'm so fucking charismatic.’
I deliberately put on a solemn expression and refocused on the doctor, his assistants, and the guildmaster.
At that moment, the guildmaster of the human-trafficking guild opened his mouth, trembling.
“I didn't do anything! It's true! I only did what this man told me!”
“How rude! I'm a doctor!”
I ignored Dr. Retort, who was getting angry over something strange, and briefly signaled to Rex with my eyes.
- “What should we do?”
- “Huh???”
Damn it. Apparently, our bond had not deepened enough for us to communicate with nothing but a glance.
“Lord Rex. Would you entrust these people's fate to us?”
I thought an emotionally immature Rex would want to leave them to us.
That guess was correct.
[I'll leave their fate to you.]
The order was given.
I mercilessly kicked away the doctor, who was clutching my trouser leg.
Then I spoke to the large test subjects standing nearby.
“You may deal with the guildmaster and his assistants.”
Once permission was granted, the soldiers dragged them away with delighted expressions.
The doctor's face turned pale as he watched his comrades being dragged away like livestock headed for a slaughterhouse.
I called the doctor's name to draw his attention.
“Doctor.”
“Duke··· no, Lord Urwick···!”
The doctor pleaded with me.
“Please spare me. I'll prove my usefulness. Please, have mercy···!”
He still seemed to mistake me for the one leading these people instead of Rex.
But his fate had already been decided.
I threw away my sword.
Beheading him in one stroke was an option, but a more elaborate execution was necessary for the sake of the victims gathered here.
“Ghk···”
I gently constricted the doctor's neck with telekinesis and lifted him into the air.
While his legs uselessly flailed in the air, I recited the line I had been thinking about since last night.
“Even now, you beg me for mercy. Then did you show the same mercy to those who begged you for it?”
Hanging in the air, the doctor frantically listed his good deeds.
“I··· gave children jobs, and I held free classes in the city last week···”
Like someone with the twisted goal of raising humanity's overall tier, he seemed to have performed charitable acts from time to time.
He had made gifted children as strong as knights, restored the youth of the elderly, and so on.
He had also shared his experimental results with various lords and cities instead of greedily monopolizing them.
That was why other cities and territories had continued granting the doctor favors, and there must have been people whose lives had been saved under his care.
But this was not something he could say in front of the people gathered here.
Tens of thousands of people had to be sacrificed for the sake of the ten he held up as his great cause.
And naturally, that was the answer I had expected.
That was why I asked the doctor a question that would make him look bad no matter how he answered.
“Then let me ask you one more thing. Over the past six months, have you ever shown me the mercy of giving me a glass of water?”
“That's—”
The doctor opened and closed his mouth.
Given his tier, I could already read the line that was about to follow.
- “I did, but you were the one who went without eating for months and occupied that room!!!”
Crack!
Before he could finish those words,
I snapped the doctor's neck.
The doctor's body went limp.
It dangled and swayed in the air as though he had been hanged.
The soldiers cheered.
Since I had told them about the experiments I had endured on the way here, my actions had ample justification.
(For reference, I volunteered for those experiments, but I did endure them all the same.)
To everyone else, it must have looked as though I had executed him because he was not worth listening to.
‘The dead tell no tales.’
Thus, the perfect crime was complete.
Since it would cause all sorts of trouble if he happened to be resurrected through necromancy or the like, I carefully exorcised the corpse and erased the information left in his brain.
‘Anyway, Rex and I met by coincidence.’
History is written by the victors.
On top of that, snapping the doctor's neck without mercy allowed me to cultivate an image of a cold-blooded man.
‘Perfect.’
I had taken one more step toward becoming a perfect and utterly evil second-in-command.