I killed the author.
The reason is justified.
Because that bastard of an author ruined my favorite work.
This isn't even the first time.
He hooks you with charming characters and an exciting story, then crashes and burns with an unmanageable runaway plot.
A few months later, he slaps on an (R), calling it a remake and resumes the series, only to blow up the work again and again like a serial bombing terrorist.
When it went from (R) past (RR) to (RRRR), and even that ended on a note of hiatus, I couldn't take it anymore.
They say fool me three times and you're an accomplice. Someone might sneer, "Aren't you the idiot for sticking with that author's works?"
But there's a reason I couldn't help it.
Because that work was an 'erotic novel.'
For a man, choosing an erotic novel is a solemn and demanding process, like a sommelier savoring wine.
In the infinite universe of erotic novels, encountering a work that resonates with your personal kink is nothing short of a miraculous moment.
I witnessed that miracle in Author [T]'s work, and I became his believer.
When I was with his work, I could escape the alienation and anxiety of life; I could be liberated from the pain of deprivation.
In other words, I could bust a satisfying nut.
But there was a limit.
On the day even his final work was abandoned, a believer betrayed by his god howled.
'I'll kill you... Author [T]....'
I sent a curse-filled letter 5,700 characters long.
After a 13-hour protest call to Pianovel's customer service, I got blocked.
I roamed all sorts of galleries and communities, writing angry exposés about the author.
With the sticky, suffocating weight of obsession and rage, I poured out every act of resentment humanly possible without stop.
After months of relentless witch hunts, Author [T] finally disappeared.
'This account has been deactivated.'
Leaving behind only those words.
- Click.
Sitting by the window with the feeling of a son who murdered his father, I lit a cigarette.
"*Cough! Cough!*"
My first taste of tobacco was disgusting.
I stubbed the remaining butt out in a beer can and lay down with a hazy feeling.
"I want to have sex."
I made my usual pointless wish.
I missed Author [T], whom I could no longer see.
* * *
- Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes opened to an artificial buzzer sound.
A dim light. The pungent smell of disinfectant. And a familiar ceiling.
It was a hospital room.
An IV was stuck in my arm, and my neck was immobilized with a brace.
"What the... what's going on."
I barely sat up and grabbed my phone.
But the hand holding the phone was somehow smaller than usual.
'Huh?'
I turned on the phone camera.
My reflection in the screen.
Incredibly handsome.
This was a whole different level from the mirror I checked after my morning shower, thinking, "Looking sharp today?"
A beautiful boy with androgynous looks was making a blank expression.
'Is this... my face?'
After rubbing my face, trying some 'fatal' expressions, and striking a few cringe poses, I began to understand the situation.
"This is possession."
The final technique of a web novel addict—getting possessed into a character in the story—I had finally achieved it.
'Which novel did I enter?'
A story that starts with this kind of development, among the novels I've read recently...
"I don't know."
There were too many to tell.
Still, the situation didn't look bad.
My neck with the brace ached, but seeing how I was lying comfortably in a hospital room, there must be a guardian who brought me here.
Should I wait until someone comes?
No, there's something I should do first.
"Status window."
- Pop.
A blue information screen unfolded before my eyes like a game.
Name - [Yusejin]
Gender - [Male]
Age - [19]
Skill - [Heal (A)]
"Oh."
So this was the status window I'd only heard about.
I was starting to feel that I'd really entered a story.
'How do I use the skill?'
I focused on the pain in my neck that I'd been feeling and tried to conceptualize [Heal] in my head.
- Flash.
A blue light flashed like a special effect, and the pain under the brace vanished.
"So it really works."
At the same time, I felt my strength draining away.
Anyway, there was no doubt this was an incredibly useful power.
- Clack.
Just then, the hospital room door opened.
The dark room brightened with the 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.
From her clothes, she didn't seem to be a nurse. Probably my guardian.
As she approached slowly, I could see her face clearly.
Big, pretty eyes and cutely curved eye corners, a pert nose.
Pink lips and white skin that stood out harmoniously.
Black hair flowing down to her chest.
'Wow... she's really pretty.'
Simple as she was, I couldn't help but marvel at her captivating beauty.
And then, I recalled her name.
- Sin Harin.
A beauty exactly as seen in the novel's illustrations.
'If it's a novel where Sin Harin appears...'
Surely... the work that earned Author [T] the title of God of Male Leads.
That was the title of the novel I possessed.
'It was a novel with an apocalyptic vibe.'
A story where the protagonist of a world falling to ruin due to the Gate crisis regresses to a reversed world and busts his ass to prevent the apocalypse.
