I killed the author.
The reason was justified.
Because that bastard had ruined my favorite work.
This wasn’t the first time, either.
After hooking me with charming characters and an exciting story, he would crash and burn with an uncontrollable, runaway plot.
A few months later, he would slap an (R) on it calling it a remake and resume serialization, only to blow up the work again and again like a serial bombing terrorist.
When (R) went beyond (RR) to reach (RRRR), only to end in a hiatus, I couldn’t take it anymore.
They say if you get fooled three times, the fool is an accomplice. Someone might ridicule me, saying, “Aren’t you the idiot for keeping up with that author’s works?”
But there was a reason I had no choice.
Because the work was a “smut novel.”
For a man, choosing a smut novel is a grave and meticulous process, much like a sommelier savoring wine.
In the infinite universe of smut novels, encountering a work whose fetishes resonate with mine is a moment akin to a miracle.
I witnessed a miracle in Author [T]’s work, and I became his believer.
When I was with his works, I could escape the alienation and anxiety of life, liberated from the agony of deprivation.
In other words, I could bust a satisfying nut.
But in the end, there was a limit.
On the day his final work was abandoned, a believer betrayed by his god screamed out:
“I will kill you… Author [T]….”
I sent a torrent of curses spanning 5,700 characters.
I was blocked after a 13-hour protest call to Pianobel’s customer service.
I wandered through every gallery and community, writing furious accusation posts about the author.
I poured out every act of resentment humanly possible, drenched in the sticky filth of obsession and rage.
After months of persistent harassment, Author [T] finally disappeared.
Leaving behind only the words:
“This user has deleted their account.”
\- Click.
I sat by the window and lit a cigarette with the heart of a son who had murdered his father.
“Cough, cough!”
The taste of my first cigarette was foul.
I stubbed the remaining butt out in a beer can and lay down with a hazy feeling.
“I want to have sex.”
I made a pointless wish, as usual.
I missed Author [T], whom I could no longer see.
* * *
\- Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes opened at the artificial buzzing.
A dim light, the thick smell of disinfectant, and a familiar ceiling.
It was a hospital room.
An IV was stuck in my arm, and my neck was fixed with a brace.
“What… in the world.”
I barely raised my body and picked up my phone.
But the hand holding the phone was somehow smaller than usual.
‘Huh?’
I turned on the phone camera.
The reflection of “me” beyond the screen.
Incredibly handsome.
This was on another level from the mirror I checked after my morning shower while thinking, “Looking sharp today?”
A beautiful boy showing off androgynous features was making a blank expression.
‘Is this… my face?’
After pinching my face, making fatal expressions, and striking some cringeworthy poses, I came to understand the situation.
“So this is possession.”
The final tech tree of a web novel addict: I had finally achieved possession of a character in a story.
‘Which novel did I enter?’
A story among the novels I’d read recently that started with this kind of development…
“I have no idea.”
There were too many to tell.
Still, the situation didn’t look bad.
My neck with the brace stung, but seeing as I was lying comfortably in a hospital room, there must have been a guardian who brought me here.
Should I wait until someone comes?
No, there was something to do first.
“Status window.”
\- Pop!
A blue information screen unfolded before my eyes like a game.
Name – [Yu Sejin]
Gender – [Male]
Age – [19]
Skill – [Healing (A)]
“Oh.”
So this was the status window I’d only heard about.
I was starting to actually feel that I had entered a work of fiction.
‘How do I use the skill?’
I focused on the pain in my neck and tried conceptualizing [Heal] in my mind.
\- Flash!
A blue light flashed like a special effect, and the pain beneath the brace vanished.
“This actually works.”
At the same time, I felt strength drain from my body.
In any case, it was undoubtedly an incredibly useful power.
\- Creak.
Then, the hospital room door opened.
The dim room brightened with light from the hallway.
“Who…?”
A woman in a tracksuit entered.
“Ahem, how is your condition… are you alright?”
A gentle voice, as if trying to reassure a small animal.
By her outfit, she didn’t seem to be a nurse. She was probably my guardian.
As she approached slowly, I could see her face clearly.
Big, pretty eyes and cutely folded eye corners, a pert nose.
Pink lips and pale skin that harmoniously stood out.
Black hair flowing down to her chest.
‘Wow… she’s really pretty.’
Admiration flowed out at her simple yet captivating beauty.
And then, I recalled her name.
\- Shin Harin.
A beauty exactly as seen in the novel’s illustrations.
‘If it’s a novel where Shin Harin appears….’
Surely… the work that made Author [T] be called the God of Male Leads.
That was the title of the novel I had possessed.
‘It was a novel with an apocalyptic atmosphere.’
The protagonist of a world perishing due to the Gate crisis regresses to a reversed world, struggling like a dog to stop the apocalypse.
‘The fetish point was that the protagonist, unaware it was a gender-reversed world, naturally charmed women or was asked to do this and that.’
