I Became an NPC That Rankers Are Obsessed Over

I slowly explained my plan to the Executor.

However, her expression remained unimpressed as she listened.

“So, you’re saying you’ll make cocktails and sell them like potions?”

I nodded silently.

“…”

The Executor stared at me with an expression that seemed to say, “Is this so-called plan all you’ve got?”

“My cocktails come with various buffs. Potions are tasteless, and you have to drink a lot of them. With mine, just a little is enough.”

Only then did the Executor seem interested, placing her hand on her chin.

She seemed to recognize the merit of replacing a potion that required nearly a liter to replenish stamina with just one drink.

At the end of her consideration, it turned into a calculation.

The Executor habitually flicked her lighter, pondering whether this small girl’s proposal would truly turn a profit.

“Can you produce them in large quantities?”

“Well…”

That was actually my fatal flaw.

My cocktails only gain buffs when they receive the effects of Angelic Hand, so naturally, they can’t be mass-produced in a factory.

Does that mean I’d have to make hundreds of cocktails a day myself?

Using the skill already left me exhausted; if I overused it like that, I’d probably end up dead like my past self.

Seeing my troubled expression, the Executor smirked knowingly.

I worried whether she might lock me up here and squeeze potions out of me until I died.

“At most, a few dozen bottles, right?”

“Yeah…”

The Executor let out a deep sigh, feeling she had wasted her time.

For her, I quickly prepared my next pitch.

“So, here’s the thing. Since I can’t mass-produce them anyway, I’m going to use a different strategy.”

“A different strategy?”

“I’ll take the cocktails I make myself and sell them at famous raid camps. Selling them on-site would fetch a higher price, don’t you think?”

People tend to become desperate when faced with immediate crises.

If they see a decent buff drink when they desperately need a single heal, they’ll lose their minds and buy it all.

I gave her a thumbs-up, asking her to trust me.

This was a truth I’d realized while serving on the frontlines in the military, so I was sure of it.

“All you’ve come up with is a wandering merchant idea?”

The Executor looked at me with a gaze full of disbelief.

“It’s more like a golden carriage than a wandering merchant.”

“A golden carriage?”

“It’s something soldiers always wait for.”

The Executor tilted her head.

She seemed curious about how I knew military terms.

“Oh, that’s… I have an older brother. When he was on leave, he told me about it endlessly.”

“I see.”

When I brought up family, the Executor’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Is he still alive?”

At her question, I hesitated to answer for a moment.

The person I called my older brother was actually myself before possession.

“No. He passed away when the gate opened.”

“…”

The Executor’s red eyes stared at the floor, creating an air of sorrow.

I never imagined that someone as perpetually sharp as her would show such a reaction.

“My father also passed away at that time.”

The Executor turned her gaze toward the desk.

On the plain surface, there was a solitary frame holding a family photo.

In the photo, the young girl stood happily beside her father.

As beautiful as the Executor was, her father was equally handsome.

Just sitting in the office with such a face felt like watching a movie.

He gave off the aura of a dashing middle-aged actor.

“He was handsome.”

“He was.”

Talking about her father softened the Executor’s expression slightly.

Thanks to that, I realized she was a warm person, at least toward her family.

Even if she had killed countless hunters without batting an eye.

Holding the frame, she bit her lip.

From her reaction, I instinctively sensed that something bad had happened between the two of them.

“I… committed a sin I can never repay to my father, even in death.”

The Executor muttered, staring blankly at the frame.

The brief silence turned the tense atmosphere of the office melancholic.

The owner of the office soon shifted her gaze back to me.

Her red pupils held a grudge, blaming the guest who had reminded her of sad memories.

“Let’s stop talking about personal matters.”

She closed the frame as if to erase the side of herself she had just shown me.

Then, leaning forward, she asked again.

“So, all this trouble was just to get a few bottles of alcohol out of me?”

Her sharp fangs seemed ready to sink into my neck at any moment.

I raised both hands, desperately offering her a suggestion.

“Why don’t you try my cocktail first and then decide?”

“I already got a sense of your level with Gin Tonic.”

Her tone was resolute.

But I didn’t back down either.

“Don’t worry. This time, I won’t disappoint you.”

“How do you plan to prove it?”

The Executor extended her palm.

I gently interlocked my fingers with hers.

“Like this.”

As our hands intertwined, a soft glow emanated from my fingertips.

The light transferred to the Executor.

「Angelic Hand」

The Executor’s red pupils began to lose focus.

When I first met her, all I saw were the memories of a dummy.

Created solely for slaughter, it was natural that only cruel memories existed.

But the person before me now was the true Executor.

This time, I would properly glimpse into her memories.

You can look forward to it.

This time, I’ll perfectly match your taste.

—

Han Su-rin/Executor’s Flashback

I wanted to become a model.

Captivated by the confident and beautiful models I saw on TV as a child, I imitated their poses tirelessly.

That passion grew clearer when I entered elementary school, and I finally shared it with my parents.

My mother opposed the idea, calling it an unrealistic dream.

But my father was different.

He allowed me to pursue modeling despite my mother’s objections.

He confidently told her,

“Let’s trust her just this once. Her eyes are serious.”

Thanks to his belief, I was able to become a top model ten years later.

The day I signed an exclusive contract as a model for the famous brand Red Snake.

I went to the department store with my father to celebrate my dazzling debut.

