VNIROM 3

He was given a place to live, a steady income, and decent welfare benefits. It was all for Espers who could die at any moment fighting monsters. With this kind of life, he figured he could live it twice over. He’d already been through enough bullying at work to be sick of it. Of course, that was part of the reason he’d stormed out of his last job. But truthfully, the bullying wasn’t the only reason he’d quit.

In a more optimistic light, the life of an extra in his dream wasn’t so bad. If he really tried, he could see it as endlessly positive.

“Time to clock out…!”

No one had told him when the workday ended, but the moment it hit 6 p.m.—the typical time for an office worker to leave—Haseong shut down his computer. And no one stopped him. That’s because everyone else on the team was already gone.

Even after staring at files that never seemed to decrease, he didn’t feel all that tired. Maybe it was because it was a dream… or maybe because this body was an Esper. He couldn’t tell.

In the novel, Espers were usually described as tall and broad-shouldered, but the body Haseong now occupied was the exact opposite. He barely stood over 170 cm, had zero muscle, and looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. Definitely not a body built for durability.

He let out a small sigh. If it were his body, there’s no way he’d let it get this bad. But in the end, it wasn’t like it really mattered—once he woke up, he’d be out of this body anyway.

Still, he figured he might as well treat himself to one last good meal.

He headed toward the cafeteria on the first floor of the Esper dorms—the same place the main character in the novel had boasted about. All it took was a company ID to get a feast.

He’d thought about eating there, but the cafeteria was surprisingly crowded, and he could feel people’s eyes on him.

No way I could eat in peace with all those eyes on me.

He probably wouldn’t be able to finish everything anyway with his small appetite, but he still packed a variety of dishes to go. It was a dream, so wasting food didn’t feel like a big deal.

Leaving behind the piercing stares, he returned to the dorm he’d woken up in that morning. He had remembered the way and found it again with little trouble, though the place still felt a bit unfamiliar. Still, compared to somewhere completely new, it was at least a little comforting.

He set the food on the table, showered, and changed into something more comfortable.

“Now that’s more like it.”

Just brushing his bangs out of his eyes made him feel more alive. There was no way he could live like this forever—but then again, it wasn’t his life to judge.

He messily pushed his bangs back and took a bite of the food he’d brought. Now he understood why the main character had praised it so much.

The meat melted in his mouth, and the vegetables were fresh. Not too salty, perfectly seasoned. If there were a restaurant like this nearby in real life, he’d probably eat there every day without getting sick of it.

As expected, he couldn’t eat much before feeling full. His stomach was just too small. He packed the leftovers and stuck them in the fridge, then collapsed onto the bed.

Time had crawled by while he was working, but now that he was home and relaxing, it flew by. It was almost time to wake up. Time to say goodbye to the dream where he’d lived, even briefly, as someone else.

* * *

“Haah…!”

A sigh slipped through Haseong’s red lips. It wasn’t a relieved or contented sigh. It sounded more like someone resigning themselves to a hopeless situation.

And it made sense—he still hadn’t woken up from what he thought was a dream.

No matter how many times he fell asleep and woke up, he was still stuck in the world of the novel.

It was enough to make someone lose their mind.

He’d tried a few different ways to wake himself up, thinking that maybe death was the only way out of a dream. He’d jumped from heights, even cut his wrist once. But all it did was hurt.

Apparently, the injuries hadn’t been fatal, because his body healed fast—unnaturally fast. Even though it looked weak and frail, he was still an Esper. The wounds closed at an incredible rate, leaving no scars behind.

He even downed a full bottle of sleeping pills once, but all that happened was he slept soundly and woke up the next morning like nothing happened.

“I can’t die, I still feel pain… Don’t tell me this isn’t a dream…!”

If not even a serious shock could wake him up, then there was only one explanation left:

This wasn’t a dream.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Over the past few days, he’d realized something that made everything even worse.

