The Betrayed Red Becomes the Leader of Evil
"Dragons do not shed tears."
"They only soar."
With those final words, I slammed my hand onto the switch on my left arm. As I rotated the upper casing, a synthesized voice echoed out.
EXCALIBUR!
RHONGOMYNIAD!
CLARENT!
―Include! REVELATION!
My entire body was engulfed in a crimson glow. Every muscle, every bone in my frame screamed in agony. It felt as if my boiling blood were about to evaporate. But I endured. One more push. I was just as tattered and on the verge of collapse as he was.
'DarkArthur'. The leader of the evil organization, the 'Dark Kingdom Apocamelot'. He was a monster encased in ominous black armor that radiated overwhelming terror.
"WROOOAAARRR!!"
I leaped into the sky, delivering my final kick toward him. The Red Dragon of the Apocalypse, dwelling within my body, materialized to shroud me. DarkArthur swung his greatsword toward me. Black aura. A powerful sword energy that annihilated anything it touched. Finally, the two forces collided.
KRA-KOOOOM!!
Having poured out every ounce of my strength, smoke billowed from my entire body. Behind me, I heard the sound of armor crumbling.
"Oh... oh, ohhh..."
DarkArthur dissolved into ash. It was over. The year-long battle against the evil organization had reached its finale.
"Ha... haha."
A laugh of relief escaped my lips. With the tension gone, I collapsed on the spot.
"Red!"
"Red... oppa..."
I could see the faces of my comrades. Blue, Yellow, Green, Silver. The members of the S-Squad who had struggled alongside me to defeat the evil organization.
"We won. It's finally over."
I felt at ease. My body had no strength left, but with them here, I knew we would return safely from this space battleship. I wanted to go back to Earth and rest. For a while, I would just enjoy this peace.
"Could you give me a hand? I'm all out of energy. Haha..."
I laughed, feeling a bit sheepish. But for some reason, my comrades didn't rush to help me; they were just watching me, exchanging glances. What was going on? Were there still enemies left?
"Why are you just standing there? Come and give me a..."
The next moment.
SHING!!
"Huh?"
I couldn't believe my eyes. My left arm, where the transformation device was attached—it had been severed right at the elbow.
"Uh... g-gh, ghh, AAAAAAAH?!"
"Kekeke. Got it! Grab the transformation device!"
Blood sprayed from my arm. A sharp, icy-blue blade was embedded in the stump. It was Blue's sword. Blue kicked my arm, now just a large chunk of ham, away. Silver caught it.
"Ugh, what the hell are you doing!!"
"Shut up, you bug-like piece of trash."
Blue's foot slammed into my face. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My transformation had been forcibly deactivated. The pain of taking that attack with my bare body was excruciating. Silver, Yellow, Green—none of them helped me. That was when I realized it. I had been betrayed.
Unlimited Heroes. That was the name of the game I had possessed. Justice, friendship, victory! I had been so obsessed with hero media that I went crazy for this dream collaboration game featuring heroes from every genre, and by the time I came to my senses, I had already dumped several months' worth of salary into it.
It was a typical pay-to-win RPG where you could enjoy live scenarios updated in real-time. It had an interesting system. While each hero had unique traits and personalities, players who wanted to could gather to form a 'Squad'. Of course, it was a cash-grab content where squads competed for rankings.
The #1 ranked squad earned the title of 'Superior Squad', or 'S-Squad' for short. I had possessed the game the moment I finally reached the pinnacle and earned the title of 'Red' of the S-Squad.
My character had been reset—everything from level to stats, save for his handsome appearance. However, I still possessed all my cash-bought items and achievement bonuses. The fortunate part was that there was quite a bit of time before the main scenario began. Excited to be in my favorite world and burning with a sense of justice, I defeated villains, grew stronger, and rose to become an S-class hero in the blink of an eye.
And then, the scenario began. The first scenario was based on one of the mainstreams from the original game's content: the year-long battle against the evil organization, the 'Dark Kingdom Apocamelot'.
However, unlike the game, I was the only 'player' in this world, which made the difficulty skyrocket. I recruited characters from this world to act as a squad, and we became the best of them all—the Superior Squad, or S-Squad—and defeated Apocamelot.
My squad's name was 'Dragon King Squad: Dra-Ozer'. A team of warriors possessing the power of dragons from myth. Solely for the peace and justice of this world. We fought, and fought, and fought again.
And that was repaid in the most horrific way possible.
"Ghh! Why, why, Blue Saber... no, Ji Se-hwa! Why are you doing this!"
Ji Se-hwa gracefully spun her Leviathan Saber, flicking my blood off the blade. She rested the saber on her shoulder, crouched down, and looked at me.
"'Why', you ask? You know better than anyone, you piece of trash! You're the bastard who let greed blind you and abandoned the duties of a leader!"
"What kind of bullshit is that! I fought for justice every single moment!"
"Justice, justice—every time you open your mouth, it's justice. Do you have any idea how disgusting that is? You money-obsessed freak. You always took the final hit on the monsters, so we never got a single cent. You know that?"
"Money? This is about protecting the world! What does money matter!"
"The Hero Association gives the reward money only to the one who lands the final hit, and you know that better than anyone, so stop acting like a saint. You always hogged the final hits!"
"I told you every time! The executive-level monsters that go berserk when they feel their lives are in danger are too dangerous for you to handle. You could have lost your lives!"
