The "Steel Rats" were the bottom of the food chain, but the person who owned them was a different story.
In this era, three months before the Hero Selection Ceremony, the world was governed by a hidden hierarchy of "Awakeners." While the public worshipped the celebrity heroes on TV, the real power moved through the Subterranean Exchange—a black market where the rich bought the souls of monsters and the poor sold their lives for a hit of Mana-dust.
I stood in front of a rusted iron door in the basement of a laundromat. My new body, Drake Vance, was trembling. It wasn't because I was scared; it was because the 1,200 points of "Refunded" Agility were vibrating in my bone marrow. I felt like a coiled spring made of lightning.
"Entry fee is five hundred credits, dreg," a massive guard grunted, his eyes scanning my tattered hoodie. "And wipe that grin off your face before I carve it off."
I didn't have five hundred credits. I had twelve.
"I don't have the fee," I said, my voice calm.
The guard reached for a stun-baton. "Then get lost before I—"
"But," I interrupted, leaning in, "I'm willing to fail at paying it."
The guard paused, his brow furrowing. "What?"
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a crushed soda can tab, and dropped it into his palm with a flourish.
[Ding! Villainous Act: Fraud/Bribery.] [Target: Level 15 Gatekeeper.] [Result: PATHETIC FAILURE. (Target is insulted by your 'bribe'.)] [Calculating Refund...] [Refund Issued: 100x 'Value Manipulation'!] [The soda can tab has been temporarily converted into a 'Mythic-Grade Star Diamond' (Duration: 60 minutes).]
The guard's jaw didn't just drop; it practically hit the floor. The piece of trash in his hand began to glow with a blinding, celestial light. The sheer purity of the mana radiating from the diamond made the air in the hallway turn sweet.
"I-is this... a Star Diamond?" the guard stammered, his knees buckling. A single one of these could buy the entire city block.
"Keep the change," I said, walking past him. He didn't even try to stop me. He was too busy cradling a piece of trash like it was a holy relic.
I stepped into the Exchange.
The room was a massive, tiered amphitheater carved out of old subway tunnels. The air was thick with the smell of expensive tobacco and ozone. On the central stage, an auctioneer was presenting a jagged, obsidian blade.
"Next up," the auctioneer shouted, "The Viper's Fang. A C-Rank cursed dagger. Bidding starts at fifty thousand credits!"
In my past life, I would have used a blade like that to slay minor demons. Now, I looked at it and saw something better: a tool for failure.
I sat in the very back row, the shadows swallowing my thin frame. I needed to grow my Mana pool. My Strength and Agility were high, but without Mana, I couldn't use the high-level skills I remembered from my time as a Hero.
"Sixty thousand!" a fat merchant in the front row called out.
"Seventy!" shouted a woman in a velvet mask.
I raised my hand. "One billion credits."
The entire room went silent. The auctioneer stopped mid-sentence. Hundreds of heads turned to look at the "trashy kid" in the back row.
"Young man," the auctioneer said, his voice dripping with venom. "This is a serious establishment. If you bid a billion credits and cannot pay, we don't just kick you out. We harvest your organs to cover the debt."
"I know," I said, leaning back. "Check my account."
[Ding! Villainous Act: Financial Fraud/Grand Larceny.] [Current Balance: 12 Credits.] [Bid: 1,000,000,000 Credits.] [Result: IMPOSSIBLE FAILURE. (Host is literally too poor to even dream of this bid.)] [Calculating Refund...]
This was the big one. I wasn't just failing a punch; I was failing at a level of wealth that could buy a kingdom.
[Refund Issued: 100x 'Credit Overflow'!] [System Glitch Detected: Reality cannot sustain a 100x refund of a billion credits for a Level 1 Host.] [Converting Refund into 'Passive Mana Veins' and 'Ancient Sovereign's Presence'!]
