Chapter 10: Changes [1]

After some gruesome hours of not knowing if the world was going to end or not, finally the doomsday seemed to have passed and everyone avoided the worst.

Looking at the black sky slowly going back to its clear blue state and the thunderclaps getting less and less frequent, Hai had a small smile on his face.

"That sure was one hell of a dramatic effect." He commented in a joking tone.

[…]

Sadly, the system didn't seem to share his mood.

"Oh, come on system. Cheer up! Now you have nowhere to run off unlike before." Hai smiled playfully.

[Host…]

"Yes?"

[YOU ARE INSANE!!!!!]

Hai didn't seem offended in the least, rather, he smiled like someone hearing good news.

"I know, isn't that great?" He said while opening his arms.

[…]

[I…I… I'll come back later.]

[*DING*]

[The system has been shut down for 2 hours.]

Hearing the *DING* and the emotionless robotic voice that followed right after, Hai's smile died down as if it was a lie.

He spat his cigarette, it froze mid-air and shattered into nothingness.

'So it is really true.'

Hai wasn't acting the way he was just for fun, but to test a theory he had for a long time.

The system has emotions and its on sentience.

If someone else were in Hai's place, they could have concluded this a long time ago, however Hai has his reasons for taking this long.

Hai never trusted the system.

The system was something given to him by the one who brought him to this world or the world's will itself.

Hai doesn't believe in such a thing as coincidences. Everything has a cause and a consequence.

Every result has a source and a reason why they happened or how they came to be.

Hai knows that it wasn't the world's will that brought him here, after all the world's will is only powerful in its own domain: this world.

Hence, the system is either something that the world's will gave him to assure that he followed the plot, or something given to him by whatever entity brought him here for whatever reason.

Those possibilities were too worrisome for Hai to trust the system.

The system is something that didn't left him even after fulfilling his role, hence he could still theoretically be either manipulated, influenced or observed since the system was still with him.

He knew that he might be being too paranoid, however when you end up in a novel's world, regress in time more than once and do the impossible by "freeing" yourself from fate, you'll start to understand that some paranoias are only called as such because they are a plan in a far greater scale than what some people could hope to understand. It will simply sound too absurd for them.

Also, another reason as to why he doesn't trust the system is because of its rewards.

Since the upgrade where he got punishments and greater rewards, Hai was bothered by how absurd the rewards for a supposed "minor villain" were something far greater than what the protagonist and his troupe had or would gain.

His rewards were given in the form of a check-in system. He simply checked-in daily and could get good rewards.

Now, a minor villain gaining "god-level medical abilities" or "god-level business management" just by checking-in doesn't sound much plausible.

What if after the plot ended, he screwed the protagonist over?

He supposedly wouldn't be sent back in time since he already fulfilled his role and hence this would imply that the protagonist would either:

1- Die and stay as dead as possible;

2- Miraculously escapes from death's grasp;

3- He would revive in the near or distant future;

4- He would pull a super power boost from his ass.

If any of those were to happen, then wouldn't this mean that he wasn't supposed to get the rewards he got?

Because for any of these to happen, he would have to do what wasn't supposed to happen. The world didn't take care of the protagonist just to let him die in Hai's hands, did it?

With these thoughts, Hai always rejected the system's rewards by taking them in another way.

The system gave him "god-level culinary skills", Hai would say: "Throw it away. Give me only the guidelines, I want to learn it by myself."

When the system asked the reason, he replied: "The hell do you want to know? An art as deep as cooking shouldn't be learned simply by checking-in. Give me the guidelines, I want to learn and experience for myself what and how it feels to reach the top on my own."

The system was convinced by his answer since he was like that and didn't question him much.

Then, Hai did what would most likely confirm his suspicions.

He took the items he gained from the system and started to use it.

In his third run where Hai already knew how to act at a near-perfect level, he purposedly let himself fail.

Why?

Because he slightly deviated the plot.

He caused either the protagonist, the heroines or the side-characters to suffer some situations.

