The desert wind whispered over the battlefield.
The once-mighty Sand Wyvern lay motionless, its massive body still radiating faint heat. Smoke curled from its charred wings, and the scent of scorched scales lingered in the air. A few embers drifted upward from Jinwoo's coat, flickering out before they reached the darkening sky.
Without a word, Jinwoo stepped forward and pressed his palm against the fallen monster's side.
A soft shimmer pulsed across its body as the System confirmed the action.
[Sand Wyvern (Boss-Class) – Stored in Inventory.]
The colossal corpse vanished in a blink.
[System: "Adding 'Collector of Giant Dead Things' to your resume. Just saying."]
Jinwoo smirked. "Gotta feed the Shadow Monarch's eventual zoo."
[System: "...You are building one, right?"]
He didn't answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
With the battlefield now empty, Jinwoo glanced at the five gacha tickets floating inside his mind's red inventory tab. They shimmered invitingly—each one a promise of randomness, chaos, and a likely boot to the shin.
But he resisted.
"Nope. Not yet," he muttered, flicking the tab closed. "Ten pulls at once increases the epic drop chance by 70%. Better odds. Better loot. No more pens and butter knives pretending to be weapons."
[System: "What, you don't like novelty fountain pens that whisper your enemy's last words?"]
"Not unless I can stab someone with it."
He dusted his coat off, stepping toward the black portal that had reappeared in the sand. The air warped around its edges, humming softly.
He checked the time.
5:20 PM.
He'd entered this zone twenty minutes ago.
He had two and a half hours before Jinah started suspecting things—and three hours before she'd turn those suspicions into a frying pan ambush.
"I'm not dying to a monster girl hybrid made of teenage anger and kitchenware."
He stepped through.
---
[EXITING PENALTY ZONE… RETURNING TO REAL WORLD.]
-----
The moment he arrived at the warehouse, Jinwoo's pace slowed.
This place wasn't just a building anymore.
It was becoming a monument.
A futuristic base straight out of a sci-fi movie—sleek steel blended with mana-synth panels, glowing circuits spiderwebbing across walls, and shadows bustling around like worker ants.
He knelt down by the unassuming steel door embedded in the concrete floor.
With a subtle flare of his mana and a flick of his custom flaming key card, the door hissed open.
A warning flashed in red:
> "Unauthorized Entry Will Trigger Disintegration.
Or Worse: Annoying Monologue."
He smirked. Yeah, I wrote that.
The biometric scan was next.
A seamless sweep of his retina, a pulse check on his mana aura, and the faint flicker of Devil Fruit resonance.
Access Granted.
Jinwoo stepped into his kingdom.
---
[MAIN LAB HUB]
A hexagonal chamber unfolded before him—floors layered upward, wrapped in semi-transparent steel-glass. Massive support pillars throbbed with mana lines like veins.
The centerpiece?
A levitating console ringed in red-gold light.
It flickered with maps, dungeon locations, Analysing Mana signatures around the World.
Zarux, leader of the Shadow Corps Construction Division, approached and kneeled.
"My Lord, progress is at 66%. The Comfort Wing and Training Zone are fully functional. Monitoring Station now has updated long-range feed integration."
Jinwoo nodded. "Good. Any stability issues?"
"None. We reinforced the foundation with Steel Alloys and Mana,Earthquakes would only make it stronger."
He toured the Forge Bay, admiring the suspended micro-gravity field swirling molten metal mid-air.The Dragon tooth like furnace roared lowly in a chamber beyond, bathing the room in soft red hues.
In the Research Wing, stasis pods lined the walls, and elemental chambers shimmered behind reinforced glass.One entire wall displayed evolving diagrams of Potions And Elixirs —glowing lines forming theoretical constructs Jinwoo didn't even know were possible yet.
Shadow engineers worked tirelessly, splitting resources and tasks with military precision.
---------
[TRAINING & TESTING ZONE]
The air here was different—heavy. Weighted gravity fields shifted slightly as he passed.
One side crackled with flame jets. Another roared with water columns.
The arena pulsed like a heart of war, waiting for its King to step in again.
[MONITORING STATION]
His steps slowed as he entered the final chamber.
Real-time mana surges.
Guild activity graphs.
Auction House feeds.
The room was dim, lined with screens and mana crystals, always buzzing like the breath of a lurking storm.
And yet, despite the glorious tech and visual overload…
Jinwoo sighed.
"It's too quiet."
---------
Back in the Comfort Section, he collapsed into his leather recliner.
TV on. Screen wall active.
"Alright. Time to relax. Gimme something dumb. Romcoms. Some classic shonen fights. Maybe a plot twist where the main guy dies for five episodes and comes back stronger."
Click.
Static.
Then—
"Hunter Squad: Earth Justice Delta!!"
He blinked.
Next channel:
"Chef Orc's Dungeon Kitchen!!"
Next:
"Goblin Romance: Forbidden Tunnel Love"
He froze.
"…No way."
He pulled up the browser.
Searched anime.
Nothing.
Manga?
Barely a mention.
Light novels?
Zero results.
Webtoons?
Only guild propaganda comics and clunky monster manuals.
"…This world has no culture."
He stared blankly at the screen, every part of his assassin soul quietly breaking.
"No One Piece. No Bleach. No Naruto. No Attack on Titan. No Spy x Family, Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer… nothing."
This was a world filled with monsters, and somehow the real tragedy was the lack of anime.