They had never seen an executive-level monster fall. I was the one who always took the risk alone. Because of that, the reward money was paid to me, but there wasn't a single cent in my bank account now. I had used it all to buy supplies to prepare for the enemies in the next scenario.
"Red, you're not the only S-class hero. We're also officially recognized S-class heroes by the Association."
Silver Mirrored, Shin Yu-kyung, chimed in. Dressed in ninja gear, she looked down at me with an expressionless face, her arms crossed.
"If you were so worried about our abilities, you should have just distributed the switches."
"Switches? You all have your own Dragon Switches."
"I'm talking about the switches we obtained from Apocamelot's executives. Red, you hogged them all. Excalibur, Rhongomyniad, Clarent. You took them all, didn't you?"
Silver said that while holding up the transformation device from my severed arm.
"What? You cut off my arm just because you coveted those few switches? You subhuman pieces of shit!!"
I screamed until my vocal cords felt like they were tearing. These assholes. Do you have any idea how much I've looked after you until now? Blue, Ji Se-hwa—I was the one who bought you rice soup when you were acting like a back-alley thug. Silver, Shin Yu-kyung—I was the one who saved you when your ninja clan was wiped out. Yellow, Kang Ye-rin—I was the one who saved your entire family from being assassinated in political infighting. Green, Choi Min-seo—I was the one who helped you when you were being bullied at the academy and scouted and trained you.
Money? Power? You betrayed me for things like that?
"Just those switches? We are acting for justice. Isn't that right, Green?"
Shin Yu-kyung signaled to Choi Min-seo.
"...I didn't want to believe it either. When the Association President said that Red oppa was a drug addict."
"Drug addict? What kind of bullshit is that!"
"I, I saw it. The mountains of 'Pestam' piled up in the basement of Red oppa's house..."
"You saw that? Why were you sneaking into someone else's house...!"
"I was caught by Emma-ssi and kicked out, but it was definitely that."
"There's no need to listen anymore. You scraped together all that money just to buy drugs! You trash!"
Ji Se-hwa added.
Pestam. It wasn't a drug in itself. If processed, it could become a drug. I had certainly collected it. But that was for the scenario that would start next. The evil organization wasn't just one, as you'd expect. It was because the weakness of the next evil organization to invade, the 'Galactic Empire', was a weapon made from Pestam.
"That's not a drug. It's a weapon. It's a trump card to defeat the evil organization!"
"The evil organization just fell. What kind of nonsense is that?"
Shin Yu-kyung shook her head. They didn't know about the next evil organization. Naturally, I couldn't tell them about such things. How could I explain the insane truth that they were NPCs in a game and I was the only one who knew the future?
"Looks like you're already hallucinating? Kek."
"The Association President said so. That if Red oppa, a drug addict who even hogged the switches, fell into a delusion while possessing such immense power, he would become an SSS-class villain."
Choi Min-seo clenched her fists tight.
"I fought quietly in the rear of the squad without any popularity. It was always Red oppa who received the attention and hogged the glory. Without even taking responsibility for that position, doing something like that."
"No. This is the Association President's frame-up. I swear on my life I've never used it as a drug!"
"If that's the case, then why did you moan every night? If that's not a side effect, then what is it?"
"What...?"
I hadn't known it sounded like that. That was because of the switches. The enemy switches I had additionally equipped to my transformation device after defeating the executive-level monsters. They were absolutely necessary for the strategy to defeat the evil organization's leader, DarkArthur, but at the same time, the backlash was too severe for a human to handle.
In the game, it was just a stamina debuff, but in reality, it was accompanied by excruciating pain. That was another reason why I had hogged the switches. I couldn't let my comrades shoulder such pain. I had been fighting while forcibly enduring the agony until now. One comrade who had found out about this fact early on had suffered for a long time out of guilt toward me. That was why I had kept it a secret from the others. To think they had been thinking that...
Since it had come to this, I had to clear up the misunderstanding, even now.
"It's because of the switches. It was the pain from the backlash of using Apocamelot's switches. I took it upon myself because I couldn't let you guys suffer that pain."
"Ha... you expect us to believe that?"
Ji Se-hwa looked at me with pathetic eyes.
"We'll split these switches one by one. Red... Justice Seok's can't be used by anyone else anyway. I'll take Excalibur."
"Rhongomyniad is mine, kek."
"Ah, then I'll take Clarent..."
"Hey, Kang Ye-rin, what about you?"
Yellow Clocker, Kang Ye-rin, shook her head as if she wasn't interested.
"I'm fine."
"There are three, so that works out well."
I clenched my fist with my remaining right hand.
"It's a misunderstanding. It's all a misunderstanding. The Association President tricked you. Believe in me, the one who's been with you for the past year, not that woman. Believe me. I am for justice, for the world..."
THUD!
With a dull sound, pain raced through my synapses and battered my brain. Blue had kicked my abdomen.
"Shut your trap, you money-grubbing drug addict. Try using the word 'justice' one more time. I'll send you to join Pink."
The moment I heard that, my vision turned blood-red.
"Don't say that name."
"And what if I do? I'll send you to join Han So-mi. To join that pathetic bitch who died because of you. Huh?"
"SHUT YOUR TRAP!!"
My blood boiled in reverse. Hearing that name, I could no longer maintain my sanity. Not at all. The one I loved, the one who loved me. Hearing that name, I could no longer hold back.