Park Suhoo's fingers twitched over the keyboard, punching out the last few words. He was tired, so very tired.
[The world united in its final hour.
Yet even unity was not enough.
The Ten Evil Gods descended, and the curtain fell.]
He stared at the glowing screen, before punching the big 'publish' button. His eyes were red, bloodshot, framed by purple half-moons carved under his sockets.
His body sagged into the chair like it was a coffin.
A bitter laugh slipped from his cracked lips. "Three years…..and it's finally done."
The laugh turned into a dry cough. His room was a landfill — instant noodle cups towered on the desk like a shrine to poverty, cigarette butts floated in half-drunk beer cans, dirty laundry carpeted the floor, and the stench of unwashed sheets clawed at the air. The single window was taped shut with old newspapers.
It was safe to say that his life was pretty ass.
He took a glance at his laptop's screen, and after seeing the big, blue 'Successfully Published' notification on the top of the screen, he took a deep breath and sighed.
How long had he worked on this novel?
He moved his feet, as they brushed past a sack of empty, crushed cans of carbonated soft drinks. For some reason, despite everything that had happened, he had always found the will inside him to continue writing, to continue working on this novel of his.
Like, something or someone was possessing him to finish a work that wasn't his.
The last three years of his existence had been burned away to create this webnovel. How To Save The World From 10 Evil Gods? was his grand magnum opus, his legacy, the one thing he had left after his parents cut him off and his gambling addiction devoured every chance of redemption.
And yet, was it famous? Nope.
Instead, it was infamous for being one of the worst novels out there, and while that did technically bring some levels of income, it usually brought with it 'hate-readers' who always left their two cents of misery on his comments, and sometimes, his DM.
Suhoo leaned back, the chair groaning, and pulled out a bent cigarette. His lighter clicked, sputtered, then caught. A plume of smoke curled upward, staining the already yellowed ceiling.
He clicked open the comments. Yep, just like he thought.
[DarkSlayer93]: Lol, what a waste of time. Shit ending.
[EternalReader]: The hero was supposed to WIN, dumbass. What's the point if the Ten descend anyway? Trash author.
[CatGirl420]: Kys. This novel was garbage after chapter 300.
[MrFanfic]: 700 chapters, and half the cast dies. Worst ending ever.
The cigarette trembled between his fingers. His jaw clenched until pain rattled up his teeth.
"…What a bunch of f*ckers," He whispered. One would think that someone who had been cursed every single time he uploaded a chapter would be used to it, and yet, he fell for their 'rage-bait' every single time.
His fingers stabbed at the keyboard. His replies poured venom.
"Do you idiots not understand optimal writing? Leon's choices were the BEST possible outcome. Every sacrifice was NECESSARY! That ending was the most LOGICAL and realistic! If you can't handle it, fuck off and go read power fantasies where the hero wins everything with friendship."
He clicked "send." Another comment insulted him. He replied again. And again. Rage possessed his hands like a demon.
"You think I didn't plan this out?!" he shouted at the empty room. "Three years of blood, sweat, cigarettes, and debt — and you think you know better than me?!"
"This is why the world's so fucked," He said. "Because of r*tards like these infesting this already rotten earth!"
The monitor reflected his twisted face — greasy hair clinging to his forehead, ash-stained lips, hollow eyes burning with a gambler's desperation. He looked like one of his own villains.
Oh, he knew he was one of the very people he was cursing against. Did he care though? Nope.
Ding!
A notification. A request for a private DM. . .although it shouldn't be possible. He had already set his profile to private, and pretty much set his 'Requests For Dm' on lockdown.
"Who the fuck is this bastard?"
Driven by curiousity, he decided to accept the request and first thing he saw was their USERID.
[UserID: ForgottenTruth]
He frowned. How corny, despite his own username being [TheOneAboveAll].
The message blinked open.
[ForgottenTruth → You]:Did you mean it?
"…What?" Suhoo muttered. He typed.
[You → ForgottenTruth]:Mean what? And, who the fuck is this? One of my reader bastards?
