Prologue
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FROM THE COCKPIT MONITOR, I looked out into space. Lights sparkled all around me, and explosions too—like something straight out of science fiction. Countless tiny streaks of light flashed in the distance, some resulting in small explosions. Inside each and every one of those explosions, hundreds or perhaps thousands of lives were snuffed out.
Space battles take the lives of a vast number of people. During one such battle, where tens or hundreds of thousands of people might perish, I raised my voice and laughed aloud.
“What’s wrong? Is that all you’ve got?”
The weapon I piloted was a humanoid vehicle—a mobile knight. As weapons, these fourteen-meter behemoths presented a number of flaws. Why did they have to be humanoid in form, instead of something like fighter jets? This fantasy world seemed unconcerned with such rational questions, however.
My mobile knight was black and titanic. While most other units were around eighteen meters tall, this one was on the larger side at twenty-four meters. In my mammoth machine, I grabbed smaller units around me with my manipulators, as its dexterous hands were called, and crushed my enemies’ machines along with the pilots inside them.
“Please, spare me!”
An enemy pilot begged for his life, but I just smirked coldly and said, “Die.”
There wasn’t a speck of pity in my voice. I felt no guilt killing my enemies, only joy. Trampling another person and taking their most precious possession from them, their life…that was a privilege only the strong possessed.
“Weak. Too weak. Isn’t there anyone strong?”
I laughed as I piloted my craft, mowing down all the enemies that approached me. I aimed for their cockpits and the pilots within. I mercilessly thrust the laser sword gripped in my mobile knight’s hand into an enemy cockpit, then kicked the unit away, ripping the blade back out.
“You weaklings are nothing but prey! At least try to entertain me!”
All this horror was the work of a boy who appeared to be in his early teens. In my previous life, I would have objected to such inhuman acts, but now I knew better. It’s the bad people who have all the advantages. That was why I’d vowed to be a villain in my next life. No—a supervillain!
If someone were to describe my current position, they would call me an “evil lord.” In this strange, fantastical land, humanity had advanced far enough for intergalactic travel, yet it still had a completely outdated aristocratic form of government. In this world, I was a count. I ruled over a planet of my own, terrorizing my subjects. If this were a story, I’d be the villain for the protagonist to defeat. But in reality…
“Are you done? Come on, come at me! I haven’t had enough. Give me more!”
I chased after the enemies fleeing from my machine and took them down without mercy, a textbook villain. This world had no heroes. I could torment the weak all I liked and no one would stop me. In this place, might made right. That was the conclusion I had reached at the moment of my death in my previous life.
“Ahh, this is so much fun. Crushing weaklings is the best. It just confirms how strong I am.”
In this world, people warred with giant humanoid weapons and spaceships. Reincarnated into such a world, I intended to use the immense power I’d been given to live a life of tyranny.
It all started on that day—the last day of my previous life, when I was deceived and died in the pit of despair. The harsh memories revived in my mind, memories of a man who’d led a foolish life, not even realizing that he was being destroyed. Yes, in my previous life, that fool was me.