Huh? This Doesn't Exist?

"Unnie? Your face looks really red right now."

"Hm? Oh. It's nothing."

I'd eaten with Jiyoon and let the talk wander where it liked, and before I knew it, night had fallen. I lay down, worn out and ready to sleep, only for Jiyoon to plaster herself right against my side. The closeness pressed in until I couldn't bear it.

"Ugh... I can't. I'll sleep on the floor."

"It's a queen-size bed, and you want to sleep on the floor? Unnie, are you in your right mind?"

"Sorry. Could you just move over a little?"

I swallowed the word stifling and turned my back on the side where my sister lay. That was when Jiyoon's smile went sly.

"Mmm... so you had a side like this, Unnie~?"

"No."

Stay awake, and she would only keep teasing. I ignored her and settled for pretending to sleep. She watched me do it, then spoke as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"What? Unnie, you're asleep already?"

She seemed to think for a moment. Then her fingers drifted through my hair, and she went on.

"Well... I suppose you would be tired. And it isn't the kind of tiredness that lifts easily."

Her hand moved in slow, gentle strokes.

"So dry and brittle. Just how much have you suffered? Still, I'm here from now on, so it'll be a little easier. So let's live happily, starting now. Okay?"

Every word of it was a riddle, but this much I could tell: she was worried about me. Was this what it felt like, having someone worry over you, comfort you? Turning that over, I carefully called my previous life to mind.

"...Fuck."

Every last one of them, nothing but shit memories. Why was it that I had never once been given a scrap of sympathy, even from my own family? My little sister in that life, especially, had been the worst of the worst. Malice itself.

The reason the sister I had now weighed on me so much was that she was different from the one before—far too different. Unlike the girl who had sparked my irritation day after day, this one was looking out for me. I could feel it, unmistakably.

Once I was sure she had fallen asleep, I got up quietly, careful not to wake her, and stroked her hair with a light hand.

"Looked at like this, she's pretty. Cute, even."

Straight brown hair, glossy with health, not so different from how I looked now and yet not the same, and black eyes where mine were blue. Pure and cute in the same breath, Jiyoon slept with soft little breaths. I watched her, and let out a small sigh.

"You really don't have to go out of your way to fuss over me."

I gazed at my sister as she tossed—caught in a nightmare, maybe—stroked her a little longer, and then lay back down to sleep.

And so, the next day.

"Unnie! You have to stay healthy even when I'm not here, okay? If you get sick, you absolutely have to go to the hospital, or call me!"

"Don't worry."

Jiyoon didn't want to leave. Fifteen minutes now, and she still hadn't taken a step out of the entryway.

"Just go already. I need to sleep more..."

"Do you hate me, Unnie?"

"No. My legs are starting to hurt, that's all."

I'd been planted in one spot, bickering with Jiyoon for nearly fifteen minutes, so a body that was already tired had only grown tireder, and my legs had begun to ache.

"S-sorry. I'll go right now!"

Jiyoon apologized and hurried out. I hauled my aching legs over to the laptop.

"Is being worried over this much not entirely a good thing, either?"

I turned it over for a moment. Set against the absolute indifference I'd endured in my previous life, and the deceit, this was clearly better.

"All right. Let's see what kinds of novels this world even has."

I sank close to seven hours into skimming the best-performing novels on the fiction sites, and one strange fact became impossible to miss.

"...There are no Villain Novels."

The fundamental rule of fiction here was poetic justice, absolute and without exception, and not a single novel stepped outside that frame. Fantasy, martial arts, whatever the genre, the ending was good rewarded and evil punished. There was not one story whose protagonist was the villain.

"What the hell kind of world is this? Fine. Just in case, I'll look through the challenge pieces and the practice works too."

I poured in another two hours, then three, combing through them with a fine-tooth comb, and still there was no novel anywhere with a villain as its protagonist.

"I've decided. I'm writing a Villain Novel. Garbage prose or not, this one succeeds. It has to."

I called up the most brutal Villain Novel I had ever read and began to write, one careful word at a time, lifting the original author's turns of phrase and pasting them in.

Plagiarism, you say? Don't make me laugh.

In this world, at least, I was the original.

"Nothing fun to read?"

