At the moment the others began fighting in their respective locations, Hyunwoo was slowly climbing the stairs, looking around.
—This is Team A. Zero is currently pursuing the villain Weather, one of the Chungbuk branch chiefs under the evil mastermind who made the artificial rain fall. He says he’ll handle it himself—but just in case, I’ll stop him if he tries to go too far.
—This is Team B. As everyone expected, we’re engaged with heroes and villains, but—is there anyone available for support? Please help us out. And if possible, switch my team while you’re at it.
Even as his comrades’ voices rang in his ears from time to time, he acted as if he hadn’t heard them, continuing to look around the academy where he had once belonged as he moved on.
The stairs that had once been spotless were now dirtied with blood and flesh, and the clean white walls they had jokingly said looked like a mental hospital were scorched and destroyed by the smoke rising from clashing abilities and the weapons that had been swung through them.
But he still walked without any particular emotion. It wasn’t a change one could call minor; if anything, it was a transformation drastic enough to be called grotesque—but to him, it wasn’t a change that mattered much.
—This is Team C. We’re sweeping up all the villains on the first floor, but—Ash has just run into the hero Snow Woman. Judging from the look in her eyes, she seems like she’s about to engage—should I stop her?
“The moment you seriously injure her, that day will be the day of your funeral rites. I know you’re listening. Keep it moderate and get out, Ash.”
Having shown no response until then, he frowned and answered the report that came in just as he reached the third floor. But at the explosion that soon followed, he clicked his tongue and pulled the in-ear out altogether.
“Not a single thing has changed.”
Not a single thing had changed from the past. The still countless stairs, the school interior that had no elevator despite having six floors, the white walls that seemed likely to drive a person insane—to his eyes, there was no change. The traces of battle had transformed the inside of the school from a neat academy into something no different from an abandoned building, but to him, it looked as if nothing had changed at all.
“...I’m sick of this.”
Villains still wandering the corridors. Students being swung around by them and screaming, whether they had fled all the way here or not.
There were those buried under rubble where the wall had collapsed, and there were those groaning after being shot—but they still only hoped for help.
Ignoring those who tried to ask for aid, he entered the corridor and touched the mask he was wearing. Perhaps it was only natural that gazes gathered on him. After all, someone they had never seen in their lives was strolling down the hallway as if nothing were happening, wearing a suspicious mask.
“Never seen you before. Who the hell are—”
The villain beside him grabbed him by the collar and growled—
“I’d recommend not putting your hands on me.”
“What the hell are you saying, you bastard!”
Ignoring his words, the villain yanked the clothes he was holding and swung his fist—
Tap.
“...Huh?”
Or rather, he tried to.
A crack that began at his arm spread as if it were contagious, and his body split apart in an instant, falling downward as it was. The upper half, still wearing a bewildered expression, collapsed to the ground and rolled across the floor, while the lower half still struggled to remain firmly standing on two feet. It was almost laughable.
He had killed a person. And without even lifting a finger. Those who witnessed it split broadly into two kinds.
“Hiiiiiik!”
Those who saw him continue walking forward as if nothing had happened, drawing the sword at his waist, and fled in terror—
“You bastard—!”
And those who charged toward him, swinging weapons, aiming guns, and trying to use their abilities.
Most of the students were the former, and the villains were the latter. Thinking that this made it easier to clean up the trash, he swung his sword at the one at the very front, who was charging in with sparks bursting all over his body.
“Ghk—”
The villain tried to dodge, but the sword changed its trajectory as it followed the movement of his body, and his eyes froze as they turned startled.
And the moment the tip of the blade touched his body—
Slaaaash!
Just like the very first villain who had died, his body was sliced horizontally, and he died on the spot. Without even a chance to scream, he scattered blood and tumbled across the floor, while Hyunwoo still did not stop walking.
“Kill him—!”
With a sound like a scream, more than ten villains rushed toward him, and bullets were fired through the gaps between them.
Kakang!
“...What?”
