He wasn’t like this from the beginning. The reason everything turned out like this resulted from an unavoidable incident.

Was it in the Neutral Zone? As the treasure hunt came to a close, people had split into two groups, and one group had suddenly attacked the other. They were trying to steal coins as they didn’t have enough to pass the stage.

Sombat La-ongmanee was among the group that was attacked. In the confusion of the moment, La-ongmanee subdued and strangled a teenage young man who had charged toward him.

He didn’t remember what happened too well. He only remembered the young man’s eyes as grit and spite disappeared from within to be replaced by bitter regret and helplessness.

When the situation was over and La-ongmanee regained his clear mind, he had already strangled the unknown young man to death.

Just like that, La-ongmanee committed his first murder. At that moment, he was in too much of a daze to think. He remembered trudging up to the portal, paying the passage fee and entering the Neutral Zone.

But the sensation of strangling a teenager remained on his hands, continually haunting him. No, saying it haunted him was a bit misleading.

His hands quivered, his breathing got rough, and his heart thumped with excitement. It was hard to see this as a sign of guilt.

It was more like ecstasy.

Moreover, whenever he remembered the teenage young man’s eyes rolling backward in his final moments, his heart palpitated and his lower body rose up.

When La-ongmanee realized this, he opened his eyes to the act known as murder.

After familiarizing himself with Paradise, he led the way in Eva’s power grab and committed more murders. But no matter how many he killed, he was only left with an unknown sense of emptiness. He couldn’t feel the same sensation he felt when he committed his first murder.

La-ongmanee found the reason in the nature of Earthlings. Strictly speaking, when Earthlings died in Paradise, they never really died.

They only lost their memories and were revived on Earth.

Although many of them committed suicide, unable to overcome the gap in their memory and the sense of loss, that was another matter altogether.

Killing with his own hands and watching the process of someone losing their life completely— that was what La-ongmanee truly wanted.

In other words, his targets had to be those who treated Paradise as their home.

Of course, that didn’t make him kidnap Paradisians. With juicy targets among the foreign races, he didn’t need to stick his neck out and court unnecessary danger.

Although both acts were illegal, messing with the Federation was far less dangerous. After all, all he had to do was buy already captured foreign races.

“Fufufufu.”

Letting out an insidious laugh, La-ongmanee slowly reached his hand out and affectionately caressed a boy hanging on the wall.

The Sky Fairy was motionless. Although faint breathing sounds could be heard, he must have fainted as his entire body was limp.

“Good, very good.”

Gently stroking the scratches on the boy’s pale-white skin, La-ongmanee said, laughing.

“Let’s have fun for a long time, little cutie.”

And looking back, he gave a delighted smile.

Royal Pattaya’s secret workroom. Only a few of the organization’s executives knew about this workroom, and they avoided coming to this place knowing what it was used for.

Right, this place was a ‘gallery’, where La-ongmanee placed the ‘artworks’ he finished.

Leaning on a table where torture equipment was placed, La-ongmanee took out a cigarette and lit it. Then, looking at the artwork he was sculpting, he smiled in satisfaction.

Just as he began to take off his pants, enjoying the heat rising from his body… CLUNK!

“B-Big problem!”

Someone threw the door open and fell on the ground while rushing inside. La-ongmanee, who was in the middle of taking off his pants, paused awkwardly and frowned.

“You son of a bitch, who…”

He failed to finish, ‘Who allowed you to come in!?’ when he turned and looked at the man. His subordinate was looking up at him, one of his arms missing and tears flowing down his face.

“You.”

“T-The auction house was attacked!”

La-ongmanee furrowed his brows.

“And, and…!”

Seeing the man who couldn’t continue his words, La-ongmanee was convinced that something huge had happened. Pulling his pants up, he rushed out of the secret room.

As he had built this place deep underground, he had to climb quite a few stairs to get upstairs. And the more he walked, the more he could hear the faint sound of the disturbance going on outside.

