The dormitory room was a cramped fortress of solitude, its beige walls adorned with peeling paint and forgotten dreams. Riyan sat at his desk, spine curved in a posture that would make any chiropractor weep, utterly absorbed in the digital pages glowing before him. His laptop's harsh blue light carved shadows across his face, transforming his features into something almost spectral in the late-night darkness.
"Saint's Odyssey" had him in its grip—had held him captive for the past week, actually. Page after page, chapter after chapter, he'd devoured the story with an addict's desperate hunger. The narrative was masterful, weaving together threads of heroism and sacrifice, love and loss, building toward something he could feel approaching like distant thunder.
His heart hammered as he scrolled. The protagonist was finally facing the ultimate challenge, the moment everything had been leading toward. Riyan leaned closer, his breath catching—
And then the author did it.
The hero didn't triumph. Didn't even get a noble death. Instead, the character Riyan had invested hundreds of pages of emotional energy into was betrayed, humiliated, and discarded like garbage by the very people he'd sacrificed everything to save. The story didn't just end badly—it ended cruelly, with a deliberate twist of the knife that served no narrative purpose except to inflict pain on the reader.
"FUCK THIS SADISTIC BASTARD OF AN AUTHOR!"
The words erupted from Riyan's throat like a volcanic explosion, raw and unfiltered. His hands slammed against the desk, sending his water bottle clattering to the floor. Rage coursed through him—not the petty annoyance of a disappointing ending, but genuine fury at the calculated malice of it. The author hadn't just written a tragedy; they'd crafted a betrayal of the reader's trust.
He sat there, chest heaving, fists clenched so tight his knuckles had gone white. The story had been so good. So compelling. And the author had taken that investment and spat in his face with it.
Riyan forced himself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The rage slowly subsided into a dull, bitter disappointment. He glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen—1:47 AM. Shit. He had to open the café at six.
With the resigned sigh of someone who'd made yet another poor life decision, he closed the laptop. The screen's glow vanished, plunging the room into darkness. He didn't bother undressing, just collapsed onto his bed fully clothed and stared at the ceiling, his mind still churning with frustration.
Sleep came eventually, but it was restless and thin.
---
The alarm's shrill beeping pierced through his consciousness like an icepick to the brain. Riyan's arm shot out automatically, searching for the offending device. His hand found the clock, but instead of hitting the snooze button, his sleep-addled, still-angry brain chose violence.
The alarm clock exploded into plastic shrapnel as he smashed it against the wall.
The sudden silence was profound. Riyan lay there for a moment, staring at the debris scattered across his floor, processing what he'd just done. That was his third alarm clock this semester. At this rate, he'd run out of money before he ran out of morning shifts.
But at least the ringing had stopped.
He dragged himself out of bed, his body protesting every movement. The shower helped—hot water had a miraculous way of washing away both grime and rage. He stood under the spray longer than he should have, letting the heat work its way into his muscles, loosening the knots of tension. By the time he emerged, he felt almost human again.
Riyan dressed in his usual work attire: dark jeans, a simple black shirt, and a jacket he'd probably have to take off within an hour of arriving at the café. Comfortable, unremarkable, exactly the kind of outfit that let him blend into the background while he served overpriced coffee to students too rich to care about the price.
As he was lacing his shoes, his phone buzzed. A news notification lit up the screen, and he tapped it more out of habit than interest.
The headline made him pause: "Serial Killer Targets 'Men of Culture'; Female Suspect Identified, Victims Under Surveillance."
Riyan's eyebrow arched. Men of culture? He skimmed the article, and a slight grin tugged at his lips despite himself. Apparently, some woman had been systematically hunting down men who frequented certain... communities. The kind dedicated to anime, manga, and what the article vaguely called "mature content."
The victims were all hardcore members—the type who had entire rooms dedicated to figurines, who unironically argued that 2D was superior to 3D, who built their entire identities around rejecting real women in favor of anime girls.
Riyan wasn't that. Not even close. Sure, he was active in a few communities—mostly discussing seinen manga, analyzing narratives, occasionally appreciating well-drawn character art. He liked anime. He appreciated good artwork, including mature content when it was artistically done. But he didn't worship it. Didn't build shrines. Didn't have a waifu or claim 2D was superior to reality.
He was just a guy who enjoyed stories and art. Nothing extreme. Nothing obsessive.
"Poor bastards," he muttered, setting his phone down. The killer was clearly targeting the extreme cases—the Rex types, the guys who'd gone off the deep end. He didn't fit that profile at all.
He grabbed his earbuds and headed out.
---
The morning was beautiful—one of those perfect autumn days where the air was crisp but not cold, and the sunlight painted everything in warm gold. Riyan's mood lifted as he walked, the rhythm of his steps syncing with the music pumping through his earbuds. Coldplay's soaring vocals wrapped around him, and for those few minutes, everything felt manageable.
He crossed through the university grounds, taking his usual shortcut toward the café. Other early risers passed by—joggers, fellow wage slaves, the occasional student doing the walk of shame. Nobody paid him any attention. He was just another face in the crowd.
