Chapter 1

I Became the Villain in the Game

By the time I got home from work, it was close to midnight.

Beep—

After unlocking the door, I collapsed face-down in front of the shoe rack without even taking off my shoes.

“Ugh… I’m home…”

The thought of watching the drama I had promised myself I would finally see today vanished the moment I started climbing the stairs to my apartment.

Even the worry about the week’s worth of laundry piling up—which meant I’d have nothing clean to wear tomorrow—faded away. It wasn’t like I could run the washing machine at this hour anyway.

“I just want to sleep like this…”

After pulling overtime and enduring a two-hour commute, it was already past time to sleep. In fact, it was practically dawn.

I was exhausted. Completely drained. I just wanted to rest.

That was all I could think about.

“Damn company…”

The company I worked for was a game studio right in the middle of Seoul.

If I lived nearby, half my salary would disappear into rent, so I had no choice but to commute from the outskirts—two hours away.

Tomorrow I’d have to get up at the crack of dawn just to avoid being late.

Honestly, shouldn’t commuting hours be counted as part of work hours too? If you added them up, I was probably making less than minimum wage.

“Or at least let us work from home…”

I was a digital artist anyway, always drawing on a tablet. But even when I requested remote work, management dismissed it immediately.

Something about how working from home makes people lazy.

“Then at least give us rent subsidies so we can live closer…”

Groaning, I lay sprawled across the floor, fiercely doing absolutely nothing. Strangely enough, I started to feel a little better just from that.

Ding—

My phone buzzed with a message notification from the company messenger.

“…Life is cruel.”

Of course, it was work-related.

With less than an hour of free time left before bed—if you didn’t count sleep—why did they have to send work messages now too? It was depressing.

‘Was this really why I started drawing?’

My original dream had been to become a webtoon artist.

Even if I stayed poor, I wanted to draw the stories I loved and share them with others.

In college, I shifted that dream into becoming an illustrator. I thought, It’s fine if I only draw what other people ask for—as long as I can make a good living.

But somehow, as an adult, I ended up with the worst of both worlds: poor, while still only drawing what others wanted.

‘Somewhere out there, people must be living rich while drawing whatever they please. I hope they all drop dead.’

That petty resentment toward the world made me feel a little better again.

Ding—

Until another message came in.

With a groan, I pulled my phone from my pocket.

[Art Director]
We’ve decided to go with Option 2 for Seymour. Develop it further and bring it tomorrow.

So it was “develop” again. That word almost made me curse out loud.

“…Still, not too bad.”

At least it didn’t mean I had to draw something right now. And the fact a decision had been made meant progress.

‘Option 2, huh…’

I scrolled up through the chat, reviewing the images I’d sent earlier today. Dozens had gone back and forth with the art director already.

My role was concept artist. Under the AD’s direction, I handled character settings and artwork.

It might sound impressive, but really I was just one of many artists doing the same job. At a big studio like ours, there were over a dozen concept artists alone.

‘Seymour, Option 2… Seymour Mausoleum, right.’

Our company was making a new AAA game.

One of the mid-bosses was “Seymour Mausoleum,” called the Shadow of the Capital. My task for the past week had been finalizing his concept art.

Among the drafts, Option 2 emphasized Seymour as a father.

A cold yet languidly handsome man with black hair and golden eyes.

Eyes filled with arrogance and an ego carved in stone.

In his arms, a pure white infant.

His face sneered at the world with disdain, but his arms held his daughter like she was the most precious treasure in existence.

‘Players would see this and think: a villain with duality.’

A hypocrite who murdered others but treasured only his child.

A man who wanted to remain a kind father in front of his daughter—though it was only an act.

Some might even be reminded of a certain famous mafia boss from the movies… the one always stroking a cat.

‘But when they reach the ending and look back at this art, it’ll send shivers down their spine.’

Because the girl dies midway—at Seymour’s hands.

Not just killed. Dissected.

She was a foster daughter born with dragon blood, and Seymour slaughtered her to take the Dragon Heart, a core of immense magical power.

When the player confronts him, Seymour sneers:

“Did I not love her? Don’t be absurd. Do you also shower affection on pigs you raise for slaughter?”

Even his daughter was nothing more than a tool.

He hadn’t carried her around out of love, but out of fear that his valuable tool might run away.

A sociopath. A psychopath. A nobleman. And a high mage.

