How to Survive as an Extra

Chapter 101

Choi Jaejin spoke.

“Have you gotten used to clowning around?”

Clowning around….

Choi Jaejin had once described the Social Care Beneficiary cadets enrolled at Hero Prep as clowns meant for the existing cadets.

Clowns who would be trampled on for them, looked down upon, and sacrificed for their amusement.

It was an extremely pessimistic interpretation, but it could not be said to be entirely wrong.

From the very beginning, the Social Care Beneficiary admission track had been one of the policies created to ease the invisible class conflict between the inner and outer districts.

I asked him in return.

“Why did you go this far?”

“Because from the moment I left Hero Prep, my goal was to take revenge on you.”

“Revenge? Who was it that teamed up with Kim Muung and tried to get me expelled?”

“I became Kim Muung’s target in the first place because of you! If you had not stood out so much in the cadets’ eyes, none of this would have happened!”

Choi Jaejin suddenly raised his voice.

Considering how calm he had seemed just moments ago, the emotional volatility was far from normal.

“So you became mafia just to take revenge on me?”

“You twist words strangely. How many choices do you think someone from the outskirts has if they want power?”

“…….”

“After being expelled from Hero Prep, this was the best option I had. And the results prove I was not wrong. I got a chance to kill you like this.”

At that moment, I realized it.

I could not persuade him.

I did not care how much Choi Jaejin hated me.

I did not even want to know.

What disgusted me was how he shifted the responsibility for his own warped choices onto me.

“So in the end, you even laid hands on other cadets just to kill me?”

“No. Not as much as you, but I did not like those bastards either. Just what are they, anyway! Why do they get to enjoy everything I never could!”

Unable to contain his rage, Choi Jaejin manipulated the drones.

Twenty muzzles glowed red at once, and bullets were fired simultaneously.

The moment the bullets were discharged, I released mana while using Demonic Eye, eroding the surroundings and binding the projectiles midair.

“W-What did you do…?!”

The bullets bound by shadow lost their force before reaching me and fell harmlessly to the ground.

It was possible only because I had released mana through ability erosion, allowing me to perceive the movement of objects with absolute precision.

Just as Choi Jaejin panicked, I too was astonished by the extensibility of my own power.

Without exaggeration, it made me feel that within the shadows, I could lose to no one.

“W-What the hell did you do for bullets not to work!”

“Did you say ‘did’? Come to think of it, you made the same mistake again.”

“What?”

“Choosing the wrong opponent. Then and now.”

“You bastard!”

The drones heated their barrels once more.

But this time, my shadow bound the drones first.

“What, what is this! Why are they not working—!”

The moment I briefly restricted the bound drones’ mana, the mana stones embedded inside them failed to withstand the irregular flow and exploded.

BOOOOM!

A thick cloud of dust rose with the sound.

If I had been even slightly closer, I would have been caught in the blast.

For Choi Jaejin, who had been right beside the drones, it should have been a fatal explosion, yet astonishingly, the figure reflected in Demonic Eye looked intact.

No, more than intact, his body was swelling.

“I will kill you! I will kill you…!”

As the dust cleared, Choi Jaejin’s form was revealed.

He was more grotesque, his voice more monstrous, and there was no trace left of the human known as Choi Jaejin.

“…….”

He had used the Shard of the Mirror of Greed.

When I first examined him with Demonic Eye, I had noticed the shard in his pocket and suspected he might use it.

But to think he would wager his life just to take revenge on me.

“It is all your fault! If it were not for you! If it were not for you!”

Blind rage.

I had faced such rage once before.

Park Oseok during the Spring Scholastic War.

Back then, he had also used the shard’s power to unleash explosive strength, but the state of Choi Jaejin before me was fundamentally different.

Because the desire pouring out of Choi Jaejin was utterly pathetic.

The Shard of the Mirror of Greed was a power that amplified the user’s desire to the extreme.

Unlike Park Oseok, who had nurtured resentment toward his innate talent for over a decade, Choi Jaejin’s desire was nothing more than the tantrum of a spoiled child.

