For a long while, I continued to agonize over what to do now.
The undeniable evidence was right in front of my eyes, and I had no way to reverse what had already happened.
"I'm dead. I'm dead. I'M SO DEAD!!!"
The original story's plot had already been set in motion, and even though I didn't know if that God did this on purpose, I had no way to extricate myself from this mess anymore.
Running away definitely wouldn't work. The NTR'd protagonist would inevitably find out that his girlfriend cheated on him, and then....
*Shiver*
All I had to say was that a vengeful legendary creature of the night chasing after you was not something a normal human like me could ever handle, especially when that creature was meant to inherit an entire alien STARSHIP!
Same went for coming clean and apologizing. After all, even if his werewolf bloodline was dormant at the moment, the overbearing innate characteristics of such a mythical existence were still there.
...An Alpha-wolf could never abandon their chosen mate, no matter the circumstances.
It was this curse that caused the protagonist's entire personality to become so distorted and warped in the original novel. Since he could neither stop loving his girlfriend nor abandon her – even after knowing that she cheated on him – his moral principles and values on love had to adapt instead.
...And that was how a Pokémon-collecting main character was born, one that sincerely believed heartfelt love and momentary feelings of lust to be one and the same.
It would already be merciful enough if he let me off with my balls crushed and the rest of my limbs torn apart — and that's if he allowed me to live at all. Personally speaking, I wasn't very confident in trusting a freshly heartbroken guy's mercy.
*Ding-dong!*
As I was ruminating, a loud ringing noise from the doorbell pulled me out of my depressing thoughts.
"...Ah, right. I forgot about the delivery."
Well, it was well past my usual time for lunch, and all this crazy thinking was making me hungry as hell.
Unfortunately, just as I had expected from a waste like Damien, his fridge only had a few bottles of chilled alcohol and some expired meat – none of which appealed to my appetite.
"Looks like this guy was piss poor too. Haah... I'll have to go check my bank account later."
After fishing out a worn-out wallet from my back pocket and checking that it had enough money to pay for the food for now, I quickly ran to the front door to receive my order.
*Creak~*
Opening the door, I spotted a pretty-looking girl wearing a full set of punk-style clothing waiting outside, candidly sucking on a pink lollipop stuffed in her mouth. A large box of pizza rested on top of her colorfully tattooed hand.
[Character Art Reference Here]
'...Not even wearing a work uniform? I guess corporate rules are a little different in this world.'
Taking out the appropriate amount of cash from the previous Damien's wallet, I handed it to the girl, completely uninterested in the weird glances she was sending my way.
...Anyway, it was probably because I didn't have anything covering my steller-looking upper body. There was no use in reading into it too much.
"Here's the pay. Thanks."
Just as I was about to shut the door after taking the pizza box off her hand, a black shoe suddenly slid into the gap and stopped it from closing.
"...What are you doing?"
With my brows furrowed, I looked at the owner of the shoe. The delivery girl had taken the lollipop out of her mouth by now, looking at me with one of her brows slightly raised.
"You're asking ME what I'm doing...? What are YOU doing, closing off your door in my face like that?"
The girl narrowed her eyes at me, suddenly giving off a dangerous vibe out of nowhere.
'F*ck, does she want more tip? Can't she see where I'm living? I'm f*cking broke, dammit!'
"...Fine. Have it your way. Here."
Unwilling to argue with her, I begrudgingly pulled out a crumpled $5 bill from the worn-out wallet and handed it to her.
"..."
With a dumbfounded look on her face, she quietly took the $5 bill in her hand, staring at President Lincoln's face intensely for a few moments – as if she couldn't believe it was real.
'Quick, quick...!'
Thinking that it would be enough now, I hurriedly tried to close off the door. But before I could do so, just like before, she once again slid in her shoes at the last moment!
'This bitch!'
I was shocked by the nerves of this girl to ask for more than what the pizza cost me as her tip. At this rate, she might as well start demanding protection money like a real gangster!
"Dammit, what do you want now?! I already gave you what I could, and you still want more? You really think you're some hotshot gangster now, huh!?"
