NOVEL ONLINE FREE C1
# 1. Stories that begin with “When I woke up” are usually
I’ll say this upfront, but this is a hypothetical scenario.
I’ve thought since childhood that humans are divided into two categories.
Good and evil.
By now, I’m well aware of how binary and foolish this way of thinking is, but nevertheless, I occasionally find myself thinking:
Surely I am good and you all are evil, aren’t you?
–
“Ah damn, it got axed again…tsk.”
A webtoon I enjoyed watching was prematurely ended.
It’s a superhero webtoon that holds the weekly #1 spot on a webtoon platform operated by a major corporation.
Feeling dejected, I tossed my smartphone. The screen of the phone that rolled under the bed simply displayed the word “completed.”
What can I say? I’m a superhero genre enthusiast.
Novels, comics, dramas, movies, etc. – regardless of the medium, I love anything related to superheroes.
If you ask why I like them, well, aren’t superhero stories easy to understand?
Justice judges evil.
While the process differs from work to work, justice ultimately triumphs over evil.
That clear plot is why I love superhero stories.
Of course, if you ask if that’s the only reason, it absolutely isn’t.
Some say that superhero stories often feel boring due to their simple narrative structure of good triumphing over evil.
That’s nonsense.
Writers are thinkers.
Within the established plot, they constantly think and agonize over how to make the story appealing to readers.
As a result of such agonizing, they create the “worst villain” who generates tension even against the “hero who eventually wins.”
Villain.
Also called the antagonist or mastermind, they’re essentially the behind-the-scenes forces driving the superhero genre.
“…”
Suddenly, my mind returned to reality.
Because I realized that if it hadn’t been prematurely ended, the final boss of Last Man Standing would soon be revealed.
“They even laid the groundwork…”
A lament flowed from deep within my heart. Thinking about it again, it was absurd that this work would be prematurely ended.
“The ratings were consistently good, there were no controversies, and the author diligently published with hardly any breaks. What reason could there possibly be for dropping it…?”
As I said this, anger welled up again, and I grabbed my smartphone from under the bed.
When I came to my senses, a lengthy comment of about six thousand characters had been written.
For someone like me who normally doesn’t write anything beyond brief KakaoTalk replies, completing such a long comment—anger is truly a remarkable emotion.
Anyway! Since I wrote it, I’m posting it.
After pressing the button, the long comment was uploaded to the screen after a few seconds of loading.
Eventually, my comment received significant attention from other readers who shared my sentiments and rose to become a best comment.
However,
*Comment blocked by administrator*
Perhaps because it received too much attention, my pure and sincere comment was deleted on the spot.
“You bastards!!”
In anger, I threw my smartphone. The screen of the phone that rolled under the bed coldly displayed the words “blocked comment.”
“Haah…”
A feeling of exhaustion came over me. I’ve heard somewhere that the final stage of the five stages of anger is acceptance, and although I don’t want to admit it, that seems to be my current state.
“So who exactly was Last’s nemesis that was determined from the beginning of serialization…they should at least tie up loose ends…”
I painfully grabbed the bedside lamp with my toes and turned it off.
The room quickly darkened, and I had to force myself to close my eyes.
I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep right away, but I wanted to escape this bleak and desolate feeling of losing a favorite work right before my eyes.
*
Colorful lights hit my face.
“Argh, what now.”
When I opened my eyes, what I saw was an incredibly unfamiliar ceiling.
My house uses fluorescent lights, so what’s with this fighting-spirited neon sign?
Moreover, it was an eye-stinging blue color. Whoever the owner is, they really lack sense.
As I roughly rubbed my eyes and stood up, the entrance door was immediately visible, showing how cramped the place was.
Looking around for the bathroom, I immediately saw a door marked ‘Toilet’ on the right.
I turned on moderately hot water and scrubbed my face. My cheeks felt smoother than usual, and my hands felt colder.
Gently brushing up my messy bangs, I opened the front door to get some air.
The next moment.
“…….”
What unfolded before my eyes was a vast skyscraper.
Skyscrapers so impossibly tall that you couldn’t distinguish between walls and floors were pouring light over a city of eternal night.
That sight was truly…
“…huh?”
It resembled the city of Minos, which serves as the background of Last Man Standing.
