My Students Regret It After I Retired

44 – Administrator. Secrets hidden in the dark, now revealed.

[Would you like to use Administrator Mode?]

[Searching for all photos with high correlation to the uploaded photo.]

[There are a total of 2 posts with high similarity to the photos uploaded by the Interunner, as of this point in time.]

[Moving to the board with the photo having a 95% similarity to LEOS.JPG.]

【Plunderer Gallery Post List】

[Title: Fucking Leos, don’t you think we should dig up this b*stard’s info?]

[Body: Here’s a photo of Leos. If you see this fucking prick, kill him on the spot.

[Attachment: LEOS.JPG]

Hemina quietly browsed various Interunner message boards, reading each post related to Leos’ personal information, moving her hands swiftly.

[Deleted this post and blocked the user.]

[Moving to the next post.]

[Deleted this post and blocked the user.]

.

.

.

For hours, Hemina relentlessly deleted every photo and post related to Leos’s personal information, thoroughly controlling anyone uploading such data.

“Hemina-nim. Please come out and eat something.”

At Herisia’s words, Hemina shut off the Distans and slowly walked over.

“Where is Leos-nim?”

“He said he went to scout the surroundings for a bit.”

“…Is that so?”

Even while eating, Hemina kept glancing at the Distans.

She knew how dangerous having one’s personal information exposed could be.

‘Leos-nim, you don’t need to worry. I… I’ll help you.’

*

When the world ends, the first to appear isn’t a hero. People invariably act for their own gain, and they become more and more slaves to their instincts as time passes.

Sometimes for their own benefit, and sometimes simply for the sake of amusement.

Every time they clearly realize that the law cannot punish them, the number of those driven by instinct – those we commonly call villains – only continues to increase.

This principle applied to the Empire as well.

As the number of Red Gates began to increase, the Empire’s laws stopped functioning properly, and some people, realizing the sheer number of corrupt individuals, began acting recklessly without fear. The most representative of them were the pillager groups.

Lower, Middle, Upper.

It hadn’t even been a month since the Red Gate vortexes had begun, and already they had created ranks amongst themselves, forming groups and setting up boundaries.

Like a social hierarchy in the modern era, they started flaunting their power within the vortex, where strength was everything.

Among them, the lieutenant plunderer guild, Ventage—

At their stronghold, Leos stepped slowly.

“They built a hideout underground. They wouldn’t have had enough time to make this, would they?”

Leos spoke as he descended underground.

It wasn’t an abandoned bunker; the foundation showed signs of being dug out and repaired directly. Moreover, it hadn’t been that long.

‘They used an artifact.’

That was about all he could deduce. It would be impossible for a human to dig such a deep cave in a short amount of time unless they were a group numbering in the hundreds.

“Shut your mouth. You don’t know your place. If you’re deemed useful where you’re being taken, you’ll act with us, and if not, you’ll be killed.”

-Smack!

Bario, a member of the lieutenant plunderer guild Ventage, added, striking Leos in the back of the head.

“Keep your eyes open. Here, even if you die, no one will pity you or protect you. It’s the same even if you’re lucky enough to escape outside. There’s no way you can survive alone in a place crawling with monsters. So don’t have any useless bravado or hope.”

As Bario finished speaking, one of the group stared intently at Leos’s face, then muttered, puzzled,

“Hey, bro…but this b*stard’s face looks so familiar…it’s weird. I can’t remember where I’ve seen it.”

“Don’t go blurting out information you’re not sure about, and shut your mouth. Didn’t you cause us a massive loss last time by mistaking someone for the wrong person when you did the same thing?”

“No…but that guy really did look exactly like the guy who used to take bribes from me at the Imperial Agency! I just made a mistake when I killed him, but still… he really looked similar, I’m telling you.”

“Neck. Then you interrogate this guy.”

“Huh?”

“It would be good to know what kind of guy this b*stard is before taking him to the boss, so you go to the interrogation room and question him directly.”

“Hehe…is that really okay?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”

“Yeah, that’s right! It’ll get a little rough, are you alright with that?”

“Just keep me alive.”

“Yes, sir!”

The man named Nek then grabbed the rope binding Leos and dragged him along, eventually moving him into a room. Light didn’t enter, nor did any wind. The only thing that permeated the stagnant air was the acrid stench of blood and the crunch of corpses underfoot with each step.

Leos spoke quietly.