The crosswalk ahead showed a red hand. Riyan slowed but didn't stop, glancing left and right. The street looked clear. He stepped off the curb.
The music was too loud. That was his first mistake.
The truck's horn was his only warning—a split second of blaring sound that cut through Coldplay's vocals. Riyan's head whipped around, and his heart stopped.
The massive vehicle was bearing down on him, close enough that he could see the terror on the driver's face. Time didn't slow down like in the movies. There was no moment of clarity, no life flashing before his eyes. There was only pure, animal panic and the instant realization that he'd fucked up.
He tried to move. His body lurched sideways, but it was pathetically inadequate. The truck's grille filled his vision, and then—
**Impact.**
The world became pain and spinning chaos. He was airborne, then crashing down onto asphalt with bone-jarring force. Something inside him broke—multiple somethings. His ribs. His spine. His pelvis. Everything. His vision flickered, darkness creeping in at the edges. Sound became distant and muffled, like he was underwater.
He lay there, unable to move, watching his own blood spread across the pavement in a growing pool. The pain was everywhere and nowhere, his nervous system short-circuiting as shock set in.
*This is it,* he thought distantly. *This is how I die. Hit by a truck like some protagonist in a shitty isekai novel.*
People were shouting. Running toward him. Someone was screaming for an ambulance. The truck driver was out of his vehicle, hands on his head, face pale with horror. Help was coming. Maybe he'd survive this. Maybe—
Footsteps approached, faster than the others. Purposeful. Someone pushing through the gathering crowd.
A face appeared above him. A woman, young, with striking auburn hair and features that would have been beautiful if not for the expression she wore. Her eyes were wide, wild, gleaming with something that made his blood run colder than the shock already had.
Her smile was wrong. Too wide. Too eager. Too familiar from the news article he'd just read.
*No.*
"Riyan," she said, her voice breathless with exertion and something that might have been triumph. "Top scorer in last year's national qualification exam. Scholarship student at Traids University. Part-time barista." She crouched beside him, and her smile grew wider, manic. "And most importantly... a Man of Culture."
*Oh fuck no.*
"You've enjoyed quite a collection, haven't you?" Celeste continued, her voice dripping with mockery and rage. "All those forums. All that refined content. All those discussions about your favorite mature anime girls. Well, congratulations, Riyan. You've earned your place on my list."
He tried to speak, to explain, to tell her she was wrong. He wasn't like Rex. Wasn't like Martin. He was just a casual fan, just someone who liked stories and art. This was insane. This was a mistake. He'd already been hit by a fucking truck—wasn't that enough?
But his throat only produced a wet gurgle, blood bubbling past his lips.
"People like you," Celeste hissed, pulling something from her jacket, "you think you're different. Think you're moderate. But you all feed the same poison. You all contribute to the same rot. Rex, Martin, and now you."
The knife glinted in the morning sunlight.
"Wait—" The word barely made it out, choked and desperate. "Wrong—"
The blade plunged into his abdomen.
Pain exploded through him, somehow cutting through even the truck's damage, sharp and focused and agonizing. He screamed, or tried to. The sound came out as a wet, broken wheeze.
She pulled the knife out and stabbed him again.
And again.
And again.
Each thrust was precise, deliberate, enthusiastic. She wasn't just killing him—she was punishing him, making him pay for crimes he didn't even commit, for being tangentially associated with men he'd never met.
"Rex died too easily," Celeste panted, working the knife with practiced efficiency. "But you? You get to feel it. You get to understand what it's like to be destroyed by someone who doesn't see you as human."
Riyan's mind was fragmenting, thoughts scattering like broken glass. This wasn't fair. This wasn't right. He was just a guy who liked anime. Just a casual member of a few online communities. He didn't worship 2D girls. Didn't hate women. Didn't do anything to deserve this.
But Celeste didn't care. In her narrative, he was already condemned. Already guilty. Already less than human.
People were screaming now, rushing forward. Someone grabbed Celeste from behind, pulling her away. Too late. Far, far too late. The knife clattered to the ground, slick with blood.
Riyan's vision darkened, the edges closing in like a vignette. He could hear sirens in the distance, ambulances that would arrive to find him already gone. His breathing was shallow, rattling, each breath weaker than the last.
His last coherent thought was bitter, absurd, and tinged with dark humor:
*Hit by a truck AND murdered by a serial killer. What are the fucking odds? This is the dumbest fucking death in history.*
The morning sunlight felt warm on his face. Coldplay was still playing in his earbuds, tinny and distant.
Then darkness swallowed everything, and Riyan was gone.
The Cultured Killer had claimed another victim.
And Riyan—casual anime fan, scholarship student, part-time barista, and entirely wrong target—bled out on a crosswalk on a beautiful autumn morning, killed by a woman who never bothered to learn who he actually was.
Important Note: Don't miss Chapter 3 of Volume 0! And if you're curious about the killer, check out Chapter 9 as well.