In other words, he was unqualified to wield the shard’s power.

As expected, his body could not withstand it.

He could not even resist properly, losing everything to the shard.

“Kgh! Ngh… Aaaagh!”

Choi Jaejin writhed in agony, unable to endure the false power.

Holding the Mist-Clearing Sword in one hand, I stepped toward him.

The shard’s location, reflected in Demonic Eye, was his abdomen.

“Damn it! This is all your fault! If it were not for you…!”

Most shard users met their end like Park Oseok, dying in a grotesque state.

However, that was only when the shard was destroyed along with the user.

If the shard remained intact, the user would be erased by its power.

Complete annihilation, without even a shred of flesh left behind.

From my standpoint, I could have simply destroyed the shard after Choi Jaejin self-destructed.

But I decided to leave his corpse behind.

Because as an investigator belonging to the Special Affairs Division, I needed evidence of a criminal who had used an item of a Demonic Being.

“You bastard! What are you doing! What is that sword!”

“You called it clowning around.”

“What nonsense are you spouting right now!”

“I am sorry, but Social Care Beneficiaries did not enter Hero Prep to become clowns.”

“……?”

“They simply made the best choice they could so they would not have to live as clowns.”

“……!”

The Mist-Clearing Sword pierced Choi Jaejin’s abdomen with dignified precision.

When the blade pierced the shard, its mana roiled violently, like water dropped into boiling oil.

But only for a moment.

In the end, it succumbed to Platium and completely lost its power.

Like fog dissipating under light.

“Was that… the seventh murder?”

I did not bother pulling the sword out and instead stored it in my inventory.

I did not want to see his “contents” spill out.

I planned to retrieve Choi Jaejin’s corpse once everything was over, as it was shrinking like a mummy.

Ironically, this episode had not even truly begun yet.

The villain of this episode was the Demonic Being Allie.

She had infiltrated the island before Hero Prep arrived and hidden barrier stones throughout it.

The reason was obvious: to deploy a barrier over the entire island.

The barrier in District 27, where the Poisonous Golem had been summoned, had also been created by Allie.

“The Poisonous Golem as well.”

She would know that the cadets were boarding a cruise, so it would not take long for the barrier to spread across the entire island.

Of course, the barrier’s attribute was darkness.

“A massive sealed space that no one can enter or leave, except awakened beings of the darkness attribute.”

Allie’s objective was to devour the cadets’ mana.

The moment the barrier was deployed, hundreds of golems would be summoned, attacking the cadets, parasitizing their bodies, and absorbing their mana.

Among the cadets, the one Allie was targeting was, naturally, Do Minyeong.

“She possessed the most powerful force on this island, after all.”

In the original story, Lee Eunho fought alone inside the barrier and defeated Allie.

It was an incident that had not occurred before the regression, making it a first-time crisis.

It was a formidable episode, but if Allie had not yet absorbed the cadets’ mana, dealing with her would be easier.

Turning my back on Choi Jaejin’s corpse, I pulled the Phantom Thief’s Cloak over myself.

No third party would be stepping onto the island anyway, and facing a Demonic Being with only 90 percent darkness affinity would be the same as lowering one’s guard.

Demonic Beings were a race that used darkness.

Even if the attribute was the same, superiority and inferiority were clearly determined by numerical values.

“I wonder where she is hiding by now.”

I lowered my posture, preparing for a great leap.

Then, an unexpected message appeared.

[The episode has been completed.]

[4,999 Remake Coins have been awarded.]

[Additional rewards for episode variation have been granted.]

[993 Remake Coins have been awarded.]

Messages announcing the episode’s completion arrived out of nowhere.

“…….”

The reward amount caught my eye first.

Being granted 4,999 coins meant that the outcome had deviated significantly from the original story.

In the original, the episode only concluded after Allie was defeated.

That should have been the case.

So what was this context?

In an instant, countless possibilities flashed through my mind.

Thoughts rolled endlessly through the dust in search of an answer.

In the end, only one conclusion remained.

