Chapter 148 – Abubakar
Abubakar, the head of Boko Haram, blinked again and again.
He wondered if he was seeing a ghost right now.
‘Where the hell did that bastard come from? He didn’t even show up on Detection.’
Since he had appeared so suddenly, it had to be something like Invisibility—but Detection hadn’t picked it up.
“You bastard, what the hell are you do—”
Abubakar, who was about to shout, clamped his mouth shut.
Without any warning, the other man slit the throat of the organization member who was holding the child named Ricky.
So cleanly there wasn’t even time for blood to spray.
And after that, he even looked relaxed enough to hand the child over to Victor.
Unlike him, Abubakar couldn’t afford to be relaxed.
That was how tense he was—beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
Because only now did he notice the weapon in the white-masked man’s hand.
A scythe.
‘If it’s a Player who uses a scythe as a weapon…’
There was one name that surfaced almost like a synonym.
‘Black Scythe?’
He didn’t know the man’s nationality, but someone who always sat at Rank 1 worldwide.
Among Players everywhere, regardless of country, he was spoken of as a monster.
‘No way… it can’t be that Black Scythe, right?’
Just because a nickname involved a scythe, and just because a man had a Reaper class, didn’t guarantee he actually used a scythe.
He hadn’t seen it himself, and he wasn’t even sure Black Scythe used a scythe.
It was only a guess.
‘No… even if it is, those movements…’
They weren’t normal.
This wasn’t ordinary skill.
He wanted to confirm it again.
When Abubakar raised his hand, looking at Victor desperately trying to cover the children’s eyes now that bodies had appeared—
Sss—
The dagger that had left his hand returned to his grip.
The Assassin skill [Dagger Throw] was loaded for a single shot.
Whoosh—!
The dagger flew at near-bullet speed, aimed precisely at the child’s head.
But once again, the white-masked scythe blocked it.
Ting—!
This time he saw it clearly.
‘It wasn’t luck?’
He read the trajectory of the flying dagger and lifted the scythe at the exact point to stop it?
He’d suspected it, but this wasn’t a common fighter.
“You blocked my attack twice. You’re no ordinary bastard. But whoever you are, wherever you crawled out from, you picked the wrong opponent.”
He had blocked both daggers—both thrown at the children.
That made it certain.
That bastard couldn’t beat him.
Because fighting while protecting someone, like in movies, was practically impossible.
‘So you wanted to play the hero of justice… I’ll show you reality is different.’
With a single order, every subordinate here would open fire on the hostages.
How would one man stop a storm of bullets?
‘Go ahead, try to protect those kids if you can.’
Smiling like a devil, he was about to open his mouth and issue the command—
And then Abubakar’s eyebrow twitched.
Slip—
The other man vanished as if to show off.
‘What? Didn’t he already use Invisibility just a moment ago?’
There should be a cooldown.
He was using it again?
What was more shocking was this—once he used Invisibility, he disappeared from Detection.
‘Impressive. But even so, you can’t stop my order—’
Abubakar couldn’t finish the thought.
Crunch—!
An enormous force slammed into the back of his head, driving his face straight into the ground.
“Ghuuugh…!”
It felt like his front teeth and nasal bone had been crushed to pieces.
“B-Boss!”
The white-masked man who had appeared behind him using Invisibility tightened his grip on the back of Abubakar’s head.
“Ughghghghiiik…!”
His mouth was eating dirt—he couldn’t move an inch.
A situation where he couldn’t give orders even if he wanted to.
But his subordinates weren’t the type to stand by and do nothing while their boss was being handled like this.
“That son of a b*tch!”
“Save the boss!”
Thirty Players, each with their own weapons, charged to kill the white-masked man.
The remaining ordinary organization members started to aim their guns—then stopped.
If they missed, they might put holes in the boss too.
But they didn’t know.
They didn’t know that the man pressing down on the boss was smiling behind his mask.
‘W-what the hell is going on…?’
Victor couldn’t close his mouth.
The moment he realized the children were being targeted because of him, his heart had dropped.
