It Can Be Changed
He could change it.
His grip tightened on the withdrawal letter inside the envelope, cold sweat trickling down the nape of his neck. He was facing a living catastrophe right in front of him, and primal fear gripped his instincts.
"Ah, I remember. Lee Hyunwoo, right?"
This chapter shouldn't have started yet. There was still time before this event kicked off. That's why he'd tried to bail before turning into that mad monster from the future, right? So why was this trial crashing down on him now?
Was this fate? Was blindly following the game's story truly the will of some god? Then why had they shoved him into this body in the first place? Denying reality over and over changed nothing. The girl before him was a villain who could kill him in an instant, and here he was, trapped in the exact same spot and situation from the game.
"—Why are you here at this hour? And what's with the blood on your head?"
"Hmm. You're not completely clueless, then. Your eyes are trembling with terror."
His attempt to play it off fell flat. Was it his inability to control his expressions that tripped him up now? He swallowed dryly in silence.
"You're that idiot, aren't you? The one who charged ahead during the assault even though your powers were worthless."
The girl from his class—pretending all along, now revealing her true colors—glaring at him with blood dripping from her head. The worst villain, soon to emerge as the chapter's boss.
"Weird. What would a guy like you be doing in a place like this?"
Han Seong-a. Villain alias: Serpent. She sneered at him mockingly, and he glared back, his mind racing.
She kept glancing over her shoulder, so she must be on the run from the protagonist's group and the hero teachers, just like in the game. Yet here she was, stalling, even raising a finger to his forehead with one hand while grinning. What was her game?
"Perfect timing."
A hostage, probably. Or maybe a tool to buy her escape time—
"You were planning to drop out anyway, right? Wanna hear my offer?"
—Or perhaps a reason even he, with all his game knowledge, couldn't have predicted.
"...What?"
Hyunwoo froze in shock. He couldn't help it. The withdrawal letter was clutched in his hand, sure, but still neatly folded inside its plain white envelope—no way she could know.
So how had she figured it out and phrased it like that? He'd only decided to quit two hours ago. He'd written the letter, stuffed it in his drawer, and stepped out less than an hour ago—no one else could possibly know. And yet this villain in front of him had clocked it.
"I knew you trained every day. But you never got stronger. And still, you kept at it."
The implication was crystal clear.
"Here's the thing, though—hard to believe, I know—but no amount of that pathetic training will make you strong. I've been there."
In the game, her goal was simple: recruit the academy's malcontents into her villain organization. Sure, she was already busted and on the run now, so that wasn't feasible—but that wasn't the point. The point was that this infiltrator knew about him.
Fate? Divine will? Bullshit. He discarded every assumption he'd clung to and faced the shocking truth, freezing in place.
"So, I'm giving you a shot. Feel honored."
Why was she here? Obvious, really. She'd come for him specifically. Originally to recruit him as an ally, but now to use him as a means to escape.
"Hoo."
Did he have to witness this farce no matter what? He let out a bitter laugh and a sigh.
He had the situation pegged. But that didn't mean he could do anything about it. If he tried to bolt, five lasers would erupt from her outstretched fingertips and vaporize his head. Listening to her obediently wasn't an option either—
"Don't you want to get stronger?"
Those words would doom him, straight out of the original script.
She slipped her other hand—the one not aimed at him—into her cloak and pulled out a black mask.
"Put this on, and you'll be strong. What do you say? Try it?"
He already knew donning that mask sealed his doom. But there was no way out of this mess.
"...Why won't you put it on?"
A warning shot at Hyunwoo, who just stared back, rigid.
"This'll make you strong, I said! Isn't that what you've always wanted? You hated it too, right? Everyone else getting stronger while your efforts just earned you mockery!"
Mockery. No one at Hero Academy, with their polished heroism, would stoop to that. It must have looked that way to her because that's what turned her into a villain.
Even knowing that, he couldn't react. One word, and he'd be dead. He still didn't want to die. He was still torn.
But.
"Think about it! Put it on, and you'll have power—power to crush everyone who laughed at you!"
"Hyunwoo! Don't listen!"
Maybe spitting it out and dying would have been his best choice.
"...Lee Hyunwoo? What are you doing here?!"
"Student Hyunwoo?!"
His childhood friend Choi Jihyun, sprinting up in pursuit, her cry echoing. Behind her, the protagonist's crew. The scene unfolding exactly as in the game—and there he was, staring down at the intrusive black mask.
"Ha."
Whatever. It didn't matter anymore. The damage was done; he was entangled. His fate was sealed. The reality of it all made him sick to his stomach. He let out a hollow chuckle, just staring at the villain before him.
"I was the same! I get it completely! This unfair world pisses you off too, right? Mediocrities like us can thrash all we want and never catch the geniuses! Just like you can never catch that damn childhood friend of yours!"
Serpent glanced at them once, then shouted urgently. Any more delay, and she'd be done for—naturally, she was desperate.
"So—put it on, now!"
This wasn't persuasion; it was a threat. The light gathering at her fingertips swelled, ready to pierce him. Refuse the mask, and he'd splatter in blood. He'd cleared the game; he knew her inside out. Among villains, her humanity was the absolute worst.
"Yeah. The world's not fair."
Whatever. Dead either way. He sighed with that thought and took the mask she offered.
"...Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha!"
"...Hyunwoo?"
Serpent beamed triumphantly as he picked it up. Far off, Jihyun's eyes welled with tears, on the verge of breaking. He looked at the two women—their utterly opposed emotions—and smiled bitterly.
"Right? See? We get each other!"
"...No? No?! Right?!"
The villain's voice pitched up in manic glee at her victory; the hero's trembled with dread of the ominous future.
"If things were fair—"
Die this way, die that way. Just a matter of how.
"I'd already have the power to slice your throat."
"—Huh?"
The mask split in two—sliced clean.
"Take this shitty mask and shove it. Pfft..."
He laughed. He had to. Was it madness from impending death? No. The mask hadn't cleaved perfectly at the end, a final failure of his pathetic power—that's what bubbled out as laughter.
"You think I don't know putting it on turns you into a monster?"
No matter how much he craved strength, becoming a monster was a hard no. Especially when that monster was the mid-boss of Chapter 2, crushed limb from limb by the protagonists until not even ashes remained, burned to oblivion.
"—Wanna die?"
Die here, and no one in the real world would miss him. But dying might make his childhood friend over there remember him.
"Kill me, then."
The girl who'd cheered his perennial flunking efforts, who'd gotten mad but never given up when despair locked him in his room. Shy with others, expressionless to most, but always smiling at him.
"Lee Hyunwoo—!"
Even now, racing toward him with ice manifesting—perhaps he'd grown attached to the one person, across realities, who truly cared.
"Because of that bitch?"
"Yeah. If I'm dying anyway, might as well side with my friend."
An extra to the bitter end, doomed to mid-boss oblivion. He'd accepted that fate—but at the very last moment, he'd twisted the script. And with that, he twisted the future one final time.
No time to draw the dagger from his pocket for self-defense. But his ability was still usable. That was enough.
"—You pink-haired whore."
He thrust his hand forward. Serpent unleashed her power.
Lasers erupted from her fingertips in what felt like slow motion. He managed to slam the envelope against her wrist.
"You little—!"
Pain exploded with the burst of light. But he kept channeling his ability—
Slash!
"Kyaaak?!"
Her wrist—right at the artery—severed clean. The laser's path deflected.
But—
"...Cough."
Aimed point-blank, it was inevitable: his chest and hand pierced through.
"No—!"
His fading vision caught Jihyun's scream. Explosions rang out as battle erupted—
And he blacked out.