But before the bullets could touch his body, they split apart without a trace and vanished, and those who had been charging at him split open from their fingertips the moment they reached out, blood spraying.
After that, it was the same. The villains charged, blood sprayed, they collapsed—and he still advanced. The same situation repeated dozens of times, and as the number of villains gradually dwindled—
“D-don’t come any closer!”
In the end, the only one left around Hyunwoo was a single person crawling on the ground. The rest were only those who stared at him with eyes full of fear.
He stopped walking for a moment, then quietly moved toward the villain who had begun crawling toward the wall.
“Hiiik!”
The man thrust out the muzzle of his gun and glared at him with terror-filled eyes, but Hyunwoo still approached him and bent down.
“If you come any closer—”
“Then shoot.”
The man’s pupils shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck them. But after flatly saying that, Hyunwoo brought the tip of his sword to the man’s shoulder and pressed, thrusting it in with force.
“...What?”
The villain let out a sound of confusion when he felt none of the pain that should have come from his shoulder, and slowly lowered his head to look at it. Why did he feel no pain when the sword had stabbed him? When his gaze fell on the blade, he found the answer.
The sword was blunt. The blade that should have stabbed and cut an opponent had no edge, and the tip was merely rounded.
Perhaps because he, too, was a villain, he was quickly able to realize what the sword this monster before him had used to cut down villains was made of.
“—Plastic?”
“You know well.”
A sword made of plastic. There was no way one could kill people with this, so how was the man before him going around killing people? And that mask, that appearance of a man with his hair tied back, the black earring in his ear, and the gray kendo uniform—
“Ah.”
He realized the identity of the villain before him. Seeing his expression, Hyunwoo raised the corners of his mouth hidden behind the mask.
“Guardian.”
The head of the organization that hunted villains, including the Brigade of Evil, was standing before a mere bottom-rung villain. The moment he realized that, he felt the strength drain from the finger he had set on the trigger, and as he uttered Hyunwoo’s villain name one last time—
“Goodbye, extra.”
He met his death.
Blood sprayed. His gray clothes were stained red, and dark crimson liquid ran down the white cat mask, wetting the floor.
But without even thinking of wiping it away, he immediately straightened up, put the sword back into the sheath at his waist, and turned around.
Was it because time had been delayed? His steps grew even faster, and there were no longer any villains blocking his path. Only students remained, staring at him with eyes full of fear.
It was always the same. In his eyes, nothing seemed different at all.
Heroes struggled and threw themselves forward to protect peace, but villains shouted that their peace was false. They sneered that their peace existed atop a shoddy tower built from bloodstained corpses, and that it could collapse at any time.
Citizens relied on heroes while evaluating them at the same time. Despite being the ones protected, they demanded yet more sacrifice, tried to build the tower again by turning heroes into corpses, and applied double standards while worrying about the safety of those who stole lives.
Whoever made it, wasn’t this truly a rotten world? This damn world. Living ordinary lives within a false peace created from the deaths and sacrifices of countless people—did that make any sense?
No, even if this were not a false peace but a true peace, nothing would change. After all, a peaceful world built on sacrifice would be hell to someone.
What did it matter if the exterior and interior of the building had changed a little? The detestable things living inside this building had not changed anyway.
No, no. Thinking like that would only upset him. He should just—think of it this way instead. It would be easier on his mind.
They were mere extras. Just scraps of data in a game, without even faces to appear on-screen. Like him in the past, they were simply fools who existed because they existed, merely watching as the story of this game flowed according to its course.
But now, he had only escaped being an extra and become a monster.
Yes, that was all.
“—A pleasure to meet you.”
He grabbed the doorknob of a classroom and pulled it open—
“...Hah? And what are you—”
He looked at the person fighting there, the one who had once been his friend—the protagonist of this game—and the middle-aged woman who was the boss of Chapter 6, then smiled brightly.
“You don’t need to be curious about that.”
Drawing his sword again, Hyunwoo placed it against the wall and—
“Just die and spit out your experience points. Boss mob.”
He cut through the classroom along with the wall.