So, let me set the scene here. My name was Kim Cheol, 17 years old, resident punching bag of Glory High School. Yeah, "Glory"—ironic, right? The only glorious thing about that place was how spectacularly terrible my life was there.
Picture this: overweight guy, face like a pizza (and not the good kind), orphan status in a country that practically worships family trees. I was basically the poster child for everything society didn't want to deal with.
Okay, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me rewind to that fateful day.
"Hey, fatso! Did your parents die of shame when they saw you or what?"
Ah, Park Jiwon. Basketball captain, CEO's son, professional asshole. This guy made it his personal mission to make my life miserable. And me? I was just trying to survive another day.
I kept walking. Pro tip I learned the hard way: Don't engage with people like him when you're severely outmatched. Just keep your head down and keep moving.
WHAM!
A kick to my backpack sent me stumbling, my stuff scattering everywhere. I bent down to pick up my books—
CRUNCH!
—and his designer shoe (probably worth more than my entire existence) crushed my hand.
"I'm talking to you, trash."
Pain shot through my fingers. I looked up at his perfect smile. Seriously, who has teeth that straight? Did his parents pay for that or were they naturally that annoyingly perfect?
"Sorry," I mumbled.
I hated myself for saying it. But what choice did I have?
"Sorry who?"
He pressed harder.
"Sorry, Jiwon-sunbaenim."
He spilled his water bottle on my books and walked away. Nobody helped me pick up my stuff. Nobody ever did.
Fast forward to that evening. My tiny studio apartment—calling it "cozy" would be generous; "shoebox" would be accurate—where I sat in front of my beat-up laptop.
This was my sanctuary. My escape from reality.
See, I'd been writing this webnovel for months. "Twilight of Heroes." Yeah, I know, pretty generic title. But the content? That was anything but generic.
I'd created twenty-four demon lords. Not just random villains—each one was basically a personification of everything that sucked about my life.
The Lord of Humiliation? That was inspired by the locker room incident. You know, that time they stripped me, took pictures, and spread them around school. Fun times! (Not.)
The Lord of Isolation? He trapped people in bubbles where they could see the world but never touch it. Basically my cafeteria experience in monster form.
The Lord of Physical Pain? Yeah, he looked suspiciously like Park Jiwon. Coincidence? Absolutely not.
Then there was the Lord of Despair, the Lord of Insatiable Hunger, and twenty others. Above them all sat the Demon King and Queen—modeled after the school principal who ignored bullying as long as the donations kept coming, and the guidance counselor who told me to "be more realistic" about my future.
I'd also created six great vampires and their servants, artifacts of world-ending destruction, and an entire cosmology of suffering. Every detail was perfect. Every element had meaning, even if that meaning was just "this is what hurt me."
I'd spent three months barely sleeping, pouring all my frustration, anger, and pain into this story. And tonight? Tonight I was publishing the final chapter.
The hero—who looked like an idealized version of myself, naturally—faces the ultimate evil, the Demon God I'd created as the final boss. And he loses. Not heroically, not with some grand sacrifice that saves humanity. He just... fails. Humanity is wiped out. The end.
Pretty dark, huh?
Click.
Published.
I collapsed onto my keyboard, exhausted beyond belief. Three months of barely sleeping, surviving on instant noodles and spite, and it was done.
The comments started flooding in immediately:
"OMG, this is a masterpiece!""Such a bold ending!""This subverted all my expectations!"
They thought it was art. They thought I was being clever and nihilistic.
They had no idea I was just writing revenge fiction against reality itself. This wasn't some profound statement about the human condition—it was me screaming into the void, hoping someone would hear how much it hurt to exist.
But hey, at least they liked it, right?
I closed my eyes. Just for a moment...
When I opened my eyes again, nothing made sense.
I wasn't in my apartment. I was floating in some weird void-space where pages from my own webnovel were drifting around me like cherry blossoms in the wind.
"Fascinating work, Kim Cheol."
A figure appeared in front of me, constantly shifting forms. Old man, young woman, child—it was like watching someone who couldn't decide what face to wear today. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty unsettling.
"Who are you?" I asked.
Surprisingly, I was calm. Maybe I was too tired to panic properly. Or maybe when you've hit rock bottom so many times, floating in a cosmic void doesn't really register as that weird.
"I am known by many names. But you can call me THE EDITOR."
The name literally appeared in glowing letters between us. Okay, that was pretty cool, not gonna lie.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Technically, yes. Overwork. Your heart gave out."
