Chapter 54 : Before I Became the Heroine…
by fnovelpia
Neatly kept black hair, pale white skin, a sense of justice that you could feel just by looking at his face, and an aura that was both composed and overflowing with charisma.
Anyone could tell that this man exuded an extraordinary presence.
His name was Baek Woojin.
He was the protagonist of Reverse Hero Tale.
As a gamer, meeting the protagonist of my favorite game should’ve been a deeply moving experience—something that brought tears to my eyes.
But right now, Baek Woojin’s appearance only made me feel one thing: pure annoyance.
“You, you’re Yang Woobin, right? Stay the hell away from my friend Yaiba!”
Forget being the protagonist of Reverse Hero Tale or whatever.
Right now, he was just an obstacle getting in the way of what I needed to do.
“······!”
I tore my gaze away from Baek Woojin, who was pointing a sword with a faint white glow at me, and looked toward Yasuri Yaiba, whose eyes were trembling at the sight of him.
“Sigh.”
A reaction so anxiety-inducing that I couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
Her shaking eyes made it obvious she was scared… but am I too late?
Yasuri Yaiba was one of the heroines in Reverse Hero Tale.
Of course, not a normal heroine—she was a hidden heroine, whose proper ending could only be seen by fulfilling certain conditions.
The condition?
You had to endure and forgive the nonstop, batshit insanity she put you through all throughout the game.
She was so infamously outrageous that players of Reverse Hero Tale nicknamed her the “Malicious Trap Heroine.”
Just thinking about it pissed me off again.
I wanted to beat the hell out of Yasuri Yaiba some more.
She was a hitman who infiltrated Daecheon under orders from a Japanese organization to eliminate a mutated male superhuman who possessed two Mana Cores.
And of course, her target was none other than Baek Woojin, the only male superhuman with two Mana Cores.
To kill Baek Woojin, she used every method imaginable, but Baek Woojin withstood all her tricks and ultimately forgave her, thus entering her route.
But even then, Yasuri Yaiba still saw him as a target to eliminate and went berserk.
It was only after witnessing that madness that Baek Woojin realized what the real problem was.
After graduating from Daecheon Academy, Baek Woojin went on to destroy the organization that had controlled Yasuri Yaiba, freeing her from the chains that had bound her for life.
Only then did she finally fall in love with him and become a true heroine.
Reading that summary makes it sound like a proper, classic tale, but if you actually played Reverse Hero Tale, there’s no way you’d say something like that out loud.
Surviving all those “methods and tricks” might sound simple in words, but from a player’s point of view, you’d find yourself screaming,
“This crazy bitch, seriously?!”
Throwing poison-tipped shurikens silently from behind during every fight, taking your teammates hostage like it’s no big deal, poisoning your food, sneaking into your room while you sleep to slit your throat—
She did all of that regularly.
And yet, to enter her route, you had to survive four full years of that lunacy at Daecheon Academy, forgive her, and destroy the organization after graduation?
That’s not a heroine.
That’s a psychopathic killer who thinks she’s a heroine.
Sure, sometimes her eyes would tremble or her cheeks would flush when Baek Woojin forgave her or saved her, but that was about it.
Even with signs of affection here and there, her frequency and intensity of lunacy never decreased.
What a terrifying, nightmarish existence.
That’s why I was planning to beat her up and retire her before she could become a heroine.
But somehow, Baek Woojin and Yasuri Yaiba already seemed close—like actual friends.
“You messed with Yaiba just to get a higher-tier card, didn’t you? I didn’t see what you did to make her like this, but… don’t treat my friend Yaiba that way!”
See? He keeps calling her his friend.
Baek Woojin was your typical protagonist straight out of a shounen manga.
So there was a good chance he was the only one thinking of Yasuri Yaiba as a “friend.”
Given that Yasuri Yaiba was just trembling and not welcoming him or anything, I could kind of see how things stood.
But Baek Woojin’s shounen protagonist-level meddling had a high chance of reaching Yasuri Yaiba’s heart.
And if that happened, her route would start—and I’d have to deal with her nightmarishly high-difficulty madness.
Unlike a game, where you can retry after failing, this world is real.
And in that reality, there’s no way someone like Baek Woojin—who doesn’t know anything yet—could survive Yasuri Yaiba’s assassination circus.
Baek Woojin was the protagonist of Reverse Hero Tale, and a key figure who would later become essential to victory in the final arc, the war against the Demon Tribe.
If that crucial person were assassinated by Yasuri Yaiba, it would be an unthinkable disaster.
That’s why I had to deal with this right here and now.
For Baek Woojin’s sake—and for mine, if I want to survive in this world.
“······Hey, Yasuri Yaiba.”
“Hyuk?!”
So I tilted my sword flat against my hip and, while White Woojin crouched in preparation to charge at me, turned my head for a moment to look at Yasuri Yaiba and spoke to her.
“I want to beat the hell out of you. I want to mess up your arms and legs so badly you can’t pull any more of your little tricks.”
“H-Hiiik…!”
Terrified by my words, Yasuri Yaiba forgot that her back was pressed against a tree and tried to crawl backward, desperately scraping the ground with her only functioning left leg.
