I'm the Bad Guy: Bigger, Badder, and Uncut: A Supervillain LitRPG Adventure

by Simon Archer

  The first thing I could do was play along with my employers for now. I had already seen some of the flaws that the game already had along the way, and this new mechanic wasn’t going to be any different. I could find a loophole to abuse soon enough. If they were going to use it as a leash, I’d turn it into a tether to an anchor, sinking them down as I explored the depths of their oversights. I wasn’t going to let anyone controlled me. I wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

  Bringing up the mirror in my pocket, I pulled up the character display. Just like that, a list of every last employee and minion under me appeared. Given that it was half a million now, I was thankful that it was in alphabetical order. Beside the list was a series of management positions, with interesting titles that I wasn’t going to use. Who had even heard of a ‘Technical Oversight and Digital Operations’ manager? The TODO manager? Were they serious about this? The descriptions weren’t exactly inspired, either, but the basics were simple enough to grasp that it didn’t matter. The bottom line was that my executives would have had their own subordinate executives to help them out. I just had to go about picking the titles that best fit their current job descriptions.

  For the TODO manager, I figured that Yomura would be perfect for the gig. That way, he wasn’t the only one running the tech portion of my empire anymore, now having an army of capable hackers handpicked by him and cleared by me. And, while I was at it, I might as well check their stats.:

  Hitsugaya Yomura, Lvl 43 Blackhat

  Power: 55 Menace: 62

  Strength: 82 Brains: 121

  Speed: 63

  Management: Technical Oversight and Digital Operations - with a series of skilled programmers and hackers underneath, this manager can focus on applying their skills at shaping the digital environment of your organization, boosting cybersecurity, automated security measures, and intelligence gathering.

  -50% time required to complete for hacking and programming projects taking longer than 24 hours.

  -10 levels to difficulty on all hacking tasks for minions working in this manager’s department

  That would have been nice to have before. I might have been able to program my own damn robots without having to resort to flash-conquering a city to get a decent set. Could have changed the entire plan. Eh, no use getting worked up over the past. We had it now, and we could use it to speed a lot of things along the way. Hell, that might have cut out a few parts of the ultimate plan altogether and streamlined things immensely.

  Next up was the Scientific Weaponization and Application of Research Development department, or SWARD, which could only go to Nick. With this, he would have had his own research team to help him workshop his crazy ideas, along with as many happy subjects for his stranger experiments as he could ever want:

  Nicholas Flamel, Lvl 43 Inventor

  Power: 49 Menace: 13

  Strength: 23 Brains: 150

  Speed: 62

  Management: Scientific Weaponization And Application of Research and Development - advancing the technological progress of the world by centuries with every idea, the manager can devote his time to the extraordinary, leaving the menial labor to the subordinates while he reinvents the way the world functions.

  +20% chance for highest rewards on all experiments

  +200% to minimum rewards of failed experiments

  That could be fun. Did that also apply to my experiments? If so, I could really use that. It might make taking random heroes from missions a bit more viable for me. I could get three times as many rewards from taking them, regardless of whether or not I could get them. Three vials filled with minor superpowers turned into nine automatically. Hell, in some cases, considering I could exchange ten vials of any superpower for the next tier up, then it might have been nearly as lucrative for me to fail as well as succeed. I could replace the superpowers that some of my lower ranks had with better ones, raising the overall strength of my syndicate that much more.

  Next up, I had a few spots open in my Battlefield Adaptations and General Offensive Combat Corps. The BAGOCC was essentially the on-sight military and muscle for my syndicate wherever our presence was known, and leadership within it consisted mostly of battalion command in the thick of things. Joe and Crazy Cane were always happy in a fight, probably leading from the front, and they had enough expertise to help train everyone to standard their powers.

  Joe Camish, Lvl 42 Enforcer

  Power: 26 Menace 25

  Strength: 130 Brains: 10

  Speed: 52

  Management: Battlefield Adaptations and General Offensive Combat Corps - A warrior can slay a man, but a leader of warriors can slay a nation. Any combat operation can be performed with an excellent commander’s insight into the flow of a battle.

  +20% damage to garrisoned structures by all soldiers under this manager’s command

  Shock Trooper Commander: +50% of the manager’s strength stat to all soldiers’ strength while the manager is within their line of sight.

  Cain “Crazy Cane” Kartap, Lvl 42 Gladiator

  Power: 48 Menace: 45

  Strength: 55 Brains: 15

  Speed: 105

  Management: Battlefield Adaptations and General Offensive Combat Corps - A warrior can slay a man, but a leader of warriors can slay a nation. Any combat operation can be performed with an excellent commander’s insight into the flow of a battle.

  +20% damage to enemy soldiers for all soldiers under this manager’s command.

  Master of Attrition: +20% health regeneration for all soldiers while the manager is within their line of sight

  Alright, simple enough: I would have Joe take the lead whenever I needed to take down enemy fortifications, and Cain could defend against and overwhelm any army as instructed. Would having that have changed my plans for taking down New Carmanelo? Not particularly. I didn’t lose a single soldier in that last fight, and I can always build more robots. Well, now I had some god attacking options to go with all the defense I’d built up.

