I Am Not a Robot. Beep-bop

Chapter 36: Plunder

Alice didn’t particularly enjoy killing people.

In her previous world, she had lived as the Demon King, dwelling in a brutal reality where intelligent beings, including humans, perished like insects.

Still, if possible, she preferred to avoid taking lives.

To rob someone of their life was to take everything they had, including their karma.

The weight of murder became a shadow that lingered forever.

Although she wouldn’t hesitate when necessary, to Alice, murder was always the last resort.

Today was no exception.

“Gyaaaaaah!!!”

However, this didn’t mean Alice was a good person.

If a starving child collapsed in the street, she might take them home, clean them up, and feed them.

But she would never grant a swift death to a brat who swung a greatsword at the back of her head without hesitation.

Alice was perched atop Jinhyung as if she were a courtesan seductively draping herself over a man.

Although their intentions were different, Jinhyung, pinned beneath Alice, was letting out continuous, unceasing groans.

“Huh… huff… huuh…”

Groans so strained, it seemed his breath might give out at any moment.

Alice raised the corners of her lips, wearing a refreshingly amused expression.

Was this life of mine destined to turn me into a sadist?

Though she knew inflicting pain on others was unpleasant and something a civilized person ought to avoid, the sensation of causing torment to a parentless bastard who threw greatswords instead of wielding them felt euphoric, almost exhilarating.

-Thud! Thud! Squish!

“Guh, gah… gaaaack…!”

“Don’t worry. You’re not going to die.”

Theresa, after some real-world experimentation with goblins and scrap orcs, had become exceptionally skilled at inflicting pain.

Theresa had already gathered all the necessary information about human blood vessels and vital points—exactly where to crush or grind to maximize agony.

“P-Please… we had a good time, didn’t we? If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone… Alice, it would be bad for you too if the Overseer showed up, wouldn’t it…?”

Jinhyung knew that when heinous crimes occurred among Hunters or within Ark’s mid-level zones, dangerous figures called Overseers were dispatched.

He had seen them swiftly subdue powerful Hunters and Awakened beings multiple times.

Hoping to avoid such trouble, Jinhyung tried to appeal to Alice’s reasoning.

“You’re worried about me now? I’m so touched I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“So, please…!”

But Alice responded by pulling out a new chainsaw.

-Bzzzzzz!

“Ahh, nooo! Stop!”

“I said I didn’t know what to do with you.”

Where should I carve? Here? Or there?

Should I etch words into his skin?

What should the inscription say?

[This bastard throws greatswords instead of wielding them—a parentless piece of garbage.]

That seemed fitting.

Of course, Alice hadn’t yet mastered the language of this world, so she mixed in words from her previous one as she carved.

She even decided to add cute star shapes for flair.

“Gyaaah!”

Unfortunately for Jinhyung, Alice was under the protection of two First-Class Overseers and an active administrator working deep within Ark.

One supported her for personal reasons and the benefit of a successor.

Another did so purely out of goodwill, feeling as though they had gained a younger sibling.

The last, sensing the potential for a new graduate student—no, a slave—had decided to back Alice as well.

Even if an Overseer were dispatched to arrest her, things wouldn’t turn out the way Jinhyung hoped.

“P-Please… spare me… I won’t tell anyone… I’ll live quietly, like a mouse… please, I beg you…”

“Oh, are you still holding on?”

“N-No… st-stop… stooooop!!!”

-Bzzzzzz!

The pain had to be thorough.

Hesitation was unacceptable.

If he still had the strength to talk, he could endure more.

“You know, when someone loses in a fight without being hurt too badly, they tend to harbor immense hatred toward their conqueror.”

Alice retracted the circular chainsaw tendrils, and pincers-equipped tendrils extended behind her.

Seeing this, Jinhyung shook his head desperately as if his voice had already gone hoarse, pleading for mercy.

However, since the tendrils were set to a purpose of torture, Alice couldn’t stop their movements even if she wanted to.

“So, you know, someone once said this. When pain continues endlessly and climbs a steep curve instead of subsiding, at some point, you begin to feel gratitude instead of resentment or hatred.”

“…Guh… huh…”

“Oh, gratitude for what, you ask? Well, when I stop this, you’ll think, ‘Oh, she’s stopping here,’ and you’ll feel grateful to me. If I go about it halfway, you’d probably vow to kill me if given the chance. But when it’s the opposite, you’d actually feel deep gratitude. Isn’t that ironic?”