In the meantime, Baek Woojin finished his charge prep, his black pupils now glowing with white light, and he shouted at me.
“If you want to fight that badly, if you want to earn a higher-rank card and stay in Jincheon Class… then stop messing with my friend Yaiba and fight me instead, Yang Woobin!!!”
BOOM—!!!
With that shout, Baek Woojin launched himself at me, his mana-enhanced legs slamming against the ground.
His charge shot forth like a cannonball—far faster and stronger than Yasuri Yaiba’s ever was.
Since he was one of the cadets in the top 10 of the school year, a holder of the black Cheondap card, it was only natural that he’d be faster and stronger than Yasuri Yaiba.
In my current state, he was an opponent far beyond what I could handle.
Even Yasuri Yaiba seemed to expect me to lose, her eyes filled with hope as she watched Woojin fly in.
Normally, I should have been gritting my teeth and pouring every ounce of focus into Baek Woojin.
But I didn’t.
“Hey, don’t look away—look at me. Don’t even blink. Watch this real close.”
Even in this deadly situation where I could lose my head at any second, I kept my eyes locked on Yasuri Yaiba and continued speaking to her.
“Take this! Yang Woobin!!!”
Baek Woojin had already reached point-blank range in an instant, and he swung his glowing white blade horizontally while I continued speaking to Yasuri Yaiba.
“Watch what someone who wants to destroy you can do.”
Shreeeeeeek—!!!
Right after that, Baek Woojin’s slash, traced in a white arc, reached my waist.
At the same time, I chanted the activation word aimed at the mana core in my heart.
“Ignite.”
Fwoom.
***
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!
The entire world turned gold.
The sky split open, the ground trembled—a monstrous shockwave swept through the entire forest.
Yasuri Yaiba, who had been close to the source of the blast, was overwhelmed by the shock alone and momentarily blacked out.
“Ugh… Aaah…”
For someone like her, trained specifically to never lose consciousness under any circumstance by maintaining a steel-like mind, the fact that she fainted—even briefly—was unimaginably shocking.
“My… my eyes…”
Whether it was due to the intense golden flash, her corneas were damaged—when she opened her eyes again, her vision was still blurry.
Thankfully, as a trained superhuman, the blurred vision caused by the intense light recovered quickly.
“W-What… is this…”
As she regained her clear vision, she couldn’t help but gasp in horror at the scene before her.
A crater roughly ten meters in diameter had formed.
The surrounding trees, grass, and earth were scorched and ablaze.
From the moment she closed her eyes due to the flash to the moment she fainted and woke up—barely any time had passed.
And yet in that blink, the entire landscape had changed.
Panicked by the incomprehensible destruction before her, Yasuri Yaiba looked around quickly, then widened her eyes in shock when she saw a man caught in a burning tree.
“A-Ah… W-What is this… H-Huh? B-Baek Woojin?!”
It was her original target, the 5th-ranked first-year student, Baek Woojin, hanging upside down and unconscious from a tree.
‘H-He went down… in just that brief instant? Not just anyone—Baek Woojin…?’
Just as she was still reeling from the endless stream of shocking developments, a low groan echoed from the direction of the crater, outside her field of view.
“Urgh…”
“Huh?!”
That voice alone sent shivers down her spine, made her heart pound anxiously, and drenched her body in cold sweat.
Like a startled meerkat, she snapped her head toward the source of the voice.
At the center of the crater stood none other than Yang Woobin.
“Puh-ha!”
Fwoosh—!
Yang Woobin, now half-naked—his shirt somehow gone—stood there, smoke rising from his entire body as he exhaled glowing embers from his mouth.
His sweat-drenched upper body gleamed under the light, and he stomped forward with heavy steps toward Yasuri Yaiba.
“H-Hiiik…!”
The closer he got, the more Yasuri Yaiba’s body, mind, and spirit were consumed by terror.
Just as her bladder sent out warning signals and her overwhelmed nerves threatened to lose control, Yang Woobin stopped just short of her and spoke.
“Did you see it? What can I do?”
“Y-Yes! I saw—I saw everything!”
Yasuri Yaiba responded instantly, like a reflex straight from her spine.
She was terrified—desperate to survive whatever this monster was going to do.
Yang Woobin bared his teeth at her and growled as he spoke again.
“Someone like me, who can do this—will be watching you from now on. So don’t pull any more stupid shit and just behave quietly at the academy. If I hear anything—anything at all—about you, no matter what it is, I’ll find you and beat the hell out of you.”
“H-Huhuhuh…”
“Got it?”
At his question, Yasuri Yaiba trembled violently, tears streaming down her face as she nodded over and over as fast as she could.
“Y-Yes! I—I understand!!”
“Good. Stay alive, if you don’t want to die.”
With that, Yang Woobin turned and walked away, his heavy steps echoing behind him.
“Ugh… Uhhuhuhu…”
Yasuri Yaiba couldn’t take her eyes off his retreating back—and only when he completely disappeared from view could she finally let out the breath she’d been holding.
It was the moment that an unforgettable terror, delivered by an incomprehensible being, became seared into Yasuri Yaiba’s heart.
0 Comments