  Ranking as my favorite acronym so far, the Covert Assassinations and Tactical Support department was something I didn’t actually have already. As far as I could tell, it was basically a set of black ops teams. Of course, the CATS management position had to go to FrickaFresh Freddie. While he was exceptional as a lone combatant, I’d have imagined that he’d have loved the idea of running his own branch of sniper agents for any of the times I required a subtler touch and a voice needed silencing:

  FrickaFresh Freddie, Lvl 42 Sniper

  Power: 69 Menace: 29

  Strength: 26 Brains: 25

  Speed:45

  Management: Covert Assassinations and Tactical Support - any fight can be ended before it even started, and any war can be started or finished with the synchronized efficiency of a good manager of this set of teams

  +50% range on all sniper-class weapons for all minions in this department

  +20% chance to instantly kill any target with a critical shot for all minions in this department

  Those benefits spoke for themselves. Deadlier and more effective snipers were always a bonus to have. Whatever work they did could only benefit me.

  Finally, there was a spot as the Magical, Occult, and Metaphysical Manipulation and Appreciation. As the title covered, they handled all the magic things that this game included. I couldn’t help but chuckle. This was the best outfit for Anu Bysma, being my resident magical advisor and consulting mystery wizard, but he was doomed to be the manager of MOMMA:

  Anu Bysma, Lvl 45 Warlock

  Power:120 Menace:160

  Strength:120 Brains:85

  Speed:117

  Management: Magical, Occult, and Metaphysical Manipulation and Appreciation - all the supernatural powers, the things that go bump in the night, the spells and curses, all belong to this manager and their otherworldly knowledge.

  +25% Magic resistance to all minions

  +25% rewards from ritual spells and curses

  Hehe, magic could suck my villainous balls. I
just hoped I didn’t accidentally start a cult by giving Anu his own group of people to boss around. Maybe I’d have just checked up on them from time to time just to make sure that they didn’t do anything particularly weird. Or, at least, their weird stuff benefited me without summoning some world-ending demon or something. I wouldn’t have put it past the developers of this game to put something like that in their game, even if on accident. I was breaking a lot of rules and didn’t want to stumble into anything like that.

  That really only left my three girls. They were already my original raid bosses, which meant that they already had something akin to leadership roles designated by the system. Granted, a raid boss could just as easily be in charge of an entire gang or syndicate, so I guess there was some way to document their position in the new mechanic officially. I just had to find something that fit their authority as my top generals overseeing the entire syndicate on my behalf.

  As it so happened, there was something that fit the bill perfectly for each of them. And, on top of that, they were relatively new concepts within my organization, or just ones that could have used a bit more fleshing out as far as responsibilities and duties were concerned. If I hadn’t assigned one of my girls to the position, it might have never been an official part of my organization, even though all the tasks were being covered in different ways beforehand.

  If anyone thought that I was playing favorites by giving my girls the highest-ranking jobs with the least ridiculous job titles, they were absolutely correct. Even if these weren’t special titles exclusive to raid bosses, I wasn’t opposed to a little nepotism, especially when I honestly thought that they would do a good job otherwise at their posts. That, and the alternatives were just too ridiculous to think about picking:

  Minou Rouge, Lvl 45 Lioness

  Power: 55 Menace: 50

  Strength: 85 Brains: 42

  Speed: 105

  Management: Mistress of Secrets - there is no rumor that goes unnoticed, no conversation unheard, or corner of the world unseen by the eyes of the mistress of the spies. They know all that comes within their domain, all without so much as a gasp left out of reach.

  +25% range of information network

  +3 operative bases in foreign territory

  Yomura was already handling a lot of the information gathering through his dark web contacts, but a spy network with international spies? Yes, please. More information was always good. Yes to more information. With them, I could begin immediately on establishing footholds across oceans, and really get this empire started right. That would fit in perfectly with the next stage of the plan, making me that much closer to my ultimate prize of the whole world under my thumb.

  I didn’t think that Minou would have forgiven me if I had chosen my second option for her, manager for the First Energy Logistics of International Narcotics and Evictions. From the description, it sounded like it was in charge of a worldwide illicit drug trade and slumlord real estate empire, but I was really only thinking about it because it spelled FELINE. She was already going to be in charge of the CATS, and I might have been pushing it a bit if I tried for both.

  Katlyn Marcetique, Lvl 45 Flame Empress

  Power: 75 Menace: 70

  Strength: 50 Brains: 72

  Speed: 139

  Management: Mistress of War - The unerring eye of the tactical mind at work can bring victory at any cost. A war cannot be won with just good soldiers, but with a decisive conquest without mercy.

  +25% movement speed of troops between allied and native territories

  +25% defensive power per combat unit in allied country

  This one was a no-brainer, obviously. Kate loved fighting, so putting her in charge of the tactics for war couldn’t have been an easier decision. At first, the description didn’t seem to match the abilities that went with it, until I realized that an aggressive offense is easier to focus on with the defense of existing territories easily covered.

