abcnovels
Chapter 51 – The Judge I
Chapter 51 – The Judge I
Chapter 51 – The Judge I
[Translator – Jjsecus]
[Proofreader – Gun]
Chapter 51 – The Judge I
1
Continuing from the last episode, let’s dive further into the Necromancer’s story.
2
The reason I suddenly brought in the second biggest lunatic in Korea (the first being, of course, the Sword Queen of Yuldo), the student council president of Baekhwa Girls’ High School, wasn’t because I wanted to befriend crazy people.
There was a broad and deep reason behind this decision.
And I must clarify that I, Doctor Jang, am not some scheming character.
I’m not the type to draw up plans alone and then laugh maliciously as they fall apart.
Such scheming characters are usually adults who, having experienced communication failures in their childhood, have turned their hopes for humanity into contempt for mankind—a clear result of being trapped in their own childhood traumas.
“Indeed. But why are you looking at me like that while saying this…?”
“That’s not the point right now, Nodoh.”
“Is that so? Shall I gouge out your eyes, salt them, and then dip them in soy sauce for you…?”
“Too much salty food is bad for you.”
“You damn regressor bastard…”
True to someone who had a rough childhood, Nodoh quickly got angry and cursed.
Of course, as a mature adult, I knew how to calmly respond to his anger.
“The recruit I’ve brought in this time, Chun Yuhwa, will be a crucial asset to our plan.”
“Why? Because you’re a pervert with a fetish for sailor uniforms…?”
“I don’t like school uniforms. Nodoh, try getting to my age. Everyone looks like a kid.”
“Hey, aren’t you already, like almost 1,000 years old by your standards? How am I supposed to reach that age…?”
“That’s not my concern. Anyway, the reason Chun Yuhwa’s necromancy is important is because it provides us with a stable source of ‘manpower’.”
“Hmm…”
Nodoh sipped his coffee. Coffee I had brewed.
During the nearly 1,000 years (to be exact, only 771 years at this point) I’ve lived, my barista skills have consistently improved. While I still couldn’t perfectly replicate Sho’s old man’s café au lait, I had reached a peak in my own right.
Even someone as perpetually cynical as Nodoh softened when drinking my coffee. He would mutter, “Damn, why does this taste so good…?”
It was satisfying. This was the reward of being a regressor.
“Is manpower that important? Honestly, these days it’s the one thing we have in excess…”
“I’m talking about the manpower of the National Highway Administration.”
“Ah.”
Nodoh nodded, holding the coffee cup with both hands.
“Yeah, come to think of it, managing this organization has made me realize that National Highway Administration members are basically synonymous with suicide squads. Send them to the void, and there’s a 20% chance they’ll come back with flowers on their heads like aliens…”
“If we assign these dangerous tasks to zombie corpses, the survival rate will significantly increase.”
“Sounds plausible… Let’s try it.”
“But there’s a condition.”
“What condition…?”
I looked around. The saintess, who had been silent all this time, was quietly sipping her bagged coffee.
I smiled brightly in front of the trustworthy ‘Regressors’ Alliance’.
“From now on, you’re all graduates of Baekhwa Girls’ High School.”
“….”
“Alright, this is the graduation album for the 96th class, but I’ve already tampered with it. See the Class 2 photo here? Just pretend it’s Nodoh and the saintess back in their younger days. I was the vice president, Nodoh was the president, and the saintess was the secretary.”
“….”
“And this is a separate document I prepared specifically for Baekhwa Girls’ High School. It has the dormitory names, a list of teachers the students often interacted with, school-specific slang—everything is written here, so memorize it.”
“….”
Nodoh looked at the saintess.
The saintess nodded.
“I already memorized it.”
“…Damn, is this for real…?”
It was indeed real.
“Hello! Seniors! Nice to meet you for the first time!”
A few days later.
We could witness firsthand the sight of Chun Yuhwa knocking heads right in front of us. Alongside Chun Yuhwa, the Baekhwa Girls’ High School student council, the real survivors—not zombies—stood in a row.
“Uh, yes… I’m Nodoh…”
“Please feel free to speak, seniors! Hehe. You were the student council president? I heard from Senior Jang that you need help from us, your junior council. Please feel free to boss us around like dogs!”