[ForgottenTruth → You]:I suppose you could say that. And, I meant, did you truly believe that the Hero's decisions were the best possible he could have made? That the world ending under the Ten was inevitable… and the best ending?
Suhoo scoffed, flicking ash into an empty beer can. "Some roleplayer freak."
His lighter sparked oddly when he clicked it again, flame hissing too high for a moment. The cigarette smoked bitter. He typed.
[You → ForgottenTruth]:Yeah. It was the best ending. Every decision is optimal. The Ten's descent couldn't be stopped. If you don't like it, why don't you send me there yourself? I'll show you what I mean LOL.
He leaned back, smoke swirling around him, imagining the look on that reader's face. "Stupid reader bastards."
But before he could close the DM, and ban the reader, the reply came instantly.
[ForgottenTruth → You]:Okay. ;)
Suhoo blinked. "…The hell?"
His screen flickered. The cursor froze mid-blink. For a second, he swore he saw words burned into the pixels of the monitor itself.
Then another notification appeared. Not from his site. Not from any app. No, it appeared straight in front of his eyes like some fucking hologram, like he was in some fucking virtual simulation game.
"What the fuck?!"
He got up instantly, before tripping on one of the can of sprites underneath and falling on his ass, but the notification screen didn't escape him, levelling itself to his eye-level.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[Let's see if you can back your words up, shitty creator.]
The cigarette slipped from his lips. It smoldered on the stained carpet.
His monitor burned white.
Suhoo tried to push himself away, but his body locked. His lungs collapsed. His vision snapped into black.
"This. . .is how I die?"
Yup, this was exactly how he died. Park Suhoo, disowned by the Park Family, aged 36. Cause of death? Heart Attack.
Did anyone mourn him? Some. Soon.
Water.
No — thicker, colder, more suffocating. Fluid filled his lungs. He convulsed, choking, thrashing in the void. His hands clawed desperately until his palms struck glass. Smooth, unyielding.
He opened his eyes and screamed. He saw the bubbles floating up from his scream, but no sound, no noise, as if he was in some sort of vacant space? No, a tube?
God, why was his brain moving at a million miles per second? It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
Then, he fainted. Then, woke up again five seconds later.
This time, he could see more clearly. He moved or at least tried to move his hands but couldn't and glancing down, he screamed again in horror when he saw fucking tubes writhed out of his veins, glyphs glowing faintly where flesh and machine fused. His body felt weightless, suspended. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
But, before he could panic even more, he caught a glint, a flash of something in his line of sight. He furrowed his eyebrows, or at least he thinks he did, as sensation was entirely fluid right now, like he was a newborn trying to learn how to use his own body, but at least he saw it.
A mirror. Almost Victorian-era in design. But it was definitely a mirror, and on the other side of the glass, it was definitely his reflection that stared back.
Well, not his, but the body that he now. . .apparently possessed.
Ignoring the millions of tiny tubes stuck around him, inside him, and on him, he knew that he was definitely a long way from home. Or, was he still dreaming?
He winced. That pain returned again, banging in his head, but he forced himself to stay awake to stare at this reflection.
Long blue hair floated around his face like seaweed. Two black horns jutted from a pale forehead. His skin glowed like polished ivory, unmarred, alien.
Eyes, sapphire-dark, bottomless.
The face was neither male nor female — perfectly androgynous. A flawless doll.
Suhoo's chest seized. His thoughts cracked.
"…No way…"
The reflection's mouth moved with his, but of course, in the fluid capsule that he was currently in, no sound could be made. The truth crawled down his spine like ice.
This wasn't a dream. And, he wasn't Park Suhoo anymore. And, he knew exactly who he, or rather this body was, and it felt like the fluids around him had turned cold.
Kappa. Fucking Kappa. The so-called "Perfect Homunculus." Professor Thomas' masterpiece. The mini-boss of Act I, in the very novel that he had just finished before his apparent death.
A puppet born from ritual slaughter, a vessel of aura circuits.
And in the canon story…
He died. Pretty Brutally, in fact.