After several failed attempts at dying and a string of sleepless nights, even this superhuman body started feeling fatigue. Despite his regeneration, he couldn’t shake the exhaustion and the pounding in his head. That’s when he remembered—he was supposed to be an Esper.

And Espers were supposed to have something—someone—attached to them.

A Guide.

In the novel, whenever someone awakened as an Esper, they had to go through something called a “compatibility test.” It measured the matching rate between the Esper and a potential Guide. If the rate was over 80%, that Guide would be permanently assigned to the Esper.

Even if the match wasn’t that high, every Esper still had at least one Guide who could stabilize them—unless a catastrophe or major villain had already appeared.

Thinking back, it was strange.

He’d briefly wondered if the bullying meant he was secretly the hidden villain, but he kept brushing the thought aside.

No one’s managing my stats…

The most important thing the Center cared about was preventing Espers from going berserk. That’s why they carefully monitored each Esper’s wave levels.

But it had already been a week since he woke up in what he thought was a dream, and no one had checked his wave levels. Not even Haseong himself.

Of course, he hadn’t really accepted the fact that he was an Esper, so it made sense that he hadn’t looked into it.

He’d been using a smartwatch before, so switching to Esper gear hadn’t been hard. After a few taps, he managed to check his wave levels.

[0%]

“Zero percent?”

He frowned the moment he saw the number.

A wave level of 0% was something that, in the novel, only happened when someone lived practically every day like a sex addict.

Guiding between an Esper and a Guide could range from simple hand-holding to hugging, or even more intimate contact like kissing or sex—what the novel called “mucosal guiding.”

Out of all those, sex was by far the most effective.

But, of course, that kind of guiding was only permitted if you had a highly compatible Guide to begin with.

For an entire week, Haseong hadn’t even held hands with anyone, let alone had sex. So how could his wave readings be at zero percent? He wondered if maybe he just didn’t know how to use his abilities, or simply hadn’t used them at all. But an Esper’s wave readings didn’t just fluctuate from using their powers—things like healing injuries or being mentally overwhelmed from stress could also cause wave disruptions.

Every time Haseong had tried to die, his body had healed on its own. And considering how he was being driven to the edge by the stress of not being able to wake up from this dream, that zero percent reading made even less sense. Haseong decided he’d ask his team leader once he got to work. The man hated him, sure, but he was the only one Haseong could turn to for answers.

“Um, excuse me, Team Leader.”

Haseong was met with a harsh glare the moment he walked into the office. Once he confirmed most of the team had cleared out, he approached the team leader. The man twitched his eyebrow in annoyance as if just being addressed by Haseong offended him.

“What is it?”

“There’s something strange about my Gear. If you look here, the wave reading is…”

Haseong didn’t care about making a good impression or being liked. Whether the team leader liked him or not, he simply extended his arm and showed him the Gear’s reading. The team leader took one look and scoffed.

“Are you bragging right now? Saying you’re an Esper who doesn’t even need a Guide? You think that’s something to be proud of? That’s a curse. Your ability, Yoo Haseong, is a goddamn curse. Stop messing around with perfectly good equipment and just focus on the job you were given.”

After that tirade, the team leader abruptly stood up. He didn’t have a call or anything urgent—he was just making it clear he wouldn’t tolerate another word from Haseong.

The words had been harsh, but there was something buried in them—something that struck a nerve. Haseong couldn’t shake the unease growing inside him. Somehow, this small man who shared his name didn’t feel like just another side character.

Haseong rifled through the desk—the one he hadn’t dared to search before—and finally found what he was looking for: the evaluation results from Yoo Haseong’s Esper ranking test.

Beneath that were rows of complicated graphs Haseong couldn’t make sense of, likely measuring Yoo Haseong’s ability or wave activity. But none of it really registered.

Why is it that gut feelings are always right?

He had already had a hunch, based on the way Team Leader Kim Taeyoon treated him… and the way the other team members looked at him. He’d just refused to accept it until now.