'The turn-on point was the protagonist not realizing it's a gender-reversed world, naturally seducing women or getting asked for all sorts of things.'
The problem was that the bastard author, unable to let go of his damn masterpiece syndrome, twisted the story over and over, couldn't resolve it, massacred the characters, and went on hiatus.
'Pisses me off just thinking about it again. That crazy bastard.'
As I recalled that horrendous moment and let out a small sigh, the status window popped up on its own.
- Pop!
'???'
The moment I saw the text on the status window, my head began burning up.
And what surfaced were 'Yusejin's' memories.
- The outbreak of the Gate crisis and a world driven to the brink of destruction.
- A supermassive Gate and the Monster Queen.
- The final battle fought after Awakening and bloodshed.
- Mutual destruction followed by annihilation alongside the Gate Core. 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...
That the identity of the status window taunting me with its message was a fragment of Author [T] who had followed me from reality.
'What are you scheming?'
Seeing the petty text 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.
Not content with dropping me into the novel, this bastard clung to the status window and followed me.
Did he plan to laugh while watching me struggle in this apocalyptic world?
But I wasn't worried at all about dying in agony as the author wished.
'For a web novel reader, getting possessed into a novel is a reward instead.'
Now that I'd become the protagonist, a perfect life plan came together in my head: achieving a happy ending and enjoying a harem life.
A glorious happy healing life awaits me!
- Pop.
I dismissed the author-status window bastard muttering like a loser.
And I turned my head toward the pure beauty, Sin 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...?'
Fever rose as if I had the flu, and it was hard to endure.
In the end, the moment I lost my balance and collapsed.
"A-are you okay?"
Sin Harin ran to me and caught me in her arms.
"You have a terrible fever... W-what should I do?"
Leaning against her voluptuous, soft chest while she panicked, I thought.
'Let's enjoy this for a bit.'
Happy ending or harem plan aside, for now, I wanted to enjoy the soft sensation I was feeling.
"Um... please hold my hand...."
I spoke in the most pitiful voice I could manage.
"Huh? S-sure! Here...."
"Could I also have just one sip of water...."
"Ah, yes, right. Here it is."
Leaning against her ample bosom, sipping water the beauty poured for me bit by bit.
'This is the best.'
After that, enjoying her soft chest and Sin Harin's care, I drifted into a blissful sleep.
The first night in the gender-reversed world left on hiatus was filled with happiness.
* * *
- Snore... Snore...
Harin gazed at the boy sleeping like an angel.
He was a peculiar boy.
A figure as if all the beauty in the world had been gathered and sculpted.
Could he be a real angel? Or a little devil that seduces women?
The boy's appearance was so captivating that it invited such delusions.
'Yusejin... even his name is pretty.'
Harin recalled her first meeting with the boy.
It was surely a night when she was preparing for employment and writing her resume as usual.
- Sin Harin
- 28 years old, Female
- Graduated from a 4-year humanities university
- Completed service as an Army Sergeant
...
"Hmm...."
Nothing came to mind no matter how hard she racked her brain.
Harin glared at the empty career section of her resume and got up from her seat.
"Sigh... should I write that I got an exemplary squad leader commendation?"
Having gone down the girls' middle school and high school tech tree while doing nothing but soccer, she finally got into university after three attempts, unable to withstand her mother's nagging that she needed a degree to survive.
Forcing herself through studies she had no interest in, getting dragged to the army and wasting two years, barely filling her remaining credits to graduate—this was how Sin Harin, 28 years old, jobless and unemployed, came to be.
If she wrote a story like that, the interviewer would just love it. Thinking so, she grabbed her jacket.
Checking the clock, the time was September 17th, 11:50 PM.
"I should go buy some beer~"
Enjoying the weather where the sweltering heat had subsided, she headed toward the convenience store.
Suddenly, she saw a shooting star falling in the night sky.
The shooting star seen with real eyes rather than through a screen was more beautiful than she had imagined.
"Wow... Ah! I have to make a wish, a wish."
You make a wish when you see a shooting star. It's common sense.
What wish should I make....
Please let me get a job?
As an unemployed jobless woman, it was her most desperate wish, but the thought of wanting to make a more special wish crossed her mind.
Then, the sorrowful desire of a female, accumulated over more than a decade and yearned for gloomily, burst out.
"Please let me spend this Christmas with a man...!"
For some reason, tears welled up slightly.
When she looked back at the sky, the shooting star was gone.
With a fluttering heart—both embarrassed and slightly hopeful—Sin Harin walked on, and what she discovered was.
A boy covered in blood, collapsed in an alleyway.