Strength entered the hand gripping the withdrawal form inside the envelope, and cold sweat began to trickle down the nape of his neck. He was facing the living disaster standing before him, and he felt an instinctive fear.
“Ah, I remember now. Lee Hyeonu, right?”
This was clearly a chapter that shouldn’t have started yet. There was still time before this incident was supposed to begin. Wasn’t that why he had tried to give up and run away before he met the future in which he became a mad monster? So why was this trial approaching him now?
Was this fate, too? Was following the game’s story exactly truly the will of God? Then why had he been possessed into this world in the first place? No matter how much he kept denying reality, nothing changed. In the end, the girl before him was a villain capable of killing him in an instant, and he was in the exact same place, in the exact same situation, as the scene from the game.
“—Why are you here at this hour? And what’s with the blood on your head?”
“Hmm. It doesn’t look like you failed to notice. Your eyes are trembling with fear, you know?”
His attempt to pretend not to know and move on was simply crushed. Was this how failing to control his expression came back to bite him? He quietly swallowed.
“You’re that guy, aren’t you? The idiot who charged ahead and fought during the attack incident even though he didn’t have the ability for it.”
Blood running from her head as she glared at him—the girl who had played the role of his classmate but had now revealed her true colors, the worst villain who would appear as a boss in the future.
“How strange. Why would someone like you be in a place like this?”
Her real name was Han Seonga. Her villain name was Serpent. She sneered as she glared at him, and he glared back, beginning to rack his brain.
Seeing as she kept glancing behind her, she was probably being chased by the protagonist’s party and the heroes who worked as teachers, just like in the game. And yet she was wasting time here, even smiling with one hand raised, her fingers pointed at his head. Why?
“This works out perfectly.”
A hostage, most likely. Or she needed a tool to buy time for her escape—
“It looked like you were planning to drop out anyway. Want to hear my proposal?”
—Or there was a reason even he, who knew the game’s knowledge, hadn’t expected.
“…What?”
Hyeonu was flustered. He had no choice but to be. What he was gripping in his hand was indeed a withdrawal form, but it was still neatly folded inside a white envelope, so there should have been no way for her to know.
So how had she noticed and said that? He had only made up his mind to withdraw two hours ago. It had been less than an hour since he filled out the withdrawal form he had kept in his drawer and came outside, so no one but him should have known. And yet the villain before him had realized it.
“I knew you trained every single day. But even so, you never got stronger, and despite that, you kept training, didn’t you?”
It was obvious what this situation meant.
“But you know what? You might not believe it, but—no matter how stupidly hard you train like that, you won’t get stronger. I’ve already experienced it myself.”
In the game, her objective was quite simple. She was here to draw those who held discontent into the villain organization she belonged to. Of course, since she had been discovered so quickly and was being chased like now, she wouldn’t be able to do that—but that wasn’t what mattered right now. What mattered was that the villain who had infiltrated this place knew about him.
Fate? The will of God? It was nothing of the sort. He erased every possibility he had been considering, realized the shocking truth, and froze on the spot.
“So I’m giving you a chance, you know? Consider it an honor.”
Why was she here? The answer was obvious. From the very beginning, she had come here for him. Originally, she had intended to recruit him as a comrade, but now she had come to see and use him as a means that might help her escape.
“Hoooo.”
No matter what he did, was he destined to witness this scene? He laughed bitterly and let out a sigh.
He understood the situation. But that didn’t mean there was anything he could do. If he tried to get away from this place, five strands of laser would fire from the fingertips pointed at his head and kill him instantly. But if he obediently listened to her—
“Don’t you want to become strong?”
The line from the original that would bring about his destruction would be spoken exactly as it was.
She slipped her other hand, the one not pointing her fingertips at him, into the cloak wrapped around her, and what she pulled out was a black mask.
“If you wear this, you can become strong. What do you think? Want to try putting it on?”
He already knew that the moment he put on that mask, the promised destruction would come. But there was no way to break out of this situation.
“…Why aren’t you putting it on?”
A warning shot at Hyeonu, who remained frozen and merely stared.
“I’m telling you, if you wear this, you can get stronger. Isn’t that what you wanted so badly? You hated it too, didn’t you? Everyone else kept getting stronger, but no matter how hard you tried, you didn’t get stronger—instead, all you got in return was ridicule!”
Ridicule, she said. As if those who had become fit for the Hero Academy would ever send ridicule his way. It must have only seemed that way to her because that ridicule was what had made her become a villain.
Even though he knew that fact, he couldn’t react at all. If he said it aloud, he would die the moment he did. He still didn’t want to die, and he was still conflicted.
However.
“Think carefully! The moment you put this on, you’ll gain powerful strength, and at the same time, you’ll be able to take revenge on the bastards who laughed at you!”
