{ I Became An NPC }

What?! But, I am Tayden Kim! A living person in real life! I've played this game's one thousand arcs and I have done it thrice, you cannot convince me I am a nobody.

Not like this, not in this world.

[ "You are not you, now. You are Tayden De Mattia, a twenty-five-year-old trooper who has graduated from Sevlyn's Martial School, simply to serve The Almighty." ]

What about my background story? My family? My friends? My love-life? At least, if I am going to play another "nobody", might as well give me some notice.

[ "Error. The information ceased to exist. Your background story, the information ceased to exist. Your family, the information ceased to exist. Your friends, the information ceased to exist. Your love life, the—" ]

Okay, I get it! I get it!

But, tell me this, what about the other NPCs, then? Do they have ceased to exist information like mine? Every other NPCs in this game has absolutely no conscience?

[ "Incorrect. NPCs in this world are detailed and sentient. The NPCs you are eyeing have no abstract that they are, indeed, video-game characters." ]

[ "This is their reality, and this is your reality now, too. They are created in this RPG, born in this RPG, harvested in this RPG. WCH is their system. However, this NPC, 'Tayden De Mattia', was especially designed to have you play him." ]

So, what? I'm playing as me? That is the logic?!

[ "Incorrect. Tayden De Mattia is you, you are now Tayden De Mattia. Tayden De Mattia may not have a recorded background to the system, as he makes no outstanding changes whatsoever." ]

[ "Thus, you are free to collect your own record from here on out. Become Tayden De Mattia and follow the script of the storyline." ]

So what? You're handing me this character and bargain that I would just blend in? With a video-game world-build? Don't I have an option to level up? To fight playable characters?

[ "Permission denied. You are an NPC, which means you are a normal citizen, not a playable character. Concur that you are a living, breathing character, presumably, that must include the playable characters, as well." ]

You're telling me that the playable characters are here?! Like, Vector and Cueen?! Are they players? Who is playing them? When will they show and does the script follow the exact date as if in real life? Am I the only transmigration?

[ "Correct. You are the only transmigration. Every other playable character; Vector and Cueen are a living, breathing citizen, as well." ]

[ "Consider yourself transmigrated into a novel, a storyline, where every plot you know from playing the RPG will repeat itself and you get to witness everything in person." ]

Woah, I must be honored. Then, does that mean nobody is playing them, they are moving on their own, and they're no longer brainless 3D drawings I control to fight?!

[ "Correct. This is a script only you are familiar with. There is no other Guest Player. So, welcome!" ]

FUCK YEAH!

WHAT A DREAM!

[ "Tread carefully, Guest Player. There is no option to respawn." ]

Eh?

What?

Come again?

[ "Hence, as you leave this bus, the algorithm will begin. I will inform you of future questions that you may not be able to answer yourself. Due to my role as an assistant, there is not much I can assist other than classifying your confusion." ]

W-Wait…

[ "Explore, lay low, become an NPC. Your assistant AI, Amina, will log out." ]

HEY, HEY! DON'T LEAVE!

I WANT TO GO HOME!

CAN I GO BACK HOME? IS THAT AN OPTION?

Just like that, the hologram screen snapped shut and Amina's voice fades away into thin air.

I blink multiple times to process what happened to me. Shivering and huddling the backpack to my body once more, tears cramp my eyes, threatening to roam down my cheeks.

I am petrified.

God, I am so petrified I feel my stomach rumbling.

I want to retch.

Stop this bus.

"Stop this bus!" I hastily emboss from my seat and wail, slamming the stop button aggressively. Everybody in the bus flinch upon my agitating reaction. The elderly lady shakes, and the mother embraces her daughter closer, a high schooler staring at me as if I were a ghost.

I see.

That is why the old lady smiled nervously at me, that is why these passengers are on guard. These passengers are reacting to me in such a way because I am a trooper.

A trooper in a bus, bringing locals anxiety and tenseness, with the benefit I possess of serving the tyrant of this city, this planet: nobody can harm me. I am the selected and exclusive few in this planet who are permitted weapons and I can easily harass someone and get away with it.

I am in law enforcement.

The law enforcement of Sevlyn, the city, within the storyline of WCH was considered threatening goons, treading on the heels of The Almighty tyrant. Heartless, tormentors, raiders, practically Yakuzas disguised as the law. It was destined that the MCs, Vector, and Cueen, will walk through the ordeal and wipe them out and clean the planet for its inhibitors.

Troopers enjoyed the sufferings of their people, with the privilege and favors.

Therefore, if I never enjoyed the sufferings of my own people, do I really possess the privilege?

The tyrant I serve, Zophar Winterman, The Almighty.

Every passenger left, and I am isolated with my normal school backpack turned camping-sized backpack, slouched there in all my misery and unfamiliarity.

People have never trembled away from me in fear before, only ever reproach me to bully me.

The bus is trembling, and as soon as a gate zoomed into vision outside, I know where I am and why I am there. I recognize the zone. Built of natural mossy mountain rocks and boulders, stacked up into barriers, with a gigantic archway the bus is driving through and under.

I am being transported into The Final Boss's, Zophar Wintermen's, palace!

Still, how cool. It is a much better experience in real life than in the video game, albeit the multi-millionaire company raising their points with the high-graphic textures and everything. The waterfall from the archway strikes down onto the roof of the bus as if they were curtains, or the doors for us to enter the gate.

As magnificent as the entrance was, Sevlyn City was never a problem for the protagonists, the players, or even me, as the real problem was the Forbidden City (the palace; named after Ming Dynasty's palace).

I died every time I step one foot in there ruthlessly, troopers became higher-leveled as I progressed myself deeper into the palace.

When I played the game, to even enter without dying in the first half, I had to be level 60. I spent 12 weeks in the gloomy dim of my bedroom all winter break gathering essential items and packing my inventory to a max, accompanying more armory and weaponry and potions to boot, as this was the final detour of the game's play-through and the storyline will end.

I replayed it multiple times, and reaching level 60 grew easier over time. However, now that I am an unplayable character, a mere NPC, I have no way of leveling up as I did. I have no idea how to survive in this world other than residing under a low-key profile.

Unlike most reincarnated and or transmigrated MCs I read about in novels and Webtoons, they made it sound so easy-peach-lemon-squeezy, as if it was docile to admit they've died already in their previous lives ever so fecklessly.

What if they die again? How effortlessly they've died last time and not even mourn slash bereave it? How can they be stronger at such a quick pace after their weakest defeat, which was literally DEATH?! Their faces were plunged to the ground by the reaper!

Shouldn't they be sadder? Shouldn't they care? Are all Isekai MCs supposed to be suppressed sociopaths with no empathy and sympathy? They don't value lives, at all! Sometimes, they took another living person's body and did not even feel remorseful and questionable?

How fucking brutal!

I cannot accept this!

I am not happy-go-lucky and will go about pledging to myself: "I will survive this time and become stronger and OP!" And then did every stunt impeccably remarkable afterward and steal the original MCs' spotlight of the original book and or Webtoon they've reincarnated into slash transmigrated into!

I am breathing inconveniently heavily.

Plus, I haven't even died! I lived! I was teleported and have possessed a great deal of an algorithm I do not value! I have a fear of death and I am not going to feed an expectation.

Leave me alone.

The bus stops. I exit it. And the moment I do, I am met with the most exciting and thrilling experience in my life.

Everything was…tall and massive! It was like Jurassic Park if it weren't fictional, erecting there with such a huge backpack strapped to my puny backbone, I slowly realize how small I am in this world— therefore, I slowly realize what character I define: a nobody.

Great. How gray. Even in a video game, I am completely a nobody.