“Guh… huh… ugh…”

The sensation of flesh bursting was both thrilling and unpleasant at the same time.

It wasn’t as if her humanity had been erased.

The ethics deep within her soul screamed in protest.

Yet, from the perspective of teaching a brat who had dared strike her from behind, it was exhilaratingly satisfying.

“Ta-da! A necklace made of intestines. What do you think?”

“Ugh… ughhh…”

The pincers tore into Jinhyung’s insides, twisting and turning until the flesh beneath his skin was shaped into a budding flower.

The pulled-out intestines were then draped around his neck like a long golden chain favored by rappers.

If you painted it gold instead of red, he’d look like the owner of a fancy party.

Wow, handsome! Clap, clap, clap.

“I-I’ll tell you everything… everything…!”

“Huh? About what?”

“I-I… I was first… transported to another world… when I was 16…”

Perhaps delirious from the pain, Jinhyung began rambling about his past.

At sixteen, he had fallen into a game-like world where a goddess bestowed him with blessings.

Along with a status window and cheat-like abilities, he adventured through that world, growing strong quickly by collecting rare, powerful items without needing much training.

Everything in life had been easy for him.

If he saw a beautiful woman, he’d use his power and wealth to win her over.

His companions were exclusively women since he disliked being around men.

By acquiring the best equipment and items, he became stronger without having to bother with training.

Disliking dirt, he relied on long-range magic to handle everything.

He eliminated kings and nobles who displeased him on the spot, and even when armies came after him, he wiped them out with the power granted by the goddess.

But when he came to the world of Ark, the game-like elements transformed into harsh reality.

All his powers and abilities were severely weakened.

To quickly recover his strength, he resorted to stealing equipment from other Hunters and selling them while gradually rebuilding his abilities.

As Jinhyung confessed his story like a sinner in a confessional, Alice nodded in acknowledgment.

“I-I was wrong… I won’t come near this place again. I’ll quit being a Hunter or whatever and just live as an ordinary citizen…”

“So?”

“Y-Yes…?”

“So what?”

To Alice, it was an uninteresting story.

It was just a pathetic tale of a loser who owned a greatsword but didn’t even know how to wield it properly.

Her reaction?

‘What does this have to do with me?’

It wasn’t touching, sad, or even entertaining.

It was just another clichéd story of a returnee struggling to adapt to reality.

Alice recalled what Bronte, the master craftsman of the Exploration Agency, had said.

“Those who can’t live reality as reality and muddle through life like it’s a game.”

Returnees had the potential to become powerful and exceptional beings.

However, many failed to let go of their previous, easy lives and became failures in the real world—or spread that failure to others.

Alice suddenly understood why Ark went to such lengths to categorize returnees meticulously and evaluate them so rigorously.

She also realized why returnees of the Ultima rank were treated with such privileges and benefits, almost like nobles.

“Are you some kind of secret agent who considers returnees dangerous? I’ve just disclosed my entire life to you. I don’t plan to threaten Ark in any way…”

In the meantime, Jinhyung seemed to have gone off into some wild delusion, spouting nonsense completely irrelevant to the context.

“Oh? So does that mean you had planned to threaten Ark before?”

“N-No, that’s not what I meant…”

“Fine, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Not that she cared in the first place.

There was only one thing about Jinhyung that Alice found remotely interesting.

“By the way, do you have something that can usurp ownership?”

“…!”

Alice smiled at Jinhyung’s reaction, which froze instantly.

“Oh, so you do have it?”

If Jinhyung had been skilled in psychological warfare, he might have confused Alice by responding with, “What are you talking about?”

The moment Alice had lost control of the tendrils had been so brief it could easily be dismissed as her imagination.

In truth, if Jinhyung had convincingly acted as though he knew nothing, Alice wouldn’t have considered torturing him further.

A useless brat who couldn’t wield a greatsword properly was irritating enough just to deal with.

“My demand is simple. If you can steal ownership, you can give it away too, right?”

“T-That…”

“Don’t say it’s impossible.”

-Bzzzzz!

The circular chainsaws attached to the tendrils whirred to life again, and Jinhyung’s face turned pale.

“I-I’ll give it to you! My Holy Sword, my Demonic Sword, everything!”

“And your inventory?”

“T-That’s…!”