For example, he once let the protagonist's sister get injured and helped her while hiding his identity.

He faked himself as a good guy and helped her, treated her well and gave her a pill after showing a decent level of medicinal skills.

The pill was supposed to recover the body to its peak-state and improves it. The protagonist's sister having a certain level of trust in his medicinal knowledge and confirming that the pill wasn't harmful took and swallowed it.

The result?

2 days later she had a fortunate encounter where she got a miraculous medicine that would cure her of all illness and turn her immune to all poisons.

This fortunate encounter never happened in the other runs.

Absolutely not suspicious, no?

When the system asked him what he was doing, Hai would respond: "I'm curious if I can fast-forward the protagonist's and his harem's growth, so I can accelerate the plot."

The system was convinced because Hai never really did anything extreme and really did "help" them.

If he helped them, why did the run still fail?

What are the odds that in the run where Hai makes the protagonist and his harem stronger than what they were supposed to be, it fails because it went right?

To make sure, Hai experimented with other protagonists.

He found ways to make they take the system's items and use them.

The result?

They turned more irritable; started to suffer from sudden outbursts of anger that kept getting more frequent as time went on; gradually turned more arrogant than what they were supposed to be; their personality started to slowly pend towards a more villainous one; IQ decreasing to a level that a rock might be smarter than them; their pettiness increasing to a level that they wouldn't let someone call them "dog" and walk away, they would get into a fight with them and some other effects.

Hai then was sure that the system was trying to manipulate him because all the effects the rewards caused geared towards making him a genuinely brainless arrogant young master that would die from sickness or poisoning after some years.

And as he would have many enemies, this poisoning "accident" would seem like someone got fed up with him and decided to end his villainous act for good.

He would complete his role and be erased in a "natural" way.

The world's will and the system would fulfill their promises of him being free after he fulfilled his role, but they never said he was going to live to enjoy his freedom.

And if all of it was all done by the one who sent him here?

Hai hoped for it not be the case.

Because he is sure that whatever or whoever brought him here, didn't bring him just to partake in a plot and die uselessly. He is sure because there are plenty of people more capable than him or that were way easier to manipulate than him.

And if this entity did nothing even after all he went through…

Either it has other motives or this entity can read or know to some extend about his thoughts.

And if it is the latter…

Hai is going to play the most difficult mental game of all his lives.

There is also the fact that he got slight affected by the system.

During his previous run where he destroyed the world, he used every item that boosted him somehow that the system had given him.

Otherwise, how would he destroy the world?

As if the world would let him have enough power to destroy it as he wished.

This is also why every time he was sent back, he lost his powers.

And this is also the reason as to why he is strong.

He never depended on the system to have powers, but in himself.

Hence, he can thrash people who have more mana than him or are stronger than him until a certain level.

However, him using the items the system gave didn't come without a cost.

He noticed his personality changed a bit.

He got more arrogant.

He viewed the ones that made part of the plot as marionettes, as non-living beings.

His anger turned into something far more devasting than it should be.

And his love got to the point where he could make a yandere feel embarrassed of themselves.

Basically, all of the most identifiable "bad traits" he had were amplified.

He spent a good amount of years in this run to stabilize himself back but he managed to do it.

However, it turned him into a man that constantly wears a mask.

He can't be "himself" anymore, for if he is, he will destroy the things he values the most.

The nature of a villain isn't to win nor to preserve what they hold dear.

Should this have been their nature, the villains from tragic romances would have never lost their fiancées to the protagonists.

Hai knows that his "true self" is like that. Destructive and volatile.

He is the most dangerous variable to his own plan and ironically, he is also the only one who can make it happen.

He is playing against the world, the entity that brought him here and himself.

All at the same time.

This is one if not the most madness-inducing situation someone can be.

However, he isn't going to fret.

Your mind is your fortress, you control all your forces and operations from there, give up the control of your emotions and you're inviting the enemy into your base. And when they enter, you will either expel them or be enslaved.

And about the system having emotions and having its own sentience…

This is good.