“Someone… defeated Demonic Being Allie.”

***

Somewhere deep within the island.

Lee Eunho exhaled ragged breaths.

Before him lay a woman whose sclera had turned black.

No, more precisely, she had lost her life to Lee Eunho’s lightning.

Her name was Allie.

She was one of the Demonic Beings who had crossed the rift eighty years ago to rule this world.

With Lee Eunho’s current abilities, facing a Demonic Being was no easy feat, but the Demonic Being Gen, whom he had met days earlier, had asked him to kill Allie and revealed her weakness.

There were several details, but the crucial point was one.

To ambush her before she could release her true Demonic power.

Lee Eunho had not understood it at all, but Gen’s advice proved accurate, and Allie died to his lightning.

‘Why would a Demonic Being want another Demonic Being dead?’

As Lee Eunho caught his breath and pondered, a man emerged from the shadowed forest.

“Your skill is undeniable. As expected, you did not disappoint our master’s expectations.”

It was a face he had never seen before.

But the way he spoke of a master made it clear that he was Gen’s Ghoul.

‘How did that Ghoul hide himself all this time?’

The Ghoul bent one of Allie’s fingers and forcefully tore it off.

Black blood dripped down.

He removed a ring from the finger and placed the finger into his mouth.

“…….”

It was the same sight as when Lee Eunho had handed him a drink can before.

He was consuming mana.

With a satisfied expression after taking the finger, the Ghoul spoke to Lee Eunho.

“I should reward you for your efforts. Our master instructed me to tell you all the truth.”

“All the truth? How am I supposed to believe whether that is true or not?”

“That is not a problem. You can judge for yourself.”

The Ghoul handed Lee Eunho the ring he had removed.

“This is the reward bestowed by our master. The ring’s name, known to only a handful of humans, is the Ring of Illusions. It is one of the seven magical artifacts, and its representative ability is to peer into a target’s past.”

“The past….”

“Use it on me.”

“What?”

“I was in Gangneung that day.”

“……!”

According to Lee Eunho’s memories, the Ghoul before him was not a survivor.

So how was he supposed to accept the Ghoul’s claim that he had been in Gangneung?

Lee Eunho hesitated, turning the ring over in his fingers.

It had belonged to Demonic Being Allie, and he worried it might be cursed.

“It is best not to deliberate for too long. As you know, I will soon disappear.”

“…….”

The Ghoul’s words were effective.

Lee Eunho set aside his hesitation and slid the ring onto his index finger.

It fit perfectly, as though it had always belonged there.

Even after wearing it, he did not feel a significant change in mana.

Only the cold temperature of the metal heightened his tension.

“Now, place the ringed hand on my forehead, imagine what you want, and let your mana flow.”

“……And then?”

“You will simply face the truth.”

Lee Eunho placed his hand on the Ghoul’s forehead.

What he wanted was the memory of Gangneung thirteen years ago.

As mana flowed, an unpleasant mana began to seep from the ring.

Darkness-attributed mana that he had not sensed when merely wearing it.

Soon, Lee Eunho’s vision was swallowed up.

Then, as if waking from sleep, his sight brightened.

Before him was the city engulfed in flames.

‘G-Gangneung….’

It was a place Lee Eunho could never fail to recognize.

Because he was peering into the memory, he was looking down upon the city from an adult’s perspective.

It was the opposite viewpoint of when he had seen the city consumed by flames from the sea thirteen years ago.

But he had no leisure to distinguish memories one by one.

The owner of the memory, along with others, was indiscriminately slaughtering civilians.

‘Th-This cannot be…!’

Lee Eunho was thrown into confusion.

Until now, the known truth of the incident thirteen years ago was that the city had been destroyed by monsters.

But what unfolded before his eyes was nothing but brutal slaughter by humans.

‘What in the world is this…?’

Amid the tangled memories, Lee Eunho happened to spot a familiar face.

A figure known to everyone in the awakened world.

-Kill them all! Tear out every root of this place! Erase even the fact that it existed!

It was the current Director-General, Baek Dojin.