"...I have to fix this."
He shot up from the chair, eyes gleaming.
"I'll recreate everything. All of it. They won't even know what hit them. I'll bring back every legendary tale and drop them like they're divine revelations."
He pointed at the screen, as if daring the world to stop him.
"This... is how a Devil becomes a publisher."
-----
But before he could unleash shonen salvation...
He needed something more important than paper and ink.
He needed support. A mind he could trust.
A personality that could keep up with his madness, monitor everything, run simulations, roast him, and deliver battle tactics in the same breath.
An AI.
Jinwoo entered the Monitoring Core.
This room was untouched. Sacred. He'd kept it like this for this very moment.
Tables lined with dismantled hunter tech, monster visors, crystal chips, failed hunter UIs—useless to the world.
Perfect for his kind of work.
He tapped the suspended mana core.
It pulsed.
He pulled back his sleeves and cracked his fingers.
"I want sarcasm. I want intelligence. I want it to quote Shakespeare while calculating enemy formations. I want sass. I want loyalty. I want raw genius."
Zarux appeared behind him again, bowing deeply.
"My Lord. Mana conduits aligned. Ready for activation."
Jinwoo's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Let's make history."
The floor lit up. Mana symbols surged outward. Circuits ignited.
Shadow engineers moved with clockwork precision, crafting the base code that would become…
The Voice of the Base.
His Red Queen.
His JARVIS.
His Skynet (but less murdery... probably).
-----
The world was devoid of anything that could even be called an AI system—nothing even remotely close to the likes of the ones he had encountered in his previous life. A.I.s like Friday, Jarvis, or even the terrifying Skynet had been beyond his wildest expectations. But now, those expectations were his next target.
"Time to do something about it," he muttered to himself as he walked to the heart of the station, the center of his operations—the AI Development Hub. The room was lined with glowing data interfaces and schematics, blueprints scribbled on the walls. His fingers danced over the panels, manipulating the streams of data that floated in the air around him.
He had every tool he needed to create a system that could surpass anything this world had to offer. But one thing was missing—the AI module itself. This world lacked the technological foundation for such a creation, and Jinwoo would have to build it from scratch.
"Guess I'll need to be a bit more... creative," he thought, smirking as his fingers brushed over the old-world tech he had scavenged. A few high-tech processors here, some spell-infused mana cores there. It was all coming together in his head.
The process wasn't going to be easy. He had never built an AI from the ground up before, but the pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place. He had seen enough in his previous life, understood enough about artificial intelligence, and had the resources and intellect of an assassin who'd lived multiple lives. More than anything He had [ADVANCED COMPUTER AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE].... which he had obtained from Gacha Yesterday....This would be a challenge—but it would also be a thrilling one.
"Alright," he muttered, voice filled with determination. "Let's see what we can do, A.R.I.A."
---
The design phase was tedious. Jinwoo's hands moved with practiced precision, sketching circuits, feeding spell codes, and pulling together every piece of data from the Shadow Corps' surveillance systems. His fingers worked at lightning speed, carefully threading together a complex web of technology, mana, and borrowed knowledge.
Each connection was a spark, lighting up his mind with the possibilities. He was channeling his assassin's focus into every small detail—each action a calculated move in this grand experiment. His enemies might be gone, but now, his greatest challenge was to create a partner worthy of the future. A partner who could process data at speeds beyond comprehension, understand the dynamics of this strange world, and, most importantly, offer him the tactical advantage he craved.
Hours passed. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his mind whirring, but he didn't falter. This was no ordinary task. This wasn't just about creating an assistant. This was about creating something that could change the game entirely.
---
Finally, after an agonizing wait, the last piece clicked into place. Jinwoo stood back, eyes gleaming with anticipation as the newly built AI core came to life. A low hum filled the air, then a sudden burst of light erupted from the center of the room as a holographic interface flickered into existence.
"System Boot: A.R.I.A. Initialization Complete."
The voice that followed was crisp and confident, cutting through the static air.
"Hello, Jinwoo," A.R.I.A. spoke, her tone rich and smooth, yet unmistakably mechanical. "I am your Advanced Resourceful Intelligence Assistant. How may I assist you today?"
Jinwoo's lips curled into a satisfied grin. The AI was more than he could have hoped for—her voice soothing, her responses fast, and her database expansive. He could already feel the world shifting in his favor. A.R.I.A. wasn't just a tool; she was a strategic asset, a game-changer.
---
Author's Note:
Whew—what a ride. This chapter was a love letter to every mad genius base-builder, anime-deprived isekai protagonist, and chaotic planner who's ever looked at a barren world and said, "Time to rewrite reality, baby."
We got:
Jinwoo flexing his absurd power and looting boss corpses like he's shopping at Costco,
The Shadow Corps casually building a supervillain lair that Elon Musk would weep over,
The crushing revelation that this world has no anime (the true tragedy),
And finally… the birth of A.R.I.A.—snarky, smart, and about to be the sassiest voice in the shadows since GLaDOS.
Honestly, this chapter was all about momentum and payoff: the dream lab, the AI foundation, and Jinwoo stepping into the role of both shadowy monarch and cultural savior. Because let's be real—no One Piece? That's a war crime.
Next up: chaos. Gacha pulls. Maybe a raid with Johee. Possibly starting the global anime revolution. You know, normal devil stuff.
Stay tuned, and remember:
If the world lacks anime…
You become the anime.
– Devil Out.