“Hyeonu! Don’t listen to her!”
Perhaps, for him, the best choice would have been to say those words and meet his death.
“…Lee Hyeonu? Why are you here!”
“Student Hyeonu?!”
The shout of his childhood friend, Choi Jihyeon, who seemed to have been chasing her and was now running over in a hurry. And behind her, the protagonist’s group running toward them as well. In a situation unfolding exactly like the story he had seen in the game, he looked down at the black mask that kept being shoved toward him.
“Ha.”
In any case, it probably didn’t matter anymore. The incident had already happened, and he had been dragged into it. With that, his fate had already ended. He was sick to death of the fact that all of this was reality. And so he let out a hollow laugh and merely stared at the villain before him.
“I was the same! I’m telling you, I understand how you feel! You’re sick of this unfair world too, aren’t you? The reality where a mediocre person can struggle all they want and still never catch up to a genius! Just like how you’ll never catch up to that damned childhood friend of yours!”
After glancing at them once, Serpent shouted urgently. If she wasted any more time here, she would be out as well, so of course she had no choice but to be anxious.
“So—hurry up and put it on!”
That wasn’t persuasion. It was a threat. The light gathering at her fingers, as if it would pierce through his body at any moment, began to grow brighter and brighter. If he didn’t put on the mask, he would probably die in a spray of blood. Having cleared the entire game already, he knew that fact all too well. The villain before him was the worst of the worst in terms of humanity, even compared to the others.
“Yeah. It really is an unfair world.”
Well. What did it matter either way? No matter what happened, he was as good as dead. Thinking that, he let out a sigh and took the mask she held out.
“…Ha. Haha. Hahahahahaha!”
“…Hyeonu?”
Serpent smiled brightly as he picked up the mask. In contrast, far away, tears welled in Jihyeon’s eyes as though she might burst into tears at any moment. Looking at the two women showing completely opposite emotions, he smiled bitterly.
“Right? Right? I knew you’d understand!”
“…No, right? You’re not, right?! Right?!”
The voice of the villain, her tension rising because things were going her way, and the cry of the hero, her voice trembling as she imagined an ominous future.
“If it were fair—”
He would die either way. The only difference was how he died.
“I would already have the power to just cut off your neck.”
“—Huh?”
The mask split in two—more precisely, it was “cut.”
“You can take this damn mask and shove it. Puhuhu…”
He laughed. He had no choice but to laugh. Had he finally gone mad from the fact that death was approaching? That wasn’t it. It was simply because even at the very end, he hadn’t been able to cut the mask perfectly, and he resented his own pathetic ability so much that laughter leaked out.
“You think I don’t know that if I put on the mask, I’ll turn into a monster?”
No matter how starved he was for power, he refused to become a monster. Especially if that monster was the mid-boss of the game’s second chapter, and if its end was to have its limbs shattered by the protagonists and burn away without even ash or a trace remaining.
“—Do you want to die?”
Even if he died here, there wasn’t a single person in the real world who would look for him. Rather, if he died here, wouldn’t the childhood friend running toward him from afar remember his existence?
“Then kill me.”
The girl who had cheered him on even though he was a perennial failure, who had not given up on him even when he finally despaired and shut himself in his room, even if she got angry. The friend who, because she was shy, treated everyone with a blank expression, but always approached him with a smile.
“Lee Hyeonu—!”
Even now, she was running toward him in a hurry while using ice. Had he grown attached to that girl, the only person in both reality and this place who cared about him?
“Is it because of that bitch?”
“Yeah. If I’m going to die no matter what I do, shouldn’t I at least take my friend’s side?”
A shitty life in which he could never escape being an extra, and in the end had no choice but to meet his end as a mid-boss. He had thought that was his fate—but at the very end, he had barely managed to twist the original. Because of that fact, he tried to twist the future one more time.
There was no chance to draw the self-defense dagger he had kept tucked inside his clothes. However, he could still use his ability, and that was enough.
“—You pink-haired whore.”
He thrust his hand forward, and Serpent used her ability.
Feeling the laser bursting from her fingertips as though it were moving in slow motion, he ultimately succeeded in making the envelope he was holding touch her wrist.
“You bastard…!”
Pain surged along with the burst of light. But he did not stop and used his ability—
Slash!
“Kyaaaak?!”
He cut her wrist, precisely where the artery was, and succeeded in throwing off the laser’s trajectory.
However—
“…Cough.”
Since her fingertips had been aimed at him from close range, there was no helping the fact that his chest and hand had been pierced.
“No—!”
Amid his blurring vision came the scream of his childhood friend. Explosions rang out, as if the battle had begun immediately after—
And just like that, he lost consciousness.