He showed me an image of my body slumped over my desk.
Wow. Even my death was pathetic. At least I died doing what I loved? No, wait, that's a lie. I died doing what I had to do to escape what I hated.
"But that's not the most interesting part," the entity continued, waving his hand.
Suddenly I could see my webnovel world. Except it wasn't just text anymore—it was real. Three-dimensional. Living and breathing. The twenty-four demon lords were actually terrorizing cities. The vampires were feeding on people's fear. The Demon King and Queen sat on their bone thrones, ruling over a world of suffering.
"Wait, hold on. You're telling me my story is real?"
"As real as the world you just left. Certain stories have such power that they transcend fiction and become reality in other dimensions. Your pain, your anger, your despair—they resonated across the boundaries of existence itself."
"That's..." I paused, processing this. "That's actually pretty cool."
And also absolutely terrifying, but we'll get to that.
"Unfortunately," THE EDITOR sighed—and I could hear the capital letters in his voice—"I don't really approve of your ending. Humanity going extinct? That's a bit much, don't you think?"
I shrugged. Or tried to. Hard to shrug when you're a disembodied consciousness floating in the cosmic void.
"I mean, humanity wasn't exactly kind to me, so..."
"Yes, yes, very edgy. But here's the thing, Kim Cheol—I'm giving you a chance to revise your work. From the inside."
"Wait, what do you mean—"
The space around me began to distort. I felt myself being pulled, compressed, stretched impossibly thin and then impossibly dense all at once.
"Hold on, I didn't agree to this—!"
I woke up staring at a ceiling covered in gold moldings.
Not my ceiling. Definitely not my ceiling. My ceiling had water stains and probably some questionable mold. This ceiling looked like it belonged in a palace.
I sat up fast—too fast—and immediately noticed something was wrong. My body felt different. I looked down at my hands.
Slim fingers. Manicured nails. No calluses from cheap keyboard keys.
There was a mirror across the room. I stumbled toward it, already dreading what I'd see.
Blond hair. Aristocratic features. Perfect skin. Silk pajamas that probably cost more than my entire previous wardrobe.
I recognized this face immediately.
"You've got to be kidding me."
June Van Naver. The perverted noble. The throw away villain I'd created as a stepping stone for the hero. The guy who was supposed to get expelled from the academy, then die miserably after trying to assault one of the female protagonists.
I'd reincarnated as literally the worst character in my own story.
"NO!" I shouted. "NO, NO, NO!"
My voice—his voice—echoed through the luxurious room. Nobody came to check on me. Of course not. June Van Naver was despised even by his own family. The black sheep of a noble household, isolated despite all his wealth and status.
I'd gone from being an outcast in poverty to being an outcast in luxury.
The universe has a twisted sense of humor, let me tell you.
But then—wait.
A thought struck me like lightning.
I knew this story. I wrote this story. Every event, every character, every plot twist, every death flag—it was all in my head. I knew when the demon lords would attack. I knew which characters would betray whom. I knew where the ancient artifacts were hidden. I knew the hero's weaknesses and strengths.
I started laughing. Hysterical, slightly unhinged laughter that probably would've scared anyone listening.
June Van Naver was supposed to die in chapter 47, killed by the hero after attempting to assault the main heroine. A pathetic death for a pathetic character.
But that was the old June Van Naver. The one who followed the script I'd written.
This June Van Naver? He had something nobody else in this world had: complete knowledge of the future.
I knew every danger before it happened. Every opportunity before it appeared. Every hidden treasure, every secret technique, every plot twist that would shake the world.
Sure, I was trapped in my own webnovel as a character destined to die horribly. But I was also the author. The god of this world, in a way. Just... a god who'd been demoted to playing one of his own NPCs.
For the first time in both my lives—my real life and this new one—I had actual, genuine power.
The question was: how was I going to use it?
Option one: Follow the script. Die at chapter 47 like a good little villain.
Option two: Rewrite the story. My story. Change my fate and maybe, just maybe, save this world I'd condemned to destruction.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror—this handsome, aristocratic face that didn't feel like mine yet.
"Alright, THE OMNISCIENT READER or whatever you call yourself," I said to the empty room. "You want me to revise my work? Fine. But we're doing this my way."
I was going to survive. I was going to thrive. And I was going to prove that even the worst character in the story could have a happy ending.
Or at least an ending that didn't involve getting stabbed by the hero and dying in a ditch somewhere.
The bar was pretty low, honestly.