My Record of Being the One in Charge of the Dark Mastermind
CHAPTER 2
It wasn’t over.
I wasn’t dead.
There was no pain I had braced myself for, no shock. It just went dark all of a sudden, like someone had turned off the lights.
It felt as though the world had frozen at the exact moment before I died. No matter how long I waited, the perfect ending never came.
Enough time had passed that my body should have been well and truly dead, yet I remained like that.
It didn’t seem like the delirium of a dying person. I’d been crushed under a collapsing building—there was no way I’d be leisurely hallucinating.
After staying in that state for a while, I finally reached a conclusion.
Ah. I see.
This… is that.
The afterlife.
The reason I’d suddenly crossed into the afterlife was probably because I’d died so quickly I hadn’t even had time to feel it.
Having reached that conclusion, I regretted never believing in the afterlife.
I’d lived recklessly, convinced it didn’t exist—yet here it was, once I died.
So what happens now?
Would someone dressed in black appear, asking to review how I’d lived, holding out scales to weigh my karma?
If that happened, what should I say?
That I’d simply lived as best I could?
I hadn’t particularly harmed anyone.
But then again, I didn’t think I’d done much good either.
I couldn’t be confident that my scales would tip toward a favorable outcome.
Something trivial to me might be a grave sin to them. Or perhaps the opposite.
As I was thinking that, my vision brightened and sounds began to reach me.
So it’s finally time for judgment?
Koo-woong—
It sounded like the footsteps of a massive beast.
Koo-woong, kung—
The judge must be pretty big.
The sounds grew clearer, sharper.
Chk— clack— chk— clack—
For some reason, it sounded like machinery spinning rapidly.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, scenery rushed past outside. My body swayed in rhythm with a sound as regular as a heartbeat.
I was inside a train running across an open plain. I could hear the clatter of the train as it moved.
A train to the underworld?
I suppose so. I’d once read a fairy tale with a train like that.
But why a train of all things?
I’d never even ridden one before. No special memories tied to it.
I guess it’s not my choice. Right—if the reaper in charge of me likes trains, then a train it is.
Still, it was impressive.
I gazed out the window in awe.
The wind swept across the long grass covering the plain, making it ripple. It looked as though invisible hands were stroking the green fur of some enormous beast. White, lofty clouds billowed up beyond the horizon, glowing like pearls in the bright sunlight.
Had I ever seen scenery like this before?
No. Never.
Not even once.
In the world I knew, skies like this meant one of two things: scorching heat like a grill, or cold so biting it felt like your blood would freeze. And the sounds that filled the air were always screams, shouting, noise.
The scene before me now was vast and serene. A refined silence filled this place.
In a world like this, it felt like it would be fine to simply drift around, like a leaf fallen into a stream.
I looked around.
This wasn’t an ordinary passenger car. It was like a hotel room on wheels. There was a luxurious bed, and an equally ornate table and chairs. Near my feet were two large travel bags, neatly placed.
On the name tags attached to the bags were the words: “Elpini, from Sanzna.”
A map lay on the table. I picked it up and examined it. It wasn’t a map of any world I knew. It was a completely unfamiliar world—yet the place names felt strangely familiar.
I should have realized it then. Where I had come to.
But at the time, I simply thought it was a map of the underworld. I dismissed the familiarity of the names as my imagination.
Then the map blurred, as if soaked by rain, becoming mottled with stains.
What?
Moments later, clear letters appeared on it.
“Greetings.”
I nearly threw it.
“It is a pleasure to meet you.”
The letters instantly turned to smoke and vanished, replaced by new ones.
“There is something you must do now.”
Do work?
I’m dead—why do I still have to work?
Seriously, what did I do so wrong?
“It is something that only you can do in this world.”
Wasn’t the next step after death supposed to happen automatically?
If I don’t do as told, can’t I die properly? Dying once was hard enough—I don’t want to do it twice.
“……Please meet him.”
“Him”?
Who? The judge of the underworld?
“Before he turns this world into ruins……”
If someone’s planning something like that, then yeah, I should probably stop them.
But still…
I’d already lived in a world that was falling apart—was this one doomed too?
That’s cruel. I lived in a ruined world, and now even the afterlife is headed for destruction?
“You must meet him.”
Just who is this “him” they keep talking about?
**“His name is Irix Verkardt.
And……
He will destroy this world.”**
The moment I heard the name Irix Verkardt, I felt that something was terribly wrong.
Because I knew that name very well.
And I knew exactly what kind of things he did.
Irix Verkardt was a name from a piece of writing I knew. And I was the only reader of that text.
The reason I was the only reader was simple: I was the only person the author ever showed it to.
Why only me?
Well… there were reasons.
It was a mess of a story. Every spelling was wrong, the grammar practically reinvented. The author had never gone to school, so it couldn’t really be helped.
Incidents always happened out of nowhere and ended just as abruptly, and the protagonists always died or were defeated.
If there was one consistent thread of causality in that chaotic story, it was Irix Verkardt—the hidden mastermind.
Every protagonist lost to Irix. After defeating and crushing them, Irix destroyed the world. As long as a man named Irix existed, that world was destined to perish.
**“Save the world from him.
Only you can save this world.”**
This really feels like the opening scene of a game.
You create your character, log in, and the first thing you see is something like this.
Greetings. You have come here to save the world.
Then quests, quests, quests. Items, items, items.
But why do I have to do it?
As if it had heard my question, the message continued.
**“Because you are the only one who knows this world’s story.
If you do not stop it, this world—including you—will be destroyed.
You will have to watch the process of this world’s collapse.
That is not something you would want.”**
That’s some aggressive coercion.
I was dragged into this world out of nowhere and told it’s a novel I happen to know.
And of all things, it’s a novel where the world ends.
Lucky me, since I know the story, I’m supposed to prevent it from unfolding as written.
If I don’t, the world ends—and so do I.
Here’s where it really feels unfair.
I didn’t come here by choice. I didn’t come because it was my responsibility. If you really stretch it, maybe I bear the tiniest sliver of blame—but it’s trivial, so let’s ignore that.
Wait. If what they’re saying is true, then Irix hasn’t destroyed the world yet…
So can’t I just kill him now?
As if it had read my thoughts, new words appeared.
“His death is not your objective.”
Then what is?
If I’m not supposed to kill Irix, am I supposed to persuade him? Talk him out of it?
How?
You don’t destroy a world on a whim. That takes firm resolve and belief. It’s not something a stranger can stop with a few words.
I waited for an answer, but that was the end of the message.
Cowardly—it disappeared without giving the most important explanation.
All right. Let’s整理 the situation.
First, I am now inside a world written as a novel.
I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why.
I might truly have crossed into another world, or I might just be standing at the threshold of an underworld with overly complicated entry procedures.
Since I know nothing, there’s no point thinking about that now. Whatever I conclude will probably be wrong.
Next, some kind of being is issuing me commands.
It tells me to prevent the world’s destruction, and the mastermind behind that destruction is a man named Irix Verkardt.
I know what will happen in the future, so I’m supposed to meet Irix and “do something.”
The world will be destroyed, and only I know why, who causes it, and how it happens. If I don’t act, the world will end.
All right. Up to here.
…
This is ridiculous.
Why do I have to do this?
