*In the realm of overpowered, I'm just an Extra*
Amid the dim gloom of a crumbling shed, a solitary beam of light sliced through the dusty air. In that haunting stillness, Aren's soft voice drifted through the shadows:
"It's only natural to feel regret in death,"
He murmured, his tone equal parts gentle and unnerving as his arms enveloped the woman's broken form.
Her once immaculate raven hair now lay drenched in crimson, each drop falling like a mournful rain after a storm. Despite the carnage, her serene, ruby eyes—fixed on the floor—betrayed a wistful smile as she absorbed his hushed declaration:
"All that matters is dying next to your loved ones."
In a haze of agony and disbelief, her thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind, yet her gaze remained unwaveringly fixed downward. With trembling, bloodstained arms, she clutched the small baby pressed against her chest—a tiny, oblivious soul contentedly nursing in blissful ignorance.
A slow rivulet of blood trickled from her head, splattering onto the infant's delicate forehead. Her limbs felt leaden, her vision growing dim; she yearned to wipe away the gore, but even the faintest movement was an insurmountable effort.
"Fear not—I'll see to our child's future,"
Aren declared coldly, a chilling smile playing on his lips as the hilt of his sword pressed against the center of her heart. With his other hand, he delicately brushed the blood from the baby's brow, as if erasing evidence of the horror unfolding.
The infant, eyes shut in peaceful oblivion, remained entirely unaware, its only preoccupation the simple act of drinking milk.
Perhaps it was better this way, sparing the child from witnessing its mother's tragic end at the hands of someone once entrusted with her love.
When the comforting flow of milk finally ebbed, soft tears began their slow descent.
Summoning every last vestige of strength, she bent down to bestow a tender kiss upon the baby's forehead—a final farewell—just as her eyelids began to surrender to sleep.
Then, in a brutal twist, Aren's sword interrupted that bittersweet moment, forcing her back toward a painful consciousness. In a rasping gasp, he continued, his tone almost taunting:
"Now, tell me, how does it feel to die by the hands of your loved ones, and for them?"
Her smile vanished in an instant, replaced by a grimace as blood trickled from her lips. With a herculean effort, she managed to begin,
"It is… like…"
"Not listening to your teacher!"
A sharp voice erupted as a firm hand snatched the phone from Ethan's grip, silencing her final words mid-sentence.
Clearly, that ill-fated device belonged to Ethan.
Startled, Ethan straightened in his seat—knocking over the book he'd been using to shield his face—his eyes hungry for the next twist in the novel.
Yet before he could savor another word, his teacher, a man seething with irritation, cut the class short and confiscated the phone with a withering glare.
Murmurs rippled through the room as the students' focus shifted from Ethan to the teacher's fiery outburst.
"I appreciate that you're reading for a change, Ethan, but please read your book instead…"
The teacher's eyes narrowed as he skimmed the screen, where the text boldly proclaimed,
"It is like hit by a truck!"
Laughter erupted among the students, but the teacher's nostrils flared as he bellowed,
"Silence!"
Stomping through the room with fuming resolve, he restored order while Ethan's disappointment simmered beneath the surface.
It seemed the teacher had inadvertently recited the woman's final, tragically cheesy lines from the novel—a fact he dismissed with a resigned shrug, chalking it up to the kind of overwrought dialogue typical of this senseless story.
"Meet me after school," he commanded, snatching Ethan's phone. "And don't forget an apology letter."
Ethan pressed his lips together in frustration, unable to continue his reading, yet he felt a small relief knowing that the final bell would soon set him free.
When the bell finally rang, classmates streamed out while Ethan retrieved a pre-written apology letter from his bag and trudged toward the staff room.
After enduring a few minutes of harsh scolding, he left without a backward glance.
Outside, the sky blazed with vivid orange hues as the sun sank beneath the horizon, while languid clouds drifted overhead—a scene that felt almost celestial.
Still, his thoughts were far from the splendor above.
He unlocked his phone to reveal a nostalgic wallpaper: a snapshot of a younger, more vibrant him.
In the image, he sported a sleek black tracksuit paired with shooting earmuffs atop his dark hair. His brown eyes peeked from behind quirky pink-tinted glasses—one lens marked with two parallel streaks—and his fit build was accentuated by the emblem on his tracksuit that read "The Holler Clay Target League."
The centerpiece, however, was the Beretta 12-gauge shotgun he held in his right hand—a prop loaded with rubber bullets for clay target competitions.
In his left, he clutched a trophy from a past contest—a bittersweet reminder of a victory two years past and a painful testament to his current failure.
Unable to part with those memories, he left the phone tucked away and set off down the sidewalk, head bowed in silent resignation.
Lost in thought, he paused at a traffic signal when the roar of an engine snapped him to attention.
A silver mini truck thundered by from the opposite direction, and Ethan couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle as the woman's parting words echoed in his mind:
*It is like hit by a truck!*
Before he could process the irony, a sudden, forceful shove from behind sent him sprawling onto the pavement.
"You bastard! This isn't a joke…" he roared, turning to confront his assailant.
But then his vision betrayed him.
Amid the glare of sunlight, a spectral figure emerged—a woman with blood streaming from her chest, her red eyes dimly aglow, and dark rivulets of blood cascading from her hair.
The resemblance was eerie and unmistakable—it was the very woman from the novel.
"Helia!" Ethan gasped, his voice trembling.
Before he could recover from the shock, another violent force slammed into him.
In one fleeting moment, the silver mini truck—seen only seconds before—struck him with brutal force, shattering glass as he was hurled into the air.
Ethan's life ended then and there, his body never even touching the ground as a crimson pool blossomed on the pavement.
The ghostly image of Helia faded slowly, leaving only the echo of a blaring truck horn.
---
A sudden murmur stirred him back to awareness. His limbs felt impossibly heavy as a tempestuous voice drew near.
'Where am I?!'
He cried, trapped between consciousness and oblivion, unable to move or even pry open his eyes.
A gentle tug finally compelled him to lift his lids—and what met his gaze was a sprawling, verdant forest.
"Hey, you still alive?!"
A cold, detached voice called from his right.
Gasping as though surfacing from deep water, Ethan glanced upward to find four teenagers standing before him, clad in matching dark blue vigilante suits with asymmetrical coats.
"What's his deal?!" they muttered in low, condescending tones, their eyes fixed on him.
'Am I hallucinating?!'
Ethan stammered, each breath a struggle as his body felt strangely foreign. Their menacing stares sent shivers down his spine, and he instinctively stepped back.
In that disorienting moment, his footing betrayed him—his foot hovered uncertainly in mid-air before finding purchase—yet he managed to steady himself, stumbling forward with terror etched across his features.
'Where exactly am I?!'
He cried out in a mixture of confusion and dread, realizing with mounting horror that he stood perilously on the edge of a narrow cliff.
A cold shudder ran through him as the dizzying drop stretched into what felt like an endless abyss.
It was not a dream—if it were, he would have simply fallen out of bed and woken up.
Instead, a peculiar gust from behind nudged him, forcing his gaze back to the quartet of vigilantes.
He noticed a rifle slung over each person's shoulder, a gleaming sword resting on one side of their waist, and a compact pistol tucked on the other. On each of their right shoulders, a mysterious tower emblem was etched.
In that heartbeat, that was all the evidence Ethan needed for the grim reality to sink in—he was trapped within the cursed pages of the novel *Tower of Eternity*.
Muttering in disbelief, he whispered,
'I'm really stuck in this cursed book…'