“How much have you spoiled this brat…?”
Nodoh grumbled at me.
I couldn’t help but feel sorry. Wasn’t it a foolish and ignorant reaction on my part? The 109th regressors had yet to experience what kind of lunatics Baekhwa Girls’ High School was made up of.
“Don’t let your guard down. If you don’t respect their concept, hell will break loose. I warned you.”
“But they seem so nice…?”
“They are. But their kindness is temporary. If they don’t consume human flesh at least once every four days, they turn into ravenous creatures.”
“….”
Baekhwa Girls’ High School joined the National Highway Administration.
That very night, six members of the National Highway Administration ‘enrolled’ in Baekhwa Girls’ High School.
The enrollment conditions weren’t too strict. They just had to have holes in their skulls.
“What the hell is this?”
Only then did Nodoh realize the seriousness of the situation.
“What kind of lunatics did you bring here, Awakening One?!”
“I warned you in advance.”
“I didn’t expect it to be this bad…!”
“By the way, how did they die?”
Nodoh handed me the report. It was quite like a former government official. Even in this collapsing world, he always documented incidents.
??????????
Victim A: What’s this? New recruits?
Chun Yuhwa: Hello! I’m Chun Yuhwa, the student council president of Baekhwa Girls’ High School!
Victim B: Huh? A high school? Student council? What’s that, some sort of act?
Chun Yuhwa: No? I’m really the student council president of Baekhwa Girls’ High School!
Victim A: Oh my. Our new recruits must have learned some weird stuff somewhere. Just looking at her face, she seems past high school graduation age, but…
Victim B: Yeah, hey. Only someone who’s been seriously hit on the head would do this without anyone intervening. Someone like you, a mediocre Awakening One, won’t get any recognition. What student council?
Chun Yuhwa: (Mysterious laughter)
??????????
Hmm.
Just reading this much was enough.
According to the attached document, some parts of the bodies of Victims A and B were found in canned food.
I diagnosed the cause of death for the victims.
“It appears to be suicide.”
“Is this for real…?”
Nodoh shuddered.
But like me, she was adept at dealing with ‘undertakers.’ She was a master in the specialized skill of dealing with lunatics—’lunatic-socializing.’ When Chun Yuhwa realized that Nodoh was an undertaker, he immediately readied himself.
“Chun Yuhwa junior…”
“Yes! Senior Nodoh!”
“How’s your SAT preparation going these days?”
“Huh?”
“Sigh. Back in my day, if you were a student council president, you were expected to get into Seoul National University at least. Senior Jang mentioned that. I assumed Chun Yuhwa junior was aiming high too, right…?”
“….”
Nodoh immediately caught on and started pressuring Chun Yuhwa like a dog. Just so you know, I also made a fake Seoul National University admission certificate for Chun Yuhwa and showed it to him.
[Translator – Jjsecus]
[Proofreader – Gun]
This too was a forged document. So what? What could you do?
I even set myself up as a graduate in German literature. As you all know, my German skills were impeccable.
Moreover, with [Perfect Memory] added, I even thought I could recite Goethe’s Faust and Schiller’s poems on the spot.
I raised an eyebrow as if to say, “Hmm. Isn’t this expected of the Baekhwa Girls’ High School student council president?”
“….”
Chun Yuhwa bowed tearfully before the seniors’ dignity.
If she had been a ‘fake,’ she would have given up and dropped the concept at this point. But Chun Yuhwa was real. Baekhwa Girls’ High School existed in her mind, and naturally, the school’s traditions were intact.
“I’ll work hard to follow your guidance, seniors…”
The monstrous academy city that once terrorized all the awakeners on the Korean Peninsula had disappeared without a trace. There was just one pathetic student left.
This is what they mean by ‘survival of the fittest.’
“Oh. Zombies actually have their uses…?”
And Nodoh confirmed that Chun Yuhwa had value, even ‘persisting in such a concept.’
Then there was no longer any reason to hesitate. Nodoh, the embodiment of pragmatism, immediately coerced Chun Yuhwa into ‘field training’ under the guise of sending her to the National Highway Administration.