Is this a dream?
The shock of the forced cancellation must have been quite significant to even see it in dreams.
At that moment, something like a screen appeared above my head.
[You have become the protagonist of ‘Last Man Standing’ and the nemesis of the noblest hero ‘Last’.]
[Let’s accumulate evil points and become a vicious and wicked villain worthy of being Last’s nemesis.]
[Goal: Be killed by Last with over 100,000 evil points 0/1]
[Failure: World destruction]
[Current evil points: 0/100,000]
[Sub-mission has been set]
[All evil starts with one step!]
[Mission: Earn 100 evil points]
[Reward: Point shop opening, 1 piece of future knowledge]
“…….”
This is getting ridiculous. Even for a dream, to assign such specific settings.
I immediately locked the front door and returned to bed.
After closing my eyes for about 5 minutes, I started to break into a cold sweat.
I rushed to the bathroom. And standing in front of the mirror, I splashed cold water on my face.
Is washing my face not enough? Then this time, I ran to the refrigerator and gulped down cold water.
“Ah, my head…”
The water was so cold that I could almost trace the path from my throat to my stomach with my finger.
“Ugh…”
Perhaps due to drinking cold water in a hurry, I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom.
And
I stood frozen in place and had to turn my gaze back to the mirror once more.
“No…this is…”
The face of the woman in the mirror was quite pretty. Considering she had just woken up and wasn’t wearing makeup, it was surprising.
“I didn’t see wrong…”
With delicate hands that seemed to have never touched water, I gently patted the face of someone else who had now become me.
A woman with long, mischievously curved eyebrows and a smiling appearance who seemed to have just entered her prime.
“Last’s nemesis was a woman…?”
Again, this is a hypothetical scenario.
I have been transported into the body of the villain of a forcibly discontinued webtoon.
How will I survive?
*
Someone once said.
Isn’t there an inexplicable sense of stability in the number 3?
That’s why from ancient times, both religiously and socially, there have been many mentions of trinity, silver arrows, and the like.
Here, that someone was me.
Suddenly, what does this mean? It means that three hours have already passed since I fell into this desolate city where the only light is from lamps.
If you ask whether some stability has come to my bleak life during that time, I would answer that it hasn’t.
“Ah, this dog-like networking society torments me even here.”
To briefly describe what I’ve been doing during this time, it could be explained as a kind of self-discovery.
If I’m the undisclosed final boss of a forcibly discontinued webtoon, as an avid reader, wouldn’t I be curious about what kind of character that is?
However, what did the original owner of this body usually do? There wasn’t a single photo or contact saved on the phone, as if she was deliberately living in hiding.
Nor was there anything in the house that could prove one’s identity.
There was literally no answer.
“Who on earth am I! How is it that there’s not a single person who can answer me!”
Therefore, I couldn’t even know my own name.
Yes, my name!
I finally decided to name myself.
Chae Yu-ha.
A precious name I had planned to give to a daughter if I ever had one.
Yes, from today I am Chae Yu-ha.
If no one in this world defines my existence, I will step forward and call myself Yu-ha.
Once I made up my mind like that, it already seemed like I was forgetting what my name was in my previous life.
“…….”
But Yu-ha feels a bit off. It unnecessarily reminds me of my hometown.
Anyway, I looked at the mysterious window floating in the air.
[Goal: Be killed by Last with over 100,000 evil points 0/1]
[Failure: World destruction]
What…kind of goal is this?
A naturally sullen voice came out even without intending it.
Is this the world seen from the perspective of a story’s villain?
To raise your value as a villain in order to meet a more meaningful death at the hero’s hands?
Moreover, to be killed by Last? I wonder if whoever made this actually watched the original work.
How could that order-obsessed sucker kill a person?
-Grumble…
Someone wailed. Asking for food.
Here, that someone was fucking me.
What should I do? This broke girl doesn’t even have a single ramen at home.
“Ah, damn.”
There wasn’t really an answer that came from thinking about it.
I decided to go outside and walk the streets first.
[All evil starts with one step!]
[Mission: Earn 100 evil points]
[Reward: Point shop opening, 1 piece of future knowledge]
Right! Come to think of it, even petty criminals are still evil, aren’t they?
Pickpocketing seems like something I could try even by modern moral standards.