The bad feeling had been spot on.

Yoo Haseong wasn’t just a background character. An A-rank Esper who could control monsters—he was the hidden villain in “How to Save the World from Disaster.” A name barely even mentioned in the story… someone whose existence in the Esper Center had been reduced to the negative reputation surrounding his ability.

He hadn’t started off with bad intentions. But the more the Disaster listened to him, obeyed him, the more superior he felt. And with ears too easily swayed by whispers, he began using the Disaster to crush others—and found himself enjoying it.

The Disaster was nothing more than a tool for the villain. And like most villains in these kinds of novels, he met a gruesome end. Too many people had died because of him. In a story driven by the theme of good triumphing over evil, that kind of fate was inevitable.

But none of that mattered to Haseong right now.

“This is insane…”

The sigh came from deep within. A hot breath escaped his lips, and he felt like something inside him had been scorched black. The scales were tipping, and he could no longer believe this was just a dream.

And now… now it turns out he wasn’t just any side character—he was the hidden villain, one so minor his name didn’t even show up properly.

He wanted to scream, but he was still in the team office. The team leader had stormed out, but one member remained inside.

He cursed silently.

It had been hard enough to accept that he’d been pulled into a novel. But now he had to come to terms with being the hidden villain? The world was dropping way too much on him all at once.

Was it God who did this to him? Fate? The world?

Whatever it was, everything had gone completely off the rails. But really, the person who’d lost it most… was him.

“Of all people… I had to be the damn villain? And on top of that, I’m the guy who got bullied? What is this, revenge by the universe?!”

As soon as work ended, Haseong headed straight to a convenience store near the Center and stocked up on soju. He had no idea what this body’s alcohol tolerance was, but he didn’t care—he was ready to down it all. Going to work? In this messed-up situation? That was just proof the world had lost its mind.

Like most novels, the villain’s story hadn’t been explored much. Just a throwaway character—a loser with big powers who couldn’t use them right and got drunk on his inferiority complex.

No one ever wondered why Yoo Haseong, the hidden villain, had been bullied in the first place. Not even Haseong had questioned it while reading.

He sighed, the breath catching in his throat.

Dammit. Esper bodies didn’t get drunk. They detoxed immediately. He’d downed ten bottles of soju and wasn’t even tipsy. Just bloated. Not drunk, just full—that crushing sense of helplessness was all that remained.

Still wearing yesterday’s clothes, Haseong threw himself onto the bed.

Screw it. Let whatever happens, happen.

Please, let me go back…!

He prayed the same thing every night. But every morning, he opened his eyes and saw Yoo Haseong’s bangs, blocking out the world.

And today was no different. He was still trapped in the body of Yoo Haseong, the hidden villain.

“Damn it,” he muttered aloud. The alcohol hadn’t worked, but it sure felt like he had a hangover. His head pounded. What kind of useless body gets a hangover without even being drunk?

“Ugh…”

Groaning, he sat up. And right then, for the first time in days, his Gear started blaring.

Completely caught off guard, Haseong blinked in confusion at the loud noise coming from the nightstand. And as if that wasn’t enough, his phone started ringing too.

[010-xxxx-xxxx]

An unknown number. But for some reason, he had a feeling it was connected to that Gear alert.

Frowning, he hit the answer button.

— “Esper Yoo Haseong! Where are you right now? You’re at the dorms, right? Your Gear location says you are, but you’re not responding to the alert, so…!”

Before he could even say hello, a frantic woman’s voice burst out of the speaker, words tumbling out like gunfire. Instinctively, Haseong gulped.

— “Esper Yoo Haseong?”

“Uh, yes… I’m at the dorm. Um, who is this?”

— “Ah! Right, this is the first time I’ve contacted you by phone, so you wouldn’t have my number saved! This is Kim Yura! I’m a researcher on Team 4 at the Esper Center Lab. Don’t you remember me? I was in charge of the research involving you last year!”