That day, I planned to give my father a gift for the first time since he had never bought himself a single piece of clothing while supporting me.

The gift was to be a suit from the most expensive brand in the department store.

However, my father insisted that buying something from the brand his daughter modeled for would be more helpful and chose a Red Snake tie.

Being as stubborn as he was, I had no choice but to buy that tie for him as a gift.

After finishing shopping, we headed to the first basement floor for a meal…

‘How did it come to this?’

The first basement floor had been filled with the sound of people’s laughter.

But now, it was overflowing with screams, cries, and the sound of people shoving each other to survive.

Frozen by the deafening noise, I could only watch the crowd pushing toward the exit.

As they squeezed past one another, bodies piled up on the floor, trampled to death.

The crowd surged toward the exit, stacking like stairs as the height increased.

Yet I couldn’t simply despise them for it.

That was the only escape route on the first basement floor.

When the last remaining exit is in sight, almost no one will calmly line up to escape.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t throw myself into that crowd.

Because my body was completely pinned beneath a fallen pillar of fire.

As the building collapsed, fires and explosions broke out everywhere.

Burning mannequins covered in debris fell on top of me.

They clung to me like living creatures, sticking to various parts of my body.

In the end, my entire body was on fire, and all I could do was lie there.

The acrid smell of oil and the shimmering heat made it hard to stay conscious.

I could only stare at my father in the distance.

He had stepped out briefly for a smoke and now pushed through the escaping crowd to reach out to me.

“Just go…”

I mumbled words he couldn’t possibly hear.

I truly wished for him to leave this hellish department store without me.

It wasn’t the wish of a daughter hoping her father would survive.

It was simply because I didn’t want to live anymore.

My body had melted in the searing flames, my face grotesquely disfigured.

Rather than survive in this horrifying state, I’d rather die.

That way, at least the news would feature my beautiful days, not my ruined face.

“Top model Han Su-rin dies in department store fire.”

If nothing else, getting attention even in death could be considered an honorable death.

The reason I was so obsessed with my appearance was simple.

For ten long years.

I had worked tirelessly to become a model.

I never rested when I wasn’t supposed to and slapped myself if I spaced out.

If I let my guard down and failed to maintain a pretty expression, I might mess up on the runway.

When people saw me, I had to be a perfect doll.

But now, achieving that was impossible with this appearance.

It was all so meaningless.

The body I had honed through a lifetime of hardship vanished in an instant.

The grief of losing a child must feel similar.

A daughter, whom they had supported and invested in for their whole life, had suddenly died.

As such thoughts ran through my mind, someone called out to me.

I knew well who it was.

“Su-rin…!”

In the distance, my father shouted.

He pushed through the crowd and began running toward me.

But the hand of salvation that had appeared at last only filled me with fear.

Don’t come.

Don’t come here.

Even if you save me, what’s left is just this hideous body.

I don’t want to live in this state.

A collapsing ceiling tile struck my father’s shoulder.

But clutching his shoulder, he staggered and kept coming toward me.

Hot gas spouted from the floor.

He coughed but didn’t stop walking.

Eventually, my father reached a distance where ten more steps would bring him to me.

But the figure he saw was no longer recognizable as his daughter.

“Dad’s here…”

It was strange.

Facing the father I had so desperately wanted to push away made my chest ache.

“Why did you come… What’s the point of surviving like this…”

“Don’t say that. You’ve worked so hard all your life. How could you die like this and leave it all behind?”

He kept pulling on my arm, the skin of which had peeled away, exposing raw muscle.

But my body didn’t budge.

Pulling any harder seemed like it would tear my arm off.

In the end, my father switched to removing the debris with his hands.

As he cleared it, his hands became covered in broken nails and red wounds.

While hurriedly removing fragments, his little finger bent backward.

“I’m not leaving with any regrets… So please, Dad, escape on your own.”

My father didn’t respond.

I couldn’t understand why he was so stubborn about this.

As I thought about it, my father strangely said something similar to me.

“Who do you take after to be so stubborn? If you survive, you’re really going to get scolded…”

Groaning, he began lifting the massive piece of rubble that pinned me down.

It was hard to believe someone as thin as him could exert such superhuman strength.

As veins popped out on his forehead, the rock pressing on me finally began to rise.

I could move little by little.

I thought all feeling had burned away in the flames.

But when my father’s hand touched me, I felt a warm sensation.

That warmth passed to me, reviving my strength.

Thanks to it, I decided to stop being stubborn just this once.

At last, I stood up and looked closely at the father supporting me.

“Do you remember why I allowed you to become a model?”

“No. It’s been ten years.”

My father smiled faintly as he looked at me.

And he told me.

“It’s because your eyes were so serious. Your appearance is great, but I let you because I saw your inner self.”

At first, his words didn’t stir any emotion in me.

But as I walked toward the exit, I felt my eyes grow hot.

If I survived, I would apologize to my father.

For saying I wanted to die in front of him.

But I could never tell him those words.

“—!”

As if to punish me for my stubbornness, the ceiling began to collapse completely.

Fragments rained down like a shower, and amidst them appeared something massive.

It wasn’t a car, a train, or a plane.

It was the giant foot of a creature with tough leather and claws.

When that foot stomped the ground, ceiling debris rained down on us.

At that moment, my father shoved me aside with great force.

“Dad…?”

The father who had been right next to me moments ago disappeared beneath the rubble in an instant.