A villain who lived beyond both law and humanity.

The daughter was the perfect device to showcase that.

My eyes lingered on her innocent gaze in the drawing.

‘A disposable character, created just to justify the villain’s death.’

She was literally born only to die. Her very existence was a tragedy.

‘Even Satan would look at this story and shake his head.’

Yet I was complicit—I had drawn them myself.

“….”

Maybe I was just feeling oversensitive at this late hour.

Still, my chest ached strangely as I brushed my thumb across the child’s cheek on my phone screen.

“…I’m sorry.”

One of my professors used to say: A work of art is like a child born from your heart. You must take responsibility for it.

If creators stopped taking responsibility for their creations, the world would become unbearably bleak.

“…But I can barely take care of myself.”

I needed money to survive.

Yet I didn’t even have the strength left to cook, wash, or play.

All I wanted was rest.

For overworked employees, professors’ lofty ideals sounded like nonsense.

“…Maybe I’ll just skip washing and sleep.”

I staggered to my feet—then suddenly the world spun, and I collapsed again.

Thud!

The sound was loud, but strangely it didn’t hurt.

‘Uh-oh. This feels serious.’

News stories about young people dying from overwork and lack of exercise flashed through my mind.

Was I about to die here?

Was this suffocating feeling not emotion, but a blood vessel bursting?

I tried to push myself up, but my body wouldn’t respond. My thoughts grew sluggish.

‘Damn… is this the end?’

Strength drained from me. Without help, I couldn’t get up.

But I’d been alone my entire life—an orphan with no one to call.

‘Dying from overwork and loneliness… what a miserable end. I haven’t even traveled abroad once…’

As my vision faded, I prayed silently.

God, in my next life, please let me be a righteous landlord. Let me do nothing and still enjoy life.

That was the last thing I remembered.

* * *

“…The contract is complete.”

Boom—!

Something shoved me with enormous force, and I rolled helplessly across the floor.

“Cough, cough!”

What was going on?!

Hadn’t I collapsed at home? Shouldn’t I be in a hospital?

But as my blurred vision cleared, I saw nothing like a hospital.

Instead, before me stood a massive temple.

Rumble… boom!

The huge doors slammed shut with a roar.

Apparently, I had just been thrown out of there.

‘Where the hell am I?’

Footsteps came rushing toward me. Someone grabbed my shoulder the moment I tried to rise.

“Seymour! What have you done?!”

A woman’s voice shouted.

“How could you enter the Mausoleum without the elders’ or the Black Dragon Society’s permission?! How will you—”

She cut herself off, her eyes scanning me as if searching for something.

Her gaze lingered on my chest—my heart—before she whispered in disbelief.

“No… don’t tell me… you didn’t make a contract with the Mausoleum, did you?”

“Contract…?”

Now that she mentioned it, the first thing I’d heard upon waking was something about a contract.

My confused face must have been enough of an answer, because the woman’s expression twisted in horror.

“You made a contract to gain power?! What did you offer as payment? What did you sacrifice?!”

Her frantic questions made my dizziness worse.

I tried to steady myself on the ground—only to realize I couldn’t.

Because something was nestled in my arms.

“….”

We both looked down at the same time.

A child. White-haired, no older than three or four.

“Ah…”

The woman gasped in awe, forgetting even her panic.

That was how beautiful—how noble—the child was.

Her tiny hand clutched my collar like a plump maple leaf, her chubby cheeks softer than any marshmallow.

Her golden eyes sparkled brighter than the sun, and her white hair shimmered like a spilling galaxy.

‘An angel…?’

Except she had wings. Not feathered angel wings, but leathery ones.

The woman whispered blankly:

“…Is that… a dragon?”

It was.

I knew exactly who she was. Even her name.

“…Lucis.”

At the sound of her name, the girl’s eyes curved like crescents, lips forming the faintest of smiles—an expression too mature for a child, but one that suited her noble image perfectly.

‘Exactly as I designed her.’

Lucis, the foster daughter of Seymour Mausoleum.

The child I had created—born only to die—was in my arms.

‘What the hell is this…?’

In her wide golden eyes, I saw my reflection.

Black hair. Golden eyes.

A handsome man’s face I’d grown used to drawing these past few weeks.

The face of Seymour Mausoleum.

“…Ha.”

I had fallen into the world of the game.

And into the body of the mid-boss villain I myself had designed.