The problem was that the bastard author couldn’t let go of his masterpiece complex, twisted the story several times, and went on hiatus after massacring the characters without resolving anything.
‘Thinking about it again pisses me off. Author, you crazy bastard.’
As I recalled that miserable moment and let out a small breath, the status window forcefully unfolded before my eyes.
\- Pop!
‘???’
The moment I saw the status window’s text, my head began to burn hot.
And what surfaced were Yu Sejin’s memories.
\- A world driven to the brink of destruction by the outbreak of the Gate crisis.
\- A super-massive Gate and the Monster Queen.
\- The final battle waged after Awakening and a bloody struggle.
\- Annihilation together with the Gate core after mutual destruction. And regression.
And I could naturally feel it.
That the reason I became the protagonist of the novel wasn’t coincidence, but the intention of that author bastard.
And…
The identity of the status window tauntingly displaying phrases was the alter ego of Author [T], who had followed me from reality.
‘What are you scheming?’
Seeing the sordid phrase on the status window, I understood the situation.
Author [T], unable to accept my just punishment for the crime of writing the novel into a mess.
This bastard dropped me into the novel, and on top of that, followed me around clinging to the status window.
Was he planning to laugh at me while I struggled in the apocalyptic world?
But I wasn’t worried at all about dying in agony as the author wished.
‘For a web novel reader, possession is a reward instead.’
Now that I’d become the protagonist, a perfect life plan of achieving a happy ending and enjoying a harem life clicked into place in my head.
Uha uha, a happy healing life awaits me!
\- Pop.
I swatted away the author-status window bastard muttering like a loser.
And I turned my head to the pure beauty Shin Harin, who had been looking at me with worried eyes.
As I tried to greet her like a gentleman, my head spun and my vision blurred.
‘Is this a backlash from recovering my memories…?’
Heat rose as if I had the flu, and it was hard to endure.
In the end, the moment I lost control and collapsed.
“A-are you okay?”
Shin Harin rushed over and supported my body.
“You have a severe fever… wh-what should I do?”
Leaning against her soft chest as she flustered, I thought:
‘Let’s enjoy this for a bit.’
Happy ending and harem plans aside, for now, I wanted to enjoy the soft sensation I felt.
“Um… please hold my hand….”
I said, putting on the most pitiful voice I could.
“Huh? O-okay! Here….”
“Could I also have some water…?”
“Ah, yes, okay. Here you go.”
Leaning against her abundant chest, sipping water the beauty slowly gave me.
‘This is truly the best.’
After that, enjoying her soft chest and Shin Harin’s care, I fell into a peaceful sleep.
The first night in the hiatus-stricken gender-reversed world was filled with happiness.
* * *
\- Snore… snore…
Harin gazed at the boy sleeping like an angel.
He was a wondrous child.
As if all the beauty of the world had been gathered and crafted into him.
Could he be a real angel? Or a little devil who seduces women?
The boy’s appearance was so enchanting that it invited such delusions.
‘Yu Sejin… even his name is pretty.’
Harin recalled her first meeting with the boy.
It was definitely a night when she was preparing for employment and writing her resume as usual.
\- Shin Harin
\- 28 years old, female
\- Graduated from a four-year humanities college
\- Honorably discharged as an Army sergeant
“Hmm….”
Even racking her brains, nothing usable came to mind.
Harin glared at the empty career section of her resume and got up from her seat.
“Sigh… should I write that I got an award for excellent squad leader?”
After going through the girls’ middle school-high school tech tree and playing soccer to her heart’s content, she finally got into college after three tries, unable to win against her mother’s nagging that she needed a degree to survive.
Forcing herself through studies she had no interest in, getting dragged into the military and wasting two years, barely filling remaining credits to graduate—there was Shin Harin, 28 and unemployed.
If she wrote a story like that, the interviewer would just love it.
Thinking that, she grabbed her jacket.
Checking the clock, it was September 17th, 11:50 PM.
“Better go buy some beer~”
She headed to the convenience store, enjoying the weather where the heat had subsided.
Suddenly, she saw a shooting star falling in the night sky.
A shooting star seen with real eyes rather than through a screen was more beautiful than imagined.
“Wow… ah! A wish, I should make a wish.”
Seeing a shooting star means making a wish. Common sense.
What should I wish for…?
Please let me get a job?
As an unemployed jobless person, it was her most desperate wish, but the thought that she wanted to make a more special wish crossed her mind.
Then, the sad yearning of a female accumulated over a dozen years burst out.
“Please let me spend this Christmas with a man…!”
For some reason, tears welled up a bit.
When she looked at the sky again, the shooting star was gone.
With an embarrassed yet slightly expectant, fluttering heart, what Shin Harin discovered as she moved her steps.
Was a blood-covered boy collapsed in an alley.