Chapter 373: Strategy Guidance

Chapter 373: Strategy Guidance

It's been a while since the inflation crisis.

In the meantime, Cathedral has been growing at a frightening rate.

[BREAKING NEWS: The French Association is now overrun by Cathedral, and all of Europe is on high alert! The head villain of Cathedral's UK branch is demanding surrender, saying, "We want peaceful conquest."]

[Experts believe that the conquest of the French Association is due to the cooperation between the French and British Villains. The collaboration between the Villains through Cathedral has given them a much stronger power than before, which the Association did not expect...]

[On the Asian side of the world, Cathedral's expansion is also frightening, with local authorities reporting that the number of Villains joining Cathedral in Southeast Asia has increased so rapidly that the government is in turmoil. So far, the International Hero Association headquarters has been unable to come up with any clear countermeasures, making the issue even more controversial...]

The perfect counterpart to the International Association of Heroes is the International Villains Association.

Unlike the Hero Society, which aims to keep the peace, the Villain Society, which aims to conquer, is growing at a more frightening rate than ever before.

"I guess you could say it's the rise of a new force..."

On my laptop, an internal network of progress is shared amongst the members of the Cathedral.

I muttered that as I watched Cathedral running in real time.

In fact, just like in the original work, Cathedral was fine up to this point.

Unlike the motley crew of villains, the Villainous Alliance had a clear goal.

Whether it was their own country or the oceans, their goal was to conquer rather than destroy. Like China and Japan, which the Villains actually succeeded in conquering.

...The problem, of course, was that China and Japan already had corrupt governments, so it was effectively a coup...The problem with other countries was that they were trying to overthrow the government and eat the country, even though the government was fine.

'But now things are different.'

...governments and associations in every country have, in effect, gone bad.

The powers are getting stronger and stronger, and there are more villains than heroes.

It's always been a world with more villains than heroes, but now it's more polarized.

So much so, in fact, that the strongest villains are better able to manage the others...The world has begun to tilt toward the logic of power.

In other words, perhaps security itself would be better in a country conquered by Cathedral. After all, the China and Japan that Li Xiaofeng and Katana ate had pretty good security, and there were more villains in the Villainous Alliance than there were heroes in the Association.

Of course, if they lost control, there was no answer...

On the contrary, it was an opportunity.

I could use Cathedral to change the course of world events.

"...Whew."

I'm doing all this to prevent destruction, but I can't have the world ending before the Sun God descends.

First, I need to seduce Celeste...Before I can convince her, I need to try this.

"It just so happens that there's a Cathedral meeting coming up..."

...Perfect.

'Time to go global.'

With that thought, I grabbed my notebook from my bookshelf, where I'd scribbled down the original lore.

Just like that.

Time passed.

Finally, the day came when Cathedral gathered again.

***

What was once a simple meeting to share information has now become a de facto alliance of villains bent on world domination.

As such, all of the many villains are now the subordinates and the ones who used to be representatives have all become executives.

As the situation changed, so did the location of the meeting Celeste had organized.

"Everyone, come this way."

The cathedral was a far cry from the small church they had been in before, and was so huge that you couldn't even see the ceiling.

The walls and floor were covered in a luxurious white marble-like material, the ceiling depicted the night sky as if it were a universe, and the actual sky was visible outside the huge stained glass windows.

...A huge rectangular marble table, not even a round table anymore, has been prepared.

It was the new meeting place for Cathedral, a world-conquering conclave.

"I see you're all here."

Soon after, Celeste arrived, her white silver hair flowing, and the meeting began.

"You have all grown so much since we, Cathedral, were gathered by the will of the gods..."

As usual, I sat next to Celeste, right next to her, and listened with languid eyes.

The gist of it was that Cathedral had accomplished something remarkable. We had broken the old order of the Association and taken a step forward in our quest for world domination.

I didn't need to hear more.

I remember the last time Celeste called me over to do something, and I was stunned to find out that she wanted me to hear what she had to say.