When the dagger flew toward Ricky, his vision had gone dark.
But then, like a miracle, a savior appeared—a white mask.
It was astonishing when he blocked the dagger, but more than anything, Victor had felt relief that the child’s life had been saved.
And yet what he was seeing now was even more shocking.
‘H-he’s taking on that many people alone…’
No—he couldn’t even call it “taking them on.”
It was too one-sided to be a fight.
Like moths throwing themselves into flame, the Players were being ground down by the scythe.
So one-sided, so overwhelming, that even the number thirty looked insufficient.
It seemed everyone there—kidnapped people and rifle-armed organization members alike—was frozen, watching the slaughter with stiff faces.
Everyone except Victor.
“You kids! Turn your heads! Now! You don’t watch things like that!”
“Ah, why! I wanna see too!”
“Just go! This isn’t the time for this!”
“Just a little more!”
“Tsk! Are you not going to listen to Uncle?”
Victor, fretting in fear the kids might get hurt, finally had no choice but to ask someone nearby for help when the kids kept hesitating with their feet.
“Mr. Marcus! What are you doing just standing there? Hurry and get the kids to safety!”
“Huh? Ah— okay. C-come on, kids! Let’s go!”
Had Victor’s voice snapped him out of it?
The other adults, who had been staring blankly at the slaughter, finally started moving too, retreating with the children.
But maybe because so many were moving at once—
They caught the eyes of the ordinary organization members, and it was only natural that gun barrels swung toward them.
“Where do you think you’re running off to, you bastards! Get back here! Unless you wanna turn into a beehive, come back, you slave pieces of sh*t!”
“Ah…”
The fleeing people flinched and stopped.
A sigh slipped out of Victor.
He’d wanted, at the very least, to get only the children out quietly, but it was ruined.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tang—!
Just then, an organization member who had been shouting suddenly crumpled with the sound of gunfire.
Rat-a-tat-tat— rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Not just one—dozens of organization members toppled like reeds, spraying blood as they fell.
When Victor looked to see what was happening, three organization members were working together, shooting the rest.
‘W-what is this? They’re betraying each other all of a sudden?’
Staring in disbelief as they shot each other, Victor nearly passed out when he saw a woman suddenly appear.
“Now. Hurry and get everyone out.”
An Asian woman had appeared out of nowhere and said something, but Victor couldn’t understand a word.
Still, he understood the meaning through her gestures.
‘Ah… she’s telling us to run.’
Victor nodded toward the Asian woman, left a word of thanks, and led the people away.
As far from the scene as possible.
“Kraaaagh!”
“Ghk!”
“Ghuuuh!”
A slaughterhouse where blood sprayed everywhere.
Watching that hell, Abubakar immediately bolted.
‘F*ck, it’s over. That bastard isn’t someone I can handle.’
From the moment his face had been driven into the ground, he had felt strongly that it was over.
The moment he realized the sheer power pressing down on the back of his head, he had already understood it was an existence beyond reach.
‘It’s Black Scythe. That bastard really is Black Scythe.’
True to the Reaper class, the man was butchering thirty Players without even blinking.
They’d been handpicked from among the best he had, and yet he’d never imagined they’d die this meaninglessly.
‘Today’s really a cursed day. F*ck.’
He had to escape while the man was busy fighting.
His subordinates’ lives and all that—he didn’t give a sh*t.
His own life mattered most.
‘Allah… why have you given me this trial?’
For some reason, he resented God more than usual, but he also thought it was all his own lack of virtue.
He believed only one thing could wash away the sins of this life: survive, believe in Allah even harder, and kidnap and kill even more infidels who did not believe in Allah.
‘Ah, running is one thing, but first…’
After sprinting without pause, Abubakar ducked behind a building wall and pulled out his phone.
Tap-tap-tap-tap—
He sent a message quickly, then peeked out again—
‘Mother f*cker!’
One person appeared on the Detection radar.
It was obviously that Reaper bastard.
‘Damn it… there’s a chance I won’t get caught, so I’ll use Invisibility for now—’
Slip— he hid his body and ran like hell.