My heart hammered against my ribs—not in pain, but in expansion. I felt my veins burning as they widened, turning from narrow streams into roaring rivers of energy. The air around me began to distort. The shadows in the back of the room didn't just darken; they began to kneel.
The "Ancient Sovereign's Presence" leaked out of me like an invisible tide.
The merchant in the front row suddenly collapsed, his forehead hitting the floor. The woman in the mask began to hyperventilate. Even the auctioneer took a step back, his face turning pale.
They didn't see a thug anymore. They felt the presence of something that had walked through the depths of hell and come back with the keys.
"I... I apologize, My Lord," the auctioneer whispered, his voice shaking. "The... the Viper's Fang is yours. We do not require payment from someone of your... caliber."
"No," I stood up, my eyes glowing with a faint, golden hue. "I don't want the knife. Keep it."
[Ding! Villainous Act: Abandoning Won Auction.] [Result: FAILURE. (The auction rules state you must take the item.)] [Refund Issued: 100x 'Item Quality Upgrade'!]
The obsidian dagger on the stage began to scream. The cracks in the blade filled with liquid gold. The C-Rank "Viper's Fang" shattered, and from its remains rose a translucent, ethereal rapier that pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat.
[Item Transmuted: 'The Traitor's Silence' (Rank: EX - Soul Bound)]
The room was in chaos. People were screaming, some were praying, and most were just trying to breathe under the weight of my presence.
I walked down the stairs, the crowd parting like the Red Sea. I reached the stage and gripped the hilt of the new blade. It didn't burn me. It felt like home.
"Who are you?" the auctioneer gasped, clutching his chest.
I looked at him, and for a split second, I let him see the eyes of the Hero who had died in the palace.
"I'm the guy who's going to fail at being a Hero," I said.
As I turned to leave, a group of men in black suits—the "Exchange Security"—blocked the exit. These weren't thugs like the Steel Rats. These were B-Rank Awakeners, the kind of men who could level a building.
"You aren't leaving with that blade, kid," the lead guard said, his hand crackling with lightning. "Not until we find out which Great House sent you."
I smiled. It was a wide, terrifying expression.
"Perfect," I whispered. "I was just looking for a reason to fail at a 1-vs-20 fight."
The lead guard didn't wait for a signal. He moved with the practiced grace of a high-tier Awakener, his body flickering with blue arcs of electricity. "Lightning Flicker!"
He vanished, reappearing directly in my blind spot. His palm, wreathed in high-voltage mana, slammed toward my kidney. In my past life, I would have parried this with a flick of my wrist. Now, I did something much more dangerous.
I tried to dodge, but I "clumsily" tripped over my own feet, falling right into his strike.
[Ding! Villainous Act: Combat Evasion.] [Result: CRITICAL FAILURE. (Host basically walked into the punch.)] [Calculating Refund...] [Refund Issued: 100x 'Impact Absorption & Reflection'!]
The guard's lightning-covered palm hit my back. But instead of my ribs shattering, the air around the point of impact turned into a vacuum. The massive surge of electricity didn't enter my body; it was sucked into a microscopic point and then exploded outward with a roar that shook the very foundations of the subway tunnel.
The guard's arm didn't just break—it disintegrated into a mist of blue sparks and bone. He was thrown back into his team, the reflected force hitting them like a sonic boom.
"What is he made of?!" one of the mages in the back shrieked, frantically conjuring a mana shield.
I climbed to my feet, dusting off my hoodie. My Agility was so high now that every movement felt like I was walking through slow-motion water.
"My turn," I whispered.
I drew 'The Traitor's Silence.' The EX-Rank blade felt weightless. I lunged at the remaining nineteen guards. I didn't aim for their hearts. I aimed for the air three feet above their heads, swinging the sword with a wild, "untrained" arc.
[Ding! Villainous Act: Lethal Strike.] [Result: PATHETIC FAILURE. (Host couldn't hit a barn door from the inside.)] [Calculating Refund...] [Refund Issued: 100x 'Cutting Range & Sharpness'!]