“You didn’t bring me to an interrogation room, but to a torture chamber. How many have you killed like this?”

Nek carelessly kicked at the scattered corpses, answering indifferently.

“Oh, I’d say maybe around a hundred? Or… maybe not? After it went past a single-digit number it got hard to keep track. Ah… and it’s not on purpose, you know? I just asked them to answer questions, but they wouldn’t respond properly, so I had no choice but to torture them, and somehow they just died during the torture, what can you do?”

Nek chuckled, checking his equipment one by one. Nek was using night vision goggles, allowing him to move freely, observing everything clearly in this space where only darkness existed.

-Thud

-Thud

Nek roughly shoved the bodies aside, then went up to Leos and plopped down, asking.

“Name.”

“…”

“I said, tell me your fucking name! You want to die the moment we start? If I kill you too fast, it’s hard to justify things, so let’s just answer the questions I ask, okay? Hmm? Then you can live at least an hour, you know?”

“You don’t know me?”

“How the hell would I know you, you b*stard!”

Nek, unable to take it anymore, threw a knife he was holding towards Leos. But Leos dodged it with the slightest of movements.

“Huh? This b*stard’s got good luck. Dodging my attack in a place where you can’t even see?”

Nek thought Leos’s movement was just a reflex, a lucky escape. After all, it was obvious Leos wasn’t wearing night vision goggles, nor did he possess any other artifacts.

The loss of sight in battle is more fatal than losing an arm. When you can’t rely on your vision, you’re left with hearing and touch. But discerning a flying blade just from sound and wind? Absolutely impossible. Nek thought this as he threw another blade.

-Clang!

But this time, Leos spun his body precisely, then lifted his leg high into the air, kicking the oncoming dagger out of the sky. The airborne dagger fell to the ground with a clatter, then somehow returned to Leos’ hand.

Leos used the dagger in his hand to sever his restraints in an instant, then spoke to Nek.

“You not using Interrunner?”

“Shit…you…you stay right there.”

“I’ll ask again. You not using Interrunner?”

“You son of a b*tch! Whether I use it or not is none of your fucking business!”

“Ah… I see.”

Knowing about Interrunner meant he was using it. In this apocalyptic situation, no idiot would be unaware of and not using a community. So, why didn’t he recognize Leos?

Leos pondered the question and arrived at a conclusion.

‘It’s likely because everyone sticks to their own gallery.’

Based on the patterns he’d seen on Interrunner over the last few days, people tended to only check the galleries that were relevant to them. Even the overall popular posts required a separate tab, so not many people would be checking that in real-time. And even if they did go into that tab, the popular posts were quickly replaced by newer ones, making it difficult to see older content.

Given all these factors, Leos considered that his identity might not be as widely known as he’d thought.

For those who frequently looked at popular posts, the name LEO would be legendary, but to the average gallery user, he could just be another unknown person.

‘Even better.’

Leos’ identity hadn’t been exposed as much as he feared. He had posted a picture, but quickly deleted it.

‘Someone could have downloaded it or taken a screenshot, but there’s nothing I can do about that.’

One thing he was sure of was that his influence was absolute within the popular posts of Interrunner but was nowhere near as significant in the normal world or other galleries.

Leos walked slowly, step by step, towards Nek.

Then, in no time, their distance closed to about 2 meters. Nec immediately jammed the syringe-filled liquid into the corpse on the ground.

– *Gurgle…*

With a grotesque sound, the injected liquid revived the corpse. Or rather, to be precise, it turned the dead body into an undead.

“You son of a b*tch! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you even know how many corpses are here? You dog. You’re dead…”

– *Scratch!*

– *Scratch!*

– *Swishhh!*

Leos, picking up a broken blade lying on the ground, began hacking down the undead one by one as he advanced. Nec, as if paralyzed, stood there dumbfounded.

“S-Save me…!”

The man desperately tried to alert the outside of his situation, but he realized that the interior space was already perfectly soundproofed.

What reflexively entered his opened mouth was a piece of bone from a corpse.

“Cough… *Hack*…”

Leos, his hand gripping Nec’s throat, spoke with an utterly cold tone as Nec writhed in pain.

“That stuff, who was the b*stard that distributed it?”

“Keeek… I… I don’t…know…”

Leos crushed the man’s hand with his foot. He screamed in agony, but Leos looked down at Nec and spoke again.

“Tell me who your superior is. I’ll kill you and get the answer from that b*stard directly.”