[Mission Progress: 80/100]
"Do I really have to do this?"
The nervous young man muttered the words while staring at the interface hovering before him. His hand gripped a sword, knuckles white from the pressure. Before him, his teammates were locked in combat with Tier 3 mutated beasts, their weapons clashing against claws and fangs in a desperate struggle. They were all on a mission together—a mission to rid a certain town of the mana beasts plaguing it. It wasn't an academy-related assignment, just something they'd taken for the sole purpose of training themselves.
[KILL THE PROTAGONIST AND YOU WILL FINALLY BE FREE]
[YOU CAN GO BACK TO YOUR WORLD]
[DON'T YOU WANT THAT?]
He gritted his teeth, then forced himself to look ahead once more. At the center of it all stood Jason, the so-called protagonist, locked in a fierce fight with a Grenox. The beast was massive, its scaled body covered in spikes, and it moved with terrifying speed despite its size. Beside Jason were the heroines—not all of them, but four were present on this mission, each one fighting their own battles.
"Jason! Are you alright?!" one of the girls shouted while fending off a beast that lunged at her from the side. She turned just in time to see Jason being pushed back by the Grenox's powerful strike.
"Don't worry about me, Jessica! It can't kill me!" he yelled back with that signature confidence of his. Suddenly his sword blazed with flames as he dashed forward, closing the distance between him and the beast in an instant.
"I don't want to do it. I can't..." Eren's hands trembled as he struggled with the thought of killing someone, of driving his blade into another person's back. But this wasn't the first time the system had made him do the unspeakable, made him commit acts that kept him awake at night, all for the promise of going home.
[THIS IS YOUR LAST TASK, EREN. IF YOU FAIL TO DO THIS NOW, YOU WILL NEVER GO HOME. EVER AGAIN.]
"..." He stared in silence, his mind racing as he contemplated his next move. The weight of the decision pressed down on him like a physical force.
He exhaled sharply, closed his eyes for just a moment, and when he opened them again, his resolve was firm. He couldn't stay here forever. He couldn't keep living in this world that wasn't his. He rushed forward, blade gripped tightly in both hands, his silver hair swaying in the wind as he moved. His blue eyes locked onto Jason's exposed back as the protagonist focused entirely on the Grenox before him.
He knew this wouldn't actually kill Jason. After all, he was the protagonist, the main character of this story. There was no way a side character like Eren could truly kill the main character, right? Plot armor was real in this world, he'd seen it work countless times before. That's why he decided to risk it all, to take this gamble and pray that the system would finally let him go home.
SHINK!
Blood.
"Ah..." Jason gasped just as he severed the Grenox's head clean off its body. A sword had pierced through his abdomen from behind, the blade erupting from his stomach in a spray of crimson. He whirled around despite the pain, eyes wide—not with surprise, but with pure, unfiltered rage.
"Eren? YOU FILTHY BASTARD!" he roared, his voice shaking the air around them.
But before Eren could react, before he could even pull his sword free—
SHINK! SHINK! SHINK!
From all directions, blades pierced every part of his body. The heroines had moved faster than he could track, their weapons finding their marks with surgical precision. One through his shoulder, another through his side, a third through his leg.
"Urgh!" He coughed up blood, the metallic taste filling his mouth as his vision blurred.
BAM!
He was kicked to the ground with brutal force, his body crashing into the dirt as the girls rushed past him without a second glance. They surrounded Jason like he was the only person in the world who mattered.
"Jason! Are you okay?!"
"Here! Take this!" Another pressed a healing potion into his hands, her voice frantic with worry.
"Let's go! You need to get treated!" one of them screamed as they began pulling him away from the battlefield, supporting his weight as they moved.
"Ugh..." Eren coughed out more blood, feeling it pool beneath him as he lay there on the ground. His body screamed in agony, every nerve ending on fire.
But no one spared him a glance. Not a single person looked back to see if he was alive or dead.
"Heh." He smiled bitterly despite the pain, despite everything.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't jealous of Jason—all that love and affection, all those people who cared whether he lived or died, things Eren could never have no matter how hard he tried. But he'd long come to terms with it. He understood his role in this world. He was just a mob character, just background noise in someone else's story.
"System, send me home," he muttered, his eyes slowly closing as exhaustion and blood loss dragged him down.
But...
Silence.
"System," he repeated, louder this time.
Silence.
"SYSTEM!" His eyes snapped open, panic flooding through him.
Nothing. No response. In fact, he could no longer feel its presence at all, like it had simply vanished from existence.
"No... no... NO!" he screamed as realization crashed into him like a tidal wave, drowning him in despair.
The goddess. She'd used him.
He was never going to go home. The system had just been there to make him play his part as the mob, to push the story forward by being the villain when needed, the sacrifice when required.
"Haa..." he gasped as tears began trailing down his cheeks, mixing with the blood and dirt on his face.
Suddenly, his vision cleared slightly, and through the haze of pain and tears, he saw someone approaching. Pink hair that caught the fading sunlight. Pink eyes that stared down at him with an intensity that made his blood run cold.
He knew her. Of course he knew her.
And in that moment, all he prayed for was for death to claim him right then and there. He would rather die from his wounds than let this yandere do as she pleased with him.
"Don't think you're going to die so easily," she said, her voice completely void of emotion, flat and cold in a way that was somehow worse than anger. "Oh, how much you'll beg for death before I'm done with you."