The rapier didn't just swing. It tore the fabric of the room. A crescent wave of white energy erupted from the blade, expanding until it spanned the entire width of the amphitheater. It passed through the stone pillars, the reinforced steel doors, and the armor of the guards as if they were made of warm butter.
Silaaaaaaa—
The sound was high-pitched and haunting. For a second, everything was still. Then, the top halves of all nineteen guards slid off their torsos in perfect unison. Behind them, the massive stone exit of the Exchange collapsed into two neat pieces.
The audience was no longer screaming. They were paralyzed. In the history of the Subterranean Exchange, no one had ever slaughtered a B-Rank security team in five seconds. Especially not a "thug" who looked like he hadn't eaten a full meal in a week.
I sheathed the blade and headed for the now-ruined exit.
"Wait!"
A voice stopped me. It wasn't the auctioneer or a guard. It was a girl.
She was standing near the edge of the VIP boxes, wearing a deep crimson cloak that hid her face, but I knew that voice. Even through the filters of a decade of memory and a different life, I knew that resonance.
Lady Seraphina. In my past life, she was the "Saintess of the Sword," the only person who had tried to warn me about Princess Elara's betrayal. She had been exiled and executed for "treason" because she defended me.
Right now, she should be undercover, investigating the Black Market for the Church.
She jumped down from the VIP box, landing softly in front of me. Her hood fell back, revealing silver hair and eyes the color of a stormy sea. She looked at the carnage, then back at me. Her hand stayed on the hilt of her own blade, but she wasn't attacking. She was trembling.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "That sword... 'The Traitor's Silence'... it's a Mythic-Soul weapon. It shouldn't exist in a place like this. And your mana... it feels familiar. Too familiar."
I stared at her. My heart twisted. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell her that I was the friend she would eventually die for. But I looked at my hands—Drake Vance's hands—and remembered the system.
If I played the Hero, the Holy System would find me. If I wanted to save her this time, I had to stay a Villain.
"I'm just a guy who's tired of being cheated," I said, my voice cold and distant.
I tried to walk past her, purposely "brushing" her shoulder with a clumsy stumble.
[Ding! Villainous Act: Harassment/Disrespect of a Saintess.] [Result: FAILURE. (Host's touch felt like a warm breeze instead of an insult.)] [Calculating Refund...] [Refund Issued: 100x 'Fate-Binding Connection'!] [New Passive Unlocked: 'Vested Interest'. You will now 'accidentally' encounter this target whenever she is in danger.]
Dammit, I thought. The system was playing matchmaker through my own failures.
Seraphina reached out to grab my arm, her eyes wide. "Don't walk away! That power... it's chaotic. You're going to destroy yourself if you don't—"
Suddenly, the ground began to rumble. A massive holographic screen flickered to life in the center of the room. It was a global emergency broadcast.
[ATTENTION CITIZENS: THE FIRST GATE OF THE APOCALYPSE HAS OPENED IN SECTOR 7.] [THE HERO SELECTION CEREMONY HAS BEEN MOVED UP. THE CHOSEN ONE WILL AWAKEN IN 24 HOURS.]
I looked at the screen. My old self—the Hero Han-Seol—was about to awaken tomorrow. He would receive the Holy Sword and begin his "pure" journey.
"Twenty-four hours," I muttered.
"What?" Seraphina asked, confused.
"In twenty-four hours, the world gets its 'Savior,'" I said, looking back at her one last time. "And I'm going to fail at letting him have all the fun."
I vanished into the shadows of the tunnel, my new Agility stats making me a ghost before she could say another word.
I had one day. I needed to fail at one more thing before the Hero arrived. I needed to fail at "dying" in a Forbidden Zone.
[Current Status:] Mana: 505 (A-Rank Level) Skills: Void-Rupture Strike, Shadow Snare, Traitor's Silence. Next Objective: The Tomb of the Forsaken.