The imaginary world is collapsing.
If I can’t save Haru like this, I might never wake up again.
“First, let’s save Haru.”
I’ll think about the complicated stuff later.
As I thought that, I spread my senses to detect Haru’s soul.
Flashback
Ten years ago, that day.
The day of destruction, when villains attacked and the mansion burned, killing my family.
Haru locked herself in her room.
Flames flickered.
Screams echoed.
“Dad… Big brother…”
In the chaos, Haru buried her head under the blanket, calling for Dad and Big Brother.
“…Save me, Haru…”
Haru’s voice, mixed with tears, spread through the air.
At that moment.
Creak.
The door opened.
“Big brother! You came to save me!”
Rustle.
Haru threw off her blanket.
Big brother.
The brother I respect and love.
Unlike me, a blockhead who forgets two after learning one, he was a genius who grasped ten after hearing one.
He was the pride of the Kurosawa family.
Always reliable and dependable.
He finally came to rescue me.
Hope flickered in Haru’s red eyes.
But what she faced when she came out of the blanket was not her brother Yuji.
“…So, you were here, Daughter of the Sword Master.”
A man holding a sword dripping with blood.
With black hair and black eyes like Big Brother, but a completely different vibe.
The master of the New World League and the EX-rank villain who killed the Sword Master.
It was the Messiah.
“AAAHHH!”
“Though I missed the Son of the Sword Master, I’m glad to have the Daughter. You’ll have to cooperate from now on.”
The Messiah wore a pure smile that didn’t match his blood-soaked face.
Madness glimmered in his black eyes.
“…For my New World plan!”
Just like that, Haru was dragged to the League’s secret research lab in a secret city in Siberia.
There, under the pretense of studying the Sword Master’s skills and the Kurosawa clan’s bloodline, she underwent countless abuses and torturous experiments.
During the process, she awakened her Gift of Transmutation and various swordsmanship talents she didn’t even know she had.
“Is it the Gift of Transmutation?”
“It allows one to unleash 100% of a weapon’s potential by transforming and resonating with it.”
“In that case, it can be used as the subject for Yodo Muramasa.”
Awakened to her Gift, Haru was cursed by Messiah’s Golden Magic, forcibly becoming the vessel of Yodo Muramasa, trapped in the imaginary world.
She had lost her body and found herself trapped in a mental world.
That was the reason.
The landscape of her mental world was frozen in the moment when her family was engulfed in flames.
“······Brother.”
Inside the burning mansion of her mental world.
Just like back then, wrapped up in her blankets, Haru lamented and lamented again.
“······It was my fault.”
That day.
If she hadn’t hidden away in fear of death.
If she had bravely faced the fight.
Then perhaps she wouldn’t have had to endure such tragedy.
“It’s all because I was a coward.”
Haru bit her lip.
“······A coward who has no courage to leave here.”
She had lacked talent since she was young.
She barely awakened her abilities, but that was all.
Compared to her brilliant brother, Kurosawa Yuji, she was a mediocre, no—an untalented person.
Her brother was such a shining presence.
Such a kind and good person.
So, she couldn’t even dare to feel inferior.
So she relied on him.
That was okay.
Even if she lacked talent, even if she was untalented, everyone in her family, everyone in the world loved Haru, the beautiful girl with a bright and cheerful personality.
“Everyone thought brother would solve everything, so I became a useless kid who couldn’t do anything on my own······.”
She was scared.
The blood-soaked battlefield was terrifying, and the villains who attacked the mansion were terrifying.
So, she cast away the responsibilities of a hero and hid instead of fighting.
“Maybe this is the punishment Haru is receiving now······.”
This was her punishment for being a coward.
Kurosawa Haru thought that way.
“Still······. Haru wants to live. Even if she’s a coward······. I hope brother can save Haru······.”
While undergoing biological experiments, when she coincidentally learned from the League’s researchers that Yuji was still alive.
Haru held onto a faint hope.
That someday her brother would come to save her, just like when they were kids.
When they went to the park alone and the gate opened.
When the beings from another world threatened her and her brother bravely fought in her place.
She endured with that hope.
Even when she was forced to become Muramasa’s host and lost her body.
Even when she was confined in her mental world.
Haru believed her brother would come rescue her.
But the mental world and Yodo Muramasa gnawed at her sanity.
She resisted the soul-eating pain, but it was no use.
In a mental world where time had no distinction.
Haru’s willpower slowly faded.
“Ugh······.”
Haru frowned.
“Now it’s okay if it’s not even brother.”
With trembling hands, Haru grasped her blankets tightly.
“Anyone······. I just want someone to save me from this hell.”
With parched lips, she murmured.
“Death like this seems so meaningless. I want to live······.”
There were still so many things she wanted to do.
She wanted to meet her brother again and attend the Shuo Hero Academy, the best in Japan.
As her brother’s junior.
She wanted to go to a parfait shop and buy tons of pudding to stash in the fridge.
She wanted to chat with her friends at a cafe and post selfies on social media.
She didn’t want to die like this.
A hollow laugh escaped her lips.
“I’m such a fool. No one would hear Haru’s voice anyway······.”
“No one would hear a voice like Haru’s…”
Tears flow from her red eyes.
“Haru was a coward… always a troublemaker who didn’t listen to Dad or Onii-chan… it’s punishment…”
Haru’s gaze fades.
Her body becomes increasingly transparent.
Her will has been gnawed away by Yodo Muramasa, causing her soul to scatter.