I was already stressed out enough by the mess the previous Damien had left for me. So, unable to hold down my annoyance at this unreasonable woman, I verbally lashed out at her, fully taking advantage of my current thuggish appearance to quickly scare her off.
"Ha–?"
It seemed like she was also caught off-guard by my words, her mischievous violet eyes going round in surprise.
'Heh. Just because I had a gentle face, she thought she would be able to pressure me into giving more money, huh? Tough luck—'
I paused a little when midway through my thoughts. Something about her reaction wasn't adding up.
'...wait, isn't my face now the same as Damien's? I should look pretty terrifying to this girl here. Then why is she so...?'
Little by little, an unsettling smile was appearing on this strangely courageous girl's face.
"—Well, I don't have to think that I'm a gangster. Because I AM A GANGSTER....Or the dearest sister of one. Can't say I'm not surprised, though. You really grew a pair of balls in the time I was out of town. Is that how you talk to your owner now?"
*Bang–!*
With a heavy kick, the eerily grinning girl forced my fragile door open with a loud banging noise, shoving herself inside the house. But before I could say anything to her...
*Push—!*
With a surprising level of strength, she then pushed against my lower chest, pinning me to the wall behind me, tiptoeing to my level of height and leaning dangerously close to my face.
"What was it all about earlier? Don't tell me you thought that I'd go away if you behaved like you didn't know me? Or were you really that much of an idiot?"
The girl giggled, her artificially dyed light-purple hair dancing around as her eyes bent into an eerie crescent shape. But despite having no idea what this woman was talking about, I felt my body slowly stiffen as she kept talking.
'What?! W-Why can't I move...?'
Suddenly, I had no control left over my body.
I felt my whole body tremble, unable to even shrug off the dainty palm she was pressing me down with – let alone shove her away from me.
Belatedly, I realized what this strange feeling was...
'...Fear.'
For some ungodly reason, I was afraid of this mostly harmless-looking girl, so afraid that my body was automatically losing all its strength facing her!
'But why? Why would I be afraid of some random girl I never met in my life? T-This doesn't make any sense...!'
My rational mind struggled to find a reason for why this was happening as I tried to regain control over my body. Meanwhile, the girl seemed to be thoroughly enjoying my reaction.
"Hehe, seems like you still remember my training. What a shame, I thought I'd have to train you all over again. Or perhaps..."
With her grin slightly widening, she leaned much closer to my ear. The palm that was pressing down my chest against the wall slowly snaked down, resting right above where the family jewels were.
"...were you secretly hoping to be trained again?"
A jolt immediately went down my spine as a dark sea of disgust welled up from deep within my stomach. I felt an acidic taste slowly spreading across my mouth.
But fortunately, the jolt also seemed to return my body's controls back to me. And just as I realized this, I immediately pushed her away from me with a violent shove.
"Get away from me!"
She tumbled away uncontrollably, crashing into the one and only cheap couch of my studio apartment.
*Bam-!*
I didn't really mean to do it this way, but it seemed like I might've impulsively used more strength than I needed to.
"Argh. Ow, ow, ow..."
As I was breathlessly sucking in the air I was deprived of in the last few moments, the girl slowly stood up while massaging her forearm and elbows, showing a painful grimace.
Her violet-colored eyes then turned to me, radiating a level of fury that once again threatened to seize control of my body.
'Not this again...!'
...I was successful in resisting that feeling this time, however, while the girl gritted her teeth angrily.
"Damien, you bastard. Did you forget who your owner is? A dog dares to raise his hands against his mistress?! You...you...you're just...!"
She then frantically looked into her pockets, taking out a small transparent bag of white powder from within.
"Look. Look what I have here! You want me to cut off your supply once and for all? Huh?!"
'That's...!'
My rapidly heating up brain immediately cooled down as she spat out those words in her anger.
'I see. So that's how it was...'
Some of the less important details of the original story started to appear and link up with each-other in my mind, one by one.
The original Damien was a third-rate gangster. A villain so trashy that couldn't even earn money by properly committing crimes like a normal gangster would.
