I Became an Executive in a Villain Organization
Seven years.
That was how long I'd lived in this godforsaken world since being pulled into a hero game called Midnight City.
Being suddenly transmigrated into a game I'd been playing — it was an absurd situation no matter how you looked at it. Hoping against hope, I'd once shouted "Status window!" at empty air, but no miracle of a colorful digital interface materialized before my eyes.
Still, it was fine.
I had plenty of ways to get my hands on information. More than anything, I knew for certain there was still a long stretch of time before the protagonist made his entrance — and that I was a side character with no connection to anything, existing only before the protagonist grew into himself.
So I decided to live quietly. I didn't want to go loitering around the protagonist and get dragged into some incident on a whim.
I didn't have grand ambitions either. Decent grades, decent connections, days spent tiptoeing carefully through the minefield and holding on. Like everyone else in the world, I'd planned to graduate and live an ordinary life.
...That's how it should have gone.
If I'd overlooked anything, it was the fact that this place was a game. To be precise, the world inside a game.
And as games always are, the world inside one is never peaceful. If nothing else, just to build a stage worthy of the protagonist, this world had already been sliding off the rails for years.
Somewhere along the line, I came to understand it. Even without the protagonist, the world kept turning — and the conflicts and collapse unfolding within it had been scheduled long before he arrived.
What was doomed had already been doomed. What was going to crumble had already crumbled. Public order was decaying, and the heroes — those symbols of state authority — had long since rotted through, their grand principles a convenient excuse for all but a handful of them.
The game had only sketched that reality in passing, but I never imagined the life of ordinary citizens could be this bleak. The world before the story began was, in a word, the prodrome — the omen announcing the true catastrophe to come.
And within that collapsing gap, there was exactly one way for someone who wasn't the protagonist to survive.
Join the villain's side.
Nightfall — the villain organization. I would walk through their door. The only real drawback was that I'd end up crossing swords with the protagonist someday...
But first, I had to stay alive. With not a single grain of rice in the house, there wasn't anything I couldn't do. Even if it meant becoming trash, you do what you have to do to keep breathing.
This was a world where playing it straight got you nothing, anyway. If that's how it was, better to put the knowledge I had to work.
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
The first thing I saw upon entering was a woman in an elegant uniform. Black pearls of hair drifted softly around her shoulders, and brown eyes pinned me in place.
It was Lee Sejin, acting director in place of the currently absent one. Her codename was Moonlit Blade; her alias, Sword Demon. The executives of Nightfall didn't bother with rankings, but if you forced a hierarchy, she was number one in the current absence of the director — and she was every bit as strong as that implied.
When I'd faced her as an enemy, she'd seemed the very picture of despair, but in person she was simply a beautiful woman. Besides, I was something of a villain myself these days. No point being afraid of your own kind.
"Welcome, Closer."
When Lee Sejin spoke softly, I gave a light bow of the head.
"Thank you for having me, Lady Moonlit Blade."
"That name... I don't much care for it."
"It's better than Sword Demon, surely?"
"......"
Lee Sejin exhaled a short breath. She glanced away for a moment, then turned back to me.
"In any case, good work out there."
"Acting as the director's stand-in must be harder on you."
"I brought that on myself, so it's no one's burden but mine."
Wearing an expression I couldn't decide was a smile or not, she leaned back in her chair. Crossing her legs, she tapped the report in her hand with one finger.
"I've read the full report. Cleanly handled. The Association can't even pin it on us."
"I'd been preparing it for a while."
The things I'd done since first joining this place were, in game terms, the removal of so-called branch points. Simply put — the possibilities of the protagonist taking a wrong turn instead of growing into the hero he was meant to be. If even one of those branches remained, the world could twist off in some entirely different direction.
The others had all been relatively near the perimeter — people who needed watching, even if they didn't need removing. But Kim Doyun was different. He was an exception.
In the hostage incident of the past, the protagonist's family had died at his hands. Even in the original story, when the protagonist learned the truth in the late game, he very nearly broke apart.
A man like that was better dealt with early. Becoming a villain didn't mean going mad and massacring civilians — but the human refuse capable of poisoning the future? Cutting that weed before it seeded was simply good sense.
Lee Sejin studied me for a long moment, then finally nodded.
"Seeing you handle this kind of work now... you've really become a proper executive in your own right."
A faint smile touched her lips as she added, "The first job you ever took for us... wasn't that going to collect money we were owed?"
"Yes. That's how it started, more or less."
Accurately put, it was a mission to track down the former accounting officer who'd gambled the organization's money away on coins, been liquidated, and settle the remainder of his life for him. Has it really been three years since then...
Come to think of it, that was the first assignment I received after graduating from the ability development institute and joining the organization.
"It feels like quite a while ago, now that you mention it."
"Doesn't it. Back then, the director was still with us."
"....."
At the word director, an awkward silence settled over the room.