Haru looks at her lifeless eyes, now drifting away.
I’m dying.
“I’m sorry…”
The moment Haru instinctively senses her impending dissolution and tightly shuts her eyes.
Drrrrrrr.
She feels a vibration in her senses.
‘A vibration?’
It was her mental landscape, fixed on that day, always burning.
There shouldn’t be any abnormalities now.
She had held on here because stepping out would mean being obliterated by Golden Magic.
But why…?
In that instant, numerous question marks popped up in Haru’s mind.
Pachuchuchu!
With a spark, the sliding door opens.
Haru’s gaze turns.
There, standing, is…
“…Found you.”
A boy with sharp features, black hair, and black eyes, just like her brother.
Haru’s eyes widen.
Her eyes tremble.
“…Who are you?”
With black hair and black eyes.
But not the Messiah-looking Golden Magic, not Yodo Muramasa’s spirit, and certainly not her brother—this is a third individual.
The first feeling Haru got from his presence was confusion.
At her question, Kim Deok-Sung frowned.
With a sigh, he replies.
“Kurosawa Haru. I’ve come to save you.”
Why was it, then?
Her heart raced upon hearing him call her name.
Kurosawa Haru.
Kurosawa Haru, Haru, Haru.
‘He called my name.’
Thump, thump.
Haru’s heart pounded.
Her eyes quivered.
Salvation.
It was something she had wished and wished for over a decade, yet accepting it in her heart wasn’t easy once it was happening.
“Really? You came to save me?”
“Yeah, I came instead of your brother, Kurosawa Yuji.”
The black-haired boy reaches out his hand to Haru.
For some reason, hearing her brother’s name no longer excites her.
Thump.
Instead, her heart trembles.
‘He came to save me.’
He came to rescue me.
The long-awaited savior had appeared.
Not the prince on a white horse, nor her brother.
But still, he showed up right in front of her.
“So let’s quickly get out of here. If we take any longer, we’re both screwed.”
“Okay. Got it.”
She doesn’t know who he is.
But at least it’s better than waiting for predetermined death like a terminal patient trapped in here.
Haru thinks this as she decides to take the boy’s, her savior’s, hand.
The moment Haru grabs the boy’s hand.
Pachuchuchu!
A spark erupts.
Haru’s eyes widen.
‘This is…’
A fairy tale.
That cursed gift resonates with the boy before her.
At that moment, images swirl past her like a parade.
Haru instinctively realizes.
This is a result of merging with the soul through her fairy tale ability.
What appears before her now are the memories hidden within the boy’s soul.
The first thing her eyes land on is a single boy.
A normal boy born and raised in Korea.
No, calling him normal would be a stretch.
He was a subculture enthusiast, an otaku who enjoyed light novels, Japanese anime, manga, and games.
“This isn’t our world…”
Haru realized it for the second time.
The illusionary world she was observing.
That world was a modern Earth like hers, but completely different.
In this fantasy world, there was no mana, no heroes, no otherworldly species, no gates, no villains, no hunters, no ruins, and no supernatural diseases.
A world devoid of transcendental powers.
A place where an entirely powerless humanity shaped history, built civilization, and formed society.
For Haru, who grew up in a world filled with abilities, heroes, and otherworldly beings, the scenery of such a world was shocking.
Her eyes widened as she took in the sight.
“Could it be…?”
Haru thought of it.
Messiah’s New World plan.
The tale of the true “Utopia” he always rambled about.
There was no way she could forget.
Messiah, constantly repeating in almost torturous biological experiments, was in the habit of talking about utopia and the New World.
He would whisper to her during the experiments, claiming that the conflicts arose due to powers and the extraordinary; that if those were removed, an ideal world would open where humanity could decide its fate without being swayed by transcendental forces.
As he spoke that nonsense in a gentle voice, Haru couldn’t participate, empathize, or understand such beliefs and plans, especially as the subject of torture.
“But that world… really existed…?”
There was no doubt.
This was the scenery of the ‘Utopia’ he envisioned.
Even as Haru bit her lips, the video continued.
A boy in high school uniform with a name tag reading ‘Kim Deok-Sung’ picked up a light novel, still in its wrapping, from the light novel corner of a bookstore.
The book’s title was “The Weakest Hero Saves the World Volume 1.”
An illustration depicting a platinum-blonde beautiful girl and a black-haired pretty boy back-to-back adorned the cover.
Haru’s eyes wavered.
Though it was an illustration, not a photo, she recognized it instantly.
“Brother?”
The black-haired pretty boy in the light novel illustration was her brother, Kurosawa Yuji.
“So this is that hugely popular new release, ‘The Weakest Hero’? Finally localized.”
A character who shared a name with her, a Korean, appears with a combat power measuring device?
The boy, Kim Deok-Sung, mumbling to himself, bought the book.
“What is this? Why is it fun?”
Kim Deok-Sung muttered as he read the book at home.
Haru’s eyes shook as she glanced at the content of the novel.
It told the story of this world’s heroes, gates, mana, otherworldly species, and hero academies…
The protagonist of the light novel was Kurosawa Yuji.
Her brother.
“Gasp.”
Haru covered her mouth as she grasped the shocking truth.
Air escaped her lips in disbelief.
Meanwhile, the footage continued to rapidly scroll past.
Kim Deok-Sung, now a huge fan of the light novel “The Weakest Hero,” spent his high school days with it.
He read it during evening study hours and was caught sneaking a glance during class, leading to a reading session led by the teacher.