As he finally left the basement and opened the door leading outside…

Kwang! A strong explosive sound struck his face. Turning around reflexively, La-ongmanee narrowly opened one of his eyes.

What first entered his line of sight was a group of his subordinates running away left and right as well as a group of six people cutting straight through the path from the shattered main entrance.

A round of battle must have taken place already as about a dozen men were already lying unconscious on the ground.

There was no need to ask. They were under attack.

La-ongmanee studied the situation and asked quietly.

“What’s going on? There are only six of them!”

“We don’t know!”

“What?”

“We don’t get it! We really don’t! Those crazy bastards suddenly barged in! Even though we pounced at them with superior numbers…!”

The subordinate who rushed up behind him whined. It was hard to make out what he was saying, but it was hard to blame him. The organization had more than ten times the number of attackers but were being beaten helplessly.

To make matters worse, the Archers, who were trying to support from the back, suddenly had their heads twisted or their arms pulled out, dying horrible deaths.

Unless it was some magic spell they were unaware of, they really didn’t know how to explain this bizarre phenomenon. Although a black smoke was circling around, no one thought much of it given what they were facing at the moment.

La-ongmanee gritted his teeth and mumbled.

“…Where’s Jirayu Matthew?”

“H-He won’t pick up our call!”

“That fucking donkey in heat…”

La-ongmanee clenched his teeth and took a deep breath.

“Bring that bastard here this instant! And Contact the Ochoa Cartel. Now!”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

The subordinate quickly scurried off.

‘Damn it, to a mere group of six….’

La-ongmanee screamed at the group of subordinates that were staggering back in fear.

“You pathetic pieces of shits!”

The steps halted. Not just the subordinates’, but also the gazes of the attackers fell on La-ongmanee.

‘Tsk.’

La-ongmanee was an Earthling who, in his early days, had experienced gang fights and street fights. At the very least, he knew how important momentum was in a fight.

At this rate, it seemed that Royal Pattaya would really lose everything.

And thus, he acted unperturbed and slowly walked down the stairs. Although his eyes were full of killing intent, he smiled and walked calmly.

Then, he stopped in front of a young man with a fair complexion. As they had quite a bit of a height difference, he had to tilt his head up.

The two men’s gazes met. After a brief lull, La-ongmanee casually spoke.

“We’ve got a guest.”

“….”

“A shitty guest who threw all manners out the window. You dare to act like this here? Do you know where this is?”

“Sombat La-ongmanee.”

Seol Jihu spoke quietly.

“You should have bought a Sky Fairy at the auction house today.”

La-ongmanee raised an eyebrow. He then caught sight of an adult Sky Fairy standing behind the young man, clasping her hands together and looking over with a worried expression.

As soon as he saw her, he understood how this event came to be.

“Ah~”

Opening his eyes wide, he wore a mocking smile.

“You see~”

“Bring him.”

Seol Jihu cut him off in a commanding tone. La-ongmanee snorted.

“And if I do?”

“Then I’ll let you die a peaceful death.”

La-ongmanee opened his mouth wide.

“Haha… hahahaha….”

Furrowing his brows, he tilted his head back to laugh. When he raised his arms, Hugo also raised his axe, signaling that he would go in for the kill if La-ongmanee did anything funny.

“Sir La-ongmanee!”

“Be careful…!”

As the surroundings became noisy, Chohong smirked. Since they had just been beaten one-sidedly, she understood why these subordinates were standing back. But it was still funny that they could only yack on when their leader was in danger.

“Shut it! You shameful bastards!”

La-ongmanee looked around and shouted, instantly shutting up the murmurings. After smacking his lips, he placed his hand on Seol Jihu’s shoulder.

“You’re quite tenacious, my friend.”

Along with a strange cackle, he nodded his head as if to approve of Seol Jihu’s action.

“Right, that’s how you should be. To live in this perilous world, you need to have some courage! I like you.”

