The Villain Of Arise

i: the beginning

Kim Jaehyung walked home with his shoulders hunched and his eyes brimming with the brink of tears. He let out a breath and sighed. How pitiful he was. After getting into a fight with his next door neighbour to being fired at work for being unable to stay awake and working incompetently, his life was utterly miserable.

He saw his reflection in the mirror and upon seeing himself, looked away in disgust. He hated himself. After years of his dull and terrible life, he'd have enough of it. The only thing that left him to look forward to was the novel he'd been reading for years.

Arise was a novel he'd been reading for countless years. He'd been reading it since high school and after six years of reading and rereading Arise, the final chapter was going to be released today.

How exciting! Despite all the distressing circumstances happening in his life, at least there was something he could look forward to! After years of being alone, with nobody to guide him but himself, the novel was basically what made him look forward to life.

And now it was ending. Kim Jaehyung opened the door to his house and ran to his bed. Sitting on his bed, he opened the website where Arise was published and smiled in relief as he saw the notification of the new chapter release was on. Clicking on it, Kim Jaehyung could not contain his excitement as he saw the words filling up his phone screen.

Arise was a novel where it was set in a fantasy world filled with elemental powers. The main character, Seo Jeongsuk, had everything Kim Jaehyung wished to be. It was a shame that the villain of the story shared the same name as him. Kim Jaehyung wanted to have at least the same name as the hero and not as the villain.

It was obvious that the villain always had the worst life. The Kim Jaehyung in the novel was somewhat similar to him that it was almost concerning. Of course, the only thing that set the two apart in his views was the set of morals he had compared with the villain in Arise. Of course, Jaehyung would never act the way the villain did in Arise.

Kim Jaehyung already knew what the novel was going to end like. It would have been the villain in the novel being defeated by Seo Jeongsuk and the main character ending up with the female love interest, Kim Yuna.

However as he swiped down to read the rest of the novel, the website suddenly crashed and a message notification appeared on his phone.

unknown: if you had to live in a world, would you live in the world of Arise or in Earth?

Kim Jaehyung looked at the message strangely. For some reason, he was compelled to answer the strange message. Normally, he would have blocked the user for ever contacting him ever again but this time, Jaehyung didn't feel the need to. The message wasn't of any harm, anyway. The only thing that worried him was how the message had known he was reading Arise.

jaehyung: in Arise.

unknown: perhaps you were born in the wrong world after all. thank you for telling me. I appreciate it.

Kim Jaehyung tilted his head in confusion but closed the app and went back to the website to read the novel. Thankfully, it was back on but instead of the normal chapter he usually saw, it was a large icon with the word NEXT. Jaehyung clicked on the icon without any hesitation because he'd thought that it was going to the ending chapter but just as his screen started to load towards the next page, his eyes caught the words underneath the large icon. Click next in order to live in Arise.

Not understanding it, Jaehyung didn't give it any second thoughts. Just as the page finished loading, his view suddenly started to blur and a dull pain was throbbing on the side of his head. He couldn't help but close his eyes as the world began to spin around him. When he lost consciousness, he could almost see a dark silhouette of a person nearing him.

"Whatever you do, please don't forget who you really are, Kim Jaehyung."