He completed the plot and saw that the system didn't change much.

It even expressed itself more.

This proves that the system isn't the world's will nor the entity talking with him through the disguise of "system".

They can still use the system to talk or pass a message to him, though.

But, this is good.

If the system has its own sentience and emotions to top it…

Hai can use the system.

*SIGH*

Sighing, Hai looked towards the horizon.

He is screwed in the head.

He is an insane and absolutely madman.

He is cruel.

He is a son of a b*tch.

He is someone who isn't good from any angle.

He is a scum.

But he is blessed with good people at his surroundings.

And…

If the world,

The protagonists,

The heroines,

Or even the entity,

Want to take them away from him…

They better prepare to fight with someone who will stop at nothing.

And they better kill his very soul, because if he dies, he will tear his soul out of his body and fight his enemies even without a body.

Death can't stop his determination.

Time cannot stop his goals.

Fate cannot erase his existence.

The world can't finish him.

And he is ready to fight till the end of time.

He is holding the hope he desperately wished in his very hands.

And he will not give it up.

Not after all he did and sacrificed in order to grasp it.

<Now, I think it's time for me to start to have everything ready. Hong Li-Wei is already done with her job. She is really dependable. I hope she resolves herself so we can have something more than friendship and a business relationship. Elena, my honey should also be done with what I asked her.>

Unknowingly to Hai, his thoughts could be heard by someone.

However, it wasn't by the heroines on Ye Chen's side.

When Hai was on Earth, he had read a few eavesdrop genre novels and always saw that the heroines were the ones who heard the protagonists' voice.

The same case happened with him in this run.

However, when he rewrote his destiny, he also did something other than that.

Hai was a minor villain in Ye Chen's novel, hence "his" heroines were Ye Chen's ones.

Now however, he wrote his own history and made it turn into a novel.

If he turned into a main character of another book…

Then will his heroines still be Ye Chen's?

Elena and Hong Li-Wei who were both going to call Hai suddenly stopped when they heard his voice inside their head and started to look around them in confusion.

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The world isn't the only thing that is going to experience changes.

Hai will also experience it and time will tell if he will still be broken or will be healed.

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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

So, what do you all think about this chapter? Was it a good way of making something different from our usual eavesdrop genre or not?

With this chapter, we have officially started the "novel". From now own, screw Ye Chen and his troupe, our focus is Hai and his harem. (Ye Chen and the heroines will still appear in the novel and have their own role, which isn't one of extras.)

Also, the reason why I did it the way I wrote is because I wanted something different.

Imagine this: You read a novel that 50 chapters go by but the protagonist stays the same personality-wise. Some if not most of you probably won't like it. I'm the same, hence I did it this way. With the heroines (MC's harem) hearing his inner-voice, I intend to make them (specially the dense ones) know about his worries, problems, traumas, insanity, tastes and etc, this way they will be able to interact better with him and heal him of his broken self without them have to spend several chapters or arcs noticing how well he hides his "true self" (No offense to whoever writes such stories or read them, I'm not criticizing you nor saying I don't like it).

This is a way that I thought would be good because this way, they will know his thoughts and won't be "pretty vases" or something like that. If they know that their beloved is going through such things, will they stay put? No. And this is why I did it this way.

Another thing: A special thanks to the reader evil_eyes_B4st4ard. This reader wrote a comment in "Chapter 5: The (not so) terrible party [3]". And although until this day I can't find logic in most of it, this comment still did help me in thinking about some aspects of this chapter. I had already thought about most of it, but that comment gave me a new viewpoint to look from and it made me write a chapter I'm satisfied with. I don't know if this reader is still reading this novel or not, but once again, thanks evil_eyes_B4st4rd.

Anyway guys, I hope you have liked this idea about the eavesdrop and the system trying to control the MC. Comment if you like it.

And if you didn't like, comment it too. I want to know what made you dislike it. Don't worry, I won't get angry nor curse you. I want to know what I can do to do better to bring more fun to you guys.

That is all for today, thanks for reading! 🍷😎