  I mean, it was either this or the manager of the Wartime Offensive Martial Battle Army of Terror. Managing the WOMBAT essentially equated to leading an army, anyway, but with more focus on guns for some reason. I didn’t need that as much as the defense, so the WOMBAT was never meant to be.

  And it was another case of not wanting to die at my girl’s hands when they heard about their terrible job title. It was bad enough that she had to manage the BAGOCCs, but knowing that they were coming from her WOMBAT may have been too much. Plus, that didn’t even make sense. Maybe if it was some kind of acronym like CHICKEN, HEN, or ROOSTER? Eh, I didn’t find anything that fit the bill well. Cool title for her, too.

  Natasha, Lvl 45 Fluffmancer

  Power: 135 Menace:15

  Strength:38 Brains: 26

  Speed: 60

  Management: Mistress of Propaganda - the true force driving any truly formidable political power to the forefront of history isn’t just the guns and the secrets, but the will of the people. Any leader who can win the hearts and minds of his political base is second only to the one who can turn their enemy’s subjects against themselves.

  +25% loyalty for all minions, regardless of future actions or consequences

  -25% loyalty to their current superiors for all the minions of anyone hostile to your organization

  A head of public relations wasn’t something I’d actually considered when I thought of powerful empires, but now it did make a lot of sense. Not only could I keep my own people happy, but anyone new was more likely to stay in line with someone making sure they thought well of my syndicate. Keeping possessions was just as important, if not more so, than just taking them from others, and I wanted everything from everyone.

  Unlike the other girls, I was confident that I could have given her management over a Biological Utilities and Terraforming Technologies department, and she would have loved being the BUTT manager. I didn’t need to fight off global warming or colonize any uninhabited planets that demanded terraforming, and the ‘biological utilities’ just referred to things like toilets, so she got the job that didn’t involve putting a bathroom on Mars.

  Now, with the departments created, and the managers assigned, I reflected on the unprecedented amount of new people flooding into the syndicate. While we expected to have a lot of stragglers coming in from Don John’s mafia, they couldn’t have had this many people around, right? There had to be somewhere else that they were coming from.

  I closed out the menu for departments and moved a tab showing my list of current employees. Now that I had the organizational structures, the game already allowed me to shift all the standby recruits into current employees. I scrolled through the list from newest first, checking to see where this influx originated by checking the hometowns of the people here.

  To my surprise, we were apparently getting recruits from everywhere around us, including cities that we hadn’t conquered yet. With all the recruits pouring into the fold from every criminal that thought they deserved a slice of my profits, we were outpacing the growth I ever thought we’d have been capable of at this stage. The underground fame that we’d attained from taking the next city was more than enough to advertise for us.

  With that kind of growth, the next phase of the plan was even more crucial to complete quickly. We had most of it already working out, but we had to finalize the final parts before anyone caught onto our operation’s size. We’d been growing inside the country of Numania like a parasite, hiding inside the cities that we took over quietly. These last two attacks were going to draw a whole lot of attention, as well as the massive economic presence I just developed.

  The only saving grace delaying anyone from making the connection between the two conquered cities was the vast difference between the methods. One was done as a straight invasion of troops from a single aircraft carrier, while the other looked more like an alien invasion. If we were lucky, that would throw people off long enough for us to move past the point of no return when they finally caught on. Once we’d finally made it there, everything else was essen
tially a cakewalk.

  “Everyone, into the meeting room.” I pressed a button on my desk to call all of my new managers at once. “We’ve got to discuss the next phase and get it over with as soon as physically possible.”

  Until we’d secured that next step quickly, we were incredibly vulnerable.

  19

  A hop, a skip, and a jump later, and everyone was already into the meeting room by the time I had made it there myself. With their new management titles came new fancy clothes, and everyone was looking sharp as I gave the ensemble a scan across. It really made me think of the contrast between their first recruitment and now as stark as possible.

  Joe, for example, had just been a big street thug with a T-shirt and a pair of pants to his name. Now, there was more black hair on him than fur, he stood taller than most people in the room even as he walked on his knuckles, and he decked himself out in black cuffs to match the futuristic chest armor he wore.

  Nick had gone from the classic stoner look to a mad scientist, sporting a buttoned lab coat and a pair of goggles to match his sinister mustache and chin beard, all while keeping the mop of hair on his head from his stoner origins.

  Crazy Cane may have been a bad example, since he still felt the need to show off his full-body tattoos like always, with only the addition of spiked shoulder pads strapped to him to differentiate himself from his older self.

  Yomura had always been the tallest and hardest to accommodate for clothing, but the way he had modified his computer interface with his outfit to look like samurai armor was inspired.

  FrickaFresh Freddie was doing his best to make the black tights of a covert operative look just as ‘gangster’ as when he was part of a rival gang by adding a hoodie and a pair of expensive tennis shoes.