She was someone who never appeared in the original story, someone I'd only spoken with a handful of times long ago — and yet she remained vividly etched in my memory. A woman with no martial prowess, no combat ability of any kind, who somehow held this organization's center together better than anyone. She had never been ordinary. There was something about her that words alone couldn't account for — the way a single sentence from her could stop everyone in their tracks, that strange gaze of hers that persuaded people without a shred of power behind it. It still lingers, clear as yesterday.
Lee Sejin's eyes dropped briefly, then rose again. Her manner was the same, but her tone had grown a shade firmer.
"Enough of old times."
She drew a file from the drawer beside her desk and handed it across.
"Our equipment supplies have been running thin lately. We need to replenish them."
"How?"
"Our usual way."
"So, terrorism."
At my words, Lee Sejin let out a soft laugh.
"Let's use the more elegant word — fundraising. You're an executive now. I'd say this is a suitable task to entrust to you, wouldn't you?"
"And the target?"
Lee Sejin lifted her hands from the armrests as she continued.
"Blue Whale Logistics — one of our existing supply lines. They used to trade with the Association as well, but it seems they've recently switched sides."
"Meaning they've come over to us?"
"No."
Lee Sejin shook her head slowly.
"The opposite. They've notified us they'll be supplying the Association exclusively. Their way of cutting this line. From their standpoint, perhaps they chose the safer bet — the Association is standing a lot steadier than we are, after all."
"Ha..."
A hollow laugh escaped me. Of all things to touch, they had to poke the most sensitive nerve.
Equipment supply was, quite literally, a matter of survival. If supply lines started pulling their feet out one by one like this, it wouldn't just be an inconvenience for Nightfall — the organization's very foundation could start to wobble.
An organization growing in size wasn't only a good thing. Guns and ammunition, espers' gear, broker networks — everything cost money, everything demanded management. And in the end, all of it got solved by someone walking out the door and getting their hands bloody.
And right now, that someone was me.
...Well. I'm used to it. I made my peace the day I started this work. Playing the good guy, cosplaying as a hero — I never had any intention of that in the first place.
"When?"
"Two weeks from now. I'll send you the intel."
"Personnel?"
"Your choice. Go with the unit members, or pick from among the executives."
"Executives who can actually do the job..."
...Are there any? But I couldn't exactly walk into a facility the size of that logistics center alone, either.
"Is it not possible for you to come along?"
"I'm busy."
I exhaled briefly at her razor-sharp dismissal. Hmm... a shame. The most trustworthy person among the executives was her.
"Well then, I'll look forward to good news. Closer."
"Understood, Lady Moonlit Blade."
"I told you to stop calling me that."
"...Lady Sword Demon?"
"Hah... I told you, just use my name inside the organization."
Out of concessions, she sighed again and pressed a hand to her forehead. She looked a touch weary.
"Very well, Sejin-ssi."
At that, she lifted her head slightly. The corner of her mouth curled upward — a fraction of a millimeter — then smoothed away.
"In any case, put real care into the preparations. Supply is always our highest priority."
"Yes, understood."
With those words, Closer opened the door and stepped out.
======
A room turned to ruin.
The sound of the door opening scattered into the stale air. The dim lighting still burned, washing the room in red, and a strange stillness hung between the smell of blood and alcohol and the wreckage of shattered furniture.
Seo Eunha — codename Valkyrie — stepped slowly inside. Beneath the red light, her expression instinctively furrowed into a scowl.
"Doyun-sunbae... it's him, right?"
At her question, the forensic specialist working beside her nodded.
"Yes, ma'am. You arrived faster than we expected."
"I was nearby."
Seo Eunha turned her head only slightly as she answered.
"Who did this?"
"We don't know. We've checked the CCTV and fingerprints, but..."
"All of it's been wiped."
"......"
The specialist only nodded in silence. A wordless confirmation.
"The traces erased means..."
"It was premeditated, most likely. The murder weapon appears to have been... a gun..."
"That's impossible. A gun."
"I know..."
The specialist trailed off uncertainly.
A B-Rank hero, subdued by an armed civilian? It defied all reason. The moment you were branded a hero — even the lowliest C-Rank — you were an esper capable of easily subduing any ordinary person holding a gun.
And Kim Doyun, among them, was a lightning-class ability user. Enhanced neural reaction speed, electromagnetic flow detection, instantaneous muscle acceleration. A bullet? He could have caught it between two fingers, laughing while he did it.
Which meant the possibilities narrowed to one.
"He was shot after being fully restrained."
"That's right."
"A villain organization... who is it this time?"
The forensic specialist wordlessly shrugged. It meant they still knew nothing.
Seo Eunha's eyes narrowed. And then — crack.
She ground her teeth. Her black-gloved fist trembled, just barely.
"...I will catch them."
Beneath the red light, her eyes went cold and still.
"Whatever it takes. Absolutely."