With the addition of the ‘scout unit’ by Chun Yuhwa, the National Highway Administration underwent a significant transformation. The disappearance rate of members, which had reached as high as 20%, decreased to less than 5%.
However, no one cared that the rate at which zombies turned into real corpses increased. In a world where even human rights had disappeared, considering zombie rights seemed overly harsh.
“Is this the true usefulness of corpses…?”
Corpses were indeed useful.
They could work without eating, feel no pain, didn’t require consideration of their rights, and simply followed pre-programmed actions. Once you tasted it, you couldn’t escape, much like a drug. Especially for practical-minded individuals like Nodoh.
Nodoh discovered a new preference.
3
“Awakening One Jang. What exactly are zombies…?”
One day, I received such a question.
“Excuse me?”
“Think about it. The zombies created by Chun Yuhwa all perform their roles. Guards, students, teachers… They only act according to pre-programmed instructions, so they can’t respond to unforeseen situations. But still, in terms of their roles, they look quite human, don’t they?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Well, isn’t it more accurate to call them NPCs instead of zombies…?”
Nodoh’s eyes glinted darkly.
“Awakening One Jang probably called them zombies based on their appearance, but in my view, that’s not quite accurate labeling. Chun Yuhwa is a necromancer, but she’s not producing ‘zombies’… She can be considered more of a designer who creates ‘NPCs.’ In a sense, you could say she’s imbuing them with ‘AI’…”
“Interesting interpretation. But would that change anything?”
“Well, we’ll have to see as we go along…”
Nodoh chuckled.
“I believe a lot of things could change…”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. In that sense, could you please summon Dang Seorin, the guild leader…”
Even though Dang Seorin was the head of the National Highway Administration, he wasn’t someone who could issue orders to Dang Seorin. But as a member of the ‘Gourmet Pilgrimage Club,’ I could easily persuade Dang Seorin to come along.
The next day, Dang Seorin showed up at the National Highway Administration headquarters, looking annoyed.
“What’s going on? I’m busy these days.”
“Oh, sorry. I asked Awakening One Jang for a favor and had him summon you. This is something that only the Great Witch of the Three Thousand Worlds can do… Oh, and this is a copy of the Necronomicon I happened to find at the old bookstore last time. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be a fitting addition to the Great Witch’s library…”
“If you’re a guild leader living on the Korean Peninsula, you should cooperate with the National Highway Administration’s work.”
“Could you use some magic incantation…?”
Thud.
Dang Seorin placed several large books on the table, and even to me, a reincarnator, the titles were very unfamiliar.
[Supreme Court Case Digest], [3 Concept Latest Case Digest], [Civil Execution Act], [Essential Tax Case Digest], [Criminal Procedure Code: Commentary and Case Digest]…
They were all gruesomely thick. They were undoubtedly produced with the purpose of physically and mentally destroying human heads. The overwhelming presence even made Dang Seorin hesitate for a moment.
“What are you going to use these for?”
“Heh. Don’t worry. The Great Witch just needs to use [Repeat], [Read Aloud], and [Playback]… So it’ll be fine…”
“Oh, really? Okay, got it.”
Dang Seorin went into the warehouse and cast a magic incantation.
Soon enough, in the warehouse, numerous case digests automatically flipped through their pages, providing ‘read-aloud’ support. Naturally, it was quite a magical sight.
After sending off Nodoh with Dang Seorin, I immediately brought Chun Yuhwa to the warehouse.
“Chun Yuhwa junior…”
“Yes, senior!”
“Bring three security guards and leave them here. And could you ask those people to do something for us? [Remember all the sounds coming from this warehouse]…”
“Huh? Um, to input that much information, it’s going to consume a lot of energy.”
“It’s a senior’s command…”
“Ugh…”
At this point, I was gaping in amazement. I couldn’t comprehend how one would reach such a thought process, which is why I couldn’t help but admire it.
“Nodoh, are you…?”
“Yes.”
Nodoh chuckled softly.
“Now that the National Highway Administration is established, shouldn’t we start considering setting up a court…?”
This person… was trying to create ‘AI judges’ using zombies!
[Translator – Jjsecus]
[Proofreader – Gun]