Well, I thought it was a good thing that we got closer.

After some explanation Celeste looked at me, then at the various villains sitting in the room, and spoke.

"...That's all I have to say, and from now on, you are free to discuss whatever you wish to discuss amongst yourselves. If you have any questions for me, or anything you wish to bring to everyone's attention, please come this way, and we'll get started."

With those words from Celeste...The villains in the room looked at each other as if they had been waiting, and began to speak.

"Hey, you! Kawaseupki. I'm asking you to lend me a few of your subordinates. Can you give me some? I really think I need just a little more..."

"I've been hearing that the Brazilians have been encamped with heroes lately, have you heard..."

"Haha, I've already taken care of ten A-class or lower villains who don't follow Cathedral..."

Just like that, villains who started to do things on their own eagerly.

Celeste, who was sitting next to me, coughed and started to talk to me.

"And Egostic. You're..."

"Ah, Celeste. Excuse me, I need to discuss something over there."

"....."

Avoiding Celeste's not-so-pleased look, I started walking toward the nearest villain.

"Hello, Mr. Cadreu."

"Huh? Who... Oh, you're Egostic...?"

The man smiles at my greeting, startled by my surprise.

He was a man with a very impressive mustache, and he seemed a bit nervous when he saw me casually sitting next to him.... Katana said that I was sitting next to Celeste like a second-in-command, so the other villains thought I was the real deal..? Anyway, although it wasn't intentional, it wasn't a particularly bad reaction. A moderate sense of intimidation also serves to increase the credibility of my words.

"Yes. It's just that this time, I'm in charge of general operations inside Cathedral under the orders of Celeste...Mr. Cadreu said he was in charge of the Spanish side, right? I came here because I have something to help you with."

"...Help, what kind of help are you talking about?"

The mustachioed man replies like that, without taking his eyes off my words.

He must be French. I pulled out my laptop and held it out in front of him.

"Here's what I've compiled about the situation in Spain, and the Association. And here's a description of the Spanish heroes, which you might be able to use to sway them to your side, if you'd like."

"Uh..."

At my words, he looks at my laptop with deep interest.

He scrolled down the page, and then, with a surprised look, he said to me.

"...Well written. No, I mean, you, an outsider, knows more than I do... I'm embarrassed."

He looks at the things I've organized with admiration in his eyes.

Of course. It's a combination of the original information and what Seo-eun found out through hacking.

"You're welcome. Oh, and. If I may offer a bit of advice, isn't your goal to conquer the country? If so, you should only deal with heroes in the process, and try to avoid harming civilians as much as possible, especially since heroes can be persuaded later..."

With that, I handed him the information and stood back up, walking toward my next target.

What I'm doing now is, well, sprinkling.

I only give information to villains who are moderate like Katana, or whose governments are so rotten that they'd rather be under villain's control.

...In effect, creating more allies for my side.

After all, I'll need their help if I want to prevent the destruction of the world later.

So I've been traveling around, trying to curry favor with various villains in the name of consulting.

I've done a few of them that way, and now I can feel the stares when I walk around.

"Finally, you're here. You've been busy, haven't you?"

"Haha, yeah. I needed to talk to you about something."

With that, I headed back to my heart's home, the place where the members of our East Asian Villain Alliance were gathered, and took a seat as Katana greeted me.

...In truth, my control of Cathedral was already done the moment I befriended Celeste, but I wanted to make sure, and I wanted to take it in a more moderate direction...

I needed to have people on my side when it counted.

With that thought in mind, I looked out at the many villains sitting around me.

All of them were now powerful enough to conquer an entire country by force...

Even if they were this strong, all of them were weaker than Stardus of today.

'...Of course, they don't know that yet.'

In the small country of Korea, the strongest of the current heroes has emerged.

But soon, everyone will know. Strength was not something you could hide if you wanted to.

I smiled with pride....until I saw Celeste sending me a nasty glare.

"....."

...I'm going to have to go appease her.

And so, the rest of Cathedral was spent in Celeste's clutches.