Instead, that scummy bastard only targeted pure-hearted girls and lonely, but rich women, and using his only redeeming feature, his body and looks.
He would then gradually seduce his targets before slowly milking them for all of their money, not even hesitating to sell off the unfortunate girls who could no longer afford to pay him to cross-border human traffickers!
—A true-to-life trashy villain who truly deserved to be off-screened in the first arc of the original novel!
Only now did I understand where all that money he earned using this method went.
Looking at my current situation, the previous Damien certainly didn't spend it on a nice, luxurious house. Nor did he spend it on high-class cars worth a fortune. Instead, he even lived in this shithole that he called home, spending all the money he siphoned from his victims on this...
"There, there. Come and get it, you dog! How dare you defy my orders?!"
...All of that money was to get this powdery white substance that the Xavier Group's young mistress was dangling in front of my eyes.
It seemed like this highly-illegal drug was the source of the old Damien's ruin, and through him, also the source of misery for countless other innocent girls and women.
Without revealing my inner feelings for a moment, I briskly walked over to where the girl was beckoning me from, keeping my eyes trained on the transparent packet in her hands.
Seeing me finally move towards the drug, she finally seemed to relax a little as a satisfied smile appeared on her face. The smile only became wider as I neared, and when I was about to reach out for the packet—
"Eat this, you damn addict!"
*Swoosh!*
An alcohol bottle that was lying on the floor a while ago appeared in her other hand, rapidly closing in towards my head.
*Grab–!*
"H-Huh...?"
However, my hand that initially went for the drug packet suddenly switched course, catching her hand before it could land that hit on me.
"Ack–! L-Let go! L-Let me go, b-bastard!"
This time, I was the one who pressed her down to the ground. Though my posture was a bit awkward, I compensated for it using my bigger body and higher weight to restrict her movement.
"Argh...! H-How...No, this can't...W-What happened...? Y-You're a bloody addict! How can you stop yourself after going for weeks without it?! HOW...?!"
As she violently struggled under me, I quickly thought about what I could do in this situation.
'If I was dead before, I'm surely a reanimated undead skeleton now...'
If my guess wasn't wrong, this girl was most likely the eldest young lady of the Chairman of the Xavier Group.
The Xavier Group was the antagonist for the second arc of the story – one that lasted for nearly seven months in novel-time, showing just how massive and dangerous their influence was in this alternate version of Earth.
Even the awakened protagonist got shot down by them in the second arc's final battle, and he needed to be brought to the alien Starship to save his life.
If a puny first-arc villain who couldn't even last a week before getting off-screened like me confronted them head-on, only a pitiful death would be the result.
Harming this girl or trying to run without resolving the issue with her would also end with the same result...
With my brain running at overclocked speeds, I slowly opened my mouth as an idea suddenly came to mind.
"...Who told you that I was a drug addict? Do I really look that way to you?"
Since I couldn't take them head-on, there was only one choice to take. To thoroughly confuse everyone involved!
'Long live Sun Tzu!'
"N-No way... B-But I saw you taking them. Don't lie!"
The girl's eyes shook as her struggles intensified further. Unfortunately though, she couldn't make me budge a single inch.
"Huh, why would I lie to you? Can't you imagine why I would need to pretend like I took those drugs? It's all because of you...!"
The idea wasn't anything brilliant. Rather, it was my desperate gamble.
Whatever I said was obvious at a glance, but I deliberately didn't say anything conclusive, leaving the girl's imagination to freely run its course.
After all, the most convincing lies were the ones your opponents came up with themselves. An age-old tried-and-tested psychological trick!
Surprisingly, however, the pinned-down girl's face visibly reddened when she seemingly reached a conclusion based on her thoughts.
"That...that...y-you did all that...for m-me?"
'...Why are you asking me so vaguely? If you're going to say something, then say the entire thing, dammit!'
"Uh..."
...But I couldn't say anything too conclusive yet, since I had not a single idea where her thoughts were heading to right now!
"...A-Are you really not lying? I-If you l-liked me too, y-you could just s-say so. W-Why would you even go through all that for no reason?"
"Umm, err..."
'Say what again, lady...?'