One reader set out, as he did every day, to wander in search of an interesting novel.

The clichés were the same in every story. The hero slew the demon king, the Murim Alliance Leader slew the Heavenly Demon, and the superhero brought the villain to heel. In romance fantasy, the villainess always died.

A hero killing a villain was simply how the world worked. Good prose could make even an identical cliché a little more enjoyable, but he was sick to death of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it now. He wanted something that broke the mold.

"Not that I'm about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to write one myself."

He was clicking through the new releases this way and that when a title caught at him.

"Oh. What's this."

The title's bait was perfect. He clicked the novel, careful, almost cautious.

"What did they do to pull numbers like these on chapter one?"

Hooked by the stats and by the title's provocation, his curiosity got the better of him. He clicked the first chapter, and a new world opened in front of him.

"The criminal kills the police? And what are these gruesome descriptions? Good god... where does an idea like this even come from?"

Five years of reading novels, and he had never seen cruelty written like this. Worse, the crimes in the first chapter alone were things he couldn't even imagine.

Whoever wrote this was no ordinary violent criminal. Descriptions at this level—they had to have done it themselves.

"One of the most wanted, maybe? But why do something like this..."

"To show off?"

Perhaps it was self-display. They had taken crimes they themselves had committed and written them straight into a novel, and the result was as vicious as vicious could be. And yet—

"This is... hey. This is way too fun. A story told from the criminal's point of view..."

He couldn't honestly call the prose good. But the way it rendered crime was so sharp he would have called it a cheat, and it overflowed with the kind of pull that made the next chapter impossible not to want.

One more reader hit favorite and recommend, and left a comment.

"Done."

Even thinking it over as I wrote, my prose looked wretched. Was it because it had been so long? Skill that was poor to begin with stood out all the more clearly.

"So being a novelist isn't easy either... That person really was incredible."

I had written it while calling up the Villain Novel that had impressed me most of all the ones I'd read. It was a Villain Novel that had been rated absurdly low for the craft on the page and had vanished down the back alleys of history, but the author's descriptive power had felt so much like watching the real thing that even I had been left shaking my head.

"They didn't actually live it and then write it, right? No. No way."

Impossible to know. The descriptions I'd seen back then were so shocking that I still remembered most of the lines inside that novel. Cutting a body to pieces, the contents spilling out—that had been the bare minimum.

"Speaking of which, does something like this not trigger a penalty? I'm pretty sure there was a clause. The use of knowledge related to your previous life is forbidden. Something like that."

"Then what about saying I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠used to be a man?"

"Ha. I lived as a man for thirty-five years, and it hasn't even been ten days since I started living as a woman. A person is allowed to make a mistake."

Every time I washed, the lower half of me still felt empty. I had never even gotten to use it. Not once. Fuck.

"This is a scam contract, isn't it?"

I had nothing to say to the god's scolding, so I quietly decided to just write the novel.

"Time to write chapter one, then? I've put the prologue up, so I ought to at least get chapter one written too. Five favorites and I'd be genuinely grateful."

Thinking that, I opened the work management page—and saw something I couldn't believe.

"Uh... am I seeing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this wrong?"

"What is this. Something's off. A system error? The zero on the end must be a mistake."

Even if the favorite count had been seventy-two, I still didn't have the courage to serialize the next chapter, so I quietly closed the laptop.

"A glass of water. Drink one and come back, and I'll have calmed down."

I drank a glass of cold water, praying it wasn't a dream, and carefully opened the laptop I had shut. Reality was waiting.

"...At this level, I could enjoy a happy shut-in life, couldn't I?"

Do you see it, Author? Your descriptions, here at least, are first-rate.

A smile formed before I knew it, and in my heart I offered my thanks to the novel's original author.

"Comments... let's read the comments."

I went in full of expectation. I should never have made that choice.

Comments of that degree were still on the mild side.

A few of them were flat-out painting me as a most-wanted criminal.

"Did it really have this much impact?"

Honestly, when it came to depicting the brutality of crime, the writing had boasted a remarkable power—but people had never reacted this violently.

"Then in this world, at least, this novel is definitely going to succeed."

Happiness came rolling in. I smiled, faint and helpless, and began to write the next chapter.