Chapter 2: You’re Telling Me the Difficulty Is Increasing?

“System? You in there?”

Silence.

“Wise old grandpa who lives in a magic ring?”

Crickets.

“Your friendly neighborhood goddess of reincarnation?”

Nothing.

“Kyubey? Want to make a contract?”

Not a peep.

“Pikachu?”

The silence that answered was deafening.

“Seriously? Anyone? Can a guy get a single cosmic support agent on the line?”

After running through the entire transmigrator’s starter-pack checklist and getting nothing but existential dread in return, Ewan felt the overwhelming urge to collapse in a heap of self-pity. “Don’t tell me I’m a transmigrator without a single cheat to my name? Is that even legal?”

Other heroes got systems, harems, and legendary gear handed to them on a silver platter. They leveled up ninety-nine times a day just by breathing and stumbled their way to the pinnacle of existence.

But him? He was facing a game-over screen from the moment he started, with absolutely no buffs, no items, and no customer support.

“You have got to be kidding me, universe! I have one legendary gacha pull and this is my punishment? Even if I paid for it with my actual soul, this seems a little disproportionate!”

Then, a truly miserable thought dawned on him.

“Oh, right. All that good stuff is for the protagonist. I’m just a side character.”

His place in the cosmic hierarchy became painfully, crystalline clear. The fate of the disposable golden haired-villain was, it seemed, sealed.

Still, giving up and following the script was out of the question. He wasn’t stupid enough to actually drug Princess Celicia and light the fuse on his own destruction. When facing a situation this hopeless, there was only one viable strategy, a single golden rule for survival: grovel.

“Maybe a sincere, face-to-face apology tomorrow will do the trick,” he schemed, pacing his luxurious room. “I’ll have to make some concessions, obviously. I just hope she doesn’t ask for anything too outrageous.”

Ewan gritted his teeth, his resolve hardening. If the protagonist demanded he lick her feet clean to earn her forgiveness, then he would… well, he’d get to it. Humiliation was temporary, but life was precious.

Besides, how bad could licking a beautiful girl’s feet be?

He just really, really hoped she’d be wearing black silk stockings.

“Yes! That’s the plan!”

Ewan pumped a fist, his fighting spirit ignited by this new, albeit pathetic, course of action. All that was left was to—

THWACK!

“Agh!”

His moment of triumph was unceremoniously cut short by a sharp, sudden impact to the back of his head. Something had flown out of nowhere and clocked him.

“What the hell was that?”

Muttering a curse, Ewan clutched his throbbing head and spun around to identify his assailant.

It was a book.

A jet-black book, lying innocently on the plush carpet.

“What… is this?”

He frowned, a strange feeling prickling at him. The book felt oddly familiar, almost… intimate. As if it were a lost part of himself. Yet he was certain he’d never seen it before in either of his lives.

He glanced around. The doors were shut, the windows latched. Where in the world did it come from?

“Could it be…”

A spark ignited in Ewan’s eyes, quickly fanning into a wildfire of desperate hope. “My cheat item! It’s finally arrived!”

The book was pure, unadorned black. Its cover was a void, so devoid of light that staring at it felt like gazing into an abyss that was gazing back.

“The heavens haven’t abandoned me after all!”

Ewan was so moved he nearly burst into tears of gratitude.

A cheat item! The holy grail! With this, who cares if he was just a corporate drone? He’d kick the Mary Sue with one foot and punch the child of destiny with the other!

Fate? What was fate? His destiny was his own now!

Just one tiny little question…

How did he use it?

Staring at the blank cover, he was stumped. There wasn’t even a user manual. Was it a grimoire containing some forbidden, world-shattering spell?

Swallowing nervously, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs, he slowly, reverently, opened the cover.

Inside… was absolutely nothing.

The pages were as blank as his expression.

“You’re kidding me.”

“An unwritten divine tome?” he muttered. “Or does it require a special activation keyword?”

He turned the book over and over, shook it vigorously, and even tried whispering sweet nothings to it. No response.

“Heh. It’s not one of those cliché things that requires a blood pact, is it?”

The very moment the sarcastic thought crossed his mind, he felt a warm trickle on his forehead. A single, perfect drop of crimson blood, welling up from the very spot the book had struck him, rolled down his face.

As if guided by an unseen hand, it fell.

Directly onto the center of the page.

Instantly—

WHOOSH!

Like a slumbering beast awakened by the scent of blood, the book’s pages began to whip back and forth. A horrifying suction force erupted from its core. The tiny cut on Ewan’s head opened wide, and his blood began to pour out like a fountain, feeding the insatiable book.

“What the— what’s going on?!”

Before his mind could catch up to the horrifying reality of the situation, his vision swam and faded to black.

…

Drip. Drip.

An endless, dark space.

The steady, rhythmic sound of flowing liquid.

Air so cold it felt like breathing needles of ice.

And… someone else?

Who was there?

【Ah, you’re finally awake. I have been waiting for you for so very long.】

The voice was a nightmare, like rusty shears scraping against bone, so warped with static he couldn’t tell if it was man or woman.

【Shall we continue?】

Continue? Continue what?

A blurry, dark silhouette emerged from the oppressive shadows. Light from an unknown source illuminated its face, yet it remained a distorted mosaic, its features impossible to discern.

【That makes four hundred and seventy-two. Truly magnificent. Just as I’d expect from you.】

Four hundred and seventy-two? What did that mean?

The shadow drifted closer. It raised a hand, and a cold light glinted from something held within. It was a delicate scalpel, its edge as thin and merciless as a cicada’s wing.

Drip. Drip.

That sound. It was blood. His blood.

Flowing without end from four hundred and seventy-two separate wounds, each one a universe of pain that drilled deep into his very soul.

【Oh, how my heart aches to see you like this.】

The shadow tilted its head. A single, crystalline tear trickled down its obscured face, landing with a soft hiss in the pooling blood below.

【I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you so much. So why… why must you…】

【This isn’t who you are. You were so deliciously evil, so wonderfully cruel, so perfectly, beautifully selfish. You were meant to give others pain, not kindness. You were meant to be hated by all…】

【…so that you could belong only to me.】

【But you changed. Your heart changed.】

【And I cannot allow that.】

The razor-sharp edge of the blade began to trace a new line across his skin, a caress that promised only agony. Every touch left a vibrant red mark that would never fade.

The whisper, a terrifying paradox of boundless love and bottomless hatred, buzzed in his ears like a thousand angry wasps.

The shadow leaned in, its presence an unholy, dizzying blend of fresh blood and cloying flowers.

【And so, I will have to use my love to purify you completely.】

【Don’t you worry. I have so, so much more love to give.】

…

“What… was that?”

Ewan’s eyes flew open. He gasped, dragging air into his lungs like a drowning man, his face ghostly-pale and his entire body drenched in a cold sweat. He felt as if he’d just been ripped from the deepest circle of hell.

“A dream?”

He was in his room. Safe. There was no shadow, no scalpel, no four hundred and seventy-two cuts. It had to be a dream.

“But why would I dream something like that? A second ago, I was just…”

His gaze fell upon the black book still clutched tightly in his hand, and his mind went utterly blank.

He stroked its smooth, unnervingly cold cover, a single, terrified whisper escaping his lips.

“And… why did every second of it feel so real?”