“Oh, so you can’t give me that? As expected of a returnee, you have such strong and steadfast resolve! I’m truly impressed by your noble and powerful pride!”

“W-Wait! Hold on—Gyaaaaah!!!”

The moment she finished speaking, the tendrils with the circular chainsaws began slicing into Jinhyung’s legs.

Not enough to sever them.

Enough so he could still walk.

They cut vertically along the muscle fibers rather than horizontally, shredding the flesh into thin slices.

To prevent him from bleeding out, the pincers immediately clamped down on the areas where the chainsaws passed, staunching the bleeding.

“I-I’ll give you everything… everything…! Just please, stop now…”

“I don’t need it!”

“W-What…?”

“Oh, I was just kidding.”

In truth, Alice didn’t have the ability to steal others’ abilities or powers.

If she could, she would have taken the true ancestor’s abilities during the descent event at the Barrier Agency.

Instead, she could only convert the high-concentration mana in their blood into energy and heat it up, but the unique powers tied to the true ancestor were beyond her reach.

The Scrap Dragon’s power had been simple enough to replicate, mixing massive amounts of molten metal and mana, so she had been able to adapt it.

Her theft was limited to electricity and energy.

However, Jinhyung’s “Plunder” ability was different—it allowed ownership to be granted to others.

This meant Jinhyung’s equipment and abilities could also be transferred to Alice.

The Holy Sword.

The Demonic Sword.

And even his inventory, along with the “Plunder” ability itself.

“Ugh… ughh…”

Jinhyung wanted to resist, but after being tortured to the point where his intestines were draped around his neck and his legs shredded like ground meat, he had completely lost the will to fight back.

Was it cruel to steal everything from a returnee?

“If he didn’t want this, he shouldn’t have summoned a greatsword to stab me in the back like a coward.”

Alice didn’t deny that her actions were ruthless, but Jinhyung was the one who had betrayed her first.

She had no intention of being a fool who showed mercy to someone who had betrayed her.

【Unverified system components detected】

【Ownership Transfer – Holy Sword】

【Ownership Transfer – Demonic Sword】

【Ownership Transfer – Inventory – Multipurpose Standard Dimensional Pouch】

【Ownership Transfer – Plunder】

【Verification complete.】

“Oh, it worked?”

Originally, Alice had planned to spend her first day as a Hunter simply exploring the atmosphere of a dungeon and experiencing how party operations worked.

She wasn’t aiming for much, given that her high-consumption, low-efficiency internal system couldn’t handle prolonged dungeon hunting.

But she hadn’t expected to gain such rewards.

The abilities of the Holy Sword and Demonic Sword were unknown, but the inventory and Plunder ability had boundless potential.

Powers like these didn’t consume formulas or mana like magic, and for Alice, who relied on careful energy management, the inventory ability was exceptionally appealing.

“Even if it can’t store non-material energy, that doesn’t matter. If I stock up on spare batteries and put them in the inventory, my dungeon runtime will increase exponentially.”

If Jinhyung had focused on forming a proper party and hunting monsters diligently, he might have eventually become a high-ranking Hunter or someone worthy of entering Ark’s depths.

“But instead, with such a powerful ability, you chose to betray your party members. How pathetic.”

Seriously, what a waste of an ability.

“S-So you’ll let me live now, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll let you live.”

Alice answered with a smile.

She wasn’t trying to deceive him.

Even if someone like Jinhyung, who summoned a greatsword to attack her from behind, picked a fight, Alice would face them head-on instead of resorting to such cowardly tactics.

“After losing your abilities, your Holy Sword, your Demonic Sword, being adorned with an intestine necklace, and having legs that are practically minced meat, life’s going to be so sweet for you, isn’t it?”

For people like this, living miserably is far more painful than dying.

Death?

That’s just a form of rest.

Alice was planning to be generous and ensure that he lived for a long, long time.

“W-Wait… Argh! It hurts! It really hurts…! Ugh… guh… aaagh?!”

Alice grabbed one of Jinhyung’s legs with a tendril and began dragging him like a piece of trash.

Although Jinhyung’s body was scraped and battered as it was dragged across ponds, sewers, dirt, and all sorts of filth, Alice’s pincer tendrils stuffed his protruding intestines back into his body and even performed crude wound sealing.

He wouldn’t die.

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“P-Please help me! This crazy woman is torturing me and trying to kill me!”