But the distance had already closed somehow, and the back of his neck was grabbed.
Crunch—!
“Guhhhk!”
His head slammed into the building wall, and Invisibility broke.
Brick dust crumbled down from beneath his forehead.
Whoosh—
He was flung into the air, spun six times, then hit the ground with a heavy thud.
“Where do you think you’re running.”
Crack—
“Ghk-ghk!”
With his ankle crushed under Ryu Min’s foot, Abubakar couldn’t even muster the will to counterattack in the face of that overwhelming strength.
“This one too.”
Crack—
“Aaaagh!”
With both ankles shattered and unable to move, he was hauled up by the collar like a rag.
“Come with me. Unless you want to die.”
Ryu Min dragged the half-mad bastard over to Yamtti.
“Yamtti. Dominate this piece of sh*t. We still need to lure them, like we’ve been doing.”
“Yes, Master.”
Ryu Min looked toward Victor, who was hiding with the children.
Victor Jafayile—the only Alchemist.
After smashing through countless organizations to climb upward, the purpose of rescuing him had been achieved in just two days, but there was still work left to do.
Because he knew this bastard now dominated by Yamtti wasn’t the leader of IS.
‘He’s just a mid-boss at best. We need to draw out the real one.’
Ryu Min grinned inside his mask.
IS, an anti-state group that followed Islam, had been on a path of decline since 2017.
Now, it was to the point that almost only remnants remained.
That was why Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Baghdadi, the second Caliph of IS and its highest living leader, was thirsty for the organization’s revival.
‘Once again, like before… we must expand our forces until entire nations tremble at the name IS alone.’
He had to carry out more terror attacks than now, and kidnap more children.
And through brainwashing education, he had to remake them into warriors who lived only for Allah.
That was why they kidnapped children.
To rebuild glory, to invest in the future.
Players, on the other hand, were an investment for the present.
‘An investment drawing a downward curve each month, but still.’
The number of Players currently operating under the name IS in Nigeria was around eight hundred.
There had originally been more, but the reality was they were being cut down by half every month.
In just a few more months, there would be no Players left.
That was the greatest drawback of Players.
And it was also why al-Baghdadi, a civilian, found Players displeasing.
‘They’re consumables, no different from having an expiration date. And it’s not like they’re strong enough to dodge bullets, either…’
If they had an advantage, it was that even without firearms, they could enter other countries and carry out terror attacks easily…
‘But these days, people are so scared of Players they won’t even leave their homes.’
There wasn’t even a proper environment for terror.
‘Useless Players. Tsk.’
He clicked his tongue, but the one thing he acknowledged was the potions made by an Alchemist named Victor.
‘Potions are useful. We can sell them on the black market, or stockpile them for the future.’
Right now, he was stockpiling them for later plans.
He only sold small amounts on a market called “Pluple” when funds ran short.
Of course, ordinary people couldn’t use potions, but if a Player fed them one, they could still receive the benefit.
Potion shuttles.
That was about the extent of a Player’s value.
At least, to al-Baghdadi.
‘Before the number of Players drops even further, we must accelerate our terror attacks.’
He was already preparing to put his plan into action soon.
He intended for the ordinary members and the Player members to work together and create a masterpiece.
‘If we commit a terror attack that shocks the world, we can reclaim IS’s fame.’
As he reviewed the plan once more, a text arrived on al-Baghdadi’s phone.
[Abubakar: Emergency. Our organization is being attacked by someone presumed to be Black Scythe.]
‘Black Scythe?’
Even al-Baghdadi, who wasn’t a Player, had heard the name Black Scythe.
Because his Player subordinates kept talking about how extraordinary he was.
‘An 89-level Player who never lost Rank 1, was it?’
Considering most Players were around level 40, it wasn’t hard to guess how strong that was.
‘If we bring this man into IS…?’
It might even make the dream of a White House terror attack possible.
“Finally, we’ve found a Player worth using.”
Al-Baghdadi’s eyes curved like a crescent moon.