Speaking with a croaky voice, he smacked Seol Jihu’s shoulder heartily.

“But you know…”

He suddenly gripped tightly, his expression turning serious.

“You gotta watch who you’re messing with. You can’t go around barking wherever you want.”

“….”

“At the very least, you should have come talk to me first. Who knows whether I would have handed him back to you? How can you expect good treatment if you don’t treat others nicely? Right?”

Patting Seol Jihu’s cheek, La-ongmanee revealed his yellow teeth.

“They say ignorant people don’t know how to fear the great… haa.”

He took his hand off and put it on his waist. Spitting on the ground, he nodded his head, speaking as if he was being generous.

“Alright! I’ll give him back to you! You even brought another Sky Fairy for sympathy. I’m not so cold-hearted. Wait just a moment.”

With that, he turned around and stomped into the building. By the time he came out, he had a couple of spherical objects underneath his armpits, dripping with an unknown liquid.

“Here you go. Catch.”

He threw one of the short ball-like objects towards the young man. Soaked in the unknown liquid, it rolled on the ground, wetting it, before reaching Seol Jihu’s feet.

It wasn’t a Sky Fairy no matter how he looked at it.

“Not him? Then what about this?”

Another one rolled forward.

Checking his feet, Seol Jihu’s eyes narrowed. Judging by the thing’s ears, it must be a Sky Fairy.

The problem was that only its head was remaining. Furthermore, it was so awfully damaged that it was hardly noticeable. Seeing as how it hadn’t decomposed that much, La-ongmanee must have kept it in a special embalming solution.

The mother Sky Fairy who followed Seol Jihu from the auction house fell on the ground, limp. Then, even with her sick body, she crawled forward with widened eyes.

“Ah….”

Shake, shake. With trembling hands, she scraped up the bodiless head.

“Ah… ah….”

She uttered meaningless sounds, her face clearly at a loss for what to do. In truth, one could only barely distinguish the head’s race. There was no way of knowing who the head belonged to.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!”

In the end, she clutched her head and wailed.

“Why are you crying?”

La-ongmanee looked at the wailing Sky Fairy and asked shamelessly.

“Take a closer look. What, you don’t think it’s him? I have more. Do you want me to bring them too? Or are you crying because you’re too touched? Huhuhuhu!”

He giggled in joy, feeling refreshed after dealing a good blow.

“What are y’all doing? Shouldn’t you be applauding at this touching reunion?”

He clapped loudly while cackling. Then, he suddenly stopped and furrowed his brows. There was a reason he put on this show. By now, his subordinates should have regained their confidence and spirit, clapping loudly and laughing along with him.

Looking around left and right, La-ongmanee’s expression soured. His subordinates all backed off in fear with expressions that seemed to say, ‘We’re fucked’.

“You…!”

At the same time, a voice rumbled out in front of him, boiling like lava that was on the verge of erupting.

“Son of a biiiitch…!”

As La-ongmanee looked back at the man, feeling his piercing gaze—

“Keuk!”

Lightning flashed in front of him.

An instant attack.

He didn’t even see what exactly did him in.

Only, his eyes suddenly got hot.

As La-ongmanee staggered backward, the only thing he saw was Seol Jihu pulling his arm back fiercely.

“You…!”

Craaaaack! Before the sentence even finished, La-ongmanee’s nose bridge was completely smashed in. The pain only came afterward.

“Uwaaaaah!”

La-ongmanee fell backward, shrieking in pain. Clutching onto his nose, he flopped around like a fish.

A rough kick followed suit. The moment Seol Jihu’s foot dug into La-ongmanee’s stomach, his eyes split open.

“Keuk! Uwuuuuk!”

Along with a dying scream, he vomited. But the kicks didn’t end there.

Twice, thrice… The fourth must have carried some mana as it lifted La-ongmanee into the air and threw him on to the stairs.