As soon as they reached the Outer Wall Exploration Agency, Jinhyung screamed in a desperate voice.

Jinhyung grinned at Alice with a triumphant smirk as if to say, “You’re in big trouble now. Get ready.”

He probably thought that other Hunters or Executors would see Alice as a deranged criminal and arrest her.

If not, his sudden outburst would be difficult to explain.

Of course, Alice felt no sense of crisis as she watched the scene unfold.

“Oh, so I didn’t torture him enough?”

Next time, I’ll put more effort into it.

But does this pathetic brat really not understand why I dragged him openly to the Exploration Agency without any resistance?

“Even if he doesn’t know I’m an Ultima-level returnee, this is ridiculous.”

However, the people around were surprisingly uninterested in him.

They either glanced at him briefly before walking away or snickered mockingly.

No one showed even a shred of sympathy for Jinhyung, who looked utterly pitiful.

“Excuse me! Hey, someone’s trying to kill me here!”

As soon as they entered the agency, which was staffed by other Awakened individuals, Jinhyung screamed like a brat tattling to his parents.

“What’s going on… Why isn’t anyone helping me?”

Even though he raised his voice desperately, a few people merely glanced his way, but none of the many Hunters and Executors in the agency paid him any serious attention.

“Hahaha, Jinhyung~ Jinhyung, why do you think I’d drag someone I’ve tortured all the way here without a second thought?”

Even if an Executor were to try and arrest Alice, her privileges as an Ultima-level returnee made it highly likely she’d be declared innocent in no time.

“W-What… What the hell is going on…”

Jinhyung, receiving sneering and ridiculing stares even in his miserable state, couldn’t understand.

When someone is in this kind of condition, shouldn’t others come and help?

By any rational standard, why…?

The reason why the Awakened individuals and the Executors, who were supposed to act as enforcers, ignored Jinhyung was surprisingly simple.

This isn’t Earth.

“Hey, there he is. That guy.”

“The one from the agency’s main TV, right?”

“What a sight.”

“Pfft, I knew there was something off about him.”

“W-What? Why… Why isn’t anyone helping me…”

If this were Earth, someone bleeding on the street would immediately draw the police’s attention.

But this was Ark.

In residential zones or areas crowded with civilians, a bleeding person might cause a bit of commotion.

However, in the Outer Wall Exploration Agency and the outer wall zones, where Hunters constantly faced monsters and death, a bit of bloodshed didn’t shock anyone.

“Look at this useless brat who can’t even hold a greatsword. His face is priceless. Theresa, how’s the footage?”

【Footage transmitting…】

【Transmission – No issues.】

The Outer Wall Exploration Agency was equipped with various entertainment facilities and numerous holographic TVs to alleviate the boredom of Hunters waiting for requests.

Alice had broadcasted her dungeon exploration footage through one of these TVs, showing her perspective and her party’s actions in real-time.

As a result, the Hunters had watched with their own eyes how Jinhyung betrayed his allies and party members.

Theresa had edited out the scenes of Alice torturing Jinhyung just enough to ensure no one here sided with him.

Of course, Jinhyung, knowing Alice hadn’t worn a smartwatch in the dungeon, couldn’t have imagined any of this.

But Alice didn’t need a smartwatch because she was an android.

Her entire body, including her pupils and fingertips, was made of machinery and metal, capable of real-time updates.

With such a body, it was impossible not to have features like video recording and transmission.

Although she originally didn’t, the smartwatch she’d been gifted had been taken apart and analyzed by Theresa, who upgraded her internal systems with its useful functions.

Even without the smartwatch, Alice’s mechanical body could handle communication and video recording independently.

“Jinhyung.”

“Hi-Hik…!”

Alice grabbed Jinhyung by the hair and pulled his head back, looking at him as if he were an insect.

“I guess I must’ve gone easy on you because I’m soft-hearted. Isn’t that right?”

“This… this doesn’t make sense… Why… why is this happening…”

“Right? Why indeed? I’m curious too~”

It seemed Jinhyung desperately wanted to deny the reality where no one offered him a helping hand.

Perhaps, as he endured the pain on the way here, he’d clenched his teeth thinking, “As soon as I get back to the Hunter Guild, I’ll make this woman pay…!”

But even that hope was now completely shattered.

While Jinhyung was utterly dejected, Alice was having a fantastic day.